Page 72 of From the Noblest Motives
Buffers. It's what we do.
The cave was a roomy one on the side farthest away from the lodge house and the entrance to the redoubt. Quiet, privacy, a bit of an overhang for shade—perfect. Damien sat on the floor with his back to the wall and closed his eyes, pack still clutched to his chest. At least he wasn't starting to hyperventilate anymore. Without a word, Dr. Parma herded the rest of them out.
"I have to go check on Shudder," Airmed said with a wave as she hurried off. "Just send someone for me if you need me!"
Dr. Parma walked with Blaze to a large flat rock where they could sit and still be in sight of Damien's cave.
"Thank you." She let out a slow breath, probably steadying herself now, too. "For understanding. For making the effort to understand him so well."
Blaze waved a hand, the day crashing down on him like a mudslide. "You know I love him, Doc. It's the least, the very least thing I can do. He might never be able to say he loves me back, but I don't care."
The little huff she let out might have been a laugh. "He does, though. It's difficult for some people to say the words, and Damien… The people who should have protected him either abandoned him or abused him when he should have been loved most. Even I've used his talents over the years when we've needed them most, something that causes me a good deal of guilt. But he cares for you. He wants to protect you. He drove all night so you could sleep. Hereactsto you when he would simply stare at someone else. His expressions of feelings are just a little different."
He wants to protect because he's a damn hero. A real one. That's got nothing to do with it being me. Still, he heard the bits of truth in what she said, in how comfortable Damien was with him, with Shudder, when other people made him want to jerk away or lash out.
"I guess," he managed rather gracelessly.
Dr. Parma patted his knee. "Give him a few minutes. A few long minutes to sort and count, count and sort. Then poke your head in to see how he's doing. I need to find a place to lie down."
There it was. Blaze's neglect trifecta. He should've realized she was at the end of her energy. Not like she was anything close toyounganymore. At least he could get everyone's packs and bags to them, wherever they'd ended up. He took himself back to the skimmer, directing luggage delivery with various eager-to-help kids whose names he couldn't remember.
When that bit of chaos was done, and Blaze found himself alone, he did an inventory of supplies, straightened up in case Damien wandered back down there, then made his way back to Damien's cave of solitude.
Maybe it was silly, but he knocked at the cave entrance. "How's it going?"
Damien was sitting on the edge of the cave room's bed, pale but considerably calmer. "Better. I've… anchored."
Clothes, shoes, food containers—everything had been lined up in neat, regimented rows along one wall and Damien's pack set straight and even on the rock shelf above. Blaze was fairly certain he understood thatanchoredin Damien-speak meant he'd created a safe spot, a place that he hadmadesafe so he could face the world. The uncertainty over ever seeing his cabin again, then losing the refuge of Dr. Parma's house right after? Customized Damien hell.
Blaze sauntered in and went to one knee in front of him, watching for twitches as he took Damien's hands. Not even an eyelid flicker. "I'm sorry. You've been fighting so damn hard to hold it together. I didn't… I didn't watch out for you half like I should."
If Blaze hadn't been looking for it, he would've missed the miniscule quirk up on one side of Damien's mouth. "Still my protector. But I knew I was pushing it. Trying to get us out of the open faster."
"You still hungry?" The last thing Blaze wanted was to imply that Damien wasn't a capable person, and pushing his own guilt harder would do just that. "They probably still have some dinner left at the lodge."
The tiny smile came back, fleeting as high winter clouds. "I'm always hungry. But I think we need to see Shudder more."
WenotI. A tiny difference, but it went a long way to easing the hard knots of guilt stress in Blaze's chest. "Yeah. He'd better not be giving Airmed a hard time."
He led the way, since he'd stayed with Shudder the last time he'd been injured and knew exactly where his cave was, on the third tier of cave rooms, tucked in a corner where he commanded the best view of the whole caldera.
Steps carved into the cliff sides helped them reach the upper tiers, with rope strung along pitons for a handhold, though the walkways were wide enough if a person didn't rush.
Shudder's folks rushed everywhere.
While Blaze had been in Shudder's quarters before, Damien hadn't, so he stopped at the entrance for Damien to examine the space. A few of the caves—like the one designated for the infirmary—were two or three connected caverns. Shudder's was several, since it served as his bedroom, office, meeting space, and electronics storage for the compound. High above the caldera floor, there was no worry over a flash flood reaching the sensitive equipment that kept them informed about the world outside.
The first chamber, the meeting room, was neat and sparse, with a large folding table and chairs, maps stuck up on the walls, stacks of readouts, and a holo pad in the middle of the table. Blaze was sure someone else kept the space organized. Damien gave the room a cursory look after straightening the chairs and continued into Shudder's office, a much smaller space, with only room for his desk and a couple of swivel chairs.
Here, the room's owner became more apparent—an old cardigan tossed over the end of the desk, scribblings on various colored notecards strewn across the surface. With a little shiver, Damien stopped to drape the sweater carefully over the back of the chair and to straighten the notecards into color-coded piles. Blaze fought the urge to snicker. If they no longer made sense that way, it was Shudder's own fault.
The bedroom was classic Shudder in all his chaotic glory. Clothes scattered everywhere, a pile of shoes in one corner, sketches dropped wherever he'd been working on them, a pile of assorted buttons on the trunk at the foot of the queen sized bed, and a piled-up collection of origami animals on a shelf above the headboard.
Damien hesitated with his foot lifted halfway over the threshold, but then Shudder called out, "There's my handsomes! I missed you!"
Propped up in a pile of pillows, Shudder reclined like royalty, with the evidence of dinner having been brought to him scattered on the blankets. Airmed perched beside him, one brow quirked at Shudder's greeting.
"It's been, what, an hour?" Blaze muttered. "Needy."
