Possum Springs Mishaps

This is a compilation of one shots I've written over time, some have been challenge prompts, some are personal. Before every prompt that was a challenge I'll explain the prompt. If you wish to send me challenge prompts for NitW through DM I am fine with you doing as such, just remember I reserve the right to accept or deny any prompts. I will also not write MaexBea because I dislike said ship. With all that said, I hope you all enjoy.

New Beginnings.

Challenge Prompt: Mae, Gregg, Bea, and Angus are teaching new recruits how to play their instruments.

The Valentine's Day before Gregg and Angus left us saw the Party Barn the most full it had been in probably centuries. There was only a month left of their time in Possum Springs and Gregg had decided they needed to throw an extremely impromptu band session together with 'a full crowd.' I'd expected all of our friends, my parents, and a couple of neighbors, instead what I found as I nearly broke down that damn annoying Party Barn entrance in frustration was the usual suspects for a band meeting-Germ included-and two new guests.

The guests in question were Lori Meyers, the local weird girl to many ('precious child that must be protected' to me,) and my ever so poetic neighbor Selma Ann; which, I guess in hindsight, means at least we got one of the three outcomes I'd predicted. Two of the three were standing in front of the stage section of the old store in which we usually practiced and were in deep conversation with Gregg and Angus, the two of whom were sitting idly on the stage in front of them. Bea was in her usual spot beside her laptop and didn't seem to be in the best of moods, and as much as that was normal for her I didn't want to test the waters by annoying her tonight. Instead, I opted to stand next to good old Germ and see if he knew what the hell was going on; after all, he usually knew exactly what was happening at any moment right?

"I don't have a clue what they're doing Mae, I'm just here for kicks," Germ answered my inner inquiries. I lifted a finger and started to ask how he even knew what I was going to ask, but then realized it would probably be a fruitless endeavor and shrugged. God, I wish he'd stop doing creepy things like that, no matter how cool they seem when I look back on them afterward they always end with the most awkward silences immediately after they happen.

Luckily Germ felt like breaking one of those silences today, "I saw Rabies today, I think he says hi!" OK then, not the weirdest thing he's ever went on a tangent about.

"Oh, sweet, I'll have to go see the little dude sometime," I blurted out my reply. Weird, though, I thought I'd been to the bridge to see him earlier today? Wait, why was I wondering about that, and how would Germ know that a possum was saying hi? Goddammit now things were just weird again.

"He didn't actually say hi Mae, possums don't say things, I just kinda wanted to make you feel good," now that made a lot more sense Germ. Wait, he did the thing where he knew what I was thinking again dammit. This was going to go nowhere.

"I knew that dude, but I'm still gonna go see him again," I responded, trying to save this conversation, "He's the trash king. We gotta, like, give him our praise or some shit like that."

"He is royalty," Germ replied in an oddly inquisitive tone. For a moment I thought he was actually considering going to the bridge or the sewer pipe to offer praise to his favorite possum and was worried. Thankfully, Gregg would be distracting me from those worries soon.

"Oh hey, Mae's finally here," Gregg yelled out loud, his voice booming in the empty building,"we can begin the auditions now!" Wait a second, auditions, what did he mean auditions? I thought we were gonna have one last hurrah in front of an actual audience, and who was getting replaced? Oh, wait, that last question had an easy answer.

"Auditions, huh," I pondered out loud,"so we're finally getting a real lead guitarist huh?" That was probably a bit mean spirited, but as far as jabs go it was probably the least terrible thing we'd ever said to each other; at least, for this week it was.

"Probably dude, all depends on if our prospects here impress," Gregg replied as he pointed back to Lori and Selmers, showing that he was taking my mean remark in stride like the hero he was. I looked past his shoulder at the pair of new recruits and smiled at them in greeting, they both returned the greeting, one more awkwardly than the other. Gregg motioned me towards a set of 3 chairs in front of the stage, smiling wide from ear to ear before running to them himself. I joined suit and sat in the middle most chair next to him, Bea noticed us taking our seats and sighed before following our lead and sitting closing me in between them with her place on the empty third seat. I wondered silently to myself for a second exactly where Angus would sit, it seemed odd that we'd only have three chairs I wouldn't have to wonder too long though, as I noticed Gregg jump at Angus suddenly appearing in front of us.

"I saved your seat for you my Cap'n," Gregg pointed out to Angus, earning a smile from the large bear.

