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debut - beth
Mar. 17th, 2016 12:39 amWhen he swallows, it feels like some kind of monster is tearing at his throat, shredding his insides apart. His tongue is thick and useless in his mouth, begging for water that hasn’t come in days. Or he thinks it’s been days. Surely. The plane had crashed and he’d gone rummaging through the wreckage without finding much of anything useful, which just about sums his life up to a T, Nate thinks. Now he’s been wandering the desert since, his feet dragging along the sand even when he thinks he’s seconds away from dying.
He can’t die. Not yet. Sully is waiting for him to come to the rescue, or he damn well better be. Sully, whom he blames every mess he’s been in since he was fifteen on. Sully, the only person in the world who ever gave a damn enough to look out for him.
He has to keep going. Giving in isn’t an option, dying isn’t an option, so the only thing left to him is to keep dragging his sorry ass through the desert.
He thinks it’s been days, but at this point it could have been weeks and Nate couldn’t tell. He can’t tell left from right anymore, can’t tell the dunes apart, can’t see his own footprints in the moving sand. It’s how he ends up back at the well, time and time again, and he thinks he’s going to scream with the injustice of it, only that would hurt his throat more. His eyes have been messing with him since the second or third (who knows anymore?) day, and he’s stopped trusting them. The mirages are cruel, palm trees and ponds and fucking hula girls, probably, Nate doesn’t know anymore. The worst ones are of Sully, the times that he thinks he’s found him against all the odds.
“Get up kid,” he says gruffly, and Nate cracks an eye open from where he’s lying in the sand and tries to tell himself it’s not real.
“We haven’t got time for this, Nate.” More insistent now. Still not real.
“Swear to god, I’ll kick your goddamn ass myself if you don’t move.”
Nate forces himself to sit, to look up. That’s his Sully, the words ringing in his ears as familiar as they have been almost every day of his life for the last twenty years. Sully. He stretches out a hand, reaching for the one offered to him, and his own hand falls through Sully’s like smoke as he disappears. Hell.
Another night and day pass, alternating between obliterating heat and freezing cold, and when Nate comes across that goddamn well again he falls to his knees. He’s been circling forever, he’s never going to get anywhere, he’s going to die in the middle of the desert and Sully will be so disappointed, Elena will cry for him (he hopes) and Marlowe will destroy the world.
The well crumbles underneath his hands and he looks up. He’s not in the desert. He could cry out of sheer relief but he’s Nathan Drake and he will not cry. For a moment he thinks it’s another mirage, all encompassing this time but not real regardless, but the ground feels real beneath his knees. There’s a piece of gravel digging into his skin which he’s pretty sure wouldn’t happen if this was a perfect dream.
Slowly, he gets to his feet, painfully aware of every ache and protest in his body but refusing to give in to it. Around him is a city, very different to the one he left last he’d seen civilisation, but a generic city all the same. A city which, he’s hopeful, has water somewhere.
His first steps are a little awkward, stumbling and embarrassing, but at least there’s no more sliding sand beneath his feet.
“Alright, Drake,” he mutters to himself, brushing a hand through his hair and feeling sand go everywhere. Lovely. “You can do this. Baby steps. First thing: have you lost your goddamn mind?”
He can’t die. Not yet. Sully is waiting for him to come to the rescue, or he damn well better be. Sully, whom he blames every mess he’s been in since he was fifteen on. Sully, the only person in the world who ever gave a damn enough to look out for him.
He has to keep going. Giving in isn’t an option, dying isn’t an option, so the only thing left to him is to keep dragging his sorry ass through the desert.
He thinks it’s been days, but at this point it could have been weeks and Nate couldn’t tell. He can’t tell left from right anymore, can’t tell the dunes apart, can’t see his own footprints in the moving sand. It’s how he ends up back at the well, time and time again, and he thinks he’s going to scream with the injustice of it, only that would hurt his throat more. His eyes have been messing with him since the second or third (who knows anymore?) day, and he’s stopped trusting them. The mirages are cruel, palm trees and ponds and fucking hula girls, probably, Nate doesn’t know anymore. The worst ones are of Sully, the times that he thinks he’s found him against all the odds.
“Get up kid,” he says gruffly, and Nate cracks an eye open from where he’s lying in the sand and tries to tell himself it’s not real.
“We haven’t got time for this, Nate.” More insistent now. Still not real.
“Swear to god, I’ll kick your goddamn ass myself if you don’t move.”
Nate forces himself to sit, to look up. That’s his Sully, the words ringing in his ears as familiar as they have been almost every day of his life for the last twenty years. Sully. He stretches out a hand, reaching for the one offered to him, and his own hand falls through Sully’s like smoke as he disappears. Hell.
Another night and day pass, alternating between obliterating heat and freezing cold, and when Nate comes across that goddamn well again he falls to his knees. He’s been circling forever, he’s never going to get anywhere, he’s going to die in the middle of the desert and Sully will be so disappointed, Elena will cry for him (he hopes) and Marlowe will destroy the world.
The well crumbles underneath his hands and he looks up. He’s not in the desert. He could cry out of sheer relief but he’s Nathan Drake and he will not cry. For a moment he thinks it’s another mirage, all encompassing this time but not real regardless, but the ground feels real beneath his knees. There’s a piece of gravel digging into his skin which he’s pretty sure wouldn’t happen if this was a perfect dream.
Slowly, he gets to his feet, painfully aware of every ache and protest in his body but refusing to give in to it. Around him is a city, very different to the one he left last he’d seen civilisation, but a generic city all the same. A city which, he’s hopeful, has water somewhere.
His first steps are a little awkward, stumbling and embarrassing, but at least there’s no more sliding sand beneath his feet.
“Alright, Drake,” he mutters to himself, brushing a hand through his hair and feeling sand go everywhere. Lovely. “You can do this. Baby steps. First thing: have you lost your goddamn mind?”
