because tumblr so rudely cut off my tag rambling from this post, imma just do it in an actual post. tis the season 🎃
okay SO artwork from above linked post is most totally young witchy!billy vibezzzz for me. i have a half formed notion of neil and billy’s mom divorcing when billy is pretty young and his mom gets custody of him. she moves them to a cottage on the coast, a place that’s a bit remote. and billy grows up learning spells and incantations. his mom always pats him on the head, tells him, “you’re a real natural, my little billy boy” when he gets something on his first try.
maybe it’s the isolation of it all, but billy eventually starts noticing his mom is acting strange. even though he’s still young, he picks up on the fact that something isn’t right. his mom starts delving into darker magic, doing things that drain her energy to the point where she’s so weak billy has to help her to bed, tuck her in for the night. on those days, he fends for himself around the house. makes dinner for himself, saving some for his mom if she wakes up later. he’ll practice spells alone in the kitchen, grinning when he is able to conjure up some floating plants that he knows his mom would enjoy.
one day, he’s walking back from school along the rocky shore and billy gets a really bad feeling. he runs to the cottage to find his mom collapsed by the door. a small pool of blood is on the floor right next to where her mouth is pressed to the floor. he tries to revive her with all the healing spells he knows, says the words through sobs, but none of them work even though his mom always told him he had a knack for healing.
after his mom dies, he ends up back with neil. his father knew all along about his ex wife, knew that she would’ve been teaching billy magic all this time. neil gives billy an amulet, telling him that his mom wanted him to have it if something ever happened to her. little does young billy know that this is an amulet that binds his magical abilities. when he discovers his magic no longer works, he thinks it’s because his mom is gone. that she was his only connection to his powers. so he goes throughout life magic-less.
billy ends up in hawkins when his dad moves him and susan and her little twerp to indiana. and of course he meets steve, ends up getting drawn to him, and then unwittingly into the fight against the upside down.
maybe he somehow loses his amulet during one of these upside down encounters, where it’s only him and steve fighting for their lives against some big baddie. the amulet is literally ripped off his neck by the monster. they manage to escape, but steve is in really bad shape, like on the brink of death. billy is holding steve in his arms as he’s coughing up blood and billy feels something he hasn’t felt in a long while — the energy of something. but it’s steve’s energy draining from his body. he thinks of his mom, how he can’t lose someone again. how he can’t lose steve. he has to do something. he can’t just sit around while steve’s dying. he hopes against hope and begins uttering the strongest healing spell he can remember.
billy holds his breath after he finishes, listening to steve’s heartbeat getting slower and slower. he squeezes his eyes shut, and the tears spill over. he brings steve’s body in closer against his, wishing for anything that he could save him. then suddenly, billy feels energy being restored to steve piece by piece. his heart rate picks up a bit and his breathing is no longer a shallow wheezing. he finally opens his eyes.
“billy,” steve utters, his voice so quiet. he reaches a hand up to touch billy’s wet cheek and billy presses his lips gently into his palm.
