Waiting for the Sky to Fall [1/10]
Master post + beta thanks.
* * *
Saturday
* * *
12.01am
"Hey, no- it went that way, behind the trees, guys, come on."
Following that pronouncement there's a series of thumping crashes indicative of several bodies racing through the bushes and vague excuse for brush that circles the cemetery, and a couple more shouted words drift back; nothing terribly meaningful or urgent-sounding.
"Guess it was just kids playing around or something," Al says with a shrug, eyes low to the ground, searching carefully for any hint of what they've been looking for.
"Didn't sound like it at first," Tom says, a few paces off to the right, and runs his fingers over the engraved letters of the tombstone he's standing by, head cocked thoughtfully to one side. "I don't know, I just- I think we're missing something here."
"Or you're just not sure whether you'd rather walk into someone trying to get lucky and laugh at them, or if you'd like to run into a vampire that missed the little buffet serving that just left," Sean says from the other side of Al, humming distractedly and watching the roofs of the crypts rather than where he's actually walking, and only just saving himself from tripping on an upraised slab of concrete.
"You just want to get your teeth into something," Tom mocks, "don't start projecting, dude."
"I'll get my teeth into you," Sean threatens, scrunching up his face in a mock-grimace and crooking his fingers into claws to wave at Tom.
"Wow, yes, you're terrifying creatures of the night," Max says, "but I think Ryan's found something over there, so can we maybe focus?"
The wind whipping through the cypresses around the boundary is the only sound for a few seconds, casting broken shadows under the sliver of moon high in the sky, and five dark figures lope off towards the other end of the graveyard.
* * *
12.02am
"I can't believe Spencer had to get that one," Brendon says, hands on his hips.
Jon grins up at him, wholly unapologetic.
"I can't believe you're trying to make Jon play fetch," Ryan says loftily from his vantage point leaning against the side of Brendon's van, flipping through his book as if he's actually trying to read it rather than fondly watching Brendon and Jon horse around.
"Hey, he went after the first three," Brendon says with a shrug, and runs his hand over Jon's head, rubbing his thumb just behind his ear in the place that makes Jon stretch and wriggle appreciatively. It's disconcertingly puppyish, which would be odd enough if he was just a wolf; from a guy who just happens to spend occasional chunks of time wolf-shaped it's somehow even weirder. Brendon doesn't seem to notice those things any more, Ryan's still dealing with the occasional bout of cognitive dissonance.
"You do get he's not an actual dog, right?" Spencer says, and Ryan can tell he's being provoking and not actually serious, but Brendon acts as if he's not well aware of the same thing, his hand stilling on Jon's head as he makes a shocked face and pretends to snatch his hand back. Jon's tail still waves cheerfully, tracing broad arcs in the dirt, and he's clearly still on alert anyway.
"He doesn't mind, though," Brendon goes on thoughtfully, eyes still scanning the ground around them for a suitable stick to throw (or vampires, or other monsters; whatever, he's on the hunt) "and it's not like any of us are threatening to get him a flea collar for his birthday."
Jon's unimpressed growl is all wolf, and Ryan can't help snickering any more than the other three can.
"He's probably just bored," Bob says over his shoulder, back to them as he scans the road and the completely silent and non-threatening night. "It has been fucking de- quiet around here lately, you guys could probably take off it you'd like, really. Spence and I can cover the rest of patrol, I don't think we're likely to run into anything too big." There've been barely any vamps lately, and nothing bigger than that - just some run-of-the-mill crime, robberies and assaults and a serial killer they're leaving for the cops to deal with.
"I object to your claim that Jon Walker is only playing with me out of boredom," Brendon says, and Bob raises an eyebrow. "Which isn't to say that heading home early would be bad!" he adds, hurriedly.
Jon paws at the back door of the car, an unmistakeable signal that people who've still got opposable thumbs and pants on need to help him out, and Ryan leans over to pull the door open for him, attention still half on his notebook and half on Brendon who's trying to persuade Bob to give him a piggyback ride.
The wind picks up a little more and Ryan huddles back into his coat, suppressing a shudder. Summer's definitely almost over, the nights getting longer and colder. In defiance of the temperature drop, Jon's still wearing his flip-flops everywhere, and he bounces out the door again dressed in them (and jeans, and a t-shirt that's faded into illegibility), knocking shoulders with Ryan.
"What's up?" he asks, yawning a little, stretching out his jaw as if he's almost forgotten how to use it properly.
"Same old, same old," Ryan says, leaning back into Jon. He's definitely not going to complain about an early night. College is starting in, like, two days, and he's not exactly feeling prepared. Plus, more time with Jon and Brendon. Never a bad thing.
"How did he get you to play fetch?" Ryan asks quietly, genuinely curious.
"You don't think I indulged him out of the kindness of my heart?" Jon replies with a tiny smile. Ryan is not buying that. Or, rather, he is, but Jon's expression says he doesn't want him to think that's the whole reason.
"Was it his debonair charm?" Ryan suggests, and they both look over at Brendon, who catches the look and shoots them a brilliant smile. Ryan grins helplessly back, doesn't even need to look to know Jon's doing the same.
"Actually, he offered me lewd and exciting sex acts," Jon deadpans, and Ryan snorts and is about to ask for details when the wind picks up again, sending flurries of dust and the few early leaves that've fallen already flying, and Jon goes tense and completely rigid against him.
Ryan's hand is on the stake Spencer insists he carry before he's even realised he's moving. "What is it?" he hisses. Spencer is still scanning the cemetery grounds half-heartedly through the gate, but Ryan's pretty sure more of his attention is on the conversation he's having with Bob. None of them have noticed anything, and Ryan's about to- yell, or wave, or something when Jon relaxes again, and just looks perturbed.
"What was that?" Bob asks, looking concerned.
Jon frowns.
"I don't- I'm not sure. I thought I heard something, but- it's ridiculous, there's nothing there." He edges towards the gates, anyway, and Ryan follows, raising an eyebrow at Spencer, who joins them smoothly. The group of them peer back into the dark, the area they'd just patrolled through. Nothing is moving but the wind and a few stray pieces of foliage, the only noise the insects and the traffic out on the main street.
"There's nothing there," Jon repeats, shaking his head as if to rid it of the notion, and Ryan doesn't disbelieve him; not Jon's senses as well as Spencer's. But he kind of has to wonder what was there.
* * *
3.37am
"Okay, yeah, so letting the others go home early wasn't a bad idea after all."
"It was your idea, Bob," Spencer points out logically, and tries to defuse the hint of told-you-so-ness in his tone by shifting a half-inch closer. It's not like he's not already kind of snuggled up to Bob anyway.
"My ideas are not always good," Bob says, somewhat ruefully, and Spencer really hopes he's not actually referring to the way that his other hand is pretty much on Spencer's ass right now, because in Spencer's mind, that is actually a great idea.
"Does that mean we can go home, then?" Spencer asks hopefully, because. Well. Bob's hand is on his ass, it's kind of safe to say his mind is not exactly on slaying right now, and he's kind of hoping Bob's isn't, either. "It has been pretty quiet, I don't think we've even seen more than one or two vamps this week and we've hit the usual spots already."
Spencer's well aware he's kind of... wheedling. Maybe whining. But it's really not that warm, and he's kind of bored, and Bob won't make out with him when they're on patrol, even if it is only the two of them. ("You have no idea how embarrassing it would be to get killed because we were busy sucking face," Bob had said once, "I'd, like, never live it down." "You'd be dead," Spencer had pointed out a little ghoulishly, and Bob had just muttered, "Yeah, and my mother would make sure to get me raised from the dead so she could yell at me and kill me again herself afterwards, so no. Learn a little patience." And then he'd patted Spencer's hip consolingly and Spencer had gotten kind of distracted, and then they had gotten jumped by three vamps on the hunt for a little easy dinner so it wasn't like Bob hadn't made his point. Still, though.)
"Um," and Bob is clearly wavering, looking around the badly-lit street they're lurking on, a tangle of alleys well behind the Strip where all the lowlifes seem to wash up eventually, as well as the poor suckers who're just down on their luck enough to not be missed and wind up as dinner. When Spencer isn't there to do something about it, at least. But Bob's been watching the papers and the guy he knows at the morgue hasn't picked up on anything in a good week and a half now that seems like it's something they should be paying attention to. Spencer thinks it's like the vampires and demons and other assorted forces of darkness have all decided to head south for the winter, although when he had said that to Bob, Bob just looked thoughtful and as if he was making a mental note to check the obituaries in Florida.
Spencer nuzzles against Bob's shoulder -- one thing that them hooking up had been really good for was that they could blend in a lot better in some of the seedier parts of town, now; two guys wrapped around each other and pressed up against a wall drew a lot less attention in those kinds of places than two guys walking around with five feet between them at all times -- and widens his eyes. It works for Brendon, like, all the time, it should totally work for him too.
"I'm not falling for that, jeez," Bob snorts, but his fingers curl possessively around Spencer's hip and his other hand is still on his ass and doesn't look like moving any time soon, and, "So we're done patrolling, now?" Spencer asks quietly, and Bob tips his head back to look up at the stars, the sliver of moon, and then back down again to look at Spencer, laughing, "Okay, yes, we're done, happy?" and smiles against Spencer's mouth as he lifts his head up for a kiss.
That goes on for a little while, and it's pretty nice, even given the none-too-salubrious surroundings, and when a guy walking past wolf-whistles and shouts a filthy suggestion for what else they could do, Bob just frees one hand to flip him off and keeps on kissing Spencer (although Spencer does notice that Bob's eyes are open, and he's watching as the guy keeps walking, just in case).
"We should get going," Bob says with regret, not too much later, and pushes gently away from the wall. Spencer backs off easily enough, but he feels his stomach twist a little when Bob reaches out and squeezes his hand gently, once, before letting go again. He can feel his cheeks are a little pink, because, okay, holding hands, whatever, it's not like they're five year olds crossing the road or anything, but it would be kind of... nice. He takes a quick look through his eyelashes over at Bob, and Bob's not looking back at him either, just chewing on his lip and playing with the keys in his pocket. For Bob, that's as good as a two storey neon billboard announcing the arrival of the "kind of nervous and not sure he should've just done that" tour, and Spencer bites back a completely dorky smile of his own and just bumps his shoulder against Bob's as they walk back towards the car.
* * *
3.58am
"Want me to drop you home? Or were you meant to be at Ryan's or Brendon's?" Bob asks, keys in the ignition and car idling before they pull out of their parking spot. Spencer's not entirely sure how Bob's never once had the car broken into, given the shitty places they've had to leave it, and the fact that sometimes they don't even have time to lock the doors. He hasn't asked, but he kind of suspects some kind of witchcraft. Obvious exceptions aside, Spencer's pretty okay with that.
"It's Saturday morning," Spencer says slowly, because, yeah, he doesn't want to go home yet. Maybe it's kind of sad, but he's going to have to be at school five days a week, and at home for dinner, and on the weekends he'll basically be stuck trying to catch up on sleep and also not flunk out of his senior year, and half the time he sees his friends -- let alone his, well, let alone Bob -- he's working, so... he's inclined to be a little irresponsible right now.
"And...?" Bob trails off, but he puts the car into gear anyway, so Spencer doesn't think he's going to have to fight too hard for it tonight.
"And I don't have to do anything later today, so I was thinking maybe we could go back to your place and fool around?" Spencer slouches down in the front seat as best he can, and licks his lips, watching Bob pretend like he's not trying to keep his eyes on the road and off Spencer.
"What if I have something I should be doing?" Bob asks, testing, but he's taking the freeway with the best exit for his place and not Spencer's, so Spencer's pretty damn sure that counts as mission accomplished.
"I'd say that something better be me," Spencer replies, quick as a flash, and Bob snorts and then tries to cover it, just shaking his head.
"I'm just glad you're didn't use that opportunity for a 'your mom' joke," Bob admits, and then flicks Spencer's knee chastisingly anyway, "but seriously, classy, Smith, very classy."
"Oh, like you're any better," Spencer points out, with a vivid memory of the trash-talking during the last GTA tournament they'd wound up having at Bob's place; he'd known Bob was still kind of trying to behave himself around them all, but if that was the kind of language Bob had learned growing up as a Watcher-to-be, then probably it was good that Spencer hadn't been informed of his own destiny until just lately. His mom would totally wash his mouth out with soap even now if she ever heard him say some of that. Which wasn't to say he hadn't filed away some of the choicer phrases for later use.
"I seem to remember you saying something about liking my mouth," Bob says teasingly, and it's Spencer's turn to bite his lip, because that was under totally different circumstances, and, fuck, Bob drives like a little old lady sometimes.
