I am your servant // May I light your cigarette?

[viralgod]

[ The chill of the night seeped through the fabric of Wesker's clothes as he stepped out a side door into the dim light of the garden, making him shiver. Winter had come to the Arklay Mountains, and the crisp scent of the year's first snow was in the air. He pulled his black jacket tighter around him as he made his way down one of the paths to a more secluded area. This habit of his was going to be very inconvenient during the coming months.

Wesker had started smoking the same day William had told him he was dating Annette. It helped him deal with the hurt of seeing them together and the stress that caused him. At first there had been issues with the nicotine making him sick, which might have been because he chain smoked for a while, but he'd gotten used to it now. The habit was something he was trying to keep from his coworkers, if only because he didn't want to hear his only friend complaining about how bad it was for his health.

When he was reasonably sure that he was far enough away from doors and windows to avoid being seen, he reached into his jacket pocket and removed a small black box. Hands moving on autopilot, Wesker removed a dark colored cigarette from the box and slipped it between his lips. He cupped his hand around the end of the cigarette to protect the flame of his chrome zippo from the light breeze. As the tip began to glow orange, he placed the box and lighter back in his pocket.

A deep draw followed by a slow exhale of smoke already had him feeling much more relaxed. He was supposed to be back in the lab in a few minutes—they were working late tonight—but he'd really needed the nicotine. He was counting on William being too absorbed in work to notice his absence, or at the very least, to do anything about it. ]

Comments

[retroviridae]

[ William hadn't noticed, at least initially. He'd never been great at registering the passage of time when engrossed in his work—that was always something Al handled. Al, who wasn't back yet from his bizarre trip to get "fresh air"—a reaction to the bleach sitting in open flasks beside the sink on the other side of the room, flasks that had never bothered him before today—something William only realized when nobody took the weight of the much smaller flask he was blindly holding out. ]

Albert. Take it. I—

[ Just empty space. He was talking to air. William huffed and set it to the side himself, returned to what he was doing, looked up when another 15 minutes had somehow passed in the span of what felt like two. The fuck? Inconsiderate. If he was leaving to get food or something, he should have said so instead of leaving him with no estimate as to when he'd be back. He sighed sharply, got up from his chair, stripped off his gloves, scrubbed down his hands despite the fact he'd be re-gloving in probably five minutes, and headed upstairs, toward the cantina.

He would have kept going, if the air didn't suddenly feel much colder, like someone had left the damn door to the garden, which was closed for the season, open. People kept cutting across to get to the dorms, naturally. Lazy assholes. The door was shut, to his surprise, but the change in temperature between the space around it and further down the hallway confirmed that it had been opened very recently.

Annoyance was already building by the time he saw the rising smoke and the faint dot of a red ember. Some smoker going out to enjoy standing in the cold air, apparently, instead of smoking in any of the other places that hadn't been closed for the season. Who the hell would even be here at this hour was even more of a mystery—maybe some groundskeeper who thought they were above the law.

William strode in that direction, voice dripping with irritation before he even saw the man's face, his tone much sharper than he'd used with Albert since they'd come to peace with each other at the Executive Training Facility. ]

Are you illiterate? The sign says to keep that door closed.