justprompts: Peaceful Lake Retreat
Was supposed to be from Sherry's POV... but it wasn't. So now it's a homage to my friend's amazing depiction of Birkin. Story within RE2 game canon, not the RP I'm currently in.
If anyone wants the MP3 of the song on which the title is based, it's here. Lyrics here.
Death to Birth
If he could see how the story ends, each moment would become a tiny tragedy. Even the happy times, the smiles, the world created for a little blond girl by her parents, loving but misplaced, distracted - it is all just a precursor. (Losing teeth as well, and Halloween costumes, and twirling barefoot in a cotton nightgown in the silent morning kitchen when she didn’t know he could see, the shaft of sunlight making her hair look nearly white.)
One thing she must know. She is not an accident. She was created out of love.
She was alone much of the time. Daycares were full of disease and debilitating ideas. So much could contaminate her. Nannies came and went; none were good enough. Didn’t they understand she was his child, his most important accomplishment thus far? (His research, his entire life’s work, still lay sloppy in front of him from day to day, chaotically unfinished. That might be his best accomplishment, someday, when it was perfected. Until then, there was Sherry.)
Finally, probably at an age deemed too young by others, she was allowed to stay home alone after school. She was always observed, carefully. Installing security cameras in one’s own house was not bizarre, not when your daughter’s safety was in mind.
She was fine. She was precocious. She was capable. The Birkins were capable people.
Perhaps he could have been home more. But the research - his whole life had been building to the moment of its completion. A child, sucking so much energy out of the room, is not expected to understand, but the truth is the truth nonetheless: the work was bigger than them. It was bigger than anyone.
***
Once, they took a vacation. It was more or less mandatory. Umbrella discovered he had not taken a day off in over ten years, since the honeymoon. Something about psychological fatigue, which was a load of bullshit. The misplaced slides had been the new intern’s fault; his outburst had been justified. Some glass had been broken, but no bones. Just like when Sherry knocked something over in her exasperatingly clumsy way: no harm done. Annette had even tried to spin it that way, but the higher ups were having none of it. Ten days paid vacation (no one dared say psych leave in his presence), or six weeks unpaid suspension. Suspension. Why not just give him a noose and offer to kick the chair out from under him?
It happened to be summer, and Annette, being skilled as she was at making the best of things, booked a cabin by a lake in the Arklay Mountains. Unfortunately, she didn’t have as much time off as he did, from having to stay home or collect Sherry from school on days she was sick, and could only join them halfway through his sentence.
“What on earth am I supposed to do for five days without you?” he asked her helplessly. He remembered the days before he met her; he thought bread with jam on it an acceptable dinner and when not working his favorite pastime was staring blankly at the wall, trying to get his mind to shut off.
Annette smiled and smoothed his collar for him. “Get to know your daughter.”
***
Reaching the cabin involved an hour’s drive through the mountains. Windy roads, sharp turns and defective barriers awaited them. Sherry, ten years old and possessing his own blue eyes - a reality that still knocked him breathless if he wasn’t expecting it - grinned at him from the rearview mirror as he white-knuckled his way to the godforsaken vacation destination. She chattered the entire way, too, although he could remember none of her blabber, being too preoccupied by not killing them both. He wished to call Annette and inform her parachuting in from above was likely a safer option.
The cabin itself was shrouded in fog. The interior was damp, the floorboards uneven. A ladder led to a second floor loft Sherry immediately expressed interest in sleeping in. Images plagued him of the child rolling right off the edge and breaking her neck; he forbade her to climb it, although she had somehow gotten herself up there before he’d been able speak. Pouting but obedient, she climbed back down. Someone should have warned him children inherently tried to get themselves killed at every possible juncture. He had a headache.
The lake looked like a sheet of glass outside the windows, reflecting the pine trees and grey sky. The living room had double doors which opened to a deck. The deck led to a pier that extended out over the water. No boats were tethered there, which made him nervous. There must be a reason no one used it. Structurally unsound, possibly. Rusted nails just waiting to tear into the soft flesh of the foot, guaranteeing tetanus. Sherry ran out, right to the edge before he could stop her. She ran everywhere. What was the hurry?
“I wanna go swimming!” was her answer.
Lakes were full of bacteria. Snakes, fish eggs, more diseases. She was a child; there were so many things her immune system couldn’t fight. He was a virologist. He should know.
“It’s too cold,” he replied.
She pouted, but returned to him. For all her illogical actions, she wanted nothing more than to please him. He hugged her when she was within arm’s length. She clung to him like a limpet and wouldn’t let go.