* * *
4.15am
"Fuck, Bob, I can't believe you managed to find traffic at four am." Spencer slouches more in the passenger seat and drums his fingers against his thigh. They've moved about thirty feet in the last five minutes, and the flashing lights up ahead and brake-lights all around them are doing nothing to reassure his dick that it's going to be seeing much of Bob any time soon. His life seriously sucks.
"Hey, it's your city," Bob says, drumming his own hands on the steering wheel but looking annoyingly zen otherwise. "This kind of shit does not happen in Chicago, Spence, since most places there actually close overnight."
Spencer doesn't see fit to dignify that with a response, just fidgets and watches the digital readout on Bob's dashboard tick the minutes off as they creep further forward.
"I'm going to have to head out pretty soon," he says reluctantly, after they're finally clear of the accident -- some ten minutes later, easily -- and turning onto Bob's street.
"You don't have to come in," Bob says, "I could just take you home-"
"Yeah, no," Spencer says, "it's the last weekend before school starts, and we haven't for- I mean, I don't know how much time we'll have, and- fuck, Bob, I want to, okay?"
"Not gonna say no," Bob says quietly, and pulls into his drive, leaning over to kiss Spencer hard on the mouth before he even turns the car off.
* * *
4.52am
Spencer stretches, arching off the bed as he feels the tension start to bleed out of his muscles at last, the sheets twisting around his ankles as he rolls over.
Bob trails his hand over Spencer's stomach lightly, fond and greedy. "Feel better?" he asks, running his thumbnail around Spencer's bellybutton, voice husky.
"Mmmm," Spencer agrees, shifting onto his side to face Bob, hooking his knee over Bob's thigh to hold him close as he slides his free hand into Bob's hair, smoothing it back from his face and rubbing his thumb over the raspy skin on Bob's cheeks. "Definitely. This Watcher thing doesn't work out for you, you should definitely look into massage as a career." Spencer stretches again, working the last of the kinks out of his back, enjoying the way Bob growls as Spencer's body pushes against his, letting the moment draw out while they watch each other, eyes only inches apart and mouths even closer. Spencer couldn't say, afterwards, which one of them it was who'd caved first; just that first Bob's breath was puffing hot against his face, and then his lips were pressed against Spencer's, his mouth cool and inviting, and then Bob rolled them both so that Spencer was tucked underneath him, half-squirming for any kind of friction and yielding completely as Bob's hands moved over him with absolute confidence.
"Really good," Spencer says foggily not all that much later, sprawled out over Bob's chest and having to shake his head because he's somehow wound up with a mouthful of Bob's hair. He slides down Bob's body just a little, tucking his face into the crook of Bob's shoulder; he's actually a little too hot for that much skin-on-skin contact now, but he doesn't really want to move.
"You're really good at that yourself," Bob says sleepily, and maybe kisses the top of Spencer's head, or maybe he's just stretching.
"That's what she said," Spencer mumbles, and tries to grab the sheet with his toes to pull it up over them without having to actually get up and move. He wouldn't put it past Bob to have all kinds of anti-burglary charms on his windows and all, but outside of the heat of the moment he's not entirely comfortable lying around bare-assed where any self-respecting voyeur could see them.
"Your mom," Bob says indistinctly, and Spencer snickers because he can't not. And then groans, because- his mom, shit, he kind of has to get home, still, and now he's comfortable and really doesn't want to move. Seriously, his life, shit.
He lets his eyes close for just a minute, feeling Bob's heart-beat thump steadily under his ear, just enjoying the lazy drift of the moment, and then steels himself to get up. He rolls off Bob and onto his feet more steadily than he'd have expected five minutes ago, bending to pull the blankets up to Bob's hips -- if he's cold he can manage the rest himself, Spencer figures -- and then bends over to drop a closed-mouth kiss onto Bob's lips.
"I have to get home," he murmurs, and turns to start gathering up his clothes from where they're strewn over Bob's floor.
Bob fights to get his eyes properly open and makes as if he's going to sit up. "Wait a sec, Spence," he says, a little hoarse, "I'll drive you, just let me get-"
Spencer zips up his jeans and then kneels on the side of the bed, hand gentle as he pushes Bob back down again, ducking down for one last, quick kiss. "No, you need more sleep than I do, I can run it. Don't worry." Bob gives him a rueful smile, but he's definitely looking a little faded around the edges now, and Spencer feels a quick flush of guilt because, yeah, Bob has been getting less and less sleep, lately, and Spencer kind of hasn't been helping with that. It's kind of unfair that Bob has to keep up with him, without the benefit of the crazy slayer metabolism and ability to survive pretty well on two or three hours sleep a night. Which isn't to say that Spencer loves getting up in the mornings any more than he used to, just that he hasn't quite graduated to the bags under the eyes and vicious caffeine dependency that Bob (and to a lesser extent Ryan and Brendon) have been cultivating.
Maybe this little break in their workload is actually a good thing. Bob might be able to catch up on a bit more sleep without Spencer having to try and ban him from coming out on patrols a couple nights a week, which he had been starting to seriously consider, and knew wouldn't exactly go down well whenever he suggested it.
"Night, Spence," Bob mumbles, as Spencer pauses in the doorway for one last look, and then he's dead to the world, and Spencer, a little sheepishly, holds that memory close to him as he laces up his shoes, locks the door behind himself and sets off in the chilly predawn darkness to jog home.
It seems to take less time every time he's had to cover that distance, and it's not all that much later when Spencer is moving cautiously towards his own front door -- no sense climbing in a window when the front door is actually further away from his parents' room, and as soon as he gets his sneakers off he can pretend like he was just getting up for a glass of water anyway -- making sure not to trip the motion sensor lights his dad had installed a couple years back, and breathing a sigh of relief when he gets the door open and toes his sneakers off into the hall closet without hearing a breath of sound from the rest of the house. He does his best stealthy ninja impression past his sister's room and into his own, only bothering to kick off his jeans as well before going face-down onto his bed. Fuck, he is kind of tired himself, and hey, at least it's a Saturday and no one's going to expect him up much before noon anyway.
His sheets are all twisted up and loose from when he hadn't bothered to make the bed after getting up that morning, and he has a faint and disquieting flash of some kind of nightmare, something that'd made him even less keen to get up than usual, but the details won't come back at all, and all he really wants to do is let himself pass the hell out like he'd been tempted to do back at Bob's.
If he dreams anything, he doesn't remember it when he wakes.
* * *
8.30am
The insistent chime of his phone breaks through the last stubborn vestiges of sleep, and with a groan, Bob flails a hand out from under the sheets and grabs it before it can vibrate off the end-table.
"Bryar," he gets out, because, seriously, it's- he cracks one eye open grudgingly to look at the blinking red display on his alarm clock -- it's fucking eight in the morning, or as good as, and he's pretty sure it's the weekend, too. All of which is to say that whoever's calling him can just live with that much of a nod towards good manners. Even his mom knows better than to call him before noon, although she makes fun of him for it.
"We're going to need help," a voice announces right over the top of him, no preamble. Bob's stomach churns with a brief surge of unready panic before training and will kick back into gear and wrestle that immediate reaction back down under control.
"Who is this?" he asks, and as if he hasn't said a word the guy -- he's pretty sure it's a guy, the voice is low, masculine, oddly calm -- keeps talking.
"One before us and one with us; two after you and yours, Bob Bryar," and it's hearing his name which makes Bob really wake up and register, shit, he knows this voice, and there is no way this is going to end well for everyone.
"Mikeyway?" he asks incredulously, although if Mikey's in this state it's not exactly as if he should be expecting an answer or to even be able to hold a coherent conversation. He jams the phone tighter to his ear and scrabbles in the drawer for a pen and paper, because sometimes the exact words are important, and shit, Mikey's still talking and he's missing parts of it. He hopes to god that Frank or Gerard or Ray or Otter or someone is on the other end doing the same thing, but he has a bad feeling that it's kind of unlikely this time of the morning. Fuck. This is just what they need.
Mikey's voice doesn't change tone at all as he keeps talking, and Bob's kicking himself for only having a crappy ass biro by the bed, even a pencil would be better, and this is so not the time to be thinking about better things he could be keeping in those drawers, especially since he actually gets to, well. Use some of them, these days.
Which is exactly why Watchers aren't meant to hook up with their slayers, because Bob's attention span is for shit right now, and he pinches the palm of his hand hard to wake himself up and goes back to writing, pressing down hard enough into the pad that even when the ink doesn't quite run the impression is obvious.
"They're hurting and they're dying," Mikey says, precise and kind of monotone. "Tell me later there's no such thing as coincidence, okay?" he says, and then there's just a dial tone echoing in Bob's ear.
"Fucking precogs," Bob groans and slumps back onto his pillow, arm covering his eyes.
He's not entirely out of the loop. He'd known My Chem were playing a festival out in the desert over the weekend, had a side show in town sometime that week. He'd been tempted to go along, maybe even bring Spence, although given the crowd that Gerard and the guys appealed to these days, that could've been a little problematic all by itself, what with Spencer still being in school (if not in any of Bob's classes; they'd made damn sure of that).
Which just brings Bob once again facefirst into one of the issues he's been doing his best to ignore. He scrubs his hands over gritty eyes and tries to think of one part of his life he's not fucking up completely right then and there. Depressingly, nothing much comes to mind immediately; only his stomach chiming in to remind him that among his many sins, he hadn't gotten around to putting any kind of solid food into it last night.
With a last regretful thought for the hour or two of lovely, carefree sleep-in he was clearly not going to be getting, Bob rolls out of bed and pads towards the kitchen.
It was going to be a long two or three hours until anyone else on the tour bus was likely to be awake and making any kind of sense -- there really was no point in calling back then, might as well make sure someone got enough sleep -- so he might as well get himself fed and then start what research he could. Especially since the discussion he's going to have to have with Spencer later in the day is probably going to suck pretty seriously. He maybe should've been laying some of the groundwork weeks ago. It's not a good sign when researching magical rituals which call for bits of people (and seriously, ew. Bob's pretty glad he's only ever flirted with some of the darker arts -- and some of their hotter practioners) is more fun than practice runs of Important Relationship Talks. And he's not inclined to do either on an empty stomach, so after a quick survey of the fridge (mostly empty), he throws enough basic ingredients into the frying pan to qualify as a lazy man's omelette and leaves them to brown as he pulls an armful of books down from the shelves and starts looking up star charts and astrological calendars -- there's no guarantee it's going to be something with a nice neat mystical convergence, but god knows he's been a Watcher long enough to know that ruling that out is a good place to start.
* * *
10.13am
Spencer's mom is far, far too cheerful when she wakes him up.
"Mooooooom," he groans, "it's not even eleven."
"And you have chores," she says mercilessly, and swings open his curtains. Fuck, light. Ow.
"Don't you know growing boys need their sleep?" he asks, without holding out much hope.
"I think I read something about that," his mom says, and bends over to pick up his jeans and whatever other dirty clothes are bunched up on his floor, and Spencer has a brief and panicky moment where he can't remember if he's left anything in the pockets he shouldn't have -- exactly what that could be he's not sure, he's already passed off stakes as drumsticks more than once without question, and it's not like he's out smoking up or knocking girls up or anything -- and his mom just shakes her head at him with a smile and adds, "but you should have had more than enough by now, so up and at 'em, kiddo."
Spencer pulls the pillow over his head and groans, but there's no escaping it, he knows, so after a suitable interval of muttering he gets up, pulls on sweats, and heads downstairs for breakfast. As awesome as going home with Bob was, his dad's bacon-and-eggs makes a firm argument all on its own for coming home on a Saturday morning. Especially since the traffic they'd gotten stuck in had held them up just enough that they hadn't even made a half-assed attempt to grab any kind of food, and Spencer always forgets just how hungry he gets after slaying. And he has to be home often enough to allay any suspicion - if he's never around, his mom, if no one else, will start asking questions.
* * *
12.54pm
Bob is sitting in his living room, folding laundry, when Spencer gets to his place. "Hey," Spencer says, and then leans in to dare a quick and totally unprofessional kiss -- if it's not safe to be stupid and affectionate there, then it isn't anywhere.
Plus, it's not like Bob is complaining. He drops a t-shirt and says "Hey," kissing Spencer back lingeringly and running a hand through Spencer's hair. "So I got a call from a friend of mine at, like, ass o'clock this morning. He and some other old friends are going to be in town later this week and I guess some weird stuff is going on, like, following them around or something. So... you're up for magical weirdness, right?"
