#one day I’ll draw a cayde that actually looks good

[kiiyome-art]

Trying to learn how to draw cayde quickly turned into just drawing via and cayde LOL

Drawing exos is super hard man :’)

[thedistantstorm]

Keep On Rising (Until The Sky Knows Your Name) 07

Found Family | Zavala is Tower Dad | Father-Daughter Relationship | Childhood Trauma and Recovery | Canon-Typical Violence | Amputation

A story about how an orphaned Amanda Holliday comes to belong in the Last Safe City and the family she finds along the way.

(Or, the story of how Commander Zavala finds himself responsible for one Amanda Holliday.)

Chapters: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06

This time: Fallen. Bet you never saw that coming.

-/

When he arrives back to Command - after having just arrived home - the entirety of control is bustling. Chaotic. There are alarms going off in the background - not the big alarms, but the ones that signal an attack within the City.  He strides in with purpose, his Ghost transmatting another tablet into his hands already loaded up with what he needs to know, linking him into the comms.

He does not need a briefing, his Ghost has informed him of everything they know so far. Fallen insurgents in a residential district, playing merry hell with the civilians. It made him furious, but he restrains himself. Evenly, he asks, “Do we have a fireteam on the ground?”

“Yes,” Ikora answers, from the other side of the table. “They’re on the scene. It’s a firestorm. An entire neighborhood is up in flames.”

From behind her, a tech reports, “Second team is en route, and medical crews are on standby.”

“Casualties?”

“None reported, but they won’t know until after we put out the fires.” The tech looks sheepish. “The… my visuals would suggest we’ll have several. I’ll keep you updated.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Cayde-6 is saying to Ikora. “They got into the residential districts how?” He taps his metal chin a few times, brow-plates furrowing, then jumps back, excited. “The sewers!” He exclaims.

"What?"

"That's how they got in!" He motions with a hand to gather his team to his end of the table. They lean in. "The runoff pipes were on your last budget-thingy," He looks at Zavala, "But we nixed it because FWC and New Monarchy wanted more money for that weapons agreement and Dead Orbit doesn't care because they figure the City is doomed anyway."

Ikora and Zavala trade glances.

"That is…" Zavala begins.

Ikora shakes her head.

"What?" Cayde gestures flamboyantly. "What?!"

"We never thought we'd see the day that you actually retained what happened in a Consensus meeting," Ikora quips. She turns her attention to a tech who hands her a report.

"Good work, Cayde," Zavala rumbles, almost impressed. Cayde would say he is very impressed, just too busy to show it. He'll ask for the praise again, later. The Commander has already started talking to the fireteam on the ground. 

It ends up being an all night affair. Takes six hours to put the fires out - literally - and then there’s all the red tape and trying to account for survivors, dead, and wounded. There’s only a handful of casualties, despite everything, and most of the wounded have smoke inhalation injuries. The critical injuries were thankfully minimal and all parties were taken for treatment. All in all, with the Fallen on the surface contained and Cayde organizing routes for strike teams to destroy any lingering threats below, it’s a night well spent.

This will not happen again. Zavala doesn’t give a damn about what the factions want. City infrastructure will not remain compromised on his watch. He certainly doesn’t feel good about it, these catastrophes happened, it was part of the job. But, they highlighted weak spots in their defenses, in their priorities and allowed them to rectify them before it becomes a large scale assault. 

He’s already thinking about what kind of defenses could be placed in the sewers when he leaves. Teams down there would be too costly, but cameras would likely be alright with some sort of passive weapon system. Maybe turrets would be wise.

“Zavala.”

The sound of the Speaker’s voice at the top of the stairs gives him pause. His familiar mask is impassive, a welcome sight. The Commander jogs up to meet the wise Warlock. He’s almost about to ask what the other man needs when he sees why the Speaker sought him out in the first place.

A familiar face is beside him, eyes red from crying. His stomach drops.

“She would like you to go with her,” The Speaker intones carefully. He dips his head, removing his arm from around the woman’s shoulder. “Assuming you have everything in order?”

“Yes, everything is in hand.” He looks to the matron. “What happened? Is everything alright?” 

The woman attempts to compose herself, but the Speaker puts an arm around her shoulders and hands her a handkerchief. “The situation last night,” He answers, instead. The woman sags against him, accepting the brief comfort. “One of her charges was injured. I believe you know her?”

The Commanders eyes flutter. “What?” He asks, almost in disbelief. His voice sounds hoarse to his own ears.

“She’d been telling them for months,” The woman murmurs, muffled by the Speaker’s robe. “They told her she was imagining things.” 

The Speaker sighs. “The damage is done,” He says, as kindly as he can. “All we can do is try to prevent it from happening again.” Still, he looks at Zavala, and though the Commander can’t see his eyes, he can feel the scrutiny.

It doesn’t matter, in that moment. Zavala asks, “Where is she? Is she alright?”

Karena shakes her head. “I don’t - they took her into surgery right away, but…” She wrings her hands. “They said they wouldn’t know right away. I have to go talk to the foster family. They’ve been treated and released. I-”

“Go with her,” The Speaker instructs. Whether he’s gleaned the specifics of the situation from whatever else Karena has said to him earlier remains to be seen, but Zavala doesn’t question it now. “I���ll check in with you later.”

Zavala can only nod.

-/

For a woman who had been sobbing moments earlier, Karena composes herself quickly. By the time they enter the Tower’s medical facility, it doesn’t even look like she’s shed a tear. Her dark eyes are firm, unyielding. A bit intimidating, even. She straightens her back and her shoulders level. Not for the first time, Zavala finds himself impressed with her.

They find the family in one of the large waiting rooms, two FOTC guards standing nearby. They’re not detailing the trio, who is clothed in sooty pajamas, but the three of them sit quietly in the full waiting room as though they’re being tried for a crime. The mother is curled in on herself, her husband’s are around her, holding her close. Nearby, a children’s program plays on the screen, but the child does not pay any attention to it, his gaze trained on the sterilized floor.

“Thank you for waiting for me,” Karena says quietly, drawing their attention.

As expected, they don’t look to the matron. Their eyes are trained on the Commander. He looks to Karena. “Don’t mind me,” He says, softly.

“Momma,” The boy says softly, “Are we in trouble?”

Karena shakes her head. “No, sweetheart,” She says softly. “You’re all free to go. I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.”

The parents nod. Quietly, Mrs Baumsol says, “I didn’t think - she said she knew how to hide, and we never would have been able to-”

Her husband puts a hand over hers, clasped together in her lap. “We take full responsibility. We should have taken her concerns seriously. We just - we knew there would be difficulties adjusting. We just figured she wanted attention. We’ve never had something like this happen before.”

“You won’t get her back,” Karena tells them. “I realize it was an honest mistake, but, after this, she’ll never feel safe with you. To be transparent,” She sighs. “I don’t believe I would recommend you to foster another child.”

Mr Baumsol dips his head in a solemn nod. “We understand. We just pray she pulls through.” At that, his wife begins sobbing with renewed vigor.

Zavala’s eyes meet Karena’s, bright and alarmed. “What-” He closes his eyes. “What happened?”

The husband and wife have a wordless conversation, the wife tipping her head, indicating for her husband and son to leave her with the other two. The boy looks fearfully at his mother, but she gives him a brave smile and nods.

“We were trying to find a place to hide. My husband had gone to get our gun from the safe in our bedroom,” She wipes her eyes and nose, coughing a bit from obvious smoke inhalation. “There wasn’t-” She sighs. “There wasn’t enough room in the crawlspace for the three of us, and Benji - my son - wouldn’t let go. He wouldn’t be quiet, he was terrified and they found us...” She blinks through more tears and looks up at the both of them, seeming terribly small in her seat. “Amanda - I don’t even know where she got it - she threw something at them. An improvised incendiary, whatever it was, it blew up in the thing's face. It was a big one, I think the Guardians called it a Captain?” Zavala nods. “It grabbed her. I ran. There was no way if that thing got to either of us that we’d be able to escape.” Her brows knit together as her lip trembles. “I-I know that’s selfish, but I never would have been able to beat them and I wanted our son to live.” 

Zavala looks down and away, his irises reduced to a dull glow. “I’m sorry,” He says with great sincerity, his personal feelings brushed aside. “What you went through must have been horrifying. We have teams working to secure the district, and I promise you we will do everything possible to prevent it from happening again and to help you and your family rebuild.” 

The woman nods. “I just feel so guilty,” She clenches her fists. “We should have listened-”

“It cannot be undone,” Karena interjects, coolly, the Speaker’s earlier words reiterated with a sharp edge. “Amanda is a very special child. I told you that when you took her in. Her experiences are unique.”

“We know.”

Zavala asks in his most soothing voice, “Do you know which Guardians brought her in?”

“I don’t,” Mrs Baumsol bites her lip, endlessly shaking her head. “They med-evacced her right away, we never even saw her. All the doctors have told me is that they were trying to save her leg, but since you’re here now,” She looks to Karena, “They won’t talk to us at all.”

It clearly takes a lot of Karena’s willpower not to yell at the woman, but she remains composed, though her hands remain clasped behind her back to prevent anyone from seeing them shake. The moment the Baumsol family leaves, she’s pacing in front of the wide, blue-tinted windows that look out over part of the Tower and the City below.

“I never should have recommended them. I should have known.”

“You had no way of knowing this situation would come up.”

“It’s not this situation, Commander.” Karena turns back from the window. “I should have known they wouldn’t have listened to her. Everything was white-picket fences and happy-go-lucky. I should have known they would have crumbled under pressure.”

“These are extenuating circumstances,” Zavala urges her. “And I… did agree with your selection as well. Allow me to at least shoulder some of the blame.”

Karena sighs. “I don’t think blaming you would make me feel any better, Commander.” She pats him on the shoulder, mindful of his armor. “I’m going to get some tea. It’s going to be a long day. Would you like anything?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll wait here in case one of the doctors come out with an update.” Once she departs, his Ghost flickers into view, hovering in close. He’s taken a seat on one of the benches, his head in his hands. He’s exhausted, but not in a way that suggests he’d be able to sleep if he tried.

“It’ll be alright, Zavala,” The little bot tells him in a soft whisper. “She’s a tough one.”

“I don’t,” He closes his eyes, not knowing how to proceed and the Ghost makes a chirring sound, a synthetic tone of both endearment and comfort. Without words, he asks her: What am I supposed to do?

The Ghost looks around, doing a quick scan for anyone who might see them, then brushes her fins against the worry-lines marring his forehead in a rare moment of physical affection. Now isn’t the time for what she thinks on the subject. Calmly, apologetically, she tells him aloud, “For now, all we can do is wait.”

[youngster-monster]

rare and sweet as cherry wine

Razel enters the hangar and makes a beeline for Cayde, giving Amanda a high five on his way.

“Hey, buddy! Didn’t know you were in town.” Surprise, the happy kind, colors his tone as they fistbump.

He shrugs a shoulder, attempts standoffish-ness. “I thought it’d be nice to take a brea-”

“Ikora grounded you again, didn’t she.”

He laughs. “Yeah. On an unrelated note, you were right: the Cabal have no sense of fair-play.”

Cayde blinks, confused for a second. Razel can see when it dawns on him by the way his eyes light up, glowing an even brighter blue. “You didn’t-”

“Fight a Gladiator with my bare hands? Hell the fuck yes I did. Bet ya I would, didn’t I?”

He smiles, smug, and Cayde lets out a delighted laugh. “Shit, well done. How was it?”

“Fun, until I had to stop his sword with my bare hand and it burned through my gloves… and a few layers of my skin. Hurt like a bitch.”

“Don’t bullshit me, I know that was your favorite part.” He bumps their shoulder and Razel hums in assent. Yeah, honestly, that was fun. Gladiators are huge and their sword-cleaver thing can cut clean through a guardian. The fact that he managed to catch the not-sharp side of it was impressive enough. That it managed to hurt him anyway… Yeah. Fun times. Challenging. “I get why Ikora grounded you though. Did she give you the speech? Tell me she gave you the speech.”

“The one about ‘being a hazard to myself and others’?”

“A classic.” Cayde pitches his voice higher in an imitation of Ikora’s. “Maybe this time you will learn your lesson about not needlessly endangering yourself for the sake of glory or stupid baits.”

A pause, and they both break into giggles. They’ve heard that speech countless times before. At this point Razel’s pretty sure Ikora only does it to keep face because it sure as hell isn’t working on them. As for the grounding— well. She’s always telling him he should take a break. That must be her way of making sure he gets one.

“Yeaah, I give her three days before she kicks you out of the Tower herself.”

“Wanna bet on it?”

Cayde punches his arm lightly. Or as lightly as it gets when you’re immortal and used to kinda-killing your friends for fun. “Don’t take bets you know you’ll lose. Not with a Hunter, at least.”

He shrugs. “It’s fun. And I don’t mind losing to you.”

It’s true. Usually Cayde gives him dumb dares or make him pay the bill when they go eat ramens. He has a thing against big Bets… Something to do with the previous Hunter Vanguard is all he told him. Razel doesn’t pry.

Cayde pushes away from the beam he’s leaning against, pats Razel on the shoulder. “Lemme settle that one first, then we can make another. What was it we bet again?”

“A night’s worth of drinks, I think.” A better deal for Cayde, who has an impressive alcohol tolerance even for an Exo. Razel is a bit of a lightweight— he doesn’t have the same experience with booze.

“Sounds about right. Hey, Amanda! We’re going drinking tonight, you comin’?”

The shipwright doesn’t look up from the parts she’s inspecting as she yells back, “I’m in!”

Cayde turns back to Razel. “Well, we got some time before she’s done here. Fancy a meal?”

“If you’re paying, sure.”

“Parasite.”

-

They catch up over spicy ramen and a cold beer. Cayde almost stabs Razel’s eye out with his chopsticks while telling him about the missions he ran before joining the Vanguard.

They relocate to a bar. Cayde and Amanda bicker over their drinks — she says he should pay the first round, while Cayde insists he only promised he’d pay Razel’s drinks and she was old enough to buy her own alcohol.

They drink. And drink. And… drink some more. At some point there are shots. That’s when it starts to get blurry. Razel remembers… looking at Cayde. Maybe spacing out while looking at Cayde? Also, dancing with Amanda, and watching the two of them engage in a drinking game that is clearly biased toward the robot side of the competition.

It’s unfair that he can’t really get drunk.

Razel tells him just that as they’re walking out of the bar. Well, he’s not quite walking out on his own two feet. Amanda has his arm over her shoulder and they’re kind of keeping each other up, swaying in time with the tune she’s humming.

“And yet she keeps trying,” Cayde says. He’s slurring a little, his voice box trying and not quite succeeding to keep up despite the liquor in his system. He’s not that steady on his feet either. He’s just better at pretending he’s sober.

