Thanks to everyone who read and to Priyanka for reviewing.
Crosses over with What Strange Creatures ch. 40-41, but both stories can be read separately.
Barry yawned and rolled onto his back, taking a minute to orient himself in the low light. It was definitely morning, but from what he could see out the window, they had a lot of cloud cover.
Roddy was still asleep, which was kind of unusual, but given how he'd been feeling—he'd been willing enough to listen to a movie last night, but looking at the screen for more than a few minutes remained a no go—Barry figured that it was better to let him be, and he rolled to his feet and headed upstairs.
When Barry got to the kitchen, the clock on the microwave read five minutes past nine so Dad was long gone to work, and he yawned again and pulled the fridge open. Despite Dad's best efforts there was plenty of soup left, but Barry preferred actual food and grabbed the last of the wings instead. When Roddy woke up he'd have cereal or something, but until then he could use a snack.
Roddy was still curled in a ball when Barry got back to the basement with his plate so he grabbed his laptop and dropped down on the floor. With everything else happening he hadn't even looked at the reading list for his poetry class, and it would be a quiet way to pass some time. That, or he could try to figure out how to rig the Game of Life, because he'd lost way more board games to someone with a rattled skull than should have been possible, and it was high time that he evened the score.
Barry munched through a couple of wings as he powered up his computer before realizing that he should have stuck to the dry rub options and had to duck out to rinse his hands, and when he finally got into his school account there were a couple of messages waiting. A class link that included a syllabus, which was what he'd been hoping for, and a couple of grade notifications that...well, it was Monday. And his teachers had said that everything would be in before the holiday.
For a moment he wanted to just not, but now that he knew they were there he had to know, and he braced himself and clicked. English and history were As, to his absolute lack of surprise, but…. "What the heck?"
"Hm?"
He twisted back to find Roddy blinking slowly, although he hadn't quite managed sitting up yet. "Shoot, sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't." Roddy scrubbed at his eyes and slid from the couch down onto the carpet, scooting up beside Barry. "Light is stupid. But what are you looking at?"
He didn't seem inclined to look at the computer himself, but Barry didn't mind filling him in. "Grades. I got an A in calculus."
"Oh, cool, congratulations. Guess all that studying paid off." He grinned and then elbowed Barry lightly. "That or your teacher can't figure out negatives either."
"Ha ha, very funny. And mountain lions, just saying. You're probably slower when you're concussed."
"Your dad's at work today, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Fuck you."
Barry cracked up. "You've been wanting to say that all weekend, haven't you?"
He grinned. "Really fuck you. Not that your dad's not cool and all, but…."
Barry laughed again and flipped his laptop shut. "Come on, let's get some breakfast, and you can get the rest of the unnecessarily bad language out of your system."
"Breakfast? What are you calling those?" Roddy asked, pointing at the wings.
"Just a snack. You want some?"
Roddy actually backed away a little when Barry tried to offer him the plate, which would have been funny under other circumstances, but as it was Barry's grin turned into a scowl, and he pushed himself to his feet.
"Come on, there's still plenty of soup. And more of Rosalee's tea."
"Mm."
Despite his obvious lack of enthusiasm Roddy got to his feet as well, following Barry upstairs. And once they were up, Roddy made a beeline for the teapot while Barry dropped the plate of wings on the table and went to grab the soup out of the fridge.
"I'm really not hungry," Roddy said.
Barry hesitated. "Yeah, but when you're starting out as only about half a person you probably shouldn't be skipping meals."
Roddy flipped him off, and he shook his head.
"At least try a little? Dad'll worry if he gets home and you haven't had something. There's bread if you'd rather toast, or I'm going to have some cereal?"
"Cereal and wings?"
"What? I'm hungry."
Roddy sighed. "Soup's fine, I guess."
Barry pulled down a couple bowls, prepping one bowl of soup and one of frosted whatever Dad had picked up last week. The microwave had just beeped when the doorbell rang, and both of them swiveled towards it.
"You expecting guests?" Roddy asked, taking the kettle off the stove before it could start whistling.
"No." Barry looked down. He couldn't exactly claim that he was dressed for company, either, but his sweatsuit was clean and not in danger of falling apart, and since Roddy's looked roughly the same if a little more faded, he went to answer. "Hel-" surprise brought him up short for a moment, but he should have expected it, really. "-lo." Mr. Marin had a second man with him this time, not anyone that Barry recognized, and he hesitated. "May I help you?"
"Can we come in?"
