Author's Notes: scriptsscrapscutlery wrote Piers, and I wrote Chris. In editing, he decided to keep our different forms of possession (he writes Piers's, I write Chris') to let the reader know whose section they're reading. Warning for violence and gore.

The windshield wipers did their best to keep the snow at bay, but each one of the flakes melted and froze. Before long, there was a layer of ice on the windshield and it grew more difficult to see the lines on the road. Piers wasn't sure if it was his head that was making everything double, or if it was the reflection of the headlights off of the snow on the side of the road. He was unphased by the thought and decided that closing his eyes was the best option. Piers could see that the back window was still mostly unfrozen. He couldn't see where he was going exactly, but he could tell where he had been, and with that little bit of information he could see that Chris wasn't swerving off the road. That brought a little bit of comfort as he blinked his eyes again and then let his head rest. Looking at Chris didn't help either because the more Chris grew frustrated, the heavier Piers's head felt. It must have been some sort of empathy things they had built up over the past few weeks of being together.

China seemed so long ago….

Piers felt his head, his eyes still closed, and he furrowed his brow the same way that Chris was as he tried to see through the ice on the windshield. Piers felt warm, a lot warmer than he usually did, and he began to wonder whether it was the cold air outside (and the numbness of his hands), or if the numbness of his body was because he wasn't doing as well as he thought he was. He hadn't felt well for the past few days, and he felt worse in the hours leading up to the trip…. A fluke? The flu? Something worse? He just kept calm. No reason to worry Chris anymore than the icy roads probably already were.

Chris fought to keep his eyes focused on the road; he knew he had to stay sharp, not only for his sake, but for the man sitting next to him in the passenger seat. It wasn't just about Chris anymore; it was about keeping both of them safe. Chris felt small and helpless, clutching the steering wheel ever tighter, the muscles in his jaw aching as he clenched his teeth. The wipers moving back and forth against the windshield grated on his already throbbing temple, the bleakness of the snow mixed with the glaring headlights making it even worse. Every time he felt Piers' eyes on him, he wanted to say something; do something. Anything. His lips would open and the briefest of sounds would emerge, then he would think better of it, deciding to simply lick his lips or sigh lightly.

There wasn't exactly a destination he had in mind. As long as Piers was with him, he could keep moving forward; always forward, never back. To even glance into the rearview mirror felt dooming in Chris' mind, like the road traveled thus far represented how far they had come, and what lurked at the beginning of their misfortune.

When he finally gathered the courage to speak, he said, "How are you doing over there, Snipey?" He chanced a brief hand across Piers' forehead, and the heat of it made him frown.

Piers gave a weak smile when Chris put his hand on his forehead. It was so much cooler than his own skin; it gave him a little bit of a shiver, but he appreciated the sentiment all the same.

"I'm fine. Just keep your eyes on the road…, and don't call me 'Snipey' anymore. I thought that we talked about it, or have you already forgotten?"

There was a sharp pain across his forehead. He didn't know why this was happening to him, but he wasn't particularly worried about it. He concentrated more on not letting Chris see him in any sort of distress. That was the nature of the game. Their relationship was already…stressed. China and all.

"I would offer to drive, but as you can feel, I'm not particularly well. Sorry, um, sorry if it's worrying you. I'm fine though. I promise."

Seeing Piers smile and hearing his voice after so many quiet hours was infectious. Chris let out a long breath, loosened his grip on the steering wheel ever so gently, and felt the tension in his brow easing. The heat from Piers' skin lingered in Chris' mind, however; it made him even more painfully aware to the younger man's suffering.

"Did we?" Chris mused. "Yeah, I guess I have forgotten." Even more than a caring hand, he wanted to keep them vocally tethered, but the words slipped sloppily from his mind.

"Of course, Piers. You don't have to apologize." His glance darted across the icy road, and, after noting Piers' shiver and the chill crawling up his own neck, he leaned forward to turn up the heat a little. "Is this alright? It's not too hot, is it?"

The warm air that circled around the car was probably part of the problem, but Piers didn't want Chris to feel as though he was doing something wrong, so instead, he opened his window a little bit and stuck his hand out. It was numb already so he didn't really feel the cold air, but it did cut the heat a little bit.

"Now it's perfect. Thanks," Piers said.

