He'd ditched the jeep fifteen minutes ago - ran into a cross section of road piled so high with debris that the option was to either take a detour and stray way closer to Lazarevic's business than he was really planning to get, or go on foot. For better or worse, Nate gone with the second option after cannibalizing the car's radio. Made for some pretty crappy reception, but either it was working better than he'd thought or luck really was on his side because her message comes through: as crystal clear as anyone could hope for, you know, given the whole active war zone thing.
He keeps going, pace a steady trot and boots crunching on the gravel and debris - carnage from buildings built decades before he was ever born. There's this weird sensation that if he stops to chat, the conversation's not going to last long. So he radios back on the move:
"On foot?" She repeats, tone more accusatory than would be necessary for-- well, just about anyone else. For Nathan Drake, though, it's all par for the course. "What did you do."
"Aha, cute." The genuine little chuckle she lets out doesn't really clear the static crackle, but it's there none the less. "Let me drive and that just might work. How far off are you?"
Nate slows his pace so he can pull the map out of his pocket, shaking it open with the radio still in one hand. "If everything goes my way? Give me five--" And there, that's a crisp crackle of gunfire coming over the radio from his side of things. The sound in person is more immediate, less tinny; it's loud and tosses up dirt in the street as the some of the local militia come spilling around a corner not fifteen feet from him, a truck hot on their tail.
"Crap." He sidelines it, crumpling the map into the waist of his jeans as he makes for a collapsing section wall in the nearest building. One of these days, he'll say 'if everything goes my way' and it actually will (a guy can dream).
"Nate--??" If history has a habit of repeating itself, the gunfire shouldn't come as a shock. Luck, on the other hand, runs out. And fast. She can't trust him to scrape through on his own.
Chloe's already on her feet by the time the deafening crackle of gunfire registers, wading down across slanted flooring into a flooded pool of stagnant rainwater, shattered tiles crunching under her heels. Anything less than cautious and she'll be taking a quick tumble into already strained support structures. The radio stays both in hand and out of use till she's pulled herself up through a section of busted brick onto a sturdy ledge that sits less than a story from the street.
Out of sight and out of mind is one of those sayings he's never really seen a lot of truth it. It's like Sully waxing poetic about Colombian women: Nate can see the idea behind it, but the reality always seems to end in someone trying to take someone else's head off.
The patrol - if that's even what it is - wipes out or chases off the handful of resistance, leaving the armored car idling in exactly the direction he wants to go. There's a brief moment of evaluation, the immediate area going quiet save for the distance gunfire and the growl of the truck's engine; he can go out the way he came, flash his ass in the street and hope for the best, or try using that doorway to the left - see if he can't work his way around and--
And there's Chloe's voice, loud in the momentary lull. He can practically feel the target painted on his current position. "Really?"
Snagging the radio, Nate abandons his position as the wall explodes inward: chipped away with automatic rounds like chase his heels the breadth of the street as he makes he way for cover - any point of cover. Oh come on, throw him a bone-- The soles of his shoes slide on the gravel as he makes for the frame of a fired out husk of a taxi and there's an immediate ping! ping! ping! as the small arms fire slices through the car. Head low, Nate scrambles along the bumper and wedges himself near the wheel well. If what's left of this tire saves him from getting shot to pieces, he's never complaining about a flat again.
He unholsters his gun, chambers a round and uses the half second before he starts to return fire to radio back: "Oh, you know. The usual."
It's the last she bothers spitting out before snapping the radio into place at her hip (with a small prayer the plastic clip stays stuck in) making her way along window ledges and broken stairwells, tracking the distant, rattling echo like a beacon.
The balcony closest to the firefight-- like most everything in this bloody city-- is worse for wear: a mess of broken pots and long abandoned plant life, southernmost end completely sloughed off leaving a clean two floor drop to the sidewalk below. There's a distinct advantage in staying above the fray, and Chloe uses it to the best of her ability without hesitation; keeps herself low beneath leaf fronds and snaps level shots out at a pair of soldiers slinking around to flank the car where Nate's hunkered down.