“And one day I’ll...” Amanda trips on thin air and almost sends the two of them sprawling. They keep their balance through sheer luck and uncoordinated flailing, Cayde cracking up at the spectacle. “Fuck. One day I’ll beat you.”

“The day you beat me at a drinking game is the day I retire, kiddo.”

“Or y’can- y’can- you… can be a robot too?” Razel leans to the side, dragging her with him, before stumbling a few steps and righting himself. “Wait. How does that work.”

“Dunno. Not like that, though. I think,” Cayde replies.

They walk a little while still before Amanda painstakingly peel herself from Razel’s side. “That’s my stop boys,” she says before turning to Cayde. “You’ll be alright with him?”

Razel stands in place and focuses very hard on his feet so he doesn’t fall while they talk. It’s hard, because the ground keeps moving and his legs aren’t responding like he expects them to. He sways, almost falls, and an arm snakes behind his back, a hand coming to rest on his waist to steady him. He’s used to it, by now, so it doesn’t take him long to find the coordination necessary to throw his own arm around Cayde’s shoulders.

“Yeah, it’s like that every time. We got a system.” Cayde hauls Razel up, the other guardian going limp in his grasp. “I just got to get him to my couch and we’ll be golden.”

They exchange good nights, Razel mumbling his into Cayde’s shoulder, before she leaves. They’re left standing in the middle of the street, Cayde easily bearing his weight against him despite not being exactly sober himself.

“Ready?”

Razel hums something vaguely positive, and they’re off.

The walk to the Vanguard’s chambers isn’t a short one. They could go to the Hunters’ barracks, Cayde has a bed there, but his actual apartment is just… more practical. And the trip goes by quickly anyway, the way it does when you’re too drunk to keep track of time. Razel sings under his breath, an off-key rendition of the songs that were playing in the bar, and leans against Cayde until he’s practically carrying him.

It feels like a blink of an eye before they’re standing in front of his door. Razel hangs off Cayde’s shoulders as he unlocks his door with fumbling hands.

“You’re druuunk,” he sing-songs.

“And you’re trashed.”

He laughs. “Yeah.”

Finally they stumble through the door and it locks on its own behind them. They fall over themselves and against a wall, leaning on each other to stay on their feet. Razel, who pretty much fell on top of Cayde, rests his chin on his shoulder.

“Cayde… bro.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, bro.” Razel leans all his weight against Cayde, sighing softly. Comfy…

“Yeah, I know,” Cayde replies, sounding like a man trying really hard to gather the few brain cells he has left to accomplish the one simple task of getting the two of them to their respective bed.”

Razel frowns and pushes back, just far enough to look Cayde in the eyes. It’s blurry and not quite a still picture, but at least there’s an effort. “No, bro, you don’t get it. I love you. You’re so fucking… important to me and shit. You’re my best friend. I love you so much.”

“You’re my best friend too. Even if you’re crushing me.”

A spark goes through Razel’s mind. He leans forward, so close the blue light of Cayde’s eyes fill his vision. “Let’s make a bet.”

That catches his attention. “Sure. What d’you wanna bet on?”

“Betcha I can’t kiss you right now,” he says, and does exactly that.

It’s clumsy, because he’s drunk and more ‘falling on Cayde’s face’ than kissing him. It’s also awkward, because Cayde doesn’t have lips and Razel isn’t exactly experienced in kissing people, let alone Exos.

But it’s amazing. Probably because it’s Cayde, and Razel has been wanting to do this for forever. Apparently. He didn’t notice, but now he knows. It feels so good, he should have done it months ago.

Cayde is struck speechless when he draws back. He looks at him quizzically. Did he break him? Is that a thing that can happen and no one saw fit to warn him?

Finally, he says, “I don’t think you know what a bet is.”

“Sure I do,” he replies with the absolute certainty of a drunk guy with only a distant knowledge of the subject matter. “I lost.”

The hand still holding on to the back of his shirt flattens against the small of his back, a slight pressure drawing him closer. Another falls on the back of his neck, fingers threading through his hair. Cayde leans in, or maybe he does, and they’re so close they would be sharing air, if Exos breathed.

“And what did I tell you about taking losing bets?”

He kisses him again before he gets the chance to reply.

(They wake up together on Cayde’s small couch, their legs tangled together and Razel’s head slotted under Cayde’s chin. Both with a creak in their neck to go with the hangover.

Worth it. But next time they’ll at least take off their shoes before passing out.)

[woolleyluciscayde]

Destcember Day 2: Last City

As I said in my previous post, this entry probably isn’t gonna be any good. Considering I just tried to type ‘goesn’t’ as an actual word without thinking, you already know how this is going so uh. Yeah. Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Ash first arrived at the Last City on Earth, she was wracked with nerves. She didn’t know what to expect. She thought it was either going to be incredibly small, or the city was going to consume her. When she flew into view of it, it landed somewhere in the middle.

She had climbed up from the hangar after being greeted by Amanda Holliday, the chief shipwright. Holliday had instructed her to go and find Andal Brask, who she suspected was with Cayde-6.

“They’ll be somewhere up in the Tower Plaza. They’re easy to spot, promise.” Amanda assured her, and as Ash walked away, she could’ve sworn she heard the shipwright mention something about how Cayde was going to stumble head over heels for her. Shrugging it off, she headed up.

And Holliday wasn’t exactly wrong. When she eventually found them hanging around on the grass at the front of the plaza, Cayde’s metallic draw dropped open and his blue optics widened. She wanted to blush, but her nerves suppressed everything else. Something about him was charming, probably how genuine he’d reacted to her arrival. Andal laughed at his scouts reaction, and then greeted Ash.

“And this is my best scout, Cayde-6.” Andal introduced his friend, nudging him forward with a slap to the back.

“Yeah! Uh, great to meet you!” Cayde stuttered, sticking out his hand for Ash to shake. She hesitated for a moment, but then shook it gladly, looking him up and down. And then she looked down at his trousers.

“Uh, good to meet you too, but I can’t exactly look at you whilst your fly is undone.” She told him, and his eyes widened in embarrassment as he zipped his fly back up.

“My gosh I’m so sorry. Uhm, Andal I gotta run could you maybe like, do your job? Thanks.”

And like a flash, Cayde ran off into the hangar to talk to Holliday. Ash eventually found out that Cayde had groaned to Holliday about how he’d made a bad first impression, but Ash didn’t mind. She’d see far worse in her life.

Years passed, and things changed. She saw Cayde occasionally if he wasn’t out in the wilds, but after Andal died, she saw him slightly more often as he was stuck as the new Hunter Vanguard. She found herself a Fireteam with two fellow Hunters, and she felt right at home. But many years later, a few months before the Red War broke out, they were both killed by the Vex, their ghosts shattered to pieces on a mission to the Moon. Ash withdrew, mourning their deaths for months until Cayde drew her into taking a scouting mission to Nessus.

And once she returned, he convinced her to go with him to check out the Vex activity there in person, and for the first time since her fireteam died, she felt like she had someone looking out for her again. Someone to console in.

Months later, the Red War had ended, the city was saved and Ash woke up one morning in a bed she remembered wasn’t hers. Turning over, the blue plated Exo was still asleep, his face shining in the morning sunrise’s light. She didn’t want to wake him. All she wanted to do was stay in bed with him all day. Eventually, he stirred, and rolled over to find her.

“Hey you.” He yawned, trying to express a smile. “Sleep okay?”

“You bet.” Ash smiled, her eyes closed. “You busy today?”

“Well it depends how much paperwork I can pawn off onto Hawthorne. I could just skip today altogether and spend it with you if you’d like.”

“Tempting. I don’t want Zavala throwing you off this Tower though.”

“Nah, he won’t. He loves me really. C’mon, get dressed and we’ll go get some breakfast and then I’ll see if I’m feeling up to boring monotonous paperwork.”

Once Ash had taken a shower and dried her hair with a towel, she threw on her only set of armour. A couple of months after she had moved in with Cayde, somebody broke in and stole her only set of armour, so Cayde set to work creating a set for her that was very similar to his, but a red maple leaf sat on the right arm instead of the Earth patch he had.

After they grabbed breakfast, Cayde gave into the temptation of spending the whole day with Ash, and so he lead her to his favourite spot in the Tower that overlooked the city, and with a blanket to sit on and some food for later in a basket, they stayed here for the whole day in each other’s embrace, counting the clouds and telling each other stories, their Ghosts hovering nearby on the lookout in case anybody came to ruin their fun.

Spark was pleased, however. Pleased that his Guardian had finally found somebody who cared for her that wasn’t himself. He appreciated how genuine Cayde was towards Ash, and it eased his worries.

Moments like those were ones Ash treasured, and those same moments made her appreciate the safety and the tranquility of the Tower and the Last City on Earth.

[titan-mom]

Pastime

Destiny fic - 829 words

Testing Hawthorne’s voice. It’s not very distinct, but I’m getting there.

On Ao3 here

The farm has been filling up. Hawthorne is proud.

It’s bustling now, with the Vanguard rallying more Guardians, with communications active and transmat links up, the tent city growing beyond the landing field. She’d had to wrestle that area back from the Guardians today, for shipments of scavenged supplies. They’d turned the place into a rudimentary football field, crafted goalposts from scrap and rigged tripwires and flares to go off when goals were scored. Not only was it a hazard, with the nearest Cabal base already within too many miles for Suraya to feel completely comfortable, but it was in the way of important things. Like landing the stockpiles the Guardians were retrieving from the Fallen for them.

She’s trying not to be frustrated, they were pulling long days in the wild and could use the break, but she wished they had pastimes that did not get in the way.

The Guardians were now clustering by the dock, somehow enjoying sitting out on the moldy cushions of the old decks. There’s a guitar in the hands of one (Traveler’s cleft where do they find these things? He did not have that a few days ago.) He’s quite good to be honest, but the melody is soft and mournful, and paired with the descending dusk it doesn’t do much for Suraya’s mood. Doesn’t seem to aid anyone else either, a few of the normies going about duties nearby begin giving sidelong glances of discomfort.

No one is supposed to be the law here, but if someone has to step in as liaison and keep the peace, Suraya figures it’s got to be her. “Hold down the fort for me, Louis,” she says, and squares her shoulders, prepares to head over there.

“Oi!” Someone, a Hunter, beats her to it. He stands up from one circle over and shouts. “Stop being so darkness-damned depressing mate!”

Well she wouldn’t have been that direct, Suraya thinks. But she figures it will get the job done.

The man with the guitar finishes the chord with a little flourish, it’s obviously not the end of the piece but he ends it as though it was his idea. She thinks the commotion over then, but the Warlock beside him begins bobbing her head and stomping her heels on the wooden deck, rapid time. A couple Guardians join her, two others begin to clap to a different but synchronized rhythm. The guitarist tests out a few chords, then holds up a hand for anticipation, and brings it down to begin a louder, faster, rowdier riff. The first Warlock adds her voice, not words but toned shout pitched just right to harmonize with the strings.

The Hunter whoops and begins to dance.

“Oh! Shindig!” Cayde crows, launching himself from his posture of practiced disinterest and hopping from his roost to the ground, making a beeline for the crowd of Towerfolk that are gathering. Many are joining in now, clustering in groups and moving in time.

Suraya regards the growing noise with a scowl. “Well that’s not much better.” She grumbles, moves to approach. It’s Ikora, on the next balcony over, that holds up a hand.

“Let them.” She implores gently. “See what comes of it.”

“A whole lot of ruckus.” Suraya complains, but sees the refugees perking up, poking their heads from their work. Tess is leaning out from her tent, tapping a toe. A Titaness beckons to a lady in a mud-stained skirt, invites her to dance. Laughs gaily at the hesitance and moves to join her, takes a hand and leads her along. They’re all doing that, to an extent. The crowd of Guardians is becoming just a crowd of people. People moving and laughing and mingling.

“There is a time and a place for such revelry.” Ikora comments. “And it may not seem like it, but now is that time.”

“I see that.” Suraya relents, leans on a rotting railing post. “Giving me ideas for clan mixers actually.”

“If there is one thing most Guardians know, it’s how to enjoy themselves when they have the time.” Ikora taps a loose fist on Zavala’s shoulder. He huffs at her but has a lightness to his step when he heads down the stairs, pauses by Amanda whose putting away her tools and wiping her hands on her pants. They walk together to join the fringes of people watching the dancing.

“Take an evening Hawthorne.” The Warlock Vanguard suggests. “Appreciate the simple things.”

“I’ll watch from here, thanks. I like a little range on my encounters.” It draws a chuckle from Ikora. “This what it was like in that Tower?”

She sighs, weary but affectionate. “All the time.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“Indeed.”

Ikora nods to her, takes her leave, moving away from the commotion, probably looking for quiet. She still watches the gaiety with a smile as she passes, on her way to Tyra Karn’s abode. Suraya chews a lip and considers. Tower might not have been too bad.

[littleshebear]

On fandom.

I seem to have passed the 200 follower mark recently (What? How? When? Bzuh?) So this seems like a good opportunity to get something off my chest. I'll try to follow up with something more positive later today but I really feel like this needs to be said. I'll put the rantiness under a cut so if you don't want to read my talking about fandom behaviours that upset/rankle/sadden me, feel free to skip. If you are skipping, I'll say this first: Welcome everyone. Whether you're a day one vet or a just picked up a console bundle noob, welcome. I'm glad you're here. Have fun. Okay. On to the rant. There'll probably be swearing.

The fandom I was most active in before Destiny was Lord of the Rings and let me tell you, it was not always the most pleasant place to be, downright toxic at times. The book purists sneered at the people who only got into fandom because of the movies with impunity. They weren't true fans, see? Then within the book community, the people who'd read the Silmarillion looked down on the people who had only read the trilogy. Then the people who had read the supplimentary material like History of Middle Earth and Unfinished Tales mocked the lack of knowledge of the people who had only read the Silmarillion and the Trilogy. Then within that group, there were the people who were fluent in Quenya and...you get the idea. There was a ridiculous hierarchy of noobs, fans, true fans, truer than true fans and scholars. If you wrote fic, you were expected to cite your sources like it was a fucking academic article. It was common for fanfics to have footnotes to justify their headcanons. Yep, fucking FOOTNOTES. Friends, it was some bullshit. I noped out of fandom at large quite early on and just RP'd with a small group of people who became close friends of mine. I am still friends with these people even though we've moved on to other fandoms. That's how fandom should be. Not nitpicking, not proving your superiority, not ship wars. It should be about shared passion and making friends along the way.

So that being said, I really, REALLY don't want to see that kind of nonsense in the Destiny community but I've seen rumblings of it (and no, I won't name names so don't ask). Please, please, don't do this:

Don't gatekeep. Don't try to prove that you're a proper fan as opposed to the newbies. It doesn't matter if you played the beta the first time round, it doesn't matter if you're a day one player, it doesn't matter if you're a y1 christmas noob (hi!), it doesn't matter if you only picked up the game yesterday and instantly fell in love with it. If you love the material, then you are a fan. That's it. End of. No qualifications, no hierarchies. We are all fans. I can't wrap my head around a mindset that says they want to keep people out of a fandom, that they don't want to share the thing that they apparently love so much. It's such a selfish, snide, entitled attitude, please don't do it.

