Billy and Stu

"Scream" Fanfiction. Rated: T

(Just a Billy Loomis and Stu Macher friendship story with a twist on "Scream" itself)

"Not in my movie." Sidney pulled the trigger. Billy's head jerked backed and he lay there motionless. The crowd cheered. Sidney's dad burst onto the stage still gagged. The audience tensed at yet another perfectly timed jump scare. Billy relaxed deeply, knowing that delivery was playing out better than hoped and that the play would soon be over. All he had to do was play dead for a few more minutes while the heroes took care of Sidney's father. He tried hard to breath while not moving his chest, steeling his muscles to lock in place. He knew one guy out there in the audience would be scrutinizing him to see if he would mess up as an actor by carelessly being a fidgeting corpse – an amateur mistake. He would not give him the satisfaction of reproaching his performance. The actress playing Gale began her closing dialogue as the spotlight fixated on her stage left on a blank part of the set representing most of the scenes that required an immediate transition outside. The actress was confident. She was pretty. She was a senior and had been in nearly all of the school plays since pretty much forever and this was to be her last role at the high school. She let her real satisfaction mingle with her character as she held up her plastic microphone and began, "Hi. This is Gale Weathers."

Finally, the lights had faded to black on the main set while Gale ended the show and Billy was freed from the suspended animation he had imposed on himself. He, Stu, Sidney, and the remaining cast quickly assembled in the dark for the final applause. He could feel Stu and Sidney smiling back at him even though he could barely see them. They knew they had done well as the lights went up and they held hands and graciously accepted the genuine applause.

"I still can't believe you talked me into this, Billy," Stu said as they grinned while their parents took pictures of the boys arm in arm, both of them soaked in sweat and fake blood. Now came Sidney's turn to take just photos of him and her. He was feeling increasingly bold and suddenly took hold of her and planted a deep kiss on her lips embracing her with a slight dip. The polaroid cameras flashed. Normally, she would have protested his forwardness, but they were all riding the high of the moment.

It was Friday night and only 9:30 when they had left the cast party. It was slow but worth going to as far as most were concerned. The whole cast was tired and winding down. Stu was going to spend the night at Billy's house as he often did. They were both still in their bloody clothes, hair matted to their heads in sweat and funk of the day. "Don't lay on my bed. Just sit in the floor until it's your turn to shower." Billy said.

"Oh, yes master. Forgive my filth master." Stu made a purposefully stupid face. "Hey, btw, why is your character always bossing my character around? I'm not your 'lapdog'. 'Lapdog'? Really? Is that what you guys think of me?"

"Well, you do kinda follow me around everywhere like a lost puppy." Billy tensed as he immediately regretted the words he had just said. He knew Stu was only being half-serious, but he realized he might have just hurt his buddy's feelings. He sheepishly looked up to his friend's face to see the damage he had done. Stu just sat there Indian style, frozen as he processed the words, mouth hanging open slightly with lips partially revealing his frontmost teeth. He loved Billy and knew his friend didn't mean to offend him. He was going to let it slide. Besides, he would have ample opportunity to avenge himself by annoying Billy the rest of the evening.

"Well, I can't help it." Stu began again. "It's those boyish good looks of yours that keep me coming back." He jumped up and went ahead of Billy into the bathroom as he spoke. "Hey by the way, it will be much faster if we shower together and we won't have to wait on each other." He said as he began taking off his outer shirt.

"See, and that's another thing," Billy said. "What was with all the homoeroticism you were doing with your character? I mean coming up behind me and resting your head on my shoulder was a nice touch and all, but it was everything I could do to keep from breaking character and telling you 'Dude, get off me.' But, did you have to twiddle Randy's ear? I didn't write any of that ya know. You did that to yourself.

"Ya know, you're even cuter when you're mad." Stu said as he stripped off his filthy shirt and proceeded to unbuckle his pants."

"Get out, Stu. Now!" Billy's face was reddening quickly with anger and embarrassment. Stu giggled as he pranced out, quite pleased with himself. Billy slammed the bathroom door shut nearly clipping his friend. Stu wasn't gay, but he certainly loved to push the envelope just to mess with people. Billy's anger quickly faded and he let himself grin as he kicked his friends clothes out of the way.

