Chapter Text
Look, if he's gonna die from some new poison made by what used to be Talbot Grimes, Quentin might as well be useful and take notes.
That's what he tells himself, at least, as he was gulping down water from a stream, already having written down extreme thirst as a symptom of whatever condition he was currently afflicted with.
Catching his breath seemed impossible as he pulled away from the stream, scribbling that down into a notebook he kept at the tent he shared with Steve.
If Quentin were more self-preservent, he might've told the rest of the camp that he got stuck with a syringe after taking a hit for Leon, and that he's probably going to die, but similar things have happened before and The Entity brought them back. So sure, it's gonna be a miserable experience, but they might as well know what they're dealing with right?
Quentin assumed they should. Sticking people with syringes full of serum isn't The Blight's usual move, the few times he's experimented on survivors has been heavily punished, so he must be plotting some deranged shit with this.
Especially with how he seemed to target the most hardy survivor in the previous trial; Leon Kennedy.
Fuck that.
He'll have to deal with Quentin instead.
Quentin had already written down the fever and thirst, he even brought his medkit with him to take his temperature; a concerning 104° degrees.
He made sure to write down the sudden onset of itchiness, holy fuck, he's so itchy, even his eyes are itchy, they were starting to water.
Unbeknownst to him, they were increasingly bloodshot. His mouth was also producing a surprising amount of saliva.
“Fuck..” Quentin dropped the pen. This thirst was insane, and he was starting to feel sore. He needed another water break. If it wasn't for the loss of sight in his left eye, he would've noticed a certain government lapdog heading his way.
Leon had broken through the tree line far after Quentin had. Though he’d escaped first, the horror of watching the Blight inject Quentin just as he crossed the border was enough to knock him off-balance, leaving him stumbling through copy-pasted woods as he tried desperately to keep the campfire in mind.
Maybe he was led there intentionally. Or maybe he just got lucky. As he finally breaches a clearing, the man casts a cursory glance around the ‘watering hole’ — lack of a better term — he finds it to be one closer to Quentin’s tent. Good. Maybe he could knock some sense into that kid, there was no use risking his life and limb for Leon’s, especially when they had both been so close to the exit. The walkie-talkie at his side chirps, but he ignores it as he approaches Quentin, from where he’s sat, scribbling. The teenager’s half in and half out of the shared tent, seemingly on his way out when Leon catches up.
“Quentin. What’s going on? You got stuck by that guy real late-game.” Leon drops to crouch as he approaches, wrinkling his nose as he realizes how.. damp Quentin looked. His eyes watered, sweat poured down his face, he had a sickly glow about him. Leon places the sole of his wrist on the teen’s forehead, the way he vaguely remembers what his mother did for him when he was truly sick. “You’re burning up.”
Quentin huffed irritably, allowing the older man to feel how hot he was.
“Yeah, I uh.. I’m at 104° right now, uh.. pretty sure I got poisoned, I wrote down the symptoms, here.” He handed Leon the notes, avoiding eye contact as he predicted a scolding with latent ire aimed Leon’s way.
As Leon surveyed the notes, the boy was absentmindedly itching himself rather aggressively, and it wasn't until he felt his fingernails shift around that he stopped.
Quentin quickly pulled over a hand to inspect his nails and.. They were loose. As he brought his nails closer to his face, one fell off.
“Ah shit.. I.. okay, I'm gonna need the.. the notes back.”
The teen curses softly. Maybe it was the anxiety building from seeing his nails falling out painlessly, but it was getting increasingly hard to breathe.
Quentin suddenly let out a pained noise as he curled in on himself, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest, revealing curly hairs beginning to grow along the back of his neck. As he crumples, Leon leans over him in abject concern and horror.
The older man knew the signs of a transformation. B.O.Ws never got less gruesome, his deployments often took him to the very same day of the facility being overrun, watching fresh Stage 1s wail and moan in pain as they tore their skin off and became something monstrous. Alarm bells are blaring in the back of his skull. His hand rests on the empty thigh holster, digging into the gun that isn’t there on trained reflex.
“You’re mutating. He stuck you with some.. serum, it’s attacking your body, there’s very little that can stop it.” Leon says weakly, witnessing the form of this.. teenager — barely an adult — writhe in pain the way he’d seen others do.
Flipping through the notebook Quentin had indicated quickly, his heart beat grimly in confirmation that all those symptoms were parallel to the transformation between human and zombie.
Of course.
Of fucking course it followed him here. It followed him here and it would make the defenseless transform in horrific pain to inflict that pain on others. Leon swallowed thickly, around a bout of nausea as he handed the book back to Quentin.
“What did I say, man, everytime?” Leon hisses, panicked and furious and scared for the kid in front of him, “Don’t ever take hits for me, I should have gotten this one. Now, you’re…” He takes his hands through his hair, leaving it mussed and disastrous around his face.
“Okay. Fuck. Okay.”
He looks through his pockets, for herbs, for something that would do anything against what Quentin was becoming, and came away with a crushed napkin of red, blue, and green herbs.
“Eat this, real quick, c’mon.” He tries to tip it down the boy’s gullet and massages his throat to ensure the herbs were properly consumed.
It was hard to discern what Leon was saying through the delirium of agony, as it was nearly all Quentin could process at the moment.
Quentin’s previously squeezed-shut eyes shot open as Leon spoke, trying to listen. He opened his mouth to respond but all that came out was this strained choking noise, it felt like his lungs were being crushed.
Transforming. Quentin is transforming, he should've known, he should've fucking known, how could he be so blind?
He got stuck with the pustula serum, a serum intended to mutate killers almost beyond recognition.
Quentin was going to become a killer, he was going to turn into some abomination and slaughter his fellow survivors, and given the other man’s proximity, his first victim would be Leon.
After forcing himself to choke down the herbs, the teenager felt a numbing sensation slide down his throat into his chest, giving back his ability to speak.
“Kill me..” Quentin sputtered urgently as he looked up at Leon.
"You have to kill me or.. or else I’ll kill you and- and I’ll probably come back anyways, maybe, I don'twannahurtanyonepleasepleasekillme-!"
An awful choking sound cut him off as he fell back down, his veins pulsing a gold-yellow glow for a frightening moment before fading.
The events that followed were far worse.
Quentin felt like his ribs were being snapped apart, eyes wide open as he struggled to breathe. Though there was little question as to why, the boy looked down and watched his own ribs flare and begin to expand under his skin, the faint ridges becoming more pronounced as they grew.
Leon watched in abject horror, the herbs doing little but clearing his airway. He took his hands off of Quentin, staggering back a few feet as the gravity of the situation began to sink in.
Quentin was changing. He was changing painfully, he.. he begged for his death like so many others had done, others who had been swiftly silenced with a shot from his Magnum. He hadn’t been powerless in every other encounter, he could at least bring a total end to their misery. But.. Quentin…
God knows what the serum was actually meant to do. And there wasn’t a protocol for survivors killing survivors outside of trials, there was no guarantee he would come back. Even if he did, there was no guarantee Quentin would come back the same. Leon felt — for the first time in a long time — acutely helpless.
Quentin thrashed around in the worst pain he's ever been in — He was being torn apart from the inside out, violently remodeled into a monster. His shirt ripped and hung off him in tatters as his ribs continued to expand out, revealing bruised skin and curly fur.
The previously quiet teen fought off wails of pain, grinding his increasingly pained teeth to avoid attracting any other survivors to a certain death.
There were many types of pain in life, but Quentin found that one of the worst was dental pain. The sensation reminded him of his childhood years, but instead of excitement at a grown up tooth, it’s nothing but dreadful anticipation.
There’s squirming inside of his canines, grinding against the jawbone and skull. An unbearable pain that sharpened in intensity as it tore through the flesh of his gums and forced his original canines right out of his mouth.
The nerves being exposed to the cold air knocked the wind out of Quentin, he couldn't even spare a cry of pain as it happened. The pooling blood in his mouth slowed as he spotted his old teeth on the earth below, root and all intact.
In their place was something sharp. Animalistic and carnivorous in nature.
He turned away from Leon, covering as much of his face as he could, but everything hurt so much it was impossible to stay still.
Not that Quentin could even cover his face for long, as piercing pain shot up his fingers. Pulling them away in panic, Quentin watched in terror as claws broke through where his nails used to be, leaving blood to slough from them in rivulets.
Leon manages to tug the massive claw-studded paws away from Quentin’s fragile face-meat. He figured the less blood spilled, the better things would work in the long run, especially as he’s currently unaware of how much sentience Quentin retained in this form.
The transformation… He had to duck away while Quentin was still in the throes of it, emptying his stomach of any contents it held to the side in horror. It hadn’t been this bad before. He’d witnessed some horrific things happen with people’s bones. He’d seen people snapped apart and still subsisting on hunger, filling a belly no longer fully attached to them. He could compartmentalize some of this, sure, but this was agonizing. Mainly for Quentin, but that fact didn’t make what he was witnessing any easier.
He speaks into the walkie-talkie still clipped to his shoulder, the mostly dead comm-link crackling to life as he breathes a plea of help into it, mercifully remembering to state his location. If this goes bad… Leon swallows. That thought is better left unsaid.
He’d been able to talk to the others through his radio before. Never in trials. It helped when someone was off collecting herbs and an injured person had crawled their way to the fire, waiting desperately for a heal. He had no idea if this would work. Maybe this was a trial, a new, strange one. One meant to amuse Her desire to see helpless people fall into danger from safety.
He puts his hands back on the writhing boy, watching the growth in horror. Bones shifted and moved under his skin, hair sprouted and his eyes… The cop had to swallow down bile as yellow flashes bright against pale skin, and his fingers scrabbled for purchase on the surface of his jacket.
“Quentin.” He whispers urgently, “If it’s still you in there, you have to fight it, you have to keep your name in mind. You are Quentin Smith. I am Leon Kennedy. I’m going to get help for you.”
He won’t let another child die in the dark.
Instincts that weren't his own spoke to him, compelling him to hide away in his tent, to curl up in the dark, to wait until whatever this was ended.
Quentin had to fight it. he had to, or else.. he wasn't sure he'd ever be himself again. Forcing himself to look away from his contorting and swelling fingers, he instead looked up at Leon with scared, bloodshot eyes.
“I’m.. I’m Quentin..” He is still Quentin. He still understands.
The ex-cop sits back on his haunches, relieved to see that the boy retained some semblance of control over his mental functions, but kept his hands up in a demure posture, hoping to ease any animal anxieties towards his status as a threat.
“Good. Good job, Quentin. Can you show me where it hurts?”
That was simultaneously an easy and hard question to answer, because everywhere in Quentin's body hurt. His ears began to ring and ache as they started to elongate. Parts of him he never felt before swelled and stretched inside him.
There were so many horrible sensations he could barely focus on just one. Muscles and ligaments tearing, joints and bones cracking and reshaping, itching and aching all over his skin... and he knew it was only going to get worse.
Quentin might as well start with where it all began and was beginning to throb again; his back, the place he was injected.
"Started… augh!.. Started in my.. my back..? I don't- I don't know.. Dunno.." Quentin breathed heavily through the pain, looking up at Leon.
He’s tired. He’s so tired and this is just beginning.
With a start, Quentin seems to realize the tension in his back is intensifying instead of abating, something is going to happen — and it does, with a violent jerk, he falls forward onto the forest floor, dirt and leaf litter clinging to the blood on his hands.
His back began to contort and crack, muscles growing so much his jacket — one he’d worn his whole time in the Fog — began to tear, fur poking through the seams. Quentin lets out another choked wail of pain, still too terrified of himself to make noise.
The worst of it were large spider-like appendages tearing right out of his skin, blood hot, as if one had set the temperature of their shower too high, splattered across the scene, which is what finally made the terrified boy fully shriek in agony.
Four jagged open wounds were now wide open on his sides, fascia and muscle glistening in the dim light of the forest. Every single breath is another stab of pain. He could feel his muscles tug as he inhaled and exhaled, worse than a mere broken rib.
With slack-jawed horror, Leon watches as legs unfurled from the …boy? animal…?’s back, like something skittering out from his nightmares as a child.
Leon is quick to act, cutting the jacket off in order to not risk Quentin losing blood flow to his grotesquely enlarged limbs. Cutting off his circulation would only ensure a more painful death.
“Quentin,” Leon breathes, “Quentin, stay with me, buddy. I need you to try and talk to me through this. Don’t lose yourself in it.”
God, he was growing further. He had to be taller than Leon now, the thought alone made him shudder.
“This is temporary.”
He tries to soothe the boy as he writhes in agony, “It’s a sick joke from the Entity. You won’t be this way forever. You listening? You’re Quentin Smith. You’re a great healer. You’ve got freaky ESP. You are not what your body wants you to think you are.”
Quentin couldn't stop the onset of wails after he finally let out a shriek of pain. At this point, he was slamming his head into the ground, a frantic, unhinged attempt to go unconscious to escape the pain. Predictably, all it did was cause further injury and pain, blood trickling down his face.
Talk through this. Don't lose yourself. Say something. Say something. He can't die like this, not yet.
Quentin repeated after Leon through pants and sobs, to show he was listening and understood, although it was slurred and stuttery.
Right as he was about to say something back is when he felt his legs begin to contort.
Another surge of warmth shot through his veins. His muscles tensed and spasmed before his tarsals elongated with a wet snap and his fibula was forced out of place.
A short, throat-shredding roar is let out before he covers his mouth with his blood stained hands. He wants to scream and cry as loud as he possibly can, but he can't allow himself to do that-
This line of self pitying thought was cut short by the pain of his thigh muscles forcefully elongating and swelling. Quentin almost thought it was his skin tearing open as he felt his jeans tatter apart.
Forcing himself to speak at this point, Quentin sputtered out. “Wha.. whatarewe- hah- g'nna tell ev'ry- hah- one..?” He wasn't even writhing anymore, he had collapsed, all he could manage were some twitches and trembles.
Leon was trained to shut down, in situations like this. He always had orders. There was some prerogative he followed with a rigid spine and higher function nearly offline. Wipe clean this facility from this bioweapon, take down this arms dealer, fetch this person of interest. Roll over. Speak.
Nothing could school him into a non-reaction now, he couldn’t maintain the calm face he would have, not when it’s someone he knows. Quentin’s a good kid. The amount of pain he’s in seems unbearable, to a degree where Leon wouldn’t be surprised if the pain sent him into shock, leading to an untimely death. As the boy tried — in vain — to force unconsciousness, Leon held his head back, stripping the sherpa jacket from his body and balling it up to cushion the other’s head.
Seizure training. It’s like seizure training. That’s what Leon mutters to himself as he pries open Quentin’s jaws, trying not to boggle or visibly react at the noticeable changes. He momentarily recoiled as the boy snarled and snapped at his fingers. It's getting worse, but he has to stay focused.
Satisfied that he won’t choke to death, Leon turns Quentin into his side, as best he can, given he’s mostly dead weight.
“We tell the others exactly what happened. You know that nobody on my side is going to give up trying to cure this, Rebecca’s a genius. This isn't permanent.” Leon speaks firmly, “You hear me, Quentin? You won’t have to stay like this.” He squeezes the other’s shoulder in fierce reassurance.
He just hopes someone gets here soon. He doesn’t especially want to be the only one with Quentin when he doesn’t have the skills to ease his suffering.
But Quentin.. couldn't understand a single word Leon said anymore. He understood he was speaking to him, but.. the words being spoken weren't registering in his mind at all.
The confusion soon turned to pure existential terror.
Quentin didn't want to lose himself. He didn't want to lose his memories, his feelings, his humanity, yet it was slipping away already, as he felt his skull begin to reshape.
Through increasingly blurred vision and weakening limbs, Quentin grabbed and pawed at Leon the best he could, trying to maintain a grip.
As he looked up at what he assumed to be Leon, Quentin forced himself to garble out, “Ppleashh.. kkihlll meeNGHACKGH-”
It felt like his skull was slowly being crushed as he slid back onto the dirt. Blood began to gush out as his face pushed out into a snout. His nose, eyes, ears, mouth, all of it was pouring profusely as if from a fountain.
A dull pain turns into an intense burning sensation that throbbed to the beat of his overworked heart. One of the last bits of pain was too much for him, as his nerves and gums tore open for new molars.
And as a tail began to stretch out from his spine, Quentin just wanted to die. He wanted it to be over. He couldn’t imagine what the Entity wanted with him – with his body – with the amount of pain he was in, what purpose could he serve? Quentin hoped he would die to prevent this from ever happening. Anything is better than that.
That was Quentin's last thought before his eyes glowed a golden orange, and he slipped into blissful unconscious.