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[billiam]

[ 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.

[hyperactive]

[ 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.

[billiam]

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.

[hyperactive]

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.

[billiam]

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.

[hyperactive]

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.

[billiam]

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

[hyperactive]

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.

[billiam]

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.

[hyperactive]

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?

[billiam]

[ 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.

[hyperactive]

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

[billiam]

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. ]

[hyperactive]

[ 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.

[billiam]

[ 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.

[hyperactive]

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?

[billiam]

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?

[hyperactive]

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.

[billiam]

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.

[hyperactive]

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.

[billiam]

so you divorce me just to become - what?
my... dad?
you know what, nevermind.

[hyperactive]

Billy.

[ yes. that's apparently what he said. don't call him out. but also: ]

Go to your room.

[billiam]

YOU'RE GROUNDING ME???

[hyperactive]

DON'T TAKE THAT TONE OF VOICE WITH ME?
KIDS THESE DAYS? NO RESPECT.

[billiam]

TONE OF VOICE??
TONE OF VOICE WHEN THIS IS A TEXT.
UGH YOU'RE SO LAME DAD THIS IS WHY MOM IS COOLER THAN YOU.

wait who's mom?
actually, doesn't matter.
don't speak to me or my son ever again.

[ and attached is a zoomed in picture of a pastel green stuffed alpaca, somewhere across billy's room. it's facing the wall. ]