2019-05-19 - A brick through a window.

It's been a couple of days since the incident in Hoquiam. Elise hasn't really been her normal self, but maybe that's to be expected considering the situation. She hasn't left the house, because the red mark on her cheek rapidly turned into a blossoming blue-violet bruise across half her cheek - so she told her mom that she had the flu, and not to come around, and told her work the same thing. It was an easy excuse, but it was harder to make excuses like that to Graham, because he lived here and that meant that she had to see him whether she wanted to or not. Needless to say, she's spent these past few days mostly in her room. But at least she's kept the fridge stocked! So, there was that.

The douche with the Porsche that wasn't his own - Lukas Collins - hasn't been back to the club but that wasn't incredibly odd. After all, it's only been a couple of days, and his 'job' with Felix didn't really have a whole lot to do with the Firefly anyway; he just liked playing poker in the back room. But people in Gray Harbor talk, and people around the Firefly were talking about how Lukas picked himself up a frisky little plaything from Oak Avenue that got overly excited in the moment because his dick was so good or something. It was a spin, for sure.

Elise was blissfully unaware of the rumors, of course. And tonight, she's actually ventured out of her room. The bruise on her cheek was beginning to yellow, enough that she could blend it away with make-up if she wanted; but here, in her place, she didn't try to conceal. She's curled up on the couch in a long t-shirt and a pair of leggings, 'Cupcake Wars' playing on the television. She's got her phone out, and seems to be flipping through photos but WORRY NOT. It's not Tinder she's on... she's looking up animals from the local shelter. Step 1 of becoming a crazy cat lady, after all, is actually getting a cat.

Graham's knocked on her door a couple times in the intervening days, just for little things: hey, he ordered a pizza, she can have some; uhm, he dropped a box of laundry soap into the washer by accident, so yeah, but he'll clean up the mess, promise; he's going to work now, so she can come out. Any time their paths inadvertently cross, he keeps his eyes averted from the bruise, and plays it like everything is Perfectly Normal, nothing to see here, and he goes about his normal routines.

Not that Graham is a creature of habit so much. His hours are odd and forever shifting, and - just now - he has this Lukas Collins preoccupation. He can't just go over Felix's head, take matters into his own hands (or, as is more likely, tell Andre that the guy hit his best friend and needs a lesson in what happens when you hit people littler than you are), but there have to be repercussions, yanno? Anyway, those are the things he keeps from Elise. Along with the whole 'planning to rob a boat full of drugs in a few days.'

He'd actually been planning to go out with that latter job in mind - finish casing the joint, now that the boat was supposed to dock in Gray Harbor tonight - which is why he comes down the stairs, dressed like a fucking tourist: Hawaiian shirt under a yellow rain-slicker, sunglasses that he would never get to use hanging from the shirt-pocket, and flip-flops of the sort you can buy on the boardwalk for a small fortune. He gets as far as bouncing his keys on his palms when - "As I live and breathe, if it isn't Elise Kruger. You live around here?" And he brakes on his way through the living room, making with the shocked face.

It was a good thing that Elise was so preoccupied with the adorable kittens on her screen that she doesn't immediately cast her eyes upward to watch Graham stumble down the stairs like he's going out for an audition at a 'Weekend at Bernie's' remake or something. So he gets his little ribbing in, and she rolls her eyes, about to say something when she brings those dark eyes up off the blue screen and onto him. They pop open wide. "What the fuck are you wearing?" she gapes, and then immediately bursts into laughter - it's probably the first time in the past couple of days that she's had a good laugh, so GG Graham. "You look fucking ridiculous!"

The sofa that Elise lounges on is in front of a large window; the curtains are usually drawn, but tonight they are pushed apart. It wouldn't be difficult for Graham to see out to the front of the house, and to a small slip of Oak Street itself. There's a black car parked across the street, which isn't necessarily odd, but the sort of thing one notices because the windows are tinted illegally dark. It's not a car that's usually on their street.

"Hold on, it gets better." Graham lifts a finger, peeling back the front of the Hawaiian shirt, which was not buttoned, so that the t-shirt underneath it is visible: It's one of those annoying COBAIN shirts that the tourists wear when they come down here to relive the '90s grunge era. He walks over to show her, holding Hawaiian shirt and rain slicker open wide and thrusting his gut out so the t-shirt is on display. "Totally incognito for the boardwalk, baby."

