bandombigbang 09: Part 2 [Perhaps Vampire...]
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“It’s a peacock,” Brian says. He has his hands up at chest level like there’s someone holding a gun on him. The bird in question is staring straight at Brian, completely still, its brightly colored feathers fanned out to about half-mast, like it had frozen the moment it had spotted Brian.
Which is pretty much what happened. One minute the six of them are walking down the street, searching for an appearing slash disappearing park that’s been causing some weird ass rumors, a park that just isn’t doing it’s appearing slash disappearing thing, the next they’re in a clearing surrounded dense grove of birch and fir trees, and there’s a peacock on a stump in the middle of said clearing. Bob’s fairly certain they aren’t going to make it back to the venue in time for the first opener; none of the rumors had mentioned that everything in the appearing slash disappearing park that was done in gray tone except for the fucking bird.
“Schechter, how many times do we have to go over this? There’s an entire class of demons that do their evil deeds by shapeshifting. Some do it to lure people in, others to frighten or relax, and certain ones become a person’s greatest wish or their greatest fear,” Andy explains. He exhales slowly, obviously counting to ten to calm down. Although Bob would bet his reaction is more toward the sudden appearance of the magic location than it is about Brian stating the obvious. “Things aren’t always what they seem, and when you run into a pretty bird in a woodlot where there shouldn’t be a pretty bird in a woodlot, that means you have a demon.”
“We taking bets on which sub-set this fucker belongs to?” Pete asks. He twists his wrist and a small, but sharp dagger with silver etching falls into his hand. “Or are we just going to kill it and move on with our lives?”
He shifts on his feet, like he’s about to throw the blade (Bob would never have expected that Pete Wentz could have the concentration needed to be truly effective with, well, any weapon, but Pete is especially effectively with his enchanted throwing knives), but Patrick puts a hand to Pete’s arm before he can bring it up.
“How about we figure out what exactly is going on,” Patrick says. “Then we can go charging in and all that.”
“Why wait for tomorrow when we could have fun now?” Joe huffs from where he’s standing behind Andy. He rolls his wrists and, as Bob watches, he sketches a faint symbol in the air. The symbol doesn’t flash, not really, not the bright colored, one-two pop like Bob’s seen happen the thousands of other times Joe’s made the same sketch. No, what it does is sort of flicker in a smoky gray color before fading like Bob exhaling smoke into the cold morning air.
Joe frowns and tries a different symbol, but the same thing happens, only this time the tone is even softer, and the after-shadow fades almost immediately. “So. I’m betting on a demonic shapeshifter sub-set that dampens magic in an obvious magically induced field. Just a guess, though. Anyone else?”
Brian shifts his weight to the right, and the peacock mirrors his movement. Brian tenses like he’s going to move again, and Bob puts his hand up to Brian’s back, not touching because the fucking bird demon thing puffs up some more at the movement. Bob freezes a bit himself, but he’s close enough that Brian has to be able to feel the heat coming off of Bob’s hand.
“Don’t move, Schechter. Looks like your new boyfriend doesn’t like all this company,” Bob mutters. Brian snorts but stills.
“Color me surprised,” he snaps, and Bob can hear the distinct ‘I will kill you, Bryar’ in his voice. “Any other advice? Perhaps something just a sight more useful?”
Patrick hums a little, totally under his breath. It’s one of his nervous tics, something he does when he’s thinking hard and fast, and Bob hopes he comes up with a plan faster than he had with that ghost in Seattle. That whole eureka moment doesn’t do anyone any good if it happens after the bad guy has already been put down.
“Hello? Any ideas? Anyone?” Brian asks. His voice sort of squeaks at the end. Bob would totally lay into him for that, but. Okay. When your average sized bird, which might possibly be a demon, starts to get bigger, just a little bit, like so subtle a growth that Bob isn’t even sure it was actually happening until he blinks and the bird is a quarter of its size larger, then yeah. Anyone’s voice would go a bit squeaky.
Also, definitely a demon. No possibly about it. Not when the things eyes start glowing red. Brian takes a step backwards when the eyes flash before settling into a deep ruby color that seems to give off a lot of heat despite the inherent coldness of the glare. He only stops because he runs into the hand Bob still has up.
“Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?” Joe mocks. “Motherfucker.”
When Bob looks over to glare at him, he sees that Joe is making quick work of the shit in his pockets, littering the ground with little papers and wrappers, a couple of lighters, a stick of chapstick, a broken pick, and some lint. Nothing to really help, and with magic tapped out, that makes Joe little more than bait if it comes to a fight. From the look on Joe’s face, he has come to that conclusion as well.
“Shut up, Troh,” Andy sighs. He pulls a knife from next to its twin at the small of his back and quickly passes it behind him to Joe. Joe might not be as adept at knife play as Pete, but he is still better at it than Brian is.
“How about everyone shut up?” Patrick snaps. He steps in front of Pete with his hands up in front of him like Brian. The peacock doesn’t look away from Brian, but it does shift its weight, turning its body so it is equally facing both Brian and Patrick.
“I realize this may be beyond the scope of your flight or fight reflexes, guys, but have any of you stopped and thought about asking yonder demon-peacock what’s going on?” He continues. He takes another step forward, shrugging Pete’s hand off of his shoulder, and smiles at said demon-peacock.
The bird still doesn’t look away from Brian, but its feathers settle a little. Just enough to showcase the fact that it definitely is at least part demon, if the feathers that aren’t feathers mean anything.
“Are those tentacles?” Pete asks. He sounds halfway between confused and awed. He stops mid-grab in his attempt for Patrick in his shock.
The bird ruffles its feathers again. When they resettle, the tentacles are even more obvious. “Well, you are obviously the genius of this group,” it says, beak open only enough to let the sound pass.
The voice that emanates from the bird’s open beak is deep and gravelly, almost the exact opposite of what Bob would have thought it’d sound like, if Bob had actually thought about the demon being able to talk, which Bob obviously hadn’t. None of the other demons they’ve come across (a larger number than Bob would have expected given the time frame, which is probably why Bob doesn’t generally expect things) had talked - most of those things had barely been able to reproduce vowel sounds. And this one manages to both surpass vague vowel sounds and to make sense at the same time.
Bob snorts. “Obviously.” When Pete turns and glares at him, Bob shrugs. “Evil or not, tentacles, feathers, and all, it nailed you perfectly.”
“Bob!” Joe and Patrick exclaim. Even Andy turns to glare at Bob.
Bob shrugs again. He’s just being honest. It isn’t like they don’t all know how Bob feels about Pete.
