[ They haven't talked since the simulation, and who would want to? Shared trauma is still trauma, and people need to process shit in their own time and their own ways. He might have expected Stephen to go on a bender if the guy wasn't so unfailingly ascetic in everything he does outside of the occasional drink, mid-work. Nate's favored tactic is isolation.
He finds a high, lonely place, a vantage of the world around him, a simulacrum of control so he doesn't drift in the lack thereof. Stability comes on good days and on bad ones, he takes out pent-up frustrations with his fists, the knuckles raw and bloody when he makes his way back to the little apartment he shares with a friend he tries not to drag into his moods.
He thinks of extending a hand, and doesn't. Until his phone pings. ]
[ No, that's for cities not countries. But this is a pattern they've fallen into, conversations like a sight-seeing tour: eyes on passing scenery and sitting back to back, each comment on the view a felt reminder of company. ]
[ That's cities, not countries, is what he wants to say, but he's conscious that Stephen is smart enough to know as much and it's a bit like going on a long drive and pointing out all the cows you see along the way. ]
[ ... he's been dimension diving, he's been underwater in the strange dreams this place once generated, but has never been actually physically under the ocean with all appropriate gear. ]
[ Came with the territory of pilfering underwater graves and subsequently doing legitimate salvage work. He doesn't know how much they've change the tech in 500 years, though. For all he knows they could have re-breathers that last entire days. ]
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no subject
He finds a high, lonely place, a vantage of the world around him, a simulacrum of control so he doesn't drift in the lack thereof. Stability comes on good days and on bad ones, he takes out pent-up frustrations with his fists, the knuckles raw and bloody when he makes his way back to the little apartment he shares with a friend he tries not to drag into his moods.
He thinks of extending a hand, and doesn't. Until his phone pings. ]
i hear belize is nice this time of year.
no subject
[ No, that's for cities not countries. But this is a pattern they've fallen into, conversations like a sight-seeing tour: eyes on passing scenery and sitting back to back, each comment on the view a felt reminder of company. ]
I've not been.
[ Somewhere new sounds good. ]
no subject
we got a belize virgin over here, folks
you ever been scuba diving?
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Somehow, no. I take it you have.
no subject
[ Came with the territory of pilfering underwater graves and subsequently doing legitimate salvage work. He doesn't know how much they've change the tech in 500 years, though. For all he knows they could have re-breathers that last entire days. ]
if it freaks you out you can always snorkel.