Heya who's ready for a Cute as FOOP chapter cause this bad boy -smacks roof of car- is chuck full of cute content for your hearts to enjoy.

Song Suggestion: 2002 - Anne-Marie

Disclaimer: I own nothing~ CapCom please don't suuue. or well anyone please don't sue really. ovq


Emma parked her car outside of a small suburban home decorated in streamers and balloons. While it was sunny outside, the last remaining chill of winter could still be felt in the air as she and Chris got out of the car. He had to work the last two weeks of February and most of the first week of March, but he made it back just in time. "So, am I a bad driver?" Emma asked teasingly as she got a gift wrapped in colorful paper out of the back seat.

"Had me clutching my pearls a few times, but I suppose we made it here in one piece," Chris replied with a smirk.

Emma laughed. "You're full of it," she replied, recognizing the joke.

"Fine, you're not that bad," he admitted as he walks over to her side of the car while she closed the car door. He waited until she had adjusted her hold on the present before putting an arm over her shoulders. It was important to stay warm after all.

"Thank you, I take that as high praise," she replied with another chuckle as they walked up to the house. "I think Summer is going to love this," Emma said, glancing down at the gift. "You know she's going to torment you with it though, right? Are you sure you're okay with this?"

Chris shrugged. It was too late now. "It can't be that bad," he replied as they stopped in front of the door.

"All right then," Emma said before knocking on the door. Chelsea opened the door with a smile, though it fades slightly upon noticing Chris' arm over Emma's shoulders.

"Hey, you guys made it, good to see you both," Chelsea said all the same, though it sounded forced. "Come on in. Summer's excited to see you," she added, looking mostly at Emma.

The two walked into the house and were led to the basement, where a cacophony of screaming could be heard from the children running around. They were likely the only two adults to receive an invitation, as the others were parents of the munchkins playing various home party games. It was honestly awkward since most of the parents that approached them to try and have some form of conversation would start off by asking 'so which one is yours?' That would lead to repeated explanations that Emma was Summer's aunt, and they didn't have children.

Before long, mercy was offered, at least in part, as Jack walked over to the two. "Hey Chris, do you mind helping me out with something in the kitchen?" he requested.

Christ gave a short nod. "Sure."

The two walked back up the stairs to the main floor of the house and entered the much quieter kitchen.

"That's much better..." Jack said with a sigh. "Do you wanna beer?"

"Did you need my help?" Chris asked, confused.

"Yep," he said with a nod as he got two beers out of the fridge. "I needed your help with an excuse to get out of the scream box for a few minutes." He shook his head and smiled.

Chris laughed. "Fair enough," he replied and accepted the offered drink.

"Thanks again. The kids are great when there are just three of them. Not twenty that are full of sugar." Jack clinked his can against Chris' before drinking.

"Here's to that," Chris agreed, shaking his head. It was really loud down there.

"So, how have you been lately?" Jack asked to continue the small talk.

"It's been a bit hectic this year but, I can't complain," Chris replied before taking another sip from his drink. "How about you?"

The man grinned widely, seemingly waiting for the question to be returned. "Doing well. I'm going to be meeting up with my poker buddies next weekend," Jack answered, more than happy to direct the conversation. "Those friends of yours from the orchard seemed pretty cool. Maybe you guys can join us?"

The offer was rather confusing in contrast to the hard stare he'd received from Chelsea earlier. "You don't mind? I didn't think I'd be welcomed here on my own."

"Ah, that. I usually meet up with my poker friends at the bar," Jack offered for peace of mind before answering Chris' question. "And I probably don't mind as much since I've known Emma longer."

"Really?" Chris asked, surprised. He figured it would have been the other way around.

"Yeah, only by a few months. Em's the reason I met Chelsea in the first place. It's kind of a funny story actually," he admitted with a laugh. "I was at some graduation party for high school that got a little out of hand. I tried to do a keg stand and ended up falling on my shoulder and dislocated it," he explained, giving his right shoulder a pat with his free hand. "I was terrified about going to an ER. I figured they'd be able to tell I was drinking, and I'd lose my college acceptance. Emma happened to be there too, though, and she was able to get my shoulder back in place." Jack grinned. "Turns out we were going to the same college, so we stayed in touch. She introduced me to her roommate and the next thing you know, we're married, and kids are on the way."

"I see," Chris said, trying to keep a straight face. Jack hardly seemed like the type to do anything like that.

"Try not to think too poorly of her for that if you can. She's just protective," Jack offered in his wife's defense.

"I'll keep that in mind," Chris agreed with a nod. "As for poker, I might have to play that by ear, but I'll let you know as soon as I can."

