Laurance pursed his lips as he had Dove follow him to the little area where the detectives and other employees would make their coffee or heat up a quick mug. He had taken one of the bottles to put in a cabinet.

Dove raised her brow at this, as a painkiller, while nearly common to use, is not suited for everyone, but she still stayed silent, and just made a mental note to avoid them if ever offered to her.

"He's always worried about me, back when I just started working here, it was like he was over my shoulder a lot." The man shook his head, brushing a hand through that handsome light brown hair of his as the other easily makes a cup of coffee.

One hand to simply pop open the sugar to pour into his cup, and then the creamer, casually tossing a stir straw in before grabbing the kettle full of premade black coffee and pouring it in.

"Now that I remember, he's kind to all of the newcomers, so if you ever need help, don't hesitate to go to him."

He darts a curious look from his cup to Dove, who is clearly listening although she makes no response.

Dove awkwardly rubs her arm and responds quietly.

"I see, well, he did seem gentle at least." She said, her tone sounding out as if she was scared to have an opinion, much less share an opinion of someone to someone else who knows them better.

Laurance simply chuckled lightly, smiling softly as he took another cup and put it on the counter, gesturing for her to make herself a drink as well.

"Well, I can't argue with that. He is probably the most patient person I know."

He leaned back against the counter, scanning the rest of the office within his view as he held the hot cup, waiting for it to cool.

It was a slow day for the ones in the office, there were some working out in the field, one of them being Bence, the necromancer, and one of the alchemists, going out to research some dug up corpses.

The desks and computers were lined up against the walls typically for convenience, and there was a hallway to lead into all of the separate rooms of this floor.

Dove had explored them during her first couple of days when she didn't have much work asked of her yet.

The mirror room, or the interrogation room, considering the disturbing honesty it pushed out of her during her time there.

There was a room where Bence has told her that Laurance would sometimes be cooped up in during those difficult cases from clients, it had the whiteboards, projectors, maps of only a few of the states near Maine, and all those other supplies needed to just appear somewhat insane when utilizing them; red string, lots of sticky notes, those tacts, and of course those markers of every tip size.

The archives room was more like a calm, safe, and quiet space from it all since it could be locked from both the inside and out.

The little area they were in, where Dove was standing comfortably next to him, almost fully relaxed for once as she poured pure black coffee into her cup and leaned against the counter with him to drink it, still fully hot, it was like the little break spot. Not exactly a break room since there were no walls to separate the employees from seeing their work computers.

"Hey, easy there." The man said, tilting his body a bit to warn her.

"Don't worry, I get cold easily, so this is fine."

"Cold or not, you could still scald your tongue that way."

"Probably for the best, sometimes I can say the wrong things. So that's an upside." She said back in a forceful joking tone she usually takes with others, despite not facing him.

Laurence had this sort of pained look on his face. There were things he wanted to tell her, but now was not the right time.

About a couple hours later, Bence was seen coming through the elevator doors, dusting some graveyard soil off the nice, dark purple fabric of his suit, his dark hair, usually all neat, was also tousled up a bit.

Dove, out of her own anxiety and awkwardness, slowly strolled up to offer him a towel to use, offering to make something for him. He gently rejected but accepted the towel, giving her that same stoic face but clearly mustering it to come off more gently so as not to scare her.

"I'm going to make a strong drink that only I know how to make, thank you, there's no need for you to be concerned with me." He said as he walked past her, and Dove could see scratch marks at the back of his sleeve.

"Umm, arm... Your arm,,, sleeve." She stuttered, hesitant to point it out.

He sent her a wave without looking back, already knowing.

"I'll get a new suit later."

"I can fix it, if you want." She said nervously, again wanting to bite her tongue and slap her own mouth shut.

Bence stopped and turned around to her, giving her a quizzical look but then letting out a small scoff and a smile.

"I mean, I can sow, and stitch."

"Don't worry about me, really, soon enough you'll be so busy you'll miss these complacent intern days. Besides, you have no idea how many times this outfit has been hemmed." He said, pulling at the hem of his collar, showing her some threads that at first glance are fine, but then upon the closer inspection that he visibly allowed her to look, she could see how the threads were different shades, almost matching the fabric but not completely.

Bence stood back straight after tilting a little for her, fixing his collar as he waved her off.

"If we need you, trust me, we'll tell you."

During the lunch break, she did suddenly get busy.

While helping one of the rare field agents she would meet, a kind Dutch woman named Merel, search for some specific books, neither of the active people realized it was lunch break until a familiar, overtly happy voice, followed by a familiar sassy and confident voice filled the room, sending chills of surprise down both the Womens' spines.

Dove ran out of the little files room and down the hall to act as a hand for them, seeing Annabelle and Joon standing in the space in front of the elevator, Vernon was also with them, looking a little surprised and staring blankly as if he had just been teleported there, as he was still holding a pot with nothing but soil.

