Chapter Text
'If he said help me kill the president
I'd say he needs medicine
Sick of screaming let us in
The wires got the best of him'
10 minutes
In the next few minutes, you will decide if you hate Bill Denbrough or not.
Because for the next few minutes, there's a gun on his desk and not in hus hand, there's a plan not an action and there's an innocent man standing in front of the mirror, with a guilty man's mind.
Nine minutes.
He says "Everything's fine...wait for me" because he can. Because for the next few minutes, he's hidden alone in his room, with a night sky of a girl with dark curly hair and bright eyes, who believes he'll run away and wait under every sunset with her. Because within those moments, hell is hidden from Bill Denbrough, hell is a wonderous daydream, dressed as a thunderstorm, who breathes trouble and smokes on the air he stole from Bill's lungs. In those moments, hell was captured in a black and white polaroid, and he hadn't even taken a second glance to, so how could he have known it would set on fire?
But I’m getting ahead of myself again. He wrote. Where was I? I need to start at the beginning, but then the beginning was also the end-you know what I mean?
Eight minutes.
Time never used to mean anything to Bill Denbrough. The red zeros began to line-up on the twenty-four hour clock, sneering at me with it's scarlet light. Time used to have no meaning. He drew the end of his dark tie around his collar. Time used to pass, and he'd never chase it. He interlaced his broken shoes. Now time ran from the seventeen year-old boy staring at the mirror, with the cuffs that surpassed the length of his arms and messy hair that covered his eyes. Time was everything and Bill Denbrough didn't have it.
Seven minutes.
At least, not anymore.
He slipped his lanky arms through the sleeves of his multi-coloured blazer, which was made from the patches of random bright aspects of clothing that he got from his friends or clothes that no longer fit...almost in a quilt like nature. He wasn't sure if the clothes that clung to his body did so to ensure they weren't stolen from him as they were...ugly as fuck. Time didn't care for my vibrant clothing.
Six minutes.
Bill's paint splattered hands, ripped down the paper, the newspaper clipings, the photos of his brother that were plastered across the walls of his room, quickly, as time continued to slip away from him. The maps, the computer disks, the scribbled notes were all erased through his arms as he threw them out of his window and watched as they landed out in the lake in the distance, sinking to the bottom of the dark water, drowning any faint imprints of a good man.
Five minutes.
The tie around his neck tightened, it wasn't his noose, it was too big for just him, Bill made it that way, this was his choice, and all hell was coming. The two shotguns were no longer resting on the table, they had fallen into his pockets eitherside of him, burying themselves deep into his side, bound deep with the inevitably of chaos and the knownledge that yeah, this was happening. If you leave them behind Bill, He reminded myself. You won't fall into hell, you'll become it.
Four minutes
The soles of his knackered converse sunk beneath each step he took, keeping him balanced as his mind was on the floor, at the bottom of the stairs, under any sanity that remained. Being careful not to trip over, Bill walked slowly into the kitchen, everything breaking and crumbling in wards with each step he took. "Bill where are you off to?" His Mum asked, not raising her voice through the loud clashes of her next sponteous DIY project, today's edition: breaking the plaster of the wall with an old shoe.
"Just gonna see a film with Rue" Bill lied, and she jumped out the way as a large avalache of plaster came crumbling down. Rue was in his room, waiting for him, she was going to wait a long time. It wasn't his intention, he didn't want her to be there, to find out this way, but he couldn't get her hurt either.
"Will you be back for tea?" She asked, backing away from the electric capable that had ran free. "I think your Dad's ordering pizza"
"Course..." Bill lied, wrapping his arms around his mother and holding onto her tightly, burying his head beneath her shoulder, for the last time, never wanting to resurface. "If not...wait for me"
She gave him a small smile, squeezing his cheeks. "You look all fancy...you sure it's just a film?" Mum asked, gesturing to Bill's suit and he laughed, looking down in an attempt to look embarassed. "Is it really a date?"
