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Nobody’s asking, but if they were, Billy would tell them the key to getting away with murder was finding the right accomplice. There are lots of other things too—you can’t be a fucking idiot with the evidence, for one, and you have to put enough thought into when you were gonna do it that you know the best time to strike, when your victim was alone and vulnerable, and how to find a convenient target to pin the blame on—but the accomplice is the most important thing.
An accomplice is important for when things don’t quite go according to plan. They’re there when the bitch you’re killing takes longer than expected to die. They’re there for when you’re on a tight schedule because the bitch in question’s daughter is supposed to be back soon, and you need to make sure the scene is set right. And they’re there to provide your alibi, just in case the cops still suspect you.
Now, looking down at the bloodied corpse of Maureen Prescott, and over at Stu, who’s adjusting the fit of Cotton Weary’s coat on his shoulders, Billy knows he picked the right one.
He picked Stu for many reasons. He’s fantastic with a knife, for one. He’s also pretty smart when he’s not being a complete dumbass. And, he’d never once gotten freaked out when Billy had talked about how specifically he would kill someone while they were watching a slasher film.
Stu’s best trait, though, and the main reason Billy picked him as his accomplice, is his loyalty. Billy has never once questioned Stu’s allegiance. He’s not an idiot, and he knows there are certain reasons for that, the same way he knows that those are reasons maybe better left unspoken.
It’s always been that way, for them. Ever since junior high when Billy was the quiet kid in the back of the classroom, that didn’t talk to anybody until Stu, who was friends with everyone, decided he needed to add Billy to that list too. He approached him and somehow, they started talking about movies, and found out they were into the same sorts of films. And from there, their friendship grew slowly but surely, until Billy wasn’t just that lonely kid in the back anymore, and Stu was still friends with everyone, but it was Billy he’d invite over most on the weekends.
Since then, time’s gone on, and Stu’s dated a few girls—Billy has too, though mostly with Stu’s help, considering he’s never exactly been Mr. Popular on his own, nor has he tried to be—but the one thing that has never changed has always been each other. No matter what happens, or who comes in or out of their lives, there’s always each other. Steady. Certain. Constant.
You don’t find that kind of loyalty just anywhere.
He never told Stu why it was exactly that he wanted to kill Maureen Prescott. He didn’t tell him that Maureen Prescott is the reason his mother walked out on him. It would’ve been stickier that way. Too many emotions. Billy’s never been quite good at those. Not even with Stu. He generally finds it’s much easier to pretend they don’t exist, as if that could make them disappear entirely.
It more went that after his mom left him, Billy shut down for a while. A month at least. He didn’t do anything other than go to school (but even that was only sometimes) and sit around at home, holed up in his room rewatching horror movies to feel something. After some time of Billy ignoring calls and hiding from the world, Stu showed up at his window, and Billy couldn’t exactly tell him to fucking go home when Stu had managed to scale a tree to get to his second-floor window, so he let him in.
He kept it vague on purpose. He didn’t want to talk about it—he still doesn’t, frankly. He just said he was pissed his mom walked out, and he didn’t feel like doing anything anymore. No more detail, no more mushy feelings stuff. That was too vulnerable for him. A place he refused to let himself go. Stu had only asked him what would make him feel better, and Billy shrugged the question off without an answer.
They watched horror movies together on Billy’s bed, just like Billy had been doing for weeks, during his self-inflicted exile. After making it through the first three Halloween films, when it was well past one in the morning, Billy just quietly said, “I think I want to kill somebody. I think that’s what would make me feel better.”
There had only been a short beat of silence before Stu replied, “Okay,” in the most serious tone Billy had ever heard from him.
It became an obsession. They were convinced that they were going to commit the perfect crime. They were going to be exactly like the killers in their favorite slasher movies. And they were going to get away with it too.
They’d spend days just sitting in one of their rooms, watching movies and analyzing them. What did the killers do well? What mistakes did they make? How could Billy and Stu not merely replicate but outdo the work of the most famous fictional slashers?
Stu gave him shit for bringing a notepad with him to their first research night, but then he brought one to the second one too—though Billy’s still not completely sure that wasn’t just him doing a stupid bit of some sort.
Once they identified their victim (“Wait, you want to kill Sid’s mom? I don’t really think that’s going to be good for your relationship.” “She’s not gonna know it was us, dumbass. That’s the point.” “Oh. Right.”), they got to work. Maureen Prescott’s illicit sexual escapades were no real secret. At least, not to anyone but Sidney, apparently, who’s always refused to see her mother as anything aside from perfect. The rumors had been circulating for a while, and Billy, of course, knew for a fact they were true.
