the grim reaper needs a hug
background on my story
I’ve been talking to friends recently on the story that I wrote (if you haven’t read it yet, certainly don’t read this post yet), and I have since thought about the origins of the characters. There are mentions of sexual assault and suicide and murder. It’s mild, but be advised.
Will
The first time Will ever killed someone, he was ten years old. A man broke into his house while his mother was working the night shift at the hospital. Will was home alone with his younger brother.
The man who broke in was only going to rob the house. He did not expect to find Will’s younger brother, Josh, to be sleeping on the couch. He did not expect Josh to wake up and scream. The man only meant to quiet him down, but he accidentally suffocated Josh to death with a pillow.
Will woke up to his younger brother’s screams and watched the man kill him. Will grabbed the fire poker. It was heavy. He hit the man as hard as he could in his legs. The man fell. Will kept hitting the man, bashing his brains in long after he was dead.
His mother found Will the next morning sleeping next to his brother on the couch, covered in blood.
The second time Will killed someone, the events that enacted the killings started when he was seventeen. He was walking home from the movies with his then-girlfriend, Marcia. They were jumped by three men in an alley. Marcia was sexually assaulted and Will was nearly beaten to death.
When the men were arrested and only given five years of jail time, Will was angry. When Marcia took her life, Will thought that those men should have beaten him to death, because he was going to hurt those men like they hurt her.
One by one, as they were released from prison, Will took their lives.
How did he get away with it? I don’t know, he just did.
50% of murders don’t get solved. That’s what the internet says anyway.
Will kills people because he likes to. He also kills people who he thinks deserve to be killed. It could be something as easy as someone pissing him off by cutting him off in traffic or someone being rude to a customer service worker.
Will and Bee
The first time Will ever saw Bee was when she was planting her garden. She had moved into the neighborhood a few weeks prior, but this was the first time he ever saw her.
She was pushing a wheelbarrow of stones, and he was on his usual morning jog. She was straining to push the heavy load wherever she wanted it to go. Will slowed his jog, and stopped at her fence.
“You need any help?” Will asked.
She looked up, not startled to see him there.
“No, thanks, I got it,” she said. She dropped the wheelbarrow in place, stones still in it, and picked up a shovel.
She turned over the soil, and Will watched for a few seconds. She had short red hair, kept out of her face by a bandana. She was lean, and she had so many freckles on her face that Will could see them from over thirty feet away.
He kept jogging.
On his way home, she was still outside gardening. The stones were set up nicely, separating the different sections of garden. She was on her knees, small shovel in hand, planting seeds.
Will stopped again.
“My name is Will,” Will said.
She looked up, still not startled to see him there.
“Hi again,” she said.
“I live in the neighborhood,” Will said.
“Me too,” she said. Then she laughed. “My name is Bee,” Bee said.
“Bea, like Beatrice or like the bug?” Will asked.
“Like the bug,” she said.
“Really?” Will asked.
“My name is Phoebe, but my friends call me Bee,” she said.
That made Will pause. “Are we friends?” he asked.
“Well, we are now,” she said simply, “we’re at least neighbors, yeah?”
“Yeah, okay” he said.
When Will falls in love with Bee, it’s a forever kind of love. She thinks that she can save him from wanting to kill people. She can’t. It creates a wedge in their relationship that they can’t really fix.
Bee falls in love with Will first. He’s at her house, and a few of their friends are there. They’re playing card games. It’s the third time he’s lost, and he is fuming. She laughs so hard that his ears turn red from embarrassment. Then, she realized that she loved him. The world tilted on its axis a little after that for her.
Will falls harder. He doesn’t even realize that he’s in love with her until he gets a phone call from Holly that Bee was robbed at knifepoint. He raced to the hospital and thought that he was going to fight two nurses to get to her room.
Bee had a thin cut across her cheek and her nose, some bruised knuckles, and a bruise on her head. Sitting next to her was a small trash bin with napkins covered in blood.
“What happened?” Will demanded.
“Ah, Holly called you,” Bee said casually.
“Phoebe,” Will said, “are you okay?”
“I’m fine, it’s nothing,” she said.
“It’s not nothing,” Will said, “it’s you.”
“You should’ve seen the other guy. I think I got a solid punch in, at least,” Bee joked.
Bee flexed her hand, and winced. She tried to hide it with a laugh that wasn’t fooling Will at all.
“You fought back?” Will asked. Bee nodded.
“You should’ve just given him your wallet and gotten out of there,” Will said, frustrated.
The man did not want her wallet, he wanted her wallet and he wanted to rape her. Bee managed to punch him in the throat and the eye, distracting him long enough to allow her to run and find help. She never tells Will about the almost sexual assault. He figures it out though, and he finds the man, and he kills him.
He stays with her for the entire hospital visit. He only stepped out of the room when the police came to ask her questions.
He waited in the hallway for an eternity, not really wondering why he was so enraged. He just knew that he felt it. His chest was knotted up and tight. It entirely masked his relief that Bee was okay.
You can think whatever you want about their future, but I don’t see their relationship working out. Bee would have to make a change in her core personality, or Will would have to stop killing people. He’s really good at it, and he likes doing it. He loves Bee though, so he tries to stop. He succeeds for a long time, but he can’t hold off the urge forever. He’s the grim reaper, but even the grim reaper needs a hug.
How did Will come to fall in love with Bee? He has no idea. It was like falling asleep for him, or more like waking up.
Holly and Bee
Bee gets her nickname from Holly. They met in middle school, back when Bee just went by Phoebe. They were on the school bus together, and a bee flew in through the window.
Holly is allergic to bees, and she freaked out when it landed on her arm. Phoebe was sitting behind Holly, and she swatted it away, back out the window. It wasn’t without casualty though, because Bee was stung on her hand.
It didn’t hurt too badly, but Holly freaked out about it.
“I’m so sorry!” Holly said, and she started to cry.
“It’s okay, I’m fine,” Bee said.
When Bee finally calmed her down enough to have a conversation, Holly kept thanking her for “saving her life.” Bee’s stop was before Holly’s, but Holly got off with her.
“What’s your name?” Holly asked.
“I’m Phoebe,” Bee said.
“Phoebe… Bee!” Holly exclaimed.
“There’s another bee?” Bee asked, startled.
“No! It’s you! You’re my Bee!” Holly said.
“I don’t get it,” Bee said.
“You’re my busy Bee, saving my life, putting good into the world, a real killer, you know what I mean?” Holly asked.
Bee really didn’t know what she was saying.
“It’s my new nickname for my new friend,” Holly explained.
Holly interlaced her fingers with Bee’s, and the rest was history. They spent every waking moment together from then on until they graduate from college.
Holly and Bee are soulmates, and Will is the love of Bee’s life.