+Author's note: So, we get a little smutty again here. Sorry. It has to happen. The story NEEDS the love. Needs it. I giggled. I'm such a girl.
Thank you, as always, for reading it. I love writing it. It's so fun.
Slainte.
….
XII: Dance with the Devil
Rojo la Muerte, Spain 2004
In the smooth shift of darkness, she felt the roll of something that might have been awakening.
Following the thread of it, Jill gasped, and her body bowed.
She was lying on a soft mattress in an ornately decorated room. Intrigued, Jill sat up gingerly on the heavy brocade where she lay. She blinked and looked down at herself…and realized she was in a robe.
It was…clearly meant to offer her up as some kind of sacrifice. She was in white, it was thin and belted at her narrow waist. She was in some kind of silky white camisole or something beneath it. They'd put one of those horrible pendants around her throat and her hair was braided tightly to her head in a crownlike pattern. Her legs and feet were bare and she'd been stripped of all her weapons.
Jill slid from the bed, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror that rose beside it to cover the far wall. The heavy pendant swung between her breasts, offending her, and frightening her. She was trapped in this bedroom without an escape route, dressed like a virgin sacrifice, and somewhere within a hostile wasteland of psychotic cultists.
She was in trouble here.
The worst part was that she wasn't her first concern.
She didn't think of her own safety.
She thought of his.
Where was he?
If they'd taken her, they'd had to have done it over his dead body.
There was no other choice there.
Jill's hand lowered and pressed against her lower belly. She breathed sharp and low. She tried to huddle around the horror of feeling it. She tried to picture those horrible bugs ripping him to pieces. It pulled a small sound of pain and angst from her mouth.
The truth here was simple: if they had her, they had Ashley, and Leon was dead.
There was no other way they'd have taken them both.
Her brain said: the bugs took you both. You didn't see him go down. You don't KNOW that he's dead. You don't KNOW it.
She searched inside of herself for the truth of that small kernel of hope.
It felt right.
It felt good to believe it.
She said, to the mirror, quietly, "He's not dead."
And she liked how that sounded.
Jill moved to the dresser beside the bed. There wasn't really anything worth using there. There were a mirror and an old brush. There was a basin filled with rose scented water. There was a warm washcloth that someone had clearly used to bathe her body…which alarmed and disgusted her.
And there was a sound at the door.
Someone was coming.
Torn between faking sleep to see where they took her and taking her shot at escape, Jill hesitated.
The door shivered and opened. The first cultist through the door was holding a bedpan.
Jill didn't bother to wait.
She kicked the bedpan. It went up into his face, she grabbed it from his surprised hands and smashed it into his face. He reeled, she hit him again and he went into the wall, and Jill kicked him in the crotch, smashed the bedpan into the back of his head, and down he went to his face on the floor.
He didn't move again but she broke his neck for good measure anyway.
Dragging his body into the room, she ranged it beside the bed. She frisked the corpse for anything worthwhile and found the small hatchet tucked on his belt. Hefting it, she felt a little less afraid. At least she had a weapon.
She did take his shoes as well. They were stupid roman style sandals that had to be wrapped up her legs but at least she wasn't barefoot anymore. She was in a sacrificial virgin outfit out of a bad horror movie, complete with fitted bell sleeves and some kind of horrible robe that barely reached mid-thigh. She was lost in a castle filled with people trying to kill her. She was alone, scared, outnumbered and without a real weapon…but at least she had a hatchet.
Amused, Jill eased open the door and glanced out into the long hallway.
She was in some kind of tower or something. The curving hallway in front of her suggested stairs at the sharp hook. Moving forward, Jill eased down those stairs. They continued in a curling pattern as she descended. She could hear thunder rumbling in the distance, suggesting more fucking rain.
As she reached the bottom of the tower, she could hear the shouting.
Lots of the cultists were shouting and scrambling. She pressed her ear to the door there at the base of the stairs and listened. Gunfire and shrieking, running feet and shouting. Curious, she heard them cursing in Spanish.
And then one shouted, "AGENTE!"
And her heart seared hotly in her chest.
He was ALIVE.
She listened as they scrambled and when it was quiet, she eased open the door in front of her. In front of her, looking down into the dark at the edge of a long bridge, a cultist with a huge scythe was standing there.
