A/N: I don't know where this came from but I've had an addiction to teen!nate fics lately so I guess here's my contribution.
It started in Cartagena, the day Victor Sullivan picked him up off his sorry ass and offered to be his mentor (for lack of a better term). A little mandatory tough-guy "I don't need your help" arguing later and Nate is following the strange crook out the door of the seedy dive bar to the curb, where Sullivan hails a cab.
It pulls up slowly and the driver rolls down the window, a puff of cigarette smoke seeping out into the air, mingling with the stench of alcohol from the bar. "Sully" tells him in broken Spanish the address of his hotel and the driver nods his head for them to get in. They slide into the back seat which stinks of cigarettes and booze. Sullivan busines himself trying to strike up conversation with the driver despite his god-awful understanding of the language. Nate, on the other hand, is just trying not to look too uncomfortable as he stares out the window, watching the city go by.
What the hell is he even doing here. God, if Sam knew his little brother was hopping into a cab with a random stranger (worse, a random, middle aged tourist with a mustache), he'd strangle him. Suddenly, he can't tell if it's a good thing or a really, really bad thing his brother is currently in jail. Sam's always been a better judge of character than he is. He wonders what his brother would think of Victor Sullivan.
Almost as if he can read Nate's mind, Sullivan nudges him with his elbow. Nate jumps at the unexpected jab in his ribs and scowls at the old crook, rubbing his side as if it hurt. Which it didn't.
"You got a place to stay, Kid?" Sullivan asks.
Nate is tempted to say yes just so he doesn't look desperate and technically it wouldn't be a lie. For a while after the cops hauled Sam off to prison, Nate paid for a hotel room with the money they'd managed to scrounge up over the previous months lifting cash and valuables off oblivious, rich tourists and black-out drunk thugs laying in alleyways. But once that stash got dangerously low, he packed up his and his brother's few belongings and scouted out somewhere else to stay. The best he could find was an abandoned church near the center of town. It wasn't in terrible condition and there were cots tucked away in a closet that he dragged out. Hell, it was even well insulated so he was never too cold or hot...but still. Just thinking of another night that dark, empty church makes him miserable.
So Nate buries his pride and tries to shake his head 'no'.
All he manages is to shrug impishly and say "Sorta" instead. That's more truthful anyway. Still, the look Sullivan gives him is one dangerously close to pity and Nate feels that familiar ball of defiance and embarassment swell up in his gut. He opens his mouth to once again remind Sullivan he doesn't need his help but the old fart cuts him off.
"Any family that'll be lookin' for ya?"
Nate frowns and crosses his arms. He'd thought Sullivan had worked out that family was a sore subject. Evidently not.
"Look, Kid, the only reason I'm even bringing it up is because I don't want your face showing up on goddam milk cartons while you're following me around. I never took too kindly to prison."
Nate cracks a smile. Fair enough. "No, no family that's looking for me." By the time he finds out about Sam, Nate will be long gone anyway. He's only sticking around long enough to pick up a few tricks of the trade, make a little cash, and then he's out of here.
The cab drops them off in front of a shabby hole-in-the-wall motel with peeling paint and more two boarded up windows, nuzzled between a bar on one side and a forclosed warehouse on the other.
Looks like home.
Sully pays their driver and the cab pulls away with a puff of exhaust and cigarette smoke. The kid is standing next to him on the curb, glancing around with that hard look on his face like he expects to be jumped at any time. Then again maybe he's not so wrong in this part of town. Still, Sully can't help but snort in amusement. "C'mon, you can crash on the couch."
Sully leads him up the fire-escape style metal steps at the side of the motel to the second landing. He pulls the key out of his pocket and unlocks the door marked with a faded 7. The door cracks open and he heads in, though the kid doesn't follow him. Sully pretends not to notice. Instead, he heads straight for the dingy kitchenette and pulls a beer out of the mini fridge and a take-out menu off the mysteriously sticky countertop. The whole thing's written in Spanish but there are photos and that works just as well. He picks up the phone and dials the number next to the clip art pizza.
