Chapter One

Calvin's eyes followed the mousy point slowly. He looked to the kitchen, then back to the mouse, then back to the kitchen. He stood slowly and wandered over to that room. He stood in the middle of the kitchen and looked down at the mouse again, as if expecting further instruction.

"You have absolutely no idea," Ethan said, accepting the key and dropping it into his palm, a slow smile spreading over his face as he closed his fingers around it, "Exactly how sick I am of the hallway. You're sure?" He asked, stepping in up to Dean and tilting his head in question, looping his arm around Dean's neck at the elbow and using his free hand to tug him in by the lapel of his shirt, lips turning up into a salacious grin. "Because that's a pretty big deal, you know." He added and drew him in for a kiss, fingers twisting in his shirt, "So how sure, exactly, are you,"

---

Mori snorted haplessly, and reluctantly (though he was working at not thinking about it) drew back from Yuki to move into the kitchen and turn through the pages of notes, pausing momentarily to pour out two mugs of coffee. There was only so much they could do at a time, they weren't immortal, they did wear down after time, and crime - mortal crime, at least - did sleep on occasion. With their own living quarters potentially in the line of fire, with one of their team down and out for at least the next foreseeable while, his priorities were to be on hand at home, at least for the night. If this was demon smuggling, they'd stop it and figure out where the other side of business was. He'd go out and take a better look in the morning - had always preferred first-hand experience to stolen intel, himself. Intel was more on Satori's line. After a brief look over, he then he slipped it into the top of the manilla folder that doubled as his 'in tray' and pressed a mug into Yuki's hands, lifting his own and considering the demon with a curious, albeit friendly, glance. "So you and Satori? I've got to admit, I didn't really think that would happen. She told me you'd said you didn't think you could deal with non-monogamy." He smiled in good humour, taking a quick sip. "Not the case?"

---

Sam cleared his throat, looking reticent and weary as he awkwardly moved to clutch the mug of tea. "It's really fine. You needed somewhere to go, and we have a vacant room, because some of us don't need regular sleep." He said, "And you cooked and offered to help out a little. Believe me, that's not burdensome. If you struggle finding somewhere, or it gets complicated, you can use it as a fallback." He offered, stepping past Luke and out of the kitchen to settle down on the battered couch adjacent to where Sora was lying, turning the mug in his hands. "I did the same thing, I'm not about to make it harder for you."

---

So basically, he was taking 'magic lessons' with an over enthused priestess and a complete... Dick. He looked like he was used to having people frigging desperately waiting on him hand and foot, and the leering disdain was enough to grate against every fibre of his being. Seriously, who even acted like that in real life? Not anyone in his suburb, at least. He opened his mouth and then was interrupted when Yuni's arm shot out and she caught gently at Richard's shoulder. He paused in what was panning out to be a vicious comeback and ended up looking between the two of them with a small frown, huffing out a breath of frustration. "That, that right there, didn't you feel that? That's why you need to start working on controlling it, instead of just leaving it unchecked." Yuni said firmly, "Are you okay?"

Dean grinned against the other mans lips. "Super sure." He kissed him softly. He slid his arms down the other man, letting them rest at Ethan's stomach.
"Now, i think we both need to shower." he kissed him again. "Maybe together?"
A wicked grin took over Deans face as he took hold of Ethan's shirt. A few moves later and he had the other man thrown over his shoulder and was carrying him to the bathroom.

--

Halfway through drinking his coffee, Yuki let out a small snort. "Have you met me?" He asked Mori, as if that would explain away the question. He lent against the counter, one hand still holding up the sheet. "I'm a pretty awesome, not to mention fabulously looking guy. I wouldn't want anybody to miss out on an opportunity to know Yuki up close and personal." He winked at Mori. "Open invitation there, my friend."

---

Luke nodded. He fell into silence as he finished up the dishes, leaving them to dry in the rack off to the side.
When he turned around to address Sam again he discovered Calvin, who was still frowning and talking to a small mouse.

