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2023-03-24
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2023-04-28
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Michael & Gabriel

Summary:

Karl shrugs, unbothered. "Shame. I think I could've made a good Gabriel."

Rose scoffs, she can't help it. "You're no guardian angel."

"Nah," he agrees easily, stepping aside. "Not really my style."

Rose follows him back through the kitchen door, retracing their steps. "So, what is your deal?"

"Hmm," the way Karl strokes his chin sinks any hope Rose might have had about getting a straight answer. "Always thought I'd made a good devil on someone's shoulder. So tell me, Rose, why do think these powers of yours need to go?"

a.k.a. Shadows of Rose, but this time "Michael" isn't the only mysterious figure helping Rose along.

Notes:

Given how very canon it is that the megamycete stores the memories of anyone who dies near it, "Shadows of Rose, but now with added Heisenberg" was another of those ideas I thought would surely be all over AO3 by now ‒ but since it's not, here's my own take on the possibilities.

Will obviously be easier to follow if you're familiar with the Shadows of Rose DLC (or at least are somewhat familiar with the overall concept). If not, it's relatively short and easily found on youtube, where a fairly complete playthrough will only take you about an hour and a half, or just the cutscenes only about half an hour. It's gloriously cheesy and made me bawl my eyes out, and I'd highly recommend it to any RE8 fan who hasn't tracked it down yet: A++ Winters family feels.

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Rose first meets the man with the hammer in the courtyard—fumbling with her last clip of ammo as she runs from one of those shambling face-eaters, desperate to give herself enough space and time to reload, hands gone clumsy with fear. (God, Chris would kick her ass if he saw her fumbling like this; you'd think she'd never reloaded a gun before.)

In fact, the hammer precedes the man; Rose looks back over her shoulder just in time to see the blunt shape of an enormous hunk of metal slam into the monster's body, knocking it flat. As Rose nearly tumbles over her own feet, a man-sized figure raises the hammer over its head, bringing it down on the twitching monster with a clang so loud Rose feels in her ribcage. No third strike is necessary.

The stranger hefts the hammer back over a shoulder with ease, looking her up and down. He's wearing a hat and a long duster coat.

"Well, hello, Rose," he purrs. His eyes are obscured behind round, dark lenses, but his grin is absolutely feral. "Always knew you'd grow up into something special."

Rose does the only sensible thing she can: she flees.

Michael finds her in the castle kitchens, crouched by the door with her back against the wall, just madly hoping she's lost her pursuit.

On the floor in front of her, golden letters spell out the words, Don't run.

"Excuse me?" Rose hisses. "Have you seen the guy chasing me?"

Not your enemy, says Michael, and for a moment Rose is so confused she almost doesn't see the monster lurching in through the doorway until it's too late.

For once, Chris' training kicks in: Rose has her pistol pointed at its head and is a heartbeat away from pulling the trigger when a mess of flying shrapnel collides with the creature, shredding it into dust.

The man with the hammer steps through the open door, turning to Rose. "Let's try this again, shall we?" he says.

Rose swallows. Not your enemy. That would be so much easier to believe if this creep didn't exude threat from every pore: he looks like something that walked off a poster campaign about stranger danger. She doesn't lower her gun. "Who are you?"

"Good question," says the man, amused. "'Spose I could be Gabriel, if you like."

Well that figures. "Are you... with Michael?"

He gives her another broad grin. "He's always had trouble manifesting in the higher strata. Sent me up to keep an eye on you." Shifting his grip on the hammer to his left, he offers her a hand up.

Rose has half a mind to brush it aside and stand up on her own, just to make a point, but... oh, fuck it, if Michael says this guy is okay...

'Gabriel's' gloves make his hand even more enormous against her own, but at least he's gentle: no yanking her half off her feet just to show off his strength. Back on her feet, Rose is still trying to figure out what she's supposed to do with this weirdo when his eyes flicker to the wall behind her head. Possibly against her better judgement, she turns in time to see the words, Damnit Karl disappearing, to be replaced with, Scaring her.

"Karl?" says Rose. "Your name is Karl?"

