Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“God damn it!”

Chris kicks the duffle bag and something inside it rattles, crying out in inanimate protest. It’s a breakable sound. One of his framed photographs, maybe, or the potted bonsai he always kept on the windowsill above his desk. The sound reminds him of a dog whimpering after being hit, and Chris instantly feels bad for striking it.

He slumps down, dropping onto his ass on the back steps of the RPD, and groans out a miserable whine as the lumpy gym bag cushions him.

He’ll sulk. He will sit here and sulk, and when day turns to night and he eventually turns into a statue for the pigeons to shit on, no one will even know it’s him. They’ll just say, oh, I never realized there was a sculpture out here too. Weird fuckin’ place to put a police department.

He feels the hand on his back at the same time as he registers the heavy double-doors clanging closed.

“Chris?” she says.

Chris startles. He jolts, jerking his neck around, and as soon as Jill’s wavering face enters his blurry eyes, he’s swiping the arm of his jacket across his face, loudly sniffing as he tries to wipe the tears and snot somewhere less embarrassing.

All over his cheeks and chin, incidentally. Not any less mortifying.

“I’m fine,” he says, sniffing harder, taking a breath deeper than the pacific. “Everything’s fine. I just… I shouldn’t have put the plant in my bag,” he grumbles, folding around his own knees. “It was stupid.”

Jill blinks at him, her pale blue eyes like ghosts perched upon the fences of those delicate, pink eyelids.

Her touch softens on his shoulder. “Bonnie?” she asks gently.

Chris’ face twists around a frown. He drags another leather sleeve harshly across his face. “Yeah,” he sniffs.

Slowly, Jill drops down on the step next to him. Just being near her calms his racing pulse.

“Bonnie’ll be fine,” Jill assures him. “She’s robust! If she can survive every time someone forgets to water her for weeks, I think hanging out in a bag for a little while won’t be enough to do her in.”

“I don’t know how he can stand to work here,” Chris growls, eyes burning hotly on the concrete steps. “This place is a joke.”

“Chris,” Jill warns.

“No,” he barks hoarsely, his heart rolling belly-up, the burn of the insult still fifteen-minutes fresh. “Wesker acts like he’s so much better than these pigs, and then he turns around and jumps right into Irons’ pocket. It’s bullshit.”

“Chris…”

He can’t stand the sympathy in her voice. Like he’s crazy. Him. The guy who’s already seen this shit ten times over, every day working those fucking trenches in the clouds. Every high school football coach, every air force drill sergeant. They’re all the same. Every single one.

He’d thought Wesker was different.

“Irons is still chief of police in this town,” Jill reasons, voice hushed. It’s brave, still, to speak about him so close to his throne. So close that they’re still in range of the smoking-is-prohibited. “None of us like how he leads, but he’s still the man Wesker has to answer to. You… have to understand that.”

“No, I get it,” Chris says coldly. “Some of us have to be strategic. We can’t all go around challenging the status quo head on.” Bitterly, his shoulders heave in a soundless laugh. “I’m done, Jill. I don’t want any part of it. I’m just…” He shakes his head. “Done.”

“What will you do?” she asks.

Chris stands, and her comforting hand falls away. He pulls the duffel bag over his shoulder, replacing her touch with its rough, familiar strap. The RPD logo shines in the sun, and he wonders if they expect him to turn it in with his badge.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, “and I don’t care. Maybe I’ll become a barista.”

“Chris-” Jill says, a little more impatiently this time.

“I mean, isn’t that what the green guy is supposed to do? Run around and pick up coffee for their boss? I mean, I never even get to do a coffee run, because he always wants to talk a walk to get the gears moving.”

Jill blinks. “You’re… upset because Wesker doesn’t ask you to get his coffee?”

“No!” Chris exclaims. “No. Fuck. I don’t know what I’m upset about. I’m just upset.”

“Chris,” Jill reasons again, “we need you. STARS needs you. You get that, right?”

“Why,” Chris states.

“Because. You are defiant. And that’s a good thing! You’re skeptical of authority, you can’t be bought, you won’t be swayed. Wesker knows this, it’s why he knows how valuable you are. You’re not just good with a gun, Chris, you are. Good. Don’t go. I don’t want to see our team fall apart. Please don’t let another Irons take your place. I don’t want to see a building full of them.”

It’s cool, but then, the spring is still young. A breeze chills the back steps of the RPD, sending dried-out dead leaves scattering across the concrete. He tucks down into his jacket, wincing against the wind, for the hot pokers of rage are no longer there prodding him to keep him warm. He just feels cold now. Gripped stonily by the truth. Chris cannot bear to turn around and see her honest face.

“As long as we are working for him, we are him, Jill,” he concludes.

At home, Chris sets Bonnie up on his dining room table.

He studies her there. Tries to imagine this as her home. It is instantly not the same.

Sunlight fights it way weakly into the apartment kitchen, the strange ribbing on the glass barely better than the weird triangular pane he can unlatch in his shower, strain his neck up to breathe fresh air into the steamy, ventless room.

He wrestles with the rusty latch, then bangs a fist down on the frame. Trying to free it from the suctiony grasp that takes hold whenever a hint of heat swells the wood and makes the paint stick to the sill.

Finally, the two surfaces peel apart, and Chris breathes out a sigh of relief as cool air floods in through the screen. The setting sun better hits this side of the building, and he gazes morosely at Bonnie, hoping the vitamin d will make her forget the crack zig-zagging up her terracotta shell.

It’s like a whole fucking tree, he’d said, stunned, when he first saw her. But tiny. He hadn’t been able to stop gawking at it. Like a miniature fucking tree, messing with his head worse than that Peter Pan ride he went on as a child.

He still remembers the crocodile with captain hook perched between his jaws. Those little neon cities had felt so far away, and he’d felt so high up that he wanted to cry with terror.

Barry had called him uncultured. Wesker had just seemed amused by his awe.

Rebecca had chirped, “you’re welcome!” and “welcome to the RPD!” as she ran flightily from the office.

Chris drags one of the dining chairs out, sitting down and collapsing in a heap. “You’re old now,” he tells her, nudging at her pot with a finger, arms splaying out over the table. He sighs, rolling his head to the side, and closes his eyes, curling up into the cushion of his own limbs. “I’m sorry, kiddo,” he sighs. “Glad you’re still alive.”

A depression nap at the kitchen table turns into a depression slump on the couch, turns into a depression nap all through the next morning and afternoon. The edges blur, seamless. He blinks sullenly at a tv show about recovering rage drivers with cams installed on their dashboards.

The channel is transitioning to a show about people who put boots on cars for a living when Chris’ phone jangles. The sound startles him, and he frantically searches his pockets, scrambling for the mewling thing.

There is no number on the screen, but still his heart races unclearly, like there are grains of sand in throat.

Before he can petrify in inaction, his betraying thumb slams down on the button.

Quiet on the other side.

“Hello?” he asks.

“Christopher,” Wesker states, his voice as steady and unnerving, and as expected as can be.

Chris blinks. His nose wrinkles. He doesn’t say anything for a moment.

Then, with a level voice. “Captain.”

There’s a sigh on the other end of the phone. “I know you better than to believe pleading my case will inspire any sort of backtracking. Unfortunately, this was a risk I accepted when I took you on.”

For a second, Chris swallows around those dry sandcastles in his throat. Guilt pricks at his tongue. And then he thinks of all those citizens freaking out about the boots on their cars, the unmoved officers of the street, the days ruined by ceaseless policing, and the sand goes down as smooth as butter.

“I am truly sorry that you took a leap of faith on me,” Chris says, barely trapping his anger, “but I’m not coming back, Captain.”

“Oh, I know,” Wesker says. His voice vibrates through the phone, low and masculine in a way that raises the ghosts on the back of Chris’ neck. “As I said, these were the qualities that I desired in a point man, and it is my responsibility to bear the consequences of that now. I am not calling to invite you back.”

Somehow, that worms its way under Chris’ fingernails, making him grip the phone even harder. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Wesker was using reverse psychology on him. Winding him up to make him want to come back, by making clear it is no longer an option.

“I would simply like to schedule an exit interview.”

“Uh,” Chris says, caught off guard. “A- what?”

“Is this a novel concept, Christopher?” Wesker asks, and though Chris isn’t sure if there is an implication there at all, he still flinches minutely. “I’d like to sit down with you and discuss your reasons for leaving. Find out what led to me failing you as a Captain.”

This time, Wesker’s words pang in his heart. Guilt trickles down, filling his guts.

“Would you be amenable to that, Chris?”

“Yes,” Chris hears himself say quietly.

