𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐘, nathan drake

𝟏𝟏

you couldn't blame sully for not trusting anyone, but he was the double-crosser here, not you or nate. if anything, you were supposed to be cautious of him, including chloe.

"i'm comin' down there for this, you hear me? you ain't gonna play me."

nate gave up.

"you'll take forever to get here." you huffed.

"typical sully. he'd rather lose the gold than–"

the key landed beside chloe's feet.

well, he changed his mind quick.

"thank you." chloe picked it up.

nate examined the keys. "does that look like a ladder to you?" he asked to which you and chloe agreed to. the keys put together did look like a ladder.

"okay, ready? three... two... one..."

he inserted the combined keys, turning them once more. it worked this time.

"what are you waiting for?" chloe asked impatiently, kicking the door down rather hard, shocking nate.

"what the–"

urns. giant, ancient urns.

"what's happening?"

"we found it."

"is the gold there? talk to me!" sully asked as impatient as chloe.

"we're in an old roman storehouse. it's gotta be at least 2000 years old, and there are these giant urns that are like eight feet tall." nate explained.

"are they intact?"

nate went to one of the urns, caressing it. "yeah, they're perfectly preserved."

"what are you waiting for? open them and get the gold!"

"jeez, hold your horses, will you?" you sighed heavily.

chloe went to the urn nate caressed. "give me a lift." she stepped on nate's hands then on his shoulders.

a pained sound emitted from nate's mouth.

"hey, hey, becareful. you're stepping on a person." you scolded chloe, but she didn't care.

you saw small cracks forming on the urn.

"chloe? i think we have a problem. chloe?"

the cracks were getting bigger.

chloe ignored nate, tasting whatever was in the urn. "salt? they used salt to store food, but i don't know why they'd put–"

"alright, that's enough, guys! the urn's about to blow!" you backed away.

right after you said that, the urn and the rest of the urns blew into smithereens, salt everywhere.

"what's happening?"

"no, it's gotta be here." chloe panicked, clawing the pile of salt.

"yeah or why all the tricks?" nate couldn't make sense of it.

"answer me! what do you got?" sully kept asking questions, but nate's response shut him up.

"the gold's not here."

"hang on, don't lose hope just yet. i see something in there." you patted nate's shoulder and pointed at a bump in the pile.

nate climbed the pile, dug through it and found a rusty case with a rolled up map in it. he unrolled the map, revealing your next clue.

"they never brought it back. the path to the gold starts here at barcelona, but it ends somewhere over here in the east indies." he looked at you with a wide smile and crescent-like eyes.

the happy look on his face made you smile.

then, a sound of a gun's safety turning off clicked.

you spun around to see chloe with a cold expression, aiming a gun at you and nate.

"give it to me."

your intuition was correct.

"you're kidding, right?"

"i'm not getting screwed on this one. pick up the map and give it to me." she instructed.

"nate, (name), what's going on down there? hey, tell me what's happening!" sully wanted to know about the sudden commotion.

"sully, i got this..." he told sully then tried to convince her, "you don't have to do this."

"don't try anything." chloe still had her gun aimed at you both, her finger on the trigger.

"you can trust me. you can trust us."

"you have no idea who you're partnered with, do you? you don't even really know what went down."

"went down with what?"

"sam. who do you think?"

"what are you talking about?"

"ask sully."

"no, no, no, tell us." you waited for a long time to know about sam and you weren't going to take no for an answer. "tell us what happened to him."

"chloe, please tell me what happened to my brother. please." nate begged.

"you're a good guy, nate."

you took a step forward to try to disarm her, but that just caused her to fire at your shoulder. you collapsed on the pile of salt.

before nate could check on you, he felt a hard impact to the back of his head and he collapsed face first.

"too good."

"nate! come here, chloe! goddamnit! you– you–"

chloe spared you no glance, leaving with the map and the keys.

you scooted towards nate, a hand on your shoulder to stop the bullet wound from bleeding out.

scratch feeling ashamed earlier, you should've stolen the key from her or left her to drown to prevent this from happening. the latter was the better option.