The Daily Grind - Chapter 263 (Patreon)

“The mission is what the mission becomes.”  -Will Harper, Young Justice-

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Calming down took James some effort.  And really, to say he was calm at all wasn’t even close to true.  He was just drained, he’d overextended on everything, borrowed against his magic way too hard, and all that was left now was a version of him that didn’t really have the capacity to feel much of anything for a while.

He’d let Anesh half-carry him to the hospital space, drifting in and out of a daze while he swore to himself that he was going to make whatever arcane construction team they had around here install orange totem shortcuts to their ER.  He’d sat and let the new hire physician check him over, the man bluntly telling him that he’d messed up his neck quite badly but that there wasn’t a fix for it, and then continuing to inform James that his shoulder wasn’t dislocated, just fractured.

Which meant that James had run out of get-out-of-broken-bone-free orb power for the month, or year.  Or both.  The problem with those was the Order still didn’t have a fucking clue when they actually refreshed, and testing was both tenuous and slightly unethical, so they just went with the worst-case scenario.  James wasn’t to get into any fights for another month.

He wasn’t going to follow that advice, but it was nice that the doctor cared.

It was less nice to have Anesh help him strip off his armor, and find that the bullet that had struck him in the back hadn’t deflected at all.  Instead, it had tunneled a neat hole through his Kevlar like the armor wasn’t even there, and then kept traveling into his flesh until it was nestled against the back of his lung.

“Oh.  So tha’s why breathy hurts.”  James wheezed to distract himself as a camraconda rushed a cart of tools in and helped the doctor start digging around inside his body.

“Shut up.  Please.”  Anesh told him, holding James’ hand in a grip that threatened to test if his bone security was back.  “Just… James shut up.”  His voice was as pained as he watched a pair of tweezers pull a deformed projectile out of his boyfriend.

At least there was no need for stitches.  The camraconda nurse leaned in close and whispered direction to an authority, the green neckline of the serpent form scrubs she was wearing detaching to coil around the puncture wound and pull flesh closed.  Anesh watched with morbid fascination as skin stretched and pulled together, bleeding stopped, and all that was left of the injury was a bright white scar.

They were informed that the repair was not good enough for strenuous activity, but that it would heal naturally over time.  Exercise potions would, for some reason, stall the healing process, so avoid those.  Anesh promised to keep an eye on his boyfriend, and make sure he didn’t drink anything weird, and then helped James up.

And then helped James back down when he kept bleeding on the floor.  The gash on his leg did get stitches, no medical authority having the power right now to seal up another wound.  He was told repeatedly that he was lucky it hadn’t hit a major artery, but James felt lightheaded enough and was bleeding in quantities that made him question that.  He was given orange juice, and a blood infusion from a Climb spell that left him shivering for a few minutes.

After that, James was starting to feel a little more alert, so as Anesh tried to convince him to head home, he instead derailed them to his favorite part of the basement, and made good on his promise to meet the others at the baths.  He didn’t know how long he’d been subjected to medical attention, but just having a young authority work on him felt like it had take half an hour of sitting still.

Fortunately, they weren’t too late to the party. Alex and Ink-And-Key had claimed a pool, and were floating next to each other seeming to stare listlessly at the trio of pouring lines of water that fell to the center of the bath.  Camille was sitting cross legged on the outside, still armored, while Sarah was headed their way wrapped in a towel.  She waved at James and Anesh, her face masked with concern, but James just waved back and tilted his head toward the others.

He was already shirtless, having abandoned his gear in the hospital space to be picked up and either stowed in the armory or burned.  But after heading to the changing area, he let Anesh help him out of his pants in the least sexy undressing he’d ever had, and then walked alongside his grumbling boyfriend as they went over to their claimed spot.

The semi public bath that an ambitious member of the Order had put together as his first project, and then continued expanding on, was still something that felt magical to James.  Not the kind of magic that translated to power, but the kind that evoked wonder.  Dancing lights, copper and wood everywhere, pouring clear water from overhead showers, the kind of weird mural of Rufus on the wall.  It was weird, but also cool, and other people seemed to agree, since as everyone did get used to the practice, it had become more common to find unexpected figures down here.  Which was highlighted when a buzzing squawk shot in James’ direction announced Banana’s presence.  He waved at the girl with the best smile he could muster, and got an indignant look from the woman that was helping the crow wasp wash her feathers, who had just gotten absolutely covered in bits of flung shampoo.

“Be careful.”  Anesh still sounded like he was in the middle of an anxiety attack as he helped James ease down into the water next to where Cam was sitting on the edge.

“I’m fine, don’t…” James had been about to tell his boyfriend not to worry, but he almost laughed at how dumb that sounded.  “I’m fine.”  He reiterated.

Alex dragged her stare away from the waterfall and over to where James was settling onto one of the stone shelves that they used for seating, seeming to almost look through him.  “How are you fine?”  She asked in a dead voice.

