Thanks to everyone who read and to M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng and Anthro79 for reviewing.
A little bit of crossover with Meaning Makes It ch. 18, but not a lot, and both stories can be read separately.
Roddy was three-quarters through his Latin homework and most of the way to Monroe's house when his backpack came alive with buzzing, and when he finally dug out his phone he couldn't help but snort at the string of texts from Sammy. Several question marks, a couple numbers—dates he finally realized, after seeing some of the later texts—that didn't mean anything to him, and then finally one that actually included words and pretty much admitted that Sammy had been looking at the wrong year on the calendar and hadn't realized that Thanksgiving was in two weeks rather than next week. But Sammy was a guy who could roll with pretty much anything, and since he'd apparently already started marketing for a rave this Saturday, he was happy to make the best of it and declare raves two weekends in a row.
Oh, and was Roddy interested in a house party Thanksgiving week?
Roddy rolled his eyes, sent off his acceptance of the raves and standard decline of the last because fucking obviously, and then checked out the window and tucked his homework away as he got a reply with two thumbs up. And a frowny-face that he ignored.
Another text arrived as he was getting off the bus saying that Sammy would need his gear back after next Saturday's rave, but that was no surprise if he was putting house parties on the calendar, and Roddy sent back a thumbs up of his own. And since he now had an answer about the rave this weekend, he shot off a text to Barry that he'd be over on Sunday, made a mental note to rip some of those tracks that he'd promised the other boy, and then muted his phone as he turned up Monroe's walk because Monroe didn't need to accidentally see any of that.
It took a couple minutes for Monroe to answer his door after Roddy hit the bell, a pretty good sign that he'd been in the middle of something when Roddy had knocked, and when he did answer his words confirmed it.
"Hey, kid. Why don't you put your stuff in the practice room and grab a snack? I've got to finish this job so I can drop it off tomorrow, but I should be done in another half an hour or so. I hope."
"Sure," Roddy agreed. He ought to finish his Latin while he remembered where he'd been going with the whole thing anyway. "What's the job?"
"A pocket watch." Monroe rubbed his forehead and his expression turned vaguely tragic. "How do you spill molasses in a pocket watch? And then they tried to clean it out with a..." He shook his head. "It's horrible, really, and his wife needs it back for his seventy-fifth birthday party this weekend."
"Right," Roddy agreed. Kitchen, cookies or whatever else Monroe had for a snack this week, and he'd just leave Monroe to his work.
Monroe nodded and patted his shoulder absently before heading back to his workbench, and Roddy continued on to the kitchen where he found a tray of cinnamon rolls and a tin of extra icing in the fridge. Excellent.
He'd finished his Latin homework by the time Monroe joined him for a sadly-less-frosting'd cinnamon roll of his own, looking considerably more cheerful which hopefully meant that the molasses calamity had been resolved, and Roddy caught him up on everyone who'd be soloing next week and what all the pieces would be. Monroe knew more than enough about the music to follow the theme, and while Roddy might not appreciate the classmates playing a couple of the pieces, he had to admit that some of the pieces themselves might be fun to try. Especially since Monroe said he'd played one of them for a solo back in college once upon a time.
The sun was almost down before the two of them got up again to head for the practice room, but as Roddy stepped inside Monroe caught his shoulder and tugged him back. "Actually, before I forget, I've got something for you. Come on."
Roddy mostly didn't like it when people gave him things, but it wasn't like he was going to win if Monroe wanted him to go somewhere so he trailed along. And then Monroe stopped in front of a bookshelf, which...Roddy had kind of a hard time seeing Monroe ever giving away books so it didn't really clear anything up.
"You need to borrow these," Monroe said, lifting a clearly pre-selected stack of books off one of the shelves, and Roddy caught them automatically when Monroe all but dropped them into his arms.
"Huh?"
"You need to borrow those," Monroe repeated. "And read them."
Well, he hadn't figured that Monroe wanted him to borrow them to use as doorstops. The stack was almost too heavy to be held in one arm, at least by him, but he juggled them enough to manage and then flipped the top one open to a random page. "Uh, Monroe? I think this is in German." He squinted a little. Or maybe it was just really fancy old English? Whatever, it sure as shit wasn't something that he could read at first glance. He hesitated as he took in the rest of the page. "And why is that guy behing beheaded?"
"Hm?" Monroe leaned down, frowning at the page. "Oh, you're right."
About the beheading? Obviously. That didn't seem to be the question that Monroe had been answering, though, as he scanned the books on one of the upper shelves. Roddy let the book he'd opened fall shut again, and a moment later the stack in his arms got heavier by yet another volume.
