Heya did you make it through the brick wall of the beach chapter? Glad you made it. Time for one more slightly fluffy chapter. this one is very short compared to the last one and technically another short gap rather than the usual long gap X'D but I could not get this to fit in the last chapter that sucker was already huge.
Song Suggestion: ily by Surf Mesa feat. Emilee
Disclaimer: I don't own a thing~ I'm not affiliated with CapCom or their IPs. I just write fanfiction.
The Beach trip came and went and by Monday it was the first of July. Chris and Emma took a plane back home after another round of hugs from the family. Landing around 4 pm. Emma stretches as they walk away from the gate. Commercial flights were always so cramped.
"Hey, Do you mind if we stop by the grocery store on the way back?" Emma requests and Chris shrugs.
"Might as well. I could use a few things," He agrees as they walk through the terminal. It would save him some gas to stop along the way as well rather than go home and turn around.
"Thanks" Emma replies with a grateful smile. It took a while but eventually, they got their bags from the luggage return and went back to the car. by the time they got out of the parking lot, it was close to 5 PM, and with that, Rush hour traffic had begun.
Crawl forward. Stop. Make a bit of progress. Stop. Start and instantly hit the breaks. Chris sneered at the traffic ahead of him. Stupid traffic... He gave a tired sigh and looked to the cup holder to find his usual pack of cigarettes waiting for him.
Emma watched with a slight frown as he picked up the box and started to try and shake one loose. "That bad?" She asks and he nods.
"Yeah... it's a shit habit but" he stops and shrugs. there wasn't really anything else to add to that it was a terrible habit.
"Do you mind if I offer an alternative then?" Emma asks when she's sure he's not going to finish his sentence.
He'd just gotten the cigarette free, he frowns slightly but nods "I'll hear you out."
"Fair enough," Okay, how to word this in a way that isn't dumb and cheesy... "So how about this. When the cars stop, lean over and I'll give you a kiss instead as a distraction" she says with a nod. "If it doesn't work that's fine, I won't be offended if you end up going with the Cigarette but, figured it's worth an offer since I'm here." in a way it would kinda work twofold. keep him busy so he doesn't have a smoke and get him a bit more used to sort of PDA since they were in the middle of traffic.
"And you say I'm ridiculous." He says amused but all the same puts the box down, for now, and leaves the cigarette on the dash just in case.
Traffic picked up and stopped. Emma Leans over and gives him a peck on the cheek. Start and stop and another peck. He rolls his eyes at this still amused all the same. Start and stop. He looks at the Cigarette but leans over and gives Emma a peck which causes her to smile. start and stop and a kiss. this repeated a few more times and the militant man found himself smiling as the frustration of traffic had turned into a game. Start and Stop. Once the car was safely stationary he reached a hand over to hold the back of Emma's head as he gave her a deeper kiss than the last.
"Hm! Greenlight," Emma says breaking away from the smooch to let him know he needed to focus on driving again.
The car inevitably stops again "Redlight" He replies with a playful smirk and gives her another short kiss before going back to focusing on the road. He looks at the cigarette once more picks it up and puts it back in the box. He wasn't sure what witchcraft Emma was using but, it was working.
Before long the two made it off the highway down the road and into the grocery store parking lot and their game of Redlight kisses came to a close. The smiling pair walked into the store and got a cart. to make their way through the different Isles. "Hm. What do you want for lunch this week anyways?" she asks as she looks over a few different peppers to try and find a good one.
"Not sure. Though I think I've had my fill of red meats for the week after that barbeque" He admits and Emma nods.
"Yeah that was a lot of food." She admits with a laugh "Dad never could figure out how to cook in small portions."
"A trait you inherited it seems." He jokes giving her a slight nudge since making too much was her usual excuse to invite him over.
"I'm not that bad," Emma says shaking her head before bagging and putting the pepper away. "Okay, let's see then. Two fish dishes and two chicken. That'll still have a good amount of protein in it," She offers and he nods.
One pack of salmon, a pack of chicken breast, Some ground beef, and pork chops for her own dinners. Veggies, Rice, Pasta. Did she still have vinaigrette? Might as well get a bottle of that to be safe. The two walked down each aisle and as they found items they needed they put them into the cart. Emma would put hers in the bottom basket while Chris used the top basket. Protein bars, A loaf of bread, some fruit to munch on as a snack. Chips and salsa as well. pre-cooked frozen chicken.
Chris was about to add a small frozen Lasagna meal to the cart which caused Emma to chuckle. "Don't let the Russo's see you with that, they'll give you an ear full for it." She warns.
"Eh I'm used to it," Chris replies as he puts it in the cart all the same.
"Alright," Emma says in a tone that more so spoke 'don't say I didn't warn you'. The two continued through the store and by the end of it, Emma's portion of the cart was stuffed while Chris's really only had what was mentioned before. The two waited in line to check out, Chris went first since he had fewer items followed by Emma and the bags were inevitably all mixed together by the time they were put into the trunk of Chris's car.
The drive back to the apartment was mostly uneventful as rush hour had passed and the two eventually made it back to the parking garage. Chris slings a bag of dog food over his shoulder and carries a few bags on the other arm while Emma grabs a few on each arm as well so they wouldn't have to make more than one trip. and by that, she had like 5 bags on each arm.
"You know we can just take multiple trips," Chris says with a mixture of amusement and concern as he followed behind her. "You're going to hurt yourself."
"Nope, you're supposed to be resting your foot and you just walked through the grocery store," Emma says with a determined expression. It did hurt like crap, her arms were screaming from the weight but she was stubborn. One trip, he needed to avoid going up and downstairs as much as possible.
