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"They'll be here soon," Stu says, breaking the comfortable silence that's fallen between them. They're settled on his bed in his room, taking advantage of this last little bit of time they have before the party starts, before the chaos follows. Fright Night is playing on the little television on his dresser, but Stu, at least, has lost focus on the movie. Despite everything, all the planning, all the contingencies, there's still an undercurrent of nervousness that he can't seem to shake.
Stu's dreamt about this for days, weeks, months now. Details filled in as the plan slowly evolved. Not all of them good dreams, either. Some were nightmare versions of how this could all play out for them. Times where things veered wildly off script, where he or Billy or both of them ended up caught or killed. So many ways for them to fuck this up before the credits roll.
Billy knows him too well, though, seems to sense his anxiety, even if he doesn't seem anxious himself. He turns his attention from the film, reaches through the scant space between them, drags his fingers through Stu's hair, soothing, calming. "Hey, don't worry. We got this," he says, so steadfast and confident in his words, "You and me."
"You and me, baby," Stu echoes with a grin.
"Talk me through it," Billy coaxes him, "One more time."
Stu meets his eyes, determined. "Tatum first."
Stu knows that Billy won't have any trouble sneaking around the Macher house. He's familiar enough with the layout that he could navigate it blindfolded if he had to. Even from the other side of the house, he's sure Billy can hear the chatter from the living room as their oblivious classmates argue about movie options. It'll be the perfect cover for him to slip down the back stairs and get into position.
"Hey, Tate, grab another beer, would you?" Stu says amidst the arrival of some other party guest, loud enough for Billy to hear, and it's all the signal he'll need. Stu's almost sorry that he won't get to see it all play out, but he's determined to give his boy the time he needs to get it done.
And Billy waits, wearing the costume, in the closet off the laundry room, as Tatum passes through. He hears the door to the garage open, hears the whirr of the motor – just long enough to let the light come on – and then he moves. Closes the door behind her, clicks the lock.
"Hey, shitheads!" Tatum calls out, knocking lightly on the door a moment later. "Hello?"
Then there's the motor again. She's going to go around the house. He opens the door, the quiet creak covered by the sound of the garage door rising, and swiftly hits the switch to close it again, catching her off guard.
"Is that you, Randy?" Tatum asks, when she turns and finds him there blocking the door back into the house. He's a little offended that her first guest was that idiot. He shakes his head, no. "Cute. What movie is this from? I Spit On Your Garage?" She is not afraid. Not yet. She walks toward him, expecting him to let her by, the beer bottles still in her arms. "Lose the outfit," she says, "If Sidney sees it, she'll flip." She tries to move past him but he blocks her, shakes his head again. "Oh, you wanna play psycho killer? Can I be the helpless victim?"
Oh, god, yes, he thinks.
"Okay, let's see," she says, putting on some stupid voice, "'No, please, don't kill me Mr. Ghostface, I wanna be in the sequel.'" She laughs, tries again to dodge around him and when he blocks her this time, that's when she starts to get worried. He grabs at her, catches hold of her arm and she struggles. The bottles fall, smashing on the cement floor. "What the hell are you doing!?"
Billy pulls out his knife.
He slices it down her forearm, just to prove that this is real, so she can feel that fear. "Aah! Stop!" she yells when the blood starts to flow. God, he's looked forward to this. Not nearly as much as he's looking forward to killing Sidney, but close. After tonight, he'll have Stu all to himself, won't ever have to worry about leaving marks this bitch might find on him again.
She backs away from him, tries to escape, and she fights back more than he expected. She hits him with the freezer door and then with a beer bottle and then trips him up when he grabs for her again. She nearly makes it out, gets halfway through the cat door cut into the garage before he gets hold of her and pulls her back in. He brings down the knife before she can react. He slits her throat and it's a quicker death than he would have liked but this is only the beginning. He drags the blade down her body, gutting her just the way Stu showed him and then gets to his feet, admiring his work.
Perfect.
He slips back into the house, back up the stairs.
"Tatum first," Billy agrees.
Tatum first, because if there's anyone who can talk Sidney into leaving the party early, it'll be her. Tatum first, because she'd probably actually notice if Stu started ditching out for considerable chunks of time to enact other parts of the plan. She'd ask questions, she'd go poking around where she shouldn't. Tatum first, because she'll be an easy target, easy enough to get alone even amidst the party and they have to start somewhere, don't they?
But that is not the part of the plan Stu is worried about. He's already down one ex-girlfriend in this murder spree of theirs, what's another? He didn't mourn Casey, and he won't mourn Tatum, either. Except maybe with another celebration with Billy when things settle in the aftermath...
