#william whisp

- william gets really bad paranoia. like they all get paranoia and anxiety and whatnot but william will get it so bad that he has to shut himself in a room in a corner where he can see everything and not move because he's fucking terrified. every dark shadow is something coming to get him, every corner is something hiding, every noise is a monster. he fucking hates it.

- i think it sometimes gets so bad that he genuinely can’t get better alone. he needs somebody to come with him and show him that it’s okay because he is completely and utterly frozen with terror

- his mom and dad have taken to checking on him in the night if they wake up at any point (like to get water or use the restroom) since he’s been having terrible nightmares, and sometimes they’ll just find him tucked as far into a corner as possible, sometimes even in a completely different room, and will prove to him nothing’s coming to hurt him then stay with him until he gets back to sleep

- sometimes he’s terrified but getting out of his room makes it easier, so he’ll just move to the living room or the basement and sleep on the couch there. usually he puts a DVD in because the noise helps calm him down enough to sleep

- a couple times his parents have come to check on him and he hasn’t been in his room and they’ll freak out briefly until they find him on the couch with the TV on low and they’ll like pull his blanket up and tuck him in

- norah scratched the shit out of william’s arms when he restrained her in season 1 to keep her from hurting herself, and a handful of the scratch marks were deep enough that they scarred. he tries VERY hard to never let her see his arms because of it, and also makes an effort to not see them himself

- william is ALWAYS wearing a hoodie. he feels wildly uncomfortable without one, especially with the scars he has on his arms now from Norah’s nails 

- probably wears arm warmers even in the dead of summer under his regular hoodie to cover up the scars

-  he regularly gets panic attacks and has for like, the majority of his life. he’s always had really bad anxiety. and i think most of the time he can get out of it himself, and it rarely escalates to the full blown type you see in fics a lot, where you cant breathe and your vision starts going black and youre convinced youre dying and there's nothing you can do about it

- but rather just like... he gets stuck in his head and his mind loops and loops and loops and he gets insanely shaky and his heart beats like a jackhammer, and then he self corrects and tries to calm himself down. he usually does this by distracting himself. 

- over time the UPP starts recognizing the signs and getting his attention and asking him to do something/engaging him in convesration to subtly redirect his thoughts

- but sometimes he'll have the full blown kind and every single time he forgets every method he has for calming himself down and it always ends up like so bad

- also he has ptsd. bcos of fucking course he does he goes through some insane shit. he convinces himself that he doesnt though because he didn’t go through “anything anywhere near as bad” as the rest of the UPP, even after season 2

- tends to really freak out when anybody else in the UPP gets hurt or disappears or is even just a bit late. like his brain convinces him theyre dying, or dead, or in awful trouble, and he works himself up over it. does his best to act like nothing’s wrong usually, but sometimes the panic will spill out and he’ll word vomit worst case scenarios until someone shuts him up and starts calming him down

- i think he’s VERY good at hiding his trauma/panic tbh. like unless you know what to look for you won’t know he’s struggling until he completely falls apart at the seams. 

There was a soft tap-tap-tap on the basement window that had William jumping. He fumbled with his controller, trying to pause his game of Assassins Creed without putting himself in a shit spot for returning to.

When he was able to look back to the window– another series of taps ringing out across the room– what he saw was Norah, crouched in the window well and clad in her pajamas with a thick red hoodie thrown overtop. He tripped over the air on his way over, hitting his hip on the lip of the couch. 

"Norah?" He shoved the window up its frame. His heart stuttered with worry at the sight of her face, damp with tears. "What's wrong? Are you okay?" he urged her inside, eyes scanning her for injuries. He didn’t find any– thank fuck. She ducked her head, hands fumbling for her pockets.

She pulled out her phone while he shut and locked the window. He watched her tap away on it, bouncing on the balls of his feet and fidgeting with the frayed hem of his hoodie while he waited for her to type the words out. Eventually, her phone spoke on her behalf, in a jerky robotic voice, "Are you real?"

His expression crumbled as much as it ever did, wide eyes turning into pinched brows and a soft set frown. Damn. Ever since everything happened– with the Dark Young, and the Shtriga, so much worse than anything they’d dealt with before– Norah hadn’t exactly been… the same. He hated to acknowledge that it wasn’t even something he could fix. 

It wasn’t a monster, it wasn’t a lingering effect from either of the creatures they’d fought and won against in recent months. It was just… her. The stress of it all had gotten to her worst. Watching her fall deep into her mind and get lost there might be even worse than running for his life.

With slow movements, he laid his hands on her shoulders and gently squeezed. Despite the way she was keeping her head hung low, he angled himself so he could look her in the eyes, "I'm real. I'm here, and I'm real, okay? I promise."

“...You promise?” she echoed, voice choked with tears, and fear, and all the stress that must’ve been building and building.

“I promise.”

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yap yap... im really tired rn so i dont have a lot of yap. this the last drabble im posting for rn, im gonna try and get the headcanons i have save rn cleaned up and posted since theyre pretty much ready i just need to make sure theyre coherant lmao

soon-ish im gonna throw all these drabbles onto ao3, i wanna write more drabbles but im trying to focus on my bigger oneshots more than them. the drabbles were kinda just me struggling with writing motivation but wanting to have SOMETHING to show for my hyperfixation

ive started a chronic fatigue wiwi PD fic, and im halfway through the editing process for a physically disabled wiwi fic! and soon im gonna butcher this attempt i made at a nightmares fic and post the individual scenes as their own fics

anyways yap about the ACTUAL post. i almost had william playing Alice: Madness Returns only to find out that game wasnt out yet.

also this fic idea came to me in the middle of the shower and i had to get out and type it into the upp server with wet hands so i didnt lose the idea