So I may or may not be working on a tiny little very self-indulgent crossover thingy. Will this go anywhere past this pic? We'll see.
The gist of this AU; year is 2029. Prototype and AC1-3 took place in 2012, Resident Evil Village in 2015. Alex and Desmond have been together for 17 years. Through legally sound and morally questionable means, Alex and Desmond ended up as legal caregivers of Elijah, Pariah/Michael, and Rosemary Winters.
From left to right; Desmond, Alex, Elijah, Pariah/Michael, Rosemary, Dana.
Stuff about it under the cut.
While they are messing with Abstergo and Brotherhood in Europe, they befriend one Ethan Winters and, after his death, Mia entrusts them with Rose as she can't take care of her in her deteriorating mental state. And, realistically, they're probably best equipped to giving Rose as normal life as someone as her could get. She grows up happy, aware and accepting of her powers. Hard not to, when out of her two dads one is effectively a demigod and the other is eldritch sentient plague. Being a sentient mold isn't so weird in this setting.
Later when raiding Abstergo bases they find Elijah held there. Desmond, now aware that he has a kid obviously refuses to leave him. They kill Juno as a father-son bonding activity, visit Elijah's mother grave. Cry a bit, argue a bit (he is a traumatized tween) but figure it out. It forces Alex and Desmond to slow down a bit; they do want to give their kids a stable childhood, after all. They thought they had more time, since Rose was barely a toddler, but with Elijah on board they reevaluate. Somehow, Alex ends up being his favorite dad. Desmond is only a little jealous, but he gets it. He likes Alex a whole lot, too.
They have a little break, a little wedding, they wrap up the Templar mess as well as they can for the time being. Desmond takes the Mercer surname and so does Elijah, because Bill does not deserve his name to be carried on.
Desmond becomes a Mentor somewhere in the middle. He's determined to drag the Brotherhood back into functionality whether it likes that or not; no more Bill sending people to die for nothing but his ego. Bill doesn't take it well, of course, but who'd care about him at this point? Desmond has three lifetimes worth of Mentor memories and the scariest dog on the block for a husband.
Alex does science, because he likes it. He's the kind of person to find writing dissertations fun. He may become an university professor; college students tend to be the most agreeable and most entertaining breed of a student. He does photography too. It's a memory-making thing.
They tackle Blacklight properly; find Pariah. Pariah, as it turns out, is actually somewhat unstable, hibernating most of the time, and stuck physically and mentally at 8 years old. Alex offers Blacklight to stabilize him; Pariah accepts. Purges his DNA of irregularities, replaces what's missing with Alex' DNA and the Blacklight. It's a little weird, to retroactively make him Alex' child when he was born before Alex, but that's what they're dealing with now. Pariah is still 8 in every way that matters. Greene named him Michael, which he gladly accepts (he never had a name before), and then he's a Mercer too.
It's 2020 by then, so plague jokes abound.
Dana in the meantime does what any girlboss does, gets her journalist career going, writes a book or two. Is instrumental in orchestrating the public downfall of Abstergo and Blackwatch. Adopts two cats. Struggles to find a girlfriend because things are never boring with the Mercers, but their kind of excitement oft comes with threat of bodily harm, cults, and shady corporations being hunted for sport. She's also kinda sorta infected with a dormant strain of Blacklight because it was either that or dying to whatever Greene infected her with.
In 2029 Desmond is 42 years old, Alex is 46, Elijah is 24, Michael/Pariah is 17 (chronologically 60), Rosemary is 15, and Dana is 38.
“Alex, why do you have a baby?” Dana asked, blinking in bewilderment and apparently only just noticing PARIAH.
“Bbbbhhhh.” PARIAH contributed, lazily waving a baby arm at her. Dana waved back more on reflex than anything else.
“We ate Greene and too much Redlight, and Blacklight came from PARIAH. And we ate it when we broke it out of the lab, and then it ate us- uh, it’s ours.” Alex hastily simplified at the increasingly incredulous face Dana was making. “Look, it has our eyes?” Void tried, hitching PARIAH up with a flex of biomass so their faces were next to each other. PARIAH obligingly cycled through faces into a squishy, child shaped copy of Alex’s. And sprouted tendrils again, wiggling them at Dana.
“I… see that.” Dana said, entirely at a loss for words.
Y’know what. I’ve only posted art here but! I put a little bit of this fic on a drawing last month and I might as well post the only other bit of it I’m willing to share. This au genuinely just exists for variations on this joke.
“Mmn.” PARIAH whined, feeder tendrils flailing out of the sling keeping it pressed to Alex’s chest. It turned itself outward, toward the remains of the patrol instead of staying halfway buried in Alex’s biomass.
“Yes, you can have the last one.” Alex agreed easily, one tendril flicking out to grab the fleeing human by the back of his collar. Void dragged the prey close enough for PARIAH’s littler tendrils to reach. It pleased Alex that PARIAH learned so quickly, letting it consume more of Alex’s biomass converted to protein slurry while they were in the relief camp was a good idea. Void felt proud of vois… child. Still a strange concept, even with four days to acclimate.
“What the hell is- ZEUS can breed?! It’s only been a month since the outbreak!” The prey shrieked, fear briefly overwhelmed by incredulity at the sight of the human-shaped infant strapped to Alex’s chest. The smaller, clumsier feeder tendrils sprouting from its shoulders immediately crushed any idea that it might just be an unfortunate snack for later.
“This is ours, yes.” Alex said, bemused. “Ah, here, let us get the mask off. Go for the face, armor doesn’t taste good.” Vois tendrils tore the human’s gas mask off as void instructed PARIAH, leaving the face underneath exposed and within reach.
“Aa!!” PARIAH squealed, tendrils lashing forward and suddenly perfectly coordinated. The human did manage to scream once, but then he was being torn apart and consumed, converted directly into more biomass for PARIAH. Alex patted the baby’s approximate stomach, unbothered by there suddenly being two hundred pounds of biomass supported against vois front rather than a scant thirty five. The empty uniform hit the ground with a clatter. PARIAH cheered, little arms flailing their way free of the sling.
“Good, you’re getting faster. Now we’re going to go get Dana. You remember what we said about infecting our pets?” Alex asked, eliciting grumbles from PARIAH. It subsided anyway, dissolving and reforming with its face petulantly pressed to the crook of Alex’s neck. Void stroked PARIAH’s mimicry of hair- dark now, like Alex’s own, just like PARIAH’s eyes were the same silver-blue void saw in the mirror- in comfort. It would be a trial for both of them to be around prey and not consume, as it always was.
