2019-12-15 - Not According To Plan

It takes an hour or so before the firetrucks leave, once the jolly men in red (firemen, not Santa 🙁 ) are assured the house isn't burning down and no one isn't going to die of hypothermia. And one by one, the guests filter out, though Misses Erickson or whatever name was hangs around until the very last second, talking about how she hasn't been this wet since 1962, but that story is far too inappropriate to tell any more of, and oh look at the time, she needs to go feed her cats (she has twelve, she lists them all by name), but she'll be back, Patrick, but this time with cookies, unless Patrick likes brownies better?

And then she's gone along with everyone else. The house is wet and empty and quiet. The antique rugs are ruined, the piano is going to need a good stripping thanks to the water damage, and someone stole at least three bottles of expensive vodka and at least half a dozen bottles of champagne, too. When he comes to assess the damage, though, he finds that he's not alone - Anne comes back in from the garden, red dress still damp, and a fireman's blanket around her shoulders. So much for those perfect curls; she's got her hair back in a ponytail now.

"I don't need stitches," she informs him, holding up her forearm where there's a band-aid now, before she looks around the ruined front room. Her nose crinkles at the state of it all. "This place is a wreck."

During all this, with the firemen eating all the canapes and that that old woman talking to him like she remembers him (when she almost definitely means some other Patrick Addington who is probably dead), Patrick manages not to completely divorce the need for decorum. As soon as the guests that want to touch things (read: Alexander) are gone, he visibly relaxes, even if all it means is that a whole new batch of work just landed in his lap. Somewhere in among all this, he managed to get a towel around his shoulders, lost his tie, and is coming back from seeing Mrs. Whatever to her car, pulling off nice but now completely ruined shoes at the threshold.

He manages not to completely lose his shit on discovering Anne's here - when he thought he was by himself but isn't! - but he does that sudden, startled thing people do, blinking and leaning back with a quick shiver. "You're still here," he deduces brilliantly, momentarily off his game here. It leaves him clearing his throat and looking beyond her for a moment, as if to confirm there aren't also OTHER PEOPLE here, but it seems that all is quiet. "I'm surprised they didn't take you to the hospital." For the band-aid on her arm.

In truth, Anne hadn't meant to startle him, but the blinky-leaning thing seems to please her all the same. It quirks a smile there at the corners of her lips, reveals a hint of dimples, and then the expression fades out as she shrugs off the blanket. "I thought about going home to change and come back, but I thought you might need help with that Missus Erickson. So I stayed around to see how that played out," actually, she had no intention of helping, she just found it amusing to sit on the sidelines and watch him deal with it all. The blanket is neatly folded as she speaks and set aside somewhere out of the way, before she rolls her eyes at him. "You should just be thankful I stayed," is all she has to say about the band-aid.

Without prompting, she starts to move, opting to deal with the most obvious things first: the little chunks of ceramic that litter the ground, waiting for someone to slip and fall and split their skin open. "You want to get a trash can? And a broom and dustpan," she lifts a brow at him. "We can probably get most of this cleaned up, and then you'll just need someone for the wood."

Little chunks of dead ceramic cherubfairies all over, and Patrick took off his shoes. This lack of foresight occurs to him while he's toe-nudging a couple of those chunks aside, picking his way carefully across the ruined floors toward the middle of the room, from which he can truly survey this mess. "I am," thankful she stayed, he means, though it's hard to pair the comment to the words, since he looks the opposite of thankful, scanning eyes traipsing their way around till they wind up back on Anne. "I am," he reiterates, putting a more topically appropriate softness to the comment this time.

Soon to be followed by a heavy sigh and a shake of his head. "No. I want to get champagne and a comfortable chair and drink until I forget this entire night." But he doesn't do that, instead crossing to some convenient hallway closet where brooms and dustpans are likely to live. "Aren't you cold?" he calls from that closet.