"Well, it is now." Karl shrugs, unbothered. "Shame. I think I could've made a good Gabriel."

Rose scoffs, she can't help it. "You're no guardian angel."

"Nah," he agrees easily, stepping aside. "Not really my style."

Rose follows him back through the kitchen door, retracing their steps. "So, what is your deal?"

"Hmm," the way Karl strokes his chin sinks any hope Rose might have had about getting a straight answer. "Always thought I'd made a good devil on someone's shoulder. So tell me, Rose, why do think these powers of yours need to go?"

"Seriously, are you sure about this guy?" she asks Michael later, the golden glow around her newest magically-delivered clip still fading as she clicks it into her gun. Somewhere behind her, she can hear Karl gleefully mashing one of the latest wave of face-eaters through a table.

For a moment, she's not sure if Michael heard her at all, but then the words, Can trust him, flicker into being.

"Okay, Michael," she tells him, "If you say so," though it's hard not to feel the pause before he'd spoken carries rather more weight than the words do.

Notes:

Don't imagine Rose is in for an easier time, with Heisenberg along: adaptive difficulty works both ways. *g*

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Rose has one foot on the staircase when she hears music, playing back in her family's old living room—an upbeat jazz track she half-recognises, but couldn't name. She looks back through the doorway to see a familiar figure holding the Miss D and the Pallboys CD, examining the case.

"Karl?" She hasn't seen him since... god, somewhere back in the castle, when they got separated. As much as he still kind of scares her, it's a relief to see he's okay. "Did Michael bring you here?"

Karl turns to face her, looking characteristically pleased with himself. "Not exactly. But he can't keep me out, either. Never seen this place before. Was just checking out your papa's taste in music." He tugs open the dresser drawer, revealing the CD comes from good company. "Or maybe your mama's, I wouldn't know."

Rose scoffs a little, "Mom doesn't..." she begins, but she's barely finished the thought before she's already seeing it with new eyes.

"Doesn't what?"

"I... was going to say she doesn't like jazz. But... now I think about it, maybe it's not that she doesn't like it. She just... it kind of makes her sad."

"Ahh," Karl nods. "Well, that answers that question. 'Spose we'll have to add 'ruining jazz for your mother' to good old Ethan's list of sins."

Something about the way he says that name... "Did you... know him? My Dad—when he was alive."

"When he was alive, you say?" Rose isn't sure why he seems to find it so amusing to emphasise what should be a fairly meaningless qualification. "Yeah, met him a couple of times, right before he died."

"You did? What was he like?"

Karl tilts his head. "You need me to tell you?"

You wouldn't think so, would you? And yet: "Mom doesn't like to talk about him. Chris makes out like he was some kind of saint. No-one will say a bad word about him—not to me, anyway. I get it, but it means no-one says much about him at all." Her father is always talked about like he's this ideal, more than a person. It's supposed to be comforting, knowing he'd loved her enough to give his life for her, but it makes him seem less real than the kinds of dads other people have: the ones who struggle to make time for you or lecture you about cleaning your room. Even the ones who fight with your Mom when they think you aren't listening, or belch on the couch and swear at the TV. They might be imperfect, but at least they're there.

Karl sits himself down on the couch, jazz still wailing away around them. "So you wanna hear someone say some bad words about your old man, do you?"

"I didn't mean..."

"Your father," says Karl, "was the stubbornest son of a bitch I ever had the misfortune to meet."

That brings Rose up short. "Wow. Seriously?"

"Oh, you have no idea." Karl's grin could legally qualify as a leer. "Wasn't anything that could stop that man once he'd set his mind on something—not even good sense. And he'd throw himself into a pit full of chainsaws before he'd listen to that, if he wasn't in the mood. No compromises. No second thoughts. He just set himself towards the next obstacle in his way—no plan, no backup—and kept going like he was daring the universe to stop him. Swore like a sailor, too, not that I could blame him."

This startles a laugh out of Rose. Whether Karl's take on her father is fair or not, it's hard to doubt that it's honest—as brutally honest as anyone around her has ever been.

