orendalogs | IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

Entry tags:

IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

Who: Anyone, everyone? Aoba and Declan to start.
What: Destiny
When: After the House of Wolves, before The Taken King.
Where: Earth, The Last City, The Tower and beyond.
Warnings: Could be sorta zombie stuff (Hive), could be xenophilia? I dunno. Gen warnings, yo.

Earth. 700 years into the future, humanity is all but gone, huddled in a massive city in the mountains, surrounded by gargantuan walls and living in the shadow of the slumbering, perhaps dead, body of The Traveler. The massive being of benevolence and light that came to Earth bearing gifts of knowledge that would bring about the longest Golden Age in Terran history, hovering in geostationary orbit over The Last City of men, protecting what is left from The Darkness beyond with the remains of it's Light.

For those on Earth it is a well-known story. With The Traveler's dying breath it created Ghosts, fragments of living Light that in turn resurrected men and women across the galaxy, bringing to bear the Guardians, warriors to fight the Darkness. Earth and all the nearby planets are populated by humans, the Awoken, Exos and a variety of species of ever more distant origins, some less generous than others. The Guardians make their headquarters in a colossal spire at the edge of The Last City. There, in the Tower, the Vanguard and other factions of humanity work together to hold the line and fight the Darkness and every other threat to the known universe. The little understood Guardians rarely venture beyond the Tower, preferring the company of their brothers and sisters in arms, but all look to the Tower as a beacon of hope.

There is danger and adventure to be had; the likelihood of death and the possibility of rebirth. The future is uncertain, but all who walk in the Light know the Darkness is coming, and the wise life to the fullest.

[ Destiny Wiki ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hm." Not precisely neutral, on Aoba's end, but no real excitement, either. "I owe you a hell of a lot, then. Who knows where I'd be right now if I hadn't been dropped a room away from you.

"But don't think that means I'm heading home as soon as that, either," he added, slinging his rifle across his back once more as the familiar and decidedly modest shape of the Mariner came back into view. "I'm not exactly done with everything I want and need to do before I go back to the island for a while." Aoba started ticking things off on his fingers. "I need something sturdy to use as a time capsule, I need to see your favorite place on the Moon, I need to see the Queen, I need to have a good long chat with you and clear some things up... I'm not going anywhere for at least another week."

The man's chest rose and fell with a deep, calming breath. It pleased him immensely to know that Aoba was choosing to stay longer, even if he felt selfish for it. He wanted the man to go home, to see his family again, but he didn't want to run him off. It was a fine line, really.

"Well...I'll give you all the time I can spare, Aoba. What do you want to do first?" the Titan asked, tilting his head slowly, undoubtedly smiling behind his helmet as he paused by the ladder ascending into the Mariner.

So easy to read. All the time he could spare, huh? Given how much he'd 'spared' on Aoba already, that was bound to be significant.

But that also begged the question: how much time could potentially be wasted if secrets were kept up to the last moment? Part of him wanted to balk, wanted to say he needed more time still... but at the same time, had to admit he was being afraid of things he had very little evidence for. Not just according to Mac, but according to the things he knew, rationally, despite the fears.

And the side of him that was not so afraid, in turn, even considered his powers, expressed and rediscovered for the first time in years, to such great effect. He thought of the idea he'd had before, of Declan speaking to both his sides at once, and wondered if that should even be necessary.

"...Well. As soon as you're up for that good long chat, we should have it. You need to make that delivery first? Rest up? Maybe get you a meal back at the Reef?"

"Ah...chat. Hm." He cleared his throat, pulling his helm off and setting it on the table when they were on the ship, Ghost idly handling take-off.

"Well...Let's jump to the Reef and eat. Then I can take a shower and get out of combat gear for a little while. Focus on us talking and get out of battle-mode. Is that timeline alright or...is this something that requires more haste?"

