[ Nate recognizes it immediately, like spotting an old friend in a crowd.
The first hollow, rusted-out and seawater-eaten passage emerges from the blue and he knows, remembers voraciously poring over the articles and interviews, wishing he were on a professional enough level to warrant that kind of involvement in discovery. As with most of the lost wrecks, lost cities, that he reads about, Nate felt - feels - that hideous impulse to chase them down, still wars with need versus want. It's made life difficult but rich in people, in associations. Hard to let it go when you've become accustomed to the comfort of the known.
This feels comforting. Not underwater, cushioned by crushing pressure, but the rippling light that feels so familiar, the surroundings unobscured by the bubbles of a diver's exhale or the shift of a remote-controlled submersible. His gaze trails over the empty hologram of an old balustrade on the port side, rich blue descending into inky black, and settles on Ian's face as he talks.
It's not an easy thing, to keep from smiling. It's just- his tone. The inflection. The excitement bleeding into his voice as he describes the mechanical systems of a ship that's probably nothing more than trace fragments of iron on the ocean floor of the Atlantic.
Affection of this caliber is an odd sensation to feel after everything that's happened, but it certainly isn't something he thinks himself capable of picking up and packing away. Not when Ian's eyes light up like that.
Nate's expression slants for the sly when he wryly adds: ]
( An act of God. He's more than a little amused and pleased by how things sweep full-circle. It's always cool when there's accidentally a running theme to touch on, like a neater version of an inside joke. )
Sure.
( Could be, could very well be. Alternatively — )
Or an act of hubris. Captain Smith got maybe a dozen ice field warnings, but he never slowed down. Kept on at 22 knots. Somebody dropped the ball, one little lapse in communication caused damage so irreparable not even the built-in safety mechanisms were enough.
( He wanders over to stand at the edge of the gaping hole leading to pitch black. It isn't real, there's no need to stop two or three inches short, there's just more floor where it seems to drop off. It's subconscious, human nature. )
Maybe this whole thing is just history repeating. Humanity thinking too highly of itself for a while, abandoning reverence for things that are bigger than what they can really understand. Maybe acting like we've got it all figured out, skipping out on religion for a while because they've been worshipping themselves. Then something comes along to sink the unsinkable. Put us back in our place.
( You know, get all arrogant and try to use an entity unknowable and powerful enough to be considered a god — then proceed to fuck it up to unbelievable heights and ruin thousands of lives in the process.
It's a maudlin concept, and he quickly punctuates the monologue with a light quip laced with a touch of self-mockery. )
Great, now I'm doing it.
( Throwing out arguably terrible first date talk. )
[ Nate meanders over to the "edge," catching the details in the rendering. He can almost hear the dull, water-muted scrape of metal on metal, can perfectly imagine the soft give of rotting wood and dull click of glass, of tile. Would it have been better to sink in anoxic depths, or worse? At what point does the ship stop being a ship, a grave, and start being a projection of nothing at all?
Something about standing in a building dedicated to the wan shadows of the architecture of yesteryear certainly has its hooks in deep, the enjoyment of one view shifted, altered, blown into proportions of the room they're in, before being replaced by another. A rotating album for a dead world.
Grisly and a little macabre, a leaf out of Odysseus' own book. ]
No, no, I like getting existential on first dates. [ He says lightly, rocking on the balls of his feet. ] Really makes the anxiety cosmic instead of localized.
[ Nate's shoulders rise and fall in a gentle shrug, his voice soft. Not distant, not faraway, just remembering. ]
History's always going to repeat itself, Ian. It's not a matter of if, but when. And whether we can learn to live with it or challenge it, whether we can make our own paths. [ A beat, then more quietly: ] For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here.
( There's a lot he could say about history repeating itself, about what it means for them. He doesn't, because he's been trying to blank out the slate as much as possible -- not to erase the life they lived in the aerie so much as just... temporarily shelve it. Draw a little from Kyna's wisdom and a little bit of his own, now that he's had time to think about it.
It's been rolling around in his mind that maybe he'd like it if they could work based solely on the original version. If the two of them could be something without external influence, without the shortcut of another set of memories layered over the other halves of themselves to lay a ground work, like bumper rails keeping them out of the gutter. He wants to see if the dumb kid from Weaverville matches up with the dumb kid from -- what, like everywhere in South America?
He really doesn't plan on invalidating the Aerie. It still feels real to him down to the bone, and it's still something he'll wind up wearing off and on without even realizing it, like a well-fitted sweater. It's a temporary compartmentalization for the sake of trying to do something the right way.
