happy last day of ace week 2022, everbody thats reading this on that day! Ethan's caedsexual and biromantic! whoo!


Last night, Ethan Winters dreamt of his daughter. At the time, he was dreading the fact that he, once again, was in Castle Dimitrescu. It had been sixteen years, but he figured what'd happened to him wasn't something he'd ever just forget and get over, no matter how much time passed. He'd take the memories of what happened back then to his grave— if he ever died again.

He wasn't actually sure if he could die; technically, he was already dead. His real body, his real self, his first self(he didn't really know what to call it) had turned to dust and blown up along with the entire village controlled by Miranda sixteen years ago. This body, which didn't seem to age or get bruised for very long, looked just like his old one. Blonde, fair skin, broad nose and thin lips. His hands had been the only thing to come back still scarred. He'd be forever without those two fingers, but he managed now. When he slithered out from under the destruction, naked and alone, he'd been befuddled and amnesiac. It had taken days for Redfield to find him, and months after that for him to get a new identity and a place to stay. His memory was slow in coming back, and sensations were finally returning to his body—

Returning. Returning wasn't a good word. Generated. His body had begun to generate sensations for the first time.

—and the first one to come back was hunger. He was starving. Then pain. Earth-shattering, debilitating pain. Not from the starvation, which his body had been repeatedly restoring itself against for months on end, but from the memories he had been gradually gaining back: Mia. Rose. Mia. Rose. The Castle Dimitrescu. Werewolves. Crazy talking dolls. Heisenberg. Dying. Mia. Losing his hand. Rose. Losing Rose. Finding Rose. The realization that he hadn't seen Mia before he died. Didn't know if she was okay. Didn't know if she had Rose. Dying. Dying. Dying.

His fridge had been stocked, and he remembered eating everything in it.

He was able to keep his name. Apparently, Ethan Winters was a common enough name to have. Everything else was taken away from him. His wife, his kid, his job. His home. And now he was left with only his name and body.

He was in the UK. England. He had a small one bedroom apartment, fully furnished, and a desk job at some place they smuggled him into, no questions asked. He wasn't allowed to speak with his family ever again. He was given a new life, so he used it. He went to therapy for the PTSD, took prescription sleeping pills that didn't work, went to his job, went home, stayed up watching television or playing retro Nintendo games or reading books, and his body made sure that he got sleep at least every forty-eight hours against his will.

After a few years, he didn't have to mandatorily give Umbrella updates on his life and health; although he knew they were still watching him. Of course they were. But they were silent about it, and that's the best Ethan could ask for. The nightmares were ceaseless, but he got used to typing without his left pinky and promise finger. His mind would wander to Mia and Rose(everyday. Every. Single. Fucking. Day.), and he'd let the tears flow while he continued his work, or played his game, or read his book. He'd keep the lamp on at night, and flinch at shadows too dark in the corner, then he'd go out and buy nightlights. He'd switch the channel when horror movies came on, and feel his heart throb painfully in his chest when gunshots rang out on the television before he turned it off, then promptly failed to stop his head from filling with the horrifying monsters of his past. He shut down, the images of the mold forming out of the shadows on the ground and rising up to kill him, of the mold on his hands, in his ears, in his eyes, in his mouth, in his guts and skull and filling every inch of what he thought he was taking over every thought in his brain. He'd wake up in some part of the village, or in that goddamn house..! And he'd run, and run, and run, and wake up coughing and throwing up and sobbing. Then he'd go back to work, and he'd be used to typing with eight fingers.

When he slept, when his body finally gave up on him after working it to the bone to keep himself awake (setting an alarm every twenty minutes, drinking as much caffeine as he could goggle down, running on a treadmill he'd bought with his own hard-earned money) day in and day out, he often awoke in one of the houses. Moreau, Beneviento, Heisenberg's workshop, or, most usually, Castle Dimitrescu.

Years and years had passed, but he'd never forgotten the place after he got his memories back. He remembered every inch, every nook and cranny of the castle. He'd searched it so thoroughly, he could have made it himself the way it was etched into his mind. It was the place he knew the most outside of the Baker's house. Even with Heisenberg, he'd mostly run as fast as he could from place to place, trying to get as far as he could from any given enemy. Nightmares in the Heisenberg area of the village were mortifying but vague, blurry but still dangerous. Dimitrescu's castle held the emotional bandwidth to tear him apart. It seemed almost like it all started there.

