hadriel | [text] there is water at the bottom of the ocean

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[text] there is water at the bottom of the ocean

[Originally, it started out as a well-meaning adventurous foray for personal edification, yadda, yadda, yadda. Time moves so slowly in Hadriel that Nate has been clawing at ways to occupy it, and since he's exhausted the library of any texts that aren't in gibberish it stands to reason he might seek personal fulfillment elsewhere. After waking up with the usual restlessness he considered the wide expanse of lakeside real estate out his window and thought, yeah, a swim sounds nice.

The swim was less than nice.

Several minor explosions and some (honestly) impressive spell-work later sees him soaked to the skin but otherwise unscathed outside of minor lacerations on one arm - there's really only so much you can do when trying to evade a shark with two fucking heads - scribbling quickly in a notebook with the sort of fervor reserved for the truly mad. Lake-adjacent, blessedly on the shore with a towel slung around bare shoulders, he quickly snaps a photograph of his work with his phone and hits SEND TO ALL.

The message is as follows:]

does anyone know what the hell this is
i found it at the bottom of the lake

Attachment: [monster.jpg]

p.s. don't go swimming in the lake

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[Nate, with his extensive background in adaptive and creative problem-solving and his love of puzzles of all varieties, might have gone into something like detective work had his life not changed irrevocably when he was still a preteen. He used to see enough bodies pile up during his jobs as to be wholly desensitized to them, and that's probably more than can be said for a lot of people actively working in crime-solving and -stopping.

We just won't talk about the incredibly long list of lives he's taken when fighting for his own.

The only part that trips Nate up is the news that Lance Sweets, fairly unassuming and non-threatening individual, is a government-appointed shrink, a fact which immediately closes off several mental walls for protection. Criminal profiling, too, Jesus. He's stitching up a criminal right now.]

Jack of all trades, huh?

[Nate quips, watching the needle dig into his skin again and come out the other side.]

[Lance can almost feel the change that happens, a subtle sense of intuition that picks up on hints too small to really conscious note, but it happens all the time when he says he's a psychologist. It's actually somewhat funny, almost, that this is a case of someone finding out he's a psychologist after knowing him for some time; normally it's the first thing, since it's his primary job.

It doesn't exactly bother him, because he knows that people have their reasons, but he still feels the need to comment; he shrugs his shoulders, just a little, as he continues the stiches, before responding.]

Something like that, although they my jobs are all connected in many ways. Aside from spending a ton of money to get several fancy pieces of paper and having a little more specialized experience, I'm not a lot different from other agents.

[He has the extra edge of experience and knowledge that allows him to put together profiles, and of course specialized training to provide counseling, but a lot of what he does can also be accomplished by other agents that happen to be good with people. He doesn't want his degrees to be particularly threatening.]

Edited 2017-08-21 19:27 (UTC)

[Nate respects Lance to a point, perhaps more so now that he's made a particular effort to play doctor when he has no apparent medical experience, but there is the quiet, understated fear that someone who examines people that much could see right through him, if he hasn't already.

He prides himself in his ability to bury painful things and having someone dig them up like a grave robber - the irony being that Nate has engaged in that precise physical act - is unsettling. (Anyone could analyze anyone, he supposes. Lance probably just has the vocabulary and insight to articulate it.)]

Why the FBI?

[As long as he keeps the focus off himself, he'll be good. Lance already knows about the mercenaries and Nate doesn't know how many more times he can get away with saying that marine salvage is his life's pursuit.]

Seems like you could've opened up a practice of your own, unless you were just really into the ambulance-chasing aspect.

[Lance shrugs, still focused on the stitches, allowing Nate to ask the questions for now to see if it'll ease some of his nerves about the psychologist thing.]

They offered me a job.

[It's as simple as that, really. Or perhaps not; there are a lot of factors that went into him actually taking the job, some of which he won't go into, but others are pretty straight-forward.]

I had just graduated a few months earlier, and I was twenty-two; there's only so far that degrees go in commanding any respect.

[He doesn't think he would've been too successful in running his own practice for that reason, and also that he just didn't have any practical experience. Besides--]

Also it's just cool to get to work for the FBI. I thought I was just going to be working with agents and making sure they were okay for field duty after a trauma, work out issues between pairs of agents who work together, that sort of thing, and that was meaningful and worthwhile enough. Ending up doing profiling was kind of a fluke, and the agent thing definitely was.

[And despite how everything ended, he doesn't regret the path he chose.]

[Holy shit, twenty-two years old and joining the FBI.

