Chapter Text
"You're late."
The man sitting behind the desk didn't look up from his paperwork when he spoke. His gloved fingers moved with mechanical precision, signing documents without hesitation. His blond hair was slicked back so severely it looked painted on, not a single strand daring to disobey. The S.T.A.R.S insignia on his shoulder gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lights, polished to military perfection. The office smelled like gun oil and stale coffee. You stood frozen in the doorway, gripping your badge like it might save you. His voice had been flat, but something about the way he held his pen made you think he'd snap it in half if you gave the wrong answer. Your throat tightened. The clock on the wall ticked loud enough to feel like a countdown.
"Traffic," you lied, watching his pen stop mid-signature. The pause lasted half a second too long before he resumed writing. His pen made one final, deliberate stroke before he set it down precisely parallel to the document’s edge. Still, he didn’t look up. “Interesting,” he said, voice smooth as polished steel. “Because I reviewed the transit logs this morning. No traffic reported.” The silence stretched like piano wire pulled taut. You could feel the exact moment his gaze finally lifted—not sudden, but inevitable, like dawn breaking over a frozen battlefield. His sunglasses caught the overhead light, turning the lenses into opaque white mirrors where your own distorted reflection stared back, wide-eyed and guilty.
The air conditioning hummed like a threat. You could see yourself in those mirrored lenses—your collar too tight, your pulse jumping at the base of your throat—and suddenly you understood why interrogation rooms had one-way glass. There was power in being watched without being seen. His chair creaked softly as he leaned back, the leather sighing under his weight. The sound was oddly intimate in the sterile office, like a predator settling in for the hunt. You saw the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth—not quite a smile, but the ghost of one, if ghosts were sharp enough to draw blood. The pen rolled half an inch across the desk before stopping—deliberate, you realized. Everything in this room was deliberate. You could see the calculation in the way his fingers steepled together, the way his elbows rested at perfect right angles against the armrests. The air smelled like ozone before a lightning strike.
"Where is everyone else?" you asked before you could stop yourself. The words slipped out like a bullet from an unsteady hand—too quick, too revealing. The empty bullpen outside his office suddenly felt conspicuous, the vacant desks arranged like tombstones in a graveyard no one visited. No chatter, no coffee breaks, not even the usual clatter of gear being checked. Just silence, thick enough to choke on. Wesker's fingers flexed against the edge of his desk, the leather of his gloves creaking softly. "Field training," he said, as if that explained everything. As if you should've known. The pause that followed was deliberate—a blade held at your throat just long enough for you to feel its edge. "You would have joined them," he continued, voice lowering half an octave, "if you'd been on time."
"I'm sorry, sir." The words tasted like burnt metal in your mouth, too stiff, too rehearsed. You could feel Wesker dissecting them—not just hearing them, but peeling back each syllable to examine the weakness underneath. The AC kicked on with a low hum, ruffling the papers on his desk, but he didn’t move to stop them.
His gloves made a soft, dry sound as he drummed his fingers once against the desktop. "Apologies are irrelevant," he said, and his voice wasn’t cold so much as absent of temperature altogether. "What matters is whether you can correct the behavior." His head tilted just slightly, the light catching the edge of his sunglasses so you saw the faintest sliver of his eyes—pale, almost reflective, like something that had adapted to see in the dark.
The pen rolled back toward Wesker’s hand with a quiet scrape against polished wood. For a heartbeat, you braced for the storm—some razor-edged remark, a dismissal that would leave you scrambling for dignity. Instead, he reached into his desk drawer with a slow, deliberate motion, producing a single sheet of paper. His gloves whispered against the surface as he slid it toward you.
The paper stopped just short of the desk’s edge. You could see your name typed at the top in crisp black ink, stark against the white. Wesker’s finger tapped once beside it—a silent command. You stepped forward, your boots too loud on the linoleum, and picked it up with fingers that barely trembled.
The paper was heavier than it looked—thick, official stock that whispered of bureaucracy and consequences. Your eyes skimmed the header: Performance Evaluation. Below it, a grid of metrics filled the page—marksmanship, tactical awareness, endurance—each followed by a blank space waiting to be filled. Wesker’s gloved finger lingered near the bottom, where a single line stood out in bold: Final Assessment Pending Field Observation.
