Part Eight
It only took a week for Jennifer to get things set up and move into a condo with Molly. Tim took over her daily care, helping the child who was so painfully shy that she couldn’t stay in human form for long. Some of their old pack had believed that she was mentally impaired, but the truth was that Molly simply was more comfortable in her animal forms and found being human just too difficult. So she took longer to learn things because her animal mind didn’t process new information the same way her human mind could. But Tim was slowly able to draw the shy little girl out and soon she was learning alongside of Andy, who Tim home-schooled, and doing better than she ever had in their old pack.
Justin was thrilled to have his mother and sister in his life again, and the pack had a small gathering to welcome the new members. A few weeks later, Mel and Lindsay welcomed their daughter, Jenny Rebecca, into the world. Life was moving along for everyone. Ted had even met a man and was now happily setting up house with Blake. The only ones who seemed to be stuck in the same old rut were Brian and Justin.
The refugees continued to come to them through the spring and as Gus’s second birthday approached, their pack was up to 47 members. It was after a welcoming gathering that Brian finally brought up a subject that had been on his mind for a while.
“If we’re going to keep bringing new members into the pack we’re going to have to get a bigger place to meet,” Brian said as they cleaned up after the party. “This place is getting a little cramped.”
Justin agreed. “We should probably start thinking about pack laws too. I mean, it was one thing when we were just a small group and we could talk everything over. Now, though, people need to know what’s acceptable and what isn’t.”
Brian sighed as he flopped onto the sofa and pulled a joint out of his shirt pocket and lit it. “We’re going to end up just like all those other packs if we do that.”
“No, we won’t,” Justin said. “We can set up rules to protect the pack without restricting people’s rights to live their lives freely. And believe it or not, most of these people aren’t looking to do away with all of the old ways. They just want a place where they can feel safe and appreciated. The old packs might keep some safe, but only at the cost of losing their freedom and individuality.”
“We should have a council to help with the laws,” Brian said reluctantly. “Not elders. Just the fucking word makes it sound like they’re too old to know anything.”
“We could put it to the pack,” Justin said. “Let them nominate and vote in the council. Make things more democratic.”
“Great, another meeting,” Brian sighed. “Which brings us back to needing a meeting place.”
Justin chuckled. “We could buy Babylon and have the meetings there.”
Brian thought about that and hummed.
Justin looked at him. “It was a joke, Brian.”
“But it’s not a bad idea,” Brian said. “The club is empty during the day, and closed on Mondays. It has plenty of room inside. It would pay for itself.”
“And you could own your personal playground,” Justin huffed as he stole the joint from Brian. “Brian, seriously, can you imagine my mother willingly walking into Babylon? Even in the daytime? Buy the club if you want it, but don’t make that the pack meeting place. Everyone needs to feel comfortable in the meeting place, not just you.”
“Fine,” Brian said. He took the joint back and took a deep drag. “I’ll talk to you mother and see if she has any commercial listings that might work.”
“Better.” Justin said and then leaned over to cover Brian’s lips with his own, shotgunning the joint.
Brian sat back and looked at Justin who was reeling a bit from the shotgun. “I’m going to look into buying Babylon too.”
Justin just laughed tiredly at that and stole the joint from Brian again.
BJBJBJBJBJ
Jennifer suggested that they find a place near Liberty Ave since that was where Brian and Justin lived. Most of the new pack members lived or had moved within a mile of their Alpha and a meeting place near their home would be fairly central to the pack. Brian had agreed and so they set about looking for a place that didn’t make Brian cringe when he saw it. The old VFW hall they saw first was so reminiscent of the place his old pack had met that Brian refused to even go inside or consider it. There was a church next. Again, Brian hated it, though he did at least walk through the building.
Finally, Jennifer showed them an old YWCA building. It had been closed for a few years and needed some serious renovations. The club had closed because it was much smaller and offered fewer amenities than the YMCA down the road. It did have a large meeting room, however, that was in good shape. The rest of the building, including the weight room, pool, and racquetball courts, would need work, but Brian liked the idea of having an actual club for his pack. If the snobs from Justin’s old pack could have a country club, Brian’s pack could have a health club.
He signed the papers that day and within two weeks, the property was theirs and the renovations had begun. Justin didn’t wait for the renovations to be complete to call for their pack meeting, however. His duties as the pack Beta were increasing as the size of the pack increased. One such duty was to organize pack meetings.
