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speaksoftlylove2017-05-20 12:08 am
dalicious) wrote in speaksoftlylove2017-05-20 12:08 am
FIC - Hotels in Bolivia
resident evil
wesker + krauser; pre-re4
2260 words
for redd
They spend two years together, deep in the Santa Cruz department of Bolivia; there's enough of a border with Brazil to ensure that Wesker can keep an eye on the spread of T-Veronica, but enough distance that he won't be tied to it, and in the end that's what matters. When they meet for the first time it's in a hotel in San Matías, a few miles from the airport and several miles further still from anything that either of them find familiar; Wesker keeps an eye on the room from behind his dark glasses, gaze shifting visibly once in a while if Krauser looks at him hard enough while they talk.
They speak in terms that mean nothing close to what they say, because hotel lobbies aren't secure in the least; at the same time, better the relative openness of a public meeting than bringing a stranger into his room. Not because Wesker can't handle himself (because judging from what Krauser has heard from Leon Kennedy, he absolutely can) but because if things go poorly it'd be inconvenient for him to have to leave so suddenly - because worst-case scenario there would be a corpse in his room, and that's going to be unpleasant for everyone involved.
So they talk in the lobby, and Krauser's left arm is still dead, and Wesker tells him point-blank that if he wants anything then he's going to have to ensure that everyone else thinks the rest of him is dead, too. It's something that Krauser had seen the sense in months ago - less red tape and paper trails, less conflicts of interest, less entities to take up interest in them and what they're doing - and there's a hint of pride in his voice when he explains that there'd been a plane crash en route to Fort Bragg, and that for all intents and purposes Jack Krauser is dead, and it's hard to read what Wesker does with his face at that but it seems that he approves.
When they leave San Matías it's in favor of the Andrés Ibáñez province, of the city of Cotoca, of places that have few people but several resources that can be used in their favor. Since neither of them are particularly fond of people to begin with, the arrangement works well enough.
Wesker never really tells Krauser why he dislikes people; it's not really Krauser's place to know, he's fairly sure, and he never asks about it besides. It's just something that both of them know, something that Wesker says casually once in a while on particularly long, warm days (and given the fact that they're holed up in Cotoca, there are a lot of long, warm days) - "I hate humans" said in the same sort of way that one remarks that they hate dogs or a rainstorm, a blanket statement with very little bite but perhaps too much sincerity behind it.
Krauser doesn't really comment much beyond a vague, gruff agreement with the sentiment; he's never been fond of them, either.
It isn't pervasive, that line of conversation, it's just something that happens enough for both of them to be satisfied with it; Wesker has his research consuming him most of the time, and Krauser...well, Krauser has a lot of boredom with the situation, if he's going to be honest, though it never gets to the point where he's consumed by it himself. Largely because Wesker actually notices when Krauser is getting restless; Wesker notices a lot of things and Krauser knows it, it isn't anything particularly special or unusual, but it doesn't change the fact that it's different to what he's used to and he isn't altogether sure what he thinks of it.
It isn't as though Krauser has a lot of time to think about it when it comes up, anyway, because Wesker just gets his guns and his knives and takes him out to kill things.
They hear a fair amount about outbreaks, even as far out as the western provinces; granted, it's all in Spanish and Quechua, and if it's the latter they're a bit out of luck because Wesker doesn't really speak it either - though fortunately the word "zombie" seems to be fairly universal (even if Wesker can't seem to pronounce that properly either, the hard consonants sliding oddly out of his mouth when he tries), and while it seems the distances between towns is slowing the virus' spread by a good amount, it's also warm enough for it to thrive, to keep it from being halted altogether and dying in the rainforest or the salt flats. And the rainforests are where Wesker takes him; they're denser here, at once similar and different to the thick underbrush around Javier's dam and the flooded city of Amparo, and it's something of a relief to be here with someone who actually seems to know what they're doing.
