A/N: Revising. It needs it. Enjoy.
Thank you to DarkGothElegantGirl22 for the review, its very much appreciated...wherever its going it won't be pretty.
The Pool of Tears
Alice - What do you mean by that? I ought to know who I am.
Absolum -Yes, you ought. Stupid girl.
Hurts. Why?
Are her eyes bleeding? Her ears? Liquid is leaking from her eyes. It must be blood. Pain brings blood, calls to it. She is steeped in blood and pain.
The world has never been this bright. Or are the flickers dimmed like the rest of her mind? The pieces fit once but she can't seem to find how. She screams at the light, calling for the darkness. Lashing out at anything and everything.
It hurts, why does it hurt?
The light she can dim, lashes closed tight. The sounds, the smells she can't. The wheezes of rancid air moving sounds like a gale, the scraping of pens nails on a chalk board. Jill swears she can feel the vibrations of so many heartbeats in the cold thing she lays on. The reek of humanity is oppressive, the scent of sterility overpowering. A packed sauna with bleach incense.
It hurts.
So much and so loud. Do the shapes behind her eyelids know how agonizing they are? How their voices make her head explode? Are they angry? Why the yelling? She screams, trying to drown their sounds with her own. So loud, so many voices, so many sounds. Where is the silence and the dark?
Things are burrowed in her chest, twisting. A shard glimmers but she can't hold onto it anymore, sharp edges painful in her fractured mind.
Where is Al?
"-sensory overload, P30 hasn't been perfected...maybe with more time..."
"-off the lights!"
"-sedative...get everyone out before...coma-"
Can't they wait their turn? Who can listen when they all talk at once? She screams louder, thrashes harder body flopping against restraints like a fish. Uncoordinated, jerky movements. Too fast and too far nothing quite as she remembers it should be. The thing buried in her arm slips out (IV?), she can smell her own blood as it permeates the room. The scent is wrong, sickly sweet festering beneath the surface.
Nothing fits. Why? It feels like this body isn't mine.
The voices might know. She tries to ask them, but the sounds lessen. Driven away by her shrieking voice. Lids open to black not dark enough, the lights are off but she still sees.
Wrong.
A rhythmic thudding breaks the silence. A funeral bell tolling to the witching hour. Liquid seeps from her eyes.
Venomous red gold eyes glow across the room. Sharp features. Haloed with blurriness he is the only thing she can bring into focus. He's missing something from her memories but not the ever present anger. Blood maybe?
He doesn't fit.
"Al?" The cat and not the cat. Floating eyes and white smile. A mouse should be dangling from those teeth.
Right eyes wrong body. Right body wrong eyes? Cats...witch's familiar...walkers inbetween...Gods...
"Captain?" Unreadable eyes, glittering like shards in a half-remembered dream. Flashes she can't catch.
WRONG.
"Concentrate on my voice. Ignore the other sounds." Ferryman for the dead and she has no coin for passage. His voice is like the eyes, burning into her. All she can hear is his voice nothing else.
Not even her own breathing. Things twisting in her chest, mind screaming in protest. Nothing in the world exists but them.
The first prickles of fear. The mouse is already dangling from those white teeth, squirming too late.
The shards of her mind cut deep but she grasps desperately and doesn't let go.
S.T.A.R.S. has two captains, but if you ask for the Captain everyone will know who you want. He is the architect of both Alpha and Bravo squads, the final say in every decision.
The God of S.T.A.R.S...everyone bring a sacrificial offering...
Jill tries very hard to like the man.
The Captain wields charisma like any other weapon, precisely and sparingly.
The girl at the hotel desk blushes at him with huge doe-like eyes, running a giddy hand through her hair. The Captain smiles back at her from behind his dark lenses, charm on full blast. A kid with a magnifying glass setting an ant on fire.
Jill shifts uncomfortably in the plush green chair, staring determinedly at the electric fireplace. The artfully rustic lobby is an airy public room. The expression on the girl's face belongs in a bedroom, hidden from her voyeuristic eyes.
She is the intruder in this scene, the dirty interloper.