It's while he's making sure Elise gets an eyeball of his awesome disguise (with no clue given as to why he needs a disguise; why do you invite questions you aren't going to want to answer, G?) that he looks over the top of the sofa and at the odd black car. As the driver of both an awesome black car and frequently a sketchy black car, he recognizes this one for what it is: out-of-place. His eyes hang off the car for a second when he adds, "You wanna go down to the boardwalk with me? It'd probably be good for your flu to get some fresh air." Then drops his eyes and smiles into Elise's: He's so trustworthy, friend, and never has ulterior motives~.

Goodness, it really does get better. Elise was practically in tears as he opens up the shirt to reveal his COBAIN shirt, and she seems to come alive under all that laughter. Maybe this is just what she needed; a few days of angst, followed immediately thereafter by some bright laughter. It is the best medicine. "You look just like those assholes that stand in the middle of the Boardwalk and take pictures and give the homeless guys money for stupid seashell necklaces," she laughs. "But what the fuck for? Why do you need to blend in on the boardwalk? We go down there to make fun of those people." Well, he did invite the questions.

Elise was too busy checking out his wickedly horrible t-shirt to notice that he was looking out onto the street. Is it racist to call a black car sketchy just because it's black? "Mmn, nah," to the offer of the Boardwalk trip, pushing a fingertip into his belly. "I've had my fill of shriveled wieners," in more ways than one. "Besides, I'm looking up kitties to adopt. Isn't this one cute?" As she holds up her phone to show off a picture of a tiny Calico kitten, the black car across the street turns its headlights on.

And then it turns the headlights off. Then on again. Then off again. Blink-blink-blink.

Graham totally smiles at the kitten picture and says something to the effect of, "Aren't all kittens cute? Then they become cats..." And something. He fails to finish the thought. Instead, with the headlight show going on, he has a conundrum: is it time to tell his BFF that there might be trouble afoot and he knows this 'cause he does this shit for a living, or try to cover it and possibly get them both in a world of hurt. Also, he carries a handgun around, it's in the pocket of his slicker, he also would have to broach that subject. All this sets him chewing the corner of his mouth while his fingers idly scroll through a couple adoptable cat-pictures that he's not looking at even a little bit.

He gives the phone back to her, opts for, "A'ight, well. If you're committed to staying here, I'mma head out." Yes, he forgot to explain why he's dressed like a tourist. Yes, he's going out the front door instead of the side door to the garage, where his car is. How else is he going to walk over to this shady fucking car and ask WTF is going on, like you do when you firmly believe Felix Monaghan would blow a gasket if someone put a hit on you.

"What's wrong with cats?" Elise frowns up at him, though maybe he does have a point. "We could get a puppy instead, I guess." Yes, that was a we, as in she assumes he's staying here for the long haul, or at least long enough to share the responsibility of owning a pet with her. "I just don't have a lot of time for a puppy, and your shifts at the bar are all over the place. I really don't actually understand your job," she admits, stretching to sit up while he scrolls through her phone, until he gives it back to her. "Are you sure you wanna go all the way down to the boardwalk? Looking like that?" she shifts to the edge of the sofa, leaning at an angle to watch him head towards the door. "We could hang out. Watch a movie.."

Graham would become very aware of something in the moment. One of those things is that the car with the blinking headlights is not the car he needs to be concerned about. The other is that there is a very fast car coming from the far end of the street, tires screeching on the slick roads. It was barreling down the road, in the kind of 'people in front of the window should probably not be in front of the window' sort of way.

This has nothing to do with puppies or kittens or why Graham is going to the boardwalk dressed like a tourist: "Ffffuuuck." He draws that word out lengthily, at the same time he hits the light-switch next to the front door, since he's standing right here, soaking the room in darkness other than the light from the TV - Cupcake Wars~! - and Elise's phone. The phone that he grabs for right then. Specifically, he's making a grab for her hand, but her phone happens to be in it.

And since she's too fucking quick and he's not going to just be able to snatch at her and, like, yank her oblivious head out of the frame of that big fucking window... He says the most important thing he's ever said to her in his whole life, quiet but serious: "Elise. Duck. Now." He doesn't actually take out the gun in his pocket, 'cause that's too much in one pose, but probably that's coming soon.

