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You’re embarrassed. The sort of embarrassment that pinches in all the wrong places and makes you wonder if someone’d stuffed your chest with marshmallows. Squishy and gooey on the inside and singed on the outside.
Why?
Why are you pacing with your hands shoved into your pockets, pacing across wet tarmac and your teeth chattering in the chill? At fifteen minutes to midnight? On the thirty-first of December?
You groan and glance at your car. Which stands there, and standing there is about the only thing it’ll be doing for a while. Flats will do that. They put a damper on the whole driving thing. A bumpy and swivel-y sort of damper, though least you’d been able to not go off the side of the road.
A flat you can deal with though. Finding out you got a spare tire, a tire iron, but no jack? That’s a bit like the universe remembered— at the last minute, no less —to come back around and say Fuck you very much.
That’s not all though.
Wincing, you glance up at the headlights pulling around the bend. They light up the tarmac, glance off the wet sheen and catch on the patches of snow crowding on the gravely sides. It’s a dreary night. Overcast. No moon. Not exactly freezing, but getting there.
The lights slow as they draw near, until the car—rather, the monster— rolls to a stop with its gigantic wheels crunching over the shoulder.
This. This is why you’re embarrassed. The flat you can cope with. Missing the new years party because of it, that’s fine too. But instead of sucking it up and walking like a normal person, you’d decided to call one of the few contacts ever seeing any use on your phone.
And making Chris Redfield miss the party? That’s— that’s— well. That’s horrible and you should feel horrible. Which you are. Horribly. More so when he gets out of his car— SUV— monster— and comes up to you.
He stops half an arms’ length away. Glances past you to the sad, drooping tire, and then back at you, and you try to smile. A normal person smile, not the stupid, shy lip twitches that he gets out of you. You’re not to blame for that though, you tell yourself firmly. It’s mostly on him, because that man makes your world seem a little smaller. A cozy sort of smaller, which is only partway because of those wide shoulders and on account of him being, well, tall. But shhh, no one tell him that.
“Sorry,” you manage, confusing him, apparently. You can see his brows crease a little in the glow of car lights.
“What for?” he asks and then turns around to walk back and pop his vehicle’s trunk. Fishes out a jack with a quick snatch, since everything in his life has order, and that includes all the gadgets in his car.
“I’m making you miss the party.”
“Doubt it.”
“What, you think we can make it in time…?”
When he turns, there’s a faint smile on his lips. Very faint. Maybe even a little chiding, and for a moment you feel like he stepped on your toe or kicked your puppy.
“No, we aren’t.”
Except maybe you could have, almost, because he’s efficient about swapping out the busted tire deal. Which is also horrible, because he gets on his knees and his nice pants get all grimy. Least he put on gloves though, which land in the trunk of the Redfield monster SUV, right along with your busted tire.
By then, the skies are already well under way of lighting up. They’ve been for a while, with the night coming alive with pops and crackles and the occasional gold, red and green streaking against the bruised, dark sky.
There are three minutes left to the old year. A year which, you think, wasn’t so bad. You met him, after all. Even if you think he’s got the shorter end of the stick on that deal. Hehe. Shorter. Since you’re— you roll your eyes at yourself.
Chris’ right brow tilts up while he dips fingers into the chest pocket on the awfully comfortable looking knitted jacket. Out comes a carefully rolled cigarette and a lighter, but he’s still looking at you. And coming closer, a quiet approach thats stalled briefly when another high pitched whistle and a series of hard cracks bounce through the night. His shoulder twitches. So do his lips, a short lived hint at unease.
He shakes it off though. Turns his wrist up and lifts the cuff of his jacket up a little to read the time. Another scowl. This one a little softer, and one that turns itself to you with a warm sort of weight.
Then he glances at the cigarette he’d pinched and promptly returned it to its pocket.
“Thank you,” you finally say. Overdue for a little while, you’re aware of that, but he accepts it with a gentle touch against your elbow. Almost like he’s testing the waters if that’s okay to do. Which it is.
“Mhm.” Chris shifts closer after you don’t shy from the touch. His hand swipes up your arm, and even through your winter jacket you can feel the warmth he’s bringing near.
And then you get a whole faceful of Chris Redfield as he pulls you into a hug.
“Aaah-“ you mumble into his chest. It’s all warm and firm and everywhere, smells of rainy days and a bit of road grit, and at this point you’re mostly made of chitters and butterflies, but also a little bit of what-is-going-on?
FWEEEEEE—POP-POP-CRACKLE-POP the world announces, and above you, Chris tells you: “Happy new year.”
He squeezes you a little. Not much, because if he’d squeeze for even just a fraction of what he could, you think you’d be goo. And then he gives you a slight nudge. Enough to peel you off his chest, which you find offensive, since you’d gotten quite comfortable with your cheek planted there.
He brings a tradeoff though. A long look that comes with an unspoken question written on his brow. A Can I—?
Kiss you?
Yeah. Yeah he can. And he does.
With a finger tilting your chin up, and his thumb brushing over your cheek, he brings you close until his lips touch against yours. They come with a warm exhale of air. A content, soft sigh. And when he cups the back of your head with his other hand, his fingers threading carefully through your hair, the kiss brings a promise. A declaration of something more. Something important and meaningful, sworn between the slow touches of his lips dragging across yours.
When he pulls away, and drags in air with a deep breath, your world slowly fits itself back together. You register the fireworks lighting up the skies. The cold creeping at the edges around you, warded off by his arms for now— and the heat flaring on your chest and neck.
Chris stares at you for a moment, almost ruefully, like he isn’t entirely sure about what we’d just done.
“I didn’t read this wrong, did I?” he asks. Definitely rueful then. Oh boy.
“Uhm. No.”
“Good.” His mouth twitches, curled into a light-weight smile. But there’s a glint in his muddy blue eyes, the corners around them crinkled. “Couldn’t help myself. You’re…” He pauses. Blinks, his eyes taking a bit of a tour, and then shrugs his broad shoulders like that’s supposed to tell it all.
It sort of does anyway. Because words are cheap— and Chris Redfield is a generous man, one who prefers the value of actions over anything words could ever say.
So he kisses you again, with a bit more of a proclamation than a promise. A decree. Maybe there's a hint of possessiveness. Of this is mine now. And his stubble might scratch a little and you're both a little clumsy when the heat gets too much to bear, but none of that matters. Not that and not the literal fireworks either, which fades to nothing but white noise.