Chapter One: Twenty-Four Hour Window
"And as he, who with laboring breath has escaped from the deep to the shore, turns to the perilous waters and gazes."
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno
July 2, 2009
Claire stared at the painting of a rosy sunset on the wall across from the toilet.
She blinked.
It made no sense. There was…a window to her right, overlooking the cerulean ocean. Plenty of real sunsets out there.
The painting was a clumsy, kitschy imitation of the real thing. Something she'd see in a dentist's office - a meaningless piece of art meant to fade into the background. Streaky acrylics caught the fluorescent lights.
No sense.
She set the little cup full of her urine on the countertop next to her. The pale yellow fluid sloshed over the brim, and a drop trailed slowly down the side. She didn't bother wiping it off with the balled up toilet paper in her hand.
How fucking embarrassing, she thought, rubbing her face.
Above her, a fan purred, stirring the warm air in the room. She watched a sea bird she couldn't name land on the surface of the water, tucking in its wings and riding on the gentle waves.
There was a sharp rap on the door.
"Whenever you're ready, Ms. Redfield." His voice was muffled through the wood, but reliably monotonous.
She closed her eyes and hung her head.
Wesker snapped a glove over his wrist.
Claire hovered awkwardly in the far corner of the tiny bathroom, sticking close to the opposite wall. The more distance between them, the better - and she watched warily as he moved, her muscles tensed and ready to pounce. To run. To claw her way through the door.
But he worked slowly, and calmly. He moved with a kind of precise, mechanical detachment, and he didn't say a word.
He barely seemed to notice her.
He barely seemed to notice anything. He seemed completely unfazed by all of it - by her, by the too-small room, by the gulls crying outside.
By the fact that the world had split apart at the seams, leaving her here.
In a bathroom of an abandoned all-inclusive couples resort.
Trapped on a tropical island in the Pacific.
Standing next to Albert Wesker as he scrutinized a cup full of her piss.
Business as usual.
The room was silent save for the hum of the fan, and the buzzing lights, and the rush of breeze and waves through the window. She took a deep breath through her nose. The heat was stifling, and she plucked her sweat-soaked tank top away from her skin, bitterly wondering how long this examination would take.
"How do you know I'm close?" she finally asked, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.
He picked out a packet from the bright pink box. She couldn't read the label - it was all in French. "I can smell you."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
He sighed, tearing open the plastic wrapping. "I mean...it's possible for me to detect minute changes in the cycles of the human reproductive system."
Her upper lip curled into a sneer at the invasive thought. She glared at him, watching as he scanned the contents of the packet.
"That's really fucking disgusting," she said quietly.
Wesker turned, sending her a pointed red stare over his shoulder.
She felt herself shrink away beneath the look, still half-anticipating that he might change his mind and kill her on the spot. But he only went back to the task at hand, dipping what appeared to a litmus test strip into the cup. "Trust that it's not the most pleasant experience for me either," he muttered.
She was silent for a moment, watching as he let the strip soak up her urine. She chewed a nail. Her stomach churned with raw nerves and the sickeningly sweet residue of cherry hand soap.
He laid the yellowed strip on a folded paper towel and stepped back…waiting.
"So...do I smell…bad?" she asked hesitantly.
He shook his head, not bothering to look at her.
She frowned at his lack of an answer. The thought of having any kind of civil conversation with him disgusted her. The thought of being in the same room with him disgusted her. But she pushed on, curiosity outweighing her apprehension. "Well…what do I smell —"
"Ripe." He cut her off. "You smell ripe. Ready. Something like a hot, wet night." He studied the little strip as he spoke.
She stood dumbly, forcing herself not to gape at his description of her scent. Something about it was so...invasive.
Lurid, even. His choice of words...
"Egg-white discharge? Tender breasts?" he asked casually.
"What the fu…what?" she snarled, the fear she'd felt moments ago evaporating.
He looked up then, his body going limp with exasperation. "The symptoms of ovulation. Do you have discharge, the consistency of egg whites, even when not aroused? Are your breasts sore at all? Do your moods feel…" He spoke quickly, and gestured dismissively. "Amplified, somehow?"
She hugged herself tightly, and remained silent as he seemed to examine the most intimate things about her.
"I'll take that as yes, then." He eyed his watch, and then compared the used strip with the chart on the back of the colorful box. "Hmm." He looked thoughtful as he balled up the paper towel and tossed it in the trash.
"Hmm what?" She dropped her arms and stepped towards him, unable to help herself. She peered over his shoulder, squinting at the chart.
"You're a thirty-two." He stripped the latex glove off and finally turned to her. "That's quite high. Above average."
"Above…?" She blinked, trying to make sense of the numbers and labels on the box. "Wait. Wait. What does that —"
"You're at the peak of your cycle." He leaned back against the counter, not quite meeting her eyes. His gaze hovered on a spot just above her shoulder. "We have a 24-hour window for conception, starting…now."
She paled. She stumbled back towards the wall, bracing herself against it. Her head swam. Her temples throbbed.
Twenty-four hours for conception.
Twenty-four hours.
Twenty-four...
He reached out to her…but stopped when she shirked his attempt.
They stared at each other, her eyes burning with unshed tears, and rage, and hatred as the meaning of his words sunk in. When it all became too strange, he mercifully looked away.
"You'll need time to prepare, I'm sure." He took a deep breath and shook his wrist out, glancing once more at the time. "I'll come to you tonight. At ten."
Her nostrils flared with each labored breath she took. She trembled, her whole body quivering.
It couldn't be real. It couldn't. None of it could be real...
"Ms. Redfield?" he asked, his hand on the door knob.
