Advocacy
Barton stood by the closed sauna door for a moment, feeling the doe's kiss on his cheek, feeling his continued hesitation about the young buck, feeling something deeply paternal toward both of them, and feeling Wallace's presence so much that he swore, if he turned to look, the meerkat would be standing there grinning at him. Slowly, he padded back to his office and sat down in the chair.
He considered a moment just what he was letting himself in for. For whatever reason one might name, the kits weren't the least bit shy around him at this point. They'd come to trust him, and that was good. Sleeping together last night was not an issue; it was warm, cuddly, even familial. Their apparent willingness to be nearly or actually naked around him was a little bit more difficult to reconcile. On the one paw, it should be no big deal; on the other, it did rather make him question his sense of becoming parental, if that's what was to happen. The realization made him want to take a much longer look at exactly what sort of relationship he was contemplating, and truth told, that was a bit scarier than he really wanted to think about just yet.
Barton pulled up his chat-link program and sent a ping to his friend, client, and confidant. He was quite happy to find that the great lion was spending his Sunday morning near his computer.
FIRECAT: What's up, B?
BARTON: Did you hear about the kerfuffle around here yesterday?
FIRECAT: Something happen?
BARTON: Found a couple of kits in the back alley, cold and starving. No, not ferals, though they looked like it. Brought them in. Story's hard one to listen to.
FIRECT: Sounds like you're in need of our assistance, my old friend...
BARTON: I'm thinking so, yah.
FIRECAT: Gimmie the gist. We'll help all we can.
Barton was careful not to call the kits by name or to give any truly identifying information (species, age, etc.). He described the story in general terms, clinical terms, to help distance the pain from himself and still get the idea across.
BARTON: That's the most of it.
FIRECAT: Holy shit, Barty, did you find Lyal and Lyris Ruthschild?
BARTON: To use a phrase from a favorite old show of ours, that would be telling. They've asked me to respect their privacy.
FIRECAT: And I should think so, too. Forget I asked. Let's just say that, if I'm right, you need to contact the rabbits' lawyer; he's been looking for them for five years.
There followed a telephone number with an area code which, Barton would discover, was in Arizona. For a long moment, the badger just stared at the screen, stunned. The story of the kits would have to be positively infamous to be at the tip of the lion's tongue so quickly. If an attorney was looking for them... for five years, the lion has said, so it couldn't be the wolves, it could only be someone from the parents' side of things. In a browser window, he pulled up the search he'd done before adding the last name that Firecat had just given him to the request. Once again, he was greeted with the list of headlines and page references that he'd seen before, but with the last name that Firecat had provided, one of the links seemed to have new information in the tag line.
Lawyer Calls for Kits to Come Home! ...twins taken into protective custody when their parents were killed by a drunk driver. Due to a clerical mistake, they have been lost in the system for...
With trembling fingers, Baton clicked the link and read the summary of events that tallied up with what the kits had told him, filling in details that they apparently didn't know. It seemed that a lawyer named Lance Claraget (that Arizona telephone number appeared with his name) had been the kits' parents' lawyer and their legal guardian, but due to some screw up in paperwork, the kits had gotten lost in the system until a caseworker named Gladys Goodwen had caught and fixed the error. This, however, had taken nearly two years - the time that the kits were in the foster home system - and when the correction was finally made, the kits had already been adopted out and the records sealed. The lawyer had petitioned the courts to open the records so he could find the brother and sister, but again the wheels of so-called justice ground slow. The information came just a few days before they were admitted to the hospital for "various injuries" (a polite way of glossing over what had happened to them). Claraget arrived at the hospital the day after the kits had disappeared. He was now combing the country looking for any trace of them; this put their names and general story onto lists that BACA regularly watched.
It took a long time for Barton to realize that his chat window had been pinged again.
FIRECAT: Still there?
BARTON: Sorry, got caught up in reading.
FIRECAT: Got worried when you stopped talking. Barty, you'll need all the help you can get with this. We're here when you need us. Let me know when the kits are ready to come out of hiding.
BARTON: Think the lawyer can be trusted?
FIRECAT: You lose points for using 'lawyer' and 'trust' in the same sentence. But he'll have to get involved at some point. If he's got instructions from the parents, those will have to be dealt with before anything else. And as for lawyers, we've got one or two of our own ya know. You wouldn't have to face the feral barracudas on your own.