Jill moved forward silently. She crept, listening to the fighting occurring in the tower on the other side of the long bridge. The night swirled around her, cool and breezy.
She grabbed the scythe in the unassuming cultist's hand, felt him resist and start to turn, and she kicked him in the hip. He lost the scythe, pinwheeled his arms in horror, and went over the edge of the bridge into the darkness. Gripping the heavy weapon like a lifeline, Jill moved across the bridge.
The cold air tickled her fanny and her legs as she moved. She was nearly across when she heard the sounds beyond the door there. It was the mechanical cry of one of those blind men with claws. She froze and heard it echo.
Not one.
Two.
He was facing TWO of them at once.
She started running toward the doors to help him and two disgusting cockroaches climbed up from the edges of the bridge to stop her. They skittered, hissing their horrid chittering sounds as they awkwardly raced over the cold stone toward her. Jill braced, waited, and the first leaped at her to take her head.
She swung the scythe, caught its slashing hand at the elbow, and cleaved it free in a burst of steaming fluid. It shrieked, the second one dove from the sky to finish the job, and Jill went to her back, swung the scythe up in a fluid motion, and caught it across the chest and belly.
It lodged, it split, it burst and she rolled to miss the streaming spit of acid that flew down to melt her bones. She flicked the scythe with all her strength and the struggling bug was thrown free into the darkness. The other missing the hand took up the charge.
It got her from behind.
It landed on her back, she lost the scythe in a skittering of metal over the stone, and it raised up to impale her on that one surviving claw. Jerking her hips, Jill threw a reverse kick at it from her belly on the ground. The kick hit in the mid back and threw it off center, and Jill rolled, scissored her legs at it and kicked it three times in the face while it reeled.
The bug was thrown against the railing of the bridge as she scrambled, grabbed the scythe from the ground, and spun back as it leaped at her.
The claw caught her shoulder, she gasped as it spilled blood, and she caught it across the face with the blade. It was split and sheared in half. The bug stopped screeching as it went down, twitching and spastically jerking as it died. Jill leaped over its dying form and burst through the doors in front of her.
But there was nothing happening in that long room now.
It was filled with corpses.
She froze, surveying the carnage.
Bodies were everywhere. Missing pieces, missing heads, still smoking or bleeding. The two mechanical men were literally smoking where they lay. Someone had dispatched a fucking RPG into this mess of bodies. Where had he found one?
It didn't matter. He was still ALIVE.
Jill raced amongst the dead, holding the scythe and running. She burst out the other doors and saw him as he was opening the next set of doors across the long bridge that separated them.
She shouted into the cold air, "Leon!"
But the doors closed between them and she was forced to race across toward where he'd been.
She heard him talking as she approached, "If you so much as scratch her, I'll grind your fucking bones into dust."
The laughter was Salazar's, high pitched and amused, "You won't do anything, you stupid hero. I tire of your threats. I tire of YOU. The other girl you seek? She's to be sacrificed to Saddler. For Saddler. Perhaps he will decide instead to use her as a broodmare. Perhaps she will spread her legs and birth his children. How would that suit you, Mr. Kennedy? The President's daughter as our puppet. And your woman as the mother of our new world. You would not be so brave then I think."
She heard him reply, on a heavy laugh, "You sniveling little shit, you tell Saddler if he even looks at Jill, I'm going to shove his head so far up his ass that he has to wear himself as a hat."
"I tire of you, Mr. Kennedy. I tire of you. Just…die."
She heard Ashley shout. She heard the sound of mechanical gears turning. There was a clunk and the whistle of the wind. Ashley screamed, "NO! LEON! OH MY GOD!"
Jill kicked open the door.
In horror, she saw what was happening. The floor was open and Leon had clearly tumbled down into the trap of it. Salazar caught sight of her and laughed, "So! You escaped your caretaker. No matter. You will die now to prove a point."
He nodded at the red-robed figure beside him. His other side was graced with one in black. "Kill her."
Nodding, the red one holding the spear against Ashley's Graham's kneeling throat separated from the other to move toward Jill. She judged it and eased into the room. Salazar was sitting on a little throne-like chair listening to a small metal horn he had beside his ear. What was he waiting for?
