AN: Updated 3/30/17 for some grammar and added detail.
He doesn't sleep in the general sense, not like he used to. It's more akin to deep brain wandering, where external stimulus blurs and filters and his thoughts aren't so regulated. It's peaceful, in what small way it can be. But he's still very much awake.
It's what he misses the most. He'd miss sex if he still had the hormones to back him up, but now it just seemed like a fond memory. It had deeply troubled him before transcending, as good old Clovis Bray had phrased it—the heat, the passion, the breathlessness. It's odd how small that seems now. This freedom liberates a surprising (or maybe disturbing?) amount of thinking space for more productive tasks.
He also thought he'd miss food. Granted, whenever his olfactory sensors root out the smell of warm meat cooking, or he picks up the sound of fresh fruit being cut, there's a fleeting phantom sensation of hollowness. (Not entirely inaccurate.) It's still only an occasional nostalgia, and easy to ignore.
No, it's sleeping that he still craves. For the temporary oblivion, if nothing else. Awake awake awake, with a whole lot of time to think and no tedious human urges to filter through. Just pure brain, twenty-four hours a day.
His job is important. Guarding key minds working on problems that will help push back the Darkness. However, it leaves much room for thought. Pointing and shooting is no effort at all, and when he's not even doing that, it's hell inside his head sometimes.
Like now.
She's crying. She doesn't know he can hear her; she's good at hiding the sound. But his ears are better.
He thinks of a thousand different things to do and rejects every single one of them. She's talked to him once, and that was two months ago. (Still remember it like it was yesterday.) They don't know each other well enough for him to just walk up to her desk and ask her how she's doing. And also—what the hell would even say?
He knows why she's crying—she misses Chioma. Of course she does. Sundaresh loves that woman more than anything, and they're separated by millions of miles of empty space and star dust. He knows the feeling so well it's difficult to put into words. Language is so damn insignificant and useless sometimes.
He shuffles his feet, a pointless action. Checks his gun—of course it's loaded and primed. He sneaks a peak at his ghost, who's floating aimlessly around the lab equipment, scanning things when Maya's not looking. The silence is hard to think around.
Her head's down, arms folded on the desk. No other techs in the room—it's 0247 in the morning. She never stops working. Maybe she just needs some sleep? He opens his mouth—another pointless human gesture—then pauses and says nothing. Maybe you'll be less soul-crushingly lonely if you took a nap. Great advice.
Her breathing comes out in shuddering waves, punctured by tiny hiccups that she tries to hide with the cup of her hand. He wonders if she even knows he's there.
Psssst. Go on now. Ghost is not looking at him, preoccupied with all the science happening around him, but he sure as hell is listening to Cayde think.
Shut up.
You'll drive yourself insane.
I already am insane.
That doesn't have any bearing on my previous statement.
Blah blah blah—go back to rooting around.
There's a silent very well in the slump of the ghost's cogs, and he goes back to being nosy—just not in Cayde's head.
She cries herself to sleep. The peaceful sound of her breathing is a lovely replacement to her quiet mourning, and he tries to focus on that instead of the shame he feels, right in the very pit of his body. (Coward.)
"No, no. That's wrong. God, that's wrong!"
Anger is better than sorrow, at least. He listens to her rage at herself, scribbling furiously on paper and scratching things out.
Five hours after her temporary break in strength, she's up and working hard again. She gives him a passing glance while she cleans herself up, not saying a word or making note of her swollen eyes or mussed hair. He is equally silent on the matter. Then she gets to work.
Except it's not going how she wants it. Ghost feeds him small tidbits of information, giving him a vague idea on what she's working on—gravity and celestial bodies, and their effects on time and space, among other things. Stuff the Vex have mastered already and use without effort. Stuff humans had also figured out, but that was years ago, before everything had gone to shit. Now they have to start from scratch and pick apart old tech for clues.
She shoves back violently from her desk, the wheels on her chair propelling her hard away. He snatches the back of chair before it tips over—before she even realises it's going to tip over—and her head snaps forward.
