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I. Thursday 13 August 1998, 01:36 CDT
Jill hasn’t slept a full night since the mansion incident.
That’s what they’re calling it in the reports, anyway. The mansion incident. Such small words for something that should be headline news across the country, but isn’t even headline news in Raccoon City. Twelve people dead, who knows how many more turned into those things, and they’ll just bemoan the tragedy and sweep it under the rug, no matter how hard she and the others fight to get the truth out.
The RPD blocks the investigation at every turn. Rebecca and Barry leave the country one after the other, Chris grows more belligerent by the day. Because she doesn’t know when to stop pushing, Irons suspends her. S.T.A.R.S. is disbanded. She keeps the badge and gun when they take her keys.
All that’s left for her is to keep moving, so that’s what she does, and if she wakes up breathless, face tear-streaked because the images of her teammates’ mangled bodies have burned themselves into the front of her mind—well, that’s her problem.
After a couple weeks, she stops trying to sleep and resorts to staying awake until she keels over from exhaustion because it’s the only way to quiet her mind. It doesn’t get her more than a few hours’ rest at a time, but it’s better than nothing. In her dreams she sees herself turn; in the mornings her own reflection startles her because she’s become so sallow. She stands in the shower until the scalding water runs cold, and when she opens her eyes it’s blood instead, carving its paths down her body. No amount of scrubbing or scratching will make it go away.
She wears long sleeves to hide the fingernail marks even though it’s August. The others call her, making plans to continue the investigation on their own until she forces them to stop, the threat of Umbrella tapping the phone lines omnipresent. Chris keeps calling to keep her sane, but those calls, too, become less frequent, and by the end of the month she’s stuck in her tiny apartment, unable to get in direct contact with anyone.
As a result, she’s more than a little surprised when someone knocks on her door in the middle of the night.
She’s slumped at her sorry excuse for a dining room table—a little folding thing that was supposed to be a temporary solution to her lack of furniture—about to doze off for the first time in at least thirty-six hours, but when she hears the knock she bolts upright, rooted in place. When the sound doesn’t repeat, her eyelids flutter, her muscles relax. She’s not worried; it wouldn’t be the first time she’s seen or heard things that aren’t there because she’s that tired. It comes again a few seconds later, though, and that prompts her to reach for her gun, put her hand on the safety as she stands. The peephole is covered with a piece of paper scotch-taped to the door, the best she could do on short notice, and she won’t remove it. Too noisy. Instead, gun at the ready, she unlocks the door and swings it open in the same movement, and sees—
“Chris?”
“Hi, Jill,” he mutters as he shoulders his way past her. Blinking, she glances out into the hall, looks both ways, but there’s no one there. That’s the point, though, isn't it? She closes the door, triple-checks the deadbolt. They don’t want to be seen. Unfortunately for them, she’s smarter than that, though a way out of her self-imposed confinement still eludes her.
When she sets the gun back on the table he’s watching her, his scrutiny so intense that she, dressed in an oversized t-shirt and socks, shrinks under it. It’s ridiculous—she’s under surveillance, she should be used to it by now, but he always sees more. “You’ve lost weight,” he accuses, and she crosses her arms over her chest. Alright, maybe she hasn’t been sleeping or eating as well as she should be since—everything—but that doesn’t excuse him showing up in the middle of the night, startling her half out of her mind. Like she wasn’t already most of the way there.
“Did you come here just to critique my diet?”
“Nice to see you too.”
She rolls her eyes. He’s looking around her apartment with a critical gaze, taking in the mess, glancing back and forth from the kitchen counter to her. It’s far from the first time he’s been here, but it’s the first time he’s ever seen it like this—the first time it’s ever been like this. She can’t bring herself to care much about keeping it clean anymore. There’s a clock ticking over her head, sand trickling through the hourglass of the rest of her life. Now that she’s being actively tailed, she’s given herself a few months, at best, because they won’t stop, and neither will she.
“Like your hello was any better,” she snipes back, and the corner of his mouth twitches. The last time he smiled, really smiled, was before all this. The motion would feel foreign on her own face, too, if she tried. Chris has always been good at shrugging things off, but he’s been so somber since they got out of that damned mansion. Then again, he saw things just as horrible as she had, and she hasn’t slept for weeks. Maybe it’s to be expected.
It's almost enough to make her laugh—as if anyone would know what to expect in this situation—but she doesn’t, only turns her face from his scrutiny as she steps back to lean against the wall, lets her hair fall to cover her. When he looks at her, he’s looking for scarring. She checks for it herself every day, as if new marks will show up overnight. “You didn’t answer, though,” she says, quieter now. “Why are you here?”