As the phone rings, Sully peeks around the corner. Nate has finally wandered inside but he still looks shifty and out of place standing there in the middle of the room.
"Hola, ¿Qué desean Ustedes?"
"Uh, hola, do you have anyone there that speaks English?"
"¿Qué?"
"Uh, English. Ya know, Inglés."
"Lo siento, Señor pero-"
Nate, who has suddenly appeared in the kitchen, snatches the phone from Sully's hand with an irritated look. Glancing at the menu in Sully's hand, he says, "Hola, lo siento por eso. Quisiera un pizza de queso." There's a short pause and then Nate says, "Muchas gracias." He hangs up and turns to Sully with a raised eyebrow. "They know this phone number, must get deliveries here a lot. They'll be by later with the food."
Sully nods and takes a swig of his beer. "Thanks for the help."
The kid nods and wanders back out of the kitchenette, Sully gives him a moment before following after him.
"So lemme get this straight, you're what? Thirteen? And you know Latin, and speak two languages?"
"I'm fourteen," Nate corrects him, a little irritably. "And I speak four languages."
Admittedly, Sully gapes at him. "Four?"
"English, Spanish, Indonesian, and French."
"Not counting Latin..."
"No one speaks Latin," The kid counters, then as an afterthought, "Except priests."
"And where the hell did a little street urchin like yourself learn to speak four languages? Did the nuns insist on that too?" As soon as he says it, Sully worries he might have overstepped his bounds with the kid. But, surprisngly, Nate just snickers and shakes his head.
"I'm a fast learner."
"Guess so..." And a genius level IQ if you can pick up a language without studying.
The pizza arrives forty-five minutes later and Sullivan greets the delivery man at the door. "Gracias," he says, not even trying to sound authentic. He forks over a couple bills and an extra one for a tip and flops the greasy cardboard box on the counter in the kitchen. He doesn't bother with a plate, just drops down onto the couch with a beer in one hand a slice in the other.
Nate must be the most polite "street urchin" in Colombia because he, at least, grabs a paper towel to eat over (and a bottle of coke from the fridge since they seem to be conveniently out of beer all of a sudden. Crafty old bastard.) He takes a seat on the faded arm chair across from the couch and turns his attention to the staticy TV, marvelling at the presence of actual rabbit ears and round dials. It must be ancient. Unfortunately, not the kind of ancient he finds interesting, which usually involves lost treasures and pirate conspiracies.
Speaking of which.
Swallowing his mouthful of grease-soaked pizza, Nate leans forward in his chair and asks, "So what kind of work do you do?"
Sullivan snorts a laugh and puts his bottle down on the end table beside the couch, fishing for something in his pocket. Nate tenses up, half expecting a knife or a gun even though neither would fit. Sully obviously notices and slowly removes the lighter, showing it to him before lighting a cigar. Nate relaxes but shifts uncomfortably in the chair.
The smell of the cigar is a pungent, sickeningly sweet aroma that completely overpowers the pizza. Nate coughs and makes a face, which Sullivan ignores.
"What I do depends on the client," he says.
"Then what kind of clients do you take?"
Sullivan sits forward and chuckles. "The kind that pays well."
Nate's response is immediate. "Like Marlowe?" He can still feel the sting of her wrinkled old hand on his face.
"Ugh," Sullivan sits back again, the grin dropping from his face. "I didn't think she was the type to do something like that... I mean, I knew she was determined to get the ring back, but to try to kill a kid for it?" It seems like he's talking more to himself than to Nate. "Ah, anyway, yeah. In our line of work, sometimes you gotta deal with assholes. You get used to it."
Nate nods his head thoughtfully and takes a bite of his pizza. "So what's next then? Now that you're fired."
