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jate-kara · 7 months

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Horizon | On AO3

Thirty-seven hours.

Andal had told himself he’d stop counting after twenty-four. It was his usual compromise: worry for a while, and then let it go. Focus on your work. Don't get distracted. Do some extra training when you get too restless. This was all familiar agony by now. The field was for his Hunters. The Tower was for the Vanguard.

Traveler, sometimes he wished he’d never accepted that damn Dare.

Andal risked another glance at the clock. Zavala was at the head of the conference table and still deep in conversation with Saladin. He wasn't likely to catch the fourth check in two minutes. Ikora, though - she knew. Andal felt her shoot him a worried side-eye from somewhere to his left. He pretended he didn't notice. His datapad had sat untouched in front of him for so long that the screen had gone dark, so despite the stylus he'd been toying with to at least look sort of busy, it was painfully evident that he was not paying any amount of the requisite attention. Shit.

He clicked the datapad on again, more to avoid Ikora's concern than to actually accomplish anything. His notes were messy and scattered. The notifications were equally cluttered. Mission report submission flags. Memos from scheduled check-ins. Updates from secondary Scouts he'd sent out after the primary Hunter for the mission had dropped off the map for too long. Sometimes, that was just Hunters being Hunters. Other times, that was Hunters being dead. Andal scanned the updates. There was nothing new.

There was nothing that would stop the clock he was supposed to have started ignoring thirteen hours ago.

The meeting ended an hour late. Andal was the first one up. As soon as he rounded the hall corner and was out of the others' immediate sight, he let the Void wash over him. Technically, using the Light to go invisible in the Tower was frowned upon. Only technically. And he had no intentions of getting caught, just like he had no intentions of speaking to anyone between here and his Vanguard office. His head was spinning. He had to remember to breathe. He had no idea what the hell anyone had been talking about for the last three hours.

He needed out of this damn Tower.

He didn't go to his Vanguard office. He climbed up to the highest point of the Tower that he could find and he dangled his legs over the edge and he looked at the City and the world beyond its horizon and he wanted to scream. Shiro and Tevis and Cayde were out there somewhere, each on their own assignments. He'd put them on a special check-in schedule, one that guaranteed he'd be able to talk to them, no matter how briefly. They were supposed to call one after the other: Shiro, then Tevis, then Cayde. But he hadn't heard from any of them in thirty-eight hours. Even meticulous, responsible Shiro had missed the last window; there hadn't been so much as a ping from his Ghost to say he was still alive.

Andal dropped his head into his hands and dragged his fingernails along his scalp. He'd pulled his long hair up into a messy bun a while ago, too distracted to bother with brushing it. Cayde would fuss over him if he saw it - Haven’t taken a break lately, huh? - and then gently undo and untangle it. Andal closed his eyes and imagined it, just for a second. That warmth. That peace.

He'd kill for that right now.

"I'm sure they're fine." Astraea materialized beside him. "They're just…busy.”

I should be there with them. The words died in his throat. He’d made his choice when he’d accepted the Dare. This was his life now, and had been for well over a year. Him, here, with the Vanguard and the bureaucrats, while his most important people in the world were out there. Maybe in danger. Without him. For the rest of eternity, unless some other Hunter stepped up and said they wanted the job. Or he died. In which case it was Cayde's problem.

Andal drove his palms into his eyes. “Get a grip,” he groaned, and was glad Astraea knew him well enough to know when he was talking to himself, and not at her. “Not like any of this is new.”

Astraea bumped his shoulder. Andal patted at her absently. "Thanks," he muttered. "Sorry I'm not the best company right now."

His comm buzzed before she had the chance to respond. Andal scrambled to answer it. He recognized the code immediately. "Shiro, you all right?"

There was a long, weighted pause. "Are you?"

Damn, he really did need to pull it together. "You missed your check-in," Andal said, instead of explaining the crack in his voice. "I thought-"

"Sorry about that. Ran into some comm interference unexpectedly. I've got the patrol data and I'm making the return trip. So I'll ask you again: what happened to you?"

There was no good way to answer that. "Vanguard stuff," he said. "Nothing to worry about."

"Cayde and Tevis haven't checked in either, have they?" It sounded more like a statement than a question. Shiro really had a way of seeing through bullshit. It was very useful when it was leveled at Cayde or Tevis. Not so much right now.

Andal blew out a breath. "No. Not for a while."

"You know Tevis doesn't check in because he doesn't want to, and Cayde is…Cayde. They're probably fine."

"I know."

Shiro gave a disbelieving huff. "I'll be back at the Tower in a few hours. We can go over the patrol data then, unless you have other obligations."

Shiro didn't need to come all the way back to the Tower to go over data. It was something they could easily manage through a few messages or comm calls. Some of the tightness in Andal's chest eased. "I don't," he said, without checking his schedule. "I'll meet you in my office when you get here."

It turned out maybe he should have checked his schedule, because when he finally made his way back down into the inhabited part of the Tower, Zavala was standing outside his door. Andal came to a slow stop. The Commander wasn't holding a datapad so they probably didn't have a meeting Andal had forgotten about, and he didn't have a severe expression, so Andal probably hadn't done anything to warrant a reprimand.

"Something I can help you with?" Andal asked, crossing his arms and propping a shoulder against the wall.

Zavala watched him with a furrowed brow. He was quiet for a moment, as though he was trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say. "You seemed - distracted, earlier today. I wanted to-"

"I'm fine." Oh, way to go, Brask. Top points for selling that one.

Zavala studied him. "You've received a great deal of difficult reports in the last week," he said. "If there's anything I can-"

"Look, I appreciate it, but there's nothing to worry about." Andal tried for a smile, and knew it didn't reach his eyes. He pushed himself up off the wall, then moved to access the keypad for his office. Zavala stepped out of the way, but he didn't go any farther. Andal shot him a glance as the door opened. "That all?"

There was a tired defeat in Zavala’s eyes. "Yes," he said quietly. "Goodnight, Andal."

Andal stepped in, swiped the door shut, and slid down against the wall beside it. He didn't bother turning on the lights. The only source of illumination was the moonbeams streaming through the floor to ceiling windows, and the muted glow of the City below. Andal leaned his head back and let his eyes slip shut.

"He's just trying to help," Astraea said. She sounded disapproving. Andal kept his eyes closed. She nudged his shoulder - once, and then again when he didn't move.

"I know," he allowed.

"He's your friend. So is Ikora. I know you saw her message yesterday."

"I didn't say that I didn't."

"But you didn't answer her."

"She's got enough going on without me adding to it."

"They're worried about you."

"I'm fine."

The lights clicked on. Andal jumped, and was halfway to his feet when the sound of the door opening finally registered, like the information had been caught in a buffer before it hit his brain.

Shiro stared down at him as if he'd just found him half dead in a pit and not slumped pathetically in his office. "'Fine'," he repeated. "Yeah, you sure look fine."

"You're okay," Andal said, like it wasn't obvious.

"Is there some reason you thought I wouldn't be? It was just a patrol, Andal. Very routine."

Almost every one of the dead Hunters' missions had been routine. Andal blinked at him. "Uh. No?"

"If you want me to believe you, don't phrase that like a question." Shiro eased to the floor beside him, close enough that their shoulders were pressed together. Some of the tension strung along Andal's spine released. "You want to tell me what's going on, or do you want me to drag Cayde back here for you?"

"Are those my only two options?"

"Well, I can get Tev, but he'll probably make you buy him a drink before he'll listen."

Andal managed something close to a laugh. "If I pull him off recon to come back to the Tower, you'll need to find another Vanguard. He'll kill me. He hates it here more than I do right-"

He cut himself off too late. Shiro tilted his head at him, and Andal shrugged helplessly. "Forget I said anything," he said, as if that had ever dissuaded Shiro before.

It hadn't. And it didn't this time. Shiro's gaze was considering. "Is it the Tower, or someone in it?"

That look was distinctly Tevis. Andal shoved at Shiro's shoulder, to at least jar him out of it. "It's the Tower. And even if it wasn't, you can't just shoot someone for bothering me."

"Hey, I'd make sure they were a Lightbearer first."

There was no grin in Shiro's voice. Andal wanted to believe it had been a joke. No, he was going to believe it. For his own sanity. He scrubbed at his eyes. Shiro waited.

"It's the Tower," Andal said again. "It's always the damn Tower. I'm up here sending the Hunters out but it's never me getting shot at."

"Ah." Shiro didn't sound surprised, just thoughtful. "Someone took a hit and didn't get back up."

"Three fireteams in the last week." Andal's voice cracked. He felt more than saw Shiro shift, so he was pressed a little closer.

"We all know the risks."

"We had bad information." The words tasted acrid. Like an excuse. "The assignments I gave them went sideways because of it."

"You do what you can with what you have, and so do they."

Andal's heart turned painfully. "One of these times," he whispered, a voice for the fear burning in his chest, "it could be you. Or Tevis. Or Cayde."

"Maybe. But I've always known that, even before you were Vanguard. If anything happened, I wouldn't blame you, Andal. I'd appreciate it if you respected that enough to not blame yourself."

Shiro never did waste time dancing around the point. Andal opened his mouth to argue, but one glance at Shiro's unwavering stare was enough to kill the protest before it started. "All right," he said, and held his hands up in mock surrender. "I get it."

"You don't. But you'll get there."

Andal elbowed him. Shiro was unaffected. "I know you well enough to know this isn't the last time we're going to have this conversation. That's fine. I'll say it as many times as you need me to."

Breathing hurt, suddenly. "Thanks," Andal said, more quietly than he'd meant to.

"You don't have to thank me. Just remember what I said." Shiro's expression shifted, from resolved to concerned. "You've been Vanguard for a while. This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. Tell me you've been talking to someone when it does."

Andal didn't answer.

"Andal."

"...does Astraea count?"

"He doesn't talk to me about it," Astraea interjected. "He just says he's fine and not to worry about him."

Shiro heaved a soul-weary sigh. "I don't know what I expected."

Andal grimaced. "Sorry. I probably owe you a drink after all this."

"You don't owe me anything."

"Pretty sure I was supposed to give you some glimmer at some point."