She looked up in his direction. Unseeing. Unfocused.
He paused, turning his gaze away from her. "It's ugly business, I know. I'll make an effort to be efficient," he said softly.
It was somehow worse to hear him feign concern. To hear him speak in a voice with gentle edges. To hear him call it ugly business.
His plan to rape her pregnant.
The bathroom door shut behind him, firm and final.
And she was left alone with her rage…and her terror.
April 14, 2009
His footsteps echoed as he strode down the steel corridor, making his way towards the lower deck of the ship.
Thirty-seven days.
Thirty-seven days since Africa, with scorched red earth beneath his boots and the blistering white sun overhead.
Thirty-seven days since The End had begun.
And what slow, dragging days they had been. The End had not struck quickly, or sharply, or like a burst of blinding flame. It had settled on civilization like silt on a riverbed. Sand sinking into cracks, trickling down the throat, filling the lungs inch by inch.
The End was a death rattle. A desperate, dying gasp, thirty-seven days long.
The halls were silent that evening. All around him, wood creaked and metal rattled, shifting with the rolling waves. It was strange, he thought as he walked lower and lower, down towards the belly of the ship. A few weeks ago, all he wanted was silence. He craved it desperately, wildly. An end to the chaos teeming all around him.
An end to the noise.
And now he had it. More than enough of it. He had long, empty halls, and shadowed rooms with low golden lights. He had damp air, and the heavy echo of his boots, and the groaning, the constant damned groaning of the ship…
And nothing but his thoughts, rushing and tumbling over one another. Filling the space the chaos had left behind.
He made his way through the door to the lowest deck, the salt-rusted hinges straining in protest as he pushed against them.
He blinked against the rush of light, a stark shade of blue. The walls glimmered and rippled with eerie liquid patterns.
This room smelled different than the rest...no salt, no brine, no damp wood. Instead, it was filled with the bitter, sterile scent of cryogenic fluid.
Ten chambers were lined up in two neat rows, against either wall.
Ten people slept, peaceful and content. The survivors of The End. Thoroughly oblivious to the way civilization crumbled, miles and miles away.
There was something comforting about this place, though he was reluctant to admit it. There was a low hum to the room - not just from the equipment, but it seemed to radiate a kind of energy, where the rest of the ship felt desolate and barren. Down here, beneath the dark waters, hearts pumped blood, and lungs filtered air, and minds, though numbed to unconsciousness, flickered with electricity.
It felt warm here.
It felt alive here.
And he found himself drawn to that source of heat and light, night after night. A sad, desperate moth, fluttering frantically, reaching for excuses. Checking pulse readings, checking fluid retention, checking things that had already been checked twice over...
Tonight, he found Jill hunched over one of the chambers, face cast in a pale glow. Her hair hung in lifeless blonde strands, brushing against the curved glass, and her lips were slightly parted as if she were in the middle of a sentence.
She didn't look up when he entered. Or when he turned to close the door behind him. Or when he walked towards her, and stopped at her side, and looked down at the subject inside - Redfield, his eyes closed, his features slack with sleep.
He glanced at the monitor to the side of the chamber. Normal readings. A thin green line spiking and dipping in rhythm with the man's heartbeat.
"They're all stable?" he asked, watching as Jill's eyes flitted over the serene face beneath the glass, following a trail of bubbles making their way up the tube.
She nodded once. Her lips were pressed tight, a thin, pale line.
"Electrolyte levels?"
Another nod. She rested her fingertips against the curved glass, her face held in a careful, stoic mask.
He turned away, glancing down the row of chambers. His eyes landed on Kennedy, his head tilted slightly to the side as if he'd fallen asleep against the window during a long car ride. On Redfield's young BSAA partner, her features refusing to relax from her displeased scowl. On Redfield's sister, unruly wisps of copper curls drifting around messily.
"Keep a close eye on Birkin," he said, taking a few steps away from Redfield's pod. "I don't trust that she'll regulate as well as-"
"Okay."
He turned back towards Jill. It was the first word she'd spoken since the morning. Or since yesterday. Or since the day before that, perhaps...while he controlled the ship's environment with an unrelenting precision, he found the hours had begun bleeding together. Sunrises and sunsets and dim days and dark nights.
He hadn't heard her voice in quite some time. It cracked around the word.
A sharp, pointed word.
"Is there a problem?" He narrowed his eyes, watching as she trailed her fingertips along the pod. The glass squeaked beneath her skin.
"I'll check her later," she answered, hand falling to her side. "She's fine."
He watched as she turned and walked away, the sound of her footsteps muffled by the dull buzz of the equipment. By the softly beeping monitors.
By the low, endless moaning of the ship. A haunting noise he felt deep in his bones.
July 2, 2009
"This is crazy." Josh turned the page of an old newspaper. "This is batshit crazy."
From across the table, Claire squinted at the date in the top right corner of what he was reading: June 15th, 2009.
On the beach, frothy waves rolled in and out, and the sun sank into the ocean behind a curtain of pink and gold.
Sheva crunched on another chip and wiped her fingertips on a napkin. The smell of salt and vinegar burned Claire's nose; she turned her head.
"Moscow…the entire city of Moscow…fell in a week?" Josh asked incredulously, looking up at Jill.
She nodded to him. There was a bowl of untouched Ramen in front of her.
Claire watched her through the steam rising up from the noodles. She realized she couldn't quite remember the sound of the woman's voice - Jill was so solemn now. So solemn, and so quiet, and so empty...