"That should help," Monroe said.
"With what, my weightlifting skills?"
Exasperated look.
"Why?" Roddy asked.
"If you didn't know about the Endezeichen Grimms, I suspect there are plenty of other things that you don't know about that you should." He tapped the stack. "Read them."
Roddy blinked and then shook his head and shoved all the books back onto the nearest shelf. It was possible that Monroe was at least a little right—Wesen history wasn't a thing that got a lot of attention in his family—but there was no way this worked.
"Roddy."
"I'm not saying no," he said quickly, even though regular history was plenty bad enough, "but there's like ten books there. There's no way that I can fit all of them in my backpack." Hell, even if he could, the weight of them would probably have him on his back and doing an excellent turtle impression the first time he got hit by a gust of wind.
"I could drop them off," Monroe offered.
"Or you could just pick one," preferably an easy one that didn't require another book to understand, "and I can start with that and trade when I'm done. It's not like I'm going to be able to read them all this week anyway, especially with the concert coming up."
Monroe hesitated and then nodded and took one of the more reasonably-sized tomes out of the pile. And then paused and pulled out a second.
"Or I can take two," Roddy said with a sigh as Monroe looked back and forth between them. "Two will probably fit."
"Good. We can talk about them at Thanksgiving. It'd probably be good for Nick to hear about some of that stuff too."
Oh, goody. At least there would be pie.
Roddy hadn't even noticed the footsteps approaching, his focus on keeping Monroe's book tilted enough for the streetlight across the road to illuminate the ornate writing so he could read while he waited for the bus, and it wasn't until a shadow blocked the light entirely that he finally looked up. "What?"
"What what?"
The singsong mocking tone wasn't anything new, although he couldn't recall Owen ever bothering him except for the standard locker-shove nonsense before. Especially since while Owen was a violinist, it wasn't like he was a serious challenger for Roddy's seat or anything like that.
"Are you just going to sit there?" the guy at Owen's shoulder asked, and Roddy vaguely recognized him as one of the woodwinds. Mitchell something, he and Roddy had had a couple classes together, but if they'd ever said two words to each other before Roddy didn't remember it.
"Kind of my plan," Roddy said slowly, not rising to the bait although he did flip the book shut because neither of them needed a good look at any of those illustrations. "But you're out awfully late considering that orchestra let out two hours ago and I know that neither of you stuck around to work on your solos." Mostly because they didn't have solos, and in retrospect that hadn't exactly been a statement well-timed to diffuse the situation, but there were a really limited number of reasons as to why they'd be standing in front of him right now. And it wasn't like anyone was going to be nominating him for sainthood anytime soon anyway.
Owen knocked the book off Roddy's lap—fuck, if that got damaged Monroe was going to kill him—and Roddy shoved himself to his feet. "What?" There was no way, at least not short of woging, that he'd ever intimidate them into leaving him alone, but his snarl startled Owen into giving him a little space, and he took the opportunity to shift sideways so he wasn't trapped between them and the bus stop bench. If this had been a fight in his neighborhood he'd never have dared to move away from his violin, but he was a lot less worried about music students deliberately targeting an instrument than the average gang member. Monroe's book and his backpack, which held not only his laptop but another of Monroe's books, on the other hand...
Fortunately despite his fears neither of them even glanced towards the stuff he'd had to leave behind when he moved, both of them shifting to keep in front of him, and he risked a quick glance to make sure that he was clear of the bus stop wall on this side before sizing them up. Only two, an improvement over the three assholes last year, but last year Trey hadn't been much bigger than he was, and Marvin had been too much of a wimp to really throw down despite his extra inches. Both of these idiots were about Carter's size, and they looked more than eager to get into it. And, of course, there was no traffic passing by to discourage them, given the hour.
Of course, the fact that they looked eager for a fight still didn't mean that either of them actually had a clue how to throw a punch, and he very much hoped that they'd live up or down or whatever direction to the Von Hamelin standard and run away crying once he bloodied their noses. His private fear was that at some point he was going to run into someone who had gotten some training in how to fight beyond his own back-alley scrabbling, and when that happened he was going to hurt.
Owen stepped forward and shoved him, and Roddy blinked and stepped back with it because why the hell would he bother doing anything else? "Seriously? Are you three?" Which, okay, maybe he should have skipped the taunt since Owen shoving him around was better than either of them punching him, but seriously.
Owen's jaw worked, and then Roddy threw himself to the side because that was a punch however badly aimed, and it was on.
They continued to ignore his stuff, much to his relief, but as he shifted to keep even with Owen again a fist caught him in the eye and he was suddenly down on the rough sidewalk. Mitchell. Fucker.