"Ow," she complains and rubs her neck. He immediately steps away, thankful that he can't blush.
"Sorry," he says. "The chair—it was gonna go over."
"Well I can take care of myself," she bites back, rolling her shoulders.
"I know." He steps back towards his usual spot, and she says nothing else on the matter.
She's tired and angry. He understands. (Boy, does he understand.)
Maya sighs and shuffles back to her desk, grabbing aspirin from a shelf and dry-swallowing three, and gets back to work.
"Do y—"
"What?" Her heads snaps towards him. The look on her face kills the words in his throat.
(Why can't you keep your fucking mouth shut?) "I just—do you need anythin—"
"No, I'm fine."
He nods and she turns around. Then she puts her head in her hands and doesn't look up for another two hours.
He doesn't ask her anything else.
Sometimes he gets to leave the Academy and go hunting. Not always big game, but occasionally he gets a call for support from other guardians hunting the Ahamkara.
He's never refused. It's the one thing he's good at—and not just good. He's fucking amazing at killing things. And no one ever notices when he leaves, so he can go whenever the call comes or the urge to go shoot something gnaws at him.
When he comes back from one such fight, smeared in grime and tar and blood, he finds her still in her office.
She's curled up on the floor. He doesn't think she's asleep, but her eyes are closed and her breathing is slow.
She doesn't look peaceful. Her brows are scrunched together, her mouth an angry line. Splotches dot her skin from exhaustion and crying. The high from the fight starts to fade, and he sets to cleaning his gear while she lies there.
She can't stand to work any longer, but leaving her office feels like a defeat, so she curls up on the ground and tries to get some sleep instead.
She lays there for what feels like hours, and she doesn't think she actually sleeps, but she must have because something wakes her up and it's the sound of a guard rustling around with his things. She peeks an eye open and finds an odd sight.
There are grimy dark rags crumpled in a pile beside him. He's kneeling on the ground, wiping off blood and dirt from his armour. It's Cayde—he never leaves her side. Or at least she didn't think he did. But surely the Guardian must have a life of his own, outside of these four walls—she hears him speak to the illustrious Vanguard often enough. She wonders what it's like to walk on the surface of a planet. She's starting to forget.
She refocuses her mind in him. He wipes his boots and clothing down—it's not armour, not really. Did exos even need armour? The gear is worn, the leather straps smooth and soft. Guardians don't wear any official kind of uniform, but his ensemble is especially patchy. Symbols and insignias dot his clothing—are they trophies? Badges?—brightening up dull greys and browns with no apparent pattern. It contrasts with the bright sheen of his aquarium-blue frame, but it somehow suits him.
When he's satisfied with the state of his gear, Cayde moves to his weapon. She watches him pull apart his pistol, dismantling every piece and cleaning it until it's shining again. His hands move with practiced ease, slotting back the weapon together and reloading it. The revolver gives a pleasant clink sound as he presses bullets back into the chamber. With it clean, he holsters it, and she's almost disappointed that he's finished. The background noise is a pleasant change from the usual inhuman whirr of equipment and computers.
She looks to his ghost then. It drifts lazily around his head, looking both alert and relaxed at once. They're curious little things, and she would happily devote a few decades of research into understanding them if she had the luxury. But then she wouldn't be here if that luxury were a reality, so she simply watched the ghost from an observant distance.
It feels as if eyes are on her. She looks back to Cayde and sees two turquoise lights looking straight at her, freezing her in place. She thinks about faking sleep, but he can clearly see she's awake, so she rubs her face and sits up.
"Where did you go?" she asks, sitting cross-legged on the floor and not bothering with a proper chair.
"Hunting. There was a call for backup from the Tower. You were sleeping, so I went." There's a sound of hesitance in his voice, as if asking her if she's okay with him leaving. Maya gives him a tired smile in response.
"Does that happen often?" She asks.
