status complete
prompt New Year's festivities
warnings spoilers for the fifth game, and slight coarse language.
background 2009-10; post-RE5.
notice Happy New Year, everyone! May the odds be in your favor this year. Now, I believe that Resident Evil gives me Christmas feels, though I can't tell why. However, the reason behind this fic is my distress due to the rise of Nivanfield. Piers is a badass motherfucker, I'm really sad he's gone, but I just can't get over the fact that everyone is freakin' pairing him up with Chris. I don't get it, I really don't. Anyway, Valenfield has been off my plans for a year, so I thought I'd give it a shot. God knows everyone seems to have forgotten about it lately. Let's see if we've got some shippers in the audience this time. Drop a word!
here's to the future;
what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
The year was 2009. But it wouldn't be for long, Jill thought as she padded wearily on the timeworn parquet of Chris' living room, sipping the cheap red wine she had purchased earlier; her 'gift' to Chris for the new year.
He hadn't even had the courtesy to swallow his laughter at poor excuse of a gift. Not that he had gotten her anything.
It was late, maybe ten or eleven o'clock, and the building was aflame with life. Doors opened and shut, voices rose and fell, people came and went, and they could hear every single movement and noise through the thin walls of Chris' apartment.
It had been a crappy year, on top of two other crappy years, and Jill was more than ready to wish it farewell. But it had also been fairly better than the two previous years, given that she would now be spending time in Chris' shitty apartment instead of a glorified lab in West Africa. Not to say that Wesker didn't have taste in interior design, but he had obviously lost his way with women over the last years, in favor of becoming the tyrant who would free the world from its miserably pathetic state etcetera etcetera.
"There's nothing on this goddamn box," Chris' voice cut briefly through her train of thought as he pushed furiously at the buttons on the remote, trying to find something to watch.
Jill smiled.
It had been a terribly bad year, one filled with sorrows, pain, torture and loss. But all of it would have been ten times worse if it wasn't for her devoted partner, who had gone through the very gates of Hell in order to bring her back and kill the son of a bitch who had toyed with their lives for so many years, as if they were mere pawns in his private game of chess.
Jill had hated Wesker with a passion for the better part of her life. For a very long time she woke and fell asleep to the thought of strangling him with her own hands and watching the life slip away from his monstrous red eyes. She had wanted to see him burn, to peel the skin from his bones and break every bone in his body until he would be reduced to nothing but ash.
When it came to Wesker, her mind accepted death so easily that it frightened her. She had wanted to see him dead for so long that any piece of humanity she had left vaporized when he came in sight. The mere thought of seeing his flesh char and melt from his body made her heart race and a laughter rise in her—
She abruptly turned to her partner. "Do you ever wonder if we're here because of—"
"Dumb luck?"
"Yeah." Chris had always been good at reading her mind and driving it away from dark thoughts when the demons seemed to take over. He was, in many ways, her guardian angel; her knight in shining armor. Although he always insisted that he was far too built to fit under an iron plate.
She always suggested pewter.
"All the bloody time. But I guess some of it could be attributed to our spectacular skills and immense experience. We've been to Hell and back, after all; one times too many."
Practical and pragmatic; thus had always been the nature of Chris Redfield, soldier extraordinaire.
"You should gain some weight," he muttered suddenly and it was so random a statement that it had her laughing in response. Leave it to Chris to put an end to a very promising conversation in order to comment on her physique.
But it was not all that random really. Their multiple treks in and out of Hell had left scars on them; they had left them thin and weary. After their last crusade, Chris had felt that she left half of herself back in Africa. There were no evident curves in the places there once used to be, and her cheeks were hollow of the meat that dimpled whenever he made her laugh a few years back.
She decided to humor him, anyway. "I hardly think I ever will, seeing that you never cook. Seriously, how can you sustain those muscles if you don't eat?" She poked his bicep for emphasis, taking a seat on the carpet before the couch.
Chris shrugged indifferently. They both knew he was a regular at the diner down the street. "Then learn how to cook."
"I know how to cook, dumbass," Jill spat back in a prideful fashion. "But I'm supposed to be the sick one here, remember? I'm on sick leave. Ergo, you must take care of me and cook me munchies."
"You were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, not a broken pelvis, Jillers. Seems to me you're completely capable of fending for yourself."
"Then why do you keep me here instead of sending me on my way?"
