He watched the seconds tick by on his watch, four, three, two, one. It had been 54 hours since he arrived, almost two and a half days, and an estimated 130 hours since the outbreak started. Thankfully he wasn't alone; he had run into a fellow researcher, Cinder Fall, a woman he had met back in Vrede, and after the two of them managed to restore power to the facility they found and saved an eight-year-old girl from the infected. Her name was Clementine Suzuki, she had been separated from her parents and Sin decided to try and find them no matter how unlikely it was that they were alive.
Cinder had set up a safe room in the rec room and kitchen area of the facility's dormitory with heavy furniture acting as barricades to prevent the doors from being opened. So far it was proving extremely effective.
Sin and Cinder took turns going into the facility to check for survivors or clues as to what happened while the other stayed behind to keep an eye on Clementine. Picking off the infected when possible and sealing rooms too dangerous to deal with, the two of them had effectively covered half the facility and eliminated a third of the estimated infected population. Originally Sin came to Mistral to find his friend who was missing in action, but now he couldn't ignore the facility. The infected had to be dealt with and not allowed to escape, but he couldn't allow himself to leave without a clue about Mark's fate or finding Clementine's parents.
Most of Sin's excursions into the facility involved going to the lab, he would gather supplies or files to take back to the safe room to look over to help him figure out how the outbreak happened. At first, he had it narrowed down to six candidates, but now he was down to three, the facility director, the head of security, and the dormitory custodian. According to the files, he found the three of them were the only ones sick before the outbreak, none of them however were shown to have early symptoms and the head of security was still going about his daily duties with the help of some basic antibiotics.
A sequence of lights flashed from an old pinball machine at the end of the bar counter, it had returned to life along with the facility's power. He had been here so many times in the past that he could still hear the sounds and pings of the machine, the most played song on the jukebox in the corner, the sound of the billiard balls as they clacked together. The sounds of people relaxing and having fun after a hard day sounds that might as well be from a different time. Now everything was silent save for the low hum of the HVAC and the low sound from the TV.
He reached for his bottle next to him, bringing it to his lips and tilting it up while keeping his eyes on the papers before him. Behind him Cinder sat on the couch reading a book while the girl slept next to her, the rec room's TV playing a kid's show, something about five teenagers that put on spandex suits and fought evil creatures with giant robots, she wasn't paying attention. Instead, her focus was always on Sin, silently watching him work, seeing for herself why he was held in such high regard by the world's experts, he hadn't slept at all in the past two days and hadn't lost a single step. She was impressed by his work ethic.
She used the book she was reading to hide her smirk, he was so absorbed in his work that she was easily able to sneak up on him twice in the last hour alone. He hadn't reacted or noticed her right next to him until she touched him, it was too easy and for now, that was all that was saving him was the fact that she was so amused and wanted to see how long she could make this last.
She got up from the couch and walked over to the bar watching as he sipped from the vodka bottle again, he had already admitted to his history of alcohol abuse, but even while drinking he was laser-focused on the work in front of him. Sitting next to him she asked him how long he was planning to pour over the same pages only to not get a response eliciting a chuckle from her. She reached for his drink at the same time he did finally getting a reaction from him, as he turned to see where the bottle had gone she began drinking from it.
Setting the bottle back on the bar counter she met his gaze, "Isn't it about time you took a break?" she asked, "You've been working nonstop for two days."
"Faster I figure this out the faster we'll get out of here" he answered, reaching for the bottle only for her to slide it away from him.
She grinned as she pulled the bottle away, "You should take a break" she suggested leaning closer to him, her hand finding its way to his thigh, "You'll burn yourself out if you keep it up."
Sin said, "Now you sound like Ivy" he turned back to his notes.
"Well" Cinder continued, "Rest is healthy for you and I'm sure the stress is getting to you as well" her hand crept further up his leg until it was at his waist.
Looking down at her hand he once again turned to face her, "You offering to help with that?" he asked, his speech slightly slurred.
Cinder grinned again, both her hands flying up to his shoulders, one holding him by the back of the neck as she pulled him forward. The space between them closed and her lips met his, taken by surprise Sin sat there giving Cinder all the time she needed to press forward pushing him further until his back met the edge of the bar counter allowing her to climb into his lap. Finally pulling away she stared into his eyes still smiling as she asked him if he felt any better.
"A bit I guess" he answered, "Not that I'm complaining, but what brought that on?"
