Resident Evil: Resurrection

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"I'll have you know," Carlos said as he returned from the bathroom with a good dozen little squares of tissue stuck to his face with dots of blood, "That those razors were crap." He sat down at the table with an annoyed aura about him, but Alice's laughter at his expense was still Alice's laughter, and he wasn't quite so irritated any more as he looked up and saw her smile. He was soon distracted, however, by something else that also made his guts twist with hunger. "Wow. Shit," he muttered as he looked over the spread before him. "This stuff was where again?"



"In the pantries... the sausages and venison were dried and hung on racks, pure and untouched. The vegetables were canned, and uh... the wine I found in a closet."



"You mean that locked closet with several deadbolts on it?" Carlos asked wryly, kind of liking an Alice that would break into a wine cabinet and having fun imagining the struggles she'd gone through of trying to do it in a polite way by picking the locks but failing at that, then a slightly less polite way of breaking the locks, before finally giving up and giving the door a swift kick, shattering it. "I thought I heard a crash while I was bathing."



Alice cleared her throat and said nothing, instead choosing to pour the wine. Carlos looked like... he looked like Carlos again, possibly even more so. His hair was clipped, his face was shaved and smooth - albeit dotted with cuts from a poor shave - his eyes seemed brighter and he was clean from head to toe. The scents of blood, infection and death were still faint upon his skin but those would never wash out, and neither would they from Alice either. He looked good, plain and simple. She had of course noticed the fine cut of his jaw line and the way his lips were curved perfectly for kissing back when they'd spent time hiding out together after he and the others had come to rescue her from imprisonment, when there was enough idle time to think of such things and the world hadn't come to an end yet. Now, though... now, she was also noticing the way his easygoing smile made her heart skip a beat when it flashed before her, or how his scent beyond those of a killer was slightly musky and spiced. She would give anything to go back and forever live in the simpler times of hiding out from Umbrella in the large cities and spending time with Angela, LJ, Jill and Carlos, but those were long gone and she had only the present.



"It's delicious," Carlos said through a mouthful. He hadn't even finished what was in his mouth before he brought another forkful into it, eating like a starved wolf as the little squares of paper fell off his face one by one and onto his lap. It was after she'd poured him his second glass of wine and she was sipping her own when he finally began to make real conversation. "So," he said offhandedly while sitting back, wiping off his mouth and letting out a long sigh of relief from having such a satisfying meal. "Are we ever going to talk about the kiss?"



Alice coughed hard, choking on the wine she'd had mid-swallow, and had to put down her glass hurriedly as she gasped and thumped her chest from the wine going down the wrong way. When she'd finally recovered and looked up at Carlos, he was still staring at her, and there was no hint of a joke at all in his eyes. A strange heat flamed at her cheeks as she cleared her throat one last time. "Well..." she began with a crack in her voice like a squeaky fifteen year old boy.



He lifted a hand and held it out with the palm facing her in the unspoken sign for her to stop. "It's fine," he said with a shake to his head, though there was still no disarming smile. If anything, she might have thought he perhaps looked a little disappointed. "You were saying goodbye and thought you'd never see me again. I get it. Lets not make this awkward; I really enjoy what we have just as it is."



Lets not make this awkward? It was certainly awkward now! Just saying it didn't change anything. Alice began to clear the table, as Carlos picked at the last of the food on his plate, not seeming to enjoy it quite as much any more. As she walked away from him and into the kitchen she could feel his eyes burning into her back and a little shiver ran down her spine. She couldn't hide the smile on her face though, as soon as he couldn't see it. Carlos... Carlos wanted her! Carlos saw her as more than a monster still, he still saw her as a woman to be desired! Alice put the dishes in the sink and her hands on the edge of it, staring down at them for a while before lifting her head and catching her reflection in a pot hanging over the sink. When something shifted behind her in her reflection, she let out a bark of aggression and spun around with a dirty knife, going for the jugular. She gasped when her wrist was caught and her heart leapt up into her throat as Carlos took one last step forward so that he was standing directly behind Alice, her back brushing up against his tattered combat vest. His hand squeezed just a little bit on her wrist and she let go of the knife, but it wasn't because of the squeeze, it was because his other hand was currently encircling her waist and pulling her closer. "Tell me honestly Alice," he said in the same tone that only Carlos could use with her, frank but not abrasive, "In a time where playing games really doesn't do any good and where you never know if the person you're fond of will still be alive in twenty four hours, I can't take silence for an answer. I lied; it isn't fine. While I do enjoy what we have just the way it is, that doesn't change the fact that I want more. I want you."



