orendalogs | IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

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.”

Glancing at his own hand, feeling as though it had overstayed it's welcome, Declan drew away, licking his lips and turning his gaze back to the window, watching the snow. He felt heat creeping up the back of his neck, though he didn't understand why. Aoba's words garnered a small smile though. Wistful, yet with a twist of hope.

"There will always be a home for you here, Aoba...but I don't imagine you'd want to return to all this when you're back with the people you love. Why come to a war-torn land when you have everything there? Family, a blessed future where you can be and do anything you wish. I will miss you. Sorely. But I'll always rest well knowing you're safe somewhere. Your happiness is so important to me." And why would Aoba be happy there with him?

“Then don’t go trying to convince me not to come back,” Aoba countered, voice as warm as his hand even though he pulled the latter away a couple moments after it was freed.

Aoba slipped into the other seat (did that make him the universe’s most useless copilot?), removing Ren from his bag and settling him on his lap. The Allmate was still alert despite his silence, pointed little ears gently going flat as Aoba idly petted him. He wasn’t feeling sad or homesick this time around, thankfully. His newly-learned upset with the real situation that Declan faced as a Guardian shifted his thoughts so they were central to how he felt, rather than Aoba’s own.

“I won’t have ‘everything’ back in Midorijima. I won’t have you. So you just let me worry about the time I spend between my two homes, okay? You only have to be responsible for looking after this one.”

He was elated for a moment, in spite of himself. That Aoba wanted to return still pleased him, but it brought to light other issues and Declan still had to cast a worried look the other man's way, even as he leaned in and logged the autopilot back to the Tower.

"Am I worth the warmth and safety of your home?" the Titan asked dubiously, though he felt dizzy, giddy with the simple implication that he held that much meaning in Aoba's list of people. That the man would cross time and space to see him? Leave his family behind for any length of time, when he'd already been through so much? It was unthinkable, and yet there it was said, clear as crystal.

Okay, Aoba couldn’t help but chuff an amused sound at him for that one. “Two homes, Declan,” he repeated, easy thing that it was to say it as many times as it took for the Guardian to believe him. “Two. So yes, that’s exactly what I said.”

He leaned over, stretching an arm across the space between the two chairs, and tapped Declan’s breastplate. If repeating the Guardian’s own words and gestures of the morning back to him were also necessary, then that too, Aoba could do. “Right here, right? Home number two. My second place of warmth and safety. You look after it, and you look after the world you can’t leave the way I can.”

Clearing his throat softly, Declan nodded his assent, not at all willing to make any argument. It was simply too nice to hear things affirmed, and while he wouldn't let himself be roped into hoping everything would be as Aoba said, the Titan couldn't help but wish.

"When we get back, please try on your gear. I want to make sure we have comfortable outfitting for you. The environments on other planets are still hostile, even after terraforming. You need a space suit and rebreather helmet. If what I brought doesn't work for you, we need to exchange it before we sleep."

Back to business.

No segues at all, this one. But was useful in a way, too. It minimized on uncertain silences, on the spaces between words where part of Aoba worried he might say more than should be. (And where other parts incited him to do exactly that.)

“Aa, sure,” Aoba answered, complacent enough as he settled back in his seat. This world was war-torn and troubled, and Guardians were even more complicated than he’d first realized, but he knew he wouldn’t be content with meeting Declan just this once and never again. For Aoba, getting back home again was the hope. Coming back around to Declan again after that was a certainty.

The trip back was uneventful, though Declan made a point to drift over the Cosmodrome, explaining that was where most of his work was done since every enemy humanity had seemed to take up residence there. No one was sure what was so enticing sbout the place, but Hive and Fallen were always there and Vex and Cabal signals often bounced there. Whatever the case, despite being a warzone filled with the skeletons of ancient aeroplanes and satellites, the territory was a beautiful tundra with a lot of shoreline where old boats sat forgotten.

"I like camping in the satellite tower on the coast and listening to the radio chatter," Declan remarked, pointing towards a half-collapsed tower as they drifted by. Four-armed creatures wandered around the place, glaring at the ship as it passed. A few guns were pointed their way, but no shots fired. Fallen, Declan explained.

Eventually they drifted back into the port at the Tower, the Titan conversing briefly with the mechanic woman that controlled the hangars. Joining back up with Aoba, Declan loomed comfortably at his side.

"Was there anything you wanted to see or do before we leave Earth?"

The 'Cosmodrome', as Declan called it, struck Aoba as another futile show of the war. If Declan had run hundreds of missions, many of them here, why did Earth's enemies still inhabit it? Had even a dent been made in what he called the Darkness? Aoba didn't ask, though. He was afraid of more disheartening answers.