It was pretty simple, really. Far simpler than it probably should’ve been.
Billy would find out from Sidney when her dad was going away on business, which was pretty often, and then he and Stu would spend a few hours lying low in the bushes a short distance from the Prescott house, watching the driveway for visitors. Particularly on nights when Sidney went over to Tatum’s house for a “Girls Night.”
(“It’s only fair I get to steal Sid from you every once in a while,” Tatum told him once, jokingly, a while back. “Since you’re always stealing Stu for whatever you two get up to when us girls aren’t around.” He thinks he knew she didn’t mean anything by it, but the little, paranoid voice in his head still sent a small jolt of fear through him. He wasn’t afraid that she’d figured out they were plotting a murder, because there was just no way she could’ve, with how careful they were being. No, he was afraid of the other stuff. That unspoken stuff. The stuff that would send Billy’s dad into a screaming, spitting rage. The stuff that would destroy his already-fractured family completely beyond repair.)
If Sidney and her dad were both gone for the night, there would always be a car on the driveway. It was like clockwork. Billy and Stu would watch the car pull up, take note of the license plate, and see if they could catch a glimpse of whatever poor son of a bitch drove it.
As it turned out, the poor son of a bitch that happened to be fucking Maureen Prescott—and the poor son of a bitch that was going to be framed for her murder—is Cotton Weary. Seems like Maureen’s latest type has shifted from married men to younger ones.
They moved quickly from there. After all, they couldn’t be sure how long Cotton was going to be in the picture for. Billy was getting impatient too. Every time they staked out the Prescott house, watching Cotton Weary shuffle in and out, only poked at the still-fresh wound his father’s affair and mother’s abandonment left. It just served to keep fueling the fire inside of him. He wanted that bitch dead. He was fucking sick of waiting.
So here they are. She’s dead. They gutted her, right here in her living room. There was a lot of blood. It was almost surprising. Billy had expected there to be a lot of blood, but it was somehow more than he thought it would be.
Having stared at the corpse for a good minute or two now, Billy snaps out of it, and gets back to work. He bunches up the black costume robes they’d both worn, and tucks the masks under his arm. They picked them up at a costume store the next town over, to make it harder to trace them. They were a failsafe, so that on the off-chance they didn’t manage to kill Maureen, she wouldn’t see their faces.
It's safe to say she’s dead now, though, considering her guts are all over the carpet.
He takes the knife too, after wiping the blood off of it with one of the throw pillows on the couch. Doing a final scan around the room to make sure he’s not forgetting anything that could be used against them, he nods.
“Okay, I’m leaving.”
Stu grins, doing a spin in Cotton’s coat, now splattered with blood. “What do you think, Billy? Do I look like a killer?”
“You are a killer,” Billy reminds him. They both are, now.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t kill anybody,” Stu says, almost giggling, which would not fly during a police questioning, but Billy will let it slide, considering he shares some of the same giddiness at the present moment. After all, they just killed the slut that made his mom leave, and it was fun. It felt powerful. It felt good.
“Sid will probably be back in a few minutes,” Billy says, back to business. They’re on a schedule, after all. “Wait until you see her headlights up the road, and then get the hell out of here as fast as you can, but make sure she catches a glimpse of you. Don’t let her see your face, though.”
“I remember,” Stu says.
“I know, I just…” Billy takes a deep breath, and clutches the disguises closer to his chest. “I’ll see you back at the house.”
Stu nods. “Hey, don’t forget, they key to the front door is under the—”
Billy smirks a little bit. “I remember,” he says, echoing Stu from before.
He slips out the back door of the house, towards the woods, just in case. It’s a strange high that he’s riding on. Probably set off by something primal. The type of adrenaline rush and endorphin release that can only be obtained from taking a life. It’s a rush he’d never thought he’d have the chance to feel. But it’s an addictive high. It gets him understanding the killers in the movies even more than he had before. So this is why they do what they do. This high. This rush.
The trip back to Stu’s house is long, especially by foot. His parents are out of town this weekend—they’re out of town almost as much as Sidney’s father is—so they figured it was the perfect place to go after they were done with the killing to regroup and dispose of the evidence. The house is up a hill and far enough removed from the nearest neighbors that they wouldn’t even have to be worried about people watching them come and go.
The first thing Billy does after letting himself in is walk into the first-floor bathroom to look at himself in the mirror.
He looks psychotic. Sweat’s still making his forehead shine, both from the work of the whole stabbing thing and the long, uphill walk back. His hair’s also unruly, also probably for the same reasons. He’s got small splatters of blood at the collar of his shirt that the costume robe hadn’t been able to keep off, which means he’ll probably have to burn this shirt too. It’s not a problem. He’s sure Stu has something he can borrow in the meantime.