"Dunno," Sully puffs his cigar. "I'll make some calls in the morning, see if I can get any work lined up for us. But for now," he stands up and stretches, tossing the empty beer bottle in the garbage can. "I'm gonna hit the sack."
Nate raises his eyebrows and looks at the watch on his belt. "At nine-thirty?"
Sullivan gives a gruff laugh. "Listen, Kid, when you're my age, you'll understand." With that, he puts the cigar out and disappears into the bathroom, probably to change.
As soon as he's gone, Nate jumps to his feet.
Sully hopes the kid won't be weirded out when he walks out in a tank top and boxers. But then again, even if he does, he'll get over it. Sully's a notoriously light packer and he didn't bring much in the way of pajamas to Colombia with him. Maybe if he knew he was going to end up rooming with a paranoid fourteen year old, he would have, but he can't do much about it now.
Stepping out of the bathroom, Sully tosses his dirty clothes into his suitcase and has tugged down the blanket on the bed before he realizes there's a breeze in the room. The door is wide open and Nate is no where to be seen.
"Goddammit, Kid..."
The huge, wooden front doors of the church have always been rusted shut, their inner workings petrified over the years. However, the trapdoor from the steeple works like a charm. It's just a matter of shimmying across the rain gutter of the next building and landing the slightly perilous jump from there to the steeple to get inside. Piece of cake for Nathan Drake. (Ha! Sam would like that one.)
Once inside, Nate drops down from the rafters and strolls over to the platform where he's pushed aside the altar to set up a cot for himself. Funny, he thinks for the hundredth time since "moving in" here, that he of all people would choose to live in a church. He hated the orphanage and just about everyone there and this place has so many echoes of it. From the stained glass windows depicting Jesus with a halo of sunlight behind his head, to crosses mounted on the wall. As he gathers his and Sam's remaining belongings (which still fit comfortably in his satchel) Nate tries not to wonder if any of the nuns ever worried after he left. Not all of them were so terrible, he recalls.
Though most of them were. So uptight all the time.
Nate slides the last of Sam's books into his satchel and steps back to gaze-possibly one last time-at the little, rundown church he's called home for the last six months. Shaking his head, he turns and jogs toward the rope he hung from the rafters, climbing up with ease.
It's only then that he considers Sullivan.
Wait.
Did he leave the door open when he left?
Sully sits on the couch, tapping his thumb on the remote and watching thoughtlessly as the channels go by. Reaching over, he grabs the bottle of beer he's been nursing and takes a swig.
Damn kid.
Jogging up the steps to the second landing of the motel, Nate slows down and purposefully quiets his steps as he reaches for the door knob. Thankfully it's still unlocked. Pushing it open as noiselessly as possible, he's surprised to find the lights still on. And Sullivan sitting in the chair by the TV.
Nate stands in the doorway for a moment, not sure how to feel about the look the old man gives him. "I thought you were going to bed," he remarks, sidestepping into the room and closing the door behind him. But he doesn't get any closer, something in the back of his mind telling him he's screwed up somehow.
"I was," Sullivan agrees. "That is, until you ran off."
Nate blinks. "I didn't 'run off', I had to do some stuff."
"Stuff." Sully sighs and shakes his head. "Right. Well you didn't say you were leaving. A quick 'Hey, Sully, I'm headed out' would'a been nice."
Folding his arms, Nate makes face only an annoyed teenager can pull off. "I'm sorry, I was under the impression I could come and go at any time. I didn't realize I needed your permission to take a walk, Mom."
"Oh please." Sully stands up and ignores the way Nate visibly stiffens. "I'm goin' to bed, you do as you damn well please." With that, he flicks off the lights and the motel room is plunged into darkness, save for the flickering lights of the television. Goddam stupid teenage punk. Sully fully expects to hear the door slam at any second and for the kid to be gone.
He's shocked to hear nothing but the creak of springs inside the couch and a sound like a pencil on paper punctuated by a long sigh.
