professional sam drake sweat licker.

“So, you screw anyone while I was away?”

The Ionian glitters like spilled sapphires beneath the late afternoon sun, the sea a rolling mirror of gold and blue. Post-swim salt clings to their skin, drying in pale crystals as the swell rocks the little yacht just enough to make every touch feel looser, lazier, like gravity itself has softened. Sam’s mouth tastes of brine and the sweetness of sparkling wine stolen hours before, his stubble damp against her throat as he pins her down on the warm deck cushions.

His weight on top of her keeps her tethered, keeps her from floating off into the endless blue, but it’s the grin - wolfish, cocky as ever, and the crassness of his question contrasting everything around them that makes her laugh even with her breath caught in her chest.

“Hmm…" She lets the pause linger, eyes flicking out over the coast where the Peloponnese slopes into the sea. Her head tilts back, smiling slow, feigning thought, as though she hasn’t already decided how to tease him.

"There was this one guy.”

His brows go up, eyes glinting with mock offense, lips ghosting over her collarbone.

“That so?” The rumble in his chest vibrates through her.

She hums, fingers curling into his damp hair. “Huge dick,” she says casually, watching his smirk deepen, the way his eyes narrow with intrigue.

“Mmhm,” he encourages, dragging the sound out, all but daring her to keep going.

“Thick,” she adds, lips twitching, enjoying the way his mouth stills against her skin, the way his jaw flexes just once before he recovers.

“Well, ain’t that somethin’.” He’s half-smiling, half-scowling, the mix of pride and jealousy that only he can pull off.

She sighs, feigning dreamy. “Built like he was carved for it.”

“Uh-huh.” He nips at her collarbone, grinding down slow, the sea rocking them into rhythm. “And?”

She lets the silence hang for a beat, just long enough to feel the tension coil tighter between them, before delivering the coup de grâce.

“I had to fake it.”

His laugh bursts out of him, hot and unrestrained, shaking against her chest as he dips back in for a kiss. “Guess I’ll be makin’ up for that, huh?” he mutters against her mouth. “Two for the lady?”

She laughs, tugging his lip with her teeth. “Two’s bold.”

“Alright-” he pulls back just enough to grin down at her, devilish and soft all at once, “make it three.”

Her giggle echoes with the rush of waves against the hull, bright as the sunlight scattering across the water. He’s insatiable, greedy for every curve of her, his hands mapping her like coastline, familiar yet newly discovered each time they get to be together. She arches beneath him, body yielding and defiant all at once, and he takes it as if it’s his right, his hunger too long starved.

They are both creatures of drift and return, like the sea that throws itself endlessly at the shore, retreating only to come back again. Their lives don’t leave room for full-fledged commitment, not the kind others would recognise, but while tomorrow is bound to pull them apart again, today the world has stilled, and he isn’t letting the opportunity go lightly.

The sun is merciless, burning bronze into his shoulders and streaking her curves with heat that glows where his palms have already claimed her. She lies bare beneath him, the yacht’s deck gleaming around them like some altar to the sea, nothing between them and the raw sunlight but breath and want.

He worships her slowly, mouth trailing the salt-slick map of her body, the contrast of his rough tongue and her softness an endless undoing.

There’s no pretence here, nor shadows, sheets to hide under. Just the two of them, skin to skin, sun hammering down like it knows their secret and wants to sear it into memory. His hands are greedy, possessive, sliding over every curve as if he might forget the shape of her if he doesn’t relearn it now, in this harsh, hot light. Her thighs, her hips, the dip of her waist - each one another vice he can’t seem to quit.

He kisses the soft swell of her stomach as she hooks her leg over his shoulder, drawing him in tighter, and he grins up at her.

She’s spread wide beneath him, sun-warmed and slick, her thighs parted with the lazy surrender of someone who knows she’s wanted - knows she’s about to be devoured. He groans low when he licks into her, when that first hit of her floods his mouth, fresh and warm and wet. The sweetness of her core cuts through the brine clinging to their skin, a taste that anchors him more surely than the boat’s mooring line, something he would drown for willingly. She trembles under him, laughter caught on the edge of gasps, the sea breeze tugging her hair into wild waves around her flushed face.

She's richer, more intoxicating than any olive oil or fresh honey the mainland has to offer; she’s sweet and sharp and something wholly her own, and it undoes him every time he gets the chance to drink her up.

Sam hooks his arms around her thighs, dragging her closer until his face is buried in the soft, pulsing heat of her. One arm stays locked tight, keeping her from wriggling away even as she shudders under his tongue. The other hand travels greedily, kneading up the plush give of her belly, thumb pressing in as if he wants to mark the path. Reaching further still, he palms her breast, fingers curling around the curve, then pinches her nipple between two knuckles until she gasps, arching toward him, her moan sweet and breathy above the lapping of the water against the keel.

Her hands are tangled insistently in his hair, strands coarse from salt, stiff and clumped in places, but the curls at the nape of his neck are tighter than usual, wet and defined, and she grips them as if they’re reins. He fucking loves it - how she can’t decide if she wants to tug him closer or push him away, her hips jerking under his mouth, her thighs tensing every time he sucks on her clit with deliberate, hungry pressure.

“God-” she breathes, almost choking on the sensation, but he doesn’t stop. He flattens his tongue and drags it slow, then flicks, then sucks, and the wet, almost vulgar sounds coming from between her legs mix with the distant thrum of cicadas and the soft slap of waves against the hull.

He groans into her again, the vibration making her whimper, hips twitching. He could stay here all goddamn day. The sun burns across his back, a sharp sting over shoulders that are already getting a little red, but he doesn’t care. She can chastise him for the lack of factor-fifty later. The only thing that matters in this moment is the way she tastes, the way she pulses under his mouth, wet and wanting and wild.

He dips his tongue deeper, using the hand gripping her thigh to angle her just right, nose nudging against her clit as he presses in. His hand slides back up her belly, fingers greedy, possessive, thumbs circling her nipple again just to feel her twitch, pulling him deeper.

“Fuck-” she blurts out from where she's hiding under her forearm, writhing, her voice cracked open.

And Sam just grins against her, lips soaked in her, drunk on her.

He’ll never, ever get enough.

His hunger shifts from worship to indulgence, deeper and filthier. Sam eases two fingers inside her, slow at first, the drag of his knuckles parting her, stretching her with an ache so perfect she groans up into the sky, loud and languid. She’s soaked for him already, her body greedy for the intrusion, and the way his hand curls, finding that spot, makes her whimper like she’s got no control left.

His mouth doesn’t leave her clit. He sucks hard, tongue flicking against her in quick bursts. The combination has her undone faster than she wants to admit.

Her jaw slackens, breath catching on a broken cry. Pressure builds low and hard, coiling with every curl of his fingers, every hungry pull of his mouth.

“S-” is all she manages, a warning that melts into a moan, but he only groans in response, the vibration buzzing right against her, pushing her closer to the edge.

She snaps, arching high, a deep, guttural sound tearing free from her chest as the climax crashes over her. Her arms give out, flopping uselessly against the cushions, fingers twitching like they’ve forgotten how to hold him. Her whole body shudders in his grasp, thighs trembling around his head, and he holds her steady, lets her ride the waves until they leave her gasping and loose beneath him.

But he doesn’t stop. Not really. He slows, softens the pace, his tongue easing into gentle circles, lips lapping up everything she spills for him. His fingers keep moving, a languid rhythm that keeps her stretched, keeps her fluttering around him without tipping her into pain or over-stimulation. He draws her down carefully, savouring her, swallowing her like he’s determined not to waste a drop.

Her chest heaves, hair plastered to her temples with sweat, the sun beating down hot enough to sting salt-abraised skin. And still, he doesn’t lift his head. Doesn’t give her even a moment to close her legs or gather herself. He keeps her open, tender, pliant - worked just enough so that when he finally moves above her again, she’ll be ready for exactly what he’s been aching to give.

“Missed this,” he rasps against her, lips wet, fingers still inside her, stroking slow. “Could keep you like this forever.”

And from the helpless sound she makes as he slides his hand from between her twitching thighs, half protest, half plea, he knows she believes him.

She rises slowly, boneless from release, the curve of her spine casting a shadow across his chest. The yacht creaks gently beneath them, tethered to the swell of the Ionian, water glittering like crushed glass all around. Her skin glows, flushed and golden, and she’s trembling faintly from the lingering thrum of pleasure.

Her eyes are heavy-lidded, dark with satisfaction and something softer beneath it. She smiles down at him, lazy and slightly embarrassed; the kind of smile he’d cross continents to see again.

Sam props himself up on an elbow, his fingers still glistening from where he worked her open, from where he made her fall apart - and he watches her blown pupils drop to them like a magnet.

She doesn’t speak. She just opens her mouth, lips parted in invitation, eyes flicking up to meet his in a way that always makes his blood run hot.

He obliges, bringing his fingers to her lips. She closes around them without hesitation, tongue curling to taste herself from his skin. His cock pulses at the sight, at the warmth of her mouth and the scrape of her teeth, her eyes never leaving his.

“Jesus,” he murmurs, voice wrecked. “You’re somethin’ else.”

She hums around his fingers, then lets them slip free, only for him to catch her by the back of the neck and pull her into a kiss. It’s deep and unhurried, tang and heat and lingering sweetness that leaves no doubt about what he feels about her.

He leans back, guiding her down with him, and she follows willingly, straddling his hips as he lays flat against the cushions. She braces herself on his chest, and he wraps his arms around her waist like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.

Above them, the sky is endless; seamless blue without a single cloud. Around them, the sea stretches out to forever, the rugged green of the Peloponnese coast cradling the boat, but all he can breathe in is her skin, her hair, the sticky-sweet arousal still clinging to his lips.

They’ve been apart too long, gone too far in opposite directions, and he doesn’t know how long they’ll have this time. But right now, with her naked and flushed and stretched out over him, the warmth of her pressed to every inch of him, he knows he’d give up every plan, every coin, every thrill he’s ever chased, just to keep her here a little longer.

She looks down at him, smile still playing at the corners of her mouth, fingertips brushing the subtle burn blooming across his chest and shoulders.

“You're gonna peel.” she murmurs.

He chuckles, dragging his hands up her back, slow and possessive.

“Don't care.”

He pulls her down into another kiss, slower this time, deeper, and his breath catches the moment her hand slides between them, fingertips dragging down his stomach, over the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath the waistband of his sodden swim shorts. Her touch is languid but deliberate, the pads of her fingers grazing the length of him, already thick and straining, twitching at the barest contact.

The kiss falters as he groans into her mouth, hips instinctively lifting toward her palm. She smiles, not coy but knowing, the kind of smile only she wears when he’s completely undone beneath her. She strokes him slowly, the velvet hardness of him pulsing in her grip, and he drops his head back against the cushions.

“Sweetheart,” he mutters, voice ragged, “you’re gonna be the death'a me.”

“Mm,” she hums, dragging her lips along his jaw, savouring the rasp of stubble and sun-warmed skin. “That’d be a hell of a way to go.”

She shifts her hips, rising just enough to tug the fabric down, freeing him. He springs up heavy and flushed, the tip glistening, and she doesn’t hesitate to guide him home, her palm wrapped firm around the base, angling him beneath her.

He watches her with fevered eyes, breath shallow, fingers flexing at her soft hips. But when she starts to sink down, she pauses just to watch him. Her eyes stay on his face, not his body, drinking in the way his mouth falls open, the soft hum of laughter that slips from him as the head of his cock breaches.

The fit is tight, even after everything he just did to her. She’s still so warm and wet around him, and the way she slides down, inch by inch, has him huff out slowly, brow furrowed like he’s in pain.

She doesn’t look away. She watches every twitch of his jaw, the way his eyes flicker half-lidded and dark, the way he fights not to thrust up into her too soon.

“Shit,” he breathes, hands clutching her thighs now as they squeeze flush against his hips, thumbs digging into her flushed skin once she finally seats herself fully, his cock buried to the hilt. “Look at you. Goddamn.”

The boat rocks gently beneath them, creaking with the current. He throbs inside her, thick and twitching, and she shifts just slightly, grinding her hips to feel the weight of him press deeper.

There is nothing else. No time, no promises, no distance. Just the sun, the sea, and him beneath her, thanking the God he may or may not believe in for her existence.

She rolls her hips slow at first, testing the aftershocks still sparking through her. The sea breeze skims over damp skin, and her nipples pebble tight, flushed against the hot gold of her chest. Sensitivity makes everything saturate her nerves further; every inch of him a thick, insistent pressure inside her that turns the world to white noise and sunlight.

He looks up at her and - hell - he doesn’t just smile; he laughs, helpless and dazzled. The sound is pure joy, breathless and intoxicated, like he can’t believe his luck. His hands frame her waist, thumbs stroking the soft give there as she circles down, squeezing around him. She’s so wet he can hear it; streaming heat along him. The yacht answers with its own rhythm - cordage ticking, hull sighing, the water lifting them in slow, generous swells.

“Look at you,” he repeats, voice gone rough with awe, watching the rolling tide that ripples through her whole body, stealing every ounce of his attention; the soft bounce of her breasts, the roll of her stomach, the furrow of concentration that melts into a grin when his hands slip up to cup her and guide. She blocks the sun for him, haloed by it instead; the sky a ring of blinding white around her. He squints up, not from glare but because she’s too much and exactly enough. “Angel.” he breathes, almost a laugh again.

“Stop,” she pants, face flushing harder as she drops her hips and takes him deeper, and the way she squeezes - clenching down at the bottom of the stroke like she’s reminding him where he belongs - makes his head tip back, throat bared to the sky as he swallows. He feels her everywhere: the heat, the slip, the fluttering pull that milks him on every glide. She rides him with a tenderness that tips into the territory of possession, telling him without words that he’s hers as surely as she is his.

He can’t stop touching her. One palm slides up, thumbs skimming the slope of her belly, then higher to catch the sway of her breasts; he rolls a nipple between finger and thumb again and watches her shiver, hears the hitch in her breath. The other hand spreads wide at her lower back, anchoring her, helping her find that angle that makes both of them go a little dumb. She’s slick enough to shine, sunlight catching along the seam where they meet, and when she presses down to grind, he feels the warm flood of her around him, the greedy clutch that has him swearing into the wind.

He murmurs curses, wonder threaded through the filth as he tells her to take what she wants. He’s besotted, plain and simple.

She plants a hand on his chest, nails scratching lightly through the fine salt grit, and rides him harder, faster. Every push drags a new sound from him, half laugh, half broken plea. He could live right here, under her, forever: Grecian peninsula a smudge of green to starboard, the scent of wood and sand and lingering sunscreen floating in ribbons through the air, gulls carving white arcs above. He's lost in her and she sees it.

“Three, huh?” she manages, breath stuttering as a tremor runs through her. “You’d better- ah- keep up.”

“Keep up,” he parrots, giddy with adoration and heat, hands bruising at her hips as she bears down and squeezes him again, a wet, perfect clutch that makes his eyes roll. “As if I couldn't do this all… fuckin' day.”

She laughs - bright, incredulous, deeply fond - and then she’s rolling her hips just so, and his laugh turns to a groan. He lies there, completely enthralled by the miracle of her; how she gleams and streams and tightens around him, how her body was carved for his hands and his heart both - thinking there’s nothing holier in the whole wide fucking horrible world than this.

He aches to have her closer, to feel her weight pressed fully to him, to smother himself in her warmth - to be suffocated by her. His hand slides up from her waist, rough palm cupping her jaw with a reverence that almost breaks him. Then his fingers thread into her hair, salt-stiff strands tangling as he tugs her down.

She goes willingly, folding over him, and he clamps her torso to his, chest to chest, the soft weight of her breasts flattening against his skin. He kisses her deep, greedy, swallowing every gasp as if he can draw her into his lungs. The angle shifts, her clit grinding against the root of his cock with each rock of her hips; and she moans into his mouth, the sound caught between them, trembling and helpless.

Her thighs tighten around his hips, her body clenching with telltale rhythm, and he knows. He feels her on the edge, the slick squeeze around him quickening, fluttering like her body’s already begging to give in again. His hands roam; one fisted in her hair, holding her mouth to his, the other spread over her back, dragging her down harder so each thrust rubs her clit against him, lighting her nerves on fire.

Every roll of the yacht rocks them together, body against body, as if the Ionian Sea itself wants in on their rhythm, wants to remind them that nothing is steady but the tide. He kisses her hard, salt-stung lips parting for him, and it tastes like everything he’s missed - like home, when neither of them truly has one.

She breaks from the kiss with a groan, lips swollen, eyes wide and hazy. Her breath stutters against his cheek as she rocks harder, chasing it. “Sam- fuck, I’m-”

“Yeah,” he rasps, voice tight with love and hunger both, “Give it to me.”

The sea lifts them, the yacht creaking, sunlight pouring molten over their tangled bodies. She clings to him, jaw slack, drool pooling on the curve of his neck into shoulder, hips grinding with desperate rhythm, and he feels her spiralling closer-number two trembling just within reach.

It takes her like a tide hitting rock- second climax ripping through her, spine bowing, mouth open on a sound that’s half sob, half triumph. Her whole body seizes around him, a fierce, fluttering grip that makes his vision stutter white at the edges. Heat blooms everywhere: across her throat as it arches, along the tight cords of her belly as it knots and releases, down her thighs as they quake and lock around his hips. She trembles in great, shivering waves, nails skittering uselessly at his shoulders before her hands simply clutch, holding on like he’s the only solid thing on the moving tide.

He watches it all in dazzled, breathless awe; the way her lashes go wet at the corners from the force of it, the way a flush climbs her chest like spilled wine, the way her nipples pebble harder in the breeze even as the rest of her melts heavy and boneless against him. He feels her teeth sink into his shoulder and the hot pulse of her cunt around his cock, that greedy, milking squeeze that drags a helpless groan out of him. Inside her, he’s pinned and owned, and it sends a bruised, tender pride through his ribs: I did this. I get to tear her apart and put her back together.

“Attagirl,” he breathes, forehead tipped to her temple, catching the ragged hitch of her moan with his thumb as he strokes up her jaw.

He stills deep, lets her ride the quake with him thick and steady inside, his other hand wide on her back to keep her from shaking right off him.

She sags when the peak breaks, a long, low exhale fogging his cheek. He doesn’t move yet- won’t risk turning that keen edge into a flinch. He just holds her and counts heartbeats, kisses her hairline, lets the wind dry the sweat at her temples. His thumbs stroke slow circles where her back dimples, coaxing breath back into her, easing the tremble into a hum. Inside, he gives her nothing but warmth- no thrust, no grind at her clit- just the comfort of being kept full.

“Where are ya?” he murmurs against her ear, tenderness threaded through the roughness.

She huffs a laugh, knowing and grateful. “Green,” she whispers, voice smoky, barely there. “Just… be careful.”

“'Course, gorgeous.” he promises, and means it.

He shifts minutely, an angle change more than a movement, drawing her hips a breath higher along his pelvis so the base of him stops catching her where she's swollen and sensitive. He props her with one forearm between her shoulder blades to take some weight off, the other palm cupping her ass, guiding. Then he starts again, patient as tide: shallow, unhurried strokes that savour the slick heat without scraping raw. He kisses her, long and sweet; when she gasps, he’s already pulling back, letting the sensation bloom and bleed out but not bite.

He tips a corner of the deck towel to shade one half of her back, an improvised awning against the ruthless sun, and she smiles into his mouth like he’s done something heroic.

“You,” she murmurs, fond and disbelieving.

“Me,” he agrees, hands steady, eyes crinkling with a smirk she wants to photograph and keep forever. He keeps the rhythm low and deep, the kind that settles her rather than startles- two slow, one shallower, a pause to breathe with her. He watches every change in her face, every tiny uncurling of tension, and when she begins to meet him again, little flexes, a curious roll of her hips, he answers with a touch more depth, still skimming past the direct pressure of her clit. Her body opens to it, stretching in soft, dripping invitation; he can feel her recovering under his palms, desire returning like warmth to chilled fingers.

“Tell me when you want more,” he says, voice a scrape of velvet.

“Now,” she breathes a moment later, a smile breaking through, small and tired.

