2019-05-04 - Eat Dicks

The big black guy in question has wrapped a few colorful rubber bands around his big meaty fingers. They criss-cross expertly, though they look like they're cutting off his circulation considering the tips of his fingers are turning pale. "Yanno how to play cat's cradle?" he's supposed to be watching for somebody, but instead this is what he's doing - pushing his rubber-banded fingers up to Graham's nose. "I read it on wiki how. That's a website, yanno. Kinda like wiki pedia, except it has pictures." Wikipedia also has pictures, but yanno.

Hannah has long ago given up on an umbrella, which is just a bulky way of moving water from one place to another. She relies on a rain jacket, hood pulled up but droplets of mist still managing to cling to the hair around her face. The black car in front of the apartment has her slowing her steps; even more so the occupants outside of it. But there's no other way into the building so she squares her shoulders, shoves her hands in her pockets and tries to skirt past them as best she can, determinedly not making eye contact.

His cigarette is getting wet, but Graham is determined to at least smoke this bad boy to the good part, so he just keeps ducking his head like that will keep the rain off. It doesn't. But he looks very cool doing it, god dammit! Blowing out a long plume of smoke, he betrays his sworn duty as an agent of Felix Monaghan by failing to keep an eye on the door, specifically when the very person he is here to monitor happens to be walking by. "That looks like some kinda fucking torture device," he tells Andre, wiggling his fingers experimentally to see if they remember how to play this game. They don't, and all he does is knot his fingers up in the rubber-bands, going, "Fucking ow." BUT AT LEAST it means Andre is free to notice their prey.

A smarter man would clap back with something; something like 'your face looks like a kinda fucking torture device!'. But Andre is not a smart man. So he just shrugs his big broad shoulders and insistently pushes the cat's cradle at Graham. "It's just rubber bands. I found them in the car. There's a lot of stuff under the seats. And in the glove box. And in the center console. And.." He was about to continue when someone in a rain slicker catches his attention, and Graham gets his fingers wrapped up in Andre's rubbers. For a second there, he forgot why he was here to begin with. But then, the lightbulb slowly flickers on.

"Hey," to Graham, a nudge that's more like a sucker-punch to the gut. And then: "HEY!" to Hannah, because discretion is not a thing that Andre is capable of. The wall that is Andre shoves himself between Hannah and her escape-route. "You wanna play a game of cat's cradle?" Please, Hannah? Come play.

Hannah has been avoiding eye contact but she's definitely been watching the pair in her peripheral vision, particularly for signs of movement. Also the shouting helps, and she pulls up short, shifting her weight as though to bolt in some direction...but she can't. Because Andre. She looks up...way way up at him with big brown eyes and finally dredges up a quiet, "No thank you," before trying to juke around him.

The rubber-bands knot up around his fingers, snap once against his knuckles, and Graham is stuck for a second with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and rubber-bands bundling his fingers. He looks up a second late after that first hey, stumbling into the side of the car at the nudge with another profoundly intelligent combination of fuck and ow. "Whoooa, hey there. Hey." And then Andre is doing the talking, which never bodes well, so he shakes the rubber-bands off his fingers, peels the cigarette out of his mouth, and finds his best charming smile.

"Sorry about my friend. We're just looking for somebody. We heard he lives around here. Do you know a guy named Gerald Royce?"

And yes. Yes, she does. That just happens to be the person out of whose account she recently siphoned $250,000 dollars. Since she knows what he looks like, has seen his photo ID, Hannah can at least be sure that neither the giant blocking her path - around whom she can almost dart, but to where? surely, they'd give chase, and he's got long arms, so he'll just snatch her back - nor the charming guy pushing away from the car are Gerald Royce.

Gerald does not live around here. He lives in Gray Harbor. So clearly these guys are fucking thugs, Hannah.

Andre's oblivious to Graham's struggle with the rubber bands. He plasters on a smile that looks too big on his face and shows a hint of teeth; see, Hannah? He's a nice guy. It just makes his eyes go beady-squinty. "You sure? 'cuz I bet you'd do good at it. On account of your tiny fingers. I got more rubber bands in the car.." he probably wasn't actually lying about that. ".. and cookies?" In case she can be convinced to go into the car for cookies and rubber bands. But then Graham peels himself off the vehicle and slaps on his best swarmy smile. And poor Andre, he's just so confused.

"Why're we looking for Gerald here when he's back home?" There's a blink. "I thought we were looking for her," he points meaty fingers to Hannah, and then asks her point blank: "You're Hannah, right? 'Cause you look like the picture I saw."

