Work Text:
Written for @unchartedseasons Spring Week for the following prompts:
10th/Monday: Puddles, Spring fling, Sky Blue, Taking a walk, Breezy
11th/Tuesday: Barefoot, Pastel colors, Thunderstorm, Vacation, Let your smile be your umbrella
12th/Wednesday: Sun-kissed, Baby animals, Gardening, Mauve, Nest
13th/Thursday: Barbecue, Bloom/Flowers, Mowing the lawn, Light pink, Umbrella
14th/Friday: Grass stains, Melt, Spring Cleaning, Orange, Refreshing
15th/Saturday: Ice cream, Sunshine, Floral, Yellow, Allergies
16th/Sunday: Lemonade, Rain showers, Green, Easter, Soak up the sun
Monday || Puddles
It’s raining in New Orleans when they finally arrive home.
A plate of food lies uneaten on the lounge table, next to a full glass of wine. Flies crawl sluggishly along the edges, avoiding the bits that are slowly turning green.
“Aw, you saved me leftovers?”
Elena pauses. She doesn’t laugh or smile. She stares at the plate and for a moment Nate thinks she isn’t going to reply. “I left in a hurry,” she says at last. She walks over to the plate and picks it up, carrying it away to the kitchen.
“Oh?” He gently places his bag on the ground.
“I thought you were in trouble.”
“Well, your Spidey sense was right.”
Elena stands at the sink, holding the plate. Nate walks slowly, hesitantly closer to her. “You were right, ‘lena. I was in trouble. And you saved–”
“God, this is disgusting.” Elena throws the fork into the sink. “I’m just going to throw the whole thing in the outside trash.”
“Let me do it,” Nate says hastily. “It’s raining out.”
Elena turns and her eyes lock on his. “What, you think I can’t handle the rain?”
“No, no, no,” Nate says. “No. Of course not. I just–” What he wouldn’t give for a hundred Shoreline soldiers with automatic weaponry right now. “I mean, come on. There’s – puddles.”
Elena frowns. “Puddles?”
“Yeah. You might get – wet.” At this point he can’t help but chance a cheeky eyebrow raise at the innuendo. Elena sighs and looks away, and he tries to wrench his face back to a neutral expression. “Come on. Let me do it. You just – relax. Take a hot shower.”
Elena hums gently, still not meeting his eyes.
“I’ll unpack, clean up a little, maybe order a little takeout…”
Elena turns and starts walking to the bathroom.
“Hey, whoa, hold up there, cowgirl!”
She stops at the bottom of the stairs and turns to look at him.
“Are we – okay?”
A beat. “Sure.”
Tuesday || Thunderstorm
Nate has never had an itch that he didn’t want to scratch. Pimples are squeezed. Mosquito bites are rubbed raw. Scabs are picked open again and again and again until they scar. In his younger days, flirtatious looks from across the bar were swiftly followed up. Mysterious clues to lost cities pierced his subconscious like knives.
“I thought we were okay.”
Elena is hunched over her desk, tapping furiously at her keyboard. “We are.”
Nate leans on the doorframe. “Well, it doesn’t feel okay.”
“Look, Nate, can we talk about this later? I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“The article? I thought you finished that.”
“Yeah, well, I did, but my editor sent me a bunch of notes that I didn’t get because I was off in goddamn…”
“Okay, I get it. We’ll talk later.”
“Thank you.”
Nate takes a step forward, running his hand along the wall. The rain is pounding at the windows. “So, what exactly are we talking about later?”
“Huh?”
“Well, you said we’re okay. So if we’re okay, what is there to talk about?”
Elena clicks her tongue. “You tell me.”
“Well, I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
The save screen pops up on Elena’s laptop. She swings around in the chair, crossing her arms. “Go ahead.”
There it is. The scab is off. The blood is starting to pool. Nate steels himself. “You seem wrong.”
“Oh, really? Care to tell me what’s wrong with me?”
