A/N: DarkGothElegantGirl22: Thank you again! It is obsession, you're totally right. On both ends, in this case. Its a little scary really, their web of tangled emotion. You'll like this one. Wesker doesn't admit anything but he is starting to break. I'm glad you loved it! :)
thelexhex: Thank you! I do love constructive criticism! I'm sorry if it gets confusing, its probably my tendency to get distracted by all the shiny ideas showing. I'm still working on making it seamless and still fitting everything in. And honestly I agree with you, in game cannon Wesker only cares about himself. Any pairing is really a crack pairing, but I read The Serpent and the Wanderer and...its a fun dynamic to play with. The idea of the station cat came from another fic, called A cat named Albert...I think. But with his Cheshire-catlike qualities he's a bit different here. I hope you continue to enjoy it, and don't worry there will be no mushiness! :)
Welcome back to all y'all that have made it this far! Please review if you find time, k? And above all, enjoy!
First Cracks
Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,
Like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.
-Ferdinand, The Duchess of Malfi
An arm rips off with a hard snap, bloody spraying out to stain the white room. Jill slams the limb viciously into the final Majini's head, bludgeoning over and over. A brutal outlet for her repressed psyche.
A small defiance. He would hate the careless messiness of the kill. Jill is glad he can't see her face under the mask, won't know the feral smile. Another round of training ended.
Girl's gotta have some secrets left.
The heavy weight of unseen eyes at her still back a prodding reminder of who is watching behind reinforced glass. A weight missing for weeks, but back with a vengeance.
Wesker hasn't gotten close to her since that day, keeping a safe distance.
Who does he distrust more? Me or himself? Who is he trying to fool?
P30 keeps both the laughter and the taunts in, a forced self-preservation. An instinct she has lost, along with fear. Probably the most dangerous man in the world hiding from a girl with no free will who is at his command.
God's got a fucked up sense of humor, but he can tell one hell of a joke.
She walks carelessly through the bodies coating the floor, catching her cloak on protruding ribs. A short show of tight battlesuit before the cloak rips, shroud returned. Twisting the invisible knife in his flesh.
Pain for pain.
A move too plausibly accidental for a direct reprisal. Jill is fearless not stupid.
A cornered animal is the most dangerous kind.
Black boots face the one way-glass, hidden and invisible. Wincing at the mess unfolding before him, feline eyes unblinking.
Observation. A place he has not been in weeks.
He had not meant to come here. The plan was to send her out to the field and keep her there, safely away. Hiding.
It stings his pride.
One stupid girl won't rule here.
If her voice was silenced what was the harm? She had no free will. A powerless opponent. What was he so worried about exactly? Why was he behaving as though she was the most dangerous creature in the compound?
What could a caged bird do? Nothing.
The tightness inside him isn't as easily convinced, the tension riding him hard for weeks growing stronger and stronger.
It would destroy him yet. Already this weakness had brought another variable to his plan. Another flaw.
Haste breeds mistakes.
He should kill her. A photo had found its way to the B.S.A.A, to Redfield. Chris the hero would come for her.
Would take the key to his new world. He will not allow it, defeat is not an option.
Defeat is never an option.
The file is laid on the small table, forgotten for the moment as he watches.
Jill beats the last Majini's head into pulp with its own arm, spraying blood everywhere. Soaking the cloak, making it cling to the small body underneath.
His breath catches slightly as she walks toward him – Does she know who watches? - and the cloak catches on bits of sharp bone, revealing for an instant a taunt body in a skin tight suit.
He wants more and less, to be closer and to shove her away. Which urge would win given the chance is a mystery, even to him.
One girl will not do this.
He punches a different button the mechanism crumbling under his fist. Broken. It was time for something new. Time to introduce her to the thing she had helped bring into being.
Fucking whore.
Part of him watches eager for her intestines to be spilled onto the floor. Another part has him holding his breath, spellbound by deadly grace.
The creature released she had never seen before, covered in ugly black tentacles like a pit of snakes. Medusa brought to life, freezing Jill in place still as stone.
Long enough to throw her across the room, shattering her mask, splitting her lip and breaking the illusion. Jill drags herself up, leaping and twisting to avoid another throw. Tossing the cloak over tentacled limbs for a moments distraction.
Is that a face...? This too was human once?
Human meant weakness, a place to strike. Jill doesn't pause to consider what the thought entails as black limbs splay towards her.
This was not a debate.
One of the Majini had carried an ax, one she had imbedded in the wall to the left, behind whatever-the-hell-it-was.
Fear has long been beaten out of her. Jill leaps toward the creature without hesitation, feet impacting some pulsing organ-like part of it. The soft piece ruptures as the creature gives an unearthly wail. A tentacle lashes out and catches her back, the tough fabric ripping like paper.
That hurt it. Good.
The ax slips free of the wall with ease, P30 fueling her aching muscles. The blade connects with the face, exploding viscous fluid as the thing slumps to the ground.
What was that?
A door clicks open behind her.
"Surviving as always Jill. You could be related to a cockroach." The thud of boots comes closer, she can feel the burning weight of eyes on the long expanse of bare back where her battle suit had ripped free.
P30 holds the shiver in. She is grateful.
"Beautiful wasn't it? It will bind with the DNA of the worthy and wipe out the rest. A race of superhumans, a new pinnacle of evolution." His voice echoes in the vaulted room, a sermon for a captive audience. As charismatic and mesmerizing as any she remembered from long ago.
Albert Wesker was a natural leader, when he talked it was so easy to listen.
To agree.
Jill does not meet his covered eyes as he comes to a stop in front of her, keeping her steady gaze at neck level. Whatever response he wants, she'll be damned before he gets it.
