Chapter Text
Shuffling about his room, Bill tried what could've been considered his best attempt to clean his room.
It wasn't quite disastrous, per se, but the organized chaos was both fitting and overwhelming. Writing utensils, papers, journals, random knickknacks, and other trinkets were littered about. His desk held some of those aforementioned objects, alongside history textbooks.
The wooden flooring had clothes in varying degrees of cleanliness scattered on it. There were crumbs in his bed (which he was grateful that Meri had been too high to give any thought to). Rocks he thought were cool had been lined up at his windowsill. Another one of his many dead or dying plants also looked out the window.
When had he last tidied up?
Clothes got thrown in his laundry basket, the crumbs had been shaken off his comforter, his books and papers were stacked into a small Tower of Babel. His conveniently unseen lotion bottle and paper towel roll now resided in his closet.
Bill clapped his hands together in an accomplished manner. There. All better.
Speaking of things being better, Meri was taking his sweet time showering. Though, he supposed, if you lived out of your car more often than not, then you'd take advantage of free hot water any day.
He should check on him anyway, right?
Yes, yes, he should. And bring him a change of clothes he'd grabbed at Mr. J’s. A dark pair of sweatpants with a blue t-shirt, which was turned inside out at that moment, and some boxers that were hastily handled.
Knocking on the bathroom door, he asked: “Everythin’ okay?”
“Uh, yep! I'm good! More ‘fine’ than anyone else ever was!” Despite sounding very much not fine.
It felt counterproductive to push for a real answer, so he put a pin in it, right beside other vague pieces of information hidden away. Bill instead went on like he truly was alright. “Well, I got clean clothes for ya. Where should I—”
“Just, like, outside the door. Please.”
He nodded as if Meri could see him through the door, set his clothes down, and went right back to his room.
Waiting anxiously, he plopped down at his writing desk. His hands craved something to do. The usual schtick of ‘research and write’ looked unbearable when compared to staring at his former co-captain fresh from a bath, listening to him complain about anything and everything.
Maybe he could’ve drawn to get some of the nervous energy out? Make a silly little picture for his own enjoyment. Notebook, pencil, muse. Meri.
He thought to himself while doodling. It was clear that his guest felt conflicted, where he was at in his belief about their past lives being murky. The younger had asked about York without him ever being mentioned. Then, as if he recalled his own skepticism, promptly stated disbelief in the situation.
But he had to be fair. No one gets told that they're a historical figure, come back to life, and accepts it right away. Bill, himself, needed months to come to terms with it.
It was hard to remember with whole clarity, but various stories of him being a strange child would be told and retold at family gatherings. Hunting wild animals to eat at age eight. Confusing dreams of his past with the present. The occasional but extreme episodes of melancholy. Yearning for someone not yet known.
Selfishly, though, he hoped Meri would accept it way faster than he had. There was so much he had to say, to apologize for, to cry about. He said he would wait—had meant it—but he didn't want to wait forever. It was hard to be fair, too.
Minutes passed in his quietude. His pencil made a scratching sound as he scribbled. Line. Line. Erase. Line.
Borrrrrring.
It was nothing short of merciful when his guest entered the bedroom, hair still wet. The brune’s t-shirt was turned inside-right and read: “I MET GOD / FISH,” with a ‘biblically accurate’ fish below the text. The possibility of Bill being old was a likely one, but what was so funny about…fish?
Absurdist humor.
He spoke, “Oh, heya! How was the shower?”
“Fine, I guess. It was wet. It did its job.” Meri threw himself onto his bed with a sigh. Kicking his feet, he went on talking. “How acceptable is weed, in your opinion?”
Back at it again. One hour of peace would be nice.
Bill stared at him, incredulous. “Why?”
“Nothing, nothing! Just, uh…bored.”
“Meri.”
The younger man rolled his eyes. “Fine, there was a blunt in my pants that I forgot about.”
“...Is it really that necessary for ya to get high all the time? You were so blitzed last night you could hardly stand!”
“Well…” He stopped to think. “No. But it’s fun. Besides,” The blunt was held up in the air, wiggled up and down. “I'll let you have some, if you want!”
Freckled hands flew up as a defense. “I never said I wanted any!”
“Then is it fine if I smoke by myself?”
Problem: “We're inside!!”
Solution: “Open a window.”
Problem: “N’ have you jump outta it? No.”
Solution: “Just open the glass part!”
Meri wiggled the blunt again. “‘Ouuuuuu, I'm a maaaagic blunt, and I want you to smooooke meeee!’” A finger toward the magic blunt. “See? He wants to be smoked!”
