An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Rating: T
Contains Spoilers for Uncharted 4
Chapter Warnings: swearing
Summary:
“I told you I'm sorry, Nathan! I didn't mean that, what do you want me to say?” “I want you to understand!” “I do!” “You don't understand shit, Sam! You have no idea what Panama did to me! Otherwise, you wouldn't have lied about Alcazar!”
When Sam shows up with an invitation for yet another adventure, it could just be a matter of a polite decline and an awkward hug. But a few wrong words, spoken in the heat of an argument, bring forth old memories and fresh wounds alike.
Or: diving deep into the hell Nate went through after Panama. About broken dreams, lingering nightmares, and the horrors preserved in a journal.
Word count: ~ 5.5k
My first Uncharted fic! Huzzah! This game seriously altered my brain chemistry, and I couldn't not write about it. Especially after one of the warmest welcomes in a new fandom I ever experienced.
@honestlygirlsthough I thought you'd like to hear about this fic after you asked me if I had an Ao3. Back then, I didn't have anything Uncharted-related to offer, but I thought I'd tag you to let you know that has changed, - feel free to ignore if you're not interested :)
Nate gloomily drifted from his sleep into a weird from of half-consciousness. He didn't know why that happened - he hadn't dreamt anything, as far as he could remember, and with Elena's quiet breaths next to him he was fairly sure that he had simply woken up without any particular reason and was about to snuggle deeper into the pillow and drift off again, when ...
There. Movement.
Nate felt his heart rate peak, wide awake in a matter of a second.
He had never been one to sleep well in absolute silence. Because with the way he had spent most of his life, absolute silence didn't mean the absence of danger. It only meant that danger was trying to stay quiet. Prowling. Sneaking.
But this wasn't the regular sounds he knew from their home. It wasn't the rustle of leaves outside the window that would never get closed, no matter how cold it was in winter. It weren't the muffled whispers and quiet huffs of the Sounds of the Rain Forest Sully had bought him. This was different.
Nate pricked up his ears.
Elena's breathing. His own breaths, pretending to still be deep and at peace, when his heart was racing. And there ...
Something else. Quiet, yes, but not completely absent. Not so silent that it could pass as a throwback into worse times, when sleep was primarily a risk, making him an easy target.
Breathing, stifled, careful. Steps, one, with a huge pause before the next.
Nate's hand shuffled underneath the pillow, pretending that he was simply snuggling deeper into the sheets. Elena had complained a lot about the gun.
"You will NOT have a gun in bed, Nate!"
"Elena, what if somebody intruded? We should be prepared."
"Nate! This is our bedroom! Who could possibly intrude in a way that you'd need to gun them down?"
"Well ... intruders!"
"You're a kid, Nate. You just want to have it here so you can play with it even in bed."
"..."
"Oh, no. No, no, that's not what I -"
"Well, you were the one saying that I only wanted my gun in bed to play with it. That's your dirty mind, not mine."
"Nate, you're terrible."
"I know, hun. And terrible people need weapons in their bed."
"What if you shoot me accidentally?"
"How would that possibly happen. It's a gun. Guns don't usually tend to go off untouched, not even in bed."
" ... I will not react to this. I know you did that on purpose."
He won that discussion, the way Nate won most discussions: without really knowing how or why. He had assured Elena that he wouldn't, in fact, accidentally slip his hand under the pillow, take the gun, flick the safety off, aim at her and pull the trigger during a bad dream. And so far, he hadn't.
They hadn't had an intruder, either, but it seemed that this tie had just come to an end.
It was almost comedic how soothing the handle of the gun felt under Nate's fingers. An old companion. Protector. He couldn't really say that he had survived his numerous close calls because of this particular gun, because he had lost his own weapon at some point during almost any adventure he went through. It wasn't even the same gun he had carried by the end of their insane last trip, as he didn't have the time to pick it back up after Nadine had forced him to drop it, and Rafe had lost it and then the ship had sunk …
His fingers flexed around the handle, and Nate shifted his shoulder a little to prepare the movement that would follow. Eyes still closed, he sunk deeper into his instincts, listening to the next muffled step on the carpet, locating the intruder by the sound of their breath, like a bat hunting for insects.
