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i love how open and flexible you are to seating options.
[ Yep, an hour was about right.
She looks great (since when does she not?) and Nate nods in acknowledgement, hovering by one of the many poured-concrete columns supporting their strange little sports bar. When she makes her way over to him he gestures at the table in the corner, pressed up against the storefront windows, directly adjacent to the door, as if indicating that this is where he intends to seat them.
Nate lets it hang in the air just long enough to be funny before grinning. ]
I'm messing with you, it's over here. [ A quick head-jerk off to his left, to an empty table closer to the bar. ] You look nice.
She looks great (since when does she not?) and Nate nods in acknowledgement, hovering by one of the many poured-concrete columns supporting their strange little sports bar. When she makes her way over to him he gestures at the table in the corner, pressed up against the storefront windows, directly adjacent to the door, as if indicating that this is where he intends to seat them.
Nate lets it hang in the air just long enough to be funny before grinning. ]
I'm messing with you, it's over here. [ A quick head-jerk off to his left, to an empty table closer to the bar. ] You look nice.
[ His brows are rising steadily higher as the story progresses. This is, dare he even think it, some Avengers style shit. The trials and tribulations of an action adventure hero, he will never know them. But it's very nearly a relief to finally be told them by the man who parkoured himself to avoiding death by vampire. ]
There are at least three looming death sentences in this story so far. Impeccable, carry on.
[ If he'd known he was to be so thoroughly treated he'd have bought Nate a gift. ]
There are at least three looming death sentences in this story so far. Impeccable, carry on.
[ If he'd known he was to be so thoroughly treated he'd have bought Nate a gift. ]
[ And still it gets worse. And worse. He's asleep in your apartment suddenly sounds more like an insult than a consolation prize. A cosmic kick in the teeth. Stephen listens as a friendship is broken, a marriage wrecked, and a brother stands steadfastly by the righteousness of his lie.
Then a gun, and a cliff. Then a skull thudding against rock at speed.
Stephen's mouth goes dry.
For most of them their time here is an inconvenient waystation on what they hope to be a round trip home - or a choice to be made, an opportunity to be taken or left. It's not a restless afterlife before an imminent end.
He stares back at Nate, the reality of all he's just been told sinking in, settling alongside what he already knows. All the times they've sat around sipping whisky or planning trips to places they've never yet managed to visit. The man Nate is behind the bar and in thought-fast texts at a distance, always jovial, ever able to share his energy in spite of the bone deep exhaustion none of them is free of anymore.
All that time he's been carrying this around. Boxed up and kept. He'd have held it in forever too - Stephen knows that better than most might - if it weren't for its original catalyst showing up and throwing Nate off his hard-earned center of gravity.
Stephen's mouth presses into a flat line. The arm resting on the counter shifts so he can press his thumb into the covered crook of Nate's elbow, fingers resting slightly higher and heel of his hand careful to avoid the bare skin of his forearm. A firm point of contact in the absence of a spoken comfort it's impossible to produce. ]
I'm sorry. I can't imagine. What do you need?
[ He doubts Nate knows, or will ask for it even if he does. But if there was ever a time for him to be asked, it's now. Better late than never. ]
Then a gun, and a cliff. Then a skull thudding against rock at speed.
Stephen's mouth goes dry.
For most of them their time here is an inconvenient waystation on what they hope to be a round trip home - or a choice to be made, an opportunity to be taken or left. It's not a restless afterlife before an imminent end.
He stares back at Nate, the reality of all he's just been told sinking in, settling alongside what he already knows. All the times they've sat around sipping whisky or planning trips to places they've never yet managed to visit. The man Nate is behind the bar and in thought-fast texts at a distance, always jovial, ever able to share his energy in spite of the bone deep exhaustion none of them is free of anymore.
All that time he's been carrying this around. Boxed up and kept. He'd have held it in forever too - Stephen knows that better than most might - if it weren't for its original catalyst showing up and throwing Nate off his hard-earned center of gravity.
