[ Not a lie, really - Nate’s shocked they’ve known each other this long (outside the...you know) and he hasn’t dragged him to an arepas vendor.
It’s a colorful little thing that sprawls into the street and it’s uncrowded, staffed by a few errant people who seem confused to work there and confused to see Nate. He tries to avoid outright eye contact with the regular denizens of New Amsterdam, most of whom are still discombobulated but also recognize him.
As the first one there, he tries to look inconspicuous as a 6’1” man with a fondness for masa. ]
( Who's overanalyzing the contents of every text message? Not this guy. Not this guy at all.
So he's there a not-pathetic two minutes early, and he only spent like twenty minutes too long getting ready. And he only runs his hands through his hair about three times before he finally ventures in, really channeling those YouTube yoga sessions to find his inner peace and not go full shavasana in an arepas place.
You know what, he does alright. Thinks he at least vaguely seems to have his shit under control when he ambles over with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
Sup nod. )
Hey, man.
( Remember how we used to sleep together almost every night for a ton of years because I totally do.
[ The part Nate has privately been dreading is this: meeting, face to face. Not any conversations that follow, not the conversation preceding it, just seeing him when the last time Nate did, Ian was bleeding out on concrete. People have died and nearly died on Nate before and it's so goddamn selfish to only think about how it affects him, but it's a reflex he learned almost two decades ago.
Some old habits are still hard to break.
He's therefore extraordinarily comforted to see him looking normal. Hair a fraction longer, point-of-pride beard a little scruffier, but they all came out of the Aerie slightly less - or more - themselves and because of that Nate doesn't hesitate to close the distance.
He's more clothed than usual, crew neck collar, sleeves only pushed halfway up his forearms, when he catches Ian in a brief, firm hug. Nothing status-threatening in a public place, because he's learned his lesson there. It's a flicker of contact that's soaked in relief before he pulls away. ]
( Nate goes in for a hug and it catches him off guard. Rattles his composure a little; something in his chest goes tight, a pang not terribly unlike a bruise along the inside of his ribs. As well as he's been shoving it down these last several days, it hits him all at once right then how much Ian fucking missed him.
He hugs back a little too tightly, and he has to force his fingers to let go of the back of Nate's shirt when he draws away. )
Yeah, you too.
( And he means it. Not just after the Aerie, and since it's weighing on his conscience -- )
Hey, good job on the fucking moon, dude. Sorry everyone was a total asshole about it, but you totally called it.
[ It feels good. Like stretching a disused muscle after letting it atrophy for a little too long, and with it that pang of guilt crushes his stomach in an iron fist. Nate lets go with a small amount of reluctance; he knows why he waited to reach out, he's sure Ian has as many reasons as Nate does. Parting still feels like it hurts.
Fortunately Ian gives him a distraction, not that it's a particularly appealing one. ]
...yeah, that's- not really how I anticipated it going. At all.
[ The disappointment is evident on his face, eye contact skipping off to the side. It frustrates him more to know he'll probably get muscled out of helping because, as Dean intimated to him, you gotta be an asshole. Christ, he doesn't know how people find the time or the energy for it. ]
( The temptation to reach out is intense; it's practically an ingrained impulse to put a hand on Nate's shoulder or wrap it around his wrist. Any kind of physical reassurance would be happening right now if they were in the aerie.
But they're not.
As Sam kindly put it: it wasn't real, and they weren't a thing before. Kyna added another layer to that foundation, and he's left with this feeling that he's taken the whole thing more to heart than most of the other Displaced.
Ian has never in his entire fucking life wanted to be that guy. )
Yeah, I'd say nobody could've seen that coming, but...
( A conceding beat and bob to his shoulders. )
I've met these people.
( Most of them are terrible, that's his professional opinion. A subtle venture in changing in the subject, since it's an undesirable one: )
How are you doing aside from... bad social media experiences?
[ It's such a sudden, sharp reaction, something that feels as though it's slapped him across the face. How are you doing? Ian asks, and Nate's expression is immediately intent, as though Ian should know. Nate got killed off by a chunk of falling rubble, watched this exact man take a bullet for him before bleeding out, leaving him with a sentiment that so few people have ever committed to words - to him - in his life.
