Frustrations

Written while listening to: In Circles.

She had seen him like this before. The times had been few, but enough that she knew this was just how the man took bad news. Sitting rigid, eyes fixated on a point in the room, rarely blinking. It hadn’t taken long to figure out that in times such as these, it was simply best to leave him be to his thinking.

The first occasion she could recall such a situation happened around the time they had received word that his mother had passed in the night. He had sat for a number of hours on his own, contemplating his thoughts. She had left to go into town and returned to find him in just the same state as she had left him. It was a new enough experience at the time to worry her, but she didn’t delve too deep into the matter when he quickly rebuked her attempts at consul. After he had had the time to himself she was allowed to enter the matter and offer her thoughts to be taken into consideration, but not, as she soon caught on, until he had taken the time to process his own.

In some regards she could respect the practice. It meant the man didn’t jump head first into every situation with some cynical outlook, not that he wasn’t prone to such views regardless, or in emotional distress. He took the time to grieve or to process whatever had just been told to him. On the other hand, his being out of commission and severing his ties to her for the time was frustrating in multiple ways. At times where she wanted to comfort him, where he certainly would have been comforting her, he simply wandered off as far away as possible into his own head to deal with his problems all by his lonesome.

So here she was, forced to bide her time until he was willing to speak. Which meant finding ways to occupy herself in the meantime, which at present meant fixing up the disaster of an office that they had come upon. In all the time she was aware of, this forsaken floating fortress had not once moved, and now it was being flung off to fight their foreign invaders, trekking halfway across the ocean in the process. At some point she had apparently worked up enough determination to be able to pick up things still remaining on the physical plane that had forsaken her. Which didn’t surprise her all that much. Growing up she had heard so many stories from her uncles that contained haunted houses and floating objects. Now that she knew haunted houses likely held grains of truth in their tales, what was to say the floating objects were a lie?

Far too many folders had found their way to the floor, each and every one of them containing pages that had either been skimmed or skipped entirely. Some of those that had been skimmed ended up in the burn pile, others were deemed unimportant enough to not bother setting aflame to imply they had never been seen. Where the man had picked up this little arson habit she was never able to gather, but so long as he was just burning pages and not homes or something she supposed there were worse vices in the world.

After what seemed like a solid hour had passed, not that she could tell time in this Light-forsaken room and its lack of both clocks and windows both of which the dead gave little regard for in their current state, he finally let out a sigh. It amused her somewhat that this was notable mostly in regards to the fact that the sigh meant he had let out a breath at all. Where once his breathing would have simply been steady, it was now non-existent, so any sign of its return implied that just maybe he was coming out of his mood. Soon after the return of his breathing came the clicking of his claws from one hand, the other flicking through a few select sheets of paper again as he re-read what had set him off in the first place. He fully returned to reality when he allowed a hand to cover his face, letting out a heavy sigh.

“And so he returns to the land of the living,” she muttered with a smirk, sliding a few things on his desk back into place.

His lips pulled back in an expression that was direly lacking in amusement, “Har.”

She just shrugged, resting against the side of his old desk, the first thing they had shoved back into place, “Could try for an actual joke, if you’d prefer.”

“Not rightly in the mood,” he muttered.

“Figured.”

His hand remained firmly on his face, “I.” He paused, taking a moment to consider, “Hate this bloody job sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” He couldn’t see it due to his hand, but she cocked brow in sarcastic disbelief.

“Most of the time.” He waved the idea away, “But all the time with stuff like this.” The clawed left his face to slam down against the pages, “When I have to sit here an’ read this stuff.”

“Somebody’s gotta do it.”

“Don’t mean I have to like the fact that it’s me. That I gotta watch us go ‘round an’ round, end back up where we started, ‘cept now far as I’m aware the folks who are decidin’ this stuff’re in their right sensibilities. Which makes it worse.”

“Well. As is doesn’t seem like there’s much you can do about it, so maybe it’s better to jus’ get off your arse and go do the other part of your job.” That brow was still up, though now with her tone he felt it was more a judgmental gesture than a sarcastic one.

“An’ tha’s half the problem,” he growled, ignoring her suggestion, “There ain’t nothin’ I can do about it ‘cept live with knowin’ it. And of course dealin’ with whatever hell the living shake up ‘cause of it.”

“And I’m sure you’ll get to deal with that when it comes. But it ain’t come, so maybe don’t try dealing with it yet.”

He clenched his fists at the thought, standing up from the desk. A line was carved into it with his claw as he crossed the room for the door, leaving the large mace he had tossed to one side of it upon entering.

“Ain’t ya forgettin’ somethin’?”

The Worgen paused for a moment and glanced down at the mace for a moment, before shaking his head, “No. Don’t wanna smash nothin’s head in. Wanna claw their faces off right now.”

She let out a snort, “Whatever gets all the anger out dear.”