2019-10-07 - Fever Dream Aftermath

Some very gross things have to be dealt with before this scene really gets tackled. Like, they're not going to bother cleaning up the bedroom till they're at least a little bit better - guest room + sofa for now - but, after the initial "oh thank god" clinging subsides, the sheer ick has to be washed away. That was a whole process, but at least the water's hot and the towels are clean and all that toxic funk can just go down the drain for now. Enough clothes get put on that they can stumble downstairs - t-shirts and underwear, it's a uniform, man.

Down here, at the kitchen table, it's the first time since waking up that Graham even thinks about unwrapping Elise from his arms. It's not easy to accomplish all that with a broken hand and a refusal to let go, but they worked it out. Now, a big breath taken to clear some of the painful daze, he suggests, "Tell me how to make that smell-good tea, and I'll make some."

At least after the hot shower, clean t-shirt and undies, Elise feels halfway human. Or at the very least, it makes her feel like she's living in reality again. The memories of the Dream still haunt her though; she's been clinging to Graham non-stop since she woke up, which actually made the shower kind of awkward. But, well, they have to separate someday or start working on some kinda surgery to become conjoined.

So she slumps against the table, casting a look back to his hand. She did her best with the Ace bandage, but it wasn't enough. He needs a real doctor; or at least someone with working brain-skills. Hers seemed to be on vacation. "The bags are up in the pantry," she points to the right cabinet, but she's already getting up. "You just need to turn on the teapot."

"Nositdown," all comes out as one quick word, with a listless press of his hand to her shoulder, passing a look across her self-inflicted choke-bruises while he does so. "I can do this. We'll drink the tea, we'll eat some fucking crackers," it's a gross thought, he needs a second to steady himself after uttering it, "and we'll start to feel better." He exhales a toothpastey breath as a column of air at the table top; they also brushed their teeth up there, yes. Bolstered, he starts the short distance to make good on that offer of tea-and-crackers.

"Did you drown again?"

There's a blink at his instruction but she doesn't fight him when he presses her back down into the chair; though, there is quite a bit of notable tension in her shoulders. Not from his touch, not really, but just because every inch of her hurt. Still, he says sit, and tonight she is just going to sit, releasing a weary sigh as she slumps back towards the table. Red-rimmed brown eyes follow him around the kitchen, wincing shut at his question. "No," her voice is barely able to go above a whisper, raw and achy. She folds her arms and lays her head down on them, trembling through the memory. "Not really. I.. I think I choked myself. But I was trying to kill someone else."

Oh, just the one person, Elise? Was it just the ONE PERSON she was trying to kill? Man, that must have been rough. <-- It tightens the corner of his jaw, then Graham stuffs that kinda thought away. He's not mad at Elise; he's mad at whatever the fuck happened. Remembering that, he takes the teabags over to the teapot and, as instructed, turns on the latter. He must have seen on TV enough times to have a vague notion of what to do from here, because he is actually making tea. Good on him. In the process, he nods at her sympathetically. "I'm sorry, baby. Who? Why?" He's being a good boyfriend and listening and stuff. Also, he's too drained to do anything more than this.

Elise doesn't see the tension in his jaw, but only because she has her head down when he gets all pissy because her Dream was like slightly better than his on the kill-count. She does lift her head afterward, enough to turn and press her cheek into her forearm, so she can watch him again. "The ah.." she sniffs, pushing herself to sit up once more, lifting a hand to rub her palm vaguely against her neck. "I was at the motel. I saw him, he had a gun to their heads, and I.." Her eyes fill up with tears again, but she shuts them closed, refusing to let anymore fall. She's cried enough today. "It didn't matter. I couldn't do anything. He still killed them. I couldn't do anything there, I couldn't do anything at the house, or when I saw you with Collins, or.." she shakes her head, scrubbing her hands over her face, and letting them drop to the table.

When she opens her eyes again, she focuses on his hand. "What happened? How did you break your wrist?"

Whatever came out in sobs paired to what she's saying now starts to paint something of a picture for Graham. With the teapot heating up, he comes back over to the table, dragging his chair over next to Elise, scooting in close to drop his arms around her, leaning some of his weight on her, some of the back of her chair. "I'm so sorry, El." For her bad dreams. He breathes in clean-smell for a moment, letting things settle (in a way that his stomach hasn't been able to for days). "I tried to shoot Felix."

