71 Serendipity Street, Saturday

[chosehumanity]

He'd promised Kate and Jack Saturday. So Saturday it was. Mitchell wasn't sure he was up for it being Saturday so soon.

He pottered around the house, poking through the snacks in the cabinet. Turning on the television. Turning on the radio. None of it really kept his attention for very long, and so he wound up drifting through the house more than anything. If he were inclined to make jokes right now, he'd have said he was being a bit like a ghost.

Eventually, Mitchell just crashed down on the sofa. There would be distractions soon enough, and trying to find any more seemed about as pointless as anything else.

[[ for anyone who has reason to visit. ]]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

Jack took his time making his way to Serendipity Street. Not because he had so much else to do -- he was a bit past welcome picnics -- but because some small part of him would rather not know any more horrible things he couldn't do anything about.

Still. He said he'd come to listen, so he would. He took a breath to steel himself and knocked on the door, hoping Kate would be by soon.

[chosehumanity]

The door opened about a minute later, revealing a sedate Mitchell on the other side. "Hey," he said, stepping aside. "Come in."

[bitten_notshy]

"Hi," Jack said, stepping in carefully. "I suppose it's foolish to ask how you are..."

[chosehumanity]

"I've been better," Mitchell answered. He shut the door behind Jack. "There's drinks in the fridge. I think." Fuck, hospitality had always been Annie's thing.

[bitten_notshy]

"Don't worry about it," Jack answered, waving off the offer. "Should we wait for Kate? She was going to stop by the picnic, and I don't want to make you go through it twice."

Whatever it was, exactly. Jack still didn't see the sense of the little he had heard.

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell stole a glance at the door, then nodded. "Yeah," he muttered. "I was watching some telly."

He tried to herd Jack towards the living room.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack let himself be herded, since it wasn't like he had any great need to stay in the foyer.

"I was worried," he said, almost out of nowhere. "I figured you might be avoiding me after London, and at first I wasn't going out of my way to talk to people myself, but -- it felt like a long month."

[chosehumanity]

"No, things just... started getting out of hand after that," Mitchell said, sinking down on the sofa. "It's been a long year."

[vanillajello]

Kate so agreed.

Or would have, had she not been outside at that point, reaching out from beneath her giant umbrella to knock on the door. It had taken her a while to pry herself from the picnic (despite not having been doing much there except stalling) but she was here now.

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell looked up. Right. Just the moment he sat down, of course. He sighed, and pushed himself up. "I'll go get that," he said, and walked back towards the door.

He opened it a few moments later.

[vanillajello]

"Hey," Kate said, mildly, peering up at him. "I came."

She hadn't be so certain she would, at least she hadn't been before she'd talked to Jack about it.

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah," Mitchell said. 'Yeah' seemed about the word of the week. He stepped aside again. "Jack's by the television."

[bitten_notshy]

"Hi, Kate," Jack called, standing up and walking just forward enough that he could see her.

He would ask what Mitchell meant by a long year, but that could wait until Kate was at least somewhat settled.

[nookiepowered]

Once the picnic wound down into drizzle and leftovers, Bo considered heading into the bar after all, but with the vampire she worked for off the island, Bo decided it was long past time to check whether the other one had made it back yet.

She could have called, but showing up in person (after a frustrating ten minutes of wrangling the local phone directory into spitting out the fact that Mitchell was his last name) seemed less likely to result in avoidance and voicemail.

Though she supposed he could still pretend not to be home when she knocked... She'd just be really pissed if he did. See if she ever did that thing with the thing and the other thing to him again.

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell was alone again. Back to having no idea what to do with himself right now. The knock on the door was a welcome distraction from drifting through the house, trying to make tea, and so he disengaged from the counter to drag himself towards the door.

Which got opened, yeah. "Hey."

He was actually relieved to see it was Bo, so she got a tiny smile.

[nookiepowered]

"Hey. Glad you seem to have made it back in one piece. " Looks could be deceiving, of course.

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah."

Still the word of the day, that. Mitchell looked at her, then at the street past her. Then back at her again. "Want to come in?"

[nookiepowered]

"Me and the horde of invisible gremlins I brought with me?" Bo said, glancing back at the empty street herself before stepping inside.

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah, the lot of you." The joke fell kind of flat, probably. Mitchell shut the door behind her. "Been at the picnic?"

[nookiepowered]

"There was a pony at the picnic, Mitchell. A pink pony." So that was a yes.

[chosehumanity]

That was actually enough to get mr. Dark and Brooding to blink. "...Seriously?"

[nookiepowered]

"Oh, it gets better. A talking pink pony. A talking pink pony that's one of the new teachers."

[chosehumanity]

"You're joking," Mitchell said, staring after her. "Did you get pictures at all?"

[nookiepowered]

Bo pulled her phone from her pocket and punched up a motion-blurred shot of the buffet table, with a pink horseface shoved halfway into a cream pie. "Only from a distance. My weird-shit meter has limits; I decided talking to the pony could wait for a day when I hadn't just found out one of the new students has video of me killing someone."

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell actually managed a vaguely perturbed little smile at the picture, but the last part had him jerking his head up. "...What?"