Elise's brows climb at his 'fffuuck,' totally not understanding the placement of said statement. "I mean..okay, I guess I'll just sit here and watch television myself," she mutters something under her breath, slouching to get back onto her seat on the sofa when he suddenly slaps out the lights and blankets them in darkness. Except.. Elise is literally right in front of the TV, so her outline remains clear in the window. "Graham, what the fuck are you doing?" she starts, recoiling when he suddenly makes a grab for her - and it's not that Elise assumes he's going to hit her, but it's only natural after just getting hit that anything coming fast at her might be ready to strike.

It's a real unfortunate thing, because he could've easily snatched out out of the way of the window. As it were, she's sort of in this state of true confusion, staring at him as he tells her to duck. "Graham, what is going --" She should've ducked.

A brick comes sailing through the window as a car flies down the road, spraying the living room and the sofa - and Elise - with glass. Graham has about a half of a second to pull Elise out of the way before the brick smacks her right in the back of the head; though either way, that brick is clipping her somewhere.

No one ever listens. 🙁 Graham has that thought fleetingly when the brick busts through the front window, and he repeats with a whole new urgency, "Christ Elise, duck!" He does what he can, sort of shoving her head down (not into his lap, alas), and covering her back with his, since surely that raincoat will provide a modicum of protection from the spray of glass! But the brick... yeah, she's going to have to take that one like a man, right to the shoulder or the back. He keeps his face turned away till the glass quits spraying.

Then, kneeling on the couch, proves why he's not a master criminal by pulling out a handgun in the middle of a residential neighborhood. And shooting like four times at the back of this car, pop-pop-pop-pop, but he just winds up peppering the trunk of the car, not shooting out the tires (which was his master plan). We'll just assume that Felix equips his employees with more intelligence than they actually have, and this gun has a silencer on it, so the entire neighborhood doesn't immediately get swarmed with cops. "Fuck," he repeats, sagging down below the horizon of the couch while the car...? Presumably drives around the corner? Pls don't shoot back, they will both get killed. 🙁

No one ever gets down when they should! And they wind up taking bricks to the back that knock the wind out of them. Oof, that was going to leave a bruise. Elise screams out in pain, but she certainly fucking ducks now, several seconds too late, and she twists as the brick hits her square in the back. Whoever's in that car yells out: "STUPID FUCKING CHINK WHORE!" at the same time that he throws the brick, so you get about three guesses as to who might be the responsible party here.

Dazed and confused, and on the ground and scratched up by glass, Elise isn't consciously aware of the gun until the pop-pop-pop-pop registers several seconds after the gun actually goes off and she's actually covering up her head like someone's shooting at her. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod," she's sobbing. The car does in fact drive around the corner and out of sight, while the 'lookout' with the flashy headlights zips off the other way. Neither of them return to shoot back, so they get to live another day.

Sorry, Elise. Graham will totally BE THERE FOR YOU in just a second. First, though, after slipping down onto the glass all over the sofa, he digs around in his pocket for his phone, holding that in one hand and the gun (that he totally has a license for but never told his roommate he has around 'cause that just seemed like inviting an argument) in the other. Into the phone, after a second, "Hey, it's Graham. Can you ask Felix if I can sit down with him sometime tonight? ... I mean, kinda. ... A'ight, well. Call me back." That whole exchange, including dialing, takes less than half-a-minute, during which time the car that did stuff squeals away and he holds Elise's eyes with his, looking successfully composed .

He scoots down off the sofa-cushions, kicking some glass off the floor immediately in front of it where he's going to wind up sitting before he lands there. "Take a breath," is his pro-tip. He tosses phone-and-gun into his empty spot on the couch, using his hands to scoot himself across the floor beside her. NGL, he's expecting to get hit.

It's totally fine, Graham, he can make his phone call while Elise is hysterically crying there on the sofa, with a brick to her back and covered in shards of broken glass. She'll still be here when he is done, please excuse the sobbing and hyperventilating while he's talking. It's probably very rude, people should really be quiet when other people are on the phone. "Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod," she pants out while he holds his eyes with her own too large, glassy stare. It's going to take a second for her to register just what the fuck was going on.

And when she does? Well, she starts smacking him on the shoulders. But ngl, thought she'd be able to hit him? Instead, it's sort of like a kitten pawing at his shoulders. "What the fuck, Graham! What the fuck was that?! Who threw a brick in my window?! WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE A GUN WERE YOU SHOOTING AT THAT CAR WE LIVE IN A NICE SUBDIVISION!!!"