Nate remembers in vivid, excruciating detail what happened after Harry Flynn revealed he didn't plan on escaping Shambhala, lifting up a live grenade in one sad, bloody hand. Parting gift from Lazarebitch. Pity he took the pin. Elena was too close, trying to talk Harry down, and took the brunt of the explosion in the shrapnel that buried itself in her stomach and chest. The fear that had seized him then was chilling, a devastating paralytic he only worked through out of sheer denial because he physically could not imagine what it would be like if she died.
It's a shame he never accounted for the possibility of the opposite scenario. ]
...I think that's probably a subject better talked about after we've eaten.
( Yeah, okay, you got him there. Stupid question, he didn't think he'd get anything more than a shallow answer. His chin dips a little, appropriately chastised but with a small smile hanging around to overlay it. )
Yeah, alright.
( Because nothing screams appetite like a feeling of intense foreboding. He at least manages to curb that particular witty remark; it won't help them figure out how to be normal right now. Maybe that's supposed to be step one - level out enough to exist in the same ten foot radius without overthinking everything.
He used to be such a chill person. What the hell happened to that?
( an apocalypse, a dimension hop, a second mini-apocalypse, another dimension hop, true love, dying, un-dimension hopping...)
He can't really turn off the periodic split-second intrusive thoughts that keep slipping in — things like I remember washing your hair.
They amble toward the line, they wait to order, and — he's a nervous talker. There's no permanence to this should-probably-be-companionable quiet. )
I guess we could awkwardly talk about the weather. I heard the Dow Jones was down twenty points. No idea what that even means, maybe that it's gonna rain?
[ It occurs to him in the split-second after he's said it that the suggestion to grab food before having a potentially serious conversation is an altogether stupid one. Not only will neither of them be able to concentrate on anything they came here for, but his appetite is dwindling to non-existent fast and Nate is starting to wonder whether he made the right choice in reaching out.
Ian talks.
A lot.
It's the sort of thing he remembers from another world, another life, hallmarks of nervousness with the occasional flippant, fluttering gesture as though he's working out a puzzle he has to verbally walk through and the only reason Nate knows is because he's seen it so many, many times. They move through the short line while Ian dances through Small Talk for Dummies and Nate glances up at the ceiling as though willing God Himself to strike him down.
He only gestures for two beers as soon as they reach the till, and trades in credits for bottles before pushing one into Ian's open palm and giving him an understanding look. ]
( Ian's face does most of the talking for him through that exchange - an apologetic little wince at that unspoken appeal to the gods to be smote, the chin tip of somebody resigning themselves to patience, obvious relief at the order, and a kind of quiet, appreciative gratitude when he takes the offered drink.
Yeah. It's...
It's a weird thing to reconcile, being back here where they were at the beginning stages of friendship and it'd only been a few weeks, and then years and years of knowing each other in another life. After his conversations with Sam and Kyna, he's had this feeling that he's supposed to be compartmentalizing the latter.
Clearly that's not what's gonna happen here.
And you know what?
Fuck it, let's just get this part out of the way — )
I'm not good at this. I have no idea how I'm supposed to act right now, and it's freaking me out a little.
( Except his tone's a complete contradiction, drawled out in the slowest and most calm way anybody's ever said anything like that. )
[ Sometimes Nate forgets how much he's seen and done, how much has been done to him in return, crises he's fallen inelegantly from for decades, one to the next. Sometimes it occurs to him too late that the crap he's been doing for years - reality-altering events, fighting monsters, violently suppressing trauma - is so isolated as to be laughable. It isn't Ian's fault, either, for not knowing what to do. Hell, Nate actually has experience, but it doesn't give him all the answers.
He's seen so much of this before, in one flavor or another, but this falls too closely into line with a theory he proposed weeks before they got sucked into that other world.
It weirds him out, how calm Ian is. Knows it's a defense mechanism, making little mental compromises to work through the mess. Compartmentalizing. ]
You're not "supposed" to do anything. However you act is just how you act.
[ Nate points out gently, putting some distance between them and the little shop. Glancing over at him feels like a kick in the gut, some strange familiarity - in another world he would hold his hand, thumb at his knuckles - turning his stomach over and then into knots again. ]
( He wrinkles his nose a little at however you act is just how you act. Easier to do in the Aerie when Nate stumbled onto him at 22, freshly traumatized, a wide open wound. After that, after the shit they went through there, it was effortless to just... be. In— life one, who he is... fuck, he doesn't even know most of the time, actually. He spends so much energy cultivating the version of himself he wants people to see he never gets around to... figuring out how to be genuine.