“Good.” Wesker’s voice holds such command. Chris feels the strings of him dance, muscles twitching to please, even as he stays quiet, refuses to show his hand. But god, the approval feels good. He flushes unhappily, to know he is in Wesker’s pocket as much as the city is in Irons’.

Still, it doesn’t matter anymore. At least he has done something to responsibly cope with his own conflictions.

“I’ll be in touch,” Wesker promises.

After he hangs up, Chris holds the phone in his hand, staring at the television screen.

Two men struggle to get a boot onto a tire correctly in the snow.

He knows if it were Wesker, a finger would snap and it would be on.

Chapter Text

On the first sixty degree day in May, sunlight sweeps the dust out of the corners of the room and throws it into the air, like the world’s most cobwebbed box of confetti.

Chris steps into the coffee shop, and even here, the air swirls with particulated diamonds. Dust motes dance through the warm morning light, a carousel of awakening, paired so well with the heady scent of brewing coffee that for a moment he imagines he’s stepping into a fine espresso mist.

Wesker would like that, he thinks. Wesker drinks so many gallons of coffee that it would probably work better just to fill the office humidifier with the stuff and let it mist out into his pores. He’s definitely seen coffee scrubs at the fancy bath stores Jill’s taken him to, and if it works transdermally, then a mist would work, right? Maybe a patch…

The shop is calm for late morning, a few baristas shuffling back and forth behind the desk. A couple sets of people are strewn out at the tables, some in conversation, others buried in their laptops and books.

He looks around the room, more times than would even be necessary for crossing the road, but no matter how many corners he checks, Wesker simply isn’t there yet.

Behind him, the door bell jingles, and the couple that enters on his heels sends Chris ushering towards the counter.

He floats through that misty, caffeinated drip in the air, his eyes on the chalkboard above the appliances. Coffee, teas… His gaze drops, and then he’s gazing at all of the pastries displayed behind glass, honey-glistening fruits on tarts, sugary donuts and flaky croissants.

One of the baristas turns around from cleaning the milk steamer. “Hey,” she greets him. “What can I get you?”

“Um.” Chris squints at the board again. Contemplates the treats. His stomach grows teeth at the sight of the donuts, gnashing at him like a spoiled child.

“Just… a scone,” he says disappointedly, because he knows that’s the more sophisticated answer.

She taps it in. “What flavor?” she chirps pleasantly. “Blueberry or cherry?”

“Um,” he says again. “Cherry.” Because that’s unexpected.

“And to drink?”

Chris feels the urge to turn around and probe the room again. Instead, his voice drops a decibel. “A hot chocolate,” he mumbles lowly, but only because there’s no way of Wesker knowing it’s not coffee. “In a takeaway cup,” he specifies. Then grins shyly. “Please.”

Nonplussed, the barista nods. “You got it.”

She rings him up and then turns, steaming the milk and syruping the cup. Right at the last second, when she’s about to put the lid on- “Wait!”

The barista turns, mouth furrowed.

“Can I just get… like… a tea bag in that?”

“A tea bag…?”

If Wesker thinks he’s drinking tea, it’ll seem like Chris hasn't suffered at all in the week since he quit. It will seem like he’s thriving, actually. He’ll think Chris is calm, and mature, and so relaxed that he doesn’t even need any sugar to get him through his day.

“Yeah, like.” His eyes dart around the menu frantically. “Maybe just throw a peppermint tea in there?”

“Alrighty,” she says, then laughs. “You got it, beefcake.”

She plops it in and covers it, handing it over, and while she’s plating the scone for him, he takes a sip. It’s weird. And minty. And might work a little better on a winter menu, with some syrup at that, but it’s not the worst thing ever. It’s not worse than covering up a horrible crime.

“Thanks.” He grimaces apologetically at her sure, buddy sparkling eyes. He roots in his pocket, then sets down a crumbled, precious handful of dollar bills, empty wallet and stomach aching with regret just from holding the scone in his hand.

He turns, the barista’s amused eyes warring with hunger for a donut in his mind, and all of a sudden, comes to a jolting stop.

Wesker is sitting at one of the tables that he knows, for certain, that he checked three- no, quadruple times. Documents spread out all over the surface, a legal pad open below his rapt attention. Nervously, Chris swallows and looks around, this time buying himself time, but as hard as he tries, his gaze won’t stop flicking back down to the fountain pen that Wesker holds like it’s a scalpel.

If Wesker were staring at the blank sheet of paper for his sake, Chris wouldn’t be surprised. But it’s no excuse to dawdle. He picks up his anxious feet and makes his way to the table Wesker’s claimed, tucked behind the door, beneath the light of the cafe’s shop-front window.

Somehow, the round, wooden table manages to glow like an important item in a video game, while also tucking itself away into a neat rip in the fabric of time. He feels exposed, but by the time he reaches it, the amount of people milling about the cafe manages to add a strange sense of privacy to their meeting.

Hired actors, Chris wants to accuse him of.

If Wesker would look up at him, that is.

Awkwardly, Chris’ hands twitch around his “tea”, palms weirdly sweaty even though it’s not that hot. He swallows. Then-

“Captain,” he dares.

Wesker’s head doesn’t move, but Chris can feel, somehow, the motion of his eyes underneath the sunglasses. It is the most infinitesimal of gestures- and it speaks volumes. Chris isn’t sure if his attunement to Wesker is a product of all his training.

Or if he’s simply spent too much time around the other man.

“Christopher,” Wesker answers his call.

Almost automatically, Chris feels himself slip down into the chair across from Wesker, more gracefully than if he’d had ten minutes to think it over first. He hears his cup and the plate hit the table, then feels his soul all-but shift back into place.

I missed you, his horrible, betraying body is weeping.

On the outside, however, something protective rears up around him. His shield locks into place, anger surging up to save him. His soft eyes crystalize. His gentle heart hardens.

“How can you just sit there?” Chris demands.

Wesker’s eyes flick up again, this time, his chin lifting too. “It’s seat-yourself,” he states baitingly.

“In your office,” Chris volleys rudely, “Signing papers. Approving cover-ups.”

The fancy pen Wesker’d been holding is set on top of the paper pad. “I approve nothing,” Wesker states. “What does and doesn’t make it into the official report is not my wheelhouse, and often, something I never even get to see beforehand.”

“Bullshit,” Chris spits angrily. He grabs the scone in a frustrated grip, and tears a mouthful off of the end. “You know what we saw, and you know the news hasn’t said a word about it.” His voice muffles, caught on the flaky, dry carbs crumbling out of his mouth and onto the table. “People need to know what’s going on. Irons asked us to keep this from the police, for Christ’s sake. How can our forces serve and protect if they don’t even know what’s out th-”

“Is there something wrong with your scone?” Wesker asks.

The unswallowed lump of pastry sits hard and tasteless in Chris’ cheek, twitching alongside the scowl on his face. “No,” he argues. “It’s just dry. And the fruit is like… actual fruit.”

Wesker studies him with a hard face. Then he reaches out, snatching the plate from below Chris’ scrap rainfall.

“Wh-”

“Just a moment,” Wesker cuts in.

Chris watches, less incensed than befuddled, as Wesker gets up, bringing the half-eaten scone to the front counter. In less than a minute he has returned, holding a second plate in his other hand. One with a strawberry donut on top of it.

He sets it down, then swaps Chris’ plate to his side of the table, and sits back down across from him with his fingertips leavening a little crumb off the edge.

“Christopher,” Wesker says before putting it on his tongue. “I understand your frustrations. That is why I asked you to meet with me today.”

Chris’ chest puffs, ready to fight. The air is knocked out of him before he even realizes there’s been a blow.

“You… what.”

Wesker lifts the pen again. He lopes, handwriting too refined for Chris to read upside-down, rollercoasting the same way that cursive does. “I had hoped to discuss our current predicament further. To be truthful, I am as unsatisfied with the way Irons is handling this situation as you are.”

“How can that be true,” Chris asks steadily, studying the doughnut’s glossy pink surface, “when I am the only one who spoke out?”

“You are the only one who spoke out, publicly.”

Heat flares into Chris’ cheeks again. “You care more about your job-”

“Even you failed to provide an answer as to why you saw more than your teammates did,” Wesker cuts in, silencing him. “I would not be given such liberties of omission were I to insist upon a statement of full certainty.”

The hot chocolate circles in Chris’ digestion tract, whirling around and around. “You could come up with a lie,” he says softly.

Wesker’s thumb presses down on the curved, oblong edge of the pen. There is no nib to click, and yet the hard press of his jaw does it for him. “And so one vice is traded for another virtue.”

