orendalogs | IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

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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 ]

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…Declan told a much better story than Aoba did, the man thought> Aoba’s eyes remained open just enough to show that he was still awake and listening the whole time, even if he was drifting closer and closer to sleep.

So okay, Declan’s offered myth did end more happily for the couple involved as far as their time together went, but after a little bit of thoughtfulness, Aoba chuckled drowsily. Declan didn’t agree with Orihime’s father as a stand-in for the Traveler…and no way did Demeter sound like Tae Seragaki.

“Granny would never hate you,” he murmured, in that slow manner that the soon-to-be-sleeping tended to. He didn’t think Declan really thought his Granny would disapprove of him, but given how the night had gone so far, Aoba was willing to expend the effort on reassuring even the things he didn’t think were serious.

Sleepy efforts, maybe, but efforts nonetheless.

"Hm. I hope we can prove that, someday," the Titan yawned, lowering his head and closing his eyes, content to fall asleep there. He still felt uneasy, was still very upset with himself for ruining things (at least in his mind), but still being in the same bed together despite everything else? He could consider it a win.

"Mm...I think...you're better looking...than Persephone..." he mumbled, hardly able to complete the thought before he was doing that low, soft rumble of a snore. Too warm and comfortable to stay awake, really.

Aoba wasn’t even sure what that compliment was supposed to mean, and sleepiness didn’t have much to do with it. Persephone was beautiful, presumably…and Aoba was still hesitant to appreciate being called beautiful, especially in comparison to a woman. ‘Better looking’ was arguably better, but….

Declan’s snoring had him popping one eye open, briefly, but it was a low and very steady sound. The drone of it was acclimatable, and after he’d closed his eye again and let drowsiness get its hooks in him again, he just about ceased to hear it at all. The background noise of the still-running movie was another mask of it, and even though the lights were only dim instead of dark, Aoba was perfectly capable of falling asleep in full light.

He was out not long after Declan, and somewhere in the depths of his slumber, the thing he’d held on to Ren nights previously to prevent did indeed happen: he rolled onto his side and into the Guardian’s warmth, face tucked against faintly-shimmering collarbones as if he’d always known where that comfortable spot was.

Quite alright since Declan was a clingy starfish himself. Strong arms welcomed Aoba in and wrapped securely, and long legs found their ways between Aoba's and over them, twisting their two bodies together. The naturally cool temperature of the ship meant their cozy little nook never became stifling, and it was - for Declan, at least - the best sleep ever had.

The next morning the Titan woke early as always, but found himself tucked into the back of the bunk against the wall and Aoba protectively wrapped between him and the blankets. There was no getting out of bed without waking the other man, and he didn't feel inclined to. Instead, he laid there for however long Aoba slept past him, be it minutes or hours, and watched. Pale eyes traced the lines of a face he deemed beautiful, even if Aoba disagreed, while fingers caressed whatever skin they were nearest, soothing himself into a state of half-sleep.

The delicate sensations of touch, though soothing to Declan, were what drew Aoba into awareness earlier than he might have managed on his own. That being said, it was probably still the gentlest waking he’d ever been given in all his history of oversleeping.

He did have one quiet startle, nothing more than an intake of breath that was a bit shorter than the ones before it, but after a moment of holding it Aoba sighed it back out. He didn’t think anything so cliché as ‘so it wasn’t a dream’, only had a moment of forgetfulness followed by remembrance. It was neither bad, nor regretful…even if it did bring color to his cheeks.

“…morning,” he was still able to greet Declan, peeking up through his hair. However debatable ‘morning’ was when they weren’t local to Earth-time anymore.

"Good morning," the Titan replied more formally, smiling faintly. His hands had stilled when Aoba started to rouse, waiting for the man to either show signs of alertness or go back into deeper sleep. When he knew which was which, he returned to his lazy touches.

"I was going to get up and fix us some tea and breakfast, but forgot we were on the Mariner, not in the apartment. It's alright though. I like watching you sleep." It may be creepy on anyone else...maybe still is...but Declan meant it in the sweetest possible way, surely. At least from his perspective.

Declan was in luck. Aoba was guilty of the same crime and had never stopped to think it strange, and…it only made sense, anyway. Declan was stuck between him and the wall. It was impossible for him to get out without jostling Aoba in the process, so what else did he even have to do but…watch Aoba.