"Yeah. Sure." It was the first time Mr. Marin had made the request, but it wasn't like Barry had the option to refuse, and based on what the other parolees had told him it explained why the second man was here. Barry took a step away from the door and waved them in. "Please. Roddy, this is Mr. Marin and Mr...?"
"Schmidt," the other man said.
"Mr. Marin, and Mr. Schmidt. This is my friend Roddy."
"Hey," Roddy said slowly.
"You don't live here," Mr. Marin said with a frown.
"No, but my school's out for break so I stayed over."
"How old are you?"
That was Mr. Schmidt, and a flash of annoyance crossed Roddy's face, which was kind of fair since the guy clearly hadn't been teasing the way that Barry did. But all Roddy said was, 'eighteen,' and when the two men exchanged glances, he looked at Barry. "Should I go hang out downstairs until you're done?"
"Probably, yeah."
"That would be fine," Mr. Marin agreed.
"Okay. Uh, nice to meet you." Roddy collected the soup out of the microwave to go with his tea, which was at least something, and for a moment Barry couldn't help but be glad that none of his injuries were obvious.
"Do you want to sit down?" Barry offered as Roddy disappeared. "Or I could get you some water or coffee?" There wasn't actually any coffee made, although he was willing enough to run the coffeemaker if they said that they wanted some, but while they settled in on the couches, they declined anything else. After a moment he took one of the chairs, pulling it around to face them.
"Have you talked to anyone about what happened on your last volunteer shift?" Mr. Marin asked.
"Well, my last volunteer shift was at the food bank." Barry had no doubt that that wasn't what Mr. Marin wanted to hear about, but it was true. "I did a couple last week, and it mostly just involved moving everything onto the trucks to get ready for the holiday. But if you mean the last road cleanup shift, then yeah, I talked to my dad and my lawyer. And Roddy."
"What about Mr. Walker or Mr. Turner? Or has anyone you know spoken to them?"
"I haven't talked to them at all, and I don't know of anyone else who would have either. Well, except you, I guess, but I don't even have their contact information." Kevin had said he'd try to get their records, Kevin and Nick both, but that was a whole different thing, and Barry already knew better than to bring up anything that he'd discussed with his lawyer without Kevin's okay.
Mr. Schmidt frowned. "Can you tell us what happened?"
Why he couldn't just listen to Barry's recorded statement or read whatever report Mr. Marin had written Barry didn't know, but he made sure that his voice was absolutely calm and started through it yet again anyway. And it was still a pretty short story all things considered, even if Mr. Schmidt also insisted on going through the whole list of barely-veiled accusations about whether Barry had instigated the whole mess, whether he'd come across either of the men in prison, all of that, too. And something about his eyes….
Barry couldn't exactly claim that he had perfect control, but he wasn't a little kid either, and he concentrated for a moment and flashed his eyes. And while Mr. Marin didn't react, no surprise there, Mr. Schmidt did. It wasn't a full woge any more than Barry's had been, but he shifted far enough to confirm that he was some kind of felinoid, and Barry couldn't help but be annoyed. Sure, he wasn't Dad, but he was technically an adult, and more than technically this was his house. And just because they'd removed the artifacts didn't mean that the Jagerbar markers weren't still pretty darn obvious.
It wasn't like Schmidt was something strikingly non-predatory or a kid or something along those lines where not announcing himself would be perfectly normal, acceptable behavior, either.
Unfortunately while Barry could be annoyed at the rudeness, he wasn't in any position to call Schmidt on it, so he locked it down and continued to answer questions. It was all more of the same, though, things that he'd either already answered a few times or things that he couldn't answer except with 'I don't know,' and after a string of about six repeats of 'I don't know,' Mr. Marin finally relented.
"I think that's about all that I needed to hear."
"May we take a look around?" Mr. Schmidt asked.
It was something that parole officers were allowed to request, and while Barry couldn't help but find the question especially obnoxious in light of what the guy hadn't shared upon arrival, he continued to have a distinct lack of choice in his replies. "Yeah, sure. Is there something specific that you'd like to see?"
"No."
"Okay."
The empty display cases at the back of the living room that Barry mostly didn't even think about any more got some looks, but since neither of them asked he didn't feel inclined to explain, and although they stuck their heads into the garage, there wasn't much to see except his truck and Mom's car since all of the camping gear was piled up in the shed.
They doubled back to the kitchen after that, and Barry had no idea how they'd missed the wine racks when they'd come in the front door, Mr. Marin gave them a dark look. "Don't you have alcohol restrictions?"
"There aren't any in my parole agreement, but that's probably because I'm nineteen so I'm not doing much drinking anyway." Not besides the occasional glass of wine with dinner, at least, but that hadn't been the question.
