2020-02-19 - Anything you put your mind to.

Was Patrick staying at her place now with the dogs and the hair and the DOGS and the DOG HAIR!? Probably not officially, but he was here tonight because of reasons that probably involve getting naked later. At least there was dinner, something brought in rather than handmade because ain't nobody got time for that (actually, Anne does have time for that but you don't see COOKING on her SHEET, do you?!). The dogs were fed and laying down somewhere upstairs, while Patrick & Anne have piled the dishes in the sink and broken out the booze.

"So," she comes around with her wine, something blush colored and fancy labeled with the cup filled to the brim, plops on the sofa and gets ready to stick her feet on him whenever he comes to sit down with her. "Your cousin is preparing to make babies with the gnomes that live in the forest on the other side and I really want to know your feelings on this." There's an impish grin. Blame the wine, she's like two cups in by now.

Patrick stays. It's not his favorite thing to do, but let it not be said that he doesn't appreciate the value of compromise: sometimes, they stay at his place and it's totally amazing; other times, they stay at Anne's place and he has to use one of those lint-rollers on all his clothes before he leaves the house and again when he gets to work. It also means he has to do things like palm-wipe down the sofa before he sits there, even if there's really nothing to complain about. He pretends to gather up the dog-hair, making sure Anne is paying attention, then settles in with his cocktail and Anne's feet.

Not that he doesn't already know, but if Anne's gonna be impish, then Patrick's gonna be coy. "Oh, that depends on which cousin. If it's one of the pretty ones..."

Worry not, Anne is paying attention. But the palm-wipe is so routine at this point that it doesn't even register on the list of things she cares about in the morning - sit your ass down, Patrick, her feet have places to be. Her brows climb as she watches him over the rim of her cup, taking a healthy sip before she lets the grin widen and dimple her cheeks. "All your cousins are pretty, Patrick," she points out, stretching to lean her back against the arm of the sofa. Those big blue eyes give Patrick a once-over like she's appraising him, though the brightening of her smile suggests that she approves. "Just some of you are prettier than the others. Which is incredibly frustrating," she tacks on a sigh to that comment, but the adoring eyes are in direct contrast of this supposed frustration.

But, she knows he knows who she's talking about, so take a drink! She will, at least. "I think Enzo will make a great dad. I'm just worried about the Addington Christmas budget if he's repopulating an entire community. What do you even get gnomish-human half-breed babies for Christmas?" Hmm.

There's a teeter of Patrick's palm at the initial assertion, but he doesn't specifically argue the point. He just leans across to put a kiss between those big blue eyes of hers after the approving appraisal - it's nice to be appreciated~ - and then settle back in with lap-feet, looking off into the middle-distance as if to imagine these half-Addington, half-gnomes. "Oh, he's definitely one of the pretty ones. Though," contemplative sip, "if he keeps battling Clayton for the hospital's most frequent flyer, he probably won't stay that way much longer."

This makes Patrick happy. His thousand-yard-stare breaks when he smiles, drinks to that, and uses Anne's ankles as a place to rest his drink in between sips. "I don't get gnomish-human half-breed babies anything. I assume they will take Enzo in and care for him somehow, not that both he and them will remain the family's obligations." He tongue-clicks against the backs of his teeth.

Anne perks eagerly upward to accept the kiss between her eyes, then leans back again with a nudge of her toes against his thigh. She is not going to even dare and attempt to envision Enzo-Gnome half-breeds; thus, she'll just admire Patrick and his thousand-yard stare while he does, tipping her head slightly to this side and then the other as she watches him. "At this point, they should just have a couple of rooms dedicated to the two of them at the hospital. Though I think.." There's a momentary diversion from the lightheartedness of the conversation as she frowns into her cup. "I think something might've happened to Alexander. Beyond.. what we went through, together. He just seemed off. More than usual." The downward draw of her lips remains for half a moment, before she chases it away with more wine.

She hikes a brow upward at the click of his tongue. "Oh, come on. He's your favorite cousin and I'm his friend, so we have to get him and his children something, we'll just go in on it tog--" At least she has the sense to stop herself before she finishes suggesting they get a couple's gift for imaginary babies for next fucking Christmas, swallowing the thought with another gulp of wine. Emergency redirect!: "Uh, speaking of family. Have you.. you know. Tried to talk to Margaret?"

