Author's Note: This chapter has been sitting on my computer for… nigh on three years. Three whole years, eh? I don't even know what to say to that myself. Fail, maybe?

Big hugs to the people who are excited to see the alert for this chapter in their inbox. If you're happy to see this after a three year break then I love you more than words could ever show!

Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil in any shape or form. If I did, Billy and Carlos would get their own game because they rock so hard and would make an awesome team.

At the Bottom of a Bottle

Barry loosely cradled the phone in his hand, turning his back on the bar in a futile attempt to create some sense of privacy. Conversation was rife around him, too loud and too invasive, suddenly too much to take as his own dwindled and died.

"I see."

"It's just that..."

"I know."

I know you do. And I'm sorry for it.

"I wasn't expecting to... you know."

No. I never do. But the excuses to seem easier to find.

"I know." There it was again, that careful answer. "I might not be up when you get back."

Barry frowned when her voice returned, a little quieter and just a touch weary, and tried to placate her by telling her he loved her. He knew she was nodding on the other end, her brow pinched and lips trying to hold a smile to show in her voice...

"Yeah."

"Kiss the girls goodnight for me," he sighed into the handset. "I won't be too late. Promise."

Promise. The word scarcely held any meaning for them any more.

A soft click told him the conversation was over, and he replaced the handset into its cradle with a soft grunt.

He wasn't sure when things had changed between them, couldn't pinpoint the day he first left for work without kissing her goodbye, or the day she first sailed past him out of the door without a glance. A part of him feared the girls could tell him, though. That was his biggest regret.

His worst mistake.

Scrubbing a hand across his face, he turned back to the booth where the kid was sitting, a glum expression on those boyish features as he picked at the label of his beer bottle. The dark blue eyes under that pinched brow looked somehow old and weary, and Barry fancied at that moment their expressions were much the same.

But there's the difference. You're getting old, have lived and breathed this tiring life, whereas he... He's still so much a child.

The wisdom in those dark eyes troubled him, but it was the distant exhaustion in those blue depths that unnerved him the most. What had they seen? What horrors had they witnessed? He wanted to know, needed to help, to feel like he was good for something again. He'd failed Kathy, he'd failed his precious girls, but he couldn't let himself lose his every sense of purpose.

But he knew, he knew damn well that he should have gone straight home, should just fix things there. His kids, for God's sake... But he couldn't. He couldn't face the fact that he let them all down. He'd tried, of course he had, but somewhere between the pleading and the fighting, he'd just grown tired of it all.

So fucking tired.

So now, he just needed to rest. To fix someone else's problem in place of his own. To let go of his weariness and start afresh with someone new, someone who didn't resent his presence or long for things he couldn't give. Kathy would wait for him, she always did. And while that wasn't the way he wanted things to be, wasn't the way things should have been, it was simply how it was. He'd heard a phrase before - It is what it is.

Wise words.

Perhaps. Perhaps on some level he believed that. Deep down, though? He was a better, wiser man than he gave himself credit for.

XXXXXXXXX

The music and the too-loud laughter were starting to grate in the confines of the claustrophobic barroom. Snatches of inane conversation registered somewhere in the back of his mind as his attention bounced back and forth between the beer bottle under his fingertips and where the guy from Kendo's phone call was trailing off.

Barry.

Barry. Chris studied him as his fingernails worked at the label, watching his body language with vague interest. It was almost familiar, the way his feet took small, impatient steps as he moved on the spot - as if he were eager to break away from someone who wasn't physically there. His wife, was it? Well, Chris wasn't blind. He could see where that marriage was heading.

Sure enough, a few halted words later and Barry's eyebrows raised just a touch, glancing at the receiver like he was trying to see what he had heard. She'd hung up on him. From the way he blew out his breath and snapped the handset back into its cradle, it was clear to Chris that it was a pretty standard way of ending a phone call for them. Perhaps it wasn't always that way, maybe it was even rare, but it had happened before. And it would probably happen again.

So that was probably why he had insisted they go out for a drink. What was it he had said? Two newcomers to a strange new town might as well get a beer just to be social. But Chris didn't want to be social. It was simply that the alternative was to be alone.

