Thanks to everyone who read and and to M1ssUnd3rst4nd1n for reviewing.
Crosses over with Meaning Makes It ch. 24, but both stories can be read separately.
Frank led the group downstairs, Barry cutting between Monroe and Roddy, and Nick caught Roddy's shoulder before he could follow. "Is everything okay?" he asked quietly. "Barry seems to be a little off, tonight." He couldn't point to anything specific, but the teenager definitely wasn't as at ease as he had been the last few times that Nick had been over for dinner.'
Roddy stared.
"What?"
"Seriously? You invited a Blutbad to their house and didn't tell them," he hissed, looking down the staircase. "Of course Barry's being weird."
"That matters?" Nick had been thinking along the lines of maybe school or parole, or possibly the holiday itself given that the first couple after the loss of a parent could be pretty rough. Roddy was still staring at him like he'd grown an extra head, though, and he shook himself. "Why? I mean, it's not a problem when Monroe goes over to your place, is it? And he and Frank didn't seemed to have any issues chatting about the wine or the weather or the German...whatever...on the spaghetti bowls at dinner."
"O f course I'm cool with Monroe coming over now, it's not like this is National Geographic," Roddy said with a roll of his eyes. "But I wasn't the first time when he just about gave me a heart attack, and in case you missed it I'm not exactly topping out any food chains so that's different than Mr. Rabe being a lawyer and being good at politeness and shit anyway."
Nick rubbed his forehead. He'd felt fine when they'd arrived at the Rabes, but after a full meal and a couple glasses of wine, the last two twelve-plus hour days of accident cleanup in the freezing cold were starting to catch up with him. And that was without any Wesen traditions or customs or whatever else coming into it, because all he'd been thinking when Frank had invited them over was that Monroe had been disappointed that Roddy wouldn't be able to make it given the state of the roads, and he himself was all for anything that would distract him from whole the Juliette situation. Neither of them had been big holiday people, especially with no local family and being on call at their respective jobs, but the last couple years had still involved nice meals at home and— "Okay, fine," he said, cutting off that thought quickly. "I once again have no idea why my ancestors couldn't manage to write down anything that didn't involve decapitation, but since they didn't, could you fill in a few details? At least explain what 'different' is?"
A snort. "Wow, that's not creepy. But for one no one's going to give a damn if I have a heart attack. And as far as a Blutbad showing up at my door…." He shrugged. "It's weird, like Blutbaden and Reinigen don't normally cross paths and when we do it doesn't usually go very well for us, but even if Monroe's the best there's still no way I could ever have stopped him from coming in and we both knew it."
"Okay, I guess that makes sense." Not that there weren't some obvious legal issues with breaking an entering regardless of who was involved, but he supposed that that didn't mean much when you were just comparing physical abilities. "And Frank and Barry?"
"Well, they're Jagerbars. You know, apex predators in their own right? Someone like me Monroe could flatten in half a second, but if they decided that they didn't want him on their turf it would get real ugly real fast. I mean, he knew what they were, and he introduced himself and Mr. Rabe invited him in and all that so it's fine, but it's still not…you're just not supposed to spring something like that on people cold."
That also made a reasonable amount of sense, although Nick doubted it would have crossed his mind no matter what else was going on. Usually Monroe filled in the gaps on that kind of thing. "Okay, thank you, I'll remember for the future," he said finally, and then frowned. "But what about someone like Rosalee? She's a Fuchsbau, so I don't think she'd count as an—"
"Nick?" Frank called up the stairs. "Roddy? Is everything okay?"
Right. Probably not the time to be diagramming Wesen hierarchies. Especially since Monroe was down there alone with the Rabes, although Nick thought that if it was going to be a real issue Monroe would have said something himself. "We're fine, I just needed to pick Roddy's brain for a minute," he called back, waving Roddy downstairs ahead of him. "Sorry, didn't mean to keep everyone waiting."
"It's no problem," Frank said, turning into the game room. "We were thinking we might play some darts."
Roddy looked back at Nick. "Then upstairs was the right place for him, wasn't it?"
Frank's lips twitched and Barry snickered.
"Very funny, but I think I'll sit this one out," Nick said. "I didn't realize it until a few minutes ago, but the last couple days are starting to hit me. Besides, four's a better number for a game anyway."
"Would you like to lie down?" Frank offered. "The boys made up Barry's bed and the daybed in my office for the two of you tonight, and you're welcome to go up now if you'd prefer. It should be quiet."
"No, thanks. If I lie down now I'll fall asleep, and if that happens I'll be up at four tomorrow morning which won't make the afternoon shift fun. But it's probably better if I pass on throwing sharp objects and just hang out all the same."
None of them had an argument with that so he settled in on the couch while Roddy ducked past Barry to stand beside Monroe. "The two of us against the two of you?"
"Works for me," Frank said, and while now that he knew what he was looking for Nick was pretty sure that Barry would prefer that Roddy wasn't next to Monroe, he nodded as well.