Back at the City, in the Tower, Aoba watched the comings and goings and just... wondered. It had been a very full couple of days and there was plenty to think about.

"Hm? Oh, no," he managed when Declan nudged him from his meandering thoughts. "Nothing at all."

That was an uncommonly detached reply, and Declan's head tilted, eyes blinking slowly before he lifted a hand to the small of Aoba's back and guided him to a different turn than usual. Up a flight of stairs and around a walk-way towards some scaffolding, the Titan ushers Aoba towards the back of the tower that hangs out over the valley in the Nepalese mountain range. Where they went thrust them out far enough over the great wall around the city that it was as if there were nothing around, behind, or beneath them. They were floating above pristine wilderness.

"Are you alright?" he asked when they were finally surrounded by the comfortable chill and surprisingly fresh air of those great heights overlooking picturesque beauty. Proof that some good was out there, the world not lost, just put away.

Unaware that he sounded at all unusual, all Aoba knew was the cold shock of a warm rush: the one that went both ways up and down his spine when Declan touched his back like that without warning. Though he quickly realized it to be an ushering gesture, it didn’t stop the reappearance of color in his cheeks—which then stayed there with the addition of his confusion when he didn’t even recognize the path that Declan was ushering him along. The fact that his friend wasn’t even saying anything didn’t help, either.

At least it all brought focus back to Aoba’s expression, even if it was all bewilderment.

“Hah?” was his response to Declan’s concern, perfectly inept. Maybe ‘alright’ wasn’t the word for it, but Aoba felt bad for instigating his friend’s worry without even knowing what had done it. “Well y-yeah, of course. As much as I can be. Was I making a weird face or something?”

"No. You usually have more of an opinion on things. Have more words for your thoughts," the Titan remarked, articulating as best he could that it felt unusual for Aoba to be so stingy with his words.

"And I wondered if you had things you want to say but hold back out of courtesy. You have very strong opinions, but you still try to be careful. I thought coming up here might help you relax..."

Aoba was pretty struck by that assessment, it had to be admitted. With all the thinking and observing he’d been doing, trying to figure Declan out, for him it came out of left field that he might be so assessed in turn. Or at least not so…

…accurately?

“I don’t—think I’m not relaxed,” he answered, stilted and second-guessing himself precisely because Declan had called him out so unexpectedly. Even so, since he was a terrible liar, he found himself adding, “And…anything I’m thinking wouldn’t do anyone any good if I were saying it out loud.”

And that included everything on the gamut for his sudden distaste for the nature of the Guardians, all the way to how part of him still wanted to feel Declan’s hand on his back. The latter was inappropriate right now, while the former—was useless. Declan didn’t want to take the out that Aoba could offer him, so it wasn’t his place to criticize anything any further. He feared he would upset his friend if he did so, as sensitive as he could be, so silence was all Aoba had.

"Holding back," Declan pointed out gently, though he smiled and looked away, willing to let Aoba have his silence. He didn't mind bouts of quiet, he'd simply become accustomed to the other man's voice being a regular experience, and his opinions made the Titan think about things instead of just accept them. While his conclusions may amount to the same things, even with another perspective, Declan liked learning for himself what his convictions were.

It made his life feel less like inevitability and more like a choice.

"Well...we're going to be spending a lot of time in close quarters. So...please don't feel like you can't talk to me, for any reason." There, that seemed innocuous enough.

Oh…so he was. Aoba considered this, chuffing softly.

“Well, yeah, of course,” he conceded, even if he was half looking for Ghost to give him a guilty and/or knowing look at the same time. “But there’s a difference between talking to someone, and just talking at them. It’s not anything that really affects me personally, if that helps? I’m just…thinking about where the world has wound up and what it’s done to—the people in it.”

Which included Declan, naturally, but Aoba verbally sidestepped away from singling him out. Every Guardian was affected, even if it was Declan specifically that had prompted all of Aoba’s brooding. But that risked more embarrassment if he phrased it that way, and private balcony or not, it wasn’t as intimate a setting as the apartment or the cockpit where there was absolutely no chance of anyone but them being around. Even if he wasn’t fully cognizant of it, Aoba was more self-conscious out in the open.

"The major difference is in what it provides for the one talking and the one listening. Sometimes people just need to talk and don't actually need to hear anything in return. Sometimes people just want to spill words out, freeing themselves from the burden of their thoughts. Sometimes people want to be spoken back to. Either way, Aoba, I'm here for. Just because I may not agree with something you say doesn't mean you shouldn't say it or that I don't want to hear it. People don't grow without alternative insight," the Titan shrugged, leaning forward on the balcony railing, propping himself on his elbows. It brought him down to the other man's height. Ghost, for his part, had long since drifted out into the open air, though his eye was turned towards the Traveler hanging over the city and not the beautiful landscape. His thoughts were on other matters entirely.