Sarcasm is a serious affliction. Patrick can't help himself. "Oh, you think?" That something might've happened to Alexander, he means, snorting dry amusement into his glass while he asks that. "Really," while he swallows. "That dish has been cracked for a while. If the leaks are only just becoming troublesome..." He trails off into a shrug that barely shifts his shoulders, so little is he moved by the knowledge of SOMEONE HE HAS KNOWN SINCE CHILDHOOD finally officially coming unraveled. Patrick is a bad human. But back to the other cracked individual they're discussing. A brow lifts at the term 'favorite cousin,' and Anne's free to interpret that sidelong look she earns however she likes (hint: he disagrees with the term but ain't gonna pick a fight about it). The same brow stays up at the thought she doesn't finish, and he just closes the subject with, "We'll push Enzo off that bridge when we come to it." Decided. Done. Moving on.

"God no," he didn't try to talk to Margaret. "I left her a message that she never returned, then Hyacinth and Big Poppa went over to her house. Apparently, Thomas is dead or something. And Margaret has abdicated responsibility. So." He looks for Anne's glass, clinks his against the side of it, smiles grimly.

Look, Anne has known Patrick long enough to not be surprised that he is a Bad Human. But it doesn't stop her from narrowing a look across the rim of her glass at him while she takes another long sip of her wine. She's not mad, Patrick, she's just disappointed. Which is perhaps why she notes: "He could likely use a friend. You could meet for drinks," and then drops the subject entirely, setting her glass on her knee because she also uses herself as a table, apparently. But yes, they'll push Enzo off a bridge and maybe also a potato sack filled with his gnomish half-breed children and rocks, whenever they get there. This subject was far too dangerous for Anne to continue with. Margaret was a safer topic.

At least he glass is nearby for him to clink his into, the frown redrawn upon her pretty features and giving her premature wrinkles in her forehead. "Abdicated responsibility for what though?" She has no feelings to Thomas, she'll drink to his death 'or whatever'. Still, there's a sigh after she swallows the wine, her now-emptied glass set behind her on the table. "You know, as bad as things have been recently.. I am really starting to think that the worst has yet to come."

A headshake answers for what Margaret's abdicated, leaving Patrick to qualify, "Everything." He makes sure to find Anne's eyes for a moment. "She's lost her brother." Feels. He has some. But, before those feels try to do anything like make him morose, he presses ahead with another of those dry chuckles, though this one at least doesn't get drowned in booze, and he continues holding Anne's eyes after her last comment there, his expression full of dark amusement.

"Between the dream that everyone in my family had, the one that Clayton and Isabella Reede had, the empty grave, and Margaret washing her hands of all of it?" Yep. He finishes his drink, too, squashing Anne's feet into his abdomen while he puts his cup away on the coffee table. Which brings him back around to, "I'm not sure how much of a friend I can be to the man right now. 'Sorry you're having a rough go, old man, and also please accept my apology that my aunt apparently did something awful to your ancestors in that old sawmill?'" He doesn't seem to think that's going to fly, and his expression invites Anne to come up with a better conversational opener, plz dear.

Anne's eyes are not difficult to find, and while she might not have any feelings about Thomas, she has all sorts of feelings about Patrick. So when he says that about Margaret losing her brother, the feels are not for the crazy lady or the dead man but for Patrick alone, for the brother and sister that he lost, too. "I know," she murmurs, a certain somber look darkening her blue eyes and pulling at the frown a touch upon her lips so that it deepens. "I'm sorry." Not for Margaret, not really, but for his own losses.

She waits for his glass to empty and for him to lean back before she scoots her feet off his legs; it's a quick adjustment, a squirming twist, before she deposits her rear into his lap instead, brushing fingers down along his forearm and around his wrist to pull his arm about her. "I don't think you need to say you're sorry," she offers, but she doesn't have a better opener, so she presses a kiss to the tip of his nose and leans her weight into him. "But I think he's going to find out about these dreams sooner rather than later. And I think we.." There she goes again, with this 'we' shit. She rephrases: "I think you should probably think about getting ahead of that. Whatever Margaret did was a long time ago. It's not right to have you all bear the responsibility of it now."

