Affaire de Coeur
"We were hooked when we woke.
We had arms for each other.
But I yearned to resume
My dreams of another."
― Roman Payne
Raccoon City - 1998 - Two Weeks Before The Mansion Incident
Mine.
It was a word with so much connotation. He often found it's overuse to be almost irrational. People - no humans - often tossed the word at anything that they felt a kinship toward or a possessive streak near.
Objects.
Items.
Things.
People.
All of these were mine.
He'd never used it to describe anything in his life before the tyrant. The tyrant was his. The tyrant was birthed from the combined genius of himself and Birkin. Epsilon had finally given them the keys to the perfect future of man.
The first tyrant T-001 was feral. It was a beast. It was beautiful in sheer ferocity. But it was dumb. It was weak. It lacked discipline and determination and intelligence. It was a fledgling. They'd tried to improve upon it. They'd cloned bandersnatches to get around the failure of the body to adhere to the strain. They'd attempted to recode the DNA to sequence higher intellect.
But it was without hope.
The defeat didn't come from the virus. It came from the body. The human body that hosted the virus simply wasn't strong enough to become the thing they sought to create. The human race was too weak. A rare genetic anomaly was needed to give birth to a tyrant. Most hosts became zombies - stupid, hungry, basic. Only less than one percent of subjects had the intelligence and the genes to become a tyrant.
Lisa Trevor had given them the keys to victory.
And from her T-002 was born.
His laboratory name was so basic. It was simple. It wasn't anything worth shouting about.
But he was.
T2 was a masterpiece.
T2 had intellect. He was nearly human intelligent in its post infected form. It would follow commands. It would track. It would hunt. It would kill and maim or return a subject unharmed. It was...perfect.
The protrusion of the secondary heart was an issue. It offered a clear weakness to foes. It had been piggybacked to the actual heart of the human body inside the tyrant to offer enough power to supply blood to the entire body. It needed two hearts to thrive. It was superior to a human.
It was the beginning of a new world.
When he freed the Arklay lab and set loose the Epsilon strain, he would finally free the tyrant to join him.
The tyrant was his creation.
It was his.
Allowed, he murmured, "Mine." And he felt that in his blood.
He turned his gaze from his desk to the girl curled in the arm chair in his study. She wore little gray shorts and a pale blue t-shirt with the S.T.A.R.S. badge emblazoned on its chest. He often felt like she was his as well.
Her place in his life was distinctly unclear. Was she there to tempt him? Was she there to secure his trust and betray him? He'd become more and more suspicious of her since they'd begun their affair.
Not because she ever seemed to be hiding...but because she seemed so very open.
She talked, constantly, and never ceased to bore him. She had opinions on everything from the rise of the sun to the color of a pizza. She was a curious thing. A clever thing. A witty and wonderful thing. She was always trying to make him laugh.
Young and enthusiastic, she teased him about taking her rollerblading. She promised she'd catch him if he fell. She poked fun at his glasses, teasing him that only villains wore sunglasses at night.
She thought he was a hero.
But he wasn't.
It was becoming harder to remember that. Did he think she'd crave him, keep him, need him...when she discovered his duplicity?
He had her followed, discreetly, to determine her honesty. But she was guileless. She was flawless. She went to school. She went to them movies. She went to the diner down the road. She visited her brother. She had lunch with friends. She saw him.
She was not his enemy.
But he'd soon be hers.
He slipped in between this world he shared with her and his own almost effortlessly now. It was curious that both skins fit him. He'd never been a man that was interested in courting a woman.
Was he courting her? Such an old fashioned word. Was he trying to win her affection?
She caught him looking and smiled at him. The smile was gentle and soft. She tucked an errant red strand behind one ear and showed him the magazine in her hands, "...The Enquirer...you caught me reading trash I'm afraid."
"The ills and inner workings of the rich and debauched amuses you?"
Claire laughed, eyes sparkling, "Guilty as charged. I have a thirst for other people's misery. As long as their strangers."
As long as their strangers...
Would she have a thirst for the worlds? Maybe he could...keep her. It was the first real time he considered it. Maybe she'd understand his need to better the world. Maybe she'd forgive him the betrayal that loomed if he simply...explained to her the purpose of the data he needed to collect. Would she understand if told her about himself?
Would she understand that he had to - had to- bring down Umbrella?
Maybe she'd understand that Umbrella was the villain. And he...he was simply an instrument created like a tyrant. A weapon that had rebelled and turned on its maker. A necessary revolution to free the world and himself from the clutches of an ignorant corporation that was as corrupt as the celebrities she salivated on in her gossip rags.
