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lavender-vixen · 3 months ago

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ok but hear me out… if JD from Heathers, Billy Hargrove from Stranger Things, and Patrick Hockstetter from IT all went to Derry High at the same time… how would that even go?? like would they get along?? would they hate each other?? and what would Henry Bowers think of JD and Billy?? Derry’s small right?? so they totally could’ve known each other?? 👀✨ pls i need thoughts on this chaos group

yes! this whole setup works surprisingly well when you think about the setting, personalities, and small-town logistics. this is about to get very LONG.

the timeline & realistic overlap:

billy hargrove: 18 in 1985, born march 29, 1967 → graduated derry high that year (if he wasn't killed by pennywise). in 1989, he's 21, still in town—either attending a local community college, working a dead-end job, or just drifting and partying. his senior year, he was untouchable. one of the hottest, scariest guys in school. he ruled by sheer charisma, brute strength, and presence. he was loud, violent, magnetic. thrill-seeking behavior at its peak. shirtless in a leather jacket, burnout at the edge of the football field, lighting fireworks in the woods just because. party king, fights everyone. teachers hate him but couldn't really stop him. girls adored him, guys wanted to be him. no one says no to billy and lives unbruised. then he graduated in '85. but the ghosts of his reputation still hung in the derry locker room, and the boys who were once watching are now playing. billy's still in town in '89, still hot, still angry, but the throne is somewhat gone. he shows up to high school parties, flirts with teachers, his friends' moms, sneaks henry and patrick into bars. he's the "cool older guy" but also a warning sign. he works at a garage, maybe takes community college classes he never finishes. sleeps with people he shouldn't. flirts with mrs. hockstetter. screams at neil at 3 a.m. he's circling the drain but still glowing with that heat.

jd (jason dean): 18 in fall of 1989, born likely fall 1971 → senior at Derry High. smart-mouthed freshman when billy was a senior. had a dangerous glint in his eye. curious about everything, including billy. maybe even obsessed in a quiet, observant way. he's the kid who stalks billy home one time. he's starting to realize people are manipulatable. his brain is years ahead of his mouth, but his mouth is catching up fast. billy didn't notice freshman jd, but jd noticed everything about senior billy. by '89, jd is charismatic, sharp, terrfying in a quiet way. he debates teachers to their faces and wins. lures henry and patrick into games of "truth or dare." he's refined his persona. he talks like a cult leader. derry high is his lab. he gives out answers, fireworks, old chemistry notes, for a price. he controls the energy in every room he walks into. he's everything billy wasn't: controlled, quiet, smart, but just as dangerous. jd isn't intimidated by billy, but he is fascinated. jd plays nice when they hang out. he wants to see how far billy will fall.

henry bowers: 16 in 1989, born may 4, 1973 → should be a junior but got held back, making him a sophomore. was already fighting older boys, already pulling knives in the middle school lunchroom. trying so hard to get billy's attention. watched billy from afar, talked about him like a myth. when billy finally shoved him against a locker for being annoying, henry felt both scared and noticed. by '89, he's angry, dangerous, insecure. still trying to be billy. he gets loyalty through fear. still a pack leader in his own group, but increasingly unstable. leans on jd now for direction. fights, drinks, loses control. but he keeps coming back to billy because billy understands him better than anyone. billy gives henry what his dad doesn't: genuine attention.

patrick hockstetter: 15 in 1989, born february 4, 1974 → sophomore. silent. observing. dangerous as a middle schooler. not social. not friendly. but very interested in billy and not in a way he fully understood yet. patrick was the weird kid who knew too much about the missing cat and didn't flinch when billy screamed at someone. he was already desensitized. by '89, he's a muted menace. introspective, cold, magnetic in his stillness. uses selective attachment. only opens up to jd. obsessed with him. watches him constantly. worships his intelligence and control. stays close to henry. smokes quietly while jd monologues about entropy and destruction. kills small animals. feels seen for the first time. he still sees billy on occasion, probably even has a hand-me-down shirt billy once let him borrow. but jd? jd is his role model now.

