#All of them are grappling with feelings of grief and sadness and disappointment and directionlessness and helplessness

[wardensantoineandevka]

[blows a kiss out to sea] for the Mighty Nein pirates arc

[lizzieraindrops]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Destiny (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Osiris/Saint-14 (Destiny) Characters: Saint-14 (Destiny), Osiris (Destiny) Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Touch-Starved, Grief/Mourning, First Kiss, Self-Destructive Tendencies, Caretaking, Trauma, Comfort, Trauma Recovery, Loss, slow-developing relationship, not in the fic but like in universe, Sometimes New Trauma Reignites Old Trauma!! Summary:

Sometimes you need to be with the only person you'd feel safe to break down around, even if you never have. In the immediate wake of Sagira's death, Osiris comes to find Saint in the City. POV Saint-14.

wrote this because i made a fic-writing pact with @hencegoodfortune

i have never destined a knee in my life but i am care about sad bird boys

read here or on AO3

Saint had never thought the sight of Osiris would strike dread into his heart. But there was something completely wrong with the sharp-soft-fluid outline of his gleaming helm, his cowl’s feathery tresses and the flowing robes. His posture remained as impeccable as always as he strode through the echoing Tower hangar. Yet something troubled the lines of him. It was as if each exposed surface were on the verge of collapsing inward on a vacuum, and the only thing preventing it was the sheer force of his considerable will. Saint had never seen him like this. A cold feeling ran through his body as if injected directly into the ducts of his circulatory ichor.

“Osiris,” he whispered, even though they were not yet within earshot. Saint trotted out on restless feet from the shadow of the Gray Pigeon to meet him. They drew together at the end of the long sun-emblazoned rug that sprawled before his ship. Saint could not help but begin to reach for Osiris, but he stopped when he saw the man’s unresponsive stiffness.

“Hello, Saint,” he said shortly. He crossed his arms. Only a stripe of his upper face showed between his helm and his mask. The lines around his eyes had gone flat and the ones between his brows had deepened.

“What is wrong?”

“Take your pick. This time? The Hive.”

“No. What is wrong?”

Osiris just gave him a pained look. “We should speak inside.”

Saint nodded acquiescence. He turned his feet back onto the path of the rug, slightly crooked: a rumpled casualty of Guardians playing soccer in the hangar. After only a moment’s hesitation, he offered his arm to Osiris, looking at him in askance.

Osiris blinked, surprised. Then it was Saint’s turn to be surprised when Osiris tucked one hand into the bend of his elbow and placed the other hand atop it, gently squeezing and encircling his armored forearm. They fell in step together and walked all the way back to the ship that way. If Saint hadn’t been so worried, the rare tenderness would have left him radiating contentment.

Saint took them to the Gray Pigeon’s close yet comfortable living quarters. It was just a simple serviceable room with a few little tables and a bunk, and probably more cushioned seats than the space warranted. Saint took a seat in one of them and removed his helmet so he could take a proper look at Osiris, who was doing the same. His skin looked weathered, as always, but darker than usual below the eyes. They both sat their helms down on the table between them, trying not to knock over the abandoned teacups there.

Osiris’ lip quirked at the sight of their tea-stained insides. “Ikora has been here, I see.”

“Indeed,” Saint chuckled. “A woman of fine taste. She believes the tea grown in the City these days tastes different than it did a few centuries ago. Less… what was it? Astringent? Smoother now, she said, more mellow. She wanted the opinion of someone who has not been drinking it throughout the entire transition as she has.”

“Of course she did.”

“Yes.” Saint eyed the way Osiris’ hands molded themselves to the armrest of the chair and went still. Likewise, his feet remained flat on the floor. His usual energetic presence, like an overflowing cup, was now subdued, stilled as if frozen. Saint waited for him to melt and kept talking.