"Always," Spencer says, snuggling down into the couch. "Do you know when, though? I mean, I totally want to help, just, Ryan kind of scored tickets to see MCR at the Orleans, and while I am admittedly worried about the fact he was not specific as to how, I'd kind of like to go..."
Spencer trails off, leaving a nice obvious gap for Bob to tell him "Sure, take the night off, we'll slay later," but what Bob actually does is fidget with the dish towel he's holding and look totally squirrelly, not meeting Spencer's eyes, as he says "Um. Actually. Yeah, going to the concert shouldn't be a problem. They'll - we can meet up with them there."
Spencer narrows his eyes, sits up straight again. It seems like an innocuous statement, but it's not at all like Bob to act cagey like this. "What, your friends are big fans?" he asks.
"No, they - like. They are my friends. Mikey - uh, their bassist? - he's the one who called." Bob is smoothing out a pair of jeans with inordinate care when he finally looks up and at Spencer.
They stare at each other for a couple seconds. "You know My Chemical Romance," Spencer says flatly.
"I actually used to work for them," Bob starts.
Spencer can feel his eyebrows raise. "What, like a tech?"
Bob bites his lip and says, "Running sound, actually," and then, after a moment's pause, "I'm apparently pretty good at it?"
"And you didn't think this was something you could've told me- told us, before now?" Spencer demands.
"It didn't come up!" Bob says in feeble self-defence.
"The hell it didn't. Fuck, Bob, I have listened to them with you! Don't tell me there was never a chance for you to say something, because I will call you a liar to your face."
"Spencer, seriously, you can't have thought that I, like, sprung from an egg the day I met you. I had a life before I was your Watcher."
"Yeah, a life you never ever talk about," Spencer shoots back. "Anything else that didn't come up?"
Bob gives a weak grin. "My ex is going to be at the concert, too."
Well, that's just... really unwelcome information. "And he- she?- is...?" Spencer is actually holding his breath, because- if Bob used to, like, date Gerard Way or something, Spencer is going to have to throw up. Or cry. And never tell Ryan, who would just be fucking jealous.
"Brian. Schechter. Their-"
"Yeah, I know who Brian is," Spencer says distantly. It's not like he didn't know Bob had been with people before him, but he didn't expect he'd seen pictures of any of them. He didn't want to know how hot any of them were. Spencer knows exactly how hot Brian Schechter is, and if that's what Bob is used to... well. Spencer already didn't know why Bob is with him, and this is just not helping him answer that question.
Bob reaches out, hand brushing Spencer's shoulder. Spencer doesn't flinch, is careful to keep his face calm, but he can't help but edge away from Bob on the couch. Bob's hand falls back to his side. "Spence," he says. "It's been over for years, we're just friends now, it's not a big deal."
"It is a big deal!" Spencer cries, standing up. "You know more about me than almost anyone, okay, and you never talk about yourself, and then you spring this on me?"
"I didn't- look, just because you sing I'm Not Okay in the car doesn't make it relevant when we're, like, chasing after a vampire."
"Things don't always have to be relevant - you could have said, like, 'hey, I know this band.' You can tell me things. All we ever talk about is slaying!"
"That isn't true! Spence, you're more than just a slayer to me, okay, you know that." Bob's starting to get frustrated now, too, and that look of forced calm that Spencer hates is starting to slip. He's not sure if he's happy about that or not, actually.
"Sure, fine. I need to go talk to Ryan," Spencer says, not quite looking at Bob. He turns to go. "I'm going to patrol on my own tonight."
"I don't know if that's a good idea-"
"Yeah, whatever. I'll talk to you later. Or something."
* * *
1.40pm
Given that Ryan isn't at home, and Brendon doesn't really have visitors, it's a safe bet that they're both going to be at Jon's apartment. Spencer trudges down the hall, looking at his feet and trying to work out what he's even going to say -- he's probably being irrational, he knows it, but knowing that doesn't do anything to make the spiky ball of gloom that's settled itself into his chest give up and go. Probably if he was more of a grown-up he'd be handling this better, but he's acutely aware right now that he's... not.
He's pushing open the door to the living room before he even registers that, actually, it's a little too quiet in the apartment for somewhere containing three teenage boys, especially when one of them is Brendon.
Unfortunately, the slayer reflexes can only do so much, and in the one point four seconds that elapse before Spencer's brain kicks back in with near-frantic demands to his limbs to turn the hell around already, he gets an eyeful. Quite the eyeful, actually. Jon growls and grabs for the threadbare throw rug from the couch, but it's not like Spencer can un-know that Brendon is pretty much naked underneath it, or that Ryan's boxers are kind of too small (oh god) and plaid today, and that Jon's mouth was- and Ryan's hand-
It's not that Spencer hasn't thought about threesomes. It's not even that he hasn't thought about the types that have two or even three guys involved -- not that Spencer has anything against lesbians, either. He's pretty much a fan of attractive naked people in general. He's a teenager, and a guy; he's pretty comfortable with the whole being bi-or-okay-mostly-into-guys-but-keeping-his-options-open thing, and he likes a good jerk-off fantasy as much as the next dude. It's just that... it's just that he'd never really thought all that much about the mechanics -- just about a lot of skin and sweat and hands and mouths -- and he'd definitely, definitely never thought about the mechanics when they involved three of his closest friends, jeez.
"Spencer! Fucking knock!" Ryan's voice is a bit higher than usual, and Spencer is pretty sure he could explain why, too. Fucking hell. Jon is just a little flustered looking, but then he, at least, is mostly still clothed, albeit in a pretty compromising position himself. Brendon is kind of trying to tuck himself behind Jon and Ryan and not saying anything at all, although to be fair it's really not as if it's the first time Spencer's seen Brendon naked. Everyone's seen Brendon naked. He'd just kind of forgotten that Jon and Ryan see Brendon naked in a totally different light than he does.
Spencer backs out of the room, face scrunched up tight as he thanks god he's been over at Jon's often enough by now to dodge both the hall table and Dylan blindfolded. "I did! I knocked, sorry, I didn't- shit, sorry."
He turns around, back against the wall, and waits for the space of a couple breaths. Because, wow, yeah, his day really needed to get more awkward. Spencer lets his head fall back to hit the wall a couple times and considers his options.
"So, hey, can you guys maybe put your pants back on so I can steal Ryan for a minute?" he yells around the doorway, not quite daring to put his head back in yet. There's a quiet murmur that he can't quite make out (and wouldn't try to even if he could), and then another thirty seconds or so before Ryan walks out of the living room, pulling at his shirt so it sits straight, tugging the leather bracelets back down around his wrist. Apparently Ryan leaves his jewellery on while he's having sex. Which is really not information Spencer ever expected or wanted to have.
"What?" Ryan asks, not looking anywhere near as uncomfortable as Spencer knows that he would. God, it's unfair.
"I. Um." Now that he's here, he still doesn't know where to start, and all the rehearsed lines he'd thought of on the way to Ryan's and then Jon's have fallen right out of his head. Depending on his brain to just come up with the right words to talk about it when he got there had not been one of his smarter moves, either. "Hey, so. Going to that MCR concert shouldn't be a problem," he starts, fully aware of just how inadequate that is. This is so stupid, it really is, but- he just kind of needs Ryan right now, even if he's not sure how to say that. And it's not that he doesn't like Brendon and Jon, either, he just- needs some best friend time.
Ryan's look tells him that Ryan doesn't exactly think that was news worth interrupting boyfriend time for, either.
"Weren't you at Bob's this afternoon?" Ryan asks, instead, and Spencer can just feel his shoulders going tight and high.
"Yeah. He wanted to tell me he's got some friends coming in to town later this week. They've been having some kind of woo-woo mystical crap going down, and they wanted to see if we could help them out."
Ryan gives Spencer the eyebrow raise of 'I gather these two pieces of information are connected but I really don't see how.' "And?"
"And," Spencer continues, "it turns out they're Bob's friends he wants us to help."
Ryan pokes Spencer's side with a bony finger and says, a little plaintively, "Spencer. Make sense."
Spencer makes a face and tries again. "My Chemical Romance are the friends that Bob wants us to help. He wants us to meet with them after the show and- I don't know, slay or whatever."
Ryan's gone kind of big-eyed and even more monotone than usual. "Are you shitting me?" Okay, so maybe that news was worth interrupting them with after all, Spencer thinks, a little meanly, but doesn't say anything out loud.
"No, stone cold for-serious truth." Spencer scowls again. Ryan just stares at him, considering.
"Fuck. That's- that's amazing. So why the bitchface?" Ryan asks, probably understandably enough.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Spencer mumbles. Okay, yeah, it's Ryan, but that still doesn't mean he actually wants to talk about his feelings or anything. This should not be this hard.
"Yeah, hi, Spence, you come stomping in all 'someone just ate all the cookies and broke my best crayons', you say you want to talk to me alone, and you're not in the living room right now telling Brendon and Jon how we're going to meet My Chemical Romance and flailing, so... yeah, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Ryan crosses his arms over his chest and looks expectant.
"It's a little disturbing how you're still using metaphors from kindergarten," Spencer starts, but that's not going to fly and he knows it. Spencer caves. Okay, like he wasn't going to -- this is why he came over anyway, he kind of needs to lay this out so Ryan can tell him he's being an idiot and he can get over it, but it doesn't actually make it any more pleasant. "Yeah, so Bob also kind of- he told me that they're not just his friends. He used to work for them." Ryan looks intrigued, but doesn't ask. "And, um. He used to be dating Brian Schechter."
"So?"
"So- so he- Brian Schechter, Ry, and he didn't even- he didn't tell me until he had to, and- Fuck. I don't even know. What the fuck am I even doing, I can't- you know what, fuck it, you're busy, I should just go."
"Yeah, that's gonna happen," Ryan says, and grabs Spencer's shoulder and marches him firmly back into the room. Spencer's pretty sure that as a slayer he should be able to break Ryan's grip no problem, but he kind of... can't. He sits down on the couch as directed and makes an unimpressed face, slouching and pointedly ignoring Ryan. He thinks about how he's pretty glad that he saw the three of them on the floor just now, not that that rules out anything happening on the couch before now, and... ew. Spencer scowls even harder. Jon is on the other side of the couch, and Brendon -- thankfully dressed again now -- is sitting at his feet, shoulders tucked in between Jon's knees, fidgeting with the television remote.
* * *
1.46pm
Ryan sits down on Spencer's other side but leans over to the end table and grabs his book instead of explaining just why Spencer is now on the couch with them, instead of off doing Spencer-things. The silence is a little creepy, actually, and Jon knows from creepy.
"What's up?" he asks carefully. Jon isn't an expert in slayer yet, but it looks like Spencer is pouting.
"Spencer's bitchy because Bob didn't tell him he knows My Chemical Romance," Ryan says, not looking up from his book. That... is not a problem Jon would've predicted.
"That's not it, Ryan!" Spencer cries, and yeah, he's definitely pouting.
"Oh yeah, and Bob used to bone their manager," Ryan adds. Jon leans into Spencer, lets their shoulders bump companionably, doesn't even need to look down to tell that Brendon is patting Spencer's foot sympathetically - Brendon might not always take the most obvious route, but he's usually right about how to handle people when they're upset, and he's more comfort than most people might expect. Spencer just slouches back into the couch and looks unhappy.
"I can see how that might not come up?" Jon tries, feeling a little sympathy for Bob, too, because he has a feeling that no one enjoyed whatever conversation had happened before Spencer had gotten to his place. It couldn't have been the easiest thing to bring up; having the past thrown up in your face is never pleasant.
"That's not the point!" Spencer huffs. "I mean, it's not like I don't know he's been with other people before," Spencer is clearly determined to be fair, and just as clearly resenting the hell out of that fact, "I just. I don't know. It makes it weird. And what if-" Spencer throws his hands up in wordless exasperation and buries his face in his hands with a growl that, if Jon didn't know any better, he would've said could have come from close relatives of his. "I really like him," Spencer says, muffled by his palms.
"So go kiss and make up," Jon suggests gently. And, okay, yeah, that suggestion is maybe a little motivated by wanting to get Ryan and Brendon alone again -- Jon had plans for this couch, and they didn't involve bitchy slayers having romantic crises -- but he's at least eighty percent thinking of Spencer and Bob's best interests too.
"Not if he's going to be comparing me to Brian Schechter," Spencer says grouchily, but he does sit up, at least.