If there's such thing as a right way. Jesus Christ, life keeps getting progressively weirder and harder to neatly define.
In any case: I'm glad you're here.
It earns a soft smile, small and genuine, eyes dropping back down to the sea floor automatically. He drags them back up again after a beat, and sways in place just a little to gently bump Nate's shoulder with his. )
Me too.
( He means that in both possible interpretations. Me too, I'm glad I'm here and me too, I'm glad you're here. This place kind of saved them both, and while he's definitely not selfish enough to be glad Nate's fucking dead, he is glad it seems like he plans on staying here if the Displaced ever find a way to go home. It opens up stupidly optimistic possibilities that he otherwise wouldn't even consider.
A hand comes up to absently scratch at the back of his neck, one of those universal faintly awkward gestures that comes from somebody a little embarrassed about what they're saying. )
And I know it's stupid, this whole... official date thing. I mean, we're not fucking kids, this isn't... High school or a romcom or whatever. I just kinda thought...
( His hand drops away from the back of his neck, drifts toward his pocket to the rhythm of a (deliberately) casual, absent shrug. )
I don't know, it's nice to have something... personal, you know what I mean? Everything's so fucking huge lately, it's all this... enormous godly scale, thinking about a hundred people collectively, every decision feels like practically life or death sometimes. I kind of wanted to take the night off. Zoom back in to a micro level and remember that we're allowed to focus on actually living life once and a while. Make it so the biggest decision to stress over today was what fucking shirt to wear.
( And he genuinely, genuinely doesn't know if any of that makes sense, but... there you go. That's what's going on in his head. )
[ It's difficult, not starting from scratch. At the back of his mind Nate knows he's always going to be thinking about it in these terms, with these conditions, with caveats attached to another world and another life. A desire to avoid being presumptuous about what this is and how he's balancing it with the shit show that is the rest of his afterlife.
He's seconds away from pointing out that he never went to high school, so no worries, but Ian interjects further and Nate's mouth shuts with a dull click, waiting out the storm of conflicting emotions.
It's a sentiment Nate strongly identifies with and, more than that, something he regrets he didn't recognize sooner before he decided to take a deep dive into accidental existentialism. He's so unbelievably tired of carrying the big things around day in and day out, every twenty-four hours depositing some new horror on their collective doorstep. The problems are regional. Global.
And he's tired. Watching Ian in the periphery, he recognizes an old tell for discomfort, the forced coolness with which he sidesteps the emotion as soon as it rises to the surface.
God, he's good at that. ]
No, I- I get it. Sometimes I wish I had problems like "oh crap, I lost my wallet" instead of "oh crap, time for another interdimensional vortex to swallow us whole".
[ Something he thinks they all might relate to, one way or another. He didn't mean to bring them to this point, but recognizing what's top of mind is the first step in learning how to avoid dwelling on it the way they're being trained to. ]
So...thank you. [ A little lighter, less burdened. ] For giving me the opportunity to agonize over what I'm wearing.
( It's not even that he's rebuking the conversation; it's interesting, it feels more philosophical than like tangible problem solving. They're not digging into logistics desperately searching for a real answer, not chasing a solution, not putting themselves on a timeline and injecting any sense of urgency. Not bitterly fighting to be heard without being misconstrued to an audience of their peers. Melancholy as parts of it might be, even being this far removed from their daily oppressing problems is an improvement.
This is good, is what he means. Right now, what they're doing, it's good. Judging by Nate's answer, it seems like he's been largely successful.
He puffs out a breath of a laugh around lost my wallet — in part because that's one of those ancient previous-life normal problems he's actually forgotten about entirely. When you don't carry pictures of anyone you love, there's absolutely no reason to carry a wallet through the apocalypse.
His eyes peel away from what he's officially dubbing "the existential crisis hole" to instead fix Nate with a distinctly, deliberately (for him, anyway; Ian the Ever Mild) playful look. )
Yeah, make sure you thank whoever painted that shirt on for you, by the way. Hope you tipped 'em, the economy's rough right now.
[ It's hugely relieving to not have to delve into fixing the issues, when he can postulate around them instead without having someone shout him down about it, but more than that it's nice to be in a museum. To look at places that used to be, the relics of the culture's to which they used to belong. To not be forced to think about the ever-present threat to his previously-nonexistent social status, the way he so often has to now when he steps outside.
Just people enjoying each other's company. ]
Really? You wanna go there?
