All vampires are arseholes

"Hey, you've reached Mitchell. Leave a message after the beep, I'll get back as soon as I can."

Beep.

Mitchell was in the office as promised, juggling with a few things to dispell the boredom. Boredom was such a massive hazard when you were like him, it was sad, really. If nothing else, doing something kept the mental overthinking at bay.

He opted to turn on the television in the end.

[[ open but sp ]]

It was a Wednesday, and Mitchell had mostly driven worries about people going around paralysing each other out of his mind. Instead, he had gone to his office, like he'd promised Kate, ordered a pizza, and turned on the television.

Just because he was a vampire didn't mean he needed to spend his days indoors in a coffin or something. ... Although he wouldn't put it past Herrick to start enforcing that one on a lark.

Anyway, BBC World had not yet lost its wonders, and the pizza was decent, so Mitchell was sated.

[[ open hours! ]]

At least today, Mitchell wasn't going to have to fear being assaulted by random vampires in his office, which was a cheery enough prospect to get him to go there. This time, he found no qualms in the idea of turning on his television and sitting back in his chair with a bag of nachos.

Honestly, the whole thing had him thinking maybe he should pay a visit to Bristol again sometime soon; he was starting to feel a little caged 'round here. Maybe a tall glass of lager and some real (tasteless, paper) crisps would help assuage the feeling.

Oh well. He popped a nacho into his mouth and propped his feet up on the desk.

[[ open! ]]

Parents' Weekend.

Mitchell had been happy to avoid the sudden influx of vampires by staying home during the picnic, but he was going to have to come out eventually - if anything, he had promised Kate he'd be around. On Saturday morning, he dragged himself out of the house to get to the office.

He didn't turn on the TV this time. Instead, he was spending most of the time in his office picking at his coffee and watching the door.

[[ open! if possible SP for the first few hours ]]

If there was anything funny going on today, Mitchell wasn't aware of it - mostly because he lived on his own, and the only person who ever showed up to visit him was George, anyway. However, he'd told Kate he'd be in today, which meant that he was in, and a bit concerned.

And not trying to think about such things as 'Parents' Weekend', because it's not like there would be anyone to show up for him, barring one person who was already on the island, and people he didn't really want to see.

He positioned himself at the desk, fidgeted with his computer for a moment, then finally turned the TV on to BBC World and settled.

[[ open hours = open post ]]

So it occurs to me that I probably should do one of these for my adults before I leave, because some of them have some points that might be of, uh, interest. So!

( The Adults: Mitchell, Cable and Ray. )

( The Alumni: Kerrigan and Jeff. )

Jak, Arthur, Ender were back here.

Mitchell's nerves hadn't quite settled yet, but every day made a repeat visit from Herrick less likely - at least for the forseeable future. So Wednesday found him laying out lesson plans, flicking through books, and only occasionally checking travel books for somewhere safer.

Just as a precaution. He had no real willingness to let his past drive him out of house and home.

[[ open hours! ]]

It had been a fool's errand, an act of desperation, of something sodding stupid done to stave off his own helplessness. The phone call, that was. Of course, none of the scum and the idiots down in Bristol had known anything, so the point was moot and Mitchell was getting more frantic in his efforts.

Maybe the island hadn't been such a good pick, but now he was stuck with it; he wasn't going to let the kids go without a fight.

So after a few hours of necessary rest he was heading back to the school to dive back into the books, cap safely on his head to protect his eyes from the sun, and his gloved hands shoved down his pockets.

He supposed he should've seen it coming, the presence, the taunting, if only by the smellL.

He didn't.

"Mitchell."

The voice, however, was so recognisable it made something in him jump, and his head swivelled around to discover the figure, still clad in a policeman's uniform - although a local one, at least Herrick knew how to blend in - and looking as plain and portly as always, hovering in an alley with his fingers curled around a hot steaming cup.

"Run out of dimes for the phone, Herrick?" he asked, stepping into the alleyway as quickly as he could, "You shouldn't be here."

( Jack had been researching... )

[[ NFI, NFB, OOC-okaaay ]]

Mitchell hadn't been near his office in weeks. That was probably something he had to do something about.

After all, the whole plan of 'joining humanity' wouldn't exactly work if he was going to spend all of his days cooped up in the house, tormenting Rimmer and watching television.

He made his way down to the office in the early morning, bringing a few magazines with him (modern rock music, this time). He sat down, leaned back in his chair, and opened up the first to give it a good read-through.

He needed to know what else to put on his iPod.

[[ open! ]]

Mitchell hadn't burst into song or dance all day; whatever bug was hitting the island had passed him by completely for whatever reason, not that he even knew. He wasn't even in any mood to keep himself busy with something immature, such as making a mess to spite his roommate.

It wasn't a bad day. It wasn't a good day. It was just a day, and he was draped over the couch with the CD player on at a medium volume, smoking and gazing at the window. Thinking, perhaps, about a few things - thinking very much not about the concept of running away, and whether that was what he was doing. Thinking not about if he'd manage it, or anything of the ilk.

Simple thoughts about the spin of the universe. A hobbyist's touch if you stuck around for long enough. You got bored with violence sometimes, given a long enough timeframe. Not forever, but it stopped being something... inherent in the general scheme of it.

Or perhaps it simply made him even more dangerous. That was something he didn't want to think about, either.

So he tapped his hand, cigarette and all, gently against his knee on the beat of the music. "In a foreign town with a morning sound man, I can find my way around."

