[ She accepts the help without complaint and only a mild dose of embarrassment; she's a practical woman, he's her partner, this is such a little thing when it comes to the big picture of who they are and the life they've built together. No need to make anything pointlessly complicated, which he'd reminded her when she got back and tried to push on like normal. So Harry's helped wash her hair when her broken ribs limit her reach, so he's helping her now. She's helped him through worse. And now, just like then, there are no eyes on them. They're allowed this.
Still, she grunts in pain when his hand comes too close to her throbbing side, groans when they're both seated again, breathing carefully until the ache subsides to a dull burn: her time in the Ghats wasn't easy and maybe they're finally getting a little too old for this job (a conversation for another day). But there's nothing on the agenda here, just rest and ghost stories. She can feel him watching her and his question earns a reflexive smile in response, a little nod. ]
Yeah. Just need a sec.
[ He won't fuss, they don't do that, but when she opens her eyes to a steaming mug pressed into her hands and Harry hunched close at her side and counting out pills, something warm settles in her chest. She takes them with a scalding mouthful of barely-steeped tea. And then — ]
Tim Tams? [ Hushed, incredulous. ] When did you — [ She starts laughing, even if it hurts. ] Jesus Christ, Harry, I can't — where did you even find them?
[ It's so mundane but God, she missed him these past few weeks. Sam and Nadine are friends she'll keep for life, bonded as they are by their quest for the Tusk, but Harry knows her in a different and more intimate way. (Bloody Tim Tams!) Maybe that's why it feels so stupid to keep this story from him now. ]
I can't believe you. [ She takes a biscuit, rips open the wrapper one-handed with her teeth, takes a bite (God, it tastes like home), talks around a mouthful: ] Now I know you're spoiling me. Special occasion?
( he can't help but laugh with her, because, frankly, it is a little absurd. timtams aren't exactly the easiest snack to find outside of australia, but — ) I know a guy who knows a guy. ( which is really just a dodgy way of saying charlie hooked him up. besides, it doesn't matter where he got them; she's enjoying them, which is all he could have asked for. (she'll be pleased to discover there is also a whole jar full of them in the kitchen. what was once decorative is now serving a greater purpose as a timtam receptacle.) and while they've never exactly had an anniversary, it's around this time of year he always seems to think about where they started — sort of, anyway. when he'd brought chloe in on the istanbul heist, he never could have imagined where it would lead, never would have thought it could ever lead to this. when did mostly professional become completely faithful? )
What, I can't spoil my girl just because I feel like it? ( he swears he's not even vying for anything! for once, these timtams come with no ulterior motive. maybe he just wanted to see her smile. hear her laugh. they've been apart for longer stints than this one, but this one is undoubtedly the longest since they went all in on this place together. a couple days here and there, sure, a couple weeks every now and then (harry's yearly visits to germany have yet to include chloe, for reasons he doesn't particularly want to examine at the moment) — but a month? it's been a long time since either of them worked a job that kept them away that long. it's been a long time since he thought he could lose her, too.
he shifts to face her, pulling one leg up onto the couch, his arm swinging behind her to rest on the cushion, and takes a moment to just — look at her. he's missed more than just the sex — he's missed her. who else's hair does he constantly need to brush out of their face? who else know exactly how he takes his coffee? who else lets him sleep in and hog all the hot water? he reaches forward, lightly tucking her persistent stray hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing across her cheek, his palm fitting to the curve of her jaw. )
Missed you, is all. ( so maybe he went out of his way to find timtams not just for her, but for himself, too. maybe there was some deal of comfort to be found in foreign chocolate biscuits. )
[ My girl, he says, and she huffs a laugh, eyes rolling as if to say yeah, okay but it's familiar, fond. No ulterior motives but she could make the joke if she wanted to. That would spoil the moment, though, and when Harry reaches out to touch her, she feels the tension ease from her shoulders. They aren't always this tender, even in the privacy of their own home, but seems like this job did a number on them both.
Missed you, he says next, even though she's been back a week. But maybe she hasn't been here until just now. ]
Careful, [ she murmurs, a smile hooking into the corner of her mouth. ] People might think you've gone soft.
[ She has. And if word ever gets out about what she did in India, she might be hard up on partners for the rest of her career, apart from the one in the room (plus Sam and Nadine). Who wants to work with a treasure hunter who gives up the treasure? Double-crossing they can understand — who hasn't done it? — but returning the Tusk to the authorities is another betrayal altogether. She's still not sure if Sam's forgiven her for that after everything Asav put him through. (A conversation for another time.) But maybe it's time for a bit of softness; maybe it's not such a bad thing after all the trouble their arrogance and self-preservation have cost them in the past. This life attracts a certain kind of person — you can't throw a stone without hitting a thief who's in it for themselves. But maybe, after everything, that's not the kind of person you want watching your back.