“You would think I am the perfect test subject. I had not tasted tea for many, many years since I left the City. And I certainly had tea with Ikora many times before that, when your studies distracted you from visitors. She and I had many fine conversations. After my return, I ought to be perfectly poised in time to tell the difference.

“Ah, but I think my answers disappoint her. I do not know, because for me, everything has become new again. Not only the tea and the cookies - there are the new faces of all the new Lights and of the Traveler itself, and the City has grown, of course. But even that which remains the same still feels different now, yes? New eyes,” he said, watching Osiris’ softly closed ones.

“It is sometimes hard to tell the changes in others from the changes in myself. So yes, Ikora’s tea remains a mystery. I shall be surprised if she does not recruit you for her research, as well. If you stay in the City for more than a few hours, that is.”

“Hmm.” Osiris’ rigid demeanor had softened, but he had crossed his arms, head bowed. His eyes were still closed.

“I did not even know you were in the City,” Saint said, softer. “I believed you to be still roaming the Shore for answers. Geppetto has heard nothing from Sagira, not even a hail when you arrived.”

Osiris flinched.

The cold that had flooded Saint earlier crystallized into pure ice.

“Osiris. Is she -“

“Like I said. The Hive,” Osiris said shortly, unmoving.

“Oh, my dear,” Saint breathed. He stood up only to kneel before Osiris in his chair, reaching for his hand. Osiris let him take it. Even in its glowing gauntlet, his hand was so small. No wonder it was so tense yet listless, without that brilliant presence shining beside him like a second sun to his own fiery brightness.

The initial rush of grief made the pistons in Saint’s chest hurt, aching from his core to his broad plated shoulders to the twisted cables of his neck. But he set it aside for now: Osiris needed him.

But Osiris had other ideas. He withdrew his hand from Saint’s caress.

“The Hive are going to pay.”

“Undoubtedly they will. That does not mean you cannot take the time to grieve.”

“I do not have time for this. Time is critical. Xivu Arath is fast approaching, and growing more powerful each day. The intelligence I have gleaned regarding her methods and movements is invaluable, and I must -“

“You do not need to do this alone, Osiris.” Saint rose to his feet.

Looking wounded, Osiris stood as well. “I am well aware that I cannot, now, Saint. But I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything necessary to avenge Sagira. To that end, I’ve enlisted the Young Wolf’s assistance.”

“Yet you are still acting as you always do. As if you must do everything yourself.”

“I cannot simply stand by! Without her, there is even more I must do, all that she would normally do for me.” Osiris broke his fierce stare and cast his eyes downward. “It is the very least I can do when I am the reason she is gone.”

If Saint could have cried, he would have then. How strange it was, to be separated by fourteen lives and untold centuries from the last tear he could possibly have shed, and yet still long for a release he could not even remember.

“Osiris,” he said, voice low. He slipped off the shining metal of one of his gauntlets, so that he could lift Osiris’ face with the most delicate touch of two brushed-alloy fingers on his dear, scruffy chin. “It is not your fault.”

Osiris’ eyes followed his fingers, traced his face. “It is,” he said hoarsely. “She even told me not to pursue the Celebrant on the Moon alone. I was rash.”

“Be that as it may, I know you would never willingly harm her. You have already told me this was the doing of the Hive.”

“Saint, please don’t…”

“Then why did you come to me?” Saint set his other gauntlet aside and cupped Osiris’ face in his bare hands. “Surely you knew I would not let you be cruel to yourself.”

Glistening golden-brown eyes rested between gleaming silver fingers. “I needed to know you were still here.”

“I am here. Because of you.”

Osiris looked away and laid his hands on Saint’s wrists, pulling himself free.

“You would not have been lost in the first place had I not betrayed you, as well. I will not make the same mistake a third time. I will learn to take responsibility for my actions, and do what it takes to contain the fallout.”

“You are not taking responsibility, you are punishing yourself.”

