Who: Carlos Olivera coliveria & Alice projectalice When: Saturday, May 9th Where: Alice’s apartment What: Spending time together and talking. Rating: PG-13ish Warnings: Talk/thoughts about pretty bad pasts, death, etc. Nothing real bad. Status: Closed/Complete GDoc
It’d been one hell of a week. Carlos had heard the whispers of people who had previously been someplace else, but he honestly hadn’t believed that it would happen to them here. At least, part of him had believed it, another part of him believed that shit fell wherever they ended up. Still, they’d made it through without any casualties to those that had been pulled here and everything? Well it was as back to normal as it could be.
Carlos knew that it was only a matter of time before this place threw something else at them. How could it not? Apparently the people in charge had no fucking clue what they were doing, and there was no telling what sort of danger they would put them in. That was the most frightening part about this entire experience for Carlos; the unknown.
Since the incident, Carlos had holed up with Alice. They hadn’t fought together much during everything, Alice had her job to do with the police and he had gone on to do his own thing. After everything was said and done all Carlos wanted to do was spend time curled up in bed with Alice and do nothing at all.
Well, there were a few things he wanted to do outside of nothing, but in that moment he was content to lie beside Alice, his arms wrapped around her slender frame. Despite everything she would come first for Carlos, and he would do everything in his power to stick around as long as he could to show her that he wasn’t a clone and that she wasn’t an instant death sentence for him.
Carlos didn’t think that he was a clone. He hadn’t asked if the clones retained their memories from events that had happened in the past, and he personally did not recall ever having a family with Alice like she said they once had. Thinking about having a family was strange to him. Since the outbreak he’d given up on anything normal, let alone having children born into the mess that was their lives.
People were careful when it came to sex out of fear. No one wanted to be a burden, and they really couldn’t afford to have extra mouths to feed since food was scarce. They couldn’t even count on finding wildlife to kill since everything became infected.
Carlos thought about the crows and how Alice had stopped them.
He rubbed his hand up and down her arm, “So are we taking bets on the next thing that this place throws at us? I’m secretly hoping for something non-threatening like an overabundance of bunnies or unicorns.”
~*~
Sleep was one of the many things Alice did differently from other people. She had vivid dreams which often felt prophetic; her sleep cycle was far shorter than the average human's which left her awake more than she was ever asleep. Resting was something she could do in moments where other people took hours. The luxury of a 'full night's sleep' was something which felt more akin to a torture sentence to her.
Alice felt different when it came to sleeping with someone.
She had few memories of men. Sex was something she knew she'd had, enjoyed even in the past. Intimacy was a long-forgotten memory. Alice could honestly say she appreciated being held in someone's arms more than she yearned for the act of sex itself. Kissing, touching, feeling someone's heart beating against hers, those were all things which outranked sex in her mind. She counted herself lucky to have Carlos who also seemed to savor the ability to simply exist with someone else for a while.
Smiling, she kept her eyes closed, unwilling to relinquish the peace of being in bed with him as of yet. Carlos had lived within her life a relatively short time. It felt miraculous to have him back again. Alice wasn't sure she was fully awake even when she knew she was awake. Happiness was for other people. Human people. She was meant for war. This could all be a dream she was having to avoid realizing she was dying in a battle.
Stranger things had happened to her.
"I could go for an invasion of bunnies. I'll pass on the unicorns. I hear they shit candy which will attract bugs and they'd likely gore the townspeople with their horns knowing our luck. I am glad for the time off. I'm tired of smelling like death from cleaning up corpses. Want to stay in bed another day and enjoy peace?"
~*~
Making a face, Carlos thought on that for a few seconds. Knowing their luck they’d end up with unicorns that enjoyed goring people and/or enjoyed eating them. Yeah, with the way this place was? It would happen.
“Okay, so I agree with you on that. I’d rather not deal with candy shitting unicorns that like to gore people. Hell, I could even deal with bunnies that are like Bunnicula for that matter.” He could actually see that one happening too.
Nuzzling down into her neck, Carlos let out a long breath. “I’m good with another day in bed, and if you need another? We’ll take another.” He was in no hurry to go back out there to reality, or whatever anyone wanted to call it. To Carlos this was the best thing in the world right now, and he’d gladly lose his job over it if he had to.
