Archive of Our Own

Chris bites back a sigh, leaning his head against the wall behind him. Smoke curls up into the night air. He lifts the cigarette for another drag, embers falling from callused fingertips, breeze chasing the exhale from his lips as if to chastise him for prolonging the habit. He stifles a chuckle at the thought.

Somewhere along the line, he'd accepted that his was not a life of pleasant things. Sure, life occasionally decided to give him a break—which he was thankful for, don't get him wrong—but it was a constant cycle of peace, problem, panic, pain. Rinse, repeat. And this? This domestic bliss that had somehow fallen into his lap? It was proving to be one of the longer interludes, but—

"Chris?"

Chris turns. Ethan blinks at him from the front door, goosebumps already forming on his arms. Before he realizes what he's doing, he drops the cigarette and crushes it under his boot, walking towards him.

"Hey," he says quietly, arms outstretched, "you're gonna be cold if you come out here."

"You're out here," Ethan protests, but only lightly, letting Chris herd the both of them back inside. "How are you still so warm?"

Chris just winks. "Perks of being this big. Got my own heating tank built in."

Ethan chuckles. Then he looks up at Chris with that look. The one Mia used to curse in between sips of wine. The one where Chris swears he can see every thought written across the back of his eyelids and flip through them like one of Rose's old storybooks. He bristles despite himself, because what else is he supposed to do when faced with being flayed apart, but Ethan just reaches up and fits his hands around Chris's jaw.

"Hey," he says, soft as can be.

"Hey."

"Can we go to bed?"

"Y-yeah, yeah, Ethan, we can go to bed. Why're you awake?" He starts walking them towards the stairs. "Did I wake you up?"

"No."

"Nightmares? Is Rose okay?"

Ethan just hums a response, letting Chris shepherd him along the corridor only to stop when they reach Chris's door. He opens it and walks in despite Chris's confused look, turning down the covers like Chris is someone he has to put to bed.

…shit, that's exactly what this is, isn't it?

"Ethan—"

But Ethan doesn't stop. He just finishes turning down the covers, turns off the lamp on Chris's nightstand, and gets into bed, pulling the blanket up over his chest and lying back against the pillow, eyes blinking slowly back at Chris, still standing in the hallway. Then he yawns—that damn yawn with the slight squeak at the end that makes him look, as Leon puts it, like a sleepy kitten.

Chris sighs and makes sure he doesn't smell too much like smoke.

Ethan hums in contentment when Chris slides into bed next to him, arms wrapping around his broad chest as Chris pulls the covers up over both of them. This is hardly the first time they've shared a bed, from nightmares to impromptu sleepovers after movies, but every time Chris's hands still stutter like they're not sure they're allowed this. As though the moment he touches Ethan he'll wake up, mattress cold and chest heavy. Ethan has no such qualms, though, snuggling into Chris's side as though he could fuse the two of them together, breaths warming the space between Chris's collarbones. After a moment, his grip tightens.

"You gonna hug me back anytime soon?"

Chris wraps his arms around him and pulls him close. He buries his nose in Ethan's hair and just breathes, the faint smell of soft rain and fresh plants washing the smoke from where it clings to the inside of his lungs. His chest stutters from the relief of it, a shaky breath leaving his lips as Ethan hums, one of his hands making sweeping strokes up and down Chris's ribs. In its wake, soft golden sparkles drift around them.

Chris closes his eyes, relaxing against the pillow. He doesn't know how he managed to trick the universe into letting him get here, but he doesn't want to leave anytime soon.

Sometimes Leon finds himself wondering what his life would have been like if he'd met Ethan Winters sooner.

If he'd have known about the Dulvey incident closer to its occurrence—both he and Grace have wondered what might have happened if he'd been involved in the whole mess to begin with, whether he would have been able to offer some sort of guidance or advice as another relatively normal person suddenly caught up in the world of bio-terrorism.

(Privately, though, he thinks Ethan's underselling what he was able to do in Louisiana. Grace hadn't been a field agent, per se, but she'd still been a trained FBI agent when she'd gone through hell with him in Raccoon City and Dr. Gideon's twisted web. Sooner or later, he'd learn that having the people close to him as experts in digging through bureaucratic bullshit meant that nothing he said would remain unanswered for long, especially one who'd been the adopted daughter of an investigative reporter, because he'd mentioned Ethan and Rose offhandedly to Grace once and by their next phone call, she'd been asking him a million questions about Dulvey, about the mold, and, most importantly: how the fuck Ethan Winters managed to do all of that as a normal fucking person. Leon had told her he'd let her know when he figured it out himself. Hell, even Chris had no idea.)

