You're all my friends

[totallytrustworthy]

Date & Time: Before groundhogging it or after depending on preference
Location: Exsilium proper/ wilderness/ various
Characters: Chloe Frazer and you as a fond farewell
Summary: a year and a half of thievery and trouble hits its last few notes
Warnings: VIOLENCE some of it

A: E x s i l i u m 

She's back to normal now. Residual lacquer stuck to her nails, hair still neatly trimmed at the edges and her trousers aren't the dirt-stained mess left behind of a little over a year's worth of close calls and fire fights, but she is herself again, and whatever magic that Facilier had carefully stuck in under her skin with a few nice words and a friendly gesture have-- for the most part-- been shaken off. Which is to say it's almost dysphoric having to readjust after being recalibrated so completely that even her old routines and habits feel unfamiliar: walking to the market to trade off another batch of heavy (only slightly roughed-up) furs is something more akin to watching video of the ground shifting forward, of footsteps in the snow and crowds filtering off out of focus.

Doesn't feel like there's weight in her arms or the sting of bitter cold on her cheeks.

Doesn't even feel like she's capable of recognizing any of the familiar faces she passes-- and she does pass them: without a second thought or even the uncertain shift of her attention that comes from purposefully dodging someone close.

How bloody rude. Particularly when she's not careful enough to keep from clipping the occasional passerby.


B: E x s i l i u m   w i l d s

This, though. This is where she flourishes. These days, anyway. After too much time spent snagged on emotions and vital decisions, solitude and silent snowfall are more comforting than things like central heating or idle banter. Simple tasks are easy to fixate on (pull wire, wrap twig, bend branch, insert bait and wait), numbing pinpricks running just under layers of insulated clothing precede pain from too many hours of it spent out in the cold. Veins going tight in an effort to cling to any remaining heat. Unappealing, unattractive, inhospitable work.

And Chloe's smiling to herself through the chilled cracks of her frost-split lip as she goes about it.

Not that most people would feel right at home in a yeti-infested wilderness.

C: Wildcard

OOC: pick a different scenario or location, whichever suits you best, and we'll make it happen!



 

Comments

[totallytrustworthy]

That stops her dead in her tracks, briefly, before she dips her chin and tosses out a nod. One cast towards the merchant beside her, rather than at him. "We're here."

And to prove that point the furs are dropped unceremoniously down on the heap of fur just outside the worn wood and metal of the stall.

[cyphered]

Nate just stands in the middle of the road with the furs and stares for a long moment, like he's about to snap at her for dodging the point, before he just follows like a lost dog and mimics her motion. There's a brief, studious study of his wares before he turns back to Chloe.

"Nice angle," he offers to concede defeat. Its slightly sarcastic, but not enough to start a fight. He's really tired of that.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Come on." Tired as he is-- as they both are-- she's not fighting him, either. Tosses out a gentle pat to the dead center of his lower back as a sign he ought to follow when she presses through thinning crowds to a quieter snowbank not that far out. Settles down where it's dense enough to support her weight without caving. More ice than snow, really. It's a long beat before she bothers picking up where they'd last let off. Before she carefully studies the angles of his features as if searching for familiar landmarks.

"You've changed."

[cyphered]

Whether or not she means it that way, the contact is a comfort. Its nice to be reminded that they're not fighting anymore, even if it feels like they are sometimes at odds. Nate suspects that's mostly his imagination talking -- after all, its been said a million and one times that there are years between them. Years he doesn't have.

He's almost fine with it. The unpredictability of it is both exciting and daunting, especially with others having knowledge of his future before he does.

"You think?"

He says it without thinking much. There is only that brief pause and wrinkle of doubt before he considers what she has said. Its not sarcastic, but curious. He can't possibly imagine changing much -- not here, where everything relied on playing catch up as fast as possible.

Chloe has sat down, so he decides to do the same. This is obviously going to be a potentially long conversation, so he crosses his legs and leans back on both hands to talk to her.

"I don't know about that -- hasn't been that long."

Not compared to the time they spent apart, long before all this nonsense.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Doesn't always take that long." Learned that much for herself over the past year and a half: it's the catalyst, not the timestamp. He was the one giving her lectures on her problems recently, after all. Far cry from where they last left off in his book or hers.

"You know if either of us were this smart back home we'd have--" Chloe stops herself, lips thinned for all of half a beat that it takes to serve as a reminder some subjects are off limits these days. Not for him (no ring on his finger, though the idea of one in the future certainly does its job) but for herself. Goes without saying there was a great deal that she did for him few else would've earned. Goes without saying there was reason for it. "Well, one hell of a lot less trouble on our hands, for one."

[cyphered]

That makes Nate scoff a little. To distract himself from the weight he can feel in her words, he scratches at the ice with one of his hands and taps his foot to an invisible beat.

"Maybe," he admits with a small shake of his head. "But living cramped on the moon and then in a snowy wasteland teaches you some stuff, doesn't it?"

Its a halfhearted excuse. He knows the real reason they've stopped bickering -- or at least he thinks he does. And that wasn't it.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Solitary teaches you a lot of stuff." She corrects with a sober sort of grin. Not the proudest moment of her life, after all. Having him there, though--for all the reasons he'd been there, for all the reasons he'd stayed--

[cyphered]

Oh. Awkward. Solitary was an awkward time for both of them for different reasons. He hasn't really expected her to round back to that, and it gets him to sit up and lean over his knees for a quiet moment.

"Listen, Chloe--about all that," he starts, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was an ass." There's a brief pause for comedic timing's sake before he continues "And I know that's not different than usual, but I'm sorry."

[totallytrustworthy]

"It's all right: so was I. Funny how that works." How it'd taken a year and a half, a few deaths and a number of resets to mend what they'd burned in a matter of minutes. Chloe leans over, scuffs the edge of her elbow across the top of his arm.

