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demiclar · 1 year

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The Ghost of You

The Ghost of You - Ao3

Shiro begins to reconcile with his Nightmares.

“Why did you come here?”

Shiro blinks, glancing up from where he sits on his bunk in his ship, patching up a tear in his yellow cloak. Suzume could do the same thing in half a thought, the task that could take Shiro over an hour done in a moment, but Shiro likes the work. The old cloak is soft and worn under his fingers, as familiar as the man who appears before him, watching Shiro from the open space in the center of his ship.

He hasn’t left the Leviathan. He retreated back to his ship, but parked in orbit with the heralded eater of worlds, he’s still close enough for the Nightmares to reach him. Some part of him, some desperate, aching piece of him isn’t ready to let them go. Even singing their abuse, spinning their lies and weaving their traps around him, they bear the faces of his old friends. They whisper in their voices, the ghosts of the people Shiro remembers.

“Shouldn’t you already know that?” He feels a pinch of pain alongside the bitterness that immediately rises within him. He can’t help but guard himself against the Nightmares, even when they know everything there is to know about him. They are him. Maybe that’s why he’s so afraid of them, and so desperate to hold onto them.

“I want to hear it from you.”

Andal’s voice comes with its own echo, even when Shiro’s voice doesn’t ripple around the ship. It’s like Andal is speaking into a chasm, or a great cathedral, even as he appears before Shiro.

“Why?” Shiro can’t hold his gaze. He shifts his optics back down to his work, pulling dark thread through a House banner to return it to its careful line of fabric.

“No one stays for as long as you do without a reason.” Andal tells him. At least the Nightmare stays fixed in the center of the ship, looming over Shiro as he floats with his feet hovering over the floor. The real Andal would have taken the pilot’s seat by now, or sat himself on Shiro’s counter. Cayde would have pilfered his cupboards for snacks and Tevis probably would have helped him. Cayde and Tevis aren’t here, though, just Andal, and the Nightmare stays stock still above Shiro.

Still, he isn’t wrong. Shiro has gone over more than enough logs to know the Guardians that came to the Leviathan left it behind about as promptly as they could. No one would stick around this Nightmare infested hellscape without a reason. Shiro’s not even sure what his reason really is.

“Say it and it will mean more than it does in your head.” Andal tells him. Shiro can practically hear his next words before he speaks them, they’re from his own mind after all. “Acknowledge me and I will mean more to you than I do like this.”

He waits for Shiro to lift his optics, and stares him dead in the face.

“Why am I here, Shiro?”

He’s spent only a day with the Nightmares and already Andal is the one that startles him the most. There’s something human in his eyes that doesn’t linger in the others, something almost sentient. He can always tell Tevis and Cayde from their red glow and dark power, but it feels as though he’s constantly catching glimpses of Andal that aren’t made of the Nightmares’ essence. Shiro can practically smell him from where he stands before him, the polish he would use on his leather armor, the scent of his shampoo, and the joints he used to smoke.

Shiro considers the needle pinched between his fingers. He thinks that if he drove it into the Nightmare right now, he’d bleed red.

“Taniks.”

It’s the only explanation Shiro has to offer, but Andal hums, like it's the start of explaining everything. It might be.

“I can’t forget what the Splicers did to me. What Taniks did to you. The Fallen that killed the Wolves during the Red War.” Saladin had taken on a set of new proteges, to be the next generation of Iron Lords, but he and Shiro watched them all die at Fallen and Red Legion hands, back when they didn’t have the Light to defend them.

“But?” Andal prompts, and Shiro sighs ruefully. He drives his needle into a section of his cloak that doesn’t need to be stitched, setting it aside.

“But,” he says, dragging his fingertips over his head the way he might scratch his scalp if he were still human, “there are Fallen now. Eliksni. In the city. We’re supposed to be at peace with them.”

“But you’re not?”

“How can I be?” He reaches down, pulling Trespasser from the holster on his thigh to show it to Andal. For a moment, he wonders what might happen if he leveled the gun at his friend’s head and shot it, would it grant him a moment of peace? But he remembers what happened when he tried to push Cayde earlier, the way his hands had slipped through the Nightmare and touched only air. With any luck, the bullet would ricochet off the ship wall and hit Shiro instead. That would grant him a moment of peace, at least until Suzume brought him back.

He ejects the magazine before he can get any more impulsive thoughts, throwing it through Andal to the floor. The Nightmare frowns at the action, but he doesn’t comment, and Shiro’s optics fall to the gun again.

You are not welcome. He thinks of the Eliksni in the city, of that monster, Spider, and the cloak of House banners that sits just beside him. He wonders if the feeling is mutual.

“Taniks destroyed you. He did so much to us.” Shiro breathes. Andal gives him a weak smile.

“We destroyed him, too.” His words have Shiro frowning in an instant.

