Chapter Text
Piers wasn't sure if this was real. The world was hazed, voices--garbled and indistinct, like through layers of cotton and concrete--slipping in and out of his grasp. Blankly, he stared at white and blue, and a shifting shape of brown. The brown felt familiar somehow.
"How's he doing?" the voice. He'd heard that voice before. Where though?
"He's woken up a few times," the Brown said, and that was Chris. His commander. His captain. As if to prove it, the haze cleared slightly, enough for Piers to see Chris' face. It was haggard. Why, though? His captain was looking somewhere off to Piers' left. Speaking. The words filter into noise, but he catches a name. Leon. That was it! The first voice was Leon. Leon Kennedy. That friend of Chris' he'd met, so briefly.
Then something else moves into Piers' eyeline, a jet black shape. His eyes lazily take in the new figure and... it's shiny. Jet black. Weird extra appendages. Oh my god it's a xenomorph, Piers' inner fanboy somehow connects. That is stifled by admiring the shiny black, like dark chrome gunmetal. Dang. Like the shinest gun Piers' never had. He wants a gun like that.
The pretty gun-metal xenomorph that speaks in Leon's voice says something, but whatever it is, Piers' doesn't hear it, because he's already slipped into the depths of his mind again.
…
“MmmMm preddy gun xenomrph…” The barely alive man muttered before he finally passed out. Leon raised an eyebrow at Chris. One of the few expressions he didn't have to put effort into relearning.
The other man just sighed, “Cut him some slack. Please.”
…
Chris alternates between anxiously hovering at Piers' beside and everything that comes with responding to one of the largest bioweapon attacks ever. It's not like he was even there for half of what went down with Simmons—that was all Leon and the new friend he picked up (honestly, even after mutating Leon had a thing for picking up strays). But Chris, as resident Human and official liaison/intermediary for the "Haven't Lost Our Minds Yet" B.O.W. Squad—which included his family, friends, and assorted other persons in the fighting B.O.W. community—was having to deal with the immediate fallout and keeping Leon from being shot on sight.
In fact, Leon had been keeping an eye on Piers' for him in the medic's tent. While Chris knew it was in part because the area with infected patients was quarantined off, keeping him from unexpected visitors, it was also oddly comforting. Leon couldn't be infected by the C-Virus and made sure that any of the patients that couldn't be stabilized didn't attack the other patients and medics.
So, it was for this reason that when Leon texted him a simple "He's awake" that Chris sprinted to the medic's tent like a Tyrant was on his heels.
Inside he found Piers sitting up on a cot, a doctor checking his vitals. The man still looked somewhat disoriented, but didn't look like he was going to attempt to hack his arm off again. (It had been gutting to see Piers attempt to kill himself, once he'd realized Chris wasn't going to do it. Chris had barely made it to the medics in time.)
"Captain!" Piers said once he spotted Chris. The doctor glanced over, nodded, and stepped away. After Chris exchanged a few words with her, she confirmed he was stable and left to attend to others.
"Piers, how are you?"
The man's mouth twisted. "Could be better." He glanced at his arm with a disgusted face, and Chris tensed, ready to intervene again, but then Piers' gaze shifted away. "How long was I out?"
"Over a day... remember much?"
Piers' wrinkled his nose. "Ugh... not really. Weird ass dreams though." He suddenly snorted, an odd bout of good humor. "There was a guy who looked like a gun designer's wet dream. He was like, all glossy black. Gorgeous shine. Also weirdly like the Alien? Anyways, and you were there too, and--" Piers cut himself off, eyeing Chris. "...Why are you looking at me like that?"
Chris, who's mind had derailed around 'gun designers wet dream,' valiantly rallied himself. He stoutly refused to look behind Piers, because if he made eye contact with Leon, no, if he looked at Leon, he would absolutely fucking lose it. Piers, however, did not know this.
"Quite the drugs, man," Piers muttered, shaking his head, and his following words (and lack of filter) proceeded to prove they were likely still having an effect. "But like, yeah, the xenomorph was like, real? And the most beautiful shade of gunmetal. Like, my dreams are taunting me. It was like... the nicest rifle ever. I want a rifle like that..."
Chris would maintain a straight face. This was serious. He would not look at Leon.
"You know how to pick 'em Chris," Leon drawled, and Piers whipped around, eyes going wide as he looked up to see Leon in all his mutated glory. Leon tilted his head, something amused to the gesture. "Welcome to the club, kid."
"Not a kid," Piers said reflexively, but it was just about the only thing he could say, considering his mind seemed caught on 'talking B.O.W.' "I… what… huh?"
With great effort, Chris shoved the past minute into a lockbox and threw away the key. Then he sighed, rubbed his face, and gestured to Leon. "Lieutenant, meet Leon Kennedy."
Leon smiled, mandibles on full display. "I'm what you call a 'top secret agent.'" Chris rolled his eyes, while Leon chuckled at Piers' continuing confusion. Yes, Piers, the BOW got jokes."Welcome to the dark side, we have trauma, poor coping mechanisms, and cookies."
"Cookies?" Piers repeated.
Leon nodded. "Yep, Luis got really into baking—especially sweets, we love sugar—and Carlos usually brings something too."