"Progress," Jon thinks, and tries to think of further sage advice, as Spencer's elder, especially since Ryan hasn't said a word, even though Jon can tell he's listening with every fibre of his body but has no intention of adding anything -- or should that be anything else, he wonders? Spencer and Ryan had been in the hall for a couple minutes before they'd trudged back in.
"It'll be fine, Spence," Brendon pipes up, and probably squeezes Spencer's ankle as well, Jon thinks -- Brendon's big on physical movement as punctuation.
"Yeah, cos you're being an idiot," Ryan adds, although only the four of them in that room could probably tell that he means that a lot more sympathetically than it sounds.
Jon can hear the clock ticking low in the kitchen, sees Dylan pad by the doorway out of the corner of his eye, and waits as the silence builds in the room, resigns himself to the fact that he's not going to be having sexytimes in the living room any time soon and tries to forward that memo to his dick as well. He's only about middling successful with that -- Brendon is still curled up between his feet, and the hand that's not on Spencer is playing with his toes in a way that Jon really, really hopes no one else is noticing, if only for the sake of his self-respect -- although it helps a lot that the person he's touching most right then is Spencer, who at least doesn't smell all kinds of inviting and familiar and stupidly seductive.
Brendon and Ryan both had worked out pretty fast how he responded to scent, and taken shameless advantage -- Brendon liked fancy shampoo as it was, and had started half-heartedly swiping his sisters' body lotions and creams sometimes as well, although that had occasioned some ground rules, because some of that stuff did smell pretty good from a distance, but tasted fucking awful if you were unlucky enough to try to lick some of the bare skin it'd been slathered on. Ryan just liked to use a little cologne when he remembered, but mostly had gotten into the habit of showering with really hot water, or jogging up the stairs to Jon's place, so that Jon would be innocently curled up with his guitar or the cat or trying to cook and then he'd get hit with a wave of warm-clean-boy smell about five seconds before Ryan made it inside, which was usually just enough time to put whatever was in his hands down safely before he wound up with an armful of Brendon and Ryan wrapped around both of their sides.
He still couldn't believe how well this was working, actually; that the three of them could just... be, that no one was bored and that they'd all just accepted him into their friendships as well as their bed, even with- even with the whole occasionally-really-fucking-hairy thing. And as much as he'd been quietly crushing on Ryan and Brendon to start with, even before they were friends and then later a team of roving mystical do-gooders (or possibly raving, Jon could admit), as much as he'd liked them both, thought they were hot, and then fun, and then got to appreciate Ryan's quiet smarts, the dry humour that hid under his even tones, and the way that Brendon threw himself whole-heartedly into everything, even if it was something that could get him hurt -- he was only really now starting to appreciate just how special they were. How crucially a part of his world they'd become. Brendon might seem to be overflowing with love for the whole world most of the time, but there was just enough reserve hiding under that exuberance that Jon could really appreciate the way that Brendon just... had no brakes with him and Ryan. And even Ryan was a hell of a lot more affectionate -- with touch and word -- than Jon would have expected, even when he had been quietly watching Brendon and Ryan together with hazy envy and no clear idea of which one of them he'd rather be.
...of course, sitting there next to Spencer thinking about how completely gone he was for Spencer's two best friends wasn't exactly helping anyone's situation any, so Jon shook off the reflective mood, sat up a little straighter and asked what any self-respecting twenty year old guy would do in that situation.
"So. X-box?"
* * *
2.41pm
"This is stupid."
"Shut up, Tom."
"No, it's stupid," Sean agrees, and flicks the paper off his straw across the table at Max.
They've sort of... colonised is kind of an ugly word, but they've taken up residence in the corner booth of a diner in the suburbs; it's not one of the all-you-can-eat special places so it's not too busy, and it isn't so dirty that none of them can bring themselves to actually eat there, but it's a little bit dingy and definitely not somewhere they're likely to run into any kind of trouble other than maybe a smart-mouth drunk or possibly some badly burned coffee.
"Is this really a good idea?" Ryan asks, playing with the ice in his drink. They'd been out for a couple of hours the night before, and while it was great to run all the kinks out after being stuck in an airline for four hours (which wasn't exactly anything any self-respecting werewolf was too fond of in the first place; it was disorienting being up in the air like that, and the recycled air was... not the greatest thing in the world if your sense of smell was unfortunately acute), they hadn't actually found much.
Max shrugs and looks uneasy. Serious isn't exactly an uncommon look for him, but he's definitely troubled right now. Tom's reminded again just how much more pack business Max winds up involved in than the rest of them, even as young as he is. The Chicago pack has been around for generations now, and they tend to match ability to occupation alarmingly well. "We know there's something going on out here, the newspapers and the reports that've come in from some of the allies we have in this area make that pretty clear."
"Kinda low on detail," Al says, leaning over to steal a fistful of Ryan's fries and getting his hand smacked for his troubles when he tries the same trick on Tom.
"Well, what do you expect?" Max asks, rhetorically, slouching back into the booth seat. "They aren't exactly going to go around advertising that some kind of weird animal is killing people. We're lucky they're not blaming it on coyotes."
"With really pointy teeth?" Ryan snorts, and kicks Al when he picks at his plate again.
"This isn't getting us anywhere," Sean reminds them all, because they've been having variations on this discussion since before they left Chicago. "We need a game plan. Figure out if there is one of our people out here, if we can help, or if we need to take more, uh, direct action- thank you," he adds hurriedly as the waitress swings past again to refill their coffee cups and hand them another jug of water.
"So we stake out the kinds of areas that it'll be attracted to," Max says, ticking options off on his fingers. "Maybe cover the bigger green areas close to town when they're less crowded in the evening, and we can hit some of the clubs where they've reported incidents."
"And if some recreational drinking happens then, too, well, that would just be unfortunate," Ryan adds, grinning. "I think we've got the funds for it."
"Your commitment is stunning," Al says dryly, and downs the rest of his drink. "So, we have a plan, then? Because I'd like to grab a couple more hours sleep before we go out, personally." Their hotel might be cheap, but it has air-conditioning and cable, both of which were instantly dubbed necessities for the climate.
"What about what happened last night?" Tom asks, a little reluctantly, because it's been on his mind all day and he's still not sure how to put words to the feeling. He slides his plate over to the space between Sean (who can always use more feeding up, he thinks) and Ryan, who's making big eyes to imply that he has been tragically, tragically deprived of potato due to the depredations of one Alfred and not at all because he had ordered the tiniest sandwich in the world to start with. Hindsight is such a bitch, especially when your metabolism tends to run nineteen-to-the-dozen and demands a good couple meals a day.
Max raises an eyebrow, cocks his head.
"The people we heard before Ryan found those hoofprints," he explains, playing with the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table, sliding them back and forth around the laminated menu, just for something to keep his hands busy. "I didn't realise it properly then, but this morning when we got up, it sort of... it came back to me a bit. I think there was someone different there."
"One of us?" Sean asks, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
Al is actually the one who just comes out and says it, "with a bunch of teenage humans? That's kind of unlikely."
"But it's probably something we should look into," Sean puts in, not exactly disagreeing with Al, either. None of them are. Wolves are social creatures, and they tend to keep to their own kind most of the time. Which means anything that makes their metaphorical and literal hackles go up, supernaturally speaking, is probably not good. Because more problems are just what they need right now, with a werewolf who may or may not need their help, a rogue unicorn on the loose and god only knows what else just living in Vegas. Strange territory is always kind of a bitch. "So we need to just... figure out what the hell else is running around this town, and take care of it," he says, stating the obvious.
"Do we really think it is him?" Max asks diffidently, not meeting any of their eyes. It's something else that they haven't actually talked about, not out loud, although they're all thinking it. It's the other reason they agreed to be the group to come out and investigate in the first place. Because a wolf away from his pack, out in Nevada? It's not hard to think of one name that fits that criteria, even if he's the last person any of them would expect to be in this kind of trouble.
"If he's here, we'll find him," Sean says firmly, and squeezes Tom's hand under the table.
* * *
6.05pm
"Ew, gross," Brendon says determinedly, and flicks the TV off the news channel and back onto another Simpsons rerun.
"What?" Jon yells from the kitchen, where he's staring at the frozen pizza in the oven, apparently in the hopes that it will cook faster if he does so. Brendon had totally pointed out the only way that would work usefully would be if he had X-Ray vision like Superman, and then Spencer had pointed out that X-Rays wouldn't actually cook anything, he'd need microwaves, and that had been a little uncomfortably close to physics homework for them all, which had killed that argument dead faster than any comics-based disagreement could usually be managed.
"Way, way too graphic description of the latest horrible murder out in the desert," Brendon explains with a shrug, and digs his toes into Ryan's hip. "Like, do we really need to know all the gory details? I see enough horrible stab wounds on ER, thanks." Brendon nudges Ryan harder. He needs to pay more attention to them and less to antagonising Spencer, who is totally having a rough day, despite the liberal application of Mariokart and junk food that his friends have been dosing him with.
"I can't believe they let them take cameras that close to a crime scene," Spencer says, kicking the X-box controller back under the coffee table, which was basically where Jon stored them anyway. "It doesn't seem all that helpful but, whatever, media of the new millenium, blah blah. How's the pizza coming, Jon?"
"The cheese is starting to melt?" Jon says, but he sounds a little unsure. Brendon suspects Jon's maybe gotten distracted by a beer and isn't actually watching the pizza. Which could end badly, because Jon's apartment is pretty nice and all, and it certainly fits the three of them for snuggling and could probably hold about twenty people for a good party, but what it does have in reasonably solid walls and no worrisome stains on the carpets, it makes up for by lacking a fair amount of basic functionality, such as an oven that can hold a steady temperature or even has a timer. They have more than once managed to burn dinner with a lack of attention. And Brendon sticking his hand down Ryan's pants was only the problem on one of those occasions, thank you very much. He's occasionally shocked that Jon hasn't managed to set fire to anything ridiculous by himself, but probably that's one of those times where having the superpower sense of smell and all comes in handy. Also, there's the bathroom. About which Brendon prefers not to think, thank you very much.
"I'm so glad you're on top of that," Ryan deadpans, and Brendon snickers, because on top, and Spencer rolls his eyes at all of them, and it's just like normal. Just another night. No vampires or suddenly furry boyfriends or people trying to kill them. It's kinda nice.
"So what time is your thing tomorrow again, Ry?" Spencer asks at last, and Ryan surfaces properly from his book to slide off the sofa and sit between Brendon and Spencer (they'd been engaged in an epic Crash Team Racing battle; proximity to the TV had been absolutely vital to Brendon's winning strategy and Spencer had merely stolen the tactic from him). He leans into Spencer briefly, temple to temple, and Spencer seems to relax a little, at last, the background tension between him and Ryan finally dissolving as Ryan starts explaining where and when they're supposed to be meeting to see this DJ that he's been kind of stalking on the internet. It's sort of cute when Ryan gets all flustered and fanboys people, Brendon would totally be looking forward to My Chemical Romance for that alone, regardless of his own totally historic and not at all current crush on Gerard Way et al.
"Pizza's up," Jon yells from the kitchen, and there's the usual creak of the oven door protesting being opened, and some clatters that are probably dishes -- sometimes Jon likes to pretend they're civilised and serve things on plates, but it's not like any of them won't be eating with their fingers, it's pizza. "You staying, Spence?"
"Duh, yeah," Spencer yells back, and then scoots back up onto the couch, stretching his legs out along the seat as he leans back into the arm. "I'll head home for a bit soon, and then sneak out to patrol later. You guys can take the night off," he adds magnaminously, which is basically Spencer-code for "I kind of want to be alone right now".
Brendon would normally protest over Spencer's blatant couch-stealing, and totally fight for the best spot, but the floor is actually a lot better for being able to stick stuff on the coffee table. Besides he can lean all over Ryan, and feed Jon tidbits whenever he gets his ass in there, and Spencer will feel a lot better if he gets to yell at them more for being gross and couple-y, so it's basically win-win.
* * *
7.30pm
"I don't think a unicorn's going to be around here anywhere," Max says sensibly. Somehow, it seems completely safe and appropriate to make a statement like that in broad daylight and in public when the 'public' concerned is the Strip.
"Well, yeah," Ryan says, dragging him into Caesar's, "but we need to rule it out, right?" He stalks purposefully towards the penny slots, the other four in tow.
"Besides," Sean adds, even more sensibly, "we kind of have to wait until dark to start prowling around parks and graveyards, right? Because otherwise someone's going to panic and call the park ranger, and then where will we be?"
"In the county pound bitching about tranquillizer darts?" Tom suggests, snickering, and Ryan and Sean look kind of betrayed, because seriously, are they ever going to live that down?
