What It All Comes Down To

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, OTA
WHERE: Around Temba
WHAT: Coming Down From It All (Post House of Billy)
WHEN: The first week post event [Forward Dated]
WARNINGS: CW: Referenced sexual encounter in thread with Kyle, Referenced child abuse in thread with Kyle.


A. Keeping The Diners Supplied The Diner
"Delivery of fresh produce."

Tommy's tired. Perhaps that's why he's coming in later than normal with supplies for this meal shift. Perhaps that's why he looks frazzled and his hair is limp and he's not racing in with all speed. Clearly it's not the heavy crate loaded down with all sorts of foods from the green house, because that's never slowed him down before. But sleep after something like what they'd gone through was... Well, unlikely.

"The cyanana harvest is starting, so I'm thinking about trying to figure out how to make some sorta pudding out of it. That's a thing, right? Banana pudding or something."

He'd been enough out of it on entering that he didn't even know who it was he was talking to. Like hell he'd thought about how the kitchen help rotation was working now. Nor did he care. He was too tired from all his dreams to care.


B. Healing Power of Horticulture The Greenhouse
If there was one place that Tommy often found peace, it was the greenhouse. Today Tommy was trying his best to work there without getting too complicated with other people. For this he'd done the best thing he could do: working the mint wing. The advantage that came that the specific wing was sealed off from the rest of the greenhouse to keep it from spreading too much. Tommy moved slowly through it with a woven rush basket, humming quietly under his breath some German pop music he remembered from back home. While he moved he clipped little sprigs of mint to pass on to Glownies as a treat.

The advantage of the sealed area was that when the doors opened, Tommy knew someone was there. He could hear it. He turned to look at the door and frowned.

"Can I help you? I thought I was soloing the mint today."


C. The Solitary Island Closed to Aeon
It took a while for him to find her, but Tommy had wanted to have an excuse to get away, but he didn't want to be put into a position where his stupid brain could interrupt him. There had been someone interested after all, and so he'd raced through the city until he found her.

"Aeon," he said, offering a hand up for a high five. "You doing anything? Because if not, island time."


D. Wild Card
[Feel free to hit me up on Discord or Plurk to discuss places Tommy could get cornered. Or just have someone come to his actual home. Other options are to find him lazing by the fountain, on top of a tall building, or hiding out with the glownies which he normally does not visit.]

Comments

[thesepreciousthings]

"That's what Cobb calls it, yeah..." She gestured toward their stash of the closest thing the place had to coffee. She wasn't one hundred percent sure what it was made of, but it worked, and that was what she cared about on rough mornings.

"And you're not inept, honey, I just have a lil' more experience. C'mere, I can show you if you want. Trickiest part is getting the dough right."

[doubled_speed]

"Yeah, I need it," Tommy answered, because he doesn't want to talk about the inept. Because he is. He's a failure at everything.

The illusion had proved that to him.

"You do the dough, I'll watch."

[thesepreciousthings]

She could tell there was a deep wound there, but sometimes the best thing to do with those was let them be for a while, to let them heal over just enough so that they didn't feel so raw. So she put the crust she'd just finished into the fridge to keep, and wiped the excess flour into the trash so she'd have a clean workspace to start on.

"Alright, so we're gonna need the flour, two sticks of butter, salt, and sugar. Most of that is still right here, but the butter's in the fridge because it needs to be as cold as possible, and we also need some ice water. If you could get those last two things, and cut the butter into half-inch cubes, that'd be a big help."

[doubled_speed]

"Butter," Tommy said, shaking his head. Those sorts of things were still weird here. He moved and got out the butter to start cutting it up.

"Who taught you to cook, if I can ask."

Where people learned, that seemed to be important.

[thesepreciousthings]

"Whoever got it from Richie's space cow deserves a medal," she chuckled. "Probably Cobb, honestly, he's all about the ranching."

As she measures out the sugar, salt, and flour, dividing the latter into two small bowls, Clarice hums thoughtfully. "A few people taught me, really. My mom taught me first, growing up. Lots of traditional stuff: stuffed peppers, apple cake, shepherd's pie, fried chicken. Rib-sticking food, you know? But when I moved in with my friend Ardelia, she taught me some Southern cooking. I didn't really learn how to improvise, how to really cook in general, though, till I started living with my beau. He taught me the science of it, why certain things have to be prepared certain ways to taste good, and how to make it happen."

[doubled_speed]

"And here I thought it was Kaltenecker, Lance's cow," Reeve answered. But hey, more cows was more butter.

