A Warm Bed Chapter 13
Chapter 13 -- Realis
(September 27th)
"I know, Jeff. I know...but I'll be home soon. I promise."
Scott tapped his fingers on his steering wheel as he looked out at the street before him. He was less than a block away from a stretch of bars he used to frequent, but that he hadn't been to nearly three weeks.
Tonight, though, he was here for a decidedly different reason than before, "Feel free to stay up as late as you want, and eat anything that can be made in the microwave. You have the TV, the internet, and the whole house all to yourself." He kept his eyes on the road as he spoke, waiting, tonight, to see a certain fur making his way down the sidewalk, "Don't worry about it. There's just something I needed to take care of, Kitten. Yes. Everything's fine."
Finally, in the street lights he saw him: a raccoon marching down the same stretch of sidewalk that he was watching. The raccoon, however, wasn't remotely as concerned with finding the fox, as the fox was with finding him.
No. James Callaway was hunting a wolf.
The raccoon continued along, scowling at cars as they passed, until he came upon the very few gay bars of their town. It was going to be a long night and James could only hoped Tony would be on the prowl and looking forward to some company.
"I've gotta' go, kiddo. I'll be home soon," Scott barely waited for a goodbye from the cat on the other end of the line, before he ended the call and jumped out of his car.
He was behind the marching raccoon in mere seconds. With both arms and no warning, he grabbed his coworker by the shoulders and jerked him unceremoniously into a wide, well lit alleyway, nestled between a bar and a smoke shop that was already closed for the night.
The raccoon took a defensive stance as he turned upon whomever had pulled him into the alleyway...but he relaxed, if only a bit, when he saw it was just Scott, "Damn it Scott, I told you to stay out of this!"
Scott laughed darkly, "And you thought I'd listen?"
"Look. I know you don't think this is any of my business, but I'm going to do what needs to be done, one way or the other. You can't stop me." With that, James side-stepped out of the fox's way, and attempted to head, again, into the street.
The fox, though, with only minimal effort, just pushed the younger raccoon back into the alley, "The fuck I can't! If I have to drag you back to my house, and watch you every minute of every day until you're done away with this stupid fucking idea, I will...but I will NOT let you do this."
"Are you kidding me with this shit, Scott!? Somebody has to get their hands on this Tony son of a bitch! After what he did to Jeff...you expect me to just let him be?" James delivered his reasoning less than calmly, and then pointed out of the alley as he continued, "Now YOU need to go home to Jeff -- where you're needed -- and let me take care of this!"
Scott took a breath and let it out with an insulting half chuckle, "Yeah, you've already got this all figured out, right? Well okay, Bruiser...what happens when you find him? This is assuming he's even here tonight, and you're lucky enough, out of all the gay guys in town, to run into him. But then what exactly do you plan to do? How are you sure you even have what it takes to take this wolf down?"
Unfortunately, what his friend was insinuating simply redirect the raccoon's anger onto him, and through slitted eyelids and clenched teeth, he growled out, "Now you're starting to piss me off! Just get out of my way, Scott; I can take care of myself!"
"Really? Can you?" Scott looked the raccoon up and down. He was pretty sure James was wrong, but he wasn't looking to get into a fist fight with him to prove it either. So he backed down, "You know what, fine: let's say you can. I mean, really, how much of a fight can someone who has to prey on kids really put up? But what do you think is gonna' happen next? Do you think a beating is really gonna' make Tony apologize, learn his lesson, and go about the rest of his life a better and newly humbled fur? Or do you think his next stop will be the police station?"
James exhaled loudly through his nostrils, trying to keep himself cool for as long as Scott was the one in front of him, "I don't give a fuck if he goes to the police, Scott. I'm not all that worried about what kind of trouble he wants to get me into. I just want him to be hurt as badly as he hurt Jeff." Realizing the emotional damage couldn't be replicated, he corrected himself, "...or as close as I can manage. Of all furs I'd expect YOU to be on my side!"
