Virginia

Two months after the Treaty:

Doc Worth was standing under a door. The door had a balcony, or at least it should have, although the shattered remains of the guardrail left it looking more like the protruding lower jaw of a black-eyed giant. Somebody had shot this house to shit, which probably explained why it was currently abandoned. Although not empty.

"Oi, Juliet," the doctor called up, "yer fergettin' yer lines!"

"Piss off!"

A decorative vase catapulted over the splintered guardrail and smashed into the brickwork a couple feet from Worth.

"Ey, that coulda hit me! My understudy's a dead bloke, y' ain't gonna like a kiss scene wit' him!"

"Jesus Worth, shut up!"

"Y'know none'a thissud be a problem if ya'd just kept yer mouth shut about politics."

Conrad's head peaked out from behind the torn drapery, glasses catching a ray of lamplight. "How was I supposed to know that Republicans would still hate Democrats after Congress freaking died of consumption?"

Worth shrugged. The house sighed in the night, hundred year old architecture protesting the prodding fingers of wind.

"Ya mighta taken a hint from the shotgun on the mantle. It ain't reasonable people livin' in this country lately."

"Hanna shouldn't have made us stay with them! I told him, I fucking told him not to get involved in local problems. If he's going to volunteer us to drive around a bunch of snotty, tunic wearing tree-people like we're the fucking supernatural Greyhound service, the least he can do is keep us out of normal human land wars!"

Worth shrugged again. "Hanna's Hanna. If y' didn't want trouble ya shoulda stayed in the car."

"Oh no!" Conrad shrieked, "Because last time I did that you people got yourselves challenged to a motherfucking duel! To the death!"

"Technically speakin'," the doctor noted, "tha' was only me."

"Yeah, and who saved your idiot ass?"

Worth reached for one of his cigarettes. "Seem to remember it was some faggot with a fire extinguisher."

"It was me, you certificate-forging dickbag!"

Wind whipped through the courtyard. There was silence for a minute or two, while the Doc lit himself a smoke and Conrad seethed behind the curtain of the second story balcony.

"Welp," Worth said, at last, "yer still th' one who's naked."

Death threats rained down like so much confetti.

"Yer gonna hafta get some practice with the fur," he pointed out, when the air cleared up a bit. His voice turned a little more serious. "If y' don' get any better at this bat business, one'a these days it'll land ya on a shish kabob, an' Christ only knows what y'll taste like, bein' dead an' all."

"You're saying I'm easy to kill, is that it?"

"Well it ain't hard to kill somethin' six inches tall an' thumbless, is it now?"

No reply.

"Y'know Hanna'll be fallin' over himself to help ya out. Might keep 'im outta trouble fer a while."

"You can't transform clothes," the vampire muttered, just loud enough to carry. "I'm not walking around naked. I know it's stupid, switching species every time somebody sneaks up on me, but I'm not walking around naked and I'm not practicing."

"Yer walkin' around naked now," the doctor pointed out, "an' bein' a total chick about it too."

"I'm not walking around naked!" Conrad shouted, sticking his head back out the door. "Just try and tell me you wouldn't be cracking dick jokes the second I stepped out there. I dare you."

The sound of a gate slamming closed distracted Worth before he could formulate an appropriate response. On the other side of the house, Hanna was yelling something indistinguishable and the dead guy was calling after him, and when Worth looked back up, Conrad had snapped back into his hiding place behind the wall.

"Conrad!" Hanna was yelling, "Conrad! I had this great idea!"

The vampire's muffled voice called back, dubiously, "What?"

The redhead skidded to a stop beside Worth, hands full of jumbled cloth. "So I was looking through some closets in some of these abandoned houses and I found you some pants and stuff like you wanted only this one house was, like, full of pictures of bicycles and the closet had all these bike shorts and I was like, hey, what if you can morph tight clothes?"

Hanna dropped the pile on the bricks and dug out a pair of black and white biking shorts.

"I got the idea 'cause I used to read these books like way back in middle school, and I figured yanno, it couldn't hurt to try, right?"

Slowly, the edge of Conrad's face peaked out from over the balcony. "Those are hideous."

"Really?" Hanna asked, looking back at the dichromatic cloth. "You think? I thought they were kind of cool."

Worth let out a hacking laugh and took another drag of his cigarette. "Well, Juliet, 's yer choice. Fashion disaster or an eternity of dick jokes. Take yer pick."

The artist looked down, doubtful.

"Oh," Hanna said, "I get it! Cos he's on a balcony!"