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Nate realizes he may have a problem when he can’t lift his arms above his head.
It’s certainly not the worst situation he’s ever found himself in but it definitely ranks up there with one of the most awkward. He could handle being tossed out of a plane and rattled around on a centuries old Spanish ship; hell, he could even handle playing cat-and-mouse with a giant helicopter trying to steal said Spanish ship but this…
This felt personal for some reason.
Their arrival at the resort had been met with more than a few raised eyebrows and hushed whispers as they staggered (well, he staggered, Sully sauntered) their way up to the front desk to request a room. They were both ragged, wet, and filthy and although the girl at the front desk greeted them with a warm smile, there was no hiding the brief flicker of shock in her expression when Sully flashed her a grin and inquired about a room.
Truth be told, they had more than enough gold hidden between them to buy the whole resort outright but there was the small matter of trying to keep a low profile and not do anything to raise the suspicions of the Philippine authorities that led them to keep that fact to themselves.
While Sully flirted and flaunted and made bedroom eyes at the girl behind the desk, regaling her with stories that were almost 100% false, Nate felt the crushing weight of everything they’d been through over the past fifteen hours start to sink in with all the grace and finesse of a sinkhole.
If he’d had even half an ounce of energy left in him he might have cut Sully’s performance short with a well-placed snarky comment or barb but he didn’t. Not because he didn’t want to (it was kind of fun to knock the older man down a peg or two every once it a while) but because he’d come to the stark conclusion that the last few dredges of adrenaline which were keeping him upright were rapidly ebbing away like the tide before a tsunami.
By his estimate he had 30, maybe 45 minutes before his body shut down completely and he just hoped it didn’t happen in the hotel lobby while Sully was flirting his way into getting them a deluxe room for the night.
Nate found himself leaning heavily against the reception desk, elbow sliding across the polished marble as his lean became deeper and deeper. He tried to play it off, shift into a position that made the lean seem casual and nonchalant, but it just caused a sharp pinch in his shoulder and he had to readjust frequently to alleviate the pain.
Sully finally seemed to notice his partner’s discomfort and slid the key to Nate, wordlessly shooing him away with the promise that he’d be up soon after he took care of a few things. Had he not been so exhausted Nate might have argued or at least asked a few questions to figure out what the other man was up to but he didn’t; he was tired and wet and everything was starting to ache all the way down to the bone. So he grabbed the key, offered a nod of thanks to the receptionist, and made his way to the elevators, his shoes squeaking with each step as he left a trail of wet footprints in his wake.
The room they’d been assigned was enormous, a sprawling cavern of a thing with a wall of windows opening out to the ocean on one side of the room. Large, leafy plants were tucked into the corners of the room, deep green leaves fluttering with the gentle sea breeze that drifted in through the open windows. A couch and a few accent chairs were arranged thoughtfully around the room and a bed that was easily four times the size of his tiny twin mattress was pressed up against the wall.
For a moment Nate just stared at the room, debating on whether he wanted to take a shower first or just walk over and collapse onto the bed and sleep for the next six days.
The room was equivalent to the one he and Chloe had shared the day before and he can’t help but think that one night in a place like this would probably pay for at least four months of rent for the matchbox apartment he lived in back in New York.
He had no idea how much it cost and he also had no idea who the poor tourist was that had their credit card swiped by Sully as they weaved their way through the crowd to get to the hotel. All he knew was that it was a shiny black card with probably some unfathomable credit limit so he doesn’t necessarily feel too bad about the dupe.
He couldn’t bring himself to crawl into bed and destroy the likely very expensive sheets with all the mud, blood, and sea water he was covered in so he shuffled his way to the bathroom with the plan of taking a shower first and then slipping into a coma.
And that’s where the problem starts.
The bathroom is large enough to warrant its own postal code and is opulent to the point of nearly being non-functional. Nate is not stupid by any stretch of the imagination but turning on the shower damn near requires a PhD in mechanics and its a whole lot more than his exhausted brain has the space or energy for at the moment.
It takes ten minutes to figure out how to turn on the shower without turning on the steam vent (although the steam vent turns on automatically a few seconds later which is just annoying) and then another ten minutes to figure out where the towels are because they had been so carefully and expertly hidden away that he feels like he’s searching for Megellan’s treasure all over again. He finds them eventually, tucked away in a little hidden compartment that only opens once you press the button closest to the shower which allows the small, neatly stacked towel rack to slide out just along the outside of the shower stall.
It shouldn’t be this much work for towels but he supposes he would have enjoyed the novelty of it if he didn’t feel like his bones were about to turn to sawdust.
In just a few minutes the room is full of thick, warm steam and it feels every bit like wading through cloud vapor as Nate closes the door and shuffles his way further into the room toward the shower. Of all the accomplishments he should be proud of from today, he takes the most pride in the fact that he figured out the shower without needing to call down to the front desk for the instruction manual. He’s also pretty proud of the fact that he’s still upright and functional after everything that happened and that alone feels like a notable achievement.
And then he gets stuck trying to pull his shirt over his head and everything goes rapidly downhill from there.
He’s only managed to get his shoes off before it happens, the wet boots thudding against the white, polished marble floor with a heavy ‘thunk’ when he manages to squeeze out of them. His socks are sopping wet and covered in a fine layer of grit and sand and there are splotches of blood around the heels which doesn’t really surprise him considering everything they’d been through. A quarter-sized hole is rubbed into the back of each heel, the wound raw and deep from repeated friction and pressure and it's a wonder he hasn’t noticed it until just that moment.
All the aches and pains that had been dulled by adrenaline are beginning to come alive with a vengeance and he hopes that maybe, just maybe, if he takes a hot shower it’ll help alleviate some of the pain he knows is coming.
Boots discarded and socks laying in a wet, sandy pile beside them, he goes to take off his shirt and immediately gets stuck halfway through the process. His arms lock up the second he tries to lift them above his head and for a brief, bewildering moment, the shirt gets tangled over his face and he’s effectively trapped.
Nate stumbles backwards, blinded as he is by the cotton hood that’s suddenly pressed over his face, and his back bounces against the wall which proves to be even worse. All at once pain explodes across his shoulders and down the length of his spine, intense enough that he momentarily sees white and it has nothing to do with the shirt over his face.
He manages to slowly, painfully pull his shirt back down, taking a deep, ragged breath of steam-filled air and letting it out as a cough. Whatever relief he thought he may get from the humid warmth of the bathroom is now actively trying to choke him to death and Nate might be a little more pissed about that if he wasn’t still reeling from the pain in his shoulder.
