2019-07-15 - It Would've Been Smarter To Kick Him Out

On July 11th, the entire Gray Harbor PD showed up at Elise's house and arrested her boyfriend. The boyfriend managed to get in a couple phone calls during the three days that he was in a holding cell in the county jail, but they didn't really amount to much other than a check-in to confirm everyone was still alive. July 14th was a Sunday, so there was no getting in to see a judge on that day, but the 15th was a Monday, so Graham and Andre were formally charged with grand larceny and felony destruction of private property. But they have a good lawyer in deWitt, so they were released without bail.

Whether or not Elise was in court, it's still hours later before Graham manages to get processed out. Plus, he can't just come straight home, so he gets picked up by one of Felix's (other) goons, spends several hours at the club, and finally - four days later! - pushes open the front door and slumps inside. "Honey, I'm home."

The house on Oak was quiet but the lights were on - not much has changed in the four days since he's been gone. He's greeted immediately, not by Elise but by Mew-Mew, who hops down from her perch upon the (insanely expensive) cat tree that Elise put up in the living room and scrambles towards him, skidding across bare floors on tiny kitty-paws and aggressively rubbing against the inside of his leg, mrowling eagerly. It's the kind of 'so happy to see you!' welcoming that one would expect from a girlfriend rather than an animal. But there's no Elise to follow upon the heels of the kitten's greeting, there's no Elise rubbing frantically up against him with joy.

Then again, Elise wasn't even at court, so perhaps her failure to throw him a welcome home party should be at least partially expected?

Either way, there's a distant shout from the upstairs, in the direction of her bedroom. "I'm upstairs." And that's apparently all he's getting. But when he comes trudging up the stairs, he has to pass by his room first. And that's when he'll see what Elise has been up to four the past four days. The door to his bedroom is open ... and all of his stuff is gone. The mess has been meticulously cleaned, and in place of his piles of shit are art supplies and an easel. It is, in fact, returned to the state that this room had been in before he'd moved in.

Rest assured, Graham is down here making at least one joke about how he's glad at least one pussy is happy to see him while he crouches down to give Mew-Mew the rubbing she deserves for being just the best. He even scoops her up and dumps her on the cat tree with a smooch on the head, while simultaneously heel-toeing out of his sneakers and leaving them at the bottom of the stairs. Which is not where they belong, but he's a twenty-five-year-old man, so. At least he doesn't leave a trail of clothes up the stairs?

Giving him some credit, he probably planned to jump in the shower and put on some clean clothes, which is why he's halfway out of his shirt by the time he gets to the room where all his stuff should be and isn't. That is, he's not half-undressed because he's expecting Elise to be all TAKE ME NOW STUD. Anyway, it doesn't matter, because he puts his t-shirt back on (inside out now) when he sees the state of 'his' room.

"Hey, El? I think we got robbed," he calls down the hallway toward Elise's room.

At least the cat appreciates his jokes. She gives him a head-nudge when he deposits her on the cat tree, and then leaps back off to follow him up the stairs, tail sailing through the air with pure happiness. 'He's home, hooray!' she seems to say with every vibrant meow, though her exuberance fades when he heads into his room that is no longer his room, and opts to scamper down the hall to Elise's room instead.

Sadly for Graham, Elise isn't naked on the bed or anything, waiting to be taken. She is, instead, dressed down in a tanktop and tight black yoga pants, hair up in a high ponytail that bounces when she finally pokes her head out of her room and casts a look down the hall. "No we didn't," she says simply, matter-of-factly, and disappears back into her bedroom. "Your shit is in here," she raises her voice so he can hear her out in the hall, "It's up to you if I put it in the drawers or throw it out the fucking window."

And indeed, if he comes into the bedroom, he'll find everything he owns in neat little laundry baskets. She was even nice enough to wash and fold all of his clothes, which means they'll be fresh and so clean-clean when she tosses them outside onto the front lawn~.

Quickly exchanging the wary expression he wore while examining his room for the flash of a broad and dimpled grin during that moment that Elise looks out of the room, Graham looks convincingly unworried by the disappearance of all his stuff. "Glad you kept yourself busy," he says just quietly enough that she can ignore it if she's feeling charitable - but it's also right there to get this fight started if that's the way she's leaning. Basically, Graham toes the line.

He taps on the open door of what used to be his room with the ends of his fingers, pushing it the rest of the way open before, arms folded, he moseys on down the hallway and leans in the next doorway down, the one to Elise's room. "On a scale of one to... all this shit gets doused in lighter fluid on its way out the window?" How pissed is she, he means. He squints into the room, so braced for explosions.