Stephen's mouth presses into a flat line. The arm resting on the counter shifts so he can press his thumb into the covered crook of Nate's elbow, fingers resting slightly higher and heel of his hand careful to avoid the bare skin of his forearm. A firm point of contact in the absence of a spoken comfort it's impossible to produce. ]
I'm sorry. I can't imagine. What do you need?
[ He doubts Nate knows, or will ask for it even if he does. But if there was ever a time for him to be asked, it's now. Better late than never. ]
Edited 2020-09-03 13:45 (UTC)
[ Drink neglected, fully in story mode, Nate's use of his hands in the description becomes wider, animated, and much more frequent. ]
Okay, so. They're shooting around all this moving crap and one of them hits something important. It blows a hole in the side of the plane and it lists to the side, 'cause it took out half a wing in the process and we start tanking, hard.
[ Maybe they hit a fuel line, maybe it was an electrical main, Nate never stopped to ask when the whole thing shifted and every one of Marlowe's men began to slip out of the tear in the cargo cabin. ]
I try to grab a strap and I get sucked out. So I'm just- falling, in the middle of Yemen's Empty Quarter, and then I slam into a cargo box wrapped in mesh and pull the paracord. It floats me all the way down to the wreckage and then I realize I'm in the middle of the world's largest contiguous desert and I've got nothing but the clothes on my back.
Okay, so. They're shooting around all this moving crap and one of them hits something important. It blows a hole in the side of the plane and it lists to the side, 'cause it took out half a wing in the process and we start tanking, hard.
[ Maybe they hit a fuel line, maybe it was an electrical main, Nate never stopped to ask when the whole thing shifted and every one of Marlowe's men began to slip out of the tear in the cargo cabin. ]
I try to grab a strap and I get sucked out. So I'm just- falling, in the middle of Yemen's Empty Quarter, and then I slam into a cargo box wrapped in mesh and pull the paracord. It floats me all the way down to the wreckage and then I realize I'm in the middle of the world's largest contiguous desert and I've got nothing but the clothes on my back.
[ Nate thought he might feel lighter in saying it out loud, but he doesn't. Speaking it - verbalizing it - seems to make it more concrete, cast in place and validating the worst of his fears. He doesn't know if he died, but how would he know otherwise?
Even Nathan Drake, human cockroach, has to go sometime.
Stephen looks like he's been socked in the gut and Nate's thin, tired expression tightens into a mirthless smile. Asked and answered; was it worth it? He never prefaced his situation upon arrival and didn't intend to, ever, until all of this blindsided him so expeditiously that he's still reeling.
Strange is not a man accustomed to giving comfort but somehow that makes it easier: no empty words, no intent consolation. He doesn't want pity and he knows Stephen doesn't intend to offer as much, even when he cants into Nate's space and rests a hand on the back of his arm.
What does he need? To know he's not a decomposing body on a rock off the coast of Madagascar, for one. To know how to parse his own feelings, conflicted and impossible to reconcile. ]
I need to not have a meltdown. [ He laughs hoarsely, the sound hollow. ] I can't afford it, Stephen. I really can't.
Even Nathan Drake, human cockroach, has to go sometime.
Stephen looks like he's been socked in the gut and Nate's thin, tired expression tightens into a mirthless smile. Asked and answered; was it worth it? He never prefaced his situation upon arrival and didn't intend to, ever, until all of this blindsided him so expeditiously that he's still reeling.
Strange is not a man accustomed to giving comfort but somehow that makes it easier: no empty words, no intent consolation. He doesn't want pity and he knows Stephen doesn't intend to offer as much, even when he cants into Nate's space and rests a hand on the back of his arm.
What does he need? To know he's not a decomposing body on a rock off the coast of Madagascar, for one. To know how to parse his own feelings, conflicted and impossible to reconcile. ]
I need to not have a meltdown. [ He laughs hoarsely, the sound hollow. ] I can't afford it, Stephen. I really can't.
[ I can't afford it, Stephen. I really can't.
Stephen watches Nate's face closely for a moment or two, trying to assess the margin between two opposing needs. Objectively, Nate needs whatever release it is that this conversation's playing stopgap to. Nothing swallowed stays down forever.
