orendalogs | IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

Talk about total opposites. After so long with essentially just Declan, Ren, and Ghost for company, and arguably being the mostly lively personality among the four of them, exposure to someone who was as much of a livewire as Macklemore was—almost bewildering.

Aoba focused on getting his headspace back in order as he was led along, reminding himself what it was like to be around people who weren’t as quiet as Declan. He took the punch without complaint, despite awareness that his Hunter gear had absorbed some of the shock, and otherwise observed his impromptu new host. Appearances were one thing, personalities were another. Mac was a Guardian that Declan vouched for, too, so however he acted or carried himself, Aoba had to know that there was a good heart in there for the Light to have chosen.

“He just left,” was apparently the retort Aoba had on hand as he followed Mac back into the organized chaos of the Reef. Food did sound good, and he had no objections to sushi, but if remarks about Declan were going to be Mac’s new angle on flirting it was—a decidedly weird one.

“Of course I’m going to miss him while he’s gone, but right now I’m just hoping it all goes as well as he says it should. Going out to dangerous places may be normal for Guardians, but a regular guy like me is going to be concerned no matter what.”

"Yeahhhh, we do get kinda short-ended on that stick," Mac admitted with a shrug, reaching up and combing fingers through the pristine wave of purple hair, fluffing it unnecessarily. Not a hair was out of place, and one had to wonder how he kept it so immaculate.

"Declan does himself in pretty hard though. Idiot doesn't know how to take a break. Thinks watching old movies between jumps is good enough. Man, a guy needs to take some time for himself," the Warlock groaned, making a show of rubbing at his temples.

"Sooooo do I get any detailssss ooorrrrrr are we not that friendly yet?" Mac asked, hopping on one foot and doing a surprisingly agile little spin and twist to start walking backwards in front of Aoba, holding out both hands and waving them about.

"I wanna know if it's true what they say about Titans. Are they like...super huge everywhere or does all that muscle round up a tiny package?" Because Mac assumed Aoba and Declan were together together, since his last update had been about some pretty heated exchanges. He had no idea the two were on ice.

Edited 2018-11-16 04:56 (UTC)

And Aoba, for his part, had no idea what Mac was talking about. It was innocuous enough at the start, Aoba neither missing nor dismissing the Warlock's apparent awareness of Declan's poor self-care, and even getting the start of a thought that perhaps there was an ally here that Aoba could enlist in those particular challenges -- and then Mac changed the topic on him completely.

Seeing as this was in no way a topic Aoba had ever discussed with anyone ever, about anyone's at all, he had no idea what Mac was talking about. Desire had only the mental equivalent of an arched eyebrow going on, so if he had any clue, he wasn't sharing the enlightenment.

"Sorry, what?"

"The sex, dude. Is it good? Is Declan secretly a freak or is he just as bland as I imagine? Not that I imagine him sleeping with you, that's weird, but I mean I suppose he's about as exciting as pudding left on the counter too long," Mac explained, rolling a hand lightly as they passed through a long corridor into a three way split, heading left to a door with a sign near by labeling it "Queen's Bounty".

"Declan said you two were getting kind of heavy and came to ask me about it. I gave him a little advice because I didn't want to freak him out. But I wanna know what the payoff was like and he went full clam."

The s-

Aoba balked so hard his steps forward became steps backwards, struck by those casual words like a physical blow. One, two, and then he was just frozen in place, mind reeling. Even his alternate half was given pause by the reveal of Declan having gone and talked to somebody about—Desire’s outburst, presumably. Color flooded Aoba’s face, hot and humiliating, as Mac’s prior comments suddenly presented themselves in completely different context.

So that meant Mac thought-

“We’re not anything like that!” he blurted when he found the words, not just embarrassed but even ashamed that, somehow, the complications between him and Declan had made it out to an unrelated third party.

Suddenly this wasn’t his own private problem to deal with anymore. Aoba hastened to catch up, lowering his voice to hiss, “What the heck did he tell you??”

"Really? It sounded like you were all up in his business," Mac answered, obviously perplexed. He paused, indicating to a staff member that they needed a spot for two people, and went around a corner into a nice, quiet space.

"We're just gonna get the full Queen's Ransom," he told the woman, gesturing vaguely between them. "And two waters. Thanks."

Waiting a moment for the woman to depart, Mac turned back to Aoba, folding his arms on the table and arching a brow, his own Ghost coalescing beside him and floating to look out the nearby window.

