A dark ghost slips through the concrete halls. A stride too elegant to be of this Earth; steps made light and with a certain vindiction saved for those up to no good and know it. Walking with secretive intentions, the fluorescent lights above him each went out in a flicker, one after the other as he turns a corner.
Lab alley was a nickname, he knew. Christianed from the way the hall seemed to continue forever with labs on each side, seperated by thick stone walls with reinforced glass windows and doors. He stood at the mouth of it, gazing into that seemingly neverending corridor that was beginning to dim and darken as the lights gave out there. Taking a breath, he straightened his stolen lab coat, complete with a fabricated identification card allowing superior access to all facilities at this location. He began walking down the hall, head up, no hesitation. Confidence was a tool; he'd have to use it to pull this off, though he himself wasn't very sure of the success he'd have with this plan.
XXXXXX_
Playing the game was similar to drowning; it can't be explained. Women have the appeal, the ability, to have a man trailing with a simple word, gesture, look. As if she were dragging him behind her with an invisible rope made of the finest silk, held with her eyes, wound tight around the neck. Gladly, they'd choke themselves searching, yearning for the woman who caught them. The eyes, beautiful and shining under the lights. The hair, falling so elegantly and if lucky, brushing against his skin. The smile, the destruction.
He never played the game. Not when it was usually in his favor. Not when it was so effortless to have any woman he wanted under his spell. Never one for the chase himself, he merely walked while they followed. A bit lazy in that aspect. Why had it changed so suddenly with her? Her and those baby blues. Her and her scarlet hair. Her touch left on his skin, not burning but tingling. Leaving him wanting in that almost intoxicated way but he wasn't desperate enough to trail her like a starving dog after a bone. At least, not yet.
XXXXXX_
This was his first assignment. It was a gamble on part of his boss, a Mr. No-Name, because of how new, young, and fresh he was compared to his other agents. But it was his time, his turn, and Mr. No-Name knew, so now he had to prove it. Like a child on his first day at the big school, he was terrified. Terrified of screwing it all up, of getting caught, of disappointing but he hid that well beneath a mask fashioned from years of training.
He walks in that way- head up, chest out- taught to him. Not sauntering, but almost, down the hall, glancing into each individual lab as he passed to see busy scientists and researchers. Running a nervous hand through his stringy brown hair to ease the slight shakiness that had taken hold of it, he repeated the lab number in his head.
137. 137. 137...
XXXXXX_
There was something in her touch, he had to admit to himself. Slender fingers running casually down his arm as they walked, side by side, through a dim restaurant. He had his hand on the small of her back, the feel of the smooth material of her dress on his palm, as they left their table.
A part of him wasn't ready to leave. Sitting there, across from her, watching her in brief glances as she ate. He would never have thought that anyone could look as great as she did doing something as mundane as this. Her fingers wrapped justly around the silver knife and fork, cutting up the steak she ordered. Steak and not salad. He had ordered the same. Hers well done and his medium rare.
He enjoyed when she talked. Comfortable little words asking him what he did for fun, what he liked and disliked, curious as to what made him, well, him. She in turn, liked the way he answered with a reserved confidence. Liked how he would turn the conversation on her with questions about her life she had to pause for a second to think about, patience in his eyes that she swore were every color south of red, seemingly changing under the different light.
He was slowly falling for her laugh that escaped sometimes by accident from her lips. For the way she would push her auburn hair behind her ear without thinking. For the way she was starting to look at him.
XXXXXX_
He was set up. Mr. No-Name set him up. There was no trust, no gamble, no chance for him to prove his worth. All that hope he had- false. All the nervousness and the pride that was building up inside him prematurely at the thought of passing his first assignment with flying colors- gone. Mr. No-Name wasn't counting solely on him, giving him purpose. It was all one big set up because he was going to fail.
Why take the chance?
