Graham Ross is a (hauntedsoul) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-10-19 01:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *log, clementine murphy, graham ross, shane alexander |
marvel, log: graham, shane, clem
Who: Graham, Shane, Clem
What: Drinking + dancing.
Where: Bembe (& a hotel).
When: Recentish.
Warnings/Rating: Mostly tame.
Clem asked around about bars, and then she went looking. Most of the folks living in the hostel were in their twenties, same as her, and they seemed to break right on down into two types. Kids that were looking for poetry readings, free-trade coffee and hookahs, and kids looking for places with lights that strobed like crazy and music with a whole lot of bass going for it. Clem knew better than to think Graham or Shane would feel at home in either of those places, and she went a little further afield in her hunting, with some help from the internet.
Bembe was a few extra blocks down, but it was dark and steam without being full of glowsticks and electronica, and Clem thought it would do real fine. It was a place geared toward folks that hadn't gotten their drinking card just the day before, and she didn't much care about the folks present if there would be dancing. She hadn't gone out since Vegas, and it had taken a few drinks out on the terrace of the hostel to even chase off fearing enough to suggest it to Graham and Shane. But it was time to go moving on from that whole mess with the dead folks, and she never did things by half.
Clem didn't have herself a damn clue what was going on with Amelia; she'd thought the woman and her boy would be staying back in DC, but that didn't happen, and maybe Clem should've invited her along. But truth was, plain as day, that she wasn't real sure how drunk she was going to need to get to be fine with a whole mess of bodies pressing in. She trusted Graham much as she trust her own lungs to keep working, and trusting Shane was something that had snuck up on her, and she didn't even know when it happened. Amelia was real nice, but Clem just didn't know her well to stumble drunk in front of the woman.
Back home, clubbing would've come with something short and skimpy and real brightly colored, but she dressed down instead of up. The shirt was borrowed from a boy at the hostel, and the jeans she'd walked out with without paying, and she'd never needed a steal a damn thing in her whole life, but she didn't have a cent to her name just then. She had an appointment with an agent come real soon, and she figured tonight was the time to get over being skittish 'round men. Three beers, and she was waiting outside the club, having texted Shane the address, and knowing he would bring Graham on along with him.
Clubbing. Even when he'd been younger, Shane hadn't done much clubbing, at least when he wasn't fucking working. But he wasn't a dope slinger, yeah? He and Graham dealt with distribution—acting as violent middlemen between producer and seller. They moved product, but they didn't sell it. So clubs? Places with lights and dancing and men doing shots off of women's stomachs? That shit wasn't really on Shane's radar, yeah? He liked to stay home, to get drunk alone or with Graham and the company of some shitty television program. Or he had. Once upon a time. Back before the fucking waking nightmare of the hotel had taken his cat, television, and booze.
But, least he still had Graham and his family—and even goddamn Clementine Murphy.
Still, shit was dour, yeah? Moods were black and glum, and, hell, they could use a night to just get away from the daily drag of finding food and money enough to cover another night in the hostel.—After agreeing to go "dancing" with Peaches and Graham, Shane went to find himself some shitty vodka, and he made quite the dent in the plastic bottle.
Shane was cleaner than before—than zombies and nights spent cramped in a cell. His hair was actually still damp, his skin cool underneath the double layer of shirts, one striped black and white, underneath maroon flannel buttoned haphazardly. And despite the shit being fresh out of one of those clothes donation bins, they were already heavy with cigarette smoke.
With Graham at his side, Shane led the way, the map of New York—at least, Williamsburg and Brooklyn, where they'd been staying, already memorized and laid plain in his mind's eye. He sniffed, his cigarette burning between his lips. The bottle of vodka sloshed forlornly in the back pocket of his black jeans. He'd been saying something to his friend, making some kind of offer, when he recognized Clementine as the figure outside the bar, people flowing in and out of the propped open door.
"Peaches," he said in greeting, curt and gruff. His eyes fell on her t-shirt. "Kids' night, yeah?"
Graham had never gone clubbing. The word evoked images of neon and glowsticks, loud music and too many bodies, none of which he was real fond of. Oh, he’d been in clubs once or twice, but not to party or dance or even drink, and even those occasions were rare; he and Shane had never been sellers. They hadn’t been the men in back rooms, exchanging product for cash. They’d made sure it got where it needed to go, made sure nobody was trying to pull any funny business or make up their own rules, but even that was in the past. The present was a hostel. The present was trying to find work, again, to make enough money to survive, and it wasn’t that he missed the undead or the Governor; no, he just missed the simplicity of it. Survival, no need for work or jobs. Civilization was gone and society was in ruins. It was easy to forget how to be human, not so easy to relearn it all.
But here Graham was anyway, somehow having wound up agreeing to go dancing with Clem and Shane. He didn’t drink at bars, didn’t do the social drinking thing at all; when he did drink, it was with Shane or by himself, but even that hadn’t happened in a while. And sure, he and Lorelei had gone out when they were younger, but the places back home? They weren’t like they were here. He’d only agreed for Clem, because he knew she hated being cooped up and she was having a hard time with things, first zombies and then Gotham; maybe this would help. And, if nothing else, at least he’d be around if trouble showed up. He was real good with trouble.