Don't police content. Unless the content being generated is illegal (I won't list examples, you can work it out), then just live and let live. Ship and let ship. I don't care how much of a fandom veteran you are, you don't own the fandom. No one died and made you fandom curator. You have no right to dictate to people what they should or should not draw, write, ship or headcanon. You don't have to like all of it, of course not. You can't like everything, that's ridiculous. I know that Cayde/Zavala is one of the most popular ships in the fandom but personally, I can't stand it. They're a NOTP for me, I don't see it, I don't feel it, not even if I tilt my head and squint. So how do I deal with that? I don't click on fics that are tagged Cayde/Zavala. If I do end up reading a fic I don't like? I click back and move on with my life. If content I don't agree with crosses my dash? I keep scrolling until I find something I do like. It's really that simple. If something does annoy you that much? Vent privately to your friends. Don't drag your dirty linen into public, don't go out of your way to upset people because you think their headcanons are OOC or you think Character/Reader inserts are dumb.

Related to the above point? Shipping wars are some bullshit. Let people ship whatever they want. No one is strapping you to a chair with your eyes pinned open, Clockwork Orange-style and forcing you to read ships you don't like. I'll be really sad if I see that crap happen in this fandom. I don’t like Cayde/Zavala but if you want to write it? Knock yourself out! Have fun with it! Share it! I probably won’t read it but I won’t stink up your comments with how much I don’t ship this pairing because that’s a dick move. 

On the subject of fanfiction, please try to remember that it's meant to be fun? This is primarily a hobby for most of us, we're not necessarily looking for concrit, we're not necessarily looking to improve our writing to publishable standards. Some of us want to be published authors one day. Some of us are just goofing off. Some of us are actually already published authors, fancy that? Before you wade in and pick apart someone's writing, try to make sure your feedback is either wanted or needed. If you do feel a burning need to leave concrit, remember that there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. If you just leave a barrage of criticism with no positives, you're not likely to improve their writing, you'll probably just destroy their confidence and make them not want to write again (If this is your aim? Have a word with yourself. That's a horrible thing to do). Praise sandwiches are the way to go. Temper your criticism with positives. If you leave badly written concrit, I reserve the right to concrit your concrit.

At the end of the day, if you want to write a self-indulgent Shaxx/OC romance? Do it. If you want to write an ice cream shop AU? Do it. Write or draw whatever you want (within the bounds of the law and the TOS, obviously), have fun with it and if anyone tells you you're wrong for doing it, tell them the back and block buttons are right there.

Ask yourself what kind of person you want to be. Do you want to be someone who encourages creativity? Do you want to be someone who allows a multitude of ships, a blossoming of content? Or do you want to be the selfish, entitled one who only wants content you like? Do you want to be the one who wants to ban ships that don't appeal, to stifle creativity and destroy the confidence of those who might otherwise make enjoyable contributions to fandom? Do you want to take part and muck in or just stand in the corner and sneer?

Please don't let what happened in LOTR fandom happen to Destiny. Let's just have fun and be good to eachother, yeah?

[chevalier-on-the-wall]

Story: Bar Songs

It was during the period the Guardians called the Age of Triumph, so full of hope and hubris.

In the Cosmodrome--then, all but captured for the City--were a few places where enemies still congregated and tensions still flared between them. This was one of those places. Hive streamed out of the caverns they'd dug under the earth. Inside the shells of Golden Age buildings, the Fallen rallied and picked them off. Crashing into both sides like a ravenous tidal wave were the Taken, directionless since the death of Oryx. Not that he remembered that at the time; he was only raised after the Taken War was already over.

The novice Titan had died four times in the last ten minutes, and it was starting to get exasperating. This time he kept a bit of distance as he watched the battle, racking his brain for some way to fight through them. He paced back and forth like a frustrated predator, arc Light tingling along his skin like static. Or maybe it really was static. Right before his last death, he'd attempted a Fist of Havoc, only to punch the ground ineffectually and promptly get swarmed by irate Thralls. It's probably static.

The gentle voice of his Ghost murmured inside his helmet: "You could always go around them." He immediately stopped his pacing, struck by the novel idea and feeling rather silly that he hadn't come up with something so simple. After a moment of awkward silence, lingering at the edge of a heated firefight, he was about to find his voice when--

--a sparrow roared over his head, its Hunter driver leaping off in a flourish of brown and silver--

--and then he was gone. The sparrow clonked ineffectually against the side of one of the many derelict structures covered in Old Russian letters.

Despite the sparrow's presence, the Titan wasn't entirely sure its driver had been real. "What was that?" he asked of no one in particular.

"Getting out of a bad situation." Before he could react, a hand clapped him on his back, making him jolt. The Hunter reappeared, speaking in a gruff male voice, craning his neck to get a good look at the Titan. "Good skill to have. Heading my way, Kinderguardian?"

"Why does everyone call me that?"

"You're listless like one."

"Ugh. Fine. Yes, I'm trying to get past these..." The conversation paused at the sound of the Hunter's sparrow exploding. "...These."

"Then c'mon." The Hunter brandished a scout rifle, an older but well-kept Jigoku, and looked down the sights. "I'll cover you. Give 'em hell."

"We could just go around them," the Titan offered, echoing his Ghost's earlier advice.

The Hunter lowered his gun and stared back, struck by the novel idea and feeling rather silly that he hadn't come up with something so simple. After a moment of awkward silence, lingering at the edge of a heated firefight, the Titan summoned his sparrow and the Hunter leapt on behind him. Together, they skirted around the edge of the battle, before slipping past and rumbling off down a snow-covered road.

"Couldn't you just resummon your sparrow?" asked the Titan.

"Could. But you don't get a free ride every day. Name's Samsid, by the way. You?"

The Titan paused. "...Rrrrreynault. I'm Reynault."

Reynault could feel Samsid's scrutinizing gaze on his back. "...Traveler's knickers, how green are you?"

"Green? I'm not green! I'm human!"

Samsid paused, clearly not expecting that response. When he spoke, his voice was laced with mirth: "I mean, how recently did your Ghost first scrape you up?"

"Two months ago. Why do you ask?"

"Curious. You get to pick your name?"

"Yeah. Didn't you?" Reynault briefly looked back at his passenger.

"Kind of. Long story about backwards names and mistaken identities."

"That is a joke. You are joking."

"Wish I was."

Reynault did a doubletake, his sparrow slowing down a bit as he did.

Samsid shrugged. "Cayde's dumb," he said, as if that explained everything.

It didn't, but it did get a full-bodied laugh from Reynault as he shifted his focus back to the road. "Oh, mon Voyageur. He can be a bit...a bit...a lot? A bit of a lot."

"A bit much?" Samsid offered.

"A bit much! That's the phrase. He...wait, don't you report to him?"

"Yeah. Still dumb."

Reynault made some noise between a chuckle and a sigh. "Fine. I don't think the Traveler has knickers, though."

"How do you know? You an expert on giant space gods or somethin'?"

Another chuckle. "No, but--"

"You a Warlock now?"

Reynault decided to play along. "I'm actually three Warlocks inside a suit of armor."

"How's that work?"

"Well, one Warlock rubs the other two together until their robes get all static-y, right? Then the first Warlock punches something, and it looks like arc lightning coming out."

Samsid cracked up, gripping Reynault's pauldron with one firm hand as he doubles over with laughter. "Hoooooo, good one! I like you, Rey."

"Rey???"

"You. You one of those full-name guys?"

"I...don't know?"

"Look. Rey." Samsid pulled one hand off Reynault's pauldron, only to replace it with the other hand. "You gotta establish your nickname policy up top. Get it out of the way and settled. Else, it's gonna get wild. Go to uncomfortable places, Rey."

"What...."

"Reyn. Rey-rey. Nault. Reysin. The Juggernault."

"Stop."

"Reyn in Spain stays mainly on the plain--"

"STOP."

Much to Reynault's surprise, Samsid fell quiet. They drove on for a full minute in an uncomfortable silence, as the road took them past old, rusting structures looming silently overhead. "...Isn't Rey the Warlock Vanguard?"

"Ikora, yeah."

"Yeah. I know I said I was three Warlocks in a suit of armor, but not her."

"How's Reyn, then? With the N on the end?"

"Reyn is fine. Nault is fine. The rest are garbage."

"And that's the nickname policy covered. Pull over a sec."

Reynault slowed the sparrow to a stop amidst the dilapidated buildings. "What is it?"

"Got a target in there." Samsid slipped off the sparrow and drew his old Jigoku in one single, fluid motion, before he started meandering toward a dark, gaping doorway in one of the buildings. "Some Knight's mucking things up enough to make the Big Z want to show him a good time."

"Quoi????"

"The hell's a 'qwuh'?"

Reynault shook his head, mostly to himself. "I mean, what did you say? In English?"

"Ughhhhh." Samsid stopped in his tracks, not even bothering to turn around as he rests his scout rifle against one shoulder. "The Vanguard put a bounty on a Hive Knight, so now I'm going to go kill him. Traveler's pants, Nault, you even look at a patrol beacon before?"

"Of course I have!" Reynault puffed his chest out indignantly. "I have a bounty to...." He paused as his Ghost muttered the details of his until-now-forgotten mission inside his helmet. "...Kill Hive. Get their chitin armor. Dead Orbit."

Samsid pivoted on the ball of one foot to spin around and face Reynault. "We both need Hive. Headin' my way?"

After a second of processing, Reynault nodded. "You know what? I think I am."

Together, the two Guardians turned toward the yawning, dark doorway. They entered with little hesitation.

Inside the long-abandoned structure was a dim and dusty mess of corrugated metal walls, occasionally pocked with the telltale chitin of Hive bioarchitecture. Reynault's footsteps echoed around the metal maze; Samsid's were almost unnaturally silent.

When they heard the claw-scrabbling and screeches in the dark, when they saw the sickly green glow refracting around the corner, they simply looked to each other and nodded.

Reynault rounded the corner first, drawing his blocky, modest Häkke auto rifle and unloading on the first target he saw--a hapless Acolyte. "Haha! Hey, you three-eyed monsters! Nice day for it, huh?" From the direction of an old, broken Hive seeder, embedded within the otherwise dark, low-ceilinged room, came a shrieking chorus with a volley of return fire and a swarm of Thralls.

He ducked behind a square structural support pillar and let the Thralls come. The first leapt at him, eagerly trying to bring its claws down in a vertical swipe; he blocked it with his thick vambrace. The second made a horizontal swing while he was distracted, raking the side of his helmet. The third lunged low, sensing an opportunity, but by now the entire swarm was close enough. Reynault dropped his rifle for just the split second he needed to smash his fists downward. This time, it wasn't static, but a brilliant bloom of arc Light--a textbook Fist of Havoc.

The Thralls vaporized, he retrieved his rifle and turned his attention back to the Acolytes, only to see more flashes of arc Light. Samsid was in the thick of them, flickering in and out of sight to a staccato rhythm only he could hear. On every other beat, another Acolyte corpse spilled from behind a structural support, until the dance was done and Samsid fell back to his position.

"Fresh out of super. You?" Samsid didn't even sound winded.

"Same. What was that?"

"Never seen a Bladedancer dance? Traveler's 'stache, Nault."

"You keep naming these things the Traveler doesn't--" The banter was cut off by another shriek as a Knight lumbered out of the trashed Hive seeder, sword in hand.

Samsid raised his scout rifle again, looking down the sight. "That's our man."

Reynault didn't need to be told twice. With no hesitation, he did what any good Striker would do: charge in. He barreled past the supports, an indistinct battlecry in his throat. The Knight readied its sword, but at the last moment, Reynault pounced and wrapped both his arms around the thing's neck, barely holding on to his auto rifle with one hand.

Samsid lowered his gun and stared, flabbergasted, as the Titan swung onto the monstrosity’s back and hung on for dear life as it tried in vain to shake him off, reach around and grab him, or anything. He continued to stare when Reynault got gutsy and tried to wriggle his auto rifle around so the barrel was pointed at the Knight. He continued to stare when the auto rifle went off, a little too early, and the Knight staggered back into a pillar. When he asked, his Ghost informed him the whole thing lasted about twelve seconds. He was impressed.

He raised his scout rifle again, just in time to see the exhausted Knight bring its sword down on the prone Reynault with a bone-shattering crack. There was a second crack barely a heartbeat later, and the Knight fell backwards, dead.

Silence. Stillness. Then, the gentle blue glow of a Ghost resurrecting its charge. Reynault hauled himself back to his feet.

Samsid strode over the carnage toward his new friend, glee in his voice. "I'm buying you a round later. You drink?"

"Quoi?" Reynault looked at him, then down at the Knight, then back up at him. "...Oh, you mean alcohol? Yeah, I drink. Wait, you're buying?"

"You rode that thing like a mechanical bull! 'Course I'm buying!"

"Like a what?"

"I'll show you a vid later. Got all the Hive parts you need?"

"I think so...." Reynault looked to his right, probably still expecting his Ghost to be out. "...Yeah. Yeah, I have enough."

"Great. Let's." Samsid spun on his heel and started leading the way back outside.

He wasn't going to come out and say it, but no one had ever bought Reynault a drink before. He hadn't really made any close friends yet, not among the other Guardians. Now one was offering to go drinking with him. How could he say no?

Samsid was human, too, all bone and sinew, with short, deep brown hair and sunken eyes that could all too easily be hidden by the shadow of his pronounced brow. He clashed with Reynault's blonde hair, broad shoulders, and open, youthful face. But the way they laughed over their drinks that night, no one would have guessed they had met earlier that same day.

At closing time, they staggered out into the streets of the Last City, one arm around each other's shoulders as they swayed drunkenly.

"You, you're a good one," Samsid slurred. "Good pal. Nault."

Reynault looked his way with a stupid grin. "Yeah, Sam?"

"I'll show you 'round the Tower. I mean the real tour. Not the...the...the Vanny-guardy one. The real tour."

"There's a real tour? Why didn't I get that?"

"Vammaguard gotta look good." Samsid snickered. "Vammaguard. Vangeeerrrrrrd."

"Vargardarar?" Reynault offered.

"Yeah, them guys!"

Reynault broke into a full on laugh. "My English is better than that!"

"Pah. You'll get as bad as me. You wait." Samsid gestured at nothing in particular with his free hand. "Better hope you don't...get that bad. Yeah."

"Hope shines brightest in the dark," Reynault replied with a shit-eating grin.

Samsid tried to muster a dirty look, but couldn't quite do it. "Don't you quote random bar song lyrics at me."