Oh, she heard him. Which is precisely why, by the time he moseys down the line and pokes his head into the bedroom? She's gone and perched herself on the bench seat by the window, which is already up and letting in the smell of damp earth and heavy rain. She's got one of those laundry baskets pulled over by her feet, but she's got a handful of his clothes and an arm outstretched out the window. The only thing keeping his shit from getting wet from the pouring rain is the awning. "Are you really going to fucking test me right now?" she arches brows at him, eyes hard. "The whole fucking street already saw you get hauled off by every single goddamn police officer that Gray Harbor has on payroll, I'm pretty sure they won't be surprised when I toss out everything you own onto the lawn and throw you out with it. What the fuck, G?" she sounds so very tired.

"My mom has been blowing up my phone, my coworkers are looking at me sideways, and they didn't even drop the fucking charges? He said they were going to drop the fucking charges!"

Did he, though? Did Felix actually say those charges were getting dropped? Graham wasn't there for that conversation, probably doesn't even know that it ever took place, so excuse him for latching onto that out of everything. "Who said they were going to drop the fucking charges?" He guesses wrong with, "You didn't go talk to that fucking crackhead, did you? Goddammit, Elise." (Wait till he finds out who she did go talk to!)

She sounds tired, and now Graham is rapidly vacillating between that flash of anger at the notion that she's been off talking to crackhead witnesses and the apologetic demeanor that this situation rightly demands from him. He pushes out of the doorway, crossing toward the bench to sit down next to Elise. If it means she drops his shit? Well, that's the risk he takes right now, by scooting on over next to her and everything. He looks a little tired, too, but it's the other kind of tired: not tired of bullshit, just tired from having had a rough four days. "I'm sorry, Elly." And he means it, really and truly, but there's something held back in that apology. He's sorry BUT...

Really, it didn't matter what Felix had said. What matters is what Elise thought she agreed to. "Why would I go talk to a fucking crackhead? What does a fucking crackhead have to do with this?" She wasn't apprised of the situation, not fully. He hadn't told her what he'd gotten arrested for, just the specific charges. So her eyes widen when she puts two-and-two together, her fist trembling with rage. "Oh my God, G, why the fuck would you try and give whatever you stole to a FUCKING CRACKHEAD?!" she probably shouldn't shout those words in front of an open window in the middle of the night, but at least the rain likely muffles some of the words.

And she really should drop his shit. She should toss this handful of clothes out of the window and aim for one of the mud puddles growing outside. She should toss the rest of his laundry basket, and all the others, and then throw him out the window too. What she should do all flashes in the heat of her glare as he comes to sit right down next to her, but she doesn't drop his clothes. Instead, she jerks her hand back inside and tosses the clothes in his face, putting as much force behind it as she can. "Fuck you and your sorry but," she heard it, the unspoken qualifier, "I've been dealing with your 'I'm sorry, but' for years, Graham, I deserve SO much more than your but, so you can take your but and shove it up your fucking ass," Which, under any other circumstance, would be hilariously spoken considering. "You need to smarten up. You need to make yourself invaluable. 'Cause pretty soon you're gonna do something so dumb that no amount of fucking Percocet is going to keep that man happy and you're going to wind up with a goddamn bullet in your head and where does that leave me, Graham? I'm not going to fucking fail, and I'm not going to let you fail, either!"

"Because crackheads are the only kinda people that buy - " Even though Graham's answer was spot-on, he leaves it unfinished. This is partially because Elise's tirade is unfinished, and partially because he gets damp clothes thrown in his face, and it's hard to make a point stand while peeling a t-shirt off one's head (and throwing it over there somewhere afterward; already, he done made her room into a mess).

He opens his mouth afterward, all set to clap back again. Of course, he has things all lined up to counter this argument, to finish that 'sorry but' statement. Only, before he gets to that, gears start to click into place: Elise didn't talk to the crackhead, she talked to someone else, and that someone else made a deal for Percocet, and who else does Graham know that could strike that kinda bargain with Elise? Once she's all done, he sighs and, shoulders slumped, head tipped back so he can scan the ceiling for inspiration, asks simply, "What'd you agree to?"