Sometimes they kill snakes and other poisonous things, letting the blood run down their blades for the sake of seeing what happens when they slit open larger prey; sometimes, on good days, they find crimson heads and lickers, things that used to be human but aren't anymore, things that the Sacred Snakes under Javier's control would have appreciated on some level. On good days they come back covered in dirt and leaves and blood; on good days some of the blood is their own, enough to remind them that they're still alive. Krauser expresses the sentiment once that what didn't kill them really should have tried harder, and there's something that's almost a laugh behind Wesker's voice when he agrees with it.
Wesker likes it when they have good days; it's probably the most excited that Krauser ever sees him.
It's a good look on him, really.
There are dry spells, though, in that hotel in Cotoca; most of them are metaphorical rather than physical. Periods of time where the rain comes down but funding has stalled and so has Wesker's creativity, to hear him talk about how there's nothing new to be done with his research; long stretches where there aren't any assignments and there aren't any outbreaks, either, no unsolved deaths leaving a trail of bodies and blood to follow toward something interesting. It's during periods like those that it really hits that the city they're in has less than forty thousand people in it and not a lot to do; it's then that there isn't much to do but talk.
Sometimes they talk, and sometimes they don't talk and Wesker disappears for surprisingly long periods of the day into the nearby shrine to the Virgin Mary, and sometimes they pretend they're going to talk but never quite get around to it. There's never any awkwardness to it when that third option ends up being the one they take, just light knocking on Krauser's door that eventally leads to both of them on the balcony outside, Wesker leaning forward against the railing and looking at the people below while Krauser takes up station near the wall. There simply isn't much to say on days like that, but that suits both of them well enough; neither of them are the sort that feels the need to fill the quiet with words that don't mean anything, and the silence spans easily between them.
Sometimes, though, they talk about viruses, about effects and plans and patterns; sometimes they talk about things that Krauser doesn't really understand the importance of, just that such things are important. He's told once about how Wesker is technically "dead" too, having been gravely injured by a Tyrant and left to perish in a fire; that particular story had made Krauser smirk a bit despite himself - because they're similar, both of them. Because in the end, neither of them go halfway; because it explains the look of vague approval Wesker had given him in the hotel in San Matías. It's not the sort of appreciation that he gives the lickers and the crimson heads out in the rainforests; it's something else, something reserved for someone who understands that sometimes the only way to ensure that things work out is to crash a plane somewhere in North Carolina, to get your neck broken in the Arklay Mountains after convincing your former comrades that you aren't worth saving.
They'd both come back, Wesker says one day, leaning forward over the balcony and watching the people below; power is a constant in the universe, the only thing that can defeat power is more power - and what greater power is there, really, than power over death? The ability to defy the grave and rise from their personal ashes...
It's a talk that Wesker likes giving, and one that Krauser likes listening to; there's pride in it, and something that can almost pass for passion, and more importantly there's strength behind it all - there's no fear in talking to Wesker when he's like this, there's no doubt in his words, and even if he's keeping his gaze locked down on the streets below everything he's saying resonates well enough with Krauser that it hardly matters that they're still here in this city of less than forty thousand people and there are no signs of being able to leave anytime soon, because when they do it'll be worth it.
He only notices that his right hand has drifted over that part of his arm that'd been damaged by Hilda Hidalgo when they're a good way into the conversation; he takes out one of his knives as soon as he's aware, tossing it idly into the air and catching it again, because clearly his hands need something to do.
Krauser doesn't know exactly what Wesker did to repair his arm; the one time he'd asked Wesker had been more evasive than usual, in a way that Krauser wasn't sure he wanted to press - his reply had been vague and disjointed, something about a treatment that had worked on one of his sisters, and it hadn't been long before he'd shrugged it off and told him that the results were ultimately what mattered, and what he'd done was guaranteed to get results.
To Wesker's credit, it does; Krauser doesn't ask him about it again.
He does ask once about Wesker's sisters, about whether he has anything to get back to once they're done in Bolivia. He's mildly surprised to hear that Wesker only remembers one of them, someone he'd been re-introduced to as an adult - someone he'd had to sit for the world's most uncomfortable portrait with, like they'd actually been raised in a proper family.
