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WHO: Elena Fisher (

storyseeker) & Nathan Drake (

bookkeeper)
WHERE: Heropa
WHEN: Vague handwave
WHAT: When it turns out you have a future brother-in-law but he dead

[So. Nate's spontaneously reverted to significantly younger than she's used to. That's a thing. It's not nearly as disturbing as the fact that she never, ever heard of Sam before. It doesn't point to anything good. And it's not something she can talk about with him until—please, let 'until' be the right word—he goes back to normal.

Sipping her extra-early morning coffee, Elena loses herself in thought for a while before standing and going to check on Nate. Maybe today will be the day. There's nothing wrong with his younger self, but she misses the Nate she knows.]

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[ Is today that day? It seems like it is.

He's still asleep, sprawled out in their bed where she'd left him, shirtless. Best part? Nate's no longer considered scrawny and lean, which means he's back to himself— old as balls— back more muscled, shoulders broader, more filled out. Before she can open the door to the bedroom, he's coming awake, eyes opening to groggily stare at the wall while laying there with his back to her.

Talk about the weirdest dream ever. ]

[After she cracks open the door and gets a good look at him, Elena lets out a long, long sigh of relief. It's a little like a balloon deflating, but with more dignity.]

Morning, cowboy.

[She flicks the light on as she steps inside. Adjust or perish, Nate's eyes.]

How you feeling?

[Older? Buffer? More or less like himself?]

The hell—?

[ He’s cringing hard and looks like an offended squinty eyed mofo, shooting a look over his shoulder at her. How dare she. ]

What time is it that you need to turn the light on? Jesus.

[ But then he rolls onto his back and groans behind his hands dragging them a few times over his face. ]

How am I feeling? Like I could sleep another eight hours. Isn’t it Saturday? Why’re you up so early?

It's Tuesday.

[It is early, she'll grant him that. And she'll grant herself permission to give in to the relief sweeping through her as she moves sto sit on the edge of the bed beside him and rubbing his shoulder.]

Do you remember anything?

Tuesday. Tuesday? [ Nate jolts up onto an elbow, wide awake then, pushing up against her hand. ] How much time till I go to work?

[ But then at her question he's pausing, looking at her strangely. ]

Uh... [ Forgive him but he's still half asleep. ] Happy anniversary?

What? No. It's not our anniversary. I don't even know when that is.

[When they met in Panama? When they slept together in Panama? When they got back together here? Who knows.]

And don't worry, you're off for a few days. Sabbatical due to imPort problems, I guess they're prepared for that sort of thing. Seriously, do you not remember the last few days?

Obviously when you decked me for leaving you at the docks.

[ His sleepy grin was crooked, boyish (for someone so old), oh so charming, and this shirtless wonder with all his bodily scars and lean muscle let himself flop back down onto the bed. Because she was within reach he let his fingers move along her lower back. ]

No? Why? What did I miss? Was it important?

[Oh, come on, that's—okay, no, that actually might be something worth commemorating. But it's not the point.]

You could say that. [For once, his magic fingers are having absolutely no effect.] You were younger, Nate. For days, it was like you suddenly got rolled back to...I don't know, twenty-one? Twenty-two?

[ That's okay, it's not his intent on working magic with his fingers. It's mostly a habit whenever she's around, an unconscious need to be close or to touch her in some way, even with these little strokes.]

Twenty-two..? [ His fingers continue but now he's lifting his head to look at her. ] But I'm me, now. That doesn't make any sense. Alright, so, what was it like with me at twenty-two?

You weren't the only one it happened to. It was some bullshit with someone's powers, I bet.

[God. The world they live in now.]

And you were...let's go with cocky. I busted your chops a little when I proved I knew you beyond the smirking young treasure hunter front you put up, though.

It's always some bullshit with someone's powers. What other reason is there?

[ Things often go out of whack. Though on the rare day? Guess it messes with age.

Nate snorts and that cocky smirk is there. He's leaning up on both elbows, fingers slipping away from her. ]

Yeah? Cocky? Sounds like me. [ In more ways than one. ] Hey, I don't put up a front.

[He's not wrong about that, and she has to smile at the frank and true assessment—a small, lopsided smile that quickly fades.]

Oh, you? Never. Either way, once I got you to believe who I was, you had a lot to say about what you'd been up to.

[She hesitates for a moment, hands coming to rest on her knees.]

You talked about Sam.

You mean I didn’t believe that I had lucked out with the most beautiful girl in the world? [ He pauses, considers, and then half shrugs and nods at the same time. ] Okay, I could see that— [ And then he’s about ready to reach for her with an arm, the intent to sweep it around her waist and drag her to bed with him when her next words stop him dead. ] ... what?

[ ...no. No, that can’t be right. That... Something heavy sits in his throat and in his stomach. It was like she’d just sucker punched his diaphragm. ]

I didn’t. I— No.

[ Absolutely not. Nate begins then to move to his edge of the bed, blankets pushed back as he reaches down for his pants earlier thrown on the ground. ]

[She stays where she is for the moment, remaining still. The bomb she just dropped on him—the last thing he needs is to feel chased.]

Yeah.

I'm sorry, Nate. I wish I didn't have to tell you this. [Whatever his reasons for not mentioning Sam before...she's sure they're good ones. Especially if her suspicions about where Sam is are correct.] But not saying anything now would be lying to you.

[ He doesn’t say anything, pushing one leg in and then the other. Heavily he sits back down, pants hanging open, loose on his hips. Why would he tell her about Sam? Why couldn’t his younger self have kept his mouth shut? A hand scrubs over his face, pushes back through his hair to cup over the back of his neck. ]

You were probably better off doing that.