Elise's eyes flick sharply to the t-shirt he messes her room up with, but all the fight's gone out of her with that single explosion. She reaches behind and slams the window down, catching the curtain to drag it over the glass. His question earns him a look, but she just shakes her head, her brows collapsing into a furrow. "What I needed to agree to," is her response, as she stands stiffly from the bench and goes to retrieve the t-shirt off the floor.

There's nothing more to the statement. She tosses his shirt into the hamper, since it's damp from the rain, and points a thumb to the dresser. Her shoulders sag as she looks back to him, her expression a mix of emotion. She's still mad, there's still some heat in her gaze, but its twisted and softened by how she feels for him on any other day. So with a sigh, she points a thumb to the dresser. "I cleared out half the drawers for you."

Wow, that answer - what she needed to agree to - just lit Graham right up. "What the fuck does that mean? That's a bullshit answer." So says the king of the bullshit answers. He peels himself off the bench about the time his shirt lands in the hamper, and his eyes follow the crook of her thumb toward the dresser even while he crowds right up into her personal space again.

Seriously, this question is important enough that he will put a hand on either of her shoulders and everything, looking squarely down at her. "What did you agree to, Elise? You need to tell me the truth."

Yes, yes. Ahaha.

Still. He's v srs right now.

Elise snorts a dry laugh, dropping her thumb and canting her head to bring her gaze right back to him. "That's rich, coming from you," she remarks, humorless, standing still when he comes marching right up to her. She doesn't wilt; she rolls her shoulders, straightens the curve of her back, and keeps her chin up as he grabs her by the shoulders and crowds her space, demanding that he tell her the truth.

She scoffs right in his face, leaning back enough so that she can lock her eyes on his. "You want to know the difference between me and you, G? I always tell you the truth," those words were sharp, purposefully so. They were meant to cut deep. "I had a meeting with him. I came to the table, I had a good deal," or so she believed. "He'd get the charges dropped and I'd make stuff go away at the hospital. Change a few records, make a few notes. That wasn't enough," tension sets in her jaw. "He said you'd take a bullet for him. He wanted my assurance that I'd do the same. So I said I would. But that wasn't enough either. He just wants a few Percocet, five a day, it's not really that much, I can do that much. I just need him to trust me. If he trusts me, I can get us ahead of all of this and I can figure out a way to unravel it all."

The barb stings, and no mistaking it. Graham reels back from that cutting comment, lifts his hands off her shoulders and everything, winds up cuffing his own biceps with them when he crosses his arms over his chest. Flatly, "Sounds like you got this all figured out, baby, good for you. Seeing as you don't take my fucking advice anyway." That part wasn't quite so flat, it had a little leftover heat crisping the edges of his tone. "I'll just stop trying to keep you from getting in any deeper."

Shaking his head at her, the incredulity is written all over his face, like he just can't quite believe this Elise is the same person he's known all these years. "Just throw me a heads-up before you do any unravelling? I'd like to get my affairs in order before you get us both fucking murdered."

The thing about comments like that is they are far too easy to say in the heat of the moment and immediately regret when the reaction comes forth. He pulls away and Elise recoils, flinching from the shock of her own words and his follow-up. Her resolve crumbles, and she rubs at her face, frustrated. "You don't understand, that's what I'm trying to do! I'm trying to keep us both safe, I can't.." she drags her fingers through her hair, drops her hands to her sides, and casts a look back up at him. "You weren't there. You didn't see him. You didn't see us. It said it, right there on my tag. Failure," she drags herself forward, reaching to put her hands on his chest. It was rather evident that Elise was in over her head, and she knew it. "I did everything you said, I followed every rule, I just.. G, I'm trying to keep us safe."

"Making deals with Felix will never keep us safe, El." Graham says that with all the earnestness he can muster, really putting all his frustrated, tired, worried feels into the heaviness of his voice, the pleading that his eyes do when they catch hers. He has more to say along that line, shown in the breath he takes, but the words don't come, just another headshake while he looks down at the hands on his chest, adjusting the fold of his arms beneath them.

"I'm sorry, baby. I believe that you have the best of intentions. But please, please don't do that next time? Jail's a pretty damn safe place, I was way safer there than you were in Felix's office, yanno?"

"I didn't know what else to do, it's not like I could afford a lawyer on my own," Elise's voice is quieter, all the heat gone, replaced by the emotional desperation she felt in the moment when she heard he was arrested. "I just wanted them to drop the charges, they were supposed to drop the charges," she utters, her hands sinking down his chest to the fold of his arms. Her thumbs press into his wrists as she holds his gaze, "I love you, G. I wouldn't take a bullet for him but I'd take one for you because I know you'd do the same for me. I was just trying.. I didn't know what else to do."

