Thanks to everyone who read and to M1ssUnd3rst4and1ng and Belladonna-Veilsin for reviewing.
This chapter starts to cross over with Meaning Makes It (chapter 11), but both stories can be read standalone, and this also references events in Grimm 2.06 (Over My Dead Body).
Monroe fumbled the cello entrance again and stopped with a shake of his head immediately rather than trying to recover, lowering his bow with a sigh. "I'm sorry, kid. I'm afraid I'm not in any shape to play right now. I thought I'd be all right, but..."
"What happened?" Roddy asked cautiously. If pressed he'd admit that Monroe had looked kind of tired when he'd arrived today, but this concerto was one that they both enjoyed and therefore one that they'd worked almost to perfection, and even if they hadn't that entrance was way too simple for Monroe to be getting finger-tied like that. Especially not more than once.
Monroe put his bow down on his stand and sighed again, running a hand through his hair. "An old friend of mine died the other day."
"Shit." Roddy wasn't sure what he'd expected, but it sure as hell hadn't been that. "I'm sorry."
"I didn't expect it to hit me this hard," he continued after a minute, setting his cello aside and standing. "It's been years since we were close. But..."
"What happened?" Roddy repeated hesitantly as Monroe went to stand in front of the window. Monroe might call him kid, but usually he treated him like another adult, and in a situation like this Roddy had no idea how to act in return.
"A difference of opinion. Ideology." He gave a laugh that was in no way amused. "A somewhat extreme one. We weren't much older than you are now when it happened, and after that last argument..." He shook his head. "She went her way, and I went mine, and that was it."
That wasn't at all what Roddy had been asking, and he decided that he was better off keeping his mouth shut as Monroe paced back to the other side of the practice room.
"We crossed paths again last year for the first time in...God, fifteen years, I guess it would have been? At least that, probably closer to twenty. But even then she was here and gone again and it was better for everyone that way, you know? It's not like either of us have changed our opinions since that last argument, and Blutbaden in a pack are not necessarily good for each other. But then...but then I don't know. She came back to warn me, and this happened."
"Warn you about what?" Roddy asked after a minute. Mostly because he still wasn't sure what to say about the rest of it.
Monroe shook his head. "Another pack of as—idiots—who didn't appreciate the fact that I'm friends with a Grimm."
"I'd call them assholes," Roddy pointed out. He was pretty sure that he already had, in fact.
"Language."
Monroe mostly treated him like another adult. Whatever.
"Anyway, they've been dealt with—Nick was about as happy about their arrival as I was—but in the process Angelina got caught in the crossfire, and..." He shook his head again and swiveled to continue his pacing.
"Do you want me to go?" Roddy asked. "I mean, if you want to be alone I can head out. Or maybe call Rosalee or Nick?" Rosalee would be his first choice, although it sounded like Nick already knew which might make things a little easier, but either way he figured that both of them would be better at talking than he was.
"No. I...I appreciate the company." He stopped pacing to shoot Roddy a concerned look. "I mean, you don't have to stay, I didn't mean it like that—"
"It's cool, I got it," Roddy interrupted quickly. And he did; it wasn't like he hadn't been glad of Monroe's and Nick's company after Dad had died. Maybe even needed it those first couple days. "I don't mind, I just wasn't sure..."
Monroe nodded when he trailed off. "I appreciate the company," he repeated. "And not that I'd mind Rosalee or Nick coming over too, but Rosalee had to go up to Seattle to help her aunt for a few weeks, and Nick and Juliette are..." He shook his head. "They're trying to work things out."
"Still?"
"Let's just say that Adalind would be wise not to set foot on this continent again."
Adalind being the Hexenbiest with the particularly asshole cat who'd started the whole mess as Roddy recalled. "You want me to just play?" he offered after a moment. "I can do what we're going to do for the concert on Tuesday if you want to hear it." Monroe had apologized a couple weeks ago about not being able to make it—although Blutbad, last day of the full moon, Roddy couldn't really blame him, and it was a pretty small affair as far as Von Hamelin concerts went anyway—but he wouldn't mind doing a run-through. Or playing anything else that Monroe wanted, for that matter.
"That'd be nice. I'll tell you what. Why don't you play whatever you'd like while I get dinner ready, and when that's done we'll find some nice brainless movies to watch. Unless you've got homework tonight?"
