Re: Carriage House: Atticus & Billy
Billy was potentially getting sloppy, maybe. It was hot in the kitchen, and that was made evident in the way that Atticus’ cheeks were flushed with a deep sort of warmth. In the way that his curls were haphazardly tousled with the beads of sweat that pearled up over his scalp. “Strangers seeing is literally all that I do, Atticus. I don’t get to keep secrets like that,” he explained, patient rather than bitter, with a creased line appearing between his brows. He thought that much would have been obvious. Instead he busied himself with looking down at the legs of his ill-fitting brown pants (not deliberately loose, just that way because he was so skinny that anything above a certain waist size made his pants all loose around his thighs). “But, no. It’s not the same as you seeing it. But you’re my friend, so I’m not going to traumatize you by undressing in front of you.”
He made the last part gentle, teasing, as he reached up and liberated another handful of Reese’s Pieces into his open mouth. The sugar and chocolate and peanut butter, that was all very good. That was safe. “Not my bio-dad, no. He was long gone before I was born; Destiny and I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” He hesitated for a moment then, with his pupils-wide gaze fixated on Atticus’ hands operating over the lobsters, over their meal, over… over the massive amount of food that Atticus had set up for them to eat, that had Billy’s heartbeat ticking up and fluttering a little harder in his chest. He had to eat all that? (No, it was fine. It would be fine.)
“Just my bunica,” he echoed softly, blinking slow. He didn’t even notice the butchering of that word pronounced by the other. Wrung all those fingers in his lap, twisted together even as he drew in a deep, unsteady lungful of air. “Uh, I guess it seemed fitting?” It came out sounding like a question, because there was no tactful way to present I’m a witch or I kill people.
He was nodding before he even realized it, really - gaze alighting on the roe that Atticus was scooping out, and maybe Billy’s mouth was watering just a little. “Destiny? Oh, yeah. She’s, like, seven years older than me. Our bio-dad got around, yanno?”
So then there was something he could do, in reaching out to grab the bottle of wine from the makeshift ice bucket before he slithered off the countertop and brandished it in Atticus’ direction. “Sitting area is great. Meet you out there. Glasses?” He waggled the bottle with a little more effort, all raised eyebrows and dimpled cheeks as he glanced around the tiny kitchen. This much, this he could do. “Oh, and - do you want me to set the table, too?”
And yeah, Billy was deliberately ignoring the part where Atticus pretended like he didn’t feel sorry for the sad boy. No big.