There you are.
Nate flung upwards like a spring. In one fluent movement, his arm jolted out from under the pillow, swinging to aim at the large shadow in his bedroom, and one leg slipped out from underneath the bedsheet, ready to roll down and take cover should there be the need to. His fingers performed an old dance that had long since turned into a reflex – safety off, gun steady, trigger finger ready. There was a surprised grunt from both Elena and the intruder, both startled by the sudden movement.
Nate perceived the placatingly raised hands before anything else, the pistol still not lowering or straying from the broad figure.
"Stop. Don't move," Nate ordered, barely able to hear his own voice, still hoarse with sleep and drowned out by his own hammering heart. The shadow froze.
Good. Everything is under control. You're good. Breathe, Nathan.
"Nate?" Elena's head rose sleepily, shuffling in confusion. "What -"
“Stay low, Elena. Somebody's here.”
“Somebody – what -”
"Woah, easy with that thing, little brother. T's just me."
Nate blinked.
This wasn't happening.
"Nate?"
"Turn the light on, Elena," he mumbled, and felt the way she crawled behind him to reach his lamp on his nightstand. The light flickered on, and Nate was prepared for the slightly blinding shine after hours of darkness.
But not for the sight that came with it.
Sam stood in the middle of their bedroom, hands raised, a slightly guilty look on his face, eyeing the gun that was pointed at him. Nate stared at him, blinking the sleep away like there was a chance he was simply mistaking somebody else for his brother.
"Sam?"
Well there was no way he mistook that crooked grin, that was for sure.
"Yeesh, well. That didn't go too well, did it?"
Nate sighed, half in relief, half in annoyance, and let the gun sink, putting the safety on on its way down.
"What are you doing here?" Elena sounded less relieved, more annoyed and exasperated on top. She was still lying behind Nate, one hand on the light switch. Judging by the drowsiness in her voice, she might just as well fall asleep right there.
Sam stared at her for a second, as if he had forgotten that Nate had this whole wife-thing going on.
"Uh, yeah, I'm sorry for that. Uh, hi.”
“We really can't meet normally, can we,” Elena said dryly. “What are you doing here?”
She sounded like she didn't know if she was supposed to laugh, kick him out or simply go back to sleep.
“Uh, y'know, sorry about that … I wanted to talk to Nathan.”
Nate resisted the urge to scratch his forehead with the tip of his gun. Or scratch Sam's forehead with it.
“You do realise that I have a phone, Sam?” he asked, veiling irritation with sarcasm. “And, you know, like, a doorbell?”
“Yah, I didn't want to wake up Elena, y'see.”
Elena let out a deep sigh – and fell back into the sheets, snuggling into them. “Your customer, darling,” she mumbled. “You boys have fun.”
Nate stared at her in disbelief. Sometimes, with the life they led now, he easily forgot that this woman had been in firefights beside him. She wasn't supposed to react normally to all that.
He got up, attempting to tug the gun in his waistband before he remembered that he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxershorts and discarded the thought. With a muffled sigh, he padded to the chair where his clothes had found rest last evening, collected them, switched off the light and motioned Sam to follow him outside the bedroom.
“Don't get murdered,” he heard Elena call after him, probably already half asleep, but then again, he wasn't normal as well, so she did have a point.
The door had barely closed by the time Sam started talking.
“Hey, look, I'm sorry for all that Nate, I just thought I could, y'know, get in and wake you up without Elena noticing, didn't want to cause all that ruckus, I hope she doesn't mind, you are really sleeping with a gun underneath your pillow?”
Nate stopped in the process of pulling his T-Shirt down to shoot his brother a look.
“Don't tell me you don't.”