Mr. Schmidt gave him a sharp look, but Mr. Marin only nodded. "That would explain it."
There wasn't much else in the kitchen to see besides Barry's wings getting colder and his cereal dissolving so he took them down the hall afterwards. But the table and chairs at the back had been stacked and collecting dust for months, and while the boxes in Dad's office got a little more interest, 'museum stuff, Mom was a collector' was enough to bore them again. And then Barry had never been so glad about the open layout of the house because there just wasn't much else to see on the main floor. Well, they could go out and check out the shed, he supposed, it was visible out the back door if they looked, but as far as he could tell they hadn't.
Taking them upstairs was more grating just because he didn't really like having an unannounced predator poking around his room, but aside from a sideways look at free weight settings neither of them did much more than circle. And while they insisted that he open Dad's door, when he pointed out that it was Dad's room, they didn't actually go in.
Downstairs Roddy looked up as soon as Barry entered the game room, and even in the low light it looked like he'd gone pale again, but Barry waved off anything he might have asked as Mr. Marin and Mr. Schmidt followed him in and took a quick prowl around, ignoring Roddy entirely. And when they were done in there they even stuck their heads in the laundry and bathroom for whatever reason, but it wasn't until they approached the door at the end of the hall that Barry felt his stomach drop.
"What's this?" Mr. Marin asked, gesturing at the door.
He really wanted to tell them that it was just a closet, but it wasn't. Unfortunately. "My mom's office. We don't go in there."
"We're entitled to—"
"You can go in," Barry said, cutting Mr. Schmidt off. "I just don't want to."
"You'll have to let us in," Mr. Schmidt insisted, and while Barry vaguely remembered something like that from the paperwork, that didn't mean that he liked it.
Both men were staring at him now, and he stepped forward. "Fine." He closed his eyes and turned the knob, shoving the door harder than he probably should have since it bounced against the wall behind it and would have shut again in his face if he hadn't caught it.
The room was exactly as it had always been, enough light coming in through the high windows even as cloudy as it was to illuminate Mom's desk, her computer just enough off-center that the fiercer glare in the summer wouldn't bother her, and a couple books sat open beside it. Her jacket and purse were on the hook opposite the open door, and he found himself backing away automatically because he could still smell her underneath the fine leather.
He was still trying to get himself back under control when they came out again—realistically Mom's office wasn't any more interesting than Dad's—and it was definitely for the best that they were out of any possible places to tour and didn't seem inclined to ask more questions as he escorted them back upstairs.
"Is there anything else that you need?" he managed to croak when they reached the front entrance.
"I don't think so," Mr. Marin said. "You should get the paperwork in the mail probably the week after New Years."
Barry nodded, and it took everything in him not to slam the door behind them. Damn—hell, fuck—it, this was not what he'd wanted for today. Expected for today. Whatever.
"Here."
Barry blinked at the object shoved into his hand, taking longer than he probably should have to recognize his phone. And a 'Kevin is on his way, I'll call you at lunch' text that made no sense at first because Dad was in court, and how would Kevin know about any of this?
Roddy shrugged awkwardly when Barry looked at him. "I figured this was the kind of thing that your dad was supposed to know about, but I don't have his number, and since I've seen you open your phone a couple times I just used yours. I did tell him it was me, though."
Barry should probably be annoyed about Roddy breaking into his phone, but he was pretty sure that he could come up with the code for Roddy's too if he really needed it. And it wasn't like calling Dad wouldn't have been the first thing that he'd thought of when he could think again.
"Barry? Hey, you really don't look good," Roddy said after a minute, shoving at his arm. "Did that Schmidt guy do something? I know you said that Mr. Marin is your parole officer, but cats are assholes."
Surprise was enough of a distraction, at least temporarily. "You knew what he was?"
"Well, I couldn't tell you exactly what, but instincts or genetics or just life says I'd better be good at noticing anyone who might notice me. Most definitely including any kind of big cat. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure he's nastier than a Klaustreich, although I guess that leaves a lot of room. And probably matters more to me than you."
Klaustreich were barely more than vermin in Mom's hierarchy, not that Barry planned on fighting with any parole officers anyway, and he shrugged. And then had to swallow because that was Mom again, and—
"Barry? Seriously, what's wrong? Are you sure they didn't do something? Should I call...I don't know, someone else?"
