toblameforit | God help them both

God help them both

(from here; warning for some fairly wrong goings-on all round)

His room is on the second floor and it's really more of a suite. First through the door is a comfortable little living room containing all the essentials—squashy couch, wall-mounted plasma TV, bookshelf for Sherry, liquor cabinet for Tony, a pair of reasonably uncluttered desks side by side for the rare occasion when they both bring their laptops. One of them has been usurped by a violin case.

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Tony looks very wry.

"I think the idea was he'd go after me first. Which, uh—apparently not. Anybody who'd send vampires after Sherry just isn't paying attention, anyway, he took out like half a dozen of them by himself at the beginning of summer."

. . . Obadiah's expression doesn't change.

"Really," he says. "That's very impressive."

He laughs. "Yeah, no shit," he says, eyeing the rest of his drink. He decides against finishing it in one go and takes another sip instead. "Fucking badass," he concludes.

He may need to start looking for another angle on this.

That's potentially doable. He has information now he didn't have before. He just has to find the right holes to slot it into.

"What was he doing messing with that many vampires, anyway?" he asks, casual. He moves his hand from Tony's neck, laying it against Tony's side instead, and sips his own drink.

Tony decides abruptly that he is not even going to mention Cal's name.

"His best friend's dad went missing. Turned out it was vampires." He shrugs. "Kind of a shitty scene all round."

"That's a shame," Obadiah murmurs politely. He's still a little distracted.

However:

"He's a bit more of a loner in my world, far as I can tell. I don't think he has any friends at all, never mind a best one."

He grins a little.

"That's way politer than the other you was about it."

"I think we've established that he didn't have much going for him."

Focus. Think later. That's what Milliways is for.

He's not leaving until he's damn sure he has a clear and solid plan in place.

"You're still kind of an asshole about Sherry," Tony points out. "But less of one. Which is good."

He smiles.

"Maybe I'm learning."

Tony beams. He approves of this theory!

Jesus, that smile gets him every time. It makes Tony look exactly like Howard.

Still smiling himself, Obadiah reaches up to touch Tony's cheek, his thumb this time drawing a much closer path to Tony's mouth.

His smile softens.

The drink in his hand tips precariously; he doesn't notice.

Obadiah isn't paying it any attention himself. He's busy with Tony, with the feel of him right under his fingertips.

He's definitely not thinking much anymore about the new plans he'll have to make, either.

If Tony knew about that, he might count it as a win.

Then again, if Tony knew about that, he would probably not be the next thing to purring under Obadiah's hand.

(Tipping... tipping...)

Obadiah is a patient man, but his supply of patience is not infinite.

And in the instances where passivity pays off, it only does so up to a point. Letting Tony set the pace is getting him nowhere. Letting Tony dictate the pace will do nearly as well, and give Obadiah a little more room to maneuver.

He'll have to see to it that Tony has ample reason to want things to continue once they're really gotten underway, but he was going to do that anyway.

His fingers slide down under Tony's chin, and he leans in and - finally - kisses Tony.

It's not really a big surprise. It does feel a little weird, weirder than when Tony is the one who starts the kissing, but nowhere near weird enough to make him pull away. No, he kisses back happily enough.

Until, about five seconds in, he loses his grip entirely and the glass tumbles, whiskey and all, into Obadiah's lap.

Obadiah starts in surprise when the glass hits his leg. There was still more than enough left in it for him to feel the liquid spread, and for the sweetly sharp scent of whiskey to suddenly be everywhere.

He can't decide whether to be amused or annoyed; the soft huffing sound he makes against Tony's mouth might indicate that he's settled on both.

Tony, by contrast, giggles.

"Oh, man," he says, "I'm sorry. Me and your laundry just don't get along, do we."

Obadiah chuckles, with a tinge of exasperation to it.

"No, that's fine," he says. "I was wondering what Milliways charges for dry-cleaning anyway."

He doesn't, at the moment, care too much about any damage done or the way the wet cloth will start to chafe if left. He still leans back from Tony to have a look, taking the opportunity to put his own drink aside.

"Damn."

"That's not gonna be any fun in five minutes," concludes Tony, veteran of alcohol spills. "My bad."

"No," Obadiah agrees, "it's not."

There's only one immediately available option, then.

(This is not exactly the worst thing that could have happened.)

He detaches from Tony, asking,

"You don't have a bathrobe in here by any chance, do you?" He doubts Tony could own much of anything that would fit him.

"Uh, check the closet in the bathroom, but I don't think so."

...Huh.

Yeah.

Tony isn't sure what he thinks of that.

(He is sure that, all else being equal, if Obie had done that on purpose he would be done here. All else is not equal. He stops thinking about it.)

It's too obvious a thing to engineer, but an accident works out just fine.

(And if he had decided to use such a tactic, he would have spilled on Tony. If you're going to commit to something ridiculous, you may as well go all the way.)

He gets up and checks the closet, for the look of the thing, but finds nothing, which spares him the charade of trying to pull on a Tony-sized bathrobe. So it's back to the couch, where he sets about the business of ridding himself of his whiskey-stained pants.

Tony decides, the same way he decided it was okay to come up here in the first place, that he is not going to be weirded out by half-naked Obie.

It doesn't work quite as well.

There's no way he could possibly stop himself looking, though. He knows himself well enough not to try.

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