There were…things Claire wanted to ask her. Things she'd need to pull her aside for. She was sure Jill would know the answers. Jill would know - most likely, probably - what it was to be with him, to feel his hands on her body..to be raped by him. She blanched at the word, feeling a lump rise in her throat. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table.
Jill had been with him for years. He must have…at some point…
Maybe that was why she didn't talk now.
Maybe it wasn't The End that ruined her.
Maybe he had destroyed her before The End began.
"What is it?" Jill asked, and the sudden strangeness of her half-whispered words startled Claire.
She took a deep breath and blinked. "What?"
"You were looking at me. You seem upset."
She hesitated. "No, I'm...I'm fine." She nodded for emphasis.
Jill narrowed her hollow blue eyes.
At the end of the table, Sheva and Josh prattled on about the city that wasn't Moscow anymore.
"Hey," Claire said. She licked her lips, wind-whipped and sunburnt. "Can I…can we talk someplace?"
April 23, 2009
"You need to eat."
Jill sat across from Wesker, staring down at her untouched plate of alfredo - limp, pale noodles, and lumpy sauce made from a box she'd found in the pantry. She poked at a gelatinous clump with her fork, ignoring him.
The television behind her showed nothing but snow. A robotic voice spoke between the screech of emergency codes.
"National state of emergency...US Department of Defense has issued...contagious disease...mandatory curfews imposed...warning effective until further notice…"
Live broadcasting from the States had gone silent nearly a week ago. The alert played on a loop now, occasionally broken up by the static of the weakening signal.
"You haven't eaten in two days," he pressed, growing more irritated. Between her bulletproof silence and the shrill, piercing emergency message, he was certain his nerves were frayed beyond repair.
"I'm not hungry," Jill finally said. Her answer was clipped short. She dropped her fork, and it clattered against the plate.
He leaned back in his chair, inhaling sharply, closing his eyes. He fought the urge to raise a hand and massage his temples at the rising pressure. He supposed he could force-feed her, if she refused to cooperate...or he could work to repair the P30 device, now just a tangle of tubes and needles…
But this was no silent rebellion. This was no defiant stand against him, against his plan. She had walked alongside him each step of the way, terse and tense…
...and now she seemed drained. Simply drained. Pale and limp, fading a little more each day. She snapped at him every so often, or glared, or bristled. Little bursts of rage that seemed to awaken her.
Otherwise, she wilted.
She stood abruptly, the table rattling as she pushed away. She turned towards the door, leaving the plate full of food.
"Where are you going?" He narrowed his eyes on her as she crossed the room.
"To check on the others," she answered, not bothering to turn around. She passed through the door, slipping around the corner.
The others, who had just been checked two hours ago. If that. There had been no alerts, no reason to believe their condition was anything but stable. But he would find her there in an hour, or two, or three, illuminated by the eerie glow of the room. He'd find her staring down into the concave glass, watching the liquid bubble and flow, watching chests expand and compress, listening to the rhythm of the monitors.
He drummed his fingertips on the wood grain. The emergency message buzzed behind him.
They were both moths. Dull and brown and starving, drawn to the same unnatural source of light. They threw themselves against the glass again, and again, and again.
Desperate, he thought, rising from the table to follow her.
Futile, he thought, and the word snagged beneath his skin like a barbed hook.
July 2, 2009
They walked slowly together, Claire picking at a calico scallop shell she'd plucked from the shallow surf. They were painfully quiet; Claire had no idea how to ask, or what to ask, or where to begin. She wondered if it was even worth asking.
There was a chance that no one would ever find out.
There was a chance - a big chance - that it might not work.
Could he impregnate a human? Was that possible, this late in the game? Maybe not. Maybe he couldn't even —
"It's you, isn't it?" Jill's voice was raspy and deep.
"I'm… sorry?" Claire asked, feigning confusion.
"He's going to use you first," Jill said. She sounded strange - almost disappointed, or sad.
They stopped walking. The sand felt very cold under Claire's feet as the sun sank down into the ocean. She put her hands on her hips, tightening her fist around the shell, fighting the urge to cross her arms over her chest. Fighting the urge to run. Instead, she worried at the inside of her cheek.
Jill's eyes were so clear and hard that they barely seemed blue. They were glacial. She remembered the way they were years ago - a sparkling shade of crystal blue, lively and dynamic. Not at all like the empty ice that stared back at her now. Unblinking. Unfeeling.
When Claire couldn't stand it anymore, she turned and looked out to the horizon.
Jill stepped closer, and Claire felt her heat at her shoulder. Little foaming waves rolled up around their ankles and sank away again.
The early stirrings of tears tingled behind Claire's eyes. She squinted the sensation away. The rippled edges of the shell cut into her palm. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry over this, over him. He would never make her cry; she wouldn't give him that power.
Behind her, Jill sighed.
Claire threw her head back, dropping the shell, and laced her fingers behind her neck. A desperate, dejected sob pushed its way up her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, the tears finally welling up and spilling over her hot cheeks.
"It won't be like that, Claire."
"Like how?" She wiped at her face with heel of her palms. Her hands trembled.
"It won't be that bad."
"Fuck you!" Claire nearly shouted. "He's going…" Her chest heaved, her words nearly slurring through her agony. "He's going to rape me tonight and all you can come up with is some smug bullshit like 'it won't be that bad'? Really, Jill? That's all you got for me?" Her eyelashes were matted with tears.
"He won't rape you," she said quietly. "He won't hurt you."
Claire recoiled. "He won't…" She trailed off in disbelief. "He won't hurt me? Listen to yourself! Look at you!" She gestured wildly to Jill's chest. To the ring of puckered scars there - faded to a duller shade of pink and red, but still striking against her pale skin. Still angry, still raw.
