The lure of adventure and the promise of a handsome sum of money may not be the only attractive thing about this expeditionā¦
A ridiculous series of events that ensues when a headstrong twenty-something tags along with one Samuel Drake to help uncover his latest discovery.
(ao3)
Occupational Hazard ā š
In which the strings of lifelong conditioning fall into one Samuel Drake's hands.
Still Here, Huh? ā š
She asked him to be mean. Whoās Sam to deny her what she wants?
(Itās the Adrenaline follow-up, edging and denial, light bondage, d/s undertones)
Limpetsā š
Limpets cling no matter how rough the tide.
Stalemates ā š
'Talking it out' often makes for appropriate conflict resolution. But where's the fun in that?
Best Served ColdĀ ā š (part 1)Ā
Six months after double-crossing Sam, you find yourself trapped in the same building as him, both looking for the same artefact. If he finds you, youāre fucked. In more ways than one.
A Taste of Your Own ā š(part 2)
Sam's had his fun with you, and earned thousands from screwing you over. Absolutely ravenous to see him humbled, you've devised a plan to get your own back. You could've been the bigger person and let it all go, but it's much more fun to give him a taste of his own medicine. Right?
(two-part series, smut, dubcon warning)
(ao3)
Look, Don't Touch ā š
A forced lesson in chemistry isn't really ideal when you're stuck in an alchemist's trap-riddled crypt with someone you have feelings for. A necessary evil, though? Perhaps.
(angsty, yearny, sex-polleny smut. very long.)
It's the Adrenaline ā ļøš
It's incredible what a little fight-or-flight and your first proper bed in days can get you roped into. Literally in Sam's case.
Lump ā ļøš
A love letter to anyone seeking a bit of body positivity. A bit of angst, a bit of hurt/comfort, nsfw warning.
A Brief Encounter ā š
Youād agreed not to give each other gifts this year, but after a rather crass Secret Santa gift from Sam at his brotherās Christmas party, itād be rude not to return the favour. So, when he subtly beckons you to meet him into his brotherās airing cupboard, youāre all too happy to accept the invitation.
Fructose ā ļøš
A 'normal' life isn't all bad. Especially when it involves a picnic in a secluded part of a nature reserve, gorgeous natural lighting, and plenty of strawberries- they're an aphrodisiac, apparently.
I Think Weāve Got Chemis-treeā
Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
It's the lead up to Christmas, and as Sam's best friend, it's your responsibility to drag him out of his post-break-up depression and throw him right into a foray of festive fun. However, the more time the two of you spend together, the harder it's becoming to shrug off the odd feeling you both keep getting around each other...
(ao3)
Wine, Wine, Whine. ā š
Sick of hearing about your terrible tinder dates, Sam entices you into a pretty unforgettable mutual experience. Shame about the awful wine, though.
(one-shot, smut)
(ao3)
Hot (and by that I mean itās summer time).Ā āļø
It's summer time, and it's bloody hot. Sam and Miss Reader beat the heat with various simple, and extremely non-eventful activities.
(ao3)
Requests and Drabbles
Somnoph1liac!Sam š- {Request}
Oral Headcanons šft. The Uncharted boys (Sam Drake/ Nathan Drake)- {Request}
Domestic Headcanons - {Request}
WOUNDED - {angst one-shot- Request}
Sam 'taking care' of you while you're sick - {Request}
Nbd just gonna have to sue you for that last sam pic, okay? See ya in court, buddy. That'll teach you to play with my emotions š š
hey, hey, can't we all just be friends? can't we hold hands in harmony and circle around the image, using our collective hivemind to conjure the image into reality? come on.
oh my goodness Iāve just got up to date with āthe sadir inheritaeceā after about 2 years and I am so in love with your storytelling.
Out of curiosity (plz donāt answer if youāve already had this question I donāt want to spam you!!!!) what does Scott look like in your eyes? I know heās a handsome, pretty blond dude but did you have a face claim or anything?? I kind of see a heath ledger vibe (the accent helpsš) but also not entirely because youāve truly created an awesome OC that I canāt connect to one exact real life person.
Iām sorry this took so long to answer OOPS!!! If youāre still interested in a real life āfaceclaimā, Iāve really pictured a bit of Damon Albarn in his Blur prime, but aged up a little bitā¦ not a 100% copy, but definitely similar!! The wickedly talented, one and only @girlfailure2001 created the most GORGEOUS sketch over on her TikTok which is incredible and makes me blush whenever I look at it. Highly recommend you check it out.
I also whipped up a little sketch of him of how I see him (moreso in more recent chapters) but heās yours as much as heās mine. Picture him how you see fit!! Essentially, heās a fittie with an ambiguous sexuality, Samās not sure whether he wants to be him or be with him, readerās giddy when she first meets him, Iām in love with him, and so on.
I LOVE the Heath Ledger idea - the voice is EXACTLY what I imagine when Iām writing it š¼š¼š¼š¼ mwah!š
{Sam Drake x F!Reader} Chapter 20 | "Uncle Sam's an asshole."
Sam is doing his level best to inhabit the quiet domestic life for a night of babysitting - but the instincts that made him who he is refuse to stay dormant.Ā
CW: Sickeningly sweet guardianship and a complete derailment of realistic timelines x
A/N: For all intents and purposes, Cassie is still an infant in the TSI timeline. Thank you. Please try to enjoy one very Sam-heavy chapter.
How does a sleeping baby manage to weigh roughly nothing and somehow also forty-five kilograms at once?
This is a question posed internally by Uncle Samuel Drake as his seven-month-old niece lies conked out on his chest.
She has been for the better part of ninety minutes; face mashed sideways into his sternum, one fist curled into the collar of his sweater, as though the grip is tethering her to whatever dreamscape babies sail through, a thin line of drool darkening the cotton. Every few minutes she does a little shuddering sigh, and each time she does it Sam stops breathing until she settles.
He's been lying half-reclined into the corner of Nathan's stupid comfortable couch, one arm a permanent brace across her back, the other switching between the TV remote and blonde wisps of hair, for long enough that the light through the window's gone from orange to navy.
HeĀ couldĀ move her. He's been told he can move her; his brother, halfway out the door with his wife and a face that hadn't looked that relaxed in weeks, had said:
"You can put her down in the crib, she'll be fine, you don't have to just -"
Sam had responded:
"Yeah, yeah, course."
And had subsequently not moved a muscle.
The TV mutters away adjacent to him, volume low, light flickering softly across the room. Not, for once, anything to do with deserts or dynasties or the cumbersome catalogue of his recent mistakes - just some BBC re-run from across the pond, a decade old at least: Hidden Killers of the Georgian Home.
Arsenic in the wallpaper, lead ground into face paint. Domestic poisons of people pottering cheerfully about houses and daily routines that were slowly wiping them out. Sam finds it oddly restful. There's something soothing about other people's catastrophes, especially the three-hundred-year-old kind that it's far too late to do anything about.
Across the room, on the little desk where Nathan does his admin and his spreadsheets and whatever other cryptic adult sorcery keeps this house upright, a small light glows: Sam's dead phone, plugged into the laptop by its umbilical cable, the recovery Nathan set running several hours back still grinding away.Ā The photos'll still be on it even if the screen's cooked, his brother had said, ever the sentimental sibling, palm out for it.Ā Lemme pull them off before you trash it.Ā And Sam, who had wanted the photos with an intensity that made his palms sweat, had said:Ā
"Sure."
Indifferent as anything, and had then checked on the little crawling progress bar roughly nine hundred times in the past two hours.
He breathes out slow. The presenter moves on to the horrors of Regency skincare. Sam lets her take him with her, gratefully, into a world where the only thing quietly poisoning anyone is their own wig as opposed to their expertise in self-sabotage.
The documentary can only hold him so long, though. Sam was never built for sitting still - just shy of five decades and the knack has never once taken - and after a while the enforced stillness starts to itch - nothing to do with his hands but hold a sleeping baby and thumb a remote. He shifts as far as a man pinned under an infant can shift, which is barely at all, and lets his eyes wander the dim room instead - the scatter cushions, the framed photos, a lone sudoku puzzle book marooned on the coffee table, soft clutter of a life that keeps its shape even when set down for five minutes.
Restless. He's restless, and there's nowhere to put it.
He sighs, gaze drifting towards the fridge. He counts the magnets; four, five, six - Hm.
There are, he happens to know, four bottles of something Belgian and overpriced in the door of his brother's refrigerator, bought for a barbecue that got rained off shortly after he'd 'come to stay', and they have been calling to Sam in the small hours since.
God, he's thirsty.
He weighs it up, turning his head to and from the kitchen.
Cassie sighs her tiny sigh against him once more. He stops breathing, head snapping back to face her. She settles. He starts again.
He is, technically, on duty. Sole charge of a tiny person who can't stand on her own legs with total confidence, and the responsible thing would be to drink water and stay sharp and be the kind of uncle who can be trusted not to - well... not to do most of the things Sam has historically done.
He looks down at the swirl of golden hair under his chin.
"Do you think," he hums into it, very quietly, "daddy'd get mad if Uncle Sam borrowed one of his beers?"
Cassie does not weigh in. She is, to her great credit, and his relief, a heavy and committed sleeper.
"Yeah." Sam nods slowly, at her compelling case. "That's what I thought. Alright. We won't tell him."
Getting up off a couch with a sleeping child on your chest is, it turns out, a feat of engineering that would have impressed the men who built the pyramids. Sam does it in stages, concentration plugged in as if he were defusing a small bomb: Hand cupped to the back of her skull, other arm scooping under, weight transferred, abdomen engaged, knees doing the work, breath held the entire time, every motion smoothed out to nothing so the up-down of standing reaches her as a gentle swell. She frowns in her sleep. Pouty top lip suckling at the lower.
"There she is," he breathes. "C'mon. We're on a heist."
He pads through to the kitchen, baby cradled high against his shoulder, flip flops near silent on the tile, and stands in the cold blue glow of the open fridge feeling like a burglar in a house where he's been sleeping.
Which is, he supposes, accurate enough.
He gets a bottle out one-handed, nudges the door shut with his hip, and then faces the tedious problem of the bottle opener. Three and a half weeks of eating here and he still opens the wrong drawer for a spoon.
Sam starts a cautious game of cupboard roulette. Top drawer: tea towels, a pizza cutter, an alarming density of those little bag-clip things. Second drawer: food menus, batteries, a lone lemon squeezer. Third drawer -
"Where the hell's your old man keep his - " Sam mutters, leaning to peer in. " - aha."
Bottle opener. He hooks it out, levers the cap off against the lip of the counter one-handed -
The cap pings free and hits the tile with a noise that, in the hush of the house, sounds like a tray of cutlery dropped off a great height.
"Shhh-"
Her whole body startles - arms flinging wide in an infant-reflex way that never quite leaves them - and her face screws up around a held breath, the gathering, the dreadful little silence before the storm, and Sam's already going, "No - no nono, hey, hey, it's okay, that was just-"
Too late.
The wail comes. Full, outraged, and astonishingly loud for something that fits in the crook of one arm - the kind of sound that bypasses the ears and goes straight for the cerebral cortex. Sam's whole body responds before his mind does, the bounce, the sway, the desperate jiggle-walk, the murmur, "okay, okay, I know, I know, I'm - ah,Ā shi- uh - shhh-ugar."
It is not landing. She is winding up, not down, fists balled, face gone furious red, working her way toward the big leagues - and Sam, who has talked his way out of literal life-or-death scenarios, feels something close to actual fear prick at him.
"Okay - okay - hang on-" He yanks the fridge open again one-handed, casting around with the wild eyes of a person who doesn't know which wire to cut to defuse the bomb. Milk? Does he warm milk? He doesn't know how to warm milk because he wasn't listening to his sister-in-law - he doesn't know the temperature or - oh,Ā thank godĀ - his eyes snag on a box of those squeezy yogurt pouch things on the second shelf, the cartoon animal on the front grinning at him, and he lunges for one.
He hip-checks the fridge shut and beelines for the nearest chair going - Nathan's desk, in the corner of the dining end - beer in one fist, pouch in the other, howling baby against his shoulder, the whole operation about as graceful as a cartoon banana peel incident.
He drops into the desk chair, plonks Cassie down on the edge of the desk, braced upright against his forearm, gets the foil lid of the pouch between his teeth, twists it off, spits it somewhere into the dark, and presents the open pouch to the furious creature in front of him as his ears ring.
And, in a marvellous turn of events, she latches on and the wail cuts out mid-note.
Blessed, ringing silence, broken only by the rhythmic, deeply committed suck of a baby with her priorities firmly back in order. After a moment her free fist uncurls from the air, resuming its hold on his sweater.
"Thank God,"; Sam breathes, sagging back into the chair.
He gets his own drink to his mouth at last - a long, grateful, hard-won pull - and on the way down he taps the neck of the bottle gently against the foil of her pouch.
"Salute, bambina."
Cassie suckles, and stares at him.
She does the unblinking intense thing that babies do, fixing him over the top of the pouch with flat, somewhat solemn attention akin to a tiny judge weighing a sentence.
"What?" Sam says. "What. What do you want? Hm?" He takes another sip under the stare and she reaches up and, with a 'bah!', pats his jaw with a small, profoundly yogurty hand.
"Ugh - yeah- thank you. Okay. Okay." He huffs, scrubbing at the smear with the back of his wrist.
"How 'bout aā¦ A story. You want a story? That I can do. Allegedly." He queries, sucking the yogurt off of his wrist.
He shifts the beer to the hand braced behind her, frees the other up, and clears his throat - and hits, immediately, a wall. What story? What story does a person tell a baby? His entire repertoire is heists and bar fights and three or four things still under active investigation in two countries.
"Right. Let's see, uhā¦ Once upon a time, there was a - a princess." He scrambles, "In a big old castle. Lots'aā¦ dresses, and -"
Cassie's face crumples. The bottom lip comes out around the pouch as the opening bars of a formal complaint start up from somewhere in her chest.
"Alright, alright, scrap that, scrap the princess, jeez, tough crowd -" He bounces her gently, heading the meltdown off at the pass. "Okay. Okay. How aboutā¦ pirates."
The crumple pauses.
Sam freezes mid-bounce, wincing, every muscle braced, riding out the long half-second in which it could still go either way -
"A pirate. C'mon. You gotta do me a solid here, kid, pirates is all I've got."
The crumple reverses. The lip retracts. She resumes suckling, and watches him, provisionally willing to hear the man out.
"Right." Sam rolls his shoulders like he's stepping up to a mic. "Once upon a time, there was a pirateā¦ uhā¦ captain."
He checks her face - she's watching him, placid, contented, no sign of the wobble - and he gives a small, pleased pout, thoroughly encouraged by his own material.
"Dead handsome. Roguish. Bit of a legend up and down the coast."
Cassie gurgles wetly around the pouch.
"Oh, you laughin'? At the captain? That's slander, that is. Actionable." He pokes her tummy; she squirms, delighted, nearly losing the pouch.
"Anyway." The word comes out - and then stalls, because, hang on. Is he actually doing this? Is he genuinely about to take the single thing that's chewed him up worst in forty-odd years of eminently chewable material and repackage it as light infantile entertainment? With voices? A bedtime bit, out of his own personal screw-up?
"Theā¦ captain's got himself a first mate. Younger fella."
He glances down. Cassie gazes back up at him, pouch going steadily, not a care in her entire tiny world - and Sam decides that her happiness outranks his heartache tonight.
"And the two of 'em have got - " he reaches over and plucks a crumpled Chinese takeaway menu off the corner of the desk, holds it up like Exhibit A, then taps it matter-of-factly against the top of Cassie's head " - a treasure map. Big red X. Buried gold nobody's clapped eyes on in a hundred years. So off they sail to go dig it up."
He sweeps the beer hand in a slow arc across an imaginary horizon. Cassie's eyes track the bottle like a metronome.
"Miles of open sea. Days of it. And then one mornin', middle of nowhere, they're hangin' over the rail, lookin' at the dolphins and the little fishies and -" he gasps, big and theatrical; her eyes blow wide to match him "- up popsā¦ a mermaid."
She coos.
"Yeah. Exactly. Big moment." He leans in, conspiratorial. "And this mermaid knows everything, Cass. Every reef, every current, where all the old wrecks went down. Takes one look at their scrappy little map and goes - " and here Sam pitches his voice up into a wavering falsetto " - oh, that? Yeah, I know exactly where that is. You're holdin' it upside down, by the way -"
A burble.
"Mm. Cheeky. Just like that." And there she is - the ambush of her, the way she surfaces now without warning or permission, that exact upside-down, by the way sitting behind his teeth in a voice that isn't the mermaid's at all - and something bittersweet tugs at the corner of his mouth, a smile that gets halfway up and stalls. Swallow it, he tells himself, swallow it, swallow it, swallow it -
He bops Cassie on the nose to knock it loose, chasing her startled giggle like a man grabbing for a handrail just as he's about to tumble down a flight of stairs.
"So," he clears his throat, "She asks if she can tag along. Help 'em find it." The grin slips a notch. "And the captain wants to say yes - God, he wants to, you've no idea - but he's got reservations. 'Cause the sea's her whole world, right, she's safe down there, but a pirate ship? That'sā¦ Swordfights. Storms. Cannons. And the men on it - they are not nice men, peanut. The captain knows exactly what kind of men they are, on account of the fact that he's the worst one."
He stops. Takes another swig to force himself to concentrate on the task at hand.
"Reservations. That's the word. He's got 'em."
Cassie smacks the pouch against the desk. He rescues it absently and hands it back.
"But she doesn't take no for an answer, this one. So she just - swims along. Right alongside the ship's hull, day in, day out, keepin' pace, chatterin' away, pointin' 'em the right heading, and there's not a thing the captain can do about it, 'cause she is very, very smart and very, very fun to have around, and he is, frankly, nowhere near as tough as he makes out." A beat. "And the silly old pirate, he - he gets attached. Which he is absolutely not supposed to. 'Cause she's down there in the water and he's up on the deck and there's always - " he holds finger and thumb a careful inch apart in front of her, jiggling so she clocks it "always gonna be this much between 'em. He can never quite reach her. And he tells himself that's for the best."
He looks at the gap between his finger and thumb a second too long, then drops the hand.
And an echo he's spent nigh on a month failing to evict picks its moment to re-surface: his own voice, ugly and cruel, telling her to go home.Ā Go home.Ā Like she was a stray he could shoo off a porch. Like she hadn't out-thought, out-worked and out-classed the pair of them since day one. He'd watched her face crumple, eyes glazing over with saddened shock of something landing harder than it was aimed - except that's the lie he tells himself, isn't it. It landedĀ exactlyĀ where he aimed it. He'dĀ wantedĀ it to hurt enough to stick, and it had, and she'd stopped arguing, and at the time, he'd called that success.
Something sour turns over in his chest. He takes it out on the beer.
"You want my honest opinion, Cass?" he murmurs, eyeing up a small pool of yogurty bubbles loitering around her mouth. "The captain's an asshole." He clears his throat. "UncleĀ Sam'sĀ an asshole. Sorry to curse, but I'm just - layin' that out early, y'know, so you grow up with the right information. Straight from the horse's mouth, 'n' all that."
Cassie blows her biggest bubble yet. He dodges the splash zone.
"Glad you agree." He rallies, voice climbing back up, because there's a baby watching him and she wants the fun part. He scrolls the empty air, as if the next page is up there.
"Anyway. The treasure. This is the good bit -" and he's off, gesturing now with the whole free hand, the beer abandoned to the desk: an island shaped like a skull, a map that only shows itself by moonlight, a riddle scratched in a cave, a magical shell necklace, a chest that turns out to be cursed, and a sea-monster with - he leans right in and drops his voice - "forty arms," and Cassie shrieks and yanks him forward by a fistful of his sweater with surprising strength.
Sam carries gamely on, laughing at the state of his niece. "an' the mermaid, of course, knows know to tame it, 'cause she's the clever one."
Cassie delivers a long, burbling editorial.
"You're right. Total carry. The boys'd have drowned off the harbour wall day one without her -"
And right there, riding high on her own delight, Cassie throws her entire small self into a shriek of purest joy - an ear-splitting, gleeful, full-lunged scream of a noise, that makes Sam jump - and both chubby fists fly up.
Including the one holding the pouch.
Which she squeezes.
The remaining payload of strawberry yogurt exits the pouch in a coordinated arc, catching Sam squarely across one cheek and the jaw, before flinging a long glistening pink splodge across the lower half of Nathan's laptop screen.
"ā¦thanks, sweetheart," Sam grimaces. He wipes his cheek with the back of his wrist and inspects it. "More of an apricot man, myself."
Cassie beams at him, radiant, thrilled to her marrow with her own work as she claps her hands, further dispersing little splatters of pink all over the place.
"Yeah," he finds himself licking yogurt off of his skin for the second time in the last five minutes, "you're real pleased. I can tell."
The laptop, jostled by the flailing, has woken. And there behind the smeared pink streak, the progress bar - the one he's watched crawling across several hours - has crept to a sliver from the end. Ninety-something per cent. Almost done - he's almost got his photos back.
And something in his chest does a bittersweet sort of twinge, familiar deep aching wearing gladness like a dusty cloak, and Sam scowls down at himself for it, irritated, because he'dĀ really rather not, thanks, he was doing fine.
"ā¦Right." He hauls himself upright, hitching Cassie onto his hip. "C'mon, disaster junior. Let's clean this up before papa revokes my visiting rights."
Fortunately for Sam, there's a tub of baby wipes on every flat surface in this house, and he's come to understand they are simply the native flora of the place. He plucks a handful from the closest pack near the kitchen sink, swipes the worst of the pink off his own face in the window's reflection - catches his own eye there for half a second, fresh out of dignity, a smear of yogurt on his jaw, a baby on his hip - and has, despite his best efforts, some feelings about it.
Because the treacherous part is that evenĀ he'sĀ able to admit that this isā¦ nice. All of it. The baby on his hip, the warm hush of the house, nobody watching him - no one to read or be read by, nothing wanted off him but stories and a sweater to grab on to - and he feels less like a man on the run from his own reflection and more like someone who might, given a fair wind, be quietly getting his shit together. Maybe this is the life. Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, being this. Uncle Sam. Beer thief. Teller of shitty pirate stories.
And then, right behind it, sharp as a stitch under the ribs: no. No, this isn't where he's meant to be. He misses it. He misses all of it - the heat, the hunt, the stupid ungodly hours, ruins by torchlight and documents by lamplight, coffee gone cold because he's too focused to drink it, and her. Her. Right there in the middle of every single frame of it, the way she's in the middle of everything now -
Oh, shut the fuckĀ up, Samuel.
He hoists Cassie higher and heads back for the desk.
When they get back, the laptop's finished. The bar's gone. In its place, a folder sitting on the desktop, quietly holding the entire recovered photographic record of the last however-many years of Samuel Drake's slightly shit second-hand cell's life.
He sits and hazards a click on the folderā¦ just to check.
Cassie gets re-perched on the edge of the desk, braced against his forearm, Sam working a fresh wipe one-handed over her sticky fists and her chin and the creases of her neck where dairy slop has somehow migrated.
"'Kay... Where were we." His attention is completely divided between his niece and the laptop screen as image thumbnails stutter in from the top. He clicks one half at random and there she is - and his thumb stalls on the trackpad for a second before he gets it going again.
"Right. The mermaid."
Cassie babbles a long, fond stream of nonsense at the screen.
"Yeah," Sam agrees, quieter. "Real pretty, huh?"
He carries on - half to the baby, half to himself - swiping slow through the roll with one hand while the other works the wipe over Cassie's fingers. Petra Palace breakfast. The scowl halfway up the 1,000 steps, green inky knuckles squeezing Scott's face into an expression of amused befuddlement. A blurry document behind glass. Her asleep on the train with a paperback collapsed on her chest. The narration thins out as he goes, the pirate captain quietly forgotten somewhere back near portā¦ it's hard to do voices when your throat's gone tight in revolt.
"ā¦an' then the mermaid," he tries, thumbing onto the next one - and it's the car rental place again, sunburnt cheeks, hands thrown up in a triumphant thumbs-up - "the mermaid rescues the whole - " and there he loses the thread entirely, because he's grinning down at the photo, and the sentence quietly dies where it stands.
A fat smear of drying yogurt sits square across the lower half of the screen, thankfully dragging him out of his stupor.
"ā¦We'll make an artist outta you yet, peanut." He fishes the wipe back out, rolling up his sleeves. "Gimme a sec, we'll get her cleaned up."
It's her he means to wipe toward - but the yogurt's smeared lower across the frame, and clearing her means clearing all of it. So, in doing so, his eye snags on the other figure in the shot.
Scott. Off to the side, half-turned, caught not knowing the lens was on him. The backward glance. The smirk Sam clocked weeks ago and documented, without a second thought, as nothing but 'jealousy'.
He drags the wipe down through the drying strawberry smear, leaning in - not for Scott, not consciously, just to be sure he's got it all -
And the cloth comes away clean over the lower third of the frame, and Sam goes still.
Because it's not the smirk, nor the way his eyes are on her.
It's the pocket. The wipe's cleared the whole bottom of the shot, and there, in the side pocket of Scott's shorts where the low desert sun catches it -Ā
"What'sā¦"
Sam leans in, eyes squinting.
A loop of fine gold chain, spilled half out. And just above it, pressed into the linen, a shape stamped against the fabric. Scalloped - noā¦ petalled.
His fingers fumble for the tiny magnifying glass on the screen, zooming in and dragging the pocket to the centre of the screen.
A floral impression.
Sam knows that shape. Has watched it sit against her collarbone for weeks on end. Watched it click home into an ostentatious box in a Cornish crypt - cut for the slot. And - unbidden, unhelpful, andĀ absolutelyĀ not the time for it - his mind's eye recalls how he's watched it closer than that.
The night she'd kept it on after he'd stripped her down to precious little else, the intricate metalwork settled in the hollow of her throat, rising and falling with her breath, catching the lamplight every time she moved. He'd pressed his mouth to the skin beside it and the metal had been cool against his lip, warm on one edge where it had lain against her, and she'd cursed right into his hair - and he'd thought, absurdly, tenderly, in the middle of everything, that it suited her. That some things simply know where they belong.
The locket.
He stops wiping. Cassie keeps up her happy commentary against his side; he doesn't pay much attention to it.
Because the funny thing - the thing that lifts the hair on his forearms - is that Scott claimed to have found that locket in a townhouse in Wiltshire. Weeks after this. Sam knows the exact moment, because Sam was on the phone for it: four hours deep into a microfilm reel with his eyes gone to sandpaper, when Scott had called in from the road.
"There's a weird little necklace thing in the mix too. Looks old. Could be junk."
Could be junk.
And yet here it is. In his pocket. In the desert. Days -Ā weeksĀ before a Wiltshire townhouse Scott hadn't so much as set foot in.
"ā¦Huh." Sam says, very quietly.
Cassie babbles up at him, a long burbling question, and he answers it on autopilot;
"You see that, Cass?" - already dragging the laptop square in front of him, the wipe abandoned in a sticky pinkish ball, two clumsy fingers finding the keys.
It's probably nothing. People misremember where they picked things up. He knows that, tells himself that - except Scott had that necklace before he ever said he did, and lied about it. It feels like a strange thing to lie about.
And Sam finds he very badly wants to know whatĀ elseĀ he doesn't know.
Call it boredom. Call it three and a half weeks of nothing to point himself at but booze and sex with strangers and a total lack of self-discipline. Call itā¦ professional curiosity, perhaps. Muscle memory, the itch derived from spending his whole life pulling threads - call itĀ anything, in fact,Ā exceptĀ what it is, which is that he was supposed to let this go. All of it. Him. Her. The inheritance, the whole shoddy mess of it - dropped, for the greater good of all three of them, that was the deal he made with himself in a parking lot in the Great British Rain.
But.
He types up his name two-fingered, hunched, Cassie supervising with a fresh fistful of his sweater: Scott Parker.
And Scott'sā¦ there. Real enough. A digital scattering of his career: an old dig-team photo, a name buried in an acknowledgements list on a thesis, a lapsed account or two, a tagged shot from some college alumni event. Ordinary. Findable. A man with a genuine, traceable, relatively unremarkable life. Nothing that prickles.
Which, somehow, only makes the necklace revelation nestle deeper into uncomfortable territory. Because a man with a pretty traceable life and nothing to hide had stillā¦ curated a lie about a locket for no reason on God's earth that Sam can see.
So he goes at it the way he goes at everything. Sideways, dirty, from underneath, the only way he's ever found anything worth finding.
Now, Sam's grasp of the internet is loose at best, but there is one thing a hundred grim motel-room searches for things that don't want finding have taught him: the good stuff never lives on page one.
Page one is for people selling you things. The primetime slot. The deeper you scroll - past the polish, past the ads, down into the unloved sediment of online drivel - the stranger and older the results get, and strange and old is exactly where Sam works best.
"Parker, Parker, Parker."
Because his whole life, by his own endless telling, has been this - chasing, digging, hunting, scrounging for scraps and making something out of nothing - Sam ends up where these things always end up, down in the digitised guts of old regional papers nobody's opened in thirty years.
Cassie, bored of the screen's silent nonsense, rediscovers the far more compelling terrain of her uncle's face. A small hand closes around his nose. Another finds purchase on his cheek and squeezes with proprietary confidence.
"Yep - thank you - very helpful," Sam mutters, dipping and weaving without ever taking his eyes off the screen, letting her mash his features around like dough - because his attention has narrowed to a single point now, and somewhere deep in his gut, a low hum has started revving up, climbing, and he couldn't tell you why,Ā andĀ it willĀ notĀ stop.
A scan loads onscreen. Grey, blotched, the column bleeding at the edges, the date along the top: 1994. An obituaries page of a local New South Wales tabloid. Sam's eyes track down it on reflex, theĀ dear-departeds, theĀ in-loving-memories, strangers' grief, left, right and centre; nothing, nothing -
Christopher Parker.
Sam stops.
He leans in.
PARKER, Christopher. Lost his life overseas, August 1994, aged 34 years. A man who spent his life chasing history across the globe, and who died doing what he loved. Dearly loved husband of Carly. Adored father of Scott and Kieran. In our hearts always.
He reads it twice. Then a third time, slower.
"Doin' what he loved?"
Sam sits back in Nathan's desk chair, lets a slow breath out through his nose, and looks at the grey little box of words.
So. There it is. Scott's dad. A man who chased history round the world, exactly like his boy went on to do, dead thirty years gone, when Scott would've been - what. A kid, maybe.
That's notā¦ sinister, necessarily. That's just sad. That's a boy who lost his old man young and grew up to do the same dangerous thing that killed him, the way people do, salting the wound for the rest of their lives.
And maybe - Sam turns it over, wanting it to fit - maybe that's all the necklace ever was, too. Some heirloom. Some last thing of his father's he didn't fancy explaining to two acquaintances, didn't want the patronising sympathy or the hounding questions, so he tucked it into a story about a townhouse in Wiltshire to keep the whole thing light.
People do that. People lie to keep their grief to themselves. Sam would know.
Can't be anything untoward in a dead dad and a secret locket.
Can there?
He chews the inside of his lip, eyes still on the obituary.
"ā¦What d'you reckon, peanut?" he murmurs.
Cassie, gnawing thoughtfully on his sleeve, offers no opinion.
"Yeah. Nah. Me neither."
Because 'doing what he loved' is the kind of thing you write when what he wasĀ actuallyĀ doing doesn't bear writing down. Sam's read enough of those.Ā SaidĀ enough of those, if he's honest, standing over enough holes in enough ground - he knows the performance of a tidy sentence laid gently over an untidy death; a tarpaulin laid over something you didn't want the family to see.
And the locket, and the little lie, and the boy who grew up and forged a career in the same thing that put his father in the ground - and who never once, in the better part of months of deserts and digs and beers and fist fights, so much as mentioned it -
It snags. Catches, like an oversized sleeve on a door handle, and yanks him back to reassess.