Sam and Nadine barely knew her and they had hers. She could've given the older Drake up for dead but didn't. And Harry — well, he's had her back since they met, even if she didn't realise it at the time and certainly didn't appreciate it when they hit their boiling point in Tibet. No one's more surprised than Chloe that they've come this far. When she told Nadine she was done with walking away, she didn't realise that she'd made that decision long before the Ghats.
She leans in to kiss him, just a soft press of her lips to his. I know. ]
Missed you too. [ It's a quiet admission and one that doesn't necessarily come with ease. It's different when she breathes it during a steamy long-distance call: it's physical. But this — she hadn't realised how accustomed she'd gotten to having him with her until he wasn't. She rests her forehead against his, grey eyes catching blue, her next words riding on a sigh like a secret. ] Sorry, I know I've been a bit... [ Distracted. Distant. She tips her head slightly, just enough to look back at the laptop and its glowing photograph like it can offer a better explanation — then it dims, goes black. She blinks and straightens with a shake of her head. ] Just — can't shake this one off.
[ Her eyes flick back to his as she flashes a quick smile. ]
I'll get there. [ She crunches down on the second half of her biscuit like an icebreaker, holding up the empty wrapper like a pennant. ] These help.
( maybe he has gone soft — or, at least, he's mellowed out from being a hair trigger away from blowing someone's brains out over a job (it was more than just the job, though; nate managed to push every single one of harry's buttons in one go) — but no one other than chloe ever needs to know that. he shrugs it off with an expression that seems to say, they'll never know, will they?
he still has some appearances to keep up, after all, especially in this line of work. these private moments with chloe are just for them — there's a reason no one knows about the loft outside of charlie. the world doesn't need to know who they are behind closed doors, beyond what they assume is happening (that, at least, they've never been shy about in public; and maybe it started out as possessive, territorial, harry's jealousy rearing its ugly head, but now there's a certain kind of confidence, preening almost, in the casual, comfortable way they exist together with company).
any other night, just a soft kiss might fire him up, might lead his hand to stray between her legs — but this isn't one of those nights. he can feel it in the air, in the gentle way her lips touch his. now isn't the time. by now, they know each other's desires inside and out, backwards and forwards, up and down; if she wanted to take this further, she already would have. still, he leans into it, chases the warmth of her mouth for just a moment before she pulls away.
it's the quiet admission left in the wake of their kiss that takes him by surprise. he doesn't often hear her say it, doesn't necessarily need her too, either; she's always said it in other ways. his mouth twitches with a ghost of a smile, the warm feeling in his chest spreading to his face, almost like he's had a bit too much to drink. she's always had this effect on him, even before he knew what it was. )
I know. ( he can't blame her for getting a little lost in her own head. whatever happened in india must have had a profound impact on her, averting civil war aside. (he's seen his own share of that, though he hadn't actually bothered averting anything. trying to convince lazarevic out of that more than likely would have gotten him killed. he'd seen what lazarevic was capable of in borneo; trying to talk a war criminal out of warmongering would have been like trying to talk a lion out of eating a gazelle.)
he's been a bit lost himself these past few months — and maybe she even noticed it before she left — but he hasn't been able to bring himself to talk about it. there never seem to be the right words. there's a box of jazz records his mum gave him he still hasn't touched. there are artifacts in their safe that weren't there before chloe left, old journals strewn about the library written in german, pages from an original medieval manuscript tucked underneath pages of notes in harry's nearly illegible scrawl. he could have gone with chloe to india, but he would have been too distracted by his own mess to be of much help. while she was researching the tusk, he'd been doing research of his own, spending hours upon hours at the national archives, visiting his mum while she was still in town. and while there's still an emptiness where his grandmother should be, the knowledge she left him might be enough to help him find a legacy of his own.
he nods to the now blackened screen of chloe's laptop. he'd only gotten a brief glimpse of a towering city hidden beneath a canopy of rock and trees before the screen went dark. )
[ They've both been chasing ghosts, not that they know it. Maybe Harry hasn't realised that's what he's doing just yet. It sure as hell didn't hit Chloe until she was in the thick of it; of course she knew the personal connection she had to this gig but she didn't let herself feel it. Too much heart when she needed her head in the game and too much heart just isn't her bag. (Or so she says.) She couldn't let her partners know, not when they were relative unknowns, not when it could've jeopardised everything. (Jury's still out on that one. It did and it didn't.)
