[FIC] destiny drabbles

[obliviousally]

destiny has me absolutely feral these last two~ weeks it's been The Hyperfocus™ in my brain

i have been Writing, which is a change, but it's been fun for self indulgent shit lol

excerpts below. i might do these as separate entries later on, if i can make them feel like 'complete' little drabble things lol they're a mess rn



it started out with this little kailani (my arc titan) and crow thing b/c she's got a thing for him (and, honestly, would've screwed uldren, too)

“I feel kinda bad.”

“That you killed him?”

The Titan barks a small laugh, “No, I don’t feel bad for that. That was justified,” she chews at some jerky from her spot in the tree up on a cliff, legs dangling back and forth off the side of a massive branch. It’d be reminiscent of a grungy tomboy - scraped knees and dirty sneakers - if it weren’t for the full armor. “But I do feel bad for him now, I think.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, I think. He doesn’t know what he did, he’s a clean slate that’s getting a lot of shit thrown at him.”

“Justifiably.”

“Justifiably.”

Still, though. There was a twinge of….It wasn’t guilt. Uldren absolutely deserved what he got in the end. But this? Maybe just empathy. Sympathy? Is it fair to be resurrected and have to account for your sins from a past life? One you don’t even remember? It didn’t seem fair to her, at least, and she was one of the two to pull the trigger. It didn’t matter who landed the killing shot, the punishment was dealt out. Hands washed clean of it, time to move forward.

Can the executioner also be the one who offers forgiveness in a situation like this? Should she ring Petra and come to a conclusion, even though she knows what Petra’s response would be?

“We should probably let the Vanguard know,” her Ghost cuts the thought off.

“Mm. Probably.”

You’re not going to, though. Are you?”

“Probably not.”

She pushes herself from the branch, slowing her fall as she approaches the ground down below before landing with a soft thud in the dirt. Her Ghost follows behind her with a deep sigh, “You probably also shouldn’t make contact, you know.” The Titan gives a sidelong glance, “Lots of things I shouldn’t do, you know,” and she knows if her Ghost could frown, it would. Instead, it tightens up its panels around its core like it’s trying to hold in an argument. “Fine,” exasperation in its tone, “let’s go say ‘hello’.”

Her approach is not stealthy, she’s not trying to hide herself as she makes her way towards his camp. The setup he has isn’t half bad. Tucked in a shipping container, away from most of the more volatile sections of the EDZ. Decent shrubbery to quietly hide in if necessary, good shade for the hot days, plenty of available wood to burn.

And she hadn’t been looking for it. The EDZ just had a lot of cool places to explore and she was often out this way helping with The Farm or with another Titan’s farm or paying a visit to that one friendly Fallen she met. It was a surprise to find it, but not a surprise to find someone camping out here at all. Plenty of non-Guardians leave The City to rough it, after all and plenty of actual Guardians don’t involve themselves with the Vanguard or The City, as well.

When he hears her approach, he jumps to his feet and rushes to put on his helmet. But for that brief second she sees panic and fear in the eyes of Uldren Sov, Prince of the Reef. She wonders if she’d seen that on his face back at the Watchtower would she have done more than hesitate. But at the Watchtower it was easy, he was smug, condescending, philosophical, and ready for his fate.

Here, however, she raises her hands in an ‘I am currently unarmed’ gesture, a sort of greeting, though she knows a weaponless Titan is not a harmless Titan. Still, she puts forward a non-threatening demeanor. She’s not here to torment Uldren Sov. She’s here to say hello to a wayward Guardian.

His Ghost zips in front of him, between the two Lightbearers, though closer to its own. “Keep your distance!” It’s defensive, but almost sounds…unsure of itself, or maybe unsure of its actions. The Titan stops where she is. “I’m not looking for trouble,” she says to the other Ghost, “I just wanted to say hello.”

