2019-11-20 - A Great Big Broom-Haha

Places in Gray Harbor that actually have elevators are few and far between, but City Hall is required to have one - a two-story government building has to be handicapped accessible! And it's a place where they both have credible reasons to visit. So, around nine in the morning on any random day, Patrick is just reaching to mash the button on the elevator, tilting his eyes impatiently upward to watch the light-up numbers over the sliding doors. Not that there are a lot of them - B, 1, 2, 3, 4 - and it's counting down the second floor landing.

He could just take the stairs up, it's a maximum of two flights from here, but he doesn't. He just waits until the door opens, and there's Anne already in the elevator, so... "On second thought, I could use the chance to stretch my legs."

Unlike some people who use the elevator because they are lazy, Anne has a credible reason to be in the elevator this morning. She's got a cart with her, filled with random files that simply must be organized, and do you know how much of a pain in the ass it would be to lug sixty pounds of paperwork on a cart up the stairs? A giant pain in the ass.

Almost as big as the pain in the ass that's staring out at her when the elevator doors swing open.

She blinks once, twice, white-knuckling the handle of the cart. Does he see the smile? It's wide, fake, and just for him. "Good morning, Patrick," it's too chirpy. "Please, no, come on in. This is my floor," it wasn't, actually. But she's committed to the lie, and she's already tugging the cart out of the elevator, blocking the doors from closing. "Do you mind?" she cocks her head slightly to the side,as if to say: move, bitch, get out the way.

Glancing back over his shoulder at the floor that is supposedly Anne's, Patrick doesn't even try to pretend he believes this is where she was actually going. Like, 'ok sure it is' writes itself in the knitted brows and dubious downward-look that he gives to this little fibber. "Is it," he says, making super extra sure to sell his doubt. Shaking his head to answer if he minds, he steps on back against the wall, helpfully holding his hand across the place where the door retracts, to keep it from thinking it needs to close itself.

What's going to be awful in a moment is when she lugs this thing out of the elevator for NOTHING, because he's still going to take the stairs now. Y'know, after he loiters long enough to see how she covers this lie; will she just duck into some random office or...?

Let it be said that when Anne opts to lie, she fully commits. "It is!" she agrees readily, keeping that smile plastered wide and those eyes glimmering bright. Yes, this was fine, she'd just have to wait him out. It's not like she's on the clock or anything, it's not like she has some place to be. But at that moment in time, there's a saving grace - she has no idea who the guy is that appears down the hall and makes a beeline for one of the empty offices, but she's going to be damn sure she acts like she does.

"Oh! There's who I was looking for. Henry, wait up!" she pushes herself out of the elevator, cart and all, wiggling fingers to Patrick. "Have a great day, wish I could stay and chat!" she lies again, tug-tug-tugging that cart down the hall to 'Henry', who was actually named Phil, and had no idea who the fuck Anne was (which was why there's some questionable noises of surprise when Anne suddenly bursts into his office. But the pertinent part is it gets her completely out of the situation, at least until the next run-in, which happens sooner rather than later...

It's lunch time, only a few hours from the elevator incident. There's a small counter in City Hall that sells coffee and sandwiches, and that is where Anne is in the moment, having just received her ham-and-cheese croissant and coffee from the young barista. Lunch of champions!

"Because that's not what I ordered. Tell them... no, tell them that, if they can't get what I ordered, I will find someone who can. ...Yes. Thank you." And Patrick tucks the phone into the pocket of his coat, taking up his fork instead. Picking through the sad offering of fruit in a clear plastic cup, he doesn't notice Anne at all until she's already got her lunch and is leaving the counter.

That's when his eyes pass across hers momentarily, then skim the little lunch area. Where his tiny table is the only one with an empty seat. The other tables are packed today, with city-workers droning on about their days to each other. Having, with that glance, confirmed that there is NOWHERE ELSE TO SIT, he fixes his attention on Anne entirely.

He's dying to see how she Henrys her way outta this one.

Patrick may not notice Anne before she's left the counter, but Anne has most certainly noticed Patrick. It was hard not to pick up on the string of conversation, even if she was doing everything in her power to pretend he didn't exist in the world, particularly now as she turns herself about and looks over the crowded little lunch area. There were no seats over here, and no seats over there, and eventually she was going to have to look directly in front of her to where Patrick and his sad little fruit cup were sitting, along with that single fucking empty seat.

