This one is going to be a hopefully interesting chapter, I'm curious to see what people think about the first section. The rest of the chapter is pretty fluffy as far as content goes so I apologize for any whiplash lol
I do have a bit of a conundrum that I am facing. The more that I write, the more I feel like the story should probably be rated M. I posted a copy to AO3 with a Mature rating but, the problem is if I do that here the story basically becomes invisible in the search menu... the story is tame as far as resident evil goes but a bit much as far as general fanfiction. T is for 13+ and If I am being honest I wouldn't want to hand my story to a 13-year-old. but I also want people to be able to find and read the story... Should I change the rating? I added a Poll to my Profile page so you don't have to worry about writing a review to tell me your opinion.
Song Suggestion: Kings and Queens by Ava Max
Disclaimer: I own nothing. CapCom if you managed to read this far I'm glad you're finding this amusing at the least. still gonna throw in a please don't sue me.
June took the place of May, the second full week was almost at a close and it had officially been one year since Emma moved into the apartment complex. She thought about this as she did laps around the roller rink. It was still a little weird to be here alone but she was starting to get better now. It was at least something to do that wasn't, eat, sleep, and work too since Chris had been away for a mission for the last 3 weeks or so. Not to mention the Merger had finally calmed down, it was weird to be a branch of a major label now. They probably just wanted a location in the city that was pre-staffed and didn't want to deal with the work to build it. She couldn't complain though, the pay raise was nice. She took a deep breath and enjoyed the feeling of the air moving around her.
Little did she know he was actually in the middle of wrapping up the mission process. The agent sat in the break room with Night Howl and Canine.
"Coffee's crap here," Canine says with a tired sigh.
"Yep," Night Howl agrees but takes a sip from his paper cup all the same.
"We're debriefing tomorrow afternoon, should be home after that" Chris says looking at his own cup. one solid mission for 3 weeks was much better than a gauntlet of back-to-back smaller ones so he'd take it as a blessing.
"Yeah," Night Howl says and the three wait and relax in peace for a while before the soft 'Ding' of the elevator across from the break room caught their attention.
Through the glass walls of the break room, they saw a very unusual sight. A young woman with silky straight blond hair, vibrant blue eyes which were offset by the pink of her short sleeveless dress, and perfectly matched trendy pink makeup. An excessively fluffy cropped jacket covered her arms and practically hid the gold chain resting over her shoulder that connected to a small designer clutch that rested at her side. the black choker around her neck matched Her black velvet thigh-high stiletto boots clicked against the tile floor of the building as she walked out of the elevator with two large men in suits behind her.
"Pretty sure none of that is standard issue," Canine says as he watches the woman and the two large men walk down the hall with purpose.
"Put your jaw back in place, you never know who's connected to who with Umbrella in the mix," Chris points out, and the two nod.
"I mean fair but a sore thumb is a sore thumb... are we sure she's supposed to be here?" Night Howl points out in return.
"The direction she went is towards the director's office..." Canine points out "Hey Alpha, maybe you should confirm our debrief time?"
Chris gives a tired sigh but gets up knowing they wouldn't let it go until someone went to check. "I'll be right back. If this ends up being nothing you're doing reps," he says and the others nod. With that, he went to go and see what the unusual guest was up to, and make sure they weren't trying anything. As he walks down the hall his expression shifted to one of confusion, the woman and two men that were walking behind her were nowhere to be seen.
"You guys have some nerve you know that?!" said a muffled woman's voice from the director's office. Alright. color him curious. Chris leans against the wall outside of the director's office to listen in for now.
"Must be fun being Umbrella's dogs now huh?" the voice accused. "Did you think I wouldn't find out who it was that blew up my lab?"
"Your lab?" the director says with a mild amount of shock that anyone would just waltz into his office and admit that.
"Yeah my lab, I have my rights. That was private research that you were tampering with." she accused.
"There are exceptions to those rights when you're making Bio-weapons that can result in mass destruction," The director starts with his usual calm even tone only to be cut off.
"Oh so just kicking down the doors and blowing up buildings isn't domestic terrorism," she counters as the shuffling of cloth suggests she folded her arms. "Just because Umbrella thought to buy out a bunch of mercenaries before I did doesn't mean I'm going to lay down and take it. Tell them to keep their nose in their own business." She says with a confident air.
"What makes you think you can just make demands. I should have you arrested." the director points back. the sound of a few clicking steps and creaking wood suggests the woman moved to sit on the director's desk.