[ For the most part. Ian is nothing if not predictable in the sheer delight he takes poking fun at Nate's pecs. ]
I think it looks- hey, I mean, my chest is covered-
( Yeah, he doesn't even try to hide that delight. It's there in a beaming grin and the settling of his thumbs in his pockets, elbows sticking out behind him, shoulders loose and low. Easy pleasure incarnate, and all it takes is getting a reaction out of him. )
You gotta be breaking out in hives over that.
( He's not thinking about the Aerie. About how it might play a factor into Nate's wardrobe choices. They haven't talked about it much, not in any real depth. Enough to acknowledge it and its importance, enough for an understanding, but the nuances like that...
Probably for some time when they're alone and they're past dancing around things. For now, it's just a light call back to months ago in a bar before things got complex. )
I'll have you know I used to wear crew-necks all the time, thank you.
[ There is something pure and engaging about being ragged on for his choice in shirt even when he's wearing the right thing - logistically and for his current comfort level - so as per his usual Nate takes it in stride and waves Ian off and decidedly does not linger on how delighted he looks.
Nate gestures futilely at himself, at nothing in particular. ]
Mostly- for work, but it's just more comfortable to not- all right, seriously, stop making that face-
What face? I'm not making a face. This is just my face.
( He says, while maintaining the face. It's that slow-casual I'm so full of shit drawl. It's a lie in words alone, with neither tone nor effort making any attempt to sell it.
Go ahead, man. Keep 'em coming. The more excuses he hears the funnier he finds it.
Laughing in the wreck of the Titanic. If this were the real thing, oxygen aside, it would be grounds for getting haunted by like forty ghosts minimum. )
[ Nate doesn't mind getting razzed or roasted or picked at about the stuff he's been razzed, roasted, and picked at for over a decade, but honestly, sometimes people could use fresher material. There's only so many times a guy can have his chest winked at with a little elbow nudge before he wonders whether his other body parts are worth mocking in equal measure with just as much enthusiasm. He rolls his eyes and genteelly steps around Ian. ]
Okay, well, this has been fun, but I'm gonna find the next room-
[ He says mid-stride with unmistakable confidence, reaching for one of the hatch doors from the deck to the "interior" of the ship, arm colliding with solid concrete with a muted thud. Nate pauses, mouth thin, and turns on his heel again to impart his newfound wisdom with the air of a man didn't just walk into a wall. ]
...That's not a real door.
[ He informs him politely, as though remarking on the weather, and walks past Ian in the other direction to a hatch that does (thankfully) open. ]
( Ian, the honorable and supportive date that he is, knows that is not a real door. He knows, and he says absolutely nothing, just watches with the kind of rapt and giddy excitement that comes with knowing you're about to see something hilarious.
And he's right.
Have you ever laughed so hard it just sounded like snakes?
It might genuinely sound like Nate's being followed by a bunch of cobras with flat tires as he follows blindly out, head thrown back, eyes unstoppably squeezed shut, arms winding around his own middle. Is it rude to flat out laugh at your date? Yes, probably very. If it's any consolation, he's not cruel about it. It's good-natured, it's just...
Fucking great, is all. )
I am--
( Started and stopped because he can't keep his voice steady long enough to finish; I am so happy about everything happening right now. Thank you for this gift and blessing, Nate. )
[ Nate is no stranger to being an object of ridicule. It is, in fact, a comfortable place in many respects, because it means people underestimate him. They don't fully see beyond the funny bit, except in this case Ian has already seen a great deal of that, so it itches a little more than it normally would because he just managed to look like a complete moron in front of the guy who asked him on a date.
Awesome, hitting all sixes tonight, really smooth, Nate. ]
Yeah, yeah, get it out of your system.
[ He grouses, but there's little to no vitriol in it as he leads the way through another narrow corridor while Ian hisses laughter behind him. ]
( A quickly rolling promise his hands coming up into a lovely and earnest surrender. The laughter still lingers around his eyes, but he manages to school down the rest of it. Yeah, maybe he feels a little bad for it. Just a tiny touch guilty.
He catches up, falling into step and nudging Nate gently with one shoulder. It's okay, man. If it's any consolation, he looked good as hell walking into that wall. )
C'mon, I got one more thing I wanna show you. After this it's a mystery.
( They breeze past a T intersection, ignoring the faint sound of a train whistle — god only knows what the hell's in there — and he hangs a left. The room opens up to a courtyard. )
It's real. Just in case you wanted to see something... not fake.
( A lame finish, but at least he's not the one that walked into a door.
[ Not for the first time in Ian's company, Nate glances skyward in a silent plea that whatever gods exist here either strike him dead on the spot or make this a little easier for him, though the performance piece is interrupted by a companionable nudge to his arm. Nate, ever the easily-handled, softens immediately and keeps his wry comments behind his teeth as he follows step for step.