The flicker of disappointment from his initial tone is mostly a subdued sort of expression; she wears it as she crouches on the floor to start picking up assorted pieces. A leg here, a wing there, it's honestly a little heartbreaking. They were so cute when they were alive! "I believe you," she lifts her eyes back up to him when he reiterates, the lingering look making it obvious that she really does believe him. But Anne was always the gullible one. Then it's back to work, sighing as she picks up a chunk of cherubic chubby cheek, and gets up to dump the pieces into the trashcan by the bar.

"Getting champagne drunk when there's no party is kind of pathetic," which is why she reaches for a bottle of gin while she's here at the bar. "You might forget what happened but then you wake up in the morning alone feeling miserable for other reasons," it's almost like she's speaking from experience! She finds a pair of glasses, dumps some gin in each, and fills the glass out with some tonic water that she finds while he fusses in the closet. Is she cold? "Yes," she is. "Freezing. But I'll live. Or so says Fireman Fred."

Patrick has found, during his rummaging, a yellow rain-slicker in the way back of the closet. He reaches his arm out with the thing dangling from the ends of his fingers, waving it a little in an attempt to catch Anne's eye. "Less sexy by far, but beggars can't be choosers." If she takes the coat, good; if not, it lands in a little pile on the floor, just another drop in the bucket of messiness. However that works out, he emerges a few moments later, having found brooms and dustpans. Only to immediately lean them against the wall and gravitate toward gin with the singular interest of a true alcoholic. "I don't know how you stand it."

Anne is not going to look a gift horse - or an offered yellow rain-slicker - in the mouth, so she steps around the obstacle course of ceramic shards and other messes to grab it. She slides her arms into it when she makes her way back to the bar, waiting for him to hear the siren's call of the gin before she strikes a pose, hand on her hip. "Far less sexy, but I think I make it work," she waggles her brows and then dangles over the bar, reaching for one of the drinks to drag it over. She's about to take a sip when he says that last part, brows hiking as she watches him from over the rim of her glass. "You don't know how I stand what? Being cold?"

The pose gets its due consideration, comprised of equal parts appreciation and skepticism, but Patrick otherwise keeps his opinions on Anne's new attire to himself. He sock-foot sweeps some porcelain away from his immediate area, giving himself somewhere safe to stand while he leans both elbows onto the bar opposite Anne. "That too, but no." Since he's also wearing his damp evening wear, we can safely assume that Patrick is also freezing-but-he'll-live; fortunately, he has gin now, and it's much easier to ignore things like hypothermia when you're intoxicated, which he intends to be any minute now. "This. Possessed elves, parties that end in snow globes. It's," one of the strings of Christmas lights on the tree manages to pop back on, flickering erratically till it decides that it's actually going to work, catching the corner of his eye, "exhausting."

The look leaves her with a faint rosy glow to the apples of her cheeks, but she shelves whatever thoughts occur to her to the very back of her brain to focus on the conversation at hand. It's a question at least that gives her some pause, her focus briefly taken by the buzzing pop of the Christmas lights before she takes another drink. "You learn to cope," she sounds a little hollow there, brows knitting as she sets the glass back down to the bar with a light 'clink'. "The drinking helps," it's said in a way that suggests she's trying to insert a bit of humor - there's a peppering of dry laughter attached to the words, after all - while also being fairly serious. "But it's not all possessed elves and snow globe parties. Though I don't know if things have gotten worse over time, or if I'm just more aware of what's going on?" It's a thought for another day.

"At least you don't have to do this by yourself," Slowly, tentatively, she walks her fingers over the bar to lay over his own, her skin clammy but soft. "It's a lot harder when you're all alone."

