InsaneJournal

Who: Graham (+ hallucination!Lorelei)
What: Narrative.
Where: His place.
When: After finding out about this.
Warnings/Rating: Crazy?

Asleep. He'd been asleep.

Sometimes he dreamed. Sometimes. But this time it was just nothing, vast emptiness and hours dead to the world. When he woke up he didn't know why; he just did. Eyes open and staring into the shadows, blinds pulled down over his window to block out the light, and it was quiet, so quiet. Graham stared a little longer before pushing himself up and out of bed, expecting to find Clem still sleeping on the couch.

But he didn't.

She wasn't there.

He blinked. Rubbed at his eyes, then blinked again. He'd told her to stay. Told her to think about going to the cops, but he hadn't thought she would go without telling him first. He checked his phone, saw her text, but it'd been sent a while ago and she hadn't called yet. He tried, dialed her number once, twice, but it just rang and rang and he hung up in frustration.

Lorelei was in the kitchen. After seeing her regular for over a decade it didn't startle him none, and he spared her the ghost of a smile as he passed. She reached out and closed her fingers around his wrist, a touch he knew, in reality, he couldn't feel, but in the part of his brain that was loudest he felt it all the same. "Darling," she said, and her voice was soft, like cotton, the way she used to talk to him when she was trying to calm him down.

He stopped. Turned. Her eyes were sad, pale in the dim light spilling through the shuttered blinds, and she tugged him into the living room, to the TV, and whispered in his hear to look.

So, Graham looked. He saw. He watched news of the collision, of the unknown man and the victim (Clementine Murphy, and he heard Lorelei gasp beside him), listened to them rattle off that she was unconscious and in critical condition.

Unknown man his ass. He knew who it was. He knew. "I was asleep," he said, his own voice sounding hollow and faraway to his own ears.

"You ought've been watching her, Graham. You were supposed to protect her. Did you hear what they said? My baby sister," Lorelei sobbed, and he was immediately stricken with guilt, his expression anguished and apologetic, and he took her hands in his and begged for her forgiveness. "Please," and "I tried, sweetheart, I tried," and "Don't be angry." Over and over, and his own tears replaced hers, real where hers were not.

In life, Lorelei had rarely gotten angry. In death, his mind made her the same, and so that brief moment of blame passed so quickly he forgot the words had even been spoken at all. She soothed him with her voice, held him close, and he let it all wash over him as he closed his eyes. "I know you tried, love. I know. It's not your fault. You're a good man," she told him, as she had so many times before. "But you know what you have to do, don't you? What you did to the man who pulled the trigger on me. You know."

Graham knew. He hadn't killed Constantos, no, the man had died as a result of his own penchant for making enemies, but the lackey he'd gotten to do his dirty work, oh, he'd found him. "I know," he whispered. "I know."

He felt her pull away, fingers on his cheeks as she looked at him. "You go do what you need to. For Clem."

He nodded. Yes, she was right. He shouldn've gunned that bastard down in the hotel when he'd had the chance, but he could fix it now. He'd make things right. The man, first, and then the girl. And then it'd all be okay.