If he'd actually taken a stand and gotten himself involved when he came across Ethan that day in the BSAA's base, the day Chris fucking punched him in the face and told him he wasn't good enough—he'd had words with Chris about that. Words that could be considered a threat or two—maybe he couldn't have stopped the move to Romania, but Christ, maybe Ethan wouldn't have felt so terribly alone. Or if he'd taken notice of the fact that Chris had basically gone rogue, chased after him and gone what are you doing, let me help, the way Chris and the BSAA had swooped in to help clean everything up after the aftermath of ARK.

Sometimes—when the call of the bottle gets strong again and he forces himself to drink cups of tea instead—he thinks about bigger what-ifs. What if he'd met Ethan after New York, before the whole mess with the ship and the mold to begin with, back before Ethan knew anything about bio-terrorism first-hand and was just…him? If he'd met Ethan while in that depressive haze of self-loathing with nothing but Rebecca's chastisement and Chris's wry dismissals, would he have been enraptured by this man that seemed to be nothing but sunshine? Or, what if he'd met Ethan after Alcatraz, when Mia was missing presumed dead, would he have seen a man grieving the loss of his wife and the world he knew, would he have been able to provide some shoulder to lean on? Some light back into his world?

Or—and this is the one he keeps to himself, buried deep where only the most sleepless of sleepless nights can find it—what about a world where…none of this happened? Where he was a cop in Raccoon City, a normal cop, working with Lt. Branaugh and getting wide-eyed at Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine in the S.T.A.R.S. office, meeting Claire as Chris's sister when she came to the city to visit and bonding with Rebecca over being the rookies. What if he'd met Ethan there? What would that look like? Would they be friends? He likes to think they would.

A pillow smacks him in the face.

"Sorry, sorry!" Rose calls from the other side of the coffee table, trying to smother her laughter. "I was aiming for Chris!"

"If that's what you're gonna call aiming for me, you and I are gonna put in more hours at the range, Rose."

"You moved! That's not my fault!"

"You were throwing something at me, did you expect me not to dodge?"

"It's a pillow!"

Leon shakes his head, picking up the discarded pillow and tossing it back to Rose, who takes it in hand and starts chasing Chris around the room again. Ethan dodges the two of them as they race towards the back door and sits next to Leon on the couch, head on his shoulder.

"Sorry, is this—" Leon wraps his arm around Ethan's shoulders before he has a chance to finish the question.

"Hey," he says quietly, "missed you."

Ethan twists his head around to look up at him, slight smile still on his face. "I haven't gone anywhere."

"I know."

Then Ethan goes quiet. "…did you?"

"Hm?"

"Did you go somewhere?"

Leon huffs, glancing away. "Yeah. I guess I did."

A pause. Then Ethan's arms wrap gently around his waist, his chin planting delicately on his shoulder. "Are you back now?"

And he has to give in to the urge, lifting his hand and running it gently through Ethan's hair, drawing a slow smile across both of their faces. "Yeah. I'm back."

"Good. You should stay for a while."

"As you wish."

Ethan laughs as he cards his hand through his hair again, soft golden sparkles following his fingers. Leon just shakes his head in disbelief.

Screw what-ifs. He's here, now, and Ethan's asking him to stay.

"Come on, you can tell me."

Ethan shakes his head, still laughing. "I mean it! I'm telling the truth, Chris, I never did."

"Come on," Chris says again, grinning at him like a man half his age and eager for gossip, "I'm not gonna tell anyone—alright, that's a lie, I'll tell Leon, but look, you've heard that man's sense of humor—"

"It's an excellent sense of humor, thank you very much."

"See? You're both the same, he'll find it funny if you do."

He shakes his head again, going back to cleaning the coffee table. "I'm not not telling you because I think it's embarrassing, I'm telling the truth."

Chris moves the potted plant out of the way so Ethan can wipe under it. "You're telling me you've never had someone use an awful pick-up line on you?"