He twists carefully, catching sight of his reflection in the mirror and the entire expanse of his back and shoulders looks like one giant bruise. Purple, blue, maroon, and every color in between spreads across his skin, curving over his shoulder blades and wrapping around to paint his ribs on both sides with the same gruesome palette. The bruises look awful and the fact that the pain hasn’t even truly started to sink in yet is not promising.
Nate tries to pull off his shirt again and meets the same level of resistance and pain as the first time. His left shoulder locks the second it gets above chest-level and the pain is enough to make him dizzy. It’s the same arm Sully nearly yanked out of its socket when he’d caught him from plunging to his death from the helicopter and while Nate is really, really glad he didn’t meet the same fate as Braddock, he’s not enjoying the aftermath of the save.
The steam from the shower has filled the room to the point where visibility is practically opaque and Nate decides he needs to crack the door in order to let some of the steam out before he suffocates in a 5-star resort bathroom. That would be the ultimate irony of this whole situation, he thinks: survive death more times than he could count leading up to this point only to die by steam shower in a luxury resort.
He turns back toward the door and takes a step forward only to trip over the edge of one heavy, water-logged boot and go sprawling across the polished marble floor. The fall jars everything from his teeth to his toes and for a moment he just lays there, aching and immobile on the cold, tiled floor.
After several long, painful moments, he manages to push himself up on his elbow and reach over to push the door open a few inches, a billow of steam immediately rushing from the foggy bathroom and out into the massive room outside. The steam is still thick enough to be cut with a knife but Nate finds it easier to breathe when he’s closer to the cracked door which helps if only slightly. He also finds that he doesn’t have the energy to pull himself up off the floor so he struggles into a sitting position, presses his back against the walls which are now damp and slick with condensation, and that’s where he stays.
He’s exhausted, aching all over, and the steam is making him increasingly lightheaded and he’s suddenly aware that there’s a very real possibility he might pass out but he doesn’t have the strength to do much of anything other than sit there.
Something collides with the door to the hotel room just then, the impact heavy enough to rattle the bathroom wall just slightly. A short, sharp beep echoes from the doorway and through the crack in the bathroom door Nate sees Sully elbow his way into the room a second later, arms full of paper and plastic bags and an ice bucket balanced haphazardly against his chest. “Jeez kid, the least you could do was open the door instead of leaving me out there looking like an idiot. I’ve been knocking for ten minutes.”
Which is a lie.
Nate is painfully aware of how much time has passed since he’s been stuck in the bathroom and he definitely would have heard Sully knocking had the other man been outside the door for that long. Well, probably definitely; his thoughts are a little foggy right now so his certainty about some things is probably not where it should be.
“And to think, after all we’ve been through,” Sully rambles on, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Nate is not in the room and he’s lamenting his woes to no one. “I’d be offended if I…” Sully’s voice trails off as he seems to realize he’s talking to an empty room. “Nate?”
“In here,” Nate calls out and it’s only mildly concerning how thready his voice sounds.
He hears footsteps as Sully gets closer, the sound stopping just outside the door. “Might wanna cool it on the steam in there, kid, unless you’re trying to boil yourself-” Sully’s voice cuts off when he sees the cracked door and, more specifically, Nate slumped against the wall on the other side.
The door swings open instantly, a rush of steam flooding out into the hallway with an enthusiastic whoosh, and suddenly Sully is in front of him, dropping down onto his knees next to Nate. “Shit, kid, what the hell happened? Did you fall?”
“Something like that,” Nate mumbles back, closing his eyes and taking a deeper breath once a good portion of the steam has been flushed out of the room. It’s easier to breathe now which helps clear his head but he still feels weak and dizzy and doubts he’ll be able to attempt standing again for another few minutes.
“What happened?” Sully asks again, eyes flicking over the younger man quickly for any outward signs of distress or injury. “Are you hurt?”
Nate manages to shake his head. “I don’t know. I was trying to open the door to let some of the steam out but I tripped over my boots and well…” he makes a clumsy gesture with one hand at his sprawled posture, his hand feeling oddly heavy and boneless at the same time.
“Boots are obstacles now, got it,” Sully says, glancing between the aforementioned shoes and the younger man. “Can you stand?”
Nate wants to say yes, God, he wants to say yes, but he shakes his head instead. “Probably not, I feel like I’ve been hit by a train.”
“Or a Spanish ship,” Sully counters absently, scanning the room as if trying to come up with the easiest plan on how to get Nate off the floor without making things worse.
“Or a Spanish ship,” Nate parrots back and even though he’s mildly annoyed with the flippancy of the comment, it’s actually much more fitting. He chuckles, which hurts, but that just seems to be the kind of day he’s having.
Sully seems to come to some kind of conclusion and looks back at Nate after a moment. “Alright kid, here’s the plan. I’m gonna help you stand and we’re gonna move into the other room so you’re not blocking the door anymore. Fire hazard, Nate, read up on it.”
“You’re an ass,” Nate mutters but there’s no heat in his voice when he speaks, just fatigue.
“And you’re a toddler,” Sully counters easily, snaking one arm around Nate’s bruised back and getting a solid grip on him. “On the count of three, ready?”
Nate nods and Sully lifts on one which does nothing but make Nate groan deep and low as the shift in weight causes everything from his scalp to his feet seize up and ache all the way down to the bone. He stumbles a little, one shoulder bouncing against the wall and causing a fresh shockwave of pain to ripple through his back, and grips the back of Sully’s shirt so tight his knuckles go white.
“You said three,” Nate groans, desperately trying to catch his breath as the shift in position also causes a wave of vertigo that accompanies the painful tremors rattling through him.
“Yeah, well you were anticipating three,” Sully says, adjusting his position so he’s taking the bulk of Nate’s weight against his own body. “So it makes more sense to move on one when you’re not expecting it.”
“That’s horrible logic,” Nate mutters, struggling to steady his feet under him as he sways precariously against Sully’s side.
“Eh, maybe, but it still got you up off the floor,” Sully replies with a small shrug, turning slowly and carefully guiding Nate out of the bathroom.
It’s only a few short steps from the bathroom to the edge of the sprawling bed in the middle of the room but Nate is all too aware that he never would have been able to make that short distance on his own. By the time Sully deposits him rather haphazardly onto the edge of the mattress, Nate’s legs feel like they weigh about two hundred pounds each and the polished hardwood floors may as well have been quicksand for all the trudging he was doing toward the end. He stays upright though; he can give himself credit for that if nothing else.