The topic of the painting seems to fluster him in a way that most things don't; he's incredibly short when he brings it up, offering blunt details about it that are clearly closed off for discussion once he's said them - it took several hours, it was unflattering when it was finished, and it was...awkward, sitting there with someone he didn't recognize or remember at all and having to act as though he'd known her his entire life.
So no, he doesn't have anything to get back to.
In fairness, Krauser doesn't either. It's one of the benefits of being legally dead; nothing to return to means nothing holding you back - neither a sense of duty nor a sense of obligation. It's freeing, in a way that Krauser isn't used to experiencing; when he's honest with himself, he still isn't altogether sure he likes it. The weeks that pass in Cotoca are devoid of purpose; they're dull in a way that he hadn't expected them to be, they're isolated and overly warm and pass entirely too slowly, but the longer he stays, the less leaving seems like an option.
The longer he stays, the less he wants to leave, and he isn't altogether sure what he thinks about that, either.
It's the promise of power, he tells himself; he'll get what he wants one day, and then the world will make sense and everything will fall into place. It's the promise of being useful to someone, and it's the unspoken understanding that he won't be replaced if he's not immediately useful - because the weeks wouldn't be passing quite like this if Wesker didn't consider Krauser's presence valuable in some way. The talks on the balcony and the killing sessions in the rainforest, the willingness to keep Krauser around when they aren't doing anything that specifically requires his presence - they arent friends, and Krauser has never labored under the delusion that this is anything but business. But even if it's business, it's comfortable; the dead spots aren't welcome, but they're tolerable.
One day, Wesker tells him while they're spending time on the balcony, they'll bring order to all of this; they'll draw up the wheat from the threshing floor, and burn the chaff in unquenchable fire.
One day, Wesker tells him, they're going to save the world.
Maybe it's possible; that sort of thing really isn't for Krauser to know or decide, it isn't his place, and if he's blunt he can't be sure how much it matters to him in the end. But the power to do it is something that they're capable of having for themselves one day - the power to create a new world order.
And that's the draw, and for the time being that's enough, and maybe in the end the years spent here will have been worth something.
wesker + krauser; pre-re4
2260 words
for redd
They spend two years together, deep in the Santa Cruz department of Bolivia; there's enough of a border with Brazil to ensure that Wesker can keep an eye on the spread of T-Veronica, but enough distance that he won't be tied to it, and in the end that's what matters. When they meet for the first time it's in a hotel in San Matías, a few miles from the airport and several miles further still from anything that either of them find familiar; Wesker keeps an eye on the room from behind his dark glasses, gaze shifting visibly once in a while if Krauser looks at him hard enough while they talk.
They speak in terms that mean nothing close to what they say, because hotel lobbies aren't secure in the least; at the same time, better the relative openness of a public meeting than bringing a stranger into his room. Not because Wesker can't handle himself (because judging from what Krauser has heard from Leon Kennedy, he absolutely can) but because if things go poorly it'd be inconvenient for him to have to leave so suddenly - because worst-case scenario there would be a corpse in his room, and that's going to be unpleasant for everyone involved.
So they talk in the lobby, and Krauser's left arm is still dead, and Wesker tells him point-blank that if he wants anything then he's going to have to ensure that everyone else thinks the rest of him is dead, too. It's something that Krauser had seen the sense in months ago - less red tape and paper trails, less conflicts of interest, less entities to take up interest in them and what they're doing - and there's a hint of pride in his voice when he explains that there'd been a plane crash en route to Fort Bragg, and that for all intents and purposes Jack Krauser is dead, and it's hard to read what Wesker does with his face at that but it seems that he approves.
When they leave San Matías it's in favor of the Andrés Ibáñez province, of the city of Cotoca, of places that have few people but several resources that can be used in their favor. Since neither of them are particularly fond of people to begin with, the arrangement works well enough.
