#westword made one of the mcpoyle brothers a tormented sexy badboy and I don't know how to deal with that

[thekimspoblog]

The 2nd Trip

For a while now, I've wanted to write more fanfiction about the stomach-turning star-crossed romance between William and Dolores. I mean the plot-twist at the end of Season 1 just recontextualizes their entire affair in a deliciously awful way. And in Season 2, we do get a lot more insight into how he became the Man in Black (especially Episode 9). But I still feel like there are a lot of gaps left to fill in, about how he "got bored" with Dolores. So here are some ideas I've had for that:

(I already wrote this scene) William has been invited to dinner at the Abernathy Ranch house, as a thank-you for saving Dolores from bandits earlier that day. When Peter pulls Billy aside to give him the suspicious-patriarch routine, William drops the facade and explains that he wants Dolores to remember him, so he can take her out of the park. Later, while stargazing, Dolores talks about how she feels like Teddy doesn't really understand her, and invites William to the barn for a roll in the hay.

The pair set off on a narrative (presumably one of Ford's) to recover a curative flower from the top of a cliffside, which will supposedly heal Dolores's sick mother. However, somewhere along the way, the two will get side-tracked and end up looking for some sort of more abstract treasure, backstage in the labs. The Forge hasn't been built yet, but maybe this is where William gets the idea?

Along this journey, Dolores finds Teddy's body dumped in a ditch somewhere. Naturally she's horrified and bereaved. What William doesn't remember (or maybe has chosen to forget) is that he did this - this was about more than just eliminating the competition; he was playing Teddy's role. Maybe he thought it was the most efficient way to win Dolores over... or maybe he just wanted to go back to pretending to be the good guy.

They ride the train together again, and maybe for a second it even seems like he's been able to jog her memory. But the sad fact is the spark is gone. It's not her; she hasn't changed one bit; every time on the train is her first time. But he's changed; this story holds no surprises for him this time around, so what's the fun? He still loves Dolores... at least he thinks he does... but he can see her puppet strings this time. Honestly, it's a horrible thing to say, but if romancing someone can be boiled down to an easy-to-follow dialogue tree... what's the point of consent? None of it was ever consensual, because she doesn't even know where she is! Whatever, all the more reason she needs to be taken out of this horror show.

Having successfully smuggled/bought Dolores's freedom, they get a condo in the city together. Dolores is very clearly a fish out of water in this new environment, but she's his manic pixie dream girl so all the repetitions/stutters/glitches are just part of the charm. I mean William had obvious contempt for Peter Abernathy when he was doing the same thing earlier in this story, but it's fine I'm sure there's no issues hiding there. Anyway, some of Dolores's strange behavior is cute, but her sleepwalking is causing a serious problem. William keeps getting called down to the Sheriff's station at 2 am, because Dolores was walking down the highway in a trance. This leads William to start doing more to lock her in the apartment at night, but naturally this only makes Dolores angry and distrustful. She's becoming more and more insistent that she wants to go back to her father, despite William trying to convince her that that man was never her father. This escalates to Dolores attacking William with a kitchen knife in an attempt to escape. And now William decides to cross a line he can't uncross: he tries to reprogram her into something more manageable.

Eventually Ford tracks William down and politely explains that Dolores must be returned to the park; whoever agreed to sell her in the first place has been fired (read: killed), and now Robert is here to correct this misunderstanding in-person. He explains that the hosts' cognitions begin to break down when they are out-of-range of the CR4DL, and that William is hurting her by taking her away from her family and the rest of her species. There will come a day when the hosts are ready to walk on the outside, but Dolores is still learning; she belongs under the watchful eye of her creator. William chews Ford out, for supposedly loving his robots like children and yet still raising them in a woodchipper. Ford gives Billy the standard "only suffering brings enlightenment" speech.

Meanwhile, Logan has finally been rescued by an EVAC team, and is slowly regaining his sanity in a hospital bed somewhere on the mainland. Naturally, his first thought is to adamantly warn Juliet about what William did, that he doesn't really love her, and the lies he will tell that she shouldn't listen to. But years of a strained relationship with her brother lead Juliet to give William the benefit of the doubt. William answers believably enough; he did get lost in a fantasy, but he's sobering up now and he remembers why he loved her. Westworld is too important a project for Delos not to invest in it, so yes, he will have to continue business with the park. But even if the hosts are sentient, according to Ford, Dolores was only brought online roughly twelve years ago. Frankly, William is disgusted with himself now!

Years later, Juliet visits the Mariposa. She's developed a real hatred for this park, this business, but she had to come here; this was important. She needs to have a frank chat with Dolores. Not even out of jealousy, more out of fear. What has her husband been doing to this poor woman? And how much restraint does he actually have from doing the same to her and Emily? In the background "Jolene" by Dolly Parton tinkles away on the player piano.

The Man in Black arrives in Sweetwater again, and threatens a fellow guest for trying to pick up the can of peaches, insisting that he be the first in line. He takes Dolores to Escalante, where they have a tea party among the sand dunes. It's clear at this point, William doesn't regard Dolores as a full person, but he's still content to have her as company while he mulls some things over out-loud. He talks about his hatred for rich snobs, how he would throttle James Delos if it were only legal to do so. How Juliet grew up rich and he didn't, and because of that there will always be unspoken resentment between them. Dolores recites the same script from the first chapter of this story, about her dissatisfaction with Teddy. William muses that that would make them both adulterers, and maybe that's not much of a sin compared to other ones. Maybe having one foot in the real world and one foot in the park, is the closest he's ever going to get to happy.

William wakes up on the train headed into the park again. The whole time we've been reading this story, it wasn't a flash-back; it was a simulation in the Forge. And Ford didn't write the medicinal flower narrative; William wrote this story for himself because part of his brain desperately wants Dolores to forgive him for the abuse. But she can't because she's not there; she's already left him behind in the dust. All this guilt, heartbreak and obsession has kept him reliving the past 30 years over and over again, trying to make sense of where he went wrong, why he couldn't have just played White-Hat like he was supposed to. But when Dolores is attacked by bandits again, this time lead by the Man in Black, William realizes that the only thing he could have done to break the loop was to let go entirely. To quit the park cold-turkey. Wish Dolores well, knowing that she'll mature eventually, but for better or worse, he and his perverse sentimentality can't be around for it.

#cw noncon #westworld #willores #dolores abernathy #dolores x william #westworld spoilers #fanfiction #undertale flowey #jimmi simpson #westword made one of the mcpoyle brothers a tormented sexy badboy and I don't know how to deal with that #just enough of a nabokov homage to make it cringe