He found a phonebook and ordered pizza for dinner. He loathed feeding his daughter such horrible food but with an empty fridge and no Annette to cook, the other option was letting her go hungry. He let her choose a vegetable for a topping and she picked peppers, which he had no idea she liked.
She let him dab the grease off her slice. She was an agreeable child, all things considered.
***
That night, he dreamt of dying. It happened from time to time, always leaving him disoriented and vulnerable. Most nights he could roll over and pull Annette closer to him and feel better. Tonight the other side of the bed was cold and it confused him. Then he remembered the useless vacation and creaky cabin.
He got out of bed and walked down the hall to Sherry’s room. She was completely curled up in blankets, a little girl cocoon, pale hair sprouting from the opening in the covers. He remembered the days when she was afraid of monsters, under the bed, in the closet. She found her way into their bed, nestled between them, more often than not. It had annoyed him at the time; his moments alone with his wife were rare enough as it was. He had never counted on how needy Sherry would be.
Some time ago this behavior of hers stopped. He couldn’t even pinpoint when. Now she was almost too fearless. He’d never been able to tell her the monsters could be real, given the viruses with letters for names. T and G, to name a couple.
He lay down next to her and put his arms around her. She barely even moved, being so deeply asleep. She would need to know, someday. His research was so valuable, rival companies might want to claim it for their own. It was finally nearing completion. Two years tops, he had projected. Sherry would need to know and understand her father’s legacy, and how to carry on if -
No. It’s ludicrous. She was still much too young. That’s why he had her mother. Sherry didn’t need to know the details, the dangers. Not yet.
(She would know someday, inevitably. He knew this deep down but never let himself think of it. His work was, by nature, morally grey, and he could not bear the thought of her judging him for it. He never wanted to see a flicker of doubt in her eyes when she looked at him. He wanted nothing but the adoring devotion he received from her currently.
He was involved in the work for the research: the creation of the perfect virus, a beautiful organism all its own, so often misunderstood. What Umbrella did with it was none of his concern. He would tell her this, someday, when she asked.)
He awoke in the morning on his side with Sherry’s forehead against his chest. She still sucked her thumb in her sleep. It was terribly painful, sometimes, how much he loved her.
***
Entertaining a ten-year-old by himself for days proved difficult. The TV received only three channels choked with static, there was no computer, and the books he had told her to bring where hideously uneducational. (Sweet Valley High? He’d have to speak to Annette about that one.)
There were board games in the top shelf of a closet. After five games of Life, he saw several unrealistic scenarios on how her life could progress, which made him uneasy. (She always chose the Superstar card if it came up, to his horror. Hadn’t any values he’d instilled in her stuck?)
They went into the nearby town and ate more pizza. He was becoming twitchy without access to his lab. He needed a microscope and solitude, not this diminutive human being following him around, never quieting down. He couldn’t even follow her train of thought 85% of the time.
On the third night, Albert Wesker joined them for dinner. The two men found themselves drinking beer at twilight, sitting out on the porch, watching Sherry down on the pier, chasing fireflies with a net she found in the basement It was an absurd facsimile of a normal life. Despite the falling darkness, Albert kept his sunglasses on. They had been friends and colleagues for years, but small talk eluded them and he did not want to bring up work with Sherry in earshot.
“Alexia’s excelling, as usual,” Albert commented, bringing up his rival, which just served to aggravate him. The woman was in a fucking coma and she was still getting more work done than he was. He tried not to think of how behind he would be when he returned to the lab.
A plop and a splash broke the silence; he flew out of his seat. Sherry had disappeared into the black water, nothing left of her but a ripple and the butterfly net, floating on the surface. He ran and leapt, sloppily following her descent, the frigid water closing around him, sound going hollow and muffled. He resurfaced with her in his arms, struggling to find footing. The water is over her head but not his. He realized he was coughing, but she was not. She was grinning.
“Can we do that again?” she asked eagerly.
He forgot she could swim.
He wiped the dripping hair from his eyes, wading over to the pier to set her down before hoisting himself out. He looked up to the deck, where Albert stood, watching them both with a smirk on his face. He felt oddly violated.
Carrying Sherry back to the house, he passed Albert without looking at him and muttered, “I think it’s time you left.”
Albert never understood. He hadn’t been taken seriously when he said he planned to marry Annette. To Albert, his attempt at a family was sentimental, weak. The man would never sacrifice his dignity to jump after a child into a lake; he might get his sunglasses wet.