derry's a small town. there's only one high school, one middle school, maybe two elementary schools. these boys would've crossed paths. billy would've been in high school while henry and patrick were still in middle school. jd and patrick 100% would've had overlapping classes at some point. henry and jd probably shared classes freshman/sophomore year.

billy + henry: brothers bonded in violence. billy is the guy henry bowers looks up to, the one he imitates, brags about knowing, and secretly wants to be. henry remembers being shoved into lockers by billy when he was in 8th grade. now? he wants billy's approval more than anything.

they connect over:

their dads: butch bowers (cop) and neil hargrove (bank security guard), both abusive, both deeply invested in enforcing their version of masculinity.

rage: billy sees that fire in henry's eyes and respects it. henry's down for anything: lighting stuff on fire, beating the shit out of someone for looking at them wrong, dropping acid at a bonfire. billy lives for that reckless loyalty.

parties: billy picks henry up in that loud-ass car, takes him to college parties where nobody questions their age because billy knows the right people, gets him laid. henry gets blackout drunk, tries to fight someone, and billy laughs it off, like "he's my kid. let him scrap." henry would break a guy's nose at a party for calling him a psycho. billy drags him outside, laughing, gives him a cigarette, and says, "you're gonna do great things, bowers. fucked-up things, but great."

jd + patrick: intellectual darkness. patrick finally finds someone who doesn't treat him like a freak. jd's not afraid of him. in fact, jd gets him. jd sees in patrick that raw, chaotic potential that hasn't found a shape yet. where henry pushes patrick around, jd plays chess with him, figuratively and maybe literally.

stoner philosophy sessions: they get high, walk through the woods behind the school, talk about whether evil is inherent or learned, whether a god exists, if souls are real.

music & style: patrick starts mimicking jd's taste by osmosis, industrial music, beat-up combat boots, old band tees. jd notices and lets it happen.

experiments: jd lets patrick help him build mini pipe bombs or pressure bottle bombs behind the school. patrick loves it. jd calls it science. patrick calls it punk rock. jd says something like, "everyone thinks you're a freak. they're not wrong. but maybe that's what makes you more evolved." patrick stares at him like he's god. jd smirks and offers him a clove cigarette.

jd + henry: frenemies with benefits (of convenience). henry doesn't get jd, but he knows better than to piss him off. jd has connections, brains, and that scary calm that makes henry feel uneasy. but jd gets him out of trouble, gives him answers for tests, and occasionally helps him rig pranks.

jd calls him "bowers" like he's a character in a comic book.

henry grumbles but takes his advice, especially when it benefits him.

they occasionally fight. jd once bloodied henry's nose for real. but they always go back to being "cool."

billy + jd: respect at a distance. they don't hang out often, but they know of each other. billy thinks jd's a freak, but a smart one. jd thinks billy is a narcissist but kind of pathetic, a guy who peaked in high school. but they understand each other's rage. there's this unspoken thing between them. they don't mess with each other's territory, they tolerate each other. jd would walk into a party with patrick and henry in tow. billy would be there, and they'd exchange a glance across the room, nod slightly. that's it. but it's loaded.

billy + patrick: history of bullying, new weird tension. billy used to shove patrick into lockers and flick lighters near his hair when patrick was in middle school. now? patrick still occasionally flinches around him, like a defense mechanism, but there's...something else. respect? fear? attraction? billy probably still calls him "freak," but less mean now. patrick would bring weed to a party. billy would smirk, sling an arm over his shoulder, and say, "guess you finally figured out how to be useful." patrick would smirk, and henry would watch from a distance, fuming.

one thing they'd bond over: daddy issues.

butch bowers is a man who wraps his rage in a badge. he likely has alcohol use disorder (severe), intermittent explosive disorder, narcissistic personality disorder (grandiose subtype), and possibly paranoid personality traits. he's a domestic violence perpetrator, too. butch is a classic authoritarian abuser. he thrives on control, respect, and fear. he views his family as extensions of himself, property. his masculinity is fragile as hell, so he overcompensates with brute force and physical abuse. as a cop, he abuses power both at home and on the street. he probably cheats, lies, takes bribes, and gaslights with impunity. he has sudden, disproportionate outbursts of violence, an inability to tolerate perceived "disrespect," a disdain for vulnerability, softness, or anything he deems "weak" (especially in boys). he also sees love as control. you obey, or you suffer. henry internalized that rage, misogyny, and obsessed with dominance. he learned love as terror, carries immense shame he masks with brutality, and may secretly hate his father, but mimics him out of fear and conditioning.