Nothing that he couldn't finish on the bus tomorrow, and he shook his head quickly. "Nah, movies sound good. But are you sure you're okay to cook?" Or, more concerningly in Roddy's opinion, to chop?
"I promise I won't land any fingers in anything. It'll probably just be black bean tacos, though."
That suited Roddy just fine, and he nodded and lifted his violin.
Roddy swiped pointlessly at the damp bus stop seat—the cover had done exactly nothing to stop the steady drizzle that was fall in Portland—and then gave it up as a bad job and sat down anyway. After all, it wasn't like staying standing was going to keep him dry either. Fortunately the long rehearsal today meant that he shouldn't have long to wait for the bus. Small favors.
He'd only been sitting there for a few minutes when his backpack started ringing, and he frowned as he swung it around and fumbled in the first pocket for his phone.
The odds were that the caller wasn't Monroe. Roddy had offered before he'd left this morning to come by again after school if Monroe still wanted someone else around, but Monroe had shaken his head and smiled and said that he thought that he needed to spend some time 'outdoors.' And that it was the sort of thing best done alone, which, since Roddy very much doubted that he meant the kind of alleys and abandoned warehouses that Roddy felt comfortable in, was probably for the best. But Nick tended to random, unexpected drop-ins rather than phone calls, and he was already set with Sammy for the rave next Friday, so he had no idea who would be calling him. It could be one of the others that he sometimes DJ'd for, maybe, but since he hadn't heard from any of them since early this past summer that seemed unlikely.
Fortunately he found his phone before it stopped ringing, although the name on the screen left him just about as confused as he had been before he'd seen it. They'd swapped numbers, sure, but that had been a couple weeks ago and he hadn't thought much about it since. "Hello?"
"Hey. Uh, it's Barry."
"Yeah. Hey."
"Hey."
Well, this was doing a lot to clear up Roddy's curiosity. But before he could say anything—which was probably just as well all things considered—Barry spoke again.
"So, uh, what's up?"
He'd just gotten a call from a Jagerbar? That was pretty much the most unexpected thing that had happened all day from Roddy's perspective. "Not much," he said instead. "School just got out, so I'm waiting for the bus."
"Now?" Barry sounded surprised. "It's after five-thirty."
Right, normal kids got out of school at like three-thirty or something. It had been a few years since that had been Roddy. "Well, technically the orchestra plays after school, but it's a music school so it's not really something that anyone is going to skip." Especially not someone who was at the school on a music scholarship.
"Oh, right, you told me that."
"So what's up with you?" Roddy asked after a minute. He might not get a lot of practice with his classmates, but he did get that conversations were a two-way street.
"Killing time until I can pick up dinner."
Roddy frowned. "I thought you were stuck at home?" Not that he didn't know full well that rich kids—and Barry was definitely that, even if he hadn't been a total jackass about it the way that Roddy was used to—had different rules than other people, but Nick hadn't really seemed cool with that kind of thing. Unless he just didn't know, which was entirely possible even if he had been the one to introduce the two of them. After all, there were things that Roddy would never tell Nick about too, even if in his case Nick sort of already knew.
"Well, I'm allowed to go out for community service stuff," Barry said, "and since I just finished a shift no one will care if I stop to pick something up as long as it's on the way home."
"Ah." That was...Roddy wasn't actually sure what that was. In his experience rich kids didn't do community service either unless they were looking for something shiny to beef up their college applications, but that didn't really match up very well with someone on house arrest. "Interesting community service?" he tried after a minute.
"Nah, mostly just picking up trash along the highway."
Roddy blinked. Definitely not the kind of thing that went on a college application, and he didn't even sound embarrassed about it.
"Which beats scrubbing graffiti, for the record."
"Does that actually do anything?" Roddy found himself asking. "I've always thought it'd be easier to just paint over it." That was what people in his neighborhood did, anyway, at least if they bothered doing anything."
"My knuckles would agree with you, believe me."
Barry's dry tone startled a laugh out of Roddy.
"I'm trying to get some shifts to try different stuff, but I need an okay for those and so far it hasn't come through. But anyway, I was calling to see if you wanted to come over sometime this weekend. Whenever works for you would be fine, I don't exactly have any plans."
