#reader is a former Umbrella Scientist

[wil-o-wispy]

The Wife, the Lover and the Bastard Son - Part 5

Pairing: Chris Redfield x FEM!Reader

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 (You are here)

Summary: The more hours that pass, the closer he is to finding you.

Content: Canon typical violence/swearing, descriptions of blood, more reader lore drops, references to RE5, brief mentions of vomiting from seasickness, mostly next chapter setup but there's some juiciness in here, brief description of banging a head against a wall. Reader is referred to as 'Doc' and is the wife of (dead?) Albert Wesker and is a former Umbrella scientist.

a/n: That took longer than I thought but here it is. Once again, I appreciate you and thank you for reading!

w/c: 9.4k

It felt like you were running for an eternity after you witnessed Albert breaking out of his experimental confines. You didn’t look back. You didn’t have a plan. You didn’t even think on where to go next. Your only goal was to get as far away from Albert as physically possible.

Years of suppressed trauma from the day Albert died rears its ugly head and everything floods back to you in one overwhelming emotional wave that feeds your adrenaline and keeps your feet moving one in front of the other. Fear. Confusion. Anger. Devastation. Fear. You keep having to wipe away the tears that won’t stop leaking out of your eyes, trying in vain to keep your vision clear as you blindly wind your way through the facility.

But adrenaline highs eventually run out even if paralyzing fear is still present.

Your legs cramp. Your lungs scream for something more than just short puffs of air. Your heart works overtime from the strain of the situation and beats so fast it hurts and black dots the edges of your vision. Blood pumps through your veins so quickly that you can hear it in your ears so you can’t focus on anything else.

The moment you need to place your hand on the wall to keep yourself from collapsing is the second you decide to open whatever door is closest and hide out in whatever room is on the other side of it.

You’ve managed to run from the inner sanctum of the new lab all the way to an older, non-refurbished part. Is this the old lab? What used to be part of the military base? You can’t tell and you don’t care. You push open the door and sink to the floor as soon as you shut it again, trying to gulp some air into your lungs so you don’t keel over and pass out. As you try to slow down your breathing and collect yourself, only one thought is going through your mind.

This isn’t fucking happening he’s supposed to be dead.

There’s a sound that makes you jolt upright and whip your head to the edge of the room.

Whoever was here previously left in a hurry. There are loose DVD’s, clear DVD cases, and cases with DVD’s still in them scattered all over the desk in the back while a projector idly flickers against a white screen against the adjacent wall. The noise is coming from behind the projector.

You cautiously get up from the floor and make your way over to it, still wobbly on your feet but able to keep yourself from toppling over and discover the source of the whirring: a DVD player. The disk holder is trying to retract into the machine, but the machine is askew and miscellaneous office junk is preventing it from closing properly. There’s a date written in Sharpie on the disk: March 19, 2006. The day Albert died.

A note with an official looking letterhead sits next to the machine, partially crumpled up. You pick it up, unfold it, and read its contents.

RE: Wesker Collection: Africa Tanker July 2002 – March 2006.

To Our Most Esteemed Client,

We thank you for entrusting us with this extensive recovery project involving the late Albert Wesker and his surviving wife. It has truly been an honor to observe the infamous scientist in his private life while carrying out these services.

We are happy to report that 93% of the recovered footage provided from the Africa tanker was able to be upgraded to your UHD specifications, as well as remove the most glaring audio anomalies for improved sound quality. Please see the attached inventory sheet for a full breakdown. The full transcripts will become available in the coming weeks as previously discussed.

I would humbly encourage you to reconsider my suggestion regarding upgrading the remaining footage archive. There is much to be learned from his methods in creating the Uroboros virus as well as advancing the gestation of the Plaga parasite. Should you change your mind, we would be elated to welcome you back as a client.

You feel a gentle numbness come over you as you read the note. The DVD player whirs again. Your eyes flick over to it. You absentmindedly put down the paper, reposition the DVD player so it sits properly, and move the junk that’s preventing the disk compartment from closing. The little door finally closes with a soft tapping noise, and the DVD inside it whirs until it emits a soft hum.

The image flickers to life on the projector and you feel a lump in your throat. You recognize the room. It’s CCTV footage a captain’s quarters space with a metal chair in the center with straps to constrain an unlucky subject to it at the wrists, arms, and chest. On the screen, two distant voices outside the room are arguing: a man and a woman. As the voices get closer to the room, you recognize the sound of your own voice even before Albert kicks the door open and drags you into the room by your forearm while you struggle in vain against his grip.

“I’m not like you!” You retort defiantly.

“But you are my dear, in more ways than you care to admit.” Albert replies, clearly getting impatient with how you’re acting.

“Like hell I am! Statistically, I’m gonna end up like any other one of your test subjects!”

“Don’t you dare compare yourself to those weaklings!” Albert spits, incensed at your response and abruptly forcing you in front of him so his angered expression is up close to your nervous one. Albert breathes heavily for a moment, then speaks in a colder, more pragmatic tone that is expected of him.

“You will evolve beyond your limits, and you will thank me for it.”

You watch Albert force you into the chair despite your continued protests. You watch as he straps your wrists to the arms of the chair and your torso to the back of it so quickly that the video appears to buffer on Albert’s main movements while you fail to struggle against him. You know it’s not the video. He was just that fast. You continue to struggle even after Albert takes a step back with an angered look.

“I have a rendezvous with an old colleague that I can’t afford to miss, but when I return-” You watch Albert roughly grasp your chin and turn your face to look up at him and you freeze. Albert’s voice turns into a deadly, low tone.

“I want a satisfactory answer out of you.”

After staring you down for a moment, he releases your chin and walks to the door, intending to close it. You watch him go with a defeated look.

“Please don’t do this.” You beg with a small voice.

You see Albert pause at the door and sigh with his back to the camera. He doesn’t turn to look at you. “It’s happening with or without your participation my dear. I suggest you be in good company when my New World emerges from the embers of humanity.”

Albert slams the door and you jump in your seat. A lock engages, then heavy footsteps quickly get further and further away. Once it’s quiet again, you immediately resume your attempts to wiggle out of the chair.

With no warning, the footage erupts into pixelated static, a slideshow of random frames you can barely make out, then it finally cuts to you later, still strapped to the chair in that room, and screaming at the top of your lungs.

“HELLO? I’M IN HERE! GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THIS THING!” Your voice is strained from shouting and thick from crying. You remember the ship rocking from side to side so precariously that you thought it was going to flip over and you’d drown in that room. There’s methodical, forceful banging on the door and you can see it straining from the force of your rescuers on the other side of it.

In the real world, you hear heavy footsteps stomping towards the room you’re in and you’re suddenly very aware of how loud the projector is. Whoever heard already knows you’re here, so you just grab the closest thing to a weapon you see, which happens to be a stapler, and crawl under the desk and pull your knees to your chest. All the while, you hear yourself keep screaming for help on the projector.

A moment later, the door to the projector room flies open with so much force that you hear it slam against the wall followed by quick and heavy footsteps rushing into the room.

At the same time on the screen, you hear the door to that room finally break open, and Chris’ words trying to comfort you as Sheva and him undo your binds. Their chorus of ‘It’s okay’s’ and ‘you’re alright’s’ are ignored by you, and you get straight to business as usual, albeit with a rattled voice.

“What was that? Why was everything shaking?”

You can’t see the screen, but you know Sheva and Chris are looking at each other. Sheva finally answers.

“Excella was rejected by Uroboros.”

You’re silent for a moment on the projector. “… I tried to warn her.”

You hear yourself struggling to get to your feet, your seasickness coming back at full force as you struggle to walk in a straight line and you hear Chris grab your arm to steady you.

“Careful!” Chris says with a worried tone.

“Forget about me! We have to hurry we’re running out of time!” Your voice is strained like you’re about to vomit and you hear yourself quickly stumble out of the room while Chris and Sheva hurry after you.

The three sets of voices retreat from the room on the screen and the projector grows silent.

In the newfound silence of the room, you realize your breathing is much too loud so you cover your mouth to silence yourself.

But it’s too late for that.

You hear the footsteps stealthily approach closer.

And closer.

And closer.

You sense the presence stop right outside of your range of vision under the desk.

Albert found you. This is the end.

You yelp in surprise and raise the stapler to bludgeon whatever just discovered your hiding spot, but you freeze like a deer in headlights when you see Jake with his pistol raised.

For a moment, he just stares at you while you try in vain to steady your staccato breathing. You know you look like a mess. Tears streak your terrified face, hair sticks out in every direction, and most notably, there are blood splatters that stain your clothes.

“Doc? Jesus what happened to you?”

Jake holsters his gun and brushes your arms out of the way. He looks closely at your clothes, looking for entry points for injuries.

“It okay it’s… it’s not mine. I-I just can’t get a grip.” Your voice is hoarse and strained. No matter how hard you try you can’t seem to slow your breathing enough to even think about calming down.

Jake stops looking for injuries and directs his icy gaze to your tearful expression. “What happened?”

“He’s-” You take in a deep and shaky breath, “-he’s alive b-but he’s… he’s not himself and I… I don’t know if that’s better or worse-”

“Doc. Take a breath. Who’s alive?” Jake is trying to be the voice of reason in your panicked state, but his tone has an edge of seriousness to it.

“Wesker! These people excavated his fucking corpse and decided it was a genius idea to reanimate him. That director guy took me to the chamber, then he woke up and there was carnage when he heard my voice and… and…I can’t… I can’t do this again Jake!”

You slam down the stapler onto the ground and you put your head in your hands trying to get some sense of comfort. You mumble in your hands, still not wanting to believe your new set of circumstances.

“Why do people keep doing this? This kind of shit never ends well. You’d think people would learn but they just don’t.”

It never ends. People will always think they’re smarter than their predecessors.

Your head is pounding behind your eyes so you move a few fingers to pinch the bridge of your nose for some relief.

“What do you mean?”

You blink. Your hands retreat from your face and your eyes slowly move to Jake’s. “What?”

“You said you couldn’t do this again, what do you mean?”

Right. You did say that. You take a deep breath and finally muster up enough composure to answer.

“I… it’s a long story but to make it brief, I was the one who blew the whistle on the Uroboros project.”

Jake’s serious expression doesn’t change. You look at your hands.

“I finally realized how apocalyptic the project really was and I needed to tell someone. By a stroke of dumb luck I managed to get a B.S.A.A. radio and alert the African division.”

You feel your eyes growing hot again and you blink away the heat.

“Two agents were able to get to me about two weeks later and I told them how to kill him.”

You take another deep breath and continue.

“I told you earlier he needed regular doses of the virus to keep it stable. I knew that giving him too much would cause adverse effects. Or at least slow him down enough so the B.S.A.A. could put him down.”

You swallow the lump in your throat.

“So I showed them where he kept the extra doses. And then I showed them where the virus warheads were.”

You close your eyes and lean your head back against the underside of the desk. Jake doesn’t need to know the rest. He doesn’t need to know that Chris noticed how sickly and scared you were and put his hand on your shoulder to comfort you. He doesn’t need to know that Albert saw his nemesis touching his wife and was seething with barely contained rage because of it. He doesn’t need to know how your heart got caught in your throat when you felt Albert’s inhumanly strong arms wrap around your waist, your body move dizzyingly fast, and before you realized what had even happened, he had your back to his chest and his hand wrapped menacingly tight around your throat as he growled in your ear.

“It’s in your best interest to listen to me dearheart. We wouldn’t want any accidents to happen in front of our guests, would we?”

Jake doesn’t need to know that everything in your body betrayed you at that moment. You should have screamed, you should have thrashed, you should have done quite literally anything to try to escape his grip as futile as it would have been. But you didn’t. Jake doesn’t need to know that you’d seen Albert angry a handful of times but this was the first time you felt that he could actually kill you for going against his wishes. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if he knew it was a thinly veiled threat at best, but it was more than enough to rob you of your voice, freeze in place, and cause tears to prick at the corners of your eyes, just like today.

You don’t tell Jake any of this, but he seems to understand the subtext of your words perfectly anyway. When you feel confident you’re not going to burst into tears again, you look back at Jake.

“Albert saw. He knows what I did. He’s going to kill me for betraying him.”

Silence weighs over the two of you like a thick fog, choking any semblance of hope in the haze of reality.  You sit there wallowing in the harsh reality of your words. You knew in your soul that it was the truth, but it feels so much more real when you hypothesize Albert’s intentions with you out loud. Jake is silent, the wheels turning in his head on what he should say.

“That was a long time ago you can’t know that for sure.”

“He’s not the forgiving type, Jake. He never was.”

You hear a distant clang, and something you could have sworn was a monstrous roar from the direction of where you last saw Albert outside of the room. You freeze. Jake glances outside of your hiding place, then back to you, now aware of how distressed you actually are. Jake holds out his hand to you. He gestures you to come out.

“C’mon. I found someplace safe we can hide out for a while.” He whispers in a confident tone.

You don’t look at him. Your eyes are trained on the open door to the room.

Would Albert inject you with a virus first? Terrorize you? Gloat? Kill you outright?

“Doc, we have to go. You can’t stay here, it’s not secure.”

The ‘not secure’ comment breaks through to you, and you turn your head away from the hallway to nod up at Jake. You let him help you to your feet.

It takes much longer than you would have liked to get to the safe place even though it’s only a few hallways past the room you ran into. You freeze at nearly every distant noise, but Jake is surprisingly patient with you. He gives you incentivizing but firm words to keep your feet moving, occasionally putting his hand on your back to encourage you to keep going.

The ‘safe room’ ends up being a hybrid communications room. One part is dedicated to running the security cameras with over a dozen different monitors flickering to different parts of the facility with an intercom system attached to it. Another computer system close by it has a complex-looking computer system with a microphone attached to it. Yet another part is made up of a large console for computers and a hodgepodge conglomerate of tech for listening to and watching different sorts of media, some storage boxes, as well as a professional assortment of radio equipment. Jake sees your eyes light up upon seeing the radio setup, then shakes his head with a serious expression.

“Don’t get your hopes up yet. It’s busted.”

Your shoulders slump.

“… great.” You utter quietly. You drag your feet over to a table overflowing with scattered papers, a pair of headphones and a personal computer on it, and slump into a chair.

“Hey, we’re not out of options yet. We’ve still got this thing.” Jake says optimistically, lightly smacking his hand on the control panel of the large computer system with the microphone. “All it needs is a key card with enough clearance.”

You sigh, wanting the computer route to work out but also trying not to get too invested in the idea if it doesn’t. “Try this.” You mutter, pulling out Youju’s white keycard and holding it out to Jake. The blood on it has dried to a sickly brown color and has a faint coppery smell. Jake takes it with an eyebrow raised.

You shrug. “It was Youju’s. He won’t miss it.”

“…. I’m sure he won’t. Give me a couple minutes.”

Jake heads over to the computer and you hold your head in your hands, leaning over the table on your elbows trying to process everything that’s just happened.

Albert’s alive.

You destroyed the only Uroboros sample on this godforsaken island.

You’re willing to bet the military part of the facility isn’t stocked up on a convenient rocket launcher to get you out of this mess.

You aren’t one to wallow in self-pity but given the unthinkable circumstances, you can’t help but feel like you’ve already been backed into a corner that you have no hope of escaping.

You take another deep breath and stare absentmindedly at the papers on the table. You weren’t particularly looking for anything, but you can’t help but notice the format of the documents in front of you. All of them are audio transcripts. One of them catches your eye with its title in bold letters at the top of the page. The heading reads WESKER/GIONNE UROBOROS MEETING– JANUARY 18, 2006. A few inches below it, there’s a handwritten note in the right margin: No good. Audio too distorted and she doesn’t say anything we can use. Positive depictions of the wife only.

Positive depictions of you only? That piques your interest.

You think back to what Youju said before you woke Albert up. We’ve tried recordings of your voice and they’ve yielded positive results but not the ones we’re looking for.

You turn your attention to the computer, then eye the headphones. You dig for the mouse under the mountain of papers and wiggle it when you finally find it. The computer monitor hums to life, already logged in. On the screen, there’s a video file already pulled up of the meeting.

Out of curiosity, you put on the headphones and hit play. As the audio recording runs, you alternate between looking at the transcript and watching the footage.

The footage plays and you see a board room with a presentation on a projector. The angle is from above the projector so you can’t see what’s on the screen, but you have a good view of you and Albert sitting on opposite sides of a conference table with a cloaked figure standing not too far from you.

Jill. She deserved a better chance than you to rescue her from hell.

You recognize Excella’s thick Italian accent before you can even see her come into view. You can’t really hear everything Excella is saying due to her being in such close proximity to the camera microphone, but you recognize choice words throughout her presentation.

Tanker.

Uroboros.

Transport.

Warheads.

You remember this presentation. Excella was talking about transport protocols for Uroboros leading up to the actual virus release. Albert insisted on your attendance. While you never gave verbal feedback on his experiments at this time, you eventually figured out that Albert would carefully watch your facial expressions and body language to get your thoughts instead. You perfected your stone-faced expression out of necessity in not accidentally contributing to his plans. You watch yourself paying rapt attention. You have to give yourself credit, your poker face looks good here even though you know you were scared out of your mind. It was finally sinking into your head that the world would end if you didn’t do something to intervene.

While you’re lost in your thoughts, Excella finally finishes her speech and sultrily saunters behind Albert’s chair. Now that Excella is farther away from the microphone, it’s picking up the rest of the audio in the room much better. Even so, the audio still sounds grainy.

“Albert?” Excella croons, putting her hands on Albert’s shoulders and lightly rubbing them. She leans down close to his ear.

“Do you have any contributing thoughts?”

Albert doesn’t even look at Excella. Instead, his sunglasses adorned face turns to you sitting across the table. “I’d like to hear what my wife thinks of this contingency plan of yours.”

Excella’s mouth morphs into a thin line and she straightens her posture, not happy about that request but not saying anything to refute it. She puts on a fake smile but doesn’t take her hands off of Albert’s shoulders. “Of course.”

You don’t look at him. You only stare blankly at the presentation on the projector. You can’t tell from your body language, but you know that in this moment you were already thinking of ways to combat the Uroboros plan. But you also knew that voicing your honest thoughts would throw a wrench in any plan you would make in the future.

“Excella has already outlined the important details and caveats. I have nothing else to add.” You reply politely. Even through the slight graininess of the footage, your stiff posture and unwillingness to look in Albert and Excella’s direction are very noticeable.

Albert grunts with a nearly imperceptible frown, not satisfied with the answer. Or with the fact that you’re refusing to look in his direction. “Very well, but I still want your thoughts on the project.”

“You already have the project in good hands. End of thought.” You finally turn your head away from the screen and gesture to Excella with a neutral expression.

You knew that Excella wanted Albert, but you were almost certain that he didn’t want her. He only mentioned her in passing in whatever limited conversation he had with you, but there was always an underlying message in his choice of words that he thought she was beneath him. A pretty face with brains, a bankroll and resources behind it, but too caught up in wanting to be recognized as a legitimate member of her prestigious family and not having enough self-awareness to know she was in partnership with a viper in the grass that would discard her when it became convenient. You were almost certain because even though you knew this, he never pushed her off or rejected her advances in front of you.

“I feel tired. I’m turning in early.” You get up from your seat and briskly walk to the door.

It would have been easy to miss if you didn’t know Albert’s mannerisms so well, but you see him let out a sharp breath through his nose. He’s miffed by your response. He knew you were growing more distant by the day. He knew you didn’t like his plan. He knew you were slipping through his fingers like grains of sand that he methodically kept trying to contain by constricting his grip even more heavy handedly than he did before.

Any other interaction like this behind closed doors would have progressed to him subtly forcing his proximity to you; following you out like a suffocating shadow and pulling your attention to any mundane conversation that would ultimately lead to him explaining himself with yet another angle that didn’t justify his end goals in the slightest with the intention of you at least understanding why he thought this was the only viable course of action. Saving the known world is an admirable adventure in a number of epics old and new. But saving the world by starting anew? A new world with superhumans could never be justified by sacrificing billions of lives.

On any other day he would have followed you.

Instead, Albert is forced to save face in front of his suffocating business partner.

“Escort her to the suite.” Albert orders the cloaked figure, which follows you right on your heels. His tone is short. Controlled.

As soon as the door shuts behind you, Albert raises from his seat and shrugs off Excella’s wandering hands. Excella has an annoyed look on her face for a moment, but quickly covers it up with an alluring smile.

“You hear that, Albert? The project is in good hands.”

Albert doesn’t even bother to look at her. He only prowls to the front of the projector clasps his hands behind his back. A map of South Africa is reflected in his sunglasses. “Then ensure it stays that way. I won’t tolerate any further delays or incompetence,” Albert replies in a cold tone.

The video ends.

You pull off the headphones with a scowl on your face. The son of a bitch was trying to make you jealous on purpose.

Despite your annoyance, your eyes keep drifting back to the note in the margin. Positive depictions only.

If this one was rejected, then what do the accepted ones have you saying?

You begin looking more closely at the scattered papers.

It appears that Neo Umbrella was only working from security footage that was obtained from the Africa tanker. It’s not surprising they weren’t able to find a lot of usable audio from you. You were falling out of love and didn’t have a lot of sweet things to say to your husband. Even with that in mind, you’re surprised at how little they were able to scrape together with the gargantuan amount of media they had to work with. You knew Albert liked his cameras, but you didn’t know he kept footage of you that was this extensive.

From what you can see from the transcripts, the only ‘useful’ audio was you calling Albert one of the few pet names he liked hearing; dear, darling and love, sometimes with a ‘my’ thrown in there. Albert insisted that other terms of endearment sounded too casual, although in the early days of your marriage you’d call him increasingly ridiculous nicknames until he’d put you in your place in a way that left you both shaking and satisfied. There was a time where he liked it when you challenged him. Not just on the domestic front, but in the Umbrella labs. You weren’t afraid to tell him he was wrong or that there were more efficient methods of doing things. Sometimes you were right. Other times, Albert proved you wrong. Even with the latter, Albert would always at least listen to your input since he saw you as someone who was worth listening to.

Among the other transcripts, strangely enough, there was a fifteen page document of you reading plaga laboratory results to Albert. This was a routine occurrence. It wasn’t uncommon for Albert to ask you to read things like that aloud to help him think or as a way to review previously explored experiments before diving into new ones. It was a small ask in your eyes and it was a good way to stay informed on what Albert was doing, so you didn’t object unless you felt too seasick. What surprised you was how positive the margin notes were: Yes! She sounds interested and engaged. Find more of this to put in the rotation.

Talk about desperate for something other than curt politeness and apathy when talking to your husband. Nearly every other transcript has less satisfactory notes:

Wife too combative. Exclude from rotation.

She sounds too demanding. Discard.

This one has Gionne talking over the wife. EXCLUDE the audio if Gionne is present in future selections.

Too disinterested, but keep on file just in case.

They’re fighting again in this one. Do not use.

Can’t you read? Wesker clearly didn’t respect Gionne stop giving the lab team audio of her flirting with him.

“Doc, we’re in business!” Jake’s victorious exclamation pulls you out of your investigation.

