A/N: This fic has been on my harddrive for several years along with other Uncharted fics and I'm making a push to get some finished. An earlier draft was kindly betaread by curiositykate but, to warn, the revised version hasn't had another betearead so any mistakes in the final version are on me.
Nate told himself it was too dangerous. Still, he'd sometimes look at someone he shouldn't, he'd consider the idea for a split second – of him, of them together - but it always came round to Nate dismissing it. It was more a concept to him, purely theoretical. Not a truth, just a choice and he kept not choosing to act on it, as if in not doing so he could turn that part of him off. Only he couldn't ignore it, not completely. The thoughts still came unbidden and occasionally he felt tempted to at least look, trying to be subtle about it but he never felt like he actually was subtle enough, he's too self-conscious.
Sometimes even that slight crack in his usual demeanour caused sidelong stares, a wariness in strangers as he was judged and found wanting, but he was good at bluffing his way out of any attention that came from people noticing his behaviour. People didn't expect it from him and that made his misdirection more easily accepted. Except, he told himself, it wasn't misdirection when the conclusion he directed them to was just as valid, simply not the whole truth. He did like women, he just didn't only like women.
He told himself it was too dangerous to indulge given the track record of a lot of the countries he travelled in. That might have sounded reasonable if it wasn't coming from him; the guy who got shot at a large percentage of the year and regularly flung himself off sides of buildings and cliffs over near endless chasms. Everyone thought he lived for danger so the irony was not lost on him. He loved the adrenaline of the chase, sure, treasure hunting got his blood going in a way nothing else did, but he couldn't keep at it all the time and he definitely appreciated his downtime afterward plenty. There was an extra satisfaction in victory over danger, in having earnt his right to be where he was, relishing feeling alive.
There was that one right he'd never earnt though, because he'd never fought for it. The idea of being with a guy made him happy, but the reality behind the thoughts, of what else it would bring, never allowed him to feel safe enough to try. Then it would become a part of him, harder to hide when required, something that could, along with a carelessness to reveal it, cause hurt. There were too many places where it could get him beaten up, strung up as an example, or worse, and he had enough trouble getting in and out of some countries as it was. To let it go had seemed sensible. He could do without.
He'd also told himself it was too dangerous to trust anyone with the truth. He knew he was harshest with those who he wanted, proving how little care he had by handling them with none, pushing them away verbally, if not physically. He hadn't seen how that in itself could be dangerous. Harry had been a friend of a sort, the sort he didn't let too close for just that reason. There had been a possibility of more perhaps, given his playful hints that Nate'd been busy brushing off. Looking back he could see Harry had been jealous, acting like a jilted lover when he'd realised Nate's game of teaming up with Chloe, angry how they'd both made a fool of him. It wasn't so clear who he was jealous of exactly and that makes Nate's head swim. He won't ever know now. It shouldn't matter, but he wonders if things could have been different.
These days Nate knows he's been the fool. It's easy to see after the fact, even if it still isn't easy to face up to how things have ended. He still has Elena and he's grateful beyond belief for that but underneath rubble a couple of clicks away the mangled body of a former friend doesn't rest, spread out grotesquely in pieces. He feels to blame for all the words he couldn't find the strength to say because maybe none of this would have happened - no betrayals and counter-betrayals of the kind they all seem to think is an semi-acceptable part of their profession - if only he'd realised it was him who'd betrayed himself first. Lies have always come too easy for Nate; they've always been part and parcel to his survival, so much so he hadn't known when it was good for him, when to stop.