* * *
Next.
* * *
Saturday
* * *
12.01am
"Hey, no- it went that way, behind the trees, guys, come on."
Following that pronouncement there's a series of thumping crashes indicative of several bodies racing through the bushes and vague excuse for brush that circles the cemetery, and a couple more shouted words drift back; nothing terribly meaningful or urgent-sounding.
"Guess it was just kids playing around or something," Al says with a shrug, eyes low to the ground, searching carefully for any hint of what they've been looking for.
"Didn't sound like it at first," Tom says, a few paces off to the right, and runs his fingers over the engraved letters of the tombstone he's standing by, head cocked thoughtfully to one side. "I don't know, I just- I think we're missing something here."
"Or you're just not sure whether you'd rather walk into someone trying to get lucky and laugh at them, or if you'd like to run into a vampire that missed the little buffet serving that just left," Sean says from the other side of Al, humming distractedly and watching the roofs of the crypts rather than where he's actually walking, and only just saving himself from tripping on an upraised slab of concrete.
"You just want to get your teeth into something," Tom mocks, "don't start projecting, dude."
"I'll get my teeth into you," Sean threatens, scrunching up his face in a mock-grimace and crooking his fingers into claws to wave at Tom.
"Wow, yes, you're terrifying creatures of the night," Max says, "but I think Ryan's found something over there, so can we maybe focus?"
The wind whipping through the cypresses around the boundary is the only sound for a few seconds, casting broken shadows under the sliver of moon high in the sky, and five dark figures lope off towards the other end of the graveyard.
* * *
12.02am
"I can't believe Spencer had to get that one," Brendon says, hands on his hips.
Jon grins up at him, wholly unapologetic.
"I can't believe you're trying to make Jon play fetch," Ryan says loftily from his vantage point leaning against the side of Brendon's van, flipping through his book as if he's actually trying to read it rather than fondly watching Brendon and Jon horse around.
"Hey, he went after the first three," Brendon says with a shrug, and runs his hand over Jon's head, rubbing his thumb just behind his ear in the place that makes Jon stretch and wriggle appreciatively. It's disconcertingly puppyish, which would be odd enough if he was just a wolf; from a guy who just happens to spend occasional chunks of time wolf-shaped it's somehow even weirder. Brendon doesn't seem to notice those things any more, Ryan's still dealing with the occasional bout of cognitive dissonance.
"You do get he's not an actual dog, right?" Spencer says, and Ryan can tell he's being provoking and not actually serious, but Brendon acts as if he's not well aware of the same thing, his hand stilling on Jon's head as he makes a shocked face and pretends to snatch his hand back. Jon's tail still waves cheerfully, tracing broad arcs in the dirt, and he's clearly still on alert anyway.
"He doesn't mind, though," Brendon goes on thoughtfully, eyes still scanning the ground around them for a suitable stick to throw (or vampires, or other monsters; whatever, he's on the hunt) "and it's not like any of us are threatening to get him a flea collar for his birthday."
Jon's unimpressed growl is all wolf, and Ryan can't help snickering any more than the other three can.
"He's probably just bored," Bob says over his shoulder, back to them as he scans the road and the completely silent and non-threatening night. "It has been fucking de- quiet around here lately, you guys could probably take off it you'd like, really. Spence and I can cover the rest of patrol, I don't think we're likely to run into anything too big." There've been barely any vamps lately, and nothing bigger than that - just some run-of-the-mill crime, robberies and assaults and a serial killer they're leaving for the cops to deal with.
"I object to your claim that Jon Walker is only playing with me out of boredom," Brendon says, and Bob raises an eyebrow. "Which isn't to say that heading home early would be bad!" he adds, hurriedly.
Jon paws at the back door of the car, an unmistakeable signal that people who've still got opposable thumbs and pants on need to help him out, and Ryan leans over to pull the door open for him, attention still half on his notebook and half on Brendon who's trying to persuade Bob to give him a piggyback ride.
The wind picks up a little more and Ryan huddles back into his coat, suppressing a shudder. Summer's definitely almost over, the nights getting longer and colder. In defiance of the temperature drop, Jon's still wearing his flip-flops everywhere, and he bounces out the door again dressed in them (and jeans, and a t-shirt that's faded into illegibility), knocking shoulders with Ryan.
"What's up?" he asks, yawning a little, stretching out his jaw as if he's almost forgotten how to use it properly.
"Same old, same old," Ryan says, leaning back into Jon. He's definitely not going to complain about an early night. College is starting in, like, two days, and he's not exactly feeling prepared. Plus, more time with Jon and Brendon. Never a bad thing.
"How did he get you to play fetch?" Ryan asks quietly, genuinely curious.
"You don't think I indulged him out of the kindness of my heart?" Jon replies with a tiny smile. Ryan is not buying that. Or, rather, he is, but Jon's expression says he doesn't want him to think that's the whole reason.
"Was it his debonair charm?" Ryan suggests, and they both look over at Brendon, who catches the look and shoots them a brilliant smile. Ryan grins helplessly back, doesn't even need to look to know Jon's doing the same.
"Actually, he offered me lewd and exciting sex acts," Jon deadpans, and Ryan snorts and is about to ask for details when the wind picks up again, sending flurries of dust and the few early leaves that've fallen already flying, and Jon goes tense and completely rigid against him.
Ryan's hand is on the stake Spencer insists he carry before he's even realised he's moving. "What is it?" he hisses. Spencer is still scanning the cemetery grounds half-heartedly through the gate, but Ryan's pretty sure more of his attention is on the conversation he's having with Bob. None of them have noticed anything, and Ryan's about to- yell, or wave, or something when Jon relaxes again, and just looks perturbed.
"What was that?" Bob asks, looking concerned.
Jon frowns.
"I don't- I'm not sure. I thought I heard something, but- it's ridiculous, there's nothing there." He edges towards the gates, anyway, and Ryan follows, raising an eyebrow at Spencer, who joins them smoothly. The group of them peer back into the dark, the area they'd just patrolled through. Nothing is moving but the wind and a few stray pieces of foliage, the only noise the insects and the traffic out on the main street.
"There's nothing there," Jon repeats, shaking his head as if to rid it of the notion, and Ryan doesn't disbelieve him; not Jon's senses as well as Spencer's. But he kind of has to wonder what was there.
* * *
3.37am
"Okay, yeah, so letting the others go home early wasn't a bad idea after all."
"It was your idea, Bob," Spencer points out logically, and tries to defuse the hint of told-you-so-ness in his tone by shifting a half-inch closer. It's not like he's not already kind of snuggled up to Bob anyway.
"My ideas are not always good," Bob says, somewhat ruefully, and Spencer really hopes he's not actually referring to the way that his other hand is pretty much on Spencer's ass right now, because in Spencer's mind, that is actually a great idea.
"Does that mean we can go home, then?" Spencer asks hopefully, because. Well. Bob's hand is on his ass, it's kind of safe to say his mind is not exactly on slaying right now, and he's kind of hoping Bob's isn't, either. "It has been pretty quiet, I don't think we've even seen more than one or two vamps this week and we've hit the usual spots already."
Spencer's well aware he's kind of... wheedling. Maybe whining. But it's really not that warm, and he's kind of bored, and Bob won't make out with him when they're on patrol, even if it is only the two of them. ("You have no idea how embarrassing it would be to get killed because we were busy sucking face," Bob had said once, "I'd, like, never live it down." "You'd be dead," Spencer had pointed out a little ghoulishly, and Bob had just muttered, "Yeah, and my mother would make sure to get me raised from the dead so she could yell at me and kill me again herself afterwards, so no. Learn a little patience." And then he'd patted Spencer's hip consolingly and Spencer had gotten kind of distracted, and then they had gotten jumped by three vamps on the hunt for a little easy dinner so it wasn't like Bob hadn't made his point. Still, though.)
"Um," and Bob is clearly wavering, looking around the badly-lit street they're lurking on, a tangle of alleys well behind the Strip where all the lowlifes seem to wash up eventually, as well as the poor suckers who're just down on their luck enough to not be missed and wind up as dinner. When Spencer isn't there to do something about it, at least. But Bob's been watching the papers and the guy he knows at the morgue hasn't picked up on anything in a good week and a half now that seems like it's something they should be paying attention to. Spencer thinks it's like the vampires and demons and other assorted forces of darkness have all decided to head south for the winter, although when he had said that to Bob, Bob just looked thoughtful and as if he was making a mental note to check the obituaries in Florida.
Spencer nuzzles against Bob's shoulder -- one thing that them hooking up had been really good for was that they could blend in a lot better in some of the seedier parts of town, now; two guys wrapped around each other and pressed up against a wall drew a lot less attention in those kinds of places than two guys walking around with five feet between them at all times -- and widens his eyes. It works for Brendon, like, all the time, it should totally work for him too.
"I'm not falling for that, jeez," Bob snorts, but his fingers curl possessively around Spencer's hip and his other hand is still on his ass and doesn't look like moving any time soon, and, "So we're done patrolling, now?" Spencer asks quietly, and Bob tips his head back to look up at the stars, the sliver of moon, and then back down again to look at Spencer, laughing, "Okay, yes, we're done, happy?" and smiles against Spencer's mouth as he lifts his head up for a kiss.
That goes on for a little while, and it's pretty nice, even given the none-too-salubrious surroundings, and when a guy walking past wolf-whistles and shouts a filthy suggestion for what else they could do, Bob just frees one hand to flip him off and keeps on kissing Spencer (although Spencer does notice that Bob's eyes are open, and he's watching as the guy keeps walking, just in case).
"We should get going," Bob says with regret, not too much later, and pushes gently away from the wall. Spencer backs off easily enough, but he feels his stomach twist a little when Bob reaches out and squeezes his hand gently, once, before letting go again. He can feel his cheeks are a little pink, because, okay, holding hands, whatever, it's not like they're five year olds crossing the road or anything, but it would be kind of... nice. He takes a quick look through his eyelashes over at Bob, and Bob's not looking back at him either, just chewing on his lip and playing with the keys in his pocket. For Bob, that's as good as a two storey neon billboard announcing the arrival of the "kind of nervous and not sure he should've just done that" tour, and Spencer bites back a completely dorky smile of his own and just bumps his shoulder against Bob's as they walk back towards the car.
* * *
3.58am
"Want me to drop you home? Or were you meant to be at Ryan's or Brendon's?" Bob asks, keys in the ignition and car idling before they pull out of their parking spot. Spencer's not entirely sure how Bob's never once had the car broken into, given the shitty places they've had to leave it, and the fact that sometimes they don't even have time to lock the doors. He hasn't asked, but he kind of suspects some kind of witchcraft. Obvious exceptions aside, Spencer's pretty okay with that.
"It's Saturday morning," Spencer says slowly, because, yeah, he doesn't want to go home yet. Maybe it's kind of sad, but he's going to have to be at school five days a week, and at home for dinner, and on the weekends he'll basically be stuck trying to catch up on sleep and also not flunk out of his senior year, and half the time he sees his friends -- let alone his, well, let alone Bob -- he's working, so... he's inclined to be a little irresponsible right now.
"And...?" Bob trails off, but he puts the car into gear anyway, so Spencer doesn't think he's going to have to fight too hard for it tonight.
"And I don't have to do anything later today, so I was thinking maybe we could go back to your place and fool around?" Spencer slouches down in the front seat as best he can, and licks his lips, watching Bob pretend like he's not trying to keep his eyes on the road and off Spencer.
"What if I have something I should be doing?" Bob asks, testing, but he's taking the freeway with the best exit for his place and not Spencer's, so Spencer's pretty damn sure that counts as mission accomplished.
"I'd say that something better be me," Spencer replies, quick as a flash, and Bob snorts and then tries to cover it, just shaking his head.
"I'm just glad you're didn't use that opportunity for a 'your mom' joke," Bob admits, and then flicks Spencer's knee chastisingly anyway, "but seriously, classy, Smith, very classy."
"Oh, like you're any better," Spencer points out, with a vivid memory of the trash-talking during the last GTA tournament they'd wound up having at Bob's place; he'd known Bob was still kind of trying to behave himself around them all, but if that was the kind of language Bob had learned growing up as a Watcher-to-be, then probably it was good that Spencer hadn't been informed of his own destiny until just lately. His mom would totally wash his mouth out with soap even now if she ever heard him say some of that. Which wasn't to say he hadn't filed away some of the choicer phrases for later use.
"I seem to remember you saying something about liking my mouth," Bob says teasingly, and it's Spencer's turn to bite his lip, because that was under totally different circumstances, and, fuck, Bob drives like a little old lady sometimes.