It's nothing he can put a name to yet. Nothing he could say out loud without feeling like a paranoid idiot. Just a low rumble starting up somewhere under his ribs, the one he's learned, over a tumultuous and questionably-spent life, never to ignore - the one that saysĀ look closer,Ā look closer, you're missing something.
He shifts Cassie more securely into the crook of his arm, settles his elbows on the edge of Nathan's desk as she starts her best Chopin impression on the wood, and lets his two slowest fingers go hunting across the keys, spelling out the name that's set the whole thing buzzing.
C-H-R-I-S-T-O-P-H-E-R.
The cursor blinks, patient, in the empty white box.
And he starts to type.
P-A-R-K-E-R. Then, after a beat, the year of the obituary: 1-9-9-4 - D-E-A-T-H. Enter.
The first page is chaff - the living Christopher Parkers of the world, estate agents and rugby coaches and a chiropractor in Illinois - and Sam scrolls straight through them, down, down into the sediment, thumbing the trackpad with a knuckle while Cassie now works, frowning, at the Chinese menu.
And near the bottom, half-swallowed by a genealogy site that looks like it was built in the eighties, there's a link. Another scan. Another regional paper, the same August, and this one isn't an obituary.
It's a news piece.
The headline loads first, in tall smudged capitals across three columns:
NEW SOUTH WALES RESEARCHERS FOUND DEAD ATĀ KASTROM MEFA'AĀ RUINS.
Sam's eyes are already moving, fast, snatching fragments off the degraded scan the way you'd snatch things from a burning room -
ā¦Christopher Parker, 34, an amateur antiquities enthusiast of Yamba's northern suburbsā¦ discovered alongside Martha Anyango ------, 29, a postgraduate archaeological researcherā¦ the pair are understood to have entered the ancient site without permit or supervisionā¦
A young woman. Twenty-nine. A researcher. Clever, young, brought out to the desert on somebody else's watch -
He clicks open a new tab, typing inĀ Kastrom Mefa'a, flicking back to the prior while it loads.
SomethingĀ thwapsĀ him gently across the mouth.
He blinks.
Cassie, having apparently reached the conclusion that his attention has wandered, is enthusiastically attempting to feed him the crumpled menu with a "brrrpptlfltt" of concentration. Every time he fails to open his mouth, she gives him another determined little swat with it.
"Yeah, alright."
He gently lowers the menu before she can chew a corner off it, hitches her a little higher on his hip, and turns back to the screen.
ā¦local authorities confirmed the young woman died of a catastrophic haemorrhage; the cause of Mr Parker's injuries has not been made publicā¦ no other parties are being soughtā¦
"Jesusā¦" He murmurs, clicking back to the new tab.
And there, slap bang at the top of the search results:
He can see, with a clarity that grabs his lungs and squeezes hard, her face grey under torchlight, her whole body shaking, her nose bleeding, time and time and time again -Ā bleeding, horrific headaches, and how back in Chatham he'd carried her to the car and told himself it was theā¦ travel, the heat, the near-death experience and the trauma of waking up beside a dead body, all, of course only worsening the original catalyst: that it wasĀ hisĀ fault for knocking her into that poolā¦ and he never once took it back out to inspect-
A girl, just shy of thirty, a researcher, who went down into Umm ar-Rasas on Scott's father's treasure hunt andā¦ bledā¦ to death.
And three decades later Christopher Parker'sĀ sonĀ found himself another clever young girl, and took her to the exact same hole in the exact same ground -
And she... started feeling strangeā¦
Andā¦ the necklace - theĀ necklace, the thing that started this whole miserable late-night seminar - sits in the middle, sucking his attention in like a black hole, bending everything toward it. Because - run it again: if it's an important artifact, you don't lie about where it came fromĀ and then hang it round a colleague's neck for weeks. You keep it. In a box, in a safe, against yourĀ ownĀ sternum. Nobody launders a sentimental object through a fake Wiltshire townhouse just to hand it straight to the hired researcher like a party favour.
Unless the lie and the loan are a part of the same move.
He needs to call her. Now, tonight, this second - and heĀ can't. The number lives in the brick on the end of the cable and nowhere else, least of all his head, and his phone is dead because he drowned it himself, wallowing in self-pity and fetid thoughts instead of justā¦ checking.
And even if he conjured the number out of thin air - she wouldn't pick up. Why would she? The last thing he gave her was a horrible speech about her own good, right before she left... with him.
Oh.
Oh,Ā shit.
The harbour, the rain, Scott jabbing a finger into his chest, and Sam's own words coming back to him:Ā why else d'you drop the 'doctor' thing in my ear?Ā He'd known it even then, mid-swing. Scott had beenĀ listening.Ā Scott knew about the checkup - verbatim, early, had itĀ ready, locked and loaded, and slid it into Sam's ear at precisely the angle guaranteed to blow the two of them apart.
He wasn't just stirring for sport. Not being a nosey prick with a penchant for drama.Ā Aim.Ā Scott wanted them in fragments. Wanted SamĀ out of the pictureĀ - needled him, wound him, handed him the grenade and stood well back - but wanted her toā¦ stay?
It's backwards. You're running a treasure hunt, you keep the treasure hunter. The forger, the climber, the guy who's been shot at on four continents - that's the asset. The bright-eyed Masters student is the one you thank and put on a plane. Scott burned the veteran off the job to keep the girl.
Why? Why does heĀ needĀ her?
And then - God, and then - the other thing Scott said that morning surfaces. The thing Sam took a swing over and never once took apart:
"She found the cufflink that day instead. Again - progress."
Progress. A girl bleeding from the face out of the blue on a semi-weekly basis skips the doctor, and Scott calls itĀ progress. Sam had heard callousness. Sam hadĀ beenĀ callous. But upon reflection, you don't call a concerning symptom progress unless the symptom is somehow part of the job.
Scott hadn't overlooked her getting worse. Scott was the only one of them paying proper attention.
Sam realises he's stopped talking out loud. Realises, too, that his arm has curled all the way around his niece, snug, like something in the room needs guarding - like he's not going to allow another precious girl slip out of safety - and there's nothing here but a laptop and a dead phone and thirty-year-old newsprint.
"Am I losin' it?" he asks Cassie, quietly. "Blink once for yes."
She stares at him with the unblinking candour of the small and sturdy.
He frowns deeper. Because there's one more thing, while the dominoes are toppling one by one. Amman. Scott barrelling into her hotel room soaked in sweat, wild-eyed,Ā I was followedĀ - and Sam had never seen him like that, before or since. Rattled. Properly frightened. Practically begging Sam, of all people, for reassurance. And Sam's not saying the tail wasn't real. He's got no evidence it wasn't real. What he's got is the shape of what happened after: nothing. Nobody ever showed. No second sighting, no break-in, no follow-up, not so much as a nervous glance over the shoulder - the terror of being involved in a potential chase or - God forbid, murder investigation, just evaporated over time, unmentioned, unexplained, and by the time the finds started landing in their laps; the ledger, the box, the letters, the scroll; Scott was back to wall-to-wall smirking and flirting and fuckingĀ encouragingĀ her to do more and more, like the fear had done its job and been put away for winter.
No. Nah. That - that doesn't prove anything. He knows that. Frightened men calm down; threats fizzle; life's like that.
It just itches. Everything about the man, tonight, itches.
Sam is aware, distantly, of what all this looks like. He's watched other men do it - build mountains out of molehills because the alternative was admitting they just wanted a reason to call her. And some pathetic synapse within him puts its hand up and owns it: yeah. Maybe. Maybe he's cooking up a fantasy because fantasies give him permission to go back.
He looks up to the ceiling, huffing a breath.
Sam can't explain it. The feeling in his gut. He's not going to try tonight; theĀ howĀ of it is a problem for daylight, for research, for a man with more than two brain cells not currently on fire, and not in sole charge of an infant. All he knows is that every separate thing he's found tonight bends the same direction: that her, alone, with Scott, is no good thing.
A ridiculous notion. Sure.
He'll take ridiculous over wrong.
Sam is on his feet. The chair's cracked back against the wall and Cassie's clutched to his chest, startled, a small fist bunched in his collar, and the low hum under his ribs has evolved into a siren. Every instinct he owns standing straight up at once and screaming the same three words -
She's not safe.
She could be fine. That's the sane voice, somewhere at the back, ruling its objection - she could be home this very minute, dead asleep, phone on charge, a thousand miles from every type of Samuel Drake and Scott Parker and every hole in the ground they've ever loved. Could be.
ButĀ could beĀ is a coin flip, and Sam has never once in his life let a coin land flat without looking.
Until he confirms it, she's anything but.
"Okay - okay - " He's already moving, away from the desk through the dark kitchen, Cassie jostling against his shoulder and starting to grumble, one big hand cupped to the back of her head on pure autopilot - "s'okay, peanut, s'okay, Uncle Sammy's just - " Where does Nathan keep the house phone. There's a house phone, he's seen it, a landline in this day and age,Ā where's the damnĀ - hallway. Hallway table. He barrels down the hall in the dark, snatches the handset off its cradle, stabs it awake with his thumb.
Dial tone. Beautiful, prehistoric dial tone.
Back to the desk, handset jammed between ear and shoulder, Cassie redistributed to one arm, two fingers already stabbing at the laptop:Ā fox and fiddle pub bromley south east london.Ā The results cough up half the foxes in the city - a Fox & Firkin, a Fiddler's Arms, a gastro-looking thing with the right name and none of the character - and he scrolls on a knuckle, squinting at thumbnails, until: there. Greeny-blue tiled frontage, hanging baskets gone leggy, the A-board with the chalk ghost of a hundred rewritten deals and soccer matches and happy hours. He'd started a fight at that bar. Got patched up in that cupboard. That's the one.
He does the maths on his fingers, hours leaping forward across an ocean. Late there. Last orders gone, lights coming up, some poor soul mopping, just like she was when he first encountered her in person -Ā focus, SamuelĀ - but somebody'll still be in, cashing up, and if there's a God at all it'll be her - and he can hear her voice and feel like the world's biggest, most fortunate idiot, and hang up, and breathe.
He dials the number off the screen. International charges be damned. It rings.
And only now - naturally, helpfully, with the line already live - does administrative panic arrive: what exactly is he going toĀ say? Three and a half weeks of silence, an ocean of it, and his grand opening move is a phone call to her place of work at midnight like some -
The dial tone stops.
"Sorry, mate. We're closed. You can call back tomorrow." A man. Flat, tired, the clatter of glasses clinking somewhere close to him.
Not her. Sam's grip tightens on the handset. He exhales.
"Yeah - no, I know, sorry. I'm, uh, tryin' to reach one of your staff." And then he says her name. Out loud, for the first time in three and a half weeks - it comes out rougher than he means it to, like it snagged on something on the way up. "She workin' tonight?"
A pause. Long enough to hear the hum of a fridge, a chair going up on a table.
"ā¦You taking the piss?"
Sam's stomach tips. "What? No, I - "
"Mate, she's not been in for weeks. No call, no text, nothing - number just goes straight to voicemail. I've had to cancel my holiday to cover her shifts because the boss is too tight to hire a newbie." A huff, more tired than unkind. "You find her, tell her she's got to get her arse back here. You a friend?"
Sam doesn't answer.
He can't. The phone's speaker has gone very far away and very loud all at once, his own pulse a sudden tidal wave rushing betweeen his ears - weeks, no call, no text, voicemail, and somewhere on the other side of the world a stranger is sayingĀ hello? ā¦hello?Ā into a phone that Sam's no longer holding to his ear so much as gripping like a guard rail on a crumbling ledge.
He hangs up. Stands there in the dark with his niece, white noise crackling down the phone, and the roar of blood rising into his head.
Weeks.
What has he done?
He didn't walk away - he wasĀ walked. Scott held the door, and Sam marched through it with his stupid ideas of nobility in his damn mouth, and left her standing there, ripe for picking, and-
He takes half a second to try and convince himself that she's simply gone off with Scott to spite him. But that's bullshit. She was always so careful about cooking up the perfect excuse. Far too considerate to leave even the job she hated high and dry.
What the fuck has heĀ done?
Numbers. He needs numbers. A voice of reason. Victor's, maybe - which one? The man changes numbers like clothes. Chloe's? She knows Scott. The address book - Elena keeps an address book, some ugly floral thing, hallway drawer - he wrenches the drawer so hard it comes off its runner, random keys, takeout menus and rubber bands cascading over his feet, Cassie now crying in earnest against his neck.
"I know, sweetheart, I know - " he breathes, bouncing her, cradling the phone in the crook of his neck, punching in the first number his fingers dredge up, eyes wild in the dark, heart going like a fist on a door. It rings once. Twice.
Warnings: it's relatively soft and sappy filth. Read with discretion. Find detailed tags on ao3. smut, fwb idiots in luuurve but refusing to say it, sex on a boat just off the coat of southern Greece, multiple orgasms, messy tenderness, insatiable Sam, and a frankly irresponsible lack of sunscreen.
Honestly.... all that happened was that i went on hols to Greece, saw a yacht out in the middle of the sea, and started daydreaming.
The Ionian glitters like spilled sapphires beneath the late afternoon sun, the sea a rolling mirror of gold and blue. Post-swim salt clings to their skin, drying in pale crystals as the swell rocks the little yacht just enough to make every touch feel looser, lazier, like gravity itself has softened. Samās mouth tastes of brine and the sweetness of sparkling wine stolen hours before, his stubble damp against her throat as he pins her down on the warm deck cushions.
His weight on top of her keeps her tethered, keeps her from floating off into the endless blue, but itās the grin - wolfish, cocky as ever, and the crassness of his question contrasting everything around them that makes her laugh even with her breath caught in her chest.
āHmmā¦" She lets the pause linger, eyes flicking out over the coast where the Peloponnese slopes into the sea. Her head tilts back, smiling slow, feigning thought, as though she hasnāt already decided how to tease him.
"There was this one guy.ā
His brows go up, eyes glinting with mock offense, lips ghosting over her collarbone.
āThat so?ā The rumble in his chest vibrates through her.
She hums, fingers curling into his damp hair. āHuge dick,ā she says casually, watching his smirk deepen, the way his eyes narrow with intrigue.
āMmhm,ā he encourages, dragging the sound out, all but daring her to keep going.
āThick,ā she adds, lips twitching, enjoying the way his mouth stills against her skin, the way his jaw flexes just once before he recovers.
āWell, aināt that somethinā.ā Heās half-smiling, half-scowling, the mix of pride and jealousy that only he can pull off.
She sighs, feigning dreamy. āBuilt like he was carved for it.ā
āUh-huh.ā He nips at her collarbone, grinding down slow, the sea rocking them into rhythm. āAnd?ā
She lets the silence hang for a beat, just long enough to feel the tension coil tighter between them, before delivering the coup de grĆ¢ce.
āI had to fake it.ā
His laugh bursts out of him, hot and unrestrained, shaking against her chest as he dips back in for a kiss. āGuess Iāll be makinā up for that, huh?ā he mutters against her mouth. āTwo for the lady?ā
She laughs, tugging his lip with her teeth. āTwoās bold.ā
āAlright-ā he pulls back just enough to grin down at her, devilish and soft all at once, āmake it three.ā
Her giggle echoes with the rush of waves against the hull, bright as the sunlight scattering across the water. Heās insatiable, greedy for every curve of her, his hands mapping her like coastline, familiar yet newly discovered each time they get to be together. She arches beneath him, body yielding and defiant all at once, and he takes it as if itās his right, his hunger too long starved.
They are both creatures of drift and return, like the sea that throws itself endlessly at the shore, retreating only to come back again. Their lives donāt leave room for full-fledged commitment, not the kind others would recognise, but while tomorrow is bound to pull them apart again, today the world has stilled, and he isnāt letting the opportunity go lightly.
The sun is merciless, burning bronze into his shoulders and streaking her curves with heat that glows where his palms have already claimed her. She lies bare beneath him, the yachtās deck gleaming around them like some altar to the sea, nothing between them and the raw sunlight but breath and want.
He worships her slowly, mouth trailing the salt-slick map of her body, the contrast of his rough tongue and her softness an endless undoing.
Thereās no pretence here, nor shadows, sheets to hide under. Just the two of them, skin to skin, sun hammering down like it knows their secret and wants to sear it into memory. His hands are greedy, possessive, sliding over every curve as if he might forget the shape of her if he doesnāt relearn it now, in this harsh, hot light. Her thighs, her hips, the dip of her waist - each one another vice he canāt seem to quit.
He kisses the soft swell of her stomach as she hooks her leg over his shoulder, drawing him in tighter, and he grins up at her.
Sheās spread wide beneath him, sun-warmed and slick, her thighs parted with the lazy surrender of someone who knows sheās wanted - knows sheās about to be devoured. He groans low when he licks into her, when that first hit of her floods his mouth, fresh and warm and wet. The sweetness of her core cuts through the brine clinging to their skin, a taste that anchors him more surely than the boatās mooring line, something he would drown for willingly. She trembles under him, laughter caught on the edge of gasps, the sea breeze tugging her hair into wild waves around her flushed face.
She's richer, more intoxicating than any olive oil or fresh honey the mainland has to offer; sheās sweet and sharp and something wholly her own, and it undoes him every time he gets the chance to drink her up.
Sam hooks his arms around her thighs, dragging her closer until his face is buried in the soft, pulsing heat of her. One arm stays locked tight, keeping her from wriggling away even as she shudders under his tongue. The other hand travels greedily, kneading up the plush give of her belly, thumb pressing in as if he wants to mark the path. Reaching further still, he palms her breast, fingers curling around the curve, then pinches her nipple between two knuckles until she gasps, arching toward him, her moan sweet and breathy above the lapping of the water against the keel.
Her hands are tangled insistently in his hair, strands coarse from salt, stiff and clumped in places, but the curls at the nape of his neck are tighter than usual, wet and defined, and she grips them as if theyāre reins. He fucking loves it - how she canāt decide if she wants to tug him closer or push him away, her hips jerking under his mouth, her thighs tensing every time he sucks on her clit with deliberate, hungry pressure.
āGod-ā she breathes, almost choking on the sensation, but he doesnāt stop. He flattens his tongue and drags it slow, then flicks, then sucks, and the wet, almost vulgar sounds coming from between her legs mix with the distant thrum of cicadas and the soft slap of waves against the hull.
He groans into her again, the vibration making her whimper, hips twitching. He could stay here all goddamn day. The sun burns across his back, a sharp sting over shoulders that are already getting a little red, but he doesnāt care. She can chastise him for the lack of factor-fifty later. The only thing that matters in this moment is the way she tastes, the way she pulses under his mouth, wet and wanting and wild.
He dips his tongue deeper, using the hand gripping her thigh to angle her just right, nose nudging against her clit as he presses in. His hand slides back up her belly, fingers greedy, possessive, thumbs circling her nipple again just to feel her twitch, pulling him deeper.
āFuck-ā she blurts out from where she's hiding under her forearm, writhing, her voice cracked open.
And Sam just grins against her, lips soaked in her, drunk on her.
Heāll never, ever get enough.
His hunger shifts from worship to indulgence, deeper and filthier. Sam eases two fingers inside her, slow at first, the drag of his knuckles parting her, stretching her with an ache so perfect she groans up into the sky, loud and languid. Sheās soaked for him already, her body greedy for the intrusion, and the way his hand curls, finding that spot, makes her whimper like sheās got no control left.
His mouth doesnāt leave her clit. He sucks hard, tongue flicking against her in quick bursts. The combination has her undone faster than she wants to admit.
Her jaw slackens, breath catching on a broken cry. Pressure builds low and hard, coiling with every curl of his fingers, every hungry pull of his mouth.
āS-ā is all she manages, a warning that melts into a moan, but he only groans in response, the vibration buzzing right against her, pushing her closer to the edge.
She snaps, arching high, a deep, guttural sound tearing free from her chest as the climax crashes over her. Her arms give out, flopping uselessly against the cushions, fingers twitching like theyāve forgotten how to hold him. Her whole body shudders in his grasp, thighs trembling around his head, and he holds her steady, lets her ride the waves until they leave her gasping and loose beneath him.
But he doesnāt stop. Not really. He slows, softens the pace, his tongue easing into gentle circles, lips lapping up everything she spills for him. His fingers keep moving, a languid rhythm that keeps her stretched, keeps her fluttering around him without tipping her into pain or over-stimulation. He draws her down carefully, savouring her, swallowing her like heās determined not to waste a drop.
Her chest heaves, hair plastered to her temples with sweat, the sun beating down hot enough to sting salt-abraised skin. And still, he doesnāt lift his head. Doesnāt give her even a moment to close her legs or gather herself. He keeps her open, tender, pliant - worked just enough so that when he finally moves above her again, sheāll be ready for exactly what heās been aching to give.
āMissed this,ā he rasps against her, lips wet, fingers still inside her, stroking slow. āCould keep you like this forever.ā
And from the helpless sound she makes as he slides his hand from between her twitching thighs, half protest, half plea, he knows she believes him.
She rises slowly, boneless from release, the curve of her spine casting a shadow across his chest. The yacht creaks gently beneath them, tethered to the swell of the Ionian, water glittering like crushed glass all around. Her skin glows, flushed and golden, and sheās trembling faintly from the lingering thrum of pleasure.
Her eyes are heavy-lidded, dark with satisfaction and something softer beneath it. She smiles down at him, lazy and slightly embarrassed; the kind of smile heād cross continents to see again.
Sam props himself up on an elbow, his fingers still glistening from where he worked her open, from where he made her fall apart - and he watches her blown pupils drop to them like a magnet.
She doesnāt speak. She just opens her mouth, lips parted in invitation, eyes flicking up to meet his in a way that always makes his blood run hot.
He obliges, bringing his fingers to her lips. She closes around them without hesitation, tongue curling to taste herself from his skin. His cock pulses at the sight, at the warmth of her mouth and the scrape of her teeth, her eyes never leaving his.
āJesus,ā he murmurs, voice wrecked. āYouāre somethinā else.ā
She hums around his fingers, then lets them slip free, only for him to catch her by the back of the neck and pull her into a kiss. Itās deep and unhurried, tang and heat and lingering sweetness that leaves no doubt about what he feels about her.
He leans back, guiding her down with him, and she follows willingly, straddling his hips as he lays flat against the cushions. She braces herself on his chest, and he wraps his arms around her waist like heās afraid sheāll disappear if he doesnāt hold on tight enough.
Above them, the sky is endless; seamless blue without a single cloud. Around them, the sea stretches out to forever, the rugged green of the Peloponnese coast cradling the boat, but all he can breathe in is her skin, her hair, the sticky-sweet arousal still clinging to his lips.
Theyāve been apart too long, gone too far in opposite directions, and he doesnāt know how long theyāll have this time. But right now, with her naked and flushed and stretched out over him, the warmth of her pressed to every inch of him, he knows heād give up every plan, every coin, every thrill heās ever chased, just to keep her here a little longer.
She looks down at him, smile still playing at the corners of her mouth, fingertips brushing the subtle burn blooming across his chest and shoulders.
āYou're gonna peel.ā she murmurs.
He chuckles, dragging his hands up her back, slow and possessive.
āDon't care.ā
He pulls her down into another kiss, slower this time, deeper, and his breath catches the moment her hand slides between them, fingertips dragging down his stomach, over the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath the waistband of his sodden swim shorts. Her touch is languid but deliberate, the pads of her fingers grazing the length of him, already thick and straining, twitching at the barest contact.
The kiss falters as he groans into her mouth, hips instinctively lifting toward her palm. She smiles, not coy but knowing, the kind of smile only she wears when heās completely undone beneath her. She strokes him slowly, the velvet hardness of him pulsing in her grip, and he drops his head back against the cushions.
āSweetheart,ā he mutters, voice ragged, āyouāre gonna be the death'a me.ā
āMm,ā she hums, dragging her lips along his jaw, savouring the rasp of stubble and sun-warmed skin. āThatād be a hell of a way to go.ā
She shifts her hips, rising just enough to tug the fabric down, freeing him. He springs up heavy and flushed, the tip glistening, and she doesnāt hesitate to guide him home, her palm wrapped firm around the base, angling him beneath her.
He watches her with fevered eyes, breath shallow, fingers flexing at her soft hips. But when she starts to sink down, she pauses just to watch him. Her eyes stay on his face, not his body, drinking in the way his mouth falls open, the soft hum of laughter that slips from him as the head of his cock breaches.
The fit is tight, even after everything he just did to her. Sheās still so warm and wet around him, and the way she slides down, inch by inch, has him huff out slowly, brow furrowed like heās in pain.
She doesnāt look away. She watches every twitch of his jaw, the way his eyes flicker half-lidded and dark, the way he fights not to thrust up into her too soon.
āShit,ā he breathes, hands clutching her thighs now as they squeeze flush against his hips, thumbs digging into her flushed skin once she finally seats herself fully, his cock buried to the hilt. āLook at you. Goddamn.ā
The boat rocks gently beneath them, creaking with the current. He throbs inside her, thick and twitching, and she shifts just slightly, grinding her hips to feel the weight of him press deeper.
There is nothing else. No time, no promises, no distance. Just the sun, the sea, and him beneath her, thanking the God he may or may not believe in for her existence.
She rolls her hips slow at first, testing the aftershocks still sparking through her. The sea breeze skims over damp skin, and her nipples pebble tight, flushed against the hot gold of her chest. Sensitivity makes everything saturate her nerves further; every inch of him a thick, insistent pressure inside her that turns the world to white noise and sunlight.
He looks up at her and - hell - he doesnāt just smile; he laughs, helpless and dazzled. The sound is pure joy, breathless and intoxicated, like he canāt believe his luck. His hands frame her waist, thumbs stroking the soft give there as she circles down, squeezing around him. Sheās so wet he can hear it; streaming heat along him. The yacht answers with its own rhythm - cordage ticking, hull sighing, the water lifting them in slow, generous swells.
āLook at you,ā he repeats, voice gone rough with awe, watching the rolling tide that ripples through her whole body, stealing every ounce of his attention; the soft bounce of her breasts, the roll of her stomach, the furrow of concentration that melts into a grin when his hands slip up to cup her and guide. She blocks the sun for him, haloed by it instead; the sky a ring of blinding white around her. He squints up, not from glare but because sheās too much and exactly enough. āAngel.ā he breathes, almost a laugh again.
āStop,ā she pants, face flushing harder as she drops her hips and takes him deeper, and the way she squeezes - clenching down at the bottom of the stroke like sheās reminding him where he belongs - makes his head tip back, throat bared to the sky as he swallows. He feels her everywhere: the heat, the slip, the fluttering pull that milks him on every glide. She rides him with a tenderness that tips into the territory of possession, telling him without words that heās hers as surely as she is his.
He canāt stop touching her. One palm slides up, thumbs skimming the slope of her belly, then higher to catch the sway of her breasts; he rolls a nipple between finger and thumb again and watches her shiver, hears the hitch in her breath. The other hand spreads wide at her lower back, anchoring her, helping her find that angle that makes both of them go a little dumb. Sheās slick enough to shine, sunlight catching along the seam where they meet, and when she presses down to grind, he feels the warm flood of her around him, the greedy clutch that has him swearing into the wind.
He murmurs curses, wonder threaded through the filth as he tells her to take what she wants. Heās besotted, plain and simple.
She plants a hand on his chest, nails scratching lightly through the fine salt grit, and rides him harder, faster. Every push drags a new sound from him, half laugh, half broken plea. He could live right here, under her, forever: Grecian peninsula a smudge of green to starboard, the scent of wood and sand and lingering sunscreen floating in ribbons through the air, gulls carving white arcs above. He's lost in her and she sees it.
āThree, huh?ā she manages, breath stuttering as a tremor runs through her. āYouād better- ah- keep up.ā
āKeep up,ā he parrots, giddy with adoration and heat, hands bruising at her hips as she bears down and squeezes him again, a wet, perfect clutch that makes his eyes roll. āAs if I couldn't do this allā¦ fuckin' day.ā
She laughs - bright, incredulous, deeply fond - and then sheās rolling her hips just so, and his laugh turns to a groan. He lies there, completely enthralled by the miracle of her; how she gleams and streams and tightens around him, how her body was carved for his hands and his heart both - thinking thereās nothing holier in the whole wide fucking horrible world than this.
He aches to have her closer, to feel her weight pressed fully to him, to smother himself in her warmth - to be suffocated by her. His hand slides up from her waist, rough palm cupping her jaw with a reverence that almost breaks him. Then his fingers thread into her hair, salt-stiff strands tangling as he tugs her down.
She goes willingly, folding over him, and he clamps her torso to his, chest to chest, the soft weight of her breasts flattening against his skin. He kisses her deep, greedy, swallowing every gasp as if he can draw her into his lungs. The angle shifts, her clit grinding against the root of his cock with each rock of her hips; and she moans into his mouth, the sound caught between them, trembling and helpless.
Her thighs tighten around his hips, her body clenching with telltale rhythm, and he knows. He feels her on the edge, the slick squeeze around him quickening, fluttering like her bodyās already begging to give in again. His hands roam; one fisted in her hair, holding her mouth to his, the other spread over her back, dragging her down harder so each thrust rubs her clit against him, lighting her nerves on fire.
Every roll of the yacht rocks them together, body against body, as if the Ionian Sea itself wants in on their rhythm, wants to remind them that nothing is steady but the tide. He kisses her hard, salt-stung lips parting for him, and it tastes like everything heās missed - like home, when neither of them truly has one.
She breaks from the kiss with a groan, lips swollen, eyes wide and hazy. Her breath stutters against his cheek as she rocks harder, chasing it. āSam- fuck, Iām-ā
āYeah,ā he rasps, voice tight with love and hunger both, āGive it to me.ā
The sea lifts them, the yacht creaking, sunlight pouring molten over their tangled bodies. She clings to him, jaw slack, drool pooling on the curve of his neck into shoulder, hips grinding with desperate rhythm, and he feels her spiralling closer-number two trembling just within reach.
It takes her like a tide hitting rock- second climax ripping through her, spine bowing, mouth open on a sound thatās half sob, half triumph. Her whole body seizes around him, a fierce, fluttering grip that makes his vision stutter white at the edges. Heat blooms everywhere: across her throat as it arches, along the tight cords of her belly as it knots and releases, down her thighs as they quake and lock around his hips. She trembles in great, shivering waves, nails skittering uselessly at his shoulders before her hands simply clutch, holding on like heās the only solid thing on the moving tide.
He watches it all in dazzled, breathless awe; the way her lashes go wet at the corners from the force of it, the way a flush climbs her chest like spilled wine, the way her nipples pebble harder in the breeze even as the rest of her melts heavy and boneless against him. He feels her teeth sink into his shoulder and the hot pulse of her cunt around his cock, that greedy, milking squeeze that drags a helpless groan out of him. Inside her, heās pinned and owned, and it sends a bruised, tender pride through his ribs: I did this. I get to tear her apart and put her back together.
āAttagirl,ā he breathes, forehead tipped to her temple, catching the ragged hitch of her moan with his thumb as he strokes up her jaw.
He stills deep, lets her ride the quake with him thick and steady inside, his other hand wide on her back to keep her from shaking right off him.
She sags when the peak breaks, a long, low exhale fogging his cheek. He doesnāt move yet- wonāt risk turning that keen edge into a flinch. He just holds her and counts heartbeats, kisses her hairline, lets the wind dry the sweat at her temples. His thumbs stroke slow circles where her back dimples, coaxing breath back into her, easing the tremble into a hum. Inside, he gives her nothing but warmth- no thrust, no grind at her clit- just the comfort of being kept full.
āWhere are ya?ā he murmurs against her ear, tenderness threaded through the roughness.
She huffs a laugh, knowing and grateful. āGreen,ā she whispers, voice smoky, barely there. āJustā¦ be careful.ā
ā'Course, gorgeous.ā he promises, and means it.