"But quiet is fine, too," he added after a moment of thought, tilting enough to prop his cheek in one hand. "I wish I could offer some kind of relevant comfort in regards to the state of the universe, though. I'm not sorry you're here at all, but I am sorry you have to witness the distant future and imagine it so dismal. Especially when it's lifetimes away from your era. Your world has...centuries of bliss to look forward to. And I imagine someday it'll return to that. Even after all this. I suppose nothing is without it's difficulties."

Well if you ever wanted to disprove the stereotypes of a big brute of a warrior, one only had to get Declan talking, that was for sure. Aoba heard him, agreed that it was all sensible and reasonable, but held back nonetheless. He didn’t want to spread this particular ‘burden’ to Declan’s shoulders when the man had more than enough on them already. He didn’t want to sully the Guardian’s quiet optimism, either. It was a beautiful thing, despite it all.

“But do the ends justify the means…” he sighed anyway, regarding Declan’s now more accessible profile for completely different reasons. Ones that had nothing to do with anything he was actually saying. “You don’t need to comfort me, Declan. Just keep being you, and I’ll rely on that. After…everything, I’m probably just more emotional than rational right now.”

Which would also explain away the aggravatingly loud urge he had to lean on the railing and thereby also Declan’s arm, too. Aoba stayed upright and put his hands in his pockets instead.

Turning his head slightly, lifting it out of his hand, Declan considered Aoba for a moment. Running over their previous conversations, he could guess what the comment was in regards to.

"I think the short answer is no," he replied, leaning further down and resting his chin on folded arms. "The "means" are always pretty historically dirty," the Titan mused with a soft sigh.

"In war, it's about winning. Less moral factions in past battles would want to win no matter the cost, sacrificing arable land, young soldiers, precious places. They'd burn fields so other armies would starve, conscript their children to have the necessary numbers. War is an ugly thing, no matter what side you're on. At least the way things are, the cost was the lowest possible. No children died for this," he gestured vaguely at the city behind them.

"No fields were burned by the people trying to survive, no cities sacked, no ugliness. In an effort to protect everyone, the Traveler made the Guardians from nothing. There was no immediate cost to those that needed protecting. Now, centuries later, Guardians may have questions and may want different lives, but at least we live every day knowing that our existence is, on the whole, a matter of a desperate attempt to keep doing good. There was no loss of life...our lives were already lost."

...Aoba didn’t want to be doing this talk. Not having this conversation, but doing this talk. He was upset and distressed, focused more on what Ghost had told him, which had snowballed in rapid order by one unexpected confirmation after the other that the Guardians all died over and over, for reasons that Aoba so far could only see as either trivial or ineffectual. It didn’t matter that he knew it had to be more complicated and involved than that, but it was where his thoughts were stuck as if snagged by thorns.

Declan was trying to comfort him after being expressly told not to…or, granted, that he didn’t need to. Aoba wasn’t in the headspace to hear it properly, though he knew he could reflect on it later. He should just drop the topic before—

Something happened then, something unexpected only because Aoba didn’t yet know how to be alert to the signs. He heard our lives were already lost and it made him a kind of angry, except instead of remaining something low and quiet that he could keep a lid on until it died down, there was someone else right there with him that took hold of it instead. It was like a hand on his shoulder, a growled let me at this, someone stepping ahead of him—

Aoba’s hand came up, clenched into a fist, and struck Declan’s arm with the side of it. Not a punch but a blunted strike, born of a rather more literal urge to knock some sense into him.

A desire, if you would.

“Only because they were stolen from you!” snapped the golden-eyed aspect.

That was definitely not the response Declan had expected, though in retrospect he felt like he should have. He doggedly pursued what he perceived to be the right course of action and sometimes that wasn't the same path someone else needed. Mac had similar outbursts, though, and the Titan took the hit without any offense. In fact his expression was infuriatingly gentle and apologetic, accepting that he'd been in the wrong. Still, the comment was curious.

"I'm sure you're meaning in regards to us not having a choice about who we are when resurrected, hm? Because if you mean the lives we had before we were Guardians, I'm only speaking in terms of having already been dead. Not the lack of memory." He huffed a soft sigh, reaching up and rubbing his arm where he'd been hit. It was a gesture more of meaning than comfort; he hardly felt a thing. Though he imagined if Aoba had kicked him instead, he'd have been laid out.

