Chapter Text
Chris heel-toed quietly down the dimly lit corridor, his training firearm squeezed tightly in between his hands as his eyes scanned the area in front of him carefully. Around him, the building groaned eerily, the wind whipping against the aging facade causing the old wooden structure of the STARS training facility to creak with every step he took.
~
Captain Wesker had handpicked the location, a five-story warehouse secluded at the edge of Raccoon City. Over the past several weeks he had worked tirelessly to retrofit the previously abandoned building into a suitable venue for conducting training exercises with his team. Each floor had been set up with the intention of conducting various tactical drills, including search and rescue operations, target practice, and general crime scene investigation. Due to the age of the building and the physicality required to perform the exercises, Rebecca Chambers, the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha and Bravo teams' shared medic was also on site, in case any of the team members experienced an injury.
On this particular evening, Wesker had invited the Alpha team to perform a series of search and rescue drills, but first requested that each member undergo a routine personal assessment to evaluate their individual training knowledge. Thrilled to be out of the office and eager to show off his tactical prowess, Chris naturally volunteered to go first. With the rest of the team on standby, Chris and Wesker set off to begin the assessment, the first part of which involved navigating the winding corridors of the 5th floor of the training facility while exercising silent communication and analyzing the situation for potential danger.
~
When Chris reached the end of the corridor, he tilted his head cautiously around the corner. Confirming that there were no immediate threats, he motioned Wesker to proceed down the corridor he had just cleared, a confident execution of his Pointman training. Nodding silently when he saw the flashes of blonde hair illuminated only by the street lights filtering in from the half boarded-up windows, Chris proceeded down the next corridor.
Checking his watch, Wesker smiled to himself. Chris’ communication was sharp and he was executing the drill ahead of schedule per his original estimations. With weeks of only lectures leading up to this live training assessment, Wesker was pleased to find that Chris was quick with tactical field application. Unable to hide his smirk as he jotted down a few praising notes on his clipboard, Wesker’s mind drifted to thoughts of Chris practicing hand signals on the way to use the en-suite bathroom and his stealth in socked feet on the wooden hallways of his apartment all week ahead of the training. Usually unfocused and disinterested when it came to paperwork, the promise of live drills had sparked a raw enthusiasm in Chris, a good sign for the normally stubborn young man.
Chris scanned the dark corridor ahead of him, his eyes flickering suspiciously at the old wooden crates and boxes that were scattered throughout the area. Walking cautiously, he popped the safety off of his training gun when he heard the sound of recorded whimpers echoing through the darkness. Approaching an overturned crate, he jumped back slightly when a wooden target of an assailant holding a woman at knifepoint suddenly appeared before him. Without hesitation, Chris shot off a rubber round from his training handgun, hitting the wooden assailant between the eyes with a satisfying clunk. Greeted by a flashing green light above the target to indicate an acceptable hit, Chris smiled smugly. Proud of his work, Chris stepped back to admire the smudged paint on the wooden target where his rubber bullet had hit, but as he did so, the building moaned around him angrily, as he felt the floor beneath him creak and suddenly start to give out beneath his feet.
“Wh-wh-WHOOOAHHHHHH,” Chris screamed as he fell through the floor, the sound of wood snapping furiously around him as a rush of panic set in, the broken wood slicing through his skin a clear indication that this was not part of the drill. Hitting the hard wooden planks of the fourth floor beneath him as wood, debris, and dust created a haze around him, Chris gasped for breath before moaning through gritted teeth, stunned from the sudden shock of pain coursing through his body. Alerted by the commotion, Wesker’s calm pace broke into a sprint as he heard Chris’ screams and the crashing of wood from around the corner. Shocked to find a large gaping hole in place of where he expected his Pointman to be standing, Wesker knelt down, barely able to make out the younger man writhing in pain on the floor beneath him through the settling dust.
“BURTON, VALENTINE,” Wesker shouted into his radio, “This is not part of the drill. Chris has fallen through the west corridor floor, from five to four. Call 9-1-1 immediately, and have Chambers meet me on the fourth floor. Burton is to call the elevator down to the first floor once Rebecca comes up and hold it there while Valentine meets the paramedics in the parking lot and escorts them to our location.”
Sprinting to the nearest stairway while he called out orders to his team, Wesker ignored Barry’s cracked acknowledgements over the radio, which barely covered the sound of Jill rattling off a series of curse words in the background. Quickly making his way down to the fourth floor, Wesker felt his breath hitch when he saw a small pool of blood forming beneath a wooden beam that was pinning Chris to the floor.
“Chris? Chris!?” Wesker called out in concern, his cool demeanor momentarily dropping as he flung the beam off of Chris, allowing the younger man to gasp for breath before curling within himself in pain.
“Chris, are you alright?” Wesker asked as he scanned over Chris’s debris-covered body, only to find his ankle turned in an unsightly way, and the skin of his exposed forearms covered with deep scratches and blood.
“F-Fuck Cap’,” Chris groaned, clutching what looked to be the protruding bone of his forearm to his abdomen as he attempted then failed to hold back a pained whimper.
“Stop moving. The paramedics are on their way.” Wesker said, his voice rigid as he recited the lines he was trained to say until the noticeable fear in Chris’ tear-soaked hazel eyes reflected off of his sunglasses.
“Chris,” Wesker murmured as he cleared his throat, a rare warmth flooding his tone. “You are going to be alright, do you understand me?” Wesker said, reaching his gloved hand down to cup the side of Chris’s face, the young man’s warm cheek resting against his touch until the sound of the elevator’s bell rang through the air and Rebecca came sprinting down the hallway to their location.
~
The remaining members of Alpha team spoke in hushed whispers as Chris was loaded into the ambulance. Though the wind had died down, the cloudy night sky did not offer any reprieve from the solemn hush that had fallen around the parking lot outside of the training facility. As the flashing red lights danced off of the building, Wesker shot a glare towards the voices of his other subordinates, silence falling over them as he approached the young medic who was exchanging paperwork with the driver of the ambulance.
“Miss Chambers, please accompany Chris to the hospital,” Wesker said coldly, as the younger woman looked up at him with surprise.
“It is my job to document the incident. Please make sure he is looked after properly.” Wesker said, the noticeable tension in his jaw was enough for Rebecca to nod and quickly make her way into the ambulance, her bright and sunny demeanor reemerging as she took her place beside Chris and offered him a reassuring smile.
As the paramedics buzzed around them, Wesker noticed Rebecca squeeze Chris’ uninjured hand gently, offering him comforting words as the Pointman’s eyes darted around the interior of the ambulance nervously. As she did so, Wesker felt his own hand twitch, a ghostly yearning to feel the warmth of Chris’s sun-kissed skin beneath his fingertips. And as his sunglasses-covered gaze briefly met with Chris’s fear-stricken hazel eyes, the doors to the ambulance shut, and a wave of guilt washed over the usually unbothered, stoic S.T.A.R.S. Captain.