Legacies are a strange thing. They're for other people with bigger stories, grander aspirations, family ties that run deep and unbreakable. They're for people who are loyal to others. To something greater than themselves. For years, she wasn't sure what loyalty meant to her outside a contract with a hard end date. Here, now, staring down the second half of a decade with Harry Flynn, can she even play dumb with loyalty at all? She certainly wouldn't say she's held any to her father's memory — but she's held on to Ganesh, the only thing left of it (of him).
God, it's as complicated as it is painfully straightforward. He wasn't who she thought he was. She isn't who she believed she was. And neither was this job, this treasure, or what they meant. So when Harry runs with the story she's fed him, the one where she says it was just another hunt, it makes her chest pang in strange and uncomfortable way and she realises downplaying it, making it small, is what she's done with her father's death her whole life, never mind his work. And for the first time since India, she feels the hot curl of shame.
Yeah, she stopped a bomb, a civil war. She saved lives. But that doesn't really make it right, not for her. Not yet. ]
Wasn't just another city on the list.
[ The words hang in the air for a moment as she looks back at the laptop, wets her lips as she thinks. She nudges the coffee table with her foot and jostles the laptop just enough that it blinks back awake. Belur glows at them just like it seemed to on the day she and Nadine found it. Here goes. ]
Thought it was — tried to tell myself it was, but... You grow up hearing about a place, it becomes this – this big thing in your head. Didn't realise it had, but actually seeing it? [ She blows out a breath, almost a laugh but it's more air than sound. ] Felt like a myth coming to life. And Belur, [ she nods at the screen, ] was different. Special. [ Like the Tusk hidden in its depths. ] The Persians didn't give a damn about it, they overlooked it; but others didn't. [ She could leave it there, but something about her tone suggests she doesn't mean herself or Asav and his men. This pause is longer, heavier with hesitancy this time, until she takes a deep breath, looks at him, then clarifies softly: ] My dad didn't.
( they don't often speak about family. chloe knows, of course, that harry visits his mother in germany every year when he can — but beyond that? it's never been something that ever seemed integral to their relationship or their understanding of one another. he doesn't need to use the drama of his childhood and adolescence as an excuse for why he is the way he is. and, frankly, it wouldn't matter. they've never needed the benefit of a prologue to learn to read each other, especially not after all this time. broad strokes have always been enough to paint the picture, but every now and then a hidden depth emerges from a quiet admission, years of untruths melting away to reveal the true painting underneath.
honesty is still something they're working on. secrets don't keep well between them anymore. so they don't lie to each other like they used to — not after syria; not after they almost lost each other — but there are still things they aren't always entirely open about, things they'd rather keep close to their chests until the time is right. family, it seems, is one of those things. it shouldn't surprise him. in this line of business, family either has nothing to do with the work or it has everything to do with it. sam's mother. chloe's father. each with their own legacy. harry can only begin to comprehend what that actually means — and for a moment he almost feels like retreating, making some offhanded remark about how she'd be better off talking this through with sam. what does harry know about legacy? barely anything. but he knows chloe. better than anyone, he'd wager.
idly, his hand brushes through her hair strewn against her back, curling loose waves around his fingers. her hair is in desperate need of deep conditioning after a month in the ghats, but all that can wait. his hand stills at the mention of chloe's father, his expression softening from intent curiosity to gentle concern. )
Not so lost after all, then. ( which might sound flippant to anyone else, but really he's just putting the pieces together out loud. his brows pinch when he finally understands the gravity of it all. ) He never told you?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Still, she grunts in pain when his hand comes too close to her throbbing side, groans when they're both seated again, breathing carefully until the ache subsides to a dull burn: her time in the Ghats wasn't easy and maybe they're finally getting a little too old for this job (a conversation for another day). But there's nothing on the agenda here, just rest and ghost stories. She can feel him watching her and his question earns a reflexive smile in response, a little nod. ]
Yeah. Just need a sec.
[ He won't fuss, they don't do that, but when she opens her eyes to a steaming mug pressed into her hands and Harry hunched close at her side and counting out pills, something warm settles in her chest. She takes them with a scalding mouthful of barely-steeped tea. And then — ]
Tim Tams? [ Hushed, incredulous. ] When did you — [ She starts laughing, even if it hurts. ] Jesus Christ, Harry, I can't — where did you even find them?
