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Chris has been staring at the BSAA file for hours now. His head hurts. His heart is still pounding in his chest, waiting for Claire to finish her mission with TerraSave, contact him, let him know she's alive. He doesn't know what level of danger she's in. His brain still can't believe this might even be true; it couldn't be. There must be something he's missing.
They'd been dregging through Wesker's personal files since Chris had killed him, made sure he couldn't come back. Double, triple, quadruple checked the man could never rise again and this was over. It most definitely was. But that mating bite had been a problem; a sign that what he started might still continue onward, a plague that refused to heal, mutating to be resistant to antivirals every time they got the upper hand. It could be anything and from the way Wesker clearly made a point to keep his mate out of the picture, out of the files, never mentioned suggested that likely they were involved. He knows Wesker, can't imagine any world where it could be anything of a calm or caring nature. The other worry was there might be an omega out there, held hostage, a mission being sent out to pull them out of some sick genetic experiment.
But this.
A hazy photo of a photo booth reel, Wesker with his arm around His shoulders, Wesker pressing a kiss to His cheek as He holds up peace signs.
Chris grits his teeth, swallowing down bile.
His phone buzzes, knocking him out of his thoughts and Chris swallows, picking it up. "Claire."
"What's the deal? Are you alright? I got home and have nearly twenty messages from you. You scared me."
"Claire, where are you?"
"At my apartment, where else would I be after a mission? It went great, by the way, thanks for askin-"
"Claire. Where is Leon Kennedy?"
"I don't know. Probably on some mission. Last I spoke to him, the President took a liking to him. Why?"
Chris swallows, his vision going blurry as he stares at the photo, Leon's bright blue eyes full of joy as he wraps his arms around Wesker, head resting on the scientist's shoulder. His throat feels too thick, like the words refuse to come out. He doesn't know how to even begin to explain this to his baby sister. Her best friend, the one she bonded with through a hell on earth that Chris missed by chance. Hell that she was only in because of him, himself, doing her best to protect him.
"Because he's a wanted individual in a BSAA case. With immediate detainment required."
Claire paces across her kitchen, frowning deeply. Chris' words are still echoing in her head, ricocheting like a pinball around her neurons. She's got a headache forming. Her shoulders shake as she tries to figure out what to do. Tears well in her eyes as she slowly sits down. Her brother has begged her for help, for a global terrorism case. She doesn't know what Chris has but she knows Leon. She glances at her phone, fingers itching. She knows him, whatever this is about, it's just a mistake, some clerical error, or something. Her fingers twitch, desperate to warn him, give him time to get ahead of the BSAA until his name can be cleared. Leon can't be caught up in something like bioterrorism. It's just not him. He cares too much.
Maybe he cared too much. Maybe his trauma finally caught up to him. It wouldn't be the first tim they've come across someone like that in their line of work.
Claire picks up her phone, taking a slow breath. She opens her messages with Leon, blinking rapidly when she sees typing bubbles. She licks her lips nervously.
Freaking out. can we meet? need to talk about some relationship stuff.
She pauses, taking a slow breath. Something in her relaxes. She looks around her apartment as if expecting Chris to jump out at her before she looks down.
meet me at that cafe. be there in 20
Claire doesn't hesitate to grab her jacket, heading outside. The air is starting to chill. Not enough to be a problem, but enough that she definitely needs to remember to get a new coat soon. She laughs a little, blinking at herself as she turns the corner. Her best friend may be in serious trouble, may be some cartoonish supervillain for all she knows and she's worried about buying a coat. She takes a shaky breath, noticing Leon already outside the cafe, nervously bouncing on his feet.
She calls his name, watching the way he turns, relief flooding his face. He rushes towards her and Claire can’t help the sudden fear that curls in her stomach. She studies him as he gets closer; he’s frantic. Scared. She can tell that much from here. As he gets closers, she notices his eyes; despair floods them.
“Claire…” He sounds miserable, like he hasn’t slept for a few days.
Claire glances around, eyes scanning. She doesn’t see anything that might be a tail and huffs out a sigh of relief. “Come on, my apartment. I have the heating on.”
Leon nods, making a noise in his throat. They walk quickly, Claire setting the pace. If Leon notices she’s walking faster than usual, he doesn’t say anything. Glancing at him, she can see he’s trying not to cry; Claire can’t help but frown. She kicks herself. Leon’s clearly having some kind of issue. How ridiculous of her to think he might be involved in some Umbrella scheme.