If Graham doesn't make that phone call, then probably things get a lot worse, and Elise will have way more reasons to cry than a brick through her window, so just get off his case. He takes being punched or whatever she thinks she's doing pretty well, though he goes, "Ow," once or twice and makes sure to put his arm up to block his face.

"Quit fucking hitting me and I'll answer your questions, dammit," he claps back, ducking down behind his arm. Sure, he could bodily grab her and stop the punching, but she's been through a lot. 🙁 So he'll just wait till she quits it on her own. "And STOP YELLING," hypocrisy is fun, "so goddamn loud, the front window's blown out, and the whole fucking nice subdivision is gonna hear your hysterical screeching if you keep this up."

"I am not HYSTERICALLY SCREECHING!" Elise hysterically screeches, and smacks him a few more times for good measure. She must not be trying very hard, though he might feel those ones more than the kitten-pawing she was doing earlier. "You have a gun in my house and somebody just threw a brick through my window and who the hell is Felix and ohmygod I'm bleeding," that realization hits her like.. well.. a brick to the back, and her eyes widen as she stares at her arms. Which are most definitely cut from the glass, and dripping with blood. She sucks in a shaky breath, sobs it back out, and suddenly pitches herself forward to slump into his arms.

Hey, at least she's not hitting him anymore.

Graham's not going to keep rolling composure every pose. Suffice it to say: he is composed. So when he quips back, "Yeah, ya are," about the screeching, he's able to do it without dimming his customary wryness. A couple more oofs get him, and one of her blows actually smudges across his ear (harmlessly), which probably would've prompted more of a reaction had she not gone on to realize she was bleeding. "Yeah, that'll happen when you take a sheet of glass to the back."

She slumps. He catches. His cool slicker has some super edgy new tears in it, but he's mostly unscathed, so he just holds her for now. "You're all right, baby, it was just glass." Beat. "Well, and a brick." He conscientiously avoids pat-patting the brick area. "But just one brick."

The great thing about Gray Harbor is that people see weird things happen and excuse them. So maybe a neighbor on Oak saw a couple of black cars screech through the neighborhood - and probably that same neighbor heard the brick go through the window? But it looks like they just decided to shake their heads, close their blinds, and go about their own damn lives rather than call the cops. Shit happens in this town, stupid shit, and there's probably a couple of Felix employees who live on this street anyway, so. Mind your own business. That's just what they do.

It means that Elise has all the time in the world to cry on Graham's shoulder and give his rain slicker even more super edgy tears. There's no sirens that scream down the street, no cops asking questions. And thankfully no goons coming up to finish whatever job was started here. Eventually, at some logical point, Elise will stop crying. It just takes awhile. "Please tell me what the hell is going on, Graham, please," she finally utters, when the sobbing is mostly over.

In among all her crying and the neighbors ignoring the goings-on, Graham also gets a text back. He doesn't grab his phone or anything, since he's busy supporting his bestie through some emotional trauma as much as he can (mostly, this involves petting her hair and not running his mouth), but the alert-vibratey screen lets him know that he has a few hours before this meeting with his boss, so whew.

When she seems to be coming around, he puts her away gently, loosening his arms and suggesting, with a tip of his chin toward the kitchen, "I will, but let's at least get you cleaned up in the process, all right?" And close the curtains, since the window's ruined for the night - probably longer. "Come on," while he takes her hand to bring her with him to his feet.

He also ever so deftly swipes the gun off the sofa and tucks that shit into his pocket again; out of sight...

They likely would've made it to the kitchen if Graham hadn't chosen that exact moment to swipe his gun off the sofa and tuck it into his back pocket. Out of sight, maybe, but certainly not out of mind. "No," the word snaps out of her, firm and precise, and she's all tear-stained and blood-stained and bruised in the back but she's holding her ground. "No, I'm not going anywhere until you stop avoiding answering all of my fucking questions, Graham, this is ridiculous!" There are a few stages of grief here, and Elise has gone out of hysterical depression and straight into the anger stage. Sadly, he's the only one here, so all of her sudden boiling Asian rage gets directed straight at him.

"You have a fucking gun in my house that you just used to shoot at a car that THREW A BRICK THROUGH MY WINDOW!" Okay, what was that about the hysterical stage being over? Oh well. "You have a fucking silencer! Are you a goddamn spy?! What is even going on???"

But would it have been worse if he just left the gun laying on the couch beneath an open window? THINK OF THE KIDS!