“Bryar, how about you leave your ‘Thousand and One Reasons to Despise All That Pete Wentz Happens to Be and Stand For’ for sometime when I don’t have a demon-peacock, complete with glowy red eyes and tentacle feathers, trying to stare me down?” Brian snaps. His elbow comes back and knocks Bob’s hand away from his back.
Bob steps back quickly, putting himself out of Brian’s range, and it’s like the world snaps back into focus. Colors are sharper, he can smell the familiar scent of a city’s under layer beneath the tangy scent of natural growth and forest rot, and he can faintly hear cars and urban life just beyond the persistent hum of birds and bugs. Bob glares at the bird, and if a beak could smirk, this one would have.
“Aw, the lovers are having a spat. Should we wait for them to clear that up before we continue?” the peacock mocks. Bob’s not sure how it does it, but it actually leers at Brian, and Bob’s hands curl into fists. He has a knife in his pocket, at the small of his back, in his boot, but slicing and dicing the bird holds no interest for him.
Besides, his grandmother always said it was important that meat be tenderized first before it was cut it up and cooked.
“Bryar, back off. It’s just trying to aggravate you,” Patrick says.
“It’s doing a damn good job of it,” Bob growls. But he stays where he is, promising the bird a painful death with his eyes.
The peacock open its beak again, no doubt to say something witty and scathing that would have Bob launching himself across the open space between them to beat the shit out of the fucking thing with his fists, but Patrick had evidently had enough, shouting “Enough!” loud enough to completely silence the din around them.
The unexpected shout even forces the demon to break its gaze with Brian as everyone, aside from Brian, jerks their heads around to stare at Patrick. Who has his arms crossed over his chest as he glares, mouth set in a deep scowl.
“This is how we’re going to handle this. No, Pete, shut the fuck up and listen to me.” Patrick levels his glare on Pete, who shrinks back a bit at the force of it, automatically smiling sheepishly in an attempt to deflect some of Patrick’s ire from himself. “Aside from the disappearing reappearing country ‘scape, fancy feathers over there hasn’t directly caused any trouble. No deaths, no injuries, nothing but a couple of freaked kids and a grandma who lost her extra pot roast.
“We” and Patrick circles his finger around to indicate all of them, even the peacock. “We are going to be civil for at least ten minutes.”
Pete nods. “Civil. Can do.”
Patrick reaches over and pokes Pete in the chest hard enough to push him back a couple of inches. “Do not even think about acting civil with the intent of causing trouble after the time limit, Wentz. I will fuck you up. Clear?”
Pete gulps. “Crystal.”
Patrick turns on the peacock. “Now you are going to start talking. About pertinent shit - not just whatever comes into your pea-sized brain.”
The bird cocks its head to the side. “You are stunningly observant.”
Joe laughs. He has taken Patrick’s implemented ceasefire to heart, draping an arm over one of Andy’s shoulders, and he leans in toward the bird like he’s about to share the secrets of the world with him. “Dude, he has to deal with us, like, all the time. Only an idiot doesn’t pick up on the little stupid things, and see? Patrick isn’t an idiot.”
The bird cackles. “Joseph Mark Trohman, I am well aware of the attributes of your Patrick Martin Stump.”
Andy rolls his eyes. “Oh, look. A demon who thinks he’s all knowing. Wow.”
Bob stifles a snicker, but Joe and Pete don’t even bother. Patrick glares at all three of them. The bird looks amused and Brian...
Brian is holding his nose between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, and his other hand his on his hip. He isn’t saying anything, but Bob knows it is only a matter of time before he starts muttering about killing them all and leaving the bodies to rot in the sun.
“I vote we dust this fucker,” Andy continues. “His continued existence irks me.”
“Andy...” Patrick starts.
“No, Patrick.”
The bird sighs, interrupting Andy and Patrick before they could go for each other’s throats. “Enough, children. My name is. Well. You can’t actually pronounce my real name for you are silly humans with such silly limitations because of your silly vocal chords, but you may call me Kilky. I am here to impart such portions of eternal wisdom upon you as my masters, the gods, insist.”
“Oh, Christ. It’s another fucking cobra,” Pete groans. He turns and hides his face in Patrick’s shoulder. Patrick awkwardly pats his shoulder.
“I thought Gabe was high when all that went down,” Joe points out.
Pete shrugs. “He was, but then again, it’s Gabe. When isn’t he high?” His voice is muffled by Patrick’s t-shirt.
“Ah. You have heard of Starship, then?” The bird - Kilky asks. It looks vaguely impressed.
Silence falls over the group. Gabe, a friend of Pete’s from Jersey, had sent Pete a series of texts and emails starting a few weeks before, all dealing with a cobra starship something or other that had told Gabe how to save the world. Or something to that effect. Gabe is possibly one of the weirdest people Bob has ever met, and he says this after spending months leaving with Pete. Bob had laughed it off, but Pete and Joe had spent a lot of time researching into animal guides and shit. Bob isn’t sure how to handle the fact that apparently Gabe wasn’t just talking out of his ass.
“Starship?” Patrick asks after a couple seconds. His hand is hovering above Pete’s shoulder, mid-pat. “A cobra named Starship?”
“Gabe wasn’t making that up?” Joe asks. He spits his question out so fast it almost runs completely overtop of Patrick’s.
Kilky nods. “Yes. Cobra Starship is the name our masters gave her.”
“My fucking life,” Brian says. He mutters a couple of other things under his breath - Bob catches something involving anatomically incorrect sexual acts with walruses before he stops listening - then Brain straightens up into what Bob calls his ‘manager’ mode. “All right, Kilky or who - what - ever you are. We don’t particularly give a shit about your masters or whatever. What we do care about is how you’re starting to freak a whole shitload of people out.”
“As your Patrick Martin Stump stated, I have done nothing to harm anyone,” Kilky interrupts. He sounds mortally offended that Brian would even accuse him of doing anything of the sort.
Brian scoffs. “You yourself may not have harmed anyone, but we’ve traced four gang fights, two domestic abuse claims, a minor riot, and a ruined dinner party to your little snatch, grab, and release party here.”
“Minor riot?” Joe asks.
“The thing at Club 556 last week that Matt told us about,” Bob tells him. For some reason, Matt knows everything about everything about every place they roll into. It saves them research time, because Matt’s shit is never off, which Bob finds off putting, but. Whatever. Time saved usually means extra time to sleep.
Joe makes an “Oh!” face in understanding, and he nods.
Kilky ruffles its feathers and shifts on its feet. “I had nothing to do with any of that.”
“Four people ended up in the hospital! One is a five year old little girl who was shot on the way home from fucking school!” By the time Brian reaches the end of his sentence, his hands are balled into fists. Bob’s fairly sure that if Brian was physically capable of growling, he’d would be. “Don’t you fucking dare trying to push that blame off, you lousy excuse for a fucking neon color wheel. I’ll let Bob tear you to shreds before we barbeque your freaky ass.”