So he gives her slightly more - just a brush of his pubic bone at the top of each stroke, a careful nudge, then away again, teasing the line between too much and just right. She shivers, not overwhelmed this time, but satisfied; lulled. He keeps her there, coaxing the afterglow into the third wave he promised: lips at her throat, breath in her ear, words like a hand at the small of her back. That’s it. I’ve got you.

When her hips start to chase - little circles, a searching grind - he adds one fingertip where their bodies meet, the gentlest counterpressure to guide her. It lights her up without tipping her over the edge too hard. Her breath shortens. The muscles around him grow intent again, clutching and releasing in a rhythm that tells him she's climbing again; not as violent as the first or second, but deeper. He matches it, patient, reverent, keeping her hood from the direct scrape of friction with the careful tilt of his hips.

"Oh, my God-"

“One more f'me,” he murmurs, lips smiling against her cheek as the first tremor gathers. “One more.”

And when it comes, it’s a long unwinding, her body tightening around him like a silk knot and then loosening with a low, stunned tug. No sharp jolt this time, no flinch - just a gentle wave that carries her through with pleasure and no sting, her fingers fisting in the towel as she melts all over again. He holds the rhythm steady until she’s through it, then cradles her close and still, kissing the corner of her grin, letting the boat do the rocking while her breath evens and the sunlight continues its westward descent.

He moves gently, his hands warm on her hips, thumbs stroking over her skin as he guides her onto her back. Her body sinks into the cushions beneath them, spent and sensitive, but she welcomes the weight of him as he settles between her legs, still buried deep, still thick and throbbing with the last stretch of control.

He braces himself on his forearms to keep most of his weight off her, eyes flicking across her face. But she only smiles, dazed and flushed, the lines of her mouth soft with affection and exhaustion. Her legs fall open around him, pliant and welcoming, and he shakes his head in disbelief when she wraps them loosely around his waist.

He bows his head, lashes low, smile flickering across his lips like he doesn’t know what to do with the tenderness swelling in his chest. His hips move slow, deep, searching for his own release.

Her gaze wanders over him, drinking in the salt-streaked heat of his skin, the planes of muscle working under bronzed flesh, the scars carved into him like short stories she still hasn't fully been told. His brow is drawn tight in concentration, jaw locked as he tries to ride the edge without tipping too fast- always so careful with her, even now, even when he’s this close.

She wonders how he could ever think he’s not enough. Not worthy. As if every inch of him isn’t proof otherwise.

“Hey,” she whispers, hands trembling as she lifts them to the nape of his neck, fingers threading into his hair, damp and coarse from the sea. She tugs him down, pulls him into a kiss that’s sweet and slow and full of everything they won’t say aloud.

He groans into her mouth, hips jerking just slightly as he thrusts deeper, chasing that final peak.

“You're so-” she breathes against his lips, voice like silk snagged on broken glass. "So good."

He chokes on a sound- half laughter, half despair- and the tightness in his brow breaks as he starts to lose it.

“C’mon,” she coaxes, tired eyes locked on his, “want-” she cuts herself off with a bite to the lip that confines a loud whine to the back of her throat.

He falters, the practiced drive breaking down into stutters, his hips pressing hard as if he can’t help himself. His grip tightens, fingers digging deep at her waist, dragging her closer until there’s no space left. His breath tears ragged from his chest, forehead tipping to her temple. “Shit- God, sweetheart-”

“Mhm.” She hums the sound low, trailing kisses across his mouth, the edge of his jaw, anywhere she can reach as her legs coil tighter around him. Her thighs lock, the salt-slick slide of skin on skin a demand as much as it is a tether. Her whisper is steady, coaxing him down with her, soft as a promise: “Can take it-”

He shudders, the final thread snapping. The sound he makes is broken, guttural, a surrender as his whole body knots and spills into her. His chest crashes against hers, every muscle taut and quaking, his breath a string of curses and her name, reverent and ruined, his mouth open against her skin, breathing heavy.

And she holds him through it- clutching, kissing, whispering steady little reassurances into his hair, until the storm wracks itself quiet. She runs her hands along his back as he breathes her in, careful not to let her nails agitate blooming sunburn.

For a long moment neither of them speaks. He’s heavy on her chest, still twitching gently inside her, still trembling faintly from release.

She tips her chin, eyes closed, lips pressing to his damp temple. He groans softly at the touch, more relief than lust, and kisses her back in kind - her temple, her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth and the shell of her ear. Little things. Stitching himself back together.

She squints against the harsh sun overhead, so he shifts without thinking, one forearm planting against the cushion, the other hand spreading wide over her belly as he leans just enough to block the glare. He shades her face with his body, grins when her eyes open again, softer now, less strained.

“Better?” he murmurs, voice low and raw.

“Mm,” she hums, lazy, half-dreamy. “Human parasol. I’ll keep you.”

“Parasol, huh?” He chuckles and dips down, kissing the line of sweat that’s trickled along her temple, then nuzzles into her hair despite the heat and the salt. His stubble scratches, his nose presses into the crown of her head. He doesn’t usually let himself get this soft- doesn’t usually drop the smirks and bravado. But with her, here, he sinks into it. Lets himself embrace the need.

Her arms wind around his back, fingers drifting lazy lines up and down his spine- soft as the breeze, salt-scented and endless. She isn’t asking for anything, not really. Just his closeness, his skin against hers, the reminder that for all their scattershot lives, this moment is here, and in time, it will be again.

When he finally pulls back enough to see her face, the look in her eyes stops him short. There’s no banter in it, no challenge- just the quiet shine of something he’s never managed to say without tripping over his own tongue. Love, stripped down and plain.

“Bold,” she murmurs, lips curving into a grin that’s all mischief and softness at once.

Sam huffs a laugh, chest still heaving, grin crooked and tired and entirely hers. “I’m a man of my word.”

Her soft laugh rises with the breeze, thumb brushing gently just beneath his eye like she’s smoothing away something he didn’t realize had shown. Her smile is small, certain, paired with a shrug. “Better than most.”

She smiles at him, small and tender, brushing a thumb over his cheekbone as though he’s something sweet, something young and worthy. It undoes him in ways everything they've just done couldn’t hold a candle to, and he swallows hard against the sudden ache in his throat.

A gentle laugh slips out of him, almost a silent sob in disguise.

“So… how do you know Victor?”

Because he’s a coward. Nathan Drake is a certified Grade-A, no-better-than-dead-Drake coward. 

“Damn, is that really your question?” Shay’s eyes widen, sponge cake still crumbling down her heart-shaped chin before she draws forth a cushioning sleeve.

But maybe he’d be better a Drake coward than a four foot eleven one too covered in carb dust to spot the way he glowers daggers from across the rug. When the hell is she gonna stop wrecking armageddon on his lucky jacket? He probably should’ve asked that one to begin with.

“Yes.” Nathan answers laggingly.

“This isn’t just your way of asking about The Little Mermaid, is it?” An amused grin grazes her lips, eyebrow raising as she swipes her hand off of the lingering crud.

“...No.” 

But his response doesn’t even sound believable to himself.

A hundred miles and seven feet away, the rain peppers against the glass, since respooled itself to a measly tap dance of sound. Nathan would offer a round of applause if his hands weren’t too busy balling into fists, preparing for the millisecond her crumbly mouth rounds the corner of—

“Oh, but isn’t it so much more fun if you don’t know?” As she reaches for a bag of her loudly-proclaimed favorites: those goddamn strawberry short-somethings, pools of red goo twinkling in the middle like rubies as she plucks one from the bag. “Very… dramatic.” 

“No,” Nathan repeats.

“Whimsical, even. Like out of an old play or something. I could be the mysterious woman who just breezed into town, claiming a gig as a night club singer— I’d like you to imagine I’m wearing a hat with a big feather in it—” She ignores him, gesturing for size, on the off chance he might’ve cared. “And you could be the grizzly town detective, right off an unfinished case, whose running gag is his comically suspicious squint every time I—” 

She points enthusiastically, red goo a-dangle off her finger. Nathan, unfortunately for him, is already suspiciously squinting.

“Yes, yes! Just like that!” 

“You seem to have spent a great deal of time considering this, haven’t you?”

Her head thoughtfully rotates upon its hinge.

“I prefer the term improvisation.”

Nathan’s lip itches. A ghost of a shake of his head.

She turns in a sudden sprint: “I think I have a boa in here somewhere…”

“Well, let’s say you were playing the part of Shay Valentine and I was playing the part of the devilishly handsome Nathan Drake… Where would you have met Sully?”

Her hands stop amongst her folds and heaps of Crayola chaos, eyes framing to similarily suspicious slivers. She becomes the distrustful town detective of her stories. And then: a gargoylesque grin slips across her face. 

“What? You don’t like fun, Nathaniel?”

Nathan isn’t quite sure what ends up slipping across his. 

“I like winning bets. That’s real fun for me, shortstop.” 

She thinks. Considers. Finds the boa. Tosses it over her shoulders. Bright pink. No sparkly tinsel.

“Pops owned a furniture store. Sullivan frequented.”

“Furniture store? What? Is that code for—”

“Antique furniture, Nathaniel. Antique. We all stem from the antique. Most places sell rusted magnets and stained playboys. We? We were the true pinnacle of antique. Used to sell hundred-year-old African totems, told customers the legs were broken off by the town priests in a historic ceremony, so that the spirit of each king would be forced to forever reside in their city to protect their citizens after death. Five hundred bucks a pop.”

“Huh.” Nathan says, feigning disinterest. “Is that true?”

“Of course not! But doesn’t it make for just the greatest story?” Before she reaches down and pops the last cookie past her lips in fiendish delight. “Pretty sure he would just yank the legs off and cover ‘em in dirt himself.”

Claps her hands of the debris. Makes the bag walk the plank.

“I prefer the playboys myself. Every once in a while they’d have dudes, ya know.” 

Mindlessly meanders for another. Nathan’s lip aches from a reflexive snarl. 

“Anyway, he was in the mix somewhere. Birthday parties, Fourth of July barbecues, that sort of thing.” Then, she looks to him. “But that’s pretty boring. How’d you meet Sully? I’m sure it’s a much more interesting story than mine—“

And Nathan feels sick to his stomach all over again. 

“Nuh uh. Nobody won my interrogation.”

“Well, then, your question has been answered.” A garlic parmesan-ed bow, peppered middle to thumb. “El finito.”

And the silence settles back over like an end-tiding wave, because she’s right. 

Good. That was enough kumbaya for Nathan’s night, anyway.

Where the quiet sits, his sight meanders lazily towards the distant glass, where the rain has now muted down to a polite, melancholy drizzle as the warmth inside saps fog over the coastal-facing windows. His skin feels sticky. A highly specific number of miles from home he’s finally sick of counting. Too physically drained to get up and shuffle his way to sleep. And oddest of all, completely and totally sober. 

Nathan sighs, absentmindedly picks at the carpet below, shedding skinny, off-white fibers all over his equally skinny fingers. It’s everything he didn’t expect when Sully called him up at 3AM one whopping week ago, voice hurried and slurred, like it was trying to get all the words out before it was spring-loaded shut. Telling secrets behind his own sobered-up back.

He looks around at the maple blinds, glistening over with wet from the sliding glass left ajar. Those are definitely gonna mold now. And his suspicions are quickly confirmed, already smelling the outdoor leak of mildew and sulfur brushed in from an unwelcome wind. He flicks the carpet fillings onto his apple-crossed knee. Picks one up and pulls it taught with his thumbs and the point of his index fingers as his eyes lose focus over the obstructed skyline. So many lights. So many windows. So many lives.

So many people.

“Is that really all you wanted to know?” 

“Okay-so-maybe-there’s-a-couple-things.” 

And by a strike of metaphorical lightning, they’re right back at it again.

“You said you only got one question!” She squeals.

“You’re the one who asked if I wanted more.” He fires back.

“Touche.” She snickers. “Hee. Funny.”

“What?”

“Touche? To-Shay?” Terrible. Flinches. Is distracted by a can of Squirt she’s knocked over, loosely rolling away from her. “What else did you wanna know?” 

KA-CHUNK! — And just like a trap, spring-loaded shut again. Nathan grins like the goddamn devil.

Because fine, maybe he’s only so distrustful because he knows what distrustful looks like in the mirror with a pair of tweezers. The questions that actually matter— free of charge. His chance to play it smart. Play it cool. Not have to research any tutorials on waterboarding. The exact way a young Victor Sullivan did: effortless, easy. Utilizing body language, scanning for eye movement, signs of uncomfortability, reading people. Knowing people. Just the way Victor taught him. 

So subtle that he’ll be begging Nathan to play distraction by night’s end.

“What’s-your-ulterior-motive-for-coming-here-is-it-an-artifact-are-you-trying-to-steal-my-cut-are-you-here-to-murder-Sullivan-I-promise-I-won’t-tell-him-okay-I-definitely-would-of-course-I-would-don’t-you-dare-lay-a-goddamn-finger-on-him-he-may-be-weak-to-the-charms-of-a-woman-girl-woman-nah-you’re-definitely-a-girl-how-old-are-you-like-fourteen-but-I’m-not-okay-that’s-a-lie-I’m-partial-to-the-mysterious-leggy-kind-but-you-better-watch-your-back-because-I’m-armed-and-I’m-willing—”

“What, with a taser?” She juts in.

“Yes-with-a-taser-shut-up-and-a-Beretta-92-which-is-the-best-one-of-the-whole-series-and-I-would-know-because-I’ve-used-them-all-and-lived-to-tell-the-tale-which-I-doubt-I’ll-be-able-to-say-the-same-for-you-not-to-mention-a-hundred-other-weapons-you’ve-never-even-heard-of-so-you-best-just-watch-your-back-why-do-you-even-want-to-do-this-at-all-this-is-important-work-and-we-don’t-just-let-anyone-do-it-and-anyway-don’t-you-have-a-kid’s-birthday-party-to-perform-at-heh.”

…

Nailed it.

Nathan huffs and squares his shoulders high, body only trembling as an aftershock of his own incredible power. Definitely. 

But her only response is a gargantuan laugh and a toggle of a bottle of apple juice in the space between.

“You a little parched after all that?” 

“Nope. Not thirsty.”  He straightens taller.

“Okay, then. Well, I’m gonna need a little more than snacks to get through all that.” But Nathan’s eyes never part from their stance across her face when she reaches to tug over her open luggage, pulls a plastic baggie of crumbled… something from the mix, and pops a clump into her mouth. “But, fine. I got nothing to hide.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” 

“Well, I wanted to travel, I guess. If that incredibly unique factoid interests you.”

Good grief. He hears his teeth grind before he feels the ache in his jaw. 

“It doesn’t. That can’t be it.”

“That can be it, yeah. I mean, a couple other things, but yeah—”

“Like what?” He grits like death. 

But whatever continuation at the ready wilts under his interruption, and her eyes drop from his, instead fixating her fist around the neck of the bottle and snapping it open. His chest holds taut with held breath as she tilts her head back for a sip, caramel liquid bubbling against the plastic. He waits. It pulls back from her lips. She wipes her wet mouth with the sleeve. She says nothing. And Nathan is more on guard than he’s ever been. 

The way her eyes clash hard back to his in an abrupt idea doesn't make it any better.

“Here… you should have some.” 

His stomach only grows more nauseous when she attempts the baggie over to him, crunching plastic and dark brown clumps that look like anything but food in her wake. He instantly recoils.

“Not hungry, either, thanks.”

“Oh, come on, I think it could be good for you.” 

Again, she shakes it towards him, and Nathan makes his mind up, right then and there, that he needs to find out whatever the hell about him makes people have the undying urge to give him things… and promptly destroy it. 

“Sully said—”

“Sullivan. Yeah, yeah, meat on my bones, blah, blah—” 

He feels sicker by the second.

“He said he cared about you getting better.” 

And unfortunately for him, it’s the nail in the coffin that does it. Her eyes beckon. Nathan wants to puke.

“Better than what?” He mumbles.

She says nothing. 

But before he knows it, Nathan’s hand is reaching towards the baggie, plucking out a piece, and choking the thing down in one reluctant swallow. Days-old brownie. Bittersweet. A moment of uncertain silence.

“So, then—” He pokes against his better judgment. Has to cough twice when phlegm lodges and makes his voice crack. “Why do you know so much about Ancient Egypt?” 

She sucks down another swig. A suctioning pop echoes with her answer: “Eh, I don’t know if a couple myths here and there constitute knowing much—” 

Bullseye.

“Hold up, didn’t Sullivan refer to you as ‘master mythos expert’?” 

She attempts to steel her quickly-exploding face, but the damage has been done.

“Yes! YES, HE DID! Just— dude-just-shut-up-okay? You’re going to get me fired!” Her head swivels for the doorway, screams provoking little sympathy. Nathan’s smile only grows wider. 

He shoots forward: “And? What do I have to lose if you do?” 

“You—” She stupidly tries.

For a moment, Nathan more-than-happily imagines her soft, freckly face bursting into tears. He imagines her tongue-wet fingers coming up. Imagines them running down her face. Imagines her pinching the skin beneath her eyes porcelain-doll pink. Imagines what she might look like when she doesn’t have to do any of those things again. 

“Nothing,” she submits. A fact. Like counting uneven brownie chunks in a bag.

Again, that feeling from the alley comes racing icey-hot up the top layer of his skin. That intoxicating feeling of power. Power over something smaller than him.

“So, why shouldn’t I?”

Her brown eyes glow gold beneath the flickering desk-lamp, electrical quaking under the storm. Batting back and forth between his own for every second longer that he expects her to withdraw. Yet somehow, she never does. And blood rushes to the surface in round, plush cheeks he just barely resists the urge to pinch red for her, dark brows stamping in the middle of her unironed forehead. 

But maybe every beat of meaty silence exists purely because the thought of blackmail tastes so much better than apple juice. His mouth quirks up. Her eyebrows hop uneasily high. 

Because if one thing’s for certain, it’s that Victor Goddamn Sullivan would kick her ass ten times harder than he ever could. And maybe he wants to see it. Because maybe if he learns she’s a fraud when the time is right, if he learns that Nathan discovered so all on his own, if he learns that Nathan truly, honestly, from the deepest pits to the tallest skies, doesn’t need anybody but himself– he’ll have no choice but to give his favorite not-so-son his gun privileges back. And he’ll finally trust in Drake again. 

But not before he’s ready to.

It's not like he’d believe Nate right now, anyway.

And so, Shay does not cry.

“Because it’d be nice if you didn’t,” she shrugs. Pathetic. Small. A tired purse of her lip.

He leans further still. She is small. And he is big. 

“Say please.”

He is so much bigger than her.

So, no, Shay Valentine does anything but cry. Anything but spit some egging, vitriolic quip. Anything but anything that anyone is this business, in the grandiose story of Nathan Drake is supposed to do. She does something even worse.

“Please don’t.”

She simply says please. 

And she says please… like she means it. 

Her dark, knowing eyes bear trembling fires, wind through a quiverous flame, before it rerights itself back to  solid burn. Shakeable, but alive. So, so alive. Please, I need to stay, she says.

Please, I need to live.

And so Nate does anything but anything that anyone in this business, in the story he came back to write again does. And he accepts her quaint proposal.

“Okay,” he says, leaning back onto his elbows, watches as uncertainty spreads across her face like peanut butter. 

And her voice, meek like prey: “Okay.”

For the next several minutes, an uncomfortable, slithering silence draws the room in half. Four-square chalked on the playground blacktop. The same criss-cross apple-sauce he did then, the same pout plastered over his lips as when Sister Katrina told him there was no punching allowed in no-touch football. And the rules are good because the rules are good and damn, Nathan would be lying if he said he didn’t wish the rain would start pouring harder soon. 

Because she’s not gonna talk. 

So neither is he. 

His mind wanders anxiously eastward. Michigan. Freezing, where the motel room now makes him pant. To the gray hardwood floors leading to the balcony he never put deck furniture on and the half dozen house plants Sully awkwardly saddled him with the following week, lips straight and arms harsh at ninety degree angles, as if he had never held a gift, let alone a living thing, in his life— 

‘Why not try takin’ care’a something? Gotcha somathose lucky buggers, four-leaf-clovers, guy at the shop said even a baby could grow ‘em…’ 

‘Yeah-I-got-it-thanks-Victor.’

