Alice Asher

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. - Emily Dickinson

[exorcistmitchell]

Silence greets him at first, and it doesn’t surprise him. If he thinks about it, sometimes he thinks all they do is dance. She steps forward and he steps back and if he thought she really wanted anything from him he’d probably step back quicker. It’s nothing that occurs to him on too deep a level, because that dance is the most she’s ever asked him from him. Most days it’s just questions, and if they’re too personal he blows them off. It’s nothing she doesn’t already know and to some extent it makes him wonder why she still wastes the time. She could be making better friends here, someone less damaged and capable of offering more in return. 

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.

[alice-asher]

She's not sure what confuses him about it, maybe that her answer involved him at all and if that's the case, then he's not going to like what she says next. She sits up finally, her head pounding as she does and she knows that even if he says no he doesn't want to, she probably will go down and watch a movie anyway, it just wouldn't be the one she wanted with who she wanted. So she just gives him a smile and tries not to get her hopes up because the look on his face is telling her she already knows the answer. 

"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. 

[exorcistmitchell]

The question she asks isn’t the one he expects, but he’s alright with that. It doesn’t mean this one’s any easier. His lips press together as he stares back at her almost blankly. There’s only one answer to that, one word that rises to his tongue. Revenge. He wants Vincent dead, wants him to suffer, and anything beyond that is too much to hope for. He can’t go back. Even if he could, he doesn’t know what to change. Maybe that he’d ever met Emily. Maybe that he’d dragged her across the country. But it didn’t matter because there was no going back, there was no changing anything. There was no bringing the dead back to life because he knew full well the kinds of consequences that carried with it. So that just left him with his hate and his anger and his pain and the only thing he wanted to do with it was kill the man that had taken away the things he’d loved most.

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?"

[alice-asher]

He doesn't give her anything other than the answer she was expecting. A non-answer. An answer that says he's done talking about it and she lets her chin lay back down on her arms because she won't get him to open back up again and it leaves her with nothing else to ask him about. If it was a request for her to go get him a beer, she considers it for a moment because one sounds good about now, though how wise that would be with a concussion isn't exactly the best idea. 

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. 

[exorcistmitchell]

The question makes him pause, because while it shouldn’t be unexpected it almost takes him off guard. He’s not really sure how to answer it either, because it seems hypocritical to tell her it’s because of nightmares when that’s what she’s avoiding. It’s just not always the truth. Sometimes they’re good dreams, and he thinks those are almost worse, because then he wakes up and all he’s left with are ghosts and an empty bed. It’s enough to have him looking down at his desk, at the calloused hands laced in front of him and the empty space on his ring finger.

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.”

[alice-asher]

He's quiet and she can see the thoughts swirling behind those eyes, but she can't read them and she doesn't know what goes on in his head when he really has to think about an answer. She wants to know, but she's aware that pushing doesn't really get her anywhere unless its for him to stop being an ass. And it's been a while since she's had to say something like that to him. And it was never so blunt before. She's told him he doesn't act like a person, she's told him flat out that he was being rude and what he should say instead, but she's always done it in a way that hasn't been to be mean. Just to let him know that he shouldn't be. 

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.

[exorcistmitchell]

The only response he has for her at first is silence, because he doesn’t have anything extraordinarily helpful to tell her. He knows about the nightmares, understands them because he has enough of his own, and he thinks half the reason he’s still here and working now is because he’s too tired to sleep too. Not for the same reasons, but he doesn’t expect them to be and he doesn’t try to compare. There’s just the rustle of paper as he goes through the files on his desk and in the space between he wonders if she’ll fall asleep right there.

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."

[alice-asher]

He doesn't say anything for a long time and it gives her the chance to just sit there with her head in her arms. She watches him work, eyes drifting from between his face and the paperwork he's doing, but from the angle she's sitting at, she can't read what it is he's writing. Just that he is and that he seems focused on it and it's nothing she'd ever be able to do. Nothing she'd have the patience or attention span for. She doesn't know how he does it, but it's probably because he's just a better person than her. At least when it comes to this sort of stuff. 

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.

[exorcistmitchell]

He snorts but he’s not sure he believes her. He imagines there’s other places she’d rather be and other people she’d rather be with. There’s the thought she might miss her old coven, but he doesn’t ask because it’s not relevant and he doesn’t know what he’d do with the answer. Either way she’s here, he’s not firing her and she’s not leaving, so any other speculation is pointless. She doesn’t argue with his self-assessment, which he’s glad of, because it seems too much like self-pity to try and keep arguing the point.