She lofts her eyes heavenward and wonders which god she pissed off today.

Click-click goes her heels across the tile, until she's standing to the side of the empty seat at his table. Big smile, Anne, make it a good one. "Do you mind? It looks like you're almost done," she nods to the seat, with a glance to his fruit cup. "Unless you're waiting for someone. Which I completely understand. I can just take this back to my office; actually, that's probably a better idea anyway."

Does he mind? "Help yourself," with a jab of the plastic fork through the air toward the empty chair. Patrick even dredges up a brief smile, one that doesn't quite reach his eyes, though it gives a valiant try - only to fall short when Anne promptly goes on to say she should just eat in her office. At which point he quietly stabs the fork into a piece of slightly graying cantaloupe and quits his chair, walking off without another word; he dumps what's left of the fruit into a trash can and strolls off.

I mean, if she like tackles him or something, he'll come back. But assuming that doesn't happen, these two aren't destined to cross paths again until the following evening. At the liquor store. Where the clerk is shooing a homeless guy off the front sidewalk, leaving Patrick alone in the store with his purchase on the counter (gin and tonic water and that's all). There's a big ol' wine sale advertised out front, so alcoholic Anne has a reason to be here!

Look, this was Anne being perfectly pleasant. She didn't want to put him off! Waffling by the chair seemed, in the moment, like the best way to ensure that he had every opportunity to change his mind. Or for her to change her mind. Or something. Really, she was just internally making any excuse necessary so that she could justify her being offended when he suddenly gets out of the chair and storms off. "Well then," she scoffs, sits her ass down, and tells herself Isabella would be proud because Anne did not come at this from a place of anger, and it was Patrick who opted to be an ass. Again.

Once he is gone, she throws her sandwich away after a single bite, having lost her appetite. That was his fault, too.

But wine sales are a godsend, and Anne's convinced herself she's all but forgotten about Patrick by the time she makes her way through the store with a basket that is positively full of wine. It weighs down her arm as it sits at the crook of her elbow, and it is undoubtedly her fault that the clerk is out there dealing with the homeless guy now, because Anne gave him a $20 on the way in and he was determined to spend it on cheap whisky. There's an argument brewing by the time that Anne - not an alcoholic, she can quit any time she wants, she just doesn't want to - and her wine come up to the counter, and there's a little noise through her nose when she makes eye contact with the back of Patrick's head. Did he still have that injury? There's a look around him to the gin and tonic water, and she's not judging him but she totally is. "Not here for the wine sale, I take it?"

Yes, he still has that injury, because he takes his knocks like a proper human and doesn't have people healing all his owies for him. It wasn't the kind of thing that needed stitches, but Patrick must have bumbled his way through making it better enough to walk around - clipped some of the hair, cleaned it up, leaving just the bump and scrape. It's not pretty, but that's what happens when you drink all the gin and collapse on the floor because ghosts.

Anyway, there's a bump to be seen, but there's also a wino out front having a conniption fit because the clerk won't let him come in and buy whiskey because he always STEALS SHIT and KNOCKS OVER THE DISPLAYS and he's going to CALL THE COPS again! And it's the latter that has Patrick watching through the window, at least until Anne interrupts this interesting debacle. He glances back and down at her - well, actually, he glances at the wine first, then lifts his eyes to find Anne's. "Is there a wine sale?" He notices the signs, ahhs. "No. Wine seems inefficient." While he's sliding his gin-and-tonic down the counter, making space for Anne's basket of WINE.

Anne's focus slides off his gin and back up to the wound on his head, up and until he turns around to judge her multiple bottles of wine. The basket is brought closer to her, in an almost protective manner, her other arm dropping to obscure some of the bottles. She doesn't have a problem. "They have one once a month," not that she knows this. Not that she's here every other weekend. Her brows go up though at his talk of efficiencies, frost blue eyes glancing once out the window, then down to his gin, before she finally focuses back onto his eyes.

"I guess it isn't as efficient as gin, no," there's a dry laugh that fits there at the end of her sentence, while she lifts the basket to set it on the counter. Outside, the wino has begun pounding his fists on the glass while the cashier has found a broom, and is currently poking the wino in the ribs with the pointy end. It means, for the time being, that here is certainly safer than out there, and so Anne takes a step back and folds her newly reed arms over her chest. "Have you seen a doctor about your head?"

