Work Text:
Thursday morning rolled in, and Jill was impatiently waiting for Chris to show up in the building and tell her all. She had wished him good luck the previous day at lunchtime, but he hadn't had the decency to send her even a single text to tell her how his date with Wesker had gone.
Just a school summer party, he kept insisting.
Bullshit.
Was a date still a date if neither of them acknowledged it as such? Yes, because this was real life, not a philosophy question.
She checked her watch and tapped her foot, pretending to revise the report she was supposed to hand in by the end of the day. Who cared about typos anyway?
Chris was later than usual. So much for the beloved eight hours of sleep. She amused herself by thinking up possible explanations she could use to tease him.
Maybe he spent the night. Perhaps he had even gotten lucky.
Or maybe they had to spend the early morning hours disposing of the body of whatever PTA woman had started the rumor. That's what real friends did, right?
She would certainly do it for Chris. Not for Wesker, though.
Finally, Chris rushed in, hurrying to his chair in the vain hope that no one would notice him being a full fifteen minutes late.
"Good morning," Jill said, spinning her desk chair around dramatically. "I've been expecting you, Mr. Redfield," she joked, doing her best Bond Villain impression.
She only got a tiny chuckle from him, which honestly surprised her.
She had fully expected to find Chris in the same bright, cheerful mood as the last time he spent the day with Wesker and Zeno, instead, he looked almost subdued. It worried her. "Coffee," she commanded, getting up from her spot. "And you're gonna tell me exactly what happened."
Chris put away his things quickly and followed her to the break room. "You waited for me?" he asked with a smile.
"Do you really think I go to the break room for the coffee?" Jill retorted, amused. She could use the caffeine, surely, but it was the camaraderie that she liked best about their quiet mornings in the office.
"I don't know, I have grown strangely attached to this unique blend of rust and grease."
"Yeah, well, I think I can find a brand of paint thinner that tastes the same so you can have it at home," she joked and accepted the filled mug Chris handed her. They sat down at a little table. "I have been dying to know how yesterday went. You showing up to the party like Wesker's personal arm candy…"
Chris snorted into his mug. "It was nothing of the sort. I told you, it was a large picnic at the park. Lots of screaming children, a barbecue, friendship bracelets. Nothing out of the ordinary," he said dismissively.
She wasn't having the short version. "Come on, Redfield, you know I can make you sing like a canary. Start telling me everything. Did any of the PTA moms drool at the sight of your biceps? Did you offer piggyback rides to the children?"
Chris shook his head quietly. "No, we showed up with Zeno, helped build some backdrop for photos. Then we hung around to make small talk with the other parents. Nothing special."
Jill was disappointed, as ever, by his lack of details. He could go on for pages on ballistics details when writing mission reports, but he wouldn't tell his best friend if the crowd of suburban moms—or Wesker—were thirsting for him in his tight muscle shirt. She'd need to get him thoroughly drunk again one of these days, in order to get him to spill the juicier details. She still couldn't believe he had been keeping his visits to Wesker's house a secret for so long.
"Wow, it's like I was there beside you," she mocked him, sipping her coffee slowly, nudging the toe of his combat boot with her foot. "Come on, give me something. Did no one have the guts to ask you how long the two of you have been sleeping together?"
Chris shook his head. "Surprisingly, no, it was mostly chit-chat, I said that we used to work together, you know the standard script."
Jill nodded, having spent over an hour helping him practice the list of acceptable answers Wesker had insisted Chris prepare beforehand.
"And they seemed perfectly satisfied with that. No one pried, no one really cared." He paused to take another sip. "Anyway, we didn't end up staying until the end."
That was news to Jill. She had assumed Wesker would be the type to show up early, dazzle the entire community with his efficiency and helpfulness, and stay until the bitter end just to spite the PTA bitches who had roped him into volunteering in the first place. "Why? Did someone manage to offend him or his miniature copy?"
Chris took a deep breath. "No, Zeno took a tumble in the playground and split his eyebrow open. You know how facial lacerations bleed."
Jill did, but as a seasoned veteran, Wesker also had to know that a little cut wouldn't be anything to write home about. Clean it, stick a bandaid on it, kiss it better, and the child would normally be back on the swings within five minutes.
"It was a bit too big for a regular bandaid. If I'd had my field kit on me, I'd have glued it shut myself," Chris said, but of course he wasn't going to go to the park geared up as if on a mission. "And we had to leave to get it properly closed."
"Makes sense," Jill agreed. "So you said goodbye while he took the child to the ER?"
Chris paused for a moment; Jill had struck another chord. Faced with her unblinking gaze, he answered her the truth.
"No, I drove them across town. Zeno was pretty upset, and I thought I'd make myself useful while he comforted the kid."
"Across town?" Jill asked, surprised by the detail. "For a minor laceration?"
