The mutated C-Virus:

in Chris Redfield it had permanently changed the man in every way possible, mutating the host from an advanced strain; so for this man there was no going back to the man he had once been. What defines a human was no long in him. The initial report of Jake Muller's blood capable of creating a cure for C-Virus, had always been a folly hope. It was a vaccination. One that kept people who had never been exposed from contracting its symptoms. After the discovery of this flaw, Neo Umbrella had captured Jake Muller, and set to the task of creating the mutated C-Virus, one that would be immune to such saving graces as the vaccination that might at one point have saved Chris from himself. There had always been hopes, in the B.S.A.A., that a cure for the C-virus was possible at one point, and it was also one that continued to be pursued even by the people who had set to mutilating Agent Piers Nivans, however even with said vaccination or cure, it was never conclusive that the enhanced version of the virus, would ever be salvageable. In short there was nothing that could be don, to save either man from the effects of what Neo-Umbrella had done to them. Due to the virus' nature, it is always mutating, there would never be a cure for either of them.

For the first time in any moment that was recorded, Christopher Redfield was capable of relating to his long dead nemesis, Albert Wesker. He had entered into a world of singular beings where none other could view the world as he did. He was finally able to understand why Wesker had seen the world the way he had and why he felt the way he did about the human race. Of course there was no understanding what had at once created this urge to purge the world of its weakness, but he could see them. Because he himself was superior, and without knowing it he had been converted into the very thing he had fought against. There was no impulse driven by psychosis and neglect to take over the world or mutating it on the whole, there were no defining moments in Chris' life that perfectly matched his old captain's, but it didn't stop him, from seeing the frailties of people, their simplemindedness that led them to do the things they had to his partner. And that was the key. All Chris cared about was Piers…his Piers. Life of others had always come very close to the vest on the captain. He had learned life was cheap when he saw all his men in Edonia die, when all those in China died, and when he had narrowly lost Jill Valentine he was prepared to leave everything behind to make certain she was okay. Chris' protective nature had always dictated his partners come first and now? The whole world could burn as long as he had his Piers safe. As long as Piers was with him, nothing else mattered to Chris. Of all things the mutated and enhanced C-Virus had done, it had enhanced that singular protective nature and turned it.


Chris gave Piers a second kiss, crashing their lips together with a kind of frantic intensity before ripping himself off the floor. He grabbed Piers by his mutated arm, still it's fated struggle to reform in the semblance of it's prior state and tried lifting him to his feet, stumbling from the remaining shock of electricity jolting through him, Chris watching as muscles convulsed and surged, dark thick tissue pulsing under his grip, spines retracting inside itself as former bones to humorous and radius. "My truck is hidden outside Piers, we've got to go," baritone urged to Piers. Getting him to move after the Haos defeat had been difficult enough, the expenditure of electricity was enough to buckle him with pain, and enough so that he could hardly stumble through that underwater labyrinth in China. That had been with the hope of saving Chris, and despite not wanting to do it, he knew full well Piers couldn't continue to stumble along that way without the incentive. "Come on partner, you have to move... this place is going to be crawling soon and we're going to be the prime suspects." Trembling eyelids finally held open, looking at his captain through mismatched eyes, reading like a cocktail of drugs, fear, horror, hatred, and distress, trying desperately to convey something through them until Chris was pulling, freshly reviving skin over that arm sensitive to the pull. "Come on, Piers you've got to walk." Grasping at straws, Piers threw himself off the floor, stumbling backward into the wall to catch himself, feeling his body retaliate against him at the insistence to move. With Chris leading them through the broken down facility within the darkness and red lit labyrinth. Walking was hard enough, thank God for adrenaline or else his legs would never have functioned at all. A reassured nod and finally had the leverage, both men one guiding the other out of the destroyed room and through the left trail of destruction. Chris needed the tunnel vision, constant incentive and stimulation to get Piers through the building without the mess and chaos flooding his partner's senses and turning him into a rambling mantra of shock, until they had finally made their way to Chris' truck. There was guard details, back up, sirens, and spot lights, but Chris had himself, Kijuju and Brazil had taught him that was all he needed.