neil hargrove is the man who broke his son and blamed him for it. he, too, has narcissistic personality disorder (malignant subtype) and is a domestic abuse perpetrator. i'd also argue he demonstrates obsessive-compulsive personality disorder traits, possibly intergenerational trauma (untreated), and mild sadistic tendencies. neil is a control freak in every aspect of life. he cares deeply about appearances, obedience, structure, but not about love. he uses verbal and physical abuse to enforce his worldview. he presents himself as a stable family man, but his rage is precise, surgical. he's not impulsive like butch, he's calculated. he likely believes children exist to reflect their fathers, punishes perceived softness with humiliation, and never apologizes, ever. he claims to act out of love ("it's for your own good, billy.") billy self-loathes, a deep, corrosive self-loathing. he learned to equate love with violence and control, to fear his own emotions, and to create a performance-based identity: if he's not the best, the strongest, the hottest, he's nothing. billy learned to fake it to survive.

bud dean is a man who laughs when he should be listening. i'd diagnose him with dependent personality disorder, avoidant tendencies (emotionally conflict-avoidant, passively enabling), and possibly cyclothymic traits (mood instability without clear bipolar pattern). he also displays a permissive parenting style. bud tries to be "the cool dad" while jd is literally imploding. he avoids serious conversations with humor, often at his son's expense. bud lacks any real boundaries: lets jd drink, skip class, blow things up, as long as the neighbors don't complain. he weaponizes self-pity when jd expresses frustration: "i'm doing my best here, son. you think this is easy for me?" his grief over his wife's death gets sublimated into this weird forced cheerfulness, because he can't handle darkness. he calls jd "dad" as a joke, but also maybe kind of means it. because jd's the one with clarity. jd's the one who holds the pieces together. the reversal of roles? jd hates it. resents it. but also clings to the power it gives him. jd's never challenged, he's just left to rot in his own brilliance and nihilism, so he creates chaos to feel something real. he craves structure but sabotages anyone who offers it. bud never gave him a stable "no," so jd doesn't know how to cope with resistance from others. jd learned early on that adults are clowns in costumes, so he tests everyone: girlfriends, teachers, cops, to see who's pretending. he has a deep, gnawing hatred of his father's passivity. jd would rather be a monster than a wind bag. if someone asked jd how his dad is, he'd probably say: "he's like a beige couch. there, soft, sometimes smells like cigarettes. but you'd never cry on it."

patrick's dad is emotionally distant, unable to properly grieve the loss of avery. he pretends everything's fine. he hosts dinner parties, ignores the missing neighborhood pets, and tells the school patrick is "just going through a phase." mr. hockstetter is a firm handshake, a pressed shirt, and a severed conscience. i see him as being a high-functioning subtype of antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder (covert type), and possibly alexithymia (inability to recognize or describe emotions). he's polished, professional, well-established traveling paint salesman, and emotionally hollow. the kind of man who smiles wide for the hoa potluck and then ignores his wife crying in the bathroom. he views fatherhood as an obligation, not a connection. he taught patrick not with affection, but with silence, pressure, and subtle cruetly. he never needed to raise a hand, his coldness did the job. he likely dismisses emotions as "overreactions," sees himself as a provider and nothing more, and believes weakness is moral failure. he has a collection of vintage autographed baseballs and no actual interest in his son's life. patrick's sociopathy isn't just nature, it was modeled. he learned to mirror emotions from watching his dad manipulate people. his detachment, his game of masks, started at home.

would the dads get along in derry?

