A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: Jill is blue to me. She wears it so often! Wesker...would probably be black. I think. You will probably like this chapter. Things are changing.
Please review guys. It's good for the soul. And enjoy.
Thorns
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.
-Romeo and Juliet 2.3
The marble balcony is the crown jewel of the African Mansion. Carved marble and iron from Italy, fashioned in intricate Renaissance style. A perfect view of the gardens and the stars.
Worthy of any Juliet, covered in climbing roses.
He is not devoted enough to be Romeo.
This is not a love story.
Hiding the rot and death with a shining facade. The wind dilutes the smell of decay. Of mortality.
Of Excella's perfume.
A tall body leans on iron bars wrought to look like roses, journal cast aside. Staring out into at a garden turned silvery with moonlight. A lonely figure.
Waiting.
She is supposed to return tonight. The voice of sinful secrets.
Where are you Jill?
He is carefully still, a strange tension in broad shoulders. Hellfire eyes naked and unreadable.
Wesker had locked her away. Stayed busy in labs far from her cell. Tortured her antibodies.
She was everywhere.
Thorn in his fucking side.
Plans had been rushed, she had been sent out earlier than intended. Why? He is careful. Rushing leads to mistakes. The stakes are too high.
"...You had beautiful eyes Al...I miss you..."
That voice. That fucking voice echos in his skull, makes a dead heart pound and blood flow. He dreams of tearing out her tongue. Of watching the light fade from blue eyes.
He dreams of small hands and soft lips. She had been covered hastily and sent early.
Tension has ridden his spine for days now.
He cannot escape. Under the lense of a microscope her cells taunt him, beating the best his Ouroboros can give. Surviving.
Valentine the cockroach.
It all ran back to her. The wild girl whose very cells defy him.
Key to Ouroboros.
Siren voice.
Leather rubs against iron as his grip tightens. Dependance he doesn't like. He needs no one. Wrests by force what he needs.
Force can't take this power. Can't silence the voice echoing in his mind.
It haunts him. Excella does not satisfy.
No. She will do this.
Distractions are not tolerated. Wesker does not accept defeat. Curses a dead cat.
Hellfire eyes stare, unseeing.
Movement in the garden catches his eye. A cowled figure in a clumsy mask.
Jill.
Red orbs stare up at him. The cloak swallows her small body, the mask obscures blue eyes. Windows of the past.
No longer Jill Valentine. His Valkyrie. Staring silently from the shadows.
Red-gold eyes glow dully. Unblinking.
Something relaxes.
No. She will not do this.
The balcony is high and the rose has thorns.
"Climb Jill."
White teeth in a perfect smile.
Africa is wild and beautiful. The land untamed by roads and skyskrapers. Harsh golden planes instead of staid green golf courses.
The old sheet flaps behind her as the grass flashes by. Startled gazelle leap away.
Muffled laughter rings in her mask. She may be a tamed hawk but this bird can still fly. Away from him P30 is somehow less.
Away from him she is almost Jill Valentine. Almost whole.
P30 is the cast holding her fragments in but the bloody mortar is drying. Standing on its own.
The cracks will never be erased but the shape is real. Frankenstein's monster will always have stitches.
Claws grip her heart, remind her of the mission. Meet Ricardo Irving.
The plane stretches out before her.
The bird of prey laughs behind a clumsy mask.
A black cat runs beside her.
Africa is wild and beautiful and it teaches this to its people.
A fairy tale prince stands on her balcony.
The lines of her favorite play quiver on the tip of her tongue.
Wherefore art thou Romeo?
The mask's red orbs glow in the dark.
Excella falters, breath coming in gasps. Scene ruined, lines forgotten.
This girl will not see her in such a state. Determined chin rises.
What is her name? Something short, simple from an American nursery rhyme about falling. Jack and...?
Jill.
Excella stays in the shadow of the mansion.
He will not see me as a little girl afraid of the dark.
Delicate cheeks burn.
"Hey Jilly." Joe's ragged half mouth tries to smile, rotting fingers hold her face. When did death become normal? When did rot cease to nauseate?
Bloody boots swing lazily, a grotesque child up a tree. Brad watches them with filmy eyes.
"You used to make great sandwiches you know? And could beat us all at pool..."
Days gone remembered so well but she feels so far from. Blond hair swings, a shake of denial.
"That Jill is dead Joe. I'm not her." Slippery fingers pull her closer. Rancid breath on her pale face.
"Yes you are." Viscous fluid on her forehead. The kiss of rotting lips. "You're Jill Valentine. Pool shark, good cook, cat lover, sometime pyromaniac, rear security officer, friend , and fighter. Remember Jill. This won't last forever."
What do the figments in her dreams know?
A dream and not a dream.
"All luck runs out eventually..."
Perhaps more than she.
"...Even bad."
Clumps of goo are in her hair. Left by ragged fingers.
"Jilly we're with you. Always."