And then he said, "Where is the satisfying sound of one's impalement?"
The red-robed figure was nearly to her. It lifted the spear. Jill raised the scythe. And they swung at each other. The weapons struck, shrieking with a cry of clanging metal. The thing was strong, the hit drove her to one knee to just keep from losing her head.
It eyed her boredly. She rose to swing the scythe again and it had had enough of her. It kicked her.
It just…kicked her in the stomach. The hit was so hard it stole her breath. She stumbled. She turned, and it kicked her in the back. She lost the scythe, she tried to grab on, Ashley screamed in horror, and she went over.
She went over.
She was terrified of falling to her death.
And she plummeted into the waiting dark with a cry of horror as it kicked into the abyss.
The scythe went first. It twirled and flipped and disappeared into the dark. Jill went so fast she felt the wind rush and roar and she couldn't do anything but fall. In one hand, it sucked shit. What a fucking way to die. In the other, if Leon was already dead at the bottom at least she wasn't going to die alone.
The world was dark and cold. The wind was fast and breathtaking. She tried to grab slick wet stone and missed. She spun left, swirled right, hit the wall twice and her head struck. The dark grabbed her and stole the fear. She went out without another thought.
Dangling in the dark, Leon Kennedy was somewhat rappelling on the wall of the pit where she'd been tossed. He heard Salazar up there giggling and decided enough was enough of that little shit. Pulling his pistol, Leon aimed happily at the tiny belly dangling on the wall. Clearly, it was meant to alert the person above to the satisfying crunch of bodies on the horrible spikes at the bottom of the pit.
There was the stench of old blood and rotting meat down there. Which meant plenty had plummeted and died before in the dark. It would not be him that joined them, though, clearly. So, instead, he shot the bell and heard Salazar shriek in anger.
And then? Then he heard Ashley scream in horror, "NOOO! JILL!"
And all the bravado in the world couldn't stop the horror.
Jill.
Where was Jill?
Up there? Up there with Salazar and those things? Up there….fighting alone?
The world rushed. He heard the sound of falling. And the horror became terror. Because he KNEW she wasn't up there. She was ON HER WAY DOWN.
He heard her cry out, heard the clunk of hitting, and watched the dark split as she came toward him – out, gone, and tumbling. Pushing against the wall, he shot off like some kind of Cirque du Soleil carnival act or something. He swung around the circular stone pit, running against the walls and using his own momentum to brace for her.
She tumbled and landed. He caught her around his front with a grunt. The rappel line shivered with the added weight but held. Jill was collapsed against his body with her head on his shoulder and her legs open around his waist.
Based on what she WASN'T wearing anymore, it should have been an exciting moment. Owing to the fact they were currently dangling over a spike-filled pit, the sexiness was lost. Big time. But the continuous thunder of his heart couldn't be discounted. Because he'd caught her.
He'd CAUGHT her.
And that was enough.
For now, it was enough.
He started rappelling down the wall, holding her against his body with nothing more than her own dead weight and the mechanics of wall leaning. She murmured and shifted as they were about halfway down. The relief of knowing she'd hit but was coming around quickly had him nearly pissing himself with renewed hope.
"Jill?"
She made a small sound and curled. Her legs shifted and hooked. Her dead weight converted to clinging. She opened her sleepy mouth against his neck and licked.
Blinking in the dark as she kept slowly hopping them down the wall, Leon chuckled a little. "Jillian? Honey. You may wanna wake up. As much as I enjoy the licking and suckling," And he DID. His body said…yep yep yep. He couldn't think of a worse time for it to happen. "The timing is probably bad here, sweetheart. Can you wake up for me?"
She shifted a little. Her big eyes opened. The braided hairstyle on her was all kinds of fucking sexy. It was renaissance chic hair or something. He liked it. The thing she wasn't wearing…the robe or the slutty nightgown…or the torture device they'd dressed her in…he liked that too. And hated it. And loved it. Because she was riding his body down a wall right now. And he was pretty sure they'd taken her panties.