The bottle found its way to his lips again, his hand moving of its own accord. It had been a few weeks since he had gotten well and truly pissed. He'd wanted to drink himself into oblivion all too often but, hell, might as well be when someone else was paying the tab.

"Yeah, I know."

Barry nodded his head at the way Chris leeched the last remaining drops from the bottle, returning to the table with two fresh drinks in hand.

Chris nodded but didn't smile.

"Yeah, I think you probably do."

They sat for a while in silence, that small exchange doing just enough to ease the tension and, in Chris' case at least, the hostility from the air. To a point, it was almost companionable. To anyone else it would have looked like two colleagues having a drink after work, bone-weary and thankful for the alcohol. Perhaps, to some, it would look as though they were friends.

Chris didn't know why it mattered, but he rather hoped that someone noticed them, someone had those thoughts. The idea of it made him feel a little more connected, and in the end it was even he who attempted conversation first.

"Your wife, huh?"

Barry seemed a little startled by his soft voice and blinked a little before he could speak.

"Uh, yeah. She was expecting me back but, well, you know how things get."

Chris gave him a sidelong glance. "No. I don't, really."

"It's complicated."

"Kids?"

A nod and the barest flush of pride. "Two girls. Still young enough that they're not embarrassed to be seen with their papa. That'll change soon enough, no doubt."

Chris' expression was inscrutable, but he muttered some sort of agreement under his breath.

"So, what about you?"

Blue eyes glanced up from the depths of the bottle. "What? Wife and kids? No."

Barry nodded and waited for more. Nothing came.

"Significant other?" he asked again when the silence continued to stretch.

At this, Chris turned away, his eyes seeming to scan the bar, as though he were involving himself in the scene, but Barry knew he was just looking for a way out of the conversation. So the kid was alone, too. No job, no girlfriend. No wonder he'd ended up in this dive of a town, drinking himself numb.

"She leave you?"

"No," Chris snapped, eyes flashing as he swung back to face him. And then a pause. "No. It's nothing like that. There's no one."

"No one?" Barry repeated softly.

There was a sigh, and then a moment where it looked as though the young man would crumble altogether. Fists clenched and unclenched on the table top and the obvious, prickling anger grew again. It was an odd mix of rage and vulnerability, but it seemed as though that in this kid, they often came together.

He watched as Chris leaned into the scuffed leather of the booth, tilting his head back until it rested against the cool wall. His eyes were staring up at the nicotine-stained ceiling with something akin to resentment shining in their depths. But then it passed and, with a smile that was somewhat incongruous, Chris faced him again.

"Not entirely no one, no," he offered, giving an awkward shrug that had been aiming for casual. "I've got a sister."

Barry frowned. "Your parents..?"

"Dead."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Chris snorted, the sound dismissive and wholly derisive. "Don't give me that. You don't even know me."

A hand dug into a pocket to retrieve a crumpled cigarette packet and an old, battered lighter. The cloying, thick smell of smoke soon filled the air.

"No, I don't," Barry admitted when Chris once again fell silent. "So why don't you tell me? Why don't you tell me just who you are, Chris?"

Who I am? I don't even know that anymore...

"Why don't you go first?" Chris answered, his voice coming out tired and somewhat strained, like all the anger had been drawn from him somehow.

He watched as Barry's eyebrows drew down into dark, angled lines over his eyes, lips pressing together in thought. He was probably wondering whether it was worth the pay off just to get him to talk. Though, frankly, Chris couldn't see why he cared. Perhaps things were really that bad at home, so miserable that any little excuse to stay away longer was worth taking, even if it was just this. He wasn't a stranger to the feeling. Hell, look where it had gotten him, miles away from the one thing he had left, sacrificing even that. And for what? To get pissed in a shabby, run down town with a guy he didn't know, who he didn't even want to know?

A long drag on the cigarette and he was glancing at Barry again.

What does this guy want? What the fuck is he doing here? Jesus...

