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Darkness has fallen in Bannerfall by the time Saint crushes the shield into void energy and lets it dissipate. While the City never darkens completely, it does dim overnight. Even more so since the Red War, Shaxx thinks, when the brief return to the Dark Age of scavenging and insecurity had made people remember how precarious their existence is.
In some ways, Shaxx is grateful for that reminder, though he hates himself for it. He wants nothing more than for his people to live in peace, free of fear. But complacency is dangerous, and there is, perhaps, always going to be something of him that finds truth and purpose in adversity. A wolf that lies at your fireside is still a wolf no matter how tame it appears. A Warlord is still a Warlord.
Saint slumps down against the wall of a building, beneath a tattered Concordat banner. He removes his helmet and sets it beside him, before tilting his head back, his optics dimming.
“Have I exhausted you already, Saint?” Shaxx asks, his tone light. He knows there’s no chance of that. Not physically at least. He’s seen Saint keep fighting for days without rest.
One of Saint’s eyes blinks on again, and he snorts. “Hardly. If you want proof, perhaps we take this to your Crucible, Warlord Shaxx. Will be big show! Many people watch.”
“No,” Shaxx replies firmly. “You know that you aren’t allowed to compete.”
The exo says something in Russian which sounds decidedly uncomplimentary. “That is unfair. Perhaps it would be good for New Lights to see us fight.”
“People need their legends, Saint,” Shaxx says more gently. “Not always the reality.”
That was the reason they spoke of how the walls had held at Six Fronts, and not of the bodies that needed to be buried, or trying to clean armour stained with blood and ether, or Osiris shaking apart between the two of them, so fractured from his reflections that Shaxx had worried he would be lost to them. Or that he would be something else if he did return.
Saint huffs but gives a nod. He understands, even if he does not like it. “A private match then,” he suggests. “I would like to stretch my muscles more than I can with throwing shield around.”
“That I can probably arrange.” It might be enjoyable, or at least satisfying. It has been a long time since Shaxx was last able to truly throw himself against another Titan.
“Please,” Saint says. “I would like to keep busy.”
Shaxx nods, and then lowers himself to the ground next to Saint. “You could ask Zavala to pick up some duties. There’s always more work.”
Saint shrugs. “I could.”
“But?” He knows Saint well enough to know that there’s more there.
Saint glares at him, and when he speaks next it is with utmost reluctance. “I make him uncomfortable.”
“Zavala?” Shaxx asks, frowning beneath his helmet. That doesn’t sound right.
Saint nods. “He does not know whether to see me as an authority, or an equal, or as a threat.”
“We’re on the same side,” Shaxx says, although the rest he can see.
“We are,” Saint agrees. “But… I am legend, yes? People look back at me and see only the victories. They see the Hero of Six Fronts, the Kellbreaker.”
“Go on,” Shaxx says.
“All very well when I was dead. But now I am alive, and here and people still see the legend. But Zavala… they see his mistakes, they see the dangers we face. The Endless Night and the Traveller disappearing. The Cabal.”
“And people who are scared clamour for a legend to lead them,” Shaxx finishes. Unfortunately true. Saint is familiar and popular, but people only see the legend. Not the man.
“Yes. I do not want it, but Zavala is the one who must consider it. Even giving me job because I ask for one must be political,” he says, the word laced with distaste. “If he sends me to…” He waves his hands helplessly. “To patrol EDZ, then people think he is undermining me, insulting me. And if he sends me to Throne World, or somewhere else dangerous…”
“Then he’s trying to remove competition,” Shaxx fills in, and Saint nods. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth. He and Zavala have their disagreements and their history, but Zavala is a good leader, an honourable man. “I do not envy him the position. You wouldn’t get me into the Vanguard if it was offered on a golden plate.”
Saint grins at him, and claps him on the shoulder hard enough to nudge him forward. “That is very Hunter attitude, brother.”
“If you say that again, we’ll be having a private match here.” He’s joking. Mostly.
“Do not tease me with promise of a good time,” Saint replies.
And it is a temptation. It would be easy to grab Saint, to slam him to the floor and smash a fist into his face and to feel him retaliate. It would be most enjoyable for both of them, he’s sure. But- no. There are matches here tomorrow. And if they have a private match, Shaxx wants them both to be able to come to it without restrictions, which means an arena out of the way, one that he does not mind seeing completely obliterated. Maybe he should see if there are any Red Legion bases that need clearing out. On behalf of the alliance, of course.
