Work Text:
You look at the old clock loudly ticking on the wall. It’s 10:17pm. Only three minutes since you last checked the time. Late nights at the office always seemed to drag. No matter who you spent them with. A small thud and a quiet “fuck” are heard from the breakroom. Speaking of who you were sharing the office with tonight.
“You alright, Leon?” you call, half-heartedly scrolling through case files on your monitor.
“Yeah, my drink just got stuck in the vending machine” he mumbled.
A giggled snort slips through your nose. “Yeah, it does that.” you reply. You felt kind of sorry for Leon, Racoon City’s police department was severely underfunded, and that vending machine had definitely been there since the 70s. The drinks inside were probably just as old, but you decide to let Leon work that out for himself.
“Yep, I noticed.” Laboured breathing and repetitive smacking noises continued. “Say, you don’t have another quarter, do you?”. Digging through your work bag, you fish out a loose quarter and toss it through the breakroom doorway, where it lands on the worn carpet with a shrill clink. You tune out the sound of Leon’s vending machine rattling to focus on the latest in a long line of arrests you had to file. “Ta-da!” Leon emerges victorious from the breakroom, two drinks cans in hand, and a beaming smile on his goofy little face. He strolls over to your desk and places one of the cans next to your keyboard. “Here, it was your quarter, after all.” He says, indiscreetly peering at your screen.
“Aw, thank you, Leon” you respond, cracking open the can and sniffing the contents before taking a small sip. It’s slightly sour and flat, but the caffeine should keep you going for another hour or so.
"Hey, is that about the drunk guy who pissed on a cop car on Ennerdale Street?”
“The one and only.”
“The guy who pissed on a cop car only three blocks from the police station?”
“The guy who pissed on a cop car only two blocks from the high school. If he’d just pissed on a patrol car, he’d get away with drunken misdemeanour. Because he did it in front of kids it’s now a felony misdemeanour.”
“Oof, a lot of paperwork for a felony,” Leon grimaced, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy your evening reading descriptions of a drunk guy’s dick” he laughed.
“Gee, thanks, Leon.” your voice dripping with sarcasm. Leon crosses the office space to his own desk, dropping himself heavily in the rotating chair, circling slightly as he gusles the can.
Half an hour passes between the two of you silently as you each get on with your work, only interrupted by the sounds of late-night traffic from the street below. It’s about 10:49pm when you notice Leon loitering by the windows looking into Chief Irons office. “Leon,” you warn, “what are you doing?”. It was more of an accusation than a question.
He doesn’t look up when he hears your voice, instead bobbing his head in an attempt to peer between the blinds that obscured the private office. Leon rattles the door handle a few times, the lock clunking in resistance. “Damn,” he mutters “not again”.
“Leon! What the fuck are you doing?” you stand up from your desk and creep towards him.
“Chief Irons left the good stapler on his desk…” Leon continued, pointing into a gap in the blinds where the large navy-blue stapler could be seen on the central desk.
“So?” you exclaim, “There are other staplers, Leon! Just use one of those.” You don’t like the way his gaze lingered on darkness of the office. Chief Irons had clocked out hours ago, taking the only keys to his office with him. Entering the police chief’s office without permission was subject to serious disciplinary action. Irons himself was incredibly strict about who was allowed in, if you were invited in then you absolutely weren’t allowed to touch anything. The Chief’s paranoia seemed beyond the typical safeguarding for police intelligence, and rumours abounded over what sort of horrific secrets Irons might be keeping in those files.
“No can do. See, I’ve got a 90-page home invasion report to sign off on and that bad boy,” he points to the stapler by jabbing his finger into the window “is the only tool for the job.”. Now he turns to look at you, a glimmer of finality in his baby blue eyes.
“Leon, no! You could just use a clip binder or – or hole punch the report and use a treasury tag to keep it together?” you were desperate to solve this problem before it started.
A shit eating smirk crosses Leon’s face, “Now, where would be the fun in that?” he goes back over to his desk and begins rummaging through the drawer.