Patrick's honestly not judging. Not that it matters, since he kinda always looks like he's judging everyone (and finding them lacking), but it bears mentioning: no aspersions are being cast at Anne from Patrick's direction. "Do they." Not that he doesn't care about Anne's wine-buying habits, but he's preoccupied with the fight brewing outside the window, watching with a frown that goes from concerned to pained.

Hence the distracted way he fastens his attention back on Anne, totally confused about her question. Like, completely. "No?" he guesses, squinting uncertainly. "I prefer liquid therapy. Hence the gin." Yeah, he thinks she means, like, a psychiatrist.

"Yes, they do," Anne replies in a tone that could be taken as defensive. Because it was. But there was also a note thinly veiled irritation when the hobo outside catches much of his focus - she shifts from one heel to the other, the corners of her mouth twitching into a frown as she stares up at him while he looks out the window. It means, of course, he'll catch her looking when he brings his confusion back yonder, her hiked brows perking farther upward at his confusion.

"What do you mean, liquid therapy? You can't drink a concussion away, Patrick!" Now that irritation was thickly laced with concern, and honestly, damn him for making her worry in the moment. "What even happened? Did you fall? Did you.. did you have a bad Dream?" The next words sort of tumble out, and she'll regret them later when she isn't worried. "Why didn't you call me?"

Well, if she ASKED why he was eyeballing the fight outside the window, Patrick would be happy to explain... okay, no. He wouldn't be happy to explain. So never mind that. Suffice it to say, he's going to continue keeping an eye on that brouhaha while the wino grabs the end of the broom and starts tugging on it, with the clerk holding stubbornly to the other side. They keep yanking each other back and forth. It's totally metaphorical.

"What are you talking about?" is his initial response to the quick succession of questions. The comment about the concussion takes a minute to work its way through his terribly thick skull, and the penny finally drops. He reaches up, lowering his head at the same time, and puts his fingers over the cut. "It's not a concussion, relax. I had my cousin look at it," there has to be at least one Doctor Addington in this town, and possibly one that's like Veterinarian Addington (popular cousin since he has access to animal tranquilizers!), "and it's fine. I - " Could come up with a quick lie, but why bother? She's buying ALL THE WINE in the store, so she must be familiar with this scenario. " - got black-out drunk and hit my head on the kitchen floor." As for why he didn't call her, "Far be it from me to interrupt a woman drinking alone in her bathtub." Which is what she told him she'd be doing on the night of that, uh, bad date... thing... whatever it was.

No, what was metaphorical was that they were yanking the broom back and forth but going nowhere. The clerk didn't budge. The homeless guy didn't budge. They just kept shifting that broom from one end to the other, though it was also metaphorical that now they were snipping at one another over the broom.

"Don't tell me to relax," Anne snips back at him, shifting to the side and tilting so that she can see the cut again when he moves to touch it. There's a mild wrinkling to her nose when he mentions having a cousin look at it, "You should've had a hospital look at it. They can run tests and maybe you need an MRI, you're certainly confused, and .." And then the truth comes out. He didn't even try to pretty it up. The words stall out as she stares back up at him, right into his gray eyes, leaning back so that she can look all the way up at him. "Oh, because drinking alone in your house and falling onto your kitchen floor is so much more dignified than the bathtub?" Wait, no, that's not what she meant to say, that's just what comes tumbling out. It makes her wince, and she bites the corner of her tongue with a furrow of her brow, before she follows up with a far more sincere: "Are you sure you're okay?"

Alas, by the time Anne gets around to asking sincerely if he's okay, Patrick's already done with the conversation. It started with the warning angle to the cant of his head when she claps back about relaxing, and his intention to walk the fuck out was practically skywritten when he threw a couple bills on the counter and grabbed the bottle of gin with one hand and the tonic water with the other. His intention is to just leave, gtfo before he gets in another fight with Anne or has to hang around and answer questions about what he saw of the brewing argument out the window.

But you know what? "I don't care what happens to them." He honestly looks like he's about to fucking club her, the way he's holding the gin bottle, the way he's frowning at her like she deserves to be clubbed with the gin bottle. "Whoever these people are that you're going over there with. I care what happens to you."