“Oh, I’m not.”  James told her.  “I’m lying to Anesh so he’ll stop yanking on my arm.”  One of his arms was in a sling, so he couldn’t successfully bat Anesh away.  “I’m… I’m not.” James trailed off.

“Right.”  Alex sighed.  “Sorry.”

Sarah, floating on the side of the pool, flipped herself upright and looked at both of them.  “What do you two need?”  She asked.  “Or, three, since… Ink-And-Key, are you alright?”  The camraconda shook his head, a stuttering hiss coming out of his mouth.  “Yeah, what do you need right now?  I don’t think anyone is doing alright, but what can we do to help?”

The words got an actual laugh from James.  And after a second, Alex added a manic giggle to the melody.  “Oh, wow.”  He said as he took what felt like his first real breath of air in an hour.  “I have no idea.”

Ink-And-Key’s hiss suddenly turned into a tiny scream before the camraconda dunked his head under the water.  The noise actually got a startled jump out of Cam, who had seemed to be calmly observing without any worries.

“Yeah, what he said.”  James added, feeling himself come back to life bit by bit.

“I love you,” Anesh still sounded awkward saying it out loud in front of other people, but James felt his heart swell at the words anyway, “but you’re going to be so traumatized, and we’re all worried about you.  Hell, I’m worried about everyone.  What happened?  I barely caught the end of it.”

Alex held up a hand in a futile attempt to block Ink-And-Key’s splashing surfacing.  “We were… what were we even supposed to be doing, man?”  She looked at James like a woman desperate for an easy answer.

“Ben wanted people on standby in case Status Quo did something stupid.”  James said.

“Right.  Right.  Yeah.  Hey, question?”  Alex raised a shaking hand from the warm water, droplets streaming down her skin in the comforting light of the bathhouse.  “Why did we let them live in the first place?”

It was a question James had been trying to figure out himself today.  He was about to answer without actually completing a thought, and probably say something stupid, when Sarah cut in.  “Because we were giving them a second chance.”  The words sounded so simple coming from her.  But not naive, not silly.  Just calm confidence in the Order’s operating principle.  “And it was working, too.  They lost a lot of their members when we… you know… took the chanters away.”

“Well, ‘working’.”  Anesh grumbled, submerging himself until his mouth was barely out of the water.  “They were fine with the farming right up until they couldn’t anymore.”

James sighed.  “Sarah’s right.”  He admitted.  “We can’t… we should not solve every problem by killing.  Same reason we don’t assassinate people we don’t like with the telepads.  There’s a difference between clear defense and murder.”  He rubbed his free hand along his leg under the water, feeling a dull throbbing pain from where he’d scraped the shit out of it on the pavement.  “This was defense, though.  Not for us, this time, but for… everyone caught in the crossfire.”  Ink-And-Key hissed again, and James nodded at the giant camraconda.  “Yeah, exactly.”  He said, pretending he knew what was being said and getting an unamused glare in return.

“This still doesn’t tell me what did happen.”  Anesh’s accent came through heavier when he was upset.

“Okay.  So.”  James leaned back and let himself float lightly.  “We were supposed to just wait until something happened.  Then Ben said the Squo agents set a fire to flush out the chanters, and they were going to do it again…”

“Response is still evacuating people.”  Sarah added with none of her usual cheer.  “It’s bad.”

“…yeah.  So I made a call.”  James felt like the words carried a lot of guilt that he shouldn’t be feeling, but he couldn’t stop.  “I told Ben to give us telepads for ambush points, took the new kids along for backup, and just… uh…” his voice broke again and he let himself go quiet.

Ink-And-Key lowered his head back into the pool while Alex swam out to let the waterfall of cooler water pour over her.  “And we just killed them all.”  She said.

“Sarah fed us relationstick power, Cam saved my life at least twice - thanks Cam - and yeah.  We just… we kinda cut them down.  They weren’t expecting to be hit at all, and out in the open, with a supercharged camraconda stopping cars and a half dozen extra rifles keeping them pinned down so we could fireball them… yeah.”  James tried to expel the memory of the scent of burning upholstery, or the feeling of a man’s skull splintering under his palm.  It didn’t work.  So he tried to not throw up instead, which worked better.

A slight pop brought him back to himself as Sarah tapped the pool with the purification brooch, purging the wisps of blood and dirt in it.  “At least we know the avatar plan works.”  She said with a bitter laugh.  “Response is even using it right now.  Should I be helping?  Oh no, should I be…” she twisted to stare back at the door, and James blinked in worry as he caught sight of lines of scars along her back.  Had Sarah always had those?  He couldn’t remember, but then, he never really saw his friend naked that often.

“If someone else is using it, then they’ve got the book, and they don’t need you.”  He told her gently.  “We should try to see how to get the Attic to make more of those books, too.  Not, like, transactionally, just see what makes the Ascent do that and ask nicely.”  He stared up at the copper pipes crossing the ceiling and let himself drift and start to ramble.  “We should do a lot of things.  Alex is right.  How did it come to this?  Why are we literally running around putting out fires and not being proactive?  I feel like I think that all the time and I don’t know what the answer is.”

