2019-05-06 - Not the Pourhouse

It was sometime after dusk on some nebulous day that obviously occurs after Graham gets back from Seattle on his kidnapping trip. There wasn't any plans between Elise and Graham to hang out - in fact, there'd been some vague talk about Elise having another date with the boring Korean dude from Church - so it would be rather unexpected when there's a knock at Graham's bedroom door and Elise is standing there. She's certainly dressed like she was going on a date - her silky black hair is subtly curled and brought up in a high ponytail that's got a bit of bounce to it. She wears a pair of skinny-fit dark-wash jean leggings and a pair of strappy heels, along with semi-sheer off the shoulder chiffon silk purple blouse with a heavy floral print. But despite looking like she was going on a date, there was no car out front and there was definitely nobody waiting for her downstairs.

"Graham!" Knock-knock-knock. "Are you awake?" Knock. Knock. Knock.

Is Graham supposed to smoke in Elise's house? Because he very obviously has been. There's a smell of cigarette smoke floating around, and the ash tray with the crushed butts sitting on the windowsill is a dead giveaway. But he had the window opened, so that was totally courteous of him. This is what he does while he gets himself ready to do... whatever it is that Graham does when he's not working, sleeping, or eating. (Also, he's totally been contributing grocery money.)

"Yep," from the other side of the door. "It's open." And he's in here, crushing out a cigarette, waving smoke away from the air around the window, and then smelling the collar of the shirt he pulls on over his white undershirt, because guys don't have to go to all that trouble (unless they're preppie little doctors trying to distract from their shortness). Assuming she opens the door, he'll totally give her the eyeball once-over, whistle appreciatively, and conclude, "Damn, you look fine. All this for Catholic Korean Guy, esquire?" He has lots of names for that dude, they all end in 'esquire.'

"Oh my God, it smells like an ashtray in here," Elise groans upon opening the door to the bedroom, recoiling back almost immediately. She fans a hand in front of her face, crinkling that perfectly freckled nose of hers, and leans in just as he's crushing his cigarette. "Dude, I don't think I said you could smoke in the house. Can't you just.. go out back or something?" It's a minor annoyance - a minor annoyance that quickly turns into huge irritation when he mentions Catholic Korean Guy, Esq. Because she did look fine. As hell. And apparently.. "He had a flat tire," her lips bow into a frown as she rests a hip in the doorway and folds her arms over her chest. "And apparently it's beyond him to get an Uber or something?" So Elise is dressed up with nowhere to go.

"But whatever. His loss," her dark eyes sweep over to him, a slim brow climbing. "Maybe your gain? If you want to go to trivia night with me down at the Pourhouse, I mean. I get it if you'd rather stay here and give yourself lung cancer instead."

Graham is not, for the record, a heavy cologne-wearer; that shit is just sleazy, but he does have his sleazy moments, so there's a bottle of the stuff on the dresser, and he sprays it four times into the room. Now it smells like an ashtray and Old Spice in here. "Problem solved." She should just stay by the door, though. Unless she wants to smell like Old Spice.

Oh, did her date have a flat tire? "That sucks. You guys could borrow my car - " Which is not the one he used to abduct Hannah in. That's a company car. Graham drives something old and heavy that drinks gasoline. Let's go with a '72 Chevy Malibu. " - but I'm not gonna let you." With a peachy beam at her. "Oh, hell yes. Trivia night? I'm all about that shit." Lies lies lies.

Elise definitely stays by the doorway, and not just because he's spritzing Old Spice everywhere. But also because she can angle her head out into the hallway and take gulps of semi-fresh air before leaning back into his room again. The scent of Old Spice mixed with the heavy cigarette smoke makes her gut knot up, and she doesn't even care if he sounds disingenuous as hell. "Cool, let's go," she wants to go, and she also wants to get the hell out of the house on her only night off. "And also? Fuck him. It's not like I don't have a car, but you don't see me offering to drive my happy ass to pick him up. If he wanted to go out? He would've made it work." Of course, the same could be said for her - if she had wanted to go out, she would've made it work. But she didn't. And now she's going out with her BFF.

So with all that said, she turns on her strappy heels with a bounce to her ponytail, crooks a finger at him from over her shoulder, and disappears with every intention of going down those stairs and out of the house. "You're driving!" she shouts from the hall. Let's see if he decides whether or not he wants to make this work.