Truthfully, "I don't remember having ever learned to cope. But." Patrick takes a sip, as if reminded to do so by Anne's comment about how it helps, leaning farther forward across the top of the bar to reach a hand toward the bottle of gin, since now there's room in his glass and he ought to back-fill it with more booze. "I suppose I wouldn't remember if I've forgotten." His hand's been retracted by the time hers comes to pay a visit, having failed to reach the bottle (it's for the best), and he turns his palm over so his fingers can curl around hers, tucking them into the comparative warmth at the middle of his hand. He nods quietly at her comments, still holding her hand while he turns at the waist to survey the room again, apparently done chasing down that self-pitying moment. "Well, it's not quite the end of the night that I had in mind, but at least the tree seems to be - " Flickering dangerously. " - holding up. Do you think I'll have to replace it? The damn thing has been a nightmare since the word go, and I don't want to go through all that again."

Anne lowers a look to their hands as he turns his palm up and folds his fingers around her own, the warmth of his touch - or perhaps the touch alone - making her take a quick breath through her nose. At least it's slowly, silently exhaled again, composed enough to not dissolve into embarrassingly dreamy sighs. "I suppose you wouldn't," she agrees of remembering, her expression briefly haunted, but she shakes it off and lifts her attention back to him, whilst her fingers in his grip subtly wriggle to drag a touch over his palm. "It could've been worse, you know. The house could've exploded. We could've had to fight an evergreen tree monster. We could all be dead. There are silver linings," she tries to find her Christmas cheer and manages a (fake) smile with the words. She doesn't look at the tree and its dangerously flickering lights; her eyes remain on the profile of his face when he turns his head. "I think it will hold up," she says of the tree. "And you know, the night hasn't officially ended. What was it that you had in mind?"

The sound Patrick is trying to make is 'shhh' while Anne is listing all the things that could have gone wrong. The sound he's making, since his mouth has gin in it, is a more gurgly 'ssst' noise, but he's also putting down his drink to wave his hand at her in a stop-stop-stop gesture. "Thank you, I'm just fine with imagining the worst case scenarios without having them detailed." The tree gets a slightly warier look, in case it's about to come to life and make him sorry for feeling sorry for himself. Having finished waving at her, he checks the watch on that hand and OMG WHY DOES HE HAVE TO ARGUE ABOUT THE STUPIDEST SHIT. "Actually, it has." The night, he means. It ended. Cuz it's after midnight.

At least he kinda answers the follow-up question? "Champagne, for starters."

"I think we're in a glass half full situation. Where's your optimism?" Anne retorts when he tries to silence her with that hand-waving gesture, though her jaw immediately sets at his glance down to his watch. Or maybe his ability to argue about the STUPIDEST SHIT. Whatever it is, her fingers go limp in his grip - she doesn't pull them away, but if he's not going to play along, he gets no rubs! "Yes, well. It's still dark outside, you haven't gone to sleep, and the sun doesn't come up again for a few hours," she points out. As for the champagne? "I didn't think you'd argue over having gin instead," she uses her free hand to push the bottle closer, looking keenly at him as she ventures: "So gin, for starters. What else?"

If the dull, really-now look from Patrick doesn't explain where his optimism is - HE HAS NONE - then hopefully the comment attached to it will convey the message: "A snowglobe completely empty situation."

Yes, he knows he was picking a fight about something stupid, and he gives Anne's limp little fingers a squeeze that's much harder than it has to be in response to it. Not like ouch-hard, but they get a little squished in the confines of his palm. "Ah, gin," as if greeting the bottle. It says a few things that, instead of just letting go of her hand and opening the bottle, he just does it one-handed; among the things it says is that he's good at opening bottles, and that he values this hand-holding enough to delay topping off his drink. "Drier attire," while he checks Anne's glass, is he filling that, too? "Or considerably less of it, depending on how much of the aforementioned champagne was consumed. You looked lovely." He hits the past-tense a little harder than he should if he means that to be a compliment.

Anne should really learn the eye rolling ability; she's done it enough since he's been back that she's become proficient in it. And there they go again, turning circles in their sockets at his dull look and equally dull response. But the too-hard squeeze of her fingers brings her back to the moment that she's really, honestly trying to have, and while her fingers try to wiggle in the vice-grip of his own, she doesn't tug away still. She just leans against the bar, huffing out a sigh. "I tried," she says of looking lovely, casting a look down to her wet dress and ill-matching yellow slicker. "I take it the yellow rain coat and frizzy hair doesn't do it for you? Too bad," she clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth and returns to steady a look at him.