"Well, to be honest, he didn't say all that much. He was really confused and conflicted. I guess you've been at him, runnin' hot and cold? He was pretty excited initially, thought you were into him like he's into you. Last time we talked about it he was worried something he said really put you off and he wanted to know how to get over his inhibitions. That's what I took away from it, anyways. So I told him about jerking off and all, see if he could get himself ramped up and just go for it. Like, I guess you were jumping him and bein' all ready to go and he was trying to be respectful and you got pissed or whatever. Your other sex-crazy ass, I dunno. Hey in there, by the way," Mac said, waving cheerily as though there were some backseat driver behind Aoba's eyes.

"He usually talks to me about everything, but he got real dead silent. I didn't know what to think of it other than you guys must have figured everything out and started bumping uglies. But now you're saying you're not anything..." He paused, leaning back a bit to squint at Aoba.

"Are you messing with him right now? You gotta know, man, Declan isn't good with twisty emotions and all. Don't play with his heart. This is like...probably the only time he's ever been in love with someone. If you're not into him, you gotta be straight. He's kinda slow on catching those things. He's a good guy, man. It's not real fair..."

Declan had only just left, Mac had only just picked him up, and this was the conversation they were having? Aoba sat in his seat, eyes lowered, shock slowly fading away the more Mac spoke, until only that burning shame was left. It felt weird to think that Declan had been talking to someone about everything, but that was unfair. That was what friends were for, and Aoba was only a hypocrite if he wanted Declan to have more friends but then not talk to them about things when he was having problems.

It hurt to have to admit he’d been a problem, but he knew that was exactly what he’d been. And a whole lot more than a hypocrite, too.

Say that again, Desire snorted, apparently appreciating Reason getting a lecture from someone other than his other side. He hadn’t missed that separate acknowledgement, either, though he stayed passively in said ‘backseat’ for now.

So now Aoba had total strangers telling Declan loved him. Yeah. Things definitely weren’t fair.

“I’m not messing with him,” he answered weakly, staring at the tabletop. “Not on purpose. There was a…misunderstanding.” That was a good enough word as any for Desire’s ham-fisted attempts to air out Aoba’s feelings in a completely backwards manner, and all the complications that had arisen as a result. “We’re just friends.”

"You just not into guys?" he asked, tilting his head and leaning back to stretch in his seat, apparently mollified by Aoba's meek reply. "I mean if that's your problem, there's no helping it. He'll understand. Probably the most understanding guy ever," Mac rolled his eyes, folding his hands behind his head and crossing his feet at his ankles.

"If it's not that though, are you just hung up on not being from here? I thought you were able to come back whenever you like? Or are you worried about getting involved with a soldier?" The Warlock nodded slowly in general understanding. As far as he saw it, there were plenty of reasons not to get involved with a Guardian. Mac was one of those that had no complicated concerns regarding other people's opinions of Guardians or the way the world worked.

They were wrong, of course, but he wasn't the guy to go changing minds. Guardians deserved everything that everyone else had and then some, and their sacrifices were completely unfair, so far as he saw it. He and Aoba could have some pretty loud talks about their feelings there. Especially when it involved Declan getting shit on. Mac could roll with the social punches, but Declan seemed to collapse under them.

"Well...what's the misunderstanding? Spill the beans, girlfriend, your friend Mac is here to help! Thank you," he paused, inclining his head to the woman that brought over their water, explaining the food would be there in a few more minutes. He'd just gone and ordered the massive sushi platter that had samples of everything. He didn't think it was relevant to express that not everything was Earth fish. Better to just let the new guy find flavors he liked and tell him what it was later.

Trolls existed in every era.

"Did Declan screw up and think you were into him when you were just being nice or something? You didn't actually fool around? He made it sound like you guys were on touchy-kissy terms. Or about there."

Aoba couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so put on the spot. Now it got to eat at him all the more. Declan had been excited at the start? And all he wanted was to be loved, he’d said. Didn’t that just make Aoba the biggest heel in the universe, to be the first person Declan had ever fallen for, and to refuse him?

Holding back truths was a whole different game from lying. Withholding truth just meant keeping his mouth shut. Now here was Mac, another Guardian, not actually messing with Aoba all over again but expressing interest and concern, asking pointed questions that covered all the bases. And even though Desire was simmering in the back of his thoughts, the pressure Aoba felt from him was akin to hands firmly on his shoulders, forcing him to stay where he was and face what was being said to him.

