Work Text:
When the persistent aches start, Leon assumes it’s just his age finally catching up with him. Life hasn’t exactly been gentle on his body, and it’s something of a miracle that he made it into his late forties at all. He has spent almost three decades fighting—for survival, for the mission, for the wellbeing of others—to the point where some achy joints are really to be expected.
It doesn’t stop him from continuing to put his all into his work. He trains his body, more muscular than it has ever been before, and goes where the DSO sends him. He pushes through the strain in his knees, fights to keep his aim steady through a weakened shoulder, and tries not to succumb to how his vertebrae feel like they’re grinding together in an attempt to fuse into rigidity.
Short of the morphine drip he has for a couple days after getting shot up on a mission, painkillers don’t help. Leon has never planned for retirement, considering his job wasn’t his choice to begin with and there was a high chance he’d die young in the line of duty anyway, but now he has to wonder how much longer he’ll be of any use to the government.
It doesn’t take long for Chris to notice.
One evening when Leon has slumped into their couch to take a breather, his sore back bent forward and elbows braced on his knees, Chris comes up behind him, placing his hands on Leon’s shoulders in warning before digging both his thumbs into the muscle, immediately finding knots that need working out. Leon grimaces to himself, but doesn’t brush Chris off; no pain no gain, and if Chris can smooth out some of the tension with his strong, sure grip, Leon might just drag him into their bedroom to celebrate.
“You should take some time off,” Chris says.
Leon grins wryly, knowing that if Captain Chris Redfield is suggesting he take a break, then the situation has become serious. Neither of them takes time off much, Leon because he’s always on call, and Chris because he’s still just as married to the job as he is married to Leon.
“You know it isn’t that easy,” Leon mutters.
Chris makes a noise in his throat that might as well be a growl. In contrast, his hands become gentler on Leon’s shoulders, his palms leaving warmth behind as he smooths them over Leon’s shoulder blades. “I’ll make something up about the BSAA needing you on as a consultant if I have to.”
He absolutely would, Leon knows. Ever since Chris learned more about Leon’s unique work contract with the DSO, he’s had a chip on his shoulder about the whole thing, to the point where Leon wouldn’t put it past him to storm into HQ and take no prisoners.
“You gonna take time off too?” Leon asks. It doesn’t feel like there’s much point to taking a vacation unless they get to spend the time together instead of one of them always at risk of needing to get on a plane within the hour, away from home for what could be days or even weeks.
“Yeah, maybe I will.”
So the situation really is that serious.
Maybe Chris is right. Maybe he’s just tired, worn out, in need of recuperation. Maybe if he has some downtime—and if Chris keeps kneading the knots out of his muscles like this—he’ll be back to feeling normal in no time.
“Alright,” he agrees.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Pull your strings, Cap, get us some damn vacation time.”
Chris chuckles and leans closer over the back of the couch, arms coming to wrap around Leon. A kiss is pressed into Leon’s hair. “I’ll get it done,” he promises.
Relaxing in his husband’s embrace, Leon lets out a sigh of relief. This will be good for both of them, he thinks. It’s just what he needs to get back into working shape. Maybe his performance will even improve enough that the DSO will see the benefit in giving their top operative some real time off once in a while.
Despite the aches, Leon’s spirits feel high.
By some miracle, Chris gets them off the hook for an entire month. They might as well be on a full sabbatical instead of a measly vacation, especially compared to Leon’s usual experience of being offered a week and then being called in anyway before he has had more than two days to himself. They go overseas for a fresh landscape, landing in Italy where they can both swim in vast oceans and take long, winding drives through the mountains.
The aches don’t exactly dissipate, but Leon does feel lighter, happier. He even feels relatively normal, like they’re just another middle-aged tourist couple doing all the things normal tourists do. It occurs to him that his job has taken him all over the world, yet there was never an opportunity to enjoy it. He’s usually too busy getting shot at or chased down.
There’s no outbreak, no giant BOW, no government conspiracy—nothing.
Nothing except Leon and his deteriorating body.
It starts as a pinch in his sternum that barely registers amidst the much more pleasant feeling of warm water and Chris’ arms around his waist, but the pinch becomes a sting, and then a searing gouge right in his chest that has him jolting upwards, a strangled gasp on his lips.
Poison, Leon thinks, then: parasite.
Pulsing and squirming, sending death through his veins. He has felt it before, over two decades ago now. Leon’s fingers clutch at the edges of the bathtub, water sloshing over the sides as he writhes, and Chris’ voice is echoing at a distance, peaked with alarm. The hands that were resting idly over his stomach now grip at his waist, turning him, keeping him above water.
Las Plagas is a living thing. Active and carving its way through him. Rotting in his blood, pooling in his lungs, grasping for his spine and nervous system. Wants to scorch him from the inside out and take over the husk that remains.
The water splashes harder as Leon finds himself lifted out of the tub. He groans as the pain swells through him, in his chest, his shoulder, a pinprick spot in the side of his neck.