"Not really, no! The only person I ever seriously dated was Mia, and she wasn't the type for cheesy pick-up lines. Come on, you've met her, do you think that's her style?"

Chris's face contorts into something that makes him snicker.

"See? No, if anything, I'd be the one using awful pick-up lines, but those aren't my style either."

"Uh huh."

"Hey!" He tosses the rag at Chris who just catches it easily out of the air. "I may make dad jokes and puns all the time but I'm not a cheesy pick-up line person. Not as my opener."

If he'd been paying a little bit more attention, he might have seen the glint in Chris's eyes that signaled he's just said something that would end up getting him in trouble.

"So what was it, then?"

"Huh?"

"Your 'opener.'" Chris leans forward, legs spread, elbows on his knees. "What ended up getting you the girl, Winters?"

"Oh, God, no, it wasn't like that. You know the story—one of our mutual friends introduced us at a party. No opener, just—'hi, nice to meet you,' and we ended up talking."

Chris hums, not deterred in the slightest. "And you'd, what, never flirted with anyone before that? Not even at a bar, not at college, never?"

"I'm just gonna disappoint you again—"

"You could never."

Ethan has to pause and swallow. "I was never really the outgoing flirty type. I was the awkward guy who hoped he came off endearing rather than pathetic."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, I'm sure you weren't that bad."

"Hah! You don't even know the half of it. All my friends thought I was hopeless." He shakes his head, a rueful smile coming to his face. "Let's just say I learned to lean into it."

"'Lean into it?'" Ethan shakes his head again. Chris narrows his eyes, and again, Ethan misses the way his mouth curves up into a smirk, before he pushes himself up from the couch. "Show me."

Ethan splutters as Chris tosses the rag back to him. "What?"

"You claim that you're that bad?" Chris picks up his cup of coffee and smirks down at Ethan. "Show me. Put your money where your mouth is. Pretend your friends have just dared you or bet you or whatever it was to come flirt with me. Gimme your worst."

And then Chris winks at him and walks over to the kitchen island, taking a seat like they're at a bar.

Sure.

This is Ethan's life right now.

He looks back down at the rag in his hands, sighs, and puts it on the coffee table. He stands up, feeling every bit as ridiculous as he did every single time his friends made him do this back when the hardest thing in his life was figuring out how to tell the bartender he just wanted a club soda, and looks at Chris's back. He's giving Ethan a lot of grace here, letting him psych himself up, patiently drinking his coffee like he hasn't set up this insane challenge for—what, exactly, Ethan's not sure.

Ethan sighs. Only way out is through.

He shouldn't be this nervous, he thinks as he crosses the living room, this is just Chris. Chris, who's already seen him at his worst and let him stay anyway, who pulled him into a hug this morning, who brushed a kiss to his temple and shooed him out of the kitchen so he could make coffee.

But there's a cocktail of nerves and excitement fluttering in his stomach as he hears the phantom sounds of a packed bar and imagines Chris, leather jacket and all, drink in his hand instead of a mug of coffee, and what the hell inspired him to try and flirt with someone so obviously out of his league.

This in mind, he awkwardly walks up and hovers at Chris's elbow.

"Hey, uh, excuse me?"

Chris hums but doesn't look at him. Ethan swallows, sweat already gathering on the back of his neck.

"My friends bet me $20 I couldn't get your number. If you give me a fake one, I'll split it with you."

For a second, Chris doesn't say anything. Then he glances at Ethan out of the corner of his eye. The silence hangs for another second, then another, and at this point Ethan's just hoping that he'll huff and say that Ethan really is hopeless instead of actually rejecting him because Ethan's not ready to hear something like that even in jest right now, and then he sees it. Right as Chris raises his coffee as though it's some drink at a bar, he sees it.

A smirk.

"$20, huh?" He sets the drink down on the island and turns, slow and easy, to look up at Ethan, reclining back in the barstool. One leg stretches out to rest just outside of Ethan's feet, creating just enough of a barrier that he can't run away easily. "And it might look suspicious if I just give it to you right away, hm?"