The man stood in wonder for a moment before shaking his head and leaving the kitchen, and the strange man to his busniess.
He looked at Sam once again. "Well, I'm gonna go crash. Guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

Slipping out of the access corridor, Sekko made a show of dramatically readjusting his shirt and hair, casting furtive looks around and scuttling to the side.
No one spared him a second glance, most staff in the building long since accustomed to Sekko popping up out of nowhere, trying to look as suspicious as possible just to see what kind of reactions he could get.
He did get bored easily.
Besides, it meant that if he ever did have to sneak around the building one day, no one would question it.
None the less, it was a bit disappointing that he no longer caused the PA's to drop their coffees when he popped out at them.
Spying a bit of entertainment turning down the far end of the hall Sekko smiled to himself as he dashed after his quarry.
"Miss Smith!" He smiled, falling into step with her, "What brings you to our secret organisation on such a lovely day!"

---

Slipping into Calvins sleeve in alarm, Tosh peaked out from his shadowy little cave as they passed by the strangers, they'd been out of sight before, thanks to the layout of the apartment, but now they were passing straight by the strangers and it alarmed Tosh a lot.
He couldn't help the startled little squeak that escaped him, quickly turned into a sigh of relief as they passed out of sight again, in the kitchen he let his nose tentatively poke out of the sleeve.
He was hungry.

---

Jumping slightly at the unexpected touch, Richard scowled at the ground, not trusting his own vision to return enough to glare properly at the woman.
Belatedly covering his jump, he shrugged her hand off of his shoulder and settled himself properly on the floor. It seemed safer than the musty pillows he had spied earlier. Probably had flees.
She was observant obviously, noticing his small flinch when his vision had blacked out, but that still gave no credit to her stupid magic-y theory.

He still wasn't sure why he'd even come.
"I'm fine." He said, vision slowly blotching back in. He felt safe enough to glare at the woman now, so he did.

---

"Hey" Zetsubou muttered, not even audible over the music or the fact that his head was currently situated in his arms. Obviously realizing this he lifted his head again and waved at Sandy, gesturing for a drink as he did so.

"Why, that would be your lovely face, Sekko." Elizabeth said, her tone remaining completely neutral, if not distracted.
Her eyes never left the clipboard in her hand. It was covered in scribbles, numbers and odd looking words and with each step a new doodle was added.
"Can I help you, or is that all that you needed?"

---

Calvin slipped the mouse onto the kitchen table. He bent down so he was eye height with the animal. He stared at it, as if that would give him the answers he needed.

---

A glass in one hand and a bottle of strong liqueur in another, Sandy made his way over to the forlorn man. He placed the cup on the bar and poured Zetsubou a drink as he lent against the wood.
"Satori's gonna kill me for this you realize?" He asked before pouring himself a drink. He swirled it around. "Are you at least going to tell me what problem I'm risking her wrath for?"

"Oh come on. I'm way above drinking age" Zetsubou griped, tugging his drink towards himself. "And everything is wrong. Everything. The whole fucking universe is out to get me and I'm not going to be around long enough to see the smug satisfaction stretch across it's face when it finally succeeds with it's evil fucking mastermind plans!"

---

"I need an excuse to hang out with your lovely posterior?" Sekko grinned, making dramatic flourishing motions towards Elizabeth's pert behind even as he leaned closer, trying to make sense of the scribbly notepad. This is why he loved the woman. Impossible to read her handwriting, therefore quite a challenge to gain any intel from her. Her scrawl was worse than Takatos, and the man had the excuse of being a computer wiz AND a scientist. Two professions notorious for their terrible handwriting.
"Any man would fall over themselves to get withing proximity of that wonder!"

---

Calvin had at least gotten him into the kitchen. The rest seemed to be up to Tosh.

Crossing the bench as fast as his little legs would take him, he reached the spot he knew his cereal was kept beneath, cautiously he approached the edge, glad for the ramshackle quality of place they lived in, as it would provide many footholds.
Thankfully the cupboard had been left open wide enough for a creature of his size to slip into, so starting the decent down the door he made his way inside to his prize.

