Work Text:
Saint dreams. Not of a tower, but of corridors stretching infinitely on lemniscate paths, looping hippopedes that never intersect, paradoxical reflected analemmas that weave through blankness without end. He doesn't walk the broken-glass floors; he simply perceives this fractalline infinity, empty, empty, echoing, and waits. Some nights he hears the echo of an echo, phonemes trapped along hard edges, sighing his name on a distant breath yet to come.
When he asks, Osiris folds his arms and looks away.
The Obelisks, Osiris says, will need to stabilize the Sundial’s work on Mercury. They need to be charged, so the Guardians need to be guided. Motivated. Saint spares no thought before agreeing to do it; later, he spares some thought to wonder what might have happened if he’d stayed with Osiris on Mercury, if Osiris had come with him to the Tower. Possible timelines, Osiris would call it. Saint calls it wishful thinking.
And so he returns to the Tower, landing his faithful Gray Pigeon in a hangar that is no longer familiar to him. Even amid the wonder of (re)discovery, the joy of new friends, the grief of those lost, something calls him sunwards. Like gravity is pulling him towards the brightest object in the system.
He still dreams.
Osiris,
The Tower hasn't changed. I thought it would have, but no; in everything but the building, it is the same as when I left. New inhabitants, yes, and old friends gone, but at its heart still a home.
I've met your Drifter associate. In short: I pity him. Isolation clings to him like a shroud. He is clever and resourceful, but… well. I'm sure you need no explanation of how it is to be around him.
That being said, I see much of you in him – the same eyes, always looking to something far away. The same peculiar sense of longing or hunger, like he's missing the trees for the forest. Very much like a Warlock. And like a Hunter, he pretends loneliness is a virtue; like a Titan, he is stubborn enough to believe it. An odd man.
I hear Saladin will be visiting next week. If as much time has passed as you say, I hope that he and Shaxx have managed to repair their relationship.
(I know better, but I can still hope.)
I miss Mercury's warmth; its gilded sands, its blazing deserts. It suits you, dressed in gold. Take care of yourself as attentively as you care for your Sundial, Osiris.
Yours,
Saint
Saint,
There’s no “caring for” the Sundial. I am not its caretaker. You can try to refute me cleverly – I’m sure you will – but this device anchors this present and keeps us from a future of ruin that is far too close. It is a machine. It performs its function. As do I.
The Drifter… a unique man, to be certain. But he has no compunctions about the Darkness, nor does he care to hide his relationship with it. There is a future– or a past yet to come– in which what he knows is vital. His role will be key. I am loath to stoop to a cosmic chessboard metaphor, but it is somewhat apt here. There is an old proverb, pre-20th century Mediterranean, I believe: at the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. I am, again, loath to stoop to metaphors; the box in the universe, and we are all kings and pawns, simultaneously, atemporally. We have the power to break the box and manipulate it to suit us. Asking who is the king and who are the pawns is a waste of time. The better question is: what game does the Queen want to play? What box does she aspire to retire to?
I digress.
I am glad you’ve found the Tower to your liking. The latest Guardian cohorts are quite interesting; I think you will like them. Get a feeling for how they like their bounties done. They’re picky, but fiendishly dedicated. Vance was overzealous with the Trials, but the Old Russia cohort was unwavering. I know you can inspire a similar loyalty in them.
And on that note, you are right: Shaxx and Saladin still avoid each other at all costs. Ridiculous. Saladin visits like clockwork for his games. Surely two Titans can muster the resolve to apologize for an imagined slight.
Yours,
Osiris
Osiris,
Since our conversation with Shaxx, I have had… many things on my mind. Six Fronts. Twilight Gap. Shaxx’s Crucible. What it means to face our enemies. Victory and defeat. Ah, philosophizing is your job. I am just glad that we were able to speak with that Guardian. Pass on the legacy of the Gap.
Tell me more about Trials. I’ve heard whispers from the older Guardians, but I want to hear your words – what were you seeking? What did you offer that Shaxx could not? I know that this was more Vance’s work than yours, but I’m sure you kept an eye on your Trials. Shaxx was right in calling it the Crucible; you get a certain sense for a Guardian in seeing them fight with and against their friends.
That Drifter is an omen, I think. A warning. What happens when we – Guardians – stray too far from each other. Visit the Tower some time soon. What is “exile” to you but a badge of pride, anyways?
Yours,
Saint
Saint – meet me at these coordinates.
ME//30.30.0//189.48.0//Yours,
Osiris
Saint leans against a spire made of crumbling perfect geometries, and the wide brow of his helm tilts down towards the smooth fan of Mercurian sand below as Shaxx’s Redjacks clear the arena for the next match. It was a well-fought match between well-matched opponents; not quite the caliber he seeks, but that is precisely why he’s here to lay these plans.
