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

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.”

"This is the future," Declan pointed out, arching a brow. It was another of his dry attempts at humor, but it was serious, too.

"I don't mind that you're a little...difficult," the Titan hedged, trying not to be unintentionally rude. Pale eyes searched Aoba's face, head tilting slowly. His big, bare chest rose and fell slowly with a calm breath before he reached around the small table, resting one hand over Aoba's.

"My feelings for you never changed. I just...thought you didn't want me to have them, so I...what's it called..." He paused, squinting, trying to remember something Ghost had said.

"...Compartmentalized. But my affections for you never changed. I don't mind whatever sort of relationship you want to have - I just needed to know it was all of you, not only part of you."

Edited 2018-11-26 02:30 (UTC)

“It was—is—all of me,” Aoba managed to agree, watching the hand pressed against his own for a few moments before shyly pulling that one free of his tea mug and turning it to touch Declan’s instead, palm to palm. “And it has been, for a long time now. But one side of me expressed it all wrong, so then the rest of me…bottled it all up, too.”

Declan had beautiful hands. It was stupidly easier to look at that sculpted-seeming shape, lightly tracing the grooves of the Guardian’s life-lines with the pads of his own fingers, than meet the soulful glow of his eyes.

"It wasn't wrong," Declan remarked after a moment of consideration, eyes following the movements of fingers in his palm.

"I don't mind that part of you at all, Aoba, and...I want to do the things that...intimate partners do. I just have my own reservations about things. More important than anything was making sure all of you wanted the same thing, not just part. It...felt to me like the most literal form of half-hearted, and I couldn't accept that," the Titan shook his head slowly with a soft sigh.

"So it wasn't wrong, it was just incomplete. A half-written sentence, a puzzle missing pieces. Dissonant. I wanted to say yes, very much, at least to some things...I tried to say yes, even if it didn't feel the most right. A partial affirmative to a partial question." He shrugged, turning his eyes up and looking at Aoba directly.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you because of it. It...it would have been nice not to have wasted so much of our limited time not holding each other at night."

Aoba kept his eyes down until that last part. It resonated with him more these clumsy admittances and convoluted explanations. Maybe those other things were necessary too as part of being patient, honest, finding middle ground, and giving Declan time to understand him, but that last piece sounded—poetic. ‘Just like Declan’, he thought, in a way that relaxed him some.

He pressed his hand whole into Declan’s, properly holding onto it. The Guardian’s hand was significantly bigger than his own, but he still wanted to call it a perfect fit.

“I…started holding on to Ren at night so I didn’t reach over to you by accident,” he made himself admit, a little go at something lighthearted of his own, far more shy than dry.

"I contented myself with watching you when you slept." As if staring at a person while they were asleep wasn't weird or anything. Declan didn't really seem to know any better, or if nothing else, wasn't ashamed of himself for it.

"I know you said you weren't accustomed to relationships with men," the Titan mused, closing his hand around Aoba's, the other reaching up and scratching the side of his neck in thought.

"I don't mind only being close with our affections. Love doesn't have to be physical...I just wanted permission to be in love with you."

After everything else that had come up, or otherwise been thrown at him, being watched while he was asleep was downright tame. Besides…he wasn’t unguilty of having watched the Guardian while he was napping on the couch back at the apartment, either.

But there it was. ‘Love’, and specifically, with Aoba. It wasn’t just about being physical. Everyone had known it, the majority of himself included, but there it was, said without Aoba having to ask directly for it. It still made him feel better to hear.

“It’s not that I don’t want physical things,” came the next admittance, face heating up again as he thought of how worked up he’d gotten the once. He wasn’t going to fess to that, though. “I just…I freaked out when it came out sounding like that was the only thing part of me cared about. Because it’s not. And you being another guy, it doesn’t have to matter the way it would back home, either. I only care about you being you.”

He fumbled briefly, finding himself almost on the verge of another rambling spiral. Desire was strongly present, watching, but still doing no more than back him up.

Finally, he braced himself said, “I’ve got a million things I still have to learn about myself. I don’t know how good I can really be for you right now, but…I still want to give you everything you’ll accept from me…as the person who loves you, too.”

It was like the sun rose over the mountain and cast the ice out of the valley, the way Declan's posture and expression warmed, chest swelling up visibly as he inhaled and gazed at Aoba. His eyes shone brightly even when he tried to suppress a too-big smile. The one word he was hoping to hear was hanging out to dry and nothing else really mattered. They never had to do anything more than love each other and Declan could be content. Still...Aoba sounded like he wanted to try, but was just...what? Afraid? Inexperienced?