Reynault replied by throwing his head back and breaking out into joyful, drunken song. "Hope shines brightest! In the dark! Where nothing's ever seen!"

After a bout of laughter, Samsid joined in. Together, they shambled down the street. The night was clear. The air was crisp and cool. Above them, the Traveler hung in the air, the city lights dancing across its surface, helping it shine against the dark.

[luvleekaotix-imagines]

Just a note, some of these asks are literally from MONTHS ago and I’m fucking TRASH and just left it for too long, I’m so sorry.

Anonymous said:

Do you plan to write any imagines for Fire Emblem? Cause i know some people there that i would love to smooch their lil face

I don’t have any plans, but I never have any plan for what I write to be honest/ FE muses might come outta no where and suddenly there’s a fic, so... YAH. If it happens, look forward to it? Hahah!

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Do you play Final Fantasy XIV? :) You can get a cactuar vanity pet that follows you around, and does a twirly twirl. <3

I do play FF14! I’ve actually been on a decent hiatus, but I’ll be back for SB. I’m on Tonberry if anyone is curious <3 I know of the Cactuar pet, but I don’t have it! I guess I’ll have to go looking :3 <3

★★★★★

seirensou said:

Can you make a sequel for the University AU Jack :3 i think he deserve a "series'" like Gabe~

Hahah yass Jack anything tbh. I love Jack Morrison so much AND I DON’T KNOW WHY LIKE WHY THIS VANILLA SUPER SOLDIER TROPE WHAT IS IT LIKE ?????

anyway yes I have to get back to Uni AU, but I’m pretty sure I promised Amalie/Widowmaker first! But I’m always down for Jack anything, just so you know.

★★★★★

zanthiasplace said:

Hello, I'm your waifu. I follow you since god knows where, and I will ALWAYS do, till the the end of times. So prepare yourself to be bombarded with more stuff to fill your fics and mind, because if I go down, you will come with me MUAHAHA

I love you so much Z, like you have no idea. I love when you message me here, or like my stuff on any of my blogs or message my on Facebook like fifhdishfiudhs <3 You’re such a big part of my life. I’m really gonna have to work hard to visit you because ilu so much and we HAVE to meet for realsies xoxox

★★★★★

il-legible said:

Ack- I sent you my message of admiration BEFORE you invited us to introduce ourselves and say hi and now I wanna do it formally. Hi! I'm Rain! I'm pan, Vietnamese, Scorpio, love love love horror movies, bunnies, your writing, comics, and video games. I speak 4 languages, I just want to make more friends. Oh. I live in Canada. YEAH. HI. AGAIN. 

Hello darling!! I’m pretty sure it’s been mentioned before, but I’m viet too! Yasss. I mean I don’t speak a lick of the language (I speak teochew, its what my parents taught me instead of viet for some reason), but YEAH. 

I love a lot of the things you do an dI also want to make more friends. I’m actually really bad at it, but I’m doing my best. ;w; <3

Love ya Rain xoxo

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Please O great KC Jaal please or some turians please 

I WILL HAVE TO WRITE TO JAAL, EVFRA AND TIRAN KANDROS AAA. Alien baes forever. But omg Kandro you poor babe working so haaard aaaaa

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Just wanted to say thanks. You had me laughing 'til my stomach hurt and your reader-inserts keep me alive during the day. So please whatever you do to be this awesome keep it up!

Aww I’m glad I could make you laugh! I’m not sure if my humor ever comes through because people don’t generally laugh around me/I’m not known for being funny, so it makes me happy to hear you like funny stuff that’s being written.

Or you could just be laughing at my writing, which tbh is also okay long as you’re enjoying yourself I guess lol <3 lol

Love you anon! xxoxo

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

speaking of dark haired characters wearing red and black, do you have any interest in Persona 5/the persona series in general? *u*

I have only just started P5 and then I haven’t had the time or energy to play it. Like Persona is one of those games where you have to SIT and SET ASIDE time to play it so you can take it all in. Its very hard for me to find time to do that nowadays, but I want to continue playing it AAAA.

Ryuji is my fave so far tho. Kill me, I’m weak for those kinds of boisterous, well-meaning rebels. I’m probably just old.

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

More genji plz my yummy boi 

Don’t worry! I’ll write more Genji even if I don’t want to cause I hate to admit it, but he’s my strongest OW muse. He’s super easy to write for.

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Omg KC you are gorgeous x 1048392847!!! Like I wish I could pull of lipstick the way you do and your fashion sense is super on point! That stupid skirt can cash me ousside. You are goddess and deserving of everything and anyone who disagrees can fight me lol 

Oh you can totally pull off lipstick like I do; just put it on lol. And while I’d love to think I have good fashion sense, it’s actually cause I tried a brand ONCE and found out their clothes are exactly my style and their sizes fit me pretty perfectly, so I pretty much only buy that brand. Kitten D’Amour. The downside is... I HAVE LIKE NO CASUAL CLOTHES NOW. I’M OVERDRESSED FOR EVERYTHING. ALSO THESE CLOTHES ARE SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE why am like this

I love you very much anon, YOU are the deity, not I~ and you very much deserve everything <3 xoxoxox

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

I follow for Overwatch (I couldn't even tell you how long ago rip) but, even after I unfollowed a lot of Overwatch blogs, I mainly kept following you bc your writing is amazing!

Oh sweetie, I don’t even know if you’re still with me, but that’s so sweet! Even if you’ve unfollowed me anon, it’s okay. There’s always a chance we’ll meet again in the future. I’m sure the other blog owners feel exactly the same way.

Following and unfollowing blogs is part of this website and just because you’ve unfollowed doesn’t mean you can’t follow again in the future if the blog ever shifts back into your interests. 

Just so everyone who reads this knows, if you feel like unfollowing, you absolutely can of course and I wish you all the best. <3

Love you, anon! xoxox I always will

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Listen if you write a n y t h i n g for RE I am here for it (cough Leon, Chris, and/or Wesker cough)

I’ve never known the draw of Wesker, but oh my gosh, Leon and Chris. I’ve always looked for reader-inserts for them and could never find any, so I might actually have to start writing for them. Leon tho hhhhhhhhhh. Chris hold me in your big strong arms plsssssssss

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

That thing about lacking inserts? I struggle for anything for Watchdogs, Destiny and Pokemon! Specific characters? There is a severe lack of anything decent for Guzma, Defalt or Cayde, I would write them but I cant write very well.

I haven’t written for Pokemon yet, but I have done a couple Cayde things now (and probably more in the future) and I’ve done WD2 stuff, but not WD unfortunately since I couldn’t finish the game (couldn’t get into it :( ). I’ll have to revisit WD maybe, because it seems there are a few characters people really liked in WD.

Regarding your writing, I bet you write just fine. If you don’t keep writing, you’ll never improve either, so if you want to write some stuff, even just for yourself, you should really do it!! <3 I believe in you~

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

your writings are so wonderful they make me wanna cry ;w; (in a good way tho) 

Aww honey!! You’re the sweetest. Thank you so much for letting me know you like my writing. It alwas baffles me, but it makes me smile!! I’m sorry for making you though ARGH!! But so you know, sometimes I cry when I write stuff lmao IF I’M NOT FEELIN IT I CAN’T WRITE IT I GUESS

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

You're stuck in the Fire Emblem hell too? OMG YES! COME OVER HERE! *runs to you but trips over a lobster(Ryoma) and never gets up*

I’m always in Fire Emblem hell tho and I married Ryoma as soon as I could ngl. I love my royal lobster husband.

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Please write more CaydexReader fics because there are none really in existence and the one you wrote was not enough on its own to satisfy the beast that is my fanfic hunger.

I’m sure there are some, but I’m happy to write more!! I don’t know too much about Cayde-6 though, so I’m very cautious. I’m never sure if I get his character right and it’s so important to me that I do, otherwise it feels like a mockery of a character the fans love :(

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Ok I just say I just found your Delsin fic and oohhhh my goddd I love itttt thank you for writing it it's so good

AAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE DELSIN ROWE OKAY I have to write more for him sometime in the future I hate it so much he actually makes me a weak giggly mess its WEIRD I DUNNO WHY I can’t actually think of another character that does that WHAT THE FUCK DELSIN

★★★★★

lombax-lombardi said:

Speaking of Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn and how fabulous everyone looks it also makes them look very illegal. Like hello you can't be this pretty, this is wrong and illegal stop toying with me. But they will never stop toying with your emotions. gdi pretty boys in Fire Emblem how DARE

This is an accurate summary of how a majority of FE fans feel, I think!! When I was playing through FE Awakening and Fates I was like “I wanna marry them, NO THEM, Wait nO THERES MORE THAT ONE MAYBE? Okay no I’ll go baCK WHO IS THIS THO”

hhhhh.... the introduction of the avatar system was a blessing and curse.

★★★★★

doublerainebow said:

Please take your time in writing! I realize how hard it is to have the creativity flowing as a writer myself 😭😭 Just being able to talk to you is fine with me anyways!

Thank you, my love!! When I’m stressed my usual creatively is pretty much murdered. I’ve been in a major slump in basically everything in my life recently, but I’m actually tired of that mentality now. I’m gonna work hard to make some minor adjustments until I feel like I’m back on track again.

I love talking to you guys, I do. Thank you so much for your messages xoxox <3

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

I loooove Auriel and Brightwing. I'm a support main, though, so I love all of them. 👽💚

Aaa I love Auriel!! Brightwing is honestly the spirit animal we should all have. We should all be happy with things like rainbows and love and thE BLOOD OF OUR ENEMIES you know?

I play Zagara and Lt. Morales mostly! I can also play a few other supports and a couple of tanks, but I suck ass at assassins like fml.

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Man I was going through your blog and I like all the stuff you write and I'd be totally down for some Fire Emblem stuff because 1. The older games need some love and 2. Tibarn nuff said and I am GLAD you enjoyed GotG2 so good.

Yess there is a serious lack of older FE fics. Some characters are just so amazing. If only there was a remake with the avatar system sO WE CAN ROMANCE THEM QQ.

★★★★★

yoshikuno said:

i love your dmc headcanons!! it give me inspiration for and a fic XDD. sorry for the bad english n_nU 

Your english is fine, darling! And I’m glad you liked the headcanons. I need to write some DmC reboot stuff though, just to even things out with the original crew haha.

Have fun writing the fic, I’m sure it’s amazing! <3

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

The cayde-6 x reader was perfect! Could you write more soon? :D 

Anonymous said:

i loved your Cayde-6 imagine! There's never enough Destiny fiction so I was wondering if you know of any other Destiny writing blogs?

Thanks for the love on the Cayde-6 imagine guys!! I’ve been concerned with how I write him because I haven’t played Destiny much :( I’ll be getting on Destiny 2, it seems, once it’s out on PC :)

I don’t actually know of any Destiny writing blogs, but if anyone reads this and knows of other blogs, send me a message or reply to this post!!

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Is it bad that while reading the beginning of your latest Blackwatch agent fic "Fly", I thought of the Art of Slay series? lol Keep up the cool work, KC! 

YESSS it does start very similarly cause you’re cursing your fellow comrades out for putting you in a compromising position. In ‘Fly’ it’s a lot less sexy, but hey, you beat everyone up with a shoe and I feel like that makes up for it lmao <3

★★★★★

Anonymous said:

Take your time, KC! Life is more important. I hope things start looking up for you. 👽💚

Anonymous said:

We love you, KC! Hope you find peace and relief from the stress! 💖

Anonymous said:

it's totally ok that you don't want to write !! seriously no pressure, dude. we all love you and I hope you get through what you're going through. :)

latinxshepard said:

KC!!! plese try to take care of the issues first!!! we need you to be well and good so you can provide us your magnificent presence!!! take your time and just keep rebloging for a while if thats better to you!!! that everything get better soon!!!

Thanks for the love, guys. It’s been rough as fucking fuck. I can’t go through everything because so much happened over the past like month or so (it feels like longer than that) that I would be writing a novel if I had to explain it. 

The short of it is that everything came down on me at once, personal/family life, social life, work life and some things that happened in the past that won’t stay dead. They struck all at once and I’m pretty much dead inside.

BUT I’m tired of feeling this way, so I’m gonna try and make some minor quality of life changes and just try and get over it. It’ll take time though, as these things do.

Thanks for being so patient with me and for staying with this blog even though I haven’t been able to give you quality content for a long time. You don’t understand how much that means to me, on top of all the amazing messages of support I’ve been receiving. You’re all beautiful people that make life all the more brighter. xoxoxox

★★★★★

queen-lluvia said to luvleekaotix-imagines:

How are you doing?😉

I’m trudging along!!! Did you see the Red Hood Injustice 2 gameplay trailer tho. Ohhhhhh Jason wrecks face and for some reason it’s so attractive. I’m a broken human being aaa

[404botnotfound]

The Line [7]

…and where to draw it

SERIES: Destiny WORD COUNT: 7,265 SHIP: Quinn/Drifter CHARACTERS: quinn leonis (AU), glyph, kel, luke, roland, nyx-14, nikon, leilani, the drifter, darin-8

vii. uncanny

adj. having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; uncomfortably strange

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taking Kel’s advice to heart when she feels so heavy isn’t easy, but she tries anyway. She tries to allow herself back into the welcoming company of her friends and fireteam, to enjoy the festivities and smiles and laughs.

Luke manages to dredge up the ghost of a smile from her a few times and takes a clear sort of victory in it, despite how small and fragile it is, and she feels something warm and fond in her chest when she meets up with Nikon and Leilani down in the City. Even Roland’s grouchy company seems to ease the weight on her shoulders, albeit briefly.

Try as she might, though, she still feels distant, apart, and it frustrates the hell out of her.

Fuck’s sake, Roland, the perpetual misanthropic asshole, seems as though he’s enjoying himself and feels like he’s part of the group rather than a side feature of it. Shocking, considering Nik still regularly threatens to throttle him.

Those threats, ever present since Roland initially joined, have lost most of their edge and menace. Nikon is leaving his grudges and pain behind, clearly. Why can’t she? What’s the trick?

She wants so badly to be able to enjoy herself, to shelve her anger even for just a day, but the knowledge that Cayde should be here but isn’t and won’t ever be again haunts her. Every time Luke cracks a joke, she imagines Cayde throwing something even funnier back and the two of them devolving into cackles at their own terrible senses of humor.

The pressure of her melancholy persists even with three days of trying so hard, and Quinn decides that there just isn’t a damn thing that’s going to lift her spirits until Uldren has been brought to justice. Still, all she can do is stand here and fucking wait, hoping that Petra can accomplish the thing she’s being barred from.

Nothing is truly stopping her. Ikora had all but given her the unofficial go-ahead to join Petra on the hunt…

But as she watches Nyx chase Luke around with a broom, the maintenance frame it belongs to shuffling around after them slowly in distress and trying to retrieve its tool, while Leilani laughs and Nik smiles and Roland tries and fails to hide a huff of laughter behind his hand–she feels unbearably torn.