The shiver that had run down her spine earlier was back, but now it was a tremor that raced across her skin from head to toe, leaving the little hairs on the back of her neck and her arms standing upright. His words echoed in her mind's ear, again and again: I want you. They most certainly had the closely knit relationship of brothers in arms, and on top of that they had the relationship of wounded and attendant that seemed to cycle back and forth, but what he was calling for was above and beyond those, it brought a sexuality into their bond that Alice felt so out of touch with... it had been so long since any thoughts so selfish as her own pleasure had really taken root inside her. "Carlos," Alice whispered. It was not an innocent Mantra any longer. In saying his name with a thick tinge of something new in it, he had to know what her answer was, and hear it plainly in her voice; they'd been speaking intimately for long enough that he would understand. The kiss goodbye had truly been just that, a kiss goodbye; while he was handsome, brave and strong enough to make any girl swoon back then, Alice hadn't been thinking in that manner, it had just been a fond farewell and maybe a little bit of a guilt sewn into it. She remembered thinking that if he was going to die, she at least wanted to give him something pleasant before he went - a thank you, an I'm sorry, an I'll miss you, and I'll never forget you, all rolled into one kiss. The kiss that was burning against her throat now, however, was none of those things. Her head tilted back until it was resting on his shoulder as she felt his lips press to her skin, over sensitive scars, and his arm squeezed a little tighter around her waist, until her body was completely pushed up against his from behind. She was soaring with pleasure; Alice let her eyes drift shut as she pulled in a soft gasp and his warm lips moved higher, kissing along her jaw. The rushes of his breath on her neck were hot, but with each inhale he took it left her skin tingling and icy. "Nnn..." Alice couldn't even form words as his kisses burned across her cheek, moving closer and closer to her lips. He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and was leaning in to finally seal them together in a full kiss on the lips, when the shattering of glass downstairs made them both start, pulled crashing down from their own little world. "Carlos," she said immediately.



"I know," he replied. When there was danger about, they had little need for words any longer; they'd shared thoughts and minds, and they'd spent so much time together under fire and in combat that Alice and Carlos knew what positions to take and what the other would be doing while they both served as a tightly bound team of terrifying proportions. Carlos' heavy feet thundered down the stairs while Alice moved swiftly along the second floor to the balcony. Each of them had their weapons trained upon the creature trying to get into their sanctuary at the same time.



"Hey," the man said immediately, "Whoa, hey, yeah... sorry. Didn't know this place was occupied. I'll find another. Don't shoot, I'm going." His hands were high in the air as he backed off slowly, his gaze flicking between the two of them, hoping that neither of these angry looking people had an itchy trigger finger or anything against the Chinese. "See?" he said carefully. "I'm leaving. No harm done. I'm sorry."



Carlos looked up at the balcony at Alice, and she glanced down at him, before nodding. He lowered his gun and opened the front door. "You just startled us. Come in."



The man looked up at the scary lady up on the balcony but she was gone, and this guy in the doorway seemed like the army type, though his fatigues looked like they'd seen better days. "Do I know you from somewhere?" he mumbled while entering the building, rubbing his hands in the warmth. The immediate tension that rose in the man's body wasn't lost on him, so he decided to drop the subject as one fleeing man to another. "Nah, I'd remember talking to a scary sonofabitch like you," he said before watching this guy's lady friend come down the stairs. He couldn't help the head to toe glance he gave her, but he wasn't so crass as to follow it with a lecherous grin. "Man, thank you man. It's cold as hell out there and the temperature is steadily dropping. Snow tonight I think. Anybody else caught out there in this weather is gonna freeze to death way the hell before they'll ever get bitten by those... things."



