Chapter Three:
"W-we managed to escape, but Sherry's gone missing they've taken her…"
"No," William said, interrupting Leon bitterly, and turning to face him, his pale blue eyes shinning with tears. "You're wrong."
"What do you mean?" Leon asked cautiously, taking a step backward.
"Annette. She's dead, isn't she?" he said, his voice breaking.
"What?"
"They didn't both die," he said, almost inaudibly, sinking to his knees on the cold floor. "Sherry… Sherry's my daughter.
'Sherry's my daughter… Sherry's my daughter… My daughter…'
The words echoed mockingly in Leon's mind. Round and round and round again, clamouring and strident, like devils dancing in the pits of hell. He couldn't think. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He couldn't do anything but stare ahead at the sickly pale, fair-haired man in front of him. At William Birkin. The man responsible for the creation of the G-Virus. The man who was single-handedly accountable for the pain, the misery, the suffering, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The man who had abandoned his only daughter in order to hasten these events, creating monsters designed for destruction; designed for killing; designed for ending innocent lives. The man who thought that nothing was more important than his work, and, when Umbrella had sold him out in the end, became the beast that he had strived so hard to perfect, destroying everything that he had once held so dearly, the fail-safe system rigged by Umbrella taking him in the end.
Except he wasn't dead.
Doctor William Birkin was right before him, on his knees, staring numbly at the cold, linoleum floor.
He shouldn't be here… It's not right…
A great surge of fury washed over him, bubbling up from within, filling every fibre of his being and so intense he could practically taste it, hot and acrid like bile. He felt his fists bunching, clenching them so tightly his knuckles whitened and his fingernails dug uncomfortably into his palms, and his eyes focusing wholly and entirely upon the centre of his slowly reddening field of vision. His head felt heavy and hot, as if someone had lined the inside of his skull with boiling, scarlet wool - and the pressure was building. Something was about to break…
Suddenly, William Birkin raised his head, his icy blue gaze fixed intently upon Leon and a light sheen of sweat gracing his forehead. At that moment, there was nothing in those eyes. Nothing. Just a hollow, empty void where there should have been a soul. He spoke. He said something, but Leon didn't really hear it. He didn't need to hear it. It didn't matter.
Something was about to break…
… and then, it broke.
With all the speed and wrath of an avenging angel, Leon felt himself grabbing Birkin by the collar of his shirt and forcing him against a wall. Drawing back a fist, he felt it connect with a satisfying crunch, so he did it again. And again. And again. When the other man fell, he dragged him to his feet - screaming at him to get up - and did it again. After a while, when Birkin stopped getting up, he slammed his shining, steel toe-capped boots into the other man's ribcage, making him cry out and curl up instinctively.
Fucking bastard…
"Get up!" Leon snarled breathlessly, his face flushed with anger and exertion.
William Birkin rolled over gingerly onto his front and struggled to his knees. Crawling slowly over to the barrier that separated the observer from the capsules, he collapsed into a half-upright sitting position, with one leg stretched out in front of him and an arm dangling limply by his side. A thick, clotted streamer of blood trickled from his burst lip as well as a dark gash just above his eyebrow and several other cuts. Already blossoming upon his left eye, was a fresh, livid-looking bruise. A trembling hand clutched at his ribs and his breaths were coming shallow, rapid and ragged.
"I said GET UP!" Leon bellowed, his hair flying wildly over his face as he strode toward the prostrate umbrella researcher, once again forcing Birkin to his feet.
I'm going to make him pay… I'm going make him go to hell and back before I'm finished with him…
Birkin's head lolled unpleasantly and Leon pinned him against the barrier with a strong, unyielding forearm, choking all sound out of him, the strange, red, glutinous light from the stasis tubes reflecting the fire in the younger man's eyes. Birkin coughed painfully and stumbled, but Leon only increased the pressure.
"Look at me… I said look at me!" Leon hissed, freeing one hand to slap Birkin so hard across the face that it made his head snap viciously to the left before dropping heavily onto his chest. Its sound resounded throughout the huge, empty room.
For a heartbeat, neither of them made any sound or movement while the echoes faded and died, until all was silent bar their sharp, warm breaths and the beating of their hearts.
"Yeah… I didn't think so," Leon said scathingly, his nose practically touching the sandy-haired man's face.
Then, without warning and with some effort, William Birkin raised his head and, meeting Leon's steely gaze insolently, smirked and spat in the other man's face.
There was a short disbelieving pause - then Leon felt himself slamming into the scientist, falling through the barrier with a clatter before hitting the floor and pounding at him in earnest, grabbing a handful of fair hair in his hands and slamming Birkin's head into the glass of a stasis tube, which cracked ominously.
Shit…
The crack had already started to leak. Pale sticky water began to trickle out and puddle at his feet. Birkin had dazedly slumped to the foot of the stasis tube.
Oh shit… Leon you idiot…
Leon took a cautious step backward and with a gritty crunch, the crack split all the way up the tube to become a great, gaping hole. The strange viscous water gushed over Birkin and the great, grey, rubbery mass of a T-001 slithered out of its incubator and came to a halt directly at Leon's feet.
It wasn't moving.
Then, a hoarse voice sounded from the floor: "They're not alive… not ready yet… hearts… haven't been grown."
"What would you know?" Leon retorted viciously, regretting it the moment the comment passed his lips.
The other man laughed a cold, low, mirthless laugh that made the hairs on the back of Leon's neck stand on end. Birkin was sitting there at the bottom of a broken stasis tube, wet, covered in blood, bruised, broken and laughing at him with a chilling insolence, as if daring him to go further, to carry his fury to the utmost.
