Disclaimer: Any and all things not immediately recognizable as a registered trademark of Capcom's probably belong to me. Anything you do recognize as Capcom's I'm simply borrowing for the time being. I seek no monetary gain from this. I only wrote it for fun.
Summary: There's a lot to figure out after Kijuju. But first there is the simple matter of sleeping arrangements.
Rating: K
Author's Note: This was inspired by a conversation I had with Galatea23 over on Livejournal. It's been sitting on my hard drive for the past few months, but I finally decided to dust it off and finish it. I'm still not a hundred percent sold on the ending, so I might be going back and making some edits at some point in the near or not-so-near future. In the meantime, enjoy!
Sleeping Arrangements
He'd been standing at the window, watching the rain come down outside, when Jill had finished her shower and come back out to the living room, falling in beside him. It was raining buckets, cats and dogs, raining like it was the start of the Flood. Occasional thunder made the windows rattle in their pains and scared the neighbor's dog. Chris could hear it barking through the wall.
Jill was wearing a pair of Claire's pajamas. She had none of her own anymore. She was staying with him because she had no place of her own, and she was using his towels and his shampoo and his body wash because they'd gotten rid of all of her stuff after her funeral. What little Chris had refused to get rid of Claire had moved into a storage locker for him last year, because otherwise he'd have left it all in the guest bedroom forever.
They were going to go out to the locker tomorrow, but for now…
For now they were going to make due with what they had. They'd done it before and they could do it again.
Chris shifted, his knuckles brushing against the back of her hand. His heart rate kicked up a few notches – God, she still had that effect on him, even after all of these years.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her glance down. She smiled, and he felt her fingers brush against the inside of his palm. Her touch was light at first, as she searched out the nooks and crannies between his fingers, then tightened when she found them, slipping her fingers into place between his.
He'd missed this.
He'd missed her.
She yawned suddenly, dropping his hand to cover her mouth.
"You should go to bed," Chris said, his voice gentle. "Get some sleep." He motioned towards his bedroom with a jerk of his head. "I just changed the sheets this morning. They're nice and clean, I promise. There are extra blankets in the closet by the bathroom in case you want one. I'll be right here on the couch if you need anything."
Jill frowned. "Why am I taking your room, Chris?"
He smiled sheepishly. His apartment had two-bedrooms and two-bathrooms, and even though he'd given Jill his own room there was still the guest bedroom.
…Which, at the moment, was stuffed full of papers and boxes and his old desktop and his old laptop (because both of them had decided they'd had enough of him at about the same time) and his old uniforms (since the Alliance had recently changed theirs) and some workout could barely get the door open, much less reach the bed, and there was no way in hell he was going to have her spend her first night here in that.
Shaking his head and grinning, he said, "Because you don't want to see the guest bedroom."
Her frown deepened, and she looked down the hall. Her expression was intense, thoughtful. Chris was tempted to reach out to her, touch her, ask her what was wrong, but stopped himself. Jill didn't need to be coddled. She never had. Sometimes she needed protecting, sure, and rescuing and comforting, but she did not need to be coddled.
"It's your apartment," she said, breaking the silence.
"And I want you to be comfortable," he retorted playfully. His voice firmer, he added, "Jill. It's okay. It's really a lot more comfortable than it looks."
She looked down at the leather sofa and started shaking her head. "You are not sleeping on the couch, Chris."
Chris tilted his head. "Where am I supposed to sleep then? I'm not going into the guest bedroom. Please don't make me take the guest bedroom."
"It's that bad?"
"Like the gates of hell," he said, nodding sincerely.
She laughed. "You're still not sleeping on the couch."
"And you still haven't told me where I'm allowed to sleep if I can't sleep on the couch."
Jill stared at him, surprised. Then she laughed again – a louder, heartier, fuller laugh. "You haven't figured it out?" She asked, then laughed again, reaching a hand out.
Chris caught her elbow, starting to chuckle a little himself. But no, he didn't have a damn clue what she was talking about.
"You're sleeping with me, you big goof," she said, giving him a look. "Where else?"