The problem is nobody really seems to be willing to trust the judgement of others that may be more skilled in a particular field than they are.
There's an abundance of pride and hubris, and it really makes me wonder if this place isn't populated by action movie heros used to protagonistic invulnerability. Too many of you guys are great at triumphantly overcoming all odds for your own good. Not enough come from doomed planets with no hope, or ones where you're walking down a hallway and someone else is coming from the other direction and you spend too long doing the awkward hallway dance to remind you how insignificant you are in the universe.
[ It's a good argument, and Nate isn't so myopic as to think that everyone is capable of surviving the same crap that he does - he's learned that the hard way, and even Nathan Drake couldn't escape consequences when they nudged him over a cliff.
He could say as much - suddenly wants to, for reasons that he can't define - but it would distract from the point Ian is trying to make. There's no place to make this about him when it's not. ]
you're right.
there's a pretty pervasive attitude that some people know better than others regardless of whether they actually do, and i'm just as guilty of that. getting people to listen is hard. getting people to listen when they're convinced their way is the right way is harder.
there's a lot of cheap talk about collaboration and doing things for the good of everybody without actually involving everybody in the conversation. i don't know how to fix that. i don't even know where to start.
Not to be pessimistic, but maybe thinking that's something we can fix is just a different shade of that same hubris. Changing a single person's mind can be a daunting task, let alone half a dozen of them that reaffirm each other's behavior and decisions consistently.
I can't even get Kyna to see my perspective about a comparatively small side quest. Reforming the displaced into a democracy...
I'm not holding my breath. Democracy didn't hold up where I'm from either.
fair enough. i don't want to change minds, though. i don't want to lead anything, or make any big, sweeping decisions on behalf of everybody else, i just want there to be some accountability on the part of the people who DO, and i don't want people's concerns to keep getting swatted down with "we don't have time for that."
we do have time. everybody should have a say in the decision-making process and people should be able to bring their expertise to the table, and i know that sounds idealistic as hell but i'm living in this world now and it's all i've got left.
[ What he wants is to go back to what they were talking about before this, because it's still important and there has to be some solution to bridge the divides of miscommunication, to ensure everyone is working together, not working at cross-purposes. Not being at odds. Nate counts himself as having room for improvement, as well.
But Ian latches onto minutiae with the pinpoint precision of a fucking engineer, so here they are. ]
He waffles about it the entire way over, and avenues for departing from the subject are in every direction: alleys, streets, bridges that stretch around and divert him from the apartment his feet keep walking him toward like they know he's supposed to be getting better at this stuff instead of violently shoving it into a box, only to have a minor meltdown once a month. It's fine. He's fine.
He knocks thrice the way he always does and leans against the jamb, feeling his stomach lurch the same way it did when he last told someone else, the same way it did when he fell. ]
[ The smile Nate flashes is a quick, shuttered thing when he walks through the door, not especially fond of the reductive descriptor of what is otherwise a very difficult subject to express to people, but that's not Ian's fault. He doesn't know. ]
Don't forget to code my implant.
[ He says on the way to the sofa, shrugging his jacket off and draping it over the back of the couch. ]
[ Levelly, and extremely aware of the general feel of the room -- but no idea what the cause is, or that he's inadvertently stepping on it. As such, he carries on with some gentle levity while he preemptively goes to grab Nate a drink. ]
You just have to say the password. It's Matisyahu.
[ There's no password, he already did it, it's an automated thing. ]
[ Nate watches Ian move into his kitchen, retrieving something, stuck staring at the line of his shoulders like they're somehow going to give him the words he has to say.
He can't be this reluctant, he can't act like this is the verbal equivalent to pulling teeth even if it feels that way, but more than anything Nate knows that saying it makes it that much more real. Makes it concrete. Makes it so the other things attached to it are foregone conclusions and they'll never see a resolution. ]
[ When he returns it's with a beer in hand for Nate, because it's hard to turn off default consolation offerings. He settles down sideways on the couch not terribly unlike the last time Nate was here, but with a far more serious countenance. ]
I did.
[ Returned dutifully, patient but probing. Take your time, man, he's not gonna try and drag it out of you. Accidental misstep aside, he otherwise has a decent amount of tact. ]
[ Nate affirms softly, taking the beer but not taking a sip. His thumbnail scratches at the stamped label as he looks past Ian, a wrinkle between his eyebrows.
He's thought about how to deliver the news without implicating Sam, because it isn't fair to shove his brother under the bus, and it really isn't fair to let it color people's perceptions of him. The situation is fraught and complicated and even Nate doesn't know if it's certain, but every day he wakes up here it feels a little more real. It doesn't make saying it any less difficult. ]
I, um. I don't think I can go home. The last thing I remember is- was blurry. The sky. And the trees, around me. I fell, from really...really high up.