The Fruitloops.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the man. "Yes well, aren't you a lucky one." She lifted her clipboard up and affectionately tapped his head. " Now, are you going to compliment me all day, or are you going to invite me to lunch and tell me the real reason?" She rose an elegant eyebrow, holding the clipboard close to her chest now.

---

"Anei stole your X Box controller again?" Sandy asked, his voice full of sympathy. He held the bottle, getting ready to refill the other mans drink.
The older man wasn't too invested in the conversation. He had seen many of Zetsubous crisis' and none of them were really cause to throw a fit.

"No! Well yes, but that's not the problem!" Zetsubou whined around the rim of the glass, pulling a face when the liquid hit his pallet, but drinking the whole thing anyway.
Demon. Lot's of alcohol needed to get himself drunk. Start early and hard and he might just get to a point of hapless oblivion before the night was done.
"What do you say to someone who's had their whole fucking life turned on it's head? Coz you need to say it to me right now!"

---

"Don't touch the food today, three of the chefs were... Let go this morning. They seemed pretty bitter about it." Sekko said, now walking backwards in front of the other woman causing a very ruffled looking man to almost walk straight into him.
"I will however, let you talk me into a coffee. Someone drank all of ours and now there's a very decaffeinated trained killer wandering around the building looking to assuage his boredom. Do yourself a public service 'Liz, help me get some caffeine and lives might be saved today."

Elizabeth scoffed at him and looked him dead in the eye. "I've seen you on coffee, and trust me when I say its a service not to give you any." She glanced down at her watch and sighed. "Look, I have this delivery to make. How about I walk by your office after and treat you and your partner to lunch. Sound okay?"

She didn't wait for his answer as she sped away from him.

---

Sandy bent down to Zetsubous eye level and looked at him carefully. He was silent for a moment. "You're asking the wrong man here."

"Right," Mori said, half blurted, one-handedly lifting the mug to take a quick sip, not because he was honestly interested in the coffee, but more because he didn't know what to do about the sudden spike of panic - which was both totally irrational and something he really didn't want to talk about, because beyond everything else, he was entirely incapable of conversations about feelings. Not one of his strong points, really, which was probably why he and Satori worked so well; unspoken communication at such a level that they hardly needed to actually talk things over. But it wasn't fair to cut if off there, he had to at least offer some kind of explanation before the silence actually got too thick for him to add anything else to that.

"I'm not saying that I'm not interested," He said finally, and he already felt ridiculous and uncomfortable, and horrendously aware that Yuki was casually standing there in a sheet (and vague semi-nakidity rarely registered as a thing, and it was right there, being a thing - also, he was being quiet again, this was difficult). "I'm just not- I'm still, figuring that out."

Good, words that made sense. Job done.

---

"If you're up before the crack of dawn, yes. Sleep well, let me know if you need anything, I'll be out here." Sam said with a wry smile, raising his coffee cup in a kind of vague salute. Akaria gave Sora's head a small pat and wove at Luke as she wandered past into the kitchen, peering over Calvin's shoulder to frown at the cupboard.

---

"You're 'fine', and you're not controlling it one bit," Yuni said with a solemn shake of her head, "That's what that is, it's spiking, because you're not focusing, and because you're not controlling it, it's backlashing on you - how do you think I found you? I could feel it for miles off, it's no wonder you're getting so knocked around by it." Raven snorted lightly, shutting his eyes and propping his chin up on the palm of his hand as he waited, elbow jammed against his kneecap.

"He has no idea what you're talking about, why are you bothering?"

Yuki looked at Mori a moment, as if trying to register the words that had just come out of his mouth. He expected a bit of banter, maybe a quick slide of humorous rejected but actual admital to attraction? That never even crossed his mind.
"Don't sweat it man, there's no pressure." The younger demon told the other man with a kind smile. "I'm interested too, but take as long as you need and if along the way you figure out that there is nothing there, don't worry about that either. I'm pretty awesome with rejection. Speaking of rejection though. I think my cup of coffee is feeling rejected by my mouth."
He lifted his cup of coffee to his lips and took another sip. "Good God man! You make an amazing cup of coffee." He downed the cup in one more gulp.

