I told you we could keep him. It's not too late to send him back. [ To the bar. That sounds like a joke, but it isn't one. ] Or there are other places for you to be.
It's been a long few months, Nate.
[ Breathing space between catastrophes is precious. With every other week bringing something worse, sooner or later something's going to have to give. Something's going to be the straw that breaks his back if nothing's done to lighten the load. ]
[ It's hasty, defensive, hugging himself at the seams. He's never been very good at taking much-needed recovery time, always falling inelegantly from one disaster to the next, letting the rush fill the void and the bad jokes fill the traumatic silences.
Lance told him he should talk about it. Nate can't quite find the words. ]
...look, I can't sleep, so I'm just gonna go to the bar, or something.
[ There's a moment of quiet sitting in the ether, Stephen letting that statement rest and considering what to do with it. Another gentle click clack chime of something moved and put away. ]
Alright.
[ Not every conversation is a battleground and not every doctor is a therapist.
Doctor's orders? Friend's strong suggestion. ]
You know how to reach me.
[ The if there's anything you need goes left implied. ]
[ And actually, no. After a short breath it's time for something with an air of sheepish confession: ]
I'm already there, by the way.
[ He's spoken friend. There comes a time when when you need to stop manipulating your friends into position, whether with your words or with your silence, regardless of whether or not you think you know what's best for them. ]
[ There's a strange combination of relief and further anxiety, initially, at being let off the hook. Nate won't force anyone into doing something they expressly don't want to do, nor has he become accustomed to asking for help. The unfortunate downside of having a former safety net removed is realizing you sort of enjoyed its presence, took it for granted.
Nate is half a second away from hanging up and planning for some kind of private breakdown in the store room at Red Wings when the addendum follows and he huffs a less bitter laugh. ]
[ Asshole. Stephen's answering laugh is a coughed out breath sharpened by the edge of a smile. Yeah, he'll take it. ]
See you then.
[ And he lets the feed cut off, sets the security system to notify him when Nate's ID registers in the building. At least that way he can have a couple of minutes to acclimate before Stephen ascends to get in his business. ]
[ It's shamefully late. Even the flickering neon seems to crack under the weight of the hour, sulfurous yellows and the bright, vivid LED blues spilling out of storefronts, illuminating the occasional drunk on a stoop. Cold, stark light, incapable of holding the same warmth as the bars on Bourbon Street that he may never actually see again.
Red Wings suffuses the damp asphalt with primary colors, the holographic OPEN sign switched to CLOSED. Nate pings his ID on the sensor and lets himself inside, the twisted metal of the door from the monster assault creaking reluctantly as it slides shut behind him.
They've long since swept up the glass but it doesn't feel the same as when he first walked in: changed, irreparably, like its most frequent customers. Sliding behind the bar Nate reaches for a glass, setting it on the counter before looking to the stock on the shelves in indecision.
Maybe it would be better to remain sober for this. ]
There's no telltale hiss of opening hatches to signal Stephen's presence today. In its place, the distant clinking of glass coming closer, sounds slightly more tremulous as he navigates the obstacles of destruction on the final leg of climb up out of the safehouse - and then there he is, crate of salvaged glasses in arm, making his way through from out back.
All told he's given Nate maybe three minutes. Three minutes is better than none, and better also than too many more. Minds change fast when they're turbulent. ]
You made it.
[ As if there were any doubt that he could. Stephen passes him to set the crate down on the bartop next to Nate's empty glass. Then, despite all of his best intentions, he turns to take stock of any physical ways in which Nate could be better, hunting out the need for any care he may not have properly given himself in the aftermath of whatever not-fight it was that left Sam bruised and Nate smarting in an altogether different way. ]
No vampire muggings on the way over?
[ Humour, to lighten the load of the undoubtedly obvious checking-over. ]
[ There are no more than the normal amount of fading bruises, the expected wear and tear of venturing into ill-advised places or banging his forearm really hard on a pipe while moving around the corner of a building ten stories up. He allows the scrutiny because he doesn't have much say in the matter and Stephen means well, not harm.
Nate returns the favor - force of habit - and Stephen appears a little tired. The usual, but it's also hours after close and while he's maintained the impression that neither of them know what regular sleeping looks like it's unsatisfying to have it confirmed. The street outside is empty and here they are, assessing each other.
His cup glides off the counter and Nate holds it under the bar sink's faucet, filling it with water. ]
I'm more than just a satisfying meal for bloodsuckers, you know.
[ Nothing too bad - at least, nothing beyond expectations. That's reassuring to a point.
