If I Stare Too Long

Chapter 4: Dancing In The Moonlight (Everybody's Feeling Warm And Bright)

They gave Billy the good shit when he first woke up. He supposes they probably also gave him the good shit when he was unconscious, but he doesn't remember much of that beyond the blur of hazy visions and a cloud of night terrors.

Had even teased Max about her own IV drip, when her words would slur during visits. They alternated– one of them being wheeled or walked to the other every other day– until both of them were finally making the trip on their own two feet again. Both of them healed a little too fast to be normal.

Max still uses a walker when the walk is too long– but she'd smiled so brightly that Billy had felt struck when he started plastering band stickers onto the metal bars.

"You know this belongs to the hospital, right?" she'd asked, dry as ever in the face of Billy's arched brow. "Like, we have to return it."

"Well, hopefully, the next invalid likes Def Leppard."

They don't talk about it– about the things that happened both before and after Billy died in front of her– about the things he remembers and the things he thinks he remembers– but he thinks that they've been through enough shit together that they don't have to talk about it.

That might be Billy's fault. He doesn't like to talk about it. And he's honestly too afraid to start that conversation when Max still wakes up screaming.

Evidently, Eddie Munson doesn't have such a compunction. And if Billy thought he was a nosy little pest before–

Well, Eddie's just lucky that he's got the good shit too, or Billy would be a lot more irritated.

"Seriously, though," Eddie says, feet in the water over the edge of the dock, gesturing with a lit blunt in his hand and talking around dense, dank smoke. "I think it would be fuckin' wicked if you, like, got that massive monster–"

"Mind Flayer," Steve chimes in, head cradled in his arms, laying on his stomach as he glances lazily between the two of them as they talk.

He's quieter than Billy expected. More mellow when he's high than Billy would have ever guessed.

But again– Eddie has the good shit.

"Right, Mind Flayer," Eddie nods, smacking at Billy's thigh with the back of a hand. "That thing. What a big fuck you to get that in ink, ya know?"

"Not everyone is a psychopath like you, Munster," Steve mumbles against his forearm, sunglasses tucked up into his hair.

The sun has long since drifted behind the trees. Has started painting the sky in pink and purple. Steve's pink too– across his shoulders and on his nose– but in the light of the setting sun, he mostly just looks golden.

High, Billy finds it really hard to tear his eyes away from Steve.

He has to keep doing it, though, because every time he does, he looks over at Eddie, who's always looking back at Billy and grinning too wide and too knowing. Like the cat who got the cream.

It's hard to feel anxious about it, though. Not when he's as high as he is.

"Think I don't want to explain that with every hookup," Billy says.

Steve hums in commiseration. "No need to complicate something that's supposed to be easy."

Eddie hoots, catching Billy's eyes and smacking at his leg again. He truly can't seem to help himself.

At least he's not tackling Steve off of the dock again.

"Easy? Are you listening to his majesty over here?" Eddie asks, jerking a thumb at where Steve grins up at them, dopey and so pleased with himself. "Easy, huh?"