“Stay here for a sec,” Sully tells him as if Nate really has the option or energy to move right now. The older man ducks away for a moment, slipping into the bathroom to turn off the shower and the steam vent, before returning less than a minute later. “We may not be paying the water bill but, you know, climate change and all that,” he mutters as he comes to a stop at the side of the bed.
Nate hasn’t moved. More specifically, Nate can’t move. Every bone, every joint, every muscle feels like it’s been pulverized and then jammed back in place and he’s never felt so exhausted and sore in all his life.
“You uh…you need to go to a hospital or something?” Sully asks and it’s clear that he’s concerned but it’s also clear that he’s never really been in this situation and is just kind of winging the responses at this point.
Nate shakes his head slowly. What he needs more than anything are painkillers and alcohol, something strong enough to make his teeth go numb preferably, and a very long nap and maybe he won’t feel like a fresh corpse at the end of it. “I’m fine, Sully, honest.”
Sully is not convinced. “You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘fine’, kid,” he says, walking over to the freshly filled ice bucket he’d carted in and dumping the contents out onto a hand towel he’d swiped from the bathroom. He folds the towel into a neat little ice pack and walks back over to the bed, passing it to Nate.
Nate takes it but doesn’t move to press it anywhere; the extent of the bruises and injuries to his body are pretty extensive and he can’t determine which part of him needs the ice the most at the moment. More than anything else, though, he needs to get out of his shirt. The cold, damp material is still clinging to his chest and shoulders and the stiffness of the saltwater in the fabric is making it itchy and rough against his battered skin.
Problem is, he’s already proven to himself that he can’t do it alone.
“Hey Sully,” he says and God, it sounds like a groan when he speaks.
“Yeah, kid?”
“I need your help with something.”
“Sure, whatever you need.”
“I need you to help me take my shirt off.”
Sully says nothing for a moment, staring at Nate as if making sure he heard him correctly. “I mean I could at least take you down to the bar for a couple drinks first-”
“Sully,” Nates whines, yes whines, because even though he knows Sully is probably using humor and sarcasm to cover up his concern, he desperately needs to get this shirt off otherwise he feels like he’s going to have a panic attack.
“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Sully says, taking a step forward and positioning himself beside Nate. “Alright, kid, just raise up your arms nice and slow and I’ll help you get the shirt off.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“I mean I can’t,” Nate says with an exasperated huff. “I tried to take my shirt off earlier to take a shower and I couldn’t even lift my arms above my head. It’s like they locked up at the shoulder.”
“Okay,” Sully says, mentally rearranging the plan in his head before he speaks again. “How far can you lift them now?”
Nate grits his teeth and attempts to lift his arms, managing to get them halfway raised before they lock up again. His left arm is the worst, the joint flaring in agony with any slight bit of pressure or weight and shooting a white-hot flash of pain from the tip of his shoulder blade all the way down to his wrist.
With Nate’s arms half lifted, Sully tries to grab the hem of his shirt to pull it over his head but a sharp, breathless gasp from Nate causes him to stop short. “Okay,” he says, releasing the shirt and stepping back to reevaluate the situation. “Okay, new plan,” he announces, walking over to the pile of bags he’d hauled into the room earlier.
Nate watches him with half-lidded eyes, his entire body buzzing from pain and fatigue. A few seconds later Sully comes back and stops in front of him.
“Alright kid, do you have any personal attachment to this shirt?”
“What?”
“The shirt, Nate, did your dad give it to you? Was it passed down from one generation to the next? Was it a gift from the Queen?”
“What? No, it was on the clearance rack at Target.”
“A travesty. And a discussion for another day,” Sully says, taking a step forward and taking hold of the hem of Nate’s shirt again. “Hold still.”
Nate doesn’t have time to stop him, barely has time to say, “wait, what are you-?!” before Sully flips out a pocket knife and slices through the fabric of his shirt in one long, straight line. The shirt falls away in a tattered heap and Nate would be relieved to be rid of it if Sully didn’t have a look of abject horror on his face.
“Holy shit…”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Nate tells him, which is a bold-faced lie but he doesn’t have it in him to deflect anymore than that at the moment.
“Yeah, I’d say it’s probably worse,” Sully counters, his eyes sweeping the expanse of bruises and cuts that sprawl across Nate’s back and sides. “Much worse. Kid, I don’t normally suggest this for a variety of legal and privacy reasons but I really think you should reconsider that hospital offer.”
“It’s not that bad, really,” Nate assures him, which is another lie, but he’s pretty adamant about not going to a hospital if at all possible. Hospitals tend to ask a lot of questions and he doesn’t think he has the brain space to answer all those questions right now. Besides, this is not the first time he’s had to tend to a few ugly bumps and bruises all on his own (New York is a rough city after all) and it’s easier to handle it himself than get other people involved.
Sully sighs heavily and throws up his hands in exasperation. “Fine, but if you pull a dick move and die from internal bleeding in the middle of this very nice resort I’m going to stuff your body in a trash chute.”
Nate chuckles, which still hurts, and tries to raise his left arm again to see if he has any kind of increased mobility with the shirt removed but is met with the same painful, limited success.
“Stop, stop,” Sully tells him, coming back to the side of the bed and leaning a little closer to inspect Nate’s shoulder. He reaches out and very carefully runs his hand over the curve of Nate’s shoulder, apologizing absently when the younger man hisses in pain. He measures the space between his spine and his shoulder blade with his thumb and index finger and then walks his hand up over the top of his shoulder to let his hand rest just above Nate’s collarbone.
“Looks like your shoulder is dislocated,” he says after a second, earning a frown from Nate at the diagnosis. “That’s probably why it hurts so much and keeps locking up on you.”
“Do you know how to reset it?” Nate asks after a second, wincing at the weight of Sully’s hand resting on top of his shoulder.
“Oh yeah,” Sully tells him with a small nod. “Popping it back in isn’t the problem. The problem is that it’s going to hurt and should really be done by someone with a medical degree and not…well, me.”
“I trust you,” Nate says and in spite of himself, he means it. He really does trust Sully after all they’ve been through and he trusts him to do this now.
Sully appears humbled by the remark, staring at Nate wordlessly for a moment before finally nodding and stepping forward again. “Alright, kid, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He takes Nate’s arm as gently as possible, one hand closed around his wrist while the other wraps around his elbow. “Just keep your arm relaxed, okay?” he says as he carefully rotates Nate’s arm into the correct position.
