who_is_she | (no subject)

(no subject)

"You want my opinion on what?" Victoria says, with a clattering noise that sounds like she just tripped or fell over something.

"You know, like, date stuff," Graham says, sounding slightly sheepish. There's a beat or two of silence before Victoria responds.

"For Vhan? The guy you have dumped twice now? You want to pull the mysterious romantic gesture shit on Vhan?" she repeats, and Graham doesn't see her point.

"Yeah? I mean, that's why I thought like... Go big, right? 'Cause this is the real thing, you know?" he says, and Victoria sighs that same long-suffering sigh he's been hearing for ten years.

"You'd think he'd appreciate the direct route more, since you've, you know, lied to him? A lot? Plus, honey, I say this with as much affection as I can muster but your romantic instincts are garbage," she says, humor in her voice now, and Graham makes a high-pitched affronted noise.

"What! I'm plenty romantic!"

"For our first anniversary you got me a bottle of Jack Daniels, Graham," she says, and Graham can hear the laugh she's holding back in her voice.

"What! That's what we were drinking when we got engaged! That's so romantic!" Graham protests, getting too agitated to focus on his task of choosing a shirt and dropping them both onto his bed.

"Oh my god, Graham," Victoria says, and there's rustling that Graham knows means she's covering her mouth so that he won't hear her laughing. He hears it anyways, and can't help but smile, "Look, sweetie, if you insist on doing this then--stick to the basics. You know, dinner at his favorite place and a small thoughtful gift--not any addictive substances either--just... Make him feel special, okay?"

Graham nods, and then agrees when he realizes she can't hear him.

"Yeah. All right, I see your point. I'll be careful," Graham says, cowed, and Victoria clicks her tongue.

"Good boy. I like Vhan, don't screw this up. And don't wear your yellow tie," she says, and Graham immediately drops the yellow tie he'd jsut been considering.

"I wasn't!" he objects, and all he hears is laughing until the line clicks off.

He'd left a message for Vhan telling him they were going out for dinner, but that was something they did several times a week already so he worried that the 'special' part might already be off on the wrong foot.

Graham puts on a carefully casual-but-still-kind-of-dressy outfit while he waits for Vhan to get home, a blazer with a pastel button-up and no tie, and decides in the mirror that he does look good. He wishes he'd put a little more thought into this beforehand, but he'd decided on 'tell Vhan you love him' and hadn't really managed to plan past that point.

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Vhan hurries home, not wanting to be late for their dinner. He was still toweling off the sweat and oil he'd accumulated during the day when he walks through the front door.

"Hey," he calls out to Graham, dropping his wallet and keys on the couch he'd been sleeping on and heading back into Graham's room.

The sight of Graham dressed so nicely surprises him, and he lets out a short laugh.

"Wow, uh, I guess I should...shower first, at least, yeah? Are we going somewhere nice?"

Graham startles when Vhan walks in, whirling around to stare at him.

"Oh, hey! Um, well, not... Super fancy, but," Graham pauses to glance over Vhan, who's covered in grit and grime and laughs a little, "Uh, yeah, maybe a shower?" He actually kind of likes the dirty mechanic look on Vhan, but he's not about to say as much.

He feels nervous, suddenly, and starts to fidget and then stops himself, hoping Vhan doesn't catch onto his plan before he's even had a chance to start it.

Vhan heads past him towards the bathroom and starts unbuttoning his shirt, shrugging it off of his shoulders and pulling off the undershirt underneath it as he closes the door behind him. He showers quickly, and comes out with a towel around his waist to search through the drawers Graham was letting him keep his clothes.

"So, where is it we're going exactly?" he says, pulling out pants, underwear, and a V-neck sweater, before heading back into the bathroom to put them on.

Graham sits himself down on the couch to wait, rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants and telling himself to calm down.