"Emma it's fine, it's a tiny cut," He says still amused as he tries to push himself to frown at that.
"No, I saw it. It's a good size gash and you need to be careful with it." She rebuttals as they make their way up the stairs.
Emma unlocks the door to her apartment and Chris follows after her, sort out which bag when to which apartment. He'd come back and close the door in a second. "Where does the dog food go?" Chris asks after putting the other bag down on the Island next to the ones Emma just put down.
"Do you mind putting that in the storage closet? bottom shelf," Emma asks as she starts digging through the bags for items that needed to go into the fridge so they wouldn't go bad.
"Can do," He replies and starts walking over to the back of the apartment.
"Thanks. Love you," Emma says without much thought as she continued organizing the groceries.
"Love you too," He stopped in his tracks as he realized what he said. It took Emma a couple of seconds to make the same realization and turn to look at him. the second they made eye contact they smiled and started to laugh before going back to what they were doing prior. It was something they both knew but never really said before.
Chris opened the closet and put the bag down next to a similar but half-empty bag before closing the closet door and walking back to the main room of the apartment only to see two obnoxious figures in the doorway with black hats, black sunglasses, and black windbreakers staring back at him.
Well shit.
"Christopher Redfield, you're a difficult man to get ahold of," the one stated with a frown.
"Yeah that's on purpose," He says with a frown.
"Who is that?" Emma asks as she closes the fridge and walks over, oh for the love of. Again? she'd thought they'd given up... "Oh." what was the statute of limitation again. Could she get in trouble for this? Hm. Probably not.
"We've gotten word of another incident and we could use your Help," the other started as they were about to take a step into the apartment.
"No." Chris says as he glares at the man causing him to stop in the doorway. "I'm not interested." He says and starts walking over to the door to close the gap and give them less of a reason to enter. He should have closed the door before. As he walks over Emma frowns slightly, noticing that he had started to limp again. his injury was probably starting to get irritated.
"This isn't a request anymore," the one says as they try holding out a similar yellow envelope to the one they had last time. "We've been monitoring a situation and"
Chris cuts them off, the less Emma knew the better. "Look if the CIA needs help they can go through the proper channels with the BSAA," Chris says with an annoyed expression.
The BSAA... is that who he works for? Strange. She never heard that particular acronym before... All the same, Emma remained quiet as she watched Chris put his hand against the door frame as a further deterrent to keep them from entering.
"We need your expertise on this one," they say trying to offer him the envelope which ends up being ignored.
The last time he heard that he was the only one that survived. "I'm one person. If you have a full-blown incident on your hands you need a team. A full team that's properly trained, not a hand full of soldiers with one expert as a bodyguard."
"If we had another option we'd take it but right now we need to move quickly." they insist while continuing to offer the envelope.
"Do you think I don't know a coverup when I see one? Move quickly... sure. Quickly around all the red tape that would otherwise get the states in a world of trouble. Sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen to save face with the others," Chris points out causing the two to frown. from the look of it, he hit the nail on the head.
"Would you just read the damn report?" the one holding the envelope says as they started to get irritable in response to being called out.
Chris finally takes the envelope, ripes it in half then hands it back. "Go through the proper channels. Then we'll talk."
"You"
"Go," Chris says with a deep authoritative tone that causes the two to step back. it takes them a moment but they eventually leave. As much as he was suspicious of the BSAA that didn't mean he was okay with going around the process, he needed to find out where the snag in communication was. that wasn't going to happen if he started taking outside jobs from other organizations.
"Well, they were pleasant," Emma says finally speaking as Chris closes and locks the door. He walks back to the Island to start looking through bags as well. he was still limping.
"Yeah, a real treat," he grumbles causing a partial smile to cross her face.
"You should sit and rest for a bit. I'll be over in a minute if you need help with changing out the bandage." Emma says while silently praising her foresight to have Duke stay at the sitter's until Tuesday. She was exhausted.
He thinks it over a moment weighing out if it was worth arguing or not. "Where's your first aid kit?" Chris asks as he puts down the can he was holding prior.
"I'll grab it," Emma replies and makes a Shooing motion with her hand that he should go sit.
"You're coddling me," He points out.
"Yep," Emma admits with no shame to it as she stopped what she was doing to head to the bathroom and dig through the counter under the sink. "here we go," she says as she grabs the small red bag then starts digging through the storage space behind the mirror to get a small bottle of acetaminophen. She wasn't sure how bad it was hurting but if it was bad then some medicine might be appreciated as well. with that, she heads back to the living room and puts the two items down on the Coffee table.
By the time she got back, he had already removed his socks and shoes to start removing the bandage. The gash wasn't awful but it was deep and right between two of his toes making it all the more difficult to tend to. "Thanks," He says as he opens the bottle first and pops two of the pills into his mouth. With that taken care of, he starts digging through the bag to get some cotton pads gauze, and rubbing alcohol.
"So... BSAA?" She asks which gets Chris's attention. he messed up.
"Don't," he says as he stops what he was doing to try to find the words. "Please, just don't." Don't look it up, don't get involved, don't get caught up in his mess. Don't get hurt.
Emma flinches slightly at the initial coarseness of his tone. "Right..." She replies as her smile fades. "I think the bags to the right are yours," Emma adds as she goes back to putting her groceries away. She didn't want to know, she didn't want to worry more so why did this suck?
Man alive I am excited about the next chapter. so I'm just gonna hurry off to start on that. Prepare for a ride.