Sure, he'd liked Tatum just fine, but the act he has to put on when he's with her is something he certainly won't miss when she's gone. It's not like that with Billy. He can be as weird and demented as he wants with Billy because at this point he's pretty sure there's nothing he can say or do that'll scare the other boy off. After all, who else could he plan a murder with while lounging in bed?
"And then I ditch the costume upstairs. I circle around to the front when people start to leave," Billy continues.
"We talk Sid into going upstairs with you," he says, though they have contingency plans in the event she doesn't take the bait. It doesn't really matter where she is as long as she's away from the rest of the party guests, as long as they can get her alone. "I give you a little time and then I slip away from the party and call the landline from Prescott's phone, tell whoever answers about Himbry." Of course, there will not actually be a body hanging from the goal posts on the football field. They're not dumb enough to risk going back to the school to move it somewhere so visible with so many people on high alert. No, Billy had left Himbry's gutted body in his office, where it will stay until someone goes looking for it. Still, it should clear out the rest of the party guests and leave them with just Sidney.
Exactly how they need it to be.
Stu paces in his bedroom until the sound of engines racing off has faded into the distance. The call about Himbry certainly had the desired effect, judging by the sheer speed at which the last of the party guests had taken their leave.
After a moment, he crosses to the door to his parents' bedroom, listening to see if it's time to strike yet. He hears talking, hears Billy's voice closer to the door than Sidney's. Good.
He wonders if they had sex, if Sidney finally gave it up. He doesn't like the idea, but he can't really complain. Billy's had to deal with it all year, his relationship with Tatum and the rules and restrictions it put upon their own. He's certainly not going to begrudge Billy this one time. After tonight, there will be no more Sidney, no more Tatum, no more girlfriends to hide from.
Stu eases the door open slowly, well aware that the hinge creaks, and slips inside.
"What do I have to do to prove to you that I'm not a killer?" Billy's asking, his back to Stu as he leans toward Sidney.
Fuck, he could not have timed this any better if he'd tried.
"Oh, my god," Sidney gasps, when she spots him slinking out of the shadows with a knife. She freezes, her eyes blown wide at the sight of him there.
"Sidney," Billy implores, still wrapped up in whatever conversation they'd been having.
"Oh, my god," she says again, and then, finally, she manages a warning, "Billy, watch out!"
And Billy nails the timing, spins around right as Stu's close enough to strike. Stu pretends to stab him, but really just squirts him with the bottle of corn syrup he has tucked up his sleeve. He makes a show of wiping the fake blood off the blade for Sidney's benefit and stands aside to let Billy sell the act.
Once Billy hits the ground, though, Sidney bolts. Dodges out of the way of Stu's clumsy attempt to grab her. He hadn't been expecting her to react quite so quickly. She jumps over the bed, over Billy's crumbled form and out the door, slams it shut behind her. The fucking thing jams so he can't follow.
But Stu has home field advantage here, knows every inch of this house. He circles around, uses the other door to his parents' bedroom and cuts her off before she can get down the stairs. He chases her back through the hall, through his own bedroom, into the cluttered attic space beyond that. She blocks the door, and it takes him a moment to get through her haphazard barricade – by then, though, she's crawling out through one of the windows. He reaches out to stop her, to pull her back in, but she drops before he gets a solid hold.
"Fuck," he grumbles, already sprinting back through his house.
"And if she gets out?" Stu asks, because that is the thing he's worried about. She gets out, she calls the cops, she gets them caught or killed, she gets the sequel.
"You won't let her," Billy says, sounding so sure that for a second, Stu feels the same sort of surety. "Even if she gets out of the room, out of the house, as long as you get her, it doesn't matter, we still get our ending." His hand drops away from Stu's hair, comes up to frame his face, instead, as he shifts closer, drawing him in for a kiss. "Relax. You can do it," he says, "Remember how good you did with Steve?"
Stu nods. Maybe he's right. He'd taken down Steve on his own. What could Sidney do in comparison? Those dreams might have haunted him, but not tonight, not for real, not in their final cut. He leans into Billy's touch and wonders why he was ever worried.
He needs to get Sidney.
Stu rushes downstairs, but comes up short when he realizes someone else is still in the house. He spots Randy still lounging on the couch watching Halloween all alone, mumbling useless warnings at the screen. Too bad no one's here to warn him, Stu thinks, as he eases up behind his oblivious classmate. But it's his own damn fault, really, he should have taken the hint and left with the rest of the party guests when he had the chance. Hell, it's almost too easy. He strikes swiftly, his knife cutting through the vulnerable flesh of Randy's neck. Another few seconds to gut him and he's done.
Just another body to add to the count.
But then he hears screaming.
Right.
Sidney.
He needs to get Sidney.
He rushes out the front door, spots the news van still parked in the driveway.