“Better than letting people wander out there to get killed,” he grumbles darkly.

“Chris,” Wesker sharply interjects. “The city curfew remains in place. We continue with our sweeps twice a week. There have been no incidents since that night. No further sightings.” A muscle twitches in his cheek. “Canine or otherwise.”

“It’s not just dogs,” Chris whispers. “Alpha and Bravo only-”

“And the one we killed is still being thoroughly examined,” Wesker inputs.

“Wesker,” Chris insists coldly. “We saw him. We know what we saw.”

“Yes,” Wesker says, the word dropping dead in the pit of Chris’ stomach. He doesn’t know why it feels so icy and hard instead of like the victory lap he should be doing right now. “Yes, we saw him. But are you prepared to explain where we were when we did?”

Around him, the warmth of the coffee shop wafts gently, steam and sugar rising dewy in the air. He goes to take an absent bite of the doughnut, but even as its soft, spongy surface collapses sugary into his mouth, all he can see in his mind is that man.

No, not a man. A dead man. Walking.

The glare of blank eyes in the beam of the flashlight, pointed shakily into the brush. The hollow groan torn from its throat as it teetered, then tumbled, vanishing violently into the branches of the forest. His light swaying frantically back and forth into the foliage, the blood pounding in his ears, finding nothing, until-

Before the image can fully materialize in his memory, Chris pushes it away. The details of that night don’t matter. What matters is that it happened.

And the fact that Irons is trying to cover it up.

“Christopher,” Wesker states, and Chris is brought right smack-dab to the present, brow furrowing as he tries to see beyond his captain’s stoic exterior. “Is there any other reason for you leaving us?”

“What?” Chris asks distantly.

“Is this truly the cause behind your exit? Or was it only the straw?”

Unsure how to respond, Chris flicks his eyes down, then brings up the donut to teethe at the frosting.

“You certainly love your teammates,” Wesker goes on, a watchful brow arched. “You respect your commander. When we’re out there, boots on the ground, you radiate with the energy of an elementary school student on field day.”

Chris chews. Swallows. “Yeah, well, they gave us shaved ice on field days,” he growls dismissively.

“Did you know that your housing is contingent on you holding your job?”

The words hit him so hard, he only manages to blink. Chris looks up, the entire cafe quieting around him. “H- huh?” he asks.

Wesker purrs like a cat who’s finally caught the mouse in the cage of his claws- and Chris is, indeed, caught.

Wesker leans forward, the air around him seeming to sharpen into a point. Like a spear, or a bear trap, and tingles of warning go running up Chris’ spine.

“When you were discharged from the air force, it was not honorable, my dear,” Wesker hisses lowly, folding his hands atop the paperwork strewn below them. “Violence against violence was never condoned by the US military.” He grins sardonically. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Fuck them,” Chris rasps, though he can feel his eyes wide on his frightened face.

“Oh, don’t look for any criticism from me. Beating up those bloodthirsty cunts was the least you could do after the way they treated not just their prisoners, but their own female colleagues.” His eyes beam low, narrowing purposefully. “Still, our humble institution doesn’t appreciate a ruckus. You were offered this transfer so that things could be settled internally, and you wouldn’t cause any more of fuss.”

“Yeah,” Chris grits out, “You mean so they could shut me up. I know this.”

“Do you remember that your apartment is paid for by your government position?”

Chris’ mind whirrs. “No,” he hears himself say distantly. “No, they can’t just kick me out. There are tenant laws. I’ve been living there for-”

All at once, faster than a whip, Wesker snaps forward. He hooks a finger into the side of Chris’ cheek, exposing the teeth in his mouth, crooked and snagged, like a mutt.

“You can tell a lot about a person by their teeth,” Wesker hisses as Chris flails like a fish on the line. “For example.”

He smiles, exposing his own: brilliantly white, laid out and then hammered down into a precisely perfect line.

Instantly, the smile is gone. He lets go of Chris’ cheek, and whips his hand sternly at the air.

“What the fuck, Wesker,” Chris protests, hand cupping his jaw in disbelief.

“The point is, Christopher, you are capable of surviving however you have to.” Then he leans forward, and Chris instinctively flinches back, protecting his mouth with his hand. “But the funny thing is: you don’t have to. I can protect you now.”

The steam in the air is too oppressive, and the hook in his cheek is too sharp. Chris flails on the line, regretting ever biting to begin with.

“Come investigate with me,” Wesker growls. “Just the two of us.”

Eyes wide, Chris feels his head turning, regarding Wesker’s sudden intensity skeptically.

“I will provide you a place to live,” he goes on, offering more and more. “A place to sleep. Food. There is so little we can accomplish in Irons’ palm, but together, we can figure out how to stop whatever is going on up there in the mountains.”

Not even the strawberry donut- the last one, no doubt, that he’ll be having in a long time- can sweeten the taste of stale incredulity in his mouth. Because Chris has always fallen to his knees for his Captain, obeying and adhering to every word, every command, every expectation of the suspension of disbelief. And in turn, he’s managed to do what he’s always done. Blindly trust that the man in charge of him deserves praying hands rather than a fist in the fucking face.

Foster parents. Sergeants. Police chiefs. Captains.

They trade him around like he’s a fucking sports team. Home to home. Air force to specialized work. Hefting him up and tossing him like a sack of flour, bidder to bidder until the price on his head gets too high, and they throw him out with the sewer water.

Not again. He’s not doing it again.

He won’t belong to someone again just so they can get rid of him.

“Where are you going?” Wesker demands when he suddenly pushes back in the chair, his voice not angry, but full of that cool, steely authority that makes Chris want to bow his head so badly every fucking time.

“I,” Chris says shakily, planting his palms on the table and towering over Wesker as formidably as his boyish presence will allow, “am going to walk up to that counter. And ask her for a job application.”

Chapter Text

“Jilllll,” Chris moans, sprawled over the EMT-fortified laptop that work hasn’t remembered to recall yet, “you don’t understand. It’s so annoying. Job applications are all online now.”

Jill’s voice comes in crackly through the speaker pressed against his ear. “Uh, yeah,” he hears her say. “Pretty standard fare, Chris. What’d you do? Fax your resume over to Honorable Chief of Police Brian Irons?”

Chris blinks, staring at the screen. “Yeah,” he says lamely. “Somethin’ like that. And what also, what the hell’s up with you? Are your lines being tapped?”

”Kinda on the clock here, Chris,” she mumbles into the phone.

He scrolls, confused about why his formatting keeps populating more and more spaces, until he realizes Jill’s saying his name.

“Chris?” she sing-songs, the auditory equivalent of waving a hand in front of his face. “Still there?”

“Mhm,” he says distractedly. Repositions, and sticks the phone against his other shoulder. “Jill?”

“Yes?”

“Do I often find myself in conflict? Yes or no?”

“It’s not-” She pauses, then sighs. “It’s not that it’s conflict for the sake of being argumentative. You’re not some asshole contrarian. You’ve just got a set of solid beliefs, and that’s great. Where I start to think of it differently is just… I dunno, Chris. I really think some flexible thinking might do you good.”

“So no,” Chris says, and clicks. Then he reads the next question off. “Do I take pride in my latte art?”

“Chris,” Jill says flatly. “We want you. Wesker wants you. Just come back.”

Chris’ eyes unfocus, softening away from the computer screen. He feels them catch the light filtering in through the window, the sky through his kitchen curtains so blue that he can only imagine his brown eyes swallowing up the hue. For a second, he imagines it. Stuffing his tail between his legs and shying his way back over Irons’ hearth. Sitting down in that swivel chair of a second home. Settling into the skin that he’s made for himself, his badge no longer the cherry on top, but more like an irreplaceable piece of his chemical makeup.

And then his eyes come into focus, and he sees Bonnie up there on the window ledge. A glossy shade of green, her skin dewier than if she’d implemented a Korean skin care routine designed for your chia pet.

“I can’t, Jill,” he says quietly, never taking his eyes off her. “Please don’t ask me again.”

Thank fuck, Chris’ sigh barely contains when Barry, god’s most beautiful 40 year old cherub with rosy cheeks and a hairy ass, does not mention the RPD or STARS or Albert Wesker to him even once.

For a greeting, “Hey, Redfield! You wanna hot dog or cauli dog?” has never sounded so sweet.

Or… confusing? Chris shakes his head. “What is a cauli dog?”

“Here.” Barry stuffs a beer into Chris’ hand, turning towards the grill with his greasy, charcoaled spatula brandished in the air. “Moira’s on this whole save the animals shtick, won’t touch a pepperoni with her pinky finger.”

“That’s pretty cool.” The icebox-cold beer sweats frigidly into the heat of his palm. Chris cracks it open, and common sense kicks in. “But yeah, I think just a hot dog for me.”

Barry sighs, his shoulders slumping around their kiss the cook or miss the cook apron straps. “Kind of hoped I could drag you down to my level,” he grumbles. “I don’t really get to opt out. Gotta show support for the kid’s veganism.”

Apologetically, Chris winces.“You could scrape off some of the hot dog remnants from the grill and hide some inside the bun. For flavor?”

For a moment, Barry just stares at him. Then he grins, jabbing the spatula at Chris’ heart. “You’re a genius, Redfield.” Then he’s off, apron cinched tight around his waist as he goes.

Chris pulls back a swig of the sweet, hoppy Bud Light, his tastebuds instantly recoiling at the flavor. Still, it’s nice. The tang of cold wards off the prickling humidity that’s been working its way into the air over the past few days, prompting everyone to notch their fans to a higher setting. It wouldn’t be so bad had the city not been built to retain the precious few degrees of heat that fought their way tooth and nail through the frigid winters, or the equally chilly falls and springs. But things are changing in the atmosphere, and now his wooden box of an apartment swells like a heat lamp not built for anything above 65.

The backyard is nice. Barry’s place always has been.

His eyes sweep around, taking in the swaying grass, perfectly trimmed to keep out ticks but foster play among the butterflies. Bees drink from the scattering of tiny white flowers, zipping around to avoid the foot traffic of playing children.

The platform Barry built out of pallets for his grills remains colorfully decorated by the chalk laid out in the grass. The culprits- or artists- are pastel-handed. One of the neighborhood kids swings with Barry’s youngest daughter, excited screeches and pronouncements of “no, I’m the iridescent unicorn!” making the adults look up smiling from where they’ve gathered on the deck.

The sliding patio door rumbles as Moira steps out, carrying a pitcher of lemonade, and Chris holds a hand shyly up to her from afar, still uncertain when it comes to interacting with children.

He probably won’t stay very long. Really only tangentially knows the neighborhood contingent that Barry rounds up every couple of good weather days, but certainly not well enough to feel comfortable with them.

It’s nice to get free food, though. And some company.

And a chance to oogle Barry’s fully mortgaged four bedroom house as he ignores the phone calls going straight to voicemail warning him: if he does not get his things out of the apartment by yesterday, he’s going to be dragged to court by the crescents of his fingernails.

Well, let the apartment complex try it. See how they like trying to manhandle a 200 pound piece of no way is this legal. And even if it is, it’s not fucking ethical.

In Chris’ mind, a voice rises up, stroking his brain with murmuring claws.

My post-conventional boy, Wesker had purred at him once, after listening to him shoot off like a rocket on a breathless rant, and Chris had been so eager to run to a dictionary that he’d forgotten, until later, with his greedy hands spread over the pages and his eyes gulping down the words, to notice his chest swelling with pride.

A peal of laughter breaks through the air.

“You- come here!” he hears, and looks up to find Kathy wrestling her youngest mid-flight across the deck. They both laugh, Kathy roughhousing Polly until she drops the enormous chocolate brownie she’s pilfered onto the wooden rungs.

“No more,” Kathy scolds playfully, scooping the small girl up. “That’s what? Your fifth?”

“Sixth,” Polly giggles, curling up like a pill bug into her mother’s tickling.

“Yeah,” Kathy shoots back, “exactly.”

“I’ll have a cawlie-flower hot dog,” Polly lisps. “I promise.”

“You better,” he mom teases before dropping her. Polly stumbles, grabs the brownie, and races off down the stairs on the other side of the deck, returning to her friend. That’s when Kathy looks out into the yard and spots him there. She throws a warm, lemon-cookie smile in his direction.

“Hey, stranger!” she calls, waving.

Chris smiles, tossing a shy greeting back her way.

As the rising heat of the afternoon begins to dip back down again, the sky taking on a twilight-purple hue stretched out on cirrus clouds, Barry’s twinkle lights come on, and the frogs start peeping in the grass, and Polly’s laughter becomes musical in the swill of the beer-softened backyard.

“What’ve you been up to?”

“I’m so horrible- remind me of your name again?”

“Those girls are really growing up, huh.”

Conversation swirls around him, and he does his best to smile back, and engage. His can clinks everytime he sets it down on the frosted glass table, each swallow somehow helping to put names and faces back together in his mind.

All of them are people Chris probably wouldn’t be friends with on his own. All much older, with family homes, and heads full of concerns like school districts and calories.

As the beer starts to quiet his head and cool his nerves, Chris is left with one distinct feeling, hollowing his guts like a jack-o-lantern. It’s strange, and out of place. Not the usual awkwardness he sometimes feels at these things, or the gratitude for having a friend like Barry, or even the cloying loneliness seeing these well-adjusted families with their lives neatly spread out in front of them. It’s sort of… it’s just…

He misses Wesker.

He keeps looking around for him, with stupidly drunken eyes, thinking he’ll somehow appear.

It’s as though something noticeable is missing from the equation. A piece of machinery that the other cogwheels can’t turn without. The air is breezy, and the sky is gorgeous, and even though his belly feels good all the way down to his groin, that tingling, happy feeling in his gut sits a little too close on the shelf to loneliness.

Chris is grateful when Barry piles two hot dogs and a burger onto his plate. He’s even more grateful- if a little embarrassed- when Kathy sets a hand down on his shoulder, and puts a wrapped paper plate down for him to take him home.

“We’re here for you,” she says discreetly once the other neighbors have spread out across the yard, engrossed in their own conversations. “I know Barry’s not so touchy feely all of the time, but I hope you know we’d always help in any way we can.”

Chris can read between the lines, or at least, his visual memory can. He thinks of the guest room in the Burtons’ house. Floral wallpaper, linen bed sheets, billowy curtains. Anonymous enough to make your own, but well-kept and free of dust. He’s spent more than just a cursory visit on that bed in the past.

“It’s not so bad having you around,” she adds, hinting more explicitly now. “More things definitely get done with four manly hands helping around the house.”

Chris grins, warmth blooming in his chest at the odd couple the three of them have made in the past. And he would like to accept. He would love to, in fact. They’ve never treated him like a burden, and they’ve never refused his insistence to fix up some rusty hinges or take out the week’s worth of trash, so he’s never taken it upon himself to feel like one.

But there’s something else. A taste in his mouth that’s stopping him from saying yes.

A weird, marinating sourness about Barry that he wishes would just go away.

It’s not that deep. Barry simply cares about his family; they come first before anyone else. And yet it bugs him. The little things. How Barry suggested he let it go when filing that report in the air force didn’t lead to an investigation. The fact that he didn’t back Chris up when those powerhungry fucks got away with it, laughing about treating human beings like animals.

It’s little things. Or maybe they’re big.

It’s this familiar pattern that he’s seeing establish itself. It’s when Barry listened to him ranting and raving about the infected human he saw in the woods, how he took it all in just to clear his throat and say, “maybe you didn’t see what you thought you saw… are you sure you want to make waves over something you can’t even prove?”

He tries not to think badly of him. Barry has his own reasons.

And it would be so easy to crash with him. It would be so easy for Barry to let him crash.

But that taste in his mouth… he can’t help but wonder if Barry would stick his neck out for Chris if he truly needed him to.

Another job application fired off into the void. Another day so hot he can feel his back sweating.

Chris leans into the tiny fan plugged into his computer’s USB slot, and clicks out of his open tabs to replace them all with Ebay.

Every few minutes, a waft of glacial air makes its way into the kitchen, and he sighs in relief. The air conditioning unit in his bedroom churns loudly, set to max chill, pumping cold air out into the living spaces. He’s got the bathroom door closed, the closet and the cabinets all locked up tight, to try to preserve as much cool air in the apartment as he can.

He should probably just unplug the laptop and shut himself up in his bedroom with it, but he’s trying, for once, not to rot beneath the covers all day. Still, he looks into the darkness of the freezing room longingly, promising to return in just another minute.

First, though, he clicks down on his mouse and navigates to the auctions offering up stuffed animals and figurines.

He does this sometimes. Has been doing it for a while, in fact.

He’s still not sure why.

Every so often he’ll browse the preowned toys, narrowing them down just to lots up for auction. And it’s so dumb. Worse than having a porn collection hidden under your bed.

It’s just… he likes the feeling he gets when he sees at least one bid on the stuffed thing he’s looking at. If there’s a bid, that means someone wants it. Which means he can know for certain that it’s headed to a brand new home.

