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Andy was going to kill Pete.
They had gone out to dinner to cheer him up, though the thought made Andy sickeningly angry now. Morgan was dating someone new, shocking to no one, but Pete was broken up about it, so they went out for pizza. It had been fine. Andy had been thirsty, but it wasn’t too bad. They had pizza, Pete drank beer and Andy didn’t give him shit for it, because he’d been having a bad day. And then they left.
Andy wasn’t a fan of all the burly, near skinheads that roamed the town they were recording in, or the fact that they were in greater numbers directly outside the city, in the tiny farm town where they went for food, but he usually tried to ignore them. When a group of heavyset frat boys passed them on the sidewalk and bumped shoulders with Pete, Andy expected Pete to brush it off.
He did not expect Pete to yell “Who the hell do you think you are?” and punch the biggest one in the nose.
“Do we get, like, one phone call or something?” Patrick asked, his head up against the bars, eyes lazily half-shut. “I heard we got one phone call.”
“Shut up, kid,” the guard said, and Patrick sighed. Joe was pacing the cell anxiously, and Pete was leaning up against the wall, yawning occasionally. Andy stood in the corner, seething.
“Look, I said I was sorry,” Pete said to Andy.
“You got us arrested!” Andy half screamed. “I don’t think sorry really cuts it.”
“We’re just in the drunk tank,” Patrick said. “They’ll probably let us out in the morning.”
Easy enough for Patrick to say, Patrick who kept leaning back and exposing his throat, Patrick who had been the most nervous when they first got arrested, his heart rate quickening, the smell of his blood and adrenaline sending Andy over the fucking edge-
No, he wasn’t going to freak out. Just because he’d never gone this long before…
“Plus, our producer’s gonna ream us out enough if we’re late,” Patrick yawned again, the muscles in his neck stretching taut- Jesus Christ, his skin was pale, the hollow of his throat beckoning. “No need to be a cunt about it. Anyway, you did most of the punching in the first place.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. But they were going to kill Pete, or at least hospitalize him, and Andy was edgy. Over a month without blood did not a happy vampire make. What was Andy supposed to do?
“I didn’t even do anything!” Joe yelled out the door again.
“You kicked that one guy in the ribs,” Pete said. Joe rolled his eyes.
“Okay, yeah, but he had a swastika tattoo, so I assumed hurting him didn’t really count as anything but public service.”
“That’s Wisconsin for you,” Patrick said wisely.
“Oh fuck off with your high and mighty bullshit, the only thing blue about your state is the blue blood in all your corrupt politicians,” Andy said.
“Ooooh,” Pete cheered, and Andy growled at him.
Even on the opposite side of the room, Andy could still smell Patrick, like spice and warmth and a cool drink of water, all at once. He was going to sink his teeth into Patrick’s neck and tear him apart and drain him like a juicebox and- no, no he wasn’t, there were witnesses, and anyway he liked Patrick, even if he didn’t know him all that well, and he wasn’t going to murder anyone.
But oh, he really, really wanted to.
***
Joe was twitching. He felt jittery, a kind of jittery that went beyond nerves and was more of a “drank four Monsters on a dare”, heart palpitations feeling. Mostly, he was quite literally bursting out of his skin.
Changing wasn’t like it was when he was twelve anymore, thank fuck. He didn’t spend all three nights of the full moon transformed, unable to leave his bedroom and pacing the house in circles, getting reprimanded if he ever howled too loud. He didn’t have to change all the time.
But tonight was a full moon, and the pale light was streaming in through the bars on the window. It struck his skin like a whip, a reminder, a furious voice saying to get on with it, change already. It was insistent, tugging on him, demanding a transformation, and he was in the worst possible place.
Because even if he could change without attracting the guards’ attention, without some stranger seeing him and spitting out their coffee and calling some top secret science lab in Area 51 to lock him up and do tests on him for the rest of his life, even if he could avoid his worst fear, there was no way the other three guys in the cell with him wouldn’t notice the fact that where their guitarist had stood was a gangly wolf.
Joe needed another plan. He could be angry at Pete and this whole fucking band later, for the moment he just needed to survive the night. He could stay up all night, because heaven knew he couldn’t fall asleep feeling the way he did. But, with any amount of luck, the others would fall asleep, and as soon as they were out, he would turn. Maybe he could even convince the guard to throw in a blanket, and if he did it under a blanket, none of them would notice.