The question was accompanied by a raised eyebrow that left Chris momentarily stunned. Because I need you. The words danced on his tongue and teeth, never leaving his lips. He saw Jill shake her head at his hesitance, her eyes dropping to where her fingers were picking on a wayward thread on his worn-out carpet.
It was no secret between them that Chris was still reluctant in letting her take a single step out of his apartment unaccompanied. The first few months after Wesker's demise and their return from Africa had been a nightmare for both of them. The West Africa branch of BSAA had offered them shelter and food for approximately ten days, until all loose ends were tied up and the necessary paperwork and customary blood tests were dealt with. But then Jill's results had come up rather peculiar (as was expected after everything Wesker had pumped her with), and they were flying back to the States at the crack of dawn.
Once they had stepped foot in American soil, their lives had turned into a rollercoaster ride. Jill was submitted to countless blood tests and biological experimentations in order to identify exactly what kind of chemicals resided in her body and how to dissipate them.
On top of that, she had been assisted a psychiatrist to evaluate the mental and psychological damage she had incurred, to decide whether she was stable enough (and reliable; but those were only whispers between the higher ups) to return to work, and to determine when such a clearance should be given—if given at all.
On the other hand, Chris had found himself up to his ears in paperwork about his mission and council meetings about the evaded disaster and the possibility of Wesker's bio-organic weapons finding purchase in the hands of potential bioterrorists around the globe. He gave press conferences, had meetings with the President and the intelligence services, and accepted awards of valor and bravery by generals of the US army, all the while second-guessing himself on how much of any of it he actually deserved.
They hadn't been able to meet, let alone talk to each other for the better part of the first two months after their return. But as the intensity began to subside and Jill was given clearance to leave the medical ward of the HQ, they both realized that she had no place to stay after her discharge.
On the grounds that her apartment had been sold on an auction after her presumed death, and the fact that her payroll had been cut off for the same reason for three years, thus rendering her homeless and penniless, Chris had taken her in and offered her the spare bedroom of his apartment.
He wanted to keep her close and protect her in any way he could; to compensate for the time when he couldn't. Chris knew better than anyone what she went through in Kijuju, and he knew what impact three years with Wesker could have on one's psyche. He wanted to be the stepping stone Jill needed to get back on her feet and face the world once again.
After she moved in, Jill had been regularly plagued by nightmares and used to wake up screaming every other night. Gradually, Chris had made a habit of sleeping by her side, offering a shoulder to cry on and a hand to grasp when the demons in her head became too real. They had found comfort and solace in each other, in a way they always did. And Jill had shown great signs of improvement since then.
However, even with that knowledge under account, Chris was still reluctant in letting her go and find a place on her own. He had grown so accustomed to her constant presence that he didn't know if he could live without it. He had already been forced to spend three years away from her, grieving over her supposed death, and he didn't want to spend another second apart.
He was certain that Jill knew of his reasons—he had never been good at hiding things from her, anyway—but he suspected that she didn't really want to leave either. The worst may had come to pass, but there was still a long road ahead of her to find her old self. And she didn't seem content in walking it out by herself.
"There's only three sessions left before my evaluation," Jill's voice pierced through the silence a few moments later. "After that, I'll be free to come back to work; unless, of course, Priestly declares me delusional or something."
But Chris already knew that. As one of the co-founders of the BSAA, he had access to everything that run within the organization. And he could admit that he kept a close eye on the reports of her assisted psychiatrist. "Are you sure you want to come back?"
Jill wasn't surprised. It wasn't the first time they were having this conversation, albeit it had been a few days since either of them had stirred it up. "What else am I supposed to do? Stay at home and raise our kids? Write a book about our treks around the world to vanquish evil?"
"I'm just saying," Chris said, holding his arms in front of him to show that he was in no mood to be offensive. "It's been hardly six months since you came back. There's no reason for you to rush into anything. The director will understand if you want a few extra months off. Hell, I'll make him understand if that's what you need."
But despite his earnest efforts, Jill's eyes grew dark. "You're in no position to know what I need, Redfield."
"Oh, so now we're using last names? Great. Really mature, Jill."
"This job is my life. Ever since I finished high school, this is what I wanted to do. This is what I dedicated my life in doing. Yes, it has scarred me, and spit me in the face, and it has put me down more times than I can count, but I chose it. I chose this life, and I clung to it, when I had nothing else in the world to keep me standing. It saved me in more ways than you can even imagine. It's the sole thing I'm good at; hell, I'm excellent. And I'm not going to give Wesker the satisfaction of knowing that he managed to take away the one thing that was solely mine."
