boxofmisfits | Biohazard

"Never," Shiro says it quietly, so that Keight might not have heard it over the roar of the motorcycle or through his helmet. To give up on Keith would be like giving up a part of himself. Not because Keith was some charity case or out of pity, or because Shiro had something to prove. Keith was simply a part of his life now.

When they reached the station, Shiro eased his grip, reluctantly allowing Keith to slip from his grasp. When he dismounted, he needed a moment to let his body limber up. Lucky for him, he hadn't gotten any bugs in his teeth.

The police station seemed ominous as Shiro looked up at it. Keith was definitely not the only one who had a bad feeling.

"Come on, let's just get in and out. Keep an eye out for zombies." Shiro drew his pistol and took the lead, ascending the steps up to the front door and peeking inside. So far, it was all clear. He gave Keith the signal to proceed along with him.

If Keith heard it, he chose not to comment on it. He also didn't comment on how he mourned the loss of the other's heat at his back, his arms around his waist. Instead of focusing on that, Keith busied himself with securing his helmet to the bike, before drawing his sword from it's place on his back.

He took the stairs two at a time, catching Shiro's shoulder, pulling him back before he could go through the door.

"You really shouldn't lead with that thing," Keith murmured, nodding towards the gun, his lips going thin, "It's loud." he offered, by way of explanation.

Though, knowing what he did about Shiro, he doubted that the other would take to having to having to stand back. Shiro had always been a point man, and Keith's word of warning probably wasn't going to be enough to change that.

"If anyone tries to steal my bike I'm going to be pissed," he grumbled absently.

"It's alright, Keith. It's better if I take the front, while you watch my back." Shiro pointed to a knife strapped to his belt. The police station would have more weapons and ammo inside, which would probably come in handy.

"I have more experience with these things, remember? Besides, it might not just be zombies in there." Shiro doubted there was anything as dangerous as a Tyrant, but given how zombies hadn't been the only monsters at the mansion, Shiro figured it would be best if he went in on point.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you to destroy the brain." Carefully, Shiro opened the front door and slid inside the building. Most of the lights had gone out, casting the room in an eerie darkness, with what little light there was casting shadows. Shiro didn't hear any feet shuffling, or undead moaning.

Waving for Keith to follow, Shiro walked to the center of the lobby.

He couldn't help but roll his eyes, just a little, but it was a fond expression, lips quirking slightly. It was so Shiro, ever the leader. Ever wanting to put himself in danger first, protect everyone else. It was true too though, that Shiro did have more experience than Keith, was certainly far higher ranked, given that now Keith wasn't more than a citizen with training.

Dishonorably discharged. Words that he thought would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"What do you mean not just zombies?" Keith's brow furrowed, lips thinning in concern. What he had experienced thus far was just your run of the mill undead. Apparently, that had made him lucky.

"What the hell happened out there Shiro?" the question was soft, worry written into the very fabric of his spoken words, his grip on his sword just a little tighter, before giving it a loose swing, limbering up his shoulders again after having had them tighten up on the bike.

Keith let his eyes adjust to the low light of the room, frowning as he toed in after the other, cautious of the dark corners, ears straining for any hint of sound that shouldn't have been there.

"Nah, I've had practice with that." Keith quirked a wry smile, shrugging his shoulders and brandishing his sword for emphasis.

"We might want to pick up a couple of flashlights along the way," Keith pointed out quietly. Knowing that some parts of the Police station were windowless- would be pitch black. Not a situation they wanted to find themselves in.

Shiro's superiors had talked about giving him command of his own STARS unit, after showing leadership initiative. There was a slim chance of that happening now, of course, but that was the last thing on Shiro's mind.

"You know Umbrella, that pharmaceutical company? They made a virus and were experimenting with it. The virus made the dead come back to life, but they also used it to make monsters. We saw mutated sharks, snakes, plants, but the worst was this large monster that was going to be their ultimate weapon, the Tyrant. It was a nightmare, Keith."

