Darkest Before Dawn

Daniel Sester | 43 | Hunter "It's always darkest before the dawn when your world is weary, when all is dark, when dreams die and fade away, and all of life is stark."

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[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. 

[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?"

[pennyroyalorange]

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[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. 

[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?"

[daniel-sester]

Do you think you'll ever love someone again?

Not sure.

[daniel-sester]

Enjoying your first mission at Greystone?

Nothin' joyful about this one…

[daniel-sester]

What do you think your greatest strength is? What about your greatest weakness?

My greatest strength? Uh, I dunno. I’ll have to say my knowledge of the supernatural, I guess, even though it probably makes me sound like a know-it-all. My weakness is definitely my emotions. If they ever get off track, it won’t be pretty.

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[alice-asher]

Alice chuckles a little, though it’s a halfhearted thing. What was she with the Tenebrae for? Because they’d come to her when she’d been nearing rock bottom and it had seemed like a good idea at the time. She could go into it. Go into why she was at rock bottom, that she had a twin sister who was murdered and she relives it pain by pain some nights. That she had been a part of a coven who had ultimately abandoned her, though she thought they’d split on good terms. That she had a power she didn’t know how to follow through in a healthy way. None of it is a really good answer. 

"Tried the real world, didn’t really like it," she gives and it’s noncommittal, along with the shrug that accompanies it. She doesn’t have a better answer that isn’t deeply personal and though most days she’s not shy about sharing that sort of stuff, she can’t help but just keep it to herself right now because Billie seemed surprised she was capable of anything really. What would she think to know that the Tenebrae had ultimately recruited a failure before she’d even showed up at their doors? 

At the request that she finish uncovering the box, Alice nods. She tucks her flashlight into her jacket pocket and hurries down into the hole Billie has dug. While the girl takes a break, Alice starts clearing off the dirt. It felt weird digging up a coffin, though she’d done it once before on an assignment. Still, she would hate it if someone dug her up after she’d been laid to rest. And the thought of someone digging up someone she loved? It didn’t sit right with her. Even if it was to put them to rest. 

As soon as she get sit uncovered, her fingers curl around the edge of it and pull up on the lid. In that fraction of a second she feels it. The change in the air. Something she’s more acutely aware of because of what she is. A crispness in the cold, a static in the wind, just the small shadowing that they are not alone anymore and she opens her mouth tell Billie that she thinks something isn’t quite right, but she never gets the chance. 

It yanks her from behind and she’s not really aware of what’s happening until she finds herself laying on the ground ten feet away from the grave Billie had just dug up. The world had toppled and turned around her and there was a sudden, harsh throbbing on her forehead that turned the ground sluggish around her as she blinked up at the stars. Something warm and sticky trickled along her forehead, the tombstone next to her the culprit. 

But for a long moment, she just laid there because she could see the image, see the picture. Someone looking up at their own body, pouring blood out onto the cement. It’s still burnt into her mind and her hands come up to feel at her own head, at her own neck because there’s a desperate need to make sure it’s still attached, even though the pounding in it should be comfort enough. 

[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 goin' 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]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[alice-asher]

The text she gets back from Mitchell makes her smirk. He’s funny when he wants to be and maybe it’s just through text, but she thinks the fact that he’s trying is a good sign. She almost wants to point out that it’s a normal person thing to do. To try reciprocate humor when there’s nothing funny about a situation. She clicks the phone quiet and holds it against her chest, just in case they need to text or call for something else. 

"Yeah, everything’s good. Guys are okay still," she tells Billie when she asks. The next question about graduating has her lifting a brow, turning to look over her shoulder at the woman. She doesn’t think she should take it as an insult so she doesn’t, but it could easily have been. "Yeah I graduated. Even went to college for a bit," she tells her, smiling a little wryly at that. She leaves out the part about meeting the coven there. About living the high life as well as they could for as long as they could and starting her business up. Things had been much better back though. She’d never really had her life in order, but there’d always been someone there to help her out. It took coming to the Tenebrae for her to realize that she’d lost that somehow along the way. It hadn’t been a thing she’d been conscious of either. A gradual thing but it had occurred to her one day that she had no one close anymore. 

"Still doing okay there? Want me to take over for a bit or anything?" she asks, turning to see the progress Billie’s gotten on digging up the grave. They’ve still got a ways to go and while she doesn’t mind keeping watch, a dark and spooky graveyard isn’t all that exciting to her. There’s not much happening out there except for noisy bugs and the sounds of a highway in the distance.

[exorcistmitchell]

Mitchell frowns, but he settles back against the hood of the car when Daniel goes to check it out. He has the urge to follow him but it should be a simple thing. Tell him to piss off and go back the way he came, but he keeps his eye on the car all the same. His fingers keep up their idle motion, rosary beads moving between his fingers because there’s a chill settling in the air. He doesn’t think it was there a moment ago and maybe it’s just the night settling in, but probably not.