“Fair point. Now about the -”
“How did you even get in here?” Nate asked, battling the belt on his jeans. “The lock isn't exactly easily picked.”
“Ah.” Sam's face went through several emotions at once, some of the more obvious were slight guilt and tremendous satisfaction. He lifted a hand and pointed upwards. “You should be more careful with your windows, little brother. Especially the ones on the roof. That lock there? Child's play.”
Nate stared at him numbly. Then, he sighed.
“Okay. Let's pretend that you didn't play breaking and entering with my house.” He sat into an armchair, running a hand through his thoroughly messed up hair. “Why are you here?”
“Ya see, that's the question I was hoping for. Okay, there is -”
“No, actually, wait.” Nate got up again. “I want to see that window. Tell me on the way.”
Sam huffed, but didn't resist as they made their way through the dark house.
“'kay, so, basically, I have something for you.”
Nate looked back over his shoulder, one hand already on the ladder to the attic.
“'Have?' What do you mean?”
“Could call it a surprise, if you like? Or maybe a gift?”
“A gift?” The light flickered to life, revealing the shelves, covered in all sorts of ancient memories and only a little dust here and there. Nate waited for Sam to pull himself up before he closed the hatch in the floor. No need to keep Elena awake. “Don't tell me you have more of those Avery-coins you smuggled?”
“Ah! Oh, that, haha.” Sam laughed. “Well, no. Glad to hear that you'll put them to good use, though.” He grinned his toothy grin, and suddenly, Nate felt like twelve, but in a good way, the way he had felt when they had been climbing rooftops together. The Morgan brothers. Unbeatable. Unstoppable. Inseparable. “How's it going with Malaysia?”
“It'll take a bit more time to move than we thought,” Nate said while he passed the labyrinthine structure of shelves. “Underestimated the paperwork a little. But the permits are there, and we can probably get started in about two weeks, a month at the latest.”
The grin even widened.
“That's a whole lot of time, isn't it, little brother?”
Nate kneeled in front of the window in question, inspecting the lock. “Crap, you're right … must've overlooked this one.”
“Say thank you to your white vest burglar.”
“Thank you, white – wait, what did you say? Lot of time for what?”
Sam came closer, rounding the corner of a shelf halfway, leaning against it in the casual way that only Sam leant against objects that contained fragile ancient pottery.
“Oh, dunno. Maybe … discovering an ancient artefact? Go on a little treasure hunt with your favourite brother?”
Nate blinked. He must've misheard.
“Sam, no. We've been over this. No.”
“C'mon, Nate. It's nothing insane this time. 'Tis not even dangerous.”
“Unless you've 'discovered' it in a museum and thought about a visit with a ticket, then, no, it will be dangerous. It always is.”
“That's part of the fun, right?”
“Being killed stopped feeling like fun somewhere around the twelfth time. Forget it, Sam. I'm not going.”
He shut the window with a little more force than necessary and tried to push past his brother, but Sam stepped in his way.
“C'mon now, Nathan, don't be so boring. It'll be an adventure!”
“Sam, no. Go ahead if you like, but I will not come with you. I have just settled down enough to recover from that last stunt we pulled off, and we're about to move to Malaysia. Elena would skin me alive if I left now.”
Sam shrugged.
“Should've guessed that. But I thought you'd at least ask.”
“Ask what?”
“What I'm after. What we could be after. There's a lot more treasures to find than just Avery's, and there isn't an insane rich-kid after every single one, you know.”
Nate huffed. “Fine, I'll play along. What are you after?”
“I'm glad you asked. It's actually me and Chloe. She's after the Tusk of Ganesh.”
Maybe it was just the late hour, the brutal way he had been ripped out of his REM-phase, but right now, Nathan could've sworn that his brother made no sense at all.
“Chloe,” he repeated. “The Tusk … of Ganesh.”
Sam nodded, and a bit of a spark returned to his eyes.
“Yes. She has a solid lead, more than that, actually, and she only needs somebody to lend her a hand, y'see.”