The force behind Chris was always act first, questions later, at least that much hadn't changed about him, but there would be a serious conversation pertaining to the Captain's ill-advised actions later. Piers, in pain as he might have been, wasn't a fool, he knew an adrenaline high when he saw one and knew closer the pangs of sudden dissociative episodes since he himself had been through them on more than one count since his return to the states as a soldier bred to kill exactly what he had become. Just the way Chris was moving, his urgency to get away from that place. The man obviously wasn't stable, but who was Piers to talk considering the fact that he'd allowed voices in his own head to basically massacre an entire floor of people, destroy a building's structural integrity, and be led by a newly formed hand away from the crime, willingly. This was so wrong, this couldn't happen. He would have stopped, turned himself in, never let it go this far except there was the one thing. Chris. Piers was a monster who lived in a world of voices in his head and electric outbursts capable of mass destruction. He was a monster. He was, but Chris wasn't. He couldn't let him become like the things he fought, not because he was trying to save Piers from his own choices. He was moving of his own volition, but only to get him to go, Chris had to go. This couldn't happen a second time. The first time in China Chris had had to save him, he forced him into that pod and let himself become a victim of this virus, but this time he had to save him, had to make him leave... alone.

Reaching the vehicle was a relief in its own, throwing back the door and falling inside. Chris was already following suit, when he looked and recognized that same expression on Piers' face. Those guilty eyes meeting his own and a large hand snapped out, capturing the new one as his own giving a tug. "Get in Piers. You aren't responsible for this, get in. I swear to you if you even consider going back, I will not hesitate to pick you up and put you in this truck myself. I will knock you unconscious if I have to but you are getting in goddammit. Now... soldier." Piers felt the squeeze on his fingers, the one that claimed complete honesty, and urgency to get in. He would never leave him behind. Piers was his retribution for China. He would have someone survive even if it killed him, and so help Chris if he had to tie him to the seat and make him, he would save him no matter the cost. True grit conveyed through those taxed brown eyes, giving one more tug as they took just those few seconds to judge one another and their intentions before duty overrode fear and Piers nodded, the simple 'yes sir' earning their few seconds reprieve from running to turn into frantic hands jamming over the ignition and ripping open the engine. Clamoring into the seat the rest of the way the soldier leaned forward; fingers slipping under the front seat. Chris was a pack rat when it came to weapons, more like a squirrel who never trusted the same place with more than one weapon so you could find at least three in the cab of a truck. He came away with a Lightning Hawk that was stowed along with only the few rounds. Enough to defend his person as he gasped in a few heavy breaths, sweaty brow falling forward and bracing silently on the dash as his Captain finished throwing the car in gear.

It was plainly evident however, Piers was following orders like a good soldier, not because he thought it was best. He didn't think Chris was stable, but for the first time in years, he was mentally sound. At least within the confines of his own mind and where the man could no longer see nor wish to see the difference in himself. The mutated C-Virus did more than change Chris physically in ways he had not yet discovered but he was changing mentally too. The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that had once plagued him on a near daily basis was a thing of the past, damaged cells and nerves repairing much like the damaged limbs or j'avo or his partner. Whenever the captain was on the field, he would suffer through flashbacks of missions past and headaches associated with P.T.S.D. He worked through it of course, but it was pure Hell for him ever since the day Jill 'died' and despite her return it had never corrected itself. Now thanks to this enhanced C-Virus, the Post-Trauma... was gone. At least what it seemed to have done was remove that kind of psychosis with what Piers had decided was a different form all together. In fact, while Chris went to rescue Piers from said facility, he had had no remorse for what he did, and it was becoming obvious his conscience suffered not a wink. He didn't give a shit about who he killed and how it was done. As long as he got to Piers, he did not give a damn about the other details, there was no fear or questioning, it was definitive. There was a chance the changes might scare Piers, there were always chances of that, his partner was fairly easy to fright on matters such as conscience or ethics, but Chris would make sure he understood, once he was safe from this hiatus they would talk about it and he'd make sure his partner understood that in the world of mutations, B.O.W.s, soldiers, and split sides that he was well aware of the intentions behind his motive. He lived for Piers now and anything else just did not matter.

