Chapter Text
“Is it fun to hurt yourself?”
Smoke trails from the glowing end of your cigarette, thin ribbons of ash curling upward into the dark. Even after the embers fade, the smell lingers, sharp and bitter, clinging to the velvet of your dress and, presumably, the black fabric of his suit. The cold air burns faintly in your lungs when you inhale.
A soft hum slips from your lips. You’re only half-aware of the question leaving them. Or maybe it wasn’t a question. Though with your thoughts numbed by alcohol and partially distracted by the gentle chill of the night air, you couldn't be sure. His pale blue eyes never leave the cigarette between your fingers.
“What?”
Your reply, almost automatic to fill the silence, hangs in the air with discomfort. You can feel his eyes burning into you. You suppose he’s probably waiting for you to say something wrong so he can turn it into a lesson.
He never does that with Chris. Or Jill.
Only you.
Despite the single syllable that slid from your lips, his gaze remains still, fixed on you, or rather the lazily rolled cigarette perched between two fingers, thin pieces of tobacco slipping from the papers and falling to the ground.
Oh.
That’s what this is about.
Half the team also smoked though.
Hypocrite.
Heat prickles behind your ears.
You’d never imagined him smoking. Somehow the thought feels wrong. Too unholy for his level of perfection. Somehow, the contemplation made the uncomfortable realisation of how difficult he was to read all the more clear to you.
“I expect members of my team to be in peak physical shape.”
Especially the ones who lag behind.
It hung awfully unsaid.
The smoke tastes bitter now as you pull another drag, stale with cheap tobacco and alcohol, now all the more apparent as you struggle in silence
Cold stings your cheeks, though you’re not sure it’s the weather. It was only then you realised how much you were staring, Your eyes search his, trying to hold his gaze, so often usually obscured. His expression shifts subtly, brows drawing ever so slightly closer together, jaw minutely tightening; if you'd looked away for even half a second, you would have missed it, but you didn't.
Something unreadable crosses his face, as if he was waiting for you to follow along with the discussion, either fight back or utter some semblance of agreement. You hate that you want to.
Everyone always agrees with him, don’t they?
You weren't even sure why he was still here; team drinks had dragged on well past the standard hour, leaving only a few stragglers, maybe two members of BRAVO and then Forrest, Chris and maybe Jill, but a half-foggy memory crept into your mind that she'd waved goodbye to you an hour prior, and of course him.
Captain Wesker.
You weren’t even sure how to refer to him properly outside of work.
You aren’t even sure why he’s still here.
It's halfway through your contemplation that you begin to realise you’ve stopped smoking entirely. The cigarette sits limply in your fingers; he's certainly already noticed that.
“Those will affect your stamina.”
A beat passes; you weren't sure what he wanted you to do: defend yourself? Maybe he’d respect that. Or drop the cigarette - prove you want to be better.
Too much to drink has made you lazy. You let the cigarette fall. For a moment it hangs between your fingers, balanced on the edge of the decision.
Then gravity claims it.
It strikes the pavement at an angle, ember flaring once, a dull orange pulse, before dying in the gutter. A thin thread of smoke rises from the crushed paper, curling weakly against the cold air.
“You give up just like that?”
The question lands softer than it should. His voice is quiet, too quiet for the empty street.
Your head tilts gently downward, toward the gutter, breaking the oh-so-painful eye contact you'd established with each other. His eyes follow yours flickering to the dead cigarette and then back to you.
Not fair.
Your brows arch, lips press together and thin tight in frustration, and in order to stop any callous sentence crawling forth that you might regret, you'd had enough to drink, but you certainly weren't that kind of drunk yet.
“What?”
You echo your earlier sentence, words now hollow, though, with confusion tinging throughout. His gaze lifts from the cigarette to your face. Slowly. Like he's reading something. No doubt the dissatisfaction carved into your features.
“Does your resolve-”
He was clearly positioned around the cusp of some great insight into your mind. Some prod that he no doubt intended to stick within your psyche for days on end; he was like that more often than not, though you half wondered if it was indeed personal or if he really meant it.