“Chloe.” Nate's brain was still running in circles. “The Chloe? My Chloe?”
“Oh, why, careful how you say that, little brother, don't let Elena hear that -”
“You're saying that Chloe Frazer has found a lead on the Tusk of Ganesh,” Nathan repeated slowly, “and that she'd come to you to ask for help.” He shook his head. “That doesn't make any sense, Sam, she doesn't even know you existed!”
“Yah, well, not until Victor told her.” “Sully.”
“You're not starting that all over, will ya?”
“I … okay, you know, whatever. Say Chloe I said hi, tell her not to get herself blown to pieces and to be careful and all that, but I'm out.”
Sam looked as if he had been hit by a stun grenade. “You're out? You're still out?”
“Yes, Sam. As you can see, I have no longing for another close call.”
Sam snorted. “Yeah, okay, gotcha.” He shook his head. “And you wondered why she didn't call you up,” he mumbled, quietly enough to be mistaken for nothing but an inner monologue, but purposefully loud enough to be heard regardless.
“And now what's that supposed to mean?”
“It means that Chloe knows that you've changed, Nate. I know. The Nate I knew would have jumped at the chance to get into another adventure and find this Tusk, not talking about Chloe's history with that thing. A few years ago, you would have killed to help her find it.”
“And of course you are only helping her because you want her to make peace with that old dream, yeah. What a chivalrous man you are.”
“Hey, it's not my fault that there might also be some gold or anything else lying around where that thing is.” Sam shrugged. “And besides, she's never been my chick. Nobody expects me to care.”
The barely hidden accusation cut deeper than Nathan would've liked to admit. It had been a while since he had seen Chloe for the last time, but he did remember that she had talked about the Tusk a lot, ever since the had first met. The Tusk was her Francis Drake, her Avery.
But did that mean that he had to …
Nate threw his arms up, suddenly deeply frustrated by how pointless this was.
“So I don't care, yeah? Because I'm not throwing myself head first into the next death trap? Is that what caring is about lately?”
“Nobody said anything about death traps, this is -”
“It will end the same way everything I touch ends, and the same way everything Chloe touches, and everything you touch! I don't need that shit anymore, Sam! I have everything I need, right here, so all I need to go in search of is my favourite soda brand in the local supermarket when they've redesigned their store layout, and that's it!”
“Ah, why, thanks for reminding me about your happy new family life, Nate. That's real tactful.”
“Oh, come on. You know how I meant that.” Sam grumbled something, and Nate stepped closer, slightly brushing his shoulder to make him look at him. An offering of peace. He didn't want to fight, but he also didn't want to go on another treasure hunt.
He didn't want to think about wanting to go.
“Sam.”
“It's fine. You have changed. Guess I'm still getting used to that.”
“I haven't changed that much, Sam. I just grew up. That's all. Maybe you should, too.”
Sam looked at him for a long moment, and that moment was long enough for Nate to understand that something he had said had been wrong, but too short to figure out what exactly, before Sam let out a heartless chuckle, swatting Nathan's hand away.
“Grow up, he says. Yeah, sure, you had plenty of time doing that, but I lost more than a fucking decade, Nathan. I'm not ready to grow up yet, I'm not ready to give up on all that.” He gestured towards the collection of pieces around them, then looked back at Nate.
“You might be fine with that, playing hubby to your wife, but I'm not done being a Drake.”
Nathan blinked. Of all the things that had been said this night, this was the hardest to process.
You might be fine with that, playing hubby to your wife, but I'm not done being a Drake.
“You think I'm not a Drake any longer?” he finally said, keeping his voice level but unable to banish the sharp hiss from it. “You think this is some sort of game I play? What is this to you, my holiday apartment?”
“It sure is a lot more luxury than you were once used to.”
“And that's a shame? I'm trying to build a life here, Sam, a family. If anything, you're the one playing treasure hunter, trying to pull me back into all that!”
