Here it is, the final chapter! It's a bit shorter than I would have liked, but I also missed like five big events that I really wanted to take place, so they'll be in the sequel.

Many thanks to EllaMichelle, DetrimentalHabitsPt4, Keefer, Kathrin J Pearl, Sexy. Lil. Emo, IslanderBib, and one guest for your reviews to last chapter!

Somehow, the buzzing of his phone in the pocket of his jeans on the floor ten feet away from the bed was enough to wake Lu. He stretched and blinked at the sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window and gently disentangled himself from Balthazar so as not to wake him. As soon as he was sure the blonde was still asleep, he slunk over to his jeans and dug out his phone. He blinked at the caller ID and quickly answered. "Mom?"

"Morning, honey. I was just about to head out and go with your aunt Lisa to the funeral home, but I wanted to check up on you. Are things okay now?"

He couldn't help the grin that crossed his face. "Yeah. We talked and everything's fine now."

Melinda sighed with relief. "That's good. I'm glad to hear it."

"We, um... we're also gonna tell the band about us. Today, actually. But we were up late so we're not going into the studio until after noon, probably."

"That's also good news," she said carefully, and Lu got the feeling she was trying not to imagine why exactly they had been up late. "Well, I'm glad that everything worked itself out, so I'm going to let you go now. Have a good day, okay?"

"Yeah, you too. I mean, as well as you can, I guess. I love you."

"I love you, too."

Lu hung up and scrambled for the phone charger buried in Balthazar's nightstand. His phone was down to twenty percent and that needed to be fixed. He was actually surprised it had lasted this long.

He had just settled back into bed and enveloped the singer in his arms again when he asked sleepily, "What time is it?"

"Just a little after eight. Go back to sleep."

Balthazar sighed contentedly. "Just for a little longer. Need to get up."

Lu grinned in spite of himself. "How you're conscious right now, I'll never know. I thought for sure you'd have been out cold until ten or eleven."

"Mmm. I'm tired, but I don't want to sleep."

The strawberry blonde scraped his teeth over the back of Balthazar's neck, catching the bike chain between his teeth before he nuzzled his skin. "Well, I'm going back to sleep for a few more hours. Two flights in less than a day really fucked with my internal clock."

Balthazar laughed softly. "I believe it."

The next time they woke up, it was eleven-thirty and they both felt a lot better about being awake. They dressed quickly, not bothering to make breakfast at home even though they were both ravenous. Instead, they stopped at In-N-Out Burger for food on the way to the studio and ended up strolling into their recording room around one in the afternoon. Balthazar had two missed calls, one from Crowley and one from Castiel, neither of which he bothered to return since they were already on their way in.

The blonde sailed in first. "Sorry," he said in an obnoxiously casual tone. "Up late last night." This he said right as Lu closed the door behind them, and every eye immediately fixed on him.

"What are you doing here?" Raphael asked incredulously. "I thought you were in Mississippi. Your dad's funeral and everything?"

"I was, but... Well, I was needed here."

"Anything we have for you could have waited until tomorrow. You didn't have to rush back for us."

Balthazar settled himself on the couch, squeezing between Castiel and the arm of the sofa. Lu remained standing, shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's... it's a bit more complicated than that."

"We're listening."

Here it was. The all-or-nothing moment that he'd been simultaneously dreading and looking forward to. And then he remembered he still didn't know exactly what he was going to say. He let out a sigh. "Well, I've actually been dating someone for a few weeks now."

"Yeah, gathered that," Raphael half-joked, although there was a touch of snark in his voice.

"Yeah. Well, it's Balthazar."

There was a moment of silence, but suddenly Raphael turned to Gabriel. "Pay up, bitch."

The guitarist rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath, but pulled out his wallet. "Twenty, forty, fifty. Here," he said, handing over two twenties and a ten.

Lu wasn't quite sure what to make of this. "What just happened? Did you guys have a bet on whether or not we'd start dating?"