When he saw his daughter, he immediately knew it was her. He hadn't seen her since she was half a year old, but he knew, looking into those eyes, seeing the blonde of her hair, the point of her chin. She was the perfect mix of him and Mia. She was perfect. She was Rose.

And she was scared.

He tried his best to guide her, but he wasn't there. For once, just at the one time he needed it, he wasn't a part of the dream, but stuck in a third person omniscient kind of view. He thought to her through walls, telling her to leave, to go while she still could, but she refused. He didn't even know how she got there, but now that she was, she was in danger. He could sense it. The beings that had chased him for years on end, now turning their attention to her. Images of her dying played over and over, in different places all over the house. Beings came up from the floor, out of coalesced chunks of her blood, moving and undulating all over the castle. He imagined guns, and ammo, and health kits, and they appeared before her. He could protect her, for just a little bit, in some small way. He could look after her. He could be here for her.

But he couldn't be her dad. He couldn't know her. He was a different person now. And so was she. She was grown, a young adult, with her own life. And she couldn't be distracted with something as awful as the clone of someone who used to be her dad living all happy and uxorious in England without her. He couldn't risk her trying to find him, or worse, dying in this interconnection of their thoughts, however it may be happening. She had powers now, powers that she hated and didn't want to use but had to to get out of this world, and he had to hold in his astonishment to focus on helping her achieve that goal. He wanted her safe. He wanted her back home, with Mia, protected from this place. She shouldn't even be here— by all accounts, it should have been impossible; but Ethan had seen many impossible things in his life at this point, so what was one more thing?

He gave her a fake name. Michael. A character in his fiancé's current favorite book.

He guided her from place to place, leading her away from danger, then giving her items when she was forced to go into it.

But then he woke up.

.

He met Zander at a meet up in Westminster five years after he'd come back to life. He'd found that therapy was helpful in many areas of his health, although his body rejected most pills, and that he felt more comfortable in his body, made of mold or not, as he got acclimated to it. He journaled, and he drew art every once in a while, and he'd play the piano that his therapist had in her room. He went for runs, although they didn't do much for his molded heart. He even started trying dating again.

Those few dates were alright. The women were adequately attractive, none too many with apparent nasty personalities. The dates themselves went well. He'd take them for a nice dinner, maybe a movie, or a museum date. All ordinary, regular stuff. But then, when things would start to get intimate, when they were in his home or he in theirs, he'd start to get a sweat down his back. A fear would reach into his chest and pull at his heart from nowhere, and he had no idea what was wrong with him. He sensed danger, and everything in him was telling him to go, go, go, or that she needed to stop touching him, right there, right then. They all would leave, angry or confused, or he would leave, scared and confused, or even more confusingly, relieved. He didn't know what to call it. It would happen every single time. Every. Single. Time. He wasn't impotent, and he found all the girls quite attractive by the time he got them to his place, but he couldn't go through with it. It wasn't that he invited them over with the intention of touching them. It was usually for them to watch a movie, or for him to cook dinner for them, or even just to talk for longer. Yet, once things started to get intimate, once he would see a lustful look in her eye, or feel a hand reaching to pull at his clothes, he froze up; not in nervousness, but in terror. There was something about the way their hands felt on his stomach, or his legs, or down his back, that frightened him. Reminded him of much less titillating times. Made him feel awful and sick. He wondered if maybe it was because he wasn't fully over Mia, or because he'd been fully scarred by his day in the village.

His problem wasn't physical, that he could tell. When he spoke to his therapist about it, she said that it was normal for folks with trauma to experience a temporary lapse in sexual interest, and that, with time, he'd get used to the idea of touching again and could try again.

But his problem had never been with just touching. He didn't mind at all when he made out with Tinder date # 4 Sabrina. Cuddling up on the couch with Tinder date # 3 Caroline snuggling up into his side with his arms around her had felt great. Ethan had no issue with touching, with picnicking, with taking a stroll in the park hand in hand with any of these women. It was just sex. One night stands never ended well. He'd always felt like he'd wasted someone's time— and he had! He could still feel the sharp sting on his cheek from that one, years later.

And then three years passed, and nothing had changed. He didnt feel any interest toward sex. Even dreaded it, upon occasion. He even stopped dating for a while because of it. So, he still went to therapy, but he didn't bring it up. Those three years passed in the blink of an eye.