So, like... how do you act genuine when you're half in love and ridiculously terrified of being vulnerable?
He chews the inside of his cheek, follows their course toward an unoccupied bench in a quiet part of the overgrown courtyard. Starts picking at the label on his bottle as soon as he sits down like it's the most interesting thing on the planet. )
Your brother and Kyna don't seem to think it was really... real.
( Maybe that's the best place to start. It's not exactly an outright question, more a gentle probe. )
[ Nate used to pick the labels off his beers when he was a kid, a habit he cultivated initially to keep his favorites in whatever grungy little sketchbook he was carrying around, and later as a nervous sort of tic. Sam picked up on it immediately, of course, Nate's discontent always evident by how much he fidgeted, and he still has some vestigial desire to fiddle with things when in an uncomfortable situation.
He would not categorically classify this as such.
It's terrifying, the guilt eats away at his insides like an insidious rot, but there's a fondness in his smile because he remembers a boy who toyed with mechanics in his spare time and a man who kept thumbing at his butter tea in Tibet like he was going to rub the paint off the cup. ]
Well...no offense to either of them, but I doubt they've ever been in a situation where they experienced an alternate version of themselves.
[ He knows nothing about Kyna's thoughts on this subject outside of the fact that this is the first Other World experience she's had, and Sam...Sam is the master of vehement denial in the face of the monumentally true. I did it for us, Nathan, desperate and on a cliff's edge while his younger sibling watched his world fall apart. How many times had Sam said the same thing to him in the Aerie? ]
( The fidgeting pauses at what Nate says, at the implication. Rapt and attentive, because -- yeah, he hadn't agreed with them either. It didn't feel fake, and he doesn't really feel like he can separate himself from that life. Not easily. Not any time soon. )
Yeah?
( And then a mention comes to mind, a lifetime ago or just a week or two ago in Lance's hotel room. )
Zerzura, right? More real than that time you were married to someone in a dream.
( Which is only relevant because he'd been pretty dismissive of the latter. He wants to think this one matters a little more. )
[ It's a reflex he can't help anymore, particularly with his beer sitting on the bench at his side: Nate fidgets with the joints of his fingers where they meet his left hand, the ghost of an old, reliable weight around his ring finger still hovering, still there. They showed up with nothing, stripped of their hair and inserted with a tracking device masquerading as a helpful neural implant, and Nate sometimes wonders if his wedding band arrived with him. If it was discarded by that selfish asshole sitting on the moon. ]
I wasn't there, in Zerzura. Wish I'd seen it.
[ His palms splay wide in his lap in a small, helpless shrug. Everything he knows about Zerzura is material he dug up long after the fact, building off of secondary sources. ]
But it's the same thing, I think. Another world, another...us. Reliving memories of another life. In Hadriel, it was just a couple weeks of thinking I was some different version of myself, but everything from before those weeks was hazy, like it wasn't all there. I was married to Lance's old boss, I had a kid, I had a dad. But when it was over it wasn't as concrete as this. More like a collective hallucination.
( He glances down at I wasn't there, then slowly back up again partway through the follow-up.
His lips twitch thoughtfully, tucking into his cheek for flickering seconds. )
I could probably write it off if it was just a couple weeks.
( It would be awkward, but manageable. It would only take a week or two of faking it until he made it, and he could pretend it never happened. Not acknowledge it, just like he does with everything else. Or -- did, before the aerie.
But it wasn't.
And, terrifyingly, the first real, raw thing escapes him before he can clamp it down. )
But I remember you since I was a fucking kid.
( Not exactly a kid, but his young stupid early twenties. Might as well be. )
[ A faint huff of a laugh escapes him and Nate leans back against the bench, fingers laced in his lap, thumbs gently tapping together. There's no malicious humor in it, just the wry delight of someone sharing in an inside joke. In a depressing sort of way, it warms him. ]
I know. I was there.
[ A scared kid, recovering from wounds and hurting, lashing out at the first available target. Hastily applied makeup smeared across his eyelids and glitter in his hair, like a hungover college kid on Mardi Gras.
Nate's voice is soft, careful with something that feels so breakable in a way he doesn't have the words to describe, but the smile that twists at the edges of his mouth is undeniably sentimental. ]
I helped you wash your hair and you called me a pretty boy piece of shit.
