Office #26, Thursday

[chosehumanity]

Doing this office hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays thing wasn't going to work, of that Mitchell was now certain. Having spent two days back home soothing Annie through the worst of her current condition, then having to spend another two hours in a Portalocity waiting room before getting to come here - drenched after an unfortunate layover in the middle of the Estonian marsh - was not his idea of good planning.

He was here anyway. Reading a few books on ghost stories. For... educational purposes. He was just trying to look out for Annie.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[vanillajello]

"Wow, this place looks... exactly the same," Kate remarked from the door, sometime between her classes on being marooned and kicking ass. "Feels like I haven't been here in forever. Thought something might have changed."

[chosehumanity]

"There's mollusks behind the TV if you squint," Mitchell said, sounding a little amused. "Kate, hey."

[vanillajello]

"I'm not that interested in details, so I think I'll let the little tykes be and take your word for it," she replied, wandering in. "Hey."

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell leaned back in his chair. "Grab a seat," he called, "How was your week?"

[vanillajello]

"You ask as if it's anywhere near over yet," Kate snorted, flopping down into a familiar chair. "But other that... Normal." She shrugged. "Fandom standards normal, obviously, not normal normal."

[chosehumanity]

"It's been four days of the first week of classes," Mitchell pointed out, shrugging his own shoulders good-naturedly. "There's usually plenty to tell." A pause. "Is it strange that, since Fandom's normal this week, I'm afraid of the next?"

[vanillajello]

"No, that's just sane. Fandom's bound to act up again soon."

None of the newbies had seen any of the weird yet, for one thing.

"And I've only been to two of my four workshops so far, and one of them was yours, so..."

[chosehumanity]

"Really?" Mitchell asked, grinning. "And how'd I hold up so far?"

[vanillajello]

"Well, you didn't make me walk the plank, which I think is pretty good," she said, pretending to give this some thought, "but then again your class also wasn't at the beach."

[chosehumanity]

"I'll hold my class there if you can find me a socket for the telly," he promised. "Otherwise, you're out of luck."

[vanillajello]

"We could always watch stuff on a good laptop or something," she suggested. "I mean, there's not really even all that many of us. We could make it work."

[chosehumanity]

She got a firm lift of his brows. "If you clean out the sand afterwards."

[vanillajello]

"Jack can do that."

Jack wasn't here to defend himself. This meant Kate could say things like that.

[awakestheghosts]

After her class, Chloe was there at Mitchell's office knocking quietly at the door frame. Really, you thought she would go somewhere else when she was a little shaken up from her near panic attack in her class? Pfft. Next to Ino, Mitchell was the person she felt the most comfortable talking to -- no matter what her mood.

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell glanced up. Kate had already come and gone, so it couldn't be her--

And then he noticed Chloe. "Hey," he said softly, glancing at her face. "Chloe, come in."

[awakestheghosts]

Chloe managed a smile as she came into the office. "Am I bothering you, Mitchell? Because I can come back some other time if I am."

[chosehumanity]

"You're not bothering me," he assured, matching her smile with a more reassuring one of his own. "Come all the way in, take a seat, it's fine."

[awakestheghosts]

Chloe nodded and came in to take a seat. She gave him an embarrassed smile. "I almost had a panic attack in my last class," she said sheepishly. So she came to the place she felt the safest. "I feel pretty dumb about it."

[chosehumanity]

"Don't feel dumb," he said, leaning forward on his own desk. "We all have our fears. It's only human." His mouth twitched up. "What scared you?"

[awakestheghosts]

"When the teacher said that she hunted down supernaturals in her world," she admitted. "I freaked out and almost panicked. I wanted to run from the class as fast as I could when I heard that. Even though I knew that a teacher here wouldn't harm me."

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell nodded slowly. "No one's going to hunt you down, Chloe," he said, calming voice out full blast. "I suppose supernaturals can seem... tricky, on the outside..." He wasn't sure where he was going with that, exactly, but it sounded like the thing to say. "And besides, you didn't run, did you?"

[awakestheghosts]

She shook her head. "No, I didn't run. I stayed in the class and started working on one of the katas that she was teaching us. She had me slow down because I was trying to go too fast." She sighed. "All I could think about when she said that about hunting down supernaturals was that the people from Edison and Lyle could hire someone like her to hunt down me or Derek or Tori and it scared me." She swallowed. "But when I made myself ask her what kind of supernaturals she hunted, she told me that she hunted down the ones that hurt other people." Her smile was slightly wry. "I've never hurt anyone on purpose."

[chosehumanity]

"Then you shouldn't feel dumb," was his verdict. "You should be proud of yourself for staying. That's a lot of fear you've got riding on your shoulders. You could've just run and hid, but you stayed and thought it through."

[awakestheghosts]

"I just wish that I could stop having the instinct to run when I hear something like that," she admitted, playing with a strand of her hair. "I mean, I've seen how things attack here and the people band together and defeat it. And I know that no one here would hurt me."

And hey, look where her instinct brought her to feel safe again!

"It's just frustrating that I have that reaction."

[chosehumanity]

To the vampire with impulse control issues. There was some irony in that.

"Give it time," Mitchell said, warmly. "Last year, you would have run. See it as a victory, don't push yourself too hard." He placed his hands on the desk. "We all have our boundaries, there's nothing to be ashamed of, as long as they keep moving in the right direction."