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]

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.

[chosehumanity]

"Still there, mate?" Mitchell asked, amused.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Max blinked and shook his head (a feat only possible as the camera cut away to a far less interesting explosion of some sort). "Sorry... did you say something?"

[chosehumanity]

"Clearly nothing riveting," he said, with a snicker.

Sometimes, humans were hilarious.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"Hey," Max objected with a laugh, "you're the one who picked what we're watching so you have only yourself to blame if I get distracted."

[chosehumanity]

"Oh, I'm not complaining," Mitchell returned, "Scantly-clad women are good to us all." Just clearly not as good as they were to Max.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"No argument from me on that front. But you asked a question?"

[chosehumanity]

"Metal and water," he repeated. "What do they signify?"

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"Oh, right. Water is, among other things, fore healing. And metal helps with pain suppression and endurance. In experienced hands they can be used to fight off most addictions." And someone was experienced.

[chosehumanity]

"Really?" Mitchell asked, raising his eyebrows. "How's that work?"

Not that he was overly curious about something like that. At all.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"You draw on the metal to ignore the pain of withdrawal while you work on yourself with water. It's not easy, but with enough practice you can do it pretty consistently."

He shook his head. "First time was nasty, though. So I try to avoid it."

[chosehumanity]

He took another contemplative pull of his cigarette, exhaling. "How'd you learn?"

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"First year in the legions. Got deep into andorphis." For... reasons he wasn't going to discuss without a lot more alcohol. "Had a centurion... explain why it was a bad idea. Plenty of motivation to clean myself up."

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah," Mitchell said, with a touch of understanding. He'd-- had his own spell of things, nevermind what he dealt with every single day. "I can see that. But the skill it's got to take to manage that..."

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"Brute force can get you pretty far." And he was pretty incredibly strong. One of the strongest crafters of his generation, really. But he was also really skilled, too.

[chosehumanity]

"Only in certain things," Mitchell said, vaguely. "It can shake things up, but shaken things have a habit of settling."

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

"True. If you're not careful." He grimaced. "That's to be avoided."

[chosehumanity]

"It's time, my friend." And that would've sounded pretentious and dramatic if he hadn't chuckled a bit during.

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

That drew an answering chuckle and a head-shake.