For a moment he just looks at her, and she withers under his stare. Some mornings there’s a phantom bruise across her jaw in the mirror, a dripping cut on her cheek where Wesker had hit her with his gun. Chris looks at her now like she looks at herself when she’s unlucky enough to encounter her own reflection. Like he had looked at her in that cell, when—
No. She can’t deal with that right now.
“Because I’m worried,” Chris says, and not dealing with it is much harder when his voice sounds like that, soft and concerned, and his eyes dart around like he’s searching for hidden surveillance equipment, even though she’s only told him her suspicions about the phones. Like he’d tear the place apart to assuage her fears, if she asked him to. The idea sparks something in her, warmth at her fingertips that has nothing to do with the way the heater runs, a low hum in the background. It's turned higher than usual despite the time of year to ward off the memory of cold bodies, the sensation of her own frigid skin. It only makes sense that he would be the one to make her feel this. He’s always been warm.
II. Saturday 25 July 1998, 04:13 CDT
The cell Wesker’s locked her in might as well be sub-zero temperatures for how much she’s shaking. She hasn’t been able to piece together how long she’s been trapped: one minute she’s in a lab, Barry’s gun pointed at her head as she tries to make sense of Wesker’s betrayal, and the next she’s on the ground, her own weapon skidding across the floor, and then—darkness. She wakes up with Wesker on the other side of a barred window, a dull pain in her jaw beginning to sharpen. He says something about her still being useful and leaves, calling an order to power down the elevator she’d taken to find him. He’s waiting for Chris. She’s sure of it, sure that Wesker wants to kill him and guarantee that the two of them are the only ones to escape—Barry would just be an inconvenience then, though she’s still not sure what he wants with her. She thinks Wesker likes her too much to let her die. She hates herself for it, just a little.
By the time another door screeches closed, her throat is raw from screaming at him, and the aching side of her face feels hot; she touches her fingers to it and pulls them back bloody. There are burns on her forearms, too, from the chemical she’d mixed to kill that goddamn plant thing and ended up splashing on herself as she threw the flask because there was no other way to dispense it. She hadn’t had time to assess the extent of her injuries before, too afraid that if she stopped moving she wouldn’t start again. She sits on the bare mattress for what seems an eternity, cataloguing a dizzying number of bruises and scrapes, most of which shouldn’t require serious medical attention—but that becomes less likely the longer she goes without access to water to rinse the wounds. Wesker had left some in the cell, bottled on the floor by the bed, but she won’t drink anything that comes out of this place.
The reopening of the door upstairs has her heart leaping into her dry throat, but she remains leaned forward on the bed, elbows on her knees and head hanging down because she’s tired, and if Wesker’s just back to gloat she’d rather not hear it. He took her lockpicks before he left, but she’s considering attempting to open her cell anyway when the footsteps stop right outside.
“Jill,” Chris says, and it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever heard.
She’s off the bed in an instant, ignoring the protests of her stiff muscles as she crosses the few feet to the door. He looks just as exhausted as her but he’s grinning, hands wrapped around the bars, and she curls her fingers right above his, though she has to balance on her toes to do so. Her own answering smile pulls the cut on her face tight, and as it becomes a wince, Chris sees the side of her face. The grin drops. “Fuck,” he says, trying to reach through the bars and coming up short. “What happened?”
“It’s Wesker.” Her voice is a hoarse whisper. She clears her throat. “He’s working for—”
“I know. I found these files…” His face contorts in anger. The hand that had tried to touch her face curls around her own hand instead, fingers warm and rough. “He hit you?”
She nods. Her other hand slips down over his, mirroring. “Knocked me out and brought me here. Barry’s working with him. I don’t think he’s doing it willingly, though—Wesker’s got him convinced Umbrella has his family.”
“You don’t think?”
“I do think it’s a bluff. It has to be. He just wanted someone in S.T.A.R.S. under his control.”
His grip tightens, then lets up when she flinches at the pressure. “I can’t get the door open,” he says, apologetic. “I’ll come back, though. Get the elevator working and find him, and—”
“Kill him. You have to kill him.” The words taste like ash in her mouth. Her knuckles are white against her gloves, split open and bleeding, cracked and dry. She liked Wesker, at first; she’d never call him sociable, but he was professional, and he knew how to run a team. For the most part, he’d kept the others off her back, and though she’s certain it had never been for her benefit, she appreciated it. Now she regrets ever having those thoughts.
Chris stares at her, lips pressed together, and when he pulls his hands away from the bars she swears he lets them linger on hers, just for a second. “I will. I’ll kill him. And then I’ll be back for you.”
