Tandy Bowen doesn't have to pick between (cloakndagger) wrote in repose,
Re: [Tandy & Holly: the good diner]
If here-Tandy had a lockbox of stuff, this Tandy hadn't discovered the location or the clue to the combo lock. It made Tandy deeply uncomfortable in the way that kind of sat like a layer of scum on the surface of his skin, but he didn't let it curdle all the way into desperation. Desperation did no one any good, and panic didn't do jack shit, and Tandy was trying to logic the fuck out of this while still operating on slim availability of the basics on Maslow's hierarchy here.
"How, though?" Which was a legitimate question, how you could be prepared for anything, if anything included people switching places in the universe? Tandy's world was like, way unimpressive compared to this. Low-key, small town life with an actual small and town in there. "I like rationales," which was true, and it was also one part of how Tandy held the panic at bay, but Holly didn't need to necessarily know that. His voice was low, and kinda even and he sounded like he was cool discussing artwork and existential crises in the same conversation.
"I like there to be a reason. Okay maybe it's unproven, but a rationale would be good, if only to isolate for other preconditions," but Holly slid into her and him, and it was still kind of extraordinary that he was a girl in another 'verse or whatever. "She had a notebook," he said, and it kind of felt like telling someone's secrets, even if it was technically Tandy's, "It's a pretty bleak picture this side of the 'verse. And mine isn't like, sunshine and rainbows but there's no one super awesome to go back for."
Holly put cash down like he'd put three and three together and made nine, and Tandy didn't exactly have the cash to like, rebut this. Instead he twisted in his seat, the kind of teenage discomfort he was meant to have grown out of, and picked up the cash. "Thanks. I mean, I'll pay you back, but thanks." Which was sort of challenging without the infrastructure of the night-jobs he had done at home, but he didn't feel much like introducing himself to her-Tandy's infrastructure.
It looked kind of ugly.
"Hey Holly?" Tandy was putting away the sketch-book, and fishing for his earbuds, so he wasn't making eye-contact as he said it. "It's cool there's a version of you that's similar to the version I know, here." Which was way nonchalant, for the way he said it.