"Thank you Bug, but where are you gonna sit?"

At Angus' question Gregg just smiled and pulled him in close, his eyes narrowed in a coy and possibly sultry expression,"I think your lap would be a perfectly fine seat for me." Angus could do nothing but giggle and blush at Gregg's proposal before obliging his boyfriend's chair offer. Not soon after that Gregg jumped onto Angus' leg and wrapped his arms around Angus' neck, the two of them sat for a moment nuzzling each other in silence.

I watched them happily for a moment before I felt an odd 'twitch' in my emotions, and I felt suddenly as if someone had punched me hard in the gut as a pang of loneliness set in. I felt stupid saying it, but I had started to grow really envious of the two of them over the months I'd been back from college; though, I think it was totally normal to be jealous of the two when they're constantly making it obvious how perfect they are for each other. If you'd been subjected to months of their doting, you'd probably want what they had just as bad as I did, maybe even worse.

Even worse, their lovey dovey actions drove me to thinking about all the possible prospects I had for being that unbearably adorable The list only served to remind me that I was really terrible at social interaction upon reviewing them. There was bombshell, but when I really thought about it she was more of just a one time fling. Cole was an option, but after puking on him and making him bleed he probably didn't want to hear much from me. The other options were all equally as abysmal, from the complete trash like Steve Scriggins to the 'I don't even know how they feel normally' tier of which only Germ resided.

My romantic daydreams were broken by a tap on the shoulder, a move that made me nearly jump out of my skin as I almost gave myself whiplash turning to see Gregg poking me from his place at Angus' Lap, a look of mock concern on his face. I shook my head and blinked, the sudden jump from my internal musings catching up to me as snapped back to reality as I heard him speak.

"Finally dude," he started upon seeing my head to face him,"I've been trying to get your attention over here and you just went completely off the grid. You ok dude?"

"Yeah, yeah, I was just, like, thinking about stuff," I responded, surprisingly being truthful for once.

Bea squinted her eyes at my response and interjected "that's a dangerous thing for you Mae." I narrowed my eyes at her chide and noticed a hint of a smile on her lips telling me that she meant no real harm. I stuck my tongue out at her after a moment.

"Anyway," Gregg spoke up after our silly interaction,"we didn't really get a lot of people come to audition, really it's just these two and we kinda had to do a lot just to convince them to even come."

"They got me to join after telling me singing was like poetry but with new chutzpah," Selmers pitched in from the stage, her hands in her hoodie pockets. I raised an eyebrow at the remark, shouldn't she already know that's what music's like? I mean, I wouldn't blame her if she was just using it as an excuse to avoid this whole thing, after all, it was pretty stupid. but she had to be better at making up excuses than that.

"Anyway," Gregg spoke up, "Selmers, you're here to audition for Capn's place in the band, so I'm gonna be real scrutinous and shit of you. Don't let anything make you think you're a shoe in."

"Even the fact that you told me I was a shoe in?"

"Right, even that."

At that, Gregg nodded at Bea and she pulled out an odd little remote and pointed it at the stage,-or more precisely her laptop on the stage-which caused a familiar tune to blare from the speaker Bea's laptop sat upon. I nearly jumped out of my skin at the noise, confused as all hell what was happening for a moment before finally piecing together that the audition had already started. Apparently they'd went over all of this before I got there, figures I'd be left out of the loop considering they don't even warn me about what song we'll be playing from day to day let alone this. So after piecing everything together I relaxed in my seat and listened intently.

I realized that Selmers must not have had much time to get ready either as I listened. She wasn't doing terrible, at least not for her first time singing the was off key every now and then and stumbled once or twice on a word, but with every stumble she was able to save herself and correct things without much effort. She was going to take some real training but by voice alone, she was a good fit.

Gregg seemed to agree with my silent assessment as he yelled out once she finished singing ,"AWWWOOOOOOOOO! I knew you'd do great, you were a shoe in from the start." His arms flapped up and down as he yelled in excitement, one of them almost hitting me in the face if I'd not leaned my head back enough to get out of the way.