"Why aren't you with your wife?" he asked, shaking his head and staring at nothing. "Why'd she hang up on you?"

"Why aren't you with your sister?" Barry countered without hesitation, ignoring the distant twinge of guilt.

Dark eyebrows twitched on instinct, lips parting to exchange nicotine for alcohol.

"It wasn't always this bad."

Chris looked up at his drinking partner, seeing the ghost of a smile on his face. For the first time, he also noticed the golden wedding band on one stubby finger, glinting lowly in the dull light. It was polished and unmarred, and it appeared that that Barry wasn't as devoted to his frustration as he seemed. He clearly wasn't ready to let go.

"It's isn't always this bad," Barry continued, stressing the point.

Chris merely gave a small nod and turned his attention back the cigarette now hanging from his lips.

"Sometimes..." He paused to rethink his words. "My job isn't conducive to a healthy family life. Military, you know? There's always some new danger, some new crackhead with a gun or a guy just wanting to get one over on someone who stiffed him. Point is, every time I leave the house, she doesn't know if I'm coming back. Whether her girls will still have a father in the morning. And you try to convince yourself that its the right thing to do, that if everyone decided that it was a little too dangerous, a little to real, then we'd all be in the shit. And that's right, it's absolutely right but... it's not you who pays, is it?"

That question was meant for him, as someone who knew the life, the dangers. The fears. But he didn't answer. He simply remained silent, exhaling a plume of smoke into the air with distant eyes.

"Even so, it's what we do, right?" Barry asked, pressing again. "You get a taste for that kind of life and it suddenly becomes everything, the very air you breathe. And eventually, you suffocate without it."

Chris wasn't exactly sure when Barry had stopped talking about himself, only knew that those words had caught his attention, had grabbed at him as if trying to shake him into listening. Really listening.

It had worked.

Ash scattered across the tabletop as he moved to stub his half-burned cigarette out, head tilting to face the man beside him. There was the barest hint of mirth in the older, lined face, as though he knew he'd caught him. Even so, Chris felt no animosity towards him at that moment, nor, for a wonder, did he feel that darkness clawing at his skin. There was just... a silence. A quiet and a lull within him, something he'd almost forgotten how to feel.

It was like the world was beginning to make sense again - he was beginning to make sense again - because some stranger had blundered into his life, thoroughly shook him up and put a name to his problems. Perhaps that was why he was here.

XXXXXXXXX

The kid was staring at him with a kind of calm spreading over his face. That familiar scowl had faded, so had the hardness from those dark, knowing eyes. For just a moment Barry glimpsed the real face under all that anger.

Jesus, he's so young... Can't be more than... what? Twenty? Twenty-two?

And here he was - alone, his parents dead, his career and self-esteem gone, and in the middle of it all a sister to take care of. A sister who had been left to fend for herself? No, perhaps it wasn't fair to judge him like that. He'd done his best for her, Barry was sure of that, just as he was certain that the anger that claimed him was so much for himself rather than anyone else. The kid had screwed up and he knew it. It was his fault, he'd let people down, and he had no one to help him out. And he couldn't seem to find a way to put things right.

He waited a moment longer, waiting to see if that careful, bitter mask would slip into place again. It didn't. And then he smiled.

"Right then," he grinned, knocking the tabletop with his knuckles. "A pilot, right? And a marksman. That's good. That's really good."

Chris blinked and gaped at him, caught off guard by the sudden outburst. "Sorry?"

Barry waved a hand, dismissing the question.

"You want back in, don't you?" he asked, leaning forward. "That's why you were at Kendo's, and that's why you keep a picture of your unit in your wallet-"

"Look, that's not any of your-"

"-but you don't know where to start, right? Well, I'll tell you."

And then Barry was close again, as close as he had been in the firing range, their noses just a breath apart.

"You lose that dark cloud above your head and I'll help you. You get rid of all that anger inside you, stop looking for the bad in everything and allow yourself to see some of the good, and I'll help you get back in. But until you do that, I can't help you. No one can."

Chris balked. "Just who are you to say-"

"I'm your last fucking chance, Christopher. That's who I am."