( I know. I was there. He scoffs quietly, a noise that sounds dismissive but in actuality is more absent humor than anything. He has to look back down at the bottle again, because something sharp starts twisting in his chest. It's the memory, and it's Nate's tone of voice, and it's the whole thing threatening to catch up with him a little right here, right now. )
You are a pretty boy.
( Reaffirmed, voice a little tight, the teasing a half-hearted effort at best.
He'd been carrying two Nates in his mind, distinct separate versions, one of them far away and the other one here. This moment kind of brings them both together, drives home that he's the same person. It's enough to coax him into dragging his eyes back up again, enough to make him thickly admit -- )
I really missed you, man.
( These last couple days. Stupid considering it's not even -- it hasn't been that long, just that the uncertainty makes the gap feel wider.
And that admission ratchets his fear up a couple of notches, thanks, but he did it anyway. Look at all this progress. )
[ They're treading around a very obvious, neon-colored elephant and Nate can't bring himself to talk about it just yet. Doesn't know if he's capable of it, whether the strained strings inside of his otherwise empty chest will snap and send him scattering everywhere, in pieces.
The truth of the matter is that Nate doesn't know what he's feeling anymore. Nostalgia for a time in another world that feels condensed into a matter of minutes, regret for all the potential he lost back home, guilt for every fractional moment of happiness granted in the spaces between. He loved this man, in someone else's crumbling metropolis.
Lost him, too.
Time is a funny thing when it comes to the muddling of chronology, nothing so simple as a few dates to nail it all down. His last words exchanged with Elena in Antananarivo were weak ones, but his last words exchanged with Elena in Hadriel were strong, foundational, making up for his lies and working toward a conscientious partnership. Forgiveness. They overcame the bullshit he put them all through in his effort to save Sam and she made him a better communicator for it, and these things happened within hours of each other, within weeks and months, because the minutes don't really matter unless they take your life and everything you've worked on in the interim. ]
I missed you too.
[ Even, level, honest. He did miss him, it's not a lie - it was ten goddamn years. It's easy for eye contact to dart away but he holds it, because she taught him better than to fucking hide. Nate watches Ian's face, all the telltale twitches of clutching, exhausting anxiety.
A little wrinkle forms in his brow, voice tight when he follows up: ]
( There are parts of this conversation that will probably make him lock up and want to shut down. Rather, maybe not this conversation, depending on what they actually manage to cover in a night, but... There are things about this topic that will give him the knee-jerk instinct to withdraw. That Nate was married will be one of them — not because he has any issue with the history itself, but because as soon as Nate brings it up he'll assume it's a preface to being let down easy.
Ian, I can't, because...
And he'll say that's fine, and he'll tell himself that's fine, and it'll be done with.
Dying isn't one of the things that will bring him pause. It's not exactly an easy topic, he's not so far removed from it yet as to dismiss it entirely as unimportant, but... At least dying is simple. )
Yeah, that... wasn't fun. That wasn't one of the fun parts.
[ No shit, it wasn't one of the "fun parts." The fun parts were intimate evenings spent in each other's company, the occasional respite at a crowded party, but it was decidedly not the moment when Nate realized that a bullet perforated Ian's lung and he was going to drown in his own blood while Nate did nothing. Because there was nothing he could do, except fall apart. ]
Why?
[ His voice lilts up at the end, confused and concerned and everything he knows about Ian in this world is based in a desire to put distance between himself and danger. He's not a hero and he doesn't try to be, and that doesn't reflect poorly on him so much as it emphasizes his survivalist nature. He survived the alien attack on his world. He survived the monsters in the safe house. He runs because it's the best possible option for him and it doesn't make him a bad person, it makes him a smart one.
That he decided to wrestle a gun from a volatile person and act as the magnet for violence so Nate didn't have to, now, that was different. Love or not. ]
Why did you do that? I mean, I- I know why, but I don't, really. You didn't have to. You knew how much I'd survived already.
( The question startles a laugh from him — breathy and incredulous, almost a little affronted. Nate follows up and half-answers his own question, which mollifies him a little, but... Seriously, man? Is it really a question? )
I don't know, I thought it would make a cool desk ornament?
( Sorry, sorry, he just-- It feels like the most obvious thing in the world. That laugh is back in his voice for a second when he follows up the sarcastic comment with a more earnest one. )
[ Nate protests, as if that's supposed to be some kind of valid argument. Ian has seen him injured, has seen his stamina and ability to recover firsthand: the man knew all his scars, new and old.