He shifts minutely, an angle change more than a movement, drawing her hips a breath higher along his pelvis so the base of him stops catching her where she's swollen and sensitive. He props her with one forearm between her shoulder blades to take some weight off, the other palm cupping her ass, guiding. Then he starts again, patient as tide: shallow, unhurried strokes that savour the slick heat without scraping raw. He kisses her, long and sweet; when she gasps, heās already pulling back, letting the sensation bloom and bleed out but not bite.
He tips a corner of the deck towel to shade one half of her back, an improvised awning against the ruthless sun, and she smiles into his mouth like heās done something heroic.
āYou,ā she murmurs, fond and disbelieving.
āMe,ā he agrees, hands steady, eyes crinkling with a smirk she wants to photograph and keep forever. He keeps the rhythm low and deep, the kind that settles her rather than startles- two slow, one shallower, a pause to breathe with her. He watches every change in her face, every tiny uncurling of tension, and when she begins to meet him again, little flexes, a curious roll of her hips, he answers with a touch more depth, still skimming past the direct pressure of her clit. Her body opens to it, stretching in soft, dripping invitation; he can feel her recovering under his palms, desire returning like warmth to chilled fingers.
āTell me when you want more,ā he says, voice a scrape of velvet.
āNow,ā she breathes a moment later, a smile breaking through, small and tired.
So he gives her slightly more - just a brush of his pubic bone at the top of each stroke, a careful nudge, then away again, teasing the line between too much and just right. She shivers, not overwhelmed this time, but satisfied; lulled. He keeps her there, coaxing the afterglow into the third wave he promised: lips at her throat, breath in her ear, words like a hand at the small of her back. Thatās it. Iāve got you.
When her hips start to chase - little circles, a searching grind - he adds one fingertip where their bodies meet, the gentlest counterpressure to guide her. It lights her up without tipping her over the edge too hard. Her breath shortens. The muscles around him grow intent again, clutching and releasing in a rhythm that tells him she's climbing again; not as violent as the first or second, but deeper. He matches it, patient, reverent, keeping her hood from the direct scrape of friction with the careful tilt of his hips.
"Oh, my God-"
āOne more f'me,ā he murmurs, lips smiling against her cheek as the first tremor gathers. āOne more.ā
And when it comes, itās a long unwinding, her body tightening around him like a silk knot and then loosening with a low, stunned tug. No sharp jolt this time, no flinch - just a gentle wave that carries her through with pleasure and no sting, her fingers fisting in the towel as she melts all over again. He holds the rhythm steady until sheās through it, then cradles her close and still, kissing the corner of her grin, letting the boat do the rocking while her breath evens and the sunlight continues its westward descent.
He moves gently, his hands warm on her hips, thumbs stroking over her skin as he guides her onto her back. Her body sinks into the cushions beneath them, spent and sensitive, but she welcomes the weight of him as he settles between her legs, still buried deep, still thick and throbbing with the last stretch of control.
He braces himself on his forearms to keep most of his weight off her, eyes flicking across her face. But she only smiles, dazed and flushed, the lines of her mouth soft with affection and exhaustion. Her legs fall open around him, pliant and welcoming, and he shakes his head in disbelief when she wraps them loosely around his waist.
He bows his head, lashes low, smile flickering across his lips like he doesnāt know what to do with the tenderness swelling in his chest. His hips move slow, deep, searching for his own release.
Her gaze wanders over him, drinking in the salt-streaked heat of his skin, the planes of muscle working under bronzed flesh, the scars carved into him like short stories she still hasn't fully been told. His brow is drawn tight in concentration, jaw locked as he tries to ride the edge without tipping too fast- always so careful with her, even now, even when heās this close.
She wonders how he could ever think heās not enough. Not worthy. As if every inch of him isnāt proof otherwise.
āHey,ā she whispers, hands trembling as she lifts them to the nape of his neck, fingers threading into his hair, damp and coarse from the sea. She tugs him down, pulls him into a kiss thatās sweet and slow and full of everything they wonāt say aloud.
He groans into her mouth, hips jerking just slightly as he thrusts deeper, chasing that final peak.
āYou're so-ā she breathes against his lips, voice like silk snagged on broken glass. "So good."
He chokes on a sound- half laughter, half despair- and the tightness in his brow breaks as he starts to lose it.
āCāmon,ā she coaxes, tired eyes locked on his, āwant-ā she cuts herself off with a bite to the lip that confines a loud whine to the back of her throat.
He falters, the practiced drive breaking down into stutters, his hips pressing hard as if he canāt help himself. His grip tightens, fingers digging deep at her waist, dragging her closer until thereās no space left. His breath tears ragged from his chest, forehead tipping to her temple. āShit- God, sweetheart-ā
āMhm.ā She hums the sound low, trailing kisses across his mouth, the edge of his jaw, anywhere she can reach as her legs coil tighter around him. Her thighs lock, the salt-slick slide of skin on skin a demand as much as it is a tether. Her whisper is steady, coaxing him down with her, soft as a promise: āCan take it-ā
He shudders, the final thread snapping. The sound he makes is broken, guttural, a surrender as his whole body knots and spills into her. His chest crashes against hers, every muscle taut and quaking, his breath a string of curses and her name, reverent and ruined, his mouth open against her skin, breathing heavy.
And she holds him through it- clutching, kissing, whispering steady little reassurances into his hair, until the storm wracks itself quiet. She runs her hands along his back as he breathes her in, careful not to let her nails agitate blooming sunburn.
For a long moment neither of them speaks. Heās heavy on her chest, still twitching gently inside her, still trembling faintly from release.
She tips her chin, eyes closed, lips pressing to his damp temple. He groans softly at the touch, more relief than lust, and kisses her back in kind - her temple, her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth and the shell of her ear. Little things. Stitching himself back together.
She squints against the harsh sun overhead, so he shifts without thinking, one forearm planting against the cushion, the other hand spreading wide over her belly as he leans just enough to block the glare. He shades her face with his body, grins when her eyes open again, softer now, less strained.
āBetter?ā he murmurs, voice low and raw.
āMm,ā she hums, lazy, half-dreamy. āHuman parasol. Iāll keep you.ā
āParasol, huh?ā He chuckles and dips down, kissing the line of sweat thatās trickled along her temple, then nuzzles into her hair despite the heat and the salt. His stubble scratches, his nose presses into the crown of her head. He doesnāt usually let himself get this soft- doesnāt usually drop the smirks and bravado. But with her, here, he sinks into it. Lets himself embrace the need.
Her arms wind around his back, fingers drifting lazy lines up and down his spine- soft as the breeze, salt-scented and endless. She isnāt asking for anything, not really. Just his closeness, his skin against hers, the reminder that for all their scattershot lives, this moment is here, and in time, it will be again.
When he finally pulls back enough to see her face, the look in her eyes stops him short. Thereās no banter in it, no challenge- just the quiet shine of something heās never managed to say without tripping over his own tongue. Love, stripped down and plain.
āBold,ā she murmurs, lips curving into a grin thatās all mischief and softness at once.
Sam huffs a laugh, chest still heaving, grin crooked and tired and entirely hers. āIām a man of my word.ā
Her soft laugh rises with the breeze, thumb brushing gently just beneath his eye like sheās smoothing away something he didnāt realize had shown. Her smile is small, certain, paired with a shrug. āBetter than most.ā
She smiles at him, small and tender, brushing a thumb over his cheekbone as though heās something sweet, something young and worthy. It undoes him in ways everything they've just done couldnāt hold a candle to, and he swallows hard against the sudden ache in his throat.
A gentle laugh slips out of him, almost a silent sob in disguise.
He presses his forehead to hers, caught somewhere between joy and ache, knowing damn well sheāll never see how close he is to breaking.
The Earnest Nathan Drake (or How I Learned to Kill the Rabbit): Chapter 6 - Two Crybabies Walk Into a Motel Room
Summary: Nathan Drake finally interrogates his mysterious, new, orange-pantsed partner over Dorito dust, ponders the last day before Panama and the death of his brother, and Victor Sullivan decides once and for all whether Drake has the renewed strength to deserve his life as a treasure hunter again.
In other words, two crybabies walk into a motel room. No punchline.
Warning: None! Thanks for sticking around and I hope you enjoyed the pilot episode/first mission of TEND! ā„ļø
Thereāll be a gap as I get around to posting non-TEND content, as well as catching up on this next mission, so I hoped youāve enjoyed this weekly posting, as it likely wonāt be the norm from here on out (though Iāll certainly try my best! š).
āāā
Word Count: 10k.
āSoā¦ how do you know Victor?ā
Because heās a coward. Nathan Drake is a certified Grade-A, no-better-than-dead-Drake coward.Ā
āDamn, is that really your question?ā Shayās eyes widen, sponge cake still crumbling down her heart-shaped chin before she draws forth a cushioning sleeve.
But maybe heād be better a Drake coward than a four foot eleven one too covered in carb dust to spot the way he glowers daggers from across the rug. When the hell is she gonna stop wrecking armageddon on his lucky jacket? He probably shouldāve asked that one to begin with.
āYes.ā Nathan answers laggingly.
āThis isnāt just your way of asking about The Little Mermaid, is it?ā An amused grin grazes her lips, eyebrow raising as she swipes her hand off of the lingering crud.
ā...No.āĀ
But his response doesnāt even sound believable to himself.
A hundred miles and seven feet away, the rain peppers against the glass, since respooled itself to a measly tap dance of sound. Nathan would offer a round of applause if his hands werenāt too busy balling into fists, preparing for the millisecond her crumbly mouth rounds the corner ofā
āOh, but isnāt it so much more fun if you donāt know?ā As she reaches for a bag of her loudly-proclaimed favorites: those goddamn strawberry short-somethings, pools of red goo twinkling in the middle like rubies as she plucks one from the bag. āVeryā¦ dramatic.āĀ
āNo,ā Nathan repeats.
āWhimsical, even. Like out of an old play or something. I could be the mysterious woman who just breezed into town, claiming a gig as a night club singerā Iād like you to imagine Iām wearing a hat with a big feather in itāā She ignores him, gesturing for size, on the off chance he mightāve cared. āAnd you could be the grizzly town detective, right off an unfinished case, whose running gag is his comically suspicious squint every time IāāĀ
She points enthusiastically, red goo a-dangle off her finger. Nathan, unfortunately for him, is already suspiciously squinting.
āYes, yes! Just like that!āĀ
āYou seem to have spent a great deal of time considering this, havenāt you?ā
Her head thoughtfully rotates upon its hinge.
āI prefer the term improvisation.ā
Nathanās lip itches. A ghost of a shake of his head.
She turns in a sudden sprint: āI think I have a boa in here somewhereā¦ā
āWell, letās say you were playing the part of Shay Valentine and I was playing the part of the devilishly handsome Nathan Drakeā¦ Where would you have met Sully?ā
Her hands stop amongst her folds and heaps of Crayola chaos, eyes framing to similarily suspicious slivers. She becomes the distrustful town detective of her stories. And then: a gargoylesque grin slips across her face.Ā
āWhat? You donāt like fun, Nathaniel?ā
Nathan isnāt quite sure what ends up slipping across his.Ā
āI like winning bets. Thatās real fun for me, shortstop.āĀ
She thinks. Considers. Finds the boa. Tosses it over her shoulders. Bright pink. No sparkly tinsel.
āPops owned a furniture store. Sullivan frequented.ā
āFurniture store? What? Is that code forāā
āAntique furniture, Nathaniel. Antique. We all stem from the antique. Most places sell rusted magnets and stained playboys. We? We were the true pinnacle of antique. Used to sell hundred-year-old African totems, told customers the legs were broken off by the town priests in a historic ceremony, so that the spirit of each king would be forced to forever reside in their city to protect their citizens after death. Five hundred bucks a pop.ā
āHuh.ā Nathan says, feigning disinterest. āIs that true?ā
āOf course not! But doesnāt it make for just the greatest story?ā Before she reaches down and pops the last cookie past her lips in fiendish delight. āPretty sure he would just yank the legs off and cover āem in dirt himself.ā
Claps her hands of the debris. Makes the bag walk the plank.
āI prefer the playboys myself. Every once in a while theyād have dudes, ya know.āĀ
Mindlessly meanders for another. Nathanās lip aches from a reflexive snarl.Ā
āAnyway, he was in the mix somewhere. Birthday parties, Fourth of July barbecues, that sort of thing.ā Then, she looks to him. āBut thatās pretty boring. Howād you meet Sully? Iām sure itās a much more interesting story than mineāā
And Nathan feels sick to his stomach all over again.Ā
āNuh uh. Nobody won my interrogation.ā
āWell, then, your question has been answered.ā A garlic parmesan-ed bow, peppered middle to thumb. āEl finito.ā
And the silence settles back over like an end-tiding wave, because sheās right.Ā
Good. That was enough kumbaya for Nathanās night, anyway.
Where the quiet sits, his sight meanders lazily towards the distant glass, where the rain has now muted down to a polite, melancholy drizzle as the warmth inside saps fog over the coastal-facing windows. His skin feels sticky. A highly specific number of miles from home heās finally sick of counting. Too physically drained to get up and shuffle his way to sleep. And oddest of all, completely and totally sober.Ā
Nathan sighs, absentmindedly picks at the carpet below, shedding skinny, off-white fibers all over his equally skinny fingers. Itās everything he didnāt expect when Sully called him up at 3AM one whopping week ago, voice hurried and slurred, like it was trying to get all the words out before it was spring-loaded shut. Telling secrets behind his own sobered-up back.
He looks around at the maple blinds, glistening over with wet from the sliding glass left ajar. Those are definitely gonna mold now. And his suspicions are quickly confirmed, already smelling the outdoor leak of mildew and sulfur brushed in from an unwelcome wind. He flicks the carpet fillings onto his apple-crossed knee. Picks one up and pulls it taught with his thumbs and the point of his index fingers as his eyes lose focus over the obstructed skyline. So many lights. So many windows. So many lives.
So many people.
āIs that really all you wanted to know?āĀ
āOkay-so-maybe-thereās-a-couple-things.āĀ
And by a strike of metaphorical lightning, theyāre right back at it again.
āYou said you only got one question!ā She squeals.
āYouāre the one who asked if I wanted more.ā He fires back.
āTouche.ā She snickers. āHee. Funny.ā
āWhat?ā
āTouche? To-Shay?ā Terrible. Flinches. Is distracted by a can of Squirt sheās knocked over, loosely rolling away from her. āWhat else did you wanna know?āĀ
KA-CHUNK! ā And just like a trap, spring-loaded shut again. Nathan grins like the goddamn devil.
Because fine, maybe heās only so distrustful because he knows what distrustful looks like in the mirror with a pair of tweezers. The questions that actually matterā free of charge. His chance to play it smart. Play it cool. Not have to research any tutorials on waterboarding. The exact way a young Victor Sullivan did: effortless, easy. Utilizing body language, scanning for eye movement, signs of uncomfortability, reading people. Knowing people. Just the way Victor taught him.Ā
So subtle that heāll be begging Nathan to play distraction by nightās end.
Nathan huffs and squares his shoulders high, body only trembling as an aftershock of his own incredible power. Definitely.Ā
But her only response is a gargantuan laugh and a toggle of a bottle of apple juice in the space between.
āYou a little parched after all that?āĀ
āNope. Not thirsty.āĀ He straightens taller.
āOkay, then. Well, Iām gonna need a little more than snacks to get through all that.ā But Nathanās eyes never part from their stance across her face when she reaches to tug over her open luggage, pulls a plastic baggie of crumbledā¦ something from the mix, and pops a clump into her mouth. āBut, fine. I got nothing to hide.ā
āSomehow I doubt that.āĀ
āWell, I wanted to travel, I guess. If that incredibly unique factoid interests you.ā
Good grief. He hears his teeth grind before he feels the ache in his jaw.Ā
āIt doesnāt. That canāt be it.ā
āThat can be it, yeah. I mean, a couple other things, but yeahāā
āLike what?ā He grits like death.Ā
But whatever continuation at the ready wilts under his interruption, and her eyes drop from his, instead fixating her fist around the neck of the bottle and snapping it open. His chest holds taut with held breath as she tilts her head back for a sip, caramel liquid bubbling against the plastic. He waits. It pulls back from her lips. She wipes her wet mouth with the sleeve. She says nothing. And Nathan is more on guard than heās ever been.Ā
The way her eyes clash hard back to his in an abrupt idea doesn't make it any better.
āHereā¦ you should have some.āĀ
His stomach only grows more nauseous when she attempts the baggie over to him, crunching plastic and dark brown clumps that look like anything but food in her wake. He instantly recoils.
āNot hungry, either, thanks.ā
āOh, come on, I think it could be good for you.āĀ
Again, she shakes it towards him, and Nathan makes his mind up, right then and there, that he needs to find out whatever the hell about him makes people have the undying urge to give him thingsā¦ and promptly destroy it.Ā
āSully saidāā
āSullivan. Yeah, yeah, meat on my bones, blah, blahāāĀ
He feels sicker by the second.
āHe said he cared about you getting better.āĀ
And unfortunately for him, itās the nail in the coffin that does it. Her eyes beckon. Nathan wants to puke.
āBetter than what?ā He mumbles.
She says nothing.Ā
But before he knows it, Nathanās hand is reaching towards the baggie, plucking out a piece, and choking the thing down in one reluctant swallow. Days-old brownie. Bittersweet. A moment of uncertain silence.
āSo, thenāā He pokes against his better judgment. Has to cough twice when phlegm lodges and makes his voice crack. āWhy do you know so much about Ancient Egypt?āĀ
She sucks down another swig. A suctioning pop echoes with her answer: āEh, I donāt know if a couple myths here and there constitute knowing muchāāĀ
Bullseye.
āHold up, didnāt Sullivan refer to you as āmaster mythos expertā?āĀ
She attempts to steel her quickly-exploding face, but the damage has been done.
āYes! YES, HE DID! Justā dude-just-shut-up-okay? Youāre going to get me fired!ā Her head swivels for the doorway, screams provoking little sympathy. Nathanās smile only grows wider.Ā
He shoots forward: āAnd? What do I have to lose if you do?āĀ
āYouāā She stupidly tries.
For a moment, Nathan more-than-happily imagines her soft, freckly face bursting into tears. He imagines her tongue-wet fingers coming up. Imagines them running down her face. Imagines her pinching the skin beneath her eyes porcelain-doll pink. Imagines what she might look like when she doesnāt have to do any of those things again.Ā
āNothing,ā she submits. A fact. Like counting uneven brownie chunks in a bag.
Again, that feeling from the alley comes racing icey-hot up the top layer of his skin. That intoxicating feeling of power. Power over something smaller than him.
āSo, why shouldnāt I?ā
Her brown eyes glow gold beneath the flickering desk-lamp, electrical quaking under the storm. Batting back and forth between his own for every second longer that he expects her to withdraw. Yet somehow, she never does. And blood rushes to the surface in round, plush cheeks he just barely resists the urge to pinch red for her, dark brows stamping in the middle of her unironed forehead.Ā
But maybe every beat of meaty silence exists purely because the thought of blackmail tastes so much better than apple juice. His mouth quirks up. Her eyebrows hop uneasily high.Ā
Because if one thingās for certain, itās that Victor Goddamn Sullivan would kick her ass ten times harder than he ever could. And maybe he wants to see it. Because maybe if he learns sheās a fraud when the time is right, if he learns that Nathan discovered so all on his own, if he learns that Nathan truly, honestly, from the deepest pits to the tallest skies, doesnāt need anybody but himselfā heāll have no choice but to give his favorite not-so-son his gun privileges back. And heāll finally trust in Drake again.Ā
But not before heās ready to.
It's not like heād believe Nate right now, anyway.
And so, Shay does not cry.
āBecause itād be nice if you didnāt,ā she shrugs. Pathetic. Small. A tired purse of her lip.
He leans further still. She is small. And he is big.Ā
āSay please.ā
He is so much bigger than her.
So, no, Shay Valentine does anything but cry. Anything but spit some egging, vitriolic quip. Anything but anything that anyone is this business, in the grandiose story of Nathan Drake is supposed to do. She does something even worse.
āPlease donāt.ā
She simply says please.Ā
And she says pleaseā¦ like she means it.Ā
Her dark, knowing eyes bear trembling fires, wind through a quiverous flame, before it rerights itself back toĀ solid burn. Shakeable, but alive. So, so alive. Please, I need to stay, she says.
Please, I need to live.
And so Nate does anything but anything that anyone in this business, in the story he came back to write again does. And he accepts her quaint proposal.
āOkay,ā he says, leaning back onto his elbows, watches as uncertainty spreads across her face like peanut butter.Ā
And her voice, meek like prey: āOkay.ā
For the next several minutes, an uncomfortable, slithering silence draws the room in half. Four-square chalked on the playground blacktop. The same criss-cross apple-sauce he did then, the same pout plastered over his lips as when Sister Katrina told him there was no punching allowed in no-touch football. And the rules are good because the rules are good and damn, Nathan would be lying if he said he didnāt wish the rain would start pouring harder soon.Ā
Because sheās not gonna talk.Ā
So neither is he.Ā
His mind wanders anxiously eastward. Michigan. Freezing, where the motel room now makes him pant. To the gray hardwood floors leading to the balcony he never put deck furniture on and the half dozen house plants Sully awkwardly saddled him with the following week, lips straight and arms harsh at ninety degree angles, as if he had never held a gift, let alone a living thing, in his lifeāĀ
āWhy not try takinā careāa something? Gotcha somathose lucky buggers, four-leaf-clovers, guy at the shop said even a baby could grow āemā¦āĀ
āYeah-I-got-it-thanks-Victor.ā
āspread across the unkempt terrace like little, wilting ghosts. Thereās no point in asking if he ever bothered to water them.Ā
But for the briefest flash of a second, he wonders if he still could. He always liked the idea that there was still time to make his own luck.Ā
And maybe itās only the sheer uncomfortability of Butter not being able to hear the sound of her own voice that finally smothers his rumbling stomach.
āWhat do you think itās gonna be like?ā
āHmm?ā His head whips towards her.
āIn Nefertiti's Tomb.ā She speaks, as if one might read a poem. āIt must be incredible. Getting to see something that no one else has seen for hundreds of years.ā
But for some reason, Nate finds himself not wanting to think about it too hard. He continues picking at the carpet.
āGetting to know that youāre a part of something greater, greater people, better places. Trying to understand someone who has been dead for hundreds of years, who maybe back then couldnāt beā¦. that once upon a time people made beautiful things even if theyāre shitty now.āĀ
Thereās a long, terrible pause.
āIs that why you do it?ā
āUhā¦ what?ā
Freakinā hippie.
āIs that why you do allā¦ this?ā He doesnāt really understand, but she waves her hand towards some distant nether as if he might, hope tinging secrets at the edge of her lips. āWhy do you do it?ā
No oneās ever asked him that before.
āI guess no oneās really asked me that before.ā
What aā
Nate swallows past his hollowed-out chest.
What a stupid question.
āUmā¦āĀ
But his mouth muses it anyway, chewing the sound between dulled teeth. His heart flutters. Before he clamps it right back down again. Guess he never even thought to think about it before.
But that doesnāt mean he doesnāt want to.
āI won the snack competition.ā The only, and most imbecilic, thing he can think to say. His mind whips up an uneasy fog. Heās suddenly finding it a little difficult to think straight. āYou still didnāt answer my question.ā
Her own distrustful stare, chin planting down into her palm. Showdown.Ā
āFair.ā
āTouche.ā
āToā?ā She sneers encouragingly, some cloying devil on his shoulder.
Fuck no.Ā
āIām not saying it.ā
In place of an answer, a tableau in the shapeā¦ of teddygrams. Which are torn open. Gobbled down. The girl moans more than any food is worth. And the burst of eye-popping color, scattered across the carpet, shrinks another half-foot. A cleaned crater somewhere past Area 51. She holds secrets until she decides she has better things to do with her hands.
āI liked Amelia Danger as a kid.ā
She tries for a throwaway, but Nathan catches it in its tracks.
āWhat? Lipsticks and Loopholes? The Lost City of LypGlaus? Those chick flicks from the ā80s?āĀ ā He snorts.
āYeah.āĀ
But there is no joke, no elaboration that follows.
Which just might be the weirdest part of the entire night.
Perhaps itās the heat, the humidity plastering thick across the panes, starting to shine slick at the edges of red vinyl wallpaper that makes his head start to sink below the bobbing waves. The sleepy steam wafting and waxing overtop a well-earned bubble bath. And there exists no moment where it becomes clear why he has no quip to give, whether itās the fog or the sheer irony to even judge her would be anybodyās guess.Ā
āWhat? You're seriously not going to curse me out for that?āĀ
Shay quirks a hesitant brow his way, and yeah, thatāsā¦ thatās probably how a smarter Drake wouldāve responded.Ā
But what actually parts Nathanās lips is:Ā
āNah, itāll be funnier when I tell Sullivan later.ā Her chest heaves in anxious breath at the threat, and he immediately eases a smile her way. āThose movies arenāt so bad.ā
Because you survive in this business if you know how to stay on your toes.
āOkayā¦ cool.ā Another teddy is tossed down the hatch. Her eyes never glance back to his. āI love them.ā
And itās only when Nathan starts to hear water gush from the storm drain gutter outside that he realizes itās begun to pour again.Ā
He reaches up to scratch his neck to the memory of: he always used to watch those movies withāĀ
The wind changes direction through the slanting gap in the westward window and suddenly strikes him a spot of cold air. The world moves slow. And when her body falls with the tide and abruptly thumps down against the carpet, white lines obscure her dark eyes and he remembers the savanna. He remembers the ocelots hiding from stalking jaguars in the brush.Ā
He remembers the way things used to be.
āYa know, they donāt make it look so scary in there.ā Her eyes glass over, a hidden, lingering hope. āLike theyāre just jumping and running and shooting about but they never stop cracking jokes. Like they just know theyāre going to survive. As if the entire world was just somethingā¦ made for them to play in.ā
She flicks a piece of pink link across the rug like skipping stones, a house cat pawing at a ball of thread. Thereās a long beat, because Nathanās throatās too tight to allow him to speak.
Heās not quite sure why.
She relieves that same drifting, dreamy sigh from the laundry room as she crooks an arm back to cushion her head.Ā
āEveryone you meet is so interesting and brave and kind and confident. And you get to be beautiful because in the real world youāre played by some big-shot supermodel actor. And the only injuries you get are sexy injuries. Like a cut lip that the love interest character gets to kiss. And no matter how scary, no matter how bad it gets, youāll know youāll be okay. Because youāre the good guys. And the good guys always win.ā
Itās her words, her world that now skip stone, soft gasps like popping bubbles. He might as well not be there at all.
āThings seem so muchā¦ easier than they do here.ā
And the funny thing is, youād think someone like Nathan Drake would love to give his thoughts on the matter. Because he would know the reality of it, wouldnāt he? Heād know the answers, wouldnāt he? But he says squat, so she spirals down into giggles on her own. Closes her eyes to enjoy the fantasy.Ā
Heās pretty sure he wants her to shut up soon.Ā
āSometimes I wonder if Iād get along with themā well, probably not Hawn, that guyās an asshole, but likeāā She opens her eyes to their popcorned, asbestos-ed ceiling. āHistory. Myths. Plays. Stories.ā
And the not-so-quiet is louder than any gun heās ever shot. The rain pours. The little one speaks to no-one. The cold spot only grows colder.
āThereās only so long real people can stand me anyway.āĀ
And Nathanās eyebrows furrow hard in the middle of his forehead.Ā
āFuck, I love those movies.ā She whispers. Outside, the rain falls.Ā
Drip-drip-drip.Ā
The rain drip-drips. And he only focuses so intently on it because something else aches to speak.Ā
āMan, lifeās so fucking in-ter-es-ting, isnāt it?ā But her body contorts forwards and spews giddy word before he can find the courage to. āYa know, it was actually the ancient Egyptians who invented disguise. Well, acting. That's role-playing for you, Nathaniel.ā
Her eyes screw up. A sudden realization.
āWell, uh, okay, I guess not technically in the way weād know it today.ā She corrects, a-grin. āSo I guess that means I just lied, huh?ā
Nathan rolls his eyes.
āThat would be the Greeks. B-but the Egyptians were the first civilization to have public performance ofā¦ some kind. And Iād say that counts for something. It was technically only corny religious shit, butāā
She claps her hand over her mouth.Ā
āOop! Sorry.ā A phony whack to the field of her forehead. āJesus guy.ā
āIām not aāā He snorts. And itās only when his eyes meet hers that it sinks in. And all of a sudden, completely out of the once-worn blue, he finds himself (almost) smiling. āHmā¦ I guess youāre right.ā
This time, when his mind wanders eastward, itās no farther than three city blocks. Mildew. Sulfur. Frankincense. The distant wafts of the not-so-Red Sea.Ā
Itās Egypt. Heās in Egypt.
āYeah, I guess they did.ā
Heās in Egypt.
āThe Festival of Victory. Pharaonic Era. Yeah.ā His lips start to stray. His heart begins to betray. He finds himself sitting up again. āYeah, so, uh, the ancient Egyptians had this prominent ritual in honor of the sun god Horus, right? Where the king himself would play the titular god, and in the grand finale, he would harpoon and slaughter a live hippopotamus in the role of the godāāĀ
The name escapes him.Ā
āCrap, I canāt remember his name.ā
But her hips quietly jostle forward to parallel.
āSeth! Yeah! God of War.ā She gasps. āWow, I didnāt know they used a live hippo.ā
A sweaty swipe on his fleece bears no distraction to the colors that break behind his eyes, sprout in shadows against the walls as he gesticulates to the memory of explosive Junior Library wall murals and National Geographic Kids, every issue stolen from the grainy doorstep before the Sisters could even get their morning slippers on.Ā
āYeah. They would even eat it afterwards, too.ā He remembers pointing out the articleās blood-stained portrayal to the crowd of youthful on-lookers, and how he was the only one whoād dare look without the hollow barrier of their own shallow-spread fingers. How proud he was to be brave enough. Because being closer to what he loved mattered more. āRaw hippo meat. Delicious.ā
āCool.āĀ
And you know what? Maybe it is cool.
āI was, um, I was actually homeroom Jeopardy champion five years running.ā It comes out before he can stop it, skin buzzing, soul twittering. He haphazardly plucks another rug thread and toys it between his fingers. āSunday School after-school Trivia Master, too.āĀ
But when his gaze returns and he sees her searching, bemused inspection, he realizes heās actually just being a dork.
āWell, except for the āscienceā categoryāā He tosses the thread with a smirk. Shay laughs, and pride floats up from the recesses.Ā
See? He was funny once.Ā
āSo your shit comes from somewhere, too.ā She teases halfway between a smile and a sneer.Ā
So he passes the metaphorical ball backā āSo your shit comes from somewhere, too.ā ābecause her trite little games are fun enough.Ā
And tonight, maybe enough can be enough.Ā
āSo, then, thatās it? No ulterior motive? Just a girl who wanted to play pretend and see a couple landmarks?ā
āYeah. Mostly.ā But her many teeth, arranged in the shape of a smile, soften no blows. āSoā¦ what about you? Why do you do this?ā
Crap. He mindlessly rips one of the oblong holes in his sweatshirt sleeve wider so he doesnāt have to answer.
āCan we just talk about your thing more?ā
āTo be honest, Iād rather hear yours.ā
But that doesnāt mean he doesnāt want to.
āThank you.ā ā He whispers.Ā
And he whispers it just quietly enough that he can still pretend she probably didnāt hear him at all.
But Nathan still has a lot to work on in the field of pretend.
The room is too hot all over again as he feels her eyes on him, burning, interrogating, glancing down and sharing his sight as he wiggles his thumb through the makeshift hole. Yet he speaks nothing so as not to give the satisfaction. His mind only grows hazier with each passing moment, feels the hyper-vivid cotton of his shirt brushing along the hairs on his arms, hears her hollow breaths mirroring his own on the off-beat, the falling rain outside that he can practically taste down his throat. The world warps and his mouth itches for more.
