Penumbra:
Shadows Collide
X:
Leviathan
Penumbra - the shadow cast by two objects colliding - as in during an eclipse.
Africa - 2010
The crackle and stench of fire and flesh tickled inside the nose like a tongue of made of taunting torture. She didn't lift a hand to rub at the tickle. She couldn't. Her mind was aware of it, but her hand wouldn't cooperate. Instead, she stood over the burning pile of corpses while the flickering flames reflected in the empty blue of her eyes.
It echoed in the sky above her, curling tendrils of smoke making their way toward the heavens as if crying for grace from a god that had long since abandoned this place. She watched a man attempt to crawl from the pile, somehow still screaming even as he burned away to nothing. She could shoot him, give him mercy, put him out of his misery.
But her hand wouldn't move to do that either.
Because her hand wasn't her own. And hadn't been in a long time.
The long cascade of her blonde hair curled in the wind around her shoulders and narrow waist illuminated like gold gone copper in a smelting pot. The thick strands hitched on her hips and her nose, slid against her cheeks and ass - a lover's caress. A hand echoed it, skimming against her hair as he joined her at the pyre, head tilted as he watched the bodies burn and the forsaken try to crawl to salvation. That gloved palm slid down the mane of her hair, petting like one might a dog, as he said, "You did well here, Jill. Not a single wound and not a single survivor."
The tail of her hair was often a form of control for him. He kept it long. He liked it long. He liked it useful. When she resisted, when the P-30 was out of her system, he used it like a leash to manipulate her. He jerked on it. He pulled her across the floor by it. He used to pain to enforce her compliance. In his own way, Wesker was never cruel. He didn't hit her. He didn't really hurt her. Just the hair. Just the pulling. Just the control.
And the commands.
Always the commands. Done with a straight face, with a dull voice, without a single note of concern, care, or inflection. He simply had no regard for the human race. He didn't hate them - no. Hate would denote an ability to feel anything at all about humanity. He simply saw them as disposable. What he killed, he killed with purpose. What he destroyed, he destroyed with plans. He was what he'd been created to be - a man seeking immortality through the mortals he annihilated on Earth. On one hand, she could feel sympathy for the orphan boy they'd taken and turned into a weapon.
On the other, she had no sympathy for the monster he'd become.
Jill said nothing, staring at the fire as it ate across ground and grain, destroyed flesh and bone, fire through walls and windows - eradicating homes and lives, obliterating memories of those who'd lived within. She watched the fire consume a portrait of a family on the pile of things with the bodies. Smiling faces, happy souls, lost now to a blazing scorched earth campaign of revenge and an almost religious crusade. Holy. Wesker thought he was holy. He felt he was divine. He thought he was saving the world.
He really believed he was a god.
There was a shout from behind them. Wesker turned superhuman fast; Jill was slower - turning as if without concern for what waited behind them. He caught a small girl around the throat as she rushed him with a knife. He lifted the little dirty urchin in the blue dress off her feet, eyeing her as she swiped wildly at him with the knife, dangling from his grip - choking to death- but still fighting. Her dark hair swirled around her face as she screamed wordlessly, slashing and stabbing - for all the good it would do.
Wesker's mouth tilted into a half smile. He mused, "Curious. Your family is dead, girl; why do you fight?"
The girl gurgled, trying to stab him in the throat. He spoke to Jill, watching the girl strangle in his grip. "Shall we toss her on the fire? Or keep her for a pet? I do enjoy the fire of resistance. I think such loyalty in the face of fear should be rewarded."
Jill spoke mechanically, the doll she'd become responding. "Whatever you like."
"Good answer." He patted Jill's back again like you might a dog who'd performed well. He glanced at the fire and back at the face of the strangling girl. In her head, Jill was screaming. Let her go...let her go. Just let her go. Just this once, let one go. She tried to telegraph wisdom to the girl who was dangling in his grip. She tried to send the message to play along, play the patsy, play the reluctant slave...but her eyes gave away nothing. And the girl looked at Jill like what she was - a horrible bitch who'd come to slaughter her family.