He took a long drag of his cigarette as the music played on.

"Cos in three days I'll be out of here, and it's not a day too soon..."

Mitchell was over a hundred years old. He didn't need a magic bug to distract his days, and he certainly didn't need it to amplify the sound of Johnny Cash's 'Hurt' or its like in his ears.

[[ somewhat 'stablishy, but open for SP to any visitors or the roomie ]]

Monday had been an exceptionally bad day, and Mitchell had spent most of it cornered up in the house smoking and watching old films on TV to keep himself distracted. On Tuesday, he still had the occasional bout of the shakes, but he was looking far better.

So he walked out to his office, where he tossed his sunglasses on the desk and took a seat. All the work he'd done at cheering it up had done wonders, and for the first time in several days, he felt almost human again.

For whatever measure of it he was capable of.

[[ open office hours are open! ]]

Last week had been uneventful. Mitchell wouldn't mind if this week would be, too. He suspected it wouldn't be too long before something would shake things up again, because that inevitably happened, but he was enjoying the settle-down.

One more class to teach, and to be utterly honest, he still had no ideas. He would find something in the end, but right now, he was more preoccupied with the class he was slated to teach next term.

His notepad had the word I have to find a good meta for CASABLANCA written on it in very big letters. What was the point of being in a famous movie if you didn't get to share the wealth, after all?

[[ open office is open! ]]

After letting George out of the shack that morning, Mitchell had walked back up to the school with his sunglasses on, let himself in, and set up shop in his office relatively early. Today wasn't the best day he'd had, so far, but it was definitely inching back up the scale after the past week.

He wasn't smoking nearly as much, he had a mug of coffee resting on his desk, and as long as it was quiet, he had the time to download a few more songs off of iTunes.

Mitchell might not have been familiar with Twitter, but he did well enough with music after all this time.

[[ and open! ]]

Thankfully, whatever had been going on had cleared up by the time Mitchell arrived back on the island, late last night. He'd taken a deep breath of fresh air and gone on home to take a day of relative peace and quiet.

But it was the full moon tonight, and so he found himself waiting for George near the abandoned shack, his hands in his pockets. He'd gotten one or two extra locks just to be sure, and his bearing was only slightly wary in that he kept looking around to make sure no one else joined them.

[[ for george! ]]

Mitchell'd abandoned Max to his brunette somewhere late last night, in the hotel they'd wound up at as the night progressed. He'd taken to the streets in the dark, just wandering around as he got a feel for the place. Smoking, he'd given his own thoughts some space now that his Max-enforced shallowness had to dissipate and give way for what was actually troubling him.

He was just trying to belong, he realised. It was that first great human impulse, to find shelter, somewhere to hide from whatever was lurking on the fringes, waiting for its next meal. The last few days had been a jagged reminder that it was unlikely he was actually to become part of it; even George did better than that.

He returned to the hotel early in the morning. By ten, he had Max dragged out into the hotel's restaurant for breakfast before they started to look into returning to Fandom.

If it was still as on fire with hormones as it was when he'd left it, Mitchell might've considered staying away - except that the full moon was on Sunday, and he wasn't missing that.

"So, is that craft any good for hangovers?"

[ for max, and nfb due to distance! ]

You had good days, and you had bad days, in Mitchell's position. Saturday had been a good, if baffling day.

Monday wasn't as good.

He made it to his office regardless of anything going on (wouldn't mess this one up), but he kept mostly to his seat, staring holes into the wall beside the door. Whether it was the memories running stronger than usual or some surge of bloodlust he was having trouble surpressing, something kept him in that suspended state of-- brooding, of thinking, of trying to keep the dark things away, to focus on the light spots that dragged any being through what horrors life might occasionally cast at them.

Mitchell, unlike some people he knew, was not a glass-half-empty kind of man, so he endured.

Life settles. That's the one thing you can rely on. Sometimes it gets shaken and it seems like there's no end to this vast-- tornado, these endless forces of chaos, and yet it always-- settles again.

[[ the post, however, is open, as is the door, and he will totally try to cheerful it up for you ]]

It wasn't so much that Mitchell liked to switch things up with his office hours, and more that he'd been somewhat bored and thoughtful in the wake of his conversation with Mina last night.

He was distracting himself - thoughtfully distracting himself, but it was a distraction none the less - by adding some flavour to his office, which explained why the statuette of Laurel and Hardy had found itself near the door, and he had a few old movie posters ready on his desk to put up.

Busywork.

[ open! ]

Life on Fandom, Mitchell could get used to. All the vampires with none of the bloodlust, a room full of good kids every week he'd so far not even felt the slightest urge to harm, and a housemate that didn't send his senses into overdrive.

Even if the housemate in question was a twat who could use a good smacking one of these days, but Mitchell was choosing to look at things from the bright side. For one, he now had a credible excuse to make a mess of the place - it upset Arnie. That kept him in good spirits.

That was the entire explanation why he was spending his morning eating old Chinese food from the fridge on their beaten-up couch, surrounded by an old pizza box or two. Life was good.

[ open to housemate and visitors! ]

It was his second week of actual office hours, so of course Mitchell had taken the time to set up a TV (in case Max decided to show up) and secure a few bags of crisps (which he could eat out of when he wasn't looking scholarly). A part of him was still mildly confused by being allowed this position to begin with, but he would take it.

He leaned back in his chair and surveyed his estate. So to speak.

[[ open door, open post ]]