February 2015
Shannon felt a wet tongue licking his nose and mouth as he rolled over in his bed. He scowled and moved away with a groan, opening his eyes unwillingly. Trio was laying next to him, panting happily, his puppy breath hot on Shannon's face. The dog whined and tilted his head before letting out a loud bark that startled Shannon.
"Alright. I'm up," he said with a sharp intake of breath. He sat up and ran his hand across the dog's head. "Come on. Let's go outside."
Trio bounded off of the bed and barked as Shannon slowly meandered his way through the house, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He pulled a jacket on over his bare chest and opened the back door to allow the puppy to go outside to the yard. He watched as the dog easily made his way down the steps and trotted out into the grass. The vet had been correct; you could hardly tell the difference in the dog's strides and he seemed to have adjusted to the amputation very well. Trio had put on a considerable amount of weight and the good cleaning he'd gotten revealed he was actually a warm brindle color.
"Come on!" Shannon called, clapping his hands to get the dog's attention. "Let's have breakfast!"
Trio bounded up the stairs and slid across the hardwood floor into the house. Shannon opened the pantry and scooped out food and poured it into Trio's blue bowl. The dog ate ravenously as Shannon started grinding coffee beans. The two of them had become fast friends and he wondered what would happen when he had to go out on tour and Trio would have to go to Talia's rescue. He almost didn't want to give him up.
After he had ground the beans into a fine powder, Shannon put them into the coffee machine and flipped it on. Trio was done eating and licked his mouth happily before waddling over to the water bowl and lapping for several seconds. Shannon leaned over and petted the dog's head before going back to his room and getting dressed. He glanced at the time and sighed; he had to be at Jared's in an hour to run through songs for the tour. Breakfast would have to wait. Fortunately, Jared wouldn't care if Trio came with him.
He went back into the kitchen to pour his coffee into a travel mug. Trio was gnawing on a toy and froze when he heard Shannon's footsteps. His ears swiveled around and he waited for a solid five seconds before resuming his chewing. Once Shannon had filled his mug, he grabbed the leash from the hook near the back door and Trio bounded across the floor, barking loudly.
"Stand still so I can hook you up, you little fucker," Shannon chuckled as the dog danced around his feet excitedly.
He picked up his travel mug and car keys and headed out to his SUV. Trio rode in the back seat, shoving his face out of one of the windows. The drive was short, as the bird flew, but traffic at this time of day was bad regardless of direction. Trio was too busy watching cars and birds go by to notice they were moving at glacial pace. On more than one occasion, Shannon had wondered about the dog's intelligence. By the time they pulled into the parking lot at the base, Trio's tongue was lolling out of his mouth as he panted from the excitement.
The base was a sprawling decommissioned Air Force base in the Hollywood Hills near Lookout Mountain. Shannon had only seen it once, when his brother had invited him to take a tour of the place before he bought it. If the previous owner hadn't been on hand to give them a guided tour, he was certain they would have gotten lost. The lot had about fifteen cars in it and Shannon knew it was going to be a busy day. He helped Trio down and led him through the house.
It was sparsely-furnished and would probably remain so. Jared had never been one for useless clutter. Even at his previous house furniture was still kept to a minimum and it was a fraction of the size of this new place. Entire rooms lay untouched, open and plain. And even though he had more space to expand into, Jared's employees were still confined to a single grouping of rooms in one wing of the house.
"Hey, Jared in the studio?" he asked, passing a bank of computer towers. He had to tug Trio away from sniffing a large bunch of wires tied together on the floor.
Dai, one of Jared's employees, looked up and squealed. "PUPPY!!!!," she yelped, leaping from her seat and launching herself toward Trio. "Ohmygodhe'ssocute!" she shrieked in excitement.
Trio wriggled at the end of his lead, his hind end and front end going in completely opposite directions. His tail whipped around like a windmill and he did his best to lick every inch of the young woman's face clean off.
"Dai - Jared. Where is he?" Shannon asked again.
The woman looked up at him as if she had just seen him for the first time. "Yeah. He's in the studio. Don't get your panties in a wad." She looked at the dog. "Can I keep him up here?"
He shook his head. "No. There's too much shit up her for him to get into. I'll let him run around the sound stage. Trio, come on."
He led the dog through the house and down a level to the recording studio. The lights were off and he heard noise coming from the sound stage next door so he pushed the large door open. Several Adventures employees were moving gear around the open space, the noise of casters echoing up to the high ceiling. Shannon noted that the two-story garage door was closed and he let Trio run off, dragging the leash behind him.
