Page 22 of Uncharted

It was almost three in the morning, and the rest of the outpost was out cold, or at least I assumed they were. I could hear Colin’s soft snoring in the bunk room, though, and while Trevor didn’t snore, I had seen him sleeping in a bunk room as well a couple of hours ago. Xander was probably still awake, fuming and as pissed as me, but at us over the fight, and mostly me because I was the one who had ‘started it.’

His words, not anyone else’s.

Whereas I was just…mad. We’d been back a few hours, and while I wasn’t trying to keep myself from putting my fist through a nearby wall, I could still feel the jump and jerk of my nerves. I didn’t like feeling like that. I hated being angry; I hated the way it left me feeling for hours afterward. My temper had always been bad, and that was why I hated it when I lost my cool.

I glanced at the other bed in the room and grimaced as I looked at Reno. He was asleep…I was pretty sure, and I felt bad for having taken my temper out on him earlier. He hadn’t deserved it, but chasing him off had been the only thing I could think of doing to keep him at a safe distance. Now I was calm enough to feel bad.

“Quit,” I heard him mutter, and I jumped hard enough that I accidentally kicked the bedside drawers and cursed under my breath.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered, rubbing my foot as he rolled over. His hair was longer than his brother’s, so his blond locks were tousled from lying there. “What the hell are you doing still awake?”

“I’m not ‘still’ awake; I woke up and was trying to fall back asleep,” he said with a heavy yawn as he rolled and sat up. “I can never sleep for more than a couple of hours when I’ve had a few drinks. It’s always been that way.”

“How did I not know that?” I wondered.

He gave me a little smile. “Because usually when we drink, you pass out and stay passed out. Mika is like that too. You’re both bastards for that.”

He actually made me chuckle. “Jealous.”

“A little,” he said with another yawn, reaching under his shirt to scratch before standing up and walking over to my bed to sit down next to me. “I was almost asleep when I felt the intensity of your thoughts from over there. Since you’re still up, I figured you were stewing in your own thoughts.”

“I guess you could call it that,” I said as his weight settled on the bed and his body nudged up against mine. He was warm from being under the blanket, and I found its presence comforting.

“You ready to talk about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know if it’s gonna help,” I admitted with a shrug. “Although I kinda feel like a little kid again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ahh,” I said, reluctant to admit to the story, but…it was Reno. If there was someone I could trust with absolute certainty, it was him. “I used to have, uh…they call ’em night terrors nowadays, but we just thought of ’em as bad dreams.”

“Jesus,” Reno said and his hand was on my knee, giving it a squeeze. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Nah,” I assured him, patting his hand. “Don’t worry about it. They stopped a long time ago; now I just get normal nightmares.”

“I’ve heard,” he said, and blinked as if surprised at himself.

I was surprised, though, and I glanced at him. “What?”

“You talk in your sleep,” he said with a wince. “It’s really just mumbling, muttering, and sometimes you…uh⁠—”

“Cry?” I wondered.

“Not exactly, but it’s like you want to,” he said quietly. “I kind of figured you were dreaming about your time in the Corps. I know you did a tour and saw action and assumed that fucked up shit happened that you haven’t talked about.”

“Something like that,” I said. “Anyway, my mom or dad would come into my room when they happened and sit with me until I felt I could go back to sleep. Sometimes I couldn’t, though, so they’d sit up with me all night.”

“I mean, we could lie down,” he said, looking at my bed and frowning. “Oh, we could, yeah, actually.”

“Sure,” he said and wriggled backward so he could lie down, one shoulder pressing against the wall to give me space. I snorted and lay down, my shoulder pressing against his other one as I settled onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Better?”

“A little,” I admitted, turning my head to stare at the window and frown. “Actually⁠—”

He followed my gaze and snorted. “I got you.”

I blinked as he sat up, climbing over me and then began rummaging around the room. “What’re you doing?”

“C’mon then,” he said, and I realized he’d grabbed a thick comforter from the closet and had his pillow under his arm. I raised a brow, snatched up a pillow, and followed him as he led me outside. “Since you have to be all special and needy.”