“Don’t.” He snaps, shoving Trespasser back into the holster on his thigh. “Don’t try that with me, don’t you dare try to tell me Taniks is innocent, or that I shouldn’t blame him. Don’t say that we’re just as bad as he was.”

He doesn’t realize he’s stood up until he’s leveling a finger at Andal, nearly touching him. The other Hunter just smiles, lifting his hands in surrender.

“I didn’t say that.” He says, but Shiro knows Andal isn’t saying any of this. The man standing before him is a concoction of Shiro’s own fears, and the Pyramid’s dark power. Andal isn’t here, and he never will be. “I only meant that the House of Light isn’t the old Houses. They aren’t the Kings.” He nods to Shiro’s cloak, “or the Devils. They haven’t hurt you yet.”

“But I’ve hurt them.” He thinks about Saint-14 and his story. He remembers Saladin telling him about how the Eliksni would tell stories about Saint to their children to frighten them, to make them afraid of Guardians before they could be killed by them in the wilds. Saint became a figurehead for Guardian violence against the Eliksni. Shiro is just another contributor. “Maybe not directly, but you know what I’ve done to Eliksni in the past.” Shiro couldn’t count the number of Fallen he’s murdered. There’s no comprehending a number like that. So many dead, and he lives on.

He thinks about the Eliksni’s dedication to the Traveler. How could it be that their god’s chosen people are so violent towards them? Have gone on crusades against them? Shiro sinks back down onto his bunk.

“Then you’ve hurt them in the same way that they've hurt you.” Andal drifts a little closer. The toes of his boots brush the floor and he sinks a little lower, his feet taking his weight on the floor of Shiro’s ship. None of the nightmares he’s seen before have done that. Shiro stares at Andal’s feet, at his legs as they move to take a step towards him. He crouches down, squatting down in front of Shiro to catch his gaze. Shiro meets his eyes for a moment before he has to look away, but Andal stays close. “What do you want me to tell you, Shiro?”

Shiro sighs heavily, his optics darkening. He doubles over his legs, bracing his elbows on his thighs and dragging his fingertips over his skull. When he lights his optics again, he’s so close to Andal their foreheads nearly brush, but Andal doesn’t back away.

“I’m afraid.” He can only whisper it, wrapping his hands together so tight he’s surprised his silicone doesn’t groan, the joints don’t pop. He chokes down a shaking breath.

Andal gives him a sad smile, reaching out towards him. He rests his hand over Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro can almost feel the tight grip of Andal’s hand, the brush of his thumb over Shiro’s collarbone.

“It’s okay to be afraid.” Andal tells him. His eyes crinkle at the corners with his smile, and Shiro thinks he can make out a bit of their original brown amid the swirling red.

Old grief and pain swarms Shiro’s circuitry. He was always closer with Cayde than he was with Andal or Tevis, but Andal was the leader of their pack. Andal looked out for him, kept him grounded when Cayde’s antics nearly threw him from the group or made him feel unsteady and untethered. He always knew exactly what to say.

If he could cry, he’s sure there would be tears streaming down his cheeks, but he hasn’t had that ability since long before he was revived. Still, he shudders and shakes, and Andal reaches out to grip both his shoulders. He leans forward to press their foreheads together.

“I miss you.” Shiro chokes out. The Darkness doesn’t feel nearly so icy as it presses against Shiro’s skin. “You and Cayde and Tevis. I just–I don’t know how to go on without you.”

“I know.” Andal draws back enough to look into Shiro’s optics. “But you need to move on. You’re already doing it. You found Saladin, and if you could mentor Crow, you could connect back with the Hunters that need you.”

“I don’t–” Shiro’s throat feels choked by fluids, welling up in his systems to clear any blockages that might be causing him discomfort. “I don’t want to move on.”

“The world is changing, Shiro.” Andal tells him. He squeezes Shiro’s shoulder and Shiro can feel it. “We’re gone, you have to let us go and change too. I know it’s hard.”

“You were all I had.” He feels desperate now. He wants to curl his fingers into Andal’s cloak and hold him tight, but he doesn’t dare. He couldn’t bear the feeling of his fingers slipping through the air where the fabric should be. “With Saladin gone, I don’t–there’s nothing left for me. I don’t have anything to give the Hunters. Crow doesn’t need me. He has enough people looking out for him. It’s like you said, I’m not worth anything anymore.”

“That’s just your fear talking.” Andal says, and again Shiro feels struck by that sentience, the color in his visage where there should be only red. He feels a bit like he’s bracing for a blow, waiting for the anger and hatred to come back. Andal squeezes his shoulders tight. “Just try, Shiro. Go to the Eliksni quarter. Talk to Crow.”

“What if I let you down? What if I’m not welcome?” He thinks of Trespasser again, in the holster on his thigh.

“Try. That's all you can do.” Andal gives him another sad smile. “You won’t let us down.”

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