Protect is a Seven Letter Word for Caring [OTA Throughout November]

[imhisaunt]

Who: Delmar and Seel [Closed Thread], also OTA.
** Please feel free to make your own open threads at any point during the month if your characters would want to be involved with the hideout (i.e. if they want to be in it or help people get to it or bring stuff for it. It can be assumed that characters know about it by word of mouth as there will be no announcement on the network and all characters will be asked NOT to mention it in phone calls or network posts). Also if you'd like your character to speak to Delmar or Seel specifically please just specify that
What: Delmar has asked Seel to help him build a secret hide out underneath his unfinished bakery so people can come there for safety
Where: The Unfinished Bakery (located across the river)
When: Continuous throughout November's events
Warnings: N/A for the moment. I will fix if needed.

[Closed to Seel]

"How long do you think it will take?"

He's pushed what furniture and debris he can out of the way and is now taking stock of the bakery's floorpan. He knows its no small thing he's asking and he also knows that, given the scale of the task at hand and the skills required, it will majorly fall on Seel's shoulders to construct. However, though he feels a deep-seated guilt about asking such a huge thing of Seel in addition to Seel's previous promise to help with the bakery, he recognizes there's no time for to waste fretting about being selfish. He can try and find a way to return the gesture later when they've managed to help as many as they can.

For now they have to act.

So jaw set with determination, he looks to Seel, awaiting his assessment of the situation.

[Delmar's OTA - throughout November]

Delmar's colorful sweaters and scarves have been stored away for the time being in favor of more practical clothes. Instead he wears only simple green khaki trousers, a short-sleeved crew neck t-shirt, and a black leather belt over which can be seen the butt of the silver handgun that he won during the paintball event. Dressed this way it can be seen that, though markedly lanky and thin, Delmar is threaded together with lean muscle, most toned along his arms that are now bare. Taken altogether, Delmar now strikes a noticeably grim and serious figure compared to his usual more chipper and optimistic self.

He thought his war days were behind him. That the big bad evil had been packed away at least for his lifetime, and now in his early 60s he could expect never to hold another weapon or worry about a friend being killed in the line of fire. It was probably just another proof of how naive a person he is. And now there are too many similarities to what happened before. Lists. People who were deemed worthy to live. People deemed necessary to kill. No care for age or innocence. It puts a sickly feeling in his stomach.

Delmar's more than aware of his vulnerabilities. He's pretty much outmatched by every single person in this cave, not to mention these horrid creatures that are coming after everyone. He had been a good soldier, but not a great one by any stretch, and that had been 30 years ago. Still he can't sit by and do nothing. So he's going to help in whatever way he can. So if he can't fight, maybe he can still protect and shelter. Delmar can mostly be found around the site, doing whatever he can find for himself to do, whether thats getting people food or blankets, or even just giving a comforting shoulder where he can. He'll try his best to give his smiles and his words of encouragement. Even if he doesn't feel like he has it in him, he'll still try.

If you tell him you need something he will do everything within his power to get it for you or do it for you, or if you just need someone to talk to, he's here.

Comments

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin volunteers to help smuggle people in and out of the hideout as soon as he hears of this project by word of mouth.

Today he is bringing food to the people who are using it. For such a tall, wiry person, with glittering dark eyes and a distinctive Elvish appearance, he is surprisingly adept at slipping through the landscape unobtrusively. It's all in where you put your attention. If you think, I'm not here, only rocks, trees, sky and buildings are here, and mean it, you fade into the background. The eye of the observer just slips off you, as though you weren't there.

"Hey, Delmar!" he greets the refuge-keeper, as he enters the Unfinished Bakery. He slings the sack of food down from his shoulders and sets it on the floor.

[dreamsallotted]

"About a week for the basics. A little bit longer for it to be fully up and running, but we can get people in here in a week." Seel walks around the building, making a list of what they have, what they'd need, what they can do with the space and under it, with what Delmar wants to do.

He originally didn't like Delmar. At all. He had assumed he was someone of sub-par intelligence, coasting by on the kindness and hard work of others. But now Seel knew. There was a fucking devious mind underneath that kind smile. He almost reminded him of Flick. Except Flick was never that devious. With Flick, what you saw was what you got. But he was as easy to push around. Which he wasn't allowed to do with Delmar. Thanks so much Cal.

Still, he liked to think he would have done this even if Cal hadn't ordered him to be nice. This was worthy. This was helpful. This was what he was good at.

"Especially if we get some of the others interested in helping you with the bakery to help out. Scavenge for supplies. Assuming they're trustworthy. " If push came to shove Seel could just read their mind, but he'd really rather not do that. It was so rude.

