Thanks to everyone who read and to M1ssUn3rst4nd1ng, StyxxsOmega, and Priyanka for reviewing. I'm still around, just very busy with real life.

Overlaps with What Strange Creatures ch. 33.


The designated victim was trying desperately to drown and even the other characters couldn't bring themselves to look too concerned, and Barry sighed. They were doing a really bad job of picking movies tonight. "I bet that water is about a foot deep."

Despite his expectations there was no answering smart remark from Roddy, and when he glanced over he found Roddy's head down on his arms and his eyes closed.

After a minute he sighed again. On one hand Barry was kind of glad that Roddy'd managed to fall back asleep—it certainly wasn't Roddy's fault that they had a movie playing at this ridiculous hour—but on the other it had been nice to have the company. Especially since part of him was still hearing echoes of that place. Smelling echos of that place.

Maybe smell was a Wesen thing; that was what Roddy had said about his nightmares too.

And it was stupid, because while Roddy hadn't pushed when Barry had said he didn't want to talk about it, in comparison to what they had ended up talking about it wasn't like his nightmare had even been anything. No one had done anything to him. They'd tried, sure, and they'd scared him as little as he liked admitting it, but... He shook his head. He was what he was, and he could hold his own.

He looked down at Roddy again. Mom hadn't spent any time talking about Wesen that she considered vermin, but it wasn't hard to figure that there were plenty of predators who'd target a Reinigen just because they could. Even if Roddy himself was unusually scrawny, none of them were going to be in a weight class to really defend themselves. And while he'd never experienced it before prison, he'd gotten a crash course in just how vicious humans could be over the past year too. But the fact that Roddy's mom could be dead, and no one know who did it, and all Roddy could say was 'No one looks too close when someone like me goes missing' wasn't just messed up, it was so far beyond messed up that Barry didn't even have words for it. Heck, he was still ticked off at Roddy's classmates for the crap they'd pulled a couple weeks ago, and Roddy didn't even seem to notice those bruises anymore.

Then again, Barry had kind of a bad feeling that...well, not that he knew exactly where Roddy lived, and not that he believed for a second that Roddy would go around breaking into anyone's house for fun, but between some of what he'd heard at the civil hearing and a few of Roddy's offhand comments, he suspected that the idiots who'd broken into their house had a background a whole lot more like Roddy's than his. And if Nick hadn't been a Grimm and Barry and the twins had completed the Roh-hatz, no one would ever have known what had happened to those two, either.

Roddy snuffled a little and then curled down onto his side, and if he hadn't been so tangled up in his sleeping bag Barry would have put him back on the couch. He wasn't willing to risk twisting a limb by picking him up wrong, though, so he grabbed a pillow to nudge under Roddy's head instead and then lowered the volume on the television even further and shifted his own sleeping bag forward to block the glare. He had no expectation that he'd be getting any more sleep tonight, but there was no reason to risk waking Roddy again.

The current movie, whatever it was, ended and another one had just started when he heard footsteps on the stairs, and he lifted his head automatically. "Dad?" he asked, trying to keep his voice down.

"Barry?" Dad paused at the entrance to the game room. "What on Earth are you doing up? You two haven't been watching movies all night, have you?"

"No, I..." Barry pushed himself to his feet and went over to join him. "We went to sleep a little after midnight, I think, but then we both woke up not too long ago." He wasn't about to mention the nightmare, even if there was every chance that Dad would guess. "Roddy's back asleep now, though. What time is it?"

"Just after five-thirty. Are you sure that you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. But since when do you go into work this early?" Dad being awake at five-thirty was one thing, but he never put on his tie and jacket until right before he left for the office, and that was usually more like six-thirty or seven. Or at least that's what he used to do. Thinking about it now, Barry couldn't say that he'd been up with him in the morning all that often since he'd gotten home.

Dad waved it off. "Apparently it's a day for early risings across the board. And since I've got a meeting at the courthouse at noon, I thought that if I can get everything that I need to done at the office beforehand, I might head straight back here afterwards. Possibly with a stop on the way to pick up our Thanksgiving dinner since there's a chance that I'll be able to work from home tomorrow and save going out at all, but that'll depend on the outcome of that meeting."

"That'd be cool." With Roddy heading home tomorrow—well, later today, now—and no volunteer work or homework or anything like that until next Monday, the company would be nice even if Dad had to work for some of it.

He nodded. "I doubt that Dave will want to go through another round of motions right before the holiday either so I think the odds are good, but we'll see what the judge has to say. Try to get a little more sleep, would you?"

"Yeah, sure." He wouldn't succeed, but it was an easy promise to make. "Have a good day."


"All right, I bet I can make a full turn." Barry took a couple quick steps to build up some speed—actual running was out due to the likelihood of winding up on one's butt as both he and Roddy had proven a couple times apiece—and then dropped to his knees, sliding forward and spinning across the icy grass.

Roddy followed, skidding past him on a slightly higher path, and Barry grinned.