Confidently, Graham promises, "Those charges are never gonna stick. When your one witness is a crackhead?" He ends that whole subject with a shrug-eyeroll-headshake combo. The whole thing about the lawyer earns only a small, subdued chuckle from him, not the full on laugh in her face that was promised; does he need to tell her she got played, or has she figured that out now? "I love you, too, and I know you're just trying to watch my back here. But next time?" He unfolds one of his arms, lifting his hand away from hers and tucking it against the back of her head, leaning his forehead down against hers.

"Next time, just don't freak out, a'ight? I gotta lawyer, and I got bail money stashed if it comes to that." By which Graham means, "I'm a career criminal, Ellybean. You think I don't have shit in order for when I get arrested?" And he pushes a lingering kiss into her forehead, sighing into it. "Don't ask Felix for shit. That's always gonna be a lopsided deal."

There's no need to tell her what she already knows, she's already come to the conclusion that she's been played here. Her expression grows somber as he touches his forehead to her own, a weary sigh escaping as she leans into him. Her hand drops, lifts to run her fingers over the line of his jaw and settle on his cheek, nodding subtly. "It's not like there's any sort of guidebook or manual to this kind of thing. No classes on 'how to make deals with a crime lord'. No books on dating a .." she doesn't say career criminal. She might've come to terms with ho he is, but it doesn't mean she has to say it aloud. "But I don't know how much more he can get out of me. Five percocets a day, Graham, I don't know how I'm going to keep up with that."

"We'll figure that out." Graham tightens the fingers on the back of her neck for a moment, knotting them up in her ponytail before carefully combing them through the length of it. He steps to her at the same time he unfolds his other arm, drawing her into a hug that he probably needed when he walked in the door but instead had to go through all this goddamn drama. "Don't worry about the Percocet. You do what you can, and if you," FAIL AND GET KILLED, "come up short, we'll find a place to get the rest."

Man, if only they knew some people that had experience with robbing pharmacies!

It's never too late for the hug that should've been given when he walked through the door, right? Right! Elise bobs her head in a vague nod, tossing her concerns about the Percocet to the side for now (she's been worrying about it for the past four days anyway) and moves her hand from his cheek to wind her arm around his neck. She draws him in as he steps into her, tightening him into an embrace. "I'm sorry," she whispers, moving to press her lips against the side of his mouth, nuzzling into his skin. "All I wanted was for you to come home, I wasn't really going to throw your stuff out the window. I was just so.." so many things, it was hard to put them all into words. So she doesn't, she just burrows herself into him, squeezing him with all the force that a fourteen pound Thai kung fu master can muster. Maybe she was making up for that hug.

"It's okay." For her sorry. Graham answers that hug fiercely. No bones pop or anything, but it's about as hard as he can hold her without the risk of someone getting the circulation cut off. Also, with the kissing, which pepper his response, "I get it, and I'm home, and I missed you, and I love you." Also, before the kissing gets to be really carried away, he pulls his head back real fast and notes, "I promise to be less stupid, all right? In my defense, all this shit with the change machines happened before."

He skips the bit about how she was ON A GODDAMN DATE THAT NIGHT SO OBVIOUSLY THIS IS ALL ELISE'S FAULT.

"But I promise, no more really just flat-out stupid shit." He needs to resume the kissing now. Like, needs to. It's been four entire days! What if he goes into withdrawal and dies!

Elise is more than okay with the kissing, adding a few nips into the mix before he goes and pulls his head back. Though, that little bit about him being stupid earns a rapid fluttering of her lashes. Blink-blink. "What?" look, she thought he was on the hook for grand larceny. By definition, that means he should've stolen something substantial, not.. "You got arrested for stealing change machines? Oh my God, Graham!" she mutters, and if it weren't for the fact that it's been four whole days, this might've launched them into another fight. Instead?

Instead gives him a stern look, and a wrinkle of her freckled nose. "Damn straight, no more stupid shit. Or I.. I don't know. Make you sleep in the cat tree for a night." It's not a well thought out warning, mostly because she was distracted by his mouth. It was, after all, a very purty mouth (that she's assuming didn't get abused in jail). And in between those increasingly heated, needy kisses, she plants her hands flat on his chest and starts shoving him to her bed - their bed? - and simultaneously working on getting him out of his jeans. Because it has been four entire days, and he probably deserves a different kind of hug. You know, like with her mouth or something.