“No, that’s – that’s not what I meant. I mean you don’t seem like you. With me. We’re not us. We were. Back in New Devon. In the taxi. On the plane, even. But yesterday when you were cleaning the food–”
“It was mouldy.”
“Last night, in bed–”
“You were all sweaty, I told you.”
“This morning, when I made breakfast–”
“Jesus, Nate, are you going to nit-pick every tiny thing I do?”
“Look, I get it. You’re still mad with me. Because I lied to you. And I – I left you out–”
“I’m not five.”
“I left you out of my life. Of my thinking. Of my past. I cut you out and I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry. You deserved better from me. After all this time, you deserved better. And I wish I had told you–”
“Sure.”
“And I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. What I did was shitty and stupid and I don’t know why I did it–”
“Bullshit.”
THWACK.
The two stare at each other, stunned, the room illuminated in stark white before settling back to the cool light of the lamp. Seconds later, the sound of thunder rumbles across the landscape in the distance. Elena stands up and the two walk slowly to the window behind her desk.
“Thunderstorm,” Elena murmurs.
“Yeah.”
They stand next to each other, watching the rain pound at the windows.
“Are you going to hate me forever?” Nate says at last.
Elena hums. “Not forever.”
Wednesday || Nest
Bang bang bang.
The sound startles Nate awake. It’s dark and he’s disoriented. What was that – gunfire? Canons? The cliff falling down on top of him? He tries to get his bearings. The ground beneath him is cold and smooth. Ridged. Wet. He reaches down – damn, they’ve taken his guns.
“Sam?”
He blinks, trying to focus. Which way is up? He tries to move his head and smacks it against something cold.
“Christ. Sully?”
Where had they been? He tries desperately to remember. Libertalia. The pirate captains. The ship – but it had gone up into flames, hadn’t it? And Flynn was there, with his grenade. No, that was somewhere else. Had he been drugged? Marlowe?
“Nate? Are you okay in there?”
“Elena?” Her voice is muffled and sounds a million miles away, but it’s unmistakably her. Relief floods through him. “Thank God. Yes! Elena, I’m here!”
There’s a long pause. “Do you need me to come in?”
“What? Yes. Of course. I–” Nate stops as his vision finally starts to clear. It’s dark, but he can just make out the white tiling on the floor. In his hand is something soft and brown – a bath mat?
“Jesus, Nate, are you okay? Did you fall down?”
Nate looks up, and then left, which is actually up, to see Elena crouching over him. He blinks a few times. He slowly starts to register the dull, thudding pain in the back of his head. Elena slowly helps him to his feet. He’s in a bathroom. But which one?
“Oh my God, Nate. Look at you.” Elena reaches out and grabs his lower torso. A sharp pain follows and he winces. “Did you pass out?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess so.”
“Wow. Okay. There’s quite a lot of blood. Don’t panic. Just come with me.” Elena leads him out into the lounge. Okay, so he’s home. She leads him to the couch, and gently places him down. “I’m just going to get some bandages, okay?”
Nate sits on the couch, swaying slightly. He can hear the blood pulsing through his ears and it’s making him feel a little queasy. He looks down to see his jeans are unzipped. He goes to zip them up and a splash of blood falls on his hand.
“I’m bleeding on the couch,” Nate calls out.
Elena comes back in briskly, carrying her medical first-aid kit. “Screw the couch.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She quietly cleans his forehead, carefully avoiding pressing down too hard. Nate smiles ruefully at how familiar it feels. She bandages his head, one hand resting gently on his shoulder. Warm and soft. He closes his eyes, revelling in her closeness.
“Hey, whoa, don’t pass out on me again.”
“I won’t,” Nate murmurs. “This just feels – nice.”
“Cracking your head open feels nice?” Elena shakes her head. “You are one of a kind, Nathan Drake.”
“No, I mean–” Being looked after. He catches himself before he says it. It sounds so silly.
