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“Shit, Frazer, you alright?”
Chloe groans from her place on the ground, “aww fuck, just tore a callus off.” Nadine appears behind her and gives her back her grappling hook. “Always do it at the worst times. Thanks.”
“Ja.” Nadine picks up the fallen token while Chloe stands up, picking at her bloodied hand. “Stop that, you’ll make it worse. I have some first aid in the truck, come on. So, do you do this often, tear calluses?”
“I mean, not on purpose but it happens. I rock climb, helps me keep in shape and in practice whenever I don’t have a job. Sometimes I tear them and have to either stop climbing or only use my fingers, which is tough when I’m not used to it.”
“Sit.” Chloe quirks a brow at Nadine but listens and hops into the passenger seat. “Let me wrap it. How often do you have to rock climb on jobs? So far this one seems like more grappling than climbing.”
“A lot of the time it's either diving or spelunking when I’ve gone alone. Never anything too tight.” Chloe winces as Nadine slathers the thick antibacterial ointment on her cracked and bloodied palm.
“Claustrophobic?”
“A little,” Chloe hums in agreement, watching Nadine deftly and carefully wrap her hand like an expert. “Had a lot of experience as a medic?”
“Ja, before joining Shoreline and entering the military, I was a trained paramedic. I know enough to keep someone as accident-prone as you alive.” Nadine pulls out a large clump of flowers from a small leather bag on the floor. “Here Spilanthes, toothache plant, chew it and it’ll help with the pain. I found it along the way when you were off with finding another token.”
Chloe looks at her with skepticism but shoves the clump in her mouth, grimacing as it tastes like she just ate a mouthful of grass. “You into herbal remedies?”
“Nah,” Nadine pauses and seemingly mentally drifts but quickly comes back, shaking her head. “Mum is. She believes in modern medicine as well for the big things, but she always said some things needed the herbal stuff. Any small or easily curable illness I got when I was a kid was always solved with some plants my mum either foraged or grew. We lived near a nature preserve.”
“She sounds like a wonderful woman.”
“Um, ja, she was. We had a falling out when I joined Shoreline.” Nadine crosses her arms and legs as she leans against the jeep to look out on the Western Ghats. “She wasn’t the happiest that I joined the military, but joining the company that my mother hated was the last straw. Her last words to me were, ‘I will mourn you when you die because of his stupidity.’ She was a pacifist through and through and hated when my father ignored her to create Shoreline.”
“Oh, Nadine.” Chloe’s uninjured hand wraps tightly around Nadine’s wrist. It surprises her when Nadine lets her, she doesn’t shake her off like she would’ve thought she would.
“I send her a present every year on her birthday and the only guarantee I get that she’s alive is that it doesn’t get sent back.” Nadine takes a moment but then she pats Chloe’s arm and wipes away the tears that have left a trail down the dirt on her cheeks. “Alright let's go, we’ve just got what, Shiva’s fort left?”
__________
Over the rushing of the water, Nadine hears a faint cry and then the crumbling of rubble before an unsettling silence raises the hair on her arms. As she comes flying out of the aqueduct, she sees Chloe crumpled into a ball on the ground. She lowers herself on the rope of her grappling hook and crawls over to Chloe and sees the small stream of blood trailing down her face.
“Oh Chloe,” Nadine whispers as she can really see how absolutely beat up her friend is.
She doesn’t know when she started considering Chloe her friend, but she really doesn’t care now. Bright purple bruises and cuts litter her face and chest from the beatdown Asav gave her. The left side of her face has watered down blood streaked across it as a cut left from his studded ring splits her thin forehead skin. She hates she really can’t do anything about sealing the cut as all of the first aid supplies are in the 4x4, but she tears a piece of her shirt off and soaks it in the aqueduct water, holding it to her head.
She’s not sure why she told her about her mum. She never tells anyone anything about her life if they don’t already know it. She doesn’t know why it's so easy to trust Chloe, she shouldn’t trust her, not after the fact that Chloe didn’t tell her about Sam Drake.
She knows all about Sam Drake. She wouldn’t be a good intelligence officer if she didn’t know, would she? She knows how he’s Asav’s expert on the Empire, it’s all a lie, but once he was captured he fell into place to hinder him as the ‘expert’. She wasn’t thrilled when she found out that he was a part of this mission, that Chloe didn’t and hasn’t told her about this partially being the rescue of Sam Drake.
Her rational mind tells her that while Chloe didn’t tell her about Sam, she didn’t tell her that the whole reason she decided to come on this mission was to get Shoreline back. Sure the money for the Tusk is a plus but it wasn’t her main reason for coming.
She lifts Chloe’s head on her thigh while she rolls her onto her side and holds the rag on her forehead. As her fingers absentmindedly run through Chloe’s rat's nest of a ponytail, she thinks of how much her feelings have changed during this expedition.