NOW he should go, but - in the interests of not being a dicky player! - he will not be able to storm out before she can get a word in edgewise.

It was easy to assume that Anne missed all the signs - though, really, it would just be as easy to assume that she saw them all and blew right through the snips and pokes and prods until she stumbled upon sincerity. But at least it was out there in the open, true and genuine concern, that had to count for something even if she was absolutely coming from a place of anger that she'd never admit she was coming from. It was his response though that confuses her - and the way that he was holding that gin bottle concerns her, evident by the way she instinctively leans so far back, her spine might snap. "You don't care about who?" she demands, though the return catches her completely off-guard.

For a single second, there was nothing, just the quick inhale of a breath through her nose, the subtle widening of her eyes. She keeps the defensive posture, leaned back, arms across her chest, but her words were open. Vulnerable. "I care what happens to you, too," she admits, and though her next words have a subtle tremor to them, they were stubborn and unapologetic in nature: "But I'm still going to go." And in the moment, it feels very much like they were back in the same place they'd been ten years ago, having the same exact fight for two very different reasons. Her brows knit as she feels that familiar knot in her stomach, grinding and clawing at her to say something else. To say something more.

"I'll call you. When I'm back. A few hours at the most. I.." Dammit, this was hard. "Maybe you could come over. Maybe we don't have to drink alone."

Realizing that he looks like some kind of insane, bottle-wielding lunatic... Patrick lowers that to the edge of the counter, tucking the tonic water onto the corner along with it. All because she says she's still going to go, and he nods - 'cause that ain't exactly news - but it seems important to put a hand on either of her shoulders presently, folding fingers and palm to fit them tightly. It's not a bone-breaking squeeze, but he's holding her at arm's length to impress the point. "I know that you're still going to go. And I know that you'll be fine." That last is a lie. He's convinced she's going to die or disappear.

There's more, but - after a few seconds of gray eyes searching blue - he puts away whatever the more was with a small nod. Like this is where he was going all along, he concludes, "Be careful." One more quick squeeze of her shoulders, and his hands come back over into his own keeping.

Outside, the yelling has reached a fever-pitch, and the wino has managed to take the broom away and is now using it to gesture wildly at the door of the store. Something about discrimination and the one-percent filters through the glass.

It felt like a breakthrough, if only for a moment. He sets the bottle down and she can feel herself relaxing just enough to let down a few of her defenses - to drop her arms, to straighten back up, blue eyes big and clear as he ambles forward to put his hands on her shoulders. He may be holding her at arms length but it was enough to put a shiver on course down her spine; not the kind that makes her shoulders bunch up but the kind that makes the tension release, the kind of quiver that makes her want to lean forward further. But she stubbornly stays her ground instead, chin up and eyes on his, desperately seeking the more that in was in the silence that follows his lies.

But the more doesn't come, and she mirrors his short nod with a hard swallow. "Of course," she says to his be careful, dropping her gaze to keep her breath steady as he squeezes her shoulders .. and lets her go. "Of course, yes, I'll be careful," she affirms, clears her throat, and takes a step back. And since he doesn't take her offer of the eventual phone call, of the possible drink in their future, it hangs there like an invisible thread. She wasn't going to bring it up again, another bit of stubbornness holding her back. Holding them back, perhaps.

She makes good with a smile though and turns stiffly towards her wine bottles, trying to do math in her head. The rise of the anger outside catches her focus though - it makes for good distraction. "You're not going to go out there, are you? Do you think we should call the cops?"

Patrick's not touching the offer to come over and drink at Anne's house again with a ten foot pole. She could send him an engraved invitation and he'd just be like 'yeahno, that ends in tears' and use said invitation for scratch paper. Or maybe finally sit down and learn to fold origami birds, that's always been on his To Do List. (Which incidentally now reads: #1 Anne Washburn Haircut after head is healed / #2-50 Workstuff / #51 Learn to fold paper cranes.)