“Feet up.”
“Bossy.” But he complies. Elena grabs a blanket from beside the couch and drapes it over him. “What am I, five?”
“You need to take it easy, Nate. If this happens again, I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Nate rolls his eyes, but the couch is comfy and the blanket is soft and he can’t help but nestle in. After all, he doesn’t have to be back at the marine until next week.
Thursday || Bloom
“What are you doing?”
Nate freezes, his hand still on the doorknob. He’d been trying to close it as softly as he could. It must be later in the morning than he realized. He slowly turns around to see Elena standing in front of him, her forehead knotted into a frown, He suddenly feels five again, face to face with Sister Catherine after a night out with Sam. Or fifteen, with a heart-shaped chocolate for a Colombian girl who laughs in his face.
“Nothing.” He slides his car keys into his pocket.
“Nothing, huh?”
He steps sideways, his hands behind his back.
“What’s behind your back, huh? More nothing?”
“Uh. Yeah. Stacks of it.”
Elena hums. Nate realises the risks of feeling stupid outweigh the risks of another row.
“I picked flowers.”
A pause. “What?”
“I went for a drive. And I saw them. They made me think of you.”
Elena’s expression is unreadable. Her eyes are fixed on Nate’s face, scanning, up and down. Nate pulls out a bunch of wild flowers from behind his back.
“See? Yellow. Like your hair.” He points to a flower.
Elena shakes her head softly, but her eyes don’t leave his.
“Green and blue. The little flecks in your eyes.” He cocks his head. “Completely blue when you’re looking at the ocean somehow. Crazy.” He laughs softly. “Purple, my favourite colour on you. Red…” He trails off, glancing furtively up. “Okay, this one is a weed. I think. Yeah, definitely a weed. In fact–” He rubs the back of his head awkwardly. “In fact, they’re probably all weeds. Or poisonous. I don’t know. I actually don’t know plants here very well. Maybe we should plant a few. Get to know them. Introduce ourselves.” He coughs. “Okay, I’m rambling. I’m definitely rambling. It’s just that I saw them and I couldn’t stop thinking of you. And I wanted to show you. Or bring them to you. Because they’re so pretty but they’re still so tough. Beautiful and a thousand nails, you know? Like you.”
Elena raises an eyebrow. “A thousand nails, huh?”
“And beautiful. I said beautiful first.”
“Exactly a thousand?”
“I counted. Twice.”
“Hmmm.” Elena walks over and runs her hands over the petals. “They are pretty.”
“Sure are. Prettiest thing I ever did see,” he says, adopting a southern accent.
“Oh, stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“I can’t help it. You’re the–” He produces a white cluster of small flowers from the bunch. “Silverbell of the ball.”
“Okay, wow. That was bad. Quit while you’re ahead.”
“That sure is some–” He whips out a dusky pink flower. “Sage advice.”
“You know you’re not legally allowed to make Dad jokes until you’re actually a father, right?”
“Well, I guess I’ll have to–” He pulls out a dark green leaf. “I literally have no idea what this is.”
Elena rolls her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. She turns on her heel and heads to the kitchen. Nate grasps the flowers with both hands. “Relax, cowboy,” she calls over her shoulder. “I’m just getting a vase.”
Friday || Melt
Nate is lying on his back, his arms by his sides, his hands balled into fists.
Next to him, Elena is asleep. She’s curled in towards him. Her tank top has shifted ever so slightly, and her nipple is poking out into the cool evening air. Her lips are parted, and they’re glistening. He’s made fun of her countless times for drooling in her sleep, but tonight there’s just a thin layer of saliva, catching the moonlight from the gap in the curtains.
He’s as hard as a rock.
He tries not to think of what her lips feel like around him. The way she looks up at him and still manages a coy smile, despite her mouth being full. The way she teases him, pretending not to understand his grunts of frustration, relishing in his pleas. The way her breasts feel under his touch – the perfect handful.