Once, Albert questioned him about Sherry. Asked if she was special. Knowing Albert’s meaning, he had said yes without bothering to elaborate. He knew Albert meant genetically, as if his and Annette’s decision to have her had to be related to their work. How disappointed might Albert be someday if he learned the truth.
But Sherry was special. She was his daughter. No other child on earth had such a privilege.
***
Finally, finally, Annette joined them. He felt much better with the three of them together. They were complete. They went back into the village and ate at a high end restaurant. They ordered lobster. Sherry seemed fearful of the red salt water cockroach until Annette taught her how to crack open the shell to eat the meat inside. She wanted a hot fudge sundae for dessert and he relented. Annette got a slice of cheesecake and slyly fed him bites while Sherry devoured the heaps of ice cream as if she might never eat again. In that moment, he felt strangely content. Perhaps he needed a vacation after all.
A street photographer stopped on the sidewalk on the way back to the car, asking to take their picture. He almost brushed past the man, but Sherry dug her heels into the concrete and Annette stopped as well. Paying for it would be horrendously overpriced, but both women in his life were smiling. He gave up and posed with them in front of a shrub, smiling awkwardly, sliding an arm around his wife’s waist. Sherry stood between them, hair in the braided pigtails Annette had done for her before they left. One flash and they were frozen forever, a happy family. And he was happy. He could only hope they felt the same. He was doing the best he could.
Someday, that photo will be placed in a locket to give to their daughter, along with something else. His two most important accomplishments, traveling together to a place he cannot follow.
***
He is not ready. The dreams of death do not compare to this, the shrieking pain across his upper body, razor blades in his lungs. His starched white shirt blossoming with blood. He is not ready. There are school dances and boys to scare off with well-placed glares. Braces, her teeth are inexcusably crooked. Driving lessons. College. Giving her away at the wedding, trying his best not to dig his nails in to her arm, tell her not to go, she was the only one, the only one who ever loved him unconditionally. Grandchildren. Love, so much love he has taken for granted until this very moment, syringe in his hand, on the floor against his desk watching the life drain away as men in gas masks abscond with the inhuman thing that had taken precedence over his family all these years. His entire life’s work.
He is not ready.
He struggles to find a vein. He hopes Sherry can forgive him. Needle inserted, he dispenses the ampule, and begs to be reborn.
If anyone wants the MP3 of the song on which the title is based, it's here. Lyrics here.
Death to Birth
If he could see how the story ends, each moment would become a tiny tragedy. Even the happy times, the smiles, the world created for a little blond girl by her parents, loving but misplaced, distracted - it is all just a precursor. (Losing teeth as well, and Halloween costumes, and twirling barefoot in a cotton nightgown in the silent morning kitchen when she didn’t know he could see, the shaft of sunlight making her hair look nearly white.)
One thing she must know. She is not an accident. She was created out of love.
She was alone much of the time. Daycares were full of disease and debilitating ideas. So much could contaminate her. Nannies came and went; none were good enough. Didn’t they understand she was his child, his most important accomplishment thus far? (His research, his entire life’s work, still lay sloppy in front of him from day to day, chaotically unfinished. That might be his best accomplishment, someday, when it was perfected. Until then, there was Sherry.)
Finally, probably at an age deemed too young by others, she was allowed to stay home alone after school. She was always observed, carefully. Installing security cameras in one’s own house was not bizarre, not when your daughter’s safety was in mind.
She was fine. She was precocious. She was capable. The Birkins were capable people.
Perhaps he could have been home more. But the research - his whole life had been building to the moment of its completion. A child, sucking so much energy out of the room, is not expected to understand, but the truth is the truth nonetheless: the work was bigger than them. It was bigger than anyone.
***
Once, they took a vacation. It was more or less mandatory. Umbrella discovered he had not taken a day off in over ten years, since the honeymoon. Something about psychological fatigue, which was a load of bullshit. The misplaced slides had been the new intern’s fault; his outburst had been justified. Some glass had been broken, but no bones. Just like when Sherry knocked something over in her exasperatingly clumsy way: no harm done. Annette had even tried to spin it that way, but the higher ups were having none of it. Ten days paid vacation (no one dared say psych leave in his presence), or six weeks unpaid suspension. Suspension. Why not just give him a noose and offer to kick the chair out from under him?
It happened to be summer, and Annette, being skilled as she was at making the best of things, booked a cabin by a lake in the Arklay Mountains. Unfortunately, she didn’t have as much time off as he did, from having to stay home or collect Sherry from school on days she was sick, and could only join them halfway through his sentence.
