2020-07-14 - Wolf at the Door

It's a hot summer morning, but Alexander has kept the blinds drawn and the windows closed - despite the lack of AC in the house. His conure is loving it, but Blue Bell is nowhere to be found, as she's wedged herself under the bathroom sink, trying to suck cool into her fur from the tile. Isabella is out of the house, and Alexander is watering his plants. He's showered and changed from the night before, but still manages to look scruffy in a t-shirt and jeans, the bandages on his arm just peeking out from under the sleeve as he works. From the outside, the house probably looks pretty empty - but Alexander went in, and he hasn't come out.

Besides, for someone with certain abilities, the house just /feels/ like someone's home.

It's been a night, the end of which sees Graham (in one of Felix's nondescript cars, not his TOTALLY AWESOME personal ride) parked down the street, watching the comings-and-goings from Alexander's house. Joey Kelly leaves. Some chick he doesn't know (Isabella) leaves. Alexander doesn't leave. And then Alexander continues to not leave. Sometime within the hour of Miss Reede's departure, while Alexander is watering his plants, his front door opens. It's relatively quiet, since Graham is apparently pretty fucking proficient at this shit, but he's not making an effort to hide the fact that he just picked the deadbolt and opened the front door. He doesn't tread lightly or anything, just wanders through the front room till he comes upon the freshly showered and changed Alexander.

Graham is still wearing his clothes from last night, so he looks pretty much like a murderer at the moment, right down to the gun that he lifts to wave. "Hi," comes out of him with a sort of grim apology under it, like 'sorry to intrude but it's critical.'

When he hears the door make that rattle, it doesn't immediately stand out, and since Isabella only just left not long ago, it's her name that starts to come out of his mouth. But from the first step on the carpet, he knows it's wrong. Even before he looks in that direction, his shoulders are hunching and his grip is tightening on the plastic water can until it dimples. He turns to face Graham, staring with that same creepy stare, his other hand twitching in a nervous rhythm against his thigh. "Stewart." It's also grim, but after a moment, he adds, "Sorry about your friend."

"Yeah, so'm I." Graham finds a shrug from somewhere, drops it lankily into the pause while he settles bloodshot eyes on Alexander's twitchy hand there. Just in case this is about to become a stand-off. "Was that your girlfriend?" Why, yes; that is the kind of question that specifically doesn't decrease the tension in the room. "Or, like, the maid or something?"

"Yes." It's flat, and the plastic creaks audibly as his fist tightens just a little more. Definitely not a calming question, and it's not hard to see Alexander's body shift into something that isn't just tense and nervous, but that's tense, nervous, and measuring space, distance, and how good Graham is with that pistol. "Tradition requires I ask: What do you want, Stewart?"

Graham's response is also really not designed to be a calming follow-up: "Good to know." While Alexander is making his (completely reasonable) shift into fight-mode, Graham shakes his head just a tiny bit, juuuuust enough to suggest that he's aware of these minute shifts and the change in the air that they precipitate. "Don't, man. I've had a fucking night." Despite the oblique threats, he does a decent thing and eases the hammer of the gun safely back into whatever mode it is when it's not ready to be fired, holding it up broadside so Alexander can see that it's... well, as safe as a gun in the hand of someone that's had a fucking night is ever going to be. See? Friendly chat.

"I wanna know what the fuck you were doing there."

Alexander isn't a dominant personality. He doesn't usually do the posturing, chest-beating, you-can't-touch-me badass thing. Cringing until he flips the fuck out and beats someone half to death is more his style. So, even though muscles in his jaw visibly jump at the follow-up, he doesn't make threats. And when Graham eases back, so does he. He even puts the watering can down - although it's not like that's a weapon against anyone but witches from Oz. So probably not Graham.

Probably.

He sighs, and rubs at his face with one hand. "You want coffee? You look like shit, so you probably need coffee." He makes no move to go get it until and unless Graham says yes, though - he's still the guy with the gun. "I was walking." A pause. "Not a smartass answer. I walk down to the casino pretty often. Since the thing with the Krugers. When the shots went off, I thought maybe someone was attacking Mr. Thorne."

Is this awkward? Like, it's a little socially awkward, right? Or it should be? Well, somewhere between Graham doing this sorta thing for a living and Alexander just being an overall weirdo, the awkward doesn't get the better of the situation. Instead, Graham settles into a rapid-fire nod when the word 'coffee' comes into play. "Yeah, thanks. Just - not if you have to make it or anything." He's all set to follow Alexander into the kitchen, still holding the gun but not pointing it at anything. Except the floor.