“He thinks I don’t, but I…like some guys,” he admitted quietly, cheeks still hot and eyes still averted. Maybe it was a non-issue here in the future, but for Aoba, it was still an confession that went against cultural norms of people liking the opposite sex and any variance to that being ‘weird’ or ‘strange’. I like Declan, he even thought, but held in the words. That truth was the one he had to bury for as long as possible.

“I can come back any time I want…and I don’t care that he’s a Guardian.” So what was it, then? The stupid little things that held him back from airing out a simple misunderstanding and discovering the possibilities of him liking Declan and Declan liking him? That kept going around in his head and holding him back, despite his other side’s every attempt to shoot them down-

“…But I don’t deserve him.”

"Well that's bullshit," Mac snorted, rolling his eyes and sitting up again, folding his arms on the table to look at Aoba.

"Exactly who decides who "deserves" Declan? Nobody deserves him, if we're being honest. He's gigantic, he's slow, he's a huge child - mind your damn business I didn't say manchild I already know what you're thinking about me - he cries about the dumbest stuff. He's a huge pain in the ass. No one deserves that," Mac went on, deliberately aiming to get a rise out of Aoba, pointing a finger at him and narrowing one eye before the man could have an outburst just yet.

"Or do you think you're entitled to decide what Declan wants for himself? Like there's some kind of scale out there measuring what people can and can't have based on some arbitrary set of societal rulings? If he likes you and you like him, then you two "deserve" each other. Pretty fuckin' simple math. If you don't like him, then don't. No one says you have to. But if you do, and you're bitching out because you've got Declan on a pedestal, then take him down from it. I can guaran-goddamn-tee he doesn't want to be up there. All that does is isolate him more, but he's too polite and stupid to complain."

As far as rises went, Mac actually didn’t get too much of one. Certainly nothing approached an outburst. It did get Aoba’s eyes up off the table, brows drawn down as the disparaging remarks piled up and weighed against confusion of, wait, wasn’t Mac supposed to be Declan’s friend?—but there was nothing for Mac to interrupt.

Aoba ended up averting his eyes again, though now with more tension in the lines of his expression. What was this, all of a sudden? If he hadn’t known completely better, he’d have wondered if this was why Declan had proposed that he could stay with Mac. Except he did know better, and apparently Mac had volunteered, and the Mariner had been left behind so that Aoba could ‘escape’ to it if need be.

“He’s not on a pedestal, but I’m down in the ditches,” he countered. Declan was extraordinary and Aoba did view him as someone so much better than so many other people around him, but he didn’t consider it to be a pedestal. To Aoba, it was a level he simply couldn’t rise to right now. It was different.

“I don’t know…who I am, or what I am. I haven’t done a single thing for myself since he started helping me. Right now, it’s just…it’s better for him to keep thinking I couldn’t like him,” Aoba slowly pieced the words together, staring down at his hands, clenching into tired fists in his lap. Ren gazed up at him mutely, gazing out of his carry-bag, but Aoba held back from reaching to his fur for comfort.

“It’s one less…complication.”

Edited 2018-11-17 17:58 (UTC)

"Declan seems to think you're the best thing in the universe. Kind of an insult to his opinion if you're saying he's wrong," Mac mused, clapping his hands and rubbing them together when a massive starship-shaped platter arrived full of sashemi in various styles including sashemi, maki, and temaki. Mac immediate picked up a greenish meat sashemi and popped it in his mouth, chewing in thought.

"If you want to do things on your own, insist. Declan is a pretty giving guy by nature. He tries too hard and tends to run people off by being too nice, because people expect more hardships and independence. Doing too much for a person is smothering. He doesn't get that. Yell at him sometimes," Mac shrugged, arching a brow and pointing at the food.

"Eat."

Sniffing loudly, Mac made a few odd noises with his mouth before shaking his head.

"You guys should just fuck. It's plastered all over both of you with your see-sawing between moping and googly eyes. You like him, he likes you, where's the hang up, really? If you're worried about the logistics of sex, I sent Declan several books. I'm sure he's read them, he's like a fuckin' sponge for the written word. You want copies? They have pictures."

Edited 2018-11-17 18:32 (UTC)

Well, that was a—sort of familiar-looking platter of food. Aoba watched that piece vanish down Mac’s gullet and wondered what the heck sort of future fish was green. The conversation was putting something of a damper on his appetite, but the platter was bizarrely eye-catching with all its shapes and styles of sushi…which, as far as Aoba was concerned, was a special occasion type of food rather than a meal staple. Curiosity served well in getting him to pick up a pair of chopsticks and starting to investigate…until Mac went and said that last thing that he did.