“Are you alright?”
Leon shakes his head. “My mate mark. It was fading which I expected.” He swallows. “But it looks like it’s scarring and I can’t tell if I’m freaking out or it’s actually…” His voice drifts off and Claire frowns, softening. She rests her hand on his shoulder, giving him a soft squeeze.
“I’ll take a look at it. We can figure this out.”
Leon nods, clearly fighting back tears. She lets him go first up the stairs, handing him the keys and his hands shake as he pushes it into the door, stumbling inside. A sob breaks from his lips before he freezes. Claire frowns, quickly following him and peering around his shoulder. Her heart drops as Chris frowns at her.
“Let’s not make this harder than it has to be.”
Leon lets out a whimper, looking between Chris and Claire over his shoulder. “Make what harder?” He looks around. “What’s going on?”
Chris frowns, taken aback. Leon steps inside the apartment a little, legs shaking as he makes his way to Claire’s couch. Claire doesn’t know what to do, staring at Chris. “Why are you here?”
“I know you too well, Claire.” He sighs. “I had someone tap your phone.”
Claire glowers, teeth clenching. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m sorry, this has to be done.”
Leon looks around, swallowing. “What?”
Chris stands, swallowing. He’s in full tactical gear and Claire’s heart skips a beat seeing how his hand hovers over his gun handle. “Leon… I’ve got to take you in. The BSAA is detaining you.”
Claire moves, quickly, unaware of her feet moving before she’s in between the two. “Look, this has to be a misunderstanding, Chris. Let’s just talk it out.”
“I can’t do that Claire. We need records. We need it on voice. We need it on video. You know the rules.”
Leon stares blankly, processing. “What’s going on? Why am I being detained?”
Chris looks at him, frowning deeply. “You know exactly why.”
“I have no idea why. At least have the decency to tell me.”
“We need to question you in relation to the T-Virus, Raccoon City and Albert Wesker. Your mate.”
Claire’s eyes widen, spinning around. She stares at Leon, the way his face is paling, but his eyes are getting angry. She swallows, taking a deep breath. Leon’s hand flies to his throat, cupping around the right side – the only side she had ever seen a mating mark. He stumbles to his feet, teeth grit. “Don’t you dare try and push him into Birkin’s shit.”
Claire can’t help the fury in her voice. “You never told me… I… Wesker was your mate?”
Leon’s head whips to her, confusion marring the anger on his face. “He wanted to keep it quiet. I didn’t need people prying into our relationship especially with an age gap. Didn’t really want my mate’s name out there considering how many Umbrella corps I piss off on a monthly basis.”
“You’re really going to pull this?” Chris scoffs. “You’re kidding me, Leon. I thought you had more tact than this.”
“What the fuck are you going on about?” Leon sways on his feet, blinking rapidly. Horror slowly takes over his face, swallowing, his hand clamping down on his throat hard. “Where is he?”
Chris’ face wavers, looking at Claire. She licks her lips. “Leon, what do you know about Raccoon City?”
His gaze turns to her, breathing heavily. “It was Birkin. Ran Umbrella, created the T-Virus. It was made in his eugenics programme. That’s it. That’s what happened.”
Claire wavers, meeting Chris’ eyes. Chris slowly sits down, swallowing. “Leon… Sit down.”
Leon shakes his head, eyes watering up. “Where is Albert?”
Chris winces at the name, swallowing. He looks down at his hands for a moment. Claire hovers, hands waiting to hold onto Leon. Chris meets his eyes. “Wesker is dead. As of a few weeks ago. He was neutralised in a BSAA operation in West Africa.”
Claire barely gets to the couch in time as Leon’s legs go out from under him, a pained noise leaving his throat. His breathing speeds up, gasps escaping his lips as he tries his best to catch it. Chris frowns, standing up. He helps Claire sit him on the couch as she kneels in front of him, holding his hands. “Leon, breathe with me.”
His eyes are frantic, searching the room. His chest is too tight, too loose, can’t hold air or pull it in. A heavy hand sits on his shoulder, squeezing. It grounds him a little, head swimming. He struggles to pull in a brief puff of air, lungs burning. Something sticks out in his brain.
“A-Africa?”
Chris makes a noise of acknowledgement, licking his lips.
