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The spring stars are bright, sprawling across the sky and providing a decent amount of light along with the waxing Gibbous that hangs low and pregnant above the treeline. The cherry of Eddie’s cigarette glows before him, a winking thing that disappears whenever it crosses into the blind spot beneath his nose. Still, he follows it into the woods, his woods, where he’s sold more shit than there are cobwebs. He knows each fallen log, each tree, and has made sure to give them reverent sacrifices of KFC chicken bones and glugs of cheap red wine for their protection. It's hard to get caught by cops or bullies when they can’t keep their footing between the roots.
Smoke drifts up between the spreading leaves as he heads North towards Skull Rock. It had been one of his best selling spots before Harrington made it a makeout place. Now he’s lucking to get one or two buyers out here on the off nights; the Tuesdays and Wednesdays when students are either sleeping off the last of what they bought the week before or are actually trying to get school work done.
He’s not expecting to find anyone there, honestly. Spring has always been slow. People are saving money for spring break or returning from family trips flush with shit from other states, maybe even other countries. It’s no skin off Eddie’s back. Even when it’s slow, he can at least make ends meet, and when he is at the height of selling season, some of the cash makes its way into the coffee can that Wayne keeps for getting the truck’s shocks fixed. They both know it’ll never happen; too many other things pop up for the little can to grow over a hundred dollars. They usually end up depleting it for food, replacement clothing, or to pay off amenities that spike during the freezing winters and humid summers.
A hiss of pain slithers through the trees, making Eddie still. He’s just outside the ring of trees that make up the Skull Rock clearing, and they do little to cover up what’s happening. Just inside the little cave, if it can even be called that, he can see someone. One of the few candles constantly left at the rock is flickering, the wick low. Still, it’s enough to reflect off of honey-blonde hair and blooming bruises on pale skin.
“Jesus, Hargrove,” Eddie says around his cigarette as he steps out of the trees, “The fuck hit you? A truck?”
Billy Hargrove turns sharply, eyes wide with surprise before they narrow, and his face goes mean.
“The fuck you want, Freak?” he snaps.
“Well, I was hoping for a quiet night, but apparently, that’s too much to ask for.” Eddie stares down his nose at Billy. Hargrove, the new campus king now that Harrington has ‘turned bitch’ as Hagan likes to say. He doesn’t know about that; Eddie just figures that the old King might have realized how everything in between the walls of the high school is just bullshit. Billy, on the other hand, is the king of just that; bullshit.
“Well fuck off,” Billy snaps. “Not like anyone is going to be buying on a Tuesday.”
“Oooo, trying to weasel in on my turf, Cali?” Eddie raises a brow and grins when Billy sneers at him. “Whatever dried-out shit you’ve got can’t beat mine.”
“Your stash will never beat out Santa Monica kush,” Billy growls back. He shifts, and Eddie watches his face flicker in pain, or maybe that’s just the candle’s flame.
“Yeah, right.” Eddie steps in front of him, eyes tracing over what he can find. Billy’s got strips of what looks like an old (but clean) towel, cheep gauze pads, and the bottle of booze, but judging by how full it is, Billy isn’t drinking the clear liquor. His eyes flick over Billy next. He’s got bruises all over his upper arms, a nasty purpling ring around his wrist with a matching one on his neck. It looks like one of his eyes is also threatening to turn black. Eddie can also tell that all of the marks are from hands, mean ones. The worst wound is on Billy’s upper right bicep, dark and jagged in the candlelight. Either whoever was wailing on him had some sharp nails or shoved him against something jagged; he’s assuming the latter.
“The fuck happened to you, man?” He stubs his partially finished cigarette on the wall before pocketing it.
“Fight,” Bill grunts in response, though there is little conviction behind the bitten-out word. “Now fuck off before I get into another one.” Eddie catches the blue glint of his eyes in the flame’s light. They look more like starlight, a flash of meteorites in the atmosphere before they’re swallowed up.
“You know, it’s easier to do that shit with two people.”
“Really? And why the fuck would I take medical advice from you?”
“I mean, the basketball team does its damndest to send me to Nurse QuarterInch at least once a week, and she’s pretty much given up on dressing my shit unless she absolutely needs to.” Eddie cocks his head as he looks at Billy's wound. “Upper arm like that, definitely harder to do alone than with help. Hagan’s class ring taught me that.” The cut he references throbs with a ghostly heat. Nurse Quartinch (QuarterInch, as she was dubbed due to her small stature) had to use butterfly bandages to keep the long slash closed and then told Eddie he’d have to get stitches to keep it that way. Wayne had instead sat with him at the kitchen table with q-tips and superglue, fixing it the way his father had taught him after the war. There wasn’t enough in the coffee can for an unexpected medical bill.
To Billy’s credit, he looks away. He’s never bullied Eddie much. A few curses, a few slurs, but rarely a punch or push. Eddie likes to think it’s respect from one metalhead to the other. He’s heard what Billy blasts when he screeches out of the parking lot; pretty sure Billy’s heard him playing matching music when he sells out of the back of his van at parties.
“Why the fuck do you care, Munson,” he grumbles as he grabs the bottle by his feet. “Not like I’mma buy from you just because you play nurse.”
“Not expecting you to, but,” he snags the bottle before Billy can start to pour it over the nasty cut on his upper arm. Billy gives a ‘hey’ of surprise as he tries to grab it back, Eddie dancing away from him. “Trying to clean it like that is just going to fuck it up worse. Lift your arm.”
“Fuck you.”
“Just do it.”
Billy glares at him a moment longer before he huffs his annoyance and raises his arm. He presses his palm against the stone that holds up the large skull-esque rock, putting it out straight.