As she speaks she realizes how absolutely full of shit she sounds. Of course his Ghost would know who was there at the Watchtower, who ended his life. Of course ‘not looking for trouble’ sounds like she’s setting them up. ‘Oh it’s fine, I’m just the Guardian that killed your current charge in a revenge fueled crusade to avenge the death of a friend, I just want to say hello! I promise I won’t kill him again!’

She wrinkles her nose at the thought, frowning a bit. “Sorry, I shouldn’t’ve rolled up on you both like this,” a glance is given between the two, “I….,” she looks to his Ghost, “understand the defensiveness.” She hopes that helps convey, well, something. That she’s not wanting to be seen as a threat, but she understands why she’s seen as a threat. And, hopefully, that she’s true to her word in regards to not looking for trouble.

He exchanges looks with his Ghost, the latter of which is still visibly stressed about the situation, though with the helmet on she can’t see his expression or whatever communication they’ve exchanged. After a moment, the helmet decompiles and he forces a smile, “Hello.”

kailani's sort-of-not-really-partner-but-absolutely-friends-with-benefits void warlock friend danior goes missing after the pyramid mission and ther'es only one person she thinks might have any clue to find him: his OTHER fuck buddy, ol' drifter

The Titan darkens his doorway on a random evening on no particular day. She does not want to be there. She does not want to be asking a favor of The Fucking Drifter. But she is and she’s going to, much to her own dismay. Yesterday’s decisions are a problem for Today’s waking.

“I need your help,” she doesn’t even give him a chance to greet her, to rattle off a little quip. “Danior’s been missing for too long and I think it could be bad.”

“Well lookit who’s come down to exchange pleasantries.”

Turns out he just delayed his greeting. This is going to be insufferable.

“Y’want my help?,” he leans back against the railing, rolling his jade-colored coin over knuckles grimy with dirt or grease or Traveler knows what else. “You ain’t been all that friendly with me, I don’t know if I’d want to help someone who don’t care for my presence.”

Kailani tightens her fists and, without her armor, her body language just makes it more clear this is An Ordeal for her. She has never cared for The Drifter, even thought Danior has been quite friendly with him. She’s found him as sleazy as most of the rest of folks in the Tower. She’s always felt something wasn’t quite right with him, but not in a certifiably crazy way, just in a an unsettling way and she’s sure that the bombastic veneer hides something worse beneath it.

But that’s neither here nor there right now. She takes a deep breath and lets out a long exhale before stepping further into his annex room.

“I am not down here for your sake,” she says firmly, “I am down here because I think you might be one of the only other people who gives enough of a shit and is also crazy enough to go hunting for him with me.”

a bunch of rambling between tony and i about kailani being tortured (intentionally and unintentionally) by attractive individuals leads to someone passing her 'number' along to a cabal dude who, after she gets the other pent up horniness out of her system, she figures 'why not' and goes for it and gets some bruises in return

It’s shortly after sunrise when she makes it back to her place in The City. She unlocks her door and slowly moves through her small apartment. In the kitchen, two men are having breakfast which, for once, doesn’t earn a scowl and a ‘why are you both here’ from her. Instead, she pauses and squints at them both before heading into her room with a marked limp. The two men exchange a look before one of them loudly asks, “Th’ hell happened to you?”

From her bedroom, she answers, “Cabal.”

She can feel the confusion become palpable for them even in the other room. She doesn't acknowledge it, instead carefully undressing down to her underwear and sports bra before just falling face forward into her blankets and groaning.

The two of them appear in her doorway, peeking around the frame like cartoon characters. “Uh,” one of them coughs, “You okay?” It’s still confusion more than concern. She’s not bloodied or anything, so what’s the deal?? Usually she'd be rolling in, giving them shit about how it's HER place and she doesn't need them griming up her 'sanctuary'. The lack of dramatics is….. unusual, to say the least.

Again, she groans as she slowly rolls herself over on the bed, “Someone get me some ice.”