The blood continues onto his neck, and the side of his face, where he’d probably touched with his hand, or tried to wipe his sweat away. It’s started to harden into a crust, flaking off a little bit when Billy touches it. He looks down at his fingertips. There’s dried blood on them too, but he’d known that already.
He smiles. He can’t help it. Maureen fucking Prescott is finally fucking dead and he and Stu were the ones to do it.
He sets the disguises and the knife in the bathtub and washes the blood off of his hands in the sink, taking care to make sure he gets it out from beneath his fingernails. Afterwards, he scrubs the porcelain bottom of the sink too, just in case. Unexplained, odd-colored staining leads to questions, and after they’ve been so careful with everything else, it would be stupid to suddenly become suspects based on something as small as that.
The blood on his neck and face, he leaves in place, for now. The reminder is too sweet to just immediately wash away. So, instead, he moves on to the next step in his evidence disposal plan. He pulls the costumes back out of the bathtub and cuts through the house to get to the back door, where the fire pit is located, setting the knife on the counter as he passes by.
He tosses the costumes onto the pit, douses them in lighter fluid, and sets them on fire. At least out here, if the blood-covered disguises produce any strange smells as they burn, it’ll just dissipate into the air, instead of lingering in the house. He pulls his stained shirt off too, and tosses it into the fire as well, watching it go up in smoke with the others. He stands beside the fire pit until everything has burned, and then he puts the fire out, and goes back inside.
Upstairs in Stu’s room, he steals a different t-shirt for himself, fairly confident that the blood on his face and neck has dried enough by now that it won’t get all over this shirt too. And then he returns to the kitchen for the knife, to start washing the blood off of it while he waits for Stu to get back.
Surely, it couldn’t have been that much longer after he left that Sidney got there. Surely Stu’s almost back, right? It feels like it’s taken longer than it should. Was he caught? Are they completely fucked?
As he’s starting to panic at the image of Stu sitting at the police station, still in Cotton Weary’s bloody coat, about to get put away for what they’ve done, and is scrubbing at the knife anxiously, he hears the door open. Thank fuck.
He shuts the sink off and sets the knife aside, despite the fact that it’s dripping wet.
“Someone took their sweet fucking time.”
Stu shrugs, beelining for the fridge like he’s going to get something to eat, without even washing the blood off his hands first. Billy rolls his eyes and grabs his elbow before he can stain the white handles of the fridge.
When Stu looks offended, Billy looks pointedly at his hands. “The blood, dipshit?”
Stu grins. “Right.” He goes over to the kitchen sink Billy had just been washing the knife at, and starts cleaning off his hands. Billy can’t help but peer over his shoulder, instinctively supervising.
“I took longer ‘cause I dropped off the coat,” Stu continues.
Billy frowns. “Huh?”
“The coat,” Stu repeats, and Billy realizes he isn’t wearing Cotton Weary’s coat anymore, actually. “I went by Cotton’s house and put it in his car. That way if Sidney reports him to the cops, they’ll find the coat in his car. That’s damning evidence, man. They’ll lock him up right away.”
“That’s actually… really smart,” Billy says, slowly.
The coat had honestly been a stroke of luck. They weren’t quite sure how they were going to manage to frame Cotton, specifically. They’d mostly been hoping the investigation would reveal his fingerprints, or his fucking semen, or something. But they got in there, and there was the coat, and they knew it would be so much easier than they’d thought to get Sidney to point the finger at Cotton Weary.
Having Stu leave in the coat, somewhere where Sidney could spot him, was one thing, but planting the evidence in his car is even better.
Stu dries his hands before putting one on Billy’s shoulder. “Thanks, buddy.”
Billy shrugs the hand off, and goes back to the knife on the counter while Stu returns to the fridge. There’s an odd sort of silence between them as they operate, almost as if this was something routine. Billy can’t help but consider for a second the possibility that it could be. But then he just shakes his head, because he’s getting ahead of himself. Maureen Prescott’s body is hardly cold, after all.
Deeming the knife clean enough, Billy puts it back where they got it from, and without much to do anymore but wait for Sidney to call, needing his shoulder to cry on, which Billy will begrudgingly provide, he walks into the living room and squats in front of Stu’s TV. They may as well add some element of truth to their alibis.
Billy had told Sid he’d be staying over at Stu’s this weekend, since Stu’s parents are out of town. He said they’d probably just be marathoning horror movies, knowing Sidney hates horror movies, so she’d never dare try to insert herself. Stu told Tatum the same thing, and their alibi was set. Simple. Easy. Perfection.