They layer their shared study over with easier topics and it's almost as if they're not both sharing a moment of mutual disappointment in finding themselves the same as they've almost always known one another. Exhausted beyond what can be measured in puffed skin under the eyes and their presence in the workplace long after hours. ]
Oh? Good to know. I'll make a note.
[ What Stephen actually takes note of is Nate's choice of beverage. He's not here to drown sorrows.
Stephen settles himself back against the counter. His expression loses all of its playful corners, and that's all the warning Nate gets. ]
So it wasn't a happy reunion.
[ They could stand here all night beating around the bush. Have done, many nights, talking without saying much. But Stephen started this conversation. It's only fair that he guide it through the opening gates. ]
[ Nate's hip presses into the counter and he looks down into his cup, idly wishing it contained something stronger but knowing he'd really regret it if he fell apart in drunk frustration. At least this way he has that stranglehold of control, a non-existent hand around his own throat that makes it difficult to swallow when he takes a sip.
Refreshing and deeply unsatisfying. He sucks a sharp breath between his teeth. ]
I punched him in the jaw.
[ It hadn't felt good even during the act itself. Just another sickening reminder that Nate doesn't really know how to reconcile the Sam that strung him along and the Sam who raised him. Maybe he doesn't have to choose. Maybe it's just both, and he has to live with that.
Or not, given the direction things took. ]
He lied to me. And...I believed him. And now, I have nothing.
[ A steady breath in, released silently. It's been a long, long time since he last had family disputes, and there was never anything carrying this much weight. A pair of brothers who raised one another when they grew out of the orphanage. He can imagine it, piece it together from snatches: two against the world.
He lied to me. And now, I have nothing.
That's an incredibly raw thing to say. The seconds seem to stretch into one another in the following quiet and for a moment he regrets promising Nate his ear. There are better people for tender conversations that Stephen Strange. He knows his way around the human mind better with scalpels and synapses than call and response.
Then the moment of panic passes. It's hardly been any time at all. ]
He's asleep in your apartment. [ That's not nothing. It's just - ] Sooner or later our belief systems have to change.
[ And that's hard. It hurts. Life shifts in ways we could never have imagined, ways that leave us clutching a glass of water behind a free bar and talking of fists and jaws and complete and total loss.
For all that Nate watches his water, Stephen watches Nate. Gaze steady and constant, waiting to catch any glance cast his way and offer back his full attention, his active presence. He's here. He's listening. ]
[ Under any other circumstance Nate wouldn't say something so unabashedly maudlin, the kind of shit you see on daytime t.v. soap operas on Latin American cable. He had discussed something similar with Fenris, once, in vague terms: realizing that what you worked for and had was gone, and you were starting over from scratch. Realizing that your mistakes cost you everything. Loss is not a stranger to Nate, who has known it intimately since he was four years old.
This is something he isn't sure he can come back from.
Eye contact is a flighty thing, skipping from the quiet scrutiny of the man next to him, to the bottles lining the back wall of the bar, to the polished concrete floor and a weird stain that catches his attention. Looking down into his glass he can still hear the rush of the water beating the ragged cliffs of Panama, the wailing of the prison alarm. It took nearly a decade for those nightmares to stop. ]
You know, I thought he was dead? For fifteen years, he was dead. And that was on me. We had a job that went sideways and he got shot and I saw him fall five stories, and I left him. [ Your brother is dead. Either come with me, or join him. ] So he shows up out of the blue, asks for my help. Weaves a story I didn't even think to check.
[ It would have been easy, but Nate took it at face value. Why wouldn't he? ]
[ God. It's staggering how many tragedies can play out in the space of a few sentences, and he feels another lingering on the horizon.
Stephen shifts from his perch against the bar, turns his body to lean just the one hip against the counter, Nate's mirror image. It's only a small change, a positional correction: Stephen's spent years watching better people than him comfort the families of the terminally ill, the fatally wounded, the recently deceased. The trick seems to be to go toward instead of away. And to wait.
You don't always need to have something to say. Sometimes it's best just to listen. ]
[ It seems to come easier now to say it, if only because it all feels like some sort of horrible, voyeuristic joke. Like he'd watched it happen to someone else, and not himself. His life is - was - so damn ridiculous already, what's another absurdity to add to the pile? Nathan Drake, the two-bit thief who changed his identity before he was old enough to drive a car. Nathan Drake, the guy who'd climb up a building if you told him 'gullible' was written on the roof. ]
So I helped him. Trusted him when he said there was no time, that the stakes were high. I pushed my best friend away. Ruined my marriage. And when I found out his story was just a big...fucking...fabricated lie, he still said he'd done it for us.