“As long as you weren’t bored,” was Aoba’s vaguely-diplomatic answer in that regard, complete with a long yawn through the middle of it all. Only when it was done did he squirm experimentally, simultaneously discovering how tangled together they’d gotten as he was figuring out how to roll free and let Declan escape.

Regardless of how Declan may have assisted in this particular endeavor, Aoba only got partway into his efforts before pausing, considering the Guardian with a touch more wakefulness. There was still blush in his cheeks, the shyness of a grand new thing still warring with what he knew he wanted, but the drop of his eyes to Declan’s full lips helped give away his intent before Aoba ducked back in to softly touch them with his own.

Call it him wanting to be the one to give Declan something first, as much as anything else. In this case, a good morning kiss.

He startled a bit, only because he'd been focusing on helping Aoba escape, but he didn't hesitate to return the kiss. Perhaps surprisingly, he made a soft, pleased sound into the kiss. Probably just still a bit too drowsy to silence himself in time. Whatever the case, he raised his topmost hand to gently cup the back of Aoba's neck, deepening the kiss just a moment before releasing him and smiling far more brightly.

"I can't think of anything better to start my day," Declan remarked softly, tongue darting across his lips, cheeks flushed a light lavender hue.

Victory. Everything about Declan’s reaction was reinforcement to Aoba’s little moment of boldness. The sound, his touch, his smile….

“I think breakfast still sounds like a close second, though,” Aoba found himself answering with a flushed smile of his own, which although it wasn’t exactly his conscious intent, was nevertheless a roundabout way of agreeing that a good morning kiss was a pretty good thing.

He finished turning about and easing free, then, sitting on the edge of the bed with a portion of blanket still pulled across his lap thanks to body-shyness. Aoba could try and claim it was because the air wasn’t as warm as he would have preferred it, but let’s be real. He just wasn’t confident enough to be completely unselfconscious of his own nudity. Or at least, the Reasonable side of him wasn’t.

His nightclothes pants were a lot closer at hand than his underwear…eesh. Well, it wasn’t like he was getting dressed to leave the ship just yet. Aoba wrangled them close with his toes and set about pulling them on, along with the shirt that Declan had ended up relieving him of.

"Mm...A distant second," Declan allowed, smiling genuinely, the expression firmly reaching his eyes, glittering there before he moved, pushing himself up and sliding from the bunk with a soft sigh. If he had to get out of bed, he may as well get to that breakfast. It would keep his mind from trying to drag him back to last night's failures.

Stopping to brush his teeth and comb his hair, doing all his usual morning rituals, Declan eventually wandered out of the room, only to have Ghost zoom into his face, looking him up and down with silent judgment. Unlike Ren, Ghost could have come through the door at any point, either via transmat or merely overriding the door controls, but he accepted the door was locked for a reason and may have been grateful for it finally getting to that point.

It didn't mean he had to be pleased about being locked out.

On the upside, he got to spend more time with Ren, talking about pretty much anything and everything with relative ease. If he was to be shut out of his Guardian's life, he could think of no better company. Still, like a worried mother he had to inspect his Guardian and see to it that their multi-hour separation - something that had never happened before - had no adverse effect. Finding Declan well, the Ghost huffed, spun around, and drifted off in a bit of a "mood" to go be with Ren instead.

"Rude." Was all the little construct muttered.

For his part, Declan bore it all with stoic grace before moving past to toast some bread, heat some eggs, and brew some tea, all while humming a few bars here and there from his favorite Disney movies.

And Aoba, when he found himself left alone again—mostly due to the slower pace at which he moved when waking up—ended up getting completely dressed with all the proper layers, anyway. He followed through on morning rituals of his own, also at a more relaxed pace.

In idle fashion, his thoughts wandered back to the stories they had exchanged the night before. It made for…less awkward imaginings than revisiting the more physical things that had happened, upon which Desire had more than enough commentary already. It was mostly praise and encouragement, which was so weirdly positive compared to what he was used to from his other side, that thinking about other things completely was almost a distraction tactic.

He thought of the fairly stark nature of their surroundings aboard the Mariner compared to Mac’s ship and wondered…could something like brightly colored paper still be found in this day and age? Maybe he could substitute cloth instead….

And then his efforts at self-distraction only lasted as long as it took him to get out to the common area, anyway, to see the bare-chested Awoken moving around the little galley as domestically as you please. Unspoken things were well spoken, now. He had no regrets, but it was all uncharted territory from here on out.

