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Carla was not meant to be hearing this information, and she shuts her mouth the minute it skews in a federal direction.

Derek was a politician above everything else. The points come one after another, and Derek lets Ada talk with a cool firmness, accusations meeting a perplexing lack of response. While she's angry, there's absolutely nothing that seemed to change his body language like her negotiations. He straightened up and leaned over the table, elbows upon it and over the document copy and the wooden table both hands folded under his chin.

He was quiet as the waitress brought their drinks out.

The man stares at Ada, the corners of his eyes creasing.

"The disaster in Raccoon City was an unprecedented catastrophe for everyone involved. I'm sorry you found factors intolerable and outside of my control."

He says nothing about her accusations. He says nothing about who might have been responsible for any of it. Nothing needed to be said. The amusement answered everything for him.

"Regardless of the obstacles in your way, I had complete faith that you would be able to handle it. While your failure is disappointing to say the least, there's also the matter of this: you don't hold your contract."

He did.

Carla watches from beyond the thin display image.

"I'm willing to look past the failed obligations and re-negotiate for favorable terms in both of our cases, because I do believe highly in your ability, Ada."

There was a lilt in his voice and something quite dark and restrained in that statement. He's not a kind man. He never has been. He's given her everything, but he has never been kind. That unkindness makes people disappear.

She knew this.

"We will re-draft your contract to find a good compromise for you between risks and rewards tonight. I do have a car we can take, and a financial advisor on call."

Carla sets the display down, her hand sliding over the table to the neck of his drink fingers pressed against the base of it.

She didn't appreciate being talked down to. It was her turn for a flicker of annoyance to cross her brow.

"Infinite energy," she repeats, paying equal attention to Radames, "I could definitely see that. From the time I spent researching undercover in the Arklay Facility, that was one of the notes of the viruses- the energy output by the functions itself."

Ada looks back at Simmons.

"I understand my contract perfectly," she says in a neutral tone, "That's why I'm not asking for payment. I asked you to meet with me so that I could clarify certain things for you."

She brings her hands out of her lap and laces her fingers in front of her.

"Firstly, when I agreed to take on this job, I wanted to know as much as possible about the various facilities, and possible interference. I expected to see the Umbrella Security Services. What I did not expect was direct interference from the United States armed forces- led by none other than your precious Intelligence Officer, Adam Benford. Those were his Delta Force Operatives."

"Secondly, all those contacts you had in place for me? Fell through. Ben fucked up, and as a result, Annette Birkin and Irons knew I was coming. Your guy at the Apple Inn? Killed himself before I got there."

Ada reaches into her purse and pulls out another document. This one, in bold letters: STERILIZATION OPERATION, official government documentation, unredacted.

"Thirdly- and this is the most egregious- the lack of communication? Why did I have to find out from a televised local broadcast that the city was going to be destroyed... and funny enough, weren't those your experimental warheads?"

"You couldn't be bothered to give a girl a heads up? I was promised an extraction and had to find my own way out, and spend months recovering from fighting your precious sample."

"The Umbrella Facility in Europe got too hot when I went after it then too. A certain Redfield made it too risky for me to try infiltrating. So, with these new factors, I am terminating my contract. I won't accept increased pay, or reassignment either. I'm done, Simmons. Find someone else."

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Ada. Ada signs quietly like they were whispering while Derek was distracted by the menu. Carla reads her fingers and begins to spell - [C-] before Derek put the menu down and she stops immediately, folding both hands into fists and setting her jaw. The man provided everything for her and was her biggest investor.

That meant nothing. Investments can be set aside. She is not in the top percentile of achievement among other genius peers.

[R a d a m e s.]

A character from the opera "Aida". She spells it with small, slow letters. The picture becomes clear to her now, looking at this woman with analytical and wildly old eyes. Those eyes didn't fit the skin of a twelve year old. Neither did her attitude.

"Oh? Other things?"

Derek offers his hand for the display, casting it up and setting it between himself and the girl.

Carla reaches for it, taking it from him to look more in depth at the subject.