There’s a brief glance up when she makes herself a little more comfortable on the other side of his desk, toying with a pen and he wonders why she’s still here. It doesn’t bother him, but he can’t believe there aren’t other things she’d rather be doing right now. 

"You should get some sleep." He knows when he says it that it’s not necessarily as easy as all that, not for her and not for him. Not after a hunt or the use of power. All the same, it’s a necessity, and he’s aware of it even if it takes him a little help to get there. He’ll follow his own advice eventually, that eventually’s just not now, because there are a thousand things to do still to get himself caught back up. It makes him think he’s stupid in his own right for not hiring someone to take the place the last assistant that transferred out of here, but it hasn’t been a top priority and he’s still not sure he’ll make it one.

[alice-asher]

The words almost make her laugh. Yeah, she should. She should go and get some sleep. There's a lot of things that should scare here that don't, but right now, trying to sleep is one of those things that does. For all the nightmares and everything that happened on the hunt, for the head wound and the pills she has to take, it's wearing on her and the fortitude she needs to keep up to try and keep those fears at bay isn't strong enough. Having her head ripped off repeatedly isn't the worse of it. She knows, just like after every push she gives to try and read an object's past in deaths, she just knows that tonight her dreams are going to be about Elsa. The same dream. The same outcome. The same fear. 

"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. 

[alice-asher]

Do you think you're more of an asset or a liability on missions?

Who knows anymore. Maybe that last one just wasn’t the right one, you know? 

[exorcistmitchell]

He snorts at the words, lifting an eyebrow at her. “Since when?” There’s some humor in the words, but he’s not sure they’re just a joke either. They’ve had this conversation before too, why she’s here, what she hopes to get out of it, but it’s not necessarily a welcoming place and he’s aware that he plays a part in that. He’s sure that to some degree he sets an example, desperately impersonal whereas she’s the opposite. But he doesn’t question it more than that, and the humor fades at the reaffirmation of her thoughts. 

"You’d be wrong."  He shakes his head in a stark refusal of the words, and his answer is just as firm as hers. Even if his success rate is higher than his failures, it doesn’t matter when the heaviest one on his shoulders is the one that really counts. That self-pity and self-loathing that comes with it isn’t anything he wants right now, nothing that matters much considering because there are other things to worry about. 

He doesn’t know why she says it, but he doesn’t question it. He doesn’t tell her it’s irrelevant either, because even though it is, there’s no point saying it. It’s how she is, and that more than anything is a reassurance he tells himself he doesn’t need. It doesn’t matter to him much what she did with her money, who or what she spent it on, but the comment itself tells him she’s at least faking it for the moment, and it counts for something. “You go with gas station noodles?”

[alice-asher]

"Since always," she says back lazily, with equal parts humor shooting back at him. The smile is an easy one on her face even though she's tried and just looking at the mound of paperwork she still has to go through isn't making it any easier. She doesn't know how he can stand it. How after a hunt like that one he can just come home and focus on paperwork. She wouldn't be able to do it. She'd go crosseyed just looking at the first part of it. 

He tells her she'd be wrong and she dismisses it with a scoff. He can say what he'd like, nothing will really change her mind. He'd been there for her several times already and she didn't doubt he'd be there again when she needed him. Just the way he had on this hunt, with the prayer coming in over top of hers with more force and finality, with practice and ease where hers had been unsteady and shaky. Super hero. There wasn't really much else to think about it and if he didn't believe in himself like that, then it was just because he had this thing about being professional. She almost argued him on it, but realized the futility of it before she even opened her mouth this time. 

"Gas station burrito," she said, laying her head to the side and if she kept laying here in front of his desk, she though she might just fall asleep slumped up against it. Her eyes were getting heavier, but the pen she was chewing on helped keep her from drifting off. Especially because she thought that'd be awkward for Mitchell. "Not the biggest mistake I've made, but right up there." 

[exorcistmitchell]

He shakes his head, dismissing the concerns. Though it’s interesting to him that she says it, because while he couldn’t argue that the hunt went well, it also didn’t go as efficiently as he would’ve liked. Most things didn’t, and he could admit that to himself if not out loud. It was occasionally difficult for him to tell the difference between the harsh demands he put on himself and what was realistic to expect. In this case, he’d kept criticisms to himself because he felt this time he was being too demanding. “We’ve had this conversation already,” he says.