The narrow tunnels open up into something that looks like the courtyard of a cloister, narrow colonnades with buttresses he'd swear were at least Gothic, and a very old, very intact tree. A few hundreds years at least, he thinks, gravitating toward it immediately, his previous shame largely forgotten. Maybe it wasn't around during their time, but it's closer than anything else in this world.
His implant picks up the signage signal and gives him approximations about its history, but it's a tree, for Chrissakes. Hard to date without cutting it down and killing it in the process.
Too tactile for his own good Nate reaches out and rests his palm on the bark, knobby and gnarled. That same bright spark of interest swells in him again. ]
Okay. [ He says breathlessly, lightly. ] I forgive you for mocking my inability to walk through doors.
( He bites his lip, partly out of another resurgence of being far too pleased with himself, partly to suppress the urge to point out he was trying to walk through a wall. But, you know, maybe lighten up on him for a little bit. Gotta find that right balance. It's not like he won't have this for material later.
It's a good thing they're not touching, or else roles here would probably swap. Ian's buzzing with that specific brand of joy that comes with showing something to somebody you're keen on and receiving genuine approval afterward. At sixteen he did it with CDs, at twenty-two he did it with recreational drugs, at thirty he did it with his work. It mattered less at thirty, increasingly so over time. Now, at almost thirty-five, he's doing it with a tree. Go figure. )
Thank you, your benevolence.
( It would sound genuine if they both didn't fully know it's not even remotely genuine. )
[ He says immediately, with zero malice in his voice. The venue was chosen expressly for the purpose of impressing him, he's sure, and it's done exactly that: Nate can't say he's ever seen anything like this, and he's seen more than his fair share of the weird, the unusual, and the forgotten.
The pad of his thumb rubs against one of the sharper juts of bark, scratchy and unidentifiable, a tree he doesn't actually know or recognize. It's more real and more genuine than the vines and foliage crawling all over the city outside, shattering windows and tearing through foundations, because it's here and it's been here since before the city was probably built up like this. Is it an anchor for something else, the way the great tree in Shambhala was? How deep do the roots go beneath them?
Ian seems to be waiting on pins and needles for some kind of assessment and honestly, Nate lets him stew in it for a little while. Payback for the wall.
When he turns again he's sincere, which is better than flustered over making an ass of himself. ]
This is- can you imagine how much this tree has seen? Civilizations rise and fall in the span of a couple centuries, and this thing watched...progress, and war, and the projections of the world it used to belong to built up around it. This is amazing. Thank you.
( The truth is, Ian spends a lot of time awake at night wondering about fucking things up. Not even specifically with Nate, and not that they had... well they had plenty to fuck up, but it wasn't of the dating variety. The truth of the matter is he's always got to prove his value, like relationships are math. Like if he brings enough positive to a relationship logically speaking it won't end, it will outweigh the negative.
It's not just about smugness, doing this. It soothes some anxious little piece of him temporarily. Another tally mark on the scoreboard in the positive. He's provided something.
In a completely contradictory way, he feels a little bit awkward at the sincere praise. Not in a bad way, so much as that way one feels after being singled out at a birthday party. )
You're kind of poetic sometimes, you know?
( Just the way Nate phrases things. It's beautiful.
It also might slightly be a cop-out to acknowledging that thanks. )
[ Thank fucking God Ian isn't sharing his mathematical theories with his date, who would most assuredly be a little horrified by the transactional approach to intimacy with someone you like. Did he used to subscribe to similar means? Absolutely. Does he lean on them now? No freaking way.
How does one respond to a compliment like that, if it is a compliment at all? Could just be an observation, but now he's overthinking this stuff too and Nate honestly doesn't have it in him to agonize on this level 24/7. ]
That's- it's not intentional.
[ He half explains, before deciding that another anecdote about his nerdy childhood will just earn looks. ]
I just like to wonder about what it would be. If I were there, I mean. For all that.
( They have slightly different definitions of transactional — or at the very least, they see slightly different connotations. He doesn't think of it as robotically as Nate might; math is like half of what he does for a living. It's comforting, it evokes its own set of feelings in him.
...But yeah it's still definitely transactional and super unhealthy, and he's wise enough to keep that to himself. Nobody needs to know the numeric value Ian gives himself in other people's lives. )
I get it. And I'm not knocking it, I think it's cool.