Nope, Graham absolutely doesn't point out that part about how Elise could've made it work, too. He'll just change into the closest-to-clean shirt that he owns - it is blue, has buttons and a collar, does not get tucked in - then call out, "Lemme brush my teef, woman," before she gets all the way out the door without him. Thus, he's two minutes behind her, but now he smells like Listerine and Old Spice and only a little cigarette smoke, so it's worth it.

It's May now, so it's not cold and rainy, but he snags his coat on the way out anyway. Mostly because it looks good, but a little bit because that's where his keys are. Then it's, "You're goddamn right I'm driving." Because he's a better driver than Elise is, and he has a cool red Chevy Malibu. Smarmily rather than authentically genteel, he opens the passenger side door for her, waving a hand for her to climb on in.

Elise waits. It's not exactly patient waiting but she doesn't steal his car and go to the Pourhouse by herself or anything. She might even steal away into the bathroom long enough to put on a spritz of jasmine & vanilla scented body spray - not enough to be overpowering, but enough to leave a subtle impression. Either way, she's by the door when he finally comes down the stairs, and there may be a quick up-and-down pass of her eyes on the lines of his body, but she'll at least play it off like she was just making sure he came down the stairs clean or something. "I like the coat," she comments, and while he was ahead of her, she gives a quick tug on the sleeves of her blouse to make sure her shoulders stay bare.

While that meta is super racist (better driver, whatever!), Elise doesn't argue. She is goddamn right. There's a hike of her brows when he opens the door, but she tucks herself into his car and straps on her seatbelt. "What were you going to do tonight anyway?" she asks once he's in the car and they are on the road. "I take it I didn't ruin any epic plans. Or you know.. a date or something. Do you even go on dates?"

OMG it wasn't meant to be racist! It's because he has more dice!

Wait!

There. Now I will pose.

Rather than close the door nice and easily, Graham slams that heavy thing so it makes a very satisfying ka-chunk, the kind that would take off a person's finger if they weren't mindful of where they put it (which would change the whole scene, so I'mma pause here in case he just cut off Elise's finger with the car door, you can just quick-pose that)...

It's a good thing that Elise's hands were occupied with buckling her seat belt, but she was turning in the sort of way that whips that delightfully bouncy ponytail of hers in the door's general vicinity. WHACK! goes the door, and "ACK!" goes Elise as her head is angled painfully back. That pretty ponytail is stuck. "Oh my god! GRAHAM!" there's more than just a note of panic. "Open the fucking door you got my hair ohmygod!"

Already on his way around to his side of the car, Graham takes a couple extra steps - old car, made of steel and proper-thick glass, her screeching doesn't immediately make it through. But the ALL CAPS part gets to him, and he reels his head back, turning to peer in through the passenger window with eyes wide. "Oh shit." Don't laugh, Graham, that's the worst possible response. He takes the four strides away in two strides back, yanking the door open, and probably tearing a few strands out of that ponytail in the process. "Fuck El, my bad." Yes, yes, there is a tiny bit of swallowed laughter in the back of his throat when he crouches down in the open doorway. "You okay?"

What makes all this even worse is that the angle of her body means she can't open the fucking door herself. Flailing would only make the hair rip out of her head, so she has to stay utterly still with bulging eyes and panic welling up and - "GRAAHAM!" she screams, really unable to see anything since her head was jerked back and her focus was on the ceiling of the car. It was probably a good thing that he yanks the car door back open when he does, even if it tears a few strands of that ponytail out, Elise putting her hand to the side of her head as she flinches. "Holy shit, your car tried to rip my fucking head off," she pat-pats her hand along her ponytail, maybe to make sure it was still there and not stuck in the door. "Is my hair all fucked up?" Okay, it might be a little vain, but his car just tried to kill her 🙁

"What can I say, babe? This car doesn't fuck around." Graham cringes when she's feeling for the damage, 'cause no; it's not possible to shut a cute ponytail in a car door, then liberate it, and still have it look all super-cute. It's created that problem where the ponytail-holder is pushed too close to her scalp, so her hair is bunched askew, and the actual tail-part is crunched and frazzled now. If any time was the time to lie to her face, it's now but what are friends for if not, after filing teeth over his lower lip fretfully, to say honestly, "Yep." It's all fucked up. "But, hey, it's the Pourhouse." So he just makes it worse, reaches up from his crouch and rubs his palm across the top of her head a bunch. "Now you look like a regular."

