[ They have a lot in common, he's learning. Aside from having wildly different day jobs or feelings about heights, a lot of the colors are the same shade. He didn't expect it when they first met, or the first night he posted up at Nate's bar being a menace, only barely started piecing it together sixty stories in the air. It's kind of becoming clearer now.
Nate's right, it's absolutely a pattern for Ian too and it's exactly where he'd been headed. Granted, it had a time limit apparently given Kyna's return, but that wasn't set in stone at the time. It would've gotten worse. Never apocalypse cabin bad, but definitely retreating back into social reclusion until enough time had passed that he didn't feel anything about it anymore. That's how he handled his mom, how he excelled so hard in grad school, and why he came out the other side without a single real friend.
Either way, self-destructive habits effectively curbed — not just because nobody's ever done it for him, but because he never let them even if they wanted to.
He's not expecting to get anything back out of this, so dipping into that sensitive topic he'd been gently smacked away from is a surprise. Suicidally reckless — he wouldn't have guessed it, but looking now at Nate and the skills he's demonstrated already over the duration of their short... friendship, he guesses, officially— he could see it.
And yeah, this leads almost directly toward the other train of thought he'd been considering, almost perfectly timed. There's really no excuse not to, he feels the pressing notion that he should because it's what's right and fair, and... Fuck, if you're gonna pull out one splinter you might as well get the other while you're at it.
So.
An awkward hand at the back of his neck, not quite scratching so much as just... touching. Eyes flit to the water. ]
Um, it was my mom.
[ In that dream, in that memory after Nate's loss. ]
She died when I was... twenty-three? I didn't have any other family.
[ Don't have any other family, but it's harder to phrase it that way.
So there you go. They're even-ish. Sort of. Maybe the circumstances should come out, but it's close. ]
no subject
Nate's right, it's absolutely a pattern for Ian too and it's exactly where he'd been headed. Granted, it had a time limit apparently given Kyna's return, but that wasn't set in stone at the time. It would've gotten worse. Never apocalypse cabin bad, but definitely retreating back into social reclusion until enough time had passed that he didn't feel anything about it anymore. That's how he handled his mom, how he excelled so hard in grad school, and why he came out the other side without a single real friend.
Either way, self-destructive habits effectively curbed — not just because nobody's ever done it for him, but because he never let them even if they wanted to.
He's not expecting to get anything back out of this, so dipping into that sensitive topic he'd been gently smacked away from is a surprise. Suicidally reckless — he wouldn't have guessed it, but looking now at Nate and the skills he's demonstrated already over the duration of their short... friendship, he guesses, officially— he could see it.
And yeah, this leads almost directly toward the other train of thought he'd been considering, almost perfectly timed. There's really no excuse not to, he feels the pressing notion that he should because it's what's right and fair, and... Fuck, if you're gonna pull out one splinter you might as well get the other while you're at it.
So.
An awkward hand at the back of his neck, not quite scratching so much as just... touching. Eyes flit to the water. ]
Um, it was my mom.
[ In that dream, in that memory after Nate's loss. ]
She died when I was... twenty-three? I didn't have any other family.
[ Don't have any other family, but it's harder to phrase it that way.
So there you go. They're even-ish. Sort of. Maybe the circumstances should come out, but it's close. ]