Brad watches with filmy eyes. Bloody boots swing. Putrid lips brush her face.
"You are stong enough Jill."
Jill smiles.
Comforted.
A solitary tree in the safari, dark shape in gold grass.
A bird of prey sleeps in black branches under the stars.
If danger comes it is welcome. If she falls so be it.
Trivialities.
The wild things have no use for her tainted flesh. She has no use for it either.
Jill wakes to smug red-gold eyes and black fur.
If cats could smile.
A fire long thought dead slowly igniting.
"Hi Al."
She is almost Jill Valentine.
The air is thick and cold.
He breaths in a shallow staccato rhythm, throat tight.
She is bleeding on the roses. Painting them red.
His nose can't smell decay.
Nostrils flair. Chest rises and falls.
Blood runs down her hands.
These hands are steeped in blood. Her own and not her own. The skin is white but they will never be clean.
His cat eyes follow her movements, expression almost pained.
Floating dull glow in the dark.
Al's eyes. The cat and not the cat.
Should she have found a mouse for him? Is he like Al now?
Lips smile under the mask.
Blood pains the roses red. The cloaked girl gets ever higher.
Sharp ears can hear him breath, shallow and quick.
Dark smears on on the bannisters worthy of a vampire romance cover. Succubus sneaking in to steal an unwary soul.
The room is the pure dark of deep earth, the silence of many miles underground. The bed is dusty, barely used.
Humans need sleep. His need is equal to his humanity.
Remnants.
This was sanctuary from the sights, sounds, and smells.
Was sanctuary.
Tension has not left in days. Weeks.
Not even in sleep.
"Al? C'mere Al..."
Paperwork no one ever read laid in piles on a desk. His desk from days gone by.
He signs it anyway. Obsessed with details.
Somethings never change.
She has changed. Valentine was lightly tan and glowing then, dark hair shoulder length.
Blue eyes like his own.
"You work too hard Captain..."
Wesker is quick, faster at the draw than anyone in the R.P.D. The one every gunslinger tried to out do.
Lungs refuse to breath, quick muscles frozen.
Slender hands run down through blond hair, down broad shoulders. Massaging.
"Relax..."
This is wrong. He should be objecting. Demanding the voice be silent, the hands still.
Brilliant mind hazy. Good reasons existed. What were they? Something about regulations? And what else?
What else?
Light hands slide over a hard fluttering chest. Rising and falling in quick staccato rhythm.
Lips by a pale ear.
"You could let go..."
No.
Harsh hands are strangling the pillow, eyes no longer blue wide and startled.
No.
Power he won't share. Albert Wesker does not let go.
Of anything.
The mask slides off with ease. Blue windows glitter. The cloak is ragged, stained and ripped. Hands bleeding.
Snowy face pure, ironic innocence intact.
Juliet still.
Blue eyes are lit, unreadable and unblinking. Different.
She can't know. She can't.
It festers.
Can she?
Knowledge is power.
Her mouth opens and closes but no sound emerges. Fire consumes blue eyes, lips turn in a mocking smile.
Fire he thought dead.
"You have Al's eyes. He liked it when I talked. Do you? Do you purr now? Will you bring me zombie mice?"
That voice. Sinful secrets in the dark. Mocking. He is frozen lungs and wide eyes.
She has never spoken to him in that voice.
Pavlov's dog in his pants, hard and yearning. Could the rest of her live up to the voice? Would little hands make him gasp and moan? Would a small tongue find sensitive places?
What would it feel like?
What could that voice make him do?
Yes. Yes. Yes. All of the above stupid fucking bitch.
Gasoline poured on the fires of his rage.
Her throat is in his fist before she can blink, lifting a small body and pulling it close.
Lips almost touching. Fist tightening. His hands want to crush her voice box, watch those fucking eyes bulge. Deny it all.
"Stupid bitch." The words hiss out of his throat, clawing and biting. Lips brushing hers.
Burning on a face rabid with rage and frustration. Her eyes are wide and afraid. Long fingers tighten.
She will pay. Fucking bitch.
Part of him is pleased.
"...You had beautiful eyes Al..."
The crash as her limp form hits is loud in the stillness.
A hard chest collapses and expands, air rasping down a tight throat. Lips burning.
"You have Al's eyes."
He is not devoted enough to be Romeo.
A boot impacts a blond head.
She will not have this power.
Thudding boots echo as a door shuts.
Bleeding bird on the marble.
Wesker does not admit defeat.
Ever.
What would it feel like to let go?
This was not a love story.
Excella Gionne has never seen Albert Wesker so angry. So alive.
What did you do unworthy girl?
The silence amplifies, the night air a conductor of his rage.
Dark eyes watch. Reminded of a bloody bird at a cat's feet.
Golden skin shivers.
He looks the part of a fairy prince.
She has forgotten most fairy tales come from bloody roots.
The boogeymen are real little girl. The dark is alive.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
- Macbeth
A/N: Hey! Review! Tell me what you think.