Bristol, Wednesday
Mitchell turned off his phone as soon as the call ended, leaned back, and bashed the back of his head quietly into the window behind him. "Bollocks!" he groaned. This was bad. This was very, very bad.
Beside him, George had been inspecting his glasses. Now he looked up. "What now?"
"Owen's on his way over," Mitchell said, shutting his eyes. Which was just as well, because a small pot on one of the dressers on the other end of the room suddenly decided to explode, sending shards off into every direction. Yeah. He should've known Annie's poltergeist powers would take this moment to play out.
George startled. "What the f...!"
A few beads rattled as Annie burst through the kitchen doorway. "He can't," she snapped.
"Well, he can," said Mitchell, opening up his eyes to give Annie a pointed look. He was frazzled enough already. "It's his house."
"Did you just..." said George, who clearly hadn't caught up to the conversation yet.
"He. Can't!"
Behind Annie, several electronic appliances burst suddenly and inexplicably out into electric sparks, showering the carpet liberally in flecks of yellow.
"How did she--?" George contributed, wide-eyed and staring. (Not the time, George. Not the time.)
Mitchell brushed past him and fast. "She's a poltergeist," he said, distractedly. That wasn't the important part. "Annie, look, you can't be in this state--" Several books shot off the bookcase, and bollocks, she didn't just short out the television, did she? "--when Owen arrives."
"How long have you known about this?!" George squealed, pointing. Not the time!
"George, we'll talk about it later!" A coffee cup flung itself straight across the room until it struck the wall, but Mitchell wasn't about to look. "You've gotta control it, Annie!" he shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders, trying to give her some kind of touchstone.
"I don't know how!" The cry wrung itself out from Annie's throat, filled with desperation. A vase exploded.
"Gah! No!" George yelled, jumping. "That was a present!"
"Come on, deep breaths," Mitchell said, desperately. The radio sprung on into an incongruously cheery chorus of I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world! "Breathe."
"I can't have him in the same room knowing what he did!" she screamed, yanking herself away from Mitchell and that-- that wasn't good. Not that Mitchell managed to keep much of a hold of his own sanity with all the noise and the singing and the crashing going on around him. "I will bring this house down!"
He needed to get her out of here. Now. "Jesus!" he said, and snagged her shoulders again, and this time she let herself be led, at least. He shoved her towards the stairs. "Let's get you upstairs. We'll do everything we can to keep Owen down here, OK?" He feared his reassuring tone wasn't doing so well right now--
"Mitchell!" George screamed, behind him, as he ducked another set of flying objects, and charged at the rambling radio with that expertly trembling hand he had long since perfected.
Come on, Barbie, let's go party...
---
The house was in shambles. The house was in shambles, and now their murdering landlord was turning up for tea to a house that was already boarded up and covered in fucking rotten tomatoes. Mitchell didn't have a clue how this could possibly get any worse.
"George..." he sighed, casting another look towards the couch. The morose nineteen-year-old obviously did have a few ideas.
Too bad. They couldn't deal with that right now.
He opened the door.
"Boys," Owen greeted, and Mitchell had to repress a momentary upsurge of loathing. This was the smug bastard that had killed Annie, after all. Sometimes, people were fucking horrid.
"Hey," George replied from the sofa, saving Mitchell from having to do so himself, and didn't even manage to smile.
Coming up from behind Owen was that girl with the horrible tan - Owen's new girlfriend. The infamous Janey Harris. She took one look at the apartment, and scrunched up her nose. "Have we walked in on a domestic?" she asked.
"No," George mumbled, nearly too soft to be overheard. Then, louder: "No. Well, have you seen the house?"
"Not our fault," Owen said, pressing his hands to his hips. "Be fair." No, that one wasn't his fault. His faults were much worse -- but addressing that wouldn't do anyone any good.
And so Mitchell shook his head. "No," he said, and found that his own voice had failed him, all that rattling anger dissipated and gone. "Course. Come in."