“…I’d ask if you’re putting pomegranate seeds in that,” he found himself joking, as he loitered out of the way, “But I wouldn’t even know what they look like.”

"Tiny red fruits," Declan replied, looking up with one of those vague smiles. "I had to look it up when I read the story. I didn't know either. I thought it was something fictional, like ambrosia," he added, turning to set two hot mugs on the table next to two plates.

"I was thinking...you should see the Queen soon. I don't imagine she'll give you a lot of grief. She's probably just curious about the past and about you as a...planeswalker, was it? What Xur said. But while you see her I can finish things with Xur. I'd go with you but she didn't request my presence, and Uldren doesn't like Guardians, so I shouldn't get in the way."

Aoba nodded, though some of the cheer went out of his face. “Yeah. Yesterday was, um…busy enough as it was, but I haven’t forgotten that request. Taking care of it today was the plan.”

Stepping the rest of the way over, Aoba slipped into the chair he’d habitually started occupying as ‘his’ whenever a mealtime like this came around, but folded his arms on the table rather than reach for anything just yet.

“I don’t know that I’ll have anything of interest to say, planeswalker or not, but I’ll do my best. I’ll take Ren with me and…would it be weird to hope she finds me pretty boring and sends me on my way soon enough?”

"I don't think it would be all that weird, but then...I'm very bad in social situations and tend to want to get out of them quickly anyways, so I have a biased opinion," the guardian remarked with a lopsided smile and sheepish look.

"I like and trust the Queen, though. Give the conversation a chance. You may find her insightful. You may like her, yourself," he mused, eating his eggs on top of his toast. After chewing a bite and thinking to himself, he added a thought.

"The Awoken have a lot of human history stored away. A lot of everything that was "lost" in the Collapse is just held onto by the Awoken, studied by the Techeun. They may just be curious about how this all affects you and how you affect everything."

…Was that supposed to sound intimidating? Because it did. Not in a threatening way, but…more of the stage fright way. A very different kind of stage fright than the sort he’d had about ‘confronting’ Declan, though.

‘How you affect everything’ were words that made him squirm.

“You mean like…paradoxes? Like why I'm even a 'Chosen One' at all?”

"Mm. Maybe? But I was thinking more like...what clings to you, how time moves around you? I'm...I'm not a scientist or a witch, so I can't really fathom the full extent of things they might look into. But the Queen would never hold you against your will. You're no criminal and I highly doubt she sees you as a threat. No offense," Declan assured him gently before taking a sip of his tea.

"Th Awoken have a fascination with science and magic. They're the only ones that do things similar to Guardians but without any aid from the Traveler. You're sort of an anomaly like the witches. Maybe they just want to connect the dots. You're sort of like a Techeun witch in small ways, but you're from our distant past. That's got to mean something to them, don't you think? I imagine it must be exciting...like finding out you're related to some great historical figure or something? I...don't really know, though. I'm just guessing. It's probably not making you feel any better, I'm sorry."

He really wasn’t. Declan’s words also reminded Aoba of something completely different—or maybe only a sidestep away from it. He paused in the middle of scooping eggs onto his toast as Declan had, thoughts as much golden as not.

“…Are you or Mac going to tell anyone about…what I did to those Vex?” His tone was a concerned one, very much turning the essence of his words to Do you have to?

"Mac would probably say something like "I don't think it's anyone's business" or something. I thought about asking the Speaker about it to see if he knew anything from human history, or maybe having you ask the Queen, but if you're not comfortable, I'm not pressuring," Declan answered concisely, looking up from finishing the last bits of his breakfast.

"It only occurred to me to ask because I thought it might tie into your difficulties with putting you mind all together in one piece, and because of what Ghost said, about you not being precisely human. If you're something else, I thought it might help to know, but I wouldn't say anything to anyone without asking you first." He paused then, frowning a bit before blushing and clearing his throat.

"I ask Mac about things I don't understand, sometimes. But if he didn't know about these things already, I wouldn't talk to him. As it is, he doesn't know about Ghost's assessment. No one does."

Not precisely human. Aoba had denied it before—could he be blamed for that?—but now it was at least…somewhat more plausible than he could have originally imagined.

We’re superhuman, obviously, Desire remarked without distress. And our man there isn’t precisely human, either, so what’s the big deal?