Nate nods hesitantly because as much as he’s trying to stay relaxed and calm, the pain in his shoulder is beginning to make him nauseous and he’s relatively certain the hotel staff will be very upset about having to clean vomit out of the linens.
“Alright,” Sully says, repositioning his hands just a bit to get a better grip on Nate’s arm. “We’re gonna do this nice and slow, okay? I’ll be as careful as I can but when it pops back in it’s probably gonna hurt, kid, just giving you a heads up.”
“I’ll be fine,” Nate tells him and they both know he’s full of shit but neither of them say anything about it.
Sully nods once and slowly rotates Nate’s arm out to the side, guiding his elbow back to where it’s tucked in against his side. The motion tugs at something deep in Nate’s shoulder and the fingers of his right hand tangle in the blankets hanging over the edge of the bed. Sully sees this but doesn’t comment, continuing to carefully guide Nate’s arm into the position he needs it to be in.
“Alright, just gonna turn your arm this way a little,” Sully tells him as he rotates Nate’s arm perpendicular to his body, pushing just slightly until he feels resistance. “Breathe, kid,” Sully mutters, nudging him with his knee, and Nate doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until that moment. He lets it out as a long, slow hiss and tries to keep his arm as relaxed as he can.
Sully stops then, eyeing Nate carefully before he continues. The younger man is unnervingly pale and sweaty and looks every bit like he’s about to be sick on the 1200 thread count sheets which is not something he wants to deal with.
“Aright, kid, take a deep breath because this next part might get a little painful.”
Nate nods, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes.
Taking that as his cue, Sully gently pushes up on his elbow, raising Nate’s shoulder and slowly rotating it inward until he can feel it settle back into the socket with a dull pop.
Nate lets out a low, painful groan and instinctively curls his arm into his chest, cradling it against his body with his uninjured arm. He slumps forward just slightly, his forehead bouncing against Sully’s chest, and the older man pats him on the head soothingly.
“You did good, kid,” Sully tells him, waiting until Nate is steady enough to sit up again before stepping back. He glances at the younger man’s arm cradled against his chest and winces in sympathy, snagging the makeshift ice pack from the bed and passing it to Nate, watching as he presses it against his injured shoulder gingerly.
“Thanks, Sully,” Nate tells him with a small nod of gratitude, doing his best to sit up a bit straighter to take some of the pressure off his aching ribs and back.
“Sure thing, kid,” Sully replies and as much as he wished it had come off as nonchalant, he’s pretty sure it falls flat. Because he’s staring at the myriad of bruises running along Nate’s back and down across the ridges of his ribs and coming to the conclusion that the other treasure hunter probably has more injuries he needs tending to and that if he’s insistent on forgoing a hospital then that dubious honor falls on him.
Sully sighs heavily and walks over to the courtesy phone sitting on the bedside table, plucking the receiver from the cradle and dialing the front desk. A receptionist picks up on the second ring and Sully immediately forces a smile into his voice. “Hi, this is Mr. Benton in Room 3812. Oh, yes, the room is excellent, thank you. Listen, I was wondering if it would be possible to send a small first aid kit to our room?”
Nate shoots him a bewildered look which Sully promptly ignores.
“Oh, no, no, everything is fine. My nephew got a little careless down at the beach earlier and ended up with a few scrapes and cuts while snorkeling near a reef.”
“Nephew?” Nate mouths, staring at him incredulously.
“Yeah, you know how clumsy kids can be,” Sully says with a laugh as he continues to ignore Nate’s increasingly confused gestures. “Especially when they’re doing stupid things just for the sake of doing them.”
Nate throws a pillow at him which Sully dodges easily.
“No, no, a physician won’t be necessary,” Sully continues with another smile as he picks up the pillow and lobs it back at Nate, catching the younger man in the face as his arms are still too stiff and sore to block it. “Just a few bandages and some peroxide if you have any. I’d hate for anything to become septic.”
Sully grins into the phone and nods at the receptionist’s confirmation. “Perfect, see you soon.” He places the phone back in its cradle and turns back to Nate. “It’s rude to interrupt when the grownups are talking, kid.”
“The hell was that?” Nate demands, leveling a glare at Sully that’s only half as intense as he wishes it was. “And ‘Mr. Benton’? Seriously?”
“Name on the credit card, kid; gotta keep up appearances if we’re going to keep this room.” Sully says, gesturing at the phone before looking back at Nate. “And that was me keeping your scrawny ass from going to the hospital. In case you haven’t noticed, kid, you look like a walking crash test dummy right now and the very least you could do is make sure none of the two hundred cuts and scrapes you have all over you get infected before we book it out of here. Pretty sure hospital staff will have some questions if you get blood poisoning thanks to a splinter from a lost Spanish ship.”
He turns and walks back over to the pile of bags he’d hauled in earlier, plucking a brightly printed paper bag from the middle of it and walking back over to hand it to Nate.
“Here,” he says as Nate takes the bag from him, suddenly weirdly self-conscious of the gesture. “I didn’t know what you wanted so I just got you a chicken sandwich from the cafe in the lobby.”
Nate opens the bag, the smell of grilled chicken drifting up from inside, and he suddenly realizes he’s starving. “Thanks,” he says with a small nod of appreciation, watching as Sully pulls out a similar bag from the pile and takes a seat in one of the decorative chairs strewn around the room.
Nate finishes his sandwich in what feels like just a few bites and becomes increasingly aware of Sully’s eyes on him from across the room. It makes him fidgety but he doesn’t give into the impulse because he knows it will hurt.
“So what’s up with you and hospitals, kid?” Sully asks finally, taking a thoughtful bite of his own sandwich and leaning back into the chair. “If I was as black and blue as you are I’d at least want the good drugs.”
Nate shrugs his right shoulder which still hurts but is much less stiff and sore than the left. “There’s nothing ‘up’ with me and hospitals. People just tend to ask a lot of questions when you go to the hospital and it usually just ends up being a giant waste of time when they send you home with a prescription for Tylenol and the suggestion to get some rest. Oh, and saying I don’t have any next of kin or an emergency contact is always a good invitation for a pity party. So no, I don’t have a thing with hospitals, I just don’t go to them unless it’s absolutely mandatory.”
