It was wrong. It was impossible and wrong, so it couldn't be real, right?
But Cayde-6 is running at him full tilt, and then there's a knife flashing in the sun-so bright, everything was too bright, he could barely see, and his ears were ringing with the absence of the Ascendant Realm's constant howling-and the pain of it slicing into his hand doesn't wake him up. It was real.
He only scrambles to pick up Hawkmoon because Saladin had fought to break his old habit of freezing and letting other Guardians have their way with him when they came around for retribution. He'd gotten into the habit when he was a few months old, after realizing that the deaths were faster if he didn't fight back. But if this was Cayde-6, for real, what chance did he stand?
Even as he thinks it, he can almost hear the Old Wolf's voice telling him to suck it up, and fight like he could win.
And even as he rolls over and levels Hawkmoon at his pursuer- who he can definitely confirm is Cayde, now that he wasn't moving around so much- he has to mentally apologize to the Titan, because there's no way he'll be able to pull the trigger.
It was all wrong, and completely impossible. But the exo stood over him, all quiet rage, so much like every Guardian he'd met when he was younger that the situation feels familiar. Enough so that he thinks he knows how this would go.
"You died." He blurts out, bracing himself. His hand is shaking, and Cayde's isn't. Crow doesn't know what to do, but Cayde knows exactly what he wants to do.
"Stay calm." Glint tells him across their link. He says it in such a way that Crow knows he won't like what his Ghost is about to do. And he doesn't. Glint appears at his shoulder with no fanfare or excited greetings like he's usually prone to. Crow want to scream at him to hide, but he trusts his Ghost, and he had asked for calm. Cayde freezes, all the little movements that a living thing was prone to halting, like his body temporarily forgot how to simulate being human. Glint looks him square in the eyes.
Cayde looks back at Crow's face, studying him. "So did you."
The words were more thoughtful than angry, but he's still squeezing the trigger, just like everyone else-
Until he isn't.
There were people, mainly Amanda, who said that Cayde wouldn't have wanted all those Guardians to hurt Crow in his name. That he would never have taken it out on a New Light. Crow would pretend to believe them, because clearly there had been something about the man that made those Guardians think that's what he would have wanted.
But for the first time in his life, a Guardian who had chased him down and had him dead to rights looked at him... and decided not to pull the trigger.
Somehow, the exo's outstretched hand hurts more than a bullet.
I'm not dead, and neither is The Long Long Walk.
I've always got the feeling that since he got Uldren's memories, Crow has been unable to separate his own actions from Uldren's, and even though he's accepted that those memories are a part of his life now, nobody has tried to get him to separate himself from Uldren's wrongdoings.
Whenever he talks about 'his' actions in Forsaken, nobody corrects him. Nobody tells him he didn't do it. The only person I've seen say as much is Saladin, in their conversation after Caiatl tries to execute him for manslaughter. I wouldn't be surprised if he was still in the mindset of 'deserving' everything that other Guardians have done to him, and I think Cayde himself deciding not to do what they all did would be like confirming he DIDN'T deserve it.
It would probably be earth shattering to someone who's used to the kind of treatment Crow got conditioned to expect when he was younger.
Fare Thee Well!