It's Never Easy

[Danika Moran]

[dani]She was as bouncy as a cheerleader on crack. She knew this because that was exactly how Wyatt had described her not five minutes earlier, but she didn't care in the least. She was both used to the way her brother described things - and her - in a light that was less than positive, and she was just too excited to care what the neanderthal had to say about it and that was that.

She was riding shotgun in the old blue F-250 that was their 'every day' vehicle and at least half the bouncing was because the old shocks weren't all that great anymore. But again, she didn't care, they were almost there.

"She said to go around to the back gate," she told Wyatt, who was driving and who, for once, was wearing something other than a cowboy hat.

"I know," Wyatt said with a grumpy sideways glance, "You told me. About fifty times."

"Shut up," Dani, who had straightened her hair and donned what she liked to call her "concert gear" and black cowboy boots, said cheerfully. "I'm excited and underneath all your bluster you are, too. I know you're dying to swap manly man stories with Miguel."

"What I'm dying to do is toss you out the window," Wyatt said, but after that he didn't have much else to say.

Dani kept up a steady stream of chatter whether he was talking or not, on and on about how long it'd been since the band had come close enough that she could go see them.

Nevermind she talked to Norah at least once a week on Skype, but Wyatt wasn't able to get a word in edgewise about that, not that he wanted to.

So they were heading to the show a few hours early so the girls could hang out in the massive amount of down time there was, outside of sound check and, he was sure, would be hanging out for hours afterward.

Which proved to be true, as the band wound up having press and other crap to do and Dani and Norah barely got to say hello before they went on. They did, however, get to watch from the side of the stage, along with some other guy who, regardless of his mussed hair and stubble and denim looked like he'd just fallen off the turnip truck.

They did good, as far as Wyatt could tell (he never got it right, when he thought the band did well, they said they were shitty, and when he thought a show was off, they said they killed it), and it wasn't long after they'd finished that Dani was hurling herself at Norah talking about eighty miles a minute in that high pitched girl talk that he was certain only dogs could hear.

Sighing, he leaned back against a wall, arms cross over his shoulder, rolling his eyes as she finished with 'and who's the cute onlooker?' as she nodded at Innocent Guy.[/dani]

[Norah Byron]

[norah]The moment she was offstage Norah stepped out of the five-inch heels, but didn't do anything immediate about the dress, which was thankfully far less revealing in person than it had looked to be when being hit by spotlights. The lining was very well matched to her skin tone.

With one arm still around Dani's shoulders, Norah reached out and tweaked the lapel of Charlie's jacket. "This is Charlie. He's my beer hero and official purveyor of sinfully good skin care products. Also my local grounding." Norah collected them, people who could help her keep her perspective, not spin off into the madness of either the music or the monster life. In this area, that was Charlie. "In return I introduce him to musicians who he does not take the opportunity to sleep with, pimp his lotions, and keep his mother happy by dragging him off to have adventures now and then so that she doesn't feel that he's wasting his youth."[/norah]

[Danika Moran]

[dani]Dani, unwilling to let go of Norah just yet, turned to Charlie and arched a brow. "Is it the sex you don't like or musicians?"

Charlie, who'd about choked at Norah's explanation of him, flushed a deep crimson and hurried to say, "Neither. I just, I mean, I don't, um - "

"Christ on a cracker, Dani," Wyatt swore in his soft spoken growly drawl, "I think that a record for how quickly you broke someone."

"I did not break him, he's just," she stopped, sighed, "I'm sorry. I do that sometimes. I'm Dani, it's nice to meet you."

Charlie gave Norah a pleading look though what he was pleading for Wyatt had no idea, and shook her hand. "S'okay," he said, "I'm kind of an easy target."

"You ain't kidding," she said brightly. "No wonder Norah's adopted you."[/dani]

[Norah Byron]

[norah]Norah laughed and kissed Dani's cheek. "See," she beamed at Charlie. "I really am gentle with you." But she also reached out without unwinding her arm from around Dani and squeezed his hand. "Come on, let's hit the green room real quick so I can change and then we can head to the lake for the party?"