Ethan swallows. Chris is…looking at him. This wasn't supposed to happen. Chris was supposed to laugh at how hopeless Ethan was and Ethan was supposed to hit him with the rag that wasn't in his hand anymore and then go back to cleaning the coffee table. Chris wasn't supposed to lean back like that on the stool and Ethan definitely wasn't supposed to be caught looking at Chris like—

A gentle tap to his ankle makes him jump. "I asked you a question, sweetheart."

"S-sorry!" He's blushing. He knows he's blushing—fuck, 'sweetheart?'— "u-um, yeah, yes, you're right, it'd probably be, uh, a bit suspicious."

Chris hums, tilting his head. "So we should probably put on a bit of a performance for them, hm?"

"Uh, performance?"

"Make 'em believe it, yeah? 'Cause if they don't, then they've gotta ask for the $20 back and then you've gotta come get $10 back from me and I'd hate to make you do something like that, so…" Chris reaches out, two fingers trailing down Ethan's arm under the guise of getting a wrinkle out of his sleeve, only wrap around his hand—his ruined hand, but all he can feel is the warmth of Chris's touch and the weight of that look— "let's see what we can do."

And before Ethan can do or say anything, there are warm breath and rough calluses against his mangled skin and Chris is kissing his hand, eyes still fixed on his face. His stomach drops and flips like he's drunk, something slow and sticky and sweet coursing through his veins as Chris's beard scratches lightly over his knuckles, a low hum of satisfaction leaving his lips.

"U-uh-um—uh—"

"Mm?" He tilts his head, something teasing in his eyes. "What's the matter, sweetheart?"

"What are—what are you doing?"

"I told you, 'm making it believable." He doesn't pull back, at all, so his lips are still brushing Ethan's knuckles, his thumb idly stroking across his fingers. "You want that $20, don't you?"

"So you kiss my hand?"

He wants to jam the words back in his mouth when Chris hums, pulling away slightly, still holding onto him, thank God—"Forgive me, sweetheart, I'm a little old fashioned. But you're right, people don't really do that anymore, do they?"

"I-I mean—"

He cuts himself off when Chris stands up. He's seen Chris stand up before—he stood up not five minutes ago. He stood next to Ethan this morning. But he's never seen Chris stand up like this, all easy grace and deliberate movement, eyes still fixed on Ethan's face, hand still holding his like Ethan's precious, feet planted like he's on a mission. And then he's leaning, close enough that Ethan can smell the coffee on his breath and the aftershave he uses and he's kissing Ethan's cheek now so Ethan either has to stare at his shoulder or down at their hands still wrapped together and he knows his face is burning and his heart hammering in his chest and he has half a mind to ask if his hand is shaking as much as he thinks it is—

Chris's breath curls around his ear, voice dropping low. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

Right. Right. Ethan swallows through a dry throat. "E-Ethan."

"Ethan," Chris rumbles like he didn't know his name, and maybe he didn't because he's never said Ethan's name like that before, "'ve got a question for you, Ethan: how badly do you want that $20 right now?"

"H-huh?"

"'Cause if I have my way, you're not gonna be able to collect it for at least another day."

Little shocks of want race through Ethan's body, the sticky-sweetness in his blood popping and fizzing. He swallows and lets out a shaky breath. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Chris says, "so you've got two choices: either you can reach into your pocket, pull out your phone, put it in my hand and I'll give you my number—my real number, sweetheart, 'cause I'm not letting you go that easy—"

Oh, God. Ethan's glad he's leaning against the island already.

"—or," and somehow Chris's voice gets lower, his nose brushing the curve of Ethan's ear, "you turn that pretty face of yours and let me really show you how I kiss and I'll put my number in your phone myself after breakfast tomorrow."

Ethan's gone. He's forgotten whatever the fuck this charade was supposed to be, he's forgotten that this was supposed to be him showing Chris how hopeless he was at flirting, he's forgotten this is Chris, except he can't forget this is Chris—not when all he can feel is Chris's hand wrapped around his, Chris's warmth buzzing in the scant distance between their chests, their hips, their legs, Chris's damn voice in his ear full of dark promise and want and—and—

He turns his head with a shaky k-kiss me and Chris's lips are on his.

Despite everything, the kiss is soft, almost sweet. Chris's other hand settles gently on his jaw, angling his head so he can slot their mouths together, noses pressed side to side. Ethan just lets him, helpless, until Chris's tongue swipes curiously against his lips and he gasps, a familiar golden light bursting behind his closed lids. At the sound, Chris lets the kiss break, rubbing their noses together, so soft with him.

