okay call me evil but rope burns and touch starved with... dmc nate?
you are evil and it’s a delight.
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Searching the entire warehouse by himself wasn’t easy, and it was a lot more time consuming than Jonathan would have liked. At least the place was old and dusty, so he was able to write off a few shadowy corners thanks to the lack of footprints, but that still left the rest of the corners.
Nate, it turns out, wasn’t in a corner at all.
Jonathan moved quickly and quietly across an open floor, machete grasp comfortably in his hand, ready for anything. The pistol he’d been talking into bringing by his new partner was kept in his waistband, where it couldn’t hurt anyway. It was no secret Jonathan hated the things, he had very little experience in them anyway, and greatly preferred his familiar machete.
That, he had had plenty of experience with.
His ears were strained, and the exercsion had helped the thundering of his pulse in his ears to quiet down a little. Good thing, too, or else he never would have heard the rather distinct sound of a sole scraping across rusty metal.
He paused, listening. The sound only happened once, but it was enough for a hunter used to tracking a monster without hearing anything to locate the source. It was an elevator well, tucked quite literally into the wall, with a heavy collapsible gate stretched across it. Jonathan peered closer, and saw fabric.
“Nate!” he hissed, looking around once more, and then backing up a step and surveying the elevator door. A big shiny chain and padlock secured it to the building’s very frame.
Inside, Nate grunted, his shoes scraping again.
“Hang on, Nate,” Jonathan cried, digging for his lock-picking kit and hoping it would fit the gigantic lock. “I’m going to get you out. It’s kind of James Bond, right? Strapped to an old elevator?”
And he was right. Nate was mostly concealed within shadows, but Jonathan could see that he was sitting up, coarse ropes tied around his arms and wrists and to the bottom of the elevator that hung precariously overhead. If it lifted, it could take Nate with it. If it fell...
“Jojo,” Nate grunted again, shifting loudly on the rusty, gravel covered floor.
“There’s a lock,” Jonathan replied, “a big one, over the chain. I’m trying to pick it - just stay calm, I’ll get you out of here!”
“Jojo,” Nate said again, straining to pull heavy, numb legs underneath him a little more.
“It’s just a lock, right? I’ve picked dozens of them, right? No big challenge! Nothing worth standing between me and my partner!”
“Jonathan!” Nate barked, and the younger hunter looked up at him quickly.
“Yeah?”
“Shoot. It.” the other grunted.
“Oh. OH!” Jonathan moved away quickly, drew his pistol, took careful aim, and fired. The lock fell away, and he heard Nate groan over the ringing in his own ears.
“Just like in the movies!” Jonathan cheered, unwrapping the chain and shoving the door open. Nate’s face, dusty with dirt, was sweat drenched and pinched, his hands flexing minutely as he strained to lessen the pull on them. The rope was digging into his skin, stretched and rubbing at it. At least it seems he hadn’t been struggling, that probably would have made things worse.
Although they didn’t seem like they could get much freaking worse the way Nate cried out when the ropes were sawed through with Jonathan’s machete and his arms dropped.
“Easy, easy,” the younger said, lowering Nate to his back and trying to keep his arms from falling and tearing at his stiff shoulders. Once Nate was down, he quickly worked at removing the rest of the rope, which was coiled like a snake in all different directions at once. He babbled as he worked.
“Jonny,” Nate rasped, Jonathan’s nervous chatter ending to glance down at him quickly.
“Yeah?”
Something glimmered in his partner’s dark eyes, something deep in the bottomless pools, and it made Jonathan’s stomach lurch.
“Hey,” he smiled, gently setting on hand on Nate’s chest, where he wouldn’t touch any throbbing muscles. Nate was hot, probably a little too much so, but it felt as if he leaned into the touch, if that was even possible from his position. Jonathan smiled more. “We’re partners, right? I’ll always come for you.”
Nate smirked.
“We’re not even dating yet.”
“Shut up,” Jonathan laughed, turning back to the ropes.
