#fortuneseek

[ignobledeath]

     It’s been a while since Rafe had felt the sun on his face like this;  even longer since he could  enjoy  it.  He turns to the warmth,  basks in it,  content.  For the moment.  “...  ––  Samuel,  you’re poisoning my air.”     @fortuneseek.

[ignobledeath]

     The smell of antiseptic lingers a little too heavy this morning.  Rafe hasn’t slept,  barring what few hours the pain medicine afforded him.  Instead,  he listened to the  clicking and whirring  of machines,  the hiss of oxygen from a mask he refused to use  ––  not because he  didn’t  need it,  but because he didn’t  want  to need it.

     Maybe if he didn’t want it bad enough,  his respiratory system would take the  goddamn  hint.

     He struggles to take a satisfying breath.  A spear of pain flashes white - hot,  broken bones shifting and grinding together as his lungs expand.  He cuts it short,  expression pinched in a grimace before dropping into muted  frustration.

     “Samuel.  If you have something to  say,  just say it.”

@fortuneseek.

[ignobledeath]

     He doesn’t understand it.  This feeling,  how it rushes him and sinks down into his marrow;  the  warmth  that spreads through him when he looks at Samuel,  watches him sleep with one arm thrown over his head and one across his abdomen.  The sheet only covers the lower half of his body,  and the duvet has been completely pushed off.  

      It’s like sleeping next to a furnace,  he tells him  ––  Rafe catches the innuendo every time,  if only because he can damn near see it in the way he smirks.  Guess you’re just too goddamn hot.  He said this two nights ago;  Rafe had scowled and rolled his eyes,  but his cheeks flushed deep red and within mere minutes afterward,  he found himself laid on his back with Samuel pressing in close to kiss him.

      Rafe wants to return that gesture now,  but his confidence flickers like a dwindling flame.

     He doesn’t have a very good range of motion.  He’s stiff,  limited to certain movements and there are still things he can’t do.  Things that he can’t give to Sam yet.  Things he  can,  sparingly,  like a warm and eager mouth.  He knows how much he likes that.

     “I know what you’re  hoping  for sleeping in this late,  you manipulative son of a bitch.”     @fortuneseek

[ignobledeath]

     “––  so I’ve been thinking.”     @fortuneseek

[ignobledeath]

[ kisses his neck. ]

     After hours of reviewing and overanalyzing,  poring over the notes and documents spread across the table,  you would think a distraction would be more than welcome.

      “Samuel––”

     His voice didn’t carry the resolve he’d hoped it might.

    It isn’t just the warmth of an open mouth that makes his heart skip a beat.  It’s the presence behind him,  the hands that rest on his hips.  A light dusting of blush begins to colour his cheeks.

     He’ll blame it on the migraine.  How it was beginning to feather around the edges of Rafe’s peripheral vision and bring everything out of focus.  He’ll blame  this,  the stiffness of his muscles and the way they’ve been coiled tight as a spring for days,  on exactly that  ––  the perfect scapegoat.  Sam must have felt it.  Must have somehow  known.     

     Maybe he just has that good of a read on him.

     “Samuel––I’m working.”

     His voice catches as that mouth presses another kiss to the tender skin behind his earlobe.

     Rafe doesn’t try a third time.

     Instead,  he allows himself to loosen into him,  relaxing back against Sam’s chest and offering him more;  the expanse of his neck bared to the heat of his mouth,  to teeth and tongue and the fingers that circle around to Rafe’s throat.  This,  he remembers,  is one of Samuel’s signature moves.

     But it’s gentle this time,  at least in comparison to the last.  Gentle enough to not leave behind a bruise when he coaxes his head to tip back and rest against his shoulder.

     Rafe swallows,  his Adam’s apple riding with the motion against the skin of Sam’s palm.

     “…  as  fun  as this is,  if you’re not  bending me over  or putting me on my  knees,  then one of us needs to get back to work.”

[ignobledeath]

‘ was that an apology? ’

meme.     @fortuneseek.

     Rafe Adler doesn’t apologize.     Not for this.

     There’s a bitter taste on his tongue when he curls it against the roof of his mouth,  jaw jutting out in some kind of  defiance.  Against  what,  he isn’t sure.  Maybe the implication of there being something to apologize for in the first place  ––  as if  he  were the one who detonated one of Avery’s traps in a deliberate attempt on   both   of their lives.  If I’m not leavin’,  you’re not leavin’.  As if he were the one to turn his back first,  to abandon him.  

     He struggles to draw a breath through the smoke that still sticks against the back of his throat.  Was that an apology?  Hell no.

     Not when he touches his face and pulls away expecting blood on his fingers.  Not when he asks the doctor to  repeat herself  because his hearing is still somewhat muted.  Not when his dreams startle him into a waking  panic,  chest heaving and causing friction between the breaks and fractures of his ribcage.  Not when his dignity,  the very essence of his personality,  is  crushed  beneath the hands of every nurse burdened with the task of keeping him clean and dry,  of swapping out his catheters and changing his dressings.  Not when he feels this vulnerable,  this  helpless.

     Does he deserve this?  Is this his penance?

     Is this his penance for wanting to wash his ledger in the blood of the  legend  himself,  Nathan Drake?  Of course it isn’t.  It should have been  him.  It should have been his blood,  his destruction,  because  this  is what he has earned  ––   this is what tens of thousands of men would agree on:  Nathan Drake doesn’t deserve the goddamn air that he breathes,  least of all the weight of his reputation.  

     No,  no.  Rafe isn’t  apologizing  for anything.  

     He would do it again if he had the chance,  a thousand and one times over until he finally got it right.

     On the nights where he sleeps soundlessly,  he dreams of that moment.  It’s somehow  cathartic.  The smell of blood is thick in the air,  richened  with three - hundred year old wood that smolders beneath the lick and spit of raging flames.  It’s  his  blood he sees glistening in the firelight;  Nathan Drake,  crumpled on the floorboards,  clutching around his abandon where the blade of Rafe’s cutlass speared.  His grip at the nape of Nathan’s neck,  the skin slick with sweat and creased with grime.

     With one last torque of the handle,  he finally drives the blade through muscle and intestine until it’s protruding through the small of his back.  So long,  Nathan Drake.

     There must be a disconnect between what Samuel meant and how he processes it.  How he understands it.  It’s the little things,  like the  subtle  shift of his expression,  that give this away  ––  the way the corners of his mouth dip downwards and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows around what feels like glass lodged in his throat.  Was that an apology?  Gaze levels with Sam’s,  more hardened than it had been.

     “You seem to  forget,  Samuel.  I’m not bound by  petty notions  of conscience.”

     I’m not sorry for anything.