Thanks to everyone who read and to Priyanka for reviewing.
Monroe and Nick were still talking to Mr. Rabe, and Roddy tilted his head back and rolled his eyes at Barry.
"Want to go pick another movie?" Barry asked quietly. "We can probably get through at least one before they're done talking."
Roddy was more than a little tempted to take him up on the offer. For one he was a little sorry that their Thanksgiving celebration was over, something he couldn't recall happening since he was a little kid. And for another, while he wasn't against the plan to go to Monroe's place for a day or two, it was cold out here when they were all just standing around. Even using Barry as a windbreak wasn't doing much.
"Hey, no, car," Monroe said before they could disappear. "You'll be over again soon, I'm sure."
Unfair hearing, and never mind that Roddy's was just as good. But apparently that had gotten the attention of Nick and Mr. Rabe as well, and they separated with another round of thanks a moment later.
Roddy wasn't completely devoid of manners and waved and called another thank you as he climbed into Nick's Jeep where his backpack and violin and the various foodstuffs were already safely stowed, but since Nick had asked them to be ready to go twenty minutes ago, he had been.
Nick and Monroe climbed in a moment later. "That was fun," Monroe said as they started down the driveway. "I wish I could reciprocate, at least with dinner." He turned to look back at Roddy. "How long is Barry on house arrest for?"
"Um...he said six months, so I guess probably February or March when it's done?" It had to be sometime around then, anyway, since the first time Nick had brought him here had been before Halloween, and Barry had already been on house arrest for at least a little while.
"If I remember right his hearing should be in early March," Nick agreed, "and it's unlikely that his house arrest will get extended unless he violates. Somehow I don't see that happening."
"I don't know if he likes you too much, though," Roddy said hesitantly. Monroe and Mr. Rabe had obviously gotten along, and Barry had at least stopped being totally weird by the time they'd sat down to lunch today, but he'd never gotten an answer as to why Barry had been acting like that in the first place. His best guess was that it had had something to do with prison, if only because that was about the only thing that Barry never talked about, but he was pretty sure that Monroe had never been near a prison.
Monroe shook his head. "He's not the first confused cub I've ever met. It'll be fine."
Roddy was about to ask what that meant when Nick turned out on to the main road and the Jeep started to slide. His hands clamped down involuntarily on the seat, but fortunately Nick recovered almost immediately—or before Roddy could accidentally claw up the upholstery, anyway—and at least there weren't any other cars on the road that he had to worry about avoiding. "Everyone's buckled in, right?" Nick asked, glancing in the rear-view mirror once they were back in their lane.
Roddy nodded quickly and as it turned out he'd been smart to ask because that wasn't the only slightly harrowing spot on the drive back. Even once they got off the county roads and into a part of the city that Roddy actually knew it was slow going.
"All right, let's get this unloaded and then I don't think I'm leaving again until it's time to take Roddy home," Monroe said with a sigh when they finally pulled to a halt in front of his house. "And if the neighborhood roads aren't a little more clear by then, I might make you do that."
Nick didn't disagree, and Roddy grabbed his backpack and violin and the Tupperware of turkey and meat stuff that Mr. Rabe had sent along for him and Nick and started up the walk. Carefully, because it was still a little icy in places too.
Between them Monroe and Nick managed the rest of the dishes, and despite Roddy's vague worries when he'd seen the food piling up, everything fit in the refrigerator just fine. The casseroles and pies—the ones they hadn't managed to leave behind, at least, since there were still two more here—already had spots since Monroe had made them before he and Nick had come to the Rabes, and it only took a moment longer to make some space for the extra dishes as well.
"Don't let me forget to send their containers home with you," Monroe said. "I'm sure you'll see them before I do."
Roddy nodded.
Nick grabbed a soda out of the door and then looked outside and shook his head. "You know, I think I'm going to head down to the station now. I was hoping we'd get off a little early tonight and be able to get back to our actual jobs tomorrow, but judging by what we just ran into I'm worried about what the streets around the shopping centers look like. Black Friday's been a mess the last couple years even without ice on the roads. I'll see you two later, all right?"
"Bye," both Monroe and Roddy called after him, and then Monroe waved at Roddy to follow. "I pulled down the air mattress for you the other day, but we should probably try blowing it up, just in case. It's been stuffed in the attic for a while."
"Okay." Roddy figured that he could sleep on Monroe's couch just fine, he'd proven that a few times in the past even if Monroe had usually shaken him awake and sent him up to the spare room eventually, but Monroe was a ridiculously early riser, and Roddy wouldn't mind being able to sleep in a little. Especially since he didn't have to get up for school tomorrow. "So Nick is for real staying here?" he asked as he put his backpack and violin against the wall and knelt down to help Monroe unroll the plastic. "Is that even...I don't know, legal?"