Osiris lets his gaze fall away. The sunlight here reflects far too brightly off of Saint’s helm; looking at him is difficult, as if the spaces between his ribs have been neatly packed with tinder and that refracted light will make it catch.
Next to him, Sagira’s shell twitches, and her iris narrows.
“Hand cannons have grown in popularity, it seems,” Saint muses. “Even in the wake of a weapon like Thorn.”
“Thorn has not been forgotten,” Osiris replies, “though not every Guardian wants to dabble in the affairs of diluted Shadows.”
Saint looks down at him. Osiris watches the arena. The force of his gaze weighs infinitely upon Osiris’s shoulders; Sagira’s shell twitches again, like she’s holding something back. Osiris decides he does not want to hear it.
“Is that what you’re looking for?”
“I’m not looking for anything. The Darkness is moving. Guardians need something… else. Not this.”
“Spit it out, Osiris.” Saint’s voice is warm with amusement. Familiar. Osiris looks up at the sunlight slanting thickly over the crest of his helm and drowns. The Vex clipped him neatly out of every timeline; tucked every echo and trail of him away deep in the Infinite Forest, so cleanly that not a shred of him existed save for in Osiris’s memory. Saint’s voice shaping his name is so bright and dear that for a moment– for a moment— “Osiris. What do you want?”
The words beat against his throat. Saint’s shadow falls against him, warm, and he is crowned by the sun at his back, prominences wreathing his helm. Osiris quells the baseless urge to touch him and make sure that he is real.
“Trials. The Guardians need it again.” He gestures down at the arena. “What Shaxx is doing isn’t enough. The Vanguard is spread too thinly. They need a challenge to rise to.”
“And you want to give them that?”
“No,” Osiris says, eyes tracing the line of soft Void that burns down the cleft of his helm, “I want you to give them that.”
Osiris,
I think I have Shaxx convinced. He’s touchy about sharing his arenas with Saladin, but luckily, I am not above leveraging a miraculous return from death to get what I want. I’ve attached map data for the rotation we can use; he’ll be leaving this map out of his rosters for a few days soon. SEE FILE: [ IF-BRN.0313 ]
Your Echoes have been a welcome presence, but they do not compare to the real thing.
Yours,
Saint
Saint,
Will you come to Mercury again? Walk the arena with me. Meditation has escaped me lately, but your presence clears my thoughts. It helps to speak out loud to someone. Sagira has already managed two poor attempts at humor as I write this.
Something is calling, at the edge of our system. I do not know what will happen if we answer. But if we do not, I have no doubt that the result will be worse.
The Sundial is spent. Let me put Trials in your hands before I leave.
—yours
Saint walks to the edge of the cliff, boots thumping near-silently over lifeless sand. He is bright against the horizon-spanning curve of the dead star that still hangs in the sky; the Forest’s processing engines warp slightly around his silhouette, straining to account for this blazing-Light anomaly, unsimulable.
“It’ll do,” Saint declares, amused. “I will be glad to watch Guardians fill this empty simulation with Light.” He scuffs at some of the dust with his toe; faint, gridded architecture gleams dimly underneath. “What a desolate place. Even the Hive are more creative, I think.”
“The Vex cannot simulate Light or Darkness,” Osiris says. “Even in mimicking the Hive, they are not allies of the Dark. They want a future where neither wins.” He pauses. His next words thoughtlessly discard centuries of philosophizing about the nature of the Traveler, of Ghosts, the Collapse, Guardians themselves. “They won’t survive a timeline where Darkness or Light prevail. Maybe their swiftest end will come at the hands of both, together.”
Saint says nothing, only glances down as Osiris joins him on the cliffside. Together, they watch the dim sun burn in silence.
Osiris leaves him at the edge of the Forest with a letter, hand-written, and a hollowness in his chest that he has not felt for years, or will not feel for decades, or has never stopped feeling.
Osiris,
Chase whatever you need to chase. Know that I will follow you, once more, and always, if I must.
Yours,
Saint
Saint,
Indeed, I don’t know when I’ll return to Mercury next. Chasing answers only ever leads to more questions. The Vanguard don’t care for what I have to say, but perhaps I’ll finally find something that forces them to listen.
How are your Trials?
—yours
Osiris,
I’m sure there’s some kind of mathematical… something for this. But it surprises me how many different Guardians and fireteams I see at the Lighthouse, earning their seventh wins. It brings me hope.
It has been good to hear from Anastasia again, but I don’t know about this Warmind of hers. I worry about her.
If the Vanguard refuse to listen to you, then they will have me to contend with as well.