"Oh I'm sure you'd like that. Thing is. I'm not some faceless nameless guy in a white coat." She says clearly not taking the threat with any seriousness. "While I'm sure my scientists made for some fun target practice for your meatheads, the difference is, the world knows who I am. If something happens to me. They're going to want answers." she says in a condescending tone as if she was trying to explain something simple to a small child. "And if they want answers. Where will that lead them back to? Oh sure my own labs will be exposed but what more would that cost you? All of your itsy bitsy secrets you've been burying for years and years and yeaaars." she says with a laugh.
"I'd end up in a cutesy rehab center and get bailed out in a few years. you though. How many war crimes have you committed? You might be UN but you work with a competitor of mine," She pointed out while the director remained silent. "And it's going to be so hard to keep people from panicking if they find out about why you exist now, wouldn't it? How many more strands and varients will go on the market once more people find out it's possible? Goodness whatever would the UN think if they find out you're taking bribes from another company that does the exact same FUCKING thing," she threatens. Another creak of wood suggests she got up as she clears her throat.
Again the director is silent.
"That's what I was hoping to hear," she says in a sickly sweet tone and snaps. "Charles, James, we're leaving. I think we've reached an understanding."
Chris's frown remained as he listened to all of these accusations upon hearing the woman snap he shifted to get up and walk away so he didn't get caught listening to the conversation. That was a lot to consider. How much of what she was saying was true? She certainly got the director to shut up which is not an easy task. As he rounds the corner of the hallway back towards the break room, he hears the clicking of heels against the tile floor behind him. He was a safe enough distance away at this point so he slows down a bit to see if it was who he thought it was.
The steps were moving with purpose until they came to a stop. "Ew. A meathead," the voice says with disgust. Hearing it causes Chris to turn and look sure enough it was the blond woman from the elevator. "Both of you. Do your jobs please," she says giving her palm a small golf clap like pat. the two guards walk forward.
"50-foot distance. Now" the one says clearly just wanting to get this over with.
Chris puts up his hands and backs off. Based on the threats he heard, he'd listen. The last thing he needed was to be the reason that the BSAA became public knowledge. He made his way back to the break room and only then did the woman walks past and re-enter the elevator.
"Soooo," Night howl says quietly. The team leads waits until the elevator is closed all the way and the lights above it signaled that it was moving.
"...We might have a problem," Chris admits in a quiet whisper.
"Great, what else is new..." Canine replies with a sigh.
'*'*'*'*'
The debrief period when pretty quickly, the Romanian missions usually went smoothly which resulted in quicker release periods. he looked at the clock, 5:30 pm. The sun was still up as well. This was a rare treat but even then he didn't feel like he could enjoy it fully as the woman's words replayed in his head. He knew it was weird that the BSAA suddenly started working with Umbrella... what were they up to... The worst part of it was, if he was going to find out, he'd have to keep following orders and snoop around in the background. He thought about this as he breathed out a cloud of smoke then tossed the dead filter of a cigarette out the window onto the highway. This habit of his was getting worse.
Before long he makes it back to the garage, parks, and finds himself in front of a familiar door. It was earlier than normal but he was still hungry. After adjusting the bag on his shoulder, he knocks on the door. The usual response could be heard, Duke started barking and Emma told him his silent command with chatter in the background... Wait chatter in the background?
Emma opens the door and smiles, " Oh, Hey Chris. Come on in," she says and moves so he can enter. Inside sitting at a neatly set table was Chelsea, Jack, and their 3 kids.
"Ah, it looks like now is a bad time," Chris says which Chelsea waves off.
"Nonsense come on in, we're just about to have a meal and catch up," she says with a smile. I'm getting to the bottom of this, the motherly woman thought with a smile. She had not forgotten her conversation with Emma back in December and to say she was curious was an understatement.
"My friend!" Summer says getting up from her seat to run over to the door. She takes Chris's hand and gives it a slight tug to try and coax him to enter the apartment. "come on, you can sit next to me," she offers, as personable as always.
Well, this was probably unavoidable. He usually got in late so he failed to consider the idea she might already have plans.
"It's okay you don't have to if you don't want to," Emma replies as she takes Summer's hand to keep her in the apartment.
Chris thought it over for a second, "I have a few minutes." He replies.
"Yey!" Summer cheers and hurries back to her seat and patted the one next to her. Chris placed his bag down by the door and walked over to take a seat to the right of Summer. Meanwhile, Emma closed the door and went to the kitchen to get an extra plate, glass of water, and a set of silverware to place in front of Chris before taking her seat at the head of the table, to his right. On the table was a pretty classic Sunday dinner of a roast, mashed potatoes, peas, and gravy.