Your fingers tightened on the paper, the edges digging into your skin. Wesker watched you read, his stillness more unnerving than any movement could be. The silence stretched until you could hear the faint hum of electricity in the overhead lights, the distant buzz of a vending machine down the hall.
The vending machine's buzz cut off abruptly, plunging the hallway into a silence so complete you could hear the faint rasp of Wesker's gloves against the desktop. His fingers curled inward, slow and deliberate, like a spider testing its web. "You'll accompany me tonight," he said, and it wasn't a request. The way his voice wrapped around the words made your stomach tighten—not quite fear, but something sharper, like the moment before a freefall.
The paper crinkled in your grip as Wesker stood, his chair sliding back with a quiet, oiled sound. He adjusted his sunglasses with a gloved hand, the movement precise—like everything else about him. You caught the scent of gunpowder and something darker underneath, something that made your pulse jump against your ribs.
The fluorescent lights flickered overhead as Wesker rounded the desk, his polished boots clicking against the linoleum with surgical precision. You resisted the urge to step back—something about the way he moved suggested he'd notice, that he'd catalog that tiny retreat like another mark against you in his mental ledger. Instead, you held your ground, clutching the evaluation sheet like a shield. Wesker stopped close enough that you could see the faint imprint of his breath fogging the inside of his sunglasses when he exhaled.
The scent of gun oil intensified as Wesker leaned in, just slightly—not enough to be improper, but enough that you could see the microscopic imperfections in the leather of his gloves, the faintest wear along the seams where his fingers flexed. "You'll need to be sharper than this," he murmured, tapping the evaluation sheet with one finger. The sound was dry, precise, like a judge's gavel. "The field isn't kind to hesitation."
The evaluation sheet trembled slightly in your hands, betraying the tight grip you had on it. Wesker’s proximity was overwhelming—like standing too close to a live wire, the air crackling with the threat of contact. His gloved finger lingered on the paper, tapping once more before withdrawing. To your surprise, his voice softened ever so slightly, the razor edge dulling into something almost—almost—kind. "You have potential," he said, and the words landed like an unexpected reprieve. "But potential means nothing without discipline."
Up close, Wesker was unfairly handsome in a way that felt like a tactical advantage—sharp cheekbones that could cut glass, a jawline so precise it looked engineered rather than born. His lips were thin but perfectly shaped, the kind of mouth that could deliver a reprimand with surgical precision or—you caught yourself—something far less professional. The overhead lights caught the platinum strands in his hair, turning them into liquid metal against the darker blond, every strand obediently in place as if even his follicles understood the consequences of disobedience.
His sunglasses were an opaque barrier, but you could feel the weight of his gaze behind them, calculating, dissecting. The bridge of his nose was straight and unyielding, the frames resting there like a crown of polished obsidian. When he tilted his head just so, the light caught the edge of one lens, revealing the faintest glimpse of his eyes—pale, unnervingly bright, like sunlight through ice. You wondered if they ever warmed, or if they were always that clinical, that detached.
The paper in your hands suddenly felt heavier, as if Wesker’s words had seeped into the fibers and added weight. You swallowed hard, your throat dry. "Tonight?" you echoed, the word coming out rougher than intended.
"Tonight," Wesker confirmed, his voice low enough that the word seemed to vibrate through your bones rather than reach your ears. His gloved hand lifted, adjusting his sunglasses with a movement so precise it could have been calibrated. "2100 hours. The old Spencer estate." He paused, letting the silence pool between you like spilled ink. "You'll need your sidearm. And a flashlight."
The word "kind" didn't fit him—not in the way people usually meant it. There were no warm smiles, no gentle reassurances. But when Wesker stepped back, giving you space to breathe, there was something almost considerate in the gesture. Like he knew exactly how his proximity affected you and chose, just this once, not to weaponize it. His gloved hand hovered near your elbow as you swayed slightly, not touching, but there—an unspoken offer of stability if you needed it. You didn't take it, but the fact that it existed at all sent a strange flutter through your chest.
The paper crumpled further as your fingers twitched, resisting the urge to fold it into something small enough to hide. Wesker’s reflection in his own sunglasses watched the movement, his head tilting just enough to suggest amusement—if amusement could be sharpened into a scalpel. "Problem, Officer?"
