At his question, Emma tilted her head just enough to glance at the priest, a slight frown forming on her lips as she noticed the hints of exhaustion pulling at Michael’s features. There was no surprise, given all the man had been through in the past few hours, she only wished she’d noticed sooner. “The palace is still a mile or so away. If you want, we can take a break in a nearby tavern, have something to eat before we continue? Or we can keep going. It’s entirely up to you.”

“A tavern sounds perfect right now.” He told her with a bit of a more hopeful look in his eyes now. “I’m actually pretty curious about what kind of food you might have here. Probably not burgers and fries I’d imagine.” He chuckled, though he could start the dizziness creep up on him. A moment later his belly rumpled. And he chuckled again. “Let’s not talk about food too much, okay? Where is that tavern?”

What could go wrong? //closed

“Humans, sometimes… You can be so… I don’t even have a word for it.”

“Overconfident? Full of ourselves? Ignorant of nature?”

“Is it as simple as a witch trial? Which ends up with me either being guilty or being dead?” She had heard of some methods of the church and exorcists, had heard there was basically no way out of it that didn’t mean harm and really, she was scared.

“It’s not something that would kill you, I can promise you that. We’ve moved far beyond those cruel methods. It’s a simple test that I do very often and no one has ever been hurt by it, This is just to make sure that you are alright.” He held up a bag. “I’m gonna put something in there and you have to tell me what it is.”

“Oh… well… I guess I wouldn’t really know,” she admitted, looking down at her feet, a little uncomfortable with the situation. Perhaps it had not been a good idea to duck into the church. “It’s alright… I had kinda came in here to avoid someone,” she admitted. “Not .. you. . not that i know you. I sound like an idiot don’t I?”

He chuckled. “You don’t sound like an idiot. At least not any more than we all do sometimes. If you want to avoid someone, feel free to hide here with me. I don’t have a problem with that. Want some tea or coffee while you’re waiting?” He pointed to the door that led to his office.

Snow nodded, pain in her eyes. Her voice was soft with her next words. “My stepmother killed my father and then threatened me, so I ran away. It was a few years ago now, and I’ve got something of a normal life again, but I’m still terrified she’ll find me. Sometimes I notice men following me; I’m pretty sure she’s keeping tabs on me.”

He reached out, hands no longer folded but instead wrapping around hers to hold them and squeeze them lightly, feeling like she needed as much comfort as she could get at that moment. “I’m not sure how to give you advice from getting or staying away from that woman, but I suppose you could always find help in me if you need it. If you feel insecure or are afraid, you can come to me.”

“Too bad. That could have been thrilling.” Emma pointed out. But she would go with it. She wanted him, had wanted him for a while and now it seemed like she was about to get what she wanted, which was great. She would make sure he would have a great time. Only him and her would know, no one else on this earth. 

“Lets go, then.” Emma reached for his hand, to go to his house with him. 

He took her hand before he could change his mind about this whole thing, leading her to the back door just in case anyone would spot them leaving the church hand in hand. He had his car parked there anyway. “So, if you don’t mind my asking... why, out of all the people here, would you want to sleep with me?”

Emily huffed a little. “Dangerous is in the job description. Well, sort of.” Not in the scientist job description, but it was in the hunter job description when she was acting like one. “Exorcisms take a long time, though. I need to stop the demon with a trap, and devil’s trap bullets are the quickest way to do it. Unless you know of a fast exorcism?”

“It really depends on the strength of the demon, of course it can take a long time if it’s very resistant and stubborn, some demons leave immediately when someone dared to speak up against them.” He raised both hands, giving her a dismissive gesture. “But if you’d rather do this on your own, I won’t stop you. I’m just saying it doesn’t have to be quite so dangerous if you have help. And what kind of trap are you talking about?”

“Yeah, that would do. Sorry, that guy over there just won’t leave me alone. Even punching him once didn’t work. —- You didn’t hear that.”

He reached up and pulled the white collar out of the black shirt he was wearing, then wrapped an arm around her. “Well, honey, in some cases punching is acceptable.”