The car kept lurching forward, but the darkness and the snow made it seem like they weren't getting anywhere. The lines stayed the same, and the ice on the windshield blurred everything. It was getting worse, and soon, they wouldn't be able to see out of the windshield at all…no matter how much heat was in the car. Were they supposed to continue?

There was this strange feeling in Piers's head. He didn't feel as bad, and he thought that it might have been the heat in the car. Then he thought…he didn't remember where they were going, or why they were going. It was strange. Piers didn't even really remember getting in the car, and the more he thought about this, the more he got worried.

"Chris, I'm not feeling so well," he finally said. Was it that he wasn't feeling well, or was it that everything just seemed hazy, and that none of this made sense. He repeated it, "I'm not feeling well…"

His breath started to slow down. His eyes looked dilated, and he started to sweat a great deal.

"Piers?" Between the weather and watching over Piers, Chris was starting to lose his composure. He turned his head somewhat to look at him, then immediately shot his focus back onto the road as the car began to swerve slightly. "Dammit." This time, he kept a firm hand on the wheel as he reached out to feel Piers' head again, trailing down to check his pulse. His skin was clammy, his pulse slow. "Come on, stay with me, Piers."

The steering wheel started to feel slippery in his hands and he realized how much he was sweating, and how badly he was shaking.

"Piers… Come on, Piers, we can do this." In the glare of the headlights, Chris swore he saw some kind of building in the distance through the icy windshield; far, but not impossible. Partially blanketed with snow, but not entirely, Chris could at least make out that it was enormous in size. "See, Piers? Just, look. There's a place we can stop."

Piers didn't respond though. He was burning up, and his breathing grew even shallower as he started to slip into a fevered sleep, and even in sleep his hands started to shake more. The air that sliced through the crack in window began to give a slight whistle, until it grew into a whirling howl. It was the only thing that would respond to Chris's desperate attempts to reach Piers.

To an untrained observer, it looked as though Piers wasn't going to make it much longer.

The closer they became to their new destination, the farther Chris felt Piers slipping away. He wanted more than anything to speed up, and on any other day, maybe he could have. As soon as the building was looming over them, Chris slammed on the brakes and threw open the door. He ran around the hood of the car and nearly tore off the door of the passenger side.

Piers looked barely conscious. Chris wanted to be gentle, but also hurry, so as tenderly as he could, he cupped his cheek, then slipped one arm behind Piers' back to grab hold of his shoulder. He used his other hand to support Piers' knees and pulled him out of the vehicle.

The snow was beginning to come down harder then, so he held Piers close as he made his way towards the edifice. Looking up above the porch's archway briefly, he was reminded of that fateful day in the Arklay Mountains as the darkness of the long, front window stood out against the somberness of the surrounding snow.

"Hello?" Chris shifted Piers in his arms and banged on the front door as much as he could manage. "Is anyone home? Please, we need some help!"

All was quiet, other than the wind brushing the snow through the air and across his body. The snow was so cold, while Piers was so warm. He tried knocking again, but there was no response. Gazing down onto Piers' face, his eyes closed, Chris held his breath and wrapped his hand around the doorknob. It was a desperate attempt to grasp hold of the situation, and he was about to pull his hand back and kick open the door, but the knob slowly turned in his hand.

He carried Piers inside to what he hoped was a place of rest and safety.

"Hey, sexy…" Piers said as he felt himself being laid out on some cushioned surface. It probably wasn't the best line to let Chris know that he was okay, but at least it got his point across, and he did just carry him from the car. There was something romantic about it, at least.

It was a couch in one of the first rooms of the building, he was laying on a couch. Whatever the structure was, it was cold on the inside, and everything smelt sort of like disinfectant, and all of the furniture looked strangely uniformed for an eccentric mansion off an old country road, but the aberrant decor was nothing compared to the openness of the space. There was no noise except for the hum of the industrial lighting overhead. It felt sterile on the inside.

"Antipyretic…. I'm burning up, Chris. I need it…" Piers said, but it was slow, and low in his vocal register. There was a waver in the middle as though he was enjoying the sound of it as it slipped from his lips. "I need it," he said again, and there was a moan at the end of it. His hands moved down from his chest to his pelvis, but then he slipped back into a fevered sleep.

Please… hung in the air like yesterday.

Chris let out an exhausted sigh of relief at Piers' words. "Yeah, yeah, right back at you," he breathed. "Antipyretic? Okay, I can do that. Just relax, okay? I'm going to go look for a bathroom." He raised Piers' hand to his lips and kissed it gently, before turning to explore the back rooms.