“Two birds, one stone,” Osiris sighed. He drew away from Saint while he was stricken into stillness by the statement’s casual cruelty. The negative space between them wrenched at the pins of Saint’s every joint like it was a magnetic field, and he made of nothing but so much iron filings.

Saint fell an unsteady step forward, but Osiris was already picking up his helm and angling himself toward the door. Saint did not need to simulate the future to know that if Osiris left in a state like this, he would likely not return.

“Osiris. Just - stop.”

Osiris stopped. The feathers of his cowl floated idly, suspended and directionless in the close air of the small room.

“Do not do this. If you will not hear your own pain, hear mine. Do not do to me what I did to you.”

Beneath the morbid weight of his resignation, Osiris went rigid. He turned to look at Saint, really look at him. Yes, he’d faced Saint before, many times, with exasperation in his brows or fondness around his eyes. Saint had been thinking about how he’s seen more and more of the latter lately.

But this gaze was something piercing and haunted. In it, Saint could hear the echoes of a keening that had never fallen on his ears, could see the marks left by an invisible memory wrapped around the man before him like grappling vines of poison ivy. He watched Saint, wordless and wounded.

“If you continue like this, you will hurt yourself, not to mention those who care for you. Sagira would not have wanted -“ Saint broke off, looking down at his fist. Its faint tremor faded as he sank deep into himself as if into the Void, calling stillness into his shaking.

“I am afraid, Osiris. For you and for myself. I do not want to lose you. I do not think I can bear that. I have seen the way you still look at me. Like...”

“Like?”

“Like you are... like I am still lost to you. I have seen how that loss haunts you, even though you have flown in the face of everything to undo it and succeeded. Even when you are finally here, your mind slips away like you cannot bear to be here. Are you still searching?”

“Of course not.” Osiris’ eyes did not meet his.

“Then what is it?”

Silence. “You died, Saint.”

“I am sorry.”

Osiris blinked, looked at him again. “You are apologizing for dying?” he said, skeptical.

“For causing you such hurt that it did this to you. Even in the best of all timelines that brought us both here: I hurt you.”

“Saint,” he said, reaching out for his hands and seeming unaware that he did so. Saint held them oh so gently, afraid they’d fly away.

“You cannot - Saint, you died,” he repeated. “This isn’t your fault. I’m the one who should be -“

“Oh, it is always about you, is it,” Saint chuckled.

Osiris scoffed. He made as if to pull his hands away. But when Saint made no move to stop him, he stopped himself.

“Truly, my dearest. If our places had been reversed, I have no doubt that the endless loss would come to outweigh the pain of the long but finite fall, in the end.” Saint closed his eyes. “Please, do not reverse our places. Losing each other once was enough. I have no brilliant schemes, no Sundial to bring you back, nothing but the strength of my arms and of my heart. And we have already proven that those are not enough.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It is true. I died before I could find you.”

Saint’s fingers were seized in a sudden vise grip. “Don’t. Do not speak that way. You are enough. You have always been so much more than enough. To me, you are - you are.”

“You know I feel the same.” They were standing so close, it was simplicity itself to bow his forehead to touch Osiris’.

“I know.”

“Then why? Why cannot you allow yourself to rest, here with me, even now? Especially now? Let me care for you.”

Silence stretched between them.

“I don’t know how,” came the whisper, barely loud enough to carry the short distance. “You should not bother with me.”

“Oh, my dove,” Saint sighed, and pulled Osiris to his chest and wrapped his arms around him. There, in Saint’s arms, Osiris finally crumpled against him like an empty spinfoil can as the absence inside him yawned wide, swallowing any resistance left in him. “Hush. I will always bother with you. I am here.”

Since arriving in this strange, strange future, touch, like everything else for Saint, had been different. Titan to his roots, bracing claps on the back and casual embraces had always been his native language of both camaraderie and comfort. With the long familiarity between him and Osiris, it had been easy enough to believe that an arm slung around the warlock’s shoulders or their hands long clasped in victory were merely an extension of the same. Though Osiris had often complained in mock protest, he had rarely refused the contact. Neither of them had admitted that it meant more until it was too late.