It had been nearing five years. Ethan had casually brought up amidst conversation in therapy that he still felt lonely. That he longed to have a body sleeping next to him when his body inevitably gave out for lack of sleep. He wanted to want to have sex, but hadn't the urge or libido for it since he'd been with Mia(He still missed her. God, did it hurt just to say her name aloud).

That day, he left therapy with a flyer in hand and a dubious set of thoughts. What could he possibly get from going to a asexual meet up? He knew the term, he had coworkers who were ace, although he'd never asked about it, and now he was expected to join a group like that? Why would he even be welcomed there, as a traumatized straight guy? It would be treating them as some kind of joke! Doing a cursory search later that night, and then again the following day, he thought without a doubt that he was nothing like these people.

He was truly broken, and these activists spent their entire lives proving they weren't.

The flyer went forgotten the next day and a half on the kitchen table, and on the last day, Ethan spent five minutes just looking at it.

He didn't decide to go until an hour before it started. The room was practically bare but for some tables and chairs, drinks and charcuterie were placed to one side of the room with music blasting from a speaker hooked up to someone's phone on the other. There were people from all kinds of walks of life there: an Asian woman who'd spent the last two years with distant family in South Africa, a enby in a wheelchair, some American who was in the UK for school. None of them cared whether he was straight(allo, they called it), or traumatized, or just curious. They welcomed questioners; that is, someone who was questioning their identity. And there were a ton of those kinds of people there, so he wasn't particularly alone. But he didn't have the heart to tell them that he wasn't one of those people; He was probably going to fail any expectations they had for him in that area. Midway through, he slowly backed out of the conversations.

There were some attractive women there, but he wasn't sure if this was the place to shoot his shot. He wasn't sure if it would come off as disrespectful. Maybe this was a safe space from that kind of thing. He didn't know. He didn't know anything. Being with someone who didn't care if he could have sex with them or not would be the best outcome from this situation, but he doubted he would get to that with anyone there that day. He was too out of his element. Too nervous.

Ethan found himself a corner to enjoy his drink in silence. Except, the corner was already occupied; in fact, all of them were. Only one didn't have a entire group of people chatting around it, bonding over shared experiences and catching up from earlier meetings. There was just one guy, back against the wall, ankles crossed with a red cup in his hand.

He was…well, he would have looked normal if not for the patches of white splattered across the dark skin of his face. His vitiligo reached from his right cheek to the top of his forehead, surrounding his right eye and the eyelid of his left eye. The right side of his mouth and chin also has a splotch of jagged white skin. His Afro was cut close at the sides and let loose in a curly square atop his head. He had on rectangular glasses, the rim almost hiding the small pink scar over his left eyebrow.

Ethan figured he could at least be a little bit social, so he stood a few steps next to him.

"Parties not really your thing?" He asked casually over the noise, taking a sip of his drink.

The man glanced at him and his plump lips upturned a bit at the edges. His cheekbones were high on his face, his chin square and strong. "You could say that. You?"

"I get out every once in a while." He said lying straight out of his ass. He didn't go to parties, ever. He didn't know anyone, and didn't make an effort to. He'd once been invited to a Christmas party by one of his female coworkers, and he'd gone, but it had been awkward— he didn't know any of his coworkers personally, and so he didn't have anything to talk to them about— so he'd left early. But he didn't want to sound lame around any of the people here. He already didn't fit in with their crowd as it was.

"Yeah? You ever been to one of these? I don't think I've seen you before."

"Oh, no, I'm just here to…" he trailed off, not knowing how to end that sentence. To see something sounded weird and, quite frankly, rude. Actually, he didn't know why he was there. "..maybe learn something."

The man let out a breath of laughter. "Well that's one reason to come here. I'm Zander, by the way." He held out his unoccupied hand. "He him."

"Ethan," Ethan replied, shaking his hand. "So you've been here before? How many have you gone to?"

"Heh, actually, this time around, I'm one of the hosts," Zander said.

Ethan's eyes went wide. "Oh!" He hadn't been expecting that. "So you're.."

"Graysexual, actually, yeah." His lips pulled up in a smile. He looked around Ethan's age. Young, late twenties early was a bit taller than him, but not by much. "And you are..?"

"Oh, no, I'm not," he waved his hand in some motion to the entire place and laughed. "At least, I don't think so."

"So you're questioning? Or maybe you've a relative who's acespec?"