"God no," he answers quickly for the cops, leaning aside so he can put eyes on the argument again. "I'm going to leave out the back before anyone else decides to. The last thing I need," is more gin 😃, "is to wind up in the newspaper because Patrick Addington Questioned By Police in Liquor Store Brouhaha." Before he picks up his bottles again, he takes out his wallet once more and - with one hand - indicates the bottles in her basket while the other puts some more bills on the counter along with the earlier ones for his own purchases. "Unless you're eager to be questioned about what you may have seen..." He chin-tips toward the back-door of the liquor store, which is propped open by an empty booze-box.

Outside, the homeless guy is now using the broom to attack the newspaper machines next to the door of the shop. Which is the ONLY REASON that Patrick snags his bottles quickly, tucking them against his side with one arm, and draws on Anne's arm with his other hand. "We should go." ('We' is a big step, right?!)

Whoa whoa whoa, before we get too far ahead of ourselves - if 'Anne Washburn' was crossed out from #1 on the 'To Do' list and replaced with a haircut, where is she now?! Below learning to fold paper cranes?! Or maybe she's #69. That'd be acceptable. Okay, never mind, crisis over. Anyway.

"I don't honestly think they'd use the word 'brouhaha' in a newspaper headline," Anne remarks in a dry humor sort of way. "If anything, I think they might call you out for being the instigator of this whole ordeal. I did hear him screaming about the one percent," she gives him some careful side-eye that turns into a blink when he starts fishing out dollar bills to pay off her wine bill. "I can.." she starts, but she doesn't finish the sentence. She might be stubborn, but she wasn't stupid. "Thank you," she opts for instead, gathering up the basket afterward. There might be more to that, but the crack of the broom against the newspaper machines makes her eyes widen. Or maybe it's the usage of we from Patrick. "Yes," there's a small pause before she lets him take her arm, "We should go." And then she takes that big step through the back door!

She's not on the list anymore because she BROKE HIS WHOLE HEART and sent him home to get haunted and concussed. Fool him once!

Utterly failing to notice even the brief moment when Anne starts to protest him paying, Patrick takes it as read that she's going to be fine with him footing the bill. "You may have a point. Broom-haha is more the Gazette's speed." Speaking of, when the bristles of the broom SMACK against the glass window, rattling it soundly, he picks up speed to gtfo out of the liquor store, so that - instead of being a witness to an assault-and-battery - it now looks like they're robbing the joint while the owner's outside, arriving in the alley with a bunch of booze as they are.

This occurs to him when the door falls closed behind them, and he points out, "I'm not positive this actually looks any better, come to think of it. Where's your car?" Like he's going to continue dragging her around by the arm and bodily place her in her car.

Whatever, she'll make her way back up on the list. Starting with 69.

Anne would laugh at the broom-haha joke if it weren't for the broom going BANG! against the glass window. She jumps, the bottles clinking around in the little basket, and then Patrick gets the benefit of Anne clinging to him with one arm as they race out of the liquor store and into the alley like the dirty, dirty thieves that they are. What occurs to him occurs to her at the exact same time, and she quirks her head to look up at him, a half smile tilting her lips. "'Patrick Addington Enrages the Homeless, Leaves Clerk to Die, and Steals Booze and City Archivist,'" she displays the new headline with a light laugh, canting her head down the alley. "In the parking lot," where the fight is happening. "Are you going to get me there safely, or are we going to add another point to your laundry list of terrible deeds?"

"That's the opposite of the answer I was hoping you'd give." Patrick scowls down the alley toward the parking lot, then scowls down the alley in the other direction. It lets out somewhere down there, but it's pretty dark. There's definitely at least one heroin addict living in a dumpster, not to mention the enormous rats that can be heard scurrying around. "Wait, come again?"

IS WHAT HE WOULD HAVE BEEN SAYING IF SHE HADN'T KICKED HIM OUT AND SENT HIM HOME TO GET HAUNTED AND CONCUSSED.

"I thought you were doing the rescuing. Well, then." Having poked his head out of the alley briefly, he leans back into it and gives Anne a long, thoughtful frown. Then turns the collar of her coat up for her, making it stand up... it wilts... so he makes it stand up again... it wilts again. "Why does everything about you constantly disagree with everything I want to happen," he muses stubbornly, and takes the occasion of turning the collar one more time to trail his thumb along her jawline, over the shape of her ear quickly, and then conclude, "Try to keep your head down. We'll have to run for it."

