2019-11-14 - Sad And Tragic

It hasn't been that long since the last Dream, the one with the car that drove over the cliff. Harvey's wounds were plentiful, but with Hailey's doctoring, he didn't die so that's something. Since confronting someone while they are substantially injured is probably poor form, they haven't really talked about what happened since it happened - they ended up going together to the Paranormal meeting, but that shit went off the rails fast and there wasn't actually time to have a conversation.

But now, it's a quiet, crisp evening and Harvey invited Hailey over to his place for tacos. Harvey-the-dog is sitting in a lump in the corner, snoring, and Harvey's slouched on the sofa with the remnants of taco dinner spread out on the coffee table. "Would've been better with tequila," he comments, patting his stomach idly. While he figures 't-word' things are safe right now, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, so there was a bit of wariness around him at the moment. He was personally hoping it'd be chill tonight because it's been awhile since he's gotten laid. "You wanna watch something on Netflix?"

Things have been off since that car crash, anyway. It's easy enough to chalk it up as 'surviving some real trauma,' but it hasn't been a giddy rush of taking whatever she can get before something derails the date. But Hailey came over for tacos, so that bodes well, and now she's sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, arranging spilled olives into the symbol for the Olympics. Or, well, trying to, anyway. She's not doing such a great job, especially when she has to eat one of them off the end of her finger 'cause it got stuck there.

She's wiping her finger on her jeans and looking at the TV when it gets brought into the conversation. Since it doesn't come to life and attack them, she starts to nod. Then stops nodding and shakes her head suddenly. "I need to talk to you about something," gets said in that way nobody wants to hear from the person they're (occasionally) banging. The frowny-face she turns upon Harvey doesn't help make it seem less dire for their relationship.

If it's been off, it's been off for the both of them. Something just came loose since the crash, maybe all those little cuts were enough to let the guilt of the past however long seep in. He hasn't pushed it though - what with the broken toe (his foot is fine, thx) and the traumatic head injury, it just didn't seem right to talk shit out. Or admit anything. Or do anything more, really, than order tacos and try to get laid later. So when she starts nodding, he starts reaching for the remote, fingers extended into a stretch when she suddenly turns and hits him with that heart-dropping sentence.

"Oh," his fingers stay flexed, but he drops his hand to the arm of the sofa, brows hitching up but his head sort of automatically dipping into a nod. "Okay. Yeah, sure," he licks his lips, shifts on the sofa, and leans to get a better angle at which to look down at her. "I guess I have a couple of things I should talk to you about, too," his gut twists a little more, and he's got that uncomfortable grimace starting at the corners of his eyes. "You can go first though, you know. Since you said you needed to."

Hailey looks him right in the eyes and, without fiddling with any more olives or doing anything at all to distract herself, asks directly, "Why was your father looking for Doctor Marshall?" With a quick follow-up question, before there's even time to draw breath in preparation for answering that one: "And why didn't you just tell me the truth?" That latter question is pretty bummed out. She's not gonna burst into tears or anything, but DISAPPOINTED IN HARVEY is written all over both her expression and that tone.

The lean-back and big eyes from that first question make it rather obvious that Harvey was taken aback by that. But what immediately follows is the quick collapse of his brows into a confused furrow. Still, the follow-up before he even has a chance to draw breath as like a punch to the gut; he just internalizes that a little better. "Whoa, wait a sec, it wasn't my dad looking for the Doc, I was.." he stops himself in the midst of this confession, rolls his shoulders back, and leans uncomfortably into the couch.

"Look," is never a good way to start a conversation. "My dad died here. In Gray Harbor. And I've spent the better part of.." a low whistle. "Ten years? Trying to piece this shit together. But he wasn't looking for Doctor Marshall, I've gone through every piece of paper in every goddamn hiding hole he had and there wasn't any mention of him. That was me. I was looking for him, okay? He called me. He told me to come out here, to come to his hospital. I show up? And the guy's dead," these were broader strokes. "And I was stuck."

She takes a little breath at the confession that doesn't get finished, a sharp one like she's about to have something to say to that, but Hailey winds up just picking up the crumbs of taco shells with the pad of her index finger and making them land on the plate. Instead of interrupting him. She's had a few days (or however long) to mull this over, but there's still some obvious hurting in play here.