III. Thursday 13 August 1998, 01:42 CDT
She blinks, settles into the uncomfortable reality that is Chris Redfield in her kitchen that hasn’t been cleaned in weeks. He’d come back for her like he promised, and despite her general distaste for physical affection she’d hugged him when he got the door open, losing herself for a moment in the warmth of him, the steadiness of his hands on her waist. Their reunion had been cut short by the blaring of alarms announcing five minutes until self-destruct, and when he pulled back her face burned, his a matching shade of red. This is worse, though, because now he’s watching her instead of leading her up the stairs from her cell, and she can’t stop thinking about it. Wonders if he’s thinking about it too, and that’s why he’s here.
The idea of it shouldn’t set something stirring low in her belly, but it does.
“You don’t need to worry,” she says, keeping her heated face turned away. “I’m fine.”
“Jill.” That concern is in his voice again, and she curls her hand around the frame of the bathroom door, grips it tight until its edges dig into her fingertips. “I was there too,” he says. “I saw the same shit you did.” Unbidden, the image of Richard in a pool of his own blood shoves its way to the front of her mind, and she pushes it aside. Chris hasn’t told her all of what happened, not in any detail, but he said he’d seen that too. Does it haunt him like it haunts her?
“Fine means fine.” She frowns, recrosses her arms, guarding her own pain. “But I’d be a lot better if they hadn’t suspended me, if that’s what you’re asking about.”
“I wasn’t. Kinda looking like it’ll go that way for me, too, though. Or it will if I keep pushing.” Like you did hangs unspoken in the air between them. She’s always been stubborn, it’s true, but no sane person could even consider letting something like this go. Chris is on the other side of the door frame now, leaning over to open her fridge, shaking his head when he sees its bare-bones contents. “Christ, Jill, when was the last time you ate an entire meal?”
She raises an eyebrow, points at the empty pizza box on the table that she hasn’t thrown out yet because that would require leaving the apartment, and Chris rolls his eyes. “That doesn’t count,” he sighs, and she’s about to protest his definition of an entire meal when he says “I’m going out to get you something” and she freezes.
“Don’t,” she chokes out, and he stares at her as the fridge door swings shut, plunging the room into semidarkness. She’s glad for it, for the way it’s harder now to read her, though she doubts her panic goes unnoticed. “They’re staking me out,” she says, nearly whispers, relieved that he knows but hating how it comes out. “They have been for a couple weeks. Maybe longer. I know I sound crazy, but…”
“Umbrella?” He drops his volume to match hers, and she’s lip-reading more than listening, but she nods. “It doesn’t sound crazy. Not after the shit with the phones. They’re probably watching us all now.” He steps back further into the apartment and she follows, apprehensive. If the front half is barely presentable, the back is much worse: the bed could charitably be called unmade, half her wardrobe is on the floor because she hasn’t had the energy to pick it up, let alone leave to wash it, and a massive section of the wall is covered in what they’ve managed to dig up about the mansion and Umbrella. She leans against the wall that separates the kitchen from the bedroom and watches him take it in, crease between his brows. “Do you see why I’m worried?” he asks, as if this is all the evidence he needs to justify his concern, and at the same time she says “If you’re here to apologize you don’t need to—”
They both stop, stare, the heat of embarrassment creeping up her face. She shouldn’t have brought it up first, not when she hasn’t even begun to unravel the emotions that crowd her brain whenever she thinks about it. “What would I be apologizing for?” he says, as if he doesn’t know, or he wants to hear her say it—but she can’t get the words out. She shakes her head. He sits on the edge of the bed, posture reminiscent of her own in that cell. “Do you want me to apologize?”
The question is a loaded gun against her temple. “I don’t know.”
IV. Saturday 25 July 1998, 06:24 CDT
When the five of them return to the station it’s early morning, the sun peering over the horizon to illuminate the blood and grime they’re covered in—minus Brad, anyway. Jill’s so exhausted that she’s almost managed to fall asleep with her head on Chris’s shoulder, the awkwardness of their reunion forgotten, but she’s jolted awake by the helicopter touching down at a landing pad just outside the city. They’ll have to drive back to the station shoved into a single squad car, and she dreads it even though Chris offers to sit in the middle of the backseat, her and Rebecca on either side, so they all have some breathing room. Better than nothing, she thinks, and leans against the window, ignores the sharp pain whenever they drive over potholes and her head bumps the glass.
The officer at the front desk stares when they walk in, starts to stutter out a question before Barry holds up a hand to stop him. They file through the west office doors and up to the showers where they split off, Barry and Brad to the men’s changing room and the rest of them to the S.T.A.R.S. office, where they’ve got spare outfits stored in their lockers. They’re quiet walking down the hall, and when Jill glances over Rebecca’s face is ashen, eyes somewhere far away. Richard had been to her what Jill was to Chris when he first joined, a sort of mentor-turned-friend—she ignores the traitorous whispers at the back of her mind hinting at something else—and this can’t be easy for her.