“I’ve heard that peacock is supposed to be pretty good,” Joe pipes in. “We know calamari is.”
“Delicacies, even,” Andy adds. He brandishes the smallest of his three blades - the slim tiny one that he uses to trip locks and Pete steals to skin shit - letting the light catch on the sharp edges.
“Andrew John Hurley, you’re supposed to be a vegan!” Kilky exclaims. It looks less demonic now that it has started talking, and Bob almost laughs at the way its voice goes squeaky at the end of its words when especially upset - just like Brian.
Andy shrugs. “I’m certain demonic flesh doesn’t count. And even if it does, I’m willing to make an exception.”
Kilky actually squawks when Andy smiles at it. Then it shakes its head, visibly pulling itself together. “Right. I apologize for the plight of the little girl. It was never my intention for anyone to be hurt. I had simply needed to gain your attention.”
“You couldn’t have just called?” Bob asks. “Or popped in? All of this,” he waves his hand around to indicate the forest grove and the city it is masking, “isn’t the simplest of operations.”
“There are rules to these things, you realize,” Kilky snaps, glaring. His eyes are starting to spark a dark vibrant shade of ruby.
Bob shrugs, returning Kilky’s glare with an extra pinch of menace. “Sorry, but I left my ‘How To Meet Up with Demons’ instruction manual back in Chicago. Enlighten me.”
Pete lets out a sharp laugh. He isn’t hiding in Patrick’s shoulder anymore, but he is trying to sneak his arm around Patrick’s waist. Trying being the operative word, because Patrick keeps swatting his hand away irritably. “What our bird Kilky here means, Bryar, is that it couldn’t just show up. That’s what Starship did to Gabe.”
“Right,” Bob says. He draws out the word like he’s just coming to a conclusion that has eluded him for years. “The peacock thing means it’s a showoff.”
Kilky sulks. It flat out sulks, losing its glare, hunching in on itself, staring angrily down at the ground. If it had lips, the bottom one would be stuck out in a pout. It totally looks like a five year old caught leaving the back door open for the cat to escape, complete with the scuffing foot.
“All right. Enough,” Patrick interrupts. “How about you tell us what you’re supposed to tell us, Kilky, and you can stop ‘unintentionally’ causing riots and shit.”
Kilky sighs. “My masters believe you may be the key to saving the world as we know it from the prophecy of...”
“We don’t care about that part,” Pete interrupts.
“Pete!” Patrick says. He stares at Pete in something that looks like shock, but he can’t actually be. Patrick just isn’t shocked by Pete anymore, especially not after that whole thing with the furries; Bob refuses to believe otherwise. But whatever it is, it gives Pete the split second he needed to get his arm firmly around Patrick’s waist. Patrick tries to push him away, but gives up after a couple of seconds; Pete is like a snuggly octopus.
“What? There are, like, twenty new doomsday prophecies a day, dude. It’s going to tell us the vital information, and we can do the research shit later.”
“Right,” Kilky coughs. “You are hereby charged by my masters, the gods, with saving the grandnephew of a girl - the girl - the man who will watch and need watching.”
Joe groans. “Why can’t the charges ever be straight forward? Like name, rank, and serial number?”
“Because, Joseph Mark Trohman, a prophecy must be interpretable so that one has to strive to solve it. You just can’t be handed the answers to life,” Kilky snaps. “And I wasn’t finished.”
“Right, sorry,” Joe apologies. He waves his hand, the one holding Andy’s knife, idly through the air. “Please continue.”
Kilky puffs himself up, even as he eyes Joe nervously. “He who will be watcher and watched travels with three who are not themselves and an fourth that has died but still lives.” He stops and they all wait for him to continue.
“Again, not helpful,” Joe complains when it is obvious Kilky has finished.
Kilky snorts. “As I have already said saving the world is not an easy task.”
“Right. We get that,” Joe tells it. “But clear and concise instructions do not make accomplishing the tasks easy, you know.”
“Perhaps,” Kilky admits. “However, it is much more fun to watch you humans scramble about trying to keep yourselves afloat.” It smirks one last time before it and the forested grove disappear, leaving them standing in the dark alley they had left behind a short time before. An hour, according to Bob’s watch.
“I will be in touch,” Kilky’s disembodied voice tells them. There is a loud ‘POP!’ following this announcement, then a distinct emptiness that Bob thinks means Kilky has actually left them alone, and isn’t hovering around them watching them, invisible.
Brain shakes his head before he starts herding them out of the alley. According to his watch, they have just enough time that, if they hurry, they’ll make it back to the club before the first opener even glances at the stage.
Andy slides up to Bob as they start down the street. “I’m thinking rotisserie. You in?” He reaches up and pulls a small blue feather out of Bob’s hair.
Bob scowls as he takes and crushes the feather in one hand. “I’ll even supply the fucking rope.”
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“I hate prophecies,” Patrick mutters. “Especially the vague ones.”
They’re back in the vans and on their way to the next show. They have a couple of extra days before then, which they had planned on using to track down slash eliminate Kilky and his reappearing disappearing forest, but Andy had been fairly adamant that they leave town.
“It isn’t like we are going to find it or the grove again, at least not until it wants to be found,” he had explained. “Besides, I know a couple of people who might be able to shed some light on this, and they only talk to in house visitors.”
Which left Bob and Brian in one van with Patrick driving and Pete in the passenger seat, and Joe, Andy and Matt in the other. Matt is driving the other van, while Andy reads through the stack of books that he didn’t leave for Bob, Brian, and Pete and looks for references to prophecies that even vaguely allude to what Kilky had told them. So far neither Bob nor Brian is having any luck, and Pete is more interested in finding ways to annoy Patrick that won’t accidentally result in all of them dying in a fiery ball of flames.
At least, that’s what Bob thinks Pete is doing. If that turns out to be Pete’s way of teaching Patrick how do drive (which Patrick obviously already knows how to do, otherwise Brian would never have let him behind the wheel), Bob isn’t going to let either of them drive for the rest of the fucking tour.
A bright light flashes from the other van, which just so happens to be in front of theirs, and blinds Patrick, who swerves into the other lane before straightening the van out. He curses Joe and promises to do terrible, terrible things to him and his hair. Bob’s just happy he double checked the trailer hitch before they took off.
Joe obviously isn’t helping with the research. Instead he’s probably trying out a long list of spells that are safe-ish to cast in a moving vehicle just to make sure that he can. Not being able to cast a single spell in the grove really freaked Joe out; he hadn’t done a single twirl during the entire show.