They’re silent for a time, letting the night air cool them. It’s peaceful, reminds Shaxx of earlier times; the snatched moments of respite between combat, your comrade at your back.
“They tried to give me the City, you know?” Saint says after a while, his voice softer now.
“Who did?” Shaxx asked, suspicion lacing his voice. That doesn’t sound good.
“During the Endless Night,” Saint elaborates. “I thought I told- no. No because it was soon before Osiris vani- before the witch fled the city.” Shaxx can hear pain flare in the exo’s voice for a brief moment, but he continues as though he had never misstepped. “Lakshmi and Executor Hideo.”
“Good riddance to them, honestly,” Shaxx replies. What they had done had threatened the safety of the City in the most terrible of ways. Treachery was not something easily forgiven.
“Hah, yes!” Saint agrees. “They came to me. Spoke of making changes. Have the Vanguard deal with things outside the walls, but have a new leader for the City itself.”
“And they wanted you, I take it?”
“They did. Well, they said that, thought they were being very clever, and that I am very stupid. But it was obvious they wanted me as figurehead, a puppet for them to hide behind while they ruled.”
Shaxx winces. “How extraordinarily foolish.”
His estimation of the former faction heads goes down a notch at hearing that. It’s a woeful underestimation of Saint to think that he wouldn’t recognise those sorts of machinations.
Saint laughs at that. It’s a good sound to hear after everything. He is not a man made for long periods of solemnity and grief. “Was very embarrassing for them. And also insulting for me. They had believed too much their own version of the legend of Saint-14. They saw only the soldier, the lover of combat. Very brave, very kind,” he says, preening a little, “and that is true, but they forgot that I was the first Vanguard Commander. That I was emissary to Iron Lords and Warlords. That my Father was the Speaker, and taught me many things.”
“What did you tell them?” Shaxx asks. He’s assuming nothing untoward happened, barring, of course, a Vex invasion, the death of Lakshmi-2, the flight of the Consensus and… well, a lot had happened actually, but nothing specifically involving Saint.
“I told them it was bad plan,” Saint says, a note of anger entering his voice. “They pushed. I said I would need to speak to Osiris.”
“Who was working with them,” Shaxx fills in. It’s exhausting honestly. The world has moved on in ways he could never have imagined. He was never built for subterfuge and deceit. Neither was Saint.
The other Titan nods. “Yes. Looking back, I think they expected ‘Osiris’ to persuade me.”
“I take it from the fact you aren’t lording it over us from a throne in the Tower that it wasn’t successful.” Shaxx tries to keep his tone light, to steer him away from the painful truth of who had been inhabiting Osiris’s form.
“I did not tell Osiris,” Saint says as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. “Even if it had truly been Osiris, and there had not been the constant wrongness, I would not have told him. Not straight away at least.” He gives a short laugh, and when he continues, his voice is full of that intense fondness that he only gets when he speaks about his Warlock. “He is the most brilliant person I have ever met. I trust him with my life. And also he should never be allowed anywhere near politics again.”
Shaxx laughs at that, the sound echoing off the buildings. “Very true,” he agrees. “He does not really have the temperament.”
It had been awful at the time of course; seeing his friends rip each other apart, seeing Osiris fall further into obsession and Warlock-madness and Saint use himself as a weapon of war. And all Shaxx had been able to do was watch and offer what paltry support he could. Until it drove Osiris from the city, and Saint after him.
It seems so ridiculous now. And there’s enough that Osiris had been correct about that it’s hard not to feel a little guilty for not objecting to his exile.
“He does not,” Saint agrees. “I am also not politician. I do not want to be. But Osiris…” He sighs softly. “When I told him I had recommended him as Vanguard Commander, Osiris himself thought I had made mistake that I would leave him in charge of so many things.”
“The great Osiris, admitting that something might be beyond him?” Shaxx says incredulously. “What magic did you use on him?”
“He was overcome by my charm and incredible good looks,” Saint says.
Shaxx has to laugh at the joking brag. “That would do it.”
The laughter fades slowly, and Saint lets out another of those heavy sighs. “Perhaps that should have given me a clue it was not Osiris,” he says quietly. “When he became involved in politics again. Speaking softly, plotting. When has Osiris ever played politics like that?”