Damien Poole- alias. Fucking veteran in the field. Cocky son of a bitch with a handleful of successful assignments under his belt. Actual goddamn lap dog of the company. Standing there with the crate on the table in front of him in room 137, slipping a vial he knew had a fake viral strand into the single empty space within it. A spiral vial of green liquid, the real virus, resting carefully in his left hand as he closed the crate. A smug smile on his hawk face.
"Way to go, Sport." He said. "You didn't fuck up."
No. He didn't get a chance to. Not a chance at all.
XXXXXX_
The air outside the restuarant was just right, the occasional soft breeze making it all the more so. It passed through his hair and into the open lapels of his blazer, even slipping past the two undone top buttons of his shirt to his chest. It made him calm, kept his mind straight and it allowed him to focus on something that wasn't her for just a brief moment, not lasting.
She leaned into him as they walked down the sidewalk, whispering something in his ear. What now?
"The night is yours." He answered, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, wanting to keep her close. "All yours."
The bar on the corner seemed to glow under the streetlights. Swanney's looked holy. It wasn't his idea of a "date". But then again, he was never a man that dated and he found that he liked how she hinted that she wasn't a woman that did either.
XXXXXX_
He had to wait to sulk. Push that anger deep down, put it on hold because they were still in the depths of Hell. He hated that about himself. Too young, too eager, too emotional. Perhaps they were right. Maybe he wasn't cut out for this world.
"Straight face, boy." Damien was.
He choked back that part of himself, cleared the knot in his throat. "You know the way out?"
"Back the way we came." Damien kept looking around the room, as if trying to remember every inch of it. Every microscope, petri dish, and test tube. After a moment, he seemed satisfied. Picking up the crate, he walked over to a medical fridge pushed back against the far wall with a clear glass door and he could see other crates stacked on it's shelves inside. He opened it and placed the crate in it's spot, and closed the door quickly.
He was glancing out through the windows into the hall when Damien patted his shoulder. "Let's get a move on. Don't want to get caught now."
"We won't."
"It's your ass if we do."
XXXXXX_
It was her idea but he secretly loved it. Of course, it took her some time to convince him to try. Using that "'fraid I'll kick your ass?" tactic many people love using when trying to coerce someone to do something. She was good. She had him slipping his blazer off, rolling up his sleeves, and grabbing a cue in a matter of seconds. He could blame it on the fact that he was born with a naturally competitive nature.
The game, not that he particularly cared to admit, was definitely hers. In total, he probably potted a ball about four times, two of which were not even his, compared to the relatively flawless way she cleaned up the table. The clack of the white against whatever other color- she was solids- was heard over the music flowing from hidden speakers. The noise would ring in his ears as she smirked with such pride.
The bar was almost full, lively but not rowdy. Mostly men with the occasional woman (nine in total, including her) putting them in their places. Sometimes, when she would lean over the table to get at eye level when a difficult shot was presented, a guy or two, drunk off their asses, would take advantage of the view she was giving. He wasn't sure if she knew, but he could probably guess she did but didn't care. He did though, and would grip the cue knuckle white and glare at them until they became so uncomfortable they turned around or moved to a different part of the bar.
But when she was setting up on that last ball, the infamous eight, she bent forward right in front of him. Intentional or not, he saw just a glimpse of what that dress hid, and she smiled. Those blue eyes seemed to darken just the slightest, and he had to adjust the collar of his shirt. This kind of flirtation was slight, but it was working wonders. He didn't even notice when she potted the eight ball and won the game. He'd never lost before.
XXXXXX__
Damien screwed up. That was the irony of it all. A seasoned professional making a rookie mistake while the actual rookie knew better. They took a left, because Damien said so, when they should have taken a right. Down a different hall with no rooms instead of finding the elevator he had taken to get here. Not paying attention, running into security personal with one of those high tech card readers.
