Okay, so here’s one of the two main verses I’ve worked out for William. This one is “ᴘʀᴇᴛᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ ɪ ʙᴇʟᴏɴɢ” and the other is “ɴᴏ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴘʀᴇᴛᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ”. Going to clean up the other verse as well as his backstory tomorrow. :) So I’m kind of under construction until I get them all worked out, update his about and rules and all that jazz, but it’s coming along! x)
He woke before the others, empty bottle in hand, with his head on Logan’s arm. The blurry world became clear after a moment of blinking and staring at his brother-in-law’s sleeping face. Out cold. His breath reeked of bourbon and warmed William’s face. To think what they’d been before it all; to think what they might’ve been if they’d stayed in Sweetwater, playing nice until their time ran up; to think William would be that same, masked man he arrived.
William was careful not to move too fast or make a noise loud enough to wake Logan… or the rest of them. They were everywhere, the uniformed-men lying like rag dolls wherever there was a cot or body to touch, and even where there wasn’t. Were his mind not spinning wildly in his head, were his heart not throbbing, aching more than it ever had, he might’ve come to wonder how Logan came to lead them all. But Logan, Logan’s sister, Logan’s company, and everything about Logan was as far his mind as he was.
He took nothing but food, water, and a horse, then turned his sights on the direction a bleeding Dolores had run with Confederado goons in tow. Maybe she fought them off – he’d seen her take out men with unpredictable ability before – all while holding her parts in place. P A R T S. William squeezed his eyes shut tight and opened them to a blurry world again. He tried not to remember. He tried not to picture wires where there ought to be veins; metal where there ought to be bone; some sturdy, new-age plastic where there ought to be muscle; but the image couldn’t be erased, the one Logan forced him to see.
For days, William searched. He traced the paths of boots in the dirt until weather faded and eventually erased them. He retraced every step he took with Dolores, followed the railroad tracks, and escaped by the hair on his chin after encountering natives and bandits. He killed without thinking. There was no room to think about anything if it wasn’t Dolores.
He arrived in Sweetwater a week later. His clothes hung awkwardly on his skinny frame. His eyes drooped with heavy, dark bags, and his cheekbones were more prominent than they’d ever been. Every step shot a pain through his legs and into his hips. Breathing felt like a constant series of sighs, as if someone blanketed his lungs with a hot, wet towel. But there she was, beautiful as the first day he saw her.
With her blond hair pulled back so that every inch of her face could be seen… Her eyes bright and smile so open… She looked e x a c t l y as she did the day they met. A gentle line formed between his eyes as he looked on. She dropped a can. A man came – a man that was not William, but like him – to pick it up. William’s mouth slowly opened. He wanted to shout at her, run to her, distract her from guest with his eyes on his Dolores, and confirm his highest hopes. But he waited. Despite the fact that he’d traveled for a week, thinking of nothing but her, he waited and watched.
He followed quietly behind, at enough distance that she might not notice him. She stopped near the river, where the sun hit just right, and lit her up like an angel. William dismounted uneasily from his horse and stumble-walked through the wildflowers and long grass. The sun hurt his eyes, but they still opened on her.
“Dolores,” he said in a whisper, half a question. Paint brush in hand, she turned to him and smiled. William smiled too. “Dolores…” Before she could get out a word, he came toward her, his arms open. He didn’t realize the confusion in her face. He didn’t look for it. Didn’t want to. He enveloped her in his arms and shoved his face into her hair. Clean, soft, warm. But he enjoyed the relief, the overwhelming satisfaction and sense of belonging, for but a second. Her arms shoved at him, pushing him. Shouts of protest rang in his ears. In a daze, he pulled back and looked at her. His brows dug into his wide, searching eyes. Confusion. Dread seeped through every pore of his face and warped his expression.
“Dolores, it’s… it’s me.” William tried to smile, but reality was swiftly sinking in. A small part of him already knew. It’d always known.
“I don’t know you!” She was stepping back. Leaving. No. He couldn’t let her. She had to remember. The gap between them was closed again. She tried to run but he caught her by the arm. She screamed and slammed a fist against him, but he didn’t feel it. They struggled. He wrestled her to the ground until she could do nothing but squirm beneath him and look into his watery, red eyes.