Sully stares at him for a moment before pulling his hand up and shrinking down the space between his index finger and his thumb until they’re only about a millimeter away from touching. “You’re this close to ‘absolutely mandatory,’” Sully tells him as he drops his sandwich wrapper in the bag and wads it briefly before tossing it back up onto the table among all the other bags.
Nate offers a quiet chuckle in response and shakes his head. “What are you going to do, drag me there yourself?”
“If I have to.”
“Why?”
“The hell do you mean why? Maybe it’s because I’m smart enough not to listen to a snarky little shit who’s approach to serious bodily injury is equivalent to ‘jeez, I hope this isn’t fatal.’ Maybe it’s easier to drag your happy ass to a hospital than it is to figure out what to do with your body in the event you force yourself to die in the next seventeen hours. Or maybe it’s the fact that I already failed your brother, kid, and perhaps I’m not too keen on the idea of doing it a second time.”
The last part tumbles out in a quick, scattered mess and Sully refuses to look him in the eye once it’s out loud. Nate is still trying to wrap his head around what he said, grappling with the weight of it and the crushing sensation in his chest all over again, and he doesn’t have a chance to respond before there’s a quiet knock on the door and Sully is suddenly up and moving across the room to answer it before Nate can speak again.
The door closes again quietly a few seconds later and Sully reappears with yet another bag tucked under his arm. He walks over to the table where the other assortment of bags is laid out and dumps the contents out onto the tabletop, sifting through them and separating them out carefully. From his position on the edge of the bed, Nate can make out a small pile of bandages and gauze and a bottle of something he assumes is peroxide.
Sully grabs a handful of the gauze and the bottle and walks back over to the bed, depositing the supplies on the bedside table and nodding to Nate. “Alright, tough guy, turn around.”
“Sully…”
“Nate,” Sully replies and there’s no room for argument in his voice so Nate sighs and turns to where his back is facing the other man.
For a few moments there’s nothing but silence and the occasional crackle of paper as various bandages and patches of gauze are removed from their wrappers. It’s hypnotic in a way and Nate feels his thoughts growing fuzzy and thick the longer he sits there motionless.
Nate flinches briefly when Sully touches him for the first time, the older man’s hands wrapping around his ribs on either side of his torso. He walks his fingers over the planes and grooves of each bone, pressing gently here and there to test for bends or breaks. Nate sucks in a painful breath as a few particularly tender bruises are palpated and the muscles in his jaws are tight from where he’s clenching his teeth.
“Take a breath,” Sully instructs from behind him and Nate obeys wordlessly, taking a slow, deep breath that presses painfully against his ribs and Sully’s hands on his sides. The older man’s hands move about an inch lower, hovering over a nasty cluster of black and blue bruises that stretch across the lower portion of Nate’s ribs. “One more,” he says and again Nate obeys, taking another slow breath but this time letting it out as a ragged hiss when Sully’s fingers press into the tender, discolored skin a little too hard.
“Well the good news is I don’t think you broke any ribs,” Sully tells him as he pulls his hands away after a moment and turns back to the bedside table. “Got the shit kicked out of you but I don’t think anything is broken.”
“Okay, so what’s the bad news?” Nate asks because even though he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want the bad news, morbid curiosity is getting the better of him.
“Bad news is you got the shit kicked out of you,” Sully replies, planting a warm, solid hand against Nate’s right shoulder as he begins carefully dabbing at a few of the larger cuts and scrapes with a peroxide-soaked piece of gauze. He pauses when one particularly deep cut causes Nate to tense sharply and hiss long and low in his throat. “Breathe through it,” he tells him quietly, waiting until the younger man has relaxed a bit before continuing his ministrations.
“How’s it look?” Nate asks after another few moments of silence have passed, the pain and the quietness making him antsy.
Sully doesn’t answer at first, too busy focusing on a long, semi-deep scrape that extends from the younger man’s left hip all the way across his back to the bottom curve of his right shoulder. “Well, aside from the fact that you have enough splinters in your back to build a mini replica of the Magellan, I’d say not as bad as I initially thought. Still not great but that’s what we’re working with.”
There’s a soft rustle behind him and Nate turns in time to see Sully pull the pocket knife from the inner pocket of his pants and fish a tiny set of tweezers from one side of the bezel. “Alright, listen, this next part is gonna suck but it’s necessary. Just stay as still as you can, got it?”
Nate nods and retrieves the pillow he’d thrown (and had gotten smacked in the face with) earlier, hugging it to his chest and gripping the soft fabric loosely in preparation.
Sully works as quickly and gently as he can, plucking out what seems like hundreds of tiny wooden splinters and then dousing the wounds with peroxide. Most are shallow, only embedded in the skin a few millimeters beneath the surface, but there are a few that are much larger and slid deep under the skin to where it will hurt to pull it out. Sully leaves those for last because he knows damn good and well they’re going to hurt like hell and he highly doubts Nate would allow him to keep picking at his back after that.
He’ll give the kid credit, though; for all the pain he must be in right now he’s sitting remarkably still and only flinches and fidgets a couple times during the process.
Sully clears his throat briefly as he drops another splinter onto the bedside table. “I know I said it before and all but I really am sorry about your brother, kid.”
Nate stiffens a bit at the comment but says nothing.
Sully sighs and keeps talking because there’s really no point in stopping now. “Business like this doesn’t leave a lot of openings for friendships but Sam was my friend. Closest thing I’ve ever had to one, at least.”
“After he got shot,” he continues, trying to ignore the way Nate’s breath hitches when he speaks. “I tried to go back for him, just to bring his body back if nothing else. Figured the least I could do was give him a proper burial. But I couldn’t find his body. Searched everywhere for about three days and still couldn’t find it. I started to think, you know, maybe he made it out, maybe he managed to escape somehow and got to a hospital but…” Sully breaks off with another sigh and reaches for the gauze again. “That’s what I like to think happened, at least.”
Nate is silent for several long moments, back rigid and ramrod straight. He lets out a breath finally and the muscles in his shoulders seem to relax with the exhale. “When I was a kid, right after Sam left, I used to wait up for him every night. I’d sit by the window and stare outside, thinking he’d show up at any second and we’d get out of there. I’d find ways to sneak food into my room for him because in my head all I could think about was that he was probably going to be hungry when he came back so I wanted to make sure I had something waiting for him.”
He grimaces when Sully works out a longer splinter, a muttered apology following a second later, and goes still again. “I don’t remember when I stopped sneaking food into my room or when I stopped sitting by the window each night but eventually I just… stopped. I think at some point I came to terms with the fact that if Sam was going to come back, he would have by then and I just started thinking of ways to move on by myself.”