Your head tilts gently to the side, sending strands of hair shifting off from the sides of your shoulders as you try to ascertain what his point might be, or rather why his words have trailed off in such a slow, drawling manner.
“What are you two talking about?”
Chris.
How long had he been there?
Your gaze lazed gently to the side, head tilting to focus on the man who'd walked toward you, a pouch of tobacco held loosely in his fingers. The captain had noticed him before you had, evidently, and silenced his tirade, you half supposed out of clear hypocrisy, though something pressed down in your thoughts made you feel like that wasn't quite the case.
Discomfort crawls all the way up your spine until you shudder, masking the move with the clasp of your hands around your shoulders. The air hung with a deep enough chill to excuse such a reaction.
Chris looks between the two of you.
Wesker doesn’t answer.
You don’t have the energy to figure it out.
“I think it’s time I head home,” you mumble.
Neither of them stops you, as their voices intertwine into their own conversation.
Inside, the bar glows warm and loud.
Your coat hangs over the back of a chair where you left it.
You grab it quickly, ignoring the way your thoughts keep circling back to him.
When you step outside again, the cold night air feels like relief.
The station holds little relief the next morning. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, harsh and clinical, bleaching colour from everything beneath them. You hate the way they make everything feel exposed. Your head throbs faintly, a dull pressure behind your eyes. Cheap alcohol and colder air than you dressed for sit heavy in your skull.
The taste of tobacco still clings stubbornly to the back of your throat.
Even after the mouthwash.
Even after swallowing some of it until your oesophagus stung.
Tobacco threads still cling beneath your nails.
The empty pouch in your back pocket feels heavier now than it did when it was full.
His voice lingers in the creases of your thoughts.
Peak physical condition.
Stamina
Resolve.
When you got home last night, you’d smoked another and another and another until the light began to crack through your shutters.
Petty. Pointless. Pathetic. But you’d done it anyway.
You wonder if he would somehow notice.
Every time someone walks past your desk, you glance up automatically. You don’t know why you’re looking. Expecting pale blue eyes behind dark lenses.
“You look like hell.”
Chris’ voice cuts through the noise in your head. A report lands on your desk with a flat thud. You groan before you can stop yourself; it sounds angrier than the tired beat you'd intended it to hold. His face, though, offers no such perceived offence; A crooked grin pulls at the corner of his mouth.
Prick.
Your forehead drops to the cool surface of the desk with theatrical despair. Something nudges your mug. You notice it a second too late.
It wobbles. Dancing to the left and the right.
Once.
Twice.
“Shit—”
Your hand shoots out, catching only air. The mug tips fully, sliding off the edge of the desk and striking the carpet with a sharp crack. Dark tea spills outward in a spreading stain.
For a moment, the office goes quieter.
Chairs creak. Someone snorts.
When you glance up, it feels like several people are staring.
Heat crawls all the way up your neck. You kneel quickly, grabbing uselessly for paper towels that don’t exist, mumbling curses under your breath while the tea soaks deeper into the carpet.
You almost think the moment has passed. Then your name cuts across the room.
Sharp. Precise.
Your entire body freeze still.
For a second, you feel about twelve years old again. Summoned to the headteacher's office.
You rise slowly, wiping your hands on your trousers; your nails dig deep into the wet fabric as if it's some kind of lifeline.
You can feel people watching as you walk past their desks. Or maybe they aren’t. It feels like they are.
Paranoia itches through the forefront of your mind; your mouth hungers for any kind of moisture drier than anything you've known before, and you slink – no, trudge – towards the office. His office. Desperately, you yearn to sink to the floor, burrow into the thin layer of carpet that covers the hardwood floor and escape whatever recompense you were barreling toward.
His office is colder than you expected.
The fluorescent light here is dimmer than the bullpen outside, softer but no less unforgiving. It pools across the surface of his desk in a pale rectangle, leaving the corners of the room in shadow.
The only sound is the low whirr of his computer.