Edited 2018-11-25 00:18 (UTC)

"Well, Mac fed me already, but I gotta get my gear and the pup back from him, now that the sleepover's canceled. I'll take care of that while you're finding food and settling back in, how's that? Give me another good walk to finish getting some thoughts in order, too."

After a little consideration of the Guardian's hesitance, though, it was Desire that chuckled softly.

"Don't worry, big guy, it's not a bad sort of chat. Just one best not put off any longer than can be helped."

"You can sleep over with Mac!" Declan protested, holding up both hands and shaking his head. "It's important to me that you make other friends, too! I can't monopolize your time, Aoba. I won't go anywhere, I promise. You should have fun with him. He...needs friends, too." Probably true, but the more Declan talked about it, the more he felt a twinge of jealousy, wondering if maybe Mac had waht he didn't, and Aoba was more interested there. Not that he would say anything.

"I promise I'll stay put and won't go anywhere or take any assignments until we talk."

Now for that, Desire had to laugh, as he went about stripping off the bits of gear that he no longer needed with combat no longer on the horizon.

“Trust me,” he answered, amused little smirk going to an outright grin. “He’ll just kick me out and send me right back here. He gave me a very stern talking to over dinner-” His tone very much made it plain that he was only half serious, mostly about the ‘stern’ part, “-before he took me out to the races. So, later on, be sure to thank him for sitting me down and laying into me. Oh, and don’t get mad at him for taking me out to you, either. Maybe he didn’t refuse, but I just would have forced him to if he had, hm?”

With a lazy little gesture, Desire tapped his throat, just in case any reminders were necessary of the powers his voice contained. Damn, that had been a rush. All those Vex, all at once….

"The races?" Declan asked, mortified. "Those are dangerous! What was he thinking? I asked him to keep you busy and safe! Ugh!" Declan grunted, fuming mildly before puffing out a hard breath, face screwed up in a bit of a pout.

"How am I not supposed to be mad for him having two terrible ideas? Ohhh my lord," the Titan groaned, running a hand down his face and shaking his head.

"He can't be trusted. He's a menace."

Declan didn’t even bat an eye. Well, not about Aoba’s powers, anyway. Instead he was upset about Mac…?

Something new happened then. Desire burst into laughter so hard he actually had tears well up in his eyes.

“Wait, seriously? He made it sound like your idea!” he managed, somewhere between dropping sideways onto one of the bolted-down galley chairs and leaning onto his knees for support. Declan actually looking and sounding ruffled was half of it, given how unruffable he seemed to be in the day to day, while the other half of it was just straight up, holy shit, Mac was a character.

“Fucking cockatoo,” was a wheeze in there as well, as he wiped at his eyes.

"I wanted him to take you out, have a good time. See...I don't know, fun things that I might not be as fun doing it with..." He trailed off, realizing it was possibly his fault and that Mac had just misinterpreted things. Then again, he'd probably deliberately done so, the jerk. But then Aoba was laughing and Declan's rising frustration fizzled out, pale eyes warming and watching the other man with that deep, silent fondness of his.

"I'm happy you had fun. I'm...happy you showed up and helped in the field, even if it...isn't safe. I don't want to keep you from doing things that you enjoy or want, just because they aren't things I enjoy or want." And oh, how that paralleled matters of their intimacy as well. Just as Declan needed to learn to be more forgiving of Aoba's life choices, Desire needed to be more understanding of Declan's sexual ones.

"Everything worked out in the end. Maybe he's right and I'm stupid. About this sort of thing, I mean. Friendship, and all of it."

Well, to be really technical about it, Declan had already stopped Desire from doing things he wanted, but—that wasn’t a tree he was barking up any more. He heard the words, his laughter tapering off with a few more snickers and wipes of his eyes. He remembered. How had he summarized it? Blunt, patient, middle grounds, time…phew.

Okay, time for another correction, though.