Thereās a long pause. The rain falls.Ā
āBut do you know what I mean? AboutāāĀ
āNo.āĀ Ā
And instead, his mouth speaks the word thatās most comfortable.Ā
āOhā¦ okay.ā So she murmurs the rest through the mist.
Or maybe heās justā
He looks to her just as she looks away from him, pursing her lip towards the sky, inspecting nothing. Yet another weak disguise. Another kid making calls to a phone that wonāt answer. A field of blinding, crunching, polymer wildflowers between them, the pane of glass at the zoo. The rain falls. His breaths come slow and full. And he watches, brow amusedly raised, as she squints her eyes and scrutinizes the asbestos-littered ceiling as if it might be the Sistine Chapel. But Nathan doesnāt have to check to know there arenāt any naked angel butts floating around up there, no colors, no beauty, no worth to be found. Yet, she looks at it like it might justā
Or maybe justā
āIām hungry.ā It comes out before he even notices he said it.Ā
āWhat?āĀ
Time stands still. And Nathan Drake realizes at that exact moment that he hasnāt eaten anything more than chicken broth and protein powder for the past twelve months.
āIām starving.ā He corrects. This time itās a gasp, a flounder, a revelation for a quantum mechanics theorem. Because itās true: Nathan Drake is fucking starving. And his following words are just as much a prayer as any bible verse he was forced to memorize: āCan you pass me the Doritos?ā
āUm, Cool Ranch or Spicy Nacho?ā Spilling from her in an uneasy chuckle. But Nathanās in too much of a frenzy to care what she thinks.
āCool Ranch.ā Just enough of a frenzy to know the answer is important.Ā
They were his favorite once.Ā
Itās a steel-toed kick in the gut how abrupt the ache in his gut sets off, stomach clenching and abruptly gurgling and forcing another laugh out of Shay as she tosses him a blue bag from the bunch. Theyāre gone as soon as he tears them open.
āCan you pass me the, uhā snowball-shaped things?ā He pants between orange cheese powder, chest practically heaving off his gaunt body.
āThe Sno Balls?ā
āYeah.ā
And the pink package teleports from her hand into his: āWeāll split because Iām so nice.ā
Nathan swallows it down in two bites.
āJesus Christ, dude, you okay?ā Her words spin in hysterics between smiling teeth and genuine concern and the crumbs waterfall down his chin because he canāt fill the ache fast enough.Ā
āDrake.ā He nearly chokes on marshmallow coconut.
āI didnātāā
āIāmāā
And for one moment, he finally stops. Nathan Drake finally stops running. The rug looks so soft. And now he wants to touch it. He wants to touch it. So he allows himselfā and where his hand presses, the colors shift, between white and brown and some other hue he canāt quite remember the name of sifting in sprawling hedges between the gaps of his fingers. The colors remind him of sugar cane, south argentinian sand, freshly-macheted coconut, snow on the Appalachian trail, summer-camp-smore marshmallows after theyāve been a little smoked. Marshmallow. He hasnāt eaten marshmallow in a very long time. He wipes his lips on his sleeve and drinks the air the earth allows him. And he remembers.Ā
āYeahā¦ Iām okay.ā
He missedā
āMunchies kickinā in, huh?āĀ
Shay laughs, and all of a sudden, his world slants off-axis.
ā¦
WHAT.
āWhat?ā He timidly treads, chews dumb like cow cud. Because sheās playing pretend. Itās a bit.Ā
But her smile immediately warps, because she isnāt. It isnāt a bit.
āY-y-you saidā!ā The next bag of caramel kettle korn drops like a ton of bricks from his fist as she scrambles, tripping on her own flabbergasted spit. āC-cocaine! You said! You made that joke! I thoughtā!ā
The Brownie.
Nathan isnāt laughing, but Nathan only isnāt laughing because heās laughing so hard that it doesnāt end up sounding like laughter at all. It sounds like heās sobbing.Ā
And all of a sudden, Nathanās body is collapsing into the floor and his arms are wrapping around himself and he shouldāve fucking known. That goddamn brownie. This goddamn little girl. That goddamn old man. This entire goddamn night.
āShit.ā She whines distressingly. āI thought it wouldāā
āJust give me my jacket back.ā A good-natured chuckle as he shakes his head turns Nathanās world into a tilt-a-whirl. The room is warm. His breath comes easy.Ā
Someone else is touching his stuff.
āOh, yeah!ā All at once, itās off: brown leather warping up and over her petite shoulders, wrinkles dipping and spilling until itās little more than a thick, burly paint smudge laying limp from her wrist. Speed making up for guilt. āSorry.ā
āSure. Iāll make sure to wash it twice. Get that girly smell out.ā The dark streaks on the right sleeve are already winking back at him as he hightails it home. āHeh, is the eye stuff washable?ā
āSometimes.ā She admits, pupils blown like the textbook drawings: Greecian oracles possessed, telling of terrible fates and unspeakable glories. āMan, Iām sooo high.āĀ
āYeah, Iāve noticed.ā
āHere, I can do it.ā Her hand extends back again, running interference and fawning some semblance of sobriety, but heās already back to his feet before she can pass. āSorry, I figured Egypt would beāā
āHotter?ā He offers.
āMore fashion-prone,ā she finishes. āReally, I appreciate it.ā
āDonāt worry ābout it. But thatās the one time youāre ever allowed to touch my stuff.āĀ Ā
And the reason Nathan says it is because he doesnāt think before he says it.Ā
āOh my god, I wouldnāt dream of ātouching your stuffāāā āHeh, ātouch my stuāā
And heās not thinking about what he said until the moment they both doā the split second before they look at each otherā and itās game fucking over.
āHA HA!āĀ
āHAHAHAHAHAHA!ā
Shay squeals happy bloody murder in the spot on the carpet thatās no longer too hot or too cold or too anything and Nathan is nothing but laughter. Laughter that doesnāt make his chest hurt anymore when it comes out. Heās not crying. He didnāt cry tonight. Heās warm. Heās full. Heās not alone. Sully brought him back.
Heās alive.
āDudeā¦ you did it.ā Nathan doesnāt realize what sheās talking about until her gaze signals for his chest, where he still hasnāt removed the ID lanyard from around his neck. āWe did it.ā
Heās alive.
āWe did it.ā
But when Nathan speaks, he speaks in memoriam. His heart stops sober. The world stops moving. The life dies in his throat. And this isnāt about him. This could never be about him.
Heās too comfortable right now.Ā
āWhere are you going?āĀ
But the moment is already ruined, even as Shayās voice trills helplessly past his earā Drake booking it for the corner lamp, with little more than a certain click! before the room is cast in dark, every sense, color, sensation falling wayside back into the grays and blacks of a waning, waxing storm. Bed, bed, dead, dead, there is nothing more he needs here. He did the job. The rest is worthless. Selfish.
Unfair.
āWait! Donāt you wanna hear my ulterior motive?!āĀ
And Nathan doesnāt even care to decipher whether itās a joke or not before heās already folded the body he borrows up into thirds and promptly tucked it under the sheets.
āNot really.ā
āāā
Sam told him itād be a piece of cake. A walk in the park. Easier than, wellā¦ him. And Nathan had laughed, because there was nothing that Sam could say that wouldnāt make him laugh.
It was a warm day, a breezy one. Nathan didnāt think heād ever seen so many colors in the sky on the day they first touched down in Panama. Sam had swung his pre-insignia-stamped uniform over his shoulder, leaning as easy-going as a person could possibly be their first day before prison against the vanās aluminum hood, smoke wafting from his parted lips like he was Marlon Brando himself. Somewhere halfway between an absurd, comical performance of what manhood was supposed to look like and simply the real, genuine article. 100% Drake. Who he was born to be.Ā
Nate was never quite able to say for sure.
All he knew was that he wanted to be just like him. Even at age twenty-three, even with every annoyance that being brothers and work partners (a relationship no sane person would ever dare to combine) could possibly bring, just two years shy of having āan actually finished, fully-functioning brainā as Sam had sneeringly called it, Nate wanted nothing more, nothing less, than every last scrap of whatever magic he had. That something. That something unnameable. Something that, if he was lucky, worthy enough, he could catch like a germ on the wind.
So that day, Nate stood a little too close to him and laughed a little too hard at his jokes and didnāt even smack him away when the high-five he threw his way turned into a headlock.Ā
Maybe somehow a part of him knew it was the beginning of the end.Ā
āFemale guardsā¦ they have those in menās prisons, donāt they?ā Sam spared him a humorous glance from his sight over the horizon, a dingy shuttle stop overlooking the vast Caribbean. Third cigarette of the day even though Nate told him he should save some while he still had them. Sam told him: all the reason to just have āem now.
āMaybe. But I wouldnāt push your luck.ā Nathan smirks at his side.
āJeez, Iām gonna kill myself.ā Sam near wrings his own neck at the idea, pretending to choke and sputter tilā his eyes roll back in his headā and Nathan had given him a chuckle and a solemn pat on the back.
āIām sorry, brother.ā
But not that solemn.
āYeah, women usually like the strong, handsome, intelligent types. So youāre out of luck there.ā
And Sam had punched his shoulder. And Nathan had laughed. And everything was how it was meant to be.
Seagulls cried in a constant, looming foghorn; a couple daring to land on the nearby boulders before Sam kicked a pebble towards them and they squawked, veering off into the clouds once again. The scent of sea salt was pungent that day, waves crashing removed down the rocks, sun shining so bright that he swore heād go blindā a smaller Nathan Morgan begging him to find out if those stories were really true. Curious, even on the dumb days when he was convinced he had learned too much, and there was nothing left to be curious about.Ā
But of course that wasnāt true.
āHowāā And even now, at age twenty-three, the questions bloom easier than anything else he could possibly muster.
āHm?ā Sam turns his way.
āHow do you think Burnesā mustāve felt after being captured by the Spanish authorities? Up in that cell?ā
Silence joins the softly steadying ruckus: a moment where Sam twists abroad and takes a long, hearty drag, dark eyes not thoughtful like Nathanāsā but rather certain, simmering, confident. Everything he was born to be.Ā
āAwesome.ā The word leaves him as easy as oxygen.
āAwesome?ā Nathan asks.
Everything Nate was not.
āAwesome. I canāt imagine being a wanted pirate, back when the world was totally undiscovered and completely at your hands and not feel invincible. The whole world, just for you toā¦ take.ā He clutches his fist hard around some imaginary other, smoke wafting from where he bites his cigarette in place. āHe mustāve known. That he was a part of something great-uh.ā
And Nathan smiled.
āJust like us.āĀ
āJust like us.ā And Sam had smiled back, eyes soft and mischievous all at once. Complete and total magic. āThatās right, Nathan.ā
Another seagull caws overhead, rapturous calls breaking and beating along the beach and shattering the quiet lull of the sea into chaos, clashing in most perfect melody. Sand. Salt. A perfect day, thatās what Nathan had wanted to call it. Waves upon the shore, heart amongst his chest, and sensitive when even the most perfect days dragged ghosts, doubt to the surface. Seaglass before the ocean makes them gentle. For some reason, the hairs on his neck begin to stand on end. Unstable. Like the sea. He would give anything to not be that way.
So he tells himself that itās a perfect day, and he convinces himself that heās not.Ā
āUp until the gallowsāā Nathan thinks aloud to himself, some sort of sudden nausea in his stomach. Seasickness: the same feeling Burnes mustāve felt on that boat to Panama. The very same. Just like him. The man apart of something greater. āAwesome. He mustāve.ā
āWell I know I wouldāve.ā Sam laughs. āNothing āta fear but fear itself. One of the most wanted pirates in the world? End up in a textbook hundreds of years late-uh that a million kids will be inspired by? Doesnāt sound like too bad a way to go.ā
And heās not wrong.Ā
A smile dots itself across Nathanās mouthā¦ and he thinks about pirates. Grand, imposing, impossible, intelligent men sprung up from nothing into permanence, into greatness. The only difference between him and them was the invention of the cellular phone. Microwavable dinners. Trivials, little else. Greatness born from a reference bookās pages heād scanned at the Boston Public Library for a nickel a page.
Easy. Just like him.
Nathan smiles, but whatever outside spirit, or maybe just the blinding force of the sun: it twists its edges into a grimace.Ā
āSully said itās just an in-and-out job, right?ā
And he knows the truth: Nate had only said it because his skin sun-burned easily and he had a bit of a whiny streak. But whenever he replays it in his head, he imagines that he had had some unexplainable pit in his stomach, some rush of foreboding instinct, like he knew something bad was going to happen. Like he knew.Ā
As if making himself believe that might make it better. As if making himself believe that might make it worse.
Which one he actually wanted.
āWeāll be out before the sun even rises Sunday morning. Plenty aā time for brunch with whatever sweet thing I end up coming out with.ā Sam sneers. āLike ya said, brotha, women like the handsome, intelligent type. Iāll be sure to leave you whoeverās not ināta that.āĀ
āYou asshole.ā Nathan grins like heās never believed anything less.
And in slow-motion, Sam takes a long suck of his cigarette and peers over the coastline, squinty-eyed and eyebrow-furrowed towards the distant sea-fared horizon, like he could see something that Nathan couldnāt.Ā
What could he see that Nathan couldnāt?
āPiece aā cake, little brotha.ā He turns abruptly, crooked teeth from a dozen uppercut punches that somehow never made him stop smiling. His brown eyes shone with nothing less than complete and total purpose, and Nathan knew the second they hit him that his own would be mirroring back just as bright, just as certain. Purpose. Confidence, like a germ he could catch. If he was ever so lucky to be like him.Ā
Purpose. Pirates. Crooked teeth he prayed heād have one day. Just like him.Ā
Magic.
āAnd maybe if youāve been working on that upper body strength like Iāve been tellinā ya to, youāll get to find out for yourself what Burnes felt like in that cell.āĀ
A loud clap on the back makes Nathan jump in the best way possible. A little too strong. A little too much: perfect. And Nathan had exhaled the world from his chest.
āAwesome.ā
āJust anothaā day on the job.ā Sam finished coolly.Ā
And on that day beside the sunny Panamanian coast, Nathan had offered his brother a fistbump, because offering a hug to another man just didnāt make enough sense. And Sam had met him back, because that was what a good brother, a good man, did for another. Even when a hug was impossible.
But now Nathan knows.
He shouldāve hugged his brother while he had the chance.
āāā
Nathanās form shoots upright at the sound of a whip crack. 4:52 AM on the quaking red letters he squints out through the dark, reflections of deep city light pollution smudging shadows down the glass and signaling another torrential downpour.
In the morning, if heās lucky, the clouds will be cleared. And the sky might be sunny the first breakfast he shares with Victor, whoāll probably drink three mimosas and who Nathan will roll his eyes at for choosing a beverage reserved only for alcoholic suburbanites with four screaming kids back home. A woman's drink.Ā
But Nathan will clink glasses with him, anyway. And maybe by then heāll be loose enough to actually, truly laugh at one of Nathanās jokes. Just in every way he did before.Ā
He stretches from neck cricks and cheap pillows half an inch thick, shakes loose disquiet off his aching shoulders. A bad dream, perhaps, or the house speciality bed bugs. Fuckinā cheapskate, Nathan ponders fondly once more, and his eyes peer through the curves of wicker furniture, light catching in tic-tac-toes across the carpet as he rocks his way to sitting. Whatever his listless mind needs washed off, a splash from the sink wouldnāt hurt. And so he meanders his way to the bathroom, left foot still halfway asleep, dragging behind.Ā
Water tastes good on his lips as he creaks the faucet handle, glimmering cool against every surface he touches and making his fingers slightly numb. Well-earned sweat cleans easily, trickling in streams down his cheeks, over a small bruise on his jaw he couldnāt guess how the hell he got. Doesnāt realize until he touches it, and he winces: a sound only smothered by a sudden crashing strike. The storm outside rages on.Ā
But when Nathan turns for proofā another clap of thunder proves evidenceā the heap of comforter quivering between his sight of the skyline, like a black hole sucking all the light away, is the only thing staring back. It squeaks as the blinding white touches down, and ricochets away like heās the monster under the bed.Ā
Ammit the Crocodile.
Shayās voice expels shame in every defending bullet: āIām-sorry-Iāll-shut-up-please-just-go-back-toāāĀ
But for Nathan, thereās no longer anything to go back to.Ā
He has no idea what spirit compels himā doesnāt even register what heās done before itās already finishedā but by the time heās back under the covers, heās already stood up, pushed his bed several feet closer to hers. Climbed back in. And stuck his hand out between the open gap.Ā
His stomach turns, his skin buzzes, a part of him wishes it was too dark for her to see it. Another considers how selfish he must be. That he should miss the touch of another person.Ā
He was too afraid to even hug Sully at the airport.
But another crack of lightning strikes over the distant horizon, a splattering of violent light through the slats, and inspires her to twist her body back towards him. And after a long moment of silenceā the split second before Nathan pulls his hand away; stupid, stupid, stupidā he feels a tiny, clammy palm cautiously press against his own.Ā
āThank you.āĀ
She whispers so quietly that he almost believes he hallucinates it. The thunder whips another bolt their way; Nathan counts steadily thirty-two seconds between, and her hand quiversā¦ before squeezing hard and desperate against his own.
āWhat if we get hit?ā
āWe wonāt,ā he says. And even when the count shrinks to thirty-one, he doesnāt change his answer.Ā
Because he knows itās the truth.
The comforter pulls back over his shoulders with an awkward maneuver of his free hand, warmth billowing where the cold can no longer reach, stomach full and body heavy, sturdier, more grounded than heās felt in ages. So, he sinks easy through the sheetsā¦ and fantasizes about tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow.Ā
He survived today. He survived the day It happened. He could almost, maybe believe again. And just as his overwrought consciousness, at last, begins to slip awayā
āThat was nice of you to go out of your way to not buy any chocolate.ā
āHm?ā He mumbles confusedly.
āFor the dogs.āĀ
Some glimmer of a grin audibly touched upon every word. Nathan peeps through the dark to see if sheās smiling.Ā
She is.
But when his only reply is a puzzled lookā
āFor the Rottweilers.ā
Oh.
āOh.ā
And before he can register how he feels about thatā as if it could possibly matterā her grip goes slack against his, and sheās out like a light.
āāā
The next morning, itās an accidental wake-up call as Nathan whispers the new girl awake through the sound of a running faucet. The sun cracks its yolk across languidly swaying palm trees and beats the rain-ruined streets back to warmth. Itās a morning in Egypt, and today, Nathan Drake sees hope in the color of creamsicle.Ā
It must be late, or late-ish, because the tourist boats squawk proud over the city soundscape, the trampling footsteps between floors of an uninsulated building, the clattering plates of a continental breakfast theyāre going to miss out on if they donāt get their asses in shape.Ā
And the sound of a running faucet.
Good moooorning, starshine. The earth says hello.
He hears her body belatedly creek to standing, feet swinging, voice moaning for a sock lost amongst the mass. He can hear her drag herself onto the carpet. Past the over-leaning towering lumps of Crayola-colored clothes. Past the pile of Pringles and kettle corn and miniature milk cartons (expired) that neither one of them bothered to pick up. Past the outside raucous of seagulls and townie cars andā
She gasps in surprise when she rounds the bathroom door.Ā
And where heās whispered her awake through the sound of a running faucet, is Nathanās already-daydressed form, hunched over the sinkās ledge.
āGood morning.ā Shay offers, not even bothering to reach for her toothbrush.
āMorninā.ā He replies without so much as a nod in her direction. His body stays hunched, his hands move rhythmically below. And itās only when she sneaks a tippy-toed look upon ballooning ankle socks, that she sees exactly what heās doing.Ā
Shay smiles.
Because there sits Nathan, awkwardly half-perched atop the porcelain, eyes squeezed and tongue grazing his lip with piercing concentration, holding a paper towel in his hand. Blotting out the dark smudges from those stupid neon orange, bedazzled, ruched cargo pants.Ā
She smiles.Ā
āEarnest, little Nathaniel Drake.ā
His response: a mystery beside the lone huff from his nose. But unfortunately for Nathan, that doesnāt stop her from stealing more, eyes interrogative as she leans against the doorframe. Curious. Trying. But where her gaze canāt spot is where his worth blursā honest and kidding and neither but notā because Nathanās lips cradle a smile. Even if he immediately rolls his eyes just in case somebody somewhere is watching.Ā
But despite his best wishes, despite every wall, every brickāĀ
Nathan smiles. Nathan smiles with a paper towel in his hand.
Because Nate thinks to himself that maybe sheās right.
ā
And maybe sheās right about me.
āāā
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle ā itās the morningās lullaby of a breakfast you didnāt have to make yourself. Plastic fold-out ice cream social tables, sprinkled haphazardly across the yellow, grease-stained lobby, are poorly disguised for formal with red linen tablecloths, the ones from the far back the employees didnāt bother to iron out. Sullyās fork hiccups halfway afloat where the cloth bends, plastic plateā loaded halfway to Mars with scalloped potatoes and biscuitsā sending wrinkles like a boulder dropped in a lake.Ā
āCome on, kiddo, eat up. All free, and we know how rarely that happens.ā Nathan thinks Sully smirks from behind his mustache, chunks of warbling yellow slathered with too much pepper disappearing underneath with every scoop of his spoon. āThey still got some scrambled left, your favorite. Iām sure thereās some knucklehead we could blackmail a ketchup bottle out of.ā
āNah, not hungry.ā Nathan offers a bashful shrug instead. āStraight Turkish is enough for me.ā
He poorly proves it with a tipped-back head and a wince from a swiftly-burnt tongue. Bitter, but surely a better win than succumbing to the pink sugar packets practically landsliding out of the glass. Sully drinks his straight black without even having to take his eyes off Nathan. A family of four, all in visor hats, loudly clammers behind them for second helpings of ham.Ā
āSo, first job back. Ya must be feeling somethinā.āĀ
Itās not a question Victor murmurs, but a statement. Blue eyes trade for magnifying glass as he searches Nathanās face for whatever he feels he must be hidingā yet the only things hidden are the dark circles once set below his eyes. For the five total hours of sleep time, he sure is feeling well-rested.Ā
But itās not like there was much competition.
āIāmā¦ fine.ā Nathan takes another reluctant sip, and Sully chuckles when he nearly chokes on the grounds.Ā
Thereās a few minutes where the only sounds are clacking cutlery, the shuffle of fold-out chairs, the occasional woosh of the lobby doors. Nathan stares at the velvet carpet, once yellow turned a flea-bitten brown, until he realizes that Sully is the one staring at him. Staring in and through and in between like heās made of glass.
āYou did good, kid.ā His mustache quirks upwards at the corner. āI almost hate to say it.ā
And the feeling that rushes over Nathanās soul, Nateās heart, Drakeās skin is indefinable, makes him quiver in his boots, makes his chest inflate, his skin heat hot. Everything all at once. Heās not hungry because the forgiveness feeds everything that burnt toast canāt. He takes a deep breath and another swallow of coffee grounds so he doesnāt audibly cheer to fucking God.Ā
āDonāt hate me yet.ā He spares a grin towards Sully, heartbeat racing in his throat, everything else he wants to stay held down for safekeeping. āI still need plenty of time to make a wacky slip-up we just barely manage to survive on the next one.āĀ
āHa.āĀ
And there it is. The thing he wanted so desperately to happen. Victor Sullivan laughs. He laughs because of something Nathan said. And the world is better because heās in his again.
āSo, how much do I owe you?ā It inches past Nathanās lips while the goingās still goodā in everything he knows is desperate hope dashed with a pinch of manipulation.Ā
āWhat?ā
āFor the room?ā He inquires carefully.
But Sullivan picks up exactly what heās putting down, and gives him a good, hearty clap on the back, a knowing, toothy smile raking over his wrinkles. Even still, no one reads Nate better than he does.Ā
āI got ya for the duration, kid. Youāre in. Donāt worry ābout it.ā
And Nathanās heart leaps in his chest. Heās got āim.Ā
āAlright.ā He smiles. āI guess I can live with that.ā
āHarry should be in later this afternoon. Already got the gear loaded before you could get your scraggly ass out of bed. Headlamps, static rope, the works. Iāve rented out a couple emergency handguns for him and I want you to be cool about it.āĀ
He finishes up the rest of his cup of tea in a lengthy swallow, and God is testing Drake to interrupt. Sully even raises his eyebrow waitingly when he glances over the mugās rim.
āIāāĀ
Nathanās body tenses. Anger. No. Restraint. Control.Ā
So Nathan controls himself for the sake of what matters. Itāll come. Itāll happen. Heāll just have to wait.Ā
Heāll prove what he deserves when the time is right.Ā
āAlright then.ā
This time heāll use the way death follows him for good.
āI mean it. Ya did good, Nate.āĀ
Nathan blinks out of his thoughts from the direct sunbeam of Sullyās warming glow as soon as the cupās set down. There is nowhere and nothing to run back to. Nowhere to run from how terribly, horrifically, awfully wonderful it feels to hear him say those wordsā and mean it.Ā
āThank you.ā Nate smiles, soft in a heart too big for his chest. āJust trying to pick up your slack.ā
The last remnants of sausage are cleared with a scrape-scrape-scrape and immediately choked on by Victorās reactionary snort. And for one moment, everything is how it was meant to beā stained carpet and strained shoulders and cockroaches ran amuck included. The swinging door beside them whirls in direct sun and the certain scent of motor oil, and Nathan fantasizes about roaring sunburns, motorcycle getaways.Ā
Egypt.
āHey, put your money where your mouth is and Iāll see if I can find you an opening for Argentina next month. Ya know the Goose doesnāt fly as well without a second.ā
Crap. Nathanās heart leaps into his throat. Crap, crap, crap.
Fuck yes.
And when he replies, he gasps in the taste of fresh empanadas, the sweet swell of tango, orchard wines heāll pretend he loves, offered by a man with an eyepatch and a seriously suspicious Russian accent. He dreams of the G-21 Goose passenger seat right next to Sully, the one that Nathan always kept warm. And he smiles at the idea of Victor Sullivan, salt-and-peppered fox age fifty with a rep sheet the size of Moby Dick, and his haggard, smoky voice crooning over the choiring sounds of Evita! the Musical on cassette tape.Ā
āThat wouldāā There are no words, only hope, and his own heartbeat pounding whole and real in his ear. āYeah, Iāll put my money where my mouth is.ā
āThatās what I like to hear.ā Sullivan smiles in tow.Ā
The chair legs shuffle and screech against the patch of linoleum when they rise, the last napkin balled and tossed onto the makeshift counter little else but a rousing encore. Nathan nods politely to the visored-family, now kerfuffling over the last pancake; Sully nabs a squashed blueberry muffin from a nearby buffet basket; and theyāre on their way to the parking lot before anyone can ask if they heard the word āhandgunā correctly.Ā
āHere, one for the road. Gotta get your strength up for tonight.ā Sully tosses the purple-smeared thing into Nathanās hand, but the bite he takes as soon as Sully turns his back is a reluctant one.
The elevator ride back to the room provides no further information, let alone speechā but this time, Nathan doesnāt really mind. Stevie Wonder blares rallying over the waves and Sully tells him, arms crossed and leaning back in a senior-citizenās-eve nap, that this is a great song and hell, he probably wooed a honey or two in the middle of it back in the day and the duffel bags Victor had them carry from the trunk are just heavy enough to make him feel strong and Nathanā
Well, Drake is happy.Ā
The suite door beeps cheerfully with a swipe of his card, the logo of a smiling lotus flower severed through the slot, happily unbeknownst of its less-than-legal usage. Nathan heaves a groan when the first two bags are off-loaded onto the newly-clean floor. The unmistakable rattle of steel meeting steel inside as he sets it down makes his breath hitch, but he looks at his room in a foreign land newly-made home again, and he tells himself he can wait. Heās waited longer for less.Ā
Prissy-ass Hedward or whatever probably doesnāt even remember how to reload, anyway. He might even chip a nail.Ā
And itās only then that Nathan realizes itās not just housekeeping that makes the room look so empty.
āHey Sully, do you know whereāā
Victor doesnāt even meet his eye when he breaches the doorway, a half dozen backpacks split between each arm.Ā
āWhat? The new girl?ā
āYeah, what didā?ā
āMove for a second, wouldya.āĀ
So Nathan obeys and squeezes aside as Sully heaves three meaty tactical packs onto the freshly-made bed with a groan. Itās probably two hundred vertebrae that audibly crack when he dares to stretch back out again.Ā
āWhere didā?āĀ
Nathan asks with more vigor than he intends.
Meanwhile Sullivan doesnāt even bother to stop rifling through the equipment when he answers:Ā
āValentine? Yeah, she, uh, had some thing to get back to in the states. Had a spider bite. Or something. Probably. Who cares. With what we have now, we wonāt need designated distraction anymore. Ya had your rehearsal dinner. Came back with enough limbs to satisfy me, kid.āĀ
A sturdy, shockingly comfortless clap on the shoulder.Ā
āAnyway, archeologist teamās so scattered on the weekends, we could probably pull the car right up to Nefertitiās koss if we wanted. Itās not like ya need a babysitter.āĀ
āOh.ā Nathan says.Ā
The sound of a dozen zippers unzipping and about a triple dozen bundles of rope being poured out over the carpet sings through the still, suddenly too-quiet air. Before last night, Nathan didnāt think the world being too-quiet was something heād ever mind. His chest deflates, his heart stings strangely sour. His eyebrows knit in the middle of his forehead in every way heād kill, heād die, to have them not.Ā
But somehow, impossibly, they do.
āYou okay, kid?ā
āYeah, justāāĀ
But then, suddenly, Nathan catches sight of his Beretta 92ā¦ smiling at him from the unlocked suite safe. He catches sight of Sully. The sun through the window blinds. The unfamiliar furniture. The torn fibers of a center rug. Egypt. Everywhere that isnāt Egypt.Ā
And he remembers. He sees. He sees everything he wanted back. He sees everything he was before. He sees every wrong thereās still there to make right. He sees a name that means something.
He sees the man his brother knew he could be.
And Drake smirks.
āGood. I was getting bored of crybabies, anyway.āĀ
I notice you donāt engage much on here any more aside from the occasional post. Iām super stoked whenever you do post (makes my day, legit, I canāt wait for the next Tsi chapter) but I miss seeing you appear on my dash like you used toš„ŗš this isnāt meant to be some weird bratty message demanding your presence lmfao but more to say that I hope youāre okay. We love you!
AH okay, first things first, so sorry for the delay in replying to this. Thank you for the opportunity to put a few things to rights š„¹ (Also - fair warning - Iām on annual leave this week for the first time since December and finally finding the hours to catch up on everything Iāve missed, so if I suddenly surface all over your dash reblogging things from several weeks ago, Iām sorry. Call me unc or whatever ig.)
Youāre not wrong that Iāve gone a bit quiet, but itās less āvanished into the voidā and more āadult with a tedious full-time marketing job, sometimes with unconventional hours and often with a tragically finite number of hours to myself.ā Whatever free time I scrape together, Iāve been pouring straight into writing, so please consider every update a little love letter sent from the trenches of my ellipsus docs. The next one is on its way, I promise. Please bear with me x
Iāll be a touch honest too: the time thing is the killer, and I think it gets misread sometimes. When I donāt immediately reblog someoneās art or catch up on their updates, itās never personal. itās that Iād genuinely rather wait until I can sit with it and give it the attention it deserves, instead of half-arsing a skim-read on a five-minute wee break. We all have different lifestyles and schedules, and Iāve noticed that gap get taken as coldness when really itās the opposite. I just refuse to skim the people and things I care about.
The honest flip side is that itās also made me pickier about where my energy goes. Iām at the age where Iād rather have a handful of real conversations than ride the reblog-go-round, or develop strange, transactional relationships with people that only withstand a period of time because Iām pushing their content, and tumblr lately has seen this slow, Instagram-y driftā¦ numbers, cliques, the occasional pedestal, that just isnāt the thing I fell for when I got here. Less sad than clarifying, honestly. Maybe itās a generational shift in how fandom spaces work now; maybe itās just me changing. Either way, I know what I actually like now: making things for myself and sharing with others who may have similar interests, and talking to people who genuinely want to talk to me.
