#kestral* | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fernsplaysthings · 6 months ago

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Oops, double sappy, soppy Birds. Started writing this a few weeks before TFS and wanted to sketch something that vaguely went with it.

I'm over here making some real self-indulgent oc x canon shit.

Kestral had been in some kind of way since Crow had declared - insisted - he was going into the Pale Heart alone. It made sense; the link he shared with his twin was about as unique of an advantage as the Vanguard was going to get and turning it down was akin to shooting themselves in the foot. Not that Kestral had disagreed out loud. They could be pragmatic, bordering on cold sometimes and he knew that was coming from a place deep down and centuries old. In fact he’d appreciated it at the time with Mara and Petra present because it meant he’d hold his resolve despite not quite being able to meet their eyes.

In the seconds after the Queen and her Wrath left that changed. A brief glimpse of an expression Crow knew he wasn’t supposed to see before the stoic facade slipped back on. Something like pain, fear, and heartbreak. Before he could breathe a word of reassurance they were gone.

He hadn’t seen them since.

Only twenty-four hours had passed but it was unusual for them to not spend their on-world time together at Kestral’s apartment or out doing what they liked to call ‘normal people things’. He hadn’t wanted to go without talking to them first. Giving something. Asking something. And as he made his way through the residential blocks of The Last City his heart sank into his stomach, a brown paper package clutched a little tighter to his side.

Kestral wasn’t angry, he knew that much. It was hard not to read their intentions quite so clearly after spending all that time around them and he didn’t doubt for a second that they had exactly the same sensitivity. After all they were both Hunters, known for a keen eye and sharp intuition. They were hurting and scared and they still couldn’t parse those heavy feelings into conversation as well as he could. Saint had told him he wore his heart on his sleeve and once he’d gotten close to The Young Wolf he understood exactly what that meant. He supposed if anyone knew about loving someone deeply reserved and so intricately tied to their image, their work, it was going to be Saint-14.

He tossed his keycard to Kestral’s apartment on the little table beside him, shutting and locking the door behind as he expected to be spending the afternoon alone. It wasn’t until he placed the package on the coffee table by their sofa and turned toward the kitchen that he saw them, hunched over the kitchen sink, face dripping, hair stuck to their cheeks where they’d obviously splashed themself.

And the red puffy eyes of someone who’d finally reached the raw part of their feelings.

He had to broach the topic now, even if he trusted them to reach it eventually. Time was running away faster than he’d anticipated and suddenly the end of the universe, daunting as it was despite his usual assuredness, seemed ever more looming.

He felt the same way, after all.

“Kestral.”

Their attention didn’t waver from their deep glare into the basin and Crow wasn’t sure if they’d heard him, their name little more than an exhale and all at once too loud. The need for immediate conversation and tender cautiousness battled in his movements, one step, a barely outstretched hand.

“Don’t,” they snapped, balling their fists against the counter, “I-I’m not ready.”

He wiped away a stray tear that had started forming on his cheek, another couple of slow, carefully placed steps towards them, resting his palm on their lower back. They tensed under his touch but didn’t reel away - thank the Light - but he didn’t push further.

“Not ready for what, love?”

Their response was punctuated by pounding their fists against the surface and turning sharply, his hand staying at their waist despite the sudden change in position, “This!” They gestured frustrated, unable to articulate the exact issue without speaking the words directly, “This. You.”

Kestral would get there. The feelings were front and centre but the words were delayed deliberately, pushed away in case that somehow manifested one of their deepest fears into a reality. A Guardian of legend brought to the edge of their nerve by the anticipation of a horrific loss.

Just a human, he reminded himself.

He couldn’t help but lift his other hand to their cheek as he’d done so many times before; gleefully and obliviously drunk around a makeshift campfire with freedom at his fingertips, just before kissing them for the very first time after a narrow miss with death in the Ascendant Plane, again with their eyes filled with tears once he found out who he had been and what they’d done.

Their hands wrapped around the forearm and wrist of the hand that cupped their cheek, holding it tightly to their face and huffing a breath until words formed again, somewhat soothed and yet clinging desperately, “I’m going to lose you, aren’t I?”