Wesker never really tells Krauser why he dislikes people; it's not really Krauser's place to know, he's fairly sure, and he never asks about it besides. It's just something that both of them know, something that Wesker says casually once in a while on particularly long, warm days (and given the fact that they're holed up in Cotoca, there are a lot of long, warm days) - "I hate humans" said in the same sort of way that one remarks that they hate dogs or a rainstorm, a blanket statement with very little bite but perhaps too much sincerity behind it.
Krauser doesn't really comment much beyond a vague, gruff agreement with the sentiment; he's never been fond of them, either.
It isn't pervasive, that line of conversation, it's just something that happens enough for both of them to be satisfied with it; Wesker has his research consuming him most of the time, and Krauser...well, Krauser has a lot of boredom with the situation, if he's going to be honest, though it never gets to the point where he's consumed by it himself. Largely because Wesker actually notices when Krauser is getting restless; Wesker notices a lot of things and Krauser knows it, it isn't anything particularly special or unusual, but it doesn't change the fact that it's different to what he's used to and he isn't altogether sure what he thinks of it.
It isn't as though Krauser has a lot of time to think about it when it comes up, anyway, because Wesker just gets his guns and his knives and takes him out to kill things.
They hear a fair amount about outbreaks, even as far out as the western provinces; granted, it's all in Spanish and Quechua, and if it's the latter they're a bit out of luck because Wesker doesn't really speak it either - though fortunately the word "zombie" seems to be fairly universal (even if Wesker can't seem to pronounce that properly either, the hard consonants sliding oddly out of his mouth when he tries), and while it seems the distances between towns is slowing the virus' spread by a good amount, it's also warm enough for it to thrive, to keep it from being halted altogether and dying in the rainforest or the salt flats. And the rainforests are where Wesker takes him; they're denser here, at once similar and different to the thick underbrush around Javier's dam and the flooded city of Amparo, and it's something of a relief to be here with someone who actually seems to know what they're doing.
Sometimes they kill snakes and other poisonous things, letting the blood run down their blades for the sake of seeing what happens when they slit open larger prey; sometimes, on good days, they find crimson heads and lickers, things that used to be human but aren't anymore, things that the Sacred Snakes under Javier's control would have appreciated on some level. On good days they come back covered in dirt and leaves and blood; on good days some of the blood is their own, enough to remind them that they're still alive. Krauser expresses the sentiment once that what didn't kill them really should have tried harder, and there's something that's almost a laugh behind Wesker's voice when he agrees with it.
Wesker likes it when they have good days; it's probably the most excited that Krauser ever sees him.
It's a good look on him, really.
There are dry spells, though, in that hotel in Cotoca; most of them are metaphorical rather than physical. Periods of time where the rain comes down but funding has stalled and so has Wesker's creativity, to hear him talk about how there's nothing new to be done with his research; long stretches where there aren't any assignments and there aren't any outbreaks, either, no unsolved deaths leaving a trail of bodies and blood to follow toward something interesting. It's during periods like those that it really hits that the city they're in has less than forty thousand people in it and not a lot to do; it's then that there isn't much to do but talk.
Sometimes they talk, and sometimes they don't talk and Wesker disappears for surprisingly long periods of the day into the nearby shrine to the Virgin Mary, and sometimes they pretend they're going to talk but never quite get around to it. There's never any awkwardness to it when that third option ends up being the one they take, just light knocking on Krauser's door that eventally leads to both of them on the balcony outside, Wesker leaning forward against the railing and looking at the people below while Krauser takes up station near the wall. There simply isn't much to say on days like that, but that suits both of them well enough; neither of them are the sort that feels the need to fill the quiet with words that don't mean anything, and the silence spans easily between them.
Sometimes, though, they talk about viruses, about effects and plans and patterns; sometimes they talk about things that Krauser doesn't really understand the importance of, just that such things are important. He's told once about how Wesker is technically "dead" too, having been gravely injured by a Tyrant and left to perish in a fire; that particular story had made Krauser smirk a bit despite himself - because they're similar, both of them. Because in the end, neither of them go halfway; because it explains the look of vague approval Wesker had given him in the hotel in San Matías. It's not the sort of appreciation that he gives the lickers and the crimson heads out in the rainforests; it's something else, something reserved for someone who understands that sometimes the only way to ensure that things work out is to crash a plane somewhere in North Carolina, to get your neck broken in the Arklay Mountains after convincing your former comrades that you aren't worth saving.