The puppy made a beeline for Jared who was sitting in an overstuffed armchair in the far corner, laptop on his knees and cell phone in one hand. He looked up just as Trio jumped onto his knees, pushing the screen of the laptop downwards with his head.
"Dammit, Shannon. Control your dog," Jared grumbled immediately, lifting his computer before any other damage could be done. He stood up and nudged the dog away from him with a foot as he placed his laptop safely on the table next to him.
"Sorry," Shannon replied. "I didn't think he'd get over here so fast," he admitted as he caught up. "He's only got three legs."
"Well if you can't control him, I don't want him over here anymore," Jared huffed. He looked over Shannon's shoulder. "Hey! Not over there, Ben! The outlets aren't strong enough to handle all three of those at the same time."
The technician sighed and pushed the sound cart across the floor.
"He's a puppy, Jared. I don't know what the big deal is," Shannon said, following his brother as he walked through the room.
"The big deal is that there is thousands of dollars worth of equipment in this room and I don't want him pissing or chewing on it and fucking it up," Jared answered.
"I wasn't going to just leave him at my place," Shannon said, frustration boiling up inside of him. His brother was obviously in a mood of some kind; he wasn't usually so mean to dogs. People, he'd curse out until he was blue in the face, but he rarely took his frustration out on dogs. "It's not fair to him."
"What's not fair is what he's doing to that chair right now," Jared replied dully before disappearing from the sound stage.
Shannon looked over and saw Trio humping the leg of the chair eagerly. "Trio - no! Stop that!" he said, rushing across the room and grabbing the dog's leash. He led the puppy into the studio after Jared.
"He doesn't come in here unless you're holding him," Jared warned without looking away from the mixing computer.
Shannon grumbled and picked Trio up. "I came because you said you wanted to rehearse for the tour. Why are you in the studio?"
Jared ignored him for a minute as he typed something out. "I do want to rehearse for the tour. I just had a moment of inspiration." He stood from the rolling chair and clapped his hands. "Let's get started. I had Kyle set up your tan kit. He said it's the one we're traveling with." His eyes fell on Trio. "You're going to put the dog somewhere else, right?" he asked.
Shannon blinked. "Dai. I'll leave him with her."
Jared reached out and patted Trio's head lightly, a small smile forming on his lips as Trio licked his wrist. "When does he go to the rescue?"
Shannon bit his lip. "I told Talia I'd call her a week before we leave. So, soon." They walked back into the sound stage. "I'm actually not entirely sure I want to give him up."
Jared eyed him carefully. "Shan, you can't keep him - not while we're on tour. He has to go somewhere. And you can't ask Mom to watch him while we're gone, either. That's not fair to her. She doesn't need to be worrying about house training a puppy."
"I'll go put him upstairs and we can get started," Shannon said grudgingly, carrying Trio out of the room.
***
Eight hours later, Trio was slumped across Shannon's king sized bed, snoring lightly, he head next to Shannon's shoulder. Shannon, on the other hand, was checking his email. His phone rang next to him for a video call, making Trio jump. It was Callie.
"Why did you send me flowers?" she asked immediately, her face slightly blurry as his phone adjusted.
"Hello to you, too," he smiled. "This is when most people would say, 'Thank you Shannon. That was so thoughtful of you,'" he quipped, sticking his tongue out.
She rolled her eyes. "Why did you send me flowers?" she asked again.
"Because I'm a nice guy," he answered. Trio tilted his head inquisitively, ears perked, when he heard her voice. "Did you like them?"
"You sent me red roses on Valentine's Day," Callie replied. "I don't exactly know what to think of them."
"It's just something from a friend," he explained. "I send flowers to all of my friends for Valentine's Day."
"Oh? So you send Travis flowers? That's sweet of you," she smiled.
"I do. But they're mostly for Audrey," he chuckled. "I just like sending things to my friends. It shows I'm thinking of them."
"Must be expensive to send all of your women a dozen red roses," she joked.
He burst into laughter. Trio tried to lick the phone screen and he had to hold the dog back with a finger under his collar. "Trio says hello," he said.
"How is he doing?" she asked, changing the subject.
"He's doing much better. I took him to the base today. He hung out with one of Jared's employees while we rehearsed," Shannon said. "He did very well. Didn't chew on anything or piss on the floor, so it was a good day."
Callie cheered. "That's great. It'll make it easier for Talia to adopt him out when he gets to the shelter. When are you dropping him off?" she asked. "I'm back in a couple of days after the wrap party, so I could help you get him down there if you want."
He paused, drawing in a long breath. "Actually, I'm kind of having second thoughts about taking him to the rescue," he admitted. "I've been thinking about maybe just keeping him."
