Unwind at dinner with the Morgan/Weir family! Dinner is a great time to catch everyone up on the day's events. And don't forget about Rory. What has that rascal been up to? Next update is planned for July 1st.
Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think :-)
MBAV fan66: Ah! Woman after my own heart 3 I love broccoli. I like it with soy sauce and garlic, myself. I'm glad you're digging the boys helping Sarah out. I know Sarah can be a less popular character :-p
The metal tines of the fork scrape lightly on the plate as Benny discretely pushes another broccoli to the side. Grandma is indulging Mrs. Morgan's small talk, which gives Benny respite from her dirty looks. Besides, he ate all of his mashed potatoes. Potato's a vegetable.
"So, what were you three up to in the workroom?" Samantha directs the conversation towards Benny's end of the table. Her encouraging smile is a scrap of normalcy that Benny has never been familiar with. Grandma's disappointed caught-you look, on the other hand…
Startled, Benny mashes the broccoli head.
"Uh…" Ethan stalls. Mrs. Morgan's stance on vampires and vampire-related activities is lukewarm at best.
Under Grandma's scrutiny, Benny guiltily scrapes up the broccoli guts and tentatively shovels them into his mouth. Ethan seems similarly uncomfortable under his mother's considerably more friendly gaze.
"We were testing blood potions," Sarah steps in, ending the silence before it had a chance to get truly unpleasant. They weren't potions, but Benny doesn't feel like correcting her.
"Oh," Samantha smiles nonconfrontationally. "That's nice," She adds, and promptly drops the subject.
"Did you get any positive results?" Jane asks with genuine interest. Her broccoli is gone. She cannot actually like broccoli.
"Venus flytrap and fly wings were the most promising. Purple capped mushrooms were pretty decent too." Benny reaches for the bowl of mashed potato. "Newt skin wasn't bad-"
Zing! Without hand motions or verbal incantations, Grandma zapped the hand going for mashed potatoes. With one pointed eyebrow, she chastises, "Eat your broccoli." Effectively the reprimand functions as a 'shut up' as well.
"Tell you later," Benny conspicuously whispers to Jane, rubbing his hand. She nods seriously and tucks back into her chicken.
"Ethan, dear, we need to talk about the prophecy you wrote last night." Grandma's calm voice commands attention. This serves to deflate Samantha's dubiously-sincere cheeriness further.
"Uh… yeah." Ethan hunches into a nervous smile. Sarah butts her shoulder up against Ethan's in a show of solidarity. Benny is glad one of them knows what to do.
Grandma begins her questions. "Can you tell me anything more about 'The Smiling Woman?'" Benny vaguely remembers reading those words in Ethan's scratchy handwriting.
"Sorry," Ethan cringes, biting a piece of chicken off his fork with his teeth in lieu of any further explanation. Benny feels like maybe he should try to contribute something, but if the seer mastermind doesn't know what's happening then Benny definitely doesn't.
"That's alright dear." Grandma reassures, already moving onto the next point. "From the other things you wrote, It sounds like there's a water-based shapeshifter in Whitechapel, but you didn't say anything about his or her human form or what he or she is trying to do. So we want you to try to concentrate on anything to do with a horse, or simple water based spells."
"A horse?" Benny says through half chewed broccoli.
"Don't talk with your mouth full, Benny. Ethan described the shapeshifter as a horse, so we know that the shapeshifter has at least a horse-form."
Sarah looks thoughtful, as if trying to remember if she's seen a horse around town. Her plate is clean and with now else to do she brushes her fingers through Ethan's dark mop, her elbow propped on his shoulder.
"Okay I'll try. To concentrate on a horse." Ethan promises. The words are undermined by the crease in his bro. Ethan is too high-strung.
"Not to be self-centered, but will Ethan concentrating on a horse really help me?" Jane asks, her voice equal parts reasonable and self-righteous.
"My first priority is still keeping you safe," Ethan assures her. The conviction in her eyes momentarily breaks into sad gratitude before she walls herself off again.
"Wait what's this about?" Mrs Morgan demands. Benny can hear the sirens going off.
"Jane died in my dream," Ethan mumbles.
Mrs. Morgan's face pales. Life was so much easier when the adults in their life didn't know anything, or let them screw around unsupervised to "learn" how to deal with the supernatural.
"What? Why am I just hearing about this?" Samantha asks. Full parent mode engaged.
"Mom, we don't even know what's going to happen yet." Ethan's hand-waving explain as much as he does. "My prophecy is useless. There wasn't any reason to tell you.I mean there's nothing you can do."
It doesn't look like Ethan has eaten any of his broccoli. Or very much of anything really.
"Thank you for reminding me how useless I am," Mrs. Morgan states with a slight warble in her voice. Benny really wishes he could disappear. Well he literally could, but that wouldn't get him out of the conversation.