“You’re not stupid, big guy,” he corrected, getting up on his feet again. “Anyone’s been stupid around here, it’s me, alright? You take your time more than a lot of people, sure, but I’ve got the monopoly on dumb decisions. Now, before I go-”

He stepped towards the Titan again, arms out and a little up, complete with beckoning little flicks of the wrist that added a level of casual to the gesture. Just in case. “-c’mon, c’mere. Hug time. Don’t be mad at Mac, and don’t put yourself down. I’m glad you’re home.”

He puffed his lips in a little pout again, looking side to side at Aoba's arms a moment. Finally, he pussed a sigh, bangs fluttering briefly, before stepping in and looping his arms around Aoba, cheek resting against his head gently. A firm squeeze, and the Titan eased up inside his armor enough that the other man could feel the tension seep out. Cuddling in any sense of the word was incredibly soothing to him.

"Seeing as how one of those dumb decisions is staying with me a little longer, I think I can protest your assessment. Perhaps...we should agree that neither of us is precisely infallible, but we're both certainly not stupid."

Aoba sighed out as Declan’s arms tightened around him, but it didn’t have anything to do with being crushed. He leaned into the embrace just as much, and didn’t even mind that the Titan’s armor put hard angles where there otherwise would have been human (well, Awoken) warmth. At least there was some of it that couldn’t be missed: the warmth of Declan’s cheek against his hair, felt just as well as he might have been able to sense it with his hand.

“Alright, alright,” he chuckled, his words and tone shifting partway though with, “I’ll compromise on that.”

Hazel were the eyes that peeked up from under Declan’s chin, then, cheeks a little flushed but not unbearably so. The hug was for, and from all of him. And by swapping out like that, he wanted his friend to know it.

Besides…it was this side of him that he was going to have to hear a lot more from, so Aoba had better get it out of hiding already.

"Hm. Compromise..." the Titan mumbled to himself, though he was so close Aoba could hear. Small wonder, really. Every time he'd been the one to use the word it'd ended poorly. He was willing to let it go, though. To compromise.

"You go ahead and get your things and Ren from Mac's ship. I'll just warm something up to eat here and start a shower after. You're coded permissions for the Mariner so you can come back when it suits you," Declan nodded, reaching up and holding onto a strut with one hand, the other steadying Aoba as they jumped space. Millions and millions of miles in mere seconds with hardly more than the same wobbling sensation one got with the subway train moved and halted. One second they were drifting away from Venus, the next they were tilting through the Reef.

The irony was not, in fact, lost on Aoba. It had been either that, or quote something ridiculous, like tell him ‘you’re aces, kid’ or make some other clumsy reference to being ‘a guy like you’.

Declan held onto him and he held onto the Titan in return, finding no reason to reach for anything else when he knew he was perfectly safe right where he was. That he wanted to…be right where he was. Mac had told him to ask Declan for a plain and clear answer, but it wasn’t like he really needed one. The only thing he really had to be afraid of at this point was—doing something new.

Telling someone that he liked them. In a…hopefully permanent sort of way.

“I won’t be long,” he said instead, adding a clumsy joke of, “Mac’s a nice guy to visit but I wouldn’t want to live with him.”

"I don't think Mac wants to live with Mac," Declan's Ghost intoned, causing the Titan to make a vague choked noise, looking up sharply.

"I'm sorry, was that unkind of me?" Ghost hummed and tilted, single ocular squinted in an obvious smile.

"More than a little," Declan snorted softly, letting Aoba go as they docked. "Alright. See you soon."

Declan did exactly as he said, heating up some food and munching along in his ship before hitting the shower, taking his time half dozing with his head against the glass and just enjoying the heat and water. Mac was laying on the floor of his open cargohold and reading one of his books when Aoba arrive. The Warlock looked up, smiling, and pointing to the other man's things all tidily stowed nearby, ready to go. He didn't figure Aoba would stick around.

Mac was smiling. Aoba wasn’t. Shouldn’t that have been a bad sign? Weren’t you supposed to be happy when you liked someone that liked you back?

