"You should make them a CD."

Eugene said it with such certainty that Jesse paused in gulping down his third beer. Wasn't like him to speak confidently. Hell, ever since some asshole had broken into his room, painting horrific words that led straight to his shotgun, Eugene had barely spoken at all. Jesse leaned across the table where the kid was just writing out math equations, nice and innocent like. He rapped his knuckles hard on the wood when the silence stretched too long.

Eugene looked up.

"I should do what now?" Jesse asked, tilting his head.

And there was that smile—as much as Eugene could smile—peeking out like it had just been waiting for Jesse's interest.

"You should make them a CD," he said again. "That's what all the couples at school do."

"Really?"

"Really."

"…huh."

Jesse, Cass, and Tulip fought like cats and dogs. If cats and dogs had a tendency to get into screaming matches about the damn simplest things, start skilled boxes matches when shit escalated, and ended it all by fucking each other in public places with a ferocity that put those wild dogs to shame. Except that yesterday had ended with Cass retreating to the attic, Jesse leaving the church, and Tulip hauling herself off to god knows where. Not a single fuck was given—in literal or metaphorical terms.

Hell if Jesse remembered what the fight had been about. Nothing serious. Not like his Genesis or Cass' feeding or Tulip's love of revenge. No, this was just a routine sniping match that got out of hand, probably due to the heat and the still busted AC (Jesse vaguely recalled throwing that at Cass halfway through. He got a series of obscene gestures in response.) They'd been tired. Mildly drunk, even for them. Sometimes Jesse wondered how long they could stay cooped up in this godforsaken town before they really tore each others' throats out.

Shit. He didn't want Annville's sickness to bleed into them.

So Jesse said what the hell. What could it hurt? His pride only, and Jesse was pretty sure that he'd tossed that out the window the moment he shacked back up with his ex and a freaking Irish vampire. The world held stranger things after all.

Jesse was learning—albeit slowly—that honor wasn't the same thing as pride.

It didn't take long then for him to chug the rest of his drink, making sure to give Eugene an extra pat on the back as he left the diner. Will's 'drugstore' had all sorts of odds and ends, a regular treasure trove of the miscellaneous, and sure enough he had a bunch of blank CDs tucked in the back but sorry preacher, it's a set of twenty or nothin'. Take it or leave it. Jesse threw down his cash with an expression that could curdle milk. Lucky for Will, he threw in a pack of sharpies for 'free.'

Back at the church he paused at the steps leading up to the attic... then decided against it. Jesse wasn't gonna beg yet.

Not if he was gonna make a shitty gesture first, anyway.

He sighed as he booted up the ancient laptop, browsing through the iTunes he'd barely touched in a year. Not much time for personal music when you dealt with the sort of lives they led... and the radio was always on, so. Still, all the greats were waiting for him, right at the click of a button.

When he was done Jesse scrawled on the CD with one of them sharpies, got himself a paper case, and slid the whole thing under Cass' door.

Job fucking done.

Cass was sulking when he got a present.

At least he hoped it was a present. Damn well better be because he wasn't in the mood for anything else. Propped against attic wall, periodically slipping his hand into the sunbeams... whatever it was that had slid under his door seemed better than burning his freaking knuckles off.

He did that sometimes. Not often. Well, not often when it wasn't for lighting a cig or making a point. Just whenever things got a little too dark and muddled... and they'd gotten really fucking muddled last night. Cass didn't know what it was that had set him off so bad, but he'd thrown things at Jesse and Tulip that he didn't like so much after a bit of reflection. Thought he might have thrown a bottle at them too... but that part was pretty murky.

With a huff Cass hauled himself to his feet, wandering this way and that across the small space, sort of avoiding the door if he was honest, not sure if he wanted to see whatever Jesse had slipped him. Because it was definitely Jesse. No one else would be cruising by his room.

Except maybe Tulip. But she would have sent whatever message she had for him crashing through the window, tied to a brick scrawled and with a messy "FUCK YOU VERY MUCH."

Seriously. She'd done it before.

It wasn't a brick though. Damn too thin. Cass scratched at his stomach, hand dropping numbly when he found a CD of all things, like his life had suddenly become a scene from some shitty, high-school, straight to DVD movie. Cass turned it over, eyebrows raised, and found Jesse's messy scrawl shining through the plastic:

You're a shit sometimes, but you don't deserve shit music. Beers?

"Jesus, padre, you're even worse at apologizin' than I am ..."

What was he supposed to do though? Man had made a gesture and all that, dammit. There was a beat up player in the endless junk taking up half the room, which Cass was able to get working after some slaps and a bit of creative cursing. When he settled down to listen he had to actually pay attention, get the preacher's words about busted ACs out of his head. First verse to the worst country song, wasn't it? Ha.

Except that the song that came on was actually worse.

Cass sat bolt upright, hand slapping over his mouth to keep from howling. "Red Solo Cup" was blasting through his headphones and it was all Cass could do to remember how to breathe.

His first thought was that Jesse was fucking him. The opposite of his message: some shit music for a (how dare ya!) shit guy. Cass was actually debating if this was a 'game on' kind of fucking or the 'I'm still mad at you' kind... until "Red Solo Cup" thankfully faded away and "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" rose up. Cass then closed his eyes, something like dread filling him up. When he opened them again there was no one but an old, broken doll to share in his misery.