The dispassionate flatness of the retelling shares how far-fetched from reality his nightmare really was; Real Graham would never! Because: "So he broke my wrist."

Elise's body still aches, but the presence of his arms around her seems to relax her more than it pains her. She leans heavily into him, tucking her nose and mouth against his neck to breathe in the soap smell of his skin, but the inhale turns shaky at his admission. "You what?" she pulls away to look up at him, confused and not-so-mildly impressed. There's another look down to his bandaged hand before she brings her focus back up to his eyes, reaching to lay her hands on his cheeks. "Why did you try to shoot him? What happened to you?"

Graham broad-strokes this shit - shoot Andre, no, ouch, fucking has to shoot Andre anyway, go through some door, that fucking cute kid is there... that's as far as he gets, and honestly? It's as far as he may ever get telling this story to Elise. Yes, he's holding something back, and she's wise to that, but he winds up scrubbing his face with his hands about the kid like "let's play cars" and ends with, "Then these shadows started coming for us, and I just had to get us out, me and this kid." So he exhales and looks at Elise like, yep, The End.

Elise listens through the broad-strokes, dropping her hands from his cheeks to his chest, until she finally opts to push herself out of her chair and bodily drag herself up onto his lap again. Does she know he's holding back? Of course she knows it. But now isn't the time. "I'm so sorry, baby," she whispers, nudging a kiss to the corner of his mouth, to his cheek, drawing her arms around his neck to squish him into a hug. "I don't understand why any of this is happening," she touches her forehead to his own, breathing out with that minty-clean-smelling breath of hers. "I feel so fucking helpless. I feel.." there's a lot of things she feels in the moment. Most of them she doesn't say, she just bites the tip of her tongue and breathes out again.

In a minute, the teapot wants to be used, but that doesn't happen till the end of this pose.

For now, Graham does what he can to help accommodate the lap-shift, looping his arms around her, keeping his wince inside when it shifts his wrist; she did a good job on the bandage, so it will take more than a bump or two to get him to acknowledge that he needs more than an ace bandage and a tylenol. "Sick," is how he finishes her sentence. He feels sick. "And punished. Like, we never had these fucking nightmares till we got powers." Based on how miserable he looks, he'd totally give them back if he could.

It's worse when the teapot beeps and he doesn't want to get up and deal with it. So for all he'd trade them in? He still tries...

...and apparently succeeds in turning off the kettle from afar. He's stupid AF.

"Yeah," It wasn't entirely how she feels in the moment, but sick and punished works. She knits her brows into a furrow, shifting like she's going to get up when the teapot starts to make noise .. and then resettles when he shuts it off with his brainz, which only makes her frown more. "It's not that. Like nightmares? Whatever. But it feels like these dreams are.. are.. designed for me. Like somebody knows every single thing I'm afraid about, or .. or insecure about, and how is that even possible?" She looks back to him, brown eyes shimmery with tears. "G, I.. there was a part of me.. that just wanted to stay," she admits, tipping her head back to touch her forehead to his own. "To just stay there and give in. To.. don't know. I don't know what I thought." She wasn't being completely honest. She remembered exactly what she thought in the moment.

"But I couldn't, you know?" she sniffs. "I couldn't just.. I love you, G. And even if our life is fucked up, it doesn't matter." That is genuine. "I'd rather have this than nothing. I'd rather have a couple of minutes than no time at all."

Did she seriously just ask 'how is that even possible' while her psychic boyfriend turned the teapot off with his mind?

Graham breathes in like he's trying to conjure up an answer to that question, but no amount of bullshit-dice are going to get him there. So the breath stays in his lungs, unused, till he lets it slip out while he brushes damp hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears with his one good hand. "So did I." With the staying there. For reasons he's also no prepared to confront right here and now (or anywhere any time ever).

Earnestly, putting kisses on her cheeks, he answers, "I know, baby, believe me. I've been over this every way and there's just no - " He shakes his head, comes at it from a different angle. "When the dust settles on all this," he means her dead parents, "I promise. I promise shit will get better for us."