"Not a problem, do you have my number?" Jack asked as he moved to dig his phone out of his pocket, so they could exchange numbers.

The two enjoyed a good fifteen-minute break from the chaos before bringing the Piñata back down with them. That was promptly destroyed by the sugar-high tiny tots. Cake and soda later, and they were on to gifts. Dolls, action figures, movies, trading cards, and plush toys later, Chel finally put the gift from Emma and Chris in front of the small child. "Can you read the tag?" Chel asked and Summer nodded.

"From Chris and Auntie Emmy," she read proudly before opening it. "It's a plastic box?" Summer asked with a confused and disappointed expression, causing Emma and Chelsea to chuckle. A bit annoyed by their reaction, she opened the box and gasped before jumping around excitedly. Inside was an oversize children's sketchbook and an assortment of drawing supplies. They had looked at the sets that came in those fancy-looking wooden briefcases, but the actual supplies looked cheap and frustrating to use. So instead, they went with a cheaper case and hand-selected some nicer supplies to put inside with some help of an employee at the craft store. Nothing excessive, but it was a tiny step up from Crayola crayons and scrap paper.

Summer quickly ran over and gave each of them a hug. "You guys are the best," she said with an ear-to-ear grin before hurrying back over to pick up the box, reverently close it, and put it aside, before continuing to open her gifts. By the end of the day, she was already hard at work trying to fill every page of the book.

Emma watched Summer as she drew and chuckled to herself. "Birthdays are fun."

Chris nodded in partial agreement. "For kids, yeah."

That got Emma's attention. "Too macho for birthdays?" she joked.

"Eh. After a while, they're not that important. There's not much of a difference between 83 and 84," Chris explained with a shrug.

Emma shook her head at that, but the conversation got a few gears turning. His birthday was coming up, wasn't it?

'*'*'*'*'

A few weeks had passed and another quick mission came up, but it was only a few days in Romania over a false alarm and things were back to normal within a week. Chris looked at his phone to check the time. Friday, March 22nd 7 pm. He gave a quiet sigh as he looked over at the stack of paperwork from the false alert. Time to call it a day. It would be there Monday. With that, he got up and walked out to the elevator, went down to the main floor, and stared outside where it was pouring rain. Great... A streak of lightning crossed the sky, followed by a crashing boom of thunder. It was cold out, but not cold enough for snow. He pulled up the collar of his coat and hurried over to his car to try and make his way home.

Meanwhile, Emma had quietly been scheming. Chris had been sent away for a week on another mission, so she was worried this wasn't going to work out. She looked over at the calendar on the fridge. March 22nd, a Friday but luckily for her, she usually got home before Chris. She looked over at the island that had a small cake with a single candle ready to be lit, a brown paper gift box tied shut with colorful string, and an envelope sitting next to plate settings for two. He said birthdays weren't important, so she didn't want to make a big deal about it, but she at least wanted to show she remembered. It was simple, and it was small, but it seemed just about right. She smiled as she cooked and before long, she heard footsteps in the stairwell that walked past her door, followed by the opening and closing of a door. She'd give it a few more minutes.

A rain-soaked Chris had just, in fact, entered his apartment. The stupid thunderstorm followed him the whole way home. He grumbled at that as he hung up his coat, flicked off his shoes and when to the bathroom to get a towel to try and soak up some of the water that got caught in his hair. With that taken care of, he went over to the fridge to see what he could whip up for dinner, only to hear a knocking at the door. Hmm. Three guesses who that was. He chuckled at that thought and shook his head but went over to open the door all the same. "Hey Emma," he said in greeting with the beginnings of a smile on his face.

"Hey, I was trying out another one of Mrs. Russo's recipes, and it made a fair bit more than I was expecting," Emma explained with a nervous chuckle. "Have you had dinner?" She returned the smile.

She really needed to work on quartering the recipe instead of halving it. "Sure, I could eat." It had been a while since she invited him over to eat instead of him just showing up at her door after a mission. This was kind of nice.

The two walk back over to Emma's apartment and right as he walks in a flash of lightning and crash of thunder could be heard as the power went out. Emma drops her head "And of course..." She gives a tired sigh but looks back up at Chris with a sheepish smile. "Surprise," she adds with a partially defeated tone while gesturing to the kitchen island. At least the food was already cooked?

It took a second for his eyes to adjust, but the light of the single tiny candle was enough for him the see the small cake, card and box. "Really?" he asked with an amused tone.

"Happy birthday?" Emma said with a grin. "In the dark..." she added with a defeated sigh.

He shook his head but closed the door and walked over to the island to take a seat. "You really didn't have to do anything."