Jill keeps her mouth shut as they retrieve their bags of spare clothing. There’s nothing she can say that would make this better.
She focuses on the echo of their footsteps on the way back, just to give herself something to cling to. Rebecca disappears through the changing room door right away but Jill pauses, leans heavy against the wall and slides down to sit on the floor, leaving a streak of who-knows-what on the white-painted brick behind her. She’s too tired to care, and she starts when Chris sits down beside her, reaches out to put a hand on her knee. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” Her stare unfocuses, taking in the rising sun through the window, both because it’s easier than looking at him and because she’s starting to feel the worst of her injuries, her strength sapped as she recalls how easy it had been for Wesker to overpower her. Maybe she should’ve figured it out earlier, though it wouldn’t have played out any other way—nothing about his behavior the past two years could have prepared her for this. It doesn’t stop the doubt from sinking in, the blame, only marginally quieter since she’s not alone.
They sit in silence a minute more, then Chris stands, holding out a hand to pull her up. She accepts the help, grits her teeth against the pain, looks away when he stretches after and his shirt rides up his midriff. “Well, I’m not staying in these a second longer than I have to. We—you should let me look at that when you’re done.” He points to the cut on her face, the dried blood collected beneath it. She nods, they slip through their respective doors, and she drops her spare clothes on a bench, her beret and shoulder pads following.
It hits her just then how much every muscle in her body truly hurts, made worse by hours of not being able to do anything but run, no medical attention in sight, no chance to relax, even when she was locked up. She doesn’t want to see herself for fear of what her face looks like—what’s visible on her body as she strips is bad enough. Her hands shake when she tugs at the button on her pants, the laces on her boots. She can’t stop it, figures she’s got maybe an hour or two before things set in and she breaks down completely.
She wonders if Chris, one room over, feels the same. If letting him tend to her wounds, doing the same to his, will stave off the shock, at least long enough for them to make some kind of report. Irons will want to know why twelve officers went into the mountains and five came out. Sooner or later, they’ll have to face it. Maybe it’ll be easier to face each other first.
V. Thursday 13 August 1998, 01:46 CDT
There’s packets of pills on the nightstand she’s surprised Chris hasn’t commented on yet. Most are for sleeping, though the psychiatrist Irons had insisted they all see had prescribed her something for her nerves as well. She’d insisted on generic brands for everything. None of them have worked like they’re supposed to. She still feels the constant tension through every bone in her body, she still wakes up sobbing.
“I see them every night,” Chris says, and she blinks, certain for a second that the words had come out of her own mouth. It shouldn’t be a surprise to hear them from him, but it is. “It takes me hours to get to sleep, and then when I do, it’s not for very long.” His gaze drifts to the nightstand. “Doesn’t seem like I’m the only one having that problem.”
“You’re not.” She bites her lip, drags it between her teeth. “That why you’re here?”
When she looks back he’s smiling, a sad little thing that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I already told you why I’m here. But I won’t lie, I was hoping you’d be awake. It’s…easier knowing it’s not just me.”
She turns to the door, lets her eyes flick over each of the locks, the paper over the peephole. The blinds are closed as tight as she can get them. None of it gives them complete privacy, but it could be worse. “If you’re—I mean, if you want—” She pauses, breathes deep, grimacing at her own inability to form a sentence. She’s never been so nervous around someone, but she’s on edge from the past month, and Chris isn’t going to judge her for it anyway. “You can stay. I know this isn’t the most comfortable place, but—”
“Yeah,” he says, and then halts, red creeping up his neck. The eagerness makes her smile for the first time in weeks. “Yeah, that would be great. I can, uh—” His brow furrows as he looks around, reaching the same conclusion she has: there aren’t many places for him to sleep. She doesn’t even own a couch. “Take the floor,” he finishes.
The urge to argue his decision is strong, and she’s opening her mouth to insist the bed is big enough for them both when something stops her. This could be exactly what she’s been wanting—just one fucking night of uninterrupted sleep. Someone else in the room might be enough to quiet her nerves, but someone right next to her…things could slip the other way. “Sure,” she says as he stands and stretches, and she doesn’t look away this time, adding “But there’s room on the bed. If you want.”