Jill ignored the gesture, and stared at the setting sun, a hazy shade of scarlet hanging over the quiet ocean. She shook her head. "I think…maybe…it's all behind him now."
She sounded eerily distant when she spoke, as if her voice and her thoughts were coming from a thousand miles away.
She sounded hollow. Numb.
Used.
Claire couldn't hold back her sharp bark of a laugh, still half-choked with tears. It was absurd. It was all fucking absurd. Jill saying it was all behind him now, while she stared out at the ocean like some kind of broken puppet with tangled strings and limp limbs. Tossed aside when he was finished. So Claire laughed - a mixture of fury, fear, sadness, everything - and the sound scratched her throat. "God, he just fuckin'...he ruined you, didn't he, Jill?"
She was met with silence.
May 4, 2009
"I want to go under."
Wesker ignored her, or didn't hear her at all, his shining red eyes trained on the wall of monitors. He'd been sitting behind his great desk forever, it seemed, watching and waiting. The ship lurched and its steel belly groaned. An old styrofoam cup of coffee tumbled to the grated floor.
He didn't even notice.
One screen was a Japanese news channel - she recognized the colorful logo. The station had long since gone off the air and there was nothing left but static and the company's characters. Another screen blared out muddled and frantic German. Germany had held out better than its European cousins, and the occasional live broadcast flickered on and off the screen, an unsteady signal. Today, tonight, whenever…there was a live feed of a riot. The camera, jostled and unsteady, panned in on the blank and wide-eyed face of a man who had been trampled to death. A line of blood trickled from his open mouth.
"I want to go to sleep."
He sighed, a sound of heavy exasperation. "Then go to bed, Jill," he said flatly, still transfixed on the collapse of society, laid out before him on a patchwork of screens.
She took a step closer to him. "I need you to put me under."
He finally turned his glare on her. "Put you under?" He snapped.
She swallowed, and nodded.
He stared up at her. His glare deepened.
"No."
"Wesker—"
"No." He focused his attention on the screens again. "Unfortunately, I require your assistance in maintaining—"
"You have the infected...the majini. A hundred of them," she argued softly, her voice hoarse with disuse.
He slammed his fist down on the desk; dirty plates and bowls and utensils rattled, accumulated over the weeks he'd spent in morbid observation of humanity's last stand. Curiously, the force of his blow didn't reduce the desk to crumpled metal - something that would have happened just a few weeks ago. It only shook on its legs, and papers rustled, and the wooden floor creaked.
"I will not…depend…on the aid...of the unworthy," he ground out between clenched teeth.
The truth of the matter, she knew, was that he had lost the majini. They had silently mutinized the month before, shortly after the night Excella had…
Jill's eyes cut away from Wesker, the last few months flashing and tangling across her memory.
One hundred and twenty-three of the infected had migrated from their assigned positions to the lower levels of the ship.
One hundred and twenty-three men and women were huddled below, waiting for landfall.
They didn't fear him anymore…and they certainly didn't need him.
He was no god.
He was weak.
And without her…his lowly little Jill Valentine, his marionette, his automaton...he would be very much alone.
"Will you put me to sleep...Sir?"
"You can repeat your insipid request as much as you like!" he shouted, finally roused to standing. "I won't be swayed!"
She blinked slowly, her hollow gaze on his face. She took a centering breath. "Please. Captain."
He shook his head. "Oh, that's cheap," he sneered at her, his eyes narrowing. "Even for you, Jill."
She stared at him a moment longer, the air around him seeming to tremble with his rage. A sight that would frighten anyone else. But after years of it, of him, she nodded, her eyes drifting away.
"Go to bed," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Go to bed, Miss Valentine…sleep well. You'll feel better in the morning."
She turned, as if to leave. But she didn't leave - instead, she stopped at the edge of the desk, picking up one of his discarded knives.
He watched as she considered the weight of it for a moment.
He watched as she schooled her features into a blank, empty mask.
Blank and empty. Words that had defined her month after month. Blank and empty. Words that stretched endlessly before her. The blank, empty ocean all around them. The blank, empty world behind them. The blank, empty ship swallowing them up.
The blank, empty buzzing in her head.
Blank and empty and never the same again.
Without warning, seemingly without thought, she forcefully slashed at her right wrist - a sudden, violent movement.
The strangeness of it seemed to stun them both. He gaped at her where she stood, a glistening trail of red running down her pale flesh, pooling in her palm and painting rivulets down to her fingertips. Her forearm bled profusely from the jagged, clumsy wound. His eyes were wide with the horror she'd inflicted on body. His thin lips moved, twitched, as if he meant to speak - perhaps say her name: Jill.
She blinked at him, and then looked back down to her arm. She switched the knife to her bloody hand, preparing to —
He was on her in an instant, before she could take another breath. He held her bleeding arm in the air, his fingers squeezing so tightly around her wrist she was sure the bones were going to shatter like glass. She howled, a long, keening, mournful wail, and the knife fell to the metal floor.
"Let me go!" she begged, arching up, trying desperately to escape him. "Let me go…"
"Enough!" He bellowed, so close to her ear that her head throbbed with his baritone voice.
She collapsed against him, sinking to her knees, her strangled wrist still caught in his grasp. She clung to his pant leg, her skinny, sickly fingers twisting in the fabric. She buried her face in the heat of his thigh and wept.
She could feel him breathing - quick and shallow in his panic. Hot tears, so odd, so foreign after years of chemically-induced apathy, rolled down her cold cheeks. She tried one last time to free her arm.
"Stop!" He barked, and she flinched.