"I wouldn't go that far Bug," Angus managed to say as he placed a paw on Gregg's shoulder to calm him down,"she's got a bit to go it seems. She can come to the next few sessions before we leave and we can teach her the ropes though, for sure." Selmers merely smiled and hopped off stage, moving to stand beside Germ as Lori made her way up to replace Selmers. I noticed Germ's eyes keep up with her in a suspicious manner. I guessed that it was just him being unused to new people getting close to him, and I was pretty sure those suspicions were confirmed by him walking away from her to stand behind me offstage.I hoped that Selmers wouldn't take it the wrong way, Germ just didn't seem used to people I think.

"Alright," Gregg spoke up, pulling me away from my thoughts again,"now it's time for Lori Meyers, here to try out for bass." Wait, what did he just say, Bass was my thing.

"Gregg, are you sure you don't mean lead. Bass is-" I started before one of his claws to my lip silenced me.

"I know it's your thing now Mae, but you're gonna, like, be the leader of all this when I'm outta here ya know. The Leader should be the lead guitarist," he answered, and I didn't know whether to feel honest or insulted, Bass was my thing, my jam, I'd never even tried to play lead before. What on earth made Gregg thing I could play lead at all? I looked to Bea for help but she just shrugged, it seemed like this was one of those tings Gregg was dead set on and there was nothing we could do to stop it…crap.

Upon seeing I could offer no contest, Gregg smiled and hopped off of Angus lap, rushing up to the stage and helping Lori get settled in. When he was finished, he hopped back down off the stage and stood beside germ, who seemed more receptive to Gregg being beside him than Selmers. I'd have to tell her sorry on his behalf for that later.

Unlike with Selmers Lori wasn't given anything to play off in the backgound, apparently they'd just shown her the music and told her to roll with it. The result was as expected: awful. She missed plenty of notes, didn't always get the rhythm right, and the worse she played the more tilted she got. I was gonna have to put some real time in with her if she wanted to take my place. Not that that was too out of the norm, she was a pretty cool kid to hang out with.

When it was over everyone kinda sat awkwardly in silence, Lori had a face full of apologies and Gregg was trying to force a smile as he thought of nice things to say. It was Germ that was only honest one among us.

"It wasn't good," Germ blabbed out, earning a scathing look from Bea and Angus and causing Gregg and I to perform that 'well he's not wrong' sort of expression. Lori just looked down and squeaked out an apology. Poor thing, we all knew it wasn't her fault Gregg was an impatient bastard when it came to music.

"Blunt truths aside," Bea spoke, coming in to save the day after her eyes did all the scolding they needed to at Germ,"you can improve. You're about as good as Mae is when she doesn't know the song, so you'll get better in time." Normally such a remark would get a contest from me, but I knew my embarrassment was for Lori's own good, and if I needed to be considered awful to make her feel good I would literally eat trash for such a purpose.

"Yeah," Gregg spoke up, his voice trying to guide the room into a more pleasant mood,"now it's time for the big surprise!" At that he jumped up excitedly, turning his head from side to side before suddenly looking confused.

"Now where'd I put it," he mused out loud. I had no idea what he was talking about but I guessed it had something to do with my sudden change in position as new band leader. I swore if he wasted any of that extra money he'd need for Bright Harbor on me then I'd beat the hell outta him. I shook my head at such an angry thought and started looking around the room for anything that he could have haphazardly hid myself, and as I did so I noticed Bea had left her place beside me. None of us noticed Lori however, who was trying to help look on the stage, and was getting precariously close to a certain drum set that had become somewhat of a memorial for us.

"Maybe you hid it behind these old drums," Lori piped up, upon hearing about the drums everyone that was still in the room perked up and moved their heads to view her. We all saw her start to reach out to move the set around, naive to anything about it.

"DON'T TOUCH THOSE,"two voices cried out in unison, The first being Gregg, who I'd figured would freak out appropriately. The other voice was unexpected, it came from behind me, its owner holding his feathered arm out towards Lori as if to stop her. I turned to see Germ with something between a disgusted and angry look on his face, which if they'd been any other emotions I'd have happily noted were the most emotion I'd seen on his face ever;instead, I was scared for Lori and I could feel my mouth opened slightly to show that fear. Germ's eyes locked on mine and for a split second I saw something, some sort of wild regret before he pulled his arm back and blinked it away, his face returning to his familiar vacant expression.

"That's-uhhh, that's an old friends Lori," Gregg spoke up, turning my attention from Germ and back to Lori, who seemed to have been so taken aback she'd had tears in her eyes, dammit Gregg and Germ why'd you guys have to do that, now I owed you an ass kicking both.

