[ 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.
( Ian's brow furrows, deep wrinkles trenched along his forehead, and he doesn't really mean to look at Nate like he's stupid, but... )
Funny thing about bullets, you don't actually build up an immunity to getting shot in the head.
( Which, granted, he can't know whether or not that kid was a good enough shot for it, but... Head, heart, lungs. Doesn't matter. The torso's a nice, big target from just a few paces away. )
And besides, it's not like I had time to, like, strategize. I just saw it, and I did it. I don't know.
( With a noncommittal shrug tacked on at the end. )
[ It isn't like Nate to lose his temper. He so rarely does, and certainly hasn't since he arrived in this place for the first time, a wan shadow of his former self.
Maybe it's the flippant disregard with which Ian delivers his reasoning. He reacted on instinct, he just did it, he doesn't know. Christ knows that Nate himself has done worse and he's a monster of a hypocrite for feeling so angry about it, a rash heat curling up into his chest because everybody was lucky this time around. Death didn't mean anything, but neither did they know that. ]
It was stupid, Ian! You didn't need to die like that, you were-
[ Scared. Shaking. Gripping Nate's shirt in a clenched fist, breathing erratic, pulse slowing. They're alive here and that's nothing to sneeze at but they didn't know as much, in there. As far as they were aware, that was it. ]
( Well that's not exactly the reaction he was expecting. Something defensive flares up in him, indignant and a little embarrassed. Maybe it'd be less of the latter if they had any real solid foundation on what they are to one another, but without that it feels less than stellar going out on the ultimate limb and getting judged for it. That's a much smaller piece of this much larger puzzle right now, though. )
Hey, you know what sucks?
( Ah yes, his I'm about to be a sarcastic asshole tone, just gentle enough so as to not be outright inflammatory. )
Dying, and then somebody shit-talking your death to your face. That's, you know, kind of one of the most significant impactful moments of my life, so if you could keep the scathing commentary to yourself.
( Honestly, what strikes a nerve is that part about not being noble. Nate's right, that's exactly what he considers it. The only real consolation to the whole thing. He spent eighteen months convinced he was going to die in the middle of nowhere, or for a stupid reason, or for no reason at all. Toward the end, he was pretty sure he'd die of alcohol poisoning if their camp didn't get discovered first. That's the only reality he's ever known where his death could have meaning.
[ He can hear it - you don't have to protect me, you just didn't want to face me again - ringing in his skull like the buzzing tap of a tuning fork, and it's like being transported back to that crappy little motel in Madagascar all over again. Off-kilter, as though the parameters have suddenly changed when he wasn't paying close attention, barely listening to his own words before they spill out. ]
That's not- I'm not trying to-
[ He groans in frustration, throwing his hands up. Insult noted, not that he meant it that way, but that doesn't matter - it was still taken as such.
It's a new record for screwing up in the most expeditious manner possible. With zero intention of denigrating the valiant sacrifice he can't help but loathe its existence in the first place, because Nate doesn't even see it as necessary regardless of the circumstances. There is genuine conviction thrumming in him with the subsequent statement: ]
You're worth more than that! And I'm sure as Hell not worth dying for.
( A knowing look passes along his otherwise consternated expression, and while it doesn't exactly make him recant his stance, at least he understands it a little better.
Still frustrated. Just moderately less insulted. )
Well, unfortunately for your self esteem you don't get to decide your value to other people.
[ It's a sharp sentiment and Nate looks as though he's been slapped across the face. What he doesn't understand is why Ian clings so fiercely to this stance when he knows what it is to lose people, to have them make the call without his input: his own mother kept smoking in spite of the lung cancer, and here he is defending the same bullshit. Perpetuating the same cheap defense.
Having worked his jaw for the last ten seconds, Nate finally speaks with deliberate, insistent calm. ]
Your choice doesn't just affect you.
[ Ironic, and a hair hypocritical with Nate's personal repertoire of utter screw-ups, but he's so tired of running that he'd rather own the responsibility that comes with the decisions he makes.
It isn't fair to hold Ian accountable for a choice he made in a split-second, but the ease with which he decided to make it, so much so that it was instinctual... ]
Just- take a look in the mirror, okay? You'd give me the same hard time if it were me.
( There were aspects of the situation with his mom that he didn't understand — still doesn't understand. He may never, given his penchant for ignoring things that hurt. If he spent some time reflecting on it, he might realize her perspective.
She was never going to be able to afford treatment. She would never have been able to make it through chemo at cost alone, even if they ignore the fact that she was the sole breadwinner and the money stopped coming in when she stopped working. If she'd tried, if she'd fought, Ian would've fought with her. Would've probably dropped out of grad school to get a job, to pay for it all.
