Chapter Text
Without so much as a warning, Chris Redfield shoved the door open, stuck his head inside, and then rapped his knuckles against the frame. "Knock-knock," he trilled, absurdly cheerful, as if the entire display hadn’t been obnoxious enough already.
Insufferable.
Wesker let out a near-silent sigh and shut the folder in front of him.
"What do you want?"
"Ortega called. The informant gave us a lead on a warehouse. She’s briefing us Monday afternoon—don’t schedule anything."
"Noted."
Chris, entirely unfazed by the glacial reception, stepped closer to the desk. Wesker tensed instinctively, bracing for the inevitable.
"Me and the guys are hitting the bowling alley tomorrow."
"How thrilling for you."
"Wanna come?"
"No, thank you."
"You sure?"
"Positive."
"Offer stands till tomorrow."
Wesker watched, jaw tight, as Chris plucked a pen from his desk and spun it between his fingers. Suppressing the urge to commit violence took effort. He lifted his gaze to that infuriatingly unbothered face and barely stifled a flinch. If not for his glasses, the sheer radiance of Chris’s grin might’ve seared his retinas.
"Need a ride home?"
Wesker’s eyes narrowed. Then he remembered his car was in the shop. Chris must’ve noticed its absence in the parking lot. Was this stalking now, or just his usual brand of suffocating friendliness?
"Thank you, Chris. I’ll be working late. I’ll call a cab."
(‘Now leave,’ he thought. ‘And take your suffocating goodwill with you.’)
Chris fell silent. Wesker pointedly reopened his file, but he could still feel the weight of that expectant stare, the almost tangible glow of enthusiasm pressing against him like a physical force.
A few months ago, Chris Redfield had undergone some kind of inexplicable metamorphosis, and Wesker still couldn’t reconcile how he’d so thoroughly misjudged him. A rare miscalculation. Perhaps his first.
Chris had earned his place in S.T.A.R.S. by virtue of a specific cocktail of traits: bravery, peak physicality, emotional yet disciplined, promotable, disarmingly charismatic, adaptable under pressure et cetera, et cetera. A serviceable substitute. When Spencer had dumped him into the RPD, Wesker knew immediately he wouldn’t endure it. A unit wasn’t like a lab of brilliant, socially inept researchers. A unit was almost a family, and Wesker had no use for families. What he needed was a buffer, one he’d found in the form of one twenty-three-year-old Chris Redfield, U.S. Air Force. The entire project hinged on him, frankly.
He’d despised Chris from the moment he’d skimmed his dossier—all sunshine and unchecked positivity. But deadlines loomed, options were scarce, so he’d tolerated the boy who kept trying to hold his gaze. Tolerated the chatter, trained him in close combat, partnered in the field. And somewhere along the way, the hatred had curdled into irritation, irritation into curiosity, curiosity into something dangerously close to… atypical fondness.
Atypical. Because Wesker didn’t do fondness. Wesker categorized people by utility, not sentiment. He’d decided long ago that the universe revolved exclusively around him. Spencer had once called it a savant’s flaw. Wesker saw no flaw in it, nor did he consider himself a savant. No genius was required to see collectivism as the overrated farce it was—a means to an end, never the end itself. People were tools; attachment was inefficiency.
First: No one was irreplaceable. Second: It’s harder to snap the neck of a cat you’ve shared a bed with for five years.
The why didn’t matter. The necessity would arise—especially in Umbrella’s upper echelons. Everyone knew this. Yet everyone chose to adopt the cat anyway.
Wesker’s walls were so meticulously constructed, only Will had ever breached them, thanks to compatible neurodivergence, not affection. They watched each other’s backs solely out of mutual benefit. Wesker knew the moment one’s value diminished in the other’s eyes, it would end like with the cat: no moral dilemma, just a rational solution enacted with clinical precision. As with Marcus.
Things hadn’t started off so badly. Wesker was satisfied with the small, obedient Redfield—the kind of person even he, so famously indifferent and impenetrable, occasionally felt the urge to ruffle behind the ear. That Redfield amused him, and more importantly, he was pliable. Wesker reminded himself each time that sickening warmth pooled in his chest under the weight of that devoted gaze: Redfield is useful. That alone was why Wesker, upon catching himself snickering at some stupid joke of Chris’s one day and immediately recoiling in horror, didn’t throw him out.