You’re just going to go around in circles if you get started on this line of thought again, Desire grumbled at him, even while getting him to give Mac a wave back before he was scooping up his things and a very-relieved Ren. You’re going to tell him the truth, then I bet you he’ll be confused, relieved, and happy, in that order, and then the big guy’s going to be our big boyfriend.

And you know what? went on the other aspect, almost sounding aghast. I don’t even care if you don’t hop in the sack right away. He just wants to be loved, remember? And I want to be able to love him.

Aoba stopped short in the middle of his slow walk back across the hangarspaces from Mac’s ship to the Mariner. That…was a pretty effective condensation, wasn’t it? There were things he was afraid of and worried about, rational and irrational alike, but he didn’t disagree. He wanted to be able to love.

He put Ren down as soon as they were back aboard the Mariner, the Allmate immediately looking up and about for Ghost while Aoba, after some hesitance, left his things in the galley area and went about making some hot cups of instant tea, hoping it would help steady him. Sharing tea was one of the things he associated with Declan now, too, so maybe in a way he also wanted to keep up that association.

This was basically just stage fright, right?

Ghost zipped over, doing a little spiral around the dog, instantly running into chatter about the trip, the Vex, the fight, images flicking up too rapidly for humans, but just fine for two with mechanical minds.

Declan wandered out of the room with his wet hair combed back again, eyes shining but heavy-lidded, relaxed from the heat soaking aches out of his big body. Bare feet padded along the metal floor, long legs in his usual drawstring sweats, torso bare in his comfortable norm.

Spying the tea, the Titan smiled warmly, moving to slide into one of the chairs. He had momentarily forgotten they were supposed to have some important talk, and instead got distracted by the object of his affection and basic creature comfort. He was a simple man.

The object of said affections, by contrast, was not so simple -- or at least not as simple as he had once believed. Still, when he turned with the cups of tea and saw Declan so contentedly expectant, it was hard not to take an appreciative pause of his own. Something honest and thoughtless, a skip in his chest and a reminder of how beautiful Declan was, both physically and otherwise.

Aoba clung to that feeling as he slipped into the opposite chair and slid one of the cups across the table to the best friend he'd ever made in such a short span of knowing them.

"So..." he began, hesitating, before going with, "I'm probably going to sound ridiculous by the time I'm done, so bear with me, okay?"

"Of course," Declan answered without hesitation, sitting up straight in his seat and wrapping both hands around his mug, dwarfing it. His expression said quite clearly that he didn't believe for a moment that he'd find anything Aoba said ridiculous. Even so, he put his serious face and gazed steadily at the other man.

Ghost looked over thoughtfully, considering the situation and assessing whether or not he would be needed. Determining that whether he was or not, he shouldn't be there, the little ball made a very quiet throat clearing sound and nodded to Ren, gesturing with a little bob that they should both leave.

"I'll be quiet, and save any questions for when you're done."

And Ren, with a few flicks of his pointed ears, followed as he was led. He’d sent Ghost a recording of the ‘talking to’ Mac had given Aoba, and in turn was learning what had happened with the Vex that he had missed and—as much as he was used to being there for great moments of upheaval in Aoba’s life, even he had to recognize that this was something he no longer had a place in. But he was following Ghost, rather than stepping out alone or going into sleep mode, so it didn’t hurt as much as it might have. (That it hurt at all was worth a whole different line of thinking he’d have to dwell on.)

Thus, Aoba was left at the little table with Declan, wetting his throat with his tea before he got started. Not blunt, but honest and straightforward. It was just stage fright. He already knew what Declan thought of him.

“…I’ve been a real mess these last few weeks,” he ultimately began. Unable to just get right to the truth, he began instead with a clumsy explanation, hoping that context would help him to the subject better. The side of himself that could already say everything honestly stayed in the background, because this was a matter of all of him proving his honesty.

