invisibilitea | IC CONTACT

[He huffs a laugh at that, still a little miserable.]

Yeah, I know he's got the whole-- gentleman thing goin' on, but. Trust me. Ivan's not the kind of guy that actually waits around for an invitation.

[Well, except when he is. He's unpredictable sometimes. It's just easier to think in critical shorthand. And suddenly Mitchell realises, again, just how tired he is. He lets his head hang a little, shoulders slumped against the back of the chair. He'd slouch, if only he could.]

Ah, Jesus, Annie. I don't know.

[He looks so tired, and she shifts, so that he can set his head on her shoulder, and she uses her hand to make this happen.]

Well, I'll keep him out if you tell me.

[She will. She has the force of will to do it.]

[It's stupid, to take any comfort from Annie right now, like he should be capable of some greater strength. A conversation about Ivan should not undo him so completely. But Mitchell really is tired, from so much. Maybe he shouldn't allow himself any refuge from that feeling--after all, it's no more than he deserves--but he can't deny it of himself, either. Not right now.

So he lets Annie tug him forward a little, lets the cool tingle of her presence spread through him. The feeling makes his breath catch a little.]

Maybe. Yeah.

[Though she really could, if she wanted to. Ghosts are so much stronger than they know, for the time that they're in the world. And Annie is stronger than most. He can tell, by how nearly-real she feels.]

D'you want to go back? To-- Bristol?

[If it's stupid, Annie doesn't care, because she's going to give him comfort until he feels better or he stops shaking, whichever comes first, and then she'll wait for the second. Her hands are running through his hair.]

To Bristol?

To before, you mean?

[She leans forward a bit, so she's speaking right in his ear.]

Will you still love me?

[He doesn't deserve this, either: but when she speaks into his ear, Mitchell smiles a little, despite himself. Of all the questions for her to ask--]

I couldn't stop myself.

[Not even if he wanted to. Not even if it might be easier if he didn't love her, if things weren't so complicated.]

We could go back. We could try it again. It was better there than in Wales--living in a bed and breakfast, that's no way t' be. And no one knows how time works back there, yeah? Maybe it really has been a year since it all happened.

[And surely this penance will count in the real world? This downward cycle, all of the mistakes he's made--Mitchell will have learned from them and when they go back, he will be clean again. Does he deserve to think that way, or is all of that just a lot of false hope? It feels possible, with Annie pressed so closely to him. She has been his best thing for so long now.]

[Oh, a smile. A tiny, sweet smile. She loves it. She loves that little bit of him that shines through his misery. And she loves his answer.

And she loves him, best of all]

We could, I would go back with you, we could just. We could be, couldn't we? In Bristol. In my little house.

[It's so strange to imagine herself somewhere that wasn't their little house.]

I could shutter the doors. No vampires allowed. No werewolves. Just you, and me, and George and Nina. No one else.

[He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve any of this--Annie's smile, and this future that they're constructing, that they won't have, can't have. The house with its doors all shuttered and closed. It would never work.

But it was so good, in that house. And it's good to pretend, just for a moment, that it could happen. That they will get to go home, and it will all be over. So Mitchell smiles back.]

Yeah? And what about takeaway delivery?

They can leave it on the stoop, I'll leave the money, then rentaghost to pick it up.

[This is complicated. But it doesn't matter. She holds onto him, close, presses her mouth against his temple.]

Annie...

[But there's a laugh in his voice, tired though it is.]

That's not going t' work.

[He's laughing, it's lovely]

Of course it's going to work, who do you think I am?

[She presses just a little closer to him, too.]

And you don't think anyone's going t' wonder why their money gets snatched off of a stoop and whisked away into a house that's supposedly empty? Come on.

[If he could only forget where they are, this might be a more normal conversation. But the wrench of his arms behind his back puts a stop to that, the bite of the ropes--still, when he looks up at her, with her little smile--he can just see it, even though she's pressed quite closely indeed. That almost makes up for everything.]

Even you can't trick the entire service industry into not asking questions.

No, I'm much better than that. I made you and George think you had a burglar at least three times before you saw me.

[She also scared off a lot of people who wanted to live in her house. She moves back a little, so she can smile at him.]

Mitchell, what if I untied you, so you could hold me? Would you stay?

[Though Annie would stop him if he didn't.]

And what's the take-away guy meant to think you are? A burglar who's taken up residence? A hermit?

[The pattern of teasing is wonderfully familiar, comfortable in that way--but her question takes something of it out of him. Some of his good humour fades, paling his face a little. Yes, the answer jumps up in him straight away, yes, Jesus, but he swallows it--]

Annie. I don't-- [Yes, he nearly says it, again--] I don't know.

Oh, oh, a hermit, I rather like that one. Yes. A hermit.