Unlike Shane, he was sober. It was real tempting to not be, but for now he was, and he followed his friend dutifully on their way to the bar, mulling over the fact that despite their constant shitty circumstances at least they had each other. He was cleaner than he’d been in a long while, though still on the scruffy side, and since they didn’t have a hell of a lot of money the clothes had a worn-in look. Not that he gave a damn either way. His hands were in his pockets, half listening to Shane and half eyeing everyone who passed on either side, and he noticed Clem a second after his friend did. Was that what people wore clubbing? He had no idea.
“Cute.” It was a gruff, offhanded remark, half amused by her choice in clothing and half utterly baffled.
Clem looked them both over when they showed. She was already real warm and fuzzy 'round the edges, and she scoffed at the comments about what she was wearing. "You two look like you think we're going lumberjacking. I wouldn't go criticizing." She yanked on the front of both their flannels at the belly, her tug sharper than it would've been without that early booze lubricating her thinking some. "I worked at a firehouse in Vegas. We watched nothing but anime and sci-fi all damn night long, " she told them. "Played a whole lot of video games too. I like Star Wars." It wasn't the kind of thing that fit real well with the woman who liked wearing bright pink up to there, but it was true all the same. She didn't much see the point in playacting with Graham and Shane, not these days. It helped some that her confidence hadn't gone anywhere during her time with the undead folks, and she knew her jeans looked just fine, real low like they were, and there wasn't a thing beneath that little boy's shirt.
She let go of that flannel she'd been gripping in each hand, and she turned and waved her fingers at the man at the door. She'd already flirted him up some while she waited, and he'd promised she could bypass that pesky old line when her friends showed. He didn't look real impressed with her friends, but that didn't matter worth a lick.
Inside, it was brick walls and wood tables, pool in the back and folks dancing all over. It was a strange mix of bar and clubbing, and it was missing the strobing lights Clem associated with dancing, white lines and sex in bathrooms. But the music was good and loud, and there were enough folks dancing in the smoky lowlight that it would do just fine for her purposes. She snaked her way through the crowd, ignoring every last call for her attention, and she stopped at the corner of the bar, where a few stools were just being vacated against the wall. It was the best privacy this place was offering, and she pressed back against the brick and caught her breath some. She was an unthinking slide of hand over Graham's hip once they neared, and another tug at the front of Shane's shirt. "Shots? Doubles?" Which was the nice way of saying get to ordering, before I panic all over the damn place.
To Shane's eye, Graham always did look like a goddamn preacher's son—save for that time he had blood running red through his teeth, yeah? But that, he figured, was a one-off thing (not the behavior behind it, but the act itself). The man tucked his shirts in, buttoned them up the way people did—not all the way, but near enough. Even when his clothing was worn, he didn't slouch or slink. Hell, maybe it was that blond halo of hair of his too, giving him that whole fucking angelic look. Whether the men appeared a pair about to go lumberjacking or not, done up in dual flannel, Shane knew he looked nothing like his friend. If Graham had wanted to, he could have talked real fucking sweet to anyone in the bar, and they'd listen, yeah? That was what he was good at, when they'd worked in Vegas—people trusted him easily—he didn't make friends, but he was the sort of man other men respected. Shane's perpetual half-cigarette ashed and smoking between his fingers, his black jeans and the ugly, chemical spew of Jersey still seeping into his words, and he was more the type you skirted around on a narrow sidewalk, the type you tucked your purse closer around.
Shane gave a grunt that those who knew him better might recognize as laughter at Clementine's explanation of the boy's t-shirt, it expressed amusement, as well as a bit of 'you're fucking ridiculous,' all without a word. And wasn't that fucking something too, yeah?—the change there? After everything they'd all been through, there was a sort of ease, a ...well, he wouldn't call it a sense of security because that sounded fucking stupid, but something like that about being together, yeah?—that made him not give so much as a shit as the girl dragged him forward by his shirt.
The cigarette was squashed out on the pavement, and in they went. He didn't care that he was crashing Clementine and Graham's whatever the fuck, yeah? They could flirt whenever they wanted. He just wanted to drink, and it'd be better with friends along. If they wanted to get cozy in the blackened nook Clementine led them too, they were just going to have to do it with Shane spilling beer on them. Of course, Graham wouldn't do that, and he knew it. Clementine, he could see, but not Graham.
Shane nodded at the second tug on his shirt. He could recognize the looseness in her behavior.
"Sit the fuck down, I'll be right back," was all Shane said before he moved off toward the bar he'd clocked to the right when they'd walked in. Whatever hoots and shit Clementine got, Shane did not. He kept his fucking head down and shouldered anyone who got in his way until he got to the front of the bar to order.
It wasn't but a few minutes later, a few crumpled bills lighter, that Shane came back with shots: six, gold, tequila. No salt, no lemons. Three glasses in each hand. He passed them out.
"Someone fucking think of some shit to toast to, yeah?"
Graham liked what he was wearing, liked buttons and plaid and flannel, and so he just shrugged. He wasn’t all that bothered. His childhood had been politeness and manners, morals and religion, and even though he’d grown up and stopped going to church a long time ago, some of that still seeped through now; the accent he’d never quite lost, a calm sort of quiet that wasn’t like Shane at all. Even his madness was sedate, mostly harmless, not violent or unpredictable. He was capable of ripping a man’s throat out but that didn’t mean he would unless he was pushed real far. Maybe the contrast was why he and Shane worked so well together, a bond forged through balance, but he didn’t think about why they were friends. He didn’t think about how. They just were, and if he was going to have anybody with him in some club-bar-whatever he was glad it was him. “Not criticizing,” he said mildly, and like Shane he didn’t mind when Clem tugged on his shirt. He pulled his hands out of his pockets as they went inside, and even though it was loud and crowded at least there weren’t any of those crazy lights flashing every which way, color and flash and too much for his liking. He knew Clem wanted to dance, and he knew she’d probably try to drag him along, but he was the kind of guy who had a healthy respect for personal space and even if getting cozy had been on his mind, he wouldn’t do a damn thing with Shane there.