It was true. He was a tyrant. He was Umbrella's creation.
Somewhere, someone in Umbrella's division of bio-organic weaponry was referring to Albert Wesker...as mine.
The word trembled with rage when put in the hands of someone claiming him.
And yet...what if that person were Claire?
Trying it out, he instructed, "Come here."
Her head tilted, "...say please."
He wondered if there were another person in the world that would make demands of him so playfully. What was that emotion that swirled in his chest for her? What?
Affection?
Attraction?
Adoration?
Amusement?
All these things. He could exhaust every word in the English language and never find exactly the right one to describe her.
But he gave her what she wanted. "Please."
Amused, she set down her magazine and lowered her long legs to the floor. She was smirking as she crossed the floor toward him and he pushed back his chair to welcome her into his lap. She settled over it like he was Saint Nicholas and she a child about to ask for a gift.
Her arm slid around his neck and she mused, "...what now?"
His hand shifted to her belly beneath the shirt she wore. Claire watched his face, curious about what he was thinking. Without his sunglasses, his eyes were so very blue. Icy blue. Winter blue. But not cold. She'd heard Jill and Chris talking about him like he was a robot or something. But he wasn't.
He was just...intense.
He studied his hand on her belly as he rubbed her. He was always doing that, rubbing her belly. It was like he was measuring her or something. He seemed incredibly aware of her.
Softly, he replied, "What are your plans for after college?"
A curious question. She shrugged, watching him run his hand around navel and stroke above her groin. "Real life I guess. I'm hoping to become a doctor. Med school sucks but I can manage it with Chris helping me out."
He nodded, stroking his thumb across her left hip. "And what of marriage?"
Her head tilted the other way, "You proposing?"
Surprised, his gaze lifted to her face. She didn't think he could be any cuter.
She was wrong.
He looked flustered. "I-no. It was-I was making small talk. Conversing on matters related to-dating? I was inquiring on topics that relate to our...this...our arrangement."
Our arrangement.
He was something else.
Her mouth twitched. "Hmm. So you're not asking me to marry you?"
Oh, she couldn't help herself. She grinned devilishly as he stroked her belly. He dropped his gaze back to his own hand. He replied, "...I'm unsure that we would suit in the long term, Claire. Generally that kind of evaluation requires a longer period of ass-"
Claire laughed, slapping a gentle hand over his mouth, "Ass? A longer period of ass? How much ass do you want, Al? Daily, nightly, and ever so rightly?"
He shook his head, watching her drolly behind her hand. She grinned again, winking at him, "Easy, handsome. I'm just pulling your dick here. I know you were about to refer to our relationship as an "assessment"." She did air quotes, "So was trying to spare us both that discomfort."
Wesker cleared his throat, looking sheepish and said, "I apologize. It find myself often at odds with the right way to converse with you. I'm not a man who spends time making chit-chat, Claire. I worry that you'll discover I'm..." He trailed off, surprised at himself.
She blinked twice and finished for him, "...boring?"
He said nothing.
She tilted her head once more, "Do you think you're boring?"
He didn't answer.
Claire winged her brows up and tried again, "Al...you're not boring. I'm aware that we're different. I'm aware that you're more Einstein than Van Halen. I'm not looking to join you in discovery the cure for cancer here. I like that you don't talk down to me. I like that you don't waste time on flattery you don't mean. You're not trying to actively get in my pants. You're just...honest. You're just honest with 're not boring. You're...kinda incredible."
The small seed of guilt germinated again in his guts. He wasn't. He wanted to be. But he wasn't.
Why?
Because he was afraid he'd lose her.
The truth of that left him a little cold.
She mattered.
She wasn't supposed to matter.
He struggled with how to make peace with her being...his.
Wesker said, softly, "I sometimes envision you...ripe."
She blinked. He blinked. She blinked. He blinked. And Claire queried, "...stinky?"
He cleared his throat. She twitched her lips. She added, "Like rank? Post work out? I just ran a mile on a sweaty day? I got B.O. from tits to toes?"
His hand curled against her belly. She stopped grinning and glanced down. Her eyes slid back up and locked on his. The moment shivered between them.
Quietly, he replied, "You would be like a Botticelli painting gestating."
Her breath caught twice as she queried, "Who?"
Wesker stroked her belly but kept his gaze on hers. "The Birth of Venus?"
Claire shrugged her shoulders and he returned, "The beautifully full bodied woman in the seashell?"
Claire blinked, cleared her throat, and whispered, "I had no clue who painted that. Are you calling me thick?"
His mouth twitched. He leaned it toward her and she inclined her head. The kiss was soft and giving. She knew what he was saying. That she would be perfect...pregnant.