—spread across the unkempt terrace like little, wilting ghosts. There’s no point in asking if he ever bothered to water them. 

But for the briefest flash of a second, he wonders if he still could. He always liked the idea that there was still time to make his own luck. 

And maybe it’s only the sheer uncomfortability of Butter not being able to hear the sound of her own voice that finally smothers his rumbling stomach.

“What do you think it’s gonna be like?”

“Hmm?” His head whips towards her.

“In Nefertiti's Tomb.” She speaks, as if one might read a poem. “It must be incredible. Getting to see something that no one else has seen for hundreds of years.”

But for some reason, Nate finds himself not wanting to think about it too hard. He continues picking at the carpet.

“Getting to know that you’re a part of something greater, greater people, better places. Trying to understand someone who has been dead for hundreds of years, who maybe back then couldn’t be…. that once upon a time people made beautiful things even if they’re shitty now.” 

There’s a long, terrible pause.

“Is that why you do it?”

“Uh… what?”

Freakin’ hippie.

“Is that why you do all… this?” He doesn’t really understand, but she waves her hand towards some distant nether as if he might, hope tinging secrets at the edge of her lips. ”Why do you do it?”

No one’s ever asked him that before.

“I guess no one’s really asked me that before.”

What a—

Nate swallows past his hollowed-out chest.

What a stupid question.

“Um…” 

But his mouth muses it anyway, chewing the sound between dulled teeth. His heart flutters. Before he clamps it right back down again. Guess he never even thought to think about it before.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.

“I won the snack competition.” The only, and most imbecilic, thing he can think to say. His mind whips up an uneasy fog. He’s suddenly finding it a little difficult to think straight. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

Her own distrustful stare, chin planting down into her palm. Showdown. 

“Fair.”

“Touche.”

“To—?” She sneers encouragingly, some cloying devil on his shoulder.

Fuck no. 

“I’m not saying it.”

In place of an answer, a tableau in the shape… of teddygrams. Which are torn open. Gobbled down. The girl moans more than any food is worth. And the burst of eye-popping color, scattered across the carpet, shrinks another half-foot. A cleaned crater somewhere past Area 51. She holds secrets until she decides she has better things to do with her hands.

“I liked Amelia Danger as a kid.”

She tries for a throwaway, but Nathan catches it in its tracks.

“What? Lipsticks and Loopholes? The Lost City of LypGlaus? Those chick flicks from the ‘80s?”  — He snorts.

“Yeah.” 

But there is no joke, no elaboration that follows.

Which just might be the weirdest part of the entire night.

Perhaps it’s the heat, the humidity plastering thick across the panes, starting to shine slick at the edges of red vinyl wallpaper that makes his head start to sink below the bobbing waves. The sleepy steam wafting and waxing overtop a well-earned bubble bath. And there exists no moment where it becomes clear why he has no quip to give, whether it’s the fog or the sheer irony to even judge her would be anybody’s guess. 

“What? You're seriously not going to curse me out for that?” 

Shay quirks a hesitant brow his way, and yeah, that’s… that’s probably how a smarter Drake would’ve responded. 

But what actually parts Nathan’s lips is: 

“Nah, it’ll be funnier when I tell Sullivan later.” Her chest heaves in anxious breath at the threat, and he immediately eases a smile her way. “Those movies aren’t so bad.”

Because you survive in this business if you know how to stay on your toes.

“Okay… cool.” Another teddy is tossed down the hatch. Her eyes never glance back to his. “I love them.”

And it’s only when Nathan starts to hear water gush from the storm drain gutter outside that he realizes it’s begun to pour again. 

He reaches up to scratch his neck to the memory of: he always used to watch those movies with— 

The wind changes direction through the slanting gap in the westward window and suddenly strikes him a spot of cold air. The world moves slow. And when her body falls with the tide and abruptly thumps down against the carpet, white lines obscure her dark eyes and he remembers the savanna. He remembers the ocelots hiding from stalking jaguars in the brush. 

He remembers the way things used to be.

“Ya know, they don’t make it look so scary in there.” Her eyes glass over, a hidden, lingering hope. “Like they’re just jumping and running and shooting about but they never stop cracking jokes. Like they just know they’re going to survive. As if the entire world was just something… made for them to play in.”

She flicks a piece of pink link across the rug like skipping stones, a house cat pawing at a ball of thread. There’s a long beat, because Nathan’s throat’s too tight to allow him to speak.

He’s not quite sure why.

She relieves that same drifting, dreamy sigh from the laundry room as she crooks an arm back to cushion her head. 

“Everyone you meet is so interesting and brave and kind and confident. And you get to be beautiful because in the real world you’re played by some big-shot supermodel actor. And the only injuries you get are sexy injuries. Like a cut lip that the love interest character gets to kiss. And no matter how scary, no matter how bad it gets, you’ll know you’ll be okay. Because you’re the good guys. And the good guys always win.”

It’s her words, her world that now skip stone, soft gasps like popping bubbles. He might as well not be there at all.

“Things seem so much… easier than they do here.”

And the funny thing is, you’d think someone like Nathan Drake would love to give his thoughts on the matter. Because he would know the reality of it, wouldn’t he? He’d know the answers, wouldn’t he? But he says squat, so she spirals down into giggles on her own. Closes her eyes to enjoy the fantasy. 

He’s pretty sure he wants her to shut up soon. 

“Sometimes I wonder if I’d get along with them— well, probably not Hawn, that guy’s an asshole, but like—” She opens her eyes to their popcorned, asbestos-ed ceiling. “History. Myths. Plays. Stories.”

And the not-so-quiet is louder than any gun he’s ever shot. The rain pours. The little one speaks to no-one. The cold spot only grows colder.

“There’s only so long real people can stand me anyway.” 

And Nathan’s eyebrows furrow hard in the middle of his forehead. 

“Fuck, I love those movies.” She whispers. Outside, the rain falls. 

Drip-drip-drip. 

The rain drip-drips. And he only focuses so intently on it because something else aches to speak. 

“Man, life’s so fucking in-ter-es-ting, isn’t it?” But her body contorts forwards and spews giddy word before he can find the courage to. “Ya know, it was actually the ancient Egyptians who invented disguise. Well, acting. That's role-playing for you, Nathaniel.”

Her eyes screw up. A sudden realization.

“Well, uh, okay, I guess not technically in the way we’d know it today.” She corrects, a-grin. “So I guess that means I just lied, huh?”

Nathan rolls his eyes.

“That would be the Greeks. B-but the Egyptians were the first civilization to have public performance of… some kind. And I’d say that counts for something. It was technically only corny religious shit, but—”

She claps her hand over her mouth. 

“Oop! Sorry.” A phony whack to the field of her forehead. “Jesus guy.”

“I’m not a—” He snorts. And it’s only when his eyes meet hers that it sinks in. And all of a sudden, completely out of the once-worn blue, he finds himself (almost) smiling. “Hm… I guess you’re right.”

This time, when his mind wanders eastward, it’s no farther than three city blocks. Mildew. Sulfur. Frankincense. The distant wafts of the not-so-Red Sea. 

It’s Egypt. He’s in Egypt.

“Yeah, I guess they did.”

He’s in Egypt.

“The Festival of Victory. Pharaonic Era. Yeah.” His lips start to stray. His heart begins to betray. He finds himself sitting up again. “Yeah, so, uh, the ancient Egyptians had this prominent ritual in honor of the sun god Horus, right? Where the king himself would play the titular god, and in the grand finale, he would harpoon and slaughter a live hippopotamus in the role of the god—” 

The name escapes him. 

”Crap, I can’t remember his name.”

But her hips quietly jostle forward to parallel.

“Seth! Yeah! God of War.” She gasps. “Wow, I didn’t know they used a live hippo.”

A sweaty swipe on his fleece bears no distraction to the colors that break behind his eyes, sprout in shadows against the walls as he gesticulates to the memory of explosive Junior Library wall murals and National Geographic Kids, every issue stolen from the grainy doorstep before the Sisters could even get their morning slippers on. 

“Yeah. They would even eat it afterwards, too.” He remembers pointing out the article’s blood-stained portrayal to the crowd of youthful on-lookers, and how he was the only one who’d dare look without the hollow barrier of their own shallow-spread fingers. How proud he was to be brave enough. Because being closer to what he loved mattered more. “Raw hippo meat. Delicious.”

“Cool.” 

And you know what? Maybe it is cool.

“I was, um, I was actually homeroom Jeopardy champion five years running.” It comes out before he can stop it, skin buzzing, soul twittering. He haphazardly plucks another rug thread and toys it between his fingers. “Sunday School after-school Trivia Master, too.” 

But when his gaze returns and he sees her searching, bemused inspection, he realizes he’s actually just being a dork.

“Well, except for the ‘science’ category—” He tosses the thread with a smirk. Shay laughs, and pride floats up from the recesses. 

See? He was funny once. 

“So your shit comes from somewhere, too.” She teases halfway between a smile and a sneer. 

So he passes the metaphorical ball back— “So your shit comes from somewhere, too.” —because her trite little games are fun enough. 

And tonight, maybe enough can be enough. 

“So, then, that’s it? No ulterior motive? Just a girl who wanted to play pretend and see a couple landmarks?”

“Yeah. Mostly.” But her many teeth, arranged in the shape of a smile, soften no blows. “So… what about you? Why do you do this?”

Crap. He mindlessly rips one of the oblong holes in his sweatshirt sleeve wider so he doesn’t have to answer.

“Can we just talk about your thing more?”

“To be honest, I’d rather hear yours.”

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.

“Thank you.” — He whispers. 

And he whispers it just quietly enough that he can still pretend she probably didn’t hear him at all.

But Nathan still has a lot to work on in the field of pretend.

The room is too hot all over again as he feels her eyes on him, burning, interrogating, glancing down and sharing his sight as he wiggles his thumb through the makeshift hole. Yet he speaks nothing so as not to give the satisfaction. His mind only grows hazier with each passing moment, feels the hyper-vivid cotton of his shirt brushing along the hairs on his arms, hears her hollow breaths mirroring his own on the off-beat, the falling rain outside that he can practically taste down his throat. The world warps and his mouth itches for more.

There’s a long pause. The rain falls. 

“But do you know what I mean? About—” 

“No.”  

And instead, his mouth speaks the word that’s most comfortable. 

“Oh… okay.” So she murmurs the rest through the mist.

Or maybe he’s just—

He looks to her just as she looks away from him, pursing her lip towards the sky, inspecting nothing. Yet another weak disguise. Another kid making calls to a phone that won’t answer. A field of blinding, crunching, polymer wildflowers between them, the pane of glass at the zoo. The rain falls. His breaths come slow and full. And he watches, brow amusedly raised, as she squints her eyes and scrutinizes the asbestos-littered ceiling as if it might be the Sistine Chapel. But Nathan doesn’t have to check to know there aren’t any naked angel butts floating around up there, no colors, no beauty, no worth to be found. Yet, she looks at it like it might just—

Or maybe just—

“I’m hungry.” It comes out before he even notices he said it. 

“What?” 

Time stands still. And Nathan Drake realizes at that exact moment that he hasn’t eaten anything more than chicken broth and protein powder for the past twelve months.

“I’m starving.” He corrects. This time it’s a gasp, a flounder, a revelation for a quantum mechanics theorem. Because it’s true: Nathan Drake is fucking starving. And his following words are just as much a prayer as any bible verse he was forced to memorize: “Can you pass me the Doritos?”

“Um, Cool Ranch or Spicy Nacho?” Spilling from her in an uneasy chuckle. But Nathan’s in too much of a frenzy to care what she thinks.

“Cool Ranch.” Just enough of a frenzy to know the answer is important. 

They were his favorite once. 

It’s a steel-toed kick in the gut how abrupt the ache in his gut sets off, stomach clenching and abruptly gurgling and forcing another laugh out of Shay as she tosses him a blue bag from the bunch. They’re gone as soon as he tears them open.

“Can you pass me the, uh— snowball-shaped things?” He pants between orange cheese powder, chest practically heaving off his gaunt body.

“The Sno Balls?”

“Yeah.”

And the pink package teleports from her hand into his: “We’ll split because I’m so nice.”

Nathan swallows it down in two bites.

“Jesus Christ, dude, you okay?” Her words spin in hysterics between smiling teeth and genuine concern and the crumbs waterfall down his chin because he can’t fill the ache fast enough. 

“Drake.” He nearly chokes on marshmallow coconut.

“I didn’t—”

“I’m—“

And for one moment, he finally stops. Nathan Drake finally stops running. The rug looks so soft. And now he wants to touch it. He wants to touch it. So he allows himself— and where his hand presses, the colors shift, between white and brown and some other hue he can’t quite remember the name of sifting in sprawling hedges between the gaps of his fingers. The colors remind him of sugar cane, south argentinian sand, freshly-macheted coconut, snow on the Appalachian trail, summer-camp-smore marshmallows after they’ve been a little smoked. Marshmallow. He hasn’t eaten marshmallow in a very long time. He wipes his lips on his sleeve and drinks the air the earth allows him. And he remembers. 

“Yeah… I’m okay.”

He missed—

“Munchies kickin’ in, huh?” 

Shay laughs, and all of a sudden, his world slants off-axis.

…

WHAT.

“What?” He timidly treads, chews dumb like cow cud. Because she’s playing pretend. It’s a bit. 

But her smile immediately warps, because she isn’t. It isn’t a bit.

“Y-y-you said—!” The next bag of caramel kettle korn drops like a ton of bricks from his fist as she scrambles, tripping on her own flabbergasted spit. “C-cocaine! You said! You made that joke! I thought—!”

The Brownie.

Nathan isn’t laughing, but Nathan only isn’t laughing because he’s laughing so hard that it doesn’t end up sounding like laughter at all. It sounds like he’s sobbing. 

And all of a sudden, Nathan’s body is collapsing into the floor and his arms are wrapping around himself and he should’ve fucking known. That goddamn brownie. This goddamn little girl. That goddamn old man. This entire goddamn night.

“Shit.” She whines distressingly. “I thought it would—”

“Just give me my jacket back.” A good-natured chuckle as he shakes his head turns Nathan’s world into a tilt-a-whirl. The room is warm. His breath comes easy. 

Someone else is touching his stuff.

“Oh, yeah!” All at once, it’s off: brown leather warping up and over her petite shoulders, wrinkles dipping and spilling until it’s little more than a thick, burly paint smudge laying limp from her wrist. Speed making up for guilt. “Sorry.”

“Sure. I’ll make sure to wash it twice. Get that girly smell out.” The dark streaks on the right sleeve are already winking back at him as he hightails it home. “Heh, is the eye stuff washable?”

“Sometimes.” She admits, pupils blown like the textbook drawings: Greecian oracles possessed, telling of terrible fates and unspeakable glories. “Man, I’m sooo high.” 

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

“Here, I can do it.” Her hand extends back again, running interference and fawning some semblance of sobriety, but he’s already back to his feet before she can pass. “Sorry, I figured Egypt would be—”

“Hotter?” He offers.

“More fashion-prone,” she finishes. “Really, I appreciate it.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. But that’s the one time you’re ever allowed to touch my stuff.“  

And the reason Nathan says it is because he doesn’t think before he says it. 

“Oh my god, I wouldn’t dream of ‘touching your stuff’—” “Heh, ‘touch my stu—”

And he’s not thinking about what he said until the moment they both do— the split second before they look at each other— and it’s game fucking over.

“HA HA!” 

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Shay squeals happy bloody murder in the spot on the carpet that’s no longer too hot or too cold or too anything and Nathan is nothing but laughter. Laughter that doesn’t make his chest hurt anymore when it comes out. He’s not crying. He didn’t cry tonight. He’s warm. He’s full. He’s not alone. Sully brought him back.

He’s alive.

“Dude… you did it.” Nathan doesn’t realize what she’s talking about until her gaze signals for his chest, where he still hasn’t removed the ID lanyard from around his neck. “We did it.”

He’s alive.

“We did it.”

But when Nathan speaks, he speaks in memoriam. His heart stops sober. The world stops moving. The life dies in his throat. And this isn’t about him. This could never be about him.

He’s too comfortable right now. 

“Where are you going?” 

But the moment is already ruined, even as Shay’s voice trills helplessly past his ear— Drake booking it for the corner lamp, with little more than a certain click! before the room is cast in dark, every sense, color, sensation falling wayside back into the grays and blacks of a waning, waxing storm. Bed, bed, dead, dead, there is nothing more he needs here. He did the job. The rest is worthless. Selfish.

Unfair.

“Wait! Don’t you wanna hear my ulterior motive?!” 

And Nathan doesn’t even care to decipher whether it’s a joke or not before he’s already folded the body he borrows up into thirds and promptly tucked it under the sheets.

“Not really.”

⋆⋆⋆

Sam told him it’d be a piece of cake. A walk in the park. Easier than, well… him. And Nathan had laughed, because there was nothing that Sam could say that wouldn’t make him laugh.

It was a warm day, a breezy one. Nathan didn’t think he’d ever seen so many colors in the sky on the day they first touched down in Panama. Sam had swung his pre-insignia-stamped uniform over his shoulder, leaning as easy-going as a person could possibly be their first day before prison against the van’s aluminum hood, smoke wafting from his parted lips like he was Marlon Brando himself. Somewhere halfway between an absurd, comical performance of what manhood was supposed to look like and simply the real, genuine article. 100% Drake. Who he was born to be. 

Nate was never quite able to say for sure.

All he knew was that he wanted to be just like him. Even at age twenty-three, even with every annoyance that being brothers and work partners (a relationship no sane person would ever dare to combine) could possibly bring, just two years shy of having ‘an actually finished, fully-functioning brain’ as Sam had sneeringly called it, Nate wanted nothing more, nothing less, than every last scrap of whatever magic he had. That something. That something unnameable. Something that, if he was lucky, worthy enough, he could catch like a germ on the wind.

So that day, Nate stood a little too close to him and laughed a little too hard at his jokes and didn’t even smack him away when the high-five he threw his way turned into a headlock. 

Maybe somehow a part of him knew it was the beginning of the end. 

“Female guards… they have those in men’s prisons, don’t they?” Sam spared him a humorous glance from his sight over the horizon, a dingy shuttle stop overlooking the vast Caribbean. Third cigarette of the day even though Nate told him he should save some while he still had them. Sam told him: all the reason to just have ’em now.

“Maybe. But I wouldn’t push your luck.” Nathan smirks at his side.

“Jeez, I’m gonna kill myself.” Sam near wrings his own neck at the idea, pretending to choke and sputter til’ his eyes roll back in his head— and Nathan had given him a chuckle and a solemn pat on the back.

“I’m sorry, brother.”

But not that solemn.

“Yeah, women usually like the strong, handsome, intelligent types. So you’re out of luck there.”

And Sam had punched his shoulder. And Nathan had laughed. And everything was how it was meant to be.

Seagulls cried in a constant, looming foghorn; a couple daring to land on the nearby boulders before Sam kicked a pebble towards them and they squawked, veering off into the clouds once again. The scent of sea salt was pungent that day, waves crashing removed down the rocks, sun shining so bright that he swore he’d go blind— a smaller Nathan Morgan begging him to find out if those stories were really true. Curious, even on the dumb days when he was convinced he had learned too much, and there was nothing left to be curious about. 

But of course that wasn’t true.

“How—” And even now, at age twenty-three, the questions bloom easier than anything else he could possibly muster.

“Hm?” Sam turns his way.

“How do you think Burnes’ must’ve felt after being captured by the Spanish authorities? Up in that cell?”

Silence joins the softly steadying ruckus: a moment where Sam twists abroad and takes a long, hearty drag, dark eyes not thoughtful like Nathan’s— but rather certain, simmering, confident. Everything he was born to be. 

“Awesome.” The word leaves him as easy as oxygen.

“Awesome?” Nathan asks.

Everything Nate was not.