After a few moments, his grip on her poor wrist softened. He cleared his throat and began again, quietly. "Stop. Let it clot."
They stayed that way for minutes. For hours. She didn't know. A slave on her knees before her master. Her arm grew numb, but the pulsing in the gash slowed and eventually stopped.
Just as Wesker took a steadying breath, and the tension in the captain's cabin seemed to ease, the deafening sound of electronic static crackled the air.
She started, turning her face against his leg so that she could see the wall of monitors.
Germany's broadcast had turned to snow.
The ship hummed and lurched… and there was nothing else.
"I'll put you to sleep with the others now, Jill," he whispered.
July 2, 2009
Claire skipped the group meeting that night, waving on Rebecca and Sheva as they passed her on her way back to her cabin. She kept her head down, doing her best to shield her reddened eyes from them as she forced a quick, tight smile for appearances. She heard their murmurings as they walked in the other direction, toward the resort clubhouse.
Is she alright?
Are any of us alright?
Yeah...fair enough...
Claire shut the front door behind her, leaning heavily against it. She slid down to the floor, wrapping her arms around her legs.
They would all be there. Chris, Jill, Leon, Barry. The little family she'd known for years. They'd ask where she was, what was wrong. They'd talk about rations and inventories, about scouting expeditions, about repairs and maintenance and dividing up the next day's labor.
And they would all leave, heading towards their cabins for a comfortable night's sleep.
And she would be here.
Waiting for him to come to her.
Waiting for her life - what was left of it - to come crashing to a halt.
She stayed huddled against the door, her face buried in her knees, her thighs pressed to her chest, for what seemed a lifetime.
The clock above the enormous sofa chimed softly. It was meant to be melodic and comforting.
It sounded like a death knell.
One chime. Two. She felt the noise more than she heard it, metal striking hollow metal. It rattled through her joints and left her muscles aching.
Three. Four.
Her temples throbbed, and she closed her eyes tighter, curled into herself tighter.
Five.
She took a shaky breath. She focused on the smell of salt. Sand. Wood. Sweat. Unfamiliar things, wrong things. Things that shouldn't be in her world.
Six.
She was strong. She had been through worse. She was strong. Her jaw trembled, and she clenched her hand tight, and her nails bit into the skin of her palm, and she told herself she was strong-
Seven chimes.
Claire screamed then, pounding her fists against the woodgrain until blood dripped from her knuckles.
She didn't feel the pain.
Wesker gripped the side of the sink and stared at himself in the gilded bathroom mirror. He lifted his left arm to glance at his watch.
9:36.
He flipped the handle of the golden faucet up. Warm water poured from the spigot like a bubbling fountain. He let it run into his cupped hands and splashed his face.
He would go to her very soon. Lay with her. Hopefully put a child in her womb on the first try. Their timing could not be more exact; there was such a narrow window for conception, and he had found the way to squeeze through.
How strange.
Claire Redfield. The most compatible out of them all. He would never have imagined her; the little sister who always hovered on the edges of her beloved brother's story. The girl Chris fought to protect, begged to save. He couldn't have written a revenge so perfect.
It would be very clinical. Very clean. He had decided it the moment he'd run her panel and found it favorable against his. He would bring himself to hardness, and then to brink of crisis…a quick insertion, no more than a few seconds. No stroking, no unnecessary touching, nothing like that.
Not for her dignity, no…but for his.
He looked up into his own eyes, and watched his pupils contract until they were nothing but slits beneath the hard vanity lights. Slowly, he tilted his head and examined his wet skin. He traced the very edge of his hairline with a finger.
His hair was lightening from the days spent outside, working near the intense reflection of the ocean; it was nearly white now. There was a sunspot emerging on one of his sharp cheekbones, just under his eye socket. He was returning to something of a mortal state in the absence of the PG-67 A/W.
Things change so quickly, he thought. He was softer, slower, simpler...and the devolution had seemingly taken no time at all. He was surprised that it neither disturbed nor enraged him.
But when it was over…when the girl's pregnancy was assured…he would resume his regular doses of the serum. He would ascend once again.
And things would be as they were always meant to be.
His gaze traveled lower, over his throat, his collar bone. He paused and pressed his fingertips to a small scar on his bare chest. It was all that was left of the events before his rebirth in Raccoon City. One mark - one stubborn, defiant patch of skin that refused to heal in sync with the rest of his body. Pale and smooth.
He stood very still, mesmerized by the old wound. He barely breathed. He could still remember the pain...the last intense, crippling pain he had felt. He could remember the way it seared through his chest. The way his skin ripped and his muscles tore. The way his body seemed to disintegrate, unravel, and the way the world bled to black…
And then he awoke.
And he was new.
And the mark had never left him.
Several hard knocks startled him out of his reverie. His hand fell from his chest. He slapped the faucet off and yanked a hand towel down from a rack.
"Who is it?" he snapped, peering out from the bathroom.
"Take a guess, asshole."
His jaw clenched. He stormed to the door, fumbling with the sliding lock, and then the deadbolt. He threw it open and came face to face with Claire.
"I told you I would come to you, Ms. Redfield," he hissed, wrenching her inside by her arm.
"Don't touch me!" She struggled with him as he pulled her into the villa. She tore her arm free, cradling it as if he'd burned her.
He looked out the door down the empty boardwalk - left and right - and then finally closed it, locking them in.
He turned to her, glaring. "Did anyone see you?"
She glared back, still rubbing her arm where he'd grabbed her. "No. Jesus Christ."
"I said ten. In your cabin," he hissed.