"You didn't look so bad yourself," there's no emphasis on the past-tense for her part, the words are softly spoken. "Your handkerchief almost matched my dress. Not quite, but.. a good effort," she pushes her glass to him with her free hand, more gin please. "All things considered, you've lost quite a bit of your clothes. No jacket, no shoes, no tie." And no hanky. She hasn't returned it.

Fitted in after the tongue-click, albeit in a sort of ignorable aside-tone, Patrick comments, "I don't remember saying that," of what's not being done for him, while being intensely focused on this one-handed pouring of gin. Fuck tonic water.

He brightens as if pleased at the compliment for his ability to match handkerchiefs to dresses, drumming up a (still tired and strained but give the guy some credit for the effort) smile while he puts the bottle away. He leaves it open, just playing the odds. "Ah, but it's not my handkerchief. Apparently, it belonged to my great-grandfather, and was hand-embroidered by my great-grandmother." And he let Anne use it to wipe off her blood, so the glass-clink is a quick requiem for the ruined hanky. "Back when there was nothing better to do but embroider things by hand. Also, no socks." He shifts awkwardly to get the one that he couldn't work loose with his toes off his feet, kicking the balled-up things over toward all that dead porcelain.

Who in the world drinks gin straight? I guess these two do, there's no accounting for taste. Though, Anne's lack of reach for the tonic water has less to do with enjoying gin straight up and more to do with the fact that she'd finally have to pull her fingers from his grip. So, cheers to him - the glasses clink, she takes a drink, and tries not to make a face at the taste. There's so much rhyming going on in this paragraph, I am amazing.

"Ah, an antique! I'll make sure I get it dry cleaned," she replies with just a hint of glimmer in her eyes, though the latter intensifies when he kicks his socks over the dead cherubfairies. That brings the laughter out of her, quiet but there, silenced only when she takes another drink of her gin. "I feel overdressed now," she comments, looking back down at her slicker. But she's in a predicament, because while she could totally take it off? She'd have to take her hand away. So she just leaves it. And he doesn't ask, but she supplies: "I was hoping we'd end the night with dancing. But I guess spontaneous caroling is second best."

If there's one question that Patrick shouldn't ask in this scenario, it's this one: "Who is the 'we' in that sentence?" Thankfully, he's not actually expecting an answer, so says the tug he gives her hand before the question-mark at the end of that comment even has time to settle. The intention here is to pick their way through the rubble in the foyer, through the dimly-lit (and super-creepy) parlor to the half-lit ballroom on the other side of it. His gin has come along for the ride, so assuming she didn't dig her heels in and refuse to budge, he'll just be putting that on the piano that's already been ruined twice this month, so what's one more water stain?

"Music," is the next goal. He starts patting his pockets one-handedly, in the manner of a person searching for his phone.

Remember that aforementioned skill in eyerolling? Anne's going to prove her proficiency once again at his question, already beginning to formulate an answer when the sudden tug of her hand sends her stumbling a few steps forward. She blinks, straightens, and gives him a funny look before she follows, careful to pick her way through the sea of broken cherubfairies. She's carrying her gin, of course, some of which sloshed over the rim and wound up on the (ruined) floor, and now her fingers smell of terrible liquor. But whatever. She sets her glass down beside his and licks the gin off her fingers with a shrug of her shoulder. "Music?" Funny looks turn to questioning ones. "Why don't you just play something on the pian - oooohh," she gets it now.

"I left my phone in my purse," which is .. somewhere. There's a slim frown before she adds: "Too bad you sent the carolers away."

