Chapter Text
Chris' apartment felt as empty and as inhabited as his heart. Kijuju had taken its toll on him, and he wasn’t really sure how he would cope with … everything that happened there.
The door clicked close as the lock fell shut, and the silence took its rightful place. Outside, the city was bustling with noises, with life - its chaos muted by the windows of his flat, the ambience as cloudy and uncanny as his mind.
In his jacket pocket, rested as heavy as his heart, a pair of sunglasses. Chris could feel its form against his chest with every breath he took, a starking reminder of who he faced during his mission.
Kijuju would never be forgotten, never be processed. How could his mind - his heart - process the unfathomable despair he felt facing his captain ? Albert Wesker was supposed to be dead, dead and dead again, yet his heart and his gut kept crying for him to go back, to look, to be sure.
Kijuju had reopened wounds that were supposed to be healed. Ghosts of a past that shaped him and sentenced him to a life of pain and suffering. Kijuju had torn him apart in ways a zombie could never. His soul, his heart were aching for something he could never have, someone he could never be with, the only one he would never be capable of saving.
Chris was Albert' best man, his favorite soldier, and Albert was Chris' greatest betrayal, his worst heartbreak, and his most terrible failure.
Intertwined fate, as Albert said.
His ghost was here - he was everywhere in Chris life, like a looming presence, an iron brand in his flesh - he would never leave. Working for a different agency with different people had changed nothing - he was still a soldier and always would be - and with that, the deep voice of his Captain praising him when he was still a STARS rookie still resonated in his ears.
Albert Wesker was presumed dead, and yet he kept living as his memory plagued Chris.
Kijuju would haunt Chris for years, he could feel it.
The worst thing wasn’t the living dead, the discovery of Progenitor, hell even fighting the abomination Excella became was fine by him.
But fighting Jill - fighting Albert ? Now that was some fresh out of the box traumatism for him.
Two of the three people Chris had loved the most ardently in his entire life - third one being Claire - becoming his enemies after being presumed dead ? He could feel his throat constricting and his hand shaking at the thought of what almost happened. How Sheva and him almost killed Jill. How she looked, blond and dead inside, like her soul had finally left her after all the horrors she went through.
Jill was - she always had been and always will be - Chris’ best friend. They were the same kind of person, always rebellious, always helping, always there for the others. When they both first meet at STARS, they clicked instantly. Him, a Raccoon City orphan and her, a self raised fiery agent wannabe - two of a kind.
Jill and Chris, Chris and Jill, always together, if not then never far away from each other. Even after the Spencer Mansion Incident, when Irons had cast Jill aside and sent him to Europe - they still talked by phone every evening like an old married couple.
Barry and Marvin often told them they looked like a couple. It was more of a lavender relationship, as Jill didn’t find interest in dating, and himself was a gay man in the 1990.
Loosing Jill because she fucking tackled Wesker in the abyss during a mission, for a body to never be found, for her empty coffin to be carried and buried Chris and Carlos - it was one of the hardest times in Chris’ life and he was a fucking BSAA agent, so every fucking day was hard.
She had thrown herself in the pitch black void to save Chris, and he had almost lost her that day. It was another loss he was not sure he was capable of handling, and Chris thanked every god he prayed that they allowed to let Jill come back to him safely.
Chris was still at the door of his apartment, half dazed by the memory and the emotion overload, his boots still on and his clothing reeking of gore, blood and sweat.
He quickly took off his shoes, discarding them near the door.
Chris remembered vividly Jill’ mind controlling red gemstone electrical noise as he turned the light on, dragging his sock clad feet to the kitchen. How he tried to talk to her to snap out of it, how she held her head as she cried in pain every time Sheva and him shot the gemstone and tried to tear it from her chest.
How she felt in his arms, alive and there, alive and coming back to him.
The sheer relief that flooded him when he felt her, alive and fucking kicking.
Jill and Chris, even through presumed death, it seemed.
Chris took a glass of water, downed it and left to take a shower.
Jill wouldn’t be haunting him anymore, because she was saved. She was hurt and damaged, but she was one hell of a woman, and she would heal. If someone would come back from Kijuju, it would be her.
Jill’ blue eyes echoed another pair that bore through him like the orbital laser he used on Excella. Steel blue eyes that were long gone, replaced by cat-like blazing red pupils.
Albert.
Captain Wesker of the STARS team.
“You are doing so good, Chris” Captain Wesker. “Chris, you make me proud, but of course you are one of my men” Albert Wesker. “I trust the team will be in good hands with you” Albert.