Chris got into the truck and left the area. He knew the B.S.A.A. back up would be here soon, they had protocols for this sort of thing. Well not this sort of thing on the whole, no one had ever taken into account that his partner would blow up an entire floor, but the general theory of escaped subjects was always in the makings when they took on the quarantine facility. Which means they had approx. 18 minutes after the alarms sounded to get the hell out of there before the sweep crew came through; and they had to get out of the area. They could not go anywhere Headquarters would know about, so it was time to reach back to his roots. There was no way they could go back to his place after the dead people on the grounds were discovered, and there was no saying what kinds of things they had at his other remaining place. Endangering Claire was out of the questions and more over she was still in Europe with TerraSave. He had a few places off the map that were safe, but they were too far, and the state they were in they needed something fast. She wouldn't appreciate it, but back in the days of S.T.A.R.S. Jill had purchased a place in someone else's name for them so that they would have a safe house if anyone ever came after them. There was a chance she would say something about it, more than a chance in fact. But they needed sleep. And With his partner going half crazed in his own head because of the virus assaulting his senses after that little outburst there was no way he could drive them all the way to Montana from here without sleep and some gear. They would go to Jill's old home. She kept it as a safe house for emergencies and it was packed to the hilt with weapons, the kinds he would needed in order to protect them or stock pile into his truck to get some kind of escape underway. He was already planning out some kind of disappearance, there was no giving him back his life, but again, what mattered here was he got his partner safe. Chris was given a key to the place years ago and he always had it with him, tucked in the backside of his badge, the leather seam half stitched together on the side so that he would never leave it behind. So, Chris and Piers made their way toward sanctuary, four hours away.

The trip to Jill's old home was long, too long. There would already be a lock down behind them and with the adrenaline rushing through their veins it shouldn't have felt so extendedly long. But they needed the time, despite not wanting it, they needed it. Piers needed to say a lot more than the obvious and after almost an hour in silence with one another it was time someone opened their mouths. "I'm sorry, Captain." Soft tenor was little more than a croak compared to naturally smooth and the force and stringent nature it usually possessed. He should have known his Captain didn't make naive decisions when it came to fate and never took anything lightly. When he'd said not to turn himself in because they would destroy him, he hadn't been speaking out of his ass, but experience. He was all brute strength in every aspect of his being. His fortitude was iron clad. He should have accepted when Chris told him to begin with that there would come no good from turning himself in that he hadn't been simply being clingy. Certainly they were learning from their experimentation, but it wasn't the kinds of things they should have been joining league to do. But then that was Piers, it was what made him so indispensable to the people around him. The first reason Chris told him that made them so perfect together, because Piers was downright devoted to the cause. His faith took him to the heart of what they were doing for the people of the country and the reason he'd fallen so close in line with his Captain. Because nothing else mattered. They were just people in a war, but ones that could save those that didn't have the ability to fight. It was that bravado to do whatever it took no matter the consequence to himself that Chris loved so much about Piers, even though in this case it made a choice like this was so much harder.

The drive was making the sniper claustrophobic; being in the same cab as Chris. His Chris. The man who trained him who taught him everything from the day he joined until the day he 'died.' And yet a wholly different man sat here beside him, stoically staring up the road. The man who had brought him through the ranks would never have harmed those people, he would never have been able to do such things without recoiling from himself. He wouldn't have taken lives from anyone who couldn't have deserved that kind of punishment, anyone that didn't pose a direct threat and those guards, knowing those men, they posed no threat to Captain Chris Redfield, he had no reason to kill them where incapacitation would have functioned. Chris Redfield was the hero of many, the idol of his partner. He had to see that he wasn't this person. He spent years fighting tyranny and malicious wars, and now he was letting the virus take him, just like the way it threatened to steal Piers' sanity. He fought with it before in China, so hard that he'd sooner let himself get destroyed than go back and potentially harm others. Being brought back home with Chris, hurting him, being locked away, being the creature he was with the voices in his head he still couldn't perceive the idea of the one man he'd tried so hard to save falling so far. He didn't want the one time he survived to be the one thing that brought down his captain.

"I shouldn't have gone in without telling you captain, there was nothing I could say to make you understand though. I shouldn't have..." Shouldn't be alive? No he shouldn't, he should have been dead, rotting in the bottom of the sea before infecting Chris and changing his entire persona He would rather be in that pit of Hell saved for his kind than ruin the only man who had the right to survive it. "I shouldn't have let you take me from that place. Poor decisions aside Captain, those people were the ones we ensure our men to every day. It might have hurt, but what they did to me... I'm not human Chris, they don't have to treat me like such and I belong there. This virus, researching it might be the only way they ever discover a cure, even if it means what they have to do to me isn't something we are ready to accept." Looking at the newly formed fingers, those tentacled things that were capable of the deconstruction bodies and burning them to charred corpses. He could hear those voices chiding him in the back of his mind, jeering over the dead bodies. "Those people back there. I killed them or you did?" He needed to know, watching the yellow lines of the divider in the road flying by them, it was more important now. He needed to know because for all the life inside him he couldn't remember, and those bodies, those people who were doing their jobs just as they had done in China. It was midnight maybe, or later. "Tell me it wasn't you captain." He could take playing the part of Frankenstein's creature, but not his captain.

