Thanks to everyone who read, and to CarissaCampbell and Nonyaarb for reviewing. This chapter is set shortly after Of Mouse and Man.
Roddy's fingers tightened a little more on the handle of his violin case as the bus pulled pulled away from the stop behind him, but he'd come this far, and he wasn't going to turn back now.
He wasn't worried, exactly. There was no way that Monroe couldn't take care of himself. But from what Roddy had seen he was the responsible type who'd call if he was going to miss an appointment or whatever, and while not telling Roddy that he wasn't going to be at Tuesday's or Thursday's orchestra rehearsals was one thing, the fact that Daniel and Cleo had been the ones asking if Roddy knew where he was...
Roddy saw Monroe's car parked on the street when he turned onto the block and couldn't help but be curious about the red smudge on the hood. Something had been painted on it that hadn't been there last week, even if someone had made an attempt to scrub it away. He thumbed at it as he passed, and a little more red came off on his hand. Personally he thought that you'd have to be an idiot to tag a Blutbad's car, but there were plenty of idiots in the world.
The presence of the car was a good sign, but he couldn't tell if Monroe was home by just looking at the house, and he stepped up onto the porch and hit the bell. A moment later he heard rustling inside, and he bit his lip as the lock clicked. Maybe Monroe had just decided he didn't want to play with him—them—anymore? And then the door opened, and any filter between his brain and his mouth completely deserted him. "What happened to you?!"
Not that he really needed to ask, he'd been in more than enough fights to recognize the signs, but it looked like someone had kicked the ever-loving shit out of Monroe. Which wasn't even possible as far as Roddy knew...Monroe was nice, sure, but he was still a Blutbad.
"Damn it, it's..." One hand went to his forehead and he winced and stepped back. "Come in."
Roddy would have said that he felt comfortable in Monroe's house at this point, or at least a lot more comfortable than a Reinigen ever should in a Blutbad's lair, but the fact that Monroe scanned the street before shutting and locking the door behind him didn't exactly give him the warm fuzzies.
"Sorry, I'm a little out of it right now. I completely forgot that it was Thursday," Monroe said with a sigh, giving his forehead another rub. "How was rehearsal?"
"Okay." He hesitated and then went ahead and asked again. "What happened?"
"I got jumped."
'When?', 'By who?', and 'Were they nuts?' all warred together in Roddy's head, and in the end he blurted out all three questions on top of each other without much regard for grammar or oxygen. Detective Grimm was the only person that Roddy thought could maybe have done something like what he was seeing, but he and Monroe were friends. Or at least they had been as of a couple weeks ago.
Apparently he'd been at least marginally understandable, because Monroe shrugged and then winced again. "Tuesday afternoon, no idea, and sane to the point that they hit me in the head hard enough that I wasn't in any shape to put up a fight before they got started on the rest of it."
"Shit." Roddy had been on the end of more than a few beatings in his lifetime, but at least he'd generally known who was involved. "Why?" Monroe was nice. Even to a scrawny Reinigen pup who almost never got along with anyone.
"I gather they didn't—don't—appreciate the fact that I'm friends with a Grimm. Or at least that's the message I found on my car when it was all over."
"What? But..." Roddy shook his head. Okay, he'd freaked out about the whole Grimm thing too when he'd first met Detective Grimm, but there was kind of a big difference between a guy who gave rides and asked typical adult questions about school and classes and generally just acted normal and a guy who went around chopping people's heads off for no good reason. "Why?" he repeated.
Monroe sighed. "Some people just don't like anything that upsets the status quo."
"Oh." That Roddy understood just fine. He'd picked up a few scars from people who thought like that himself. "Fucking assholes."
"Language."
From Monroe's expression he was only saying that because that was what adults were supposed to say when kids swore, not because he disagreed, and Roddy scoffed.
"Anyway, I should be all right by next week, but I'm afraid I won't be able to play today."
"It's okay. They asked if I knew why you weren't at practice, and I just figured..." He shrugged. "There's a bus coming through going the other way that should be here in twenty minutes or so if I remember the schedule right. I can catch it no problem."