He glances back over his shoulder, catching Sully’s eye briefly. “Finding out this way wasn’t what I’d hoped for but…I can’t say it never crossed my mind. I never wanted to think about it too much but I think somewhere deep in my mind I knew I was never going to see my brother again.”
Sully offers a thoughtful hum in response and squeezes Nate’s right shoulder gently. “Well, I can tell you with all sincerity that your brother would be absolutely thrilled that you found that ship. And at the risk of sounding like a Hallmark movie, I can’t think of a better way to honor his memory than by fulfilling his dream.”
Nate smirks faintly and chuckles. “You know, that almost sounded like a compliment.”
“And you almost sound like you’ve gone through puberty. Shut up and hold still.”
Nate smirks again and obeys, tensing a few times when some of the larger splinters are worked out but managing to remain relatively still otherwise.
“And since we’re on the topic and you appear utterly incapable of taking care of yourself,” Sully continues after a moment. “I guess I’ll keep an eye on you for a little while since Sam’s not here to do it. I’ll even let you list me as your Emergency Contact.”
Nate lets out a derisive snort and shakes his head. “Please, I’m totally capable of taking care of myself. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“Clearly,” Sully says, thumping an ugly bruise near Nate’s shoulder blade and getting a hissed curse for his efforts.
“You did that on purpose,” Nate grinds out through clenched teeth.
“No shit.”
Sully spends the next few minutes working out the last of the larger splinters that have embedded themselves in Nate’s back, dropping them into a small, grotesque pile on the bedside table. When he feels sure that most, if not all, of them have been removed, he drops the tweezers onto the table as well and gives all the tiny puncture wounds one more dousing of peroxide before declaring the process completed.
And not a moment too soon, honestly, because Nate is teetering ever closer to unconsciousness with each passing second and fighting it off any longer is rapidly becoming a losing battle.
As if sensing this precarious grasp on consciousness, Sully walks back over to the pile of bags on the table and sifts through them briefly. “Don’t pass out yet,” he tells Nate over his shoulder which at this point seems like politely asking a hungry lion not to maul a wounded gazelle.
He finds what he’s looking for after a moment and walks back over to the bed, pressing a small, white tablet into the palm of Nate’s hand.
“What’s this?” Nate asks, looking from the mystery tablet up to Sully for clarification.
“Tylenol 3,” Sully tells him as he walks back over to the bedside table and begins clearing off the piles of bandage wrappers and splinters that are littered across the top. “Had a back injury a couple years ago and I keep a couple of those on hand in case it ever starts acting up again.”
“I always thought I wasn’t supposed to take candy from strangers.”
Sully stops and stares at him. “Look, if you’re going to be a smartass-”
Nate pops the pill in his mouth and swallows it dry.
The older man offers a small smirk and nods toward the bed. “Probably wanna go ahead and lay down, kid. That pill’s gonna kick you in the teeth here in just a few minutes.”
“Perfect,” Nate mumbles, already collapsing sideways as carefully as he can to avoid jarring his bruised ribs. Everything hurts still, his shoulder, his back, and all the fun bony prominences in between, but the bed is soft and comfortable and he feels himself sinking into the mattress without much effort.
Sully is still puttering around the room quietly, throwing away trash and absently organizing the clutter of bags on the table, but his movements are beginning to get fuzzy and Nate has a hard time following them after a few minutes. He thinks he hears him say something at one point, maybe asking him a question, but the full weight of exhaustion combined with the metaphorical upper cut of the Tylenol 3 has him drifting off before he even realizes it’s happening.
OOOOO
The next time Nate opens his eyes it’s to the sound of someone knocking on the door.
It takes several long, disorienting seconds for him to remember where he is and what happened. His face is mashed into the pillow so deeply it’s a wonder he didn’t suffocate and judging by the deep creases in his skin from the wrinkled sheets beneath him, it seems pretty clear he hasn’t moved in a while.
He groans as he tries to sit up, propping himself up with his right arm and feeling his elbow sink into the mattress. He’s still achy and stiff all over and feels very much like he’s been hit with a Buick but the pain is much more manageable today than it was…whenever they’d first gotten here.
He frowns, suddenly realizing he has no idea how long he’s been asleep. The sun is up outside so he knows he’s at least been here overnight but then he can’t be certain it hasn’t been longer than that. Hell, for all he knows this is day three and he’s finally coming out of his codeine and exhaustion induced coma. He figures the best person to ask would be Sully considering he was likely conscious during some of their stay.
The problem with that, however, is that Sully isn’t there.
The room is empty save for Nate and his waterlogged boots sitting on a chair against the opposite wall. All the bags and belongings are missing from the table across the room, swept away as if they’d never been there in the first place. There’s no sign of Sully, no sign that anyone has been in the room for hours, and Nate feels a hot, bitter weight begin to sink in his stomach.
Of course Sully had left again; why wouldn’t he? It would have been so easy to simply take off with the gold in the middle of the night when Nate was knocked unconscious with prescription painkillers and never look back. Sam had done it, Chloe had done it; why would he possibly think Sully wouldn’t do the exact same thing?
He bites back the angry tears that burn in his eyes and internally berates himself to being so naive and stupid. Sully made it clear from the very beginning that he was only in this for himself and yet Nate was still stupid enough to believe that maybe he would stick around. All that talk about him looking after Nate in Sam’s place was probably nothing more than a ruse to get Nate to put his guard down; it would be easier to steal the gold that way.
There’s another knock and this time Nate manages to push himself up fully, grimacing when the shift in weight tugs as the bruises across his ribs and back. He’s angry and hurt and reeling from yet another betrayal and if there is one more knock on the door he’s going to snap like a dry twig.
He yanks the door open with a huff, startling the young woman standing on the other side of the door. She smiles nervously and asks if he would like some fresh towels for the room and Nate feels some of his anger fade in that moment. It’s not her fault and it’s not fair to take out his pain and anger on her so he offers her a small smile, apologizes, and tells her no, they don’t need any fresh towels at the moment, thank you.
As the young woman shuffles away to the next room, Nate shuts the door quietly and lets himself lean against it for a moment, pressing his forehead into the cool, solidity of the wood and breathing through the wave of dizziness rippling through him. Between the lingering effects of the medication and the sudden change in position, his head is spinning a little and it takes a moment for him to feel steady again.