The meeting room had a side entrance from the parking lot, so the pack was able to skip having to go through the construction to get to their destination on the night of the meeting. Justin had ordered chairs for the room and he, Ben, Michael and Emmett had spent time that afternoon setting them up. As far as Justin was concerned, there was no need to have everyone standing around like they used to in his old pack. Emmett and Justin had also set up a table with snacks in the back of the room.
“Looks like an AA meeting,” Brian scoffed as he entered the room a few minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin. He came over and kissed Justin’s cheek, mitigating his teasing a bit. “You ready for this?”
“Our first real pack meeting?” Justin asked. “I think so.”
Brian looked down at his Beta. “Don’t doubt yourself, Justin. You are the best fucking Beta I’ve ever met. You’re strong, smart, and you balance my harsher qualities. They are lucky to have you.”
Justin smiled at Brian. He was the empath, but Brian always seemed to know what he was feeling. “Okay. I won’t doubt myself.”
“Good,” Brian said. He looked around the hall and noticed that everyone seemed to be there. “We should get this show on the road.”
Justin followed Brian to the front of the room and waited for the others to settle down. They were quick to do so as soon as they noticed that Brian and Justin were waiting. The hum of conversation slowly died out until the room was silent.
Justin smiled at them from behind the small podium that they had found in one of the closets. “Most of you know that we hit fifty members this past week. Our pack has grown from three to fifty in less than two years. I think that must be some sort of miracle. Because of that growth, however, Brian and I have discussed a few changes that we think will help the pack.”
Brian stood up and Justin sat down. “You can see the first change. This building will become more than a meeting place. We’re in the process of renovating it to accommodate the needs of the pack. This used to be a YWCA, so there are some things, like the pool and weight rooms, which will be fixed up and reopened. We’re also putting in a pack daycare. I expect that you horny breeders are going to be producing young soon, and we’ll need a place to raise them.”
There were chuckles from the pack, everyone by now used to Brian’s ways.
“It’ll take a few months to get everything up and running, but once it is, everyone in the pack will have access,” Brian said. “The other changes we’ve discussed aren’t nearly as much fun, but they are necessary, unfortunately.”
“Brian,” Justin admonished and the others laughed. It was not the norm for a Beta to scold an Alpha—especially in public—but Brian and Justin had a whole different dynamic than most Alphas and Betas.
Brian rolled his eyes and continued. “We need pack rules and we need a governing council. But since I don’t believe that age necessarily has anything to do with a person’s ability to think or reason, I’m not in favor of just putting everyone over a certain age on the council. Justin has suggested we do this democratically, so that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to start with a council of six, not including Justin and myself. As the pack grows, we’ll increase the size of the council, one new position for every fifty new members, with a limit of twenty. Any more than that and it gets hard to agree on anything. The term for the council will be two years, so these aren’t guaranteed positions for life.”
He turned to Justin and the blond took Brian’s place behind the small podium. “Okay, so, we want to give you a few minutes to consider your choices. We’ll take a five minute break and when we come back, we’ll open the floor to nominations. Once the nominations are all in, we’ll hear from each of the nominees. After another short break, we’ll vote.”
Two hours later, they had their council. It wasn’t surprising that Ben had been elected, but Jennifer seemed shocked to find herself sitting on the council, as did Debbie. She had protested that she wasn’t a shifter when her name had been called out, but several of the young gay men she had helped out over the last few months had argued it didn’t matter because she was pack. Tim, Mary, and Matt rounded out the numbers.
“I think you have picked a pretty good group,” Justin said. Neither he nor Brian had voted, not wanting to influence the pack’s choices. “One last thing before we adjourn. The council will be meeting to begin discussing pack rules next week. If you have any ideas or concerns, please feel free to talk to one of the council members, or with Brian or myself. Your opinions matter. We may not be able to make every suggestion a reality, but we will seriously consider each one. Thanks for coming out.”
The meeting broke up, but the pack did not disperse immediately. They were all talking excitedly among themselves. Justin and Brian watched as Michael and Emmett mingled freely with shifters and Jennifer and Debbie discussed their new responsibilities. They may not be a typical pack, but it seemed like their people were happy with how things were going.