It's a stupid point but it's the only one that can keep him from snapping at the sudden resurgence of what Ian looked like bleeding out. Like Elena had, pale and frail and ripping his chest open with every ragged breath. What if that world had been it, collapsing around them? What if he'd had to live like that? ]
Stabbed. Beaten. Nearly blown-up. Multiple times, you know that. You know what I can take.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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7:30?
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Okay cool, yeah I'll be there.
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[ Not a lie, really - Nate’s shocked they’ve known each other this long (outside the...you know) and he hasn’t dragged him to an arepas vendor.
It’s a colorful little thing that sprawls into the street and it’s uncrowded, staffed by a few errant people who seem confused to work there and confused to see Nate. He tries to avoid outright eye contact with the regular denizens of New Amsterdam, most of whom are still discombobulated but also recognize him.
As the first one there, he tries to look inconspicuous as a 6’1” man with a fondness for masa. ]
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So he's there a not-pathetic two minutes early, and he only spent like twenty minutes too long getting ready. And he only runs his hands through his hair about three times before he finally ventures in, really channeling those YouTube yoga sessions to find his inner peace and not go full shavasana in an arepas place.
You know what, he does alright. Thinks he at least vaguely seems to have his shit under control when he ambles over with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
Sup nod. )
Hey, man.
( Remember how we used to sleep together almost every night for a ton of years because I totally do.
Is what he's not thinking. )
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Some old habits are still hard to break.
He's therefore extraordinarily comforted to see him looking normal. Hair a fraction longer, point-of-pride beard a little scruffier, but they all came out of the Aerie slightly less - or more - themselves and because of that Nate doesn't hesitate to close the distance.
He's more clothed than usual, crew neck collar, sleeves only pushed halfway up his forearms, when he catches Ian in a brief, firm hug. Nothing status-threatening in a public place, because he's learned his lesson there. It's a flicker of contact that's soaked in relief before he pulls away. ]
Hey. Glad you're okay.
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He hugs back a little too tightly, and he has to force his fingers to let go of the back of Nate's shirt when he draws away. )
Yeah, you too.
( And he means it. Not just after the Aerie, and since it's weighing on his conscience -- )
Hey, good job on the fucking moon, dude. Sorry everyone was a total asshole about it, but you totally called it.
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Fortunately Ian gives him a distraction, not that it's a particularly appealing one. ]
...yeah, that's- not really how I anticipated it going. At all.
[ The disappointment is evident on his face, eye contact skipping off to the side. It frustrates him more to know he'll probably get muscled out of helping because, as Dean intimated to him, you gotta be an asshole. Christ, he doesn't know how people find the time or the energy for it. ]
Thanks, though.
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But they're not.
As Sam kindly put it: it wasn't real, and they weren't a thing before. Kyna added another layer to that foundation, and he's left with this feeling that he's taken the whole thing more to heart than most of the other Displaced.
Ian has never in his entire fucking life wanted to be that guy. )
Yeah, I'd say nobody could've seen that coming, but...
( A conceding beat and bob to his shoulders. )
I've met these people.
( Most of them are terrible, that's his professional opinion. A subtle venture in changing in the subject, since it's an undesirable one: )
How are you doing aside from... bad social media experiences?
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Nate remembers in vivid, excruciating detail what happened after Harry Flynn revealed he didn't plan on escaping Shambhala, lifting up a live grenade in one sad, bloody hand. Parting gift from Lazarebitch. Pity he took the pin. Elena was too close, trying to talk Harry down, and took the brunt of the explosion in the shrapnel that buried itself in her stomach and chest. The fear that had seized him then was chilling, a devastating paralytic he only worked through out of sheer denial because he physically could not imagine what it would be like if she died.
It's a shame he never accounted for the possibility of the opposite scenario. ]
...I think that's probably a subject better talked about after we've eaten.
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Yeah, alright.
( Because nothing screams appetite like a feeling of intense foreboding. He at least manages to curb that particular witty remark; it won't help them figure out how to be normal right now. Maybe that's supposed to be step one - level out enough to exist in the same ten foot radius without overthinking everything.
He used to be such a chill person. What the hell happened to that?
