Re: Hookerville: Billy/Si
He knew what Si looked like, just from seeing him around the caravan. It was hard to miss the guy. (Ftr, Billy had a feeling that he was destined to be surrounded by ridiculously tall dudes as some penance for something he hadn’t yet admitted to doing wrong.) So it wasn’t like he knew the guy but he’d definitely known who he was: the handyman who looked about five steps away from teetering off the metaphorical cliff at all times. He sort of reminded Billy of his older brother during finals, except, like, a thousand times more exhausted, with a more sunken look to his cheeks.
But okay, he glanced up as the guy unfolded himself from the doorway of the bus and he tipped his chin upward in a vague acknowledgement. He didn’t stop pacing. Billy’s jeans were damp up to mid-calf but he knew they’d dry in a few minutes, with tendrils of steam curling up into the air off his skin.
“Hey,” he echoed, voice that was nothing-special because he didn’t have to put the effort into making it slide like half melted candy through the air. Billy looked up and up, because at 5’7” his neck hurt from the angle of slanting under the weary weight of his eyelids to take in the guy's entire height. He sucked at his smoke until the paper sizzled down to filter and didn’t even notice right away; he kept going so that the cotton fibres packed tight filled his mouth with a caustic flavour as they burned. “We should swap buses,” he said, gesturing with his cigarette butt in the direction of the deep woods. “Mine got converted into an RV by a couple of hippies and they raised the ceiling. You’d probably still smoke your head, but maybe not as much.”