[She flushes at that, but doesn't look away. He's shocked, she gets it, but come on.]

That's not fair, Nate. I didn't pry into your past. You know I never have. But you can't ask me to walk around pretending, forever.

[ He's shocked, he's mad, he's just about everything right now. Nate hasn't thought of Sam in a long, long long long time. And now for her to suddenly bring him up?

The bed jolts as he pushes off of it, the shirt off the ground snapped up, yanking it over his head, arms shoved through as he's heading for the door. ]

Sam's dead, Elena. It doesn't matter.

[ She doesn't deserve the snappy tone and words, she doesn't deserve it one bit. But bringing up his dead brother out of nowhere, and all because he couldn't keep his mouth shut, that's what has him in a mood. ]

[And there it is, exactly what she suspected. His tone of voice doesn't bother her, nor the way he turns his back and puts physical distance between them. She just...aches, for Nate. Even if she didn't know this about him, she knows him, and however Sam died, she understands instinctively why he buried that part of life.

She pushes herself to her feet, padding over to him and resting one hand on his back. And says nothing.]

[ He was more than ready to stride out of that room, to put as much distance between them as if it would make the revelation less solid. But there she was following him. Nate hadn’t heard her get up or heard that one spot in the floor creak beneath her. Her hand presses lightly to his back and it stops him, even as he has a hand on the door frame. She says nothing, he says nothing, it’s just silence between them. Deafening. Words unspoken.

Nate squeezes his eyes shut as he keeps his back to her. ]

It was my fault.

['No, it's not,' nearly jumps out of her mouth immediately, and she bites the words back. She doesn't believe him—how could it have been? But she wasn't there. And this isn't about what she thinks or feels.

She keeps her voice low and soft.]

What happened?

Panama happened.

[ He'd meant it when they'd first met to retrieve Drake's journal that getting sent to a Panamanian prison wasn't the best of field trips. Now she knew why, bucket story aside. ]

Three of us went in. Only two of us got out.

[Elena has a lot of questions. But she's not sure any of them need to be asked. Between what she knows of him, his veiled reference to Panama soon after they'd met, and what he'd talked about while he was younger...it's enough.

Her heart feels so heavy.]

That's why you never talked about him.

What was the point? Sam's dead and I'm still alive. I'd just be reminding myself that I wasn't strong enough to pull him up, or that I hadn't tried hard enough.

[ Christ, it'd been so long since he'd thought of his brother. His dead brother. Now it was all coming back to him. ]

[Elena doesn't agree with that at all—what he's describing is a good way to get screwed up emotionally, and never really move on from the grief. Which is probably what happened.]

You're allowed to remember him, Nate. To miss him.

[She slides her hand a little around his arm, moving closer. She's not quite pressing a kiss to his back, but he can probably feel her breath. She's not going anywhere.]

I'm better off doing none of those things.

[ He's fighting it, trying so hard to not acknowledge him and the memories. After so long of keeping his brother's memory buried and living his life, pushing onward... This wasn't how he'd expected things to come up again. ]

[Elena doesn't agree. She doesn't agree at all.

But this is his pain. His burden to bear, so heavy for so long, and she doesn't think he'll set it down so easily. Doesn't think he would even know how.

She can't take it for him. Maybe she can help him with the weight, though. So she slides both arms around him this time, holding him safe and close. She's not going anywhere.]

[ Before Elena came into his life, the only ones who knew about Sam were Sully and Rafe. Once Sam was presumed gone, that was it, Nate moved on. He buried his guilts in a lot of ways, some ways he wasn't that proud of but what was he supposed to do with that grief other than the possibility of it consuming him whole? No one ever talked about Sam afterwards, his older brother was just a skeleton in the closet, locked away and dead to the world.

Now here she was, now she knew. And she was offering him what he had pushed away years ago from everyone else: support, comfort. What was he supposed to do with that?

One of the things he fought against in this moment was giving in and accepting what she was trying to give him. He'd never let anyone in the way he'd let her in; she was the one that had almost gotten away from him, in some ways. Of course that was through his own insecurities and thought process: abandon her before she abandoned him. They'd had something that was too good to be true, and it had scared him.

No, this scared him.

The weight at his back, the body heat seeping in through the thin layer of his shirt. The arms firmly set at his waist.

Heavy shoulders drop. His chest and throat are too tight to speak, to take in a breath. He says nothing as he turns, gaze skimming her face briefly, fleeting eye contact. Still, without a word, his face lowers to her shoulder, and there he feels like he's taking his first breath that's filled with the scent of her shampoo and the laundry soap they use, comfort drawn, and the emotion is choked in his throat that the sound is muffled against her, the hitch of breath that breaks quiet and pitiful, years of numbing grief held back. ]

Edited (it would probably help if I ]'d) 2019-03-23 03:57 (UTC)

[Even if there's still plenty about Nate, she knows instinctively what to do here, like the steps of a dance she once memorized then forgot she ever knew. It's not easy, but it is simple; he just needs her, steady and strong and here.

Her arms go around him again after their eyes meet and she catches him like he's falling. (Maybe he is.) For what feels like a long, long time, there's nothing but the quiet sounds of his grief in the room, for as long as he needs to make them. Elena wonders when the last time he cried like this was, or if he ever has.]

I'm here, Nate.

[Quiet but certain. She's here. She always will be.]

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In the right time era year thing chhyyyeaaahhhh

time is a flat circle, the calendar is an illusion

Flat earth society

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https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/658/613/d34.png

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i have a lot of feelings

as you should