Just as he circles around the back of the vehicle, the side door slides open, revealing Sidney and Gale Weathers' cameraman. Stu strikes before they even realize he's there, both fixated on the open front door. He slits the cameraman's throat and leaves him to bleed out, another inconsequential character dead.
He needs to get Sidney.
But she slips away from him again.
She runs.
He chases.
He needs to get Sidney.
It devolves into a twisted game of hide and seek, the two of them racing around the sprawling property. And it's not until he hears the screech of the news vans tires that he realizes they're still not alone here. Sidney seems to have reached the same conclusion because he sees her abandon her most recent hiding place and jump out into the middle of the driveway in a desperate attempt to get the attention of the driver. It works, though probably not quite the way she intended. The van only just narrowly keeps from hitting her, but it doesn't stop, doesn't slow. In the swerve to avoid her, it careens wildly out of control. The van flies down an embankment and slams into a tree. Sidney runs off again and Stu goes to check on the driver – Gale Weathers. He is not there to help her, though. He slits her throat just in case the crash didn't finish her off. He's not taking any chances.
But there is something else he needs to deal with here.
He'd spotted the camera early on. It's his house, after all, and he is more than familiar with the usual junk piled atop the television stand. Fucking Gale Weathers looking for an exclusive, he thinks. And, when he'd chased Sidney to the news van and killed the cameraman, he'd seen the live feed playing on the screen there.
It's still playing, and on screen he spots Tatum's brother on high alert now that he's stumbled upon Randy's body, his gun raised as he peers around corners, jumping at shadows and television screams. Stu watches as Billy slinks into frame, dressed in his own costume, armed with his own knife. He's about to strike when Dewey finally notices him, but luckily Billy manages to knock the gun from his hands before he can use it (though not before a wave of panic overtakes Stu, watching on). There's a brief scuffle, looks like Billy takes a solid hit to the head in the process, but in the end he buries the knife in the cops back and the man staggers out of frame, bleeding profusely when Billy pulls the knife free again, stalks after him.
Struck with an idea, he grabs the tape from the deck. It'll make for a hell of surprise for Billy when this is all over and done.
He's wasted enough time here, though.
He needs to get Sidney.
He finds himself rushing back to the house. He spots Sidney just ahead of him as she runs back inside out of desperation. Where the hell else is she going to go? He spots Dewey's body, too, collapsed on the front porch now. He checks to make sure the cop is dead – hopefully the last of the interruptions to their plan.
And, speaking of, with Sidney finally back where she needs to be, it's time to meet up with Billy for the final act.
Again, Billy knows him all too well, with just how easily he picks up on the way Stu's mind finally seems to settle. And with that minor freak out assuaged, his focus seems to shift. "Just think," he says, his eyes gone dark and dangerous in the way they always do when he's considering something particularly brutal (and, god, the things that look does to Stu…). "Just… imagine how she'll react. It's gonna be incredible."
Stu can practically see it already – the look of betrayal on her face when it all finally sinks in. The devastation when they make the reveal. "And that's only the first reveal," he points out with a devious grin. They have so very many for her, after all – that they killed her mother, that they're going to kill her father, that they've got each other and she'll just be another corpse by the end of the night. "By the time we're done, she'll be begging us to put her out of her misery."
"I hope so," Billy says. He shifts, climbs his way into Stu's lap and settles there, knees braced on either side of Stu's thighs. "Fuck, what would I do without you?" he grins, claiming another rough kiss.
Stu curls his arms around the other boy, hauls him in closer, holds tight, "Lucky you, you don't have to find out."
"Yeah?" Billy asks. The question is deceptively simple, but Stu knows Billy well, too, knows that something in his voice suggests something more serious.
Stu won't be another person who fucks Billy over like that, though – won't bail like his mom did or throw everything away like his dad. He's in far too deep to let anything get between he and Billy now. And he doesn't like thinking about it – some of those nightmares had brought it too close to reality for his liking – but it's there, always there. The surety that if tonight does go badly, that if something happens to Billy, then the only thing he can think to do is take as many people down with him as possible before he follows after. He has no illusions, though, that Billy would react the same if something happened to him. "Yeah. You're not getting rid of me that easily, buddy," he says, tries to play it off like something less significant than it is. "You're never getting rid of me."
"Who says I want to?" Billy counters, "After all, if I haven't scared you off yet... Still don't know why the hell you agreed to all this with me."
"I'd do anything for you, babe," he says, "you know that."
And Billy nods, that same unwavering confidence in his voice again when he says, "I do." He gets quiet, then, for a moment, before he adds, "I'd do anything for you, too."