“Christ, Stump! Watch what you’re fucking doing!” Brian snaps. He pushes a guitar case off of him - Bob isn’t sure whose it is, which means it’s probably another of the ones that Patrick seems to pick up like a white shirt picks up dirt - and struggles back into the seat.
Bob gives him a hand up after he releases his own death grip on the seat. Bob looks pointedly at the seatbelt and Brian glares at him, but he puts it on.
“Fuck off, Schechter,” Patrick returns. He swats at Pete’s hand, connecting with a loud smack. “Stay on your own fucking side of the van, Pete, I am not fucking kidding.”
There’s another flash from the other van, this time a dark purple that is followed by blue smoke leaking out of the windows. Bob shakes his head as he watches the smoke trail past the windows, barely visible in the light from the blurring streetlights. “Andy can’t be happy about that.”
Patrick snorts. He has an iron grip on the steering wheel, his knuckles so far past white they’re turning red again.
Neither Bob nor Brian is sure about what is making Patrick so short tempered now. He’d been fine on the walk back to the club, and he dealt with the crowd of fans that was bigger at this show then it was at the show before and the show before that like a pro. He’d shot the shit with the in-house crew before the show, put on the best show Bob had yet seen from him, and he’d helped break down their set without complaint. In fact, Patrick had been the calmest out of any of them - aside from Matt, who has to be the chillest motherfucker Bob has ever come across - right up until they turned onto the freeway.
Now that Bob is actually thinking about it, he isn’t so sure that letting Patrick drive was the best plan ever. In fact, given the way Patrick is speeding up to pull even with the other van, and giving an unimpressed Matt and an annoyed Andy the finger over Pete’s head, Bob’s positive putting Patrick behind the wheel was the worst plan in the history of bad plans.
Well, Bob might not be including the coffin delivery plan in that.
“Hey, Patrick. Truck stop in two miles,” Bob points out as they pass the sign, the other van trailing behind them.
Patrick glares at him in the rearview. “Yeah. Your point?”
“Maybe we should make sure that Joe hasn’t killed himself?” Bob shrugs. “And we don’t need to marathon tonight; Andy’s friends can’t meet us until after two tomorrow,” he continues when Patrick just keeps glaring.
Bob watches Patrick’s nose flare for a couple of seconds before he nods jerkily. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
He doesn’t bother to signal when they come to the exit. He just cuts across the lane closest, gives the finger to the minivan that honks in protest, and takes the exit at about twenty miles over the suggested speed limit. He screeches into a couple of empty parking spaces on the far end of the lot, turns off the van, and gets out, stomping off toward the buildings at the other end of the lot before the key chains stopped banging against the ignition console.
It takes the rest of them a few minutes to make sure that everything is still where it is supposed to be, and by then Patrick has already disappeared from view. Pete sighs as he goes to climb out of the van.
“I’ll go after him; it might take awhile.” Then he jumps out of the van and starts toward the main building, which looks like one large conglomerate between a small time pizza joint, public bathrooms, and a twenty-four hour diner.
Bob and Brian look at each other before shrugging. Then they start extricating themselves from the avalanche of books, bags, and random instruments that had fallen on them during Hurricane Patrick.
The other van pulls up beside them just as Brian is climbing out of the van. Brian pauses about halfway out so that they can park without him getting in the way, and Bob finds himself aborting his move from the seat with Brian’s ass firmly in his face.
“What the fuck, Schechter?” Bob grumbles. He pushes at Brian to move, and Brian does, but only after he shakes his ass a little and says, “What, you don’t like the view, Bryar? I’m offended.”
Bob throws a balled up pair of socks that had fallen out of one of the duffels at Brian’s head. “Bite me.”
Andy jumps out of the other van before Brian can answer. He’s a little blue around the edges and he sort of shimmers. “Patrick freaking out?” he asks like he already knows the answer.
“Yeah. Pete went after him,” Brian answers. He picks up the socks and tosses them back into the van.
“This happen often?” Bob asks after he climbs out of the van like he doesn’t already know the answer to that. He and Brian have been traveling with them for five months at this point. Patrick has flipped out a few times, but it was never anything like the repress then explode today. Usually it involved someone (Pete) annoying Patrick until he started shouting, with a face red enough to beat out any county fair first place tomato, and attempting to strangle said someone (Pete). It is entirely possible that Patrick has anger management issues.
“Not really,” Andy shrugs. He opens the side door to the van, letting out a mass of blue smoke. Once the smoke clears a little, Joe is visible sprawled out spread eagle over the futon mattress that had replaced the actual seats. He’s snoring, loudly. “Last time this happened was when we found a prophecy that said Pete was going to have to die to save the world.”
“Ah,” Brian says, and Bob nods in agreement. They don’t bother to ask anymore about it. Neither of them are quite sure what is actually going on between Patrick and Pete - they are definitely something more than friends, and possibly less than lovers, at least for the moment - and neither of them wants to be the one to ask. They know that would just open up the playing field for more questions about their own relationship, and Bob feels that having that conversation once already is once too much.
Matt walks around the van to join them. He is blue around the edges as well, but on him it looks sort of like shimmering scales a centimeter or so off of his body. “That was fun. What now?”
Andy shrugs. “We wait.”
“And Patrick doesn’t drive,” Bob puts in. He doesn’t care if it makes him sound like a pussy. Patrick was driving like a psycho, and Bob has no intention of ending his life as a grease smear on the pavement of some backwoods highway that hasn’t been paved in the last decade.
Brian reaches into the van and pulls out the keys. Then he hands them to Bob. “You want to protest, then you drive.”
“Like you didn’t end up on your ass, Schechter,” Bob points out. He takes the keys anyway. It isn’t like he’s going to be doing much sleeping anyway.
“Whatever,” Brian returns. “So. Research?”
“Research,” Andy agrees. He reaches over and punches Joe in the arm.
Joe startles awake halfway through a snore and a “No, Ma. The dragon burns are all Pete’s fault, I swear!” Then he shakes his head and sits up. “What, man?”
“Stop hogging the futon. We’ve got work to do,” Andy says, pushing him over and climbing in beside him. “Also, we need some light.”
Joe rolls his eyes but starts digging around the duffle he calls his ‘magical bag of tricks.’ “I know you know how to do this shit, Hurley. I remember teaching you.”
Andy shrugs. “You always get pissy when I do it, so shut up and make with the light already.”
Joe takes out a few things out of the duffle, and mixes them together in a way that Bob still hasn’t figured out how to do without destroying whatever it is that he’s wearing at the time - Brian is a whole shitload better at all that magic shit than Bob is. Joe mutters something under his breath, and then there are two small white globes floating in front of him. They sort of look like the light bulbs Bob’s mom used in their bathroom vanity, and if a person wants, they give off more light than most of the spotlights Bob’s ever worked with on stage.