"How was your trip?" she asks with a sheepish smile.
Chris smiles back at that and chuckles as he started to relax thanks to the continued routine. "It was work," his tone added the extra context that it was probably pretty stressful.
"I feel that," Jack replies with a laugh. "So what do you do?" he asks as he starts serving up Summer's plate while Emma helped Maurie with hers since Chelsea had her hands full with Annie.
Chris paused because of the question. how did he even answer that without getting into trouble... "I'm afraid that's classified." that got Jack and Chelsea's attention pretty quickly.
"Oh so secret agent sorta stuff. cool cool," Jack says trying to just move on though he already knew this was a topic that would not be dropped so easily.
" uhuh... an how long have you been doing that?" Chelsea asks then casts a quick 'you're kidding me right' look to Emma.
"... It's classified," Chris says again before taking a sip of water. Please stop asking.
"Right," Chelsea says shaking her head. So far she was not impressed. "Then what can you tell us about yourself?" she asks as Emma serves herself now that the plates were mostly free.
The question caused Chris to falter a bit. That was a bit broad. What did she want to know?
"Well he's decent at poker," Emma says with a snicker to try and cover for him.
"And you cheat," He points out in return with an amused smirk.
"It was one time and I didn't know," Emma replies with a slight pout.
"So which is it. was it one time or did you not know because you clearly played before then," Chris points out as he serves himself now that the others were taken care of.
Oh crap. "Slip of the tongue," she says and moves to sip at her drink.
"You play?" Jack asks with a smile and Chris nods.
"Every once in a while with a few friends," Chris replies with a nod before serving himself a plate of food.
"Maybe I can get you at my table some time, we could use some new blood," Jack says with a smile. "It's the one time I'm not outnumbered by the ladies of the house" he adds with a short laugh.
Chris gives a short chuckle of sympathy at the joke. All the same, that did seem a bit rough. Jack went on for a good while on different game tips and tricks and Emma just quietly listened and nodded. Chelsea gave Emma a look as if to say 'that won't work forever' but after that, the dinner went along without much of a hiccup, they all talked and told jokes and laughed until their plates were empty and their stomachs were full.
'*'*'*'*'
Time passed and the weeks flew by. Chris's home routine went on as always. Sunday would arrive and Emma would drop off lunches. he'd work during the day, sleep at night, and on Thursdays after work, Emma would stop by for self-defense training. before long Saturday quickly approached and tolled the final day of the month.
Emma smiled while packing up a backpack with plates, glasses, silverware and a large table clothe which helped keep the more delicate items safely packed and secure. "There we go, that should be enough," she quietly mused to herself before shouldering the bag and putting Duke on his leash.
Once that was taken care of she opened the door to find the others waiting for her in the hallway.
"Ah, Emma dear good to see you," Misses Russo says with an excited smile. She and Marco were both carrying decent size picnic baskets.
"You have the plates and blanket right?" Bastion asks curiously as he adjusts his hold on a cooler.
"Yep, packed enough for the 5 of us," Emma confirms as she closes the door behind her and Duke patiently sits and waits for permission to go down the stairs.
"Excellent," Marco says with a nod. "though. speaking of 5. Where is Chris?" he asks a bit confused before looking at Bastion. "You remembered to let him know about the picnic yes?"
"Me?" Bastion asks with now matching confusion. "uh. No, I thought Emma was going to tell him since she sees him more often than I do."
"Oh dear..." Emma says with a frown. "Nope. Sorry, I figured the Russos told him since it was their idea."
"Suppose we should have mentioned it," Misses Russo agrees with a nod. "One second," she adds before heading over to Chris's door and knocking on it.
it took a moment but before long he answered. "Ms. Russo, what can I do for you?" he asks before noticing everyone in the hallway. "Is something wrong?" apartment meetings were pretty rare.
"We were all just about to go on a picnic and realized we didn't really communicate properly on who was going to make sure you received the invitation to go with us." the woman explained with an apologetic smile. "Would you like to come with us? we were just about to head out."
"Oh," he replies. Well, at least nothing was wrong. He kinda had hoped to work on some catch-up paperwork. he was still behind from those mini-mission sprints a few months ago... " Sure, Let me get my shoes." He says in response. A bit of fresh air never hurt. he walked over to where he left his sneakers and put them on before heading back to the door.
"did you need me to bring anything?" He asks since it seemed everyone was carrying something.
"Could you carry Anna's basket, it's a bit heavy for her," Marco requests and Ms. Russo waves it off.
