It was an answer he expected. Whatever the Light really was, Aoba saw it as an inherent goodness, and even he could see the strength of it in Declan. For the Titan to make his quietly frustrated complaints and then opt to stay and fight anyway…it just sounded perfectly him. Aoba couldn’t really be disappointed when he hadn’t had hopes up in the first place, the words having been more a wording of commiseration than anything else but—he liked hearing again that Declan would have been happy to go with him under different circumstances.
Aoba didn’t know how much of that happiness would have been for going with him over just leaving this troublesome future to its own ends. The hand over his own confirmed a closeness of some kind, but nothing certain enough to muster Aoba any further. He would have been happy enough to bring Declan with him just so that the man could find a more normal life away from war.
An urge pressed at him very strongly, a nagging that made him want to do something more that just stand there at an intimately platonic distance, but he lacked the courage to do anything more than shove it away. He cursed himself a little for it, almost in words that he could hear, but resisted just the same.
“Then keep it safe until I get back,” he said only, hand warm and still where it rested. “It won’t be my future when it becomes my present.”
no subject
Aoba didn’t know how much of that happiness would have been for going with him over just leaving this troublesome future to its own ends. The hand over his own confirmed a closeness of some kind, but nothing certain enough to muster Aoba any further. He would have been happy enough to bring Declan with him just so that the man could find a more normal life away from war.
An urge pressed at him very strongly, a nagging that made him want to do something more that just stand there at an intimately platonic distance, but he lacked the courage to do anything more than shove it away. He cursed himself a little for it, almost in words that he could hear, but resisted just the same.
“Then keep it safe until I get back,” he said only, hand warm and still where it rested. “It won’t be my future when it becomes my present.”