butch + neil: yes, for a while...until someone steps out of line and the testosterone boils over. fire meets steel, burns hot and fast. they both value control dominance, and fear as forms of respect. they'd get drunk together at a derry townie bar, talk about how "kids these days need a good smack." they'd smoke cheap cigars in the garage while complaining about their "useless" sons. they'd hate "pansy-ass teachers" at the school and make racist jokes and laugh like brothers. but butch is impulsive and paranoid, and neil is calculating and image-obsessed. neil might not want to be seen with "white trash" like butch once he starts getting sloppy. butch would suspect neil was cheating at poker or mocking him behind his back. neil would mock him behind his back. eventually, someone would throw a punch. neil's too cold to start it, but butch would. but their shared enemy is feelings.

butch + bud: absolutely not. butch would call him a "disgrace" and threaten to beat him with a wrench. rage meets the recliner. butch sees bud as a goddamn coward. bud doesn't beat his kid, doesn't set rules, probably lets the boy wear eyeliner and blow up mailboxes. butch would despise bud's permissiveness and emotional avoidance. bud views butch as intense, scary, and probably needs to see a shrink. bud would choose his battles around butch, try to joke to break tension, and butch would threaten to kill hi in the parking lot of a grocery store. bud would later tell jd, "that guy? total psycho." butch yells, bud plays it off, jd watches and files it away as another example of adults being stupid. butch and bud would have no common ground.

butch + mr. hockstetter: superficially, yes. they'd bond over conservative values and "discipline." but butch would be creeped out by his yuppie smarminess over time. the badge and the briefcase. on the surface, they might nod in agreement at pta meetings about "kids needing discipline." butch appreciates a man who keeps his lawn trimmed and his son quiet. but underneath, butch is loud, crass, emotionally volatile. mr. hockstetter is silent, evasive, surgically cruel. mr. hockstetter finds butch repulsive and emotionally messy. butch thinks mr. hockstetter is "one of those quiet sickos." they'd have a shared interest in public image maintenance, belief in control. but they're different breeds of predator. butch is a junkyard dog, mr. hockstetter is a wolf.

neil + mr. hockstetter: yes, and dangerously well. they'd see themselves in each other and be highly competitive. the mirror image, without reflection. these two are the ones you HAVE to watch. both are narcissistic, emotionally repressive, and deeply concerned with appearances. they'd exchange stock tips, make dry jokes about their wives, and judge everyone else in the room. they like hosting cookouts where no one talks about feelings and everything tastes like control. they believe weakness is a sin and boys must become men on their own. neil and mr. hockstetter could become allies or rivals. they might swap stories about "disciplining their sons" in that horrifying clinical way: no emotion, just strategy. they respect each other because they lack warmth.

neil + bud: no. neil would loathe bud's immaturity. precision meets tequila. neil views bud as unfit to be a parent. that bud's the kind of dad who creates degenerates. neil probably blames bud's parenting style for "all the commies and anarchists." bud views neil as "strict but probably means well..." bud might try to befriend neil once. it would end with neil saying something cruel and bud turning it into a chaotic, absurd moment. neil would never speak to bud again unless forced. bud tells jd, "he's just a little intense." jd rolls his eyes so hard they might detach.

bud + mr. hockstetter: weirdly, maybe. as neighbors, yes. as dads, no. mr. hockstetter thinks bud is a joke, and bud thinks mr. hockstetter is vapid. the manipulator and the man-child. they're both emotionally disengaged, prefer not to rock the boat. they might talk about lawn care, weather, school board drama, superficial things. mr. hockstetter might even tolerate bud, because bud poses no real threat. privately, mr. hockstetter thinks bud is a walking embarrassment, acting younger than his age, partying with high school kids, wearing flashy clothes. bud finds mr. hockstetter "a little stiff," but respects how he "keeps a clean house." they share space at hoa meetings and bbqs. they wave from across the street but don't know each other's birthdays. their unspoken dynamic is politeness masking total apathy.

what about max? if maxine is in derry in 1989:

she's probably 18, in jd's grade.

patrick and henry might tease her, but she's tough and mouths off. jd lowkey respects that.

billy is extremely overprotective of her, but he'll never admit it. if he catches henry looking at her sideways? all hell breaks loose.