[ He knows Sam meant it, too. Still believes it, determined to be the big damn hero, convinced that they could easily go back to the way things were, before Nate was alone. They're not the same people they were fifteen years ago. ]
Hell, he- he stepped in front of a gun for me when all that bullshit finally caught up to us. Didn't stop the momentum from knocking me off a cliff. [ Nate finally lifts his head, leveling Stephen with a hard look. ] Didn't stop the last thing I ever heard being the sound my skull made when it collided with a rock.
[ 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. ]
[ 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.
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. ]
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. ]
[ When he's spent his life careening from one disaster to the next with all the grace and aplomb of some cosmic plaything - at this point, the universe either really hates him or really likes him - he tends not to stop to reassess. There's a sensation like that in diving: putting a new tank off until the last minute, pushing his own limits for no other reason than to do so simply because he can.
When Nate got certified for stress and rescue it contained the usual stuff he already knew about, dive tables and proper safety precautions, first aid, CPR. What he hadn't been anticipating was one of the final exercises when they were already fifty feet below, a test of cool-headedness. A test intended to induce panic and encourage an understanding of the stakes. Gear is bulky and yet weightless underwater, the perfect environment in which an instructor might loop around while participants aren't looking before twisting their first stage open and shutting off their air.
Three or four good, unknowing breaths before inhaling nothing, the bubbles of a last exhale floating toward sea level. The immediate fear of realizing there are only two options: finding another diver and reaching out for help, or attempting ascent, risking the bends and flirting with a pulmonary embolism - provided a diver can reach the surface in the first place while the pressures crushes into their chest cavity, while the nitrogen expands.
It's why scuba has a buddy system. Easier to ask for air than drown. ]
Okay.
[ Nate nods and it's grudging, but honest. He can hold his breath much longer than most people, has a higher likelihood of making it, but it doesn't mean he has to. Worrying his lip with his teeth for a long moment, his gaze skips around until it makes eye contact again. ]
[ It takes time, a decent amount of it, but the longer it takes the calmer Stephen grows. If there was going to be backlash it would have come quickly. People don't have to psyche themselves up to denial, or to the knee-jerk evasion of discomfort.
Nate nods. He looks everywhere but at Stephen, and then at him directly. Stephen's mouth twitches faintly in support, nodding just the barest nod in return as Nate sets his resolution. (An idea makes its way to mind in that same moment. A little resolution of his own.)
To try is really all we can do when faced with something we've never done before. It's important just to set that goal. ]
[ Then he draws in a small, deciding breath, and abruptly changes the subject. ]
— Did I ever tell you I'm a wizard?
[ It's a sharp about-face but it feels necessary to give Nate a few moments less observed after having laid himself out for dissection under his own scalpel and left himself bleeding and bare in the company of a surgeon ill-suited to this kind of work.
Turning that spotlight on himself is the best way Stephen knows how... and he needs it there. Only for a moment or two. Long enough to make some small sense of what's coming after. ]
Not the mentalist thing. Sorcerer, if we're being technical.
[ It's better than nothing and as Nate rubs his eyes, feeling the exhaustion creep in and expecting to be told to get some rest, Stephen speaks. His brow wrinkles almost immediately, leaning heavily on the precedent he knows the man set when they last sat down for real drinks in a real restaurant.
The reprieve is nice. ]
You're a sorcerer.
[ He repeats slowly, and without thinking glances at Stephen's hands, one of the only things he hasn't pressed on. Again: old, probably from his world. If he'd come into this one and gotten injured here the repair work would have been a lot cleaner, if not entirely unnoticeable. ]
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[ It's soft, a little surprised. Like opening up a drawer and finding something you thought you misplaced years ago. ]
I'm not really in a good place to not handle it.
[ Physically. Sam's snoring on the couch in the living room and Nate is suffocating. ]
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It's been a long few months, Nate.
[ Breathing space between catastrophes is precious. With every other week bringing something worse, sooner or later something's going to have to give. Something's going to be the straw that breaks his back if nothing's done to lighten the load. ]
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[ It's hasty, defensive, hugging himself at the seams. He's never been very good at taking much-needed recovery time, always falling inelegantly from one disaster to the next, letting the rush fill the void and the bad jokes fill the traumatic silences.
Lance told him he should talk about it. Nate can't quite find the words. ]
...look, I can't sleep, so I'm just gonna go to the bar, or something.