There is such a note of pain in his voice that it makes Shaxx ache to hear it. And it’s true. Osiris had always been blunt, never seeing the point of the political games of the Consensus. “Time and grief can change people,” Shaxx says. “Losing Sagira… it wasn’t wrong to think that he might be… different.”
Saint makes a noise of frustration. “It was too much.” He turns to face Shaxx fully, plates of his face drawn into a deep frown, almost accusing. “And people now, they treat me as though I am fragile. Like I will break if they handle me wrong… or do something rash.”
“Fragile is not a word I would ever have associated with you,” Shaxx says, and Saint gives him a brief flash of a smile, tired and wan though it is.
“I dislike it,” Saint says, “but sometimes I do not think they are wrong. I think I would have done terrible things if it would have freed Osiris from the Hive witch.”
“But you didn’t,” Shaxx replies firmly, trying to ease him away from that thought. He’s well aware of the sort of destruction that any of them could wreak, and those thoughts are rarely healthy to indulge. “And he is here now. Safe.” Relatively at least. Lightless, comatose. But better in the City than in some vile Hive cage.
“Yes,” Saint says bitterly. He stares down at his helmet resting on the ground next to him. “Very safe in place where I did not even know it was not my beloved I was speaking to.”
“Saint…” Shaxx places a hand on his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.” He is reminded of another conversation a few years ago, with Osiris on Mercury when he’d learned of Saint’s death. The self-recrimination leading to self-hatred. Not that any of them are immune to it. Light knows he has enough blood on his hands to last many lifetimes. At least Saint is marginally less likely to break space and time than Osiris.
“I spoke to her,” Saint says, “I looked into her eyes, I kissed her, and I did not realise that it was not Osiris. He was being tortured, had his mind abused, and I did not know.”
“And neither did I,” Shaxx says, voice sharpening. He isn’t used to this sort of self-loathing from Saint. Even after Osiris had been exiled, Saint had been angry, upset, but not like this. It throws him off, makes Shaxx feel like he’s walking across territory that he should know, but where the landmarks have all changed. Maybe they’ve all changed too much between them over the years. “Neither did Ikora. The Witch Queen is inconceivably ancient. She’s had millennia to hone her deceptions.”
And they were all fooled. Even when, looking back, some of Osiris’s behaviour had been so wrong.
Saint leans his head back against the wall, staring up at the stars. “I know you are right. But she made me doubt him,” he says, the bitterness and anger thick in his voice. “She made me think he had become deliberately cruel, not just blunt. She made me think that he had been corrupted, become some servant of the Darkness.”
Shaxx closes his eyes beneath his helmet, the depth of this hitting him too. Hadn’t it crossed his mind too, when the thing they’d thought was Osiris had fled the city after facilitating the Vex invasion? The dark thought that someone he had trusted, fought alongside, loved even, in his own way, had betrayed them all in the most callous of ways.
“She made me think that he no longer loved me,” Saint adds finally, so quiet that Shaxx can barely hear the words, but the emotion in them carries nonetheless. The one that stands out though is fear.
“I cannot imagine any power in the universe that would stop him loving you, Saint,” Shaxx says, low and firm. Even when their fights had been bitterest in the leadup to Osiris being exiled, Shaxx had never doubted Osiris’s love for Saint. The Warlock was just extremely bad at dealing with his feelings.
Saint’s jaw clenches, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “It was easier when I had the thought of killing Savathun to sustain me,” he admits. “Now it is just waiting. Worrying. I miss the… the cleanness of a fight.”
“I know what you mean,” Shaxx says. Having a defined enemy, that you could do something about physically… “I sometimes find myself missing those early days.” He shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong, the Dark Ages were hard and brutal. But there was a simplicity to it. Nothing like now, with subterfuge and deception, and looking out into the Darkness for an enemy we still know precious little about.”
There are times when he can see the appeal of the Hive’s Sword Logic; the call of strength above all else, turning yourself into a weapon to destroy your enemies and knowing that one of you would win decisively. It was how many of the Risen had lived before they had been Guardians.
The difference between him and the Hive though was that he’d never seen the point of having that strength if there was nothing to defend.
“It is strange time,” Saint says. “I went into the Infinite Forest when the City was fledgling thing, still precarious. I return and the world has changed. The House of Light live within the walls, and we fight alongside Cabal. When I left, we barely knew of the Awoken beyond those few who came to Earth, and now I have stood in their City and their former Prince visits me in Osiris’s hospital room.”