"Uh, I was thinking that little place on Bond Street?" he says, standing up and putting his hands behind his back, stepping forward into the doorway of his bedroom, where he is absolutely not watching Vhan change, "And maybe we could, uh, walk or something? After? It's--a nice night, I mean," he says, stumbling over his words a little as he tries too hard to sound casual and unaffected.

"Sounds good to me," Vhan says casually, shooting him a smile before pulling his shirt on over his head and running his hand back through his damp hair. "Hey, you doin' all right? You seem a little jumpy."

He turns off the light as he walks past him out of the room, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair in the living room and grabbing his things off of the couch.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, fine! I'm fine," he says, laughing a little and following Vhan out. They walk to restaurant, chatting idly about work and what Graham's kids have been up to, and by the time they get to the restaurant Graham has almost forgotten about his loosely-planned ideas. He remembers again after they order, and drinks down half of his drink while trying to think of something to say.

"It's nice, uh, living with someone again. I haven't since Victoria. I kind of forgot how nice it could be," he says, giving Vhan a watery kind of smile, and then kicks himself for bringing up his ex-wife while trying to make a romantic atmosphere.

Vhan gives him a confused look, but smiles anyway.

"Uh, yeah, it...it has been for me, too. I mean, I lived with a couple friends not too long ago, but it's been a little while. It gets lonely sometimes, to get home and have no one there."

He takes a few more bites of his food, and sips his drink.

"Hey, you gotta try what I'm having, it's great," he says, pushing his plate towards him.

"Yeah," Graham agrees, and can't help but feel like he just screwed up an opportunity. He takes a bite of Vhan's food as well, nodding and smiling to show he likes it. He's not sure, now, how to make this less like the meals they share almost every day of the week and more like something romantic. Something where Vhan would be able to understand his feelings. Maybe Victoria had been onto something with his romantic instincts.

"Mm, that is good," he says, "Um, so, this place is good, right? You like it?"

Vhan nods, his mouth full.

"Yeah," he says once he swallows, "Great food. It's a nice, like, atmosphere and stuff, too."

They chat for a while idly, about work and Sam and Greg and plans for the week, and while they talk Vhan can't help but notice that Graham seems to be acting a little distracted, nervous, even.

"Hey, is everything all right with you?" he asks as they're paying the bill, "You're acting a little...weird."

Graham looks up, startled, and immediately shakes his head. He's starting to get a little frustrated, because Vhan has caught onto his mood and during dinner not a single one of his attempts at establishing a mood have panned out.

"I'm fine, just... A lot on my mind," he admits finally, somewhat morosely, as he considers giving the whole thing up as a bad job.

"Hey, it's all right," Vhan says, patting him on the shoulder and leaving his hand there as they make their way outside, "You can tell me about it on our walk. Uh, anywhere you wanted to walk to in particular?"

"Uh, no, not really," Graham says, putting his hands in his pockets and falling into step next to Vhan, "I just... thought it was a nice night."

He shrugs, and then falls silent, mulling over his words in his head.

"Actually, I kind of wanted to ask... You're, um, happy here, right? With me?" he asks sheepishly, turning his head to peek over at Vhan and watch his reaction carefully.

Vhan turns his head to give him a curious look and a lopsided smile.

"I mean, yeah, of course, did you see where I was?" he laughs, scratching the back of his neck. "I mean-"

Vhan's heart lurches when he sees someone across the street, standing against the wall just out of the reach of the glow of the streetlamp. The dim light is just enough for him to make out their features, and he grabs Graham by the sleeve of his shirt and ducks behind him, wide-eyed and terrified.

"Oh, fuck," he hisses, "Oh, shit, oh, fuck. Fuck! It's one of my old business partners, we, uh, didn't end things so well and - shit!"

Graham makes a face at Vhan's reply, and is about to point out that Vhan just ranked living with him as slightly better than starving under a bridge when Vhan jumps behind him.

Graham's eyes go wide and he glances around, spotting the person Vhan is hiding from and then quickly turning away.