You whip your head over to the monitor Jake was working on and to your delighted surprise, instead of the Neo Umbrella logo, you see a landing page with a number pad.

“What does it need? Radio frequency? Phone number?” You ask intensely, shooting up from your chair and standing behind his to look at the screen.

“Phone number unfortunately. The radio stuff is out as well.”

You blink, unsure why he made that sound like a problem. “Do you not have number you can call in your phone? Like your captain?”

Jake’s facial expression turns something close to sheepish.

“I lost it. Let’s keep it at that.”

You look at him blankly. Do people these days not memorize important numbers like that?

“… I know who we can call.” You mutter, shooing Jake out of the seat so you can type it in and speak easily into the microphone. You’re not sure if he’ll pick up, but he’s your best bet.

For a moment, you hold your breath hearing the dial tone come in over the speakers. Is he on a mission? Asleep halfway around the world? Stuck in a never-ending cycle of training exercises?

A gruff, annoyed voice that makes you weak at the knees finally answers on the last ring. A crowd of voices can be heard in the background. “Hello? You’ve reached Captain Redfield.”

“Chris, it’s Doc.” You breathe a sigh of relief. Even though it’s just Chris’ voice, you already feel a little better knowing rescue will imminently be on its way.

“Doc?” Chris’ tone immediately shifts to a relieved one as sounds of rummaging erupt on his end of the call. “Are you alright? Do you know where you are?”

“Well��� debatable considering the circumstances and somewhere in the Pacific. Jake Muller has more info on that.”

The rummaging abruptly stops. “Wait, Jake’s with you?”

“Right here Redfield.” Jake says nonchalantly. However, you notice a sliver of something in his tone but you can’t place what it is. You have a feeling Jake isn’t on the best terms with Chris considering his role in Wesker’s death at the mansion. Second death at the Spencer Estate? Third death in the volcano? Does the third one even count at this point?

“Yep. We’ve already been introduced. He’s got an interesting history with the B.S.A.A. I’m shocked we weren’t introduced sooner since we’re both consulting.” There’s an underlying message of I know who Jake is and you’ve got some damn explaining to do in your words, but now is not the time to read Chris the riot act.

You hear Chris sigh on the other end of the line. “Well Doc I tried calling, but you’re a hard woman to reach.” Chris doesn’t sound accusatory. Just… stung. You feel your face heat up at that. You had been dodging his calls ever since that intimate moment in your kitchen a year ago. However, any guilt you feel is overshadowed by frustration in not being informed about Jake until today.

“You could have given me a little context and I would have made the time.” You reply through your teeth. Jake gives you a weird look as you’re leading this exchange. He silently points between the microphone and you, then holds his hand up in a ‘what’s that about’ gesture. You mouth back ‘long story’ as Chris ignores your comment starts addressing Jake. “Jake, your orders were to find the location of the G-sample.”

“I’ve done that boyscout.”

You hear Chris huff in annoyance. “Your orders were to find the location of the sample and not leave the mainland.”

“Well… when opportunity arises, I take it.”

“Do you have it?”

“… still workin’ on that.” Jake replies with a sour expression. You jump in.

“Chris, we’ve got bigger problems than the sample. Albert’s alive.” The words feel wrong coming out of your mouth, but you have to let any personnel know what danger is waiting for them.

Silence. Even the hum of the people in the background grows quiet. For a moment, you’re worried the call may have dropped from the old machinery.

“Did you hear me? Say something.”

“Heard you loud and clear. What’s his status compared to when we saw him last?” Besides sounding more serious, Chris doesn’t even seem phased. He’s in soldier mode: Know the enemy. Come up with a plan. Rescue the hostages.

“Physically, very similar to your encounter with him in the volcano. Mentally… he’s different I don’t really know how to explain it.” You try to put on a brave face, but even without seeing you Chris picks up on your current vulnerability.

“That’s alright. The important thing is that you’re safe and you stay safe. Are you two able to hole up somewhere until we arrive?”

“Well… we have a safe place for now. And how long’s that gonna be?”

“Depends on your location. Jake, do you have any coordinates?”

Jake responds with a latitude and a longitude. You hear talking on the other end of the line, then you hear something that has to be a curse from Chris before he finally gives you an answer.

“Seven hours, give or take.”

You sigh. That’s too long but you can’t shorten the length of the ocean, so you accept it. “Okay. Just operate off the assumption that he’s going to be hard to put down. Use flame-based ammunition, magnums, rocket launchers, and anything else you got that packs a punch.”

“I’ll pass that along. Keep this line open, I’ll be back. Don’t hang up.”

“Roger that. We’ll be here.”

You mute the microphone and lean back in your chair with a tired sigh. Jake gives you a pointed look.

“You have Golden Boy’s number memorized, but you talk to each other like that?”

You give Jake an annoyed look. “Not important right now! We have bigger problems.”

You get up from your seat to pace the room. You need to come up with a plan. “As of right now, we have absolutely nothing in terms of defense.”

Jake leans against the computer system with his arms crossed and watches you. “Not exactly. There’s too many gas masked bozos walking around here for there not to be an armory somewhere.”

You look at Jake, exasperated. “Machine guns and pistols aren’t going to make a big enough dent. There were five guards unloading everything they had on Albert in the chamber, and it didn’t even phase him. You’d need something stronger. A lot stronger.”

“Well maybe they have some heavy-duty stuff stashed away for emergencies. Point is, we won’t know unless I go out and look.” Jake pushes himself away from the monitor and starts to walk towards the door but you stand in front of him before he can get too far.

“You’ll be a sitting duck out there!” You chastise, ready to put what remains of your fighting spirit to convince Jake not to walk straight into the maw of the beast, but your facial expression shifts to a haunted look when something on the security system catches your eye.

One the center console, a hulking figure that makes your blood turn to ice comes into view. You see the black, elongated, tendril engulfed arm grasp the corner of a hallway before the rest of Albert’s body comes into view. The blood of all the unfortunate scientists is splattered across his face and chest. His red eyes are very clearly dilated, and he has an uncharacteristically wide grin on his face.

Jake notices your expression and looks behind him. Jakes expression and tone turn cold and serious.

“That him?”

You nod, unable to tear your eyes from the screen. You walk toward the console as if you’re in a trance and sit in the chair in front of it. Like driving by a car accident, can’t take your eyes off of the disaster that Youju insisted on causing. You see Albert’s lips move, but nothing is heard.

“Does this thing have audio?” You mutter the question to yourself more than anything, but Jake is quick to come to your side and flip on a switch on the control panel. Albert’s voice, somewhat morphed from the audio system, is heard loud and clear.

“My looooove? Where did you go lovely? We have so much time to make up for…”

Albert speaks in that same ‘off’ tone from before; direct and garbled. However, now it has a… singsong quality to it? Your fear is momentarily replaced with confusion. Jake glances at you, then back to the screen just as confused as you are. This is his infamous father?

“Did he… talk like that?” Jake asks, watching the screen along with you.

You keep watching the screen with a befuddled look on your face. “Absolutely not. The lava, or whatever Youju’s team tried to do to wake him up before today fried his brain or something. It’s a complete personality shift.”

You and Jake continue to watch Albert on the screen as he leans against the wall walking down the length of the hallway, leaving a trail of black gunk dripping down the pristine paneling along where he’s touched in his wake. When Albert’s in the center of the hallway, his posture grows rigid and he stops walking. His unengulfed arm attempts to reach behind him in the center of his shoulder blades in jagged movements. After a couple seconds, Albert’s body twitches again and the free arm drops back down to his side and he keeps calling out to you and continues his journey down the hallway.

You lean forward closer to the monitor that Albert was on.

“Wait… he was clawing at something on his back.”

Jake nods and pauses the footage. Then rewinds. As you saw before, Albert stops sauntering down the hallway and jerkily tries to reach behind his shoulder to something on his back. It’s easy to miss with all the black Uroboros tendrils overtaking his upper body, but there’s clearly a circular device between his shoulder blades.

“You’re right. What is that thing?”

You tilt your head and squint, recognizing the shape but confused as to why it’s there. “It’s hard to tell from the angle, but it looks like a regulator.”

“Regulator? For what?”

You shake your head, still confused. “Nothing Uroboros related.”

“Then why is it there?”

You don’t have an answer. You sit back in the chair and keep looking at the regulator in the center of the screen. “Before Albert woke up… Youju said all avenues of breaking his comatose state had been exhausted,” you think out loud.

The gears in your head are turning. Once solitary threads of thought gradually intertwine to form a loose weave until they tighten into a tapestry revealing the answer. The sample room. The audio recordings of your voice. His comatose state. Him acting much gentler with you than he ever was when you knew him. The regulator.

You sit up in your chair so quickly that it startles Jake, but you’re too caught up in your revelation to care. “Neo Umbrella gave him a parasite!” You exclaim excitedly, turning towards Jake. “We can use that.” You don’t wait for Jake to reply, you’re already up and out of the chair looking for some kind of map.

Jake looks at you blankly, not following your thinking. “A parasite? And that’s a good thing?”

“I think I know what Youju meant! There is no reason for them to have that extensive of a virus collection unless they were using it for something. I bet they tried injecting Albert with a bunch of viruses to see if they could wake him up. When that didn’t work they turned to parasites.”

A map of this floor of the facility hangs on the wall from haphazardly placed yellow tape next to the door. Your smile grows bigger and movements more animated the longer you explain your thought process as you grab the map off the wall. You turn back to Jake.

“But not just any parasite. The Nemesis parasite.”

Jake is still confused, not knowing what that means so you continue, walking back to the announcement system and putting the map on the console.

“Back when Umbrella was making Tyrants, big beefy bioweapons that were designed to be soldiers, they were impressive physically, but had limited brain function as a result of the T-Virus so they could only follow simple commands and they couldn’t talk. ‘Kill everyone you see,’ ‘guard this thing,’ you get the idea. They were trying to find a way to make them a bit smarter. They’d hit a dead end with viruses, so they added engineered parasites to Tyrants.”

You pause to make sure Jake is still paying attention. He is, but he still has a look that says, ‘how is this relevant?’ so you keep going, taking a pen from the table and trying to find the locations of the cameras to mark them on the map.

“The Nemesis still had limited brain function, but he could say a few words and it could carry out detailed commands and use weapons. ‘Kill these specific people, use this rocket launcher’ etcetera etcetera. But there was still a high risk of over mutation when the parasite was inserted, so they smacked on a regulator to help mitigate that.”

Jake blinks, still not understanding. “So?”

“So if they gave Albert the parasite, that means he’s going to be much more susceptible to taking orders from me.”

“From you? Weren’t you worried about him killing you earlier? Why would he take orders from you?”

“Like… the parasite has been told for however long it’s been in there to wake up because its wife is here. It’s only been given carefully curated audio snippets of my voice, so it’s forced to view me as a positive… figurehead in Albert’s life.” You point to the transcripts on the table, trying to make Jake see your point before turning your attention back to him.

“He told me he missed me, Jake. I’m willing to bet if I use that announcement system, I can lead him anywhere the system is-”

“-and give me a window to slip in and get the sample and some supplies.” Jake finishes with a serious expression.

“And if everything goes right, we just might hold out until reinforcements get here.” You’re smiling, still riding the adrenaline high from finally figuring out the bigger picture of what’s going on.

Jake crosses his arms and stares at the monitor with Albert still on it. “It’s a crazy plan Doc.”

Your face falls and you’re about to try and plead your case, but Jake smirks before you can answer.

“I’m in.”

_____________________________________________________

“Albert? Where are you darling? I can’t find you.”

You croon into the microphone and watch Albert, yet again, jerk his head towards the hallway you just projected your voice to and use his Uroboros arm to drag himself along the wall in the direction of your voice.

On the walkie talkie Jake scrounged up from the storage boxes that were by the broken radio equipment before he left, Jake provides an update on his search for better weapons plus the G-Sample.

“216 through 245 are bust. It’s just storage.”

“Copy that.”

You respond on your walkie talkie, marking off and labeling the relevant rooms on your map and watching Jake continue to navigate through the labyrinthine facility on the cameras.

Considering the circumstances, everything has been going well in the half hour Jake has been gone. Albert, in his limited mental capacity, hasn’t caught on to the fact you’re talking to him through the announcement system. Plus, Jake is making good time going through each hallway in the facility thanks to Youju’s white keycard.

 Chris’ professional voice from the computer system breaks your concentration.

“Doc? Jake? You there?”

You close your eyes and take a breath. You were hoping that the universe would be merciful, and the connection would drop so you’d have a valid reason not to talk to Chris.

You weren’t so lucky, so you check the cameras one more time to ensure that Albert and Jake aren’t going to cross paths, then roll your chair over to the microphone on the other module. You flick off the mute button.

“You’ve got Doc. Any updates?”

“We’ve got an army of guys on their way to your location. Time of arrival is estimated at seven hours.”

You feel your shoulders visibly relax. Rescue is on the way.

“That’s great news.” You mutter.

“Is Jake around?”

For a second, you think about lying so he doesn’t know you’re alone. Nothing convincing comes to mind. “No. He stepped out to get supplies. I can pass along a message on his walkie though?”

“That’s alright.”

Awkward silence.

“How’s working in Germany?” Chris sounds less professional this time.

You sigh and close your eyes. “I don’t think this is the best time for small talk.”

“Just making conversation. We’ve got time. I want to know how you’re liking it.” Chris says. You can hear the slight smile in his voice. The genuine nature of his words.

You always had a weakness for his kindness. He had a way of worming himself into your good graces without even trying.

“It’s good. The people are great. I miss having reliable air conditioning though.” You joke.

You hear Chris chuckle. “Yeah, the Europeans aren’t big on that kind of thing.”

Despite everything, you find yourself smiling. As much as you hate to admit it to yourself, you missed his laugh. How easy it is to talk to him.

“What about you? How’s Claire doing?” You ask.

“She’s still helping the world in her own way with TerraSave. She’s also been breathing down my neck about cutting back on smoking.”

“I’m sure you don’t mind that. If she’s breathing down your neck, that means she’s visiting.”

Another chuckle that makes butterflies erupt in your stomach sounds over the speaker. “If she were doing it in person, I don’t think I’d mind so much.”

Both of you sit in comfortable silence.

“I’ve missed seeing you around, but I’m glad you’re doing alright.” Chris says, vulnerability underlying his words.

Your throat gets tight, and you bite back the words before you can say them.

Don’t tell him you miss him too. It will make him feel worse.

Luck is on your side this time. Jake’s voice emanates from the walkie talkie in your lap.

“Doc? I need eyes on something.”

You let out a sigh of relief, then speak to Chris through the microphone. “Jake’s calling. I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here.”

You mute yourself on the microphone and wheel yourself back over to the security system.

“I’m here. What do you need?”

“Can I get your professional opinion on what’s happening in front of 250?”

Your eyebrows scrunch in confusion, but you pull up the necessary camera to see what Jake is talking about. All you can do is stare for a moment at the grim sight. Most of the lens is obstructed by a black substance, but even with the limited visibility you know it’s the personnel and guards that were unlucky enough to be in Albert’s way when he escaped containment. Black gunk saturates the walls and ground that you’re able to see.

You force yourself to respond.

“Part of the lens is blocked, but those are casualties of Albert. Just step around them. The dead don’t come back naturally with Uroboros. It just makes them harder to kill.”

“Not talkin’ about that Doc. Give me a second.”

You’re about to ask what Jake means by that, but before you can, you see something wiping the lens of the security camera you’re looking through. After a few seconds you see an uncomfortably close view of Jake’s nose as he wipes away the gunk from the lens.

How the hell did he scale the 12 foot height to wipe that gunk off?

You use one of the other screens to pull up an angle of the hallway Jake just cleared, and you can see that he scaled the wall by somehow using his balance and strength to tuck himself into the corner where the two hallways meet.

“Were you raised in the fucking circus? Where did you learn that?” You say into the walkie in disbelief.

“By being a teenage shithead, now look!” Jake replies, exasperated and moving out of the way of the camera and revealing a body almost completely overtaken by worms of Uroboros. Your disbelief quickly shifts into grim realization.

That needs to be burned.

Your voice comes out eerily calm.

“Don’t touch it. Don’t shoot it. Don’t interact with it. Uroboros needs to be burned for proper disposal.”

You see Jake crouch to look at the body from a different angle. You see him bring the walkie to his lips.

“Will touching it infect me?”

“No, but it might eat you since you’re organic material!! Just don’t ingest it, keep your distance and you’ll be fine.”  You spit through your teeth, not liking Jake’s series of questions or what it could mean for his future actions.

Jake looks at the body for a moment longer then stands up with the walkie to his lips, looking at you through the camera.

“Don’t lick the weird black stuff. Seems simple enough.”

You groan. “Let’s just hope these Neo Umbrella guys had the foresight to keep a flamethrower on hand.” You tiredly respond.

On one of the other monitors, you see Albert meandering in the direction of Jake’s current location. You speak into the walkie.

“Hey sit tight for a minute, I need to redirect Albert.”

You see Jake give you a thumbs up on the camera and you flit your attention to one of the other monitors. While Albert isn’t alarmingly close to Jake’s location, it’s still too close for comfort. You set the microphone to make an announcement in the opposite direction.

“I’m over here love! Come find me!”

You see Albert’s face light up on the screen and turn to follow your voice, but he freezes mid-turn. You tap the screen, thinking that the old equipment froze up on you. But then you see Albert’s face twitching.

It’s mild at first; only one of his red snake eyes twitch. But then it’s his whole face. The uncharacteristically wide grin twitches downward, a scowl gradually etches itself into his visage, and his blown-out eyes undulate like a heartbeat smaller and smaller until they’re thin slits.

You hear a guttural groan of something akin to agony escape Albert’s lips as he attempts to reach behind him towards the regulator in between his shoulder blades.

“I will not be subdued!” Albert seethes through his teeth, arm, body and face twitching from an invisible battle for control. It’s a losing battle, and Albert isn’t on the winning side, but he realizes it too late. The second his eyes start to dilate and his arm stops grasping for the regulator, he throws his body against the wall in a vain attempt to remain coherent by bashing his head into the smooth white plaster. He shrieks in a heart wrenching combination of frustration and agony. You recognize it with dreaded clarity from the day he died in the volcano. The plaster is marred with a watercolor painting of red, pink and black splotches. Then, as quickly as it started, Albert freezes in place, his face twitches back to what it was before, then he meanders towards the direction he last heard your voice, not bothering to wipe off the blood or black substance from his face.

“Dearheart? Where’s my little wife?” Albert asks with an uncanny grin, leaving a trail of black liquid in his wake.

All you can do is sit and try to process what you just saw with a haunted look on your face. Albert hasn’t changed. It only appears like he has.

You slowly bring the walkie to your lips.

“Jake there’s been a development.” You speak into the walkie lowly.

“I’m guessing it isn’t the good kind.” Jake quips.

You don’t acknowledge his attempt at humor. “It looks like Albert’s fighting with himself.”

Jake is silent for a moment. “And what does that mean?”

You take a deep breath to collect yourself. “This is only a theory, but I think because Albert has a natural immunity to a lot of viruses and parasites, his subconscious is buried but mostly intact.”

“So… the parasite’s driving the car but Wesker’s in the backseat trying to take the wheel.”

“Exactly. And I don’t want to find out what happens if he succeeds.”

You glance back at the monitor where you last saw Albert. From a surface level perspective, he’s back to how he was when he broke out of the chamber. It’s apparent that the Nemesis parasite currently has the upper hand. But what happens when it doesn’t?

You shake away the thought and keep talking to Jake through the walkie.

“Look, try to find Youju’s office and try to figure out exactly what they did to try and wake him up. I can give a much more accurate game plan on how to handle this.”

“What’s the theory without it?”

“If he overpowers the parasite, we’re fucked.”

“Find the papers. Got it. Just keep the old man busy.”

“Will do. You keep laying low.”

You set the walkie on the security panel, already feeling exhausted. You watch Jake continue his methodical room check on the monitor, then drag your attention over to where Albert is heading, his sudden clarity sending a chill down your spine. Then you look over to the computer system where Chris is still waiting to hear your voice.

You groan and let your head hit the back of your rolling chair.

This is going to be a long night.

Tag List: @killerwendigo @appreciativemediaconsumer @kaymarnun @chucklefak

a/n 2: Thanks again for reading! I've got an AO3 account now so I'm cross posting this series on there if that's where you prefer to read your fics. Based on my outline, it looks like this thing is gonna be a 10ish parter so stick around!

Also I'm on AO3 now at wil_o_wispy if you like reading your fics on there!

AO3 link for this part.

[leonw4nter]

could you do a fic for re4 leon where he and fem!reader are in a relationship (secret bc they can’t let the agency find out) they are on the spain mission together and luis starts flirting with her and its taking everything in leon for for him to not say “thats my girlfriend” or something like that?

sorry if this is specific i just thought of it in the middle of class

Music For Two People in A Secret Relationship

RE4R!Leon x F!Agent!Reader

Leon is a stickler for the rules. Well, he was– he made sure that he followed the rules he was made to obey, even when he didn’t exactly agree with them. One fine training day, you lunged at him with a combat knife, a deadly fire in your eyes and he felt the ground beneath him shift. He had to move and dodge away from the next offense, even if he wanted to give himself time to admire you. You moved like a panther, your gaze much more penetrating than the blade you held in a reverse saber grip; you embodied one too, light footfalls as you circled him before pouncing with your claws out towards the man in front of you. If giving in to the calling of his heart is a crime then he’d gladly be an outlaw.

Here he is now, dancing around the rules in order to be your boyfriend; twisting, bending, and extending his will to resist the temptation to hold your hand in the walls of the USSTRATCOM headquarters, proudly referring to you as “his” and for him to hear you call him “yours” towards colleagues and higher-ups. He had to settle for the tension-filled stares across the briefing room, the kinds of looks that set off sparks in his chest, and the electric accidental brushes of his finger against yours as he reaches for something.

Although Valdelobos is everything but idyllic, he’s thankful for the opportunity to be with you despite this decrepit village being another reminder of Raccoon City; he wouldn’t want to relive Raccoon City again but it’s less triggering for him because he’s with you … and a certain Spanish gentleman with a penchant of flirting with his girlfriend; he didn’t trust the man one bit but what choice did he have? The man held vital information regarding the villagers and Umbrella; a former scientist, Luis claimed. Despite him being a little different from the usual scientists behind BOWs, he seemed to know a lot regarding the cult and the parasite– Las Plagas. Charming and charismatic too, the perfect man all in all. He also served as the brains behind the group, oddly familiar with the puzzle mechanisms that the Los Illuminados employed.

Now, all of you were stuck in this misty baroque ballroom somewhere in Salazar’s palace. As soon as everyone was inside the room, the big wooden doors closed and several locks were heard clicking in place. Silence followed, Ashley huddled in the middle by you, Leon, and Luis’ bodies as you formed a protective circle. The fact that silence followed and not the groans and cultic chanting unsettled everyone, unused to this odd peace. After a few moments of guns being out, Luis’ Red 9 is holstered back into its brown leather confines.