* * *
4.15am
"Fuck, Bob, I can't believe you managed to find traffic at four am." Spencer slouches more in the passenger seat and drums his fingers against his thigh. They've moved about thirty feet in the last five minutes, and the flashing lights up ahead and brake-lights all around them are doing nothing to reassure his dick that it's going to be seeing much of Bob any time soon. His life seriously sucks.
"Hey, it's your city," Bob says, drumming his own hands on the steering wheel but looking annoyingly zen otherwise. "This kind of shit does not happen in Chicago, Spence, since most places there actually close overnight."
Spencer doesn't see fit to dignify that with a response, just fidgets and watches the digital readout on Bob's dashboard tick the minutes off as they creep further forward.
"I'm going to have to head out pretty soon," he says reluctantly, after they're finally clear of the accident -- some ten minutes later, easily -- and turning onto Bob's street.
"You don't have to come in," Bob says, "I could just take you home-"
"Yeah, no," Spencer says, "it's the last weekend before school starts, and we haven't for- I mean, I don't know how much time we'll have, and- fuck, Bob, I want to, okay?"
"Not gonna say no," Bob says quietly, and pulls into his drive, leaning over to kiss Spencer hard on the mouth before he even turns the car off.
* * *
4.52am
Spencer stretches, arching off the bed as he feels the tension start to bleed out of his muscles at last, the sheets twisting around his ankles as he rolls over.
Bob trails his hand over Spencer's stomach lightly, fond and greedy. "Feel better?" he asks, running his thumbnail around Spencer's bellybutton, voice husky.
"Mmmm," Spencer agrees, shifting onto his side to face Bob, hooking his knee over Bob's thigh to hold him close as he slides his free hand into Bob's hair, smoothing it back from his face and rubbing his thumb over the raspy skin on Bob's cheeks. "Definitely. This Watcher thing doesn't work out for you, you should definitely look into massage as a career." Spencer stretches again, working the last of the kinks out of his back, enjoying the way Bob growls as Spencer's body pushes against his, letting the moment draw out while they watch each other, eyes only inches apart and mouths even closer. Spencer couldn't say, afterwards, which one of them it was who'd caved first; just that first Bob's breath was puffing hot against his face, and then his lips were pressed against Spencer's, his mouth cool and inviting, and then Bob rolled them both so that Spencer was tucked underneath him, half-squirming for any kind of friction and yielding completely as Bob's hands moved over him with absolute confidence.
"Really good," Spencer says foggily not all that much later, sprawled out over Bob's chest and having to shake his head because he's somehow wound up with a mouthful of Bob's hair. He slides down Bob's body just a little, tucking his face into the crook of Bob's shoulder; he's actually a little too hot for that much skin-on-skin contact now, but he doesn't really want to move.
"You're really good at that yourself," Bob says sleepily, and maybe kisses the top of Spencer's head, or maybe he's just stretching.
"That's what she said," Spencer mumbles, and tries to grab the sheet with his toes to pull it up over them without having to actually get up and move. He wouldn't put it past Bob to have all kinds of anti-burglary charms on his windows and all, but outside of the heat of the moment he's not entirely comfortable lying around bare-assed where any self-respecting voyeur could see them.
"Your mom," Bob says indistinctly, and Spencer snickers because he can't not. And then groans, because- his mom, shit, he kind of has to get home, still, and now he's comfortable and really doesn't want to move. Seriously, his life, shit.
He lets his eyes close for just a minute, feeling Bob's heart-beat thump steadily under his ear, just enjoying the lazy drift of the moment, and then steels himself to get up. He rolls off Bob and onto his feet more steadily than he'd have expected five minutes ago, bending to pull the blankets up to Bob's hips -- if he's cold he can manage the rest himself, Spencer figures -- and then bends over to drop a closed-mouth kiss onto Bob's lips.
"I have to get home," he murmurs, and turns to start gathering up his clothes from where they're strewn over Bob's floor.
Bob fights to get his eyes properly open and makes as if he's going to sit up. "Wait a sec, Spence," he says, a little hoarse, "I'll drive you, just let me get-"
Spencer zips up his jeans and then kneels on the side of the bed, hand gentle as he pushes Bob back down again, ducking down for one last, quick kiss. "No, you need more sleep than I do, I can run it. Don't worry." Bob gives him a rueful smile, but he's definitely looking a little faded around the edges now, and Spencer feels a quick flush of guilt because, yeah, Bob has been getting less and less sleep, lately, and Spencer kind of hasn't been helping with that. It's kind of unfair that Bob has to keep up with him, without the benefit of the crazy slayer metabolism and ability to survive pretty well on two or three hours sleep a night. Which isn't to say that Spencer loves getting up in the mornings any more than he used to, just that he hasn't quite graduated to the bags under the eyes and vicious caffeine dependency that Bob (and to a lesser extent Ryan and Brendon) have been cultivating.
Maybe this little break in their workload is actually a good thing. Bob might be able to catch up on a bit more sleep without Spencer having to try and ban him from coming out on patrols a couple nights a week, which he had been starting to seriously consider, and knew wouldn't exactly go down well whenever he suggested it.
"Night, Spence," Bob mumbles, as Spencer pauses in the doorway for one last look, and then he's dead to the world, and Spencer, a little sheepishly, holds that memory close to him as he laces up his shoes, locks the door behind himself and sets off in the chilly predawn darkness to jog home.
It seems to take less time every time he's had to cover that distance, and it's not all that much later when Spencer is moving cautiously towards his own front door -- no sense climbing in a window when the front door is actually further away from his parents' room, and as soon as he gets his sneakers off he can pretend like he was just getting up for a glass of water anyway -- making sure not to trip the motion sensor lights his dad had installed a couple years back, and breathing a sigh of relief when he gets the door open and toes his sneakers off into the hall closet without hearing a breath of sound from the rest of the house. He does his best stealthy ninja impression past his sister's room and into his own, only bothering to kick off his jeans as well before going face-down onto his bed. Fuck, he is kind of tired himself, and hey, at least it's a Saturday and no one's going to expect him up much before noon anyway.
His sheets are all twisted up and loose from when he hadn't bothered to make the bed after getting up that morning, and he has a faint and disquieting flash of some kind of nightmare, something that'd made him even less keen to get up than usual, but the details won't come back at all, and all he really wants to do is let himself pass the hell out like he'd been tempted to do back at Bob's.
If he dreams anything, he doesn't remember it when he wakes.
* * *
8.30am
The insistent chime of his phone breaks through the last stubborn vestiges of sleep, and with a groan, Bob flails a hand out from under the sheets and grabs it before it can vibrate off the end-table.
"Bryar," he gets out, because, seriously, it's- he cracks one eye open grudgingly to look at the blinking red display on his alarm clock -- it's fucking eight in the morning, or as good as, and he's pretty sure it's the weekend, too. All of which is to say that whoever's calling him can just live with that much of a nod towards good manners. Even his mom knows better than to call him before noon, although she makes fun of him for it.
"We're going to need help," a voice announces right over the top of him, no preamble. Bob's stomach churns with a brief surge of unready panic before training and will kick back into gear and wrestle that immediate reaction back down under control.
"Who is this?" he asks, and as if he hasn't said a word the guy -- he's pretty sure it's a guy, the voice is low, masculine, oddly calm -- keeps talking.
"One before us and one with us; two after you and yours, Bob Bryar," and it's hearing his name which makes Bob really wake up and register, shit, he knows this voice, and there is no way this is going to end well for everyone.
"Mikeyway?" he asks incredulously, although if Mikey's in this state it's not exactly as if he should be expecting an answer or to even be able to hold a coherent conversation. He jams the phone tighter to his ear and scrabbles in the drawer for a pen and paper, because sometimes the exact words are important, and shit, Mikey's still talking and he's missing parts of it. He hopes to god that Frank or Gerard or Ray or Otter or someone is on the other end doing the same thing, but he has a bad feeling that it's kind of unlikely this time of the morning. Fuck. This is just what they need.
Mikey's voice doesn't change tone at all as he keeps talking, and Bob's kicking himself for only having a crappy ass biro by the bed, even a pencil would be better, and this is so not the time to be thinking about better things he could be keeping in those drawers, especially since he actually gets to, well. Use some of them, these days.
Which is exactly why Watchers aren't meant to hook up with their slayers, because Bob's attention span is for shit right now, and he pinches the palm of his hand hard to wake himself up and goes back to writing, pressing down hard enough into the pad that even when the ink doesn't quite run the impression is obvious.
"They're hurting and they're dying," Mikey says, precise and kind of monotone. "Tell me later there's no such thing as coincidence, okay?" he says, and then there's just a dial tone echoing in Bob's ear.
"Fucking precogs," Bob groans and slumps back onto his pillow, arm covering his eyes.
He's not entirely out of the loop. He'd known My Chem were playing a festival out in the desert over the weekend, had a side show in town sometime that week. He'd been tempted to go along, maybe even bring Spence, although given the crowd that Gerard and the guys appealed to these days, that could've been a little problematic all by itself, what with Spencer still being in school (if not in any of Bob's classes; they'd made damn sure of that).
Which just brings Bob once again facefirst into one of the issues he's been doing his best to ignore. He scrubs his hands over gritty eyes and tries to think of one part of his life he's not fucking up completely right then and there. Depressingly, nothing much comes to mind immediately; only his stomach chiming in to remind him that among his many sins, he hadn't gotten around to putting any kind of solid food into it last night.
With a last regretful thought for the hour or two of lovely, carefree sleep-in he was clearly not going to be getting, Bob rolls out of bed and pads towards the kitchen.
It was going to be a long two or three hours until anyone else on the tour bus was likely to be awake and making any kind of sense -- there really was no point in calling back then, might as well make sure someone got enough sleep -- so he might as well get himself fed and then start what research he could. Especially since the discussion he's going to have to have with Spencer later in the day is probably going to suck pretty seriously. He maybe should've been laying some of the groundwork weeks ago. It's not a good sign when researching magical rituals which call for bits of people (and seriously, ew. Bob's pretty glad he's only ever flirted with some of the darker arts -- and some of their hotter practioners) is more fun than practice runs of Important Relationship Talks. And he's not inclined to do either on an empty stomach, so after a quick survey of the fridge (mostly empty), he throws enough basic ingredients into the frying pan to qualify as a lazy man's omelette and leaves them to brown as he pulls an armful of books down from the shelves and starts looking up star charts and astrological calendars -- there's no guarantee it's going to be something with a nice neat mystical convergence, but god knows he's been a Watcher long enough to know that ruling that out is a good place to start.
* * *
10.13am
Spencer's mom is far, far too cheerful when she wakes him up.
"Mooooooom," he groans, "it's not even eleven."
"And you have chores," she says mercilessly, and swings open his curtains. Fuck, light. Ow.
"Don't you know growing boys need their sleep?" he asks, without holding out much hope.
"I think I read something about that," his mom says, and bends over to pick up his jeans and whatever other dirty clothes are bunched up on his floor, and Spencer has a brief and panicky moment where he can't remember if he's left anything in the pockets he shouldn't have -- exactly what that could be he's not sure, he's already passed off stakes as drumsticks more than once without question, and it's not like he's out smoking up or knocking girls up or anything -- and his mom just shakes her head at him with a smile and adds, "but you should have had more than enough by now, so up and at 'em, kiddo."
Spencer pulls the pillow over his head and groans, but there's no escaping it, he knows, so after a suitable interval of muttering he gets up, pulls on sweats, and heads downstairs for breakfast. As awesome as going home with Bob was, his dad's bacon-and-eggs makes a firm argument all on its own for coming home on a Saturday morning. Especially since the traffic they'd gotten stuck in had held them up just enough that they hadn't even made a half-assed attempt to grab any kind of food, and Spencer always forgets just how hungry he gets after slaying. And he has to be home often enough to allay any suspicion - if he's never around, his mom, if no one else, will start asking questions.
* * *
12.54pm
Bob is sitting in his living room, folding laundry, when Spencer gets to his place. "Hey," Spencer says, and then leans in to dare a quick and totally unprofessional kiss -- if it's not safe to be stupid and affectionate there, then it isn't anywhere.
Plus, it's not like Bob is complaining. He drops a t-shirt and says "Hey," kissing Spencer back lingeringly and running a hand through Spencer's hair. "So I got a call from a friend of mine at, like, ass o'clock this morning. He and some other old friends are going to be in town later this week and I guess some weird stuff is going on, like, following them around or something. So... you're up for magical weirdness, right?"