"You don't think I am? You don't think I've wanted to hurt him too!?" The fox leaned toward his gray and black friend, "YOU of all furs should know how important Jeff is to me! Of course I want to do something, but it's not worth me going to jail, and it's not worth you going to jail either, James! Do you really think that that'll make this situation any better: you losing your job as a teacher, and probably losing any hope of ever teaching again for that matter, because of serving possible jail time for assault!?"
James petted the fur on his muzzle, holding the bridge of his nose for a moment as he continued to try and keep himself calm, "Scott, if I beat his ass, do you really think he'd go to the cops?" The raccoon feigned a tough wolf-like voice, "'This guy beat me up, because I raped this kid he knows!' He won't go to the police. I guarantee it."
"You 'guarantee' it?" Scott laughed mockingly, "Forgive me for not being swayed by a guarantee, James, but he doesn't have to tell them why you did it. All he has to tell them is that you DID! And then what defense would you have? You know: other than telling them that you were getting revenge for Jeff?"
James sighed out again and put his face into his paws, muffling a soft 'oh my God' into them before looking back up, "Scott, he won't go to the police! He hasn't thought it out like you have."
"Really, James? What would you do if someone beat the shit out of you?" The fox poked his coworker, "Maybe HE wouldn't, but if someone beat me bad enough, I certainly would! The fact of the matter is that you don't KNOW what he will or won't do, James! And it's not worth the risk that you'll get in serious trouble over this!" He paused as a thought occurred to him, "Hell, this is all assuming you don't do enough damage to send him to the hospital, which would be cause enough for an investigation no matter WHAT he did."
Getting more and more pissed by the second, James bit his lip and growled a throaty growl. The more and more Scott talked, finding Tony was becoming less and less appealing, and the fact that he was getting swayed at all only made him angrier, "So what? We just IGNORE, what happened to Jeff? We let this shit-bag go without a damn thing happening to him, because YOU don't want to get in trouble? I don't care what happens to me, I just want Jeff to know...I want him to see that the fur who did such a terrible thing to him had something bad happen to him because of it."
"You know what, James, it IS partly about me!" Scott held his arms out to the side as if shrugging, "Have you thought even once about what could happen to ME in all of this? What if it comes to light that this happened because that piece of shit raped Jeff, James? Then the next person going to prison is ME!"
The raccoon recoiled back a bit, his tense facial expression softening. He gulped and looked away, realizing very quickly how true that was. "Scott," James gulped, and in a final effort, mostly, to ignore how badly he was wrong, he shoved the fox out of his way and began to head into the street again, "Just get out of my way."
Scott, though, grabbed his friend more violently than before and nearly threw him back into the alley-way, causing him to stumble backward, "NO! You'll stand right here, and you'll listen to me! You don't care what happens to you, but do you give a shit what happens to me!?"
"I do! I care about both of you! But I can't just sit back and...and TAKE IT! I can't live knowing Tony got away! It just seems SELFISH, not giving a damn about what Jeff deserves." James stood defiantly before his coworker and crossed his arms, convinced that at least that argument was sound.
The fox paused for a long moment before responding, his facial expression travelling from shock, through anger, and settling into a calm, cold stare. "Selfish? You think I'm being selfish?" He spoke more collectedly than he had before, "Maybe you're right. Maybe I AM too worried about myself and what'll happen to me, to see that Tony...to see that Jeff needs to get what he deserves." He stepped aside, "Go on..." he held his arm out as if ushering the raccoon back out to the sidewalk, "Go find the wolf, seduce him off to somewhere private, and beat him until he wishes he never met the three of us." He paused again, raising his eyebrows inquisitively when the raccoon didn't move, "Go."
James sighed, looked out to the street, then back to the fox, "What Scott? What point are you trying to make, now?"
"That what's SELFISH," Scott screamed as he lowered his arm, "is caring more about your damn anger and gratification than what happens to Jeff!" He shrugged, "Did you think about that at all? What happens to Jeff after all of this?"
"I..."
"No! You were just thinking about how much better YOU would feel after you beat the hell out of Tony!"
The raccoon winced at that and looked away, not sure what to say in response.
