"Just… close your eyes. This won't hurt a bit." He tried to pull the trigger, but his hands were shaking so much, he felt immobile. Useless. That familiar voice and figure that stood before him wasn't the man he didn't know, but it was the man he did know. Sullivan stood, pointing his gun at his innocent little protégé.
"No, no, no, no… No, please, don't… please." Nathan muttered, begging to be spared. "No, no, no…" BANG.
Nathan shot up with a jolt. His heart was beating at a fast pace. He covered his face with his hands. That was his third nightmare this week. If he kept this up, he'd never get any sleep at all. "Oh, God…" He began wiping his eyes dry. 'Wait a second. I was crying?' "Crying… I was crying…" He stretched out across his bed and stared at the cracks in the ceiling. His curtains were shielding his adjusted eyes from the blinding rays of the sun, but he could see well in the dim room. It was morning, obviously; 7:00am to be exact. Sometimes he'd get up this early and go back to sleep, but after the dream he just had, even taking a nap felt risky. Most times, Sully would be awake and walking around the apartment, and then he'd wake Nate up for their usual day to day routine of training.
A ringing noise sounded, bringing Nate back out of his own little world. It was the phone. He began to stir in his bed to get up, but it stopped ringing. There was a soft murmur, followed by the shuffling of shoes and then the soft creaking of the door. Nathan quickly got out of bed and peeked out his window. "Where are you trying to get without me, old man?" He climbed out his window and down the fire escape. There was no way of doing this quietly. The old man knew him. He knew him back in Cartagena, he knew him now. You really couldn't trick the guy.
Nathan still held onto his childish mind. His mind was filled with curiosity, filled to the brim, and he always needed to satisfy it. If no one else could provide the answer, he had to look for it himself, or ask the questions himself. Sully clearly didn't volunteer to give answers.
"…And here comes that kid, trailing after me." Sully lit a new cigar as he shook his head. Nate had to learn the hard way and Sully found this tedious to deal with. The kid had trust issues obviously, and he knew that, yet the kid followed him around like a lost puppy. At moments he'd want Sully close, and at times he pushed Sully away. Sullivan felt like a father, but to be a father would be too soft. He wasn't going soft was he? Not tough ol' Victor who could bench more than his weight! He opened the trunk of his car and put his bag in. He closed it roughly, and there stood the kid.
"You're gonna give me a goddamn heart attack, kid. What are you doing out of bed?"
"You going somewhere?"
"Yeah, obviously. Now, will you go back to the house?"
Nate shook his head. "Not 'til you tell me where you're heading."
Sully blew a puff of smoke in the air. Nate was hard headed and naïve in more ways than any other emotional, hormonal teenager his age. "Knowing that you're more inquisitive than I'd like you to be, you can tag along, but, ah, do me a favor and don't run around here in your underpants, kid, go get dressed." Nate chuckled before he ran back to the apartment. Sully shook his head and laughed to himself. The kid running around in his boxers and t-shirt made his morning for sure. A few more minutes went by and Nate came back fully dressed this time. He hopped into the car riding shotgun as usual.
"Sully, what does 'inquisitive' mean?" His seat belt clicked into place as Sully backed out of the lot. There he went with his questions again.
"It means you're curious about too many goddamn things." he looked at Nate and with his free hand ruffled up his hair, "You got your head in those books all day, you might as well do some reading; Need to improve that vocabulary a bit."
Nathan smirked. "I do have a very colorful vocabulary if that counts. So, where are we going anyways?"
Sully didn't look at him anymore. "A client requested me to obtain an artifact for them. Asked if I could bring a partner and I got the green light."
"Then why were you about to drive off without me?" The boy tried to make eye contact with the man, but he knew he wasn't going to look back at him.
"I remembered how terrified you were back on the roof in Cartagena. You looked like you'd just seen hell kid, in which case you did."
"I think I can handle that old man. I've grown up since then." Nathan put on his poker face. Truth was he was pretty terrified to even want to say 'yes' to him. Part of him wanted to stay back at the apartment and just wait for Sully to come home. But that part was the part of him he wanted to leave behind. He didn't wanna be that scared kid from Cartagena anymore. He wanted to be the kid that Sully always took on jobs. He wanted to be the one to make Sully proud.
"You promise you won't cry if you have to shoot someone?"
"I got this."
Victor began driving and Nate felt a tiny pang of nervousness. Was he really ready to take on such a big responsibility? He began to pray to God he was.