"Always," Spencer says, snuggling down into the couch. "Do you know when, though? I mean, I totally want to help, just, Ryan kind of scored tickets to see MCR at the Orleans, and while I am admittedly worried about the fact he was not specific as to how, I'd kind of like to go..."
Spencer trails off, leaving a nice obvious gap for Bob to tell him "Sure, take the night off, we'll slay later," but what Bob actually does is fidget with the dish towel he's holding and look totally squirrelly, not meeting Spencer's eyes, as he says "Um. Actually. Yeah, going to the concert shouldn't be a problem. They'll - we can meet up with them there."
Spencer narrows his eyes, sits up straight again. It seems like an innocuous statement, but it's not at all like Bob to act cagey like this. "What, your friends are big fans?" he asks.
"No, they - like. They are my friends. Mikey - uh, their bassist? - he's the one who called." Bob is smoothing out a pair of jeans with inordinate care when he finally looks up and at Spencer.
They stare at each other for a couple seconds. "You know My Chemical Romance," Spencer says flatly.
"I actually used to work for them," Bob starts.
Spencer can feel his eyebrows raise. "What, like a tech?"
Bob bites his lip and says, "Running sound, actually," and then, after a moment's pause, "I'm apparently pretty good at it?"
"And you didn't think this was something you could've told me- told us, before now?" Spencer demands.
"It didn't come up!" Bob says in feeble self-defence.
"The hell it didn't. Fuck, Bob, I have listened to them with you! Don't tell me there was never a chance for you to say something, because I will call you a liar to your face."
"Spencer, seriously, you can't have thought that I, like, sprung from an egg the day I met you. I had a life before I was your Watcher."
"Yeah, a life you never ever talk about," Spencer shoots back. "Anything else that didn't come up?"
Bob gives a weak grin. "My ex is going to be at the concert, too."
Well, that's just... really unwelcome information. "And he- she?- is...?" Spencer is actually holding his breath, because- if Bob used to, like, date Gerard Way or something, Spencer is going to have to throw up. Or cry. And never tell Ryan, who would just be fucking jealous.
"Brian. Schechter. Their-"
"Yeah, I know who Brian is," Spencer says distantly. It's not like he didn't know Bob had been with people before him, but he didn't expect he'd seen pictures of any of them. He didn't want to know how hot any of them were. Spencer knows exactly how hot Brian Schechter is, and if that's what Bob is used to... well. Spencer already didn't know why Bob is with him, and this is just not helping him answer that question.
Bob reaches out, hand brushing Spencer's shoulder. Spencer doesn't flinch, is careful to keep his face calm, but he can't help but edge away from Bob on the couch. Bob's hand falls back to his side. "Spence," he says. "It's been over for years, we're just friends now, it's not a big deal."
"It is a big deal!" Spencer cries, standing up. "You know more about me than almost anyone, okay, and you never talk about yourself, and then you spring this on me?"
"I didn't- look, just because you sing I'm Not Okay in the car doesn't make it relevant when we're, like, chasing after a vampire."
"Things don't always have to be relevant - you could have said, like, 'hey, I know this band.' You can tell me things. All we ever talk about is slaying!"
"That isn't true! Spence, you're more than just a slayer to me, okay, you know that." Bob's starting to get frustrated now, too, and that look of forced calm that Spencer hates is starting to slip. He's not sure if he's happy about that or not, actually.
"Sure, fine. I need to go talk to Ryan," Spencer says, not quite looking at Bob. He turns to go. "I'm going to patrol on my own tonight."
"I don't know if that's a good idea-"
"Yeah, whatever. I'll talk to you later. Or something."
* * *
1.40pm
Given that Ryan isn't at home, and Brendon doesn't really have visitors, it's a safe bet that they're both going to be at Jon's apartment. Spencer trudges down the hall, looking at his feet and trying to work out what he's even going to say -- he's probably being irrational, he knows it, but knowing that doesn't do anything to make the spiky ball of gloom that's settled itself into his chest give up and go. Probably if he was more of a grown-up he'd be handling this better, but he's acutely aware right now that he's... not.
He's pushing open the door to the living room before he even registers that, actually, it's a little too quiet in the apartment for somewhere containing three teenage boys, especially when one of them is Brendon.
Unfortunately, the slayer reflexes can only do so much, and in the one point four seconds that elapse before Spencer's brain kicks back in with near-frantic demands to his limbs to turn the hell around already, he gets an eyeful. Quite the eyeful, actually. Jon growls and grabs for the threadbare throw rug from the couch, but it's not like Spencer can un-know that Brendon is pretty much naked underneath it, or that Ryan's boxers are kind of too small (oh god) and plaid today, and that Jon's mouth was- and Ryan's hand-
It's not that Spencer hasn't thought about threesomes. It's not even that he hasn't thought about the types that have two or even three guys involved -- not that Spencer has anything against lesbians, either. He's pretty much a fan of attractive naked people in general. He's a teenager, and a guy; he's pretty comfortable with the whole being bi-or-okay-mostly-into-guys-but-keeping-his-options-open thing, and he likes a good jerk-off fantasy as much as the next dude. It's just that... it's just that he'd never really thought all that much about the mechanics -- just about a lot of skin and sweat and hands and mouths -- and he'd definitely, definitely never thought about the mechanics when they involved three of his closest friends, jeez.
"Spencer! Fucking knock!" Ryan's voice is a bit higher than usual, and Spencer is pretty sure he could explain why, too. Fucking hell. Jon is just a little flustered looking, but then he, at least, is mostly still clothed, albeit in a pretty compromising position himself. Brendon is kind of trying to tuck himself behind Jon and Ryan and not saying anything at all, although to be fair it's really not as if it's the first time Spencer's seen Brendon naked. Everyone's seen Brendon naked. He'd just kind of forgotten that Jon and Ryan see Brendon naked in a totally different light than he does.
Spencer backs out of the room, face scrunched up tight as he thanks god he's been over at Jon's often enough by now to dodge both the hall table and Dylan blindfolded. "I did! I knocked, sorry, I didn't- shit, sorry."
He turns around, back against the wall, and waits for the space of a couple breaths. Because, wow, yeah, his day really needed to get more awkward. Spencer lets his head fall back to hit the wall a couple times and considers his options.
"So, hey, can you guys maybe put your pants back on so I can steal Ryan for a minute?" he yells around the doorway, not quite daring to put his head back in yet. There's a quiet murmur that he can't quite make out (and wouldn't try to even if he could), and then another thirty seconds or so before Ryan walks out of the living room, pulling at his shirt so it sits straight, tugging the leather bracelets back down around his wrist. Apparently Ryan leaves his jewellery on while he's having sex. Which is really not information Spencer ever expected or wanted to have.
"What?" Ryan asks, not looking anywhere near as uncomfortable as Spencer knows that he would. God, it's unfair.
"I. Um." Now that he's here, he still doesn't know where to start, and all the rehearsed lines he'd thought of on the way to Ryan's and then Jon's have fallen right out of his head. Depending on his brain to just come up with the right words to talk about it when he got there had not been one of his smarter moves, either. "Hey, so. Going to that MCR concert shouldn't be a problem," he starts, fully aware of just how inadequate that is. This is so stupid, it really is, but- he just kind of needs Ryan right now, even if he's not sure how to say that. And it's not that he doesn't like Brendon and Jon, either, he just- needs some best friend time.
Ryan's look tells him that Ryan doesn't exactly think that was news worth interrupting boyfriend time for, either.
"Weren't you at Bob's this afternoon?" Ryan asks, instead, and Spencer can just feel his shoulders going tight and high.
"Yeah. He wanted to tell me he's got some friends coming in to town later this week. They've been having some kind of woo-woo mystical crap going down, and they wanted to see if we could help them out."
Ryan gives Spencer the eyebrow raise of 'I gather these two pieces of information are connected but I really don't see how.' "And?"
"And," Spencer continues, "it turns out they're Bob's friends he wants us to help."
Ryan pokes Spencer's side with a bony finger and says, a little plaintively, "Spencer. Make sense."
Spencer makes a face and tries again. "My Chemical Romance are the friends that Bob wants us to help. He wants us to meet with them after the show and- I don't know, slay or whatever."
Ryan's gone kind of big-eyed and even more monotone than usual. "Are you shitting me?" Okay, so maybe that news was worth interrupting them with after all, Spencer thinks, a little meanly, but doesn't say anything out loud.
"No, stone cold for-serious truth." Spencer scowls again. Ryan just stares at him, considering.
"Fuck. That's- that's amazing. So why the bitchface?" Ryan asks, probably understandably enough.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Spencer mumbles. Okay, yeah, it's Ryan, but that still doesn't mean he actually wants to talk about his feelings or anything. This should not be this hard.
"Yeah, hi, Spence, you come stomping in all 'someone just ate all the cookies and broke my best crayons', you say you want to talk to me alone, and you're not in the living room right now telling Brendon and Jon how we're going to meet My Chemical Romance and flailing, so... yeah, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Ryan crosses his arms over his chest and looks expectant.
"It's a little disturbing how you're still using metaphors from kindergarten," Spencer starts, but that's not going to fly and he knows it. Spencer caves. Okay, like he wasn't going to -- this is why he came over anyway, he kind of needs to lay this out so Ryan can tell him he's being an idiot and he can get over it, but it doesn't actually make it any more pleasant. "Yeah, so Bob also kind of- he told me that they're not just his friends. He used to work for them." Ryan looks intrigued, but doesn't ask. "And, um. He used to be dating Brian Schechter."
"So?"
"So- so he- Brian Schechter, Ry, and he didn't even- he didn't tell me until he had to, and- Fuck. I don't even know. What the fuck am I even doing, I can't- you know what, fuck it, you're busy, I should just go."
"Yeah, that's gonna happen," Ryan says, and grabs Spencer's shoulder and marches him firmly back into the room. Spencer's pretty sure that as a slayer he should be able to break Ryan's grip no problem, but he kind of... can't. He sits down on the couch as directed and makes an unimpressed face, slouching and pointedly ignoring Ryan. He thinks about how he's pretty glad that he saw the three of them on the floor just now, not that that rules out anything happening on the couch before now, and... ew. Spencer scowls even harder. Jon is on the other side of the couch, and Brendon -- thankfully dressed again now -- is sitting at his feet, shoulders tucked in between Jon's knees, fidgeting with the television remote.
* * *
1.46pm
Ryan sits down on Spencer's other side but leans over to the end table and grabs his book instead of explaining just why Spencer is now on the couch with them, instead of off doing Spencer-things. The silence is a little creepy, actually, and Jon knows from creepy.
"What's up?" he asks carefully. Jon isn't an expert in slayer yet, but it looks like Spencer is pouting.
"Spencer's bitchy because Bob didn't tell him he knows My Chemical Romance," Ryan says, not looking up from his book. That... is not a problem Jon would've predicted.
"That's not it, Ryan!" Spencer cries, and yeah, he's definitely pouting.
"Oh yeah, and Bob used to bone their manager," Ryan adds. Jon leans into Spencer, lets their shoulders bump companionably, doesn't even need to look down to tell that Brendon is patting Spencer's foot sympathetically - Brendon might not always take the most obvious route, but he's usually right about how to handle people when they're upset, and he's more comfort than most people might expect. Spencer just slouches back into the couch and looks unhappy.
"I can see how that might not come up?" Jon tries, feeling a little sympathy for Bob, too, because he has a feeling that no one enjoyed whatever conversation had happened before Spencer had gotten to his place. It couldn't have been the easiest thing to bring up; having the past thrown up in your face is never pleasant.
"That's not the point!" Spencer huffs. "I mean, it's not like I don't know he's been with other people before," Spencer is clearly determined to be fair, and just as clearly resenting the hell out of that fact, "I just. I don't know. It makes it weird. And what if-" Spencer throws his hands up in wordless exasperation and buries his face in his hands with a growl that, if Jon didn't know any better, he would've said could have come from close relatives of his. "I really like him," Spencer says, muffled by his palms.
"So go kiss and make up," Jon suggests gently. And, okay, yeah, that suggestion is maybe a little motivated by wanting to get Ryan and Brendon alone again -- Jon had plans for this couch, and they didn't involve bitchy slayers having romantic crises -- but he's at least eighty percent thinking of Spencer and Bob's best interests too.
"Not if he's going to be comparing me to Brian Schechter," Spencer says grouchily, but he does sit up, at least.
"Progress," Jon thinks, and tries to think of further sage advice, as Spencer's elder, especially since Ryan hasn't said a word, even though Jon can tell he's listening with every fibre of his body but has no intention of adding anything -- or should that be anything else, he wonders? Spencer and Ryan had been in the hall for a couple minutes before they'd trudged back in.