The people at Planet Fitness were nice to him though, telling him to take whatever time he needed to recover and rest because they knew he’d fought for their city. He would do it again and again if he had to just to have these few quiet moments with Alice. They both deserved it, even if the peace was fleeting they could have it here in Test City.
It meant a lot to him, and he thought - hoped really - that it meant a lot to Alice.
Pressing a soft kiss to her shoulder, he glanced down at her. He didn’t want to talk about work, about the city, or the recent events really. There were things he wanted to ask her that he shouldn’t ask about in regards to their clone life, and even now he was willing to leave that alone because what good would it do him?
Not a damn bit of good.
“What’s your favorite food?” He asked suddenly, a slight smile on his face. “You know, for future references.”
~*~
Smiling at the kiss and the question, Alice answered, "Fish. Tilapia or salmon. Both grill nicely and you can season them with anything. There is absolutely nothing better than fresh fish. I can eat shrimp boiled in the shell in seasoning by the bucketfull. You'd be amazed how much I can eat.”
It was one of many things about Alice which could amaze people. She could punch through solid steel, survive a fall from hundreds of feet, regenerate from injuries which would have otherwise killed a standard human. Thanks to the T-Virus, Alice was far enough removed from her past life as a human woman to where she could hardly call herself human at all. It felt strange to consider herself inhuman, yet somehow right all at once.
Humans weren't meant to survive the things she'd survived. They weren't meant to hurt, ache, suffer as she had. Life was supposed to be better for people.
Alice could accept her lot in life if she separated herself from people.
"My favorite color is blue. The color of the sky on a clear day. It used to be white. White is every color combined. Did you know that?"
She didn't mention she couldn't stand white now due to Wesker and thoughts about Umbrella. All the times she'd woken up in their labs in nothing but a white paper gown? All the white in their buildings? All the white in their lies where they were experimenting on her friends? It made her feel as if she were about to start another fire, light up the world with her rage. It took a lot to calm her down when she was confronted with white on all sides.
Alice gripped Carlos at his hip, her fingers digging in slightly as she tried to rein in her emotions. No one benefitted when she got angry unless they were at war. There were no more enemies to fight. They were taking a break. A day in bed. She could calm down. Breathing deeply, focusing on centering herself, Alice tried to think only on how Carlos was solid, real, and alive in the bed with her instead of dead under a horde of the infected.
"What's your favorite color? Do you have one?"
~*~
“Green. Dark forest green is my favorite color.” Carols replied, hand moving around to her back to smooth up and down, an attempt to help calm her down. A half smiled pulled up one corner of his mouth, “I know, it’s cliche with the whole army thing, but it’s been my favorite color for as long as I can remember.” He looked down at her, “And no, I did not know that was your favorite color.”
Carlos didn’t know a lot of things about Alice, well, he didn’t know a lot of normal things about her. Surviving made the little things seem so trivial in comparison. To be truthful, Carlos hadn’t seen much point in getting to know people too much before coming here. It seemed smarter to not know intimate details about their lives, but Carlos had done it all the same.
Each loss he’d felt too, though he’d kept a smile on his face because someone had to keep morale up. That didn’t mean he hadn’t mourned for them in his own way.
“I’d believe your eating habits when it comes to shrimp though.” He chuckled, “We’ll have to go to that Italian place on their seafood night. Well, if they have one.” Carlos honestly didn’t know if they did or not, he’d only stepped in there once since his arrival. It was nice, a bit too fancy for his tastes, but he’d gladly take Alice there on a date if she wanted to go one night.
“Mine’s pizza, any kind, I’m not picky. Hell, I’ll even eat anchovies on my pizza.” Carlos gave a mock look of horror over at her, then chuckled. “I think that’s pretty evident though.” Since he’d started working at the gym, however, Carlos had tried to cut down how many times a week he ordered pizza.
“Hm,” his hand still moved up and down her back in a slow motion as he thought about his next question, “what’s your favorite movie?”
~*~
Every touch of his hand against her skin soothed away the effects of the virus. It was a caged animal inside of her, a beast waiting to be unleashed on the world to do the destruction for which it was made, but Alice held it back. She fought it back every day because she had to, people needed her to, she wanted to, all those reasons and more. Umbrella had gotten her to volunteer for their project, but they hadn't told her the costs.
Alice liked to think she'd have said no ahead of time if she'd known the cost it would have.
She knew it was a lie, but it was a pretty one.