He'd have given up himself for her, just to lose her in the end anyway.
It's not the same situation, but maybe he is his mother's son after all.
Also, selfishly, if it wasn't Nate losing him it would have been him losing Nate. That's a much harder outcome for him to fathom. )
Maybe.
( He acknowledges placidly. )
You're probably right. But I know how I feel about it and you're not gonna change my mind any more than I'm gonna change yours. You can keep yelling at me though, if you want. If you think it'll make you feel better.
[ It's even more frustrating that Ian's voice is so ridiculously calm. Unrepentant and unfazed, as with most of his firmer opinions, and Nate can't even blame him for being so steadfast - Hell, it's why he likes him. Conviction in his actions, utterly certain he's justified. ]
I'm not yelling at you, I'm-
[ Nate's jaw snaps shut, because okay, all right, he was starting to raise his voice a little, and to that end he immediately remedies the situation by shutting up. Shutting off.
He sits back against the bench with a sharp exhale from his nose, lips pressed in a thin line, brow furrowed at nothing in the middle distance. It's not like him to lose his temper unless something critical is on the line and snapping so quickly, with such vehemence, is something the asshole he used to be would do.
I had to protect you!
That is bullshit, Nate.
He takes a steadying breath, pulling himself under control again. It wasn't a real loss, he knows that, but it felt like one. It felt the way every other great loss has felt, and in that world there was no time to be angry, no target to use for his grief. A good percentage of this is just misplaced anger at Ian and Nate knows it. ]
I'm sorry. You're right.
[ He finally breaks the silence, because the scared kid with the gun deserves as much criticism as Ian, who doesn't deserve any at all. Nate would have made the same call in the same situation. ]
...I didn't just fall off a cliff. I got knocked off, I was about to be shot. The last time someone stepped between me and a bullet, I still died.
( He starts to feel a little guilty around the time Nate cuts himself off. He's being too cavalier about this, or he's at least not doing a great job demonstrating empathy. He's being stubborn, more interested in an unfaltering display of sticking with his choice rather than doing anything to help with the more important facet of this conversation -- that Nate is hurting. Or, was hurting. Might still be hurting. Whatever the case, that perspective starts to filter in before he even gets that deeper explanation.
It's on the tip of his tongue to take over, to start steering the conversation. Getting the backstory cuts the legs out from under him, leaves him momentarily stuck. )
Shit.
( He manages finally, a quiet murmur. One of his hands peels away from the bottle on instinct like he means to reach out, just to kindly check himself midway through the movement. He steers his palm toward his thigh instead, passing the flat of it down over denim. Super fucking smooth. )
I'm sorry, I didn't--
( Know, obviously. No wonder he didn't want to share that memory back then.
He still would've done it, but he'd have been less of an asshole about it now. )
[ He says too quickly, in a way that conveys he is the polar opposite of fine. Didn't want this crap to turn into a pity party when Ian is the one whose body cooled on concrete and Nate doesn't know how he ended up, some broken corpse at the bottom of a cliff, drifting downriver. Another one of Libertalia's many casualties.
He catches the aborted gesture in the periphery, something he suddenly wishes Ian had followed through on, and looks up at the vines spreading across the face of the building opposite them. ]
It's not like I told you. It's not like I've really told anyone.
[ He put it into words for Stephen once before, but there was anger then, a livid edge to his voice for the sibling who pretended it didn't happen. Who still pretends that it didn't happen, that he didn't nudge his baby brother over a sheer drop trying to save his life.
Nate can't change the circumstances - they are what they are - but he's starting to forgive Sam for what happened. He lied, he twisted the situation, he counted on Nate trusting him, and that was just Sam doing what he thought was best. Doesn't mean Nate has to agree with it, now or ever. ]
Sam took the bullet in the shoulder. It was an accident.
( Yeah, it's definitely not fine. Ian twists a little on the bench, just enough to better study Nate's expression. His posture. It's killing him a little to be hands-off; in the aerie he'd be plastered around the guy like a fucking octopus basically. Holding his hand at the very least.
Sam knocking him off a cliff to try and save him from a bullet. )
Sounds like him.
( Mused quietly. Maybe it's not fair to pretend he knows Sam given he only knows a version, but everyone else he knows had been a close enough version of themselves that he's counting it.
Thrusting Nate into quarry after quarry to give him a better life. Somehow.