If Graham noticed the attention she got on their way to the corner, he didn’t remark on it, and he understood the slide of her hand over his hip, the request for booze, but he let Shane take care of that. He nodded when his friend said he’d be right back, and he slid onto a stool next to where Clem leaned back against the wall. A few minutes later, Shane was back, and the shots were being passed around; he set one down on the bar, held the other. Some shit to toast to, and he thought about it for a second.
“To being alive.” Macabre humor, maybe, but Graham said it with a smile, and he raised the shot in a toast before tossing it back.
When Shane came on back, Clem moved away from the wall and leaned against Graham's back, arm over his shoulder as she reached for one of the shot glasses Shane was handing out. She downed her shot before the toast, and she wiggled her fingers for the second, which she did manage to raise plenty high, and with only some little bit of sloshing against the flannel Graham liked so well. Toasting to being alive sounded like settling some to her, and she walked around the man on the barstool and leaned back against the inside of his thigh, easy, as if sliding between the two men was something she did most days, and not just now on account of being drunk. "To being alive, and to finding someplace to live that ain't bunk beds and puking co-eds," she added.
Amelia was saying they'd fallen real far, and Clem tried not to think on that much. It sounded like Amelia came from money, which Clem hadn't realized until the woman started talking like she'd had some once. But Clem missed her life, and make no mistake. The hostel was clean enough most days, and they could come and go like they wanted, but it was still a hostel. It wasn't a place with a closet full of things, and she'd never had to worry a lick over money before now. Even if she landed her audition, it'd be some time before she had anything like what she had before, and she wasn't sure Graham or Shane could get themselves rich any quicker. She knew they did illegal things, but neither man was rolling in money, not as far as she could tell. She wondered if that meant they were real bad at what they did, or if they just didn't care how much they got paid. Lore being dead, that made her think it was the former, but those thoughts were all just plain in the way just then, and she brushed them off with the back of her hand to her forehead, like pushing strands of wayward hair out of her eyes would go making her memories flee.
She tossed back her second shot, and she slid the empty glass onto the high counter at Graham's elbow. The leaning forward made her stumble some, and she laughed easy, like before zombies and siblings trying to kill her dead. She used Shane's arm to steady, and she looked over her shoulder at Graham with a grin before settling back steady on her feet. Starting early meant those two shot went straight to her empty belly and swirled around, making her lightheaded as could be, and she was real glad of it.
The song playing was loud enough to require nearly hollering over, and she didn't try any, but it was good for moving. Swaying hips and denim riding low enough to bare a sliver of nothing crimson in the form of thong against pale skin. Standing between Graham's thighs meant she had denim and muscle to set her hand down against if she got too dizzy, and she yanked on Shane's shirt front again, because that man was just too damn still for his own good.
"To being fucking alive," Shane agreed, with only a slipshod, surly smile and the tincture tip of tequila down his throat like it was nothing, his arm being appropriated by Clementine for balance. Gallows humor was fitting right now. Maybe they were out from under the soot-sky of Gotham and its goddamn ilk, but, fuck if bad luck and death skulls, fucking brains still sloshing side to side in putrefaction, didn't follow them everywhere. Marvel had been okay thus far though, yeah? Everything considered, anyway. Yeah, a hostel wasn't fucking ideal, but it was better than a prison cell—it—fuck—Shane's thoughts short-circuited in a hardwire spray of mental sparks as he slammed back that second shot and a fucking horrible song started playing, loud, filling the space like the smoke that snaked from hundreds of cigarettes forgotten between fingers and in ashtrays around the room.
Shane frowned hard at the nearest recessed speaker and its bullshit, and all but tossed his shot glass onto the high counter behind Clementine's, where it slipped and rolled, just this side of shattering. Shane shook his head, the most fucking displeased a man could be without a siphon of anger, and he was ready to fend off any attempts to make him sway in time with whatever the fuck this was, when Clementine's fingers found the front of his shirt again and he lurched forward, bumping into her as she knocked him off balance with her yank.
"Fuck—" The man swore hard, like fucking brimstone was eating at the soles of his boots and not some shitty, fucking rhythm, but he smiled rough, pushing Clementine on the shoulder lightly as she danced between Graham's thighs. He pulled a cigarette out of the cushioned carton in his front pocket and lit it in a motion almost invisible, lighter lit and snuffed, tucked away again. Shane waved it toward Graham, his eyes moving between Clementine and her fucking red thong made of goddamn string and Graham's stoic expression of long-suffering masculinity. "You get his ass on his feet and doing more than fucking standing there useless as shit, yeah? Two more rounds on me if you manage it, Peaches."
Shane sniffed, still grinning, and took a drag on that long, crooked cigarette. After a moment's thought, he held it out toward Clementine.
Money didn’t mean much to Graham these days. Before, it was a means to provide for his family, to take care of Lorelei and his son, but now? Now, there was no one to take care of. Except, maybe, there was; a hostel might’ve been fine for him and Shane but not for Clem. She needed something better. And he couldn’t give her a mansion, not like the Murphys could have, but he wouldn’t toss her down the stairs either-- that had to count for something.