Your hands hover awkwardly at your sides, unsure whether to fold behind your back or grip the edge of the chair opposite his desk.
He doesn’t look up when you enter. The soft rustle of paper is the only sign he noticed you at all. You try to make him have the first word; no need to dig an even deeper hole for yourself. Yet his dismissal makes you anyway. The silence stretches. Too long. Long enough to feel deliberate as your gaze tries desperately not to fixate on the thin black shades that cover his visage.
“Captain, is everything—”
You run your tongue across dry lips, searching for a better word than just ‘ok’. searching for some kind of phrasing to escape the indignity of having to openly ask what the problem might be.
You fail to find one. The sentence dies halfway out of your mouth. You shift your footing from one to another. Everything aches. Even your knees.
“Your reaction time during the last exercise averaged 0.8 seconds slower than the team baseline.”
Your expression tightens. A crease forms between your brows; you dare not ask 'what', but your mouth silently moves for you. His head tilts slightly.
Not toward you.
Toward the file on the desk.
“Your performance is inconsistent.”
The words don’t land all at once. They settle slowly, piece by piece, like something heavy pressing into your chest. Your stomach tightens first, then twists, sharp enough to make you swallow hard against it.
Inconsistent.
The word loops, louder than it should be, louder than the quiet hum of the room. It crawls under your skin, picking apart every mistake you can half-remember making.
“Captain I don’t-”
The reflection of the desk lamp flashes briefly across the lenses of his glasses as he finally looks up.
“Did I ask you a question?”
A gasp catches itself in your throat; his tone has dropped all the way down. Something drops in your stomach. Nausea follows a second later.
“Then don’t interrupt”
It all feels like some woefully bad dream, the shadows across his office walls swim in the corner of your eyes as he flicks the paper over, silently staring at whatever words sit there. His finger rises, clicking a single button on his keyboard, it feels almost like he’s forgotten you, he just waits.
“You’re capable of better.”
Silence follows the statement. Not encouragement. Judgement. His gaze lifts again. This time it lingers. Not on the report. On you. It moves slowly, clinically, the way someone might examine a faulty piece of equipment, or a doctor might stare at a dying patient.
Your shoulders feel suddenly too stiff, your hands unsure where to rest at your sides. Heat prickles beneath your collar.
His nose wrinkles almost imperceptibly.
“You look exhausted.”
His words sound too assured to you, too diagnostic-like. It feels like a vivisection, his gaze a cutting blade skimming across every inch of you, the dark circles that align your eyes, and the strands of hair that refuse to fit into the hairband.
Your mouth opens before you can stop yourself and your fingers twitch like they don’t belong to you
“I’m fine—”
“Are you?”
The question lands softly, too reminiscent of the tone he slipped into the night before. He leans back slightly in his chair, studying you in the dim office light. His gloved fingers tap once against the desk.
“Explain it to me then. You come into work distracted and dishevelled; you can't start your reports until almost an hour past the standard time, you make a mess in the office, and your reaction times are below baseline.”
The heat that trails up the back of your neck only intensifies. He somehow sees all. You stomach sinks all the way down to your shoes before he even begins his next line, there’s no need to answer, there’s nothing you can even say.
“You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”
Your stomach sinks even deeper. His words are poisonously calm. Your breath catches halfway in. The pause of silence between you only stretches; he's completely still now. You forget to breathe until it hurts
Then—
“You should go home.”
Your head lifts automatically, confusion flashing across your face, finally the fight in you rears its ugly head as you half yell.
“I don’t need—”
“You do.”
The interruption is effortless.
Your head drops before you can stop it.
His attention drops back to the report as though the matter is already settled.
“Return early tomorrow at 5.00. We’ll correct this”
Your brain takes a second to process the number.
That’s barely a few hours away.
Cold blue behind dark lenses linger on you one more time before they sink back down to his desk. The matter is already settled.
When you finally turn and leave, the bullpen outside feels too bright. Too exposed.
You don’t look at anyone but you can’t shake the feeling that he’s somehow watching.