heaven help us

"Will you come watch Godzilla with me?" she asks more plainly, her hands folded in front of her. There’s the hope that he’ll say yes because there’s still the fear that no matter where she goes in this house, there’s going to be a faceless man ready to pull her head off of her shoulders. That fear is going to be there for days and she knows it. There’s no one else in this house she can really go to. Maybe she could find Niko and see if he wanted to go drinking with her, but beyond that, there’s no one she takes comfort in. It’s not something she’s had in years and it’s nothing she’d outright tell him, but it doesn’t make it any less true. 

There's also the thought that he's tired and won't sleep, both because he's not sure he wants to and doubts he'll be able to.

What she wants doesn't really factor into it. If the thoughts are selfish it's nothing he can really help. He knows he asked and maybe that's her answer, but he's aware enough of himself to know that's not enough to make him do anything. He's learned to turn that part off and when people aren't on a mission with him then their mental or emotional wellbeing stops being anything he concerns himself with. 

All the same, when he answers it's probably less for him and more just because she asked. When he's alone he'll deal with whatever's leftover from the mission on his end, from seeing a grieving father and a man dead in front of him. He'll deal with it with a bottle of pills and he'll let them dull both him and the constant pain. Right now he just says "Okay."

When he asks for a beer, she grabs two, handing one to him before setting her own down on the table to be opened once she had finished her cupcake. Assuming from way he already knew her name, this had to be the man in charge. “You know they told me your name, but all I can think of right now is ‘The Little Mermaid’ so you might have to remind me.” Ava says, pulling a chair out and sitting down, taking another bite of the tiny cake. It wasn’t half bad, though it was kind of hard to find a bad cupcake in her opinion. “And by ‘might’ I mean ‘definitely’.” she says, with a wide smirk as she polishes off the cupcake and cracks open the beer. 

He takes the beer with a grateful nod, though he doesn't sit down at the table. He leans a hip against it instead, using the side of it to open the beer and take a long pull. There's more gratitude for it than that small a thing probably deserves, but he can't help himself at the moment. The mission and the things he came back to weigh heavily on him, though to be fair her presence is one of the easier things he's got to deal with at the moment.

There's a raising of his eyebrow when she says she's thinking about the Little Mermaid, and whatever the connection is or if there isn't one at all, he just shakes his head. "I don't want to know," he says. "Mitchell, Greystone's liaison. Welcome." 

She paused to try to remember what some of the other questions that she had were and he took that moment to begin speaking to her. A small smile fell onto her face as she listened to him and nodded. “I’ll do my job, you don’t have to worry about that,” she muttered, some of her pride seeping into her voice. She wasn’t always a good hunter, but she was confident in her abilities. Staying alive was what she did best and it was a quality you needed in the world of hunting the monsters in your closet. “And you actually answered my second question. When we’re not off playing ghostbusters or whatever, we can do whatever we want right? Even some of the stuff that we used to do?” Buying and selling various objects on the black magic market was a good business for her, particularly some of the more difficult deals. It would definitely bring her a lot more money that picking pockets.

The words had him nodding, though he didn't comment on her capabilities either way. He'd see one way or the other if that was true and he wouldn't try and gauge ahead of time either way. "For the most part. As long as that 'stuff' doesn't fall under the category of causing a problem or becoming a problem, I don't care." Usually that would be about all he said on the matter, but there were always exceptions and in this case he assumed if she had to ask then she was considering doing something questionable. It was true enough that he didn't care, aware that some people in the house drank too much, Roy's existence alone was a questionable thing. Both Ben and Niko probably fed off people, but as long as they weren't leaving bodies behind, eh chose to ignore it. In her case, he had only suspicions what those other things entailed, and he wanted to know before he gave her a free pass to do any of them. "What specifically are you asking about?"

He asks her what she wants and her eyes lift to him again. She thinks about answering honestly. Like maybe she’d just like him to come lay down with her somewhere because she doesn’t want to try to sleep by herself tonight. But it seems like pushing it and she’s not nearly drunk enough to get rejected tonight. There are emotions and hurt already seeping through the cracks in the wall she’s put around herself, she doesn’t really want to add to that. So it leaves her thinking about what she can actually say. The truth won’t really get her anywhere, but she doesn’t just want to brush it off either because maybe he’s saying a beer to be funny but maybe he’s saying a beer as some sort of offer. That whatever paperwork he still has to do can wait until the morning. 