There are about a million thoughts running through his head at the moment (How the hell is he going to get home? Where can he get a passport around here? Where can he get clothes around here?) but the only thing he can think about right then is a shower. It defeated him once before but he’s determined to figure it out this time because if that’s the only level of control he has in this situation right now then by God, he’s going to take it.
He staggers into the bathroom and turns on the faucets again, only marginally more clear-headed this time around. The steam vent still kicks on again, which is annoying, but he just leaves the bathroom door cracked, figuring that’s a more effective way of managing the level of steam in the room rather than trying to figure out how to turn the damn thing off.
The water is so hot it scalds his skin pink after only a few seconds but Nate doesn’t care; the hotter the water, the less he thinks about the external and emotional pain swirling through him. He steps into the stall carefully, not bothering to take off his pants until he’s fully immersed in the stinging spray of the shower, figuring they need to be washed clean of the salt water and sand as well. When he finally manages to tug them off and set them to the side in the corner of the shower stall, a fine layer of grit and dirt is lining the bottom of the shower.
Despite the bite from some of the deeper scrapes and cuts along his back, the shower feels incredible and Nate stands under the hot spray for several long minutes, just letting the water wash away the layers of dirt and salt from his skin. He doesn’t remember the last time he enjoyed a hot shower like this; the hot water in his apartment building is dodgy at best and it wasn’t at all uncommon to go several days with nothing but lukewarm water sloshing around through the pipes. He takes advantage of it while he can for now, especially since he’s not the one paying the water bill at the end of the day.
Eventually, however, the combination of hot water, steam, and lingering fatigue begins to make him lightheaded and he fumbles for the faucets for a few seconds before shutting off the water. He snags a towel from the expertly hidden rack near the stall and dries off gingerly, mindful of the myriad of bruises and scrapes all over his body. Despite being clean, the heat of his skin and the rawness of some of the injuries makes the towel feel like sandpaper and he’s all but gritting his teeth by the time he’s dried off completely.
Nate steps out of the shower and retrieves his pants from the floor of the stall, wringing them out as much as possible before tugging them back on. Anyone who says nothing is impossible has never tried wiggling into wet jeans without making a complete ass of yourself in the process.
He’s right in the middle of ruffling his hair with a towel when he hears the telltale beep of a room key being scanned from outside the bathroom door. He frowns and inches closer to the door, peeking outside just in time to see the room door swing open.
Sully comes strolling in a second later, a paper coffee cup tucked in his hand. He strides into the room, sees the empty bed, and immediately turns back around. “Kid, if I find you passed out in the bathroom again, I swear to God-”
He jerks the bathroom door open only to come face-to-face with Nate, the younger man’s eyes wide with relief and confusion. “Oh good, at least you’re standing this time around.”
“You came back,” Nate mumbles breathlessly, still not quite comprehending what he’s seeing.
“Of course I came back,” Sully says with a small shake of his head like the very idea is ludicrous. “I left all my stuff in here, why the hell would I- whoa, whoa!” he exclaims, moving forward quickly to catch Nate as the younger man sags against the wall. The relief and disbelief is all too much all of a sudden and his legs feel like they’ve turned into rubber bands.
“Jesus, man, what is it with you and bathrooms?” Sully grumbles, looping one of Nate’s arms around his shoulders and gently steering him back into the room to deposit him in the nearest chair. “I’m starting to think I should get you one of those Life Alert necklaces if you’re going to become a fainting noblewoman everytime you go to take a shower.”
“I thought you left,” Nate manages to say after a few seconds have passed and he no longer feels like his head is up in the clouds.
Sully stares at him incredulously. “Yeah, of course I left. I went to get coffee because I stayed up all night making sure you didn’t up and die in the middle of the bed. A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”
“No,” Nate says, shaking his head slowly. “I mean I thought you left. Like packed up and took off again.”
Realization seems to sink in like a brick and Sully’s expression softens slightly. “Ahh, jeez, kid, I guess I could have left you a note or something before walking out. I didn’t even think about it.”
“It’s fine,” Nate tells him with a small wave of his hand as he slumps back into the chair. “Just not used to people coming back is all.”
“Well that’s not a gut punch or anything,” Sully mutters, walking a bit further into the room and setting his coffee cup down on the table he’d used the night (?) before. “But you can relax, kid, I’m not gonna leave you behind. Unless you become a gigantic pain in my ass, then I’ll just drop you on a corner somewhere with a dollar pinned to your shirt and a note that says ‘free to a good home.’”
“Lucky for you that would only be the second time that’s happened to me.”
“Jesus, your life is depressing,” Sully mumbles as he starts rummaging around in one of the drawers in the dresser beside the table. “You’re practically a walking soap opera.”
“Gotta be good at something, I guess,” Nate counters, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. “Hey, how long have I been asleep?”
Sully stops his rummaging to check his watch. “Hmm, sixteen, seventeen hours, give or take?”
“Sixteen hours?!”
“We have neighbors, Nathan.”
“You let me sleep for sixteen hours?” Nate says again, this time in a low hiss to avoid a noise complaint. “That’s practically a coma.”
“Okay, first of all, I didn’t let you do anything; there was no waking you up after that Tylenol 3 knocked you on your ass,” Sully explains, going back to his rummaging a few seconds later. “Second, it wasn’t a coma. Okay, maybe it kinda was, but it wasn’t like a legit coma. It was like coma lite; like if you wanted the benefits of a coma but not the full commitment of one so you ordered coma lite instead. Diet coma.”
“What the hell are you even talking about right now…?”
“The point is,” Sully continues, completely undaunted by Nate’s interruptions. “You got a good nap out of the deal and now you’re feeling better, right?”
“I guess…?”
“Great. Here, try this on.”
Nate catches the bag that’s tossed to him, wincing a little when the movement jars his stiff shoulder. It’s one of the bags he’d seen on the table the night before and he opens it curiously. “What’s this?” he asks, pulling out a wad of fabric and shaking it out briefly.
“Well, in civilized societies, we call that a shirt.”
“You bought me a shirt?”
“Well, it was either that or let you walk around topless like a frat boy on Spring Break. And considering I pulled a Sweeney Todd on your old shirt, it seems only fair to get you a new one.”
“Thanks,” Nate tells him earnestly, carefully pulling the shirt over his head and working it down over his bruised back and shoulders. It takes a bit longer than it should have but considering he’s working with only one arm at full capacity, he figures he can give himself some slack.
