Our Mother the Mountain

29. Gardenia Perfume

Their last morning of 'vacation' was tainted by the messages from the night before; Ethan was grouchy, and kept rereading the texts throughout breakfast. Eventually Karl swatted the phone away and threatened to nuke it with his powers, so Ethan pocketed it. He still scowled sourly over his breakfast, and cut his eggs with far more force than necessary.

"It'll be fine," Karl said nonchalantly, contemplating his coffee by putting the cup to his lips, then licking his lips without drinking the beverage. His glasses were on despite the clouds of the morning; they were in the hotel's restaurant, and Ethan realized the engineer was trying to avoid scaring others with his unnatural eyes. He'd told Ethan that over coffee, so long ago. "Not the first time some assholes want to use mutations to create bioweapons, won't be the last."

"That's so fucked up," Ethan snapped, angrily buttering bread, and even more angrily dipping it into his porridge. Karl shrugged as if agreeing, but offered, "At least that idiot Redfield is loyal to you. Keepin' you informed. Time he learned to."

"It's Ada's last message that bothers me so much." Ethan could recite it from memory; he'd read it so many times. "When you get home, be very careful of others around. Who does she mean? There's so many people that could be...well, targeted, for information. Is somebody using Zoe? Or is it..." his voice faltered before his next suspect...Karl's brother. There were plenty of others that Ethan didn't know if he could trust, as well. The Duke. The state workers.

His butter knife tore through the bread and dragged across his palm, feeling strange. Karl grabbed the utensil from Ethan. "Don't hurt yourself, thinkin' too hard," the engineer offered sarcastically. Ethan tossed the bread onto the plate.

"I'm sorry. It's just....unsettling."

Karl was unusually quiet; Ethan could sense that the other man was in on whatever 'surprise' Zoe had mentioned, but since Zoe had deemed it worth keeping a secret, Ethan refocused his attention on his plate. He needed something to look forward to, might as well not spoil it.

—--

Chris groaned as he answered the phone, and Ethan could hear the stirring of bed sheets. He didn't know why, but he blushed. The blond frowned as if reminding himself that he didn't care that it was probably 4am or something awful in the States. If that's even where Redfield was.

"Hey." His voice was thick with sleep. Ethan's scowl turned into a wry smirk, and Heisenberg, behind the wheel of the truck, rolled his eyes.

"Hey." It was so awkward. Why was he so awkward?

Chris saved him, as usual, by clearing his throat and speaking in a very tired, slurred way. "Glad you called. Gimme a minute. How are you?"

"I'll be better if people would leave me the hell alone," Ethan snapped, and then quickly retracted, "Not you, I mean. Just...your message, I'm sure you know why...stressed me out."

"I know." Chris had moved from laying to sitting, and it showed in his voice. But he stifled another yawn before continuing. "Sorry. But after what happened–" Ethan could sense the voice crack that Chris was able to hide. By 'what happened', the agent meant "When I hid the truth from you and thought you were dead and had incredible guilt for a few hours", but Ethan said nothing. "-I just wanna...I don't know. Tell you everything, I guess."

"I appreciate that."

Karl's eyeroll was so pronounced and exaggerated that Ethan pressed his left palm into the engineer's cheek, shoving his head away, and Karl swatted at the blond's arm.

"So, you said it was complicated?" Ethan tried to keep his tone casual.

"Yeah." Chris waited for another question, and when one didn't come, he sighed. "By complicated I mean, I'm still technically acting as Captain, but the BSAA is now being investigated by the DOJ over alleged bioterrorism crimes and internal corruption. And I, as well as my team, are some of many agents who've been called to testify against the BSAA. Basically, right now I'm in the middle of two corrupt government orgs who both like pointing fingers at each other and hiding their own bullshit." Despite the exhaustion in his voice, Chris's anger was clear, and Ethan found himself gripping the phone tightly to his own ear.