“He was in Europe. France. At some conference on virology. He wasn’t… He had no reason to be in Africa.”
The room spins and he collapses against the back of the couch. Claire winces at the keen that leaves his throat, fingers running over the scarring on his throat, a forever mark that Wesker is indeed gone. He suddenly leans forward and Claire barely manages to get out the way as he vomits, gagging hard.
Chris looks at Claire, frowning deeply. He moves across the room, getting a glass of water. Claire takes it, helping Leon take some sips after he wipes his mouth. He pants. “He was in France… I took him to the airport… He got on the flight.”
He heaves a few breaths, slowly sitting up more upright, rubbing his face. “What… What the fuck was the BSAA doing in Africa?”
Claire shakes her head at Chris. He hesitates, sighing. He moves around the couch, avoiding the pile of vomit on the floor, slowly sitting down. Leon looks up at him, face paler than Chris thinks is even humanly possible. He swallows again. “We were investigating an arms dealer. When we got there, we found that a good chunk of the locals were infected with a virus, or, well. A parasite. It links back to Spain a few years ago.”
Leon seems to go paler.
“Whilst we were there, we came across… Umbrella were there, working with Tricell. They wanted to release a virus globally. Wesker was… Wesker was the front of the entire thing.”
Chris’ head ricochets as a slap echoes around the room, Leon taking deep breaths. “He was in France. He would never, he wouldn’t-” Leon breaks himself off, a whine deep in his throat. He shakes his head, clutching his hair.
Claire squeezes his knee. “Leon… He’s telling the truth. I can vouch for that. So can Jill. Rebecca… Wesker was… He was the one that sent the S.T.A.R.S into that situation a few months before what happened in Raccoon City.”
Leon screams, tugging on his hair. Claire makes a soft noise, wrapping an arm around him. He shakes his head until Claire is sure that his brain must be hitting the sides of his skull. He takes a deep breath, gasping.
“No, he… he was going to France. Then he was going to come back, soon, take me to some private resort on an island… A present for our anniversary, it would have been eight y-years. No, he couldn’t…” Leon drifts off, face scrunching up.
Claire holds him close. “Leon, you had no idea did you?”
“He can’t be.” Leon stares at the wall, falling still. “He can’t… Albert packed my bags for me. All the time. Would wake up when my phone rang for a mission, get me a coffee as I rushed around to get dressed. Made sure I was alert for driving to the pick up point. Would always make me a lunch for when I had to go to the office, he- fuck. Albert’s so gentle he can’t be… he wouldn’t, he doesn’t have it in him to…” He drifts off, shaking. “How did he… What happened?”
Claire stares at Chris. Chris swallows.
“The BSAA had to… he turned. We would have preferred to bring him in but he… He transformed into a BOW, Leon. We had no choice. He would have killed us if we let him be.”
Leon whimpers, low, quiet. He leans into Claire, she doesn’t hesitate to hold him as tight as she dares.
Silence surrounds them before he hiccups. “Who?”
“What do you mean?” Claire runs a hand through his hair.
“Who killed him?”
Chris clears his throat. The silence wraps around them, too tightly. “I didn’t have a choice. He was going to kill my mission partner and-”
Claire isn’t sure how anyone can move so fast. Chris is on the floor with a yell, Leon on top of him, fists flying, crashing into Chris’ face. Chris barely has time to get his arms up as Claire tugs on Leon’s shoulders. The third punch doesn’t hit.
Leon collapses on the floor, a scream ripping from his throat. Sobs wrack his body and Chris slowly sits up. Claire wavers next to Leon’s side, watching Chris wipe the blood tracking down his face from a split eyebrow. He shakes his head, slowly standing up. He bends down and Leon screams.
“Don’t you fucking touch me, don’t you dare fucking look at me.”
“Hey, I know. I know you probably want to kill me right now. I know. But Claire can’t carry you. Let me move you to the spare room, alright, and that’s it, you never have to see me again unless you want to, okay?”
Leon slumps, sobbing, staring at the ceiling. Chris takes the opportunity, carefully lifting him into his arms. Leon cusses him out every step, and Chris tries not to take the insults personally. He can’t imagine the flurry of thoughts and grief and horror in Leon’s head right now. He swallows, awkward as he carefully deposits Leon onto the mattress, standing back quickly. Claire pushes at him, hurrying him out of the room as she sits, rubbing Leon’s side as he rolls over. He wails, another keen ripping from his through as he buries his face in the pillow.
