2019-09-18 - Wings N' Things

It's probably evening. It's probably a little after the sun has dropped below the horizon, and, because it's summer in Grey Harbor, it's probably raining.

Not that Carver's noticed any of this, draped out over the couch like he walked in the front door, took 15 paces, then dropped. One hand hangs off the side, knuckles curled up as they touch the floor. Both legs, at least, meet cushion most of the way down, shins propped up against an arm. He hasn't taken his shoes off, he most certainly hasn't unbuttoned his waistcoat or his tie, and his hair is starting to grow out a little again, more mussed than usual.

At least he made himself at home before crashing out, though. There's music playing through a docked phone, and the smell of chicken wings can be caught from the kitchen where they lay, kept warm, in the oven. God knows when they were put in, though.

A key hits the lock not long after the breeze has kicked up outside. Sutton pushes into the house on Bayside, pausing in the entry to unlace and remove her boots.

Sutton wears her dark blue cargo pants, her usual studded belt with silver crow buckle, and a GRAY HARBOR FIRE DEPARTMENT tee. Her hair is braided up in a crown that's starting to slowly unravel. "Are those chicken wings I smell?" She drops her keys, glances along Carver's prone form and says, "You're not dead, are you? That would be horribly inconvenient."

"Yes and no."

A cushion takes most of the reply, what with Carver's face so delicately shoved in to it.

"But not in that order."

Okay, that's more audible, forearms moving so he can prop up his head and get a little lift going in his back to turn and look at the interloper. Okay, sure, she has a key, but that's not part of the argument, here. Giving her a slow few blinks, his face drops a little to let his hand smoosh up a whole bunch of facial features in a combination attempt to both wake him up and make his face feel a little less numb. It half succeeds, fingers pulling down at the skin as he lets out a yawn that threatens to dislocate his jaw. "Bring a plate. I'm stuck."

Sutton wanders by the couch, and since it's talking, or Carver is (they seem to have melded, so it's hard to tell), she keeps on going to the kitchen. "I'm bringing you a bowl." She rummages around in there. "I don't know where the fuck the forks are. Oh." Found them.

She locates the wings and frees them from their warm prison to see what flavor they are. "Long day, love?" There's some more messing around in there, plus the sound of the fridge opening for a drink check.

"My kitchen was organised by the finest of Swedish designers!" comes Carver's voice, much clearer once he's had the smart idea to roll the fuck over on the couch. He's not had the smart idea to actually sit up yet, but give it time. Some people take a little while to spool up after being awoken. As is only naturally, he's speaking, and it's obvious he's telling a fib. His kitchen was mostly organised by a bottle of bourbon and the famous last words of 'Eh, fuck it.'

Once the wings are freed, it's clear that they're half hot, half BBQ, and all of them are sauced to the gills. Not literally. Actually, Gray Harbor. Could be. The fridge is filled. Veg, bacon. More bacon. Even more bacon. There's other food, sure, but focusing on the drinks would reveal root beer, various sodas, actual beer and, as is only right, vodka in the freezer. "Longer than most. You good?"

"I'm going to have to be high if you start talking about IKEA." Sutton pulls two bottles of root beer, even though sweet fizz sugar drinks taste like ass with hot wings. That thought occurs to her and she returns one of the root beers in favor of the bottle of vodka, glub-glub-glubbing half a glass of that, thanks. "I need to rescue my blender from the Goblin Castle." That's mostly muttered to herself, but it's possible Carver hears it.

She returns moments later with a bowl of BBQ wings for him, hot wings for her, a cup of vodka for her, root beer for him, and carries it all to the couch on a cookie sheet she found stuffed under the stove, which probably belonged to the previous owner. It's kinda scraped up and rusty.

"What, don't you like flat pack assembly?" Somehow, Carver makes those last three words sound like one hell of an innuendo. Must be the accent. Finally taking the time to sit up, he turns his head at just the right moment to watch her glug glug glug herself a cool, refreshing glass of Vodka. And waits. Waits a little more. Leans an arm across the back of the couch as he watches, and then turns back as she starts to make her way to the couch, taking his bowl when offered and slapping his feet up on the coffee table with said bowl in his lap. The root beer goes beside his foot. An accident for later.

"So, uh. Long day?" His eyes drop to the vodka, but only the once.

"I don't like their shitty instructions." Sutton replies, taking a seat on the couch. It's good he moves his feet in a timely fashion, because she may have sat on them. "That's what a cordless drill is for, fixing all their fuckups." Sutton's more of a free-form IKEA builder. Don't fuck with her bookshelves at the Bayside unit is what we're saying here.

