
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/404370.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Uncharted
  Relationship:
      Nathan_Drake/Victor_Sullivan
  Character:
      Nathan_Drake, Victor_Sullivan
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-05-14 Words: 2256
****** honest thieves ******
by driedvoices
Summary
     Nate takes a spill off a rooftop. Sully doesn't handle it well.
There's nothing Nate hates more than waking up someplace and not knowing how he
got there.
Sully, now the proud owner of several tiny scars on his forearm in the precise
shape of a hung-over teenager's fingernails, learned this the hard way. That's
why he spends the night in a rickety old chair in Nate's room after he hauls
the kid back to the hotel. It's not 'cause—he's not worried. It's just that
he's had Nate around long enough to know that his temper is explosive, and he's
not sure that this shithole they're staying in could survive the impact.
And. That's a lot of bandages. Sully tilts the chair on its back legs and
waits.
Nate comes to at a little after three in the morning, gasping and groaning like
every breath is a gutpunch. "Goddamn," he says quietly, and runs a hand through
his hair.
Sully whistles to grab his attention. Nate sends an irate glare in his
direction, eyes squinted up against the jaundiced yellow lamplight. "Morning,
sunshine," he leers.
Nate gropes at the nightstand until he finds the switch to the lamp, and it
takes a few minutes for Sully's eyes to adjust, to see anything except Nate's
reaching arm, swathed in moonlight.
"Looks dark to me," Nate says, and Sully has to laugh. "What happened?"
"You fell," Sully tells him, clearing his throat. "Pretty fucking far." Nate
wrinkles his forehead, straining. "Like, off the top of a damn building far."
"Off—oh. I remember. I—ha, I guess I misjudged it a little."
"You think?"
Nate shrugs, the dim outline of his shoulders saying lay off. "I always think
there's more of me than there is."
Sully considers that for a minute: he never thinks twice about sending Nate out
to risk his neck, not until the hindsight kicks in, and he doesn't ever feel
like he's taking care of Nate, not in any way that counts. He never looks down
at Nate. It never occurred to him that he ought to.
"Me too," Sully says, and reaches for his lighter.
"Don't smoke in here," Nate gripes. "It stinks like hell." Sully rolls his eyes
and Nate looks around, starting to comprehend that the here they're in now
isn't the here they woke up in. "Where are we?"
"Hotel."
"Not the one we were in last night."
"The manager and I had a difference of opinion."
Nate snorts. "I bet. Did you—change my clothes?"
Sully shifts. "Are you covered in blood right now?" Nate's eyes look glassy in
the dark, colorless and reflective.
"You carried me back here." Sully thinks it's supposed to be a question.
"Nobody saw. Your dignity's intact." He should go back to his own room now.
Nate's awake and lucid and probably not concussed, and he's been up half the
night and he can enjoy a fucking cigar in his own room and not have to crack
the window or hear someone bitch incessantly, and even more, he won't have to
be having this conversation, won't have to watch Nate pick at a band-aid on his
face, look at him like he's some artifact on display that he hasn't figured out
how to get to yet.
He still remembers the way Nate looked at Drake's ring, under glass. Out of
reach.
Sully needs a drink.
Nate doesn't seem to care, though, because he just glares in Sully's direction.
"Cut the shit, I'm just trying to—"
"Trying to what?" Sully says. He wouldn't quite call it an explosion, but.
There are definitely people the next town over who heard that.
"To remember. Christ." Nate looks at him like he's grown another head. "What
did you think?"
Sully stands up and rolls out the crick in his neck. "I think my ass is numb
from sitting here to make sure you didn't wake up choking on your own blood.
I'm going to bed."
"No, you're not," Nate says, rocking up onto his knees and tugging on the hem
of Sully's shirt as he's walking to the door. "You're supposed to be straight
with me. No bullshit, right?"
And Sully is not such a horrible person that he thinks Nate is making that face
on purpose, that he has any comprehension of what he looks like right now, all
strained and pleading. Like it hurts him to ask for something, like he's
waiting for the kick in the ribs. That, historically, is Sully's one true Nate-
related weakness; he wants him to not want. For anything.