"Dunno what you were talking about, Winters," he murmurs, "that didn't seem hopeless to me."

"You—you!" Ethan splutters. "That was—you—well, I—you're biased!"

Chris just grins, unrepentant. "Definitely."

And he kisses Ethan again.

"Leon?"

"In here," comes his voice from behind his closed door which—alright, that's on Ethan, he probably should've guessed that. He shakes his head and knocks on the door. "Ye—you can come in, Ethan, I know it's you."

"Sorry." He shoulders open the door, still sorting through the laundry basket. "I think I got everything, though I didn't see my shirt with the green and the mountains on the back, have you…"

He trails off as he looks up because of two things. One, he can see that shirt in Leon's hand, though how it got there is a mystery because that's Ethan's shirt and it should not be anywhere near Leon's room, thank you very much. Two, Leon is currently holding said shirt because he is not wearing said shirt.

Or any shirt.

At all.

"U-uh—"

Leon laughs at him. Like, actually has the audacity to chuckle at him. "Everything okay?"

"That's my shirt," Ethan says dumbly, trying to focus on that and not the fact that Leon is currently shirtless in his room—which he has a right to be! Ethan's not trying to say that! He's in his own room, he's allowed to not have a shirt on!— "uh, why do you have my shirt?"

Leon scratches the back of his head, which doesn't help because now Ethan's eyes are following the movement and—focus, Ethan! "Would you believe me if I said I got it mixed in with mine?"

"Considering I'm the one who normally does the laundry and definitely did the laundry this time, where I washed that shirt specifically? Probably not."

He holds his hands up in surrender and walks closer, holding out the shirt like an offering. Ethan just blinks at his face—just look at his face, just look at his face—and Leon drops it into the basket.

"Oops?"

"I'm pretty 'oops' is for mistakes, not things you do on purpose," Ethan mutters, pushing past him to start putting Leon's clean shirts—his shirts, not Ethan's, thank you very much—on his dresser. "Wait, does this mean you steal my shirts on purpose?"

"…maybe?" He feels more than hears Leon coming up behind him, reaching over to grab one of the shirts—and not put it on, no, that would be normal, instead he puts it in the dresser. Which…is also pretty normal. "I really didn't do it on purpose the first few times, I just grabbed the ones that looked like mine out of the dryer and then realized when I put them on that they were too small."

"And you didn't immediately go back and get the right shirt?"

"They smell like you."

Ethan's hands stutter on the basket at the matter-of-fact tone. "They what?"

"They smell like you."

"How could they smell like me if they've just been washed?"

Leon's elbow bumps his affectionately. "You're the one doing the laundry, Ethan."

"I don't think that's how it works." Leon just hums. Ethan sighs. "I mean, I guess it could be worse. You may stretch them out like crazy but at least you're not Chris."

"Whoa, hold on, what's that mean?"

Ethan rolls his eyes, picking up his shirt, thank you very much, and putting it back in the basket with the rest of his clean laundry. "Oh, come on. That man's built like a tank. I don't think my shirt would even fit him at all."

He looks up to see Leon—no, no way. Leon S. Kennedy is not pouting at him right now.

"You've seen Chris! What's the face for? I probably weigh as much as a bag of grapes to him." He picks up the basket and starts to walk out of Leon's room. When Leon still doesn't say anything, he glances over his shoulder, stopping when he sees Leon staring at him. "What?"

Leon looks at him for a moment longer, then sighs and shakes his head. "I thought we talked about this, Winters."

"Talked about what?"

Leon doesn't say another word. He just walks slowly across the room until he's standing right in front of Ethan, takes the laundry basket, and tosses it on the bed.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Ethan wonders if it's too late to run away.

"L-Leon—"

Leon grabs his outstretched arm and pulls him back inside. Ethan stumbles. Leon pushes his head down—gently!—and then there's a grip around his waist and he's being lifted and there are hands on his back and he has no idea how it happened but he's now sitting on Leon's shoulders.

His brain shorts out.