She walked off, leaving behind the 800 dollar Louboutin pumps and keeping her arm around Dani as she led them to the crowded, noisy green room. Trusting Danika to protect Charlie and Wyatt while she dashed into her dressing room. A few minutes later she emerged with most of the product brushed out of her hair, wearing a tank top and cutoffs and, as always, an attitude that seemed to utterly deny any knowledge that there was anything provocative about the way she dressed even as she'd calibrated her makeup to be the sort that would photograph well around the bonfire because there were bound to be bloggers at the party.

Coming up behind Charlie and kissing the back of the shoulder, she asked Wyatt, "Has everybody been nice to him?" He'd tattle on Dani, she knew.[/norah]

[Wyatt Moran]

[wyatt]"We've been talking," Dani said, "Turns out we have a ton in common."

"Because horses and goats are totally the same thing," Wyatt said blandly.

"Shut it, you. It's kind of the same, raising animals. 'Sides, we both have chickens."

"It's like you were separated at birth."

Charlie, for his part, was warming up to the two as his shyness swiftly faded and so laughed at Wyatt's dry humor. "You keep frowning like that you're gonna start looking old," he said casually, "I can give you a lotion for that."

Dani clapped happily. "Free samples!" Mostly she was just egging Charlie on.

Wyatt looked to Norah. "That answer your question? Can we go now?"[/wyatt]

[Norah Byron]

[norah]A happy, happy sigh. "That's more like it." She hugged Wyatt, getting extra snuggle into it just to irritate him, then got one arm around Dani and the other around Charlie as she said, "To the rape van!"

She only groaned a little bit when Mickey peeled off to join them as they headed out the back. "Shouldn't you be guarding the virtue--or at least the disease status--of my brothers and yours?"

Miguel, unimpressed and heavily armed, as always, didn't back off. "The site staff can make sure they remember rubbers. You're way more likely to do something creative and stupid instead of just stupid."

Honestly wondering, Norah turned to Charlie. "Was that a compliment or an insult?"[/norah]

[Wyatt Moran]

[wyatt]"Both, I think," Charlie said diplomatically. "It's good to be imaginative."

Wyatt gave Miguel a look and said, "Not when you're in charge of keeping the imaginative person out of trouble."

"Funny, I don't think my brother's talking about you," Dani said to Norah, looking anything but sorry for making Wyatt's life difficult at times.

"Um, what's the rape van?" Charlie asked, "I just - yeah, I got nothing. It's a hell of a nickname."

Dani made her face all kinds of innocent. "Nickname?"[/wyatt]

[Norah Byron]

[norah]"It's just the cargo van," Norah promised. "It's all black and dented and no windows in the back, so what else were we going to call it? But the seats pop up and it'll hold eight. And you love my creativity, it keeps you from being bored."

Miguel was giving Wyatt a bland look. "I could do with being bored now and then. Wouldn't suck."[/norah]

[Charlie Davis]

[charlie]"You're no fun," Dani laughed at Norah but then nodded to Charlie. "It's a real piece of...something. But yay for seating a lot of people."

Charlie was nodding. "Gotcha," he said, feeling more than a little silly for not having cottoned on sooner. Or, immediately. He was just too used to taking things literally. It was a bad habit.

"Boredom," Wyatt drawled slowly, "I forget what that is. Can you describe it for me?"

"Are you kidding me?" Dani gaped at him. "If our life was anymore boring I'd be," but she cut herself off, changed the phrasing, "We'd be dead."

Wyatt gave her a very pointed look, but didn't say anything both because he couldn't, not with New Guy there and because she'd censored herself. Instead, he imitated her gaping face (which looked asinine on him) and asked, "You kidding me? Since you've adopted yourself another weirdo?"

Dani nodded happily at Norah. "I found a new friend," she told her, "You have to come by the Ranch when you have a day or two. You'd really like her."

"So," Charlie said slowly, "is it like, a thing with you two?" He looked from Dani to Norah. "Adopting people?" He was well aware that was what Norah had done with him. [/charlie]

[Norah Byron]

[norah]"It's good to have interests in common," Norah said brightly. "What kind of weirdo have you adopted, then? What's she like?" She kept her hand on Charlie's knee, she was protective of her sweet farm boy.