She rolled her eyes. "Wrecked your plans? Showing up a whole twenty minutes early?" She looked around, crossing her arms over her chest. "What were you doing? Gussying up for my rape?" She jerked her head towards the bathroom as she spoke. "Really thoughtful of you."
He snorted, his lip curling. "You're just like your imbecile brother. The both of you - unending idiocy."
"Oh…fuck…off, Wesker," she drawled, her eyes rolling to the ceiling.
He smelled the air, his nose wrinkling at the sting of alcohol. "How much have you had to drink?"
"Not enough for this shit." She looked at him boldly, and he knew she was trying very hard to appear…tough. She wavered, wobbling on her own feet even as she tried to stand still.
"You're inebriated," he said, frowning.
Unashamed, she pinched her thumb and forefinger together. "A little." She reached for the hem of her tank top and began pulling it up. "Where're we going here? Couch?"
He watched her. He watched her bare the swath of smooth, pale flesh of her flat midriff…the smattering of brown freckles coming to a point at her small, protruding navel. He blinked and took a breath, licking his lips. "Stop."
She managed to get her top off and stood before him in only a black sports bra. She balled the shirt in her hands. Her hair was thrown back in a messy ponytail; curls of golden-red sprung up all over her head. "You ready?" She belched into the crook of her elbow. "Come on. Let's get this show on the road." She clapped her hands together sharply, and nodded at him, eyeing his clothes. She began to work on the fly of her shorts.
She stopped when his hand closed over her wrist - as gently as he could manage.
She looked up at him.
He raised his eyebrows and then said, very slowly: "Claire."
"No," she argued, and stumbled away. "I'm not waiting. Now or never."
He narrowed his reptilian eyes at her.
"What?" she snarled.
His scowl flitted to her raw knuckles.
Like a child, she hid her hands behind her back, out of his sight.
"What have you done to yourself?" he asked, his voice flat.
"What the hell do you care?" she shot back. And then she paused, time seeming to stand still between them. She took a deep, shaky breath.
Wesker's face fell in exasperation. "Are you going to be sick?"
"No," she cut him off. She wheezed and hesitated, and then bent over. Her bruised fingers clawed at her knees. "I just…I just need a sec."
He stood in the bathroom doorway, leaning on the frame.
She'd been slumped over his bidet for the better part of fifteen minutes. She spat into the bowl, breathing heavily. "I can't," she said, her words echoing around the porcelain basin.
"You must." He let his head rest against the cool wood, listening to her groan.
"Can you turn that light off?"
He didn't move.
"Fucking please?!" she cried wetly, a thick rope of saliva dripping into the bidet.
He reached across the doorway and casually flicked the vanity lights off. He tested the other switches, leaving on the fan and the dim shower globe.
"God…" She hid her face in the crook of her arm.
"Better to get it over with," he said, closing his eyes.
"I can't."
"You can."
She moaned, sweating profusely, her skin glistening in the strange yellow light from the corner of the bathroom. "I just wanna throw up," she whispered.
He ran his hand through his hair and crouched down next to her. She flinched. "Use your fingers," he suggested.
She looked at him, horrified. "No!"
"You've spent a lifetime fighting monsters, Ms. Redfield. Gagging yourself really shouldn't be this dramatic."
Her eyes watered and her chin quivered. She looked absolutely pitiful.
He sighed. She was growing more intoxicated by the minute; he wondered if she'd had enough to poison herself.
"I hate it here," she said, and he could hear the spit in her mouth. "I hate it...so...so much."
He furrowed his brow in mock interest, her words barely registering as he considered his next step.
"I just…I hate you. I hate you...more than anything. You're so…fucking…fucking…" She stared at him, her eyes hazy as she lost her train of thought. "You're just… disgusting and —"
Her reflexes were so delayed that she didn't even resist the hand on the back of her neck, directing her over the bidet, and two fingers of the other hand slipping into her mouth, over her soft tongue, past her teeth, which wisely did not bite down. He touched the back of her slimy throat, his nails barely scratching the wet flesh there. He felt her entire body jerk as soon as he made contact.
He pulled away in time for her vomit, unobstructed. What seemed to be an entire bottle of red wine, and nothing else, splashed into the bowl. He shook out his hand and grimaced.
She sobbed between agonized moans. Her expression was a twist of shock, and pain, and something like betrayal at his deception.
And perhaps a bit of relief.
He carefully brushed her ponytail aside. "A little more, hmm?"
"I'm fine." She pushed at him and gulped, shivering even in the oppressive heat. "I'm done."
"I don't think so." His hand was guiding her again by nape of her neck.
"No," she keened. "Please, no…" Her bloodied fingers clung to the lip of the bidet, her arms tense and straight with her fear.
Despite her protests, her caterwauling, her white-knuckled grip...she ultimately let him open up her body again.
And he knew she would never admit it, but the very small, rational part of her must have been grateful.
"Miss Redfield."
She shifted and frowned, nuzzling deeper into the pillow.
"Miss Redfield."
The disembodied voice again. More insistent. What a strange dream, she thought in her haze of half-awakeness. A dream about the world crumbling down around her. A dream about arriving in a quiet little paradise, far away from the chaos. A dream about her friends, all safe, all together...and the bargain that was struck to keep them that way…
She turned over, wrapping the sheet more tightly around herself, her eyes screwed shut to keep the bright morning sun out.
"Claire!" The voice was clear and loud that time.
She sat nearly straight up, gasping, and when she saw him standing over her, she recoiled, pressing herself flat against the back of the couch. Her chest heaved. She pushed her hair out of her face.
"Where am I?" she asked, wide-eyed and shaking.