Daniel pulls away from the car and he straightens when he does, opening his mouth to ask him what he said. The words never leave his lips, cut off by the scream that splits the air. It has him jolting, because it’s followed by the spray of blood against the man’s passenger window, and he doesn’t have to see through the tinted glass to know what he’ll see. The horror of it almost jars him, but he’s quick to move all the same, pushing himself away from the bumper even as the other hunter bolts past him to get the iron poker. He doesn’t answer the shouted words, because he can see as much for himself.

He takes a few steps forward, putting himself between the man behind him and the car where he has no doubt there’s a cooling body. The headlights behind him cast his own shadow against the back of it, a stretched, distorted thing. “Fiat lux.” His hand comes up, cross dangling from his closed fist as he snaps the words into the air. There’s a flash of light and a ripple of power when he does.

It’s followed immediately by a crackle in the air, almost like static making his hair stand on end, and the insubstantial figure of who he can only assume is Nicholas Scrubb appearing in front of him. He barely has enough time for that to register before he’s being struck int he chest with enough force to send him backwards.

His spine hits the car, enough to have him letting out a sharp hiss of pain, followed by the sound of smashing glass as he breaks one of the headlights. It’s unimportant at the moment however, because there’s a feeling like ice around his throat and it has him scrambling, boots scraping against the gravel as he tries to push himself back upright and the words leaving his lips in a burst.  ”Deus, suscepit me.”

The power’s a short, desperate blast, nothing that’ll hold for long, but it’s enough that the chill disappears from his skin. “You still good, Daniel?” he calls, because he can’t see him right now and he doesn’t dare turn his head to look.

[billie-deacon-blog]

Billie snorts softly at the guys being okay. If they weren’t okay, then they were dealing with something way worse than a vengeful spirit, in her opinion. Billie hadn’t seen Daniel in action, but she’d seen Mitchell and though she didn’t know him well enough to trust him implicitly, she had at least a moderate confidence that he was well aware of what he could do and she respected that at the very least, if not admired it.

"Huh." Billie says, honestly a bit impressed by that. She doesn’t think that even if she had finished high school that she would have had the patience to continue her education. She liked to know things, but she mostly liked to learn how to kill and how to hunt better. "Look at you. The fuck are you doin’ this shit for then?" she wonders aloud. Alice probably had a reason that was impossible to work around, the same as Billie and the same as everyone else. Something that bound them to this life whether they liked it or not. It was something she found true in most people in the Tenebrae. No one could walk away from it.

Billie has practically reached the top of the coffin. She can feel the steel of the shovel’s blade striking wood with each motion, so at Alice’s offer, she shrugs. “You wanna clear the rest of this shit off? I could do with a little break. ‘Specially if shit’s quiet.” she says, tossing the shovel up onto the ground and pulling herself out of the slight hole and resting on the grass atop the man’s wife’s grave.

[daniel-sester]

In the moment it took for him to shout, Mitchell was stepping between him and the car belonging to a now deceased man. The man says something in Latin and and it's followed by a flash of light and a crackle in the air, almost static like, the hairs on his neck stand up. His grip on the poker tightens when Nicholas appears in front of the other man, a chill sending shivers down his spine as he watches closely.

Suddenly Mitchell is sent backward into the car and there's enough time for the man to speak something else and pull himself up to ask if Daniel is alright. But before he could answer or even take a step forward, it's him this time who's struck in the chest with a force strong enough to send him backward to the opposite side of the road. He lands hard on his back, the air escaping his lungs. Somewhere close he can hear the poker clattering to the ground.

The air never returns because an icy sensation appears around his throat. Hands and feet flailing, Daniel can't find his voice to yell for help. Like hell he's going out like this, so when the image of Nicholas Scrubb flickers inches from him, whatever his fingers wrap around is what he swings through the spirit of the very angry deceased. In one gigantic breath, all the air comes rushing back, and he has never been so grateful for Sophie's fire poker.

Catching his breath as he stand up, Daniel rubs a hand over his throat before speaking up and never taking his eyes off the area around him. "I'm good. Asshole packs a wallop." The words come out in heavy breaths. Damn thing tried to rip his head right off, and he expects there to be bruising ...if they manage to make it out, that is. A few minutes of waiting in absolute silence, Daniel deems it safe enough to bolt to his companion.

In doing so, the poker is raised over his head as quick as Nicholas appears between the two men. Skidding to a stop and readying himself for a swing, Nicholas appears to straighten before suddenly vanishing once again. Daniel counts the minutes as they pass by. Five or so go by with no sign of their target. Still, he doesn't dare move an inch. "Where the hell'd he go?"

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[alice-asher]

Alice follows along quietly as she listens to Billie talk about coming across teenagers as she hunts. It just goes to remind Alice of how experienced everyone else on this trip is and how inexperienced she is. They were all out here doing what they did best and she was having breakdowns after touching a bridge. It made her wonder again what Hoss thought of her being out here and if she’d disappointed him by not actually helping with anything. 

When they find the grave, Alice holds up her hands. “Go for it,” she tells her, content with  just leaning against the headstone with her back to Billie, looking out at the rest of the graveyard and keeping watch. Knowing her luck, the cops would show up and accuse them of grave robbing. How did people explain that one? She wondered what a cop would do if they just told them the truth. That they were here to salt and burn some bones so a ghost would stop beheading people at a bridge. They’d probably get locked away quicker. 

Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she started going through the contacts until she found Mitchell’s name. She typed in the text to him. We found the grave. Still have your head? And though it wasn’t the best timing for a joke, it was all she knew how to do right now. She was still out of it, still picturing that spirit and the way it had torn the heads of its victims clean from their bodies. It was nothing she wanted anyone to go through ever again. 

[exorcistmitchell]

Mitchell follows him out of the car, his own gun tucked safely inside his coat. It’s a line of defense he’s trained in, prepared with, but it’s the rosary around his wrist that he goes for, loosening the beads so the cross is hanging near his palm. Against a ghost, the white magic he commands will be a thousand times more effective than a bullet. He can’t help the motion of his fingers once it’s free, thumb moving the beads on his wrist even as he crosses to the front of the car. He leans against the bumper, a mockery of casual as he fixates on the bridge ahead of them.

He almost laughs at that. Not quite, but a smile tugs at the corner of his lips before he nods his head. After all, there were a number of scenarios where the words had probably proven true, a thousand instances where being a half second slower on the draw meant someone died. And while a fire poker’s not traditional, he won’t argue the use of it either. Iron is effective enough, and if anything he’s just quietly approving that he thought to bring it. “Fair enough.”

The vibration of his phone has him frowning, pulling it out to check his messages. It’s not a thing that ever goes far from him, not with their team split and Dakota’s team still in the field. The message has him lifting an eyebrow before he texts her back. Still attached and everything. It’s more humor than he usually gives, perhaps more than it warrants, but he chooses it over the alternative. It goes back in his coat afterwards, distracted by the sight of something behind him.

It has him shifting off the hood of the car, and by the time his feet hit the grass he can see lights coming around the corner. It makes him uneasy, but not as much as the energy he can feel in the air, something like static or dry lightning. “We have company,” he says.

[billie-deacon-blog]

Billie’s hands burn lightly as the wooden handle rubs against the skin there. They’re lightly calloused from the familiar motion, but it’s been a long enough time since she’d done this that she can feel the way the skin is rubbing and reopening. Most likely it’ll blister. It’s nothing new and nothing she pays much mind to.

For long moments, Billie just digs. As she works, she can’t help but feel a tug of nostalgia. She’d used to stand where Alice stood, keeping watch while her daddy dug up a grave, though once she’d gotten old enough to pull her own weight she’d been down in the dirt with him. She’s got the first layer of dirt off when she looks up at Alice again. The woman is looking down at her phone. “Everything okay?” she asks, Putting her shoulders into it, she begins to haul up more dirt and she’s glad she hadn’t given up working out. This would have been a lot harder if she had.

"Did you graduate?" Billie asks, and it’s a random question she knows, but her mind is in the past and she’s curious about the way other people had come into this life. "Or did you just stick to making out in graveyards?"

[daniel-sester]

Daniel hears the crunch of gravel underneath tires before Mitchell points it out. The car passes them, the driver hidden behind tinted windows, but with the way the car is decked out, he can assume it's someone young. A douche bag. The car comes to a stop on the side of the road on the bridge a few yards away. Letting out a sigh, he motions for Mitchell to stay put as he goes to deal with the unwanted stranger. The person better go without a problem, if not, Daniel will just have to force them to leave.

Coming up and knocking on the window, he patiently waits for the driver inside to roll it down. When he does, the person staring back at him looks to be in his mid-twenties, a suitable age for the douche-ness of the vehicle. "Can I help you?" The man says, his voice completely monotone.

"Haven't you heard about this place?" Daniel questions using his best authoritative voice. Question someone has never been his strong suit and neither has pretending to be a person of authority. "This is the sight of several murders. You should go on home, sir. What's your name?"

"That's exactly why I'm out here. To see who is behind it." The man frowns at what Daniel said next and glances in the rear view mirror, probably at Mitchell who's still by their car. "Tyler. You cops? You undercover? Let me see your badges or I'm not leaving."

Daniel tells the man to stay put, rolls his eyes, and walks back to the car. He was about to open his mouth to ask about any spare police badges lying around until a scream fills the air behind him. Bolting back to the car on the bridge, he gets there in enough time to see the last of the tearing flesh before Tyler's head is completely torn off. The ghostly hands drawing his attention to the backseat gets to him more than the headless corpse in the front seat. In the backseat he catches a quick glimpse of the spirit behind it all. Nicholas. "Oh, shit." It comes out as quickly as Nicholas gives a horrid smile and disappears, vanishing in thin air. Daniel is quick to pull the fire poker from his bag, gripping it tight as he backs away from the car. His eyes are furiously scanning their surroundings for Nicholas because right now, both he and the other hunter are in danger. "Mitchell, we got trouble!"