"Yeah, I had to clear up a thing last night, barely got in in time to catch a few hours before work, and then scraped a teenager off the highway while working with a new transfer who is not Bennie. In the slightest." Sounds like a long day. Or she's just a functioning alcoholic. Never ask Easton what he thinks about it. #TeamLiversIntactForNow

She brought forks, but she doesn't use one, going right into the chicken wings with one hand. She takes a bite without sampling the sauce first. And it's a damn good thing she loves spicy food because boy and howdy.

It's generally accepted that there are two trains of thought on spice and heat in food. The first is the more casual 'Eat what you like, how you like it.', which should be always taken into consideration when making food for others without judgement.

The other is that if you do not make hot wings hot, you are weak, your bloodline is weak, and you should not survive the winter.

Carver obviously is a faithful member of the latter. Which is why he's eating the BBQ, joining her example in going straight in with a hand, but not before at least remembering to roll up his sleeves. "Flatpacks suck, be they tables or teens. Gotcha." What? It's not like he's going to judge someone for drinking. He spent the first two weeks in this town so deep in the barrel he didn't actually suffer a hangover until four days later. "How'd the secret underground fight club go?"

'Fight Club' 'Women's self defense', same difference.

Make yo hot wings hot for the night is dark and full of terrors, man.

Fuck. That is hot. Fuck. "Mmph." She was going to answer him, hit then stopped, feeling it best to kill the first wing entirely lest it phoenix fire its ass up from the dead and come for her.

Hey, that shit could happen in this town.

Only once she's picked the bone clean and put it down in the bowl does she lick her lips briefly and reply, "I pretty much spent it texting dirty and I think I might have arranged to have someone killed by accident." She licks her thumb then goes in for another wing. "Shit happens when you text distracted." She's probably kidding.

You know, probably. Maybe.

"To the same person?"

Really, that's Carver's main concern with the idea Sutton might have arranged a contract killing. Probably because he's distracted with eating his own wings, taking only the slightest of pauses to beat the everloving shit out of his sternum with the side of a fist as he damn near inhales flesh from bone. Someone missed lunch. There's a little bit of foot action thrown into the mix, hooking his bottle of root beer with the top of his shoe to slide it closer to the edge of the coffee table, just far enough that he can snag it with grasping fingers that only miss the once. "How in the hell does that conversation go?"

"What? No." Sutton laughs. Well, wait. "I mean... no." Maybe a little, but that was largely unintentional. She glances over to watch Carver strip the wing like a hungry raptor. "Chewing is better than inhaling." That's all she says on that, because there's the larger issue of whoops maybe someone's going to die soon.

"I'm really not one hundred percent sure, but I'm gonna go with mescaline. Just a conversational left turn. I thought he was kidding, but..." Maybe not? "Whatever, shit happens if it happens." Not a lot of concern in her voice there, for what seems a pretty serious issue. She lifts her cup and takes a long drink of that vodka that looks so much like water. "Someone asks you for something, you say it'll cost, and then there's an offer on the table." She gestures briefly with her glass and then drinks more. Yeah, that's the stuff.

Raising up his root beer in a faux-toast at her explanation, Carver gives the chicken a moment to sit before adding sugar and sweetness to it. You've gotta prep for that kind of thing, after all. He sips roughly at the same time as she does, even if it is far, far less, then tilts the bottle slightly so he can wipe what residue remains from his mouth with the back of the hand holding it.

"Won't hold up." He finally speaks, watching her with a moment of curiosity before turning his attention back to the bowl of wings, alternating bites and sips that suggest his palette might have been ruined by years of hard abuse. "Nobody's gonna believe you accidentally sexted your way into a paid hit."

A slow gulp. He doesn't make eye contact.

"Believe me."

Sutton thinks about that for a moment then nods, an 'eh' look on her face. "You're absolutely right." She picks up a hot wing. "It's an asinine notion." Who trades a hit for illicit photographs? No one, that's who.

Sutton glances over with the wing in her mouth to note Carver's lack of eye contact.

Has she ever sexted Carver. She thinks on that while her eyes narrow a little at a time. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nuffin." Carver says, staring pointedly at the ceiling. You just know he'd be whistling the most innocent whistle a man could whistle if it weren't for the chicken in his mouth.

But who WOULD trade a hit for illicit photographs? That would be weird. Or desperate. Or the sign of someone with far, far too much time on their hands and a distaste for the natural order of things coupled with a love of smut and violence. Pondering this at the same time he remembers that no, he's not been sexted at all, be that by Sutton or anyone else and clearly must up his game, Carver narrows down the list of possible accomplices in Gray Harbor to a little shy of 37.

