Perfect with You

Chapter 37 - The Lion who Brought Flowers

"Fuck" Chloe whispered angrily under her breath as she clutched her grandfather close and regrettably letting tears be absorbed into his wool sweater. Another knock traveled through the room, shattering her hopes of her being able to ignore it. Alfred felt the same, just wanting this honest moment to last a little longer in silence, knowing that it was something they both needed, however, after only a having been given a few seconds of trying to console his granddaughter, was he forced to take a deep breath and loosen his muscles. "I'll go see who it is," He said regrettably as he let go of his grip around Chloe and made a strained expression while pulling himself up from his position on the floor. He just managed to let these coated words out as another, even harder, knock dared to pass through her ears, as if a person was only allowed two seconds to answer the door before the moronic knocker would sue. Yet, a sudden thought sparked inside of Chloe's scattered mind and prompted her to jump up from the ground and wipe away her tears. "No, it's- it's okay. I got it" She nearly demanded by sending a pensive look to Alfred before turning around and quietly walking over to answer the door. Her reason for sneaking, for answering the door herself, and for being extremely paranoid, was the thought of seeing a familiar and malevolent face standing in front of the house.

"Excuse me? I'm looking for Chloe- oh, and, eh, probably Max as well" A light voice suddenly came from behind the wooden door and Chloe instantly recognized the bushed voice of a confused, yet nonchalant, young boy. Her new associate, Ted. She passed a sigh of relief and proceeded to wipe her face clean once more just to be sure it wasn't totally obvious she had been crying her very soul out. Something she was actually rather annoyed by that she didn't get to finish.
"I mean, I only need one of them actually. Heh... bring me one hostage and I might spare your lives!... I'm just joking, sorry. That was dumb"

Hearing the dumb voice awkwardly speaking, inclined Chloe to glance back at Alfred to see his one raised eyebrow and tilted head, making Chloe's only means of a response a slight shrug.

"Is this even the right house?" Ted questioned himself with a quiet voice just before Chloe finally freed him of his- and everybody's- agony and opened the door to see the halfwit turning his head with clear, brown eyes, a green slacker hoodie, and uncombed orange hair, curling its way down his back.
"Heeeey" Amidst the awkward stretch of words, Ted ground his teeth together as he curled up by looking at Chloe's displeased face.

"Ted, what are you doing here?" Chloe had to dig real hard as to not slam the door in his face, but knowing that Ted hadn't done anything wrong, just decided to come by at the worst possible time, she decided to keep the door open- hesitant about letting him in, though.

"I was in the neighborhood, about... twenty-five miles from here" he whispered the last few words.
"So I thought I'd swing by since I have some maybe important information about Ethan" but his last sentence was unfortunately not whispered, instantly prompting Chloe to signal a hush motion with her hands, not wanting Alfred to overhear anything.

"You could just have called" Her voice was regrettably a little annoyed, not that it was directed at Ted but she couldn't let him in when Max was upstairs sleeping off a mental breakdown.

Ted hesitated a little and intentionally made a scrunchy face while pretending to lean against an invisible wall. "I can tell it's a bad time... but like, is it a 'my dog just drank dishwasher cleaner' bad time or 'a sock on the door handle' bad time? Because I don't see no sock on the door, so it must be the dog thing, yeah?" Putting both his hands in separate pockets of his worn-out jeans, Ted lifted his shoulders and showcased just how bad at conversing he was.

"Jesus Christ" Chloe whispered under her breath, feeling as if she was in a low budget sitcom with terrible writing.

"I mean, the sock usually goes on the bedroom door, but placing one on the front door lets everybody know–"