[ They stay that way - close by each other - until released on alien bail. As it turns out the people here are just as untrustworthy of them as all the newcomers are of the existing population, which leaves them in terrible standing and not a position Nate particularly enjoys. They part with no small amount of reluctance (on Nate's end, anyway) when a public request comes up for some potentially-dangerous search and rescue and he smiles, gives the usual reassurances, promises not to take unnecessary risks.
He's good at this, knows what he's doing, even leans in to give him a quick peck goodbye. If Nate looked harder at it, he might consider it akin to one of those old photos of G.I.s heading off to their first tour, except he's dating an engineer and not a house wife, and the situation isn't even remotely as terrifying as it could be. So...maybe it's more like leaving the house to get groceries, except the groceries are scientists.
He's gone for hours, gets a little scraped up but ultimately trusts this new guy, Alex, to have his back, and they work well together. Everybody gets out relatively okay, the researcher in question might lose a toe, but it could be worse. He slogs back into base camp slick with slime and sweat, rat blood soaked into his only shirt, rifle slung over his shoulder. Turning in his weapon feels a bit uncomfortable after everything they just went through, but they've got their system.
Without following the others to the mess hall for a complimentary tot of heinous moonshine he veers in the direction of the showers, eager to look less like the inside of a meatgrinder than he currently does whenever he manages to locate familiar faces.
Which is about the time he realizes that the guy about ten feet in front of him looks like- ]
no subject
He's good at this, knows what he's doing, even leans in to give him a quick peck goodbye. If Nate looked harder at it, he might consider it akin to one of those old photos of G.I.s heading off to their first tour, except he's dating an engineer and not a house wife, and the situation isn't even remotely as terrifying as it could be. So...maybe it's more like leaving the house to get groceries, except the groceries are scientists.
He's gone for hours, gets a little scraped up but ultimately trusts this new guy, Alex, to have his back, and they work well together. Everybody gets out relatively okay, the researcher in question might lose a toe, but it could be worse. He slogs back into base camp slick with slime and sweat, rat blood soaked into his only shirt, rifle slung over his shoulder. Turning in his weapon feels a bit uncomfortable after everything they just went through, but they've got their system.
Without following the others to the mess hall for a complimentary tot of heinous moonshine he veers in the direction of the showers, eager to look less like the inside of a meatgrinder than he currently does whenever he manages to locate familiar faces.
Which is about the time he realizes that the guy about ten feet in front of him looks like- ]
Ian?