albinomilksnake | SHAMBHALA AU OPEN POST

SHAMBHALA AU OPEN POST

[It's been a long time coming. A long fight and an even longer downward slope with her heels dug into the barest scraps of whatever leads Lazarevic had been chasing. Harry had tried to keep their necks above the waterline, heart stitched into his shoddy, second-rate work, but as always it was Drake that had provided the last key pieces that got them this far. She'd wanted it to be a willing deal, the way she'd wanted a lot of things to be true that weren't: stubborn and stupid, stuck to his pride more than he'd ever stuck to her back. All the plans they'd made, all the senseless heroics-- feet settled on the sacred, breathtaking stonework of Shambhala, holding the winning hand, and he'd still rather keep his eyes fixed on the reporter. Fights tooth and nail while she's left chasing the ghost of his grip.

God, she feels sick for it. Angry and bitter as the acrid taste of blood on her tongue.]

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[Its always a last second break. Nate should have been running in the opposite direction, climbing up and out before Lazarevic could catch up to him again. Elena had already gone ahead (though not without some dirty tricks played by Drake), so he was alone in his descent as he so often tried to be.

He lands heavily in the open chamber, tired but alive and mostly unscathed (compared to what he could have been). He's probably too late already, he knows that, but he has to try.

What he doesn't expect to see is exactly the last person he wants to see right this second. Yeah, he loved Elena, and he could never deny that even if he tried but--well, Chloe had her charm too, and she'd done well getting what she needed out of him before moving on to bigger things.

Maybe he made a mistake along the line. It didn't change the fact that Chloe was supposed to be a friend, and not an enemy.]

Chloe.

Hello, darling. [Cold aside from her typical, easy delivery. Something that'd border on soothing if not for the taut grip she's keeping on the bloodied defender in her palm, aimed squarely at his chest though it comes at the cost of her own posture: half-slumped against the stonework of a collapsed pillar.

Finger settled squarely over the trigger.]

[He stops his approach and gently raises his hands so she can see that he's not reaching for a gun and doesn't really have any notions of trying.]

You don't have to do this, OK? Its over.

[Its not over, but it will be if he wastes time trying to convince Chloe that things are going to be OK.]

Put the gun down.

Over? [The laugh that tails her repetition's all breath.] Oh that's cute. Last I checked Lazarevic was already well on his way to eternal life or whatever this cintamani thing is all about, so no. Not really over.

[Her eyes flick down towards his feet-- more specifically the direction he's aiming himself, the lack of miss sterling press pass herself, that bullheaded look that he always adopts the moment Nate decides to throw himself headfirst off a cliff.] And you don't look like you're leaving.

Chloe, come on. You're hurt.

[Really hurt, in a way that makes him ill. He takes a few steps forward, hands still in the air. There's another absence noted, and as much as he has more important things to be worrying about, he can't help but ask:]

Where's Flynn?

[Christ, it fucking hurts, that concern of his. Cuts under her skin in a way she thought she was ready for. Hardened against. Instead it breeds the quiet, eager spark of hope in her chest over the rattle of her own breathing, leaves Chloe working through unfocused thoughts of him melting at the sight of how far she's fallen - maybe he never knew until now just how high the stakes had always been for her. Maybe--

Pained effort is what it costs her to lift her arm just a centimeter or two higher as a promised threat. He can't come closer. He doesn't damn well care half as much as she imagines (because if he had, they'd never have wound up here) and some dark, dark part of her wants to make him. Desperately entertains the thought of fracturing his guilt and leaving him too wounded to ever so much as brush against Elena without remembering her.] Don't come any closer, Nate.

[The jacket she'd brought to the monastery was a godsend. Dark and damp from Shambhala's freakishly potent climate, from the downpour just outside, he can't yet grasp the full scope of how grim things truly are. The closer he gets, though, the less that's true.] Lost him after the ambush. Lucky for him, probably: Lazarevic wasn't all that happy about you slipping away.

Put the gun down.

[As soon as Chloe confirms that she's totally alone, he doesn't care -- doesn't bother considering that she's actively hurt by the fact that he had fallen for Elena harder than he had fallen for her (or maybe he just actively recognized that he wanted something more than what Chloe would ever commit to). His tone of voice gets a little more stern, that fearless brand of recklessness that's gotten him into trouble so many times over.]

