[ It doesn't take much more than some search engine recon to determine that it's a relatively private venue, quiet, and largely removed from the hustle and bustle of the city and its crowded bars. While he isn't given to unfounded speculation Nate finds it hard to not ask about the reasoning behind it when they usually just grab a drink after work, in the bunker or the store room of Red Wings. Casual. Easy.
This isn't their typical fare.
It's his off-day and he's already done inventory for the week, so he heads over. The trip doesn't take long - it's a nice evening, which makes for a nice walk - and when he reaches the place it takes some minor wandering and a wayward gesture from waitstaff to locate the far corner, half-hidden with a makeshift trellis of vines and former scaffolding. ]
[ Nate finds Stephen already well prepared— he hands up a whisky in greeting over the squat round table he's seated at. It's a nice spot. An L of two low benches and the gift of ample cushioning backed by unruly greenery. Through the gaps between leaves the city in all its neon, newly natural splendor spreads out.
He seems fine. Bright-eyed, on the brink of mischief, as though a drink with a friend of an evening might be the beginning of some wild caper. Even his clothes tell subtly of difference. The dark dress shirt with rolled sleeves speaks more to his smart-casual workwear than the comfort he tends toward in downtime. The jacket he's draped over the back of the bench is more elevated than anything he wears to work. A Jaeger-LeCoultre watch, the face cracked beyond repair, is the only element of his outfit placed less than perfectly.
[ Nate accepts the drink and seats himself with no small amount of suspicion, deconstructing and processing details faster than he can help himself even as he takes a fortifying sip of holy shit some really good whisky.
Sometimes he forgets how absolutely crazy-rich Stephen must have been as a neurosurgeon, with the way he carries himself in and around the bar, with the way that Nate once found him at a dismal point, sequestered away in his bunker with nothing but artificial light and crappy orange juice. But then he wears a watch (broken, old damage, a memento) that Nate knows runs anywhere from six to twenty grand on the low end, and an outfit that screams "I'm going to the Saenger for a show and then The Sazerac for a cocktail," in that order.
He looks good. Put-together. In uncharacteristically high spirits, unless Nate has only had exposure to a particularly dark period and this is in fact the norm. ]
[ Stephen knows when he's being sized up. He's had it from all different angles and intents over time, from rivals to colleagues to strangers to friends. Searches for cracks in the armor, searches for strength and for weakness, searches for shows of wealth and worthiness of investment. Sometimes it's been part of the game, sometimes the unwitting consequence of not yet knowing how to play, sometimes just the product of a good suit and a title it took time (and money) to earn. The outcome of power.
In this case, Nate doesn't make a secret of it. If his face weren't already an open enough book, he follows it right up with a statement based on his observations.
The nature of it sits a lot closer to Christine warily eyeing him after a long day of surgery turns into gleeful preparations for a long night of talking to a room full of millionaires about neuroscientific developments than the room full of millionaires themselves. The kind of being seen that he once tolerated rather than understood, and would come to learn to miss.
Nate's weighing the usual against the today. Could be a problem but it doesn't have to be. He's got a lifetime of narcissism to fall back on.
Stephen's smile stretches for a brief lopsided flash of teeth. ]
You're fine as you are. This is a precaution.
[ This being the all of him Nate just made a swift, if unfinished, calculation of. ]
[ There's no reason to hide the fact that he looks because Stephen is a friend - or Nate likes to think he is, it isn't as though they've had an exchange about it - and some modicum of candor is a requisite part of healthy relationships, or so Nate has heard when over-analyzing his own proclivity to hide parts of himself. The smile does nothing to make him more comfortable; all it serves to do is reinforce how patently weird the circumstances are, as if it were a normal occurrence in the history of their knowing each other for Stephen to be so oddly carefree instead of overburdened with responsibility.
Maybe it's overcompensation for something else. Maybe he's just finally crawling back out of a depressive funk. Nate isn't a fucking clinical psychologist. ]
Against what?
[ He inquires lightly over his tumbler, relaxing into the bench as though he doesn't want to ask who are you and what have you done with Stephen Strange? ]
[ The more Nate settles in with his feeling of growing bafflement, the less Stephen needs to act. The chuckle that follows is a genuine one, not that it's particularly easily decipherable from the glamor of a man with some semblance of control over his life and emotional landscape that he's wearing along with his clothes. ]
I'm a magician. [ He leans back, freeing up a hand - ] After a few drinks, my magic has the occasional habit of [ - to reach up and pinch the open collar of his shirt closed between two fingers. ] leaking out all over the place.