"What if...we had terrible lives?" he asked, tilting his head and sitting up a bit to prop himself on his elbows again. "What if the people chosen were picked very particularly? The Traveler never did anything without deeper intention behind it. What if us being brought back, however shackled or trivial our lives may seem to others, what if we're being given the chances to have lives at all? What if we were wicked people? What if we were chosen to redeem ourselves and take a little darkness out of the world by being pushed into the light? I've had a lot of time to think about these things...though there never seems to be a very good or clear answer to any of the questions asked. But I will say this."

He stopped speaking for a moment, standing upright and turning, looming over Aoba to gaze down upon him with the most sincere expression he'd ever had yet.

"I will never, ever be ungrateful for this life of mine, because without it I know I never would have been in that bar and never would have met you. For as angry or sad as anything might make me about the questions I'll never have the answers to, the question of whether or not my life matters is a resounding yes. Your sheer frustration over all of this erases years of doubt about myself. You don't have to understand, but I want you to know."

Edited 2018-10-24 17:02 (UTC)

And all the man in front of Declan could say was:

“Shit….”

Desire could have fired back at all the rest of it, but then Declan went and finished with something so wholly sentimental that even he had to be taken aback. He shifted his stance, weight settled mostly over one foot, and looked up at the Guardian without a bit of intimidation for his size. There was a muddling going on at the moment, but the stare taking Declan in was unmistakably gold in the late afternoon light.

His expression wasn’t nearly so impassive, pulled at the corners of his mouth and furrowed between his eyes, but whatever thoughts Desire was going through, himself, the only one he voiced was a few moments later.

“…So then how much more do I have to throw myself at you before you just take me already, huh?”

"Take you where?" Declan blinked, head tilting in genuine confusion. It took him a moment before he realized he wasn't strictly speaking to Aoba-Aoba. So he had to reassess the question, clearing his throat softly. Ghost continued to hover where he'd been, though his eye was turned on the exchange below. He thought it best not to intervene for once. Declan could have used the back-up, not that he was going to ask for it.

"You aren't really throwing yourself at me, and I respect you very much. Besides..." He frowned slightly, cleared his throat and hooked a finger in his collar to tug at it. Why was he suddenly so uncomfortable?

"...Things like that....there's...boundaries...and...things..." His usual poetic eloquence was off the clock, Declan's face almost purple.

"You don't actually want that," he stated more firmly, more sure of himself once he collected his thoughts. If Aoba had those kind of feelings for him, he'd have said something, wouldn't he have? He didn't think for a minute how hypocritical the statement might be. He didn't say anything, after all. Then again, he kept his silence because he didn't think it was right at all to burden someone who would eventually leave. His feelings for Aoba were much more pure than Desire's interest in him. It all felt too one-sided. After all, he'd had time to look back on their interactions as a trio, and Aoba went at everything with so much more restraint. If things were different...

He considered for a moment, shaking his head eventually.

No point thinking about that. Aoba gently distanced himself and Declan was going to respect it. If nothing else, Aoba didn't want to be "taken"! That sounded extremely aggressive...

Taking Declan down a peg from his cool composure had Desire feeling pretty good about himself—until it backfired, anyway. His expression fell and evened out all at once as he put his hand back in his pocket, but his carriage was distinct from Reason’s. Shifted weight, slouched posture, the tilt in his head to regard Declan just a little off-center from directly.

“And who the hell are you to tell me what I want?” he demanded. “Or is the ‘life’ and ‘home’ you want to give me here a strictly no-touching kind of deal, huh?”

"...That was inappropriate of me, I apologize," Declan stated quickly, inclining his head briefly. Swallowing tightly and looking away over the balcony again, the Titan breathed out and gripped the railing. Honesty, honesty, honesty. Dammit.

"I never wanted there to be any misunderstanding between us. The things I give and offer, none of them are contingent on getting anything in return. Least of all some kind of pressured intimacy," the large man nodded slowly, cooling off again and tilting his gaze towards Desire.

"My affections are a burden I don't wish to pass on. You'll be leaving...it just seems cruel. Even admitting I know there's something feels like I'm doing something wrong," he mused, eyes rolling to the side in a look of distress. Failure.

"I can content myself with what I've had thusfar. It's...more than I've ever had before. Just being allowed to embrace you--" he stopped himself, looking down at his hands, fingers flexing and relaxing.

"What more do you want?"

“Um, you?” Desire shot back, with a tone that said he assumed all along that it was obvious, and a couple glances to each side as if he thought he might find someone there to exchange an ‘is this guy for real?’ look with. “How many times am I going to put my hands on you and tell you I’m coming back before you figure it out? For fuck’s sake.”

He said the last with more bite and frustration than anything else that had come out of Aoba’s mouth thus far, but it was still closer to an under-his-breath mutter than another snapped retort as he turned and wandered a few steps off, restlessness expressing itself in the urge to pace.

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