We can still put a stop to this, ok? Just--please.

[Lazarevic had succeeded in one thing, and that was in tearing his network apart. He's not sure when he had become so dependent on the company and camaraderie of others, but it had happened. Nate braces himself for the shot he can feel coming -- Chloe was never one to make idle threats, but he's not going to stop trying to bring her back from the edge.

He's probably going to die today anyway -- it may as well be for someone he cares about.]

[The more he edges in the more unsteady her grip becomes, shaking in some visual effort to convince herself to pull the bloody trigger before he has the chance to take it from her-- before her resolve breaks under his palm. But even a warning shot would attract unwanted attention, and after a few seconds of nearly taking the smarter option on an exhale, Chloe's arm drops; she falls back, sinks weakly to the floor leaving a bloody swath along the hewn stones at her back.] You stupid bastard.

It's already too late.

[Nate immediately scurries forward when the threat of a gun is no longer there. The blood isn't missed -- sometimes its hard for him to think of his friends as anything but invincible, even in spite of how often he actively tries to recognize that they aren't.

God, how could she have been so stupid?]

Hey--come on, stay with me Chloe.

[He can see how bad the damage is now that he's up close, but it doesn't deter him from trying to get at the wound. He'd been shot so many times growing up, he knows he can fix this if he can just get to the bullet.

He has to be able to fix it.]

[Spent as she is, there's force behind her grip when she doggedly tries to press him away for his own good, teeth gritted to get her through the biting ache of a few broken ribs. Lazarevic wasn't fond of being made to look like an imbecile, and thanks to a misguided, combined effort between the both of them, they'd managed to surpass the mark.]

No, stop-- stop it, Nate. [The fingers of her left hand cinch tight around metal, held carefully out of view] Listen to me for once in your bloody life and just stop!

[And he does stop then, but not calmly. He's tight under the press of her hands, clearly visibly distressed by what he's seeing and dealing with. Even knowing the line of work he's in, its never easy dealing with dying coworkers, especially not when they happen to be Chloe Frazer.

He paints the image of a kicked dog desperately looking for a drink of water. Its extremely hard for Nate to reconcile the idea that Chloe was not only dying, but she was dying because they had split up. She had gone it alone, thinking she and Harry Flynn would be able to outwit a war criminal.

And it was his fault. He had blamed her, thought she was purposefully lashing out at him for no reason. And maybe she was, but it didn't matter. No matter what she thought about him or thought about what he felt, he loved her. Just not the same way as he loved others.]

[It was never supposed to be her and Harry, it was meant to be her and Nate, right from the start-- and if it had been, if he hadn't turned his back on her at nearly every opportunity, they might have actually managed it. Instead she's left footing the bill of a live grenade and internal bleeding, the thought that even if Nate could help her she'd run the risk of killing him the second either her grip or her consciousness faltered.

And much as she hates him for this, she can't. Key difference between him being alone rather than carrying Sunshine along for the ride.] Take her and go while you still have the chance.

Elena's gone.

[Not in the sense he's about to lose Chloe to, but effectively out of the ravine and too far to reach him now. He subconsciously glances out toward the tree he can see waiting for him through the broken temple, but its brief.

Blue eyes flick back to Chloe and his brows relax just a little.]

If Lazarevic gets out of here, a lot of people are going to die.

[And he'll be hunted for the rest of his life, relentlessly. Not the way people look for him now, but hunted like a wild animal. Like prey.

Seeing Chloe as she is now only reaffirms his decision.]

I've got to go down there. You know that.

Edited 2015-04-23 13:02 (UTC)

[Gone? Dead--? No, that can't be right. Not if he's here looking more determined than dead, jaw set to keep himself on that suicidal course. Meaning she'd left. Without him.

Meaning he'd abandoned her, too. And it sets in, then, realization too long overdue that smooths out the creases in Chloe's bloodied brow: because it was never about her or Elena, not the stone or Shambhala or the thrill of discovery-- it was about Nate. It was always about Nate.