“Angle it down just a little,” Eddie directs as he comes closer, stooping to see it better. The minuscule candlelight doesn’t do much to light up the space. “Man, I can’t see shit,” Eddie grumbles as he finds the dark line on Billy’s bicep.
“Can’t do much about that.” Billy looks back into the cave. “Lit all the ones I could find.”
“Well, good thing I brought backup.”
Billy looks at him questioningly as Eddie steps back, sets the bottle out of Billy’s reach (because he knows the sneaky fuck will try and do it himself), and pulls a small bag of gently used crayons from his pocket. He pays the busboy at the local diner a quarter every week for the discarded wax tubes, saving them from the trash.
“Seriously?”
“Hey, candles cost money, Hargrove,” Eddie says as he takes out one of the mostly whole ones, he’s already cut off what was left of the point. “These, on the other hand, are practically free.” He flicks on his lighter, melting the bottom just a bit before sticking it on a shallow rock shelf above him. Billy watches him with rapt attention as he holds the lighter to the top of the crayon, catches the thin paper wrapped around it on fire, and then pulls back.
“Well, shit.” The makeshift candle illuminates Billy’s face as the wax slows the paper’s burning.
“They don’t work long, but when you have them in bulk, it doesn’t really matter.” Eddie shakes the little bag of crayons. “Probably have a couple of hours worth in here.”
“Where’d you learn about that?” Billy asks as Eddie sets up a couple more crayons, giving him a better-lit workspace.
“My Dad,” Eddie replies as he shoves his bag into his jacket’s inner pocket. “He had a bad habit of forgetting to pay the power bill. If we didn’t have candles, he’d plunder my coloring supplies. I got really good at mixing colors.” Eddie picks up the bottle. “Now, where were we?”
Billy sticks his arm back out; this time, Eddie can see the cut easily. It isn’t deep, but it is rough, and he can see how the edges have already collected flecks of debris from Billy’s walk in the woods.
“Wanna drink first?” he asks as he gets ready.
“Stop fucking stalling and do it already.” Billy glares up at him, and Eddie shrugs.
“K.”
Billy hisses as Eddie starts a gentle trickle of alcohol over his arm, chasing the coagulation out of the cut along with the pesky bits of dirt and grime.
“Hand me some gauze.”
Billy does so, tearing open one of the packs with his teeth, and Eddie is careful as he cleans along the cut, dribbling just the smallest bit of the high-proof liquor over Billy’s arm. He doesn’t stop until the liquor runs mostly clear, with only swirls of pure red and no chunks of scab or grime.
“There we go,” Eddie says as he pulls back, studying his handwork in the light of the burning crayons. They won’t last too much longer, but that’s okay. He’s got more should they need them.
Billy cranes his neck to look at his arm, judging the job Eddie had done.
“Good ‘nough,” he grunts before he grabs a new pad of gauze and slaps it on his arm.
“Would it kill you to say thank you?”
“Probably.” Billy goes to try and wrap a rough bandage around the gauze. Eddie makes no move to help him. Instead, he watches as Billy fights with the bandage, trying to get the loop started with his non-dominant hand, only for the gauze to slip and slide, causing more blood to pool in the cut.
“You just going to stand there?” Billy snaps after a minute of failing.
“Seems like it,” Eddie replies as he pulls out his half-finished cig, looking about as interested in Billy as he would be in watching paint dry.
“You’re the one who said it’s easier with two people.”
“You’re the one who’s being rude.” Eddie lights up.
Billy growls somewhere deep in his throat, and Eddie thinks about the neighbor's dog. It growls at everything and barks like the world is on fire, but the second someone pats its head, it may as well be a bunny.
“Help me.” The words sound almost pained as Billy says them. He looks up at Eddie with his meteorite eyes, and Eddie raises a brow in challenge. Billy drops his eyes and goes back to trying to wrap himself up.
“Oh my god, Cali, what are you, five?” Eddie sighs before he steps forward and squats down. He snatches up a fresh pad of gauze, tears it open, and pushes Billy’s hands away as he replaces the now bloodied one. Billy relinquishes the bandage without a word, and Eddie starts wrapping. It doesn’t take much, but he makes it thick enough that blood won’t be visible should the gauze get too full and that it isn’t too tight. He tucks the wrap back in on itself like nurse QuarterInch taught him. He debates on adding a second one but decides against it.
He grins as a wickedly silly idea flits through his head, and as he is wont to do, he leans in and pushes an outlandishly obnoxious kiss to the bandage. The sound of the fake smooch fills the clearing before he quickly pulls back with a loud ‘muah’ and a grin.
“There you go, Hargrove,” he says as he looks up. “All better.”
Billy is staring at him wide-eyed, face slightly slack.
Eddie forces himself to keep his smile as he brings his cigarette back to his lips. Billy’s eyes follow the motion.
“You really are a freak,” Billy murmurs.
Eddie scoffs. “Whatever, man. I’m outta here.” As he says it, his hand goes into his pocket. “So you don’t get spooked,” he adds as he tosses the little bag of crayons at Billy. Billy catches them with his left hand.
“This place really is dead on Tuesdays.” Eddie turns and strides towards the woods. “See ya round, Cali.”
“Munson.” The word reaches him just as he’s about to disappear between the tree trunks. Eddie looks back over his shoulder. Billy is standing, backlit by the flickering crayons that are starting to burn out. The bag of crayons is clenched in his hand.
Eddie waits.
“I’ll reign Jason in.” Is what follows.
Eddie snorts, lifts a hand in acknowledgment, and turns back into the woods. The wind blows up behind him.
“...and thanks.” The words are soft, meant not to be heard, but the woods make sure they make it to him.
“You're welcome, Cali,” Eddie murmurs. He doesn’t see Billy smile.