“Leon,” he hears, “Leon, look at me.”
He tries, sucking in a harsh breath as he focuses his eyes and finds Chris above him, his brow pinched and eyes intense with something Leon’s brain can’t find the right words to describe. Those eyes search Leon’s, assessing. Fingers on his neck bring attention to his pattering heartbeat.
“Stay awake, alright?” Chris says. With one arm, he supports Leon’s weight, and with the other, he grabs for one of the plush towels on the bathroom counter, bringing it around Leon’s shoulders.
They’re both naked and dripping. Leon’s skin crawls with goosebumps even though the water had been plenty warm and soothing. They’d gone out of their way to book a nice place, a place with a tub that could accommodate both of them, muscles and all. It was supposed to be relaxing.
Can’t catch a break even while trying to take a warm bath. Leon lets out a rush of breath that’s somewhere between a laugh and a wheeze. The pain racing through him hasn’t lessened, but he is beginning to tolerate it, as he’s done with every other painful experience in his life. Take it in stride, push through it, let it fall into the background so he can focus on the mission.
But this isn’t a gunshot wound or a broken bone. The fucking plaga. Leon’s thoughts crumble back into chaos.
Chris lifts him up, carrying him from the room. Leon focuses on breathing and keeping his eyes open, like Chris instructed, while Chris lays him on the hotel bed and snatches up one of their phones, whichever is closest, and dials frantically.
He needs to know.
Reaching out a trembling hand, Leon gets a grip on Chris’ arm, drawing his attention even while he waits for someone to pick up on the other end of the line.
“Plagas,” Leon gasps. “It’s—I can feel—”
A new wave of pain makes him cut himself off with a grunt. It’s both in his chest and neck, the two pulsing in counterpoint. He gives up the battle with words and goes limp on the mattress, letting his head rest on the pillow. From the wide-eyed alarm on Chris’ face, he got the message well enough.
Leon allows himself to go hazy after that, trusting Chris to take care of him. Having someone who can watch his back like this isn’t a luxury he’s had for most of his career, but having it now is the one consolation that acts as a buffer against the impending feeling that he’s infected and may not survive it this time.
People like them don’t go to regular hospitals, where the doctors aren’t prepared for viruses and wounds dealt by BOWs. They end up in medical evac transport to the closest European BSAA base.
They do scans and X-rays, even an MRI. There is no parasite, they assure him. The place in his chest where the parasite once grew a couple decades prior is still healthy, albeit scarred. His brain doesn’t show any signs of alteration or deterioration.
When the nurse leaves Leon and Chris alone together in Leon’s room, the two of them gaze at each other with matching looks of disquiet.
“I’m well acquainted with what Las Plagas feels like,” Leon says, frustration lacing his tone. “I didn’t imagine it.”
Chris takes his hand. “I know. There must be something going on, it’s just not what the doctors were looking for.”
Leon nods. It’s a terrifying notion, that whatever’s rampaging through him is going undetected, but it’s at least gratifying to have Chris on his side. After closing his eyes, Leon admits something he never would have a mere few years ago: “I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t in pain.”
The hand curled around his own tightens, clutching his fingers in a warm embrace. Chris doesn’t offer any empty platitudes, only his steady, loving touch. They don’t know what they’re dealing with, and Leon’s body feels like every single injury he has ever received is once again fresh and raw, but if he focuses on the familiar, callused grip of Chris’ hand, he can just about forget everything else.
Not long after, the necrosis starts. It doesn’t hurt any more than usual, so it’s Chris who first notices it. They’re waking up in bed together, Leon’s back flush with Chris’ chest and Chris’ arms wrapped protectively around him. Mornings always come with joint stiffness now, but until Leon gets up and starts moving around, the pain isn’t too bad. He remains pliant in Chris’ hold as Chris presses his nose to Leon’s shoulder, relaxed and familiar until it all of the sudden isn’t. Chris jolts, the hand on Leon’s hip tightening even as the rest of him draws away, startled.
Leon lets out a sleepy grunt of question, rolling enough to look over his shoulder.
Cautiously, Chris’ hand lifts to touch the base of Leon’s neck instead, his fingers dragging over a spot that Leon registers as not feeling quite right, like the usual pressure and sensation is dulled, faraway.
“What the fuck,” Chris mutters, less a question and more an expression of fear that makes Leon’s stomach twist.
“What?”
“I… don’t know.” Chris isn’t usually one to speak with such hesitation, such uncertainty. “It’s like… but it can’t be.”
“What?” Leon repeats, stressing the word as he raises his own hand to feel whatever has Chris scrambling for his usual unwavering resilience.
His fingers meet with roughened flesh, like a particularly thick callus. Shrivelled and pinched, hardened, almost petrified. It doesn’t hurt, at least not to press against—the ache in the muscle is ever present, but the skin itself is like dry rot. Lacking intact nerve endings or blood flow. Leon traces the shape of it, following the veins of the mass stretching out down the curve of his shoulder.