( Cool isn't actually the best word to describe it; it would be something more like appealing as hell and kind of romantic, but in that other way people use romantic. It's all a lot to say, so he'll settle for the short version. )
[ Cool is not the word Nate would have used to describe himself in the sixth grade, daydreaming about what it would be like to physically visit Rome's forum, but it's genuinely charming that Ian actually seems to like it when he gets all...himself. Nate knows it has strained the patience of various people before. ]
You know, I thought you were making fun of me when you said that as a kid you would've listened to me talk about Pliny the Elder, but I guess I'm just relieved you have terrible taste.
[ Christ knows it's the first mistake of many.
Nate gestures at the hall they came from, expression one of unadulterated incredulity. It's easier to mock himself than admit he has no idea why Ian-who-was-once-afraid-to-crash-on-his-couch is now Ian-who-asks-people-on-dates. ]
( Nate, man, if you don't know why he asked you out you gotta take a few minutes to reflect. Everything that happened afterward, all the bullshit Nate put up with — or maybe more importantly, all the bullshit he didn't put up with. It feels like it's been a long but steady road, and if it were possible to test a proof of concept with relationships the Aerie's as close as anyone will ever get. The beta version was pretty fucking convincing. )
Oh yeah, no, no, I saw that.
( Agreed easily, tossing a lazy glance over his shoulder toward the general direction they came from. )
That was, like, the haiku of walking. Five steps and then just this sudden stop...
( Backpedal seven. He's amusing himself if nothing else. )
[ The truth of the matter is that Nate is an unmitigated rube when it comes to emotional vulnerability, and while he's made great strides he's still learning. Still catching on. Slowly, but surely. ]
Right, yeah-
[ Could have been worse. Could have walked directly into a booby trap, or something. Walked off a small cliff. Walked into a pit of crocodiles. At least here he made Ian laugh. ]
Nathan Drake walking. [ He muses idly, counting out syllables on his fingers. ] Embarrassing, or charming? Porque no los dos?
[ Yeah, Nate knows exactly how Ian feels about him from a physical perspective at this point, so it's not altogether shocking. People can forgive a lot if you look like you model underwear for Calvin Klein, and while Nate is aware of it, he tries not to use it as a crutch. Forgets, more often than not. ]
I didn't tell you? It's all plastic surgery.
[ It shouldn't feel this easy to be like this with him, he knows, going back and forth like a game of ping pong. Even with their background, their decade, it shouldn't feel this easy. He shouldn't feel so known.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The first hollow, rusted-out and seawater-eaten passage emerges from the blue and he knows, remembers voraciously poring over the articles and interviews, wishing he were on a professional enough level to warrant that kind of involvement in discovery. As with most of the lost wrecks, lost cities, that he reads about, Nate felt - feels - that hideous impulse to chase them down, still wars with need versus want. It's made life difficult but rich in people, in associations. Hard to let it go when you've become accustomed to the comfort of the known.
This feels comforting. Not underwater, cushioned by crushing pressure, but the rippling light that feels so familiar, the surroundings unobscured by the bubbles of a diver's exhale or the shift of a remote-controlled submersible. His gaze trails over the empty hologram of an old balustrade on the port side, rich blue descending into inky black, and settles on Ian's face as he talks.
It's not an easy thing, to keep from smiling. It's just- his tone. The inflection. The excitement bleeding into his voice as he describes the mechanical systems of a ship that's probably nothing more than trace fragments of iron on the ocean floor of the Atlantic.
Affection of this caliber is an odd sensation to feel after everything that's happened, but it certainly isn't something he thinks himself capable of picking up and packing away. Not when Ian's eyes light up like that.
Nate's expression slants for the sly when he wryly adds: ]
An act of God.
no subject
Sure.
( Could be, could very well be. Alternatively — )
Or an act of hubris. Captain Smith got maybe a dozen ice field warnings, but he never slowed down. Kept on at 22 knots. Somebody dropped the ball, one little lapse in communication caused damage so irreparable not even the built-in safety mechanisms were enough.
( He wanders over to stand at the edge of the gaping hole leading to pitch black. It isn't real, there's no need to stop two or three inches short, there's just more floor where it seems to drop off. It's subconscious, human nature. )
Maybe this whole thing is just history repeating. Humanity thinking too highly of itself for a while, abandoning reverence for things that are bigger than what they can really understand. Maybe acting like we've got it all figured out, skipping out on religion for a while because they've been worshipping themselves. Then something comes along to sink the unsinkable. Put us back in our place.
( You know, get all arrogant and try to use an entity unknowable and powerful enough to be considered a god — then proceed to fuck it up to unbelievable heights and ruin thousands of lives in the process.