"I'm game," Monroe agreed, "although I can't say that I've played a whole lot since college so I'm not making any great claims about my skills."
Light from the window woke him up, and it took Nick a minute to orient himself. Thanksgiving at the Rabes. And he was feeling much better than he had been last night, thank goodness. The others had played a few games of darts and pool and then they'd all settled in for Monroe's blueberry pie and the last couple movies in a Hitchcock marathon, but while Nick normally enjoyed the classics, it had taken everything in him to keep his eyes open until it was time to go upstairs.
As it was he wasn't particularly surprised to find both Monroe and Frank already awake when he got back down to the main level, their heads together over something on the kitchen counter, and he nodded to both of them. "Good morning."
"Good morning," they echoed, and then Frank gestured to the stove and the stack of bread beside it. "There's eggs and toast if you're hungry—I'd offer the last of the blueberry pie, too, but I think the boys got to it after we went to bed last night—but I thought we'd go light for breakfast anyway since we'll be having plenty of food at lunch." A pause. "Probably."
"Sounds like a plan," Nick said, grabbing a plate. "But is there a problem?"
"Well, it's…." He shook his head and tapped what Nick could now see was a piece of paper. "These instructions came with the dinner I ordered, and while I figured that we'd have to reheat things in stages given the number of dishes, I assumed it would be a cohesive meal in the end. But this has the turkey and stuffing in the oven for thirty minutes at one temperature, the bread baking for thirty minutes at another, and a couple side dishes that say specifically not to use the microwave but don't share a temperature with anything else, either. Small favor those are just fifteen minutes each, I guess, but we still only have the one oven." He shook his head. "Even the ones that can go in the microwave all take between five and fifteen minutes, and with half a dozen of them…. I suppose we could just graze as things are reheated, but that wasn't really what I intended for a holiday meal."
"And I brought three casseroles which doesn't help, either," Monroe added. "Although at least I know that mine can all go into together if the oven is big enough and should only take about twenty minutes to heat through."
The Rabes' oven looked plenty big to Nick, probably half again as large as the one at home, and no, he was not going to think about that. Today was going to be a good day. Fortunately neither of the others seemed to notice his sudden hesitation.
"Let me find a pencil," Frank said after a few more minutes of working down the list with Monroe.
Nick had been listening politely as he ate since he didn't count himself as more than an average cook, but as Frank turned to rummage in one of the side drawers, Nick looked between them. "So, uh, Roddy mentioned that I should have given you a heads-up that Monroe was a Blutbad before we came over. Sorry about that, both of you."
They exchanged glances, and then Frank waved it off. "I can't say that I wasn't surprised, but realistically a Grimm across the hall is bizarre enough to make anything else irrelevant anyway."
"Tell me about it," Monroe said with a grin. "Although I should have thought to double-check when I realized that vegetarian had somehow been missed."
"Ha ha. I think I was a little more tired than I realized."
Monroe shook his head too, and a moment later Frank found the pencil he'd been looking for and turned back to the paper. "Okay, so if we reheat the carrots on the stove instead…."
Nick finished off his eggs and toast while the two of them turned what had been a simple list into something that looked almost like a diagram of the Rabes' kitchen, and he was opening his mouth to ask what he should do with the plate when voices from down the hall interrupted them.
"—don't care how many awards it has, it's a boring book, and nobody wants to read it," Roddy was saying.
"I like it!"
"Fine, one person, but you're weird and don't count so the point stands."
"Do you even hear yourself? It wouldn't have awards if it wasn't a—" There was a grunt and some scrabbling, and then two of them came around the corner, Roddy caught in loose headlock. "Hey," Barry greeted. "Roddy'll fit in the oven, right?"
"Absolutely not, we're still trying to figure out what to do with the Brussels sprouts." Frank looked up. "And not in the kitchen, thank you, either pause for breakfast or take the roughhousing outside or back downstairs."
Roddy squirmed free and stuck out his tongue at Barry.
Barry shoved him, although since he didn't go flying Nick didn't figure there had been any force behind it. For two people that he was pretty sure had been unrolling the cords of a couple video game controllers when he and the others had been headed up to bed, the two of them looked remarkably alert. And as much as he was glad that they were getting along, he was still way too young for a couple teenagers to be making him feel old.
What's wrong with the Brussels sprouts?" Barry asked, coming around to look over his father's shoulder.
"Nothing, if you like them cold. Eggs and toast are there if you're hungry."
Roddy paused long enough to snag a plate and a piece of toast but then ducked between Monroe and Frank so he could see as well.
"I think we've about got everything else tetris'd to be done within an hour as long as we're a little liberal with the cooking temperatures and do the pies as a second course," Frank explained, "but right now those don't fit anywhere."
Barry frowned, running his finger down the original list. "How many ovens are we supposed to have?"