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

[alice-asher]

Alice shakes her head when Billie suggests she could do it on her own. She’s not useless and even if their trip to the bridge hadn’t produced much of anything, she can still make herself useful now. Billie’s gruff attitude isn’t different than how she normally is, but it does make her wonder if she’s a little fed up with her. It doesn’t bother Alice, or at least she tries to make sure it doesn’t. She doesn’t let much bother her, but right now she’s having trouble keeping the pieces in place. She has to, though. Because they still have a job to do out here. 

Following Billie into the graveyard, she pulls out a flashlight and starts shining it at the tombstones they pass by, keeping the name she’d said in her mind. Scrubb. The name of the man who’d died and now lingered at a bridge beheading people who came close. A part of her wanted to pull out her phone and call Mitchell, just to make sure he and Daniel were alright. She didn’t want anyone near that bridge right now. Not after the things she’d seen and had felt with the victims. But she doesn’t. She tries to stay focused on what they’re here to do. 

"Used to sneak into graveyards and make out with boys when I was a teenager," she says and it seems to come out of nowhere, but it’s the best small talk she’s got. She had weird teenage years. Rebellious and a mess, just about as much as she was now but back then she was still very much trying to get over her sister’s death. It had ensured that she hadn’t made close friends. Only those friends who were bad influences. Or maybe Alice had been the bad influence. It was hard to tell. 

[exorcistmitchell]

"Damage control," he says. Which isn’t really a plan, but that’s all he leaves it at for the moment. He pulls the car over, gravel crunching beneath the tires as he parks it on the side of the road. The bridge lies ahead of them, and it looks a lot more ominous in the dark, especially knowing what they do now. They have a name now, and an almost absolute certainty that Nicholas Scrubb is the cause of death. Burning his bones should put it all to rest, but in the mean time there’s always the slimmest possibility that they missed something.

Even if they didn’t, he doesn’t want anyone else to die because they took too long to unearth a body. “Spirits follow a pattern because they don’t have a choice. They’re trapped, by their anger, grief, whatever emotions followed them into death.” He thinks in some ways they’re not so different from the living, but he doesn’t say as much. “So if that’s what we’re dealing with, which at this point we can pretty safely assume, I don’t want to see anyone else get killed while we’re burning bones.”

He turns the car off, leaving the lights on for a moment and staring at the bridge ahead of them. He knows being here is dangerous, that they could be the ones left bloodied and mutilated by the end of the night, but it’s an acceptable risk. It’s what they do, who they are, and if there are bodies to be left it should be those of hunters. Not their children. “And on the slim chance we’re wrong, well, hope you brought a gun.” It’s the closest he comes to humor these days, though it’s true enough. 

[billie-deacon-blog]

Billie’s eyes follow the beam of light as Alice shines it on the headstones. It’s hard for her not to think of Kentucky and of the family plot where so many other Billie Deacon’s were buried with their wives and children. All of those Deacons and one Fr. Edward Rose. One day her name will be there too. Wilhemina Marian Deacon. Buried between her daddy and her best friend in the world, just like she ought to be. Alice’s words drag her from her thoughts.

Billie had only been a teenager in numbers. Nowhere in her life had she bothered with the normal rights of passage. No proms. No soul-crushing midterms. And definitely no making out in graveyards. Her first kiss had been from a young man grieving his dead sister, only given because he was vulnerable and she had been pumping him for information. “Be on the lookout for horny teens, then.” Billie tells Alice with a small smirk. “Can’t even tell  ya’ how many times I’ve come across horny teens while I’m tryin’ to work. Like, seriously, what is it about graveyards that get’s people’s blood pumping?” Billie asked, but it’s mostly defensive, because the hunt always get’s her blood pumping. She likes what she does, hell, she even liked who she is most days. She believes in her purpose on this earth, even if it isn’t filled with sunshine or rainbows.

"There." she says, pointing with the shovel as Alice’s light catches on the familiar name. "X marks the spot…. ‘cept it’s not an ‘x’ it’s the guy’s fuckin’ name…. whatever though. You cool with keepin’ watch while I dig?" she asked already approaching the grave and pushing her shovel into the earth, pressing it down with her foot to make sure it goes deep.

[daniel-sester]

Damage control. Easy enough. Daniel rather be out at the bridge dealing with the spirit if it goes after unsuspecting drivers who make their way out here. Shoveling up a grave hurts his back, it always has, though much more as the years go by. That he keeps to himself unless it's necessary to tell someone, or if it starts to hinder him from doing his job. So, making sure no others end up dead until the job is done, he can do.

Mitchell explains to him what causes spirits to do what they do, most of it he knows and what he doesn't is most likely written in his father's journal back in his dresser at the manor. He turns the car off, leaving the headlights on, and Daniel stares out at the bridge. He knows good and well that the two of them could be the ones who get hurt being here. A risk he's willing to take if it means a father will get to greet his son when he steps through the door.

Opening the door and stepping out, slinging the bag over his shoulder, Daniel rests and arm atop the car and leans in the car. Of course he has a gun, he isn't that stupid to have a fire poker as his only weapon, especially if they're wrong, like Mitchell voices. "Wouldn't of lived this long without one." Which is true, a hunter's best friends are their weapons and knowledge, without those, well...they're shit out of luck. "I have a fire poker in case dude shows up." Daniel says and shuts the door, making his way to the front of the car, squinting his eyes in the headlights as he waits.

