It's been a long time since I've updated (I'm SO SORRY!) and I don't wanna be patronising but just in case anyone has forgotten:
Quick Recap: his little sister is called Georgia (sometimes Georgie). She drowned when she fell down a well when her and Billy were little. Billy's mom committed suicide a few months after. Neil is a butthead (I don't think anyone needed a reminder of that last part).
I forgot to mention in a previous A/N that Billy being a lifeguard in S3 fits with this story (y'know, coz his little sister drowned). Kind of cool in a bittersweet way.
The score for Earthquake Bird is v good to read this to (it's not so intense that'll it get distracting). It's got that synth sound so it's like Stanger Things' score so it fits with this fanfic. I think REFLECTION and CIRCLES OF CONFUSION(!) are my favs. BATHED IN RED LIGHT too! Oh mah gah, I love them all…. And I listened to a bit of metallica's kill em all too.
Hope you enjoy this chapter!
26: KILL 'EM ALL
"I need socks." I said.
Max's face scrunched up.
"Please, Mad Max. I'll explain on the way to school tomorrow, 'kay?"
"You're so weird." She said, getting up from her bed. She opened her wardrobe and pulled out a pair of fluffy purple 'FRIDAY' socks and walked over to me. She held them out and I eyed them with mock cautiousness.
"But it's Monday." I said, smirking.
She shoved them into my chest and I took them, laughing lightly as she rolled her eyes and tumbled into bed, distractedly putting her headphones on as she disappeared back into her magazine. I exited the room, closed the door and ran straight into something- someone. Neil.
.
.
.
His hair was black – still wet with water from that hellish bathroom; the bathroom I still hadn't showered in, preferring to stay late in school to use the showers there. A downward spike of black hair thickened with water acted as a slide for one droplet. It escaped onto his cheek and the momentum built caused it to travel across his leathery, freshly shaven flesh with speed. Neil scratched it away with a short nail. The death-site of that droplet curved upward; he was smiling. His teeth did not make an appearance, and nor did the light that came to anyone else's eyes when they smiled.
For fucks sake, why is he smiling?
"Sir." I said.
"Fri-day." He read aloud. Fry-day. Wow, didn't know he could fuckin read.
The small act of wearing Friday socks on any day other than Friday would probably nag at Neil's need to have everything in order.
I said "I know. Friday socks on a Monday. Max is crazy." I half smiled before stepping in the direction of my room. He stepped in front of me.
"Don't talk about your sister that way." His smile faded.
His hand reached out and it spattered down onto the socks. His fingers edged onto my arm. Hairs stood on end. Like a corpse had pressed their cold hand, stiff in rigor-mortis, to the back of my neck.
"They're fluffy." He said.
"My feet are cold." I shrugged. "I don't have any fluffy-"
"They're purple."
"…Max's choice, Sir."
"They're too small though, right? They're for girls."
"I'm sure they'll fit." I tried to get passed him again, but his shoulder cut into my path. In annoyance my tongue went to the side of my mouth and pushed my cheek out. My tongue trailed along the flesh and found a scar, barely two centimetres in length. I'd been about thirteen when he'd pushed me face first into the kitchen sink and my braces had ripped into the wet, gummy insides of my mouth. I can't remember what I did to make him do that. There wasn't much blood, not enough to go to the hospital, but it still hurt like a bitch. I played with the puckered flesh before waiting for Neil to speak in that tone I knew was coming; the do-what-I-say-or-I'll-beat-the-mother-loving-shit-out-of-you tone.
"C'mon Billy, let's go to the bathroom." I was right; it was that tone. Deep, gravel.
I asked "Whuh- what?"
"Puh-puh-puh…?" Neil said. Mocked. I knew what he wanted me to say.
"Pardon?" I asked.
Head tilted. "'Pardon' what?"
"Pardon, Sir?"
"Good girl, Billy. I said follow me to the bathroom."
