Work Text:
Chris climbed into the truck and slammed the door shut. The engine rumbled angrily under him as he pulled out of the lot, tires kicking up loose gravel he probably should have swept. His knuckles stayed white on the wheel the whole drive. The letter sat in his pocket with dead weight.
He kept glancing at the coordinates on his phone, the GPS voice cutting through the quiet. Ten miles out and his mind wouldn't shut up. The handwriting on that paper looked off. Too neat in places, not like some of the sloppy lines Albert always used. It was always a joke in S.T.A.R.S. Someone so formal having such bad handwriting.
"Shit," he growled under his breath. Was he getting played? Someone with a grudge using Wesker's name to drag him out? Lord knows he has more people that want him dead rather than alive. Maybe something worse, one of the new bastards trying to finish what the old one started.
He checked his mirrors again, once out of habit then twice out of precaution. His eyes narrowed on the empty road behind him. No tails that he could spot, but that didn't really mean anything if he was walking into an ambush. He was walking into this half blind and he knew it. He rushed out without backup the second he got a letter with the word Wesker on it and some cords.
So fucking stupid. ‘Hot-headed military fly-boy’ Albert used to chide and maybe he was right. Damn it, he didn’t want to think about Wesker being right about him in any way.
Chris flexed his free hand to try and redirect his anger, then gripped the wheel tighter. The gun on his hip pressed cold against his thigh. He wasn't turning around, If someone wanted him out here, fine. He'd make them regret it and if it was really Wesker he would put the dog down and tear him up if it kept him from coming back.
The truck ate up about ten miles, streetlights thinning and waning as he got closer to the spot. His jaw stayed locked, shoulders tight, and his blood pressure was probably through the roof. He would have to call his doc after this to get her to up whatever bullshit he was on.
The coordinates led him to a dead end cul de sac. He killed the headlights and sat there a minute, engine ticking down as he canvassed with that same ferociousness Piers brought back in his life.
A beautiful house waited at the end. Two stories, clean white siding, big windows glowing soft with warm light. Flowers lined the front walk like they were taken care of. It looked too normal, almost suspicious.
He slipped out of the truck as best of a man his size could and moved low along the fence line, gun pulled from thigh and already in his hand. His boots stayed quiet on the grass. He circled the side first, checking windows for shadows. No movement inside that he could see and no cars in the driveway except a black sedan tucked near the garage. His heart hammered steady in his chest.
Chris crept closer to the front porch, back pressed to the wall. He listened and only recieved the distant hum of traffic and his own breathing.
The front door swung open before he could decide the best next move.
Light spilled out across the steps. A figure stood there, silhouetted for a second before stepping forward. Chris raised his gun quick, finger tense but professional on the trigger.
Chris kept the gun leveled at her chest. The woman stood there in a crisp white suit, not a wrinkle in sight. Her blonde hair pulled back tight. She looked him up and down slowly, one eyebrow raised like she found the whole scene mildly disappointing, or maybe just him disappointing.
"I see my letter was received, Redfield."
Chris didn't lower the weapon. "Who the hell are you? Talk."
She didn't flinch, just turned on her heel and started walking back into the house, leaving the door wide open. Her steps clinked sharp on the hardwood. "Come inside. Standing out there waving that gun around is pointless." The wave of her hand and not answering his question was ticking him off.
He stayed planted on the porch, voice rising. "Like hell. You send some dead man's name on a letter and expect me to just stroll in? What's your game here? You working for Neo-Umbrella?" There were so many organizations he could name yet he chose that one. One that was considered dead and gone.
The woman paused in the entryway and glanced back over her shoulder. A flicker of annoyance crossed her face, gone as fast as it came. She looked bored by his shouting. "Inside. Now. Or leave. I don't have time for your theatrics."
Chris cursed under his breath but followed her in, gun still out and ready. The door shut soft behind him. The house smelled like oud and faint perfume. Everything inside looked expensive and clean.
