xp_logs | Nathan, once again talking to himself, Wednesday evening (Reply)

Nathan finds himself having another one of those very odd conversations with himself. This time, he's finally figured out who he's talking to. And a few other things.

"So tell me something."

He was back. Nathan opened his eyes, frowning, and let his gaze slide sideways to the him that was there in the chair by the bed, again. Giving him a rather disturbing smirk, too. "What?" he muttered. "And if you want me to sleep, why do you keep waking me up?" He'd been having an interesting dream, too, he thought. Or maybe he was having the dream now. Oh, now he was going to confuse himself...

The other him only smirked more offensively. "Catching you when you're off-guard. But back to my question. What do you want, Nate?"

"You to go away."

"Beyond the next five minutes, I mean."

"You to stay away."

The other Nathan threw back his head and laughed. "You know, this is kind of fun," he said, a wicked sparkle in his grey eyes as he looked again at Nathan. "The grumpiness is reassuring."

"So glad." He tried to close his eyes again, but he knew that wasn't going to work. He'd tried that the last time, and the other him had just prattled on, snide comment after snide comment. If this was one of the Askani playing some kind of sick joke, he was going to be seriously pissed.

"Don't blame them," was the response, followed by another laugh. "Or maybe do. You certainly wouldn't be doing this to yourself if you hadn't been doing it with them for all this time."

Nathan's eyes snapped open, and he gave the other him an incredulous look. "Are you telling me--"

"--that you've given form to a portion of your own psyche in the same way that you give form to them?" The other Nathan, grinning, raised his hands and clapped slowly. "Gold star for you."

Great. And here he thought he'd just been dreaming. Nathan's eyes narrowed and he glared a bit fitfully at the figment. Because he was a figment, even if he was there. "So who...no, what are you?"

"You first," the other Nathan said blithely. "What do you want, Nate?"

"Beyond for you to stop calling me that?" It felt like it was meant to get under his skin, in some sort of funny way. "Out of this bed. Out of the basement. Back on my feet. Somewhere quiet and exotic with Moira."

Silence.

"Wow," was the response finally, sounding honestly impressed. The other him had leaned back until he was just a form in his peripheral vision - damn the damned traction rig, seriously - but Nathan was fairly sure that he wasn't being sarcastic. "There's some definite progress."

"Oh?" Nathan muttered. Wondering just why he was letting this stray portion of his psyche engage him like this. "And by the way, if you're actually here, why has no one ever overheard us? It's not like we've taken much care to keep our voices down."

The other Nathan snorted. "Just because we're here doesn't mean we're here," he said, then switched to Askani. "~Or, to explore the subtleties more precisely, simply because we seem to be in a place does not necessarily mean that the place is as it seems.~"

That had helped. Really. Nathan rolled his eyes and stared up at his ceiling. "You didn't answer my other question. Either of them."

"Well," that too-familiar gruff voice drawled, "as to why that constitutes progress... you didn't say anything about wishing you could get a second chance on Youra. Which I was half-expected, given that you're still dreaming about getting a do-over."

"Oh, fuck off."

"In a bit. As for who I am..." And Nathan was suddenly wishing that he could flinch away, because the other him leaned in close, almost impossibly close given the traction rig. "Who do you think?" The question was oddly serious.

Nathan started to say 'my annoying self', or something along those lines. What came out was something entirely different, and something of a surprise. "Cable," he said. "Without the conditioning."

"Screw the gold star," the other him murmured thoughtfully. "For that one, I think you get a cookie."

"Don't taunt me."

"Oh, right. You're still eating through a tube." The other Nathan - Cable - snickered at the glower he got in response. "So, since you're doing so well... why am I here?"

Nathan's glare wavered a bit. "Because I'm not sure whether or not I want to get to know you," he murmured a little uneasily, fairly sure that was it. It wasn't as if he hadn't been confronting each and every single one of his doubts head-on, the last few days especially. Since Amanda left.

There was a brief, appreciative flicker in the other him's gray eyes. "You know, for someone who could probably serve as source material for a major psychiatric study all by himself, you're not really as confused as you like to pretend you are." Cable peered at him for a moment longer, then mustered a patently fake woeful face. "Don't you like me, Nate?"

"I don't know you."

"Oh, bullshit. I'm the end result of what you've been moving towards for the last year," Cable scolded him. "Don't chicken out on me now just because you're tired."

Nathan rediscovered the glare. "Can I maybe get a little time to recover before you start making demands?" he growled exhaustedly. "Haven't I done enough for a while?"

"You've just started," Cable said, almost restlessly. "All this is, Nate, is you getting up out of the snow and picking up your sword."

"Stop berating me, damn it," Nathan shot back, tired and aggravated. No one else was pushing him, so he felt the need to supply someone to fill that role? How very perverse. "Why are you pushing like this?"

"Because..." Cable trailed off, almost uncertainly. "Because it's what I do. I fight. And I kind of like feeling it, if you know what I mean... good and bad." He sighed, shaking his head. "I'm not going to try and argue you into it," he said finally, sounding resigned but calm. "Maybe it's too early... probably it's too early. You haven't even gotten your feet back under you yet. But aren't you curious, Nate?" He leaned a little closer again, his eyes and his voice very intent. "About me? About what I could do, if you give me the chance?"

He leaned back abruptly. "Just think about it," he said, and then wasn't there anymore.

Thinking, Nathan thought with a sigh, closing his eyes again. He was doing entirely too much thinking lately. It was, quite obviously, well on the road to driving him batshit insane.