7 Minutes @weskie-boo - Tumblr Blog

Jun 23

Palliative

Albert Wesker

Tags/Warnings: Domestic Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Forced Medication (unknown substance), Isolation, Gaslighting, Possessive Behavior, Crying, Implied/Referenced Mental Illness (Reader is BPD-coded, Wesker is NPD/ASPD-coded), Albert Wesker is His Own Warning, Dark Romance, Toxic Relationship, Power Imbalance, Implied Future Non-Con, AFAB Reader, No Physical Description, Restraint, Drugging, Victim Blaming, Mind Games. (Non-con does not occur in this chapter.) Kinda long

Chapter One: The First Adjustment

You don’t remember falling asleep.

That isn’t new. It’s been months since sleep came with edges—the soft fade of a normal night, the drift into dreams you could recall. Now it’s just a light switch. You’re awake. You’re not. And the in-between is a blank, medicated void.

The sheets are white, cool, pulled hospital-tight. The pillow smells like him—something antiseptic and clean, a ghost of expensive cologne that never quite warms. You roll onto your side and the motion sends a dull throb through your temples, a chemical hangover from whatever you swallowed the night before.

Vitamins. That’s what he calls them. A little white pill every evening, delivered in his palm like a sacrament. You’ve never asked what’s in them. Early on, you might have. You must have. But that was before you understood that questions had weight, and every ounce of curiosity would be catalogued, filed, and presented back to you later as proof of your instability.

You sit up. The room is silent. Not the soft silence of an empty house, but the muffled, airtight quiet of a place designed to keep sound from travelling. No street noise. No birdsong. The windows are tinted, the glass thick enough to be bulletproof. You stopped trying to open them weeks ago.

He isn’t there.

The panic starts before your feet touch the floor—a hollow, dropping sensation in your chest that you’ve felt too many times to name. It’s like waking to find gravity reversed. The world tilts. Your heart slams against your ribs. Where is he? Why isn’t he here? Did he leave? Will he come back?

You hate this part of yourself. You’ve always hated it. The way attachment hooks into your marrow. The way love feels less like a warm thing and more like a tether pulled so tight your skin splits. You’ve spent your entire life trying to hold on to people, and they’ve spent their entire lives proving why you shouldn’t.

Albert was different.

That’s what you told yourself when it started.

You met him in the wreckage of your old life. That’s how he tells it, anyway—he found you, a half-feral thing scratching at the walls of a Tricell satellite facility, too low-level to be important and too observant to be safe. You’d seen something you shouldn’t have. A shipment. A name on a manifest. You’d been scared and stupid, and you’d run.

He caught you.

Not roughly. That wasn’t his way. He appeared in the corridor like he’d stepped out of the fluorescence itself, all black and sleek and cold-eyed, and you’d collapsed against the wall because your legs had simply stopped working. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t touch you. He just looked at you, head tilted a fraction, and said, “You’re terrified. Good. That’s a functional response.”

And then he’d offered you a way out.

Not a kindness. Never a kindness. He’d said it plainly, voice smooth as polished stone: Tricell would liquidate you if you stayed. You knew too much. He, however, had a use for someone with your… sensitivities. He’d seen your psych profile. He knew about the diagnosis you’d never wanted, the one that clung to your medical records like a stain. He knew you were reactive. Emotional. Prone to attachments that burned too fast and collapsed too hard.

He said it as if it were an asset.

You’d never had anyone frame your brokenness as valuable before. It felt like being seen for the first time. When he extended his hand, you took it. When he led you out of the facility and into a black car with tinted windows, you didn’t look back.

When he kissed you for the first time—cold mouth, precise pressure, a hand at the back of your neck that felt less like passion and more like restraint—you told yourself it was because he wanted you. Not because he wanted you contained.

---

The apartment—the residence, he calls it—is on a floor you don’t have access to without him. There’s an elevator at the end of the hall, but it requires a keycard you’ve never been given. You checked, once, late at night when you thought he was asleep. The panel beeped red. You stood there for ten minutes, heart pounding, certain he’d appear behind you and demand to know what you were doing.

He didn’t appear. But the next day, he mentioned offhandedly that the building’s security system logged every access attempt. He said it like a weather report. Might rain tomorrow. Oh, and you tried to leave at 2:34 a.m.

You stopped trying the elevator after that.

It’s not that he’s unkind. That’s the worst part. He’s never raised his voice. Never hit you. The hurt comes in different shapes—a pause that lasts too long, a look that strips you down to something small and shameful, a quiet observation delivered without heat: “You’re being hysterical. Take a breath.” And you do, because he’s right, isn’t he? You are hysterical. You’re always hysterical. Your emotions have never been trustworthy. Everyone’s told you that. He’s just the first person who’s been willing to help.

The isolation happened so gradually you barely noticed.

