Chrisker One-Shots

He Never Had To Ask

So cold.

It was all Chris felt on a snowy evening as he lay on his couch downing yet another beer and pretending to watch TV. His mind was on other things, of course; it always was.

He tossed the empty bottle at the wall and rubbed his eyes, trying to rid them of the image he'd been seeing in his mind all day. That smirk that made Chris want to know what his eyes looked like behind the sunglasses, that honey and gold hair he wanted to mess up just for the hell of it. The image was burned into the backs of his eyelids, persistent and ever-present, proving his efforts fruitless.

He opened his eyes and scowled at the alcohol he had left. Earlier, he had a plan: go home, get drunk, pass out on the couch. A simple enough plan. Ironic that it was now the memory of his former captain and arch nemesis that was now ruining his plan. Drinking himself into oblivion was no longer a wish of his; now, the only thing he wanted was sleep.

That wasn't true. He'd spent years wanting those strong, pale arms around him again, and nothing would make him stop wanting them.

Chris often contemplated suicide, to join his former captain and lover in the abyssal darkness of death. Those wishes were only voiced in his darkest moments, in the moments when he felt so alone and could only confide in Jill.

After Kijuju, Chris stayed with Claire a lot, and Jill moved in with them. The three shared an apartment in DC, close enough so Claire and Leon could see each other on a regular basis. Then, Claire started disappearing and was gone more often, and the next thing they knew, she and Leon were getting married. It was on the day he got the news that Chris had a panic attack and Jill took him to a psychiatrist. He personally felt her concern was unnecessary. Leon and Claire weren't even that concerned. Eventually, Jill even moved out, living in an apartment alone.

Chris thought back to the ride in the chopper, the escape from the volcano and from the near-death experiences they'd faced for days straight. He thought of the tears no one had really noticed and tilted his head slightly. He knew that it wasn't that they didn't care, but that they didn't think he would cry at the death of a man so evil, so cruel and cold, that he'd once said to Chris's face that he'd always hated him.

Nothing could ever have hurt more than that moment. It was heartbreaking and sucked the breath out of his lungs just to remember that moment. It was that moment that drove Chris to side with his conscience.

If he'd ever asked, Chris would have joined him, stopped fighting and let him have what he wanted with the world. If he'd asked, Chris would have let go of every shred of morals and human compassion to finally have that love again, to finally be with the man he'd missed for so long. They could have ruled together as gods, Chris at his side to watch the world burn and walk over the ashes with their hands, like their souls, intertwined.

But he never asked, leaving Chris alone with his morals and conscience that ate away at the soul that was forever connected to another's.

That connection had been severed on March 9, 2009, as Chris and Sheva aimed two rocket launchers at the face of the man he loved while trying to escape in a helicopter. The connection gone, Chris felt like half of himself was gone. With him left his right arm, leg, and half of the heart that beat in sync with his.

But of course that heart didn't beat anymore.

Tired of remembering what was and thinking about what could have been, Chris lay his forearm over his eyes and attempted to sleep on the couch. Again, his efforts were in vain, as the shadow of that smirk and the way his lips moved when he spoke played over in his head like a silent movie.

He appeared to think in black and white when remembering their times together. He couldn't hear that voice anymore in his mind, because memory didn't do it justice and the years had flown by like sand in an hourglass.

Hours passed by quickly, his watch signalling midnight and Christmas with a series of beeps. The rest of the apartment was silent.

He didn't have to make a sound for Chris to know he was there. He didn't move, and neither did Chris, until the latter had a gun pointing at his face. His heart beat slowly as he drank in the features, startled and amused slightly to find that there wasn't even a scar from two RPGs and an explosion in a volcano.

His expression was as unreadable as ever behind those dark sunglasses, and Chris wished he could see the eyes he missed. They'd been green, deep and sad and just as unreadable as if he'd been wearing those glasses that Chris hated so much. He lowered the gun and placed it gently on the coffee table.

With open arms, the marksman went to him, and lips met for the first time in far too long.

There was no going back now as the pair walked away from the burning apartment building, the first of many buildings to come. And now that Chris had stepped over to the dark side, there would be no one there to prevent this new world from happening. Their hands and souls intertwined again, embracing like old friends as their hearts beat in sync.

Chris stopped and pulled their lips together, flames flickering in the dark sunglasses before they began walking away. They had places to go, cities to burn, people to kill and a world to destroy.

And it was then that Chris realized that he'd never really needed to ask.