orendalogs | IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

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.

Fingers drummed on the railing. He knew what the other man meant. He was naive - stupid, even - in a lot of ways, but he was a grown man around many other adults who lived with a lot of "what if I don't live to see tomorrow", so intimacy wasn't uncommon, just unspoken. In his case, unheard of. Further complicated by the fact that Aoba literally had two minds about everything.

"I would never take advantage of you like that," Declan murmured, throat tight. He meant it. To him, not having the sentiment expressed by both sides of Aoba was the difference between commitment and caprice. What if he let himself believe this was the right course, out of his own selfish desire to be beloved of another, only to find out that he'd acted as though silence was consent? While part of Aoba might be interested, that wasn't all of him. It sickened Declan to imagine being a regret.

“Can’t take advantage of the willing, big guy!” came the return fire, a call across the balcony in contrast to Declan’s low murmur. “I can’t tell who overthinks things more, you or Reason!”

Slipping. The last time he’d been out, Desire had referred to his other half just as ‘Aoba’—a thing which had, along with the amnesia, obviously complicated viewing the man’s aspects as truly separate identities. But Desire was impulsive, reckless, and his own form of stupid as well. He didn’t plan ahead or act outside of immediate moments, but there was an underlying current between him and Reason that his more docile counterpart was only starting to catch on to.

But Desire wasn’t as aware of how it went both ways as he thought he was, either. He hadn’t been nearly so diplomatic in their Sly Blue days.

He paced his way right over to the opposing side of the balcony, turning to lean against it with a foot kicked up on a lower rail for additional support, glowering across the way at Declan’s broad back. Not just taking what Aoba wanted was uncharacteristic of him, and he did not enjoy being stymied.

A little Reason would have been a huge help just then, Declan struggling to cobble his thoughts together and make any measure of sense as to why the poorly worded propositions weren't enticing him, hardly noticing the slips. Sure, he probably would have liked some kind of intimacy, he supposed. He was a gentle man at heart and when not threatened or in battle, he wouldn't get rough in any way, so it wasn't as though he was afraid he'd physically hurt Aoba. It was...more complicated than that.

"Until I hear it from both of you, I won't even think about it," Declan finally stated, shaking his head and gazing down at the valley.

"I'm...grateful that any part of Aoba would consider me; there are many people better suited, and I'm sure back home there's probably someone waiting even if you don't notice. But I won't do anything to you. It's one body with two different opinions. Until you're in agreement I can't, in good conscience, even consider such things. I'm...not a good choice, anyways. For anyone." He only had the vaguest ideas, anyways, and the more he talked about it, the more his mind seemed determined to push it well out of reach, recoiling from the possibility.

Hugs and kisses, maybe? To him, touching Aoba was thrilling enough. What else did Desire want? Why was he protesting if he didn't even know what the man was asking? Was it fair to say no to him when he was part of Aoba? Wouldn't he have said yes otherwise? That thought had him staring hard at the distant ground, his distress clear on his face when he looked up, trying to convey in silence just how lost he was.

How had they gotten here?

"Is there a compromise?"

“If there’s a compromise, wouldn’t that mean you’re thinking about it?” Desire quipped with a snort, arms crossed now as he looked nothing more mature than petulant.

One body with two different opinions. So Declan didn’t view him any better than Granny did? Shit. He wanted acknowledgement as part of Aoba, which meant not treating him any different from Aoba!

“You don’t know who ‘Aoba’ is at all, either,” he spat, doing an excellent imitation of a moody teenager, misunderstanding Declan just as much as he was being misunderstood. It was tragic, how hard they were all trying, and yet so clumsily unable to meet anywhere in the middle. Declan couldn’t tell that there was nothing to agree on, and Desire was too irritated (read: hurt) to tell him. As swiftly as he’d come to rest there, Desire pushed up from the railing again, but this time turned away to depart it entirely.

‘Home’ wanted nothing to do with him, so he was going back to the apartment.

"Of course I'm thinking about it!" Declan exclaimed, turning just in time to see Aoba(?) sulking off in the other direction. Looking up at Ghost, who did his little shrug and was absolutely no help at all, the Titan hurried after the other man.

"How am I supposed to know all of who Aoba is if Aoba doesn't know who Aoba is?" he grunted, catching up with him and cocking his head, licking his lips in frustration. "You talk so negative about him. About yourself? I don't know...Either way, you obviously have different views, so why is it so hard to understand that I need to know this isn't just instinct or whim or whatever? Please--" he croaked, reaching out to grab Aoba's arms to stop him, only to let go immediately, pulling his hands back with a hurried expression of apology.

"Please don't be angry with me. I just want to understand. Help me understand?"

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