“What on earth am I supposed to do for five days without you?” he asked her helplessly. He remembered the days before he met her; he thought bread with jam on it an acceptable dinner and when not working his favorite pastime was staring blankly at the wall, trying to get his mind to shut off.
Annette smiled and smoothed his collar for him. “Get to know your daughter.”
***
Reaching the cabin involved an hour’s drive through the mountains. Windy roads, sharp turns and defective barriers awaited them. Sherry, ten years old and possessing his own blue eyes - a reality that still knocked him breathless if he wasn’t expecting it - grinned at him from the rearview mirror as he white-knuckled his way to the godforsaken vacation destination. She chattered the entire way, too, although he could remember none of her blabber, being too preoccupied by not killing them both. He wished to call Annette and inform her parachuting in from above was likely a safer option.
The cabin itself was shrouded in fog. The interior was damp, the floorboards uneven. A ladder led to a second floor loft Sherry immediately expressed interest in sleeping in. Images plagued him of the child rolling right off the edge and breaking her neck; he forbade her to climb it, although she had somehow gotten herself up there before he’d been able speak. Pouting but obedient, she climbed back down. Someone should have warned him children inherently tried to get themselves killed at every possible juncture. He had a headache.
The lake looked like a sheet of glass outside the windows, reflecting the pine trees and grey sky. The living room had double doors which opened to a deck. The deck led to a pier that extended out over the water. No boats were tethered there, which made him nervous. There must be a reason no one used it. Structurally unsound, possibly. Rusted nails just waiting to tear into the soft flesh of the foot, guaranteeing tetanus. Sherry ran out, right to the edge before he could stop her. She ran everywhere. What was the hurry?
“I wanna go swimming!” was her answer.
Lakes were full of bacteria. Snakes, fish eggs, more diseases. She was a child; there were so many things her immune system couldn’t fight. He was a virologist. He should know.
“It’s too cold,” he replied.
She pouted, but returned to him. For all her illogical actions, she wanted nothing more than to please him. He hugged her when she was within arm’s length. She clung to him like a limpet and wouldn’t let go.
He found a phonebook and ordered pizza for dinner. He loathed feeding his daughter such horrible food but with an empty fridge and no Annette to cook, the other option was letting her go hungry. He let her choose a vegetable for a topping and she picked peppers, which he had no idea she liked.
She let him dab the grease off her slice. She was an agreeable child, all things considered.
***
That night, he dreamt of dying. It happened from time to time, always leaving him disoriented and vulnerable. Most nights he could roll over and pull Annette closer to him and feel better. Tonight the other side of the bed was cold and it confused him. Then he remembered the useless vacation and creaky cabin.
He got out of bed and walked down the hall to Sherry’s room. She was completely curled up in blankets, a little girl cocoon, pale hair sprouting from the opening in the covers. He remembered the days when she was afraid of monsters, under the bed, in the closet. She found her way into their bed, nestled between them, more often than not. It had annoyed him at the time; his moments alone with his wife were rare enough as it was. He had never counted on how needy Sherry would be.
Some time ago this behavior of hers stopped. He couldn’t even pinpoint when. Now she was almost too fearless. He’d never been able to tell her the monsters could be real, given the viruses with letters for names. T and G, to name a couple.
He lay down next to her and put his arms around her. She barely even moved, being so deeply asleep. She would need to know, someday. His research was so valuable, rival companies might want to claim it for their own. It was finally nearing completion. Two years tops, he had projected. Sherry would need to know and understand her father’s legacy, and how to carry on if -
No. It’s ludicrous. She was still much too young. That’s why he had her mother. Sherry didn’t need to know the details, the dangers. Not yet.
(She would know someday, inevitably. He knew this deep down but never let himself think of it. His work was, by nature, morally grey, and he could not bear the thought of her judging him for it. He never wanted to see a flicker of doubt in her eyes when she looked at him. He wanted nothing but the adoring devotion he received from her currently.
He was involved in the work for the research: the creation of the perfect virus, a beautiful organism all its own, so often misunderstood. What Umbrella did with it was none of his concern. He would tell her this, someday, when she asked.)
He awoke in the morning on his side with Sherry’s forehead against his chest. She still sucked her thumb in her sleep. It was terribly painful, sometimes, how much he loved her.