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Alright.
[ Not every conversation is a battleground and not every doctor is a therapist.
Doctor's orders? Friend's strong suggestion. ]
You know how to reach me.
[ The if there's anything you need goes left implied. ]
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I'm already there, by the way.
[ He's spoken friend. There comes a time when when you need to stop manipulating your friends into position, whether with your words or with your silence, regardless of whether or not you think you know what's best for them. ]
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Nate is half a second away from hanging up and planning for some kind of private breakdown in the store room at Red Wings when the addendum follows and he huffs a less bitter laugh. ]
Asshole.
[ There's no vitriol in it. ]
I'll be there soon.
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See you then.
[ And he lets the feed cut off, sets the security system to notify him when Nate's ID registers in the building. At least that way he can have a couple of minutes to acclimate before Stephen ascends to get in his business. ]
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Red Wings suffuses the damp asphalt with primary colors, the holographic OPEN sign switched to CLOSED. Nate pings his ID on the sensor and lets himself inside, the twisted metal of the door from the monster assault creaking reluctantly as it slides shut behind him.
They've long since swept up the glass but it doesn't feel the same as when he first walked in: changed, irreparably, like its most frequent customers. Sliding behind the bar Nate reaches for a glass, setting it on the counter before looking to the stock on the shelves in indecision.
Maybe it would be better to remain sober for this. ]
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There's no telltale hiss of opening hatches to signal Stephen's presence today. In its place, the distant clinking of glass coming closer, sounds slightly more tremulous as he navigates the obstacles of destruction on the final leg of climb up out of the safehouse - and then there he is, crate of salvaged glasses in arm, making his way through from out back.
All told he's given Nate maybe three minutes. Three minutes is better than none, and better also than too many more. Minds change fast when they're turbulent. ]
You made it.
[ As if there were any doubt that he could. Stephen passes him to set the crate down on the bartop next to Nate's empty glass. Then, despite all of his best intentions, he turns to take stock of any physical ways in which Nate could be better, hunting out the need for any care he may not have properly given himself in the aftermath of whatever not-fight it was that left Sam bruised and Nate smarting in an altogether different way. ]
No vampire muggings on the way over?
[ Humour, to lighten the load of the undoubtedly obvious checking-over. ]
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[ There are no more than the normal amount of fading bruises, the expected wear and tear of venturing into ill-advised places or banging his forearm really hard on a pipe while moving around the corner of a building ten stories up. He allows the scrutiny because he doesn't have much say in the matter and Stephen means well, not harm.
Nate returns the favor - force of habit - and Stephen appears a little tired. The usual, but it's also hours after close and while he's maintained the impression that neither of them know what regular sleeping looks like it's unsatisfying to have it confirmed. The street outside is empty and here they are, assessing each other.
His cup glides off the counter and Nate holds it under the bar sink's faucet, filling it with water. ]
I'm more than just a satisfying meal for bloodsuckers, you know.
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They layer their shared study over with easier topics and it's almost as if they're not both sharing a moment of mutual disappointment in finding themselves the same as they've almost always known one another. Exhausted beyond what can be measured in puffed skin under the eyes and their presence in the workplace long after hours. ]
Oh? Good to know. I'll make a note.
[ What Stephen actually takes note of is Nate's choice of beverage. He's not here to drown sorrows.
Stephen settles himself back against the counter. His expression loses all of its playful corners, and that's all the warning Nate gets. ]
So it wasn't a happy reunion.
[ They could stand here all night beating around the bush. Have done, many nights, talking without saying much. But Stephen started this conversation. It's only fair that he guide it through the opening gates. ]
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Refreshing and deeply unsatisfying. He sucks a sharp breath between his teeth. ]
I punched him in the jaw.
[ It hadn't felt good even during the act itself. Just another sickening reminder that Nate doesn't really know how to reconcile the Sam that strung him along and the Sam who raised him. Maybe he doesn't have to choose. Maybe it's just both, and he has to live with that.
Or not, given the direction things took. ]
He lied to me. And...I believed him. And now, I have nothing.
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He lied to me. And now, I have nothing.
That's an incredibly raw thing to say. The seconds seem to stretch into one another in the following quiet and for a moment he regrets promising Nate his ear. There are better people for tender conversations that Stephen Strange. He knows his way around the human mind better with scalpels and synapses than call and response.
Then the moment of panic passes. It's hardly been any time at all. ]
He's asleep in your apartment. [ That's not nothing. It's just - ] Sooner or later our belief systems have to change.