There’s something in his eyes that tells her he does want, but he only nods. It’s quiet as she pulls spare blankets and a pillow off the bed and hands them to him, clears off a spot on the floor big enough for him to lay down and cringes at the idea of him sleeping on hardwood, even with the blankets and rug as barriers. It’s almost enough for her to take back her concerns and invite him to the bed point-blank. Let him interpret it however he wants. But if she’s honest, she’s terrified of what might happen if he takes her up on it. Chris is the only friend she has in this city—even more so now that the rest of them have left—and she’s hesitant to do anything that would even have a chance of ruining that.
It doesn’t matter that she’s thought about that kiss every day since it happened. If he can pretend it didn’t for the sake of their friendship, so can she.
VI. Saturday 25 July 1998, 06:30 CDT
In the shower she takes her time, watches the scalding water pooling beneath her turn from clear to a disgusting red-brown and back again. She washes with soap and a rough cloth more times than necessary, cringing as her harshness reopens some of the cuts and fresh blood seeps in bright lines down her body. Her face is hot and it’s not just from the water, but she can’t let herself collapse the way she wants to, not while she’s still in the station and Rebecca is one stall over, close enough to hear her if she cries. Instead she scrubs until her skin is raw from it, until every place the water touches her stings, and she doesn’t feel any cleaner.
The other shower is still running when she shuts hers off, so she dries slow, careful around any still-bleeding wounds, though the towel still ends up stained red. She forgoes any part of her discarded uniform for the clothes from her locker—a sports bra, plain underwear, jeans and a loose t-shirt—and sits on the bench facing away from the stalls, finger-combing her damp hair. There’s a cabinet on the other side of the room filled with first-aid supplies, but now that she’s sitting she can’t find it in herself to get up again, fatigue setting in. She curls her hands around the edges of the bench besides her thighs to keep herself upright, stays there until the changing room door opens and Chris sticks his head in.
“Hey,” he says as it falls shut behind him. The curtain separating the shower stalls from the lockers is closed, and Rebecca had set her things on the shelf inside rather than the benches as Jill had, but he shoots the curtain a wary glance as he rummages through the cabinets. She turns to face him, tucking her legs underneath her on the bench, and he sits next to her with an armful of supplies that he spreads out between the two of them. “Let me see the cut.”
She tenses, berates herself for it—this is Chris, he’s not going to hurt her. After a second, she reaches up and pushes her hair back behind her ears, turning so her injured cheek faces him. It’s bleeding again, set off by her own roughness, a hot trail down her face. He sucks in a sharp breath, and his fingers are on her skin, gentle but steady. “If that fucker wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him,” he says with such vehemence that it makes Jill laugh, then flinch as the motion further aggravates the injury. He rips open the packaging on a gauze pad, holds up a can of first aid spray. “This will hurt.” His voice is tinged with regret. She nods, squeezes her eyes shut.
The hissing of the spray isn’t a surprise, but its volume is; she digs her nails into her thigh to keep herself still. It’s almost funny, how much this hurts in comparison to everything she’s been through tonight, but it’s over in an instant, and he’s got the gauze in hand, dabbing at the blood that dripped onto her cheek. She relaxes her grip on her leg, trying not to move too much, give away even a hint of pain, but he notices. He always notices. “I’m sorry.”
She opens her eyes and tries to keep her face still while she glances over, watching as he unwraps more gauze and pulls out a roll of medical tape. It’ll look ridiculous on, but there’s no other way to cover a wound like this; she’ll have to deal until it closes up. Despite her concentration, a smile slips in as she helps him hold the fresh gauze to the cut. This is the closest thing she’d had to normalcy in the past day, tending wounds a familiar routine between them. “You don’t have to apologize,” she says as he secures the last piece of tape. “It’s not like it was your fault.”
He frowns. When she moves her hand, his lingers, warm fingers cupping the side of her face. “Maybe if I’d have gotten there sooner—”
“Stop it.” She grabs his wrist without thinking, his pulse strong against her fingertips. His eyes widen, but he doesn’t pull away. “Wesker did this. Not you.” She presses, just for a second, rubs her thumb back and forth over the skin.
It takes a minute for the lines in his brow to smooth over, and he looks at her now with something less like an apology and more like—wonder. His eyes shut for a moment; he swallows. "I was sure when we got split up that I wasn’t going to find you again,” he confesses, voice thick with the tears they both refuse to cry. His hand slips downward, his thumb brushes the corner of her mouth, and they freeze like that, only inches from each other. Her breath scrapes in her throat, pulse racing. She looks down at his lips.
In the end, she doesn’t know which of them leans in first, or if they both do. She can only recall her eyes closing, the second she has to register the tightness in her belly before he kisses her. Before he kisses her and she lets him—an understatement, considering she never wants him to stop. He must’ve found time to brush his teeth after he showered, because he tastes like mint toothpaste but the coppery tang of blood is still there underneath it. Somehow, all it does is spur her on, a reminder of the fact that they almost didn’t live to do this. Not that she needs the reminder.