He stares into the eyes of a puppy dog and knows that it’s safe to love it without pain, for g***8 has made an offer and a promise, so that even if they get outbid, that just means someone else wants it even more.

He scrolls, passing worn beanie babies, old McDonald’s collectibles, a lifelike curled-up cocker spaniel, a mini horse cushion that looks like a gingerbread form of itself. Inevitably, he resists the urge to linger too long whenever he comes across a creature without a bid.

Chris, Claire had eventually groaned, you gotta stop sending me this crap. They smell weird, and I don’t have anywhere to put them, and I can’t get rid of them because they look so pathetic and I know you’d be heartbroken if I threw them away.

Before clicking onto the second page, Chris looks nervously around, weirdly afraid that somebody’s watching him. But even when he’s ascertained that there are no peeping eyes hiding over the top of the couch, or peering behind the second story window pane, a part of him is still checking to make sure no one’s sneaking around inside his computer.

All is clear. He clicks to the next page, then starts scrolling, losing himself in the virtual plushie pile.

All of a sudden, there’s a click. The lightning symbol slicing through his battery icon disappears from existence. The apartment goes achingly silent, leaving just the sound of the other tenets creaking above him, and the subtle whirring of the miniature fan.

Confused for a moment, and still dazed from the plushie indulgence, Chris pulls out the power cord, and clips it back in.

Nothing happens.

He pushes backwards out of the chair and stands up, heading for the light switch, which is where he finds the clock over the oven gone black and blank and forbidding.

“Oh no,” he says, mind racing through everything: Barry’s food in the fridge, the current percentage of his phone, the heat that’s already creeping its way through slats of the ancient woodwork. He pulls his phone out, checking it, and he’s about to try to figure out who to call- surely not his fucking landlord- when he realizes.

In the silence of the complex, he can hear not only music playing from another unit, but the sound of someone vacuuming. The drone of TV chatter only a door or two down.

Chris lowers his phone, palms trembling with the angry, sweaty realization. The power hasn’t gone out. It was purposefully turned off on him.

They’re trying to flush him out.

At the thought, Chris races towards the kitchen sink, throwing one of the nozzles to the side. He thanks god it still works, water streaming out, crystal-clear and regular.

Still, to be safe Chris palms some onto his face, reveling in the cold. Then he rushes back to his bedroom and seals himself inside, hoping to preserve the frigid air as long as he possibly can.

His blackout curtains and those hours of built-up a/c turn his room into an icebox.

But like any cooler gone too long without power, eventually the ice starts to melt.

It is so hot in his house that opening the freezer door in search of relief is no longer any different than keeping it shuttered. Knowing this, Chris tried desperately to keep the air conditioned coolness of the public library glued to his skin, but it all pretty much evaporated off him the moment he stepped outside.

The evening is upon him, and even though the sun is sinking low in the sky, the unprecedented ninety degree May heat still radiates off the pavement like a wavering ghost, looking for eggs to fry and paws to scald.

Could Irons have done this? Is he in with someone who owns a weather machine?

When he unlocks the front door to the apartment building, he knows instantly that it’s going to be worse than it was this morning. So much worse. The main hallway holds the heat in a bearhug, clutching it so tightly he’s surprised that the wood hasn’t buckled, that the imitation-cashmere carpet hasn’t recoiled and rolled itself up into a ball.

The trek up the staircase is belaboring, the heavy creak of each step making him feel more breathless than before. He’s sweating through his boxers, everything from his thighs to his asscheeks noticeably rubbing together, and when he finally gets to his unit, the situation isn’t any better.

His kitchen window is open, but there is certainly no breeze; the temperature sits stagnant and level, completely even with the air on the other side of the screen. The kitchenette and its attached living room seem to swell. His own breathing is excruciating in the silence of the room.

With no other options, Chris showers in the coldest water possible, gasping out in relief when the knife-cold spray runs down his face.

He needs to call someone. Jill, Barry.

Maybe even Claire.

Is it bad enough to call Claire?

It is definitely bad enough for him to call Claire, he thinks. Bad enough that he’s ready to override his do not bother her rule that he made good on for one reason and one alone: she will drop everything on its ass to come to his rescue. Instantly, with no questions asked.

No. No, not yet. She’s still out there getting her footing, building her own life and career. He can’t bother her yet. Not until it’s completely necessary.

Still, he’s not sure what to do. He just hopes that the solution will pop into his head miraculously.

Only, with each passing day, his brain seems to melt more and more. He’s not sure what’s going to be left of it if he keeps squatting here much longer.

Instead of getting dressed, Chris towels off and throws on a pair of boxer briefs, and makes his way to the bedroom.

There were no job interview offers in his email when he checked for them at the library. There was an ice cold bottle of water that he could afford from the vending machine, though now it’s pretty much the same kind of tepid as the bag of chips he hammered out of the other one.

As he sits on the bed, sticky and sweltering and more miserable than he can ever remember being, he tries to think of things that’ll calm his racing heart.

Penguins. Houses made of ice blocks. Snow piles. Crisp, freezing river water.

He whines out in desperation, the images only taunting him, and rolls up into a ball on his bed, clutching his comforter as if to try to wring out some cold.

He can’t leave. No matter how hard it gets. People have survived the summer since waaay before plumbing existed, and he can’t just let them win. He can’t.

On the windowsill above the dining table, even though Chris has been keeping her fed with as much water as she’ll safely absorb, Bonnie is starting to wilt.

No more green, luscious locks gleaming with freedom and pride. This place is killing her.

It might be killing them both.

So when he wakes up in the middle of the night, whimpering from the horrible heat clinging to both his body and his dreams, he grabs his blanket, tucks her underneath his arm, and together they abandon the misery of this apartment.

Chapter Text

Disheveled, and panting, and wholly exhausted, Chris stands on the edge of the lake, breathing in air funneling off of the water. With his comforter wrapped around him and Bonnie cradled in his arms, he doesn’t even bother to get away from the shoreline before dropping right onto the sand, landing in a heap that is both victorious and defeated.

Chris sighs as the morning air settles around him, breezes chilling his throbbing skin. There are no walls here to trap the heat. There’s no sun to cut cruelly through the kindness of the dawn.

As soon as the first wave of relief wears off, Chris whines, curling up with Bonnie pressed to his chest. Then more soft winds ruffle his hair, and he almost moans at the feeling of those cold fingers threading through his scalp.

The “beach”- 60 acres with a mile-and-a-half walk around the perimeter of the lake, coos gently around him. Birds chirp in the surrounding woods as water laps at the shoreline, dragonflies zip in and out of the clearing, and if someone speeds down the winding forest road on the fringes of the parking lot, well, it doesn’t bother him, because Chris is too far away to hear it.

This early, outside all of the boundaries of his own life, he might as well be the only person left in the entire world.

His eyes blink closed and heat visions swirl behind his eye sockets, dreams still thickening his mouth with the cottony taste of vanilla. Something scratches in his throat, and whenever he closes his eyes for a moment, the world seems to vertigo in on him, threatening to take him out right there and then.

But nature is kind at this hour. It strokes his aching jaw. It cycles calmingly through his lungs.

All the same, that feeling of being trapped never truly leaves his mind. It is painfully easy to imagine the beach only hours from now; first the sun will start to climb. Then the people will arrive.

His little oasis will be ruined. Encroached on by yet another painful dose of reality.

And that’s the problem with this lifestyle, isn’t it? Not to mention the entire reason he fucked off from the military in the first place. All Chris ever wanted to belong to himself, even if it meant being on the streets.

And look at him now. Faced with the same situation all these life stages later: foster home, or the streets. Chief of police, or the streets. Unable to clothe his sister. Unable to shade his plant.

A burst of frustration rips through him, strong enough to have him elbowing his way out of the comforter and struggling to his feet in the sand, rage-cradling Bonnie’s withering form as tenderly as he can.

Sucks to be them. They got fuckin’ unlucky. If he were alone, he might lie down here to die. But he’s got a photosynthesizer to feed, and Chris refuses to let her go down with him.

On his feet, momentarily reinvigorated by the lakeshore air, Chris trudges back up the sandy incline and towards the dirt path.

This time he doesn’t stop walking. Not when he hits downtown, trudging past the darkened storefronts and empty restaurant windows. Not when he leaves the central square behind, either, passing the park and the hospital, and toeing into the residential strip.

He’s only been here once before- although technically, he hasn’t been here at all. He’s only ever blinked at it through the cruiser window as Wesker, uncharacteristically forthcoming, pointed out his place of residence.