"You should've seen him in action—what a sight he was! Scrappiest damn fighter I ever saw. Held a knife like he'd never used one before, but he'd still come at you with it if that was all he had left. Even with his fingers shaking and blood in his eyes, he'd run until you had him cornered, then keep firing until he ran out of bullets. Saw him let a lycan chew on his arm once, just so he could get it close enough for a headshot." Karl grins. "At least, we'll be charitable and assume that was the plan."

"Whoa..." Rose can feel her eyes widening. When people talk about what her dad did for her, it's always conveniently bloodless. When he knew he wasn't going to make it, he stayed behind to make sure the bomb went off. Quick and painless. They don't really talk about what happened to get him to that point. How is she supposed to square all this with the soft-spoken man she's been hearing around this place?

"They may have told you he died to save you," Karl tells her, more seriously, "but I doubt you've heard the beginning of what he went through to keep you alive. He lost two fingers down a lycan's throat that day, and he just wrapped his hand in a rag and kept going, like he'd forgotten he ever had fingers there to miss. I doubt they told you how many times he died to save you either."

Rose stares at him. "Like... more than once?"

"More than twice," Karl grins. "Probably more than three times. But I doubt he was counting. It wasn't like a death or two could slow that man down. And if he hadn't known you were in safe hands at the end, I don't doubt he'd have found a way to get back up again, even then."

A shiver runs down Rose's spine. "You're talking about the mould, aren't you? It kept him alive." God, how could she be worth all that? How could anyone?

Karl nods. "No-one's ever taken to it like he did. Most folks turn into monsters—creatures their own mothers wouldn't recognise. I should know—I'm one of them!" It would be a stretch to call the way Karl bares his teeth now a grin. "The woman who infected me was another. But your papa—he just kept right on trucking like it made no difference. Like I said: one stubborn son of a bitch." Is it just her, or does he sound almost fond?

Karl's eyes drift to somewhere around the bookshelf. "Heck of an engineer, too. One day he spent in our village, and before I knew it, this old windmill no-one had repaired in years is running again, and the entire dam has been flushed downstream! Ha!"

"Why would he do that?"

"You wouldn't be asking that if you knew what was living in that dam," says Karl, with relish. "And by the time he was done with my factory, the grinder fan was down, security was in tatters, but he had backup generators online and power rerouted to parts of the facility that no-one but me was even supposed to be able to go!"

It's not even the point, but... "You had a factory?"

"Until some bastard blew it up, sure." Karl shrugs. "I'd show it to you, but frankly, it was never much to look at."

"What was my dad doing there?"

"Trying to get out, mostly. Some asshole he didn't want to listen to tossed him down into the basement to keep him out of the way." He takes in Rose's look of horror with obvious pride. "Well of course it was me! Who else? Should've known it was only a matter of time before he dug his way back out again, but I just didn't have the heart to kill him properly." Karl stares off into the middle distance, eyes gone fond again in a way that makes no sense at all. "Oh, I tried to, after he came crawling out again. Just not hard enough."

Karl had tried to kill her dad? What the hell? "What... happened?"

"You can't guess?" There's something particularly nasty in Karl's grin this time. "He killed me instead."

"My dad killed you?"

He shrugs at her look of horror. "Hard to blame him, really. I did try to kill him first."

"Then... why are you helping me?"

"Oh, don't get the wrong idea," says Karl, as if a little casual murder is just a solid bonding experience. "Even back then, I wanted you out of Miranda's clutches as much as he did—we only differed on how. That hasn't changed."

"Enough to kill each other?" Rose has to be missing something.

"I told you he was one stubborn bastard, didn't I? Wouldn't listen." Another shrug. "Then again, I suppose I came on a little stronger than would make a good impression. He didn't appreciate having his pigtails pulled that hard, and I didn't take rejection all that well. I'll say this for being dead: it gives you ample time to reflect."

It says a lot that that last bit about being dead hardly even registers with Rose. "Oh my god. You hit on my dad?" She's halfway convinced he's just messing with her at this point.