You glance about rapidly, looking up and down the fluorescent lit office, seeking any kind of intervention. But you and Kennedy are alone, the only other people working at this time were the night officers, who by now would already be out on patrol. Before you know it, you see Leon unfold two paperclips while in a kneeling position in front of the lock.
“Oh my God” you sigh, now powerless to prevent the stupidity you were witnessing. When Chief Irons clocks in tomorrow morning and finds his office lock broken, the timesheets will reveal only you and Leon were in the building. At least there were no security cameras, perhaps being severely underfunded had its advantages. Obviously, you can fully blame Leon, what kind of aspiring police officer knows how to pick locks? And his fingerprints would be all over the lock and door handle. Everything he had done in the last five minutes was so self-incriminating that it was painful.
A resounding click pulls you from your thoughts and back to Leon. “There, see? It was easy” he chides, peering at you from over his shoulder as he pushes the door open. Abandoning all moral superiority you may have had at that point, you follow him inside.
The office was dark, lit only by the sparse slivers of light that bore through the gaps in the blinds. Your gaze darts around anxiously, and you let out a sharp scream when you notice a looming, horned shadow in the corner.
“Hey, hey, hey, whoa,” from behind the desk, Leon flicks the table lamp on, illuminating the room in a muted yellow haze. He points towards what you screamed at, which was now clearly a stuffed and mounted deer head. You knew Chief Irons had a hobby in taxidermy, but this was a newer addition you hadn’t expected to be there. You let your gaze glide over the other various taxidermized animals, which included a hawk, an armadillo, an alligator head, and the lucky stuffed raccoon that acted as the police department’s mascot.
Leon lifted the stapler off the desk, squeezing it a few times for measure. He smiled at you proudly, but you were distracted by the file the stapler had been resting on. It was a standard manila folder, completely plain apart from an odd logo in the centre. It was an octagon made up of eight red and white triangles, kind of like a stripy umbrella. Weird.
“Hey.” Leon calls, you look back up at him, “We should get out of here.”. With the stapler acquired, you both quickly file out of the office.
You turn to face Leon as you re-enter the brightly lit communal office space, “So how are we going to explain the broken lock to the Chief?” you say, with your pessimism fully returned.
His lips pull into that damn smirk once again, “Oh, I didn’t break it”, he steps to the side, letting the door close shut naturally, followed by the sound of the lock clicking into action. You look at Leon with an open-mouthed smile, a million questions on the tip of your tongue. Before you could get to any of them, he stops you. “Irons installed a slam lock last week when you weren’t here,” he shrugs dismissively “Now nobody will know anything” he fires a wink in your direction before sauntering back to his desk.
Now pleasantly dumbfounded, you couldn’t find it in yourself to fight your curiosity. “Can I ask where such a young rookie cop learnt how to pick locks?” you fold your arms and lean against another officer’s desk, the nametag read ‘B. Vickers’.
“Uh, no. I cannot.” He responds as he busies himself with his stapling.
The smile falls from your face as you unfold your arms and sit up, “How come?”.
Leon’s eyes flit up in your direction, he doesn’t look at you but rather a thousand yards behind you. Before you can apologise and back down, his seriousness fades. “Heh, you know. Always leave them wanting more.” Another smile and a wink are sent your way.
You decide against asking anymore questions for the rest of the night. Besides you had work to be doing anyway. You then made the mistake of looking at the clock. It’s 11.14pm. “Shit!” you rush back to your desk.
“You okay?” Leon’s head pokes above the monitors like a meercat, looking for you.
“Fuck. Yeah, the felony report is due by 11.30pm. Damn it.” You frantically unlock your computer, smacking the mouse against the table in frustration.
“Need anything from the vending machine?” Leon calls in a singsong voice.
“Don’t you dare fucking start that again…” you grumble, typing quickly.
Leon giggled; his cheeky mood fully restored. Yes, late night overtime was long and painful, but when spent with Leon Kennedy, it was never dull.