"I don't know if I'd be any good at anything either. I know I can be a good man to you, though. I can take care of you...where you'll let me. Where it doesn't interfere with what you want." Because his own wants and desires were so few and small in comparison, Declan didn't care a whit about prioritizing Aoba. He preferred it, really.

"But, hm, I'm always willing to...explore. We both need time to understand ourselves here, I suppose. There are some things that hurt my heart to imagine--and others that please me greatly, but I don't understand any of it. We don't need to rush. You...you promised you'd come back."

Edited 2018-11-26 15:33 (UTC)

Aoba had never felt so simultaneously dumb and rewarded all at once before, watching the change that came over the Guardian. It thawed a lot of things in him, too, relaxing that worried, prepared-to-be-rebuffed posture of his own.

Told you so, went his ever-present commentary, though Desire felt oddly warm and fuzzy about it, too. ’Happy.’

“I promise I’ll come home,” he said, half correction and half reassurance, squeezing the hand wrapped so warmly around his own. “Wherever you are, Declan. You’ve felt like home ever since the first time you came back to me.”

Mercy he felt more stupid than ever. Was Mac right all along? Did he cause all of their grief by failing to be more aggressive? Or maybe it really was just about taking the time they needed? It all worked out in the end, didn't it? They could move from there and when (if) Aoba returned, they could keep going forward in whatever way worked best for them. No one else's rules need apply between the two of them.

"May I...please embrace you?" Declan breathed out after a moment of tenseness and silence, thinking too hard and too much about things he very much needed to be simple.

"I think it's very important that I can feel you warming in my arms. I keep thinking I just want to be holding you because you'll be gone before too long. If I hold onto you long enough maybe the feeling will stay until you come home..."

God, how dumb could Aoba be? When Declan said sweet things like that, watched sentimental animated films, cried at romantic movies, and worried about what might happen to Aoba when he got old….

He slowly got up from his seat, towards the side where their hands were linked so that neither of them had to let go, but in doing so his gear shifted and made him aware that Declan was fresh and clean and wearing little at all, while Aoba was still in singed, grungy combat gear. It surprised a self-conscious laugh out of him, free hand tugging at the wrap of cloak around his neck.

“As long as you don’t mind if I’m pretty grody compared to you right now? I-I’ll go wash up first, if you’d rather….”

Was that interrupting the potential moment? Did Declan even care?

"I don't mind," he answered without hesitation, then paused and squinted in thought.

"But if you showered and changed...I could put the bed back together and turn on the view screen in the bunk and...I could...hold you while we watch something?" the Titan hedged, words faltering the more he spoke, feeling that he was most likely asking a very great deal. Still, it was worth asking. He was so tired of missing out, of being the fool.

"I'd like a hug, though. At least..."

Aoba was an idiot. The biggest of idiots. Declan wanted to watch a movie and cuddle in bed. It was probably the sweetest, most innocently romantic thing he'd ever been asked to do -- and set his heart foolishly pounding.

"... I'd like that," he said, with shockingly little second thought, which meant none at all until his twitterpated self realized there'd been something much less interesting offered as an alternative. He startled sharply. "I mean the movie! And... cuddling. I'd really like that a lot, Declan," he finished with another squeeze of the Guardian's hand, sheepish, but without hesitance.

It was with only a little internal prodding that he stepped closer to Declan's chair as well, hanging onto his hand as he looked down at his newly-declared partner.

"As a... as a tide-us-over, before I go wash up," he began, heat reddening his face only because it was new, and not because he didn't want to, "... could I give you a... kiss?"

"What? Really?" he mumbled, the words almost garbled as he stared up, then squeezed Aoba's hand and hurriedly shook his head.

"I don't want you to do anything that's too much for you, Aoba. I know...just accepting being in a relationship with me is probably very big for you, right now. You've already got so much going on, please don't feel pressured to fulfill any cultural obligations to our partnership. I don't mind waiting for good things..."

Had Aoba thought he was an idiot yet? Because he was an idiot. With all his anxieties creeping away, only the self-rendered shame of all his foolish decisions remained to cling to him.

"When you say things like that... it only convinces me all the more that I want to kiss you," he answered softly. "But if you don't want me to, I can wait, too."

Except then the gold did truly phase into his eyes again, but that and a shift in his timbre was the only thing to change when he said, "Waiting isn't in my nature, but I'll wait for you, too."

And then it had passed, hazel re-established, complete with a deepening of Aoba's blush. Whether he was two, or one, or some strange half-and-half... Declan said he accepted him, and this was who he was.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject