Work Text:
They’re in a shitty burger joint, and Leon is tired.
“Look on the bright side — the Princess is safe, yes? And we’re in two very handsome pieces!” Luis had said, calling him by a spanish word that sounded warm, though Leon wasn’t in mind to translate.
Ashley is safe, and that’s a relief. He won’t hear any more surrounding it, and maybe he doesn’t want to. His own psychological burdens weigh heavily enough, perhaps wanting to shoulder hers, as well, is foolish. But Leon’s starting to think he isn’t very smart.
Ordering brunch while sitting across from Luis Serra, former Umbrella employee and cult member, proves as much.
Turns out former Umbrella employee’s and cult members order loaded fries and a vanilla shake.
Former R.P.D officers order a burger because the blonde waitress looked judgy.
While they wait, Luis’ lighter spins lazily between his fingers. Over his pointer finger, under his middle, and back again, guided by his thumb. It'd be mildly hypnotic if Leon wasn't so bothered by the blood caked on his knuckles.
Leon says nothing. He’s nearly in mind to stand. He could find the bathroom easily enough, wet some paper towels. Rub away the bloodstains before the waitress is back with their food. Least he could do, really. Luis did save his ass, more times than he could swallow comfortably.
But then there are trays sliding onto the table. Another missed call under his belt.
Luis, for his part, either doesn't notice or ignores him. Smiles brilliantly at the waitress like they weren’t being hunted by madmen with chainsaws a few hours ago. Thank you, he says. Leon wonders how he’s so okay. How he’s so good at pretending he’s okay. Leon also wonders if he knows his voice sounds nicer in his native tongue, and that the blonde (judgy) waitress seems to agree, judging by the smile she cracks.
Maybe there’s something to his claims of being a ladies man. Leon’s still skeptical.
Luis pulls his fries close, devouring at least a dozen before Leon has even managed to begin examining his burger.
The bun is riddled with sesame seeds. Leon’s never liked sesame seeds; an old girlfriend mocked him for it, once. She’d playfully pluck the seeds off and eat them, just to bother him, catching them between perfect teeth and crunching down. He’d grimace, and couldn't kiss her for the rest of the day. Or he wouldn't kiss her. He always thought they looked like bugs. Or maybe holes. Maybe he didn’t like those tiny holes. Maybe he never liked kissing her, ever. Trypo-something?
The lights and the burger and the death make it hard to think. Claire had it, too.
The trypo-something, she’d told Leon the name for it.
Claire told him, and he’d forgotten. He'd promised himself he'd remember her, keep in touch with her. When was the last time they'd spoken? Was she even alive? Was he? Was his job so important that he couldn't afford her a call? No, it wasn't. Nothing was, nothing was more important than her and Sherry and Raccoon City, not Ashley, not Luis. He always did this, got careless. That same carelessness that had cost millions of lives, cost Marvin's life—
“So.” Luis starts, tearing open his straw’s paper prison.
“What’s next for Leon Kennedy?”
Leon blinks. He rocks his palms along the edge of the sticky plastic seat. What is next.
He offers a limp gesture.
They’ll need to find security detail for Ashley. They’ll ask Leon, but go with someone else, always because they know he’s too soft, too attached. The president will commend him. And then…
“A shower.”
Put in an email to Hunnigan in a few weeks, asking if Ashley’s doing ok. Hoping she is. Hoping she can shake this off the way he never could. Too soft, too attached.
Luis sticks his straw into his milkshake, wrinkling his nose.
“Mm. Thinking small, eh?” He takes a long sip, gazing at Leon with critical eyes.
“Something like that.”
Luis releases his straw, shaking his head.
“Save the president’s daughter from a spanish cult, and golden boy can't even party.”
“What about you?” Leon asks, and now there’s something challenging in his tone. The sesame seeds glow an unpleasant off-white under the buzzing fluorescent lights, and he swallows nausea.
Luis pauses. His eyes glaze, for a long second, and then he grins, shrugs. Leans back along the ripped green pleather lining his booth, spreads his arms like he’s got the whole world spinning along his fingertips. Like his life’s a stage Leon’s just happened to stumble onto. What page, Leon wonders, is, 'Golden Boy exits stage right'?
“Wherever the wind takes me, you know? Who knows what other adventures are out there for Luis Serra.”
Leon frowns.
“Yeah. Who knows.”
Luis’ grin falters. Imperceptibly, and then all at once.
When he leans back in, he’s like a different man. Here, he’s small, these few inches away from the green pleather where he seemed so large and unyielding. Leon doesn’t know which side of him he prefers. He feels like every time he thinks he’s understanding one of them, the other one sweeps his leg.
“Look, I—…”
Luis tap-tap-tap’s his lighter on the table.
“I’ve lead a pretty shitty life, Leon. I don’t think I’m done…” Luis sighs, heavily, “Making amends.”
Leon knows the feeling.
They finish the meal in silence.
Only when Luis is sucking the whipped cream from the stem of his straw does Leon ask how he’s going...wherever he’s going.
Luis’ dark eyes scan the livening street outside the window. The sun rose, at some point, and now it's sitting heavily in the sky, guiding bleary businessmen towards their 9-to-5’s. Leon can’t relate to them, can't imagine their lives, scanning them and their suitcases as if they’re potential threats, rather than innocent father’s and brother’s. He shuffles over to the edge of his seat, like he's ready to roll out at any moment, and he hates himself a little for it.
“Bus stop, just over there. Maybe I’ll catch it.” Luis says, gesturing conspiratorially with his straw before dipping it back into his glass.
Where, Leon asks. This time, Luis doesn’t answer.
"Y'know, usually, I pay for my dates." Leon grinds out, dryly, when Luis produces euro from within his leather jacket.
"Oh, yo insisto. After all, I still owe you one, right?" Does he? Leon isn't in mind to argue.
Even if he wanted to, he carried his functional money in his, now long gone, coat, and pesetas was useless outside of the backwater. That, and he’d ended up giving all of it to Luis, anyways — “I might come back one day!”, he’d protested, reaching a hand to stop Leon from dumping his pouch into the river, along with his blood-stained sunglasses and torn gloves. Leon was sure enough he’d mowed through every last person in the village, and no merchant would linger long in a ghost town, but everyone seems to know something Leon doesn’t. Maybe Luis does, too.
“Well, the bus is coming.”
Luis says that, when he’s standing up, shaking his limbs loose.
“Thanks for all the fish, eh, Leon?”
Leon stands up, too. He almost wants to hug Luis. To squeeze him close, as if to say…
What? He barely knows the man outside of a quip.
“Take care of yourself, yanqui.”
Luis salutes him, two-fingered, with his bloody knuckles and his scratched-silver rings, and starts swaggering towards the door.
The bus is coming.
“Quixote.” Leon says.
Luis pauses. Turns.
“Forgetting something?”
Leon holds his lighter aloft. The fluorescents ride the worn edges of the metal, and Luis smiles at him, all brown eyes and slightly crooked teeth and worn edges.
The bus is coming.
“Always my knight in shining armour, Sancho.” Luis says, gliding up to him like honey thawing in the spring.
Luis’ bloody knuckles scrape Leon's palm, and he squeezes his hand into a fist. Luis regards him, and he’s smiling but his eyes aren’t, and then he’s nodding, once, lifting his lighter as if to say thanks, as if to toast him, as if to say thank you, you’re welcome, goodbye, as if to say I’ll never see you again, and then he’s walking away.
The bus is coming.
The blonde, judgy waitress is eyeing him, disdainfully, like he's done something personally to offend her. Like he's driven away the nicer man, the ladies man with the nice accent and the haunted eyes and the ugly leather jacket, just to spite her. When Leon leaves, he shoulders the door hard. Luis is already halfway to the bus-stop, one long leg sprawling in front of the other in a cat's lope.
His jacket blows behind him and it reminds Leon of something else. Something like black eyes and gunpowder, or red hair and bleach.
He lingers, before he shakes his head, turns around, and starts making the long journey back towards the rental car.
The bus squeals.
Is Leon walking?
No, no, he doesn’t think he is. His feet are frozen to the pavement, and he’s reminded of those nightmares where you’re running, but you never get anywhere, and the killer catches you. They always catch you. There’s no killer in his dreams, only his own regrets. His clueless mistakes.
He never looks over his shoulder, in the dreams, though. He’s too scared to.
He’s tired of being scared.
It isn’t black eyes or gunpowder or red hair or bleach, when he turns his head back and watches Luis walk away. It feels like the bullet slicing through what’s not, what was, a friend. It feels like the boots thumping in time with his heartbeat, it feels like watching a city go up in smoke and feeling like he could've done something, anything to stop it. Luis pauses, flicks his lighter, once, twice.
The wind blows, hard, extinguishing the flame and nipping his cheeks. He winces, but Luis, back still turned, cigarette hanging limply from his fingers, tips his head back. The cool gust weaves through his hair, and it’s black like a sleepy void Leon would like to relax in. Just for a while. Just until his next mission.
Leon is walking. Leon is running and getting nowhere.
The bus is coming, and Luis looks up.
“Luis.” Leon calls, speeding up.
The bus is coming, and Luis pauses. His head twitches, and in the blur of emotion, Leon wants to think he’s smiling, with his mouth, with his eyes.
The bus is coming. “Look, Leon—”
The bus is slowing, the wheels screaming their arrival.
Leon crashes their mouth’s together, molding himself across Luis’ front like he’s trying to crawl inside.
The bus stops.
His hand is squeezing down on Luis’ nape. A million worlds flash behind his eyes, ones where Luis wrenches away from him, ones where Luis coughs and spits and wipes him off of his mouth, ones where Luis bleeds out on the floor of an ugly castle and ones where a cigarette quivers between unbreathing lips before slipping free and damning him, damning him, damning them.
Leon's mouth tastes like sesame seeds, and sweat trickles down his back, and he pours something like a promise into the kiss because he knows he can’t say it, but he means it. He does.
When Luis wraps a strong arm around his back, he doesn’t know which one of them is trembling.
Their lips part for a moment, and Luis breathes like he’s laughing, and then it’s his turn to kiss Leon, tilting his head and clutching at the back of his jacket. Leon can imagine his quip; “I had to keep you up, the way you were shaking!”
But the bus doors creak shut, and Leon knows better.
When the bus passes, Luis' mouth tastes like sugar.