Tandy Bowen doesn't have to pick between (cloakndagger) wrote in repose,
Re: Billy/Tandy: the neighborhood
"Okay, that sounds acceptable." Tandy got comfortable. It wasn't a production. It wasn't even a small scale, self-aware thing. He simply rearranged limbs until he was cross-legged, his feet over the edge of the bed so that the soles of his shoes touched absolutely nothing that would touch skin - because microbes and bacteria and Tandy himself was not comfortable with notional proximity of soles to bedsheets but he sagged comfortably, the length of his spine bowing as he did so. "I like Dali."
Billy looked a little like he found it funny. There were obvious distinctions; Billy had sex, frequently and with several partners none of whom knew his real name and Tandy had none, with no one but everyone he'd ever spoken to knew him by his own name, which he thought he'd prefer. He understood the theory of compartmentalization, he had compartments down. But a name was important. His own was the subject of much pre-pubescent teasing, but it was his. Tandy's expression (such as it was) wobbled a little. He didn't know if he could do it. Carve off a part of himself, and have it stay there, carved off.
"Is wanting like that? I thought it was kind of binary," he said reasonably, with the twitch of his mouth that said it was a joke, and he regarded the finger with cool contemplation. "I have never had fangs in my neck," he said, after a moment.