WHO: Clea Cox and Tony Troy WHEN: Evening, some time after the arrest of Nate Griggs WHERE: Their apartment. SUMMARY: A peek into Clea and Tony’s home life! WARNINGS: Shop talk and cuteness.
“Babe, come on, you’re going to miss the start of Property Brothers!” Clea called from the couch in their living room where she was set up with the goods: pizza, beer, and cookies. In other words, a very healthy dinner.
“I can't exactly pee faster.” He answered from the bathroom as he washed his hands. The Property Brothers could wait, after all who did they think they were? It wasn't like they were the Fab Five.
Drying off, he headed back to the living room to vault over the back of the couch with practiced ease, landing on his cushion. “And he sticks the landing” Tony's hands cupped his mouth, mimicking an announcer. “Aaaaaah, the crowd goes wild!”
“Whatever, Piper Chapman,” she waved a dismissive hand, and then rewarded Tony with a kiss to the cheek in congratulations for outstanding form. “Your prize,” Clea added, handing him two slices neatly arranged on the paper plate, and settled comfortably into the couch, her feet gently landing in Tony’s lap.
“First of all, how dare you.” Still he leaned in to the kiss on his cheek. He took his pizza plate up in the air as her feet somehow made their way to his lap. Oh well her legs made a convenient table. “I am no Piper.”
Clea shrugged as if to say it was out of her control, and took a big bite of her own slice. “It’s okay, I still love you.”
“I'm not Piper.” He took a petulant bite out of his pizza.
“Okay, babe. Who do you want to be?” She raised an eyebrow before glancing back at the television.
“I don't know, maybe Daya?” He mused around the cheese. “I'd like to think I'm Red but we both know that's not true.”
Clea nodded mournfully. “Neither of us are cool enough to be Red.” However, she managed to soothe herself with another bite of pizza, and gently nudged Tony with a foot. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Tony shrugged, taking another bite of his own. “Crime. Murder. Liars. The usual lately.”
“It’s been a lot,” she said with a sigh. When Clea had first moved back home from a big city, Fall City felt small, almost boring, even, but she’d grown used to the quiet way of life here. So a murder investigation was...a shock to the system, in more ways than one. “You’re doing amazing, though. I’ve seen you taking lead all over the place, and I’m so proud.”
“It's the job.” Tony smiled a little tightly. And it was. It was exciting in a lot of ways, having something so big to tackle. Just it wasn't exactly what he anticipated with these people he'd grown up with being the ones he was investigating. His arm looped around her shoulders. “I like to think I'm amazing at it.”
She gave him a similar smile back, and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You are amazing.” After a brief pause, Clea pulled back and glanced up at him. “Do you want to talk about it at all or not really?”
Tony leaned in, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before letting his cheek rest against her head. But that was disrupted as Clea pulled back again. The sigh was inescapable. “I’m not sure what there is. Oh hey here's a serial killer, but probably not the one that killed Moira. But oh hey he was definitely stalking Cora March before that all went down. So like. How many murderers do we have running around without consequences?”
She put her head back. Tony’s shoulder was comfy. “I wish the answer was none,” said Clea quietly.
“We’ve got at least two. Well. One now.” Maybe. Tony lent his head back against hers. “Ian turned something in. Could be nothing. But looked like it had some insight into the March case.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” she said, trying to be optimistic. “And you got at least one murderer off the streets, babe. That’s not a small thing.”
“I mean I helped with an arrest. June did a lot of the work.” Tony pointed out. “And the collar goes to Seattle really.”
Clea nodded agreeably. “What’s the thing that Ian turned in?” She asked, going back to the question he hadn’t gotten around to answering yet.
It was a change in topic but not exactly an unexpected one. “Old letters from Ed March. Love letters.”
“Really.” Her eyebrows shot up.
“To a very not Cora person.” Tony continued. “A male not Cora person.”
“The plot thickens…” she said, more to herself than Tony, and frowned thoughtfully. “Do we know this male not-Cora person?”
“No idea. He goes by Button in the letters.” It was a mystery onto itself. “I gave them over to Emilia. It, well, there's a lot of setup for a motive there. But nothing concrete.”
Clea’s lips fell into an unimpressed line. “Don’t think I know anyone by that name.”
“Well it was a nickname twenty years ago from a guy who disappeared from town also twenty years ago.” Tony reached for another slice. “We could look to see if any males age 20 to like... 50 or so moved from town on their own around the same time Ed did.”
“I was making a joke, babe,” she smiled lightly, and stole a pepperoni off of Tony’s pizza. “We could definitely do that. Give us a starting point.”
“Hey, get your own pizza.” He stuck his tongue out. “Yeah. I mean. It could easily be nothing. Nothing's come of it so far. But hey, what else do we have to do in our limited spare time?”
She took another pepperoni just to spite him, and stuck her tongue out for good measure. “Not watch Property Brothers, obviously.”