One spent clip later and the radio springs to life with her voice again, pleased as anything: "You're welcome."
Recognizing the sound of a small caliber weapon in a racket of rifle fire is simple enough that the pop pop sound doesn't give him but a momentary 'shit shit shit' pause before two and two click into place. With her at his flank (he'll have to remember that one for later), it's easy to get off a few shots (that one too) without worrying about earning a bullet in his head in the mean time.
All things considered, it should probably be harder to clear the street just between the two of them but hey, no one ever said there was much of a skills assessment before enlisting in the whole mercenary army thing Lazarevic had running for him. After all, he's got Harry Flynn working for him.
With the street quiet - for however long it lasts - Nate radios back as he gets to his feet. He lifts a hand, a paltry sort of wave toward her position on the balcony. "Nice timing."
"I like to think I always know when to pull the trigger." If you catch her drift. "Hang on a second, I'll meet you on the first floor."
With a little luck, anyway. The interior of the abandoned complex is doing worse than even the outside; shimmying her way down battered beams and over collapsed ceiling takes longer than she'd initially anticipated. They're running on a timer, though-- Lazarevic's patrols don't go fooling around without designated routes. By the time she hits the lobby (via one ballsy leap from a severely broken set of planks to the main stairs) she's just praying Nathan's Law won't bring them patrol #2.
Cute. Nate laughs low, jams the beretta into its holster and makes his way to the ground floor of the building to meet her. He doesn't bother with dragging what's left of the radio with him, which means he's got both hands free as he ducks through the blown out doorway.
She beats him to the stairs, but not by much. "Hey, now there's a sight for sore eyes." And she's not even facing the other direction when he says it. What a gentleman.
"Likewise, cowboy." Response accompanied by an obligatory wink as she skips the last few steps in favor of lunging forward to close the gap between them, index finger winding itself around one of his frontmost belt loops once she's close enough; it's followed, quite predictably, by a tug-- till they're inches apart and she has the opportunity to press a spare clip to Nate's palm, rather than her lips against his.
Soaking wet, covered in dirt and grit in the middle of a warzone. All in all, it's bloody ridiculous.
He'd catch her at the hips with both his hands if she gave him the opportunity, but then Chloe's pressing a clip into his hand and, hey, he's never been one to turn down extra ammunition. Finds it;s good to have on hand for when things get tense - tight spots, arguments. That kind of thing.
"Well I like to think so." He jams the spare clip into the magazine pouch on his holster, flashing her a grin. "But seriously, this whole double agent thing is a good look on you."
"You always know just what to say to make a girl blush." Which probably means it was an effective compliment-- or more likely that it all boils down to an inability to be patient-- because Chloe catches his lower lip with her teeth, exhales hard into the soft curves of his mouth and inhales a potent combination of sweat and singed powder. Mud and earth and the distinct, metallic scent of blood.
He grins into the catch of her teeth, the taste of her breath (minty - someone's been taking care of their oral hygiene in a war zone). It's not really the time, but when has his timing ever been great, so Nate doesn't give much thought to it before he tips his chin and kisses her properly - punctuates it with a purposeful pat to one of the back pockets of her cargo pants before breaking away.
"Remind me not to get on your bad side," He's grinning still, hand sliding into her pocket. Completely innocently, mind you. "Unless I need half a city razed to the ground, in which case I guess that's a pretty good Plan A."
It's impractical and stupid as far as decisions go, but she indulges him, returns the favor by curling her fingers against the back seam of his trousers till she hits his pockets. Feels him up like a bloody teenager in a shopping mall rather than a war-torn mess of rotted wood and open walls.
