Chapter Text
After all his strange health complications, surely it isn’t a surprise that Leon is continuing to lose weight when one of his worst symptoms he reports is nausea. It first appeared in Spain even before burning the plaga out of his chest. To Leon’s great pleasure, it has stuck with him throughout his resulting hospitalization and recovery.
The explanation started with the reasoning that his system has been fucked with by the parasite. He is probably only temporarily fucked up, the doctors think, and say the nausea should go away with effective treatment. It does not, not really, so the doctors then switch to saying that it might be a side-effect to something he is being given for his other health issues. The nausea should ease as his body learns to tolerate whatever strong bullshit they are dosing him with on the daily. It makes sense to him; his first few prescriptions are only filled at the hospital because it needs to be administered through an IV.
Leon’s weight loss is not something the doctors are too worried about at the beginning. Not when there are so many other issues to address. Unlike a lot of test and lab results, his weight loss is expected. Thankfully, nausea is not a symptom that will keep him in the hospital. Leon gladly accepts his discharge paperwork after they give him a handout on how to manage his symptoms and what kinds of foods would be easiest to tolerate. Leon follows the advice to the best of his abilities and continues to take an outrageous amount of pills just as Ashley has to do, too. He lounges around the White House with Ashley for most of the winter— isn’t that one of the weirder things to happen to him?— and waits to be cleared for work again.
The nausea only gets a little better. Ashley’s clears up completely, which is good for her. But for whatever reason, Leon is still affected by it at the most inexplicable times. It does not make any sense to either him or any of the doctors. They cannot find much wrong with him anymore to explain why the nausea is sticking around— not physically. The first time it is brought up as a psychological issue, Leon challenges the suggestion.
“It could be stress,” the doctor says— Richard, Richardson, something like that. He is one of the many doctors that Leon has been forced to see the past two months. “We could try some anxiety medication, see if that helps.”
Leon does not feel anxious— well, not all the time. Only when his nightmares get the better of him or when he gets startled, but that is nothing worse than how he was the first few months after Raccoon City. He never had issues with nausea back then. Right now, he gets nauseous without being anxious and anxious without being nauseous. There is a clear correlation and it isn’t linked to his mental status. It is obviously all the medication that has been pushed onto him, especially the experimental shit. Between the long, potent anti-parasitic protocol and whatever has been done to calm his flaring immune system, the cause is right there on the doctor’s clipboard.
“I’m not taking any more drugs,” Leon says. “I’ve never been on so much medication before. I’m not adding to that— you’re not gonna add to that.”
“It is affecting your daily functioning. It is time to try medication management,” Richards says. Leon was close, it’s Richards with an ‘s’, not plain Richard. Leon reads his name off his lab coat; he appreciates the doctors that either embroider their coats or wear name tags because he has not been in the mood to remember their names.
“I bet it’ll go away once I don’t have to take so many fucking pills every day.” Leon looks at the closed door behind Richards.
Richards tries not to frown at Leon. The doctor isn’t very good at hiding his emotions, which is not helped by Leon being very good at pissing people off. Every doctor Leon has seen is either confused, cautious, or way too damn curious. Richards is mostly cautious with a little bit of concern thrown in when he doesn’t think Leon is taking things seriously.
“This is something we need to address now; it can’t wait.”
Leon snorts and zips up his jacket. “If you get me off all this other shit, I bet it’ll get better. We should try that first, not throw more pills at me.”
Richards presses his lips together. “You know that’s not an option available to us at this time. But what I can do is write a script for—”
“I’m not taking anything new, especially not anything sedative—”
“Agent Kennedy,” Richards interrupts with a sharp tone. It only cuts Leon off because this doctor has been one of the more patient ones. It is probably why Richards has been the one who ends up stuck in a room with Leon trying to explain what they are doing to him.
Richards takes a measured breath. “If you keep losing weight like this, we’ll have to take more drastic measures.”
“I’m not skin and bones!” Leon snaps. “I’m not starving to death—”
“It is the rapid weight loss that is concerning, not your current weight,” Richards cuts in again. “But if this keeps on like this, then yes, I’ll be worried about your weight, too. This is putting extra strain on your organs, especially your heart and kidneys. Stress they don’t need, not on top of everything else.”
“So adding another medication is gonna be easy on my organs, is that what you’re telling me?” That is in direct opposition to what Richards had told Leon last week, when his liver panel came back abnormal for the first time in a month.
Richards taps his pen on his clipboard. “If it helps stop the nausea and thus the weight loss, then its impact will be more beneficial than harmful.”
Leon scoffs. “Why does every solution you offer end up being a ‘pick your poison’ kind of deal? That’s not helpful.”
“This is the better option. The other is hospitalization.”
Leon recoils. “You can’t fucking do that, I won’t let you do that!”
“I don’t want to— no one wants to,” Richards says. “But you need to understand, this trajectory is very dangerous. You aren’t in good health, Agent Kennedy, and your continued weight loss is going to make things worse, if it hasn’t already.”
Leon grits his teeth, clenches his fists inside his jacket pockets. “I’m not going back to the fucking hospital—”
“Then will you try taking this?” Richards finishes writing the script and tears it off the pad.