Yours,
Saint
When did I ever earn the right to your patience defense of me?
In the end, we are all people. All fallible. When we fail – even Guardians – it is on a human scale. But a Warmind’s failings are on another scale entirely. And the Vanguard made it clear they would rather strike deals with a Warmind than listen to what I have to say.
—yours
Humanity survived the Collapse. If another is coming, we will survive that one too. Warmind or no. Failings or no.
Osiris, you earned me at your side the first moment we sat together and spoke. You earned it when we fought at Six Fronts, and at the Gap. I know it’s your duty to question things – you are the Warlock, of course – but you never have to question this.
Emphatically yours,
Saint
It has been quite some time since I last heard from you. Stay safe, my dear friend. And listen to Sagira.
Yours, always,
Saint
Your Trials are the only thing keeping me from Warlock-worrying like you. Worrying about you. Did you plan for this? Of course you did, you clever bastard.
I hope to hear your voice again soon.
Saint
Don’t make me come looking for you again. I’m not sure Time could handle you shattering it again. Or worse, me shattering it.
Saint
I don’t know when this will reach you, or when you will read it. Regardless, know this to be true: I await your return. Ever and always.
Yours, in all the timelines you broke for me,
Saint
All of his speech processors feel garbled and backwards somehow, thumping out of time with his footfalls as he walks towards Osiris’s familiar silhouette, stark against the sun at the summit of this Lighthouse.
Osiris’s Light feels muted somehow. Distant. He knows it’s not an Echo waiting for him – or Reflection, or whatever he’s calling it now – but it’s almost the same; that thin veneer keeping Osiris from being fully present, rooted firmly in his heart.
The sun spills liquid gold between them like a sea waiting to be crossed. Saint steps closer.
“What did you find?” he asks quietly instead of no need to watch over me or I thought these were my Trials now or any other of the thousand lighthearted things that come to mind, and he places his helm on a nearby jut of rock, worn flat by howling sand. A handful of candles flicker gently. Blistering air beats against the soft plasteel of his face; Light pushes it back.
“The heliopause,” Osiris begins, glancing over his shoulder at Saint, and then he falls silent. His shoulders are tense; even Sagira’s shell is drawn closer to her core than usual, her sharp spires stiff.
Saint closes the last few steps between them and looks at Osiris for the first time in… ah, time feels so different, even still. Perhaps it has only been a few weeks since Osiris’s departure, but the chasm of lost years still yawns between them. Something fragile and lively beats against his chest like wings shaping air.
“Osiris,” he prompts, his voice quiet, static hushing through his gottal module.
Osiris’s eyes are creased at the corners, shadows gathering heavily between his brows, and his gaze is more distant than ever, as if sliding between potential realities, unable to grasp at any of them.
“I spoke with Rasputin,” he finally murmurs. “I traveled to the edge of the system.” He closes his eyes. “I was right. The Darkness is coming. He knows it.” He raises a hand; his eyes are open again, sharp, exhausted. “Spare me your stubborn Titan heroics. There won’t be a grand battle here. Lines have been drawn–”
“And when have you ever followed lines?” Saint interjects, and the unexpected anger rumbles in the column of his throat. Osiris’s gaze finally sharpens – finally, finally, Saint finally feels the full weight of his attention, his piercing eyes settled just on him, just in this moment. “You are my–” Some stray spark jumps through his vocal cores and makes him pause. “You are my dearest friend, Osiris. This is unlike you.”
“This is unlike anything we’ve seen,” Osiris says, heat rising in his voice. “All we can do is arm ourselves, if we can even figure out how to do that adequately. This isn’t a threat we can face head-on by throwing Guardians at it. I cannot– we cannot lose you again.”
“I lost you first.”
Osiris’s eyes widen fractionally. Sunlight lines the curve of his brow, light thrown softly down from the blazing gold of his cowl, lighting depths in his eyes that Saint cannot hope to comprehend.
“I lost you first, Osiris,” he repeats firmly, and curls a hand gently around Osiris’s elbow. This close, he can pick up the faint, familiar smell of sunlight that has nothing to do with Mercury or its proximity to a star. “And this isn’t a threat we can face by losing you to bear this weight alone, either.”
Osiris stays. Against his better judgment. Perhaps because of it.
Saint’s enthusiasm for his Trials shines brighter than any lighthouse on the shores of Earth’s oceans. Perhaps, Osiris thinks, there is some metaphor to be extracted here. He watches Saint greet every single Flawless fireteam with care and hope and it only serves to make the hollow between his ribs collapse into some yawning void, easily named, unable to be ignored.
He watches Saint remove his helm, his gauntlets, his pauldrons, and listens as he talks about this fireteam, that maneuver, teamwork, synergy, and he is standing before he knows it, like Saint’s very being is a neutron star against the weave and weft of spacetime and he is helpless against the simplest force of nature.