"No, it's not…." He shook his head and dropped the phone onto the table before he could do something stupid like crush it. "They wanted to go into Mom's office. That's why they were downstairs. Well, her office isn't specifically why they were downstairs, but they wanted to poke around the house, and it was included, and I haven't been in there since…." He shook his head again. "I had to let them in, and her sweater was right there, and it smelled like her."
Roddy scowled. "Okay, that makes them both assholes."
Barry closed his eyes.
Roddy shoved at him again. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I don't go into my dad's room either. And I don't care what rights they think they have, they shouldn't have asked."
It wasn't...it was stupid. It had been more than a year. He should be able to go into a stupid office—at least think about going in—without it turning into some kind of panicked freak out. "'m fine," he managed to growl.
"I...okay," Roddy said, and then went quiet for a minute. "Do you want to murder me at Scrabble again? We can bring the board up here if you're waiting for your lawyer."
Barry swiped at his eyes and pretended that he hadn't as he stared at the closed door in front of him. He had to do something that wasn't freak, and that was as good a suggestion as any. "You sure it won't make your headache worse?"
"Nah, I'll be fine."
"Well, if it does snow, we're ready," Dad said, stepping away from the tent after one last check that the rain cover was tight. "Ready to break out the fishing gear?"
Barry nodded quickly, tossing their sleeping bags inside. "Definitely." Even if he wasn't as into fishing as Dad, he'd been on edge since yesterday—since Monday, really, although Roddy's company had helped—and he needed to do something to relax. Repeatedly packing and unpacking their gear hadn't done it, lifting weights hadn't done it, attempting to take his bike out and skidding out in the mud a dozen feet off the edge of the drive hadn't even done it. Although that last had led to an hour of twisting at odd angles trying to scrub mud out of the washer. "What happened to Mrs. Robinson?" he found himself asking.
"Hm?" Dad looked up from the seat he'd taking on an old stump, the two halves of his pole in his hands. "Oh. She moved to California, I think maybe five months ago? Something like that, it was towards the end of the summer." He shook his head. "Apparently she'd just started to discuss retiring with your mother when everything happened, but then she had to wait until her daughter finished some home renovations before she could actually move. Why?"
"I sort of made a mess of the washer earlier. I think I got it cleaned up, but…." He shrugged. It was probably a good thing that Dad's work clothes went straight to the dry cleaners, just in case.
"Ah. Well, I imagine if you run it a few times it should clean itself out, but we can always test that theory when we get back to the house. Worst come to worst, camping clothes aren't going to get hurt by a little more mud." He paused. "Although now that I think about it, Mrs. Robinson did leave me some names, and maybe it wouldn't hurt to make a few calls. When she left it was just me, and if it hadn't been habit to have her in...well, there wasn't really enough work to justify even an every other week visit at that point never mind bother explaining everything to a stranger, even if I'm more inclined to wipe down a counter or throw in a load of laundry when I need it rather than hauling out the vacuum regularly."
Barry was pretty sure that the only times he'd taken out the vacuum had been right after he'd rearranged his room and right before Nick and Monroe had come over at Thanksgiving, so that was kind of fair.
"But now that it's the two of us and you're in and out more with volunteering and school coming up, it probably wouldn't hurt to check out a couple of the referrals she left. If nothing else, I imagine a good spring cleaning wouldn't hurt."
"I can help," Barry offered. "I mean, I'm still online for school for January and volunteering…." He trailed off, because he didn't know what was going to happen now with volunteering. He didn't even know if he'd be allowed to go to the school for classes for the spring semester, or if he'd end up remanded for—
Dad set his pole aside and stood, wrapping an arm around Barry's shoulders as he curled his hands, and Barry leaned into it. "I'm sorry. I wish I'd been able to come home early on Monday. Or stay home yesterday."
He'd said that before too, and Barry shook his head again. "No, it's fine. Really. You had court, and there's nothing you could have done anyway. I mean, it's not like he—they—did anything." Except be rude and annoying and force him to go into rooms he didn't want to go in, anyway, and Dad couldn't have gotten home in time to stop any of that. Dad didn't even technically know about that last part because Barry hadn't been able to bring himself to say anything and he didn't have to ask to know that Roddy wouldn't have gone behind his back. "Heck, Kevin only stayed long enough for me to give him a rundown of what happened and say that he was still working on getting their records."
"I still don't have to like it," Dad said, tightening his arm.
Barry nodded and couldn't help leaning in for a moment before forcing himself to step away. "Yeah."
"We don't have to stay down here if you don't want to," Dad said. "It's okay with me if you'd rather go back to the house."
"No!" Barry shook his head quickly. "No, I want to. I just...I don't want to think about that."