Chris heard everything that Piers said and it broke his heart, reading between the lines wasn't even necessary with the tone conveyed in those words. He hated seeing and feeling Piers in pain. There was a bond there that he shared with his partner, formed the moment his teeth sank into his neck that day and altered them both. The immediate impulse to the pity party his partner was undergoing was to bellow out at him the frail stupidity of his choice and ream him until he was capable of seeing his fatal little mistakes, but yet Chris could feel what Piers felt. No matter what that emotion might be; he could feel it. And it was destructive. The force and principle that Piers felt those things with was captivating. He felt those things with his soul, the want to be and save a world he had become so truly enraptured with. And the guilt. That guilt was what moved him the most, he felt it whole heartedly. It was due to acceptance of the mutated C-Virus and Chris knew that Piers, though he felt those things; Piers didn't appear to feel Chris' own feelings on the matter. Piers needed to accept the virus as Chris did and that would change. If this virus had connected them, then how was it they weren't feeling the same things. Sitting here it was becoming clearer the more that Piers fought with himself the harder it was becoming for his partner, where for himself it was a sort of calm. It was a feeling that it would end the internal conflict Piers was suffering from. Chris knew it would be hard for Piers to accept the virus since in honesty it went against everything he currently believed in, and he himself wasn't sure why it was that he had so easily done so himself. He would have to put in a lot of effort to get Piers to accept what was happening to him, but just from the soul of his partner, he could feel the berating wouldn't have helped him. What neither knew was that Chris was able to accept the virus so easily due to being rendered unconscious when he was under house arrest. The virus changed his mind and body while he was deep under, so Chris never had the chance to fight the effects. By the time Chris awoke, it was too late; the changes were irreversible.

"I killed ten people outside the Quarantine Facility at least, and I killed four men outside my home to escape from the B.S.A.A. due to house arrest-

"House arrest, Chris what did you do?"

"I was put under house arrest Piers, because brass thought it would be amusing to tell me about your little goddamn stunt instead of letting me find out by coming home to an empty house. They even had the nerve to be happy about you being in quarantine, like those ass clowns have some right to be happy about you getting butchered. I objected."

"Captain I-

"I was sedated for it and put under house arrest. Took me a few to come. You know if you had just stayed put like a I told you soldier, this wouldn't have happened. Doesn't take a genius to know I couldn't damn well leave you there. I was getting ready to get the hell out, then I found out that I was infected. To be honest, I was freaked out for a moment, I mean you can't blame me, looking in a mirror and seeing these orangey red things.., but I felt you in pain, so I got over it. I did what I had to do in order to get you out of that place and I don't regret it," Chris' words lofted to Piers as he kept driving, neither one meeting eyes with the other. It was easy to know things would not go back to the way they were in their professional lives. Both men would be labeled as traitors to their country for their crimes and the murder of over a dozen B.S.A.A. agents. If anyone was still alive from the facility after its electrical burn out, they would tell the higher-ups that captain Redfield was infected as well. The B.S.A.A. would put them both on their wanted list and would do anything to either capture or kill them both. It wasn't a shot in the dark. Chris had been called in before to take care of people that had acted in similar capacity, so it wasn't a stretch knowing that he already was on the shit list after his stunt keeping Piers from them to begin with. Chris knew that he and Piers would need to leave the United States eventually as well, their men weren't stupid, sticking here would ensure their eventual capture. With the protocols in place, most of which he himself had created, it was a sure thing that there would be no rest for them until they were safely from the B.S.A.A.'s reach.

