Work Text:
Drops of tears dripped down Chris' cheeks, he held his gun tightly. His breath was restricted from his own inner fight against himself, against breaking down into a sob. His lungs were closer to go on fire. The man in front of him, now collapsed, after he gave him the final shot, was once someone so important to him. A man he admired and looked up. A man he thought the world of. The man who taught him everything he knew about his missions, his way of fighting, absolutely everything. Chris swallowed his tears, succumbing to his own misery, with every breath his gun slowly lowered and his brain registered the event.
Everything around him was entirely a blurry mess, he couldn't hear anything, his hearing was completely muffled. His partner, Sheva, might have said something, asked him if he was okay, but he didn't heed any of it. Chris was stuck in the process of the gut wrenching reality that Wesker was dead. He struggled with admitting that. No matter how much he hated this man, the sheer idea of his death shook his entire core. He struggled to admit that. All he wanted was things to go back like they used to be, but then again, that was only a fantasy and not a reality.
Only the intervention of his B.S.A.A team pulled him out of this trance as the cruel realization hit him that he shot someone he still deeply cared for. He could no longer abstain himself, the wall inside him was not strong enough to hold resistance. The wrathful floods of water would soon break it with ease. And so it did. Chris broke down in tears, tears streamed down his cheek like a cascade as he crouched down, and curled up with his head shoved into his arms. Memories of the two flashed before his eyes.
“Chris,” Sheva called up to him, running straight to him. They merely knew each other for a day, but she cared about him enough to give him some comfort as he let all his grief out. He needed someone to hold him. She hardly understood the relationship between Chris and Wesker, though something told her that it was bigger than everything Chris had told her.
Sheva patted his back, not letting go of him. Chris felt so safe and warm in Sheva's arms, he felt comfortable to cry more, to fully free himself. He'd been bottling up these emotions for so damn long and they were finally out. "I loved him. I fucking loved him." His words merely came out as a wheeze, but Sheva understood.
The day after, Chris was drinking away his misery, just wasting his time at home, trying to muffle any thought in that brain of his about Wesker. He was put on leave by the directors due to the
injuries he obtained from the missions and he needed some time to recover.
Chris didn’t need time to recover. He was fine. Or at least, that was what he thought.
Jill and his sister, Claire, were calling him every few hours to check on him. He dismissed them every time and
assured
them they shouldn’t worry about him. He was
a big man
that dealt with loss before. In no way was he a stranger to it.
Though, there was no other loss he went through like Wesker’s loss.
An hour later, his phone rang once again. He was so used to Claire and Jill being on the other end that he almost didn't answer, but once he did, he was rather pleased to hear it was actually a different person. However, the information he gave him had anger wreathed with relief surge through Chris' entire body.
Redfield, please, don’t make this any more difficult. You’re on leave. Do not come here.
And who was Chris Redfield if not an workaholic and under no circumstance would he stay at home to waste hours of his life staring at his life? The second he heard he ran to grab his gear and hopped in the car.
Once he reached the B.S.A.A HQ, entering the level where bioterrorists were imprisoned required permission. Something which was quite difficult to get from his co-workers as they were given a clear order by the director not to let Chris Redfield it. After begging and persuading them for a few whole minutes, they let him. He had no intention of giving up until he was in.
As the elevator’s door slid shut behind him, Chris found himself in a long hallway with many cells. Originally built to hold bioterrorists until they were transferred to a high-security prison, now it was a type of prison under the B.S.A.A HQ for bioterrorists that were too dangerous to be taken out of their cell.
The numbers of the cells were boldly printed in white on top of them. The cell he was looking for was the most highlighted of them all. If you touched its bars, a set of electroshocks would be sent through your entire body, making it impossible for anyone with powers to shove them down.
Chris just ambled around a little bit until he saw
CELL 701
right on top of it. The sight of him filled his entire body with nothing but pure rage. Almost like the grief he experienced in the last few days was nothing but an illusion he formed in his own head.
After all that suffering he'd gone through after he saw him collapsed, breathless, he was standing right in front of him behind some bars. Wesker was alive. His head was down, he was sitting down. He still wore the leather outfit he wore in Africa, the one now stained with blood. As Chris just looked at him, Wesker began to feel his presence and he raised his head. A bloody wound was plastered on his temple, the blood was freshly red and dripping down, a sign it was recently made. Wesker's chest was blemished, the injury Chris made with his bullet was no longer there, the blood had only dried out. His sunglasses were probably taken away by the B.S.A.A, leaving Wesker's face bare, with his red flaming eyes, at the sight of him. "Chris, I was expecting you."
Pure rage burnt into Chris' veins as he clenched his jaw and he closed his hand into a fist. How he wished he could continuously punch him, have a frenzy seeing him suffer, knowing he would regenerate anyway. "You piece of shit. I thought you were dead. I thought I killed you."
