a/n: this is the first of a short series of Christmas fics (meant to be drabbles originally, but this one went a bit longer than I expected!), written for my friends. This one was written for the lovely StarryEyedLight, who asked me for Nate/Elena. It is unashamedly fluffy, so there.
warnings: spoilers for Uncharted 3. Sort of.
The mood was perfect; dimmed lights, decorated pine trees, the works. So maybe they weren't exactly in the most suitable place, and maybe the pine trees were decorated with wreckage and their trunks were peppered with bullets instead of baubles, and okay, dead bodies, not quite so romantic... yeah, on second thoughts? Forget the 'perfect mood' schtick.
The only thing that was even remotely perfect was Elena, her hair tucked behind her ear as she bent to Nate's present – wrapped ham-fistedly in brown paper with extra tape on each folded section, as if to keep it safer somehow.
She unwrapped it with touching care, held the contents up to the dim light.
"A box," she said. She shook it, gently, and Nate winced at the rattle. "A delicate box. Is there something inside, Nate?"
"It's a himitsu-bako, a puzzle box," Nate supplied, as eager as if it was his own present. "Nineteenth Century Japanese, look-" he reached out for it, but Elena held it out of his way.
"What's inside?"
"You've gotta solve it to see." Nate sat back on his haunches and looked smug. "Some of them take fifteen hundred moves!"
Elena just looked at him.
"What? It'll be fun."
"Did you steal it from somewhere?"
"Not exactly..."
"I'm not even gonna ask. So, fifteen hundred moves, eh? This is gonna take me 'til next Christmas! Don't think you're getting out of buying me another present. It doesn't count, you know."
"I would never!" Nate held up his hands. "It won't take you that long, anyway. No more than seven steps, I'm sure of it."
Elena examined the box – it was beautifully patterned with chrysanthemums in great detail, and completely locked. It apparently wanted to stay locked, no matter what Elena did, right up until she pressed on one corner, hard. It pushed inwards, then to the left, and she grinned triumphantly.
"That's two!"
The next steps, once the combination had been started, proved to be a lot easier to figure out, and soon enough the polished wood was opening up like a flower at her seventh move – pressing in the centre of the smallest chrysanthemum like a button.
Nate was watching her eagerly, but she didn't even notice his expression. The contents of the puzzle box caught her attention too well, as he'd hoped.
"Is that a-"
"Yeah..."
"Trust you to put it inside some sort of ancient puzzle."
"Well, not that ancient. They were used to keep precious things inside, like-"
Elena swatted him on the arm. "Shut up, don't spoil it."
"Yes ma'am," Nate said, laughing.
"Yes, by the way."
He blinked at her. "Really?"
She nodded, and Nate let out a burst of breathless laughter.
"Just, you know, try not to laugh too much when you open mine."
"You didn't!"
"Yeah, I did. Go on, Mr Drake. Marry me."