"Godzilla?" she asks, eyes looking up at him because it’s the best balancing act she can do. The truth because she doesn’t want to be alone and no matter what he says she still thinks he’s a super hero. Something playful because she can’t just tell him that. She can’t just come out and say that she thinks he’s great even when he doesn’t. That she thinks the world of him because even if he started off cold and mean, he’s let her see the flaws in that demeanor enough that she can see something beneath it and she likes what she sees. That whenever she has nightmares, she knows she can come downstairs and find him and he helps them seem not so real. 

That word that follows isn't what he expected, though he doesn't know if honesty was still on the table after pulling back. It has his attention shifting back up to her, studying her for a moment to try and gauge what's looking back at him. 

"Are you asking or answering?" It seems to him an important distinction to make, though he's not sure he needs to. She said it like a question, and he doubts Godzilla is what she wants. He can make his own guesses, that maybe she wants to sleep without nightmares, that she wants her sister back, but beyond those basic and obvious things, he doesn't know. It's not his business, though it takes more effort to remind himself of it this time. Most people want more than that. He used to, and that he doesn't anymore probably says he's more damaged than he allows himself to contemplate.

It was late, and she wondered if people stayed up this late in this house. Maybe they went out and partied. Maybe they were quiet and in their rooms. New faces and personalities and name to be learned, but she had no doubt she eventually would. Walking up the pathway, she couldn’t help but hum to herself, which turned into singing lightly. “All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray.” she mumbled to herself absentmindedly. Taking the few steps up, she reached the front door and knocked loudly, wondering if that was the right move. No one answered right away, at least not within the few seconds she allowed before she simply took the handle and pushed the door open. 

It was nice inside, nicer than it appeared from the street anyway. Wasn’t that just like the Tenebrae though. Deceptive to the core. It would have been a cynical way to look at things if she actually considered deception to be a negative trait. “Hello?” she calls out, but she doesn’t wait for someone to come find her. Instead she begins walking, poking her head into doorways as she passes, but she stops when she reaches the kitchen. Not because she’s found someone, but because she’s hungry. Dropping her bag beside the table, she opens the fridge and begins to look for something to ear. “I’d be safe and warm if I was in L.A.; California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.”

The woman's in the kitchen when he gets there, and at one point he would've found it funnier that she's already got her head in the fridge. As it is he just notes it, and he doesn't have to get a good look at her to know who it is. "Ava Robinson," he says, as much to get her attention as anything else. There are warnings attached to her file that he won't forget, but twenty years of service counts for something.

"You don't waste time." The comment's offhand if anything, because it's not really a thing that bothers him. Any kind of social rules or graces applied to the kitchen or any other part of the house aren't a part of his. "Pass me a beer?"

When he finally answers, she can’t take her eyes from his face. He’s holding onto something and she doesn’t know what. Doesn’t know if she should even ask because she knows she’s walking the line, pushing the boundary into what he’s uncomfortable talking about and honestly she’s surprised he’s still talking at all. She thinks again it’s because the door is closed. Because it’s just them in here. Because he danced with her while she was drunk when he didn’t have to and didn’t want to. 

"What do you want?” she asks gently, quietly. She’s long since stopped tapping the pen in her fingers and instead she’s just sitting there watching him. There’s pain there, but she doesn’t know what it’s for. There’s understanding there, but similarly she doesn’t know what drives it. She thinks the question is an unfair one because he probably doesn’t want to tell her or maybe he doesn’t know. Or maybe his answer is similar to the one she’d give. She just wants to do things differently. Because there’s a hole in her life where a sister used to be and things would be a lot better if she was still here.

The answer comes easy, but it never leaves his lips. He doesn't know that it's even a matter of trust at this point, because he doubts it'd be anything that left the room. It's not about whether it'll get back to his boss or whether it'll just make him look bad all around. It's because it's too personal, too much to admit out loud to anyone. So he doesn't say it and he does his best not to think it, because if he does then that control and that patience will start to slip.

"A beer." He doesn't try to smile because it's too much effort, and he doubts it's worth the lie. Chances are she knows what it means. That he's done sharing, that it's already more than he's comfortable with. It doesn't stop him from turning the question back on her. "What do you want?"