"Why?"
I could hear his teeth snap together behind his closed mouth. "It isn't polite to ask why. Nor is it your place to ask WHY."
(I'm your father-
do as I say)
"I just don't understand is all." My brow furrowed. "Can't I go to my room? I'm freezing and tired and-"
He raised one of his hands up. I didn't flinch. I had practice not flinching. The back of his hand came to my forehead and – ever so gentle – pressed against the skin there. It was the softest touch since before Georgia and mom died… His skin was hot, his fingers lay still. Then his hand fell back to his side, soldier like, and a cold patch on my skin was left in its place.
He said "You feel fine. No fever. Come on. Bathroom. Now."
And he started walking there, I followed. There was the knowledge – the feeling, the gooseflesh – that nagged at me. Told me that I didn't want to follow him because I knew something awful would happen. But he'd just checked my temperature. My nose began to tingle. I blinked back the annoying fucking wetness burning at my eyes. Stop being stupid.
He waited for me to enter the bathroom. I did, turning the light switch on as I walked in and, flickering with reluctance, the sterile white lights lit up the tiles, bathroom counters, the toilet. Everything was wet and steamed from Neil's shower. He hadn't wiped the mirror clean and drops of condensation ran down it. The shower curtain was drawn and kept the tub in shadows.
My reflection in the mirror above the sink was dulled; only a foggy cream and brown silhouette with two shaky white circles. The faucet dripped. Tap-
tap-
"Wait here." He left.
I breathed out as I leant onto the sink, my breath hitting the already fogged mirror. My hand slipped and hit something as it slid along the steamed surface. It tumbled to the floor. The red wrench. I picked it up, ignoring the dull pain in my stomach from either Steve's punches or Neil's. I put it back onto the sink next to the toothbrush pot.
Tap-
tap-
From the corner of my eye I saw it. The shower curtain rustled. It hid something; that thing from the other day. I didn't dare turn to look at it. My head wouldn't turn.
"Who- what are you?"
It said nothing.
"Georgia?"
Inching, I turned my head. It was half my height. A hand started to raise, slow and black, to the edge of the curtain.
"See a spider again?"
My head snapped to Neil in the doorway. He'd returned with a twinkle in his eyes. His mouth was flat. He was holding one of the chairs from the dining room and sandwiched in between one hand and the chair was – what I imagined the cause of that dead twinkle to be - glinting off the white hospital-like lights. Scissors.
Eyes closed; I turned my head to the shower curtain wishing Georgie was there. Opened them; just the dull curtain shimmering with drops of Neil's shower water.
The chair scraped behind me. "Sit down and close your eyes, boy."
So, I did.
He walked behind my chair.
Drip-drip-
Neil spattered his hands onto the top of the chair and though I knew there should've been the clap as his skin met wood there was nothing. Saving his strength maybe? Tap-tap-
"Billy-"
Drip-drip-
"…do you know what I think…?"
"No, sir."
"I think you look like a girl."
My gut churned with fury. Embarrassment. Shame.
"No… no, not like any girl. Like your mother." His hands smoothed along the wood, every grain and splinter and piece of cracked paint hissing under his touch until his skin, callused and hot, met the bottom of my shoulder. And then his hands went up an inch and another and another until they found the tops of my shoulders. "And that really pisses-" he huffed. Breath hit my hair. "-it makes me angry. It is not only the fact that you're a boy, it's the fact that you shouldn't look like her. You don't deserve to."
His fingers tips traced my collarbones.
His fingers halted on my skin, "She was my mom-"
"Quiet now, Bill." And then his voice was close to my ear, "you don't deserve to look like someone who died because of you."
It felt as though the air were fragile glass, one wrong move could shatter everything. I knew the shards of glass would ignore Neil though, and instead would pierce into me.
He walked around the chair and over to the sink. His shoulders rolled before he leant onto the sink. The scissors – still clutched in his right hand – clanked against the ceramic. He held them upright like a child holding their knife and fork upright as they waited, hungry, for their dinner.