Piers felt his chest binding at every word, wincing his strangely mismatched eyes closed and feeling the pain of his injured body dissipating as the car lights stole his attention for a few minutes. He killed those people to save Piers, to take him out of a place that he had willingly gone to and had all but accepted and resigned to his fate to. But Chris came for him anyway, even though he'd left him. Hang everything if that wasn't what made him feel the most horrific and abhorred all at once. "Captain... I am sorry." The Lightning Hawk felt heavy in his grip, turning it over in his toughened fingers with the familiar grip that he'd used for so long in the field before they'd removed him from service. Killing was second nature, but now innocent people. Killing, was a part of life. So why not do them both the favor and end the problem. Save the B.S.A.A. the hassle of sending their own team at the S.O.U. after them. A magnum was just as fitting as doing it with his own signature side arm. It was heavier in his grip than a 9-0-9 or a Samurai Edge, but if he did it now there wouldn't be questions later. His trigger finger cradled the weapon easily, staring at the silver for some time before finally tearing away his eyes; looking away out the window. "I'm sorry you had to do this, Captain. I'm sorry about everything. I'm sorry that I have to be so damn sorry and you keep looking at me like that... like I'm not the monster that I am. I'm sorry that when the shit hit the fan, that it wasn't just me." Should he stop calling him captain? Chris wouldn't be a Captain anymore, not after the stunt he pulled.. but then Chris was always his captain no matter what place they were in. He'd follow him to Hell and back, and had, nothing could change that. Well what the hell do you say? I bit you and now you're as fucked up as I am? "Those people were doing their jobs captain. The job we had until not that long ago. Do you know how many men I've slaughtered? Those people keeping you under house arrest, did the same things you would have done to anyone else in our situations not even 24 hours ago. We were those people and you just... I... killed them." He could hear the nagging in his brain, the cruel condemnation of the virus that lived inside him that it would be better to just give in, become everything he fought against. It made the gun look that much more appealing. "Where are we going, Captain?"

"We're going to Jill's old home. H.Q. doesn't have information about where it is, it was a safe house for us back in the day," Chris told Piers. Chris was focusing his eyes on the road, passing yet another semi-trailer, focusing on everything Piers had said and also, the voices he could almost hear within Piers' head telling him to give in. It didn't take a genius to know Piers was thinking of killing himself, but the hell if he'd allow that coward's move now. Chris would not allow Piers to do that to himself and a bullet to the head would not be enough anyway, not if the Haos was any indication of how strong Piers mutated virus was. "Don't even think of killing yourself, Piers." The sniper looked at Chris in shock as he spoke, rolling the gun in his hands. "There is no way in hell you would be able to kill yourself and I won't allow it to happen even if by some chance it would work. I did not just kill those men, become a traitor, and rescue you from that facility just for you to try and off yourself. You are mine Piers. Do you understand that? Mine! I fell in love with you from the moment you were put into my squad. I have always wanted you by my side. After you found me in Edonia and my memories came back, I wanted you. I wanted you so bad, but I was never sure of your feelings, so I did my best to keep you close, keep you protected. Before we went after that bitch Carla, when you finally confessed how you felt, I was happy, but still consumed with killing that whore. When you infected yourself after you lost your arm, I almost lost it. And then you tried to push me into that escape pod alone...I refused to let you go and pulled you in with me. I did not go through all of that Piers, only to lose you now." Turning onto another side dirt track road Chris truck sent a cloud of dust into the air behind them, not bothering to slow from their 70mph rush. "And then the damned B.S.A.A. sent me to a fucking jungle in South America to do something the South American branch should have done. They wanted you to be their lab rat the moment they picked us up from the ocean. In order to do that though, they had to have your willing permission. Those bastards knew that as long as I was around, you would refuse to go. That is why they sent me away, so those assholes could tell you anything to convince you to turn yourself in and it worked. They used that flawless conviction of yours Piers, and you LET them."

Chris pulled the truck over to the shoulder and gravel for a moment to turn in his seat to look at Piers, twisted at the torso with one arm on the arm rest, the other on the wheel. He knew his eyes were no longer the same and it would take Piers some time to get used to them, but it didn't stop him from staring him down, meeting vermilion with silver and gold. There were other things that were probably changing his body as well and he just did not care, right now this was between the captain and his soldier. Chris accepted what the virus was doing to him and he knew Piers would eventually do the same, but it didn't matter, right now, he needed to accept the facts. "I understand your concern partner, I really do, but the virus doesn't change what you are; it makes you what you are meant to be," he said as he looked directly at his Piers' face. "Do you know how I knew you were in trouble? I could feel it. I could feel your emotions Piers. I even knew you wanted to kill yourself despite that little close guarded attempt of yours to keep it to yourself," Chris told him. "I am bonded to you Piers. I love you, and mutated, enhanced, whatever we are, that won't change how I feel. Put the gun, down." Chris leaned across the center console as he kissed Piers lips locking with as much love and passion as he could muster, pillowy lips succumbing to the feeling.

