Growing Into It

By Purple Lacey

Part 5
 

Vin really did not understand why Buck had snapped at him. The woman had been hurting him, and Vin was only doing his job of protecting his Guide from harm.  That his Guide would yell at him so was beyond bearing.  It felt like his whole world had just shattered. The pain was overwhelming. Vin jerked out of Buck’s hold and began backing away.

Buck immediately picked up the emotions Vin was projecting, and felt like the world’s biggest jerk.  He was supposed to be a highly trained Guide, and yet here he was forgetting all his training because he was embarrassed at getting caught having sex by his underage Guide, and upset that he had inadvertently hurt an old friend.   

Buck drew in a deep breath, and tried to calm himself down so he could work on calming Vin.  Unfortunately, it was too little, too late as Vin spun on his heel and darted out of the bedroom. 

“Vin! Wait,” Buck said urgently, and reached out for his fleeing Sentinel,  tripping over the sheet draped around him and almost falling on his face before he managed to recover his balance.   Vin never paused.

The Sentinel ran back to the vent, threw the grill up, and crawled back the way he had come. Buck took a moment to drop the sheet and yank on his pants. He was still struggling with the zipper as he hurried after Vin.

“Buck!” Marta snapped, still upset with the big man.

“Not now, Marta,” Buck answered absently, his mind now completely occupied with finding his bondmate and smoothing things over with him.

Buck sped into the living area in time to hear the grill drop back into place, giving him a clue where his Sentinel had disappeared.  He dropped to his knees by the vent and lifted the grill himself.   The opening was too small to allow him to follow, his shoulders much too wide for the child sized vent. He settled for pushing his head as far as it would go as he called for his bondmate.

“I’m sorry, Vin. Really!  I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.  Please, come back. Let me explain.  Please, Vin,” the man pleaded softly into the vent, knowing the Sentinel could hear him.

Vin stubbornly remained silent.   He had crawled around the corner into the bigger structure of the main air duct so Buck could not reach or see him, and was sitting with his arms wrapped around his legs, and his head bent to rest his cheek against his knees.  His tears were absorbed into the denim of his jeans. 

He was so confused. What had he done so bad to have made Buck so mad at him?  No Sentinel wanted to be at odds with his Guide.  It was against the natural order of things.  The Sentinel and Guide were supposed to work together to ensure each other’s survival.  To have one’s Guide so angry or upset as to lash out at their bondmate was to shake the very foundations of the Sentinel’s world.  Vin’s head was still reeling from the unexpected blow dealt by his Guide.  He was utterly devastated. 

To make it even worse, from the grieving Sentinel’s point of view, it looked like Buck cared more about the woman in that room than he did about Vin since he had been pushing Vin away while trying to comfort her.  Everything in Vin was shouting that this was not the way it should be.

The little Sentinel drew into himself, unconsciously putting up an emotional wall between himself and the rest of the world in an attempt at emotional self-protection.

Meanwhile, Buck was feeling incredibly guilty.  He could feel the bewildered pain the little boy had been unwittingly projecting, before all contact had abruptly shut off, and felt like ten thousand times a fool.  He had caused his Sentinel, the most important person in his life, to feel unwanted and unloved.  His precious bondmate was feeling confused, and rejected, and was in substantial emotional pain because he, Buck, had made the biggest, stupidest mistake of his life. It was too ironic that just that morning at breakfast when he had been overcome with the New Bonding Anxiety that he had been so worried about Vin’s welfare and concentrating on how much he wanted to keep the boy safe, and now here he was, guilty of inflicting harm to the little Sentinel himself.  He felt like the worst Guide ever. 

Ignoring the continuing rants of Marta, Buck tried to send feelings of apology and love out to Vin, but the little Sentinel was not receptive, and the Guide could feel them bouncing off the mental shield Vin had raised to protect himself from further hurt. It was an indication of just how bad things were that even Buck’s increased heart rate and respiration did not immediately cause the little Sentinel to come to him.   

Normally, a Guide could command his Sentinel’s attention using the, so called, Guide voice, that harmonic tone totally unique to Guides that every Sentinel brain was hardwired to respond.  Unfortunately, Buck’s own guilt and shame, not to mention emotional pain, over the whole situation made it impossible for him to summon up the will necessary to produce the right pitch, leaving him without one of the most powerful weapons in a Guide’s arsenal when dealing with a wayward Sentinel.

Buck remained stretched out on the floor impotently trying to stretch further into the duct in a futile attempt to get closer to his Sentinel. His heart broke with every soft sob that he heard echoing down the duct from his disconsolate bondmate.  He kept up a running monologue of softly whispered apologies and pleadings for forgiveness.  His arms actually began to ache with the need to wrap them around the suffering child. 

tbc
 Part 4  Part 5     Part 6



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