Aoba jolted, the flush of color in his face refreshed, frustrated to hear it said so indifferently by someone outside his head as well as inside of it.

“Definitely not!” he blurted, flustering in place for a moment before just grabbing a random piece of sushi to shove in his mouth and silence himself with.

…it was a surprisingly strong assortment of flavors, but not bad.

Edited 2018-11-17 18:54 (UTC)

"Your loss," Mac shrugged, picking up a maki roll and chewing quietly for a time, giving them both a breather. The Warlock, unlike Declan, didn't have the least problem with pressuring others or pushing delicate topics indelicately.

"Try the gray stuff, it's delicious," Mac grinned and winked, perfectly well aware of his quotation.

"So then, let's clear the air here straight up. You aren't attracted to Declan. Yes or no. Do not give me some convoluted answer. There's more than one question involved here, so answer short and simple. Yes or no."

Mac was well aware. Aoba wasn’t. His Disney repertoire right now consisted solely of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, so the wink earned something of a wary look, but he did go ahead and try the indicated grey sushi. Given the opportunity to eat a bit more, Aoba’s appetite made a bit of a recovery, while his so-called ‘moping’ went from less sad to more sullen.

It was pretty messed up to think that he would have preferred to deal with more of Mac’s obnoxious flirting than this, but there it was.

He could have just stayed silent, one supposed, and refrained from engaging Mac’s questions entirely. If he wasn’t going to lie, then it was either speak the truth or just shut up completely.

“No,” he muttered, before putting another bite in his mouth. Was this going to be one of those things where Mac tried to catch him in a double negative or something?

"If Declan were from your home, or you were from his, would you hook up with him?" Mac asked, tilting his head and propping his elbows on the table, stretching his legs out underneath to either side of Aoba's feet.

"You are harassing this man," Mac's Ghost intoned in a voice much deeper and drier than that of Declan's. The construct was in a very different skin as well, and his single eye was a tad more on the green side.

"Well, he looks like a tree that needs it's coconuts shaken loose," Mac snorted softly with a roll of his eyes, waving a hand in a swatting motion at the Ghost.

"I apologize for my Guardian. He has no manners, poor social skills, and his ineptitude in social situations is legendary."

"Man kick rocks!" Mac barked, grabbing the Ghost and shaking it a second, only for his hands to clap together when the construct dematerialized itself. He was smacked on the back of the head a moment after when the little thing returned behind him.

"Goddamn glorified GPS!" Mac hissed, rubbing the back of his head before looking back up at Aoba.

"Forget that question. How about this: Do you wish you'd never met him?"

The first question had Aoba bristling, gaze sharpened for a very immediate and vehement ‘no’, before the Warlock’s Ghost cut it. It was startling enough to keep the word from leaving Aoba’s lips as he looked up at the construct, perhaps with an expression not much different from that of someone who didn’t expect Ren’s voice to be as deep as it was.

The whole exchange that followed was—something else completely. Though not unfamiliar in the long scheme of Aoba watching people and even Allmates interact, it defused him a little, even if only temporarily.

The question presented next was a tame one again, and also one that he didn’t have to deliberate over. In fact, it had him putting down his glass of water with a frown, perturbed that Mac might suggest as much that it was a question that could be answered 'yes'.

“No.”

"Establishing a baseline here, bear with me," Mac remarked, nothing Aoba's expression. Making a few raspberry sounds with his lips flapping quietly, the Warlock glanced over at his Ghost, then Aoba, then the Ghost again, who 'shrugged' in response before Mac returned his gaze to Aoba.

"Stop getting all agitated. You know these questions are for your own good, too. So tell me this: he's in love with you, he's pretty much all about you these days, he's struggling to make sense of everything for your sake, and you said you're okay with guys...to a degree...and you like him as well. To a degree. So what's got you hung up, from either perspective, your more chill and broody side and your firecracker bang-it-til-it-breaks side? I mean if you're both interested, why are you hesitating, for real? It seems like you're making yourself miserable. If you could see your face right now, you'd agree."

I’m starting to think this guy is me without a you.

That’s not exactly points in his favor.

“Why shouldn’t I be agitated?” Aoba wanted to know in return. “Declan can decide what he wants all he wants, but so I can I, and if that decisions is to not be with him then I should be just as allowed to say that!”