She chuckled again, "Well you did comment that this was a cozy little home a couple of days ago and you and I have been having fun jabbing back and forth so I figured if we're going to be here a while longer, why not?"
"We won't be here that long" Sin reminded her.
Still, she smiled at him, "Are you sure? You promised her we won't leave until you find her parents, there's a lot of people to go through out there" she took a moment to look around the room, "You know, with just the three of us these supplies could last into next month if we are here that long eventually one of us is going to start feeling pent up."
Sin told her, "That's what the liquor is for."
She reached for the bottle, her alluring, amber eyes staying locked with his as she grabbed it, drinking from it again before setting it down and tipping it over to drain into the sink, "Oops" she said, her tone trying to tempt him.
The only sound was from the draining booze and the near-silent TV across the room, quiet enough for him to hear his heartbeat as their eyes remained locked with one another a game of who blinks first.
She leaned in close once more, "If anyone in this world deserves a break right now it would be you" her fingers slowly crawled up his chest as she spoke, each movement, each word trying to tempt him more and more.
She ran her fingers through his hair, her other hand taking his arm and guiding it to her waist as she slowly rocked herself in his lap, every action perfectly chosen to lure him in even more and when she felt his hand firmly grab her by the waist she knew she had him. Grinding against him once more she asked him what he was waiting for and with that final taunt had him wrapped around her finger. He pulled her against him kissing her, the hand on her waist sliding to wrap around her back, his other arm gliding down her side and to her leg and back up then down again, each time pushing the end of her outfit further up.
With each breath she rocked her hips against him, moaning with each movement, all a distraction as she turned the barstool so his back was once again against the counter. She leaned forward as they continued to kiss, their hands exploring one another all a distraction as she ran her fingers through his hair once more before reaching over the counter and silently pushing some of the documents off and into the sink before she stood up pulling him off the stool with her and leading him into the first bedroom.
A little over an hour later she returned to the rec room, wearing only a set of black lace underwear with red trims, Sin was asleep in the bedroom after their mutual stress relief. She silently returned to the bar counter checking the documents she pushed into the sink, making sure they were wet enough to be illegible, while she would prefer to remove all the documents and notes he had she didn't want to raise any suspicion she wasn't done having her fun just yet.
"Cinder?"
She turned around, seeing Clementine half-awake and rubbing her eyes.
"Want a drink?" Cinder asked the girl.
Watching the girl nod Cinder smiled going to the refrigerator in the kitchen where Sin had moved all the unopened bottles of water. She and Sin had taken all the food and opened drinks and placed them in trash bags taking them to a room on the third floor to keep the smell far away. They had to consider anything unsealed or previously used as contaminated which also meant no using the sink faucet either in the event the water was also tainted.
She handed Clementine the bottle before telling her to go back to sleep. She watched the girl drink from the bottle as she walked back to the couch and lay down once more, quickly falling back to sleep. Cinder wasn't keen on the idea of looking after her, but she didn't feel right leaving her alone in this place either.
"Why couldn't you be older," she thought as she watched the girl turn in her sleep, "At least then I could have just left you behind."
Her eyes narrowed into a sharp annoyed expression as she walked over to the couch and pulled the blanket over Clementine, softly tucking in the ends to prevent it from falling off her. She stood there for a moment leaning against the back of the couch as she watched the girl sleep, occasionally she would twitch and whimper as she dreamt and Cinder would find herself brushing her hair to calm her down. Last night she had argued with Sin that staying to look for the girl's parents was a waste of time, but he remained adamant and it became clear to her that it wasn't just an annoying moral obligation as she thought, the reason he was so irritatingly insistent on finding them was personal to him.
After making sure Clementine was asleep Sin told Cinder why he wanted to find them, regardless of what their fate was. He told her about Velvet, the girl he loved as if she was his daughter. He wasn't able to save her and he never got to see her parents after her death because of the state he put himself in. Hearing that he nearly drank himself to death multiple times took Cinder by surprise, but his demeanor and actions began to make sense to her after that. After he told her about Velvet he told her about the others, how he lost Peach, his friend Raven who just disappeared over a decade ago, and the woman he loved, Summer Rose.
The more he went on the more she realized that he believed each death, and each infection was on his shoulders for not developing a cure sooner. Out of grief and pain alone, he carried the world on his shoulders and each death added more weight.
"Idiot" she thought, "You don't owe the world anything. If they can't protect themselves then that's on them."
Pulling herself from the recent memory she returned to the bedroom sliding into the bed again. Her elbow held her up as she looked him over, for her the idea of risking everything to help someone else let alone save the world was as stupid as it could get.