[ He shifts and one elbow props on the back of the sofa, hand braced against his neck and jaw, fingertips tapping at his nape. Gaze hovering at Ian's shoulder Nate feels the tension bleed out with quiet words, quieter pauses between them. ]
The last thing I heard was a cracking sound. When my head hit a rock. Then nothing.
[ The sky, then the trees, and Ian already knows where this is going -- or the loose direction, anyway. The understanding filters across his expression, lips parted, voiceless for a moment.
He's thinking of course he fell. Jesus, considering what he does all the time recreationally, screwing around on that crane, scaling up Ian's building to his window. He feels something rising up that sounds like I told you that shit's not safe-- but he presses it right back down again. It isn't even an I told you so, it's another brand of that same angry concern he felt earlier with Kyna.
Way too late to feel that for him, here.
An irrational, absurd voice in his mind murmurs that it's one of the most painless ways to go, at least. If it's fast enough, hard enough, the brain doesn't even have time to register pain.
That's not the right thing to say either. Mostly he just wants to know-- ]
This is gonna sound... really stupid when I ask it, but-- are you okay?
[ Not physically, obviously, but emotionally. ]
Are you- how long ago was it? Have you actually processed it yet?
[ It's easier to let him think it was a mistake of Nate's own making, that he was monkeying around where he shouldn't have, that it's his own damn fault. Easier to take the blame than to admit the accidental nature of it and what led to that point, because even if he only shares my brother was trying to protect me from a gunshot and knocked me over the side, it still paints Sam in a negative light. Simpler still, not having to explain all the baggage that comes with it.
What Ian asks is almost comically funny.
Are you okay, like the first question Nate asked Stephen down in the bunker beneath Red Wings. Are you okay, as though it's an uncomplicated task to define and pin down all the parts where he is not. Nate's eyebrows climb toward his hairline while Ian finishes his thought and he considers the questions before replying. ]
It was right before I got here, so...six-ish months ago?
[ His gaze slants toward the beer in his hand, warming and untouched. Dissociating himself from the reality of his circumstances is the only way he can talk about it, he's realized, and Nate continues with a distance he doesn't normally wear in conversations with Ian. ]
Thought I was doing pretty good for a while there, then backslid some. Not being busy always kick-starts the highlight reel of my biggest mistakes, so I guess I get why ghosts have unfinished business. Lance said- [ He sucks in a sharp breath. ] Lance said there's a difference between accepting that you can't change the result, and accepting the result itself. I don't really know where I am.
[ A small breath escapes his lips at six-ish months ago. No, there's no way Nate's processed his own death in six months. Not unless he's some unbelievably high level of in tune with the universe and psychology and like got a personal reaffirmation from one of the angels running around here. Even then it's a lot to swallow. It took Ian way longer than six months to processes his mother's death, he'd think his own would be... More. In some weird and indefinable way it would be more.
Lance is a smart guy. What he says feels true inherently, and Ian takes his time trying to think through his words with equivalent care. Hell, trying to think all of it through with equivalent care, because no combination of words is really gonna fix it and--
Fuck if it doesn't throw him back to a dream he'd done a good job pushing down. Searching out the right thing to say, falling short, wanting to somehow help or fix something he's not even a part of.
He knows what he'd be doing right now, if it were him.
Those two things combined is what ultimately has him reaching out to settle a careful hand on Nate's thigh. He'd go for arm, he'd prefer arm, but they're angled oddly, Nate's got an elbow on the couch backing, it would take precarious and deliberate shifting to pull it off. This is easier, more natural, it seems less like a huge... thing... to do. He's trying not to overthink it.
It just feels like he should. Like he should be offering something here that he's not sure either of them really know how to navigate. ]
I think... if you have to stay busy enough that you don't think about it, that answers your question.
[ Six months in he accepted he couldn't change what happened with his mom, sure, but he spent the rest of grad school adamantly blocking the rest out and working himself ragged. ]
[ The last time they stared at each other in anguish over a death, it was Sam's. A young, gangly Ian with devastated eyes and a desperation to fix something that was irreparably broken. He couldn't, of course - at the time, no one could, and no amount of condolences could soften the blow that ultimately drove Nate into a recklessness bordering on suicidal.
It strikes him now that his approach to dealing with his death has largely been avoidance, combined with the occasional acknowledgment that drags him back into the place he'd been after Panama. Nate doesn't come to the conclusion independently, it comes with the expression on Ian's face and the fact that he seems to be mourning the loss in a way Nate hadn't anticipated.