For an exo, he has a surprising range of facial expressions. Plates of pliable alloy scrunch and rearrange on his face to form something close to a hurt expression.
"Yes," is all he says, and she realises that she's never noticed him leaving or returning.
"Oh." She pauses, not sure how to proceed. "I'm sorry, I just get so wrapped up in m—"
"Don't apologise," he says instantly.
The apology sounds hollow anyway. It's getting harder and harder to fake emotion. Not that she doesn't feel bad—she does. She just isn't sure how to properly express that anymore. Everything seems like a chore now, especially interacting with other people. There's only one person in the world she wants to see, and that woman is far from reach.
Chioma. God how I miss you. You send letters every damn week and I can't reply to a single one. And even if I could, it wouldn't be enough.
She shied away from her thoughts, looking for a distraction. That's not difficult—Cayde is now... stitching his cloak?
"You can sew?"
He looks up from the large, ragged hole torn down the side of his cloak, needle poised in hand. "Of course I can."
His tone makes her blush. "Sorry, I—"
"Didn't think a robot knew how to sew?" The plates of his mouth bend into an approximation of a smirk. It seems he's trying to get the hang of the expression, too.
"Yes," she concedes, not bothering to lie. "Just an odd sight, is all."
"Well, I learned beforehand anyway. Guess it does look weird." He looks back to his work. Fingers deftly weave the the dark thread through the fabric, and she begins to notice a multitude of stitched patches on his cloak.
"Before?" Of course before. Exos don't just appear out of thin air. "Sorry, that's a dumb quest—"
"You keep saying sorry," he replies, not looking up. "And yes, before. Don't really remember when I turned—that part's fuzzy. Must have died soon after I got this body though. I'm still getting used to it."
That kind of casual mention of death as a temporary affliction was unique to Guardians, and she didn't think she'd ever get used to hearing it.
She huffs out a breath, shaking off the weird feeling his words gave her. "I keep saying sorry because I've been rude to you."
He rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "You're overworked and lonely as hell. I know how it goes."
Damn. Guess she's not as stealthy at hiding her emotions as she thinks she is. "Yes, I suppose I am."
"I can leave if I'm disturbing you."
Maya shakes her head. "No, n—" She stops to give a painfully large yawn. "—no, it's alright. I should sleep in a proper bed anyway."
They're silent while he finishes repairing the fabric of his hood. It's soothing to watch him work, hands moving almost too fast for her to keep track of. He slips it over himself when he's done, standing up and absent-mindedly smacking dirt off of it.
"Why do you wear that?"
He looks down at her. "Helps mask the gleam." He moves his head around to demonstrate, and the dim light from the overhead bulbs catches and reflects off his exposed face. "The blue is a dead giveaway."
She nods and rubs her eyes. God, is she tired.
Cayde makes an awkward motion with his feet, as if unsure where to stand, before taking tentative steps in her direction and offering a hand. She gladly grabs his fingers and uses them as an anchor to stand up. Her legs are asleep and she tries to wiggle feeling back into them.
"Thank you." She lets go and he immediately drops his hand to his side. She thought he would be cold, but even through his glove she feels a mechanical sort of warmth running through him.
"You're welcome," he replies, then moves back to his usual spot in her office.
"You know you don't have to stand in here all day."
"Do you want me to leave?" His voice is neutral and detached, but he doesn't look at her when he asks the question.
"No, but don't you get bored?"
He shakes his head. "Not at all."
She nods and sits back down at her desk, too tired to argue. Papers are scattered everywhere, and she sets to cleaning them up before giving it another stab. However horrible she might be feeling, there's too much work still to be done for her to mope around on the office floor. Chioma would lose her mind if she saw how unproductive I was being. The thought forces a wobbly smile to her face and she tries to focus on the math in front of her.
Behind her, she can hear the faint sound of a deck of cards being shuffled. It's something she hears from Cayde's corner of her office on occasion, and the soft, soothing noise never fails to relax her thoughts.
She continues to smile as she works.