He likely was teleported-or more- suddenly dragged there all the way from the rooftop garden. When he blinked and noticed the other two were waving at Dove who then appeared so go see the noise makers, Vernon joined them in excitedly waving and beckoning Dove over, even though he didn't know the full reason why as Annabelle and Joon never explained it to him.

"Hey Dove! It's Lunch time! Let's go out!"

"There's an Asian food court place nearby, I'm ordering for everyone if you're driving."

"Good afternoon, Dove."

Dove stared at the group, bewildered and almost slouching, she was slightly unnerved.

"Do you guys, need something?" she said, having not been able to process their earlier words.

She did indeed hear them, but their words went into her ears too quickly and could not get processed correctly to understand.

The necromancer, who had also come out from the whiteboard room to see what the ruckus was, relaxed himself as he saw it was simply the other new interns and hire.

"Kindly be a little quieter when on this floor, some of us aren't used to working with noise." He huffed and told them, crossing his arms as he relaxed his breathing, evident by the rising and lowering of his broad shoulders.

Annabelle nodded but didn't seem to take in his words.

"Yes yes, sorry, I'll be sure to be silent the next time I come up to tell you that Jalal and Malika are doing fine." She said in a sarcastic, cheeky tone while proceeding to march over, hook her arm with Doves, and repeated in the same motion, "Now then! It's lunch break! We're going out!"

Bence frowned and raised an eyebrow as he asked. "Did they, tell you-"

"Can we hurry up! Lunch break isn't gonna last forever." Joon abruptly said.

Dove blinked rapidly in surprise and then turned her head over to Laurence who was on the phone with someone. He had observed the whole thing, and only smiled as he nodded to Dove, gesturing "Go." To her as he clearly found the group in front of him amusing.

The girl seemed to want to sputter something but was silent as Annabelle pulled her by the arm to go in the elevator with the two boys.

"Drive safely."

"Wait, he was asking you something." She quickly said, but, comically on point, the elevator doors already closed.

Unlike past awkward moments in the elevator, Dove was currently standing in a red velvet room with two talkative people, and the boy who was talking to her about a new hybrid plant he was growing. Whatever Joon and Annabelle were talking about, something about projects and secretly using the gym floor, they were too overwhelming for her, so she peacefully listened to Vernon talk about the new flower he was growing as they waited for the first floor.

It seemed like he needed to talk or else he would just grimace and hang onto the railings on the walls.

"Elevators have a weird bounce both when they start and stop, I don't particularly like either of them." He said as he clutched the plant in his other arm.

Dove threw him a sympathetic glance as she used to feel the same way once, before she just decided to shrug off any discomforts.

"Your hair looks like silver thistle." He suddenly said nonchalantly.

"What?"

"Silver thistle, or is it silver bells? Or artemisias?" He said, asking himself mostly.

She couldn't tell whether he was looking at her or off into the distance, his natural, curly, black hair covered his eyes.

Dove tilted her head at him while reaching a hand up to pat her own hair.

She had this sort of odd shade of hair, had the same fullness and bounce of volume that kept it from looking flat, like her mother's, but it was pretty straight all her life, like her father's hair. She was born with very bright hair, as her father was the type of unfortunate blond that would have some gray roots growing in, even from high school, but her hair grew into a very visible silvery white.

Her sister once joked it was because their mother was albino.

Dove stroked her straight hair that was in a ponytail as always, pondering his comment. No one has really compared her hair to something gentle like a plant before.

As the elevator stopped, Vernon seemed to almost want to crouch following the odd bounce the lift gave as it halted. While it didn't affect the others, Vernon quickly stepped out and wouldn't stop moving, as if trying to walk off the vertigo he had gotten.

Walking through the magic store on their way out also allowed Vernon to point at some flowers and compare it to hers, until he then compared her hair color to her suit jacket that she often wore to work. Only ever comfortable in formal outfits at work or anywhere else, less likely to be judged in a button up and suit pants.

Joon went on nonstop about this food court place, he told Dove the directions from his phone since there was no way to hook the phone up onto the dashboard.

It wasn't until she drove a good distance away from the building did, they all began to re-register all the nightmares in the area, forgetting how they were all there and that they could see them. Macabre House was like a repellant for these things.

"Dove, I love your car, it's a real epitome of riding in the wind, but you must feel really scared driving at night." Annabelle said as she was casually sitting above the seats, her hands leaned back on the back part of the car.

"It's fine as long as we don't provoke them, speaking of which, please sit properly in your seat or you might fly off."

"Oh! I could build some wings so we could take turns flying like a kite from your car!" Joon said, looking up from the map on his phone.

Dove internally grimaced as she looked for the location.

I know that the way it's described makes it look like I wasn't happy... But I was actually feeling really giddy on the inside, especially when they started chatting with each other, and I could tell I was included in the conversation! At the time I didn't care if maybe they were only socializing with me because I was the only one who can drive, for once, my chest was feeling warm in the moment with how fun the company was.