"Uh-uh. Let me find my keys, and I'll give you a ride home."
"I can—"
Monroe shook his head. "They go after me again...well, now that I know that they exist, anyone else who tries to jump me is going to end up in a world of hurt."
Roddy had no trouble believing that given the flash of red that flickered through his eyes.
"And if they go after Nick, it'll go even less well for them, I guarantee it. But you're more than a bit lighter than either of us, and right now I don't know if the house is being watched. I don't think it is, but I'd rather give it a couple more days just to be sure."
Roddy's first inclination was to object—he might be on the small side, but he could hold his own, as more than a couple creeps had found out to their detriment—but fortunately common sense kicked in before he could say anything remarkably stupid. A couple dumbass human classmates, regardless of how much they outweighed him by, or even the Klaustreich or two who'd managed to pin him down at one time or another, weren't anywhere close to the same thing as a group of people willing to go head-to-head with a Blutbad.
"Smart kid," Monroe said when he shut his mouth again. "And if they ask at orchestra, I was in a minor accident, all right? I'll email Cleo and apologize for not letting her know earlier, but that shouldn't raise too many questions."
Roddy nodded. The bruises would have faded enough by next Tuesday to make it a reasonable explanation for any still visible.
Monroe turned, reaching for his keys on the table, and then paused and turned back. "Actually, as long as you're here, would you mind giving me a hand with a few things? I thought I'd be okay yesterday, but right now I'm so stiff that I can't even lift a pot of water without my back pitching a fit."
"Yeah, sure."
"See you Tuesday," Roddy said, reaching into the backseat and retrieving his violin.
"Tuesday," Monroe agreed. "And if I'm not there—"
"I'll call," Roddy finished. "Got it." He'd say that he'd never go to a Blutbad's lair after dark anyway, but technically he'd just spent most of the last hour in a Blutbad's kitchen helping chop things for soup so his judgment there was probably legitimately suspect. Even if the fact that Monroe was a vegetarian meant that he hadn't been too worried about ending up in the pot himself. And even if he'd gotten to finish off the last of the taco salad—meatless, but whatever—in the refrigerator for lunch on the grounds that Monroe's jaw wasn't going to let him eat anything that crunched for at least a few more days anyway.
Monroe pulled away as he let himself inside, and he was surprised when Dad turned away from the sink. "Hey. I didn't see the truck outside."
Dad waved a soapy hand. "I didn't have a job lined up for this afternoon, and Michael needed to borrow it."
Roddy bit back a grimace. Michael was actually one of his less objectionable uncles, but he and Roddy still didn't get along very well. Of course, Roddy was never going to get along very well with anyone who insisted that he should sell his violin and 'do something useful with his life' so there was that.
"Did I hear a car?" Dad asked.
"Yeah. Monroe gave me a ride. Uh, the cellist I'm dueting with." Roddy put his violin beside the couch and went to grab a dishtowel to give him a hand.
Dad had already worked his way through most of what had been building up in the sink, and a few minutes later he was handing the last plate over to Roddy. "That's the end of it. Do you want to go fishing?"
Roddy brightened. "Yeah." Between the fact that Dad worked a lot and that he wasn't exactly a people person—even where his son was concerned, although Roddy had never doubted how much Dad loved him—they didn't always get to spend a lot of time together. Fishing on the river was one of the activities that they both enjoyed, and the fact that unlike humans or even a lot of other Wesen they could generally eat any fish they pulled out didn't hurt. He wiped the dish dry quickly and then put it in the cabinet with the rest. "I'll go grab the poles."
Half an hour later and they were set up nicely in the shadow of the bridge where they could toss out lines, and Roddy tilted his head to look back up at Dad's perch on the boulder above him. He needed to bring up the Blutbad thing sometime, meaning before the concerts because even if there was no good reason that either of them would woge, Roddy wasn't stupid enough to bet against it happening, and this was probably the best opportunity that he was going to get for a while. Or at least the most relaxed opportunity, not that he wanted to ruin the afternoon by completely freaking Dad out.