“One more thing to ask Granny,” Aoba sighed aloud, looking down at his half-empty plate. “That’ll be a fun one. ‘I went inside the brain of an alien, killed it, and then killed the rest with just my voice. Why is that a thing that I can do?’”

Speaking of things no one knew: the effects of his voice had been obvious, but that brief eternity inside the mind of the Vex had simply escaped mention until now. Aoba didn’t say it offhandedly so much as with the tired air of someone remembering the exact weight of everything on his shoulders.

Romancing Declan was…perfectly ordinary in comparison.

"Well, I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation, one way or another, and your granny is sure to know it. Instead of worrying about that, let's just focus on us?" he suggested, tilting his head slightly, a finger tapping lightly on his mug.

"We're going to have everything to send you home safely, soon so...what do you want to do before you go?" He didn't want to add his thoughts, that he wanted to know what Aoba would like to do, in the event he could never come back. Declan, for all his concerns, had already accepted the possibility. The only reason he wasn't behaving as distressed by the idea as he felt was because he'd had it. For one brief and beautiful moment, he'd had love. Even if it never came back, he could go on knowing that someone had once found him worth it. He could last a long time on what little he'd been granted. Even the not so great parts.

Aoba still stared blankly off at nothing for several moments—long enough for it to lead to another trade-off. Hazel went gold, and Desire took a few moments more to more heartily address the food that Reason had begun to forget about.

“Same list as before, big guy, plus one,” was the cheerier answer, as he flicked out his fingers again and adjusted the order of requests. “See the queen, get time capsule stuff, new one is locate brightly colored paper or cloth I can make some things out of, and see that favorite Moon spot of yours. I could come up with another dozen things, too, but we’ll leave it at that. Once those are done, the sooner I go back to home number one, and the sooner I come back to home number two.”

He gave Declan a wink. Compared to previous instances of Desire-style flirting, it was downright wholesome.

Declan noted the differences and puffed a soft sigh, smiling and looking away with a vague blush to his chiseled cheeks. Making some idle sound of approval, the Titan nodded.

"I know where we can go for fabrics. The same older lady that handles all the shaders and everything, back at the Tower. She does all of the garb for Guardians. Bound to have something. Or Variks, actually. He collects a lot of odd things in his tent and trades occasionally. Older things, too. Maybe he has what you're looking for, if you'd like to ask?" He shrugged, tongue running over his back teeth a moment as he kept avoiding eye-contact, feeling a bit flustered. He didn't...know if he wanted to go to the moon, now.

It made him think thoughts he ought not think. Not after last night.

"I'll ask Xur about good time capsule materials when I see him," he added as an afterthought.

"Alright, sounds like a plan. I see the Queen while you're seeing Xur, then we head back to the Tower." Desire pushed his plate a bit away, now cleaned of all the food that Aoba had left, in the interval that Declan had spoken. It all seemed pretty straightforward, now. They'd earned his directions home, incredible thing though it was that they even existed. Maybe they'd have a direct portal back somewhere in those maps, too. Round trip directions, no layover in Steelport necessary.

"I do my little chore, and then we've got a whole week to ourselves, as long as you don't get called off again. We hit the Moon before I leave, and save anything else for after I'm back."

The Titan nodded without verbal comment, notably quiet as he sat there. Much as he would have liked to eny it, the previous events still unsettled him, and while he didn't want anything to overshadow their tentative progress, Declan was a guilty man by nature. He thought too hard about things he should let go, and the man's pale gaze drifted sidelong.

"I guess...we shouldn't postpone any longer, then?" he asked, looking back slowly with a small tilt of his head.

"You can take as long as you need with the Queen and I'll preoccupy myself in the meanwhile. You can call me when you're through. There's a lot of things I can tend to in-between while out in the Reef. I've put off some things for Variks for a long time...I could probably run something for him."

Nodding, Desire pushed himself up from the little table, but a hand extended towards Declan’s shoulder made to delay the Guardian if he too meant to rise. Aoba’s arm slid across Declan’s collarbones, soon joined by his other as he leaned in over the other man’s back and embraced him from behind.

“It’s not like the Queen’s the one I want to spend my time with,” Desire remarked, somewhere between reminder and insistence as he murmured into Declan’s ear. It was affectionate more than sultry, blurry though the line could be when Desire was fronting. “Don’t make yourself too scarce. I’ll be back as soon as I can get away.”

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IT'S YOUR DESTINY!!!

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