---

"There's a mouse eating Tosh's fruit loops." Calvin explained to the woman, as if that would explain everything. "The mouse is Tosh."

The little seed of realital doubt that had been festering inside Richards chest for the last week, gave a hopeful twitch towards the sunlight that Yuni's explanation was offering. Richard is the type of person that when a group of classmates start whispering about ghosts in the locker room, Richard is the first to start up and start rebutting their claims fact by indisputable fact.
So when Yuni had first told him about the super powers nonsense, he of course, had been skeptical, but even against his better judgement, his hope would not be as easily crushed as those stupid boys idiotic fantasies.
The doctors were of little help, and crazy or not, what she was talking about seemed a lot like meditation. At this point Richard was quite happy to try just about anything.
On his own terms of course.
So, for probably the first in his entire life, Richard let an insult slide past him. Instead he smoothed out his glare and just stared at the woman for a moment.
"So what do you suggest then?" controlling his sneer was actually harder than he'd expected.

---

Snorting, Sekko shook his head and stared disdainfully after the woman.
"Have fun with that" He muttered after a moment then proceeded to follow her for a few meters so he could reach the entrance to yet another access tunnel. No one really looked twice when he slipped inside. Maybe he'd slip into the labs and torment some of the experiments for a while.

---

"Then who the fuck should I talk to!" Zetsubou cried, throwing his arms backwards in a sort of full body flap, knocking a passing woman and causing her to slosh her drink over her shoes.
Zetsubou kind of shrugged apologetically at her and she huffed and stalked off in offence.
"Seriously man. Fuck. Fuck." Zetsubou continued eloquently, acting as if the exchange hadn't happened.

"Something you need to understand about accessing this type of power is that it's not something that you just have, that you can draw on. For the two of us especially, accessing Holy powers, we are simply tapping into something that is constantly flowing through and around us, that countless others aren't even aware of. It's likely that you're unconsciously shutting yourself off from it completely, and then when it's too hard for you to keep up, it's flooding in and overwhelming everything and then, in defence, you're throwing yourself at it and shutting it off again. You're just wearing yourself out and unless you learn to healthily deal with this, it's not going to get any better."

She paused, frowning lightly, "Think of it like a river. let it all in, and you're not going to be able to keep yourself up, shut it all out constantly and and you'll just overwhelm yourself. Manage to re-direct it, actually negotiate with it, and you'll be okay, and then-"

"And then you can do all kinds of cool shit," Raven said dryly, speaking up without being overtly insulting for the first time that day, snapping his fingers and then twisting out the palm of his hand, looking nothing but uninterested as a small flame sprung up just above the skin of his palm. "Not that Holy powers tend towards fire, but hey, not my kind of gig." He closed his fist and the flame vanished.

"No fire indoors," Yuni scolded, still smiling in her vague way.

---

"Comes with the job, which I'm sure you won't have any trouble believing," Mori said with a small grin, lifting his own mug again and letting the relief of how easily Yuki had dealt with that to stamp out whatever awkwarness or discomfort there was surrounding the topic - 'no pressure' was a pretty good way to handle it, and he could feel the excess tension shifting from his shoulders and stance. No pressure; he could just figure it out as he went, and that was that.

"Thanks," He added, either for the coffee related compliment or the reassurance, and he gave Yuki an askance grin as he swilled his own coffee around in his mug. "In an unrelated point, was there something about you and Satori - or anything to do with that - that you wanted to go over? Because now's probably not a bad time if you were worried about something."

---

"Well of course, I can tell that, he is my charge, after all," Akaria said simply, "I was more concerned at his choice of food; the nutritional value is not sufficient in that brand of sugary cereal."

"Satori just said we needed to talk." Yuki nodded his head to Mori.
The younger Demon pushed himself up onto the counter. He made sure everything remained covered as he positioned himself. He didn't want the family jewels slipping out and greeting the night air.
That would be embarrassing.