Bill swallowed nervously. “I dunno…”
“This’ll be the one and only time I ask, I swear on it.” He saluted him.
“...N’ you promise that you won’ ask again?”
“Scouts honor!” Was he even in the Boy Scouts? Probably not.
He paused for a moment before he began to dig through his desk drawers, lifting papers and such, until he came upon what he was looking for: a super ancient ashtray. It was set on the bedside table.
The brown-haired man raised an eyebrow. “I didn't know you smoked.”
A noncommittal hum. “Used to. Gave it up years ago.” He kind of wanted to get back to sketching, but had to admit that he was curious about the other's experience with substances. That, and he wanted to stare at his mouth while he took a hit. He disregarded how easily he went along with most anything Meri did.
After patting his pockets, he looked back up. “You still got a lighter, then?”
Bill stood up and padded to his dresser, pulling out a box of matches, and then sat back down while holding it out.
“Sick.”
Meri lit the blunt and took a hit. A large one, one that would cause many irregular users to cough like they were dying, but he held it like a champ before blowing it out.
He handed it over. “Careful.”
“Bah, I'll be alrigh’.” He took his own respective hit. It was not alright. A coughing fit started almost immediately.
“Told you so.”
“Ack— shu— AHUM, AHUM— shut-the-hell-up— Gawd—”
Local man can't handle smoke and is banned from weed forever! More at five!
At least Meri seemed amused, grinning. “What, you need me to shotgun you?” He leaned forward as he teased.
Bill perked up, continuing to wheeze. “Would ya?”
“Hell no! C’monnnn, it's not that hard.”
Minutes went by. The blunt was passed back and forth between them, getting smaller as it was smoked and ashed. Unfortunately, for Bill, he didn't get the shotgunning he hoped for.
They were both floating on cloud nine despite all apprehensions.
Meri let out a small laugh as he put out the filter on the ashtray. He'd laid down at some point and pulled his host onto the bed with him. They stared at the ceiling.
“Hey,” Bill said with a snort. “You remember when Private Shannon slipped n’ spilled his soup on us?”
“Ugh, how could I forget? We smelled like ass the whole rest of the night.” Despite the harshness of the words themselves, he sounded fond. “Seaman chewed up your pants afterward.” And he broke into a giggling fit.
The redhead couldn't stop grinning. “That was him?!”
“Of course! You remember—he tore up anythin' he could get his paws on.”
“He was jus’ like ya, swear on it.”
“Destructive?”
“No, y'all were both ridiculous sometimes.”
The brune sighed wistfully, though not unhappily. “He was a great boy. A great…” He thought for a second. “Billy?”
Bill turned to him. “Hm?”
“What happened to him?”
“How do ya mean?”
“When I…like, uh…died, I guess.”
“Oh.” He shifted, now feeling guilty again, but with the new addition of drug-induced emotional sensitivity. “Well, he, um…passed not too long after you.”
When the other didn't reply right away, he looked over.
Shakily, Meri asked, “My boy, he… How?”
How does one explain a death to someone in an already unstable headspace? The mood changed fast, giving him whiplash.
Honesty would be the best route—the answer could be sought out on the internet—but he found himself hesitating, unsure if the truth was necessary at that moment.
“Please.”
Bill couldn't stand to look him in the eyes, so he closed his own before going on. “He kinda…gave up? I mean, he was alright when you first left. N’ when you din’ come back, he got sad, but was fine. I guess it was, um—” He tried to cough the lump out of his throat. “—when we started packin’ up your stuff, he got it. Stopped barkin’ and cryin’, stopped eatin’. Just…laid there. N’ one day I woke up and he…”
Meri buried his face into his hands, letting out a watery whimper. “Oh my god.”
“I'm sorry.”
“He— You— I don't—” And he was upset again.
Nevermind, it was possible honesty was not the best route. In all fairness, he had asked what happened. Still, the elder felt responsible for this.
In the midst of his revelation, Meri managed to ask: “Was he comfortable, at least?”
No, he was starving and laying in a puddle of his own piss. “Yeah, he was.”
The other nodded, consoled by that, even if it was a white lie.
“You'd never seen a dog so comfy. His own bed n’ everythin’. Old age caught up with ‘im.” In truth, neither knew how old Seaman was, but Bill had lived to see his end, whereas Meri didn't. It was easy to pretend that the falsehoods were truths, when it soothed the radiating pain of loss.
He was thankful that the explanation was accepted without further questioning. So it went.
An hour later, things had lightened up significantly.
As a distraction from their loss, the redhead began asking about music. They didn't have very similar tastes.
Meri liked (what he personally considered) edgy metal from the 90s/00s. He ranted and raved about how Limp Bizkit’s lyrics were works of genius. He referred to Primus, lovingly, as cringe. He said he had all of KoRn in his basement, chained up.