He looks back up at her and he wonders if she’ll take the words as a criticism, if she did the first time he said them. It’s equally as hard for him to recognize that much sometimes. “We’re hunters born and bred. You’re not. It means I have different expectations of you. If they’re not the same as your own then do better next time.” There’s a pause before he shakes his head. “That means no, I’m not firing you.”

He pauses again when she calls him a superhero, and he thinks he should find amusement in the words but mostly he pushes back against them. They seem too far from the truth for him to accept gracefully so he doesn’t. “I’m really not.”

[alice-asher]

For a moment she just sits there with her chin on her arms and watches his face for any sign that he's just saying the words to placate her. She's never been good at reading people, so she doesn't see anything other than honesty and she thinks if he ever wanted to trick her, it would probably be very easy for him. She's glad she's not getting fired, that much is for sure. The eviction day is steadily approaching and in a few days, she'll be 100% Tenebrae with no other ties out there. 

"Good," she nods her head, tapping the pen against the desk and then sticking it into her mouth to chew on the end of it absentmindedly. "I like it here," she says around the pen. She means it both with the Tenebrae, with Greystone and here in the office. There's a bottle of pills in her room that she plans on wreaking havoc on when she's done here. The doctor had said no alcohol or sleeping pills, but she's not sure she can follow through with that. The nightmares are bound to be awful this time around and she's not entirely ready for it. It's what had brought her to the office in the first place and he's doing a good job of keeping her mind off of it all. 

"I think you are," she says with an absence of thought on the matter. It's just honest truth. He could do anything, perform any feat and she wouldn't be surprised at this point. It's not a hero worship per say, but it's darn near close to it and she's not afraid to admit to that. Chewing away on the pen, she's getting distracted in her own head and the words come unbidden. "I never went to get that lobster, just so you know." 

[exorcistmitchell]

He watches her for another moment, but she doesn’t say anything else and he doesn’t have anything else to offer. The noticeable shift in her expression doesn’t escape him, but there’s no real comprehension of why it’s there. Maybe because of it’s accuracy. He looks tired because he is tired, she looks like Hell and probably feels that way too. All the same, he doesn’t say anything more on it because that’s not the kind of man he is anymore. There’s a paper in front of him that she just put there that says she’s fine, and anything else isn’t his business. It has him dropping his attention back down to the papers in front of him.

The words are unexpected, and while there’s no noticeable reaction of surprise, they take him off guard. He’s not sure why she needs to ask, because if he was going to fire her, he would. And he wouldn’t waste either of their time by dragging it out. He told her already, his expectations are high, borderline psychotic when they come to himself, but not unreasonable when it comes to everyone else. He finishes writing before he chances a glance up at her, and the question’s a genuine one, like most things a test in itself. “Why would I fire you?” 

[alice-asher]

Alice sighs at the question because to her that just means he hadn't been planning on it. She leans forward, folding her arms on the opposite side of his desk, her chin resting on top of them. Her gaze moves to a pencil holder he has sitting there and she's not shy about reaching out and pulling a pen out of the cup, capping it and uncapping it like it's the most fascinating thing in the world. She's bored, she's tired, she should probably take some pain meds but she hasn't yet and there's no part of her that wants to lay down and rest by herself. She knows what her mind will do once she does. So for right now, Mitchell's the closest she's got to any sort of comfort, whether he wants that responsibility or not. A part of her kind of hopes he does. 

"I don't know. Because you guys were all so awesome out there. Like, really badass and you could have your own tv show. And then there's me like...touching stuff and not telling us anything we didn't already know. Just a waste of space. I would fire me." She's rambling now, clicking the pen against his desk and if it's annoying, she bets he'll let her know that in the next couple of minutes. She glances up at his face once before looking back at the pen earning most of her attention. The next sentence is random, but she's smiling while she says it because it's true in her eyes. "You're like some superhero coming in, you know?" 

[exorcistmitchell]

He glances up when she makes herself comfortable across from him, but it’s nothing he comments on. Not that, not the comment about her doctor. He just studies her, trying to gauge whether their definition of all clear matches his definition. Apparently close enough, because she’s joking about it, and he finally lets his attention shift to the paper she’s passed off to him. It should be reassurance enough, and he shifts it aside so it can go in her file when he gets there. 

