Chloe Frazer

Chloe refuses to call this domesticity.

The very word makes her feel as if she's eaten something rancid and it's all about to come back up, so she doesn't even allow herself to think it, but she does have to admit to an outside observer what she's doing with Nate right now probably looks like a relationship. Not that anyone is observing them at the moment, at least as far as she knows, because it's rather early in the morning and the sun is just beginning to come through the curtains and if anyone is up this early in the morning she expects they have better things to do than spy on her and Nate.

Partly because Nate's still asleep. He's hardly doing anything exciting.

She doesn't stay at his place every night and he doesn't stay at hers all the time either, but she has to admit they're spending more nights together than they are apart and she finds she doesn't actually mind it all that much. There's no itch under her skin that tells her she ought to run, there's no need for extra space, because if there's anyone who understands that she sometimes needs a bit of time alone, it's Nate. She can go to her place whenever she likes and he doesn't say a word.

It also means when she gets threatening letters from the people who burned down the building they were in and caused her bloody injury, she can keep them to herself. That's a thing she feels mildly guilty about and so she has all three of the letters stuffed into her jacket pocket, which is lying on the bedroom floor about six feet away, exactly where she had dumped it the night before in an effort to shed as many layers in as little amount of time as possible.

That's something she can blame on Nate. It's his own fault she'd needed to get him naked so quickly.

But she knows she ought to share the letters with him and she will, just as soon as he's awake. And for the time being, as the sun leaks in the room, she's just going to enjoy the view and she settles down next to Nate again, dragging her fingertips over his chest.

They've been awake all bloody night.

It's hardly the first time she's done this, it's not as if she's ever worked a regular nine to five job, the sort where she goes home at the end of it all and does normal domestic activities before falling into bed at an appropriate hour and then getting up to do it all over again the next day. A life like that sounds, quite frankly, absolutely horrifying to Chloe, but Darrow has presented her with a unique set of challenges she's never faced before.

And she's responded by developing a routine.

It's only as six in the morning creeps closer that she realizes it, her eyes burning from the lack of sleep and she hates it a little, but a big part of her is too tired to really care. This is all going to be over soon, just thirty minutes more, and the only thing she can think about is crawling into her incredibly comfortable bed and pulling the blankets over her head until she feels mostly human again.

That and the fact that she'd come too close to losing Nate tonight.

It's not something she wants to talk about, not even something she wants to think about, but they're holed up in her apartment, both of them armed, neither of them speaking much, and she knows it's the elephant in the room. Nate had gotten kidnapped by some coffee loving cult and Chloe had come to rescue him.

The fact that she'd brought Coop doesn't negate what she'd done in the first place. This Purge business had started and Nate was the first person she had gone to look for. It's telling, it makes her affection for him obvious and she hates that it's obvious. Nate has always been able to drive her a little crazy, if only through his ability to get under her skin when so few others have and over the past few hours, during which they've seen relatively little action, she's glad neither of them have said a word about it.

But the truth is that she thinks about crawling into bed and in that little waking dream, she isn't alone. Nate is there, too.

"Sun's coming up," she says softly, looking out the window at the city below. For a few hours there had been plenty of activity for her to watch, people running up and down the street, plenty of fights, one of which she'd broken up by shooting at the ground around them when it had gotten too violent. For the most part she's kept out of it, though, and by now the street is nearly empty, save for broken glass and garbage, the remnants of the crime from the night before.

"It's almost done." She finally looks away from her vantage point, turning her gaze toward Nate where he's sitting at the other window. "Coffee? Or have you gone off the stuff?"

Her feelings for him might be complicated at best, but she's not about to stop teasing him.

Exactly three days into her time in Darrow and she can't find a bloody way out of here.

Chloe wouldn't say it's pissing her off, she's kept her cool, she's done what everyone expects of her and has gone to get the damn package waiting for her at the train station. She's gone to the flat provided, though she only spent one night there, most of it pacing between the bedroom and the kitchen, her gun in one hand as she waited for someone to bust down the door and try to throw a bag over her head. The other two nights have been spent in the hallway outside of Nate's flat, not that she'd ever admit to it, but she'd felt just the slightest bit safer there.

Not that Nathan Drake makes her feel safe in any way. It's just the comfort of a familiar presence, even if he is behind a locked door and without the slightest idea she's there at all.

Today, though, she thinks she's on the verge of giving up. There's no way out of here. Everything everyone has told her is true and she's stuck in this damn city along with everyone else. Along with Nate. She wants to be able to blame him, because nine times out of ten, if something has gone wrong and Nathan Drake is involved, it's his fault, but can't find any explanation for it that connects him.

He's probably destroyed some ancient city and therefore cursed them all to a life in this place, but she can't prove it.

So she's hammering at his door and it's too early in the morning, he's probably still in bed, but she doesn't care, so long as he's there alone. It's not as if the man needs his beauty sleep and if he's sleeping with someone who isn't Elena, Chloe is going to kick his ass twice as hard. Not that she'd say no to another go with him, but that's different. She knows at the end of it all Elena is the one he loves, but it isn't so bad to occasionally be the one he wants.

Anyone else, though, and he's getting her boot right up his arse.