#and billys not exactly gonna hinder the process for homemade snacks

[biillys]

do you think Billy would get a tattoo of a loved one's name? when they could leave him at any moment like his mom, or be taken away from him ie Max. or is he more likely to just be a little drunk (or hungover), wander into the tattoo parlor at the end of payday and pick something from the flash sheet?

LUC ily how are u i love you

OKAY SO i think. i THINK. that if billy were to get a tattoo of a loved ones name or even? something symbolic for someone specific? that he wouldn't do that until much later in life. like i feel like young youthful billy has too many fucking complicated emotions and a shitty way of dealing and coping with them and the thought of putting someones NAME on his BODY in INK would literally make him either physically ill ft. panic attack OR burst out laughing.

okay, no. u know what.

new headcanon just dropped.

i feel like billy would not, COULD NOT, let himself get an actual permanent tattoo of someones actual name while he's Young and his abandonment and commitment issues are in full swing. BUT. but. i feel like, and i'm thinking about max here, let's be real, that maybe when they're both a tiny bit older, a tad bit more well-adjusted and settled into Life Back Home, maybe he would get a symbolic tattoo. something that can pass off as just a random tattoo but like. it's for max.

maybe when he first gets it, he's in like, full on denial about it. okay maybe not necessarily denial, but maybe more like uhh lying to himself about the sentimentality of it all. telling himself that while yes, it IS a tattoo, and yes, it IS inspired by max, it's not actually a tattoo FOR max.

it connects to her, sure, but not in a cookie cutter happy family siblings forever kind of way, but more like a moved back to california, living in a shoebox apartment, haven't spoken to their parents in days weeks months, christmas is fucking everywhere but max is really the only family he has left, max chose him (a fucking shitty excuse of an older brother) over her mother (her MOTHER), what the fuck is he even meant to do with that, what the fuck is actually happening kinda way.

billy's not exactly emotionally savvy.

he's trying.

so basically! he's skating home after a late shift, mentally going through what's gonna happen at work over the next few weeks with holidays happening and how hungover he can get away with being in his head when he passes the tattoo shop. and maybe he stayed a bit after work to have a drink or three with the boys so he's currently feelin' pretty chill. and maybe he hasn't got max a christmas present yet because he's a shitty gift giver and he can't be fucked dealing with that problem right now.

but he skates past the shop and one of the displays catch his eye and it reminds him of max, sure, but it doesn't scream max. then, before he knows it, he's in the shop, talking to one of the girls in there, asking her about tweaking one of the pieces out the front, changing the design just so, paying a fucking deposit like he has that kind of money to waste. walking out with an appointment for tomorrow. plenty of time to cancel.

but then tomorrow comes and he's walking through the shops front door and he's removing his shirt so they can have free reign over his upper arm and he's walking out of there all bandaged up with post-tattoo care instructions and some cream.

it's still not for max though. what the fuck's he gonna do, offer up his arm and say merry christmas, here's your gift? fuck that. he's buying her cheap shit for the kitchen cos she's always bitching that they have nothing to cook with and he's sure as shit not dealing with the fact that there's now ink on his body that he specifically requested and helped design because it made him think about being a kid and trying to teach a bratty know-it-all max how to surf and skate.

it doesn't even have her in it, really, it's like, abstract. vague. specific enough for billy to know what he's looking at but simple enough for everyone else to pass off as a scribble.

obviously, he'll deal with it eventually, like everything else in his life. it'll take time, and there'll be Emotional Baggage to unpack before that. like, maybe how they ended up here in the first place. all the shit that happened in hawkins. the final straw on that cold as fuck wednesday night. the emergency department visit, both billy and max getting bandaged up, their statements taken. susans absence of defence, the way she stood there, watching, gripping the kitchen counter but never lifting a finger. too scared to try fight neil for her daughter's safety, but begging her to stay once the daylight chased the monsters away the next day. billy shoving all his shit into a bag and walking with purpose to the camero, max reading the signs and grabbing her shit too, parking herself in the passenger seat, arms folded, face set. billy tapping his fingers on the steering while while looking at susan falling apart on the front porch.

"i'm not coming back."