Despite himself he'd actually managed to fall back asleep after Dad had left, and by the time that he and Roddy had woken up again it had been sometime after ten and he'd felt a lot better. And Roddy seemed pretty okay too, although by unspoken mutual agreement neither of them had made any reference to last night. This morning. Whatever.

They'd made a breakfast of leftovers and had a rematch of the racing tournament from last night, and Roddy could just stop complaining because his hand-eye coordination was kind of scary good, but after that Barry had felt pretty restless, and Roddy hadn't objected to the suggestion that they go stomp around in the falling snow for a bit. Well, Roddy'd said something about needing to catch the bus at some point, but buses ran all day, and since he didn't actually seem to be in a hurry to leave Barry wasn't about to push him. But it turned out that the snow had been hiding a layer of ice and they hadn't managed to get any further from the house than the makeshift slip-and-slide that the backyard had become.

He pushed himself up and was turning to look for a path where the snow wasn't packed down yet when movement from the driveway caught his attention, and he frowned and squinted through the falling snow. "Dad?" It had been a little after noon when they'd grabbed their gear, but Dad had said that his meeting started at noon so there was no way he should be home now. Unless maybe it had gotten canceled?

Dad—who'd been walking up the driveway?—altered direction and came to the edge of the grass. "Boys? What are you up to?"

All thoughts of timelines deserted Barry once Dad was fully in view because not only was there no sign of the car, the suit Dad had left the house in this morning was now incredibly wrinkled and dirty and weirdly tie-less. "What happened to you?"

Dad sighed and shook his head. "Ice. A lot of ice."

Barry heard Roddy come up beside him, but his focus was still on his father and he was trying very hard not to panic. "What do you mean?" It did kind of follow that the ice under the layer of snow on the grass would extend to the driveway and the streets and Portland as a whole, but the thought hadn't even occurred to him. "Where's the car?" Not that he was really sure that he wanted to know, because even if the nightmare last night hadn't been about Mom, the idea of Dad being in any kind of accident...

"In the grass off the bottom of the driveway."

A statement that didn't exactly make Barry feel better, but Dad was still talking.

"You and I can bring it up later, I just wasn't in the mood to fight with it anymore." He held up the hand not holding his briefcase, displaying a couple bags of takeout containers. "I'm going to go put our Thanksgiving dinner in the refrigerator and get changed. Why don't you two join me for lunch if you haven't already eaten, and I'll fill you in on the details. Although I should probably start with: Roddy, you should plan on being here for at least one more night. With the exception of emergency services and road crews, the city is shut down until they can get the streets cleared, and while normally I'd be happy to offer you a ride, that's not advisable right now."

"I...yeah, okay," Roddy said immediately. "Thanks. But are you sure you're all right?"

The clear disbelief in his voice didn't make Barry feel any better, but Dad shrugged it off.

"I'm fine. There were a number of fender-benders coming out of the city, and while I wasn't actually involved in any accidents myself, there were several times when bystanders had to help move vehicles out of the way just to get traffic moving again."

And Dad would be a lot more useful moving cars than most people, Barry had to acknowledge. Although that still didn't make him feel much better about Dad's appearance.

"Even if you aren't hungry, don't stay out too much longer, okay? You both look half-soaked."

Barry nodded and watched as Dad headed back around the house before looking at Roddy. "I think I'm ready to go in now. You don't have to, but I don't really feel like playing anymore."

"Going in sounds good. It's a lot colder out here when we're just standing than running around."

That was a good point, and when they stripped off their jackets and boots inside the back door, Barry found that Dad had been right and his jeans were pretty damp. And his shirt wasn't all that much better given a couple of the falls he'd taken. "Have you got another change of clothes?" He was pretty sure that Roddy had just balled up his stuff from yesterday and shoved it in his backpack so probably yes, but it bore asking.

"My other jeans should be fine, but I could use a spare shirt. And is it okay if I throw this stuff into your washer again if I'm here until tomorrow?"

Barry stepped towards the staircase that led up to his room. "Yeah, of course. I'll grab—actually, no, wait, I've got a way better idea. Come on." He reversed direction and heard Roddy's footsteps behind him, and when they reached the basement he headed for the laundry room. "Mom used to box up stuff I'd outgrown that was still in good shape, although don't ask me why since Jase and TB and I were always about the same size and my cousins are girls so they wouldn't have wanted anything even if Mom and Aunt Jane hadn't been fighting." Despite his worry for Dad, he couldn't help a smirk in Roddy's direction. "There should be a box from kindergarten around here somewhere."

"Oh, fuck you."

Barry snorted and scanned the shelves until he found one dated five or six years ago to pull down. "See if something in there will fit. If not I've got plenty of stuff upstairs, but those are less likely to fall off."

"Thanks."

"Sure."

Roddy knelt to dig around, and Barry headed up to his room and changed quickly. When he got back down to the main level there was rustling coming from the kitchen, and he ducked around to see Dad looking down into a pot of water. "Hey."

Dad turned. "Hey. Spaghetti for three, then?"

