Orkas' list of sinner souls, while originally an extremely promising lead, was turning out to be more than a little disappointing. Claire had yet to find one sinner on it that would talk to her. She'd anticipated some distrust and knew it wouldn't be easy, but the outright hostility was somehow still surprising. It led to long days trudging all over the city just to have doors slammed in her face—if they even opened at all.
Still determined to make progress, Claire had camped out in a chair in the lobby near a posted daily menu where 'Lasagna' had been crossed out and replaced with a crudely scrawled 'JAMBALAYA'. She'd been meaning to take it down, but then got distracted transcribing addresses from the list into groups of neighborhoods in her notebook. It would help save time if she wasn't crisscrossing the city whenever she went out and truth be told, she enjoyed the minutiae of route planning.
The main door to the lobby swung open and an exhausted looking Angel slumped in, "Finally fucking home," he groaned, setting a hand to his lower back and stretching until it gave a thorough crack.
Claire barely looked up, "Hey Angel, are you busy?" She asked, making a few more notes, "I've got some addresses here, but I'm not really sure what part of the city they're in. I could use a walking buddy."
"Maybe later, Claire," Angel headed for the stairs with a shake of his head, "I've had a real shit day."
"Yeah, it can—" Claire started to say, looking up as he passed and getting to her feet so quickly the notes in her lap fell to the floor in a jumble, "Angel, what happened to your eye?!"
Angel paused and reached up to prod at the swollen, bruised flesh around his right eye, as if he'd forgotten it was there until now, "Eh, it's nothing," he dismissed, continuing on his way, "Just a hazard of the job."
Claire skipped a few steps to intercept him, standing between him and the stairs holding both hands up, "I knew porn was full-contact, but not in an actual injury-causing way. Let me take a look at that."
Angel attempted to duck out of the way as she reached up, smacking one of her hands to the side, "It is when Val's in charge. I'm fine just—ow!" he exclaimed as she broke through his defenses and gingerly prodded at the edge. He backed up, holding a hand over it, "Don't fucking touch it!"
"We need to get some ice on that," Claire said seriously.
"I said I'm fine!" Angel snapped, attempting to move around her, "Don't you have an overlord you can go fall all over?"
Claire reached out to put a hand on one of his arms, "Angel, if someone is hurting you, you can tell me," she pressed, "It's not okay for them to—"
Angel wrenched his arm out of her grasp, heading up the stairs and glaring back at her, "Of course it's not okay! It's Val, he's fucking deranged!"
"Your boss did this?" Claire asked incredulously, following him up a few stairs, "Angel, that's—"
"Just leave me the fuck alone, okay?!" Angel rounded on Claire, causing her to back up, glaring with his one good eye, "Go solve someone else's problems because you can do shit all about mine." He turned away from her and stomped up the stairs.
Claire lingered for few seconds, frowning, but let him go. That black eye had caused an old familiar itch in the back of her neck. Something she thought she was done with now that she was dead and hanging out in Hell. No, she shook her head, turning to go collect all the papers that scattered earlier when she stood. She wasn't that delusional. This was an old itch she thought the Orkas investigation might scratch instead. She really believed it might. It was certainly a far safer thing to pursue than…
She glanced up the stairs thoughtfully, patting the papers into a tidy pile. Nothing was preventing her from multitasking. "Hey, Vaggie," she called out as the shorter woman made her way through the lobby, pausing when she heard Claire call her name. "You doing anything right now?"