He was cradling a tea cup and just…looking at her.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee was thick and nauseating in the villa. She coughed as her stomach churned, and wiped her mouth with the back of her trembling hand. Her head pounded. Her foot bumped against a decorative ceramic bowl on the floor next to the couch, thankfully empty. How many times had she thrown up? "What time is it?"
"It's time for me to join the others…and for you to get dressed," he said, dismissively. He went to the kitchenette and set the teacup on the countertop.
She pulled the sheet up to her chest, covering her sports bra. Her face and throat flushed hotly. She looked around his cabin then, her mind still torn between theoretical trust and mortal terror in his presence. Her eyes drifted to a familiar dark face with yellow eyes. Her traitorous black cat - who she'd shared her little apartment with for years before The End, who had, at some point during her months-long sleep, become his cat - sat on a shelf inside the great bureau in the farthest corner of the room. It licked its paw lazily. She glared at it.
And then her attention went to his bed. A big, beautiful, white-dressed four-poster, like the one in her suite; it was unmade. She swallowed, her nostrils flaring.
"Did we…"
"No," he replied curtly.
Her body sagged in relief. She reached for her tank top, laid over the arm of the couch. She winced at her stiffness, her back cracking in protest. "What do we do now?"
"We aren't going to do anything," he sneered, patting down the pockets in his cargo shorts. "You will put your clothes on and leave in twenty minutes." He paused to glance at her. "Discreetly."
He was searching for something, walking into the kitchen and back out again, his quick, angry eyes darting around the villa. "I shouldn't have to remind you of what is at stake here for your friends and family, Ms. Redfield."
She glowered at him, squinting in the column of warm, tropical light that fell through his bay windows.
"And now you've wasted an entire cycle with your… tricks." He snatched his sunglasses off a bedside table and unfolded the arms, readying them. "It will be at least four weeks until we can attempt this again."
She stood, shedding the bedsheet. "You said 24 hours."
He blinked at her, and she saw how he fought not to let his eyes slip down to her chest. "I did. Yes," he said haltingly.
"It hasn't been 24 hours. We can still do it." She tossed her shirt behind her and squared her shoulders.
He seemed almost to smile at her bravery. "No."
"Yes."
"Ms. Redfield —"
"Now. Before they notice we're both missing," she said, and her voice, surprisingly, did not waver.
He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck, staring at her. She imagined the gears turning in his head. He looked ill.
After a moment had passed, he shrugged to signal his tired consent.
"I need Listerine or something," she mumbled and turned towards the bathroom.
"Why? I am absolutely not ki—"
"Because I can only taste vomit!" she barked at him.
He stiffened. "The medicine cabinet. And don't you dare put your lips on it."
He slowly sat on the edge of the enormous bed and turned his sunglasses end-over-end on his thigh. His heart, the disobedient wretch that it was, thundered in his chest. His blood felt as if it were running too hot or too thick or too fast, and he uselessly willed it to stop pounding, but it would not, it could not.
Behind the bathroom door, he heard the muffled sound of the toilet flushing.
He found it difficult to breathe, and although he hadn't eaten, he felt as if there was something lodged in his throat, choking him.
The faucet ran.
What was it that had him so thoroughly unnerved? he wondered. Cessation of the boosters, perhaps? Or something else...the newness, the wildness of this place? The claustrophobia of being trapped with the idiots he'd have happily left for dead?
He tossed the sunglasses back on the side table and rubbed his hands together, frowning at the clammy, sticky feel of his own skin. His knee bounced anxiously.
Claire Redfield would be the first to bring forth the new generation. The first to put his plan into action. The first to secure his ascension. His return.
And though he had known - somewhat abstractly - what that plan would entail, his stomach dropped as he realized what was required of him.
The joy he had felt at such perfect, accidental revenge was all but gone in anticipation of the very real act.
And against his thigh, his willful cock was furiously...humiliatingly...harder than it had been in years. It was due in part to the lack of the PG-67 A/W, he was sure. Every cell in his body slowly reverting back it's repulsive human state…his wants becoming desperate, vile needs.
He stared at himself, disbelieving; his shorts were stretched treasonously over his groin, which positively throbbed, engorged with blood. He felt light-headed, a pressure building in his body that he hadn't experienced in over a decade.
And all because of her.
The thought of her...the thought of the freckles on her chest, the constellation of them he had seen so much of the night before as he helped her to the couch, laid her down, and watched the pleasing sway of her breasts. He'd been fascinated by the way the flirtatious little spots seemed painted on her pale skin, how they disappeared beneath the black sports bra, and emerged again, coming to a perfect point above her navel, like a compass, beckoning this way... And her stomach - taut and smooth; the dim light catching the fine peach fuzz on her lower belly.
His rebellious body fairly hummed with the promise of touching her.
Mortified, he ground his teeth.
Why did it have to be her? Whywhywhy…
The bathroom door opened.
He blanched.
She flipped the light switch off and walked down the little hallway to the main room, her bare feet silent on the bamboo floors. She stopped there, on the threshold, picking at her nails. They stared at each other.
He forced himself to stand. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he stuffed them deeply into the pockets of his shorts. He realized, suddenly, that she could easily see the tented outline of his turncoat arousal, and for the first time in years…he blushed.
Would she see?
Would she see…stop sniveling, he chided his own thoughts.
Pathetic.
Disgusting.
Pull yourself together.
He squared his shoulders, and straightened his spine. Clinical and clean, he reminded himself, urging the flush of blood to leave his face, his neck, his chest. Clinical and clean.
There was nothing to think about. There was nothing to worry about. It was a simple biological act, and one that came naturally to all creatures. One that would be over quickly. His body - though it hadn't been touched in years, though it felt as if his insides might burst from his too-tight skin - would respond exactly as he needed it to. Exactly as he willed it too.