When Nate was twenty-two, he was doing three weeks in a Venezuelan lock-up to get information from an inmate while Sam scoured the local historic collections for leads on a job. They actively hunted for their work, and they loved every second of it, but sometimes Nate is reminded that other people didn't have the luxury of free movement and simultaneously had the albatross of college tuition debt swinging from their necks.

The Drakes had already earned a reputation and took consulting when it came to them. While a deep-seated part of Nate is envious of those with higher education he's grateful he never had to worry much about "fitting" into society until his line became legitimate by necessity.]

Agent Sweets. That's so cute.

[The smile on Nate's face should indicate that he is 100% giving Lance shit for the sake of giving him shit.]

The 'Doctor' title supersedes 'Agent', you know.

[But he makes the correction with a small grin, recognizing the teasing for what it is and not minding it at all; it's kind of familiar, actually. He finishes the last stitch in this particular set, then looks up at Nate again.]

Two more to go. Are you still good?

[He feels he should ask, even if Nate doesn't seem the type to want to take a break.]

Right, right. My mistake, Doctor Agent.

[He's definitely fucking with Lance now.

Nate leans over to look at the handiwork and is fairly impressed by the neat, tidy stitches - there must be an anal retentive quality at play here, or an internal need for perfectionism in all things - mentally admitting that it's better than what he could have done with his dominant hand. He has the feeling that Lance is (perhaps slightly neurotically) concerned about screwing this up and is intent on preventing that at all costs.]

Still good. You holding up okay? First time I gave someone stitches I thought I was gonna faint.

[He'd been a kid at the time, but still.]

Funny.

[He says it dryly, but clearly isn't actually bothered.

Lance watches as Nate looks over the stitches, trying to read his reaction; he is indeed very perfectionistic, and often somewhat neurotic or obsessive about it. It's been both good and bad for him throughout his life, in different ways and different situations, but even when it's detrimental it's one of those things he can't break himself of. And in cases where doing everything perfectly actually might matter, like this one, it's especially obvious.

He nods at the question, managing another half smile at the admission.]

I'm fine. It's simpler than I thought it would be.

[And so he's a little less terrified he's going to screw up.

But if Nate's good too then might as well continue, and he starts getting the needle threaded for the next set of stitches.]

So aside from diving in the lake, what else have you been doing here?

[Now that Lance has surmounted his original anxiety about this minor medical procedure Nate does take a certain comfort in the easy, almost leisurely banter that reminds him a lot of home. ("Home" itself being more people than place, because he misses being comfortable enough to have a drink with someone and throw around old stories.)

Hadriel has afforded him many things, but friends are difficult to come by even in his own world. Nate isn't exactly known for opening up.]

I was mapping the tunnels until I learned that they change every few months.

[Sort of a downer, but that doesn't mean he won't still go spelunking in his spare time, sans equipment. Nate rubs at his chin with his free hand.]

Used to travel a lot more, so being stuck in this one city kind of sucks.

[At least in New Orleans he could drive to the Gulf, or the bayou.]

[Lance is quietly pleased by the answer, because it would've been easy to make up something very reasonable but guarded and so getting a more genuine response means it was given freely, not because there was no way to get around it.]

I've heard sometimes they change while you're still in them too. There's someone else here who I had spoken with about the idea of exploring using a tether, both to mark the path and so they don't get lost, to see if that has any effect on the changes.

[He actually needs to message that person; he's been meaning to for awhile but life in Hadriel has been crazy for him.

The rest of Nate's response is also more offered information, and Lance is curious but cautious about prying too much.]

I did my undergrad in Toronto, but other than that I've spent most of my time on the east coast of the US. I did have a case in Florida once, before I was an agent; the guy I was evaluating got us into a shootout for no reason.

[Just taking a moment there to drag Walter, both because he can and because dealing with him had definitely made Florida a stressful place instead of a relaxing one. Also it was hot as hell.]

Do you have a favorite place that you've been to?

Well, people do the same thing when cave diving, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

[There's something to be said about the merit in lulling someone into a false sense of security - or in this case, a genuine one - and its efficacy. Even during the periods when he was "on his own," he had someone to fall back on and since neither Elena nor Sully are here he eases into a familiarity with someone else. He knows he'll get stuck if he doesn't.

Nate huffs a laugh through his nose when Lance touches on an undesired shootout and he is reminded of every time he fell into one of those himself. Usually quite literally. Sucking another breath in through his teeth, less at the needle in his arm and more at the next line of questioning, he shakes his head.]

That's...kind of hard to answer.

[He admits, and Nate goes quiet for a long moment, fixating on the medicine cabinet across the room.