Closing the delicately maintained distance he pulled them against him, kissed their forehead and held them as tightly as they let him, “Not if I can help it. You’re gunna be right behind me.”

They both knew that wasn’t exactly true either, that it’d take a while to locate an opening into the Pale Heart that wouldn’t devour everything that entered it, and in that time anything could happen. All the Guardians that hadn’t returned…

“I can’t…”

With what felt like an immense effort he freed his arm from their grip and maneuvered them both onto the sofa, Kestral curled in his lap, arms wrapped desperately around his chest, using his breathing to settle themself. Grounding themself in the moment instead of the encroaching dread.

“We know I need to do this, this is the safest way possible. If I didn’t and you got hurt leading the charge then…”

Their grip tightened at his back, shirt bunched between both fists. He rested his cheek to the top of their head and sighed.

“Love, if I don’t…”

“Stop.”

He took a deep breath, cradling them gently, “If I don’t make it back I need to know you’ll keep going. This has been - is - the best thing that could’ve happened after everything. I have to do this and I need…”

“I won’t. You know I won’t,” their furious glare met his and through reddened bird-of-prey eyes they made it very clear there was no compromise, “Out of spite for your reckless, noble bullshit. Fucking damn you.”

His breath hitched and caught around the lump in his throat, fingers running through their hair in an attempt to soothe the defiance that flared even in their sadness, “I will do everything in my power to come back to you, you know that?”

It was the only reason they could spit something with so much venom and know it wouldn’t bite as hard as it seemed. They knew. They could threaten anything in the wake of losing him but it would never change the fact that he’d have fought anyway. It was just easier to fight the concept than face it down.

At least in the moment before their hands gradually relaxed against his back, arms snaking back to rest one palm against his chest and the other tucked up against their chin.

Their expression finally turned soft, bumping their forehead to his with a sigh. Of course they knew. There was the unspoken loyalty that had always been there, each of them would do whatever they had to for the other. If that meant defying some increasingly terrifying odds then so be it. Kestral would do all that and more, kill a God, destroy a planet, raze everything they knew to ashes, anything for him.

With a kiss to their hairline, trailing down forehead, cheeks and finally lips he leaned across to the package he’d placed down earlier, kissing them again when he had it in his grasp.

“I got you something,” he said, more breath than voice, “To prove I plan on coming back. Kinda.”

He pressed the package into their hands and watched as the shed paper revealed a plume of feathers or perhaps fur, metal attachments, and a long heavy draping cloak adorned with decoration that echoed those on Crow’s gear. He smiled as they felt the fabric, curiosity overtaking the bundle of feelings that had been wrenching at them, slowly working out what they were unraveling. When it clicked they looked back up at him with open adoration and he kissed them again.

“Here,” he took the metal attachments, swishing the cloak out so that the collar sat around their neck, a regal plume of dark iridescent feathers, “I couldn’t forget a signature piece.”

Despite being bunched up on the sofa together they still wore it well and Crow, compelled as he always was, pulled them into him and kissed them again.

“What’s this for?”

His cheeks warmed up, a royal purple shade touching his ears and neck, “I told you, a promise to come back to you.”

They’d started smiling now too, watching his flushed face with amusement, “It’s a very sweet gift, Crow. Us Hunters are silly-prideful about cloaks. Did you name it?”

Somehow his blush deepened, “I thought about it and I wanted to make sure it was OK with you?” Kestral’s perplexed look bought out a laugh and he stroked their cheek, “I thought about this a lot. Wanted it to mean something, you know? And I was thinking about the fact that we’re very different and falling for you was not as straightforward as a ‘normal’ romance. But we’ve got a lot in common too. Hunters and…not just the bird stuff but…I was thinking about the bird stuff.”

“Of course you were, darling.”

With a shy chuckle he continued, clearly nervous about what he was trying to say but pushing onwards, “Our namesakes, we chose them because our Ghosts offered them. They’re special in a way. We might not embody them completely all the time but there’s a reason they’re ours. And while they’re about as different as birds get, they still share a…trait…”

He stumbled over the beginning of his next sentence a few times, leaning back into the sofa with a groan, letting them fall against him with their attentive gaze watching his face with affectionate amusement.