Or maybe he had, he just didn't want to acknowledge it. Pity usually follows grief and he can't take that without feeling the same looks he felt as a kid when Mr. Morgan dropped his sons off at the Saint Francis Boys Home and the nuns watched them from the doorway.
Nate doesn't ask for comfort. He rarely asks for anything, partly out of that deep-seated desire not to be seen as incapable of handling himself or his problems even when he's steadfastly pushing them away. It's not for lack of wanting it, because Christ, he does, so when a hand extends and rests on his thigh it feels a little bit like being given permission to breathe. ]
Yeah, [ He exhales with a hoarse laugh, ducking his head. Guilty as charged. The hand holding his beer tips toward the contact, brushing his knuckles in a gesture of gratitude. ] Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
[ Frankly, it's hard to say he's ever felt anything quite as strange as mourning the loss of a guy which happened before you got to know him. There's an absolute ton of uncertainty surrounding this whole thing — death, and how it works in an already chaotic system like this one. People get sent home often enough — Kyna left and came back, Will just flat out left. What happens if Nate goes? Will it happen if there's nothing back there for him?
The longer it sits the more questions start to flood in. He wants to answer them with logic, or find a pattern that might paint a clearer picture, but there isn't a single speck of anything that would let him start to puzzle it out.
And it's not even him. ]
Jesus, I can't believe--
[ He catches himself, stops there. Can't believe you've sat with it this long. Months without talking about it — except with Lance, and thank god for him, but still. That's a lot to carry around and ignore.
Except it'd be hypocritical of him to say that, and it wouldn't actually help anything.
The touch against the back of his hand leaves him twisting a little more tightly inside. A pervasive and unrelenting urge to solve, to demonstrate his value by finding a solution where there isn't one. Can't go back and stop it, can't give him anything to make it easier, all he can really do is sit here and empathize.
Well. He could-
He licks his lips, and while it isn't quite accurate to say he speaks falteringly, there's definitely a deliberate slowness to his words - feeling out the ice before he settles his weight on it each step. ]
Would it help-- I don't know, maybe not, but would it help to... show somebody?
[ The memory of dying, the last little bit? Seems like knowing somebody understands might... do something. What the fuck does he know? He took two psych classes a decade and a half ago and retained like 7% of them. ]
[ There's a reason Nate doesn't talk about it with anyone, and that's the crux of it: he's afraid to ask those questions. If he goes back, will he end up alive? Will he wake up to nothing, or not wake up at all? Being naturally curious he's entertained these thoughts and then shied away from them, terrified of the conclusions he might draw about himself. Terrified of painting himself into a corner from which he can't escape.
There's that anxiety again, rearing its head and coursing from skin to skin and Nate recognizes it as the same emotion that passed through him in the rain, on a cliff, in a dream.
What Ian asks for - suggests - isn't a bad idea. It's the sort of exposure therapy that might help provide closure, in theory, and Nate has considered it himself without knowing who he would even decide to share it with. Why would anyone want to see that? To feel it?
The emotions wrapped up in his memory are inextricably entwined with his brother and because of that Nate, startled, blinks and shakes his head. ]
I ca- I can't. I appreciate the offer, I do, but I can't.
[ Selfish, maybe, to keep it a secret. Or he just isn't ready. Probably both.
Nate leans forward and places the bottle on the table before wrapping a beer-chilled hand around Ian's bare wrist, at the very least trying to convey his sincerity. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The problem is nobody really seems to be willing to trust the judgement of others that may be more skilled in a particular field than they are.
There's an abundance of pride and hubris, and it really makes me wonder if this place isn't populated by action movie heros used to protagonistic invulnerability. Too many of you guys are great at triumphantly overcoming all odds for your own good. Not enough come from doomed planets with no hope, or ones where you're walking down a hallway and someone else is coming from the other direction and you spend too long doing the awkward hallway dance to remind you how insignificant you are in the universe.
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He could say as much - suddenly wants to, for reasons that he can't define - but it would distract from the point Ian is trying to make. There's no place to make this about him when it's not. ]
you're right.
there's a pretty pervasive attitude that some people know better than others regardless of whether they actually do, and i'm just as guilty of that. getting people to listen is hard. getting people to listen when they're convinced their way is the right way is harder.
there's a lot of cheap talk about collaboration and doing things for the good of everybody without actually involving everybody in the conversation. i don't know how to fix that. i don't even know where to start.
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I can't even get Kyna to see my perspective about a comparatively small side quest. Reforming the displaced into a democracy...