[alice-asher]

Troubled Water || Daniel, Billie, Mitchell & Alice

Alice had still been fairly out of it when they’d gotten back to the motel. Billie had been back with research about the bridge and facts about the deaths and though Alice had tried to pay attention, mostly she’d sat there and let everyone else handle it. She still had the feeling of death lingering around her. Still had the feeling that her head wasn’t attached to her body and she knew from experience that it was going to take a little bit for that to fade. She was glad that they were heading out the same night. That they weren’t going to try to sleep just yet, because she didn’t think she’d be able to tonight. And while she wasn’t sure if the others would mind her watching the tv on low all night, a part of her had just wanted to get out of the motel room. To get out of this city. To just get out. 

She didn’t know who’s decision it was that she didn’t go back to the bridge. Whether she’d said something without thinking about it or whether someone else had made the suggestion, she wound up going with Billie to the graveyard. Salt and burn the bones, make sure the corpse was taken care of so the spirit wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again. She was happy to have a task like that. Though a part of her wondered if it was even safe to let Daniel and Mitchell go to the bridge before they’d gotten this done. Maybe they could go there to do a cleansing afterwards, just to be sure. 

"What’s his name again?" Alice asks as they pull up to the graveyard. She knows she’s been told the name, knows it was part of the briefing after they reconvened and left to come do this, but she hadn’t been paying attention and that was her fault. She opens the door, stepping out and the night at least is a cool one, enough that she has to wear a jacket. She has a gun on her, but what she expects to do with it is beyond her. Shoot coyotes, maybe, but this wasn’t where the attacks were taking place and she doubts they’ll run into trouble. 

[exorcistmitchell]

Ideally it’s just damage control. Sebastian doesn’t consider himself optimistic so he’s not sure that’s all it’ll turn out to be. But if it happens that salting and burning the bones isn’t enough, he’d rather be where he can step in before anyone else gets killed. It has him back behind the wheel of the car, heading back towards the bridge. If there’s a sense of unease that’s greater than the first time, it’s nothing that can be helped. Alice said there were more than seven. 

Daniel’s in the passenger seat next to him, and it’s more his nature that keeps him quiet than any residual emotion from their conversation witch Jecht. He’s had enough time to put aside any anger and bitterness, and all the same it’s nothing the man deserves directed at him. He suffered loss, he learned to cope, and there’s no point thinking any more on the matter. So he doesn’t, instead focusing on the road and the threat they might be able to eliminate tonight.

"Don’t look in the mirror," he says abruptly, because her words are suddenly ringing in his ears. He doesn’t question it, because he knows enough about the occult that he knows they can serve as a conduit for the spiritual. In this case it looks like it just invites death, and while he doesn’t assume they can dodge any and all problems by something so simple, it would be nice.

[billie-deacon-blog]

Billie climbs out of the car and walks around to the trunk. This was routine. A small, normal type of thing in her life. Salting and burning bones. It was so casual, despite the fact that it carried headless bodies along with it’s stories.Still, in comparison to other things she had seen, this was practically a cake walk. Maybe not for Alice though. The woman looked run down, the usual light in her eyes dimmed. Opening the trunk, Billie grabs a shovel and a bag of supplies. The standard things you would find in any hunter’s trunk.

"Scrubb." Billie says, walking further into the graveyard. "Look for a Nicholas J. or an Amelia. They’ll probably be together." she says, though when she glances back at the woman she shrugs. "Or you can wait in the car. I don’t mind diggin’ on my own. Kinda used to it." she says. It’s not out of kindness because why should she give much of a fuck. Sure, Billie liked Alice and of course she had noticed the weight the woman had brought back from the bridge, but it didn’t mean she cared. Not at all.

"Let’s just do this shit, so we can get back to the kennel and I can grab a fuckin’ drink." Billie says, leaning the shovel over her shoulder and keeping her eyes on the gravestones, hoping it wouldn’t take all night to find the right one.

[daniel-sester]

The car ride is quiet, Mitchell hasn't spoken since putting the car in drive, and Daniel thinks it has to do with the little speech he'd given to Frank. After he got back and had time to himself in the motel room, his choices of words were probably not the best, a lie nonetheless, but the man needed some sort of reassurance. Honestly, to this day, he still hasn't gotten over his losses, he just learned how to manage his anger to the best of his ability.

Mitchell suddenly speaks and tells him not to look in the mirror. It's a random thing to say, but he doesn't question it, there must be some reasoning for it. So he straightens up in the seat and opens the bag in his lap to double check, though he has already dug in the bag five times since leaving the motel, for the fireplace poker he brought from his other stuff at the manor. Iron, of course. Heading out to the bridge he didn't want either he or Mitchell to be weaponless in case the spirit decided to pay them a visit before the others could salt and burn the bones.