“The answer is that you are being proactive.”  Anesh told him.  “We all are.  Did you forget?  We’re finding magic to build power plants, ruin math forever, and set up global transit networks.  We’re making money and using it to accomplish good.  We could do more, but we could always do more.  Which is why we keep doing more.”

Alex flicked a single finger through the water.  “It doesn’t feel like it’s enough.” She said what James was thinking.  “Also why is it so scary?”  Her voice was tiny, and next to her Ink-And-Key nodded in trembling agreement.

“Because it’s scary.”  James told her.  “No one should have to fight for their lives.  No one should get shot at.  I hate every part of the violence.”  He paused and then remembered something important.  “Oh, you asked why we let them live?  One of them defected.  Or… you didn’t hear Ben, did you?  A few of them tried, and got killed for it.  But at the end, that last guy Cam and I rushed to cover?  He turned on them.  Maybe just to save his own ass, but also, maybe because he knew what he was doing was wrong.  Everyone deserves that chance.  Down to the last minute, everyone deserves to be allowed to make the right choice.”

“I know.”  Alex snapped, before catching her breath and slumping.  “Sorry. Yeah.  I know.”

“It’s cool.”  James told her.  Because it was.  “We’re not okay.  I’m not gonna be mad at you.”  He heard Alex move in the water, but kept floating on his back.  “Oh.  Ink-And-Key.  Before I forget, I wanted to say thank you.  I know we haven’t really met before this, but I know you didn’t have to come with us.  But you did, and thank you.”

The camraconda froze up, before nodding in a bobbing loop, and then sinking further into the water until only his lens was poking up out of the pool.

“I’d also say thank you, for keeping you alive.”  Anesh said.  “But he’s… uh… is he okay?”

“None of us are okay.”  James and Alex said at the same time, before falling into manic giggles.

Sarah watched them as she pulled her legs up onto the stone shelf she was sitting on and wrapped her arms around herself.  “Is it bad that I’m glad this is… done?  That they’re gone?”  She asked quietly.

James winced, but turned in the middle of the pool where he’d been floating to face her.  “No.”   He said.  “I mean, maybe.  I don’t think we should be relieved that a bunch of people chose death.  But… I’m not gonna lie, I was waiting for this.”

“For…?”

“For them to find us.  Take a shot at someone we cared about.  Something like that.”  James shrugged as he tugged a strand of his soaked hair off his shoulder and tried in vain to keep it from tangling with his arm sling.  “Because… I dunno, they didn’t want to talk.  They had their ideals, and that put them in conflict with us, so it felt inevitable.  But in a sort of Sword of Damocles way?  Like I was waiting to see how many people I loved they’d kill this time.  Or maybe they’d win.  Or something.  But this…”

Alex slapped the water’s surface.  “Why the fuck does this feel worse?”  She demanded.

“Maybe it’s because we’re seeing ourselves ‘like them’, in this case.”  James offered as Ink-And-Key resurfaced for air and started floating around, warm water soothing sore cables and tumultuous thoughts.  “We set the ambush.  We shot first.  Even if that’s not technically true, we feel like shit.”

“You feel like poop because you’re not a monster.”  Sarah softly interjected.  “It’s really dumb that you never get this.  You don’t like killing people because you’re kind of actually a good person most of the time, and killing people isn’t something good people like doing.  Am… am I going nuts here?  Is that not just a foundational part of your whole thing?”  She demanded of James.

Anesh threw his boyfriend to the wolves.  “No, you’re right.  He’s being stupid again.”  He nodded in agreement, even though Sarah crossed her arms at him and scowled.  Anesh tried to laugh through the glare, but still ended up with a lot of concern left in his words.

“Do I get a say in this?”  James asked.

“Apparently not.”  Alex snorted.  “Sarah’s kinda right though.  I didn’t want to kill people.  Maybe… maybe I shouldn’t be a knight.”

“What?”  James looked over at her with raised eyebrows.  “Of course you shouldn’t.”  He said.

“You don’t need to agree so fu-“

“You should be a paladin.”  He said.

Alex froze as everyone looked at her, except Ink-And-Key, who just tilted his whole body into a curve as he stared at James, floating past like an aberrant pool noodle.  “What?”  She squeaked out.

“Oh, come on.”  James rolled his eyes.  “You’ve been doing my job all week anyway.  And you’re on my list of people anyway.”

“You have a list?”  Sarah’s tone was part curiosity part incredulity.

Anesh’s was just incredulous.  “Why are you keeping a list?  Since when do you even take notes?  I’ve played several hundred hours of D&D with you and you never took notes.”