"How many of them are there?" Alice countered immediately.



"How far away?" Carlos added urgently.



"Were they following you?"



"Were you seen?"



"Have you been in contact with any of them?"



"Where did you come from?"



"Whoa, hey, whoa." He put his hands up in the air again, backing away from the barrage of questions. "One at a time."



Alice stepped forward, and asked the most urgent questions first. "Were there any following you, and if so, how many and how far away?"



"Naw man, none following me for a long time now." He rolled up his sleeves as well, since that was the inevitable next question, then hiked up his pant cuffs as high as they could go. "See? No bite marks. Those motherfuckers couldn't get near me. I used to be an internationally beloved track star, and now I'm just some Chinese dude in bad clothes that can run real fast. Last I saw one was down at the base of the mountain days ago. I've been traveling from cushy little cottage to cottage up here because it seems like none of those bastards are up here; it was off season for vacationing in the mountains when the shit hit the fan so these places are all empty. Well, except for this one. Only problem is, most of them are empty in every sense of the word; no food, no clothes, nothing. I'm starving, man, you got anything to eat? If I never see another stick of jerky again in my life I'll be a happy man."



They had been exchanging glances while this newcomer introduced himself; neither of them could feel any sort of infection in him, and they gave each other quick little glances of confirmation while he wasn’t looking. "We have food," Alice admonished, "Come on." She pointed towards the stairs, but there was a moment between her and Carlos and one quick nod. Each knew that they couldn't trust this newcomer just yet - he could be anybody, Umbrella, an associate of Dr Issacs, whoever... and the two of them were most definitely high on Umbrella’s list of people they would like captured or dead.



"Oh, thank you man, both you two, you're awesome," the newcomer cried out when he saw what was spread out on the table. He rushed over to it and started shoveling food into his mouth with both hands, not caring about manners or sharing.



"You have a name?" Carlos tossed out while finally taking his hand off his gun and seating himself in one of the chairs at the table, turning it around and straddling it from behind, propping his arms on the backrest.



"Hunff," the man replied through a mouthful, before swallowing and trying again. "Hung. Tyler Hung."



Alice crouched by the fireplace and added a few more logs to the blaze, while she asked without looking up, "How is it that you're still alive, Hung?"



Carlos' expression didn't falter in the least, but inside he was smirking at the point blank question; some things about Alice would never change, and he got the feeling that she'd been like that as the Head of Security for the entrance to Red Queen's Hive all those years ago, too.



The man had finally taken a seat at the table - Alice's seat - and once he had some food in him, he slowed the pace of his eating down enough to talk. "I was on board my father's fishing boat when it happened," he explained. "We heard the news on the radio channels, even the private ones; my mother contacted us on our frequency and all the said was, I love you, don't come back. After years of fishing for a living in our family, my father knew how to stay self-sufficient on that boat for a long time, and I knew a pretty good deal myself. We did exactly that, and stayed on the boat as long as we could, eating what we caught and drinking the rain water." He paused then, and actually stopped eating as a cloud of dark memory passed over his face, and again Carlos and Alice exchanged glances; they knew what his pause meant, and where this and all stories of survivors went eventually. "Then my father started seeing strange fish among those we caught. One at first, then two, then ten. Their eyes were milky and they thrashed and wouldn't stay dead until you cut their heads off. We didn't eat those ones, he called them cursed. We both knew, though, that our time of surviving alone on the water was coming to an end. Soon enough, every fish we brought in was like that, and we didn't even bother casting our nets any more. A human being can survive for three weeks without any kind of food though, if he has water, so that's what we decided to do as we slowly made our way towards land. It was terrible, and some days I couldn't tell what was real or not, but my father was taking it worse than I was; by the end of the second week he collapsed on deck, after a long screaming objection about having nothing to eat to the skies. He cursed our ancestors for dying peacefully while he was made to suffer to his doom, and even while I took care of him in our cabin he continued to curse them and everything he could think of for this happening to his wife and family. We held no hope that mother or my sisters were alive."