"I understand perfectly well that there's nothing I can do. But if you don't tell me, I just worry about what you're keeping from me. I want to do everything possible to keep my children safe!" The calmness of Mrs. Morgan's voice only betrays how angry she is.
"I didn't mean it like that! It was last night's dream so it wasn't like I was trying to keep it from you." Ethan says, attempting to reassure his mother.
"Right dear, you just haven't had a chance to tell your mother." Grandma says in a placating tone. Samantha seems a little thrown.
"I think Jane should skip patrol this week," Mrs. Morgan says definitively, meeting Grandma's eyes in direct challenge.
"The coven needs Ethan to patrol. I can't say the same thing for Jane," Grandma concedes.
Benny has some twix bars under the bed. A couple of those would make up for Ethan skipping dinner.
"Fine. Good." Samantha says, sharing a smile with her children. "So did anything interesting happen at school today?"
"There was a new kid," Jane offers.
"How did you know about the new kid?" Benny asks, reaching for the mashed potatoes again now that he's finished his broccoli.
Jane shrugs, "It's a small school"
"So what's the new kid like? Did any of you make friends with him?" Mrs. Morgan inquires.
"He wasn't the make-friends type," Benny replies.
"Yeah, it might have been the Ducerebra, but his face looked… demonic," Ethan added.
"Ducerebra?" Grandma asks, pointedly. She's zeroed in on Benny, even though she knows Jane made that potion.
"I won't do it again," Benny replies. "Shi- Dang. Dang it. I should check on with Rory." Benny hastily excuses himself, driven both by his desire to escape awkwageddon and his reluctant responsibility for Rory.
Sarah opens her mouth, possibly thinking about volunteering to join Benny, but ultimately remains quiet. She probably wants to take advantage of alone time with Ethan after dinner. Benny can't blame her. He can call her if he ends up needing backup.
No one questions the quick exit, picking up the conversation again. As he's shoving untied shoes onto his feet, Benny hears his grandma say, "It sounds like Sean might be the human shapeshifter. You should watch him."
"Hey there buddy," Benny calls down the ditch. Spiky blond hair is the only way Benny can identify the prone figure as his third amigo. He's hoping he won't have to climb down and fetch Rory.
Benny considers his surroundings, pocketing the enchanted compass that he had set to lead to Rory's tattoo. On the side of a back road surrounded by evergreens and grass. He might have some rope in the car, but it would be easier to levitate Rory out of the ditch.
Rory's a fair deal bigger than a cup of coffee, but Benny cracks his knuckles ready to give it a try. Rory is, after all, immortal.
Levitating items feels a little bit like swinging them on a rope. Swinging a small cup back into the hands of its owner when you're standing right next to him is fairly simple. A good direct trajectory. Attaching a rope to a 180 pound ragdoll down a steep ditch and then hauling him up is tricky.
Benny first tries a hard upward tug that succeeds in pulling Rory off the ground. But when Benny attempts to reel him in, it pulls Rory face first into the slope of the hill. The sun is threatening to set, but it's still too bright to be a valid excuse.
Benny tries throwing his arm back in a wide casting gesture. This is more successful in that Rory's body clears a larger section of hill. But still unsuccessful in the sense that Benny's hears a crack when he pile drives the vampire into a rock.
Giving up, the spell caster drags Rory up along the ground the rest of the way. He kneels down to inspect the damage, grimacing at the number of small bleeding cuts on his face and arms. There's even a small stone lodged in Rory's cheekbone. Reflexively Benny checks for a pulse before remembering that he won't find one. The only confirmation he has that Rory will get better, is the fact he Rory is not currently a pile of dust. Benny shrugs. He'll heal.
Benny opens the car door. Scratching his head he thinks through how he can get Rory into the backseat by pulling on a rope with no leverage. In a fit of brilliance, Benny opens the car do on the other side, so he can just pull Rory towards himself. This actually works. This looks like what levitations is supposed to look like.
With Rory splayed across the backseat with all of limbs inside of the vehicle, Benny slams all of the doors shut. Mission accomplished.
Buckling himself into the driver's seat, he announces to dead ears, "All aboard the Benny express, leaving now for the Keener residence."
He turns the ignition and the car rumbles to life. Ethan was out for several hours when the Ducerebra wore off. Rory might be out all night. His rescue-related injuries might very well be healed by then. The gravel of this remote country road crunch under his tires.
"Benny?" Rory's voice chirps from the back seat, startling the driver.
"Yeah Buddy?" Benny asks, glancing into the rear-view mirror before remembering he won't see anything. Instead Benny brakes so he can turn around. Rory's body hasn't moved at all. His eyes are closed.
"Just wait until tomorrow!" Rory promises, his lips barely moving. Rory has been unsupervised for 10 hours now. That could mean anything.
Benny waits, but Rory has apparently succumb back into unconsciousness. He will have to wait until tomorrow.
Next time things finally start looking up for Ethan