[ And that's hard. It hurts. Life shifts in ways we could never have imagined, ways that leave us clutching a glass of water behind a free bar and talking of fists and jaws and complete and total loss.
For all that Nate watches his water, Stephen watches Nate. Gaze steady and constant, waiting to catch any glance cast his way and offer back his full attention, his active presence. He's here. He's listening. ]
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This is something he isn't sure he can come back from.
Eye contact is a flighty thing, skipping from the quiet scrutiny of the man next to him, to the bottles lining the back wall of the bar, to the polished concrete floor and a weird stain that catches his attention. Looking down into his glass he can still hear the rush of the water beating the ragged cliffs of Panama, the wailing of the prison alarm. It took nearly a decade for those nightmares to stop. ]
You know, I thought he was dead? For fifteen years, he was dead. And that was on me. We had a job that went sideways and he got shot and I saw him fall five stories, and I left him. [ Your brother is dead. Either come with me, or join him. ] So he shows up out of the blue, asks for my help. Weaves a story I didn't even think to check.
[ It would have been easy, but Nate took it at face value. Why wouldn't he? ]
I owed him.
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Stephen shifts from his perch against the bar, turns his body to lean just the one hip against the counter, Nate's mirror image. It's only a small change, a positional correction: Stephen's spent years watching better people than him comfort the families of the terminally ill, the fatally wounded, the recently deceased. The trick seems to be to go toward instead of away. And to wait.
You don't always need to have something to say. Sometimes it's best just to listen. ]
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So I helped him. Trusted him when he said there was no time, that the stakes were high. I pushed my best friend away. Ruined my marriage. And when I found out his story was just a big...fucking...fabricated lie, he still said he'd done it for us.
[ He knows Sam meant it, too. Still believes it, determined to be the big damn hero, convinced that they could easily go back to the way things were, before Nate was alone. They're not the same people they were fifteen years ago. ]
Hell, he- he stepped in front of a gun for me when all that bullshit finally caught up to us. Didn't stop the momentum from knocking me off a cliff. [ Nate finally lifts his head, leveling Stephen with a hard look. ] Didn't stop the last thing I ever heard being the sound my skull made when it collided with a rock.
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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. ]
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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.
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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. ]
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[ 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.
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[ 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.
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When Nate got certified for stress and rescue it contained the usual stuff he already knew about, dive tables and proper safety precautions, first aid, CPR. What he hadn't been anticipating was one of the final exercises when they were already fifty feet below, a test of cool-headedness. A test intended to induce panic and encourage an understanding of the stakes. Gear is bulky and yet weightless underwater, the perfect environment in which an instructor might loop around while participants aren't looking before twisting their first stage open and shutting off their air.
Three or four good, unknowing breaths before inhaling nothing, the bubbles of a last exhale floating toward sea level. The immediate fear of realizing there are only two options: finding another diver and reaching out for help, or attempting ascent, risking the bends and flirting with a pulmonary embolism - provided a diver can reach the surface in the first place while the pressures crushes into their chest cavity, while the nitrogen expands.
It's why scuba has a buddy system. Easier to ask for air than drown. ]
Okay.
[ Nate nods and it's grudging, but honest. He can hold his breath much longer than most people, has a higher likelihood of making it, but it doesn't mean he has to. Worrying his lip with his teeth for a long moment, his gaze skips around until it makes eye contact again. ]
I'll try.
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Nate nods. He looks everywhere but at Stephen, and then at him directly. Stephen's mouth twitches faintly in support, nodding just the barest nod in return as Nate sets his resolution. (An idea makes its way to mind in that same moment. A little resolution of his own.)
To try is really all we can do when faced with something we've never done before. It's important just to set that goal. ]
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— Did I ever tell you I'm a wizard?
[ It's a sharp about-face but it feels necessary to give Nate a few moments less observed after having laid himself out for dissection under his own scalpel and left himself bleeding and bare in the company of a surgeon ill-suited to this kind of work.
Turning that spotlight on himself is the best way Stephen knows how... and he needs it there. Only for a moment or two. Long enough to make some small sense of what's coming after. ]
Not the mentalist thing. Sorcerer, if we're being technical.
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The reprieve is nice. ]
You're a sorcerer.
[ He repeats slowly, and without thinking glances at Stephen's hands, one of the only things he hasn't pressed on. Again: old, probably from his world. If he'd come into this one and gotten injured here the repair work would have been a lot cleaner, if not entirely unnoticeable. ]
Okay, Howard Thurston. Go on.
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