"I'll be fine my love you worry too much," She says in return but all the same allows Chris to take the basket as her husband requests.
"I don't mind," Chris confirms as he adjusts his hold. "So where are we heading?"
"Just down the street to the park," Bastion answers as the group starts heading down the stairs and out to the sidewalk.
It was a perfect early summer day. there were a few sparse fluffy white clouds dotting the bright blue sky and a cool breeze kept the warmth of the sun from being too over baring while being gentle enough not to be a future nuisance for the picnic blanket.
"So, what has everyone been up to?" Bastion asks curiously as they walked down the street. "It's been a while since we all got together. and last time it was a pretty short gathering since we all wanted to get some rest," The nail tech adds with a short laugh.
"Work," Chris and Emma say at the same time which causes the two to look at each other before snickering.
"Well okay then. Hello stereo," Bastion says amused. "so the right side of the hall houses the workaholics," he jokes.
"Bastion you work weekends you're the biggest workaholic of us all," Emma points out amused.
"Tips are good on the weekend though and my wardrobe doesn't pay rent," Bastion says with a laugh.
"That is unfortunate," Emma replies while shaking her head and smiling.
"Truly," Bastion agrees "what about you guy?" he asks while looking at the Russos.
"Oh not much. mostly just relaxing and enjoying retirement. Spending time with the grandbabies and such," the woman replies fondly.
"plenty of reading and football when it's on,"
"you mean soccer?" the nail tech teased which earned him a hard stare.
"Football," Marco corrects. "even the British who speak English know it's football. It's football."
"Okay," Bastion says with a snicker. easy entertainment.
Chris smiles as he listens to everyone talk. He was kinda glad that he agreed to go with. He didn't realize it at the time but, he kinda needed the break. The group continued to chat as they made their way into the park and walked around to find a place to set up. The par was rather busy thanks to the pristine weather so it was a task in and of itself but eventually, they were successful in finding a place.
"This looks like a nice spot, a bit of shade next to the sunshine," Miss Russo says as she stands by a large oak tree and motions for Emma to come over. "Here, Emma I'll help with setting up the blanket."
"Alright," Emma agrees and moves to put her backpack down by the base of the tree and puts down Duke's Leash. Well trained as he was, the dog contently laid down and waited.
"Thank you dear," Ms. Russo says and accepts the large table cloth. the two each held two corners and fluffed out the cloth so they could lay it down. "And there we go, we're ready to unpack the food. I hope everyone is hungry." the woman adds, clearly excited to have everyone together for a meal.
"Starved," her husband replies as he put down the basket he was carrying on one corner of the table cloth. Chris sees this and does the same with the basket he'd been tasked to carry and put it down on a different corner.
"I figured it's a bit early for alcohol so I packed some soda instead I hope that's alright," Bastion mentions as he put down the small cooler on a third corner.
"Not a problem at all," Ms. Russo confirms and got to work setting out the food while Emma put out plates, silverware, and glasses for everyone. The blanket was decorated with dishes containing Farro Salad, a mixture of Pears and Cheese, Piadina with lettuce, tomato, ham, and mozzarella to put inside, and at the center of the picnic was a neatly prepared layered Torta.
Everyone moved to take a seat once everything was set up and Duke crawled forward to get a better look at the pile of thinly sliced ham with great interest.
"This all looks amazing, thanks so much for putting this together," Bastion says as he looks over the selection of food.
Chris nods in agreement, "Thanks for inviting me."
Ms. Russo was the first to serve herself. "It's my pleasure. Honestly, I've been wanting to go on a picnic like this for some time, and food tastes better when shared with good company." She says before a thought comes to mind. "Oh! before we get too comfortable, we should take a picture," she says as she gets up. "We hardly ever get to spend time together as a group during the day. it would be nice to have a picture of everyone."
"I don't see why not," Chris agrees with a shrug.
"That sounds great, I'd love a copy if you can send it to me," Bastion replies.
"Same, I can put it on my fridge," Emma says with a smile.
"My love how are you going to be in the picture," Marco points out which causes the woman to frown.
"oh..." She hadn't though of that. "I'll just ask someone else to take the picture. hold on a second," she says before hurrying off to find someone. It took a few minutes but she eventually returns with a kind stranger who agreed to help.
"Alright, everyone sit together," the stranger says while adjusting the phone so everyone would fit in the frame. "Smile and, there." They say before walking forward to offer the phone back to Mrs. Russo. "here you go."
"Thanks so much," She says as she accepts her phone back. The stranger waves and goes back to what they were doing before.
