Universe: Uncharted

Characters/themes: Nate, Sully; caring, recklessness, family, (tw: brief suicidal thoughts)

Note: I found a 'protective sentence starter' thing on Tumblr and decided to make a story with most of them in. It didn't uh actually go according to plan; it turned out of more of a bit OOC Nate-Sully "what you mean to me" fic. But I'm cool with that, it's really nice, and they need these conversations!

"Watch out!"

Nate swore and threw himself back under cover, almost colliding with Sully, who grabbed his shoulders to stop him from moving again.

There was a brief pause in the gunfight across the castle grounds, and Nate glanced back at his partner, who still had a death-grip on him, and did a double-take at the glare he was getting.

"Are you crazy?! What are you doing?" Sully hissed at Nate, concern giving way to anger now they were relatively safe. "You could have been killed!"

The kid just shrugged and distracted himself by reloading the handgun and glancing over the top of the wall that served as their cover.

Which was lucky, because it meant he caught sight of the grenade that was being launched at them from one of sentries on the turrets.

"Run!" He shouted, shoving Sully away from their cover and following at a run. "Hurry up, GO!"

They hurried to the - again relative - safety of another part of the crumbling building's walls, and both winced as where they just were exploded loudly.

Nate swore again and gave Sully an exasperated look. "It's like they think it's the Middle Ages," he muttered, receiving a small smile in response.

It was true that their current enemies were positioned throughout the century-old-but-mostly-still-standing castle that the two had been trying to get to. They were meant to be finding a map that apparently hid the location of some long-lost treasure or other, but someone had immediately decided that they didn't like that idea, and sent a goddamn army to stop them.

So here they were, at a standoff, with the enemies on the castle they needed to be in, and they themselves hiding from fire in the ruins of an adjacent stone house.

Nate checked his gun again and sighed, glancing over his shoulder at his partner. "Gonna need more ammo," he said, half question and half statement, and Sully nodded grimly.

"Okay..." He aimed the pistol over the top of the stonework, and concentrated for a minute before firing – managing to get a headshot on one of the oncoming guards. "They're coming out now, but we don't have enough ammo to take care of them," Nate reported, and glanced restlessly behind them, at the peaceful-looking rest of the ruins that once made up this town.

He nodded in that direction and looked at Sully. "You go on, circle back around to the castle. I'll hold them off."

Sully just stared at him for a minute, taken aback he would think of such a stupid, suicidal plan. He grabbed Nate's arm, forcing him to look at him. "Listen kid, if we're going somewhere, we're going together," he growled, barely refraining from physically shaking some sense into the kid.

He'd known that Nate had been a bit off since god knows what had happened between him and Elena after Shambala. The kid had been repeatedly reckless, risking his life for small things, trying to do impossible shootouts; but this was just alarmingly suicidal, and Sully was drawing the line here.

And then going to find out what the hell was wrong with his kid, and who gave him the right to disvalue his own life. A life that, whatever else people thought, meant the goddamn world to Sully.

Nate barely flinched, and pulled his arm out of his partner's grip. "Leave me here, I can handle it!" He insisted, again glancing over their cover – and immediately proving himself wrong by almost getting shot by a sighted rifle.

Sully pulled him down, away from fire, and again forced the kid to look at him. "The hell I'm leaving you here! You're gonna get yourself killed."

He knew he had reached the conclusion; Nate made a noncommittal sound and glanced away. Again, Sully resisted the urge to slap the kid or something, just to make him see what he meant to others, if not himself.

"Nate, listen to me. I don't care right now what the hell you've been through recently. But I'm gonna tell you this once, and once only. I don't want to lose you; you'll all I have."

Neither of them were used to such sincere admissions, and especially not in the middle of a fight, but Sully knew that what Nate needed to hear was not about him, but about what he meant to others.

The kid just froze for a minute, meeting his friend's eyes. Sully's gaze and slight smile were steady and true, and for a second, Nate was fifteen again, and being saved by this same man he was hurting right now. He lowered his head.

"Sorry." It was barely a whisper, but it was exactly what the older man needed to hear. He let out a quiet breath of relief, and patted his kid's shoulder.

"It's okay, kid." They were silent for a moment, ignoring the advancing enemies in favour of realising in the midst of battle what they really meant to one another. Sully drew his pistol with a smirk. "Now, what'd you say we finish these bastards off and go get our map?"

Nate smiled back and nodded. "Let's get 'em," he agreed, and the two of them, together this time, made good on their promises by both flanking the castle, and storming it, like two knights on under the queen, as Francis Drake himself was.