Hannah makes herself look very small and very harmless. It's laughably easy. Those big brown eyes light on the photo held up before her and she shakes her head, a sharp little gesture. "I've never seen him around here," she says quickly. She cuts a quick look to one side, searching for an escape route that isn't there. The surprise is real when Andre just goes ahead and announces their intent and her posture tenses further. Voice trembling a smidge, "Look, I'll give you everything in my bag. My wallet's in there, and my phone, and...and a really nice laptop. You can just have it, just...leave me alone, okay?" She doesn't even address Andre's comments about her tiny fingers because ew.

"Thanks, man. You're just great." Graham gives the big guy a quick pat on the shoulder - which, honestly, is meant to be a hard squeeze but his comparatively tiny fingers don't even dent the muscles, so yeah. Quick pat. Then his hand reaches to the back door of their totally-not-shady black four-door car. With the tinted windows. He swings the door open, shaking his head at Hannah and her credible attempts at seeming harmless. "But ya do know him," he confirms with a smile that's the opposite of Andre's: his totally works, lights up his face. "Unless you gotta quarter-mill in that bag," which he looks at doubtfully. No?

"Here's the thing, Hannah." He gestures with his cigarette-hand to the now illuminated back seat. "You can either get in the car, or my buddy here is gonna put you in the car. It all works out the same to me? Sooooo...?" He trails off, a real 'whatcha gonna do' wobble of his head.

"Thanks, G," Andre's smile fits a little wider at the pat-pat to his shoulder. He doesn't understand that Graham's telling him to shut up. He basically looks like he's earned himself a gold star sticker! Good job, Andre, he's doing just great. He volleys a beady-eye look between Graham and Hannah, back to Graham, and then sticks to Hannah utterly, visibly weighing the options Graham presents by tilting his head one way and then the other. Then the smile vanishes, replaced by a frown.

"I don't wanna have to hurt you," and that's not a threat. Andre sounds like he just really doesn't want to have to hurt Hannah. But he steps forward towards her anyway. To Graham though, he asks the important question: "Can I still have the nice laptop?"

Hannah looks at the open car door, that brilliant smile on Graham's face and the frown on Andre's and she pulls her hands out of her pockets, fingers tightening on the strap of the laptop bag she has slung over her shoulder. When Andre steps closer, her fight or flight kicks into flight mode and she bolts into the misty dark.

"Of course, man," is Graham's answer for the laptop. Why would he not give a 1337machine to his beefy companion? He still has his hand open toward the door, but he moves it enough to tuck the cigarette into his mouth, one last drag before he flicks it into the gutter. And he chokes on the exhale when Hannah bolts, a step too late to do anything to get in her way. He lunges once, fingertips dragging off the backpack she was talking about, but it just leaves him flailing at empty space when he stumbles in her wake. "Fuck fuck fuck," he pronounces, making 'get her' motions at Andre, giving him one quick (useless) shove toward the fleeing ninja-hacker, while he corrects his overthrown balance and skitters around to the driver's side door. With the rear passenger door still open.

Felix is going to be so mad at these two. 🙁

Andre was SO CLOSE to getting his beefy fingers all over those keys so that he can find the YouTube button. So close! And then Hannah has to go and bolt. Graham's cussing and making loud 'go get her' motions and trying to shove him (though it feels more like a nice 'good job!' pat) and Andre huffs out a sigh. "HEY! HOLD UP! I don't wanna have to hurt you!" he shouts to Hannah's fleeing form, and she can probably hear the GIANT FROWN in his voice.

But she wasn't going to stop, and so the lumbering oaf runs after her. She might be fast, but he was BIG, and if Hannah's never experienced what it feels like having 300lbs of muscle run into your backside and tackle you to the ground? She's about to feel that now. "SORRY!" he shouts to her, mumbles it over and over, as he twists to the side to make sure he doesn't actually crush her in his victory. But that precious laptop bag - there's definitely a CRUNCH! that gets heard underneath Andre's weight. Now he was never gonna have the 1337machine 🙁 "Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry, I told you to stop, why you gotta run?"

Needless to say, Hannah doesn't get far. She sprawls on her stomach and that crunch might be as much her as the laptop. She struggles, initially, but she's pretty bright and stops doing that as soon as her common sense kicks in. She goes limp, a little smear of wee hacker on the pavement.

Well, good thing Graham jumped the gun and climbed into the car, totally ready to give wheeled chase! He jams on the gas, drives about... eleven feet... and slams on the brakes. The rear door swings closed, so that's a thing that becomes immediately unhelpful, since he just has to pile out of the car and run back around it to sling the door open. He didn't hear Andre's question, because he was doing all that kick-ass driving, but he echoes it anyway; "Why'd you run?" He hangs back to let Andre handle the girl, unaware of the broken laptop and the lollipop he'll have to get Dre later.