They did so, but it was obvious that even Janey and Owen were a little put off by everything - their mood, the state of the house, all that - a certain careful quality to their step. Janey offered an envelope to George as soon as they were close enough, a quick motion clearly meant as an attempt to somehow break the tension. "Oh, erm, that was on your doorstep."
"Oh," George said, slowly, almost comically. "Ta." His thumb found the edge of the envelope and then he pulled it open, pressing against the sides so he could--
"Fuckin' hell!"
A blast of eau d'dog poo wafted strongly from the envelope, and all four of them recoiled.
"The animals," George whispered.
Janey looked like she was about to sink through the floor. "I have to wash my hands," she said, and turned for the stairs immediately. Fuck--
"No!" George shouted, employing some of his trademarked subtle tactics, and flew straight at her. "Kitchen!" he added, and grabbed her by the arm and dragged her off. Far, far away from Annie, thank god, but still. Honestly.
It left Mitchell stranded alone with Owen in the living room, though. "Didn't get any on the envelope, though," the bastard muttered, holding the envelope up by one corner. Holding it up for Mitchell to take. "Impressive aim."
He passed the envelope on to George as soon as he returned to the living room, and George vanished up the stairs with a muttered, "I'll get rid of this, then." Poo. They had left poo on Mitchell's doorstep. Fuck-- fucking people.
He felt a little shellshocked, and the mood in the room hadn't been much better. He sank down on the sofa, looking for something to hold on to.
"So, Mitchell..." Owen drawled, stepping towards him. Carefully, still. Like he was going to get up and attack someone, or admit to being a rapist, or something. "...what's all this about?"
Upstairs, he could hear the doors slamming shut, then opening again, then shutting, again. (Dammit, Annie. Keep it together.) He rubbed at his eyes, and set into the story, feeling detached from it all. It was so fucking stupid.
"You muppet," Owen said, when it was done. The twat had the gall to grin.
"It was a simple mix-up. I never meant for the kid to see it," Mitchell replied. He didn't feel much like smiling.
"Fair enough," the other said. "Jim said it was a fella. Tackle out." With an undercurrent of would you like to explain?, but not enough to convince Mitchell he actually cared.
"I have eclectic tastes."
Owen nodded as if he had even a fucking clue as to what was going on. "What you boys get up to is your own affair," he said, wisely, and glanced up at George as he re-entered the living room.
"Er, I have a girlfriend." At least George wasn't out of it enough not to kneejerk on that point. They chattered about porn for a short spell, stupid, inconsequential shit, something about how Owen used to hide his in his sci-fi boxsets because Annie wouldn't think to look, and didn't that make Mitchell feel sick to the stomach?
It felt like a century until he finally got to the point.
"What it is, lads... I can't afford to wind up the neighbours."
Janey bobbed her orange head like she knew even more about what everything was about. "I mean, we'll wanna move back in."
"One day," Owen added, from the side of his mouth.
Ignoring him, Janey continued. "And it's pointless us taking rent off you, just to pay it in rent to someone else."
Her boyfriend's head bobbed once. "Yeah." Owen got up to his feet. "So... I'm giving you your notice. End of the month."
George's head snapped up immediately. "No, no, you...you can't do that!"
After a pause, Owen corrected himself. "End of next month, sorry."
Whatever. Mitchell didn't give a fuck. Except he did. Except he didn't. It was all such a fucking mess and he really, really wished he could just dash off to Fandom right now, but-- fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
---
And because things weren't shitty enough, Herrick turned up a few hours later, when Mitchell had just driven his car all the way down to the other side of town for his fucking shopping, because the local refused to take his business any longer.
"Mr Mitchell, I need to take a statement from you. "
God, not this. "A statement?"
"Well, to be fair, at this stage it's more of a chat," Herrick said, conversationally. He was in full police regalia, full-on friend-of-the-people, come here, tell me your problems modus. Mitchell might even have bought it, if he didn't know any better. "Someone's made a very serious allegation about you, Mitchell."
Though how Herrick had figured that one out...
"How did you hear about that?"
Herrick looked affronted. "What, and all this time you've been thinking I'm a kissogram?"
