hadriel_logs | [closed] and since we've one place to go

[The statement makes him flinch, if imperceptibly. It's the kind of thing he's said in his lowest moments, in his darkest times. Not for years - maybe over a decade - but the words are enough to catapult him back to an era of apathetic cynicism. After Sam died.

Brow furrowed he turns to look at Taako, knowing by his tone that things are much worse than he was ever led to believe.]

...Lup said you were surveying planets. She didn't say why.

[He doesn't notice, caught up in his own head. Taako's gotten better at trust since the end of the apocalypse, since everything was laid out bare and Lup came back to him. But he's never been good at it, never golden at relinquishing all his safeties, putting his hand in another's. It was a protection when he was a kid, it was necessity when he had no one, it's the biggest strife he's felt since he figured out what Lucretia did. Even the people closest to him- even the woman second only to Lup- could control him anytime. It's violent, and messy, and something he'll likely never unlearn.

After all, how do you take something born into you? Or so he figures.]

Well, we were running.

[He isn't open, meticulous, careful like one of the other birds might be telling this tale. Taako is all about feeling, but he thinks Nate might understand.]

The Hunger. Thing so big it ate whole planes, universes right on up. It found a world a year after a relic dropped it wanted, and only we got to escape every year so long as one of us survived. If we found it, it'd chase us out, but wreck the world's shop pretty bad. If we didn't... world got taken. And we kept going.

[His sigh feels heavier, the breath in his lungs stuck with the rot of the room, with the cloying of this story, his place in it all.]

So it was show up. Get a year to make nice, get info, find the Light, and fight for our lives on the way out. And as long as one person made it... we all wake up again to go over on day 1. No matter what it took to make it through.

[Finally, Taako tilts his head down, the side of his eye peering towards Nate.]

We were responsible for the deaths of a lot of planets. Lot of species, Nate. Lots and lots that ended up dust.

[His gaze goes back to the host in the tank, feeling too still, his chest constricted. And he just shrugs.]

So this isn't anything new. Don't think this starts mattering now.

[ He isn't open or meticulous but Nate understands that methodology better, to run off of tangents and take different paths and use a road less traveled. It is emotional, and it's difficult to separate things when they're as personal as whatever this is. It might be the most meaningful string of words Taako has ever put together in front of him, heavy with something he identifies as pragmatism born of trauma.

He doesn't understand all the disparate parts - being able to come back provided one person survived, how something like this "Hunger" could even exist - but his full comprehension doesn't matter compared to the weight of it all.

A lot of things suddenly make sense, strange pieces in a puzzle he didn't know he was working on, behavior or responses he didn't exactly expect outside of what little he could glean from a childhood similar to his own. It's so much. So much, and Taako's laissez-faire delivery suggests he stopped caring because he had to and didn't have a choice. Nate's experiences aren't even close, but it's like looking in a fucking mirror.

It isn't denial that has him wanting to negate the suggestion that it's all dust, all fetid remains, all fly-blown corpses in the end. Taako's assertion makes sense, it's constructed of a century's worth of effort. Time doesn't heal all wounds so much as it dulls you to new ones, like scar tissue lacking the nerve endings.

Enough scars, and you just stop feeling. ]

Maybe not to you. Or me.

[ He's seen enough wrecks, enough civilizations scattered across the globe and worn to nubs, to nothing. He's killed enough people with his own hands. ]

But it matters to the others.

[Opening up to someone is hard. Not all admissions are made equal, cautious steps into trust and knowledge. Nate started like everyone does, with some jokes and some shit and some things that never mattered at all. But somewhere along the way, he got access to a lot and still didn't turn away. A tattered childhood with just a brother's hand. A prison yard and scrappy fights and bloody knuckles. Screaming and exploration and the willingness to push just a little further because death is at his heels but not there yet, not there yet, not there yet.

They're alike in a lot of ways, ones Taako doesn't know how to admit at the front of his mind so they become feelings instead, just an appeal to something that fits together in the right way.]

Don't know how you have time to care that much about that many people, my man.

[Keep it tight, keep it close, shove out everyone else. Even then, his vetting system isn't perfect if Lucretia got in, if anyone can rob him of anything. Taako reaches up, pushing some hair back in an idle and unimportant motion.]

It's just... figures, right? That some horrible shit went down, like, what else is new. And here we are.

[He picks a bit at the skin of his hands, looking at the edges.]

Standing in the bones.

I don't. No one does.

[ There's a difference between trying to care about every single person, and just doing the best you can in a shitty situation. Nate doesn't know when he started empathizing outside of himself, stopped resorting to insularity in a bid to protect his own feelings. He spent years building walls and then kept vigil atop them and somebody always found a way to climb over.

After a while, it felt like it wasn't worth the effort to keep people out. ]

Most of the places I used to explore were like that long before I got there. They either tore each other apart or something else got to them first. Entire civilizations, just...gone. Just bones.

[ He never had the luxury of dwelling on it. Someone was always dogging his footsteps, taking the credit or the gold or a life. Nate knows how tenuous their situation is, balanced between powers none of them can really compete with, forced to choose sides or end up like this. Forced to choose sides and end up like this.

He worries his lip with his teeth, gaze tracking from Taako's fidgeting hands back to the tank, and he doesn't entirely believe it himself when he says: ]

Better them than us.