"Something about going over ground rules I think? Not sure. Ever really done this before." He let out a nervous laugh. Usually it was just casual fucks here and there and hardly ever with friends.
He and Taro had a kind of thing though. It didn't really have a label, but they still saw each other on regular occasions.
---

"I've heard that it rots teeth." Calvin nodded his agreement to the other angel. "Can humans function without their teeth?" he asked seriously. "Perhaps we should encourage more of these," He walked over to the counter and lifted up a discarded tomato. "Fruit... things."

---

"Unless I hear an actual problem, I'm going to suggest one of the strippers. Chastity is off now, she's good with people. Or there's Gerry. Also good with people, if not a little over the top."
He refilled Zetsubou's drink and stepped away from the bar, keeping an eye on the boy. He was too drunk for this. He had walked away from his previous job for a reason.
He couldn't help anyone. Sandy, could barely help himself.

---

The delivery was dealt with quickly. A few signatures, a couple of crates and many fake smiles later and it was done.
Elizabeth was looking forward to her lunch date after this. Usually she would be having lunch with her daughter, but Evelyn seemed to preoccupied with a test she was doing, or a boy or something along those lines. She had kind of tuned out. All Elizabeth knew was that Evelyn was too excited with her testing, or her stalking to leave the building for lunch.

At least Sekko proved to be entertaining. Maybe she would even allow him a look at her notes. She always enjoyed watching the other man struggle to figure out her coding.
One of these days he would figure it out though.
Then she would have to kill him.
Maybe.

The older woman made her way back to Sekko's office. She didn't expect the man to be there, he was probably off tormenting a couple of interns or moving things around in the higher ups offices. So she planned to do a little snooping of her own.
The man was an enigma wrapped in an enigma and she loved it. Its why he was one of her favorite people.
That and he made a fabulous wing man.
Sometimes.

"Right," Mori said, glancing briefly at Yuki and lifting a shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug, smiling slightly and leaning back into the bench a little further up. "Might seem a little complicated, but it's really pretty simple to figure out; basically, the moment you're uncomfortable - with anything; her being with me, not feeling like you're actually being included, anything at all - you grab one of us and speak about it. We don't do the 'time division' crap, we just..." He hesitated and made a small movement with his hand in midair, tilting the cup around, "Go along with it and see how it works. Easier to figure it out along the way instead of throwing rules down. I don't mind if you're here, I have absolutely no problems with the two of you being open about it, and I'll let you know if something comes up; you just have to do that last bit, and see how it goes - I'm assuming the two of you have either already spoken or will, at some point, so you can figure out that stuff too. It's not really all that complicated."

Sprawled once again in his favorite position, belly across Takato's lap as the other man used his back as a laptop prop (He liked the heat and the intricate sense of claiming that they both held over each other in this position), their bedroom the only place either of them really felt comfortable enough to relax like this. He tapped away on his own laptop, switching through the security feeds aimlessly, looking for something interesting.
"Well hello" He grinned, finger pausing over the mouse, letting the click click that had played counterpart to Takato's taptap fade to a stop, the only sounds now the steady, relentless tapping of Takato's fingers on his own keyboard, slowing and eventually stopping in their own right.
Sekko must have thrown his rhythm off.

Taking his partners pause as his own cue to elaborate, he sent a wry grin over his shoulder.
"Looks like someones being a bit of a sticky beak dear."
Grunting his displeasure at the pet name, Sekko only used them when he was looking for a reaction, Takato audibly clicked his own screen open to the security feeds, quickly finding what Sekko had been talking about.
"Ah" He smirked around his cigarette "You have a guest."

Sekko hmm'd in agreement, eyes following the woman as she made her way inside, gleaning much more information from her movements than she would in his office. Most everything in that room was decoy papers anyway. Anything important was kept either in their rooms or in his memory.
"I guess I'd better go have lunch" He finally said after a few minutes of just watching, "Shall I send her your regards?"
Takato, at this point just simply lifted his laptop, already back to his coding, and waited for Sekko to roll off of him. Sekko did so languidly, taking a long moment to properly say goodbye to Takato's mouth, which the man pretended to find annoying.
"See you later." He breathed around his smirk, snatching his shirt off of the floor as he left.

