Who: Billy Horrible and Tinkerbell When: November 1 Where: Reno What: Waking up married Rating/Warning: Low/None? Status: Complete
So, the day had been awkward so far. Sort of. Kinda. Waking up next to Billy was really great, but the hangover was killer. After brushing teeth, showering, and napping for like, all day… Tink finally jumped online and came out of her hiding. And Billy contacted her, thankfully, so now they could talk it out. Or … hug it out. Or something.
She put down her phone, with which she’d been posting on valarnet and then replying to comments, and moved to open her hotel room door.
Billy was standing there, awkward -- feet positioned a bit inward like his entire stance was shy -- and his gaze and fingers focused on the phone in his hands. He paused, glanced up and his eyebrows rose nearly into his hairline.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” Tink said, breathlessly. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she spoke, and then it was too late. It sounded awkward. ..more than normal. “...do you… want to come in?” She asked, stepping to the side and holding open the door.
Then she realized they were going out for ice cream and winced.
“Yeah,” Billy said. And then paused. “No?” Ice cream. Right. He shifted his weight onto his other foot, pocketed his phone containing capslocked and panicked text message. “Later?”
“Later.” It was, after all, legally half his room. Tink stepped through into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind herself. Was she supposed to greet him with a hug? With a kiss? With a hearty handshake? She did none of those things, and simply stood and stared at him for a minute. She looked torn between terrified and amused. “Ice cream, then?”
Billy probably wouldn't have been sure what to do with any of those three things (funny, since they'd done all of them before, so why should it be different now?), and so only nodded awkwardly and stuck his hands into his pockets before his gestures got the best of him. "Yes. There's a uh. I think there's one around the block." Not like he actually knew Reno.
“Ooh, okay.” Tink said, breaking into a smile. She walked alongside him, completely trusting that he knew places in Reno. “So… married, huh?” She asked. “You’re not still hungover, are you?”
“You know? Oddly I’m not.” He’d been drunk last night, that much was obvious, but he did remember repeatedly mentioning how amazing water was. Probably that had something to do with how he was alive now.
“Yeah. Married. Crazy. Crazy happenstance.”
“Crazy crazy happenstance.” Tink repeated after him, nodding once and grinning shyly. “...so um… what should we do about that?” She’d brainstormed a number of ideas, and wasn’t sure which one she wanted to happen most. There was an annulment, there was a divorce, there was … trying to make it work? Tink sort of liked that idea. It was unconventional, sure, and she had no idea how it’d work out (would they move in together?) but … she was willing to try.
He had no idea how it’d work either. House? Oh, god, did they have to buy a house? He really didn’t want a dog. Where did a dog even factor in to all this? Who knew?
“I don’t know,” he said, honestly, but very pointedly did not bring up calling it off. Because that would be detrimental to his cause. Whatever that was.
“We could just eat ice cream.” Married people did that.
“Yeah, I was thinking that. Ice cream is definitely the first step. Then there’s… you know… other steps?” Tink said, sounding hopeful. She really had no idea what those steps would be, but she was certainly hopeful that he would know. He had a plan, right? Please God, let him have a plan.
He was an evil genius. He could make a plan. Just because he didn’t have one currently didn’t mean that there couldn’t be one eventually. Right? Right.
When they finally got to the ice cream shop, they both stared at the flavors for a while. Billy preferred frozen yogurt, but this wasn’t a big deal. He rocked back on his heels, stared a little more. Snuck a glance at Tink.
“You could move in,” he blurted.
It was a good thing she wasn’t drinking anything. Tink would surely have done a spit-take. “Move in? With you?”
It wasn’t that it was a terrible idea. She’d honestly thought of it herself. But it was the last thing in the world she expected to hear him suggest.
“Unless you married someone else last night, too,” Billy said, super awkward, and kind of thinking of how he’d murder someone else if she’d managed to marry two men. Not possessively or anything. Just. You know. Watching out for Tink’s honor.
“...I’m not sure that’s legal, so…” Tink was growing bright pink now, thinking about it. Moving in together. That’d mean… living in the same house. Sleeping in the same bed? Maybe? Or… they’d share a room, right? Her parents were married, and they shared a room…
“No no, I mean… okay. Yeah. That’d be… the next step.” Tink said, giving him a smile. “Is your place big enough? Because mine’s totally not.”
He’d be pretty okay with sharing a room with her. Or not, if she didn’t want to. But he’d like to. They could… you know. Do married things. That’d be cool.
Sometimes, it was a surprise that he was anywhere near thirty years old. Billy flushed, shook his head. “Yeah. I mean. Mine’s a decent size. If you don’t like it we could.. you know. Look around.”
“Well… no, I think it’s fine.” Tink said. She cleared her throat. This felt awkward, but mostly because she was trying to contain how excited it really made her feel. Excited and scared, but the two sometimes went hand in hand. “It’ll be big enough. I mean, there’s just the two of us, right?”
Absently, Billy pointed to a flavor behind the counter and a waffle cone on display. “What? Yeah. Yeah, just us. I don’t have a roommate. Or a pet or anything.”
“Me, either. Well, didn’t. Until now.” She motioned for the same. Whatever it was. Two was good. Were they supposed to start sharing now? Anyway, she wanted her own ice cream. Drown her awkward in ice cream.
“...do you… um… want to spend the night together? I mean, like… like like…?” She was really, really terrible at all of this.
“Let’s just have ice cream,” Billy blurted, shoving money in the direction of the kid behind the counter. “We’ll figure it out later. Yeah? Yeah!”
“Yeah.” Tink said. She was nodding and smiling. Her hand shot out, seemingly of its own accord, and took hold of his. They could figure it all out later.