Not that Patrick would actually apologize, which is why he smiles beneath amusedly lifted brows at Anne's comment that she doesn't think he needs to say sorry. 'Cause it's funny. 'Cause he never would.

Ever.

"Oh, I'm sure he will," he agrees readily enough, scooting both arms around Anne, not just the one, and leaning to rest his cheek against the side of her head. It's comfy. "I love my family," enh, "but they're not necessarily the best at keeping secrets. That's a dying art." It's funny 'cause, "Literally." And then he's waving away the suggestion of responsibility. "It's less that I feel responsible so much as... the sins of our forebears?" Does this make any sense to Anne, he checks for comprehension with a downward glance. "His family murdered mine, mine did whatever it is that we did to his, it would have to be acknowledged, at the very least. If he's coming unraveled for unrelated issues, then I may not be the best shoulder to cry on."

"You think Margaret would've taught at least a few of you some of her tricks," Anne murmurs about this crop of Addingtons' secret-keeping abilities, but it's just a bit of dark humor for the evening. She keeps her head still for him to rest his cheek there, closing her eyes as she relaxes into him, fingers straying along his jaw and down the side of his neck in feathery touches. "I understand," and she does, about the sins of his forebears, "And I think, for what it's worth? That Margaret probably thought she had a good reason for .. whatever it was she did that she thought she had to do. It's just.. a little concerning, not knowing what that reason was."

As for his shoulders, she follows the slope of one with a sweep of her hand. "They are very nice shoulders, though. Even if you won't let anybody cry on them," she murmurs.

Patrick says nothing of what old Aunt Marge may or may not have taught. Which is probably among the things he learned from old Aunt Marge, so mission accomplished, ya old hag. \o/

"You're a lot more charitable than I am. I assume she was just being hateful." No, he doesn't, and the nose-crinkle that follows speaks to his regret for having said those words. So let's just move on before he has to worry about what the universe heard and will punish him for later. What were they talking about? Oh, right. What's left of the cracked dish that is Alexander Clayton. "Before you three went on your grave-robbing expedition." She knows the one he means. And the reason she gets a hair-pull when it comes up - not the sexy-kind, more the second-grade kind, just one yank on one lock for the mean girl on his lap. "There was some talk about drinks, Clayton, Duchannes and me. To talk about something that happened thirty years ago." By which he means, "I'll text him tomorrow."

And, when it goes off the rails, blame Anne.

Anne gets in a kiss to the crinkle of his nose before he starts pulling on her hair, and there's a smack to that nice broad shoulder of his from her open palm. "Ow," she complains, straightening up to narrow a hurt look at him. Look at those big blue eyes, Patrick, LOOK AT THEM. "You can't rob an empty grave, you know," she mutters, taking her hand off of him so that she can rub at the hurt spot on her head. He manages to save himself - just barely - when he relents to text Alexander though, and even though she crinkles up her own nose...

... she sighs, leans in, and pecks him on the lips. "Thank you," she notes against his mouth, before her brows quirk up again. One sec, she's gonna get to that point about Yule, but not before she kisses him again, this time with meaning!

Then, she leans back, brows hiking upward. "Do I want to know what you, Alexander and Yule did thirty years ago?"

Here, Patrick makes nice and rubs the Anne's scalp where the hair was attached. Better? See how responsive he is? Quit whining. And he smooths her hair down with the flat of his hand before answering for the inability to rob an empty grave with a pleasant, "You can do anything you put your mind to, dear." Her specifically. But it's not really a compliment, he's just being obliquely snide.

Kissing makes it harder to be snide, and he leans into that pretty well for the first kiss, then even more for the second one. And thus is blinking like he can't place her question afterward. "I don't know. Do you want to know what we did thirty years ago? Because if you're not really in to the story." He should just dot-dot-dot that since he's about to start nipping her ear in a second here. "There's some things I'd like to be in to."

"You can save it for the pillow talk later," says Anne with a return of that impish grin that started this whole scene. 'Cause she has to make him pay for being obliquely snide and rude. And apparently she can do anything she puts her mind to... so she's just gonna put her mind to doing him.