She took a deep breath and nodded once more. “Right, so. Uh, it’s nothing too big. I was wondering what parts of this place are supposed to be off limits.” She was very aware that she used the word “supposed”. “Also, I know that you probably heard some stuff about me and I’m sure most of them are true, but I swear I won’t cause any trouble here.” Not intentionally that is. She had a knack for making it anyway.

They didn't have that many wolves on staff, but he wanted to keep it that way, and the words were as much for her protection as anyone else's. He watched her for a moment and he wasn't sure if that was her only question, but he took the words as an invitation to say his own piece. "I'm familiar with your file," he told her. He'd read it and committed it to memory but it didn't make him predisposed to bias. Just aware. "That being said, I know you won't. I have certain expectations of everyone here and one of them is that you're intelligent enough that I don't need to make threats or go out of my way to enforce them. I expect you to do your job, refrain from causing problems, and that ultimately you won't become a problem. Beyond that, anything you do in your free time is your business."

When he finally does talk, he just tells her to sleep again and she’s ready to tell him no again. To tell him that she can’t and she won’t even if she were to try. That she’ll probably wake up sweating or crying and end up walking around the estate anyway. But then he continues and it sounds so personal it has her stilling her words. It sounds like experience and again it reminds her that she doesn’t know much about him. Just that he has experience with this. 

"Why don’t you sleep?" she asks equally as quiet as him, as though she were aware that he’d never answer the question, especially if there were prying ears outside this office. But the door is closed and right now everything inside this room seems like something secure and quiet and personal, even if he doesn’t want it to be that way. She doesn’t know if she expects him to answer, but she asks it anyway and watches his face as if this is the moment he’ll shut down then.

He could tell her it's because he'd rather stay busy, but it seems more a side effect than a cause. He stays busy because he doesn't want to think and he doesn't want to stop, he doesn't sleep for the same reason. It keeps him equally as quiet and there's the thought there that he doesn't owe her an answer regardless of what it is. He doesn't have to tell her anything and there have been a number of times when he hasn't, when he's ignored the question altogether.

It's a strong consideration, one that leaves him aware of the silence in the room and rare that really is. There's always noise, background or otherwise, even if it's just the rustle of papers. That there's nothing now leaves him still and the answer honest, though afterwards he's surprised by how much it hurts just saying it. It's not an admittance he makes often even to himself. Even if it doesn't make any sense to her. "Because I don't want distance."

"I can’t, Hoss," she says and she doesn’t look at him, just keeps her head on her arm and taps away at the desk with the pen. Her voice quiet, disconnected. She doesn’t have to explain because he’s made it obvious he understands more than he openly tells her sometimes. Understands, doesn’t always agree, but knows what goes on. It leaves her feeling selfish because while he has a complete understanding of her and her past, she knows next to nothing about his. 

She should joke. It’s what she always does under these circumstances. Joke and laugh and pretend everything isn’t as shitty as it really is. Disassociation, stepping away from a problem without really dealing with it and it’s what she’s done almost her entire life. Only tonight she’s tired, her head is pounding and it’s Mitchell. And while some days she has to think about how to handle him, right now she’s not thinking about it at all. “I’m too tired to sleep,” she says with a half smile, her eyes moving to look up at him. 

It's not until he finishes what he's doing that he sets it aside, letting himself focus back on her. She's looking at him like she's waiting for something, and there's the distant thought that she shouldn't be. If she wants comfort or friendship or companionship it shouldn't be him that she goes to, shouldn't be him she asks to dance with her. That there has to be someone better for that is a certainty. They're just not in the room right now. 

"Sleep," he tells her again. His voice is quieter this time but it's just as firm because he doesn't show weakness. He can't afford to have any, because the flaws he has run too deep and there's too much damage under his skin. He knows that, even if he does his best not to face it. Maybe that's the only thing that has him continuing, even though he thinks he could just leave it at that single word. "Day doesn't end until you do. And if the day doesn't end, you can't ever get distance from it."

Could anybody truly resist a bit more power in their lives? Besides, he mentions a salary and she wonders if the Tenebrae would pay her more than what her job does now. It wouldn’t really matter, in the end. Taking this position would be much easier whenever she needed off for missions.

"Wow, I, uh," Clara chuckles nervously, still a little floored by the proposal, "I’m very flattered, sir. Really." Mitchell’s trust might be misplaced and it’s a brief moment of self-depreciation that she allows herself. Mostly, it stems from the idea that most people wouldn’t listen to her here anyway, with or without Mitchell’s blessing. But maybe they would. Following orders hadn’t seemed to be a problem for Alice and Niko on their mission.