"No," she slips in when he gets to the 'okay?' in all that. "It's mortifying to find out someone's been playing you, Harvey. Soooo. Yeah. It's really not okay."

Those are enough words, at least, to get him off the sofa and down onto the floor. "No, no you don't have that right. Playing you? Seriously? Look, I was an asshole, I'll readily admit to that, but.." There's stress to that word. But. His face was a conflict of emotions, no dimples here, just hazel eyes on hers now that he was at her level. "I'm not playing you, Hailey. Not right now, not for a damn long while. And sure, okay, at first? At first I was trying to figure this shit out, 'cause all I've been doing is running into dead ends over and over and over again. But once we started hanging out, really hanging out?" Ignore the composure roll, the 'guilty as hell' was all over his face now.

"Hailey I fucked up, but I like you," he leans back and scrubs his hands across his face. "I just wanted some answers, I thought you'd have the answers. I didn't think I'd end up wanting to.." He winces. "All that shit, from the date to now, all of that shit was real."

That last sentence gets talked over since, while Harvey is wincing about what he didn't think he'd end up wanting to do, Hailey is finishing, "...tell me the truth at some point? Because you really should have. It would've," she takes a lung-filling breath that sounds like a sigh when it comes out, "seemed less like you were only coming clean because you're caught. Which is what it seems like now." She spells that out for him, in case it wasn't obvious. But it's not like J'ACCUSE! She's just really bummed that this is how it all played out, nodding sadly at the guilty face like she gets it, she really does.

"I'm gonna go home now, Harvey." She puts her hands flat on the table, for leverage to stand. "And I'm gonna think about this for a while."

At least she doesn't martyr herself by promising to try to rummage through her holey memory and come up with some answers for him?

"Even if I wanted to come clean, Hailey, when was I gonna? When we were flying across Gray Harbor on the back of a giant parrot? When we were fighting for our lives against pirates? What did you think I was trying to get to Seattle for? Do you know how impossible it is to be like 'oh by the way I lied to you about why we met' when we're constantly being ripped into one Dream to the next?" There's a little bit of frustration there, his frown quickly deepening when she puts her hand on the table and makes 'I'm going to leave' noises. He scrubs at his hand again, all ready to get up if she does.

"Look," again, not the best word to use, "I get that you're mad. That I fucked up. But just stay and let's talk it out. You can ask me whatever you want," he looks up to her, and he has no right to beg, but those hazel eyes of his sure seem like their pleading. "Please. Give me a chance here. I could've just lied to you. I'm not lying to you now."

Hailey doesn't sarcasm well, so it comes out sounding like an honestly confused question instead of an ironically confused one. "Do you want me to feel bad for you that there was no convenient time to to un-tell a lie you told?" The terrible thing is, she probably does feel bad for him that there was no convenient time, her heart's right there on her sleeve while she answers his eyes. And that heart is pretty well-bruised.

Let's just stay and talk it out, he suggests, and - even though she's already standing up - she still nods. "Okay. Say something that makes this better. Please." She doesn't honestly believe there is anything he can say that makes this better. Hence the scant hopefulness that accompanies the suggestion.

The fact that the question comes out of her as honestly confused makes Harvey's heart hurt. He's not one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but that's seen plainly in his eyes, the grimace that crinkles the corners of his eyes, the frown that tugs deeper as he gets up. Say something. She wants him to say something. His tongue feels suddenly heavy, like its too fat for his mouth, and he takes a few quick breaths.

"I'm sorry," it's two words spoken with a depth of emotion, "Not that I got caught, but that I lied at all in the first place. That I hurt you." He makes to reach for her hand, to wrap his fingers around hers. "I haven't given a shit about anything since all of this started happening, but I give a shit about you."

Hailey's hand really, really wants to be caught. Like, she starts to pull it back, but her reflexes are terrible or the universe is like 'be cool' or something makes it so he catches her hand way before she retracts it. It's a very cold hand, 'cause her hands always be getting icy when she's stressed, which is ALL THE FUCKING TIME lately. Anyway, the point is: Harvey catches her hand with his, and hers is cold.