Now James rolled his eyes at his boyfriend.  “That was a game, this is serious.”  He said, and the simple calm in his voice made Anesh realize that James wasn’t kidding.  He wasn’t goofing off or joking around, he was just… earnestly approaching something he wanted to happen.  Which he didn’t actually do that often.  Usually James did that with a lot of dry wit.  “I’ve been looking for people who’d be good candidates.  Especially since we’re getting to the point where we’re going to need more people like me, for lots of stuff.  Specialists, but also communicators, but also protectors.  Alex, you wouldn’t be the first or anything; I’m gonna ask a bunch of people all at once.  But… well, you’re on the list.  And you should say yes.”

“But… I’d have to do this.”  She said, spreading her arms at the group soaking in the pool, indicating the whole situation.  “I don’t want to do this.”

“I know.”  James said with honest sympathy.  “Neither do I.  Maybe we can do better next time.  Maybe we can be more convincing.  Maybe you’ll be the one who finds a better way.”  He shrugged. “But you didn’t want to do this earlier either, and neither did I, but we’re still here.”

“Why is this your post-battle thing, anyway?”  Sarah asked suddenly.  “Not that I’m not enjoying it, but is there something about being shot at that makes you think you want to be naked and wet?”

“Most of it!”  James agreed, not sure if that sentence made sense.  “I don’t actually know why.  I think… Alex, was it actually you that started this with me?  Back with the Alchemists?”

“I think so?”  She carved a hand through her hair, shoving the wet mass to the side of her face.  “It’s been so long.  Oh!  Yeah, it was, cause I had a crush on your girlfriend back then!”  She snapped her fingers just over the water’s surface.  “And it was weird!”

James glanced over at Sarah, who was busy looking mortified.  “Uh huh.”  He said.

Ink-And-Key tapped Alex with his tail as he floated around her in a loop of their shared pool, and then splashed aggressively as he indicated Sarah’s presence.  “What?”  Alex asked, looking over at Sarah, then back at the Camraconda.  She got a hiss in reply.  “I don’t… I know James is pretending, but none of us speak snake.  You don’t speak snake!  You told me you don’t mean anything when you hiss at people!”  She looked back to where Sarah had slipped down to the bottom of the pool to test her breath capacity.  “I don’t get it.  Guys, I don’t have a crush on Sarah.  This isn’t a problem.”

James decided to let that drop.  “Alright, alright!”  He laughed, as Anesh planted a hand on his face next to him.  Settling back down next to his boyfriend, letting the light contact of their naked skin fill him with an electric energy, James sighed as he really actually started to relax.  “Anyway.  This is… I dunno, it’s not a debriefing.  Though later we’ll need to go over stuff like drone footage and tactical choices, and figure out what we could have done better.  I think I fucked up a lot.  But this is kind of like therapy.  Not long term therapy where you actually process stuff, but like… like the bandage version of mental health.  We need to stop the bleeding.”

“You were literally bleeding.”  Anesh reminded him as Sarah burst through the water nearby.  “Also you said ‘shot at’ earlier, and I actually want everyone to know you were shot.  You were really bleeding.”

“Yeah, that’s why we used the purification brooch after I got in.”  James said as he pressed against Anesh, like that was a normal explanation.  “Also Cam got shot too!  Actually, Cam, you went to get checked over, right?”

The woman who had been silently watching them looked at him like she didn’t understand.  “I was not injured.”  She said.

“You’ve got holes in your armor.”  Alex pointed out.  “Also why are you wearing armor?  I mean, I don’t mind you hanging out with us, but you’re sorta overdressed.”  She added as she scooted aside to let Ink-And-Key pull himself up the sloped ramp and out of the pool to curl up on the edge opposite Camille.  “I mean, not that you have to get naked to hang out.  I mean… oh just fucking shoot me.”

Sarah propped her arms up on the smooth tile near the pool’s edge and looked up at Camille.  “Are you okay?”  She asked the armored girl.

“Yes.”  Camille said bluntly.  “Why would I not be?”

“Because you went through the same thing they did.”  Sarah softly spoke, just to Cam.  “Because you had to kill people.  That’s not… something most people have in their day to day life, you know?  It’s okay to not feel okay.”

Camille looked down at Sarah, and abruptly Sarah could see a tidal wave of pain stored behind her eyes.  “I have killed before.”  She said.  “I killed today.  And I will do so again in the future.  And I do not… I don’t feel anything.”  Abruptly, the stoic and composed nature of her words shattered, and silent tears poured down Cam’s cheeks.  “I don’t feel guilt, or disgusted, or any of the things you are speaking of.  You weren’t even there, but you talk like you are horrified of what happened, and I feel nothing, and you just said that good people don’t feel nothing when they do this, but this is my life.”  Cam’s breath came in frantic bursts as she poured out more words than she ever had in a single go before with any of them.  “I am an Azure, I am made to fight, and kill, and to gather intelligence and turn it into plans to eliminate the enemy, and all of that makes you hate yourselves?!  Why am I here?”  The last word was practically a hoarse scream, loud enough to draw the attention of the other scattered bathers in the pools around them.  And if that wasn’t, then Cam shattering the tile with a simple downward punch was, the cracking of the ceramic material getting a sharp jump from a lot of the others.