That earned him a chuckle. "Keep it. I've heard Vanguard pay is terrible."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Andal let it be for a moment, and then he broke it. "You know, it'd be easier to see the stars out there if you'd left the lights off."

"So go turn the lights off."

"I didn't turn them on. You do it."

Shiro held up one sparking finger. "Don't fry my office," Andal grumbled, pushing himself to his feet so he could cross the room to the lightswitch. "Damned Bladedancer."

Halfway there, his comm chimed, and his heart leapt into his throat. He barely registered the code as he fumbled to swipe the screen on. "Cayde?"

"I'm sorry," Cayde blurted. He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "Just realized I missed the last check-in. Sundance reminded me. Fallen were shooting at us. I was shooting back. It was a mess. Glad we made - hey, are you okay?"

"Do I look not okay?"

Cayde made a show of scrutinizing him. "Huh," he said, and nothing else.

Despite the relief flooding his chest, Andal wanted to strangle him. "What do you mean, 'huh'?"

"Just huh," Cayde returned. "How's the Tower?"

"A lot quieter when you're not in it."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"You tell me." Andal's datapad pinged an alert - Tevis sending a short summary of his findings, which usually amounted to about three sentences: Went to the Place. Killed the enemies. Left the Place. This one had an extra few at the end. Shiro told me to check in more. I'm not doing that. ~ T.L.

"Andal?"

"Tevis sent me his report. He was nice enough to leave the location tag on it. He's somewhere in the City. And he missed every check-in."

Cayde tried to stifle his laugh. "Sorry, I know it's not funny," he said, through the palm he'd plastered over his mouth.

"Yeah, I can tell," Andal said dryly. "Don't you have your own report to be writing right about now?"

"No, because right now I'm talking to my beloved Vanguard."

It was far from the sappiest thing Cayde had ever said. It still made Andal's heart melt. "Fine," he said, trying for a measure of sternness and completely and utterly failing. "Do it later."

"He won't," Shiro supplied, exasperated, and Cayde sputtered some kind of protest. Andal barely heard it. He hit the lights, settled down next to Shiro, and listened to them bicker. If he closed his eyes, he was back with the crew, laughing around a campfire under a blanket of stars. The air was crisp and cool and their eyes were shining and no one was dead. He breathed and his chest didn't hurt.

He breathed, and for a while, it felt like peace.

—

Peace did not last long: only until the next morning, actually, when he woke up on his office couch with his neck at a bad angle and his limbs tangled in a survival pack blanket that didn't belong to him but had trim in Shiro's signature yellow. The sun was streaming through the windows, he couldn't move his head more than a few degrees to the left - and someone was banging on his door. Andal blinked blankly at it for a few beats. He didn't have meetings early.

"Good morning!" Astraea chirped, like the world's happiest alarm clock. "It's almost noon."

Andal cast her a sour look as he dug around in search of his datapad. "Hello?" he croaked, and cursed his dry throat.

The banging stopped. Small mercy. Andal untangled himself the rest of the way from the blanket and stumbled from one end of the office to the other until he realized his boots were right next to the couch the whole time. "Could just cloak and go out the window," he muttered, and shuffled over to slam the door release.

Lord Shaxx was not a frequent visitor; he hadn't been even before Twilight Gap had taken him from a position in the old Vanguard to Crucible handler. There were no meetings on Andal's schedule. He hadn't agreed to any Crucible match he could remember. But Shaxx was still here, fully armored, with his hands on his hips.

"Shaxx," Andal said, haltingly. "Something I can help you with?"

"You're alive! Good. Come with me."

Andal jogged to catch up, acutely aware of Astraea's amused hum and his own disheveled appearance. "If I missed a meeting, you have my apologies. But you could just send me a message."

Shaxx gave a booming laugh. "You aren't missing anything," he said, like that made whatever he was talking about obvious. "But you think you are. And I have a solution."

"Your solution to everything is a Crucible match."

"Not quite."

Shaxx led him out of the Tower, and then out of the City, all the way to the outskirts. To the Wall. To the gaping wound in it. Andal slowed to a stop. The wind was just as cutting now as it had been then, but today, there was no fire or smoke or seething ruin. The sky was clear for miles. Flowers had grown over the rubble, and they waved gently in the breeze. No death. No bodies. No blood. Just old scars, and a quiet peace.

Andal turned to Shaxx, stricken. "Why here?"

"Where else?" Shaxx's volume had dropped, but his voice was no less powerful for its softness. He took a few steps forward and rested a hand on the wound in the Wall. "You remember that day as well as I do."

"Everyone in the City remembers Twilight Gap."

"'Everyone', you say, as if you didn't lead a charge off the Wall and into the fray yourself. As if you didn't hunt the Fallen to the end of the pass alone. No ammunition. You'd lost your knife. All you had was your will, and your Light."

"Are you going somewhere with this?"

"Tell me, Brask: do your Hunters follow you of their own free will?"

Andal bit back a sigh. "Do you think there's anyone in the damn world who could get that many Hunters to do something they didn't want to do?"

"No," Shaxx said simply.

Andal dragged a hand through the mess that was his hair. Half of it had come free of the bun when he'd been asleep, and he'd pulled it apart the rest of the way on the walk to the Wall. The wind cutting down through the mountain pass blew it across his face, so instead of answering Shaxx, he focused on tying it back.

Shaxx was still staring at him once he finished. "Zavala thinks you need time. Ikora says to give you space. I think you've had enough of both. What you need is a reminder.

"A reminder?"

"That there is a reason for the Hunters' belief in you. That you would give your life for the City as readily as any of them. That your leadership from the Tower is not cowardice. That there is no shame in your grief, and that it is not weakness to ask another for their strength."

The words rang between them. Shaxx let the echo hang there, and Andal didn't try to dispel it. He didn't want to crack a joke, or bury the ache building in his chest. He wanted to breathe without the crushing weight. He wanted to hear Shiro weave a story again. He wanted to see Tevis give that rare grin. He wanted the warmth of Cayde’s arms around him. He wanted the open air and the faint light of the stars above. But he was caught between the familiar agony and the City's horizon: always reaching for a world he could no longer touch. Always mourning the deaths he couldn't prevent. Always wondering who might be next.

Andal crossed his arms against the wind's chill. "I wish it felt like enough," he said.

Shaxx relaxed his stance: less proud warrior and more gentle giant. "I know," he returned, and what he didn't say, Andal heard anyway. There was a reason it was so hard to find Hunters willing to be the Vanguard: why Tallulah had made that bet with the Ahamkara, why Caliban had lamented his fate when the role fell to him after, and then dropped off the map, and why every successor since had either died or disappeared, too. The Tower wasn't a cage like Cayde seemed to think, but it kept them separate from the Hunters they sought to unite. They could plan and guide and inspire all they wanted: it wouldn't change the fact that they couldn't stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their Scouts. Sooner or later, it drove them to desperate recklessness. Sooner or later, one way or another, it got them killed.

Andal met Shaxx's line of sight, and knew, even through the helmet, that his gaze was steel. "I know what you're trying to do," Andal said, with a rueful shake of the head. "You don't have to. I'm not going to go off the deep end."

Shaxx didn't move, except to square his shoulders. There was a current of tension to his stance that hadn't been there before. "It's a funny thing," he said. "Caliban said something similar to me once. And where is he now?

"I'm not Caliban."

"Neither was Aparajita. Or Kauko Swiftriver."

"I'm not them either," Andal shot back. "I gave my word when I accepted the Dare. I'm Vanguard now. It's my responsibility. That won't change. I just - I wish I could be out there with them."

The words left him like they'd been forced out by a blow to the chest: explosive and desperate. Shaxx considered him for a long moment. He didn't look convinced, not even a little, but he didn't push further. In the distance, the sun was sinking below the mountains. Shaxx turned to that instead, and Andal followed him. They stayed in the quiet of the Gap until the fire of the sunset had faded into twilight. Then, with a thunderous clap to his shoulder, Shaxx left for the City.

Andal propped himself up against some overgrown rubble and dug his datapad out of his pack. He wanted to put it back immediately. Every Hunter he'd dispatched on a mission in the last two months had apparently decided to send in their reports at the same time. His messages were a veritable flood

"Not dealing with that right now," Andal muttered, and scrolled past them. The rest was standard - Vanguard shit, a couple pings from Shiro for no reason besides saying hello, a single line from Tevis's datapad that just said Checking in - from Shiro, Tev is with me - and sixteen missed calls from Cayde. Andal jolted upright, then immediately relaxed. The most recent call had a short note attached: sorry - sat on my datapad. <3

Warmth swelled in Andal's chest, and stayed there all the way back to the Tower. His Vanguard apartment was tucked in the lower levels, far from any hum of activity. It made the chances of running into a Consensus lackey significantly slimmer - which was good, because he didn't have that much patience for them on his best days, and all he wanted to do now was clean up, make some tea, call Cayde, and settle in on the couch to maybe review at least some of the report deluge.

Right after he figured out why the damn door was already unlocked. Andal reached for his knife, called the Void, and slipped inside without a sound. Nothing out of place in the entryway - except an extra pair of boots that most certainly did not belong to him, and a familiar cloak hanging on the hook.

The Void receded in a rush. He heard more than saw Astraea lock the door behind him. "Cayde?" Andal called, sheathing his blade and toeing off his own boots.

A soft noise came from the pile of blankets on the couch. Andal made it to Cayde's side just in time to see him shoot upright and fling the blankets off. "Damn it," Cayde muttered. His shoulders slumped. "I was gonna make you dinner."

This close, Andal could see the telltale signs of exhaustion. Cayde had a particular way of holding himself when he'd gone too long without stopping; that thin strand of tension was corded through his frame as if it was the only thing holding him up. "Sorry," he mumbled, and stifled a yawn. "Got in early, took a shower and thought, hey, what's five minutes. Turns out it was not five minutes."

"Are those my clothes?" Andal asked, amused.

Cayde looked down at himself like it was a surprise. He'd stolen a simple pair of black sweatpants and a soft navy blue jacket that he'd only bothered to zip up a quarter of the way. "Maybe."