Yuki openly grinned at the other man. "We haven't really spoken about it much, I'm presuming we're saving that for when she's out of the shower. But it sounds easy enough. My kind of relationship." He jumped down from the counter. "So if that's the talking done, I feel like some bacon and eggs, interested?"

The demon collected the pans required and pulled out the ingredients from the fridge.

----

Now that she was here, Elizabeth wasn't sure what to look for. Each draw was filled with different papers that really seemed to have no importance to them. At least no importance that she cared to be looking for.

There was a locked draw she was tempted to break into, but she wasn't sure how much time she had. It had also been a long time since she had tried to lock pick anything.
The letter opener seemed like it may break the lock or the draw and leave evidence. But really, who was she to care? It may uncover something that had been on her mind a lot lately.

As far as she knew, SHADED had no idea about Mentaros origins but sometimes her Boss would disappear for days on end. When this would happen it would usually be around the time his mind was becoming incredibly unstable. When he would return however, his mind would be in perfect health and that... That unnerved her.
So maybe that draw would hold some answers.

Or maybe it was his porn collection. Either way, the letter opener seemed to be doing a fine job of dmaging the lock enough for her to get into it.

Staring bemusedly at Ravens hand, Richard forgot himself for a moment, long enough to lean across Yuni to try and get a closer look.
"There's... There's nothing there?" He asked voice wavering slightly at the end in wonder, "You're not hiding a lighter up your sleeve?"
Because fuck. Fuck. If that wasn't a trick... Richard has some serious life assessment to go through, if that.... Though of course it was a trick. It had to be, because magic. Bloody magic was not a thing he was quite equipped to deal with thank you very much.
No he'd keep his reality as most realistic as possible. Magic or not. Richard wasn't ready to believe some fairytale yet.
This all ran through his head quickly enough that he was able to catch himself before he managed to act too much like a buffoon. Pulling himself back before the other boy could answer, he snorted to himself and looked pointedly away.
The British were great at ignoring their problems and it was about time that Richard came into his birthright.

---
"Strippers" Zetsubou mouthed desolately, "Throwing a glance over his shoulder to stare at one of the girls gyrating on a pole.
"Nope. Not going to help." He moaned, turning back to Sandy, "Just get me drunk. Get me drunk enough that I can't see my own fucking feet and that when I look back on this night all that i'll remember is blistering pain throughout my all of me. Okay? That would be nice please."

Sandy nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. He placed a full bottle down beside Zetsubou. "That I can do."
There was a moment of pause as Sandy stood there lingering. He cast a look over the man before him. "This isn't something serious? Should I be telling your carers?"

Spluttering around his drink, Zetsubou sent a very panicked look Sandy's way as he wiped his drink off of his face.
"No no!" He said, shaking his head quite desperately, "This is something they definitely do not need to know about okay?"
Glancing over his shoulder furtively as if expecting Satori, or god forbid; Anei, to suddenly appear behind him.
"Yeah, definitely not." He finished on a mutter, face buried in his glass.

Sandy sighed and ran a hand through his own hair. "Whatever, kid. Just stay out of trouble." He turned and walked away, leaving Zetsubou to frown his sorrows in the booze.
It wasn't the best way to deal, Sandy knew that, but it did help with the pain.
And Pain was something Sandy knew only too well.

"Well that's something to go on, and yeah, yeah, I'd like that." He added with a flash of a grin as he crossed to the fridge, waiting for Yuki to move away with the things he was collecting before reaching in to retrieve two beers, cracking the cap of one and setting it aside before tilting the other questioningly in Yuki's direction.

---

"No, I do not have a lighter up my sleeve," Raven scoffed, shoving his sleeves up just enough to show that the top of his wrists were bare before doing it again but with both hands. The moment the flicker across his hand ignited into a ball of flame, Yuni promptly smacked him lightly over the back of the head with a reprimandation of "No fire inside!" - it vanished immediately - and then turned to Richard while the other boy muttered quietly to himself, rubbing the back of his head.

