Work Text:
Resident Evil: Everywhere and Nowhere
Gray smoke twirls through the air from the lit cigarette between the lips of the clearly over-tired Chris Redfield as he stands at a bookshelf, reading the titles aloud, “Trauma and Recovery. I Can’t Get Over It. The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook. The Body Keeps the Score.”
“Any of those striking a fancy or a nerve?” the good doctor arches his neck back to look at the wall of a man that’s graced his home tonight.
“Not really,” Chris turns from the shelves and drops back down onto the couch, scratching the stubble on his face absentmindedly, “just don’t know what to do anymore.”
“Okay,” Chris watches as the older man just adjusts the cuffs of his sleeves and closes his eyes.
This agitates him for some reason, “Aren’t you supposed to talk to me? Help me understand things?”
“Like what?” oh, Chris almost forgot that this is his trick.
Chris has seen other doctors, been forced to see shrinks, most famously was right after the Arklay Mansion. It was this meeting that really put Chris on edge about being targeted by Umbrella. The doctor asked a lot of targeted questions about his home life that didn’t really pertain to what they went through. Do you live alone? Do you have any pets? Do you keep your weapons locked?
A voice cuts into his thoughts, “I’m not here to tell you what to talk about, I’m not even here to force you to talk. Remember, the B.S.A.A. pays me whether you talk or not.”
“Glad to see my silence is managing to pay for all this…” he runs a hand across the bindings of the books.
A small chuckle, “Your silence, among others. Your bosses want answers, but I’m just here to listen if, or when, you decide to. No pressure.”
Chris clenches his fists together, “They keep trying to get me to close the investigation into Albert Wesker.”
The sound of cluttering papers greets his ears, “Yes, this man that you and Miss Alomar shot with rocket launchers inside a volcano.”
“Sounds like a bad video game boss fight, doesn’t it?” another cigarette is lit, “Seems like my life plays out like a video game sometimes… Like someone created me to be the hero. Know what a hero is? It’s not someone who stands up when others sit, it’s not some bastion of justice set out to right all the wrongs. No, being a hero is just trying to survive an extraordinary circumstance.”
A long moment of silence, barely punctuated by the sound of pencil on paper. Chris has moved on from the bookshelf filled with books way-too-smart for him and is now staring at a large painting of a mountain. He blinks once or twice as smoke billows from the peak, the painting shifting perspectives until it’s inside, his eyes locking on the crashed jet. Not again…
“Surviving the mansion incident didn’t make you a hero, that made you a survivor, Chris. What you chose to do with the power of a survivor is what makes you a hero, to a lot of people.”
Chris punches the wall next to the painting, anger filling his body, “I did not ASK for this! I didn’t want to be everyone’s hero… I just wanted to be a cop, wanted to make a small difference in my small city, possibly get denied a raise or a promotion. I saw myself with a dog, living in a cramped apartment, losing cable right as the game starts. I was just doing my job when I climbed into that helicopter… I wasn’t looking for a higher calling, not by a longshot.”
“Callings generally find the called, not the other way around, my friend. You didn’t need to answer the call, Chris. You all could’ve died in that mansion,” it’s not exactly the help he was expecting.
Chris turns to the doctor, not entirely sure of what to make of the smaller man, “Oh? Did that not occur to you back then? No one sets out to be a hero, Chris. They are built, one piece at a time. It’s like when you are given a box of Legos. You don’t set out to create anything… You just grab the first block or plate, then another, and then another… Eventually you come to a split.”
The doctor stands up and turns to a model of a ship in a large glass bottle, his hands wrapping around it and pulling it from the shelf, “You either build something great,” he nudges the bottle toward Chris, “or it collapses under the weight of misplaced blocks,” Chris tries to dive down and grab the bottle as the doctor drops it.
