I love the idea of everyone living and going back to high school with their new Scary Dog privileges in the form of Billy coming back with them.
Billy whose funeral half the women of Hawkins attended a year ago that now doesn’t speak to any of them. Billy who no longer has his loud Camaro but instead is dropped off and picked up everyday with his sister Max and Robin Buckley by Steve Harrington of all people.
Billy who gets into a bloody fistfight with Jason after Jason goes after Eddie for “stealing” Chrissy from him. It’s Eddie who pulls Billy off Jason even with his own busted lip from Jason’s first swing. But it’s Chrissy who stands over Jason and tells him if he tries that again they won’t stop Billy next time.
None of Lucas’s old basketball friends will go anywhere near him even though in their eyes he betrayed them for Eddie because they all know Lucas started dating Billy’s little sister again and they’re not sure if they’re more afraid of Billy coming to Lucas’s defense or Max. Lucas still plays though just to spite them all because the town now considers him a hero to the team. But the players don’t do anything because every game you can see all of Lucas’s friends plus Steve and Billy sitting next to the Sinclairs while Erica simultaneously rips apart every one of Lucas’s moves while cheering him on louder than anyone else does.
Someone trips Dustin in the hallway and somehow they end up on their ass on the tiled floor watching a blond mullet walk away while Dustin giggles and runs after him.
They find out he’s a much better tutor than Nancy or Robin despite those two being the smartest in the group and now he’s solely responsible for ensuring Eddie’s graduation and pulling up Eleven’s failing math scores.
Billy whose created his own game of flipping off Jonathan anytime he sees him just for fun but who is the only person who is able to talk to Will about his love life in a way that has Will actually feeling hopeful about what his future could hold.
Billy who “hates” everyone, who doesn’t want to listen to Dustin and Robin’s long winded conversations, who makes fun of both the Wheeler’s like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, who gives Eddie shit about his musical taste and hits on Chrissy like he’s planning to swipe her out from under Eddie’s nose despite all of them knowing Billy’s spent more nights at Steve’s house since he got back than Max’s. But a Billy who doesn’t go anywhere. He can only give them that much shit because he sits with them at lunch, studies with them after school, and supervises El’s trips out of the house.
Just Billy whose presence alone protects all of them but who also subtly goes out of his way to keep all of them happy and healthy. He complains while the girls braid his hair, and calls everyone nerds while still sitting down with the D&D character created for him to play a game he doesn’t understand.
They know he’s not all bark and no bite, his bites are ruthless and brutal, and never aimed at them. Scary Dog privileges for all 😌
was skimming through sadie’s yahoo interview to get to the billy parts and she says sth along the lines of ‘billy was the greatest source of pain in max’s life’ and instinctively i was like. how about her abusive stepfather lol. but, like, that’s the thing? billy spent the entire time he knew max placing himself as a shield between her and the man he knew his father to be, so that max would never have to find out for herself.
billy’s last and only source of affection can be traced back to his mother, who, if we accept canon, left him alone with an irascible and violence-prone father at a very early age, so it’s not inconceivable to presume that billy’s idea of affection is, not an active display of tenderness, but the absence of violence. his love language is protecting the people he loves from what he knows is worse using the only method he’s familiar with, namely a watered-down version of neil’s abuse. billy uses intimidation and the threat of violence, hoping those’ll scare max into behaving in a way that doesn’t make her a target in neil’s eyes.
in a way, this is paralleled in billy’s ‘you were moving your feet. plant them next time’ at steve, which, taken into the context of the basketball scene, feels excessive, but. it’s actually a pretty solid piece of advice? billy shoves steve to the ground and then, instead of helping him up once, provides him with the tip he’ll need to never get beaten again. it’s billy’s way of saying ‘life is hard, and i’m here to prove it to you now so you’re not forced to realize it later.’ it’s his way of taking back some of the control he’s never had by teaching the people he cares about what he’s known from a very young age, and making them earn the lessons he’s had violently seared into him.
in max’s eyes, and in steve’s, billy’s behavior obviously translates to cruelty, because neither of them are as desensitized to violence the way billy’s been conditioned to. they don’t understand why they need to be exposed to it in the first place, and it’s natural to view billy as the primary source of it, when, in reality, billy’s trying, in his warped way, to shield them from a marginally worse display of cruelty.
billy’s willing to be the bad guy, both because he doesn’t know any other way of professing his affection for the people important to him, and because he knows, all too well, that, if he doesn’t teach them the lessons he’s been taught his whole life now, in his own mitigated terms, someone else, heartless and merciless, will do it later.
i am in severe distress. i am vibing. i am king of the world. i am bored. i am lost at sea. i am making coffee. i am foraging in the forest. i am making tea. i am chasing pigeons. i am napping in a chair