“There,” he’d said those many days ago, eyes trapped up behind the lenses and the dark.

It’d stirred him from his stupor, jarring him out of the thicket in his mind and back into the city.

“What?” Chris had demanded, only panic-thoughts available in his brain. “What’s there?”

“It’s alright,” Wesker had soothed him roughly, nodding at one of the houses lined up in a row. “Just my home.”

Still riding the adrenaline of their unexpected night in the woods, in that moment, Wesker had offered him an unspoken choice: I can drop you off at home, or I can take you somewhere else.

Somewhere where I can look after you.

“N- no,” he’d said, desperate to forget all he had seen. And afraid of the eagerness with which he’d still wanted to accept the offer. “No, I’d rather just deal with it on my own.”

But that was then.

This morning, Chris changes his answer.

The house didn’t seem so distinctive in the night, but this close, in the rising light of dawn, Chris gawk unbelievingly up at it. It’s not that it’s imposing, or impressive, or trapped-up with a mote and turrets. It’s more so the fact that it’s… not.

Chris’ pulse stirs nervously in his throat, fluttering like an agitated fairy afraid that it’s got something wrong. Maybe he’s misremembering which house Wesker had nodded to. Maybe never really caught it in the first place.

Still, the lilac-painted boards stand out from the others on this street, difficult to mask even when it’d been subdued by nightfall. Where the surrounding homes range from white to washed-out blues and yellows, none of them boast such a pop of dollhouse vibrancy.

It’s academic, and pleasing, and of course, he thinks now, this information slotting perfectly into place. Somehow the only thing more befitting of his Captain would have been a sleek, modern box. This, on the other hand, brings to mind the disorganized sets of spice village houses he’s stumbled across on Ebay tromps, and it is so absurd that it’s immediately believable.

Yet for all its lacy-purple trim, when Chris reaches the first step, he pauses. The house swims waveringly in his heat-stroked head.

Something about it… the steps, the front porch, the door- made of a strong, solid wood, with only darkness behind its windows- something about it feels… unwelcoming. Looming. Like a guardian hidden beneath frilly victorian ruffles, telling him with one leering eye that guests are not welcome here.

A sentinel in lace. A compound in cake’s clothing.

Chris draws back, the rising dawn sharpening everything too vividly, and what was once a fairy is now a hammer in his throat. He turns his head to the side of the house, and instantly, something new captures his attention. A fence positioned off to the side, its white pickets obscuring his view of the yard.

Drawn away from the main entrance, he moves towards it.

In his delirium, he imagines himself as an action figure visiting from another playset, only one accessory included in his package. He wasn’t designed for this place, that much is clear. And yet the fence opens right when his hand reaches up and unhooks the latch. No locks, no boundaries. Just an easy entry onto a patio made of stones inlaid over grass-seeded dirt.

Two bins are pressed up against the side of the house, and then, beyond that…

Chris blinks, dumbfounded, at the side yard radiant in the morning light. The first rays of sunlight seep down, breaking through the surrounding trees to illuminate everything growing there.

Breath-delicate dandelions. Tall stalks of grass. Colorful, popping colors on bulbs and on the backs of butterfly wings.

Everything pulses with an ethereal glow, the air as dewy as Christmas morning. Or perhaps, more seasonably, like the handful of times he’s gotten high.

Deliriously, he watches as grasshoppers bounce over the stone pathway. Then he’s watching bees flitting from flower to flower, then butterflies flapping sleepily until a squirrel bounds through and scares them all aflutter, leaping for the fence with something clutched between its jaws.

It’s so quiet that he can hear every rustling blade of grass. Every skitter of insect legs. He leans forward, gawking at the entirety of the garden, the quiet humming of nature casting a spell of silence on him, until all at once, something inside the house falls.

Chris whips around, his pulse hammering. He zeroes in, searching for the source of the disturbance, but all of the windows are dark. For a second the air around him murmurs tensely, the silence turned violent and loud. Then, like cells sealing up a wound, that reverent quiet drapes itself back upon the yard.

But Chris’ nerves are still pinging, bouncing around like ping-pong balls; the calm doesn’t settle all the way back into his bones.

He steps forward, his eyes fixed on one of the window panes. Not completely dark, he realizes. Just shadowed. On the inside of the house, he can just make out the slight motion of a curtain moving against the pane, as though afflicted by a breeze happening on the wrong side of the glass.

He steps forward, curious.

Now that he’s focused, he can see it. Up above, there’s more motion still. Another window. Another vague sense that there’s movement happening behind it.

His eyes fix onto it, straining to see, but it’s just too dark. It’s too far away to make out anything of significance.

Without realizing it, his next step has him stepping onto the back porch, boot pressing onto the first creaky step. As if reacting to the sound, the shape in the window upstairs shifts. His focus locks.

All of a sudden, the back door swings open.

Chris startles, jumping back onto the patio, as Wesker appears severely before him.

With the urgency of a combat zone, Chris takes him in, bulleting the details: Wesker’s forehead furrowed in demanding, sharpened focus. Eyes unsheathed by glasses but just as pointed, dusted by sleep yet no less discerning. Not happy to see him, but not visibly upset either.

His entire demeanor is warped by his authority, casting him in a presence even stronger than the one Chris’ seen him wearing on the fields. The sleek, black robe draped around him seems not to humanize him, but to merely highlight the carved slab of the man held beneath its watery fabric.

Chris’ Captain steps out onto the back porch, then into the yard on bare feet.

Wesker looks him over once. Exposed eyes sweeping down his front, taking him in with the efficiency of a computer.

“W- Wesker,” Chris rasps, like even after all that resolve, he never expected to actually find him here.

I’m sorry, his cottony mouth tries to say, though when it opens, all that comes out is another dry croak. This was a mistake.

“I-” he tries, the world swirling concerningly fast in his eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Wesker is going to kill him. Maim him. Call the cops, or else change into his uniform and do the apprehending himself. He can see it in Wesker’s eyes. Green as a mint, but so sharp they might have been the reflection in the blade that cleaved the herb from the earth.

Then Wesker reaches out. Gently taking the bonsai from Chris’ hand, two fingers clasping firmly around the pot.

“I was hoping you’d come here,” he says as he places it firmly into his care.

His voice sounds like wind chimes to Chris’ ears. It feels like the breeze snaking lazily through the grass.

“Come with me,” Wesker tells him, forehead furrowed as he examines Chris with worrying concern.

Exhaustedly, Chris just nods. He obeys as Wesker leads him inside.

They enter through the kitchen, then swing right into the hall.

Whatever Chris glimpses of Wesker’s foyer is instantly swallowed up by the throbbing in his head. He registers darkness, then the cold. So much more open space than his government-supplied apartment.

Next comes the bend of carpeted steps as he’s led up the stairs and onto the second floor, drifting like a wraith who stopped to haunt the wrong house by accident.

Wesker is talking, but his words match the watery silk of his robe: they’re too slippery for Chris to catch hold of them.

“I was sure he seemed extra smug this week,” the bitter mumbles slip out as Wesker walks him forward, a palm pressed between his shoulder blades. “And you, Christopher. You look flushed by demons. I surmise he made it rather uninhabitable for you, hm? Was that his tactic?”

Half understanding, Chris nods.

“Unabashedly vile. Here.” Wesker stops at a door midway down the hall and eases it open. “Make yourself comfortable.”

If it’s possible, the guest room that yawns open in front of them is even colder than the hallway. It must be centralized air, the way it sweeps and twirls through the belly of the house, but makes an igloo of the pitch black bedroom.

Too exhausted to speak, Chris lets Wesker lead him to the bed. He finds it first with his knees, clattering against the box frame. Then with his palms, catching himself on the soft, plump layers rising pillowy off the mattress.

He wants to moan as he falls into it, scrambling up over the edge. The beautiful chill of the room and the contrasting warmth of the comforters marry perfectly around his body.

I’ll do anything for you, his heart sings. I’ll do anything you want.

“This doesn’t,” Chris says instead, barely getting the words to form, “mean. That I’ll help you.”

Wesker is silent for a second. A pang of alertness breaks through Chris’ consciousness mid-drop, jolting him back to the land of the waking.

Straining to keep his eyes open, he takes a moment to settle into the bed so that he’s not at risk of tumbling over the side. Wesker watches him the entire time, and even though Chris’ nervous system is screaming at him to be wary of disappointment, or even anger, instead, what Chris can make out in the light coming in through the hallway is a placidness on Wesker’s face.

Perhaps that’s too soft a term. Weariness might be a better fit.

In either case, it’s not one that leaves him scared.