Both of them, a little too quickly, answer, “We’ve got Stasis!,” and she can hear the icy crackle of it come to life. The response is kind of sweet, but she knows they're just trying to get information.

They step into the bedroom, one after another because the doorway isn’t big enough for the both of them. “What happened?,” the other one asks this time, still squinting a little in confusion.

Now she’s just not answering because it’s funny for them to be confused. And there’s more questions than answers when they can see bruises littered across her body. A significant one growing across her hipbones, already becoming that sickly yellow shade. Over her opposite shoulder is more, but different bruising - bite marks? Hard enough to leave imprints, little dots of blood under the surface, but they didn’t break skin.

“I told you, Cabal,” she answers in a tone that implies the addendum of ‘did I stutter?’.

The one man approaches the bed and sits on the edge, on one side of her. The other leans over her a little, reaches out a hand, and presses it firmly against the yellowing bruise. She curses and swats at him and he cackles in response. “How many of these you got? I’m gonna jab all of them,” he says, sitting on her other side.

“I’m gonna break your fingers if you do.”

He pokes another random bruise and she swats him harder this time. “Maybe you should tell us what happened, then and I’ll stop.”

She grimaces. He will. He will keep doing that and then she will break his fingers over it. They will keep pestering her until they know. But, to be fair, this means the other inquiries from other day will likely be forgotten and she won’t have to explain that little romp.

“So last week when I was absolutely feral horny,” a pause, “no thanks to any of you fuckers, by the way,” she continues on, hissing briefly as the currently-not-obnoxious man places an icy hand on her bruised hip. “someone was like ‘hey, what about a Cabal?’ and in my absolutely unhinged-at-the-time brain, I was like what about a Cabal??, but I did not follow up on that lead.”

“Wait, what??,” both men say in unison.

“But apparently someone,” she still is not sure WHO, but someone, “passed word along? Passed my ‘number’,” she air quotes, “along? Anyhow, I felt like it’d be rude to turn him down, so that’s how we’re here now.” She figures it probably wasn’t the Exo, he’s the one who made the other suggestion.

Both the men stare at each other before looking back down at her, “You fucked a Cabal???” In unison, again.

She looks at them like they’re stupid, “Yes, I fucked a Cabal,” she imitates their tone, waving her hands in the air. “What part of that was hard to understand?”

NSFW
takes place during the time they're hunting for their warlock friend, danior. she's finally eased up on her shittiness towards him and, well, it's a good distraction from the stress...

The small lights that were strung along the wall behind her bed cast a warm glow across their bodies. The rest of the room was dark and her ship sang a quiet and consistent hum of background noise. Her palms were flat against the cool grey wall behind her bed as she straddled his lap.

This was roughly twenty minutes after she'd bluntly asked him if he wanted to fuck. Earlier before that, she'd had her torso ripped open by a Hive Knight, they'd slaughtered a whole swarm of them, and she was still high from the battle. When they got back to the ship and stripped down to their skivvies, still bruised and bloodied from the fight, she stared at him for a beat and then blurted it out.

He had blinked in surprise, a week or so ago, she had barely been tolerating his presence. Just for their mutual friend, she kept saying, she only needed his help for finding their friend. But she'd eased up as the time went on. It was clear her bitchiness towards him was mostly for show, or that she really didn't like being this weird kind of dismissive and mean to others - it didn't seem to be wholly in her nature.

Or maybe the adrenaline is in the driver's seat. He's not gonna argue.

Then, he grinned wide and lunged forward to throw her over his shoulder. She yelped as she was the one caught by surprise this time.

In her bedroom he tossed her onto the bed and she laughed out loud, ready to make a smarmy comment about him being pent up, but his mouth was on her torso and his hands were pulling her underwear off and she thought maybe the conversation wasn't necessary.

It was a breath before his head was between her legs and another, this one audible, before her hands were in his hair. She is not going to tell Danior he was right about his mouth.