“Strange is one word for it,” Shaxx agrees. He’s sure that Osiris would have other words, probably ominous ones, to describe it. “For what it’s worth, I am glad we have you here with us for it.” And not just because he is glad to have his friend back. Perhaps it’s cruel though, to wish that someone be here when things are so dark.
“It is worth a lot,” Saint says, with that pure sincerity that he manages so well. “It is hard to be legend sometimes,” he adds, a touch of self-depreciation entering his voice. “So I am glad to have friend. One who is not someone I must protect, or who is… complicated like Ikora.”
“I always think Warlocks would benefit from thinking less and hitting things more,” Shaxx says. “Ikora used to understand that. I blame Osiris.”
Saint laughs, loud and bright. “Hah! Do not let him hear you say that. You know he would get that haughty look, as if he is above it all, when we both have seen him throw himself into a fight as recklessly as any Titan.”
“Osiris knows my feelings on the matter, and if he has forgotten, then I would be happy to refresh his memory in the arena.”
“Now that, that I would like to see,” Saint says dreamily.
It’s a pleasant thought, one that Shaxx is happy to indulge for a while. To step away from the sobering reality of the situation; Osiris Lightless and comatose, the Leviathan over the Moon, pyramid ships, the Darkness closing in. To remember a time before they were legends, when they could pit Light against Light and emerge bloodied and laughing.
“I do remember one good thing from Dark Ages,” Saint says, a note to his voice that scrapes pleasantly against Shaxx’s body.
“Oh?”
There’s a sudden twist of movement, a slam of weight, and he finds himself on his back, Saint pinning him down. The exo’s grin is wide and hungry, and Shaxx feels a pulse of heat grow in his belly.
“Powerful Warlord who I visited as emissary,” Saint says, sounding smug. “Very strong, very impressive.”
Saint drags his hand down the front of Shaxx’s armour, and along with it, is the press of Saint’s Light against his own, like a physical touch. Shaxx exhales sharply, his body responding to the weight, to the Light, to the heat of Saint’s gaze.
“You weren’t bad yourself,” he replies, voice gone rough with lust. “Idealistic, but with the strength to back it up.”
And the kindness and conviction to actually make it work. The Speaker had known what he was doing, finding Saint.
Saint laughs, and there’s another of those presses of Light, and the grind of Saint’s hips down against his own.
It would be so easy to go along with it, to grab Saint and turn the tables, either with a fist against the face, or pressing him down against the ground to fuck. The other Titan would probably enjoy either just as much. Light knows it has been a long time, and he has missed this sort of closeness.
Saint tilts his head, eyes narrowing at the hesitation. “Not good?”
Shaxx gives a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to be a mistake, Saint.”
Osiris in hospital, Saint in such distress, drowning in guilt, worrying that Osiris will stop loving him. No, he doesn’t want to be something that adds to that.
Saint looks away for a moment, and then nods. He touches the side of Shaxx’s helmet, draws a line of Light that he can feel through the metal where it presses against his own Light, like a kiss.
“You have never been mistake, Warlord Shaxx,” Saint says solemnly. “But… I think you are right. It is not fair on any of us.”
He pulls away reluctantly, and Shaxx feels the ache of loss when he does. He pushes himself to his feet and offers Shaxx a hand up. Shaxx grabs it, lets Saint haul him to his feet, and then clasps his arm tightly.
“When he wakes up,” he says, emphasising the ‘when’, because he has to believe Osiris will, “then we will talk. It’s probably long past due that we do.”
They’ve all changed in the time since the three of them stood together, before Osiris’s exile. They have jagged edges that they haven’t had chance to learn how to fit together without cutting each other.
Saint squeezes his arm in return, and Shaxx is relieved that he doesn’t seem hurt by the rejection. It shouldn’t have been a worry really, not with Saint but… they’re different people now.
“Yes. We will talk,” Saint agrees. “And hopefully we will fuck. I miss all of us together.”
The bluntness is a relief, and a reassurance. “I do too,” Shaxx admits. He’s never needed to be less than honest with them. Why start now? “It has been good, having you both back, even if things have been… strained recently.”
“He will wake,” Saint says, and it’s good to hear that conviction back in his voice. He gives Shaxx another smile. “Brother, thank you. For all of this. It is easy to get stuck in my head at time like this.”
Shaxx slaps his back, hard enough to make him stumble forward. “Always. You know I have your back.”
“I could not ask for a better comrade.”