And where he breaks the kiss, she keeps her lips close-- keeps his breath on her skin-- rides out the moment for a few seconds longer while he teases and she laughs. Because once they've turned in for the day Nate can pack up in some hole in the wall and forget, because the atrocities the news coughs up in memory of everything Lazarevic has done is exactly what she heads back to watch from the sidelines.
He gets to run off; she only gets time outs.
"Please, you do that all on your own, Nathan "walking disaster" Drake. I've seen your work."
"Oh come on. So I've taken out a few undiscovered Mayan temples; no one knew they were there in the first place." No okay, he still feels kind of bad about a lot of that. But it's not like it was his fault specifically so much as it was in a really general, roundabout sort of way.
--Look he can't be held responsible for all the collateral damage involved with getting his way.
On a scale of one to serious mental issues, how awful is it that it comes out sounding like one of Flynn's excuses?
"Funny. I distinctly remember you bringing down a bit more than that." Chloe draws back, unhooks the radio from her belt at the sound of hissing static. Perfectly good innuendo ruined. "Right, sounds like we need to be moving on."
He slips his hand from her pocket seamlessly enough (seamlessly, get it?), unwinding his arm from around her so he can fetch the map. Nate shakes it out with a distinct flourish.
"If I'm right about this, we'll want to head North. We'll need to find a building there twelve stories tall at least. From there, we should be able to find the markers Polo wrote about." So long as they could get the angles right, finding the right temple in this mess would be a piece of cake. "You've got Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dummer running around in the South end, right?"
"Abso-bloody-lutely I do." There's a momentary pause as Chloe peers over his shoulder (never can be too careful when it comes to Nate and maps, after all) finds she doesn't entirely understand what 'markers' they're looking for, and trusts his judgment on the matter: turning for the rear entrance of the lobby that's facing north east and keeping an ear to the ground for more transmissions.
If the second patrol notices the first, that'll bring the bastards closer to their trail. Best to be sure of their enemies' location. "Honestly you should've been there to see the look on Harry's face when I told him I'd spotted some graffiti spelling out cryptic directions to a lost fortune."
He folds the map back up, following after her (because why lead and miss out on the view, right?) as they make their way from the crumbling remains of -- what is this, a hotel? Housing block? Whatever, it's barely a step up from debris now. "Did he pee a little? I bet he peed a little."
Once back on the street, Nate forgets about following and makes a beeline for the now abandoned vehicle, skirting around the front bumper and trotting along in the shadow of bombed out buildings. They've got at least ten blocks before they'll be far enough North to start thinking about going up.
"Not asking why that's what you want to know about."
It's when the trip goes quiet, really. Nothing to talk about aside from the insignificant (not that she imagines Nate would mind hearing all about Flynn's near constant failures) but it's all a bit too small talk-y. A bit too cordial and dull. Three blocks away from the target, Chloe tucks the radio back in its place. "How long d'you think it'll take to scope this marker out?"
It's quite, not a little awkwardly so as Nate leads the way down the uneven, debris-strewn street while squinting at the surrounding architecture and occasionally double- (and triple-) checking his map. And somehow neither of them ever considers the possibility that this might not work - that Chloe's schemes for far off beaches and drinks with umbrellas might be a bit of a long shot not just because of the mess they've gotten themselves into, but because of-- well, everything else.
"Eh." It's a dismissive kind of noise, easy going. Nate folds the map back up, drawing to a halt at the end of the block. There's a hotel a few blocks further, visible from here. That works. "If we're lucky and Lazarevic hasn't bowled through anything? Give me ten minutes."
He throws her a quick look, mouth quirking into a grin. Yeah girl, sometimes he's pretty good at what he does.
Well it's a long, markerless road ahead so his broad, cocksure grin leaves Chloe more confused than anything else; her eyes flicking briefly towards him after a moment of quiet contemplation and then back again. "Uhm."
"Am I missing something here because I'm not getting 'ten minutes' from any of...this." A point emphasized by one hasty little wave of her arm.