"Either they are or they aren't. There's no maybe option."

"Maybe," Cayde said again, with more conviction.

Andal fought the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he kneeled next to the couch. "You look tired," he said, pushing a careful palm against Cayde's exposed chest to ease him into lying down.

Cayde went without resistance or retort. There was a faint, unfocused haze to the glow of his eyes. He covered Andal's hand with one of his own and held it there, pressed to the low thrum of life. "Missed you," he whispered.

Andal's heart turned so sharply his insides ached. "That's supposed to be my line," he managed, leaning forward to lay his cheek against Cayde's chest.

"Hey, Andal?" Cayde's voice wavered. His other arm settled across Andal's back. "You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?"

Andal hummed an affirmative. It earned him a low chuckle. The fingers tracing lazy circles on his back crept up to tug his hair free, and Andal couldn't help the soft groan when they dragged along his scalp. "I don't mean with just this," Cayde said. "I mean in general."

"Not when you're in the field. I don't want you distracted."

"You know I think about you anyway." There was a spark of mischief in Cayde's tone. "And anyway, I'm not in the field right now."

Andal rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet with a huff, heedless of Cayde’s pitiful whine at the loss of contact. "I need to clean up. Then we can go get dinner."

Andal made it halfway to the bedroom before he heard footsteps, and arms wrapped around his waist from behind. "Lemme help," Cayde murmured, a rush of warmth against the back of his neck.

"I actually want to get clean sometime today, Cayde."

"Your hair's a mess."

"I was out in the wind." Andal twisted in his arms so he could look him in the eyes, and his next protest died on his lips. It wasn't often Cayde looked at him with so much raw vulnerability; he cloaked his fear and his grief in dazzling sunlight, so the rest of the world would focus on the flash of his smile and not the cracks in his heart. Andal had learned to see through it a long time ago. But it was different when Cayde stripped it away himself.

"I missed you," Cayde said, and his voice cracked. "I still miss you. And I can't figure out how to get to where you are so I can stop."

Andal brushed his fingers along the sharp line of his jaw. Cayde’s next inhale stuttered, more a sob than a sigh of contentment, and Andal's world collapsed and coalesced until all he could see was Cayde, burning with his own familiar agony and breaking himself apart to cross the horizon between them.

Andal surged forward and wrapped his arms around him and kissed him until the fire in his lungs was because he couldn't breathe, and not because the peace he wanted was out of his reach. Cayde was warm and solid and pressed against him, and that low thrum was strong and sure beneath his fingertips, and Cayde's breath was a soft whisper against his neck.

"I'm here," Cayde said. The words were ragged, strangled by his desperation. "I've got you."

Andal tried to ease a step back, to see his face, and to kiss him again, but Cayde resisted any movement that could put any amount of space between them - like if he let go now, Andal would once more be beyond him. It made Andal's chest ache. He didn't want to let go. He wanted to be here, where there was no death, or loss, or crushing weight. He wanted to lose himself in the steady hum from the heart of Cayde's frame. He wanted to open the windows and gaze at stars while he was wrapped up in Cayde's arms. It felt like peace. Like home. A single word burned in his throat, a plea he could never voice - Stay.

"You wanna tell me what's going on?" Cayde asked, a long time later, and still holding him close.

Andal shook his head.

"Okay," Cayde said. "You wanna go clean up?"

Andal heaved a deep sigh. Cayde laughed softly. "C'mon, it'll help."

"I'm fine here," Andal grumbled, and grasped futilely at Cayde's shoulders when he gently pulled away.

"C'mon," Cayde said again, tangling their fingers together and tugging him toward the bedroom. "I gotcha."

Cayde helped him wash up and slip into a comfortable hooded sweatshirt and loose pants, then set him down on the couch and went to work on his hair. It was still wet from the shower, and gradually less disastrous the longer Cayde spent painstakingly massaging various products into it. The careful rhythm soothed Andal into a warm haze. His head dropped back against Cayde's collar, and he only noticed he'd almost drifted off because those lovely fingers in his hair stopped moving.

"You know you have to sit up more if you want me to finish this."

"Mm."

"Andal." There was fond exasperation there. Cayde tapped his cheek. The quiet ping of a message notification interrupted whatever he was going to say next. He gathered Andal to his chest and planted a quick kiss on his hair, then started to extricate himself from the embrace.

Andal's heart lurched. He closed a tight grip around Cayde's wrist reflexively. "You're leaving?"

Cayde paused his efforts to untangle himself from Andal and also escape the sinking cushions of the couch. He didn't tug at the wrist Andal had in a vice grip. "Just for a minute," Cayde answered slowly. "I asked Tevis to pick us up some food. He's almost here."

Andal made himself let go. "Tevis hates the Tower. He won't come here unless he absolutely has to. Trust me, I've tried."

"Well, he does absolutely have to. He owes me a favor."

"Do I want to know how that happened?"

"Nope," Cayde said, with a little too much enthusiasm, as he finally managed to get back to his feet. He reached down to tilt Andal's chin up with a single digit. "Be right back. Don't go anywhere, beautiful."

Andal swatted at his hand. "Quit flirting and go let Tevis in," he said, despite the warmth blooming under his ribs. "I don't want him to break my door down."

It wasn't Tevis that showed up: it was an uncharacteristically surly Shiro. He handed the bags to Cayde with all the airs of a man who'd just spent too long fighting a losing battle. "I owed him a favor," he muttered. "And he decided that his debt to you was paid when he picked the food up and brought it to me. So I could take it to you."

"I told you he was a cheat," Cayde said, unhelpfully.

"Thanks, Shiro," Andal called, and Shiro studied him intently for a second. Whatever he found swept some of the aggravation away from his stance; he tossed off a cheerful wave as he ducked out.

Cayde was already unpacking the ramen onto the coffee table. Behind him, Sundance closed and locked the door with a sigh. Andal cast her a thankful look as he settled on the floor and propped his back against the couch.

Cayde dropped down next to him. "I was thinking," he said, looping an arm around Andal, "that I'd stick around the City for a couple weeks. Maybe drag you out of the Tower sometimes. Shiro said there're a few local festivals coming up, and-"

He didn't finish, because Andal stole the rest of his words with a searing kiss.

"Didn't know you liked festivals that much." Cayde sounded breathless. His gaze was completely unfocused. "Damn."

Andal tapped his cheek. "You okay in there?"

"I think I shorted something, but yeah." Cayde shook his head, like that would clear the fog. "Do that again."

Andal almost considered it. Almost. But the weariness in his bones felt like a lead weight, and the ramen was steaming, and Cayde was half curled around him. "Later," he said instead, and felt Cayde's chest hum with a soft laugh.

"You got it."

—-

The damn Tower was only ever loud on the rare occasion he wanted it to stay quiet.

Andal heard the hurricane coming before it hit and immediately categorized it as a five, because while there were two pairs of hurried footsteps approaching his office door at battering speed, the only raised voice he could make out was coming from the Speaker, and that always meant serious trouble. Could be an issue with the Consensus. Could be an emergency meeting to address some kind of apocalyptic threat.

Or it could be Tevis Larsen, stalking through the door with the Speaker two steps behind him. He didn't wait for the leader of the entire City's governing body to come through after him; he slammed a fist back into the controls to close and lock it in his face.

Andal shot to his feet. "Tevis, what the hell?"

"He asked me to explain calling out to the Void to him." Tevis looked utterly unperturbed. "I said no. He kept asking. I wasn't gonna say no twenty times."

Andal dragged a hand down his face. Tevis, who hated the Tower, was in the Tower, in Andal's office, with a slighted Speaker standing just outside the door, presumably after having followed Tevis across the entire structure asking about a power that was anything but well understood, which had to do with a branch of the Light that certain vocal fringe groups still considered controversially aligned with the Darkness, despite every writing Ikora Rey had ever produced with evidence to the contrary. Great. He could already see the fifteen new committees this was going to spawn.

"Tevis," Andal said, voice tight, "the Speaker is in charge of the entire Consensus. He runs the City."

"I don't answer to the damned Consensus. And if you weren't on the Vanguard, I wouldn't answer to them either."

Andal closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Fine, then look at it this way: I work with these people. Could you try not to make me look bad?"

"Cayde's been in here all the damn time lately. I don't think their opinions can get any lower."

Andal bit back a retort and reached for the door controls so he could start to smooth the mess out, but Zavala's voice on the other side stopped him. Ah. He was already on it. Andal would have to thank him later. "Okay," he said, turning back to Tevis. "What the hell is going on?"

Tevis's face didn't even twitch. "I can't just visit a friend?"

"Not when you've spent the last week avoiding me."

Tevis shrugged. "Shiro's been on my ass about coming to see you. I got sick of it."

"Shiro's been on your ass about that for a lot longer than the week you've been back in the City. Nice try, though."

A flicker of unease flashed in Tevis's eyes. He tugged at his hood, but didn't lower it, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and glanced at the door. "Can we talk somewhere else?"

Andal waited until there were no more voices behind his door, then led Tevis outside, away from the Vanguard and the Consensus and the low buzz of their chaos. He only stopped once they made it to his sanctuary at the highest point of the Tower.

"You allowed to be up here? Thought your Vanguard might be kinda uptight about it." Tevis sat down gingerly, like he didn't trust the edge not to crumble by virtue of it being a Vanguard structure, and dangled his legs over the abyss below.

"Don't know. Never asked." Andal eased down too, and leaned back on his hands. In the distance, the sun was just starting to sink toward the horizon. A warm gust of wind caught Tevis's hood and blew it back, and Andal jolted. Tevis's long, dark hair was pulled up and braided into an elaborate coil at the back of his head. It wasn't something he had the inclination to do himself; mostly he just tied it however was quickest.

"Did you finally let Cayde do your hair?" Andal blurted.

He knew the answer before Tevis gave it by the exasperated eyeroll. "One time and one time only," Tevis muttered, but a faint smile still curved the corner of his mouth when he ran a hand over the coil of hair. "He said he wanted to practice it. Looked so happy about it I didn't have the heart to tell him off."

"Looks good on you," Andal said brightly, and earned an elbow to the side of the head. "Ow."