Alex looked up from where she was helping Ink-And-Key towel off and plug his speaking necklace back in.  James let go of Anesh’s hand from where their limbs floated between them, and the two silently tried to find something to say.

But Sarah just pulled herself up out of the pool, the tiles she carefully sat down on with a wet plop draining all the water she brought with her back into the bath as she reached out for Cam.  “Hey.”  She said quietly as she leaned in to try to set a hand on Cam’s cheek.

Camille flinched back, and swatted at Sarah’s hand so forcefully that James was afraid she might actually hurt his friend.  “This isn’t how humans are!”  Camille yelled, half sobbing as she did.  “Stop it!”

“Hey.”  Sarah brought her hand back and rested it on the shoulder of Cam’s armor.  She considered going in for a hug, but that seemed like a little too far right now; there was actually an upper limit to how many pointy things Sarah was willing to hug without at least a protective layer.  “Cam.  Look at me.”  Camille dragged her eyes up to stare at Sarah like a wounded dog.  “You’re here because you made a choice.  You’re not a monster, and you know it.”

“You collect monsters.”  Cam’s voice cracked as she pointed a gauntlet at Ink-And-Key.

“Rude.”  The camraconda said with his reintegrated voice.  “Though I feel like it today, so maybe not that rude.”

“Cam.”  Sarah pulled the girl’s attention back to her.  “We collect people who need help.  Do you really think we’re stockpiling friends because of their combat potential?”  She stared into Camille’s eyes, until the girl winced and looked away with a shake of her head.  “Right.  Maybe you don’t believe the same things we do, maybe you’re right that killing is part of what you are.  That doesn’t mean you don’t belong here, or that you’re a monster.  You are a person, and you deserve to be happy.”

James drifted over to near them.  “What Sarah’s also not quite saying,” he added, “is that it’s we’re talking about how we feel about this shitty situation.  You don’t feel anything?  Yeah, bullshit.”  He paddled water with his maneuverable arm while he stared at her.  “You need time, and help, and therapy, and all of that is okay.  Maybe you don’t think of it this way, but Cam, you’ve been abused your whole fucking life, and I’m not doing you any favors by asking you to fight for us.  It doesn’t make you evil to have built up defenses to the shit we’re going through.  It means you’ve been forced into worse situations for longer.”  James sighed, and then choked on a stray splash of water before catching his breath.  “Okay, well, my ruined dignity aside, the point is that whether it’s here in the Order, or here decompressing in a bath with us, you belong wherever you want to be, okay?”

Camille just nodded mutely.  And the next time Sarah reached out, she just sat there and accepted it.  “Do you wanna come for a swim?”  She asked, and Cam nodded stiffly.  “Okay.  Come with me.”  Sarah grabbed a towel to cover herself and offered Cam a hand up, which was ignored as the other girl rose and followed her back to the changing area.

“Holy shit.”  Alex said when they were out of earshot.  “I thought I was traumatized.”

“I lied.  I lied, I don’t feel like a monster, not like she meant.”  Ink-And-Key hissed softly as he spoke.  “I just didn’t… she looked so sad.  That’s what sad humans look like, right?  I mostly only work in Research with humans that are always frustrated but in an overly dramatic way and they aren’t sad.”

Anesh cleared his throat.  “Not to put too fine a point on it - also Ink that’s the best description of Research anyone has had yet - but James, does Cam have a therapist?”

“I… don’t know.”  James said with a deep regret.

“Well, at least she’s fitting in.”  Alex offered, and then held up the towel she was using on the camraconda like a shield against a wall of glares.  “What? She is!  Weren’t we just saying that we’re down here so we can be trauma buddies?!”

James let out a long groan.  “I would… I would not put it that way, no.”  He said, looking up as Sarah returned to them with Camille in tow.

The girl had a towel wrapped around most of her body, but her armor was gone, and the sudden contrast in shape made James realize that the sandy mop of hair she had was just more hair than he’d thought, since he usually only saw her wearing plate mail.  She still held the towel around her body like it was armor, though.

But with everything stripped away except for a layer of dirt on her skin, it was abruptly obvious to everyone that Camille, despite being able to punch rock in half, was scrawny.  To the point that it looked deeply unhealthy, too.  Her arms were like twigs.  Her legs, capable of jumping her twenty feet into the air last time James checked, looked like they lacked any muscle definition or padding at all, except for a thin layer of hair.

“Now remember.”  Sarah was gently talking to her with the same voice James heard her use on new ratroaches.  “You can leave anytime you’re uncomfortable.”  She had a hand set gently on Cam’s shoulder, while her other hand swung a quickly modified wet floor sign out to cover the hole in the bath’s tile.