"And you look like hell. Should we continue stating the obvious?" The words are almost petulant, voice cool as ever, but there’s no real bite to them. The words are true enough anyway, butterfly bandages on her head and discoloration of her skin on half her face. He studies her for a moment, but he imagines that’s from smashing headfirst into a gravestone. He’s gotten a brief recap already, but it’s just one more thing fueling his annoyance today. The mission was simple, straightforward, and he doesn’t understand why there were issues with execution on anyone’s part, including his own.

[alice-asher]

The words make her smile falter but it's only for a moment. She's not sure if it's the head wound, the residual feeling of having her head removed from her body, or just tiredness on her part but she's having trouble keeping the carefree attitude up at the moment. She'd been feeling out of place since before the hunt. Now that they were home from it, that feeling of not belonging was tenfold. She has trouble pushing it to the side. Trouble not just thinking about the fact that no one in this house thinks she's capable of being here because she doesn't even think so. So it has that smile faltering on her face when Mitchell treats her exactly the way she's been feeling. Just useless. 

But like every other emotion, after a deep breath, that's buried and hidden along with everything else. She plasters the grin back on her face and sits forward, looking at all the papers he's got spread out across his desk. There's too many of them and it hurts her head just looking at them all and how much paperwork something like a haunting needs to be followed up with. She wonders how much paperwork he has to do because of her and maybe it's that thought that has her asking the question. "Are you going to fire me?" 

[exorcistmitchell]

There’s the quiet longing for something, a cigarette or a drink, or one of the vicodin he’s got in an orange pill bottle over in his room. He doesn’t indulge in either, because the reasons he wants those things is the same reason he needs his head clear right now. There’s a demon here, in his house, and whether or not he’s got him behind a locked door now doesn’t change the fact that he’s here at all. It has his teeth grinding together in his head while he focuses on paperwork for the moment. It’s not calming, but it’s dulling, and that’s close enough right now.

They’ve barely been back a day, but this time he doesn’t have the luxury of decompressing from the hunt first. It means he’s in his office, working later than usual even for him, but there’s enough that’s gone on in his absence that it’s a valid reason and not an excuse. There’s a knock on the door, but he doesn’t flinch because there are a number of people he needs to speak to, and if he has to track them down they’re going to be unpleasant conversation. All the same, he barely glances up, unwilling to tear his attention completely away from the report in front of him, because he still has Dakota’s to review. “Come in.” 

[alice-asher]

Alice knocks, but it's only because she had the forethought to realize that the door could be closed because he had someone in there with him. When he calls for her to come in, she's opening the door and closing it behind her without any qualms. Coming to sit down in the chair across from his desk, there's not hesitation in her steps and no second guessing herself. There's a butterfly stitch on her temple, dark bruising down one side of her face that looks ridiculous and is just a reminder that she doesn't really belong here. It's nothing she wants to bring up with Mitchell because if he winds up agreeing, there's a good chance he might just kick her out tonight. 

Tossing a paper onto the desk, she smiles at him. "In the clear," she says, pointing down at the doctor's release form. She'd gone to the urgent care as soon as they'd gotten back from Death Valley. She had a nice bottle of pills in her possession and a bed rest order with a slight concussion, but it was nothing that really bothered her. The pills would be nice to have. "Doc said my head was gonna be fine. he didn't get the joke when I called BS." She grins at him, eyes scanning his face for a moment for any sign that he's upset with her. "You look tired, Hoss." 

[ninasdobrev-blog]

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[exorcistmitchell]

Mitchell pops the trunk before he clambers out of the driver’s seat, door slamming behind him. He’s past the point where he cares about being subtle or quiet, because it’s past the point where it makes a difference. It’s what has him going for the sawed off in his trunk, lifting it with one hand before grabbing a handful of shells with the other.

"This way." The trunk slams behind him before he starts leading them into the graveyard. His memory of the cemetery map is fuzzy, but he has a pretty good idea which direction to go and that’s more than good enough. Once they get close enough it won’t matter if he can remember exactly which gravestone they’re looking for, because they’ll either find Alice and Deacon or they’ll find what’s left of them and a still angry spirit. The though makes his stomach churn uncomfortably but he shuts it down because emotion in any form is useless.