Pete calls them ‘fairy lights,’ to which Joe always rolls his eyes and snaps, “They’re not fairy lights, dude! Fairy lights take a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of patience that you’ll never have to make. These are the Joe Specials.” That conversation usually ends with the two of them wrestling until someone bites someone else, and Andy lecturing on unsafe hygiene practices while bandaging them up.
“Here you go, Hurley. Two Joe Specials, free of charge,” Joe says as he pushes one over to Andy and Matt, who are both curling up with large thick tomes in a language that Bob is only just starting to recognize as a demonic language not from Earth (and that was a surprise when they found out that Matt could read several different demonic languages. When Andy had questioned him about it, Matt had just shrugged and said something about his bisabuela making him and his siblings learn it when they were kids. He wouldn’t say anything else about it, but Andy still pressed him into service researching).
Joe pushes the other light over to Bob and Brian, who had shoved shit around until they can sit in their own van comfortably. Bob isn’t going to crowd into the other one, not with three dudes who smell like they do, especially when there’s room for him to stretch out - not really comfortably, but more so than being crammed into a small space with four other dudes - with only one other dude.
Joe then curls back up on his side, back to Andy and Matt. “Have fun, dudes.”
Andy frowns. Then he throws an empty soda bottle at Joe’s head. At Joe’s protest, he says, “I don’t fucking think so, Trohman. You can either help with the research or go see what’s up with Pete and Patrick. You can sleep when we’re driving.”
Joe grumbles, but he sits back up and grabs one of the books.
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They’ve gone through two tomes a piece without much success by the time Pete and Patrick come back a couple of hours later bearing a couple of extra large pizzas like a peace offering. Pete is smiling his widest monkey-boy grin, and he has his arm firmly wrapped around Patrick’s waist. Patrick is flushed, and his hat is askew on his head. He doesn’t look up from the ground after Andy looks pointedly at his hat, which Patrick tugs straight on his head as his blush deepens.
Bob doesn’t want to know.
“Okay. You two done?” Joe asks around a mouthful of pizza.
“Dude! Always!” Pete exclaims loudly. He bounces a little on his heels, and Brian groans.
“You gave him caffeine, Stump?” Brian accuses. “It’s four in the morning!”
Patrick shrugs. “I’m not his mother, Schechter.”
“Oh, Christ. What the fuck did I do to deserve you lot,” Brian grumbles. He looks at Pete like he wants to order him to go run around the lot until his excess energy has worn off. But it is obviously that Pete isn’t going to be dislodged from Patrick, so he doesn’t bother. Instead he eats his portion of the pizza. He does slap Pete’s hand away from the last slice of mushrooms and peppers.
When all of them are finished, Brian does make Pete take the all of the trash, most of it hastily stuffed into a couple of extra grocery bags Bob had stashed under the passenger seat over to the sketchtastic dumpster next to the main building. By the time he gets back, they’ve got the vans started up again, only this time Brian is riding shotgun to Bob driving with Joe in the backseat in one van with Andy riding shotgun to Matt driving with Patrick in the back. Both of the Joe Specials are with Patrick, who is staring glumly at the mountain of books left to be looked through.
“You’re with us, Pete,” Andy tells him. “We’re doing research.”
Pete jumps into the van and slams the door shut. From the muffled cursing from Patrick and the way that Andy rolls his eyes, Bob figures Pete snuggled right up into Patrick’s space.
Brian and Bob smile brightly at Andy before they pull away. Brian searches for a cd to listen to that won’t drive either him or Bob up the wall as Bob pulls out onto the highway again. Joe is already snoring in the back, but Bob isn’t too bothered by it - Joe’s snores are certainly better than listening to whatever it is that Andy and Matt have to be hearing from Pete and Patrick.
Brian finally just pops in Dookie, muttering about his cds disappearing. Bob ignores his grumbling, inching the volume up a little higher as he checks his rearview for the other van. When he sees them, he settles back into a position he knows he can hold for several hours’ worth of driving.
|-|
Bob wonders idly if the sun here ever actually moves or if he keeps falling into this nightmare at the same time. It certainly never feels any cooler.
He doesn’t want to, but Bob forces himself to walk over to the bodies. He isn’t going to figure out what happened and how to prevent it if he keeps turning and walking away.
The first thing he notices is the lack of stench coming from the bodies. Odd considering how hot it is. And the fact that the bodies are obviously not the freshest ones in the market.
The second is that Brian looks older than he should be, complete with a couple of scars Bob has never seen before - one stretching down the length of Brian’s throat, three others crisscrossing the width of his left arm.
The third is that Bob can’t get within six feet of the bodies before the wind comes up and physically shoves him backwards again.
After his third attempt to get to Brian, Bob stands were he had been shoved and stares hard at the punk-rock kid. Bob thinks he sees a scorpion on the kid’s neck and ‘HALLO’ on the knuckles of his right hand, but he isn’t sure if he should try again just to catch another glimpse. For the lack of a better description, the wind feels angrier now than it had. Bob isn’t all that interested in testing the theory of whether or not dying in your dreams means you die outside of them, too.
Bob glares one last time at the bodies and the sun before walking back to the van. A chill races down his spine but Bob forces himself to remember that it is just a nightmare. It isn’t real; it hasn’t happened yet.
Just a nightmare.
|-|
Andy’s friends turn out to be not so much human as they are demons. Bob is perplexed at this at first, but when nothing tries to eat him, he relaxes. As far as he figures, if there are good humans and bad humans, there might as well be good and bad not-humans, too.
He is, however, a little annoyed at the way Andy visibly relaxes after he introduces Bob, Brian and Matt, like he actually thought any of them would attack someone Andy calls friend just because they’re not human. Okay, not so much annoyed as he is offended, and he knows Brian feels the same way, too, judging by the glare he’s leveling at Andy. Matt, as always, is completely chill.
“Good to see you again, Marty, Josh,” Pete says, reaching over the counter to initiate some complicated handshake that Bob doesn’t even bother trying to follow.
“Same, Pete,” the dude says when they’re finished. If it isn’t for the gills at the base of their necks and the antennae sticking out of their hair, Bob never would have known they weren't human. Granted, if Bob had met them before he learned about vampires and all that shit, he probably would have just thought that they were the same type of weirdoes that dressed up in costumes to go to conventions and shit.
Not that Bob has any experience with that or whatever. And it isn’t like Bob would have ever entered a store that proclaimed itself to be authentically magic related.