Wesker's lips curved into a smug smirk Chris, a smirk Chris fiercely wished he could wipe off that idiotic face of his. "Oh, please. The impaling of a tyrant has not killed me. You really thought that this would? I thought you were better than this, Chris."
Chris huffed in irritation at Wesker's remark. He crossed his arms as the discussion with him went on. "You don't have any damn regrets, do you? You don't give a fuck about what you did to people. What you did to Jill. What you did to everyone. You only care about yourself." He shook his head, he wasn't going to let Wesker answer that and with the proud smile on his face, the answer wouldn't be a favorable one. Just Chris' suffering alone gave Wesker enough gratification with himself. "You've only cared about yourself. We meant nothing to you. We were just your playthings, someone you could easily manipulate. Our S.T.A.R.S days meant nothing to you. I can't believe I even let myself get close to you. I used to think the world of you.”
As his breathing grew heavier, Chris turned around. His reminisce of their own memories led his eyes to well up. He couldn't let Wesker see any of that vulnerability. He couldn't afford it.
There was an eerie silence between the two of them. Wesker chose not to furtherly say anything. He chose not to bring Chris’ emotional state into it. “I don’t understand,” Chris muttered. “Why did you let me live? Why didn’t you kill me?” He turned on his heel back to face Wesker, his head a few inches away from the bars. “You rip people’s hearts out in a second, but somehow you always let me live. And because of that now you’re imprisoned. Why?”
Wesker let out a whiff of air before he was abstinent from giving an answer to Chris. He had some sort of internal conflict inside of him, keeping him from telling Chris the real truth. “You really don’t understand, do you?”
Chris shook his head with pure confusion. Whatever Wesker meant, it was a puzzle that Chris struggled to solve. “What the hell do you mean?”
"All of this," he continued. A nod formed into his throat and it made everything he thought of difficult to say. Even after so long, even in this situation, Wesker had a battle with himself just to say those words. "The reason you're still alive is because I thought you would join me one day."
“Join you?” Chris repeated. “You’re a fucking asshole. I would have never betrayed my friends and humanity to join your sorry ass, and you know why ? Because I have a soul, unlike you. I don’t want innocent people to suffer. You’ve done enough harm and now you will suffer the consequences.” His words left a bitter taste in Chris’ mouth, the feeling of them pulsated through his entire body, overwhelming pain gnawing at his stomach like a wild animal. “Besides, why me?”
For the first time, Chris' words marked Wesker. His stomach churned at the sound of them and a twinge of remorse came into existence. "You, because..." He paused himself, choking up, every word he said merely came out as nothing but a stutter. He'd never had to deal with that before, but now, he did. “When we were in S.T.A.R.S, I did appreciate our time together. I was under the influence of Umbrella and to be sincere, deep down, I had no intention of turning my back on you. And...and as much as I hate this world, and its people, and I want to change it.” Wesker's voice broke. That feeling was the worst thing that could happen to him. Never once in his life had he felt the need to cry, but now so suddenly, just talking to Chris, the realization of the situation he was in came to light, and his own feelings were dug up. "The only person in the world that I could have never wanted to change is you... and I believed once this virus is released, you would survive and join me. Perhaps, join me before the virus is released into the atmosphere."
Wesker's tears were so unnecesarily contagious Chris couldn't stop himself from tearing up. He'd never seen Wesker into that state and the sight of it tore his heart into pieces. He hated him so much for making him feel any damn empathy for him after everything he did.
"I know. I was completely aware of that. However, I was just too oblivious to it. Because..." Those words continued to kill him inside slower and slower. It was the total opposite of his nature. Someone like him was never allowed to feel anything like this. It was against their internal rules, against who they were, or thought to be. "Because in spite of my horrible nature, inside of me there was still a drop of humanity that made me aware I loved you, and perhaps, I still do." A tear slipped down his cheek as the realization of it all hit him.
Wesker's confession led Chris to an utter loss of words. He always wondered why Wesker left him alive when all he required was just to snap his head. Each time they met, each time they fought, Chris escaped with merely few injuries. Only for the reason why to be revealed.
He’d never expected it from someone like Wesker, nor had it ever crossed his mind. His feelings of unrequited love were strong enough for him to be utterly ignorant to any other things. The idea of Wesker loving him back was like a stranger to him. Though, it appeared to be simply an illusion after all. “And so did I,” he confessed, his own words dealt him great grief. “We could have had something, but you chose the side of evil and threw everything we had away. It’s too late for any of that now.”
Wesker called out for Chris as he walked away from the cell. “Chris, please, come back.” All he was left with now was nothing but his mere regrets and own gloom that he caused to himself. Everything he had ever done led up to this moment, the moment he forever lost Chris and came to be the one thing everyone was certain of: a malfunctioned experiment and an useless bioweapon. His superior genes and highly intelligence would never spare him from his own humanity’s consequences reflecting on himself.
The silence reigned over the hallway for just a few seconds before Wesker’s sobs filled in the air. It was all over.