But he’d figure it out. He’d find work, find money. Thing was he wouldn’t be finding a damn thing here, so best not to mull over it, not when the music and the booze made it hard to think anyways.
Graham watched, amused, as Clem tossed back her second shot, and he could tell it’d gone straight to her head. But he wasn’t worried, not when he and Shane were there to keep an eye on her, and so he returned her grin with a smile. It’d been a while since he’d heard her laugh all carefree-like, and hell, he wasn’t going to begrudge her that. He downed his second shot in no particular hurry, refraining from any eye-rolls in response to the song that started playing, too damn loud, but normal in a place like this. Still, he understood Shane’s frown, giving him a look that said as much, and maybe a different kind of man wouldn’t have been capable of stoicism with a woman dancing between his thighs, but he wasn’t like most of the men in this place. He didn’t tell her to stop, but he didn’t touch her either, and he chuckled when she tugged on Shane’s shirt and knocked him off balance. Yeah, it was funny, but his smile faded and he scrunched up his eyes at Shane when he offered two more rounds in exchange for Clem getting ‘his ass on his feet’.
“Fuck you.” It was good-natured, flung over Clem’s shoulder, and Graham shook his head.
Clem didn't take the cigarette Shane held out. She leaned forward, hands on Graham's thighs to keep her balance, and she sucked on the end while Shane was still holding on. She inhaled real long, and then she blew the smoke clear into Shane's face, and her tipsy grin said she liked the game he was playing. Games felt like home, and she was always into a whole lot of fun that didn't involve pain or risking dying; she wasn't into them things, though she wasn't fussed over anyone who was.
She heard Graham cursing over her shoulder, and that made her laugh again, that real easy laugh that said she'd forgotten about dead folks walking and locked up rooms with rough men, and she had the shots to thank for that. Shane was offering more if she won this little challenge, and no way wasn't she going to try. She leaned on back against Graham's chest, as if she needed to think real hard on it, even though she didn't need to think on it none at all. "You're on, honey," she finally slurred, even knowing Graham was shaking his head behind her. She sealed the deal easy, leaning forward and pressing a drink-sloppy kiss to Shane's mouth, on account of things like that just not mattering a lick to Clem. Sex, and everything associated with it, was for fun. Folks mussed it up with love all the time, wanting, but Clem knew sure as could be the two things had not a damn thing to do with each other. Made folks feel better to think so was all.
She turned, still between the two men and making no move to go pulling Graham out into the crowd. Instead, she just stood real close and tugged on his hands. "You come on. I want more drinks, and you don't even got to go out where the folks are," she bargained, her smile sugar sweet and her blue, blue eyes booze-black and blown. She pressed a kiss to his mouth, same as she had with Shane, and then she tugged again, this time on the belt loops of his jeans, moving back as she went and stumbling right on back into Shane some.
Shane wasn't blasted out of his goddamn skull with drink—yet. There was no black pall pulled down over seasick eyes, blues gone gritty. But there was no clarity there either, if the usual nighttime fog rolling sideways down irises, all ringing Alexander-purple underneath, could be called clarity. No, Shane was drunk off his ass, warmth tingling skin beneath the jailhouse stripes of his shirt. He just wasn't as done in as Clementine just yet, yeah? He wasn't fucking steady, but he managed to stand as the drink from earlier worked past bones and tissue, joined quickly by the two head-heavy shots of tequila still hot in his throat. The fifth of vodka in his back pocket even made a slight sound underneath the music as he leaned forward, holding that cigarette Clementine puffed on long and slow, encouraging the lazy, responsive kind of grin from the man that was rare outside the confines of rooms with doors firmly closed and shitty plastic blinds allowing light through like broken teeth a tongue. It slipped to Graham too, when the other man spoke.
"Yeah, okay," was all Shane said, the cigarette back between teeth as he laughed at his stubborn friend, sitting there fucking stoic as a Buddha statue as Clementine Murphy danced between his goddamn legs. But whatever was left of the joke, words off the cuff, slipped out of his mind as Clementine drew nearer—and nearer—and kissed him. And it was all about fucking context, yeah? Because 20 minutes earlier, Shane would have swore and stalked off, shoulders pulled up to his ears. Shit, a couple months earlier and it never would have fucking happened. But, now, caught in the crosshairs of that fucking bass he could feel in his goddamn blood, thinned as it was with drink, and her mouth on his, a brief thing, warm, he just returned it with a snort of amusement sending tendrils of smoke from his nose.
Shane likely wasn't of the same opinion as Clementine that sex was just fun, a couple bodies in the dark somewhere. It took a bit more for him—it wasn't fucking fun if there wasn't something else there first. But, yeah, that wasn't the case here, was it? After everything, there was attachment, yeah? To Graham, to Clementine. And after those nights in the storage unit, the shitty months after that, all the skittishness and the sleepless bruises beneath eyes, fun was fucking alright with him.
He watched with smugness apparent as she tried to butter Graham up, another kiss given freely. He lifted his hands to keep his friends off the sticky ground as Clementine pulled on Graham's belt loops and they came backwards toward him. He helped, reaching around Clementine, to tug Graham with more muscle.
"You get the fuck up, asshole, you can get four shots, yeah? Here—" Shane plucked the illicit vodka, washed warm, from his pocket and pressed it to his friend's chest, arms still reaching around the woman between them. "Fucking drink up, yeah? Christ, you're lagging."