He loads the gun as he jogs across the slickened grass, boots sliding when he goes down an incline. But he keeps his balance, attention shifting between the weapon in his hands and the sign of anything or anyone else. Fire, light, gunshots, yelling, he’ll take anything, but it’s the flickering form of Nicholas Scrubb that he sees first.

The prayer reaches his ears next, and later he’ll think they’re not words he expects from Alice, not something he thought she had any belief in. But he doesn’t know for sure, because it’s not in her file. Whether it’s relevant or not, it’s not something to dwell on now. Either way he’s punctuating it with a blast from the gun in his hand, rock salt ripping through the spirit. He gets a glimpse of dead, rage-filled eyes before he’s flicking from view and he’s stepping up next to the grave the woman’s slumped against.

He blinks and the ghost is in front of him again, a glimpse of grasping fingers stretched towards him, but he’s already following the shot up with the next line of the prayer. It leaves his lips with easy familiarity, fueled by power and belief, even if it’s a damaged thing. “Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.” 

It forces Nicholas back before he disappears from sight again, but he doesn’t put the gun down and he doesn’t relax. “Will someone please light this asshole’s corpse on fire now?”

[billie-deacon-blog]

"ON IT!!" Billie says, moving with the can of gas in her hands. She’s not sure exactly when Mitchell got here, and a part of her doesn’t like what she thinks it says about her abilities as a hunter that someone felt the need to step in. However, the larger part of her is grateful that there’s someone to look after Alice. Nice girl, but there was a pretty decent chance she’d be a body without a head if someone didn’t look out for her, and Billie was too busy to play bodyguard.

Shaking the can over the grave, she watches the gasoline mix in with the salt and the dirt already there, just enough to make sure they burn before she’s dropping the can. Reaching in her pockets for a set of matches she knew were somewhere. Once her finger wrap around them, she’s aware of chilly air just behind her. If the ghost was behind her, she wouldn’t be surprised, but she doesn’t turn to check. Death didn’t scare her, not even when it meant losing her head. Instead she just rubs the entire pack of matches along the top of a gravestone, striking them so they light and then tosses them unceremoniously into the grave.

The bones go up with a slight roar thanks to the gasoline and it’s only when she sees fire that she turns and moves over to Alice. Billie doesn’t waste time taking a breath, or pausing to take stock of the situation. One problem was handled, and then it was on to the next, which was making sure Alice didn’t need a hospital. 

[daniel-sester]

The first thought to run through his mind watching is that he’ll admit to being unprepared simply because his supply of rock salt had started to run low days ago. The other thought keeping him on guard because soon the spirit will return, they always do, rock salt and prayers can only do so much.

Mitchell has Alice covered, between the two of them they can help the other unless Alice is injured badly. Daniel rushes to the opposite side of the grave when Billie begins to douse the body with the gasoline, though he doubts she needs any of his help, she’s a capable woman, but Daniel believes that somewhere there is an unwritten hunter rule that states you always have each other’s back no matter who it is. She can bitch at him later if she wants, but right now all he cares about is stepping around to where the woman is standing, the poker held high above his head, when the flickering image of Nicholas Scrubb appears behind her.

Before Daniel can swing down, Billies drops the pack of matches down in the grave and a second later the remains go up in flames. He takes a step back, watching the flickering image burn along with its bone. A heavy breath escapes him. A breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding until letting it go. A part of him wants to go straight to Frank to tell him the good news, that he’ll be able to rest a little easier because they got the son of a bitch that took Chris from him. Killing the creature that took loved ones away is something Daniel knows, something that helps to ease the pain, though it does little to help. Nothing truly helps, but knowing it’s dead means resting easier at night.

Daniel turns to the other two, fighting back the urge to ask permission to go. Instead, knowing that Alice may be severely hurt and in need of medical attention, he asks, “You guys good?”

[alice-asher]

Alice sits against the grave and for the most part, she feels like just a spectator. Like watching some sort of movie or game play out in front of her. It had been like a dream when Mitchell's voice had cut in on her prayer and while she'd still uttered the words right along with him, she'd mostly just let him take over. Mostly just let him go through with the prayer and even after the gunshot and after the spirit was repelled, she sat still, taking unbelievable comfort in the fact that Mitchell was standing here. Her hands played idly with the grass beneath her and she watched the whole thing unfold in front of her. 