Of course, this leads to the natural next question-- )
[ Sounds like him earns a bitter little laugh, humorless for the assessment that isn't altogether off-base. It does sound like Sam, doesn't it? But just about everything he's ever done has been for the brothers Drake, every sacrifice, every night gone hungry. He thought he was doing what was best.
He always thought that.
In all his time since he woke up in New Amsterdam, Nate doesn't know that he's ever felt this lonely while sitting next to another person. Wanting contact and trying to respect boundaries, thinking he's found a job and a purpose and having it unceremoniously ripped from him, being dead and being here. It's an empty, nauseating sensation, being immediately adjacent to someone you knew for nearly two decades, conscious of the fact that the terms are different.
Ian knows him and doesn't know him at the same time: knows to identify when Nate is uncomfortable, but doesn't know how many goddamn people have tried to blow Nate's head off in his lifetime, and how funny the question is in the grand scheme of things. Of course he would ask it one of the few occasions Nate could actually name the person who wanted him dead. ]
Rafe Adler. His family's chin-deep in big-box store stocks, the guy fancies himself an archaeologist. He also hates my guts.
[ It's not flavor text when it's true. Nate finally picks up his beer again, largely to give his hands something to do. ]
Hired a whole private army just to blow my head off.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
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.
no subject
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. )
no subject
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.
no subject
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. )
no subject
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.
no subject
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. )
no subject
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.
no subject
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. )
no subject
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.
no subject
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. )
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
[ 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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Funny thing about bullets, you don't actually build up an immunity to getting shot in the head.
( Which, granted, he can't know whether or not that kid was a good enough shot for it, but... Head, heart, lungs. Doesn't matter. The torso's a nice, big target from just a few paces away. )
And besides, it's not like I had time to, like, strategize. I just saw it, and I did it. I don't know.
( With a noncommittal shrug tacked on at the end. )
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Maybe it's the flippant disregard with which Ian delivers his reasoning. He reacted on instinct, he just did it, he doesn't know. Christ knows that Nate himself has done worse and he's a monster of a hypocrite for feeling so angry about it, a rash heat curling up into his chest because everybody was lucky this time around. Death didn't mean anything, but neither did they know that. ]
It was stupid, Ian! You didn't need to die like that, you were-
[ Scared. Shaking. Gripping Nate's shirt in a clenched fist, breathing erratic, pulse slowing. They're alive here and that's nothing to sneeze at but they didn't know as much, in there. As far as they were aware, that was it. ]
It wasn't noble, and you shouldn't have done it.
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Hey, you know what sucks?
( Ah yes, his I'm about to be a sarcastic asshole tone, just gentle enough so as to not be outright inflammatory. )
Dying, and then somebody shit-talking your death to your face. That's, you know, kind of one of the most significant impactful moments of my life, so if you could keep the scathing commentary to yourself.
( Honestly, what strikes a nerve is that part about not being noble. Nate's right, that's exactly what he considers it. The only real consolation to the whole thing. He spent eighteen months convinced he was going to die in the middle of nowhere, or for a stupid reason, or for no reason at all. Toward the end, he was pretty sure he'd die of alcohol poisoning if their camp didn't get discovered first. That's the only reality he's ever known where his death could have meaning.
So.
Sorry, not sorry. )
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That's not- I'm not trying to-
[ He groans in frustration, throwing his hands up. Insult noted, not that he meant it that way, but that doesn't matter - it was still taken as such.
It's a new record for screwing up in the most expeditious manner possible. With zero intention of denigrating the valiant sacrifice he can't help but loathe its existence in the first place, because Nate doesn't even see it as necessary regardless of the circumstances. There is genuine conviction thrumming in him with the subsequent statement: ]
You're worth more than that! And I'm sure as Hell not worth dying for.
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Still frustrated. Just moderately less insulted. )
Well, unfortunately for your self esteem you don't get to decide your value to other people.
( Bluntly, and unapologetically. )
It felt worth it to me. That's my choice.
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Having worked his jaw for the last ten seconds, Nate finally speaks with deliberate, insistent calm. ]
Your choice doesn't just affect you.
[ Ironic, and a hair hypocritical with Nate's personal repertoire of utter screw-ups, but he's so tired of running that he'd rather own the responsibility that comes with the decisions he makes.
It isn't fair to hold Ian accountable for a choice he made in a split-second, but the ease with which he decided to make it, so much so that it was instinctual... ]
Just- take a look in the mirror, okay? You'd give me the same hard time if it were me.
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She was never going to be able to afford treatment. She would never have been able to make it through chemo at cost alone, even if they ignore the fact that she was the sole breadwinner and the money stopped coming in when she stopped working. If she'd tried, if she'd fought, Ian would've fought with her. Would've probably dropped out of grad school to get a job, to pay for it all.