"The preacher's serious," Cass shared with it, voice slightly awed. "He don't just like Country, he likes fuckin' shite Country."

And whatever hard feelings he might have still been festering, well, they just blew right away. He didn't give the man the kind of credit to pull something like this off intentionally, but if worked nevertheless. Cass was shaking his head as he pulled the headphones off. He couldn't listen to another second of that, dear god in heaven.

What he could do though was spread the 'love,' as it were. Or misery, more like. Cass snuck downstairs when he was sure Jesse was in the kitchen, stole the laptop, found the source of this unholy hell in his iTunes, and with a resigned expression ripped some decent tracks off YouTube.

Cass threw those onto the CD and scribbled beneath Jesse's message.

Then he went off to find Tulip.

Tulip had had it up to here with those boys.

Stupid. Selfish. Short sighted. More S-words than Tulip could come up with in a year. Shit. Shit is what they were, and she'd learn to hate them if she weren't a damn pile of shit too.

What was it Cass always said? Misery loved company? Fucking A.

She'd gone back to her Uncle's house, because where the hell else did she have to go? Couldn't stop by the church, that was for sure. Tulip was content then by necessity to lounge in the backyard with a bottle and a pack of cigarettes until she was just loopy enough to go apologize—or the closet thing she could manage anyway.

What she was apologizing for... wasn't exactly clear. Or why she was mad. All Tulip knew was that words were exchanged and they were too fast and too ferocious to be anything other than insulting. She'd thrown a punch at Jesse, Jesse had spit at Cass, Cass had thrown a bottle at them both... it was a miracle she didn't have any new scars. Their relationship tended to be a volatile one.

Despite it all, Tulip smirked. She wouldn't have it any other way, frankly.

She was just thinking about getting some grub before this particular walk of shame when something smacked her on the head, bouncing into her lap. Tulip startled more from the strangeness of the thing rather than pain—it was too small to actually hurt her. She saw white against her skirt and turned, just in time to see a pair of legs disappearing over the garden wall.

Tulip narrowed her eyes. Those were a pretty familiar, skinny, ratty-jeans wearing pair of legs...

She didn't give chase though, instead turning the thing in her lap over to find—what?—a CD. Who the hell listened to CD's anymore? Did they even have a CD player? It was ten minutes of wasted life rooting through her Uncle's ancient shit and, whaddaya know, one boom-box with just enough juice in it for this strange little adventure.

Tulip caught sight of the writing right before she put the CD in. Looked like Jesse had written something, though it was crossed out now in hasty, disgusted strokes. Instead, below that was Cass' rat-ass script:

START WITH TRACK 6, LUV. BEERS, YEAH?

"Okay..." Tulip muttered. She skipped ahead to track six... and promptly bit into her lip as some god-forsaken Irish wailing filled the room. It was screechy and incomprehensible and loud enough to wake the dead—or at least to stir her uncle. She slammed her hand on the "Pause" button with the speed of a viper and turned sharply on her heel. The CD popped back out at her silent command.

"No," she said. "No, no, no, and we'll just add an extra 'no' in there for good measure, shall we?"

Her uncle didn't answer, but Tulip was sure he would have agreed. She took the CD and violently scribbled over the boys' words, adding her own. She settled down at the desktop computer and fifteen minutes later was out the door, finally heading back to their church.

They might fight, but Tulip couldn't let this stand.

"There she is," Cass said, toasting her from church's porch.

"Glad to see you started without me."

"Aw, don't be like that."

He had that smile, the tight, too-large one that told her he was still walking on eggshells. Not that Tulip felt like she was in a better position. So she snagged the bottle out of Cass' hand and by the time the warm beer slid down her throat his smile had turned more genuine.

"We good?" he asked quietly.

She gave him a Look. "After making my ears bleed? Hardly."

"Makin' your—? Now listen here! That there was—"

"Trash? An abomination?"

"Tulip!"

She threw a finger up to quiet him, not because he was talking foolishness—though he was—but because there was another sound coming from inside the church.

Tulip hung her head. "Please don't tell me he's singing."

"...aye. Been at it for a while now."

Differences and arguments aside, Cass and Tulip entered the church with the air of comrades entering battle. They each took a side of the doorway, leaning in tandem to watch Jesse putter around the pews, back to them as he sang an off-key rendition of that god-awful "Red Solo Cup," I mean really, didn't the man know anything else? The torture only ceased when Jesse froze, finally catching sight of them.

"Got my message then?" he asked, clearing his throat.

"I got something," Tulip said. She twirled the CD on her finger, Cass and Jesse both trying to peer at the new writing. When they got close enough they found only "You both suck at this" written in her neat script.

"Thanks," Cass drawled.

Tulip just shrugged, sauntering over to where Jesse had his own player set up on a pew. Cases of beer were on either side and Tulip grabbed one, knocking the top off on the armrest.

She tossed in the CD and skipped to track eleven. Neither of them got to see her smirk.

"Hope you boys like listening to Norah Jones all night," she said.

Tulip wasn't sure how, but those groans sounded a lot like coming home.

Eugene was mighty surprised when a CD was dropped in their mailbox, the whole front colored over in sharpie. Only words left were a big ol' THANK YOU written in black. He could guess who that was from.

All in all, he loved the selections.

His dad? Not so much.

Turned out that taste, like love, was selective.