Closing the bag, he looks over to the other man before casting his eyes out on the road. "What's the plan for when we get there?" It feels like they're the distraction so the spirit doesn't try to stop the girls from doing their part. None of them knows how this thing thinks so it's anyone's guess what could happen.

[exorcistmitchell]

frank jecht ♔ mitchell + daniel

[exorcistmitchell]

"Mean I told him not to go! The fuck you think?" The anger’s back, just as abruptly as the first time, and Mitchell’s equally as still underneath it. He doesn’t take it personally. He takes it as a man feeling guilty and full of grief, with no real outlet for either of those things. He’s not surprised when he pushes himself to his feet, less so when he marches into the kitchen and comes back a moment later with a beer. That he doesn’t offer them one just means he’s running low. 

"Told him not to go. Folks been dying out on that bridge, why the hell would I want him around it?" He stops to take a drink and Mitchell watches him as he downs half the can in one swallow. There’s a gasp when he’s done, like he’s drowning, and it seems accurate enough. He pauses again, attention on the ground while he works through it. "I was working on getting a case together to send your way, he just…"

He trails off and Mitchell stays quiet. But it’s not until Daniel asks the question that he can suddenly see much more clearly where that guilt comes from. The man takes too long, too quiet until Mitchell draws his attention back to them with his name. “Frank.”

He blinks and looks up, focusing on him briefly before his attention shifts to the other man. “Yeah,” he says, almost weakly. “Yeah, he knew. Didn’t want him to, didn’t want any of that for him, but…” He shrugs his shoulders, and his eyes look red and damp with unshed tears. “That’s my boy. Couldn’t send him out into the world ignorant, could I? Just didn’t think he’d do anything that stupid…”

Mitchell doesn’t answer him, because there’s not much to say to it. It’s a lose-lose situation all around and he’s sharply aware of it, even if he doesn’t want to think about it right now. It’s irrelevant anyway, because whether or not the kid knew what was waiting out there doesn’t change what happened to him. It doesn’t change much of anything except how much pain the man in front of him suffers, between all that loss and regret. “Did you figure out what it was?”

[daniel-sester]

Daniel sits there and stares when Frank starts to yell again. With every outburst it's only a reminder of the way he used to be, and still could be for that matter, but he wishes there was something he could say to ease the man's anger even if for a little bit. When he gets up to head toward the kitchen to come back with another beer, it comes to no surprise. 

Frank goes on talking, nothing worth writing down that they don't already know, though the part about the case he said he was putting together does pique his curiosity enough that he writes it down for later. Daniel was about to open his mouth again, but trails off and becomes silent, taking much more time to answer that question than all the others. A clear indication of what the answer is.

Mitchell brings him back by saying his name, and he soon tells them Chris did indeed know of the supernatural. The guilt Frank has comes from not informing his son about what there was he needed to know, something Daniel can relate to. Though his guilt comes from not being able to offer his son the life Frank tried to give his. Yet both ways of living still took their sons from them. Mitchell is then asking the man if he figured out what the creature was. 

"I said, 'I was working on getting a case together to send your way.'" He guzzles the remainder of his beer, crushing it in hand, and tossing it on the ground with the rest of the gathering garbage. "If I knew what it was, I would of killed the fucker myself." The anger slowly starts to return, but before he can say anything else, Daniel is opening his mouth and blurting something out.

"You're not the only one Frank, I want you to know that." He doesn't know where the words come from, doesn't know why he's bothering with them, but he does know that it feels right to. That maybe it's what the other father needs to hear. "I had a son, Joseph, and he was a hunter. Story short, he and my wife died. For three years I was just like how you are now. I know how you feel, I really do, but you can't let it consume you. Or your guilt will eat you away until you do something drastic." Frank sort of stares at him with a smug look, remaining silent as he goes on. "What helped me was to talk about them just like they were here constantly because I knew what could happen to them being hunters. Unfortunately they were taken from this world, from me, but eventually I got over it. It's going to be alright. We have a somewhat good idea of what's doing the killings. We'll get it...for you and Chris." 

Daniel lets the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding out, rubbing at his eyes because that took a lot more out of him than he thought. He promised this wouldn't be a problem, and so far he has done good and will continue to. If Mitchell asks, he'll say it's allergies or something, though the other probably knows better than that. "Is there anything else we need to know?" He asks Frank, the fact his heart races causes his voice to shake.

[exorcistmitchell]

frank jecht ♔ mitchell + daniel

[exorcistmitchell]

There’s only a slight hesitation at the offer, because the setting alone makes it seem too personal, but after a moment Mitchell settles himself on the edge of the couch. Daniel’s quiet as he seats himself and he doesn’t need to question it. He’s got a notepad in hand and if it stirs up memories then all Mitchell needs to know is if he can still do his job. That he seems stable and focused is enough for him, and he lets his attention shift back to the man across from him.

The bluntness doesn’t surprise him, and if anything he almost appreciates it. He knows no part of this has anything to do with his comfort, but business is an easier thing for him to handle. He can talk professionally, talk about missions and hunts and monsters, but it’s the personal aspect of it he falters at. I’m sorry for your loss is nothing but a platitude, and he thinks every man in this room knows it. It counts for little, because there’s no consolation for that kind of loss.