The false flames flicker before her steady gaze, giving no heat but all the appearance of fire.
Like Wesker himself.
He only flirts to get something. I've never seen him even look at a girl twice. Or a guy either.
Irons had made the reservation for one room with a single double bed. Wesker was working on charming his way into two.
If it was Forest or Brad the desk girl would have company tonight...but the Captain doesn't do that...
The desk girl's voice takes on a breathy quality as a gloved hand brushes a stray hair behind her ear, pupils huge and dark. Thunder drowns out the sound of her boots as Jill slips quietly out the door, grateful for the distracting flashes of lightening.
The cement wall is cold as she leans against it, considering running out into the storm. Maybe hopping in a few puddles.
The chill in her bones has little to do with temperature.
The driving rain and dreary grey skies match Jill's mood perfectly. Driving the Captain to the district conference had been the longest, quietest ride of her life. A pin drop would have sounded like a bomb. Four hours of uncomfortable silence and stolen glances.
Albert Wesker is a man of many masks, all of them real and none of them real.
The charming face the girl behind the desk sees is mostly a lie; a very very good one.
She can't see his eyes.
Those blue eyes are dead lakes, unchanging. The skin on the back of Jill's neck crawls at the memory of the few times he has smiled without the dark glasses.
Jill wraps her arms around herself, trying to banish bone-deep cold.
For the guys the Captain's sunglasses are a never ending source of amusement. How he can wear them in the pitch black of night and not fall on his face is a constant source of speculation, the theories ranging from radioactive bites to a deal with the devil.
Jill is just glad she has an excuse to believe his false smiles. The chunks of blue ice set in his face never melt. In eight months she has never seen him bleed, cry, or laugh.
Around him she feels shrunken, a messy child in authority's presence.
He must not like me. Well, not that he likes anyone.
"Ready Miss Valentine?" The voice suddenly at her elbow is just tired, Wesker's approach silent as the grave. Any hint of lightheartedness gone from his sharp features, switched off as easily as a light. An actor off stage. He holds the door open for her, ever the practiced gentleman.
Shivers run down her skin.
I'll follow any of his orders but man he can be freaky as fuck.
Shouldering her own bag Jill moves toward the stairs after him, acutely aware of both the desk girl's territorial stare and the uncontrolled flicker of disgust on the Captain's face. He must be exhausted for his masks to be slipping so badly.
What's he really like?
Her muscles tense slightly when a hand comes to rest briefly on her elbow. Physical contact is another thing Wesker uses sparingly.
If looks could kill Jill would be dead on the spot.
Three flights up he stops in front of a door, pulling two keycards out of his pocket.
"All the rooms are full because of the conference. I'm afraid we're stuck with the reservation." He doesn't look at her, sliding the card into the slot. "If this makes you at all uncomfortable-"
"S'alright sir. Your virtue is safe with me."
Ever the gentleman he holds the door. She moves into the dark room, setting her bag down in the corner. He stays by the door, just a bit too still. Sharp features are naked when she turns back, sunglasses hanging from the pocket of his combat shirt.
Dead blue lakes, intelligence shining without the filter of emotion stare at her for a long moment. Measuring. A warm hand comes to rest carefully on her shoulder.
Funny I always think he should feel...different. Colder or warmer or just something not human. Weird.
"Irons was originally supposed to attend this conference with you." The tone is even and quiet, implication plain. Jill surveys the single double bed in the room, heart flopping in her chest.
Oh.
"I won't let the desk girl rape you either Captain."
The surprised laugh is the most genuine emotion she has ever seen from him besides coiled rage. For just a moment life sparks in dead eyes.
Jill tries very hard to like him.
Not even a scalding shower can leech the chill from her bones.
The silence on the ride back is almost companionable.
Dead white teeth peek through pale lips, a smile fully reaching his hellfire eyes.
I know what's missing.
The masks are gone. Albert Wesker doesn't feel the need to hide from her.
She is the sacrificial offering.
How fine you look when dressed in rage...
You're lucky, too. Red eyes suit so few.
- Cheshire cat
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