hyperactive | ic contact || deerington.

Yeah, that's kind of my position?
Like, if I had a guarantee it would work and not full 28 Days Later me, I'd chug these pills down like yesterday's Halloween haul, but.
Blrrbjhgrbgh.

[ everything sucks, basically. news at eleven. ]

Man, you've gotta be something else to go into medical science. A cardiologist, at that? Your dad must be pretty sharp.

[ congrats on being raised by a verifiable genius and managing to avoid getting crippling self-esteem issues, he almost writes, but, well. there's no guarantee that's not something billy has to deal with in much the same way stiles does. a self-deprecating joke at another person's expense doesn't exactly feel like a fun way to keep this conversation flowing, so... heeee backspaces that thought before he sends it. ]

So, uh, not to be gauche, but - what kind of school did you go to back home?
Doctor money might mean, like. Private school. Right?

[ billy laughs a little to himself under his breath. his dad is smart - stiles is right about that - but he can also be very, very oblivious, too. even after billy's face had been plastered all over the news as part of the young avengers, it still took billy telling him in the middle of a fight with the super-skrull for him to actually figure it out. ]

yeah, he's alright.
my mom's a psychologist
so when i'm not being accosted by dad jokes, i'm being psychoanalyzed and told how me eating breakfast while i'm getting ready for school instead of sitting down to eat with my family means i run the risk of developing anti-social behaviors, scoring low on tests, and failing to get into college.
it's great.

[ he loves his parents. honestly. ]

i go to public school.
new york is kind of expensive in general and i've got two younger brothers, too.
if they sent me to private school, they'd have to send all of us, and that's like roughly $100k a year.
even if they did have that kind of money, that's a lot to spend on something you can get for free.

Sounds like you've got a really sweet setup back home.
I mean, super frustrating, don't get me wrong. My dad could put most fortunetellers out of a job with how often he predicts my future, so trust me, I get it. Nostradamus wishes he could doomsay like Sheriff Stilinski.
They sound like nice people, though. Especially if they still love you despite what an anti-social, low-test-scoring wreck you are.

Two younger brothers! Man. I'm an only child. Probably why I never learned how to share.
What're their names?

i imagine being able to read a person and predict their next move(s) is all part of the job.
it's gotta be ten times easier when it's his own son.

[ he thumbs out, we'll see if they still love me after they learn that the reason i've been away for the last six months is because i pulled a parasitic alien with a murder-agenda from another dimension and brought her to new york where she took over the minds of any adult in proximity and resurrected dead parents and has been trying to kill me and my friends ha ha, but... that's a lot, and complicated, and kind of a downer even if it's a legitimate concern of his. he deletes it. ]

their names are andrew (andy) and david
and trust me, i love them to death, but they're so obnoxious
my days as an only child definitely weren't long enough.

Edited 2020-04-01 07:23 (UTC)

I mean, you'd think that, but.

[ there are all those times he's trusted scott over him - and little things, too, little comments that have gotten under his skin because his dad said them like they were right, even when they weren't. stiles wets his lips and considers keeping his mouth shut on a couple of things, too, but - well, venting about his dad who he loves very much is a little different to venting about a parasitic murder alien, so stiles pushes past the flutter of embarrassment and just makes himself open up a little bit. ]

I love him. I do. He's an amazing dad. But.
He thinks he's right when he's not. I've gotta convince him to listen to me, sometimes.
He thinks he knows me more than I know myself? Not on little things, either, like - assuming things about me based on my clothes, or thinking I've screwed something up because I just so happen to have a very long and very intensive history of screwing certain things up -
I'm talking big things. He'll listen to my friends over me, or... assume I'm lying when I'm not.
And, like, I get it? I'm kind of a handful, I know that.
But it took a while for us to connect after my mom died. Mom was kind of the glue holding the three of us together, I think. Dad worked and mom looked after me, so with her gone the house got pretty empty.
And. Yeah.
Wow. Downer.

[ it's not until stiles has sent this shit that he feels sort of stupid and small for doing it, but it's out there and he feels awkward about the prospect of just seamlessly talking about billy's brothers again like he didn't dump weird personal shit about him and his dad on this guy for no reason. no reason other than the fact that this kind of thing has been on his mind, ever since the dementia hit, and he hasn't really had anyone to talk to about it. he feels like he's overshared, though, so his skin's crawling a bit. ugh. ]

Eesh. Sorry.