The fluorescent lights buzzed like flies trapped in glass. You forced your fingers to unclench from the evaluation sheet, smoothing the crumpled edges against your thigh. "No problem, Captain." The lie tasted like cheap whiskey—too harsh to swallow smoothly. You knew he heard the hesitation anyway. Wesker had the uncanny ability to hear everything, especially the things you didn’t say.
---
The Spencer estate loomed at the end of the gravel drive like a discarded crown—opulent, rotting, its wrought iron gates twisted into the shapes of thorned vines. Moonlight glinted off the broken windows, turning the jagged edges into silver teeth. You adjusted your holster, the weight of your sidearm unfamiliar against your hip. The flashlight in your other hand felt like a child’s toy compared to the darkness swallowing the property whole.
The crunch of gravel beneath your boots sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness. Wesker walked ahead of you, his silhouette cutting through the gloom with predatory grace. His gloves gleamed faintly under the moonlight as he pushed open the estate’s rusted gate, the hinges screaming like a wounded animal.
The gate groaned shut behind you with a finality that made your shoulders tense. Wesker didn’t look back. His boots made no sound on the overgrown cobblestones—either he knew exactly where to step, or the earth itself didn’t dare betray his presence. You followed, your own footsteps clumsy in comparison, twigs snapping like brittle bones underfoot. The estate’s gardens had long since surrendered to neglect, skeletal rose bushes clawing at your sleeves as you passed.
The flashlight beam trembled across the overgrown flagstones as you followed Wesker deeper into the estate's skeletal gardens. His shoulders eclipsed slices of moonlight ahead, his STARS insignia catching the glow like a warning buoy in a black sea. Your boot caught on a gnarled root, sending a spray of pebbles skittering—Wesker didn't turn, but his gloved hand lifted slightly, a silent command to halt.
The flashlight beam wavered as you froze mid-step, the sudden silence pressing against your eardrums like water. Wesker’s hand remained raised—not a gesture of reassurance, but a predator’s pause, listening for movement in the dark. His gloves swallowed the moonlight, absorbing it like ink. You held your breath until your lungs burned, until the only sound was the distant drip of condensation from a broken gutter.
The flashlight’s beam flickered as something moved in the periphery—too fast to be wind, too silent to be an animal. You didn’t realize you’d stepped closer to Wesker until the scent of gun oil and cold leather filled your nose. His gloved hand closed around your wrist without looking back, his grip precise as a surgeon’s clamp. "Breathe," he murmured, so low it was almost a vibration against your spine. His thumb pressed into your pulse point, not to comfort, but to measure. "Your heart rate is unacceptable."
His thumb lingered a moment too long—just enough for you to feel the heat of his skin through the leather—before releasing your wrist with deliberate slowness. The absence of his touch was somehow more unsettling than the contact itself. Wesker stepped forward without another word, his boots silent against the crumbling stone path. You exhaled sharply, realizing only then that you’d been holding your breath. The flashlight’s beam steadied as you tightened your grip, casting long, skeletal shadows across the overgrown hedges.
The flashlight's beam cut through the darkness ahead, illuminating the peeling paint of the estate's towering doors. Wesker didn’t hesitate—his gloved hand pressed against the weathered wood, and the door groaned inward as if yielding to his touch alone. The air inside was thick with decay, the scent of damp wallpaper and rusted metal clinging to the back of your throat. You swallowed hard, your fingers tightening around the flashlight until the plastic creaked.
The flashlight beam wavered as you stepped over the threshold, catching motes of dust suspended like frozen stars in the stale air. Wesker’s silhouette disappeared into the gloom ahead, swallowed by the mansion’s throat. You hurried after him, the floorboards groaning underfoot—each creak sounding like a warning. The beam skimmed over peeling wallpaper, revealing patches where something had clawed through to the plaster beneath. Long, ragged streaks. Not animal. Not quite.
The flashlight flickered—just once—but Wesker froze mid-step, his posture shifting imperceptibly into something predatory. His head tilted slightly, listening to something you couldn't hear. The silence pressed in until your ears ached with it. Then, a sound: distant, wet, like meat being dragged across tile.