She stopped in the living room and turned to face him fully, arms crossed. "You can put that away. If I truly wanted you dead, you would not have made it to the door."
Chris gripped the gun tighter, his arm steady but his blood boiling. The woman stood there calm as ever, watching him, waiting for him to choose.
"Your emotions must be running high," she said, voice even. "You came alone and fast. No backup and no precautions. Interesting, I was told you were the type."
"Shut up," Chris snapped. He took a step closer, shoulders squared. "Who the fuck are you? Stop playing games and tell me right now or this ends here." He was puffing up a bit, trying to be more intimidating but judging by her demeanor it wasn't working.
She sighed, a small sound of irritation, and gestured toward the leather couch. "Sit if you want or stand. Makes no difference to me." She moved to a side table and picked up a thick envelope sealed with red wax. "I am Alex Wesker. This was my brother's will. I am here to give you what he left to you."
Chris stared at her, the name hitting him but rolling off. "Alex? Bullshit. Albert didn't have family. He made that clear enough."
She set the envelope down on the coffee table between them and finally met his eyes straight on. "We were part of the same project. Different mothers but we had the same ambitions. He planned for many outcomes, including his own death. Everything here is part of what he arranged. You are named in his will."
He lowered the gun a fraction but kept it ready, "Why me? After everything he did, why the hell would he leave me anything?"
Alex crossed her arms again, her expression unchanging. "My brother saw potential in you, even through all the hatred. Or perhaps he simply wanted to leave one last complication in your life. Either way, whether you take what he has left is your choice."
Chris paced a short line in front of the table, The room felt too still, too utterly normal for any of this. "I don't want his blood money or his twisted research. This is another one of his games."
"It is not a game," she replied, tone flat. "It is paperwork. Nothing more. Sign what needs signing and leave if that is what you prefer. I have no interest in forcing you to stay."
She waited, watching him with that same measured look, like she had all the time in the world and none of his anger touched her.
Chris stood there frozen for a long beat, the name Alex still ringing in his ears. Old memories, nights back in the S.T.A.R.S. days when things between him and Albert had burned hot and in complete secrecy. Bruising touches in dark offices with his rough hands and whispered promises. Before.
"Give me the box," he said finally, knowing he should have just left.
Alex studied him for a moment, then walked to a locked cabinet near the fireplace. She pulled out a plain wooden box and set it on the table. "This was set aside for you specifically."
He holstered the gun at last and opened the lid. Inside sat hundreds of letters, each one addressed to him in that messy, contradicting handwriting he remembered too well. Stacks of them. Dates going back decades, underneath them lay a thick bundle of photographs.
Chris picked up the first few pictures with shaking fingers. Some were normal enough. The two of them in a safehouse, Albert's arm slung around his shoulders after a mission when Jill forced them to stand together for a photo. Another at a bar, half smiles from the group. But then the others. His stomach dropped when he fumbled with them.
Intimate shots. Chris naked and wrecked in bed, back arched, mouth open in the middle of it all. Wesker's hand visible in some, gripping his hip hard enough to leave the marks he pondered getting tattooed when he was head over heels. Sweat and sheets tangled. Moments that should have stayed private.
"Jesus Christ," Chris breathed. Heat rushed up his neck. Something odd twisted together in his gut. It wasn’t arousal but it was strong. A dread that ran up his ribs and nestled there.
Alex remained standing near the cabinet.
He kept digging. More letters with pictures. The two of them after sex, Albert's rare unguarded expression while Chris slept against his chest. A shot of Chris laughing at something stupid in a motel room.
Wesker had kept every single one.
"Why the hell did he keep all this?" Chris demanded, voice cracking louder than he meant. He looked up at Alex, eyes burning. "After what he did. After he tried to kill us all. Why?"
She tilted her head slightly, that annoyed edge creeping back into her posture. "My brother was complicated. Even I do not claim to understand every reason. He never destroyed anything that mattered to him. Clearly you did, at one point."