[ It's so mundane but God, she missed him these past few weeks. Sam and Nadine are friends she'll keep for life, bonded as they are by their quest for the Tusk, but Harry knows her in a different and more intimate way. (Bloody Tim Tams!) Maybe that's why it feels so stupid to keep this story from him now. ]
I can't believe you. [ She takes a biscuit, rips open the wrapper one-handed with her teeth, takes a bite (God, it tastes like home), talks around a mouthful: ] Now I know you're spoiling me. Special occasion?
no subject
What, I can't spoil my girl just because I feel like it? ( he swears he's not even vying for anything! for once, these timtams come with no ulterior motive. maybe he just wanted to see her smile. hear her laugh. they've been apart for longer stints than this one, but this one is undoubtedly the longest since they went all in on this place together. a couple days here and there, sure, a couple weeks every now and then (harry's yearly visits to germany have yet to include chloe, for reasons he doesn't particularly want to examine at the moment) — but a month? it's been a long time since either of them worked a job that kept them away that long. it's been a long time since he thought he could lose her, too.
he shifts to face her, pulling one leg up onto the couch, his arm swinging behind her to rest on the cushion, and takes a moment to just — look at her. he's missed more than just the sex — he's missed her. who else's hair does he constantly need to brush out of their face? who else know exactly how he takes his coffee? who else lets him sleep in and hog all the hot water? he reaches forward, lightly tucking her persistent stray hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing across her cheek, his palm fitting to the curve of her jaw. )
Missed you, is all. ( so maybe he went out of his way to find timtams not just for her, but for himself, too. maybe there was some deal of comfort to be found in foreign chocolate biscuits. )
no subject
Missed you, he says next, even though she's been back a week. But maybe she hasn't been here until just now. ]
Careful, [ she murmurs, a smile hooking into the corner of her mouth. ] People might think you've gone soft.
[ She has. And if word ever gets out about what she did in India, she might be hard up on partners for the rest of her career, apart from the one in the room (plus Sam and Nadine). Who wants to work with a treasure hunter who gives up the treasure? Double-crossing they can understand — who hasn't done it? — but returning the Tusk to the authorities is another betrayal altogether. She's still not sure if Sam's forgiven her for that after everything Asav put him through. (A conversation for another time.) But maybe it's time for a bit of softness; maybe it's not such a bad thing after all the trouble their arrogance and self-preservation have cost them in the past. This life attracts a certain kind of person — you can't throw a stone without hitting a thief who's in it for themselves. But maybe, after everything, that's not the kind of person you want watching your back.
Sam and Nadine barely knew her and they had hers. She could've given the older Drake up for dead but didn't. And Harry — well, he's had her back since they met, even if she didn't realise it at the time and certainly didn't appreciate it when they hit their boiling point in Tibet. No one's more surprised than Chloe that they've come this far. When she told Nadine she was done with walking away, she didn't realise that she'd made that decision long before the Ghats.
She leans in to kiss him, just a soft press of her lips to his. I know. ]
Missed you too. [ It's a quiet admission and one that doesn't necessarily come with ease. It's different when she breathes it during a steamy long-distance call: it's physical. But this — she hadn't realised how accustomed she'd gotten to having him with her until he wasn't. She rests her forehead against his, grey eyes catching blue, her next words riding on a sigh like a secret. ] Sorry, I know I've been a bit... [ Distracted. Distant. She tips her head slightly, just enough to look back at the laptop and its glowing photograph like it can offer a better explanation — then it dims, goes black. She blinks and straightens with a shake of her head. ] Just — can't shake this one off.
[ Her eyes flick back to his as she flashes a quick smile. ]
I'll get there. [ She crunches down on the second half of her biscuit like an icebreaker, holding up the empty wrapper like a pennant. ] These help.
no subject
he still has some appearances to keep up, after all, especially in this line of work. these private moments with chloe are just for them — there's a reason no one knows about the loft outside of charlie. the world doesn't need to know who they are behind closed doors, beyond what they assume is happening (that, at least, they've never been shy about in public; and maybe it started out as possessive, territorial, harry's jealousy rearing its ugly head, but now there's a certain kind of confidence, preening almost, in the casual, comfortable way they exist together with company).
any other night, just a soft kiss might fire him up, might lead his hand to stray between her legs — but this isn't one of those nights. he can feel it in the air, in the gentle way her lips touch his. now isn't the time. by now, they know each other's desires inside and out, backwards and forwards, up and down; if she wanted to take this further, she already would have. still, he leans into it, chases the warmth of her mouth for just a moment before she pulls away.
