Page 58 of Uncharted

I hated doing it, hated feeling like a little kid who needed their momma to comfort them in the middle of the night. It wasn’t as if Reno didn’t have enough going on in his head with everything that had been going on between us. I didn’t blame him though; it felt obvious that he was as pulled to it as I was, but he wasn’t like me. Acceptance didn’t come easy to everyone, and not in the same ways for the same things.

Hell, he had accepted Aidan’s regret, his promise to be better and make amends, and I was still holding that grudge like my life depended on it. So, of course, it wasn’t unbelievable that he could have a hard time accepting that maybe neither of us was as straight as we’d thought. Everyone dealt with shit differently, and I knew it was eating away at him, and if I knew him half as well as I thought, he was feeling guilty because he wasn’t giving me what he thought I needed from him.

So, no, he shouldn’t have to worry that I was losing my mind in my sleep.

“Here,” he said, and he had returned with another couple of rags and a bottle of water. I smirked at the coloring; the man had put my blackberry flavoring into it. “Drink, it’ll help.”

“Sure,” I whispered as he began wiping me down with the care that someone used on the elderly and infirm.

“Do you want to talk to me about the dreams?” he asked. “Or are you going to sulk?”

“I’m not sulkin’!”

“You’re sulking. You can’t pull off brooding like Xander or Mav. And you’re not serious enough to appear introspective like Trev or my brother.”

“You sayin’ I’m childish?”

“I’m saying you’re sulking.”

“Yeah, well, you pout.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Well, damn, he had me there. “Fine. Maybe I am.”

“Any reason?”

I shrugged.

“Seriously?”

“What?”

“Fine, then I’ll say why you’re sulking,” he grunted as he gently wiped my neck. I had to admit, the cloth felt pretty good, even though I was already cooling down. Then again, maybe it was because he was the one taking care of me when I wouldn’t let anyone but my mother take care of me like that. “You don’t like me worrying about you, and you’re probably in that dorky head of yours beating yourself up for something you can’t control.”

“Just a dream, it’s fine,” I muttered.

“And,” he continued, “you’re probably worried that I’m worrying over our shenanigans so much. And that I feel like shit because I wish I was doing better for you. So that means I shouldn’t have to worry about you because of something like this.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ya know, my momma always said that to be seen is to be loved…kinda wishin’ you were a little blind at the moment.”

Reno smiled as he set the cloth aside and looked at the bottle, which I had been slowly drinking from. “Well, get over it. This is how I am, just as you are the way you are. Your burdens and problems don’t weigh me down, Jake. They make me…I don’t know, feel better. Jesus, that sounded fucked up as all hell.”

I laughed, and he smirked. “Kinda, yeah. But I’ll give ya a chance to explain.”

“It’s just…my brother was my keeper, and I was always his caretaker, you know? Like, that’s not a bad thing. It’s not like some role that was forced on us, but what we chose for each other, naturally, I guess. Or maybe we had no choice, and it just became a part of us, or both in some weird way. I don’t know,” Reno said, and his hand was on my stomach, playing with the hairs with his fingertips. “But those are our things. They’re a part of us.”

“And now ya don’t have that with him,” I said quietly.

“I realized I was losing it with him after we beat those assholes into the ground, or you guys did,” he said with a little laugh. “When Aidan practically elbowed me out of the way to check on Mika. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t and I’m not mad about it. Someone was going to come along and do that anyway. And now my brother has someone he has to mind. And I mean…you’re not good at taking care of yourself often, and I like taking care of you. And I like that you keep an eye out for me. So no, Jake, taking care of you doesn’t upset me; it doesn’t stress me out, it’s not a burden. You are not a burden.”

“I just…” I began, but there was nothing I could say which wouldn’t either make him argue with me, or completely disregard everything he had just told me, “don’t think I’ve had one of those since my momma.”

“Well, let me take care of you then,” he said with a sigh.

“Okay,” I said. “But I’ll still fuss…and sulk.”

“And I’ll let you sometimes, and other times I’ll remind you what I just said…and sometimes I’ll yell at you.”