Rationality demanded removing the man from S.T.A.R.S. If you couldn’t control your own reactions (not that Wesker would ever admit that to himself—nonsense, he controlled his emotions flawlessly at all times and under all circumstances), then simply eliminate the stimulus. But Redfield was useful. He’d done exactly what Wesker had banked on when recruiting him: Chris united the team. And Wesker had no desire to waste time finding a replacement—too much of the project’s timeline had elapsed. Chris trusted his captain; the team trusted Chris. Wesker communicated with the unit mostly through Redfield, and to be honest, everyone preferred it that way. Removing Chris now would sabotage progress. Wesker couldn’t let the effort he’d sunk into this rabble go to waste, he valued his time too highly.
Paradise began crumbling two months ago. In fact, Wesker could pinpoint the exact date—it was the day he’d nearly shot his subordinate.
One morning, Christopher Redfield had entered his office, quietly shut the door, and drawn the blinds. Ignoring Wesker’s irritated glare, he’d approached the desk, braced his palms on it, and loomed over him. Wesker, mid-reprimand, choked on his words. Because the man before him was someone else entirely. Everything from his posture to his gaze clashed violently with the boy who’d proudly, deadpan, recounted how he and Barry had once broken into their colonel’s office on a dare, drained half a bottle of fifty-year-old premium whiskey, topped it off with Jameson, and returned to the barracks victorious.
The figure looming over him radiated the aura of a serial killer. Wesker, who trusted instincts above all, reflexively reached for his pistol. Redfield noticed, and smiled in a way that made his skin crawl.
"Good morning, Captain," he greeted in that familiar, resonant voice now laced with an unfamiliar venom. His eyes gleamed as he watched Wesker’s grip tighten on the Beretta. "I’d forgotten how well the police uniform used to suit you."
Then he’d strolled out, leaving Wesker in stunned silence.
Wesker knew how to handle the Redfield who begged to learn that cool knife trick, y’know, sh-sh-shwk, then kiya! But he had no fucking clue what to do with the Redfield who returned from lunch that same godforsaken day with ice cream, kicked his feet up on his own desk, and devoured it while staring him down through the office window.
And just like that, the world went to shit.
Chris fumbled the stapler—"Oops, sorry"—grabbed it, then dropped it again, this time onto the desk, nearly toppling Wesker’s pristine white captain’s mug with the S.T.A.R.S. logo. The mug wobbled but held. Wesker suppressed another sigh.
∞∞∞
‘I could snap your neck right now,’ Chris thought.
Wesker looked up from his paperwork, peering over his glasses as if they were grandpa’s cheap readers rather than thousand-dollar designer frames.
"Something else, Redfield?"
"Nothing, sir." Chris flashed a grin, mockingly saluted, and bounced out of his office radiating golden-retriever energy. But the second he returned to his desk, his gaze snapped back to Wesker. The man was already on the phone—probably about Ortega, God bless her soul. Chris caught "ahead of schedule" on Wesker’s lips before Wesker noticed his stare and yanked the blinds shut. Nervously. Chris had never—not once during Wesker’s entire tenure as CO—seen the man flinch. This tiny victory made his own mask slip just a bit.
"Oh my God, Chris." A stack of files thumped onto his desk, snapping him back into role. "Leave the man alone before he requests a transfer."
"Just paying respects to our valiant captain."
Jill drowned him in skepticism. "You’re eye-fucking him."
"Who hasn’t eye-fucked Wesker? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!" Chris barked across the bullpen.
Laughter erupted. A few pencils flew his way. Funny. If anyone else had cracked that joke, they’d be branded a creep. But hey, this was Your Friendly Neighborhood Chris-Man, everybody’s best buddy! He’d even tested the theory once, smacking Vickers’s ass in the locker room. Result? Grins, zero violence. Cop magic.
"Your funeral," Jill sighed.
"Relax, I’m just messing with him. You’re all scared shitless of him like he’s some fucking super-villain from a super-villain HQ. The team needs to know their boss eats, sleeps, and takes dumps just like regular people."
"You’ll get fired for harassment."
"Jill, you wound me. My feelings for the captain run deep."
She fake-swatted his forehead; Chris playfully shielded himself. "Just trying to loosen him up! Guy’s wound tighter than a piano wire. Won’t bowl, won’t bar-hop, skipped Miles’s bachelor party—zero team spirit."
"Air Force standards are slipping…"
Chris gave Frost a bright middle-finger salute across the bullpen, getting an equally cheerful fuck you in return.