[ well, this... answers the question he wouldn't let himself ask about stiles' mom, back when they were hanging out at stiles' place, sharing a pizza and watching a movie. billy can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for stiles to lose his mother, what it would be like if he lost his. it'd been painful enough to stand in front of her and look her in he eyes while she was under the control of mother, knowing that it wasn't his mother looking back at him - but at least she'd still been alive. he's lost friend before, but that's... not the same.

so. stiles is an only child, with a deceased mother, and a father who presumably wasn't around enough for a while after his wife passed, and who doesn't listen to or trust his own son the way that he should. it sounds... like a pretty lonely home life, to billy. ]

hey, there's no reason to be sorry.
that really, really sucks. i'm sorry that he's like that.
not to play devil's advocate here because i definitely don't know the guy, but maybe the reason he's so sure he knows you better than you know yourself is because the idea of not knowing his own son is kinda terrifying?
maybe he's in denial or something.
i can't speak for the rest (i can't even really speak for that either i guess), but
idk, that's gotta be hard.
you said it took a while to connect.
are things better though now than they were before?
after your mom passed away.

[ it's strange - billy isn't saying anything stiles hasn't already thought about before, but having an outside voice validate that his dad might be as scared about not knowing him as stiles is about losing him makes him feel a little better about a lot of things. stiles tries to think of an appropriate way to respond to that but it's hard to know where to start. he's grateful for the out billy gives him with that question at the end. ]

Oh, totally. Like I said, he's an amazing dad. I don't wanna give off the impression that I'm this sad, neglected kid, or anything. Things are really good between us.
He's a gruff old bastard, but he's got my back and he loves me. He's there for me when he understands how to be. That's more than a lot of people can say.
And, like, I haven't exactly been the best son in the world. The man's got the patience of a saint.
I don't know how he could sit through all those parent/teacher interviews and not come home three sheets to the wind, but. Credit where credit's due.

[ actually, no, drinking is a bit of a bad habit of the sheriff's, but jeez, he's aired enough dirty laundry for one day. ]

Things are good. I just gotta double down on that.
He's good. We're good.
Everything's good.
Except for the whole being separated by an interdimensional dreamscape thing.

oh, good.
that's good, i'm glad.
i'm surprised he hasn't arrested you though.
for pizza soup and whatever other food monstrosities you've come up with.

[ listen. he knows the boiled pizza picture was just something stiles had saved on his computer or whatever, but for the sake of making a joke he's pretending he doesn't. ]

or maybe he has and you've served your time.
i wouldn't blame him for tossing you into the slammer for a night over something like that.

Oh, he wouldn't dare arrest me.
I'd Macguyver my way out of my cell. Pop out a loose brick, flirt with a couple of guards.
He wouldn't wanna test me like that. I'd ruin the entire concept of incarceration. Prisons would shut down nation wide. The judiciary system would collapse on itself.
He'd be out of a job within days.
Also, if we keep talking about pizza soup, I am gonna make it for real.
I'll literally pay you to drink some with me.
We could share. One glass, a couple of straws. Like two teens from the 50s on a milkshake date.

Edited 2020-04-01 08:54 (UTC)

so what you're saying is wherever your dad works has really, really bad security protocols, and also that you'd be willing to ruin your dad's reputation as sheriff over pizza water.

which you could not pay me enough to drink, btw.

I'm not willing to dignify that with an answer, but if I were, I'd say you're completely missing the point. I am a world-class escape artist. No prison can hold me.
I'm also not willing to continue this conversation until you promise to gargle this sweet and salty grease broth with me.
You're in a whole new world. You've got endless opportunities to reinvent yourself as someone braver, bolder, better.
I am offering to guide you down that path.

sweet? why is it sweet???
you know, i thought you were my friend but it turns out you're just a part of this nightmare, aren't you

You don't put sugar on your pizza?

[ actually, shit, trying to convince billy that he does that is gonna be a tough sell after they've literally eaten pizza together multiple times. womp womp. moving on. ]

Okay, wait, this is stupid. I feel like we were really getting to know each other before you started accurately unmasking me as a cult leader.
You're eighteen! You have two brothers! You go to school! Your parents are smart!
What else? Tell me something new.

i'm about to make a citizen's arrest.

uhhh.
well actually i have three brothers. technically.
he doesn't live with us anymore though.

Edited 2020-04-01 16:32 (UTC)

You'll never take me alive.

[ you vicious little twink, billy. ]

Big family.
Uh, can I ask about him? Or is he kind of a sore spot?

[ it... is kind of a sore spot, actually. not dead-parent-or-sibling sore (he refuses to let himself believe his brother might be dead), but billy's not gonna say as much. ]

no, it's fine.
you can ask whatever you want.

Okay, well. Fill me in on the basics?
Name, age, GCP.
(General Coolness Potential.)
(I'm asking if he's cool.)

tommy, my age, and he's definitely not cool.
but i'm the only person that's allowed to say that.