Simmons huffs beside her, the momentary irritation ebbing away with a drink of water.

Golgotha was an interesting baseline for a project. It made monsters out of meat. The code invariably produced something alive, and endlessly replicating.

Progenitor virus was something she had the opportunity to work on in Biosafety 3 settings. Despite her age, she'd been able to look at the bug, grow it, and apprentice under another scientist through the now chaos-stricken Umbrella Corporation. They didn't ask the necessary questions about her age and exposure to these things.

Derek's expression moves from engaged to a cool neutral. He was disappointed, but intrigued. A game was afoot.

"Hmm... That's disappointing. It is unlike you. What made this job too difficult to complete?"

Carla flips through images and results.

"So, you do know that your contra-."

"Infinite energy."

Derek stops speaking immediately. The voice out of the little girl was detached, and rasping. She sounded sick.

"Energy. It's what Progenitor Strains have in common. The expulsion of energy is higher than the input. Something that defies our previous understanding of thermodynamics."

"Well-" he starts, not bothering to mask the annoyed twitch to his lip this time. The girls' hands shift again, pushing blue veins to the surface of her knuckles with the force which she gripped her own fists.

"--As I was saying. Your contract was for the sample. Please, continue, Ada."

The girl signs quietly. Ada looks over the weary features and pale skin with gray hues. Poor thing, she thinks.

It was obvious that she'd been chained to study, and Simmons was parading the child savant around like some pet.

He still hadn't given Ada her name.

So, Ada, as poorly versed as she was in American Sign Language, signs back when Derek takes out his reading glasses to look at the menu for drinks, [Hi. I'm A-D-A.]

No shorthand name, rudimentary and basic conversational gestures.

[Nice to meet you. What is your name?]

The server comes around for her drink order, and she very quickly orders a water without looking over anything at all. When the waitstaff leaves, Ada folds her hands over her lap, and looks over to Derek.

"I see. Congratulations on your achievements," she says, nodding to the girl.

What else is she supposed to say?

Derek thought the girl could find interest in her work. He's expecting G.

He's about to be very disappointed. It's about to be very dangerous.

"I observed the effects of the Golgotha virus firsthand," she states, "Despite its relation with the Progenitor Virus family, and the T-Virus, it couldn't be more dissimilar than Tyrant. G-virus is highly mutagenic, and hosts of the virus are capable of repairing dead tissues beyond simple reanimation. There's no necrosis with G."

Ada pauses, glancing over to the waterfall feature, and watching more of the procession below.

"The host is also capable of asexual reproduction. I do have my report to give you."

She reaches into her clutch, and pulls out a palm display, containing pictures and documents.

Valuable, but not as valuable as the sample. Something she didn't have, and wouldn't have given- not with what she'd seen.

"But there's other things I want to talk about Simmons. I'm going to be upfront with you. I don't have a sample to give you."

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"Of course," he says, minding the parade behind them by guiding Ada by the shoulder through the tight group in front of them.

They walked a small ramp under the waterfall to a second floor space. Carla trails behind the both of them, setting the remaining stem into a waste bin with the paper. The woman, Ada, was done with the flower, and the inch worm was comfortably on Carla's wrist.

She wasn't entirely sure why she was here.

Derek leads them both to a table in a low-light corner, pulling a chair out for Miss Ada first, and sitting opposite her. His white suit and fine wine-colored silk shirt were spotless and new. A well-groomed waiter lights their grill and took drink orders from Derek. Carla stares for a long moment at the swimming fish in the tank beside the table before Derek snaps his fingers to catch her attention and points for her to sit beside him.

So she does, leaning on her palm and looking at the stranger from the back of a pair of deep set eyes. She was a morose looking thing for a young girl, and ghastly thin.

"Oh, She will have water and I will have-" a moment of quiet between him and the waiter while he placed a pair of reading glasses on his nose and eyed the various beverages. A peach sake for him. The sound here was dampened, an aquarium full of fish against one side of the table, and walls enclosing the other.