“Are those my only two options? A hospital or more medicine— both things I’m trying to refuse.”
“Well, we can try a different medication if this one doesn’t help. There are plenty out there, but you have to give it an honest effort. Being non-compliant isn’t going to give me any insight as to what is going to work,” Richards says, back to his soothing, ever-patient mask.
Leon growls. “If you assholes would actually try to help instead of just making me do whatever you decide amongst yourselves, maybe I’d actually cooperate for fuckin’ once!”
Although Leon feels like he has expressed this sentiment many times before, including to Richards himself, Richards pauses like this is new information. His small, encouraging smile freezes and slips off his face. In its place, his new expression is harder to decipher.
“Is that what is going on?” Richards asks. “Why you’ve been noncompliant with everything?”
“What?” Leon asks, still irritated but now a little confused.
“You don’t feel like you have a choice in the matter?”
Leon laughs, a short humorless chuckle. “What planet have you been on, doc? I haven’t had a choice.”
Richards’s expression shifts again into something more recognizable; the corners of his mouth pull down as his eyebrows tip up and pinch. “I could talk you through why I think this specific medication might work, but if you want me to go over some other possibilities, we can do that.”
Leon clenches his jaw. “Is there seriously not anything else we can try before we jump straight back into more medication? I want to stop taking so many pills every day, not add to them.”
Richards taps his pen in a rhythmic pattern as he thinks. “If you weren’t able to find significant relief with the help of a dietitian—”
“Woah, what dietitian?”
“The dietitian you’ve been seeing? The one you met at the hospital?” Richards mirrors Leon’s confusion. “Hmm, I cannot recall her name, but I saw it in here somewhere…” He starts flipping back through Leon’s chart.
“You mean the lady who gave me a sheet of paper?” Leon has no idea if that is who he is referring to; the lady didn’t even introduce herself, she seemed to be in a rush. And frankly, Leon was also eager to get the hell out of there.
“Have you not been working with her?” Richards stops flipping through papers.
“We spoke for maybe five minutes, I don’t believe she ever told me her name,” Leon replies.
Richards’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. He drops the papers back into place. “Well, uh… that’s not how that was supposed to happen.”
Clearly not, based on his reaction. Richards looks down, turning over his new information.
“So…?” Leon asks.
Richards refocuses. His tone brightens as he straightens up in his rolling stool. “So, we can start you there. Talk with her— actually, a new dietitian, not her— and see if she can help. I’m sorry, I thought this whole time that you had been talking to someone who was helping you with other non-medicated strategies and those were not having the desired effect.”
“All I’ve gotten is a handout on nausea and throwing up,” Leon says. He could probably recite the entire thing from memory at this point with how many times he has referenced it in the hopes of finding anything that could help
“I’m very sorry, Agent Kennedy, that is unacceptable. I’ll find someone new— unless you want to pick, we can do it that way, too.”
“No, it’s fine. Just tell me who to go see, I’ll go.”
Richards looks at Leon with way too much sadness in his eyes. “I want you to have the choice—”
“Fuck, I don’t want to research doctors, doc— just find someone who isn’t gonna throw pills at me as quick, easy fix.”
Richards’s small smile is rueful. “Unfortunately, we’ve tried the quick fixes already but yes, I’ll make sure to find someone who will be respectful of that— and please, Agent Kennedy, let me know if you are unhappy with your care.”
Leon wants to roll his eyes, but Richards seems sincere. “Sure.”
Richards fiddles with his pen. He opens his mouth, but then reconsiders what he had the urge to say. The appointment comes to a close with Richards promising to find someone more professional who can see Leon as soon as possible. To wrap things up even faster, Leon tells Richards to make an appointment with whoever he finds. Just point him in the direction of the new doctor and tell him when to show up. It is a compromise that Leon tolerates— as much as he hates Richards threatening him with hospitalization— because he really does want to stop throwing up so much. He cannot start getting back into his training or go back to work if he is incapable of being further than thirty yards from a bathroom at every moment of the day and night.
These damn doctors move fast. An email is sitting in Leon’s inbox only a few hours later. It has a profile of the new dietitian and details of his upcoming appointment two days from now. Leon clicks on the link to confirm his appointment at four in the morning. He is awake because he is spending a sleepless night hiding in his bathroom waiting to see if his nausea will go away or get worse enough to throw up. The link brings him to an online form, which Leon backs out of as soon as he sees it. He ignores it until daybreak, when he is still wide awake, exhausted, and still fighting for the sliver of control he has over himself that is keeping him from throwing up into his toilet for the seventh time that week.
Leon is slouched against his bathroom wall, head pressed against the side of his bathtub because the cold helps, filling out questions about his ‘reasons for his appointment’ with one hand because he needs to be ready to move if he wants to not throw up on his floor. It isn’t funny— it shouldn’t be, he is miserable and he wants nothing more than to be able to sleep in his bed and not wake up choking on bile— but it is; he is looking at scales that ask him how bad his nausea and vomiting are from one to ten. Leon wishes he could just take a picture of himself and upload that. It will better explain what his problem is and why he has even agreed to see yet another doctor at this point in his life...