Sully wakes up to something stuck to his forehead. Brow furrowed, he rubs the sleep from his eyes and peels the sticky note off his face. Squinting in the dim light of morning, he reads what it says and immediately snorts in tired amusement.
Went for a walk, Mom
XOXO, Nate
Smart ass.
P.S. you snore
The kid walks in about an hour later, just as Sully has finished his breakfast of leftover takeout and hung up the phone with one of his many, many contacts. Nate steps in somewhat nervously, that same suspicious look in his face. As well as a bruise blossoming on his left eye.
"Whoa-ho, what the hell happened to you?"
He shrugs lamely. "Same old, same old." Even so, he's wearing a crooked smirk.
Sully chuckles and tosses him a slice of cold pizza. "Eat something, we've got a plane to catch."
"A plane?" Nate lowers himself into the chair across from him, sitting Indian style and takes a bite.
"Yeah, I called up some of my contacts this morning, like I said. One of them's just got word of a very interesting deal with a very wealthy client."
"And this friend of yours doesn't want to take the client themself?"
Heh, the kid's smart, Sully'll give him that. "He's a long time out of this business, Kid. An old Navy pal I used to partner up with every now and then for jobs, but he's married with a couple little ones now and living high on the hog somewhere out in California. He lets me know what hears though and keeps tabs for me."
"Nice guy." Nate doesn't sound all that impressed. "He do that out of the goodness of his heart?"
The line between intelligently-suspicious and paranoid is a thin one and this kid is definitely tottering right on that line. "He's a good guy," Sully assures him.
Nate snorts humorlessly. "A rare breed."
"Fair enough, but I trust him. He's never screwed me over."
Finally appeased, Nate shrugs. "If you say so. Where's this plane to?"
"You miss America, Kid? 'Cause that's where we're headed."
Apparently to Sullivan, "we have a plane to catch" actually means "I have my own plane but it's being kept in a hangar two hours from the city so let's get a move on". Which is how Nate ends up stuffed in the back of one of those little airline golf carts while Sully chats merrilly away to the golf-cart-thing's driver who clearly speaks no English whatsoever.
They pull up next to a hangar with a red and white stunt plane parked inside. Nate eagerly steps out of the cart and stretches his cramped legs while Sullivan thanks their driver and strolls over to his plane.
"A thing of beauty, ain't she?" He pats the side of the plane like it's made of gold. Nate slides up next to him to admire it but all he can see is the tiny spot of rust on the bottom of its right wing.
"Does it...run?" he asks, trying not to sound too offensive.
"Of course it runs, how do you think I got here?" Admittedly, that only makes him feel slightly better.
"And you do have your pilot's licence, right?"
Sullivan stops and folds his arms across his chest. "Yes. Now come on, don't you trust me?"
Nate gives him a look that says 'stupid question'. "More or less." Definitely less.
"Trust me, Kid, I'm a great pilot."
Uh huh. He'll believe it when he's sees it.
Sullivan turns out to be a half decent pilot. Nate wouldn't say he's "great" but he's not terrible, either. Except that he's way over confident with his skills.
Nate has seen people drive with one hand but when Sullivan lets go of the controls with both to light a cigar and then takes hold with only one, Nate almost loses his breakfast. There will probably be dents in the leather seat where he white knuckled the sides for years to come.
"So what're we after, anyway?" Nate asks, desperate for something to take his mind off the fact that they're practically skimming the peaks of mountains. It's probably only a slight exaggeration that he could touch them if he rolled down the window and reached out.
"Don't know yet, we've still gotta meet with the client."
"What, this 'buddy' of yours didn't tell you?"
"He doesn't know either."
"Great." Nate digs out his notebook to pass the time (and to keep from looking out the window at the view that's making him nauseous). "That doesn't sound shady at all."
"It is shady," Sully agrees. "Welcome to the business, Kid."
A/N: And that's all she wrote (for now?)
Let me know if you think I should continue.