Forget a bag of grapes, Leon's holding him like he weighs nothing. Strong hands grip his hips, biceps forming an unshakeable bridge to his shoulders with Ethan's thighs resting atop, warm skin pressed against too-thin denim. Leon just smirks up at him from between his legs like this is easy. Which it probably is because he's suddenly getting flashes of every time Leon pinned him against the counter or the floor or something like he didn't weigh anything and—

And Ethan needs to start thinking about anything other than Leon's head right there before this becomes a problem.

"What's the matter, Winters," comes Leon's voice, just slightly rough from exertion and Ethan needs him to stop talking, "something wrong?"

Ethan's shaking. He knows he is. He's probably trembling like a leaf and Leon just tightens his hold and an embarrassing combination of a whimper and a moan squeaks out from between his lips. His head brushes the ceiling and he flails a hand up to steady himself even though he knows it probably won't do anything. It doesn't. Leon chuckles and he can feel the rumble of it.

Anything else. Anything else. Think about literally anything else.

"H-how do I get down?"

"Like this," Leon says, and fucking bounces him off his shoulders, catches him by the ribs, Ethan's knees hooked over Leon's elbows, and then a slight crouch to set him back on the floor and this bastard has the nerve to chuckle at him again when Ethan all but falls onto the bed in a daze. Because what the fuck?

"What the fuck?"

Leon laughs—again, the bastard, and saunters over, bracing one hand on either side of him so their faces are close. The bed dips from the weight. He leans closer, closer, closer, then puts his nose to the crook of Ethan's neck and breathes in deeply. His shoulders relax and his exhale makes Ethan shiver. When he pulls back to look Ethan in the face again, his expression is softer.

"I'm sorry I keep stealing your shirts," he murmurs, kissing him gently, "will you forgive me?"

Ethan swallows. "Are you…gonna keep doing it?"

He kisses him again. "Probably."

"Then why should I forgive you?"

"Because every time I steal one of yours, that means you get to steal one of mine."

There's a pause.

Then Ethan fumbles blindly for the laundry basket and pushes his shirt into Leon's hand, golden sparkles trailing in his wake. Leon smiles.

"That's what I thought."

"I mean, I just think it's unrealistic."

"You live in the same world I live in, what the fuck do you mean, that's unrealistic?"

"I just think it's not that feasible!"

"Oh, the way an army of drones carrying programmable T-virus is not that feasible? The way a mutated Megalodon under Alcatraz isn't that feasible? The way people choosing to infect themselves with Las Plagas to control Lickers is not that feasible?"

"Okay, well—"

"No! You don't get to sit there and tell me robots that can perfectly mirror human fighting stances isn't that feasible when you've basically seen it!"

"I have not! I would remember fighting giant robots being controlled by shadow boxers! I just remember the stupid Tyrants!"

"What are Tyrants, again?" Ethan asks from the kitchen, interrupting Leon and Chris's argument over the movie playing in the background.

"They're the giant bioweapons that wear trenchcoats and bad hats."

"Right."

Chris muffles a snort. "That's the best description of those fucking things I've ever heard."

"Terrible fashion sense, terrible timing…" Leon shakes his head. "Terrible habit of not fucking dying."

Ethan huffs a laugh. "Yeah, I can see how that would get annoying."

"Not you, Ethan!"

"You don't count! You not dying is great!"

Ethan laughs, turning the stove down and grabbing a spoon. "I'm just messing with you. What's so unfeasible about these robots? Is it just that they can mirror a human's movements?"

"It's the fact that it's supposed to be able to do this in the middle of a fight where there's no consistent sight lines or any sort of recalibration whatsoever. They just established that the robot's broken anyway, and it's not like—"

"Okay, but isn't that, like, the point? That it's able to do that?"

"Apparently not. It's a rare feature." Leon reaches over and lightly punches Chris's shoulder. "He's just upset that he thinks it's cool when odds are he's gonna have to—"

"I never said anything about not wanting to admit it was cool. I think it's badass as hell. But it's not that realistic."

"Again, I feel like I'm making the same point here, but—"

"That stuff's real here. All that bullshit exists here. You know what doesn't exist here?"

Leon rolls his eyes. "God, did you have this reaction to Pacific Rim too or what?"

"No. That rules. Put me in a Jaeger any day."

"That's what I'm talking about, Redfield! Why is it so easy for you to believe in that level of technology when—"

"Because aliens exist in that world! There's a rift at the bottom of the ocean and monsters are coming through it! But this movie doesn't have anything like that, it's just normal people and normal robots."

