Thanks to everyone who read, and to CarissaCampbell for reviewing.


The buses had been running late today, getting him to the bus stop by community center barely ten minutes before the rehearsal was supposed to begin, and Roddy hurried through the halls and only hesitated when he reached the entrance to the auditorium.

The stage was arranged in the standard string configuration today, with people already filling most of the stands, and Monroe in the cello section and Cleo with the basses were it for the faces that he even vaguely recognized. He was bracing himself to climb up to the violin section and ask a stranger where he was supposed to sit when Monroe looked up and caught his eye, and somehow he was actually a little relieved at the smile and the gesture to come forward.

His life was so fucking weird.

And he still wasn't mentioning the whole Blutbad thing to Dad.

"Hey, glad you made it," Monroe greeted when he climbed up onto the stage. "We don't have seating arrangements or anything like that yet, at least not beyond the obvious, so just get yourself unpacked and find an open seat in the violin section that matches your music. I'm guessing that'll be first if you kept the audition music?"

"Yeah, the email I got said first." Not a lot else except that and the dates and times of rehearsals and concerts, but at least that.

"Okay, good."

Since the violins were across the semicircle from the cellos and that sounded vaguely like a dismissal, Roddy nodded and stepped back. "Thanks." There were already people in the front violin stands, but he could see a few open seats now that he was up here, and the third row was fine with him as a place to start. The older man already seated at that stand only smiled absently and nodded when Roddy asked if he could take the empty spot, and Roddy let out a breath and balanced his violin case on his lap. It looked like there were were maybe thirty-five or forty people here total, with maybe half a dozen more seats unoccupied, so not a bad size for an orchestra all things considered.

He unpacked and checked the tune of his instrument quickly, put his case under his seat, and then turned his eyes to the music already set up on the stand. Roddy had tried all of the new pieces over the course of the past week, and this wasn't one of the particularly complicated ones, but a lot about how they played was going to depend on the conductor anyway. Which was cool.

A few minutes later said conductor climbed on stage and tapped lightly on the podium, and Roddy tucked his violin quickly into the rest position. In his experience conductors didn't like to be kept waiting, and he did not want to be called out on the first day. Or ever, really, but the first day especially.

Most of the rest of the orchestra didn't react quite so quickly, but unlike the majority of the teachers at school this conductor didn't seem to mind, which Roddy took to be a good sign.

"Hello, I'm Daniel Donovan," he said when he had everyone's attention, and then smiled quickly. "As a reminder, I suppose, since some of you I know quite well from past years and the rest of you I just met last week at your auditions. I'd like to start out by thanking all of you for coming out to play with us this summer, and as usual I'd also like to recognize and thank Cleo and the rest of the orchestra committee for handling our logistics because without them we'd probably be stealing sheet music from small children and rehearsing on a street corner."

Cleo and a couple other people that Roddy didn't know smiled and waved in response to the polite round of applause that followed.

"Now, for those of you who haven't played with us before, generally we spend the first couple weeks reading through a bunch of pieces—some of them will be the ones you already have, others we'll pick out along the way—with maybe a little development work mixed in, and then once we have our core set decided on we'll switch into full development mode and build up to our end-of-summer concerts. Those will be August 11th through 13th for those who might have missed it in the email. We'll settle on seating arrangements and any solos and all of that once we switch into development mode, so don't worry about your specific seats right now as long as you're in the right section. And I know we've got a range of skill levels here, but that's fine. All we really ask is that everyone does their best. Remember, the idea is to have fun with this."

That was pretty much the complete opposite of what Roddy was used to hearing at school, but no one else seemed surprised, and when Daniel called out their first piece he helped his stand partner set it up and raised his violin.

By the time Daniel signaled that rehearsal was at an end and reminded everyone that their next rehearsal would be Tuesday night, he was pretty confident that he was one of the best players here. Certainly among the best in the violin section. But even if there were notes getting dropped all over the place, it had been fun to be able to just play. At school you were always being judged, there was always the next concert right around the corner and a horde of classmates salivating over the chance to challenge for your position, and if Roddy didn't care about all that shit when he was actually making music, the rest of the time it was was grating. To say the least. And maybe he was supposed to care about seats and all of that crap even here, for networking and applications and whatever like Mrs. Menchik had said, but if they weren't deciding anything for weeks anyway, who cared?