If there was a nod there or the light placement of elbow to Clementine's side to express a specific notion—help him drink up—well, maybe the salvo of terrible music distracted Graham from noticing he was being sabotaged from all sides.
Despite his lack of enthusiasm for dancing and clubs, Graham had to admit that it was nice to hear Clem laugh like she used to, before dead things and men more monster than human. His resistance to their little game was more bark than bite, since it was no secret he had a soft spot for her and was unlikely to actually deny her something that would, even just temporarily, make her happy. He rolled his eyes some when she accepted Shane’s bet with slurred confidence, more an act than anything, but slipped up and chuckled at the sloppy kiss she pressed to his friend’s mouth. Without the booze Shane’d cursed up a storm, and the fact that he didn’t was what made it humorous. There was a level of comfort, maybe, between the three of them, born of shared experiences and time, and he had a thought that this was really all he needed. One or two people he was close to, and that was enough to keep him content.
He knew Clem was different, knew she didn’t see sex the same way he (and Shane) did. Like his friend, he needed something more than just fun. He didn’t do one-night stands or casual sex, in fact he didn’t do sex at all and hadn’t in a long, long time, but he was something of a romantic in that he thought it was better when love was involved. Or, at least, some kind of affection more meaningful than physical attraction, but that meant letting people get close and so most of the time he just shied away from contact in general.
But it was a mix of booze and a level of comfort--trust, even--that kept Graham from going all tense and rigid at how close Clem was. Rewind a few months, and it would’ve made him damn uncomfortable, but now he didn’t mind. Didn’t care. He tipped his head to the side as she tried to bargain with him, another kiss given to wear him down, and even though part of him knew he’d give in, eventually, he lifted a one shoulder in a shrug. Maybe, teasing, but the combination of her pulling on his belt loops and Shane adding his own muscle got him off the stool, from sitting to standing.
“Pains in the ass, both of you.” But it was fond, and he took the vodka shoved at him without complaint. Graham knew they were conspiring to get him to loosen up, though he missed the nod, the touch to her elbow, as he studied the booze with the pulsing of music helping to make the world fuzzy. He unscrewed the bottle, brought it to his lips and took a swig, oblivious; he figured maybe it couldn’t hurt to let go just this once.
Clem had always been plenty sure about things in her life. Maybe it was that silver spoon that only went and got more silver the more tarnished her siblings became, but she never did consider that she wouldn't get what she wanted out of living. It made being stuck in that dead door real hard, because she didn't have a damn bit of context to go along with feeling trapped. In all her days, it was the first time life had gone real wrong in a way that didn't involve her siblings or her daddy. Even now, later on, she couldn't think on it much; it shook the foundation that she was real solid on. It was safe as anything, going back to assuming the world was going to give her all she pleased. Maybe it was just plain coping, or a sign of being not right in the head, that she clung to the fact that nothing had gone wrong so tight. But she didn't think Graham would deny her a thing, and maybe that was its own kind of being naive. Heck, she didn't think Shane would go fussing over things she wanted neither, not recent. She wasn't thinking hard these days, or she might've reckoned it wasn't so different from how Shane treated Graham in general, like kidd gloves and watching after.
She wasn't near sober for any of that reasoning; she just knew she wasn't worried a lick, and she smiled on back at Shane when he touched her elbow light. She knew what the man was saying without so much as a word coming from his mouth, and she liked attention too damn much to question anything they were doing. It was nice and safe, and the folks in the loud place didn't even matter no more; Shane and Graham were intimidating enough that no one came real close.
She smiled bright when Graham stood, like they'd accomplished something grand, and she watched him tip the vodka back. She swayed, jeans low and strips of red and no damn cares in the world. She took the bottle a second later, and she took her own swallow, though she was gone as could be, and then she gave it right on back, pressed it up to Graham's mouth, all encouraging. She reached back easy, hand along the plaid at Shane's side, getting his attention before talking, so he could come close and hear without her hollering. "We should find us some money. Get somewhere to sleep that ain't bunk beds with girls that can't hold their liquor." Because that was what the room she shared with three others was like in the hostel, and a real bed after all this sounded damn fine. Clem didn't care much about law breaking, and she took the vodka and handed it back to Shane, hands free and moving to Graham's hips. "You got to move if we're going to call it dancing, sugar."
There were parts of before that stuck to Shane's fucking innards, tacky and hard, like grits to the ribs, shit he just couldn't fucking unstick from his craw, yeah?—that warm, blood metallic tang of the storage unit, the rotted out remains of a putrefying corpse, guts tugged from bundle of abdomen like so many fucking noodles in a soup, somehow still squishy underfoot. The smells stayed with him the most. The smells and the sounds, the husky rush of breathing where breath couldn't fucking be, lungs useless bags collapsed pink in cavity of chest. And even before that, some that replayed too, by the night. But less so now. Less bright, like an old VHS tape run too many times through the VCR, film starting to slip from plastic rudders. No, now it was the heavy weight of warm air in that small space, the blackness as it pressed down on skull as he laid spread on cement scabbed a jaundiced yellow with skin of the dead.—He knew it wouldn't go away, yeah? Probably fucking ever. And he knew Clementine had her own ugly reruns. Graham his, with special goddamn accompaniment by his long-dead, murdered wife.
Booze helped though, yeah? Booze and excising themselves from the vice of Gotham where everything blotted down hard during the blockades and riots. Booze, leaving, even the horrible fucking thrum of music, and having Graham and Clementine here helped. Bones in the socket of a joint, they worked together well—drinking or not, yeah? Shane watched the bottle of antiseptic vodka change hands as Clementine urged him closer with a brush of fingers, stooping in to listen as she spoke.