Checking door after door in one of the mansion's long corridors, the last door became stuck and Chris had to force it open with his shoulder, but it was ultimately the room he was looking for. The bathroom was small, and he immediately crossed the peeling tile to the cabinet above the sink. There were numerous bottles, mostly with names he couldn't even begin to pronounce. Grabbing every bottle that involved reducing fever, he was about to return to Piers when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shower curtain slowly blowing, as if in a summer breeze. Looking over to the lone bathroom window, Chris saw that it was shut, and before he could react, the plastic of the curtain bent in a loud crack, tearing off each of the shower rings one by one.

The white porcelain had been stained red, and the body that was in the tub repositioned itself when the curtain fell to the ground. Some of the contents of the tub fell over the edge and onto the floor. The bright red hue of the liquid that seeped from the tub caused the illumination of bathroom to glow with a light, crimson tone. The room suddenly smelt of rotting meat, sweat, and blood.

"Hello, Captain…" the body in the tub said. It's head turned to look up at Chris, and it was missing it's right eye, and pieces of skin were falling from its face. It's right arm was just completely missing, and some of its ribcage was exposed; the skin being (what looked like) eaten away by some infection or from water decomposition. It was a severely disfigured Piers Nivans.

The stench was overwhelming, bile rising in Chris' throat as he rushed to the side of the tub, falling to his knees. His eyes were watering but he blinked away the deterrence, his hands slipping on the murky liquid overflowing from the tub's rim.

"Piers, what are you doing in here? Why are you trying to walk, you should have… Piers, what happened? What happened to you?!"

"You happened to me, Captain. You lost me there, in China. Or do you not remember that either? The great Chris Redfield hides his memories from himself. How pathetic you are. Look at what you did to me; gaze upon the horror that you brought to this world! Couldn't even defend yourself, so I had to drag my body to your rescue. And here you go, tumbling to the ground. Make up your mind, Captain. Do you want me, or do you wish to see me twisted and broken? I got so bored waiting for you to make up your mind that I decided to pick at my mutation, and you see where that got me. Another infliction from the captain that was supposed to watch out for me."

Piers just started laughing at Chris, and as his body moved through the sludge in the bathtub, a little more of the crimson liquid spilled over the side and onto the floor around Chris, but the laughter just continued.

"Kiss me, Captain. I need it. I'm on fire, and I need a kiss," Piers said through the heinous snickering.

"Please, Piers. I wanted to save you. More than anything. I was weak! That's why I had you by my side; to keep me in check. You were always there for me, Piers." Chris fervently leaned close, his palms soaking in the bloodied water. "I want you. I want you to stay. Don't leave me. I can take care of you."

Without a second thought, he moved his face towards Piers', wanting to assure Piers his words were true, and to convince himself of his sanity. The scent of putrid flesh filled his nose and every pore, causing his eyes to water and his throat to constrict. The only thing that made him pause was the look in Piers' lone eye.

"I'm sorry. I can't." Chris shook his gaze free, turning away. "This isn't real. This isn't happening." He stood up, his locked knees nearly making him stumble. Remembering the medicine, he shook the bottles lightly. "This is for you. The real you. I'm going to take care of you. I'll set things right."

"You can never set it right, Chris Redfield! He's not going to be there!" the visage shouted from the bathtub. The cackling continued until the door reached the frame, and then all the noise in the mansion suddenly disappeared. There was silence, but there was no solace. There was a painfulness to just how quiet it was. If Chris opened the door, he would see nothing sitting in the bathtub. That part was over; however, blood still clung to his clothes and hand from where it had exited the tub and fell to the floor.

Piers would be in the waiting room…wouldn't he?

Chris backed away from the door and began moving at a brisk jog. The walls felt like they were closing in on him, and his vision was blurring. His lungs burned as his legs propelled him into a full run; his hands finally grasping the frame of the door that led back into the main room.

Piers was gone.

He tore off the couch cushions in frustration, scattering them to every corner of the room haphazardly. The legs of the couch scratched against the floor as he pushed it, and finally threw it against the wall.

Piers was gone, and he didn't know what to do.

Chris massaged his throbbing head and looked all around him, coming full circle time and time again, receiving no answers from the strange dwelling they had found themselves in.