He stands still and stares at the door.
"Don't just—god." Nate gives a long-suffering sigh. "Have you always been such
an asshole?"
"Part of my charm."
"Well, stop trying to be charming," Nate commands. "I just want to—" He pauses,
gives a little huff of frustration and pulls on Sully's shirt again. When that
fails to garner results, he grabs Sully's wrist, enough calluses on his fingers
for a man twice his age. "Turn around. Look at me."
Sully tries hard to find the part of him that knows how to say no. He opens his
eyes and sees Nate's strange smile, and knows that part doesn't exist. "Happy
now, kid?"
"Not kid," Nate says with venom. "Not now." But he is a kid, still growing into
himself, even if he knows his history better than Sully does and has bouts of
solemnity that rival a few monks that Sully knew back in the day. Sully's
probably old enough to be his father as far as that goes, and that is an idea
that disturbs him on so many levels, because if Nate's not a kid, then—
Nate leans up and there is contact, glorious and amateur, and if he's not a kid
then that means that this is happening, that Sully is letting this happen,
actively destroying any and all evidence of morality he possesses.
Sully kisses back. Of fucking course he does. And Nate, he tenses up a little,
waiting for the punch-line, and Sully should take that as his cue to get the
hell out of dodge but he doesn't, and Nate uses those few seconds to wrap his
arms around Sully's neck and tug him down further. Sully lets his hands drift
down to Nate's sides awkwardly, and then less so, as he charts the outline of
his ribs through his t-shirt.
"Okay," says Nate when he pulls away, breathing shaky against Sully's neck.
"That was—unexpected."
"You started it," Sully points out, runs his fingers lightly over Nate's spine,
tries not to show just how much he likes the shiver he gets in response.
"I didn't think you'd—fuck. I figured you just walk out and we'd pretend I was
delirious or something."
"Not going anywhere, pal."
"Okay," Nate says again, a tinny laugh lurking in the back of his throat. "So,
I really didn't think this far ahead." His fingers wind themselves tighter in
Sully's shirt, while Sully tries to force his own to pull away.
"This is news?" he deadpans in lieu of success, and Nate gives him a withering
look.
"Shove it, Sullivan." His thumb has inched its way up, tracing illegible
sentiments onto Sully's clavicle. He keeps his eyes there, won't bring them up
to Sully's. "What happens now?"
Sully taps lightly on Nate's vertebrae. "Your move."
"That's a first," Nate grumbles, but he tilts his head up and tries his best to
stare Sully down, does a pretty admirable job considering the way he has to
crane his neck just to look him in the eye. "I want you to stay, for a start,"
he says, and lets go of Sully's shirt suddenly, scooting back on the bed to
give Sully room to sit.
There's Nate. There's the door. Just about equidistant, if you've got an eye
for that sort of thing.
Sully is a despicable human being. He sits down gingerly on the corner of the
bed, rolling his eyes when Nate tuts and nudges him with a foot. "You're still
pretty banged up," Sully argues.
"Doesn't mean you've got to quarantine me," Nate quips, grabbing Sully by the
wrist and tugging him up. "I haven't broken yet."
"Came pretty damn close," Sully gripes, but Nate just tugs again, pulls Sully
down on top of him and keeps pulling until Sully's close enough to kiss. And it
makes Sully sick to his stomach to think about it, but he can't help but
wondering who else Nate has done this with, has done anything with, because he
kisses like a teenager, yes, but a teenager who knows what he's getting into,
one who knows the preamble and the resolution. He tries to picture Nate with
anyone, anybody other than himself, and fails miserably. He gives a little
groan of frustration, and Nate gasps, lips stuttering. Sully pulls back to
breathe, to study Nate's face, all red-cheeks and blown pupils.
"You're really good at that," Nate says dimly, and flinches a little when
Sully's hand rests on his hip.