Wesker’s hand shot up—a silent command to freeze. The flashlight beam trembled in your grip, casting jagged shadows across the mold-streaked walls. The wet sound came again, closer this time, accompanied by the rhythmic scrape of something heavy being pulled. Your pulse hammered against your ribs, loud enough you were certain Wesker could hear it. His gloved fingers flexed slightly, the leather creaking like a death rattle in the stillness.
The wet sound gurgled closer, accompanied by the unmistakable squelch of footsteps in something viscous. Your flashlight beam jerked toward the sound, illuminating a section of the hallway floor glistening with something dark and slick. Wesker didn’t flinch—he exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, like a sniper steadying before a shot. His gloved hand slid to his holster, the motion so fluid it barely disturbed the air.
The flashlight beam caught the edge of something pale moving in the darkness—too slow, too wrong. Your breath hitched, the sound embarrassingly loud in the thick air. Wesker’s hand tightened on his holster, but he didn’t draw. Not yet. His head tilted slightly, tracking the movement with the precision of a scope zeroing in.
The pale figure lurched into view—a man, or something that had been one once. His skin sagged like melted wax, one eye bulging grotesquely from its socket. The wet sound came from his chest, where ribs poked through torn fabric, glistening with something dark and viscous. Wesker didn’t move. His gloved hand hovered near his holster, fingers flexing once, twice, calculating.
The creature—because that’s what it was now—dragged itself forward with a wet, sucking sound, its remaining eye rolling wildly in its skull. The flashlight beam caught the glisten of saliva or blood—or something worse—dripping from its slack jaw. Wesker remained perfectly still, his breath so controlled it was as if he’d stopped breathing altogether. His sunglasses reflected the beam of your flashlight, twin white voids giving nothing away.
The flashlight flickered as the creature's head snapped toward you with a wet crack of vertebrae, its remaining eye dilating in the flashlight beam. Wesker's hand twitched—not a flinch, but a predator's instinctive response to movement. His fingers curled around the grip of his pistol, but he didn't draw. Not yet.
The creature exhaled—a rattling, liquid sound that made your stomach twist—and lunged. Wesker moved faster than should have been possible, his body a blur of blue and black as he stepped between you and the thing. His gloved hand shot out, catching the creature by the throat with a wet slap of leather against decaying flesh. The impact sent a spray of dark fluid arcing through the flashlight beam, speckling Wesker’s sunglasses with droplets that slid down the lenses like tears.
The creature’s fingers clawed at Wesker’s wrist, nails splitting against the reinforced leather of his gloves. Its breath came in ragged, bubbling bursts, the sound of a drowning man gasping through a punctured lung. Wesker didn’t flinch. His grip tightened, tendons standing out like steel cables under his skin. The creature’s remaining eye bulged, the pupil dilating until the iris vanished into blackness.
Wesker’s fingers flexed—once—and the creature’s neck snapped with a sound like wet kindling breaking. The body crumpled at his feet, twitching for a few grotesque seconds before going still. He didn’t release its throat immediately. Instead, he held it there, studying the slack features with clinical detachment, as if memorizing the precise angle of its broken spine. Then he let go, the corpse hitting the floor with a damp thud.
The flashlight beam trembled as you stared at the corpse, its limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Wesker flexed his gloved hand once, fingers curling slowly as if testing the memory of resistance. A single drop of black fluid slid from his glove onto the floorboards with a sound like ink hitting parchment. He turned his head toward you—not all the way, just enough that moonlight caught the edge of his sunglasses, turning them momentarily transparent.
The flashlight’s beam skittered wildly as you took an involuntary step back, your bootheel catching on a warped floorboard. Wesker’s head snapped toward the sound—too quick, too precise—his nostrils flaring slightly as if scenting your fear. The black droplets on his gloves gleamed under the trembling light, thick and slow like molasses.
The corpse's fingers twitched once more—a final, grotesque spasm—before going still. Wesker exhaled through his nose, a slow, controlled sound that carried more irritation than relief. He flexed his gloved fingers again, watching the dark fluid drip onto the floorboards with detached interest. When he finally spoke, his voice was impossibly calm, as if he'd just finished reviewing paperwork rather than snapping a man's neck. "Interesting."