“Awesome. I can’t imagine being a wanted pirate, back when the world was totally undiscovered and completely at your hands and not feel invincible. The whole world, just for you to… take.” He clutches his fist hard around some imaginary other, smoke wafting from where he bites his cigarette in place. “He must’ve known. That he was a part of something great-uh.”

And Nathan smiled.

“Just like us.” 

“Just like us.” And Sam had smiled back, eyes soft and mischievous all at once. Complete and total magic. “That’s right, Nathan.”

Another seagull caws overhead, rapturous calls breaking and beating along the beach and shattering the quiet lull of the sea into chaos, clashing in most perfect melody. Sand. Salt. A perfect day, that’s what Nathan had wanted to call it. Waves upon the shore, heart amongst his chest, and sensitive when even the most perfect days dragged ghosts, doubt to the surface. Seaglass before the ocean makes them gentle. For some reason, the hairs on his neck begin to stand on end. Unstable. Like the sea. He would give anything to not be that way.

So he tells himself that it’s a perfect day, and he convinces himself that he’s not. 

“Up until the gallows—“ Nathan thinks aloud to himself, some sort of sudden nausea in his stomach. Seasickness: the same feeling Burnes must’ve felt on that boat to Panama. The very same. Just like him. The man apart of something greater. “Awesome. He must’ve.”

“Well I know I would’ve.” Sam laughs. “Nothing ‘ta fear but fear itself. One of the most wanted pirates in the world? End up in a textbook hundreds of years late-uh that a million kids will be inspired by? Doesn’t sound like too bad a way to go.”

And he’s not wrong. 

A smile dots itself across Nathan’s mouth… and he thinks about pirates. Grand, imposing, impossible, intelligent men sprung up from nothing into permanence, into greatness. The only difference between him and them was the invention of the cellular phone. Microwavable dinners. Trivials, little else. Greatness born from a reference book’s pages he’d scanned at the Boston Public Library for a nickel a page.

Easy. Just like him.

Nathan smiles, but whatever outside spirit, or maybe just the blinding force of the sun: it twists its edges into a grimace. 

“Sully said it’s just an in-and-out job, right?”

And he knows the truth: Nate had only said it because his skin sun-burned easily and he had a bit of a whiny streak. But whenever he replays it in his head, he imagines that he had had some unexplainable pit in his stomach, some rush of foreboding instinct, like he knew something bad was going to happen. Like he knew. 

As if making himself believe that might make it better. As if making himself believe that might make it worse.

Which one he actually wanted.

“We’ll be out before the sun even rises Sunday morning. Plenty a’ time for brunch with whatever sweet thing I end up coming out with.” Sam sneers. “Like ya said, brotha, women like the handsome, intelligent type. I’ll be sure to leave you whoever’s not in’ta that.” 

“You asshole.” Nathan grins like he’s never believed anything less.

And in slow-motion, Sam takes a long suck of his cigarette and peers over the coastline, squinty-eyed and eyebrow-furrowed towards the distant sea-fared horizon, like he could see something that Nathan couldn’t. 

What could he see that Nathan couldn’t?

“Piece a’ cake, little brotha.” He turns abruptly, crooked teeth from a dozen uppercut punches that somehow never made him stop smiling. His brown eyes shone with nothing less than complete and total purpose, and Nathan knew the second they hit him that his own would be mirroring back just as bright, just as certain. Purpose. Confidence, like a germ he could catch. If he was ever so lucky to be like him. 

Purpose. Pirates. Crooked teeth he prayed he’d have one day. Just like him. 

Magic.

“And maybe if you’ve been working on that upper body strength like I’ve been tellin’ ya to, you’ll get to find out for yourself what Burnes felt like in that cell.” 

A loud clap on the back makes Nathan jump in the best way possible. A little too strong. A little too much: perfect. And Nathan had exhaled the world from his chest.

“Awesome.”

“Just anotha’ day on the job.” Sam finished coolly. 

And on that day beside the sunny Panamanian coast, Nathan had offered his brother a fistbump, because offering a hug to another man just didn’t make enough sense. And Sam had met him back, because that was what a good brother, a good man, did for another. Even when a hug was impossible.

But now Nathan knows.

He should’ve hugged his brother while he had the chance.

⋆⋆⋆

Nathan’s form shoots upright at the sound of a whip crack. 4:52 AM on the quaking red letters he squints out through the dark, reflections of deep city light pollution smudging shadows down the glass and signaling another torrential downpour.

In the morning, if he’s lucky, the clouds will be cleared. And the sky might be sunny the first breakfast he shares with Victor, who’ll probably drink three mimosas and who Nathan will roll his eyes at for choosing a beverage reserved only for alcoholic suburbanites with four screaming kids back home. A woman's drink. 

But Nathan will clink glasses with him, anyway. And maybe by then he’ll be loose enough to actually, truly laugh at one of Nathan’s jokes. Just in every way he did before. 

He stretches from neck cricks and cheap pillows half an inch thick, shakes loose disquiet off his aching shoulders. A bad dream, perhaps, or the house speciality bed bugs. Fuckin’ cheapskate, Nathan ponders fondly once more, and his eyes peer through the curves of wicker furniture, light catching in tic-tac-toes across the carpet as he rocks his way to sitting. Whatever his listless mind needs washed off, a splash from the sink wouldn’t hurt. And so he meanders his way to the bathroom, left foot still halfway asleep, dragging behind. 

Water tastes good on his lips as he creaks the faucet handle, glimmering cool against every surface he touches and making his fingers slightly numb. Well-earned sweat cleans easily, trickling in streams down his cheeks, over a small bruise on his jaw he couldn’t guess how the hell he got. Doesn’t realize until he touches it, and he winces: a sound only smothered by a sudden crashing strike. The storm outside rages on. 

But when Nathan turns for proof— another clap of thunder proves evidence— the heap of comforter quivering between his sight of the skyline, like a black hole sucking all the light away, is the only thing staring back. It squeaks as the blinding white touches down, and ricochets away like he’s the monster under the bed. 

Ammit the Crocodile.

Shay’s voice expels shame in every defending bullet: “I’m-sorry-I’ll-shut-up-please-just-go-back-to—” 

But for Nathan, there’s no longer anything to go back to. 

He has no idea what spirit compels him— doesn’t even register what he’s done before it’s already finished— but by the time he’s back under the covers, he’s already stood up, pushed his bed several feet closer to hers. Climbed back in. And stuck his hand out between the open gap. 

His stomach turns, his skin buzzes, a part of him wishes it was too dark for her to see it. Another considers how selfish he must be. That he should miss the touch of another person. 

He was too afraid to even hug Sully at the airport.

But another crack of lightning strikes over the distant horizon, a splattering of violent light through the slats, and inspires her to twist her body back towards him. And after a long moment of silence— the split second before Nathan pulls his hand away; stupid, stupid, stupid— he feels a tiny, clammy palm cautiously press against his own. 

“Thank you.” 

She whispers so quietly that he almost believes he hallucinates it. The thunder whips another bolt their way; Nathan counts steadily thirty-two seconds between, and her hand quivers… before squeezing hard and desperate against his own.

“What if we get hit?”

“We won’t,” he says. And even when the count shrinks to thirty-one, he doesn’t change his answer. 

Because he knows it’s the truth.

The comforter pulls back over his shoulders with an awkward maneuver of his free hand, warmth billowing where the cold can no longer reach, stomach full and body heavy, sturdier, more grounded than he’s felt in ages. So, he sinks easy through the sheets… and fantasizes about tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow. 

He survived today. He survived the day It happened. He could almost, maybe believe again. And just as his overwrought consciousness, at last, begins to slip away—

“That was nice of you to go out of your way to not buy any chocolate.”

“Hm?” He mumbles confusedly.

“For the dogs.” 

Some glimmer of a grin audibly touched upon every word. Nathan peeps through the dark to see if she’s smiling. 

She is.

But when his only reply is a puzzled look—

“For the Rottweilers.”

Oh.

“Oh.”

And before he can register how he feels about that— as if it could possibly matter— her grip goes slack against his, and she’s out like a light.

⋆⋆⋆

The next morning, it’s an accidental wake-up call as Nathan whispers the new girl awake through the sound of a running faucet. The sun cracks its yolk across languidly swaying palm trees and beats the rain-ruined streets back to warmth. It’s a morning in Egypt, and today, Nathan Drake sees hope in the color of creamsicle. 

It must be late, or late-ish, because the tourist boats squawk proud over the city soundscape, the trampling footsteps between floors of an uninsulated building, the clattering plates of a continental breakfast they’re going to miss out on if they don’t get their asses in shape. 

And the sound of a running faucet.

Good moooorning, starshine. The earth says hello.

He hears her body belatedly creek to standing, feet swinging, voice moaning for a sock lost amongst the mass. He can hear her drag herself onto the carpet. Past the over-leaning towering lumps of Crayola-colored clothes. Past the pile of Pringles and kettle corn and miniature milk cartons (expired) that neither one of them bothered to pick up. Past the outside raucous of seagulls and townie cars and—

She gasps in surprise when she rounds the bathroom door. 

And where he’s whispered her awake through the sound of a running faucet, is Nathan’s already-daydressed form, hunched over the sink’s ledge.

“Good morning.” Shay offers, not even bothering to reach for her toothbrush.

“Mornin’.” He replies without so much as a nod in her direction. His body stays hunched, his hands move rhythmically below. And it’s only when she sneaks a tippy-toed look upon ballooning ankle socks, that she sees exactly what he’s doing. 

Shay smiles.

Because there sits Nathan, awkwardly half-perched atop the porcelain, eyes squeezed and tongue grazing his lip with piercing concentration, holding a paper towel in his hand. Blotting out the dark smudges from those stupid neon orange, bedazzled, ruched cargo pants. 

She smiles. 

“Earnest, little Nathaniel Drake.”

His response: a mystery beside the lone huff from his nose. But unfortunately for Nathan, that doesn’t stop her from stealing more, eyes interrogative as she leans against the doorframe. Curious. Trying. But where her gaze can’t spot is where his worth blurs— honest and kidding and neither but not— because Nathan’s lips cradle a smile. Even if he immediately rolls his eyes just in case somebody somewhere is watching. 

But despite his best wishes, despite every wall, every brick— 

Nathan smiles. Nathan smiles with a paper towel in his hand.

Because Nate thinks to himself that maybe she’s right.

⋆

And maybe she’s right about me.

⋆⋆⋆

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle — it’s the morning’s lullaby of a breakfast you didn’t have to make yourself. Plastic fold-out ice cream social tables, sprinkled haphazardly across the yellow, grease-stained lobby, are poorly disguised for formal with red linen tablecloths, the ones from the far back the employees didn’t bother to iron out. Sully’s fork hiccups halfway afloat where the cloth bends, plastic plate— loaded halfway to Mars with scalloped potatoes and biscuits— sending wrinkles like a boulder dropped in a lake. 

“Come on, kiddo, eat up. All free, and we know how rarely that happens.” Nathan thinks Sully smirks from behind his mustache, chunks of warbling yellow slathered with too much pepper disappearing underneath with every scoop of his spoon. “They still got some scrambled left, your favorite. I’m sure there’s some knucklehead we could blackmail a ketchup bottle out of.”

“Nah, not hungry.” Nathan offers a bashful shrug instead. “Straight Turkish is enough for me.”

He poorly proves it with a tipped-back head and a wince from a swiftly-burnt tongue. Bitter, but surely a better win than succumbing to the pink sugar packets practically landsliding out of the glass. Sully drinks his straight black without even having to take his eyes off Nathan. A family of four, all in visor hats, loudly clammers behind them for second helpings of ham. 

“So, first job back. Ya must be feeling somethin’.” 

It’s not a question Victor murmurs, but a statement. Blue eyes trade for magnifying glass as he searches Nathan’s face for whatever he feels he must be hiding— yet the only things hidden are the dark circles once set below his eyes. For the five total hours of sleep time, he sure is feeling well-rested. 

But it’s not like there was much competition.

“I’m… fine.” Nathan takes another reluctant sip, and Sully chuckles when he nearly chokes on the grounds. 

There’s a few minutes where the only sounds are clacking cutlery, the shuffle of fold-out chairs, the occasional woosh of the lobby doors. Nathan stares at the velvet carpet, once yellow turned a flea-bitten brown, until he realizes that Sully is the one staring at him. Staring in and through and in between like he’s made of glass.

“You did good, kid.” His mustache quirks upwards at the corner. “I almost hate to say it.”

And the feeling that rushes over Nathan’s soul, Nate’s heart, Drake’s skin is indefinable, makes him quiver in his boots, makes his chest inflate, his skin heat hot. Everything all at once. He’s not hungry because the forgiveness feeds everything that burnt toast can’t. He takes a deep breath and another swallow of coffee grounds so he doesn’t audibly cheer to fucking God. 

“Don’t hate me yet.” He spares a grin towards Sully, heartbeat racing in his throat, everything else he wants to stay held down for safekeeping. “I still need plenty of time to make a wacky slip-up we just barely manage to survive on the next one.” 

“Ha.” 

And there it is. The thing he wanted so desperately to happen. Victor Sullivan laughs. He laughs because of something Nathan said. And the world is better because he’s in his again.

“So, how much do I owe you?” It inches past Nathan’s lips while the going’s still good— in everything he knows is desperate hope dashed with a pinch of manipulation. 

“What?”

“For the room?” He inquires carefully.

But Sullivan picks up exactly what he’s putting down, and gives him a good, hearty clap on the back, a knowing, toothy smile raking over his wrinkles. Even still, no one reads Nate better than he does. 

“I got ya for the duration, kid. You’re in. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

And Nathan’s heart leaps in his chest. He’s got ‘im. 

“Alright.” He smiles. “I guess I can live with that.”

“Harry should be in later this afternoon. Already got the gear loaded before you could get your scraggly ass out of bed. Headlamps, static rope, the works. I’ve rented out a couple emergency handguns for him and I want you to be cool about it.” 

He finishes up the rest of his cup of tea in a lengthy swallow, and God is testing Drake to interrupt. Sully even raises his eyebrow waitingly when he glances over the mug’s rim.

“I—” 

Nathan’s body tenses. Anger. No. Restraint. Control. 

So Nathan controls himself for the sake of what matters. It’ll come. It’ll happen. He’ll just have to wait. 

He’ll prove what he deserves when the time is right. 

“Alright then.”

This time he’ll use the way death follows him for good.

“I mean it. Ya did good, Nate.” 

Nathan blinks out of his thoughts from the direct sunbeam of Sully’s warming glow as soon as the cup’s set down. There is nowhere and nothing to run back to. Nowhere to run from how terribly, horrifically, awfully wonderful it feels to hear him say those words— and mean it. 

“Thank you.” Nate smiles, soft in a heart too big for his chest. “Just trying to pick up your slack.”

The last remnants of sausage are cleared with a scrape-scrape-scrape and immediately choked on by Victor’s reactionary snort. And for one moment, everything is how it was meant to be— stained carpet and strained shoulders and cockroaches ran amuck included. The swinging door beside them whirls in direct sun and the certain scent of motor oil, and Nathan fantasizes about roaring sunburns, motorcycle getaways. 

Egypt.

“Hey, put your money where your mouth is and I’ll see if I can find you an opening for Argentina next month. Ya know the Goose doesn’t fly as well without a second.”

Crap. Nathan’s heart leaps into his throat. Crap, crap, crap.

Fuck yes.

And when he replies, he gasps in the taste of fresh empanadas, the sweet swell of tango, orchard wines he’ll pretend he loves, offered by a man with an eyepatch and a seriously suspicious Russian accent. He dreams of the G-21 Goose passenger seat right next to Sully, the one that Nathan always kept warm. And he smiles at the idea of Victor Sullivan, salt-and-peppered fox age fifty with a rep sheet the size of Moby Dick, and his haggard, smoky voice crooning over the choiring sounds of Evita! the Musical on cassette tape. 

“That would—” There are no words, only hope, and his own heartbeat pounding whole and real in his ear. “Yeah, I’ll put my money where my mouth is.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Sullivan smiles in tow. 

The chair legs shuffle and screech against the patch of linoleum when they rise, the last napkin balled and tossed onto the makeshift counter little else but a rousing encore. Nathan nods politely to the visored-family, now kerfuffling over the last pancake; Sully nabs a squashed blueberry muffin from a nearby buffet basket; and they’re on their way to the parking lot before anyone can ask if they heard the word ‘handgun’ correctly. 

“Here, one for the road. Gotta get your strength up for tonight.” Sully tosses the purple-smeared thing into Nathan’s hand, but the bite he takes as soon as Sully turns his back is a reluctant one.

The elevator ride back to the room provides no further information, let alone speech— but this time, Nathan doesn’t really mind. Stevie Wonder blares rallying over the waves and Sully tells him, arms crossed and leaning back in a senior-citizen’s-eve nap, that this is a great song and hell, he probably wooed a honey or two in the middle of it back in the day and the duffel bags Victor had them carry from the trunk are just heavy enough to make him feel strong and Nathan—

Well, Drake is happy. 

The suite door beeps cheerfully with a swipe of his card, the logo of a smiling lotus flower severed through the slot, happily unbeknownst of its less-than-legal usage. Nathan heaves a groan when the first two bags are off-loaded onto the newly-clean floor. The unmistakable rattle of steel meeting steel inside as he sets it down makes his breath hitch, but he looks at his room in a foreign land newly-made home again, and he tells himself he can wait. He’s waited longer for less. 

Prissy-ass Hedward or whatever probably doesn’t even remember how to reload, anyway. He might even chip a nail. 

And it’s only then that Nathan realizes it’s not just housekeeping that makes the room look so empty.

“Hey Sully, do you know where—”

Victor doesn’t even meet his eye when he breaches the doorway, a half dozen backpacks split between each arm. 

“What? The new girl?”

“Yeah, what did—?”

“Move for a second, wouldya.” 

So Nathan obeys and squeezes aside as Sully heaves three meaty tactical packs onto the freshly-made bed with a groan. It’s probably two hundred vertebrae that audibly crack when he dares to stretch back out again. 

“Where did—?” 

Nathan asks with more vigor than he intends.

Meanwhile Sullivan doesn’t even bother to stop rifling through the equipment when he answers: 

“Valentine? Yeah, she, uh, had some thing to get back to in the states. Had a spider bite. Or something. Probably. Who cares. With what we have now, we won’t need designated distraction anymore. Ya had your rehearsal dinner. Came back with enough limbs to satisfy me, kid.” 

A sturdy, shockingly comfortless clap on the shoulder. 

”Anyway, archeologist team’s so scattered on the weekends, we could probably pull the car right up to Nefertiti’s koss if we wanted. It’s not like ya need a babysitter.” 

“Oh.” Nathan says. 

The sound of a dozen zippers unzipping and about a triple dozen bundles of rope being poured out over the carpet sings through the still, suddenly too-quiet air. Before last night, Nathan didn’t think the world being too-quiet was something he’d ever mind. His chest deflates, his heart stings strangely sour. His eyebrows knit in the middle of his forehead in every way he’d kill, he’d die, to have them not. 

But somehow, impossibly, they do.

“You okay, kid?”

“Yeah, just—” 

But then, suddenly, Nathan catches sight of his Beretta 92… smiling at him from the unlocked suite safe. He catches sight of Sully. The sun through the window blinds. The unfamiliar furniture. The torn fibers of a center rug. Egypt. Everywhere that isn’t Egypt. 

And he remembers. He sees. He sees everything he wanted back. He sees everything he was before. He sees every wrong there’s still there to make right. He sees a name that means something.

He sees the man his brother knew he could be.

And Drake smirks.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

“This is highly unprofessional,” your voice hitches between syllables, lust a hook that snags the thread of your self-control; a once tightly wound spool that now seems to unravel easily at the whims of the man currently devouring the bare skin of your neck.

“Take it up with HR,” Sam’s hands, never idle, busy themselves with their respective tasks - his left at the base of your neck beneath the curtain of your hair, a steady hold like an anchor as his right travels a gradual path. His fingers start at your knee, dancing along the slit of your dress as he starts to push the satin fabric of it up like an obstacle to be removed. 