“Do you smell that,” he softly whispers. “The rusty air. This ballroom was an old bastion for the Los Illuminados, held their sacrifices here but albeit more… morbid. Sacrifices were released like bulls in a bullpen, they all tried to escape while trying not to die on the way– had to escape booby traps and avoid stepping on the wrong tiles. There’s a lot more with the trap system they set up and they’re all elaborate.”

The atmosphere that hung over everyone was heavy and miserable now that Luis had to point out the history behind the room. No one stepped foot away from where they were standing, afraid to trigger something to fly out and impale someone.

“What ballroom is this,” Ashley asks.

“The Birdcage,” Luis responds. “La Jaula de Pájaros.”

“I’ve read somewhere about certain macabre ballrooms being connected to cult hide-outs and traps and usually, the ways to beat those traps is somehow connected to culture like dances and poems,” she begins to explain. “Basically, we might need to dance or make music to make it out alive for this one. Just like… just like a bird. Wait– this place’s name is ‘birdcage’ so we have to escape like birds by means of making music and moving around like how birds chirp and fly!”

“Make music? How exactly,” you ask.

“Rhythmic tapping might be one of them,” Luis suggests.

You look at the people around you, eyebrows meeting in the middle as their foreheads crease in focus and worry. Leon bent down and observed the ground, calloused fingers grazing over the cracked tiles. With each lengthy swipe of his finger, he noticed that the imprints on the ground had a pattern. He leaned closer to the ground and observed what looked like musical notes; he turned to the ground Ashley stood on and noted the same patterns of notes and symbols used.

“There’s musical notations on the ground, maybe we can use that for the rhythm of our tapping,” Leon informs the group. “Who here can read music–”

“I can,” you interrupt. You bend down, fingers skimming over the etching. After a few seconds of remembering which notes sounded a certain way, you get back up and relay the information you just got. You get everyone’s attention and start humming the tune before softly stomping your boots on the ground, asking everyone else to follow along to make sure that they remember the beat.

“Uh guys,” Ashley speaks up. “We have to start soon.”

She points to the ceiling, several ganados kept in cages dangling overhead. The ceilings may be high from where you all stood, but there was nothing separating your group and them. With a determined yet wary nod, you nod to Luis. He approaches you and bows, to which you respond with. He slowly places his hand on your waist, the other gently holding your gloved hand. You glance at Leon, seeing him do the same with Ashley with the placements of his hand in areas that don't make Ashley feel uncomfortable. You give Leon another nod, signifying the start of the dance. Your pair and Leon’s slowly drift to opposite parts of the room, dancing a fierce tango with rhythmic footfalls. You could dance but not in this way and you were lucky that Luis was there to guide you. In the drop of the beat, he spun you and for a quick moment you saw Leon glance at your direction before turning his gaze back to Ashley and making sure he doesn’t mess up his part and involve Ashley in whatever fuck-up he might make. You wouldn’t admit this to Luis but you wished that it was Leon who was spinning and dipping you, that it was the large hand of Leon’s that was perched on your waist. Maybe you’d like to go dancing with Leon once this shit is all over, maybe invite Luis too but you’ll spend most of the evening slow dancing with Leon when you’ve both had one too many drinks. You knew that Leon felt the same based on the gawking Leon unintentionally does, those types of gawks that once you blink, you’d miss and assume that you were just seeing things differently. As much as Leon admitted that Luis was a gifted dancer to his standards, he wished that he could just swoop in and swing you around, to feel your hand around his neck and for you to gaze up dreamily at you when he dips your body. It doesn’t take long for you to get into the dance, the twirls and spins along with the echo of the taps of shoes helping you get into the feel of dancing even though this dance could very much determine whether or not everyone will make it out of this ballroom.

After a few minutes of dancing, all of you finish the beat and you hear a faint click. The eyes and mouth of a tarnished Tarasca statue moves, its neck opening to reveal an ornate conical capsule. Hastily, you run to the statue and take the capsule and twist it open. An intricate copper key falls out.

“We might be able to get out of this,” Leon points out. Hurriedly, he runs to the doors and inserts the piece of metal to the keyhole.

“Careful, Sancho. This thing is brittle,” Luis reminds him. “All that dancing will be for nothing if the key snaps while it’s inside!”

“I know what I’m doing,” your partner seethes.

The faint sound of the door lock’s mechanisms clicking to unlock causes everyone to breathe a sigh of relief, Leon pushing the doors open to let everyone out before himself. You mouth a small thank you to him, to which he responds with a small smile. He finally gets out and urges everyone to run, since the cages holding the ganados were being lowered. After a few minutes, everyone is now out of the palace. All of you stop by the ruins of an old stone house, sinking to the ground to catch your breath.

“Hah… D-didn’t know… hah… you looked lovely in pink,” Luis points out with a tired yet smug smirk bringing a finger up to motion to the flush in your cheeks. “Etérea.”

The Spaniard doesn’t miss the way the blond’s gaze slightly darkens, moving to you as he places a hand on your back as you still catch your breath. You look at Leon as he asks if you’re okay, to which you give him a small smile and a thumbs-up. Leon withdraws his hand from your back to radio back to Hunnigan, giving her information on where you just came from and how everyone’s doing. Since you managed to catch your breath, you check on Ashley who’s doing a lot better now. You offer her the remaining water in your flask, to which she gulped down audibly.

“Water never tasted so divine, holy crap,” she exclaimed as she handed you your flask back.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Since you and Leon were unsure of the safety of the area, you decided that it would be best for you to start moving somewhere less dangerous. Ashley was growing tired, grumbling about her feet hurting but she was still soldering on, walking without breaks. Luis’ chatter made the trip less boring, occasionally talking to Ashley and then flirting with you. After seeing Leon’s subtle reaction to him complimenting your flushed cheeks after running, the cheeky side of Luis decided to flirt with you some more to see how far he can push the reserved and stoic man.

“Hey,” Luis begins. “After all this, what do you say to a little Spanish countryside getaway? You and me.”

“Sounds nice,” you say. “But I’ve got a little night out scheduled with someone when I get back.”

“You aren’t exactly saying ‘no’.”

“I’m going to have to confirm this with my boyfriend. You’re a chill man but I still have to let my man know.”

Luis simply chuckles, his steps slowing down so he’ll fall in step with Leon who is busy craning his head here and there, trying to spot any threat before a possible threat spots you. Well, this is only half true. As soon as he heard Luis proposing the future prospect of him showing off the Spanish countryside to you, he forced himself to pay attention to something else other than the fact that you’re smiling and laughing softly at the Spaniard. The agent brushes whatever he heard off, knowing that his girlfriend loves him and only him but the fact that he can’t do much, especially that their relationship isn’t exactly encouraged at their agency and the fact that they’re both at work; he’s relieved that you aren’t returning his flirting. All he can afford to do is to ask if you’re fine by masking it behind the simple concern for a coworker and nothing more. 

“How’re you holding up, Sancho Panza,” Luis whispers to which Leon responds with silence.

“Ah, I think I know why you’re silent,” the chatty man beside him observes. “It’s because… you like her!”

Leon stops in his tracks and looks at Luis with a slightly baffled expression, head tilted with his eyes slightly squinted before proceeding to walk again, the squelch of his boots against mud resuming again.

“I know just the remedy to this, Leon,” Luis excitedly begins, lowering his voice just before he continues the rest of his sentence. “Y’know, I know a nice bar somewhere in Madrid. Good drinks, good music. I’m sure she’d love it there.”

Leon stays silent again but mentally notes the ‘good drinks, good music’. It would be nice to take her somewhere upbeat.

“But if that’s getting a bit too ahead of our current predicament then you can offer to tend to her wounds, best done in the evening when the night is cold and the fire is the only thing keeping us warm. It’s a sincere tender moment, just imagine it: you, her, and the rustling of trees. She–”

“She’s my girlfriend. I’ve done plenty of that and more so she’d go out with me,” Leon interrupts.

Luis freezes on the spot, eyes the size of golf balls, with his mouth ajar. Leon simply smirks and scoffs at the sight, trudging on. After a few moments, Luis comes rushing back to him. Luis is just staring at him, going off at him in Spanish while he just continues walking and tries to hide a smug grin. Luis wraps up on whatever he was saying, now staring back and forth at you and him before walking a little faster to join you and Ashley several steps ahead. The usual cocky expression makes its way back to Luis’ face, shooting you and Leon a knowing look now before chuckling along. Moments later, Leon decides to speed up walking to be able to catch up with everyone. He hears Ashley and Luis exchanging jokes with you occasionally laughing and butting in with your own. Out of the blue, Leon nonchalantly wraps an arm around your waist, much to Luis and Ashley’s shock.

“Ash, don’t tell HQ about this,” you whisper with a wicked grin before getting on your tiptoes and planting a kiss on Leon's cheek.

NOTE - Thanks to the lovely anon that requested this, I hope you enjoyed reading this :) I had a lot more fun writing this since I had to think a little more than I usually do when I write (if it makes sense), especially for the ballroom part of the fic. I'll try to write for other versions of Leon soon since I mostly write about RE2 Leon. Also, does anyone know the manga 'Veil' ?? I've recently (yesterday) got into it and now I'm hoping that physical copies are being sold where I live... Aleksander is cute I'll say that (I NEED AN ALEKSANDER IN MY LIFE IM SO ALONE AND SINGLE RIGHT NOW- SINGLE SINCE BIRTH EVEN). Anyways, that's it and thank you soo much for reading my fics!! I <3333 UUUUUU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The dividers are made by @benkeibear , the images are made by me (sourced from Pinterest).

[bihanarms]

Hi there!! 🙋🏻‍♀️

I'd really like to read a one-shot, either Carlos x reader (or OFC) or Leon x reader (or OFC). It can also be fluffy and / or hurt & comfort, whatever you're up to 😊

The reader / ofc could probably be a scientist who has to find something important in the NEST in Raccon City and is protected by Carlos or Leon.

What do you think? 😊

No problem!!! Let's go for Carlos x Reader (I felt it more with Carlos)! Takes place during the events in Raccoon City in Resident Evil 3, and I had to slightly modify the base story regarding the NEST location, Carlos' path, etc. Hoping you will enjoy it!! (Sorry for any mistakes). and ofc lets forget the whole carlosxjill thing for this story.

Carlos Oliveira x Reader! : A Former Love

You remind me of someone,"

Carlos said anxiously as he had just laid Jill down on the hospital bed. "Hang in there, SuperCop, it's going to be okay, I'll be right back."

The mercenary's mind was filled with worry after his teammate had been infected during her latest battle against the biological weapon that had been relentlessly pursuing her since they had met. He had luckily stumbled upon the former member of the Bravo team from STARS and had managed to escort her to the hospital he had originally intended to go to. Apparently, this place was connected to Raccoon City's sewer system, and from there, he could reach the NEST where a vaccine against the T-Virus was supposed to be located.

« I guess it's time to go » Carlos sighed before closing the door to Jill's room.

The mercenary cautiously made his way through the dark and silent corridors of the hospital, which seemed to have been devoid of signs of life for a while now. The flickering light of his flashlight barely illuminated the decaying walls and closed doors, creating dancing shadows that seemed to play with his already frayed nerves. The sound of his footsteps echoed in the empty corridors, and he felt his heart race in his chest as he suddenly heard the sound of glass breaking.

The man froze, listening intently, expecting the worst considering all the horrors he had witnessed so far. Ready to react to any potential threat, Carlos quickly pointed his flashlight in the direction of the sound and moved towards it, making his way through the debris and dark corridors to reach the room from where the sound had come.

As he entered the room, his flashlight revealed a familiar silhouette. He stood there dumbfounded for a moment before recognizing the woman who stood there, eyes wide with surprise.

"[Name]?"

« Oh, come on…out of all the people I could meet in this world... what have I done to deserve this? »sighed the young woman in front of him.

The woman who had just entered the hospital was [Name], a former scientist from Umbrella Corporation, and at the same time, a former fling of Carlos. They had met during several joint missions, both working for Umbrella, and had an affair before their paths separated. The young man had not expected to see her here, in a hospital in the midst of the horror of Raccoon City.

"What are you doing here? Get out of this city as soon as possible, you're completely out of your mind!" Carlos said, concerned about the situation.

[Name] barely looked Carlos in the eyes as she picked up the knife she had dropped when she had broken the window to enter.

"I'm here to get the vaccine for all this abomination outside. As a former Umbrella scientist, I think I'll be able to recognize it, and at the same time, gather evidence to show the whole world that the company you still work for is responsible for all this mess," she said coldly.

Carlos let out a small laugh at her words. When I said Jill reminded me of someone…

He looked at her, his feelings mixed. On one hand, he was surprised to see her but relieved to know she was in one piece, but on the other hand, he couldn't deny that he was still drawn to her despite their complicated past.

"Still with this conspiracy theory against Umbrella…"

"You? Why are you here?" the young scientist retorted, finally looking at Carlos in the eyes.

"I'm looking for the vaccine too, believe it or not, for a teammate," he replied, looking worried.

The woman crossed her arms, not responding immediately. She remembered the passionate moments she had shared with Carlos in the past while looking at him from head to toe, but also the fights and disagreements that had driven them apart. One of the reasons that had separated them was, of course, Umbrella.

As you may have gathered from earlier, [Name] had left Umbrella shortly after discovering the company's true intentions and hearing about recent rumors of virus leaks. She had completely disappeared from the radar, doing her best to avoid being pursued by the nefarious corporation and to conduct her research safely and discreetly. She took a deep breath before taking a few steps towards the man standing in front of her. With a determined look, she began,

"You know what? You're going to escort me down there. In addition, you wouldn't have been able to recognize this vaccine, and I've been to this place before."

She grabbed Carlos by the arm without warning and directed him towards the corridor behind them.

"And at the same time, I'll prove to you that I'm right, and you won't be able to call me crazy one more time," she added with a semi-haughty air.

"Well then let's go, sweetheart."

•

The scientist walked with confident strides, knowing the way through the labyrinth of old hospital rooms. She carried a flashlight to illuminate their path, and Carlos followed closely, keeping his weapon ready in case they encountered any trouble.

Suddenly, [Name] came to a sudden stop, gesturing for the mercenary to be quiet. She listened attentively, hearing zombie noises emanating from one of the rooms, then pointed in a specific direction. Carlos nodded and followed her, amazed at how well she knew the layout of the place.

As they made their way through a particularly dark and narrow area towards the underground facility, the scientist grabbed Carlos' arm to help him navigate the stairs.

"You know, this is the second time you've grabbed my arm. I can still walk on my own," he joked teasingly, taken aback by the gesture but finding it pleasing.

[Name] looked up at him, and he noticed a smirk on her lips despite the dim surroundings.

"Haha, gotcha there, dollface. I don't think I've seen you smile once since we started," Carlos whispered.

"Do you expect me to smile often given the situation of this city?"

"No, but when you saw my handsome face back then, I would have expected a big smile from you," the armed man joked.

[Name] pretended not to hear her temporary bodyguard as they arrived at the doors of the NEST.

"Ready?"

•

It was the long-awaited moment for the two of them, as this was where crucial information about the shady activities of Umbrella Corporation and the vaccine needed to save Jill was located. [Name] pulled out an electronic device from her pocket and began hacking the security system of the door. Carlos was impressed by her skills and watched attentively

The door finally opened with a click, revealing a modern and well-equipped laboratory. The two former partners entered cautiously, their weapons ready, but nothing dangerous was in sight. While [Name] inspected the surroundings and vials in search of the vaccine, Carlos stumbled upon a computer displaying seemingly innocuous text.

"[Name],... You were right.... All this time,"

To his great surprise, the displayed information clearly showed that the Umbrella Corporation was responsible for all the virus leaks and dangerous experiments that had led to the catastrophe in the region. There were damning evidence of how the company had concealed its illegal activities and attempted to manipulate the situation to protect its own interests.

As she finally found and grabbed the sample of the vaccine, she slowly approached Carlos, who had a horrified look on his face. She gently placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a look that said "I told you so."

"You know, Carlos," [Name] began, "I'm surprised that you remembered my name," she finished with a small smirk.

As Carlos was about to respond, a zombie emerged from the darkness and lunged at [Name], ready to bite her. The mercenary reacted instinctively, raising his weapon and firing a shot just in time to save the young woman. The creature collapsed, narrowly missing causing her fatal injuries.

A sudden cry escaped [Name]'s mouth as the sound of the gunshot and the fall of the zombie brought them both to the ground. They found themselves face to face, their faces just millimeters apart.

Emotions rushed through their minds as they looked intensely at each other.

His heart was pounding, mixed with adrenaline and concern for [Name]'s safety.

He could feel her warm breath against his face.

As their gazes locked in intense connection, Carlos found himself lost in his thoughts.

God, how beautiful she was.

« Oh come on..." [Name] regained her composure and suddenly stood up, trying not to let her "former" feelings take over.

"Did I say that out loud?" Carlos said with a small chuckle, standing up as well.

"Thank you for saving me, I owe you one, and for accompanying me," the young woman said, heading towards the exit. "There's still a second sample of the vaccine on the table at the back for your partner."

"Wait!"

Carlos rushed towards [Name] and suddenly grabbed her arm. At first annoyed by this gesture, [Name] made movements to free herself from Carlos' grip, but then noticed the seriousness in his brown eyes. He took a deep breath and began his declaration in a deep voice.

"[Name], I sincerely apologize for not believing you when you warned me about Umbrella. I was wrong, and I regret not taking your warnings more seriously. You were right from the beginning."

He paused, letting his words sink in the emotionally charged air between them.

"And about your earlier remark, I never forgot your name, not for a single second. You have always been on my mind, [Name], believe it or not. Knowing that you are safe and sound after all this time brings me great relief."

Carlos lowered his gaze slightly, collecting his thoughts.

He wasn't accustomed to expressing his emotions so openly, but he knew it was important for him to convey what he felt.

The young man tightened his grip and continued.

"There has always been something special between us, [Name]. Even though circumstances have kept us apart. Spending time with you now, in the midst of this chaotic situation, reminded me of how much you mean to me."

He looked up, meeting the gaze of his former flame, searching for a response in her eyes.

[Name] stared at Carlos, moved by his sincere words. She could see vulnerability in his eyes, something she had never witnessed in him before.

The young woman thought they had both moved on, but now, facing him, she wasn't sure of anything.

"Thank you, Carlos," she said softly. "We'll see if we cross paths again after all of this is over."

She offered him a faint smile but didn't linger. She made her way towards the exit door of the laboratory, leaving Carlos standing there.

"Well, let's go back and save Supercop now,"

[darling-i-read-it]

My Dulcinea

Luis Serra Navarro x fem!reader

Word Count: 4,3k

Warnings: re4 remake spoilers, lil bit of angst, canon level violence/zombies, talk of science being used for evil motives 

Author’s Note: hello my love I hope this is what you had in mind! I really wanted to write for Luis and I’m soooo happy I got to. I would be totally open to doing more with him <3 he’s such a sweetie <3 that being SAID i do not speak spanish, my high school teachers were not the greatest. Apologizes if the parts I attempted to do were laughably bad. I hope you enjoy love! 

Requested: by @astupidlover, Luis and the reader are two former scientists at umbrella, their relationship is a little complicated I mean the reader is a quiet and hardworking person while Luis is talkative and persistent, but he is in love with her, after the reader found out about the biological weapon manufactured by the company she quit and worked as a spy in multiple companies, she kept hearing the news of Luis because she could not leave him, but the thunder of the Raccoon City incident disappeared him, but she kept looking for him...She allied with agent Leon Kennedy between rescuing the president's daughter and finding him in the last refuge she has to look for him or surrender...she found him and they had to fix a troubled past between them(if you have a question I'm open to answering):)

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director/creator

(not my gif)

Your lab coat was stained. You noticed it as you looked at yourself in the mirror with bags under your eyes. You had haphazardly tossed it off when you went to bed the night before. Sometimes your hours were neverending, akin to that of a doctor even though you didn’t have any patients. Well, you didn’t have any living patients that is. All of the ones you passed by you were dead or soon to be undead. 

There was a red stain on the wrist of your left arm. Proof of the night before, of the experiments that continued relentlessly. Umbrella’s Europe facility was vast and you often wondered why you had landed there. You were among people who didn’t know what they were researching any more than you did. 

You folded your sleeve up, hoping to ignore it until you had the brain power to deal with it. You left the bathroom and returned to the sterile work area. You made sure your hair was pulled out of your face as you entered your normal work space. It was a medium sized room, housed by you and your colleague Luis. Your personalities complimented each other, despite the severity of them. You tended to quietly work, your head doing all your talking. Luis, while brilliant, wanted to talk through everything. He would ask your opinion and then the banter would begin, even when you didn’t intend for it to. 

“You’re late,” Luis said in a sing-song voice. He was already sitting at his desk. There was a half-drunk cup of coffee there beside him. More than once he’s mixed that cup up with other substances. Today he had the caffeine in a bright red mug so that he could tell the difference. “Sleep finally catch up to you Dulcinea?” You smiled a bit at the nickname. It was apparently one of the characters from Don Quixote. He had told you the story of it as though he wrote it himself but truth be told, you weren’t always paying attention. 

“My bed was just so comfortable,” you promised. He leaned forward, taking off his protective glasses so you could see his eyes. You stood across the table from him. 

“I would love to second that statement. Do you think I could create my own experiment to verify?” You rolled your eyes, though your smile remained. Working with Luis was like this. You were glad not to be stuck with some of the other people in the building, stoic and all business. You wondered what you would look like beside them, if you would meld into their bland personalities. 

Luis kept you interesting. 

“Maybe someday Luis.” 

“I didn’t hear a no.” You narrowed your eyes at him. He had the lovesick puppy look again, the one you adored so much. You saw it at work frequently when you both avoided actually working. These days, the cause didn’t seem so exciting. It never seemed clear. Who were you making this for? 

“Back down dog,” you teased. He chuckled lowly and leaned back down in his chair. He put his glasses back down, looking back at what he was doing. You opened up some of your files and what you were working on the day before. In an instant the mood shifted. Luis could only bring so much light into a room with so much dread. 

The pictures alone sent a chill down your spine. 

The nagging at the back of your head returned. 

What was this worth? 

“Progress was made yesterday,” you said, dryly. You weren’t sure why you were talking about it. It was a Luis move, to talk yourself through something. But you said it anyway. He raised his head. 

“Good progress or bad progress?” When he met your eyes he knew the answer. He nodded solemnly. There wasn’t much Luis Serra couldn’t make a joke of but this was one of those rare instances he was silent. “We could always run away princesa.” He had been nagging at you about it. He was nearing the end of his rope too. 

You thought about the other people in the other rooms. Did they feel the same?

“Yeah,” you muttered. You looked back down to the pictures. “Do you ever just want to go home?”

“Use your vacation days, no?” You shook your head. 

“Just go back home and stay there.” There was something comforting about a place you could return to that had to accept you. The more you starred at the parasite the more you craved something more familiar. What would it have been like if Luis and you had met in a bar instead, careless and free? 

“Valdelobos has never been that forgiving to me,” he admitted. 

“There was nothing good about it?” There was a short pause as you imagined he remembered the good things. He had told you about the death of his grandfather and how much he enjoyed spending time with him. 