His other hand shifts up to join the first, cupping her face like she’s something precious, and she sighs against his mouth, tilts her head so he can kiss her deeper. For a few seconds, nothing else exists: only them, and the heat of Chris’s mouth and the excruciating gentleness of his hands and his pulse in his wrist, pounding beneath her fingers. But it’s only a few seconds, and the screech of the shower turning off has them pulling apart.
She’s wide-eyed and shaking, hands gripping her thighs to steady herself, just as cold as she’d been in that cell. Though they’re no longer touching, she feels his fingers like a brand. She can tell he wants to apologize for this, too, that the words are on the tip of his tongue, and she shakes her head, mutters don’t as she bends to pick up her discarded uniform, and hopes he understands.
VII. Thursday 13 August 1998, 05:18 CDT
Jill doesn’t know what time it is when she’s pulled from another nightmare about the mansion, about her coworkers and their bodies and the possibility that they would come back, the thought that had haunted her until the place went up in flames and that plagues her still. She sits bolt upright, every muscle tense, unseeing, breaths shallow. The waking up is rote, now, but it’s different when she’s not alone. Different when she only has a few seconds to panic before there’s a hand on her shoulder, squeezing, grounding. Chris says her name as she curls forward, head in her hands, folding in on herself. It’s pathetic, he must think she’s pathetic like this—but the bed dips next to her and he’s pulling her to him, reassuring and warm, and she relaxes under his touch.
When she’s calmed, regulated her breathing a bit, she forces her head up and turns to face him. He doesn’t drop the hand on her shoulder; there’s almost no space between them. All too familiar. “Chris,” she whispers, somewhere between warning and plea, and he lifts his fingers to brush her hair behind her ear, and the whole thing is so comfortable that her heart strains against the confines of her body, struggling to escape. He’s looking at her mouth, staring at her parted lips like they’re the only thing he’s ever wanted, and her eyes flick down in return.
“Do you want me to apologize?” he asks again, sounding just as wrecked as she feels even though all they’ve done is look at each other. She shakes her head, but he doesn’t move; he wants her to say it, and her face reddens at the realization even as affection sweeps through her. She bites the inside of her cheek and watches him watch her, sees just how much he’s holding back.
“Don’t,” she says, and he doesn’t make her wait after that.
His lips are warmer, somehow, than the fingers tracing her jawline, but every part of her is on fire anyway, and all he does is stoke it. One of her hands splays on the mattress, keeping herself steady; she brings the other to the side of his neck, holding him as insistently as he’s kissing her. He drags her lip between his teeth, makes her gasp. It’s not enough, it won’t ever be enough, and his hands move to her hips, urging her to straddle him, sink down until there’s not a breath between them and it’s clear how much he wants this. She slips her newly-freed hand under his shirt, skin searing, drags it up and takes the fabric with her. They part just long enough for him to pull it off and toss it aside, and then they’re kissing again and her hands are all over him and his are at her waist, under her own shirt.
She lets him push it upward until he stops just below her breasts, shivers at the split second of cold air before it’s replaced with his warmth. He leans forward and takes her with him, slow so their lips don’t part until her back hits the mattress. His mouth shifts to her neck, then, and he’s not gentle about it, sinking his teeth in and following with his tongue, and she moans, unable to move like she wants with him on top of her like this. His fingers tighten on the hem of her shirt and he withdraws until he can meet her eyes, the question in them clear. Instead of answering, she puts her hands beside his, aids him in pulling it over her head so she’s bared from the waist up. For a moment all he does is stare as she fists her hands in the blankets above her, turns her head to the side, self-conscious in a way she’s never been.
“Fuck,” he swears, so vehement that she almost asks if something is wrong before he leans down and runs the seam of his mouth over her nipple, follows it with the barest brush of his tongue. She whines, more breath than sound, and that’s all the encouragement he needs to suck the bud into his mouth, laving it with his tongue as he catches the other between his fingers. He tugs and licks until her nipples are pearled, begging for further attention, but he doesn’t give it; he kisses down her ribcage, her hips, mouths over her through her underwear—she wonders, faintly, if he can tell how wet she already is—and she can’t stop the way she arches against him.
“No,” she says, “not now,” and closes shaking fingers around his shoulder, pulls him back to her mouth. No one can see them, she keeps the blinds drawn at all hours, but she’s paranoid, and angry underneath that. Part of her wants him over her like this, besides, wants the shelter of him, a few minutes’ reprieve from her new reality. She cups his face in her hands as she kisses him, hopes he’ll understand the reasoning behind her refusal.