He groans and reaches down to adjust himself. Somewhere in the process his hand slows, and he can’t help but give himself a gentle squeeze. Fuck.
Elena stirs next to him, and he snaps his hand away. He gazes across at her, and she shifts again. With a soft grunt she edges closer, pressing her chest against the side of his body and nestling in against his neck. It’s the closest they’ve been all week. Her hair smells so fresh and clean and it’s so soft against his neck. He breathes in slowly, carefully, taking in as much of her smell as she can. It’s so different from the dirt and the mud and the blood of New Devon, but it’s equally as intoxicating.
He shakes his head and tries to relax. Elena’s breathing is slow and steady against his neck. He closes his eyes and tries to match it. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. In and out of her…
Fuck. He huffs. There’s no way he’s ever going to be able to fall asleep at this rate. He reluctantly disentangles himself from Elena, carefully pushing her away, and slips out from under the covers. Five minute shower, jack himself off roughly, back to bed for more cuddles.
“Hey.” Elena voice is thick with sleep. “Wht’re y’doin?”
“Bathroom.” Nate is a little embarrassed at how husky his voice comes out.
“C’mping?”
Nate frowns. “Huh?”
“Going camping in there?”
Nate laughs softly. “Go back to sleep, honey. You’re still dreaming.”
Elena leans up on her elbows, a small smile spreading across her face. “You’re pitching quite a tent, is all.”
Nate feels his cheeks flush. “Yeah, well, it’s your fault actually.”
“Oh, really?”
“Your top came down in the night. Shameless.”
Elena glances down and laughs. “Sure you’ll be able to pee with that thing?”
“I was just going to – get rid of it.”
“Get rid of it?”
“Yeah.”
“Put it in drawer somewhere?”
“Something like that.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, back in a sec.”
“Nate.” Elena sits up. Her eyes flick down to his bulge and then back up to his face. “C’mere.”
Nate’s heart starts to thud like mad in his chest. He can feel the flush in his cheeks spreading down his neck. His boxers feel even tighter than they were a second ago, which he would have thought was impossible. “Yeah?”
Elena nods. “Yeah.”
He walks slowly over to the bed, all the tension and the frustration and the anger melting away, pooling into thick need. He climbs on top of Elena, carefully placing his hands on either side of her head and sliding his knee in between her thighs. They’re warm and soft and smooth and creamy and God he wants to bury his face between them. He leans down and slowly licks along her wet bottom lip. “Dribbler.”
Elena raises an eyebrow. “I thought you liked me wet.”
Nate’s laughter gets caught in his throat, a mix of surprise and amusement and arousal. “You got me there.”
Saturday || Sunshine
It’s sunset. On the street outside the house, a group of young boys are kicking around a white ball. Every now and then it gets precariously close to smashing a window. The boys guffaw guiltily, and for a short while the game is subdued, before quickly picking up its pace again. They’re using trashcans as a goal, although none of the boys seem to want to play the goalie, and the teams aren’t exactly fixed.
Nate stands on the corner, watching them fondly. He can’t remember ever playing outside on the street – they certainly weren’t allowed out of the orphanage at sunset – but he definitely recalls the youthful enthusiasm. The boundless energy. The competition.
He goes to adjust his holster out of habit. He crosses his arms instead and watches them argue loudly over whether you’re allowed to chuck someone from your own team, while one of the kids stands holding a bleeding nose. Another accidentally kicks the ball in frustration and the game erupts again, the problem momentarily benched.
He watches the kid with the bleeding nose grab a fistful of his t-shirt, roughly wipe away as much blood and mucus as he can, spit on the ground, and join back in the game.
They race wildly from side to side, crashing into each other recklessly. It’s a bastard mix of games, with arguments over the rules erupting every few minutes, yet somehow when the smallest kicks the ball resolutely through the trashcans, half of the boys erupt into cheers. He grins like a maniac and dashes through, immediately kicking the ball into a soaring arc over the heads of all in the group, directly towards Nate. Nate quickly intercepts, and with a controlled kick, sends it back into the middle of the group.