Chris missed him. Chris missed him like you miss a limb, and it terrified him. He must be some kind of sick fuck to miss the guy who almost buried him below tons and tons of stone at Spencer Mansion, then proceed to kidnap and brainwash his best friend, only to try to achieve a mass extinction.
They were never a thing, nothing more than fantasies and side glances, catching the other looking while they thought they were discreet, fleeting touches, unsaid words, looming emotions, restrained actions.
They were nothing to each other but a captain and his favorite soldier, who he handpicked to die in Spencer Manor. Chris was nothing to him but a pawn, then an enemy, then a disappointment.
“I expected more of a challenge after all this time, Chris. How disappointing.” He had said.
They were nothing to each other but ifs and maybes, all of what could have been burned to ashes in that manor, in that castle, in that volcano.
Chris had been nothing to Albert, and now he felt like nothing.
He felt like a graveyard under the rain, devoid of life, filled with mourning souls and as cold as ice. Albert fucking signature sunglasses in his hand, Chris not even conscious he had taken them out of his pocket with shaky hands.
His heart was so heavy because Chris just missed him so fucking much he struggled to breathe. How could someone miss something that never happened ? The Albert he knew, the captain - his captain - died years ago in the mansion.
Chris would have crossed the flames of hell and the limbos of purgatory if Albert had asked him to do so. Hell, he still fucking knew how Albert liked his coffee, still remembered the frown on his face when Jill and him arrived hungover at work on Fridays, still heard the sound of his chuckle at Barry’ dad jokes on the rare occasions he hang out with the team, still smelled his cologne floating in the office after he crossed it, still felt his hand on his shoulder when Chris was about to get angry during an intervention, still tasted the jealousy on his tongue when his captain praised Rebecca, and now he still recalled how insane Albert was when he had to put him down like an animal in that volcano.
It was the right thing to do - it didn’t mean it was easier to accept. The Albert he saw in Kijuju was not the one he loved - because that is what it was, that is where all that pain came from, love - this Albert was twisted, consumed and torn apart and it was not his captain.
Oh, how Chris missed him.
And the worst thing was that Chris missed someone he was not even sure existed in the first place. What if "Captain Wesker of the STARS" was the facade, and Albert Wesker the leather-clad genocidal maniac was the real him ?
Maybe Chris was a fool to think that Albert was his true self when he was with them at STARS, when he was still their leader and not the world domination mega-mind villain they saw afterwards.
Finding Albert files on the boat, discovering what his fate had been - abandoned, sold, experimented on, the only lab rat worthy of recognition, the only remaining Wesker child - it made Chris despise Spencer and Umbrella Corporation even more if it was even possible.
Chris was supposed to hate the man - Albert had picked him to die for battle data, he stole three years of Jill’ life and freedom, he tried to annihilate billions of people - but Chris couldn’t hate him for something that was conditioned into him. Something that was rooted so deep in him it became part of his DNA : his hatred for a species he was created and manufactured to dominate, a species that failed him so many times when he was but an infant.
Chris couldn’t hate even if he tried to. Claire always told him he was too good for this town, this job, this world. It was what Chris was : good.
A good man, with a good heart, full of love and never to be spoken feelings for the most terrible man that ever walked the face of Earth.
Chris took off his shirt, fingers retracing the bandages covering his chest and his stomach. His body was as scarred as his mind, and he sighed as he put on a clean black jumper and jogging pants.
And as Chris fell on his bed, shower skipped but in clean clothes, he closed his eyes and imagined what could have been if he found out earlier what Albert was planning, years and years ago in Raccoon City.
Would they have been happy together ? Would they have admitted what was happening between them ? Would they have finally spoken their truth ?
Who would have confessed first ? Who would have leaned in first as they kissed ?
How his skin would have felt under his touch ? Was Albert' skin as cold as his blue eyes ? How would those eyes have looked at him between flurries of kisses ? How would his voice have been after being touched and kissed and revered ?
Chris did not believe a god existed in this world, but for Albert he had been willing to reconsider. In Albert he would have believed - he did believe him, he did worship the ground he stepped on.
He didn’t think Albert ever saw it. The reverence, the adoration, the love, the admiration. If he did, he never showed to Chris he acknowledged it. If he did, it didn’t stop him.
If he did, it was not enough.
It was not enough, because Chris was not enough. It was the absolute and ultimate conclusion to their story : a man and a god, the moth and the flame, both burning away from their lives in different fashion, both nothing but ashes and pain.
Chris was left there alone in a bed too big for him, with silence and tears running down his cheeks, Albert Wesker’ ghost, and his sunglasses cradled in his hands like a precious artifact, for it is the only remain of the best and the worst man Chris Redfield ever met.