Universe: Uncharted
Characters/Themes: Nate (including bby!Nate - meaning 17) and Sully (young!Sully also, as you can guess); themes - hurt/comfort (obviously), friendship, family. Tag to Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, so spoilers!
Note: This is the first proper (good) story that I've written in ages! No srsly I tried to write a proper TR fic from the games but got like 2 pages in and quit. Well, here we are - a proper story, although for a different series of games: Uncharted. I've just finished the third game (ugh the fourth is gonna be ages) and it was amazing. And there had to be stories written. Parallels. bby!Nate being looked after by Sully. And parallel that to current events. And voila, this is the story. Hope you enjoy, and please review!
Nate is 17 and has been working with Sully for two years. Even though the kid has been with the older man since he had literally saved him in Cartagen and taken him on, he continued to be unsure of the precise nature, mainly in relationship terms, of their partnering.
Nevertheless, the two continue to take on jobs together, soon automatically covering one another in fights. But it isn't until Nate's life is truly threatened that he realises how much he means to his mentor.
It's not exactly an easy job to shoot people across a bridge. The concrete is an unspoken no-man's-land and, well, the thing itself doesn't look too stable to Nate anyway. Especially not now, after a few rounds of fire.
The teen glances to the other pillar that starts the bridge on their side, and watches as Sully draws back into cover and relodes his gun, grimacing. Nate can share his exasperation; they've been at this for nearly half an hour already. In Sully's words, 'goddamn back-stabbing client' had set them up and had a friggin army hunt them down. And, obviously, the way back is on the other side of the bridge where the sons of bitches are.
Sully catches Nate's eye and gestures over the pillar. "Less staring, more shooting, kid!" He yells before leaning over his cover and commencing the gunfight.
Nate nods, although Sully's already looked away, and quickly copies the over-cover attack, watching just long enough to see a heavily armoured guy with a goddamn SAS shotgun shrug off the fire and barely stop.
Right, tactic two.
The teen reaches over to where they dropped their stuff when attacked, and grabs a convenient grenade. He pulls out the key with his teeth and throws it mostly blindly over the pillar - the guy's too close to check.
He hears a satisfying blast and a quick glance round the side confirms the immediate threat is down. Smirking to himself, Nate resumes blind-firing over the top of his cover.
He only stops when the handgun runs out of ammo. "Shit," Nate curses, and chucks the gun away from him in disgust. However, there's an unexpected moment of silence, and Nate decides to take a chance.
Swiftly, he dodges out of his cover and around, reaching for dropped enemies' guns. But he snatches a hand away from a second machine gun and scrambles up in panic when a burst of fire smashes a railing next to where his head was.
On instinct, Nate fires in the direction of the attack without looking, and tries to hurry back to cover - he's gone further than he meant to; almost to the middle of the bridge, and is in a very vulnerable position.
Suddenly his feet disappear from under him as he trips on a body, and the teen lands hard on his stomach, face down, ears ringing and chin aching from the impact with the ground. He knows it's too late to move when he hears footsteps behind him and wildly wonders if this is a heroic way to go as stars and blackness dance in front of his eyes.
But there's no blazing pain when the gunshot rings out; instead, there's a panicked shout of "NATE!" and running footsteps, and Nate feels like maybe he's cared for a bit and maybe they won, and decides to try and move through pain. Only to freeze at Sully's next yell of "Behind you!"
He reacts too late, kicking out blindly into thin air, before he is dragged from the concrete by the scruff like a dog, and shaken hard, and punched harder, and then the weaponless brute finishes the torture by bodily throwing him at the railings of the bridge.
Pain explodes in his chest as the metal friggin dents at his impact, and Nate can barely do more than struggle to breathe and stare dazedly at the clouded sky. Until, that is, the guy looms over him again, grabs him by the shirt, and lifts him from the ground while the kid snatches at his throat in an attempt to push away the restriction.
"Hold on, kid!" Sully shouts from somewhere behind the giant, but the gunshots only make the guy growl in anger and he half-throws half-drops the boy away from him - too far. Nate barely has time to shout in terror before he smacks into the deep river below with harsh force and there's water everywhere.