“Hey, it’s kinda cold in here,” Joe said in his best nonchalant voice, leaning up against the cell wall and trying to look bored.
“You oughta be grateful,” the guard grunted, not looking up from his book. Joe squinted at the cover, all shiny plastic cover and pastel colors. “We finally got the A/C fixed in here. It’s boiling out.”
Frankly, it was unpleasantly warm in the station too, but Joe was determined.
“If we’re gonna be stuck here all night, can I at least get a blanket or something?” he asked, and the guard snorted.
“Not while I’m on duty, son,” he said, and Joe’s expression soured.
“The Notebook?” Joe asked, squinting at the cover. “Isn’t that a romance novel?”
The burly guard glared at Joe, and turned back to the book. Joe heaved a sigh and leaned back against the wall, taking deep, slow breaths. They had to fall asleep eventually, right?
“What are we even supposed to do all night?” Patrick asked. “Is this, like, grownup detention? Just sit here and think about what we’ve done wrong?”
“Well, you’re not legally required to stay quiet, but it would sure as hell make my job easier,” the guard said. Patrick growled.
“Piss off,” he demanded, and the guard stood up.
“You getting mouthy with me?” he asked.
“Yeah I fucking am, what are you holding us for? I bet this isn’t fucking legal, nobody’s pressed charges yet and we’re not drunk, so you’d better be fucking ready to answer to us later. My friend’s in law school,” he added.
“I dropped out of law school,” Pete whispered, and Patrick glared at him.
“By all means, keep talking if you want to rack up some real charges,” the guard said, something in his eyes steely and cold, and it gave Joe a very bad feeling. Patrick opened his mouth to speak again, and Joe put a hand on his shoulder.
“Drop it,” he pleaded, and Patrick sighed, but stayed quiet, thankfully.
If it had been any other night, Joe thought desperately, any other night, he could handle this. But if he couldn’t do something soon, he was going to turn against his will, his bones snapping and reforming in front of his friends’ horrified eyes.
Maybe he should just tell them the truth. Tell them that he was still the same guy, still Joe Trohman, their friend and bandmate, but he was a little different. Then he could turn into a wolf when the guard wasn’t looking, maybe they could even help him hide it.
After all, his mom had a point. He had to tell them eventually, if they were going to tour together. Maybe he should just get it over with.
And maybe, instead of a stranger getting him locked up forever, it would be one of his best friends.
***
Patrick was lost. He had no idea what he was doing here. Not in this cell, not in this town, not in this entire goddamn state, recording a shitty pop-punk album with three metal-heads that, he had decided, were completely and totally insane. And it had landed him in jail.
Not that his bandmates weren’t incredibly cool, but at times, especially times of crisis, they acted like complete strangers. Andy kept staring at him with… desire? Possibly? Patrick had heard stories about Andy’s way with women, but you never knew. Joe kept pacing the cell acting like he was about to piss himself, and Pete was closed. Not in a way that Patrick would have noticed when they first met, but in a way he was starting to get used to. Sometimes Pete was just like that, like you could look into his eyes, and they were there, physically, but some shutters behind them had closed. Sometimes shutters, sometimes solid lead doors.
Obviously none of them wanted to be in a dank black cell, but Patrick thought, and maybe it was a selfish thought, but he thought that he sort of had the right to be the most freaked out by this whole situation. Yet Andy, who had been arrested before, and Joe, who had been in a band with Pete before, both looked panicked out of their minds, and Pete was just. Completely shut. He could still talk and walk and pretend, but he wasn’t there.
And Patrick wasn’t exactly good at sweet talking, so they were stuck in for the night. He wondered if this would be a felony, or if this was even on the record. While not being on the record seemed like kind of a dirty cop thing to do, Patrick decided that he’d rather get roughed up by the police than lose all hope of getting a real job when the band inevitably crashed and burned.
Patrick really hated this cell. He really wanted to be home, writing in private, getting a steady paycheck from the record store, suffering through community college for his mom’s sake. But apparently he was doomed to a life of adventure. Being friends with his band came with way too many occupational hazards.
***
Pete was a little drunk. Much less drunk than he was when he had started a fight, a fight he barely remembered. He almost felt bad about starting a fight. It felt like cheating when he had Andy Hurley on his side. Then again, whenever Andy looked at him, he looked murderous, so maybe he shouldn’t feel so bad.
Unbelievably, he was still wrapped up in thoughts of Morgan. He was seeing another girl, a much younger girl, but Jesus, it still stung. And he’d managed to piss off his friends. And he was too drunk to charmspeak the guard.
