He knows if he loses it, he'll never get them all back in one piece. Overwhelmed and underqualified, he led a parade of capable individuals to a fucking crypt without knowing what they'd find, rocking the easy-going dynamic of the group's first leg of the trip like the abrupt scratch of a record.
Post-meeting, he still can't get the screams he heard out of his head, the electric hum of equipment, the smell of death burned into his lungs. Nate has seen it all before, and more, but it isn't the shocking nature of the discovery that unsettles him so much as it is the reaction of everyone there. They're all hurting, old aches surfacing and new ones carved into unblemished skin, but he brought them here in the first place.
Night falls and people retreat to their tents, and Nate doesn't bother kicking off his boots when he shuffles into the one he shares with Elena. He doesn't speak either, not at first, reaching for her and pulling her to his chest, hands shaking.]
[closed to Elena] base camp
He knows if he loses it, he'll never get them all back in one piece. Overwhelmed and underqualified, he led a parade of capable individuals to a fucking crypt without knowing what they'd find, rocking the easy-going dynamic of the group's first leg of the trip like the abrupt scratch of a record.
Post-meeting, he still can't get the screams he heard out of his head, the electric hum of equipment, the smell of death burned into his lungs. Nate has seen it all before, and more, but it isn't the shocking nature of the discovery that unsettles him so much as it is the reaction of everyone there. They're all hurting, old aches surfacing and new ones carved into unblemished skin, but he brought them here in the first place.
Night falls and people retreat to their tents, and Nate doesn't bother kicking off his boots when he shuffles into the one he shares with Elena. He doesn't speak either, not at first, reaching for her and pulling her to his chest, hands shaking.]