Thanks to everyone who read, and to M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng and Priyanka for reviewing.
Some overlap with Meaning Makes It ch. 21, but both stories can be read separately.
There was a honk from behind him a few minutes after he'd left the shopping plaza, and Roddy glared over his shoulder at the car coming up on his tail. Asshole. It wasn't like he was walking in the road or anything, nor was the rain-sleet-whatever that had started up during the bus ride here obscuring the view beyond the usual.
The car pulled around him and then came to a stop, and he tensed automatically, but before he could decide whether to double back or risk whatever some stranger wanted, Barry stuck his head out the driver's side window. "Come on, get in."
Oh. Oops. Roddy hurried up on the passenger side, swinging his backpack and violin in first before climbing in himself and taking the bag of what smelled like sandwiches that Barry handed him. "Hey. Where's your truck?"
Barry made a face, checking the road behind them and then pulling out again. "Had some engine trouble, and the guy at the shop says that I won't have it back until after Thanksgiving."
"That sucks. Did it just happen today?" Renting a car seemed like kind of an extreme response when buses existed, or at least taxis or ubers or whatever people who had way more money than Roddy did used when something went wrong with their own transportation, but with Barry he could kind of see it since he had the whole ankle bracelet monitoring thing and would get in serious trouble if he didn't make it home on time.
"No, last week." He tapped the steering wheel. "This is Mom's, since Dad has to keep going into the office through Wednesday and couldn't loan me his."
"Oh."
"So what's the deal with your violin?" Barry asked quickly, before Roddy could say anything else. "Not that you're not welcome to play if you want, but are you coming from Monroe's again or something?"
"No, but the heater in the trailer is being annoying. It's nothing new, just sometimes when the temperature drops too fast it overloads the breaker trying to keep up. When someone's there to kick it it doesn't matter, but since I'm not going to be around tonight I didn't want to risk my violin getting frozen." It was kind of stupid, maybe, since he carried his violin back and forth to school in freezing weather every winter, but whatever. He felt better having it with him. "I'm guessing you just finished up that last volunteer shift that you mentioned?"
"Yeah. If I'd known that it was going to take me this long to get back I'd have texted you to wait at the bus stop out of the rain, but Mrs. Young told me to go ahead and go as soon as the last truck was loaded, and I figured I'd beat you by a good half an hour. But then I got to the bridge, and there must have been an accident or something because even if I didn't' see anything there were a bunch of police and firetrucks and whatever blocking the lanes, and..." He shrugged and waved it off. "Anyway, all of the rest of the shifts this week involve unloading the stuff at the little pantries scattered around the city, and according to their rules I'm not supposed to volunteer at those so I'm done." A pause. "Well, I did think about grabbing a shift at the senior center on Wednesday, but that's a whole different organization I've never volunteered with before, and since the description was for some kind of holiday party I figured it was a bad idea. Even if Thanksgiving was never a big deal, I kind of doubt that I'm going to be in a holiday mood, you know?"
Roddy snorted. "Definitely. But why wouldn't they want you to volunteer for the unloading part? You'd be a lot more useful than most people."
"It's a little weird, but basically the parole office has one set of rules, and then different organizations can add their own on top of that, and the food bank says that if you've got a felony conviction you can't have any interaction with the people that they serve. Which means basically don't go to the little community pantries."
"That is weird. And dumb."
Barry shrugged again. "It is what it is. Hang on a second, would you?"
Roddy wasn't sure why he'd object as Barry stopped the car immediately after they turned into the driveway and jumped out to check the mail, and a moment later Barry climbed back in and handed Roddy a couple more things for the stack on his lap. "Lewis and Clark College?" Roddy had to ask, because it would have been pretty much impossible to miss the branding on the thick envelope—damn near a package—on top. "I thought you were taking classes at the community college. Are you changing schools or something?"
"Yeah, Dad thinks I should. Apparently law schools prefer to see classes from regular schools on transcripts. I mean, I don't even know if any of them will let me in yet, but he said to pick three of the ones in Portland that look decent and ask for their admissions information."