“So, what brings you to our humble store, Hurley?” Josh asks, leaning on the counter so that he can look Andy in the eye. The dude’s tall enough to make Andy look even more like a hobbit than usual. Bob’s trying not to laugh at the scowl on Andy’s face.
“Ever hear of a demon that calls itself Kilky and likes to fuck around as a weird ass peacock? Or a cobra going around calling herself Starship?” Joe asks from where he’s jumped onto another counter. He just grins at Josh when the demon glares at him.
“This have anything to do with that forest grove appearing over in Oregon?” Marty asks. He looks at Josh for clarification.
“Got it in one,” Joe tells him, before Josh can answer.
Marty rubs at the skin around his left set of gills. “Any particular reason you guys are coming to us with this?”
Andy narrows his eyes. “You’ve never had a problem talking to me about shit before.”
Josh shrugs, standing back up. “You haven’t come to us asking about the servants of gods before, either.”
Patrick groans and tugs on his hat. “Perfect. It wasn’t just being an arrogant ass then.”
Josh smirks, displaying a rather sharp set of teeth. “You might want to be a little more careful about how you address this Kilky, kid. He could make your life miserable to live.”
Brian barks out a sharp laugh, matching Josh smirk for smirk. “He lives in a van with Pete Wentz, there isn’t that much more miserable a person could be.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Josh admonishes, his pointer finger waving back and forth warningly. “Don’t tempt Fate like that, son. Bad things happen when you tempt Fate.”
“Please, lay off with the wise man act. Do you have information on Kilky or not? Because, honestly, I’d rather spend the next ten years in a van with an unwashed Pete than stand around here longer then I have to. Do you realize that your shop smells worse than Patrick’s feet after a show?” Brian snaps. He glares at Josh.
Josh blinks first. “You’re pretty feisty for a human.”
Bob chuckles. “You should see him when he’s actually angry.”
“Okay, okay. Josh, enough,” Marty says. He pushes Josh aside, pointing at a stack of books and folders at the back of the shop. “Can you get the book I was reading earlier?”
Josh makes a disgruntled noise, but goes to fetch the book as asked.
“Sorry about that. His wife is thinking of courting another male this season,” Marty explains with a shrug. Like that actually explains anything. Though by the way Andy grimaces and nods, it probably just doesn’t mean anything to Bob. “Before we actually start, can I ask you something?”
Matt blinks, shifting away from the wall that he’d been leaning against. “Sure.”
“You part of the Cortez Clan?” Marty asks. “My grandmother’s been trying to get in touch with a chick whose picture looks like you, only female, for months.”
Matt nods, frowning. “Yeah. But mi bisabuela doesn’t like talking to strangers.”
Marty shrugs. “Okay. I don’t actually know what the deal is, but my grannie is seriously wigging out about something. Like she had an argument with this Carmen person, and now the world is going to end if they don’t chat. I don’t even know, dude. She’s just driving me nuts with it.”
Matt blinks. “Is your grannie Samantha Burer?”
Marty nods. “Yep. Grannie Sammy.”
Matt laughs, settling back against the wall. “I’ll let mi bisabuela know.”
“Awesome, dude. I appreciate the help, even if you are from another Clan,” Marty says with a big grin. He ignores the confused looks on the rest of their faces and claps. The door to the shop, which had been propped open, slams shut, the lock clicking into place and the sign flipping over to ‘Closed.’ “Let’s get down to business.”
|-|
“Wait. So you’re telling us you have no idea what is going on?” Patrick says. It’s three hours after Marty had locked them up in the shop. Three long hours filled with Marty talking, Brian and Patrick arguing, and Josh glowering. Bob is both tired and annoyed, and he’s half tempted to hit Marty when he shrugs and looks apologetic.
“Look, there just isn’t that much information available about these guys. As far as anyone knows, they’re legit, but what gods they work for? No idea. And I haven’t come across that prophecy you mentioned anywhere. Trust me, dude. I’ve been looking for weeks, through everything.” He shrugs again. “The most I can figure is it has something to do with the Slayer, what with the watching and being watched.”
Pete blinks. “The Vampire Slayer? I thought that was a myth.”
Josh shakes his head. “Not a myth. There’s been this girl down in southern California for the last couple of years. Definitely real.”
“So we’re supposed to find the Slayer’s Watcher and rescue him?” Joe wonders out loud.
Marty shakes his head. “I don’t think so. The Slayer and her little group don’t move around. Your prophecy says the guy you’re looking for is traveling.” He shrugs again. “Sorry, guys. I’ll keep looking, but I don’t think there’s really all that much out there for you.”
Andy sighs, but he nods. “I thought as much, but asking doesn’t hurt. Thanks for your time, guys.”
Marty stands up when Andy does, and everyone else follows their lead. “No problem, man. Like I said, I’ll keep looking. If I come up with anything, you’ll be the first ones to know.”
|-|
The next couple of days are spent researching. At least, the time they don’t spend bugging Matt about his conversation with Marty. It takes Pete and Joe approximately one day, sixteen hours, twelve minutes and forty-six seconds to crack Matt, and about three minutes for him to raise more questions then he’ll answer.
Yes, Bob times the entire process. He even steals Brian’s stopwatch for the task. Research is fucking boring.
“I’m a demon,” Matt finally tells them over coffee and waffles at a local diner that Marty had suggested. “Well, three quarters anyway. My father was half, but my mother is full. We’re Vaiven demons, the Cortez clan specifically. Mi bisabuela is clan head, and that’s pretty much it.” Matt shrugs before going back to his waffles.
“So, wait. You’re basically royalty?” Pete asks his eyes wide. He bounces in place a couple of times.
Bob thinks that Pete may have had too much caffeine again, and pushes Pete’s coffee cup further away from him. Pete doesn’t notice, because he’s too busy staring at Matt.
Matt shrugs. “Not really. But that whole thing with Marty? It happens.” And that’s all he’ll say on the subject.
Their next show isn’t until the following day, but the guys have four interviews in that time, and Andy has given Bob and Matt a list of local specialty shops to check out while Brian keeps an eye on the band. Bob had been planning to go by himself, but Matt had read over the list and invited himself along.
“You’re going to want me there for some of this,” is what he says.
Bob blinks. “Why? Because you’re part demon?”
Matt shrugs. “Something like that.” And Bob goes along with it, mostly because he knows he doesn’t want to be bumming around Olympia, Washington by himself.
They don’t find anything interesting or hear anything that sheds any light on either the prophecy or Kilky. They do, however, manage to restock both first aid kits and Joe’s magic bag, and Bob finds a really interesting looking knife. The shop owner shares a smirk with Matt before he gives Bob an eighty percent discount on it. Matt refuses to tell Bob what all that is about, but Bob buys the knife anyway. He’s a firm believer of never being too prepared for a situation.