She had on no panties and was sitting on his lap while he hopped slowly down an incline. Each hop had her bouncing on his shit. It was amusing, awful, wonderful, and comically awesome all at once. Laughing hoarsely, he said, "Wake up, sweetheart. Just a little. Wake up."
She blinked at him. And she smiled, so softly, "You're alive."
"So it would appear."
"….you caught me."
He grinned a little, "So, that would appear as well."
She shifted, and her body clung to him now in a helpful way. She just helped make it easier for him to move down the wall now. He watched intelligence pierce the sleepy look on her face. She rolled over on him, which….maybe wasn't the fucking best move either as it pressed her little butt against his groin instead, but she grabbed the line with him and started helping…so it took the pressure off his arms and back to move them both.
And she said, "You're ok?"
Grunting a little as her butt wiggled with each hop down the wall, he laughed slightly, "I'm ok. You're ok?"
"Yeah. They meant to sacrifice me."
"I heard."
"But they're stupid, Leon. Or unskilled. Or something."
"Lucky for us." They hopped, her naked little butt rubbed against him again, and he figured he had to say it here for both of them. "They had to dress you in a porno robe?"
Amused, she glanced over her shoulder, "You don't like it?"
And now he laughed again, "Oh, I like it. I like it a lot. I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to focus on a damn thing but your ass right now…but I like it."
With a soft chuckle, Jill wiggled a little more with each hop.
He had to be impressed. As an enemy, she was obliterating him. Grunting, Leon mused, "Tease."
And had her laughing softly as they hit the bottom of the wall and leaped clean.
The spikes were huge, human size, and taking over the entire lower quadrant of the pit. There were dead cultists staked on them. There were dead bodies everywhere. Clearly, Salazar punished the misbehaving souls in his unfortunate puppet show by tossing them into the abyss to die like shishkabobs.
His communicator signaled and Leon answered it. Salazar's ugly little face echoed back at him. "You have nine lives, Mr. Kennedy."
"Isn't that interesting, Salazar. Considering the only pussy here is you."
Salazar laughed, high and happy. "Keep joking, you fool. No matter. I've sent my right hand to dispose of you."
"A shame for you, really, good luck wiping your ass with the left one."
"Keep joking, you fool. We'll see who has the last laugh."
He signed off and Leon rolled his eyes.
He turned to look at Jill in the dull flicker of moist light. The wet cavernous room was disgusting and moldy. It stank and was filled with rotting bodies and stagnant water.
Ignoring the bodies impaled and the horror of the stench of old blood and mold, Leon tilted her face up to him to inspect the knot on the side of her head. It was a good egg size lump above her left temple. It was oozing and swollen. He prodded it gently and Jill hissed.
"Easy, cheesy. Seriously." She grunted with the pain of it.
"Sorry. You're ok?"
"Been better." She glanced at his face in the dim light of the wet cavern in which they found themselves, "But we're both alive. So, it's a start."
His eyes dropped down and back up. And he shook his head on a small laugh. "This outfit you're barely wearing…seriously? It's a test from God. Clearly."
Jill chuckled softly and shifted a little closer to him. She opened her mouth to say something clever and cute and there was a sound from the pit above them. It was the sound of something leaping.
It echoed on his face and across hers: fear.
Leon mused, "Yeah. Which one did he send? Black or red?"
"Does it matter?"
"Nope. Let's move." They did. Quickly.
They hurried through the door at the edge of the pit of spikes and emerged into some kind of a tunnel that reminded Jill of a subway station. It was steel grates and the chugging sound of steam and machinery working in the distance. It was long hallways with warning signs in Spanish along the walls as they moved.
And they moved quickly.
Containers of nitrous oxide were connected to tubing along the walls as they ran. Curious, Jill wondered what could possibly be down here that required freezing to that extent. Most likely, it was specimen containment of some kind. Cold fusion was a little extreme unless you were trying to disable detonation devices quickly.
The first off chute on the tunnel spilled them into a room with nothing but two tanks of the stuff hooked to the heavy tubing and bound to the walls. It was an empty chamber otherwise and a dead end. Concerned, Leon turned to face her. "You're weaponless?"
She hefted the scythe she'd found in the water they'd left behind. "Not entirely."