Well, Graham already stood up, so he stays that way. Since he's here, he takes off his ruined slicker and tosses it... uh, onto the arm of the couch, since this whole room is wrecked now, then crosses his arms and answers her (understandable) rage with a big sigh. "First off," he likes that one, "the brick had nothing to do with me. Pretty sure that was all about that asshole you went on a date with trying to make you sorry." He looks around for a second, at this chaos, then meets Elise's eyes again with a shrug: assholes gonna asshole.

"And. Yes. I have a gun. Yes, it has a silencer. Guns are fucking loud without them. I'm not a goddamn spy." Okay?! Are they good now?! "You sure you don't wanna go clean the blood off, at least? You can keep yelling at me while you do it." Look at his dimply-smile, Elise! He's the opposite of hysterical; she should try it.

Why do we have to think of the children? Is he going to start emptying another clip at them, too?!

Anyways. Elise manages to get to her feet, but she's on shaky ground here; her knees are clacking together, and her arms are covered in tiny rivulets of blood now from all the random glass shard slices. "Wait, what?" There was a lot of hysterical sobbing going on, it's not so hard to think that Elise managed to miss the whole 'chink whore' thing that got shouted. "That was .. that was.. oh fuck, my back, oh God," she stumbles forward and into him and his dimply-smile, her knees damn near giving out. So he better catch her, or she was going to fall on the glass again.

Hey, look at that! Graham totally catches her before she falls. It's even a good, Hollywood-style catch, not just some shitty fumble. Though the accompanying, "Whoa there," is less smooth. Initially, it's just to break the fall, to brace her before she hits the ground, but let's just go all-in; he scoops her right on up, since she probably weighs about fourteen pounds soaking wet, and he should take her upstairs and put her to bed, but he hasn't got the brawn for that.

So into the kitchen with her, away from the open window and the broken glass, and he'll set her down on the counter next to the kitchen sink. "Yeah, that guy's a piece of shit," he shares on the way, looking sorry for Elise (for having such terrible taste in men, present company included).

In another world, in a totally different scenario, Elise would've swooned the moment that brawny Graham swept her off the floor and into those big brawny muscles of his. But now was not the time nor the place nor even the right kind of moment to swoon; although Elise does lean heavily into him and look a little starry-eyed. Though, the stars are from the pain shooting through her back. Sorry Graham. She gets blood on his shirt and on his neck when she puts her arms around him, and she lays her head on his shoulder and tries some deep breathing that sounds more like the start of someone about to hyperventilate again.

She doesn't though. Straight up hyperventilate. She manages to keep herself from bursting into another round of sobbing, and once she's put on the counter, she stays put, staring at him with those wide eyes and blood running down her arms. "Was he trying.. was he going to.. oh my god, do you think he's going to come back? He's just some guy that works at the Firefly! Oh I am never dating again. Ever."

Going to come back? "Sooner or later. He's the kind of asshole that doesn't take 'no' for an answer." How is Graham, the utility criminal, going to try to clean up the cuts of Elise, the nurse? This makes no sense. But he gets some paper towels, and he runs them under the water, and he does his best to be careful about wiping the blood around the cuts without actually touching the sliced skin. The watery towel is cold, but his hands are appropriately warm to counter that, and he holds her arm at the elbow first, then the wrist, chasing down the trails of blood.

"Just. Quit dating assholes. Are you okay?" He means her arms. And probably also the brick-bruise on her back. She would know better than he does if this needs an actual doctor.

"He can't come back!" Elise counters, as if by saying that, she can make sure the asshole never steps foot in her vicinity again. She hisses through her teeth when he starts to rub at the blood on her arms with the too-cold towel, though the warm of his hands really does help to appropriately counter the chill, and she hangs her head with a trembly sort of sigh. "Am I going to have to move? Do we need to find another place to live? I..I.. what if he comes back and you're not here? What if he hits YOU with a brick and ohmygod," she bends forward, laying her head on his shoulder again while he's close.

Is she okay? "No." And blame it on not being okay that she has no earthly idea how she's doing. So she doesn't even answer the question. But Graham will be able to deduce that the glass cuts are all surface wounds; nothing here requires stitches. "I..there's a first aid kit. In the bathroom."