[ Thick, dark, button up shirt. His work uniform of choice. If there's ever a need to glow, it's covered. In this context, the extra flourishes keep him content-ready if anybody pops up asking for a trick while he's trying to enjoy his night, though that's a detail he doesn't bother to add.
If he's going to wear anybody as a disguise against his sorrows, it might as well be Doctor Strange, mentalist extraordinaire. ]
Uncomfortably put-on, like the mask he used to wear back when he believed he had nothing to lose. Like a persona Nate might adopt for an evening surrounded by rich assholes he would inevitably steal from, but the act in itself is odd because he didn't think he was the sort of person Stephen needed to put on an act for. It's easier, sometimes, to be the cocky thief, and some old habits die hard. ]
...Right. Your professional reputation.
[ Nate says with the flat understanding of someone who has never appreciated the cult of celebrity and never will. If Stephen wants to play pretend and field the occasional gushing fan with the convenient protection of an out in the form of his under-dressed associate, Nate can adapt. It would have been nice to know ahead of time, but he's accustomed to being blindsided by unknowing conscription.
Absolutely slamming what he's sure was an extremely expensive few fingers of alcohol, Nate flags down a stray server and gestures for another drink before turning back to Stephen with a wry smile. ]
I hope you plan on impressing me after you have a few more.
[ There's a short shift in Stephen's expression as Nate's neutral disapproval goes chased by the remainder of his glass - a downward tweak of brow and a brief dent in the smile.
The lapse is covered by his own glass by the time Nate turns back from flagging down a new drink to fix him with something wry.
After a swallow: ]
If you're lucky.
[ The words don't have quite all of their curated delivery back. There's a dryness there that's somewhat more familiar. ]
Edited (love skipping a whole two sentences, love it) 2020-07-23 19:24 (UTC)
[ Nate likes Stephen. If push came to shove, he'd probably take a bullet for him despite the myriad blank spaces in the mental chronology of his life, because sometimes you don't need to know everything about a person to give a shit. He doesn't have to know everything now, and getting hinky about being left out of some private joke doesn't serve anything but nascent resentment.
So he lets it go. ]
Always am.
[ More pleasantly lubricated with spirits his smile widens, and Nate rests his chin in the palm of one hand, elbow balanced on the table. ]
I ever tell you about the time I fell out of a plane? [ He stops, thinks, corrects himself as another glass is delivered. ] ...the second time. Not the first time.
[ There's the very real sense that they've wandered past one another in the aisles, talking briefly at cross purposes, and he's aware that if it's anybody's fault it's his. He could course correct but an abrupt turn into I once drunkenly used my power to read minds in public and now I can do a lot worse and if I get there tonight, which I hope to, because I've had enough of being superhuman, I need to be hidden in plain sight isn't the kind of atmosphere he's looking to promote.
Fortunately, he doesn't need to dwell on it. Nate lifts the hook and lets him off it with an easy smile and his own trip down memory lane and Stephen drinks down the out with the rest of his whisky, pausing only to catch the server before she goes to flash three fingers, a thanks and a smile (might as well get them up to an even six) before turning his full attention to the plane-tumbling enigma that is Nathan Drake.
Nate's kept his cards closer to his chest than Stephen's purposefully bothered to. A tale ready to be told is nothing he's going to pass up. ]
I've never been made of more ears.
[ More hands, sure, but that's another story for another day.
[ It isn't that he anticipates a more equivalent forum for sharing if he offers up one of the many near-disasters of his last real 'job,' but opening the floor by being the first volunteer is better than being dragged kicking and screaming into being a victim. Besides, he has the feeling Stephen has seen scarier stuff than what they've encountered here, and it would be nice to meet somewhere in the zone of commiseration, even if they're just waving at each other from passing ships. ]
It was a few years back. I was working on something in Yemen that was pointing out into the middle of the Rub' al Khali. The competition comes in, kidnaps my partner thinking he's gonna have an idea of where the target is, they fly off into the desert. My-
[ Wife. Elena. He can't touch that. He can't go there. Nate doesn't trip over the thought and carries on without missing a beat. ]
Friend finds out they're planning on a long expedition, so they've got additional cargo planes going out there for scheduled drops. So the idea was: sneak onto the plane, hide with the cargo, ride one down, right? Piece of cake.