Roddy had been—completely justifiably, obviously—hesitant when they'd first exchanged numbers, and he was kind of surprised to realized that the idea actually sounded pretty good right now. He was used to being on his own, but it hadn't been until...until recently that that had meant completely on his own except on Thursdays or if a rave was on or if Nick happened to drop by. Well, or technically if he was at school, but where he and Von Hamelin were concerned that was definitely a technicality. Even just darts for a couple hours with someone else would be cool. "This weekend should be good," he said, doing a quick review of everything upcoming. "I've got a concert next Tuesday and then a gig on Friday, but I don't need any more prep for either of those so it's just my history paper that has to get done, and that won't take two days." Well, that and his usual homework, but homework was by definition nothing special. "Does tomorrow work for you?"
"Tomorrow would be great," Barry said immediately.
"Cool. I don't know what the exact bus schedule is, but there's probably something that could get me there maybe early afternoon?" It was an every-second-hour bus if he remembered right, but he wasn't sure which times mapped to the grocery store down the road from Barry's place.
"Sure. And if you send me a text when you're close, I can't meet you at the bottom of the driveway. I'd offer to meet you at the stop itself, but…."
He trailed off, and now he did sound embarrassed, and Roddy shook his head in response despite knowing that Barry couldn't see it. "Yeah, I got it. It's cool, I looked before and there's a route that stops at the little shopping plaza a mile or two from your turnoff. I just don't know the arrival times."
"Text me whenever you're close. Really, all I'll be doing is calculus homework or working on my next history report so anytime is fine." He paused for a moment. "What's yours about?"
"Sixteenth century Japanese trade." Fascinating stuff, really. Except, for the part where it really wasn't. "Although I—" There was a squeal as the bus was suddenly pulling to a stop in front of him, and he made a face. "Hey, sorry, that's my bus so I'm going to have to go. This thing won't hold a signal once I'm moving." Most of the time he didn't care, but he didn't want Barry to think he'd hung up on him.
"No worries, I ought to get going too, anyway. See you tomorrow."
"See you."
Roddy shoved his phone back into his backpack and shouldered it quickly, grabbing his violin and heading over to the bus. Drivers didn't like to be kept waiting. And he was still a little surprised at how much he was suddenly looking forward to tomorrow.
Well, assuming he didn't get eaten. He wasn't going to skip leaving a message for Nick and Monroe, just in case.
His good mood lasted until he got home and pulled out his suit to check it before the concert. To check it and lay it out, because if he showed up with wrinkles in it he'd get some serious side-eye—even more than he was going to get when someone once again realized that his 'dress shoes' were the same boots he wore every day with a new layer of polish on them—but so it went.
He still thought that Tuesday was a weird day to hold a concert at all, but with Halloween on Friday apparently whoever did the scheduling had decided that anyone with kids would have other plans and had adjusted accordingly. Which...they might be right. The whole point of this concert was for half a dozen of the better sophomores and one particularly good freshman to get some solo time in in front of some of the school's sponsors since only upperclassmen would be soloing at the big concert right before the Thanksgiving break, and in the grand scheme of Von Hamelin concerts it wasn't much more than a footnote. Besides, even if it was a weird day for a concert, having it on Tuesday meant that he wouldn't need to rush back afterwards to make it in time for the Halloween rave which was all to the good as far as Roddy was concerned.
He was trying on the suit to see if he needed to move any of the safety pins to let the hems down—no, and seriously, while he felt no particular need to be a giant, Dad had been a little over six feet so he couldn't see why he couldn't have at least the five or six inches that would get his head clear of elbow range—when he noticed the muddy spot on the ankle cuff, and he swore. Technically the suit was dry clean only, which was ridiculous for a department-store suit, but even if there were dry cleaners he could get it to over the weekend he didn't have the money to waste.
He ducked into the bathroom and dampened a washcloth to try to scrub it out without damaging the suit itself, and the chill of the water made him shiver. Fortunately the stain itself dissolved almost immediately, but the water temperature reminded him that it was starting to get cold out, especially at night. Keeping the trailer heated through the winter had always been a fight with it being right next to the water like it was, and it wasn't a fight that he and Dad had ever entirely won. When he had a chance he should stop by the convenience store and see if they had any old papers or cardboard that he could use to up the insulation because he was not up to dealing with any frozen pipes this year.
