"-- reckon I might just claw my own bleedin' eyes out," Kurby grumbled to Gervais Bellingham as he finally stepped through the open door of his tiny office. "Didn't I ban this holiday?"

The older wizard looked far too amused as he paused in the entryway, leaning one arm on the doorframe. Although all of the Capture Unit was currently pleading innocent, someone had beaten the rest of the team in early that morning and decorated their entire office for Valentine's Day. Each of the cubicles in the main room were adorned with garlands, and animated pink and purple hearts floated near the ceiling in pairs, holding hands and singing as matching confetti rained down from above them.

"I seem to remember something about that from last year, yeah," Bellingham replied, far too unconcerned for the werewolf hunter's liking. "Did you want me to go tell Bruce you'd like to fire everyone for forgetting the ban on Valentine's Day?"

Kurby shot his teammate a dirty look as he headed over to his desk. It didn't help they'd been stuck in meetings literally all morning. His temper was already short, and the fact that he had to suffer through getting serenaded just to duck into his office and grab his cloak was making everything worse.

"I'll feed 'em all to the bleedin' werewolves," he muttered unhappily, dumping his collection of parchment scrolls onto his desk in an uncharacteristically disorganized pile.

Bellingham cleared his throat. Kurby looked up at him sharply, and then followed the other wizard's bemused gaze down to the heart-shaped box sitting on his desk. A pressed yellow flower had been tucked next to it, with a red-colored note: For the Defender.

The werewolf hunter heaved a very loud sigh, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. Hell. Either whoever had come in early to decorate the office had decided to risk their life by including him in the joke, or Gen Garcia had gotten bored with leaving him alone.

Scowling, he shoved everything back into the box, shoved the lid on top, and tossed the entire thing in his lower desk drawer out of sight, slamming it shut. The malfunctioning sneakoscope that his younger sister had once  given him as a joke chose that exact moment to start going off again.  Kurby kicked at the drawer to get it to shut up.

"You ever mention this to anyone and I'll feed you to the goddamned werewolves, too," he grumbled at Bellingham, snatching up his cloak. "C'mon. If we don't get the hell out of here for lunch, Ballentyne will decide she needs us for another damned meeting."

Without a look back, he headed for the door, yanking it shut hard enough behind him to rattle the small room.

Back in the drawer, jarred back to life by the slamming door, the abandoned sneakoscope began to whir once more, doing its best to sound a persistent, lonely warning.