[ 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. ]
[ He's expecting a refusal, to be honest — he'd have banked more on a no than a yes just because it's a big thing. The thought of sharing those last few minutes watching his mom go would give him a knee-jerk aversion response before he even really processed the request. Logically, he admits it might help — rather, it might have helped him back then, when it was still only six months old.
He parts his lips to say as much — those polite things people say after 'no' they'd already eben expecting, really, it's okay, you don't have to- but Nate cuts that off at the knees.
Wrong time, wrong place, the annoying thing about an empathy bond is you can't pick and choose and screen what you feel like you could probably do with thoughts alone. Recite the alphabet over and over again in your head all you want, you can't do that with your emotions. Cold fingers wrapping around his wrist sends through a sharp and bright awareness through his bones, sensory static and sunlight before Nate's pressing sincerity sweeps it away. Fleeting enough to ignore entirely, hopefully, to focus on the actual subject at hand.
Amusement follows - grim, not remotely cheerful. He accepts the answer, just... the reason he's given, not so much. ]
Don't worry about me. I promise I've seen worse.
[ Than the sky, the trees, and a peaceful death. He's not what's important right now anyway. He's trying to be the comforter, not the comfortee. ]
[ He can't put Ian through the paces of a betrayal so sharp and unexpected that Nate felt all the air leave his lungs when it came to light. He can't show him how stupid he was to believe his brother without reservation, to not ask questions, to not fact-check the information. He twisted his own life to ruin out of a desperate need to help Sam because he owed him, he was indebted, and he can't let Ian see the look on Sam's face when he all but confirmed the story Rafe fed him.
It wasn't the sky, the trees, and a peaceful death. It was a last-ditch effort to keep a psychopath from putting bullets in the Brothers Drake, the panic that swelled when the barrel of a gun leveled at a vulnerable opening, and the lurching fear as he shut his eyes to take the hit before he was knocked over the edge.
It's too much. ]
It was worse. [ He emphasizes firmly, setting a boundary. ] But I don't want to talk about it.
[ Nate gives Ian's wrist a little squeeze before retreating, and maybe it's enough to satisfy his curiosity for now. God knows he means well, he cares, but these still aren't easy asks. They were never going to be, even as he adds a clarifying addendum before he can think better of it: ]
[ It's alright — it wasn't really about pushing the offer so much as making it clear Nate shouldn't consider Ian's sensibilities a factor. He offers a small expression that counts as a smile only by sheer technicality, and his hand leaves Nate's thigh to accommodate his retreat. ]
Okay. You don't have to. Whenever— if you ever do...
[ You know where he lives.
He settles his own elbow against the couch backing, the side of a finger settles on his lips briefly. It doesn't completely fall away when he speaks again. ]
I guess in the meantime we have to find a way to keep the tourists from messing up our city. Fucking snowbirds.
[ A gentle transition offering, if Nate wants the out. ]
[ It's a relief to not be pressed for more, though he he's abundantly, acutely aware that Ian would like to know. He's naturally curious, and he actually seems to care, and Nate is clinging to a vestige of loyalty. He's had disagreements with Sam, and they're different people than they were fifteen years ago.
His brother still spent enough time behind bars that he's more than earned the tabula rasa in a new world.
It's obvious bait and a kind gesture. Nate takes it without question and the thin, crooked smile on his face is a stand-in for a proper thank you. ]
Are you implying that New Amsterdam is the Florida of the future?
[ That actually startles a laugh out of him for the first time since they began this conversation over the implant's network, and Nate makes a show of dabbing a non-existent tear from his eye.
He's absolutely earned the ridicule but that doesn't mean he won't challenge it. Ian is doing him the favor of changing the subject, anyway, and he didn't have to do so. ]
I can't believe you're comparing me to Florida Man. That hurts.
[ Nate doesn't even hesitate. It's instinctual, innate, the kind of hair-trigger, knee-jerk reaction that comes to you out of nowhere, the same sort of reflex as when a fragment of building fails under his hand and the bottom drops out and he has to latch onto the nearest grip.
He takes the throw pillow next to him and, in a perfect mimicry of the last time he committed this exact atrocity on this exact couch, turns and deliberately presses it against Ian's face to stem the flow. ]
[ It's effective — rather, it's effective by accident, because his voice starts faltering as soon as the pillow comes at him, devolving into laughter. He wheels back beneath the onslaught of his own furniture wielded so grievously against him.
Which one of them is the real victim here, I ask you??
He's just gonna. Try and disarm him with a quick yank here. ]
[ It's just a cushion and therefore Nate has no qualms about relinquishing his weapon of choice, though he becomes disadvantaged upon permitting Ian to take the instrument of softened agony.