But you grab his wrist, pausing him there between your thighs and out of reach from the place you both long for him to be. He kneads the soft flesh there like he can’t help himself, like he’d take what little he can get and savor it anyways, ever the optimist. 

“We shouldn’t.” 

He kisses his way back up to your face, efficient and measured in his attention as he leans back from you not to create any real cavern of distance, but to catch your eyes in his, to give you that wolfish smile that  you know he’s wearing before you see it for yourself. 

“When has that stopped us before?”

He’s not wrong, but you don’t tell him that, instead letting the pendulum of indecision swing somewhere between base wants and rational thought as you take in what little you can see of him in the dim lighting. 

You’re in a rather precarious position, balanced here on the edge of a spare table in some disarrayed supply room, having abandoned both the mission at hand and your propriety. The latter you have no real hope of salvaging, not if Samuel Drake is within twenty feet of you, but the former…that’s not something you’re willing to part with. 

“We still have a job to do, Sam.”  

“So?” he shrugs, and you feel him test your hold on his wrist, finding it ironclad, but smiling still like you were a lock nearly picked, “We can be quick.” 

 “I don’t want to be quick.” 

You keep your eyes on his, free hand playing with the curls at the nape of his neck, and you watch his pupils dilate just a fraction as their attention catches on your lips. 

“You’re killin’ me here,” and he does actually look stricken, starved even, like the very idea of not having you right here and now is a torture not easily beared. And he says you’re dramatic. 

“I think you’ll survive another couple hours,” you trust him enough to unwind your grip on his wrist but he doesn’t move his hand, simply keeps it there halfway up your thigh like he has no other place to be. You offer him a small consolation, a whisper of a kiss, leaning back when he tries to deepen it, “Besides, I’ll make the wait worth your while.” 

“Is that right?” 

“Scout’s honor.”

He snorts, close enough still that you can feel his breath on your face,“They give out badges for bein’ a little slut now?” 

“Asshole.”

“Tease.” 

You shove his chest hard enough that he stumbles backwards, freeing yourself from the cage of his grasp and gaining a small opportune window to hop down from the table before he can trap you again; you don’t trust yourself to resist him twice.

You do your best to undo the damage wrought by your irresponsible decisions, first straightening out the manhandled fabric of your dress to lay properly. You find your hastily discarded clutch on the floor, thrown some feet away in the heat of the moment beside an empty mop bucket, and immediately rummage through it for your pocket mirror. By the grace of some god who must have a soft spot for the lustful, the reflection that stares back at you is nearly untouched, save for a few tangles in your hair. You take a moment to give thanks to yourself for having the wherewithal to don a lip stain tonight; you’d learned that lesson the hard way. 

His gaze stays on you, fixated, begging to be returned, but you make him wait - patience is a virtue he could use a refresher on. And when you finally grant him your attention, you find him looking at you with his head cocked slightly, smug smile on his face, the one that immediately sets your skin alight. 

“What?” 

“Nothin’,” he shrugs, feigning innocence despite the look in his eye implying anything but, “Just enjoyin’ the view.” 

Your groan, throwing a loose mint in your purse at him, “Dude.”

“Oh come on, it’s a good line,” he laughs, that self-pleased rasp you’ve come to love. 

“Yeah for a made for tv movie, maybe.” 

“Trust me - the things I’m thinkin’ of when I’m lookin’ at you would not make it to TV,” he pauses, furrowing his brow in fake-thought, “Well, maybe Cinemax.” 

“Don’t make me throw another mint at you.” 

But it’s a threat ignored, one that does nothing to smother the tangible, vexing look of want in his eye, his smile like a warning you don’t know if you’ll have the strength to heed. You feel claustrophobic beneath the attention, like a target to be honed in on, and when he takes a step toward you, you immediately match his stride but backwards, your laugh a nervous chime, “Nuh-Uh. Park it, grabby.” 

“What - no kiss goodbye?”

“No nothing until we finish this job.”

He rolls his eyes, but the words do what they need to, impeding his approach. “God, you’re startin’ to sound like Victor.” 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” 

“Well it certainly isn’t a good thing, I’ll tell you that much.” 

You give him a pointed look, one he’s intimately familiar with, and start to head towards the exit, feeling him in tow behind you at a disconcerting distance. He pauses there at your back when you reach the door, not close enough to touch you but just enough that you can feel the heat of him, steady and maddening, and you’re tempted to elbow him in the gut as a lesson in personal boundaries. 

You can hear the low hum of a crowd even before you crack the door open, the quick sliver of sight only confirming what you already feared. “Shit; there’s people everywhere.” 

“Shame,” but he doesn’t seem even remotely concerned, and you feel him lean down, his next words spoken into the shell of your ear, “Guess we’ll have to find a way to kill the time.”

“Don’t start,” you whip around to face him, no longer trusting him to behave without your eyes on him. 

“I’m just sayin’,” he grins at you like you’re some piece in a game of his own making, perfectly placed right where he wants you, “All work and no play…” 

“I play plenty, thank you very much.”  

“Speakin’ of,” he narrows in on you with a single, calculating step, and you have nowhere to go, not with the wall at your back, finding yourself well and truly trapped in the exact position you were trying to avoid, “Remember that closet in Marseille? You didn’t seem too pressed about foolin’ around then.” 

Oh, you most definitely remember that. Your bodies between hung coats, barely concealed, one leg on his shoulder as he knelt there on the floor and made you cum twice with just his tongue; not a moment one forgets. 

“Sam -” 

And his arms are somehow on your waist again, pulling you into him as sure as the tide, and you hate the way your body folds completely to his aims like it were as inevitable as gravity, no resistance to the wandering feel of his hands. 

“Then there was that out of order bathroom in Mataró, and the random Porsche we broke into in Bristol, and the -” 

Heat crawls up your spine as you swat his chest, trying and failing miserably to gather the non-existent pieces of your restraint, “Those were all after we’d finished the job. Perv.” 

“Hey I hate to break to you, sweetheart,” his voice is a low, dangerous rumble as his lips fall to your cheek, kissing a path to your ear, “but if I'm a perv, then you’re most definitely a perv, too.” 

“Wow, that’s -” you can’t help but laugh, even as he starts to lightly trail his mouth down your neck, “you know, I don’t think a guy’s ever called me a perv to try to get in my pants before.”

He lifts his head to look down at you, eyebrows dancing suggestively, “Is it workin’?”

“You’re incorrigible, you know that?”

“I love it when you talk sweet to me.” 

And god help you, but you wind your arms around his neck as he starts to close what little space remains between the two of you, all sense be damned, when a minuscule, distant part of you picks up the lack of noise outside. The silence like a siren awakens the rational part of you long thought dead, and you turn your face before he can kiss you, unlacing your arms from his neck to peek through the door again. 

You hear him audibly sigh as he rests his head on your shoulder in defeat. 

There’s a lag in the crowd, a gift you don’t want to take for granted, so you hastily tug him through the cracked open door, only creating a gap just big enough to squeeze through, “Come on, Romeo - The coast is finally clear.”

“You know, it’s cruel to toy with a man like this.”

He’s still maintaining that same level of near non-existent distance as you carefully close the door behind you, and it’s entirely reckless, the way he’s shamelessly toying with you even now out in the open, no walls to hide behind.

“You’re a big boy; I think you can handle it,” and it’s not fair for him to be the only one that gets to torment, so you smack his still half-hard dick, smiling sweetly up at him like you’d only just given him a kiss. 

He winces, gritting his teeth as he’s rendered stagnant by an approaching group of partygoers who unknowingly steal any hopes he has for retaliation, “You’re gonna pay for that later.” 

You pretend to fix his tie, saccharine smirk still on your face, “Promise?” 

And he apes that same expression, “You’re terrible.” 

“You love it.”

“Maybe.”

You both willingly cage yourselves here for a moment, eyes locked to one another’s like a silent standoff. But you break first, sighing as you take a few slow backwards steps from him, “Well, this was fun and all, but I’m off to do some work. I recommend you do the same, Mr. Drake.” 

“Much rather do you.”

You point a warning finger, “Behave.”  

“No promises.” 

You turn your back to him, thinking yourself finally free from the clutches of depravity, when you feel, unmistakably, a hard smack to your ass. It’s loud enough that it draws the attention of a few stray attendees around you, but you don’t give him the satisfaction of turning around. You simply walk straight ahead, flushed head to toe, right ass cheek stinging, as if nothing had happened at all. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The snack table at this gala, much to your dismay, is a rather lacking assortment considering the tax bracket you're surrounded by. But you keep any snide comments to yourself as you eat your fourth canape, some concoction of cheese and mystery meat that’s nearly edible when accompanied with a generous swig of wine. You’re nursing your third glass, and probably should’ve stopped after the second, but who were you to turn down an 82 Lafite bordeaux? 

Somewhere off in the distance, a well-paid schmuck is parked in front of a baby grand, playing a distasteful classical rendition of a Madonna song that escapes you. Your feet tap absentmindedly to the rhythm as your eyes scan the snack table for your next victim - a tea sandwich maybe, or a chunk of brie with a nice piece of fig, or perhaps - 

“Nice of you to finally join the party,” Sully’s voice breaks through your grazing stupor, and you jump at the sudden, accusatory sound of it. 

“I was having a dress malfunction,” is the excuse your wine-rotted brain decides to clumsily spew out as you turn to him, food mumbling your words. You try to chew quickly, wiping stray puff pastry crumbs from your chest, the picture of poise and grace. 

"Couldn't've come up with a better lie, huh?” You watch his face fall to an amused scowl, crossing his arms the way he does when he’s about to haggle someone, scotch balanced on his elbow. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You know damn well what I mean.” 

You laugh, not entirely pleased with the sound of it but it’s casual enough, “Uh, I don’t, actually. Hey, how many of those have you had, Sully?” you gesture to his drink, taking a sip of your own to rid your mouth of the stray crumbs still clinging to your teeth, “Maybe the scotch is starting to get to you.” 

“The only thing that’s gettin’ to me is you two bozos on my nerves. You’re growin’ sloppy.” 

Shit.

You can tell by the furrow in his brow that he isn’t going to drop whatever he’s got between his teeth until he’s satisfied that it’s dead, that he’s made his point. But you don’t let yourself give in that easily, foolishly clutching onto a distant possibility that maybe, just maybe, you could gnash your way out. 

“Just because I’m taking a break to enjoy the refreshments does not make me sloppy, thank you very much. And I’ll have you know I’ve been working extraneously this whole night to make sure-”

“You’re really gonna make me say it, aren’t you?”

You shrink beneath the crushing weight of pure disappointment in his eye, but hold your shaky, crumbling ground despite yourself. 

“Say what?”

He sighs, shaking his head, hesitant like he was about to open a door he knew he wouldn’t be able to close, “Alright. Have it your way,” a sip of his scotch is his only moment of pause before he says, “I know you’re sleepin’ together.” 

Your eyes widen before you can stop them, and a laugh leaves your mouth that you have no real control over, a loud, anxious, off-kilter sound, and still, like the stubborn, stupid asshole you are, already knee deep in a grave you dug yourself, you keep burying, “Okay, now I’m seriously worried about you - are you coming down with a fever or something?” 

He wears a placid expression, almost patient, but in the way an experienced fighter knows to wait, to bide their time, let their opponent tire themselves out before making their first strike. And you’re not expecting his debut jaw-shattering hit when he sighs, and shakes his head, and says,  “I’ve got two words for you, kid - shower. Dubrovnik. That ringin’ a bell?”

Fuck. 

FUCK.FUCK.FUCK.FUCK.

It did, unfortunately, ring a very loud bell. Your memory, cruel as she is, decides to bombard you with flashes of the things you and Sam did to each other in that shower, depraved, borderline animalistic things that apparently, your very good friend Victor Sullivan had borne some form of witness to.

You find yourself wishing the floor would open up and swallow you whole, or a meteor would spontaneously crash through the vaulted ceilings, or a sudden on-set aneurysm would strike you down - anything to save you from this.

“How much did you hear?” 

He recoils at the question, “Nothing x-rated, if that’s what you’re askin’. I got the hell out of there before I could.” 

You let out a sigh of relief that you feel all the way down to your soul. It’s a small but welcomed reprieve, not enough to staunch the horrifying sting of mortification all together, but it’s a minuscule win you’ll take, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I'm sayin’ somethin’ now, aren't I? And not cause I want to, either, but you gave me no choice with you foolin’ around on the clock.” 

Another devastating blow to your dignity, falling somewhere behind your ribs,“How did you-” 

“I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. And normally I'd keep my nose out of it, but the last thing I need is for you two punks to get slapped with an indecent exposure charge while we’re in the middle of a goddamn job.” 

“Shit,” it’s a final right hook, signed, sealed, delivered straight to the marrow of you, as you look up to your friend and feel the only thing the losing side ever gets to feel - shame, regret, guilt. They cling to you like scarlet letters, stitched into your skin. “I’m so so sorry, Sully. You’re completely and totally right. I - I don’t know what I was thinking,” you weren’t, is the crux of the problem; it seems you’re incapable of it when it comes to Sam. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

The handsome lines of his face are completely clear of any animosity as he considers you, and you wonder if you look as outwardly pathetic as you feel. You’re expecting him to dole out at least one more well-deserved hit - something about how he expected more from you or that he didn’t know you were capable of being so insanely thoughtless. Instead, his gaze softens, tone nearly gentle as he says, “Is it serious?”

You feel yourself blush at the frankness of his words, letting out the same habitual, nervous laugh with the futility of donning hole-ridden armor,“Is anything with Sam serious?” 

He shrugs, taking another sip of his scotch, eyes sharp as if he were looking for clues between your every syllable, “Maybe not. But I’ve never seen you act this way with a fella before.”

What?

You're stunned into silence, blinking, waiting for thought and speech to return to you for several long, painful seconds before you awkwardly croak out, “It’s - it’s not like that, Sully. Really. We’re just friends having fun. Nothing more.”

Your own words sound hollow even to you, but he doesn’t push, just studies you carefully for a few moments before he says, “Well -  be careful, yeah? Commitment isn’t exactly his strong suit. And I don’t want my best girl gettin’ her heart broke.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not looking for commitment then.”

“Yeah. Good thing.”

He looks at you with an expression far too close to pity for your comfort, and this elongated silence between you is only making it worse. So you finish the remnants of your wine, and pray that your brain still has some form of humor left to cut the pair of you free from the embarrassing weeds of honesty and vulnerability you’re tangled in now. 

“Well…that was certainly not on my bingo card for tonight.” 

He chuckles, all too happy to follow your detour, “Trust me, it wasn’t on mine either.”

“Don’t tell me we’re going to have The Talk next?” 

“I think we’re way past that, doll.” 

 “Way past?” you scoff, clutching your invisible pearls, “What are you trying to say exactly?”

He knocks his elbow into you, “Nothin’ you haven’t heard before.”

“Wow, okay, funny guy. Keep it up and your next trip is gonna be a one way ticket to a home.”

He barks out a laugh, “N’aw you love me too much for that.”

“Don’t be so sure, old man.” 

“Eh, I’ll push my luck.” 

“Push you right into a wheelchair, more like.”

He points a finger at you, no real malice behind his scornful tone, “Hey watch it, smart ass.”

You shrug, holding his gaze as you smile at each other, “You started it.” 

“Yeah well, serves you right for makin’ me play Mother Hen.” 

“Okay, fair enough,” you hold out your free hand, an olive branch for the taking, “Truce?”

And he grasps it without hesitation,“Truce. Now, come on - let’s go finish scopin’ this joint out.” 

“Yes. Let’s.” 

And you do. You make small talk with the other guests as you take note of all the minute details to fill in the loose ends of your blueprint back at the hotel. The number of exits. The type of locks on the windows and doors. What weapons the security guards are carrying and if they look like they know how to use them. But all the while, in the background of your mind, a constant, insistent buzzing like the hum of cicadas in the summer. 

I’ve never seen you act this way with a fella before. 

What the fuck did he mean by that? 

· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The solitude your hotel room offers is little comfort when you know it’s a state not long preserved. 

Sam would be here soon, surely, despite your best efforts to the contrary. There’s little one can do to impede the will of a Drake, but it didn’t stop you from trying, your method of choice a subdued strategy - the cold shoulder. Part of you had hoped it would be enough to steer him clear of you, but you know the bastard is probably just thinking you did it all to drive him crazy; it certainly wouldn’t be the first time, in his defense. 

You’d excused yourself from the debrief back in Sully’s room, your makeshift basecamp, blaming your early exit on a wine-induced headache and feeling nearly-guilty as you left them with nothing more than an apology. But you knew your absence would slow any planning, thus giving you precious time to think. And stew. And panic. And wonder if maybe coming to your room alone wasn’t so good of an idea after all. 

You’ve already abandoned your too-tight dress and too-tall heels, discarding them nearly the moment you got back to exchange them instead for bare feet and a giant t-shirt. You can’t stop filtering between a disjointed routine of sitting, standing, and pacing that at least seems to match the manic tempo of your thoughts.  

I’ve never seen you act this way with a fella before. 

Sully’s words rattle in your mind like a piece knocked loose, one you can’t seem to get righted back into place. And now that you’re alone, there’s no external impediments to stop the dam from bursting. The same way pain can come long after an injury, when the fog of adrenaline passes and the body finally gives in, you find yourself succumbing here to feelings you never took the time to give breath, that you never even knew existed. 

You force yourself to sit with it, truly, this six month old thing neither of you has bothered to give a name. No set terms to review. No real attention bestowed to what it all means, if it means anything at all. You haven’t been with anyone else. Haven’t even given that possibility a passing thought. No. The only man that occupied your mind was him. And it was a change so gradual, so insidious, that you weren’t even aware of it until now. Somewhere, somehow, beneath the cloak of impromptu hookups, the lines in your mind began to blur, and the path blindly taken strayed from casual fun into untraveled terrain you dare not begin to map out. Not now. Not when you can finally feel the extent of which he’s wormed his way into the very sinew of you, an infestation now too far gone to possibly eradicate. Maybe Sully was right. Have you ever felt this way about someone? Have you ever let yourself? 

Fuck. 

Your stomach plummets at the sound of the familiar chime of the key card, a prelude song that’s nearly pavlovian the way your body anticipates the dance that always follows. He steps through the threshold, still donned in his tux sans his tie, looking so infuriatingly handsome it makes your chest seize. 

“Hi,” a soft smile is etched into his face as he takes unhurried steps into the room. 

“Hi.” 

He clears his throat, cocking his head to the side, that playful look in his eye gleaming as he glances around like he has something to find among the bare bones furniture of a chain hotel, “Sorry to intrude, miss, but I came to investigate a noise complaint. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

You try to hide a smile, already caught in the pull of his game as you squint your eyes in pretend thought, “A noise complaint? No. I haven’t heard a thing.” 

“Apparently there’s been repeated reports of - uh - incessant banging. That, and lots of loud moaning.”

“Sounds serious.” 

“It is, actually. A punishable offense, even.”

“Well I hope you find the people responsible then.” 

He twists his head around as if to take in the full expanse of your tiny room, eyebrows furrowed. You watch him as he walks over to the meager two-seated table by the far window to run a finger across the scratched vinyl, inspecting his un-dusted pads like a cheap impression of Columbo, “You do a lot of moanin’ in here, miss?” 

A small laugh slips that you manage to mask as a scoff, “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

"I'm not sure what you’re trying to insinuate, but I've never moaned a day in my life.”

You watch his lips twitch as his eyes fall to you, “Never, huh?”

“Nope,” you shake your head, lifting your nose at him in an act of haughtiness, “So I'm afraid you must have the wrong room.” 

“See, now that’s a much bigger problem,” he tsks, sighing, shaking his head like he faces a job most dire, “I’m afraid I can't leave here in good conscience until we get that little…never moaned problem a’yours all sorted.” 

“What kind of hotel is this?” 

“One that takes the satisfaction of our guests very seriously.” 

He’s wearing a dangerous smile as your eyes lock, but he doesn’t move from the table. 

You hate the way your skin hums with the urge to touch him. “And will I be charged extra for this…service?”