Hung put his hand down, having lost his appetite, and his expression tinged with pain. "When he'd recovered some and could move on his own again, I told him, look, there's land, we'll be back soon, there will be food. But, a madness had taken over him, after having to face starvation and horrible reality for those long weeks; he slowed the boat down to a troll and cast out the nets despite my pleas for us to just go to land. When the nets came up, as expected, they were filled with those same terrible fish, but my father grabbed two of them, cut their heads off, and took them to the cleaning station where he scaled and cleaned them. They'll be safe to eat once we cook them, he said with the conviction of the mad in his voice. It was as though he couldn't see me or hear me any more, he ignored my pleas to just put those fish back in the water so we could go to land. He took the fish into the kitchen, and began to cook with this... this happy expression on his face. He said he was going to feed his son; he told me that when I asked him to stop. He said he couldn't stop, his firstborn son was hungry, and he needed to feed him. When the fish were done, my father put them on a plate and brought them to the table, serving one in each of our bowls. I remember crying then, as I asked him not to eat it, and when I tried to take his away he struck me. I should have... I should have..."



"There was nothing you could do," Alice finished quietly.



"He became infected after eating the fish, didn't he?" Carlos pressed.



Hung nodded. "He died painfully, and just as I was pulling his bed sheets up over his head, he came back to life but he wasn't my father any more. I had to shoot him with the harpoon and throw him into the ocean, but even then he was still thrashing and clawing for me as I watched him sink into the water. I brought the boat to land, and from there... I've been running, ever since. City to city, never staying long because then those monsters would come, stealing vehicles where I could. There's no more gas left in the places where it's safe to be; you have to go where it's dangerous. So... so I decided to go where it was safe but I didn't need gas, I came up here to the mountains. I thought maybe the infection hadn't come this far, or at very least I could board myself up in one of these places and wait it out or... or something."



"I'm going for some fresh air," Carlos said suddenly, standing and leaving Alice and Hung alone. As he walked out onto the balcony and stared out over the mountainside, he gripped the rail tightly. For once, Carlos didn't know what Alice was going to do; if she kept this new person as part of their troop, the two of them would have little to no alone time any longer, or until one of them was killed. If she decided to leave this guy here, Carlos' moral center would flare up, objecting to her decision. His selfishness was struggling against his humanity now, and he didn't like that it was; the old Carlos would have said that women came second to the protection of others, but then... that Carlos had lived in a world where there were lots of women to choose from and it wasn't certain that he was rolling the dice with his life with each passing day. His head turned slowly as he stared into the cabin through the glass doors, watching Alice and Hung speak. Hung said something that made her sit back and relax a little, and a dark sensation bubbled up in Carlos as he watched them; he let out a snarl while something inhuman flashed in his eyes, but just as quickly as it had come out, he started and clenched his jaw shut. "What the hell?" he whispered harshly to himself, while covering his mouth and rubbing his cheek with his thumb. He shook it off, and moved back inside briskly, closing and locking the balcony door behind him. "I'm going down to the truck," he said matter-of-factly before going down the stairs and to the front door. "I'll repair the front door while I'm at it."



Alice noted the time, and knew why Carlos was going to the truck. She was thankful that she'd thought to fill those vials ahead of schedule, now; their new company would be suspicious or ask questions if the two of them were disappearing together twice a day around the same time every day. But... she could have sworn that she heard the sound of one of those monsters nearby, while Carlos was out on the balcony. He hadn't said anything though, so there was no cause for alarm, yet it still nagged at her.









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