all you've got is gold
Written for August Fic Challenge 2023, Prompt: Golden. Can be Gen or Pre-Slash. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!
For once, they get the gold.
Hundreds of ancient golden coins clinking away in their hands, with gaudy golden jewelry set with equally gaudy gemstones in striking reds and blues and greens strung from their necks as they bask in this moment of celebration, of a treasure finally found without a single complication. Almost too easy, almost too perfect.
And, they discover, upon finally getting their loot out of the cavern it's spent the last few centuries hidden away in, it was, in fact, too easy.
Nate doesn't see them coming, but Sully does. At the last possible second, right before everything goes black.
And it's still black, when he wakes again.
His head hurts and his memory hazes in and out of bleary focus and for a brief moment he wonders what the hell he got up to last night to leave him with this much of a hangover. But, when he tries to move, he finds his arms and legs immobilized. There's a beat of panic before he works it out – captured, then. Tied. Blindfolded. He fights through the foggy nothingness in his head and vaguely remembers the treasure, realizing just a little too late that they weren't alone, remembers seeing Nate go down right before the hit to the head that had dropped him, too.
But this is hardly the first time his line of work has gotten him into trouble.
He focuses, listens for the sounds of his captors around him, for any clues as to where he is or how he can get out. Scuffs his shoes on what sounds like a cement floor – definitely not the rocky cavern in the mountains they'd been leaving, then. No, his shoulders rub against a cinderblock wall. Sounds of cars echoing overhead, so back in the city and somewhere underground. A basement maybe, or else a parking structure.
He can work with this.
But then he hears the breathing. Not his own.
"Sully?" he hears, and it's then that he realizes that he isn't alone. Nate is here, too, probably tied up in much the same way and coming to similar conclusions about their present situation. "You okay over there?"
"Oh, I'm just peachy, kid," he answers, struggling to get any give on the ropes around his wrist.
He hears the sound of Nate fumbling with them, too, and then a victorious sigh of relief when he must get himself free. Another moment of fighting with the ropes around his ankles and Nate is loose; Sully can hear the echoes of his movements as he crosses the small bit of space between them.
Nate's hands land on him, then, fighting with the ropes he's only succeeded in pulling tighter, but eventually they give. He pulls the blindfold away and finds that very little has changed – the room is still dark, only just barely illuminated by a very small window set high up on the wall glowing faintly with the light of the setting sun. Nate, hovering just in front of him, undoes the ties on his ankles and then meets his gaze – Sully sucks in a breath at the dark blood trail down the side of his face, the eye that's nearly swollen shut.
"They really did a number on you, huh?"
"You don't look much better," Nate counters, and Sully raises a hand to find that his head is still sluggishly bleeding, too, sticky with half-dried blood from where they'd hit him. Fuck. "Got any idea who the hell those guys were?"
"Does it matter? I can throw all the names in a hat and you can pick one if it'll make you feel better, but they've still got our gold and as long as we're stuck in this shithole, we can't do anything about it."
"Alright, alright," Nate says, moving away from him to fumble with the heavy, metal door across the room. "Take it easy." The lock does not give. "You made it ten hours crammed in the trunk of a very tiny car with me, so I know you're not giving up already."
Sully grumbles, gets to his feet. Nate circles the room, poking at walls like there's gonna be some damned pressure switch or something. He stops below the window, grins like it'll be any sort of help in this situation.
"Gimme a boost," he says as if that is any sort of a plan at all.
"Look, I know I call you a kid, but you are not, in fact, a child. No way you're fitting through that."
"Just… humor me," Nate answers with what Sully imagines is a very exasperated roll of his eyes, and Sully begrudgingly complies with his request. He leverages Nate up the wall with only a few cursory groans and complaints and holds tight. Even like this, Nate only barely manages to reach the lock, only barely manages to break it – luckily he does not also break the glass, because Sully would really not appreciate that mess raining down on his head. "Got it," he finally declares, lifting the pane and pulling himself up more in order to cautiously peer out. "Looks clear," he says, slowly starting to shimmy his way through the window. Turns out, he can fit, after all. Still, there is no way Sully can follow him out, not that way, he thinks, as Nate slinks beyond his reach.
There is nothing but silence, then, and doubt hits Sully like a semi-truck. Truthfully, there is a part of him that does not expect Nate to come back for him. As many times as he's left the kid hanging (the cargo plane, the auction house, Sam), he couldn't even blame him. Hell, he'd deserve it.
"Kid?" he calls out as loudly as he dares. "Nate?"
Silence.
Long, long, long minutes of silence.
Enough minutes that Sully stops keeping count of them.
The room grows darker as the light outside fades. He slides down the wall, wonders how long it'll be before their captors arrive and take issue with Nate's escape. Wonders if he'll be able to talk himself out of this situation like he's managed to in the past.
Silence.
And then, suddenly, sound. Far away at first, but slowly drawing closer.
Shouts. Crashes. Bangs. Gunshots? Explosions?
What the hell is going on out there?
Sully stands, backs himself against the wall just behind the range of the door, the last place he'd be spotted, ready to fight back as best he can given his lack of weapons.
But then silence again. Awkward fumblings at the door, at the lock before it slowly creaks open.
"Sully?"
"Kid?"
He dares to move around the door, genuinely awed to find Nate there. For him. "Didn't think I'd leave you here, did you?" he grins his stupid cocky grin and motions him out to freedom.
"For a minute," Sully confesses.
"We're partners," Nate reminds him, leading him through this maze of a building, through all the carnage Nate left to get to him. "No one gets left behind."
They find the bags of treasure on the way out.