The admission from Graham - that he wanted to stay, too - makes her heart stop, and she flinches like she was physically hurt by that. "You can't, you know? You can't just.. I need you, G," there was quiet desperation there, in her voice and the way she touches him, fingers brushing along his jaw, down his neck, across his chest. She finally settles her hand over his heart, while he's earnestly kissing her cheeks, her fingers digging into his shirt and his skin. "I don't want you to promise that things are gonna get better," mostly because she knows they aren't. But there's no fight, no confrontation - she doesn't ask him how, she doesn't ask him why. "I just want you to promise that you'll be here for me no matter how bad it gets."

"I didn't, I'm here, I know." But only because he had luck points; he's fucking LUCKY that his player hadn't cashed those in for useless skillz. Graham covers the hand over his heart with his own, curling his fingers over hers and shaking his head at her whole promise thing. "I'm serious, baby. We can make this work better. I can - " Get a normal job? Uhhhh. " - do better."

Never mind that, canonly, he'll be texting Greg about robbing banks in a couple days...

"But I will. Always. Be here for you. There's no me without you."

"Oh, G," dammit, Elise was crying again. At least these weren't bad tears, even if they spill down her cheeks like mini flood rivers. She clings to him, burying her face into his neck, her whole hand pressing into his heart. "There's no me without you either," she says into his skin, and it's going to take her awhile to calm herself down again. It was an emotional night, she can't help it! She won't be a crybaby in the morning~

But she does calm herself at some point, dragging in gulps of air that makes her throat burn. At some point, she even gets out of his lap so that the tea can be poured and the box of crackers can be found, and Elise doesn't really have the stomach for either but she tries. Around a mouthful of saltines, she eventually says: "Was it Bubber? The kid. In your Dream?" she licks the salt frown her lips, furrowing her brow. "Was he okay? Is that stupid to ask? I know he's not real.."

She'll still be a crybaby. These Dreams go on for two days!

Anyway, he keeps from dissolving into tears again, so good on him, but he spends a while stuck to Elise, and not in the sexy way. 🙁 When they finally get to tea and crackers - and also relocate out of the kitchen because Graham doesn't want to say anything but it's not all that comfy to have Elise in his lap in there so yeah, sofa - he's determined to get some food in him!

For like a second. Half a cracker, anyway. Then he nopes out of calories entirely, just gulping that jasmine tea. "Yeah, that's kid's cute as fuck." NOT THAT HE'S BRAGGING BUT HE WOULD BE. "It's kinda weird, but who fucking cares. It's just you and me." He pets her and scoots the crackers toward the middle of the coffee table with his toe; they are bad and evil.

"Yeah, he is, isn't he?" Elise replies with a light, dry sort of laugh - but for the first time tonight, there's a vague smile that comes with the words. Maybe even a subtly proud tip of her chin. It all goes away in an instant though, maybe at the turn of her stomach when she looks back to the crackers; he can go ahead and push those evil carbs far away. She shifts to settle herself, leaning heavily against him while she sips at her tea, frowning into the drink. "He wasn't there with me. Maybe he can't.. be in both places at once?" It was a stupid thing to consider, the rules of a situation that clearly have none, but it was a lot easier to think about than all the other thoughts she had.

"At least I know we get that one thing right, you know? You and me," she looks back to him, her gaze adoring. "We get us right. And we make something beautiful out of this mess. And.." She shakes her head, breathing out. "I don't know. It's enough."

Just FYI: I'm really surprised that you didn't make any jokes about Graham crackers. So now I've ruined it with this meta.

Graham seems content for now to be here, drinking tea and not eating anything since food is from the DEVIL (think of how many roll-over points they're accumulating!!!), with Elise close to him. He sucks in another of those 'first off' breaths while she's talking about the things they do right, but it takes a while before the reason becomes clear. Sick and hurt and sorrowful, he's just not quite rattling things off-the-cuff with his usual panache; he actually has to order his thoughts (which would probably be wise of him anyway, rather than just blurting shit out, but that's a whole other issue). "You think all that shit is real? Like, Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shit?"