( an apocalypse, a dimension hop, a second mini-apocalypse, another dimension hop, true love, dying, un-dimension hopping...)
He can't really turn off the periodic split-second intrusive thoughts that keep slipping in — things like I remember washing your hair.
They amble toward the line, they wait to order, and — he's a nervous talker. There's no permanence to this should-probably-be-companionable quiet. )
I guess we could awkwardly talk about the weather. I heard the Dow Jones was down twenty points. No idea what that even means, maybe that it's gonna rain?
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Ian talks.
A lot.
It's the sort of thing he remembers from another world, another life, hallmarks of nervousness with the occasional flippant, fluttering gesture as though he's working out a puzzle he has to verbally walk through and the only reason Nate knows is because he's seen it so many, many times. They move through the short line while Ian dances through Small Talk for Dummies and Nate glances up at the ceiling as though willing God Himself to strike him down.
He only gestures for two beers as soon as they reach the till, and trades in credits for bottles before pushing one into Ian's open palm and giving him an understanding look. ]
I'm not hungry, either. C'mon.
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Yeah. It's...
It's a weird thing to reconcile, being back here where they were at the beginning stages of friendship and it'd only been a few weeks, and then years and years of knowing each other in another life. After his conversations with Sam and Kyna, he's had this feeling that he's supposed to be compartmentalizing the latter.
Clearly that's not what's gonna happen here.
And you know what?
Fuck it, let's just get this part out of the way — )
I'm not good at this. I have no idea how I'm supposed to act right now, and it's freaking me out a little.
( Except his tone's a complete contradiction, drawled out in the slowest and most calm way anybody's ever said anything like that. )
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He's seen so much of this before, in one flavor or another, but this falls too closely into line with a theory he proposed weeks before they got sucked into that other world.
It weirds him out, how calm Ian is. Knows it's a defense mechanism, making little mental compromises to work through the mess. Compartmentalizing. ]
You're not "supposed" to do anything. However you act is just how you act.
[ Nate points out gently, putting some distance between them and the little shop. Glancing over at him feels like a kick in the gut, some strange familiarity - in another world he would hold his hand, thumb at his knuckles - turning his stomach over and then into knots again. ]
I'm in the same boat as you.
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So, like... how do you act genuine when you're half in love and ridiculously terrified of being vulnerable?
He chews the inside of his cheek, follows their course toward an unoccupied bench in a quiet part of the overgrown courtyard. Starts picking at the label on his bottle as soon as he sits down like it's the most interesting thing on the planet. )
Your brother and Kyna don't seem to think it was really... real.
( Maybe that's the best place to start. It's not exactly an outright question, more a gentle probe. )
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He would not categorically classify this as such.
It's terrifying, the guilt eats away at his insides like an insidious rot, but there's a fondness in his smile because he remembers a boy who toyed with mechanics in his spare time and a man who kept thumbing at his butter tea in Tibet like he was going to rub the paint off the cup. ]
Well...no offense to either of them, but I doubt they've ever been in a situation where they experienced an alternate version of themselves.
[ He knows nothing about Kyna's thoughts on this subject outside of the fact that this is the first Other World experience she's had, and Sam...Sam is the master of vehement denial in the face of the monumentally true. I did it for us, Nathan, desperate and on a cliff's edge while his younger sibling watched his world fall apart. How many times had Sam said the same thing to him in the Aerie? ]
I have.
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Yeah?
( And then a mention comes to mind, a lifetime ago or just a week or two ago in Lance's hotel room. )
Zerzura, right? More real than that time you were married to someone in a dream.
( Which is only relevant because he'd been pretty dismissive of the latter. He wants to think this one matters a little more. )
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I wasn't there, in Zerzura. Wish I'd seen it.
[ His palms splay wide in his lap in a small, helpless shrug. Everything he knows about Zerzura is material he dug up long after the fact, building off of secondary sources. ]
But it's the same thing, I think. Another world, another...us. Reliving memories of another life. In Hadriel, it was just a couple weeks of thinking I was some different version of myself, but everything from before those weeks was hazy, like it wasn't all there. I was married to Lance's old boss, I had a kid, I had a dad. But when it was over it wasn't as concrete as this. More like a collective hallucination.
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His lips twitch thoughtfully, tucking into his cheek for flickering seconds. )
I could probably write it off if it was just a couple weeks.