Then again, Lance wasn't always easy to pin down. Tommy himself only ran into the guy rarely. But he nodded along at the idea of southern food, because he loved heading down south to go and get a lot of heavy food, make him feel slow for a change.

"You've got a guy back home? I'm sorry you don't have him."

[thesepreciousthings]

"I haven't met Lance, but I didn't know he had an actual cow. What, did it arrive with him? How's that even work?" She was gobsmacked, but pleasantly surprised. You could do a lot of things with a proper Earth cow's milk, and she wasn't sure yet how many of them would work with the critter Richie had brought back from Coruscant.

"I do. It's ... well, let's just say we're not your typical story. I might have to work myself up to tellin' it a bit, still. I miss Hannibal, but I'm not sure he'd do well here. He can rough it when he has to, but he went a long time without a lot of things, so he indulges himself as often as he can now. I can tell you what, everyone here'd call him a big fat snob."

[doubled_speed]

Sounded a bit like David. Except David could have handled it here, and Tommy wished he was around for Tommy to work with.

Except... His face contorts a little while he thinks. Confusion and regret and perhaps longing? It's all a mess. He feels like a mess. A box of snap cracker fireworks scattered on the ground where people were absolutely going to step on them, that was what he felt like. Some people stepped around them, or walked between, but it was mostly luck. The rest of them got all of the landmines.

"Yes, the cow arrived with him. Tends to be in his ship's hangar whenever we're in space. Some people it's hard to notice when they aren't here anymore. That cow? Dead giveaway."

He sighs and his fingers come up through his hair.

"Hey Clarice... in that other world, were you with anyone?"

[thesepreciousthings]

"Well ... no. But I had ... a history with someone, apparently. Like a fling. Old flame sort of stuff. Which is its own barrel of awkward, let me tell you." She expects not to see Tony for at least a month while he nurses his ego, and not only for that reason. "Okay, now that the butter's cut up - you'll like this part. Take this half of the flour, and cut it in with the butter, fine as you can."

As he works at that - which she guesses will be a matter of seconds, compared to how long it took her with the first crust - she starts to slice up the bright, shining fruits that had been harvested. Sweet, but just a little tangy like citrus on the back end.

"... Can I ask who you were with? Is that alright? I promise it'll stay between us."

[doubled_speed]

Tony had more than a few people who were going to have to deal with all of that. Cut it in with the butter? Tommy didn't know how to do that, not properly. Not at all. Sure, it will be a matter of seconds once he understands.

But yeah, this was something he wanted to talk to her about anyway. He just hadn't expected it so soon. Or maybe he had. Maybe he was leading himself here.

"Kyle. We... We were best friends. We were more. He was so amazing."

There's undeniably longing in his voice.

[thesepreciousthings]

"Oh, honey." Clarice's heart breaks for both of them in that moment. She dusts her hands off on her apron and opens up her arms, offering him a hug. The pie crust lesson can wait a moment longer. If he takes her up on the offer, it would be clear that she's a Good Hugger: firm, but not too tight, with sun and all the smells of the diner clinging to her skin and in her hair.

[doubled_speed]

Well this is so wrong. He moves to take the hug. But just for a moment. He doesn't know how to accept it for more than that. But it's nice, and once he's feeling trapped, he breaks free.

"It's just... That place made me better than I am, and gave me everything I wanted, and it sucks. I was better than I am, and I got to be happy. Losing it sucks."

[thesepreciousthings]

She lets him decide how long it lasts, and listens when he steps back.

"Better?" She asks it gently, taking the bowl and the butter just briefly enough to demonstrate how to cut the butter in - it's just a fancy term for mixing them together, breaking the butter into tiny bits and blending it until it makes little crumbs. "In what way?"

In asking, she offers it back to him, so that he has something to vent his frustrations on. With pie crust there's no such thing as crumbs too fine, and unless the speed generates too much heat, the butter won't lose its emulsification.

[doubled_speed]

Oh he could definitely generate too much heat. Something Tommy realizes almost immediately, an echo of the other life. He knows this. Wanda taught him this. So he goes slowly, with practices motions. Damn, Billy, did you make him more useful?

"I was smart, Clarice. Working on my PhD at nineteen, choice internship at Stark Industries. And my family was together and I was raised with them. I knew my heritage properly. And I was in love. Stupidly. Madly. Fuck, Kyle was amazing, and how do I even look at him now?"