Yeah, okay, he was kind of a loser. A loser whose eyes lit up while rambling about the significance of “a Pepsi, just one Pepsi.” Bill wanted to kiss his face off.
The redhead's tastes lay in a section called: “divorced dad rock.” And Eminem. Because of course.
Which led to Bill pulling up his old high school rap music that was posted on the internet. Leading to him trying to impromptu rap. Badly.
“Uh, uh! Okay! Call me Columbus, the way I be discoverin’ these bars; postin’ up here at my daddy's farm! Me n’ shawty rappin’ on this wire; boutta set the house on fire!”
His guest was physically cringing, but laughed along.
The redhead pointed at him. “Your turn! Go, go!!”
“Oh my fuckin’ god, never! That's terrible!”
“We could go on a rappin’ expedition this time, bringin’ sick beats to the masses!”
“Stop, I'm gonna actually throw up.”
Bill then plucked him off the ground joyously, eliciting a yelp of surprise.
“Put me down!! You're the worst!!!” Meri struggled against his strength and didn't move anywhere. Despite his protests, he laughed. He stopped wriggling with a sigh.
He was set on the bed, and Bill sat down next to him. “Yer real light, y'know?” Curiosity.
Brown eyes scanned his lithe figure; two stick-like arms, one covered in various scars; a body drowning in loose clothing. He looked sickly. It wasn't as if he hadn't noticed before, but holding him confirmed it.
The younger man shrugged, cheeks flushed. Nothing was said in return.
Laying down, he went on. “Well, it's alrigh’. I gotchu now.”
“You've ‘got me’?”
“Mhm, n’ I'm not lettin’ you go. Never again.”
“Well,” Meri fidgeted about his seat. “How do you know I'm the right person?”
Bill gave him an assured pat on the leg. “You can call me crazy all you like, but I jus’ do. Like how…the moon recognizes its sun. It jus’ knows.”
“Inanimate objects. And I'm nothing like the sun,” he snorted.
“No?” He sat up, pulling him closer while gesturing to an imagined set of celestial bodies. “The moon glows because of the sun's light. That's us.” He pointed back towards themselves. “I‘m not special without ya.”
The brunet balked at him as he flushed. “You're so weird.”
“Weird, or simply dedicated to bein’ weird?”
“Same difference.”
“Nuh-uh! Those are totally separate things!”
Meri didn't grace him with a reply, getting up to walk over to his desk and glancing at the paper he'd begun drawing on.
Color him shocked when nothing was immediately said. It felt a bit as if he'd been stripped naked, those hazel eyes drinking it in—albeit lacking much judgement, observant.
When he did, at last, speak, his voice held an amused lilt. “Who’s this?”
The weed didn't make Bill any more confident or any less likely to ramble. Playful and frank? Yes. Self-assured? No.
“I mean, you could say it's someone I know.”
“Know well?”
“Hmmm…I'd say so.”
“How well, then?”
“Better than anyone else.”
Meri let a small, nervous grin onto his face. “Can't be me, then.”
“It'll always be you.” Breathlessness.
He took a seat where the elder had previously been, holding the paper up. “It's strange. Like havin’ my own fanclub. Fanclub of one, but y'know. Semantics.”
“Semantics,” he parroted. “Yeah.”
“I just, I don't get it—your obsession with me of all people.” A frown. Denial.
Having it said so plainly made him feel foolish, like this was some odd hyperfixation rather than their lives. “You're my person.” Wasn't it that simple?
“Not your, what, your wife? Not your son?” The younger’s voice raised a few pitches, hands waving around with wild abandon.
“They weren't you.” It had to be that simple. Surely it could be.
The paper he was holding was slammed down on the table. “But why me?!”
Bill couldn't explain it fully, the words eluding him as they always did in situations such as this. How does one explain that someone can be so important to him—more important than any family he had, more important than living, itself—that he would choose him over and over and over again? That it had to be him. That it would always be him. Forever.
Maybe it could just be said as such, but it felt bigger than that. Felt bigger than anything.
And thus, he was left speechless. No wonder he chose to be stone cold sober all the time. He couldn't form a proper thought like this.
“Why do you think so?”
“I don't know. You're a sucker for punishment? You have a savior complex?”
“Hm.” Those were good reasons. But they weren't entirely accurate. “It's possible. I only know this, though: I love you—”
Meri scoffed, “Sucker for punishment…”
“—N’ I'll say it as many times as ya need me to.”
“You'll be wasting your breath.”
“Maybe so. I'll love you despite that, too.”
So it was.