They're probably not even going to get a glance from either the clerk, who is now inside the store, screaming about the cops, or the wino, who is having a field day in the parking lot, riding around on the broom and shouting that he's Harry Fucking Potter, wheeeeeeee~!

"Yes, well, we seem to be giving each other a lot of answers that are opposite to the ones we were hoping for," Anne remarks quietly, but it still sounds too loud in the dark of the alley; at least the lack of light means that he can't (hopefully) see the blush that turns rosy on the apples of her cheeks. She leaves that thought to the side for now, brows hitching upward when he suggests she do the rescuing - that just earns him a quiet sniff of laughter. "I didn't think your ego would let you do the damseling," she says matter-of-factly, and there was more to that .. but he was touching her collar and then her jaw and that alone makes enough butterflies magically appear in her belly that she forgets the rest of her joke.

But she's not so caught up in the moment that she misses his stubborn musing; so what happens next is a sort of contradiction upon itself. She tilts her head so that she can feel his fingers more firmly there against her skin, while simultaneously gritting her teeth and making her jaw tense up; and that is all probably stuff that's going to be misconstrued later because right now they have to make a run for it.

"You do realize that if maybe you were a bit more plain in what you want to have happen, everything about me might not be so disagreeable?" she hisses in the dark while she walks at a quick clip out into the parking lot. There were only a couple of cars in the lot - hers, a bluish gray Chevy Malibu, was in one of the front spots. You know, close to hobo Harry Potter, who spies the lady that gave him $20 coming in, and now it's all full circle: "Hey lady! You got another twenty on you?" he calls out, but he's eyeing up the wine. Free wine for the wino?

"Yes," he does realize that. Patrick doesn't miss a beat in answering that question, that's how much he does realize it. But, at the mouth of the alley, before they get assaulted by their new wizarding buddy - It's funny because he's totally a Muggle and they're totally not! 😃 - he puts into her ear, the one he'd been fiddling with a moment ago, "I'll show you mine just as soon as you show me yours."

It occurs to the player that he must have shoved his own bottles awkwardly into the pockets of his coat during all this, so they're bulging out either side. It's the only way he can have freed his hands, and still have them free to take one of Anne's bottles of wine out of her basket. "You've got plenty," is his parting comment, put while he turns the bottle toward the hobo like a sommelier approaching the table of a... well, of someone like Patrick is: rich enough to afford a sommelier.

"I," he tells the homeless guy cheerfully, moving to intercept him somewhere between the alley and the Malibu, "have lots of twenties." He's going to wind up in the paper after all. 🙁

It's the words matched with the warmth of his breath on her skin that puts Anne in something of a dazed state coming out of the alley; she doesn't even notice the disappearance of one of her wine bottles before he's already got it and moving to the hobo. "Pat.." she starts, free hand touching fingers to her chest where, within, her heart was going nearly a million miles.

"I don't like the white stuff," the hobo sneers as Patrick approaches. Beggars can't be choosers, but apparently this beggar is very choosey. "You should gimmie that stuff in your jacket, or I'll.. I'll turn you into a frog!" And he holds his broom like it is a wand instead of a flying apparatus.

Anne knows Patrick's doing the gentlemanly thing, getting between her and the hobo who was brandishing the 'wand'. But in spite of the conversation in the alley - where she declared him the rescuer - she decides in the moment that she was wrong. "Here," she speaks up, flashing Patrick a look before she steps forward, holding out the basket. All that wine, she will miss it. "Have it all. Share it with your friends, okay? It might help you fly," she offers a calm smile, free hand moving to briefly touch Patrick on his back when she steps up beside him.

"No one does. Not really. It's all a big conspiracy by the - " Patrick doesn't even get to settle into a groove with what should be his new drinking buddy before Anne's putting the kibosh on his whole plan to whiteknight this situation. Le sigh.

The guy must be content with a whole basket of wine, since he makes giddy noises - or maybe those are 'freaking out noises' since, off in the distance, the first whine of police sirens can be heard.

Which is why Patrick, after a quick inhale, starts toward his own car. It's probably really nice. A Mercedes or something. "I don't have it in me to talk to the police," he concludes, shaking his head and ducking into the car. He manages to turn the corner and quit the parking lot riiiiiiiiiight when Chetson turns into it. He was never here, shhh.