"Huh." Roddy was pretty sure that money more than talked when it came to college admissions, his own lack in that respect was something that he was going to need to start dealing with soon, but if Barry didn't already know that there was no point in saying so. Mr. Rabe would certainly be aware.
"They've all been weirdly fast about sending out information," Barry said. "I just clicked the 'I'm interested' box on their website Thursday night, and between that one today and the University of Portland one that made it on Saturday I'm already almost set."
"You might be totally set, there's a packet here from Portland State University, too," Roddy said, looking at the other large envelope before it occurred to him that he didn't have any business going through the Rabes' mail.
"Jeez. Well, they'll give me something to look at over the break, anyway. And I can use them to pick some classes that'll transfer next semester, too, since I'm still going to finish out the year at the community college."
Barry relieved Roddy of the mail and the bag of sandwiches once they'd parked, and Roddy slung his backpack over his shoulder and grabbed his violin, following him into the house. Boots and jackets got left by the door since Roddy wasn't the only one who was a little muddy and damp—then again, if Barry had been outside loading trucks that kind of made sense—and after a moment's thought Roddy left his violin and backpack behind too and trailed Barry into the kitchen.
"I couldn't remember what kind of sandwich you had when you and Nick came over before," Barry said. "So I grabbed a ham and a chicken salad and I'll eat whatever you don't want." He dropped the food and the mail on the counter and then went to dig around in one of the high cabinets.
"Mostly I just didn't want to end up included in anyone's sandwich when Nick and I came over before. I'm good with either."
Barry scoffed and turned back long enough to toss a bag of chips over. "Like you'd be more than an appetizer. Besides, the only time we brought home a deer anywhere near your level of stringiness Mom gave up trying to get anything good out of it after two hours and had us bury it in one of her flowerbeds."
Roddy looked around for something to throw in return and settled for a balled-up napkin. "Screw you."
A grin. "Soda?"
"Yeah, thanks."
Roddy got the sandwiches unrolled, picking one at random to shove in Barry's direction, and then popped the chips open too. "So you're going to go to law school, then?"
"Yeah, looks like."
"Can't say that that would have been my guess." Not that he really knew what his guess would have been, maybe some kind of writer given that the paper that Barry had edited hadn't come back with red notes all over the margins like his papers usually did, but not lawyer.
Barry shrugged. "Dad wants me to do an internship at his office, and Mom always said that it was a good, respectable career, so..." He trailed off, shrugging again. "So how was your concert, anyway? And the rave? Your eye still looks gross, in case you were wondering."
"Gee, thanks. And no, I wasn't wondering, because I already had Monroe and Nick flipping out about it Friday night."
"You're dead, rat!"
Roddy laughed and made a dash for the door. Barry's legs were longer, obviously, but he was hampered by being on the wrong side of the weight set, and that was enough to give Roddy a few seconds' head start. With the split staircase even Roddy could make it down in a couple jumps, and he used the bottom post to slingshot himself into the hallway. He had no idea what Barry had been expecting after a comment like that, but—
Mr. Rabe appeared out of nowhere—well, okay, from the full suit and briefcase he'd probably just come in from the garage, but whatever, because he was smack in Roddy's path now—and Roddy scrambled hard to stop. If he'd had his boots on he might have had a prayer, that or if he was close enough to grab onto something, but the walls through here were bare, and his socks weren't finding any purchase on the polished floor.
Mr. Rabe turned and caught Roddy on his free arm, bringing him to an abrupt halt. "Boys."
Roddy's attempt at an apology came out as a completely unintelligible squeak as Mr. Rabe set him back on his feet with no apparent effort, and if wishes were good for anything the floor would have opened up and swallowed him on the spot.
"Uh, hey, Dad," Barry said, obviously having managed to stop somewhere behind Roddy. "Sorry, we didn't hear you come in."