Three minutes
"Something like that..." Bill mumbled and she laughed, giving him one last hug before letting him go. "...love you" He said, because for the last time, he could, because for the next few minutues, he was still safe, he was still Bill Denbrough.
"You're gonna be fine Bill...don't look so worried, love you too" She said, before she went back to her war with the structural stability of the house. "Have fun"
Bill gave her one last wave, "BAAAAAAAA" His Dad shouted as he jumped out in front of him and Bill screamed, almost being put into cardiac arrest. Dad was practically wheezing with laughter as Bill hit his arm weakly as he was still in shock and laughing.
"I hate youu" Bill said within a chuckle and Dad grinned. "Imma be watching that horror film and you're gonna just jump out of no where to scare me"
"Damn right I am" He said, laughing manically as he ran up the stairs. "Fare thee well" Dad added, gripping onto the banister, reaching his arm out, like the house was a sinking ship and he was the heroic captain going down with it.
Bill gave him one last smile before he stepped out of the house, away from the safety, away from innocence, away from wonder...away from loneliness and away frim a life without my brother.
Out on the streets, underneath the night sky, all of the fear, the doubts faded into the clouds that hid the stars, revealing the ones that aligned for Bill, above the street where he stood, a gun in one hand and his heart thrown out by the other, as he raised his arm, the barrell of the gun meeting his eyeline to the building in the distance.
Two minutes
Bill's eyes closed, as his breath began to tremble, remembering why he was here, Georgie's face, his voice flooded over him, like a film reel, his laughter began to warp and crack ever so often, only under the darkness of this night, did the projector show any damage. It had to happen, it was inebitable, Bill needed something that could make everything slow down for a bit. Make things breathe a little more. Because when your life is fucked out of your control, sometimes you need everything to just stop for a moment, so you are able to destroy it a little yourself.
One minute
And in that last moment, everything Bill ever wished, felt or feared, disappeared. The world stop moving for a moment and everything slowed. All for a moment, just one, one moment of everything at once. Anything before was nothing. Everything after, nothing. Just that one minute.
And then the moment ended, and the bullet left him, firing far away, smashing into the the side of the building. There was about half a minute before a blinding flash blasts over the darkness of the night, dragging his shadow across the street, the burning ash tainting the air and contaminating his lungs.
You know when you were younger, and when you first had headphones? You’d always feel guilty when you gradually exceed the limited volume recommendation, because Girls Aloud or whoever was more important, and you genially feared you damaged your hearing?
Well this was nothing like that, as it was although all sound was suddenly ripped away from Bill, in burning desire of an explosion so quick, you wouldn’t have seen that unless this all played out in a Nick Cage styled slow-motion cameo, which really, Bill wouldn’t of had it any other way.
It was like standing too close to a Bonfire, heat radiated everywhere and singed through him. A manic smile threaded through his lips, euphoria spiralling within him as he stood there,his feet remaining firm of the ground, watching the burning chaos amd destruction that he had made.
The police sirens in the distance were dull and fading, the only thing Bill could hear over the ringing in my ears. He didn't even flinch when the coppers arrived, his smile never leaving when they captured his arms and crushing him. With a manic smile imprinted on his bleeding lips he was dragged away into hell.
Before you judge him—and I know that you will—let me just tell you the truth now, straight out, so that you needn't read any further. Bill is the Devil, and his particular brand of hell is mysterious, broken, vintage record of a boy. A night sky , dark and haunting, slipping into nothingness. Hell had eyes like a thunderstorm that rips through the night sky, shattering it completly but still manages to embrace the tone of the night and a constellation across his cheeks, eyelashes and back that Bill had memorized. His hell had light curly hair and a troubled infatuation, ond that Bill wasn't away of yet. He was yet to meet his hell and when he did, he would never want to run away from him.
And if he was going to hell, he was going to enjoy every minute of it.