( It would be awkward, but manageable. It would only take a week or two of faking it until he made it, and he could pretend it never happened. Not acknowledge it, just like he does with everything else. Or -- did, before the aerie.
But it wasn't.
And, terrifyingly, the first real, raw thing escapes him before he can clamp it down. )
But I remember you since I was a fucking kid.
( Not exactly a kid, but his young stupid early twenties. Might as well be. )
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I know. I was there.
[ A scared kid, recovering from wounds and hurting, lashing out at the first available target. Hastily applied makeup smeared across his eyelids and glitter in his hair, like a hungover college kid on Mardi Gras.
Nate's voice is soft, careful with something that feels so breakable in a way he doesn't have the words to describe, but the smile that twists at the edges of his mouth is undeniably sentimental. ]
I helped you wash your hair and you called me a pretty boy piece of shit.
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You are a pretty boy.
( Reaffirmed, voice a little tight, the teasing a half-hearted effort at best.
He'd been carrying two Nates in his mind, distinct separate versions, one of them far away and the other one here. This moment kind of brings them both together, drives home that he's the same person. It's enough to coax him into dragging his eyes back up again, enough to make him thickly admit -- )
I really missed you, man.
( These last couple days. Stupid considering it's not even -- it hasn't been that long, just that the uncertainty makes the gap feel wider.
And that admission ratchets his fear up a couple of notches, thanks, but he did it anyway. Look at all this progress. )
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The truth of the matter is that Nate doesn't know what he's feeling anymore. Nostalgia for a time in another world that feels condensed into a matter of minutes, regret for all the potential he lost back home, guilt for every fractional moment of happiness granted in the spaces between. He loved this man, in someone else's crumbling metropolis.
Lost him, too.
Time is a funny thing when it comes to the muddling of chronology, nothing so simple as a few dates to nail it all down. His last words exchanged with Elena in Antananarivo were weak ones, but his last words exchanged with Elena in Hadriel were strong, foundational, making up for his lies and working toward a conscientious partnership. Forgiveness. They overcame the bullshit he put them all through in his effort to save Sam and she made him a better communicator for it, and these things happened within hours of each other, within weeks and months, because the minutes don't really matter unless they take your life and everything you've worked on in the interim. ]
I missed you too.
[ Even, level, honest. He did miss him, it's not a lie - it was ten goddamn years. It's easy for eye contact to dart away but he holds it, because she taught him better than to fucking hide. Nate watches Ian's face, all the telltale twitches of clutching, exhausting anxiety.
A little wrinkle forms in his brow, voice tight when he follows up: ]
I watched you die, Ian.
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Ian, I can't, because...
And he'll say that's fine, and he'll tell himself that's fine, and it'll be done with.
Dying isn't one of the things that will bring him pause. It's not exactly an easy topic, he's not so far removed from it yet as to dismiss it entirely as unimportant, but... At least dying is simple. )
Yeah, that... wasn't fun. That wasn't one of the fun parts.
( No ragerts. )
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Why?
[ His voice lilts up at the end, confused and concerned and everything he knows about Ian in this world is based in a desire to put distance between himself and danger. He's not a hero and he doesn't try to be, and that doesn't reflect poorly on him so much as it emphasizes his survivalist nature. He survived the alien attack on his world. He survived the monsters in the safe house. He runs because it's the best possible option for him and it doesn't make him a bad person, it makes him a smart one.
That he decided to wrestle a gun from a volatile person and act as the magnet for violence so Nate didn't have to, now, that was different. Love or not. ]
Why did you do that? I mean, I- I know why, but I don't, really. You didn't have to. You knew how much I'd survived already.
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I don't know, I thought it would make a cool desk ornament?
( Sorry, sorry, he just-- It feels like the most obvious thing in the world. That laugh is back in his voice for a second when he follows up the sarcastic comment with a more earnest one. )
He was gonna shoot you.
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[ Nate protests, as if that's supposed to be some kind of valid argument. Ian has seen him injured, has seen his stamina and ability to recover firsthand: the man knew all his scars, new and old.
It's a stupid point but it's the only one that can keep him from snapping at the sudden resurgence of what Ian looked like bleeding out. Like Elena had, pale and frail and ripping his chest open with every ragged breath. What if that world had been it, collapsing around them? What if he'd had to live like that? ]
Stabbed. Beaten. Nearly blown-up. Multiple times, you know that. You know what I can take.
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