"NATE!" Sully yells again, fear gripping his very heart as he sees the kid drop and disappear under the surface. He ignores the still-standing enemy and immediately runs to the bridge edge and vaults over the broken railing, landing in the cold water.
He surfaces quickly, gasping from the chill, and scans the area - water and bank - but finding no kid waving off the older man's concern.
Within seconds, Sully dives back underwater and looks around frantically, locating Nate a few feet away by both length and depth. The kid's barely struggling against drowning and Sully kicks out towards him as fast as possible, grabbing his arm the second he's within reach.
Nate immediately looks up, fear clearly written all over his face, and his eyes widen at the sight of Sully, mouth opening as if to call him before realising that they're still underwater, and he weakly struggles in renewed terror of the situation.
But Sully's grip is steady and firm, and he pulls the kid upwards with him. They break the surface together; Nate takes a breath that's still half water, choking, as Sully pulls them to the waterside. He hauls a coughing Nate up with him, and holds the kid close for a minute until he can breathe again.
He's shaking and panting, rubbing his chest with one hand while the other is unconsciously gripping Sully's sleeve in a vice-like hold. For his part, Sully just sits there, dripping wet and freezing, and lets the kid lean on him as they both catch their breath. He gently rubs Nate's shoulder while the kid's erratic gasping slow down, even as he remembers the enemy and scans the half broken bridge; but thankfully finding nothing.
Must've left them for dead, Sully thinks, relieved that they can finally get out of here. He is filled with a protective purpose: he wants to check Nate over, make sure the kid's just bruised and a little shocked, and look after him the way he has never with any other 'partner'.
Just as Sully's about to bring the kid back to awareness with a nudge, there's a crash and Nate's head snaps up. He and Sully watch in a weary silence as the ruined bridge finally gives up on its purpose of existence and collapses into the river, tumbling the bodies with it into a massive water-burial grave.
Nate just stares, then glances at Sully, the clear grateful look on his face now mixed with an unsure apology. Sully just shakes his head and sighs.
"This is why we can't have nice things, kid," he simply replies, and a half-smile flashes on Nate's face, frankly completing Sully's day. He pulls the kid up with him and they both get to their feet to begin the trek back to the car.
Nate keeps behind one of the pillar of Iram as he begins scanning the waterside for Talbot, but the guy is nowhere to be seen.
"Where is he?" Nate mutters, again looking around. He then catches a glimpse of metal, but instantly knows it's too late to move as the man points a gun directly at his head for the kill.
But the split-second Talbot fires, Sully appears as if out of nowhere beside him and violently shoves at the gun-hand, knocking the bullet completely off-target so it smashes into the pillar inches from Nate. He almost sighs silently in relief, but immediately tenses up again as Talbot turns angrily on Sully.
The ruthless man pistol-whips the elder, sending him to hands and knees in an attempt to stay - so to speak - standing in this fight. Nate steps out from the cover, towards Talbot on the other side of the pool, when he sees his friend go down. "Sully!"
Talbot looks straight at Nate and very deliberately pushes the fallen man into the water with a small kick.
Nate moves forward at a run immediately, with another more panicked shout of "SULLY!" He dives into the water and swims straight at his friend, grabbing Sully by the arm and causing the elder man to look up in surprise and clear gratitude.
Looking now at the vase-like treasure, Nate realises how to end this. He pulls the underwater gun they discovered earlier from Sully's holster and aims it as straight as he can at the crane that's pulling up the artifact.
He fires once, then twice, destroying first the mechanism then a nearby tower, which starts to fall everywhere. Then Nate lets go of the used gun, glances at Sully, and pulls them both up through the water.
They surface, and Nate scrambles up the side, dragging Sully onto ground with him. He puts a hand on the elder man's should as Sully soughs and sits up.
"Please tell me you didn't swallow any of that water," he says, rather desperately at this point.
Thankfully, Sully shakes his head as he gets his breath back. "I don't think so."
Nate nods in relief but they both look up at a loud crash, to see the collapsing building beginning to break the rest of the land with its shards. Sully sighs and gestures uselessly at the place falling apart around them. "This is why we can't have nice things!"
Nate looks at him and smiles that half-smile that speaks to Sully about how loyal the kid is now. "C'mon," he says, and helps Sully to his feet so they can escape the ruined mythical city together.