[Hello.]

It was very weak, and tired. There was no expectation for it to be seen. Carla taps her forehead and pushes the sign out.

"ah- About our guest. She has graduated from her Bachelor's program this week, through our Foundation. I thought she would be interested in what you had to say about your work."

It's been a year since the Raccoon City incident.

Three years of entanglement with Umbrella and their secret virus projects, years of performing work for the elusive Family and aiding their schemes to cement themselves as the end-all-be-all of global power... not that they needed much help with that.

For Ada, it was a year of reflection.

She didn't used to have so many qualms or questions about the work that she did or why. Money was the real ruler of the world she lived in, a god that oversaw both state and sovereign. You either had it, or you didn't. You either survived, or you didn't. You lie, backstab, and fight to climb your way to the top and be careful about who you trust. You don't get sentimental in this life. Nothing was fair, and things didn't change. The CIA and any other organization could delude themselves with ideals and self-justification, but in the end, it was always about cash.

She accepted this.

Or at least, she thought she had.

Arklay was just another job. NEST was just another job to her. She didn't expect interference from outsiders. She didn't expect an outbreak of that scale. She certainly didn't expect that there would still be people clinging to their principles of doing the 'right thing' when it made no sense to do so. And she certainly didn't expect that rookie cop, Leon, to still try to aid her even after she'd been found out for her lies.

The G virus was lost to her, the entire reason Ada had come to that doomed city in the first place.

She found a sample of Birkin's own tissue, and bartered it with Wesker for escape, then spent a year tracking another sample down, and traveling to find everything she could, even after taking grievous injury and barely escaping the bombing... and then keeping council and company with the people who recovered G-virus, debating on what next steps she should take.

HUNK had urged her to not go back to her boss, and run, and she'd left him with the means to stay ahead of Umbrella.

Those were her thoughts as she came back to herself, in the present time, glancing out of the window of her ride, frowning at the neon lantern lights and Eastern Dragons molded around the front of the restaurant. The line creeps out the door.

She was told there were reservations.

Thanking her driver, she states her name, and the reservation under Derek C. Simmons. He'd taken her to these kinds of places before to discuss business. It was still an odd place to her to be talking business, but the client insisted, and his unpredictable moods made her wary.

"Ada!"

She turns, straightening out her red top over her black skirt, glancing over at Simmons, her employer, then looking down at a frail little girl in blue, holding out a rose with a broken stem.

"I do apologize for her behavior. She doesn't speak and gets overwhelmed easily."

"I wasn't aware we'd be having a guest. Hello, I'm Ada," Ada replies, taking the rose to be polite, and snapping the stem further to place behind her ear, to spare the guest of his disappointment in a show of her whimsy.

Roses? It's not exactly good news I'm bringing.

A gong rings out, and Ada turns to look at the procession that followed it, "I don't blame her, it's a little loud for a meeting- you had a table somewhere a little quieter, I hope?"

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1999, October.

Wherever he went, Derek took the time to scope out interesting places to spend time at. When a deeply dear colleague of his asked him to talk about some work negotiations he invited her along to additionally celebrate her recent biology graduate work. It was impressive, though, not the most talented academically in her generation.

She would have to exceed expectations from this point on. The girl's guardianship had transferred from one Simmons to the other within the last month. Derek, unlike his cousin Marshall was more involved. He had changed her surname, even, to reflect these high expectations. Radames. After the general.

Her former name didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. Her birthparents were nobody of consequence. She could let it go.

Carla's living situation hadn't changed much in this exchange apart from his more frequent assessments of her progress under the Foundation's sponsorship.

She was twelve, and he brought a set of formal clothing for her to wear. A skirt- she doesn't wear them- and a nice blouse. New shoes. The shoes had small wedges on them and bows.

She had no idea what the concept was for the outfit, looking in the mirror. It didn't change her ashen hair or the way her skin reflected light like spoiled milk.

And Derek seemed to notice, because he frowned when she got into the private car. She looked foolish and it was entirely her own posture doing it.