Chris stared down at the box, jaw clenched so tight it ached. The photos and letters burned in his mind. All those hidden moments Albert had clung to.
Alex shifted her weight, voice staying cool and clinical. "Albert was a product of how we were raised. The training, the experiments, the constant pressure to become something more than human. They molded us from the start. He never had a chance, really."
She kept going, tone flat like she was reciting facts from a report. "The betrayal was inevitable given the parameters he operated under. He felt things stronger than he let on. The letters prove that much. He kept pieces of his old life even when he claimed to have evolved past them."
"Stop." Chris cut her off sharp, his hand slamming down on the box. "Is this supposed to make me feel better? Some bullshit excuse about his childhood? He chose what he did. He chose to stab us in the back. He could have chosen to stay, to change. I would have helped him."
Alex looked at him for a long moment, unfazed by the outburst.
"Did you feel better after his death?" she asked simply.
The question felt heavy in the quiet room. Chris opened his mouth but nothing came out right away. He turned away from her, rubbing a rough hand over his face.
Alex didn't push any further. She just stood there waiting again, watching him unravel in small pieces.
Chris slammed the box shut but didn't let go of it. His chest felt too tight like he was having a heart attack. The house suddenly seemed smaller with the air thicker. He wanted to throw the whole thing across the room. He wanted to read every letter right there on the floor.
Alex leaned against the edge of the table, her nails tapping once against the wood. "I loved my brother. In my own way. After you killed him I wanted you dead too. I planned for it. I had the means."
She paused, eyes narrowing just a fraction. "But Albert specifically forbade it. He left clear instructions on the matter, no matter what happened, you were not to be touched. Not by me at least."
Chris let out a harsh laugh, bitter and short. He walked away from the table, then back again, boots dragging rough on the floor. "He forbade it. Like I was some pet he still owned."
"He never believed he would actually die," Alex continued, ignoring the jab. "But he prepared anyway. Fail-safes for every outcome. This box, the letters, all of it set up years ago. He updated the will after he realized you were the one who could end him."
Chris stopped moving. His hand hovered over the box again but he didn't open it. The weight of it all pressed down harder. Albert planning for his own death. Leaving pieces of himself behind for Chris to choke on.
"Why do all of this shit if he knew I'd be the one to pull the trigger?" Chris asked, voice low and raw.
Alex shrugged one shoulder, the movement elegant and small. "I don’t think he ever let go of you. Not completely."
She straightened up and glanced toward the front door like she expected him to bolt any second. "The choice is still yours. Take it or leave it. Burn it all if that helps you sleep better."
Alex's lips curved into a small smile then. The first one she'd shown all night though it didn't reach her eyes. "I wish you well, Redfield. My brother would be proud of what you've become."
Chris felt like she slammed the door in his face. He should go after her, question her more but instead he grabbed the box off the table, knuckles white, and headed for the door without another word. He couldn't stand another second in that house.
He threw the box onto the passenger seat of the truck and climbed in. The engine roared as he pulled away fast, tires squealing on the quiet street. Streetlights blurred past while his hands shook on the wheel. He drove a few blocks before he couldn't take it anymore. He pulled over on a dark side road and killed the engine.
The box sat there staring at him. Chris opened it again and pulled out the oldest letter. The date on the front took him straight back. Early S.T.A.R.S. days.
He tore the envelope open with rough fingers.
"My dearest Christopher,"
The handwriting was his. Couldn’t be forged. Chris swallowed hard and kept reading, the truck cab silent except for his own uneven breathing that was bordering on dangerous.
Chris gripped the letter tight, his hands still shaking so bad the paper rattled. That horrible dreadful feeling settled deeper from his ribs to his gut, like he was about to die right there in the truck.
The words blurred at first. He wiped his eyes dry with the back of his hand and kept going.
Albert wrote about the weight of what was coming. The betrayal he knew he had to carry out soon. How every day in the S.T.A.R.S. office felt like wearing someone else's skin. A fake little life he built around the mission. Around the team.