"Can you blame me? Men like your papa didn't wander into our village every day." There's nothing apologetic in Karl's grin. "He didn't go for it. Got it in his head I was as big a threat to you as Miranda."

Rose shakes her head, completely at a loss. "God, you are so weird."

Karl seems to take this as a compliment. "I've been called worse."

For a moment, silence falls between them.

"So," Rose begins again, uneasily, "when you say my Dad killed you, you mean like..."

"The kind of 'dead' us mould-y types can come back from?" Karl guesses. "Oh no, I'm dead. Dead as your father. I'm only here because the megamycete stores the memories of those who die in its sphere of influence—weren't you told?"

Rose was told, that's pretty much how she got into this mess to begin with. "And Michael? Is he dead too?"

Karl seems to find this rather funny. "How did you think a man gets into the guardian angel business?"

Truth be told, Rose isn't sure if she'd been thinking of Michael as a 'man' at all; more sort of a force of nature. Just one who apparently hangs out with freaks like Karl. "He knew my dad too?"

"You could say that," says Karl. "He couldn't have made this place for you if he hadn't seen it himself, once upon a time. But if you want Michael's story, you're going to have to convince him to tell you."

Rose nods, not really listening. She's not really thinking about Michael anymore, she's thinking about what Karl just told her about people who died near the megamycete—like her dad—because that could mean...

A hand landing on her shoulder pulls her abruptly out of her reverie. "Speaking of Michael," says Karl, "didn't he have something to show you upstairs? Wouldn't want to waste your time here—not after he went to all this effort for you."

Right. She'd almost forgotten. Grateful, Rose hurries away.

Chapter 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

In the end, it's all worth it: Miranda crumbles, and Rose gets to meet her dad for real—she even gets to hug her dad for real—and for a moment, everything is perfect. The hug that might have gone on a lot longer too, except that suddenly her dad goes rigid, and says, "Oh shit—Karl!"

"What?" says Rose, taking a moment to catch up, then, "Oh... oh, shit!"

Karl is, fortunately, no worse for wear when they get to him. Freed of Miranda's influence, the ugly mass of fungus tangled around his body is already starting to crumble away, but it takes some additional encouragement from Rose to complete the process. It's all so easy now, making it all whiten into enormous chunks that come crashing down to set him free.

Karl himself doesn't seem the least bit bothered to have been forgotten in the excitement. If anything, he looks ecstatic, grin splitting his face from ear to ear. His first act upon being freed is to lift Rose bodily off the ground (not the least put off by her scared yelp), laughing aloud as he swings her around in glee.

"Oh, did you see her, Ethan?" he breathes, setting a slightly-dizzy Rose back down on the ground. "Always knew that daughter of yours would grow into something magnificent! And to think you wanted to throw all that power away!" This part is directed back at Rose. "Miranda was right to fear you, girl—didn't I always say she'd be the one grinding that bitch into paste someday?"

"Jesus, Karl..." Obviously a little overwhelmed by Karl's exuberance, Ethan looks away—then freezes and looks sharply back again. "Wait, was this what you meant back then? This was your grand plan? Wait until she grows up, and then...?"

"Don't catch on very fast, do you, Ethan?" Karl claps Rose on the shoulder with enough force to make her flinch. "Lucky your Rose here got her brains from her mother."

"Oh, I'm sorry," says Ethan, not sounding sorry at all, "I didn't grasp that your plan to use my daughter as a weapon involved waiting fifteen years until she was ready!"

Karl waves a hand, undaunted. "Do I have to remind you how long I'd waited already? What's a few more years?"

"Oh my god." Ethan doesn't look like he knows whether to laugh or start an argument. "You're insane."

"But you like me anyway," Karl grins, but this time it's definitely a leer, and for Rose, that's officially the final straw.

"Um, excuse me?" she squeaks. "Do you two need a moment, or do I get to find out what the hell this even is?"

Both Karl and her dad freeze, guiltily. Embarrassed, her dad rubs his face. "God, I'm sorry, Rose. It's just... it's complicated."

Oh, she just bets it is. Rose folds her arms, waiting.