It's a sight worth seeing, the poor girl smooshed on the sidewalk between every ounce of Andre's weight. There've been no pedestrians, no one to see this abduction occurring, sure as shit no one willing to interfere. Poor Hannah.

Andre grunts as he hoists himself up from the pavement and off the broken laptop/girl. "I'm sorry," he says it again, for emphasis, and picks Hannah right up and slings her over one beefy shoulder while Graham opens the car door. He's so nice, he puts Hannah gently into the vehicle and even crams her seatbelt into place, and then comes to sit beside her.

It's a small car, Hannah-Banana, and Andre's a big dude. Prepare to get wedged.

But as he settles in, he takes the laptop bag off her hands, peering into it. "Aww MAN! I broke it," he doesn't exactly pout, but he's definitely Not Happy. "Can you fix this?" he shows the pieces to Hannah. It's crushed 🙁 🙁 🙁

The wind's very much knocked out of her and while Andre really is being awfully nice about the whole thing, Hannah does not offer any sort of acceptance of his multiple apologies. Instead she's limp as a scruffed kitten as she's tossed in and belted; as Andre settles in next to her. She wheezes a little and slumps against the seat. Breathless, she remarks to Graham with perhaps an unwise amount of snark, "If you allow yourself to be removed from the scene of an abduction you're statistically more likely to die. Don't you watch Oprah?"

"I love Oprah," Andre chimes in with a grin. Him and Hannah are buddies now. "My favorite episodes used to be when she had on Doctor Phil. He gives such good advice."

While those two are getting acquainted in the backseat, Graham gets back into the driver's seat. He's just buckling up when Hannah asks about Oprah, and - doesn't have to answer, 'cause Andre's all over that. He tilts the rearview so he can see Hannah, UNSAFE DRIVING PRACTICES, and then tuuuuuuurns down the radio (they were listening to Taylor Swift; Hannah's free to guess who made the decision about the musical selection), and eases the car into traffic. "You're statistically more likely to die if you don't answer this question the right way, too. Where's the money you stole from Gerald?"

Graham tacks on, "And can you fix that laptop? Survival might hinge on that, too."

"Do you like the episodes where she gives all her stuff away? I like those episodes, too," Andre's still on the Oprah thing, it's going to take him a minute to get off this topic. "You get a car and you get a car and everybody gets a car!" he makes jazz hands and then grins at Hannah, leaning into her and setting his shoulder into her. It means she gets squished by Andre and the door, but hey. They are besties now.

But then Graham has to go and ruin it like ALWAYS and turn down the music. "That's my favorite song," he sighs, casting a beady-eyed look to Hannah like she'll totes understand. "If you answer the question, he might turn the radio back up."

But yeah, absolutely fix the laptop, Hannah.

With Andre establishing himself as her new best pal, Hannah doesn't have a lot of choice except to look in the laptop bag. She pulls it into her lap and flips the top. Screen's broken, and cracks in the case indicate other possible hardware issues as well. "I don't know, man." She closes her eyes again and squishes as far against the side of the car door as she can. "Yeah, the giveaway episodes are good." Her tone is deeply weary as she says very quietly, "Fuck." But he's just gonna keep asking, so after an awkwardly long pause she admits, "I don't have it any more."

From the front seat, Graham echoes Hannah's sigh. It's not authentically weary; it's pretend weary, but he's a good pretender. "That's a problem. I guess it's gonna be along, quiet ride from here." Because he's already steering the car through shitty Seattle traffic, aiming toward the 5 south outta town. "Sorry, bud. No 'Blank Spaces' - but I could go for some Dick's before we get outta town. You guys want some?"

If they say yes, awesome, because he means fast food, get your minds out of the gutter. They stop for burgers and shakes on the way out of Seattle, and what's Hannah gonna do? Scream or help because she's being abducted by two guys in response to having stolen the identity an acquaintance of theirs? And everyone has some food to help pass the time while they talk about their favorite Oprah episodes and Hannah can work on that laptop. If they say no, they fucking suck, and Graham will be the only one enjoying some delicious food for the two hours it takes to drive from Seattle to Gray Harbor. Regardless, no one (not even Andre at his dumbest, dude, shhhhhhh) is going to tell her where they're headed.

So sit back, relax, enjoy the ride. They'll be pulling up to the Firefly Club in about 140 minutes.

"Maybe if you just push this button.." Andre tries to help by jabbing his finger into the 'delete' button. Nothing happens, because Andre's a dumbass. He scowls at the computer, and then scowls HARDER at Graham, folding his arms over his chest. "Whatever. Fine. Yeah I want some Dicks, I'll eat a whole bag of Dicks. Two whole bags of Dicks. No, make it three. Three whole bags of Dicks." nobody tell Andre what he just said.

He's going to enjoy his whole 3 bags of Dicks tho. And then pout the entire way that Hannah can't just magically make that computer work. But he'll also apologize. Like, a lot.