“Ah, so I'm being the one to play around now? Look at how you've grown indeed, that Sister Whatsherface from the orphanage would be so proud! You're playing house, Nathan, and you're closing your eyes on what you're missing out -”
“I had my fair share of whatever I am missing out -”
“Oh yeah, I've seen that!” The bitterness in Sam's voice was thick with frustration, dripping down from his words, seeping through the floorboards. Through the sudden swirl of emotional turmoil, Nate wondered how long this frustration had been brewing. “Nathan Drake, discovering the ancient Cintamani stone! Nathan Drake, searching for El Dorado! Nathan Drake, finding the dead body of fucking Sir Francis Drake, while he is searching for El Dorado!”
“You sound like Rafe, Sam.”
“Oh, Rafe was a psychopath, but he did have a point in that,” Sam hissed. “It has been Nathan Drake everywhere, on every archaeological podium, in every treasure hunting group, on every goddamn magazine cover that published something remotely treasure-related, you have been a fucking institution when it comes to treasure hunting!”
“So what, this is what I always wanted, why -”
“This is what we wanted, Nathan! This is what we dreamt of! You have been living the life we had set out to have when we picked that name, and then you were the one going after Drake's legacy? I don't blame you for doing that, but now you're blaming me because I want a bit of that dream back? Have you any idea how long a decade is in prison, Nate? All I had was the thought that one day, I'll come out and I'd find you, and then we'd go and find not only Avery's treasure, but all the other things we have dreamt of. All those things. And then I did get out, and all those things had been found. By you. Without me.”
The slight hitch in his voice hurt Nathan more than his words did.
“I thought you were dead, Sam,” he said.
“I know. But now, I'm not. I'm here. You're here. There's still so much to see, so much to find. We can have new dreams.”
“I have new dreams. This.”
Sam laughed, but it had no warmth in it. “Yeah, of course. This is not Nathan Drake's dream,” he said. “This is Nathan Morgan's.”
Nathan flinched back, forcing the feeling of betrayal back down. But it was no good – because where he pushed that, he had already pushed other betrayals, and now, they were mingling, getting riled up in excited whispers. “What are you trying to tell me here, Sam?” he asked. “That I'm unworthy of that name? That I'm supposed to tell Elena that I have to fulfil my brother's childhood wishes and live a life that I no longer want because we wanted it when we where kids?”
Something in Sam's face broke at that, and through the crack, ire came, like putty, to fill in the crack before something more vital streamed out.
“I get it, Nathan, I'm the stupid ass who was selfish enough to come out of jail alive and seek you out to take you on an adventure. Anything else you want me to know?”
It wasn't true, Nate wanted to say that. He could have. He should have. But brothers will always have a tendency to mirror each other, and even though Nate wasn't sure if he had heard the crack in his own facade, but he did feel the burning bile of rage rising in him. A volcano that had been silently rumbling ever since Rafe had laughed in his face and had told him that there had never been a breakout. Never been a deal with Alcazar.
The whispers of betrayal were getting impossible to ignore.
“Oh, nice of you to you ask, Sam. Actually, let's talk about the moment you came back from the dead and decided to lie to my face? Because that sure was part of all of our childhood dreams, right, Sam?”
“Ah, can you blame me?”
“Can I – of course I can blame you! I thought you'd die!”
“It was obviously the only way to get you to go along! I needed you for that, cause other than other people, I can't just go ahead and find the treasure they wanted to find without them!”
“Oh, so now I'm the asshole? You didn't even give me a chance to tag along knowing the truth!”
“It would've been pointless! You would've said no!” “You bet I would have! And with every right to do so!” “Avery's treasure was our dream, Nate! I couldn't do that alone, I never could've left you behind like that!”
Nathan laughed. He couldn't help it. They were shouting at each other, but he still felt like he needed to get rid of that energy or he'd punch something.
Maybe Sam.
“I did not want to hunt another treasure! I would have given you my blessing to go hunt it on your own, if it meant that much to you!” “I didn't want your blessing, you idiot, I wanted you!”
