Con-fection

University is going pretty well so far!! The exams haven’t been super bad tbh which is good, and I have a few weeks until my next semester starts!

Honestly I’ve been reading Billy fics for a while, and as much as I love the trope of him changing after meeting someone, I started to think about what I think it would realistically take for him to change his behaviour.

Billy is very reactive and aggressive - this, in my opinion - is mostly learned from his father. He’s very defensive, given that he’s literally living with his abuser and he hasn’t seen his mother in years. He’s on edge all the time. In my interpretation of the situation, he’s living with a dangerous man who caused his mother to abandon him and who could potentially severely injure or even kill him at any moment. He’s in complete survival mode. I don’t think it’s likely for him to be emotionally able to engage in self reflection while under the same roof as Neil.

And then, I thought - what if somebody took Neil out of the picture?

I wasn’t super keen on the idea of somebody falling in love with Billy as he was and then killing his father for him, because I think that’s kind of implying that he needed somebody else to save him, and it just didn’t feel right for me to write about.

An accidental death, especially if the killer and Billy didn’t know each other well, would kind of solve that problem, and provide themes of guilt that I thought could drive conflict, drive the plot, and tie in well with the themes of season 4.

I think he’d like it in the sense that he can keep the people he cares about all together and they’ll get along, but he’d be worried about Max taking your time away from him.

Reader has a complicated relationship with her siblings given Sara’s death, and I think it would freak him out a little if she started worrying for Max - but maybe he’d be on board with it, depending on the situation. Susan’s a very busy woman and extremely stretched thin, and having you to discuss things about max with him would probably help him get over any anxiety he has about his relationship with her.

I also think he could be a little jealous or insecure about it - he and max still don’t always know what to do with each other and seeing you and her get along naturally could make him feel inadequate, but equally he could dislike it if she started cutting into his time with you.

Of course I don’t mind questions! Thanks for the ask anon <3

Yes, I think he would get jealous, but he probably wouldn’t admit to it.

He already has a hard time sharing your attention with Steve, and he doesn’t want anybody else to take away from his time with you. To him, you’re the only person he can rely on. He’s uncomfortable with the fact that it’s unequal and you have other people you’re close to. You flirting with someone would bother him more than you having a simple friendship with someone else.

He’d interrupt in order to get your attention away from whoever you’re flirting with, and then subtly tell them to stay away from you as soon as you’re distracted.

I can see him pretending it’s out of concern for you - “He’s no good for you, sweetheart. Guys like him are assholes.” - and instigating a fight with you like that in order to keep your attention on him.

Yes.

Reader ‘saving’ Billy was an accidental byproduct of her running over Neil - she didn’t do it for him, but she’ll feel a whole lot less guilty about it when she finds out exactly why Billy was so accepting of her killing his father.

Short answer: yes it will improve

I intend for them to eventually have a better relationship than they do now. I think that Susan just kind of doesn’t know what to do with Billy and how to relate to him, and Billy has only ever really considered her as his father’s wife (and therefore somebody that can cause him problems) rather than as her own person. At this point, he’s also kind of wary of her given that she essentially could make him homeless.

I want them to be familial and be able to rely on each other, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily going to become a mother-son bond in the end, that kind of depends where my writing takes me. I think that Billy is naturally suspicious of having a mother figure in his life given that he hasn’t heard from his biological mother in years, and he also yearns for that kind of bond but kind of resents himself for it. I also think Susan would be worried about seeming as if she’s trying to replace his mother, although I see her as the kind of person who would want to reach out and to Billy and be there for him when she can, especially because he now has no parental figures in his life.

Their relationship is further complicated by the fact that Susan, who was herself a victim of emotional and financial abuse from Neil, kind of stood by and tolerated the abuse that Billy suffered. It’s not her fault, of course, the blame for that lies with Neil. But I think that it would make Billy wary of being vulnerable with her, even if she is now trying to be there for him and provide for him.