It's a maudlin concept, and he quickly punctuates the monologue with a light quip laced with a touch of self-mockery. )
Great, now I'm doing it.
( Throwing out arguably terrible first date talk. )
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Something about standing in a building dedicated to the wan shadows of the architecture of yesteryear certainly has its hooks in deep, the enjoyment of one view shifted, altered, blown into proportions of the room they're in, before being replaced by another. A rotating album for a dead world.
Grisly and a little macabre, a leaf out of Odysseus' own book. ]
No, no, I like getting existential on first dates. [ He says lightly, rocking on the balls of his feet. ] Really makes the anxiety cosmic instead of localized.
[ Nate's shoulders rise and fall in a gentle shrug, his voice soft. Not distant, not faraway, just remembering. ]
History's always going to repeat itself, Ian. It's not a matter of if, but when. And whether we can learn to live with it or challenge it, whether we can make our own paths. [ A beat, then more quietly: ] For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here.
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It's been rolling around in his mind that maybe he'd like it if they could work based solely on the original version. If the two of them could be something without external influence, without the shortcut of another set of memories layered over the other halves of themselves to lay a ground work, like bumper rails keeping them out of the gutter. He wants to see if the dumb kid from Weaverville matches up with the dumb kid from -- what, like everywhere in South America?
He really doesn't plan on invalidating the Aerie. It still feels real to him down to the bone, and it's still something he'll wind up wearing off and on without even realizing it, like a well-fitted sweater. It's a temporary compartmentalization for the sake of trying to do something the right way.
If there's such thing as a right way. Jesus Christ, life keeps getting progressively weirder and harder to neatly define.
In any case: I'm glad you're here.
It earns a soft smile, small and genuine, eyes dropping back down to the sea floor automatically. He drags them back up again after a beat, and sways in place just a little to gently bump Nate's shoulder with his. )
Me too.
( He means that in both possible interpretations. Me too, I'm glad I'm here and me too, I'm glad you're here. This place kind of saved them both, and while he's definitely not selfish enough to be glad Nate's fucking dead, he is glad it seems like he plans on staying here if the Displaced ever find a way to go home. It opens up stupidly optimistic possibilities that he otherwise wouldn't even consider.
A hand comes up to absently scratch at the back of his neck, one of those universal faintly awkward gestures that comes from somebody a little embarrassed about what they're saying. )
And I know it's stupid, this whole... official date thing. I mean, we're not fucking kids, this isn't... High school or a romcom or whatever. I just kinda thought...
( His hand drops away from the back of his neck, drifts toward his pocket to the rhythm of a (deliberately) casual, absent shrug. )
I don't know, it's nice to have something... personal, you know what I mean? Everything's so fucking huge lately, it's all this... enormous godly scale, thinking about a hundred people collectively, every decision feels like practically life or death sometimes. I kind of wanted to take the night off. Zoom back in to a micro level and remember that we're allowed to focus on actually living life once and a while. Make it so the biggest decision to stress over today was what fucking shirt to wear.
( And he genuinely, genuinely doesn't know if any of that makes sense, but... there you go. That's what's going on in his head. )
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He's seconds away from pointing out that he never went to high school, so no worries, but Ian interjects further and Nate's mouth shuts with a dull click, waiting out the storm of conflicting emotions.
It's a sentiment Nate strongly identifies with and, more than that, something he regrets he didn't recognize sooner before he decided to take a deep dive into accidental existentialism. He's so unbelievably tired of carrying the big things around day in and day out, every twenty-four hours depositing some new horror on their collective doorstep. The problems are regional. Global.
And he's tired. Watching Ian in the periphery, he recognizes an old tell for discomfort, the forced coolness with which he sidesteps the emotion as soon as it rises to the surface.
God, he's good at that. ]
No, I- I get it. Sometimes I wish I had problems like "oh crap, I lost my wallet" instead of "oh crap, time for another interdimensional vortex to swallow us whole".
[ Something he thinks they all might relate to, one way or another. He didn't mean to bring them to this point, but recognizing what's top of mind is the first step in learning how to avoid dwelling on it the way they're being trained to. ]
So...thank you. [ A little lighter, less burdened. ] For giving me the opportunity to agonize over what I'm wearing.
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This is good, is what he means. Right now, what they're doing, it's good. Judging by Nate's answer, it seems like he's been largely successful.
He puffs out a breath of a laugh around lost my wallet — in part because that's one of those ancient previous-life normal problems he's actually forgotten about entirely. When you don't carry pictures of anyone you love, there's absolutely no reason to carry a wallet through the apocalypse.