"You get shot and you don't make a damn sound. How the hell is that 'ow'?"

"Most of the time getting shot kills me."

Tevis gave a deep sigh. "Not what I meant."

"Pretty sure there was something else you came here to talk about anyway." Andal gave him a sidelong glance, and Tevis's shoulders tensed. "Did something happen?"

"No," Tevis ground out. His face went through an impressive array of volatile emotions before settling on blatant discomfort. He opened his mouth to say something else and all that came out was a single cracked syllable.

Andal shifted closer, so their shoulders were pressed together. He didn't say anything and, for a long time, neither did Tevis. He just sat there glaring into the distance with his hands clenched into fists in his lap.

"You're okay here?" Tevis managed at last.

"I'm not sure what that means, Tev."

Tevis scowled. "Being in the Tower all the time isn't killing you?"

Andal tilted his head at him. Tevis avoided his gaze. "It's where I belong now."

Tevis scoffed at that. A thin tremor ran down his spine. "Fucking Dare," he hissed under his breath.

Andal groaned. "Don't start. I get enough of that from Cayde calling the Tower a cage every other week."

"No, I don't mean - " Tevis stopped short. His fists were clenched so tightly his forearms were trembling. He took a ragged breath. "When you left to be Vanguard, I told myself it wasn't that different. You were always the mastermind and the marksman. Who the hell cared if you were on overwatch from the Tower now? You were looking out for us, same as always. But it wasn't the same."

Tevis took a steadying breath, but it didn't stop his arms from shaking. "Wasn't the same," he repeated, like he was forcing the words out. "Didn't know how to deal with it, so I left. Spent a lot of time on my own before I met Cayde and he dragged me into his crazy bullshit. Never thought I'd like being part of a crew. Never thought I'd miss it this much, either."

Andal's chest ached. He nudged Tevis with an elbow. "You know you can still come see me," he said. It came out flat, as if it couldn't mean anything when it was weighed against the gravity of everything else.

Tevis gave him a tired stare, then turned back to the horizon. "It's like there's a barrier," he said, so softly Andal almost missed it. "Between here and out there. Shiro goes back and forth across it like it's nothing. Cayde's a damn disaster about it, but he won't admit it. And you have to stay in the Tower even if half of you's on the other side of that horizon."

"What about you?"

"It's easier to just stay out there."

Tevis fell silent. Andal let the quiet be until some of the tension in Tevis's shoulders had eased. "Hey, Tev?"

"Hm."

"You know avoiding me because you miss me doesn't make a lot of sense."

"That's what Shiro said."

"Shiro's usually right when it comes to you."

"The hell he is."

"Cayde agrees with me."

"Of course he does. Cayde'll do anything to be a pain in my ass." Beneath the dry delivery, there was a note of undeniable fondness.

Andal huffed a laugh. "Can't really argue with that."

Tevis went quiet again. At first, it looked like he was winding up to bolt. Andal could count on one hand the number of times Tevis Larsen had had an honest conversation about his feelings and not imploded afterwards, and all of them had happened at death's door. But while he had half curled in on himself like he was protecting a wound, Tevis didn't get up, or make a move to throw himself off the Tower to escape. He stayed, and he watched the sun sink into a sea of fire at Andal's side.

"I'll try to be here more," Tevis offered gruffly, once the burning sunset had faded to a cool twilight. "On one condition."

"Anything."

"You check in too."

Andal blinked at him. "Huh?"

"You make a hell of a Vanguard, Andal, but I know it's killing part of you to be up in the Tower. Stop acting like it isn't. You can't talk to Cayde about it because he gets all guilty. Fine. Talk to me or Shiro then."

Tevis offering to talk about emotions on a regular basis: that was a new one. It stunned Andal to brief silence. "Okay," he said, a long moment later, and almost jumped when Tevis dragged him into a rough hug.

"I'll hold you to it," Tevis said, and even though Andal couldn't see his face, he heard the smile in his voice.

Andal tilted his head back to look up at the stars. They cast a faint glow high above the hum of the City, just enough to see the faint outline of the horizon beyond.

Suddenly, it didn't feel so far away.

—-

#destiny #destiny 2 #andal brask #cayde 6 #candal #shiro 4 #tevis larsen #zavala #ikora rey #lord shaxx #my writing

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jate-kara · 5 months

Text

Hold It Down | On AO3

Cayde's flown off to who the hell knows where to chase another piece of his past, Andal's so wound up he's practically climbing the Tower walls, and Shiro hasn't stopped moving in days. Tevis is just doing his best to help. Sort of. In his own way.

Even with their fireteam divided, they find a way to hold each other together.

---

His armor was pocked and marred and streaked with blood, his throat was clogged with ancient dust, and this was the last damn time he was doing Andal Brask any favors.

Even as he thought it, Shiro knew it was a lie. Ever since Andal had taken up the Vanguard post, he'd been under a hell of a lot of stress - more than what he'd ever had to deal with when he'd been out roaming the Wilds with the pack. There was a permanent line of tension strung through his shoulders that got worse every day he was up in that Tower, and he had dark circles under his eyes that rivaled Tevis's, so when he'd asked if Shiro could go down into a maze of catacombs beneath the EDZ to retrieve a Guardian who'd gotten themselves stuck there - Shiro had agreed immediately. It hadn't relaxed Andal at all; if anything, he'd gotten more tense. But it was one less mission for him to worry about assigning, at least. And Shiro had checked in as regularly as he could manage, up until he'd hit the Hive horde and had to focus all of his efforts on getting in, grabbing the idiot, and getting out in one piece.

"Thanks for doing this," Andal said, from the little hologram in his palm. Even at this resolution, Shiro could see him cataloging the sorry state of his gear.

"It was no problem."

"I'm sorry I asked it of you."

"You trusted me to get it done, Andal. That's enough for me." Shiro forced a smile he didn't feel. As much as he liked talking to Andal, he was covered from helm to boots in blood and grime and Traveler knew what else, and there was a piece of a sparrow lodged in one of his knee joints, from where one of Marcus's damned friends had run straight into him the second he'd set foot on the surface of the Cosmodrome with the wayward Guardian slung over his shoulders. Suzume had offered to heal it if he'd pulled the scrap out, but he'd been too pissed to really listen to her.

Andal frowned. Shiro scrambled to bolster his smile. It did nothing to smooth away the furrow in his Vanguard's brow. "Did you get hurt?" Andal asked. "Saint saw you in the Hangar after you dropped our missing Guardian off. He said you were limping. Is Suzume okay?"

"Suzume's fine. She'll heal me later."

"Why-" Andal cut himself off, then blew out a breath. "Is everything okay?"

Shiro sighed. Around him, City life carried on under the dim glow of the setting sun. His apartment's door was right there. Then it was up some steps and through his actual door, and he would finally be free to strip off the armor and scrub everything clean - if only Andal would cut the chatter.

"Shiro?"

"I'm fine, Andal. I'll talk to you later."

"Are you sure you're-"

Shiro cut the connection before he could think twice about it, and turned away from Suzume before she could catch him with the disapproving dip of her shell. "Don't," he muttered, tapping in his access code and starting up the stairs. "He'll go on all night with as wound up as he is right now."

"That's because he was worried about you," Suzume reminded. Her voice was deceptively gentle for the steel he knew was hidden behind it. "You have to call him back later."

"He's not just wound up because of me. Cayde went off on one of his damn personal missions again. He's been out of contact for two weeks. That always drives Andal up a wall."

Suzume knocked into his shoulder. "I know," she said. "But it would help if you talked to him so he knows you're okay."

Shiro closed the door behind him and blew out an exasperated breath. "I'll call Andal after I clean up, all right?"

"Let me fix your knee first."

Shiro yanked the obstructing shrapnel out in one brutal motion. Every nerve it hadn't deadened fired at once, and he heaved a gasp and set his jaw and tried to stay upright. The soothing glow of Suzume's Light fell over him a second later, smoothing the pain's jagged edges until it had been washed away completely, and the delicate nerves had reconnected enough that he could stumble a few steps toward his bedroom. Just had to get the armor off, get the armor cleaned up, get himself cleaned up, and maybe find the strength to get something to eat before he called Andal and tried not to nod off wherever he ended up.

A faint clatter came from his kitchen and he froze mid-step, knee still tingling from its restoration. He hadn't heard anyone when he'd come in, but between the stabbing pain and the overwhelming aggravation, he hadn't been paying a lot of attention to whether or not he had an uninvited guest rifling through his home. Shiro snapped Trespasser out of its holster and to the ready right as the soft shuffle of footsteps reached the kitchen's threshold and came to a stop.

"Shiro," Tevis said, "why the hell isn't there any food in your kitchen?"

Because he'd been on an assignment for Andal. Because he'd forgotten to pick some up after the last batch spoiled from being in there for so long. Because sometimes he ate those specially formulated rations rather than bother with cooking. Shiro didn't say any of that, though. All that came out as he holstered Trespasser was, "Tevis, what the fuck are you doing here?"

Tevis shrugged. If he was bothered by the harsh tone, he didn't show it. The sunlight streaming through the windows caught him in their waning beams and made him look softer than his usual scowl would suggest. His long dark hair was damp, and pulled up in a loose bun, and he was, for the first time in forever, not dressed in his field gear. Instead, he'd opted for a faded black and yellow hoodie that hung far too loosely on his wiry frame to actually belong to him, and a pair of soft grey pants Shiro was pretty sure he'd stolen from Andal, because they were identical to what Andal always wore when he was relaxing, and because Tevis had rolled the bottoms of the pant legs up so they weren't too long for him.

"Is that my sweatshirt?" Shiro asked, a long moment later.

"Maybe."

"Did you let yourself into my apartment?"

"You said any one of us was always welcome here. You excluding me from that now?"

"No," Shiro grumbled. "I'm just surprised you took me up on it. I thought you hated being in the City."

Tevis gave another half-hearted shrug. "You're out of food," he said, shouldering by on his way to the door, and the boots he'd left there. He snatched the piece of shrapnel out of Shiro's hand with an eyeroll. "Go clean up. I'll be back."