His goes through like it should have. Despite the sweat collecting on the back of his neck and the nervous way he was worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, the guards barely take a second look at him. Damien, though, they were all over him. As cocky as he was, he hands over his security card easily. A big smirk sits on his face until the reader beeps. The guard swipes it again. Beep. Once more. Beep beep.
Now his hands are sweating and he looks at Damien and Damien looks back at him. That smirk fading quickly. He says, "oh shit. Must be expired. Guess I forgot to renew it. You know, I'm always forgetting about these kind of-"
One of the guards reaches for the standard issue handgun strapped to his hip. He remembers the one weighing heavy in the waistband of his pants.
"Up against the wall." The security guard orders.
"Now fellas-" Damien holds his hands up.
"Right now!"
"Alright alright." He turns toward the cement wall to his left and the guard reaches for his handcuffs, stepping close to his back. Reaching for his wrists, Damien snaps his elbow back and into the guards face, knocking him down. The other one pulls out his gun but before he's able to take aim, he reaches out, snaps his wrist back and punches him in the throat. Gasping on the floor, he grabs Damien's arm and pulls him away. Mission officially compromised.
XXXXXX_
Other men were looking at her but she was looking at him and that fact alone made him feel like a god. By their third drink, and their fourth game, she was slowing down. Her shoes making the soles of her feet ache, her toes stiffening at that angle and her heels feeling sore. She was on his arm because of it, using him so she didn't have to put her weight entirely on her feet and he would have been lying if he said he didn't enjoy the feel of her against his body once again. Of course, it was no secret. He knew it, she knew it. The need for formality had long since passed so when they walked out of Swanney's all over each other, it wasn't awkward.
It wasn't awkward when, in the darkness of his car, she put both hands on his neck, her thumbs gently running along the sharp cut of his jaw. She was feeling greedy and wanted to taste the whiskey on his lips just as much as she wanted to feel them moving against hers. He had a special taste. A rare flavor, Dylan would say. She couldn't even find the words to describe it.
The whole thing was very juvenile, an adolescent fantasy, and he felt like an eighteen year old with his hand on her waist and his body twisted slightly over the center console. Her hand went down and gripped his shirt to pull him closer so that he was leaning over the console completely and he had to extend his hand against the seat beside her to settle himself. He wanted to touch her so badly but one hand was keeping himself from falling face first against her while the other was preoccupied with keeping her head from tilting back so their kiss wouldn't break or, more importantly, she didn't crack the back of her head on the door.
Her fingers worked the buttons on his shirt as she readjusted the way she sat so that both of her knees were set against his hips, her feet pressed against the backs of his thighs. With a certain pressure pressing against the front of his pants, he was thankful that there was no one else around, that he had parked somewhere that offered privacy. He couldn't take it. He leaned back himself and pulled her toward him. Teasing her with the thought of ending the contact, she followed easily, nipping at his lips in an almost spiteful way. He made up for it as he pulled her onto his lap by running his hands up her sides, her lower back, her thighs. Slowly, slowly, his fingers found their way between them as his lips trailed down her jaw and down her neck to settle on her chest, the dip between her breasts.
With her fingers in his hair, he touched her there between her legs, feeling and hearing the soft little gasp she made at the contact. The pressure between his own legs was becoming intensely uncomfortable until she reached down and gripped him with one hand, feeling him through the fabric of his pants, earning a hot heavy breath against her skin. It was then when he tugged her underwear aside, pushed his middle finger inside her, heard her gasp just a little louder, that he decided he was going to fuck her then and there. The timing couldn't have been any worse.
XXXXXX _ _
Traumatic brain injury was the only plausible explanation to how much Damien Poole had fucked up this relatively elementary mission. It had to be that or someone tipped off the Umbrella's security team at this particular facility. Or maybe this was a scheduled execution Mr. No-Name had set up for him and Damien. Maybe it was just for Damien as he had literally zero field experience which didn't make him a liability. Leaving him as just an unfortunate casuality to Damien's own little death march. He would've laughed at his own bad luck if he wasn't really pissed off at life. Or if there wasn't a gun currently pointed directly between his eyes.