But there's only so much hypocrisy he can stomach. You can't tell a man to let out what he's been holding in when you've absolutely no intention of ever doing the same.
He removes the pressure of touch, letting his hand settle on the bartop. Different things work differently with different people. Sometimes touch can be enough to tip somebody over an edge, sometimes to pull them back from one. Stephen knows all about the possibility of inflicting catastrophic damage with the slightest slip of the hand. He'd rather not provide himself any opportunities to - nearby and available will do. ]
It'll come back bigger and uglier.
[ Spoken with an out of place humour, like it's an in-joke, which it is. Regurgitating the tenets of mental health maintenance doesn't suit him. Anyway, it's an exploration more than it is an honest warning.
Are you sure?
In this instance, the line between needing and wanting is narrow but noticeable. Nate's told him what he wants, and really that's what he'd been asking for. But before he commits to helping it's worth checking Nate doesn't first want to cater a little more to his needs and sit in the topic for a while longer. ]
Stephen watches Nate's face closely for a moment or two, trying to assess the margin between two opposing needs. Objectively, Nate needs whatever release it is that this conversation's playing stopgap to. Nothing swallowed stays down forever.
But there's only so much hypocrisy he can stomach. You can't tell a man to let out what he's been holding in when you've absolutely no intention of ever doing the same.
He removes the pressure of touch, letting his hand settle on the bartop. Different things work differently with different people. Sometimes touch can be enough to tip somebody over an edge, sometimes to pull them back from one. Stephen knows all about the possibility of inflicting catastrophic damage with the slightest slip of the hand. He'd rather not provide himself any opportunities to - nearby and available will do. ]
It'll come back bigger and uglier.
[ Spoken with an out of place humour, like it's an in-joke, which it is. Regurgitating the tenets of mental health maintenance doesn't suit him. Anyway, it's an exploration more than it is an honest warning.
Are you sure?
In this instance, the line between needing and wanting is narrow but noticeable. Nate's told him what he wants, and really that's what he'd been asking for. But before he commits to helping it's worth checking Nate doesn't first want to cater a little more to his needs and sit in the topic for a while longer. ]
I know what you're doing, and I appreciate it, but what do you want me to say?
[ It's quick and reactionary, the kind of sharp request a man makes when he doesn't know the answers to the questions swimming around in his head. When Nate turns to look at him again it is intent, bordering on imploring. Is there some quota he has to fill, some requisite milestone he needs to hit in order to be satisfied? To feel catharsis? ]
Should I cry? Should I fall to my knees, tear my hair out? "It's unfair"?
[ The mirthless exhale is accompanied by a shake of his head. Rhetorical, maybe, and not particularly nice to ask of a man who is clearly trying his best to help in spite of the fact that they are both hopelessly out of their depth. Stephen doesn't know about his mother's illness, his father's apathy, years of resentment cultivated by a culture of penance and blame and guilt under the watchful gaze of a crucifix, the sound an old woman makes when she dies on the floor in front of the boys who broke into her house.
The wail of the police sirens, the fear of being separated. What it feels like to change your name and leave the country before you've hit your teens.
He carved the small spaces himself, pockets of air: a wife and a home. BUt these things were earned, not given. ]
Nothing about my life has been fair.
[ It's quick and reactionary, the kind of sharp request a man makes when he doesn't know the answers to the questions swimming around in his head. When Nate turns to look at him again it is intent, bordering on imploring. Is there some quota he has to fill, some requisite milestone he needs to hit in order to be satisfied? To feel catharsis? ]
Should I cry? Should I fall to my knees, tear my hair out? "It's unfair"?
[ The mirthless exhale is accompanied by a shake of his head. Rhetorical, maybe, and not particularly nice to ask of a man who is clearly trying his best to help in spite of the fact that they are both hopelessly out of their depth. Stephen doesn't know about his mother's illness, his father's apathy, years of resentment cultivated by a culture of penance and blame and guilt under the watchful gaze of a crucifix, the sound an old woman makes when she dies on the floor in front of the boys who broke into her house.
