Quote Originally Posted by InTheMachine View Post
November 1st
John
“I’m just going to drop this off in his room,” Emi says as she picks up the plate. A fork zooms into her hand from the kitchen. “I won’t be long.”

I remember, she says mentally as she heads down the hall with just the extra plate and fork in hand. Does Raphael think she’s ready?

Dr. Riviera watches the exchange with interest and looks over at John once the psychic leaves and is out of earshot. “You’re very understanding for someone whose girlfriend is headed to another boy’s room.”
It’s hard to say, John replied, unsure if he should feel guilty for keeping the conversation going as she approached his room. He did, after all, try to keep their conversation going all the time— a function, perhaps, of liking to hear himself talk and her liking to hear him talk. This time, however, he wondered if a part of him was subconsciously keeping tracks of pauses that felt like she was having trouble concentrating.

He didn’t think so, but he wasn’t sure how much he could trust himself on that.

We haven’t really discussed it in detail. The hybridized vampire—Laura— and doing what we need to do to cure her has figured prominently in our conversations.

He thought he should probably gloss over their discussion of solutions to the Grayson/Valèdeir issue, choosing to project the before and after images of Laura from when she was caged to how she looked just before he drew a sample of her blood.

Raphael can change his mind and demeanor pretty rapidly. That said, he knows this is something we cannot keep from her. Stella might understand a delay to gather the kind of information we did and waiting for the dust to settle after the mission that led to Laura’s rescue. Anything beyond that and we would have a lot of explaining to do as to why we had kept it from her.

“You have no idea,” John replied to Dr. Riviera with a look that did not have to feign too much his dislike of the idea. “He’s her Calculus tutor, for Heaven’s sake.” He hoped the lame-sounding joke—even if that role mattered to him—would be sufficient to provide cover for the whole ‘he wants to kill me’ thing.

He broke off a piece of his Huachinango a la Veracruzana, reasoning its spicy nature might appeal to Shashka and her sharp teeth and ‘killing’ of the tomato confirmed his memory that she was omnivorous. He set it on one of the plastic spoons that came with the carry out order and placed it far enough away from him that it might make her less leery of trying it.

“Questions of mathematical supremacy aside,” John continued, shifting to a more serious vein, “I can either embrace” (He needed to stop using that word.) “trusting her or become so jealous and possessive that it will be impossible for her to go with me anywhere because of the way I act—which I am pretty sure is a good way to end the relationship.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he hastily added. “I’m not about to claim to be immune to my worries—and if I appear to be I am doing a better job covering that than I thought I was.”

He nodded at the demonling on the table. “As Shashka could probably tell you, given the time they spend together, Grayson is a good man. He and his dragon deserve some time to adjust and Emi deserves some time to be relieved at her friend’s return.”

He shrugged as he collected his own silverware from the drawer. “I can at least make an attempt at being big enough to given them that.”

Even if he did not trust Valèdeir further than he could throw him.