Clinical and clean. A kind of mantra he repeated over and over, trying futilely to push any thoughts of freckles and peach fuzz to the far corners of his mind.
It was much too late to worry about hiding his cock, so he falsified his pride and simply held her gaze, challenging her to make the first move.
She cleared her throat and crossed her arms. "I think you've gotta…unzip…at least. For this to work, I mean."
He opened his mouth to say something - a clever retort, a snort, a laugh…anything at all. But no sound would come out. He looked down then, watching his hands as they worked of their own volition, unbuttoning the fly and then peeling the zipper open in slow motion. His boxer-briefs showed blue plaid through the v of his undone shorts. He smoothed over the front, making sure the panels of soft material stayed in place over his defiant erection.
Clinical and clean.
She stood very still in exactly the same spot she had the night before, and gnawed at her thumbnail.
The cat watched them both, its yellow stare volleying back and forth, impassive.
Breathe, you fool, he thought to himself, and swallowed. He toed out of his tennis shoes, one at time, and then nudged them away. He gestured to the pile of pillows and sheets.
She went to the other side of the bed. They did not look at each as they climbed in, lifting the light comforter together and sliding under it with unsettling choreography. He eased back with a deep breath, laying his head on an overstuffed pillow and staring straight up at the mosquito netting above them; he felt her do the same.
The villa was already unbearably hot in the morning sun; it would only grow more humid and heavy as the day wore on. The back of his neck was damp with perspiration. He listened to call of sea birds flying over the water, listened to the waves lap at the pilings beneath the cabin.
He was afraid to move, and he hated himself for it...and he hated her more.
Beside him, the mattress shifted and dipped with whatever she was doing. He snuck a careful glance at her from the corner of his eye. She sighed as she fidgeted under the covers. She lifted her hips and arched up, whatever she was fussing with kept out of sight.
With every movement, the comforter brushed against his groin and made him wince. Each drag of the fabric felt amplified against his skin. Each individual thread felt like a needle scratching along a membrane that was too thin, too delicate. Too sensitive. He was suddenly made of nothing but exposed, aching nerves, and he clenched his teeth tighter. Tighter. It was beyond agitating - the pull of the sheets, the rustling of her movement, the way she shimmied and the way the bed bowed beneath her and the damned comforter, the unbearable, featherlight friction that wasn't enough, that wouldn't end-
"What are you doing?" he managed to snap, his voice cracking.
She contracted to a tight ball under the blanket and turned her head on the pillow to glare at him. "What do you think I'm doing?"
She straightened her legs out again and then dropped something onto the hardwood floor. He heard metal ping against the surface.
Her shorts. Her jean shorts.
She had taken off her shorts.
He blinked and looked up, his hands balling in the fitted sheet, his very being trying to sink into the bedding - sink down through the mattress and the box springs and the frame and then through the floor, sink forever until he was free of her, of the island, of existence.
The comforter rasped the underside of his barely-clothed cock once more and his stomach muscles clenched painfully in response. He was close - he was too close, so close that the entire endeavor would be over before it started. He licked his lips and his fingers tightened in the sheet.
"We must do this now, Ms. Redfield," he said, trying desperately to keep his voice even when he wanted to howl.
She stared at him blankly. And then a look of understanding washed over her face…followed closely by anger. "Oh, come on," she growled at him, pushing herself up to hands and knees, yanking the covers with her. "Jesus Christ…"
He screwed his eyes shut, desperate to block out the image that had already burned itself into his brain - Claire Redfield, the comforter wrapped around her bare waist, crawling over him so that she could take him inside of her.
She straddled his hips, squeezing his thighs closed with her own. The mattress shifted as she planted her hands on either side of his arms and brought her pelvis to his, as if she was lining up a driver. Through his clothes, he could feel the coolness of her on his overheated flesh.
"You're not gonna come if I touch you, are you? I have to… pull it out," she said, sitting back on her heels. The disgust in her voice was palpable.
His eyes shot open and he grabbed her offending hand before it had an opportunity to snake down between them. "Let me," he hissed. He looked up and studied the blue tray ceiling through the netted canopy; he looked anywhere but her eyes, or her face, or her body, as he pushed aside fabric of his boxers and set himself free.
There was nothing but the sound of the waves then, and their collective breath held tight in their lungs. A second, or a year, or a century passed in their deafening stillness.
He very nearly gulped, his unblinking gaze trained firmly on crown moulding. "Is there a problem?" he asked, the words like acid in his mouth.
"I have the right to look at it before you put it in me, don't I?"
His jaw clenched, and he worried for a moment that he might break all of his teeth.
In the very edge of his vision, he saw her shift and rewrap the comforter around them both so that the lower extremities of their bodies were hidden from view. She leaned over him again, her fire-red hair falling over one of her speckled shoulders and tickling his throat.
"Hold it up," she said quietly.
He was so embarrassingly hard that he didn't need the support, but he squeezed the base of his cock, staving off the flow of blood and premature ejaculation as best he could. His chest burned, reminding him to breathe, and he took in air as if he was drowning.
She brought one hand to her mouth, and he knew she was spitting on her fingers, improvising a lubricant. She reached beneath the comforter and rubbed herself with her own saliva, her knuckles grazing his.
And then, with a practiced dexterity, her hands were reaching out, bracing herself against the headboard. He felt her tilting her hips, adjusting her angle above him. Her hair swept across his throat, his face, catching on his lower lip. He didn't dare move to brush it away.
And she began to lower herself onto him.