He also pretends not to notice the way Sully is glancing at him surreptitiously from across the room to see if Nate gets stuck again and he needs to intervene. Once the shirt is on and Nate hasn’t gotten himself stuck in a sleeve, Sully goes back to rummaging through the drawers.
“So what’s the plan now?’ Nate asks after a few seconds have passed, leaning back into the chair carefully to take some of the pressure off his bruised ribs.
“Well, we have a flight back to the States booked for Thursday so we have that to look forward to,” Sully begins, sparing him a glance over his shoulder as he speaks. “In the meantime I’ve been in contact with a couple of acquaintances about the gold you snuck off the ship. Touched base to get an idea of how best to slip it off to some museum or art gallery and take a healthy chunk of the profits for ourselves. Not all of it, of course, gotta keep a few coins back as souvenirs and all.”
Nate smirks and shakes his head slightly. “Never thought I’d say it but I’m actually looking forward to going back to my little rat hole apartment.”
“Mm.” Sully nods and closes the drawer, walking back around to the other side of the table and grabbing his coffee cup again. He takes a long gulp and sets it back down, clearly contemplating something.
“You know, kid,” he begins, making a careful point not to meet Nate’s eyes just yet. “I don’t usually work with other people. Partnerships are tricky and usually more trouble than they’re worth; hell, you saw how dodgy Chloe was and she’s one of the most trustworthy ones I’ve ever met. At least she never intentionally tried to kill me, just some light maiming, unlike Braddock who liked to stab just for funsies. Keep that in mind for the future, kid; for every Chloe there’s always going to be a Braddock.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, smartass,” Sully continues, finally turning to shoot a mildly annoyed glare in Nate’s direction. “You and I made a pretty good team. And I was thinking it might not be such a bad thing to keep you around for a while.”
Nate smirks again. “What, so you want to be full partners now?”
Sully rolls his eyes in response. “Christ, kid, it’s not like we’re gonna go co-sign on a mortgage. All I’m saying is that I have a couple jobs lined up and it probably wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of hands. Hell, if all else fails I’ll just use you as a scapegoat and get away scott free.”
“Wow, what a tempting offer,” Nate retorts dryly but there’s no heat in his voice when he replies. “What kind of jobs are we talkin’ here?”
“Oh, you know, the usual: the Treasure of Lima, the Florentine diamond, the Crown Jewels of Ireland, that sort of thing.”
Nate feels his eyes widen further with each example. “Seriously? You have tips for all of those?”
“Not just tips, kid, I have verified information.”
Nate sits up a bit straighter, grinning so broadly it makes his cheeks ache. “You’re kidding. I’ve only been reading about things like that since I was six.”
“Wow, and here I was thinking you would have been a Hardy Boys kid.”
“When do we start?”
“Alright, pump the brakes there, Jim Hawkins. How about we wait until you don’t look like you took on a trash compactor and lost.”
“Sully…” Nate whines but the older man shuts him up with a look.
“I’m serious, Nate,” Sully tells him as he drops down into the chair on the other side of the table, staring across at Nate. “I know you’re new to this whole treasure hunting business but if we’re going to work together you do things my way, got it? One thing you have to know, kid: there’s always someone else looking for the same treasure, always someone a couple steps ahead, and most of the time they have guns. Running into a situation half-assed will probably end up with one or both of us catching a bullet.”
“Don’t want that.”
“No, we don’t. So if we’re going to be partners in this then you need to follow my lead, alright? Tumbling out of a cargo plane is usually a one-time event so let’s try not to make it a habit moving forward.”
“Fair enough; that was probably my least favorite part of this trip, anyway.”
“Mm, real cute,” Sully comments as he finishes his coffee and tosses the paper cup in the trash can. There’s something Sully won’t say out loud but the implication is loud and clear if their conversation from the night before was anything to go on. He obviously still harbors a lot of guilt about Sam’s death and the whole ‘follow my lead’ and ‘do things my way’ bit feels like a thinly veiled way of saying ‘I lost one Drake already and I’m not looking to lose a second one.’
It’s sweet in a way and Nate vows to bug him about it more later. “So if we’re partners now that means we split things 50/50, right?”
Sully scoffs and kicks off his shoes before standing and making his way over to the other side of the bed. “Your ass, 50/50. I’ll say 70/30 since I’m the one getting the information and tracking down all the leads.”
“60/40 then,” Nate counters, watching as Sully flips back the blankets on the bed and makes a show of mashing the pillow a few times to soften it up. “In case you forgot, I was the one who finally tracked down the Magellan.”
“I practically pointed you in the right direction,” Sully protests but they both know that’s not true.
“Alright, well in that case I’d say you can keep the demolished ship at the bottom of the bay as your 70% and I’ll keep all the gold as my share. We both know that ship is worth ten times what the gold I smuggled off of it is worth.”
Sully sighs long and heavy and flops down on the bed. “Fine, fine, you smartass, 50/50. But I get first cut.”
Nate smirks in triumph. “Deal.”
“Good, now shut up,” Sully mutters as he pulls the blankets up over his shoulder and rolls over onto one side. “Staying awake all night to make sure you kept breathing was exhausting.”
“You just finished a whole cup of coffee and you’re going to take a nap?” Nate asks incredulously, glancing between the empty coffee cup in the trash can and Sully’s half-curled form on the bed. “What kind of psychopath…?”
“I’d fall asleep a lot faster if you stopped talking.”
“Yeah, yeah, sweet dreams.”
Less than five minutes later Sully is snoring and Nate is left alone to his own devices. He thinks he should probably get up and move around, shake out some of the soreness in his back and shoulders, but he also thinks it’s probably better to stay where he is and not venture too far from the room for the moment. Besides, Sully kept an eye on him while he was asleep earlier so he figures he can return the favor.
He stands slowly, swiping Sully’s cell phone from the table on his way up, and makes his way over to the other side of the bed, sinking slowly and carefully down onto the mattress and leaning back against the headboard. The bed is wide enough to occupy its own zip code in Manhattan so he doesn’t worry about disturbing Sully too much by stretching out on the other side of the mattress. Besides, sitting on the bed is much more comfortable than sitting in the stiff, decorative accent chairs and if it takes some of the pressure off his aching ribs and back he’ll make the switch.
There isn’t much information on the Florentine Diamond but Nate figures it can’t hurt to do a bit of research on his own in the meantime. Sully continues to snore quietly beside him as Nate buries himself in the writings of Robert Shipley and the mystery of a long lost diamond.