"Billy!" Sidney gasps when he comes rolling down the stairs, trying his best to look as injured and helpless as possible. All in all, it's a relatively controlled fall, and it gets her over to him quickly, trying to help him up. "Billy, I thought you were dead."
"I'm okay," he tells her, and together they stagger step their way toward the front door. Billy collapses against it, turns the lock while Sidney's busy trying to keep him upright. She trusts him completely, how could she not after what she'd seen upstairs? "I'm okay," he says again.
"Come on, we've got to get out, get help, get somewhere safe…"
But that's when Stu appears, his timing once again impeccable.
"Stu!" Sidney says, apparently trusting him for the moment as well. "Stu, Billy's hurt, we…" She trails off when she sees the knife in his hand. "What…?" She says, her eyes blowing wide as the realization sinks in. She grabs for Billy, whether she's trying to protect him or looking to him to protect her, but it doesn't matter.
Stu smiles, tosses something to Billy, who catches it with more ease than anyone who's recently been stabbed should be able to manage.
He's no longer leaning against the door, but standing up straight, all traces of pain gone. "Surprise, Sidney," he says, the thing he holds up to his mouth shifting his words into that awful voice she'd heard on the phone last night.
"No…"
Honestly, Stu hadn't been that big a fan of the fake out plan. He didn't see the need to trick Sidney – they were doing enough of that already. He didn't see the need to sideline Billy for most of the end game just so there could be a twist. In a movie, sure, yeah, fine, he'd get it. But in their movie? He wanted Billy at his side for all of it.
But Billy had talked him into it.
And, in this moment, seeing the look of absolute devastation on Sidney's face? He's glad he agreed.
She tries to bolt again, but they're not doing that anymore. There will be no more running, no more chasing. Billy catches hold of her arm before she can get more than a few steps away. Despite her struggling, they manage to corner her in the kitchen, cutting off her escape points, blocking her in with the counters.
Now is not the time for this conversation.
Stu absolutely does not want to think about the things he means when he says 'anything' or the things Billy might mean. Some part of him refuses to believe they mean the same things at all. Even if they do – that's not something he wants to talk about right now when tonight could all go wrong.
So, instead, he says, "You're right," and "We've totally got this, babe." Instead, he curls a hand around the back of Billy's neck and pulls him in for a long, languid sort of kiss.
There a million other things they should be doing – they should go do one last check that everything is where it needs to be, the costumes, the knives, the phone. They should go check in on their hostage one more time. But they don't do any of those things.
Because right now the plan is the last thing on their minds. Which is fine, really, because this is the easy part. They've got the killing thing down to an art.
"C'mere," Stu mumbles into Billy's mouth, drawing him in impossibly closer. His eyes flick over to the clock on his bedside table, where time is ticking ever closer to when the party starts. "We've still got some time," he says, the implications clear when he rocks his hips up into Billy's, clearer still when his hand fumbles at Billy's jeans. "Let's make the most of it, yeah?"
"Yeah," Billy easily agrees.
And Stu doesn't hesitate, strives to make up for all the touching that he didn't get to do the other night – hands splayed out over whatever bits of skin he can get to, wandering up under Billy's shirt, blunt nails raking over ribs, fingers tangling in his hair, lips on his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, anywhere he can reach; always moving, never stopping – still can't leave marks. He finally finishes fumbling to get Billy's jeans undone and out of the way, finally gets his hand on Billy's dick just as Billy gets into his pants, finally there's Billy's hand moving on him, too, the two of them settling into a smooth, familiar rhythm, building steadily.
"Why are you doing this?" Sidney demands. She stops fighting them, at least for the moment. Stops trying to run and settles in place where they've trapped her, though they're both sure she's just waiting for a better opportunity to make an escape.
"It's all part of the game, Sidney," Stu answers.
"It's called 'Guess How I'm Gonna Die'," Billy says, his voice once again distorted by the voice-box.
"Fuck you!"
"No, no, no. We already played that game, remember? You lost."
Stu ignores the little stab of jealousy that confirmation causes and continues on with the explanation. "It's a fine game, Sidney," he says. "Casey certainly thought so, even if she wasn't very good at it. See, we ask you a question and if you get it wrong… you die."
"You get it right," Billy adds, "you die."
But she clearly does not like the rules of their game. "You're crazy, both of you."
"Actually, we prefer the term 'psychotic'," Stu says. He slinks up close behind Billy, his hands settle on the other boy's hips of their own volition. He leans down, his chin resting on Billy's shoulder.
"You'll never get away with this," Sidney snaps at them, confident in at least that much, at least, until she sees the looks of pure glee on their faces at her words.
"Oh, no?" Billy smirks, leans back into Stu's body just a little. He lets the bomb drop. "Tell that to Cotton Weary," he says, "You wouldn't believe how easy he was to frame..."
