nathan drake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sicparvasmagna) wrote2016-03-17 12:39 am
sicparvasmagna) wrote2016-03-17 12:39 am
debut - beth
When 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?”
no subject
"So far as we know there was a virus," she tells him, looking down at her knee and picking at a hole in her jeans. Then she looks back up and shrugs one shoulder smoothly. "When people died, it reanimated them. Zombies, y'know, though we didn't really use that word often. I think it upset most people too much to think about their family like that, so we called 'em other stuff. Walkers, roamers, I heard some people calling 'em biters once, which I guess was pretty fitting, too. After the dead started walkin', everything else pretty much just fell apart."
no subject
"I'm sorry," he starts, because he thinks that's the kind of thing he's supposed to say. Nate was never good with that kind of thing, but he does get it. "I fought a bunch of zombies once." He shrugs. "Nazi zombies. So cliche."
no subject
"I'm sorry," she says, pressing her fingers to her lips. "I'm sorry, I'm not laughin' at you, it's just... Nazi zombies. All the things I saw, all the crazy stuff, all the walkers with half their faces fallin' off, I never once saw a Nazi zombie and now I feel like I kinda got cheated."
She laughs again, then calms herself and sighs softly. "So you saw zombies, too? Not the whole world overrun by 'em, though?"
no subject
Ugh.
"Just a U-boat," he says, grinning back at her. "And like, El Dorado. But that turned out to be a statue and not a place, go figure."
no subject
Nazi zombies are somehow easier to believe.
"How'd you even find that?" she asks. "Is that what you were doin' before you came here?" It seems so far from anything she's ever done. Maybe their world had changed, maybe it had been overrun with walkers, but it sounds like he does all sorts of crazy things she'd never even be able to imagine.
no subject
There'd been Elena. Okay, maybe not nothing.
"That was a few years ago. This time I was looking for the Lost City of Ubar," he says with a grin. He doesn't expect her to believe him, which is why it's easy to tell the truth. It doesn't seem to matter here, anyway. "It's kind of what I do. Treasure hunting, fighting zombies. Y'know."
no subject
Lost cities, those aren't impossible.
"You're gonna have to tell me all about it, you know that, right?" she asks, smiling at him. "But it can wait. I should take you to the train station first so you can get your stuff." She's already talking to him like he's going to be here for awhile -- which he will -- and that they're going to be friends, but she's always been like that. Beth cares about people, she likes being around them, and she wants to take care of them when they need it.
no subject
He just hadn't expected it to go like this.
"Stuff, right," he echoes, nodding. "All that sorry we kidnapped you compensation stuff. Awesome."
no subject
"Come on," she says, her voice gentle as she collects her things. "The train station isn't far and then once you've got it, I can help you find your apartment. I know it's weird and I know you're still gonna try to get home and that's okay. I figure most people need to. I just can't leave you out here with nothin'. I can't do it."