she becomes kind of like a sister to henry and patrick by proximity. jd might let her hang around when she's bored and give her weird music tapes to borrow. patrick sneaks her cigarettes. henry reluctantly gets rides with her from school.

the other thing they'd bond over: mommy issues.

patrick's mom is barely a person in his world. i'd say she has a mix of persistent complex bereavement disorder, major depressive disorder, substance use disorder, unspecified trauma and stressor related disorder, and possibly some traits of ocd (rigid, avoidant, fear of confronting truth). patrick's detachment from human empathy is partly rooted in that emotional void. he doesn't trust women, but he desperately wants their validation. girls are puzzles, games, prey, but deep down, he's starving for someone to choose him. patrick's mom lost avery, her baby, her sweet, perfect second son. and she knows, somewhere in her bones, that patrick had something to do with it. no proof. no confession. just a mother's instinct, the cold pit of the stomach knowing that won't go away. she lives with it. sleeps next to it. wakes up and makes breakfast for it. it torments her, haunts her. she doesn't confront patrick because...then it becomes real. and if it's real, then she failed in the most absolute way a mother can. "avery was just a baby. babies get tangled up in blankets, can't roll themselves over. it was an accident. just an accident." she says it over and over. pills and vodka help her believe it. but she avoids being alone with patrick. she flinches when he walks into a room too quietly. she doesn't hug him anymore. she doesn't touch him much. she's stopped calling him "sweetheart." and patrick knows, of course he knows. he watches her take pills, watches her hands shake when she's slicing vegetables, watches her talk to the priest after mass. she's a little afraid of him. she avoids looking him in the eyes for too long, keeps the knives put away now, doesn't invite his friends over. there are screaming matches sometimes. late at night, not over anything specific. she says things like, "why can't you just be normal?" sometimes she cries, sometimes she laughs. patrick doesn't hate her, not exactly. she's locked in a grief spiral that has festered into dysfunction. her son avery's death, traumatic and ambiguous, has bred unresolved guilt, repression, and quiet terror. she uses pills, alcohol, and religion to survive the emotional noise in her head. she shows classic features of trauma-avoidant behavior: emotional numbing, selective denial, avoidant attachment to patrick, compulsive need to control her surroundings. she likely swings between dissociation and barely-contained panic. she's aware, on some level, that patrick did something unspeakable—but she cannot name it, because if she does, she loses everything. the child she has. the belief that she was ever a good mother. her grip on reality. she's a walking phantom, slowly decomposing in her suburban kitchen.

jd's mom is dead, and that changes everything. i'd tentatively diagnose her with bipolar 1 disorder (with psychotic features, untreated), or schizophrenia disorder, bipolar type. she took her own life, likely intentional via explosion (means of exit suggests impulsivity and emotional chaos). he doesn't hate her. he idealizes the memory of her. she becomes this angelic, tragic figure in his head, the one person who would've understood him, maybe even stopped him from turning out like his dad. her absence becomes his origin story. it fuels his whole philosophy: the world is corrupt, people are fake, everything dies...and she's the only pure thing that ever existed. his mother was probably mentally unstable, likely depressed or dealing with bipolar disorder, maybe even schizophrenic traits, and he was just old enough to remember everything, including her death. he remembers the good parts, the soft parts, the music, the way she hugged him. but he also remembers the manic energy, the paranoia, the way her hands shook. and the way she died, blown up in the same house where he lived, where he probably still sleeps. whether it was intentional or an accident, it scarred him permanently. "she didn't leave, she exploded." that's what he tells people. but there's this core wound: why didn't she take me with her? jd's view of women is bifurcated: they're either innocent angels (like his mom, like veronica, until they disappoint him), or they're part of the problem. he puts girls on pedestals until they challenge his control. then he flips. hard. he sees emotional intimacy as dangerous. a threat to autonomy. but he craves it. he romanticizes instability, finds beauty in broken women, feels safest around people who are just unstable as he is, idealizes lost love, chases intensity over consistency, views emotional chaos as proof of something real, hates his dad deeply but fears becoming him, so he keeps everyone at arm's length. jd's mom was likely intelligent, creative, unstable, deep in manic or psychotic cycles. she probably experienced grandiose delusions, paranoia, and mood swings that left jd confused but enthralled by her intensity. he saw her mania as magic and her despair as sacred. she may have played piano, painted, danced, read to him, only to fall apart for weeks at a time. she was the kind of woman people say "was just too much for the world." jd idolizes her because she represents freedom and authenticity—the opposite of his cruel, mechanical father. but he also inherited her instability, and he knows it. Her death becomes a creation myth: “i’m like this because she died.” his fixation on chaos, self-destruction, and existential philosophy are all rooted in her unraveling. she’s saint joan to him. a tragic heroine. a goddess of madness.