[ actually, tommy's pretty cool. he also annoying in the way that most siblings are annoying, and he's impatient and blunt and obnoxious, too - but he's also smart, and confident, laid-back and carefree. billy used to be on the fence about him in the beginning, kind of actively didn't like him, but now he'd give almost anything to see him again and know he's okay. ]

he's the guy i was looking for before i ended up here.

[ in case stiles didn't make that connection. ]

Edited 2020-04-01 17:46 (UTC)

[ if he wasn't already suspecting this connection before, the name "tommy" kind of secures things. on the one hand, stiles feels like kind of a scumbag for prying into this, even with permission - but on the other, he doesn't want billy to miss out on talking about his brother like a normal human being instead of as a missing person case. he hesitates before he answers, but not for long. ]

From what you told me, he seems pretty cool.
What kind of stuff does he like? Hobbies or whatever.
If he shows up here, I'm gonna need to know how to make a good impression on him.

[ the thing about tommy is that billy has only known him for a little under two years, and that's including all the times tommy just up and left for a while. this last time has been the longest they've been separated from each other since before they knew each other existed, though.

two years is a pretty decent amount of time to get to know someone, and yet - billy knows very little about tommy, which he's not just now realizing, but moreso being reminded of. man, he's kind of a garbage brother, isn't he? maybe it's part of the reason tommy left, on top of everything else. ]

he's... kind of all over the place?
super active and into running and... speed training, haha.

[ that's a stupid joke only billy will get. ]

he also likes traveling.
and flirting.
and throwing himself into the middle of situations with zero concern about what he might or might not be interrupting.

[ can't just say his brother's a giant cockblock, that's weird. ]

anyway, he's not really that hard to impress.
he's the kind of guy that always has to be doing something, so if you can keep up with him, you'd probably be fine.

[ ... ]

i'm definitely the better twin, though.

Man, he kind of sounds like me.
In, like, an idealized sort of way. Where I run on purpose and flirt successfully, rather than run because I have to and get ignored by people I like when I try to say hello.
The need to keep busy and the inability to read a room is definitely up my alley, though.
He seems pretty rad.
Not as rad as you, of course.

Can I ask which one of you is the evil twin, or is that the kind of stale baby boomer-tier humor that I think it is?

who said he's successful?
i said flirting to be nice, but it's more like 30% flirting 70% hitting-on, 99% failure rate.

[ okay, so he's just shit-talking tommy a little, but that's just... what they do. tommy did have some kind of thing going on with a girl he went to juvie with, and billy's pretty sure kate was starting to like all of tommy's blatant flirting, too.

anyway. billy pauses for a minute, maybe a little bit too long. he knows stiles is just kidding, keeping the conversation going, but between himself and tommy - hands down, billy would say he's the evil one. not necessarily that he is evil, but that he's... done some things that have scared some people, he's used his powers to do things he shouldn't have in retrospect, even though his intentions had been pure.

he's the scarlet witch's son, and while billy would defend her until he's blue in the face, there are still plenty of people who still fear and hate her - and he's just like her, with similar power, so it wouldn't surprise him at all if people feared and hated him by association. ]

it's me, i'm the evil one. 😈
the worst.

[ hopefully the emoji does its job and makes that seem a thousand percent less serious than it really is. he moves on quickly. ]

why do you have to run?
are you on the track team or something?
soccer? football? whatever other sport requires you to run?

Oh, good. Same person, then.
I definitely like him more than I like you. Sorry about it. You're getting ditched the second I meet him.
I bet he'd get sick on food abominations with me. LIKE A FRIEND.

[ billy asks why stiles needs to run, and yeah, he was thinking of the suicide runs coach sends him on every time he goofs off in econ and gets his punishment thrown at him once practice rolls around - but truth be told, he's been running for more immediately life threatening reasons over the past, like, year and a half. he's not about to dive into all of that - the scars he's been getting, the things he's seen - but there's a second of hesitation where he thinks of scott, of his dad, of all the things he left behind at home. the things he misses and the things he doesn't. ]

I'm on the lacrosse team, yeah.
Not to brag, but I did once score a game winning goal, so if you want my autograph, now's your time to ask.

like a psychopath, maybe.

[ tommy probably would chug pizza soup just because billy wouldn't, and tommy has to be a little shit like, all the time. ]

why would i want the autograph of some guy who's gonna ditch me for my lame-o brother?
by the way, he becomes your responsibility at that point.
this is your only warning.

Edited 2020-04-02 01:36 (UTC)

Psychopaths can have friends.

[ actually, that's kind of not true in his experience. they just have nephews they take advantage of, or gaggles of cronies to emotionally manipulate. or a family to be psychopathic with. all bad news all the way down. ]

If you want to leave him in the hands of someone who will absolutely try to bring out the worst in him, I am more than happy to adopt your brother.
He will legally become my son.

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