“Oh no. This one’s on the house,” he keeps his gaze on you as he shrugs off his suit jacket, hanging it there unceremoniously against the back of the chair, his dress shoes the next object of his attention. You don’t bother hiding the hungry way you watch him,  eyes lingering on the move of his muscles beneath his dress shirt, on the tapered shape of his waist. 

“Lucky me.”

He closes the distance between you in a few easy strides, seeming to glide against the floral-patterned carpet. You expect his hands to reach for their usual favored destinations, but instead, he frames your face with his grasp, cradling you there as you look up at him. “How’s the head?” 

“I’ll live.” 

His thumb strokes the apple of your cheek, eyes a searching spotlight on your features like he was trying to see through you. “You know, I don’t think I had a chance to tell you how beautiful you look tonight.” 

“Dude,” you shake free of his hold, trying and failing to hide the inching feel of a blush, “You can skip the whole flattery act; I’m already gonna sleep with you.” 

“It’s not an act, you brat,” his arms a lasso that wind around your waist, a firm hold unable to be broken; not that you’d want to, anyways, “I couldn’t keep my eyes off a’you. Seriously. 

“Well that’s rather concerning considering you were supposed to be keeping your eyes on the security system.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you decided to wear a dress like that. And honestly I’m a little ticked off y’didn’t let me take it off you myself.” 

“So your lack of professionalism is my fault?”

“Eh, mostly I'd blame the girls here,” his eyes motion downwards to your cleavage, hidden now beneath your worn sleep shirt, “Violet, especially.”

“You have got to stop anthropomorphising my tits.”

“Never.”

When his lips start their descent to you, you anticipate fire, raging and explosive, but what’s given is a smoldering burn, slow and creeping and all together entirely more dangerous. His hands roam your body as his tongue slides along your bottom lip, a knock on the door of your mouth that you all too eagerly open, pride be damned. But there’s an air of patience to his touch that digs beneath your skin, a pace far too considerate for your liking. Your hands blindly reach for his belt, a catalyst to add kerosene to flame, sliding the cool leather from his pant straps, releasing it from the buckle, and nearly freeing him entirely of its restrictive hold before he stops you. You feel your heart sink, doused with the frigid water of disappointment. 

“Not so fast, sweet thing.”

“Don’t tell me you’re saving yourself for marriage?” 

He snorts, “I’m tryna take my time here, alright?”

“Rather you wouldn’t.” 

A long finger twirls the end of your hair, his other palm planted firmly on your ass, “That’s awful rich comin’ from the girl who gave me blue balls for four hours.” 

“Well I’m trying to fix that, but you’re not letting me.”

“Patience, sweetheart,” he dons a sing-songy tone, looking down at you in much the same way a cat might play with its food.   

“Like you’re one to talk.” 

He presses a chaste kick to your mouth, his next words spoken against your lips, “Don’t move.” 

And you listen. Even as he steps away from you. Even as he plops down at the foot of the bed, making himself comfortable, leaning back against his forearms as you stand there, waiting, waiting, waiting, like the loyal dog you are. 

He’s dripping in a smugness so heavy you’re surprised the bed doesn’t collapse beneath the weight of it, “Undress for me.” 

You feel your whole body blush as you bark out a laugh “What?” 

He shrugs, “You said you’d make it worth my while.” 

“Yeah, I meant more in the way of a blowjob, not a strip tease.” 

“I don’t need a whole show - I just wanna watch you take your t-shirt off.” 

You glare at him, hating the sure way he looks at you as if he already knows you’ll do it, like this whole exchange was merely for your benefit, to let you think you have any say in the matter, “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. Would it kill you to indulge me?”

“It might.”

“Well, in the event of your death, I’ll accept full legal responsibility - how’s that?”

“Wow. Soooo romantic, Samuel.”

“Just shut up and take the shirt off.”

A pointed pause hangs between you as you both wait for the inevitable break of your will, that weak, malleable muscle nearly atrophied at this point, useless in the face of him. 

“Fine. But only since you asked so nicely.” 

Your compliance is malicious; the one act of power you have left lies in trying to make your undressing as unappealing as possible. You awkwardly shove an arm out of the sleeve and tug it forcefully over your head, cotton chaffing against your hair, strands alive with static as you throw the shirt somewhere off in the corner. 

He looks about as pleased as if you’d given him a whole burlesque routine, and you’re tempted to throw the nearest object at his stupid, ego-swollen, infuriatingly hot head. 

You hold your arms out expectantly, but don’t move otherwise, “Happy?”

“Elated,” and he looks every bit of it, “Now give me a spin.”

“Oh go fuck yourself,” but you smile, the pair of you laughing like this was all some sort of private joke - you nearly naked and him fully clothed, this habitual cadence of power between the pair of you, or lack there of, in your case.  

“I’m tryin’ to fuck you actually but you’re insistin’ on bein’ difficult.” 

“Me? You’re the one making me play Simon Says.”

“I thought you liked it when I tell you what to do?” 

Shit. He’s got you there. You’d do just about anything if it was him on the other end of an ask; you try not to linger on the gravity of what that means.

His lips curve sideways with a knowing grin, “Nothin’ to say to that, huh?”

“Shut up,” and with gritted teeth, you spin for him, feeling about as helpless as a porcelain figure in a music box, doomed to perform when opened. 

“See? Was that really so hard?”

“I hate you.” 

The fond look in his eye makes you want to jump out the window. 

He ticks his head to the side like a call to be answered, “C’mere.” 

And you do. No distance between you now as you stand in front of him, not quite towering over him, but it’s enough to give you the illusion of an advantage. He wastes no time in smothering his head between your breasts, perfectly placed in front of him like they were for little else.

“God, I missed you two,” he kneads, and squeezes, and nips, and kisses through the thin mesh fabric of your bra with the ferocity of a man reunited with his other half. 

You roll your eyes, “Stop talking to my boobs.” 

“Stop interrupting us.” 

Your hands lace through his hair as his lips start to wander, down to the bare skin of your stomach, where he traverses across you like following a favored path, taking his time in his journey. His hands are gentle against the planes of your body, sweeping against the surface of you, wakeless, calm, You close your eyes to the feel of it, trying and failing miserably to enjoy the quiet attention, but it’s all too sweet and soft and intimate, like salt in a wound you’re trying to soothe, the thoughts in your mind growing louder. You can’t take a minute more of this, every affectionate press of palm and lip a nail in a coffin. You need escape from this sepulcher, need him to remind you of the place you’ve uprooted yourself from, back into the soil of friends with casual benefits. No strings like nooses to choke on. 

You tug his hair hard enough to get him to look at you, “Can I get on my knees for you now?” 

His eyes, pretty even in the lackluster lighting, search your face. You watch him struggle with himself, donning a concerning bit of hesitation and care that you've never seen him wear before; you hate the look of it on him. And then his hands are sliding up your thigh, and he’s marveling up at you in a way that makes your blood start to curdle, and you really just want to die at this point, “Not yet. I wanna kiss you properly first.” 

When he pulls you into his lap, it feels like a death sentence. But it’s easy to ignore your approaching demise with his lips on yours, and his tongue in your mouth, and his practiced hands undoing the strap of your bra. You follow his lead, working at the buttons on his shirt, unconsciously grinding down on the hard shape of him you can already feel through his trousers. He groans into your mouth and you swallow as if the sound could be consumed, hands shakily pushing the sleeves of his shirt down his arms, no barrier now between the skin of your chests. 

You let yourself be tugged along by the current of desire, losing yourself to the blur of the rapids - the bruising feel of his mouth on your tits, teeth and tongue against your nipples, staking his claim on you. You still have remnants of bruises there, and on the inside of your thighs, hidden places for him to carve his initials into your skin. 

Your mouth falls to his neck, and your own lips set to blooming purple against his flock of birds, relishing in the way he hums, the vibration of it like plucking just the right string. His hands knead at the flesh of your ass, hips jerking upwards into yours, a clothed dance between your bodies, of empty friction that only spurs you further. 

“Alright,” you hear him say, resigned, feel it against your skin as you lick your way to his earlobe, pinning the soft flesh of it between your teeth, “You can put that pretty mouth a’yours to work now.” 

You smile against him, “Don’t have to tell me twice,” and gleefully slide down his body to take your rightful spot on your knees. You work together to pull his pants and boxers down, letting them pool around his ankles as his cock springs free. The head of him is already leaking, the unripe fruit of your labor there in the pearlescent hue; you feel your mouth water at the sight of him, red and engorged and looking every bit as needy as you feel. 

You kiss your way up his knee to his inner thigh, and he watches you with bated breath as you let your tongue indulgently slide along the handsome vein that sprawls from his balls to his cockhead, drinking in every detail on his face as you do - the pained furrow of brow, the tight clench of his jaw, the desperate look in his eye. You think about torturing him a little, but the thought of waiting even a second more without him in your mouth is too much to bear; this is, after all, every bit as much for you as it is for him. 

“Be a doll and hold my hair back, will you?” 

“At your service,” he gathers your hair as you finally guide the weeping head of his dick into your mouth, taking him slowly, inch by painstaking inch. You hear him curse above you, a string of jesus, fuck me, christ, stomach shuddering with stunted breaths as your fist pumps the thick base of him, never quite able to fit the full length of him in your mouth, the well-endowed bastard. You don’t bother hiding your moans as he fills you, your twisting hand moving in sync with the bobbing of your head, tongue swirling along the shape of him. He collides with the back of your throat, and you gag, clenching your thighs together as you make him do it again, and again, and again. 

“Jesus Christ,” your eyes flit up to him, flush blooming across his stubbled cheeks, and the word pretty comes to mind at the sight, “Y’have no idea how good you look gaggin’ on me like this.” 

You moan, eagerly waiting for the inevitable that always comes with you on your knees. When the gentle hold of your hair will turn into a rough grasp like a leash pulled taught, when his hips will start to thrust with no regard for the way you drool and choke on him, your throat nothing but a means to an end. When he finally gives you what you desperately need. But, devastatingly, that moment never comes. 

You try to push his own hand down on the back of your head as a gentle nudge towards your desired territory but he doesn’t take the bait. “Stop that.” 

You pop off of him, trail of saliva a lingering link between you and his cock as your hand still pumps him, “You’re being so gentle.”

“And - fuck -”, you grant him a particularly hard squeeze, “What about it?”

“Dont be.” 

“Are you tellin’ or askin’?”

“Does it matter?” 

“It might.”

You pout your lips, “Please?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I shit - ” your thumb purposefully rubs the head of his dick, lingering there, squeezing and twisting like you could coax the answer you wanted out of him with just your hand alone, “Cause I said so.” 

“But I want you to.” 

He takes hold of your wrist, moving your hand off him, and you can’t help but sigh in frustration, “Can I be frank?”

“Rather you be Sam.” 

“Really?”

“You kind of walked right into that one.” 

“Look, wise ass - I - ” he stops himself, and if you didn’t know him better, you’d say he almost looks…shy? but Samuel Drake was not shy. Certainly not when it comes to matters of coitus. He takes a breath, and smiles down at you like he’s about to ask you for a favor you might decline, “I just wanna make love to you like a normal person tonight, alright? We can save that other shit for another time.” 

Fuck. 

He really couldn’t have said a more terrible string of words. They stick to the inside of your guts like thorns, puncturing, and digging, and tearing. And you despise the soft way he looks down at you like his rock hard dick isn’t mere inches from your face. 

“I’m quite partial to that other shit,” you lean your head against the inside of his knee, pouting your lips still as you look up to him with batting lashes; a routine that’s gotten your way more than once before, and maybe, could gain your favor once again. 

“Well, me too,” he lets his knuckles graze against your face, “But it wouldn’t hurt to switch things up a bit, would it?” 

It hurts very acutely, actually, that he would ask this of you tonight, of all nights. You don’t bother mentioning that to him, though.  “Does that mean manhandling’s off the table?” 

He smirks, “I can throw you around a little bit.”

“And how do we feel about light choking?”

“Fine. Light chokin’s fine. I’ll even pitch in a couple’a spanks - that sound acceptable to you?” 

You press a kiss to his knee, “How very generous.” 

“Do we have a deal?” 

You pretend to consider his offer, letting him wait as your eyes drift to the ceiling, wanting nothing more than to tell him no despite being entirely incapable of it, “I suppose I can live with that.”

“Good,” your chin’s in his hand, his thumb stroking along the shape of it as he ticks his head to the side like a sign to be followed, “Now get up here. It’s my turn.” 

So you oblige his request, the way you always do,  following the pull of his hands that guide you upwards. You’re expecting him to tug you into his lap, but instead, he stands too, and you can see him trying to hide a glint of mischief in the curve of his lips as his grasp falls to your hips. 

You narrow your eyes at him, “What are you -” 

You’re roughly thrown over his shoulder before you can finish your sentence, a laugh escaping you that sounds unrecognizable to your ears - high-pitched and giddy and nauseatingly fond. 

“Are you crazy?” 

“Hey, you’re the one that said you wanted to be manhandled -  I’m just givin’ you what you asked for.” 

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” it’s not a terrible view, though, from your vantage point. You’re nearly face to face with the bare curve of his ass, more supple than it has any right to be; a favored part of him he always pretends not to understand why you’re partial to. You can also see the pool of his pants at his ankles still, shackles around his feet that only allow him to awkwardly shuffle as he tries to turn himself around, inch by inch.

“Beggars don’t get to be cho-Oh shit,” you watch his foot snag on his pants, body lurching forward as he trips, catching himself clumsily on the end of bed. Your head collides against his back with an audible thunk.

“Ow. Jesus. Walk much?” 

He laughs, a sound so genuine and sheepish you find yourself doing the same. He plops you down properly on the bed, body bouncing atop the cheap springs as it adjusts to your weight. “Sorry. Really thought I had that.” 

“Quite the feat of grace there, Samuel.” 

“At least y’could never say the sex was boring, right?” He uses the bed to balance himself, making quick work of removing his pants and socks. You soak in the unimpeded view of his body, the strong, weathered planes of muscle that you think Rodin might’ve loved to put to marble. Or, at the very least, Playboy would have a very enticing centerfold on their hands.  

He crawls over you, stopping short of being nose to nose, head in line with your tits instead, and not nearly as close as you want him to be, “Now, I’m going to go down on you, and you’re going to like it. Capiche?” 

Your lips twitch, offering him your best two finger salute, “I’ll try my best to soldier through it.”

“Good girl.” 

He kisses his way down your body, not dawdling on any part of you, dragging your underwear down with him as he takes the spot you were just in, knelt there piously on the carpet like a man about to pray. He pins your legs open against the bed like a bug with its wigs in a frame, on display for his own personal viewing.

“Jesus,” you watch him swallow at the sight of you, and feel heat swarm every inch of your skin, “All this just for me?” His eyes flit up to you as he kisses your inner thighs, stubble against skin like sand. 

“Don’t let it go to your head.” 

“Kinda hard not to when you’re this fuckin’ wet.” 

He runs a finger through your slick to enunciate his point, and your whole body jolts like you were simply a button to be pressed. Your eyes slam shut, senses beginning to fog you as your mind hones in on the beating ache between your thighs.  

“Havin’ my dick in your mouth gets you goin’ that much, huh?” You can hear the smile in his voice, the way the words ooze out of him like honey. 

Your aptitude for any real banter is squandered by the inching feel of his mouth. “Maybe,” is the uneventful response you eventually manage, entirely unconvincing as another sharp inhale has your ribs surging upwards. You clench around nothing, swallowing a whine as he nips at the crease of your thigh. 

Blind to the world behind your pinched-shut eyes, every movement feels heightened - your legs now propped on his shoulders, his breath against your core, hovering over the place he belongs. Your hips arch upwards instinctively, desperate to close that last bit of space between his mouth and your cunt. But he makes no other move, and after a few agonizing seconds of suspension, you wearily open your eyes to look down at him, bracketed there between your legs.

He’s smiling at you in that tortuous way, a prelude to taunting, “Tell me what you want, beautiful.” 

“You know what I want,” you hate the whiny, undone sound of your voice. 

“Yeah but I wanna hear you say it,” a teasing hand sidles up to your breast, and you lean into the touch, feeling on the brink of insanity, wondering if denial suffered long enough could turn a person mad.  

“Sam, please.”  

“Please what? You’re gonna have to use your words here, sweetheart,” he toys with your nipple, pinching it between his slender fingers. 

“Just fuck - put your mouth on me. Please.”  

“Atta girl.”

And he answers your yearning prayers when his mouth dives into your cunt like you’re oxygen in his breath-starved lungs. He works you open as if your body’s a machine of his own design, knows the way to drag his tongue along the seam of you, back and forth like a switch to toggle, the way to close his lips around your clit and suck, soft first, then harder, and harder, until your hands curl into his hair and your body starts to tremble beneath him like a geyser near to bursting. You feel him moan against you, the low hum of it stifled beneath the sound of your wanton cries and the obscene noises of his ravenous mouth against your dripping cunt. 

You grind your hips up into him, craving more, needing more. He seems to read you like a book, pages of you spread there open as he slides a finger into you down to the knuckle and curves it in that way that has your spine mimicking that same crescent shape. 

“Enjoyin’ yourself?” his middle finger quickly joins his pointer, your cunt practically swallowing the digits whole with an audibly wet smack that you’d feel more embarrassed about if you possessed enough brain power to feel anything but lustful hunger. 

His eyes are steady on you, an anchor in the swell of it all. When you meet his gaze, you can see a sheen of your slick across his face, catching in the light, and your cunt closes around his fingers like a vice. 

He smirks, “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

“Sam,” your voice is a broken rasp, a plea. You’re so goddamn close. So, So, So Close that the edges of your body have blurred, fingers, and toes, and limbs all shapeless numb, nothings - all you can focus on is the feel of his fingers inside you, the throbbing need that every movement of him spurs forwards, growing and growing and growing to this insurmountable weight that makes your entire body feel like a branch beneath a boot, taught and on the brink of snapping. 

“Yes?” His thumb starts to rub tight circles against your clit, and like a cue to act your thighs start to tremble around him. 

“I - Fu-please. I’m -” you try your hardest to speak, but your body and mind fail you.  

You’re surprised to hear no snark out of him, no comment about a sex-induced stutter or an order for you to use your words. Instead, he mercifully latches his mouth onto you, tongue taking the place of his thumb, fingers still arched in you as they slide in and out of your soaked cunt. 

You reach for his hand, the one grasped to your hips, placing your fingers between his, and it’s the last thing you feel, his hand squeezing back, holding you in place, before you cum. 

His name rips through your lungs as you cry out, writhing, heaving, shuddering, your release flooding molten through you. And you feel anything but sated as the high ebbs down, as his tongue and fingers guide you, your first orgasm nothing but an impetus to a climbing desperation, a starving, hankering, insistent need for more.  

The moment your legs fall free from his shoulders, you press up from the bed and take his face in your hands. Your lips and tongue hungry against his own, tasting yourself among the amalgam of spit.  

“Need you,” is all you can manage to say, but it’s enough. 

He smiles, sweeping a stray hair of yours behind your ear, “How do y’want me?” 

And you need to regain some crumbling semblance of control so you say, with no hesitation, as if there were no other way to take him, “On your back.” 

His smile grows wider, eyes nearly swallowed whole by his lust-blown pupils, “Yes ma’am.” 

You’re a mess of tangled limbs as he climbs up onto the bed, mouths never straying for too long, hands clinging to the fevered skin of one another like life rafts. At least with him here on his back it’s easier to lie to yourself on whose hands hold the wheel of command. 

His eyes fall to where your trembling hand guides his twitching cock up to your swollen cunt, zoning in on the sight like something not to be missed. You watch his jaw go slack as you slowly push your hips down on him, never quite used to the aching stretch of taking him, the way he seems to fill you past the brink, spilling over into places untouched. 

You fuck yourself on him slow and languid, watching the traveling path of his attention, back and forth between the sight of his dick disappearing into the shape of you and the lazy bounce of your tits. 

His hands fall to your hips, rocking them needily like your unhurried pace was starting to get to him,“You’re so -,” you clench around him, relishing the way his whole body tightens beneath you, “fuck.”

