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


Roddy could feel that his hand was still out of position even before the first note of the passage landed flat—again—and he swore and let his violin sink. And then scowled at Monroe's chuckle. 'Bite me' was on the tip of his tongue, but that was awfully high on a list of things you did not say to a predator no matter what said predator might claim about vegetarianism.

"Come on, let's call it for the day before steam starts coming out of your ears," Monroe said. "The little theater kids will be here soon, anyway, and we can give it another try next week after we've both had some time to look at it."

Roddy didn't want to call it a day, he wanted to get this stupid passage right. The shifting was tricky, sure, but it damn well shouldn't be this hard. But he was well aware that his perfectionist tendencies where his playing was concerned occasionally drove other players up a wall, and there was no good reason not to wait until Tuesday to try it again. It was one of the pieces that Cleo had let them pull out of the cabinet while she was putting away some music that the orchestra definitely wasn't going to be playing so there was no particular hurry as long as they got it back to her it by the end of the season.

"Or we try it one more time and then go find lunch?" Monroe suggested after a moment.

Roddy grinned and nodded and then took a deep breath and resettled his violin.

The intro for this piece was all cello and plenty complicated in its own right, but with the exception of a few bars that had had Monroe muttering earlier and that he was planning to work on, he was managing just fine. Roddy joined him going into the first section and they got through that neatly, hit the repeat, and then Roddy felt his jaw tighten as he launched into the bridge. He could do this, damn it.

Finally, finally the third shift felt good as his hand slid up the neck of his violin, and he ended with a trill, and Monroe had just rejoined him for the next section of the piece when the door flew open with a bang and a little girl ran into the room screaming happily, a couple more kids on her heels.

Monroe winced, lowering his bow. "Okay, time to go."

"Yep," Roddy agreed, echoing the wince. The acoustics here were really better than they needed to be.

It had been surprisingly fun dueting with Monroe in the half-ish hour usually left over after orchestra rehearsals these past couple weeks. Roddy wasn't exactly used to being treated as any kind of equal by either adults or other Wesen—especially other Wesen—but even if Monroe did still call him 'kid' sometimes Roddy had never gotten the sense of anything nasty behind it. And he was perfectly respectful of Roddy's opinions when Roddy got up the nerve to voice them.

Plus somehow Monroe had ended up taking him to lunch after practice the last couple Thursdays and it sounded like was planning to do so again today. Anything even approaching charity always made Roddy feel awkward and a little angry, and he'd never in a million years presume to ask, but since they'd just been splitting a pizza it hadn't felt as uncomfortable as it could have. He didn't mind the fact that it was vegetarian pizza either...it was kind of odd, maybe, but hell, anything that made it less likely for him to end up on the menu.

They were on their way out of the community center when Roddy almost ran straight into Daniel, and reflex had him dodging sideways an instant before they'd have collided.

"Oops, sorry about that," Daniel said with a quick smile. "But I'm glad that I caught you two. I meant to talk to you right after rehearsal and then got halfway home before I remembered."

Since Roddy was pretty sure that he hadn't said two words directly to the conductor since his audition, and he hadn't said much more than hello and thank you then, that automatically made him suspicious. He shifted back a little towards Monroe.

"There's no way that we're going to be able to play the Bacchanale," Daniel continued. "You've probably figured that out."

They'd tried it Tuesday with the full orchestra and the last third or so had been actively painful to Roddy's ears, and he nodded. He was a little surprised that it hadn't been one of the pieces that Cleo had collected before practice today, actually.

"But take a look at this, would you? I know we said we'd sort out positions and solos and that sort of thing later, but we're about set on the rest of our core pieces, and I think this would fit in well with the program. And from what I've seen of your practice sessions, if anyone's going to be able to pull it off, it'll be the two of you."

Roddy hadn't realized that anyone had been paying attention to what he and Monroe were doing, but he took the music handed to him anyway and then promptly forgot that he was supposed to be suspicious when he realized that it was yet another Saint-Saens piece. This one specifically a duet for violin and cello and orchestra. It didn't look quite as complicated as the Bacchanale—the orchestra parts definitely weren't—but the solos had some interesting sections. He looked up at Monroe.

Monroe finished flipping through his copy a moment later and met Roddy's eyes. "What do you think?"

Roddy nodded quickly.

"All right." He smiled and looked back at Daniel. "We'll see what we can do."

"I want to try it with the full orchestra next Thursday which is why I wanted you two to have it today, but if you read through it and don't think it'll work, just let me know. We've still got time to find something else."

"Sure," Monroe agreed.

"Great. I'll see you both on Tuesday."

Roddy responded automatically, but most of his attention was back on the music. Damn it, now he had another piece that he wanted to try. And this one he and Monroe were probably going to need more than half an hour to work on together, too.

"Do you have plans for this afternoon?" Monroe asked after Daniel had left.

"Hm?" He tore his eyes from the page. "Nah, not really." Dad had refused his help with work so many times that he'd given up asking, and while he did try to pitch in by keeping the cages in good repair, he'd been working through the backlog since school had ended and at this point everything left was spare parts. Dad had done another release last night so there weren't even any rats that needed taking care of, and hanging out with friends required...friends.

"Then why don't you come over to my place? I know I've got plenty of sandwich supplies in the fridge, and after lunch we can give this a try and see which parts will need practice. I can give you a ride home when we're done."

There was no need for him to put himself out, Roddy knew how to get almost anywhere in the city by bus, but he nodded anyway, and it wasn't until they were crossing the street that he realized that he'd just accepted an invitation to a Blutbad's lair.

Shit.

Not that it wasn't completely beyond weird for a Blutbad to invite a Reinigen over in the first place, at least not if they weren't doing it as dinner delivery, but what kind of lunatic went and accepted the invitation?

And then Monroe unlocked what had to be the least intimidating car in existence—seriously, a yellow Beetle—and Roddy was still trying to figure out how and why someone Monroe-sized drove something that looked barely Roddy-sized when his violin case was taken out of his hand and tucked into the back seat with Monroe's cello and he was nudged in on the passenger side.

He closed his eyes and pulled the seatbelt across his chest. Assuming that he survived, this was going on the list of things that he was never telling Dad about.

Mozart through the speakers made him relax a little on the drive, though, that and Monroe's ability to carry on a conversation with himself when Roddy wasn't sure about talking, and despite what he'd half-feared they pulled up in front of a perfectly normal little house that didn't look any different from any of the homes around it unless you counted wolf-themed stained glass on the front door. There were Blutbad markers obvious to anyone with a nose that made Roddy hesitate automatically, but when Monroe opened the front door there was no accompanying smell of blood or death anywhere. Mostly it smelled like oiled wood and blueberry muffins, and instead of screaming there was just ticking.

Lots of ticking, Roddy realized as he stepped inside. Monroe had a lot of clocks.

Like, an actively weird number of clocks, even for someone whose job was making them.

Well, whatever. There were worse things.

They left their instruments in what was clearly a practice room, the familiar smells of rosin and ink settling Roddy a little further, and the kitchen continued the theme of bizarrely-non-predatory. Not that Roddy was objecting, especially since the muffin that Monroe pushed in his direction before going to dig around in the refrigerator was pretty good. He was maybe a little hungrier than he'd realized when he'd been worrying about their destination.