Tandy Bowen doesn't have to pick between (cloakndagger) wrote in repose,
Re: Billy/Tandy: the neighborhood
Tandy understood the environmental impact of the cumulative effect of paper-towel usage in the first world. It was not going to have the same impact as say, the commitment to fell portions of the Amazon in order to open it up to mineral mining, but it was probably a more likely route to reducing the overall total. Tandy believed in science, he believed in climate-change probably more like believing in weather than a religion, per se but he had no idea of the stages of nesting. It was a psychological concept beyond him.
There was no 'I hate it' for the simple reason Tandy didn't hate it. He thought the place was neat. He was jazzed about living there but Tandy had put years and years and effort into studiously blank expressions and he frowned: pizza-sauce coated confusion over Holly. Tandy didn't know Holly as a man who grunted. He was inarticulate occasionally, but the boy made a living out of doing things over the internet, Tandy assumed significant control of his articulations. "Is there a common theme when he's non-verbal?"
Except right. House-warming. "You bought Holly a hundred dollars worth of comics?" Tandy's voice was even-toned. He didn't do an excel of volume or emotion. He wasn't incredulous, he sounded a little like someone asking if you'd picked up a brand of cereal at the market. "You have money. Right. But I don't." This was a statement of the obvious. "Reciprocation is typically the game-plan of gifts. Christmas. Hannukkah. Birthdays. You reciprocate if you're not a Grinch. It's too much."
But Billy's expression was like fat spitting in a pan, quick to light. Tandy could barely follow. "I'm pretty sure your theory is bogus, Sabrina. He doesn't have much on Maslow, he was probably hungry."