The flashlight beam shook in your grip as Wesker knelt beside the now dead creature, his gloves pressing into the ruined flesh with clinical precision. He turned the head—too easily, the vertebrae grinding like wet gravel—examining the snapped neck with the detached curiosity of a biologist dissecting a specimen. The creature’s remaining eye stared blankly at the ceiling, pupil blown wide, its last expression frozen somewhere between hunger and confusion. Wesker’s thumb brushed the edge of the split eyelid, pushing it wider, revealing the sclera—veined with something black and viscous, pulsing faintly even in death.
The flashlight beam flickered again as Wesker’s gloves made a wet, peeling sound against the corpse’s skin. He lifted his hand, studying the black strands stretching between his fingers like corrupted spider silk. “Fascinating,” he murmured, tilting his wrist to let the substance drip slowly onto the floorboards. His voice carried none of the revulsion twisting in your gut—only cold, academic interest.
The black strands stretched like taffy before snapping, splattering against the floorboards with a sound that made your stomach lurch. Wesker didn’t wipe his gloves—he turned them over in the dim light instead, observing how the substance clung to the leather like living oil. “You’re not squeamish, are you, Officer?” His voice was low, almost amused, but the question wasn’t casual. It was a test.
The flashlight's beam wavered as you swallowed hard, your throat clicking dryly. Wesker's fingers flexed again, the black fluid stretching between them like corrupted molasses before snapping back to his gloves. You forced yourself to meet the impenetrable void of his sunglasses. "No, Captain."
The flashlight beam cut jagged shadows across Wesker’s face as he straightened, the black fluid on his gloves catching the light like spilled ink. He didn’t wipe it off. Instead, he held his hand between you, tilting it slightly so the substance oozed toward his fingertips. "Observe the viscosity," he murmured, as if lecturing. "Notice how it resists coagulation." A drop stretched, elongated—then fell with a wet tap onto the corpse's chest.
The flashlight beam trembled as Wesker stepped closer, his boots making no sound on the blood-slick floorboards. He held his gloved hand up between you, the black fluid dripping slowly from his fingertips. "Fascinating," he murmured again, tilting his wrist to let a thick strand stretch toward the floor. "It retains properties of both organic tissue and something...else." His voice was low, clinical, but there was an undercurrent of something darker—something hungry.
Wesker’s fingers stilled suddenly, the black strands of corrupted tissue snapping back against his glove with a wet smack. His head tilted slightly, as if listening to something beyond the scope of human hearing—or perhaps simply tired of the game. The corpse’s ruined face stared up at nothing, its remaining eye clouded over like frosted glass. Wesker exhaled through his nose, a slow, deliberate sound that carried more dismissal than disgust, and straightened in one fluid motion. His gloves gleamed dully in the flashlight beam, streaked with fluids that weren’t entirely blood.
The silence that followed was thicker than the estate’s damp air, pressing against your eardrums like a physical weight. Wesker flexed his fingers once, twice, the leather creaking softly, before reaching into his breast pocket with eerie precision. He withdrew a handkerchief—crisp, white, impossibly pristine—and began wiping his gloves with methodical strokes. The contrast was absurd: the meticulousness of the gesture against the gore-streaked leather, the way he folded the soiled cloth afterward with the same care as a surgeon sanitizing instruments.
The flashlight beam flickered again, catching the sharp angle of Wesker’s jaw as he pocketed the soiled handkerchief. His head tilted slightly—not toward you, but toward the darkness deeper in the estate, where the hallway curved into blackness. "They'll have heard that," he said, voice low, almost conversational. The way someone might remark on the weather.
The flashlight beam trembled as another wet scrape echoed from the darkness ahead—closer this time, deliberate. Wesker didn’t turn toward the sound. Instead, he tilted his head just enough to catch your reflection in his sunglasses, the lenses smeared with black fluid like rotten ink. "Stay behind me," he murmured, the words a velvet-wrapped command. His hand hovered near his holster, fingers twitching once—not nervousness, but anticipation.
The next wet scrape came from directly above—a slow, deliberate drag across the mansion’s rotting ceiling. Plaster dust rained down as something heavy shifted in the attic. Wesker didn’t look up. His hand moved to his holster, unlatching it with a click that seemed obscenely loud in the thick air. The flashlight beam jerked upward on instinct, illuminating a sagging section of the ceiling where the plaster bulged grotesquely, damp stains spreading like a cancer.