Not that he didn’t have charmspeak when he was drunk, but it was unreliable, and the last thing he needed at the moment was to have the whole county jail glow a brilliant gold in front of his friends. Granted, Joe was definitely a werewolf, Pete could tell, but it still might freak him out. And maybe that made it worse. Was it a full moon? If so, that would explain why Joe was so miserable, at least.
Pete’s solution was currently attempting to will himself sober. It wasn’t really working. But his friends’ auras were getting more and more anxious by the minute, and he was going to have to try something.
“Can I speak with you?” Pete asked the guard softly, cunningly. Patrick and Andy had started drifting off, and Joe wasn’t paying him any attention, so Pete was hoping he could do this discretely.
“What now?” the guard groaned, stretching back in his chair and casting a glance at Pete. As soon as they made eye contact, Pete had him hooked.
“You need to let us go,” he said softly, barely using the power, only letting his eyes shimmer. To his shock, the guard’s eyes narrowed, and a very nasty smirk spread across his face.
“Unlikely,” he spoke in the same whisper, his eyes suddenly a luminescent burnt orange color. Pete’s breath caught in his chest.
“What are you holding us for?” he asked, trying not to panic. His brain, unfortunately, hadn’t gotten the memo that he needed to keep cool, and his pulse raced so high and fast that he nearly passed out. He silently begged himself to keep it together while the guard stepped closer.
“Officially? Disorderly conduct,” he smiled an awful, yellow smile. “But I’m sure that my mistress would be willing to pardon you that.”
“You can tell her I’m no more interested than when she started harassing me when I was fifteen,” Pete hissed, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “I told Seelie Court I wanted nothing to do with them.”
“Ungrateful,” the guard said in disgust. “Do you know what people would give to be approached by her?” he spoke the pronoun with such reverence that Pete had to roll his eyes.
“Wait,” Pete said, and then, almost laughed. “You’re not full, are you? You’re half fae, right? Sucking up to try and get seen as a second class citizen so long as you’re a citizen at all?”
The guard’s face contorted in rage.
“Don’t you dare,” he said, and Pete grinned. He spun around till he met Joe’s eyes in the dark, and demanded “Sleep,” then turned back to the guard.
“Tell your queen that you’re pathetic, and you never stood a chance against me,” Pete said, and his eyes burned gold, like the sun was rising in the small, county jail.
“Let us go,” he demanded, and, helplessly, zombie like, the guard pulled out a ring of keys. He unlocked the cell, and just as Pete was trying to figure out what the hell to do next that wouldn’t attract suspicion, another guard came in.
“Hey, Mike,” he said, and looked at the wide open cell door in confusion. “Watcha doin?”
“I- made a mistake,” Mike said, looking at Pete with unadulterated loathing. There was no good lie he could come up with either. “I’m just letting ‘em out with a warning. They’re only kids.”
“Fine by me,” the new guard said with a yawn. “Anyways, you’re done for the night. Wake up your friends and beat it, kid,” he said to Pete, who nodded eagerly, shaking the others awake.
“Hey, come on, we’re leaving,” Pete said, tugging on Joe’s arm to jerk him out of the hypnotic sleep.
“We are?” Patrick asked groggily.
“Yeah, we’re let off with a warning,” Pete said, trying to hurry them towards the car.
“Uh, actually,” Joe turned to the new guard. “You have a bathroom here? With, like, a door?”
“Round the corner, kid,” the new guard snorted. Joe dashed off, and came back a few minutes later, his aura looking perfectly normal again. Jesus, he probably really needed to transform.
Pete drove them back to the studio in relative silence, wishing he could think of a way to drive around for longer and throw the first guard off the scent, just in case. He flipped through radio stations absently, trying to land on something that would distract him, when Patrick sighed wistfully at one of the stations.
“What?” Pete asked in feigned curiosity.
“I love the sound of that guitar. I’ve got one that could pull of something like that at home, which I’d thought to bring it with me,” he sighed.
“Let’s go get it!” Pete yelled suddenly. His whole band stared at him in disbelief.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Andy said, and he sounded like he was about to cry.
“Exactly, if we leave now, we’ll be back by morning,” Pete said.
“Why the fuck not?” Patrick chuckled. Joe shrugged, and Andy sighed, and that was all the confirmation Pete needed to make a wide, looping U-turn.
Things were definitely going to go right back to normal by morning.