“I’m so fuck?” You smile, saccharine, watching his chord of restraint snap beneath your taunt. You feel his grip on you tighten, feel him tent his knees upwards for purchase as he starts to buck up into you in earnest, every snap of his hips a point proven.

Your eyes roll back as your head follows that same backwards path, body folding beneath his demands, already gone, already his; so much for being in control. 

“Nothin’ smart to say now, huh?”

Oh, you want to reply, really you do, but the bruising feel of being entirely at his disposal blinds out any words.

“Such a big mouth on you but the second my cock or my tongue or my fingers are in you, you go all quiet.” 

You smile, “Can’t -  fuck - help - it,” gasping and moaning between syllables. 

You feel his hand collide with your ass, one a testing slap and the next a sure, hard spank, your skin stinging in the aftermath. “Could watch you take me like this all day.”

You moan, capabilities to do much else abandoning you as you lose yourself to the plowing feel of his cock. 

He lifts his fingers to your mouth, and smiles to watch you open it without a word spoken, “That pretty little cunt a’yours - always so good for me.”

You grip his wrist as you suck, your eyes magnetized to one another, unmoving. 

“So fuckin’ tight.” 

He tugs his fingers from your lips and moves them to your clit, matching the tracing tempo of his hands with the thrust of his hips. 

“OhGod - Sam -” your body strains beneath the attention, every swipe of his fingers, every pistoning move of his cock, a step taken, upwards, towards the place you’ll hope he’ll follow. 

His free hand squeezes your hip like a gentle reminder as he grins up at you, “Can’t believe I get to have you all to myself.” 

The words an arrow to your chest, a bullseye straight through the center of you. You feel yourself clench around him as you sob, nearly incoherent, “Don’t want - shit. Anyone else. Just you,” and you say it before you can stop yourself, regurgitated from a pried-open depth. 

Why did you say that? Why did you say that? Why did you say that? 

Embarrassment surges side by side with your approaching peak, that flood of aching pressure building where your bodies meet. He doesn’t reply, not with words, but his fingers speed up on your clit, and his jaw clenches, and his cock seems to glide deeper and deeper into the wet heat of your cunt. 

“Fuck - Sam - I’m -” 

“Give it to me,” he nods his head as he watches you, pride like a light in his eyes, smiling in that boyish way that makes him look far younger than he has any right to, “Come on, baby.  Lemme feel you.”

You brace against his shapely pecs for purchase like carven handholds as you climb, up and up and up, body trembling. You think you hear him talking, stray words of praise like buzzing background noise as you reach a crest so high you feel taken by altitude sickness, dizzy and breathless. You whine as he fuck you through it, hands steady against your hips as he drives his cock into you, milking every last shudder of your cunt, every shake, every whimper. 

You’re boneless and nearly thoughtless on the gradual descent when he rises to kiss you, one hand cradling the back of your neck like he knew you needed the support, the other tracing circles down your back. 

“You good?”

You nod emphatically, but you don’t mean it.  You’re anything but good. But you can’t possibly focus on the ramifications of that now, not when he’s still inside you, with his eyes speared through you, when your body still craves him like a necessity deprived. 

“You need a minute or -” 

“No,” the pure desperation in your voice makes you want to tear your own skin apart, but you simply kiss him instead, tangling your tongue with his, giving yourself the next best thing when you say,  “Use me.” 

He kisses you hard, all teeth and tongue, like words alone aren’t enough. He moves your bodies with the fluidity of water, flipping you onto your back where you lay there against the squeaking mattress, letting him do with you as he pleases. And what he pleases to do is lift your legs, pressing them together as he kneels there at the base of your body. Both ankles are thrown over his right shoulder like a sash as he starts to press the head of his cock into you, smiling like the sight of you below him is a prize hard one. 

You both groan when he buries himself to the hilt, a slow, aching filling that makes you feel near to bursting as you clench around him. 

“Fuck,” he laughs like he can’t believe his luck,  “Wish I could be inside you like this all day.” 

He moves his hips in sedated undulations like he’s savoring the tight feel of you, dragging out every movement, “Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 

You can only nod as you whine pathetically, the snug press of your legs applying just the right amount of friction on your clit that makes speech impossible. 

“Like for me to have my way with you? Make you mine?” 

You let out a sound halfway between a sob and a moan, “YessShit. Plea-Sam-” hands white knuckling the sheets as you try to compose yourself, say your next words with a modicum of articulation. Your chest aches with the effort as you hold his gaze, “Ruin me.” 

He breathes your name like a prayer, and the sound of it goes right to your cunt as his hips start to snap against the back of your thighs, cock driving in and out of you at a maddening pace. The bed squeals in protest below you, headboard a rhythmic thump against the back wall. 

He kisses the inside of your ankle, one, two, three times, letting one of his hands fall from your legs to your stomach, your breasts, kneading at any bit of you he can reach. His traveling fingers eventually find their way to your throat, wrapping easily around you and gifting you with a hardy squeeze that punctures your vision with stars. But even through the haze of pleasure, even in the most ideal position you’re in now, your mind catches on the earlier thought spoken aloud. 

Don’t want anyone else. Just you. 

You’d said it. And it had sprung forth from a deeply earnest place like it was always there, buried in some dark cavern, thriving still without light. The words are a pin pulled from a grenade, an action not able to be undone, and it’s here that it hits you like a dam burst through, here with his cock buried in you and his eyes on yours and the reverent feel of his hand on the column of your throat- 

You love him.

Oh my god. 

You love him. You love him. You love him. 

 You loved him when he broke his finger riding that electric scooter, and you loved him when he pickpocketed a 20 out of some drunk asshole’s wallet to buy you gelato, and you loved him that time you had to spend a night in a cave after one too many wrong turns, when the pair of you had spewed enough vitriol at each other to chew through steel and still, he offered - no, insisted -  you take his coat to ward off the cold. You loved him on the nights sleep evaded you both, when you spent the hours watching M*A*S*H re-runs on crackling screens of motel televisions, loved him that time you both got too high and rock-paper-scissored for who’d have to grab the pizza, and he ended up braving the door for you anyways, even though you were the one that lost. 

You love Samuel Fucking Drake 

And the realization feels like an irreparable fracture, trapping you in a juxtaposition of carnal bliss and a pain so profound you wonder if you’ll break in two at the force of it, split into unequal halves below him. You shut your eyes tight, not able to do much else in the way of escape. 

He moans your name, the possessive hand on your throat squeezing ever so slightly, “Look at me, sweetheart.” 

But all executive function has abandoned you. Your  capabilities amounting only to a pathetic moan as you writhe beneath him, nails digging into the skin of his wrist. 

“I - fuck - Wanna look at you when I cum.” 

You want to cry. Or combust. Or cease to exist all together. It takes every living part of you to do as you're told, to open your eyes, and your ribs start to splinter, brittle and sun-bleached beneath the burning look of open affection on his face. 

“There’s my girl,” he smiles down at you with that cocky, genuine grin, and you clench hard around his throbbing dick at the sight of it alone. You’re already nearing another peak, somehow, beyond all sense, broken, unbound. And you know he can feel it by the greedy glint in his eye. 

He unfurls one of your legs with care, like peeling back a fragile petal, balancing it there on his hip, your left still propped on his shoulder as he caves in towards you. You feel the burning stretch in your thigh first as he bends you in half, chest against chest as he hits a spot so deep inside you you feel it in your lungs. Your hands instinctively reach up to cradle his face, fingers lacing into his hair as if that could steady you. You’re beyond saving, though, too far gone to be anywhere but irrevocably and utterly at his disposal. 

“Gimme another one.”

“I -”, you try to speak but find your tongue caught by the measured thrust of his hips, that calculated rhythm of electric heat, bolting outwards from your sopping wet, swollen cunt to every corner of your body. It’s pure torture, it’s flawless ecstasy. You moan, somehow still coherent enough to feel shame at the wanton sound of it, “I can’t.” 

“I wasn’t askin’.”

His eyes and yours a string knotted together, inseparable, part of you wanting nothing more than to sever it for just a moment of reprieve and the other needing the opposite, craving the sick euphoria you feel to be looked at this way. Consumed. Taken. Used. The angle gives him a catastrophic advantage, grinding against your clit with every move of his hips,  and of course he did it on purpose; he’s never satisfied until you’re a mess. Neither of you are.  

“Sammy, I -” 

The words claw at the base of your throat. 

I love you. I love you. I love you. 

But you abate them with your last dying ounce of self-preservation, even as his cock drains the rest of sentient thought from you. 

“Go on,” he gives you a kiss, sloppy and pleading,  “Let go for me.” 

And it’s the only words your body needs to hear, spine arching into him like a wishbone tugged taught, nails digging for purchase into the freckled skin of his shoulder, as you drown beneath the white-hot pleasure that rips through you, through muscles, through bones, through veins, to the unnamable metaphysical parts of you. The strings of your body remain in the hands of him, room encompassed with the symphony of his machinations - the messy entwinement of your bodies, the cries from your lungs that harmonize with his own guttural whimpers that pierce right through you. You can feel him panting into your open mouth, but you’ve long since shut your eyes, tears pricking at the edges from an elongated crescendo still clinging to your every pore, not yet fading. 

You understand, in this moment, why the French call it a little death, as you feel a piece of yourself die, destroying itself, imploding and bursting. It’s too much. It’s not enough. You need more. You need less. You need him to cum. His hips start to stutter, and he says your name in that desperate, wrung-out way that you know means he’s nearly there. You can’t open your eyes, can’t do much else but lie there as he takes you, feeling the lines between pleasure and pain start to blur as you beg, desperate and wrung-out yourself “PleasePleasePlease,” your hand sliding down his sweat-damp back to grip the firm muscle of his ass. 

He thrusts one, two, three more devastating times before he spills himself inside you, a noise so sweet pulled from his throat that you wish you could drink, let cling to the inside of your teeth like syrup. Neither of you dare to move for what feels like ages. You swear your hearts beat concurrently, two parts of the same whole, sharing an unspoken agreement of brief coalescence. He leans up only slightly to let your leg fall to the bed before he collapses into the crook of your neck, fitting there like a piece in its proper place. 

Your breaths rise and fall together, entangled, hard to tell where one of you ends and the other begins. 

“I’m not crushin’ you, am I?”

You smile at the lazy, muffled sound of his voice despite feeling on the verge of tears, rasping out a “No,” as you give the crown of his head a clumsy kiss. 

Your fingers play with the curled ends of his hair as you lie there, staring up at the water-stained stuccoed ceiling in much the same way one might look to the open sky for help. But there’s no answers among its ecru hue, no guidance given as the rosy high begins to fade, and you plummet down, down, down, back to the belly of the beast you’ve let yourself be swallowed by. 

You love Samuel Drake. And you wonder if it’s supposed to feel like a curse, a cross unwillingly beared, or if maybe, it’s just the unrequitedness that gives it that shape. 

Either way, it's a burden you won’t share with him, you decide, here in the aftermath of passion. It wouldn’t be fair, would it, to want him to carry this thing he never asked for, these feelings that never should’ve been that now, much to your dismay, very much are. After all that’s been taken from him, he’s owed fluidity, deserving of nothing but unbounded freedom, but this? This would undoubtedly be a clipping of his wings. You're his for now, but a day will come when that won’t be the truth, when his legs for new adventures need to be stretched, and you’ll be a chapter finished; you’re sure of that. Commitment isn’t his strong suit, as Sully said, and why should it be? You can live with the bitter inevitability of an ending, especially when the inbetween is so sweet, especially if it’s for him. That’s what love is all about, isn’t it? Suffering. Beautiful, divine, suffering. 

You feel him stir and unravel your hands from his hair as he lifts himself up, severing that final chord of connection when he pulls out of you fully. The sudden emptiness is nearly painful, your body tangibly pouting at the loss as if separated from a part of itself. 

He props himself up on an elbow beside you, body flush against your side. You feel the heat of his gaze on you but can’t bring yourself to move your attention from the ceiling, as if the traces of your thoughts would be written there on your face for him to see in bold print - I LOVE YOU. I KNOW YOU DON’T FEEL THE SAME. I’M SORRY.  You just need a few more moments to neatly pack this all up, fold and stash and bury in a place where even you can forget about it for a while, but then his hand swipes your cheek, guiding your face to him, and you’re caught red handed, sins entirely out in the open. You hate the worried furrow of his brow, that heavy crease that sits between them. You want to press your thumb to his skin and rub it out of his handsome face but don’t. 

“Where are you right now?” 

You blanch at the question, feeling more naked than humanly possible, but you manage to laugh, “What do you mean? I’m in bed with you, weirdo.” 

“Physically, maybe. But your head’s definitely somewhere else.” 

You swallow, those three syllables an unmovable lump, an embedded choking hazard wonder how long it’ll take to pass. The open, patient way he looks at you makes your stomach churn, but you smile at him, letting your fingers brush against his forearm in what you hope is a reassuring pattern, “Look, I just got fucked within an inch of my life, okay? My mental faculties need some time to catch up.” 

He snorts, but you can tell he doesn’t believe you, not fully. You need to escape the glaring floodlight of his attention before he can find something in the open pit of your being, so you turn towards him, not giving him a moment more to search as you kiss your way across his face. Lips press against his cheeks, the crooked bridge of his nose, his chin, the cut beneath his eye. You lean your weight into him, his body eventually acquiescing to your silent request, lying there on his back as your mouth moves to his neck, then his chest where you end your fevered escape journey to lie your head against him. You feel a strange rush of something akin to adrenaline, a capture narrowly avoided, as you lay there, throwing your leg over his. His arms wind around you, one hand settling in your hair and the other against your forearm, his thumb swiping metronomic on your skin. 

You listen to the steady drum of his heart, fingers idly running through his chest hair as you close your eyes to the grounding sound. Every measured beat seems to tamper your panic, your thoughts just as repetitive. 

You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.  

You're well versed in duplicity after all, it being a non-negotiable trait for someone in your career. And two things can always be true at once - you love him, yes, but not only romantically. You loved him as a friend first; it’s where it all started, the seed that gave way to the overgrowing weeds. And it’s where it all can end, too. If you starve something of oxygen for long enough, surely death will follow, like a lie told enough times can become truth. 

You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. 

He croons out your name, lilting it as a question, and you can tell by the inquisitive note in his tone that he’s unsatisfied with your escape act. 

You offer him a hum, feeling the tepid balance in the seconds of silence, scales in his own mind tipping.  

“You think it’s too late to order room service? I'm starvin’.” 

You laugh, relief flooding through you, and risk tilting your head to look at him, regretting it the second your eyes meet. 

God, you are so fucked. 

“Worth a shot.”

He shoots you wink as he leans to the left towards the chipping side table, pulling you with him to clumsily reach for the phone one-handed. He stretches the power chord to its limit as he places it beside him, trails of curled tangled wires like tentacles spread on the sheets. He’s got the receiver nestled between his shoulder and cheek as his one free hand does the dialing, his other still playing with your hair. 

You’ve tilted yourself so you can watch him, your hands a cushion for your chin as you stay propped on his chest. His skin is flushed, cheeks dusted in pink, hair rustled, faint bruises already painted near the flock of birds where your mouth paid him extra attention, looking handsome in a quiet, effortless way that makes your chest ache. 

You watch the bob of his adam’s apple when he swallows and clears his throat, eyes drifting to the blank screen of the TV as the dial tone sounds, “Yeah, hi - is it possible to still get room service?”

You hear the garbling mumble of a response on the other line, before he says, “Alright just - just gimme one second. 

He flips the phone down into the skin of his shoulder, looking to you expectantly, “They got a burger, grilled cheese, and some kinda chicken wing thing - any a’that sound good to you?” 

“Chicken wing thing?”

“Don’t sass me right now, woman. Are you hungry or what?”

You pause, debating on whether or not you feel like sassing him anyways, before smiling, “Honestly, a grilled cheese would be amazing.” 

“Ask and ye shall receive.”

He puts the phone to his mouth again, but his attention stays attached to you, and only you, eyes hooked to your own, “Hi, yeah, sorry ‘bout that. My uh-,” he pauses for what you can only assume is for dramatic effect, eyebrows raising suggestively with the cadence of his voice, “Lover here will take the grilled cheese.”

“Oh my g-,” before you can properly bemoan his terrible choice of words, his hand’s a gag over your mouth, rendering you speechless. 

“And I can get a couple pickles on the side with that? They’re her favorite.”  

He’s wearing that bastardly, self-satisfied grin that drives you mad in a myriad of ways, the one that makes it nearly impossible to decide if you want to slap it off him or shove your tongue down his throat. You choose to ignore the fact that he’d remembered your taste in snack food though, instead focusing your attention on licking his palm like a rabid dog to try and encourage him to free you. But he’s unperturbed, paying you no mind, and you can’t let him win this easily. 

“And I’m gonna do the AH-jesus,” you pinch his nipple between your fingers, letting your nail dig into the pink nub just the slightest bit, just enough to prove your point. You watch his expression molt between pain and annoyance, and then settle on something that nearly resembles a dare. His hand never leaves your mouth, and now, smirking, he balances the phone between his ear and his shoulder, snatching your wrist in the vice of his grip, both of his hands now occupied with keeping you still. 

“I’m gonna do the burger. No, no, cheddar’s fine. And uh - what d’you guys have for dessert?”

You struggle half-heartedly, smiling beneath his palm. His voice never strays from nonchalance as if he isn’t 

keeping a woman hostage right here in bed, “Can I get two a’those? Yeah, no, that’s everything. Alright. Thank you.” 

He frees you only when the other end goes quiet, phone dropping to the bed with a soft thunk. “Was the nipple pinch really necessary?”

He wipes his wet palm on your shoulder, clicking the receiver back in its worn, peach-colored place.  

“Was calling me lover?” 

“Hey, it’s accurate isn’t it?” 

You roll your eyes, pressing up from his chest to kneel at his side, arms outstretched above your head as you try to work out a knot in your back. You pretend not to notice the way his eyes fall to your tits. Predictable. “I guess.” 

“You guess? What -  you got someone else’s cum drippin’ outta you?” You forget how fast he can be when he needs to, but it’s a lesson you re-learn now, long, lean limbs put to quick work when he flips you down onto your back. He climbs on top of you, a predator capturing its prey, bracing his arms on either side of your head. 

You hate the girlish, love-sick giggle you let out, hoping you can mask it with a grotesque, scrunched up scowl, “Eww. Dude.” 

“Didn’t you hear you complain’ earlier.”

“Must you be so crass?”

“You love it.”

Yes. Yes, you really do. It’s a reminder you wish you could be spared, but your mind does the opposite, sinking its teeth into all the other countless pieces you love that comprise the sum of him. The drumming dance of his fingers when he’s jonesing for a cigarette. The way he hums under his breath when he’s lost himself to the minuteia of a mundane task. The contented noises he makes, involuntary and endearingly honest, nearly every time he eats, like he still can’t quite believe he gets to have nice things. The way the sun brings out the green-gold flecks in his eyes, and that high-pitched laugh you always try your hardest to summon, and the easy way he makes you feel safe just by being near you. But you don’t tell him of these things best kept. Instead you say, “What’d you get for dessert?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“How mysterious.” 

His eyes roam across you, nomadic in their attention, before he finally finds his way back to your gaze. He lowers his face to you, voice a conspiratory whisper as if the pair of you have a secret to keep, “Wanna make out until the food comes?” 

His words summon a smile to your face, fingers slowly tracing the faded outline of his star tattoo as you nod up at him, deeming speech unnecessary. 

He plants a kiss to the bridge of your nose first before his mouth takes its rightful place on yours, lips and tongue in languid tandem. You let his hands wander where they please, pried open and willing, let him take what he wants, give what he can, as you try to desperately smother your damning epiphany, to pretend these are the kinds of intimacies all friends share. Nothing more than that. 

The first thing Nathan notices about her is that she’s… a lot.

Like, a lot a lot.

A huff of something halfway between annoyance and amusement slips from his lips when his eyes fall from Sullivan’s on his usual pre-mission tangent towards the stained hotel carpet below, ‘70s yellow that has since become a flea-bitten brown— and he first catches sight of the pants. 

Bright, neon orange, bejeweled cargo pants.