It had him returning the bluntness in kind, and he didn’t need to ask him when, where, or what it looked like after the fact. He already had those things written in his file. “Was your son having problems with anyone?”

Frank shook his head, hand scrubbing over his mouth before both arms fell slackly to that of his chair. “Chris is… was a good kid.”

"I’m sure he was." He doesn’t point out that it has little to do with what happened to him, because it rarely does. He doubted Daniel would say anything different about his son. Mitchell would’ve said the same about his kids. It didn’t matter. It never mattered. "No fights, no disagreements over anything?"

The man’s face twisted in a snarl and he was picking up an empty beer can and hurling it at the wall with an abruptness that surprised him. “I said he was a good kid!” he yelled the words after the fact, but Mitchell didn’t flinch under them or the display of violence. He waited quietly while the man struggled to reign himself in because the anger was a thing he fully understood. A sigh escaped Frank after a moment, hand scrubbing over his face. “Look, it wasn’t a someone that did this and I figured you folks would’ve figured that much out already. It was a something.” 

Mitchell gives it another moment before he answers, trying to gauge if he’s got himself back under control or not. “We did figure that much. Doesn’t mean there’s not room for variables.”

Frank stares at him and while he’s not yelling anymore, the words that follow are sharp and bitter. “Fuck your variables,” he says, before he goes quiet again. There’s a drained, empty look to him and for a moment Mitchell’s not sure what else to ask him, what the right way to push is. He’s no good with grief, including his own. He licks his lips, but whatever he’s about to ask next gets cut off by the quiet words. “I told him not to go out that way. I told him not to go.”

[daniel-sester]

At the top of the paper written in somewhat neat handwriting is Frank's name and the date, something he very easily looked over until his son mentioned something about it. If for whatever reason they needed to speak again, but if something from the second meeting doesn't match up with the first, then they'd know something was up. He doubts that kind of thing would happen here, Frank is too distressed over his son's death to know anything more than that. Still, in their line of work, it never hurt to leave that option open. Daniel lost track of how many mothers, brothers, aunts, and uncles lied about what they knew or saw or whatever.

With the pen tip pressed to the first line, readying to write something down, the motion is stopped when an empty beer can is picked up and hurled at the wall in such a manner that Daniel swears Frank is a spitting image of how he was. All the sudden outburst gets from Daniel are a few quick blinks as he studies the man. He opened his mouth to put his two-cents worth in, but soon Frank gets a hold of himself well enough that he finds what he were going to say pointless. 

Sure, Daniel could say Joseph was a good kid, but he still found himself in troubling situations. One point he started to see a vampire who said she was against drinking from humans behind his parent's back. It was an obvious lie. Daniel had killed her before she could even get the chance to drain the boy. He has no intentions of mention that, so he says nothing.

The words were quiet, but not quiet enough if he hadn't intended for the two hunters to hear. Daniel quickly scribbles it down, that Frank had told Chris not to got out near the bridge. "What do you mean when you say you told him not to go out that way?" Daniel finally speaks up, the words putting a thought into his mind. The deaths prior to Chris surely would of spread around, and anyone in their right mind would stay away. And yet the young man went despite his father's advice. "Mr. Jecht, was your son aware of the supernatural?" Daniel asks, eyebrows knitting together as he waits for an answer.

[daniel-sester]

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[exorcistmitchell]

frank jecht ♔ mitchell + daniel

[exorcistmitchell]

"Good." It’s all he has to say about it, all he feels he needs to say about it, because whether it affects the mission is all that’s relevant. He doesn’t want to relate, because loss is a simple part of what they are and what they do. There’s not a person in Greystone who hasn’t lost something, if not everything. That their losses take similar forms is nothing the other man needs to be aware of, because there’s only one person in the house right now who knows about Mitchell’s dead and he wants to keep it that way. The job is all that matters now.

The door opens in the next moment, and he’s not surprised by the appearance of the man standing there. His memories of him are vague, because he left before Mitchell came to this side of the country. The only contact he’d had with him was contractual, because even if he wasn’t hunting anymore the man knew how to keep an ear out. The one looking back at him now barely resembled him. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and he could recognize the distant look on his face. He’d seen it in the mirror before. “Mr. Jecht,” he said. He knew it was too formal, but that cool professionalism was easier to fall into. “You know who I am?”

The man stared at him for a long moment, sunken look on his face. Long enough that Mitchell’s not sure he’s going to answer, but then he’s blurting the word. “Tenebrae.” He clears his throat, stepping back to open the door for them. “Come on in.”

He gives a nod of his head before he steps past the threshold, and it doesn’t take more than a glance in the kitchen to figure that the inside of his house is currently going the same way as the outside. That brand of decomposition is familiar too, but he doesn’t comment on it, just waiting until Daniel’s inside and the door’s shut. “We’re here to ask you about your son,” he says, and for a moment he wishes the words sounded less clinical. “Sorry. For your loss.”