And Scott just continued, "So let's think about this, James. What happens to Jeff?" He crossed his own arms as James had a moment ago, and ran through the hypothetical story: "Tony goes to the police, and then the trials start. Trails...with an S. You go to jail for assault and then I go to prison for child molestation or statutory rape...whichever one Jeff falls under. And the only way that EITHER of us might be given a softer sentence, and that Tony stands a chance at prison time, too, is if Jeff takes the stand and tells not just me and you," he began to count off on his fingers, "but a prosecutor, a defense attorney, a judge, twelve jurors, and a packed court room...how he was my willing sexual pet, and how Tony bent him over the arm of my couch and fucked him 'til he bled!" He paused to let that sink in, "And then what happens after the three of us are put through that hell? Where does Jeff go then?"
James simply sighed and looked down. The thought about the poor frail, little cat having to go through all of that, and how humiliating it'd be would be was bad enough...but then his fate AFTER that...
The raccoon knew from second and third hand experience what kind of damage foster homes, adoption, and even abusive parents could do to a young fur, and considering how much Jeff had already been through, he knew the last thing the boy needed was more.
Yet to Scott, he stayed silent.
"It doesn't get much shittier, does it? A rapist goes free, completely unpunished for what he's done to just about the sweetest kid we've ever known, and all three of us get to live knowing he's gotten away with it. But the only way to fix it ruins both of our careers, our futures, and our lives...and sends Jeff back to the parents that drove him to the street to begin with, or drops him into a system that fails more kids in a year than it saves in ten." Scott let out a short, angry chuckle, "There's no nice, happy, little ending, James. There's no justice. There's just three furs pressing on and enduring the bad. And I don't blame you one bit for hating this, or for wanting to kill Tony." He sighed and shook his head, "I wouldn't have even blamed you, if you'd taken it out on me."
James sighed too, shrugging dejectedly as he finally looked back at his friend, "But fuck, Scott..."
"I know. It's a terrible lesson to learn, and it's one that I wish neither of us, and especially not Jeff, had ever HAD to." The fox took a deep breath, "But sometimes the good guys don't win. Sometimes the innocent victims don't get their justice. And sometimes the bad guys...just don't get what they deserve." He put his paw on the raccoon's shoulder, "A happy ending is never as perfect or assured as a Disney fairy tale would have you believe. But, if we try hard enough...I think maybe we can still have one, difficult as it may be."
James looked up and bent his arm across his chest to pet Scott's paw, "You know? My plan seemed a lot better before you came along." He chuckled softly, but the situation at hand quickly brought it to a harsh end, "Does he know where you are right now?"
"No," Scott shook his head. "I didn't want to worry him with it, yet...not when I wasn't sure how this all would go."
The raccoon looked around the alley and raked a bit of trash away with the side of his shoe, before he realized how pointless it was, "So...I guess you better get back to him then, huh?"
"I should," Scott nodded and paused for a few long moments, as the sound of the furs around the bars grew louder in the space where his and James's voices had been. "But why don't you come with me? I don't want you to be alone tonight. And...after I tell Jeff where I was...I think all three of us could use the company."
James smiled and, as his friend turned, he slowly began to walk out of the alley at his side. He tucked his paws into his pockets and tried to put a smile on his muzzle, "You're gonna' tell him the truth?"
"Yeah," the fox smiled at the coon by his side: an oddly triumphant smile in the face of such a dark night. But it wasn't a triumph over James, so much as a triumph over life, in the fact none of this had beaten him...or any of them. "As much as he'll hate being reminded of Tony, I think...after everything that his parents, the street, Tony, and I have done to him, I think it'll be nice for him to know that there's someone other than me who cares about him this much. He needs to know there are good furs left in the world." He put his arm around his 'coon friend's shoulder...
...and James leaned into the embrace, "It can be easy to forget, sometimes."
~
There we go! A Warm Bed continues!
* Starring: Oloroso Rhone as Scott Hammond Phil Anthro Pist as James Callaway *
If you'd like to go say hi to Phil, he's got an account here at http://phil-anthro-pist.sofurry.com/
Not much to say that wasn't said.
So thanks for reading!
I welcome any feedback! Comment or PM me here, or email me at theottercoon[at]gmail.com
See you for the final 2 chapters of A Warm Bed! ...for the final 3 chapters of The Masters! ...and very soon...Sibirskaia!