BJBJBJBJBJ
The council met at Brian and Justin’s home a week later. Emmett had been recruited to watch Gus upstairs while the other eight talked in the living room over coffee, beer or bourbon. The council members had each received a host of suggestions and the first hour had been spent simply wading through them. They basically broke down to two categories: keeping the pack safe and keeping their rights intact.
“I’ve been thinking this whole week,” Ben said once they had moved on. “Brian, you’ve been trying to set up a new model of what a pack should be. Perhaps our governing laws should take a new form as well.”
“What exactly did you have in mind?” Brian asked.
“Well, rather than a list of rules and regulations, perhaps we should consider a code of conduct,” Ben said. “Buddhists have the Eight Precepts. Doctors have the Hippocratic Oath. We don’t tell the people what they can and can’t do. Instead we set certain expectations for behavior.”
“I think I understand,” Jennifer said. “I tried to do that with Justin when he was growing up. Instead of telling him not to punch the neighbor’s son, I taught him to respect others and expected him to come to me if there was a problem.”
“Did you punch the neighbor’s son?” Brian asked Justin with a smirk.
“No, but I really wanted to sometimes,” Justin admitted with an embarrassed shrug. “He was a prick when we were kids, but he was okay once we got older. He gave pretty good head, at least.”
“So this code of Conduct, what exactly would that entail?” Debbie asked, ignoring Brian and Justin.
Ben looked around the group. “Well most contain several elements, but they are usually pretty specific to the group who are writing it. It could include the code of conduct, a section on discipline, and a section on governance procedures. Some include mission statements, or guiding principals. Sometimes they include an agreement from members to uphold the code. Some even have special codes for various positions within the organization.”
“So what are the guiding principals of our little club?” Brian asked.
“You should know, since they’re basically your principals,” Debbie retorted.
For the next two hours, they discussed the various aspects that they wanted to include in their precepts, disciplinary guidelines, and rules for governance. They hadn’t even begun to discuss the specific wording, but they had made some headway. Justin sent them all home with assignments to begin writing out various sections of the code.
A week later, they met again, this time armed with their various portions of the code.
“We need to set up rules in the governance section that balances the power between the council and the Alpha,” Brian said after they had read through the various offerings of the group. “I may be Alpha now, but I do not trust that someone might not come along behind me and abuse the position.”
“A lot of elder councils just go along with whatever the Alpha wants,” Justin agreed.
It took another two weeks, but they finally came up with a Code of Conduct that that they could all agree upon and be proud of.
Code of Ethics & Conduct
for Members of the Liberty Avenue Pack
Introduction
This Code of Conduct is an expression of the principles, values, standards, and rules of behavior that guide the decisions, procedures and systems of this pack in a way that (a) contributes to the welfare of, and (b) respects the rights of all pack members.
All individuals (shifter or human, adult or youth) who are members of the Liberty Avenue Pack represent not only him/herself, but also the pack as a whole. This carries with it a great deal of personal responsibility. As a member of this pack, all individuals are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that is both true to the pack precepts and true their individual beliefs.
All members of the Liberty Avenue Pack are required to adhere to all federal, state and local laws, guidelines, standards and policies. The Governing Council, along with the pack Alpha and Beta, has the right to issue sanctions or take disciplinary measures, including but not limited to denying or revoking memberships to individuals in violation of such policies.
Precepts for All Pack Members
Members of the L iberty Avenue Pack subscribe to, and seek to live by, the principles of:
Tolerance: understanding that our pack is diverse and unique, accepting each of us as we are, we endeavor to give that same acceptance to others;
Respect: knowing that by giving respect to others, whether fellow pack members or a stranger on the street, we foster respect for ourselves;
Cooperation: realizing that we must work closely and harmoniously with others in order for the pack to prosper;
Responsibility: assuming always full responsibility for our actions, and accepting opportunities to fulfill our social, economic, and moral obligations…
The precepts continued on, but those were the most important of them. They had also included precepts for leadership, precepts for the council, disciplinary guidelines, and rules of governance. In all, the code wound up being four pages long.
“I’ll send out copies of the code with the invitations to the members for the next meeting,” Justin said wearily. It was after midnight when they finally finished. “I’ll tell them to look over the code and we can vote to accept it at the meeting.”