A Ranger's Lullaby

A possibility

'Are you sure you wanna do this?' I inhale and then nod determined. I look at the boys with a smirk. 'Let's do this.' Damon smiles at me proudly. Jace just sighs and gets up. 'Alright I'm going to make some calls.' He walks to the door as Ben gets up and follows him. 'I'm going to prepare dinner.' They both leave the room and I lay down on the couch, my legs over Alex'. He taps on them and grins at me. 'So you think you can handle it?' I chuckle weakly. 'Yeah I guess. Although I hate that I won't be able to practice a bit. Normally when I'd go hunting, I'd warm up by shooting some targets. It would give me confidence. But well, I can't really do that in here...' I chuckle again. 'Wouldn't dare to risk shooting on of Jace's baby's by accident.' Alex snorts. 'Well,' Damon starts with a pensive look. 'we do actually have a place we train sometimes. It's in this seemingly abandoned loft a few blocks away.' My eyes widen with excitement. 'Really?' Alex furrows his brows. 'But wouldn't that be too risky? Going outside.' Damon shrugs in response. 'She's already going out for the mission, might as well practice disguising as well. You'll have to go at night of course, to limit the risk of being seen. I know you'd rather go into the woods, but it's not safe yet so the gym should be fine. I for a fact know they still patrol the forest.' My face lights up as I look at Alex to see his reaction. He looks from me to Damon. 'You're not actually going are you?' Damon sighs. 'Nah I'm afraid I have work to do, but you could take her right? You two will be working together closely so I think it'd be good for you to train your work dynamics.' I sit up, causing my face getting closer to Alex' then I'd intended. My excitement overruled my embarrassment. 'Could you?!' His head flinched a little from my sudden movement, then he chuckles and shakes his head. 'Sure, why not. Damon has a point, we should practice our teamwork before the mission, since we've never worked together before.' I squeal and hug him, making him laugh out loud. I hear Damon chuckle as well and then suddenly a deep voice speaks. 'I'm coming too.' We all look at the direction of the voice and see Jace standing against the doorframe with his arms crossed. I turn around on the couch so I can face him and I frown at him. 'What, why?' He looks directly back at me. 'to... keep watch.' I narrow my eyes in suspicion. 'For who?' I say with the same tone. A tense silence follows. In the corner of my eye, I can see Alex close his eyes and sighing. Then he looks at Jace with a stern face, followed by an eyeroll from Jace's side. 'I'll keep watch so you guys can train in peace, it's risky enough with you going out, might as well have some backup. Wouldn't want you to get caught now would we?' I sense some slight sarcasm, but I let it slide. Reacting on it won't gain me anything right now. He still pissed me off tho, which annoys me even more, because he spoiled my excitement. I roll my eyes as well as I lay back down, sweeping my feet up on Alex' lap again. 'So what's your choice of weapon?' I ask Alex as I place my hands behind my head, ignoring Jace. I hear him scoff and leave again. I smirk. Be gone, go be grumpy somewhere else. Alex looks a bit uneasy in Jace's direction before he looks back at me. He notices my somewhat concerned face and smiles warmly. 'Sorry, what did you ask?' I feel kind of bad for causing friction all the time. Then again I don't mean to, Jace just brings it out of me. I give him a small smile and repeat my question. 'Oh right, well I actually prefer using no weapons.' I look at him surprised and sceptic. He chuckles at my expression. 'Yeah I prefer the old fashioned way, although I do always pack some small knifes just in case. I just prefer not to harm people if I can prevent it and getting punched or stabbed could differ in a matter of life or death. Either way Jace hates guns. I'm not too fond of them either so we choose to avoid them. Jace always uses blades and Damon-' We both look in his direction. He looks up by the sound of his name, clearly not listening. 'What did I do?' Alex and I start laughing, causing more confusion with the black haired male. 'Damon is kinda like a jack-of-all-trade type regarding weapons.' Now Damon knows what we're talking about he joins in. 'Oh, yeah, I for a fact also prefer archery. But I also like using blades and stuff. Depends on the mission mostly, which type of weapon I use. I can also use a gun, but since Jace dislikes them I won't.' I look at the door where Jace was standing before. 'Why does he?' I look back at the guys. 'Hate guns?' It stays silent. 'I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have asked that. It's none of my business after all.' Alex sighs. 'Nah it's alright. It's just, he's had some bad experiences with guns...' The room falls quiet again until we hear Ben's voice from the kitchen. 'Dinner's ready! Go wash up and come eat.' I chuckle as I get up. 'He really is the mom of the group, isn't he?' They both laugh as well. 'Yeah, we love him for it.' Damon says as he gets up as well.

I splash my face with water and look at myself in the bathroom mirror. There's a lot of history here that I don't know of. I probably should stop sticking my nose in places it doesn't belong. I don't have any right to mingle myself into their business, they don't owe me anything. I sigh and point at myself and say, 'Don't give them any more reason to kick you out now...' I shake my head and walk out of the bathroom and bump into Jace. Of course... Is he like waiting for me before walking here or something? Why do we always bump into each other? I look up at him and realise he is glaring at me. It seems rather exaggerated for just bumping into each other, what is up with him? Before I can react he walk away into the kitchen. I raise my arms in frustration. I clench my fist, sigh and follow him. The moment I walk inside I'm hit with this delicious smell. Everyone's already at the table, including Jace who just sat down in his chair. I sit myself next to Damon and nod. Alex and Ben are casually chatting and Jace is looking gloomy while playing with his fork. Damon leans closer to me and whisper, 'You okay?' I snap out of it and force a smile. Enough being gloomy because of mr. grumpy cat. 'Yeah fine. Probably just hungry! Speaking of, it smells delicious Ben! What is it?' Ben smiles brightly. 'Thank you! It's so nice to be praised for my hard work for once.' He says as he glares at the other guys, who all roll their eyes in response. 'Hehehe, anyway, I made lasagne a la moi.' 'You know lasagne is Italian right? Not French.' Alex says with slight judgement. Ben slowly turns to Alex with this creepy smile. Alex looked at me smiling before realizing Ben's face. When he notices he flinched. He raised his hands to surrender. 'Sorry, chef! It looks delicious, chef! Permission to eat now, chef!' He shouted while saluting, like he's in the military. 'Permission granted, peasant.' Alex looked offended and muttered, 'peasant?' Ben already moved on and started serving the lasagne. I chuckled at their banter, like a few times before. They're really fun to be around, like watching a comedy. It relieves some of the stress and tension around here. We start eating and chatting and having a great time over all.