"Oh God," He says, his mind whirling, "Okay. It'll be okay, we'll just--go this way." He puts his arm around Vhan and starts off in the opposite direction, pulling Vhan close to his side like they really were on the date he had planned, when in reality it was more about using his own height and larger build to hide Vhan.

Vhan pulls his jacket up over his mouth and nose, and resists the urge to steal a glance backwards to see if the shadow on the corner had moved.m

"Is he following us?" Vhan asks, his voice shaking, and he holds onto Graham tight as they walk side by side, "He's not, is he? He didn't see us?"

Graham tilts forward like he's going to whisper into Vhan's ear and then uses the movement to glance over his shoulder. He doesn't see the figure in the shadows but he doesn't see anyone behind them, either.

"I don't think he saw us," Graham confirms, "We should keep walking this way for a little while, though."

He rubs Vhan's shoulder while they walk, suppressing the anxious shiver in his gut.

"It's okay, Vhan."

Once they're a couple of blocks away, Vhan finally starts to relax.

"Okay," he huffs. He loosens his grip on Graham as his breathing starts to settle down, but still doesn't completely let go.

"Okay, okay," he repeats, leaning on him less heavily than before. "I think we're...I think we're good."

Graham realizes suddenly with a sinking feeling that whatever vague plan he'd had has finally died a painful death. There's no way you can recover interrupted by ex partner who stabbed you, or at least not well enough to climb back up to live confession.

There are some things more important than that, though.

Graham slows down and then stops, putting both hands on Vhan's shoulder and facing him. His eyes go over Vhan's face and neck, like he's checking for any wounds.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Vhan says shakily, fishing into his pocket for his vaporizer and taking several long drags from it, still looking around with shifty eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just...I haven't dealt with that shit in a while."

His eyes stop darting around, finally, and he looks into Graham's eyes with gratitude.

"I...Thank you, seriously. For everything."

Graham's heart skips a beat when Vhan looks at him, and for a moment he can only flush hotly and chuckle. He backs away half a step, removing his hands from Vhan's shoulders to run his hand over the curve of his skull.

"It's cool, man, what are friends for?" he says with a shrug, hating himself for that sentence, "If not, you know, helping you run from date ruining drug dealers and shit." Graham laughs again, and it takes him a long moment to realize what he's just said.

Vhan laughs in acknowledgement, and only realizes around the same time Graham does what Graham had said.

"Haha...wait, date," he says turning his head to look at him with wide eyes.

"Date," he repeats, "Date, whose date? Us? Our date?"

"What?" Graham says, his eyes wide and his face steadily turning crimson, but he still laughs somewhat deliriously and tries to cover, "I didn't say date! I said, um..." He tries to think of a word that sounds like date, but his mind is blank and he starts to panic as the seconds tick by.

"Oh, god," He says finally, burying his face in his hands and regretting ignoring Victoria's advice, "Oh, God."

Vhan looks at him, then at the ground, his heart in his throat. His feelings for Graham had never really subsided. Graham had never wanted anything to do with those, though, and he couldn't imagine this had changed. He'd seen the way Graham looked at him, though, and he'd wondered when this might come up.

"Look, I'm sorry, Graham, I...I can't just...fuck around like that anymore," he says, scratching his head.

Graham had been expecting that reaction but he hadn't anticipated how much it would sting. What's worse is Vhan being so sure he's just fucking around, so sure that Graham would never be serious about him.

Graham's expression crumbles and he swallows thickly, swallowing back the stinging heartache.

"I--I know. I mean, the plan wasn't to... Jump you or whatever. I just wanted to, uh, have a nice time and show you how much I..." Graham's throat closes up around the words love you, and he has to clear his throat and try again, "How I feel, and, y'know, give you a chance to dump me this time." He chuckles weakly, unable to meet Vhan's eyes.

"It's fine, though, I understand."

Graham's reaction is not at all what Vhan had expected, and he lowers his vape from his mouth and looks at him, curiously, his heart now thumping against his ribcage.

"Wait, how you...feel?" he asks, trying not to sound too bewildered, "How...how do you feel?"