It took Shiro the entire time he was scrubbing his armor, then himself, plus the time he spent perched at the counter in the kitchen watching Tevis lay out ingredients and cook, to realize what else was different: th dark circles set against the pale skin below his eyes were faded. "You don't look completely exhausted," Shiro said. "What changed?"

"Slept on your couch."

"What?"

Tevis stared at him disdainfully. "I took a damn nap. Aren't you supposed to call Andal?"

A single nap wouldn't fix that kind of fatigue. Shiro cast him a skeptical glance. Tevis, despite clearly noticing the gaze, carried on cooking as if he hadn't. They stayed in that silent stalemate for a long few moments until Tevis sighed, slapped the spoon down on the counter, tugged his communicator out of his pocket, and tapped a few keys. It buzzed a few times, then clicked as it connected.

"Tevis," Andal said. He sounded surprised, but in a delighted way, like he always did when he didn't have to try seven times to get Tevis to pick up the comm. Shiro hid a grin behind his hand. "It's good to hear from you."

Tevis tried to scowl, but warmth bled around the edges of it until it was a poorly suppressed smile. "I'm with Shiro. He's fine."

Andal let out an audibly relieved breath. "Good," he said. "Is he getting some rest?"

"He will be after I make him eat something. Has the damn Vanguard buried you in reports again?"

Andal groaned. "You don't wanna know."

"Tev is making dinner. You should join us," Shiro cut in, and Andal laughed. It sounded just shy of desperation. Shiro caught Tevis's flinch, there and gone in the same instant.

"I'll be there," Andal promised, and paused. There was a loud slam, then another voice in the background: high and agitated, prattling on about something, something, Dead Orbit. Andal gave a resigned sigh. "I have to go. See you soon. I hope."

Tevis frowned as he slipped the comm back into his pocket. "Think it'd get him in trouble if I kidnapped him?"

Shiro hummed noncommittally. There was a nonzero chance that Tevis would try it if he said anything one way or the other: either because Shiro had encouraged it, or because he wanted to be a jackass and prove Shiro wrong. Both branches led to the same root, though: Tevis missed Andal the same as Shiro did. "I think," Shiro said, by way of diversion, "that you should tell me why you don't look half dead."

Tevis's expression didn't sour like he thought it would. Usually, the answer to 'why are you less zombified' was 'copious amounts of caffeine', which launched them into an argument that went back and forth with no real resolution. This time, Tevis's face shuttered. He didn't move from his spot by the stovetop, slowly stirring the mix of fried vegetables, but his shoulders hunched, and his grip on the spoon tightened until his forearm was trembling.

"You were gone a couple of days," he muttered. "I slept through most of them."

Shiro leaned forward to scrutinize him and Tevis turned his full attention to carefully checking each spoonful. It wasn't quite a refusal, but it was a step back, so Shiro let the silence be. More than once, Tevis had mentioned that the Void's Devour let him feel traces of Light, and that each trace was different depending on whose it was. Some he was indifferent to; they were noise and nothing more. Others set him on a knife's edge. But while he claimed that Shiro's and Andal's and Cayde's traces fell into the first category, none of them had ever believed him. Whether Tevis realized it or not, he relaxed the stiff set of his spine when he was in a place suffused by their presence, like he only felt safe enough to let himself rest if he was surrounded by those soft echoes.

He'd probably never say it unless someone was dying, of course, but that unspoken trust made Shiro's heart turn, and he reached out to clasp Tevis's wrist with a touch so light it was almost nonexistent. "I'm glad you got some rest," he said, and squeezed gently.

Tevis huffed a vague acknowledgement, though he let the touch be. His shoulders relaxed. "You heard anything from Cayde lately?"

"Nothing since he left."

"You think he'll be okay after he finds whatever's in the next journal?"

Shiro sighed. At some point in one of Cayde's previous lives, one of them had decided to leave notes and mementos in various caches, to forge a better foundation for whoever came after, and to give the next self a good shot at being a good man. Shiro didn't know which past Cayde had started it, or why, but he suspected one of them had been someone their Cayde-6 would have shot on sight, and that if he did enough poking around about Caydes one through five, sooner or later he was going to turn it up, in which case 'okay' was going to get really relative.

"I don't know," Shiro said honestly.

Tevis tilted his head in something like agreement. "I wish he'd at least check in with Andal," he grumbled. "Pretty sure we're gonna be out another Hunter Vanguard if he keeps stressing him out like this."

"I'll try talking to him about it."

"Good luck."

Shiro blew out a disbelieving breath. "You realize how it sounds when you complain about someone else not answering their comm, right?"

Tevis made a show of plucking Shiro's hand off his wrist, as if it had only started offending him after the jab. He did it with a blank expression that was so at odds with the drama of the removal that Shiro couldn't help the laughter that bubbled out of him. "You're such a pain in the ass," Tevis said fondly, and reached across the counter to shove his shoulder. "Go get me the rest of the vegetables out of the fridge."

Andal didn't turn up until the rest of the food was nearly done, and he didn't so much stroll in as he did stagger. Tevis's eyes tracked him as he shrugged off his cloak and toed off his boots. When he finally looked up to meet their gazes, Shiro flinched. Andal's long hair was half pulled into a bun that must have come apart hours ago. His dark eyes were distant. There was a streak of dried blood on the warm brown skin of his cheek, like he'd cut himself shaving and forgotten to clean it off - or gotten grazed by a knife.

"You look like hell," Tevis said. "When's the last fucking time you slept?"

If Andal heard him, he didn't show it. He padded across the floor and eased down onto a stool next to Shiro, then slumped against the counter and buried his head in his arms. "Has anyone heard from Cayde?" he asked, and despite his valiant attempt to smother the ragged desperation, his voice still cracked.

Shiro's chest ached. "Not yet," he offered gently, before Tevis could spit whatever acrid opinion on Cayde's contact frequency he clearly had burning on his tongue. "He's usually back inside of a month, though, so it shouldn't be much longer."

Andal didn't answer, but the tense line in his shoulders curled that much tighter. Shiro rested a hand on his back, and Andal pushed himself upright in several halting motions. "You cooked for us," he said, with a faltering smile at Tevis. "Reviving an old tradition?"

Tevis scoffed. "It wasn't a tradition. I only made dinner back then because I didn't trust Cayde not to poison us. Wouldn't have been on purpose, but it also wouldn't have been pleasant."

"For you two, anyway," Shiro supplied. "And Lush, when he was still around."

Andal tried to laugh at that. It didn't make it to his eyes. Shiro exchanged a look with Tevis, and got to his feet to get the plates. "Dinner, shower, sleep," Tevis said, manhandling Andal to the table, where the chair had a back he could lean against. "In that order."

"Which one of us is Vanguard again?" Andal muttered, picking at the plate Shiro had set in front of him. At Tevis's stare, he managed a few actual bites, then went back to absently staring into the distance while he fiddled with an errant vegetable.

Maybe Tevis had a point about being out another Vanguard if things kept up this way. Shiro ate his own dinner slowly, mostly because the exhaustion he'd buried beneath his concern was now welling up again. His movements flagged, and he caught Tevis shooting him a sharp glance, but he was more concerned with the fact that Andal seemed to have given up pretenses entirely, and was now staring blankly out the window, dinner completely forgotten. Shiro had just made up his mind to say something when Andal jolted suddenly, set his fork down, and pushed the barely touched plate away. "Sorry," he blurted. "It's good. It's - I can't right now."

Tevis gave him a considering glance, then stood to round the table and haul him to his feet. "All right," he said. "C'mon. The shower and the sleep aren't suggestions."

"All of my clothes are back at the Tower."

"You're gonna borrow some of Shiro's."

Andal cast him an annoyed look. Shiro had just enough time to catch it before Tevis hauled Andal off to the bedroom, threw some of Shiro's clean clothes at his head, shoved him bodily into the adjoining bathroom, and slammed the door.

"You're an ass," Andal called, voice muffled, and Tevis banged a fist on the door twice in a wordless demand: get moving . He stayed there until the water started running, smacked the door one more time for good measure, and returned to the kitchen to start clearing the table. Shiro watched him blankly for a second, then moved to get up - and just as quickly found himself being pushed back into his seat.

"You look like death," Tevis informed him briskly. "Stay put."

"You know I don't technically get tired. I just feel-"

"Stay. Put."

Shiro shot him a side-eye. Tevis was too busy dumping leftovers into containers and storing them in the fridge to notice it. He was wound tight; Shiro could almost see the pressure physically building in his chest. "I can help clean up," he hazarded, bracing for a glower that didn't come. "You already made dinner."

"I don't need your help," Tevis returned, already elbow deep in dish suds. "Fuck off."

"It's not that you need me to help. It's that I want to."

Tevis's only answer was to roll his eyes and carry on scrubbing the dishes with more force than he really needed. Once he finished, he moved on to meticulously drying each plate, and Shiro risked pushing himself to his feet and crossing the small distance between them. Wordlessly, he held out a hand. Tevis smacked it away.

"I told you to stay put," he muttered, and there was a raw edge to his voice that he tried to pass off as anger. If Shiro didn't know him so well, he would've believed it. Instead, he gently settled an arm around Tevis's shoulders and squeezed once.

"I'm okay, Tev," he said quietly.

Tevis snapped to face him. His eyes swept over Shiro's face, at first scrutinizing, and then, more softly, in a careful scan. He stayed like that for a long few moments until, at last, some of the tension in his shoulders relaxed. "If you're gonna be a pain about it, fine, you can help," he grumbled, and flung the dish towel at Shiro's head.

They'd barely finished cleaning when Andal finally appeared, clothed in loose pants he'd had to tie twice and an oversized long-sleeve t-shirt with a ridiculous Sparrow racing league logo emblazoned on it. Shiro couldn't recall ever receiving it, but he knew Cayde was good friends with Marcus Ren, and Marcus Ren was known to produce both outlandish ideas and merchandise, on top of whatever death trap he'd cooked up for his next "competition". Odd shirts were probably the most normal thing to come from that workshop, and Cayde was just the sort of person to snatch one up on his way out.