He digs through Stu’s collection of movies, half of which he’s fairly certain are actually his, before settling on The Exorcist. Not really a slasher, but still a good movie.
Coming in from the kitchen, Stu shouts and grabs Billy’s shoulders from behind. Billy doesn’t even flinch.
“Shit, man,” Stu says, climbing over the back of the couch to sit beside him. “Ice cold.”
“Well, we’re not in the clear yet, are we?” Billy replies, his eyes still on the TV. He’s waiting for the phone call. For the next phase of the plan. If he can pull off the concerned boyfriend act without raising suspicion, they’re pretty much set. They’ll have gotten away with it.
“Yeah, guess not,” Stu says, voice distant like he’s thinking about something else.
He’s unusually quiet, to the point where Billy starts to get put off by it. Normally, Stu’s talking his ear off, whether they’re watching a movie or not. To have him be completely silent is a rarity, and not one Billy is sure he’s comfortable with.
He glances over at Stu and finds Stu already looking at him. He frowns. “Got a problem?”
Stu pulls a face. “No.”
“Good. Quit staring, then.”
“I’m not staring,” Stu protests. “And you’ve still got blood on your face, by the way.”
“Yeah, trying out a new look,” Billy says sarcastically.
“…Really?”
“No, dipshit. I’m just leaving it on for now.”
Stu puts his hands up, defensively. “Sure, man. Whatever. Just don’t forget to clean it off before you go talk to Sid.”
“I won’t,” Billy says, torn between being mildly irritated, and mildly relieved that at least the abnormal silence is gone.
“It’s a good look, though,” Stu continues. “You know, if you were actually trying it out.”
Billy feels his shoulders tense. Instead of ignoring the comment or shutting the conversation down right there, though, he just carefully, quietly, says, “Yeah?”
His eyes are still fixed on the TV. He doesn’t dare look at Stu for a reaction.
And maybe Stu’s surprised Billy isn’t shutting the conversation down too, because he seems to lose some of his usual confidence. “Uh, yeah… With the knife, too. Deranged Killer is a good look on you, man.”
Billy hums, and finally works up the courage to look at him. “What’re you gonna do about it?”
Stu stares at him, and then starts laughing nervously like he’s convinced now that Billy’s fucking with him, or something. And honestly, Billy’s not quite sure what he’s doing either. He feels like he’s lost his mind, just a little bit. He feels a little insane, and maybe it’s the adrenaline from the kill still wearing off. He tells himself that it is, so that he feels less guilty when he raises his eyebrows at Stu, expectantly, and doesn’t shove him off when Stu’s mouth is suddenly on his.
It’s brief and uncertain—barely more than a brush of their lips, really—and Billy’s not even sure he remembered to close his eyes. But Stu is looking at him now, searching his face for approval, almost exactly as he had back at the Prescott house, as he carefully, methodically gutted the body of Maureen Prescott. Billy can feel himself at a precipice. Somehow, the idea of murdering someone was less terrifying than this.
There’s this tiny voice in the back of his mind that sounds an awful lot like his father, demanding he stop, calling him awful things, saying he should just shove Stu off and snap at him to leave him alone.
But fuck his fucking father.
“Do that again,” he orders.
They’ve already killed someone tonight. What does it matter if they add to their sin?
Stu laughs. “Bossy bossy, Billy,” he remarks, putting his hands on Billy’s shoulders and gently pushing him backwards.
“Fuck you, dickwad,” Billy shoots back, or at least he tries to, even if he winds up getting cut off by Stu kissing him again.
Stu’s hand slides under his shirt and Billy accidentally lets a rather pathetic gasp slip. This is, apparently, all the more encouraging for Stu.
“You have no idea how long I’ve thought about this,” he says in a low voice, and Billy thinks that maybe he did know, deep down, and that maybe he’d thought about it too.
He doesn’t say anything, though, he just lets Stu do his thing. Stu’s very good with his hands—it’s part of the reason Billy picked him as an accomplice, after all. He may seem like kind of a spaz, but he’s not, really. He’s always talking with his hands, moving his hands around, using his hands to expertly wield a knife. He knows what to do with them in every other situation. It only makes sense that he’s good with them here too.
“You’re so pretty with all that blood on you,” Stu coos into Billy’s neck as he kisses him there, right where the blood splatter starts. Billy shudders at the way his breath feels, warm and soft on his skin. “You’re so beautiful, baby.”
Stu throws names like that around all the time. Baby, babe, darling. He uses them on everyone but Billy, and Billy had always been secretly jealous of it. Now, he knows why Stu has never called him any of those things around everyone else. There’s too much adoration in his voice when he says it.