He'd have given up himself for her, just to lose her in the end anyway.
It's not the same situation, but maybe he is his mother's son after all.
Also, selfishly, if it wasn't Nate losing him it would have been him losing Nate. That's a much harder outcome for him to fathom. )
Maybe.
( He acknowledges placidly. )
You're probably right. But I know how I feel about it and you're not gonna change my mind any more than I'm gonna change yours. You can keep yelling at me though, if you want. If you think it'll make you feel better.
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I'm not yelling at you, I'm-
[ Nate's jaw snaps shut, because okay, all right, he was starting to raise his voice a little, and to that end he immediately remedies the situation by shutting up. Shutting off.
He sits back against the bench with a sharp exhale from his nose, lips pressed in a thin line, brow furrowed at nothing in the middle distance. It's not like him to lose his temper unless something critical is on the line and snapping so quickly, with such vehemence, is something the asshole he used to be would do.
That is bullshit, Nate.
He takes a steadying breath, pulling himself under control again. It wasn't a real loss, he knows that, but it felt like one. It felt the way every other great loss has felt, and in that world there was no time to be angry, no target to use for his grief. A good percentage of this is just misplaced anger at Ian and Nate knows it. ]
I'm sorry. You're right.
[ He finally breaks the silence, because the scared kid with the gun deserves as much criticism as Ian, who doesn't deserve any at all. Nate would have made the same call in the same situation. ]
...I didn't just fall off a cliff. I got knocked off, I was about to be shot. The last time someone stepped between me and a bullet, I still died.
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It's on the tip of his tongue to take over, to start steering the conversation. Getting the backstory cuts the legs out from under him, leaves him momentarily stuck. )
Shit.
( He manages finally, a quiet murmur. One of his hands peels away from the bottle on instinct like he means to reach out, just to kindly check himself midway through the movement. He steers his palm toward his thigh instead, passing the flat of it down over denim. Super fucking smooth. )
I'm sorry, I didn't--
( Know, obviously. No wonder he didn't want to share that memory back then.
He still would've done it, but he'd have been less of an asshole about it now. )
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[ He says too quickly, in a way that conveys he is the polar opposite of fine. Didn't want this crap to turn into a pity party when Ian is the one whose body cooled on concrete and Nate doesn't know how he ended up, some broken corpse at the bottom of a cliff, drifting downriver. Another one of Libertalia's many casualties.
He catches the aborted gesture in the periphery, something he suddenly wishes Ian had followed through on, and looks up at the vines spreading across the face of the building opposite them. ]
It's not like I told you. It's not like I've really told anyone.
[ He put it into words for Stephen once before, but there was anger then, a livid edge to his voice for the sibling who pretended it didn't happen. Who still pretends that it didn't happen, that he didn't nudge his baby brother over a sheer drop trying to save his life.
Nate can't change the circumstances - they are what they are - but he's starting to forgive Sam for what happened. He lied, he twisted the situation, he counted on Nate trusting him, and that was just Sam doing what he thought was best. Doesn't mean Nate has to agree with it, now or ever. ]
Sam took the bullet in the shoulder. It was an accident.
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Sam knocking him off a cliff to try and save him from a bullet. )
Sounds like him.
( Mused quietly. Maybe it's not fair to pretend he knows Sam given he only knows a version, but everyone else he knows had been a close enough version of themselves that he's counting it.
Thrusting Nate into quarry after quarry to give him a better life. Somehow.
Of course, this leads to the natural next question-- )
Who was trying to shoot you?
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He always thought that.
In all his time since he woke up in New Amsterdam, Nate doesn't know that he's ever felt this lonely while sitting next to another person. Wanting contact and trying to respect boundaries, thinking he's found a job and a purpose and having it unceremoniously ripped from him, being dead and being here. It's an empty, nauseating sensation, being immediately adjacent to someone you knew for nearly two decades, conscious of the fact that the terms are different.
Ian knows him and doesn't know him at the same time: knows to identify when Nate is uncomfortable, but doesn't know how many goddamn people have tried to blow Nate's head off in his lifetime, and how funny the question is in the grand scheme of things. Of course he would ask it one of the few occasions Nate could actually name the person who wanted him dead. ]
Rafe Adler. His family's chin-deep in big-box store stocks, the guy fancies himself an archaeologist. He also hates my guts.
[ It's not flavor text when it's true. Nate finally picks up his beer again, largely to give his hands something to do. ]
Hired a whole private army just to blow my head off.
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