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“How could you do it?”
Saffron startles. In a second, the gun is in his hand, aiming straight for the figure almost lost in the darkness of the hangar, the movement more reflex than thought. A moment of tense silence passes and then… golden eyes, the shape of a familiar hood, a flash of gray-blue skin. Saffron lowers his arm, mouth suddenly dry. “Crow,” he says, almost involuntarily.
The other hunter hesitates. “Didn’t think I could get the jump on you.”
Saffron tenses, stinging at the jab at his pride, however unintentional. He can’t . But Saffron has been… distracted. Unfocused. Words and sounds have become too muted to catch his attention, strikes and missions and commands pass him by, washed out and uninteresting, since… Well, since Crow left. How he left.
“You are back,” is all he says. And then, “What do you mean?”
Crow steps forward. It’s still too dark, but Saffron gets a glimpse of a jaw, the hint of a nose. His fingers twitch with a phantom want he quickly, automatically disregards. The night air is suddenly too hot against his skin.
“I asked how you could do it,” Crow says, voice low. “How could you… look at me. Talk to me. As if… As if nothing happened.”
Saffron tenses further, a pit opening at the bottom of his stomach. He is struck by a sense of unreality, of absurdity; this feels staged, rehearsed. How many times has he played this part in his own mind, when the anxiety of a hidden secret wouldn’t let him sleep?
“You’re not Uldren Sov.”
Crow snorts. It is not a happy sound. “You don’t work that way,” he says flatly and the certainty in his voice is both a relief and a burden, a needle poking incessantly at Saffron’s skin. “You do not forgive. You do not forget. You still can’t work with the cabal. You barely managed to trust Misraaks. You would never…” A pause. Crow shifts, and the little of his face visible under the frail moonlight plunges into darkness. The phantom want returns, unbidden. “You would never work with Uldren Sov, ghost or no ghost.”
Saffron’s fingers twitch reflexively. He tries to unclench his jaw. A dozen words make their way to his mouth but he swallows them all back; he is a wrong move away from disaster, but this has never been his battlefield and the path forward is murky, unclear and dangerous. The rehearsed conversations he played over and over in his mind offer no help - he could never imagine a good ending for them either.
“What do you want me to say?” is all he manages in the end. “Did you come back just to call me out on my hypocrisy?”
Whatever Crow was expecting him to say, this was not it. The hunter steps back, golden eyes full of confusion. “I…” he begins, then stops. The moment stretches on, uncomfortable, tense, taut like a bowstring.
Then it snaps.
“You thought I was pretending,” Saffron finally says. His voice barely sounds like him. The staged words slip further away from his mind, forgotten beneath the weight of an unexpected turn . “You thought I hated you still.” Crow looks away, and that’s when he realizes it stings. No, not sting . Saffron takes in a deep breath around the hurt blossoming in his chest, growing and growing until it pushes against his ribcage, begging to be let out. He swallows it down. Nothing has hurt this bad in years . “I wasn’t,” he hears himself say. “I didn’t.”
“Saff,” Crow begins, and then, “Saffron,” and that hurts too. “I just… I just want to understand. I… I remember your face when you… when you killed him. I saw it in your eyes. And I know you, now.”
It takes an embarrassingly long time for the thing in his chest to subside enough for Saffron to speak again, and even more for him to find the words. “I did hate you in the beginning,” he says. Crow’s eyes are a weight upon his skin, unflinching. “I hated you fiercely. That’s why Sage did most of the talking for me on the shore. He usually does it everywhere,” he admits. “But even more so on the shore. I didn’t want to talk to you. Or see you at all. I was determined to hate you forever for… for Cayde. But…” But you were kind. And funny and smart, and so earnest. And you trusted me. “My determination wasn’t enough for once.” His voice turns bitter. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
The silence is longer this time. When Crow approaches, the soft lighting is enough to illuminate most of his face - the frown, the bags under his eyes, the paleness of his skin. Saffron’s fingers curl into a fist.
“I don’t know,” Crow says quietly. “I don’t know if there was something I wanted to hear.” He is quiet for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me then?” comes the question, words barely above a whisper. This time it’s Saffron who looks away.
“I didn’t want…” Saffron hesitates. The excuses taste like ash in his mouth, but they are all he has. He didn’t want to ruin what they had… though he is not sure what that even is. His forehead against Crow’s before a mission, a quick, barely there touch on the small of his back when Saffron noticed he was overwhelmed, a shoulder to rest in between strikes, few words, a lot of companionable silence. Neither of them are fond of touching, and still… so much of their relationship was conveyed through it, or through a look or an expression… so rarely words, and thus it remained undefined, free, and almost criminally easy .
A wrong move away from disaster.
“I didn’t want you to see me differently,” he finally says, defeated. “I didn’t want what I did… what Uldren did… to come between us. It was selfish.” He pauses, fighting against the easy way out; he can almost feel Sage’s censure. Apologize . “I’m sorry.”
Crow stares at him, a hint of surprise in his eyes, then sighs. The phantom want is almost a violent impulse - Saffron wants to feel Crow’s skin under his own, to touch the arch of his cheekbone, the curve of his jaw. To make sure he’s all right. But he’s not sure he still has that right, and that is another wound to nurse at another time.
“I need some time,” Crow whispers, yanking him from his thoughts. He isn’t looking at Saffron. “I’m sorry. Don’t look for me.”
And just like that he is gone. Saffron watches the dark, empty hangar, feeling like he’s just been flayed alive.
-
“You are pretty bad at this,” Sage says, swirling into existence by Saffron’s head. The hunter shoots him a look aiming for reproach but it lends on pure misery. The ghost takes pity on him and boops his nose playfully. “Don’t worry. Glint is with him again now - he will keep Crow safe. And,” he adds. “He will forgive you. Not much longer after you’ve forgiven him, I bet.”
Saffron gives him a sad smile. There is nothing for him but to wait.