"I find myself lingering on moments that should mean nothing,” the letter said. "Your mannerisms. The way you gaze at me like you could free me if I had just asked. I fear your freedom, Christopher, in spite of everything I am. It complicates my life. It makes the necessary steps harder than they should be."
Chris dropped the letter onto his lap like it physically burned him. His throat felt raw. He could picture Albert writing it, late at night in that cold apartment, glasses off and hair messy. The same man who would later press a gun against his heart.
He picked it up again anyway, fingers tracing the ink. More lines followed about nights and fears that he didn’t label as fears. Wesker admitting the pull between them was disorienting, as he put it, because it made him hesitate. Made him question the path that had been drilled into him since childhood.
Tears stung hot at the corners of his eyes. Chris cursed and slammed his fist against the steering wheel once, hard. The horn blared short in the empty street. He sat there breathing heavily, the box full of more letters waiting beside him.
Chris wiped his face again and dug for the next letter. The date on this one hit harder. Right after the mansion incident. His fingers still shook as he unfolded the paper.
The handwriting stayed neat but the words felt heavier.
"The look on your face when everything fell apart nearly stopped me. The shock that knitted your eyebrows. The hurt in your eyes. For one moment I almost turned back. Almost chose you over the mission. But I executed what needed to be done."
Chris read on,
"That is why I left the weapons and notes scattered through that damned mansion. Small mercies I could give without alerting. I could not bring myself to kill you there. Not with my own hands. Not while you looked at me like that. Even now I wonder why that makes me pause."
He set the letter down slow on the dashboard. Albert had spared him. Not out of some grand plan, but because he couldn't pull the trigger. The same man who would shoot the team with no hesitation. The same man who smiled while kicking him in the face.
Chris leaned his head back against the seat, eyes closed so tight it hurt. More letters waited in the box but he wasn't sure he could take another one tonight.
He started the truck again but didn't drive. Just sat there with the letters scattered across the seat before becoming almost manic over them.
Chris kept reading, pulling letter after letter in order. The dates across years. As time went on the handwriting started to change. Still itself at first but slowly turning sharper. Slanted. Words crammed tighter together like the pen couldn't keep up with the thoughts.
Wesker was losing it, his mental issues bled through every page. Rants about evolution and superior beings. How the world needed cleansing. How weak humans held everything back. It was clear the sickness in his head was eating him alive from the inside. Yet he still wrote. Page after page. Like Chris was the only person left he could talk to even if Chris didn’t talk back.
One letter in particular stopped him cold. Dated just days before the Africa mission. The ink looked pressed harder into the paper.
"I have Jill now. She is useful. But it is not the same. I want you here, Christopher. Come home to me. We could be like we used to be. Before the weakness of the others poisoned everything and I was under the order of those lesser than me, than us . Join me. Stand at my side and we will remake the world the way it was always meant to be. Come home."
His stomach turned over. The desperation in those lines hit different from all the god talk. Raw and almost human. He pictured Albert writing this one too, half mad and completely alone, still reaching out across the ocean for him.
He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the steering wheel. Part of him wanted to burn every single letter. The other part wanted to read them all until nothing was left.
The box still had dozens more to go.
Chris slammed the box, for at least the fifth time tonight, so hard the lid cracked. His stomach lurched violently again. He barely got the truck door open in time before he was heaving over the side of the road. Nothing came up at first but his body kept trying anyway, shoulders jerking with each dry spasm.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat back in the seat, door still hanging open. Cold night air rushed in. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on breathing. In slow. Out slower. Just like the old PT drills. One breath. Then another. The dread still sat thick in his throat.
"Fuck you, Albert," he whispered to the empty cab. "Fuck you for this, this is cruel. Fucking worse than anything you’ve done. You’re in hell. You’re in hell, and I’m alone."
He waited, stupidly, for Albert to answer.