Camille just nodded stiffly, and walked down the ramp into the pool, still clutching the towel around herself even as it rapidly soaked up water and probably got heavy enough to be a problem.  Well, a problem for a normal human.  Because despite her underfed figure, Cam was still the most dangerous person in the room, probably.

And she was clearly trying to keep her composure as she stood up to her shoulders in warm water.

“Now what?”  Camille asked.

Alex rolled over Ink-And-Key, getting a protesting whine as she threw herself back into the pool.  “Now, welcome to the trauma club!”  Alex said.

“You cannot call it that.”  Anesh sunk with mortification.

“We could maybe call it that?”  James mused.  “I’m feeling okay joking about it now, but this is probably gonna give me more nightmares.”  For how long, he didn’t want to guess.  Maybe forever.  “Hey, Cam?”  He got her attention, intending to ask if she was eating okay, because James was nursing a low hum of concern that the only real meals she’d had in her month here had been when Keeka made her eat on the delves.

But she shattered his plans to ask anything.  “You have the nightmares too?”

“…yeah.”  James said.

“Yup.”  Alex was more cheerful about it.

“Less now, but yes.  They’re common among my species.”  Ink-And-Key worried at a projected brass fang as he spoke.

“Different ones than them, but I do too.”  Sarah said as she slid by the smooth stone next to Camille.

“Same.”  Anesh nodded with pursed lips.

“…oh.”  Camille looked at them all like she was seeing them for the first time.  Or maybe like she’d never really looked at other people as anything but targets before.  “No one told me.”

“It’s…” James stopped himself from shrugging, paddling over to the edge of the pool and pulling himself out before he got completely waterlogged.  “No, there’s no real excuse, is there?  I kind of assumed you were going to be okay because you knew what you were doing.  Again.  But yeah, Alex isn’t actually lying.  We all have our own traumatic stories, and we try to help each other deal with them.  There’s support groups and counseling and therapy available, but also we do stuff like this” he waved a hand at them, “so we can just… talk.  So we know we aren’t alone, or that we have friends.”

“Speaking of things no one told you.”  Alex ventured with an almost playful mood that seemed to be more distracting to Camille than anything else.  “You know we’ve got a whole-ass restaurant upstairs, right?  You can have a salad or something, whenever you get hungry.  Which looks like it would be all the time.”

“Alex!  Be nice!”  Sarah glowered at the other woman.

“No, she is right.”  Camille said suddenly, still just standing in the warm water.  James noticed a whorl of dirt and blood drifting around her, and he grabbed the purification brooch to tap the pool again and deal with that really quickly.  “I believed it was not for me, as I was provided with food.”

“…the snacks we stocked your room with, like, three weeks ago?”  James asked, already horrified that he knew the answer.

“Yes.  And yes, now that I compare the situation with what I know of you, I can see that I made a mistake.”  Cam pressed the back of a hand into her face.  “Why couldn’t you ask something easy of me?”

James couldn’t hold back a laugh as he dried himself off and draped a pair of heavy towels over himself.  “I hope this doesn’t sound mean but I am so eager to know; what would you count as easy?”

“Locating and scouting targets of interest, running intel briefings on enemy pillars, guiding a Violet or Crimson through a combat operation, monitoring various wiretaps and network sniffers, simple things.”  Her face animated as she spoke, one hand cutting through the water around her.  “I know why I left, but life was easier when no one asked me to think about myself.  I ate when I was told, slept when I was told, and performed the missions I was given.  And I was…”

“Happy?”  Sarah asked.  She was concerned for Cam, but not in the same way James clearly was.  He was worried that they were doing her a disservice.  Sarah was trying to figure out who the girl under the armor was, and what she needed.  Because she did, plainly, need something.

“No, no.  Not happy.  But I was useful.  Father relied on my… no, that’s a lie, isn’t it?”  Camille looked up at the ceiling, trying to imagine she was alone as she spoke.  “I was import… I helped with… I…” her mouth twisted into an angry snarl.  “I was a very good tool.”  She said.  “And I didn’t have to be happy.  But I also didn’t have to be anything else.  And now you are asking me to be something else, and it is complicated, and I don’t know if I can.  I still don’t even know if I can be more than the monster you think I am.”

Before Sarah could answer, James fell into an abrupt coughing fit.  “You okay?”  She asked him with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, just… wasn’t expecting that.  Also I’m still getting better.  Also I just thought of this, I hope I didn’t get you sick?”

“Nah, I leveled up Health again.”  Sarah said.  And then changed the subject before anyone could tease her about that.  “Cam, none of us have ever thought you were a monster.”

“I really did think that was why you let me into your home.”  She answered, still staring upward, not seeming to understand how hostile the words sounded.  Both to them, and to herself.  “Why else would you?  This is not rhetorical.”

The specification to her question got James to stop planning ways to pry into Sarah’s personal life.  “Oh.  Uh… because we do that?”  He asked.