"It'll be fine, Spence," Brendon pipes up, and probably squeezes Spencer's ankle as well, Jon thinks -- Brendon's big on physical movement as punctuation.
"Yeah, cos you're being an idiot," Ryan adds, although only the four of them in that room could probably tell that he means that a lot more sympathetically than it sounds.
Jon can hear the clock ticking low in the kitchen, sees Dylan pad by the doorway out of the corner of his eye, and waits as the silence builds in the room, resigns himself to the fact that he's not going to be having sexytimes in the living room any time soon and tries to forward that memo to his dick as well. He's only about middling successful with that -- Brendon is still curled up between his feet, and the hand that's not on Spencer is playing with his toes in a way that Jon really, really hopes no one else is noticing, if only for the sake of his self-respect -- although it helps a lot that the person he's touching most right then is Spencer, who at least doesn't smell all kinds of inviting and familiar and stupidly seductive.
Brendon and Ryan both had worked out pretty fast how he responded to scent, and taken shameless advantage -- Brendon liked fancy shampoo as it was, and had started half-heartedly swiping his sisters' body lotions and creams sometimes as well, although that had occasioned some ground rules, because some of that stuff did smell pretty good from a distance, but tasted fucking awful if you were unlucky enough to try to lick some of the bare skin it'd been slathered on. Ryan just liked to use a little cologne when he remembered, but mostly had gotten into the habit of showering with really hot water, or jogging up the stairs to Jon's place, so that Jon would be innocently curled up with his guitar or the cat or trying to cook and then he'd get hit with a wave of warm-clean-boy smell about five seconds before Ryan made it inside, which was usually just enough time to put whatever was in his hands down safely before he wound up with an armful of Brendon and Ryan wrapped around both of their sides.
He still couldn't believe how well this was working, actually; that the three of them could just... be, that no one was bored and that they'd all just accepted him into their friendships as well as their bed, even with- even with the whole occasionally-really-fucking-hairy thing. And as much as he'd been quietly crushing on Ryan and Brendon to start with, even before they were friends and then later a team of roving mystical do-gooders (or possibly raving, Jon could admit), as much as he'd liked them both, thought they were hot, and then fun, and then got to appreciate Ryan's quiet smarts, the dry humour that hid under his even tones, and the way that Brendon threw himself whole-heartedly into everything, even if it was something that could get him hurt -- he was only really now starting to appreciate just how special they were. How crucially a part of his world they'd become. Brendon might seem to be overflowing with love for the whole world most of the time, but there was just enough reserve hiding under that exuberance that Jon could really appreciate the way that Brendon just... had no brakes with him and Ryan. And even Ryan was a hell of a lot more affectionate -- with touch and word -- than Jon would have expected, even when he had been quietly watching Brendon and Ryan together with hazy envy and no clear idea of which one of them he'd rather be.
...of course, sitting there next to Spencer thinking about how completely gone he was for Spencer's two best friends wasn't exactly helping anyone's situation any, so Jon shook off the reflective mood, sat up a little straighter and asked what any self-respecting twenty year old guy would do in that situation.
"So. X-box?"
* * *
2.41pm
"This is stupid."
"Shut up, Tom."
"No, it's stupid," Sean agrees, and flicks the paper off his straw across the table at Max.
They've sort of... colonised is kind of an ugly word, but they've taken up residence in the corner booth of a diner in the suburbs; it's not one of the all-you-can-eat special places so it's not too busy, and it isn't so dirty that none of them can bring themselves to actually eat there, but it's a little bit dingy and definitely not somewhere they're likely to run into any kind of trouble other than maybe a smart-mouth drunk or possibly some badly burned coffee.
"Is this really a good idea?" Ryan asks, playing with the ice in his drink. They'd been out for a couple of hours the night before, and while it was great to run all the kinks out after being stuck in an airline for four hours (which wasn't exactly anything any self-respecting werewolf was too fond of in the first place; it was disorienting being up in the air like that, and the recycled air was... not the greatest thing in the world if your sense of smell was unfortunately acute), they hadn't actually found much.
Max shrugs and looks uneasy. Serious isn't exactly an uncommon look for him, but he's definitely troubled right now. Tom's reminded again just how much more pack business Max winds up involved in than the rest of them, even as young as he is. The Chicago pack has been around for generations now, and they tend to match ability to occupation alarmingly well. "We know there's something going on out here, the newspapers and the reports that've come in from some of the allies we have in this area make that pretty clear."
"Kinda low on detail," Al says, leaning over to steal a fistful of Ryan's fries and getting his hand smacked for his troubles when he tries the same trick on Tom.
"Well, what do you expect?" Max asks, rhetorically, slouching back into the booth seat. "They aren't exactly going to go around advertising that some kind of weird animal is killing people. We're lucky they're not blaming it on coyotes."
"With really pointy teeth?" Ryan snorts, and kicks Al when he picks at his plate again.
"This isn't getting us anywhere," Sean reminds them all, because they've been having variations on this discussion since before they left Chicago. "We need a game plan. Figure out if there is one of our people out here, if we can help, or if we need to take more, uh, direct action- thank you," he adds hurriedly as the waitress swings past again to refill their coffee cups and hand them another jug of water.
"So we stake out the kinds of areas that it'll be attracted to," Max says, ticking options off on his fingers. "Maybe cover the bigger green areas close to town when they're less crowded in the evening, and we can hit some of the clubs where they've reported incidents."
"And if some recreational drinking happens then, too, well, that would just be unfortunate," Ryan adds, grinning. "I think we've got the funds for it."
"Your commitment is stunning," Al says dryly, and downs the rest of his drink. "So, we have a plan, then? Because I'd like to grab a couple more hours sleep before we go out, personally." Their hotel might be cheap, but it has air-conditioning and cable, both of which were instantly dubbed necessities for the climate.
"What about what happened last night?" Tom asks, a little reluctantly, because it's been on his mind all day and he's still not sure how to put words to the feeling. He slides his plate over to the space between Sean (who can always use more feeding up, he thinks) and Ryan, who's making big eyes to imply that he has been tragically, tragically deprived of potato due to the depredations of one Alfred and not at all because he had ordered the tiniest sandwich in the world to start with. Hindsight is such a bitch, especially when your metabolism tends to run nineteen-to-the-dozen and demands a good couple meals a day.
Max raises an eyebrow, cocks his head.
"The people we heard before Ryan found those hoofprints," he explains, playing with the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table, sliding them back and forth around the laminated menu, just for something to keep his hands busy. "I didn't realise it properly then, but this morning when we got up, it sort of... it came back to me a bit. I think there was someone different there."
"One of us?" Sean asks, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
Al is actually the one who just comes out and says it, "with a bunch of teenage humans? That's kind of unlikely."
"But it's probably something we should look into," Sean puts in, not exactly disagreeing with Al, either. None of them are. Wolves are social creatures, and they tend to keep to their own kind most of the time. Which means anything that makes their metaphorical and literal hackles go up, supernaturally speaking, is probably not good. Because more problems are just what they need right now, with a werewolf who may or may not need their help, a rogue unicorn on the loose and god only knows what else just living in Vegas. Strange territory is always kind of a bitch. "So we need to just... figure out what the hell else is running around this town, and take care of it," he says, stating the obvious.
"Do we really think it is him?" Max asks diffidently, not meeting any of their eyes. It's something else that they haven't actually talked about, not out loud, although they're all thinking it. It's the other reason they agreed to be the group to come out and investigate in the first place. Because a wolf away from his pack, out in Nevada? It's not hard to think of one name that fits that criteria, even if he's the last person any of them would expect to be in this kind of trouble.
"If he's here, we'll find him," Sean says firmly, and squeezes Tom's hand under the table.
* * *
6.05pm
"Ew, gross," Brendon says determinedly, and flicks the TV off the news channel and back onto another Simpsons rerun.
"What?" Jon yells from the kitchen, where he's staring at the frozen pizza in the oven, apparently in the hopes that it will cook faster if he does so. Brendon had totally pointed out the only way that would work usefully would be if he had X-Ray vision like Superman, and then Spencer had pointed out that X-Rays wouldn't actually cook anything, he'd need microwaves, and that had been a little uncomfortably close to physics homework for them all, which had killed that argument dead faster than any comics-based disagreement could usually be managed.
"Way, way too graphic description of the latest horrible murder out in the desert," Brendon explains with a shrug, and digs his toes into Ryan's hip. "Like, do we really need to know all the gory details? I see enough horrible stab wounds on ER, thanks." Brendon nudges Ryan harder. He needs to pay more attention to them and less to antagonising Spencer, who is totally having a rough day, despite the liberal application of Mariokart and junk food that his friends have been dosing him with.
"I can't believe they let them take cameras that close to a crime scene," Spencer says, kicking the X-box controller back under the coffee table, which was basically where Jon stored them anyway. "It doesn't seem all that helpful but, whatever, media of the new millenium, blah blah. How's the pizza coming, Jon?"
"The cheese is starting to melt?" Jon says, but he sounds a little unsure. Brendon suspects Jon's maybe gotten distracted by a beer and isn't actually watching the pizza. Which could end badly, because Jon's apartment is pretty nice and all, and it certainly fits the three of them for snuggling and could probably hold about twenty people for a good party, but what it does have in reasonably solid walls and no worrisome stains on the carpets, it makes up for by lacking a fair amount of basic functionality, such as an oven that can hold a steady temperature or even has a timer. They have more than once managed to burn dinner with a lack of attention. And Brendon sticking his hand down Ryan's pants was only the problem on one of those occasions, thank you very much. He's occasionally shocked that Jon hasn't managed to set fire to anything ridiculous by himself, but probably that's one of those times where having the superpower sense of smell and all comes in handy. Also, there's the bathroom. About which Brendon prefers not to think, thank you very much.
"I'm so glad you're on top of that," Ryan deadpans, and Brendon snickers, because on top, and Spencer rolls his eyes at all of them, and it's just like normal. Just another night. No vampires or suddenly furry boyfriends or people trying to kill them. It's kinda nice.
"So what time is your thing tomorrow again, Ry?" Spencer asks at last, and Ryan surfaces properly from his book to slide off the sofa and sit between Brendon and Spencer (they'd been engaged in an epic Crash Team Racing battle; proximity to the TV had been absolutely vital to Brendon's winning strategy and Spencer had merely stolen the tactic from him). He leans into Spencer briefly, temple to temple, and Spencer seems to relax a little, at last, the background tension between him and Ryan finally dissolving as Ryan starts explaining where and when they're supposed to be meeting to see this DJ that he's been kind of stalking on the internet. It's sort of cute when Ryan gets all flustered and fanboys people, Brendon would totally be looking forward to My Chemical Romance for that alone, regardless of his own totally historic and not at all current crush on Gerard Way et al.
"Pizza's up," Jon yells from the kitchen, and there's the usual creak of the oven door protesting being opened, and some clatters that are probably dishes -- sometimes Jon likes to pretend they're civilised and serve things on plates, but it's not like any of them won't be eating with their fingers, it's pizza. "You staying, Spence?"
"Duh, yeah," Spencer yells back, and then scoots back up onto the couch, stretching his legs out along the seat as he leans back into the arm. "I'll head home for a bit soon, and then sneak out to patrol later. You guys can take the night off," he adds magnaminously, which is basically Spencer-code for "I kind of want to be alone right now".
Brendon would normally protest over Spencer's blatant couch-stealing, and totally fight for the best spot, but the floor is actually a lot better for being able to stick stuff on the coffee table. Besides he can lean all over Ryan, and feed Jon tidbits whenever he gets his ass in there, and Spencer will feel a lot better if he gets to yell at them more for being gross and couple-y, so it's basically win-win.
* * *
7.30pm
"I don't think a unicorn's going to be around here anywhere," Max says sensibly. Somehow, it seems completely safe and appropriate to make a statement like that in broad daylight and in public when the 'public' concerned is the Strip.
"Well, yeah," Ryan says, dragging him into Caesar's, "but we need to rule it out, right?" He stalks purposefully towards the penny slots, the other four in tow.
"Besides," Sean adds, even more sensibly, "we kind of have to wait until dark to start prowling around parks and graveyards, right? Because otherwise someone's going to panic and call the park ranger, and then where will we be?"
"In the county pound bitching about tranquillizer darts?" Tom suggests, snickering, and Ryan and Sean look kind of betrayed, because seriously, are they ever going to live that down?
* * *
Next.