“This sounded so much more romantic when-” he bit his tongue, “Look, they mate for life.”

They dropped their head, hiding their face in the crook of his neck, “Oh, shut up…”

“I made up a lot of really sappy names, love,” he laughed against the side of their head, muttering into their ear, “All the same sort of stuff; ‘Crow’s Promise’, ‘Corvid’s Oath’, honestly I’m not good at naming things. I got stuck on…it’s really stupid, you can call it something different…It sort of kept the name ‘A Bird’s Bond’...” He could feel their goofy grin against his collarbone, the heat from their cheeks, and he turned their face up to his to press a kiss between their eyes, “Don’t laugh. I put a lot of thought into it and…”

He paused, caught up in the other Hunter’s soft gaze, his breath caught again but not the choking, suffocating feeling before. Like the butterflies in his stomach had risen up and planned to burst out in a horrible mess of fluttering wings. Just the way they were looking at him, like he were the stars in the expanse of space and every beautiful place they’d seen across Sol, it would fulfill him forever, he thought. If they’d just keep looking at him like that, like he belonged, like…

Kestral tucked his hair back and kissed his jaw with a whisper, “I’m listening.”

He sighed deeply, holding eye contact, “When this is all over. Once we’re both back on Earth safe and together again, I want to marry you.”

They sat up straight, mantle still draped over their shoulders, expression bewildered and blushing, “Why? It’s not…”

“I know we talked about it. It’s not traditional Guardian stuff. I know,” he held them tightly around the waist, pulling them to straddle his lap to get a better view of their face, “I don’t even think I can do the old tradition of giving you my name. Mara probably wouldn’t let me and…well, you wouldn’t want to be a Sov.”

They batted at his chest with a grin, “Not in a million years, thank you.”

“Marry me anyway then,” he leaned up and kissed their chin and down their neck, “Even if it’s not a Guardian thing to do. Even if ‘until death do us part’ is just a technicality. I want to show you I love you in every way possible.”

With his lips pressed below their collarbone he could feel their racing heart, hands moving to hold their ribs and trace the bottom of their cropped sports top. They seemed to be contemplating or lost in the feel of his overflowing affections.

“Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Anything for you, Crow,” they whispered, scratching gentle circles into his scalp, “Not that this is some kind of burden, but…anything. I’m yours. Always.”

He liked that, the sincerity with which they’d said it awoke something in the back of his mind, something safe and comforting and trustworthy, “Mine. As I am yours.”

They hummed an approval to his response and to the press of his mouth to their sternum and up the column of their throat, the feathers on their mantle tickling his cheek.

Attempting not to melt into his touch immediately, they gently cleared their throat, “So the cloak is an engagement gift?”

“Figured it’d be more meaningful than a ring,” he muttered against the mark he’d pressed to their neck, finding a new spot below their ear, “Doesn’t hurt that you look good in a regal cloak too.”

“Crow,” they hissed, stifling the laugh that followed, “You’re incorrigible. Love, you don’t mind who knows about us now? I know it wasn’t much of a secret anymore but…”

He chuckled, bumping his nose to their cheek, “I actually think, once we’re home, I’d like everyone to know. The wedding doesn’t have to be a whole thing, if you want to keep it quiet and Hunter-esque, but I will be telling everybody I speak to afterwards that you’re my wife.”

Kestral’s grin grew wider, eyes brighter and softly crinkled at the corners beneath their blush. They held his face, a palm on either cheek and pressed their mouth to his, kissing him slowly like they had all the time in the universe. Unlike them, Crow instantly melted into their touch, his hands finding purchase on their hips, pulling them as close as he physically could.

“My husband…?” The words on their breath were cut short by Crow’s eager mouth, his tongue meeting their lips, the buzz of his impatience seeping into their body, “How long do we have until you go?”

“About a day. Never enough time but we’ll have to make do,” he whispered with a self-confident smirk, hands kneading their behind as he lifted them, thighs around his waist, “Leave the cloak on for me?”

#destiny 2 #d2 #guardian x crow #d2 oc #d2 crow #kestral //#the birdfriends will always rule my traitorous heart

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