Umbrella Brand

September 2nd, 1990

There was a box of tissues resting on a table near his arm. Reaching over the needle sticking out of his arm, Wesker grabbed one of the tissues before he had the chance to sneeze all over Birkin.

Birkin knew it was paranoid, but he was wearing a face mask. He didn't want to take anything home to his wife and kid after all, and Wesker was pretty damned bad off. He'd been this way for a week now, and Birkin knew he was happy he'd gotten all that sick leave time. Otherwise he'd probably have been in trouble.

Wesker had a fever as well, but he'd managed to get himself to see Birkin while he was like this so that Birkin could take some more blood for the project he was working on.

"You know, I'm probably the only person to say this," Birkin commented, "but I'm actually glad you're sick."

Wesker eyed the face mask he was wearing and said, "You could have fooled me."

Birkin rolled his blue eyes up and then pulled the first vial off once it'd finished filling with blood. "Haven't you been taking any medications?"

"Yes," Wesker replied, "but it's persistent."

"Good," Birkin said, "not that you're suffering, but the stronger the disease, the better it is for the project."

It was Wesker's turn to roll his eyes. He felt like total hell, and no matter how much sense Birkin had just made with his statement, Wesker couldn't bring himself to agree with it. He turned his head and started coughing, immediately feeling dizzy afterwards and groaning.

But all of his sickness aside, Birkin could tell that Wesker looked a bit stronger now, physically that was. Wesker used to be about as skinny as he was, if not a bit more so because he was taller. But drawing blood from his arm, he knew for a fact the man had been working out. He wondered why.

Wesker watched once his dizzy spell had lifted, without problem, his blood shooting into the tube and filling it, followed by Birkin replacing the tube once it was full with a new one so he could get three vials of it. It was quiet, late at night, and neither one of them had said much.

Birkin had a thought suddenly however, and he said, "September second."

Wesker looked up, "Hmm?"

"Today is September second. It was," he trailed off thinking to himself for a moment, "thirteen years ago when we first started working here."

Wesker thought for a moment and then remembered, knew he was right. "Only thirteen?" He asked blandly.

Birkin snorted, knew what he meant. It seemed like a lot longer. Wesker was now 30, and Birkin was 28. They both felt as if they were a little older though at that point in time.

Pulling the tube out and then the needle from Wesker's arm, he turned to put everything up and Wesker untied the band from around his upper arm. Birkin looked at him for a moment and asked, "Can I ask you something?"

"What?" Wesker replied, folding his sleeve down of the casual button up shirt he'd been wearing since he'd been off work and ignoring him visibly for the moment as he did so.

"Why have you been working out?"

"I thought it'd make me even more irresistible to women," Wesker spoke sarcastically and stood up slowly.

"Speaking of which, I haven't seen you with a girl in a while now."

"I'm getting too old for flings," Wesker replied dryly, walking to the microscope where Birkin had his progress placed so far on the work he was doing on this project. While Wesker didn't care at the moment for such things, he still wanted to take a look for just a second, see what he could see.

Birkin guessed he wasn't going to tell the real reason he'd been working out, but who knew, maybe it wasn't important, he was just keeping in shape, mid life crisis or something like that. Birkin suddenly started laughing. Wesker having a mid life crisis. The thought amused him to no end.

Wondering what was so funny, Wesker turned his head and lifted a brow at Birkin. "Something amusing?"

"Just a joke Sherry told me earlier that popped into my head at random." Birkin lied, shook it off. Then he stood as well, gathering the vials, and he started placing them in the holders. "What about Jessica."

"Who's Jessica? And why are you finding it necessary to match me up with someone?"

Birkin snorted, opening the cabinet where he kept most of his personal things locked away, "Researcher here, she's 25, black hair, and she's got a crush on you, or so Annette says. And I don't find it necessary, I just thought that getting you laid might help your disposition a bit. I swear to god you get more and more inanimate with every day that goes by."