Billy rested his head on the shower wall. The hot water felt so good. He was exhausted but trying to gather strength in order to stay up late with his friend. The house had been so empty since his mom had died a few years ago to cancer. He was grateful for his best friend. It was just him and his dad when Stu or Sidney weren't there. It was a miracle he did not really go on a murder spree from the boredom. It was only natural that him and Sidney would have been drawn together as her parents had been through a bad divorce and her mom had moved away with her new husband. But she had been rather distant lately. He worried he had pushed her too hard with the play. Perhaps he had drawn way too heavily from reality when he wrote his play, "Scream". But the drama teacher and the whole class loved his rough draft so much, they all but insisted to make it the Spring semester show. But at what cost? Did he write it as a way to cope with his mother's seemingly pointless death? The counselor did ask to see him after reading the script. He didn't even bother to change the names, which made it funnier to the class as many of them, including local police officers, and newscasters had a part in the show. The content was shocking. But it was the 90's. It was a sleepy town. As long they made a few tweaks here and there, and Billy and Sidney had spoken with the counselor about keeping a healthy mental distance between the play and real life, the adults in the community had decided that it was all in good fun. Indeed, the whole town showed up for the performance, even the real Gale Weathers. The auditorium was packed every show for two weeks. Gale even gave a shout-out on the evening News. The drama teacher and principal knew it would be much more successful than watching high school students try to tackle the complexities of Macbeth. A student-written slasher play was bit of a gamble, but it had clearly payed off. Billy and even more so, Sidney, were famous now – at least as far as the county was concerned.

Maybe she was subconsciously mad at him for being so personal with the subject matter of their mothers. He was in fact kind of making a side-show out of it, even if it was meant to be a fantastic parody, nothing more. Or worse, maybe she was scared of him. He was disturbingly good at bringing Billy Loomis to life. It was true that him and Stu loved horror movies. The boys were notorious for watching things they shouldn't. Billy's dad often cut Billy a lot of slack the last few years and Stu's parents were both very busy at work constantly. Maybe he had just simply seen too much evil at a young age. Maybe he was Billy Loomis inside and the play was just a preview of him working his way to the surface.

"Hey, Billy, I gotta wizz." Stu banged on the door obnoxiously hard startling Billy out of his deep thoughts to the point where he almost slipped in the shower.

"Use the downstairs bathroom, Stu." His voiced was slightly louder than it needed to be.

"Your dad's in there, man!"

"Go outside!"

"It's cold, Billy. I don't think I'm gonna make it."

Billy resigned himself to his fate and awkwardly leaned half out of the shower to clumsily unlock the door before retreating back behind the curtain into the warmth of the shower.

"If you miss, wipe it up." He said loudly.

"Hey, I always clean up after myself. You're the gross one. You should have smelled yourself tonight. You should have seen my face contorting trying to resist the B.O. and stay in character. That dime store deodorant you use is noooooot working. It just added a chalky smell to your already rich bouquet. Poor Sidney." A hand holding a can of shaving cream came eerily out of from behind the shower curtain and aimed at the back of Stu's head. He suspected nothing as he zipped himself up and proceeded to flush the toilet. A hissing swirling sound frightened Stu as he felt the back of his head and neck get slathered in shaving cream.

Both of the boys laughed heartily as Stu backed away to the far wall desperately trying to escape as Billy emptied the can and proceeded grab for the hairspray. Stu managed to escape as the hairspray hissed to life and filled the bathroom with stench of aerosol chemicals.

Billy's dad stood in the bedroom doorway. "I came up here to see what all the yelling was about and if you boys needed anything. I'm going to the store." He tried to keep a straight face as he looked at Stu's ridiculous appearance. "Boys" his tone was playfully judgmental. "You're almost grown. Please behave and don't destroy my house here at the end."

"Yes sir." Stu said also trying to keep a straight face. He saluted with his hand covered in fake dried blood and shaving cream.

"Ok." He dismissed himself from their nonsense and proceeded to the store.

Around 11:00 pm the two of them were clean and in fresh shorts and t-shirts. They had thrown their dirty clothes in the garbage, simply giving up on the concept that they would ever be fit for human wear again in a mound of gore and fabric that overfilled the kitchen garbage. The two of them had destroyed the kitchen making pasta, popcorn, pudding from a mix, whatever random food looked good. They had also not neglected to raid the beer fridge in the garage. His dad had kept an inordinate amount purposefully so if Billy and Stu wanted to be bad, he would never notice if they snuck a few. The poor boy was an only child and motherless. He wanted the boy to have as much fun as he could. He had also spoiled him with a very large bed that the boys were now littering with food and a very large, heavy 90's television.

"Gee, Billy, what do you want to watch tonight?"

"The same thing we do every night Stu - a scary movie."