Right. Cop. "Look, this whole thing is just.. It'll blow over soon. There's no need for a chat." Last thing he needed was Herrick leaping in and using this as another excuse to pull him back into the organisation. How many times was Mitchell going to have to tell his maker no before he got a clue?
"That's...out of my hands, I'm afraid," Herrick said, gently shaking his head. Of course not. "Someone calls the police, you know, it gets logged, forms are filled in... suddenly we're in a world of pain."
So as it turned out, things really could get worse. Fine. Really. "Fine, but not you. You're not involving yourself in this. This is nothing to do with you." Not vampire business. People business. Mitchell had to cling to the fact that as shitty as it was, it was still people business - even if it made him acutely aware of their failings as a species.
"No, Mitchell. Look, erm, you talk to me. Now, this is...this is kiddy fiddling, this is Child Protection. This kinda shit, you have no idea. You talk to me. I can deal with it."
It wasn't shit! It wasn't-- it wasn't like Mitchell actually did anything. If they did wind up prosecuting him, it wasn't like they had anything to go on other than a misunderstanding.
"I haven't... I didn't do anything," he pointed out, desperately. Anything, to keep this out of Herrick's hands. "It was the DVD. Someone found the DVD." Such a fucking disaster. He groaned, rubbing at his nose with one hand.
"This is gonna be an absolute nightmare for you, isn't it?" Herrick had the gall to sound sympathetic. Caring. Like the old days, when they were still running together, and Mitchell was just some fledgeling vampire idiot following at his master's beck and call. It was disgusting, and stupid, and so utterly, utterly tempting Mitchell almost just wanted to fall right back into it. "Tell you what, though. I do admire your restraint."
Mitchell's eyes snapped up. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, you know. Back in the day, we would have handled it very differently." So Herrick's thoughts had gone exactly where Mitchell's had. Well, that was--
He'd feel ashamed, later, but it was downright comforting.
Despite himself, he grinned. "If they only knew who they were messing with..." he said, and for a moment, he could see every one of his neighbours running, screaming... That would make things easier, wouldn't it?
"Yeah!" Herrick said, laughing. "Like that soldier, do you remember? In that bar. You know, where was that?"
Yes, where had that been? He'd thought back to it before, back with Max-- where had it been again? Wooden walls, stupid 'Take your pint' sign at the door, smelled like someone had chucked up in it right before it had smelled of blood-- England? No, not England. Wales? Scotland? Scotland. Yes.
"Glasgow!" he said, triumphantly.
"Yeah, that's it." Herrick grinned. "He's looming over you, he's poking his finger at you..."
This time, Mitchell laughed along, getting lost in the memory of a simpler time. "And he's going, 'Micks. I never want to see another fucking Mick.'," he said, purposefully exaggerating a Scottish accent for it. "And I'm thinking, 'Yeah, we can arrange that, mate.'" Man. That had been a good night, hadn't it? So much easier. When it had all just been blood and play and no one had to care about humans getting the wrong idea. They could just fucking deal with it.
He laughed, and Herrick laughed, and it was a bit like old tim--
("You hate it, don't you? You want to stop," Josie said, in another time and place, three odd decades after the body in Glasgow)
...Shit. No. Old times-- old times was everything he didn't want.
Fuck.
"Look, you just leave this to me," Herrick said. He was still smiling, but Mitchell's own sense of amusement and familiarity had evaporated as quickly as it'd come. "Yeah? Any more trouble, give me a call."
Mitchell shut his eyes. "I don't need any help from you."
"I hope you're right," Herrick replied, and shrugged, and smiled. He turned. "Take it easy!" he threw over his shoulder, as fucking cheerful as always, and left.
Left, leaving Mitchell there, exhaling shakily. Fuck. Fuck. Everything-- fuck.
He needed to go somewhere human.
He needed to scrub the memories of blood out of his head again.
He needed--
Fuck.
[[ nfb, nfi, ooc-okay! Taken from Being Human 1x04, which likes to be mean to the characters ]]