He handed her a flower in gold foil, bright red, regardless, corrected her gently on how not to hunch, and opened the back of a car door for her to get in.

"Hand her that when you see her. It will be from both of us."

Carla Radames stared at the petals of it, watching a small inchworm creep up the soft velvet. She said nothing, as usual, while Derek thumbed his gold signet ring over and over again.

They got to a restaurant with a waterfall that fell from the third floor down to the first. It was a grilling place with a line nearly out the door that they skipped with reservations. Carla followed him, clutching the flower tightly to prevent the inchworm from falling out of the foil.

The worm had crawled onto her hand instead which was perfectly fine.

"Ada!" he had exclaimed, and she looked up from her flower to see a woman. She was taller than her by two and a half heads. Her clothes were well put together, and she looked all at once like she fit the setting of fine food and drink but didn't particularly want to be here.

Carla said nothing, but stared as Simmons crafted introductions, and before he was done speaking, she slowly extended the flower to the woman, Ada.

The middle had been snapped in half with her grip, but the top half was fine.

Derek's expression fell, mortified.

"I do apologize for her behavior. She doesn't speak and gets overwhelmed easily."

@separatedway

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6 Character inspirations for Derek Simmons.

tagging: you.

Blank below.

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"Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you?" ― Zampanò, House of Leaves, p.544

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@mrdeath (HUNK)

@herewebingo (Leon)

@piecemover (Hunnigan) (sideblog)

@mettamorph (Carla)

@greatgrave (John) (OC)

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Inde Derek C. Simmons from Resident Evil

about || boundaries || headcanon || rundown || visual ref || full tl || blogs

A study on...

Getting everything you want early in life.

A chronic disrespect of boundaries.

An absolute monster of a man.

Familial expectations and pressure.

A guy that doesn't see women as people at all.

Self perpetuating insanity.

rules.

18+. The games are M. This character deals with systemic abuses and perpetrating them, grooming, sex abuse, fetishization, body horror, general horror, and gore. Content tagged ”cw example here / example cw”. 

The art on here is mine or I paid for it. Credits will be in the credits post (when I get to commissioning something).

Duplicates are awesome. Multiverse exists.

I like longform serious stuff and short form. Prefer longform plotted things we can talk about and move forward.

I don’t reblog callouts.

I don't have passwords.

Best bet to RP with me is to talk to me consistently.

Any content that errs on the side of prejudice against a group of people gets you a ban. Bullying also gets you a ban. 

I don't do AI. I don't consent to AI training on my writing or art.

Name is Cas. They/Them; 31. 

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boundaries

my writing boundaries/ stuff I expect from people who want to write (ps I want to write I am writing. I like writing. At length.) I'm here to write this fucking asshole for the drama.

This character is an awful beast and thus, the boundaries are important.

I had to think about this for a while. Subject to change/expand.

I truly don't believe in ooc dash vagueing as a way to address any issue. It does not promote community health and proven time and time again destroys it.

I enjoy directness the most. You want to do something? Talk to me about what you want to do. I definitely do this with people.

I like when people are super passionate about their characters and would love to hear about it.

I like mutual investment in the story beyond a "romantic" plot. I'm really into horror and adventure.

You gotta talk to me to write.

My fav style of writing is "yes and" and "what if" to increasingly wildass ideas. This is the best way to write with me. Bring a whack idea to me and we can figure it out.

I don't personally like uneven power dynamic explorations anymore so I'm not really interested in writing them with other people.

I'm super against metagaming without communication. I'm trying to constantly talk to my partners and check what is cool and what isn't.

I am against using characters to "get back at" people through roleplay.

I'm super against the "whump and dump" IE: when one person uses another person to exclusively have their character use a person For Whump without respect to that person.

NSFT is fine to me. I just don't write saucy stuff on dash with another person. Not writing that stuff without communication either.

I like using dice randomness to solve some outcomes but not all. Talk about the end result of what you want to write.

I really don't tolerate bullying.

Blocking is not a moral issue to me.