"So what? Wesker’s a workaholic introvert." Jill wouldn’t let it go. Chris stifled an eye-roll.
"And your captain!" Barry chimed in.
"Thank you, Barry. Workaholic, introvert, and your captain. Chain of command was handed down from heaven."
"Can I get an amen?"
No one said amen—it was almost 6 PM, and the bullpen had emptied. Barry waved and vanished.
"Important question: we drinking tonight?"
"I’ve got a date."
"Buuullshiiit."
"Rude, Redfield. Rude."
Jill grabbed her jacket.
"Seriously? Ditching your bro on a Friday?"
"You’re just jealous."
"Damn right I’m jealous! I’ve got two more hours of paperwork."
"Bye, Chris. Bye, Captain!"
"Enjoy your weekend."
Chris turned to look at Wesker, who had crawled out of his cubicle for a refreshing stroll to the coffee machine.
"You too!"
The second Wesker disappeared into the break room, Jill’s smile evaporated. She gave Chris a death glare and left the precinct. So much for camaraderie. Apparently, caring about the boss clocked out at 5 PM sharp.
Chris exhaled, relaxed his face, and rose with unnatural silence. Approaching the break room's open door, he paused slightly to the side and listened. Wesker poured coffee. Added sugar. One cube. Two. Three. Four?! Christ, the man was a psychopath.
When the delicate clinking of spoon against cup ceased, Chris counted three seconds and slipped through the doorway. Accustomed to dealing with Level-80 Wesker, he'd been 95% certain the man would react in time. But no—Wesker's eyes remained glued to his clipboard, making their collision absolutely epic. The hiss of Wesker scalding his own chest with boiling coffee warmed Chris's twisted soul like a security blanket, though he played the panic with at least Palme d'Or-worthy conviction.
Through trial and error, Chris had discovered puppy-dog chaos worked best to disorient Wesker. So he apologized wildly, expressed profound regret, flailed his stupid limbs—this whole thing ending with Wesker seated on the couch, watching perplexedly as Chris's fingers began unbuttoning his shirt.
"This is entirely unnecessary," Wesker muttered tiredly, yet made no move to stop him.
Not that Wesker was protesting. After two months enduring the "new" Chris, he'd clearly drawn some conclusions. Like how resistance was futile. When Chris activated fanboy mode, Wesker became a doll. Chris bombarded him with such intensely mixed signals that Wesker simply switched to autopilot, retreating to whatever passed for a soul. And it was fucking hilarious.
Chris applied burn cream to sterile gauze and carefully placed it against Wesker's vampire-pale chest. When the corner of Wesker's mouth twitched, Chris needed every ounce of willpower not to press harder.
"Doesn't look too bad," he shared, blatantly staring at Wesker's pink nipple. "Captain? Gotta admit you've got spectacular tits."
Wesker blazed scarlet, neck to ears in five seconds flat.
All those wasted years. Turns out wisdom really does come from fucking around and finding out.
Wesker’s emotional range wasn’t that of a nightstand, as one might assume, but rather a fourteen-year-old’s: ambitious, vulnerable, arrogant yet not cold. Just terrified of being exposed. Hard times breed tough kittens, or so they say. At Umbrella, displaying weakness was a one-way ticket to the meat grinder. Discipline, the whip, and more whip. Chris would’ve bet three months’ salary Wesker was a virgin. The man had zero game with women. Hell, they instinctively recoiled from him, despite the whole tall-dark-and-handsome deal. Oh, Wesker undoubtedly considered himself irresistible. Chris had witnessed him flirt at corporate events, but Jesus fucking Christ. It was like watching a tactical droid attempt seduction protocols. A goddamn machine.
Not that Chris could judge. He’d known the man most of his life. Hindsight was a bitch. Easy to spot what he’d missed thirty years ago.
Okay, let’s be real: some women actually liked him. At least the intellectually challenged ones. Jill once said she’d rather vote for the U.S. Republican Party candidate than flirt with Wesker ("Dude gives off Hannibal Lecter vibes," her exact words). Smartest girl in the room. That’s why she’d lived so long.
A decade after Wesker’s demise, Chris (due to certain circumstances) finally allowed himself to dig up the thought he’d entombed back in ’98: what if Wesker had actually liked him? Sure, it had degenerated over the years into something grotesque—deformed feelings, a sick obsession. Wesker delighted in their reunions, wolf-like, eyeing prey. Could’ve ripped Chris’s head off before Kijuju (three times, minimum), had a gun held to his forehead mid-flight yet never pulled the trigger. Too busy monologuing.