They were a great team. Daniel, Mitchell and Billie. They were professional and knew what they were doing, acting cohesively and flawlessly between each other taking care of setting the bones of fire and repelling the spirit. She was proud of them, thought they were great. She just wondered why she was here. And while for the most part she was good about setting those self deprecating thoughts aside, about moving that doubt about her abilities and her purpose aside, right now it was blatant and hard to ignore. Right now she just wondered what in the world the Tenebrae saw in her because all she did was touch things and told people what they could find out easily. It had her keeping quiet until Daniel was calling and asking if everything was good. 

"We're good," she was quick to assure and while she wasn't entirely sure if it was true, it would be. Mitchell was still standing right there, her head was pounding but it was still attached. She just wasn't on her feet yet, but she would be in a moment. When everything settled down. "I'm good, we're good," she said again and tried not to make the words sound too desperate to be convincing. She let out a shaky breath, nodding her head as she lifted her hand to try and wipe blood away from her temple. "We can go. We're good to go, right?" she looked up at Mitchell for the okay that they were done here. 

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[exorcistmitchell]

The voice that answers isn’t Alice, but there’s not much time to process that before she’s shouting at him and then cutting off the connection. There’s a sharp spike of annoyance, because he doesn’t need panic, just competency. And the shouted words don’t leave him anything but agitated and concerned, two things he doesn’t like to be. Still, he doesn’t really expect her to stop and report back if the spirit’s there and that’s the only thing worth focusing on at the moment. Completion of the hunt. 

The question Daniel asks him barely registers, because it’s nothing he’s worried about. Tenebrae resources aren’t necessary here. There’s no point in covering up something the police already know has been happening, and at least that way the family will never have to wonder what happened to him. Maybe it won’t be any consolation, but it’s the best he can offer who ever the dead man had in his life that might miss him. “Leave it.”

He’s already headed for the car when Daniel heads for the passenger seat, but the words have him voicing that annoyance in clipped tones. “At what point did I give you all the impression that I’m a fucking moron?”

The question’s rhetorical, but all the same he’s not stupid. He knows how to hunt, he knows what it means that the ghost isn’t here, and he knows it’s not coming back unless both the girls are dead and its body safe. It has him turning the key before he’s even got the door closed, but the moment it slams shut he’s putting it in drive and peeling out. There’s the skidding of tires as he yanks it around, dirt and gravel flying up somewhere behind them as he yanks the car onto the road and slams on the gas. 

[billie-deacon-blog]

Billie can hear Alice’s question and looks back at the woman. Yeah, she’d hung up on the guy, but she didn’t see how it mattered much. They had bigger issues than filling the boss in. First, Billie had to make sure she and Alice weren’t gonna lose their heads to a fucking spirit, and then she would let the other woman call the boss back. “He’ll live.” she says. continuing towards the grave. 

They had to salt and burn the bones, and then possibly get Alice to an ER if need be. Billie hadn’t taken the time to fully assess the injuries but she knew head wounds bled worse that others, so she was hoping it wasn’t anything too bad. Still the fact that it threw Alice with such force is enough to both piss her off and make her just a teensy bit nervous, not that she would ever let nerves affect her end goal. Billie had a box of salt in her hand that she’s shaking over the bones when she hears Alice’s voice above her, punctuated by a shot.

The woman says he’s here and Billie just groans. “No shit. I didn’t think this was fuckin’ target practice, Al. Keep him off me.” she snaps and the words aren’t meant to be cold or mean, she’s simply distracted by what needs to be done. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought to bring the gas can closer to the grave or why she hadn’t prepared for this possibility, but she hadn’t done either. She mutters curses to herself as she pulls herself out of the hole. “I need to grab the gas. You okay by yourself for a minute?” she asks, glancing around nervously because the ghost would no doubt reappear any moment and Billie would not accept any casualties on this mission, and certainly not someone she actually enjoyed.

[daniel-sester]

They’re speeding off down the road before he can even get his seat belt fastened. Suddenly it’s 2008 again, Joseph is driving the back roads of Kentucky, and Daniel is holding on for dear life. Why he ever agreed to teach a fourteen-year-old to drive is beyond him. They were in a hurry then, and they’re in a hurry now. Still, Daniel would like to make it to the graveyard accident free. Mitchell had asked a question before putting the pedal to the metal, though he sat on the question because he hadn’t meant to offend the man. Hell, he isn’t even sure if it were an actual question or just a remark. So he didn’t say anything.