“It was too small,” he said. He shook his head and smiled softly, reminiscing. “I used to hunt with my abuelo. He would tell me stories, the most hermosas historias…” He shook his head. “He died when I was young. He would’ve liked you, he liked beautiful women.” You laughed a bit. “I’ll go back eventually.” 

“Good.” You nodded, thinking of your own home. There was a future out there for both of you that wasn’t stuck within these white walls. “Me too.” 

-

Umbrella’s European Facility was no longer the place you had hoped it would be. You were stuck in the neverending worry of dying for a cause you didn’t understand, let alone believe in. 

When you wiggled your way out you did it silently. You did it by slowly packing your bags, by keeping the boxes random, by moving them without suspicion. The last day you went to work you gave no indication that you would never be coming back. 

You felt bad. 

Luis’s eyes were the same as the day you had met him and you didn’t want to leave him behind. His alluring promises of leaving had gotten to your head and you only hoped they would get to his as well. You left him with nothing except a note in your files, all the things you left with loose ends, a small apology note and the imprint of your lipstick on a napkin. You thought he might appreciate it. Hopefully it would curb his frustration to know that you felt the same way about him that he felt about you. 

You worked quietly after that. In silence as you followed Umbrella’s otherwise inconspicuous work. You told people what you knew without leaving your name behind. You promised that you had never meant for it to get that bad, that you never wanted to use science like that. You never wanted to use your brain like that. 

You thought of Luis often. You thought of him when you heard a particularly funny joke. You thought of him when you saw a charming smile or when someone made a pass at you. There was never going to be another Luis Serra. 

Then Raccoon City happened and everything was put under a magnifying glass. Amongst those who had been subpoenaed publicly, Luis was not one of them. You could only hope he made it out of there alive before everything went down. You grappled with your work being done in such a violent manner. 

-

“You ready?” 

Leon’s voice was low. You were looking at the village home in front of you, wondering who had lived in it. It wasn’t the first time you had been swept up in something you hadn’t meant to. You sought out to save the world with science and now you were standing with a gun in the middle of Spain. 

“Yeah. Yeah sorry.” A gun had never been your forte. Your friendship with Leon blossomed as he lived through the Raccoon City incident and you offered insider information on Umbrella. The government sent the both of you through training. You would be physically dealing with your consequences and help Leon make sense of the world around him as you did so. 

He had hardened throughout the years you had known him. This wasn’t your first time you were together on something dangerous and it would likely not be the last. 

“I can’t believe you got roped into this,” he grumbled, leading. He had his hand on his gun, though he hadn’t pulled it out of the holster yet. “This was supposed to be a one man job. Limit as much reaction from the locals as you can.” 

“Guess they just wanted me to keep you in check,” you offered. You found your own voice had lost some of its life as well. How long would you and Leon be doing this? 

Though this time, you weren’t being truthful with him. You had heard him talking about it, briefly, and how he would be going to Spain to find something. You had no idea it was the President’s daughter when you insisted on tagging along. 

Valdelobos.

A place you had only heard of before, one that you had barely been able to find on a map. Luis’s home was a place you had only imagined through his words. You didn’t actually think you would find him here but you would be lying if you said your own agenda had nothing to do with coming here with Leon. 

Your conversation had been scarce leading up to where you currently were. There was so much to talk about but little to actually say about all of it. It just was. Leon opened the door with his flashlight. 

It was black inside. Your eyes adjusted to the large objects within. 

“Where’d the lights go?” he questioned dryly. 

“Power must’ve blown with everyone’s sanity,” you suggested. You pushed past him to see what was inside. There was no obvious movement. Leon moved around behind you. You had grown accustomed to his footsteps, knowing how they sound on different types of ground. You would never mistake Leon for someone coming to kill you.

As you entered another room, lighter from the sunlight, you saw different science equipment on the table. You squinted as you looked over it. Viles and a microscope had been discarded on the table. Beside it was a picture frame that was face down. You picked it up.

A little boy and his grandfather, from the looks of it. You didn’t want to think it was him but that’s where your brain went. The guitar hanging from the fireplace didn’t help your case. What if this had been Luis’s home? What if this had been the places he told you stories about, the place where he was raised? 

“Hey,” he called. You turned back around, shaking your thoughts. You had to focus. Leon had moved a bookshelf out of the way and was kneeling down. There was a hatch just next to the stairs. He undid it, opening it up. With it came a cloud of dust, as well as the smell of decay. He looked up at you. 

“Ladies first,” you joked as you approached. He kept his expression straight as he stood up. 

“I got your six,” he promised. 

“Always!” you said as you jumped down. You landed with a huff. It was dark, even more consumed with the black now that there were no windows. You could hear a soft movement further down the hallway. Could you even call it that? It was more like a long crypt. You raised your flashlight. A body was moving at the other end, though it was completely wrapped up in some kind of bag. 

“See anything?” Leon called. 

“Yeah. Just one person, tied up. Gimme a sec.” 

“Want me to come down?”

“I’m okay.” 

You approached slowly and with caution. You knelt beside the wiggling person and undid the top rope. A face emerged from the bag, tape over his mouth. 

You recognized each other at the same time as he stopped his muffled scream for help and became uncharacteristically quiet. You ripped off the tape. He groaned out of pain but quickly got over it. 

“Dulcinea?” 

“Luis,” you breathed. You were right. You knew he would be here. 

“What are you doing here?” he questioned. Words stumbled out of your mouth. 

“Looking for you,” you said honestly. His eyes clouded over with some adoration mixed with anger. He opened his mouth to speak again but this time his eyes floated behind you. “Joder, not this guy!” You followed his gaze but was quickly taken out of your senses by a larger than life man. He picked you up by the waist and threw you across the room. 

Pain shot across from you like it was individually searching through your veins. You weren’t able to raise your head. Where was Leon? Your worry became overwhelming and you passed out.

-

Your senses took over before your brain had caught up. You were disoriented, desperately trying to search for the last memory you had. Your eyes opened slowly. Your vision was blurry. You were sitting down, against a hard surface. 

It took you about ten seconds to start to panic. Unable to move your hands was the last straw in realizing what had happened. You surveyed the room in front of you, happy to see that the only people there were Leon and Luis. They were both standing, hands above their heads, connected by some sort of chain mechanism. 

Luis was moving his hands down. Leon was still limp on the other side. You were tied to a support beam with rope. Luis turned to look at you, his face tight with concentration. 

You got a good look at him. 

He didn’t look all that different from what you remembered. You had lunch a couple times when you worked together but you usually saw him in his lab coat. Seeing him in jeans and a leather jacket was a nice change of pace. 

Seeing him at all was a breath of fresh air. You were still reeling that he was alive, in front of you, back home. 

“Welcome to mi casa,” he groaned. He turned his head, a sly smile on his face. “Sorry I didn’t clean, I wasn't expecting visitors.” You shook your head. For a moment you forgot you were tied to a beam and tried to move forward to him. He titled his head. There was something solemn about it. 

“How long have you been here?” 

“Is that all you want to ask me?” 

“Are you okay?” you asked instead. 

“Could be better.” He glanced forward, his eyes shifting. His eyes then remained on yours. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he whispered. “I never thought I’d see you again, Dulcinea.” 

“I’ve been looking,” you promised. “This isn’t exactly the easiest place to find on the map.” 

“You need a magnifying glass,” he said, quietly. Leon stood up straight, waking up with a start. He looked up at his hands and pulled them down. 

“Oh, what the fuck?” he muttered. Luis’s arms pulled above his head. 

“Hey, stop it!” Leon looked around and moved his arms so that he was facing Luis. 

“This yanqui got a name?” Luis questioned, turning around. 

“Leon,” you said. Leon turned to look at you as he started to weigh the options he had with the chain. 

“Why didn’t you get attached to this guy?” Leon questioned as he walked around, surveying his options. 

“Leon, this is Luis.” He stopped, only briefly. He looked between the two of you. 

“You two know each other?” he grumbled. 

“One could say that,” Luis said. “So did we pick the wrong spot to vacation, eh?” Leon moved quickly to the side. “Hey, stop it! You move, I move and I’m beat up enough as it is.” Leon looked up at the wheel keeping them together. Luis raised an eyebrow. “I see you’re thinking. Bet you’ve been in spots like this before, eh?” 

Your natural instinct was to roll your eyes but you couldn’t explain the warmth his sly voice gave you. 

“Lemme guess. You’re here looking for someone?” 

“Luis,” you warned.

“Me perhaps? Or maybe some missing senorita?” Leon stopped pulling. “A young girl?” He turned, ears perked up. He pulled down on the chain, pulling Luis towards him. 

“Talk. Now.” 

“See, heard chatter about moving a senorita.”

“Moving her. Where?” Leon questioned. He let Luis go. 

“Who knows? But later, saw some men dragging someone…to the old church.” They moved to even out the chain. They pulled down together with a grunt. Luis fell but Leon kept his balance. “Mierda.” 

“Woah!” you called, moving towards the incoming violent villager. 

Leon pulled Luis forward and they evened out the chain so that it was wrapped around the slashing villain. You watched, helplessly, as they pulled tightly to break the man's neck. The force knocked Luis and the limp man down beside you. Luis sat up, reaching for the key. You put your foot on it, making eye contact with him. 

“You’re not going anyway,” you argued. “I just found you.” Luis pressed his lips together. 

“Try not to be so eager,” he said. 

“Untie me.” 

“Why, when we could have so much fun with you tied?” You rolled your eyes. His sarcasm dissipated. “Oh my Dulcinea,” he whispered. Leon groaned, moving your foot over to grab the key. Luis moved forward, hands still bound, and untied you. 

“Where’s the old church?” Leon questioned. 

“We’re trying to have a heartfelt reunion yanqui,” Luis argued. You clenched your hands to get the blood flowing again. 

“You can be heartfelt as we walk.” 

“Leon,” you said, sternly. You weren’t often hard with him. He was in charge here, you were reserved to the job you were required to do. This was Luis. 

“We’re on a time crunch,” he retorted. You shook your head and Luis helped you up. He eyed the two of you, wondering why you were truly here. The last he had seen you, you were a quiet scientist, doing what you thought was good from behind closed doors. You were never one to grab a gun and march out into the fight. He imagined your friend was that type though. How close of friends were you?

“Can you take us there?” you asked. 

“It would usually cost a pretty penny, but for you princesa, I’ll waive the fee.” You nodded once, glad to have him back. You had emotions to work through but right now you were taking a page out of Leon’s book. Ignore it until you had a minute to breathe. 

-

The abandoned factory was unforgiving and tortuous. You followed Luis as he led, never quietly, trying to find the safest way to the church. He had gotten good with a gun. Maybe he had always been good. You couldn’t decide. 

Eventually you came to a fork in the road. A key was needed to move further on and that key was quite safely guarded behind an army of infected villagers. Luis was ready for another fight, always excited to be part of the action, but Leon insisted on scoping it out on his own while the two of you stayed back to see if there was another way around. 

If there was, you’d go get him. Easy as that. 

You thought he was just getting fed up with Luis but didn’t want to leave him alone. You couldn’t blame him. Luis would leave the second he could, you could feel it. 

You backtracked to the factory itself as Leon trudged forward. 

It smelled of rats and dried blood. Iron hung in the air from the disregarded projects. It had been forgotten long ago, perhaps longer than the village had been infected. 

“I take it Leon wanted us to have a moment to catch up, no?”

“I think Leon got annoyed with us,” you offered instead. You had been waiting for a moment alone this whole time. You wanted to beg for forgiveness but you weren’t sure where to start. The guilt of leaving him behind was strong. 

You came to a stop in the middle of a larger room. Luis almost ran into you. 

“I’m sorry,” you said. Your voice was hard. 

“Lo siento, what are you sorry for?” He took a step back but you were still so close. 

You never thought you would see him again. The desire to touch him was fueled by the delusions you held in your memories. How life could’ve been different if you had met in different circumstances. If you had just met when you were still young and free, without being tied to a traumatic future.

“For leaving you without saying anything. I thought about coming and getting you so many times,” you admitted. As you started you found that your words just continued. They had been wanting to come out since you left him the imprint of your lipstick. “I wanted you to come with me but I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t shake that we were doing something wrong.” You remembered what it was like to be optimistic and young, to pretend that the world was better than it was.  

“Dulcinea-”

“No, please let me finish.” You took a deep breath and straightened your shoulders. “I’ve been looking for you ever since. I was so scared to find you in the rubble of Raccoon City. Leon survived that, as a police officer. I thought helping him and whoever he was receiving orders from, would help you in the end. I just wanted to make it back to you, to make sure you were okay. I’m so sorry.” 

His face had softened. 

There was a deep understanding in his eyes, mixed with something else. Guilt or pain\. You couldn’t put your finger on it. 

“You don’t have to feel sorry for that,” he offered. “Though, you should feel sorry that you only left me with a paper kiss.” You couldn’t help but smile slyly. 

“It’s never too late to fix that one.” He met your eyes, that smug smirk on his face. He was the man you had talked to about your life and your future. How had you two gotten stuck in the middle of doom like this? You could’ve been scientists in a little suburban home, chasing around little ones and the dog in the backyard. 

That was the life Luis Serra deserved. 

He leaned in, kissing you with precision. He had no reserves and didn’t hold back. His head tilted, hand on your cheeks as he held you close to him. The kiss felt like it was a desperate attempt to bring back that life you could’ve had. You threw your arm around his neck and gripped his jacket with the other. 

“I’m sorry I let you go,” he whispered against your lips. An apology that had been hanging on his tongue for years. He should’ve been there with you the entire way. 

“I’m sorry that this has happened to your home,” you countered. He shook his head. 

“I told you Valdelobos was never that forgiving.” He brushed your hair out of your face, just happy to now have permission to touch you. He held your face. He was so handsome, staring at you like you were the world. “You saw my home. Not too shabby, eh?” You smiled. 

“I’m sure it was beautiful once upon a time.”

“What, you don’t like what I’ve done with the place?” 

“I’ve got the key!” 

Leon’s voice carried through the small buildings' rooms. They echoed off the forgotten walls and found their way back to you. 

“So you and Senor Kennedy are amigos yeah? Nada mas?” You rolled your eyes. 

“Nada mas,” you repeated. Hearing you speak Spanish made him want to kiss you silly. You grabbed Luis’s hand and kissed the back of it before heading back. He brushed the back of your hair as you walked before letting you go. 

It took him a few steps to continue on. 

This deal with Ada had to work. 

It had to. 

[ivy-loves-chocolate]

Can you do a story or one shot about the reader and wesker ? where the reader is weskers wife and has been for a few year before he was in STARS and she had thouggt he hade died after the mansion insadint how would wesker react to her surviving racoon city? (Sorry im bad at spelling)

Note: it's ok anon I understood what you want. Hope you'll like it! Also, I know I barely posted lately and I’m sorry. I started a new job and I had to get used to the new schedule haha. I’ll upload more often no worries tho 😚🤗

Type: fluff

Pairing: Albert Wesker x GN!Reader.

Ko-fi: if you want to support or commision me, visit this link. Thank you 💖

You’ve been in a relationship with him before he was in STARS. You’ve met him while he was a scientist for Umbrella. It was because of his brilliant mind and confidence that made you fall in love with him. 

Being away in the military represented a tough step for your relationship, but not one that was hard to overcome. Every letter from him was hugged and held tight before being put in a special box filled with other letters and souvenirs. 

When it was time for him to return, you prayed that he wouldn’t come back to Umbrella. You worked there, saw what they were doing, and told him every little detail, yet he decided to come back. Of course, it was about money. He was about to run a special tactical unit inside the RPD. Nothing he couldn’t handle. 

That’s what you thought, of course, but then the mansion incident happened and it made you reconsider your choices. 

You were right in the heat of the moment. You and William were watching the surveillance cameras and observing every detail, taking notes rigorously. You were planning on backstabbing Umbrella too. As you watched the tyrant break out of the capsule, you could feel your heartbeat increasing. You were scared for Albert as he was dangerously close to the beast, and your worst fear came true when the monster impaled your lover. You couldn’t watch any longer and rushed to the nearest toilet. The whole scene made you sick. 

Everyone continued their lives as normal, except you. The company looked different; the people, the environment, everything seemed out of place. Or maybe it was you. The point is, you became paranoid and you constantly felt that someone was spying on you. Maybe it was true, maybe not. The truth is, you've had trouble sleeping since Albert was gone. Something inside you was hoping to get a sign, to assure you that he was fine, but that wasn’t going to happen. You focused all of your attention on your task, which was the Nemesis project. After the mansion incident, Jill and Brad, one of the few survivors, remained in the city, and that meant trouble for the company. Not only was the project a good distraction, but it was also a nice way of avenging Albert. 

You barely slept in the past 2 months, and as if it wasn’t enough, you got another outbreak, but this time on a larger scale. The whole town was infected. BOWs were everywhere, killing thousands of innocents. Luckily, you got out of the city on one of those subways. You didn’t know how you ended up there. Your first instinct was to hide and run. Nikolai took care of you. It felt like you had some sort of guarding angel. In fact, you had one, and it was a scheming blond who wore sunglasses at night. 

When Wesker awakened, he first thought of you. In the first minutes after waking up, his foggy mind was only worried about getting you out of the mansion, then he was relieved when he realized that you were far away from the contaminated zone. 

He struggled so much during these months because he wanted to contact you badly, yet he knew that his former teammates were looking for him, especially Chris, so he chose to lay low. Wesker did what he did best: working from the shadows. He hired Nikolai to protect you along the way. Because he was assigned to take out survivors from the city, it was easy to put you on a subway. You didn’t waste any time staying in line, and you left with the first ride. There was no coming back. Racoon City was about to become a ghost town. 

Some Umbrella vehicles waited for you once you were out. From there, they took you all to one of their hospitals to be tested and to receive proper care.

Some of the doctors and nurses had a cold attitude towards you, unlike the other survivors. They knew you were one of their own, and somehow they wanted you to remain there and help contain the outbreak. 

“If you weren’t so quick to run, maybe you could’ve done something.” One of the nurses said, under her breath, that every effort to reason with them failed. You were viewed as an outcast, and you knew you hadn’t much longer. You knew that you couldn’t refuse infections and IVs forever, so when the room was empty, you snuck out to your freedom. 

Having known about Umbrella’s shady business, you packed yourself some fake IDs and money. You were about to turn the corner and leave the hospital building when a car blocked your path. The driver told you to get in. There was something urgent, he said.

"I just want to enjoy some fresh air, sir," you told the man, hoping he'd give you some room so you could flee.However, you didn’t have a choice. The driver pointed a gun at you.

Maybe it was Spencer or Sergei. Who knows? But if they wanted to take you out, why not doing it in the hospital?

The strange man drove you to an abandoned warehouse. All this effort just to kill you? It made sense. 

"So", you turned to face him, “this is the part when I say my last words?”

“No, this is the part when you and I have a new start.” You heard a familiar voice behind you that gave you goosebumps. It was a firm, raspy voice that had a very familiar accent. It tingled your ears. 

You turned around and saw Wesker in his usual attire, standing there with a big smile on his face. He was so happy to see you. He wanted to hug you right away, but he wanted to see how you would react first. Albert wanted to give you some space. 

“You can go now.” He said something to the driver, and waited for a reaction. 

“You son of a bitch." You yelled as you ran towards him. You didn't know whether to be angry or happy. He hid himself from the world for very good reasons, yet you felt betrayed as he didn’t mention anything. Still, you knew that his intentions were pure and that he meant only good for the two of you.

Wesker hugged your back and burried his face in the crotch of your neck. He kept on squeezing your body until you told him to loosen up a bit. You knew he was strong, but you didn’t remember he was this strong. Something was weird, but you didn’t care at that moment because he was finally in your arms after such a long time. 

The warehouse turned out to be just some cover for a fancy facility underneath. It had a laboratory, an observation room (a.k.a. spy room), and a small area that was designed for day-to-day basics such as sleeping or cooking. 

Everything was new. It smelled like new furniture everywhere, and some things were still wrapped. He must’ve arrived here right after the mansion incident. 

After a few glasses of wine and while hugging each other, Wesker found the right moment to tell you about his powers. You found it odd that he kept wearing sunglasses, and what was weirder was the fact that he refused to take them off. You missed the fight with him. 

He eventually told you that the only reason he survived was because he injected himself with a prototype virus given by William. It brought him back to life with some perks, such as inhuman strength and speed. That could explain the force when he hugs you. 

“Pardon me, love, I’m still accommodating with my powers.” 

You both stayed there in each other’s arms, with your heads resting on Wesker’s chest. With every sound of his heartbeat, you were grateful that he was alive. You are worried a little about the viruses that he injected into himself, but you will be next to him no matter what. Wesker was grateful too for these moments, as he missed them a lot. The happy memories of the two of you helped him get through this mess. After finding that you were still alive, he spent every second trying to find you and bring you back to him safely. Having you now feels like one of his greatest achievements so far. 

Neither of you thought about the next move. For now, you just succumbed to each other’s embrace, being grateful for finding each other after this tragedy. Bigger plans were about to come, but now you need some rest. 

[extremelyblackandwhite]

dreams fight | b. barnes

pairing: james “bucky” barnes x maximoff! reader

warnings: morally grey characters, character death, MCU level violence, diverts from MCU canon, MoM spoilers, trauma, PTSD, bucky does not stay in wakanda after civil war

summary: there’s only one way to be with him and she’s willing to do everything.

4 YEARS AGO

It wasn’t safe out. The night shed a dark shadow over Edinburgh as if something evil was coming. Vision and Wanda had become even more reclusive, the two poorly attempting to meet up in small hotels. Her heart broke every time she’d see her sister have to sneak in the safe house they were currently hiding in. She didn’t deserve this, she’d finally found something beautiful, something she deserved after Pietro had passed. They even had their own plans of getting a nice little home in Westview after things died off. How silly, she thought to herself as she reminisced on the reason as to why the couple wasn’t allowed to be happy together. A stupid fight over the domain over a man who shouldn’t belong to anyone else but himself. How come Natasha Romanoff was allowed to join the Avengers after willingly killing so many people but Bucky Barnes, a man who had apparently died for his own country only to be viciously stripped of his free will and mind, wasn’t allowed to just live? It was ridiculous how they quickly wished to forget how HYDRA worked. 

       - Do I wanna know where Wanda is?

       - You can probably guess, can’t you? - she shut the window as the rain started to hit the glass. Bucky remained there against the door frame, a sling over his neck to protect the place his arm used to be in. - Please, don’t tell Steve. 

       - I’m not here looking for Wanda, I’m looking for you. I have something for you. 

He moved to grab a letter from him jeans’ back pocket. She sat in the bed, next to him as he handed her the envelope. She broke through the flimsy paper, her fingers taking a folded letter from them. She furrowed her brows looking over at the former Winter Soldier who merely nodded. Unfolding the letter, a certificate of ownership with the name James Buchanan Barnes and Y/N Maximoff at the top. 

       - What is this?

       - When my sister passed away, the old place my parents used to have passed onto my name. I guess after all this is done and we can get out from hiding, you could move with me there. You always said you wanted to live in the city and according to Google, it is a very nice place. 

