Prey

Chapter 20

Doe's POV:

Xander must have succeeded in taking his own advice but was up early to continue Nico's work where he had left off.

The only reason I realized that I too had fallen back asleep unusually quick was because I woke up a while ago to the sound of him moving back to his desk.

I don't think I've ever seen him so set on getting something like this done.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say he just finally wanted to get his shit together.

But, unfortunately, I did know better, and my best guess was that he felt guilty about the past couple of times he'd annoyed Nico and this was his way of trying to make up for it a little bit.

At least that realization finally got its way into his brain.

One thing at a time I guess.

So thus he'd been working on and off on it all day, only taking breaks for us to eat and one longer one to take a shower.

Now it was closing in on the evening and he was nearly done.

I stood in the position I took early this morning, leaning my arms on the top of his chair to occasionally bug him as he got closer and closer to the end of the workload.

I kind of wanted to go and mess with his violin for a bit, but I didn't want to give off the energy that I was feeling a lot better.

In all honesty, I did feel a lot better.

Well, maybe not a lot better, but good enough where I found myself starting to fake certain things.

Like the occasional rests, my insistent requests for that tea, or the slight croak I would add to some of my words.

That bruise on my throat was now really the only thing that was bugging me.

I'd still get small headaches whenever I'd stand up too fast, but other than that I was fine.

I snapped back to what was happening in front of me as Xander smacked the pen down onto the table with a heavy exhale.

From the looks of it, he had finally finished.

"You done yet?" I asked him, lifting my head up from the top of the chair.

"I think so," He replied with a determination that I didn't hear in him often.

Tapping the thick stack of papers against the table to straighten them out, he then separated them into their respective files alphabetically before stacking them on top of each other that way.

I took a step back as he extended his arms in a stretch, leaning back the chair with him.

He then abruptly stood, with a pep in his movements that was hard to come by recently.

The relief in his eyes matched with his proud smile for a moment before looking at me.

"I got it done faster than you thought, huh?" He asked almost teasingly.

So, I just shrugged.

"I guess. It was certainly the hardest I think I've ever seen you focus on something."

Usually, he just spaces out for random intervals, or just gets bored and loses focus.

His eyes crinkle as his smile widened.

"Yeah, well having you breathing over my shoulder definitely keeps me reminded that I need to be working on it."

Jeez, was that really all it took to get this man to focus?