"….shit." He tugged the pistol from his thigh and offered it to her. They traded for the scythe. Leon swung it easily and Jill had one of those moments again where she was impressed with the skill of it. It was effortless for him. He just KNEW how to swing it.
They moved back into the hallway and veered down the other tunnel. Jill kept the pistol ready but loose as they hurried. This one opened into a narrow chamber split by a wire fence and a console that offered controls for an elevator. A quick check showed the power was out to it.
Jill said, "Of course. OF COURSE."
"Right? Let's find the breaker."
"Sure. Cause it will be that easy."
He laughed a little as they moved back into the hallway and split down the last corner to cover the final door, count it off, and clear into the last room. It was a U-shaped corridor that curved sharply and offered the heavy breaker hanging on the wall. It had been tripped by circuit overload. It was flashing a yellow rebooting warning at them.
Leon grabbed the handle, pushed it up, and reset the circuit. It hissed, popped, crackled and announced through the room: "Breaker engaged. Rerouting power. Standby for lock release."
Jill watched a shutter drop on the room they were in, sealing them together in the U-shaped metal area. A light flashed on the door, signaling power rerouting to the electronic lock. It announced again, in that snooty British accent that bad guys loved on their systems: "Four minutes to power reinstitution. Please stand by."
Four minutes.
Easy enough to kill four minutes.
The room was flashing red and white while the warning lights on the wall above them rotated like police sirens in silence but continuous spilling color.
Jill queried, "Know any good jokes? Maybe a poem? Or a dirty limerick?"
"You want to tell jokes while we wait for the thing that's chasing us to catch up while trapped in a flashing room together at the bottom of a pit of spikes that was meant to impale and kill us while psychos are chasing us, trying to sacrifice you and simultaneously trying to take over the US through bioterrorism using fungus found in caves beneath a castle in the middle of nowhere?"
Jill glanced at him behind her and laughed.
They both did.
What else could you do?
It sounded so stupid to say it out loud. Like the plot of a bad science fiction movie (*cough*). Who could possibly believe something so obscure? Ridiculous. Insane. When was the last time something hadn't been in their world?
Hadn't it all started by coming face to face with the undead?
It was a comic book. Or a video game. Or a cosmic joke. What else could you do but laugh and deal with it? Survive. That was the bottom line here. Did it matter how they managed to do that? If it meant laughing at the utter nonsense of it all, who could really blame them?
And so, Jill Valentine intoned, chuckling, "You got a better idea?"
Snorting a little, Leon quipped, "Ok. Sure. Let's do this thing. Uh…there once was a man from Napass…who's balls were made out of brass. And in stormy weather, they clanked together, and lightning shot out of his ass."
Jill, holding the pistol on the closed door with the shutter down, glanced over her shoulder at him. He was grinning so big and proud. She couldn't do anything but love him.
But she kept her face deadpan, "That was awful. Try again."
"Can't do it. I'm all out of limericks."
"Shame. You have some rhyming skill. You wanna try a bad pun?" She grinned while she said it, watching the red and white flicker over the door.
"Nah. I'm all punned out."
"The hell you say," Feigning horror, Jill put a hand to her breasts and looked aghast, "Woe becomes us when Leon Kennedy can't pun. If we can't joke, what's left to do?"
"This."
She turned with a grin and stopped grinning. Because he wasn't holding the scythe. His hand went right up under her sacrificial robe, slid over her ass and he turned her into him. She went, making a small sound of want, and the gun bumped on his back as they came together.
They kissed wet and fast. It was hungry and sharp. It was so ill-timed. Wasn't their entire relationship ill-timed? He pressed her into the wall and tried to eat her.
His hands were full of her ass, kneading, sculpting. She whimpered, undone. He angled her against him and plunged his tongue into her as the lights rolled and flickered; as the announcement told them two minutes until power was redistributed.
She figured she should stop him. She didn't want to stop him. She didn't want to do anything but this. Exactly. It was all she'd wanted from the moment she'd met him. This. Him. Denying it was making them both nuts. It was groping on a gondola in the cold and flirting and burning and dying. It didn't matter. He was infected, they were essentially lost and forsaken and probably dead. And it DIDN'T MATTER.
This did.