For whatever reason, "I believe you." That he's sorry, at the very least. "But I think the only thing harder to repair than pride is trust, and you kinda did a number on both, Harv. So just, ahm," blinky blink, tears are stupid and she's not indulging them. "Let me just figure this out on my own?"

In between the doctoring and the memories she's losing, she should have it knocked out in no time~!

Harvey doesn't have some weird disease where his hands get cold when he's stressed (weirdo), so his hand is comfortably warm when it catches Hailey's own icicle one. It just makes him frown more, his grip tightening around her, like he could get her warm and maybe de-stress her by touch alone. Except that touching her and squeezing her hand may make things worse, so he's really taking a gamble here.

The words aren't really heartening. Neither are the tears that she blinky-blinks back, and he doesn't have many legs to stand on (just the two, and the one leg's got the broken toe, but his foot is fine thanks for asking). "Yeah. Okay," he says, though the way his fingers are wrapped around her own and refusing to disentangle say the exact opposite. "Just uh.. here. Before you go," he isn't letting go of her hand, so he gives her a little tug as he takes a few steps back. Towards his bedroom. Which may make his next words seem a little suspect: "Let me give you something before you leave, okay?"

Seriously, if the thing he's trying to give her turns out to be dick, she's just done. Which isn't to say she's not done otherwise, but yeah. That would put the nail in the coffin pretty securely.

But here's actual pose stuff and not meta: Hailey doesn't try to not be tugged along. He pulls, she follows, not 'cause she's super-stoked about it but 'cause this is the path of least resistance. She keeps looking at him like there's still some tiny hope that he's about to say something to make this better, her forehead crinkled and her glassy eyes troubled, but it's all accomplished wordlessly.

It's probably not dick. At least, he isn't like making dick-eyes at her and unzipping his pants while seductively wagging his hips or anything. He just retreats into his bedroom, pulling her along, and doesn't go far past the door before he finally lets her go. There's his satchel right there, the same one he had in the car with him on the way to Seattle, and he makes little fuss in opening the bag and pulling something out. It's a book. It's thin, about a hundred pages. And it's got his stupid face on the back of it.

"I got a free copy from the publisher. Marshall bought the only one that ever sold," he holds out the book to her. The title Shine Through the Glow is dumb, so is the picture on the front: parting clouds and a big yellow sun peeking through, sending a spotlight of shine down onto a shadowed ground. "Read it if you want. I'm not a dick, Hailey, I was just looking for somebody to finally give me the answers."

Hailey takes the book, turning it over in her hands a few times, looking at it mostly to give her eyes something to do other than be watery. She nods at the whole thing - he's not a dick, just looking for somebody - and really helps with the guilt by answering, "I'm sorry that I don't have any for you. I hope - " But nope, that was about to sound very FINAL, so she shakes her head and leaves the thought unfinished.

Hurriedly, she scoops an arm around his middle, hugs him one-armed, and then untangles herself before there's even a chance to actually recognize the hug, let alone get comfortable with it. "I'll call you." From anyone else, it means 'no i won't,' but she really will because SHE'S NOT A BIG LIAR.

"Nah, no, there's nothing to say you're sorry for, Hailey. It.." Man, this really sucks. But at least Harvey's not bawling his eyes out like a BABY. ".. It didn't matter, anyway. In the end. You know? 'Cause I wanted to stick around for you. Not for anything else."

The hurried one-arm hug catches him stiff and by surprise, so by the time he actually leans into it to return the gesture? She's already slipping away. And he just lets his arm fall to his side, his brow furrowed, his eyes downcast, his shoulders slumped. "I'll, ah.. I'll answer." When she calls. "See you around, Hailey."

Hailey gets out of there quickly now. I mean, she puts her dishes in the sink and all first, and she puts on her shoes and stuff, but still. She doesn't stick around other than that.

But she must not be in full-on HATE mode, because he'll get a 3 AM text that's just the sleeping emoji and the head-shaking emoji. No follow-up from there, so mebbe she sent that and immediately knocked our.

The 3AM text at least is responded to with a frowny faced emoji, and 'You okay?' but when the response doesn't come, he doesn't push.