Shiro tried a light switch, finding that it didn't work. He had suspected as much.

"There should be some flashlights in the storage closet, just down the hall." Taking point again, Shiro waved Keith along and headed down the hallway in question, going slowly and keeping his gun raised.

If STARS training had taught Keith nothing else, it was how to be an at least half-decent soldier. Sure, he wasn't great at 'just following orders', especially if it wasn't something he agreed with, but Shiro he could follow. Would watch his back and do anything to keep him out of harms way.

"What the hell would Umbrella want with monsters like that?" Keith wondered, unable to imagine what Shiro must have encountered up in the mountains. But whatever it was, the Tyrant sure didn't sound great. Shiro had never been one to hyperbolize, so when he said it had been a nightmare... Keith knew that it was probably so much worse.

"We think they were trying to make biological weapons to sell to militaries or mercenary groups. That Tyrant I fought looked imperfect, but it took a rocket launcher to kill it."

The idea of Umbrella perfecting such a monster and mass producing it sent shivers down Shiro's spine. Even just selling those Hunters by the dozen made Shiro feel ill at ease.

Thankfully the closet wasn't too far, and it was unlocked. Inside the closet were flashlights, a first-aid kit, some office supplies, and various cleaning supplies.

"Grab whatever looks useful." Shiro handed Keith a clip-on flashlight before taking one for himself.

Right in the middle of rummaging the closet, Shiro heard something and motioned for Keith to be quiet. It was the sound of wet, squelching footsteps.

There was something morbidly cool to Keith about the idea of something so strong that it took a rocket launcher to put an end to it- but only on a scifi, fictional way. The thought of something like that on the loose... now that was a different story entirely.

"I don't even want to think of what would happen putting technology like that in the hands of the wrong person. Bad enough that they fucked up badly enough its out here," and Keith didnt want to think about what Umbrella might do to try and contain it.

All the more reason they had to get out of the city, and quick.

Keith had already begun to fill his hands, his coat pockets. He considered grabbing a duffel bag but- no, that would only weigh them down. Make them slower. Grabbing something off the top shelf, Keith snorted abruptly.

"Who the hell keeps herbs in the closet-" he had started, but then shiro told him to be silent, and Keith froze. Cluing in immediately to the wet shuffling of footsteps, shifting his sword back in hand with a grim expression.

Shiro was about to make some remark about the herbs when he went on full alert. He stepped around Keith, looking around for the source of the noise. It didn't quite sound like a zombie's footsteps. He shone the flashlight on both ends of the hallway, but didn't see any signs of zombies.

That was when he noticed something dripping down from the ceiling.

Pointing the flashlight up, Shiro saw a monstrous creature with large, clawed forearms, a brain outside its head, and a mouth with a long tongue, dripping drool onto the floor. Even though it lacked eyes, Shiro knew that it had sensed them, because it had its head turned in their direction.

There hadn't been anything like that at the mansion. "Keith, watch out!" Shiro ran down further into the hallway before turning around to confront the beast, raising his gun at it. He was trying to draw it away from Keith.

The wet plip, plip, of something dripping that hadn't been there before was Keith's first clue that it wasn't necessarily where they would expect. But before he could mention it, Shiro's flashlight was already tracking upwards, apparently having reached the same conclusion Keith had.

"Oh, hell no," Keith had muttered, snarling as Shiro dashed down the hallway. Even as Shiro moved, Keith had snapped his dagger into his left hand, sword in the right as he debated whether or not to throw it right into that awful thing's bulbous pulsating brain meat.

"What the hell is that thing!" Keith hissed, trying to keep his voice down. Didn't want to attract more as he chased at Shiro's heels out of the closet. Stopped in the doorway as Shiro raced to give distance, enough to give the creature some level of confusion in tracking its prey. Or at least, so Keith hoped.

"I'm not sure! I never saw anything like it on my mission!" Shiro should have known that the monsters at the mansion weren't the only thing Umbrella had up their sleeve.