Miguel got them all into the van and pulled out of the staff lot. They were heading to a lake where a local club was running a bonfire and party and charging more per head than the concert tickets had cost, but there'd be food and drink and pretty girls bouncing around in bikinis it was too cold for.

He looked over at Wyatt. "They're not going to stop talking until dawn, are they?"[/norah]

[Wyatt Moran]

[wyatt]"Do they ever?" Wyatt asked blandly before looking at Charlie. "You're gonna regret your adoption. Your ear's like to fall off before they're done."

Charlie shrugged. "I like the company."

Wyatt, figuring he meant that it was that the company was two attractive women, shrugged back. And made a mental note to keep an eye on him.

"Her name's Erin. She came tearing onto the Ranch one day all 'hey, you've got a bunch of'," Dani stopped again and switched to, "Rats." Norah hadn't said Charlie was in the life, better safe than sorry.

"So she um, helps us get rid of them like, real fast and Wyatt," she glared at him, "Ruined my dress in the process." Norah knew the dress, Dani'd shown it to her over skype. She also knew it was the dress Dani planned on wearing one day when she got married.

"She's really cool though. Has orange hair. Said she's gonna help me go purple."[/wyatt]

[Norah Byron]

[norah]"Gotcha." Norah would definitely need to ask about that story again someday when there were only hunters and those in the life around. "She sounds awesome, why didn't you bring her? I coulda gotten you more tickets." She could always get more tickets.

They chattered the length of the trip to the lake and were still talking as they headed over to the section of beach that was cordoned off for the band, guests, and the people who'd paid an extra fifty bucks for VIP passes. When they got settled in with drinks and baskets of fancy-pants grilled appetizers and canapes and after Wyatt and Miguel had complained loudly about being at a lake party and being expected to eat cilantro-lime dusted langostines and mojito salad and been provided with a tray all to themselves of the grilled steak tips and horseradish-mustard dipping sauce, Norah finally turned on Wyatt and asked, "Okay, you. Make a declarative statement about your mental health and wellbeing that does not include the word 'fine'. Do a good job, and I won't pester you for new answers for the rest of the night."[/norah]

[Wyatt Moran]

[wyatt]Wyatt, who'd been happily stuffing his face with the red meaty goodness, swore under his breath. "God damn it, Norah, how many times I have to tell you I don't need taken care of?"

Charlie watched this with interest. The older man looked like he'd made an art form of brooding and he wondered what it was that had made him like that. Course, if he was anything like April, he could just have been born that way.

Dani, too, was watching this with interest, though with her it was to see who'd win the battle of wills. Sometimes Norah did, sometimes her brother did. It was always fun to watch though.[/wyatt]

[Norah Byron]

[norah]"Clearly at least once or twice or a hundred times more. I haven't seen you in like seven weeks, one statement about how you're actually doing isn't that unreasonable. I waited until you have steak and beer and a seat in a defensible position where you can reach over and throw Dani between those two big coolers and yet you still have a decent view of the girls dancing in the bikinis. I think I've earned a momentary un-bending while you indulge my silly girlish emotions."[/norah]

[Wyatt Moran]

[wyatt]The whole mini-speech just had him scowling because he'd not noticed all of the things she ticked off that she'd already done to make him comfortable. Damn it, he did have an excellent view of the bikini clad girls. Now he felt like he owed her.

"I'm alright."

Charlie, not realizing how close he was coming to being shot, said, "I think she said you had to say more than that." You know, trying to be helpful. Dani decided she liked him immediately.

"She said," Wyatt said, turning narrowed eyes onto the kid, "I couldn't say 'fine'."

"Oh for Pete's sake, Wy," Dani said, then turned to Norah and Wyatt knew he'd messed up, proven as his sister told her friend, "He's still not sleeping. He's eating, so that's something. Erin seems to make him crankier than usual, but I think that just means he likes her and as of last week it's been - "

"Dani," Wyatt warned but it was too late.

"Like three years since he's gotten laid."

Wyatt's face went extra-scowly. "Satisfied?" he asked Norah, and went back to eating and watching the pretty young things, though his attention was more on deciding whether or not to drown his sister in the lake behind them.

Charlie caught Norah's eye, clearly trying not to laugh, but kept his mouth shut.[/wyatt]