"Your precious Chris is looking for you. I could kill you now and send him pieces of your body, break his spirit."
Hope swells in her chest as guilt burns in her gut, and above all worry mounts her. Can Chris really defeat this man? This man who has given himself strength beyond what mortals should ever touch?
Chris is alive! He's looking for me! And I haven't thought of him in so long...why haven't I thought of him?
"It's your fucking fault you stupid cunt. You were careless in the field. I should kill you for endangering my plans."
The sound of his pacing is loud in the silent room. Jill holds her breath, unready to die now when Chris is coming for her, when a light is finally at the end of this dark tunnel. Wesker continues talking, uncaring of her turmoil. Forgetting she is even there.
"But your antibodies made this possible. The Ouroboros virus. The product of your tenacity and my brilliance. Our child. You are the mother of my new world Jill. I cannot deny that."
Mockery and disgust in his voice, lips curling in distaste. Anger radiates from him. The air is thick.
"When Chris Redfield comes for you he will die. He should have died in the mansion and spared us all this trouble. The New World will be so much more than this. Why can't you stupid humans understand?"
A muscle jumps visibly in his neck, jaw tense. A gloved hand graps her chin hard between steady fingers, roughly angling her face upward.
For once Jill is glad his eyes are hidden. She is afraid of what would be in them, afraid of the rage driving him now.
"Think of it. A world not bloated by corruption, not encumbered by lethargic humans eating, sleeping, and getting fat. Worthless creatures who won't even raise a hand to survive as long as someone pays them." The sibilant voice is ripe with contempt, a snort escaping him. Wesker holds her small face in one hand, but her eyes cant sideways. Away, anywhere but the madman in front of her.
Trying to hide the small parts she has left of her soul.
Abruptly the dark glasses are removed, hellfire eyes glowing dully.
"Look at me."
Jill doesn't want to, doesn't want to see whatever is in those eyes. Doesn't want him to see that she has thought the same thing before. When Bravo squad was newly dead, and Joe Frost was ripped to shreds before her eyes and no one was held accountable for their screaming end.
When she had told everyone there were fucking flesh eating things out there and all she got was laughter and derision.
P30 gives her no choice.
Feline eyes burn and rage, a monk staring at a stripper, and some strange light she can't place. Those eyes look through her, pierce her heart with their sharp tip. Wringing bloody drops for the man who killed hundreds.
"You think I'm evil, but the world needs this. If so many of your "innocent people" had stood up and fought for survival, had put a stop to this research so many had been involved in do you think we would be here now?"
Hot leather bites into her face, and blood trickles down her chip from the split lip on to it. Jill tries desperately to hold the bitter, tired part of her out of her eyes. The part that wants everyone to fucking pay for not listening after the mansion and again after Racoon. To pay for being able to continue their stupid daily lives without the nightmares.
Who cared about the price of gas or Justin Beiber when the dead walked?
Small white teeth sink into her bleeding lip without thinking, and his eyes flicker down to her mouth, staying for a long moment. His throat works in a swallow.
"Umbrella had been creating these things for years. This isn't new, so many have been part of it. Can you really call me evil for wanting a better world? For trying to make it? Answer me."
The tone tries for mocking but fails, coming out demanding and deep, tinged with a husky desire laid bare. Control slipping.
"Answer me."
Claws twist on her heart, P30 squeezing the reply out of her. The ugly truth laying plain for all to see.
"No. I can't. Sometimes I think the same." The words are bits of her sacrificed soul.
But then I think of Joe, Chris, Barry, and STARS and how hard we fought and how much we believed in our Captain. And I think that when you betray what good is left, what right do you have to a better world? Couldn't you see it was there all along?
The rest of her answer thrashes in her chest, P30's iron grip a vice. Jill can't force them out, can't vocalize the distinction she needs to make. Tears slide down her face.
No. I'm not like you. I'm not like you. I can't be.
Wesker stares, mouth open, shock obvious in fiery eyes. Still as stone, glove still gripping her face. An answer he had not expected.
Almost as if he had forgotten she could speak.
For long minutes they stand as though carved from stone. Tears mix with the blood on his black glove, washing it clean.
Blue eyes finally slide shut, the thrashing inside of her finally stronger than the claws on her heart. Too little too late. The hot hand supporting her face is gone and she slumps against a hard body. Lips grazing his neck, hands clinging.
A his pulse jumps visibly in front of her face, body tense under small hands. The cracking of his control almost audible.
One gloved hand twists in blond hair, jerking her head back before demanding lips come down hard on her own, a tongue shoved roughly into her mouth.
Jill doesn't hesitate, giving back just as fiercely. Scraping small white teeth over the tongue in her mouth. Pouring all the suppressed rage, frustration, and hate into this kiss he will hate himself for later. The only punishment she can use against him.
I'm going to make you love this. I'm a fucking monkey you'll try to scrub off yourself later motherfucker but you're going to keep coming back for this that you hate.
Her right hand slides up to fist in perfect blond hair as her left caresses hard features, smearing him with gore. She bites down hard on his lower lip, tasting blood, making him groan low in his chest.
As quickly as it starts the kiss ends, she is shoved roughly away hitting the floor hard. Jill gets a glimpse of a panicked face as he disappears out the door as fast as inhuman speed will carry him.
A small pale body lays on the bloody floor, smiling through her tears.
A black cat bumps her wet face, purring.
She has made Albert Wesker run. It doesn't happen everyday.
...each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves.
-Laura Esquivel
A/N: Almost to the end of Part 1. Review if you like!