Graham has probably had a couple cuts in his life. So he knows for sure that none of these need stitches. Apparently, he knows this even more surely than Elise does. "You're not gonna have to move," he assures certainly, tossing the soiled paper towel into the sink for want of a little Medical Waste container right here in the kitchen. He lingers long enough to press a quick kiss into the top of her head, petting a hand down the back of her hair briefly.

"Wait here." While he goes and gets the first aid kit, giving her a minute to herself. Maybe it's good for her; maybe it makes her hysterical all over again; regardless, that's what he does, returning with the little box that he's opening along the way back to the counter. Its contents are intriguing.

The nurse in Elise is screaming that it's not sanitary to throw bloodied napkins in the fucking sink. But the Elise who just got a brick to the back doesn't really want to yell at the man that is helping to clean her up. So she just shuts her mouth and leans into the kiss he lays on her forehead. "Okay," she murmurs warily, not completely believing that she isn't going to have to pack up and move out of Gray Harbor, but not committing hard enough to the idea that she's going to argue with him about it.

He goes to fetch the first aid kit and she's there by herself. Somewhere outside, a car engine sputters and she nearly jumps out of her skin. It makes her curl her arms around herself, giving her the world's biggest (and bloodiest) hug in the moment, likely making more of the red stuff ooze out of her arms. When he comes back, she frowns. "You're not going to like.. shoot him, right? Because I think that would be a very bad idea. Why do you have a gun?"

Having gone to all the trouble of getting the first aid kit... Graham sits it down next to Elise on the counter, open, and unrolls some more paper towels to deal with all the new blood she managed to create while he was off in the other room. "Christ, you need to learn to bleed less." He's back to helping wipe her arms for her, more cold paper-towel, more warm fingers. Presumably, he's focused enough on this that he doesn't have to look right in her eyes for now; it's a good excuse, anyway. "Probably not," going to shoot him. "I'm not sure what's gonna happen to him yet." That's why he has a meeting with Felix in a few hours. "I have a gun because Washington is a shall-issue state." He peeks up. "Why don't you have a gun?"

Elise's brows collapse into a furrow, and she tries to concentrate on anything but what he's doing with her arms. She's not blood-shy, but the cold wet of the paper towel stings on the cuts, and it was easier to focus on something else - so she tries to catch his gaze, even though he's keeping his eyes down. "Because I live in Gray Harbor and not inner city Chicago?" she replies about the gun, the frown on her lips deepening. "What do you mean, you're not sure what's going to happen to him? Are you going to call the cops? Maybe that's what I should do. Get a restraining order or something. I don't even know his last name," that part was admitted sort of sheepishly.

Yes, look right in his eyes right then, because this is important: "Don't call the cops." Graham's bright blue eyes hold her dark ones intensely for the duration of that admittedly short comment, and one brow quirks upward as if to inquire if she's really getting the gravity here. "Look, Elly." He resumes wiping away blood, though he's gotten a good ninety-percent of it off her arms by now. "I don't want to make this sound worse than it is, but the work I do for Felix - it's more than just tending bar and dealing cars. And the less you know, the better things really are, in case anyone ever comes asking. Yanno?"

The weight of those words, the gravity and intensity behind them, stills Elise there on the counter. She blinks once, but she holds his gaze steady.. and tips her head in a small nod. "All right," she says of not calling the cops, there's no argument. She turns her arms so that he can wipe off more of the blood, about to look down to see the progress of his work, when he drops that little bomb on her. Her breath goes in, fills up her lungs, and she holds it for a count of five before slowly releasing it.

Girl's got composure for days, it seems.

"You.. work for Felix," she repeats. "Felix Monaghan?" Elise doesn't need to be 'in the know' to know that Felix is a Bad Guy with a capital B G. There's a quiet tick of time, one-two-three count, before she says in a quiet, too-composed sort of voice. "Does.. Lukas work for Felix, too?"

Graham wipes off the undersides of her arms, too, sliding that cold-wet-towel from just about the middle of her bicep down to just above the line of her wrists. The paper towel gets quit into the sink after that, too pink, and he peels off another one, splashing it beneath the faucet but briefly. "Yes," he answers for the first question while he's shaking out some of the excess water. He shrugs an apology for that confession, then drags the cleaner towel down her arm, wiping away the last of the blood.

On to the next arm. "Yes," Lukas does, too. "But I'm gonna take care of that. Felix is a reasonable man. If I tell him what Lukas did to you? And that he threw a fucking brick through my window?" The head-shake is all he can 'say' for sure about it: won't be good.

