Tandy Bowen doesn't have to pick between (cloakndagger) wrote in repose,
Re: Billy/Tandy: the neighborhood
Tandy wrinkled his nose. It was one of those careers that sounded more like an instagram post than an actual career. Evidently, people who liked expensive clothing liked to smell expensive as well, but there was significant difference between the science of fragrance - which Tandy liked, very much since reading a number of books on the subject around the time 'pheromones' had first been a thing he, Tandy had been ignorant of - and the art of design. Which, for the record, Tandy also liked the way he liked modern art. "I don't wear cologne." He didn't. He never had. Tandy smelled like soap, and peppermint shampoo and of washed, warm cotton.
"I recall your compartmentalization. The rules make it simpler, because deviation from them from someone else can be dealt with. So you're like me," he said, matter-of-factly when Billy curled like a mollusc from discomfort, his spine bending underneath it, and Tandy put a hand on the boy's knee, briefly and patted it. It wasn't a 'there there'. Tandy didn't do 'there there'. "You don't know how. Except you want to. I think most things we don't know how to do are stressful, if they're important."
Sideways shrug. Tandy didn't perceive Billy as in need of performance. He didn't. He had been himself, the way Tandy was, without assumption that it would bite him in the ass. He expected this from Billy, and the mollusc-ing was sweet, a little.
"I'll take your word for it. I have no practical experience of vampires."