A/n's: Chapter Two, woo! I like this one, I really do. I hope you do too! Thanks to sad little tiger who beta'd this chapter for me so I could post it sooner. You are amazing, Twin. I mean it! Don't ever change. :)
Warnings: Sex. Sexy-sex. Naked sexy, fetish sex. And then - just for a change of pace - MOAR sex.
Chapter Two
The Star
"With Aquarias as its ruling sign, The Star is a card that looks to the future. A soft card, it is one that everyone loves. It tells you, when the way is dark, to look to the heavens for guidance, or, more appropriately, to the spark of divinity that lies within yourself that you could not see or acknowledge before, and whenever all hope seems lost, it will reappear to prove that you have really lost nothing, except perhaps your sight of the path to enlightenment. That said, however, there is a trick to this card. Whatever hope, healing, or future it offers; you must remember that it might not be immediate. Its vision is for tomorrow, not today. The star only reveals the future; it never shows the final solution to any problem. Now that you have been inspired, you still have much to do in order to bring your vision into manifestation. It is up to you to find the way."
-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot
-Ata-Tarot
He could smell it – that part of himself buried inside her – on her, in her, pumping his virus through her veins as she writhed beneath him, arching like a bow in his arms; and it was…thrilling.
Her limbs, so smooth and cool against his heat, wrapped around him, holding as hard, as tight, as he as his mouth tore over her, tasting; desperate to know the favor of them as they ran together.
Him and her. Tangled. Entwined.
She laughed in his ear, wanton and wild, whispering and murmuring.
Harder. Faster.
More.
Please.
The scent of blood hit the air – coppery and strange – mixing with the musk of sex as her nails bit, digging crescent-moons in his shoulder, and his teeth closed on the little hollow in her throat, that curve where her pulse - her scent - was strong.
She laughed again, his name buried in the sound, and her head fell back, hair spilling into a dark halo.
Temptation.
He buried his hands in it, wrapping the silk of it in his fists, and pulled, forcing her back, taking, even as she opened to offer more. Even as she encouraged him, a leg snaking around his hip, pulling him harder – deeper.
His mouth played over her skin, smudging ruby kisses along the delicate chords of her neck, shadowing her jaw in red, tattooing her mouth with the taste of herself. Of him.
Us.
Her teeth grazed, nipping, nibbling – biting until he was flowing too, spilling into her.
Inseparable.
They rolled, twisting together, and then she was arching over him, rocking and grinding on him, with him. Her hair swept across her face, crimson mouth peeking through the strands, white teeth pulling at her lip, parting on a manic peal of laughter. Her eyes, dark and dilated, glinted down at him, eyebrows lifting in challenge.
Take me.
And he reached for her, pulling her back, wanting that too.
Her fight. Her madness. Her passion.
All of it.
Always.
~.~
They were alone now; just the pair of them.
The rest of the board had placed their votes; played the lottery, cast their stones.
The black spot fell to Kenneth.
"Is this…really necessary?"
"Sacrifices must always be made," Vladmir replied, folding his hands, watching – always watching – from across the table, pale eyes as unwavering as they were unreadable. "That is the way of business, my friend."
Friend.
Just a word, but it lodged in Kenneth throat. Thorn-like, it dug at him, threatening to choke him, threatening to slit him open.
He could almost taste the blood. Just there, at the back of his mouth.
"But with more time-"
"When I was a boy, my father taught me to fight." Vladmir cut across smoothly, without as much as a blink. "He said to me, 'To best a bigger man, you smash his face in with a brick before he even knows he is in a fight.'" He smiled then. That slow leer - all teeth. "This – this is what is on our side. Surprise. Not time."
His stomach curled and he almost gagged, but turned it into a cough instead; a measured clearing of the throat.
He wondered his palm didn't come away red.
"You spoke of waste, of the Chairman's cruelties – is this your response, more Umbrella deaths?"
A twitch. The slightest narrowing of those ice-grey eyes. "Their lives are not taken maliciously. Or without regret. But in truth, it's almost a fairer end, is it not? Quick." He snapped his fingers, Kenneth's hands jerked. "Painless. Better, one would think, than what he might offer them."
"If there were another way…?"
"We would take it, of course."