The outside flies by them in a blackened blur, the car more than likely going faster than the speedometer can read. At this rate, they’ll be at the graveyard in no time. Hopefully the girls can hold their own until Mitchell and him arrive, surely four hunters can fight off one seriously pissed off ghost. The way it flung the two of them shows it’s strong, strong enough to even rip heads off of shoulders. Gathering his things, arming himself with the poker and his gun, he realizes he forgotten one crucial item. Salt. He hadn’t gotten around to buy some with how busy they’ve been the past few days. 

"One of them happen to tell you where the grave sight is?" Daniel asks, eyes moving from the other man and the road. When they get there, the last thing he and Mitchell would want to do is run around like a chicken with its head cut off. If they aren’t careful, that saying could become quite literal. "Or are we stuck guessin’ a direction and hopin’ it’s right?"

[alice-asher]

Alice sits down again at the words Billie shoots back to her. They're mean and snappish and it just has her blocking the other woman out for a moment as she focuses on herself instead. Her hand lifts to her head again and the throbbing is becoming a sharp pain. There's a lump forming around a still bleeding cut on her temple and for a moment, she just leans to the side and lays her head against the cool marble of the tombstone. Her eyes close and that's probably a bad idea, but she's unsure what else to do for the moment. 

"Yeah," she replies when Billie asks if she'll be alright by herself. She pulls the gun in a little tighter and holds it there on her lap. Her eyes can't seem to open and while she hears Billie move, she realizes she's not exactly sure where the woman left the gas can. It's something they should have brought with them out here. She should have been carrying it, probably and she thinks again about Mitchell trusting her abilities. He shouldn't. She's not a hunter, his words, and she shouldn't be here. 

The feeling of fingers along the side of her neck don't alarm her at first. A soft touch pulling her hair back and it takes her longer than it should to realize that there's no one in this graveyard who should be touching her like that. It has her eyes springing open the gun coming up. It doesn't get the chance to go off before it's pulled violently from her fingers and flung away, useless. She's shoved to the ground after that and she can feel the fingers get tighter, starting to pull and she knows what happens next. She knows the feeling of having her head ripped straight from her shoulders. 

"Dear St. Michael, the Archangel, protect us," the words escape from her mouth in a string and she can feel the fingers on her neck flickering, loosing grip. The prayer is quick and ancient and though her belief in the words isn't 100%, her belief in the power of the words is and that's what drives it. That's what keeps her from being decapitated right then and there with the ghost of Nicholas Scrubb standing over her. 

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[exorcistmitchell]

The answer takes long enough to come that Mitchell’s almost worried, but by the time he gets himself steadied he can hear the man’s reassurances. They’re labored enough that he turns too much of his attention towards him, concerned for injury. It turns out to work in his favor because the next moment Nicholas is flickering to life in between them. He sucks in a breath and there’s another prayer on the tip of his tongue, another spell that draws on his power and binds together with his faith, but he never has to.

Daniel’s got the poker up, ready to take on the ghost, when it’s gone again, and in its wake the bridge seems suddenly quieter. That feeling of his hair standing on end, the crackle of electricity, it’s gone too and it has him frowning even before the question comes.

His lips move, mouthing another spell for illumination, but even after the flare of light, nothing makes itself known. No sign of the ghost they’re here after, and it just has him shaking his head.

"I don’t know." He doesn’t like the words, doesn’t like saying them, because already he’s conjuring up alternatives and there’s only one that makes any real sense. He said it to Daniel already, spirits followed patterns and this one had restricted itself to this bridge. To leave that abruptly makes him think he knows exactly where he went. Back to his body, because someone’s disturbing it and he can probably feel it. He turns slowly, holding the rosary up as he scans the area.

He pulls his phone out and he doesn’t bother with a text this time. He just hits Alice’s number before putting it to his ear. The other hand still holds his rosary tightly in case it’s simply biding its time, but there’s an absence of that energy in the air that makes him think it’s just gone. He can hear it ringing on the other end, but he already thinks it’s going too long without an answer.

[billie-deacon-blog]

Billie smiles at the answer. It’s vague and she likes that, kind of pleased that the woman hadn’t taken it as an opening to spill her guts or start spouting some sob story. It hadn’t been meant as a test, though she couldn’t help but feel like Alice had passed anyway. She was one of the few people Billie didn’t mind hanging around. She can hear the scrape of the shovel against the coffin and she knows in a moment she’ll need to get up and help salt and burn the things. 