The thing dropped down onto the floor, looking right at Shiro. Its long tongue failed around like a whip, striking at Shiro's feet. He didn't want to get caught by that thing.

"Get it from behind!" Shiro shot the monster in the head, hitting it in the right brain lobe. It let out an angry roar in response.

Keith was already well ahead of Shiro. As soon as it had dropped down and fixed its focus on the other Keith was snarling like an animal and lunging at it's back with his sword. The tongue enough of a threat aimed at Shiro that Keith wanted it dead, fast.

Leaping into the air Keith brought his sword down hard, drove it through the base of its spine with a horrendous screech as Shiro's bullet sent blood and viscera into the air. Keith kept his mouth, eyes shut. Not wanting any of the gore to get him infected too. The tip of his sword burst through the monster's hideous throat, and it bucked, trying to jerk free and throw Keith off. With a grunt he twisted the blade, before sawing it forward and back as the beast screamed and gurgled, before finally going limp and still.

"...Gross," Keith assessed, pulling the blade free with a look of disgust, stepping away from the corpse before looking to Shiro, "You okay?"

Shiro covered his face with his elbows when he saw Keith go in for the kill, not wanting any gore to splatter on his face. He peeked back out when he heard the monster die.

"Yeah. I'm okay." It made Shiro smile a little, realizing that Keith had just saved his life twice tonight. Shiro had always considered himself Keith's protector, and now the younger man was returning the favor.

He looked down at the monster, mentally dubbing it 'the licker'. Was the thing's grotesque nature accidental or intentional? Shiro looked back at Keith. "Come on, we should get to my office and get the hell out of here."

Taking the lead again, Shiro guided Keith further into the hallway. The walls and floor were stained with blood in a few places, and they even ran into a couple of corpses along the way. Thankfully, they were inert. Shiro was reminded of the mansion all over again, with all its death.

"No arguments here. I'm not too keen on waiting around with this thing," he nudged one of it's paws with his foot, shuddering in disgust, "It looks like they skinned it and it's still trying to run around. Yechk,"

Grabbing at a nearby curtain, Keith wiped his blade clean before they continued, his dagger going back to his thigh for now.

Keith had never had experience in the field, not really. Some practice missions in training and supervised in house simulations, but this was different. It wasn't like he had never killed anything though, he'd been providing for himself long before Shiro had pulled him out of the mud. He knew how to hunt, how to skin a deer, how to last long winters with no one's help but his own. But... killing people? These things that had former lives, former families- it sill turned his stomach. Made him pause at the first corpses they found, a dark expression on his features before he continued moving.

These were Shiro's coworkers, some of them maybe even his friends- and then, the mansion... Shiro's mission. If he had seen this, but worse?

Keith wished he had been there. Didn't know what he could have done- what he might have added, but at least... at least he was here. At least Shiro had made it. Selfishly, that was all that mattered to Keith.

Shiro recognized a few of the corpses. They were coworkers, and even casual friends. He'd had water cooler talk with some of them, and he remembered some of them congratulating him on making it into STARS. He'd lost friends at the mansion. Joseph, Richard... Adam...

If Keith had been there, would he have made it out with him? Shiro didn't want to consider it. Keith was holding his own pretty well so far.

Wordlessly, Shiro opened the door to his office and stepped inside. No walking corpses or monsters, thankfully. "If you see something that looks useful, I suggest grabbing it."

Shiro went over to his desk, rummaging around in the drawers. He pulled out a key and stuffed it into his pocket. It was a master key that would allow him to open any door in the city. He also grabbed a road map of Raccoon City, and a few photos, which he slipped into his jacket pocket.

"How you doing over there?"

Slinking into the room after the other Keith cast a look around, sweeping the room with his flashlight and pursing his lips.

"Feels weird to be in here now," he murmured, "Not because of the zombies, I just- feels like I don't belong," he shrugged, stepping deeper inside and pulling drawers right out of their sliders, dumping the contents to the floor before discarding it, checking the next. Making a bit of a mess, sure- but one never knew where you might find a hidden compartment.

