A Pink Corner House, Bristol, Thursday Morning

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell was cooking.

In the context of language in general, that wasn't a particularly strange sentence; in the context of this particular household, it was a bizarre aberration that would certainly lead to the apocalypse. George usually cooked, and if he didn't, then Annie did the job for him - Mitchell's dependability near a stove was questionable at best.

But Annie had spent the night guarding over the others. Kate had been granted Annie's room, and Jack the sofa-- Nina was sleeping off her own intense mental exhaustion in George's bedroom, and if you asked Mitchell, he'd say he wasn't expecting her to get up any time soon.

So, breakfast for three it was. Three malformed, droopy eggs stared back up at Mitchell, and the beans in the other pan were starting to burn just a little bit (the toast, on the other hand, was fine, but then it was impossible even for Mitchell to ruin toast), but at least he was trying.

Annie had insisted on making the coffee, though, and Mitchell wasn't going to argue. He'd have to go pick up George in another hour - the werewolf always slept late after a full moon.

[[ for those still in Bristol. ]]

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[chosehumanity]

If there was anyone in the world who understood that, it was the guy sitting opposite her, and Mitchell simply nodded. "Then tell him you came over in some misguided, desperate attempt to talk me into Thanksgiving."

[vanillajello]

"Well, I would," Kate drawled, "but I kinda already let too much slip when I was telling him I was coming here again."

She'd been tired, and upset, and a little stupid. She shrugged. "So now I'm gonna be stuck reassuring him I'm fine and everything went okay."

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell swallowed the bit of toast he'd torn off earlier. "So what did you tell him?"

[vanillajello]

"That a friend was gonna do something stupid and dangerous," she replied evenly. "And that I was gonna yell and cry and stay safe."

And, okay, she may have accidentally dropped a hint about vampires.

[chosehumanity]

"It wasn't stupid."

Mitchell just needed to establish that, all right?

"Then tell him you yelled and cried and stayed safe, and got a good curry out of it."

[vanillajello]

Kate was going to skip getting into a debate, as much as she maybe wanted to. She could occasionally do that.

"That's the plan," she said instead. "He's still gonna give himself an ulcer by worrying but, as he's taken a liking to saying, I can't stop him, so..."

[chosehumanity]

"It's just concern," Mitchell said, with a light shrug of his shoulders. "Can't blame him for it, but there are some things that're just best not to talk about."

Like, say, what Mitchell had gotten up to between 1917 and 1969, a topic that George avoided like the plague for his own sanity.

After a pause, he added, "You can tell him about me, if you ever do want to. I'm not saying you should, just... don't let me keep you. I've met him. He seems all right."

[vanillajello]

"He's more than all right," Kate replied, with some stray softness to her tone as she cast her eyes down again. "And he'd get this stuff. Better than I do, probably. He'd be okay with you. I know that."

She shrugged again. "But I doubt I'll tell him. That just leads to having to go into everything else, and he already knows about all my other trauma."

[chosehumanity]

"Is it really that horrible, sharing it all?"

God help them, but with Mitchell's turn back towards Humanity In General, his usually-disastrous sense of idealism had seeped back in. To affairs that didn't have anything to do with world-conquering.

"It might make things easier, you don't know."

[vanillajello]

"I doubt that." She wasn't sure she doubted that, actually. But she was a stubborn one. "Sharing it all's not really something that tends to work for me."

[chosehumanity]

"I'm just saying, it might help to talk about some of this with someone who's, well, human," Mitchell said, shrugging slightly. "If you can't find that at Fandom-- I mean, Jack's a good lad, but he's not exactly living on your end of the world any more."

A beat.

"Though I do think you should talk to him, at the very least."

[vanillajello]

"Hmh." Well, the last time something bad happened, she and Jack had shared unhealthy looking drinks instead of actually talking. Which was largely down to her, of course. "You're making it sound like I need a therapist."

[chosehumanity]

"I don't believe in therapists," Mitchell said, decidedly. He sounded a bit like a stuffy old man in his fifties for that one beat, then shook it off. "But talking never hurt anyone." Except for-- "Well. Within reason."

[vanillajello]

Kate rolled her eyes. "You know, if you'd said you do think I need one, I would've flung my beans at you." Always one for mature threats. She shook her head. "Shoshana tried that. It didn't go so well."

[chosehumanity]

"...Shoshana?" He'd been out of the loop for too long.

[vanillajello]

Yes, Kate was just now realizing that too. "Oh, right," she said, lips pursing a bit. "Mom started transitioning again. Shoshana's a new one. Jewish therapist lady from New York."

She said it like it was no big deal, really. After yesterday it kind of paled in comparison.

[chosehumanity]

"Ow." Mitchell winced in sympathy, swallowing back a fork full of beans before continuing. "She trying to psychoanalyze you?" he asked. "I always hated Freud."

So Mitchell's whole experience with therapists came down to him eating a Freudian psychologist back in the fifties-- but nevermind that.

[vanillajello]

"I don't know, there was something about anger and costumes," Kate said, shaking her head at it all before picking at her food. "Then I stopped listening and flounced. Even though I didn't get far because we were hiding from a tornado."

[chosehumanity]

"...Get out, there was a tornado?" Mitchell asked, one eyebrow quirking. "You've been holding out on me."

But it served as a really nice distraction right now. "Though I'm surprised she ever thought that would work."

[vanillajello]

"And it was the longest fucking tornado in the history of anything ever, too."

That may not have been an accurate description of the evnt itself, but it was a damn accurate description of what it had felt like.

"We were stuck in a basement for most of the day. And Shoshana was kinda analyzing everyone. She totally made my aunt flip out."

[chosehumanity]

"Fucking therapists," Mitchell said, sympathetically. He finished off the last remaining scrap of his toast, and began enthusiastically slicing up his cooling egg. "So I figure your mum's been reading one too many self-help books?"

[vanillajello]

"Well, just the one," Kate shrugged, after chewing and swallowing some toast and beans. "You Becoming You by Shoshana Schoenbaum. Basically, she read a book and made an alter."

She snorted. It was just... completely ridiculous.

[chosehumanity]

"Maybe just gave a name to something that was already in her head," Mitchell suggested, stuffing the egg in his mouth. He wasn't honestly tasting much of anything lately anyway, so cold or nto didn't matter. "People sometimes do that. Makes it easier."

[vanillajello]

"Mm, maybe," Kate allowed. "But the best thing? They told me Mom had found a new therapist. And then it turned out to be her."

[chosehumanity]

That... actually made Mitchell pause mid-bite. "I'm almost impressed," he admitted. "Seriously?"