They'd both come back, Wesker says one day, leaning forward over the balcony and watching the people below; power is a constant in the universe, the only thing that can defeat power is more power - and what greater power is there, really, than power over death? The ability to defy the grave and rise from their personal ashes...
It's a talk that Wesker likes giving, and one that Krauser likes listening to; there's pride in it, and something that can almost pass for passion, and more importantly there's strength behind it all - there's no fear in talking to Wesker when he's like this, there's no doubt in his words, and even if he's keeping his gaze locked down on the streets below everything he's saying resonates well enough with Krauser that it hardly matters that they're still here in this city of less than forty thousand people and there are no signs of being able to leave anytime soon, because when they do it'll be worth it.
He only notices that his right hand has drifted over that part of his arm that'd been damaged by Hilda Hidalgo when they're a good way into the conversation; he takes out one of his knives as soon as he's aware, tossing it idly into the air and catching it again, because clearly his hands need something to do.
Krauser doesn't know exactly what Wesker did to repair his arm; the one time he'd asked Wesker had been more evasive than usual, in a way that Krauser wasn't sure he wanted to press - his reply had been vague and disjointed, something about a treatment that had worked on one of his sisters, and it hadn't been long before he'd shrugged it off and told him that the results were ultimately what mattered, and what he'd done was guaranteed to get results.
To Wesker's credit, it does; Krauser doesn't ask him about it again.
He does ask once about Wesker's sisters, about whether he has anything to get back to once they're done in Bolivia. He's mildly surprised to hear that Wesker only remembers one of them, someone he'd been re-introduced to as an adult - someone he'd had to sit for the world's most uncomfortable portrait with, like they'd actually been raised in a proper family.
The topic of the painting seems to fluster him in a way that most things don't; he's incredibly short when he brings it up, offering blunt details about it that are clearly closed off for discussion once he's said them - it took several hours, it was unflattering when it was finished, and it was...awkward, sitting there with someone he didn't recognize or remember at all and having to act as though he'd known her his entire life.
So no, he doesn't have anything to get back to.
In fairness, Krauser doesn't either. It's one of the benefits of being legally dead; nothing to return to means nothing holding you back - neither a sense of duty nor a sense of obligation. It's freeing, in a way that Krauser isn't used to experiencing; when he's honest with himself, he still isn't altogether sure he likes it. The weeks that pass in Cotoca are devoid of purpose; they're dull in a way that he hadn't expected them to be, they're isolated and overly warm and pass entirely too slowly, but the longer he stays, the less leaving seems like an option.
The longer he stays, the less he wants to leave, and he isn't altogether sure what he thinks about that, either.
It's the promise of power, he tells himself; he'll get what he wants one day, and then the world will make sense and everything will fall into place. It's the promise of being useful to someone, and it's the unspoken understanding that he won't be replaced if he's not immediately useful - because the weeks wouldn't be passing quite like this if Wesker didn't consider Krauser's presence valuable in some way. The talks on the balcony and the killing sessions in the rainforest, the willingness to keep Krauser around when they aren't doing anything that specifically requires his presence - they arent friends, and Krauser has never labored under the delusion that this is anything but business. But even if it's business, it's comfortable; the dead spots aren't welcome, but they're tolerable.
One day, Wesker tells him while they're spending time on the balcony, they'll bring order to all of this; they'll draw up the wheat from the threshing floor, and burn the chaff in unquenchable fire.
One day, Wesker tells him, they're going to save the world.
Maybe it's possible; that sort of thing really isn't for Krauser to know or decide, it isn't his place, and if he's blunt he can't be sure how much it matters to him in the end. But the power to do it is something that they're capable of having for themselves one day - the power to create a new world order.
And that's the draw, and for the time being that's enough, and maybe in the end the years spent here will have been worth something.