Boy, was he in a sticky pickle.
A voice. "Shall I dispose of them now, sir?"
Another. "No."
The zipties around his wrists were digging into the skin and rubbing them raw. Damien had been knocked unconscious and was now laying there beside him, bleeding from a cut on his forehead. He said something before he was silenced, something he couldn't quite make out.
Two uniformed security agents were stationed in front of him, one aiming the gun and the other scrolling on a handheld tablet set onto the sleeve of his uniform. A third man was pacing somewhere in the background behind the two who wore a pressed white suit.
"Sir?" The agent with the gun said, his voice filtered by the mask he wore.
"We'll wait for him." The third man replied.
The agent with the tablet turned his head and said, "I've got his cell, sir."
There was a sigh, and the third man stopped pacing. Clasping his hands behind his back, he says, "excellent."
XXXXXX_
The buzzing against his thigh and the immediate shattering of the silence around them caused her to bite his lip. It was completely accidental of course, but the stinging her teeth caused on his lower lip turned him on more than it should have. Tasting the slight metallic of his own blood and hearing his cell's ringtone, he removed his finger but kept it rubbing against her, deciding that her little breathless gasps were a much better sound than that of his phone. But it wouldn't stop ringing and the moment was gone as fast as it had come.
He sighed, moving one of his hands to her waist and the other into his pocket to retrieve his phone. He'd planned to silence the ringer, to rip the battery from it and toss it to the side but one look at the number made him pause entirely.
There was a heavy line between work and play that he had created for himself. It was why he'd never been in a long-term relationship and why his job was never spoken of in social situations, as rare as they were. But this, receiving a call from work at this time of night, made him believe something had gone wrong.
She peeked over his arm, her hand on his cheek, her breathing returning to it's normal in and out. He looked at her in the semi-darkness, the light from the phone's screen illuminating them both in a white glow, and said something along the lines of an apology. And she smiled, reassuringly. She bent to kiss his lips and told him to go if he needed to, understanding the necessity of his demanding job, his S.T.A.R.S job, not the more important one. Then she slipped off him, readjusting her dress in the passenger seat. He watched her for a moment, trying to douse his own arousal to no great effect before excusing himself to get out of the car. He walked a few paces behind, allowing the breeze to hit him to calm himself before answering the phone.
There was an order spoken from a voice he didn't recognize. When he asked the speaker to identify himself, he recieved a number, 10021 Security Agent Stavros, and the order was repeated.
"Report to the East Wing in the Umbrella facility immediately."
He didn't take orders from security, so he told him to name a superior, someone a little higher on the chain of command than a meer security guard. He expected Birkin but the name he heard was Lorne. A young, arrogant but powerful James Marcus wannabe who was in control of this facility. He couldn't count the times he'd fantasized killing the little bastard.
"It's an order."
Of course it was.
So this was the end of his own social call. His first romantic-he could barely bring himself to say it- escapade in months ruined. Romantic, not sexual because he has his own healthy track record in that regard. He had to take her home. Thirty minutes on the Luther Expressway. One last kiss leaning against the passenger side door, his hand caressing the side of her face. A prolonged look as she walked into her building, making sure she disappeared safetly into the elevator, nodding to Tom sitting behind his little security desk in the lobby. A curse was muttered under his breath as he got back into his car and drove away.
XXXXXX_
"Sir, we have identification."
"Go on then."
"This one-"
"Which one?"
"The unconscious one, sir."
"Go on."
"Damien Poole. Works espionage and theft for Reguvinere. Threat level, high."
"And the other?"
"Adam Lowell. Works for Reguvinere but has no record of field training. Threat level is minimal."
"Has Wesker arrived?"
"One moment."
An earpiece sounds.
"He's coming down the main elevator now."
XXXXXX_
Writer's block is a bitch.
And archiveofourown has shown me the way..
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