Wesker adjusted his sunglasses with one black-streaked finger, the movement languid, almost theatrical. "Tell me, Officer," he said, voice dripping with something too polished to be sarcasm but too sharp to be sincerity, "did they teach you shaking as a tactical maneuver at the academy?" His lips barely moved as he spoke, the words slicing through the damp air like scalpels.
The ceiling groaned under the unseen weight, a long crack splitting through the damp plaster like a fissure in rotten bone. Wesker didn’t flinch. His gloved fingers curled around the grip of his pistol, the leather creaking faintly—not with tension, but with the quiet satisfaction of a predator finally allowed to bare its teeth.
The ceiling split open with a wet, splintering shriek as Wesker's hand closed around your elbow—not guiding, but propelling. You barely had time to register the inhuman shape dropping through the plaster before he was moving, his grip ironclad as he hauled you backward into the hallway. Your flashlight skittered across the floorboards, casting frantic shadows that made the thing's elongated limbs seem to stretch and multiply.
Wesker didn't run—he retreated, each step measured and precise even as the creature's talons carved furrows into the wood where you'd stood seconds before. His free hand drew his pistol in one fluid motion, firing two rounds into the thing's distended torso without breaking stride. The bullets punched through with wet thuds, but the creature barely staggered—black ichor bubbling from the wounds like tar from a ruptured pipeline.
"Backup." Wesker's voice was unnervingly calm despite the thing's guttural shriek echoing through the corridor. He fired again—this time aiming higher—and the creature's head snapped back with a sickening crack. It stumbled, but didn't fall. "Now."
You didn't argue. The flashlight beam bounced wildly as you sprinted back toward the estate's entrance, Wesker's footsteps unnervingly silent behind you despite the speed. The creature's enraged howl followed, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood as it gave chase.
The front doors loomed ahead, moonlight bleeding through the cracked stained glass. You hit them shoulder-first, the impact sending a jolt of pain down your arm as they burst open. Cool night air rushed in, tasting of damp earth and rusted iron—clean compared to the estate's rot. Wesker materialized beside you, his sunglasses reflecting the moon's pale glow as he turned to face the doorway, pistol raised.
The creature barreled through the threshold just as Wesker fired—three shots in rapid succession, each hitting center mass. Black ichor sprayed across the porch's warped boards as the thing staggered, its elongated limbs twitching erratically. Wesker didn't wait to see if it fell; his gloved hand closed around your wrist again, pulling you down the crumbling steps. "Move."
You ran. The estate's overgrown gardens blurred past, thorn-laden branches snatching at your sleeves as Wesker navigated the terrain with unnatural precision. Behind you, something heavy hit the ground with a wet thud—followed by the unmistakable sound of dragging limbs. Wesker's grip tightened fractionally, his pace never faltering even as your lungs burned.
The flashlight beam bounced wildly as you vaulted over a collapsed stone bench, Wesker's grip on your wrist never loosening even as his pace outpaced yours. His boots barely disturbed the dew-laden grass—each stride calculated, predatory—while your own footsteps tore through the undergrowth like a wounded animal fleeing slaughter. Behind you, the estate's shadowed bulk loomed against the starless sky, its broken windows glinting like jagged teeth.
---
The cruiser’s tires screamed against the wet pavement as Wesker took the corner too fast, the vehicle fishtailing just enough to slam your shoulder into the door. His gloved hands flexed on the wheel—deliberate, unhurried—even as the speedometer needle quivered past 90. The RPD’s floodlit facade loomed ahead, its sterile brightness a brutal contrast to the Spencer estate’s swallowing dark. Wesker didn’t slow until the last possible second, braking hard enough to make the suspension groan.
The cruiser’s doors hadn’t fully opened before Wesker was moving, his polished boots hitting the pavement with a sound like a gunshot. You scrambled after him, your own footsteps clumsy in comparison, the adrenaline still fraying the edges of your vision. The precinct’s fluorescents burned overhead, too bright, too sterile—washing out the shadows where Wesker belonged.