There’s a bad feeling in her gut, the kind of instinct she’s known for too long to ignore. Her eyes sharpen and she goes quiet, almost holding her breath for a fraction of a moment to decide if this is something serious or just years of paranoia. She gets her answer when Alice is suddenly thrown backward. Billie is up like a shot. “Alice!” she shouts the woman’s name and aims her gun. It’s loaded with rock salt, because what the hell else do you fire at ghosts? Moving fast to the other woman, she pulls her up fast by her shoulders and props her against the tombstone. The fact that the woman’s eyes are open are enough to reassure her that she’s not dead. Pressing the loaded gun into Alice’s hands, she doesn’t give time to explain the finer details. “Point and shoot.” she says, before scrambling back towards the grave.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why had she thought she could take a break? There were no breaks. Not on a mission. God, she can practically hear her father shouting at her from somewhere in the ether. The bones needed to be salted and burned, otherwise there was a good chance there was going to be more blood. As she moves she spots a phone on the ground, ringing. Picking it up she flips it open, recognizing the number if only because it was programmed into her own phone. “Not now, it’s fuckin’ here!” she shouts into the thing before snapping it shut and continuing to move towards the grave. 

[daniel-sester]

No amount of this sits right with Daniel, the sudden silence, the sudden feeling of ease. Not even the flash of light Mitchell summons revealing nothing. None of it feels right. Ghosts up and vanish all the time, but not like that. Something is definitely wrong.

Still on guard for anything unexpected, he slowly closes the gap between him and Mitchell, only giving himself a split second to glance at the car still running on the bridge. Daniel’s upset they couldn’t of saved the guy, and nothing more. Though it sucks, unwanted casualties do happen in their line of work. “What are we going to do about him?” He asks, tilting his head in the car’s direction wondering if the Tenebrae has a group of cleaners to handle the bodies they’ve failed to protect. Daniel hadn’t seen Mitchell was on the phone when he asked his question, so he offers a whispered apology.

It’s cut short when a voice on the other end of the phone shouts something about it being here. He could of heard wrong, the voice was muffled from the foot or so between the two man, but loud enough to hear. It has to be one of the girls, no doubt about it, but what’s there? No. It couldn’t be Nicholas, right? Pondering on it, it does make sense the more he thinks, that the ghost would go to his body after it has been disturbed. Meaning he’s after the girls now, That thought has Daniel moving around the car to the passenger side and climbing in. “We gotta get to the graveyard. They’ll need us.”

[alice-asher]

She's still laying where she'd been flung when there's a hand on her shoulder suddenly pulling her upright. The world spins, topsy turvy all around her and she's aware of a gun being shoved into her hands, a shouted burst of instructions before she's left alone again. It takes a while for things to catch up and when they do, her hand is curling around the gun. Her head throbs, something trickling down into her eye. She lifts a hand up to touch at it and when she pulls it back, her fingers are dipped red. 

Lifting her head to watch after Billie, the world is still grainy, fuzzy around her. There's the familiar ringtone in the air and it has her patting down her pockets to try and find it, but she sees Billie answer it for her. She frowns at the words she yells into it and calls out afterwards. "Was that Mitchell? Did you just hang up on Mitchell?" There's something funny about that to her, because who in their right mind hangs up on Mitchell? But she guesses she's not in the right mind just right now. 

Using the tombstone as leverage, she grasps it with one hand as Billie descends back into the hole they'd just dug. She makes it to her feet, unsteady and shaky there. Her hand tightens on the gun and when she looks up again, she gasps sharply because there's a man standing over the grave and she can recognize it even with the world pulsating in and out of focus around her. 

"Hey, hey!" she yells and raises the gun to point it at the figure. She takes careful aim not to hit Billie with it, firing a little high. The recoil is brutal, because firing a gun is still something a bit new to her and it does the trick, but it also knocks her on her ass afterwards. She sits there for a moment, blinking heavily and leaning her head against the tombstone. "Billie he's here," she tries to call. 

[alice-asher]

What do you think of the mission you were just on?

I’ll let you know when my head stops spinning. 

[alice-asher]

What scares you the most?

Nightmares. Because most of the time they’re real.