Re: Billy/Tandy: the neighborhood
He’d thought about paper towels, but his mother would have killed him for the waste. Like, strangle him dead while yelling at him about the planet. And he’d gotten used to not being able to afford them anyway, so it was easier to buy a bunch of black dish towels that wouldn’t show stains. He figured that at some point in the nesting process, there was a requirement that he repurpose old clothes as rags for cleaning. Which was sort of ridiculous because, hello, half his clothes were vintage shop scores already, so really he was far more likely to sacrifice the newer shirts that didn’t hold as much sentimentality. And like, yes he got that he was arguing with his own internal monologue about the timeline of his domestication process but he’d had three cups of cold brew today already and he probably could have vibrated through space and time. So, pizza. The carb coma to balance out the semi anxious, caffeinated energy, bring it on.
He wasn’t getting the ‘I hate it’ vibes from Tandy, was the important thing here. Billy thought that he probably did alright with the house. He didn’t notice Tandy noticing, obviously - wouldn’t have even if Tandy had actually, like, given any sign instead of being the giant of easygoing blankness. Annoying. “Unless he wants to burn me a mix tape and leave it my mailbox, I don’t see that happening. He would have to actually talk to - or at least at - me, instead of just, like, grunts.” Billy was a blend of skeptical and dismissive. He’d relaxed enough from the nervous tension of house-pride to like, pay better attention, and Tandy’s subtle frown earned him one right back. “Okay, first of all. A housewarming gift could be anything. You know, I heard Kanye bought Kim ten Burger Kings as a housewarming gift.”
Yes, he heard it. But Billy folded his arms across his chest, somehow emoting belligerence, and he went with it. “Secondly, half that cost went to Holly’s comics. He was going to put a bunch of the stack back, I assumed because of money and, hello, I can afford to do a nice thing for people now and then. Oh, and thirdly - ” Somehow he managed to cock his hip even while most of his weight was still leaning against the island, projecting pure attitude and somehow managing to give an impression through voice alone that he was waving a finger in disapproval. “I never asked or expected you to reciprocate, okay? I told Alex, it’s about, like, paying it forward. I spent a lot of time in that shop when I first got here and I didn’t have anything except time. Now? I have stuff.”
He lifted the index finger on one hand and twirled it in an all-encompassing gesture. “A place to live that has actual plumbing. That I own. Friends, people I care about. Working on those Maslow needs, buddy.” He hesitated when Tandy seemed unclear about what Billy meant, about Alex practically swooning over the sales counter. His expression turned from defensive glare into a suspicious, slanted scrutiny and then there was a sharp edge of a smile that he was trying to tamp down. “Alex. You came up in conversation, and he basically swooned. Ask Holly, I know he noticed it too. It was sort of adorable, TBH.”