Stu’s got his hands on the waistband of Billy’s pants, slowly undoing his belt, and Billy clutches at the fabric of Stu’s shirt, trying to keep him from moving too far away. Fuck it. Fuck all of it. They killed the whore that ruined Billy’s life tonight. They’re gods. No one can touch gods.
The phone on the table beside the couch starts ringing, and for a second, Stu either seems to not hear it or be ignoring it. Billy would ignore it too if he didn’t suddenly remember they had reason to be expecting a call.
“Fuck,” he groans. It’s the first thing he’s said in a while, and his voice is kind of hoarse coming out.
Stu pulls back and blinks, like he’s just now registering that he needs to answer the phone, so maybe he hadn’t noticed it ringing after all. He stays where he is, on top of Billy, merely reaching over him to get to the phone.
“Macher house, what can I do you for?”
Billy rolls his eyes. He can tell it’s the call they were expecting. He can vaguely hear Sidney on the other side of the line—it sounds like she’s crying. He fights the urge to roll his eyes again.
“Oh, yeah, Billy’s here,” Stu is saying. He dangles the phone over Billy’s head, grinning at him, and Billy takes it.
“Sid, hey,” he says, putting the phone to his ear and nudging Stu off of him so he can sit up.
“Billy, I need you here. I’m at the police station, can you—?”
“Whoa whoa whoa, slow down,” Billy says, glancing at Stu and raising his eyebrows. “What’s going on?”
“I’m at the police station,” Sidney says again. “It’s my mom, she’s…” She trails off, and Billy hears her hiccupping with her sobs.
“What about your mom?” Billy asks. Stu opens his mouth in fake shock. Billy swats him on the shoulder with the back of his hand.
“I got home from Tatum’s, and I found her on the floor, she was… She’s dead, Billy. There was so much blood. I don’t know what to do. Please, I need you here.”
“She’s dead?” Billy repeats, also feigning shock. “Oh my god, Sid. I’ll be right there, okay?”
“Please hurry,” Sidney says, her voice sounding small and quiet through her tears. Billy gets distracted from it, though, by Stu kissing his neck again.
“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” he promises.
He hangs up the phone and stands up. Stu gives him big, sad eyes from the couch, reaching his arms out to him like it could keep him from progressing to the next step in their plan.
“I’m going to the police station,” Billy says, as if Stu couldn’t have figured that much out himself.
“Not yet, you’re not,” Stu says, standing up too.
Billy sighs. “I have to, okay? Come on. You know we have to stick to the plan.”
Stu grins, wrapping his arms around Billy’s waist. “I’m talking about the blood, babe.”
Billy feels his face flush. “Fuck. You’re right.”
He beelines for the bathroom, and gets to work scrubbing it off as fast as he can. Stu appears in the mirror behind him, leaning in the doorframe and watching him.
“We should kill Sid too,” Stu says.
“What, are you jealous or something?” Billy asks, splashing water onto his neck.
“So what if I am?” Stu shoots back, smirking. “And just think about how much fun it would be.”
Billy purses his lips, considering. It would be fun. And realistically, he knows there’s no way this was going to be their only kill. They’re too good at it, after all.
“Okay,” he says decisively, not needing to think on it much more. “As long as we do it right. Why not?”
His skin is still red from irritation, even once he’s gotten the blood all cleaned off. Hopefully it’ll calm down by the time he reaches the station, but even if it doesn’t, he’s certain he’ll come up with a suitable lie. No one could possibly suspect them. They pulled the whole thing off perfectly.
“I’m leaving,” Billy says, standing in front of Stu and crossing his arms, waiting for him to get out of the way.
“I miss you already.”
“Stu.”
“What?”
“You’re gonna have to move so I can leave.”
“No thanks.”
“Stu.”
Stu sighs dramatically and gets out of the way. “Fine. But only for you, Billy-boo.”
“Don’t call me that shit,” Billy says, walking past him towards the doorway.
Stu catches his wrist, and pulls him back into him. “Baby,” he corrects, and Billy becomes instantly lightheaded.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, alright?” Billy says. “And then we can… Resume.”
Stu lights up, like he had thought what happened on the couch was going to be a one-time thing, easily explained off as part of the adrenaline of the night, and things would go right back to how they were before—the two of them dancing around the unspoken Something they’ve always seemed to share. It would be easy to just let that happen. Let it all fade away like it never happened. But tonight’s made Billy feel invincible, and maybe that’s made him braver.
Carefully, quickly, he raises up a little bit onto his toes and kisses Stu one more time.
Maybe accomplices can be good for more than just helping you get away with murder.