His eyes peel away from what he's officially dubbing "the existential crisis hole" to instead fix Nate with a distinctly, deliberately (for him, anyway; Ian the Ever Mild) playful look. )
Yeah, make sure you thank whoever painted that shirt on for you, by the way. Hope you tipped 'em, the economy's rough right now.
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Just people enjoying each other's company. ]
Really? You wanna go there?
[ For the most part. Ian is nothing if not predictable in the sheer delight he takes poking fun at Nate's pecs. ]
I think it looks- hey, I mean, my chest is covered-
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You gotta be breaking out in hives over that.
( He's not thinking about the Aerie. About how it might play a factor into Nate's wardrobe choices. They haven't talked about it much, not in any real depth. Enough to acknowledge it and its importance, enough for an understanding, but the nuances like that...
Probably for some time when they're alone and they're past dancing around things. For now, it's just a light call back to months ago in a bar before things got complex. )
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[ There is something pure and engaging about being ragged on for his choice in shirt even when he's wearing the right thing - logistically and for his current comfort level - so as per his usual Nate takes it in stride and waves Ian off and decidedly does not linger on how delighted he looks.
Nate gestures futilely at himself, at nothing in particular. ]
Mostly- for work, but it's just more comfortable to not- all right, seriously, stop making that face-
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( He says, while maintaining the face. It's that slow-casual I'm so full of shit drawl. It's a lie in words alone, with neither tone nor effort making any attempt to sell it.
Go ahead, man. Keep 'em coming. The more excuses he hears the funnier he finds it.
Laughing in the wreck of the Titanic. If this were the real thing, oxygen aside, it would be grounds for getting haunted by like forty ghosts minimum. )
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Okay, well, this has been fun, but I'm gonna find the next room-
[ He says mid-stride with unmistakable confidence, reaching for one of the hatch doors from the deck to the "interior" of the ship, arm colliding with solid concrete with a muted thud. Nate pauses, mouth thin, and turns on his heel again to impart his newfound wisdom with the air of a man didn't just walk into a wall. ]
...That's not a real door.
[ He informs him politely, as though remarking on the weather, and walks past Ian in the other direction to a hatch that does (thankfully) open. ]
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And he's right.
Have you ever laughed so hard it just sounded like snakes?
It might genuinely sound like Nate's being followed by a bunch of cobras with flat tires as he follows blindly out, head thrown back, eyes unstoppably squeezed shut, arms winding around his own middle. Is it rude to flat out laugh at your date? Yes, probably very. If it's any consolation, he's not cruel about it. It's good-natured, it's just...
Fucking great, is all. )
I am--
( Started and stopped because he can't keep his voice steady long enough to finish; I am so happy about everything happening right now. Thank you for this gift and blessing, Nate. )
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Awesome, hitting all sixes tonight, really smooth, Nate. ]
Yeah, yeah, get it out of your system.
[ He grouses, but there's little to no vitriol in it as he leads the way through another narrow corridor while Ian hisses laughter behind him. ]
Let me know when you're done.
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( A quickly rolling promise his hands coming up into a lovely and earnest surrender. The laughter still lingers around his eyes, but he manages to school down the rest of it. Yeah, maybe he feels a little bad for it. Just a tiny touch guilty.
He catches up, falling into step and nudging Nate gently with one shoulder. It's okay, man. If it's any consolation, he looked good as hell walking into that wall. )
C'mon, I got one more thing I wanna show you. After this it's a mystery.
( They breeze past a T intersection, ignoring the faint sound of a train whistle — god only knows what the hell's in there — and he hangs a left. The room opens up to a courtyard. )
It's real. Just in case you wanted to see something... not fake.
( A lame finish, but at least he's not the one that walked into a door.
Home to the oldest tree in New Amsterdam. )
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The narrow tunnels open up into something that looks like the courtyard of a cloister, narrow colonnades with buttresses he'd swear were at least Gothic, and a very old, very intact tree. A few hundreds years at least, he thinks, gravitating toward it immediately, his previous shame largely forgotten. Maybe it wasn't around during their time, but it's closer than anything else in this world.
His implant picks up the signage signal and gives him approximations about its history, but it's a tree, for Chrissakes. Hard to date without cutting it down and killing it in the process.
Too tactile for his own good Nate reaches out and rests his palm on the bark, knobby and gnarled. That same bright spark of interest swells in him again. ]
Okay. [ He says breathlessly, lightly. ] I forgive you for mocking my inability to walk through doors.