They were all victims of it, though at least Elena had the luck of crawling away unscathed.] You're insane.

You don't know what he's like. [There's a certain amount of disbelief in her tone, silver eyes darting down briefly towards her own injuries; an example she knows he'll never take.] I don't care how many people you tell yourself you're going to save by getting your neck snapped in half, you don't stand a chance.

Why do you care?

[Nate stares down at her, not exactly cold but at least slightly bitter. This wasn't how he wanted things to go between them, and it definitely wasn't the end he wanted. If she hadn't been so stubborn, if she had just tried to understand that he still had a conscious--

He doesn't want her to die. God he doesn't want this.]

I have to go down there. If I don't try now, I spend another six months running from a near immortal.

[His hand goes to try and staunch the blood flow, and he glances down toward the tree. Maybe he could carry Chloe down there.]

Why do you think-- [She'd cite her attempts to bargain for his life as proof: months of shared restlessness before that, hotel rooms and hostels and those old, old memories from when they were young and stupid and she'd gone out of her way to protect him the way he'd risked everything for her in turn.

She thought it'd meant something at the time. All of it. Now it only tastes like ash on the back of her tongue as that glance works to break what little she has left.

Her hand catches his first-- drops the gun for it and keeps him from leaning in.] I said don't.

[A beat, quieter:] You never listen.

Why?

[He doesn't miss what she mutters, but he chooses not to respond to it because she's right. He doesn't listen, because no matter what anyone says, his mind is made up at least ninety percent of the time. Chloe is his friend -- no, she's closer than a friend. They have a connection of sorts that he doesn't want to put a name to.

They can figure it out together another day.]

Why, after all of this, do you want me to leave you here now?

[He won't do it. Even if he has to drag her to the pools of Shambhala, he won't.]

Edited 2015-04-26 01:36 (UTC)

[She inhales sharply, hold on him going slack despite her best efforts. There's a paleness to her skin, and she feels it-- the unresponsiveness of her own body as the seconds tick on.

Her strain shifts instead to lifting her left arm; showing off the cold glint of the grenade she'd been left holding, pinned down with tired fingertips.] Because if you don't, I'll kill you.

[The glint of light catches his eye and he goes a little stiff in shock. For a few seconds, he's silent with his mouth hanging open slightly.

Its hard for Nate to accept that he might have most the fight here. Maybe he can get the grenade from her safely and toss it away -- he can see her grip on it is already weak, he could probably manage it.]

Chloe--please.

[There's only a second's hesitation before he tries to reach for the grenade hand -- its slow, and his intent is obvious. He's going to try and cradle it, but if she decides to squeeze or drop it, they're both dead.]

Please let me help you.

Back, or I drop it and kill us both-- [Managing to sound convincing in that threat (fingers tensed and locked and tugged well away from his slow reach) isn't easy. Stupid, she realizes, considering the fact that she's bleeding out right in front of Nate in the heart of bloody Shambhala, miles away from a pale shot at survival.

And that's not including what she's trying to keep from him.

Because it's excruciatingly tempting to take him up on that offer. His help. The one thing she'd wanted from the start of this mess - but there's not enough faith left in her cynical heart to trust that if she let him risk the trade that he'd survive an attempt to get rid of it. Lazarevic hadn't pressed it into her palm to be kind.]

It's over, darling. Just-- [She inhales sharply, silver eyes trained on the ceiling rather than his face for the sake of holding her resolve.] go.

Just go and let it be over.

I can't.

[Its practically a whisper. If her eyes haven't gone blurry yet, she might see his hand shaking. As much as he is reckless and seemingly fearless, he is only human -- she has a grenade with a pulled pin. If her hand slips they're both dead. If he can't get her to relinquish it gently--

This was still his fault, no matter the outcome.]

I'm sorry.

Why? [Low from the strain in her voice, barely a shaking whisper. She hadn't wanted this-- any of it, obviously, but the embarrassment of finally fracturing where he can see it-- Christ. It hurts. All of it hurts, breathing hitched and ragged and getting duller by the minute.

Why now when it's too bloody late?]

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SHAMBHALA AU OPEN POST

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that icon is way too happy

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