“It’s true, they do do that.”  Ink-And-Key agreed with a quick amused hiss.  “But you are asking why they would help you if you are not useful, aren’t you?”  Camille nodded slowly, lowering her head to give the camraconda a mildly suspicious look.  “The majority of my people are noncombatants.  Many of us do not ‘contribute’ either.  The same is true for seventy, eighty percent perhaps, of the ratroach population, and who even tracks how much of the humans rescued by us.  Hah, us.  I have made a point by accident!  I am a part of us now.  And maybe was the whole time.  And I never needed to be useful to be made to feel like I was cared for.  And neither do you!”  Ink-And-Key pivoted from where he was stretched out on the slick tile to look across the pool at James.  “Does she?  I should ask first before speaking.”

“No, no, you’re right.”  James nodded appreciatively.  “And, like, Ink is hitting on something in a way; the people we help tend to turn around and help us back.  But we don’t help in the first place to get that?  It’s not transactional, is what I’m saying.  Cam, if you wanna leave tomorrow and never ‘pay us back’, that’s cool.  You can.  You don’t owe us or some shit.”

“Yeah, you get to be here because that’s what we do.”  Alex said.  “I dunno, is there a better way to say it?  Like, I wasn’t there, but you needed help, right?  We help people.  There.”

Cam watched the other woman float past her, Alex lazily dog paddling through the pool in circles.  “You make it sound too simple.”

“Doing good is often pretty complicated.”  Sarah admitted.  “But wanting to do good isn’t.”

“Is evil sorta the opposite?”  James mused out loud.  “This last Status Quo had a whole bunch of complex justifications, but in the end, their actions were just casual murder.”  He shook his head.  That was a bit of a deeper distraction than he wanted to get into right now.

Anesh reached over his head to swat at James’ foot.  “You’re ruining Sarah’s moment.”  He told his boyfriend.

“Oh, sorry!”

“Nah, it’s fine.”  Sarah signed dramatically.  “I’ve lost the mood now!  Camille will just have to find her own answers.  Alone in a hostile universe!  Uncared for!”  Sarah swooned, which turned into a laughing splash into the water as Anesh hooked her leg and pulled her off balance.

Laughter gave way to a steady and less tense quiet, even if Cam didn’t seem to get the joke.  Around them, in the other bath pools, different collections of people enjoyed a late afternoon swim either ending their work for the day or preparing for an evening shift.  Or just not having any timed responsibilities at all.  At one point, the first cluster from Response that were returning from evacuation and firefighting tasks came down, having been rotated out.  They smelled like smoke and spoke with muted voices.  They didn’t stay long, just getting cleaned up and then returning to an on call status.

There was a part of James that wondered if he should be out there, helping.  But almost before he could think that, Anesh was there, arms crossed, staring up at his boyfriend as if to remind him without words that James had a broken shoulder, a minor contusion in his neck, a black ring around one eye, tiny cuts across his palms, and a tender barely sealed hole in his back from where he was shot.  He looked up to meet Sarah’s eyes, and found a similar look coming from her.

James stopped thinking he should be out there right now.

Wrapped in towels, he made a token effort to wring out his hair as he just hung out.  James felt drained now, out of words, like he’d run out of even the extra energy he’d just gotten from the Sewer lesson.   Talking had been good.  Being arm and clean was good.  Just knowing there were people who understood, and cared, was good.

But now he was quiet.  Even while Ink-And-Key and Anesh talked about spreadsheets for some reason, and Alex started humming something familiar to herself, James just let himself exist silently.  He didn’t need to say anything, or even present any particular way.  He didn’t smile, or frown, or anything at all.  He just flopped back onto the towel wrapped around his shoulders, and closed his eyes, and let the world move without him.

He’d done his… job was the wrong word.  Task?  Duty?  None of it felt right.  He’d fulfilled his role for the day.  He’d been told about some terrible thing, and stopped the people doing it.  This time it had taken violence.  Next time he hoped it wouldn’t.

He still felt… something.  Not quite guilt, not quite disgust.  But it wasn’t good.  An anxiety that clawed at the edges of his thoughts and threatened to pull him down into a self destructive spiral if he dropped his guard, but that didn’t seem to be trying hard enough to breach the defenses of a warm bath.

“I think I like this.”  Camille said, still standing with the water up to her chin, the towel she was holding against her form under the water floating around her like a gravity defying ballroom dress.  “Why do I like this?”

“Because it’s nice and stuff.”  Alex told her.  “Come float with me!”

James twisted slightly as he heard a strange plop from the water, his shoulder protesting violently before he corrected and looked out to see Alex flailing and Camille just gone.  “Uh…”

“Oh, heck!”  Sarah plunged under the water.

“What happened?”  James asked.

Anesh pulled himself out of the pool and shifted until he could settle down on the cool tile next to James, stealing one of the partially damp towels off his boyfriend.  “Would you believe,” he asked, “that Cam just sinks?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  Well.  That, then.”  Anesh said.