She thinks of the Drifter, so free from ties to people and places and things to the point that he’d abandoned any semblance of even a name, and she wonders what advice he might give. Is she really willing to give up everything, like he had, just to ensure Cayde’s murder doesn’t go unpunished?

If it had been the other way around, if she had been killed and if Cayde were the one in her place, what would he have done?

The thought makes her chest tighten with more pain and she swallows thickly; he’d already lost his best friend to a Fallen mercenary, and he’d told her bittersweet stories about the kind of hijinks he and Andal would get up to decades before she had ever come into the picture. He’d said more than once that he’d wished she could have met him.

It’s some kind of cruel irony that Cayde had been killed by Fallen separatists and their would-be king.

Eyes are heavy on her, and she looks up from where her own had gone distant. Kel is watching her, the only other one in the group remaining apart from the celebration even though he, true to his word the other day, actually participates when the Vanguard doesn’t call him in.

She’s never felt uncomfortable under Kel’s careful scrutiny, but for the first time, the impassive blankness of his helmet leaves her feeling laid bare and unhappy about it. “What?”

“I heard from Petra,” he says, simply, and she stiffens. “They’re still tracking Uldren and the Barons.”

Her eyes drift over to the rest of the fireteam.

Roland tips back some kind of cider being handed out by Festival hosts and makes a face at it. Nyx has apparently given the broom back to the poor frame just doing its job and is now speaking quietly with Nikon, watching as Luke in his Vandal mask chases around a bunch of kids with Leilani. Both of them are making noises that could barely be construed as Fallen language, and the kids are laughing.

None of the rest of her team seem the slightest bit off balance like she suddenly is.

“Have you told the others?” She asks, though she already knows the answer.

“No. Zavala told me and Ikora to keep it confidential.”

Confidential? She thinks, fury sparking. After what he’s denied to her and her team already, is he trying to keep it from them? To stop them from being emboldened to chase the lead and leave the City behind? It’s a spiteful thought and she knows it–subterfuge just isn’t Zavala’s style–but after the War, he’s been obsessively paranoid, pulling so many ranks of guardians closer to the City, and…

She presses her lips into a thin line and drags a hand through her hair, inhaling deeply.  Justifications, justifications. She’s still looking.

Had Petra sent other messages that he’d also kept from them?

“Why share it with me?” Kel should know better. With everything she’s struggling with, being reminded of what she could be out there doing, Vanguard’s blessing or not, he’s just adding fuel to a fire that she’s trying her best to keep contained.

He turns away from her, gaze settling on the group. “Because you deserve to know. Someone is out there trying to earn justice for Cayde.”

And it should be her. Gritting her teeth, she crosses her arms, her fingers white-knuckled where they dig into her skin. “I’m still thinking about saying damn the City and leaving to help. Ikora told me the other day she wouldn’t stop me from doing it.”

“I know.” His response momentarily douses her frustration, and she blinks at him; he’s still looking away, unmoving. “She asked me whether she should after Zavala told us to keep quiet.”

“And you thought it was a good idea? Do you know how hard I’ve been fighting not to?”

“I did and I do. It’s up to you to decide what happens next.” He’d been silent enough to make her wonder if he was going to reply at all. “Ikora and I both know that no one, not even Zavala, is going to be able to stop you if you choose to follow that path.”

There’s another long silence, and as with Ikora, Quinn knows he’s not done, so she stays quiet. When he does speak up again, he sounds weary. “She wanted to make sure you knew the consequences. I want you to know the choice is there.”

“But you don’t think I should.” She grouses.

“What I think doesn’t matter,” he replies, pausing when Echo flits over to him from where the group’s ghosts had been gathered. She lets out a few urgent chirps and trills before flashing out of sight, and then his focus is on her. “It’s the hardest choice you’ll ever make. Don’t treat it lightly or it’ll consume you.”

Her eyes follow him as he starts to walk away, her frustration near to boiling over again.

“Kel,” she moves after him until he stops, hesitating until she sees his hand twitch with a bare hint of impatience. “Ikora said she knew I was already getting off-world and implied she also knew I wasn’t already on the hunt. Did you know?”

His reply is delayed. “Yes.”

“But Zavala doesn’t?”

“No.”

She doesn’t understand–he knows what she’s struggling with, and she knows him well enough to know that he obviously doesn’t want her to pursue Uldren. “Why haven’t you tried to stop me? Or told Zavala?”

“Like I said. It’s your choice to make.” The simple answer hangs in the air between them, and her brow furrows at the air of rare indecision she can pick up on from him. Eventually, he turns back around and stands in front of her. “Be careful. The Drifter’s not who he wants you to think he is.”

She freezes.

Unperturbed, he steps away and resumes walking away. “Grief muddies waters enough as it is. He’ll make it worse.”

He’s long gone by the time she finds herself able to string words together again, vanished into the City crowds while questions swirl in her head. It’s not altogether shocking that he does know, after all–he’s had an uncanny sense for things that are off ever since he’d returned to the City, and it isn’t like the Drifter’s got himself a perfectly inconspicuous hiding spot.

He could have noticed her coming and going, but she wonders if he’s just got a funny feeling about the guy and is simply worrying about her in his own strange way, or if he knows something she doesn’t.

How does he know the Drifter well enough to be able to make that kind of warning with such clear certainty?

He’s talked about his close brushes with the darkness before, he knows how dangerous it is, just as she does. If he knows about the Drifter, does he know about Gambit? If he knows about Gambit, there’s no way the Vanguard wouldn’t know–it’s a game with too much danger and too much darkness to risk.

“Quinn!” Leilani calls and snaps her out of her thoughtful daze, and she turns around to find her beckoning her over. “We’re all gonna go run through the haunted forest again. You coming?”

Luke, Nyx, and Roland are all walking away behind her, their ghosts breaking off from Ion and Glyph to follow, and Glyph drifts over to join her where she stands. Nikon waits a few paces away, watching.

Quinn winces, knowing that she should keep making the effort to mingle and be happy with her friends, but between how much is on her mind and how burnt out she feels from the last few days of trying, she knows it’ll be a failed venture.

She waves back but shakes her head. “Sorry. I’ve...got something I need to do.”

Glyph’s shell twitches with suspicion. She offers it a thin smile in response.

Leilani’s expression dims slightly but exudes nothing but patient acceptance. “Okay. I’ll see you another time!”

She turns and runs off after the rest of the group, and Quinn’s smile strengthens just the tiniest amount with wonder at how kind of a person she is.

Nikon lingers when Leilani passes by; Ion hovers over his shoulder but bobs impatiently. His expression warms as he looks at Quinn. “It’s good to see you out and around more. We’ve missed you.”

“I’m trying.” She replies, for lack of anything better, and lifts her shoulders in a shrug.

He nods, and then she’s left behind.

When they’ve disappeared into the crowd, she turns around and lifts her eyes to the Vanguard Tower looming over the City in the near distance.

Worrying her lip in thought, she struggles with indecision. Shaxx rarely spends more than a day or two participating in City events–too busy butting heads with the City factions and their frequently ridiculous demands and requests, or monitoring Crucible matches–so he’s likely busy at work.

If the Vanguard knows, then so does Shaxx. Had he lied to her, or is she right in assuming Kel’s just savvy enough to know the Drifter’s playing games?

Asking would be one way to find out, but he’s as hard to read as Kel is since he, too, has an apparent allergy to being seen in public without his infamous one-horned helmet. But if she were to focus on reading his body language and words…

She rules it out. If he does know what the Drifter is up to and he catches an inkling that she’s competing, he’d be the first to shut it down. He’s always taken the safety of competing guardians seriously, and she’s particularly at risk.

“I thought you had something to do?” Glyph speaks up, drawing her back to Earth and making her frown at the realization of just how much time she’s been spending wrapped up in her own thoughts.

And, well, she did have something to do, but she isn’t yet willing to risk Gambit. She’s having far too much fun with it, danger aside, and that’s a feeling that’s rare for her lately. Plus, she’s still curious about the Drifter.

Suspicious, she quickly corrects herself.

She’s suspicious of the Drifter. She’s especially suspicious after Kel’s warning.

Arms dropping to her sides, Quinn turns away from the new Vanguard hub and heads in a different direction, with the old, under construction Tower now in her sight instead. “Honestly, Glyph, I’m just tired of talking to people.”

And tired of thinking. Ever since she’d first made the decision to track down whoever was behind Gambit she’s had a dozen and one things on her mind at any given time–somehow, by seeking a single distraction, she’s gotten herself stuck with several.

After a month of nothing but dwelling and feeling empty, it’s overwhelming. If it weren’t for the fact that going back to having nothing to occupy her thoughts would leave her thinking about Cayde again, she’d miss the lack of busy tangles in her head.

She needs a distraction from her distractions. Something to remove all her tumultuous thoughts and suspicions for just a little while without locking her right back into a room with nothing but grief to keep her company.

There’s a solution to that problem, and it starts with ‘l’ and ends with ‘iquor’. Numb is definitely a far cry from empty.

“Tired of talking to people, or tired of people trying to talk sense into you?” Glyph quips as it follows.

The tone of flat reproach slides off her shoulders like water on feathers, her mind set on nothing but the numb, liquid oblivion that’s waiting for her ahead. “Yes.”

Her ghost lets out a soft, huff-like trill but says nothing more, dematting quietly.

She only has to ask Glyph to point her in the right direction twice as she makes her way to the Tipsy Sparrow; silly as it is, it feels like an accomplishment to not be so out of it as to find herself lost. It’s the small things, she guesses. A month ago, even those two requests for direction would have made her feel uselessly miserable.

It’s late enough by the time she reaches the bar that the majority of festival participants had migrated from the events to the less child-friendly City haunts, and Darin’s joint is particularly bustling. She can see why–the newly renovated building looks better than ever, complete with a brand new neon sign.

“Glyph, did Darin send out a notice that there was some kind of reopening?” She asks, looking warily at the crowd gathered on the patio outside and filtering in and out through the propped open door. Does she have the energy to deal with so many people?

‘A little over a week ago,’ Glyph answers. ‘You were in the middle of a match, and I don’t think you heard me when I told you later on.’

She winces. “Might as well go say ‘hi’ even if I’m late for it, right?”

It doesn’t reply.

Sighing, she steps forward and carefully winds her way towards the door, ducking past a warlock that nearly runs her over in his haste to exit.

It’s crowded outside, but inside there’s scarcely enough room to breathe. Every booth and table is occupied by laughing, happy patrons, and the rest are all hovering around or dancing to music she can barely hear above the din.

She huffs, struggling to see over heads and shoulders–difficult, considering her short stature–whether there are any open bar stools as she moves further into the bar. A worker frame and one of Leilani’s coworkers bustle around behind the counter in the front, but it’s the large Exo standing behind the rear counter that catches her eye.

Her expression brightens considerably. And there’s an empty seat near him, too. Score.

Nudging her way towards it, she slides onto the bar stool only seconds before a middle-aged woman does, earning herself a nasty look that she pointedly ignores.

Darin notices her, his red eyes blinking and jaw light flashing orange when he lifts his chin in greeting. One of his fingers lift in a request to wait, and then he leans towards the woman she had usurped her seat from when she flags him down.

He works quickly with skilled hands in spite of his size, and she finds herself watching his movements. Exos are still fascinating to her, and she’s wondered more than once why whoever had designed them had insisted on giving them the same kind of organic musculature with synthetic materials; frames certainly hadn’t been given the same special treatment.

It still throws her off, despite the fact she’s had years to acclimatize to primarily inorganic beings moving with all the deftness of an organic one. Cayde had certainly demonstrated, more than once, just how deft they could be.

Blinking, she drops her head into her hands. Staring at Darin while thinking about Cayde–way to be weird, Quinn.

Fuck, she needs a drink. She misses him so much.

“Been a while,” Darin says somewhere in front of her, synthesized voice deep and black-armored face invisible behind the hands she doesn’t lift her head from–at least until she hears the sound of a glass being set down.

Straight whiskey on the rocks. It had been her drink of choice a few years back before the Red War, right after Gil’s death. Her expression sours. “I look that bad?” She asks, regardless lifting the glass to her lips and drinking.

“No offense,” his tone is flat, “but you’ve got circles darker than my plating under your eyes. You’ve lost weight, too.”

“None taken.” Between short bouts of a few hours here and there, and her half-a-day ‘naps’ after Gambit wore her out, a consistent sleep schedule is something that’s eluded her since the Prison.

She does glance down at the weight comment and frowns; she’d noticed it after her first match, realizing it was the cause of her inexplicable exhaustion. Considering she’d once gone two months–exerting as much energy as she had in that match–without weakening until well into that period of time, it had been alarming to say the least.

Wake up calls come in all forms, she supposes.

He’s looking at her with shrewd eyes, leaning forward on the bar. His jaw light flashes, once, twice in consideration. “Cayde busy? Usually don’t see you down here without ‘im.”

Her heart lurches. She quickly lifts her glass and tips it back for a much larger gulp than the first, wincing at the immediate burn and staring intently at it when she sets it back down. “Real busy. Probably gonna be just me visiting for a while.”

He hums in response, the sound drawing her eyes back up. His jaw shifts like he’s about to say something, but someone else catches his attention and he steps away to take care of his business.

Taking the open opportunity, she knocks back more of the whiskey and considers asking him to just leave the bottle when he comes back.

Glyph flashes into sight next to her, looking between her and the glass, and its facets droop unhappily. “You know, that’s not a good way to cope, either.”

“I know,” she replies, only caring about the drowning buzz that’s creeping up. The Festival clearly isn’t working–what else does it want from her when the only method of coping she has that works is the rush of a competition it doesn’t like?

“At least slow down?” It whines as she lifts the glass again.

Her motion halts at its request and she stares at it, pursing her lips and closing her eyes. With a heavy sigh, she sets the glass back down and nods. While the idea of getting blackout drunk as fast as possible sounds great, the aftermath doesn’t.

And she’s been worrying her ghost enough lately as it is.

“Fastest I’ve seen you drink.” Darin stops in front of her again after a brief lull, and she looks up at him sheepishly. “Usually ‘bout an hour in here before you’ve drank that much.”

“And Cayde would end up tripping over himself another hour after that.” She replies, trying to sound amused at the memory of how little alcohol tolerance Cayde had and only managing a soft murmur. It’s tempting to take another gulp of her drink, but, aware of Glyph’s eye on her, she forces herself to sip instead.

His eyes flick down to her glass and then back up, and his jaw light pulses. “Y’know how useless it is lyin’ to a bartender?” He mutters.

She balks. “I wasn’t lying.”

“Mhm.” He sounds utterly unconvinced, and Quinn knows it’s useless to hope that the whipcrack-sharp titan hadn’t put the miniscule pieces together and knows exactly what she’s keeping from him. “Guessin’ it’s Vanguard business, whatever it is. You plan on keepin’ it Vanguard business, take it easy on the alcohol. You’re an open book sober, kid.”