Stu laughs, "Watch a few movies, take a few notes. It was fun."
"No!" Sidney sobs, fighting back tears as this new reality sinks in. She was wrong. So so so wrong. Wrong about Cotton Weary. Wrong about Billy fucking Loomis. But, "Why?" she asks, she has to know, it doesn't make any sense. "… Why did you kill my mother?"
"Why?" Billy echoes, "Why!?" He turns to Stu, "Did you hear that? I think she wants a motive." Billy prowls around the kitchen like some sort of panther stalking its prey. Sidney is unaffected, a stone cold glare in her eyes as she tracks his movements.
"You know, I don't really believe in motives, Sid," he says. "I mean, did Norman Bates have a motive?" He looks to Stu, who shakes his head in the negative. "Did they ever really decide why Hannibal Lecter liked to eat people? Don't think so. See, it's a hell of a lot scarier when there's no motive, isn't it? But, hey, you want a motive? I'll give you one. How about this?" Now he moves in, crowds into Sidney's space, a looming, intimidating presence. His voice is disturbingly quiet when he says, "Your slut mother was fucking my dickhead of a father, and she's the reason my mom moved out and abandoned me, left me with him. How's that for a motive?"
He can feel Stu close again. Stu, who's known the motive all along, ever since Billy found out about the affair, since he showed up here in the middle of the night out of his mind. Stu knows how much it fucked him up and he dealt with the fall out. And then, for some utterly baffling reason, he agreed to go along with Billy's haphazard mess of a murder plot and everything that came after.
And now they're here.
And Sidney's left awestruck once again by the twisted way this plan plays out. She can't find the words to respond, stunned into silence, stunned enough that even when Billy backs off a bit, she doesn't try to run. They've broken her, at least a little bit, with all of these shocking reveals, but there's still more to come.
When she finally snaps herself out of it, she looks to Stu. "What now, Stu?" she asks. With Billy out of her space again, she's a little braver. She shouldn't be. He wants her dead just as much as Billy. "He's got a motive, what about you? Why are you doing this? What did I do to you? What did any of us – Tatum, Randy, my mom – what did we ever do to you?"
"Nothing," he admits, leaning casually on the counter like they're having a perfectly normal conversation. He laughs, absently fiddling with the knife in his hand, but his tone loses its usual goofy charm, switching to something deadly serious. "You did nothing to me, Sid. But, that doesn't matter because I don't give a shit about you," he gestures toward the garage, where Tatum's body is, to the living room, where Randy's is, never mind the rest of the bodies scattered around his house, "or them."
She frowns, clearly hadn't been anticipating such an emotionless response. "That's it, that's your reason? That's bullshit."
"No," Stu adds, looming over her now. "No, you see, Billy… I do give a shit about Billy. And he asked me to do this. So here I am."
But she's still not following his nonsensical reasoning. She doesn't get it. She'll never get it. "You really are just his big dumb lap dog, huh?" she challenges. "You do everything he says?"
He laughs in her face, ignores the insults. "You have no idea the things I'll do for him." He glances over his shoulder at Billy.
"Oh, we're doing this now, are we?" Billy asks, drawn in by the way Stu's gaze rakes over him. "Mine," Billy growls out, an echo from their activities the other night. He pulls Stu into a biting kiss with a possessive gleam in his eyes. One hand settles on Stu's hip, his thumb pressing on the nearly faded mark he'd left there. The other curls around Stu's neck, where he can feel the flutter of his pulse pick up just a little bit at the contact.
And Stu just kind of melts into it. That serious look he'd had on his face talking to Sidney disappears when he's looking down at Billy, now there's just a content grin as he steals another kiss. His eyes slide over to Sidney, who's staring at them in horror.
"You sick fucks," Sidney manages.
But they are remarkably unbothered. Billy kisses him again, bites Stu's lip so hard he nearly draws blood. "Don't be like that, Sid," Billy says, one arm slung over Stu's shoulder, fingers carding through his hair. "We've still got one more surprise for you. I think you're gonna like this one best of all."
"Yeah, it's a real scream," Stu adds.
Billy slips away from him, moving to the basement door. "I got this. You watch her."
"Whatever you say, babe."
With Billy gone, she tries to bolt, but he cuts her off, holds the knife to her neck to keep her from trying anything else. Like hell if he's gonna let her fuck this up now. Still, he can't resist gloating a little.
"Look what time it is, Sidney," Stu says, gesturing to the clock on the wall. "It's after midnight now. It's your mom's anniversary. Congratulations. Billy and me, we killed her exactly one year ago today. You know, it's our anniversary, too. There were a hell of a lot of firsts that night."
"Fuck you," she spits at him.
