Office #26, Monday

[chosehumanity]

You had good days, and you had bad days, in Mitchell's position. Saturday had been a good, if baffling day.

Monday wasn't as good.

He made it to his office regardless of anything going on (wouldn't mess this one up), but he kept mostly to his seat, staring holes into the wall beside the door. Whether it was the memories running stronger than usual or some surge of bloodlust he was having trouble surpressing, something kept him in that suspended state of-- brooding, of thinking, of trying to keep the dark things away, to focus on the light spots that dragged any being through what horrors life might occasionally cast at them.

Mitchell, unlike some people he knew, was not a glass-half-empty kind of man, so he endured.

Life settles. That's the one thing you can rely on. Sometimes it gets shaken and it seems like there's no end to this vast-- tornado, these endless forces of chaos, and yet it always-- settles again.

[[ the post, however, is open, as is the door, and he will totally try to cheerful it up for you ]]

Comments

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"So that's what happened," Max laughed. "I was wondering."

[chosehumanity]

"I'm an honest ruler," Mitchell informed him, and actually managed to make a good bid at his usual level of smug. "Stern but fair."

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure it was a character-building experience for them all as well." Max chuckled and shook his head.

"But I was serious about the party thing."

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell considered him, leaning back in his chair just enough to drape comfortably. "Depends on what sort of party," he said, "And what the principal says, I'd imagine."

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"Oh, so there are limits to your power," Max grinned.

[chosehumanity]

"There are always limits to power," Mitchell informed him, considering the TV with a slight nod of his head. "Usually they involve responsibility, something like that."

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"A thing I try to avoid when I can. It makes everything so... complicated." And also meant that it could be your fault when people died.

[chosehumanity]

Killing people also had a habit of making it your fault when people died.

"Hear you on that, mate," Mitchell said, with a slight chuckle. "But it's hard to keep running away from after a while."

And by a while, Mitchell meant 'a hundred years, give or take'.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"Haven't had any problems with it yet," Max shrugged. Which wasn't entirely true, but it was nice to think that it was working.

[chosehumanity]

"It's easy when you're just floating along," Mitchell mused. He wasn't doing a great job of staying ahead of his own ennui. "If you don't have to pin yourself down, then you don't have to care, you don't have to feel responsible."

He considered his fingers. They were shaking.

He reached into his coat. "Mind if I light one up?"

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"I don't know what that means, but I also suspect it means I don't mind," Max chuckled, waving airily at Mitchell.

[chosehumanity]

"Cheers," he said, taking the packet out of his pocket, slipping out a cigarette, and lighting it.

For a moment, all he focused on was the smoke in his lungs, inhale and exhale, because it was better than give in to the gentle but noticable beating of (heart) drums in the back of his head.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Max sniffed at the air. "What is that, exactly?" It smelled a bit harsh, but he suspected people didn't smoke them without a reason. People didn't smoke stuff back in Alera without reasons, after all.

[chosehumanity]

"Tabacco," Mitchell answered, tapping it out over his ashtray. "You don't have it back home?"

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"Doesn't smell familiar," Max shrugged, "and I've smoked a lot of different stuff. Mind if I try one?"

[chosehumanity]

"Don't get addicted on something you can't get back home," he said, tapping a cigarette out of the package.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Max took one and turned it over in his fingers. "How addicting are they?" he asked as he stuck the butt in his mouth. He didn't light it yet, just in case the answer was 'you die without them' or something.

[chosehumanity]

"Cigarettes? One should be all right," he said, after a beat that stretched longer than it probably should've. "Just don't go for seconds."

Mitchell was such a horrible role model.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"Fair enough." Max reached up and touched the tip of the cigarette, lighting it with his finger. Then he inhaled deeply.

"Huh," he said after a minute. "It's milder than I would have thought." Also clearly not as mind-altering as some stuff he'd tried.

[chosehumanity]

"It's about two steps above coffee," he said, considering Max's trick with the finger - but it had already been explained to him. He added that to his knowledge base of powers and supernatural beings. "Still, it's lasted longer than most drugs. Probably because it's so mild. Not that the anti-smoking lobby is helping much these days."

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Max inhaled deeply again. "I could get used to these, I suspect. They seem less... distracting that a lot of the stuff back home."

[chosehumanity]

"Might want to think about that," Mitchell told him, considering the lessening tremble in his own hands. "It's a-- difficult habit to get rid of. Worse to go without."

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"I've got a pretty high tolerance for breaking addictions," Max said thoughtfully. "One of the nice things about being strong with metal and water."

Still, he doubted Mitchell gave bad advice on purpose, so he'd think about it.

[chosehumanity]

"Metal and water?" Mitchell asked, just as a scantily-clad green alien ran past something *very* metal on screen.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

The timing was, perhaps, unfortunate. Max didn't seem to hear the question because, well... He was easily distracted.