Hannah just watches out the window as the rain drips down, politely putting in her order for a bag of Dicks (one) if she's asked for one and answering questions as tersely as possible. She's a sucky new-BFF.

Andre's covered in Dick(s) but he brushes himself off upon exiting the car, helping Hannah out of it too. And by 'helping Hannah out', I mean that he extracts her from the car and puts his arm around her shoulder, like they're going on a date and not going up to meet his boss who may or may not kill her. Really, it's just to keep her close, in case she thinks about bolting again. "Felix's a nice guy," he reassures Hannah, fitting that too-wide smile to his lips again. "You just gotta be nice back. If you tell him what you did with the money, and maybe promise to not do it again, and maybe you should probably act real sorry." But then they were at the door to Felix's office, so the advice stops here. Felix beckons, and ..

"In you go, Hannah-Banana," is Andre's new nickname for her, as he ushers her into the office. He closes the door behind him, and takes up guard there. But when Felix isn't looking, he totally gives Hannah a thumb's up. You got this, girl!

Hannah doesn't try to run again. She goes where she's led and does as she's told, trying to look reasonably chill and she comes closer to it than she probably should, what with road rash and probably every rib broken and fast food grease all over her fingers. Andre's words don't really seem to reassure her, but she tries to find a smile for him and nods at the advice, which is actually pretty sound. And when Felix says "Come in," she does.

Andre does his job happily. While he holds up the wall beside the door, he daydreams about how many bubble wands he's going to get for this job. There will be so many bubbles!

But oh, his name. He sheepishly waves to Hannah when he's introduced, offering her another big big smile. "Sounds fair to me, boss," Andre helpfully tacks onto the conversation.

Hannah settles gingerly in the offered chair, her ruined laptop bag coming to rest against the leg of it. Ordinarily she'd pass up a beverage in this kind of situation, but with Andre on the job she goes so far as to say, "Some water would be nice?" She looks back at Felix and swallows hard. "I'm...really sorry. I had no idea. I-" Deep breath, "-don't have it any more."

It'd help if Andre-P read poses. Andre totally fetches drinks for everybody and THEN holds up the wall.

"Right," agrees Andre. It looks BAD, Hannah. He gives her a stern look, but the fact that it ends with a smile takes the sternness away. And then Felix is doing the threatening thing and Andre's face falls. He shuffles his sneakered feet. "You got a brother and a sister? Man.. Are they little?" he doesn't expect an answer. "I don't like to hurt the little guys," but it's spoken in a way that suggests he's gotta do what he's gotta do, Hannah, even if he doesn't like it.

Just because you can flip a table doesn’t mean you should. Instead, Hannah takes a few deep breaths, one of the few useful things she took away from the psych ward. Still, there’s tension in her expression. Understandable! One hand is lifted towards Andre, an acknowledgment...her fingers really are tiny. “I can pay you back. Not now...but I can get it back.”

Andre looks a little relieved at Felix's assurances that nobody is going to get hurt. He says to Hannah: "See? I told you he was a nice guy," as though Felix didn't just threaten her entire family. But whatever, water under the bridge. And then Felix is offering Hannah a job and if Andre weren't such a big guy, he'd be hopping up and down with excitement. He is, currently, lifting up onto his toes just a little though. "Ohh, you gotta say yes," and not just because it means Andre won't have to go to Bellevue. But also because, "We'll have such a great time," Hannah and her new BFF~ "And you can fix that laptop for me."

“Please leave my family out of this. It’s...this is my fault. They don’t know anything.” But Hannah trails off when Felix goes for the offer, looking a bit startled by the sudden acquiescence and all that congeniality . “I was thinking more like-“ but she snaps her mouth shut on whatever that was, presses her lips together firmly and nods. Don’t argue with the nice man, Hannah-banana. She glances at Andre and nods, she DOES gotta say yes. “I’ll try. To fix it.” Laptop? Accidentally on purpose stealing 250k? Both?

"Man, this is like the best day ever," Andre can be heard excitedly whispering as Felix makes arrangements for his new BFF to hang out ALL THE TIME. It's going to be great, Hannah. Just look at how happy Andre is!

“Yeah. That all sounds...really good.” Hannah tries a smile, it’s not fooling anyone. “Can I go get my stuff from home or do I need to stay...here....” She looks around the room with a sort of dull resignedness. This look includes Andre, who gets a slightly more real smile because of her past has taught her anything, it’s to figure out who your allies are real quick. To Felix, with complete sincerity, “I won’t do any of those things.”

<FS3> Hannah rolls Alertness (8 7 6 3 2 1 1) vs Andre's Stealth (7 7 7 6 6 )
<FS3> Victory for Andre.