The man grinned, nothing bright or anything, but the usual bemused expression of an older brother as Graham cursed them fondly.
"Yeah, you almost fucking sound like you mean it."
From the back pocket that hadn't been occupied by the vodka, Shane tugged out the leather cell of a worn wallet, done dark in brown, and thick. Most of the shit was receipts, Shane had found out, but there was at least a hundred bucks in cash and a couple of German credit cards—some fucking tourist had left the thing in his room when he went to shower. Plain as day it had sat on the unkempt white of a hostel bed, and as Shane had popped in for a look inside the unlocked lockers, he came across it. But, since he wasn't an entirely fucking terrible person, he left a card behind for the sorry German fuck, and just took the rest. He waved the thing in Clementine's face as she handed him the vodka.
He finished the bottle easy then, cigarette transferred to fingers, and tossed it to his feet, uncaring. The man tipped forward, chin near Clementine's shoulder to talk to her and her reluctant dance partner as she marionetted poor Graham as easy as if he had strings.
"You two finish your dance, yeah?" This was said with utmost hilarity suppressed to Shane's asphalt-cut features. Even he wouldn't call that dancing. "I'll get you those rounds. Then we can go somewhere. No bunk beds, yeah, but no fucking promise on the girls who can't hold their liquor."
Shane spoke dryly, but it was clear, if you knew him, that he found the whole thing funny. Clementine was eyeball deep and he'd get Graham to fucking catch up if he could. He turned then with a haphazard wave over his shoulder.
It took a few minutes and a few well-placed elbows and the threat of charcoal-orange heat of a cigarette near over-hairsprayed hair, but he came back then, all promised shots accounted for—two for Clementine, four for Graham, and two for Shane. Shitty stuff, tequila again, but it worked quick.
Graham wasn’t near as drunk as Clem, but for a man who didn’t hit the bottle much unless he was with Shane, something to pass the time more often than not, the shots and the vodka he was presently tossing back did the trick. The world took on a blurred quality, but it was kind of nice, and he felt real warm in a way that was nice, too. All the bullshit they’d been through, the hellish nightmares of blood and rot and death, were kept at bay by layer after layer of alcohol and maybe one night wasn’t much of a reprieve but it was more than he’d had in a while. Since they’d ended up in Gotham, since waking up naked and bruised in an alley. He chuckled when Clem smiled bright, bright, like getting him up off his ass was something to be proud of (maybe it was), and to an extent it was true that he wouldn’t deny her what she asked for. Harmless things like dancing were fine; but he’d dug his heels in when she’d insisted on going to stay with Isaac, the bastard, and so the way it worked in his mind was that he’d only say no if it was for her own good. Somebody had to save her from herself.
It took a couple of seconds to register the loss of the bottle between his fingers, but Graham didn’t stop her from bringing it to her lips, drinking more than she ought to; drunk or not he knew himself and Shane well enough to not have to worry. They could keep unwanted strangers away without trying. It was a thoughtless thing, swallowing down more vodka when she bottle was pressed back against his mouth, and it wasn’t that Graham didn’t know what Clem was trying to do, what they both were; he just wasn’t all that inclined to care. Still, he gave Shane a look and a wave of the vodka bottle. “Shut up.” He only half-listened as Clem talked about her desire to find someplace, a hotel, no hostel or sharing. Where they went had never mattered all that much to him, because he’d stopped caring without Lorelei or his son to worry about. Long as it was safe, long as they wanted to be there, he’d go wherever. Shane producing the wallet made him laugh, a knowing thing, and he gave him a mock wave as he set off to get more shots.
His friend disappeared in the crowd, and Graham turned his attention back to Clem. “You think I can’t move?” His hands, which had been at his sides, moved to her hips, lingered, before settling on the small of her back. It was easy for past and present to overlap when he wasn’t sober, another time, another place, another woman, but it was anybody’s guess how much of him was where in that moment. His balance was still pretty good but he swayed towards her without realizing it, the temptation to lean his weight against her guided by warmth and no thought; he didn’t know if it was dancing, but it was something. Movement, at least, and he wasn’t sure if it had been minutes or hours before Shane returned with more booze. He looked up, gaze hazy, and grinned. He reached past Clem to take his, one after the other, and by the time he’d downed the fourth the room seemed to be spinning, just a little, and everything was funny.
“Come on.” He tugged on Shane’s shirt suddenly, and his arm around Clem’s waist ensured that he pulled her with him when he moved, a little unsteady, but he wasn’t going to go falling over and that was what mattered. He had no idea where any damn hotels were, but he managed to drunkenly wave down a cab and the driver did (normally Shane would’ve done the talking but he was too drunk to notice) and it was enough for him. Long as it wasn’t a hostel, he figured it was good.
Clem was near being drunk as a skunk, but she didn't mind even a lick. It was nice, not worrying for the first time since being trapped in that hell of dead folks and living men gone evil. Money had always kept Clem safe as could be. Even when Lorelei died, she'd had all the therapists and all the shopping. Her daddy had taken her off on a summer abroad, and it was all meant to make her forget hurting. Rich little girls, they didn't hurt none. Her momma's antics on the fainting couch were just that, antics. Nothing was dreadful until nearly dying in Vegas, and that all abutted with the undead in her head. But just then, there wasn't a thing that was bad. She grinned at Shane and his wallet, and she didn't have any law-abiding in her, but that came from always having everything she wanted. Didn't teach a person much about things that weren't theirs, and her daddy always said everything the whole world over belonged to her, if she just asked him real pretty for it.