"Yeah, Roddy's just getting changed. I told him to look for something that fits in the boxes Mom saved."

"Oh, that was a good idea." He added a couple large handfuls of dry spaghetti to the boiling pot. "You know, I really ought to take those to the donation center. I have no idea what your mother was saving them for."

Barry nodded, trying not to make it obvious that he was staring. Dad looked better now that he'd changed out of that suit, at least, but he still seemed kind of tired. "Are you really sure you're okay?"

"Well, I'm afraid the dry cleaner will declare that suit a lost cause, but other than that I'm perfectly fine." He smiled, reaching for Barry, and Barry tried to pretend that he didn't need the quick hug. "Although hungry, so why don't you go ahead and set the table."

Roddy joined them a few minutes later in his black jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt advertising a movie that had come out back in middle school, and Barry handed him the napkins and forks and went to dig some drinks out of the now-stuffed refrigerator. "So what happened?" Barry asked. "You said it was ice?"

Dad gave the spaghetti a stir and then nodded. "It was fine when I left this morning, there was some sleet coming down, and maybe the roads were a little slick, but nothing unusual for this time of year. But then at some point after I got into the office the temperature must have dropped a good ten degrees, and everything got very ugly. While you're in the fridge, grab the sauce and the Parmesan, too, please."

Barry handed the drinks off to Roddy and went back in as Dad continued.

"I was pretty tied up in some research and had no idea any of this was happening, but when it got to half past eight and I was still the only one in the office I started pulling up calendars to see if we'd messed up our scheduling somehow. But then Sally finally arrived, and from what she said it was chaos on the streets. Sheet ice hiding under snow, and radio stations just playing lists of accidents and intersections to avoid. Then Terrence called from the courthouse to say that all proceedings were canceled for the day and to keep an eye out for some kind of official announcement from the mayor, and sure enough, by nine all city functions except emergency services and road crews were shut down with a strong recommendation that private businesses follow suit."

Roddy frowned, taking the sauce and cheese Barry handed him to the table as well. "Nine? But it's got to be close to one by now."

From where Barry was standing he could see the clock reading quarter past, in fact, and Dad nodded again. "Believe me, I know." He handed one plate off to Barry and took the other two to the table himself. "At first it was just gridlock with everyone trying to leave downtown at once, and even if I don't find it particularly pleasant to spend an hour on a ten block drive, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because when you're moving that slowly it's simply not possible to have a serious accident. But once I was out where cars had more room to maneuver..." A quick headshake. "I was trying to take it slow and even so it was a fight to stay on the road, and I don't know how many cars I saw slide or spin through intersections. The first time it happened and there was a collision I called 911, but they said unless there was an injury requiring medical attention the people involved should take pictures, exchange information, and report it themselves because there just wasn't anyone available to send to the scene."

Barry remembered abruptly that Roddy's father had died in an accident, but at least right now he looked more curious than freaked out. Which was probably good, because Dad was still talking.

"I suppose I was lucky that I didn't see anything serious, but towing services were overwhelmed too so there were several times when I had to help push vehicles out of the way just to get through. And then I lost some time when I stopped to pick up our Thanksgiving dinner too—Thanksgiving dinner plus a couple chickens for tonight and tomorrow given that I don't think anyone will be making any deliveries—since the store was packed with people trying to get their hands on whatever they could. In retrospect I'm a little surprised that they were open at all, but I'm almost certain that the owners live above the shop so I suppose it made sense from a financial perspective."

"And the car?" Barry asked.

"Oh." He shook his head. "I was so relieved to be home that I turned a little too quickly up the driveway and promptly spun right off into the grass. The tires started digging down into the mud when I tried to get it moving again, so I figured I'd just hike up, and you and I can go get it later after the snow stops."

Barry nodded. Between them he and Dad could lift the car back onto the driveway if they really had to, but realistically shoving it would work just fine.

"Roddy, do you need to call anyone and let them know where you are?" Dad asked.

He swallowed a mouthful of spaghetti quickly. "No. I'm supposed to check the holiday bus schedule and let Monroe know if I'm going over tomorrow night or Thursday morning, but there's no one who'll care where I am until then."

Which was messed up in Barry's opinion, and he kind of thought Dad's too since Roddy was even younger than he was, but Dad only nodded so he kept his mouth shut.

"Okay, well, don't forget to do that. I suspect they'll have the salt trucks running all night and some semblance of public transport restored tomorrow, but if not we'll see if we can find a way to get you there."

"Thanks."

"Do you have to go back to work today?" Barry asked him. "Remotely, I mean?"

"Not today. We—the other partners and I—are all in agreement that we'll take the mayor's suggestion and declare ourselves closed for weather just to avoid any potential complications with clients. Not that it would affect me, but Andrew..." He shook his head and waved a hand, dismissing whatever he'd been about to say.

Barry looked at Roddy. "Try cutthroat again, then? The three of us?" He kind of wanted Dad around for a little bit, and he didn't think that Roddy would object.