On the second day of Destiny 2,

My true love gave to me;

Two lonely souls!

They sat across from each other. One was older, the other, younger. He was wounded, she was not. He was calm. She was not. But he stayed calm for her sake.

"What you have to do," he told her slowly, "is help me out here, kid, help me out-ahk-it'll be easier if I'm on my other side."

"A-and then I-?" she made to press a wad of cloth against the wound. He reached up with his free hand and stopped her.

"You're going to build a fire." he told her calmly, though his voice was tight with pain. He unclipped his water pouch from his belt. "You're going to heat this up-not boiling, not scalding, just a mild heat-, and you're going to soak that in it, and put it on the wound."

"Y-you'll bleed out after that long!" she exclaimed.

"Not if you hurry." he told her, offering up a grim smile. He pressed his hand harder into his side, feeling slick blood seeping between his fingers, pooling on the floor. He felt dizzy, and everything was a little blurry as the girl rushed to assemble a fire. She had that down, at least. What had possessed a green kid like her to leave the walls of the City, he had no idea... but he had a few guesses.

He, of all people, knew that Hunters weren't the only ones that the wilds called to. Those walls, protective they may be, had not been wide enough for him, and he had a feeling the same could be said for his young friend here. The wilderness didn't discriminate when it called; there were simply some people who weren't meant for walls and rules... however fleeting their single life might be without the protection of the City.

"Can you sew, kid?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from wavering.

"Y-yeah. Why?" her hands nearly slipped as she stripped the bark off a twig so she could stir the cloth around in the water.

"You're going to have to stitch me shut once the worst of the bleeding stops." he grunted, pulling his legs up to his chest to try and minimize the spasms passing through his abdomen. "Blighters!"

She hovered at his side, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him as the world began to flow away.

"Devrim! Devrim!" he grabbed her vest, accidentally catching a swath of her dark hair with his bloodied hand. Ahhh, bloody-I'll apologize for it later.

"Just- do what I told you, kid, it'll all be fine. Finish the job... and I'll...I..." it all spun away, and he hoped above hope she didn't lose her head.


He woke briefly, to the feeling of someone washing the blood off his hand. His side throbbed, and so did his head. But that throbbing meant he was alive, so he wasn't going to complain. He tried to open his eyes, but his body wouldn't obey. It still wanted sleep, then; he wasn't going to argue with it. One's body knew what it needed, so if it needed sleep, he wouldn't fight it.

He could feel the girl's hands shaking as she worked. It was an awful nice courtesy to get the blood off, it certainly saved him the trouble later. He hoped she'd had plenty of sleep before tonight; someone had to keep watch, and he himself needed rest. He hoped she thought to keep watch. He had a feeling she would, for green though she was, she was also smart. She, like him, was a survivor.

He was glad they'd found each other; she wouldn't have made it out of that Fallen assault alive, and he wouldn't have survived the night if not for her. When two wandering souls found one another, he thought as his mind drifted away again, circumstances certainly changed. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Today, his was just lucky it had been the former.


Headcanon is that Devrim and Hawthorne had to meet at SOME point to know each other, right?

Guest-LoL, yup. I have, unfortunately, found myself growing out of fanfiction recently. I'm going to take a wild guess that you forgot to sign in... whoever you are, LoL.

New fics are always slow going. *tragic sigh* Hopefully I haven't lost my touch...

Look up to tomorrow!

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