First it was the phone. He said Tricell could track it. He gave you a new one—a sleek, unmarked device with no browser, no app store, no contacts except his number. For emergencies, he said. You were grateful. He was protecting you.

Then it was your friends. He never told you to cut them off. He didn’t have to. He just asked questions. “Do you think she has your best interests at heart?” “That comment she made—did it seem cruel to you?” “You come home from those visits so drained. I wonder if they understand you the way I do.” You’d nodded, and the calls had tapered off, and eventually you’d blocked their numbers yourself because it was easier than explaining where you’d gone.

Then it was the job you didn’t have anymore. The savings account you couldn’t access. The ID you’d lost during the escape from the facility. “I’ll replace it,” he’d said. He hadn’t. “You don’t need it right now. You’re safe. That’s what matters.”

And you believed him. You still believe him. That’s the sickness of it. Even now, standing barefoot in the silent apartment with a headache that won’t quit and a chest full of bees, you believe he’s the only thing standing between you and annihilation.

The dependency terrifies you. And you can’t live without it.

---

The kitchen is immaculate. You don’t cook; there’s a meal service that delivers twice a week, left in a refrigerated locker by the elevator that only he can access. You eat what he gives you, when he gives it to you. Your body has learned to accept this. Your hunger cues have aligned with his schedule.

This morning there’s a glass of water on the counter and a single plate with toast, already buttered, already going cold. A note beside it in his sharp, angled handwriting: Eat. You didn’t finish your dinner.

You don’t remember dinner. You don’t remember much of last night at all.

The medication—the vitamins—have started blurring the hours. You’ve asked him, once or twice, what they’re for. “Anxiety,” he said the first time. “Mood stabilization,” he said the second. The third time, he just looked at you with those pale, unblinking eyes and said, “Do you trust me?”

You’d said yes.

You’d meant it.

You eat the toast. It tastes like cardboard. You drink the water. It has a faint metallic aftertaste, like it’s been through too many filters. Everything here tastes like something else underneath.

---

He comes home at 7:42 p.m. You know because you’ve been watching the clock since 4:00, stomach twisting, mind cycling through every possible catastrophe. He’s dead. He’s abandoned you. He’s found someone better—someone less difficult, someone whose emotions don’t leak out of her like a wound that won’t close. By 6:30 you’re crying. By 7:00 you’ve stopped, because he hates when your eyes are red. By 7:30 you’ve convinced yourself you imagined the whole thing, that he was never real, that you’ve been alone in this apartment forever and your mind invented him to survive.

At 7:42 the lock clicks and he walks through the door and the relief is so violent you almost throw up.

“Albert,” you breathe, and you’re on your feet before you can stop yourself, crossing the room in three stuttering steps. You stop just short of touching him. You’ve learned not to touch without permission.

He regards you with the same expression he always wears: a faint, unreadable amusement, as if you’re a puzzle he solved years ago but still enjoys turning over. He’s dressed in black—always black—his coat immaculate, his gloves still on. There’s no dust on him. No blood. He looks like he’s stepped out of a photograph.

“You’ve been crying.” It’s not a question.

“I was worried,” you say, and your voice comes out small. Pathetic. You hate it. “You didn’t—you were gone so long.”

“I was working.” He removes his gloves, one finger at a time, and sets them on the console by the door. “You know this.”

“I know. I know. I just—” Your throat tightens. The tears are threatening again, and you can see the exact moment he clocks them—the fractional tightening of his jaw, the way his gaze sharpens. Don’t. He doesn’t have to say it. You’ve learned the language of his silences.

“Take your medication,” he says, and it’s gentle. Almost tender. “It’s past time.”

The pill is in his hand before you can respond. He’s always prepared. Always one step ahead. You take it from his palm—dry swallow, bitter catch in the throat—and he watches the whole time, making sure it goes down.

“Good girl.”

The words should feel like warmth. They don’t. They feel like a collar being checked.

---

Dinner is quiet. He asks you about your day. You tell him you read, you slept, you sat by the window. You don’t tell him you spent three hours trying to pick the lock on his study door with a bobby pin you found under the bathroom sink. You don’t tell him the bobby pin snapped, and you had to flush the pieces down the toilet in a panic.

You don’t tell him you found a scrap of paper in the pocket of a coat he left draped over the bedroom chair three days ago. You’d been searching for nothing. For anything. A receipt. A business card. A glimpse of the world outside the glass. The paper was crumpled and coffee-stained, but you’d smoothed it flat on the bathroom tile and read the words over and over until they burned into your brain:

Kijuju Autonomous Zone. Site 6. Delivery 21:00.

You don’t know what it means. You don’t know where Kijuju is. But it’s a place. A real place. A piece of him that exists outside this apartment, outside you. And you’ve been holding onto it like a talisman, like proof that the world is still out there.

“You seem distracted,” he says.

You flinch. “I’m just tired.”