“That's real heartbreaking, and of course there is a really good reason why you couldn't have said that to me and leave the decision to me?”
“Because you would have said no!” Sam threw his hands up, nearly knocking a box off a shelf. “You would have said no, and I'd never get to find even one of the treasures with you! Because you had moved on, and I hadn't, and so you'd naturally leave me behind with that dream to chase on my own!”
Nate huffed. “When have I ever left you behind, Sam?”
The bitter sound that escaped Sam's throat was barely audible, but still sounded like a cracking gunshot in hindsight.
“You mean with or without Panama?”
Nathan staggered back like he had been kicked in the chest. The walls closed in, the shelves threatened to bend over and bury him. He had to hold on to one of them for support, sending a pile of books clattering to the floor. He felt his lips part to say something, but nothing came out but a huff of breath.
You have left your brother behind.
It was his worst nightmare, consisting of this thought in a hundred different ways, in thousands of pictures and millions of screams. They had subsided, eventually, but old horrors were so easy to break free.
“Ah, shit.” Sam swore, running a hand over his face. “Nathan, look, I didn't mean that -”
“I left you behind?”, Nathan hissed, unable to conceal the roiling mix of anger and shame and guilt and betrayal. Talking to shut the hisses up. “Is that what you think?”
“No, I'm sorry, I got carried away, you didn't -”
“Have you any idea what that meant for me?” Nathan shouted, swiping away the carefully outstretched hand, pushing Sam back against a shelf. It shook with the impact, and a box on the edge of one of the boards toppled and crashed down. Several things shattered, but Nathan didn't have the capacity to ponder if there had been anything ancient inside. He didn't care. He'd set the attic on fire if it meant getting rid of that unbearable cacophony of feelings. “Have you any idea what I felt like?” Sam started to say something, but Nathan didn't let him. “Do you think that I spent the last fifteen years having fun searching for treasures and didn't think back about you? I did think back, Sam, a lot, and if you knew how many times Sully had to keep me from flying right over to Panama and search for you by myself -”
“I told you I'm sorry, Nathan! I didn't mean that, what do you want me to say?”
“I want you to understand!”
“I do!” “You don't understand shit, Sam! You have no idea what Panama did to me! Otherwise, you wouldn't have lied about Alcazar!” He felt the rage boil hot, too hot to be contained with words or with the aura of guilt that radiated off his brother at this proximity. They had ended up standing almost chest to chest, Sam's back up against a shelf, and for a few seconds, they only stood there, chests heaving, and suddenly, Nate was a kid, and he was so angry at Sam for leaving him at the orphanage, and he was shouting and punching his brother, and it made him even angrier that he didn't punch back, didn't push him away, only endured it, like he knew that he could never really hurt him anyway. And that feeling was adding itself to the roiling mix now, giving it a particularly toxic aftertaste, a frustration that could never be annihilated.
You think I can't hurt you?
Nathan's hands had curled up into fists, his own nails digging into his palm, reminding him with a quiet cruelty that now, he could hurt him, he had learnt to fight for himself, he had learned to exist as a single person and not just the younger Morgan. He had learned to not be a Morgan at all.
But then, he realised that he still couldn't hurt him, not in the way that would've lived up to the severity of the emotions, and the frustration turned into a lump of searing coal inside him, made him raw and hurt.
“Nathan ...”
“Shut up!”
With a jolt, Nathan pushed himself back, almost toppling the entire shelf. More boxes and items slid off the board and landed on the floor. Nathan turned around without even looking at them, suddenly knowing exactly what he needed to do. The only thing that might help. The thing he hadn't found the strength to do until now. The thing he had been thinking about doing ever since Sam had turned out to be a liar.
They had always been thieves. They had grown into killers. But they had never been liars. Not to each other.
“Nathan.”
