Villains ➵ bill skarsgård a.u.

thirty four

"It's the least I can do." He says, eyes trained on my cast. "How's your day been by the way?"

"Fucking horrible." I muttered, the thick layers of cotton and bandage finally falling off my arm, exposing the extensive wound cutting through the side of my elbow, red staining the open parts of the stitches. It still looked horrible, a cringe taking over my face as I looked at it, but it was definitely better than how it looked before; bruised up with blood popping out every gesture I made with my arm. I soak a cotton ball onto the basin and dabbed on the blood stains, stings pricking my skin. "My friends and I went near the city to access more people for the flyers." I tell him, reminding myself that I haven't properly mentioned Sarah to him before. "Getting there was easy, but going back was a nightmare. We got stuck in traffic jams several times. And Arthur was there too, so that's nice."

"I could have helped you out."

"Ah . . No need." I shake my head, swallowing the whimpers begging to rip out of my throat as my elbow sored. Nonetheless, I continued. Cleaning off the dried blood between the cracks of the stitches despite the cringeworthy pain. "The blizzard was a disaster. If you went out there wearing those clothes, you'd freeze to death. We couldn't really fit in the car either, that's another disaster--"

I was caught off guard when Bill suddenly wrapped his hand around my left wrist, gently pulling my arm away and taking the soaked cotton ball from my fingers, situating himself in front of me. He looks down on my wound, eyes narrowed and focused, dabbing on the cut with feathery but deliberate motions, effectively getting rid of the dried blood in between. I hitch a breath as the stings went up my sinuses, taking my tongue between my teeth to suppress. "You must be exhausted." He murmurs, hot breath fanning over my wound.

"I am." I sigh, recalling the inconvenience I had to face for the rest of the day. I didn't want to do so. I didn't want to remember the way Arthur accused me of letting my cousins fuck with my life, and I certainly didn't want to remember how I was back to five years ago, but there I was anyway. "It didn't help that Arthur was acting like a huge asshole about everything."

"How so?"

I refrain, recollecting the words dangling at the back of my throat. How was I even going to explain it to him when I couldn't build enough courage to tell anyone? Not even Georgie nor Jumper? "Eh, it's nothing, you don't have to worry about that, I won't get to see him until tomorrow. I think I'm done thinking about him for today."

"Did he hurt you?" he looks up at me.

My head screamed yes, the concern written across his face making my heart pound inside my chest to tell the truth. I could just tell him that. I could just tell him the truth and be done with it, but then again, part of me spared the idea of making everything difficult for both me and Arthur. "It doesn't matter."

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?" He asks with a frown, returning to attend to my injury. "If he hurt you, you should tell."

I ask myself the same question; who am I to say it didn't matter? It mattered, more than anything to be exact. If it didn't, I wouldn't have felt like I was having a heart attack walking back the waiting shed, but I did, and I hated every single second of it. It didn't help I had to endure two hours of car ride next to him. "I guess he didn't really hurt me." I took a deep breath, shifting from my position, silently watching him clean up the excess stiff red. "He was just an oblivious asshole." I tell Bill. At the end of the day, I didn't have a reason to be mad at Arthur. For all I know, that's what everybody else thinks. The only fault he had was believing it.

"How was he an asshole?"

"He made me--" I hitched a breath, quickly cut off by an enormous amount of pressure on the cut, Bill's feathery strokes replaced by vigorous pressing. "Jesus!" I hissed, jerking my arm away on reflex before he caught it again.