"Yeah." Chris looked around and sat forward, closer to her, to lower his voice even though they were alone in the break room. "It was for Zeno. He doesn't remember it, but his past has left him traumatized. The mere sight of a white coat and bright lights reminds him of the labs, and he panics," he said quietly.
He stared into her eyes to check for her own reaction. They had both seen their fair share of Umbrella laboratories and had their own triggering experiences about them, and he knew about her lingering trauma from the Raccoon City hospital. It wasn't the same, but she could understand the distress a five-year-old might experience when faced with those harsh fluorescent lights. She nodded, swallowing the memories that threatened to rush back up to the surface along with her saliva.
"The clinic Wesker found was really warm, lots of bright colors. Zeno didn't trigger at all," Chris murmured, looking visibly relieved. "He was just scared of the blood, poor kid."
"That's really thoughtful of him," Jill reflected. "Hey, do you think that pediatrician takes adult patients?" Jill offered, intentionally injecting a bit of levity back into the air to break the tension. "I might actually prefer them to my current doctor's office."
Chris shook his head, amused at the idea. "I don't think so. Anyway, they patched him up with some medical adhesive, and we drove back to Wesker's place because my Jeep was still there in the garage."
She nodded along, it made sense. And it was nice of Chris to stick around in a crisis. She patted his arm, proud. "Okay, you had an eventful afternoon," she commented, resolving to ask more details later, over a beer.
Then she noticed the subtle way Chris fidgeted with his coffee mug. His eyes darted away for a fraction of a second.
Another classic Chris Redfield tell. Her investigative instincts went off. There was something else he wasn't telling her.
Jill let him squirm for a minute. She knew Chris had noticed how she narrowed her eyes, but she just patiently sipped her lukewarm coffee, giving him a chance to continue on his own before she had to pounce.
"Yeah. And—" he hesitated, clearing his throat before continuing "—and then he invited me in for dinner."
Oh.
That was big.
"Dinner," she echoed.
"Nothing fancy."
"No, of course not. Did you order some takeaway? Microwave some leftovers?" Chris was not reacting to her bait. "Wait, did he cook?!" she asked, incredulous. She just couldn't reconcile the reputation of Wesker the bio-terrorist with the domestic reality of him in an apron, cooking dinner from scratch.
"Yeah. Just something simple. But delicious."
Oh boy. The way to Chris's heart had always gone directly through his stomach. She knew him too well.
She waited for the other shoe to drop, because there had to be more to the story than just dinner, if he'd tried to hide it.
"Zeno was completely wiped out by all the excitement of the day. So tired that he practically fell asleep at the table, so Wesker took him to his room to put him to bed."
"And you?" She was dying from curiosity, but at least in that moment, getting details from Chris didn't feel like pulling teeth.
"And I really didn't have anything else to do, so I straightened the kitchen."
Ironic, for a man with a week's worth of dirty coffee mugs in the sink and a graveyard of protein bar crumbs in his BSAA desk drawer.
"Yeah, sure, why not load the dishwasher of a bio-weapon," she cracked, unable to help herself, but Chris didn't seem to take offense to that.
"He cooked, Jill. It was the polite thing to do."
"Come clean up my kitchen the next time you don't have anything else to do," she said, full of fond resignation.
Chris rolled his eyes at her antics and continued what was surely the abridged version of the story. "Then, when he came back, we chatted a bit. I asked him about the white coat thing, and he asked me about getting a higher clearance for work. I told him that I'd ask about it, but I don't know, Jill."
She got serious at the mention of work. "You doubt his motives?"
Chris shook his head. "Honestly, it's the exact opposite. I have a bad feeling that if he tries to ask for official clearance, the BSAA might try to trick him into becoming some sort of asset they can puppeteer. I'm afraid they might try to use Zeno as leverage against him if they ever felt he was stepping out of line."
Jill thought about the implications. She didn't trust Wesker as far as she could throw him, but he had been forthcoming and transparent when collaborating with them, so far, and hadn't betrayed the trust Chris had put in him. And taking into consideration everything that Chris told her, he also seemed to genuinely, fiercely care about the well-being of that child.
And Chris cared just as much, whether he consciously knew it or not. It was clear as day in the way he spoke about him. About them.
She was finally beginning to understand the complexity of the situation Wesker and Chris were getting themselves into.
"Hm, I don't know what to think."
"Yeah, me neither. I guess I'll try to test the waters with a few indirect questions to see what the board would want from Albert, and then head over to his place after work to present him with a proposal."
Albert.
Jill didn't miss how Chris slipped and called Wesker by his first name. Wesker was their old captain, Albert was the suburban dad Chris was actually trying to build the white picket fence life with. Without even admitting it.
She decided to make a joke about the unintended double meaning, to lift both of their moods. "Well, make sure to get down on one knee when you do."
Chris finally laughed and playfully tapped her shin with his boot. "Shut up, Valentine."
"Hey, if he says yes, I call dibs on vetting the strippers for your bachelor party."