But before the virus, before all that apocalyptic shit: what if?
Young Chris had liked Wesker. Everyone knew it. He’d crafted himself an idol and worshipped his captain with single-minded devotion—which, admittedly, was perfectly normal. Young hot-blooded guys tend to latch onto authority figures. As Jill put it today, the chain of command was handed down from heaven. The military runs on hierarchy. Wesker had personally singled Chris out during his Air Force service, personally interviewed him, and personally brought him into Raccoon PD’s elite unit. Then nearly beat his sniper qualification record. Asshole. How could he not be impressed? The S.T.A.R.S. had aligned. Chris adored his CO. Everyone noticed; everyone chuckled good-naturedly about it. But what nobody except Chris himself (and, as it later turned out, Jill) ever picked up on was how Wesker actually reacted to his antics.
Which was not at all.
Chris, young and hot-blooded, often acted like a complete dick. Oddly enough, the military had failed to beat discipline into him. If anything, transferring to S.T.A.R.S. only amplified his tendency to hit every bar and bed every willing woman within a twenty-mile radius. Naturally, this meant Chris frequently showed up late (or still drunk) to work. Given their line of work, his behavior raised eyebrows among both colleagues and superiors. Yet Wesker kept covering for him. Sent him home. Made excuses to Irons. Why? (His obvious utility aside). Because he liked Chris? Fine. But why the hell would a hormonal twenty-year-old fuckup appeal to a glacier like Wesker?
Chris had spent considerable time puzzling over this.
Wesker inspired respect and fear in equal measure. He was a competent leader: decisive in the field, trusted by his team. But that’s where it ended. People didn’t interest him. His acting skills evaporated the moment socialization was required. He wasn’t rude, didn’t abuse his authority. Just fundamentally incapable of basic human interaction. Wesker was the type who’d answer "how are you" but never ask back. Unless it was work-related. Because otherwise? He didn’t give a single fuck. Small talk with Wesker was impossible. Three minutes—that’s how long it took most people to realize they were talking to a brick wall. He didn’t want to converse. Didn’t try. The man simply lacked the skill. At least, that’s how Chris saw it.
So Chris probably just had worn him down. A full-frontal assault on Wesker’s defenses. The man, forcibly isolated from normal human connection since childhood, accustomed to people avoiding one-on-one contact, simply lacked the emotional fortifications. Most people were easy to scare off with blank stares and awkward silence. But Chris? Chris wasn’t afraid. Of course, he respected the chain of command. He followed Wesker’s orders to the letter. Usually. But he wasn’t intimidated by Wesker’s icy demeanor, fake smiles, or any of the other misanthropic tells that would’ve sent anyone else running. Dumb, young Chris cheerfully ignored them all.
In two years, no one at S.T.A.R.S. had befriended Wesker. No one even tried. Which was actually smart.
Now, watching his former captain short-circuit over an offhand compliment, Chris felt stupid. How the hell had he missed it?
So here's the thing: Nobody had ever loved miracle boy Albert Wesker. Then Chris came along and did it effortlessly. Covered his six in the field. Dished out praise freely. Clapped him on the back. Sincerely, with zero ulterior motives. And that—that was when the world tilted slightly off its axis.
Jill (the original Jill) had warned him to dial it back even then. She'd seen through Wesker immediately. Didn't spell it out for Chris, not until years later, when the threat of another Wesker resurrection had passed. They'd gotten drunk and pieced together the evidence. There was... a lot. Back then he wasn’t just stupid, he was willfully blind. He'd loved Wesker like Luke loved Obi-Wan, dutifully ignoring those long, contemplative looks from his captain. (Gay men didn't exist in Raccoon City circa '96, Taylor Swift fans invented them in 2010.)
They'd recalled plenty between them that night. The mere fact Wesker had finally cracked and been led into sin, agreeing to visit the dive bar with the team, was telling. Chris, smug as hell about corrupting his captain, got drunk faster than usual while Jill (designated driver for the night) stayed sober. Years later she'd describe how drunk Chris had clung to Wesker all evening, practically crawling into his lap at one point, before mixing up their beer mugs. Wesker noticed, of course.
Jill had observed their dynamic all night with the keen eye of a field researcher. She was certain Wesker wouldn't touch the beer now. The man was infamous throughout RPD for his germaphobia. But when Chris finally wandered off, Wesker pulled the contaminated mug toward himself, rotated it slowly between his palms... and took a sip. Like it was nothing.