Something something something Elise will eat Graham's crackers when she feels better. There, JOKE IS MADE.

Elise frowns around another mouthful of her tea at his question, because she's really not sure how to approach it. She reaches behind to plump up a pillow and set her cup down, sagging into the pillow and him at the same time. "I don't.. I don't know. It feels real. But I was there at the lobby and I know I wasn't really there. I think some of it's meant to just... just really fucking hurt you," she nips at her bottom lip. "But Bubber, he was there twice for me and now you? And I.. I don't know if that's a coincidence." She furrows her brow as she looks at him, watches him. "I saw you there, you know. When I first .. woke up, I guess, I was in this house and so fucking confused, and there was this woman there. And you." The pain behind her eyes is enough to suggest what they were doing. "And I remembered that stupid story you told me when you got here, that you shot yourself in the fucking foot, and.. I.. That's what happened. Her husband shot you in the foot."

Elise is NEVER going to know if this is the truth or not. Graham looks at her and says, "That's not what happened." He was juuuuust using that foot to nudge crackers away, so he wiggles his toes. There's a scar there, on his foot, bullet-holes do that. "I was fucking around," hum de dum, "and I shot myself in the foot."

That's his story and he's sticking to it.

He also kisses her apologetically after making this correction, just the corner of her mouth, where she'd been chewing. It's not in him to stick his tongue down her throat right now. He'd never survive if she threw up in his mouth. "That doesn't mean that kid's not our future, or one like him. But I don't think this shit is real." He drops a pointed look to the broken wrist, because it can't be reiterated enough: REAL GRAHAM WOULD NEVER SHOOT AT FELIX.

Elise looks Graham in the eyes, and her brows go up. There's absolute disbelief there, but she just sighs. "Uh huh." The look on her face suggests he could start being better by telling her the truth the first time every time. But whatever, they can fight about it later. "You should maybe be more careful then," is all she says, because it works either way. "But by the way? That girl was fucking ugly." Hmph. That dream chick didn't even have nice pert heavers.

But he kisses the corner of her mouth and it sets aside that gnawing pit of jealousy about the girl that might not even exist, sighing as she slouches back into him. "Maybe you're right," she says in a tone of voice that suggests she thinks he's totally wrong. "But at the very least, it's real enough to hurt us."

Well, maybe if she TRUSTED HIM sometimes, he would have more incentive not to LIE all the time. This causality loop underpins their whole relationship, though, so it's almost definitely not getting solved today.

Sometimes, though, Graham must do or say something right. "Every girl is fucking ugly when you put 'em next to you, baby." No bullshit, no roll, he believes that all the way down in his dumb little heart. He kisses her perfectly freckled cheeks, one after the other, to put the cherry on top of how awesome he is.

Then nods, tipping her chin up with his good hand to look at the bruises on her neck. "People're gonna think either we got freaky or we got punchy. What're we telling 'em?"

If he didn't LIE all the time, she'd be able to TRUST him!

Anyway, it doesn't matter. Because he lies and then goes and says things like that, and well. Elise melts, all the hearts appearing in those big brown eyes of hers as he kisses her freckled cheeks, and she forgets for a moment that he's a bullshitting bullshitter who bullshits. "Damn right they are," she says playfully enough, kissing him on the corner of his mouth.

Then, she wrinkles that adorably freckled nose and leans back, assessing the damage on him while he assesses the damage on her. "At least you don't have a black eye this time, I kinda got tired of telling people you can only get off when I punch you in the face," she considers. "Maybe we should just stay at home for awhile."

"Is that why all those bitches keep signing up for Joey's fight club?" So they can punch Graham and get him off, see. The whole world revolves around him, so obvs that's why. He eases into a nod after that, losing even the approximation off the grin at the corner of his mouth, looking around their (newly desced) living room with a thought for how long it'll be before cabin fever sets in.

That's why he'll wind up going out for weed in a couple days, 'cause otherwise they're ACTUALLY going to wind up punching each other in the face.

Till then, "At least till we can," this word is still gross to him, so he stumbles over it, "eat something." Hold on, he has to run to the (new desced) powder room now and lose all the tea and the one bite of cracker.