Barton grinned when he thought of the lean white tiger by the name of Roberto Horatio Bucharde, Esq., who doffed his thousand-dollar suits and million-dollar clients to ride with the pack under the moniker of Strypes. He was a favorite with the younger kids, since his smaller stature was less threatening than some, and he rode a smaller bike, giving slow safe rides to his charges, always supplying helmets and protective gear. In court, he was a staunch advocate who intimidated corporate and civil shysters alike; out of court, his martial arts skills deflected would-be abusers without damaging them too much. Even Barton would occasionally wish that the tiger were gay, although truth told, he just might be. Single, rarely talking about himself, he didn't seem to be batting for either team.
The badger exchanged a few more comments and rang out of the chat window. He sat back and released a full, heavy breath wondering just what he was going to do next. About that time, he heard a gurgle in his belly that reminded him of the overall necessity to eat from time to time. He'd only managed half of the small pizza from last night, and he decided that might make a reasonably decent breakfast after a little microwave magic. He rose from the computer chair, figuring he'd check in on the twins and deliver some more interesting news before taking care of his belly-achin' belly.
Just outside the door to the small sauna, he paused, partly to check that the temperature and timer systems had worked correctly (they had), and partly because he didn't want to interrupt anything just in case there was anything to interrupt. He knocked on the door. "How're ye doin' in there?"
"It's okay, Barton," Lyal's voice called, a smile in his voice. "We're not... erm, we're just sitting here."
"Can you come join us?" Lyris' voice called, also smiling.
"I'd best get me robe first, if I'm..."
"You don't have to." The door had opened a crack, revealing that Lyal had doffed his robe entirely. His sweet chocolate brown eyes looked up at him with only a tiny bit of mischief. "We trust you, Barton."
The old badger swallowed. "I'm nae at all sure I trust meself, come t' that."
"That would be..." The young buck paused, actually becoming more endearing for his sudden shyness. "That would be okay. If... I mean, if something..."
Barton became aware that Lyris, as naked as her brother, had stepped up behind him, her face open and revealing, her eyes not the least bit mischievous but instead... could that be trust he saw there? "It's all right. Lyal told me."
"What?" The badger wasn't sure what the doe meant.
"Lyal told me that you've been holding back because you're afraid I'll... change my mind about you. I won't. I believe you now. Come talk to us. Nothing else..." She looked away shyly, smiled a little. "It's okay... Barton."
Not entirely conscious of his own actions, Barton found himself quietly undressing and stepping into the sauna. It was warm and moist, not the full heat treatment from before, but welcoming and comforting. There was enough room for seven or eight adults in the small room. Lyris sat on one of the three benches set up against the walls, and after the badger had settled himself onto another bench, Lyal cuddled up next to him and hugged him gently. In all this, though some corner of his brain still stuttered and stammered objections and terrified accusations, his heart felt warm and full and more at peace than it had in a very long time.
As the twins listened in disbelief, Barton explained some of what he'd learned from Firecat and from the Internet. "When I finally remembered that th' most recent news stories are listed first, I mentally flipped 'em about, an' it started t' make more sense. The biggest thing ye need t' know is that th' adoption was bogus in th' first place. Yer supposed t' have been warded t' yer parents' attorney, an' he's been lookin' for ye fer years now, moreso since ye escaped from hospital. I've nae got all th' details in m' head, but there's a big chance that this wolf - I won't say his name, ye don't need t' tell me - has been caught out already. If I'm right, he's hopin' ye won't get found, because without ye, he might just get acquitted."
Petting the buck's headfur softly, the badger looked first to him then to the doe. "Speakin' for meself," he said low and firmly, "I'm nae aboot t' let that happen. And neither are m' biker allies. Firecat an' his band are ready t' help. When ye're ready t' come out o' hidin', as he rightly put it, they'll be on yer side." He smiled softly at the kits. "_Our_side."
Lyris looked up at him. "Do you really want to do that?"
Barton felt something inside him turn over, like a lover getting comfortable in bed. His left arm wrapped about Lyal, he extended his right toward the young doe and whispered, "Come over here, lass. Please."
Shyly, the doe rose and knelt near to the old badger and wrapped her arms around his middle as he pet her soft curly hair. "Yes," he said, softly, firmly. "I want t' do this. Ye've both won me heart, an' in record time. We'll have lots of adjustments an' learnin' t' get used t' each other bein' together, but that's just details. At the bottom of it all is th' truth: I'm growin' t' love ye. Both of ye." He squeezed his arms around the naked twins, feeling a sweet fullness in his heart that had been missing for a long time. "We'll see this through. T'gether."