I'm not holding my breath. Democracy didn't hold up where I'm from either.
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we do have time. everybody should have a say in the decision-making process and people should be able to bring their expertise to the table, and i know that sounds idealistic as hell but i'm living in this world now and it's all i've got left.
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You don't plan on trying to go home?
1/2
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[ He'd offer to make the trip, except he's pretty sure talking about it in front of the whole family isn't ideal either. ]
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But Ian latches onto minutiae with the pinpoint precision of a fucking engineer, so here they are. ]
yeah, ok.
give me 15 minutes.
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Sorry, man. There's still time to dip out of this one, run while you've got the chance. Speaking of which: ]
remind me to code your implant to the lock when you get here so I can stop standing up when you come over.
[ He suffereth. ]
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He waffles about it the entire way over, and avenues for departing from the subject are in every direction: alleys, streets, bridges that stretch around and divert him from the apartment his feet keep walking him toward like they know he's supposed to be getting better at this stuff instead of violently shoving it into a box, only to have a minor meltdown once a month. It's fine. He's fine.
He knocks thrice the way he always does and leans against the jamb, feeling his stomach lurch the same way it did when he last told someone else, the same way it did when he fell. ]
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When the door opens and Ian catches a quick glimpse at his body language, the concern starts filtering in properly. ]
Oh shit, we're about to have a bonding moment.
[ Pleasantly yet grimly observed; he gestures Nate in. ]
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Don't forget to code my implant.
[ He says on the way to the sofa, shrugging his jacket off and draping it over the back of the couch. ]
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[ Levelly, and extremely aware of the general feel of the room -- but no idea what the cause is, or that he's inadvertently stepping on it. As such, he carries on with some gentle levity while he preemptively goes to grab Nate a drink. ]
You just have to say the password. It's Matisyahu.
[ There's no password, he already did it, it's an automated thing. ]
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[ Nate watches Ian move into his kitchen, retrieving something, stuck staring at the line of his shoulders like they're somehow going to give him the words he has to say.
He can't be this reluctant, he can't act like this is the verbal equivalent to pulling teeth even if it feels that way, but more than anything Nate knows that saying it makes it that much more real. Makes it concrete. Makes it so the other things attached to it are foregone conclusions and they'll never see a resolution. ]
You asked why I'm not trying to go home.
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I did.
[ Returned dutifully, patient but probing. Take your time, man, he's not gonna try and drag it out of you. Accidental misstep aside, he otherwise has a decent amount of tact. ]
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[ Nate affirms softly, taking the beer but not taking a sip. His thumbnail scratches at the stamped label as he looks past Ian, a wrinkle between his eyebrows.
He's thought about how to deliver the news without implicating Sam, because it isn't fair to shove his brother under the bus, and it really isn't fair to let it color people's perceptions of him. The situation is fraught and complicated and even Nate doesn't know if it's certain, but every day he wakes up here it feels a little more real. It doesn't make saying it any less difficult. ]
I, um. I don't think I can go home. The last thing I remember is- was blurry. The sky. And the trees, around me. I fell, from really...really high up.
[ He shifts and one elbow props on the back of the sofa, hand braced against his neck and jaw, fingertips tapping at his nape. Gaze hovering at Ian's shoulder Nate feels the tension bleed out with quiet words, quieter pauses between them. ]
The last thing I heard was a cracking sound. When my head hit a rock. Then nothing.
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He's thinking of course he fell. Jesus, considering what he does all the time recreationally, screwing around on that crane, scaling up Ian's building to his window. He feels something rising up that sounds like I told you that shit's not safe-- but he presses it right back down again. It isn't even an I told you so, it's another brand of that same angry concern he felt earlier with Kyna.
Way too late to feel that for him, here.
An irrational, absurd voice in his mind murmurs that it's one of the most painless ways to go, at least. If it's fast enough, hard enough, the brain doesn't even have time to register pain.
That's not the right thing to say either. Mostly he just wants to know-- ]
This is gonna sound... really stupid when I ask it, but-- are you okay?
[ Not physically, obviously, but emotionally. ]
Are you- how long ago was it? Have you actually processed it yet?
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What Ian asks is almost comically funny.
Are you okay, like the first question Nate asked Stephen down in the bunker beneath Red Wings. Are you okay, as though it's an uncomplicated task to define and pin down all the parts where he is not. Nate's eyebrows climb toward his hairline while Ian finishes his thought and he considers the questions before replying. ]
It was right before I got here, so...six-ish months ago?
