Love and Loneliness

Cold

Authors Note: Okay, here I am with a Code Lyoko fanfiction starring William Dunbar in his sexy glory. This story is one I've been working on for a long time, I originally posted this on fanfiction around 2012 or so. I've been working hard on this story as well as a few others! Hope you like it! This has been posted on Fanfiction, Archives of Our Own, and Wattpad.

Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko at all. I am not affiliated with the it in any way. All rights belong to Thomas Romain, Tania Palumbo, and Moonscoop. I don't intend of making any sort of profit on this. I merely write this for fun. The only thing I do own is my OCs but that's it. Thank you for understanding.

TW: This story is rated T and it will stay that way, so the biggest warnings that I could give is that there will be some language, violence, and sexual content but all of it is mild. Basically it's a story surrounding a bunch of teenagers, there's nothing too worthy to note for any trigger warnings for this story that I can think of.

As of 7/15/22: This cover was made using picrew, so I didn't draw it, you can find it here: https://picrew.me/image_maker/1744829

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Chapter 1: Cold

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The rain are the tears I can't cry...

Wandering in the quiet solitude while the other students of Kadic Academy slept, William Dunbar found himself wandering aimlessly during the dead of night, finding the atmosphere fit his current somber mood. A storm raged on this particular winter's night, the clouds a black void, the rain pelted him like needles, and the frigid gale pierced him like a dagger. He was getting soaked, the cold howling at him to get back inside, but he didn't care. The rain continued its torrential downpour, streaming down his face giving him the illusion of him crying. He felt tears sting his eyes, threatening to fall, but made an attempt to suppress them by ducking his head down, tightly gripping his shirt, and clenching his teeth. Nevertheless, he walked on before finally settling to sit down on a bench, deep in his anhedonia. 

Lately everything seemed to be a blur, as if he was running on autopilot. Only just a couple weeks ago, when he first returned to Earth, everything was hazy, initially so unaware of how much time had passed. He soon found out he was taken prisoner and possessed by XANA, trapped on Lyoko for several months. Reality hit him like a ton of bricks, it had been agonizing. Just like that, precious life moments he could've spent with them were sucked away.

He recounted everything, from his first time going to Lyoko for the first time with Aelita on a mission to protect the core of Lyoko and got separated from Aelita as monsters attacked him. Then a strange jellyfish called the Scyphozoa appeared and he became possessed by XANA. Under the influence of XANA, he attempted to kill his friends' countless times. In order to avoid suspicion, Jeremie had to make a clone of him, but said clone ended up being entirely unlike him and lacked any sort of common sense. His classmates either thought he was playing up acting a fool or questioned his sanity altogether. Worse yet, his parents even began worrying about him and he came back just in time to reassure them that he was alright. Every night, nightmares of the times he was possessed by XANA haunted his mind, sometimes he'd even jolt awake crying. Worse yet, the rest of the gang began to push him away. To them, he was just a thorn in their sides that they couldn't pull out, nothing more than an annoyance.

Ulrich always gave him scornful looks and would openly criticize him to the others, reminding him of how much he screwed up. Sometimes he'd overhear Ulrich talking shit about him and there were times they'd get into arguments, there were times they'd get into arguments, just short of beating each other to a pulp. Especially in regards to their affections for Yumi, Ulrich had always been quite possessive over her, getting jealous quite easily. He had thought Ulrich was a decent guy, but in the end, it seemed he hated him anyway.