"Do they have a seafood night?" Alice asked, unwittingly echoing Carlos's thoughts on the matter as she tried to imagine whether they would or not. She hadn't been to a restaurant with specific nights for different feature foods in so long---it felt like someone else's life. They'd been reduced to eating anything they could find in the desert and Alice had eaten things she wouldn't ever tell a soul about to survive.
The T-Virus made her powerful, but it didn't take away her need for food and water. It didn't dehumanize her that much. She hoped there was nothing in the universe which could push her farther away from humanity than she'd already fallen. There were some bridges never meant to be crossed. Alice thought a bridge which led that far from humanity was one meant to be burned before one set foot on it.
"I don't know. I don't remember seeing movies before the virus. My memories---stop at Umbrella. I know myself. I know who I was at Umbrella. I remember my missions. All the secrets they wanted to erase from my mind. I have all of those. The things I don't remember, the things they took from me? Everything before. I have flashes. That's all. What's yours?"
She thought maybe they could watch some movies together to try to find her a favorite. It would be something they could explore together which wouldn't leave bruises on his flesh or drop him into an exhausted sleep. Alice could pretend she was normal for him. They could be two normal people watching movies on a date night together. It was another lie, but it was one of the prettiest Alice had ever told herself.
~*~
Giving a shrug, Carlos chuckled. “No idea. I’ll stop by one day on my way back from work to see if they do.” Much like Alice, Carlos couldn’t believe the life they’d been given again. It was strange, sure, and it wasn’t easy the past week had shown them that, but they could actually have a life here.
It wasn’t just another day of survival, another day of thanking some deity that they’d made it through another night without losing someone to zombies or starvation. Carlos never wanted to see another person die from starvation, for that matter, he didn’t want to see anyone else die.
He’d seen enough death to last him several lifetimes, and he knew Alice had seen more than anyone else that he knew. It was why he held onto her a little tighter than he might’ve anyone else, it was why he insisted on them staying together because he worried that she would get too lost in her own head.
Carlos wanted her to know that she did not have to face anything alone. As long as he was there, as long as he was able to, he’d make sure she realized that. Or, you know, attempt it anyway.
He stilled his hand on her lower back, just holding her in his arms. If need be he’d start again, but he knew that sometimes continuous motion could get annoying. Carlos admittedly hadn’t watched a lot of television or movies prior to the T-Virus either. Training had been important, key for Umbrella and he’d done his part. There were times, however, in the barracks they’d all get together and watch movies.
Sometimes it wasn’t the movies themselves that made them special, but the memories you’d made during the experience. “I have a few I enjoy, but I think The Goonies is my favorite film of all time.” Comedy was something their world had had very little of, and if he wasn’t cracking jokes it was LJ.
He really missed LJ.
“We’ll have to watch it one night. It’s a classic.”
~*~
Alice smiled at the name. She wished she had more reasons to smile. Carlos helped as much as he could. His life alone was a reason to keep hope alive in this place. Test City had been cruel to some, but it'd been very kind to her. There was no kindness in the place she'd come from before. There had been no room for kindness. They were at war with themselves, their own hubris, their own greed and fanaticism. Humanity's survival depended upon them making it through the war on the side of victory.
Being victorious meant cutting away the emotions which could hold someone back in battle.
She was a one woman army. The infected would fall before her in droves. Alice would spare them no mercy, give them no quarter. They had to die for her to make it through in order to save the people who were left after the spread of the T-Virus. Too many had already died in the world around her. If she let herself cave under the weight of all their deaths, all their loses, no one would win. The virus would overtake the world and Alice would be left alone with only perhaps Wesker at her side in a world of the infected or dead.
That world would not come to fruition.
"Sounds funny," she admitted, lifting a leg to drape it over Carlos's hip. Alice hadn't bothered to put clothes back on. There was no point in it with how hot the place they were in stayed or with someone who'd already seen her naked. Carlos had as much right to her body as she did in her estimation. He'd been the one to give the ultimate sacrifice to keep it alive, whole for her. She could trust him enough to let him have any access to it he wanted especially since Carlos wanted far more of her than her body.
"We'll have to watch it together. Later. We have other things to take advantage of right now. Like," Alice gave a coy smile, her eyes wide and brows lifted in invitation, "Me."
Time would pass in this place as it always did in every place. Alice would survive it. She would fight. If she had anything to say about it, Carlos would survive it, too. They had a second chance. She wasn't going to waste a moment of it. She didn't want to miss a thing.