"No! Well, it's kinda hard to explain…" Ethan said, knowing it was not hard at all. Would he be kicked out otherwise? Not that he was especially fond of being here, but who liked getting pushed out? But if he didn't have a reason to be here, a good reason, he felt like he would just be disrespecting the hosts' hard work, taking their food and drink. He wasn't particularly fond of the idea of saying his whole deal aloud here, anyway. It was…kinda embarrassing. But Zander was looking at him curiously, expectantly, and he rushed to say something. "You see, my therapist thought…But I'm not—… I'm just, in a rut, right now. Trauma, ya know?"

"Oh, so you think you might be caedsexual? Or they do?"

"What? No, I'm—" he started, then stopped. Caedsexual. That's the word she had used.

"I'm sorry, that must've been so rude of me," Zander said apologetically. "Regardless, you're welcome here, and you can ask me or that woman over there with the dyed black hair any questions you may have." He pointed to some woman in the crowd.

Ethan looked up caedsexual later when he got home. He'd spent most of the rest of that evening talking to Zander, and he gave Ethan his contact info in case he wanted to keep tabs on any more meetings, or just wanted to hang out.

Ethan took him up on that offer, and after a while, was glad to see he'd finally made a new friend.

It had been five years since he'd come back to life.

.

Zander was beside him, comforting him that morning he'd woken up from seeing his daughter. He'd thought it was just a dream, until it happened again when he went to sleep the next night. But before then, Zander made him breakfast, comforted him with some more kisses, and hugged him before he went off to work. Ethan watched him go, feeling more calm, but strange. Dread was rising in him again, and he knew it. He recognized its clutches.

.

It was the third time they hung out since the ace meet up. They'd just left a play at a local theatre, belly's fool and laughter in the air. Zander was walking him home, but really they'd just wanted an excuse to continue an earlier conversation. The streets were cold and damp, as they were to be at most times of the year. The steps on the cobblestone held a steady rhythm, the back alleys dark and empty but for them. It was surprising, to say the least. The laughter had stopped; the clobber of boots was now only off in the distance, the cold blocked out by Zander's body. His lips were soft.

It was chaste. There was no tongue. He didn't push forward, or try again. In fact, when he realized Ethan wasn't returning it, he moved back, dark brown eyes filled with worry and regret once he got a look at whatever face Ethan was making at the time. He couldn't remember, couldn't even remember the play they'd just watched. Zander apologized immediately. "I'm sorry, I..I thought, maybe.."

He thought immediately of Mia, and that this was cheating, but had to remind himself that no, Mia's gone, forever. I'll never see her again. That old life is in the past. And then he thought about the last time he kissed her, and how he couldn't remember if it had really been her or had been Miranda. He thought that he missed her, and that their first kiss had been just as, if maybe not more, awkward than this, but for completely different reasons. He thought that Zander was nice, and that he knew he was gay, and that maybe he'd accidentally lead Zander on. He thought I guess I never did tell him I was straight, and that he needed to say something or else he was gonna lose the only friend he'd managed to make in many, many, too many years.

He thought of all the messages they'd sent each other over ace forums, how Zander had helped him come to terms with his caedsexuality, made him comfortable with the idea that he may never want to have sex again. How they'd spent hours just talking to each other about random things, like they're jobs or the books they were reading. Zander was a librarian, and he did some writing on the side. He was often commissioned to write short stories for various anthologies and zines, both business and personal. He had a way with words in his writing that he didn't have in his social life. Even now, he'd seemed at a loss for words, horrified at what he'd done.

Ethan needed to say something. "No, it's not you, I just.." he thought for a second. "Got out of a long term relationship.." He realized that was a lie, so he said, "It's just that, I'm still not over my ex…" That was true, although not the whole truth.

Zander's hands were cupped over his mouth, his own misjudgement still striking him. "Oh."

"..wife." He let it out, flinching.

"Oh.."

"And, you know, I'm still figuring myself out and everything, and I've been so busy with that, and—"

"You don't have to come up with any excuses, Ethan, I understand—"

"—I have a kid."

They'd spoken over each other, but now Zander was silent, his eyes big and his hands in his coat pockets. "…Oh." He said, surprised. "You never told me you had a kid..?"

"It's cause she's not really mine, anymore," He frowned at the ground, hoping Zander would somehow get what he was trying to say without him saying it. "You know?" They were living a different life now, probably back in America. He didn't know where they were. Mia. Rose.

Rose…

He probably..wasn't her real father. He wasn't the Ethan who'd sired her. He was a pile of dust back in the village. This Ethan, with this new body formed of mold, only had his memories. He wasn't Rose's dad. Not really.