Clara nods once, hands folded politely in front of her and she keeps her eyes on Mitchell, to appear confident despite the uncertainty. “Could I think about it?” she asks innocently, “Just a day or so.”

But she just asks for a day or two and that has him nodding his head. If empathy is something he struggles with, understanding isn't. "Of course. Take your time." Commitment to the Tenebrae's not something that should be taken lightly under any circumstances, and considering her own he thinks she knows that already. She was here because she'd discovered their existence and breached their security, and they easily could've found other ways of quieting her. Compulsion, enspellment, death, there were a number of more permanent solutions. 

If their permanent solution had been to indoctrinate her instead, he would take advantage of that however he could. And despite his opinion on how her last mission had gone, he thought this was a better fit.

There was nothing else he felt the need to add for the moment, and he assumed if she had questions she'd ask them, now or if she thought of them later. "Was there anything else?"

A more official position could mean anything. But it doesn’t sound like some kind of promotion. Clara doesn’t warrant one anyway. She hadn’t proven to be the best leader on the team and her biggest contribution to any mission had been being dog bait. Though, she had been rather successful at that.

"Uh," she stalls for a moment, gathering her thoughts and trying to find the exact question she wants to ask, "What kind of position?"

"Assistant. Secretary. Whatever title you like better." It's almost a joke, at least as much as he ever does. "Human resources. You already have access to most of the same information I get, so it would be a lot of what you already do, but with a salary." 

He runs a hand over his jaw while he considers what else she might like to know about it. "As much as I'd prefer it, I can't wholly depend on the house being self-sustaining when I'm not here." Dominic was proof enough of that. "You would be granted a certain amount of authority, especially in my absence. For instance asking someone like Dexter to ensure the thing with him is where it's supposed to be."

"I will," he agrees at the mention of exercising caution. He has no intention of trying anything too dangerous and if he does, he’ll do it outside of the manor. Off the grounds and that’s for multiple reasons. Mostly because he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt by something he does, but partially because if it doesn’t work, if Mitchell here decides that any attempt at harnessing power isn’t good enough, there’s the possibility that he could imagine controlling a demon isn’t in the cards anymore. He doesn’t want to threaten that. Doesn’t want Mitchell to make that call based on some other failed spell he tried to do out of a grimoire he found in the library. 

A calm kind of quiet falls over the office after that and Dex runs a hand across his mouth because yeah, there are a thousand other questions that could be asked but most of them are similar. Most of them are nothing he wants to voice and so the only thing he does is something personal and goes against everything he thought he’d keep from Mitchell. It slips out anyway. “He’s all I have, you know.” 

There's the thought that they're probably about done, that he'll go find something else to occupy his time because Mitchell doesn't pretend to be good with small talk or conversation for conversation's sake. And if he doesn't have any more questions he doesn't see what else they're left with. But before he can comment on it, the man's speaking, and the words make him still, leave him staring at him for a moment because there's loss there, and that's never been anything he knows how to deal with. Not someone else's, not with his own.

"Except he's gone," he says after a moment. The words aren't meant to be cruel, just facts, but maybe they're cruel enough. His brother's dead, and whatever he brought back with him is nothing he'll regard as the man himself. Maybe casting the demon out would be enough to leave him with his brother again, but he doubts it, even with his skills. If there was anything left in there to save, he probably could, but he can't help but think there's just distant memories. "You bury your dead and you find something else to fight for. That's how our lives work."

"Thank ya sir, and I’ll be sure ta message you next time if it happens." When he tells her to continue, she slips back into focus and her small smile fades as she continues the debriefing. "When they were out, Holt an’ McIntire  said that they heard someone call ‘bout some strange screamin’ they heard at tha power plant so we headed straight over. Once we got there an’ we got in after avoiding cameras, I performed a ritual ta draw tha banshee to us so we could deal with it accordingly. Ritual was a success but," she pauses for a moment, shoving down the minor bout of irritation she feels when she thinks of the sheriff and keeping her face neutral, "Tha local sheriff stumbled ‘cross us right when tha banshee appeared. Holt went after the banshee straight away. In the process he managed ta injure it pretty severely, but it cut up the side of his face pretty badly. An’ unfortunately, the sheriff wasn’t tha type of civilian who would be too scared ta pull out a weapon. He shot Holt in the shoulder before I took his gun away." It’s something that and she wasn’t happy about in the slightest, but she was team leader, she should have taken his guns away or knocked him out and she wasn’t going to shirk away from that. Besides, she wrote about it in her report, no reason in hiding it. 