The girl decided for him. She stuck that knife into his shoulder. Her rage was infinite. Her need for revenge complete. The blade sank in, and Wesker didn't even flinch as he admonished, "Stupid humans. I offer you the chance for greatness, and you choose mediocrity and predictability. I look forward to the day evolution takes you all."
He tossed the girl onto the fire while Jill's head roared with denial.
Her screams blazed across the dirty sky. Jill's body jerked, a puppet severed from strings. The knife in her hand jammed hard and fast into Wesker's side, surprising him. She twisted it, screaming with the girl that burned - screaming with the need to finish him - even if it cost her her life. He backhanded her for it. The strike smacked her skin with a crack like thunder in the smoke thick air. She collapsed to her knees and hands on the blood-slick ground. She tried to crawl forward to grab for the girl, and Wesker snatched her ponytail, dragging her back, tilting her face up to him while the screams of that little girl bathed her ears in helpless horror.
He looked into her face and demanded, "Don't be predictable, Jill. Or you'll burn like the rest of them."
He shoved her back to her hands and knees and demanded, "Now watch. Watch what you've created. Watch the world burn to make way for the new one. Watch. And don't resist again."
Jill grabbed for the girl who burned. She grabbed for the fire.
The P-30 burst through her system to take away her control.
And her hand wasn't her own anymore.
So, she crouched on the bloody ground and watched the world burn.
Like she had with the Nemesis. Like she had at the Mansion. Like she had as she'd dove from the window to save Chris. Death, it seemed, was meant to stalk her - but never to release her. Even her death was not her own.
Two tears slipped from her eyes to spill onto her cheeks as that brave little girl finally, finally, finally stopped screaming. Inside, finally, Jill did the same.
San Franciso - Early Fall, 2014
The bed shifted in the moonlight. He rolled, going for the gun strapped to the headrest, and a hand snatched his again in mid-movement. Fast. She was so fast. It made his breath catch as she crawled atop him, fluid and free in the silvery streaks that poked through the clouds beyond the bed.
Softly, she implored, "Don't."
Did she think he'd shoot her? It was reactionary when his world shifted to grab for a weapon. It was just who he'd become. He relaxed his hand in her grip and looked at the wild fear on her face.
Responding to it, voice gruff but hard, he demanded, "What happened? Are you alright?"
Jill shook her head and urged, "There's no threat. No threat."
Relaxing a little but still concerned, Leon pressed, "What is it, Jill? What happened?"
She pulled his hand away from the headboard and pressed it into his chest. He let her, watching her face as she straddled his lap, her eyes flickering as they skimmed his features in the dark. "I had them shave my head when I got back from Africa."
Surprised at the confession, he kept his eyes on her face and said nothing as she talked. "In recovery, they were curious why I wanted to be fucking bald. I had them shave the whole damn thing like Ripley in Alien 3." She laughed sadly and shook her head as a tear escaped one eye and slid down her cheek. "I didn't want to see that shit anymore."
Softly, Leon queried, "Why?"
Her smile was self-deprecating as she laughed again with a tone rich with regret. "Because it was another chain that bound be to a person I didn't want to be anymore. This shitty haircut? It's more me than that fucking golden leash he made me wear."
Leon volleyed his gaze over hers. "Tell me."
Her voice broke as Jill confessed. "He used it like a lever when the drug wore off. He used it to force me to his will. I won't let anyone force me, Leon, ever again. I won't let them hold me down and use me. I won't be a dog. I won't be controlled. Do you understand me?"
Curious. She thought, somehow, that's what he wanted here. Or maybe...maybe she just saw that in everyone. She was traumatized, damaged, broken - but trying so hard to heal herself. What did she need here? Confession? Commiseration? Capitulation? He was good at reading people. It was his goddamn job. He was a master at studying the human condition and responding.