More contact than he'd earned from her in years, actually.

[cyphered]

He knows it, and blinks when its given to him, but is careful not to make a fuss over it. The effort is a little obvious, since he can't hold down the pleased little grin that sneaks onto his face. But if he fusses, she'll either retreat or never let him live it down -- neither of which he is gunning for.

"We'll call it even, then," he offers. "Which is good, because we still got some work to do here, if memory serves."

That running away plan was still in the back of his mind, but for now, Sully has a plan. They could make it work until an opportunity for Exsilium itself came along.

[totallytrustworthy]

"Oh, so you're on board now, are you?" She'd spoken with Sully about that already in regards to herself-- briefly-- but as far as Nate was concerned, well...not so much. And it's true enough (gloved fingers settling back into snowdrift) that there's more time ahead of them than behind now, given the UE's distant attention span these days.

[cyphered]

"Well, sort of," Nate admits, rubbing the back of his head again with a sobered grin. He's glad that Sully seems to finally be warming up to him, instead of regarding him like some foreign imposter. If he was honest with himself, it had been eating at him for months. "Not allowed to touch anything important, but I'm in."

Which was a half baked joke, of course. He wouldn't oversee a fight club -- just not his thing. Conning people to throw their money in on it? Definitely doable.

[totallytrustworthy]

"And you won't spend your hours on the clock worrying about whether or not I'll pull a gun on you?" Teasing. Genuinely teasing, but she likes to have something of a marker to know where they stand on his end.

[cyphered]

"An hour, max, five minutes at minimum. Scout's honor," he gives her, scooping up some of the snow that's melted beneath his palm and lobbing it in her direction.

[totallytrustworthy]

Stupid how easy it is to give in to his childish nonsense. As if the years just aren't there between them. She laughs. And it's genuine, though-- kicking up a good dose of snow for the sake of coating his legs-- she certainly doesn't acknowledge that thought.

"Right, sure. I'll believe that when I see proof of it."

[cyphered]

He hasn't heard that laughter in months, and he's willing to go to great lengths to get her to do it again.

And so, when the snow connects with him, Nate makes a dramatic noise and falls backward into the bank behind him. "Argh, no! Already, she turns on me! Curse you Chloe!" he cries, clutching his chest with one hand and reaching for the sky with the other. "Curse....you!"

[totallytrustworthy]

Ridiculous bastard.

"It was inevitable, Drake." Nothing short of theatric in her performance, Chloe follows him over the bank, edging along a thick line of snow after his heels. "I always intended to take the sap for myself and gain immortality-- you were just a pawn in that play. One that must be disposed of."

Cue shoving that thick frost right over on him. After all they've been through, why the bloody hell not take the chance to have a laugh.

[cyphered]

Nate makes a horrible choking noise that's far too convincing when she kicks snow over him, right until he accidentally swallows some of it. Then he bolts up and spits, coughing in a completely ungraceful display and pushing his fist in his chest.

Vaguely, he pauses to think about what Chloe said and goes eeriely silent -- not out of any lingering emotion, but because he is slowly putting some pieces together. Sap? Immortality?

Resin. The images of the tree of life. Of course. That's what Lazarevic was after. Not the fabled sapphire.

Sorry Chloe, Nate is on another planet right now.

[totallytrustworthy]

She doesn't follow it. Not for a long beat or two, spent watching him while he's stuck somewhere in his own head (knows that look well enough from years spent entertaining it in both the best of circumstances in addition to the most dire). Chloe leans in over the bank. Cants her head in his direction.

"Nate...?"

[cyphered]

"Sap that grants immortality," he echoes with a bit of a cynical laugh, the fist coming up to rub over his face. He keeps chuckling at the absurdity of the idea. "That's what he wanted. Not the stone."

He keeps laughing for a few more seconds and then proceeds to smear his face with his palms. Of course, he knows Chloe knows that already, so he just exhales with a quiet. "Oh boy."

[totallytrustworthy]

"Ah."

He hadn't been there for it. Right. Hard to remember that at times. Particularly in moments like this. "Well good news for you is that's all done and dealt with, darling, You know, once you get there."

If he gets back there.

[cyphered]

Well, that was true. If Chloe comes from the future, he obviously stopped him just fine. That gets to relax him a bit.

"Well. So much for that big payoff, huh?" he grunts, leaning forward on his knees. "Giant sapphire runs for a hell of a lot more than a giant piece of resin."

He's not looking forward to going back home.

[totallytrustworthy]

"You get your payoff, hero." Something more valuable than money.

Chloe offers up an outstretched hand, leather still damp with melted powder. Offers him a way out of her mess, as usual. Seems to always be the way of things between them. "Come on, up you get."

[cyphered]

He thinks about what she says as he accepts her hand. Right. Payoff. She had mentioned it once before -- about Elena, about getting married. He assumes it must have happened after they bagged Lazarevic -- he can't imagine what would have possessed him to go for it. At least not at the time. Maybe he had an epiphany after kicking an immortal foreigner in his shriveled steroid nads.

"Well," he starts awkwardly. It wasn't that he didn't love Elena. He did -- enough that it was hard to admit to out loud without being embarrassed. She hadnt been the first. Hadn't been the only. "I guess."

That's really all he can say. There had been something wittier attached, but he finds himself missing Elena too much to make the joke.

[totallytrustworthy]

She thins her lips. Knows she's done enough talking about any past or future that isn't theirs. Theirs now, anyway.

His weight's solid, but she manages the pull-up well enough. Tugs him up and out of the ditch before she bothers to fall back on her heels. Avoids looking his way.

"She'll turn up again, cowboy. Give it time."