Elise knows the answer to her own question before it even comes out of his mouth, but she did fit him with hopefully large eyes, a silent plea that he just lie to her. But he doesn't, and she cringes, and sinks into the seat as he rubs at the top of her poor hurt head, swatting frantically at his hands to get them away. "God damn you, Graham," she grumbles, reaching for the handle to the car with every intent of swinging it shut, whether he gets out of the way or not. Move bitch, get out the way! "Let's go."

First, Graham mwahs the top of her completely disheveled head. Second, he takes that heavy door right in the back. Third, it upsets his balance in the process of standing up, and it is only by the grace of jamming a hand onto the dashboard that - no, you know what? The hand slips, and he pitches forward, right into the car, sprawls gracelessly across Elise's lap, with his door clapping the backs of his calves. So there's some instant karma for her, at least. "God damn you, Elise," he claps back, kicking the door of the car he loves so much to get it from breaking his legs.

Okay, so Elise definitely wasn't trying to slam him in the back with the car door? But she can't claim to not find some momentary satisfaction in the fact that it does. Of course, that satisfaction was extraordinarily short lived, considering the car door to the back has the unfortunate side effect of throwing him forward and into her lap. He sprawls, she goes 'oof!' and the car door bounces heavily into his calves as she lets it go. "What the crap!" she throws her hands up in frustration, and accidentally whips him in the nose with her knuckles in the process. Whoops. "Fuck, shit, are you okay?!"

Graham curls his knees into this tiny front-seat space, getting his legs out of the bitey-door, though he has to really pull his left leg kind of hard, since his heel gets stuck. So Elise gets kneed in the leg, and he's probably trampled all over her strappy heels, but it's fine; she just popped him in the nose, so his head reels back, knocks onto the visor. He brings one arm up to shield his face, "Jesus, Pacquiao." He's a Filipino boxer; it's a broad generalization, but he's under duress! "Was that really necessary?" The arm not shielding his face reaches down, finds the handle of the car seat, grabs it, and he shoves her chair back all the way, so he has very slightly more room here in the floorboard. He's still stuffed there awkwardly, and now there's a trickle of blood from his nose. "Owww!"

"Ah, fuck!" Elise is kneed in the leg and she kicks her foot out in response, banging her bared toes out under the dash which pinches her foot. These two, they were getting all sorts of beat up. "Wow, racist," she snaps at him as he calls her Pacquiao, "Maybe I wouldn't have had to hit you in the face if you hadn't tried to behead me with your car," she claps back. Then he's shoving her seat back and she goes flailing with the sudden motion, knocking her head back against the headrest as though fate were trying to induce an epic headache. It was only after all of that that she notices the blood trickling out of his nose .. and onto those skin-tight jeggings of hers. Drip drop right on her thighs. "Ohmygod you're bleeding," all over her. She leans forward, swatting away his hands that he's using to shield his face. "Lemme see, are you okay? I didn't even hit you that hard," pussy.

Racist?! Okay, maybe a little but! "It's not like the bench is all that deep when it comes to Asian boxers, okay?" That's Graham's defense. She swats his hands, and he adds, "Hold. Fucking. On. A minute here." Instead of getting out and going all the way around the car and into his seat, he climbs uncomfortably over the center console, putting his knees just all over her now ruined pants. It could be so sexy! But it's just really not, with the squashing and the oofing. He sags into his chair, turning his face toward her while blood trickles out of his nose, down the side of his mouth, and all over his shirt now. "It's not broken, but christ. Learn to pull your punches."

"Oh like that makes it any better. There are a lot of Thai fighters out there!" Insert Star Wars joke here. She also can't name any of these Thai fighters at the moment, but she's not exactly thinking straight. "And why do you always have to hone in on the Asian thing? I'm half German, too!" she points out. But they could discuss his racism later - he was crawling up onto her, and shoving his knee directly into her thigh. "Oh, ow, ugh! Graham!" she shoves him, and then smacks her open palm flat across his ass, which would be incredibly sexy if she wasn't doing it to get him to hurry the fuck up. Everything hurts, including her hand, which was now throbbing from the spanking. Karma.

"You're a hot mess," she sighs, emphasis on the mess part rather than the hot at the moment. There was no rag in sight, and so she leans over the center console to grab the bottom of his shirt and yank it up. She certainly wasn't going to use hers - it was silk! - and his polo was more absorbent. "Hold still, lemme see if I can stop the bleeding," she was already peeling his shirt up, intending to use it as a rag.

It pays to know a nurse.