"no shit. let's go."

stubborn as fuck, like always.

so maybe billy doesn't know how to deal with all that, maybe he's not all old and wise and shit at the baby age of twenty like twelve year old him expected himself to be, but he knows tattoos. knows they can carry weight, can mean nothing, can mean everything. can say shit you don't know how to articulate out loud. has learnt the hard way that family can come and go, that sometimes it just comes down who's willing to fucking try. to stay.

so he get's a damn tattoo loosely inspired by max, manages to shrug it off as a basic piece for the most part. sometimes gives a 'and thats any of your business, how?' eyebrow raise when specifically asked, and gets on with life. gets a few more tattoos here and there when money allows simply because he can.

but like, therapy sucks fucking ass, because before he knows it, he's suddenly acknowledging that that specific tattoo has meaning. twenty three years old, sitting in the chair in his therapists office and having an epiphany and a minor breakdown. thinking about how that christmas was their first christmas back home. how everything fucking sucked, they were basically broke, billy working overtime every other day, including christmas day, max working two jobs. how rome at work asked if he'd finished his christmas shopping yet and billy realised that the only person in the entire fucking world that he needed to get a present for was max.

family really is his most sensitive topic.

it's one thing to for him to know that his mum walked, that she was never coming back. that it was an active choice she made, to leave him. that his father fucking hated him. that the stuff that neil put him through, did to him, was just his reaction to billy simply existing. that him driving away at age nineteen with barely a bag to show for his belongings and next to no money to his name, whilst the hardest thing he's ever done in his life, was probably best case scenario and what felt like the only option he had left. but it's a whole entire new emotion to realise that max came by choice.

that max had her mother crying, begging her to stay. making promises about kicking neil to the curb once and for all, or maybe, if neil didn't agree with that, maybe she could talk him into anger management classes. maybe AA. promising that things would change. shit billy would've begged to hear his own mother say. but max looked at her distraught mother, crying and pleading, and sunk further into the passenger seat. gripped the seatbelt a little bit tighter before giving billy a 'well?' and 'get your shit together already' look until billy started the ignition. didn't look back even once. has stuck by his side ever since, god knows why.

that's a fucking lot to realise all at once on a friday morning.

he tells her about it a few months later, rolls up his sleeve while they're both slightly high outside on their sad excuse for a balcony on one of the rare afternoons that they're both home. max laughs straight in his face, before realising he's not making shit up. asking a 'whattheactualfuckbilly? are you serious?' while she looks at it closely. eventually she settles back against the wall and calls him fucking stupid but she hasn't stopped smiling since he told her so like, he can deal with being fucking stupid.

maybe one day he adds a 'madmax' or 'shitbird' to the tattoo becos he's like, so fucking emotionally stable as a mid 20yr old. he has depth. he knows his own growth and respects his own boundaries. he can look at that tattoo and see the way that it's clearly for max. he's gonna own his truth or whatever, that's badass as fuck. he's gonna get such a fucking good grade in therapy this week.

anyway. ALL THIS TO SAY: billy & heartfelt tattoos are very much a def no becos this is BILLY and that's just. a line he cant cross anymore. the fucking commitment that getting a emotionally designated tattoo would entail? fuck off, billy's unattached as fuck. charlie kelly look at me physiological damage up to here voice etc etc. except of course. the exceptions. and i feel like max & billy and them basically running away and building their life up from the ground with their own bare hands is like. exceptions Plus. and i feel like there'd be such a fucking storm of emotions and billy's just got no decent way of handling that so his subconscious would be like. go big or go home. and billy's no quitter so instead of picking one, he'd pick both like yeh ill go big and tattoo this piece of myself on myself to live there permanently, emotions attached and all, then i'll go home and repress the shit out of it and never acknowledge what this all means to me cos if i do i might realistically die.

for fun tho i'd like to think that he gets like. a patchwork of tattoos just fuckin everywhere. the closest i can think of right now is good ol' tom atkin of one direction fame. like i have no idea what's happening there but i know there's a lot of tattoos and they don't exactly match but when you look at them all together? they seem to Flow, y'know.

Future Billy that becomes a Dad would get his child(ren)s name tattooed on him as well. thats a sober, obvious choice.

okay i do not know about MAX and tattoos, i feel like you would probably have opinions there, and i would love to hear them please i'm begging u, but so far all i can think up is that she likes them on other people a lot more than she likes them on herself, but she still has a special few that do have meaning, that she likes to trace when shes stressed, that are small enough to be hidden, barely noticed, but she loves them.

ALSO. am in love w the idea of tattoo artist max. steadiest hands on the west coast, specialising in linework. billy thinks that having a award winning tattoo artist sister means getting a discount so naturally max charges him double for every tattoo she's ever given him and billy just assumes that that's what tattoos in posh as fuck la cost. some of their best work has happened in the comfort of their own apartments with a simple stick and poke, basically free of charge though.

okay it's now 12:20am and i've been replying on and off to this since like 5:30pm so i must Sleep. actually no i'm gonna wait till morning to reply so i can read it over and check it actually makes sense. ily and i hope u have a lovely new years eve 💞 okay it's 6:54am now and u can definitely tell where i got (more) tired towards the end, but it's good enough! ily i hope ur day is swell 💖