toblameforit | (no subject)

(no subject)

Two days after he lends the other Sherry his credit card, Tony decides he could do with a night out himself. Sherry—the one with a pulse—is taking care of things at the company for now, being Tony where needed, because Tony himself just cannot fucking deal. If he had to take one step into Obie's old office he thinks he would probably throw up. In a little while he'll take back the reins, seeing as it's his company and all, but for now he'd much rather go out and get drunk.

If it occurred to him, he might ask where Sherry went so he can avoid the place, avoid the complications of identity. It doesn't occur to him.

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Tony sighs.

"Don't I know it," he agrees wryly.

Her expression softens.

"Sorry."

He smiles, but there's something behind the smile, and it's not a good something.

"Hey, don't worry about it."

"Fat chance. I'm a professional worrier."

She considers him.

"You want to pour out your sorrows to a bartender? I can go get a towel to wipe down the bar for the full effect."

"For the full effect, I'd need to take that shot," he says, eyeing his forlorn tequila. "And my sorrows are kind of fucked up."

"One, true but not happening. Two, everyone's are."

"No, like, really fucked up. Like you won't believe half of it and you don't wanna know the other half." He rubs his face and sighs again.

She presses her lips together, then shrugs.

"Okay. I mean, if you don't want to talk, I'm not going to make you."

Tony half-smiles.

"I don't... honestly, I don't know if I wanna talk. But, I dunno, I feel like it wouldn't be fair to unload all this shit on you, 'cause you seem really nice, and I'm pretty sure the nasty shit in my life is nowhere near on the same level as the nasty shit most people come into bars to drink over."

"I have heard some shit, man. You should hear some of the things people came in with where I lived last year. But look--"

She ducks under the bar, rummages for a minute, and comes back up with a business card in hand. It reads:

ANDY WRIGHT
wordwright: [wərd raɪt], n. a person who creates, builds, or repairs with words

Underneath is an e-mail address.

Amiably, as she slides it across the bar: "If you use this to stalk me I'll have the cops on you like plaid on a hipster. But if you want to talk somewhere besides a seedy bar, e-mail me. I'm a good listener."

...His half-smile slowly becomes all of a smile.

"Hey, thanks," he says, taking the card. "That's, I mean... thanks."

Beat.

"Anyway, I'm not the stalker in the family. Okay, that's not fair, Sherry doesn't actually stalk people. He just—kind of doesn't notice that stuff that's obvious to him is creepy to normal people."

Her eyebrows go up.

Mostly teasing: "Should I be worried he tipped me so well?"

He laughs and shakes his head. "Oh, no way. I mean stuff like... I stop for a coffee on the way back from the office, and when I get home and walk in the door he's like, 'Abandoned Starbucks, have you?' and I'm like 'What?', and he's like 'Oh, no, they just changed their roast again', and I'm like Sherry how do you know these things."

Anecdote delivered, he pauses for half a second and then confesses, "I can't guarantee he won't do a background check on you to make sure you're not an assassin. But I don't think he will."

He has been thinking about his own Sherry, the Sherry who is alive, this whole time. When he pauses again to consider the differences between that one and the one Andy has actually met, he concludes that everything he's said works just the same either way.

"I'm a black belt," she offers. "Does that ring any alarm bells?"

Cheerfully: "Not to me it doesn't."

She gives him a thumbs up. "Good. It shouldn't. I'm very inoffensive, really."

"You totally are," Tony agrees. "And like, you'd have to be psychic to have run into me here on purpose, so he's probably not suspicious or anything."

"Nuh-uh, you'd have to be psychic to have come in here on purpose. You walked into my gin joint, Ilsa."

"...well, yeah," he points out, "that's why you'd have to be psychic; there's no other way you could've picked this place to work at knowing I'd show up eventually. But I probably could've found out you work here if I'd, like, had some clue who the hell you were. Which I didn't. I like you, though, I'm totally coming back here."

Somehow Tony's I like you manages to dodge creepiness completely. It has to do with the way he says it. Not as an expectation or imposition, but as a pure statement of fact.

"Ah, clairvoyant psychic, not telepathic psychic. I get you."

Down the bar, one of the other customers is trying to get Andy's attention. She straightens up, taking the tequila with her.

"Hold that thought about coming back here," she tells Tony with a grin.

He grins back, bright and cheerful. Sherlock had an air of sophistication, or at least boredom, to him that added significantly to his apparent age; Tony, with no such distinctions, has last year of high school/first year of college written all over him.

Andy notices, as she serves up another Long Island Iced Tea to a customer, and thinks that Tony had better have a damn convincing ID when he comes back.

Mixing that first drink takes a few minutes, and a couple other customers see their opportunity to settle up or re-order now that she's not talking to Tony.

He can wait.

He actually can. Tony's not very patient, and he does drum his fingers on the bartop a little, but he doesn't bug her while everyone else is vying for her attention.

When she eventually makes it back over to him, she pushes her hair out of her face and gives him a wry grin.

"Sorry. Look, do you want water or soda or anything? I can't serve you booze since you don't have an ID, but as long as I'm bending the rules and not kicking you out I may as well make some money off you."

"Sure, I'll have a Coke," he decides. "Thanks."