Despite the fact that apparently now they're going to have coffee together, Graham still sounds incredulous to the point of WILL SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE when he bounces back, "You hear shots and run toward them? Bullshit. Nobody does that."

"Already made it," Alexander says, since it's not like he did much sleeping last night, himself. He backs into the kitchen; sure they're being reasonably friendly now, but he's not turning his back to Graham, just like he's making an obvious step away from the knife block when he goes to the coffee, and opens the cabinets slowly to get the two mugs and fill them up. "You take anything in it?"

He goes still at 'bullshit'. Frowns. "People do. I do. Why wouldn't you run towards gunshots? How are you going to know what's going on if you don't?" This is a genuine question, Graham. He stares at him like he's clearly expecting an answer.

That's okay. Graham isn't exactly taking his eyes off Alexander when he goes into the room full of knives and frying pans and other things that might damage either of them. "Nah, I'm all right," for stuff in his coffee. He'll just stand here in the doorway, looking around the space with a crumple of confusion across his brows. "Not gonna lie," he shares while Alexander is doing kitchen-things. "I expected there to be, like, newspapers covering the windows and psychotic shit scribbled all over the walls." It's too bad that third bedroom is closed.

But then he's blinking at Alexander's answer. "Ahhm, who cares? Unless they're shooting at you," and we can assume that means 'or someone who pays you,' considering the source, "then you can always just find out later. You know, unless you get used as a hostage and then shot 'cause seriously, do you have a death-wish or something?"

Alexander nods, and then gently slides the coffee mug down the counter to where Graham can pick it up. He steps back and picks up his own mug, but instead of drinking it, his fingers just nervously play with it, turning it around in little circles while he stares at the man with the gun. "I couldn't see out if I had newspapers on the windows, and they tend to make the light that comes in all weird and yellow. And post-its are more flexible than writing directly on the walls." He's not offended. Just clarifying.

He blinks at Graham's response in turn. "I care," he says, at last. Then frowns. "And no. I don't want to die. If I did, there are easier ways. But I wasn't gonna let someone shoot at people without trying to do anything about it." A pause. "Even if they're people I mostly don't like."

Graham, coffee cup in one hand and pistol in the other, nods a slow nod at the logic about the newspapers, like okay he can see how Alexander has a point there. "I get it. I just thought you were, y'know," he takes a quick sip, "a total whack-job." There needs to be a pot and a kettle in this room that aren't Graham and Alexander. What Alexander goes on to say, about running toward gunfire, sort of plays into Graham's comments there, and his brows raise higher and higher while he blows across the top of his coffee. Into the pause, he starts, "Even if - " Then stops and smiles 'cause Alexander done got there first. "A'ight, so." Sip. "I'mma go back to my boss and tell him you were just walking by and ran toward gunshots, like people do." His head tilts, and there's the soft lilt of uncertainty at the end of that statement: is that what Alexander's signing off on?

Alexander thinks about it, before saying, "I probably am. A total whack-job. Just one who doesn't like having to scrub the walls." There's the faintest flicker of a smile there, although it doesn't reach his eyes. He shrugs at the look Graham is giving him, looks down at his coffee. "I'm a curious, crime-obsessed asshole, Stewart. And I'm crazy. Everyone knows that." He looks up, and his eyes are more watchful than crazy. "So, yeah. I had no fucking idea you people were even there when the gunshots went off. I just went to see what was going on."

There's a 'fair enough' dip of Graham's chin about not wanting to wash the walls, but he doesn't pursue the conversation further than that. The coffee keeps him too busy to jabber while Alexander is making his case for the reasonableness of running toward gunshots, waiting until the man has finished before he lowers the cup again. After a substantial pause, one long enough for Alexander to do his creepy staring thing and Graham to get the wheels inside his brain moving again, "What'd you tell the cops?"

Alexander's shoulders droop. "Nothing," he says, and here there's a flash of anger, of bitterness, and even of a deep disappointment. He finally takes a sip of his coffee as if to wash a taste out of his mouth. "I stumbled into some guys apparently trying to kill you people, got taken hostage. It was a blur and I must have been winged by one of the attackers when I tried to get away. Peritraumatic amnesia is very common in instances of exposure to unusual levels of violence. It was tramautic. I'm traumatized."

Alexander is a terrible liar. His voice is utterly flat and toneless, and he doesn't even try to sell it, and he probably didn't even try to sell it to the cops. Just repeated variations on it until they got fed up with him. "I'm sure you can get a copy of my statement, if you need to," he adds, with more bitterness.