She was still a mystery. Because nothing about how she responded was the typical victim. She didn't fit in a box. She never really had, assumingly, and being a weapon at the will of a madman had somehow made her an entirely different breed of survivor. He eyed her in the dark and responded, "I'm not looking to control you, Jill. You're free. Free to go. Free to stay. Free."
Her eyes flickered. She shook her head as her voice lamented, "I'm never free. Never. Everyone, everywhere - wants something. So what do you want, Leon? What do you want from me? What? Because your kindness is killing me. So, just tell me - say it- so I can-"
She trailed off. He urged into the silence, "Can what? Hate me?"
Jill shook her head. He added, "I don't toss out sleeping women on the side of the road, Jill. And I don't bend them to my will. I'll say it again - you're free. I don't want a damn thing from you that you don't offer yourself. I don't fucking force women."
The insult in his tone had her whispering, "What if I force you? Can you stop me? Would you? I...I could kill you like this. Right now. And you think you can stop me, you do because you're good. Maybe the best I've ever seen. But I'm not- I haven't been- I'm more. I'm a monster, Leon. A monster. I can do things...I've done things...and you wouldn't understand. You can't. And you can't stop me. No one can. I have to make it right. I have to. Do you understand? I can't stop until I do...and I'm so tired."
Their eyes held as Jill confessed, "She won't stop screaming."
Softly, Leon demanded, "Who?"
Her eyes flickered again as she whispered, "The girl who tried to fight back. The girl who tried to survive. She's still on that fire burning...and I couldn't save her. Because my hands weren't my own. I wasn't me. I was...his. I can't be gone anymore. She won't stop screaming."
And just like that, he understood. The girl was real. The girl she spoke of was real. But how real? A memory? Or a figment of her guilty conscious that her mind had tossed up to represent herself? Was the girl in the fire someone else, or was it Jill? Either way, she couldn't save herself. She couldn't escape the fire. But she'd fought until the end, screaming, screaming, and still haunting the woman atop him to this day.
Feeling a roll of real sympathy, Leon shifted his free hand. He lifted it and wrapped it around the headboard, binding himself to it, letting her pin the other hand to his chest. Eyeing her in the darkness, he instructed, "Those hands? They're yours. I'm not forcing you, Jill, and I'm not fighting you. You're still you. You're still, Jill Valentine. But I can't tell you who that is now. I can't stop the screaming...but you can."
Desperately, she demanded, "How!?"
Softly, Leon told her, "By holding on."
Not letting go. They always told her to let go. Let go, Jill, it's over, Jill. It's done, Jill. Let it go. But not Leon. He didn't say let go. He said hold on. Voice breaking, Jill urged, "To what? I have nothing."
Into the tense air, he answered, "To me. Because I won't let you fade away. I won't let you give up. I don't know how. So hold onto me, Jill, if you need to. And I will help you figure out who you are now. I will help you find Jill Valentine."
Softly, Jill almost pleaded, "I'm so tired."
His eyes held hers as he urged, "Then lay down and sleep. I will make sure you do. Lay down and hold onto me. I won't let go."
Jill made a small sound of surrender. She shifted the blankets with her knees and legs. Her left hand pressed over his on the headboard. It pinned him there as her right slid over the nest of blankets that bound his lower legs. Her hand found him; it worked him, tugging on his dick until it answered her - rising like a leviathan from the sea of her despair to service her needs. She tucked it between her legs, ran it over her body that straddled and pinned him to the bed and lifted her hips.
She seated herself on him with a single swift stroke. The short cap of her hair shivered in the breeze from the open sliding door beside the bed. The smell of seawater surrounded them as she grabbed his other hand from his chest and lifted it, wrapping his palm around the headboard beside the other, binding him, holding him down. She rode - her hips and legs and body smooth and staggeringly beautiful in the moonlight.