“Dolores, please,” he begged. She screamed for help. “Dolores…” he repeated. Every word was kinder, gentler, more insistent than the last. “R-remember, Dolores? The train… the things we said… You’re different. You’re different from the rest. I’m different.” The screaming and writhing wouldn’t stop. She wasn’t listening. What thick and honest tenderness was in him twisted into frustration.
“LISTEN.” His fingers curled in her hair, tightened, and pinned it to the trampled wildflowers beneath her. She stared in silence, tears rolling down her temples and into the grass.
“I saw you... and you saw me. I don’t care about the parts- about the-… Dolores, you changed me. You’re like me. Different. D i f f e r e n t.” Desperation. His tears fell in thick drops onto her cheeks and mixed with hers. “No pretending...” William lowered his face until his lips brushed hers. “No more pretending…” And he kissed her.
He felt only teeth, only a scream behind them. No. No, no, no. The hands that contained her left to instead control her face. She would kiss him back. She would remember what she did to him. And he pushed his mouth on hers again and again. As many times, he was rejected until, finally, her eyes opened up at him, and his at her. But her eyes flickered quickly over his shoulder. Fear turned to hope. A hand on his shoulder. William cranked his neck to see none other than…
Logan. No anger. No resentment. Pity, at best. Logan looked at him.
William trembled from head to toe, and looked down at Dolores in distress, in fear, in pain because of him. “Please, help me…” She was saying it to Logan. Logan who handed her to a gang of groping, drunk killers. Logan whom she despised. Logan who pushed a blade through her gut and made William look at her mechanical innards. She smiled - however weakly - at Logan.
The world around him became like a slowly turning painting. Not real. Not real. He pushed away from her, took a few steps away, and sank back onto his rear in the grass. Dolores breathed a hushed and cry-strangled “thank you”, abandoned her work, and was soon nothing more than a speck of blue atop a horse in the distance.
The remaining days at Westworld weren’t spent among the hosts, but where only flesh and blood moved about, enjoying all the luxuries of the modern world. Logan arranged for them to spend four days and three nights at the Mesa Gold instead of just the one. It was clear to everyone who took one look at William, that he needed time to adjust. William spent the first two days drinking in his hotel room. He drank and drank until he vomited, then he vomited until there was nothing left to toss up. A night spent on a cold, bathroom floor seemed to do some good, if one called sleeping for twelve hours straight good. Then, he ate the blandest meals and watched the most pointless movies Logan could get from management. The pair of them – Logan and William – never once talked about all that’d happened. And William was grateful for it.
On the fourth day, William looked akin to the one that walked off the train nearly a month ago. Clean shaven, hair styled, suit fitting close to the way it should… he seemed a man of business, though his eyes didn’t match his smiles. Perhaps they never did.
When they arrived home, Juliette begged Logan and William to spend time at her parents’ home (where she still lived). It’d been so long since they’d all been together, and she argued that they owed her some quality time before the wedding. Only, when they arrived, Juliette quickly read through their facades. Something happened to them, something that she was afraid to ask about. Logan’s and Juliette’s parents visited only for a moment, due for a business trip in New York, leaving the trio alone.
They were quiet, mostly, and Juliette took extra care of them each. William knew it was eating her up. She looked at them with fear and curiosity. She wanted badly to know, and he nearly told her several times. He wanted to tell her. Truly, he did. He wanted to confess that he was in love with someone who could never love him back, not really… not for long. He wanted to call off their wedding. They both knew it was a lie.
But he didn’t go through with any of it. It was selfish to do that to her, but without Logan and Juliette and the company, what life did he have? And – though he didn’t dare admit it – William wanted to go back. He couldn’t if he didn’t have them.
William is currently in a loveless marriage with Juliette. He goes back to Westworld for “business reasons” once or twice a year, where he spends his free time observing Dolores and wishing he could undo his undeniable feelings for her. Once in a great while, he spends time with her, but it only hurts him. He’s stuck in the constant struggle of what’s real versus what he wants to be real.
He hopes to find deeper meaning in his obsession with Dolores and with Westworld, like she or it will teach him some grand lesson, but the lesson’s already been given. He just refuses to look it in the face.