[ The competition, my partner, the target. Stephen's smile, losing its sheen, takes on the looser quirk of genuinely rapt interest. He leans over his lap to rest his elbow on his thigh, closing slight distance, getting into the story. ]
Right. Climb in through the forward retracting wheel, hang out in the fuselage, climb through the ventilation shaft to the cargo hold.
[ A totally simple, easily executable plan that ultimately required an assist when the plane started to take off and he wasn't even on-board. To anyone else Nate would never recommend surfing the hood of a Jeep to leap on the landing gear before lift off. ]
Except some big idiot opens the vent, drags me out, and tries to toss me off the loading ramp while we're at-altitude over the desert.
[ Eyebrows: up. Smile: bemused. The reality of the story isn't funny at all but context changes the flavor, gives it shine. Or maybe it's just the temperament of the audience. Either way, Nate's playing to a crowd of one, but it's still storytime over drinks. ]
So when you say "fell out of a plane", this is after attempts were made to bodily launch you out.
[ He reasons by way of explanation, thumbing the side of his glass and lifting his shoulders in a vague little shrug.
It's odd to think about this after the fact when he was running on pure reactionary instinct at the time, frantically pulling parachute cords and clambering up the mesh while a bunch of assholes tried to turn him into Swiss cheese. ]
He hits me, I hit him, and I thought releasing some of the cargo might knock him off so he doesn't break my collarbone with his bare hands? Only whoever lashed this crap together did it a little too well, or not well enough, so crates and trucks and humvees just start sliding out the back. Which is when the rest of the crew realizes I'm there and starts shooting.
[ 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. ]
[ 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.
[ Ridiculous as his life might be, this is on a whole other level. When you're a sorcerer, the entirely unfathomable is standard practice - he lives a fantasy life, he knows that. Normal, human peril, this kind of peril, is something he'll never encounter.
He'd get out of it the same way he got out of dying of exposure on Mt. Everest. A sling ring, easy. But Nate is no magic-user. He's a man who, and this is becoming a notable pattern now, has just survived the highly improbable, only to find himself facing a slow demise at the hands of Mother Nature.
That this man lived long enough to make it to his second cross-universal abduction is honestly astounding.
In spite of the dire situation, Nate's telling of the story is animated and engaging. He shoves a wedge between the tale and the gravity required of considering reality in the way that all good storytellers can. Stephen doesn't feel the need to keep the obvious rapt enjoyment out of his expression. ]
Okay, Bear Grylls. How did you make it through that one?
I can see where you're going with that, so let me be the first to reassure you that I didn't resort to drinking my own piss.
[ Seriously, even Bear Grylls should know better. There isn't enough legitimately helpful water content to do anything more than dehydrate you further, and by that point you should either accept your inevitable death or walk until you can't walk anymore.
Nate did the latter. ]
Couldn't get much from the wreckage so I just...walked. For days. Realized I looped back around to the same empty well twice. Hallucinated a little.
[ The last person he ever wanted to hear talking to him in the waste land was Katherine Marlowe, all petty derision and wicked laughter and annoyingly apt T.S. Eliot references. It was her, then Sully. Sun-baked red rocks. Small wonder they call the Rub al' Khali the sun's anvil. ]
Came across a ghost town and thought I might find something there, ended up running into the same damn mercenaries who had been trying to kill me this whole time. [ Nate waves his hand. ] Gunfight, armed trucks, rocket launchers. I think it was the explosions that attracted the attention of the local Bedouin. Saved my ass and took me to their oasis.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ It doesn't take much more than some search engine recon to determine that it's a relatively private venue, quiet, and largely removed from the hustle and bustle of the city and its crowded bars. While he isn't given to unfounded speculation Nate finds it hard to not ask about the reasoning behind it when they usually just grab a drink after work, in the bunker or the store room of Red Wings. Casual. Easy.
This isn't their typical fare.