The kiss broke and Jill, the woman who never faltered on a mission, who never flirted, who never broke protocols or rules or barriers. Who towed the line and kept her distance and didn't regret, was tired of doing it. She was tired of simply making excuses why it wasn't ok to want him. To want this. To want to touch and taste and feel him.
She just wanted him. And it was echoed all over his face as he touched her.
She breathed, "Leon?"
His mouth was on her throat. Her breathing was ragged. His was hoarse.
She was dying.
Face flushed, panting, he leaned back a little. "I know…I know. Bad timing. Fuck. A minute here. Just..."
He took his hands off her and planted them flat on the wall beside her head. He rubbed their foreheads together and the torture of it on his face made her insane for him. Shaking her head, Jill cupped his face. His eyes were closed as he breathed.
Jill was trembling. She was trembling. She was shaking.
She would have stopped, maybe, but she realized in a single flash of intuition…that he was shaking too. And she didn't want to stop. She didn't want to stop anymore.
Not anymore.
They had two minutes until the door opened. They were probably dead where they stood. They were being chased and fighting for their life and lost and starving and cold and alone. They were fucked.
And that's what she wanted.
She wanted to get fucked.
And it was nothing like her. Nothing. It was insane. And she was insane.
And she felt ALIVE with it.
Breathing sharp and fast, she dropped her hand. She jerked at his zipper. His eyes flew open and he started to pull back. Shaking her head, Jill lodged her other hand on his face and held him to her. She didn't say a word, she just shook her head.
They didn't need words. Not in that second. No words. He was ready. She found him slick and ready and hot. He made a sound as she touched him. He made a small sound of need. And she nodded. She nodded.
She tilted her mouth to his and said, "Hurry. Please. Hurry."
Jesus Christ.
His eyes volleyed over her face. It was so wrong.
It was so wrong.
It didn't matter.
He wanted to fuck her so badly it was nearly PAINFUL. He was hurting. His goddamn bones hurt from it.
He breathed, harsh, "Jill..."
"Leon...now. Please. Please."
Jesus.
He should stop. They should stop.
His heart was hammering so hard.
He knew he wasn't going to stop.
He ducked and his hands gripped the backs of her thighs. Jill made a little cry he lifted her. Her hands shifted and grabbed his face. The wall hit her back and was cold. But he wasn't cold.
She wasn't cold.
She was dying. The thing in him raised his body temperature anyway. But the need between them was insane. It burned. It needed an outlet. It needed a way out.
Jill grabbed twin handfuls of his hair, Leon shoved her against the wall and stole her breath, and she gasped, "Now."
His blood HURT. He was so hot. She was so hot.
He needed her.
He echoed it, gravelly and low, "Now."
She was so wet against the throbbing length of him. Wet. Now.
It was wrong.
It was so right it was hurting them.
The silky little nothing she wore shifted around her thighs, she jerked his head back to take his mouth, and he plunged into her waiting body in a single hard thrust. It echoed, loud and sharp, it caught like wildfire as her body absorbed and swallowed him. She closed around him like a wet fist and he didn't wait, he took her mewling cry into his mouth, and surged into her so thick and fast it robbed sounds of need from both of them.
She was ready for him. More then. Engorged, slick, hot – her body begged even as it offered. It took each hammering thrust of him into the milking heat of the culmination of their greed for each other. He cursed, she cried out sharp and high, and the slapping thunder of flesh filled the flickering room. She surged against him, demanding, commanding - taking even as she offered.
It was his pants still hanging around his hips and the thing she wore hiked up her thighs. It was dirty and raw and so fast and consuming it left nothing but flesh and fucking and feral need. And it didn't last long. It couldn't. Even as the announcement told them they had thirty seconds left until the power rerouted, she came apart around his thrusting body.
Her thighs clenched, her body bowed, her cry was swallowed by his raping tongue and he rode her through the wet burst of her orgasm. She humped as she came, gasping, her strong thighs riding and rising against his plunging body. Her fisting hands drove his mouth harder into hers as he answered the need of it, he grunted, she gasped, and he plowed into her so hard it drove a cry from them both as he dumped his greed for her into her spasming heat.
Her body swallowed the spurting need of him like she was born for it.
He was shaking. She was quaking and clenching around him. They clung to each other, sweaty and spasming.