"He's kinda not with us anymore and we're real protective of it, we don't even go near it ourselves, sorry," Gregg continued, moving onto the stage to comfort her. Ok, Gregg, you were off the hook for the ass kicking, but I still owed Germ one.

"I'm sorry," I heard Germ whisper, and I realized it was directly to me, I turned quickly and saw that regret from before now completely covering his face. Goddammit now I had no asses to kick, but all this wrath in my foot to be directed, maybe I could find Steve later and kick his ass, he probably did something worth kicking him for.

Things were silent again, until we Bea came in and spoke,"dammit Gregg, remember where you put shit from now on." I turned to see her holding a bad-ass looking electric guitar. By my guess it was a Stratocaster, It's body was a smooth aged cherry burst with a nice maple fingerboard. My eyes widened at the sight of it as I realized it was for me.

"How in the hell even did you do that," was the only response I could come up with as I jumped out of my seat and ran towards Bea and the Guitar, but mostly the guitar.

Gregg chuckled,"it wasn't me completely, I had to offer Steve a few choice deals at the Snalcon for it if you catch my drift. I almost thought he wasn't gonna come through but he surprised me yesterday with it, man's an excellent thief." Great, now my wrath was assless again, and even worse I had something to thank Steve effing Scriggins for, what was this day coming to?

I took the guitar from Bea and held it in position as if to play, I glided a finger across the strings and heard it hum lightly. I was going to have so much fun with this thing. I'd still love my trusty old Bass just as much of course and would still jam out alone to it and teach Lori with it, but this. . .this was a glorious sign from some sort of deity that being lead was my new musical calling. I thanked Gregg and hugged him tight, he hugged back and patted me on the back. We exchanged the same spiel we'd gotten used to these past two months about missing each other and how life was gonna be so much different, but it was a lot happier this time than usual. Then the rest of practice began.

It was a lot different than usual, instead of jamming out to 'Weird Autumn,' or 'Die Anywhere Else,' the band was a lot more focused on teaching the new recruits. Angus and Gregg sat with Selmers teaching her the notes and tempo of the songs we sang directly, while I sat with Lori and Bea teaching Lorir the basics of bass guitar. It was surreal not to just be on stage jamming it out. Germ came and apologized to Lori about his blow up in the middle of my teaching session, and they hugged it out, which was pretty nice. After everything was said and done we were a lot more sure about Gregg and Angus' replacements than we were going into this thing.

Now, you'd think after all that we'd have some big event of a dinner or something, but somehow, not a single person outside of me didn't have plans past this band practice. So while everyone else said their goodbyes for the night and left I stayed and got ready to do the most responsible thing I've may have ever done:I stayed to clean up the Party Barn. That is, I would have stayed to clean up if I had been alone after everyone left.

Instead, as I turned my head to look over the Party Barn after having said goodbye to Gregg and Angus, who had been the last to leave, I saw Germ standing on the stage. He was looming over Casey's old drums, and after I got closer to him for a better inspection he had a very somber look on his face. When I got close enough to him I coughed to make my presence known, he just flicked his eyes up for a moment in response before turning his full attention back to the Drums.

After a while he spoke,"he's gone." He said it so matter of factly, but no matter how he tried it was obvious that he was holding back some emotion. I nodded my head in response and gulped, there was a palpable tension in the air between us and I had no idea what that meant.

"He's gone," Germ repeated, and after a cold silence set in. Then it happened, a dam of emotions broke within him. Tears started to well in his eyes and he gripped his hands tight. After another few moments he raised his head, tears now flowing freely, and looked around anxiously for something before narrowing is eyes at a shelf near the stage full of old party supplies. He stomped towards the supplies, grabbed it from one side, and violently threw it to the opposite side, toppling it over and causing a loud set of crashes to echo throughout the room. Even with the wild cacophony of party supplies crashing resounding through the room, one sound seemed to echo above all the others. Germ was sobbing loud and violently, his voice thundering through the room as he sank to the floor, clutched at his knees, and began rocking back and forth. This was something he'd been holding back for a while, at least for the few months since we'd told him the truth about Casey, and as I watched him fall to his knees my heart sank.

For a moment, we were both just. . .there, Germ's sorrows the only sounds among us. It was I who made the first move, stepping off the stage and squatting next to him, placing a paw on his shoulder At my touch he jumped toward me, wrapping his arms around me, shocking me completely. After a moment, I returned the desperate hug, holding him tight as his sobbing rang loud in my ear.