"Fuck," the word comes out in a single breath, hushed to provide a backdrop to quiet confessions of the criminal variety that was happening here in the kitchen. She manages to suppress the full body tremble that wants to run through her, instead flinching her eyes shut for a half a tick of time. When she peeks them open again, she looks down to her mostly clean arms... and then slowly lifts her dark gaze to his again.

"Are you.. are you going to kill him?" Her voice manages not to break at that question, but there was certainly a delicate quality to it. "I don't .. people don't need to die, for me, Graham, please."

One more paper towel in the sink, and then Graham seems satisfied that the majority of his work here is done. With his hands no longer doing anything especially useful, he's free to fold his arms across his chest, leaning his hip against the counter next to her legs, head tilted so he can return her gaze. Being honest? "I doubt it."

She qualifies in that careful way, and his eyes narrow at the beginning of his disagreement. "Listen, the guy's a fucking prick. Whatever he gets? Is what he deserves. So I'll Felix about my beef and. We'll see, all right?" He unfolds one arm, despite having just gotten them settled, and puts a hand against the side of her neck, thumb on her jaw, fingers beneath her hair: "I'm not a cold-blooded murderer," exactly, "but I can't just let this go."

With her arms patched up, Elise shifts awkwardly on the counter. It makes her flinch, because it bothers the gigantic brick bruise on her back, and she freezes as the pain shoots through her. "Shit," she breathes out, wincing her eyes shut again, her fingers curling and tightening into little fists. And somehow, that little reminder of pain? Doesn't make her feel so bad about Lukas getting what's coming to him.

She opens her mouth to say something, but her words catch in her throat when he lays his hand on the side of her neck. She instinctively leans into him, into the touch, breathing out again. "I trust you," even though he straight up kept a big part of his life hidden. "I.. don't want you to let it go," she admits. "I just don't think.. he probably doesn't need to end up in a ditch somewhere. Jesus, listen to me."

All the lies Graham tells to Elise are for her own good, okay?! And most of them are just lies of omission, not the really REAL kinds of lies. Right now, though, he's put (most, like 50/52) of his cards on the table, and he looks directly at her and says, "Anybody that rolls up on a house and throws a brick through a window and yells Chink Whore?" His thumb brushes her jaw a couple times, then he's shaking his head resolutely. "Has probably done some shit that means they deserve to end up a ditch somewhere."

He takes a breath, and he leans back a little on the other side, looking toward the brick-shaped bruise she's bound to be sporting soon. "But that's really not my call at the end of the day." (Which leaves his player wondering: If Felix decides Lukas gets a pass... wtf will Graham do? Hmm.) Not to change the subject, but let's: "Are you gonna do something with this first aid kit, baby? Or is it just here to look pretty?"

Whoa, wait a second. One can practically hear the record scratching. After all, there'd been a lot of chaos in the moment; she hadn't heard the yelling while she was screaming about being cut by all that glass. "He yelled out what now?" What was that she said before, about him not needing to end up in a ditch somewhere? Her eyes damn near turn black. "Fuck him. Maybe you should throw a fucking brick at his back. And at his fucking dick," she grumbles, letting just a little bit of darkness twist through.

The only thing that brings her back is his hand, the brush of his thumb against her jaw, and she tilts her head into his touch. It was a comforting touch, a safe kind of touch, and yeah he might be working for the most evil man in all of Gray Harbor? But he was still her Graham. Her best friend. Her.. "Huh?" she blinks about the first aid kit, stolen out of whatever thoughts she was having, and casts a look down to it. "Right. I'll.. I should do this upstairs," she sighs. "Can.. do you mind helping me up the stairs? My back really hurts."

Evil?! Come on. Evil in this town is hardly one perfectly mundane crime lord. The guy wouldnt even qualify as a proper mobster. In Brazil, even!

There's an open hand to her when what that prick said gets through to her upon repetition, a sort of 'exactly my point' implied in the simple gesture that Graham passes across. That with the hand not on her neck still, obviously, because that hand stays there a second longer, letting her lean a while, before it drops to her shoulder and then caaaaaaarefully down the line of her arm, catching her hand. "Nope." He totally doesn't mind helping her up the stairs. "I mean, I'd carry you like the obviously amazing stud that I am." Sparkly smile. "But I'd feel like a real asshole if I drop you halfway up up the stairs."

So he'll just help her hop down, nice and easy.