"I see…" Zander said, and they stood in silence for a few seconds. The wind was a whistle blowing, and the sounds of the soles of shoes hitting hard stone was still prevalent from outside the alley. "Are they still in America?"

He nodded, because what else could he do?

"Is that why you came to the UK? To get some space between you?"

He hadn't really chosen to stay here. He'd been dragged here along with Mia because Redfield and his soldiers forced him to. Because they had some shit planned for him from the start, and they owned him. They owned everything of his. "Look, I think you're a great guy," he'd said. "And you're a good kisser," he'd joked. Zander wasn't smiling, but he wasn't mad either. Sad, maybe. He knew where this was going. "I'm just..a mess..and I'm not really ready for anything serious..? Right now..?" That was sort of a lie. He had thought about getting a girlfriend from one of the meet ups multiple times, but he hadn't gone since that first time, and he'd been enjoying his one-friend social life for a few months now feeling quite satisfied. And at the same time, coming to terms with the asexual thing was also kinda staving him off from it. What if he did date one of them, and then his attraction came back? Would she break up with him? It was a possibility that varied from person to person, but just the idea made him not want to try. Then there was the fact that he was straight, which now Zander surely had figured out.

Zander nodded, avoiding eye contact and stepping back another step. "Well, I don't think you're a mess..for all that's worth." And then he smiled, and Ethan felt relief wash over him. "Can I still walk you home?"

"Definitely." Ethan didn't like being in the dark, and this backstreet was giving him Crime Alley vibes.

.

They went on as normal, for a while. Ethan told Zander a bit about his relationship with Mia, how they "fell out", how she took Rose and left him (technically true, if Redfield did what Ethan'd asked). How Rose was just a child the last time he'd seen her. She would've been nearing six then, Jesus Christ.

Zander asked him questions he didn't want to answer, so he didn't. The man never pushed, although his writer's instinct made him very curious. Ethan alluded to kidnapping, and that there was a reason he went to therapy, and that for sure made Zander close his mouth.

So things went on as normal, and they kept hanging out. Zander didn't make another move on him. It was soon after, maybe three weeks after the kiss, that Ethan realized that he was going on dates with him. Of course he misunderstood Ethan's intentions! Going back over their messages, and the wording Ethan used to invite him out, they totally could be read as him asking Zander out on a date. They went to dinner and a show, for Pete's sake! That's one of the most typically romantic dates there are!

Two years passed before Ethan got the courage to ask him out. Zander's hair had been dyed a dark blue, a fade leading up to his fro. Zander said something akin to about time, and this time Ethan made the first move, kissing him with way less tact and niceties than Zander had once done with him.

It's been nine years since then, and they are currently living together and engaged. He'd told Zander everything about him: about Mia, and Rose, and The Baker's, and Miranda. About Umbrella corp.

(Technically, he hadn't been the one to sign the legal documents saying he couldn't share what happened with anyone)

Zander believed him. He'd heard about Raccoon City, and about the village. He'd seen how Ethan could run without getting tired, or have a cut on his hand one hour and not in the next. It took him a while to get used to, but he did. And so he finally understood why Ethan had so much trauma. He finally understood why sometimes he didn't like even the softest touches, or the tiniest bit of darkness, or even slightly loud banging sounds. Everything reminded him of that time in his life where he was completely alone and afraid. Even the Duke had become an evil force in his nightmares, and the man had been nothing but kind to him.

It had been sixteen years. He had a new life, a new job that he actually liked, a to-be husband, and their new apartment where they lived together and slept together and ate breakfast together—

It had been sixteen years, and Rose was still in his dreams. Still as beautiful as the day he'd lost her. Even more so, even. She had her mom's face, and her dad's blonde hair, and her own unique set of problems and issues, her own life, her own power

The power to rule anything she wanted. The power to rule the entire world.

And she hated it. The only reason they'd had this opportunity to meet is because she wanted to get rid of it.

So he was going to help her.

No matter what it took.


i made so much stuff up out of theories and hcs and also just plain old fanfic stuff i wanted to write! i havent finished Roses DLC so im guessing that Michael is Ethan, since his consciousness would be in the mutamycete. also i needed something to post for the last day of ace week 2022, so i wrote all of this between last night and this morning.

i dont know when or if another chapter will go up, but please leave nice comments anyway! nice ones pls! i write other aspec things if youre interested in those, also im on twittr and tumblr at the same name! have a wonderful Asexual awareness day or week, whenever you are!