"He's drooling," Mr. Russo points out to the group while gesturing to the dog who was making a rather effective begging face. "The poor pup. might as well give him a little bit," he suggests and looks to Emma for permission.
"Well. hm. I don't know, Ham usually has a lot of salt in it... It's not good for dogs," Emma says while thinking it over... "He could maybe have some Mozzarella if you want to give him something."
"Fair enough," The man replies while putting together a sandwich with the Piadina and prepared ingredients. while he does so he breaks off some mozzarella from a slice and tosses that over to Duke which he happily eats. "That's a good boy." He says with a laugh before looking at his wife. "We should get a dog."
"No," Anna quickly cut that idea off. "I've raised how many children with you? I know well enough who will be taking care of training the dog."
Marco shrugs in response. Oh well. He tried.
Emma tried not to laugh at that and focused on serving herself from the collection of food. "Well, if you want to play with Duke a bit after this I'm sure he'd appreciate the time to run around," She offers as a consolation.
"Sure, why not," Macro agrees with a nod before taking a bite of his sandwich.
The group enjoys some peaceful time outside as they eat their meals. Birds chirping, the soft rustling of leaves in the trees as they swayed in the warm summer air. despite the fact that the park was in the middle of a very full and busy city it always managed to maintain that sense of peace that came with being in nature. Well most of it.
"Bee," Emma says terrified and quickly moved away from the blanket. "Nope, nope no, no no no." She says while dodging around the bug with a yelp.
Chris managed to keep any chuckling to himself while Bastion openly laughs at the display. "Emma, relax. It's more afraid of you than you are of it."
"I've made it this far in my life without being stung by a bee and I'd like to continue that streak thank you very much," Emma says with a frown while looking around. where did it go...
Duke saw his human hurrying around and with that quickly hurried over and Play bowed to show he was ready to play.
"Looks like he wants to run around too," Marco says while shifting to get up. "Come on, it will be a good distraction from the bugs."
Emma nods a bit embarrassed at this point but goes with it. "that should be okay so long as he keeps his leash on," She agrees before looking to the dog. "Zoomies?" she asks which causes the dog to run around even more excitedly before hurrying out to the field. Zoomies was his favorite game!
Emma and Marco hurried out to the field after the dog who happily ran around dodging between them and running around. getting close but not too close so he didn't get caught. While those two run around with the pup Ms. Russo works on packing away the food with bastion while Christ stakes the dishes off to the side of the large cloth.
"That was good. I could use a nap," Bastion says with a content chuckle.
"Go ahead then dear, I don't think any of us are in a rush," Ms. Russo says in return.
The Nailtech thought it over for a second before shifting to lay down on the cleared space and rest his eyes. Chris smiles to himself as he looks around at the group then leans back to relax against the base of the tree and rest his eyes as well. A few minutes wouldn't hurt.
Those few minutes passed and the thundering of paws came into ear short causing him to open his eyes and find Duke sitting next to him still very ready to take off if need be. Emma was on her way over as well and stop in front of the two while Mr. Russo returned to sitting next to his wife.
"Well, looks like you've been marked as base," Emma says with a laugh.
"Pardon?" Chris asks with amused confusion.
"Duke usually does this when he wants to stop playing. He finds a spot he thinks is safe then just kinda stops and assumes this ready position in case he changes his mind." Emma explains while looking at Duke who moved from a ready position to a more relaxed one. "I don't think I've seen him pick a person for that."
"Well that's pretty high praise then," Bastion says with a smirking smile while continuing to relax with his eyes shut.
"Yeah, suppose there's a first time for everything," Emma confirms as she moves to sit down so she could pet the tired dog. "Maybe it's because we're outside."
"Maybe," Chris agrees with a shrug.
The second Floor residents continued to enjoy their restful time together. occasionally someone would bring up small talk but it always returned to a calm and comfortable silence as everyone simply enjoyed being in each others company while taking time away from the stress of their usual daily lives.
Welp new arc new antagonist X'D this one is FUN lmao. I'm kinda taking a logic leap here but the BSAA was working with Umbrella in RE7 and in RE8 they had their own bioweapons. like... come on of course they're taking bribes. You can't tell me that's not what the series was hinting at. So I figured I'd play with that idea and involve a more shameless villain. they know what they're doing they don't care if people find out because if they do then they're taking the whole 'secret curtain' down with them on a public stage for the world to see. On one hand, I love her cause Girl Boss energy but at the same time. She's trouble. I'm more than happy to take name suggestions for her cause I have no idea what to call her lmao.