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It's a good thing they're not touching, or else roles here would probably swap. Ian's buzzing with that specific brand of joy that comes with showing something to somebody you're keen on and receiving genuine approval afterward. At sixteen he did it with CDs, at twenty-two he did it with recreational drugs, at thirty he did it with his work. It mattered less at thirty, increasingly so over time. Now, at almost thirty-five, he's doing it with a tree. Go figure. )
Thank you, your benevolence.
( It would sound genuine if they both didn't fully know it's not even remotely genuine. )
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[ He says immediately, with zero malice in his voice. The venue was chosen expressly for the purpose of impressing him, he's sure, and it's done exactly that: Nate can't say he's ever seen anything like this, and he's seen more than his fair share of the weird, the unusual, and the forgotten.
The pad of his thumb rubs against one of the sharper juts of bark, scratchy and unidentifiable, a tree he doesn't actually know or recognize. It's more real and more genuine than the vines and foliage crawling all over the city outside, shattering windows and tearing through foundations, because it's here and it's been here since before the city was probably built up like this. Is it an anchor for something else, the way the great tree in Shambhala was? How deep do the roots go beneath them?
Ian seems to be waiting on pins and needles for some kind of assessment and honestly, Nate lets him stew in it for a little while. Payback for the wall.
When he turns again he's sincere, which is better than flustered over making an ass of himself. ]
This is- can you imagine how much this tree has seen? Civilizations rise and fall in the span of a couple centuries, and this thing watched...progress, and war, and the projections of the world it used to belong to built up around it. This is amazing. Thank you.
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It's not just about smugness, doing this. It soothes some anxious little piece of him temporarily. Another tally mark on the scoreboard in the positive. He's provided something.
In a completely contradictory way, he feels a little bit awkward at the sincere praise. Not in a bad way, so much as that way one feels after being singled out at a birthday party. )
You're kind of poetic sometimes, you know?
( Just the way Nate phrases things. It's beautiful.
It also might slightly be a cop-out to acknowledging that thanks. )
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How does one respond to a compliment like that, if it is a compliment at all? Could just be an observation, but now he's overthinking this stuff too and Nate honestly doesn't have it in him to agonize on this level 24/7. ]
That's- it's not intentional.
[ He half explains, before deciding that another anecdote about his nerdy childhood will just earn looks. ]
I just like to wonder about what it would be. If I were there, I mean. For all that.
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...But yeah it's still definitely transactional and super unhealthy, and he's wise enough to keep that to himself. Nobody needs to know the numeric value Ian gives himself in other people's lives. )
I get it. And I'm not knocking it, I think it's cool.
( Cool isn't actually the best word to describe it; it would be something more like appealing as hell and kind of romantic, but in that other way people use romantic. It's all a lot to say, so he'll settle for the short version. )
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You know, I thought you were making fun of me when you said that as a kid you would've listened to me talk about Pliny the Elder, but I guess I'm just relieved you have terrible taste.
[ Christ knows it's the first mistake of many.
Nate gestures at the hall they came from, expression one of unadulterated incredulity. It's easier to mock himself than admit he has no idea why Ian-who-was-once-afraid-to-crash-on-his-couch is now Ian-who-asks-people-on-dates. ]
You saw I walked into a wall, right?
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Oh yeah, no, no, I saw that.
( Agreed easily, tossing a lazy glance over his shoulder toward the general direction they came from. )
That was, like, the haiku of walking. Five steps and then just this sudden stop...
( Backpedal seven. He's amusing himself if nothing else. )
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Right, yeah-
[ Could have been worse. Could have walked directly into a booby trap, or something. Walked off a small cliff. Walked into a pit of crocodiles. At least here he made Ian laugh. ]
Nathan Drake walking. [ He muses idly, counting out syllables on his fingers. ] Embarrassing, or charming? Porque no los dos?
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Mostly charming.
( It's meant to be reassuring, but it's hard to fully eliminate some of the teasing from running through the undercurrent. )
I mean, maybe like five percent embarrassing for you, five percent hilarious for me, but... mostly charming.
( Hard to say it's entirely 'new relationship' bias, considering how long they've known each other in either iteration at this point. )
To be fair, it's probably because you're hot. If you had like a hunch back and a lazy eye, might be a different story.
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I didn't tell you? It's all plastic surgery.
[ It shouldn't feel this easy to be like this with him, he knows, going back and forth like a game of ping pong. Even with their background, their decade, it shouldn't feel this easy. He shouldn't feel so known.
But he does.
Maybe more concerning: he likes it. ]
One hunch-removal later, here I am.
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