It's his off-day and he's already done inventory for the week, so he heads over. The trip doesn't take long - it's a nice evening, which makes for a nice walk - and when he reaches the place it takes some minor wandering and a wayward gesture from waitstaff to locate the far corner, half-hidden with a makeshift trellis of vines and former scaffolding. ]
Hey.
no subject
[ Nate finds Stephen already well prepared— he hands up a whisky in greeting over the squat round table he's seated at. It's a nice spot. An L of two low benches and the gift of ample cushioning backed by unruly greenery. Through the gaps between leaves the city in all its neon, newly natural splendor spreads out.
He seems fine. Bright-eyed, on the brink of mischief, as though a drink with a friend of an evening might be the beginning of some wild caper. Even his clothes tell subtly of difference. The dark dress shirt with rolled sleeves speaks more to his smart-casual workwear than the comfort he tends toward in downtime. The jacket he's draped over the back of the bench is more elevated than anything he wears to work. A Jaeger-LeCoultre watch, the face cracked beyond repair, is the only element of his outfit placed less than perfectly.
He smiles, lopsided with friendly conspiracy. ]
Glad you could make it.
no subject
Sometimes he forgets how absolutely crazy-rich Stephen must have been as a neurosurgeon, with the way he carries himself in and around the bar, with the way that Nate once found him at a dismal point, sequestered away in his bunker with nothing but artificial light and crappy orange juice. But then he wears a watch (broken, old damage, a memento) that Nate knows runs anywhere from six to twenty grand on the low end, and an outfit that screams "I'm going to the Saenger for a show and then The Sazerac for a cocktail," in that order.
He looks good. Put-together. In uncharacteristically high spirits, unless Nate has only had exposure to a particularly dark period and this is in fact the norm. ]
You should've told me there was a dress code.
no subject
In this case, Nate doesn't make a secret of it. If his face weren't already an open enough book, he follows it right up with a statement based on his observations.
The nature of it sits a lot closer to Christine warily eyeing him after a long day of surgery turns into gleeful preparations for a long night of talking to a room full of millionaires about neuroscientific developments than the room full of millionaires themselves. The kind of being seen that he once tolerated rather than understood, and would come to learn to miss.
Nate's weighing the usual against the today. Could be a problem but it doesn't have to be. He's got a lifetime of narcissism to fall back on.
Stephen's smile stretches for a brief lopsided flash of teeth. ]
You're fine as you are. This is a precaution.
[ This being the all of him Nate just made a swift, if unfinished, calculation of. ]
no subject
Maybe it's overcompensation for something else. Maybe he's just finally crawling back out of a depressive funk. Nate isn't a fucking clinical psychologist. ]
Against what?
[ He inquires lightly over his tumbler, relaxing into the bench as though he doesn't want to ask who are you and what have you done with Stephen Strange? ]
no subject
I'm a magician. [ He leans back, freeing up a hand - ] After a few drinks, my magic has the occasional habit of [ - to reach up and pinch the open collar of his shirt closed between two fingers. ] leaking out all over the place.
[ Thick, dark, button up shirt. His work uniform of choice. If there's ever a need to glow, it's covered. In this context, the extra flourishes keep him content-ready if anybody pops up asking for a trick while he's trying to enjoy his night, though that's a detail he doesn't bother to add.
If he's going to wear anybody as a disguise against his sorrows, it might as well be Doctor Strange, mentalist extraordinaire. ]
no subject
Uncomfortably put-on, like the mask he used to wear back when he believed he had nothing to lose. Like a persona Nate might adopt for an evening surrounded by rich assholes he would inevitably steal from, but the act in itself is odd because he didn't think he was the sort of person Stephen needed to put on an act for. It's easier, sometimes, to be the cocky thief, and some old habits die hard. ]
...Right. Your professional reputation.
[ Nate says with the flat understanding of someone who has never appreciated the cult of celebrity and never will. If Stephen wants to play pretend and field the occasional gushing fan with the convenient protection of an out in the form of his under-dressed associate, Nate can adapt. It would have been nice to know ahead of time, but he's accustomed to being blindsided by unknowing conscription.
Absolutely slamming what he's sure was an extremely expensive few fingers of alcohol, Nate flags down a stray server and gestures for another drink before turning back to Stephen with a wry smile. ]
I hope you plan on impressing me after you have a few more.
no subject
The lapse is covered by his own glass by the time Nate turns back from flagging down a new drink to fix him with something wry.
After a swallow: ]
If you're lucky.
