Welcome to Gaia! ::

In the comforts of what currently passed as his ‘home’, Lyndin rarely let his guard down. He was expecting Vyn, so there was no point in being dressed down. He was in his uniform, cape hung up and out of the way as it usually was while he was working.

Lyndin appeared more rested than the last time he’d seen Vyn, a testament to keeping his promise. He had eaten. Slept. His hand appeared to have healed.

He was doing paperwork as he sat at the dining room table, in plain sight of the warp pad. He’d set himself up to face it so there wouldn’t be any chance to miss an arrival.

When Vyn arrived, Lyndin lowered his paperwork.

He had specifically avoided any projects in order to guarantee that he could separate himself from his work immediately.

“Come sit down with me,” he instructed. His voice was as calm as ever. The table only had one other chair, seated to the left of Lyndin. He watched Vyn with a solemn, thoughtful gaze.

He hadn’t seen the Commander in some time. And yet, it was so easy to observe how different he was now from then.

For a moment, Lyndin simply sat in silence. It hung heavy in the air but he didn’t seem uncomfortable. He didn’t seem much of anything.

Not mad. Not scared. Not even disappointed.

Maybe he expected that Vyn might try to push his buttons so he’d already resigned himself to objectiveness. Maybe he was just still deciding how he wanted to proceed.

Either way, Vyn had his full attention, and Lyndin took the opportunity to look at him–to see him. Every shadow on his face, every hair out of place. Each new piercing lining his ears. He didn’t need much time to make an assessment; Vyn wasn’t a project, wasn’t a thing to observe and deduce conclusions. He looked tired, worn down. Full of secrets.

Lyndin asked, in an even but patient voice, “Tell me what’s going on.”

Lyndin looked at Vyn as though he were made of glass, like the mask he wore was so flimsy that he could simply see right through him. At no point did Lyndin’s expression waver. He might have seemed to be a statue, if not for the steady rise and fall of his chest as he listened.

As he waited.

He could have let the room descend into an uncomfortable silence. He could have waited to see how long it took before Vyn started to squirm under the scrutiny.

This meeting was not about punishment. Lyndin had not called him here with the intention of causing him any discomfort.

“I have not seen you in three months. You have not answered my messages,” he pointed out politely. “I think that is unlike you. Why?“ he asked, repeating Vyn’s intonation. “What might someone have said to me?”

Lyndin did not seem to move, not to blink or breathe, while he listened. While Vyn spoke, he was entirely unmoving, as if time simply bent around him. There was very little that could shock or horrify him, and if Vyn’s words had any such effect, it did not display anywhere which could be seen.

He was not riled, was not flustered. He listened patiently, until Vyn had exhausted the energy from this outburst of honesty.

Vyn had said more than Aliez did, and he said it crudely, in the way that made Lyndin think he expected, or wanted, reprimand. The answer was not given with care but instead delivered as if the words themselves would sting his tongue if he let them out too slowly.

When Lyndin moved, it was to draw in a breath. He did not exhale.

“He would have mischaracterized at least half of it,” he repeated, with a patience that somehow felt too heavy. “And how would you characterize it?”

Lyndin’s gaze did not waver, nor did his expression shift at any point.

Not at any of the admissions. Not at the quiver in Vyn’s voice, or the tears that escaped despite such stubborn restraint. He watched Vyn closely, but not unkindly. He studied the tremble in his hands, the strain in his posture, the exhaustion that clung to Vyn like there was more of that than him.

He did not interrupt. He did not move.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, even. As steady as it had been from the beginning.

"Did any of it help?"

There was no accusation in the question. No pity, no anger, no judgment. Just a quiet weight.

It seemed a cruelty to leave Vyn to the sorrow that ripped through him for the umpteenth time tonight. At no point had Lyndin made any effort to rush or silence him. He simply sat quietly, waiting. Listening.

His stillness was a sign of respect, and perhaps indication of the gravity by which he was treating the situation, but even his temperance had its limits.

Each strained, tear-soaked breath that tore itself from Vyn’s lips sawed through Lyndin’s fraying reserves until he could not stand the distance between them.

He extended a hand and rested it heavily atop of Vyn’s. He leaned forward, not enough to crowd, but to share the same space.

“Vyn,” he said, gentler now than before.

“It’s going to be okay. Let me help you carry this.”

The would-be laughter sounded like it scraped Vyn’s throat as it bubbled up, like the sound itself was so sharp that it must have torn his throat, his mouth, his lips. It sounded like something wicked, something poison.

Something had been festering deep inside him. Quiet, slow, rotting in the dark for too long

Lyndin didn’t flinch away from the raw emotion. He leaned in slightly, lacing his fingers with Vyn’s. Silently, he offered what stability he could offer. Vyn had initiated this intimacy and Lyndin met him in the middle. He squeezed Vyn’s hand in quiet reassurance, with a grip that did not trap him there but which also did not shy away from the contact or imply it was unwanted in any way.

Would Vyn have preferred to be berated? Lyndin couldn’t bring himself to do it. He could already see how hard Vyn had been on himself.

How was he to look at Vyn, suffering as he was, and think to do anything but reassure him?

Vyn looked younger now than when they’d first arrived on Earth, and yet he carried the weight of an ageless grief.

The pressure of a dying world.

Vyn was trying to carry it and all their failures alone.

“It isn’t an empty promise,” he said quietly. “I would never lie to you about something like that. Call it hubris if you will but I say it will be okay because I will do everything in my power to make it okay.”

As he always had.

He had not always found success. But he had always tried.

Things were not so bad now.

“The future is uncertain. It always has been. But that does not mean it’s lost to us. I may not know what ‘okay’ will look like but I know there will be no lack of effort to secure the best possible future for us. I have absolute faith in that. In the Vanguard. In you. If one door closes, we will find another. We will make another. In the face of difficulty, we endure. But none of us need to do it alone.”