"Actually," Castiel clarified, "the wager was not whether or not it would happen. It was merely when. Ray thought it would be less than six months and Gabriel thought it would be more."

Balthazar snorted with laughter, covering his mouth to stifle his giggles. Lu rolled his eyes, feeling like an idiot. Here, he'd been expecting this to be some dramatic reveal, and his bandmates had been making bets on it. Apparently, they really hadn't been as subtle as he thought. "Alright, whatever," he muttered, feeling incredibly annoyed.

"Oh, relax," Balthazar said, grabbing his hand and tugging him to the couch. The singer pressed himself as close to the arm of the sofa as he could get, leaving barely enough room between him and Castiel for Lu to sit down as well. "You're fine," he added softly, just loudly enough for the bassist to hear him.

"So, anyway," Lu went on, "I needed to come back to get some shit straightened out here but that's been taken care of and I guess I'm missing my dad's funeral, which, honestly, I'm not that broken up about."

"Well, good. As long as you're okay. But since we now have both of you here as well, we really need to work on getting this last track hammered out. Oh, and Crowley stopped by today and we're meeting with a director on Wednesday for the music video for 'The Way That It Goes.'"

And as if nothing changed, they easily fell back into the pattern they'd had before of just being a regular band, trading witty comments, being assholes to each other. It surprised him, but maybe he'd underestimated them. Maybe they could all handle this.

"So. You're really okay with this? With me and Balthazar?" Lu clarified.

He and Raphael were outside. The drummer had just lit a cigarette and the strawberry blonde could only watch sullenly. He still had a few more days before he could smoke again, although he was starting to think he could stand to quit anyway. It wasn't like he'd smoked much before—he had usually been too broke to afford cigarettes very much, and he only smoked socially (unless he was bored).

Raphael exhaled slowly. He appeared to be weighing his words. "I'm not super ecstatic or anything, Lu. I mean, I'm happy for you—don't get me wrong. He's great. It's just... how awkward is it gonna be if the two of you happen to break up? I mean, I know you don't do PDA, which I appreciate because I don't want to see anyone playing tonsil hockey three feet away. But yeah, if you do, God forbid, break up, it's going to be a strain. That's my only concern right now. I just don't want this to be what fucks us up, you know?"

"Yeah, I know. I definitely get where you're coming from. I had that same thought myself a lot. I told him quite a few times that this wouldn't be an issue if we weren't in the same band, but... It's hard to explain. I like him a lot."

"I could tell. That song we recorded last week—that was about him, wasn't it?"

Lu sighed. "Yeah. It was."

Raphael nodded. "I kind of thought something was going on with you two for awhile, but I didn't want to say anything. I wasn't sure if I was just imagining things or what. I mean, if I said something and it turned out I was wrong, that could have gotten weird."

"But apparently you thought it was gonna happen."

"Well, yeah. The moment he walked into the audition, there was nothing but raw sexual tension between you two. It was pretty obvious he liked you. It just became a question of, how long could you resist?" the drummer joked.

Lu rolled his eyes. "Wow, thanks. Nice to know my sex life's been the main topic of everyone's conversation."

"Oh, trust me, we only discussed it when we exhausted literally every other fucking topic. The shelf life of a Duracell came before your sex life."

The bassist couldn't stifle a snort of laughter. "Fair enough. Well, like I said, we've been together for a few weeks now. Officially, it was the night of the label party."

"Oh, yeah. That was the other thing. I kept wondering how your bike chain ended up around his neck."

"Yeah, that was me."

"Thought so."

"What about Gabe and Cas? Do you think they're okay with it?"

Raphael shrugged. "Probably. I mean, I can pretty much guarantee that Gabe thinks it's hilarious, and Cas knew about the bet and didn't try to discourage it, so he's probably not opposed to the idea. Just... you know, be smart about it. Have you talked about how public you're going to make it?"