we barely see henry's mom (henrietta bowers), but canon and fanon often lean toward her being mentally unstable, possibly abused herself, maybe institutionalized or dead. i'd say she likely suffered from ptsd (chronic, complex), depersonalization/derealization disorder (secondary dissociation), major depressive disorder (severe, possibly psychotic). either way? she was a domestic abuse victim, and she's not there anymore. henry grows up in a house where the only mother is a broken mirror of what love should be. she couldn't protect him from butch. she couldn't protect herself. she tried to nurture henry, but it came too late, and it wasn't enough. henry's rage toward his dad tuned inward and sideways. he lashed out at women, especially those who showed any softness. he didn't know how to process care or gentleness. it makes him feel weak, and he cannot be weak. he doesn't hate his mom, but her absence taught him that women are unreliable. he needs control, power, and fear to feel safe. henry's mom was likely battered into silence. a woman who started out bright and full of hope, only to be worn down by butch's rage, cheating, and control. she was probably cheated on with someone like rena davenport, some trashy mistress in town. eventually, she cracked, or maybe she just vanished one day. she packed a bag and left henry behind, which might be the greatest betrayal of his life. he doesn't know where she is, never heard from her again, doesn't even know if she's alive anymore. she didn't fight for him, didn't stay for him. she knew what butch was and left her son with that man anyway. it gave henry a deep-seated misogyny masked as bravado. he reacts violently to softness, because softness was never safe in his house. he internalizes guilt: "she left because of me." he's obsessed with control and fear, because love has always proven unreliable. henry doesn't talk about her. but if someone mentions her name, you'd see that flicker in his eyes. jd probably notices. patrick probably probs. billy gets it. henrietta is a textbook case of battered woman syndrome. she likely experienced prolonged emotional, physical, and possibly sexual abuse by butch. she may have stayed for years out of fear, shame, or learned helplessness, retreating further into herself until she ceased to function as a parent. her "cracking" was likely a psychotic break or full emotional withdrawal. her eventual disappearance may have been a desperate escape, or a complete abandonment. to henry, her absence is betrayal, but also something darker: proof that love cannot be trusted. she might still be alive, but henry doesn't want to find her. because if he does, she might confirm his greatest fear: that she chose to leave him behind. she’s not a saint or a demon in his mind. she’s just gone. and it hurts.

billy's mom left. she abandoned him. she's alive, she just chose to be somewhere else. and that cuts deeper than anything. i'd say she likely had dependent personality disorder (with elements of learned helplessness), generalized anxiety disorder (moderate), adjustment disorder (with depressed mood, chronic), and ptsd (domestic abuse survivor). he remembers her as this beautiful, warm, glowing creature. she brushed his hair as a little boy, told him he was special. and then she left him with neil. billy's mommy issues are abandonment and over-idealization, similar to jd but still different. he's furious at her and still loves her. every girl he touches is a proxy, he wants to be loved by her, but he also wants to punish her. he sexualizes women to reclaim power but never feels safe with them. even when they want him, he pushes them away or uses them. under all that bravado, he's just a little boy waiting for his mom to come back and apologize. billy's mom is a holy wound. she didn't die, she didn't vanish, she just left. she's alive somewhere. that's worse. because that means billy wakes up every day wondering why he wasn't good enough, that she had to go off and start another family. why she didn't fight harder. he remembers her putting sunscreen on his shoulders at the beach, holding his face and calling him her "sweet boy." she was everything good, and she left him in hell. billy doesn't hate her, but he hates what she did to him. and he makes sure no one sees that pain, not even max. his deep abandonment issues are masked by sex and aggression. he seduces women for power, not connection. he's attracted to motherly figures but punishes them. he hates vulnerability in himself but craves comfort so badly it hurts. he worships her memory while resenting every piece of it. if he ever saw her again, he wouldn't know whether to hug her or scream in her face. bottom line, billy's mom is still alive, which makes her one of the most wounding maternal figures. she likely suffered years of abuse and emotional trauma from neil. she finally left—but didn’t take billy. whether that was out of fear, powerlessness, or manipulation by neil, billy doesn’t know. all he knows is she could have, and she didn’t. she probably remarried. had another child. started over. but there's a piece of her that never talks about billy. she loves him, from a distance, but has told herself a story where leaving him was the best option. that he was safer there. that she had no choice.