[It's a valuable lesson to have, especially since it's one Taako doesn't. Maybe it's an elf thing, to hold long grudges without the fear of death pressing down and running out of time. Maybe he just spent too long trusting when it really mattered only to be rejected and hurt and almost killed. A lot of things could have been different, but they weren't, and he took the wrong way out from Lucretia's plan. He could have realized that there was no hiding, no protecting himself from everything, so coming down and healing was the answer.

He didn't. He built his walls higher, clung tighter to the people already inside. And the few people who have learned to scale it, even begun to get there--

He doesn't know if he remembers how to open the door. Really let someone in and invite them into his heart.

It's not the act of even doing it that gets him, it's the fear they'll burn the place to the ground once they get there.]

Damn right, better them than us.

[He would never let that be him, even though it has been, he just gets more outs than most people. For a second, he tastes powdered concrete and takes too sharp a breath, seizes his hands like that control will be gone from him, and then covers it with a bit of a cough.]

Guess not everyone has second chances on death missions or whatever. We'd have been way more boned if death was forever. So y'know.

[He drums his fingers on his leg, caught between wanting to tell him everything and never speak again.]

At least we have the time to look at it without getting immediately killed, but who knows if that's worse.

[ Nate never intended to push into closeness, and he never does. It happens in a not-quite-accidental way, by merit of how he treats others in spite of a pressing need to be isolationist. He cut off contact for so long that having it was ultimately worth the risk, realizing that he'd rather extend a hand than spend another purported "victory" alone.

Alone is doable. Lonely isn't.

He looks at Taako and sees a familiar door, the kind you forget how to open when you've kept it closed for too long. Too bad Nate's an expert at scaling walls.

This isn't a subject to broach now, if ever. He has too much respect for Taako to push, and he looks back at the tube with a tight jaw. ]

Guess we'll find out.

[It's part of the reason Nate's snuck in so close without him really thinking about it; he's just disarmingly nice, and knows when to back off and let someone else follow. You don't have to burst in and pull things out with your hands if you offer it and let someone take the thing. It's one of those things Taako has never been able to quite hack, in a life controlled by a careful balance of just staying alive.

For a moment, he thinks about Nate on the ship. He would have been good, he thinks. He would've been fantastic.

Taako shakes it off.]

Well, I'm not dead yet.

[He leans his weight back on his other foot, shuffling as he turns to look around the room.]

So what, are you gonna find everyone else? Try and pull 'em aside for a chat? Lup n' I can sweep the place, get stuff on lock while you keep the crew running.

[ For all his experience in theft, in stealing, he's never tried to take more from a person than what he believed they could handle, what he believed was an acceptable tithe. There is a certain honor among thieves and gutter-rats, a camaraderie and understanding of circumstance.

Taako knows, and because of that Nate feels comfortable giving when he otherwise wouldn't. ]

I guess so.

[ His tone sounds more definitive than his words, a creeping confidence touching the conversation before skittering away. ]

This isn't exactly my wheelhouse, but I led us all out here in the first place.

[Well, he's always been good at taking. Giving, not so much. He doesn't give so much as he barters, makes himself indispensable. Taako was invited on this mission because there was no other question of who could be better. No one can doubt his value; no one can say he's unnecessary.

He always has to have something. Always.

His eyes slide over his shoulder to Nate, and then turns, and reaches out a hand to help him up from where he's crouched on one knee.]

Tell you what. You round up everybody in here, get 'em topside. I'm gonna find Lup and by the time you make it up there, you're all gonna have somethin' to eat. And nobody has to say anything they don't wanna say.

[Taako quirks an eyebrow at him, waiting for an affirmation, one of his ears poking up in tandem while the other sticks out to the side.]

[ Taako was invited on this mission because he's Nate's friend, and Nate knows that Taako would have thrown an absolute fit if he didn't. Even the mildest, joking threat of leaving him behind set the elf absolutely seething.

He knows he's capable, but more than that, Nate likes his company.

Taking the hand up Nate gets to his feet again, exhaling quietly at the shattered glass around them. He worries his lip with his teeth, nodding, distant. ]

I think a good meal will help morale. [ The smile he flashes Taako is thin, but Nate supplements it with a pat on the shoulder. ] Thanks.

[Excuse you don't show up here and say things like he gets to go do cool stuff because he's loved or something. Gosh. He worked hard to get on Nate's good side, to get to be on the shortlist for doing cool shit like this.

(But also, like, Nate can care about him. Maybe. That might force him to think about caring about Nate, and that just sounds like a big old fucking mess, even if he's already doing it and simply refusing to acknowledge the experience.)

Nate gets to his feet, and Taako just nods, sparing no more gazes to what they're going to leave behind.]

Don't worry about it, my man. I know how it goes.

[This won't be the first time. It's a reunion tour, in a way, even when it's just the twins' and a new crew of misfits against the world. He gestures to the doorway.]

C'mon, get outta here, if you kill any more braincells with those fumes you'll forget how to kiss my ass.

[ Same story, different venue.

For a long time Nate's professional life was just this: rooting through someone else's remains, finding the material worth keeping, and moving on. Morbid, maybe. Sometimes disrespectful. But the dead are dead, and more than that, they're worth learning from. What they can take away from is similar to what they can contribute with the knowledge gained.

There's peace in revelation, no matter how grim. ]

Yeah, God forbid. [ He rolls his eyes, grinning. ] Dick.

[He knows the feeling. He really does. But sometimes just being around someone, just Knowing, is enough.

Taako just chuckles, even if it's something dumb and unimportant. But Nate's smiling. But they're leaving.

That's something in the end.]

You know it.

[That'll be enough.]

[closed] and since we've one place to go

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