Andal looked down at the shirt with a small smile. "I didn't know you were such a Sparrow league fan, Shiro."

Shiro sighed. "I'm not. And can you even call it a league? It's mostly just Marcus and Enoch doing crazy stunts on patrols in the EDZ."

Andal shrugged and sank onto the couch, nestling down into the cushions with a sigh. He settled on his side, with one arm curled beneath his head, but despite the fatigue that was clearly set heavy in every bone of his body, he didn't close his eyes. His gaze turned distant, and behind the haze of old stress and overwhelming exhaustion, there was only sadness.

Tevis flicked off the lights before he moved to sit carefully beside him. One of his hands hovered uncertainly, then slowly lowered to settle on Andal's hair. "Close your eyes and get some sleep," he said quietly, combing a few strands back. "You need it."

Andal pressed his eyes closed and grimaced. "I'm not going to sleep well while Cayde's not here."

"Better shitty sleep than no sleep. I think you told me that."

"Don't use my own words against me."

"Stop saying things that makes sense, then."

"If it makes so much damn sense, then why don't you listen to me more?" Andal huffed.

"That's what I keep asking him too," Shiro chimed in, easing down onto the floor in front of them and tilting his head back to rest against the couch's cushion. He was just getting comfortable when Tevis curled stubborn fingers around the collar of his sweatshirt and yanked until Shiro got the idea, fumbled half upright, and all but fell onto the couch on Tevis's other side.

"Sitting on the fucking floor." Tevis made a face that came very close to disgust. "The hell do you even have a couch for?"

With Andal lying on his side and Tevis right next to him, adding Shiro's large frame meant that they were all pressed tightly together, even with how much smaller Tevis was. Shiro shifted carefully. Generally, they as a pack tended to avoid crushing Tevis between them; he could be tense and flighty on his best days, so if they collapsed in a pile, he took a spot on the edge, no questions asked. It worked out fine, since Shiro was mostly okay with wherever he ended up, and Cayde and Andal craved physical affection and contact like nothing else, so they'd happily sprawl in a tangle of limbs any time. Tevis initiating anything like that, though - that was rare.

Gingerly, Shiro leaned back and rested an arm around Tevis's shoulders. "You should get some sleep too," he said.

Tevis snorted. "I slept for most of the last four days."

"You almost never sleep otherwise. Couple more hours can't hurt."

"Quiet," Andal mumbled. He was curled in on himself, like he always was when he wanted Cayde to lie down behind him and wrap himself around him. His eyes weren't so much closed now as they were squeezed shut. It made Shiro's chest ache.

Tevis noticed too. His thumb brushed a soothing line along Andal's brow. "Cayde'll be all right," he murmured. "He's got luck in spades."

"He promised me he'd stay in contact this time."

"Digging into that shit always messes with his head, Andal. He's probably just caught up in it."

"He always keeps his word." Andal's voice cracked, and not for the first time Shiro wished he'd pushed Cayde into telling them where he was going, so he could fly there and drag him back. Suzume and Astraea were constantly monitoring their usual comm lines and sending out requests for an immediate response, so if anything came through, they'd know immediately. The knowledge didn't soothe him, though, and he knew it wouldn't soothe Andal or Tevis, either. At this point, only Cayde could do that.

“He might be in a dead comms zone,” Shiro said. “I'm sure he'll check in when he can.”

He got a shuddery breath in response, and nothing else. In the dim light coming from the kitchen, he could make out the faint gleam of tears on Andal's cheeks. Tevis must have seen it too; he eased forward, tugging at Andal until he sat up and let himself be pulled in closer. He fell to rest against Tevis's chest, head tucked beneath his chin, and Shiro wrapped an arm around both of them and held tight.

“Cayde'll be okay,” Tevis repeated. Shiro felt him tense, and then relax, once, and then again, like he was reminding himself he was safe, and not trapped. “Try to sleep. Our Ghosts hear anything, they'll let us know.”

Andal didn't respond. Another tremor shivered down his spine as he breathed. Tevis smoothed soothing circles into his back, and Shiro reached over to rest a hand on Andal's shoulder. He hated the damn Vanguard sometimes: not the people, or even the body as an organizational concept, but as something that hurt Andal - something that kept him in the Tower, away from them, where they didn't know when he was close to breaking, and couldn't bring himself to say it.

“Try to sleep,” Tevis whispered again, once Andal stopped trembling. “We'll wake you if we hear anything.”

Shiro didn't follow suit, even when he heard Andal's breathing deepen. “I know you're still awake, Tev,” he said, as softly as he could manage.

Tevis's cheek pressed against his arm. “So are you. Shut the fuck up and pass out already.”

“You first.”

That earned him a warm chuckle, so soft and light that Shiro's first retort formed and died before he could say it. “You're nicer when you sleep for four days straight,” he managed at last. “You should do that more often.”

Tevis blew out a short breath that sounded more like a laugh. “My head's a lot quieter when you're all around.”

Warmth swelled in Shiro's chest. If he brought it up in the morning, Tevis would scowl and vehemently deny it. For now, though, he was safe in the familiar comfort of the darkness, and shielded from the bright glare of his own honesty. “I'm glad,” Shiro said. He wrapped the fingers of his free hand around Tevis's wrist and pressed them to the steady thrum of his pulse.

He didn't remember letting it lull him off to sleep, only snapping awake to the world rocking around him. It took him an embarrassingly long moment to realize it was because Andal had launched himself out of the tangle of limbs and across the room. It was still dark. The door to the apartment hallway was open, silhouetting a familiar figure standing just inside.

“Hey,” Cayde said. “Sorry to drop by unannounced. I-”

Cayde cut himself off with a loud oof that Shiro registered as him absorbing Andal's impact. “Hi,” Cayde croaked, like he'd gotten the wind knocked out of him. “Miss me much?”

If Andal was coherent enough to talk, he didn't. Shiro was vaguely and then intensely aware that Tevis had gotten up too, because the lights turned on and sent a bright spike straight through his eyes. It only took a fraction of a second for his visual sensors to adjust, but it felt like an eternity, and he swept his gaze over Cayde as soon as he could make out more than a blurry outline.

Their gunslinger was clad in his field gear; it was scorched and torn. The pants were tattered, the entire left sleeve of the shirt was missing, and from what Shiro could see past Andal's clinging form, there was a large slash torn across the chest. He winced to think of what might have caused it, and he knew without having to check that Tevis had cataloged the same.

Still, it wasn't the sorry state of Cayde’s gear that made his heart turn over sickeningly. It was that Andal had been hanging on for a few minutes now, and Cayde hadn't moved at all. His arms hung at his sides, tense and trembling, as if he wasn't sure what to do with them. The glow of his eyes didn't have the usual gleam of mischief: only some vast distance, and a deep well of churning uncertainty. It was like he was trapped between his desire to stay and some overwhelming urge to escape, and the pull of the two opposing forces was tearing him apart.

Andal let go and eased back to look him in the face. His eyes were blown wide and searching, and they bled more desperation than he'd ever admit. He stood there silently for a few beats, and then slowly raised his hand as if to set it gently against Cayde's cheek.

Cayde flinched away, from the touch and from Andal himself. His breath hitched, and he took a decisive step back. “Sorry,” he blurted, like the words had been forced out of him. “I'm gonna go clean up. Back at my ship. Really shoulda done that to begin with, before I tracked dirt onto Shiro's nice floors. I'll, uh - we'll talk later, okay?”

“No.” Tevis's single word stopped him cold. “There's a damn shower here, Cayde.”

Cayde shrugged awkwardly. “Mine's better?”

Tevis stalked across the space between them and stopped a few inches away. He didn't grab him or push him or drag him in; he only raised a finger and stabbed it toward the interior of the apartment in a silent demand. Shiro watched Cayde start to protest, summoning whatever will he had left beneath the exhaustion set heavy in every line of his frame. He only made it as far as opening his mouth before that small surge of flame flickered and died, and he ducked his head and slipped past them. The bathroom door clicked shut, and the water started running.

Andal hadn't moved, except to let his hands fall to his sides. He blew out a ragged breath. “I'll find him some clothes,” he muttered, and brushed by. Shiro watched him until he disappeared into the bedroom, peripherally aware of Tevis closing the door.

“Guess that answers my question,” Tevis said, massaging the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. “Damn it, what the hell did he find?”

Shiro shook his head. It might not be exclusively related to Cayde's quest to turn up any other journals that could be out there; the universe was a big place, and he'd met as many people that loved him as he had people that wanted to kill him. Maybe it was an old enemy. Maybe it was a buried nightmare, resurrected to torment him again. Maybe it was the damn journal after all, and Cayde had learned something about a past self that he wished he hadn't.

“Could be a lot of things ” Shiro answered at last. “Whatever it is, it's hitting him pretty hard.”

“He stayed, though. That's good.” Tevis's voice bled relief as he moved to the kitchen and started unpacking leftovers from the fridge to be reheated. They both knew if Cayde didn't want to be here, he wouldn't. “Go talk him into coming out here when he's done.”

All the lights were off in the bedroom, save a single lamp. Shiro could just make out Andal, sitting with his back to the wall and knees pulled to his chest. He was at least half trying to seem like the sheen in his eyes was from exhaustion, and not because Cayde pulling away had hit him like a punch to the gut. “He'll be a while,” Andal said, without looking up.

“I know,” Shiro returned softly, easing to sit cross-legged in front of him. What he didn't say, Shiro already knew: Cayde usually let Andal help, after he got back from these kinds of missions - reached for him instead of pushing him away. Let himself stay close instead of suffering alone, even if they didn't talk about whatever he'd found for a couple weeks. Grief flared in Andal's eyes every time they darted toward the bathroom door: that he was out here, apart, instead of in there, holding Cayde together.

Tevis was rattling around the kitchen. There was a loud clatter, a series of creative expletives that Shiro wasn't completely sure were technically words, and then some distant grumbling, but no serious cries of pain, so he stayed where he was. Andal didn't comment on it, either - he barely seemed to have noticed the noise. He'd cleaned the small cut on his face when he'd showered, though he must not have asked, or allowed, Astraea to heal it. It remained an angry line on his cheek that he was idly tracing with a finger.

