Work Text:
November 13, 1996, the night air was crisply chilled. I should be warm and in bed, the clock nearly read midnight, but I needed to say up. I was under the light over the kitchen table, eyes on the front door, warm mug wrapped tight in my hands, and a black bathrobe that wasn’t my own draped over my night shirt. Bert was normally home around in the eleventh hour; but the lab has slowly been keeping him longer and longer for the day, there are even times when it follows him home, murmurs of Ebola, Cancer, or Yellow Fever flow from his lips when on a phone call. He keeps the work complaints to himself, says he wants to focus on me, but will open up a bit when relaxed enough. I am left to wonder in my long hours of the day just what type of work Umbrella has him doing. I sip what remains of the warm tea in the bottom of the mug keep my eyes on the door. We hardly ever have coffee, I’m the one who brings it into the house, but he purges my supply not long after and says it’s bad for my health with a gentle smile. As the minutes to the new hour climbed higher and my drink drained lower, I thought about calling it a night, but the rectangular box wrapped in a black bow told me to say. The day is not over yet. Suddenly, the clank of keys echoed from beyond the door, the dead bolt turned down, and the door slowly swung open. Dressed in a black undershirt that clashed with the white lab coat over it, Dr. Wesker of the Umbrella Corporation didn’t notice me in the light I always leave on for him, and shut the door without a sound. He hung the keys on their peg like always, and started to move across the kitchen, but froze with a twitch on his face,
“Madam?” his course voice echoed in the night.
“Hello, Albert.” I greet quietly. He almost looks like a pale ghost in the edge of the glowing lamp. I stand and take the box in one hand, “It’s still the 13th, you have a little time left.” I meet him halfway and pass off the box, “Happy birthday, love.” I brushed the loose red hair from my face and did my best to smile through the lack of sleep. Bert looked back & forth from his gift to my face, his lips mumbled a soft, ‘Oh.’ then frowned. “What’s wrong, was today a long one?” I rub his shoulder and scan his coat for signs of stains or a lab accident. He only shook his head.
“Perhaps you could help me come to an understanding on something.” He takes me by my hand and leads me back to the table. I could not help but notice how he moved in a tight, stiff way before he sat down. Bert drummed his free hand on the table, covered eyes no doubt watching. “What do birthdays mean to you, Madam? Because I have never found the intent in them.” I paused for a second, Mr. Wesker is a very smart man, but sometimes he thinks he needs to re-invent the weal to solve an average problem.
“You are champ in planning out all the details or options, and I love that about you,” He let my hand go to straighten his shirt’s collar, a silent ‘but’ hung in the air. “Could it be that you’re overthinking this, love?” I smiled again. Birthdays are a wonderful moment. Friends & family gather together to celebrate how you entered their life.” Bert rubs his tired face, his shades slip down a bit, his jade eyes study me.
“Why?” he blinks and his tone shifts. “I did not contribute to my own birth, nor could have done anything majorly worth celebrating for the first decade of life. Children have been born for hundreds of years; it is nothing new. Should this event just on Mother & Father’s Day then?” I can’t help it as a laugh escapes me. I sigh and perk his glasses down more. His eyebrows stiffen.
“But that’s what makes it your birthday, there is only one of you in the hole wide word and we celebrate you being just that. Children mean the world to their parents.” I sigh quietly and spare a glance at the present. “I’m starting to think you’re the orphan around here.” He fixes his glasses and looks away, but I can still feel his gaze on me. “Please, I wasn’t around for last year’s, so let me do this for you.” I pushed the present to him. Did those cold boarding schools you grew up in always treat you like test data, Albert? He breathes in for a moment then removes his sterile smelling lab coat.
“You are too kind to someone such as me.” He sets it on the table and finally takes the gift. He removes the bow, then the red and silver wrapping paper, his hands take it apart like it was an item in surgery. He lifts the lid of the box away to be greeted by a pair of striking black shades. “Now what is this?” his tone floats to a lighter one and lifts them out of the box. He ran a finger along its sleek and sharp frame, these were much different when compared to the boxy office pair he wears to work.
“Look inside the arms.” I lean in to watch closely. He unfolds the glasses and spies the ingrained ‘A.W.’ initials in white near the hinge. “I thought that it would feel better wearing a piece of yourself to work instead of that pair Umbrella handed out.” He removes those same glassed and sets them upside-down on the table, the large ‘Property of Umbrella Corp.’ text printed in white on the arms was impossible to ignore. He examines the lens and wipes them with his shirt before dawning them. He looked around the room, then to me.
“Thank you for the vote of self worth, dear heart.” He trails a hand through my hair, “How lonely it must be waiting to be my side in the dead of night.” His face fell. “Waiting while I work on…” his voice trails off but picks it up to tell me to disregard the mumbling.
“I don’t mind long days, it’s worth it for you.” I put on his old glasses and grin, “I love you.” He suddenly pulls me up from the chair and into a hug, mumbling something again before leading me up to bed for the night. 6AM will be here for him soon enough.
A young boy sat next to a pile of blankets and a jug of water on the floor; he pulled a now wet rag from the jug and set it on the forehead of his mother. Her face was as red as the hair on her head. She mumbled things in her fevered sleep, he has watched over her many times like this and knows just enough to understand a picture of what she dreams about. ‘It’s worth it for you,’ she says. ‘I love you.’ The boy flung a nearby rock, it clunked into what furniture remained in their slum house.
“If you loved him so much then where is he?” he mumbled, but kept the anger to himself as he brushed his matching hair color behind his ear and listened to the mutterings in the dead of the Edonian night.