how the four boys view the disappearances in derry (pennywise's work):

jd - the one who's not surprised. "if evil is systemic, then derry is just doing what it was built to do."

jd already believes the world is cruel, corrupt, and rotting underneath a pretty facade. so when kids start vanishing? he doesn't panic. he doesn't mourn. he observes. he starts keeping a tally of names.

he visits spots where kids were last seen, not to help, but to see.

he talks about it like it's inevitable. "it's entropy, bowers. everything breaks down eventually, even kids."

he jokes about it dryly. "maybe it's a government experiment. maybe it's your mom, patrick. that'd explain the smell in your basement."

to him, derry is like a festering wound with no bandage. the disappearances just confirm what he already thinks: that people are either blind or complicit. he'd suspect something bigger is going on, not supernatural, necessarily, but systemic. a big conspiracy.

he tells patrick to "keep an eye out," but not in a protective way, in a testing way. "you might be next. let's see how you handle it."

he tells henry, "if someone took belch or vic, would you even care? or would you just miss the echo?"

jd turns it into a game of who's paying attention. he watches them for fear. he wants to see what they'll do.

billy - the one who's angry. "this town's always been poison. now it's just eating itself and dying."

billy would take it personally. not because he's scared, but because the disappearances represent a loss of control. he might act like he doesn't care, but underneath, it bothers him. he can smell the fear in the air, and it pisses him off. plus, he has max to worry about.

he blames derry. the people. the system. the adults. "these assholes just let their kids walk into the dark. what the hell did they think would happen?"

he starts acting more aggressive. picking more fights. showing up to parties already drunk.

he might even suspect patrick at some point. not seriously, but in that way where you say it just to watch someone squirm.

to henry: "you see anything weird, you tell me. got it?" it's protective, almost like an older brother. billy's on edge, and he trusts henry enough to want him close, but he also knows henry will snap if pushed.

to patrick: "you better not have anything to do with this. i swear to god, freak." it's not a real accusation. it's a threat. billy can't handle the idea that his circle might be part of the rot.

to jd: "you think it's funny? this shit? kids are dying."

jd: "everyone's dying, billy. some just do it louder."

patrick - the one hungry for meaning.

patrick isn’t involved in the disappearances, but he’s obsessed with them. he might not feel scared.

he sketches things in notebooks: missing kids, bloody teeth, the word "float," though he's not sure why.

he hangs around places where kids were last seen. not to help. just to feel something.

he asks jd weird questions: "do you think the thing taking them...likes watching them cry?"

jd just raises a brow and lights a cigarette. "you're killing me, hockstetter."

henry - the one who's terrified but won't admit it.

henry might act like he's not scared, but he is. deep down, he knows something's not right in derry, and the disappearances are waking up old fears. stuff about his mom. about the voices. about the shadows that move when he's alone.

he lashes out harder. beats kids up for looking at him. lights things on fire.

he knows people suspect him. he likes it. it makes him feel powerful. but it also isolates him.

he clings to billy, jd, and patrick more than ever. not obviously, just always being near them, always showing up.

if someone goes missing after he talks to them, he starts to wonder if he did it, in some indirect, cosmic way. he stops sleeping. he starts carrying a knife just in case.

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