"No, thanks," he counters. "But, hey, we have that in common, at least. How was it, your first time – sorry, your only time."
"Why, you jealous?"
He laughs. He isn't really, he realizes. Not anymore. He'd said it himself, the other night – no way she'd ever let Billy do any of the things that Stu happily allows. "Hardly. I'd give you some pointers, but it doesn't really matter, does it? Even if you were gonna make it through tonight, I don't think you would make it through the shit he likes to do in bed."
Billy returns, then, before she gets a chance to respond. He's having a hell of a time wrangling Neil Prescott into view. They've still got him taped up, and so when Billy finally does get him into the kitchen and shoves him to the floor, he can't put up much of a fight and the man goes down hard.
"Daddy!" Sidney sobs, ignoring Stu's knife in a desperate attempt to get to her father, but Stu pushes her back, keeps her away.
"How do you think this is gonna end, Sidney?" Billy asks, "Just pretend it's a scary movie, what do you think happens now? You're no Final Girl. You're no Laurie Strode, no Nancy Thompson, no Sally Hardesty or Alice Hardy."
"And you're not Michael Myers or Jason Voorhes or Freddy fucking Krueger, you're just… two crazy freaks who've seen too many scary movies!"
"Don't blame the movies, Sid," he quips back, as Stu tosses him a cell phone – her father's cell phone – and then the voice-box. Billy pulls out another one of those horrible costumes. The pieces start to fall into place. "Got the ending figured out yet?"
"Come on, you think about it now, huh?" Stu prods. "Your daddy's the chief suspect. We cloned his cellular. We stashed his car in the woods nearby. The evidence is all right there, baby."
"What if your father snapped?" Billy proposes, sliding up next to Stu, taking the knife when Stu offers it. "Your mother's anniversary set him off, and he went on a murder spree, killing everyone."
"Except for Billy and me. We were left for dead."
"Then he… kills you… and slits his own throat," he says, pressing the blade against her neck. He grins at Stu, the two of them reveling in their brilliant plan as it finally comes to fruition. "The perfect ending."
They ignore the frantic, hysterical noises coming from their bound captive. He's not going anywhere. He can't stop this, can't stop them. Not now, not in their movie.
They focus on Sidney, on the panic in her eyes when she realizes that this is it, no one is coming to her rescue. It's happening now and there's nothing she can do to stop it, either.
"This is the knife we killed your mother with," Billy tells her, dragging the blade along her neck, moving steadily lower until it rests over her heart. Stu's hand covers his on the handle, the two of them ready to kill her together. "Don't worry, Sid," he says, "We'll give you the same courtesy we gave her – we'll make it quick."
"Any last words? Better make them count," Stu offers.
She takes a deep breath, settles, stares them dead in the eyes. "Fuck. You," she says. "Fuck both of you."
Billy shrugs, "Guess we deserve that," he says. He meets Stu's eyes, offers a sly wink and together they press down on the knife, letting it sink quickly into her chest, into her heart. They pull it out quickly and the blood gushes out in wild spurts.
They kept their promise, at least.
It doesn't take long.
They don't have time for this to be some long, drawn out, thing. The doorbell could ring any moment and bring a swift end to this.
But Billy does not seem nearly as concerned with finishing this quickly as Stu is. "The plan," Billy mumbles, the words half lost against his mouth. His hand moves over Stu's dick in just the right way, just the way he likes. "Keep going."
And Stu's not quite sure how the hell he's supposed to do that when Billy has him balancing on a knife's edge of release. "Oh, fuck you," he groans, uses every trick he's got to get Billy unwound, too – every bit of knowledge he's gained in a year of mapping out his body. He smirks when Billy's grip on him fumbles a bit, but it doesn't stop him.
"Come on," Billy coaxes again, urging him closer and closer to the edge, until he has him right up on it. Billy knows him too well, knows exactly what to do to him, knows what every deliberate twist of his wrist will do, what reaction every bit of pressure in the right place will cause. And then he backs off with no warning, smirks at the desperate, needy whine he manages to drag out of him at the sudden loss of contact. "Tell me," he presses between clumsy kisses. "We're running out of time. Don't make me leave you like this. What's next?"
"We kill Sidney," he manages, "And then we gotta kill our killer." He leans his head back when Billy finally resumes his previous rhythm, throttling Stu back toward the edge of release and quickly has him coming, hard and fast. He is unsurprised when Billy's hand winds its way around his neck, Billy's hands always seem to find their way there when they're like this. Still, his breath catches at the contact, at the thumb that trails its way up to his mouth, pressing at his lips, slipping inside. He bites it lightly, and wishes they had time for more. But that will have to wait, he thinks, even as Billy finishes, too. Next time will be different, next time they'll be free to litter each other's bodies with bruises and bite-marks. Next time will be like a prize to be claimed if they can just make it through tonight, through whatever tomorrow brings them.