Now, though, in this City brighter than either of them remembered, every moment of this second chance was overwhelming. It was one thing to spend endless years isolated, touch-starved and battle-weary only to arrive in the new Tower, where homemade pastries were handed to him by scores of soft-handed civilians and eager-eyed Kinderguardians crowding close enough to brush shoulders with a legend. Though at first it jolted him like sparking Arc, each casual touch brought him a little more back to life.

It had been something else entirely to find the person he spent centuries searching for finally standing before him, close enough to touch. The idea of contact was a little too much for both of them, at first. They’d had to start sparingly: a palm on a shoulder, none too rough; knees or elbows brushing together when they could be avoided, but weren’t. It wasn’t the same as before they were separated by so much space and time and suffering, and they both knew it. The shape of Osiris was so familiar to him, but the illumination of that mutual knowledge made the lean old frame as new to Saint as those endless lost years did, if in another wholly different way. Together, such perspectives made a simple caress pierce him like a shout of devotion. They made a hand on a hand, on a heart, a home.

Although Saint was learning how to let the immensity of such small closenesses become mundane, he was near engulfed by the reality of Osiris, now yielding the entire weight of his body to Saint’s protective embrace while he shook and shuddered and clung like a desperate and heartbroken thing. It was so much, but the only thing Saint could do was hold him, hold his shattering self close and dear.

Saint had never seen him break like this. When the pressure of the lives laid at his feet as Vanguard Commander had become too much, he had always been more given to bouts of brooding and intensive study for sleepless days on end. But through all of that, Osiris had always had Sagira, who knew when to jolt him out of his melancholy with a sharp word, to soothe his weariness with a wash of Light, or to nag him into a semblance of eating and resting. No more. Though Saint could not weep, Osiris’ tears traced a shining abstract filigree upon his silvered breastplate. He ran soothing fingers along his spine with touch-aching hands, needing to offer any comfort he possibly could. Saint held him and waited for the storm of grief to subside.

Saint ended up seated on the rug on the floor, leaning against the side of one of the chairs with Osiris draped across his lap and curled against his chest.

“I do not know…” Osiris murmured. His head was tucked under Saint’s chin, one arm upraised to blindly trace the deep-violet ridge of Saint’s plated cheek with the pads of his fingers.

“What do you not know?” Saint asked just as softly.

“How to do this. Without her. Without the Light.”

“Mmmm,” Saint mused. He adjusted his grip around Osiris’ waist, making sure he was secure. The weight of him was comforting. “You will grieve. And you will learn. You are the strongest person I know. And that has nothing to do with your Light, your prowess in battle, or even your Ghost, may her Light be a bright and blessed memory. It has everything to do with just you. Just the strength of your heart, your determination, your tenacity. You, my dear.”

Osiris scoffed half-heartedly. “She was always the better of the two of us.”

Saint chuckled deep in his voicebox, his jawlights flickering gold. “She would agree. But of all the people in all of history she could have chosen to raise, she chose you for a reason. If you cannot trust my judgement, perhaps you can trust hers.”

Osiris uncurled and sat up to look at him, face to face. “Well, you can hardly claim not to be biased in my favor.”

Saint barked a laugh. “Take the compliment, you terrible man.”

“Hm, I suppose I am terrible. But you like it.”

“I absolutely do not.”

“Hmm,” Osiris said again. He brushed a light kiss against Saint’s sharp lips, making his purple optics go bright with surprise. What a sheer paradoxical kind of beauty, that this unfamiliar and unprecedented form of touch between them should feel the most natural of all.

Osiris studied his face, tracing every detail, his eyes soft yet alert like the morning sun. “Thank you, my love,” he said.

Saint hugged him, hard. “Welcome home, my bird.”