[imhisaunt]

Delmar had been distracted folding some blankets in one of the corners but he straightens when he hears his name, looking around a bit confused a moment before spotting Curufin.

"Oh! Hello there, Curufin. How are you?"

[imhisaunt]

"Well, there was another young man who said he had experience," Delmar follows a few paces behind, wanting to be within earshot, but also wanting to let Seel have his space to think. His opinion of Seel as it stands is fairly neutral. He views Seel as brutally honest but hard working. Though what Harlan had said about Seel trying to take over the project sat a bit uncomfortably with him. Delmar doesn't know what to make of that.

Still, Seel had come to help when Delmar asked, so the previous unpleasantness has been set aside for now.

Though that last bit of Seel's statement reminds him of another issue.

"We will need to have a way to tell people without using the phones."

[so_dark_a_road]

"I'd say I'm good, but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. But good, considering. How are you, Delmar?"

He nudges the sack with his foot. "Food for your refugees -- the proceeds of my last hunt through the stores. It's all canned or packaged stuff, and all of it recognizable, and all of it edible. I tested it myself." Small grin. "I'll bring some freshly cooked dishes, though, next time I get a chance to do any cooking myself."

[dreamsallotted]

"We should get him in, if he's trustworthy. The faster this goes, the quicker we can start helping people." Thats what it was all about for Seel. Helping. He might not go about it the best way, and come off as abrasive and jerky, but he was trying the only way he knew how. He would have been glad Delmar saw him more as brutally honest than a jerk.

"We'll have to do it word of mouth. Trustworthy people only. The last thing we want is people getting in here and leaking it to the Null."

[imhisaunt]

"That is so very generous of you. I do hope you are keeping yourself safe too." He pads over to, moving to pick it up so he can move it closer to the shelves for sorting. As he does so he addresses that second question.

"Oh I'll be alright," He murmurs, sounding tired but keeping a brave face. "After all, those poor people on that list have it much worse off."

[imhisaunt]

Delmar nods in agreement. "Yes, I think that would be the best. The sooner the better."

Then he straightens, ready for instruction. "I know you are the one with more experience here so I'll follow your lead. But I am ready to work. You just tell me what I can do and I'll do it."

He adds a serious, uncharacteristically stern nod

"We don't have any time to waste."

[so_dark_a_road]

"You're welcome, and I'm doing the best I can to keep myself safe -- and my family, and a lot of other people."

And Curufin can see how tired Delmar is.

"You work so hard. And I'm sure the people you are helping now are grateful to you. Not everyone on the list needs this refuge, as some of them are very skilled in self-defense. But not all of them are skilled in that way, and not all of them are even adults. It is very good they have this place to come to."

[dreamsallotted]

"Great. Let's get to work then."

Seel had experience bossing people around. He also had experience building something from nothing. But, Cal had told him, quite clearly, that if Seel had Delmar or anyone else, do anything for him, he'd regret it. So, instead, he gave him a couple of options. It all needed to get done, and that way Delmar could do what he felt comfortable with and they were all happy.

[imhisaunt]

"But you must make sure you rest. And that you eat properly...," He fusses.

Then shakes his head modestly at the statement. "There's not very much else I can do for anyone. After all I don't fight or have any special powers. So...so I need to do my part where I can."

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin smiles. Delmar is a kindly man, and a caring one. "I'll do my best on that score, too, since you insist! Rest and food."

"You don't need special powers to be useful, as you probably already know. And as for fighting. . .you strike me as being one who has experience with war. I'm not quite sure why. You just have the look."

[braveoff]

Drake shows up a few days into the excavation of the bunker itself, but he thought he was coming by to work on the bakery structure. He can tell right away that there's something more going on here, loud noises of construction under their feet. He finds Delmar in the bakery kitchen, and quirks an eyebrow at him -- he doesn't want the guy to feel cornered, but...

"What exactly are you working on here?"

Sorry for the delay!

[imhisaunt]

"Well...its...its a bakery," Delmar starts shyly, "But now its also going to be a bunker."

That makes sense, right?

[imhisaunt]

Delmar is surprised that Curufin could figure that out about him and his expression turns thoughtful. "I'm afraid you are right. But that was a long time ago now."

"You must be very familiar with war, Curufin, to guess that."

[so_dark_a_road]

"I thought so. And even if it was a long time ago, you might still be able to pick up a weapon to defend yourself and others, if you absolutely had to."

"Yes, I am. Six hundred years of war in my world. And you? -- how long ago was that?"