      - Buck ...

      - And it’s only two hours from your sister’s place ... at least the one she showed you. You could be in hers so quickly and she could come visit with the robot man. I could even take you to Coney Island, ride the Cyclone. 

      - But it is your place. I don’t wanna take it from you or from the life you want to have. They already stole your life, I don’t wanna take it from you. 

       - It wouldn’t be a good one if you weren’t in it, little witch. 

NOW

She stood still atop the fire exit staircase, her hand holding a chipped mug he used to take his coffee from. She always told him there was no need for him to drink his coffee so dark; after all, how could it influence him if he was a super soldier? It was morning like these she missed him, the rain falling down onto the Brooklyn he loved, with everyone and their colourful umbrellas walking down the streets; unaware of the sacrifice he’d done for them. Not that they cared, they never cared unless it was one of their precious Avengers but she knew better. She knew it was because of them she’d lost her brother due to some egotistical scientists, it was because of them her sister never felt enough and it was because of them Bucky had to fight again. None of them should’ve ever been there. Even if they all disappeared, at least they would’ve been together. She didn’t ... she didn’t even have time to say goodbye. 

Going back into what should’ve been their bedroom, her eyes looked over the Dark Hold. She didn’t know if she should, it was almost as if it taunted; Dream walking. She’d read that spell a few months ago and had attempted it to stupid levels of failure. She could always find the doppelgänger, the version of her in other universes, yet would always fail at taking over their mind. She needed to do it, she had to do it. She had to get him back, she had to get her sister back. They didn’t deserve their endings. 

With a flick of her wrist, a circle of candles formed on the floor, the blinds shutting as the room was engulfed in darkness seldom for the golden flickering light of the candles. She sat down in the middle, her hands laid over each leg as she attempted once more to break through the mind of an alternate her. She found herself once more in the Brooklyn flat, except instead of rain, the home was basked in light. She heard the giggling through the small reflections as her own alternate version entered the kitchen. The sound of her shoes against the floor stopped as the alternate version looked around, her hands twitching with red energy as she felt a presence in the house. 

Y/N merely tried to focus, she needed to focus - she could do this. She slivered through different reflection surfaces, her presence taunting her own happier version, breaking through every barrier she could until her alternate self’s knees buckled and fell to the floor. Her eyes shut before opening, deep red as Y/N noticed she’d done it, she was here. 

      - MUMMY! - she turned her head around, brows furrowed as a small toddler rushed into the kitchen, her brown hair bobbling up and down. - Mummy, are you okay?

She stared at the child almost in disbelief, a long sadness mixed with happiness grew within her as she got onto her feet. The toddler smiled, her small hand grabbing hers and leading her away from the kitchen. She was almost in a daze, unbelieving of what was happening around her. Her eyes finally meet him who was zipping up his jacket. 

     - Did you find mummy? - he kneeled to their daughter’s height, smiling at her once she nodded. - Go get your jacket then. 

She ran off and up the stairs leaving Y/N to merely stare at him. She’d dreamed of him, of course she would never forget him but now he was here. He was here in front of her, in the flesh. He was alive as he should be, as he should’ve always been. 

     - We need to get going if we want to pick up your sister and her boys. - he spoke mindlessly as he searched for his keys; however, her silence had him turn around. - Are you alright, little witch?

His hand extended towards her face, cupping her cheek as his thumb caressed the skin. She leaned onto his touch, her chest hitting his as he kissed her forehead. She felt tears couple up at her tear ducts, the felling of the fabric of his jacket and his touch reminding her of everything she missed and everything she could’ve had. She looked up at him, happy to just remain here but as she looked up, things vanished. She looked around her, finding Steve holding the Darkhold.

Her eyes, once so bright with the naive innocence of hope, turned crimson as strings of red wrapped around her fingers as the most beloved man in America remained still captured by the same energy she so easily manipulated. Her boots padded against the ground as she approached him with nothing but anger. 

     - I told you to stay out of my way.

     - You need to stop this madness, Y/N. - he spoke as much as he allowed her. - Come back with me. Help us make things right. 

     - I am gonna tell you one, more, time. - she moved awfully closed to him. - Stay out of my way. 

     - This is insanity, Y/N. If there’s someone who can help us it’s you. Help us and let us help you?

    - Help me? - she lowered her hand, the man falling to the ground. - You wanna help me now?

     - I’ve always wanted to help you, Y/N. I promised Bucky, I promised your sister I’d look after you if something happened. 

     - Was that before or after you saw me as a threat?

Silence settled between the two of them. It was no secret that Steve Rogers didn’t trust her - unlike Wanda she didn’t have Vision or the same likability she had. She’d taken her brother’s death much more in stride and had always blamed it on the organisation he stood for. After he passed, she was mostly closed to herself, walking in the background. It didn’t help that she was pretty much a mystery, what she could do an equal unknown. 

     - What happens if you can’t win?

     - Well, then I’ll do what you’d do to any anomaly. I’ll destroy it. 

taglist: @smallestsnarkestgirl @thebluemage​ @21st-century-daydreamer​ @deaniu​ @hallecarey1​

[yanderes-galore]

Can you do resident evil Yandere Sergei Vladimir and Albert Wesker fighting over famale reader?.. hc

Sergei is in my list so sure!

Yandere! Sergei Vladimir vs Albert Wesker

Short Concept

Pairing: Romantic - Rivalry

Possible Trigger Warnings: Female Darling, Yandere behavior, Possessive behavior, Mentions of guilt, Mentions of suicidal thoughts in one line, Mentions of abduction, Manipulation, Implied murder.

- Unlike other 'Vs' Yandere posts I made, there is no good side in this.

- Sergei works with and is very devote to the dying Umbrella Corporation.

- While Wesker wishes to steal Umbrella's research for his own personal gain.

- Both are pretty villainous and sadistic, leaving you to be in trouble if you had to be with either one.

- You could be a former employee of Umbrella in this concept.

- Sergei wants to bring you back due to how well you worked with the corporation in the past, having grown an attachment to you and believing you can help develop the TA.L.O.S project.

- Wesker wants you on his side not only due to an attachment he had developed towards you when you and he still worked with Umbrella, but also because you have research that can benefit him.

- You, on the other hand, just want to bury your corrupt past and live a normal life.

- Not like that's possible now...

- Not with the T-Virus running rampant and everyone clambering to get Birkin's G-Virus sample.

- Normalcy was something you doubted you'd see due to your mistakes.

- Especially since your work with Umbrella now gave you two psychos who claimed they 'needed' you.

- No matter how much you wished to leave their clutches, it would be impossible unless they were both dead.

- That, or you were.

- But you had no doubt they'd just bring you back with a virus strain if you forcibly left this world.

- When both Sergei and Wesker meet, not only do they hate each other based on their standing towards Umbrella.

- They also fight on the fact both of them need you to not only complete their goals, but soothe a strange yearning within them.

- "Wesker. It's funny you think you can stand against me. I'll be taking that scientist once I find her and you will die by my hands. TA.L.O.S will not be complete without her."

- "I can tell that's not the only reason you want her. I doubt you'll have her in the end. I need her for not just her knowledge, same as you. This will not end until you die by my hands."

- In the end, one of them will come on top.

- Afterwards, you're still not in the clear.

- As the remaining survivor will be following after you to cage you to them.

- You'll give them the information they need,

- Then be forced to stay by their side and watch the carnage you caused.

[lycorsa]

Outfit Mishaps

Part of the summer prompts

Pairing: Mercy x Reader

Was this requested: Nope

Notes: Some writing for the summer prompts because I'm bored and I said I would do this a week ago.

Prompt(s): "Your bikini/outfit is loose, let me fix this." + Swimming

It was hot. Far too hot to get any real work done. That was made apparent when a sweaty Jesse McCree barged into the infirmary with a determined expression and a pair of sunglasses in hand. With his free hand, he pointed at the two scientists going about their day, "We're goin' swimming."

That was that.

Not that it mattered anyway because both yourself and Angela agreed immediately. With no influx of new patients, it left the two of you with copious amounts of paperwork. Mind you, it was much too hot to think, let alone work.

That was how a handful of Overwatch agents and their not-so-thrilled-to-be-there chaperone (Jack) ended up at a local swimming pool. Jesse gave a holler at the sight, more than pleased to be away from work for any given amount of time."

On your part, you had to take a trip to your apartment to fetch both your's and Angela's swimsuits. The former was hidden away in a box at the top of your shared closet so you held your doubts about its condition.

Nevertheless, you returned, a giddy smile growing once Angela came into view. She was making idle conversation, feet moving aimlessly on the side of the pool with Reinhardt beside her. For a moment, her eyes caught on your own, a grin falling on her expression at the sight of you.

Soon, she excused herself from Reinhardt's company, mouthing a quiet greeting as she grew closer to you. She eyed your swimsuit with uncertainty before nimble hands pull you under the shade of a nearby umbrella. Your eyes snapped up as point A connected with point B, "Dearest, it seems like your top is loose." You glanced down and sure enough, she was right. You swallowed embarrassment and moved to fix it yourself.

Perhaps it would've worked successfully if you had been a contortionist in another life. This time, however, you only managed to make it worse; much to Angela's delight. The woman was unable to stifle a quiet fit of laughter.

"Allow me..." She needn't finish her sentence. By the time you worked up the gall to question her, she'd already gone to work, hands tightening the contending strap.

"There." She hummed approval, stepping away when the problem was fixed. For a moment she stilled, seemingly admiring the sight of you, "No need for anyone who isn't me to see that."

Before you could call her out on the phrase, she'd already turned heel toward the pool, "Angela?"

[nasa]

Tournament Earth: The Earthly Eight

To celebrate Earth Observatory’s 20th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, we asked readers to pick our all-time best image. We have already completed two rounds of voting, which led to two rounds of stunning upsets. As we head into round 3, only two of the top eight seeds (#1s and #2s) remain. It is time now to cast your votes for the best of the Earthly 8. Voting ends on April 13 at 9 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time.

The nominees are separated into four groups: Past Winners, Home Planet, Land & Ice, and Sea & Sky. Check out the contenders still in the game:

Past Winners: Ocean Sand, Bahamas (#5 seed) vs. A View from Saturn (#2 seed)

Though the above image may resemble a new age painting straight out of an art gallery in Venice Beach, California, it is in fact a satellite image of the sands and seaweed in the Bahamas. The image was taken by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) instrument aboard the Landsat 7 satellite. Tides and ocean currents in the Bahamas sculpted the sand and seaweed beds into these multicolored, fluted patterns in much the same way that winds sculpted the vast sand dunes in the Sahara Desert.

This beautiful image of Saturn and its rings looks more like an artist’s creation than a real image, but in fact, the image is a composite (layered image) made from 165 images taken by the wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft over nearly three hours on September 15, 2006. Scientists created the color in the image by digitally compositing ultraviolet, infrared, and clear-filter images and then adjusting the final image to resemble natural color. (A clear filter is one that allows in all the wavelengths of light the sensor is capable of detecting.) This image is a closeup view of the upper left quadrant of the rings, through which Earth is visible in the far, far distance. The full image can be seen here.

Home Planet: Twin Marbles (#1 seed) vs. Fire in the Sky and on the Ground (#7 seed)

A day’s clouds. The shape and texture of the land. The living ocean. City lights as a beacon of human presence across the globe. This amazingly beautiful view of Earth from space is a fusion of science and art, a showcase for the remote-sensing technology that makes such views possible, and a testament to the passion and creativity of the scientists who devote their careers to understanding how land, ocean, and atmosphere—even life itself—interact to generate Earth’s unique (as far as we know!) life-sustaining environment.

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) used a digital camera to capture several hundred photographs of the aurora australis, or “southern lights,” while passing over the Indian Ocean on September 17, 2011. If you click on this movie, you can see the flowing ribbons and rays below as the ISS passed from south of Madagascar to just north of Australia between 17:22 and 17:45 Universal Time. Solar panels and other sections of the ISS fill some of the upper right side of the photograph.

Auroras are a spectacular sign that our planet is electrically and magnetically connected to the Sun. These light shows are provoked by energy from the Sun and fueled by electrically charged particles trapped in Earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere. In this case, the space around Earth was stirred up by an explosion of hot, ionized gas from the Sun—a coronal mass ejection—that left the Sun on September 14, 2011.

Ice and Land: Sand Dunes (#8 seed) vs. Retreat of Columbia Glacier (#6 seed)

Mountains of sand, some as tall as 300 meters (1000 feet), reach from the floor of Africa’s Namib Desert toward the sky. Driven by wind, these dunes march across the desert, bordered to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and in other directions by solid, rocky land.

The abrupt transition from sand to land is visible in this image, acquired on November 13, 2019, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. They show the northern extent of the Namib Sand Sea—a field of sand dunes spanning more than 3 million hectares (more than 10,000 square miles) within the Namib-Naukluft Park, which was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2013. Sand appears red, painted by a layer of iron oxide.

Scientists have long studied Alaska's fast-moving Columbia Glacier, a tidewater glacier that descends through the Chugach Mountains into Prince William Sound. Yet the river of ice continues to deliver new surprises.

The image series begins in July 1986 (bottom image) with a false-color image captured by the Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor on the Landsat 5 satellite. The false-color image from July 2014 (top image), acquired by the Operational Land Imager on the Landsat 8 satellite, shows the extent of retreat after 28 years. Use the image comparison tool to better see the details.

Sea and Sky: Atafu Atoll, Tokelau (#8 seed) vs. Raikoke Erupts (#6 seed)

At roughly eight kilometers wide, Atafu Atoll is the smallest of three atolls and one island (Nukunonu and Fakaofo Atolls to the southeast and Swains Island to the south are not shown) comprising the Tokelau Islands group located in the southern Pacific Ocean. The primary settlement on Atafu is a village located at the northwestern corner of the atoll. The typical ring shape of the atoll is the result of coral reefs building up around a former volcanic island.

Unlike some of its perpetually active neighbors on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Raikoke Volcano on the Kuril Islands rarely erupts. The small, oval-shaped island most recently exploded in 1924 and in 1778.

The dormant period ended around 4:00 a.m. local time on June 22, 2019, when a vast plume of ash and volcanic gases shot up from its 700-meter-wide crater. Several satellites—as well as astronauts on the International Space Station—observed as a thick plume rose and then streamed east as it was pulled into the circulation of a storm in the North Pacific.

On the morning of June 22, astronauts shot this photograph of the volcanic plume rising in a narrow column and then spreading out in a part of the plume known as the umbrella region. That is the area where the density of the plume and the surrounding air equalize and the plume stops rising. The ring of clouds at the base of the column appears to be water vapor.

See all of the images and vote now HERE. 

 Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

[marzipanandminutiae]

God youre so right about the representation stuff. Do you have any recs for stuff that's actually good and has diverse characters? like ive literally asked people for queer recs that are actually good and theyll be like "watch this random terrible webshow and read this book with the worst writing youll ever encounter. the main character is bi. no ill give you no plot info bc it doesnt matter"

This will probably focus mostly on sapphic representation, since that’s what I look for first. But a lot of the works mentioned have other forms of diversity, too.

BOOKS

I have a few, though one of my favorites now comes with a big caveat.

Girls of Paper and Fire (Natasha Ngan). Fantasy based on multiple Asian cultures. Lei, the PoV character, lives in a world where humans like her are systemically oppressed and animal-like demons control the country. She’s kidnapped and brought to the palace as a concubine for the cruel, megalomaniacal king. Torn between her desperate desire to resist her fate and fear of reprisals against her family, Lei falls in love with another human concubine- one whose secrets might bring down the king’s regime once and for all. Sexual assault CW, although the most graphic stuff happens “offscreen.” Haven’t read the sequel.

Romancing the Inventor (Gail Carriger). A novella tied to her Supernatural Society series, but requiring no knowledge thereof. In an alternate, steampunk England, a woman named Imogen takes a job as a maid to some local vampires. At first she hopes to be seduced by the queen of the vampire hive. But the dashing French lady inventor in the potting shed proves much more intriguing... This one also has a CW for sexual assault, though the perpetrator doesn’t succeed in her full intentions. But most of it is lovelorn mutual pining c. 1878.

The October Daye series (Seanan McGuire). Okay, the main character is straight (or at least thinks she is). But this urban fantasy juggernaut series is chock-full of LGBT representation. Faerie in this universe is bi-normative, and it really shows. The basic premise concerns half-fae private investigator/knight October “Toby” Daye and her quest to beat her personal record for literally dying and coming back fight evil. Many of her friends and allies- and her love interest -are somewhere in the rainbow umbrella, and presented with great respect. No sexual assault in this one, but a LOT of violence, if that’s a problem.

The Wayward Children series (Seanan McGuire). If non-fantasy readers have heard of McGuire, this is probably why. Ever wondered how the kids and teens who fell into other worlds and magical adventures coped with coming home? Welcome to Eleanor West’s boarding school, where found family is everything and disappearing forever in the middle of the night will make your classmates mad with jealousy. Thoughtful, funny, and heart-wrenching stories about the nature of home, fairytales, and growing into yourself. Replete with all sorts of representation, including a sapphic mad scientist, a trans former goblin prince, an Asian candy warrior, and a fat mermaid. Some violence, though how much depends on the book

The Karen Memory series (Elizabeth Bear). This is the one with the caveat. Let me explain it first. In a steampunk Seattle c. 1879, young sex worker Karen and her friends fight to keep a truly monstrous man from becoming mayor via torture and mind control. A genius inventor named Priya who knows firsthand what said candidate is capable of might be her greatest ally in the fight- and much more. I love this book because it’s one of the few Wild West stories I’ve seen acknowledge the true diversity of the American west coast during the 19th century. The characters are white, Black, Indian, Chinese, Native, and various combinations thereof. The legendary Bass Reeves plays a major part. The main character is a lesbian and one of her coworkers is a trans woman, both handled very well. The author clearly did her research and balances the sci-fi elements with a solid grasp of real-world history. CW for mentions of sex trafficking/sexual assault. Also Karen is 17, and while that was considered past the age of consent at the time and you never see her working, it may be uncomfortable for some readers.

The caveat is pretty recent. Another author came forward and said that Bear and her husband emotionally abused and manipulated them when they were still new to the industry. Bear claims that said author actually abused her. I know none of the people involved and cannot speak to who’s telling the truth. It’s a matter for your conscience if you feel comfortable giving Bear money or would rather skip the book or get it from a library. Controversy surrounding the author doesn’t change what she wrote, however, and I do personally feel that the book is quality representation on multiple levels. Do what you feel comfortable with.

Fingersmith (Sarah Waters).  A young thief in Victorian London is recruited into a con game to cheat a sheltered heiress out of her fortune. But once she meets the other girl, their feelings for each other begin to complicate everything. Full of twists, turns, and that trademark slew of gothic novel coincidences. CW for child abuse (mostly emotional and physical), opiate addiction (not explored in detail), and abusive mental hospital staff.

It’s a short list, but hopefully it will expand as time goes on. My local sci-fi/fantasy bookstore takes representation and diverse voices seriously, so I’ll doubtless find more hidden gems.

MOVIES

Fingersmith. (Technically a miniseries.) I love this adaptation so much. The Korean horror version, The Handmaiden, is also supposed to be good, but it seems too gory and full of weird sex stuff- beyond the book’s erotic literature -for my personal taste.

The Favourite. Artsy, dramatic, funny in parts, and might leave you saying “...what?” but also “GAAAAAAY.” In 1701, two noblewomen vie for the attention of Queen Anne I of England. Attention in a platonic way but also in an oral sex way. The costuming is amazing even if almost all the characters are horrible people. So hewing close to history all the way ‘round, then.

Portrait of a Lady On Fire. Pining! An island off the coast of Brittany! Pining! The vague 1700s! Pining! Art! Did I mention pining? There’s. So much damn pining. THis is a movie I really liked because THE COUPLE ACTUALLY HAS CHEMISTRY. PRAISE THE HOLY TRIFECTA OF APHRODITE, CLIO, AND SAPPHO, GODDESSES AND HONORED ANCESTOR OF GOOD HISTORICAL WLW REPRESENTATION. The ending was disappointing, but I was just so glad to see a movie with a historical sapphic couple that actually seemed in love with each other. A movie that wasn’t Fingersmith.

A lot of LGBT movies aren’t really to my liking, because queer history and/or fantasy isn’t exactly a much-explored genre onscreen at the moment. Boo.

SHOWS

Carmilla. A webseries VERY loosely based on the Victorian novel of the same name/my favorite book. College freshman Laura Hollis sets out to investigate the disappearance of her roommate at a school that might as well be Night Vale University. But the appearance of a snarky, gorgeous vampire named Carmilla takes the weird to a whole other level. Also features a nonbinary mad scientist and two main Black characters- an Amazonian warrior woman, and a glamorous vampire with a penchant for corporate machination. (though the latter two don’t appear until s2, when fans were like “this show is very white” and creators were like “crap, you’re right; let’s rectify that.” one of them gets killed. she gets resurrected a few episodes later, though, because nobody on this show stays dead). This is my main fandom. Highly recommend.

Wynonna Earp. Honestly why don’t I just say “the wlw Megafandom c. 2015″ and be done with it? Wynonna, an irresponsible screw-up and descendant of Wyatt Earp, returns to her small, rural hometown just in time to turn 27 and activate the curse that forces her to put down the vengeful spirits of everyone killed with Wyatt’s gun. All of whom have it out for her family, and some of whom have bigger agendas of their own. Her sister  Waverly is a cinnamon roll history nerd dating The Only Valid Cop, Nicole. (Though how much normal police work Nicole does is highly debatable, since most of the crime in her town is demon-related.) Pretty violent, but well worth a watch if you can handle that.

I just realized I don’t actually watch much LGBT TV, either. Possibly because I’m not overly interested in things that aren’t historical or sci-fi/fantasy and my thematic tastes are very specific?

Anyway, those are my big favorites. But I’m sure there are other great pieces of media out there. Who knows what will cross my radar next- or yours?

[wil-o-wispy]

The Wife, the Lover and the Bastard Son - Part 2

Chris Redfield x FM! Reader

Part 1 | Part 2 (you are here) | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Synopsis: It's the morning after Chris Redfield took care of you and things are oddly... domestic?

Includes: MDNI - NSFW, fluff, banter, angst, oral (FM reader receiving), porn with plot, use of pet names (sweetheart, good girl, pretty girl, baby, gorgeous), minor reader injury from previous part, reference to drinking in the previous part. Reader is referred to as 'Doc' otherwise. Reader is the wife of (dead) Albert Wesker and is a former Umbrella scientist.

A/N: WOO this took so long to get out. I can't write linearly to save my life and my writer brain wanted to work on plot stuff taking place after this chapter. On the bright side the next few parts should get done quicker. Hopefully. This is also my first spicy writing thing so have fun!

wc: 6.5k+

The first thing you notice when you wake up the next morning is the pounding headache behind your eyes and a throbbing in your foot. You lift an arm over your face and groan, the cheery brightness of the morning sun still too much for your blurry eyes to properly accommodate to. For a few precious minutes, you just lay in bed trying to string together a coherent thought other than, ‘I’m never drinking whiskey again,’ because you know that promise won’t last the month.