In a normal house, there would be a stereo in a room like this, buuuuut that would really ruin the antique vibe. Perhaps not as badly as the water damage has ruined it, but it would cramp the desired style. Unfortunately, the lack thereof cramps the styled desire of Patrick at the moment, who asks a rhetorical, "Is it?" Of his having sent away the carolers. His thumb drums thoughtfully against the back of Anne's hand for a time, and he passes a look around the room, halting momentarily on the piano before he shakes his head and dismisses that notion. "It's cursed. Or haunted. Or whatever we're calling it these days."

Then shrugs and leads them away from the haunted/cursed/whatever piano a few steps, toward the shadowy middle of the room. The shadows are charitable, it means it's harder to see how rekt they are. "We'll have to use our imaginations."

The rhetorical question doesn't earn a rhetorical answer, but the cursed/haunted/whatever piano gets a look. "It is?" she lifts her brows in question to him, but maybe there was time for cursed pianos later, because he was pulling her out into the middle of the room. There's a wary glance to all the shadows - shadows aren't typically charitable in Gray Harbor - but there's no feeling of imminent danger. And besides, the dim lighting provides atmosphere where the lack of music does not.

"Let me get this thing off," she says of the slicker. "I'm beginning to feel like Georgie at the sewer drain and I don't want to invite any creepy clowns." There's a tug of her fingers from his own, reluctant but necessary, before she gets with the slicker removal in order to toss it away. It lands in a lump beside a decapitated cherubfairy head. Cute. She's quick to put her hand back into his though once the clothing situation is figured out, her other hand settling comfortably on his shoulder.

Then, with her chin tipped up to turn her face to him, does she mention: "I'm a little tired of that. I've been using my imagination for the past ten years. But.." The smile that blossoms is small but sweet. "I'll make an exception for tonight."

'Let me get this thing off,' she says and starts peeling off clothes. It's the wee hours of the morning, it's been a rough night, Patrick can't not repeat the term 'this thing' a time or two and quip, "I've been called worse things, I suppose." Ahaha, only the exhaustion he mentioned earlier - the exhaustion from dealing with all this weirdness - limits his amusement at his own cleverness to a short smirk instead of the snicker he totally deserved.

Anyway, all that happens while she's dealing with the raincoat, leaving him free to smile less smirkily back down at her. "And whose fault is that," he comments, really just trying to make that whole situation into a thing they can touch without hurting each other instantly. It has to be funny eventually, god dammit. Then he smartly shuts up for a spell, clasping her hand in his, settling the other at the middle of her back briefly, then at her hip instead, barefoot dancing in a ruined old house. Honestly and quietly after about a half-minute of this, "I miss you, Anne." Present tense.

Anne should roll her eyes at him. But it's late and she's tired, too, and maybe it makes her a little looser (but not in the 'take me to the master bedroom right now' sort of way). Thus, he does not get an eye roll, and instead he gets a little snort of a giggle there under her breath along with a grin. "I can think of at least a half dozen other things I'd call you before you were ever 'this thing' to me, Patrick," she remarks, and then the grin is quick to fade when he makes that second comment. It has to be funny eventually, god dammit, but tonight's not that night. At least the clasp of his hand there at her back - and then at her hip - distracts her enough to enjoy the moment instead of thinking about who's fault the past ten years have been. Besides, she already knows it's his fault. No sense in arguing the obvious!

But, he shuts up and she shuts up, and her hand moves from his shoulder to brush fingers against the nape of his neck and then around to clasp the back of his neck, fingers toying with his hair. It was a nice moment; at least, it was the closest they've been for the past few weeks without waging war, and she was content with this and the quiet. It was enough. Thus the words that follow a half-minute later are unexpected, and with the tilt of her chin to turn her face up to him, the slip of her content expression was on full display, all that heartbreak and pain expressed in a wince and a furrow of her brow. But she doesn't back away; maybe she should've done that, maybe she should've called it a night here. Instead, she steps in closer and lays her cheek to his shoulder, her breath a little unsteady as she whispers quietly in return: "I miss you, too."