Wesker looked down when Birkin said that and his brow lowered a bit into a flat line. "Inanimate?"

"You act like you're ready to kill someone for looking at you wrong."

"I don't think inanimate is the proper word."

"I'm not a writer, Albert," Birkin called him now instead of 'Al' because the short name didn't really seem to suit him anymore and hadn't in a long time now. "But it does suit. If you need something better, then try sour."

"Sour, hmm?" Wesker asked standing back from the microscope. "And why is it that a sour disposition is always related to a lack of sex?"

Birkin had closed and locked the cabinet by the time Wesker had asked that, and then he grabbed the tray containing the vials of blood and moved them over to the freezer to keep them fresh. Shaking his head, he said, "Because that's usually what causes it."

"I'll remember that," Wesker replied sarcastically and then glanced at the time. Almost midnight. Without a second thought, he turned to the door, but stopped because of a violent coughing fit that made him lean on the side of the table weakly. Birkin shook his head over it.

"Yeah, you need to get some rest," he told Wesker.

Recovering from the coughing fit by clearing his throat, Wesker only nodded, not wanting to say or do anything else but such as what Birkin had suggested. So he left without a word. Birkin just let the sick man go home to rest.

Wesker moved down the hallway. Turning to move toward the door and when he pushed it open, he heard a gasp and a thud on the other side of it. He lifted a brow as he looked around to the other side of the door and saw a woman laying on the floor and a few papers strewn about everywhere.

Wesker looked the woman over for a moment, but mostly because her black skirt had risen up a bit, showing off her garter belt slightly.

When he realized where he was looking, he rolled his eyes at himself and wondered if maybe Birkin was right. When was the last time he'd been laid anyway? He drew a blank when he thought about it.

The woman was cussing and gathering the files together that she'd dropped, and it didn't take her long either, not long enough for Wesker to even consider attempting to help her. She stood back up and looked at the door, somewhat angry until she saw who it was, then her face went a little blank. But she didn't say anything. Not at first.

Wesker noticed the name tag. Jessica. And she was a pretty thing too. He wondered why he hadn't paid much attention before. Had he been that busy most of the time? He guessed his mind had just been on far more important things. And it was far from things such as that now because of his current state of health and being.

Jessica stayed quiet for a moment as he just stood there and thought this over. Then she said, "You really do look terrible."

The comment made Wesker grumble. He just turned and walked past her, and she added, "Hope you get better soon."

"At least someone does," was his only response. Jessica couldn't help the smile. She knew why he'd say that, as it seemed to be the case that he was a stern boss man and not everyone liked him completely.

Leaving the place altogether, Wesker found himself in a pharmacy about three blocks away from his house. His eyes were a bit red from lack of sleep and the illness he had, and he reached up to rub them before he put his shades back on, sniffling afterwards. There was a line of medications on the counter, several of them marked with the Umbrella logo.

Wesker reached up to them and stopped. Then he put his hand on a competitors box and pulled it off of the shelf.

Checking out with the cashier, he started another coughing fit, covering his mouth with his hand and another tissue. The man behind the counter said, "You should try the Umbrella brand, it works really well."

Wesker took a deep breath, winded from coughing, and as the man placed the items he'd just purchased into a plastic bag, and they exchanged their money, Wesker replied, "No thank you, I'll stick with this."

"Have a good night and get better," the worker replied as Wesker walked out of the store. Ignoring his words just because he didn't feel good at all, he got into his car and started it up. He felt dead on his feet, and almost fell somewhat into the seat when he'd sat down. Then he grabbed the thermal mug he'd been carrying around and without even taking the time to measure the amount, he opened the bottle of medicine he'd bought and drank a good amount, chasing it with his soda a moment later.

Umbrella brand, he thought, scoffing slightly as he took the break off and then started to drive out of the parking lot. Essentially he was an Umbrella brand.