Which is the part I want to say loudest: I am STILL here, askbox and DMs permanently flung open. Iāve just learned to let other folks start a few of the conversations, so Iām not always the one holding the rope.
In saying all this, hereās an open invite to drop your headcanons and short drabble ideas/requests in my ask box - Iāve missed doing them!!!
Love you right back, thank you for checking in ā¤ļø
trying my hand at a reader insert for the first time. letās see how long it takes before i give myself the ick and delete this one š¤Ŗ
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āThis is highly unprofessional,ā your voice hitches between syllables, lust a hook that snags the thread of your self-control; a once tightly wound spool that now seems to unravel easily at the whims of the man currently devouring the bare skin of your neck.
āTake it up with HR,ā Samās hands, never idle, busy themselves with their respective tasks - his left at the base of your neck beneath the curtain of your hair, a steady hold like an anchor as his right travels a gradual path. His fingers start at your knee, dancing along the slit of your dress as he starts to push the satin fabric of it up like an obstacle to be removed.Ā
But you grab his wrist, pausing him there between your thighs and out of reach from the place you both long for him to be. He kneads the soft flesh there like he canāt help himself, like heād take what little he can get and savor it anyways, ever the optimist.Ā
āWe shouldnāt.āĀ
He kisses his way back up to your face, efficient and measured in his attention as he leans back from you not to create any real cavern of distance, but to catch your eyes in his, to give you that wolfish smile thatĀ you know heās wearing before you see it for yourself.Ā
āWhen has that stopped us before?ā
Heās not wrong, but you donāt tell him that, instead letting the pendulum of indecision swing somewhere between base wants and rational thought as you take in what little you can see of him in the dim lighting.Ā
Youāre in a rather precarious position, balanced here on the edge of a spare table in some disarrayed supply room, having abandoned both the mission at hand and your propriety. The latter you have no real hope of salvaging, not if Samuel Drake is within twenty feet of you, but the formerā¦thatās not something youāre willing to part with.Ā
āWe still have a job to do, Sam.āĀ Ā
āSo?ā he shrugs, and you feel him test your hold on his wrist, finding it ironclad, but smiling still like you were a lock nearly picked, āWe can be quick.āĀ
Ā āI donāt want to be quick.āĀ
You keep your eyes on his, free hand playing with the curls at the nape of his neck, and you watch his pupils dilate just a fraction as their attention catches on your lips.Ā
āYouāre killinā me here,ā and he does actually look stricken, starved even, like the very idea of not having you right here and now is a torture not easily beared. And he says youāre dramatic.Ā
āI think youāll survive another couple hours,ā you trust him enough to unwind your grip on his wrist but he doesnāt move his hand, simply keeps it there halfway up your thigh like he has no other place to be. You offer him a small consolation, a whisper of a kiss, leaning back when he tries to deepen it, āBesides, Iāll make the wait worth your while.āĀ
āIs that right?āĀ
āScoutās honor.ā
He snorts, close enough still that you can feel his breath on your face,āThey give out badges for beinā a little slut now?āĀ
āAsshole.ā
āTease.āĀ
You shove his chest hard enough that he stumbles backwards, freeing yourself from the cage of his grasp and gaining a small opportune window to hop down from the table before he can trap you again; you donāt trust yourself to resist him twice.
You do your best to undo the damage wrought by your irresponsible decisions, first straightening out the manhandled fabric of your dress to lay properly. You find your hastily discarded clutch on the floor, thrown some feet away in the heat of the moment beside an empty mop bucket, and immediately rummage through it for your pocket mirror. By the grace of some god who must have a soft spot for the lustful, the reflection that stares back at you is nearly untouched, save for a few tangles in your hair. You take a moment to give thanks to yourself for having the wherewithal to don a lip stain tonight; youād learned that lesson the hard way.Ā
His gaze stays on you, fixated, begging to be returned, but you make him wait - patience is a virtue he could use a refresher on. And when you finally grant him your attention, you find him looking at you with his head cocked slightly, smug smile on his face, the one that immediately sets your skin alight.Ā
āWhat?āĀ
āNothinā,ā he shrugs, feigning innocence despite the look in his eye implying anything but, āJust enjoyinā the view.āĀ
Your groan, throwing a loose mint in your purse at him, āDude.ā
āOh come on, itās a good line,ā he laughs, that self-pleased rasp youāve come to love.Ā
āYeah for a made for tv movie, maybe.āĀ
āTrust me - the things Iām thinkinā of when Iām lookinā at you would not make it to TV,ā he pauses, furrowing his brow in fake-thought, āWell, maybe Cinemax.āĀ
āDonāt make me throw another mint at you.āĀ
But itās a threat ignored, one that does nothing to smother the tangible, vexing look of want in his eye, his smile like a warning you donāt know if youāll have the strength to heed. You feel claustrophobic beneath the attention, like a target to be honed in on, and when he takes a step toward you, you immediately match his stride but backwards, your laugh a nervous chime, āNuh-Uh. Park it, grabby.āĀ
āWhat - no kiss goodbye?ā
āNo nothing until we finish this job.ā
He rolls his eyes, but the words do what they need to, impeding his approach. āGod, youāre startinā to sound like Victor.āĀ
āYou say that like itās a bad thing.āĀ
āWell it certainly isnāt a good thing, Iāll tell you that much.āĀ
You give him a pointed look, one heās intimately familiar with, and start to head towards the exit, feeling him in tow behind you at a disconcerting distance. He pauses there at your back when you reach the door, not close enough to touch you but just enough that you can feel the heat of him, steady and maddening, and youāre tempted to elbow him in the gut as a lesson in personal boundaries.Ā
You can hear the low hum of a crowd even before you crack the door open, the quick sliver of sight only confirming what you already feared. āShit; thereās people everywhere.āĀ
āShame,ā but he doesnāt seem even remotely concerned, and you feel him lean down, his next words spoken into the shell of your ear, āGuess weāll have to find a way to kill the time.ā
āDonāt start,ā you whip around to face him, no longer trusting him to behave without your eyes on him.Ā
āIām just sayinā,ā he grins at you like youāre some piece in a game of his own making, perfectly placed right where he wants you, āAll work and no playā¦āĀ
āI play plenty, thank you very much.āĀ Ā
āSpeakinā of,ā he narrows in on you with a single, calculating step, and you have nowhere to go, not with the wall at your back, finding yourself well and truly trapped in the exact position you were trying to avoid, āRemember that closet in Marseille? You didnāt seem too pressed about foolinā around then.āĀ
Oh, you most definitely remember that. Your bodies between hung coats, barely concealed, one leg on his shoulder as he knelt there on the floor and made you cum twice with just his tongue; not a moment one forgets.Ā
āSam -āĀ
And his arms are somehow on your waist again, pulling you into him as sure as the tide, and you hate the way your body folds completely to his aims like it were as inevitable as gravity, no resistance to the wandering feel of his hands.Ā
āThen there was that out of order bathroom in MatarĆ³, and the random Porsche we broke into in Bristol, and the -āĀ
Heat crawls up your spine as you swat his chest, trying and failing miserably to gather the non-existent pieces of your restraint, āThose were all after weād finished the job. Perv.āĀ
āHey I hate to break to you, sweetheart,ā his voice is a low, dangerous rumble as his lips fall to your cheek, kissing a path to your ear, ābut if I'm a perv, then youāre most definitely a perv, too.āĀ
āWow, thatās -ā you canāt help but laugh, even as he starts to lightly trail his mouth down your neck, āyou know, I donāt think a guyās ever called me a perv to try to get in my pants before.ā
He lifts his head to look down at you, eyebrows dancing suggestively, āIs it workinā?ā
āYouāre incorrigible, you know that?ā
āI love it when you talk sweet to me.āĀ
And god help you, but you wind your arms around his neck as he starts to close what little space remains between the two of you, all sense be damned, when a minuscule, distant part of you picks up the lack of noise outside. The silence like a siren awakens the rational part of you long thought dead, and you turn your face before he can kiss you, unlacing your arms from his neck to peek through the door again.Ā
You hear him audibly sigh as he rests his head on your shoulder in defeat.Ā
Thereās a lag in the crowd, a gift you donāt want to take for granted, so you hastily tug him through the cracked open door, only creating a gap just big enough to squeeze through, āCome on, Romeo - The coast is finally clear.ā
āYou know, itās cruel to toy with a man like this.ā
Heās still maintaining that same level of near non-existent distance as you carefully close the door behind you, and itās entirely reckless, the way heās shamelessly toying with you even now out in the open, no walls to hide behind.
āYouāre a big boy; I think you can handle it,ā and itās not fair for him to be the only one that gets to torment, so you smack his still half-hard dick, smiling sweetly up at him like youād only just given him a kiss.Ā
He winces, gritting his teeth as heās rendered stagnant by an approaching group of partygoers who unknowingly steal any hopes he has for retaliation, āYouāre gonna pay for that later.āĀ
You pretend to fix his tie, saccharine smirk still on your face, āPromise?āĀ
And he apes that same expression, āYouāre terrible.āĀ
āYou love it.ā
āMaybe.ā
You both willingly cage yourselves here for a moment, eyes locked to one anotherās like a silent standoff. But you break first, sighing as you take a few slow backwards steps from him, āWell, this was fun and all, but Iām off to do some work. I recommend you do the same, Mr. Drake.āĀ
āMuch rather do you.ā
You point a warning finger, āBehave.āĀ Ā
āNo promises.āĀ
You turn your back to him, thinking yourself finally free from the clutches of depravity, when you feel, unmistakably, a hard smack to your ass. Itās loud enough that it draws the attention of a few stray attendees around you, but you donāt give him the satisfaction of turning around. You simply walk straight ahead, flushed head to toe, right ass cheek stinging, as if nothing had happened at all.Ā
Ā· Ā· ā Ā·ā¶Ā· ā Ā· Ā·
The snack table at this gala, much to your dismay, is a rather lacking assortment considering the tax bracket you're surrounded by. But you keep any snide comments to yourself as you eat your fourth canape, some concoction of cheese and mystery meat thatās nearly edible when accompanied with a generous swig of wine. Youāre nursing your third glass, and probably shouldāve stopped after the second, but who were you to turn down an 82 Lafite bordeaux?Ā
Somewhere off in the distance, a well-paid schmuck is parked in front of a baby grand, playing a distasteful classical rendition of a Madonna song that escapes you. Your feet tap absentmindedly to the rhythm as your eyes scan the snack table for your next victim - a tea sandwich maybe, or a chunk of brie with a nice piece of fig, or perhaps -Ā
āNice of you to finally join the party,ā Sullyās voice breaks through your grazing stupor, and you jump at the sudden, accusatory sound of it.Ā
āI was having a dress malfunction,ā is the excuse your wine-rotted brain decides to clumsily spew out as you turn to him, food mumbling your words. You try to chew quickly, wiping stray puff pastry crumbs from your chest, the picture of poise and grace.Ā
"Couldn't've come up with a better lie, huh?ā You watch his face fall to an amused scowl, crossing his arms the way he does when heās about to haggle someone, scotch balanced on his elbow.Ā
āWhatās that supposed to mean?āĀ
āYou know damn well what I mean.āĀ
You laugh, not entirely pleased with the sound of it but itās casual enough, āUh, I donāt, actually. Hey, how many of those have you had, Sully?ā you gesture to his drink, taking a sip of your own to rid your mouth of the stray crumbs still clinging to your teeth, āMaybe the scotch is starting to get to you.āĀ
āThe only thing thatās gettinā to me is you two bozos on my nerves. Youāre growinā sloppy.āĀ
Shit.
You can tell by the furrow in his brow that he isnāt going to drop whatever heās got between his teeth until heās satisfied that itās dead, that heās made his point. But you donāt let yourself give in that easily, foolishly clutching onto a distant possibility that maybe, just maybe, you could gnash your way out.Ā
āJust because Iām taking a break to enjoy the refreshments does not make me sloppy, thank you very much. And Iāll have you know Iāve been working extraneously this whole night to make sure-ā
āYouāre really gonna make me say it, arenāt you?ā
You shrink beneath the crushing weight of pure disappointment in his eye, but hold your shaky, crumbling ground despite yourself.Ā
āSay what?ā
He sighs, shaking his head, hesitant like he was about to open a door he knew he wouldnāt be able to close, āAlright. Have it your way,ā a sip of his scotch is his only moment of pause before he says, āI know youāre sleepinā together.āĀ
Your eyes widen before you can stop them, and a laugh leaves your mouth that you have no real control over, a loud, anxious, off-kilter sound, and still, like the stubborn, stupid asshole you are, already knee deep in a grave you dug yourself, you keep burying, āOkay, now Iām seriously worried about you - are you coming down with a fever or something?āĀ
He wears a placid expression, almost patient, but in the way an experienced fighter knows to wait, to bide their time, let their opponent tire themselves out before making their first strike. And youāre not expecting his debut jaw-shattering hit when he sighs, and shakes his head, and says,Ā āIāve got two words for you, kid - shower. Dubrovnik. That ringinā a bell?ā
Fuck.Ā
FUCK.FUCK.FUCK.FUCK.
It did, unfortunately, ring a very loud bell. Your memory, cruel as she is, decides to bombard you with flashes of the things you and Sam did to each other in that shower, depraved, borderline animalistic things that apparently, your very good friend Victor Sullivan had borne some form of witness to.
You find yourself wishing the floor would open up and swallow you whole, or a meteor would spontaneously crash through the vaulted ceilings, or a sudden on-set aneurysm would strike you down - anything to save you from this.
āHow much did you hear?āĀ
He recoils at the question, āNothing x-rated, if thatās what youāre askinā. I got the hell out of there before I could.āĀ
You let out a sigh of relief that you feel all the way down to your soul. Itās a small but welcomed reprieve, not enough to staunch the horrifying sting of mortification all together, but itās a minuscule win youāll take, āWhy didnāt you say anything?ā
āI'm sayinā somethinā now, aren't I? And not cause I want to, either, but you gave me no choice with you foolinā around on the clock.āĀ
Another devastating blow to your dignity, falling somewhere behind your ribs,āHow did you-āĀ
āI wasnāt born yesterday, you know. And normally I'd keep my nose out of it, but the last thing I need is for you two punks to get slapped with an indecent exposure charge while weāre in the middle of a goddamn job.āĀ
āShit,ā itās a final right hook, signed, sealed, delivered straight to the marrow of you, as you look up to your friend and feel the only thing the losing side ever gets to feel - shame, regret, guilt. They cling to you like scarlet letters, stitched into your skin. āIām so so sorry, Sully. Youāre completely and totally right. I - I donāt know what I was thinking,ā you werenāt, is the crux of the problem; it seems youāre incapable of it when it comes to Sam. āIt wonāt happen again. I promise.ā
The handsome lines of his face are completely clear of any animosity as he considers you, and you wonder if you look as outwardly pathetic as you feel. Youāre expecting him to dole out at least one more well-deserved hit - something about how he expected more from you or that he didnāt know you were capable of being so insanely thoughtless. Instead, his gaze softens, tone nearly gentle as he says, āIs it serious?ā
You feel yourself blush at the frankness of his words, letting out the same habitual, nervous laugh with the futility of donning hole-ridden armor,āIs anything with Sam serious?āĀ
He shrugs, taking another sip of his scotch, eyes sharp as if he were looking for clues between your every syllable, āMaybe not. But Iāve never seen you act this way with a fella before.ā
What?
You're stunned into silence, blinking, waiting for thought and speech to return to you for several long, painful seconds before you awkwardly croak out, āItās - itās not like that, Sully. Really. Weāre just friends having fun. Nothing more.ā
Your own words sound hollow even to you, but he doesnāt push, just studies you carefully for a few moments before he says, āWell -Ā be careful, yeah? Commitment isnāt exactly his strong suit. And I donāt want my best girl gettinā her heart broke.ā
āItās a good thing Iām not looking for commitment then.ā
āYeah. Good thing.ā
He looks at you with an expression far too close to pity for your comfort, and this elongated silence between you is only making it worse. So you finish the remnants of your wine, and pray that your brain still has some form of humor left to cut the pair of you free from the embarrassing weeds of honesty and vulnerability youāre tangled in now.Ā
āWellā¦that was certainly not on my bingo card for tonight.āĀ
He chuckles, all too happy to follow your detour, āTrust me, it wasnāt on mine either.ā
āDonāt tell me weāre going to have The Talk next?āĀ
āI think weāre way past that, doll.āĀ
Ā āWay past?ā you scoff, clutching your invisible pearls, āWhat are you trying to say exactly?ā
He knocks his elbow into you, āNothinā you havenāt heard before.ā
āWow, okay, funny guy. Keep it up and your next trip is gonna be a one way ticket to a home.ā
He barks out a laugh, āNāaw you love me too much for that.ā
āDonāt be so sure, old man.āĀ
āEh, Iāll push my luck.āĀ
āPush you right into a wheelchair, more like.ā
He points a finger at you, no real malice behind his scornful tone, āHey watch it, smart ass.ā
You shrug, holding his gaze as you smile at each other, āYou started it.āĀ
āYeah well, serves you right for makinā me play Mother Hen.āĀ
āOkay, fair enough,ā you hold out your free hand, an olive branch for the taking, āTruce?ā
And he grasps it without hesitation,āTruce. Now, come on - letās go finish scopinā this joint out.āĀ
āYes. Letās.āĀ
And you do. You make small talk with the other guests as you take note of all the minute details to fill in the loose ends of your blueprint back at the hotel. The number of exits. The type of locks on the windows and doors. What weapons the security guards are carrying and if they look like they know how to use them. But all the while, in the background of your mind, a constant, insistent buzzing like the hum of cicadas in the summer.Ā
Iāve never seen you act this way with a fella before.Ā
What the fuck did he mean by that?Ā
Ā· ā Ā·ā¶Ā· ā Ā· Ā·
The solitude your hotel room offers is little comfort when you know itās a state not long preserved.Ā
Sam would be here soon, surely, despite your best efforts to the contrary. Thereās little one can do to impede the will of a Drake, but it didnāt stop you from trying, your method of choice a subdued strategy - the cold shoulder. Part of you had hoped it would be enough to steer him clear of you, but you know the bastard is probably just thinking you did it all to drive him crazy; it certainly wouldnāt be the first time, in his defense.Ā
Youād excused yourself from the debrief back in Sullyās room, your makeshift basecamp, blaming your early exit on a wine-induced headache and feeling nearly-guilty as you left them with nothing more than an apology. But you knew your absence would slow any planning, thus giving you precious time to think. And stew. And panic. And wonder if maybe coming to your room alone wasnāt so good of an idea after all.Ā
Youāve already abandoned your too-tight dress and too-tall heels, discarding them nearly the moment you got back to exchange them instead for bare feet and a giant t-shirt. You canāt stop filtering between a disjointed routine of sitting, standing, and pacing that at least seems to match the manic tempo of your thoughts.Ā Ā
Iāve never seen you act this way with a fella before.Ā
Sullyās words rattle in your mind like a piece knocked loose, one you canāt seem to get righted back into place. And now that youāre alone, thereās no external impediments to stop the dam from bursting. The same way pain can come long after an injury, when the fog of adrenaline passes and the body finally gives in, you find yourself succumbing here to feelings you never took the time to give breath, that you never even knew existed.Ā
You force yourself to sit with it, truly, this six month old thing neither of you has bothered to give a name. No set terms to review. No real attention bestowed to what it all means, if it means anything at all. You havenāt been with anyone else. Havenāt even given that possibility a passing thought. No. The only man that occupied your mind was him. And it was a change so gradual, so insidious, that you werenāt even aware of it until now. Somewhere, somehow, beneath the cloak of impromptu hookups, the lines in your mind began to blur, and the path blindly taken strayed from casual fun into untraveled terrain you dare not begin to map out. Not now. Not when you can finally feel the extent of which heās wormed his way into the very sinew of you, an infestation now too far gone to possibly eradicate. Maybe Sully was right. Have you ever felt this way about someone? Have you ever let yourself?Ā
Fuck.Ā
Your stomach plummets at the sound of the familiar chime of the key card, a prelude song thatās nearly pavlovian the way your body anticipates the dance that always follows. He steps through the threshold, still donned in his tux sans his tie, looking so infuriatingly handsome it makes your chest seize.Ā
āHi,ā a soft smile is etched into his face as he takes unhurried steps into the room.Ā
āHi.āĀ
He clears his throat, cocking his head to the side, that playful look in his eye gleaming as he glances around like he has something to find among the bare bones furniture of a chain hotel, āSorry to intrude, miss, but I came to investigate a noise complaint. You wouldnāt happen to know anything about that, would you?ā
You try to hide a smile, already caught in the pull of his game as you squint your eyes in pretend thought, āA noise complaint? No. I havenāt heard a thing.āĀ
āApparently thereās been repeated reports of - uh - incessant banging. That, and lots of loud moaning.ā
āSounds serious.āĀ
āIt is, actually. A punishable offense, even.ā
āWell I hope you find the people responsible then.āĀ
He twists his head around as if to take in the full expanse of your tiny room, eyebrows furrowed. You watch him as he walks over to the meager two-seated table by the far window to run a finger across the scratched vinyl, inspecting his un-dusted pads like a cheap impression of Columbo, āYou do a lot of moaninā in here, miss?āĀ
A small laugh slips that you manage to mask as a scoff, āI beg your pardon?ā
āYou heard me.ā
"I'm not sure what youāre trying to insinuate, but I've never moaned a day in my life.ā
You watch his lips twitch as his eyes fall to you, āNever, huh?ā
āNope,ā you shake your head, lifting your nose at him in an act of haughtiness, āSo I'm afraid you must have the wrong room.āĀ
āSee, now thatās a much bigger problem,ā he tsks, sighing, shaking his head like he faces a job most dire, āIām afraid I can't leave here in good conscience until we get that littleā¦never moaned problem aāyours all sorted.āĀ
āWhat kind of hotel is this?āĀ
āOne that takes the satisfaction of our guests very seriously.āĀ
Heās wearing a dangerous smile as your eyes lock, but he doesnāt move from the table.Ā
You hate the way your skin hums with the urge to touch him. āAnd will I be charged extra for thisā¦service?ā
āOh no. This oneās on the house,ā he keeps his gaze on you as he shrugs off his suit jacket, hanging it there unceremoniously against the back of the chair, his dress shoes the next object of his attention. You donāt bother hiding the hungry way you watch him,Ā eyes lingering on the move of his muscles beneath his dress shirt, on the tapered shape of his waist.Ā
āLucky me.ā
He closes the distance between you in a few easy strides, seeming to glide against the floral-patterned carpet. You expect his hands to reach for their usual favored destinations, but instead, he frames your face with his grasp, cradling you there as you look up at him. āHowās the head?āĀ
āIāll live.āĀ
His thumb strokes the apple of your cheek, eyes a searching spotlight on your features like he was trying to see through you. āYou know, I donāt think I had a chance to tell you how beautiful you look tonight.āĀ
āDude,ā you shake free of his hold, trying and failing to hide the inching feel of a blush, āYou can skip the whole flattery act; Iām already gonna sleep with you.āĀ
āItās not an act, you brat,ā his arms a lasso that wind around your waist, a firm hold unable to be broken; not that youād want to, anyways, āI couldnāt keep my eyes off aāyou. Seriously.Ā
āWell thatās rather concerning considering you were supposed to be keeping your eyes on the security system.ā
āHey, itās not my fault you decided to wear a dress like that. And honestly Iām a little ticked off yādidnāt let me take it off you myself.āĀ
āSo your lack of professionalism is my fault?ā
āEh, mostly I'd blame the girls here,ā his eyes motion downwards to your cleavage, hidden now beneath your worn sleep shirt, āViolet, especially.ā
āYou have got to stop anthropomorphising my tits.ā
āNever.ā
When his lips start their descent to you, you anticipate fire, raging and explosive, but whatās given is a smoldering burn, slow and creeping and all together entirely more dangerous. His hands roam your body as his tongue slides along your bottom lip, a knock on the door of your mouth that you all too eagerly open, pride be damned. But thereās an air of patience to his touch that digs beneath your skin, a pace far too considerate for your liking. Your hands blindly reach for his belt, a catalyst to add kerosene to flame, sliding the cool leather from his pant straps, releasing it from the buckle, and nearly freeing him entirely of its restrictive hold before he stops you. You feel your heart sink, doused with the frigid water of disappointment.Ā
āNot so fast, sweet thing.ā
āDonāt tell me youāre saving yourself for marriage?āĀ
He snorts, āIām tryna take my time here, alright?ā
āRather you wouldnāt.āĀ
A long finger twirls the end of your hair, his other palm planted firmly on your ass, āThatās awful rich cominā from the girl who gave me blue balls for four hours.āĀ
āWell Iām trying to fix that, but youāre not letting me.ā
āPatience, sweetheart,ā he dons a sing-songy tone, looking down at you in much the same way a cat might play with its food.Ā Ā Ā
āLike youāre one to talk.āĀ
He presses a chaste kick to your mouth, his next words spoken against your lips, āDonāt move.āĀ
And you listen. Even as he steps away from you. Even as he plops down at the foot of the bed, making himself comfortable, leaning back against his forearms as you stand there, waiting, waiting, waiting, like the loyal dog you are.Ā
Heās dripping in a smugness so heavy youāre surprised the bed doesnāt collapse beneath the weight of it, āUndress for me.āĀ
You feel your whole body blush as you bark out a laugh āWhat?āĀ
He shrugs, āYou said youād make it worth my while.āĀ
āYeah, I meant more in the way of a blowjob, not a strip tease.āĀ
āI donāt need a whole show - I just wanna watch you take your t-shirt off.āĀ
You glare at him, hating the sure way he looks at you as if he already knows youāll do it, like this whole exchange was merely for your benefit, to let you think you have any say in the matter, āSeriously?ā
āYes, seriously. Would it kill you to indulge me?ā
āIt might.ā
āWell, in the event of your death, Iāll accept full legal responsibility - howās that?ā
āWow. Soooo romantic, Samuel.ā
āJust shut up and take the shirt off.ā
A pointed pause hangs between you as you both wait for the inevitable break of your will, that weak, malleable muscle nearly atrophied at this point, useless in the face of him.Ā
āFine. But only since you asked so nicely.āĀ
Your compliance is malicious; the one act of power you have left lies in trying to make your undressing as unappealing as possible. You awkwardly shove an arm out of the sleeve and tug it forcefully over your head, cotton chaffing against your hair, strands alive with static as you throw the shirt somewhere off in the corner.Ā
He looks about as pleased as if youād given him a whole burlesque routine, and youāre tempted to throw the nearest object at his stupid, ego-swollen, infuriatingly hot head.Ā
You hold your arms out expectantly, but donāt move otherwise, āHappy?ā
āElated,ā and he looks every bit of it, āNow give me a spin.ā
āOh go fuck yourself,ā but you smile, the pair of you laughing like this was all some sort of private joke - you nearly naked and him fully clothed, this habitual cadence of power between the pair of you, or lack there of, in your case.Ā Ā
āIām tryinā to fuck you actually but youāre insistinā on beinā difficult.āĀ
āMe? Youāre the one making me play Simon Says.ā
āI thought you liked it when I tell you what to do?āĀ
Shit. Heās got you there. Youād do just about anything if it was him on the other end of an ask; you try not to linger on the gravity of what that means.
His lips curve sideways with a knowing grin, āNothinā to say to that, huh?ā
āShut up,ā and with gritted teeth, you spin for him, feeling about as helpless as a porcelain figure in a music box, doomed to perform when opened.Ā
āSee? Was that really so hard?ā
āI hate you.āĀ
The fond look in his eye makes you want to jump out the window.Ā
He ticks his head to the side like a call to be answered, āCāmere.āĀ
And you do. No distance between you now as you stand in front of him, not quite towering over him, but itās enough to give you the illusion of an advantage. He wastes no time in smothering his head between your breasts, perfectly placed in front of him like they were for little else.