(Keith thought maybe, just maybe, he read a few too many spy and espionage novels.)

But then he came to Wesker's desk and paused. The man had always given Keith the creeps, honestly. Maybe it was his aversion to people in leadership positions though. He'd always had a bit of a problem with authority.

"Looks like we weren't the first one's here," Keith thumbed towards the desk, ransacked worse than any of the ones Keith had been pilfering through. "You think they were looking for something specific?"

Shiro walked over to Keith, stopping just a few feet away. "I'm sorry things didn't work out here. I think you would have been a good part of STARS." Shiro could easily see Keith being his right hand man if they had gotten their own unit. Not that it really mattered anymore, since the surviving members had turned in their badges, or were planning on it.

He then noticed whose desk Keith was at. Wesker. In hindsight, he wished his instincts about that man had been as good as Keith's.

"Maybe information about the mansion incident, or Umbrella." He got in closer, looking over Keith's shoulder. "Wesker was working with them. He betrayed us during the mission."

He felt his fist clench with the reveal that Wesker had betrayed Shiro and his team, anger washing through him. The urge to punch the other's photo was there, but he resisted with a huff.

"Figures. I never liked that asshole. Always gave me a bad feeling, beyond the stick being shoved too far up his ass,"

Turning away, Keith ransacked the last few desks that remained. Taking his anger out there.

"Anything of use at his desk is probably already taken. If I ever see that guy again I'm going to knock his teeth in," Keith grumbled, not realizing how possessive he was coming across. All he could think about was how angry the idea of anyone betraying Shiro made him.

Edited 2018-09-23 04:24 (UTC)

Shiro just stood by and let Keith let out his anger. He knew that he just had to let the younger man get it out of his system. Keith had to have a clear head if they were going to go back out and escape.

"Assuming he escaped the mansion. I mean, it blew up, and we don't know if he escaped."

Approaching Keith, Shiro put his hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"Speaking of, we should leave, and get out of Raccoon City."

Edited 2018-09-24 03:30 (UTC)

"That slimy rat probably found a way just to piss me off," Keith retorted with a snort, before smacking his gloved hands together, brushing them off with a sigh. He hadn't come across anything that screamed worthwhile value, and while Keith still had some low simmering anger towards Wesker for his treachery, it wasn't enough to keep him from guarding the both of them, of getting out alive.

"Yeah. If they had a scorched earth policy for the mansion there's no saying they won't try to pull the same trick twice. Unless you blew up the mansion," Keith couldn't see it, but he rose an eyebrow in question, amused by the thought of the other conspiring to blow up anything to that degree. Secret pyromaniac maybe? Keith sincerely doubted it.

"Either way, I'm not too keen to stick around longer than we have to." briefly, his hand came up to touch the other's on his shoulders, fingers just brushing Shiro's, a soft, comforting gesture. Maybe a little too familiar, but Keith couldn't quite help himself. Stolen affection complete, he dropped his hand away and moved back towards the door, more than ready to go.

"Actually, I'm not sure who activated the self-destruct," Shiro informed him. It was possible one of his surviving teammates activated it, or it could have been set to go off by something they did without realizing it. There was also the possibility it had been remotely activated.

Shiro held Keith's gaze silently as their hands touched, resisting temptation to take that hand in his own and squeeze it. Keith really wasn't that teenage boy anymore. He was a man, and Shiro's equal. His hand slipped away from Keith's shoulder.

"Then let's hit the road." Shiro got his gun back out and lead Keith back into the hallway. A quick sweep with his flashlight showed no monsters, but even then, Shiro was careful with every step he took, not wanting anything to take them by surprise.

When they exited the building, there were no zombies in sight and Keith's bike was still there. "Guess our luck's changing."

No sooner had the words left Shiro's mouth when there was a loud crash nearby. Something burst through a brick wall. Something huge.