"Not my first rodeo, buddy," he responds. "You alright?"
"Not mine, either," Nate says, ignoring the question, and Sully wishes he
hadn't said anything at all. Nate's eyes are hard, glinting like old metal,
and—he hadn't meant it as a challenge, but Nate's obviously taking it like one,
and he pushes on Sully's shoulder until he flips, lands on his back with a
thud. And Sully is saying, "Nathan, Nate," and meaning, wait, think about this,
but all Nate does is grin up at him, say, "That's more like it," and stumble
his way down Sully's legs to fumble with his zipper.
"This isn't," Sully grits out, "fucking quid pro quo." His hands are knotted
tightly in the sheets, white-knuckled and pointedly not touching Nate, as if
that makes a difference, somehow.
"That's pretty much the extent of your Latin, isn't it?" Nate quips, and his
breath is hot on Sully's stomach. "Actually, that's kind of exactly what it is.
Only not the way you're thinking." And Sully wants to—defend himself, is the
phrase that comes to mind, which is contextually awful—but Nate grabs him by
the wrist and lays his hand on his head, and that's Nate's mouth on his dick,
and Sully groans, gives up and tightens his fingers in the knots of Nate's
hair.
Nate makes a tiny, wounded-animal noise in his throat at that, and it runs up
and down Sully's backbone. He keeps his hand on Nate's head, but he doesn't--
will not push him, even though he's pretty sure that's what Nate wants. It's
not bothering him too badly, though, because, Nate's lips have the same
confidence around him as they have around the shape of his history lessons, his
favorite curses. Everything he does is clumsy and deliberate, and when Nate
chokes a little, taking him in too deep, Sully hauls him up by his shirt collar
and comes with Nate pressed flush against him.
"Shit," he says finally, after a few too-long moments of panting, watching the
way his breath made Nate's hair flutter. "God, Nate."
"Gonna take that as a compliment," Nate says, muffled into Sully's neck. He's
still hard against Sully's leg, shaking a little, and Sully reaches a hand down
between them, gives a whispered "c'mere." Nate obliges, sighing, lets himself
be rolled over so that Sully can reach him more easily. But he keeps his
fingers tight around Sully's forearm.
"Why are you doing this?" he asks, low, and Sully pulls back like he's been
burned.
"I can stop, if—" Sully starts, immediately trying to put as much distance
between them as possibly, but Nate shakes his head and tugs Sully back to him.
"No. Really no. Don't stop, I just. I need to know. What it is, for you."
Sully gets Nate's fly unzipped and slips his hand underneath his boxers. Nate's
whole body goes stiff. "I," Sully says slowly, considering, while he pumps
Nate's cock, "am in the business of giving people what they want."
Nate chokes. "Not gonna last," he manages, arching up into Sully's hand. "What
do you want?"
If he told, Nate would laugh 'til he was blue in the face. Sully kisses him
instead, on his mouth and down his jaw, his neck. Nate comes when Sully scrapes
his teeth down at the juncture of his shoulder, biting down on his fist to keep
quiet. Sully wants to pull his hand away but doesn't, just watches as the
indentations of his teeth pale, then redden, shivering. He wipes his hand on
the bed sheets and grips Nate's shoulder, waits for his eyes to open. Nate
rests his forehead against Sully's chest, breathing heavy.
"You can go, you know," he mutters, turning away from Sully just slightly. "I
know you want to go back to your room and freak out about this."
Sully feels like he's been punched. "No. No, that's not—"
"It's okay, Sully. It's fine. Go smoke, go sit up all night. It's what—it's
probably what you need to do right now." Nate bumps his shoulder against
Sully's.
"I don't want to leave." I promised I wouldn't, he doesn't say.
"But you're gonna, so get over it." Nate bites down on his lip, then pushes
himself upright, not without effort. "But when you're done," he says, lips
quirked in a way that isn't quite a smile, "I'll still be here."
Sully goes out on the balcony, lights up a cigar. He wonders, vaguely, how long
Nate will keep waiting on him.
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