The wail of the police sirens, the fear of being separated. What it feels like to change your name and leave the country before you've hit your teens.
He carved the small spaces himself, pockets of air: a wife and a home. BUt these things were earned, not given. ]
Nothing about my life has been fair.
No. [ No, it hasn't. He doesn't know the half of it but he could agree that with certainty even if he knew none at all. Nathan Drake is not a man to exaggerate his own suffering. ] So why should you choke on this, too?
[ Stephen's early brushes with the acutely unfair, isolated black holes in an otherwise more than comfortable life, he allowed to shape him into a chaotically egotistical asshole. Nate's seem to have formed an orderly line, the chaos manifesting in his life instead of his person, the man himself relentlessly kind. Maybe that's just what happens when there are too many instances to count.
It's no wonder he's adrift now. Not knowing what to do when any of it finally catches up to you is inevitable when you've never been given time enough to collapse between bouts.
Life is relentless here too, but there is at least the occasional lull in which to breathe - calms before and after storms. They're sporadic, but precious. They've reached one such now. ]
—Yes, I think you should cry. Or scream. Or curl up and not move for three days until you've figured out how you want to mourn. It isn't fair, you know that. You don't owe anybody another five months of acting like you're not in pain.
[ No matter how you look at it, self-sacrifice is just another form of self-harm. It's right there in the name. ]
You are in pain. Own it for a while.
[ Stephen's early brushes with the acutely unfair, isolated black holes in an otherwise more than comfortable life, he allowed to shape him into a chaotically egotistical asshole. Nate's seem to have formed an orderly line, the chaos manifesting in his life instead of his person, the man himself relentlessly kind. Maybe that's just what happens when there are too many instances to count.
It's no wonder he's adrift now. Not knowing what to do when any of it finally catches up to you is inevitable when you've never been given time enough to collapse between bouts.
Life is relentless here too, but there is at least the occasional lull in which to breathe - calms before and after storms. They're sporadic, but precious. They've reached one such now. ]
—Yes, I think you should cry. Or scream. Or curl up and not move for three days until you've figured out how you want to mourn. It isn't fair, you know that. You don't owe anybody another five months of acting like you're not in pain.
[ No matter how you look at it, self-sacrifice is just another form of self-harm. It's right there in the name. ]
You are in pain. Own it for a while.
hey yuo got your heart set on that lance for the riverside gig?
scary good. he's an fbi psychologist who went to college when he was 14. lance is basically a genius.
Edited 2020-09-14 18:45 (UTC)
why the hell not? cmon lets do some snaps
do you mean shots?
also why the hell don't you like lance? did you guys talk?
also why the hell don't you like lance? did you guys talk?
theyre shots AND snaps, think its a future version of shncapps
over a coupleof drinnks
over a coupleof drinnks
[ She should have expected it--Nathan is almost as charming as she is, which is a pretty big feat--and the moment she spots the table meant for them she shoots the other a playful look. She can't be mad. She should be annoyed, but she's not. It's funny. ]
Thank you. You look dashing--is that a new henley?
[ Is she joking? Is she not? Who knows. She smoothes her dress out to properly sit down. ]
Thank you. You look dashing--is that a new henley?
[ Is she joking? Is she not? Who knows. She smoothes her dress out to properly sit down. ]
Oh, you noticed.
[ He says airily, wearing the same shirt she saw him in last week when he suggested they try to locate a deli in New Amsterdam, of all godforsaken places. Nate settles at the next seat over instead of across the table, reaching for something in his bag and withdrawing a notebook, bound in blue leather.
He slides it toward her with a surreptitious smile. ]
Your ill-gotten goods, ma'am.
[ He says airily, wearing the same shirt she saw him in last week when he suggested they try to locate a deli in New Amsterdam, of all godforsaken places. Nate settles at the next seat over instead of across the table, reaching for something in his bag and withdrawing a notebook, bound in blue leather.
He slides it toward her with a surreptitious smile. ]
Your ill-gotten goods, ma'am.
sounds like a quick trip to a swim in the nearest canal.
and?
and?
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