It took almost a minute to verify that Cam wasn’t drowning, but instead, just standing on the bottom of the deeper part of the pool.  She seemed content down there.  Alex’s smile was still strained as she relayed that information, though.

One by one, they abandoned the water, until only Camille was left, letting her rail thin arms bob with what must have been conscious effort.    Ink-And-Key excused himself first, saying a long thank you for letting him join, before the enormous camraconda slithered off.  Sarah promised to meet them back at the apartment, and James reflexively waved goodbye with an arm that felt like it had gravel in the joint when he moved it.

“Hey new girl, are you gonna be okay?”  Alex called to Cam as she got dressed by letting a shirt envelop her in a way that James was deeply confused by and envious of.  “Like, you’re gonna eat and sleep today, right?”  Cam turned her eyes onto Alex with what looked like irritation, but Alex just leveled a neutral stare back.  “Like eat food.  Like not granola bars.”  Alex carefully didn’t let the menacing daughter of the Last Line of Defense get a reaction out of her.  “Because those two are going home, and I need to know if I should budget time for dragging you to the cafeteria before I go find someone to take me up the Climb so that I’m better equipped for this next time.”

“You know what’s deeply ironic?”  James asked, probably misusing the word irony.  “I was literally planning out my Climb spells before this started.  Not that I would have had time to practice and get used to anything before… it.  But I really should have… wait, Alex, you have been to the Climb.”

“Yeah, enough for two spells.  You have, what, ten?  I can beat that.”

“Betcha you can’t!”  James let Anesh help him into a shirt as he challenged his potential new paladin.  “But seriously, be careful.  And maybe find a safer way to get stronger.  Like the Office delve we’ll be going on in a week.”  He felt Anesh tense up, and regretted saying that out loud.  “I mean, you know.  If I’m doing okay.  And Anesh lets me.”

“I’m not… I don’t get to decide what you do or don’t do.”  Anesh tried to explain, and then stopped as he realized he was talking defensively.  “Wait, no, yes I do!  You damn well cannot go on a delve if you’re this beat up!”

“Bones heal.”  James said, half hoping his purple enhancements would choose that moment to refresh.  They didn’t, though.  So his bones healed a lot slower.  “Anyway, yeah, Alex, let me know when you do that.  We can practice new spells together.  Also I sorta missed the main point of this, which is that yeah, Camille!  You need to have real food!  Please. So we don’t all worry about you.”

Camille made the tiniest snort, water rippling around her face.  “I am finally comfortable.”  She said.

“You know you can come back here whenever you want, and you don’t need to only do it with us when there’s some new trauma, right?”  James asked.  “Oh, god, that’s actually a question.  Uh… you can just come back here.  I’m not making fun of you.  This isn’t a reward for completing an objective or anything, it really is okay to take a bath whenever you want.”

“…oh.”  Camille started striding back toward the ramp out of the pool, moving through the water like she was taking a normal walk.  “I… would like to eat then.  I am hungry.”  She stood with a miniature waterfall pouring out of her sodden towel.

“Yeah, let’s grab lunch.”  Alex sighed.  “I’ll catch you guys later.”  She saluted James in an irreverent way that almost didn’t make him wince.

Afterward, once they’d both dressed, purified the pool, and Anesh marked that one as free on the board up front, the two of them walked slowly through the vibrant basement halls toward the elevator atrium.  “You ready to go home now?”  Anesh asked, still fussing over his partner.  “Maybe lay down for a week or two?  Have a nice little sit?  I’ll make you soup?”

“You have made me so much soup.  What’s with you and soup lately?  It’s been fucking great soup, but I’m not sick anymore.”

“I got four skill ranks in soup.”  Anesh explained.  “From testing oranges.  Oh, I’m also a flight instructor now.”

James nodded as he leaned against a love of his life.  “Mood.”  He said.  “I do not want soup.  Can we do… just, like, sandwiches?  Like what’s the best sandwich we can make?”  His boyfriend chuckled and patted his hand.  “Oh, and I wasn’t kidding about the Climb spells.  We need to drop by the vault.  I need to do this now.”

“You need to do this tomorrow.”  Anesh said.  “When you can drink a reading potion without side effects.”

“What?  Why? Does that matter?”

“We don’t know.”  Anesh told him.  “Which is why you’re going to help test.”

“…alright.  But I want really fancy cheese on my sandwich.”

“I love you.”  Anesh muttered.  “You bloody goblin.”

James smiled, and tried to keep himself from suddenly crying as they walked past the pair of trees growing without a care in the world here in a basement that didn’t intersect normal space properly.  “I love you too.”  His voice shook, filled with an overwhelming feeling that he didn’t have a word for but that cracked his mental defenses and left him feeling vulnerable and exposed but also safe and warm at the same time.  “Take me home before I collapse into a puddle?”

“Right away.”