“Not bad, old man!”
The boys snicker and return to their game. He laughs too, taking the hit.
He watches as they tumble over, time and time again, popping up as if nothing has happened. He watches as knees get scraped, eyes get elbowed, hair gets tugged – “Hey, no fair!” – and still the game continues. The moment of pain is nothing compared to the exhilaration, and he can see the whites of their eyes even from where he’s standing.
“Boys! Sun’s almost down! Come inside now!”
Four of the boys run madly towards the house across the street and the game disintegrates. A few of the boys shake hands, but most laugh and kick their feet awkwardly before heading off to their respective houses. The evening is still warm and endlessly still, and the smell of cooking permeates the air.
“Nate? You hungry?”
Nate turns to see Elena standing at the door, holding two beers.
I almost didn’t this time.
If she didn’t, he could have picked himself up.
“Starved.”
He’s glad she did.
Sunday || Lemonade
They both wake up early, without an alarm. The sun is streaming through the curtains, filling the room with warmth and light, but it isn’t the sun that wakes them.
Madagascar is a million miles away, and Jameson Marine is tomorrow.
“Last day of freedom,” Nate murmurs, half-joking.
The sun beats down on them all day. Nate spends as much time as he can sorting everything for the next day. Cleaning his boots. Collecting his gear. Re-reading Jameson’s emails. Fixing the latch on the window.
“Is that really necessary right now?”
“Well, I won’t be around as much.”
“I can fix a window, Nate.”
“I know.”
Elena sighs. “C’mon. It’s a million degrees. Take a break.”
“Fine, I’ll come play with you. So demanding.”
Elena takes him by the hand and leads him outside to the front porch. Across the road, the boys have set up a lemonade stand.
“Want some?” Elena asks. “Actually, I think I have some lemons. We could make our own.”
“Those poor boys,” Nate says. “Just trying to make an honest dollar.”
“An honest five dollars.”
“Five dollars? You’re kidding. Let’s make our own. Undercut ‘em. Run them out of town.”
Elena laughs – rich and loud and golden and full – and Nate feels the pleasure of it hum through his body like fizzy bubbles. He could listen to that laugh forever.
“Fine,” he says, and makes a show of stomping across the street. He buys his lemonade – ten goddamn dollars – and brings it back to Elena with a flourish, and they settle down outside on the porch.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
The taste is so tart and so cloyingly sweet after weeks of dried food and hasty meals from dodgy street vendors that Nate splutters into his glass, spilling lemonade all down his chin. “Ah, jeez.”
“Allow me.” Elena closes the space between them and licks the lemonade off his chin in long, smooth strokes.
Nate groans. “Not in front of the children, ‘lena.”
“Scared?”
“Of getting arrested for public indecency? Kinda.”
Elena licks her lips. “Mmm. We wouldn’t want that. Jameson would be mad.”
Nate grunts. He doesn’t want to think of the stacks of paperwork waiting for him tomorrow. Eight to five. That day. And the next day. And every day after that. “You know, you’re supposed to make lemonade in summer, not the spring,” he says.
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“The ultimate authority on lemonade.”
“Yeah, but most people call me Nate.”
“Nate the Great, was it?”
“Nate the Greatest.”
“Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.”
“Fine, little miss know-it-all, what would your name be?”
Elena’s mouth falls open. “‘Little miss know it all’?”
“Really? That’s your stage name? Huh.”
Elena punches him in the shoulder, but she doesn’t take the bait. Instead, she smiles mysteriously, hiding her face behind her cup. “You know, I don’t think the marine will be quite as bad as you remember.”
“Is that so?” Nate can’t help but smile at her conspiratorial expression. “And why’s that?”
She shakes her head softly. “No way.” She takes his hand, and laces her fingers through his. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”