[ The words don't have quite all of their curated delivery back. There's a dryness there that's somewhat more familiar. ]
no subject
So he lets it go. ]
Always am.
[ More pleasantly lubricated with spirits his smile widens, and Nate rests his chin in the palm of one hand, elbow balanced on the table. ]
I ever tell you about the time I fell out of a plane? [ He stops, thinks, corrects himself as another glass is delivered. ] ...the second time. Not the first time.
no subject
Fortunately, he doesn't need to dwell on it. Nate lifts the hook and lets him off it with an easy smile and his own trip down memory lane and Stephen drinks down the out with the rest of his whisky, pausing only to catch the server before she goes to flash three fingers, a thanks and a smile (might as well get them up to an even six) before turning his full attention to the plane-tumbling enigma that is Nathan Drake.
Nate's kept his cards closer to his chest than Stephen's purposefully bothered to. A tale ready to be told is nothing he's going to pass up. ]
I've never been made of more ears.
[ More hands, sure, but that's another story for another day.
Spill. ]
no subject
It was a few years back. I was working on something in Yemen that was pointing out into the middle of the Rub' al Khali. The competition comes in, kidnaps my partner thinking he's gonna have an idea of where the target is, they fly off into the desert. My-
[ Wife. Elena. He can't touch that. He can't go there. Nate doesn't trip over the thought and carries on without missing a beat. ]
Friend finds out they're planning on a long expedition, so they've got additional cargo planes going out there for scheduled drops. So the idea was: sneak onto the plane, hide with the cargo, ride one down, right? Piece of cake.
no subject
Easy as pie.
[ Or not, as the case quite obviously is. ]
no subject
[ A totally simple, easily executable plan that ultimately required an assist when the plane started to take off and he wasn't even on-board. To anyone else Nate would never recommend surfing the hood of a Jeep to leap on the landing gear before lift off. ]
Except some big idiot opens the vent, drags me out, and tries to toss me off the loading ramp while we're at-altitude over the desert.
no subject
So when you say "fell out of a plane", this is after attempts were made to bodily launch you out.
[ And into the desert. Incredible. ]
I'd have included that in the pitch.
[ Do go on. ]
no subject
[ He reasons by way of explanation, thumbing the side of his glass and lifting his shoulders in a vague little shrug.
It's odd to think about this after the fact when he was running on pure reactionary instinct at the time, frantically pulling parachute cords and clambering up the mesh while a bunch of assholes tried to turn him into Swiss cheese. ]
He hits me, I hit him, and I thought releasing some of the cargo might knock him off so he doesn't break my collarbone with his bare hands? Only whoever lashed this crap together did it a little too well, or not well enough, so crates and trucks and humvees just start sliding out the back. Which is when the rest of the crew realizes I'm there and starts shooting.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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.
no subject
He'd get out of it the same way he got out of dying of exposure on Mt. Everest. A sling ring, easy. But Nate is no magic-user. He's a man who, and this is becoming a notable pattern now, has just survived the highly improbable, only to find himself facing a slow demise at the hands of Mother Nature.
That this man lived long enough to make it to his second cross-universal abduction is honestly astounding.
In spite of the dire situation, Nate's telling of the story is animated and engaging. He shoves a wedge between the tale and the gravity required of considering reality in the way that all good storytellers can. Stephen doesn't feel the need to keep the obvious rapt enjoyment out of his expression. ]
Okay, Bear Grylls. How did you make it through that one?
no subject
[ Seriously, even Bear Grylls should know better. There isn't enough legitimately helpful water content to do anything more than dehydrate you further, and by that point you should either accept your inevitable death or walk until you can't walk anymore.
Nate did the latter. ]
Couldn't get much from the wreckage so I just...walked. For days. Realized I looped back around to the same empty well twice. Hallucinated a little.
[ The last person he ever wanted to hear talking to him in the waste land was Katherine Marlowe, all petty derision and wicked laughter and annoyingly apt T.S. Eliot references. It was her, then Sully. Sun-baked red rocks. Small wonder they call the Rub al' Khali the sun's anvil. ]
Came across a ghost town and thought I might find something there, ended up running into the same damn mercenaries who had been trying to kill me this whole time. [ Nate waves his hand. ] Gunfight, armed trucks, rocket launchers. I think it was the explosions that attracted the attention of the local Bedouin. Saved my ass and took me to their oasis.