For a stealth mission.

Brilliant. 

⋆⋆⋆

Once upon a time— Nathan Drake was a treasure hunter. Because, of course, that’s usually the way a good story starts.

Not necessarily because it’s true.

But if you were to believe that statement to be true, you might be fortunate enough to almost be correct. 

If you were to believe that Nathan Drake is a treasure hunter, at one point was maybe, possibly, most certainly a treasure hunter, had the ideal disposition, determination, intuition, perception, resilience, athleticism, charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and complexion to be a treasure hunter, you might also be right. 

But Nathan Drake isn’t a treasure hunter anymore.

Nathan Drake is your residential condom-baggier. Nathan Drake asks for cash or credit and tries not to fantasize about hanging himself off the slushie machine tap. Nathan Drake is a worthless, piece of shit loser. Because life decided Nathan Drake doesn’t get to be anything else.

Because if you were to believe Nathan Drake was once worth something, you’d be dead fucking wrong.

Age 23 is an odd age for retirement, Nathan would hum and ha to himself in an empty living room, rain drizzling meek along the glass. T-minus one week post-‘funeral’, in quotes because there was nothing left to bury. And it wasn’t like Sam had any friends to mourn him, anyway. At least not under the technical definition. 

Michigan wasn’t enough of a real state to even fucking rain properly, let alone feel like a home; but fortunately, he now had all the time in the world to bide Shakespeare-ing sarcastic quips to no one. In fact, he hadn’t gotten a chance to do much of anything else— not since Sully kicked him to the curb and set him up with a house in the Upper Peninsula, bellowing back as he rolled his single suitcase of possessions onto the narrow porch and a thick roll of hundreds he had definitely stolen that it was time for Nate to get a normal life. 

And it was the first time since they met— and Victor had so quietly designated himself adoptive father— that he realized Sully might not know him as well as he thought. 

In fact, he might not know him at all. It’s not like there was anyone left to argue otherwise. 

Nathan would spend most of every day outside of it— his enclosure, he would gnashingly refer— scanning textbooks at the library, jotting useless notes on his palm for a job that’d never come, fantasizing about someone else’s past, someone destined with something beautiful to offer, someone better than him, boozing himself to sleep, skipping shifts, getting fired, starting fights, that one time where he tried to pick up smoking before realizing he couldn’t afford it… because he’d just gotten fired. 

Smiles rare, his last laugh a landmark he doesn’t even remember. And he never even once decided to go out and buy a table for his massive, empty, shitty apartment.

He did it all so he would be able to think about anything else but Him.

So he could feel like he was Him.

Because if anyone should’ve lived, it should’ve been—

⋆⋆⋆

“SAM!”

The midnight calm of a 1800 sq ft. two bedroom, two bathroom shatters under a scream— and the house swallows Nathan alive. A roof far too big for just one person to sleep under. A house that thrummed with ghosts, and every single one brought in a carry-on. Nate drowning into a mattress too small for the bedframe Sully bought. And he awakes with a start to his own demons screaming back.

The night is merciless around a twenty-four year old Nathan, feeling half his age and a third his height, the open blinds stabbing moonlight through open wounds like salt as soon as he awakens. It’s a night that’s happened a thousand times before. The lack of furniture makes him feel like he’s lacking territory in his own home, like he’s a stranger in another’s. And all of a sudden, he’s twelve again, in the times when Sam told them they were ‘house-sitting’. It’s just that the owners didn’t know. 

“It’s-all-my-fault-It’s-all-my-fault-It’s-all-my-fault—”

He’s squatting in his own fucking home. He’s a squatter in his own fucking life. 

And he holds himself with his words, with his arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, cooing himself, calming himself where no one else can, where everyone else who possibly could is dead or abandoned him— and he absolves his blame by giving the pain the world was too cruel to give anyone else but him.

“It’sallmyfaultit’sallmyfaultit’sallmyfault—”

His hand cracks hard across his face, and that’s when he first starts to hyperventilate.

Not again.

Nathan swore never again.

Sam would never be this weak.

“Stop fucking crying. Stop fucking crying.”

He murmurs frantically before he even starts, deep voice pitching high, pathetic, feminine, and he hates himself for it. He hates himself for it. And the moonlight stabs through this giant, empty house that Sully cosigned only because he felt sorry for him— and it reminds Nathan that he is a killer. He imagines too vividly what red might look like on the gray hardwood floors turned ghostly white.

What things Sam might say to him if he were still alive.

It’s a frantic rush, a battle against billowing comforters and tsunami-ing sheets, as Nate crawls to his knees on the bed. And he swore he never would again. He swore he never would again. But he does. And he almost laughs— how much Sam would make fun of him for something so pathetic.

‘Ya didn’t actually listen to all the garbage the sisters told you, did ya? I thought I raised ya bettah than that, bud.’

But he gets on his knees. And Nathan starts to pray. 

Nathan doesn’t believe in God, hell no. That’s what he tells himself. 

But he does believe in recompense. He believes in forgiveness. So his lips move in a nothing, nonsensical tangent, frantic, desperate, eyes shut tight against an outpouring of tears, shame tasting like blood in his mouth, tasting like a steel-toed kick in his gut. And he’d let every mercenary who has ever punched him, every bullet that has ever grazed, every woman that has ever thrown a drink in his face, he’d take all of it all over again if it meant not having to feel this way for a fucking second longer.

To be human is to sin, it’s what Sister Katherine always used to say, prattling on as Nathan folded and unfolded the top corner of whatever book he was currently reading in a guilt-ridden fidget. And never for a second, even when he was a child, did Nathan believe it. He loved history. He loved history because he loved people. And he believed in the inherent goodness of them. 

And that’s what makes this so terrible. It wasn’t inherent. Nathan chose this. Somehow Nathan chose to let his brother die. 

“It’s all my fault.”

And the night cracks hard, pain deserved, around him as his hand reels back once again.

⋆⋆⋆

He goes for midnight runs. That’s what he always used to do to get his mind off things.

It makes his chest burn and his throat sting and brings to mind desert dunes, roving sandstorms, cooler things, a cooler person than a little boy having a panic attack at four in the morning. Nathan chokes in winter air under the stiff, looming shadows of streetlamps, and if he had enough strength to believe it, he’d convince himself that it’s the exhaustion, not the anxiety that makes him breathe the way he does now.

Yeah. Yeah, sure, this helps. This definitely helps. The trembling hands must just be an aftershock. 

Mist and a mid-December fog collapse from his lungs as he scrambles for his phone— and finds the name he swore he’d never call again. The running helps. It does. 

It just never helps enough.

“H-hi, Sam… It’s me.”

Sam would probably make fun of him for the croak of his voice. Would definitely make fun of him for the croak in his voice. So maybe Nathan would say he’s just tired from working out, unlike some people, hiding himself from an instinctual smile. And maybe Sam would laugh. And then maybe Nathan wouldn’t want to die so badly.

“It’s Nathan. I’m sorry I’m calling again. I told you I wouldn’t, but you know I can’t keep promises,” The croak blooms into a laugh. “Ya know, I’m always gonna feel bad I didn’t end up taping those episodes of Miami Vice for you like I said I would. Maybe you wouldn't have had that klepto-stint in Juvie then.”

Another chuckle as he adjusts the slipping phone against his ear. For some reason, it can’t quite stay put.

“A-anyway, I just wanted to call you and say it was really fucked up for you to leave me like that. You’re an asshole and I hope it’s as bad as they say it is. I hope it’s worse, actually. I hope you can fucking hear me.”

His fingers are calloused and sweating and only spurn further tears as he wipes a runner from his cheek. Hate burns in his belly. Fire and rage and betrayal tearing his feeble skin to shreds below the surface. And he knows it’s nothing but anger, anger deserved, that makes him say the words he does.

“You know, maybe it’s better I killed you. You always said you wanted a badass death. D-do you remember that? Because I do. And you stupid fucking idiot, you knew lung cancer wouldn’t’ve done that.”

The next laughter buckles him, screams demonous. Venomous. Psychotic, if any of the neighbors decided to take their trash to the curb at this ridiculous hour. And Nathan almost wishes one of them would. He’d give anything to not be alone right now.

“Jesus, Sam, that would’ve been such a lame way to die.”

And he remarks with forked tongue just how pitiful it would be. How lame he always was. How maybe it’s just the lameness that Sam so sickly passed onto him that’s making him cry now. His final revenge. And he wishes Sam were still alive, so he could kill him with his bare hands for turning him so pathetic.

Because Nathan Drake doesn’t cry. Nathan Drake doesn’t fucking cry.

“Guess I gave you that, at least, right?”

And for some awful, imbecilic reason. Nate waits. Nathan waits like something might still be there on the other side to answer.

But there lives nothing there but silence, nothing but his own heart fluttering weakly in his chest, his hands squeaking wetly against the plastic, and his own breath: delicate as death. Nothing but the same haunting sound he’s heard a hundred times before— and the distinct ring of crunching, clattering tracks on the midnight train to nowhere. Maybe this time he’ll answer, he tells himself. Maybe this time the things he says will be so awful that Sam will wake from the dead just to spit something back—

“We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service—"

But not this time. It’s never this time.

The wind sweeps deadly and careless around him. Quiet, which makes it crueler. Rushing whispers in secret at such a foolish wish, or maybe just the universe itself telling Nathan to give it a rest. Stop caring. Stop trying. Just shut up already.

Stop fucking crying.

His breath releases in a ghost of air, and it only dawns on him now how cold it is. The fact that he didn’t even bother to bring a jacket. Fuck, how far from home is he? His head swivels in a nonsensical circle, seeing little else but the copy-paste townhouses on either side of the sparse, yellow street light, palms sweating and calming, logical breath only bringing further panic— because all logic tells him that he’s lost. 

What the hell is he supposed to do now? 

Light suddenly crests like a cracked yolk against the horizon, soaking the black in blue, and panic bleeds through him in a cold sweat. 

Jesus Christ, where the fuck is he? It’s already morning? 

And Nathan realizes… he’s going to be late for work again. 

And that’s when he starts to cry. 

He can’t be late again. He can’t be late again. He's gonna get fired. He can’t. Not for the fifth time in six months.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit—” He scrambles fruitlessly against the too-bright-too-bright screen of his phone, thumbs brutish and too big to find anything: something about a map, something about location tracking, geography, shit he knows, shit he loves, hell, maybe he’ll bring in donuts today, yeah, that’s it, and if he skips the morning shower he might be able to make it to his desk before Mrs. Stanson even walks in the building. Maybe he’ll start doing overtime. Night shifts. It’ll keep him too busy to break down in tears like this anymore.

Mania tears through his blood as his fingers move, fumbling for a moment and almost dropping it when he finally finds the map app icon. He jabs at it, adrenaline and chest heaving and hope has just cannonballed over the horizon by the time he finally realizes—

He doesn't even remember his address.

And Nathan Drake cries.

Nathan Drake fucking cries.

The cusping morning would be so beautiful if he had the strength to pull his hands from his eyes, phone spilling over and probably cracking down against the pavement. But Nate doesn’t care. His shallow breath feels so painful in his lungs, cold air on an open wound, and the ragged sounds and hiccuping rhythm of a full-throttle sob sound so foreign to him that, for a second, he can almost pretend he’s someone else. That this life is happening to anyone else but him.

Nathan’s not the victim. Nathan’s not the one who deserves to cry. 

Didn’t deserve to cry when he was the one who punched that kid over a fucking book. ‘You shouldn’t have been reading during prayer.’ ‘You were the one who started the fight.’ ‘If you keep acting like this, you’re going to end up just like your brother... your mother.’ And he’d smother his screams of injustice into a threadbare pillowcase riddled with moth holes. Not fair. Not fair. 

Nothing is ever fair. Why can’t something, anything in life ever be fucking fair?

But Sister Katherine was right back then. Which means she’s right right now. Nathan was born out of control. Slave to passion and anger and need. Would probably still choose to punch that little dipshit if he got a second chance. And hell, maybe it’s just practice for it when he reels back and punches the nearest streetlamp bare-knuckled. The abrupt attack rings dull, hollow, but the absence of sound is more than made up for by Nathan’s sharp wail of pain. 

And the… familiarity of it almost helps for a moment. For a second, he’s reminded of the thunk of body armor against his fist, monstrous monstera leaves, the bursting reds of exploding gunpowder, cooler things, a cooler person. A person he used to be. Nathan Drake: cool, coy, clever. Badass. A hero. A man.

A killer.

Somewhere in the neighborhood, a dog barks. The morning: still and gray. He’s going to be late for work. 

And he’s not Nathan Drake anymore. 

He’s just Nathan. 

He stoops down to retrieve his phone— he flinches, a spindle of spiderweb cracks jutting from the middle— and takes a deep, long, centering breath. Okay. He’s okay. He’s alive. He’s survived worse before. His sweatpants rustle as he wipes his weeping palms against the outer pockets and re-rightens his clothes. Pats his hair down. Rubs the last streaks of tears from his cheeks. Realizes he probably looks like a bum. Decides he’s going to go into work today, anyway.

And he tells himself: better a man who kills than not a man at all.

Because when Nathan cries, and cries, and cries in the same way he has every day for nearly a year now— tasting salt water and humidity on his tongue like the first morning in Panama when Sam nudged his shoulder, backpack draped casually, carelessly from the crook of his elbow, and told Nate, all mischievous smiles and twinkling evil eyes, that this would be a piece of cake— he doesn’t feel like a man.

And he would rather die than not be the man Sam said he could be.

He would rather die than be Nate Morgan again.

⋆⋆⋆

Nathan Drake finally wakes up in hell, and he knows this because there’s some God awful disco track playing the second he enters the building.

Once upon a time, Victor Sullivan picked up the goddamn phone. For the first time in twelve months, only a day after the memory of what happened to their mother started growing a little too sharp around the edges. The legacy he knew. The desire to follow. Rain drizzling meek across the glass.

Yet somehow, miraculously, as if by total and complete magic, as soon as he was on the one-way plane to Egypt, something slight in Nathan settled. Like it felt good to be himself again.

Like it felt good to be Nathan Drake.

“The Usekh collar of Nefertiti would historically be placed inside her sarcophagus with her mummified corpse. We find the tomb, we find the sarcophagus, we find a nice threeway split of a hundred fifty mil’. And I’ll finally have enough to pay my cell phone bill and block yer ass from ever callin’ me again— HA!”

What made the The Desert Flower such an outstanding first stop on his welcome home tour was that it was familiar, in that the horrible shag carpeting under his feet was just as matted, raggedy, and shit-scented as the billowing mustache still perpetually shellacked to Victor Sullivan’s upper lip, oozing bad jokes like gasoline from an old car and tap-dancing a trail of cigar smoke directly under the lobby’s freshly painted ‘No Smoking’ sign. 

“Victor, that doesn’t even make—” Nathan tries. 

“Nathaaan!” The problem is, as expected, the world is already off to the races without him. “There’s someone I wantcha to meet.”

And Nathan Drake tells himself he can learn to be a human being again. So long as it was to anyone but the girl with the neon orange, bejeweled cargo pants rolled up to the ankle, tapping toe to heel to the tune in the lobby’s back corner, sporting what could only be described as a winning celebrity lookalike award for Smurfette. 

“I wantcha to meet our fine n’ dandy mythos expert— HEY, BUTT-UH!”

And Nathan gets about 0.23 seconds to decipher the girl with the bright neon orange bejeweled cargo pants rolled up the ankle, tapping toe to heel to the tune in the lobby’s back corner, something metallic making turns in her bitty, bitty fist, before her head (unfortunately) whips up towards the pair of them, and she catches eye contact like a city bus ‘makes contact’ with a jaywalking pedestrian.

In the 0.237 seconds Nathan Drake gets to decipher the girl with the bright neon orange bejeweled cargo pants, before she ruins his life, Victor’s life, and those goddamn bright neon orange bejeweled cargo pants, rolled up to the ankle, with blood, he catches her eye and—

“This is—”

And what he finds there makes Nathan’s stomach…. curdle. 

“Shay Valentine! Mythos Expert and Master of Disguise!” 

Yet every seething darkness Nathan must've just hallucinated there blooms to fucking pixie dust the moment she opens her mouth. Her clenched fist: a sudden sprint into her pocket. 

“How’s it going, man? Flight okay? Minimal turbulence? Ate a peanut? You must be the blue-eyed bombshell Sully was talking about!” She practically pick-pockets Nathan’s hand from him in an attempt to shake it, a move so certain it rattles his very teeth in his skull. “What a fabulous pleasure!”

“Valentine…? What is that, a porn pseudonym?” Nathan grits venomlessly. 

“Oh! Why?” She smiles back, lilting so gosh-darn earnest, sugary-sweetly that for a moment, Nathan wonders if she’d squeak! like a rubber duckie if he finally gave in and squeezed. Her almond eyes frame to slivers. “Is ‘Drake’?”

“BWAHAHA!” 

“Yeah… Ha.”

Nathan uneasily mirrors Victor’s booming cannonball of a laugh, watching with squints of his own as Victor nearly bowling-strikes her over with a proud smack between the shoulder blades. She probably says something else entirely unfunny and Victor probably says equally unfunny in response and the whole thing is probably awful in this horrible, horrible, too-bright, shit-kicker motel 9,128 miles from home. 

But Nathan will never know it, because he’s too busy inspecting the ticking time bomb Sully brought because his favorite escort— Peggy, the one with no upper teeth— was probably too busy tying the bows on the little coke baggies back in the states. Very pro-small business.

The very first thing he’s struck by is, well… the height. Whatever strain at the back of his neck for attempting eye contact is far too willing to be bridged by rocking tip toes and grisly rimmed eyeliner as she stares back, scrunched into slivers from an impossibly wide smile. He’d mistake her for a coked-out cartoon raccoon if it wasn’t for the boobs. Haphazard freckles dotted across like strawberry seeds and a sea of hair completely at war with itself: blonde, blonde, blonde, and matted and frayed every which way— until it gets bored and decides it can’t afford the root touch-up a half-mile up Route 69. If Nathan unfocused his eyes, he could pretend she’s Short Round with the bowl cut. 

Again, Smurf hands. Smurf feet.

Damn, is the collar of Nefertiti even gonna fit in those things?

“Well, Nathan, I have a feeling you and I are going to be the best of friends… whaddaya think?” 

Again, a smile too wide to be real. Which is exactly how Nathan knows it isn’t. 

And Nathan is too jetlagged, too overwhelmed, too… underwhelmed, still a little tipsy from the cheap whiskey he vengefully charged to Sully’s credit card on the plane ride over to remember anything longer than three syllables. 

That’s why his name was such a knockout. Nath-an Drake. Three syllables. Easy peasy. It meant he’d never forget it. 

But Shay Valentine is not three syllables. Not even close. It’s not even two. 

It’s fucking four.

It’s sick is what it is. So Nathan doesn’t bother repeating it.

“Shay like… Shea Butter?”

And he finds himself a three syllable alternative, instead.

He sneers back as far as his lips will go in place of a proper smile, Victor guffawing satisfactorily from the sidelines. He considers whether he should’ve just stayed in Michigan.

“Shay like Shea Butter!” — Sang-song a-twitter like goddamn Tweety Bird. Like the lesser-known stripper Goddamn Liability.

And so Nathan Drake traps sight of the new girl. Her puckish eyes. Her fake-ass smile. Her fake-ass hair with the little dark roots at the top (in obvious hiding ground for devil horns) and eyelashes caked with so much mascara that he’s surprised her bottom lid doesn’t just collapse and her eyeball falls right out onto the floor— she’s short, so he probably wouldn’t even be able to catch it before it hit the ground— and he knows one thing for certain.

“Well, Shay-like-Shea-Butter, I think anything is possible—“ Making sure to force his grin just as big and blooming and welcoming and sugar-sweet as hers. Just to make sure she knows it’s fake. 

And maybe if he could convince himself as well as she’s convinced Victor, Nathan could tell himself this all was a miracle. The universe caving in and giving him exactly what he’s prayed for for 12 months, 3 days, 23 hours, and 46 minutes. 

"So long as you don’t get us eaten alive first.”