Then it all comes back to you. The almost-bar fight. Chris driving you home. The broken glass. Chris comforting you. Bits and pieces of the previous night stitch themselves together and you are both relieved and embarrassed of its events.

It feels like a monumental weight has been lifted off your shoulders. Sure, the dirty looks would stay along with your reputation, but Chris Redfield doesn’t think you’re a monster. However, the relief is almost overshadowed by a creeping sense of embarrassment. You never show that kind of vulnerability in front of anyone. Not even Albert after the Mansion incident.

Despite the conflicting feelings, you’re thankful that Chris had the foresight to put you into your bed and tuck you in. Everything after crawling into Chris’ lap and crying your eyes out is hazy due to your alcohol consumption, but you do have a distinct memory of being lifted off the ground and carried by a pair of strong, warm and comforting arms past a broom propped up on the doorway to the kitchen.

The broom. The glass. Your foot. There’s still blood and glass in the foyer that you have to clean up.

With a groan, you roll out of bed, stretching to relieve some of the tightness in your muscles that accompanies a bad hangover. It’s at this point you realize you’re wearing a sweatshirt that you hadn’t worn the night before. Your heart stops in your chest until you lift the hem of it and see you’re still wearing the nice shirt you wore to your D.S.O. interview the day before.

Chris. Always the gentleman.

You take stock of what you’re wearing; oversized sweatshirt, nice shirt, nice pants, no socks, but a sizeable amount of gauze is on one foot. While you take stock of yourself and your surroundings, you also notice a couple aspirin and a sports drink on your bedside table that you know you didn’t have in the house last night. Chris cared both about your comfort and boundaries while intoxicated, as well as the aftermath of it. He even went out and bought you items to help with your hangover.

Another event to add to the overflowing list of reasons why you don’t deserve him.

Or do you? He doesn’t fault you for your dead husband’s actions. He goes to bat for you when the B.S.A.A., D.S.O., or any other anti-bioterrorism organization is up your ass. He listens when you need to vent and drink your sorrows away. He’s kind. He’s considerate. He’s a good man. He’s everything that Albert wasn’t.

Stop it.

You pop the aspirin in your mouth and wash it down with the sports drink, dismissing any other thoughts on how good Chris had been to you. Things in your life were already too complicated. No use in entertaining far-fetched fantasies. He’s got to be this considerate with anyone, right? You couldn’t recall a specific instance comparable to last night that would justify that thought, but you try to think of one as you strip off the clothes from the night before and throw on some clean loungewear. You opt to wear some sleep shorts and a t-shirt.

As you get dressed, you rediscover an offer letter that you’d forgotten to reject. Even though your last name gave you a reputation, numerous branches of the B.S.A.A. requested your transfer every year due to your expertise in bioweapons research. After all, who would be better at combatting these threats than someone who witnessed their creation and aftermath? This one was more tempting than most; an offer to work in B.S.A.A. Europe HQ in Germany, Head Researcher position, fully furnished apartment included and competitive salary.

You crumple the offer letter and toss it in the trash. Tempting, but stability is on the top of your list of priorities at the moment. An international move is the opposite of that. You go into your bathroom attached to your bedroom and do your morning routine, opting to worry about a shower later.

You go out into the hallway, hobbling a bit with the injured foot but staying upright without trouble. The aspirin is starting to kick in and you’re already feeling a bit better. You make a list in your head of things to get done before burying yourself in blankets on the couch; sweep up the glass, mop the foyer of the remaining blood, take a shower, make a greasy breakfast, binge watch something.

Your mental list is interrupted by sounds coming from your kitchen. Confused, you turn down the hall and see Chris’ car keys still on the table in the entryway. You also see the floor is devoid of glass, blood, and the medical supplies from the night before.

Chris hears you pad into the kitchen and flashes his signature grin as he turns bacon on your stove with a fork. There’s a plate with finished bacon pieces on a paper towel next to the stove, as well as two plates with toast.

“Morning Doc.”

“Morning. You stayed the night?” Your tone is cordial. It’s not accusatory because, oddly enough, you don’t mind Chris sleeping over. At any point before last night, you would have been miffed and probably would have given a speech arguing you could take care of yourself and that he had a lot of nerve spending the night considering your history. But Chris making you breakfast still stirs up that guilt of him doing more nice things for you to add on to the laundry list of favors he’d done for you over the years. But you can’t deny the smell of what he’s cooking makes your mouth water.

“Yeah, I took the couch. You had a lot to drink. I just wanted to make sure you woke up okay.”

You snort. “Right. You sure you weren’t just avoiding having to sleep in the barracks last night?”

Chris chuckles at your joke and holds his hands up in playful surrender. “You got me. Can’t pull the wool over your eyes.”            

You return the smile and hobble next to Chris by the stove, leaning on the counter next to him just watching him cook. You have to make a conscious effort to focus on the food, and not to stare at Chris’ battle toned forearms for too long.

“Now I can accept you making sure I don’t choke on my own vomit, but this-” You gesture to the stove and the entryway, “-is crossing the line. You’re in my house. I’m supposed to take care of you. Not the other way around.”

“What? I can’t treat my host to breakfast and a cleaner house?” He’s still jovial when turns his attention back to the stove and turns the bacon.

“That’s reverse hospitality,” You quip.

“Then consider me a reverse guest,” Chris answers.

You let out an exasperated sigh and your body slumps. “Chris, seriously you didn’t have to do all that-”

“I wanted to.” Chris stops looking at the bacon in the pan and looks you in the eyes.

You two stare at each other in silence, gazes locked in a battle of wills.

“You don’t have to do everything yourself.” Chris says softly, with a hint of authority in his tone.

“I know that.” You bite back, challenging him.

Chris raises an eyebrow, and you see a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “Do you?”

More silence. You let out another sigh and you break from his gaze to stare at the floor instead.

“You’ve already done more for me than I could ever hope to repay. I don’t need to owe you more favors for something like last night.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Bullshit.” You look back up at him in disbelief; mouth open and eyebrows knitted together.

“No bullshit. I’m serious.”

You open your mouth to argue more, but Chris shushes you and places a cup of hot tea in your hands before you can protest. You didn’t even notice it sitting next to the stove. You feel the comforting warmth of his fingers ghost over yours as he guides your hand to take hold of the mug handle.

“No bullshit, you have my word. Now sit down, rest that foot, enjoy your drink, and let me handle everything else.”

You open and close your mouth, trying to articulate a response. There’s not much you can say to argue against that, especially when his gentle touch is making your brain go haywire. The captain is a man of his word. Those perceptive eyes of his hold no hint of deception, only genuine kindness like you saw the night before. Not to mention there’s something undeniably attractive about him wanting to take care of you in such a gentle, authoritative manner. You relent and take a sip of tea trying to calm your racing heart.

“Thanks.”

Chris’ face lights up and he flashes another smile. “Thatta girl. How do you like your eggs?”

You try to ignore the butterflies erupting in your stomach when he says that. “I’m not picky, however you’re having them.” You push yourself off the counter, snatch a piece of bacon from the plate and hobble over to the barstool sitting area at the kitchen island behind Chris.

“Save some for your meal.” You hear Chris smiling as he says that.

“I’m making sure it’s crispy enough. Sue me.”

Your conversation goes on in that comfortable rhythm all throughout breakfast; casual conversation with witty remarks thrown in followed by a joke that starts the cycle all over again. Chris sits on the stool next to you, and you both enjoy the two plates of toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon that Chris had made.

“You’re going to spoil me at this rate.” You say with a grin.

“You make that sound like a bad thing.”

“It kind of is. You’re going to make me miss having you around to clean up my messes and make me food.” You eat your toast, keeping up the playful banter.

“And what if I am?” The way Chris says that doesn’t make it sound like he’s joking, but you brush it off and roll your eyes, munching on the last of your bacon. “I’d call your bluff.”

“Why do you think it’s a bluff?”

You sit there just looking at your fork for a beat, trying to think of the best way to phrase your thoughts. You can’t think of anything, but you turn your gaze back to Chris and answer him with a question. “Because why would you care if I miss you?”

“Because who wouldn’t want the attention of a woman like you?” Chris’ expression shifts from that kind expression you’re used to, to a more wistful and romantic one.

Your mouth goes dry and your heart races in your chest. It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room. “People with half a brain and a shred of common sense.” The statement is said with your signature dry sense of humor, but there’s also an edge of something akin to a warning. It doesn’t deter Chris in the slightest.

“Ouch. At least I’ve got my looks going for me,” he quips with a smirk. It amazes you that he’s still joking about something you think is so serious. It makes you want to wipe that sexy smile right off his face. Whether it’s with a kiss or sharp words is still up for debate.

“Chris-” You warn sharply.

“Doc-” Chris says, pleadingly.

“No. It’s a bad idea. End of story.” Your tone comes out much gentler than you intend. You pick at the last of your food, not wanting to look at Chris and betray your true feelings that you’ve tried so hard to suppress over the years. He killed your husband. Your evil, narcissistic, psychopathic husband. Despite who Albert was, it felt like you would cross some sort of moral boundary you couldn’t come back from if you indulged in those thoughts. But the longer Chris looks at you with that wanting gaze, the less imposing that boundary becomes.

“You know me. I love bad ideas.” As Chris speaks in a low, romantic tone, your mind runs wild and your cheeks flush red with all the possible interpretations of his words.

You hear the barstool next to you squeak, Chris’ hand comes into your vision, rests delicately on your cheek, and tilts your head back towards him. His face is dangerously close to yours. You see every detail of his face; his dark hazel eyes, the small mole under his right eye, the stubble on his jaw, the subtle hair growth around his mouth and chin, and finally his lips.

You don’t know who leans in first, but one moment you’re committing Chris’ face to memory, and the next your lips are against his. Your eyes close and time stops. The kiss is slow, methodical and fills you with a pleasant warmth that makes your stomach flip and heart skip a beat.

You can’t remember the last time you had a kiss like this, and you don’t want to. All you want to do in this moment is experience everything Chris has to offer. Everything.

It feels like an eternity has passed when you both finally break for air. You breathe in a shaky breath. Shaky from how weak in the knees the kiss made you, as well as nervous energy from crossing that boundary you’d made for yourself. You just kissed the man who killed your husband and you liked it. Not only that, but that kiss stirred something lustful inside you that makes you want even more.

“Look at me pretty girl.” Chris whispers. His hand still holds the side of your face while his thumb caresses your cheekbone.

You open your eyes, and you see Chris smiling at you. It falters and switches into something much more concerned when he sees your conflicted look.

“We can stop if you want to. I can leave and we can agree this never happened if that’s what you want.” You can feel his hot breath on your face as he murmurs in a low tone.

Maybe it’s the residual feeling of safety due to the events of the night before, an accumulation of repressed want from years working alongside each other, or maybe it’s just the need to feel someone else’s loving embrace. Morality be damned. Maybe it’s the pounding of your heart drowning out all common sense, but you crave the man in front of you more than anything in the universe right now. Your next words come out in a wanting murmur.

“I don’t want you to stop.”

This time, it’s you that leans back in to kiss Chris’ incredulous expression, but he immediately melts back into your lips. Once it’s established that this is something you’re craving, Chris earnestly returns the enthusiasm. Sweet kisses morph into fervent tastes for more as your lips intertwine with Chris’. Tongues dance in a teasing duel for dominance that you are all too happy to lose just so you can feel how eager Chris is to feast on your sighs of pleasure. Bask in your shivers of ecstasy. Relish in your desperate pants for oxygen from him taking your breath away.

The only thing you can even comprehend with his inviting tongue intertwining with yours is that it’s not enough. You want more. You need more. More of his warmth, more of his lips, more of him. The heat that Chris awoke in you has grown from mere embers to a growing, starving flame that wants to savor and devour everything that’s yet to come.

It doesn’t take long to know Chris feels the exact same way. Committing your pleasure to memory with his hands and lips won’t do. With how far you were leaning into his embrace, you were halfway to touching his lap already, but Chris eagerly expediates the process. His hands abandon your cheek and neck to claim your hips and guide you to sit on his lap where you belong. You take a sharp intake of breath and clutch Chris’ shoulders for balance from the change in position, but Chris is quick to soothe your concerns while keeping his lips on any inch of your skin he can reach.

“Don’t worry baby I’ve got you. I’ve got you…”

You reposition yourself on his lap so you feel more secure in Chris’ grasp, but you accidentally grind against his crotch. A deep groan is released from Chris’ lips and he kisses your skin with more fervor. Being positioned the way you are on his lap, it’s difficult not to notice the growing hardness underneath his jeans.

“All that for me?” You try to be sultry, but don’t do a good job of it because you can barely get any discernible words out with how hard you’re breathing.

“Have you seen yourself sweetheart?” Chris leaves wet kisses from your collarbone to your neck, then captures your lips in a ravenous kiss. “Fucking gorgeous with your cheeks all red like that…”

Chris lifts you up off his lap effortlessly and you gasp and hold onto his shoulders as he places you on the counter in front of him. Once you’re secure, his hands are quick to wander and caress everything he can reach; from your hips, to your ass, to your thighs, then hips, then ribs, lower back then repeating the pathing again. Eagerness and patience are at war with each other as he alternates between greedily clutching each soft feature and methodically caressing every one of your curves as if trying to commit them to memory.

You’re breathing heavily when he rips his lips away from yours and starts kissing you down your jaw to your throat. He feverishly leaves open mouthed kisses along the curve of your neck, kissing and sucking at the skin tenderly yet enthusiastically. You can tell he’s savoring every part of you, clearly eager to do more but wanting to enjoy every detail of your physique first. It takes no time at all for him to find the spots that make you squirm and pant in his embrace. When his teeth lightly graze your pulse point, your legs reflexively tighten around his waist, but you accidentally bump the barstool behind Chris with your injured foot with a loud clunk and curse. The throbbing in your foot is back with full force, making you wince. Worse, Chris pulls away from your neck and stares at you intensely with a worried look. Slightly flushed cheeks and labored breath.

“You alright?” He looks behind him and sees the scene of the crime, and lightly scoots the barstool a safe distance away with his foot. Chris moves to lean down and examine your foot, but you’re quick to grasp his face and lovingly bring it back to yours. You kiss Chris’ cheek and give him a reassuring smile.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” You lean back in to kiss Chris, ignoring the shooting pain from your injured foot and getting lost in the intoxicating taste of his lips. Chris’ worried expression melts away somewhat, but he still speaks lowly between breaks for air.

“You need to rest that foot on something.”

“Later,” You whisper, going back in to capture his lips again.

The captain slides one of his large, calloused hands on the back of your head and strokes the hair there, and you think you’ve convinced him to drop the subject. Oh how wrong you are.

In one moment, you’re getting lost in the feeling of Chris’ hands on the back of your head and shoulders, and the next Chris has pushed your plates to the side and laid you swiftly, but gently, on your back.

“Chris!” You whine as you try to sit up, but you’re stopped by a large hand putting weight on your ribcage and fleeting kisses down your neck and chest. His voice is muffled from how close his face is to your trembling body, but you hear him speak in that authoritative, husky voice again as he continues to kiss further down your chest. “Uh uh, you stay put.” You’re about to protest the change in position, wanting nothing more than to keep Chris’ lips on yours, but his lips on your inner thigh make your words die in your throat. Chris lightly sucks the area while his darkening gaze is honed in on your face.

“I meant it when I said you need to rest that foot…” Chris places another lingering kiss on your inner thigh slightly closer to your aching core. “…so be a good girl and put those pretty thighs over my shoulders.”

The effects of his words are immediate; blood rushes to your cheeks so quickly that you feel lightheaded, the heat in your abdomen that was kindled by his touch burns hotter, and your lips part in silent shock and anticipation of what he’ll do next. For once, your brain has short circuited, and you don’t have anything to say. All you can do is gape and nod as you hook your knee with the injured foot over his shoulder.

“Good. Now I want you to relax and let me take care of you. Okay?” The low vibrating timbre of his voice is so close to your aching clit that you arch your back and whine, nodding.

Chris continues to be a paradox of patience and eagerness as he coaxes more and more delicious sounds from you. His large hands greedily grasp the flesh of your hips and thighs, but don’t grope close enough to give you the stimulation you crave. His mouth worships the space between your thigh and groin but never dares venture further than the rolled-up edge of your night shorts where you’re clenching around nothing. He never stimulates what is begging to be loved underneath despite how much both of you crave it.

“Chris…please.” You beg, eyes clouded over with lust and need.

“Hmmmm… I don’t hear you say that a lot.” You can practically hear the shit eating smile in his voice as Chris keeps kissing you the same way as before, but one of his fingers teasingly traces the hem of your shorts. He’s right. You don’t. That little comment would infuriate you if the wetness between your thighs and throbbing clit weren’t on the top of the list of things on your mind right now. If you have to say please to get Chris to take care of you, you’ll relent and do it.

“Please just to-oooh!” Your desperate request is cut short by a moan being released from the back of your throat.

Chris keeps kissing the sensitive spots between your thighs, but two of his fingers have slipped under the edge of your shorts by the groin and is lightly rubbing the fabric over your engorged bundle of nerves. He experiments with different speeds and pressures until he finds the ones that make your back arch, eyes roll to the back of your head, and thighs close around his face. Just when you’re bucking your hips into his hand and you feel your pleasure building, you feel his fingers retreat.

“Chris!” You whine, body relaxing back into the counter but desperate for more of his touch.

“I know baby, I’ll take care of it.” Chris assures you as he hooks his fingers into the crotch of your shorts and underwear, pulling them to one side then practically diving into your dripping folds. His mouth is greedy when he’s finally between your thighs where you want him to be. Chris’ tongue laves at your entrance with long, languid strokes at first, but quickly devolves into him thrusting his tongue into your cunt so deeply that his nose is bumping your clit with each plunge of his tongue and you writhing and panting in pleasure as your climax quickly builds back to where Chris’ fingers left off.

He tries to be patient and draw it out for your sake, he really does, but you taste too good. Your moans and whimpers of ecstasy sound too pretty. The way you’re grabbing his forearm arm that’s caging your hips to the counter for dear life that so obviously signals how close you are is the biggest turn on. His mouth gorges on your release and he swears it’s his new favorite meal.

That starving flame in your abdomen that Chris has been feeding this whole time is so close to overtaking you, but you need more and Chris can sense this in how you tremble around him and desperate cries of his name tumble from your lips. He replaces his tongue with one of his fingers and he keeps up the same speed and intensity while his lips latch on to your clit, gently sucking on the sensitive bundle of nerves and tongue making purposeful, salacious strokes that makes your face contort in delight.

You fall apart in mere moments. Your back arches as you feel your orgasm crash through you like a tidal wave and the pleasure is almost overwhelming. You cling to Chris’ forearm as you ride out the powerful sensation. Even with your thighs closing in around his head, his lips don’t let up their assault on your clit until you’re bordering on being overstimulated and trying to push his head away. Your thighs twitch from the aftermath, your cunt and clit throb from the greedy attention of Chris’ lovemaking, and you’re pretty sure you have breadcrumbs in your hair from the toast in the long forgotten breakfast that was made for you.

Even with all of that, it still leaves you with a warm, comfortable sense of pleasure and a blissfully hazy mind.

Chris gently laps up the mess between your folds with his tongue, both determined not to let a drop of you go to waste as well as to prolong your pleasure while you come back down to Earth. With a final quick kiss to your clit that makes your hips twitch into his mouth, Chris tenderly moves the crotch of your panties and shorts back over your pelvis. He uses the collar of his t-shirt to wipe your release from his chin, and licks his finger clean.

You feel boneless when he sits you up. You’re breathing is shallow, but slowly returning to normal when Chris brings you to his chest. You rest your head on his shoulder and lazily wrap your arms around his waist. His hand is under your shirt at your lower back, hand pressed against your spine and rubbing the area firmly while his other hand cradles your head at the back of your neck. For the first time in what feels like years, you feel wanted and loved. The warmth of his hands and arms as well as his breath in your ear feels so addicting. You don’t want him to let go.

“You still with me gorgeous?” He whispers into your ear.

“Yeah…” You mumble, smiling into Chris’ neck as he cuddles you. A deep chuckle vibrates in Chris’ chest, and he plants a soft kiss on your temple. Then another one on your cheekbone. Then another next to your ear…

You giggle and close your eyes, “Someone’s eager.”

“Hard not to be with such a beautiful woman in front of me.”

After a few more kisses Chris gently moves you off his shoulder so you can sit up and look at him with half lidded eyes. For a moment you just sit there blinking slowly at him relishing in his embrace, and he’s just smiling at your fucked out expression. His hand slides from the back of your next to your cheek. He rubs the skin there with his thumb for a moment, then leans in to kiss you properly.

Just when Chris is a breath away from tasting your lips, a jarring ringtone cracks through the air and brings you back to reality. It’s Chris’ phone, but he doesn’t make a move to answer it. He only pauses at the first ring and captures your lips in a sweet kiss on the second.

“You’re not going to answer that?”

“They’ll call back if it’s important.” Chris murmurs against your lips and goes back in for more, seemingly drunk off the taste of you and your affection as you chuckle and kiss him back. After a few more seconds, the phone stops ringing only for it to resume again almost immediately after.

“I guess it’s important.” You sigh against Chris’ lips when you reluctantly pull away. Chris lets out a frustrated breath and pulls back, still not making a move to answer the call. His gaze darts from your eyes to your lips like he’s thinking about ignoring it again. You know better. The captain is a busy and well-respected man. You’ll be damned if that gets ruined because he can’t keep his hands off you. You smile sympathetically at him and kiss his cheek.

“I’ll clean up while you take care of that.” You move to get off the counter, but Chris’ strong hands at your hips stop you.

“I told you that you need to rest your foot.”

“You can convince me to elevate it again after you deal with that soldier boy. But until then-” You lean to the side to grab Chris’ phone, remove his hand from your hip, then plop the phone in his palm. “-duty calls.” You reply cheekily, giving the speechless captain a smirk before lowering yourself off the counter to collect the plates.

Chris shakes his head, smiles, presses a button on his phone and lifts it to his ear. “Hello?” You turn on the sink and begin washing the plates. You hear Chris reply in a more serious tone, and turn out of the kitchen to take the call in the living room. “Yeah, this is Captain Redfield.” Over the sound of the water you can’t hear who’s on the other end, but you can gather this is a serious conversation. You just hope it isn’t notifying Chris of a new outbreak, or something else that would require his immediate attention. You’d hate for it to disrupt such a pleasurable morning.

After you finish washing the plates, you turn off the tap and begin drying them. The speaker on Chris’ phone isn’t loud by any means, but in the silence of your little house you can clearly hear the conversation in the living room from your kitchen sink. And on the other end of the call, you hear a familiar, grating voice.

There’s a sinking feeling in your stomach. It doesn’t take a genius to know that it’s the D.S.O. agent from your interview the day before. From the sound of it, the agent still had a stick up his ass and seemed to be grilling Chris with the same intensity he was questioning you. You can make out the tinny voice of the D.S.O. agent, clearly not liking Chris’ answers. “You want to know what I think captain? I think you’ve been soft on her.”

