@bunnyfangs: "can i please get duke and nathan but in a mad max universe??? some words: injury, stitches?, red, "you have to"
nathan knows he's bleeding.
it's impossible not to know, because the empty ahead is all he can see. his vision has narrowed so tight he might as well be trying to drive while looking through an exhaust pipe. his hands are black with it and the wheel is slick and his heart is beating in his ears. he knows he's bleeding and really, honestly, maybe he's glad.
it doesn't hurt, though. at least that. it doesn't hurt.
"nathan."
that's the voice from the back seat, the voice nathan keeps hearing and keeps refusing to believe is real. duke is dead, long dead, and that's nathan's fault, sure, but he's not going to give the ghost in his rearview mirror the satisfaction of acknowledgement. he owed duke everything while he was alive but he owes him nothing now.
"nathan, it's time to stop."
nathan can't stop. if he stops, they catch up. if they catch up, nathan doesn't make it home. if nathan doesn't make it home, audrey dies. and if audrey dies, any hope of a revival dies with her. the fate of thousands of people rests squarely on nathan's narrow shoulders.
if he's honest, he doesn't care about them all that much. nathan cares about one person and one person only, because everyone else he's ever loved is dead.
nathan can't stop because if he stops, audrey dies, and that's all that matters in this burnt husk of a life he calls his own.
"nate, you know what to do."
"i can't stop," nathan grinds through his teeth. the tunnel he's looking through is turning shades of dangerous yellow. he's going to pass out, and it's going to be sooner rather than later. "i won't let down audrey."
"so you black out and you crash into the cliffs at the pass. smart, nathan. that's gonna help a whole lot."
sarcasm just drips from duke's words like oil from an old engine. nathan looks in the rearview and there are brown eyes looking back, warm and framed with long lashes. he gives his head a hard shake and looks again. the dust cloud in the distance is small but visible. any amount of dust means they're too close for comfort. he can't stop.
"nathan," duke says, and nathan thinks maybe he can feel a hand on the back of his neck. it's stupid because nathan can't feel anything. duke's voice is right by his ear, gentle and persuasive the way he never was in life. "you have to stop."
nathan stops. there's no room in the front seat so he tumbles out of the rig and manages not to break anything as he hits the ground. he lays there and breathes and breathes and the sun moves overhead and bakes his skin hot and tight and close to his bones.
"you know what to do."
nathan knows what to do. he gets up, hauls his pack down from the cab, dumps himself back down in the dust and pulls his shirt off until the slash across his ribs is exposed. he threads his bone needle and he stitches it shut from end to end, then packs a folded shirt against it, wraps his body to hold it in place. the valve on the water tank is rusty but nathan manages to force it open just enough to drink and douse his head in the precious stuff. then he lies down in the shade underneath the rig and breathes.
he can't remember the last time he just breathed.
"maybe i never have," he whispers to the underbelly of the beast.
"you wanna know what i think, nate?"
nathan can see duke's shadow, a long black stretch of man-shape. its arms are folded.
"don't need your opinion, crocker," nathan says.
"i think you're being a stubborn ass about this. and what happens to stubborn asses who don't take care of themselves?"
"they get killed?" nathan muses. "you're one to talk."
"you know what to do," duke says.
nathan looks and the shadow is gone.
when he rolls out from beneath the rig, he can see the vast expanse stretching out in all directions. the exhaust pipe vision is gone, but the cloud of dust in the distance is bigger. time to pick himself up and go.
audrey's waiting.
hauling himself back into the rig, nathan bumps his head on the whistle hanging from the leather cord around the rearview. it swings, taps against the red thumbprint nathan left on the mirror. duke doesn't need to say anything for nathan to know he's talking.
"i know," he says, as he puts the rig in gear and revs it to life. "i know what to do."