The idea that Chris was feeling his thoughts, his personality? They read each other like books in the field. They had to. Partners for the last three years before that stupid incident in China and they hadn't failed each other once in all that time. They knew every nod, every ignored question, and every technique in the book to convey orders and commands without a single word or signal. It was natural. Just like Piers ability to throw Chris around verbally in front of soldiers because he knew what Chris was capable of and what his intentions really were. Marco could have attested to that had Carla not shot him with her damn C-Virus. If Chris was intentionally telling Piers to do something and Piers intended on ignoring him, Chris could have picked up on it before without the aid of a virus mutating his system. That was just the kind of men they were. This newly acquired ability to read emotion was just another instrument in Chris' repertoire. He might have countered that little outburst of his about letting the virus take hold of him, might have argued the point that Chris was acting irrationally by suggesting he let a deadly virus create him into some ill-conceived mutant was not okay. Of course he couldn't argue the point with Chris mouth sucking out his words along with his tongue.

Chris was amused that Piers wanted to continue to argue, so he kept on kissing him just enjoying the rally of complaints and emotion thrashing in Piers' mind all drowned out by their lips tightly crushed together. He knew he would win this battle of wills in the end, but Piers was stubborn and he would have to be persistent. Chris could feel Piers' emotions and they were chaotic. Happiness, sadness, fear, curiosity…they ran a mile a minute with his Piers, they always did and with the added voice of the virus creating chaos within his mind it was all the more so. In Chris' case, he honestly felt that his mentality was finally stable. Ever since the shit went down in Raccoon City, his life was one terrible battle after the other. After a while, P.T.S.D. set in and eventually, it would have crippled him. Even when he fought against Wesker and beat him, he was dealing with the the disorder. Now though, it is a thing of the past. For the first time in several years, his mind was clear of the relived traumas. It was stable, and he knew what he wanted to do with this pulling away from Piers, leaning back so slightly from parted, gasping lips; and took a good look at his face. His fiery serpent like eyes could see the scars that were there along the underside of his eye that did not look as blind as it once did. He could see the outlines of a pale pupil there, along with the faded lines across his forehead and cheek. Chris thought Piers was the most handsome thing he has ever seen. It was causing discomfort in the man he sat across from but he didn't care, Piers needed to hear this, he needed to understand what was happening here. "You are so handsome Piers," Chris said, the soldier immediately turned his eyes away, averting his head, but Chris cupped his chin immediately, forcing him to meet eyes and see the sincerity. "Yes, you are…and you belong to me Piers. Not the B.S.A.A., not the S.O.U., not the country. ME! You are mine, and I will never let you go." Chris grip on Piers tightened, fiercely driving their lips together yet again, stealing the breath from those damaged lungs demanding every fiber of attention.

Kissing Chris that way was something that flooded every sense in Piers entire body. He never wanted to pull away, never be forced to leave that embrace. It felt so right. Still Piers wasn't done with this conversation, and he sure as hell wasn't done arguing with him over just who was going to be obeying who on the matter of this virus, but Chris had commandeered the conversation with kisses. He was a soldier, born and bred to listen to orders and this was Chris, his Captain. He wasn't meant to blindly obey orders, but back them up when it was what he felt was in the best interest of those involved. Breaking away from the way he was so completely fallen into the older man was hard but he couldn't think when Chris kissed him. Tipping his forehead against his own so that they were still at least touching, he gathered his mind back to him as it had fleeted from him out the window. "Change the subject again why don't you. We aren't done talking about this." Sighing, the younger Ace tipped his head back, nodding at the road. "We can't afford to sit here either..." Every time their lips met he felt electric surge through his core and he'd rather not short out the damn truck battery thanks to how fast his heart beat when they were touching. His huh? "So I don't get a say in the matter then? I belong to you? You are going to make all my choices for me?" It wasn't malicious, callous in anyway, it honestly amused him to great lengths hearing Chris talk about him like that, even when Chris had taken him in and they had started this relationship Chris never talked about Piers like that, never treated him like anything less or more than a soldier. Not like he was incapable of taking care of himself, he was a 100% ratio sniper; he knew what it felt like to be spot on because he always was, but even with that statement being fact, he still couldn't help feeling flattered at this new found possessiveness.