“How'd that happen?” Shiro asked, to fill the silence, and also to find out if he needed to shoot someone.

Andal started. His hands dropped into his lap. “It was nothing,” he said, and shrugged half-heartedly. “Someone broke into my office. I dodged when he threw his knife, but it still grazed me on the way by.”

Shiro jolted, suddenly wide awake. “Someone tried to kill you?” he demanded, in a harsh and disbelieving whisper. “Andal, what the hell? Why didn't you say something?”

Andal stared at him blankly. “I lived, didn't I?”

“Was it another Guardian?”

“Well, a Lightbearer. He kept babbling about the Darkness and salvation. I wasn't really listening. I took him down. He's in Vanguard custody now.” Andal touched the cut absently. “He did something to his knife, though. A corruption, or a poison. Astraea cleansed the cut, but she couldn't get it to heal.”

Shiro's stomach turned. It had missed his head, Andal had said. If he had been slower, or startled, or hesitated for even a fraction of a second, it would have speared his skull - and that wasn't an injury you bounced back from. Astraea couldn't heal the cut. Maybe she wouldn't have been able to bring him back from a corrupted death, either. “When did this happen?”

“Sometime after I talked to you but before Tev called. Why?”

Shiro didn't have words. Andal was overstressed, overwhelmed, and then almost assassinated, and all he'd asked when they'd called was if they were okay. All he'd wanted to hear about when he arrived was if they'd heard from Cayde. Shiro didn't know if he wanted to scream and shake him or hug him and never let go. Typical Andal. Typical idiot. “I'm telling Tev,” Shiro decided, once he regained the ability to speak. “What the hell , Andal?”

Andal shrugged again. “I know Tev said you're okay, but I never asked you. Was he right?”

“You could've died your Final Death today and that's what you wanna talk about?”

Andal snorted. “Have a little faith in me, Shiro. I might be the Vanguard, but that doesn't mean I've stopped training.”

“I do have faith in you,” Shiro shot back. “I always will. But someone was trying to kill you. Permanently. It could've gone sideways.”

“I know. But it didn't, and I'm still here.” Andal tried for a smile. “And I want to know if you're all right.”

Shiro blew out an exasperated breath. Andal wasn't unreasonable on most things; he'd back down in an argument if he thought he was wrong. But if anyone else had been attacked like that, he'd be climbing the walls over it, and somehow, despite all of the aptitudes that had earned him the title of mastermind, he'd convinced himself he wasn't worthy of the same - that because it was him, pack leader and Hunter Vanguard, he should shoulder the fallout alone. Not even Cayde had figured out how it worked, so Shiro wasn't about to try now.

“I'm fine. Just tired,” Shiro said, resigned. “Tev's been trying to help, in his own way.”

“I noticed.”

“He's a little aggressive about it.”

Andal huffed a laugh. “Just a little.”

His eyes drifted back to the door, and that grief flashed in them again, stark enough to make Shiro's heart turn. He leaned forward, took hold of Andal's shoulders, and pulled him into a crushing hug, and he didn't let go until that damned door finally opened and Cayde stumbled out, drowning in one of Shiro's many hooded sweatshirts, and fiddling with one of the strings you could use to tighten the hood. His pants, oddly enough, fit perfectly.

“Are you keeping stashes of your clothes in my apartment again?” Shiro asked, trying desperately for a bit of levity.

Cayde shrugged and jammed his hands into the hoodie's pocket. He avoided Shiro's gaze completely, but Shiro caught the quick, habitual scan he did of Andal. The expression he had when he realized he'd done it was oddly close to guilt. “Is Tevis gonna kill me if I don't eat his cooking?” he asked, rocking back on his heels and staring somewhere behind Shiro's head.

“He might.”

“Guess it's death by Tev's cooking, then.”

“You're just jealous because his food is better than yours.”

“It absolutely is not.”

The panicked vulnerability wasn't gone, only covered by a playful smile. It was Cayde's instinct to mask his pain with a joke and a grin, the same way Tevis deflected with a scowl and a jab, and Andal redirected with a gentle touch and a warm smile. Shiro knew that, he'd seen it a thousand times - and somehow, it never failed to make his chest ache. He gave Cayde a slight push toward the kitchen. “Go eat while it's hot.”

Cayde's gaze flickered to Andal again, before he tore it away and abruptly traipsed off to the kitchen with a sing-song, “Oh, Te-vis, Shiro said you're gonna make me eat your poison.”

Andal made a noise that was probably supposed to sound like a laugh, and came out as a miserable groan. He dragged a hand down his face. “I should go. Whatever's wrong, I'm making it worse.”

If Andal left, Cayde might implode. “Stay in here.”

“What?”

Shiro waved at the bed. “Sleep,” he said. “Give Tev and I some time to figure this out.”

Andal blinked at him skeptically. Still, when Shiro tugged the covers back, Andal moved to slide beneath them without complaint. Shiro took a minute to settle him in, then pressed a hand to his shoulder and squeezed gently. “Rest. I'll come and get you if we need you.”

If Andal heard him, he didn't respond. Shiro waited a moment, until he was sure Andal wasn't just faking relaxation, flicked off the lamp, and slipped out to join the others in the kitchen. Usually Cayde perched on a stool at the counter, balancing in increasingly convoluted ways while he steadily worked through his meal. Tonight, he was quiet at the table, stirring his food around his plate while Tevis sat across from him with his arms folded and pretended not to notice. Shiro slipped into a seat beside him.

“What happened to Andal?” Cayde asked, without looking up.

“I told him to rest. He had a hell of a day.” It wasn't what Cayde meant to have answered; he'd noticed the unhealed cut, too. But it wasn't like Shiro could explain that while he still seemed two seconds from bolting.

“Oh.” Cayde's eyes snapped to the open bedroom door with such a look of pained longing that it made Shiro's chest tight to see it. He stopped fiddling with the food on his plate, completely fixated, and completely unmoving. It was the same as when he'd first stepped through the door and hadn't been able to raise his arms to cradle Andal close: like he was afraid to, or not sure if he should, but he desperately wanted to anyway.

“You can go to him, you know,” Tevis pointed out, with an eyeroll. “Doubt he's even asleep yet anyway.”

Cayde's breath hitched. “Nope,” he forced out, past a weird little hiccup. His plate of ill-treated food regained his full attention. “Let him sleep.”

“You're just gonna sulk out here the rest of the night?”

“Nah, thought I'd head out after I eat.”

“Not with my hoodie, you don't,” Shiro cut in. “You still haven't returned the last one.”

Cayde clutched at the sweatshirt like he thought Shiro would actually try to wrangle it off him if he didn't have a tight grip on it. “They're comfortable.”

“If you leave, that stays.”

Cayde huffed at him. “Really not giving me a lot of choices here, are ya?”

“Eat,” Tevis reminded tiredly. “You're gonna have mush if you keep picking at it like that.”

“When did you become such a connoisseur?”

“Just eat your fucking dinner, Cayde.”

Cayde slumped in his chair. “Yeah,” he said, after a minute. “Sorry. Not happening. It's, uh, nothing wrong with the food.”

His gaze was locked on the bedroom doorway again. He tightened his grip on his fork, as if he could will himself to stay put that way, then opened his mouth and snapped it shut just as quickly. That strange guilt-ridden fear passed over his face for a second time. Shiro leaned forward to rest a hand on his wrist, so slowly and gently that it took him a solid few seconds to actually make contact after he started the motion.

Cayde stared at the touch like he wasn't sure if he should accept it. That kind of hesitation was an odd look on him. He was as tactile as they came: a hand on the shoulder here, an arm slung across the back there, always nodding off against whoever was closest. He'd never bothered with deserve , only with allowed . “Hey,” Shiro said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. “Something bad happen out there?”

Cayde didn't move: not to deny it, not to crack a joke, not to storm away, and not to collapse in on himself. What little Shiro could see of the glow of his eyes was sharp with panic. His jaw trembled. “Yeah,” he managed. “Something like that.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Shiro asked, and when Cayde glanced past him, tried, “You want me to get Andal?”

“I can't tell Andal,” Cayde exploded, a harsh and desperate whisper.

Shiro exchanged a look with Tevis, and smoothed a soothing circle against Cayde's arm with his thumb. The only sound between them was the hoarse rasp of Cayde's breathing, strangled and low, and the longer the quiet went on, the worse it got, until he tugged away to drop his head into his hands. “I should go,” he whispered. “This is my damn problem.”

“You've been making your problems my problems for centuries now,” Tevis scoffed. “The hell's one more?”

Cayde made a noise that was more sob than laugh, and Shiro settled an arm around his shoulders. “Was it the journals?”

Cayde's next inhale was higher and more ragged. “Yeah,” he croaked a long few moments later, and stopped to heave a nervous chuckle. “Was, uh, different, though. Never actually felt like I was - like it was me who…”

Shiro tightened his hold: not enough to spook him into bolting, only enough to ground him. He remembered with sickening clarity what he'd said to Tevis earlier, about Caydes one through five, and knew without having to ask that the tremors running down Cayde's spine were from his memories of someone else's nightmare. “It wasn't you,” he reminded.

“Felt like it was.” Cayde lowered his hands to look at them. They trembled, and he stared at them as if he expected them to be less unremarkable: to be scorched and battered and covered in blood. “This guy - this other me. Think he was a mercenary. Hurt a lot of people that didn't deserve it. I mean, a lot. He kept a log of all his jobs, too. The me that made the journal, he'd found it. And he put it in there. I think he was the one that started everything. All the record-keeping. All the notes for the next man, hoping he wouldn't turn out like the one before.”

Cayde stopped to draw a struggling breath. “Wasn't in the records, but when I read ‘em, I remembered. Like, really remembered. I don't know how long it was I was just sitting there. But this mercenary guy, he had a partner. Inseparable, for life kinda deal. I don't know what happened, exactly. If it was on purpose. I just know he killed him, the same as the rest.”

“Shit,” Tevis muttered, and Shiro tensed and braced, and saw him do the same: half a step ahead of Cayde’s recollection and already making the connection. His own chest was too tight. Cayde's breathing quickened. A staticky wheeze escaped him.