The moment seared itself into Jill's memory so violently she choked on her Coke and bolted to the restroom to cough her lungs out and splash water on her face.
Then there was the hospital visit post-mission. Brought fruit. Harmless, right? Except Chris wasn't the first or last operative to get injured. Just the only one Wesker ever visited.
Chris tried writing it off as paternal concern; he had been acting like a kid, after all. Jill countered that if that was 'parental,' they'd need to call a nuthouse, a SWAT team, and an exorcist. Given how Wesker watched Chris during training spars.
The conclusion wrote itself.
Funny how that drunken conversation became so useful years later.
On a crisp November morning in 1996, Chris found himself in his old apartment. He stared at his service pistol for a long moment. No panic. No frantic search for newspapers. Methodically, he checked each room, peeked into the fridge, sighed, then retrieved the gun from the holster hanging on a chair. He knew this could happen. Understood why it had. Felt genuine sympathy for the Chris of this reality, tossed from the crib straight into Satan’s asshole. Or maybe not tossed. Maybe smeared across spacetime like jam on toast. Frankly, he wasn’t sure which fate was worse.
This was the final nail in the coffin. What was the fucking point of saving the world a hundred times over if infinite versions still existed?
Chris loathed the twenty-first century for unleashing monsters more terrifying than lab-obsessed geeks with megalomania. It spawned technologies the Umbrella executive board couldn’t have dreamed of thirty years prior. And it created a new generation of those same lab-obsessed megalomaniacs who showed no compunction about wielding these technologies.
He weighed the pistol thoughtfully. Then his gaze fell on the framed photo on his nightstand: their S.T.A.R.S. team, Wesker and Chris centered. A candid shot from training: no one looking at the camera, most faces turned toward a laughing Chris, head thrown back, hand over his eyes. His other hand rested on Wesker’s shoulder. And Wesker, in a white tee, glasses absent, gazed at the floor with a real smile.
Chris had definitely never owned this photo. Had certainly never seen that expression on Wesker’s face.
That’s when the memory of that drunken exchange with Jill resurfaced. And right after—the delicious idea struck.
Life without YouTube was brutal, but playing his twenty-year-old self proved unexpectedly fun. Chris reveled in it, amusing both himself and his colleagues. The migraines and cognitive dissonance sparking mild panic attacks? Worth the inter-dimensional commute.
This Wesker seemed identical to the original (a little solipsism never hurt, Chris reasoned; denying his home reality’s primacy might actually break him). But that photo changed everything. No man who’d renounced all that was holy smiled like that. And if Wesker had feelings, they could be weaponized. Decades in black ops had taught Chris how to manipulate anyone, even the most hardcore bastards.
Only one obstacle remained: Chris had always considered himself straight. He hadn’t checked out guys since boot camp. In fact, back then, he didn’t even think about them sexually. Sure, he could acknowledge a good-looking man when he saw one. But bang one? Never. Not even Leon fucking Kennedy, a walking, talking gay panic trigger, who’d left a trail of sexually confused men across three continents.
Still, this opportunity was too good to waste. Zero fucks left to give. Zero reasons to care. But winding Wesker up? Now that was a game worth playing. Wesker was such a good sport.
So that’s how fifty-five-year-old Chris Redfield, elite kill squad captain and functional alcoholic, vowed to fuck his mortal enemy. Both literally and figuratively. Because why the hell not? That sounded like fun. He’d haunt the man’s dreams. Rewire his brain. Then, once Umbrella was ash (and Chris would make damn sure of that), he’d kill Wesker again. Slowly. With Spanish Inquisition thoroughness.
Besides, the other option would be to blow his own brains out. (He hadn’t entirely ruled that option out yet.)
They stared at each other, the tick of wall clocks underscoring the silence. Chris studied Wesker’s flushed cheeks. All-in. If he and Jill were wrong about this, Wesker would beat the living shit out of him. Chris knelt, ready for any outcome, until a miracle occurred. Wesker snorted, covered his mouth, then burst into genuine laughter at Chris’s bewildered face.
"Christ, Redfield," Wesker grinned, wide and unguarded. "What fucking planet are you from?"
He relaxed into the couch, removing his glasses, watching Chris with amused curiosity.
Bingo. Chris swallowed hard and smiled back against his will. Well, fuck him sideways. His last problem had solved itself. And yes—all those years had indeed been wasted.