So, other than Bob’s knife and the restock, nothing happens to Bob or Matt. They come back to the motel only partially empty handed, but the guys don’t care. They’re too busy bouncing off the walls.
“Island wants to sign us!” Pete shouts when Bob and Matt walk in the door. Pete’s bouncing on one of the beds with Joe, and when he turns to throw victory arms up at Bob and Matt, Joe tackles him with a loud cackle. “Ow, motherfucker. You are so going down!” The two of them roll over the bed, each grappling for the upper hand, even though they’re both laughing too much to be very effective. Then they roll off the near side and knock Patrick to the ground with them.
Patrick starts shouting, and Pete’s attention diverts from Joe to Patrick. Joe scrambles out of the way. Bob catches a glimpse of his huge ass grin and wide bright eyes right before Joe launches himself at Bob.
Bob doesn’t have anywhere to go as he’s laden down with the bags, and Matt just laughs from behind him while Joe somehow manages to climb Bob until he’s hugging Bob’s head to his chest.
“We’re signed to a major label, Bob! It’s awesome! You should totally congratulate us!” Joe shouts. He keeps squeezing until Bob finally manages to extract his hands from the bags and shove Joe off of him. Joe lands on the floor with a thud and squeak.
“That’s awesome, Trohman. Stay the fuck off of me,” Bob sighs. He shakes his head and rubs at his ears. Matt is still laughing behind him, hard enough that he’s choking on air, and Bob turns to glare at him. “You are an ass, Cortez.”
Matt just waves a hand at him as he slides down the door, where he then curls up, occasionally wiping a tear from his cheek. Bob kicks his leg.
“How’d your day go, honey?” Brian asks. He’s leaning against the wall between the dresser and the bathroom, and he’s totally laughing at Bob. “Did you bring home the bacon? Or just the rest of the store?”
Bob scowls at him. Brian isn’t at all fazed by this, which just makes Bob scowl harder. “No bacon, Cupcake, but enough shit to fully restock the kits even after I pound the shit out of you.”
“No more information?” Andy asks. He’s sitting at the small table in the corner, one eye obviously on Patrick and Pete, who are shoving each other around between the beds. He’s smiling wide, though. That and the way he’s twirling a drumstick around his fingers are the only indications of his own excitement.
“No. Either no one knows anything or they just aren’t willing to tell us,” Bob says. He picks up the bags he’d dropped and brings them over to the table.
“Presents?” Joe asks. He jumps up from where he’d landed when Bob had shoved him off and scrambles over to the table. He pushes past Bob and starts rooting through the bags. “Witch Hazel? Awesome! Arrowroot, sweet! Been looking everywhere for that. What else did you find?”
Bob goes to stand by Brian, well out of the way of Joe’s flailing hands. “So, what happened?”
“I kick ass, that’s what,” Brian tells him, completely serious. But Bob can see the small smile on his face and how loose his shoulders are.
“Someone’s obviously satisfied with himself,” someone who is most definitely not Bob says, right before there’s a POP! and a somewhat ruffled bird appears on the dresser next to Brian.
Both Bob and Brian jerk away from the dresser. As they move, something shoots past Bob’s head. It turns out to be Andy’s drumstick, which doesn’t hit its intended target, but only because it is hovering in mid-air about three inches from Kilky’s head.
“Now, now, Andrew John Hurley, is that any way to treat a visitor?” Kilky asks. One of its tentacles reaches up and grabs the drumstick, snapping it in half by crushing the middle section into sawdust.
“Only the uninvited ones,” Andy says. He’s standing up now, one of his knives in his hand. Pete and Patrick are on their feet as well, and Joe is sketching a quick symbol into the air - Bob doesn’t recognize it, but he’s pretty sure it’s the spell Marty had shown him to create a small bubble space where Joe can still cast spells, even in a magically deadened area.
“Don’t bother with all that, Joseph Mark Trohman. You won’t need it as I’m not here to fight,” Kilky says. Its tentacle curls back under a couple of feathers, leaving the decimated remains of Andy’s drumstick littering the motel carpet.
Joe snorts. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t bother to listen to you.”
Kilky shrugs, looking wholly unconcerned. It turns its head towards the door as Matt stands up and Kilky’s beady little eyes widen when they take Matt in. “Well, well, well! Isn’t this a nice surprise! You boys are hanging out with Matthew Esteban Cortez. You’ve certainly come up in the world.”
Matt scowls. The air shimmers around him. One second there’s the Matt Cortez Bob has known for a couple of years standing in front of them, the next there’s a demon that’s obviously still Matt, only not quite. Matt’s now a tiny bit wider, mostly in the shoulders and torso, and his fingers end in small but what Bob would bet are very sharp claws. His eyes are still the same brown color as before, but there is a blue tint to them. And Bob can see the shimmer of tiny blue scales on the exposed portions of Matt’s skin.
“And he shows his true face! Marvelous, marvelous!” Kilky laughs. It bounces up and down on its tiny clawed feet, leaving marks in the dresser that Bob isn’t looking forward to trying to explain to the motel.
“One of us has to show basic manners,” Matt says. His teeth look very, very sharp. “You are a disgrace to your masters, bird-boy.”
“Whoever they are,” Patrick mutters.
Matt nods. “Patrick has a point, bird-boy. You can’t expect us to do the bidding of anyone on just your word.” Matt cocks his hip to one side and crosses his arms over his chest. With the way he is standing straight up and tilting his head up so that he is literally looking down on Kilky, it is obvious Matt doesn’t think much of their unexpected and unwanted visitor.
Kilky sniffs. “I don’t have to answer to you, Matthew Esteban Cortez. And it just so happens that I’m not allowed to release that information to you.”
Andy slowly rotates his wrist, letting the light catch on the sharp edges of his knife. “You may have stopped my drumstick, feather head, but that won’t stop me from trying again with this. I doubt you’ll be able to stop all of us at once.”
Kilky ruffles its feathers. “As I already told your Joseph Mark Trohman, Andrew John Hurley, I have not come to fight.”
“Then how about you cut to the chase and tell us why you are here?” Andy asks.
Kilky pulls itself to its full height. It’s about as impressive as when Pete tries doing the same thing to Patrick. “I came to clarify a few things, such as just who the prophecy was meant for.”
“Really,” Bob says, drawing out the word skeptically.
“Yes,” Kilky sighs. “Although it is quite amusing to see how much your Patrick Martin Stump cares for Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third, his concern is wrongly place. You see, the prophecy was for you, Robert Cory Nathaniel Bryar, and no one else.”
Bob blinks. Then he scowls. “Fuck off.” He even crosses his arms over his chest for emphasis.