Mr. Rabe nodded and then glanced back over his shoulder. "There's still some light out, and the drizzle that was coming down earlier seems to have stopped. Why don't the two of you burn off a little of that energy outside before we order dinner?"
However politely it had been phrased it was clearly not a suggestion, and Barry's 'Sure' was at least as quick as Roddy's nod.
"Sorry," Roddy managed to find enough air to attempt again, even if it was still pitched higher than he'd have preferred, and he wasn't about to meet Mr. Rabe's eyes.
Mr. Rabe patted his shoulder and then continued on towards the stairs, and Barry and Roddy exchanged guilty glances. "I am so glad that that was you," Barry muttered.
"Thanks." There was click from above them, probably Mr. Rabe shutting his door, and he shook his head. "You realize that now I have to move to Mars and become a hermit or something, right?"
Barry nudged him lightly. "It'll be okay. Really, Dad will probably have forgotten about it by dinner time. Or at least he won't bring it up again. Now If I'd been the one to hit him I'd have taken us both out, and that he would have been annoyed about, but you just sort of...bounced."
Realistically he hadn't even done that, Mr. Rabe had just stopped him in place, but the first part was kind of a fair point. Not that 'body slam predator who outweighs you by a literal hundred pounds' had been on his to-do list for the day. Well, okay, he was fine roughing around with Barry, but that was a whole different thing because over-sized or not Barry was just another kid.
Barry jerked a thumb towards the garage. "Come on, let's grab our gear."
Roddy nodded, and they pulled on the boots and jackets they'd left by the garage earlier before heading out the back. Roddy had never been out that way before, and it turned out that there were a couple more doors off what he'd thought was just a tiled back area because of course there were. Barry and Mr. Rabe were nice and all, but this place was still insane.
The ground outside was damp, but it wasn't actually raining or misting or anything like that which was a distinct improvement over earlier. Although Barry frowned when he leaned down to swipe a hand across the grass, and when he straightened again he was shaking his head.
"What?"
"It's probably too wet to take the bike out. I've ridden alone in worse plenty of times, but with a passenger..." Another head shake. "There's a good chance that if I spun out in mud you'd get thrown. And if you drove and I took passenger, I guarantee I'd just drag you off."
"Some other day, then," Roddy agreed. Just because one concert was over didn't mean that he was okay courting a broken arm. "So what do you want to do?" It wasn't like they'd been having an actual fight upstairs or anything, Roddy had just been being a smart ass, and Barry didn't seem any more inclined to resume that argument than he was.
"No point in checking the mail since we did that on the way up," Barry said after a minute and then brightened. "Let's go down to the pond. Dad was talking about camping over Christmas, maybe doing some fishing, but I don't have a clue when the last time he checked it out was. And I haven't been down that way since I got home."
"Okay," Roddy agreed. And then hesitated when Barry headed out across the neatly-cut lawn and towards the thick greenery on the far side.
"Roddy?" He turned back with a frown. "What's wrong?"
"Those are woods."
"Well, yeah, it'd be a little weird to have a pond in the middle of the driveway. So what?"
"Things that want to eat me live in the woods." Plus there were apparently pit traps and that kind of shit, although he was willing to believe that Barry could avoid those.
Barry rolled his eyes. "Come on, this is Oregon, it's not like there are lions and tigers running around."
There was a pretty obvious exception missing from that list, particularly given current company, but before he could say so Barry continued.
"I mean, I guess there are mountain lions sometimes, but they don't usually come down this far. Only when they're really hungry."
"Oh, only when they're really hungry. That makes it so much better." Another thing that Roddy hadn't needed to know considering the walk he made up from the bus stop every time he came here.
A groan. "Nothing is going to bother you. It probably wouldn't anyway, but it definitely won't as long as you're with me. Good enough?"
Roddy sighed and then hurried to catch up with him. "If I get eaten you are so getting haunted. Just saying."
"How can, like, trees bother you when abandoned warehouses don't?"