āGod, I missed you two,ā he kneads, and squeezes, and nips, and kisses through the thin mesh fabric of your bra with the ferocity of a man reunited with his other half.Ā
You roll your eyes, āStop talking to my boobs.āĀ
āStop interrupting us.āĀ
Your hands lace through his hair as his lips start to wander, down to the bare skin of your stomach, where he traverses across you like following a favored path, taking his time in his journey. His hands are gentle against the planes of your body, sweeping against the surface of you, wakeless, calm, You close your eyes to the feel of it, trying and failing miserably to enjoy the quiet attention, but itās all too sweet and soft and intimate, like salt in a wound youāre trying to soothe, the thoughts in your mind growing louder. You canāt take a minute more of this, every affectionate press of palm and lip a nail in a coffin. You need escape from this sepulcher, need him to remind you of the place youāve uprooted yourself from, back into the soil of friends with casual benefits. No strings like nooses to choke on.Ā
You tug his hair hard enough to get him to look at you, āCan I get on my knees for you now?āĀ
His eyes, pretty even in the lackluster lighting, search your face. You watch him struggle with himself, donning a concerning bit of hesitation and care that you've never seen him wear before; you hate the look of it on him. And then his hands are sliding up your thigh, and heās marveling up at you in a way that makes your blood start to curdle, and you really just want to die at this point, āNot yet. I wanna kiss you properly first.āĀ
When he pulls you into his lap, it feels like a death sentence. But itās easy to ignore your approaching demise with his lips on yours, and his tongue in your mouth, and his practiced hands undoing the strap of your bra. You follow his lead, working at the buttons on his shirt, unconsciously grinding down on the hard shape of him you can already feel through his trousers. He groans into your mouth and you swallow as if the sound could be consumed, hands shakily pushing the sleeves of his shirt down his arms, no barrier now between the skin of your chests.Ā
You let yourself be tugged along by the current of desire, losing yourself to the blur of the rapids - the bruising feel of his mouth on your tits, teeth and tongue against your nipples, staking his claim on you. You still have remnants of bruises there, and on the inside of your thighs, hidden places for him to carve his initials into your skin.Ā
Your mouth falls to his neck, and your own lips set to blooming purple against his flock of birds, relishing in the way he hums, the vibration of it like plucking just the right string. His hands knead at the flesh of your ass, hips jerking upwards into yours, a clothed dance between your bodies, of empty friction that only spurs you further.Ā
āAlright,ā you hear him say, resigned, feel it against your skin as you lick your way to his earlobe, pinning the soft flesh of it between your teeth, āYou can put that pretty mouth aāyours to work now.āĀ
You smile against him, āDonāt have to tell me twice,ā and gleefully slide down his body to take your rightful spot on your knees. You work together to pull his pants and boxers down, letting them pool around his ankles as his cock springs free. The head of him is already leaking, the unripe fruit of your labor there in the pearlescent hue; you feel your mouth water at the sight of him, red and engorged and looking every bit as needy as you feel.Ā
You kiss your way up his knee to his inner thigh, and he watches you with bated breath as you let your tongue indulgently slide along the handsome vein that sprawls from his balls to his cockhead, drinking in every detail on his face as you do - the pained furrow of brow, the tight clench of his jaw, the desperate look in his eye. You think about torturing him a little, but the thought of waiting even a second more without him in your mouth is too much to bear; this is, after all, every bit as much for you as it is for him.Ā
āBe a doll and hold my hair back, will you?āĀ
āAt your service,ā he gathers your hair as you finally guide the weeping head of his dick into your mouth, taking him slowly, inch by painstaking inch. You hear him curse above you, a string of jesus, fuck me, christ, stomach shuddering with stunted breaths as your fist pumps the thick base of him, never quite able to fit the full length of him in your mouth, the well-endowed bastard. You donāt bother hiding your moans as he fills you, your twisting hand moving in sync with the bobbing of your head, tongue swirling along the shape of him. He collides with the back of your throat, and you gag, clenching your thighs together as you make him do it again, and again, and again.Ā
āJesus Christ,ā your eyes flit up to him, flush blooming across his stubbled cheeks, and the word pretty comes to mind at the sight, āYāhave no idea how good you look gagginā on me like this.āĀ
You moan, eagerly waiting for the inevitable that always comes with you on your knees. When the gentle hold of your hair will turn into a rough grasp like a leash pulled taught, when his hips will start to thrust with no regard for the way you drool and choke on him, your throat nothing but a means to an end. When he finally gives you what you desperately need. But, devastatingly, that moment never comes.Ā
You try to push his own hand down on the back of your head as a gentle nudge towards your desired territory but he doesnāt take the bait. āStop that.āĀ
You pop off of him, trail of saliva a lingering link between you and his cock as your hand still pumps him, āYouāre being so gentle.ā
āAnd - fuck -ā, you grant him a particularly hard squeeze, āWhat about it?ā
āDont be.āĀ
āAre you tellinā or askinā?ā
āDoes it matter?āĀ
āIt might.ā
You pout your lips, āPlease?ā
āNo.ā
āWhy not?ā
āBecause I shit - ā your thumb purposefully rubs the head of his dick, lingering there, squeezing and twisting like you could coax the answer you wanted out of him with just your hand alone, āCause I said so.āĀ
āBut I want you to.āĀ
He takes hold of your wrist, moving your hand off him, and you canāt help but sigh in frustration, āCan I be frank?ā
āRather you be Sam.āĀ
āReally?ā
āYou kind of walked right into that one.āĀ
āLook, wise ass - I - ā he stops himself, and if you didnāt know him better, youād say he almost looksā¦shy? but Samuel Drake was not shy. Certainly not when it comes to matters of coitus. He takes a breath, and smiles down at you like heās about to ask you for a favor you might decline, āI just wanna make love to you like a normal person tonight, alright? We can save that other shit for another time.āĀ
Fuck.Ā
He really couldnāt have said a more terrible string of words. They stick to the inside of your guts like thorns, puncturing, and digging, and tearing. And you despise the soft way he looks down at you like his rock hard dick isnāt mere inches from your face.Ā
āIām quite partial to that other shit,ā you lean your head against the inside of his knee, pouting your lips still as you look up to him with batting lashes; a routine thatās gotten your way more than once before, and maybe, could gain your favor once again.Ā
āWell, me too,ā he lets his knuckles graze against your face, āBut it wouldnāt hurt to switch things up a bit, would it?āĀ
It hurts very acutely, actually, that he would ask this of you tonight, of all nights. You donāt bother mentioning that to him, though.Ā āDoes that mean manhandlingās off the table?āĀ
He smirks, āI can throw you around a little bit.ā
āAnd how do we feel about light choking?ā
āFine. Light chokinās fine. Iāll even pitch in a coupleāa spanks - that sound acceptable to you?āĀ
You press a kiss to his knee, āHow very generous.āĀ
āDo we have a deal?āĀ
You pretend to consider his offer, letting him wait as your eyes drift to the ceiling, wanting nothing more than to tell him no despite being entirely incapable of it, āI suppose I can live with that.ā
āGood,ā your chinās in his hand, his thumb stroking along the shape of it as he ticks his head to the side like a sign to be followed, āNow get up here. Itās my turn.āĀ
So you oblige his request, the way you always do,Ā following the pull of his hands that guide you upwards. Youāre expecting him to tug you into his lap, but instead, he stands too, and you can see him trying to hide a glint of mischief in the curve of his lips as his grasp falls to your hips.Ā
You narrow your eyes at him, āWhat are you -āĀ
Youāre roughly thrown over his shoulder before you can finish your sentence, a laugh escaping you that sounds unrecognizable to your ears - high-pitched and giddy and nauseatingly fond.Ā
āAre you crazy?āĀ
āHey, youāre the one that said you wanted to be manhandled -Ā Iām just givinā you what you asked for.āĀ
āThis wasnāt exactly what I had in mind,ā itās not a terrible view, though, from your vantage point. Youāre nearly face to face with the bare curve of his ass, more supple than it has any right to be; a favored part of him he always pretends not to understand why youāre partial to. You can also see the pool of his pants at his ankles still, shackles around his feet that only allow him to awkwardly shuffle as he tries to turn himself around, inch by inch.
āBeggars donāt get to be cho-Oh shit,ā you watch his foot snag on his pants, body lurching forward as he trips, catching himself clumsily on the end of bed. Your head collides against his back with an audible thunk.
āOw. Jesus. Walk much?āĀ
He laughs, a sound so genuine and sheepish you find yourself doing the same. He plops you down properly on the bed, body bouncing atop the cheap springs as it adjusts to your weight. āSorry. Really thought I had that.āĀ
āQuite the feat of grace there, Samuel.āĀ
āAt least yācould never say the sex was boring, right?ā He uses the bed to balance himself, making quick work of removing his pants and socks. You soak in the unimpeded view of his body, the strong, weathered planes of muscle that you think Rodin mightāve loved to put to marble. Or, at the very least, Playboy would have a very enticing centerfold on their hands.Ā Ā
He crawls over you, stopping short of being nose to nose, head in line with your tits instead, and not nearly as close as you want him to be, āNow, Iām going to go down on you, and youāre going to like it. Capiche?āĀ
Your lips twitch, offering him your best two finger salute, āIāll try my best to soldier through it.ā
āGood girl.āĀ
He kisses his way down your body, not dawdling on any part of you, dragging your underwear down with him as he takes the spot you were just in, knelt there piously on the carpet like a man about to pray. He pins your legs open against the bed like a bug with its wigs in a frame, on display for his own personal viewing.
āJesus,ā you watch him swallow at the sight of you, and feel heat swarm every inch of your skin, āAll this just for me?ā His eyes flit up to you as he kisses your inner thighs, stubble against skin like sand.Ā
āDonāt let it go to your head.āĀ
āKinda hard not to when youāre this fuckinā wet.āĀ
He runs a finger through your slick to enunciate his point, and your whole body jolts like you were simply a button to be pressed. Your eyes slam shut, senses beginning to fog you as your mind hones in on the beating ache between your thighs.Ā Ā
āHavinā my dick in your mouth gets you goinā that much, huh?ā You can hear the smile in his voice, the way the words ooze out of him like honey.Ā
Your aptitude for any real banter is squandered by the inching feel of his mouth. āMaybe,ā is the uneventful response you eventually manage, entirely unconvincing as another sharp inhale has your ribs surging upwards. You clench around nothing, swallowing a whine as he nips at the crease of your thigh.Ā
Blind to the world behind your pinched-shut eyes, every movement feels heightened - your legs now propped on his shoulders, his breath against your core, hovering over the place he belongs. Your hips arch upwards instinctively, desperate to close that last bit of space between his mouth and your cunt. But he makes no other move, and after a few agonizing seconds of suspension, you wearily open your eyes to look down at him, bracketed there between your legs.
Heās smiling at you in that tortuous way, a prelude to taunting, āTell me what you want, beautiful.āĀ
āYou know what I want,ā you hate the whiny, undone sound of your voice.Ā
āYeah but I wanna hear you say it,ā a teasing hand sidles up to your breast, and you lean into the touch, feeling on the brink of insanity, wondering if denial suffered long enough could turn a person mad.Ā Ā
āSam, please.āĀ Ā
āPlease what? Youāre gonna have to use your words here, sweetheart,ā he toys with your nipple, pinching it between his slender fingers.Ā
āJust fuck - put your mouth on me. Please.āĀ Ā
āAtta girl.ā
And he answers your yearning prayers when his mouth dives into your cunt like youāre oxygen in his breath-starved lungs. He works you open as if your bodyās a machine of his own design, knows the way to drag his tongue along the seam of you, back and forth like a switch to toggle, the way to close his lips around your clit and suck, soft first, then harder, and harder, until your hands curl into his hair and your body starts to tremble beneath him like a geyser near to bursting. You feel him moan against you, the low hum of it stifled beneath the sound of your wanton cries and the obscene noises of his ravenous mouth against your dripping cunt.Ā
You grind your hips up into him, craving more, needing more. He seems to read you like a book, pages of you spread there open as he slides a finger into you down to the knuckle and curves it in that way that has your spine mimicking that same crescent shape.Ā
āEnjoyinā yourself?ā his middle finger quickly joins his pointer, your cunt practically swallowing the digits whole with an audibly wet smack that youād feel more embarrassed about if you possessed enough brain power to feel anything but lustful hunger.Ā
His eyes are steady on you, an anchor in the swell of it all. When you meet his gaze, you can see a sheen of your slick across his face, catching in the light, and your cunt closes around his fingers like a vice.Ā
He smirks, āIāll take that as a yes.āĀ
āSam,ā your voice is a broken rasp, a plea. Youāre so goddamn close. So, So, So Close that the edges of your body have blurred, fingers, and toes, and limbs all shapeless numb, nothings - all you can focus on is the feel of his fingers inside you, the throbbing need that every movement of him spurs forwards, growing and growing and growing to this insurmountable weight that makes your entire body feel like a branch beneath a boot, taught and on the brink of snapping.Ā
āYes?ā His thumb starts to rub tight circles against your clit, and like a cue to act your thighs start to tremble around him.Ā
āI - Fu-please. Iām -ā you try your hardest to speak, but your body and mind fail you.Ā Ā
Youāre surprised to hear no snark out of him, no comment about a sex-induced stutter or an order for you to use your words. Instead, he mercifully latches his mouth onto you, tongue taking the place of his thumb, fingers still arched in you as they slide in and out of your soaked cunt.Ā
You reach for his hand, the one grasped to your hips, placing your fingers between his, and itās the last thing you feel, his hand squeezing back, holding you in place, before you cum.Ā
His name rips through your lungs as you cry out, writhing, heaving, shuddering, your release flooding molten through you. And you feel anything but sated as the high ebbs down, as his tongue and fingers guide you, your first orgasm nothing but an impetus to a climbing desperation, a starving, hankering, insistent need for more. Ā
The moment your legs fall free from his shoulders, you press up from the bed and take his face in your hands. Your lips and tongue hungry against his own, tasting yourself among the amalgam of spit.Ā Ā
āNeed you,ā is all you can manage to say, but itās enough.Ā
He smiles, sweeping a stray hair of yours behind your ear, āHow do yāwant me?āĀ
And you need to regain some crumbling semblance of control so you say, with no hesitation, as if there were no other way to take him, āOn your back.āĀ
His smile grows wider, eyes nearly swallowed whole by his lust-blown pupils, āYes maāam.āĀ
Youāre a mess of tangled limbs as he climbs up onto the bed, mouths never straying for too long, hands clinging to the fevered skin of one another like life rafts. At least with him here on his back itās easier to lie to yourself on whose hands hold the wheel of command.Ā
His eyes fall to where your trembling hand guides his twitching cock up to your swollen cunt, zoning in on the sight like something not to be missed. You watch his jaw go slack as you slowly push your hips down on him, never quite used to the aching stretch of taking him, the way he seems to fill you past the brink, spilling over into places untouched.Ā
You fuck yourself on him slow and languid, watching the traveling path of his attention, back and forth between the sight of his dick disappearing into the shape of you and the lazy bounce of your tits.Ā
His hands fall to your hips, rocking them needily like your unhurried pace was starting to get to him,āYouāre so -,ā you clench around him, relishing the way his whole body tightens beneath you, āfuck.ā
āIām so fuck?ā You smile, saccharine, watching his chord of restraint snap beneath your taunt. You feel his grip on you tighten, feel him tent his knees upwards for purchase as he starts to buck up into you in earnest, every snap of his hips a point proven.
Your eyes roll back as your head follows that same backwards path, body folding beneath his demands, already gone, already his; so much for being in control.Ā
āNothinā smart to say now, huh?ā
Oh, you want to reply, really you do, but the bruising feel of being entirely at his disposal blinds out any words.
āSuch a big mouth on you but the second my cock or my tongue or my fingers are in you, you go all quiet.āĀ
You smile, āCanāt -Ā fuck - help - it,ā gasping and moaning between syllables.Ā
You feel his hand collide with your ass, one a testing slap and the next a sure, hard spank, your skin stinging in the aftermath. āCould watch you take me like this all day.ā
You moan, capabilities to do much else abandoning you as you lose yourself to the plowing feel of his cock.Ā
He lifts his fingers to your mouth, and smiles to watch you open it without a word spoken, āThat pretty little cunt aāyours - always so good for me.ā
You grip his wrist as you suck, your eyes magnetized to one another, unmoving.Ā
āSo fuckinā tight.āĀ
He tugs his fingers from your lips and moves them to your clit, matching the tracing tempo of his hands with the thrust of his hips.Ā
āOhGod - Sam -ā your body strains beneath the attention, every swipe of his fingers, every pistoning move of his cock, a step taken, upwards, towards the place youāll hope heāll follow.Ā
His free hand squeezes your hip like a gentle reminder as he grins up at you, āCanāt believe I get to have you all to myself.āĀ
The words an arrow to your chest, a bullseye straight through the center of you. You feel yourself clench around him as you sob, nearly incoherent, āDonāt want - shit. Anyone else. Just you,ā and you say it before you can stop yourself, regurgitated from a pried-open depth.Ā
Why did you say that? Why did you say that? Why did you say that?Ā
Embarrassment surges side by side with your approaching peak, that flood of aching pressure building where your bodies meet. He doesnāt reply, not with words, but his fingers speed up on your clit, and his jaw clenches, and his cock seems to glide deeper and deeper into the wet heat of your cunt.Ā
āFuck - Sam - Iām -āĀ
āGive it to me,ā he nods his head as he watches you, pride like a light in his eyes, smiling in that boyish way that makes him look far younger than he has any right to, āCome on, baby.Ā Lemme feel you.ā
You brace against his shapely pecs for purchase like carven handholds as you climb, up and up and up, body trembling. You think you hear him talking, stray words of praise like buzzing background noise as you reach a crest so high you feel taken by altitude sickness, dizzy and breathless. You whine as he fuck you through it, hands steady against your hips as he drives his cock into you, milking every last shudder of your cunt, every shake, every whimper.Ā
Youāre boneless and nearly thoughtless on the gradual descent when he rises to kiss you, one hand cradling the back of your neck like he knew you needed the support, the other tracing circles down your back.Ā
āYou good?ā
You nod emphatically, but you donāt mean it.Ā Youāre anything but good. But you canāt possibly focus on the ramifications of that now, not when heās still inside you, with his eyes speared through you, when your body still craves him like a necessity deprived.Ā
āYou need a minute or -āĀ
āNo,ā the pure desperation in your voice makes you want to tear your own skin apart, but you simply kiss him instead, tangling your tongue with his, giving yourself the next best thing when you say,Ā āUse me.āĀ
He kisses you hard, all teeth and tongue, like words alone arenāt enough. He moves your bodies with the fluidity of water, flipping you onto your back where you lay there against the squeaking mattress, letting him do with you as he pleases. And what he pleases to do is lift your legs, pressing them together as he kneels there at the base of your body. Both ankles are thrown over his right shoulder like a sash as he starts to press the head of his cock into you, smiling like the sight of you below him is a prize hard one.Ā
You both groan when he buries himself to the hilt, a slow, aching filling that makes you feel near to bursting as you clench around him.Ā
āFuck,ā he laughs like he canāt believe his luck,Ā āWish I could be inside you like this all day.āĀ
He moves his hips in sedated undulations like heās savoring the tight feel of you, dragging out every movement, āBet youād like that, wouldnāt you?āĀ
You can only nod as you whine pathetically, the snug press of your legs applying just the right amount of friction on your clit that makes speech impossible.Ā
āLike for me to have my way with you? Make you mine?āĀ
You let out a sound halfway between a sob and a moan, āYessShit. Plea-Sam-ā hands white knuckling the sheets as you try to compose yourself, say your next words with a modicum of articulation. Your chest aches with the effort as you hold his gaze, āRuin me.āĀ
He breathes your name like a prayer, and the sound of it goes right to your cunt as his hips start to snap against the back of your thighs, cock driving in and out of you at a maddening pace. The bed squeals in protest below you, headboard a rhythmic thump against the back wall.Ā
He kisses the inside of your ankle, one, two, three times, letting one of his hands fall from your legs to your stomach, your breasts, kneading at any bit of you he can reach. His traveling fingers eventually find their way to your throat, wrapping easily around you and gifting you with a hardy squeeze that punctures your vision with stars. But even through the haze of pleasure, even in the most ideal position youāre in now, your mind catches on the earlier thought spoken aloud.Ā
Donāt want anyone else. Just you.Ā
Youād said it. And it had sprung forth from a deeply earnest place like it was always there, buried in some dark cavern, thriving still without light. The words are a pin pulled from a grenade, an action not able to be undone, and itās here that it hits you like a dam burst through, here with his cock buried in you and his eyes on yours and the reverent feel of his hand on the column of your throat-Ā
You love him.
Oh my god.Ā
You love him. You love him. You love him.Ā
Ā You loved him when he broke his finger riding that electric scooter, and you loved him when he pickpocketed a 20 out of some drunk assholeās wallet to buy you gelato, and you loved him that time you had to spend a night in a cave after one too many wrong turns, when the pair of you had spewed enough vitriol at each other to chew through steel and still, he offered - no, insisted - Ā you take his coat to ward off the cold. You loved him on the nights sleep evaded you both, when you spent the hours watching M*A*S*H re-runs on crackling screens of motel televisions, loved him that time you both got too high and rock-paper-scissored for whoād have to grab the pizza, and he ended up braving the door for you anyways, even though you were the one that lost.Ā
You love Samuel Fucking DrakeĀ
And the realization feels like an irreparable fracture, trapping you in a juxtaposition of carnal bliss and a pain so profound you wonder if youāll break in two at the force of it, split into unequal halves below him. You shut your eyes tight, not able to do much else in the way of escape.Ā
He moans your name, the possessive hand on your throat squeezing ever so slightly, āLook at me, sweetheart.āĀ
But all executive function has abandoned you. YourĀ capabilities amounting only to a pathetic moan as you writhe beneath him, nails digging into the skin of his wrist.Ā
āI - fuck - Wanna look at you when I cum.āĀ
You want to cry. Or combust. Or cease to exist all together. It takes every living part of you to do as you're told, to open your eyes, and your ribs start to splinter, brittle and sun-bleached beneath the burning look of open affection on his face.Ā
āThereās my girl,ā he smiles down at you with that cocky, genuine grin, and you clench hard around his throbbing dick at the sight of it alone. Youāre already nearing another peak, somehow, beyond all sense, broken, unbound. And you know he can feel it by the greedy glint in his eye.Ā
He unfurls one of your legs with care, like peeling back a fragile petal, balancing it there on his hip, your left still propped on his shoulder as he caves in towards you. You feel the burning stretch in your thigh first as he bends you in half, chest against chest as he hits a spot so deep inside you you feel it in your lungs. Your hands instinctively reach up to cradle his face, fingers lacing into his hair as if that could steady you. Youāre beyond saving, though, too far gone to be anywhere but irrevocably and utterly at his disposal.Ā
āGimme another one.ā
āI -ā, you try to speak but find your tongue caught by the measured thrust of his hips, that calculated rhythm of electric heat, bolting outwards from your sopping wet, swollen cunt to every corner of your body. Itās pure torture, itās flawless ecstasy. You moan, somehow still coherent enough to feel shame at the wanton sound of it, āI canāt.āĀ
āI wasnāt askinā.ā
His eyes and yours a string knotted together, inseparable, part of you wanting nothing more than to sever it for just a moment of reprieve and the other needing the opposite, craving the sick euphoria you feel to be looked at this way. Consumed. Taken. Used. The angle gives him a catastrophic advantage, grinding against your clit with every move of his hips,Ā and of course he did it on purpose; heās never satisfied until youāre a mess. Neither of you are.Ā Ā
āSammy, I -āĀ
The words claw at the base of your throat.Ā
I love you. I love you. I love you.Ā
But you abate them with your last dying ounce of self-preservation, even as his cock drains the rest of sentient thought from you.Ā
āGo on,ā he gives you a kiss, sloppy and pleading,Ā āLet go for me.āĀ
And itās the only words your body needs to hear, spine arching into him like a wishbone tugged taught, nails digging for purchase into the freckled skin of his shoulder, as you drown beneath the white-hot pleasure that rips through you, through muscles, through bones, through veins, to the unnamable metaphysical parts of you. The strings of your body remain in the hands of him, room encompassed with the symphony of his machinations - the messy entwinement of your bodies, the cries from your lungs that harmonize with his own guttural whimpers that pierce right through you. You can feel him panting into your open mouth, but youāve long since shut your eyes, tears pricking at the edges from an elongated crescendo still clinging to your every pore, not yet fading.Ā
You understand, in this moment, why the French call it a little death, as you feel a piece of yourself die, destroying itself, imploding and bursting. Itās too much. Itās not enough. You need more. You need less. You need him to cum. His hips start to stutter, and he says your name in that desperate, wrung-out way that you know means heās nearly there. You canāt open your eyes, canāt do much else but lie there as he takes you, feeling the lines between pleasure and pain start to blur as you beg, desperate and wrung-out yourself āPleasePleasePlease,ā your hand sliding down his sweat-damp back to grip the firm muscle of his ass.Ā
He thrusts one, two, three more devastating times before he spills himself inside you, a noise so sweet pulled from his throat that you wish you could drink, let cling to the inside of your teeth like syrup. Neither of you dare to move for what feels like ages. You swear your hearts beat concurrently, two parts of the same whole, sharing an unspoken agreement of brief coalescence. He leans up only slightly to let your leg fall to the bed before he collapses into the crook of your neck, fitting there like a piece in its proper place.Ā
Your breaths rise and fall together, entangled, hard to tell where one of you ends and the other begins.Ā
āIām not crushinā you, am I?ā
You smile at the lazy, muffled sound of his voice despite feeling on the verge of tears, rasping out a āNo,ā as you give the crown of his head a clumsy kiss.Ā
Your fingers play with the curled ends of his hair as you lie there, staring up at the water-stained stuccoed ceiling in much the same way one might look to the open sky for help. But thereās no answers among its ecru hue, no guidance given as the rosy high begins to fade, and you plummet down, down, down, back to the belly of the beast youāve let yourself be swallowed by.Ā
You love Samuel Drake. And you wonder if itās supposed to feel like a curse, a cross unwillingly beared, or if maybe, itās just the unrequitedness that gives it that shape.Ā
Either way, it's a burden you wonāt share with him, you decide, here in the aftermath of passion. It wouldnāt be fair, would it, to want him to carry this thing he never asked for, these feelings that never shouldāve been that now, much to your dismay, very much are. After all thatās been taken from him, heās owed fluidity, deserving of nothing but unbounded freedom, but this? This would undoubtedly be a clipping of his wings. You're his for now, but a day will come when that wonāt be the truth, when his legs for new adventures need to be stretched, and youāll be a chapter finished; youāre sure of that. Commitment isnāt his strong suit, as Sully said, and why should it be? You can live with the bitter inevitability of an ending, especially when the inbetween is so sweet, especially if itās for him. Thatās what love is all about, isnāt it? Suffering. Beautiful, divine, suffering.Ā
You feel him stir and unravel your hands from his hair as he lifts himself up, severing that final chord of connection when he pulls out of you fully. The sudden emptiness is nearly painful, your body tangibly pouting at the loss as if separated from a part of itself.Ā
He props himself up on an elbow beside you, body flush against your side. You feel the heat of his gaze on you but canāt bring yourself to move your attention from the ceiling, as if the traces of your thoughts would be written there on your face for him to see in bold print - I LOVE YOU. I KNOW YOU DONāT FEEL THE SAME. IāM SORRY.Ā You just need a few more moments to neatly pack this all up, fold and stash and bury in a place where even you can forget about it for a while, but then his hand swipes your cheek, guiding your face to him, and youāre caught red handed, sins entirely out in the open. You hate the worried furrow of his brow, that heavy crease that sits between them. You want to press your thumb to his skin and rub it out of his handsome face but donāt.Ā
āWhere are you right now?āĀ
You blanch at the question, feeling more naked than humanly possible, but you manage to laugh, āWhat do you mean? Iām in bed with you, weirdo.āĀ
āPhysically, maybe. But your headās definitely somewhere else.āĀ
You swallow, those three syllables an unmovable lump, an embedded choking hazard wonder how long itāll take to pass. The open, patient way he looks at you makes your stomach churn, but you smile at him, letting your fingers brush against his forearm in what you hope is a reassuring pattern, āLook, I just got fucked within an inch of my life, okay? My mental faculties need some time to catch up.āĀ
He snorts, but you can tell he doesnāt believe you, not fully. You need to escape the glaring floodlight of his attention before he can find something in the open pit of your being, so you turn towards him, not giving him a moment more to search as you kiss your way across his face. Lips press against his cheeks, the crooked bridge of his nose, his chin, the cut beneath his eye. You lean your weight into him, his body eventually acquiescing to your silent request, lying there on his back as your mouth moves to his neck, then his chest where you end your fevered escape journey to lie your head against him. You feel a strange rush of something akin to adrenaline, a capture narrowly avoided, as you lay there, throwing your leg over his. His arms wind around you, one hand settling in your hair and the other against your forearm, his thumb swiping metronomic on your skin.Ā
You listen to the steady drum of his heart, fingers idly running through his chest hair as you close your eyes to the grounding sound. Every measured beat seems to tamper your panic, your thoughts just as repetitive.Ā
You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.Ā Ā
You're well versed in duplicity after all, it being a non-negotiable trait for someone in your career. And two things can always be true at once - you love him, yes, but not only romantically. You loved him as a friend first; itās where it all started, the seed that gave way to the overgrowing weeds. And itās where it all can end, too. If you starve something of oxygen for long enough, surely death will follow, like a lie told enough times can become truth.Ā
You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.Ā
He croons out your name, lilting it as a question, and you can tell by the inquisitive note in his tone that heās unsatisfied with your escape act.Ā
You offer him a hum, feeling the tepid balance in the seconds of silence, scales in his own mind tipping.Ā Ā
āYou think itās too late to order room service? I'm starvinā.āĀ
You laugh, relief flooding through you, and risk tilting your head to look at him, regretting it the second your eyes meet.Ā
God, you are so fucked.Ā
āWorth a shot.ā
He shoots you wink as he leans to the left towards the chipping side table, pulling you with him to clumsily reach for the phone one-handed. He stretches the power chord to its limit as he places it beside him, trails of curled tangled wires like tentacles spread on the sheets. Heās got the receiver nestled between his shoulder and cheek as his one free hand does the dialing, his other still playing with your hair.Ā
Youāve tilted yourself so you can watch him, your hands a cushion for your chin as you stay propped on his chest. His skin is flushed, cheeks dusted in pink, hair rustled, faint bruises already painted near the flock of birds where your mouth paid him extra attention, looking handsome in a quiet, effortless way that makes your chest ache.Ā
You watch the bob of his adamās apple when he swallows and clears his throat, eyes drifting to the blank screen of the TV as the dial tone sounds, āYeah, hi - is it possible to still get room service?ā
You hear the garbling mumble of a response on the other line, before he says, āAlright just - just gimme one second.Ā
He flips the phone down into the skin of his shoulder, looking to you expectantly, āThey got a burger, grilled cheese, and some kinda chicken wing thing - any aāthat sound good to you?āĀ
āChicken wing thing?ā
āDonāt sass me right now, woman. Are you hungry or what?ā
You pause, debating on whether or not you feel like sassing him anyways, before smiling, āHonestly, a grilled cheese would be amazing.āĀ
āAsk and ye shall receive.ā
He puts the phone to his mouth again, but his attention stays attached to you, and only you, eyes hooked to your own, āHi, yeah, sorry ābout that. My uh-,ā he pauses for what you can only assume is for dramatic effect, eyebrows raising suggestively with the cadence of his voice, āLover here will take the grilled cheese.ā
āOh my g-,ā before you can properly bemoan his terrible choice of words, his handās a gag over your mouth, rendering you speechless.Ā
āAnd I can get a couple pickles on the side with that? Theyāre her favorite.āĀ Ā
Heās wearing that bastardly, self-satisfied grin that drives you mad in a myriad of ways, the one that makes it nearly impossible to decide if you want to slap it off him or shove your tongue down his throat. You choose to ignore the fact that heād remembered your taste in snack food though, instead focusing your attention on licking his palm like a rabid dog to try and encourage him to free you. But heās unperturbed, paying you no mind, and you canāt let him win this easily.Ā
āAnd Iām gonna do the AH-jesus,ā you pinch his nipple between your fingers, letting your nail dig into the pink nub just the slightest bit, just enough to prove your point. You watch his expression molt between pain and annoyance, and then settle on something that nearly resembles a dare. His hand never leaves your mouth, and now, smirking, he balances the phone between his ear and his shoulder, snatching your wrist in the vice of his grip, both of his hands now occupied with keeping you still.Ā
āIām gonna do the burger. No, no, cheddarās fine. And uh - what dāyou guys have for dessert?ā
You struggle half-heartedly, smiling beneath his palm. His voice never strays from nonchalance as if he isnātĀ
keeping a woman hostage right here in bed, āCan I get two aāthose? Yeah, no, thatās everything. Alright. Thank you.āĀ
He frees you only when the other end goes quiet, phone dropping to the bed with a soft thunk. āWas the nipple pinch really necessary?ā
He wipes his wet palm on your shoulder, clicking the receiver back in its worn, peach-colored place.Ā Ā
āWas calling me lover?āĀ
āHey, itās accurate isnāt it?āĀ
You roll your eyes, pressing up from his chest to kneel at his side, arms outstretched above your head as you try to work out a knot in your back. You pretend not to notice the way his eyes fall to your tits. Predictable. āI guess.āĀ
āYou guess? What -Ā you got someone elseās cum drippinā outta you?ā You forget how fast he can be when he needs to, but itās a lesson you re-learn now, long, lean limbs put to quick work when he flips you down onto your back. He climbs on top of you, a predator capturing its prey, bracing his arms on either side of your head.Ā
You hate the girlish, love-sick giggle you let out, hoping you can mask it with a grotesque, scrunched up scowl, āEww. Dude.āĀ
āDidnāt you hear you complainā earlier.ā
āMust you be so crass?ā
āYou love it.ā
Yes. Yes, you really do. Itās a reminder you wish you could be spared, but your mind does the opposite, sinking its teeth into all the other countless pieces you love that comprise the sum of him. The drumming dance of his fingers when heās jonesing for a cigarette. The way he hums under his breath when heās lost himself to the minuteia of a mundane task. The contented noises he makes, involuntary and endearingly honest, nearly every time he eats, like he still canāt quite believe he gets to have nice things. The way the sun brings out the green-gold flecks in his eyes, and that high-pitched laugh you always try your hardest to summon, and the easy way he makes you feel safe just by being near you. But you donāt tell him of these things best kept. Instead you say, āWhatād you get for dessert?ā
āYouāll just have to wait and see.ā
āHow mysterious.āĀ
His eyes roam across you, nomadic in their attention, before he finally finds his way back to your gaze. He lowers his face to you, voice a conspiratory whisper as if the pair of you have a secret to keep, āWanna make out until the food comes?āĀ
His words summon a smile to your face, fingers slowly tracing the faded outline of his star tattoo as you nod up at him, deeming speech unnecessary.Ā
He plants a kiss to the bridge of your nose first before his mouth takes its rightful place on yours, lips and tongue in languid tandem. You let his hands wander where they please, pried open and willing, let him take what he wants, give what he can, as you try to desperately smother your damning epiphany, to pretend these are the kinds of intimacies all friends share. Nothing more than that.Ā
Word count: 9.2k. See, at least i came back with gusto.
CW: Graphic imagery and injury description, general peril, tiny glimpse of suic!dal ideation. Better safe than sorry.
A/N: Hello, hello. Look at us, still here. thank you, I love you, I am putting you all in my will. I hope you enjoy this lengthy chapter xx
Bzzzz.
Bzzzz.
"Mmf."