He exhaled; skin prickling at the phantom brush of fingers. The Many, painting him in their blood. "If I refuse?"
"The Board has spoken. Umbrella no longer lives for Albert Wesker. The company's will be done – with, or without you."
Of course.
"Any more questions, Director Maul?"
The fingers squeezed, closing on his throat. "No."
"Good." Vladmir nodded, the overhead lights reflecting sharply in his silver hair. "0700, Director. We will be watching."
~.~
In the aftermath, he continued to hold her, pleased by her trembling – by the weakness of it, the power in her surrender.
Her trust.
His fingertips, his lips, played over her, each in turn, slow and thorough, logging the feeling away. Memorizing it, how she shivered for him.
Because of him.
A smile danced around her mouth, lazy and amused; he shifted to taste it, and found himself in a smear of red along the curve of her lips.
It was dangerous. Foolhardy, at the very least, what they had done. He could admit that…even as he rejoiced in it. Even as he bathed in it, as her blood still dried on his skin.
But truthfully – what did it matter now? The change was coming, whether or not he was ready for it. Whether or not she wanted it.
His mouth glided, silk, down the slope one breast, counting ribs (7 true, 3 false, 2 floating) as his lips dragged by. Her fingers curled in his hair – he didn't protest, taking pleasure in the feel of her nails on his scalp – and his tongue traced the little scar, just there, small and curving. (Childhood accident, she had told him. When fishing trips go bad.)
Did she know, he wondered as he paused, circling her navel, teeth grazing. He could smell it there, feel it. Did she?
He looked up, gold and red finding the green and bronze. Her smile had slipped away, stolen (his to keep), but her eyes were clear.
Bemused and watching. Waiting.
No. Not yet.
He still had time. There would be questions that would need answers. Precautions to put in place. She would be…uncertain, he was sure.
He would need to prepare her.
Eventually.
Soon.
But for now…he grinned up at her, a shark's smile, and sank his teeth into her hip.
Her cry of pain was drowned by the sound of her laughter.
~.~
We'd painted a picture on the sheets, he and I.
A blurry watercolor of sex and blood…or maybe a finger-painting – I could see mine after all, just there, palm splayed wide on the headboard (wanton) and there, a fist wound tight in the fabric (desperate).
Once upon a time, that might have worried me – shamed me even – the way he demanded and I gave, the way I needed and he provided; but now…now I only felt the heat, that wave of satisfaction, that echoed the memories, still vivid, replaying in my head and the taste of him (still raw) that lingered on my tongue. On my lips.
If I scraped my teeth over them, it came back just as fresh - the bitter spice of him. A reminder. A second bite of the forbidden fruit.
Scrape-scrape.
Back and forth as he dressed and I watched, fascinated by the quick, easy, movements of his gloveless fingers as he zipped and buttoned, cinched and tied.
"You should join me later," he said suddenly, without looking up from the desk drawer he was searching through. (Looking for his sunglasses?) "In the lab."
The languid, catlike contentment dipped – but didn't fade – at the flicker of curiosity.
I was welcome enough in the labs, Dr. Brooks and I rubbed along in a friendly sort of way, but I wasn't of any real use to any of the techs.
"Any particular reason?" I asked as I turned, stretching across the mattress to pull open the little drawer in the nightstand.
A heartbeat passed, broken only the soft rattling of objects as he moved them hastily. "Yes."
Smirking, I turned back, sunglasses outstretched, dangling from between my forefinger and thumb by an earpiece. (Looking for these?) "Care to share it with me?"
He looked up, raised eyebrows dropping quickly as his gaze landed on the dark eyewear. "Not as of yet."
The sunglasses twirled, propellering as I rolled the earpiece between my fingers. "With an invitation like that, how can a girl resist?"
The drawer slammed and he crossed to the edge of the bed, looming over me as I lay back, deftly plucking his glasses free and bringing them to his face, pushing them into place. (You're welcome.)
"Lab 102," he instructed, already turning away, headed for the door.
My eyes closed (scrape-scrape), pondering a nap, wondering if it'd help me feel my legs again.
"When you shower," his voice floated back to me, I opened one eye, found his back filling the doorway. "Don't use the soap. Leave it - as it is."
I smiled.
(Scrape-scrape.)