By the time her cheek's on his shoulder, Patrick's given up the pretense of dancing. His feet aren't moving, not even a sway to his stance, just him leaning his head down toward Anne's, tucking hers against his chin and cheek with his hand tightening hard around hers. He nods at the reply, leaving it at that for a good while, letting the moment be a moment all on its own, no commentary to qualify or ruin it.

Something has to happen, though. Or else they just stay here like this till they die, which would be a dull ending to the story. So, even though he's closed his eyes and turned his nose into her temple, he can still suss the flickering from the tree-lights - which have now succeeded in turning on one of the other strands, and the star is struggling to come back to life now that the wires are drying out. So he draws a preparatory breath and opens his eyes again, turning them to the fitful twinkling from the other room. "Champagne, for starters. And then this. Although I had imagined it more by the tree-lights, but that may wind up with one of us getting electrocuted."

Where 'one of us' means 'Anne' because he's hard to electrocute on account of his unused psychic powers and stuff.

It was okay that the dancing stops, she'd willingly trade a thousand nights of dancing to imaginary music for one night where they could be like this - just close, not fighting, nothing heard except their own breathing and the hammering of her heart in her ears. She didn't want to move, she could barely even breathe as though that would risk ruining it all, and for that brief moment in time it felt like nothing had ever changed between them. Like he hadn't broken her heart by leaving, and that she hadn't broken his by staying.

But something does have to happen, else they'd starve to death or be found by the maid in the morning and the town will be buzzing with the gossip about how Patrick Addington and Anne Washburn stood like two weird statues in the ballroom. She doesn't immediately open her eyes when he draws breath, but it comes after the (extraordinarily sexy & romantic) talk of being electrocuted. "Mm. It's still not quite what I had hoped," she admits when she peeks her eyes open to stare up at him, and then she bites the bullet (but definitely does not stop the bullet) - she pushes her fingers into the hair at the back of his head, gets up on the tips of her tip-toes, and fits her lips to his for an earnest, absolutely needy, kiss.

If being told she's going to get electrocuted doesn't qualify as extraordinarily sexy and romantic to Anne, then she should probably not reward that kind of behavior with earnest and needy kisses. That's the wrong way to convince Patrick not to say things like that again. It's a good way to convince him to pull her to him the rest of the way, if there is a rest of the way by now, quitting the hand he'd been holding to fit his to the side of her neck, thumb holding her chin just so to return earnest and neediness in kind.

This kinda goes on for a minute. Or two. Until the wanting sound he's making hits his own ears, and he stops for a breath, smudging his forehead against Anne's and brushing a few smaller versions of that kiss against the corner of her mouth. "Much closer," he breathes approvingly, and inhales a long time through his nose. "Thank you."

Anne clearly finds talking about being electrocuted extraordinarily sexy and romantic considering what it brought about. Or maybe she kissed him to shut him up? Either way, she wasn't going to relent now, and if it weren't for the fact that she was already on the very tips of the very tips of her toes, she'd chase his lips when he starts to pull away. But even without the chasing, there's a little whine of reluctance there in her throat when he does break the connection, even if she tilts her head into the kiss he lays there at her forehead, taking quick breaths through her nose. "Yes," this was much closer to expectations. But the thank you has her blinking, leaning just far enough away to bring blue eyes to gray. She should ask 'what for'? Instead, she says: "We should do this again sometime."

With a soft laugh abbreviated through an exhale, Patrick agrees, "With some minor modifications." He probably means leaving out the part where they get trapped in a snow-globe and flood the house full of antiques, not the finger that traipses juuuust beneath the collar of her dress before dropping away, folding around her hand again. After a fortifying sigh, he'll draw her back into the wrecked foyer to make good on cleaning up the very worst of the mess here, letting Anne specifically deal with all the shattered porcelain while he hefts sodden rugs off aged hardwood.

It leaves little time for romance, though he will put his shoes on (no socks) to put Anne in her car sometime in the very small hours of the morning. There's no farewell kiss, just the quiet promise that he'll be in touch tomorrow. I.e., send him more pictures so he can survive the long hours of (supervising) cleaning up that lay ahead of him.