"No disagreeing here. If you really don't want him at all," Mac pointed, arching a brow and shrugging it off. "If he's not the guy for you and you don't like him, ain't actually my problem. But as a friend to both of you, I thought I'd try and air out what you two are too shy or whatever to do yourself."

Inhaling deeply with a long sigh and shaking his head, the Warlock leaned back again, taking a rolled cone of sushi along with him, taking nips off it idly.

"What I don't get, though, is where the whole misunderstanding happened, if you weren't interested. Like....why come onto him at all, if you weren't? For all that you've got some kinda randy side, like everyone does, like it or not, you don't really strike me as the kind of person to lead someone on. At least not anyone you're actually friends with. What made you back out if you were comin' on strong in the beginning, man? You get spooked or somethin'?"

“Because-”

Now it was Aoba’s turn to rock back, sans sushi, hands instead occupied by the fists they made upon the tabletop. It wasn’t as simple as Mac, and the movies, kept trying to make it. It just wasn’t. Because if it was, what was even the point!?

“Because it’s backwards!” was finally all he had to say for himself. “And now I can’t get away from the first impression made by a side of me I don’t even completely understand!”

"Okay, okay. Now that's getting somewhere. Backwards how? What's this first impression that was a problem? Because as far as Declan seems to think, everything you've said and done was fine, he just wasn't prepared. Which is where he came to me because he thinks I'm ahead of the game somehow," Mac shrugged, not sure where Declan got the impression. Sure, Mac talked a lot of shit and said what he felt like saying with impunity, but that didn't make him any more experienced; just less inhibited.

"Ahead of him, maybe. I mean I'm at least not squeamish about my intentions, anyways."

Aoba’s appetite was gone again. At least he’d gotten some food in his stomach while it had lasted, he supposed, but only very vaguely. In the back of his thoughts Desire still remained mostly quiet, seemingly satisfied to let Mac wear Aoba down from the outside for a change.

“…Because if that’s all it is, I don’t want it,” Aoba murmured, as aware as anyone that the words sounded even weaker outside of his head than they did within it. Even he wasn’t dumb enough to be told, repeatedly, that someone loved him, and to somehow take that as a ‘but only physically’ remark.

And it wasn’t like he was some prude, either. He’d had to ‘take care of things’ in the shower, for god’s sake. The thought of physical intimacy with Declan got him worked up in a variety of ways that he was well aware of.

But of all the things he knew he wanted, there was one that he insisted the others hinge on.

“I don’t know who I am. And I can’t get involved with someone until I do. Not until I can hold my own.”

"Hey man, I respect that," Mac intoned animatedly, reaching over and thumping a fist on Aob'a shoulder. "Don't look so glum! Seriously, if you're this down about it...I'd suggest you be completely open. Declan is a really sincere and direct guy, in case you haven't noticed. He doesn't understand dancing around things the way other people do. Why don't you just...tell him?"

The Warlock glanced at his Ghost as if daring him to say something. The construct turned away and looked up, making a humming sound, exaggeratedly minding his own business.

"I mean like...'Yo I'm into you and all but I want like a really fulfilling relationship and I feel like I could have that with you but not until I really really know myself so I gotta go soul-searching and when I figure myself out I wanna revisit this topic', or something to that effect. But what do you mean 'if that's all it is'? All what? All love or all lust? Dude. It's Declan. He doesn't really do things in half measures..." He paused, serving a few of the more flavorful and typically choicest pieces of the dish onto a small plate, pushing it over to Aoba. The highest courtesy at a meal coming from someone who liked to play at being as self-serving as Mac.

"What's giving you the impression it's all one thing or another? You guys have some kinda intimate hiccup?"

The friendly thump rocked Aoba in his seat, unexpected as it was, but it got him looking somewhere other than the tabletop and it had him listening as Mac’s chosen tactic (as Aoba viewed it) seemed to relent. As seriously as Aoba was taking everything, there was less for him to be knee-jerk defensive of when it looked like Mac was finally taking him seriously.

He glanced down at the little side-plate as it was pushed to him, quietly considering it, before finally tugging it a few degrees closer. Accepting the peace offering, as it were.

But the hole had been made in the dam, and the words kept coming.

“…This other side of me,” he said, after a piece of sushi had been eaten. “The last time he was up front, things went okay, but the time before that was just…vulgar. It upset Declan. I don’t want to do that to him again, and I don’t want him to think that that was all that I am.”

This was no longer Aoba trying to argue a case. This was straight up airing his fears, irrational and all.

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