Graham listens to this flat rendition of events, and his head tilts more and more aside the longer Alexander goes on, till he gets to the bitter end there, get a copy of his statement. It ignites a juvenile irritation, peevishness: "Why're you so fucking mad about it? You ran toward the gunshots, man, nobody dragged you into that." He puts the coffee down, 'cause that's how pettily aggravated he is now, crossing his free arm over his middle now, frowning all grumpily.

"That's not what I'm angry about, Stewart," Alexander snaps back, like the guy doesn't have a gun. A pause. "No, wait. I am fucking angry that your boss shot me because I just happened to be in his goddamned way. But being angry at Monaghan is like being angry at cancer. Doesn't change a damned thing, and doesn't even make you feel better." He puts down his mug before he spills the hot coffee on himself. "So that's not why I'm angry. I hate lying. But I'm not going to get some poor rookie detective shot in the head because he or she thinks they can turn this into some big success for justice."

They're probably gonna be talking over each other a bit here, because Graham claps back about the Felix-shot-Alexander bit, "Then stay the fuck out of his way next time." He doesn't say 'duh,' but he implies the bejeezus out of it. So that's why Alexander is angry and that's why Graham goes on with, "Well, I'm fresh outta medals for heroes today, so you're just gonna have to accept my sincere apology that you had to lie to the cops, that just breaks my heart." Sarcastically. In case that needs to be spelled out. He tries, at that point, to catch a calming breath...

...and it works. So he exhales it without getting all gun-wavey again. "I'm sorry." Legit.

Alexander does not get shouty when Graham starts to talk over him, and that's probably because of the gun, although his face darkens and it's clear he has to work against the urge. "That's not--" he breaks it off, takes a deep breath, lets it out. "I'm not a fucking hero, and I know that. I know that," he says, more quietly, after a moment. "And I don't expect an apology." A pause. "Although I appreciate it." Another pause. "I appreciate the entire...tone of this exchange so far, actually." But because he can't leave well enough alone, he adds, "Why? Why would you even pretend to be sorry? Like you said, I did it to my own dumb shit self."

Graham's sorry because, "You're obviously not an asshole. You're just crazy or stupid or - " Yeah, that. He nods, agreeing wholeheartedly with the term 'dumb shit.' "I mean, I'm not sorry you got shot and had to lie to the cops about it, that's all on you. I'm sorry I had to come to your house and harass you about it, but it's just." Look, he even puts the gun away, see? It goes safely wherever he carries it when it's not in his hand (holster? belt? idk, never put that much thought into it), leaving him free to fold both arms and straighten up from the kitchen doorway that he's been darkening since coffee came onto the scene. "My job. So, if the answer is 'wrong place at the wrong time,' then a'ight. I can sell that." He's a little daunted about it, true, and his eyes widen and unfocus for a second while he imagines this conversation.

The one he has to have with his boss.

The boss that shot Alexander just because he happened to be in his goddamned way.

"But you should really consider, like, counting to ten or something before you react to shit."

"Six months ago, I would have done my best to kill you before you even got all the way through the door, Stewart. This is progress." Alexander crosses his arms. "Probably." He sighs, seeing Graham's expression change. "Can I give you something to take back with you? Information on the people who are causing disruptions? I don't know the whole shape of the thing, yet. But I've got a couple of names to look into, some idea of what they're doing - other than trying to cripple the cops and your organization."

"Six months ago, I would've shot you and told the boss that you were a fucking narc." Graham smiles his best smile, the one that accounts for howcome this idiot-with-guns isn't rotting in a cell somewhere. "The march of progress." Dimples and everything.

They're short-lived, though. The dimples. They die just like Andre did. 🙁 When Alexander gets to talking about things to take back, giving Graham a moment's pause, brows climbing with interest. "Wait, you mean this wasn't just - " A random hit, the obvious end of that sentence, dies before he exhales it. He's all ears now, wearing his listening expression.

Alexander nods. "Progress." He stares at the dimples, like he suddenly understands why Graham gets away with half the shit he does. He shakes his head. "No. Not random. There have been," he pauses, raises a finger, and visibly perks up, like a dog who someone has waved a treat in front of. Except, in this case, it is the expression of being listened to. The gun is very nearly forgotten, which might startle Graham a bit when he moves with a lurch to go past him and towards his office. "Hold on just a sec. It's easier with a map," he says, and if he doesn't get shot for that, he goes into his office, grabs a map, and returns to spread it out on the kitchen counter.