This fucking town.

Sutton makes short work of another chicken wing while it tries to burn her lips off in swift retribution. How you fail, chicken. At least she didn't agree to any terms on the phone, or mention a name, or in any other way truly incriminate herself. Huh.

And this is how the two sitting on the couch devouring wings pass the next few minutes, each thinking about how fucked up this town is, but in slightly different ways. "Did you hear about all the bodies that dropped all over town?"

Most of the next few minutes. It only takes Carver 74 seconds to start thinking about whether or not the pigeons in town are in fact all just filthy eavesdroppers, selling your secrets to the highest bidder. This might explain the chicken-gusto. It's close enough to get some satisfactory feel of vengeance.

"Mhm." He replies, settling in to focus on his drink for a while, casting the woman a short agreeable look. "Apparently the ghoul got another one a bit further in Bayside. Even got Chetson to offer me a donut while he was telling me all about it."

"Somebody said something weird at that shoot-out in the bar last month." Was it last month? Time sort of flows together lately. Like the days go by faster than they should. "I'm pretty sure it was Billy in the bar, and he seemed more like a dumbass than a mass murderer. The ghost cops, if you asked me, were the crazy ones." Thankfully, Sutton didn't get shot (just a little graze). And she wasn't injured during the seafood invasion, either, though she saw more than a few people off to the ER after that.

There's a long pause before she asks, "Was it an Addington?"

As if summoned by the topic, or just the fact that yes, this is the Pacific Northwest, the rain starts to fall audibly against the windows of the house, running in thick rivulets down the sliding door at the back as a bonus.

Carver's knee tilts off to one side at the mention of both the shootout and the phrase 'Ghost Cops'. It's meant to be something of a reassuring tap, but the second he's done it, he's certain it came off as either a 'Chin up, that's fucking nothing', or a 'Don't talk about ghost cops, you weirdo.'

Whichever's worse, really.

"Michael Addington." He confirms. Flicking at his nose for a second and wiping away some Barbecue sauce that somehow ended up there. "Stabbed. Sounded like someone was pissed."

Sutton falls silent for a long moment, her concentration given to stripping a chicken wing of its meat. Then she eats another in similar fashion, very focused. "Seems like this town is running out of Addingtons."

The blonde licks her fingers and then wipes her hands on a folded paper towel she brought in earlier. She hands one to Carver, who looks like he's going to need one soon too.

"Eh, there's always more when you came from."

Information muttered late at night is the kind that sticks in Carver's head the best, and it was Sutton's telling him of that little familial link that had him checking out the Bayside murder in the first place. Finding out the information didn't really help him any, though, and he was really, really hoping she wouldn't ask.

"You've got a cop in your pocket, this place has four exits, and I'm slow to react and make an excellent distraction." He reassures.

He probably doesn't reassure. But there's chicken, and napkins, and vodka. Which is better than nothing.

Sutton finishes her vodka, which pretty much answers that. "I'm gonna need another glass." Or that answers it. She rises and carries her dishes into the kitchen. It's easily another minute and a half before the freezer opens and she takes the bottle out, though. She stands there with her hand on the fridge, thinking. Whatever she thought comes down to alcohol, because glug-glug-glug goes the vodka."Gonna take a bath, love."

One can almost hear her mutter, "Four exits means four entrances," as she goes, pausing only briefly at what almost sounds like claws making their way across the hardwood. She tips back and peers into the living room, then disappears upstairs without another word.

Carver can always hear her mutter. He's bloody Carver.

He says nothing when she departs for the kitchen, no judgement, no concern. Instead, he whiles away the time by kicking his legs back up on the couch, moving his own, un-taken bowl to place it on the table. Rummaging around in his waistcoat for smokes and his lighter, it actually takes him as long to light the damn thing as it does her to refill her glass. He's got an arm tucked underneath his head by the time she's moving upstairs, pausing only to see if she can spot the source of what seems to be a dog in the house. There isn't, of course. There probably was, once. Some remnant of it lingers still, even if that's only noise. "Alright, pet. Give us a shout if you need anything, Okay?" And, as well Sutton knows, that's a completely honest request.

And Carver has a plan for her exit=entrance complaint. And he looks smug about it, too. Tilting his head up just a little to watch the front door from the couch, he focuses. Wills. Fixes the door in place. Tells it to stay. It's only about a minute after she's gone that Carver watches the door swing open instead, exactly the opposite of what he was trying to do.

"Well. Bollocks."