"Well, I wouldn't put it past him," Keith muttered, just wanting to think the worst of Wesker, especially since Shiro had been put in such danger because of the man.

The memory of Shiro's hand on his shoulder remained, skin still warm beneath the space where it had been. If only now had been the time- but it wasn't. Keith pushed his feelings deep, as he had so often since meeting Shiro. It was always the wrong time, it seemed. First there had been the age gap, then Shiro had had Adam, and now? Well, as far as Keith knew Shiro still had Adam. And more importantly, they were in the middle of an undead uprising.

"That was almost too eas-" Keith had started to agree, when the wall across the street burst outward, making him take a step back into Shiro. Bumping into him at least kept him from toppling over anything else in surprise.

"Holy shit what the hell is that?!" but Keith wasn't stunned long enough not to act, rushing for his bike, not even worrying about his helmet as he jammed the key in the ignition and kicked the engine into gear, "Shiro!" he shouted, throwing a glance over his shoulder and hoping the other was following his lead. They had to get the hell out of here!

Somehow, even though it looked different from the one at the mansion, Shiro could tell what the thing was. He stood there in stunned horror, gaping at the thing, which gazed back at him. His nightmares of the monster came rushing back to him.

The beast pointed a finger at him and growled, "STARS..."

Snapping out of it, Shiro ran right after Keith. The monster reacted then, picking up a large chunk of concrete. Shiro was just about to jump on the bike when he realized what the beast was going to do. He grabbed Keith and pulled him off the bike right as the Tyrant threw the concrete at them, hitting the bike but narrowly missing them.

The thing growled at them again, seemingly angered that it had missed.

"Keith, run! It's a Tyrant!"

Grabbing Keith's arm, Shiro pulled him back towards the police station, as the monster charged at them.

It was as though Keith didn't even exist to the thing. It didn't care at all about his presence, whole heartedly fixed upon Shiro- and Keith's head whipped around to the other, calling out the other's name urgently again. He had to get on the bike, they had to go-!

But of course, looking at Shiro like he was meant that he didn't see the Tyrant lifting the debris. Maybe if he had, he could have rescued his bike. Gunned it to put enough space between himself and where it was to fall to keep it in one piece- but all of his attention was fixed on Shiro, hand extending to reach for the other, expression almost pleading.

His hand fisted in the other's coat, though before he could begin pulling the other onto the bike, Shiro's strength was hauling him away, off, and Keith let out a yelp of surprise as they spilled onto the sidewalk, the slab of concrete smashing into his bike with a sickening crunch. Realizing what had happened, Keith let out a howl of agony, before being dragged onto his feet, towards the police station as Keith's feet kicked out, trying to get up onto his feet while mourning for his bike.

"You son of a bitch!" he yelled at the Tyrant, unable to quite help himself as he (pettily) picked up a nearby rock and with remarkable aim, sent it slamming right into the monster's ugly head. Satisfied with this, he finally turned to follow Shiro properly, rushing the steps two at a time after the other and back into the police station.

Keith kind of doubted that it was going to offer them much shelter though, if that thing could just- smash through walls like that.

Keith's rock throwing only seemed to piss it off even more. Shiro made a mental note to make it up to Keith later, regarding the bike. Assuming they both survived this ordeal. He pulled the younger man into the station, quickly looking around for an escape route. "There's an emergency exit near the back!"

Letting go of Keith, and trusting him to follow, Shiro ran off to the left, as fast as his legs could carry him. Right as they reached the hallway, the front doors burst off their hinges as the Tyrant charged into the building. Again, it growled, "STARS," at them.

Shiro heard the thing give chase, and his only thoughts were to get Keith to safety. Even if Keith wasn't its primary target, Shiro didn't doubt it would kill him if given the opportunity or motive.

When he saw the back door, Shiro led Keith through it and ran down the alley. The back of another building had its rear door slightly ajar. Perhaps they could hide in there until the thing passed by. "In there!"

Biohazard

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