"Uh, 'cause there are even fewer German boxers than Asian ones? If you were black, this wouldn't even be a conversation, okay Holyfield Foreman Tyson Mayweather Sugar Ray OW!" The list of black boxers ends with that resounding smack. Graham's bound to have had enough bloody noses to know the best solution is just to tilt his head back, but - "Sure, ruin my shirt, that's clearly not just you being vindictive." Nasally, with nose-blood leaking down the back of his throat and his eyes turned up to the ceiling of his car, he shares, "Just think, you could be playing trivia Boring Safe Guy, esquire, right this second."

"Your shirt's already ruined. Now tilt your head back and shut up," Elise snaps at him, putting aside the boxer conversation (because he's right - if she was black? this wouldn't even be a conversation). She throws her seatbelt up so that she can better adjust herself onto the seat, turning onto her knees and then bending over the center console. One hand goes into his lap, fingers splaying across his inner thigh and riding high up there, while the other works to put pressure on his nose while he hopefully tilts his own head back. Else she's gonna have to do it, and probably hurt him in the process.

As for what she could be doing right now? "Mmm, and then my night would've probably ended with some Even More Boring Safe Guy Sex.. Esquire?" Ok, that makes her giggle.

So you see? It was just Graham seeing the future that he pushed her seat all the way back so she'd have plenty of room to maneuver over there. When they argue about this later, he's going to make that point.

She has her hand way up there on his thigh, and so the only option Graham has is to think about the least awesome thing on the planet. Which is currently, "Were you really gonna fuck that guy?" He has to keep his head tilted back, so he can't even look over at her to gauge the reaction, so he just presses on with, "Are you gonna fuck that guy?" His nose isn't broken; he knows it isn't broken, so he's got about ten more seconds of tolerance for this. Elise should easily be able to pick up on the antsy seat-squirming he's doing, which obviously has nothing to do with her hand. Where nothing = everything in that sentence.

He was supposed to laugh at her joke, not ask her pointed questions about her sex life. The giggles fade as her brows climb, and he can't see her expression, but she definitely purses her lips at him. "Mmn, I mean I wasn't planning on it. Thus the jeans, and not like.. a skirt or a dress or something. But I guess I wasn't.. not not planning on it?" She puts a bit of weight into her lean, which means that her fingers sink into his thigh - but she was definitely, absolutely, just trying to stop the blood flow from his nose. It was totally accidental that she diverted the blood flow somewhere else. "But I'm definitely not going to now, after he went and canceled on me for a stupid flat tire. Which really sucks because I .."

Elise catches herself before she finishes that thought. Sure, there were tons of things that she was willing to share with her BFF, a lot of things that she wouldn't share with anybody else. But whining to Graham about how she hasn't gotten laid in awhile and how she'd been hoping rando safe Asian dude would scratch the itch sounded like a direct route deep into friend-zone territory. And she liked the way his thigh felt way too much to head in that direction. And now she realizes where her hand is.

"Annnnyway," she pulls back, drops his shirt, takes her hand off his thigh and leans all the way back, a faint flush to her cheeks. "It doesn't matter." Pause. "Does it matter?" No, don't answer that. "We should go back inside. You can't go to the Pourhouse looking like you got a head start on the 'after last call' fist fighting, and I.. my hair's all fucked up. Maybe we can just watch a movie. Later. After I take a shower." A cold one.

Graham's nose is bleeding all over his shirt, and there's a hand inches away from something that could become intensely awkward... or incredibly awesome... so forgive him for missing the memo that he was supposed to LOL at her joke. "Well," is a great filler word. "Guess it's a good thing he got that flat tire," COMPLETELY AT RANDOM, "before you didn't not fuck him, huh?" Still nasally, and at least the taste of blood in the back of his throat helps keep that intense awkwardness at bay till Elise figures out what she's doing and quits doing it.

"Annnnnyway," he echoes, taking up where she left off.

With his shirt. Not with the hand on his thigh.

And he drags the bottom of his shirt up to his nostril, though the blood has mostly subsided now, just the occasional dab. "I'd fit right in at the Pourhouse, but yeah. I'd fit right in at the Pourhouse." Completely different intonations. "Tombstone," is the movie they'll be watching. He piles out of the car before either of them gets even more beat the fuck up, peeling off his ruined shirt on the way into the house. She can have the cold shower, he'll just... be in his room... for a minute. Then they can watch Tombstone and Graham can practice his Doc Holliday impression irritatingly for the rest of the night, averting a crisis.