Work Text:
Policy of Truth
Leon had rescued the president’s daughter from Spain and the Los Illuminados cult. He had done his duty to the United States, protected the girl, cured them both of Las Plagas, and had completed his mission.
And yet, something had changed. There was a slight difference to him when he got back to America.
It had started subtly at first. He misheard a few words in a meeting or mission briefing, asked someone to repeat a sentence more often than not, and would turn up the radio in his car or increase the volume on his phone when making a call. Sometimes, there would be an occasional ringing, buzzing softly in the background, even in the quietest rooms. Leon ignored it, not thinking too much of it at first. Besides, he’d taken a hearing test after getting back from Spain, with the results saying he was fine.
Then, over the years, it became harder and harder to ignore, with the most painfully obvious examples being when he was on in-field missions. He couldn’t hear the quiet footsteps of infected sneaking up behind him anymore, or their soft groans and whimpers. It was like they were less zombies and more ghosts to him.
On top of that, conversations, even ones directly in front of his face, became muddled and distant sounding. He felt as though cotton was stuffed into his ears, or they were halfway submerged in water. Background noises were so overpowering that Leon would have to lean close any time he was talking with someone in a crowded room. And there would always be a high, electrical sounding whine in his head, something he could never silence no matter how hard he tried.
The most frightening part, however, was when little sounds, small details that he once took for granted, began to disappear. The gentle ruffling of paper in the office, the soft taps of his fingers typing across a keyboard, and the hum of distant traffic outside his apartment window, slowly vanished over time. The world looked the exact same as before. He could see everything was working just the way it had always been. But there were no longer any familiar sounds to accompany it all.
It was at this point that Leon began to realize something might be wrong. Though he didn’t show it, anxiety gripped at his insides, twisting in him like thorned vines on a stone wall. He tried as best as he could to deny what was happening. It was other people’s fault for talking too softly, and everywhere he went just happened to be incredibly noisy. He wasn’t to blame for the fact that he couldn’t hear all that well anymore.
But a deep, sinking feeling in his gut told him it didn’t work that way. That he should probably see a doctor again at some point before it got worse. Ironically, the anxiety of it all just seemed to make the ringing in his ears worse, making it even harder to hear on most days.
Still, Leon found every excuse he could to ignore what was going on with him. He told himself that there was no problem. Hell, some days he could hear just fine. He didn’t need to go to the doctor. He could manage himself well enough.
Additionally, he was the government's sharpest tool, their best agent. The idea of there being something wrong with him or his body was preposterous anyway.
As the world grew more silent to him, he remained so as well.
“RUN!” Leon shouted as he and Helena began to sprint as fast as they could away from the explosion of cars behind them. He kept his eyes up ahead, not daring to look behind them. He could feel the heat of the flames on his back, and he felt a deep rumbling in the ground beneath his feet. A deep boom reached his ears, and pounded dully in his skull. If he was being honest with himself, it was the loudest sound he’d heard in a while.
Leon shook off the thought, and continued to run. There wasn’t any time for thoughts like that.
Suddenly, he felt a gust of wind vibrating alongside him as he ran. He looked over to see what it was, and was met with the image of a helicopter. It flew ahead, stopping over a truck as a soldier jumped out onto it.
“Ov------!----n!” The armored man waved his arms, gesturing towards the helicopter. His voice sounded slurred and garbled. Leon couldn’t make out a single thing he said. But he got the message. They needed to get there as fast as possible.
“C’mon!” he said to Helena, barely registering his own voice.
The two agents climbed onto the car roofs before jumping up onto the truck, past the soldier, and then making a final leap towards the helicopter as the ground was engulfed with fire beneath them.
Helena managed to make it inside, while Leon grasped tightly onto the landing skids. An infected had grabbed onto his belt, and was trying to climb up him as the helicopter rose higher into the sky.
“Shit!” Leon twisted his hips with the best of his ability, and kicked his legs until the zombie fell off of him, falling into the explosion below.
He climbed up into the helicopter, Helena helping him up properly. The violent thuds of the propeller blades pounded like a heartbeat throughout the chopper, causing him to feel dizzy. Just as he got a proper footing and caught his breath, the vehicle began to violently shake and spin downward.
“What the-?!” Leon exclaimed as he crawled up to the cockpit. When he looked at the seats, he found the pilot completely knocked out. “Shit!” He climbed into the available seat, grabbing the flight controls in an attempt to steady the helicopter.
His heart was pounding against his chest, his whole body was covered in sweat as he grabbed the control stick with his clammy palms. He pulled on it as hard as he could, but the vehicle continued to whirl downward. Looking out the window, he saw the view of the city and its buildings spinning around him, like he was caught in a tornado. Though he couldn’t hear too well, the sound along with the feeling of the thump of the rotating blades vibrated throughout the helicopter.
“Damn it! I can’t bring her up!” Leon muttered to himself as Helena pulled the pilot out of the other cockpit seat. “C’mon!” He exclaimed, feeling his voice in his throat more than he could actually hear it. “C’mon, pull up!” He pleaded.