it's the quiet admission left in the wake of their kiss that takes him by surprise. he doesn't often hear her say it, doesn't necessarily need her too, either; she's always said it in other ways. his mouth twitches with a ghost of a smile, the warm feeling in his chest spreading to his face, almost like he's had a bit too much to drink. she's always had this effect on him, even before he knew what it was. )
I know. ( he can't blame her for getting a little lost in her own head. whatever happened in india must have had a profound impact on her, averting civil war aside. (he's seen his own share of that, though he hadn't actually bothered averting anything. trying to convince lazarevic out of that more than likely would have gotten him killed. he'd seen what lazarevic was capable of in borneo; trying to talk a war criminal out of warmongering would have been like trying to talk a lion out of eating a gazelle.)
he's been a bit lost himself these past few months — and maybe she even noticed it before she left — but he hasn't been able to bring himself to talk about it. there never seem to be the right words. there's a box of jazz records his mum gave him he still hasn't touched. there are artifacts in their safe that weren't there before chloe left, old journals strewn about the library written in german, pages from an original medieval manuscript tucked underneath pages of notes in harry's nearly illegible scrawl. he could have gone with chloe to india, but he would have been too distracted by his own mess to be of much help. while she was researching the tusk, he'd been doing research of his own, spending hours upon hours at the national archives, visiting his mum while she was still in town. and while there's still an emptiness where his grandmother should be, the knowledge she left him might be enough to help him find a legacy of his own.
he nods to the now blackened screen of chloe's laptop. he'd only gotten a brief glimpse of a towering city hidden beneath a canopy of rock and trees before the screen went dark. )
Another lost city to cross off the list, eh?
no subject
Legacies are a strange thing. They're for other people with bigger stories, grander aspirations, family ties that run deep and unbreakable. They're for people who are loyal to others. To something greater than themselves. For years, she wasn't sure what loyalty meant to her outside a contract with a hard end date. Here, now, staring down the second half of a decade with Harry Flynn, can she even play dumb with loyalty at all? She certainly wouldn't say she's held any to her father's memory — but she's held on to Ganesh, the only thing left of it (of him).
God, it's as complicated as it is painfully straightforward. He wasn't who she thought he was. She isn't who she believed she was. And neither was this job, this treasure, or what they meant. So when Harry runs with the story she's fed him, the one where she says it was just another hunt, it makes her chest pang in strange and uncomfortable way and she realises downplaying it, making it small, is what she's done with her father's death her whole life, never mind his work. And for the first time since India, she feels the hot curl of shame.
Yeah, she stopped a bomb, a civil war. She saved lives. But that doesn't really make it right, not for her. Not yet. ]
Wasn't just another city on the list.
[ The words hang in the air for a moment as she looks back at the laptop, wets her lips as she thinks. She nudges the coffee table with her foot and jostles the laptop just enough that it blinks back awake. Belur glows at them just like it seemed to on the day she and Nadine found it. Here goes. ]
Thought it was — tried to tell myself it was, but... You grow up hearing about a place, it becomes this – this big thing in your head. Didn't realise it had, but actually seeing it? [ She blows out a breath, almost a laugh but it's more air than sound. ] Felt like a myth coming to life. And Belur, [ she nods at the screen, ] was different. Special. [ Like the Tusk hidden in its depths. ] The Persians didn't give a damn about it, they overlooked it; but others didn't. [ She could leave it there, but something about her tone suggests she doesn't mean herself or Asav and his men. This pause is longer, heavier with hesitancy this time, until she takes a deep breath, looks at him, then clarifies softly: ] My dad didn't.
no subject
honesty is still something they're working on. secrets don't keep well between them anymore. so they don't lie to each other like they used to — not after syria; not after they almost lost each other — but there are still things they aren't always entirely open about, things they'd rather keep close to their chests until the time is right. family, it seems, is one of those things. it shouldn't surprise him. in this line of business, family either has nothing to do with the work or it has everything to do with it. sam's mother. chloe's father. each with their own legacy. harry can only begin to comprehend what that actually means — and for a moment he almost feels like retreating, making some offhanded remark about how she'd be better off talking this through with sam. what does harry know about legacy? barely anything. but he knows chloe. better than anyone, he'd wager.
idly, his hand brushes through her hair strewn against her back, curling loose waves around his fingers. her hair is in desperate need of deep conditioning after a month in the ghats, but all that can wait. his hand stills at the mention of chloe's father, his expression softening from intent curiosity to gentle concern. )
Not so lost after all, then. ( which might sound flippant to anyone else, but really he's just putting the pieces together out loud. his brows pinch when he finally understands the gravity of it all. ) He never told you?