And the announcement told them the power had been successfully rerouted.
The door buzzed loudly and opened with a mechanical hiss of locks releasing and shutter rising.
Her legs slid down his. Her hand shot between her legs to cup and feel the slick evidence of their coupling there and he zipped himself up. It was…it was…it was the single most gratifying two minutes of her entire life.
Flushed, they looked at each other with hooded eyes while they panted.
The shame of forcing him into it spilled from her in a small sound of horror. Jill breathed, gently, "….I'm so sorry."
His hand shot out and grabbed her face. He dragged her forward and kissed her, wet and slick and deep. She moaned into his mouth and curved into his body. He let her go after a long moment and his answer was low, gruff, and hard. "No sorry. Ever. I look sorry to you?"
"No..."
"Yeah. No sorry. Stay with me, Jill. Now."
His hand slid over hers where it pressed between her legs. They both touched the slick wet of their joining. It was possessive. For both of them. They both watched it echoed in the other's face.
"Yeah," He breathed it, sharp, "No sorry. Ever. You hear me?"
Jill nodded, fast. Her skin was throbbing for him. "I hear you. I l—"
His eyes shifted, just a little, just a bit…over her right shoulder.
She saw the horror on his face. She turned and saw the reason.
It was one of the things alright. But it wasn't in a robe. It wasn't dressed at all. And it wasn't human. It didn't even try to be.
It was eight feet tall. It was a naked skull with glowing red eyes and exposed bone and claws. It had a whipping tail made of sharp black bone and razor taloned death. The exposed ribcage seemed so frail and empty without muscle or sinew or skin. The legs and the feet were almost avian in nature, offering a nearly delicate way of walking for something so big and horrible and terrifying.
It didn't wait. It rushed them.
Jill dropped as the tail whipped over their heads. Leon threw himself back into a beautiful flip and the tail slapped at the empty air where he'd been. Jill rolled right and broke into a run.
She turned as Leon swung the scythe at it.
And the goddamn blade hit it, shrieked in protest, and glanced off the skeletal form with a clang and spark of metal on metal.
METAL.
Was the goddamn thing impenetrable?
Leon must have had the same thought because he rushed, dropped the scythe, and slid between its bowed legs. It was a power slide. It was kinda brilliant and pretty beautiful to see. It was like he was stealing home or something.
He caught her as he came out of the slide and grabbed her hand.
They ran for the open door together, no hesitation.
The steel grate clanged beneath their feet as they ran. They raced together for the room with the elevator. They could hear it chasing them. It was SO FAST. They'd never make it.
Leon turned and jumped. Concerned, Jill skidded to a stop. But he was kicking the connection of one of the canisters on the wall. He was kicking it….so it would spill on the ground….and make the metal monster BRITTLE.
Jill had that moment again. That slap of surprise.
And her brain tossed a brief memory to her. A lunch with Chris where they'd been discussing him.
"He's practically a genius."
"You're kidding right?"
"No. Serious. He's fucking brilliant. You couldn't tell talking to the guy, for real, he acts like a doofus with as much common sense as a toddler…but he's known for his improvisation."
And she'd seen it.
More than once.
He gave one final kick to the canister and leaped down. Jill offered him the pistol but he shook his head and swung the shotgun from his back. She backed up, the thing came charging, and the canister hit the floor.
The pressure sent it spinning madly. It spilled as it spun, throwing freezing gas around it. It hit the walls and the floor…and the thing that raced across the freezing burst toward them. It was instantly frozen. It stopped, blinking those flashing red eyes, and it was stuck there – as if someone had hit pause on the great remote control of the universe.
Leon mused, "Yeah. Bigger doesn't mean better you mother fucker."
He shot it until the shotgun clicked empty. Jill echoed him with the handgun. It screamed. It WORKED. Because each bullet struck and blew pieces of it away.
But it wasn't going to die that easily.
It started shaking.
Leon backed up, reloading. He said, "Run Jill. To the elevator."
"I won't leave you."
"I said RUN JILL! NOW!"
She ran.
She ran while he stayed behind and started shooting it.
She ran because she knew there was another fucking container in the room before the elevator. She veered into the room and ran for the container on the left. Grabbing it, Jill started jerking.