“Oh, please, Robert Cory Nathaniel Bryar, you look like a petulant child. Accept that you have been tapped by my masters, the gods, to do this deed that will keep the forces of good and evil on equal terms.” Kilky glares at him. “Trust me; it’s just easier that way.”
“Do you ever get tired of saying people’s full names like that?” Joe asks. “It seriously makes for some pretty dull conversation.”
“It is how these things are done,” Kilky tells Joe.
Matt snorts. “Yeah, sure. For pompous jackasses that like to piss people off more than they like to do their jobs.” He waves his hand at Kilky. “Just go away before I eat you.”
“You can’t just banish me, Matthew Esteban Cortez! I am the informant of the go...” Kilky can’t say anything further than that because Matt hadn’t just been suggesting that dismissal, he’d been casting it. Kilky disappears from the room with a faint squawk and a cloud of tiny blue feathers, most of which somehow finds itself floating over to Bob.
“I hate guys like that,” Matt mutters, shaking himself. “Self-important fucktards.”
Brian raises an eyebrow in Matt’s direction as he helps Bob brush the feathers off of him. “Really. Care to fill us in there, Matthew Esteban?”
“Fuck you.” Matt scowls. “I doubt that thing really works for anyone important, and if it does it’s doing a piss poor job of it. Mi bisabuela would have its head for acting like that.”
Bob and Brian look at each other. Bob shrugs and waves Brian forward. He’s never seen Matt like this, and frankly, calming strange people is Brian’s job. Bob just makes things sound decent and occasionally acts as a bouncer slash bodyguard. Brian scowls and swats at Bob.
“You going to fill us in, man, or do we have to keep playing twenty questions?” Brian asks.
Matt shrugs. “I doubt that it works for any god, so it’s either delusional or the things it works for are.”
“What makes you say that?” Joe asks.
“The gods are showy,” Matt tells him. He shakes his head and shudders, and between one second and the next, Matt reverts back to his human form. “If you’d found the prophecy on a scroll at the back of a cave after fighting off a horde of zombies, then you’d have the god’s handy work.”
“So basically, you’re saying we’re dealing with a delusional demon working for other delusional demons who think that we mere humans wouldn’t be able to understand that they’re not actually gods?” Andy asks. He plucks a stray feather out of Brian’s hair.
Matt nods. “Pretty much.”
“Great. So we’re dealing with a group of demons who want to use Bob for their own nefarious purposes?” Pete asks. He frowns. “I don’t think I’m cool with you and Brian going off on your own with this on the table.”
“Wait. What?” Bob asks. “Who said we were going anywhere? What, you’re suddenly signed to a major label and we’re not good enough for you now, Wentz?”
“It’s not like that, Bob! You know I adore you!” Pete scowls. “It’s just a matter of life and death, seriously!”
Bob snorts and glares at him some more.
“Bob, really. We wouldn’t try to get rid of either of you if it wasn’t something important,” Patrick tells him. “I’ve gotten word of some kid down south who’s setting a lot of shit on fire. We can’t go, what with, you know, the tour and the signing with a major label and all, but you and Brian should be able to handle it on your own.”
“A kid. Who is setting shit on fire.” Bob rubs a hand over his face. He can not believe this is his life now: demons, magic, and small time pyromaniacs. “How exactly is that our problem? Call the fucking fire department.”
“Well, we think he might be doing it with his mind,” Joe says. “Or with magic. Can’t really be sure until someone checks it out.” He shrugs, going back to sorting through the shit that Bob and Matt had brought back. “Powdered rams horn, neat! I’ve always wanted to try this shit.”
Bob blinks, then changes tactics. “You knew about this,” he accuses Brian. He points his finger and everything.
Brian shrugs. “Because you want to work as a sound tech forever.”
“And you think spanking kids who play with fire is a better use of my degree?” Bob asks.
Brian blinks, then grimaces. “Thank you for that, Bryar. Really.”
Bob glares. “You know what I meant, Schechter.”
“Oh, come on, Bob. You knew as well as I did that we weren’t going to be hanging out with Fall Out Boy forever,” Brian snaps. “Why the fuck do you think we were learning all this shit!” He throws his hand out toward Pete and Patrick, like the two of them encompass everything dealing with, around, or about the supernatural ever.
“Yeah, no shit, Schechter!”
“Then what’s the fucking problem?”
“You obviously didn’t think I needed to be kept in the loop on this!” Bob snaps, throwing his own arms out in frustration. He and Brian stare at each other, glaring, their chests moving heavily as they breathe deeply.
“Holy fuck! Dragon’s blood!” Joe exclaims. He holds two blood red bottles up, one in each hand, liquid gently swaying in the bottles. He looks back and forth between Bob and Matt in astonishment. “How the fuck did you find this? And is it real?”
Matt nods. “It’s real. One of the shopkeepers knew one of my father’s step-sisters mother-in-laws and owed her a favor. She’s dead, so I got it.”
“Holy fuck!” Joe says again. “So cool!”
Bob sighs. He closes his eyes and rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “You’re welcome, Trohman.” Bob can feel Patrick and Brian looking at him with concern.
“One of shopkeepers’ kids offered to eat him,” Matt explains.
“Oh, gross,” Patrick says.
“Apparently it’s some kind of a compliment,” Matt says. “Not that Bob took it that way. Whatever. It got us a discount on the blood and the rosemary - dragon’s blood is fucking pricey this far north.”
“Really.” Brian sighs. Then he ignores Matt’s response to poke Bob in the shoulder. “So, Bryar. We need to head to Kansas to keep this pryo kid from killing his entire town. The band can’t come because they have to finish their tour and record a new album, and Matt’s their new manager. So it’s just the two of us. What do you say?”
Bob swats Brian’s hand away from his side. He opens his eyes to glare at Brian, but it’s half-hearted. Brian can definitely tell because he smirks at Bob. “Fine, Schechter. You’re doing the driving though.”
Pete jumps onto Bob’s back. “Yay! Dad and Daddy aren’t fighting anymore! Group hug!”
Bob grunts and elbows Pete in the side. “Fuck off, Wentz.” But Pete doesn’t budge and then Bob has a Joe clinging to his side. “Motherfuckers, get off of me!”
“Nope! You’re stuck with us forever and ever, Bryar!” Pete shouts.
Bob can see Andy laughing at him through his reflection in the mirror. “At least when we’re not on tour, and you’re not chasing ghosts across the country.”
“Welcome to the family, Bryar,” Patrick laughs.
Bob sighs. There are certainly worse families to be in, that’s for sure. That still doesn't stop him from punching Pete and Joe to knock them off of him.
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Part 1 - Part 3