The precinct locker room was empty at this hour—too late for the night shift, too early for morning patrol. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, bleaching the tiles to a sterile white that made the smears of black ichor on Wesker’s gloves look even more obscene. You hadn’t realized you’d followed him in until the door clicked shut behind you, the sound final as a gun’s hammer locking into place.
Wesker didn’t turn. His gloves made a wet, peeling sound as he tugged them off one finger at a time, the blackened leather hitting the bench with a damp thud. “You didn’t scream,” he observed, voice low. A statement, not praise. His sunglasses caught the light when he tilted his head just enough to watch your reflection in the locker door. “Interesting.”
Your pulse throbbed where his fingers had gripped your wrist earlier—not pain, but the phantom imprint of his hold. The air between you thickened, heavy with the scent of gun oil and the metallic tang of whatever that thing had bled. Wesker’s nostrils flared slightly as he inhaled, as if tasting your adrenaline still simmering under your skin.
The locker room’s fluorescent hum was the only sound between you—a sterile buzz that did nothing to mask the scent of gunpowder and decay clinging to Wesker’s uniform. He peeled off his gloves with slow, surgical precision, each finger freed with a wet sound that made your stomach twist. The black ichor streaked across his knuckles shimmered under the harsh light, viscous and alive in a way blood shouldn’t be.
The glove hit the bench with a wet slap. Wesker flexed his bare fingers—long, pale, streaked with black—and examined them under the locker room’s buzzing fluorescents. The ichor pulsed faintly, threading through the creases of his knuckles like liquid shadow. He turned his hand slowly, watching the way the light caught the shifting viscosity. “Fascinating,” he murmured, more to himself than to you. His voice was detached, clinical, but there was something underneath—something hungry.
Wesker’s fingers twitched suddenly, the black threads snapping back against his skin with a sound like wet tape tearing. He exhaled—slow, measured—before reaching into his breast pocket with that same eerie precision. The handkerchief he withdrew was still impossibly white, untouched by the estate’s filth. He dabbed at the ichor with methodical strokes, but the substance clung, webbing between his fingers like tar. His lips thinned slightly.
Your fingers fumbled with the small plastic bottle in your vest pocket—standard RPD issue, barely used until now. The sanitizer's cap resisted before popping open with a sound like a breaking seal. Wesker didn't turn at the noise, but you saw his shoulders tense infinitesimally beneath the starched lines of his uniform jacket, the movement so slight it might've been a trick of the buzzing fluorescents.
"Captain." Your voice sounded foreign—hoarse from adrenaline and the estate's damp rot. You extended the bottle toward him, the gel inside catching the light like medical-grade jelly. "It's stronger than the handkerchief."
For three heartbeats, nothing moved. Then Wesker rotated his wrist slowly, observing the way black strands stretched between his fingers. His sunglasses tilted down toward your offering, lenses reflecting the bottle's clinical blue label. When he spoke, his voice was velvet wrapped around a scalpel. "How...thoughtful."
His fingers brushed yours as he took the bottle—a fleeting contact that burned hotter than the adrenaline still coursing through your veins. The leather of his gloves had been cool, but his bare skin was fever-warm, almost feverish. You caught the scent of him beneath the gunpowder and ichor—something metallic and clean, like surgical steel left too long under ultraviolet light.
He notices. Not just the tremble in your fingers as you pull them back—too fast, too telling—but the way your pulse jumps visibly at your throat when his thumb drags deliberately over the sanitizer bottle’s nozzle. Wesker’s lips curve. “Officer,” he murmurs, squeezing the gel into his palm with a slow, deliberate pressure that makes the plastic crinkle obscenely loud in the empty locker room. The sanitizer pools in his hand, stark white against the black streaks. “Tell me.” He begins rubbing his hands together, the sound wet and methodical. “What exactly did you think we’d find tonight?”
The gel lathers unnaturally thick, swallowing the ichor in foamy swirls that darken to gray before dissolving entirely. Wesker watches the process with detached fascination, fingers working between each knuckle with the precision of a surgeon scrubbing in. You swallow—too loud—and his head tilts just enough to catch the movement in his peripheral vision. The locker room’s fluorescents bleach his cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood, shadows pooling where his sunglasses press into the bridge of his nose.
