but the sun comes up and the world still spins

[petridish]

Who: Clone Shepard and Commander Shepard, Nihlus Kryik, and Aurelia Hammerlock; Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan and Nathan Drake
When: October 26th
Where: various
What: Everyone's out of cryo - thread dumping ground!

Cloney:

Shepard - the clone's out of the bag

Nihlus - mentor no more

Aurelia - reintroductions

Nate:

Sully - blast from the past

Big Nate - what'd I miss?

Comments

just outside medbay; not the same time as the ginger confrontation

[ascendit]

[Cryo's not fun, is Nate's main thought as he gives the medbay a disgruntled look over his shoulder on his exit.

[Looking over his shoulder is what he was doing when he accidentally walked into one Victor Sullivan over two years ago (adding his time on the Moira to his time at Garden) in Cartagena. This coincidence does not occur to him when he does it a second time.]

Hey -

[The moment he recognizes him shows on his face, though it doesn't yet click that the man's older than he remembers. He's too stunned to realize that.]

When did you get here?

[Ah, Nate. Two years have only smoothed his edges a little, even if they've made him a bit big for the Raglan shirt and jeans he was wearing on their first meeting. The silver ring around his neck probably looks familiar, though the small device on a lanyard just below it may not.]

1/?

[oldforthis]

[This ship is not fun is something similar to what Sully is thinking as he walks down the hallway. He was just trying to explore the place, get his bearings, but he ended up getting lost instead and now he was in a section of the ship he didn't know, with his room who knew where.

Sully looks behind him as he walks, trying to figure out where he went wrong, when he happens to bump (and be bumped by) someone.]

Shit, I'm sorry about that, I--

[oldforthis]

[Wait.]

[oldforthis]

[That is.

That is a young Nathan Drake.]

[oldforthis]

[Shit that is a WAY TOO YOUNG NATHAN DRAKE]

[oldforthis]

[Wait didn't he just see Nate like yesterday what the fuck did this ship do??]

[oldforthis]

I'll be goddamned...

[He takes a few steps back, looking over the young teenager as if he's seen a ghost. Give him a moment he's in shock he might b having a goddamn heart attack.]

DONE

[oldforthis]

[And somehow, he seems to remember that he is currently staring at the boy he met almost twenty years ago and some of his sense snaps back to him in one instant. Never mind the kid's question he's got some of his own.]

When did I--you just saw me a couple days ago. What the hell happened to you?

[ascendit]

[Nate looks briefly bewildered.] Uh, I've been in cryo [a thumb over his shoulder towards medbay], and the last time I saw you before that -

[Briefly, because then he realizes:] You saw the older me a couple days ago, didn't you? [He holds one hand two inches above his own head, his older self's height.] No ring, his hair sticks up?

[oldforthis]

[If Nate looks bewildered, Sully looks absolutely dumbfounded. He even puts a hand up to try and stop him because right now his mind feels like it's moving ten times too slow to comprehend exactly what he's saying.]

Wait a minute, kid what the hell are you talking about? Cryo? [What the fuck does that mean?] Yeah, I saw you. Different kind of ring, but still the same smart ass.

[Because that's what this has to be right? Nate being some kind of wise ass and pulling his leg here somehow?]

This cryo thing turn you back twenty five years?

[ascendit]

[Eyeroll. That one time he was older, he didn't go to medbay first.]

No, that was the other me. There's two of us. I'm eighteen - haven't done half the stuff he has yet, and he doesn't remember a year of my life.

[Shrug.] Alternate universes, a screwed up Ingress, time compression, pick your excuse.

[oldforthis]

Two of you.

[Give him another moment. He's older he needs to think this through. He gives the younger Nate another brief look over. Nate did tell him that the Ingress was capable of pulling people from different times, but he never thought it was capable of this>]

Jesus Christ. Okay, let's just pretend I believe you for a second. How long have you been on this ship? And what the hell did you mean when you said you were in cryo?

[ascendit]

A bit over a year. Not that it felt like a year because that planet was weird, but older me probably told you.

[He shrugs at "cryo". He wasn't entirely clear on the medbay techs' explanation either.]

Uh, it sounded like cryo is like a really long, frozen nap.

[oldforthis]

Yeah he mentioned something about that.

[Did not manage to mention you though, which is why he's still staring longer than he probably should be.]

A frozen nap? Why were you in that? They do something to you while you were asleep?

[ascendit]

Extended checkup: I'm one of the youngest people onboard and I've been through something like the Ingress before, so they wanted to make sure I was okay after the weird planet. Something about not being sure how the time energy affected someone still in puberty.

[The eyeroll of a teenager, I mean, someone who A) doesn't get the science and B) doesn't really care, because he seems perfectly fine. This is followed up by a scrutinizing look up and down.]

Did you say it's been twenty-five years for you?

[oldforthis]

Jesus, they couldn't do that while you were conscious? [It's more of a rhetorical question than anything, because he fires off a few more questions:] And what the hell are you talking about, being through something like the Ingress? Where were you before this?

[He may not care, but Sully certainly does. Time discrepancies or not, this is still Nate who's in front of him, and someone who he helped take care of and watched grow (in a manner of speaking). He did see that look up and down, though. He forgot what a piece of work he could be.]

Yeah. Twenty-five years since you and I first met and I took you in. Let me guess, you don't remember any of that.

[ascendit]

[Nate shakes his head. It's lining up with what his older self has said, but not his own experiences.]

I remember you holding back that guy on the rooftop. And then I ended up in this town called Balamb on another world, and [after he got caught stealing a loaf of bread (my name is Nate Valjean!)] this school took me in. That world's the center of a spell that started pulling people in from different times and places [kind of Ingressy], so the school's been helping out.

[oldforthis]

Christ almighty...

[It's said mostly to himself, but he's still staring at the boy in front of him like he's looking at a ghost. Except this ghost has apparently lived a completely different life than the one he knows he has.]

This Ingress really is a pain in the ass. [Understatement of the year really.] Guess that means some more proper introductions are in order. [He holds out his hand, much like he did when he first met him.] Victor Sullivan, friends call me Sully. But I guess your uh--older self already told you that, didn't he?

[ascendit]

Ingress, time compression, experimental tech. [Everything's a pain in the ass!

[But despite his expression being on the polite side of skepticism, Nate shakes his hand, his grip stronger than it would have been at the other Nate's eighteen (thank you, Garden training).]

He said you were his best friend, yeah.

[Actually, he'd said "our", but this Nate doesn't know him well enough to put that claim on him. He also doesn't feel the need to introduce himself.]