A huff leaves her. “You’re probably the only bartender that’s ever advised someone not to drink.”

He chuckles, but thankfully drops the subject, and the two of them dive into ordinary conversation; the state of the City after the War, the myriad factions and their shifting efforts at recruiting, and the bar’s renewal. Everything except Cayde.

He definitely knows. She tries not to mentally kick herself for it.

Whether it’s the result of the alcohol or the way she’s burnt off her restlessness and tangled frustration with Gambit, or even the fact she’s talking to someone not associated closely with her fireteam, it’s the easiest that conversation has come to her in months.

Glyph is sufficiently pacified by her slowed drinking pace and joins in the chatting, clearly happy with her going back on being tired of talking to people even if it’s not happy with where said talking is taking place.

Darin’s attention wanes as the next hour ticks by when one of his employees clocks out for the night and leaves him to pick up the remainder of the business. He replaces her glass with something much lighter once she finishes–ignoring Glyph’s huffed protest with a firm ��she needs it, little light, let it be”–and then she’s left to her own devices as the crowd slowly dwindles.

Glyph drifts around the bar without her when it’s clear that she’s got little intention to leave, move, or otherwise be entertaining, and she spends time she doesn’t bother keeping track of to just sit and let the alcohol works its way through her system.

Numb is good. Numb means even accidentally thinking of her loss won’t hurt.

If she thinks it hard enough, maybe it’ll actually work.

“Hey!” Glyph calls out to her, and she blinks at it, lifting an eyebrow at the energetic spinning of its shell. “Listen! I just got a message. Zavala wants to talk to you.”

Her nose wrinkles. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Oh, come on! Maybe he’s lifting your lockdown and letting you back into the field.” Glyph says, making sure to doggedly remain in her line of sight when she looks away.

She doubts the hell out of that. More likely he had caught onto her excursions and has plans to reprimand her, remind her that her first responsibility as a guardian is to the City and the remnants of civilization, not herself and her selfish wants.

She starts to think that she doesn’t particularly care about the City these days, but guilt and discomfort sucker punches her and she shakes it away.

As she’s about to respond to Glyph, a shout cuts over the low din of the bar.

“You’re a dirty fucking cheat!”

Quinn blinks in bewilderment that’s reflected by her ghost–and then a familiar voice follows the first.

“C’mon, brother, no reason to go blaming your own bad luck on someone else cheatin’.”

She spins around quickly enough that her alcohol intake catches up with her. Wincing, she scrunches her eyes shut until the dizzying static disappears from inside her head, then looks up and focuses on the back corner of the bar.

Sure enough, sitting there in the farthest corner booth is the Drifter. A man stands across the table from him while he grins, completely unbothered by the tense set of the man’s shoulders. A spread of indistinct cards is scattered on the table between them.

The Drifter’s expression, at first glance, seems aloof, but she recognizes the dangerous glint in his eyes; the same kind of honed edge she’d seen when the titan from her first match had challenged him. She wonders if he realizes that he wields a grin the same way a vicious dog wields a snarl.

It’s hard to imagine he doesn’t.

He lounges comfortably, one arm thrown casually over the back of the booth seat. One of his hands extends, palm open flat and fingers bending twice. “Pay up.” He says, slowly.

The two stare each other down as she watches. She counts out three heartbeats before the Drifter’s opponent lets out a noise of frustration and a trio of fist-sized glimmer cubes materialize onto the table.

Her eyes widen. No wonder the guy is pissed–that is a lot of glimmer.

She stands as the man slides out of the booth and storms away from the Drifter, who’s looking entirely too pleased with himself. He hefts one of the cubes in consideration, and then all three cubes flicker back out of existence.

Still no sign of his ever-shy ghost.

She doesn’t even realize she’s started moving through the crowd until Glyph darts out in front of her, and she makes a face at the abrupt and awkward stop she’s forced to make. “Quinn, just ignore him.” It begs.

Heedless, she very intentionally ducks under her ghost and continues forward, sliding into the space the man had vacated before Glyph can protest further.

He’s gathering up his cards when she sits down, and he looks up at the sound of her glass clinking down on the table. A wide grin–this time of the genuinely friendly variety–spreads across his face. She catches herself mirroring the expression.

“Fancy seein’ you here.” He drawls.

“Should be me saying that,” she replies with a lifted brow, “the bartender is a friend of mine, I’m here a lot. I figured your only haunt was that dirty alley you decided to set up shop in for some reason.”

“I got a life, too. You think I wanna be like that one-horned idiot up in the Tower, at the beck n’ call of bureaucrats and zealots, standin’ around like some kinda decorative fixture? Nah, ain’t my style.” He waves dismissively, shuffling the deck of cards in his hands.

“No,” Glyph mutters over her shoulder, “instead you skulk around like a cockroach and pretend to be everyone’s friend.”

Drifter laughs aloud at the accusation. “You got one helluva mouth for somethin’ that ain’t got one, ghost.”

“And you’ve got a lot of nerve setting up somewhere you’re not wanted!” It fires back.

“Glyph.” She stares at it with wide eyes. 

She hasn’t heard it so incensed since her fireteam had been called out to Mercury to help Sagira clean up the mess her guardian had created in the Infinite Forest–she distinctly recalls the two getting into a heated verbal spar about keeping her guardian from screwing around with something as dangerous as Vex simulations.

Which is, more or less, exactly what it’s been trying to do, wanting her to avoid the Drifter and give up Gambit. She already willingly acknowledged that associating with both is probably dangerous before Kel had implied as much earlier.

And yet, here she is.

Her eyes shift to the Drifter, but he just looks amused at its anger. “You set the rules in the Tower now, little buddy? I must’ve missed the memo.”

Glyph starts to argue, facets flitting around in agitation. It seems to reconsider, and simply says: “I’m not your buddy.”

“‘Course not.” Drifter snorts, tapping his deck on the table twice and then pointing at her with it. “How ‘bout you? You bothered by ol’ Drifter’s presence?”

She glances at Glyph again. It’s looking back at her hopefully, and she averts her gaze. “Haven’t decided yet.”

“See, I like that. Too many of you City types are too quick to jump to conclusions.”

“Are you telling me I should trust you?” She asks, genuinely curious.

“Hell, I wouldn’t trust me. That’s the nature of trust though, isn’t it? I’ve met plenty of people could make you believe they’re the most trustworthy person in the space between here ‘n heliopause–still shoot you in the back first chance they get for a few scraps.” He sets the deck down and leans back, his arms crossing.

His lips curl, then, and he looks at Glyph. “Met a few of you ghosts like that, too.”

Glyph recoils in offense, shell popping out in anger. “None of us are like that!”

“You met every one of your kind in existence?”

“I–” it bobs once, suddenly uncertain thanks to his certainty. “No. But the Traveler made us to help humanity. It’s not in us to be selfish.”

“Your big, dead god tell you that?” He asks, waiting with lifted eyebrows and a knowing look for it to answer.

When it fails to, he leans forward and cocks his head to the side, smile challenging. “Listen, I’m not gonna argue dogma with you, ghost–all I’m sayin’ is that big ball in the sky ain’t lookin’ out for any of us. Dark Age proved that thousands of years ago.”

Glyph stares back at him, drooping slightly but clearly struggling to hold onto frustration and distaste for the man. After a lengthy pause, it finally backs down and silently demats into her light. ‘Can we go?’ It asks her.

Quinn sips at her drink and says nothing; she’s more curious than ever, now, and she knows it’s unhappily aware.

Had the Drifter been alive during the Dark Age? His conviction with that last statement suggests as much, and from what she knows of that period of time, it would certainly explain his disregard for the loss of guardian life.

“Why are you here if it’s not to help protect the City?” She reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear and leans forward as well, watching him carefully.

“I got my reasons,” he answers flatly, something flashing across his expression fast enough that she fails to catch it. “Can’t just say some things, darlin’.”

‘Because that screams trustworthy.’ Glyph grouses in the back of her head.

Her gaze goes distant with frustration at its sullen attitude. This is probably–definitely–the longest conversation she’s had with the Drifter, and it’s certainly making its displeasure with the fact apparent.

Drifter laughs at her expression. “Your little friend doesn’t like me too much, does it?”

“I’d say I’m sorry on its behalf, but I’m still not sure it’s entirely unjustified.”

“Ah, it ain’t the first and it won’t be the last.”

“That doesn’t bother you?” She frowns.

His answering smile is toothy. “I’ve been on the bad side of scarier things than it and most everything this system’s got to offer, so no. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

Her skin prickles with gooseflesh at the implication, and she stares at him–but the cold fist of panic closing around her heart and lungs from the reminder doesn’t come, and the flashes of nightmarish images behind her eyes are indistinct and easy to brush aside.

It’s getting better.

From their first interaction up until this one, it gets easier to believe that he’s been alive for over a thousand years, maybe more. He has a scary grasp of reading people that puts her own talent for it to shame.

It’s the kind of skill that comes from years and years and many more years of practice.

Kel is nearly two thousand years old by his own admission, and he’s just as good at it.

Her eyes settle on the deck of cards sitting between them. She’ll treat his question like a rhetorical one even if it isn’t meant to be. “What game were you playing with that other guardian?”

The easygoing demeanor he melts into drags a small smile out of her again. Watching as he splits the deck and deals out two hands while explaining the rules, she ignores Glyph’s grumpy comment about his friendly attitude being snakelike.

Between Kel’s warning and her own uncertainty she isn’t blindly trusting the man, but Cayde was the last person that could so easily make her smile when she’s down–and she’s tired of wallowing. She had come here to drown out her problems, but she likes to think she’s smart enough to find an alternative to something so self-destructive when it presents itself to her.

Once she finds a substitute for Gambit, it’ll go the same road. She can let the Drifter believe she trusts him as long as he keeps her distracted until she manages to sort her shit out.

The cards he deals to her are different from anything she’s ever seen; taller than a regular deck and decorated with circular and semicircular symbols (which she frowns at, because somehow they seem familiar and she can’t place why) in a number of different patterns and colors.

Maybe it’s a game older guardians used to play. It’s a far cry from poker, only alike in the sense that she struggles to grasp how to play and is miserably awful at it. 

The Drifter shares none of her difficulties, playing like an expert or what she imagines an expert would be given her lack of familiarity.

She made the observation upon meeting him that he likely wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep playing her under the table, and that thought had only been strengthened during his explanation of Gambit–you want someone to hold your hand? ‘Cause I ain’t gonna–but she’s surprised to find that he’s patient with her questions and mistakes.

What’s the difference between Gambit and this? He doesn’t strike her as the type to change his stance on learning something new, so there has to be some kind of significance.

Figuring it out isn’t helped by how mildly tipsy she is, but then it’s not so much the game itself that she cares about. It’s great for a diversion, sure–but so is he, cracking jokes that make her laugh louder than she has in months and occasionally dropping comments or stories that pique her interest in him even higher.

She’d say he’s tight-lipped, but the truth is that he speaks freely about a few things, and with everything else just manages to wind the conversation back around to her and subjects other than himself. Again, not helped by the alcohol, but, still.

Every time she tries to tip the wordplay back in her favor, he smiles knowingly at her, drops a card onto the table to win the hand, and diverts around it.

It distracts her every single time.

She doesn’t realize the bar has almost completely emptied as their game continues. When Darin passes by the table and mentions that he’ll be closing up soon, she blinks and looks around, wondering how time had passed so quickly.

It’s a thought apparently shared by the Drifter. He smiles at her as he gathers up his cards. “Time spent with friends sure flies by, don’t it, sister?”

“Is that what we are?” She scoffs, crossing her arms on the table and dropping her chin down onto them. Her eyes follow the motions of his hands as he shuffles the deck, and when the deck is dematted by his ghost, she pouts. “I’m not sure someone would rob their ‘friend’ blind at cards.”

“Way I heard it,” he replies smoothly, leaning back, “Cayde won your games at every turn. Wasn’t he more than just a ‘friend’?”

She recoils sharply. Most of her and Cayde’s card games had taken place in private after he’d either shirked his duties or finished with them–and they’d also bet on things other than money, but that’s besides the point.

There’s only one conclusion she can come to. “How did you know Cayde?”

He waves a hand vaguely at her wary tone, still smiling, though it looks just the slightest bit dimmer. “Long story. Your man knew a lotta people. Some would surprise you.”

A stone settles in her throat. Not her man anymore. Uldren and the Barons had seen to that.

She fixes her eyes on the surface of the table, nail chipping idly at a crack in the polish. Unsure of why she’s suddenly unwilling to meet his eyes and unable to decide whether she’s more upset or angry at the current subject, it takes her a moment to find her words. “Yeah. He was good at making friends in strange places.”

“I’d say it’s what did him in.”

Her decision on how to feel shifts like a switch had been flipped, a flicker of rage passing over her expression as she fixes the Drifter with a dark look.

His hands lift in a placating gesture, the smile dropping from his face. “Sore spot. Didn’t realize. He was a good guy and I ain’t happy he’s gone, either.”

“You sure don’t sound like it.” She snaps.

“You live as long as I have,” he says after a beat, any previous trace of humor in his voice gone entirely, “you end up with a long list of names you aren’t ever gonna see again.”

Like that’s supposed to make her feel any better.

Expression twisting somewhere between pain and anger, she runs a hand through her hair, trying not to let herself picture a list of her own. Earlier she had wondered whether leaving that list behind for justice would be worth it–now she’s wondering if it would be better than waiting long enough to see them get crossed off instead.

Picked off, one by one, by the enemies of humanity.

Just like Gil.

Just like Cayde.

“Listen, darlin’,” Drifter says, and she looks up when he shifts in her periphery. He’s leaning towards her again, one arm on the table in front of him. “Don’t let his death weigh on you. Somewhere out there, someone’s got a bullet with your name on it.”

She stiffens, an icy chill settling over her skin and disconcerting deja vu swirling in her veins. The dream she’d woken up from the other day rockets back into the forefront of her mind in stark clarity, reminding her of why she had wanted to speak to him in the first place.

The Drifter in her dream had said those exact words to her.

What the fuck.

He continues, either unaware of her confused unease or assuming it has to do with the conversation. “Same for him. Same for me. Not a thing we can do about it. He knew the best way to deal with it was to go out on your terms with a gun in your hand, somethin’ I’m sure he kept to right up ‘till the end.”

She stares at him, swallowing thickly and struggling to put a finger on what she’s feeling. Struggling to figure out how to respond. Part of her wants to be pissed that he’s daring to assume what Cayde may have been thinking in his last moments, but she knew Cayde, and his words ring true enough to keep her quiet.

You tell Ikora and Zavala...tell ‘em the Dare was the best bet I ever lost. And sunshine? This–it wasn’t...it wasn’t your fault.