[daniel-sester]

Daniel gives a slight nod at Mitchell's response, the churning in his stomach slowly settling knowing now he won't be made to sit this out. A part of him is glad that the other hunter knows what his past consists of, because if, and that's a really big if, he has to step out of the room to recollect himself, the other would understand on a personal level. On a professional level, and after giving word it wouldn't be a problem, the boss more than likely will not tolerate it.

When the door finally opens and he can take in the appearance of the man before them, it almost feels like he is staring at a reflection of himself from five years ago. Daniel stood there with his hands in his pockets as Mitchell asked the man if he knew who he was. The man knew, no doubt that he didn't, but when living in and out of this life, sooner or later the Tenebrae will be at your doorstep. Just pray the visit isn't about a death, and unfortunately for Frank, it was. He invites them in and Daniel is the last one through the door.

With the door shutting with a click behind him, Daniel casually looks around and what he can see of the unkempt rooms only resembles the days, the weeks after his losses. The sight is all too familiar, and he swallows hard before speaking in a genuine voice, one grieving father to another.  "As am I."

The man says nothing, the distant look on his face giving nothing, and all he does is gesture them toward the living room. The few empty beer bottles is a telltale sign Frank is clearly having a difficult time coping with his son's death. "Please, have a seat." Frank gestures toward the couch as he plops himself down in the recliner. Daniel obliges, digging into his pocket and producing the notepad and pen he brought along. "Ask away." Frank blurts out, and Daniel glances over to Mitchell and hopes he will be okay with doing all the talking because Daniel isn't sure he'd be able to handle speaking to the father if he were to have a mental breakdown in the middle of the interview.

The first few therapy sessions he endured had minimal results, the therapist kept going on and on about his family and Daniel got to the point where he couldn't take it anymore. After many thrown chairs, he managed to get a hold on himself. If that were to happen here, then he'll speak up, but for now, he'll stick to listening and taking notes.

[exorcistmitchell]

frank jecht ♔ mitchell + daniel

It was no exaggeration to say that this was probably one of Mitchell’s least favorite parts of his job, or that it always had been. Monsters he could deal with, pain he could deal with, the horrors they left behind was nothing he hadn’t learned how to handle. Interviews like this one, trying to handle grieving families in a way that wasn’t too cold or too callous, that pushed him more than he liked, and the circumstances around this one even more.

He couldn’t find the humor in it, that a skimming of Frank’s file said he’d left the Tenebrae in the first place so he could raise his family. So he could keep them away from exactly this, and his son had ended up dead anyway. Mitchell hadn’t quit but he’d lied about it and his kid was dead, the man who’d come with him had kept his wife and child fully informed and they were dead too. It left him exhausted in ways he didn’t want to acknowledge, that there was no right answer and no real hope for any of them. He shut the thoughts down, because they didn’t serve any real purpose in the here and now.

He parked the car on the street before he led the way to the door of Frank’s house, passing by a lawn that looked like it hadn’t been touched in a week and a porch that creaked loudly when he stepped on it. He’d be surprised if the man didn’t already know they were coming, but he knocked on the door before taking a step back, leaving him in easy view of the window. He glanced back as they waited, focusing on the hunter with him for a moment before he blurted the question. “Will this mission be a problem for you on a personal level?”

He didn’t think he needed to be more specific than that, doubted he misunderstood what he meant. It didn’t bother him that it was a blatant admission of what Mitchell knew about him. If he assumed that anyone in his position wouldn’t have the files of his people memorized then he wasn’t giving him enough credit. 

[daniel-sester]

It may come surprising to others that until his wife became a hunter this was completely new territory for Daniel. Questioning, barging in on the deceased's family was nothing his mother and father bothered with so he hadn't either. Get in, track it down, and dispose of it quickly. That had been their motto to ensure civilians didn't happen to come in the crossfire. Tons and tons of work were put behind it, and it's true they could of made it easy on themselves. Sophie came along with a different idea in mind. From then on, they always interviewed the most recent victim's loved ones for any clues or connections.

Exiting the car and following behind Mitchell as he led the way up to the front door, Daniel took note of how poorly taken the man's yard had become. It's sad, really, and it reminds him of the week after burning his family's bodies how he just let himself go. Hair was a greasy mess, the van began to turn in to a junk yard, and he couldn't bring himself to hunt anything when he knew good and well something was going on. Others would think it's pitiful how he lost himself knowing the consequences of living the life they endure. Though no one's safe as it turns out, whether they leave this life or not. This Frank had been a former member of the Tenebrae, he left, but look where that still got his son.

Stepping up on the porch, Daniel stood there, hands tucked in his pockets as he patiently waits for the door to be answered. The question doesn't surprise him, that the other man knows what his past holds. Being in his kind of position he's probably required to commit the files of everyone he's responsible for to memory, though it does make him wonder why he waited until now to bring it up. "No. It won't." There's nothing but certainty in his voice. Daniel won't let it be a problem, they have a job to do and he can't let anything, even his family, get in the way. "You have my word."

[daniel-sester]

Do you find it hard to work on a case that reminds you of your family?

It’s hard with anything that reminds me of them.