In the safety of that expression, Chris’ eyelids start to fall. He flutters, trying to keep them open, but they knock down all the same.

“Wesker,” he tries heavily, like he’s asking to be brought back from the edge.

His Captain says nothing. And then, “Sleep dreamlessly, Christopher,” he hears, before he’s dragged down into the darkness, thinking that the clump of comforter bundled in his arms is still Bonnie clutched against his chest.

Chapter Text

Chris wakes without dreams in a room that’s as dark as night, and though he doesn’t know what time it is, or whose bed he’s even sleeping in, what he does know is that there’s cold in his bones.

It’s all over him. In his cheeks, beneath his skin. He holds onto it, as if it might spring off the bed and scamper out into the hallway, but the beauty is, he doesn’t have to. This kind of cold is not feline or fickle; like a hot tub soak warming your bones hours after you’ve gotten out, the cold holds onto him, in no rush to let him go.

Groaning, he unsticks his head from the pillow, and drool and sweat clings to the satin. It takes him three tries to raise his head, and then two more to free himself from the sheets. His limbs are fumbling and heavy. His brain is sluggish and slow.

He’s shivering a little when his feet finally touch the ground, bleary eyes doing a shoddy excavation of the scene: boots lying askew on the carpet, the socks rumpled awkwardly on his feet. Like he pried himself out of his shoes and haphazardly kicked them out from under the sheets- which is probably exactly what happened. He wraps his arms around himself to stop the sudden trembling, but really, he doesn’t mind. Though his skin is icy to the touch, his blood’s still running hot from days of overexposure.

He finishes getting rid of the socks, and Wesker’s wall-to-wall carpeting immediately fills the position.

Blearily, he looks around, letting his eyes adjust to the light in the room. There’s not a lot. What exists of it leaks out between cracks in the thick curtains, casting a grainy pallor over the space’s generic guest-room features.

There’s the bed, a dresser, a closet. Not much else to hold his attention.

Cautiously, he makes his way towards the door, feeling for the knob. When he finds it, the cold of the metal bites, but he’s still not ready to complain.

Then the awkward twist, and a few drowsy blinks, and Wesker’s second floor hallway beams into view: bright light sweeping through the curtained windows, exposing every swirling, floating beam of dust.

Chris blinks, looking around, and some of the motes land on his eyelashes like snowflakes.

He can’t believe he’s here. He can’t believe Wesker lives here. He can’t believe how long this hallway is. The muted purple-mauve of the carpet that stretches along it, or the wallpapered cream that peels its way down towards the end of the corridor.

With the door still clutched in both hands, he tries to control the creak it makes when he eases it closed, daring himself out into the house.

There’s that same breeze. Central air billows happily down the hall, carrying with it the smell of old wood.

And on the other side of the hall, back towards the staircase, a much different smell. Bacon. Coffee.

The cool air seems to push him towards it, moving him out of the hall and onto the landing.

He’s down the stairs before he knows it, blinking his way into the foyer. Like he’s retracing back the way he came, a toy car losing momentum and sliding backwards down the track.

It doesn’t feel like a loss of progress, though. It feels like a portal to a new world. A flaking, paint-chipped entryway where steam rises off stainless steel, and the small circular dining table is being choked to death by platters of food, and even though Wesker is dressed in house clothes, he still holds the pan like it’s a knife. He still wears his glasses as if nothing about him can ever be changed.

“Captain?” Chris hears himself ask.

His intrusion should break the fantasy, but he’s surprised to find that the image doesn’t waver. Oddly, he seems to somehow belong in this scene.

Wesker doesn’t turn, so much as he orientates towards Chris. Gaze flashing from the side of his eye, shoulders pivoting away from the stovetop. Like he is expected, and Wesker is merely preparing breakfast for a lover.

“When-” he tries, exhaustion making him dumb. “What time is it?”

Wesker’s eyes flash towards the clock above the stove. Instead of answering, he lets Chris follow his line of vision. Nearly one o’ clock.

“I didn’t have the heart to bother you,” he says, eyes focused once more on the sizzling pan. Sausage links. Chris’ stomach rolls.

Unthinkingly, Chris sinks down onto one of the seats, blinking through dazed eyes.

Wooden chair, old enough to put splinters in your ass if it weren’t cushioned by a gingham pillow. The back is carved as beautifully, and it curves like the neck of a swan, all the way to the trumpeting beak. Rubbing his eyes, Chris tries again to make sense of the scene.

“Were you wandering?”

Chris looks up, and Wesker is gazing down at him expectantly, mouth pursed. His words sound kind, but his face is severe. Chris can’t read him. He’s never known how.

“For a while?” Wesker goes on; Chris thinks he can detect a blink beneath the lenses. “Before you reached this place?”

“I… guess?” Chris answers.

Wesker’s head cocks slightly. “How did you recall?” he asks.

Chris scrunches his nose, frowning. He tilts his head back, in confusion, before realizing it looks like he’s mocking the gesture.

“How to get here,” Wesker supplies, sounding burdened to have to un-clip a sentence for him.

“I followed the smell of you home,” Chris says rudely, though he’s not sure where it comes from. It rears up on its own, a primal instinct, like acid rising from his stomach. Perhaps he’s still bitter about Wesker exposing his canines to imply he was a dog.

“Well,” Wesker says shortly, turning away to kill the gas. When he turns back it’s to deposit the sausages onto the already-teeming pile of breakfast food. Grease soaks the plate, spilling into the pancakes, which spill into the bacon, and Chris is only surprised by the fact that he doesn’t extract them with tweezers and set them down politely. Instead, he lets it all form together in the kind of presentation that would get any footballer’s appetite rolling. “Then I’m very happy you caught the scent. You’ll be staying here now.”

Something kicks through Chris’ chest, and this time, it’s not hunger.

“I can’t stay here,” he says. His eyes move around the room, intent on viewing it as a prison, but all he sees is outdated furniture, and sheer, billowy curtains. Instead of bars there’s bright afternoon light, shaking dust off itself on its way into the kitchen, illuminating spice racks, and tea jars, and the sullen-pink, bowed-head refrigerator that hums pleasantly beneath the kitchen cabinets.

“Of course you can,” Wesker returns, setting the pan into the sink. “Where else would you go?”

“My stuff-” Chris argues.

“I’ll take care of it. Draw up a list of what you need, and I will send for it. Otherwise, I can promise that even your last jar of ketchup is retrieved.”

Chris blinks. “Ketchup doesn’t come in a jar?” he growls.

Oddly, Wesker smiles at that. Chris can tell that he turns his eyes away in amusement from the slight motion of his head.

He takes hold of a mug steaming on the counter by the drying rack. That small, pleased smile is still there as he takes a sip of coffee.

By the sink, drying beneath the light of a window, Chris can see the fancy pour-over coffee jug sparkling in the sunlight, a wooden collar wrapped around its slender neck.

Of course Wesker would think that ketchup comes in a jar.

“Eat, my glowering boy,” Wesker smiles, before leaning back against the cabinets and turning his eyes towards the window pane.

Chris wouldn’t, just to prove a point. But the smell of it… it’s like an aromatic heat lifting off the table.

He’s hungry, and honestly, for the first time he’s starting to feel cold. And afterall, it seems like starving himself would be a revenge no one would suffer but himself.

He lifts his fork, pulls the plate close to him, and just like that, he’s digging in.

The metal tines sink in spongey, into maple-soft pancake fluff. Then they spear through sausage, Christmassy and minty, before grabbing onto bacon and eggs. The former is crispy, greasy; the latter are peppered and runny. He wonders how Wesker knows that he likes to break the yolk and let it run into the rest of his meal. He wonders how Wesker’s somehow gotten him to wolf down a vine of tomatoes, and how he managed to make them taste like this, soft and salty and sweet and bursting between his teeth.

He chews on the seeds. He swallows them down with his own cup of coffee.

I’d trust broccoli on this plate, he thinks, miserably resentful, thoughts of bushy greenness filling his head until-

“Bonnie!” he exclaims suddenly, cheek full of one last colossal bite. “Where is Bonnie?”

Wesker’s smile never quite left his face, but it seems to furrow a little now, re-shaping into something sentimental.

“The Juniper?” he asks. “It’s outside in the garden.”

Chris isn’t sure why this is what does it, but panic finally stretches out its arm and fully grips him, choking the breakfast out of his throat. He coughs, anxiety eating up his mind.

