|| click click bang

The brunet wavered, gun tilting downward slowly. He was almost angry at this discovery… he didn’t want to believe that his friend had become one of them. It felt like an insult to his memory.

    “… yeah it’s been too long… ”

Chris’s quickly relaxing body language was deceiving– the soldier was definitely not going to just say ‘welcome back’ and let him walk free. You can’t just come back from the dead and be OKAY. How many friends had he watched turn into monsters? With all the new kinds of freaks being bred by every terrorist corporation under the sun– not to mention that clone bullshit with Carla; and fucking Wesker– there’s no way in hell Joseph is different, that he’s not going to end up like them at some point, if he was even ‘Joseph’ at all.

    “ You look good for someone who got mauled by rabid zombie dogs… ”

Every instinct screamed this was going south far too damn fast, enough so that Joseph was half tempted to peace outta there as fast as his legs could book it. However it was the old familiarity, perhaps even camaraderie, he’d once had with his former teammate that had him holding his ground - his own weapon remained still, far from pointing towards the BSAA soldier before him.

Chris looked... different. Of course he did - older, tireder, like he’d seen some shit. Hadn’t they all? Everyone’s world had utterly changed that night in the forest, in the mansion. “Was gonna ask how ya’been, but seein’ you’re here fightin’, well... I can hazard a guess.”

It probably would be a reasonably accurate one too, all things considering.

Things had changed. The world had spiraled out of control again and again, and it seemed no matter what as soon as one villain, some monstrous entity, had been defeated another would rise in their place. Seeing all that the other man had faced, would face, his suspicion was something that stood as utterly understandable. It still hurt, and Joseph perhaps visibly cringed towards the perceived edge within the other man’s voice there. “If it’s any consolation if I’d been given’a choice in the matter I wouldn’t have left like that.”

God damn those dogs. Damn Umbrella - he wished he’d been around to see its downfall. “Didn’t get out of it without takin’ some hits either.” You didn’t come out of being mauled without scars, and perhaps the most poignant one that promised this being the actual man himself was the one still bloomed on his throat were those teeth had long ago clamped down and ripped.

     She couldn’t believe before her eyes, Joesph was alive?  Just how? She saw the dogs maul him to death. Pale azures stared up at him and blinked a few times more, going to pinch his left arm just to make sure.  “Y-Yeah, I’ve haven’t been called that in a while.”  Not since he died, at least.

     Boy was that quite the story to tell! Not that Joseph was really in the place to easily tell it, nor should he in this exact moment... probably. Talk about a mood killer, and he was just happy to see an old face like this again! Her little pinch brought a chuckle and a bemused flick and wiggle of his fingers gently towards her in return. “Well, guess I gotta change that huh?”

     She was taken back who was before her, he had died a long time ago.  “FF-rost?” 

@armageddonjoker

@armageddonjoker | closed starter

He has his gun trained on the signature red bandanna, scanning the face beneath with wide, hazel eyes that he knows are playing tricks. It can’t be him, he’s DEAD.

“ Joseph…”

“ That’s not you… is it? ”

In all honesty there had been nothing that could’ve prepared Joseph for this meeting. He’d been made aware of the BSAA’s presence on the field, but his own orders had been simple enough - extraction of a few people, get in and get out, don’t engage.

This probably, absolutely definitely, counted as engaging didn’t it?