Lu shook his head. "We still need to talk about that, but... come on, Ray. It took me four or five weeks for me to tell you guys about us. I sure as shit don't want a bunch of strangers in my business. I'm gonna want it kept pretty quiet."

"Yeah. It took you almost two weeks for you to tell me about you and Eve. You're a private kind of guy. I guess it doesn't surprise me."

Lu nodded and rubbed the back of his head. "So. You and Anna. What's going on there?"

Raphael's serious expression melted away at the sound of her name. "Nothing too serious yet, but I like her a lot. Pretty sure she likes me. We're dating but the implication is that we're still free to see other people. But I don't really want to. I like her a lot."

Lu grinned and ruffled his best friend's hair. "Well, good. It's been awhile since you've been in a relationship."

"Quiet," Raphael said, but he was grinning now, too. "It's not an official relationship yet anyway. I think I'm gonna wait a little longer before I bring it up to her."

"Waiting until after we get back?"

"Maybe. Maybe I'll want to talk to her about it before and let her think about it while we're gone." He shrugged. "I don't know. We'll see."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence borne of their eleven years as friends. Lu started to wonder why he'd wanted to keep his and Balthazar's actual relationship a secret from them for so long. Of course they would be okay with it.

Then he remembered Saturday night, when Raphael and Crowley had been talking with intense expressions. "Hey, what was Crowley talking to you about after the show?"

"Huh? Oh, that. He heard the track we recorded. He wanted to know what it was all about—who recorded it, who wrote it, all that crap. He seemed surprised when I told him it was just us. And Cas and Gabe haven't heard it yet. They don't even know it exists."

Lu chuckled softly. "Yeah, neither does Balthazar. I'm okay with just leaving it a surprise. I mean, Crowley's gonna let us put it on the record, right?"

Raphael nodded. "He liked it. He said it showed diversity. Something about, yeah, we make a great punk band, but this also showed that we had the capacity to be something more than just a Black Flag ripoff band."

Lu grinned. "Well, that's quite a compliment."

"Yeah, I figured you'd appreciate that one." The drummer let out a small sigh and took a drag on his cigarette. "Oh, I have a stupid question. Are you gonna tell Crowley about you and Balthy?"

"I... have no idea. Should I?"

Ray shrugged. "It might be information he should be aware of. You don't even have to make a big thing of it like you did in there. Just be like, 'By the way, I'm dating Balthazar. When are we arriving in Santa Barbara again?'"

Lu grinned and shook his head. "Somehow, I don't see that going over so well with Crowley."

"Well, not telling him probably won't go over so well with him, either."

"Good point. We'll see him this afternoon, right?"

"Yep. He's still showing up to kick us out of the studio."

"He just can't let that go, can he?" Lu joked.

When they got back inside the studio, Crowley was already there, staring at Lu like he wasn't sure if the bassist was actually there. "I heard you came back early. What's going on? This lot wouldn't tell me."

Lu nearly rolled his eyes. "I had some stuff to take care of here. It was more important than my dad's funeral which was over about three hours ago, anyway. Oh, and for the record, I'm dating Balthazar." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Balthazar nearly jump in shock. Apparently, he hadn't been expecting Lu to say that.

Crowley blinked in surprise. "Bloody idiots," he muttered. He said louder, "Alright, well, did they tell you about you meeting with a director—"

"On Wednesday, yeah. That information was passed on to me."

"Good. Now have any of you actually gotten any music recorded?"

"We got a bit of the next guitar part recorded," Raphael offered, grinning sheepishly.

"You need to get working on that now. I'll be back in an hour."

As soon as the door closed behind Crowley, Gabriel collapsed into mad cackling. "I thought he was gonna have a heart attack!" he giggled.

Lu just grinned and shook his head, crossing the room to sit back down next to Balthazar. Wordlessly, their hands found each other and they automatically intertwined their fingers. If anyone else noticed it, they didn't say anything.

Keep an eye out for the sequel, tentatively titled "The American Scream"!