You can hear the scowl in Chris’ voice when he answers the agent with the same level of disdain while also remaining professional. “And I think you’re being harsh because you’re trying to see things that aren’t there. Aren’t government agents supposed to practice due process? She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Her husband almost destroyed the world. You really expect me to just take her word that she didn’t help?”

“She has been nothing but cooperative since then. Every bit of information she’s given the B.S.A.A. has checked out. Plus, her work after the fact has prevented more outbreaks than I’m cleared to talk about. There is no reason to suspect her of bioterrorism.”

There’s silence on the other end of the call, then the sound of a throat being cleared. “Well captain I called to inform you that I need to bring in a third party to verify your claims. No hard feelings of course, but I do believe your history with her is clouding your judgement.”

A range of emotions hits you all at once when you hear that. Anger at this asshole for being thick in the head. Annoyance at the fact that you’ll probably have to do yet another pointless interview about Africa. Then finally, a paralyzing uneasiness at the agent’s implication against Chris. You’ve been too soft on her. Chris’ high professional opinion of you alone results in distrust.

“Yeah, you do that. We done here?” You hear Chris reply cooly, but the rest of the conversation in drowned out by your inner turmoil.

Chris being in close professional proximity to you already turns heads, and not in a good way. Sure the people who can understand your work respect your intellect and appreciate the help, but everyone else sees the shadow of Albert’s memory.  

All is takes is someone breathing the name Wesker and the seed of distrust is already planted. Chris being in your corner alleviates some of that, albeit with bewildered looks and reluctant agreement.

You working with Chris is already unusual, but people respect him so they go along with the strange dynamic you two have. Would that respect remain if people knew you were fucking him? Would his team still follow him with full confidence into battle with no questions asked if they knew he was making you cry out his name after the mission was said and done? Would Chris still be sent on missions to clear up the loose ends of Umbrella’s misgivings if his superiors knew he was coming home to you, who literally slept with the enemy? In your mind, absolutely not.

How could you be so reckless? So selfish? You know you won’t be able to salvage any of Chris’ reputation by your own volition. Only taint it. In your mind, there can easily be a future where you and Chris are together, but the world slowly falls apart because of the distrust of you and the once infallible captain. True, Chris isn’t the B.S.A.A.’s only veteran, but he’s undoubtedly one of the most revered.

Before you can spiral further, two calloused hands grip your hips and a pair of lips tenderly kiss the space behind your ear. You can hear a smile and a suggestive mischievousness in Chris’ voice.

“I have to head out soon to handle a few things, but I’m going to make sure that foot is nice and elevated before I go.”

You heart flips and you can feel your cunt throb hearing his offer. You momentarily consider letting Chris have another taste of you, but instead you stick to your resolve. “You can head out now. This isn’t going to work out the way you think it will.”

You feel Chris’ grip on your hips soften and wait for his response. You can clearly envision him connecting the dots in his head of why you had a change of heart.

“Don’t let one asshole ruin something good for you.” Chris’ voice is soft, soothing. Pleading. One of his hands leaves your hips and tries to lace itself on top of your hand gripping the sink. You snatch your hand back and move away from his addictive embrace so there is an appropriate amount of space between you two. Your voice is serious and even. You look at Chris head on. His previously captivating eyes are confused.

“That’s not the point. You are so lucky people look up to you. I’m not going to ruin that by entertaining this.”

“I think that’s a joint decision-” Chris starts, but you’re quick to shut him down.

“No. You don’t get a say in this. You need to go, and we are going to forget today even happened.”

“Doc, that’s just one agent-”

“Among dozens more who think what he’s thinking but keep their opinions to themselves, so they don’t speak out against the B.S.A.A.’s golden boy.”

Chris looks like he's carefully picking his next words but you speak out before he has the chance to form a compelling argument. “I refuse to drag you down to my level. End of discussion. Leave.”

Chris is standing a few paces away from you next to the sink, still looking like he wants to keep insisting on a potential partnership that you know is doomed to fail. Your shoulders slump and you try a different tactic.

“I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I changed my mind. I don’t want you here right now. Please respect that.”

Chris processes your words. He nods his head and heads to the door. “Alright.”

You see him put his hand on his keys on the entryway table, but he doesn’t pick them up. His wanting eyes dart over to you one more time while you refuse to meet his gaze.

“I’ll check in on you next week. Do you need me to get your car picked up?”

Your car is still broken down in the parking lot of the bar from the night before. You sigh in frustration. “Thank you for reminding me. I’ll handle it. Drive safe.”

You can’t look at the front door. You’re not too sure if it would happen, but you don’t want to risk your resolve crumbling if you get a glimpse of Chris’ face. His infuriatingly kind, tempting face.

After a long pause, you finally hear Chris pick up his keys in the entryway and the front door open. “Keep that foot elevated, will ya Doc?”

“Will do.”

Another long pause, and you hear the front door mercifully close. A moment after, an engine starting up, and a large vehicle driving away.

In the silence of your kitchen, solitary living suddenly feels suffocating. Your mind is still racing. Even after being pushed away minutes after eating you out, Chris still wants to do things for you and it makes your heart ache. As strong as your resolve is right now, you’re unsure if you’ll be able to hold out and it terrifies you.

You need distance. Not just emotionally. Physical distance. You know the solution immediately.

In a matter of minutes, you dig out the offer letter from the trash and call the number on the header. When someone finally answers, you’re cordial. Calm.

“Hello, this is Dr. Wesker. I’m calling to learn more about your transfer offer.”

In the span of an hour, your escape plan is set. Europe HQ has booked you on a red eye flight to Germany for later that evening, a work visa is expedited, your new apartment keys are waiting for you across the globe, and you're throwing everything you can't replace in Germany into a suitcase without much throught for organization.

They were surprised to hear you wanted to transfer so quickly, but they were quick to accommodate your reasonable requests. And when they asked if Captain Redfield would still be checking in with you, they were more than understanding about you wanting a local agent to look after you.

Chris Redfield always tries to save everyone.

It’s your turn to make sure you save him from yourself.

_______________________________

Thanks for reading!

AO3 link for this part.

[lokimostly]

Home from War (Ch.1/8)

James Conrad x Reader Word Count: 2,565 Warnings: so much angst (sorry not sorry) Fic Summary: One year after you lost the love of your life, a last-minute decision changes everything you thought you knew. Now only one question remains: how to make it out alive, and return home from war? 

If you haven’t read the prequel series, go HERE to read Rainy Days! Super important, you don’t want to miss it. 

Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight (Epilogue)

A/N: Tag list is open! Thanks for the overwhelming support for Rainy Days and this new series! I love you all so much and I hope you like this one. Also, since his fic follows the plot of the movie, I apologize in advance for any discrepancies between my writing style and the script itself. I’ve taken most of the dialogue verbatim. I’ll try to make all of the extra characters fit into the story as smoothly as possible (so we can focus on the romance, lol). Enjoy! <3

Captain James Conrad stood in the middle of the road, uniformed soldiers passing him by. The wind whipped at his clothes, pulling them from him, as he stood frozen and utterly hopeless.

Where had you gone?

His mind raced and his blue eyes darted around, looking for some sign of you, but there was nothing to be found. All he could feel were the heartstrings in his chest splitting, the unbidden tears in his eyes blurring his vision, the overwhelming sense of hopelessness.

He fell to his knees, and looked up to the sky, where the yellow clouds had turned dark and drowned out the sun.

It began to rain.

One Year Later

Rain came down from the night sky in droves as the two scientists, Randa and Brooks, made their away across the busy Saigon street, holding their black umbrellas upright. As usual, they were caught up in argumentative conversation, shouting above the noise.

“Why do we need a tracker? And why SAS?”

“Former SAS,” Randa, the older, bearded man, corrected. “No allegiance to anyone. And he rescued twelve downed pilots from Da Nang in ‘72!”

Brooks’s reply was lost in the commotion of traffic and the onslaught of rain coming down on their umbrellas. As the two of them ducked into the corner establishment, folding up their umbrellas, Brooks sighed noisily and pushed his glasses up.

“Okay, fine. So how much do we tell him?”

“Just enough to get him to say yes,” Randa replied.

The bar was bathed in red and blue neon light. It lit up the silhouettes of everyone inside, revealing the room to be overcrowded and dusty. The air was thick with the smell of perfume and alcohol. Slow music played from some hidden room, giving the entire bar a mellow, diluted atmosphere.

The two men made their way to the bar and stopped short at the sight of the man they were looking for: James Conrad.

The former captain was a shell of his previously clean-cut self. Wearing a blue button-up shirt rolled up to his elbows and unbuttoned at the neck, Conrad’s sharp features were diluted by an unshaven beard, unstyled hair, and a clouded veil over his blue-green eyes. Apart from the hardness of his physique, the rest of him was in obvious disrepair, for reasons Randa and Brooks could only guess.

Conrad shot the eight ball deftly into the center hole and reached for the pile of money on the pool table. As he did so, someone grabbed his wrist and objected, scolding him in Vietnamese.

It all happened in a matter of seconds. Conrad stared at him, deadly and unblinking, before he snapped the pole upwards and hit the man in the face. Intuitively, he jabbed the pole backwards and slammed it into the body of another man with an open switchblade in his hand. The man threw a cue ball– he dodged. He threw another, and this time, he deflected it back into his face, knocking him to the ground.

Randa raised an eyebrow and turned to Brooks, giving him a look that screamed I told you so.

“Now there’s a man worth talking to.”

~

“...So we need someone like you, with unprecedented experience in navigating uncharted jungle terrain, to lead us on this expedition,” Brooks finished, watching Conrad nervously from across the table. Bathed in neon light, Conrad’s face was cold, calculating, and entirely unreadable.

Randa scoffed lightly. “We’re just scholars and scientists. We need someone with experience. In case things go sideways.” He held up his shot glass and paused, giving it a thoughtful look before his eyes flickered up to the rugged, bearded man sitting across the table.

“Men go to war in search of something, Mr. Conrad,” He pointed out. “If you’d found it, you’d be home by now.”

~

“Attention all soldiers and base personnel, final troop withdrawal will commence at 0600,” the loudspeakers above your head announced as you walked through the flight bay of the U.S. army’s Da Nang air base– your home for the past eleven months.  

You cupped your hands around your mouth. “Hey, Slivko, do you have my Steinbeck?” You shouted, striding over to where the small group of soldiers were lounging on folding chairs, playing cards on top of ammo crates. You came within earshot of them just as Mills finished a joke, and laughter erupted from the men. You couldn’t help but smile, too– they were a funny group, and unlike your past experiences with previous squads, these soldiers actually felt like family.

Slivko looked up at you, laughing, and muttered “oh, shit,” reaching in his back pocket for the dog-eared paperback. He tossed it to you. “Sorry!” He called apologetically, waving as you walked past.

You grinned and shook your head, taking the book with you as you headed back to your quarters: a small, plain room with a single bunk, your half-packed duffle bag sitting open on the bed.

You sighed, tossing it onto the pile of books and other miscellaneous items, and took a moment to glance out the window. Squads of men ran past in drills. Planes and helicopters moved in and out on the runway like clockwork.

You were going to miss it.

Da Nang was a stark contrast to the jungle camps where you’d spent most of your deployment, but the change was a welcome one. The resources and free time that the air base provided had allowed you to finish up your degree: you were a bona fide Field Nurse now, and finally used to the title.

The rest of your life, however, wasn’t lining up so nicely.

News of your parents’ fatal car crash reached you only days after you lost the man you loved. The two combined were enough heartbreak to send you spiraling. Suddenly, war became the only constant, dependable thing in your life.

You snapped out of your trance and shook your head, inhaling deeply. You still had things to pack.

Your fingers worked nimbly to stack your books in orderly fashion, next to folded civilian clothes. 

When was the last time I’ve worn jeans? You wondered amusedly, setting your other personal effects inside, reaching for the final items.

Your hands wrapped around something small– silver metal, cold and familiar.

“Nurse L/N,” Said a voice behind you.

You whirled around and snapped to, holding your hands at your sides and closing your fist around the item in your hand. “Sir?”

In the doorway stood Colonel Packard– an imposing, stern-faced man who’d seen too much war for his own good. Despite this, he was kind enough to you, and you’d been underneath his command during your time here.

The colonel glanced at your room, taking in the stages of preparation to leave laid out.

“Your orders for home have been processed, I see.”

“Yes, sir,” you nodded.

The Colonel leaned against the doorway and eyed you with scrutiny. “Any plans for when you get back to the world, L/N?”

You blinked. This was the question you’d been avoiding. “No, sir,” you admitted. “I don’t.”

“How do you feel about one last Op?” He asked.

You frowned, not understanding. “Sir?”

“My boys and I have been called in. It’s just a flight escort for some organization called Landsat.” He tapped his fingers on the doorway. “If it’s what you want, go home. But if not …” he trailed off, raised his eyebrows, and pushed himself off the wall. “Let me know. We could always use you.”

You saluted one more time before he left, the sound of his boots fading down the hallway.

You fingered the cold, metal square in your hand, looking down as you opened up your palm and flipping it over to read the letters. R.A.F.

Captain Conrad’s lighter.

A familiar pang in your chest made your eyes teary and you angrily wiped them away. An entire year ago, and you were still crying over it?

Pathetic, you thought miserably. He’s probably been dead for a year.

You inhaled deeply to calm your nerves and turned back to your bed, staring at the half-packed duffle bag lying open on your bed, like an open-ended sentence.

“What do I have to go home to, anyways?” You sighed aloud. You shoved the lighter back in your pocket.

One last Op, you thought, Packard’s words echoing in your mind as you set to packing – but for a different purpose.

~

The docks of Bangkok were damp from rain and crowded by both cargo and the people carrying it. Your duffle bag was slung over your shoulder as you walked with the troops. Slivko and Mills were less enthusiastic than usual, and you knew from their grumbling that they were upset at being deployed a day away from going home.

Needless to say, you didn’t share the same sentiment. There was nothing for you to miss that you could find at the end of a return journey. Right now, your job was everything you knew, and you weren’t about to leave it for the unknown.

You nodded to Colonel Packard, who was standing at the base of the gangplank, and he gave you a barely-discernible smile. He’d already expressed that he was glad you were coming. 

 It’s nice to be wanted, you thought, heading up the plank and onto the freight carrier Athena.

Stepping onto the ship gave you immediate nostalgia. The smell of seawater and rusted ship metal reminded you of your deployment to Vietnam from the states, and the weeks you spent at sea. You felt like you’d been so much younger then, even though it was a mere few years ago. 

Tossing your duffle bag onto the bunk without a second thought, you brushed your hands over your camo pants and headed down the narrow hallway towards the common rooms of the ship, where debriefing would take place in a few short minutes.

You yawned. The trip to Bangkok had taken a full day and then some– hopefully you wouldn’t fall asleep halfway through.

The room was decently sized and filled with folding chairs, where men in blue, collared shirts sat on one side and soldiers sat on the other. You took your place in the sea of green camo, finding a seat next to Mills.

You yawned again when you sat down and shook your head, trying to blink away the tiredness. He nudged you with his elbow. “Hey, don’t fall asleep on me, L/N. I don’t want your drool on my shoulder.”

You chuckled and nudged him back. “You can’t make me,” you threatened playfully, ignoring his comically hurt expression as the lights dimmed and the projector in the middle of the room whirred.

A dark, curly-haired man named Victor Nieves introduced himself as the chief LandSat field supervisor. The presentation began.

Almost as soon as he started talking, your eyes started to droop, and you felt yourself falling asleep despite your best efforts. You tried bouncing your knee, picking a spot on the floor to focus on, breathing deep through your nose, but nothing stuck. You swallowed and shook your head, looking up stubbornly at the bright projections of maps and geographical summaries. Your eyelids began to close again.

“...we’ll then land and make base camp for ground excursions led by Mr. Conrad–”

You jerked awake so fast that your chair skidded against the floor. The sudden, jarring noise made the LandSat supervisor pause before continuing his speech. He cleared his throat. “As I was saying…”

In another situation you would have been embarrassed, even mortified, but you were too startled even for that. With sudden and desperate urgency your head turned to look around the room, searching every face, anxiety growing in the pit of your stomach.

“What the hell, L/N?” Mills hissed at you, but you weren’t listening.

You only had eyes for Conrad.

You finally found him. Standing against the wall, his arms crossed over his broad chest, listening intently to the LandSat Field Supervisor with no sign that he knew you were there.

You stared at Conrad, mouth agape. You inhaled shakily and took a moment to really look– after all, you hadn’t seen him in a year.

He was leaner. Harder. Even more handsome than you remembered. But when he turned his head as he leaned against the wall, you could see an unfamiliar shadow in his eyes– one that hadn’t been there before. It cast a darkness over his countenance.

You watched his blue-green irises flicker over the projector screen, listening to Nieves talk. He sighed, and his gaze began to wander, and your heart rose in your throat.

He looked at you, and the world froze.

It was like time decided to take a day off. Suddenly you couldn’t remember the last time you’d drawn a breath, and the beat of your own heart was unfamiliar to you. Every atom in your body felt torn apart, every hair raised, your eyes sparkling with tears as you met the gaze of the man you loved– the man you lost.

In the painfully slow tick of time you saw his breath catch in the way that his chest shuddered, how the blood drained from his handsome face.

You wanted him to move to you, to make some sign. Damn the debriefing and the rows of soldiers and scientists between you– for all you cared, you and Conrad were the only two people in the vast expanse of the universe.

But he didn’t.

He looked away.

Time returned to its regular pace and suddenly you came back to your senses, just in time to hear the Field Supervisor finish the debriefing and dismiss you.

Without a word you shot out of your chair and ran back down the corridor that led to your bunk. It was all you could think to do– you shut the door behind you, and fell with your back against the metal as you slid down to sit on the floor.

And you cried.

He looked away, you thought, replaying the momentary interaction over and over in your head. He saw me, and he looked away.

A sudden, dreadful thought occurred to you, and you looked up at the wall. You whispered your fear to the empty room, voice thick with emotion.

“Did he forget about me?”

~

Conrad watched you bolt as soon as the meeting was dismissed. You were gone almost before anyone else was was out of their seats, lost in the crowd of military uniforms.

He sighed, reaching up and putting his hand on his chest. His heart was pounding out of his shirt.

It was really you, he thought, clenching his jaw. After all this time. All my searching.

As the room gradually emptied, he stood alone with his thoughts, staring at the empty seat where you had been so close.

He felt like someone had punched him in the gut and stolen the breath from his lungs. The urge to follow you was overpowering, but he stilled himself. After all, he didn’t know exactly where you’d gone. And there was another thing to consider– that you’d run from him, like you’d seen a ghost.

Men go to war in search of something, Mr. Conrad, Randa’s words echoed in his mind. Conrad tightened his jaw and sighed, speaking quietly to the empty room.

“If I’d found it, I’d be home by now.”

- - -

A/N: thanks so much for reading! Kicking things off with a bang and a ton of angst. There are two tag lists: people who asked to be tagged, and people who I assumed wanted to be based on their comments. If you’re on the second list and do not want to be tagged, just let me know and I’ll take you off. :) 

Tag List: @tarynkauai, @jessiejunebug, @o-sacra-virgo-laudes-tibi, @fire-in-her-veinz, @daylight-swiftt 

Assumed Tag List: @damalseer, @un-consider-it, @uinen-ulmiel, @kinghiddlestonanddixon

[multi-fandom-imagine]

Can I please request; 57) It isn't up for debate. 14) Look, I know we don't know each other that well, but I'm still worried about you. No one deserves to be alone. For either Chris Redfield or Leon Kennedy, the reader being a former Umbrella scientist that they saved? Angst to fluff with Reader regretting their work or they were forced into it?

I love this idea! I think it would be cute if Leon or Chris fell for an ex umbrella scientist.

ugh...I’m probably gonna end up writing for both characters if you don’t mind!

[darling-i-read-it]

Okay take your time to understand i understand it's hard to think about it all:

Luis and the reader are two former scientists at umbrella, their relationship is a little complicated I mean the reader is a quiet and hardworking person while Luis is talkative and persistent, but he is in love with her, after the reader found out about the biological weapon manufactured by the company she quit and worked as a spy in multiple companies, she kept hearing the news of Luis because she could not leave him, but the thunder of the Raccoon City incident disappeared him, but she kept looking for him...She allied with agent Leon Kennedy between rescuing the president's daughter and finding him in the last refuge she has to look for him or surrender...she found him and they had to fix a troubled past between them(if you have a question I'm open to answering):)

Hi again dear! Thank you for sending it in, I love this idea! I've been wanting to write for Luis since I played the remake and I think this is a perfect idea to dip my toes into his character! I think I got you, I'll see what I can do!

[racingtoaredlight]

Opening Bell: June 21, 2019

Among the first cascade of news stories to wash upon the American consciousness yesterday came a report that Iran had shot down a U.S. Navy RQ-4 Global Hawk drone over the Persian Gulf. Both Iran and U.S. Central Command confirmed the shoot-down, but differed on where the event took place. Iran claimed that the drone had violated Iranian airspace and was engaged out of the defense of territorial integrity. Central Command asserted that the RQ-4, which is used predominantly for surveillance and intelligence collection, was well outside of Iranian territory and flying over international territory when it went down. This occurs in front of a backdrop of increased tensions between the United States and Iran, which have slowly been building in recent months after the U.S. accused Iran of being behind a series of attacks which damaged commercial shipping going through the Strait of Hormuz and of planning a series of attacks on American assets in Iraq, though the White House has not provided any clarification on what those threats were, but that they did demand the deployment of additional U.S. soldiers to the region. President Donald Trump does not appear to have many principles, but those he does have, most notably protectionism and a desire to retrench American involvement in world affairs (or, put it more succinctly, isolationism), he holds dearly. Each time National Security Advisor, and notorious hawk, John Bolton has put the United States on an aggressive footing, whether it be Iran, Venezuela, or any other nation, Trump has more-often-than not walked back the U.S. position. This is not necessarily a bad thing—most foreign policy and military experts agree that a war with Iran would be disastrous for the Middle East and only enmesh the U.S. further into a region it has been desperate to extricate itself from—but U.S. foreign policy lacks coherence, mainly because Trump’s approach to foreign affairs goes no further than his isolationism; he holds dear the principle but has made no attempt to explicate what it means in policy form, beyond occasionally claiming that he wants to bring American troops home. The military provides the ability to apply kinetic power to a situation, but foreign policy allows for the use of soft power, a nuance which this president does not seem to grasp and which his National Security Advisor openly disdains. The sum result of this cognitive dissonance was on display yesterday, when in the morning Trump declared that Iran had “made a huge mistake,” to the afternoon when Trump, when asked what the American response would be, said “Let’s see what happens.” And just as I was typing the end of this paragraph, news broke that Trump had in fact approved air strikes on Iran Thursday afternoon, but then abruptly pulled back last night, hours before they were due to be launched. By the time you are reading this, there may be even more developments.