It has markings and scribblings which might help with the whole 'complete nut-job' thing. That, and his demeanor completely changes to something that's very nearly perky. "Here. A pattern of particular crimes. Minor, for the most part - nothing that arouses suspicion - but meant to test response times. A mugging here, a B&E there, an assault in a business over there. The pattern is in the overlap of patrol routes rather than day or time. And sightings of a guy scoping out scenes before hand. Don't know much about him - just a last name, Reyes. And possible affiliation with a Canadian organization - the Red Scorpions. But when I started looking into him, a group of assholes jumped me. And in my experience, when people start trying to beat the shit out of you, you're probably heading in the right direction. Might have hit the Chief, too, but it's hard to get those records."

Graham's holding on to that earlier composure check to not start waving his gun around again. He does tense when Alexander blows by him, and he shifts his stance so he can keep eyes on the guy as much as he can, then shifts again so he can look at what's being spread on the kitchen counter. For a second, and maybe Alexander misses it 'cause he's all into his map, there's a side-eye given to Alexander of the variety that sane people reserve for insane ones, like they hope it's not contagious and maybe even a little bit of fear tucked in there. It passes quickly, and then he's stepping closer to put eyes on this map, staying WAY out of Alexander's personal space in the process.

He listens. Really listens. The only interruption is one finger tapping one spot on the map, just one little data-point, and he notes, "Probably wasn't your guy," with a small exhale through his nose. He gets hung up for a second on a totally minor problem - "A Canadian guy named Reyes?" - but shakes it off quickly enough. "You seen him? What's he look like? What kinda car does he drive?" And swallows a snicker when Alexander mentions getting jumped; "Your life really fucking sucks, man."

Alexander reaches for a pen on the counter, marks it off. He doesn't argue. He does side-eye Graham. Not about the looks he's getting, because he's used to those, but because, "They have Latinos in Canada, Stewart. Aside from many perfectly pleasant people, there's significant cartel involvement with cities all along the coast, and even up into Canada - and how do you not know that shit?" He harumphs, turns back to the map. "Haven't seen him in person, but I have a description. I can write it up and send it with you. Hasn't been associated with any particular vehicle, thus far."

A pause. "And it's better now, than it was." And there's your sad ass fact of the day, Graham.

How does Graham not know this shit? He answers very slowly and carefully, the way people talk to people who don't speak the same language, "I break into houses in the You Ess of Ay. Why would I know from Mexican Canadian people." It's not a real question. His stance shifts a little, enough to loose one arm and use it to reach up, scratching the back of his head and higher from there, running nails through the mess that was hair some number of hours ago but is now just decorative chaos. "A'ight, send me this description. If the motherfucker is tailing Felix - which these bitches obviously were, 'cause that was supposed to just be the boss and Dre last night." Take a breath, Graham, before getting all worked up again. "I'll keep my eyes open."

As sad as that fact is... his errand today was predicated on such a colossally bad night that the best he can do is pull his mouth askew and nod, like he gets it, bro, he does. "A'ight. I'mma get out of your hair. Tell your old lady she oughta start checking her backseat, though. Six months ago..." See above re: shoots and lies about narcs.

And for the first time in this entire conversation, Alexander looks horrified at Graham's response. It is the horror of the born geek for someone who does not give a shit about their particular obsession. He rubs at his face, glances at his phone when it vibrates on the counter. He doesn't answer it immediately, because there's still a gun. He reaches for a small pad, and writes the description down - his pen only stops briefly, at that last thing. "Don't." He says, very quietly. "Don't ever. You're right. I'm not an asshole. I try not to be. But it won't stop me if someone hurts Isabella." A pause. "That's not a threat. Just information." He pushes the paper towards Graham, expression serious. "Please give Miss Kruger my regards, and I hope she's feeling better."

Graham gets it, the thing about Isabella. It's why his expression is serious right back when he points out, "I'm just passing along a tip as a professional. I've put more than one person in the trunk of a car in my day, she'd've been an easy one." He's trying to be nice. In his way. It ends with a shrug and, "Anyway. Thanks." For the paper, that he takes, glancing over it with eyes that almost definitely need a solid 40-winks before they oughta be thinking about descriptions of perpetrators.

Since he let himself in, he's just fine to let himself out. If Alexander doesn't do it himself, Graham will even make sure to re-lock the deadbolt once he's back on the front porch. Though not without calling through the closed door, "And get a better lock, ya fuckin' nut."

Alexander twitches, and strongly considers kidnapping Isabella himself. It's the only way to be sure. To be safe. He shakes himself out of it, for now, and frowns. "Get some fucking sleep," he adds as the guy takes the offering. There's just a grunt as the door is /relocked/. "I do need to get a better lock," he adds, after a moment. Then he goes to grab his phone, find a corner, and shake for a while. And text. But mostly shake.

Graham would approve of it. If he kidnapped Isabella. In case it ever comes up.