"Don't leave me," I heard Germ manage through sobs,"I can't lose two of you, I can't." I felt his grip on me tighten, as if letting up at all would cause me to float off into the aether. Everything was suddenly so crazy, it felt like the world was upside-down, so it make sense I responded how I did. Without a real thought, just on simple instinct alone, I shuffled my head to the side and planted a soft kiss on Germ's cheek. I think my intention was to calm him down, and it seemed to work as I felt his grip on me relax and heard his breath hitch. He shifted his body back and for a moment we just stared at each other, his eyes red from his outburst of crying and his cheeks were wet from tears. Then it happened, I don't know if it was passion that drove us or just the emotion of the scene, but before we could say anything my lips and his beak were connected in a soft kiss. I'd expected some voice in my head to go off at any minute about how I was making a big mistake, about how letting Germ kiss me like this or reciprocating the kiss was going to end badly. There was no voice like that though, it was just Germ and I together, arms wrapped around one another and mouths locked together in complete silence.

When he broke away from me I felt…off. It was almost like it was gone too soon, like I was given a test to full of questions to answer but not nearly enough time to fill the blanks. It didn't help that he rushed up and away, jumping onto the stage and freezing again upon seeing Casey's drums. I got up and slowly and precisely moved towards him, scared that if I moved too quick or made a sound at all he'd run away, and not just from out of this room, but out to the tracks, to the trains. When I got next to him, I noticed his eyes were wide and anxious. I couldn't help but feel I like I had a similar look on my own face.

"We have to talk about this," I spoke up, breaking what felt like a 10 minute silence. Talk was a bit of an understatement, but telling him we needed to freak out about how we just nearly made out in an abandoned building seemed like it would have been a bad idea in this situation. Meanwhile, this awkward time between us and the tension it brought wracked my mind with millions of thoughts. I kept thinking about how wildly unexpected this was, sure I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about kissing Germ, but I could never work out his feelings enough to ever expect it. Even now I couldn't read him well, did he want that kiss too, or was all of this just a spur of the moment thing and I just ruined a friendship because I had no self control. Of all the times I could use him doing 'that thing' now was one of them.

"Did-"

"I wanted that,yes, I-I've wanted to kiss you for a while," Germ finally spoke up, interrupting me as I was about to ask the very question he answered,"but I wanted it to be real, not something that came from pity. I wanted to ask you to kiss me and have it happen…naturally." I breathed a sigh of relief, that was one question down, now I only had a million more to go. He looked at me and I could tell he was disgusted in himself, and I could understand why;after all, I'd just sat here wondering whether I'd screwed up big time. I needed a way to tell him all was well, that he'd not screwed up, that this was something I was OK with…that I liked. I turned my head side to side, surveying the room for something to make him feel better. My eyes settled on Casey's drums, they'd been the catalyst to all this, maybe they could do some good tonight.

"You wanna learn how to play those," I mused out loud, turning my eyes to watch him. His face flickered with shock before realizing what I was doing, then turned back to his usual cool demeanor when he realized where this was going.

"You know how to play," he inquired back.

"I know more than you do," I retorted playfully, shooting him a light smile.

He returned the smile and replied,"It'd be…pretty neat." We sat there smiling to each other for a moment. The silent conversation between us had been understood, and we both knew what the other wanted.

"I'm not joining the band though, it's still not my kind of music…even if it would be nice to play with you."

I giggled at that remark and turned my eyes to the floor. I didn't know what to say next. We'd made our plays and now we didn't know whose court the ball was in, all we knew was that there was definitely a ball and a shot to be taken with it.

Luckily, shot first.

"You wanna, like, go to taco buck," he started, awkwardly moving his eyes and head round and shrugging nervously,"they've got this neat couple deal tonight we could take advantage of."

"Would it really be taking advantage if we went as an actual couple," I inquired playfully, smiling awkwardly at him. He pondered for a bit before smiling at me.

"I guess not."

He smiled at me and offered his hand, I took it and smiled back before kissing him on the cheek before we silently agreed to get ready to leave. After a few moments of me gathering my new guitar (which had been snuggled safely in a brand new case Gregg had gotten me,) and lots of giggling and awkward smiles, we walked out of the Party Barn together, his arm around my shoulder and mine around his hip, to a bright future.