These things were so odd to hear from his captain. That he was handsome and belonged to Chris, which was two statements he hadn't thought to ever hear. Firstly, the dark lined scars on his face and body refused him to think that he would ever be considered handsome again. He wasn't vain; just..,. no he was vain. He liked being Chris' center of attention back when they were in Alpha together and it killed him to think he'd never look like that again. Hearing he was handsome was just cut throat, it hurt more than helped. And belonging to someone, he didn't remember giving himself to Chris. Admitting their feelings, staying with him, they were partners it came with the field of duty. But he always imagined their relationship would be the same. Partners. He wasn't complaining, just amused. To be owned? He was curious if it would piss him off to hear that Piers wasn't in any mood to be owned, but the captain was going to have to remember who he was talking to, and Piers Nivans wasn't a trophy. The man was a soldier, and he was infected. Two things Chris seemed to have wanted to forget. "Who said I belong to anyone?"

Chris heard Piers' statement and he couldn't help but be slightly amused. His face didn't show it, but he could feel that Piers was feeling a concoction of dazed humor and his natural stubbornness right now. Still, Chris had to show Piers that he did belong to him. Before they continued on he had to show him this was no mere sense of duty. He also had to show Piers that he was loved and treasured. "I said that you belong to me, Piers," Chris said it with intensity, his eyes glowing fiercely with each word; the response of which was his partner's wide eyed concern as Chris smirked. Chris knew that Piers was self-conscious about his looks and that he felt he was ugly, repulsive. Even before Chris was mutated, he felt that Piers was handsome. The way the scars littered his face and body looked artistic to him. Even his mutated arm had a beauty to it that was unique in its own. Now that the captain was mutated as well, he saw Piers in another light: He saw Piers as the most handsome creature on the planet. Others would simply call Piers a monster, but he was Chris' monster. His. Chris saw Piers as something to obsess over, to possess, to love, to be his. The virus inside Chris merely magnified what he felt for Piers to insanely high levels. If Piers would finally accept the virus as he has, he would have been able to feel it radiating off him, perched silently in the driver's seat."We can talk about this when we get to Jill's home. Let's go." Chris went back on the road, kicking up dirt. They had three hours to go.

His... it was foreboding on its own just hearing those words. If they were going to play 'rise to the challenge', Chris would lose; Piers was the man with everything to prove. Of course at this at least, there was no losing in that battle. Honestly, it was something that they did together. Chris gave the challenges and Piers proved he could stand up to them time and time again. It was a fun game. At least it always had been, right now it was alarming. He felt a tightness in his throat just seeing Chris' eyes like that no the red, but the determination, but if it was part of him, he had to deal with each thing in turn. Honestly though, the tightness had been there since the day he'd stabbed himself with the needle. It wasn't an easy thing to hide, particularly the heat it caused, that was easily masked so long as they weren't lip locked. It wasn't just that tightness because of the fear or concern, it was... something else. Something else he refused to address along with the rest of his deformities. He hated the silver of his eye; now not seeing the brown color Chris' were was just odd. He'd get over it no doubt, the same way Chris got over not seeing his hazel flecks. And the scars that littered him, and electricity that wore him down. A power strong enough to strip muscle to the bone and yet somehow his captain was capable of taking hand with him in that state. The virus had conformed to Chris, that much was obvious because of his ability to handle the amps surging through them. Either way, for the time being, if Chris wanted to talk about this whole thing later, he was more than game. Exhaustion was taking over. For now, heavy lids drooped closed finally as the white noise of the wheels on the asphalt whirred into his senses while they rejoined the freeway, letting it lull him to sleep. They had three more hours of this; and who knew what would happen from there.


SO!

I added a ton to this particular part of the RPG for transition and persona sake! So skeletal remains of this belong to Mmori(tumblr) or Morriganna(FF), and me! Chris Redfield's personality changes and virus were creatively personified by mmori. This version of the enhanced C-virus were all playful additions on her behalf and keeps a very biologically confused Piers on his toes.

Hope you all enjoyed our next chapter and let us know what you think so far!