Monroe smiled. "It's weird, maybe, but I don't think there's an actual law that says that I can't offer a Grimm my spare room."
"Huh."
"Of course, I still know a few people who want to know how it's legal for Nick to be a Grimm and a cop, so your mileage may vary on that." He shrugged. "All right, hit the pump, and let's see how this goes."
It looked pretty solid to Roddy once it was full, although it also took up a good half of the room, and Monroe nodded as he tossed a couple blankets over it.
"We'll give it a couple hours to make sure it holds up, but you should be okay." He stood. "And I don't know about you, but I think I'm about done being productive for the time being. Want to go relax and see who's playing?"
Roddy couldn't care less which set of football players were trying to squish the other set of football players—predators, seriously—but the relaxing part sounded pretty good. He trailed Monroe back out to the main room. Or most of the way, anyway, as he paused by Monroe's bookshelf where the stack of books that Monroe had wanted to loan him still sat. "Can I look at another one of these while I'm here?" Not that regular history didn't remain bad enough, and he definitely didn't want to invite another of Monroe's lectures, but he was willing to admit that at least some of the old illustrations in the other books had been a little bit cool. The non-decapitory ones, anyway.
"Of course. Grab whichever you'd like."
Roddy picked one at random, confirmed that it at least had some of the same kind of hand-drawn kinds of pictures, and then joined Monroe in the living room. He ought to do some practicing today too, now that he thought about it, but that could happen later.
Monroe put on whatever set of lunatics he wanted to watch run back and forth across a field and settled a little more deeply into his rocker with a yawn, and Roddy echoed it and then flipped open the book. If this had been a normal Thanksgiving, he and Dad would almost certainly be home by now, but Dad would be in a bad mood and probably just this side of drunk, and Roddy would be curled up in his room wishing that Dad had been an only child.
Dad would have liked...well, okay, Dad would have had a fit at the idea of spending five minutes at a Jagerbar's house, never mind staying overnight. And his reaction sure as hell wouldn't have gotten better when you threw in a second Jagerbar and a Blutbad and a Grimm. But Barry was Roddy's friend and about the same age so Dad would have gotten over that eventually, and Dad hadn't totally freaked out about Monroe saying hello after the last concert so after some time he might have ended up okay with Monroe and Mr. Rabe too. And Nick…. Roddy frowned. Nick was shorter than any of the other adults? It wasn't exactly a good reason to be friendy with him, but even Dad had admitted that them not ending up headless after Dr. Lawson's murder—their obvious lack of guilt notwithstanding—had been something. So maybe Dad could have managed to handle being at the Rabes for the holiday, and they could still have avoided their obnoxious relatives. Six people would make pool and darts better since no one would have to sit out, and it would have evened the odds a little in their snowball fight, and—
He swallowed hard against the sudden lump in his throat, because it was never going to happen. Dad had never even met Barry or his dad, hadn't exchanged more than basic greetings with Monroe, and only knew Nick as the Grimm who'd arrested him. And none of that was ever going to change because Dad was gone and they were never going to have any holidays together again no matter who else was there.
Sometimes—a lot of the time—it still felt like Dad was around. Somewhere. Like when he'd gone off on a job with his brothers or whatever for a couple weeks, and he'd be home soon. But he wasn't, and he was never going to come home again, and—
Roddy shut the book way harder than he intended.
"Roddy?"
"I don't—" He shook his head and shoved himself up from the couch, avoiding Monroe's eyes. "I need to practice."
He nearly tripped over the air mattress as he entered the practice room, his eyes burning as he knelt to flip his violin case open. But blurry vision didn't mean a damn thing when he could practically set up and tune in his sleep, and—
"Roddy?" Monroe asked again from the door. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
A pause. "You mind if I join you?"
"Whatever." Roddy kept his focus on his violin. "You know the music from The Nutcracker?"
"Sure."
Of course he did, because everyone did, and Roddy closed his eyes hard and ran through some scales as he waited for Monroe to get settled. Vibrato was almost enough to hide hands that were starting to shake.
As it turned out Monroe didn't know the score anywhere near as well as he did, but it didn't much matter because Roddy couldn't seem to go more than three bars without screwing something up. By the time he'd struggled through to the end of the first march Monroe had stopped playing, and while Roddy would have thrown himself into the next song anyway, a hand suddenly closed over his. "Enough, kid. What's up?"
Roddy shook his head, but it wasn't even a question who was the stronger between them, and Monroe took his violin away without any effort and put it back in its case.