Chris gritted his jaw. This—there was nothing he could answer to this that could make him seem less of a villain in her eyes. So, he caved in, like he always did. "Fine. Fine. It's your goddamn life. To hell if I returned it to you, it's fucking yours. I ain't gonna tell you how to live it."
Jill beamed with satisfaction at his submission and emptied her glass gleefully, barely caring about the rough brush of the cheap liquor against her esophagus.
"And I don't want your goddamn kids," Chris added as an afterthought, drinking straight from the bottle and eyeing her with narrowed eyes. "You've got shitty genes, anyway."
She laughed vigorously at his remark and Chris didn't speak. Sometimes he found it hard to, when he was in her presence. Though a mere shadow of her former self physically, Jill was still the same strong-willed, no-nonsense, stubborn woman he had grown to respect and adore in the fifteen years of their comradeship.
"I need a goddamn smoke," she said when her laughter died down, relieving him of the weight of their conversation and stealing away one of his cancer sticks. There was music penetrating the thin walls and the bright city lights reflected on his dusty window panes. On the television that rattled on behind them, the mayor was making a speech, probably one of those cliché speeches people gave when the year's end was nigh.
"I hate New Year's resolutions. They're so pretentious. I mean, it's not like you can convert from Hitler to Mother Teresa in five minutes just because the year is changed." Jill shook her head, lighting up her cigarette and coming to stand before the window. "I don't know, it just seems fake."
Chris watched the smoke slip out of her mouth in soft puffs. He didn't know if he liked or hated it when she smoked. Sometimes he got worried; he was a heavy smoker himself—had been for years—he knew what he was putting at stake with this unhealthy habit and he didn't want Jill to share this danger. Although there were a million most dangerous things he knew she had engaged in, in the years since he had first met her.
On other days, Chris loved to watch the cancer stick balance itself between those slender fingers of hers so elegantly, and he felt jealous of the nicotine that resided in her body in a way that he never could. He abhorred the smoke that left her lips because he didn't want anyone or anything else touching those lips but his own. Jealousy was a feeling he commonly associated himself with when it came to Jill.
However, as he watched her puff out the nicotine-infused smoke, the only thing his mind could come up with was how incredibly sexy she looked at that moment.
In all actuality, she was a sight for sore eyes. Her hair was slightly greasy and held up in a messy bun, she was barefoot and wearing grey jogging pants and an oversized white shirt that hung off one of her shoulders. She wore no make-up and it was obvious that she hadn't bothered with a bra either.
"What? You find me cynical?" she interrupted his train of thoughts with a smirk on her face. It was often that he chastised her for being a downer. Although he knew that he wasn't quite the optimist himself either. It was hard to be, given the line of their work and the horrors they had lived through in their time.
"Just vaguely pessimistic." That earned him a soft chuckle.
"Rich words, Chris."
He shrugged, not really caring. "They're all I've got."
She snorted, but didn't indulge in further debate on the matter. If she had, she would have told him that it was her rather than him who used words as a cover-up. It was her who relied on eloquence to hide her darkest secrets and guide her through unnerving situations. And he might have agreed, albeit partly.
Chris was a very eloquent interlocutor as well, with words falling off his lips in such a charming way that he could enchant anyone, if only he chose to. However, after Jill's return, he preferred to keep the words to himself; to speak through actions. Plus, he didn't want to waste time sprouting out pleasantries when he could be listening to her talk.
He had missed her voice terribly—among other things.
He had missed her body, too. The way it wrapped around his own like an eel, the way it completed his; the way they clicked like two pieces of the same puzzle. Six crappy months were a terribly poor substitute for her three-year absence from his life, but he would take what he could get.
They were far from perfect, they both knew that all too well. Their fights were epic and disastrous and they always left victims in their wake. Sometimes they refrained from talking to—from looking at—each other for days after their arguments. It was usually Chris who broke the pact and begged for forgiveness, but not always. Jill had her own moments of epiphany when she realized how pointless exactly their arguments were, and gave way to her stubbornness and shushed him with a wet kiss.
It was often that they seemed scarily incompatible, even to each other. Jill had always been collected, always thinking before she acted; a realist, but also rather emotional, whereas Chris was a brute who liked to get dreamy and jump into action on impulse. He was prone to temper tantrums and he could hardly keep his hands to himself when he was angry.