Three hermits, really, well, four, if we count Nina. We can live off - I don't know. Why didn't you ever invest any money? We could be rich by now. Isn't that how all vampires work?

[The ones in the novels and on the telly, anyway.]

Would you run away?

[She doesn't ask him like she's disappointed that his answer wasn't yes, although she is a little. She knows that this isn't easy for him. That he's managing the best he can.]

[The reasons for not investing are probably not ones that would help his cause for being untied right now. The vampire network is extensive enough that everyone is cared for, so long as they're team players. Isolation means poverty, to a degree, and Mitchell had embraced it happily--but kept the car, kept some of the stuff he'd collected, stuff he'd bought with money given to him. Self-loathing twists in him; he tries to fight it down.]

I'd-- try not to.

[The answer comes out halting, but he does mean it.]

If I do, you have to stop me. [Please; it goes unsaid.]

[She takes a moment, and finally she nods, and moves a bit to untie him. Maybe it's dangerous, or maybe it's not something she's thought through, but she's doing it anyway.

After the ropes are untied, she moves again to sit on his lap. She doesn't weigh anything really, but she's cold, at least, and that's like weight, in away.]

Really, I think we should just-forget everything else.

[When she looses the ropes, it feels like blood rushes back into his arms and his fingers--but Mitchell knows that's not a real feeling, that he knows ought to feel it and so maybe makes up for that, in his head, another mental trick that comes with being dead. The rush, the pins-and-needles; he flexes his fingers as he lets his arms drop to his sides with a sigh.

Coiled in him is the instinct to get up, get the hell out while he can--but he stays where he is. In part this is for Annie, for his real desire to be clean, to get over this, to be done with it. But in part it's because he really is just tired. Even the seething vampire side of him is tired, right now. And the pressure of Annie--which is really just a little bit of cold--well, that helps, too, that's enough to get just the smallest of smiles out of him.]

Forget it all except for us, d'you mean? Lock ourselves up?

[She presses against him, for a moment, but then sits so he can see her face, and she can see his. In case she needs to stop him, if he looks distracted, like he might bolt and get up.]

Yes. Right here. In this room. I'll get a kettle and a pot of tea and we'll just watch bad space movies and, and, I don't know.

We'll do something. That makes us smile.

[Right here. His eyes stray toward the door, for a moment--a blink and then he looks back, trying to focus on her. Why the hell can't this be enough? The things that she's saying, tea and company and space movies, those things should be enough.

Strained, he smiles at her.]

And is it space Titanic again? Or are we going for Space Die Hard.

[Let it be enough, he orders himself, let her be enough, films and tea and everything, let it be enough. He can fucking do this.]

Space whatever you want to watch.

[She catches his attention, she sees where it went, and she takes his hand, holds it tightly.]

You said you would hold me, Mitchell.

[As a reminder.]

Yeah.

[He swallows, hard; shuts his eyes for a moment.]

Don't talk. Just for a second. Don't talk.

[Shut up are the words actually on his lips. They would come out a snarl. He bites down, on nothing, swallowing that urge, and shifts so he can get his arms around Annie, pull her close, fingers knitting in the insubstantial folds of her jumper and his head dropped to her shoulder again, pressing in.]

[She opens her mouth, but then closes it again, doesn't say anything, and nods before she settles, moves her hands away, so she's not holding him really. So she's just curled up in his lap, quietly, tucked against him.

It's almost like they're not here because Mitchell is in trouble, although he is. It's almost like a secret. Annie wants so badly to just keep him close, safe, but she knows she can't even keep him warm.]

[The chill of her narrows his focus down to just that, just her--abrupt enough that it keeps his attention fixed for a moment, enough time for him to suck in another breath and let it out, however unsteadily.

But always beneath that chill, beneath everything, there is the sense of being surrounded, of the hundreds of pulses that he can't ignore but dares not to acknowledge, either--the dull and steady thud, the syncopated rhythms of concentrated human existence. His fingers grip to her jumper without realising it; his grip constricts again.]

I can't do this.

[He spits out the words from between gritted teeth, but he doesn't let Annie go, either, doesn't go for the door like he wants to, like he's dying to do.]

[There is a part of her that is bitterly disappointed, a part of her that just wants to disappear.

But she doesn't. She closes her eyes for a moment, and then looks at him]

Should I tie you up?

[Maybe this was all a terrible idea.]

No.

[But as soon as he's said it, he breathes out, harshly, from between his teeth, his hands clenched tightly around whatever grip he can get on her jumper--and it feels like something is moving under his skin, like something is struggling to tear its way out of him, and he slumps forward, his forehead pressed to her shoulder--]

Yes. Yes, for now, please--just for now, I'll-- I'm sorry, Annie, I'm so sorry--

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