She raised an eyebrow. "You can't keep him, Shannon. You said it yourself: your life is too busy for a dog. Who's going to watch him while you're gone on tour?"
He didn't have an answer, instead choosing to change the subject again. "How are you doing? We haven't spoken in a while." He lifted one muscled arm and placed his wrist behind his head.
She sighed. "I guess I'm OK. My lease is up three days after I get back and I'm not really sure I want to stay where I am for another year. I'm also not sure I should move though. It's been kind of stressful lately."
"I thought you loved your place?"
"I did. But it's getting crowded there," she admitted. "It was nice when it was all I could afford, but now that I'm getting paid a bit better, it just seems like a punishment to stay there just because its cheap."
"Oh, I get it. Jared and I used to live in a shitty studio apartment outside of Little Armenia when we first came to LA," he told her. "If we hadn't worked completely opposite hours, we probably would have killed each other."
"Its not like I want a big house or anything; I'd be okay with a small one bedroom, but I just need a little more space," she explained. "But I just don't know if I have the resources to move right when I get back home. My landlord won't do month-to-month. So I'm basically stuck signing another lease and then finding a place when I can and paying my lease out or not signing and couch surfing for a while until I find somewhere."
"Why not stay here?" Shannon suggested. She arched an eyebrow. "I'm serious," he insisted. "You need a place to stay. I'll be gone for a while and the place will be empty. I've got the space. Trio needs someone to watch him. It'll be fine."
Callie was hesitant. "I don't know. I don't want to impose or anything," she said uncertainly.
"You won't be," he assured her. "Heck, you can stay in one of the guest rooms if it bothers you that much. Its really not a big deal. It saves Travis the energy of having to come over and grab my mail each day and make sure the place hasn't burned down," he added with a chuckle.
Shannon watched Callie consider her offer. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have made it to anyone because he just didn't like the idea of other people touching his things when he wasn't there. But he trusted her. And she needed somewhere to go. From what he could remember about her shoe box apartment, she desperately needed the space; the whole place was the size of his master suite.
"Even if I agreed to stay at your place, where will my stuff go? I'd have to pay for storage," she lamented.
He looked at her like she was stupid. "Callie, my brother just bought an old Air Force base with three bunkers - three. I could stash your shit there and he'd never even fucking know it was there," he laughed. "Hell, I left a plate in one of the spare bedrooms and it took the maid a week to find it. I don't think we'll have a problem finding you somewhere to store your stuff."
"I'll think about it," she relented. "This isn't a yes, but I'll definitely think about it."
He smiled and they settled into a comfortable silence for a second. "I'm glad you like the flowers."
"I do. I'm just confused why you sent them, even if it's just because we are friends," she replied.
"Its this thing my mom used to do when we were kids," he explained. "She'd always get us Valentine's Day cards and candy and tell us how much we meant to her, that we were her valentines no matter what. It just stuck with me. I've always done it."
"Even to Jared?" she asked, a smile on her lips.
He nodded. "Even to Jared. Though, he doesn't get flowers. I stock him up with this chocolate from some company in New York. Red roses have always been significant to me because of my mom. That's why its part of the Black Fuel logo."
"Speaking of, how is that going?" she asked.
He could see that she was laying down. Her hair was up in a messy bun and she had on a faded grey tank top.
"Its going. I'm really nervous about it, though," he admitted. "Fans seem really excited about it, but I'm starting to wish we had waited to launch until we were back in America."
"It'll be fine. If people are excited that means it'll do well," she assured him. "I wouldn't worry too much."
"I know, but its just nerves, you know?" he remarked.
"I'm proud of you for doing this," she told him. "You had an idea and you followed it through. Its really brave of you. Not everyone can do something like that."
Shannon shrugged. "I guess. But I just hope it was all worth it and I didn't waste all of this time working toward something that's going to flop."
"Even if it fails, you'll still have learned something," Callie smiled. "That's what my dad always says."
"Your dad has a little more faith in the world than I do, then," he sighed, running his hand through his hair.
"I honestly can't believe you've suddenly decided to keep Trio," she remarked. "What happened to 'I don't have time'?"
"He's a cute fucker, what can I say?" he laughed. He sighed. "But really, once we finish this tour leg, we won't be doing anything for a while. I'll have plenty of time. At least that's what Jared told me."
"How come you let him have so much power over when you guys do stuff for the band? Shouldn't it be a group decision?" Callie asked.
"He's the lead singer. We can perform with people playing any other instrument; we can't perform without Jared's voice," he explained. "So when he wants to do something, we kind of have to go along with it."
"That sucks though. Because if you were in America while you were launching Black Fuel, you could do a lot more with it in L.A.," she said. "Like you could do a pop-up or something."
