“You really scared me, if that’s what you wanted. Is that what you wanted?” -distraughtdenbrough
Bill’s been hit before.
He’s felt the impact of a fist in his face, in his gut - other places that aren’t as significant but still hurt.
But this ugly little sentence, thrown away with vicious little snarl to its name, lodges deeper than any well-placed knuckle. He feels that he could be thrown backwards just from the force of it, the vibration it brings to his rib cage and the hollow, worn out emptiness it enables in his innards like he hadn’t eaten for days then thrown a rock into that pit.
“Yuh-yuh-yu….y…” Red faced, half-spitting. Pinched and angry. Insulted. His fists are at his side and they’re pale with the rest of his words. Get it out, Bill. Say what you mean, Bill. Cat got your tongue, Bill? Won’t give it back? Boohoo. “…You th-thu-thuthu-th…ink I wuh-wuh-would do ss…something like th-aaat?” His face has learned contortion: screwed up and sad, dented eyebrows from anger, upset. “Luh-ly-ly-like this?” Shoulders get slumped and will gets weak.
He wants to burrow into the space of his brother and hug him, comfort him, confirm with him that he is so, so grossly wrong in all of this. Wonders if his twin’s heart is still racing, like Bill’s is - at just being accused.
Maybe, a long time ago, Bill would have done it as a joke in the same way Georgie would hide under tables, beds, and chairs to make them look, look, and find. A little jump out, a little turn and scream. But not something like this. This was too serious and too wrong. Something was creeping after them in the lost shadows, grinning white in the inky blackness that surrounded it, and had drawn them into it.
But Bill didn’t want to let it go back from wence it came, to mull over its next move and who to suck clean the chewed bones of next. There would be a last, and Bill would ensure that. Following it down a hall and down some stairs to ensure that - he hadn’t meant to scare Will. His mind and his body wanted vengeance, and receiving that beautiful glory would come in steps: one of them being to know thy enemy.
His soul was sorry to have worried Will, but necessity tended to come in strange orders.
“I ha....ha.....had to fuh-fuhll..ow it.” A pinched expression - remembrance. “I couldn’t l....et it guh-go.”