***
Entertaining a ten-year-old by himself for days proved difficult. The TV received only three channels choked with static, there was no computer, and the books he had told her to bring where hideously uneducational. (Sweet Valley High? He’d have to speak to Annette about that one.)
There were board games in the top shelf of a closet. After five games of Life, he saw several unrealistic scenarios on how her life could progress, which made him uneasy. (She always chose the Superstar card if it came up, to his horror. Hadn’t any values he’d instilled in her stuck?)
They went into the nearby town and ate more pizza. He was becoming twitchy without access to his lab. He needed a microscope and solitude, not this diminutive human being following him around, never quieting down. He couldn’t even follow her train of thought 85% of the time.
On the third night, Albert Wesker joined them for dinner. The two men found themselves drinking beer at twilight, sitting out on the porch, watching Sherry down on the pier, chasing fireflies with a net she found in the basement It was an absurd facsimile of a normal life. Despite the falling darkness, Albert kept his sunglasses on. They had been friends and colleagues for years, but small talk eluded them and he did not want to bring up work with Sherry in earshot.
“Alexia’s excelling, as usual,” Albert commented, bringing up his rival, which just served to aggravate him. The woman was in a fucking coma and she was still getting more work done than he was. He tried not to think of how behind he would be when he returned to the lab.
A plop and a splash broke the silence; he flew out of his seat. Sherry had disappeared into the black water, nothing left of her but a ripple and the butterfly net, floating on the surface. He ran and leapt, sloppily following her descent, the frigid water closing around him, sound going hollow and muffled. He resurfaced with her in his arms, struggling to find footing. The water is over her head but not his. He realized he was coughing, but she was not. She was grinning.
“Can we do that again?” she asked eagerly.
He forgot she could swim.
He wiped the dripping hair from his eyes, wading over to the pier to set her down before hoisting himself out. He looked up to the deck, where Albert stood, watching them both with a smirk on his face. He felt oddly violated.
Carrying Sherry back to the house, he passed Albert without looking at him and muttered, “I think it’s time you left.”
Albert never understood. He hadn’t been taken seriously when he said he planned to marry Annette. To Albert, his attempt at a family was sentimental, weak. The man would never sacrifice his dignity to jump after a child into a lake; he might get his sunglasses wet.
Once, Albert questioned him about Sherry. Asked if she was special. Knowing Albert’s meaning, he had said yes without bothering to elaborate. He knew Albert meant genetically, as if his and Annette’s decision to have her had to be related to their work. How disappointed might Albert be someday if he learned the truth.
But Sherry was special. She was his daughter. No other child on earth had such a privilege.
***
Finally, finally, Annette joined them. He felt much better with the three of them together. They were complete. They went back into the village and ate at a high end restaurant. They ordered lobster. Sherry seemed fearful of the red salt water cockroach until Annette taught her how to crack open the shell to eat the meat inside. She wanted a hot fudge sundae for dessert and he relented. Annette got a slice of cheesecake and slyly fed him bites while Sherry devoured the heaps of ice cream as if she might never eat again. In that moment, he felt strangely content. Perhaps he needed a vacation after all.
A street photographer stopped on the sidewalk on the way back to the car, asking to take their picture. He almost brushed past the man, but Sherry dug her heels into the concrete and Annette stopped as well. Paying for it would be horrendously overpriced, but both women in his life were smiling. He gave up and posed with them in front of a shrub, smiling awkwardly, sliding an arm around his wife’s waist. Sherry stood between them, hair in the braided pigtails Annette had done for her before they left. One flash and they were frozen forever, a happy family. And he was happy. He could only hope they felt the same. He was doing the best he could.
Someday, that photo will be placed in a locket to give to their daughter, along with something else. His two most important accomplishments, traveling together to a place he cannot follow.
***
He is not ready. The dreams of death do not compare to this, the shrieking pain across his upper body, razor blades in his lungs. His starched white shirt blossoming with blood. He is not ready. There are school dances and boys to scare off with well-placed glares. Braces, her teeth are inexcusably crooked. Driving lessons. College. Giving her away at the wedding, trying his best not to dig his nails in to her arm, tell her not to go, she was the only one, the only one who ever loved him unconditionally. Grandchildren. Love, so much love he has taken for granted until this very moment, syringe in his hand, on the floor against his desk watching the life drain away as men in gas masks abscond with the inhuman thing that had taken precedence over his family all these years. His entire life’s work.
He is not ready.
He struggles to find a vein. He hopes Sherry can forgive him. Needle inserted, he dispenses the ampule, and begs to be reborn.