She hadn't given any thought to children. She was so young. Girls her age were preparing to break the glass ceiling, not nurse an infant. That would be ridiculous to give up her future to find herself shackled to a man and suckling a baby.
Ridiculous.
She was a feminist. Everyone knew about her opinions on men and marriage. One - she'd never marry. Monogamy wasn't something that the human condition even attempted to make feasible.
Two - she'd love to have children. When she was thirty. When she was secure. When she was ready.
She wasn't ready.
She wasn't some flighty girl that would be wooed by a handsome face and a rubbing hand against her uterus. Ridiculous. Did he think he could blink and get her biological clock ticking?
He leaned back and inquired, "Are you protected from pregnancy, Claire?"
Her hands trembled where they gripped his neck. "Of course. I'm on the pill. Why?"
His gaze turned up to hers. They held for a handful of tense moments. In a handful of days, her brother would be dead. Perhaps carrying on his bloodline, improving it, was a way of atoning for the wrong he would deal his sister.
"I would like it if you were to cease taking it."
Jesus. He was insane. She barely knew him. What made him think she'd consider having a child with him? He was too intense. She was losing sight of what they were doing here. He'd been a clever, beautiful, diversion from school and the insanity of back to back classes.
But he was starting to distract her from what she'd been pushing for since her parents died. He was starting to make her yearn for stupid domestic things that she had convinced herself long ago she didn't want. But why? Why really?
Because people died? Because her parents had died? That was a stupid reason to deny herself a normal life.
She didn't love him, right? Why was she even considering this?
His hand slid down into her panties to touch her. Her fingers gripped his hair and her mouth said, "...alright."
Apparently, her body wanted to try to have his baby.
Happy with her acquiescence, Wesker drew her into his arms to lay her across his desk. This was how he made peace with his demons, clearly, to fill her full of his child. Perhaps she would take the gift of his offspring as a sign of his apology for the death of her brother.
A small thing to lose a brother but gain a child...right?
Four Days After the Mansion Incident...
She was in the middle of midterm when the knock sounded. She couldn't know, didn't know, that her brother had survived the worst night of life. She couldn't know, didn't know, that his Captain was his enemy. That his Captain had died that night and come back...as something else.
She couldn't know, didn't know, that going off birth control would be the worst mistake she would ever make.
She opened her dorm room door to a man who'd been declared dead days before.
But her brother, trying to protect her, had never said a word. His silence would tie his sister to his greatest enemy for the rest of her life.
Claire laughed, eyes sparkling, "Al! What are you doing here?"
Quietly, the man who was now a tyrant, felt the stirring of feeling that told him his body, his human will, was still present in the flesh that was no longer just a mortal man.
"I have missed you, Claire. Have you...missed me?"
She smiled, scooping him into her arms to put her hands on his ass as she hugged him, "You're a weirdo, Al. Of course I missed you! I always miss you. How'd you get away from work?"
His hands scooped her face up to his. He felt a moment of a fear that she'd take his sunglasses and see his eyes. But she let him keep them as he kissed her.
She was constantly aware of his photophobia. She didn't push.
She should have pushed - it might have saved her.
He was a tyrant. He was no longer the man who'd wanted to love her. He intoned, "I needed to see you. I needed to be with you, Claire. I needed to touch you."
The way he talked would always make her feel like a goddess.
She kissed his mouth, softly, and replied, "I'm so glad you did."
His thumbs joined at the apex of her jaw. He tilted her face to his and commanded, "I want to come inside you, Claire. Take off your pants and let me."
Claire shivered, lost in the reflection of her flushed face in his sunglasses. "Right now?"
"Right now. Will you let me?"
Her thighs trembled, "...of course. Yes. But why?"
She watched his face as he leaned down to sniff her. Like...what? Like a dog? Like something that wanted to scent mark her. It shouldn't have made her damp. It shouldn't have made her feel like he simply "needed" her. But it did. He made her breath catch as he said, "You're fertile, Claire. Are you mine?"
Her hands gripped into his shirt, "...yes. Are you mine?"
There was the shiver of that thing for her that surprised him. It was that feeling that she was as strong as he was. That she was as possessive. That she wanted, somehow, to own some part of him that he wasn't offering.
Would she take it from him even if he denied her?
Her hands slid down and skimmed her panties down her legs. She held his gaze the whole time.
He answered her, quietly, "...yes." He wasn't sure how, but he was. What he was, he didn't know. But some part of him still craved her.
It was need in a way that feral. It was need in a way that was theirs.
Her breath hitched as she whispered, "...show me."
She leaped around him to claim him and damned them both.