He pulls away to look at her, replaces his lips with his fingers, brushing featherlight across her waistband. His eyes darken when she squirms at the touch. “Yeah?” he murmurs, kissing down her neck, and she responds in kind, yeah, shaky, quiet as she hooks her thumbs under the fabric and pushes it down. Quick, like ripping a band-aid off. It sticks for a second, makes her flush; when he takes over, sliding them the rest of the way off, her hands fall to her sides. Her face is burning, and he notices even in the dim light, because he pauses after he’s tossed away the rest of her clothes, not looking down at her even though it’s clear he wants to. “You sure about this?” he asks, cradling her jaw, and her heart swells with something she doesn’t want to name.
She takes his hand, guides it down until it curls over her. He sucks in a sharp breath, uses two fingers to spread her open while the middle one skims the length of her, gathering the slickness he finds there. “I guess that answers that,” he mumbles, like he’s talking to himself and not her, and she starts to laugh but his finger finds her clit, circles it. She’d be embarrassed by the noise she lets out if it didn’t feel so good; it’s been too long since someone touched her like this, and soon she’s canting her hips against his hand, trying to urge him lower.
Her lips press against his neck at the same moment that he pushes two fingers inside her and they both groan, her mouth open against his skin. One of her hands grips the sheets while the other trails the fine dusting of hair on his stomach before she tugs at his jeans, trying to get a grip on the button but not having much luck. It’s becoming more and more difficult to do anything besides lay there and take it; it’s been too long, and it feels too good, and—she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about it before. This. With him. One of the few people in this world she trusts unconditionally. Maybe the only one, now.
The button gives way after a moment of struggling to keep her attention on it among the onslaught of his fingers, his mouth returning to the join of her neck and shoulder when her head falls back against the mattress. Seconds later the zipper follows, and she hardly takes the time to shove the fabric out of the way before she’s wrapping her hand around him, warm and thick in her fingers and god, the sound he makes is almost enough to finish her—he must feel it, the way she tightens around him. She tries to time her strokes to his rhythm, but soon enough they’re both off-tempo, chasing their own pleasure even as they try to attend to each other. He pauses, once, to pull her hand away from him, lace it with his and pin it down. “If you keep doing that, this will be over too soon,” he says, a hint of laughter in his voice, and she’s about to tease him for it but he doubles down on her, thumb rubbing tight quick circles over her clit as his fingers crook to press inside her, and she comes harder than she has in months, turning her head to the side to muffle her whimpers in the blankets.
When her eyes flutter open she realizes he’s pulled back to watch her as he slows, eyes dark. “Fuck, Jill,” he says, gaze roaming from her face to where his hand is still between her legs, covered in her slick. “You’re so—” She waits for him to finish the thought, but he doesn’t, only kisses her again before he pulls his hand away, and then his fingers are in his mouth and he’s licking the taste of her off him and he moans, and her cunt clenches at the sound of it. She goes for his jeans, pushing them and his boxers down far enough that he’s forced to stop and remove them himself, and then it’s all skin against each other, close enough to share breaths, and when the head of his cock brushes against her clit she whines.
Chris groans her name again low in his throat as he reaches down to position himself, tip just breaching her. She shifts, trying to force him deeper, but he’s got his other hand on her hip, holding her down, and for a moment they just watch each other, breathing heavy. “Can I—?” He pauses, face red. “I mean—do you want me to—?”
“Yes.” Jill bites her lip hard as he pushes forward, sheathing himself almost entirely in her before she stops him with a hand against his shoulder. His concern is obvious, fingers grazing her cheek, but she just smiles, leans up to kiss him. She doesn’t want to admit how long it’s been—her only friends were her coworkers, and dating hadn’t seemed worth the time or effort since she moved here—but he seems to understand, thumb stroking her cheekbone. The sting of him filling her isn’t entirely unpleasant; she likes it, even, likes knowing it’s him there, but he'd never forgive himself if he thought he’d hurt her. So he stills, and they kiss, his tongue tracing her lower lip, until she sighs his name into his mouth, tilts her hips up to press closer to him.
His grip on her tightens as he retreats enough to meet her gaze, and she nods, wraps her legs around his waist. Even after the reassurance, he starts slow, more grinding than thrusting, but it’s enough to make her shudder against him, to rebuild the tension inside her. There’s no space between them, mouths brushing, bodies pressed together so that when he moves there’s a delicious pressure on her clit, and they’re both breathing shallow; she swears she hears her name in his quiet groans, but she doesn’t have much attention to devote to it, not when every press forward draws gasps from her own lips. It’s not long before she’s meeting his movements, impatient and uneven.