Chris finds himself at the kitchen table, head swimming. He stares at the wall, barely noticing when Claire walks in. She slowly sits down, tears in her own eyes. He’s not sure when Leon went silent, the apartment awkwardly quiet.
Chris clears his throat.
Claire sniffs. “He had no idea, Chris. Are you still…”
Chris shakes his head, lighting a cigarette. “No. I’ll close the order on him. He’s not continuing Wesker’s work. He’s in the clear.”
“Why did you tell him?”
Chris takes a long inhale, cherishing the way his lungs burn. “What?”
“That you… you killed him.”
“I wasn’t going to look him in the eye and lie to him. He had every right to know. Needed to know. For himself. Hiding it from him isn’t going to make it any better. Letting him heal to rip that wound open later is doing him a disservice. I’m not going to disrespect a grieving mate like that.” He exhales, looking around at Claire. “Have you got him?”
“I’ll keep him here for a while until he’s a bit more stable.”
Chris stares at the door to the bedroom, body heavy. He’s unsure why a level of regret is coursing through his gut, something barely there, but throbbing ever so slightly.
Leon stares at the wall in the dimming light. Anger courses through his body, trying to decipher everything he was just told. His brain feels numb, like he’s been struck by lightning. One thing sticks solidly in his head.
Wesker is gone. He’ll never come back. His mating mark will never be remade. It’ll always be a scar across his throat, for the rest of his life. And Chris is the reason why.
He sits up, slowly, fists clenching the blanket that Claire had gently placed over him. He knows where Claire keeps her spare gun, he could get it without them realising he’s on his feet. He could take revenge. He could avenge his lover.
His fists shake as he pulls the blanket back before he freezes.
He remembers it, the night of their honeymoon.
Well, not a honeymoon. Wesker never wanted an official marriage. Between Leon’s job and Wesker’s work as a virologist – or, well, whatever he’d been up to – they’d agreed that having official documents would likely be a bad idea, dangerous. When they had decided to mate officially, not just nips on one another but fully, knotting, mating marks, claiming one another, Wesker had flown them off to some island in Greece, a private villa just for them. It would have been their honeymoon had the circumstances been different.
Leon remembers, laying in the bed, sheets pooled around his waist, Wesker’s hand gently on his hip. He’d asked Wesker why him, why him and not someone that Wesker could connect with better, worked with, could see more often, without Leon rushing off in the middle of the night to some godforsaken death trap of a mission.
“You’re kind. Maybe too much for your own good.”
He had pulled Leon closer, lips ghosting over the side of his throat.
“I used to think it was a weakness, a curse but… you show me how that becomes a strength worth fighting for.”
Leon stares at his shaking hands, tears pouring down his face.
What is he thinking.
Chris said it himself. He did what he had to to protect his mission partner. Leon has surely done the same to many like himself right now. He wouldn’t hesitate to do the same if it came down to it. Chris was doing his job – a job that Leon was left entirely in the dark about.
Wesker adored him for his kindness, for that gentle understanding he gave everyone, even if they may not fully deserve as much as he gave them. The way his gentle hands were there when someone needed help, the way he would roll his eyes if someone asked him to do something but usually nearly always did. The way he had given up his life to be kind and make sure Sherry was never alone.
Wesker would never want to see him fall like this, would be frowning deeply at him, almost disgusted if he heard the thoughts in Leon’s brain.
The thought comes to him in an instant as if Wesker whispered it gently in his ear.
Your worst is better than my best; don’t become like me.
Chris jumps at the soul wrenching scream coming from the bedroom. He meets Claire’s eyes, both of them concerned, breaths catching in their throats. Claire’s eyes are tearing up and Chris swallows. “Have you got him?”
Claire nods, wiping her cheek for a moment. “Go. Go sort out this paperwork before every agency out there is looking for him. You can’t do anything here but go, protect him whilst he figures this out.”
Chris nods, putting the cigarette out in the ashtray, sighing heavily.
He’s not sure how he gets to his car, sitting in the driver’s seat and staring out of the window. He was protecting Sheva. He was protecting himself, in self-defence. He was stopping the world being taken over by a virus.
He starts the engine, Leon’s scream echoing around his head as he backs out of the parking space.
Why does he feel like he ruined more than he saved?