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It was snowing.
The kind of thick, spiraling blizzard that spoke less of Christmas cheer and more of an angered god. Raccoon City was coated in dirty gray flakes. Like a city half-buried in post-apocalyptic ash. Like a ruin lost under the heavy dust of time.
But the streets were bustling and filled with people. Couples fighting with each other or families managing badly behaved toddlers. Everyone, old and young, clad in offensively bright clothing. Wesker shuddered and slipped his sunglasses back into place, ignoring the strange looks from those around him.
Sunglasses in a snow storm. An eccentricity. But surely brilliance brought some lee-way when it came to that kind of thing? And Wesker was brilliant, knew it with bone-deep certainty that went deeper than his current life overseeing men and women (well, one woman) who thought with their fists.
He was tired. That was the truth. Tired of living a half-life, caught between being Spencer's puppet and being the one who puppeteered the STARS. Tired of expectations from below and above.
Sometimes, not often but sometimes, he was tired of being Albert Wesker.
For an hour or two, he'd like to be someone else. An ordinary man with ordinary problems. Small worries centered around gas bills and overdue paperwork. A man who could meet his own eyes in the mirror.
Every so often, Wesker thought that he might like to be Chris Redfield.
The beer was cheap and tasted oddly plastic.
The reason for that didn't bear thinking about. Wesker took another sip and winced. It was a small, anonymous bar, the kind of place where the lonely gathered in order to feel less alone. As if a congregation of the friendless and the unloved could somehow constitute a festive gathering.
One of the older men, a regular barfly judging from his purple nose and the broken veins mapping his cheeks, was passed out at the bar. With a fastidious shudder, Wesker glanced away and wondered what the hell he was doing here.
Happy Christmas Eve, Albert, he thought to himself, a little sourly.
Well, it was either the bar or spending the evening with a septic collection of Spencer's cronies and Umbrella staff. The booze would have been better but harder to swallow.
It took two quick gulps to finish the sour beer. That gave Wesker an excuse to order something stronger.
"Another step. There we go. Almost home now."
There was a voice in the alcohol-soaked dark. Young and familiar. A gust of warm, sweet-scented breath against Wesker's cheek.
Chris. It was Chris walking him through the night, the long and terrible night that Wesker always carried with him.
Wesker wondered how that came to be. Maybe he was dead. Maybe they both were.
"Good thing you called me, huh?" Chris said in a conversational tone. As if it was perfectly normal thing to be walking through Hell together. "Didn't even know you had my number, Captain. But I guess it makes sense. Me, I'm just glad that you didn't try to drive home when you're this drunk."
The words didn't make sense. They were organized into sentences, they followed a pattern but Wesker's brain was too scrambled to follow them. All he knew was that the blackness was lifting, vague shapes appearing out of the gloom.
Hysterical blindness, said a stick-dry voice in his head. It sounded like Spencer. You'll outgrow it in time, Albert.
Wesker could remember those periods now, brief and disconnected moments when the world would be doused. Painted black. it came during times of extreme stress or on the rare occasions in which he was intoxicated. It lasted hours. And it always proceeded a terrible migraine.
Already he could feel the pain moving in his skull, like a trapped ocean, blood-red waves pounding against his mind. He needed the medication that he kept in his own apartment. He needed silence and a cool cloth over his eyes until the pain passed.
Instead, he had Chris Redfield and his voice, a single bright spark in Wesker's twilight world. A firefly in the night.
But it was enough.
Wesker woke on Christmas day. He came back to himself in someone else's bedroom. Thrift-store furniture. A blotchy watercolor of mountains in a cracked frame. The rich, comforting scent of hot chocolate and the blessing of a clear head.
Chris smiling at him over the rim of a lurid mug. It had a golden star printed on it, simple and cartoonish. The perfect metaphor for the mind of the man hovering over Wesker.
"Hey," Chris beamed. "You're awake."
He passed Wesker a mug of hot chocolate. Tentatively, the blond took a sip. It tasted like childhood and other lost things. The room was snow-lit, that cool but intimate blue glow. With surprise, Wesker saw that the weather had turned sweet at some point in the night. The snow was no longer filthy ash - it was angel's feathers, a benediction ghosting down on an undeserving city.
With something like fascination, he watched Chris' big hand rub the back of his own neck. Studied the veins and freckles on his skin. The sight of it seemed like a miracle. But all life was a miracle when you really considered it. Even small lives were little fireflies lighting someone's way.
When Wesker reached out and cupped Chris' cheek, the younger man didn't pull away. His mouth, under Wesker's own, was chocolaty and tender. The blond felt like a dirty orphan raiding a sweet shop. But he kept kissing Chris anyway. Drowning himself in sweetness until it was all he could taste, until it washed away all thoughts of Umbrella or Spencer or the future.
The snow gave way to rain later that day and then hail. Wesker didn't realize or notice. It was the first Christmas that he ever spent with Chris and the last one that he'd spend as a human.
The future lay before them like a trap but for now, Wesker held onto what he knew he couldn't keep and tried to be thankful for the little he had.