“She’s not supposed to be outside,” he says weakly, “She’s… she’ll die.” Everything inside him slumps, tumbling downhill. “I tried so hard to keep her alive, but the heat was so bad, and I jostled her around so much, and it-”’

“Christopher,” Wesker states, and though his voice is gentle, it’s commanding enough to snap his wandering spirit firmly back into his body.

“It’s not an outdoor plant,” Chris decides.

“Yes,” Wesker returns measuredly, “It is.”

“It’s a bonsai, Wesker.”

“It is a Juniper bonsai.” Wesker sets down his coffee and picks Chris’ plate off the circular table, depositing the syrup and grease-soaked ceramic into the sink. “It being a bonsai plant only indicates the way that it was grown- think of it like the word miniature. This specific species thrives best when it’s outdoors.”

“Even in winter?” Chris gawks.

Wesker nods.

“You’re lying?” Chris suggests, but the accusation sounds toothless even to him. “Um. Gaslighting?

Wesker’s brow furrows. “It is unlike Rebecca to not provide explicit instructions.”

Chris swallows. He’s pretty sure there had been a card. Watering instructions, sunlight recommendations. Had there been something about planting it outdoors? Had he blatantly ignored it because he wanted a nice trinket for his cubicle?

“It was a triumph to see it last so long in the office, but then, I wouldn’t be surprised if your spite was feeding her the acidity she needed to survive.”

“Wesker,” Chris whines tiredly. Head full of information. Eyes full of the quaint cottage-like kitchen. Belly full of food.

He hopes that he was not stuffed like a teddy bear just to be shoved into the oven.

“Would you like me to take you out to see her?” Wesker asks.

Chris wishes he wouldn’t make that noise- that rasp of relief that comes out like a death rattle, and tastes like the coffee pressing bitter kisses to his tongue- but he does.

“I could tell that you care for her,” Wesker tells him, a brow arched in Chris’ way. He leans back, fingers curling backwards around the lip of the counter, and his elbows bend acrobatically, slendering him into a beautiful shape. “Her leaves had brittled, and the soil was quite dry, but one can still see through the grit to know when a child is spoiled.” His forehead furrows in thought. Then he throws a challenging smile in Chris’ direction. “I gave it a trim and slightly bigger pot, and I am very confident that everything will be alright.”

A curtain of sunlight washes over him, and all of a sudden, it’s Chris’ eyes that feel full.

He gets up, chair squeaking behind him, and before he even knows it, he’s standing in front of his Captain.

Wesker pushes off the counter, re-entering into the fullness of his own height. And much in the way that Chris gawped up at the house, Chris gazes up at him now: eyebrows knitted, trying to puzzle out the way that Wesker’s protective layer of anger makes sense with the almost gummy way that he treats Chris.

Why does he choose to retract his teeth? Is it just to try to frustrate him? Does he know that a blow hits unsatisfying if the opponent doesn’t even reach out to block with their hands?

Through the lenses, Wesker studies him back. Not like he’s trying to understand him too. Like he’s trying to figure out just what what Chris is looking for.

All at once, Chris throws his arms around him.

They come together in a messy knot, Chris pulling Wesker’s torso against his body, Wesker stumbling, surprised, before going sturdy and straight in Chris’ grasp.

He smells like soap, and herbs. Chris buries his head in Wesker’s chest, gulping it all in, and when Wesker’s arms coil reactively around him, one of his hands tightening on the cuff of Chris’ shoulder, he feels that he could curl up inside his Captain as though he were a cave, and play with making shadows out of flashlight beams for all the rest of his days.

“Christopher,” Wesker rumbles lowly, his chin setting down on top of Chris’ head.

He can’t see, but he can feel it: the sigh that Wesker releases. The way he tilts his neck, and settles into place.

“Thank you,” Chris whispers into the cotton stretched across his chest.

Wesker’s voice rumbles across his ribs. “Thank you for coming to me,” he returns.

Clutching him, arms shaking from the effort, and the exhaustion, and the relief, Chris could be content to stay this way forever. But then Wesker reaches up, grabbing a fistful of hair from the back of his head, and heat is sent spreading all through Chris’ groin.

He draws back, stealing Wesker’s resting place out from under him, and forces himself up on the balls of his feet, seizing Wesker in a kiss.

The first time Chris kissed him, he was tentative, afraid. Crouching forward across the green nylon and expecting to be pushed away.

This time, he’s sure.

He parts Wesker’s lips with his own, and Wesker allows it. Then he opens his own mouth, offering it up, and his Captain cannot resist the lamb that Chris has placed onto the pyre; he presses his tongue down, into Chris’ mouth, giving him what he’s asking for until he’s panting, suffocating, and hot.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Chris had asked in the passenger’s side of the cruiser, glancing over at Wesker’s sharp, intense gaze.

At first, Wesker had just stared at him, assessing. Chris hated when he did that.

“Repeat that to me, Christopher,” he’d said.

Chris flushed. “I don’t know…” Sheepishly, he took a bite of the donut- Jill said it gave STARS a bad look to eat them on patrols, but honestly, it had sprinkles. And how much damage was one vanilla-frosted really gonna do? If they didn’t want to be seen as cops, they should really start with remodeling the police car. “I just figured that if Irons won’t approve of another search, we could just… go on our own.”

“A stake out,” Wesker had hissed, gleaming at the challenge.

“But wouldn’t it be insubordination?” Chris asked warily.

“Oh, absolutely.” Wesker balanced his coffee on the wheel with one hand, while the rest of his fingers crawled ruminatively across the hard leather. “That’s why I am so drawn to the idea.”

“But- Wesker-”

“This isn’t about pettiness, Chris,” Wesker answered before Chris could even ask, and when he turned, there was a diamond of stress pressed right between his brows, skin pulled tight in a worry that couldn’t be feigned. “I have no interest in entertaining shallow displays of rebellion. I am concerned that there is more going on in the mountains than Irons is prepared to release to the press.”

“He doesn’t want to cause a panic,” Chris said. “I get that. But if people knew how gruesome the attacks were…” He winced, thinking of the photos. “It just doesn’t sit right with me. We’ve never even seen a bear attack that looks like this. And he’s sure it’s dogs, or wolves, just because? I just don’t believe it.”

Wesker leaned back, pulling a swig of his coffee. It seemed to sharpen him even more, if such a thing were possible. “I need to know what’s going on out there,” he mumbled, more to himself than to Chris.

“I’m not worried,” Chris said, though he wrung his hands nervously together between his knees, donut forgotten on his lap. “I think we can handle whatever’s out there. Will you let me come with you?”

Instead of staring, this time Wesker just drew his eyes towards Chris, gazing at him quietly.

“Of course,” he answered. “Who else could I trust with this?”

Chris had flushed then, a smile pulling at his lips. He’d wanted to reach across the console and do something stupid. Run the side of his hand along Wesker’s pinky. Lift the takeout cup out of his hand and kiss the lid of it with his own lips.

But they had been in public then. And it felt so amazing, keeping this secret tucked in his cheek. Knowing without knowing; being sure in his gut but tortured in his doubts.

And then the tent, and the lanternlight, and Wesker’s naked, assessing eyes.

The easy path forward towards him, over bumpy, uneven earth. Getting up to him, so close. Wesker not stopping him. Wesker not seeming afraid.

A careful kiss. Then a hungrier one.

And then their bodies, twisted on the thin strip of nylon, Wesker prying at his hair, loosening his jaw, their torsos and limbs tangled until that horrible sound. Like a moaning in the forest, the wildlife gone eerily silent, the foliage rustling in unrest.

They’d leapt off each other. Chris first, grabbing the flashlight, then Wesker racing out after on his heels.

For a brief moment, before he saw it, Chris had felt terrified that it was another victim.

But when he pointed his flashlight beam down into the brush, down the incline that they’d been camping on, he saw it: its eyes. Its face.

A face he knew. A face that chilled his blood, and simply just couldn’t be true.

Now Chris jerks back, pulling the two of them apart. He looks up, and all he can see is his own expression, ruddy and boyish, reflected in the dark of Wesker’s lenses.

In an act of rebellion, Chris pulls them off his face.

The Wesker that is revealed to him is every bit as severe as he usually is, though there are some details that soften him. The buttery light of the kitchen. Two red ovals on either side of the bridge of his nose where the glasses have pressed into the skin. The way he is looking at Chris, as though he is sorry to be the one standing in the kitchen with him.

Chris doesn’t quite understand it, but then again, perhaps he does.

Wesker looks like someone you don’t make deals with. You don’t rake home riches at the end of your arrangement with him. You end up like a flower pressed between his pages.

He doesn’t have to be sorry. From the moment that Chris first looked at him, he has feared him, and wanted him, precisely for that reason.