"Talk to me, cub," he said as he took Roddy's bow as well. "What's wrong?"
"I want my dad!" Roddy exploded. "Reinigen kids are pups, not cubs, and he's supposed to be here, and it's not fair!"
Monroe sighed, and Roddy wasn't even sure what he was fighting against as Monroe pulled him into a hug. "I know, kid. I know, it's not. I'm sorry."
Roddy opened his eyes slowly, wincing a little at their soreness. Why his—oh, shit.
He jerked up into a sitting position, hoping that he wasn't remembering what he thought he was. Dad being gone completely and utterly sucked, yeah, but that wasn't Monroe's fault. Monroe was pretty much the last person that Roddy would ever want to blow up at about anything. But he was pretty damn sure that he had, and he vaguely remembered Monroe pulling him to sit down on the air mattress, and then….
Fuck, unless he was very much mistaken, he'd pretty much cried himself to sleep in front of Monroe like he was eight instead of eighteen.
Maybe he could escape out the back door and find a circus to join.
Unfortunately his bladder was insisting on certain necessities, and he took a quick peek out into the hall and then hurried to the bathroom.
There was still no sign of Monroe when he emerged again, despite the fact that he'd probably had the water running for five minutes as he tried to scrub his face back to some semblance of normal, but since common sense said that an attempt to disappear into the ether wouldn't end well for him, he sighed and went looking. At least he could apologize, and maybe Monroe would let him pretend that nothing had happened.
Monroe's house was way more reasonable-sized than the Rabes' place, and after a minute of concentration he trailed Monroe's voice to the kitchen.
"—m not saying no, but didn't you swear off hosting any more holidays after the incident with the goat?"
Roddy hesitated and then ducked his head around the door.
Monroe was staring out the window, his phone to his ear, and after a moment he rubbed his forehead. "I'm sure Dad is fine. He's probably just bored. Look, why don't the two of you skip the cousins' this year and take a vacation? Maybe a cruise, you've always said you wanted to try one. And then I'll come out and visit in the spring. I—"
Whoever he was talking to—his mother?—must have cut him off, because he went quiet again before sighing.
"Okay, rent a house on a beach then. There are plenty of options." He turned and smiled and started to wave Roddy in before his eyes abruptly widened. "I'm sure cousin Delores' hairdresser is a lovely woman, but I'm really not interested in any blind dates over Christmas. Look, I've got to go. I—" He closed his eyes, and then, "Mom, a friend is over, and we're both hungry. I'll think about it and talk to you next week, okay? Yeah. Yeah. Love you too, and tell Dad Happy Thanksgiving."
Apparently she let him go, because he tapped his phone screen and then stuck it in his pocket. "Sorry, I hope I didn't wake you."
Roddy flushed, dropping his eyes quickly. "No. I didn't...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to freak out at you like that."
"It's fine, kid," Monroe said, stepping over to wrap an arm around his shoulders again. "Nick figured that you were going to have a rough time at some point. I've been lucky, but he's been there too."
Roddy blinked. Now that Monroe said it Roddy did remember a comment from Nick about living with his aunt, but he hadn't really thought anything about it.
"You're allowed to be upset," Monroe said, nudging Roddy gently.
That wasn't Roddy's experience, but then again Monroe was very much not one of his asshole relatives, so he just shrugged. And then hoped that Monroe would let him get away with a subject change because he still kind of wanted to forget that the whole thing ever happened. "That was your mom on the phone?"
"Yeah. She wants me to visit over Christmas." He tilted his head. "Would you like a piece of pie? I'm still too full for an official dinner, although you're welcome to make yourself a plate, but I think I could manage a slice of pumpkin."
Roddy was surprised to realize that he was a little hungry. "Pie sounds good."
"All right, then."
Getting the pie doled out didn't take long, and Roddy looked up cautiously as they headed back towards the living room. "Do you not want to go visit? Your parents, I mean?"
"If it was just my parents, it would be fine," Monroe said immediately. "Or at least a week wouldn't be a big deal, assuming my mother takes a pass on the matchmaking. We don't necessarily understand each other, but they are my parents. Unfortunately when you throw in the rest of the family…." He shook his head. "Blutbaden in a pack aren't necessarily good for anyone, ourselves included, and it's a situation that I'd just as soon avoid if I can."
Blutbaden in a pack sounded like a good reason to crawl into a hole and never come back out as far as Roddy was concerned, but then again, he wasn't exactly winning in the extended family department either. "So she doesn't know about Rosalee?" he asked instead as he curled back up on the couch. "Your mom, I mean?"
"Know about—there's nothing to know," Monroe said quickly, flushing. "She's just a friend."
Roddy grinned despite himself.