~.~
Before the end, Kenneth Maul had been an assistant. A glorified gopher. Fetching dry-cleaning, taking calls, pushing paperwork…it was hard to believe there had ever been world so mundane. A world where his biggest concern was remembering to put three sugars, only one creamer, in the coffee and to make sure the dinner jackets got extra starch.
Harder still to imagine how he'd gone from that…to this.
To sneaking, to lying, to conspiring with the Board as if they were all senators of old, preparing to slay the modern day Caesar…
…To signing the death warrants of hundreds of people.
Difficult. Improbable. But not impossible.
The memories were there, haunting him. Chasing him as he disconnected and slipped from the conference room.
Images of pain and death, infection and blood that all added up to one thing - survival.
He'd outlasted. Outlived everyone who had come before him, everyone above him, and it had been chance – not ambition – that had led him here. To the fancy office, to the special title….
To murder.
He wanted to tell them – the sleepy-eyed soldiers he passed in the hall on his way to the elevator, the researcher who looked up from her notes with a smile when she joined him in the car two floors later – that this was not what he wanted. He wanted to explain to them, make them see, that this…this was not who, not what, he was. That this end, the means of it, were not up to him.
That every time someone called him, "Director," he would look over his shoulder, seeking the others. The ones Before.
But his tongue wouldn't move; his lips wouldn't form the words, andthey passed him by, unaware, and unwarned, and he was left alone.
Alone again with the pictures in his head, with Sergei Vladmir's words ringing in his ears.
The Board has spoken.
The company will be done.
~.~
Her hair was still wet when she joined him in the lab, the shoulders of her shirt freckled where it had dripped. Heavy with damp, it brushed against Wesker's ear, curled to the skin of his neck (wove them together), as she leaned over him and peered down through the microscope's eyepiece. As he'd wished (he'd hoped) she'd forgone the soap and his scent – the smell of his blood, his sex – clung to her, to the slick strands of hair, to the smooth, pale skin.
On any other occasion, he might have stayed with her, after their fevered, violent joining, and waited to bath with her, enjoying the feel their bodies, wet and warm as they moved together in the small space, but this time…he'd needed to prepare. To study, and firm up the few conclusions he'd already come to.
To ready himself for her response.
Her complacency, or lack of it, would not change the result – it was too late for that – but, as before, with that first, uncertain night after the Arcadia, he found he wanted it. Her willingness.
He wanted her to choose him – them.
Their future.
"What am I looking at?" she asked, fingers playing casually over the focus knobs, belying the way her pulse quickened when he turned his head and his nose brushed her jaw.
They ran together, the scents of him and her, blurred the edges that separated them – reminded him of the piece of them both that grew in her. "A blood sample."
He pushed at the fall of hair separating his mouth from her skin, listening to the strong pump of her heart, to the in-and-out rush of her lungs, as he tasted – gently, curiously. Eyes closed, he imagined the tiny cells – like those on the slide, T-shaped, and distinctive – swimming in her veins.
His virus. A present to her, for him, from it – the busy little blastocyst. By now it would have implanted, would be multiplying, replicating, growing, and changing….
She shivered, just the once, before he felt the muscles of her jaw moving in reply. Slowly. Mindful of his gently working mouth. "What's wrong with it?"
Teeth nipped. (A reprimand.)
"Nothing."
It was shedding virus into her blood, their offspring, perfecting her womb for itself…and gifting him an equal.
He had long considered the possibility of trying to repeat the successes of Project Alice and himself (varied as they were) with her, but always, in the end, he had refrained. Resisted.
Two out of billions - the odds were…unimpressive, and he had been neither ready, nor willing, to risk it.
To tempt the possibility of…losing…her.
But now…now their tiny progeny - unexpected, (impossible) - had gone and made the choice for him.
"It is not wrong – merely changed." He continued, pulling back, seeking his mark – the crescent shadow his teeth had branded into the flesh of her throat. Nestled beneath her ear, above her pulse, it was red against the paleness of her skin…but already smoother, lighter, than it should have been.
Had she noticed?
Accelerated healing was one of the universal mutations, shared by both himself and the runaway Project….
His thumb curved over the wound, circled the beat of her pulse. "Changed." Wesker repeated. "For the better."