He misses the humidity of the Panamanian jungle, watching steam rise over the trees from a jagged mountaintop while the local monkeys hollered blue murder. Tibet's crushing alpine ridges, the way traditional communities nestled amicably between peaks and sprawled into valleys, the surreal ghostliness of throat-singing echoing down temple halls. The beaches of Naxos, the call to prayer wailing from a minaret in Istanbul, haunting islands jutting up from the Pacific. Borneo's saw-toothed coastline, Mongolia's unforgiving desert, the heat that beat down on the desolate stretch of sand in the Arabian peninsula and crushed you against the sun's anvil.

The paradise that emerged from the fog when he least expected it to, dense foliage rising from a rift of waterfalls, oases in vast and seemingly empty pockets of the world.

Start with the best part.]

...I spent a lot of time in Colombia. Mostly the northern edge of the country, the coast - sometimes south down the Andean range. Small towns. Port cities. [Wrenching himself from his nostalgia long enough to make brief eye contact, he adds:] Good people.

Edited 2017-08-22 22:05 (UTC)

[Lance nods at that; he'd heard the tip about using a line from one of the roommates that had taken him caving, so that makes sense.

He isn't too surprised that Nate has to think about his response, or even that he gets that faraway look, but the intensity of it stands out to Lance a little. Either Nate has been to some amazing places or he really misses the feeling of exploring and traveling, or perhaps both; when Nate finally does answer, Lance guesses that both is probably correct. Angela sounds the same way when she talks about the places she's visited.

He glances up from what he's doing at the right time to make eye contact before returning his attention to the stitches.]

I've never been anywhere like that, but the way you're talking about makes me wish I had.

[Maybe he'll have to visit when he--

Oh. Right. Barring some sort of miracle he can't imagine, that's not going to happen; Lance stops what he's doing a moment, gaze going distant, but he soon shakes himself out of it and resumes working on the stitches.]

What constitutes 'a lot of time'?

[It's the first question that comes to mind and so he asks it, trying to move on as quickly as possible in hopes of avoiding any questions himself; maybe Nate just didn't notice, anyway.]

[The look that Nate wears is the sort of expression that would earn him a gentle prodding from his wife, a where are you? and a concerned expression that he brushes off in spite of her insistence toward addressing it. They'd argued - could he really call it an argument? deferment, or avoidance, maybe - the night before Sam showed up in his office, very much alive.

Sam, who begged him to drop everything to chase one last job, one last time. Nate was never going to say no to his older brother.]

Few years?

[He doesn't remember the exact number. They bounced between borders with such frequency that they became unrecognizable, non-existent, a vast stretch of territory where two kids with ambition and sheer force of will could carve out their own space and explore at their leisure. The world was theirs, and they'd fucking earned it.

What Nate recalls best about those early years isn't faces or names, but the smell of new places and the freedom and anonymity afforded with them. The pungent kick of ajiaco in the morning and the taste of mamoncillo sucked right out of its rind after being plucked from the tree. Sunsets watched from the rooftops, saltwater air. Hard times were a given but they never lasted long.]

Sorta...grew up there.

[Nate informs him, using the most generous and broad application of the statement.]

Santa Marta, Baranquilla, Cartagena, [he offers a small laundry list of coastal names, all spoken with a familiarity that suggests English is not his only language.] Central America too, but there's something nice about the old city streets.

[Despite his brief moment of sadness, Lance manages a small smile at both the look on Nate's face and the way he answers; it doesn't take a psychologist to hear the depth behind the words, or the fondness of them. There's a lot said there, even if the words themselves are relatively limited and simple.

He glances up again briefly, then returns his attention to the stitches as he responds.]

It sounds like you have a lot of good memories there. I assume you speak Spanish, too?

Un poco.

[A response which can be attributed to either of Lance's statements. Accompanied by his trademark shit-eating grin it could be read as less than sincere, but he's been fluent since he was about fourteen or fifteen years old. (It's amazing what immersion can do for your learning experience, and a childhood riddled with Latin certainly had a helping hand.)]

Lot of regional dialects I don't know that well, but it's a big place. The Spanish couldn't force their influence everywhere. [A beat.] ...Not that they didn't try. Genocidal assholes.

[Lance grins a little at the response--both the sassy first part and scathing last one--but keeps his focus on the stitches; he's getting more and more confident, and so getting them done properly more and more quickly.]

Spanish is the only language other than English that I can say I'm at least close to fluent in, although most of what I picked up was in bits and pieces so I'm sure none of it matches.

[Dialect-wise, he means; he's never had much trouble communicating, but he does know that some phrases and pronunciations that he learned are a bit odd. But, considering what he knows he mostly picked up from work and therefore individual people or small communities, it only makes sense that it's kind of a mess.]

