Uncharted: this is it: the apocalypse

[camalyng]

Title: this is it: the apocalypse
What: Uncharted fanfic - short story
Rating: G
Words: ~930
Summary: Nate accidentally crashes Chloe and Charlie's movie night.
Notes: Inspired by this an-uncharted-world strip and also a little by this one. Between 2 and 3, after the Elate split. Vague reference to "Candyman" but you don't need to have read it. Title from "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons. I have no idea what they're watching.


The problem with asking his friends to help him get the decoder back, Nate thinks furiously, is that they're not as focused as he is. First there was trick-or-treating, and now...

"A zombie movie?" he demands. "Seriously?"

"You scheduled this meeting for movie night," Chloe says, doing that thing where she says something ridiculous in a very reasonable tone of voice, which he used to like but now just finds irritating.

"Date night, more like," Nate retorts.

Chloe frowns and uses the moment to make a dramatic exit to the kitchen, but it's Charlie, looking uncomfortable, who says, "It's not a date," and Nate had been joking but now he's convinced it's true. Of course his friends would hook up while his marriage has fallen apart there are bigger things at stake.

"Anyway," Charlie continues, trying to brush past the moment. "We've told you everything we found out this week, I'm still waiting to hear back about that job lead, and your flight's still cancelled."

"One inch of snow," Nate says darkly, for the nth time that night; Chloe pats him on the shoulder as she returns with a bowl of popcorn.

"So you might as well stay over," she says, putting the popcorn on the coffee table and sitting back down on the couch. "Instead of sulking alone in your hotel room."

"I was going to work, not sulk."

"You can work here," Charlie points out, "and not pay out the arse for Internet and snacks."

Nate considers.

"I don't want to be a third wheel -"

"You're not," they say together.

"Uh-huh," he says, unconvinced.

"Look," says Chloe, picking up the tablet they've been showing him things on and passing it to him. "You can use this to follow up on anything online, and when you need to take a break, we'll be here."

"I won't," he says, but he takes the tablet anyway.

Then he pauses, because it has a very similar flame decal to the one on Chloe's gun.

"Chloe, how is this thing still working?"

"It's only two weeks old," Charlie stage whispers. "Give it time."

Chloe rolls her eyes and starts the movie. Nate manages to tune out both the dialogue and most of their chatter well enough for the first twenty minutes as he taps around, tabbing between Heathrow's flight status page and his search. It's not anything aural that distracts him: It's an alert saying Elena's played a word in Words With Friends.

He'd had no idea Chloe and Elena played together.

His already frayed concentration gone, he puts the tablet down and reaches for the popcorn. Charlie passes it over with a smile.

"Joining us in the land of the undead, are we?"

Trying to be a half-decent guest, Nate glances up at the TV and finds himself instead blurting out, "That's not even what zombies look like."

"And you would know because..." Chloe prompts him.

"Because I've seen the real thing," he says. "They got an old friend of mine, and they're what really killed Sir Francis Drake."

"Right," says Chloe, looking somewhat skeptical. "Anything like the Guardians, or the Smoky Gods?"

"Now I feel like a third wheel," Charlie comments to no one in particular.

"More like the Smoky Gods," he decides. "Not as smart as the Guardians. They were these - slippery naked guys on all fours, cursed by El Dorado."

"This sounds better than the film," says Charlie.

"They aren't as easy to kill as the movie's making out," Nate gripes, as someone headshots a zombie onscreen. "After I figured it out, I ran into way too many of the things when I was trying to get back to Elen--"

He stops himself short; neither of his friends meet his eyes. There's a long and tense silence between the three of them, the only sound coming from the movie, before Chloe finally says, "They can't do stairs? I know whose flat I'm coming to in a zombie apocalypse, then."

Nate breathes, and tries to concentrate on the film.


"That was fun," Nate admits the next morning, pulling his coat on to leave. "More fun than sulking alone in my hotel room. And, uh, sorry about the sulking."

Smiling, Charlie waves him off.

"We're watching Gladiator next week," he says, in a way that sounds a little like an invitation.

"Oh, good," says Nate. "Because I'm pretty sure that whole zombie fad is dead."

"But for how long?" Charlie offers with a sly grin.

Nate snorts, appreciative. He hesitates before asking, "Are you and Chloe...?"

Charlie shrugs.

"Does it matter?"

"I guess not?" Nate hazards a guess. "But... I'm glad you guys are happy. If you are."

"I'm happy," says Charlie, looking very much like he's trying not to laugh. "Last I checked, she's happy. Happier when you're -"

"Taking a break, I know," he sighs. "It's just -"

He doesn't have the words for it. He never did with Elena, and he doesn't have them for Charlie, either.

"Important," Charlie fills in. "Got it."

"Yeah," Nate says, grateful for the show of understanding even if he doesn't think Charlie really gets it.

"So," says Charlie. "Let me know if you get stuck in traffic, because bright eyes dropped her phone in the shower yesterday. And I'll let you know when Talbot calls back."

Nate blinks, and decides he doesn't want to know what Chloe was doing with her phone in the shower.

"Thanks a lot," he says instead. "Seriously."

"Get out of here before your flight gets cancelled again," Charlie says with a smile, and Nate blanches at the thought.