[thesepreciousthings]

She remembers what Kyle had told her: They thought it was all an illusion. From the way Tommy was reacting, now ... maybe he had, but his feelings seemed just as real. Clearly, there was a prime case of Young People Being Dumb at hand. But solving that wasn't the issue in the moment, listening to him was. She'd table that for later.

"You're doing great with the crust," she said first, going back to slicing the fruits, trusting him with the work. "As for all of that ... why not let it be something to aim for here? Tony's here. You could offer to help him. Not the same as an internship, but ... it could cut mustard, yeah? And you know your heritage now, you can still honor it. Doesn't make it any less true."

She'd save her thoughts on him and Kyle for last, since it seemed the tenderest wound. "I may not like bein' in charge, but I learned a lot about coordinating people's strengths, and mediating conflict. That's something I can use here, too."

[doubled_speed]

"I already help Tony. I hover around and watch him," Tommy said, sighing. It didn't mean he was learning things properly. "And Kyle has promised to teach me about Judaism properly, so I'm learning some of it."

But... the rest was what hurt most. He'll have to figure out how to learn to learn properly. If only Tony will let him. Then he looks up at her, frowning.

"I don't understand why that matters to this conversation? I mean, that's a cool thing to know how to do. But how does that help me?"

[thesepreciousthings]

"Mm, but watching doesn't always help. Everyone learns differently. D'you think if you asked, he'd let you try doing something?" She cast her eyes subtly toward the pie crust in progress.

"Okay, that looks real good. Now, let's add in the rest. You gotta go slow so it doesn't get lumpy. The trick is working all the sugar in evenly." She paused, then addressed his question as she added sugar and spices to the fruit so it could soak in. "As for how it helps? Honey, you say you were smart there, but you must still remember some of it. It's not like the whole ball of wax just disappeared because you're back to brass tacks."

[doubled_speed]

Tony wasn't a teacher. She had to know that. Surely she knew that? Which was why he didn't ask. He didn't know how to make it better.

"I..."

Damn she was right, and he hates it. Hates that she's pointing out things that other people who knew him better pointed out. Because she's relatively impartial.

"I don't know how to be happy."

[thesepreciousthings]

He certainly didn't seem like one outright, no, but Starling had the feeling that if Tony wanted to truly make sure something got passed on, something he cared about, he'd have a way to make it happen, considering how important his work was to him.

"I'm not so sure about that," she said, glancing over at him. "I think you have the capactity, and I know you must've had moments where you were. I know just what you mean, though, I had a long stretch of time where I thought the same. Turns out, the trick is giving yourself the permission to let it stay."

[doubled_speed]

Who said Tony wanted to make sure something got passed on?

Tommy, though, put down what he was holding and stood back. This was... stressful.

"Who said it's about letting it stay? Gotta get it in the first place."

[thesepreciousthings]

The important things always were stressful. She nodded slowly, giving him just a moment. The most crucial thing about being supportive, in her book, was letting the other person have some space in between all the talking and listening. Otherwise you ran the risk of overloading, and when people were overloaded, they shut down: which could just make things so much worse.

"Well ... here's something: set the Kyle part of it off to the side for now, if you can. Work on the smaller things. What else made you happy? Were there things you did? Places you went? There could be parallels here, or ways we can make them happen."

[doubled_speed]

"You're assuming those things can be extracted from what I had with him," Tommy answers, looking away from her. The places he went he went with Kyle. The things he did he did with Kyle. Except the research of course.

That had been all his.

[thesepreciousthings]

She sighed slowly, realizing just how hard the two of them had fallen for each other. Of course they had, they were teenagers. Clarice nodded gravely, pursing her lips as she thought.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, I really am. I know that doesn't do a goddamn thing, but still. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to..."

[doubled_speed]

They weren't teenagers. If he was a teen he could have let it go more easily. He fell in and out of love so easily as a teen, and out easier han in because he knew he wasn't good enough for people. Because he didn't want to lose them and hurt from that. No, he was hurting because this was something a bit less puppy love and a bit more adult dealing with loved and lost and never loved before at the same time in a weird way.

"First, don't call me sweetheart, ever. Second, I'm talking about it because I guess I wanted an opinion from you."

[thesepreciousthings]

"I'm sorry," she said genuinely, holding up her hands. "As far as my opinion..."

It was hard, really. If the illusions hadn't been such an integral part of the whole experience, it wouldn't be. She wanted to ask 'how much would it cost to try', but she knew the answer: it was written large in the pain masquerading as anger in his eyes.

"Have you seen each other since we came back to ourselves?"