[ His gaze slants toward the beer in his hand, warming and untouched. Dissociating himself from the reality of his circumstances is the only way he can talk about it, he's realized, and Nate continues with a distance he doesn't normally wear in conversations with Ian. ]
Thought I was doing pretty good for a while there, then backslid some. Not being busy always kick-starts the highlight reel of my biggest mistakes, so I guess I get why ghosts have unfinished business. Lance said- [ He sucks in a sharp breath. ] Lance said there's a difference between accepting that you can't change the result, and accepting the result itself. I don't really know where I am.
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Lance is a smart guy. What he says feels true inherently, and Ian takes his time trying to think through his words with equivalent care. Hell, trying to think all of it through with equivalent care, because no combination of words is really gonna fix it and--
Fuck if it doesn't throw him back to a dream he'd done a good job pushing down. Searching out the right thing to say, falling short, wanting to somehow help or fix something he's not even a part of.
He knows what he'd be doing right now, if it were him.
Those two things combined is what ultimately has him reaching out to settle a careful hand on Nate's thigh. He'd go for arm, he'd prefer arm, but they're angled oddly, Nate's got an elbow on the couch backing, it would take precarious and deliberate shifting to pull it off. This is easier, more natural, it seems less like a huge... thing... to do. He's trying not to overthink it.
It just feels like he should. Like he should be offering something here that he's not sure either of them really know how to navigate. ]
I think... if you have to stay busy enough that you don't think about it, that answers your question.
[ Six months in he accepted he couldn't change what happened with his mom, sure, but he spent the rest of grad school adamantly blocking the rest out and working himself ragged. ]
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It strikes him now that his approach to dealing with his death has largely been avoidance, combined with the occasional acknowledgment that drags him back into the place he'd been after Panama. Nate doesn't come to the conclusion independently, it comes with the expression on Ian's face and the fact that he seems to be mourning the loss in a way Nate hadn't anticipated.
Or maybe he had, he just didn't want to acknowledge it. Pity usually follows grief and he can't take that without feeling the same looks he felt as a kid when Mr. Morgan dropped his sons off at the Saint Francis Boys Home and the nuns watched them from the doorway.
Nate doesn't ask for comfort. He rarely asks for anything, partly out of that deep-seated desire not to be seen as incapable of handling himself or his problems even when he's steadfastly pushing them away. It's not for lack of wanting it, because Christ, he does, so when a hand extends and rests on his thigh it feels a little bit like being given permission to breathe. ]
Yeah, [ He exhales with a hoarse laugh, ducking his head. Guilty as charged. The hand holding his beer tips toward the contact, brushing his knuckles in a gesture of gratitude. ] Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
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The longer it sits the more questions start to flood in. He wants to answer them with logic, or find a pattern that might paint a clearer picture, but there isn't a single speck of anything that would let him start to puzzle it out.
And it's not even him. ]
Jesus, I can't believe--
[ He catches himself, stops there. Can't believe you've sat with it this long. Months without talking about it — except with Lance, and thank god for him, but still. That's a lot to carry around and ignore.
Except it'd be hypocritical of him to say that, and it wouldn't actually help anything.
The touch against the back of his hand leaves him twisting a little more tightly inside. A pervasive and unrelenting urge to solve, to demonstrate his value by finding a solution where there isn't one. Can't go back and stop it, can't give him anything to make it easier, all he can really do is sit here and empathize.
Well. He could-
He licks his lips, and while it isn't quite accurate to say he speaks falteringly, there's definitely a deliberate slowness to his words - feeling out the ice before he settles his weight on it each step. ]
Would it help-- I don't know, maybe not, but would it help to... show somebody?
[ The memory of dying, the last little bit? Seems like knowing somebody understands might... do something. What the fuck does he know? He took two psych classes a decade and a half ago and retained like 7% of them. ]
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There's that anxiety again, rearing its head and coursing from skin to skin and Nate recognizes it as the same emotion that passed through him in the rain, on a cliff, in a dream.
What Ian asks for - suggests - isn't a bad idea. It's the sort of exposure therapy that might help provide closure, in theory, and Nate has considered it himself without knowing who he would even decide to share it with. Why would anyone want to see that? To feel it?
The emotions wrapped up in his memory are inextricably entwined with his brother and because of that Nate, startled, blinks and shakes his head. ]
I ca- I can't. I appreciate the offer, I do, but I can't.
[ Selfish, maybe, to keep it a secret. Or he just isn't ready. Probably both.
Nate leans forward and places the bottle on the table before wrapping a beer-chilled hand around Ian's bare wrist, at the very least trying to convey his sincerity. ]
I can't put you in that.
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