Chris Redfield never really believed he was made for this kind of romantic life.

Not with the life he lived, not with scarred, calloused, trained hands to hold rifles, not to caress in soft hair. He thought maybe people like him weren’t meant to have home. Just landing pads between missions. Places to bleed, not to rest.

And then he met you.

Too pure. Too good. Too young, maybe. But you let him in anyway. Let him carve a space into your world with his heavy boots and his silence and all the ways he didn’t know how to be held.

He married you then, to have a home, finally. Chris wasn't sure if it was out of love, or the desperate instincts of having a family, but he did it anyway.

Maybe he loved you, he did. Even if he didn’t say it. Even if the only proof was the bruises fading faster when you touched them, or how he breathed better with your hand on his chest. the was he let himself to fall apart in your lap when the world pressed too hard.

Tonight, he comes home late again. Door creaking open, rain soaking through his collar, hands still trembling from the mission.

he looks for you, scanning the once lifeless place that you've made a comfortable home out of it. He doesn’t say a word. walks to your side and leans in slow, like his body might give out otherwise. press his face to your neck, breathing you in like medicine.

“God,” he muttered, voice wrecked, mouth brushing your skin.

“I needed you.”