The chopper continued to whirl down in a dizzying spin, the blades of the propellers hitting the sides of buildings, making it sway side to side even more. Leon felt as though he might throw up, the ringing in his ears sharper than ever before. His head ached as he tried to focus as hard as he could.
Just as it seemed the helicopter began to skid close to the ground, Leon pulled on the flight gears with all his might, causing it to rise higher into the air again, over and around the city buildings.
“This th-----nt-on-------n--ch---ger,” Leon heard Helena’s muffled sounding voice from behind him, barely making out what she said. But, he got the gist of it. They needed to land pronto.
“Just a few more blocks,” he said silently, focusing as hard as he could as he tried to pilot the helicopter without swerving again, weaving through the darkness of the city.
“L---! He-p!” Through the ringing in his ears and her subdued voice, Leon turned around to find Helena wrestling with the former chopper pilot, who had turned into a zombie and was trying to bite her.
“Helena!” Leon didn’t hesitate to pull out his gun, doing his best to try to shoot the infected pilot instead of his fellow agent.
His finger pulled the trigger, and a dull pop sounded from the gun, as though it were a firecracker that he heard from another room over. He felt the vibration of the kick across his palm, and the stench of gunpowder overwhelm his senses, mixing with the pungent aroma of gasoline from the fires below.
He’d managed to nick the zombie right in the head, allowing Helena to push him off and out of the helicopter.
Unfortunately, he lost balance on the controls again, and the vehicle knocked into the side of a building. “Shit!” he exclaimed, feeling sharp flecks of glass from the window slice across his cheek and hands. “Hold on!” he said as they flew downwards again, towards a subway track.
Leon’s eyes widened in horror as he watched, in that moment, a tram drive straight towards them. Its headlights were a sharp, dizzying white light, blinding him right then and there. He had no time to react or turn away as the helicopter scraped right along the side, crashing against it as sparks flew from the friction.
They were thrown off course into a building, shards of glass flying all around them as Leon felt himself being thrown from side to side, his head at one point hitting the roof of the chopper, shielding himself as the chopper catapulted from the other end, into a neon sign.
The last thing Leon remembered was jumping out with Helena right as he felt his head smash on something hard. Then, there was a loud POP sound before he was launched into the quiet.
Even through the darkness, the high-pitched ringing still persisted, causing pain to blossom throughout his skull. Slowly, Leon felt his body returning to him one by one, from an aching pain in his chest and legs, to a sore feeling in his arms, to his eyes which were as heavy as stone. He felt his heart pound against his chest, soft and steady as a drum after the adrenaline rush he’d just been through.
He also felt someone gently shaking him back and forth, trying to awaken him. He tried to hear who it was, just to make sure it wasn’t an enemy. But no matter how hard he focused, he couldn’t make out any solid sounds. At best, he heard some muffled thuds or felt the ground vibrating beneath him, likely from a nearby explosion.
Slowly, Leon opened his eyes, feeling his head swim as the world came into view. His stomach rolled as vision swayed through the blurred world. He might’ve vomited right then and there. He looked up, and standing out against the foggy lights, was a dark figure standing over him.
Upon blinking a few times, his vision sharpened, and he could see that the person was Helena. Her face was scratched and bruised, and her long brown hair was slightly tangled. But, to his relief, she didn’t look beaten up.
Yet, Leon couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling coiling in his gut. Something wasn’t right. But he didn’t know what it was.
Then, he saw Helena’s mouth move, but no sound came out.
Leon completely froze, terror immediately seizing at his insides.
“Helena?” He felt himself say it, but he couldn’t hear his own voice. His fingers grazed his throat in shock. “Helena?!” he said it again, this time screaming it. But the only sound present was the ringing.
Helena’s eyes widened in alarm, an expression of concern forming on her face. Once again, her mouth moved, her lips forming a sentence. But Leon couldn’t hear a word of it.
“I can’t hear you! I can’t hear anything!” Leon said. He thought he felt himself shouting again, but he couldn’t tell. He frantically looked around him, it didn’t look as though he was in any immediate danger. And the room they were in (He assumed Helena managed to drag him out of and away from the helicopter crash) didn’t look too loud anyways. But he still felt like he was trapped underwater, with every single little noise, from the cracking of glass that he felt underneath his body, to the soft humming sound of cars outside, were completely gone, replaced with a world of deafening silence.
At one point, he caught Helena’s expression again. Her hands were clasped over her mouth in shock, her eyes wide.
Leon could only stare back with a terrified expression.
Leon had no idea how he and Helena managed to survive the rest of China. By some miracle they’d managed to pull through, once again fulfilling their duties.
Once it was all over, both had been taken in for a medical exam and some tests. Helena gave Leon a sad smile as he was ushered into the doctor’s office.
Leon’s mind tried to conjure any excuse he could come up with as to why he was experiencing this, that it was just a bad dream he would wake up from. But really, he knew the truth. He knew what he’d tried to keep hidden from himself ever since he got back from Spain. And when the doctor finally gave him his official diagnosis, there was no point in denying it any further…
He would never hear again. The only sound he would hear from now on was the ringing in his head.
Fin