"You're going to kill yourself with that mindset" she muttered as she turned to her other side to sleep.
She awoke the next morning seeing that Sin had already awakened and was likely back in the main room having discovered his notes and documents soaked and ruined in the sink. Stretching before getting dressed she returned to the main room to see Sin sitting at the bar once again with the illegible papers in front of him. Concealing her plotting smirk she approached him asking what happened.
"Found them in the sink" he answered, "Guess we moved them by accident last night."
Watching him take his pen opening a new notebook, she watched him close his eyes and slowly inhale a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds and then exhaling just as slowly. He inhaled again just as slowly and held it just as long before exhaling again focusing his mind before he started writing. She recognized the first few lines, the same ones from the papers she ruined, he was recreating his notes and the original files from memory.
Her eyes widened with surprise and frustration as she witnessed his pen flying across the paper, his eyes still closed recalling every word and footnote from memory alone, reviving the files she thought were gone. The display managed to enthrall her, it wasn't until he finished recreating the first page that she broke through her amazement and in the moment was only able to ask him how.
"When you dedicate your life to something" he began finally opening his eyes, "Things that involve that something have to become second nature to you. Part of being a researcher is to be able to recall what you write down or read. It's easier if it's something you did recently and even easier if it's something you obsess over."
"No wonder they talk about you like some kind of legend" she said, forcing a laugh, "You should still rest a bit, a break isn't going to kill anybody."
He replied, "Now you sound like Glynda."
He turned to a new page and she took the pen from him, "No more" she smiled with an idea to distract him, "You need to take a break, you won't be able to help anyone create a cure if you work yourself to death."
Sin turned to her with his hand out, "Pen please" he said.
Cinder hooked a finger over the collar of her dress, pulling it out and dropping the pen under it feeling it slide to a stop between her breasts.
"If you want it back" she cooed, "You'll have to fish it out."
She stepped back as he stood, "All work and no play" she taunted, leaning forward enough to give him a glimpse under her dress.
"Cinder" he began, "There's work to do."
"There will be time for that later" she replied quickly closing the gap between them, "Besides you said you wanted last night to happen again, why wait?"
He wrapped his arms around her, trapping her against him, "We're not going to die down here" he told her, "There will be plenty of time for that after we get out of here."
"We have time now" Cinder told him, "Before Clementine wakes up."
She leans her head in, kissing him, feeling his hands glide up her back and she in turn wrapped her arms around his. Hooking one of her legs around his waist she wanted to see how far she could push him, how far his concentration and workaholic nature would carry him, but most of all she wanted him wrapped around her finger.
Feeling one of his hands sliding up her dress she took the pen from her cleavage and threw it across the counter, an involuntary moan escaping her as he found a vulnerable spot at the base of her neck. She bit her lip as he attacked that spot again, but their moment of passion was brought to an end when they heard Clementine awaken with a hacking cough and raspy breathing.
Rushing over to the couch Sin turned the girl over, her breathing ragged and her skin paler than it was the night before. He picked her up, her clothes drenched in her own sweat as he carried her to the kitchen table to examine her under better light, her left eye red from burst blood vessels.
Cinder stood behind him, "She isn't" she began before Sin said they needed to get to the lab.
Rushing out of the safe room with Cinder in the lead, they returned to the lab activating the airtight locks when they entered. Sin laid Clementine on a table, quickly sterilizing a needle before taking a blood sample from her.
"Stay with her" he told Cinder as he ran to test her blood.
While Sin was running the blood test Cinder examined Clementine, she wasn't injured, no bite or scratch marks anywhere.
"Did you eat or drink anything other than what we gave you?" she asked her.
Clementine coughed again, "I…I was thirsty and refilled my bottle at the sink."
"Why?" Cinder asked, "There were dozens of bottles in the refrigerator."
The girl coughed again, "Sin said…we…needed to save…them" her breathing increasingly ragged with each breath.
Cinder set her down, "I'll be right back" she told her running to the nearby utility sink to get a water sample.
After running a quick water test she confirmed it was contaminated with the virus.
"I never infected the water supply" she looked back at Clementine who had started coughing more, each expulsion of air worse than the last until finally, she fainted.
"Sin!" Cinder yelled the moment she saw Clementine lose consciousness.
Sin ran back to their side to check Clementine's temperature, the thermometer registering a fever of 40.9 celsius.