Shane went off, and maybe they should quit drinking, but that was too much thinking for her. Graham was claiming he could dance, and she knew that was a whole lot of not true. She starting say so, but his hands were on the small of her back, and she figured telling the man that swaying and dancing weren't the same just wasn't all that important. Now, she was too vain to let herself think he was mistaking her for her sister. Shane had told her, sure enough, but it would mess with Clem's head too much to put any stock in it; so she didn't. His balance was a whole lot better than hers just then, and she wound her fingers in that plaid at his shoulders, tugging on it when the world went unsteady. He was plenty warm, and her fingers went and drew lines down from that crumpled plaid at his collarbones to the skin just above that top button.
Then Shane was back, and by the time she swallowed down the fresh shots she didn't have a care left in the world. It took her a few seconds to realize where Graham was leading them to, on account of forgetting what she'd asked for. But by the time they poured out of the cab she remembered just fine. Unsteadily, she went on ahead and asked for a room. They were paying cash, she told the man, and she let Shane hand over the money for the room and deposit.
There was nothing real special about the hotel, but it was still nicer than they'd had in months. She didn't count that big old place in Gotham, seeing as she hadn't left her room a lick there and barely remembered the days after Jude and the stairs. But this place, she saw as she managed to get the card in the lock with a whole lot of fussing, had one big old bed, and sheets white as could be, and the television was big as anything they'd seen lately. She'd grown up with everything at her fingertips, and she'd fallen so damn far that this felt like something special.
She flicked on the television, and she flicked on the lights, and she kicked off her shoes and shimmied out of her jeans without caring a lick she wasn't alone. She'd never had a bit of self-consciousness about her body, and the horrors of that storage unit in Woodbury couldn't surface through all that booze in her system. She laughed when the jeans threatened to trip her right up, and she kicked them clear across the room as she slid back onto the bed, red thong and sweat-damp little boy's shirt making it clear as ever there was nothing underneath. "If either of you think you're getting in this bed wearing that plaid? You got another thing coming."
The cab ride passed without Shane really being too aware of what the fuck was going on. There was some laughter at Graham as the normally reticent man tried to pry the location of a hotel from the cabbie, there was some playful shoving and some mourning over the now empty plastic flask of vodka and the cigarette that was unceremoniously sucked out of the window, and, yeah, that was about all the drunk man's mind remembered, before they showed up in the doorway of the fucking ridiculous looking hotel room. Green-tufted headboard tacked to the wall, with blankets—down-filled, he could just fucking tell—over the king-sized bed bleached a white purer than anything Shane had seen in fucking ages. He gave the place an eyeballing, at once skeptical and too fucking drunk to actually care, yeah?
Shane tossed the metal shell of his lighter and the squashed box of cigarettes onto the desk arranged underneath the looming threat of the television, emptying his pockets as Clementine unspooled from her jeans. He rolled his eyes at her, but more compliant drunk than not, he stripped off the brown plaid that laid over the black-and-white of his shirt underneath. There was no shame there either, in watching Clementine get in the bed, or in undressing himself—they'd spent too fucking long together, him and Graham firstly, but Clementine too, for him to feel self-conscious. They'd seen each other look fucking far worse than anything that a lack of shirt would reveal.
Once Shane was down to boxers, black turned gray, everything else forgotten by the foot of the bed, and the lights were flicked off, he plopped down on top of the blankets and rolled onto his side with a groan.
"Fuck those hostel beds." The shit was more metal bar than mattress. This was like a goddamn cloud. The man worked his way under the duvet in spite of clinging sweat, the heat underneath welling up and sticking to skin. Shane rolled to face Clementine and Graham. He gave them both a grin before he swiped the pillow from underneath Clementine's head for himself. It was placed protectively over arm and under his ear.
Sober, he’d have been the voice of reason. Graham didn’t talk much and when he did he preferred to use as few words as possible, but on the good days (which did outnumber the bad) when he was lucid he was good at maintaining a level head. But he wasn’t sober, far from it, and he couldn’t rightly say he remembered much of the cab ride or how he ended up in the doorway of a hotel room. He understood there had been a sequence of events which had brought them here, and he vaguely recalled his conversation with the cab driver, but then it was Shane and cash and following Clem to the room like the dog he’d insisted he wasn’t. It was nice, nicer than the hostel, a damn sight nicer than the hellhole they’d been stuck in when they were surrounded by the undead. He staggered inside, momentarily absorbed in the surprisingly challenging task of kicking off his shoes.
Graham looked up when Clem banned their plaid from the bed, and normally he’d have averted his gaze and slept on the floor no questions asked. But he was drunk, and he was tired, and they’d all been naked and vulnerable in front of each other in the same damn space. Besides, he and Shane were like brothers; they’d spent a lot of time together, and it just didn’t matter anymore. He pulled a face but relented, clumsy fingers as he worked at the buttons of his shirt and finally managed to get it off. He got as far as his belt after, and then he just kind of forgot and crawled into bed, the last, still in his jeans.
Laughter gurgled up when Shane swiped the pillow, and Graham nudged his over a little since he didn’t really give a damn about pillows; the bed was nice, nicer than the hostel, and it wasn’t like he’d have any trouble sleeping.