Now, they have to deal with Neil Prescott.
Stu hits the distraught father hard in the head, enough to keep him from fighting back when they cut the tape that binds him. It takes some work, but they get him into the spare costume – they've been sure to wipe blood from the victims on the fabric whenever they could. They shove a mask – though not one either of them has worn – over his head long enough for his DNA to be on it. They pull it off again and toss it aside. They wipe the phone and the voice-box down of their own fingerprints and apply Prescott's accordingly.
Then the two of them prepare for the last murder of the evening. Stu stands behind the man, bracing him in place, raises Prescott's arm to his neck while Billy shoves the blade into his hand. Together they drag the man's hand across his own neck, watch the blood flow freely as the life drains from his face.
Just like that, the villain of their story is finally slain.
They exchange satisfied grins over the dead man's shoulder and let him drop, unceremoniously, to the floor beside his daughter.
"After we're done with them, we've got to be fast," Billy says.
They've spent a lot of time figuring out how to get away with this crime spree. Last year, with Maureen, they'd been lucky. Left things to chance that they shouldn't have, left things that could have gotten them caught if the right person had looked at the right thing. Not this time.
So they've watched a lot more than horror movies in the interim. Delved into forensics – the growing sciences of fingerprints and blood spatter and DNA. And they've planned it all out in great detail.
There's a loose cinderblock in the basement wall, the perfect hiding place. The police will never find it. It's not like they have a lot of reason to suspect anything to be hidden here – this is just the stage dressing for the final act, as far as they're concerned, nothing more. There won't be anything of interest to them off the ground floor – they might take a cursory look, but there will be nothing for them to find. They'll stash the spare costumes there, the spare knives, the tape they used to bind Prescott.
They've taken long enough and there's still so much to do and there's always a chance someone comes looking for Dewey when he doesn't answer his police radio. Always a chance one of the kids who left the party to look for Himbry tells the cops about the lie and sets off the right alarm bells.
"I'll do one last run, make sure everything's good to go," Stu says. "Meet you in the basement."
Billy nods and the two of them split off.
Billy goes downstairs, ensures that all the things that incriminate them are stowed away. He cleans up quickly, too, trades out his corn-syrup covered clothing for a fresh t-shirt and jeans. He stashes his ruined clothes away with the rest of the evidence.
Stu, meanwhile, does a last check around the house, makes a brief stop in the living room to retrieve the hidden camera, another brief stop to retrieve the tape where he'd left it outside, bolts up to his room to stash both in a box in his closet before he joins Billy in the basement for his own quick change of clothes, just to be safe.
They return to the kitchen together. It's time for the last step.
Okay, so there are two things Stu is worried about. Sidney getting away from them and blowing the whole plan, that's one. The other is the stabbing.
"It's gonna suck," he says, rather obviously. They're off the bed now, cleaning up and making hasty clothing adjustments. He's swapping out his short-sleeve button up for a baggy sweater to combat the chill in the evening air. Billy's on the other side of the room monopolizing the mirror in an attempt to make his hair look its usual controlled level of messy as opposed to whatever chaos Stu had left it in.
"Yeah, but it's kinda cool, isn't it?" Billy counters, that dark and dangerous look in his eyes again when he catches Stu's eye in the mirror's reflection. He crosses the room and pulls Stu into another kiss, and his hand moves over the spot on Stu's abdomen he'll stab later, like it's already done.
And there is a part of Stu that finds the whole thing absurdly romantic, some Romeo and Juliet bullshit. He likes the idea of bearing a mark Billy put on him for the rest of his life – just like he'd liked the temporary version he'd been left with the other night. He likes the idea of marking Billy the same way.
His own hands find their way under Billy's shirt once more, settle where he'll lay his claim, too. "It is," he agrees, "It is."
"You ready?" Billy asks, pulling the other boy into a sound kiss as they stand together in the bloody ruins of the kitchen.
They lean together, foreheads pressed to each other's as they revel in their work, in this moment. "Yeah, babe," Stu says. "Let's do this."
Stu takes the knife first.
"Stay to the side, don't go too deep," Billy reminds him, a bit unnecessarily – they've gone over it a thousand times since Billy first suggested this part of the plan. He curls his hand into the material of Stu's sweater, holds tight as he braces for the impact of the blade.
"I know, I know," he says, quietly, hesitantly, like maybe he doesn't want to do this after all. But he takes a deep, steadying breath and strikes swiftly. The knife sinks into Billy's left side, not too deep, but deep enough to look real. There's no safe place to get stabbed, but Stu does his best to stay away from anything that could kill him quickly. One, two, three quick stabs, all clustered close together and it's done. The blood blossoms out, staining the crisp new shirt with red bursts of color. Billy doubles over, grips at the wound, hisses in pain, but it had to be done.