The phone continues its assault against her jaw, half-buried in the pillow. An eye peels open on the alarm clock. It's 8:47pm. Not the most vivacious of bed times.
Bzzzz.
"Fuck sake."
The phone screen is too bright to read; the number swims, an international blur she doesn't bother to parse. With a quick moistening of the lips, she answers anyway.
"Hello?"
"Thank g- yeah - hi, I can't read your damn writing."
She blinks at the ceiling, rubbing a flake of mascara from the corner of an eye.
"ā¦What?"
The voice is pitched low. American? Coming out urgent, and sort of hushed down by what sounds like gritted teeth.
Two and a half thousand kilometres away, on a terrace that overlooks the harbour at Gibraltar, Sam stands at a balustrade with a glass of very expensive wine and a crushed up napkin going warm in his hand.
The terrace belongs to one Eduardo Tavares - sixties, aviator-donning, charisma of a silver fox who has spent his life getting everything he wants.
The terrace is beautiful. The terrace also comes with discreetly placed armed men, of whom Sam has counted two inside the patio doors behind him and three more dotted along the lawn that slopes down toward the harbour wall, each doing a creditable impression of garden statuary while wearing the kind of jacket that, in his experience, is tailored to disguise a shoulder holster.
Sam is wearing a rented navy dinner jacket. Sam hates dinner jackets.
The napkin in his other hand bears a phone number written in Genevieve's handwriting - Genevieve being a Mancunian antiques trader who'd lived above a chip shop in Hulme for three decades before money and an inadvisable second husband had relocated her to a tasteful little apartment north of the Gibraltan Marina Bay, and who is, by some margin, the most reliable person Sam Drake knows on the subject of pre-twentieth-century European wine. Her phone manner is brisk. Her research, impeccable. Her handwriting is a hate crime against legibility.
The number on the napkin contains, among others, two digits that Sam cannot, with any confidence, identify.
"Your writing," Sam says, into the phone. "Is this a five or a six? Ah, hell - doesn't matter - I need -"
"I - sorry, who is this?"
A pause. He looks at the napkin. He looks at the phone.
"ā¦Who's this?"
Five or six? Seven or one? He's tried the six; that was a Brighton B&B. He's now on the five, which sounds sleepy and - as he focuses - not at all like Genevieve, which means one of two things: either he's been conned, or Gen's writing is simply dogshit. Both are possibilities. Neither helps him.
God, British cell numbers are stupid.
"You called me!"
"Yeah, but - hang on, is this not -" And there it is, the dawning realisation: this is not Genevieve. The woman who'd promised to be on the other end of this number - ready with a laptop and expert knowledge and the answer that might just keep Sam from being shot, drowned or castrated - does not exist on this line.
"- ah, shit." He hangs up, leaning against the balcony.
She holds the phone away from her face and squints.
Call Ended - 00:14.
She rubs her eyes with the heel of her palm and pulls a small screwed-up face at the ceiling - eyebrows drawn, mouth pursed sideways, the universal half-conscious the fuck was that - before rolling toward the wall with a tut, already letting the call dissolve back into the soup of half-dreams it interrupted.
Sam stands on the terrace looking at the dead screen of a burner phone, trying to sum up his remaining options.
The calculations are bleak.
Two minutes ago, before the bodyguard had interrupted them, Eduardo had been sitting across the dinner table from Sam smiling his soft pleasant smile and saying, with one hand resting beside the velvet-lined wooden case containing thirty thousand Gibraltar Pounds' worth of seventeenth-century Madeira:
"Now then, Mr. Richards."
The name sits like a slightly itchy collar. Mr. Christopher Richards is the alias on the passport Sam has currently tucked into the inside pocket of his dinner jacket, on the business cards Genevieve had run up at a print shop, on the booking for the hotel he is, hopefully, going to be sleeping in tonight. Mr. Richards is a sommelier of mid-Atlantic provenance and apparently considerable means who specialises in pre-Napoleonic European wines and works for ultra-high net worth clients in the States.
Mr. Richards, by the strictest definition of the word, does not exist.
Sam smiles at Eduardo the smile Mr. Richards would smile, which is broadly the same as Sam's smile, only slightly more wealthy.
"Before we shake on this - and I do hope we will shake on this - humour me with one last thing."
The 'one last thing' had been a name. The name of the smuggler who had brought the rebottled high-end supermarket Rioja, worth perhaps two hundred Gibraltar Pounds into Gibraltar.
Sam had forgotten the name they'd settled on. The name that linked to the fake label and engravings on the bottle.
Sam had not known the name despite Genevieve having quizzed him on the brief twice over the phone in the last forty-eight hours, because Sam had, with careless confidence, assured her he had it locked down.
And then, in a stroke of miraculous luck, the bodyguard had stepped in. Some private call. Five minutes, Mr. Richards. Five minutes.Eduardo had risen, sighed, and followed his man inside.
The patio doors had slid shut.
And Sam, alone with a glass of wine and a ticking clock in his head, had walked to the lawn-side balustrade - the corner of the terrace furthest from the patio doors and the perimeter men, where the breeze off the harbour was loudest and the sound of his voice would carry to no one - and had dialled the six. The six was Brighton. He had dialled the five. The five was the disgruntled Brit.
That has now been hung up on.
Eduardo will be back in - Sam glances at the dim shape of him through the smoked glass of the patio doors, still on the phone, still gesticulating - Four minutes. Maybe.
The bottle is, currently, sitting on the dining table behind him, beside the dupe Sam has been bamboozling him into trading it for. The Madeira, in its velvet-lined wooden case, glints at Sam in the candlelight beside the dupe heās brought with him thatās worth a mere fraction of the thirty-seven thousand smackeroonies that the legit bottle will fetch the moment he can deposit it into the hands of the man who sent him here.
The man who arranged the meeting, who fronted the cover story, who is expecting Sam to walk off a flight in twenty-four hours' time with a thirty-seven-thousand-pound bottle of fortified Portuguese wine and a clean exit - the man Sam took a job from is not the kind of man you turn up to empty-handed. Not if you want to remain un-scalped.
He looks at the burner.
He looks at the napkin.
And with a quick prayer up to whatever may or may not be looking down at him, he redials.
A hop, skip and a flight away, her phone buzzes again, and she groans into the pillow - "Oh, you're joking" - and lets it ring, two times, three, on principle. She answers on the fourth, eyes closed.
"After calling the wrong number," she says, "it's quite normal not to do it again."
"Yeah, no, listen -"
"It's the etiquette. You're meant to apologise via text, if anything, not double down with -"
"Okay, okay, hold on a sec -"
"- a second attempt, like the issue was my answering technique -"
"Hear me out. Jesus."
And against his every instinct, against the men and the napkin and the very real possibility of dying in a fancy house over a bottle of wine, Sam huffs out a tense breath; the noise of a man who would, on any other Tuesday, be enjoying this exchange enormously, and who is currently registering the loss of that pleasure as one more grievance to add to his evening.
She hears the almost-laugh. She doesn't mean to smile into the pillow.
"Hear you out about what?ā she says.
He glances sideways. The terrace is still empty behind him. The perimeter men are still doing their statuary impressions in the middle distance. The patio doors are still shut.
"I appreciate this isā¦ unconventional -"
"Just a tad, mate."
"- but have you got, by any chance, access to the, uh, the internet?"
That wakes a small patch of her brain. She opens one eye. "You're cold-calling random people for Google access? Strange man."
"Hey, thatās not nice-"
"Just use your phone!"
"Look, this is - I'm in a slightly time-sensitive situation, and the girl whose number this is meant to be is the girl who'd normally do the googly thing, and I can't read her writing, so - here you are."
"Here I am."
"Yep - and by the time I figure out which digit I screwed up, I might beā¦ let's say, somewhere I'd rather not be, so -"
She sits up and narrows her eyes at the dark, suddenly and irritatingly awake, suddenly and irritatingly interested.
"I suppose I can squeeze in one more good deed for the day. What do you need, good sir? Are - are you good?" she says, half hard-done-by, half something else.
"Thank you, Lord. Uh - jury's out." Relief moves through Sam so cleanly it gives him butterflies.
She snickers.
"M'kay. You know your, uh - your Gibraltar history?" He says, expecting an instant 'no'.
A beat. "My what?"
"Gibraltar - as in, the R-"
"Like the Rock of. Yes, I know a little." She snorts, eyeing up her laptop sat at the end of her bed where she'd left it before her power nap. "Are you having me on?"
Sam frowns. "Having you - what? On what? What does that mean?"
"Don't worry - carry on."
Sam glances over his shoulder at the patio doors. Scary Eduardo, still gesticulating through smoked glass. Still on the phone. Sam pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a small breath, because the carry on and the snort have just cost him about six valuable seconds of his finite couple of minutes.
"Uhā¦ Eighteenth century, specifically the lead-up to the Great Siege. There's a Portuguese name I need, of a - of a guy, who -"
"You want me to Google something about Gibraltar?" Her fingers are already moving on the laptop keyboard - thunk-thunk-thunk on her password, the electronic huff of a screen waking up, and of course the document open on it is the third draft of an essay on Iberian-peninsula trade routes in the long eighteenth century, and the cosmic improbability of this - of a stranger ringing her in need of the one thing she happens to be writing fifteen thousand words about - is so absurd she doesn't even have the wherewithal to find it suspicious.
"Yes."
"A Portuguese guyā¦" She drags her essay tab to the side of the screen with the heel of her thumb and opens a new one, the Google homepage loading beside it.
"Correct."
"In a hurry."
He swirls the wine in his glass with a wrist that has gone slightly impatient on him, the candlelight catching the meniscus.
From the other end of the line he can hear the faint clatter of distant typing, fast and assured.
"A Portuguese guy who smuggled wine into the island. Yep. I think my life as a man with all his original limbs depends on it."
The laugh that punches out of her is involuntary and faintly unhinged.
"Crikey. I hope I'm not becoming an accomplice in something illegal."
The joke saws slightly too close to the bone for comfort.
"Mm," he says. "Yeah. Ha."
"Hang on," she says, fortunately distracted. "Just so we're clear - when you say lead-up, you mean the British garrison period, not the Spanish reconquest attempts, yeah?"
Sam stops his nervous fidgeting, one hand braced on the cool stone, wine glass momentarily forgotten - because the woman on the phone has just produced a sentence he did not have the imagination to expect.
"ā¦I'm sorry, what?"
"It matters which side of the supply blockade your guy was on," she says, briskly, scrolling. "If he was running goods into Gibraltar he's a smuggler-merchant working with the British. If he was running them to the Spanish lines, he's the other thing entirely. Different categories of person. The records sit in different places. It'll help me narrow it down."
And here is the thing that Sam hasn't budgeted for: that he would be standing in a borrowed dinner jacket with armed men breathing behind him - and that he would find himself charmed. Genuinely, inconveniently charmed, by a voice.
He's the literate one, the competent one, the guy in any given operation who can read a room and a document and a man's face, and he has just been comprehensively out-classed on a subject by a sleepy undergraduate in another country, and the experience is - he is appalled to discover - delightful.
He realises he is smiling. In mortal peril. Like a man on a date, and for one full second the perimeter men and the thirty thousand and the entire structure of the immediate threat of being rumbled recede to a pleasant background hum behind the considerably more pressing question of who is this person and how soon can he find an excuse to talk to her again -
"ā¦Did I - did I call a historian?" he asks, and it comes out softer than he means it to.
"You rang a History undergrad," she says, primly. "Whose current module's on trade routes on the Iberian peninsula. Lucky you."
"Lucky me," he repeats, and he'd fistbump the air in relief if the sudden movement wouldn't get him shot on sight. "Right. Into Gibraltar. He was running stuff into. Smuggler. Wine."
She types. A list spills onto the screen after a few clicks - several dozens of names, the odd tagged painting or old photograph, the kind of Wikipedia rabbit-hole that would normally claim an entire Sunday afternoon.
"Ooh, long list of wine smugglers here. Can you narrow it down at all?"
He frowns into the harbour breeze, foot tapping nervously against the base of the balustrade. "This guy was in the salt trade too. Somethin' about Persianā¦ somethin'?"
She types, taking in the accent as her lower lip snags between her teeth. He listens - the fast clack of her keyboard threading down the line, weirdly intimate at this distance, the sound of someone working on his behalf.
"Okay. Smaller list. Got any inkling as to a name?"
"Shit, uhā¦ JoĆ£o something. Maybe Joaquim. Definitely a J."
"Cool. Cool cool cool. Anything else?"
"I'm working off a bar napkin here, sweetheart. Justā¦ toss a name my way. I'll know it when I hear it."
The word slides in sideways and parks itself somewhere behind her ribs.
Sweetheart. Her brain - her treacherous, sleep-deprived, suddenly-very-awake brain - does a rapid double-take around the word, turns it over, examines it from several angles, and arrives at no conclusion except that she would, on balance, not mind hearing it again.
The cursor blinks. The search loads. She tells herself it was nothing, a tacky Americanism, a verbal tic, the kind of thing men like him probably say to the entire female population of whatever country they happen to be doing something nefarious in. She tells herself this firmly, though she doesn't entirely believe it.
"Miguelā¦ Rodrig-"
"Nope."
āRicardo Mag-ā
ānah, no itāsā¦ itās definitely a j. Keep goinā.ā
"Uhhhā¦ JoĆ£o Pereira de Sousa," she reads off the screen. "Wine and Persian Blue salt. Big in the run-up to the Siege. There's a portrait - huge moustache."
A beat of silence on his end. Then a soft, disbelieving exhale. "Yes. Yes. Pereira. Moustache. That's - that's him, holy shit."
"Glad I could -"
The patio doors slide open behind him.
Sam clocks the sound before he sees it, and by the time Eduardo's voice reaches him - terribly sorry, Mr. Richards, terribly sorry, that was my daughter, you know how it is - Sam has already turned, glass in hand, the burner palmed and dropping smoothly into the inner pocket of his dinner jacket, his thumb finding the off button by touch alone in the half-second it takes to face Eduardo with a polite smile.
"Beautiful view." Sam says.
"Isn't it." Eduardo crosses the terrace, gesturing for Sam to return to the table. "I always think the harbour at night is the most honest part of this place. Everything else is theatrics.ā
Theatrics. Samās collar tightens.
āCome - let's not keep you any longer than I already have. Where were we?"
"Your last question, I believe."
"Ah. Yes." Eduardo settles into his chair. Lifts his glass. Smiles. "The smuggler of this bottle of yours."
Sam swirls his wine. Sips it. Lets the pause sit - not too long, not too short, the considered pause of a man producing a name from comfortable memory rather than from a phone call concluded five seconds ago - and meets Eduardo's eyes across the table.
"JoĆ£o Pereira de Sousa," he says. "Wine, including this fine bottle here, and Persian Blue salt. Big moustache, by all accounts."
Eduardo's smile broadens. He raises his glass.
"Well. To Mr. de Sousa," he murmurs. "Andā¦ to a very pleasant evening, Mr. Richards."
Two and a half thousand kilometres away, in a darkened bedroom in South East England, the woman whose name Sam is yet to know holds her phone away from her face and watches the screen go dark - Call Ended - 04:01 - with a small, slightly bewildered smile.
Well.
That was -
That was something.
She sets the phone, face-down, on the bedside table. She closes the laptop. She lies on her back in the dark for what feels like a long time, looking at the ceiling.
She does not, for some time, go back to sleep. She lies there and replays it - the I can't read your damn writing, the supply-blockade beat, the laugh he'd huffed when she'd corrected him - vanished, mid-sentence - and she finds, to her considerable irritation, that the word her brain keeps drifting back to, is sweetheart.
She pulls the duvet up over her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut.
She falls asleep, eventually, still faintly smiling, with no idea that two and a half thousand kilometres away a man she will not meet in person for two more years is currently being shaken warmly by the hand of a man named Eduardo Tavares, who has just handed him a velvet-lined wooden case containing almost forty grands' worth of seventeenth-century fortified Portuguese wine, and who is telling him, with great sincerity, what a pleasure it has been to do business with such a knowledgeable gentleman.
In the morning there will be a text from an unknown American number, sent at what must have been three a.m. her time.
Made it. All limbs accounted for. I owe you a drink. Sam.
She will read it three times. She'll smile. She'll not reply for two days because she's got an interview at a pub and until that's over, she can't focus on anything else.
She will then reply which limb were you most worried about losing? - and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.
Ā //
Ā You come to with a wrench.
Lungs first - a single violent inhale that sends you coughing on spit - and then hard, teeth-rattling impact, shoulder-first into rock, head jolted hard enough to white out everything else for a half-second.
The wet gurgle that comes out of your throat isn't a sound you've made before, doubling and tripling off a tough surface you can't see, and your eyes are open but your brain hasn't caught up and the dark is -
The dark hares violently from side to side.
The headtorch beam careens wildly, and you arc back the way you came, fast, and hit stone again on the same shoulder and this time you scream, ragged and pained, because you don't know where you are, you don't know what's happening, your body is in agony in seven places at once and-
You're swinging.
What.
What, what, what -
You slow. The beam slows with you, dragging in long strokes that show you everything in the same fractured stutter - rock face, void, rock face, void.
You're surrounded by quiet.
Just your breathing and the slow creak of rope somewhere above you.
You blink. Slow. Thoroughly disoriented. The beam steadies on a patch of pale rockface two arms' length from your nose.
There's a pulsing in your cheeks. Heavy, throbbing, behind your eyes, in your gums, in the bridge of your nose where there's a crust of dried blood flaking when you grimace. The very specific swelling, thudding sort of feeling that occurs when you're upside down for too long-
Oh.
Oh, no.
You're upside down.
You crane your neck - try to, at least, every muscle in it protesting.
Boot.
Rope.
Harness.
"What the fuck?"
A single thigh loop of the harness - the bit that should be wrapped snug around the top of your leg - was, wrapped snug, as you recall your exchange with Rob - has slid the entire length of your leg and caught, just barely, on the lip of your boot. That's it. That is what's holding you.
"What the f- no - no no nonononono-"
One frayed strip of canvas webbing hooked over the cuff of a hiking boot, and beyond that, tight rope feeding up into the dark.
No carabiner at your hip. No chest piece across your sternum. No clip, no buckle, no substantial anchor of any kind.
You whimper, too afraid to care about how pathetic you sound.
What the fuck happened?
You twist your free hand up to your waist and find the bare, slightly sweat-dampened cotton where the rig should be, and the understanding begins to slot into place.
You took the harness off.
You - she - it, whatever - undid every buckle and the thigh loop had slipped and caught itself on your boot on the way down by sheer luck.
Your stomach lurches.
"No - no - no, no, no -" you repeat, head frantically turning to the best of its ability to find an escape route.
The walkie-talkie. Get the walkie-talkie. Tell them. Tell them - they can pull you up, they can -
Your free hand fumbles at your hip - the webbing loop where the walkie-talkie should be clipped - and finds nothing. Empty. Empty webbing. Empty everything.
A sob rips out of you before you can catch it.
āShit!ā
You canāt -
You canāt tell them. They donāt know. Theyāll be standing around the well right now, Scott staring at his watch, calling in every few minutes to see if you're conscious, waiting for you to radio back like a good girl and tell them what youāve found, and you canāt - you canāt - and how long has it been already, how long were you out?
The other realisation arrives in tandem: you'd been holding something. Are still holding something. That's why you'reā¦ you again.
Hard, metal, the bite of an edge against the meat of your palm. Your fist is locked around it so tight it's gone numb.
You open it.
Slowly. Every joint pulsates in overexertion.
The headtorch beam catches the gleam first - a wink of tarnished gold against your blood-streaked palm - and then the shape resolves, and your stomach goes cold all over again.
A cufflink. The cufflink. The accompaniment to the one behind the glass casing in the British Museum that you've spent the last three weeks looking for.
Set into metal gone the colour of old tea, engraved with something dark and curling that you can't make out from this angle and don't have the strength to.
Of course.
Of course.
The thing he sent you down here for. The thing Emaan moved before he died, the thing Campbell could never find, the thing your body stripped a harness off in the dark to claw out of a recess in a rock-face and seemingly took a fucking nosedive for, bringing you back into yourself in the split second your fist clenched tight around it.
The edges have left impressions in your skin.
Hold onto it. Hold onto it. Don't drop it.
Your fingers won't unclench properly. They've been locked around this thing for god knows how long and the joints have set; you have to coax them open with your other hand, finger by stiff, sore finger, and the cufflink lifts free of your palm with sticky reluctance where dried blood has glued it to your skin.
This stupid fucking thing is all that's keeping you conscious.
The pocket. Your shorts. The thigh pocket. Get it in the pocket.
Your other hand fumbles down - no- up - across your hip, past where the harness should be, to the seam of your shorts, and you cannot find the zip- you can't find it, your fingers are too clumsy and trembly and the fabric is bunched and there is a single hot, sobbing second where you are absolutely certain you are going to drop it, you are going to drop it and watch it fall and listen for the splash or the thunk and then you pass out again and turn into little more than offal on the ground beneath you-
There.
Zip. You catch it. You pinch it between two unsteady fingertips and you draw it back along the pocket seam and you hold the lip open with your thumb and you slot the cufflink in, edge first, and it slides down into the cargo pocket with a dead weight that you feel against your thigh, and you zip it closed - slow, slow, do not pull it off the track - and then you press your palm flat over the outside of the pocket and feel the lump of it through the fabric, and you press, and you press, and you press, like if you press hard enough it might actually transport you to wherever you fell from -
Youāre crying again.
Your body jolts.
A muscle spasm, somewhere in your dangling leg, the thigh, the one not tangled in rope - and your whole weight shifts, one bare inch, and the rope above your tangled calf gives a creak that you feel in your teeth.
You go very still.
The chamber goes very still.
The headtorch beam stops swinging.
Oh.
A hot wash of panic floods up through you and your eyes blur with tears that blind you, keep your eyes full and dribble down- up - into your eyebrows because you are upside down, and you let out a wet laugh that turns into a sob halfway through, and your face is pulsing now, throbbing, every heartbeat hammering against the backs of your eyes, and you can taste copper at the back of your throat, and you canāt -
You canāt stay like this.
You canāt stay like this. And now, there's a clock running because the next jolt of your body weight against this rope will undo whatever tangle is holding you up.
You have to -
āChecking in, darlā. You back in the room?ā
You go rigid.
Itās faint. Distant. Crackly. Itās up. Somewhere above you in the dark, threading down through stone, a thin compressed approximation of Scottās drawl carried by the geometry of the cave from wherever the walkie-talkie is - wherever you-she-it dropped it, wherever you came over the edge from, the lip of rock circling above you.
You sob once more, hard, and then choke it down - choke it, physically, jaw clenching so hard it hurts - because crying is making the rope move and the rope can't move any more.
Breathe.
In.
Out.
No one is going to save you this time.
Right. Fine. Get on with it, then. Flip right-way-up. Climb two metres. Get to the harness. Get clipped. Then think about everything else.
You shift your weight, infinitesimally. Test the harness loop. It creaksā¦ but holds around your ankle.
A person who does pull-ups for fun could perhaps navigate their way out of this situation. An acrobat with incredible core strength, maybe, with hands that aren't half-bandaged and missing nails. You picture, briefly, Scott doing it, in all his lithe athleticism. Sam, who once pulled himself up onto a rotten plank twenty feet above a river with you under his chest, his teeth bared and his -
No Sam down here, though. Haha! No Sam to put his life on the line for you this time.
The reminder of his existence settles like silt, and another laugh punches out of you - a high, nigh-on hysterical laugh, because you are dangling upside down by one leg in the dark in a cave under a desert with blood crusted on your face and you are still - still - thinking about Samuel fucking Drake -
"FUCK -"
It rips out of you. The chamber takes it and ricochets it back to you in pieces, and the rope creaks, and you freeze, every muscle locking, the laugh dying in your throat as the swing rocks you gently to and from the wall again.
Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Stop it.
You tip your head back - forward, up - and look at the carabiner two metres above you, at the harness hanging from it like the world's most sadistic piƱata, and you start, with shaking hands, to think about how a woman who is not built for this has no choice but to give it a go.
Okay. Okay.
Abolish the imagination and focus on the facts. Science. Mathematics. The maths is mercifully simple: you move, or you die. You don't move, you pass out from lightheadedness. You pass out, your body relaxes. Your body relaxes, your boot un-flexes. Your boot un-flexes, the loop slips. The loop slips, you fall. You fall, you die.
No variables.
No clever way out. No help coming. No secret third option. There is, in fact, nothing to lose.
You try the easy thing first.
You bring both hands up and try to curl - a slow, careful crunch, drawing your torso up toward your snagged leg, reaching for your ankle, for the strap, for anything you might be able to grab onto and pull yourself up by - and your abdominal muscles, or lack thereof, quiver, and your bruised ribs pulsate, and you make it perhaps thirty degrees off vertical before your core gives out completely and you flop back down into the dead-hang with a small, defeated oof and the rope creaks at you reproachfully.
You squeeze your eyes shut, ignoring the tears and the snot and will yourself to get a grip.
You try again.
You make it less far.
You try a third time and your stomach muscles actually cramp, a hot knotting seize that makes you gasp and clutch at your own torso and the swing shifts and the rope creaks and you go very, very still.
Right.
That's not happening.
You hang there. Dead weight. Arms drifting limp toward the bottom of the chamber far below, blood pulsing in your skull, breath ragged, and for a long stretched second you are just - done. You could stop trying.
You could just hang here. You couldā¦ let the boot un-flex. Close your eyes and let the loop slip and let gravity do the rest, and it would be over, and there would be no more caves, no more of your body being used against you, no more Scott, no more anything -
Look at you. The delirium fuelled by the blood in your head has you talking to yourself.
Look at you. Melodramatic little bitch. Drugged and kidnapped and bundled across an ocean and tied into a harness by an Australian bellend, and you're going to lie down for it. You're going to hang here and die for it. Not even bother to find out what's happening to you so you can at least TRY to argue your way in court.
You scoff.
And Sam - Sam was right, wasn't he? Wasn't he, sweetheart? People like him don't fit alongside people like you, because people like you can't survive a hike without his hand on your back. People like you should be pulling pints and reading Reddit forums, whose adventures should be deciding what Tesco meal deal combination they're going to try next. People like you should never have pushed and pushed and pushed to get on a plane in the first place -
"FUUUUUCK!" you snarl and crunch again.
You crunch hard - full-body, jaw clenched, a noise tearing out of your throat as pain sears through you- and you don't make it to your ankle, you don't even come close, but the motion swings you, and you ride it, panting as your eyes catch the wall that's assaulted you multiple times already.
You keep moving. The rockface comes into reach. Deep orange stone with a scatter of cracks, of small ledges, of the kind of vague handholds a real climber would dismiss as nothing -
- and at the apex of the next swing your hands hit it.
The impact is agony. Your bandaged fingers slap stone and your nails - what's left of them - drag across rough surface and you scrabble, like a frantic squirrel, fingertips scraping for any kind of bite, and for a split second you think you have it, you think your fingers have caught a ridge -
- and then you don't, and the swing reverses, and you spin away from the wall, dangling, sobbing, your hands now actively bleeding through the bandages where the gauze has torn open, and the swing carries you back into the void.
"No, no, no, no -"
The rope jolts. An inch. Less than an inch. The loop shifts on your boot, slides down a fraction of a centimetre toward the heel, and the cuff catches it again - just - just barely -
You crunch on the next forward swing with a noise that doesn't sound like you, throwing your whole body weight into the arc, and you hit the wall again and this time you are ready - this time your hands are clawed before they touch, this time you find a crack with your right fingertips and a tiny rough ledge with your left thumb and you cling, you cling with everything you have, your destroyed hands screaming, your shoulder screaming, your face dripping, and you bring your free leg up - the one that isn't trapped in the loop - and you scrape your boot toe against the rock until it catches on something, anything, a tiny lip of stone, a crack, you don't know and you don't care, and you wedge it in and you press.
You're holding to a wall by three damaged fingers, a thumb, and the toe of one boot, and it is, for now, holding back.
You re-assess. The loop keeping you alive is on your ankle, and to get a hand on it you are going to have to fold yourself in half, head toward foot, with only your grip on stone for ballast.
You walk your fingers up the cracks and scrape your boot higher bit by bit. Hauling your torso up the rockface in tiny inverted crunches, your spine curling toward your snagged leg, folding yourself into a strange crescent shape, in the most graceless humiliating insect-on-a-windshield manner imaginable, but you are moving, and your ankle is closer, and the loop is closer, and -
A handhold gives.
A flake of rock comes away under your right hand with a small dry crack and you gasp, slipping - six inches, eight, your boot scrabbling for the lip it had just left - and the thigh loop slithers down toward the heel, and you can feel it, the canvas dragging along the leather, and you know - you know - it is about to come off entirely -
You lunge. At the ankle. Your free hand throws itself up and back and your fingers close on canvas - on the loop - on the very bottom edge of the harness webbing as the thigh loop slides off your heel and lets you go -
- and you swing.
You swing wildly off the harness strap, one-handed, your trapped leg now dangling free, the entirety of your body weight suspended from the four fingers and thumb of your excruciatingly sore hand.
You scream. You can't help it. You scream and you swing and you do not let go.
The harness creaks as you rapidly bring your left hand up.
Two hands on the harness.
You loop your forearm through one of the leg loops - through it, properly, elbow-deep, hooking your bicep over the canvas - and you hang from the bend of your own elbow, then up over your shoulder and your hands shake out.
You are right-side up.
You let yourself cry properly for ten seconds because you have just survived the worst five minutes of your life.
The blood in your face begins to drain. The pulse behind your eyes eases. Your vision, which had been blooming black at the edges, starts to clear. You hadn't realised how bad it had got until it begins to lift, and the relief is so palpable it nauseates you.
Then you reach up, free hand trembling, and you take hold of the proper line - the line, the rope above the carabiner, the one that goes up - and you wrap a coil of it around your forearm, and another around your wrist, and with a much simpler swing now you're upright, you brace your boots against the rockface. Soles flat, knees bent, and you begin, in the slow shaking manner of someone who is running on stolen reserves, to walk yourself up.
The burn in your forearms, the shake in your knees, the rope creaking, the slow shuffle of boots against rock - and then there's a gap, and then you are here, dragging yourself up and over the edge on your stomach, fingernails scrabbling, knees scraping, the harness loose and twisted around your torso, and just as your arms give out, you collapse face-first onto cool stone.
And then every feeling that had to be pushed aside to make room for adrenaline comes out of you.
There is no one to perform for. To crack a joke for. And the sob that comes up out of your chest is so big it bends you forward until your breath indents the sand beneath you. The next one folds you all the way down. You go from all fours to your side to a small curled infantile thing on the ground, the harness twisted under you, your cheek against grit, and you wail.
Wail.
The body emptying itself - an ugly, gulping, broken series of splutters, no shape, no rhythm, just heaving, guttural cries that come up faster than you can take air for them, until you're choking on your own breath and gasping and sobbing again.
You don't try to stop it.
You don't think you could stop it.
Your hands come up over your face - your forearms, really, because your hands are destroyed, you can't bear to touch yourself with them - and you press your arms across your eyes and you sob into the crook of them and you can smell the iron of your own blood and the salt of your own tears and sweat and you cry, and cry, and cry.
"Don't want this," you babble, wet and muffled, into your own forearms. "I don't - I want to go home-"
It's small. A child's voice. A six-year-old who fell off their scooter and scraped their knee.
"I want to go home - I want to go home, I want to -"
What did you do?
What did you do to deserve this?
You don't know. You genuinely, genuinely don't know. You were pulling pints in shitty old South East London three months ago. You were fine. You were bored. You were a person with a job, studying for your Masters, a small bungalow of your own, and a slightly disappointing dating life and an opinion about the new Gail's opening up on the high street, and now you are lying on stone in a cave in a desert in a country that used to excite you, with blood crusted in your hairline and a man's antique cufflink zipped into your shorts, and your hands are gone - your hands, your hands -
You sob harder.