I needed to move. But if I tried to run, to get to Clare, what would he do with those scissors? If I stayed, the same question applied. I could bide my time, until I could get the scissors but what would I do with them? I couldn't-
kill him
Kill him?
Neil moved from the sink and walked over to the shower curtain. He paused. Her figure, at least with my eyes, was not visible right now. If he saw her too, my gut told me she was the one telling him to do this. Punish him, she would say. Punish him for not looking after me.
Tutting, he came back to the chair. Again, ran his hands along the wood and up to my shoulders, traced them along my collarbones then brought them around my hair, collecting the rebellious curls that had taken years to grow out.
He snipped the scissors behind my ear, slicing the air which a sharp hiss.
My legs were solid. Immovable.
Coward.
He said "My Georgia – do you remember her? She had curls just like your mother's."
His breath hit my shoulders.
"Curls just. Like. Yours. Can't remember what Georgia's face looked like but her hair on the other hand, I can picture clearly; wet and dark, sticking to her little face as those EMTs brought her body up from that well. You were supposed look after her."
You were too. He was supposed to look after both of us. And Neil is still supposed to look after me; to take care of me.
He wrapped my hair tight around his finger. The scissors crackled and snipped away at the fine hair. My eyes focused on the tap.
Drip-drip.
I tried not think about what they would say in school, or how Max's face would scrunch up with disappointment or pity.
Tap-tap.
"Why didn't you look after her, Billy?"
He cut more off. The cold of the scissor hit my ear.
"Why?" He said.
Hair fell on my shoulder.
My hands bunched together the fabric of my sweatpants, my knuckles white.
I whisper "Why didn't you?"
The scissors sliced for the last time. Next to my ear, the metal grated under his grip.
"Excuse me?" Neil said.
"I asked," my voice shook, "why didn't you?"
His reflection in the mirror was foggy. I couldn't see the scowl, but I knew it was there.
From the corner of my eye, the scissors opened. Then they hissed back together. Maybe I shouldn't have stood up to him – at least not whilst he had scissors in his hand.
I jerked up from the chair. My butt hit the sink. My chest ached.
"You know what?" My voice grew stronger. "You don't get to do this anymore."
His head tilted, eyes narrowed. "I don't get to do what anymore?"
"Treat me like this!" My hands leant back on the sink and held on tight. My legs couldn't be trusted to keep me up right now. "You don't get to decide what I should do or how I do it, or who I hang out with. You don't get to hit me anymore."
"Oh, I don't?"
I shook my head.
"No?"
"No!"
"And who is going to make sure I don't, huh, Billy?" He stalked closer, pointing at me with the scissors. "You?"
"Yeah."
He sniggered, wiped his mouth with his spare hand – the hand that wasn't holding the fucking scissors – and took another step toward me. My hands trailed back on the sink. The right hand edged something cold, metal.
The door creaked. Big brown caught-in-the-headlights eyes met mine, Neil's, the hair spattered on the floor, the scissors, and my eyes again – just a degree wider than before.
Four things happened next.
Neil started toward Clare.
I realised my hand was touching the wrench.
The scissors raised.
.
.
.
Neil's weight thudded to the floor, followed by the metal twang of the scissors and the wrench. Fingertips tingled. Inside my arm, the bones reverberated, still feeling the crack of the wrench on his skull. On the floor, red mixed with my chopped hair, coloring it black. It picked up stray bits of hair and carried it along the lines between the tiles like twigs down a red river. My eyes burnt.
.
.
.
What the fuck did I just do?
Hope you found that interesting. I started a new story, a fem!Jonathan/Steve. Just dropping that there, in case you're interested.
Have a happy Christmas and thank u for reading!
P.S. it's this story's second b-day today yay! Please wish it a happy birthday by reviewing! More reviews=love and more chapters.