“Deal,” I agree.
He wastes absolutely no time at all in jogging off through the house and to his workroom, making me smile.
It’s not until he’s gone that I realize that the deal was that he wouldn’t work now and would instead chill out for the rest of the day. I grin. I’m going to leave him to do his thing for now, but I’m definitely going to hold him to it if he doesn’t come down for dinner. He’s going to make himself ill if he isn’t careful and doesn’t take the time to rest.
“Do you think Doc’s going to be okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, he’s doing what he loves,” Van says with a smile as we move further into the house.
“Van’s right, he hasn’t gotten the chance to do anything like this for a while, he’s literally in his element,” Reed agrees with a smile.
The conversation continues, and we all end up helping Raiden cook dinner when it turns out that he actually had no idea what he was doing. After the second almost fire, we all decided that we were done leaving him to it.
“Well, it smells good,” Ransom says as he walks into the kitchen. He frowns slightly as he sniffs again, “although there is a slight tinge of fire?”
I grin.
“That would be Raiden’s fault,” River smirks.
“It turns out he had no idea what he was doing,” Coen adds with a wince.
Out of all of us, he was the one who struggled the most just standing and watching Raiden, and it’s actually pretty much only his influence that has made this meal taste good.
I don’t think the rest of us really contributed much at all. As soon as Coen was given the go-ahead to take over, that was it.
It was sexy as hell to watch him cook actually, surprisingly so.
Once we’ve all eaten some and complimented Coen, who brushes off our compliments, I look at Ransom.
“How did it go?” I ask him.
All the other conversations around the table stop as they wait for Ransom to answer.
Ransom frowns, “Not great. It wasn’t the immediate fix that I thought it would be. I think because I’m trying to protect so many extremely strong supernaturals.”
“So it’s not going to work?” Griff asks.
Ransom shakes his head, “I don’t know if I’m being honest. I might just need to tweak a couple of things, and then it could work, or I could be completely wrong. I might have to start this whole thing over again.”
“That would take a while, wouldn’t it?” River asks.
He nods, “Yeah, but if the current composition doesn’t work, then there isn’t much that I can really do about it. It’s annoying because I know that this is the strongest way, if only it would work.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Coen says. “You’re a literal genius when it comes to this shit. Plus, you’ve got the blood that Doc is getting from the supernatural tonight, and possibly from Dimitri, to analyze soon. Maybe mixing it up and focusing on a different kind of challenge will help.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Ransom agrees. “I take it Sully didn’t message about Murray?”
I shake my head, “No, he hasn’t. I’m assuming that it’s because she’s proving to be harder to find than he initially thought, which probably isn’t a good thing.”
“No, probably not,” Reed agrees with me.
After that, conversation turns to other subjects, although I can tell that the frustration of the ingredients not working how they should is really getting to Ransom, and I fall asleep, with my head on his chest, Reed’s legswrapped up in mine and his arm wrapped around my waist from behind, trying to think of a way to help, which honestly while it is a nice distraction from having to think about going to meet Dimitri tomorrow, it gives me really strange dreams.
∞∞∞
“Are you sure about this?” Griff asks, worry clouding his expression.
I smile and squeeze his hand, “It’s a bit late now, we’re parked outside.” I look around the van full of guys, “You didn’t all have to come, you know that only Doc and I can go in the building.”