“It's not always the other me and his partner I see in my head,” Cayde forced, voice cracking and breaking in a rush. “It's me, and it's Andal. And he's dying, and I'm holding the knife, and I'm holding him, and his blood is…”

He flexed his fingers slightly, as if he was reminding himself they were clean, and not curled around a weapon. A choked sob wrenched its way out of his throat, and he curled in on himself while his shoulders heaved.

Shiro barely registered the soft pad of footsteps, but he knew it had to be Andal. So did Cayde. His head snapped up and around, and his fear-blown eyes locked on Andal, barely a few steps out of the bedroom.

“You been there the whole time?” Cayde whispered.

Andal shook his head. “I could hear you from the bedroom,” he answered, voice impossibly soft. He grimaced, and dragged a hand through his disheveled hair. “I wasn't trying to eavesdrop. It's just - you sounded like you were crying, and I couldn't just…”

His voice failed him, and he shrugged helplessly. When Cayde didn't move, Andal did, crossing the room and coming to a stop beside him. The whole way, Cayde's eyes never left him. For a long moment, all they did was look at one another, locked in some silent exchange that only they could understand. At last, Cayde raised a trembling hand and slowly, agonizingly, let it come to rest against Andal's cheek in the barest whisper of a touch.

“Sorry,” he said, punched out. “Meant to call you.”

Andal hesitated, then leaned into the warmth and lifted his own hand to press it atop Cayde's. “It's okay,” he returned, still with that impossible softness, and for all of the grief and pain written across Cayde's face, he melted at it. “You're home now. That's all that matters.”

Shiro squeezed Cayde's shoulders a final time and pushed himself to his feet to cede the space to Andal. No sooner had he moved than Andal was in Cayde's lap, holding and letting himself be held, smoothing his hands down his back and pressing their foreheads together and whispering quiet reassurance.

“They should still eat something,” Tevis muttered, from his new spot at the counter. Shiro slipped onto the stool beside him, and propped an elbow on his shoulder.

“They can eat in the morning. They're gonna have a hell of a conversation first.”

Tevis cast a glance at the clock, and then the window, where the faintest light of dawn was beginning to break the horizon. “It is morning.”

Shiro followed his line of sight blearily. “Oh. Right.”

Tevis glanced at Cayde and Andal, talking too lowly to be heard, and stood, pulling Shiro with him. “C'mon,” he said. “There's a market that's open at dawn.”

Shiro stared at him like he'd just said his dream was to be the next Hunter Vanguard. Fatigue sat heavy in every line of his frame. Go to a market at dawn? Sure, any other day. Right now, all he wanted to do was collapse in a quiet corner and sleep. Tevis knew that, he was sure, the same way he knew that if they stayed, Cayde wouldn't really talk to Andal about what had happened, and what he didn't say would fester like a wound. Better to give him the space now, exhaustion be damned.

Tevis's mouth twisted in faint regret. “Sorry,” he said, as he tugged him out the door. “You can pick a spot and stay there and I'll come back for you once I have everything.”

“I'm all right.”

“You're dead on your damn feet is what you are.”

“I'm staying with you.”

Tevis gave an exasperated sigh. That raw edge was back in his voice when he grumbled, “Fine, then keep up.”

Despite his words, Tevis led them through the quiet streets of the City at a leisurely stroll. The market was situated in an open square with a fountain in its center. Various vendors had set up shop around the perimeter, and while the walkways weren't packed yet, Shiro guessed they would be in a few hours. “You come here a lot?”

“Only when you get on my ass about not visiting enough.”

Shiro hadn't had to bother him about coming to see the rest of them in a long time, mostly, he guessed, because Tevis had finally begrudgingly admitted to himself that he missed them. Not that he'd say that. “Never pinned you as an early riser.”

Tevis snorted disdainfully. “Is it getting up early if you were never asleep?”

Shiro rolled his eyes. Tevis stopped suddenly to look over some fruit, and he only narrowly avoided knocking into him. “You like strawberries, right?” Tevis asked, scrutinizing the carton as though he expected there to be a tiny thrall tucked away in it, ready to attack.

Shiro shoved his head, lightly. “Yeah. So do Andal and Cayde. Stop looking at the fruit like that. It's not going to bite you.”

“Never said it was.”

“No, you make that damned face whenever you think something's going to attack you. I've seen you do it at Cayde, too.”

“I'm sure he deserved it.”

“Just get the damned berries, Tev.”

Tevis didn't argue on that point, at least, though he did shove the bag at Shiro after the fact. “Did you bring me along just to carry your stuff?” Shiro huffed, but took the bag anyway.

Tevis gave a low laugh and shook his head, and in the light cast by the sun's slow rise, he looked more at peace than Shiro could ever remember seeing him. The slight smile curling the corner of his mouth glowed with genuine warmth. There was still tension strung along his spine, and Shiro guessed maybe there always would be. Still, even so, this was miles from the bloodshot ghost of a man Tevis became when he spent too long on his own, running solo with nothing but the Void in his veins.

“It's good to see you like this,” Shiro said quietly.

Tevis tossed him a confused glance. “The hell are you talking about? I look the same as I always do.”

Relaxed. Happy. Safe with the people he cared about, and unwilling to admit it in the daylight under pain of death. “Nothing,” Shiro returned, trying to bite back the smile in his own voice. “Don't worry about it.”

Tevis arched an eyebrow at him, though he did let it be. “I meant to ask you before. You know what happened to Andal?”

“Someone tried to assassinate him with a corrupted blade. He dodged. They fought. He won. Apparently it's ‘nothing’.”

Tevis stopped dead in his tracks. “Fucking typical,” he groaned, and dragged a hand down his face. “What the hell?”

“That's what I said.”

“Bets on whether he tells Cayde?”

“If he doesn't, Astraea will.”

“Good. Someone's gotta get him to stop keeping that shit to himself.”

“You realize how that sounds, coming from you.”

Tevis gave an exaggerated huff. “Pain in the ass,” he said, and it was all warmth and fondness. He started walking again, and Shiro fell into step beside him. “You don't have to point it out every damn time.”

“Wouldn't feel right if I didn't.”

Tevis made a vague noise of amused acknowledgment, distracted by a vendor's fresh bread. He didn't talk again until they left that stall three bags heavier. His gaze had gone distant. “You think Andal'll get through to him?”

Shiro hummed. “If there's anyone that can, it's him.”

Tevis nodded agreeably, but there was a pinch to his brow that hadn't been there a moment ago. “Hell of a thing to go through.”

“He'll be okay, Tev.”

“I know.” Tevis was suddenly incredibly interested in a stand full of paintings and carvings. Shiro followed him around it for a while, until Tevis decided he'd spent a suitable amount of time avoiding the topic, and led them on. Shiro barely caught the flash of concern on his face, there and gone in a breath.

Shiro frowned. “What?”

Tevis didn't meet his eyes. “The memories,” he started, haltingly, like he didn't know if it was all right to ask. “The ones Cayde gets back when he reads those journals. You ever get anything like that?”

Nothing so intense or specific. Always scrambled. Sometimes cold. He was never sure if it bothered him or not. “No,” Shiro answered, after a beat. “Nothing clear. Why?”

Tevis inclined his head in his hack at an innocent shrug. “Just curious.”

“If I decide to start digging into my past, I'll leave the coordinates with Andal,” Shiro said dryly.

Tevis didn't answer for a long few moments. “Thanks,” he offered, avoiding Shiro's gaze again. “I mean it.”

Shiro clapped him on the back gently, and left his hand there, a grounding touch Tevis would, under other circumstances, shrug off with a scowl and a grumble. Today, he let it be without a word of complaint, and he didn't break his stride as he said, “Couple more things and we'll head back. They'll probably be done talking by then, and you can get some rest.”

Shiro followed him through the rest of the market, and then back along the waking City streets to his apartment. The lights were off inside, save the one in the kitchen. It cast enough of a halo to see Andal, curled up on the couch with Cayde wrapped protectively around him. “Hey,” Andal murmured, half awake, and with a content little smile. “Where'd you guys go?”

“To get breakfast,” Tevis said, voice pitched low and gentle as he toed off his boots. “Get some sleep. We can eat later.”

Shiro kicked his own shoes off and busied himself with storing their market purchases. Cayde had at least had the sense to put his unfinished food in the fridge, but had done so at such a haphazard angle that the container almost started an avalanche when Shiro moved it. He'd only just fixed it when Tevis's hands landed on his shoulders.

“Sleep,” Tevis ordered, maneuvering him to sit on the end of the couch. He left long enough to retrieve a pile of blankets from the closet, then meticulously tucked a few over each of them with intensely focused care. Cayde would have teased him about it if he had been more awake. As it was, he mumbled something that sounded vaguely like thanks.

Shiro caught Tevis's wrist before he could slip by. “You too,” he reminded, and tugged, once, to get Tevis to sit on the other side of him, at the end, because it was convenient, but also because it would be the easiest place to slip out of if the contact was too much.

“I already slept for almost four days,” Tevis pointed out. Still, he offered no resistance, and once he was settled, he nudged at Shiro's arm until he lifted it and settled it around him.

Shiro pulled the blankets up over them, pillowing his head on the back of the couch, and immediately felt Andal's fingers curl loosely around the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Cayde flailed his hand around until Tevis leaned over to take hold of it with a deep and unconvincing sigh, and Shiro stifled a laugh. By Tevis's side-eye, he wasn't completely successful.

“All of you shut up and pass the fuck out already,” Tevis muttered, and closed his eyes.

Shiro didn't follow suit - not for a while, anyway. It had been too long since they'd been together in the same place. He'd never thought about how much he'd loved the constant proximity until he'd lost it: until Andal had gone up to the Tower, and Cayde and Tevis off on their own into the Wilds. This, though - this was close enough. He had all of them around him, safe from everything that was always threatening to take them away, and he could feel their constant weight and let the soft rhythm of their breathing bring him peace.

That was everything, and it felt like enough.

----

#destiny #candal #andal brask #cayde 6 #shiro 4 #tevis larsen #my writing

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