She sniffles loudly and looks down. It feels wrong to take up his time, she doesn’t even believe in god, yet his generosity moves her to tears. “I, um, I can wait as long as you need.” Her fingers tug at the bottom of her shirt. It might be good for her to talk and he couldn’t say anything if she did–but her life wasn’t exactly moral. “I’ve done bad things, father…but I had to.”

“Well, let me make it clear that this won’t be a confession unless you want it to be one. I won’t judge you or making you say Hail Marys for an hour to pay for whatever it was that you’ve done. I’ll be right back, though.” With that he turned away from her and headed towards his office, then quickly gathered what he thought he would need to take home with him, plus a blanket for her for the way there, since it had gone quite cold, before returning to her a moment later. “I guess we can go now and you can talk to me on the way there. Or later at home.”

“That’s a really nice hobby,” she commented, looking over the titles of the movies  some  more.  "You  know…  I’m  kind  of  disappointed  to  see no exorcism movies.“ She had to tease, jus t a bit,  before she  turned around once he got back to the living room, eyes  going a  bit wide  at the  sight of all the snacks he got. “You sure it will be just the two of us watching? You could feed a whole army with these,” she chuckled.

“I tend to get really hungry while watching movies. It’s the only thing saving me from not starving, since I tend to forget to eat during the day. Oh and... I’m not a horror movie fan. Too much of that in my life already, I suppose.” With that he ripped open the popcorn bag and filled it in a bowl as well. “Besides, I could tell you stories that are much worse than most of the horror movies out there. At least the ones about exorcism. The reality is actually quite a lot worse.”

Her eyes briefly traveled to the group of children as well before she forced herself to look away before her good mood could fade.

“Anyone that enters my home never leaves hungry or empty handed, whether or not they came for the specific purpose of a cooking lesson.” Delila had a bad habit of feeding near everyone she came across – especially if she deemed them to be underweight in any capacity.

“I’ll say…quiche. It’s simple, doesn’t take too long and delicious,” she said after a brief moment of thought, at first thinking she could help make macaroni and cheese before shoving the thought aside; she didn’t want to run out of cheese just yet. “Vegetable and ham quiche… Does that sound agreeable, or is there something else you’d prefer?”

“It sounds very agreeable, though I’m almost sure that you’re putting too much faith in my non-existent cooking abilities. I’m probably going to burn it before we can taste it.” He wasn’t even joking about that. He’d once burned pasta while boiling it.

A rather large group of women walked past them and he only now realized that the choir had finished their performance and it would be his turn to hold a speech soon. He sighed, not exactly considering the speech part his favorite part about his job, but it had to be done.

“I’m afraid I have to go, but if you want to call me later we could talk about a good day for our cooking lesson?” With that he reached into a pocket and held out his card for her a moment later.

                    ❝Mortician, huh? Guess dead bodies                           aren’t as fun as jesus freaks, then.❞                              She gave the man a side glance                                     then an apologetic shrug.                         ❝Oops. Anyways, I guess if I had a father                           I wanted to get away from I’d run too.                           So why didn’t you drop out after you                         finally got away from your daddy issues?                        Found enlightenment through the church?❞

“They didn’t let me drop out.” He gave her a bit of a grim look since, at this very moment, he would be one of those Jesus freaks she had just mentioned. “It was taking exorcism classes or paying off my debt for the next ten years. And it turned out exorcists are very much needed.”

“Then please join me.” she shyly said towards him. The two have just met. But still her trust with him is so big. “Well I’m already have taken that hint that you’d have let me be by your side. So I’ll just stay with you throughout all of this. I promise, I wouldn’t let anyone take my faith. I have promised this one before to my mom. So.. I promise you, I’m nice as you think I am.”

He nodded once, then turned around and headed towards his office, opening up a cabinet behind his chair and retrieving a bible, several books filled with prayers, some holy water and several crosses before returning to her a bit later. “Well, I’d say I’m ready then.” He shouldered his bag.