His fingers worked with a surgeon’s precision, the sanitizer foaming thick between his knuckles, swallowing the black ichor in slow, lathering swirls. You couldn’t look away. There was something hypnotic in the way his tendons flexed beneath his skin—each movement deliberate, calculated, like he was dissecting the very air between you. The gel turned murky as it dissolved the residue, dripping in sluggish rivulets down his wrists, but his hands never faltered. They were unfairly elegant, even now—long-fingered and lethal, the kind of hands that could snap a neck or trace a bullet’s path across bare skin with equal ease.
The words clawed their way up your throat before you could stop them. "I thought we were retrieving evidence."
Wesker's hands stilled. The sanitizer dripped from his fingers onto the tile, the sound deafening in the sudden silence. His sunglasses caught the light as he tilted his head—just a fraction—the movement predatory in its precision. "Evidence," he repeated, tasting the word like it was a specimen under glass. The corner of his mouth twitched. "How quaint."
Wesker's fingers curled inward, the last of the foaming sanitizer sluicing down his wrists in gray-streaked rivulets. The motion wasn't rushed—nothing with Wesker ever was—but there was a finality to it that made your breath catch. He inspected his hands under the buzzing fluorescents, turning them palm-up, then palm-down, examining the creases of his knuckles with the same detached scrutiny he'd given the creature's snapped neck. The black ichor was gone, but something lingered in the way his fingertips trembled—just once, so slight you might have imagined it—before stilling again.
The fluorescents hummed like angry wasps overhead as Wesker turned away from you, his uniform jacket stretching taut across his shoulders in a way that made your breath hitch. You’d seen him a hundred times in briefing rooms, on the shooting range, striding through precinct halls with that infuriating, predatory grace—but never like this. Never with his gloves off, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, the sweat-damp fabric clinging to the hard planes of his back as he reached for his locker. The movement pulled the material tighter, outlining the flex of his trapezius muscles with obscene clarity. His spine was a straight, unyielding line beneath the starched fabric, shoulders broad enough to eclipse the flickering light behind him.
The flush crept up your neck before you could stop it—a slow, traitorous heat that spread like spilled ink beneath your skin. Wesker’s reflection in the locker door caught it instantly, his head tilting just enough for the fluorescents to glaze his sunglasses with predatory brightness. His fingers paused on the combination lock.
“Officer.” The word was a scalpel sliding between your ribs. He didn’t turn. Didn’t need to. The locker’s metal surface warped your reflection just enough to make your blush look feverish, your pupils blown wide with something sharper than fear. Wesker’s gloves were off, but his presence was more suffocating than ever—the starched lines of his uniform suddenly too crisp, too close, the scent of gunmetal and sanitized ichor clinging to him like a second skin. “Is there something you require?”
The locker room’s fluorescents buzzed louder in the silence that followed Wesker’s question—sharp, accusatory, and laced with something unreadable beneath the veneer of command. Your mouth opened, but nothing coherent came out. The words dissolved on your tongue like the sanitizer foam still clinging to his wrists.
Wesker didn’t move, didn’t blink, but his reflection in the locker door tracked every minute shift in your expression—the way your throat worked as you swallowed, the fleeting glance you stole at his bare hands, still damp and glistening under the harsh light. The corner of his mouth twitched, infinitesimal, more a phantom of amusement than anything tangible.
“I—no, Captain,” you managed, the lie brittle as old bone. The flush burned hotter, spreading down your collarbones, a traitorous bloom of heat that his sharp gaze followed with clinical interest. You took a step back, the rubber soles of your boots squeaking against the tile like a wounded animal retreating.
Wesker exhaled—slow, deliberate—his breath stirring the air between you. The sound was neither dismissal nor approval, but something far more dangerous: patience. The kind a viper had when it knew the mouse would stumble back into striking range. His fingers resumed turning the locker’s combination dial, the clicks methodical, unhurried. “Dismissed,” he said, the word a velvet-wrapped razor.
You turned on your heel, the movement too abrupt, too telling. The locker room door groaned as you shoved it open, the fluorescent glare of the precinct hallway blinding after the suffocating tension of the locker room. Your pulse roared in your ears, a frantic drumbeat out of sync with the measured clicks of Wesker’s combination lock still echoing behind you.