"Trust me, Chloe." He spreads his hands as he steps off the edge of the mangled sidewalk, walking backward a few paces in their desired direction. "I've got this. Just follow my lead for once." Nate punctuates it with an eyebrow quirk and a tip of his chin before he turns, and does just that - making his way along the (relatively - save the occasional pop of not too distance gunfire) quiet street.
They're lucky (when isn't he lucky?) and don't run into anyone, native or otherwise, along those last few blocks. By minute ten, Nate's found them a broken window and gotten them into the ground level of the hotel itself.
The stairs leading up from there are depressingly nonexistent.
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drumro-- breaks every drumstick
He keeps going, pace a steady trot and boots crunching on the gravel and debris - carnage from buildings built decades before he was ever born. There's this weird sensation that if he stops to chat, the conversation's not going to last long. So he radios back on the move:
"Yeah, I'm here but I'm coming in on foot."
Nathaniel's law
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Nate slows his pace so he can pull the map out of his pocket, shaking it open with the radio still in one hand. "If everything goes my way? Give me five--" And there, that's a crisp crackle of gunfire coming over the radio from his side of things. The sound in person is more immediate, less tinny; it's loud and tosses up dirt in the street as the some of the local militia come spilling around a corner not fifteen feet from him, a truck hot on their tail.
"Crap." He sidelines it, crumpling the map into the waist of his jeans as he makes for a collapsing section wall in the nearest building. One of these days, he'll say 'if everything goes my way' and it actually will (a guy can dream).
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Chloe's already on her feet by the time the deafening crackle of gunfire registers, wading down across slanted flooring into a flooded pool of stagnant rainwater, shattered tiles crunching under her heels. Anything less than cautious and she'll be taking a quick tumble into already strained support structures. The radio stays both in hand and out of use till she's pulled herself up through a section of busted brick onto a sturdy ledge that sits less than a story from the street.
"Nate, what's going on?"
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The patrol - if that's even what it is - wipes out or chases off the handful of resistance, leaving the armored car idling in exactly the direction he wants to go. There's a brief moment of evaluation, the immediate area going quiet save for the distance gunfire and the growl of the truck's engine; he can go out the way he came, flash his ass in the street and hope for the best, or try using that doorway to the left - see if he can't work his way around and--
And there's Chloe's voice, loud in the momentary lull. He can practically feel the target painted on his current position. "Really?"
Snagging the radio, Nate abandons his position as the wall explodes inward: chipped away with automatic rounds like chase his heels the breadth of the street as he makes he way for cover - any point of cover. Oh come on, throw him a bone-- The soles of his shoes slide on the gravel as he makes for the frame of a fired out husk of a taxi and there's an immediate ping! ping! ping! as the small arms fire slices through the car. Head low, Nate scrambles along the bumper and wedges himself near the wheel well. If what's left of this tire saves him from getting shot to pieces, he's never complaining about a flat again.
He unholsters his gun, chambers a round and uses the half second before he starts to return fire to radio back: "Oh, you know. The usual."
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It's the last she bothers spitting out before snapping the radio into place at her hip (with a small prayer the plastic clip stays stuck in) making her way along window ledges and broken stairwells, tracking the distant, rattling echo like a beacon.
The balcony closest to the firefight-- like most everything in this bloody city-- is worse for wear: a mess of broken pots and long abandoned plant life, southernmost end completely sloughed off leaving a clean two floor drop to the sidewalk below. There's a distinct advantage in staying above the fray, and Chloe uses it to the best of her ability without hesitation; keeps herself low beneath leaf fronds and snaps level shots out at a pair of soldiers slinking around to flank the car where Nate's hunkered down.
One spent clip later and the radio springs to life with her voice again, pleased as anything: "You're welcome."
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All things considered, it should probably be harder to clear the street just between the two of them but hey, no one ever said there was much of a skills assessment before enlisting in the whole mercenary army thing Lazarevic had running for him. After all, he's got Harry Flynn working for him.