"Much ta my surprise Holt exhibited great amounts of control an’ didn’t go after tha sheriff." She tacks on because she thinks it’s something worth noting seeing as how Mitchell seemed to be apprehensive about sending him out in the field. "Boyd went after tha banshee an’ wounded it’s leg. slowin’ it down before tha sheriff decided to interfere again and caught the banshee’s attention." God, that stupid sheriff. "That’s when I stepped in and diverted it towards me. I drew it away from tha sheriff an’ took it’s hands since the claws it had were givin’ us the most trouble. From there Holt was able to attack and finish tha thing off." She had no problem letting Holt take the kill seeing as how she pretty much indirectly promised him that he could take the banshee out and was probably the best way to placate the violent Vampire. Besides, it didn’t matter whether it was her, Ben or Boyd that delivered the final blow. So long as the job was completed in the end. Dakota takes a moment to pause because she imagines that Mitchell has something to say about the sheriff. 

"Thus the compulsion," he says. It's calmer than he necessarily feels about it, because there's still that lingering annoyance. Both because of the sheriff's interference and because incidents like that are how hunters are born. And much as he is what he is, it's not necessarily a life he wants other people diving in to. "What were the parameters?" It seems the most necessary question, what Holt told him and how much he took. 

He watches her for a moment and while his expectations make him wish it had been taken care of a little quicker, he can't argue with the outcome or his impression of their performance. And those expectations are ones better set for himself, because he's aware that hunts take time and energy, and no part of him believes any of them were purposefully dragging it out. He sits back, and the question's something of a loaded one because most of them are. But it's also because from all his dealings with her, he thinks she'll give him an honest assessment. "Do you feel everyone on your team performed to the best of their abilities, including yourself?"

"I told Dakota not to tell you," Clara admits, hands slapping against her thighs after she shrugs. She may as well be honest with him as to why he hadn’t heard about it. And there’s a slight giggle that accompanies her words, like a child in trouble that sees her own parents’ amusement at what she had done. "Thought you might be mad at me for it."

But Mitchell isn’t angry and they haven’t touched on what he wants to talk about, which doesn’t help the nervous ball forming in the pit of her stomach. “Well, I can’t think of anything else I’ve done wrong,” she chuckles nervously, “So, what do you need me for?”

That being said, he's almost at a loss because he's not sure how to approach the issue. She has a job, and it's one that's proved advantageous to them in the past. It just doesn't escape him that while he can question her abilities as a hunter, she's been helpful to him here without him having to ask. And perhaps it's his own desire to do everything himself that's had him resistant to act on it.

"I want to offer you a job," he says, because he tends to be blunt so he might as well continue the trend. "A more official position here."

"I noticed in the library there were spellbooks? Or grimoires or…-" he trails off because maybe this is just as dangerous of a question. Nothing to do with Dominic, but what he is and what he can possibly do with the power he possesses isn’t something he’s fully explored out in the open like this. Before coming here, he hadn’t come across much. One grimoire in a house they’d dispelled a spirit from and after that, he’d learned everything there was to learn in the book. Small things. Healing and protections mostly. The resurrection and demon binding had been scrawled towards the end of it, as if in someone else’s writing. 

Clearing his throat, he keeps his head down and the timidness in which he asks is hard for him to overcome. “Is it alright if I look at them?” He looks up at the man and wonders what it is Mitchell does. If there are other people in the house with similar talents as he has, though he wouldn’t consider himself talented in any way. 

"Some grimoires, some reference books, but most of it should be fine." Though there are some outside the locked and warded room that maybe shouldn't be there, for the most part he doesn't think there's too much damage he can do simply by informing himself. The question is less what kind of power he has and what he intends to do with it. 

"The only ones you shouldn't be touching are ones you don't have access to. However you'd like to educate yourself in the meantime is your business. Though it should go without saying that I expect you to exercise caution." He's not one for warnings or threats, and it's true enough that he shouldn't necessarily have to mention it. But he's new, so he does this time, and if he needs a better definition of what caution means then he hasn't been paying attention to his own circumstances.