But then it's his turn to wield the knife.
Stu offers it to him like a prize and he takes it, gives it a cursory wipe on Prescott's costume, just for good measure. As much as he wants to touch Stu, to brace him through this, he doesn't. Doesn't need his blood in places where it shouldn't be should anyone look too closely. A shoulder slash first, they decided, and then some sort of defensive wound. It seems likely that at least one of them would fight back, not everyone could be caught off guard. So he makes a slice across Stu's arm, like he'd dodged a more damaging blow, and another across his hand, like he'd tried to grab the knife. Then it's onto the real deal. He settles the blade over Stu's right side and strikes quickly.
What comes after is a little bit tricky.
"We wait five minutes, tops, then we call it in if the cops haven't shown up yet," Billy says, still talking him through the plan. They need it to look legit, like they couldn't have stopped the killer's master plan. But they can't wait too long, either – no matter that they'll be aiming for less fatal spots, they'll still be losing blood. One of them will have to get to the phone.
Still, it's not a thing they're overly worried about, getting help in time. In the grand scheme of everything they have planned, it seems like a minimal concern.
"We got this," Billy says, one more time, the words sound like a promise. "You and me."
Downstairs, the doorbell rings. The first party guests must have arrived.
"You and me," Stu echoes.
One minute.
Two.
Billy's slumped on the floor, leaned against the counter, clear of the pooling blood from Sidney and her father. Stu's over by the desk, by the phone, ready to call when time is up. The knife is where it needs to be, back in Prescott's bloody hand. It's all going fine, all going perfectly according to plan.
Three minutes.
"Billy?"
"What?"
"I'm… feelin' a little woozy here," Stu says, and when Billy looks over at the other boy, he's instantly alarmed by just how pale Stu's gone so quickly, just how much blood has already pooled around him. Shit.
"Fuck," he says, their timeline immediately scrapped. He crawls his way over, leaving a trail of his own blood as well as smearing his way through the pools of blood from Sidney and Neil. "Fuck, Stu, hold on." He gets his hands on Stu's side, holding pressure on the wounds he inflicted – must've gone too deep, too dangerous. Too much blood. For once, he doesn't like the sight of it, doesn't like the stark red on Stu's skin, doesn't like knowing he put it there.
"Stu, come on," he tries, he can tell how hard Stu is fighting to stay conscious, there's something worryingly absent in his eyes when he finally manages to look at Billy. "Stay awake."
"Sorry, Billy," Stu slurs at him, reaches out a bloody hand which clings loosely to his bloody shirt. "I think I might've messed up the plan big time."
"You didn't mess up shit," Billy counters, presses a little harder on Stu's side – ignores the wince because at least that means Stu's still awake and with it enough to react to the pain. "Just… hold on, okay?"
"I'm tryin', babe," he says, "Told you I wouldn't ever leave you, right?"
"You're damn right you did, and I'm holding you to that," he says, panic flaring in his chest at the thought that no matter what Stu promised, he could lose him like this. He reaches up, and without letting go of Stu, manages to knock the phone loose from its cradle, uses the cord to pull the whole thing down to the floor with them.
"Billy, I-"
"Shut up. Don't you dare, Stu," he snaps, doesn't care what Stu has to say right now. It can wait. It will wait. There is not another option. He doesn't want to hear this, not now, and not like this. If it's gonna be a goodbye, he'd rather not hear it at all. "Don't you fucking dare."
He dials 911. As soon as he's sure there's a person on the other end of the line, he blurts out, "261 Turner Lane." He can't fight the raw terror edging into his voice when he looks at Stu again – he's so pale, so cold and clammy, the blood pool is still getting bigger. "The killer was here – he's dead, but a lot of people are hurt, I think. We need help," he says. "Send an ambulance, as fast as you can. Maybe send a few - I've been stabbed, my friend's been stabbed. I don't know if anyone else is still alive." He hangs up, then, before they can badger him about staying on the line.
"I love you," Stu manages to get the words out before Billy can stop him this time, and with the effort it takes him, it's clear just how much he means it. "And I swear I'm not leaving you. Not now, not ever."
And Billy doesn't know if he believes that right now, not with the way Stu looks – like he's half-dead already. "You do and I'm coming with you," he admits, though he'd had no intention of doing so. "You die, I die. You and me."
The words seem to rally something in the other boy. He forces himself to focus just that little bit more. "You and me," he echoes.
Somewhere in the near distance, the shrill wail of sirens sounds.