fic: celebratory drinks (widow's bay)
Celebratory Drinks - Widow's Bay; Tom/Patricia; 1500 words. Tom and Patricia share an awkward moment. (Set pre-series.)
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“Oh,” says Tom, “I wasn’t going to–”
“Well, neither was I,” Patricia says, after a loaded pause that lasts approximately ten years. “Obviously.”
They mutually back out of what had seemed, for a moment, like a mutual lean-in. They’re the last two stragglers at Tom’s Three Months as Mayor Celebratory Drinks Event at Barnabus Tavern (consensus: not as popular as they'd hoped), and they’ve officially entered too-drunk territory. A Mazzy Star song is playing faintly in the background. Tom blames it for setting a mood where no mood should ever be.
It's not that he doesn't like Patricia. He does. They've even been having an oddly nice time tonight. But ... yikes.
“I was actually just leaning for the–” Tom points at the bowl of nuts on the other side of her, and says a silent prayer of thanks for their presence.
“Oh. Right. Here you go.”
Patricia pushes the bowl toward him with one finger. Push, push, push. It makes more noise than a bowl scooting across a bar top has any right to. Her eyes lock onto him with all the reasonable good will of a cursed doll choosing its next victim.
"Eat up," she says.