“More,” she whispers against his mouth, “please,” and the change is immediate; he withdraws almost completely before pushing back in hard, a strangled sound escaping her as their hips meet. Maybe she’s being overdramatic, maybe it’s just because it’s him and now, but she can’t remember it ever feeling like this, can’t remember a time when another body fit so seamlessly with her own. Her hands slide over him, seeking purchase on slick skin, nails leaving marks until he catches her fingers with his. He guides one of her hands down until it’s on her clit—she slips even lower for a moment, feels where he’s stretching her open, and it’s hard to breathe—and laces the fingers of the other with her own, like he had earlier. It’s different, though, now that they’ve crossed this final line, now that she’ll never be able to forget this.
She clutches his hand hard as her cunt tightens around him, the combination of his cock pressing that spot deep in her and her own fingers on her clit pulling a second orgasm from her that catches her off-guard, overcome as she’s been by everything else. She’s not loud, she’s never been loud, but her breaths come in short little gasps, soft sounds on the exhales, and it makes him groan too, the speed of his thrusts picking up. “Whe—fuck—where should I—?”
“Here,” she says, locking her legs around his waist, “right here,” and that’s a decision she’ll have to parse on her own time, because a few seconds later he stills, as close to her as he can get, fighting to keep his eyes open as he comes. The heat of it spilling inside her is overwhelming; she shifts her hips up and he moans again, low and deep. His lips press wherever he can reach—the hollow of her neck, up the side of her jaw and back down to her mouth, where he stays, only stopping so they can regulate their breathing. Her heart is so fast, and she wonders if he can hear it, if he can feel it in his own chest. He sighs her name as they part one final time, hand on her cheek; she turns her face to kiss his palm.
They’re silent for a moment. She hears sirens, the sounds of downtown traffic. She can’t bring herself to meet his eyes again, the fear of what they’ve done hitting her, closing her throat. She doesn’t want to lose him, she can’t lose him, but she can’t do this now either, not with Umbrella breathing down her neck, not when he’s already in enough danger without further associating with her. He notices her discomfort. He always notices. “You alright?” he asks, soothing and quiet, and she nods, not trusting herself to speak.
He pulls out, drawing a soft hum from her, and her eyes slip closed as she hears the bathroom door open and shut, the faucet turn on. After a minute, she lets her legs go slack, all too aware of how she’s laying the wrong way on the mattress, how thoroughly fucked she must look right now. How vulnerable. She wouldn’t even blame him for taking his clothes and leaving, avoiding the risk of spending even one more second with her—but the door opens again and the mattress dips with his weight. He coaxes her legs apart with a hand on her thigh, and she feels the roughness of a damp cloth against her, his movements gentle and slow. The corners of her mouth turn up.
“Such a gentleman,” she teases, keeping her eyes closed and drinking in his responding laugh. The rhythm of his strokes lulls her, the last of the tension leaching from her body. It was like this in the RPD locker room, his hands just as gentle against her wounds. Her chest tightens. When he stops she watches him toss the cloth into her empty laundry basket before he leans over her, slips a hand beneath her shoulder blades. She lets him move her until she’s facing the right way, head on the pillows as he pulls the thickest blanket over her. He pauses halfway under the covers himself. Her fingers curl tight around the fabric.
“Did I wake you up?”
She’s afraid of the answer, of the guilt already swirling in her chest, but she asks anyway, relieved when he shakes his head. “I was already up. That’s why I noticed. You didn’t scream or anything.” He glances over at the nightstand, at the blister packs and orange bottles covered in a thin layer of dust. The sky is beginning to lighten through the edges of the window. Those few hours are the best sleep she’s had in the past couple of weeks, though it’s still not enough. “Should I stay?” he asks.
She’s overwhelmed with the urge to say it, then, tell him how much this means to her. How terrified she is, at the same time, that she’s just made the biggest mistake of her life. But she doesn’t. She can’t draw him any further into the tangled mess of her life than he already is. “Should you?” She sighs, glances over at the tightly-drawn blinds. “No.”
He smiles a little, must see how she’s dodging the question, because that’s how it’s always been with them. “Do you want me to?”
It shouldn’t give her pause. It shouldn’t sway her, but the thought of him leaving her alone like this, naked and bone-deep tired, is a thought she doesn’t even want. Fuck, he’s only a couple feet away and already she misses the warmth of his body, how solid and reassuring he’d felt. How real, in a time when she’s doubting everything and everyone around her. He’s the only certain thing she has left. And it wouldn’t kill them if he stayed for one night. The people watching her already know about his involvement—that’s what she tells herself, at least, as she lets go of the blanket and reaches over to lace her fingers with his. “Yeah.”