Tandy Bowen doesn't have to pick between (cloakndagger) wrote in repose,
Re: Under the lights: Tandy/Mars
Tandy didn't give credibility to labels. Labels were supposedly useful but if you peeled them off people, you had the people to deal with rather than the average interaction that the label suggested was providential. He didn't know Mars' origin, or the source of her white dress, he knew that she wasn't from town but she could theoretically exist from a town very like this one just far enough not to cross paths previously. He didn't assume, and he didn't smell antiseptic, only the faint aroma of the drink dumped over her skirt.
It was polite. To walk a girl home. It was polite, and the town had been prone to oddities and Tandy's own journey home weaved through the neighborhood rather than the center of town but practically, any oddities would find him more challenging than she. He had manners, drilled underneath years and years of neglect, and Tandy loomed over her, his shoulder several inches above hers, and he shoved everything into a pocket and loped along at her side. "Neat. Okay."
He waved. In the direction of his friends. Goodbye, etc and they were all deep in conversation so he didn't think it registered but it was the general thing to do when departing. "How long have you been in Repose?" He thought it an obvious question.