Staying in the Middle East, which we are likely to do for a long time (Hey-o, try your waitress and tip the veal), yesterday the U.S. Senate voted on a bi-partisan basis to block a large arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Over the course of three votes, the Senate voted on 22 resolutions to disapprove of the sales to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries, but passage was not overwhelming and the resolutions will likely not survive a presidential veto, which Trump has promised is forthcoming. The basis of the Senate’s disapproval is the sale coming so soon on the heels of the brutal state-sanctioned murder of journalism Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey and, more broadly, to reflect congressional disagreement on the manner of the Saudi air campaign in Yemen, which has contributed greatly to an enormous humanitarian crisis in the country. On the bright side, Trump will have to veto all 22 resolutions individually and for a White House that is known to have a poor grasp on details, there remains the possibility that one will slip through. Which, I suppose, is progress….?

In 2017, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump’s first significant congressional supporter, was nominated to be Trump’s Attorney General. Sessions was duly confirmed and vacated the Senate seat he had held for two decades. Alabama’s Republican governor, Robert Bentley, appointed the state’s Attorney General, Luther Strange, to fill the seat until a special election could be held which would determine who would serve out the next two years of Sessions’s unexpired term. Strange headed to Washington but also started putting together a campaign which virtually everyone, across the political spectrum, expected he would win. Strange’s main rival in the GOP primary was former state supreme court Chief Justice Roy Moore. Moore was—and still is—a Republican culture warrior whose antics twice got him removed from the supreme court bench, which in turn made him a hero to fellow conservative culture warriors. Strange ended up being tainted by the scandals of Bentley, his political benefactor and Moore defeated him for the Republican nomination. Though Moore was a controversial candidate, he was still expected to easily defeat his Democratic opponent, former prosecutor Doug Jones. But then the stories broke about Moore’s highly questionable behavior with female minors decades earlier and, Moore, rather than respond in a measured manner, instead attacked the media and his accusers, creating a grotesque image of himself which a majority of voters could not countenance. In a stunning turn of events, Moore went down in defeat to Doug Jones. Now with Jones facing Alabama voters again in 2020, and again facing long odds of victory, Moore has done him a huge favor, by announcing that he was entering the 2020 GOP primary. The GOP field is getting crowded and, make no mistake, Moore could win the nomination on a plurality of voters. If he does so manage, the odds of Doug Jones holding onto his Senate seat will increase dramatically.

It has been 8 years now since Syria became engulfed in a conflict which at first had the character of a revolution, but then devolved into a civil war and still further into a confused assortment of state and non-state actors—even mercenaries, both ideological and soldiers of fortune—fighting each other and in other cases, seeking to avoid conflict. One thing is clear, and that is that the only certainty in Syria today is that President Bashar al-Assad, whose ouster was sought in 2011, is a secure in power now as he was before 2011; everything else remains a cacophony of geopolitical noise. Mother Jones journalist Shane Bauer entered Syria from Iraq in late 2018, his first time in the country since 2009, and sought to take stock of everything occurring in the war-torn, nation. This is the part one of a two part series on Syria—I’ll be posting part two next week, but if you get to the end of part one and want to go ahead to part two before then, by all means do so—and in it Bauer uses a series of three vignettes to explore the complicated evolution of the last eight years. This is a very deep dive, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Prog rock, as this essay declares, was popular for about 30 seconds in the early-to-mid 1970s and provided an indulgent bridge from the rock-n-roll of the late 1960s, which included elements of pro-heavy metal, to the spare, aggressive noise of punk rock in the late 1970s. And while prog rock has its many proponents, including Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel whose book on the subject forms the central focus of this piece in The Atlantic, it seems to have as many enemies (not unlike punk, actually). Here James Parker of The Atlantic calls it the “whitest music ever,” and criticizes its atonal, overly experimental nature; a mad scientist is not necessarily a genius, seems to be the central thesis here. Whether you like prog rock or not, and I find it questionable some of which he includes under that umbrella, this is an amusing read.

There is a well-worn stereotype of the modern athlete who makes millions of dollars during his career, spends extravagantly on friends, family, and especially himself, only for it to be poignantly—gleefully, in some cases—reported years after his career is over, that he is broke (I suspect a large number of readers instantly thought of Latrell Sprewell just now). Today’s athletes, who are earning more money than ever before, have taken more careful attitudes towards their finances. Some have engaged financial planners and advisors to guide them through their most important decisions and some, like Joe McLean, have taken to managing the most minute details of their clients’ financial needs. McLean makes demands of his clients though: at least 60 percent of their annual earnings have to be put towards retirement, and he charges an administration fee on all sums above $5 million. My only criticism of this article is that it abruptly ends just as it gets truly interesting, but that which is included as a fascinating glimpse into the lives of individuals who, rather suddenly, have become super-wealthy.

Lastly, continuing on from last week, the Center for Politics looks at which incumbents in the U.S. Senate may be vulnerable during the primary season. No incumbent has lost re-nomination in the last three election cycles and there is no senator up for reelection who is currently facing a clear threat. Kyle Kondik looks at who is, and isn’t, the most likely to face a primary threat in 2020.

 Welcome to the weekend.

[bisoroblog]

Why Getting Help for Kids with Dyslexia is Difficult

Dayne Guest graduated from high school in 2016. He had been working construction but quit, knowing that wasn’t what he wanted do with his life. Today Guest’s options are limited because he struggles to read. When he opens a book, he sees “just a whole bunch of words, a whole bunch of letters lined up.”

His mom, Pam Guest, knew something wasn’t right when Dayne was in kindergarten. “In the mornings when students came into the classroom, they would write that they’d brought their lunch or that they were going to purchase lunch in the cafeteria,” she said. “And Dayne always walked right past that board and sat down.”

Teachers said Dayne would catch up, but by the end of first grade, he still wasn’t reading.

Pam thought her son might have dyslexia. But the teachers said no. It went on like this for years: Pam suspecting Dayne was dyslexic, the schools saying no, and Pam believing them because they were the education experts.

Listen to families talk about their struggles to get reading helping for their dyslexic kids in the podcast version of this story available on Apple Podcasts or RadioPublic.

At the end of Dayne’s senior year in high school, Pam learned she had a legal right to an evaluation. The school tested him, and the report said Dayne had weaknesses “often seen in students diagnosed with reading disabilities including dyslexia.”

“But they would not say that he was dyslexic,” said Pam. “And I asked the psychologist why, and she said we would never say that a student is dyslexic. And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘It is not in our realm of professionalism to say that a student is dyslexic.'”

The reluctance to confirm that a child is “dyslexic” goes beyond avoiding a label that could harm kids. Public schools nationwide have long refused to use the word, allowing many of them to avoid providing special education services as required by federal law. According to dozens of interviews with parents, students, researchers, lawyers and teachers across the country, many public schools are not identifying students with dyslexia and are ignoring their needs.

While scientists estimate that between 5 and 12 percent of children in the United States have dyslexia, just 4.5 percent of students in public schools are diagnosed with a “specific learning disability,” a category that includes dyslexia and other learning disabilities, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In addition, while schools routinely screen children for hearing impairment, a problem that occurs much less frequently than dyslexia, screening for dyslexia is rare.

Moreover, most students who are diagnosed with dyslexia aren’t identified until at least third grade, according to Dr. Sally Shaywitz, co-director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, and author of Overcoming Dyslexia. She says it is not unusual for dyslexics to go unrecognized until adolescence and beyond, a systemic shortcoming that effectively abandons struggling young readers during the most critical years of learning.

When children are identified with dyslexia, public schools often lack staff with the appropriate training to help, according to several studies and reports.

And yet, there are proven ways to teach people with dyslexia how to read that are not new or controversial. Research suggests that if all children were taught to read using approaches that work for students with dyslexia, reading achievement would improve overall.

According to the most recent federal data, more than 60 percent of fourth-graders in the United States are not proficient readers. Students who struggle to read are more likely to drop out of high school, to end up in the criminal justice system, and to live in poverty.

Students at or above proficient reading level

  Disagreements Over Reality 

When Billy Gibson, 18, was in elementary school, he couldn’t spell his own name. “I would get all the letters backwards,” he said. “The worst thing for me was figuring out between lower case ‘b’ and ‘d.’ I would always get those mixed up.”

He bombed all his spelling tests. He says his teacher would respond by sending him to the hall with the kid who did best on the test. “I remember her saying, like, ‘See if you can teach this kid how to spell these words.’ The teacher just didn’t have the time for me.”

Billy says he came to think of himself as the dumb kid who spent a lot of time in the hall. He didn’t know he was dyslexic. Neither did his parents.

“We knew something wasn’t right,” said Billy’s mom, Maggie Gibson.

“You can tell things are off, but you don’t know specifically what,” said Rob, Billy’s father.

In response to a formal complaint filed by parents, children in Upper Arlington, Ohio are now taught to read using a phonics-based approach. (APM Reports/Emily Hanford)

The Gibsons, from Baltimore County, Maryland, have five kids. All of them have dyslexia. They know, because they paid thousands of dollars for private testing.

But when the Gibsons showed the test results to their children’s schools, administrators didn’t buy it, says Rob. “The schools essentially said, ‘Yeah, we understand this is a test showing abnormalities from a reputed institution that recommends a child with dyslexia have this, that and the other. And, oh, we don’t agree with it.’ And when we got to that disagreement it was almost like we were disagreeing over reality.”

The Gibsons gave APM Reports an audio recording of the meeting where they discussed the test results with staff at their son Eddie’s school. In the recording, a staff member says, “We do not suspect a learning disability.”

The Gibsons wanted their children to have Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs. Those are the specialized education plans that students with disabilities who are behind in school are entitled to by federal law.

But in the recording, the school staff says Eddie can’t have a disability because he has passing grades and average standardized test scores.

More than a dozen families across the country interviewed by APM Reports reported getting into similar fights with their child’s school. Parents say their children figure out ways to compensate for their dyslexia and get by in school, but they aren’t being taught to read. Children with dyslexia need specialized reading instruction.

But specialized instruction is expensive. The average cost to educate a student in public school is about $12,500, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The cost to educate a child receiving special education services can be more than twice that. When the federal special education law first went into effect in 1975, Congress committed to covering 40 percent of the extra cost of educating children with disabilities. But the federal government is only covering slightly more than 15 percent. States and local districts pay for the rest.

That’s one reason schools have avoided using the word dyslexia, according to Fran Bowman, a former special education teacher who now runs an educational services company that works with school districts to train teachers. “They would say, ‘We don’t use the word dyslexia.’ Because once you open Pandora’s box, you have to serve those children.”

In other words, if schools acknowledge a student has dyslexia, they may be legally obligated to provide special education.

Six special education directors from around the country interviewed by APM Reports denied their schools were refusing to use the word dyslexia to keep students out of special ed.

Kevin Gorman, director of special education in Upper Arlington, Ohio, and a former school principal in another Ohio district, said schools were avoiding the word because it wasn’t a term used by the state on IEP forms. Instead, the state used the umbrella term “specific learning disability.” Gorman explained that schools are so concerned about adhering to the letter of the law that they are reluctant to use terms that do not appear on official paperwork.

Avoiding the word was such a problem in schools across the country that in 2015 the U.S. Department of Education issued a special letter reminding schools that not only can they use the word dyslexia, they should use the word if it can help them tailor an appropriate education plan for a student.

It’s a legal requirement for schools to identify all children who have disabilities and provide them an “appropriate” education. But many schools have resisted the approaches to reading instruction that students with dyslexia need — and that would help all children read better — because of a long-running dispute about how to teach children to read.

The reading wars

You can trace the debate in the United States about how to teach kids to read all the way back to Horace Mann, the father of the public schools movement. In the 1800s, Mann railed against the idea of teaching kids that letters represent sounds. He believed children would better understand what they were reading if they first learned to read whole words.

This came to be known as the “whole language” approach. On the other side of the debate are people who say children must be explicitly taught how sounds correlate with letters. This is commonly referred to as the “phonics” approach.

The argument over which approach is best has been intense and political, with phonics cast as a traditional, conservative approach. Think of children sitting in front of a blackboard, sounding out words as a teacher points to the letters that represent each sound.

Whole language, on the other hand, holds that learning to read is a natural process and that kids don’t need explicit instruction. Expose them to lots of good books and they will learn to read. That approach is seen as the more liberal, progressive way.

As with many ideas in education, there have been big pendulum shifts over the decades. Whole language was big in the 1920s, for example, as progressive education became influential. The pendulum swung back toward phonics in the 1960s. By the 1980s, whole language was popular again.

Bowman, the former special education teacher, got extensive training in phonics in the 1970s and used that approach early in her teaching career. But she says she soon got a supervisor who told her she wasn’t allowed to teach phonics. “You should be teaching by the entire word, instead of these little sounds,” she recalls the supervisor telling her.

Bowman says it’s easier to train teachers to use the whole language method than to train them to use phonics. She thinks that’s one reason whole language has been so attractive. “School districts were like ‘Wow! We can just give you a bunch of books!'”

Proponents of whole language say the approach is more than that. They promote a set of strategies that emphasize comprehension, engagement, and helping children to develop a love of literature.

But by the late 1990s, there was rising panic in the United States that too many kids were not reading well. Scores on the National Assessment for Educational Progress showed most students were not reading proficiently.

In 1997, Congress called for a National Reading Panel to determine how best to teach reading. It reviewed more than 100,000 studies and in 2000, the panel published a 449-page report that was a crushing blow to the whole language movement. There was no evidence to show whole language worked and lots of evidence that teaching children the relationship among sounds, letters and spelling patterns improves reading achievement.

This is for all kids, not just those with dyslexia.

Andrea Rowson was teaching in a public school in Ohio when the report was released, but she says she didn’t learn about the findings until years later. “What happens in public education is a lot of initiatives come through, a lot of information gets thrown at schools. New regulations, new this, new that,” she said. “And I think it was just one of those things where (schools) said ‘OK’ and didn’t really realize how huge it was.”

Maggie Gibson going through paperwork related to her children’s education. Getting proper help for a kid with dyslexia takes a lot of time and money, she says. (Emily Hanford, APM Reports)

In 2012 when the public schools in Baltimore County refused to give the Gibson children IEPs, Rob and Maggie decided to hire a lawyer. “All we wanted was to secure their right to learn in public school,” said Maggie.

Their son Billy was in middle school and struggling. “It just got so overwhelming,” he said. “I would just constantly have these anxiety attacks and it got to a point where I refused to go to school.”

Trying to get him the help he needed for his dyslexia was turning into a long and contentious process. Maggie and Rob felt that for Billy and his older sister, time was running out. They decided to send them to the Jemicy School, a private school for students with language-based learning differences in Owings Mills, Maryland.

Jemicy has about 380 students in grades one through 12. The hallways are covered in student artwork and there’s a woodworking shop where students can take geometry. For students who struggle with written language, learning by doing is especially helpful.

Class sizes at Jemicy are capped at 12. The school also provides intensive reading remediation in small-group tutoring sessions.

In a recent tutoring session, Josie and Christopher — fifth-graders in their first year at Jemicy — were seated at a table with a teacher. They were working on the letter combination double vowel “oo.”

“What are the two sounds that ‘oo’ make?” the teacher asked.

Christopher responded confidently with the long vowel sound that “oo” makes in the word “school.” But there’s another sound “oo” makes. Josie and Christopher didn’t catch on.

“‘Uh’ as in ‘book,'” said the teacher.

This tutoring is based on an approach known as Orton-Gillingham, named after Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham, early 20th century pioneers in dyslexia research and remediation. They figured out that children with dyslexia struggle to understand how sounds and letters correspond. To teach them to read, they need to be explicitly taught the rules of the way written language works. Orton and Gillingham developed a systematic approach for doing this. Their ideas form the basis for a number of effective instructional approaches in use today.

When Billy Gibson started at Jemicy as a ninth grader, he wasn’t sure he would finish high school. His dream was to be an artist, but his middle school art teacher gave him C’s because he didn’t follow written directions. Billy went into Jemicy thinking, “I’m not going to be anything. I don’t have any dreams.”

But Jemicy’s small classes and intensive reading instruction helped him catch up and gave him confidence he’d never felt in school. On his first day, he says an art teacher noticed him doodling and told him she thought he could be a great artist. “You should take my class,” Billy remembers her saying to him. “I won’t give up on you.”

Billy graduated from Jemicy in 2017. He’s now studying 3D computer animation at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. His goal is to work in the film industry. “Hopefully someday you’ll be in the movie theater and see my name on the credits of the big screen,” he said.

Listen to families talk about their struggles to get reading helping for their dyslexic kids in the podcast version of this story available on Apple Podcasts or RadioPublic.

More than $60,000 a year

Billy’s mom Maggie noticed a difference at Jemicy right away. As the parent of kids with dyslexia in public school, she says you get used to being in fight mode. “You’re fighting for it to be recognized that your kid needs X, Y and Z,” she said. “And then you go into Jemicy and you have a teacher conference and the teachers sit down and say, ‘You know, we think your child would benefit from this, this and this. And we notice that your child needs’ — whatever it is. And you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh! We’re speaking the same language. We’re all noticing the same thing.'”

But to send two kids to Jemicy cost more than $60,000 a year. Maggie and Rob are fortunate: He’s a physician and they got financial help from their children’s grandparents. But five private school tuitions weren’t in their budget. So, with their lawyer, the Gibsons kept fighting with the Baltimore County Public Schools to try to get their three other kids better help.

The Gibsons eventually got the school system to pay for two of their children to go to Baltimore Lab School, a private school for students with learning disabilities. The Gibsons don’t think they would have gotten that if they hadn’t hired an attorney. Getting what you need for a kid with dyslexia is a rich man’s game, says Maggie. The Gibsons estimate their family has spent more than $350,000 — including legal fees, private tutoring and tuition — to get their five dyslexic kids what they needed to be successful in school.

Without help from grandparents, Maggie says she and Rob probably couldn’t have made private school work. “What does a person do that doesn’t have the luxury of other people to help them?” she said. “What do you do?”

Pam Guest, for example, did not have the financial means to send her son Dayne to private school. “I talk to a lot of upper-class white families who were able to take their kids out and send them to private school. Those kids are doing well now, and they’re able to go to college,” she said. “And we didn’t have that opportunity.”

Dayne and Pam Guest (APM Reports/Emily Hanford)

Dayne went to the Baltimore County Public Schools, too. There’s no evidence that Baltimore County has more of a problem than other public school systems when it comes to identifying and providing proper instruction to students with dyslexia. But officials with the Baltimore County Schools are now admitting they have a problem. “We need to do better,” said Rebecca Rider, who’s been director of special education for the Baltimore County Public Schools since 2014. Under her leadership, the school system has begun to train teachers in Orton-Gillingham. Before this effort began in 2016, the county schools did not have anyone trained to provide this instruction.

Stephen Cowles, a lawyer for BCPS, said the school system is making more of an effort to identify students with dyslexia. As a result, he says the county is paying for more students to go to private schools. In the 2016 fiscal year, the county paid nearly $40 million dollars for students with disabilities who could not be appropriately served in public schools to go to specialized private schools. BCPS couldn’t say how much of that money is being spent on students with dyslexia.

But helping students with dyslexia is not just about expanding special education services. Research suggests that if students with dyslexia got effective early reading instruction in their regular classrooms, some of them may not need intensive, specialized instruction. The problem is that many teachers do not know how to teach reading effectively.

Thousands of teacher preparation programs

In 2000, the National Reading Panel identified five key components of effective reading instruction. Ten years later, the U.S. Department of Education decided to find out whether people coming out of teacher preparation programs had learned those five components.

New teachers could correctly answer only about half the questions on a multiple-choice test. They rated their own preparation in how to teach reading as below “moderate.”

In 2016, the National Council on Teacher Quality, a think tank in Washington, D.C., analyzed syllabi from undergraduate elementary teacher preparation programs and found that fewer than 40 percent covered all the components of effective reading instruction. And that was a big improvement from 2014 when NCTQ found just 17 percent of teacher preparation programs taught all five components.

What are teachers learning about how to teach children to read?

“We learned a lot about creating a literature-rich environment,” said Rowson, the Ohio teacher. She got her initial training in the 1980s and says she learned nothing about phonics; in fact, she says her professors were against the idea of explicitly teaching children the relationship between sounds and letters. She learned the whole language approach.

Rowson says she didn’t learn how to teach children to read until she was trained in Orton-Gillingham. She now trains teachers in Upper Arlington, Ohio, a school district that has significantly changed how it teaches reading in response to a formal complaint filed by a group of parents.

Amelia Smith, a teacher in Upper Arlington who got her degree in elementary and special education in 2012, says by then there was recognition that phonics was important. “We knew what it was but we weren’t taught how to teach it,” she said.

One reason teachers are not being better prepared to teach reading is there’s still an ideological fight going on about whole language versus phonics, according to Jule McCombes-Tolis, chief academic officer for educator training initiatives at the International Dyslexia Association. She spent more than two decades as a professor in teacher preparation programs. “The division in higher ed in reading is alive and well,” she said.

McCombes-Tolis says in the wake of the National Reading Panel report, many teacher educators who believed in the whole language approach promoted the idea of “balanced literacy” instead.

But balanced literacy is basically whole language with some phonics mixed in, says Tim Shanahan, a literacy expert who served on the National Reading Panel. “Balanced literacy began as the notion of a different attempt to try to settle the reading wars. It’s supposed to be the best of both worlds.”

Shanahan says what’s wrong with balanced literacy is that it combines a whole bunch of things that don’t work with a little bit of what does work, and that’s not good reading instruction. He thinks a big problem with teacher preparation programs is that many of the people who are teaching the reading instruction courses don’t know the science of reading that well.

“The folks who teach these courses range in their knowledge dramatically,” he said. Enroll in a teacher preparation program and your instructor might have a Ph.D. and be familiar with the latest research, says Shanahan. But “you could have somebody who — this person teaches four other things for us and we’ll give them an extra course in reading instruction. They have last year’s syllabus and they do their best,” he said.

There are thousands of teacher preparation programs in the United States and there’s very little oversight of them. In higher education, the faculty typically controls the curriculum. There is no one authority to hold accountable for how teachers in America are trained.

States do have some power and many are trying to exert more control over what gets taught in teacher preparation programs as well as what is happening in public schools when it comes to students with dyslexia.

As of October, 41 states have some sort of dyslexia law, regulation or resolution. The laws and regulations vary widely. Some require graduates of teacher preparation programs to pass science of reading tests; others encourage public schools to provide teacher training on how to identify dyslexia.

Most of these laws have passed in the past few years partly due to parent advocacy groups pushing for change.

Pam Guest is a leader of one of these groups, Decoding Dyslexia-Maryland. Decoding Dyslexia has chapters in all 50 states. In Maryland, the group succeeded in getting a bill through the legislature to establish a task force that reviewed how students in the state are identified and treated for dyslexia. Now the group wants funding for a pilot program to demonstrate best practices when it comes to not only helping students with dyslexia, but to teaching all children how to read.

Even though it’s too late for her son, Guest says she’s determined to change things so what happened to Dayne won’t happen to other kids.

“It’s simple,” she said. “Teachers must be able to teach children how to read.”

Emily Hanford is senior education correspondent for APM Reports, the documentary and investigative journalism group at American Public Media. The fall season of four education documentaries can be heard via the Educate podcast. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts.

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