i saw your additions on the tswift post abt billy being a dolly fan which is so accurate and true. i always hc that billy’s mom was actually born in the south and moved to cali to be an actress or singer or something but then met neil and well you know. but billy grew up listening to dolly bc that would have been the time she was getting popular. i also agree that billy would definitely be inspired by her aesthetic and just her general messaging to be yourself and fuck everyone else 😄
Heyyy! 💖💖💖💖💖
Ohhhhh, yes!!! That’s such an amazing headcanon! And it’s so easy to imagine Billy’s mom singing Dolly’s songs to him when he was little. Softly at night, while caressing his hair in bed, soothing him into sleep. Dancing together in the kitchen, his mom taking him by the hands and spinning him around. The casserole slowly cooking on the stove and they both red-faced and giggling on those easy days when work kept Neil away from home so there was still some space left they could fill in with happiness.
And, I imagine his mother wouldn’t dress like Dolly but maybe she would kind of— wish, she could? Tease her hair a little bigger, wear her heels a little higher. Raise the hem of her skirt an inch (or two). Red lips and a fake beauty mark up the side of her lips but. She didn’t dare. Not anymore. Only twenty-five and staring at Dolly on the TV screen with her eyes full of ‘might have been’s saying ‘See that, baby? That’s what mom wanted to be’ and.
That’s how Billy imagines her, now. Shredding a tiny part of her old skin every day since she left and becoming the kind of star you can’t stop looking at ‘till has blinded you and he kind of— he doesn’t even realize, at first, what he’s doing. But he starts to style his curls a little tighter and left the buttons of his shirts unmade. Where her mother couldn’t, he starts to repaint himself into the image of a rebellion. Everything so he wouldn’t be reflected on his father's. Dangling earrings, miles of leather, cheeky jeans, bad intentions and— He doesn’t like girls, not really, but he likes looking at them and knowing, how much effort it took them too, to look that cheap. Likes to look at them knowing, that it’s not just him, that they all are diamonds on a rhinestone world. That they cut like nothing else, with the beauty of their sharp edges.
And that’s basically the reason why he paints his lips in the shape of his own heart and kisses it into Steve Harrington’s lips hard enough to stain them.
The last of Tina’s parties. Graduates saying their last goodbyes while ‘If you ain’t got love’ was playing. Steve gave him a once-over and a smirk and called him ‘Doll’. Put two fingers on his chest and said it “Just one closed button left, doll. Feels tempting” so Billy dragged him to the darkness of the backyard and left his lips so thoroughly kissed they looked lipstick-red when they parted for breath, Steve’s fingers still tangled on his hairspray-curls and saying “I knew that’s how you’d kiss me” looking at Billy with that something in his eyes, like Billy had just sliced his chest open. Like he really, really liked what he was seeing and,
He did. Steve. Really liked him. Fell in love with the flashy and trashy the too much and the too little and with everything, everything Billy had been hiding underneath. Made Billy feel at peace with the things about himself (about her) Neil never allowed. Made him shred a lifetime of war.
Let Billy be himself on purpose and then, loved him like that.
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Ok I got CARRIED AWAY but I’ve been dying to talk about this since s3 aired and saw. This:
Look at those crunchy curls and those filled-in brows and c’mon he’s so wearing copper eyeshadow akdhauhduahduad. He’s so flayed and frayed but, with style. And he does have that southern vibe and looks like, so country and so, carefully put together while TRASHY AF, and I just love how cheap he is and I’m so sure that when Dolly talked about “‘This woman that used to walk the streets had all this makeup and hair, high heel shoes. I thought she was so beautiful. And everybody used to say, ‘Oh, she ain’t nothin’ but trash.’ And I used to say, ‘Well that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up—trash!’ And that’s kinda how I look. But I like to think I’m a little more than that’” Billy was somewhere nodding and also, that Steve was nodding too, to that last part.
Thank you so much for asking me this 💞💞💞💞💞😘😘😘😘😘 and yay! I'm so happy somebody else sees it 💎💎💎