"We plan on it," he told her. "Travis has a few ideas he's working on. I just won't be able to do anything until after we get back in April. But it will have to be simple because I'm gone again for like a week and a half in May."
"You should make Jared do some publicity for you while you're on tour," Callie grumbled. "Its his damn fault you're gallivanting around Russia for a month anyways."
Shannon smiled. Better to not tell her that he enjoyed Russia just as much as his brother, and it wasn't just because of the snow. "Its part of the job, Callie-cat."
"So let's say that I agree to stay at your place while you're gone," she started slowly. "I want to pay you something for it."
"Cal, no. Your payment to me is making sure I don't get robbed," he said. "And taking care of Trio," he added. "You don't need to give me anything. Its a mutually beneficial arrangement," he chuckled. "Don't worry about it."
She sighed. "Fine. If you say so."
"So does that mean you're staying here while I'm gone?" he asked hopefully.
"Yes, but I swear I'll be out of your hair before you get back, I promise," she assured him. "I'll definitely find a place by then."
"Why don't you and Meredith move in together?" he suggested. "You're practically sisters with the amount of time you spend together."
"That's why. I grew up with four sisters and my grandmother, Shannon. I just want some peace and quiet when I'm at home," Callie explained. "I don't want to have to deal with a PMSing woman or shit like that. I've done my time," she sighed. "I deserve to have a female-free house."
He laughed, startling Trio. The dog groaned loudly in his sleep, shifted around on the bed, and resumed his snoring. "I'm sure you'll find something, especially if you're looking to stay in the same neighborhood. Have you looked in your building?"
She shook her head. "I hate the landlord," she remarked. "He's a creepy douche."
Shannon bristled slightly. "Douchey how?"
"He lives down the hall from me and I swear he is always sitting outside in the hallway when I get home from work or before I leave in the morning. He makes these rude remarks and has asked me out a dozen times," she told him. "Its another reason why I want to get out of the building."
"Why didn't you tell me he was acting like that?" he asked.
"What were you going to do?" she laughed. "He's technically not doing anything wrong."
"Still," he growled. "You shouldn't be harassed when you're in your building."
"He never does it when Aya's here," she reasoned.
"Well, yeah. Because Aya will put him through a wall," he said, making her laugh. "How's filming going?" he asked, stifling a yawn.
"About like that," she smiled tiredly. "Long days. Sam is trying to get things done so we don't go over. We've been doing pretty well so far. But he really wants to avoid re-shoots because Tom won't be available to do them."
"I forgot about the big movie star," Shannon teased. "We've got to do everything by his schedule."
Callie rolled her eyes. "Well considering he's booked for like the next two years straight, I can't exactly blame him for not wanting to rearrange things. Plus I have filming and shit to do, too."
"And who knows, you might get roles in other movies," he teased, sticking his tongue out.
"If I was there, I'd slap you," she answered, laughing.
"Yes, hit me hard!" he joked, raising his voice an octave and sticking his tongue out.
"That's my line," she quipped, making him blush a little.
Shannon bit his lip and had to remind himself that she was his friend. Seeing her in bed, her hair messy, and wearing very little was making his mind go places he had closed off with deadbolts and steel doors months ago. It seemed like not matter how many times he told himself she was just a friend, something would always happen to bring the attraction back.
"So when I'm at your place will I have to worry about paparazzi or anything like that?" she asked. "Because I don't want to start rumors about us dating or whatever."
And there go the feelings, he thought wryly.
"Probably not. You saw my street; its pretty quiet. I'm the most famous person in a two-street radius," he answered. "I've never had them on my street, much less my house. I think you'll be good so long as you don't have any raging parties."
"Of course I wouldn't," she said through a yawn.
He smiled at her lazily. "You should get to sleep. It must be like after midnight there. We can talk about this another day."
She nodded as she yawned again. "Night, Shan."
"Night, Callie-cat."
***
GOSSIP BOARD
BOLDASLOVE302 POSTED: Did you guys see Dai's post on Instagram today?
STARSKY POSTED: The puppy?! He was so freaking cute. Did she say who he belongs to?
BOLDASLOVE302 POSTED: No. But it has to belong to a staff member, right? I mean I don't think Jared got a dog.
NIKITALETO POSTED: I saw he only had three legs ☹️. Poor puppy. He's super cute though, and I don't normally like pitbulls. I wonder why he only has three legs though. It looks like he's still growing hair back from where it was shaved for surgery.
STARSKY POSTED: I guess Jared is letting staff bring their dogs in to the base now. That must be nice for them. If I had a dog I'd totally want to bring it to work. But I don't know how much I'd actually get done though 😂.