A kick caught him in the side as he fought to shove himself upright again—black eyes were annoying, but broken ribs were a whole other category of hell, and a broken arm the week before a concert didn't even bear thinking on—and if it wasn't graceful at least he managed an upward lunge that took him directly into Owen's chest.
Owen's chin bounced painfully off the top of his head, but since Owen cried out and fell backwards Roddy ignored the ache and jumped away before he could be pulled down too, and this time when Mitchell tried coming in from the side it wasn't a surprise.
Unfortunately knowing that a punch was coming didn't mean that he could entirely avoid it and his ribs took another hit, but apparently Mitchell hadn't been expecting him to hit back, and Roddy's roundhouse took him square in the nose. He choked and stumbled, clapping a hand to his face as blood began to flow, and Roddy squared himself up again and brought his fists in close.
Owen should have been on top of him as he swiveled, but instead he was hanging back, looking back and forth between Roddy and Mitchell's bloody nose, and when he focused on Roddy again he suddenly seemed a lot less eager to close. "I'll—I'll—"
"You'll what?" Roddy sneered, jumping on the opportunity. "Run home and tell your mommy?" He pitched his voice high. "'Mommy, mommy, me and Mitchy got our asses handed to us by one kid six inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than either of us! Aren't you so proud?'"
Goading them was risky for obvious reasons, but he didn't have a choice because this needed to be over. He'd picked up some bruises, sure, but he'd also held out against them about as well as he could have hoped for under the circumstances, and that could change at any time. Or someone could come along and see them, and now that a fight had obviously happened everything was against him.
Theoretically the school had no say in anything since the fight had happened half a mile from their property and well after classes had ended, but Roddy already knew better than to put any faith in the theoretical when rich people were involved. And if someone called the police it would probably end even worse because despite him being smaller than either of them he was also eighteen now, and Dad had done more than one twenty-four hour stint for fighting. A night in jail wasn't in any of Roddy's plans.
"Well?" he pressed as Owen and Mitchell exchanged glances. It would go just as badly for him if they went home and told their parents about the fight; no matter that the obvious truth was that they'd hung around for hours after orchestra let out to jump him, no one ever gave a damn about the truth when it was Roddy's word against his rich-kid classmates. But past experience said that if he embarrassed them enough they'd make every excuse in the book to keep his name out of it. Carter and company had finally gotten smarter about that last year, but it had taken four years of harassment and Dr. Lawson actually seeing a fight for them to get there, so he was willing to bet that these two wouldn't catch on before graduation.
When Owen didn't respond, Roddy turned slightly towards Mitchell, although he wasn't about to count Owen completely out. "What about you? Mommy and Daddy going to be proud of you for hanging around after school just to jump a kid half your size? And then losing?"
Mitchell huffed,but one of his hands was still clamped to his nose and he didn't seem inclined to engage again either.
"Fuck you," Owen snapped. "If you tell anyone..."
And bingo. Dumbass. "If I tell anyone you'll what?" Roddy taunted when he trailed off. "You really think your parents are stupid enough to believe that he ran into a light post?"
"Fuck you," Owen repeated. "I can tell my parents anything I want; they'll never listen to trash like you."
"Yeah, nobody will listen to trash like you," Mitchell echoed, his voice more than a little muffled. "So you better keep your mouth shut."
Roddy flipped them off, no doubt as expected although it wasn't like he didn't mean it, and when headlights gleamed from down the street a moment later they scowled and stomped off. One problem sorted, at least. Or hopefully sorted. If they actually thought about what they'd just said he'd still have trouble—again, reference Carter and company—but he'd done the best he could.
The lights had been the bus rounding the corner, and it pulled to a squeaky halt as he was stuffing Monroe's book back into his backpack. He slung it on quickly, wincing when it bounced off his ribs. Nothing broken, which was something, but the bruises were going to be ugly when they came in.
The look the bus driver gave him said that his soon-to-be-black eye was already starting to show, but Roddy ignored him and found a seat by himself, pulling his violin against him automatically. At least it was enough past rush hour that he wasn't going to be stuck standing up or getting jostled around all the way to the transfer station.
And another 'at least': it was Friday. If this had happened yesterday there was no way that he'd have been able to get away without a serious interrogation from Monroe, and he kind of doubted that Monroe would have agreed with his plans to ice the hell out of everything and then forget it. Not that Monroe would have been able to do anything else either. Rich people were just...
He sighed and put his face against the window glass, and if it wasn't as good as ice, at least it didn't make his eye feel worse.