When they were together, they were nothing more than two children; two children who protected each other, who loved each other, who couldn't live without each other.
He watched her put out her cigarette on the ashtray he kept on the window sill and walk over to the stereo on the side wall. "Jill," Chris called out precariously. "What are you doing?"
But his words fell on deaf ears as his longtime partner tinkered absentmindedly with the buttons on the stereo. Suddenly, a familiar slow tune filled his apartment, and every foreign sound that previously slipped through the thin walls suddenly died down.
His eyes remained fixed on Jill as she began to sway in sync with the music, and sashayed towards him. She came to a stand between his spread knees and extended her arm, earning a raised eyebrow from him.
"Seriously?"
"Come on, Chris. Think back on our lives. Where was the last time we actually danced without a care in the world?"
"STARS," he replied without missing a beat. "But we have cares now."
Jill took his hand in hers, tugging him up to a stand. "Not tonight. The world isn't ending, Wesker is dead and gone, and Claire is not in danger."
When Chris opened his mouth to protest, she silenced him with a kiss. "No worries tonight."
Despite himself, Chris smiled. They were on the eve of forties, fucked in the head beyond repair, buzzed from that cheap wine and high off the smoke they shared. And despite all of that, Jill wanted to dance. Because they were alive to see another day, another year. She wanted to dance because they had cheated death once again, and could laugh about it with each other because, frankly, no one else would understand.
Chris slipped his arm around her waist and rested his palm against the small of her back, while his other hand came up to grasp hers. Jill wrapped her own arm around his neck and hid her grin against his shoulder. If anyone could see them, they would strike them as a rather comical pair. Chris was tall and muscular, while Jill was relatively shorter and rather skinny. Their bodies contrasted in the same way their minds converged.
As they began to sway in the soft melody of Stand by Me, Chris reveled in the feeling of Jill's body pressed against his own, in the feeling of her heartbeat thumping against his chest.
Sometimes it still felt surreal to be able to touch her and feel her skin against his. Every night he went to bed with the fear than when he awoke, she would be gone. Another figment of his imagination; another dream that slipped through his fingers like grains of sand. But she never dissolved, never left, and Chris grew more fearful of this prolonged mirage. Because if he let himself believe that Jill was truly there, he would collapse. And he needed to be strong for her, now more so than ever.
"We should go on vacation somewhere," Jill suggested out of the blue, her eyes falling on the cigarette ashes littering his wooden floor. Neither seemed to care about cleaning lately. No wonder the place reeked.
Chris was thankful for the distraction she provided. "Like where?"
Jill shrugged and brought up both her arms to circle his neck. "I don't know. Paris?"
"Already been there," he remarked, adjusting the position of his own hands on her waist.
"Not as glamorous as you'd think. Rome?"
"You know, I don't think I like Europe. Or the east hemisphere anyway. Not many fond memories there."
"Not many of those in the States, either," he pointed out. "What about New York?"
"Can't we go somewhere a little less crowded? A vacation's supposed to be about relaxing, you know. No, New York's definitely off the list."
"Hawaii?"
"You hate surfing. And the flight is like, ten hours long. I'd rather not be jet lugged for a month, thank you. How about Canada? We could check on Barry and his family. It would be nice, no?"
"You already know we're going nowhere, right?" Chris murmured against her temple with a smile, causing Jill to sigh wearily.
"Guess we're not."
"I thought you were itching to go back to work."
"I am," she insisted, showing once again that her mind was set and there was nothing he, or anyone else, could do to change her mind. "I just want to get out of the city for a few days before that. It's choking me."
"Well," Chris cleared his throat. "We could always go see Claire."
She pulled back to look into his eyes at the suggestion. "You think she'll be okay with it?"
"Yeah, sure. She's been busting my balls about wanting to see you, anyway. And it's only a five hour drive. We'd be there before you know it."
"Hm." Jill fell back against his chest and mulled over the idea for a moment. Suddenly, a heartbeat later, she pressed a kiss against his throat. "Guess we're going to Boston, then."
Chris grinned down at her, and Jill thought he looked ten years younger than he actually was. While barely thirty-five, the worries of the past and present had etched themselves deeply on Chris' face, creating tiny wrinkles around his eyes and on the expanse of his forehead. She reached up to smooth them out and Chris closed his eyes in appreciation.