He studies you across the table. In the low light, his eyes are almost colorless—pale gray, like a winter sky. “You’ve been sleeping poorly. I’ll adjust your dosage.”

“I don’t need—”

“I’ll adjust it,” he repeats, and his voice doesn’t rise but something in it hardens to steel. “You trust me to take care of you, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me.”

You nod. You finish your food. You don’t taste it.

---

That night, you can’t sleep.

The medication usually knocks you out within an hour, but tonight your brain is a live wire. Kijuju. Site 6. The words loop like a song you can’t shake. He’s beside you in bed, breathing slow and even, one arm draped loosely over your waist. Possessive even in sleep. You lie still for what feels like hours, waiting until the rhythm of his breathing is deep enough, steady enough, safe enough.

Then you move.

Inch by inch, you slide out from under his arm. The sheets whisper. Your heart is a drum. You make it to the door, to the hallway, to the study. The door is unlocked—he never locks it when he’s home, because he knows you wouldn’t dare. You’ve proved him right for months.

The paper is still there, folded in the back of your underwear drawer. You retrieve it with shaking hands. Kijuju. You just need to see. Just need to understand. You’re not going to do anything. You just need to know that he has a life, that he works, that he exists in a way that doesn’t orbit entirely around keeping you in a glass box—

The lights come on.

You freeze.

He’s standing in the doorway, robe loosely tied, arms crossed. His expression is calm. Completely, terrifyingly calm. It’s the calm that makes your blood run cold, because you’ve seen him irritated, you’ve seen him dismissive, but you’ve never seen him calm like this. It’s the calm of someone who already knows the outcome.

“What’s that?” he asks.

You can’t speak. Your hand is still raised, the paper clutched in your fingers like evidence of a crime. You are guilty. You are so guilty.

“Show me.”

You don’t move. He crosses the room in three strides and plucks the paper from your hand. He unfolds it. Reads it. Folds it again.

“Where did you find this?”

“Your—your coat,” you whisper. “I wasn’t snooping, I was just—I was putting laundry away and it fell out—”

“Don’t lie to me.” Still calm. Still terrifying. “You’ve never done laundry in your life.”

The tears start then, hot and fast. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just—I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know where you go or what you do or if you’re coming back, and I can’t—I can’t breathe when you’re gone, Albert, I can’t think, I can’t function, I just needed to know—”

He listens. He lets you finish, lets the words run out until you’re just shaking and gasping and ugly with tears. Then he reaches out and takes your chin in his hand, not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to hold.

“You needed to know,” he echoes. “So you went through my things. You invaded my privacy. You betrayed my trust.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“I’ve given you everything,” he says, and his voice is so soft, so reasonable. “Safety. Stability. Purpose. And this is how you repay me.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You’re always sorry.” His thumb strokes your jawline, almost tender. “But sorry doesn’t fix things, does it? Sorry doesn’t make you better.” He releases your chin. Steps back. “Come.”

You follow him to the bathroom. You always follow. You don’t know how to stop.

He opens the medicine cabinet—locked, you realize, always locked, how have you never noticed the lock?—and removes a small orange bottle. He shakes two pills into his palm. You stare at them.

“That’s—that’s more than usual.”

“You’ve proven you can’t regulate yourself tonight,” he says. “This will help you sleep.”

“I don’t want—”

“I’m not asking.”

He doesn’t raise his voice. He never raises his voice. But his hand closes around your wrist, firm and immovable, and he pulls you closer. His other hand comes up to your jaw, pressing until your mouth opens. The pills land on your tongue. Dry. Chalky. You try to turn your head and his grip tightens, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind you that he could.

“Swallow.”

You swallow.

He makes you open your mouth, tilts your head toward the light to check under your tongue like you’re a child who can’t be trusted. Then he nods, satisfied, and lets you go.

“That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

You’re crying again. You can’t stop. Your wrist throbs where he held it, and you know there’ll be a bruise tomorrow, a faint ring of purple you’ll have to hide with long sleeves. You don’t know what you just swallowed. You don’t know what any of it is. You don’t know anything.

He walks you back to the bedroom. He tucks you in. He brushes the hair from your forehead with a gentleness that makes you want to scream.

“You’ll stay in the room tomorrow,” he says. “The door will be locked. I’ll bring your meals. You need to rest and reflect on what you’ve done.”

“Albert—”

“This is for your own good.” He kisses your forehead. His lips are cool. “You’ll understand eventually. You just need time.”

The world is going soft at the edges. The medication is pulling you down into the dark, and you’re too tired to fight it. Your limbs are heavy. Your thoughts are drifting apart like clouds.

The last thing you see before the void swallows you is his silhouette in the doorway, backlit by the hall light, watching you with an expression you can’t read.

The last thing you hear is the click of the lock.

#wesker being wesker #albert wesker #resident evil

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