"I know," she replied with a shrug. "That's why I wanted to." She turned on her phone. 20% battery life... dang it. All the same, she used her phone as a flashlight to make her way into the kitchen to move the food over to the island.

"Well, you went excessive on the mood lighting."

"Ha. ha. very funny," Emma replied with a smirk as she put a serving bowl of pasta carbonara on the counter. "There we go, dig in," she said before heading to the sink to turn it on. "Right... no power... no water," she said, shaking her head before going to the fridge and opening it while Chris served his plate. "Do you want anything before it gets warm?" she asks curiously. "Because I might have maybe failed to fill the glasses before the power went out..."

Chris tried not to laugh, but a few chuckles escaped. "I'll take whatever you have," he said, still amused by their crap luck as of late. Still, this was kind of nice. Emma put a can of beer by each plate before closing the fridge and taking a seat.

"Just don't tell Mrs. Russo on me for not having a pairing for this," she said as she turned off the flashlight of her phone to save the battery life for now, then serves herself. The two chatted as the candle started to slowly melt away.

"Looks like we're about to lose the flame," Chris commented.

"If you want to save your phone in case you get a call from work, I have a larger candle in the living room I haven't used before," Emma offered. That is probably because candles are technically against the rules because they're a fire hazard. Hopefully, there's an exception for when the power is out, she thought with a wince. "I was kind of hoping we'd have the power back by now," she admitted with a brief frown.

"Yeah, must be a pretty bad outage," Chris replied with a nod. "Might as well," he agreed with a shrug as Emma got up to go and get the jarred candle from the living room while using her phone as a flashlight again. 15%. Come on... Once she was seated again, she turned off the flashlight and placed the candle on the island between them. Chris then plucked the remaining tiny candle from the cake and used that to light the jarred candled before blowing out the nub of a birthday candle. The jarred candle was a fair bit brighter than the valiant attempts of the birthday candle and made it easier for the two to see, though not by that grand of a margin.

"Well, at least you'll probably be able to see the card now," Emma said with a wincing smile. What a mess.

Chris took the hint and picked the card up. It felt unusually thick, which was curious. Upon opening it, he found a folded piece of paper and two cards one in the shape of a 4 and the other was in the shape of a 6.

"The cards are from Summer. She was insistent that number cards are the best and that was her solution since there wasn't a card with a 46 on it," Emma explained, recalling the rather amusing trip to the grocery store with Chel and the kids.

Chris glossed over reading the cards since they were meant for a four-year-old and a 6-year-old respectively before unfolding the paper to find it was a page from the sketchbook Summer had gotten for her birthday. On the page was a familiar red stick figure with a black shirt and blue pants. There were a bunch of other stick figures around it this time, along with a few trees and pumpkins, and what he assumed was an attempt at a cake – though all the lines coming out of the top made it look more like an upside-down centipede. Notably though, this time the red stick figure was drawn with a smile instead of a frown. On the back of the page, it read 'Happy Birfthday Chris - Summer p.s. thanks again for the markers. There really really really cool.'

The message made him smile. 'They're' was misspelled, but close enough. "And the box?" he asked as he kept the picture unfolded and gently placed it on the island away from the flames.

"That one's from me," Emma admitted. "Just, don't expect anything amazing. It's honestly nothing special." She gave him a weak smile.

He curiously untied the string and opened the box, only to pinch the bridge of his nose while struggling not to laugh. "All right, I'll bite," he said with a short chuckle as he took the tiny remote-control helicopter out of the box. "Why is there a tiny helicopter in a box?"

"You mentioned a while ago that you're a pilot. I thought you could use a way to practice flying at home," she explained with a smirking grin before shaking her head. "It's nothing serious, I honestly just didn't know what to get you at this point so." She shrugged, also trying not to laugh, so she could take another sip of her drink.

This Goddamn woman. Chris reached over to grab her chair and pull it closer to him, so he could kiss her, only for the attempt to end with both of them laughing.

"It's not even that funny." Emma tried really hard to keep a straight face. Okay, she could do this. With one more quick chuckle, she moved to hold the sides of Chris' face and attempted to give him a kiss, only to end up snickering again. "Oh gosh. Dang it all..."

Then an idea came to mind that might help. She just needed to get him to stop, so she could stop. One last try. She pressed her lips against his and gently bit his lower lip before moving away. That seemed to work, as he almost instantly went silent, which allowed her own chuckling to subside. One kiss led to another and another as each one became more passionate than the last before the two broke away. They both looked at each other for a moment, then at the jarred candle before blowing it out.


ufufu~ all the cuteness /o/ no world-ending attacks or drama ladies just birthday cutes with a tiny bit o spice to wrap it up. Hopefully, the treat is enjoyed =v=/ on to the next chapter.