It wasn't an attack so much as a desperate attempt to muffle mockery, no matter how much he genuinely likes the laughter. People never get to just be, here, but it's close enough when Ian is being a dumbass for the express purpose of making him feel less terrible.
[ He's glad to know it worked. Acting like a moron is not always the right call during moments recovering from duress, kind of a gamble, risk v. reward. Sometimes it's great, sometimes you fall flat on your face and you just look like a jerk.
He has to defend his honor with one deliberate swat to Nate's shoulder with the pillow — he's no pushover, okay — but then it's back to wry. ]
Draw. But only because I'm not sure you could keep up, and I don't wanna make you look bad.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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.
no subject
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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He parts his lips to say as much — those polite things people say after 'no' they'd already eben expecting, really, it's okay, you don't have to- but Nate cuts that off at the knees.
Wrong time, wrong place, the annoying thing about an empathy bond is you can't pick and choose and screen what you feel like you could probably do with thoughts alone. Recite the alphabet over and over again in your head all you want, you can't do that with your emotions. Cold fingers wrapping around his wrist sends through a sharp and bright awareness through his bones, sensory static and sunlight before Nate's pressing sincerity sweeps it away. Fleeting enough to ignore entirely, hopefully, to focus on the actual subject at hand.
Amusement follows - grim, not remotely cheerful. He accepts the answer, just... the reason he's given, not so much. ]
Don't worry about me. I promise I've seen worse.
[ Than the sky, the trees, and a peaceful death. He's not what's important right now anyway. He's trying to be the comforter, not the comfortee. ]
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It wasn't the sky, the trees, and a peaceful death. It was a last-ditch effort to keep a psychopath from putting bullets in the Brothers Drake, the panic that swelled when the barrel of a gun leveled at a vulnerable opening, and the lurching fear as he shut his eyes to take the hit before he was knocked over the edge.
It's too much. ]
It was worse. [ He emphasizes firmly, setting a boundary. ] But I don't want to talk about it.
[ Nate gives Ian's wrist a little squeeze before retreating, and maybe it's enough to satisfy his curiosity for now. God knows he means well, he cares, but these still aren't easy asks. They were never going to be, even as he adds a clarifying addendum before he can think better of it: ]
Today.
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Okay. You don't have to. Whenever— if you ever do...
[ You know where he lives.
He settles his own elbow against the couch backing, the side of a finger settles on his lips briefly. It doesn't completely fall away when he speaks again. ]
I guess in the meantime we have to find a way to keep the tourists from messing up our city. Fucking snowbirds.
[ A gentle transition offering, if Nate wants the out. ]
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His brother still spent enough time behind bars that he's more than earned the tabula rasa in a new world.
It's obvious bait and a kind gesture. Nate takes it without question and the thin, crooked smile on his face is a stand-in for a proper thank you. ]
Are you implying that New Amsterdam is the Florida of the future?
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[ Wryly, and with at least a small amount of sincere humor. The metaphor's hitting way too close to apt to deny it. ]
New Amsterdam man breaks into billion dollar corporation, knocks out guard for no reason.
[ Pitched like a newspaper headline. ]
Better yet -- New Amsterdam man crosses sixty story crane to avoid rodent infestation.
[ You're welcome. ]
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[ That actually startles a laugh out of him for the first time since they began this conversation over the implant's network, and Nate makes a show of dabbing a non-existent tear from his eye.
He's absolutely earned the ridicule but that doesn't mean he won't challenge it. Ian is doing him the favor of changing the subject, anyway, and he didn't have to do so. ]
I can't believe you're comparing me to Florida Man. That hurts.
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[ Pause for dramatic effect, and then-- ]
The first cut is the deepest - ♪
[ That's right, he's singing Sheryl Crow right now to rub in the pain. Salt in the wound. ]
Baby I know--
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He takes the throw pillow next to him and, in a perfect mimicry of the last time he committed this exact atrocity on this exact couch, turns and deliberately presses it against Ian's face to stem the flow. ]
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Which one of them is the real victim here, I ask you??
He's just gonna. Try and disarm him with a quick yank here. ]
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It wasn't an attack so much as a desperate attempt to muffle mockery, no matter how much he genuinely likes the laughter. People never get to just be, here, but it's close enough when Ian is being a dumbass for the express purpose of making him feel less terrible.
He does feel less terrible. ]
Draw?
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He has to defend his honor with one deliberate swat to Nate's shoulder with the pillow — he's no pushover, okay — but then it's back to wry. ]
Draw. But only because I'm not sure you could keep up, and I don't wanna make you look bad.