“Between the business of being a Chosen One, finding my way home, and finding out that my personality is all split up the way it is—it’s been hard. Complicated. The last part’s been the worst. I’m—we’re—whatever I really am, it’s getting better, but I’m a long way from knowing who I really am. But that’s a little too far from the point I’m going for.”

He took a breath to gather himself, another sip of tea, and rewound. “This is about…what I’m afraid you might think of me now. Or what you could think about me. Because one side of me said too much, and the other side of me hasn’t said enough, and I don’t…I’m afraid of you not believing me, now, because of everything all coming out backwards.”

He was overthinking still, but at least now he was overthinking out loud, and letting Declan into his mindset. Just say it already!

“Because I like you, Declan. That’s why I want to be your partner, and not a burden. I…want to be in your life, and I want you to be in mine.”

It wasn’t saying ‘love’…but it was the best he could do right now.

"Well...I know that?" Declan replied once there was a long enough pause for him to gauge that it was time to speak up. Of course, he fully misunderstood. Not willfully, and not ignorantly; he'd simply accepted things the way they were. Words didn't mean what he had hoped, before, so that wasn't likely to change. Like, like friends, that's what Aoba meant. Of course they were friends.

"I like you, too. All of you. I'm not changing my opinion just because you have a complicated situation. What...sort of friend would I be? And...I guess, if you want to fight, I shouldn't try to stop you. I just wish you'd let me teach you how to protect yourself without...magic...or whatever it is you do."

The exact thing Aoba had been afraid of, happened. Declan didn’t believe him.

Of course, ‘believe’ was a much different thing from ‘understand’, but that was how Aoba couldn’t help but take it and his entire body language wilted. Shoulders hunching in, gaze wounded, knuckles blanching as his gripped his mug.

Told you. Still not blunt enough.

Aoba swallowed hard. That was the cue to give up, he wanted to say, except it was really only a part of a part of him that thought that. But it was still enough for him to hesitate and balk again, another long silence drawing out as heat crawled up his face and left him red practically to his ears.

It wasn’t Declan’s fault for misunderstanding. It was his own, for being so incomprehensible.

“You said you just wanted to be loved,” he finally blurted softly, grasping at the Titan’s once-used words instead of his own. “That’s the partner that…I want to be to you.”

Eyes widened, squinted, widened again with upshot brows, then the brows furrowed. He was processing for almost too long before the words and intent clicked, and he leaned back slightly in his chair.

"But...you said..." Declan started, forcing himself to loosen his grip on his mug and inhale slowly. He told himself to just accept it, accept that Aoba's mind changed, that his tidal moods were going to be difficult to predict.

"You...you want to be my partner. My romantic partner. That's what you're saying, right?" A line of tension formed in the big man's shoulders, afraid he was misinterpreting things somehow, that he was hearing what he wanted to hear instead of what Aoba was actually saying. He had to keep reminding himself to relax the grasp on his mug, which was probably the only thing preventing him from vibrating right out of his skin. Aoba wasn't crawling all over him and saying those things; they were having a conversation. Maybe...it was real? Not Desire just casting the biggest possible net.

Confused, relieved, happy, came the reminder of the prediction made, followed by an almost growled: Don’t you run from him now. So Aoba sat through Declan’s fidgeting as Declan had sat through his own, wondering again at how things just felt painful and awkward, telling himself, Hang in there, this is the only painful part.

“That’s what I’m saying,” he agreed, surprised almost that the words weren’t a squeak, that he was still perfectly audible even though his voice was soft, afraid of being misunderstood again. Like a man leaning into a trust fall, he kept going off of Declan’s words, since coming up with his own from scratch just kept turning out as roundabout messes.

“Anything I said, or didn’t say, before—that’s all in the same jumble of me not knowing who I am or how to express myself normally. Right now, I’m…I’m still a mess, but I’m better than when we first realized how fractured I am, and I want to believe that I’ll get better and better still. Maybe right now, I’m not someone who can be a good partner for you…but if I can’t be that person now, then…it’s the person I want to be in the future. And I hope it’s a close future.”

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