"It's the water" Cinder told him, "She said she drank from the sink."
Sin returned to finish her blood test while Cinder tried to manage Clementine's fever, several minutes later Sin confirmed that she was infected.
"I never touched the water supply" Cinder said in her mind, retracing her actions to when she infected the dormitory janitor, her eyes widened, "Mercury!"
Her hands balled into fists, clenching hard enough for her nails to dig into her skin drawing blood. He was with her when their operation started, complaining the whole time about how bored he was.
"I told him to follow my orders exactly" she seethed in her mind.
"Why was she even here?" Cinder shook, "She's a child, children shouldn't be in a place like this."
Before Sin could answer Clementine coughed again, her strained breath struggling to escape her mouth, "Mom…my?" she opened her eyes as much as she could, her once hazel eyes had turned red, "Daddy?" she struggled to breathe while the fever caused her to hallucinate.
"We're here" Sin said sitting next to her forcing his voice to stay level, "It will be okay, you just need to rest, remember sleep is the best medicine."
Using some of the chemicals from around the lab Sin mixed a sedative and prepared to inject it into Clementine, but his hand wouldn't stop shaking. He tightened his hand around the syringe and clenched his teeth finally piercing her skin due to the delirium of the fever she didn't flinch as the needle pushed into her. Pushing the plunger Sin introduced the sedative into her body once fully injected he dropped the syringe to the floor and placed his ear against her chest and his fingers on her throat waiting for her pulse and heart to pump for the last time.
Standing up he turned away not even looking at Cinder who herself had fallen silent out of rage.
"She's gone" Sin said, his rage quickly boiling over as he grabbed the edge of the nearest table and with all his strength threw it across the room breaking multiple objects as he did.
The sound of the crashing table echoed through the room breaking Cinder from her trance, she looked at Clementine whispering an apology to her.
"It's different" Sin said unable to look at her or Clementine's body, "It's worse when it's a child."
"She shouldn't have been here" Cinder growled, "After the other facilities, why bring a child here? What were they thinking?"
"Come on" he told her, walking to the door.
"We're just going to leave her here?" Cinder asked.
"The infected can't be buried" he reminded her, "They'll contaminate the ground or if something digs them up and eats them it will transfer the virus."
Cinder spun around to face him, "If those things get in here they'll eat her."
Sin couldn't look at her, "Not if they're all dead" he said, "Let's get to security and activate sanitation" he unlocked the door, "Let's just purge this place and go home."
She heard it in his voice, the same thing she noticed when he told her about Velvet and a woman named Summer…defeat.
His name was spoken at every research facility around Remnant, there wasn't a single person in that line of work that didn't know his name. The one-man army was just one of the ways people would talk about him, a single man that does the work of an entire lab sometimes more. Some exaggerated him to be like a kind of legend, but as she spent time with him she saw they were just that, exaggerations. He was just a man, one who had dealt with more than any one person should, and even despite self-destructive, guilt-driven habits he still survived.
She followed him dispatching what few infected got in their way and once at security stood guard while he activated a level two sanitation which would consume the entire facility in flames, temperatures hot enough to burn even the virus to nothing before everything exploded. As they made their way to the exit she watched as he called for extraction, she remembered him telling her after the first night together that he was keeping in regular contact with a bullhead so when they were finally ready they could escape quickly.
Fighting their way to the exit she slowed down falling several steps behind him, once again tracing an imaginary bullseye on his back, she had her chance, she could kill him right now and escape alone. She raised her arms summoning her bow while he was distracted by the infected, one in the back and the biggest threat to her and the organization would be eliminated. Drawing the bowstring back she aimed and for the first time, she hesitated. She watched as the bullseye her mind drew on his back fell apart and disappeared and without understanding why lowered her weapon.
They escaped outside and to the landing platform, the airship arriving to retrieve them with less than a minute left before the facility purged and self-destructed. Both of them were quiet, not even speaking to the pilots as they returned to Beacon in Vale. Cinder bid farewell to Sin saying that she wanted to return to Vale and catch the next airship home.
"We'll see each other again" Sin finally spoke.
One arm wrapped around her other Cinder forced a smile, "I hope so" her smile dropping as she left and her anger returning, she was going to return home and have a thorough talk with Mercury for disobeying her.
Meanwhile, Sin went to speak to Ozpin to inform him of everything that happened only to be told that two hours after he landed in Anima Ozpin had sent Team RWBY on an assignment and after five days none of them have checked in or answered their scrolls.