Cayde’s voice had distorted and cracked to the point of incomprehensibility after that, but machine or not, she’d been able to see the I love you in his eyes. Then they’d gone dark, and he’d gone still, and it felt like she’d been the one shot instead.

His last words, what she’d seen from Sundance’s last operational recording–the Drifter is right. She’s not sure how to feel about that.

It wasn’t your fault.

Tears well up in her eyes and she blinks them away by sheer force of will alone. “You sound like you knew him well.”

“We ran together for a while. I respected him. Better man than this world or these people deserved,” he admits, and she wonders at it. He doesn’t seem to hold many people in such high regard, and it’s a bittersweet thought that Cayde had been one of the few to earn it.

The Drifter’s not who he wants you to think he is.

How much of this whole conversation is just an act? Is any of it an act?

Everything she wants to say refuses to come to mind, and she sits there in silence, wondering how a decent end to the night had twisted so quickly.

He slides out of the booth and steps closer until he’s standing next to her. He’s as quiet as she is, seemingly looking for the right words, too. “The Derelict’s always open to you if you need to vent.”

He’s walking away before she can say anything to that, but something occurs to her and she calls out, “Hey! How much do I owe you for those games?”

The question stops him, and when he turns back his usual overly-charming grin is back in place. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. Just keep showin’ up for matches and I’ll consider us solid.”

She blinks at the easy answer and watches him leave.

It’s only her and another patron slouched over the bar, now, and Darin is trying to rouse the latter to get him out. Huffing out a laugh, she thinks: give it another sixty seconds and he’s just gonna haul the poor bastard out like a sack of potatoes.

She looks back at the table and rolls the conversation she’d just had in her head. Had the Drifter meant that she’s welcome to participate in Gambit at any time, or that he’s fully willing to lend her an ear when she needs one?

Save for her fireteam, Petra, and the Vanguard as well as its inner circle, he is the only one aware of Cayde’s death. One of the few people she can freely talk about it with.

He has such a vastly different perspective on it than anyone else.

Her fireteam? They can’t do anything without Vanguard approval, so they may as well move on. Kel? He’s dead and nothing will bring him back, so seeking justice is worthless. The Vanguard? Justice isn’t worth risking another war, even though any retaliation by the Reefborn after Oryx shredded their fleet and killed their Queen would be laughable.

The Drifter? Yeah, he’s gone, but he knew it was coming and he went out on his own terms. No trying to convince her to let it go, just a push for her to find some comfort in knowing that an end is coming for everyone in one form or another.

Fatalistic or not, it’s his perspective that, somehow, does give her some measure of comfort.

It doesn’t make it hurt less, it doesn’t make her want to give up on seeking justice for him, and she’s not sure if she can ever admit it to Glyph, but it’s something.

[thedistantstorm]

Wild Things

The Last City | Steelponcho: Pre-relationship Zavala x Hawthorne | Louis is a good boy and deserves all the pets | Zavala is not allowed to leave his window closed

Inspired by what @littleshebear wrote here. Hawthorne’s emotional support falcon has some feelings. And he’d like everyone to get with the program.

-/

Amanda looks over at the bird. She and Cayde have been playing cards outside the Hunter Lounge this afternoon, seen Hawthorne, and flagged her down. The bird had turned up not too long after. 

“He’s been cheeky all day,” The Frontierswoman says, letting him perch on her wrist. He weighs hardly anything, half a kilo if he’s engorged himself on food, so she bends her arm inward, to regard him face to face. He turns away.

Looks at Cayde, who is reaching one hand towards him. Whatever look the Hunter Vanguard receives, it’s clearly frightening enough for him to twitch his hand back. “Okay, fine,” Cayde huffs. “Be that way.”

The peregrine lets out a mouthy cheep. A moment later, he flaps his wings incessantly and takes off. His handler shakes her head. “Birds,” She huffs, with a puff of hot air. “You’d think he’d been dumped or something, I haven’t seen him this moody in ages.”

“Want me to deal you in?” Amanda handles the deck of cards like a pro, much to the glee of Cayde, who loves anything flashy.

Suraya shrugs, looking between the two. “Does he cheat?”

The Shipwright looks to Cayde, who is making his most angelic of faces, save the eyebrow-plate waggle. “Not if he wants his sparrow to run.”

-/

Three hands later, Louis returns, looking just as dissatisfied.

“Wow,” Amanda says, when he picks at his wing and broods on his mother’s arm, “That must be some lady friend if he’s acting so dejected.”

Louis makes a pitiful sound in reply. Amanda reaches her hand out tentatively - Hawthorne has shown her how to do this, a handful of times - and carefully pets the bird. Cayde watches on, jealousy in his features. The last time he’d tried, Louis took his finger. And he wasn’t particularly inclined to give it back.

“It’s okay bud,” Cayde chimes in, in lieu of possibly being mauled, “Happens to me all the time. You’ll bounce back quick.”

“That’s uh,” Hawthorne and Amanda share an amused glance, “Not something you should be bragging about.”

“I’m trying to be supportive!”

“Don’t you listen to a word he says,” Amanda coos. Louis chitters, and his audience eats it right up. “You got way more mojo than him.”

“HEY!”

-/

It's a few hours later when Hawthorne trudges into Zavala's office for a meeting. They still have a great deal of people to rehome and supplies to allocate. Funds, the actual supplies necessary, all of it takes careful planning. Frivolity with their resources would be certain doom for many, but they cannot be stingy either.

They're sitting in relative silence. The faintest scratching of Hawthorne's pen against paper as she writes notes in the margin of her copies of their drafts has become a comforting familiarity. It's fine, until that sound is interrupted by the scratching rattle of his windowpane. It disturbs her from her thoughts.

He looks apologetic enough. "I have to get someone to look at that. I'm not sure what is going on."

She blinks up at him, eyes narrowed when it happens again. "How long has it been happening?"

"It started this morning. It will stop in a few moments. I believe it's the wind."

"Uh huh," She hums eloquently, not convinced. 

When she rises, he's right behind her. "I have already called a maintenance worker. Someone will rectify it. You do not have to-"

The sound of the window opening interrupts him. There is an indignant, furious cry, a tumble, strange flapping, and suddenly, Louis is in front of him, squawking.

"He's been acting like a brat all day," Hawthorne informs him with something rueful, a tiny smirk on her face, returning to her seat. "I thought he got shut down by a ladybird or something. Happened before. He's got a thing for ravens."

Louis swivels his head and chirps at her for that, annoyed. Then, he continues to flap about in front of the Commander, angry caws that subside into sad little cheeps.

"Why is he…" Zavala looks at her, but she drops her chin onto her arms, which are crossed in front of her, over her paperwork. Her dark eyes watch the bird of prey with something like surprise and awe.

"Louis," She begins, softer. It draws both of their attentions. "He didn't leave the window closed to keep you out."

The Peregrine turns all the way around to address her. He caws at her.

"Is that why he's-"

She sighs. He leans forward and nips the end of her nose, but it's clearly an affectionate gesture. "You think too much about things, birdbrain. He likes us just fine."

"He doesn't actually understand that, does he?"

Both bird and handler turn to regard him then, with sharp, sharp eyes.

"My apologies," he gruffs, immediately holding up both hands in surrender. "I've never-"

Louis scoots over to him in a little hop, more like a chickadee than a bird of prey. He butts the Commander's hand with the top of his head and makes a forlorn sound.

He looks to Hawthorne, still resting her head on her wrists, slouched on the table. She's watching them carefully, but she isn't concerned. He, on the other hand has no idea what he's doing.

"Your," He swallows as those black eyes look up at him, immediately honed in on the sound of his voice, the smart raptor knowing it's him Zavala's addressing. Louis's head tilts, as if to consider. "Mother-" Hawthorne dips her head. Okay. Not the wrong turn of phrase. Good. "Your mother was right. I was not trying to keep you out, that was not my intention."

He flaps his wings again, all brown and white, neither spotted nor striped on his underbelly and yet somehow both. His cry is insistent.

"He-"

"Of course," Zavala relents, looking down at the bird as if he'd spoken in common. "As long as I do not have a meeting, I will leave my window open." His eyes are still gentle, but they take a harder turn, his voice just the slightest bit more stern. "But, in return, you will not peck on my window if it is closed. Do we have a deal?"

There's a small chitter, like a hum, as the falcon seems to consider the Commander's offer. Hawthorne can't help it. She giggles.

"Go on," She tells her charge, when he looks back at her like she's interrupting something important. "That's a good offer. I'd take it."

She does not realize that Zavala is watching her, the way her eyes brighten yet stay so dark, the little crinkle of her forehead, between her eyebrows, the way her smile lessens the severity of her face. Louis draws his attention once more, leaning forward, beak parted slightly.

"Give him your knuckle." Hawthorne curls her index finger inward to show him what to do. He's telling you it's a deal."

Sure enough, he mimics the gesture and the bird nips him so gently it's barely a squeeze. He doesn't move away though.

"What does-"

"We should get back to work," The Clan Steward tells him, as if it's not her fault - her bird! - that derailed things in the first place. 

Louis protests.

Hawthorne reaches for him and he caws. "Okay fine. I won't rub your belly, you brat."

He turns to Zavala, cheeping again, soft-like.

"Oh," She realizes, tone changing to something betrayed. "You little traitor! You want him to-" She looks at Zavala now, her eyes narrowing. "You been bonding with my bird, Commander?"

He pauses, not sure if he's guilty or not. Then, "He did come to the barn often, when I was working on battle plans, for the war effort. I believe," Lewis is looking at him again with those deep, dark eyes, "I believe he liked the peace and quiet."

"Uh… huh." Suspicion flares anyway. "He seems pret-ty comfortable with you."

Before he can think better of it, he retorts, "Well, perhaps he's mirroring you."

Her poncho-covered head rockets up, no longer resting on her arms. "I'm sorry, what?"

"It's just," He unknowingly digs himself into a deeper hole, "You seem rather comfortable."

Her face goes blank, and the way she holds herself indicates he's just drawn attention to something he absolutely should not have, not under any circumstances. "Do I?' She counters, her gaze cool.

Louis interjects with a firm chirp, crossing the table again to his mother. Chirps twice more.

There's a staring match happening over his head. Unacceptable. He screeches, LOUDLY, and both of them cover their ears.

"Louis."

Louis stops immediately, looking toward the source of the authoritative command, right at the same time as Hawthorne blurts, "Okay, fine! I'll admit it, he's not that bad."

Well. Louis looks between the two of them, each as hopeless as the other. He chitters at Zavala, a kind, understanding warning, and nips at the fringe of Hawthorne's sleeve, underside of his beak and the downy feathers of his belly against her hand before taking flight.

They stare at each other some more.

"So," Zavala hedges. "This paperwork-"

"Yes," Hawthorne agrees, taking up her pen. "Right."

They work in silence, unwilling to discuss what's just happened.

Moments - days, hours, minutes, all of it deafening - pass.

"You'll owe him belly pets. He doesn't forget." Hawthorne doesn't look up from her work, so he too forces his head back down. The words on the report in front of him could be encrypted, for how hard he's focusing on listening. "Start at his breast, not too close to the underside of his beak, and stroke down. Two knuckles, kind of like what you did before."

"I can do that," He confirms, softly.

"Stroke only in the direction of the feathers. He's can tell when you’re paying attention to him. If you lose focus while you're petting him and stop, he'll nip. And he'll only warn you once before he draws blood, trust me."

"Why are you-"

"Louis likes you," She says slowly, still keeping her eyes on her current page. He can't see what expression she's wearing, but a sneaked glance tells him she's not seeing what she's reading, either. "And if you're going to be friends, you ought to know what he likes."

There are several things he could say, but what comes out instead is a humble "Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

-/

Three days later, Amanda nudges her from where they stand, backs to the traveler, looking out over the mountains. "He looks like he's back to normal."

"Yeah," Hawthorne agrees.

"So," Amanda elbows her, smirking slyly, "What happened with his lady friend?"

Louis swoops around in an elegant circle, away and back, an agile speck in the clear blue sky.

"What lady friend?"

Amanda kicks at the railing a bit. "You reckoned he got shut down. Isn't that what-"

She stops. Hawthorne isn't paying attention to her. Louis has changed trajectory, soaring over the Tower now, but low enough to avoid any errant jet turbines. She turns to follow him with her gaze. He cries out, loud, free, and swoops low, dive-bombing Cayde. 

The Hunter swivels around, no doubt looking for Hawthorne to yell at - likely to mention that Colonel is far better behaved. (That's a farce, Colonel is as much of an escape artist as Cayde tries to be. The Shipwright has plucked her out of many a cockpit in the last few months.) Therefore, Hawthorne and Amanda ignore him.

In the meantime, Louis lands on the railing that looks out over the Traveler, directly beside Zavala. He looks up at the stoic sentinel and trills a single note. Behind his back, Zavala's right hand pulls the glove off his left, hardly noticeable from his usual stance.

But then his hand comes up, impossibly strong, impossible gentle, knuckles grazing the peregrine's belly. Louis shudders and settles, letting out a satisfied, docile coo.

"He's really got a way with wild things," Amanda comments, not realizing the gravity of it. 

"Guess so," Hawthorne answers breezily, trying to ignore the way stomach flips.

He really, really does.

[thedistantstorm]

Lightweight (part 1 of  2)

Zavala x Hawthorne (Steelponcho)

Here have some Drunkvala (it is the weekend, after all).

Mildly nsfw, nothing actually graphic, but there’s a couple f-bombs and some handsy Zavala.

As with all drunken escapades, there will be an aftermath part in a few days. Because why not.

“I’m taking you home, Commander Drunkypants.”

“Wait. He’s drunk. Why is he drunk?”

The bar was rowdy and smelled of cheap beer and sweat. Suraya was really looking forward to going home to her little flat and getting a decent night of sleep, not answering seventy messages (collectively) from Cayde and Shaxx with an in-person visit.

“This moron started recalling the good ol’ days,” Shaxx motioned to Cayde who had the wherewithal to look scandalized as he sipped at his drink. “The next thing I know, Zavala’s putting away pints like he’s a different man and chatting up the Kinderguardians. He knows he doesn’t handle his alcohol well. I don’t pretend to understand why he did this.”

“Yeah,” Cayde said with a shrug. “And I didn’t even say anything bad. I jus’ heckled him for being old. I always do that, and I’m probably older than he is.” He held his hands out in a ‘plausible deniability’ stance.

The civilian huntress allowed her eyes to roll. “Okay. So why am I the one collecting him? You two seem to have a handle on the situation.”

“We are not babysitters, dear Suraya,” Shaxx bellows.

Her nostrils flare, and Cayde moves away instinctively. “Do I look like a babysitter? I’ve been running strikes since before dawn. The only thing I look like right now is tired.”