With the street quiet - for however long it lasts - Nate radios back as he gets to his feet. He lifts a hand, a paltry sort of wave toward her position on the balcony. "Nice timing."
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With a little luck, anyway. The interior of the abandoned complex is doing worse than even the outside; shimmying her way down battered beams and over collapsed ceiling takes longer than she'd initially anticipated. They're running on a timer, though-- Lazarevic's patrols don't go fooling around without designated routes. By the time she hits the lobby (via one ballsy leap from a severely broken set of planks to the main stairs) she's just praying Nathan's Law won't bring them patrol #2.
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She beats him to the stairs, but not by much. "Hey, now there's a sight for sore eyes." And she's not even facing the other direction when he says it. What a gentleman.
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Soaking wet, covered in dirt and grit in the middle of a warzone. All in all, it's bloody ridiculous.
And she loves it.
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"Well I like to think so." He jams the spare clip into the magazine pouch on his holster, flashing her a grin. "But seriously, this whole double agent thing is a good look on you."
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"Remind me not to get on your bad side," He's grinning still, hand sliding into her pocket. Completely innocently, mind you. "Unless I need half a city razed to the ground, in which case I guess that's a pretty good Plan A."
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And where he breaks the kiss, she keeps her lips close-- keeps his breath on her skin-- rides out the moment for a few seconds longer while he teases and she laughs. Because once they've turned in for the day Nate can pack up in some hole in the wall and forget, because the atrocities the news coughs up in memory of everything Lazarevic has done is exactly what she heads back to watch from the sidelines.
He gets to run off; she only gets time outs.
"Please, you do that all on your own, Nathan "walking disaster" Drake. I've seen your work."
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--Look he can't be held responsible for all the collateral damage involved with getting his way.
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"Funny. I distinctly remember you bringing down a bit more than that." Chloe draws back, unhooks the radio from her belt at the sound of hissing static. Perfectly good innuendo ruined. "Right, sounds like we need to be moving on."
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"If I'm right about this, we'll want to head North. We'll need to find a building there twelve stories tall at least. From there, we should be able to find the markers Polo wrote about." So long as they could get the angles right, finding the right temple in this mess would be a piece of cake. "You've got Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dummer running around in the South end, right?"
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If the second patrol notices the first, that'll bring the bastards closer to their trail. Best to be sure of their enemies' location. "Honestly you should've been there to see the look on Harry's face when I told him I'd spotted some graffiti spelling out cryptic directions to a lost fortune."
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Once back on the street, Nate forgets about following and makes a beeline for the now abandoned vehicle, skirting around the front bumper and trotting along in the shadow of bombed out buildings. They've got at least ten blocks before they'll be far enough North to start thinking about going up.
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It's when the trip goes quiet, really. Nothing to talk about aside from the insignificant (not that she imagines Nate would mind hearing all about Flynn's near constant failures) but it's all a bit too small talk-y. A bit too cordial and dull. Three blocks away from the target, Chloe tucks the radio back in its place. "How long d'you think it'll take to scope this marker out?"
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"Eh." It's a dismissive kind of noise, easy going. Nate folds the map back up, drawing to a halt at the end of the block. There's a hotel a few blocks further, visible from here. That works. "If we're lucky and Lazarevic hasn't bowled through anything? Give me ten minutes."
He throws her a quick look, mouth quirking into a grin. Yeah girl, sometimes he's pretty good at what he does.
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"Am I missing something here because I'm not getting 'ten minutes' from any of...this." A point emphasized by one hasty little wave of her arm.
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They're lucky (when isn't he lucky?) and don't run into anyone, native or otherwise, along those last few blocks. By minute ten, Nate's found them a broken window and gotten them into the ground level of the hotel itself.
The stairs leading up from there are depressingly nonexistent.
"Okay so maybe more like twenty minutes."