Ethan chuckles. "Yeah, what good is a normal person gonna do?"

"Now look what you did, Chris—"

"Ethan—"

"I'm still just messing with you, I swear." Chris pouts at him from the couch and he tosses him a can of soda in apology. "Keep telling me about the robots."

"You could come watch it with us, Ethan."

"Nah, I'm okay. I gotta finish up over here."

Leon pops another gummy into his mouth, ignoring Chris's disgusted look. "I'm just saying: given the system requirements needed to make half of these bots functional or even half the time they show us, the idea of a shadow boxing protocol? Not that unrealistic."

"But for it to still be working? After all this bullshit? You have way more faith in electronics than you should."

"Spoken like someone who hasn't had to jury-rig shit on mission before."

"Hey, I don't lose my guns, Kennedy."

"I don't lose them on purpose! Giant mutant alligators eat them and then I have to run away from chainsaws."

"What is it with you and chainsaws?"

"Ask the zombies! They're the ones who keep picking them up and chasing me with them!"

"Sure, but how often do you actually see chainsaws just lying around? It's not like you're getting sent to lumber yards or whatnot, you're normally in like, cities. Or at least places that have some semblance of paved roads."

"I also get sent to places that are either under construction or, uh, deconstruction."

"I don't think you get to call them 'under deconstruction' if that deconstruction doesn't start until you show up and start blowing stuff up."

"Hey! I can hardly be blamed for blowing stuff up—"

"Sure, Kennedy, sure—"

"—when half the time I'm not doing the stuff that causes the explosions!" Chris makes a noise of disbelief. "Oh, okay, you're one to talk, Mr. BSAA."

"Now what the hell does that mean?"

"I'm normally doing my missions solo. There's only so much havoc I can cause by myself."

"I don't think the better part of the US government would agree with you there."

"I'm not flying helicopters that carry weapons capable of doing billions of dollars of real estate damage in New York City!"

"No, you're just flinging motorcycles off of skyscrapers."

"And you know what, you're welcome for that."

"Laugh it up, Kennedy, that helicopter saved your ass and you know it."

"That missile also saved our asses, it just also blew up a whole bunch of—" Chris takes a throw pillow and smacks him with it. "Hey, hey! Ethan, back me up here!"

Silence.

"Ethan?" Chris puts the pillow down, turning to look at the kitchen. "Ethan?"

Ethan isn't moving. He stands with his back to them. Something next to his elbow is smoking.

Leon muffles a curse and gets up, jogging to the kitchen to turn the stove off and move the pan off the heat. "Ethan? Hey, talk to us, buddy, what's going on?"

Ethan's face is blank. Terribly blank. He's staring at nothing. He's staring into nothing. Chris comes up behind them, exchanging a worried look with Leon before he's carefully shaking Ethan's shoulder.

"Ethan? What's wrong?"

"Rose."

Another worried look. "What?"

"Rose."

"Rose isn't here," Leon says quietly, "Mia's picking her up from school today, remember? Mia has Rose."

"Rose."

Chris's hand goes to his pocket, intent on calling Mia to put Rose on so Ethan can hear his daughter's voice, when his phone rings.

The kitchen gets cold.

Ethan still doesn't so much as blink as Chris answers the phone, holding it up to his ear.

"Addison? What's going on? Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down—what do you mean? Attacked? Who—you're—what? Where's—what happened? What does that mean? Are you—what's—"

Leon watches the color drain from Chris's face. He grabs Ethan's shoulder and pulls him closer, eyes fixed on Chris's expression. "Chris? What's going on?"

"We'll be there as soon as we can," Chris says, voice still firm but shaken, "get yourself to a medic, okay? Okay. Bye."

His hands don't shake as they hang up the phone but his jaw clenches.

"Chris," Leon says firmly, "talk to us. What's happening?"

Chris swallows. "There's been an attack on the base. Three dead. Several more wounded."

"What did they want?"

Chris doesn't say anything at first. He just looks at Ethan.

Slowly, Ethan's head turns. He stares right at Chris.

His eyes are cold.

"Where's my daughter, Chris?"

"Ethan—"

"Where the fuck is my daughter?"