The bed was like heaven, and Clem had hoisted herself on up the middle and to the pillows. She made a real contented sound, one that appreciated a cheap old hotel bed a whole lot more than she ought, but it was plenty soft, and she was plenty deprived. She was considering a long bath while the menfolk stripped down, and Graham not obliging about his jeans made her huff in a real disapproving way. A second later, and she decided she was just too damn tired for bathing off the sweat and smoke from the club, and there would be time for washing before they left come morning. In fact, she rolled over Shane's body and grabbed the phone on the nightstand. She sat up, the cord dragging right on over Shane's face, and she asked for a real late checkout. She thought the woman on the other end said yes, but it was a lick confusing, and she wasn't keen on making extra sense of the words the woman saying.
She stretched, and she turned off the light as she put the phone back, her elbow against Shane's armpit, and the phone falling on down to the floor with her misjudgement of distance. But it was too much trouble to do a thing about it, and she just looked at it a spell, before deciding it could make that godawful 'off the hook' sound until it shut itself up all by its lonesome.
"Sweet dreams, honey," she slurred, and she leaned down in a cascade of brown hair that tumbled and tangled all over, and she kissed Shane slow and not really caring about kissing men she hadn't never thought on kissing before. Just felt the thing to do, seeing as they were all drunk and lying together, and her hand slid over Shane's bare belly until she pulled back. Graham got a smile next, real wasted in the darkened room, and she doused the light beside him too, leaning on his shoulder as she reached on over him. She kissed him same as she had Shane, all slow linger and a whole lot of tongue, and she ran her hand along the line of skin just over the waistband of them annoying jeans, until she flopped back on the pillow between them. "You go on and kiss each other, and then we can sleep some," she suggested, and maybe her smile was smirking some; she'd always teased about them having something going on, and she recalled that, even so drunk that she could barely see right. Her knees were bent and her hands were touching skin on either side, even though she wasn't looking to see what she was petting. Seemed enough that she was petting, far as she could tell.
Having a fucking baker's dozen's worth of little shit siblings + a helluva lot of booze meant Clementine rolling atop him and swinging the plastic cord right into his goddamn nose, was met only with a swat of Shane's hands, not hard, but enough to get the shit out of his face, yeah?—But then, the call was over and as Clementine tried to hang the fucking ancient phone up, it made a trilling ring as it tumbled straight to the floor.
Shane grumbled something inaudible as he moved onto his side, shoving at Clementine's limbs until he was free enough to replace the receiver and make it stop that fucking low tone. But whatever curses he'd been intent on sharing were swallowed whole as he returned to his original position and was met with another kiss. The brush of hand over his stomach, which ended, after all that, with the woman turning right on over to tease Graham as she had him. Shane looked at the other man, the eye contact rough under cover of night, and he elbowed Clementine in the side lightly at her suggestion.
But whatever inhibition Shane had had gone the way of the fucking dodo, yeah? They were adults or whatever. And fucking Clementine wasn't going to let the gay thing go, so Shane obliged. His movement was brusque, masculine and hard, as he leaned on an elbow across Clementine, practically atop her to reach, one hand idling on the skin of her stomach, as he went on and kissed the other man. It wasn't the candle wick, the slow-burning brush of shots, Clementine had pulled, but it wasn't a mere brush of lips either. There was the sandpaper of chin on chin and the stirred heat of drink.
Then Shane pushed himself back, letting poor fucking Graham go, and rolled off of Clementine, back onto his pillow. He dragged his fingers back to his side and yawned.
"Good fucking night, Peaches." He grinned sleepily, hooking Clementine with side-glance, roughshod words. The three of them laid like sardines, but Shane's drunken accommodating stopped with the kiss. He remained on his back, taking up far too much room. "Night, Graham."
Sounds. Graham heard sounds; a phone, Clem saying something, but he didn’t much care to actually pay attention. He was real sleepy all of a sudden, and crowded as they were on the bed it was a lot nicer than where they’d been staying. Normally things like comfort weren’t important, but he could enjoy a decent bed just this once. He watched, blinking to keep his eyes open just a little longer, as Shane made the phone shut up, and the chuckle that started in his throat became a cough, half leftover amusement and half surprise, when Clem leaned down to kiss Shane. Had he been sober his reaction would’ve been different, but as it was he was half-awake at best and hazy, which meant once the surprise dulled he just thought it was funny. His crooked grin said as much, and when she turned to smile at him he started to make some slurred comment, a joke, that ended up going a whole lot of nowhere. Maybe he should’ve been expecting it but still, his eyes widened a little, temporary wakefulness when she kissed him, and it was a damn good thing he was drunk. He couldn’t think of a thing to say once she was done, and even her suggested just got a shake of his head that made the whole room spin.
He figured Shane’d just laugh it off. They were all drunk, sure, but he wasn’t going to go do what Clem said, not even to appease her. He cocked an eyebrow at Shane when he leaned over, a wordless what the hell, and even once the other man’s mouth was on his it took a couple of seconds to sink in. Graham made a muffled sound that might’ve been protest, or maybe just sound for the hell of it; he wasn’t even sure himself. Too drunk to push Shane away, and once he pushed himself back he opened his mouth to say something-- and laughed instead. “Fuck you.” But it was fond, familiarity, and he finally turned over onto his side now that all the damn kissing was done. “Night,” he mumbled back, warm, and with his back turned it was easy to forget whose body it was pressed up next to him. He smiled a little, and he closed his eyes.