Ethan takes a deep breath. "Rose," he starts again, "this is Karl Heisenberg. He's..."

"Oh, I got who he is," Rose cuts him off, because seriously—they've been over who Karl is. "Just not... are you guys, like, together? Is that what's going on here?"

Her father's look of mild horror is just slightly undercut by the way Karl bursts out laughing. Rose is halfway to convincing herself she must have completely misread things when he comes out with, "Oh, Ethan, didn't I just say she got her brains from her mother?" This time, it's Ethan he claps on the shoulder. "Not much gets past this one!"

"Oh my god," Rose breathes, as her dad struggles for words. "But... what about Mom?"

"What about nothing!" Karl growls. "She had her chance back when this loser was still alive. She wants him back, she can come down here and get him! Until then..." He wraps a possessive arm around Ethan's waist, only for Ethan to twist free.

"Jesus, Karl, will you stop talking?" he complains, shoving him back with a hand to his chest. "Just let me handle this, okay?"

Karl holds up his hands, duly chastised, and steps back.

Ethan sighs, then leads Rose a little further away. "Christ, he's impossible sometimes—hell, usually. I wasn't even thinking about..."

"Dad...?" Rose prompts him, stopping a couple of paces away.

"Look," Ethan begins again. "I... you have to know I loved your mother more than anything. Still do." And god, it sounds like he means it, too. "I miss her almost every day. But I'm... I've had to be glad she's not down here with me—with whatever version of me that the megamycete saved. She's still got her whole life to live, even if I can't be there with her, and you needed her so much more than..." He trails off, unable to look at her for a moment.

There's a lump in Rose's throat, a big one. "Oh..."

"Me and Karl, we didn't exactly get off on the right foot," her dad admits. "But we've had time to get to know each other better, in all the years since, and... well, he was there for me when I needed someone."

"Like... when your daughter's being hunted by Miranda's mould-monsters?"

Ethan cracks a small smile. "Yeah, it's those little things that really count. It's... been a lot to come to terms with. Still being here, but not being able to be there for you. Without him, I don't even know that I..." he shakes himself. "Look, Rose, I know this must be weird for you, and you really don't have to be okay with it, finding out like this..."

"No, it's okay!" Rose cuts in.

"Rose..." Startled, her dad shakes his head.

"No, I mean it, it's okay!" Because, now he puts it that way, it is, somehow—what would she prefer, that he was alone down here? Amazing how seeing the spectre of your own dead father impaled on Miranda's mould-tentacle can recontextualise all your priorities like that. Fuck it, she wanted her dad to be real—what's realer than meeting the weird new boyfriend he was almost too embarrassed to introduce you to, after he and your mom couldn't make it work on the same plane of existence anymore?

"Really weird," she adds, "seriously, he is so weird—but that doesn't mean it's not... this whole place is weird. My whole life is weird! Why shouldn't my dad's new boyfriend be weird? Right?"

"Rose..." Ethan says again, and then he just hugs her, tightly.

Rose hugs him back. It's starting to sink in again that this is all she gets, that she doesn't get to take him home again. She's got to make the most of this while she can.

"Thank you," he whispers in her ear. "When you see your mother..."

"I'll tell her how much you miss her," Rose promises. "I'll tell her you're okay." She doesn't know if she'll mention Karl. Maybe Mom doesn't need to know.

She hugs Karl once, too, before she goes—quick and tight around his waist. The impulse comes to her so quickly it surprises her almost as much as him.

"Thank you," she breathes to him.

"Any time, little girl," he rumbles back, though maybe he hasn't quite caught all she's thanking him for.

"Take care of my dad for me," she adds, quieter still.

Karl wraps an arm around her shoulders, warm and solid as a promise. "You never even had to ask."

And somehow, it really is okay.

Notes:

That's it for this 'verse (for the moment, at least ‒ I have a few dangling ideas for Ethan and Heisenberg's backstory here that might turn into something at some point, but we'll see). But I have a bunch of other Resident Evil fics still in the works in the meantime, and you can find me over on tumblr too.