Tandy Bowen doesn't have to pick between (cloakndagger) wrote in repose,
Re: Billy/Tandy: the neighborhood
No, Tandy wasn't effusive. He didn't effuse, he didn't emote a lot, out loud where it could be visibly noted or observed. That came from middle school which combined the traditional observation overload with the dead parent which made him the object of significant attention and Tandy didn't put much on display. He didn't feel the need to, to Instagram his morning or to catalog his evening on Snap. But yes, Bowie. He liked Bowie. Bowie and Tandy cracked a smile more malleable and stretching in the warmed-up, comfortable friendship/roommate environment.
"I don't really draw Bowie," he said, amused. "I draw people. Mostly people who walk past." There were zero societal pressures Tandy felt obliged to follow, and he minded, significantly over who saw his art. It was private, in a way difficult to explain to anyone who didn't hide and hive off most of who they were to keep it for themselves. "Maybe." It was non-committal. It wasn't coy, because Tandy definitely wasn't coy. It was undecided. He rolled his weight on the end of the bed, and he observed Billy in his current state. It was less ...finished than the final-product Billy Tandy had seen often. Expressions that were rote, the way his eyebrows jumped, or his mouth ticked that Tandy was becoming accustomed to simply by virtue of repetition and provocation.
It was like everything on Sabrina's inside was on his outside. Unformed, unfinished and Tandy wasn't familiar with unexploded ordnance but it felt a lot like having discovered it. "Ninety nine percent of the population have baggage. Some of it is even checked-only, heavy weight. I don't think you're alone. Maybe you're not okay. But I also doubt that's an essential component. Being okay is a transient state, anyway. If you were okay, permanently, you wouldn't be experiencing life."
Tandy said it quietly. He didn't look Billy directly, he addressed the wall just above his head. It was kinder, that way.