The wet heat of her welcomed him, the sounds of her claiming like mouths suckling in the dark. She held his eyes as she claimed him, her ass rocking, her thighs lifting and lowering. The pace was slow and then faster, faster, swift, and merciless. She took him at his word. She took him at his promise. She took what she wanted from him. The slapping sounds of skin punctuated the crash of waves on the cliffside.
Pleasure cut like a double-edged sword between them. The panic on her face became need. The sympathy on his became hunger. They fucked in the dark like feral things, his body rising to meet hers and each desperate crash of her atop him. Sweat dewed on flesh. Breath panted, hers high and greedy, his low and lusty. Softly, Jill avowed in a whiny cry, "...oh, god..."
And he grunted, "...fuckkk..."
She did. She fucked like she fought- mercilessly and beautifully. Their eyes stayed pinned as his hands did. Her back arched over him, curling down, down, down until she laid claim to his mouth. Tongue and teeth, lips and sucking. A single desperate merging of mouths coupled with their clashing bodies. Her forehead pressed to his. Their eyes caught, and didn't relent.
Handfuls of moments. Minutes really. Nothing in the grand scheme of time. Nothing.
And everything.
The walls of her cunt squeezed around him like a mouth begging for his tongue. Leon grunted. Jill gasped, high and desperate. And then she shook. Her skin, her bones, her blood, and body - it shook and quivered, quaking like she was having a seizure. She whined, she whimpered, tears leaked down her cheeks as she released, as the orgasm thrust her crying into full-blown pleasure. She rode him through it, thighs clenching, eyes leaking, hands clutching like claws around his where she bound him.
Her mouth pressed to his as Jill pleaded wildly, "...please...please?"
And Leon tilted his head back so she could spear her tongue into his mouth as he gave her what she wanted. His hands seized around the metal, his hips thrust into her so hard it made her mewl into his mouth, and he bathed her insides with his own release. It rushed out him almost as fast as the groan that he spilled into her sucking lips. She tongued fucked him as he came, suckling at his mouth with a wild abandon that made him grunt, thrusting roughly into her waiting body through the edges of the orgasm.
As his body twitched to the finish, Jill jerked his hands off the headboard and tugged him into her. He rose from the bed to curl around her, clutching her to him as she did in response. They hugged on their knees, Jill crawling into his lap to curl around him as a monkey might, legs and arms swirling and seizing. When her head tilted and nuzzled at his, he turned his face to let her kiss him where they wrapped around each other on the bed like a human pretzel. His hands slid into her badly shorn hair and held on, tongue lapping and twirling in his mouth, in hers, in the shared space between.
When the shaking ended, Jill trembled, mouth sliding against his as she begged, "...oh...god...please."
He tried to pull her closer. He tried to merge their skin. He tried to pin her to him to hold her, not to own her, not to bind her, not to control her - to let her know she wasn't alone. Not anymore. She was safe. She was here. She was herself. She was here by choice. She was here because she wanted to be. He shifted her around in his lap until the half mast of his sticky dick found its way back into her body. He guided her hips into a rhythm, still fucking, still merging, still mating.
After moments of this, she locked her ankles behind his ass and sat completely atop him, putting that part of him as deep into her as it would go. Her hands peeled his hair back from his sweaty face as she tangled her fingers into his nape and ground her hips atop him. Hard. She wasn't gentle. The pressure built, her mouth opening on a whine, and his arms trembled with something that was part pain, part the most intense pleasure he'd never known. His dick ground against her cervix, finding the spongey center waiting for him, ready for him, and accepting.
His voice was a hoarse growl as he grunted, "... Jesus..."
And she whispered, "No...just Jill." And made him laugh.
They kissed once more wetly. Their octopus arms and legs curled and clutched, holding them together in a sweaty knot of skin until it was hard to determine where one ended and the other began. They stay curled together as the moonlight made a home on their wet flesh, and the sound of the ocean soothed them both to sleep.