He was actually a little disappointed that Daniel had called an end to the rehearsal before the full two hours were up, but from the way some people were rolling their shoulders and blowing on their fingertips Roddy was probably in better playing shape than most of them. Which kind of made sense. And since Cleo said that the room was theirs until one o'clock and anyone who wanted to was free to keep playing as long as they put their chairs and stands away when they were done, he helped clear the stage of most of the equipment—only fair, especially since he was probably the youngest person in the orchestra—and then set up in one of the corners. They hadn't tried the Bacchanale today, but he'd played through it a few times at home, and it was by far his favorite among the new pieces.

He was halfway through the piece before he realized that someone was answering the violin portion with the cello part, and he flubbed a few bars when looked over his stand and realized that Monroe had set up off to his right. Monroe raised his eyebrows when Roddy's eyes met his, and since it wasn't like he was messing the piece up Roddy bit his lip and returned his attention to his sheet music just as the tempo markings signaled an increase.

Now that he wasn't lost in his own music he could hear the back-and-forth of the two parts, and as the tempo markings indicated another speedup he met Monroe's eyes again and caught a grin with an edge of challenge in it.

Whatever Monroe had said about talent he was clearly no amateur himself, and Roddy couldn't help but grin in response. They both hit the next section hard, and while Roddy hadn't practiced it enough at this speed to avoid missing the occasional note, Monroe was missing notes too, and right now it didn't matter. Especially since he was starting to hear Monroe's fingers catch, which meant—

The final portion of the piece brought it up to full prestissimo, and Roddy let his fingers fly. His eyes were getting ahead of him and he knew it, his fingers starting to catch as well, but half-a-dozen lines before they reached the end the cello finally fell away and he finished it out on his own and shot a triumphant grin in Monroe's direction.

And then realized that not only had he just beat a fucking predator who could probably rip him in half without breaking a sweat, the few others who'd remained after the full orchestra session had left while they were playing, and they were alone in the room. His shoulders tensed, and he dropped his eyes to the floor.

"All right, kid," Monroe said, a chuckle in his voice. "That was fun, but we're about to be overrun by shrieking children. Are you hungry?"

Roddy lifted his head again, because what?

"Never mind, dumb question," Monroe said, not waiting for a reply. "I've never met a—what? Fifteen? Sixteen?—year old boy who wasn't."

"I'm eighteen," Roddy corrected automatically. Because seriously.

"Eh, teenager, principle still holds." One long arm swung out and he patted Roddy's shoulder. Gently, and entirely clawlessly. "Come on, let's get this stuff put away and we'll go find some lunch. My treat."

Roddy mostly just didn't want to be lunch, but Monroe wasn't even looking at him anymore, and this entire thing was weird and confusing. Except, as it turned out, literal shrieking children arrived as they were putting the stands back in the cupboard, and after a few particularly shrill greetings between friends he was more than happy to escape behind the Blutbad.

Well, he was more than happy to escape. The Blutbad part...

Monroe slowed enough when they reached the sidewalk that Roddy had no excuse not to come alongside him.

"Had you played that before?" Monroe asked. "The Bacchanale?"

Monroe still didn't seem upset, and after a moment Roddy shrugged. "A couple times since we got the music last week, but never with anyone else." He took another quick glance at Monroe and then made himself continue the conversation. Such as it was. "Have you?"

"On my own a few times as well, and then we've tried it once or twice in years past as part of our read throughs, but it's never made it into any programs. Kind of a shame, it's a lot of fun to play."

Roddy nodded.

"Maybe it'll happen this year. It sounds like we've got a good group. Although what was that horrible noise coming from your general vicinity?"

Right, Blutbad ears wouldn't have missed those squeaks any more than his had, no matter how lightly the bow was drawn across the strings. "My stand mate seriously needs to replace his E-string."

"Ah."

"I was kind of hoping he'd go use the bathroom or something during the break so I could do it while he wasn't looking," Roddy admitted. Not that he had a lot of strings to spare, especially since he had to be a lot more careful about DJ'ing these days, but he'd been the one with sensitive ears only a few feet away. It would have been worth it.

"You could offer, I don't think anyone would be offended."

Only idiots or people looking for a fight took intentional offense from a Blutbad. He didn't get that kind of consideration. He shrugged again.

"Do you like pizza?"

Roddy looked up at him.

"Eighteen, right."

Roddy started to shy away from the hand that touched his shoulder, but Monroe was only nudging him down one of the side streets, and he was seriously starting to wonder if the guy knew how intimidating he was. Like, it was hard to believe that he didn't, but Roddy had always avoided the big predators—well, any predators—out of basic self-preservation. And the few who'd forced their way into his path before had had openly vicious intent. He wasn't about to let his guard down, but he just wasn't sensing anything like that here.