After Cornwall - after the bridge, after the rotten plank, after Sam's chest over yours and his hands fisted in your jacket - you'd made a joke about it. Lying on the stone catching your breath, crying and laughing at once, you'd looked up at him and said something, you can't remember what, something stupid and flippant - you'd been good at that - shrugging things off.
You try now. To turn your tears into laughter. The mouth tries to do it. Well, that was a bit much. That's one for the diary. There's a career in the circus for me yet.
But the reflex is empty. There is no light, wry version of this.
God, you're sick of the taste of blood.
Sick of going back to whatever godforsaken hotel or rental Scott's carted you off to and having to stare in the mirror for ages just to recognise yourself.
Because thatās what it takes, now. Long minutes at a bathroom sink, leaning in close enough to fog the glass, looking past the bruises and the gauze and the puffy eyes and the sunburn and the slack tired set of your mouth, hunting for you.
Sometimes you find her. Sometimes you donāt. Sometimes sheās somewhere behind the eyes, just barely, and you have to hold her gaze until she looks back.
You hate it.
You hate that you canāt just - you canāt just be seen. You canāt be looked at by someone who knows you well enough to do the work for you. Who looks at you with kinder eyes. You canāt be looked at the way -
You want his hands on your face. Broad and a little calloused and warm, cupping your jaw, thumbs at your cheekbones - looking down at you the way he had then, like there was nothing in the room except you, like the rest of him had gone quiet just so the looking could be louder than your mind after waking up in another man's brain matter.
You want him to look past the blood crusted in your hairline again. The grime. The split lip you hadn't noticed until just now, the salt of tears stinging it. Just like he did in Chatham. The bruise blooming along your side where the rockface had walloped you. Your disgusting hands. You want him to look past all of it to whatever's behind all that - the you of you, the thing you can barely feel anymore - and you want him to thumb a streak of blood off your cheekbone and say it in that quiet, softened voice he uses when there's no one around to hear it, you're alright, sweetheart, I've got you, you're alright -
You wipe your eyes with the backs of your wrists. How fucking pathetic.
You hate him.
You hate him and you miss him, and it's unfair and stupid and embarrassing because he's the reason you're here, he is the reason, and yet here you are, lying in the dark with your face in your forearms wanting him to hold you, and you don't know how both things can be true at once and you don't have the strength to work it out, you don't have the strength to do anything -
Your stomach turns.
A flat, sudden lurch - the adrenaline finally catching up with you, your body remembering it's been hanging upside down, that it just escaped death again, that it hasn't slept properly in weeks and that still has no fucking clue about what exactly turns it into this feral beast - and a hot wave of nausea climbs up the back of your throat and you have to clench your jaw against it, swallow hard, breathe through your nose. The smell of iron makes it worse. You roll onto your back, slowly, and stare upward at a ceiling of stone you can't really see in the cone of the torch beam.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
The nausea recedes slightly.
You lower your arms. Look at your hands.
The light catches them, lying limp on your stomach, and you look at them properly for the first time since the lip. The gauze on your left knuckles is shredded, and what's underneath is pulped, raw, weeping, a bright wet red against the older brown of the dried scabs. The surgical tape over your missing nail has peeled off entirely, exposing the soft, raw underbed, with multiple cuticles bleeding sluggishly onto your scraped knuckles. Your right hand is - somehow - worse. The skin across the heel of your palm has come away in a long strip, like rind peeled off a fruit, knuckles swollen to the point that you don't think you'd close that fist if you tried.
It's a miracle you climbed your way up here.
You don't have a word for what's happening in your chest other thanā¦ grief. It's grief, you think. It's grief for your hands, which is mad, which is insane, but they were your hands, they had pulled thousands of pints and held a thousand glasses and typed a thousand stupid texts to a thousand stupid people, and written the majority of your long-forgotten dissertation, and they were yours, and now they are these, these things, these pulped, hideous things that frighten you.
The work hadn't even been good work. You'd complained about it, hadn't you. You'd whinged about an RSI developing in your wrist at the end of every shift and rolled your eyes about the regulars and called in sick when you were just hungover, and you had taken those hands - those ordinary boring functional hands - entirely for granted.
Even that. Even that has been taken.
And underneath that, quieter still, the worse thought begins to surface - the one that had whispered at you on the rope and that you had outrun by climbing, and now that you're not climbing anymore, it catches you up.
If this is what's left.
If this is what your life is now - Scott, another rope, another cave, another threat, your hands getting worse, your sleep getting worse, the incessant possession of your body pulverising you to a shredded up, sobbing mess - thenā¦
You don't finish it. It sits on your sternum it doesn't ask anything of you. It just is.
A quiet option that has slipped itself into the back drawer of your mind: if this is what's left, maybe it would be a kindness to stop. Maybe the worst thing is the thirty more caves after this one, and the looming threat of life in prison after those, and the slow grinding-down of you into something that finally just gives, and maybe - maybe -
Your eyes squeeze shut.
Stop. Stop, stop, stop.
The walkie-talkie fizzles.
A short, dry crackle from the dark, somewhere off to your left along the lip of the drop, much closer than it had sounded from below - and then the small mechanical click of an open channel, and then nothing. Just static. The carrier hiss of a radio waiting for someone to talk into it.
You stop breathing.
The crackle holds.
Then -
"You with me yet?"
You give yourself thirty seconds. You count them. One, twelve, twenty-seven. The crackle of the open channel hisses in the dark off to your left, patient, expectant, and you breathe through it.
Up.
You push.
Your body refuses for a half second and then, grudgingly, complies - and the noise that comes out of you as you lever yourself to sitting is embarrassing, a long low groan of pain that doesn't stop until you're upright.
You sit there for a moment, hunched, hands hovering uselessly in your lap because you don't want to put them anywhere.
The harness.
Right.
You shrug it off your shoulder where it had twisted across you in the climb and you lay it out in front of you on the stone, properly, the way they showed you the first morning at the first site. Leg loops. Waist belt. Chest piece.
You step into the leg loops - slow, slow, one boot at a time, trying not to scrape the loops up your shins because everything hurts - and pull them up your thighs. Tighten one. Tighten the other. The canvas bites into various bruises and you grit your teeth.
Waist belt. You pull it round. The buckle is awkward with hands that don't fully close - you have to use the heels of your palms, push and feed and push - and on the third attempt it clicks home. You yank the strap. It holds.
Chest piece. Up. Across. Through the loop. Click.
Right.
You drag in a breath, and you sniff again, and you scrub at your face with the cleanest patch of your forearm you can find, and you make yourself look at where you are.
The light beam cuts across stone. You're sitting on a ledge - narrow, maybe a foot and a half wide, running along the side of the chamber from the cliff lip behind you back toward - you turn your head and follow the beam - where it tapers off into the dark some distance away. Ahead of you, on the inner side of the ledge, the rock rises in roughly hewn courses, hand-cut, with the same soft-edged tool marks you'd noted on the way down.
And then, several feet up the wall, just within arm's reach if you were standing.
Recesses.
Five of them. Small jagged squares cut into the stone in an uneven row, each no bigger than a fist, the kind of thing you wouldn't notice if you weren't sitting bleeding on the ledge directly below them.
Two have been gouged - not naturally, not weathered, gouged out, the cavities cut wider and uglier by something that wasn't a chisel and wasn't gentle, the insides scored with deep parallel scrapes that catch the light in a way that turns your stomach. You already know this is the evidence of your clawing.
The other three sit untouched. You don't look at them for long. Decoys, maybe. Maybe not. You don't have the fingers left to find out.
The open recesses go back maybe eight or nine inches into the wall. A hiding place. For something small and cufflink-sized.
You stare down at the recess, and then back over your shoulder at the lip of the drop behind you, and you try to piece together what happened while you were unconscious.
You'd- no, itā¦ it had torn the harness off - every buckle, every clip - because it had been in your way, because the harness was attached to a group of men thirty-odd metres above you telling it to come up, and it didn't want to come up. It wanted the thing. It had clawed and clawed and clawed until the covering gave way, until the cavity opened, and rubble fell, and then - and then the cufflink had dropped. Out of the recess. Down. Bouncing. Skittering. Toward the edge of the ledge and over it-
And your body had dived.
Leapt, off a one-foot-wide ledge into the dark, after a thing the size of a coin.
And by some miracle, had caught it.
And the second her fist had closed on it, you had come back, snapping into your own body mid-fall, mid-tangle, mid-snag, blood pooling in your face and your shoulder smacking rock and-
What kind of animal do you keep becoming? What kind of thing - to claw open a stone wall with bare hands, to feel no pain at the splitting of nails or the pulping of fingertips, to track a falling object off a cliff with such single-minded bestial want that throwing your body off it was the only logical move. The absolute indifference to your own life, your own - your own self - that you had operated with. Treated like a pair of disposable gloves. Worn down to the meat.
You're going in circles.
Right.
The walkie-talkie is maybe four metres along the lip, lying on its side at the very edge of the drop. Four metres. Four metres of ledge a foot and a half wide, no handholds, the void to your right, the wall to your left.
You stand and your head swims at the change in altitude, swims, the blood that had finally drained from your skull now doing other unpredictable things, and you have to lean against the stone for several seconds while the chamber stops doing a lazy spin.
Okay.
Okay.
Inner shoulder against the wall. Boots on the ledge. You walk, then once you reach the walkie, you crouch - carefully, hand against the wall. You pick it up and bring it close to your face.
You don't trust your voice for a second, so you breathe, once, in and out, slow, through your nose. The sound of it is small and rough and you hope, you hope, the EQ flattens it out by the time it reaches him.
You press the button.
"I've got it."
The carrier hiss holds.
"Welcome back to earth, babe. You're coming through a bit quiet - can you say that again?"
Sigh.
"The- the cufflink. I've got it."
"You're fucking joking."
Scott's voice has come up an octave and lost its drawl entirely, and you can hear, faintly, behind him, Rob saying something off-mic and Nick laughing, and Scott telling them both to shut up, shut up, hang on, and then his voice comes back, thrilled.
"YES."
It bursts out of him. A boyish whoop.
"Right - right, alright, hold on, love, you sit tight, we are reeling you up. We are reeling you up right now. Just follow the pull, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Good fucking GIRL. Christ. Christ, that's my girl. Hold on. Don't move. Don't fucking - yeah, alright, NICK - hold on, darl', just hold on."
The channel cuts.
You stand on the ledge with the walkie-talkie loose in two fingers and you listen to the silence after his voice.
That's my girl?
Prick.
You turn, slowly, and let the headtorch sweep the chamber one last time. The drop you'd dangled from. The lip you'd dragged yourself over. The smear of fresh blood on the wall by the recesses. The slow black void to your right, into which an hour ago - however long ago - you had nearly, very nearly, gone.
Would he be proud of you? Would he take it all back?
The Earnest Nathan Drake (or How I Learned to Kill the Rabbit): CHAPTER 1 - The Snarky Nathan Drake
Summary: 12 months, 3 days, 23 hours, and 46 minutes after the accidental death of the one man he's ever loved and the only family he's ever known, Nathan Drake is siren-called back into the rush of gun-slinging, grapple hook-wielding adventure, one brother (and one Beretta 92) lighter than before. But with only a suspiciously-withdrawn Victor Sullivan and a tracklist of 1970s disco hits to combat against the psychological revenge of a man long past dead, he'll be forced to partner with a mysterious girl- donning bright orange, bejeweled pants to a stealth mission- to find the answer to the question:
Was it a gift, or the universe's greatest punishment, to be the brother forced to live?
(Art by @noalikestodraw on Instagram.)
Warning: Self-Harm (Slapping), Religious Guilt/Trauma, Brief Implications of Suicidal Ideation.
Word Count: 4.1k.
The first thing Nathan notices about her is that sheāsā¦ a lot.
Like, a lot a lot.
A huff of something halfway between annoyance and amusement slips from his lips when his eyes fall from Sullivanās on his usual pre-mission tangent towards the stained hotel carpet below, ā70s yellow that has since become a flea-bitten brownā and he first catches sight of the pants.Ā
Bright, neon orange, bejeweled cargo pants.
For a stealth mission.
Brilliant.Ā
āāā
Once upon a timeā Nathan Drake was a treasure hunter. Because, of course, thatās usually the way a good story starts.
Not necessarily because itās true.
But if you were to believe that statement to be true, you might be fortunate enough to almost be correct.Ā
If you were to believe that Nathan Drake is a treasure hunter, at one point was maybe, possibly, most certainly a treasure hunter, had the ideal disposition, determination, intuition, perception, resilience, athleticism, charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and complexion to be a treasure hunter, you might also be right.Ā
But Nathan Drake isnāt a treasure hunter anymore.
Nathan Drake is your residential condom-baggier. Nathan Drake asks for cash or credit and tries not to fantasize about hanging himself off the slushie machine tap. Nathan Drake is a worthless, piece of shit loser. Because life decided Nathan Drake doesnāt get to be anything else.
Because if you were to believe Nathan Drake was once worth something, youād be dead fucking wrong.
Age 23 is an odd age for retirement, Nathan would hum and ha to himself in an empty living room, rain drizzling meek along the glass. T-minus one week post-āfuneralā, in quotes because there was nothing left to bury. And it wasnāt like Sam had any friends to mourn him, anyway. At least not under the technical definition.Ā
Michigan wasnāt enough of a real state to even fucking rain properly, let alone feel like a home; but fortunately, he now had all the time in the world to bide Shakespeare-ing sarcastic quips to no one. In fact, he hadnāt gotten a chance to do much of anything elseā not since Sully kicked him to the curb and set him up with a house in the Upper Peninsula, bellowing back as he rolled his single suitcase of possessions onto the narrow porch and a thick roll of hundreds he had definitely stolen that it was time for Nate to get a normal life.Ā
And it was the first time since they metā and Victor had so quietly designated himself adoptive fatherā that he realized Sully might not know him as well as he thought.Ā
In fact, he might not know him at all. Itās not like there was anyone left to argue otherwise.Ā
Nathan would spend most of every day outside of itā his enclosure, he would gnashingly referā scanning textbooks at the library, jotting useless notes on his palm for a job thatād never come, fantasizing about someone elseās past, someone destined with something beautiful to offer, someone better than him, boozing himself to sleep, skipping shifts, getting fired, starting fights, that one time where he tried to pick up smoking before realizing he couldnāt afford itā¦ because heād just gotten fired.Ā
Smiles rare, his last laugh a landmark he doesnāt even remember. And he never even once decided to go out and buy a table for his massive, empty, shitty apartment.
He did it all so he would be able to think about anything else but Him.
So he could feel like he was Him.
Because if anyone shouldāve lived, it shouldāve beenā
āāā
āSAM!ā
The midnight calm of a 1800 sq ft. two bedroom, two bathroom shatters under a screamā and the house swallows Nathan alive. A roof far too big for just one person to sleep under. A house that thrummed with ghosts, and every single one brought in a carry-on. Nate drowning into a mattress too small for the bedframe Sully bought. And he awakes with a start to his own demons screaming back.
The night is merciless around a twenty-four year old Nathan, feeling half his age and a third his height, the open blinds stabbing moonlight through open wounds like salt as soon as he awakens. Itās a night thatās happened a thousand times before. The lack of furniture makes him feel like heās lacking territory in his own home, like heās a stranger in anotherās. And all of a sudden, heās twelve again, in the times when Sam told them they were āhouse-sittingā. Itās just that the owners didnāt know.Ā
Heās squatting in his own fucking home. Heās a squatter in his own fucking life.Ā
And he holds himself with his words, with his arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, cooing himself, calming himself where no one else can, where everyone else who possibly could is dead or abandoned himā and he absolves his blame by giving the pain the world was too cruel to give anyone else but him.
His hand cracks hard across his face, and thatās when he first starts to hyperventilate.
Not again.
Nathan swore never again.
Sam would never be this weak.
āStop fucking crying. Stop fucking crying.ā
He murmurs frantically before he even starts, deep voice pitching high, pathetic, feminine, and he hates himself for it. He hates himself for it. And the moonlight stabs through this giant, empty house that Sully cosigned only because he felt sorry for himā and it reminds Nathan that he is a killer. He imagines too vividly what red might look like on the gray hardwood floors turned ghostly white.
What things Sam might say to him if he were still alive.
Itās a frantic rush, a battle against billowing comforters and tsunami-ing sheets, as Nate crawls to his knees on the bed. And he swore he never would again. He swore he never would again. But he does. And he almost laughsā how much Sam would make fun of him for something so pathetic.
āYa didnāt actually listen to all the garbage the sisters told you, did ya? I thought I raised ya bettah than that, bud.ā
But he gets on his knees. And Nathan starts to pray.Ā
Nathan doesnāt believe in God, hell no. Thatās what he tells himself.Ā
But he does believe in recompense. He believes in forgiveness. So his lips move in a nothing, nonsensical tangent, frantic, desperate, eyes shut tight against an outpouring of tears, shame tasting like blood in his mouth, tasting like a steel-toed kick in his gut. And heād let every mercenary who has ever punched him, every bullet that has ever grazed, every woman that has ever thrown a drink in his face, heād take all of it all over again if it meant not having to feel this way for a fucking second longer.
To be human is to sin, itās what Sister Katherine always used to say, prattling on as Nathan folded and unfolded the top corner of whatever book he was currently reading in a guilt-ridden fidget. And never for a second, even when he was a child, did Nathan believe it. He loved history. He loved history because he loved people. And he believed in the inherent goodness of them.Ā
And thatās what makes this so terrible. It wasnāt inherent. Nathan chose this. Somehow Nathan chose to let his brother die.Ā
āItās all my fault.ā
And the night cracks hard, pain deserved, around him as his hand reels back once again.
āāā
He goes for midnight runs. Thatās what he always used to do to get his mind off things.
It makes his chest burn and his throat sting and brings to mind desert dunes, roving sandstorms, cooler things, a cooler person than a little boy having a panic attack at four in the morning. Nathan chokes in winter air under the stiff, looming shadows of streetlamps, and if he had enough strength to believe it, heād convince himself that itās the exhaustion, not the anxiety that makes him breathe the way he does now.
Yeah. Yeah, sure, this helps. This definitely helps. The trembling hands must just be an aftershock.Ā
Mist and a mid-December fog collapse from his lungs as he scrambles for his phoneā and finds the name he swore heād never call again. The running helps. It does.Ā
It just never helps enough.
āH-hi, Samā¦ Itās me.ā
Sam would probably make fun of him for the croak of his voice. Would definitely make fun of him for the croak in his voice. So maybe Nathan would say heās just tired from working out, unlike some people, hiding himself from an instinctual smile. And maybe Sam would laugh. And then maybe Nathan wouldnāt want to die so badly.
āItās Nathan. Iām sorry Iām calling again. I told you I wouldnāt, but you know I canāt keep promises,ā The croak blooms into a laugh. āYa know, Iām always gonna feel bad I didnāt end up taping those episodes of Miami Vice for you like I said I would. Maybe you wouldn't have had that klepto-stint in Juvie then.ā
Another chuckle as he adjusts the slipping phone against his ear. For some reason, it canāt quite stay put.
āA-anyway, I just wanted to call you and say it was really fucked up for you to leave me like that. Youāre an asshole and I hope itās as bad as they say it is. I hope itās worse, actually. I hope you can fucking hear me.ā
His fingers are calloused and sweating and only spurn further tears as he wipes a runner from his cheek. Hate burns in his belly. Fire and rage and betrayal tearing his feeble skin to shreds below the surface. And he knows itās nothing but anger, anger deserved, that makes him say the words he does.
āYou know, maybe itās better I killed you. You always said you wanted a badass death. D-do you remember that? Because I do. And you stupid fucking idiot, you knew lung cancer wouldnātāve done that.ā
The next laughter buckles him, screams demonous. Venomous. Psychotic, if any of the neighbors decided to take their trash to the curb at this ridiculous hour. And Nathan almost wishes one of them would. Heād give anything to not be alone right now.
āJesus, Sam, that wouldāve been such a lame way to die.ā
And he remarks with forked tongue just how pitiful it would be. How lame he always was. How maybe itās just the lameness that Sam so sickly passed onto him thatās making him cry now. His final revenge. And he wishes Sam were still alive, so he could kill him with his bare hands for turning him so pathetic.
Because Nathan Drake doesnāt cry. Nathan Drake doesnāt fucking cry.
āGuess I gave you that, at least, right?ā
And for some awful, imbecilic reason. Nate waits. Nathan waits like something might still be there on the other side to answer.
But there lives nothing there but silence, nothing but his own heart fluttering weakly in his chest, his hands squeaking wetly against the plastic, and his own breath: delicate as death. Nothing but the same haunting sound heās heard a hundred times beforeā and the distinct ring of crunching, clattering tracks on the midnight train to nowhere. Maybe this time heāll answer, he tells himself. Maybe this time the things he says will be so awful that Sam will wake from the dead just to spit something backā
āWe're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in serviceā"
But not this time. Itās never this time.
The wind sweeps deadly and careless around him. Quiet, which makes it crueler. Rushing whispers in secret at such a foolish wish, or maybe just the universe itself telling Nathan to give it a rest. Stop caring. Stop trying. Just shut up already.
Stop fucking crying.
His breath releases in a ghost of air, and it only dawns on him now how cold it is. The fact that he didnāt even bother to bring a jacket. Fuck, how far from home is he? His head swivels in a nonsensical circle, seeing little else but the copy-paste townhouses on either side of the sparse, yellow street light, palms sweating and calming, logical breath only bringing further panicā because all logic tells him that heās lost.Ā
What the hell is he supposed to do now?Ā
Light suddenly crests like a cracked yolk against the horizon, soaking the black in blue, and panic bleeds through him in a cold sweat.Ā
Jesus Christ, where the fuck is he? Itās already morning?Ā
And Nathan realizesā¦ heās going to be late for work again.Ā
And thatās when he starts to cry.Ā
He canāt be late again. He canāt be late again. He's gonna get fired. He canāt. Not for the fifth time in six months.
āShit, shit, shit, shitāā He scrambles fruitlessly against the too-bright-too-bright screen of his phone, thumbs brutish and too big to find anything: something about a map, something about location tracking, geography, shit he knows, shit he loves, hell, maybe heāll bring in donuts today, yeah, thatās it, and if he skips the morning shower he might be able to make it to his desk before Mrs. Stanson even walks in the building. Maybe heāll start doing overtime. Night shifts. Itāll keep him too busy to break down in tears like this anymore.
Mania tears through his blood as his fingers move, fumbling for a moment and almost dropping it when he finally finds the map app icon. He jabs at it, adrenaline and chest heaving and hope has just cannonballed over the horizon by the time he finally realizesā
He doesn't even remember his address.
And Nathan Drake cries.
Nathan Drake fucking cries.
The cusping morning would be so beautiful if he had the strength to pull his hands from his eyes, phone spilling over and probably cracking down against the pavement. But Nate doesnāt care. His shallow breath feels so painful in his lungs, cold air on an open wound, and the ragged sounds and hiccuping rhythm of a full-throttle sob sound so foreign to him that, for a second, he can almost pretend heās someone else. That this life is happening to anyone else but him.
Nathanās not the victim. Nathanās not the one who deserves to cry.Ā
Didnāt deserve to cry when he was the one who punched that kid over a fucking book. āYou shouldnāt have been reading during prayer.ā āYou were the one who started the fight.ā āIf you keep acting like this, youāre going to end up just like your brother... your mother.ā And heād smother his screams of injustice into a threadbare pillowcase riddled with moth holes. Not fair. Not fair.Ā
Nothing is ever fair. Why canāt something, anything in life ever be fucking fair?
But Sister Katherine was right back then. Which means sheās right right now. Nathan was born out of control. Slave to passion and anger and need. Would probably still choose to punch that little dipshit if he got a second chance. And hell, maybe itās just practice for it when he reels back and punches the nearest streetlamp bare-knuckled. The abrupt attack rings dull, hollow, but the absence of sound is more than made up for by Nathanās sharp wail of pain.Ā
And theā¦ familiarity of it almost helps for a moment. For a second, heās reminded of the thunk of body armor against his fist, monstrous monstera leaves, the bursting reds of exploding gunpowder, cooler things, a cooler person. A person he used to be. Nathan Drake: cool, coy, clever. Badass. A hero. A man.
A killer.
Somewhere in the neighborhood, a dog barks. The morning: still and gray. Heās going to be late for work.Ā
And heās not Nathan Drake anymore.Ā
Heās just Nathan.Ā
He stoops down to retrieve his phoneā he flinches, a spindle of spiderweb cracks jutting from the middleā and takes a deep, long, centering breath. Okay. Heās okay. Heās alive. Heās survived worse before. His sweatpants rustle as he wipes his weeping palms against the outer pockets and re-rightens his clothes. Pats his hair down. Rubs the last streaks of tears from his cheeks. Realizes he probably looks like a bum. Decides heās going to go into work today, anyway.
And he tells himself: better a man who kills than not a man at all.
Because when Nathan cries, and cries, and cries in the same way he has every day for nearly a year nowā tasting salt water and humidity on his tongue like the first morning in Panama when Sam nudged his shoulder, backpack draped casually, carelessly from the crook of his elbow, and told Nate, all mischievous smiles and twinkling evil eyes, that this would be a piece of cakeā he doesnāt feel like a man.
And he would rather die than not be the man Sam said he could be.
He would rather die than be Nate Morgan again.
āāā
Nathan Drake finally wakes up in hell, and he knows this because thereās some God awful disco track playing the second he enters the building.
Once upon a time, Victor Sullivan picked up the goddamn phone. For the first time in twelve months, only a day after the memory of what happened to their mother started growing a little too sharp around the edges. The legacy he knew. The desire to follow. Rain drizzling meek across the glass.
Yet somehow, miraculously, as if by total and complete magic, as soon as he was on the one-way plane to Egypt, something slight in Nathan settled. Like it felt good to be himself again.
Like it felt good to be Nathan Drake.
āThe Usekh collar of Nefertiti would historically be placed inside her sarcophagus with her mummified corpse. We find the tomb, we find the sarcophagus, we find a nice threeway split of a hundred fifty milā. And Iāll finally have enough to pay my cell phone bill and block yer ass from ever callinā me againā HA!ā
What made the The Desert Flower such an outstanding first stop on his welcome home tour was that it was familiar, in that the horrible shag carpeting under his feet was just as matted, raggedy, and shit-scented as the billowing mustache still perpetually shellacked to Victor Sullivanās upper lip, oozing bad jokes like gasoline from an old car and tap-dancing a trail of cigar smoke directly under the lobbyās freshly painted āNo Smokingā sign.Ā
āVictor, that doesnāt even makeāā Nathan tries.Ā
āNathaaan!ā The problem is, as expected, the world is already off to the races without him. āThereās someone I wantcha to meet.ā
And Nathan Drake tells himself he can learn to be a human being again. So long as it was to anyone but the girl with the neon orange, bejeweled cargo pants rolled up to the ankle, tapping toe to heel to the tune in the lobbyās back corner, sporting what could only be described as a winning celebrity lookalike award for Smurfette.Ā
āI wantcha to meet our fine nā dandy mythos expertā HEY, BUTT-UH!ā
And Nathan gets about 0.23 seconds to decipher the girl with the bright neon orange bejeweled cargo pants rolled up the ankle, tapping toe to heel to the tune in the lobbyās back corner, something metallic making turns in her bitty, bitty fist, before her head (unfortunately) whips up towards the pair of them, and she catches eye contact like a city bus āmakes contactā with a jaywalking pedestrian.
In the 0.237 seconds Nathan Drake gets to decipher the girl with the bright neon orange bejeweled cargo pants, before she ruins his life, Victorās life, and those goddamn bright neon orange bejeweled cargo pants, rolled up to the ankle, with blood, he catches her eye andā
āThis isāā
And what he finds there makes Nathanās stomachā¦. curdle.Ā
āShay Valentine! Mythos Expert and Master of Disguise!āĀ
Yet every seething darkness Nathan must've just hallucinated there blooms to fucking pixie dust the moment she opens her mouth. Her clenched fist: a sudden sprint into her pocket.Ā
āHowās it going, man? Flight okay? Minimal turbulence? Ate a peanut? You must be the blue-eyed bombshell Sully was talking about!ā She practically pick-pockets Nathanās hand from him in an attempt to shake it, a move so certain it rattles his very teeth in his skull. āWhat a fabulous pleasure!ā
āValentineā¦? What is that, a porn pseudonym?ā Nathan grits venomlessly.Ā
āOh! Why?ā She smiles back, lilting so gosh-darn earnest, sugary-sweetly that for a moment, Nathan wonders if sheād squeak! like a rubber duckie if he finally gave in and squeezed. Her almond eyes frame to slivers. āIs āDrakeā?ā
āBWAHAHA!āĀ
āYeahā¦ Ha.ā
Nathan uneasily mirrors Victorās booming cannonball of a laugh, watching with squints of his own as Victor nearly bowling-strikes her over with a proud smack between the shoulder blades. She probably says something else entirely unfunny and Victor probably says equally unfunny in response and the whole thing is probably awful in this horrible, horrible, too-bright, shit-kicker motel 9,128 miles from home.Ā
But Nathan will never know it, because heās too busy inspecting the ticking time bomb Sully brought because his favorite escortā Peggy, the one with no upper teethā was probably too busy tying the bows on the little coke baggies back in the states. Very pro-small business.
The very first thing heās struck by is, wellā¦ the height. Whatever strain at the back of his neck for attempting eye contact is far too willing to be bridged by rocking tip toes and grisly rimmed eyeliner as she stares back, scrunched into slivers from an impossibly wide smile. Heād mistake her for a coked-out cartoon raccoon if it wasnāt for the boobs. Haphazard freckles dotted across like strawberry seeds and a sea of hair completely at war with itself: blonde, blonde, blonde, and matted and frayed every which wayā until it gets bored and decides it canāt afford the root touch-up a half-mile up Route 69. If Nathan unfocused his eyes, he could pretend sheās Short Round with the bowl cut.Ā
Again, Smurf hands. Smurf feet.
Damn, is the collar of Nefertiti even gonna fit in those things?
āWell, Nathan, I have a feeling you and I are going to be the best of friendsā¦ whaddaya think?āĀ
Again, a smile too wide to be real. Which is exactly how Nathan knows it isnāt.Ā
And Nathan is too jetlagged, too overwhelmed, tooā¦ underwhelmed, still a little tipsy from the cheap whiskey he vengefully charged to Sullyās credit card on the plane ride over to remember anything longer than three syllables.Ā
Thatās why his name was such a knockout. Nath-an Drake. Three syllables. Easy peasy. It meant heād never forget it.Ā
But Shay Valentine is not three syllables. Not even close. Itās not even two.Ā
Itās fucking four.
Itās sick is what it is. So Nathan doesnāt bother repeating it.
āShay likeā¦ Shea Butter?ā
And he finds himself a three syllable alternative, instead.
He sneers back as far as his lips will go in place of a proper smile, Victor guffawing satisfactorily from the sidelines. He considers whether he shouldāve just stayed in Michigan.
āShay like Shea Butter!ā ā Sang-song a-twitter like goddamn Tweety Bird. Like the lesser-known stripper Goddamn Liability.
And so Nathan Drake traps sight of the new girl. Her puckish eyes. Her fake-ass smile. Her fake-ass hair with the little dark roots at the top (in obvious hiding ground for devil horns) and eyelashes caked with so much mascara that heās surprised her bottom lid doesnāt just collapse and her eyeball falls right out onto the floorā sheās short, so he probably wouldnāt even be able to catch it before it hit the groundā and he knows one thing for certain.
āWell, Shay-like-Shea-Butter, I think anything is possibleāā Making sure to force his grin just as big and blooming and welcoming and sugar-sweet as hers. Just to make sure she knows itās fake.Ā
And maybe if he could convince himself as well as sheās convinced Victor, Nathan could tell himself this all was a miracle. The universe caving in and giving him exactly what heās prayed for for 12 months, 3 days, 23 hours, and 46 minutes.Ā
"So long as you donāt get us eaten alive first.ā