Jill enjoyed those precious little moments when she could take care of him. Ever since she had come back, Chris had tended to her every need and request. He was her personal errand boy, masseur, cook and confidante. He cared for her in a way that no one ever had, and Jill knew that she could give up her life ten thousand times over for this man.
The song came to an end, and a more uplifting tune replaced it, bringing their slow dance to an end. Chris planted a soft kiss on her hair and untangled himself from her arms in order to fetch a second bottle from the kitchen, seeing that this one lay empty on the coffee table.
Jill crossed her arms over her chest in an effort to keep herself warm. The television behind her quietly counted down the last seconds of the year.
Nine, eight, seven, six—
She padded quietly to the French doors and slid them open. The cold winter breeze welcomed her in its embrace as she stepped into the balcony. There was a moment of silence before loud, unintelligible cheers filled the air, and a few seconds later, the sky was filled with colorful fireworks.
Jill leaned against the railing and watched in awe as they painted the dark sky with bright colors and shapes of all kinds. She could hear the music picking up down in the streets, and she watched as people slowly left their homes and filled the streets, laughing in a merry spirit; celebrating the passing of the old year and the coming of the new.
It was her first New Year's in Philadelphia in many years. The last time had been in 2004, two years before they went after Spencer. It was the time when the BSAA was starting to become a reality. She and Chris had spent hours over bureaucratic paperwork and blueprints, potential sponsors and sources of funding. They had been so engrossed by their work, so enchanted by the idea that their dreams for an alliance around the world against bioterrorism were coming true, that they didn't realize how fast time had flown until the fireworks going off in the distance reminded them of the new year's coming.
They had been so happy back then, so utterly ecstatic that things were working out for the first time, that their qualms and fears had abandoned them. Jill had leaned over and kissed him, and Chris had reciprocated just as fervently. They were drunk on each other, high on the feelings they had been repressing for years. That was the first time they had opened their hearts completely to each other, and for Jill, that was the moment she had realized that Chris was the only man she had a place for in her heart. He was her partner and her friend; the only constant in her turbulent bowl of life.
After that night, they had changed. Their feelings for each other, now out of the bag, had made them stronger and better, and they aided their fight. For now they had something to fight for; something personal and intimate. Something they couldn't live without.
And it had been a long fight. A fight that was still waging on and always would. This war had cost them so much. They had lost people—they had lost each other. Pain and loss had become a common occurrence. They weren't afraid to lose anything, even themselves anymore.
Because, for a long time, they had been lost. She had been lost to Wesker and a punishment worse than death in his hands. Chris had been lost in the shadows of his mind and the pain of grief. They had been lost in the one final battle against the man who had taken everything from them.
And then they had found themselves — and each other — again.
Jill knew that they were fucked up beyond repair. Their seams were frayed and their dreams had been burnt along with thousands of innocents back in Raccoon City. The horrors they had faced—one didn't just come back from that. One couldn't just forget and forgive and move on with their lives.
It would take time. Years, maybe. Perhaps they never would be truly okay. It wouldn't surprise her. After everything they had been through, she had no high hopes of returning to the person she was fifteen years ago. The things she had seen, fought and lived through had shaped her into a completely different person. Someone who knew how to hold her own against the cruelties of the world, in whatever shape and form they came into.
She was a warrior, and so was Chris.
Jill smiled when she felt a coat being wrapped around her shoulders, and Chris' body brushing against her left side. "Do you think we'll ever be okay, Chris?"
His steady breath calmed her, and she knew he wouldn't lie. That was the sole reason she asked him. Chris never sugarcoated anything. "No. Not really. We'd be fools to think we ever will."
"Fools," she echoed in the night, as the loud noise of celebrations reached their ears.
I want to be foolish with you, then, she thought but didn't say. She didn't need to anyway. Chris knew her so well that words had become an unnecessary addition to their relationship. Especially in moments like these.
"So," Chris said, wrapping his arm tightly around her shoulders, in an attempt to shield her from the cold. "Want to go to that BSAA party now?"
Jill laughed and bumped her shoulder against his arm playfully. "Nah. I'd rather stick with you."
Chris smiled, although she couldn't see it. "We can always party on our own," he suggested with a tone Jill knew too well, and she just pressed her body to his side.
"Happy New Year, Redfield."
"Happy New Year, Valentine."