While of course she was single-minded towards getting Shoreline back, she realized how much fun she’s had on this admittedly deadly mission. She’s gotten to see her favorite animal, the grey langur and while most would make fun of her for having a favorite animal at her age, Chloe just smiled and laughed softly at her awe. Nadine has never been much of a history buff but her appreciation of the magnificence of the masterful builders of the Hoysala empire has grown since the first night she saw glimpses of it in Asav’s penthouse.
“What a sight you are! A pretty woman holding me AND running her fingers through my hair? It must be a dream.” Chloe mumbles, shocking Nadine who immediately looks into her eyes to make sure she’s alright. “Ugh, you paramedics are annoying.”
“I’m making sure you don’t have any brain damage, so if that's annoying, then oh well.” Nadine gently moves her leg from under Chloe’s head. “You alright to stand?”
Chloe nods and winces at the movement but stands with Nadine’s help.
“Hey, are you alright?” Chloe can see the tenseness in Nadine’s shoulders as she looks around the cave they’re in.
“I should be asking you that question.” Nadine sucks air between her teeth, knowing her lips are split in an unconcious snarl. “I know about Sam Drake.”
“Oh.” Chloe’s teeth pull back in a grimace and she rubs the back of her neck. “You know about him.”
“Of course, I know about him. I did my research, Chloe.” Nadine sighs, staring at the back of Chloe’s head. “You should have told me about him. But you weren’t going to, were you? Not until I was face to face with him, right?”
“I-,” Chloe’s voice catches in her throat, seemingly unable to lie to Nadine.
“That’s what I thought.” Nadine, exhaustedly pushes past her, unable to be angry after getting beaten by Asav. “Come on, we can’t let him keep this head start on us.”
__________
Being this close to Chloe made her uncomfortable after her avoidance about Drake, but the beauty of this massive cave and the heartbeat of the elephant below her keeps her grounded. Her boots are uncomfortable and squishy against the skin of her feet as she keeps them pressed against the side of the elephant and all she wishes she could do is go barefoot and let her feet dry. Her split and cracked knuckles still hurt from punching Asav as she stretches her fingers and arms, feeling the dried dirt and blood fall off.
She turns away as Chloe looks back at her with a smile before it falls and Chloe curls into herself as she turns forward. Nadine doesn’t like seeing her smile fall but, she wants Chloe to feel how much her avoidance hurt her.
“Look, I… um… I’m not very good at the whole people thing.”
Words fall from her mouth before she thinks about it. “You’re a selfish dickhead.” Internally, she winces at herself, but she can’t deny the truth behind it.
“Yeah. You’re right.” Chloe pauses, looking absolutely confused with herself. She knows Nadine’s words are the truth. “I am a selfish dickhead.”
“Ja,” Nadine says before a laugh bursts from her lips. “It’s good to hear you say it.”
“Well, did you hear that dad?” Chloe pulls the Ganesh from her pocket and Nadine can see how horribly cracked and torn her nails and hands are. “Did get something from you after all.”
She’s shared about her strained relationship with her mum and she wants to know about Chloe’s father. “What happened with your father?”
Chloe takes a moment before the entire backstory with her father spills out of her. Nadine can feel the pain Chloe feels radiate from her as she speaks about his last, failed expedition. She doesn’t know when he passed, but she knows Chloe has been dealing with his death for a long time, his abandonment even longer.
“And this, stupid thing is all I have left of him.” Even as she waves the figurine around, Chloe can’t seem to take her eyes off it.
“I’m sorry,” Nadine says, more honest than she’s ever said to Chloe.
She hesitates but gently rests her hand on Chloe’s unblemished shoulder. Her hand is light and hesitant until Chloe puts her own hand on top of Nadine’s and she uses Chloe’s touch as an escape. An escape from all the death and the danger of the past day.
Their peaceful moment is broken by the charging of the elephant and Nadine’s arm quickly wraps around Chloe’s waist mindlessly, to try and protect her. They both go flying into the shallow water the elephant jumps in and Nadine pulls Chloe out of the water, laughing. Chloe’s body is pressed into hers as she laughs and her head falls on Nadine’s shoulder, hand tightly clenched in her soaking wet t-shirt.
“No wonder she was so distressed, look.” Chloe gestures with her head to the herd of elephants not too far from them. Nadine can feel the deep breath Chloe takes against her stomach. “About Sam-”
“No, it’s alright. I wish you would have told me earlier before I took the job,” Nadine pauses, “but I’m glad you didn’t. I would have missed out on all this.” She looks down and leans away as she grabs Chloe’s bloody hands. “Imagine if I wasn’t here, what would you do then?” She can’t seem to look Chloe in the eyes after saying that.
Chloe lets her diligently work, flexing her fingers as Nadine finishes wrapping antibiotic bandages around them. The tan color of the bandages really tells them both how dirty and muddy they both are, but soon nearly every finger of Chloe’s is wrapped and she can move her hands freely.
“I would probably be still lying on that floor, head split open.” Chloe’s warm hand wraps around her wrist and Nadine is pulled forward and dry, cracked lips kiss her cheek. “Thank you, Nadine.”
