This was so not the moment to break out the sad violin for his own ouchies. There were bad guys to punch, missions to not mess up, and wounds to patch up. Just, y’know, literally everyone else’s.

If Cayde were the one bleeding out—actually, like, skin-broken, red-stuff-coming-out hurt—it’d be easier than ordering a pizza without pineapple.

He’d go: 'Ow, that stung worse than my ghost’s dad jokes,' laugh it off, chug a beer that tasted like burnt socks, shoot a wall for fun, then keel over. Two seconds later, his ghost would zap him back like a toaster with a grudge, and he’d pop up grinning like nothing happened.

Would his partners notice? Pfft.

They’d probably think he just took a long bathroom break to scroll through guardian memes. Which is definitely why he’s spilling his guts to you instead of, say, talking to a trash can (though he’s done that too).

He scoffed, swirling his glass like he was judging a wine tasting (spoiler: he wasn’t). “We used to head out, pop bad guys like bubble wrap—boom, boom, BOOM—no sweat. Accidentally take out the wrong schmuck? We’d go ‘Aw shoot, my bad. Guess he shouldn’t have been standing next to the guy with the missile launcher.’ Then we’d just… walk away. Like we didn’t just ruin someone’s Tuesday. Simple as that.” He took a long drink, then added under his breath.

“Now I overthink it so much I almost shot a pigeon yesterday ‘cause it looked ‘suspiciously uncooperative.’” he pranced his attention to your way.