In this timeline, Saint’s fingertips touch the edge of his jaw so gently that Osiris thinks he might break. In another, Osiris knows he would have pulled Saint down to him, twined fingers into his chassis until all his vital wires cut deep into his hands, and measured each breath by the pulse in his throat. In a distant past, another Osiris would have waited forever without hesitation, bowed before a hollow tomb, watching accolades drift into frayed threads as the system fell to conversion engines.
A cool touch anchors him here.
Osiris moves through honey-thick air and grasps Saint by the chin; decisive, so unlike how fractured he feels, as if thousands of Reflections are all clamoring to do something different.
Saint bows to him easily. He tastes of Void, cool and sharp, and Osiris thinks he may disintegrate into nothing more than wisps as Saint kisses him with more patience and care than he deserves. He feels fingertips brush against the collar of his robes, pushing gently at his cowl, and then pressure at the small of his back, and every touch feels like Saint is asking him to surrender. The concept of doing anything else is unfathomable.
The universe moves around them. Dust shimmers lazily in the thick beams of sunlight that soak Osiris’s cloak, cooled in counterpoint by Saint’s touch, and Osiris thinks a distant Reflection may already be looping back to feel this all over again, each touch duplicated with a millisecond’s delay. He shivers.
“Osiris,” Saint murmurs, warm air venting against his lips as Saint leans their foreheads together. “Tell me–”
“Yes,” Osiris replies, immediately, unthinkingly. “Every question you could think of asking. Yes.”
He lays his palm against the warm soft polymer of Saint’s cheek. Saint leans into the touch and lowers his eyes, and then leans away – Osiris finds himself swaying forward, drawn – until he can sit down on one of the flat pillars dotting the Lighthouse, eyes soft.
“I would have gladly given my life for you in the Infinite Forest,” Saint murmurs. “Whatever it took to find you, I would have done it.”
Osiris sinks to his knees, slowly, framed by the line of Saint's thighs, and he takes Saint's cool hands in his.
“I broke time for you, Saint,” Osiris says, voice ragged. "All the victories in every other timeline I doomed–" He shakes his head. Saint's hands tighten around his.
“I cannot blame you,” Saint replies quietly, and gently extricates his hand to lay it against the curve of Osiris’s jaw. “I would have done the same.”
“My dear,” Osiris whispers, after so many years, eons, eras of thinking it, real and simulated, futures that already came to pass and pasts that wait for them still, and he lays his head against the dip where Saint’s thigh meets his waist and convinces himself that now is not the time to weep.
Osiris,
I don’t think I have said this before, but I am truly proud to be the handler for Trials in your name. It softens the blow of you leaving.
Ever and always yours,
Saint
Saint,
You and I are both duty-driven, in our own ways; there are things in motion I cannot ignore, and I know that you understand. Somehow, I feel this makes parting slightly easier. Perhaps it is paradoxical, or it isn’t, and I’ve grown sentimental.
Yours, yours, yours,
Osiris
Osiris,
I am suspending Trials this week. Io takes precedence. Is there anything you can do to help Eris? Anything? She should not bear this burden alone.
Yours, ever yours,
Saint
My dearest,
I have done what I can. Eris knows the Darkness best, for better or worse. All that remains now is to observe. Listen. Be vigilant. Like I told you before: trust no one.
Yours, until all avenues of time lie barren,
Osiris
Terrible advice, dear heart, because I will always trust you. But you knew that already.
Come home to me when you can.
Ever yours,
Saint
Osiris brings their linked hands up, eyes never leaving his, and Saint swears that he can feel the press of Osiris’s lips through his scarf, through thick armor plate and gel-cushion layers, heat sinking into the lines of coolant and synapse relays, racing towards his chest. Osiris’s eyes crease faintly at the corners as he smiles.
“I hear,” Osiris says, “that we have gained a reputation for being distant.”
“Us?” Saint laughs and lowers his head; Osiris’s hand lights briefly on his breastplate, then on the lip of his helm. “Funny. Last week I heard two Hunters in an argument over how we could be brothers, if I am an Exo, and you a human. If I didn’t know any better, I would think someone was spreading rumors intentionally.”
Amusement glitters in Osiris’s eyes.
“Perhaps someone finds it entertaining.”
“Perhaps someone should come aboard so that I may kiss him,” Saint growls.
Finally, Osiris laughs; the sound is warm, quiet, and Saint pulls him closer by the waist, burying himself in the warmth of his Light.
“Perhaps,” Osiris concedes, and in a dim, empty hangar, shadowed under a ship’s wing, he feels hope.