[A brief glance down at his arm tells Nate that he’ll be finished in no time, and can therefore avoid serious personal discussion, but he’s actually kind of enjoying this. A give-and-take isn’t nearly as bad as someone asking you to lie back on a couch and tell them about your childhood. At least Lance can hold a decent conversation.]

Could be worse. You could not know any Spanish and still try to speak it as if you did.

[He flashes a quick grin.]

I don’t get to use it as much anymore – being multilingual kinda went with the territory in my old job.

[Lances winces at that first comment, not because of anything to do with himself personally, but because--]

I had a roommate who did that. He was terrible.

[Not just for that particular thing; he was terrible in general. Still is, really, or at least he was last time Lance ran into him a few years ago.

And okay, don't think he won't zero in on that last part there.]

What was your old job?

[Everyone knows somebody who would confidently tried to charm their way through a foreign language they didn’t know that well. Nate can say without hesitation that that person is his brother, followed closely by one Victor Sullivan. He knows too many Rico Suaves.

Nate is, in fact, two seconds away from saying so out-loud when he realizes he made a mistake in getting too comfortable, and will now be forced to volunteer less savory information about himself. Trapped as he is by Lance’s stitches and suspiciously inquisitive eyebrow gymnastics, he doesn’t really see the sense in lying (poorly) when it isn’t as though his job was one-hundred percent illegal one-hundred percent of the time.

Just…most of the time.]

Uh. Sort of a- …like, antiquities acquisition. Travel the world- [Find lost cities.] –see the sights- [Shoot bad guys.] Find artifacts for clients.

[...Okay, that explanation actually makes some sense; it's clear there's a lot of story behind it, and he feels like this is a very sanitized description, but it rings truer to him than any of Nate's other previous comments about his profession.

So he decides to accept it for now, not exceptionally bothered by the likely illegal nature of Nate's particular brand of 'antiquities acquisition'; sure, it's possible it was completely above board, but he doesn't think Nate would've been so hesitant to reveal it. Still, that's way out of Lance's jurisdiction as far as legality goes, and he also just doesn't really care to judge in general. Even if he did, he'd be careful not to show it; he doesn't want to discourage the honestly.]

Didn't you tell me something about a mercenary army?

[He hazily remembers a conversation just after his arrival that involved the subject, but the details are muddled for several reasons.]

I guess that makes a little more sense now. Not a lot, but a little.

[Damn, he did mention Nadine's guys, didn't he? Hot out of Scotland and all alone and Nate wasn't thinking too carefully about the kind of crap he fed to anyone else, because there was no point in keeping too quiet if Shoreline wasn't around to blow his head off with some misplaced dynamite.]

Occupational hazard.

[Nate quips with lighthearted ease and an equally reassuring smile.]

And, uh, professional competition. It's a cutthroat business.

Literally, right?

[He says it dryly, clearly just as amused with himself as Nate is with his own answer, just expressing it with the opposite tone. And, for good measure--]

We've had a few cases where the murder victim was in the same business, more or less. That said, the one that died of blood loss did so from a severed brachial artery, not the jugular or carotid, but close enough.

[He glances up from what he's doing once more, offering just enough of a smirk to make it clear he's being unhelpful on purpose. Sass begets sass, after all.]

[Literally. Sometimes, sure, but Nate is more of a guns guy than a knife guy. He isn't out there shivving people in the gut when they disagree with him.

At least Lance doesn't point out the truth in Nate's statement, although he doesn't exactly mince his words when it comes to the obvious dangers, either. Nate has the feeling that Lance is assuming his job is more "murderer for hire" and less "treasure hunter," but he won't be the one admitting to any particular distinctions right now.]

Been there, done that, not really planning on bleeding out again.

[Joke's on Lance, Nate already almost died in the Himalayan Alps with a bullet in his stomach once. Suck it, Death!]

[Lance would actually be far less chill with the entire thing if he thought Nate were more the murderer for hire type; considering he's pretty sure he's going to die at home because of one of those kinds of people, he's not all that fond of them. Even less so than he was before that, anyway.

But no, the two murder victims he's thinking of had just been collectors who had gotten mixed up with the wrong people; they hadn't even been overtly reckless, unlike some people.

At Nate's comment Lance's vaguely amused expression fades, and he refocuses on tying off the last stitch in that set.]

Once is definitely enough.

[His tone is too casual and neutral to actually be either of those things; he doesn't like the idea that Nate has gone through such a thing--even if it's not surprising--and Lance is also speaking from his own experience. It's not exactly one of those things anyone wants to repeat.]

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[text] there is water at the bottom of the ocean

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