"More than you'll ever know," Birkin replied icily, pulling out a gun from the pocket in his jeans.
He had a gun?
Then why didn't he…? He could've…"What are you doing?" Leon asked warily, as he couldn't explain Birkin's eerie behaviour. He'd never realised it before because he had been utterly consumed by his rage, but Birkin had never fought back. Not once. It was as if he was goading him on…
"Here," Birkin said harshly, sliding the gun across the floor towards the younger man. "Take it. Do it."
"What?"
That laughter again.
"Do it. You know you want to," Birkin yelled maliciously. "A fitting end, Leon."
A fitting end… Yes…
Uncertain, Leon raised the gun and aimed. Birkin grinned, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back onto the jagged remains of stasis tube.
A fitting end…
Thumbing the safety off, Leon hooked his finger over the trigger. He looked up. Birkin was no longer grinning. He was now glaring at him as if Leon was deliberately keeping him waiting, bracing himself for the inevitable.
A fitting end…?
"You owe me one, Leon, remember?" Birkin said coldly.
"Yes."
"Then do it."
Leon aimed the gun at Birkin's heart and the man in question swallowed and turned pale.
He wants to die… He can't face it, can he?
Suddenly, it all fell into place. Leon lowered the gun.
"DO IT!" Birkin shrieked maniacally, clearly becoming unhinged.
"I can't do this," he said simply, voicing his thoughts. "You want this, and I can't give it to you. I don't think I would, either, even if I had the choice."
"What?"
"You want it all to end, don't you?" Leon said brusquely. "You want all the pain and guilt and suffering to end. You can't stay another damn minute in this world because you can't deal with what you've done. Well do you know what?" he continued, heatedly, "I promised myself that you were going to go to hell and back before I was done with you, and I think that keeping you alive so that you're going to have to face exactly what you've done is doing just that."
For a moment, William stared impassively at the young man before him and after a while, appeared to come to a decision. Wincing, he forced himself to his feet, slipping on the gelatinous water, limping across the room until he reached Leon.
"I hate you," Birkin said without emotion.
Taken aback, Leon narrowed his eyes and replied rather lamely, "Likewise, Birkin."
William stared, incensed, at the red-haired young man and then his shoulders slumped.
"Fine," Birkin replied venomously through gritted teeth, "Meanwhile, I have a better idea. I am going to come with you and I am going to find my daughter, and when I have, I shall not rest until Umbrella has been razed to the ground…" Birkin lowered his voice menacingly and let his gaze fall upon the front doors "…and God help anyone who stands in my way."
"Fine with me," Leon said curtly after a pause.
"Fine," Birkin spat, folding his arms and then, upon realising it was too painful, unfolded them.
"Want to get going, or are you going to come over all sorry for yourself again?" Leon remarked nonchalantly, as he headed over to the front doors.
"Shut up," William snarled before he started after Leon, clutching at his chest.
The doors wouldn't budge at first, no matter how hard Leon tried and after his fifth attempt, William stepped in rather ungraciously.
"Oh for fuck's sake, here…" he said exasperatedly, turning the dial-like handle and pushing.
At once, the doors slid open. Leon frowned and said, "How the hell did you do that?"
William smirked and shuffled out into the open air. When the storm hit him, he almost fell over. The wind was howling ferociously at gale force and the rain was driving down in sheets thick as lead from an ominous, shadowy sky. Leon followed behind and said something that William couldn't hear.
"WHAT WAS THAT?" he yelled over the contending elements, soaked to the skin for the third time in less than twenty-four hours.
"I SAID WE CAN'T TAKE OFF IN THIS WEATHER!!!" Leon screamed, tendrils of hair writhing like snakes a basket.
"REALLY? I WASN'T UNDER THE ILLUSION THAT WE WERE EVER GOING TO TAKE OFF. YOU CAN FLY A HELICOPTER, THEN?" William yelled sarcastically.
"WHERE IS IT?" Leon growled, glaring at William.
"IT SHOULD BE JUST AHEAD!!!"
"BEEN HERE THEN, BIRKIN?"
"SHUT UP --!"
"KENNEDY! AND THAT'S MR LEON S. TO YOU!!!"
"THEN SHUT UP AND MOVE, KENNEDY!!!"
Sure enough the helicopter was just ahead. Both men clambered in and, with a great degree of difficulty, Leon slammed the door shut with a muffled bang.
"Well thank fuck for that," William breathed as acerbically as possible. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally and on the verge of collapse, but he didn't want Kennedy to know that. "So, where are we going?"
"Paris," Leon replied curtly.
"Ah…" William said weakly. He was beginning to feel a little tired and was finding it hard to keep his eyes open much longer.
Leon said something but he didn't quite catch it, and his last thoughts before succumbing to the dark peace of sleep was that he would wake in the morning and be ready, for tomorrow would be the beginning of the end.
AN: Another chapter. I did promise you, and I, for a change, actually delivered [grins.] As you may have noticed by now, I am something of an irregular updater.
Anyway, I hope this chapter met with your approval. William is, after all, a rather tempestuous individual and I also figured that Leon is, although a forgiving soul, not all that forgiving. So they both absolutely hate each other's guts, and that's the way it should be, I'm afraid. Muchos thanks go to (in order of the review board): Saikoro, Shakahnna, Hello Captain, RamenKitty, CassSpaz, sherry15 and GrAbAsNiCkErS.
If you liked this, then I suggest you go to 'Search' right now, click on 'Author,' type in 'Hello Captain,' press the return key, click on the link and be astounded at what Resident-Evil-Birkin-y goodness she has to offer.
Danke!
- Ada Kensington.