Both men shake their heads, clearly valuing their lives - even though they’re kind of expendable. “It-it’s not that you look like a babysitter,” Cayde says. “But you’re kind of our best chance to get him out of here before he gets too annihilated.”

“Oh?”

“There are several stages to the Zavala drunkenness spectrum,” Shaxx imparts to her, lowering his volume to the average human’s yell (it’s quiet for him). “First, he complains about drinking. Second, he drinks quickly and says he doesn’t actually hate drinking. Third, he becomes talkative. Fourth, handsy. Fifth, ho-”

“Okay, okay. Let’s pretend I buy this. What stage are we on?”

“We’re moving into handsy. He’s clapped at least seven new Titans on the back in the last twenty minutes,” Cayde supplies cheerfully. “We need him out of here before he becomes a puddle of needy goo, because stage six is the clingy-slash-depressed stage, and it only gets worse from there.”

“So dump it on Hawthorne, eh?”

“In the talkative phase,” Cayde says, grin on his face, “He might have mentioned how he really enjoyed working with you. A lot. And on repeat.”

“So?”

Shaxx wraps an arm around her. He smells like ale. “So, that means either he’s fucking you, or he would very much like to.”

“How much have you two been drinking?” She wears her defensiveness like armor and it shows.

“Not enough to miss that blush,” Cayde snaps back with a smirk. He pushes her away from them and in the direction of the Titan on the other side of the bar chatting with his subordinates. “Go get the good Commander, and take him home. Pretty sure he’ll let you have your way with him.”

She shakes her head. “When he’s sober, I’m going to tell him you suggested I take advantage of him.”

“Like that'll surprise him. Just get him out of here before we’re stuck listening to him mope. It’s literally always about work and we’re here to get shitfaced.”

“You two owe me,” She says as Shaxx bellows something in the affirmative to Cayde’s shitfaced comment. The two clink glasses and chug. The bartender shakes his head and mutters something about how it ‘always starts like this and the next thing you know there’s Golden Guns and Fists of Havoc everywhere.’

Hawthorne crosses the bar easily, it’s busy but not quite standing room only. The majority of the Titans are packed into one corner, all of them still in armor - of course - and she easily spots his sparking white, red, and silver, gear even in the dim light.

“Evening, Guardians,” She calls cheerfully, leaning between Zavala and the female Titan beside him to take the half-empty mug from in front of him. “Having fun?” He looks up at her, and she can see the how small his pupils are. He smells like booze as well, but it’s not nearly as overwhelming as it is on Shaxx. She knows Zavala’s a lightweight; he’s told her himself.

The table roars mightily as she manages to drink down the remainder of his drink in one go. Half of them are playing cards, the other half are engaging the Commander in riveting tales of Titan prowess. He seems to be enjoying himself.

“I need to borrow you for a minute,” She says to him, when the group is laughing at a new Guardian’s clumsiness. He places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes.

“We’re in the middle of something,” He says, and it’s supposed to be a whisper but it comes out loudly. “This is a good story.”

She sighs. Waits a few more minutes, tries again. Similar result. Now he’s yelling amidst the stories about how in his hayday, he’d done things four times as impressive. It was becoming the standard Titan pissing contest. Enough was enough.

Finally, she sighs, and leans down to whisper in his ear. “Commander, you are going to get up and leave with me now. That’s an order.” She makes sure she speaks quietly enough for only him to hear. The result is that her lips and teeth are ghosting over the shell of his ear. She is absolutely not trying to rile him up, but the effect is immediate. He immediately excuses himself, standing quickly and with the slightest of staggers. It takes him a second to make his goodbyes.

She realizes, with only mild irritation that she's going to have to lead him on if she's going to get him out of here - and more importantly make it to bed - sometime tonight. She’s halfway across the bar, and when she turns to make sure he’s following, she gives him the come hither motion to make him pick up the pace.

The peanut gallery immediately starts catcalling, and Suraya flips both of them the the middle finger when Shaxx yells, “YESSSS, Guardian. Get it!” The call even comes with a fistpump.

She literally cannot go out to bars in this city because she'd get arrested for murder. But really, they’re so lucky he’s drunk, because she's pretty sure sober-Zavala would literally rip Shaxx’s entrails out through his nostrils if the Crucible handler said this to sober-him in public. Drunk-Zavala has tunnel vision though, so they're safe. For now.

She is going to be so loud tomorrow morning. Those two deserve to suffer.

They’re barely out into the street and he’s nudging her into an alley, pressing himself against her with no self control. “Okay, okay, I got it. You’re into me,” She says, when he’s kneading her ass with his palms, and mouthing at her chest through her shirt. She won’t deny that it’s attractive (like, really, really fucking hot, her brain corrects), but he’s so bombed. She’s got to get him back home pronto. She has not been drinking - that half pint was for show and she's not a lightweight unlike some Titan she knows - so sex in an alley isn't really on her to do list tonight.

“My place is closer,” She offers, not that he’s ever spent the night there before. The only nights they've spent together have been on work projects. No sleeping or cuddling. Hell, she's kissed him like three times? She hopes it’s as clean as she remembers. Actually, she doesn't care. This is all ridiculously inconvenient. He'll have to make due.

He's all but bucking against her, and she can admit that it makes her feel so powerful and desired that her exhausted post-work look can make him come undone. But really, the voice of reason says, she'd prefer this sober. She's also relatively certain that if any part of his brain chooses to recall this, he's going to be mortified.

“Zavala.”

He draws back at once, in a brief moment of clarity. She smiles crookedly up at him, slipping out from where she's been pinned to the wall. “C'mon, let's get out of here.” Her fingers curl around his wrist and she pulls him back into the road.

“Suraya-” It’s practically a whine. Traveler help her, maybe she could have sex in this alley. No. Stay on track, Suraya, she coaches herself. No sex in the alley. No sex at all, no matter how much either of them want it. He’s DRUNK. Not tipsy. Plastered. Shitfaced. Annihilated. She has to turn away from him to compose herself. She cannot even.

“I'm taking you home, Commander Drunkypants.”

He scoffs. “Drunkypants?” His eyes narrow, and she has to hold back her laugh or he’ll likely become belligerent. “I’m insulted.”

“No, you’re drunk.” She continues pulling him along. He’s protesting and she’s absolutely not strong enough to pull his dead weight across the city, especially with full armor on. “Can we please keep moving? I’ll promise not to call you drunkypants if you keep moving.”

“You c’n do better than that,” He says, just the slightest of slurs in his voice. She curses under her breath. Her flat isn’t far, maybe another fifteen minutes away. She’s got to get him there before he completely falls apart. Getting him to his own apartment would be career suicide for them both.

“I can, but you’re not giving me much to work with,” She taunts, even though he has absolutely tipped his entire hand. She’s got to motivate this man to get a move on and pronto. She puts her hands on her hips and juts them to the right. His eyes immediately follow. That horny bastard, she thinks. Maybe she can use this to her advantage. “Will a kiss motivate you, Guardian?” She does her best to purr it all sultry-like, but she’s not claiming to be a siren.

Not that it matters, because he’s practically keening and she’s pretty sure there’s no blood left in that bald head of his because it’s all run south. Traveler, is he easy. Alright, she tells herself, you’re doing great. Just kiss him and keep promising him more and hope he doesn’t puke on you when this all catches up with him.

Because it’s going to catch up with him. He’s stumbling, even with her grip on his wrist.

She crosses the distance between them and gives him a very riveting display of affection. Tongue, teeth, the whole shebang. He moans appreciatively and tries to circle his arms around her, but she grabs his other wrist and manages to hold him off. She pulls away from him and smirks.

“If you want more from where that came from, you’ll probably want to get me home.” She mentally crosses her fingers, since hers are preventing him from hauling her over his shoulder and giving in to both of their desire.

Seeing a man intoxicated should not make her feel so horny, but she really doesn’t have it in her to feel ashamed. She is going out of her way for him right now, she’s tired, and she’s really wanted him for months now. And it isn’t like she’s going to act on it - not now - but she absolutely plans to the second they’re both alone and sober. If this isn’t confirmation, nothing will be.

He takes the bait, almost dragging her forward. One track minded, she thinks, those Titan flaws are a doozy. “You might want to slow down,” She says softly, when he keeps marching towards the Tower. “There’s a quicker way to my flat if we go left here.”

She sees the change when he quickly redirects himself. She thinks for a second that he’s going down, but he corrects at the last second, instinct kicking in. Thank the Traveler. No more hand-holdy crap. She slows, ducking under his right arm, so that she can keep him walking straight and upright. He leans against her, hard.

“You’re heavy,” She says, looking over at him. “If you stop moving I’m gonna leave you in the street.”

“You wouldn’t.” His blue eyes are wide, and for someone so much older than her, he looks so devastatingly young in this moment.

“Try me.”

“I’m moving,” He says, though it’s a bit garbled. “H’w much long’r til your home?”

“Soon,” She says, and leads them to a staircase with beautiful Morrocan scrolling going up and around the archway, her arm slung tightly across his waist, slipping between plates of armor. “We’re almost there.”

It’s not the stairs that do him in, it’s the elevator that does. She’s important, and this particular building is built into the side of the Tower’s Bazaar, so naturally she’s closer to the top. The two minute ride forces him to stay still, and she can see him swaying. His eyes are closed.

She feels simultaneously like he deserves this and also like he’s precious and innocent and needs to be sheltered from the world. She hates that she’s so soft sometimes.The elevator dings and he doesn’t move. She stands blocking the door so that it doesn’t trap him in there. “You with me, soldier?”

He blinks open an eye and stumbles forward. She manages to catch him well enough, but he groans and mumbles something she can’t understand and she knows it’s all over. “Just a little further, okay?” She coaches him quietly, running a hand over his scalp. “You’re doing great.”

He leans into the touch, and she manages to haul him from the lift before it makes offensive noises because they’ve taken too long to get out. They’ve just got to make it to her door and it will all be-

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Fuck.

By some great miracle, she manages to get him both insider her flat and it’s bathroom before he starts revisiting the amount of ale he’s consumed this evening. She leaves him to it and returns to her front door - she’d left it open in her haste to get him into the apartment before the neighbers are exposed to the the solar system’s biggest lightweight.

She winces when he hiccups and heaves again, after several moments of shallow, heavy breathing. She gets him a glass of water and definitely some painkillers - she’s guessing here, but there’s definitely no chance his ghost is going to heal him for being a drunken idiot. She’s only met her a handful of times, but she is a serious, motherly partner who definitely takes no pity on fools.

Suraya goes into a closet and pulls out the softest flannel she can find, wetting it with lukewarm water in her kitchen before braving the trip to her bathroom. He’s braced over the toilet and it’s a tight fit, considering he never made it out of his armor,  but he’s making due. She puts a hand on his back, pushing hard enough that he can feel it through the metal plating.

“How ya holding up?”

He groans.

She knees beside him and presses the cool, damp cloth against his forehead. “This was definitely not one of your smarter ideas.” He leans into her, and she braces herself to accept the whole of his weight because it comes. There’s no sound but harsh breathing for a few moments, before he begins to vomit again, and she stays put, rubbing his back as he dregs up what’s left. By the time he’s finished, he’s dry heaving, and she’s pretty certain there’s nothing left to throw up. He’s mumbling as he does, and she has to tip her ear closer to him to hear the litany of apologies to her and self-deprecating comments.

“I’m sorry,” He manages to say, a bit more coherently, but she shushes him with gentle fingers trailing down his temple.

“Think you got it all out of your system?”

He nods, barely.

“Okay. Lean on me. If you didn’t have the spins before, you definitely have them now.” It’s true, he does. There’s a split second in which she thinks they’re going to crack their heads against the wall of the shower stall, but they make it out and into her bedroom with only moderate difficulty.

He’s too far gone to look around at the minimalist offerings of the woman’s private rooms, the desk covered with maps in the corner, the white-wood dressers and pale blue and gray walls, or the perch with a sleeping falcon atop it beside the open window. She manages to get him into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, feeding him two tablets and addressing him as a child when she tells him to only sip the water. He slurs something about knowing how to do this, but she ignores him, in lieu of sliding her fingers under the clasps of his armor.

“Suraya?” He whispers, as she manages to undo the clasps on both sides of his rib cage.

She kneels down in front of him, regarding him with amber eyes.

He reaches for her face and it’s a sad effort since his eyes are closed. He gets there eventually. “Thank you f’r taking care of me.”

She laughs, but it’s affectionate. “Of course, you big lug. I’ve got your back.” She tips his head to rest against her stomach as she stands, intent on removing his armor so he can rest easy. “Always.”

-/

When he wakes, it’s to a room that’s bright and unfamiliar. He scrubs a hand over his face and bites back a curse at the hollow pounding in his head. What in the Traveler’s name had he been thinking?

The telltale echo of his ghost his head is something like “you weren’t, that’s what,” and she did it purposely, because it always made his headache worse when he was hungover.

He looks over through squinted eyes to see armor stacked neatly on the floor. It isn’t stacked how he would have done it, so someone else did it. But the last thing he remembers, he was drinking with the new recruits and…

There’s a quiet, shrill call from across the room, complete with the slightest beating of wings. “Louis?”

Well, hell. He stares down at himself. He’s clearly in undergarments, and if that’s Louis - how many other falcons does he know - then he’s spent the night with Suraya Hawthorne, and he doesn’t remember any of it. Headache forgotten in his absolute panic - sleeping with coworkers, specifically coworkers for which he has feelings that are deeper than lust’s casual trysts - he looks over to find the other half of the bed empty.

But it looks slept in.

This is a nightmare.

His Ghost blinks into view with a flurry of apathetic light and volume. “As it would seem, you’re late for your second task of the day. The first, you’ve missed in its entirety.” She moves closer to him with a whirl and twitch of her shell and her voice is cheerfully booming. He feels like he’s talking to a female version of Shaxx right now. “I suggested that Suraya leave you to the wolves, as you did absolutely wreck her bathroom with your inability to vomit into her toilet. She, however, took your meeting with Dead Orbit and is on her way to meet Cayde for strike duty now. I presume that’s because she would like to murder Cayde for dragging her out to pick you up last night, and heckling you both when you left together. We should really go watch. Sundance already informed me that he’s worse off than you right now, I asked her to record it for personal reasons.”

“Did you always talk this much?” He asks his partner with a tired grumble while he tries to figure out if he’s actually slept with her or not. He was pretty drunk, so hopefully not. It would only complicate things that are… already complicated.

She laughs. “Ha, ha. Someone has to remind you that what you did is stupid. Hawthorne is spoiling you. You fell asleep before she could even remove your codpiece, not that she’ll ever tell you the details. I took pity on her and transmatted it for you. You owe me.”

He blushes, harder than he can recall. Ever. Traveler take him.

“You enjoy this,” He growls at her and she laughs until he swipes at her, at which point she dissolves into motes of light. Louis trills a low, understanding cry, and Zavala looks at him. “Tell me about it. I’m never drinking again.”