"There's not going to be much I can do for you unless you're willing to actually believe it, you know," Yuni said kindly with a customary smile, "and in this case, it's absolutely necessary that you give it a try, at the bare minimum. I'm not saying that you need to learn to use it, just to control it so it stops being an influence in your life, stops being a danger. Then you can decide what you want to do, but as for right now, I just need you to really think about why you might be struggling to actually believe me. it must make sense, somewhere, at least - surely there's something happening that feels unusual enough, that you can't explain? That's what control is for."

"Crack it open, my good man." Yuki grinned at Mori, giving him a slight nod. He paused and looked to the bacon, eggs and mushrooms placed on the counter, and then glanced down to his sheet.
"I think this will require pants. Mind starting the food while I change?" He hitched the sheet up a bit before wandering back into the bedroom.
He returned only moments later with his shorts on to take over from Mori and drink some of his beer. He made a satisfied noise after pulling the bottle away from his lips. "Yeah, that's the stuff. Come at me alcohol." He took another swig, flashing a grin to Mori.

This sucked. It sucked beyond all current measurements of suckery. It sucked so fucking much that... That he couldn't even describe how much it sucked. Gripping his hair in his hands Zetsubou gave it a hard tug. It hurt, and he wasn't quite sure why it helped, but it did. God he needed a shower, his hair was greasy as shit.
"Shit" Was expelled on his next outward breath. "Shit, fucking shit."
Surprisingly the swearing felt like it was helping. The grog... Well that wasn't helping fast enough.
"Fuck"
Rolling to his feet, Zetsubou took one last harried look around the bar, eyed up the half naked staff, men and women both, and found them lacking.
"Shitting fuck" He was just going to go home and lock himself in his room, listen to really loud angsty music and maybe play some violent video games, but first, there was a 24/7 liquor store down the street he needed to visit.

---

Side eyeing Raven, because really no lighter? None at all? That was... That was Crazy. All of this was crazy and Richard was having a lot of problems coping with that at the moment, because really? Bathrobes wanted him to just throw away his last 16 years of beliefs? Because no. Just no, that was just not on.
Richard needed time to process.
Yes, actually that was exactly what Richard needed. Processing time, because magic.
Cluing back into reality, Richard realized he'd been staring blankly at a wall for... Well long enough for Yuni to be looking quite concerned, that he he can say she didn't look that way before.
"Look" He said as he swept up his bag and rose somewhat stiffly to his feet. "I need to get going."
Interrupting any forthcoming protests with a wave of his hand, he gave the woman what was probably the first small he'd shown her. If a little forced.
"I'll be back tomorrow. I just need time to..." He trailed off here, choosing instead to just flap his arms in the direction of the emo kids hand.

---

"You know" Sekko drawled from the doorway, "Most would take offense to you riffling through their belongings like this"
Sauntering further into the room, he took the time to grab a handful of papers off of his desk so that he could replace their presence with his own. Legs crossed at the ankle and head tipped back to keep Elizabeth in view, he let his smile widen until it was all teeth, not so much a smile any longer so much as it was a threat.
"Aren't we lucky," He teased, "That I don't care much about what's in here."
Sekko hadn't excluded himself from the latter category, just this room and the contents in it. The threat, and the challenge were clear. This room was up for grabs, but good luck finding anything of worth within.

There was no hesitation as she stood. there was no worry, or fear, only slight amusement. Her hands brushed down her suit jacket and skirt as she stepped out from behind the desk.
"The day you work out my scribbles, is the day I find your porn. Stale mate." Elizabeth lent against the desk with a small smirk.
"So, how about that lunch? You're lover not join us?" She craned her neck, trying to peek around the man to see if anyone was behind him.
She pushed herself off the desk and threw the knife into the air towards Sekko. It was none threatening, just simply a way she handed the letter opener to the man.
"You're desk may need fixing." She left the room.