“O- of course.” She silently curses her stutter and turns away to avoid Chloe’s growing smirk as she shoves the bandages back into her waterproof bag.
__________
“Chloe? Are you alright?” Nadine had been stripping her double layer of socks and boots off when she heard a sharp but soft cry from the bathroom. The bathroom door isn’t locked but she still knocks. She waits for a minute and finally hears Chloe let her in.
The bathroom is muggy and warm and Nadine can see the Tusk sitting in the sink surrounded by towels and glistening with condensation. She knows Chloe trusts her but she also knows how much finding the Tusk means to her, one of the last connections to her father.
“Hey, what happened?”
“The wounds on my back opened and I can barely move my arms.”
Nadine feels bad for Chloe who is not normally a fighter and isn't used to the soreness that comes with a fight. She wished she could’ve been kept out of the fight, but Nadine knows that if she hadn’t been there to help with Asav, they would all be pulp at the bottom of the river right now.
“Can I climb in with you? It’ll be easier to clean them with the shower.”
“Wow, it’s been less than a week and you want to see me naked?” Chloe laughs and Nadine’s cheeks are hot. Chloe yelps, interrupting her laugh. “Yeah, come on in.”
Nadine grabs a few extra washcloths from the shelf and undresses down to her briefs and climbs in behind Chloe. Her heart twists seeing the blood streaming down from the cuts all along her back and sides.
“These the knife wounds?” In more than a few scuffles along the train, Asav’s soldiers had knives and Chloe had gotten hit many times, all superficial, but enough to dye her shirt an even darker red. “You know, it’s like a full-time job, patching you up.”
Chloe laughs and moves her hair out of the way to let Nadine clean her back. Nadine dutifully ignores the sunspots littering Chloe’s tanned back as she works on cleaning the freely bleeding wounds. Every time Chloe moves her arms any higher than her neck or more than a foot in front of her, her wounds pull and she lets out a shaking breath.
“What are your plans after we meet with the Ministry?” Nadine can feel the low, purring quality of Chloe’s voice through her ribcage.
“I-” Nadine had only planned on what would happen after she got Shoreline back, but now she doesn’t know what to do. “I’m not sure. I had planned on returning to Johannesburg after getting Shoreline back but now…” Nadine shrugs.
“Come to Melbourne with me.” Chloe pushes Nadine’s arm just enough away to turn in her arm and looks down, smiling. “It’s a shower, you know you’re supposed to be naked or it defeats the purpose.”
Nadine shakes her head silently as she keeps her washcloth pressed to the long wound on Chloe’s side. “Later.”
“Come to Melbourne,” Chloe repeats, “it's where my mom lives. You don’t have to meet her, but I don’t want to leave you drifting with no idea what to do until the next job. If you want.”
“I’d love to,” Nadine says simply and it makes Chloe beam.
Nadine works on cleaning the blood from a few scrapes on Chloe’s chest but is stopped when a gentle hand touches her chest.
“We’re doing this backward.”
“What backward?”
“We’ve seen each other naked, mostly naked, and you’ll see my mother before you’d kiss me.” Chloe cracks up. “You’re touching me too. Next thing we know, I’ll be on my knees trying to see just what’s under-”
Nadine stops Chloe from saying anything more that would make her redder and Chloe laughs against her lips, smiling before losing herself in the kiss. Her hand still stays pressed against Chloe’s side but she pulls her close, Chloe’s arms wrapping low around her waist. A hand sneaks its way down the back of her briefs and squeezes her ass.
“Hey!” Chloe is laughing at her but pulls her hands away from her back.
“I’ve never noticed it before, but you’re ripped.” Chloe’s hands are exploring her chest and abdomen. “Top surgery?”
“Ja?”
“It’s hot.” Chloe kisses her bony chest. “You’re hot.”
“Thanks.”
Chloe hums, eyes not leaving her chest. “All mine?” Her eyes are pinched in hope and she bites her lip.
“Possibly after the shower if you’re not passed out.” Nadine gives her a look.
“I could never sleep when I have a god in my arms.” Chloe looks a little unsure calling Nadine a god but Nadine kisses her and pushes her out of the large shower cubicle.
“We’ll see.”
Nadine watches Chloe wrap her hair in a towel and carry the Tusk out in its nest of towels before she showers herself. She never thought she’d be this appreciative of hot water after only a day, she had gone longer in the military, but never in muggy heat like this. She never stepped outside and immediately started sweating with only the barest layer of clothes.
After a long shower and bandaging her own cuts, Nadine comes out of the shower a little over half an hour later and laughs seeing Chloe half dressed and asleep on the king-size bed. The Tusk glitters in a half-open drawer in the nightstand next to her. Nadine only puts on underwear and climbs in bed, wrapping her arms around Chloe who curls into her chest, not as asleep as she thought.
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“We’ll be millionaires,” Chloe sighs in happiness.