The object shatters loudly, Chris’s mind flashing to zombified dogs crashing through windows, zombies smashing broken windows even further, and glass shattering as a chainsaw is ran through a wall, “It’s not about the pieces individually, it’s about what they are placed upon. Imagine your best friend in high school, would he have survived all this?”
Jacob, his name was Jacob, “No… Absolutely not. He would’ve died to the dogs outside the mansion, if not from some poor soul trying to rob the city bank… Guess I was the right guy in the wrong circumstances?”
“You, my friend, have been battling the same demon since the first day the B.S.A.A. called me to set up your appointment after Jill’s ‘death’,” Chris spins toward the doctor, waiting to see if he needs to punch this man in the face.
The doctor slowly scoops some of the glass into a pile with his shoe, “You fight the battle of a split soul. You are trying to find the man you were, the man you want to be, inside the man you are. I’m here to tell you that man is in two places: everywhere and nowhere. That man exists only in your memories. You see him in people who live normal lives, that don’t have to suffer the threat of bioterror, the nightmares of having escaped said terrors. You see the man you want, the man you were, in things you feel you cannot have: children, day jobs, and minivans.”
“I’d rather punch a boulder than drive a minivan…” he clenches his fists as the doctor laughs.
Eyes flash as they turn toward the laughing man, “You’ve ‘been there, done that’ I’m afraid… My advice to you is to do a bit of soul-searching.”
“Decide which one I actually want to be? Hero or cop. Savior or Father. Action-Junkie or Husband…” Chris punches the row of books next to him, denting the bindings a little bit.
Chris drops to his knees, feeling the weight of the decision, “What if I can’t?”
“You can, Chris. You just need to be the one to determine the meaning of ‘hero’ in reference to yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you what kind of hero you are, don’t let what you’ve done before dictate what you need to do now. You don’t want to be in the field?” a file is tossed on the table next to Chris, grabbing the soldier’s attention, “I’ve talked to the B.S.A.A. about soldiers they send me who need to spend time off the field. They’ve been gracious enough to set up a division just for them. Training Division. They make sure that the new recruits are fit to join the ranks on the field. Most of the men and women I’ve seen that experience the same feelings you do have taken jobs there and managed to set up real lives beyond the walls of the B.S.A.A. There is one role they have yet to get filled though and I think I know why. Open it.”
Fingers figuratively stained with blood and decay lower down to the file, the thumb flicking the cover off the folder, “Director of Special Operations? Are you suggesting the B.S.A.A. wants me out of the field and working to oversee Special Operations?”
“There’s more in that file, there are big changes coming for the B.S.A.A. Chris. When you read the file, I ask you to keep an open mind, hear them out, take it for what it is, and see what it can be,” the doctor offers Chris a poured drink of an aged Scotch, which he denies, “a future beyond the fighting.”
Chris Redfield stares at the file, his hands shaking as they take it up, close it, and tuck it under his left arm, “If I’m off the field, I’ll be what you said what I want is…”
“You think reaching for future will cause you to lose who you are… Why must it be one or the other, Chris? Why can’t you grasp what you want?” the doctor is clearly confused and concerned by this.
Chris nods and slowly makes his way to the door, opening it slowly before turning back, “Because, to survive this war and win, those of us who can, need to be all in. I can’t afford right now to be those three simple words.
“Which are?” the doctor steps up to the door to see a man he’s come to call a friend out.
The mountain that is Chris Redfield turns and smiles, “Everywhere and nowhere. Goodnight, my friend. Same time next month?”
“It doesn’t need to be so formal,” the doctor nods toward the bottle of Scotch, “no one ever takes me up on it in a session, but stop by as a social call and we can finish the bottle?”
Chris nods, smiling a bit more, “I’ll definitely take you up on it. First off,” he holds up the file, “I got to see a man about a new job…”
The doctor watches as his longest-running client steps into the crisp fall night, his eyes darting down to a single piece of paper that slipped out of the file, brandished with the letterhead of a blue umbrella, “Take care, Chris. May your demons not find renewed strength in this change.”