Disagreements Between Bandmates

The door to Gray's apartment flew open, hitting the wall behind it with a deafening crash. Loch came in – or stormed in might have been a more accurate term – and slammed the door shut behind her as forcefully as she'd opened it. She was alone, even though Gray and Stal were supposed to be with her. Pyre, who had been working on a keyboard piece, stopped playing and gazed at her in surprise, his fingers still on the keys.

'What's up?' he asked curiously.

'Nothing!' she called back, brushing past him and going into the kitchen. Feeling more bewildered by the second, he just stood there and listened as she started making a pot of tea, every motion sharp and jagged with barely-restrained anger.

He didn't need to hear her to know she was angry; he'd sensed her mood the moment she'd walked in through the front door. Vampires were more attuned to emotions that most people were, and it hadn't exactly been hard to pick up on the fact that Loch was seriously annoyed.

'What's up?' he repeated.

'I said nothing!' she replied. 'Nothing that has anything to do with you, anyway.'

'Why does that mean you can't tell me?' he said, not getting it.

'Because it's none of your business!'

Pyre glanced down at his keyboard, then carefully switched it off and padded into the kitchen. Loch was staring at the teapot while it steamed gently, her eyes open but her mind a hundred miles away. She didn't even seem to notice he was standing there.

Eventually, he cleared his throat, and she jumped and turned to fix him with a baleful glare. 'Is it something to do with the other guys?' he asked before she could open her mouth. 'Gray and Stal? I, ah, couldn't help noticing that they're supposed to be here too, and they're not.'

Loch stared at him for a moment longer, then turned away. Elbows resting on the kitchen counter, she watched the pale steam rising from the tea as it brewed. 'Like I said, it's nothing to do with you. It's between me and Stal.'

'Aha,' he said triumphantly. 'So it's about Stal!'

'We just had – a disagreement,' said Loch, the slightest hint of hesitation in her voice.

'About what?'

'None of your business.'

'Come on, Loch. Now you're just repeating yourself--'

'So are you!'

'--And you can tell me. Why don't you want to?'

'Because you don't need to know.'

'Is it because you're embarrassed to admit what happened, or is it because you want me to help but think I can't?'

She eyed him from beneath her spiky locks of hair, her expression both startled and suspicious. 'When did you get so good at reading situations?'

'I've always been,' said Pyre happily, ignoring her still-slightly-hostile tone of voice. 'You just didn't notice.'

'Yeah. I didn't notice. Just like I don't notice a lot of other things.' She took a long breath and picked up a spoon, stirring the contents of the teapot with it. 'Maybe I should quit the band.'

'Woah, woah, woah.' Pyre instantly sobered, holding up both hands in a 'wait' gesture. 'Leave the band? Why?'

'I'm not good enough. It's not a self-pity thing; it's the truth. I've only been playing guitar for a few years, and it's not enough. Gray's been playing bass since he was ten. Arc's been drumming since he was in school. You've been playing keyboard since you were eleven, and I don't fit in with any of you. I'm just slowing you all down.'

Pyre frowned, trying to push the pieces together. 'What does Stal have to do with all of this? Did he say something to you while you were out together?'

Loch opened her mouth to hotly deny it, then stopped. Surprise showed on her face as she took note of the rising protectiveness in his voice. He was her best friend, but somehow she hadn't expected him to react like that.

'...Yeah,' she said at last, her anger dying away. 'He was going on and on about that song we've been working on – the untitled one – and saying that I'm never going to be good enough to play the riffs in time for the album's planned release date. He wants it out by July. He said there's no way it's going to happen, unless he finds another guitarist to play my parts on the album.'

Pyre was shocked. 'Replace you with someone else? No. He can't have said that. You're our guitarist, and that's never gonna change unless you choose to leave!'

'He did say it. But he wasn't trying to be mean. Like I said, it's just the truth.'

'It's not the truth.'

'Pyre, come on. You know that I'm an inexperienced guitarist.'

'Yes, but you're good enough. And you're only going to get better with time.'

Loch kept stirring the over-brewed tea in the pot, looking like she wanted to believe him but was having a hard time doing so.

'You know what Stal's like sometimes,' he said persistently. 'He gets really stressed about things not going the way he planned, and he's a huge perfectionist. He's not really angry with you, he's just... frustrated that the album isn't coming together as fast as he wanted. He's frustrated with everything, not just you. Or maybe he's just frustrated with himself. But I know he doesn't want you to quit the band, and he'll never replace you, either. Stal is loyal to his friends. Besides, even if he did try to replace you with another guitarist – me, Gray and Arc wouldn't stand for it. We'd change his mind.' He smiled faintly, showing a gleam of white fangs.

Loch put the teaspoon down. Her expression was unreadable, and she couldn't meet Pyre's gaze.

'...Do you really mean all that?' she said at last. 'You're not just saying it to be nice?'

'I never say things just to be nice,' he replied. Which both of them knew was a huge lie – Pyre simply wasn't capable of not being nice. But Loch had a feeling that this time, he was being completely sincere.

She didn't know what to say; anything she said would have sounded utterly insignificant after the monologue he'd just given her. So instead, she stepped across the kitchen and gave him a hug. She tried very hard to put all the feelings she couldn't express with words into the hug. And maybe he understood them. However, all he did was pat her on the back comfortingly until she pulled away, seeming to take the hug as a need for reassurance rather than a gesture of gratitude.

'Thanks,' she said, picking up the teapot and pouring a drink for each of them.

'No problem,' he said easily, accepting the steaming mug of tea she handed him.

Stal and Gray came back five minutes later, and none of them ever talked about the day's events again.