“You don't understand the first thing!” he repeated, searching the right shelf, striding over to it purposefully. “You have no idea what it did to me. You have no idea what I went through when I thought that you died, and you have no idea what it did to me to think that I could lose you again.” There was so much more to say, but Nathan's voice was falling into a treacherous hitch, and so he didn't. When he started pulling out boxes from the shelf boards, he heard the door to he attic open.
“Nate?”
He didn't look up. “It's nothing, Elena. Go back to bed.”
A beat. “Nate? What happened?”
Nathan drew a sharp breath, but before he could lash out at her, Sam said: “It's okay, Elena. Just …. give us a few minutes, yeah?”
“Sam, what -”
“No need to wait,” Nathan said curtly, having found what he was looking for, and emerging from the shelf. He turned around, only brushing Elena with her dishevelled look and the worried, slightly accusing glare, instead slamming the object he had been looking for against Sam's chest.
His brother flinched back, like he was expecting a grenade instead of the small book he was holding.
“What's that?”
“Look at it.”
Sam gave him a weird look, but took it and stared at the cover. Or lack thereof.
“It's one of your journals.”
Nate nodded. “You've always been the perceptive one.” Even now, hurting, bleeding, raw, he couldn't help but crack jokes. Only that it felt like every joke cracked him back, little by little, tearing down the facade they were meant to build up.
Maybe, tonight, it would finally break
Sam held the book up. “You want me to … look inside?”
“Not yet. Look at it while we're driving.”
It was hard to tell who was more surprised of the pair.
“Driving? Nathan, what the hell are you doing?”
“Making you understand.”
“Nate? What do you mean, are you leaving?”
He stopped in front of Elena, partly because she looked so worried, but mostly because she was blocking the door. “What are you doing?”
And Nate was sure that there was a lot more in her question then Why do you want to leave in the middle of the night, Nate, or Why has your brother broke into our house, Nate, or even Why are you looking so upset, Nate. There was the Will you come back, Nate and of course the Would it even be any good to ask you, Nate that he thought to have seen so often since Sam had shown up at Jameson Marine.
“I'll be back by tomorrow,” he simply said, because he didn't know how to answer any of those questions, and he didn't have the heart to think about it.
The doubts in her eyes were so plentiful that it was tearing yet another hole into his heart. She doesn't trust me.
Why would she?Ironically, it was Sam who stepped in front of him, one hand still holding the journal, the other awkwardly reaching out as if to lay down on Elena's shoulder, but then stopping mid-air on an invisible threshold.
“Don't worry, Elena,” he said, and it was testament to how good of a liar he was when he added: “I'll bring him back.”
Elena clearly considered to forbid them, but after a moment, she just shook her head. Nathan didn't look at her face. He knew the look he'd see in her eyes. The disappointment. The look that said I thought we agreed that this would be over, Nate.
She stepped aside, and Nathan all but fled downstairs, hearing a short mumbled something his brother said to her before following.
Nathan did his best to ignore his brother's questions while he strode towards the car, knowing that, if he stopped if only to answer one of them, he might just as well go back inside, because there was no point in pretending that this didn't run solely on momentum and nothing else. Even as Sam hurried before him to block his path, Nathan sidestepped him quickly, dodging the outstretched arm, continuing his way to the car.
He needed to show Sam what this was all about. He needed Sam to understand. Not just to know, not just to relate. To understand.
As Nate slid behind the steering wheel and turned the key, he thought that Sam wouldn't come. That he'd simply refuse to get into the car with his probably insane brother, who might as well crash them both into the next tree trunk or down the next cliff. But either he trusted Nate's mental stability a lot more than Nathan himself did, or he didn't care, because after a few seconds, Sam slid through the passenger door with a grunt.
“Nathan, where are we going?”
“I'm driving, you don't need to know,” he said, the fingers of his one hand white against the steering wheel as the other gestured towards the journal. “Look at the journal.”
Sam hesitated, the questions that where pushing against his teeth audible even without being spoken. But finally, as Nathan had pulled out of their driveway and onto the street, Sam looked down on the journal in his hands.