As he set off once more, this time he decided to head in the opposite direction of the corridor that led to the gruesome bathroom that had once held the apparition of Piers. The amount of options was overwhelming; door upon door; a left turn here, a right turn there. Despite the limitless possibilities, his anxiety was quelled with a certain confidence that he wouldn't get lost.

The first door he pushed open had a red hair tie around its knob. Inside ended up yielding a large kitchen, tile counter-tops bordering the far wall. The dim lighting of the rest of the mansion was even darker in the kitchen, the cabinets on the walls casting long shadows on the linoleum. Chris' heart rose in his throat at the familiarity of the oaken theme of the room. He stepped inside, the door closing quietly behind him. Something on the left-hand counter caught his eye, so he picked it up. It was a blue-gray beret, soft but worn to the touch.

"That meant a lot to Jill, didn't it?"

Chris spun around, nearly dropping the beret to the floor. In the far corner of the room was a shadowed figure facing the sink. It reached out and turned the faucet on, and as the water hit its skin, it shone white. The figure ran its wet hands through its hair, tying it up in a high ponytail. The hair he knew to be a vibrant auburn, despite the dimness of the room.

"Claire?"

The woman pivoted her body to face him. "Of course, Chris. Who else would I be?" she smiled warmly and dried her hands on her pants. Her smile faded as she rested her body back against the rim of the sink, her arms folded across her chest. "So, you're leaving again?"

"I…" Chris had unconsciously been backing towards the door. He stopped. "I'm… sorry?"

"You're sorry? You're always sorry, Chris!" The lights flickered briefly. "One day you're going to leave and never come back. Like Steve, Chris. What if what happened to Steve happens to you?"

Chris was torn, his mixed emotions fueling his response. "Claire, it's my job. Ever since Raccoon City, this is what we've done; fought bioterrorism."

"No," Claire responded, her face darkening. "You've changed. You became obsessed with finding Wesker, with killing him; beating him. After he betrayed you, that's all you could think about, wasn't it?"

"That's not true." Chris' jaw was beginning to ache from the tension, his agitation evident in the clenching of Jill's beret in his fist.

"And just look at what happened to Piers. Under your command. The one you swore to protect."

"Claire, stop." She was advancing on him, but he didn't care. "I had to protect the world from the B.O.W.s! I had to…" The knife in her hand seemed to appear out of nowhere, but he could see its gleam, and in its reflection, he saw his face. He wasn't afraid. Claire moved her arm to level the cutlery with his chest, and he closed his eyes and waited. When he opened his eyes, his breath was calm, and the room felt ten degrees cooler. His baby sister was gone, and with her, the melancholy of the room. The counters were topped with a dusty marble, the entire room smelling sickly pungent.

"I had to protect you, Claire."

Chris wiped his sweaty brow on his sleeve and stuffed Jill's hat into his pocket. On his way out, as he closed the door, he took off the hair tie from around the doorknob, and he put it in his pocket alongside the hat. He left the door cracked so that he would remember which doors he had been through, although he had a feeling he'd be able to distinguish that particular disturbing memory.

He continued walking down the hall, and at the end was a lone door. Inside were various crates, and a simple round-table. On it were an old typewriter and rotary phone. The wallpaper was peeling in the corners, thin streams of mold oozing down the walls from the ceiling. Chris was about to close the door and resume his search when the phone began to ring. Despite his better judgement, he decided to pick it up. He cradled the phone between his face and shoulder while his hands fiddled with the keys of the typewriter.

"Hello?"

"Chris!"

"Jill…? How did you get this number? What is the number?"

"Chris, listen to me. Where are you? Please, Chris. We're all so worried -"

"It's okay, Jill."

"No, Chris, listen to me. It's not okay. Just listen. He needs help. Professional help. You're not certified to help him, Chris; there's nothing you can do. You need to bring him back."

"No." Chris' fingers paused. "I can't do that, Jill. You should know that better than anyone. I'm not giving him up. For you, or anyone."

"'Him?' Chris, who is 'he?' I'm talking about you. We're just trying to help you!"

Chris eyed the door. "I don't need to be helped, Jill. I'm going to hang up the phone now. I'm sorry. This is just something I have to do."

"Chris, wait. Don't you remember when everyone thought I was dead? When everyone gave up on me. But not you. You wouldn't give up on me, Chris! And you found me, and you brought me back home safe. I'm not going to give up on you, Chris."