The door burst open and Leon didn't come through it.
Not him.
The nasty monster.
It ran at her, she jerked the cannister free, and threw it down. And it was hit with the full blast of gas as the canister burst and throw freezing tendrils all around them. It nearly got her as she stumbled back and into the far wall.
She shot it full of rounds while it stood there, blinking uselessly at her.
When she was empty, she turned and ran from the room. She ran while her heart pounded. She looked for Leon and found no one. She looked for a body and saw nothing.
So she kept on running.
Her feet carried her into the room with the elevator. She grabbed the first cannister on the wall and jerked, jerked, jerked. The thing burst into the room with her, shrieking, and the canister came free to throw gas everywhere. It was halted in mid-shriek. Its claw was an INCH from her nose.
Horrified, Jill hit the floor on her butt, gasping.
She crab scrambled back, looking for anything to fight it while it was frozen.
And it was starting to unthaw.
She was FUCKED.
Its arm was thawed out enough to raise for the killing blow. It went above its flashing red eyes and swung down to end her. And it stopped.
It halted.
It halted like someone had flicked a switch.
She heard the meaty THWACK of noise. She heard the brittle tinkle of musical ice in a glass. And she watched from the floor as the scythe blade BURST through the frozen body in a perfect arch. It bisected the thing across the middle, separating it into two perfect pieces. As they fell, the scythe came down again and obliterated the red eyes and naked skull.
Leon hacked it to pieces while it stared, uselessly, frozen where it lay – decimated.
The silence was so loud when he finished.
And then the elevator behind Jill beeped and opened, offering them the way out.
The pieces of the dead monster were smoking and still around them. Leon, gripping the scythe in one sweaty palm, offered her the other. Jill took it, silent, and he helped her to her feet.
She breathed, "You said to leave you."
He held her look, panting from the exertion of hacking their opponent to death. "Yeah. I needed it to chase you. So I could get this goddamn thing and finish it."
Jill nodded. She nodded twice more.
She nodded and realized she was breathing too fast.
She was panicking a little. Which was interesting.
And unlike her.
She'd never really been her self since she'd met him. Not really. He was stealing the pieces of her and hacking them away while she waited, frozen, brittle …for him to end her.
She'd just fucked Leon Kennedy against the dirty wall in this god forsaken hell hole.
Who was she?
Her eyes turned up to his face again. He was watching her, so quietly. What was in his head? What was on his face? He looked so calm. He looked so perfect. His face, that hair, his eyes…who was he really? And why was she so wrapped up in him?
She'd just fucked Leon Kennedy against a dirty wall in the middle of the greatest fight of their lives. Who was she!?
Leon said, gently, "Are you ok? I saw you on your ass when I came in here and nearly shit myself with fear."
Jill breathed, "….I'm ok. I think I'm ok."
"You think?"
She turned toward him. Her hand caught the scythe and shook it free. He dropped it with a clang to the steel beneath them and caught her against him. They kissed like they'd been dying for it.
Who were they!?
She didn't know.
He didn't either.
It didn't matter anymore.
They were here. They were together. They were alive.
And they were crazy for each other.
However it ended, that part remained true. Maybe the only truth they had. Jill tried to feel regret or upset or anything about fucking Leon Kennedy against the wall in a dirty hell hole…she tried to feel anything but thrilled about it.
And she couldn't. She wanted to do it again.
Whoever she was, she was the girl in love with Leon Kennedy. And maybe that ended with her dead in a hell hole impaled on spikes. Or sacrificed to perverted gods by psychos. Or lost in the dark to be eaten by killer bugs. Maybe it did.
But it had him in it.
And all she knew was that she'd rather be here, with him, lost in the dark…then safe somewhere out there in the world without him.
Who were they?
They were the former heroes of Raccoon City. They were survivors. They were two people just trying to get by. Two people just trying to remember why they were fighting and what they were fighting for. Two people who were trying so hard to just keep going. And they'd taken two minutes from that fight to touch each other, to taste each other, and LOVE.
They were going to get out of this mess. They were going to get out and go on and figure out what was happening between them. They were going to stay ALIVE.
And they were going to do it…together.