"I know," Chris replied. "And I believe in you." With that, he hung up the phone and exited the room to continue his search for Piers.

Piers wasn't exactly sure how long he had been unconscious. He wasn't even worried about the time, but he was worried by the fact that where he had woken up was very different from the place that he had gone to sleep. It was no longer in the sterile opening hall of the mansion; instead, he was lying on a bed in a small room. He could have sworn that he heard a distinctive beeping noise, but he couldn't exactly place his finger on where it was coming from, or exactly what the noise was. It was just a pulsating beep.

He took solace in the fact that his head wasn't pounding as much, and it felt like he had grown a little cooler since he passed out.

"Chris?" he finally called. His words ricocheted around the room and fell back only on his own ears. There was no noise outside of the door. Piers wondered if Chris was the one who carried him into the room, but there was no sign that was the case. He started to wonder if he brought himself to this place.

Piers stood, and he almost toppled over. He extended his hand, and thankfully, it caught the wall and kept him from losing his footing altogether. He'd never felt like this, and it was making him uncomfortable; he felt helpless without a strong sense of cohesion in his body. He could barely see straight, and that caused him to question everything. Piers's eyesight was his power.

He stumbled to the door. On his knees, he wrapped his hands around the doorknob, and he finally got the thing to open. Piers crawled out on all fours, and he noticed that he was in a long tiled hallway. There were five doors total. Each one of them looked exactly the same, and so he chose to go to the first one, and it opened without a problem.

Inside was a bathtub, and inside of the bathtub was an old style phone. Piers searched the rest of the room, but there was nothing. There were some empty cabinets, some of the tiles were ripped apart, but overall, it was just a bathroom. Having little else to do, he picked up the phone in the bathroom, thinking it might be best to try and call Chris's cell phone. But as he picked up the receiver, he noticed that there wasn't a cord. There was no way to send calls out, and he just looked at it.

"What a stupid place for a…" Piers started, but then something started to come through the receiver. It was quiet at first; it was just a hushed mumbling sound, but he couldn't deny that there was something about the husky voice. It was Chris! He started to call out to him, trying to get his attention by saying, "Chris! Chris! It's me. Chris, where are you…? Chris…"

There were two voices now. One of them was certainly Chris, but the other was so muffled that he couldn't make it out. The entire conversations started to sound muddled. Piers pulled the receiver closer to his ear so that he could get a better sound out of it, but it didn't help. The sound just got further away, but there was this repetitive noise. It sounded like laughter, and it was a cruel laughter at that. A warm sensation started to caress his ear, and at first it felt sort of nice, but then it felt like something was oozing out of his head. Piers pulled the phone away from his face, and there was blood coming out of where the receiver was placed against his head.

Piers scraped at his own ear, and he finally got most of the blood out of it. When he dropped the receiver, the blood that was coming out of the earpiece splattered across the porcelain tub, and it left small flecks of crimson across the pure, white surface.

Confused, Piers backed out of the room, and as he did, the door to the bathroom shut without him even touching it. He tried calling out Chris's name one more time, but it didn't seem to matter. There were still three more doors in the hallway to search, and so he knew that all he could do was continue forward. Piers tried to open the next door, and it opened with no problem. Inside, there was nothing. It was just a window that showed what looked like a kitchen, but this time…but this time he could see him. Piers could see Chris. He was standing there, and he was looking away from him, but Piers could see him, and he rushed towards the window, and he started to pound on it!

"Chris! Chris! I'm right here. Can't you see me? Turn around!" Piers shouted as his fist hit the window, but it did little. Chris just kept looking away from him; it was as though he was talking to someone, but there was no one else in the kitchen with Chris. There was nothing for Piers to strike the window with, and so he just stood there and watched as Chris conversed with no one. He didn't understand why Chris could see him, but the longer he looked at Chris, the worse he started to feel. The creeping pressure on his head began to bore its way through his skull, and his temperature began to increase. The more he stared, the worse it got, but Piers couldn't take his eyes away from Chris.

There had to be some way to get his attention, but it didn't matter what Piers did, and it didn't matter how hard he smashed his fists against the window. Chris just seemed further away, and Piers felt the quivering in his hands and feet that came with the immense, painful sensations that pressed against his forehead. There was nothing to do.

"I need you, Chris…" Piers said, but there was no way for Chris to hear him.