The breath leaves him in a shudder. He turns further, onto his back, and yanks up the front of his shirt to inspect the rest of his skin. Strangely, the site of his past Plagas infection bears no similar marks, even if the pain remains like a stubborn scar.
There is, however, an arc of bruises across his left palm, pinpricks of blackened skin standing stark against the rest.
“Fuck,” he grunts as he lets his head drop back onto the pillow, any panic that might be trying to rise getting tamped down under sheer, life-long exhaustion.
The X-ray results he was shown at the BSAA float into his mind, the images clear and normal, no traces of infection in sight. His bloodwork certainly wasn’t normal, but that’s not news—none of them have normal bloodwork anymore. Even Chris has been infected at least once, and Leon and Jill’s tests would give normal doctors a heart attack. So it’s not Plagas, and he has probably been symptomatic for way longer than the incubation periods for anything he’s encountered before, but something is definitely wrong with him.
“Maybe we should call Rebecca,” he says, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.
He wonders if he’s in shock, or whatever passes for it, with people like him and Chris, who have seen too much to be easily knocked off-kilter.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m going to do that,” Chris replies. He sounds shaken. Scared.
Chris never sounds scared.
Leon continues staring at the ceiling as he listens to Chris roll over and grab his phone off the nightstand, fingers tapping furiously at the screen. Leon pushes his thumb against the bruises on his opposite palm, feeling the rough patches and the dulled sensation beneath them.
Palm and neck—that’s unique. The pain is everywhere, especially where he’s been injured before, but these two locations must mean something, strange as they are. Most infections attack the brain or nervous system.
He thinks back to the missions he was on for the DSO leading up to the onset, but nothing immediately stands out as a potential infection risk.
Maybe, after all this time—all the outbreaks and infections he’s lived through, all the strain and damage his aging body has taken—it’s all catching up with him. Maybe something latent has finally woken, or something dormant has mutated.
“Up for a drive to Chicago?” Chris’ voice breaks through his thoughts.
“Not without breakfast first,” Leon responds automatically, despite the dread simmering under his skin.
There’s a deadly silent pause before Chris exhales a rush of breath, letting out a strangled chuckle. It shatters the eerie disconnect in Leon’s head, his own laugh following in tandem. It’s not that funny, it’s ridiculous; their lives are ridiculous. But if he’s dying, he’s not going to do it after missing breakfast.
“Okay,” Chris says after drawing in a stabilizing breath. “Breakfast, and then we’ll hit the road.”
He leans over Leon, bringing a hand to his face and cupping his cheek tenderly before closing the distance between them. The kiss feels like a promise, conveying sentiments they still struggle to put into words. It sends a soothing energy through Leon, the pain in his body momentarily dropping into the background as he basks in the sense that Chris will do anything in his power to make sure Leon survives whatever new virus is spreading through his veins.
If anyone can pull off such a thing, Leon knows it’s his husband. He couldn’t be held in safer hands.
Pain or not, Leon doesn’t plan to lessen his workout routine. If anything, it just pushes him to work harder, to push his body further, breaking past the aches to keep himself strong and resilient. He may very well need to be in peak shape to make it out on the other side. He runs harder, lifts heavier weights, pummels punching bags until they need to be replaced.
And when he’s drenched in sweat, gasping for breath, he takes a vial of the serum Rebecca engineered for him and shoots it into his neck, slumping onto a bench along the wall of the DSO’s gym as the stuff spreads through his veins to fight back the infection. It’s no cure, but it's an immediate relief that helps him keep going for a while longer, hopefully for as long as it takes.
It’s late into the evening, a time at which Leon figured he’d have the gym to himself, as he wanted, so when he hears the clatter of the heavy doors being pushed open on the other side of the room, his brow furrows. He grabs his towel and slings it around his neck, covering up any signs of his infection that aren’t obscured under his workout shirt or gloves.
He’s surprised to see Sherry making her way between the equipment towards him.
Leon stands and goes to meet her partway, a sense of foreboding prickling at his nape when he sees how stiffly she’s carrying herself, like she’s about to deliver bad news.
“Sherry,” he greets softly as they come to stand together between a couple exercise machines. “It’s good to see you.”
It always is—even all these years later, with the DSO recognizing Sherry as a full agent in her own right, as capable as any other, it still feels like a luxury that they’re free to see each other whenever they choose, unlike the early years, when Sherry was constantly guarded and monitored, subjected to testing for her unique antibodies.
She smiles, and while it reaches her eyes, there’s still an edge of tightness in it that does nothing to alleviate Leon’s growing worries.
“You too,” she agrees. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about, if you have a moment.”
Leon nods. It occurs to him that she’s standing with her back square to the camera installed in the corner of the room; it’s a government building, surveillance is expected in every nook and cranny, and whatever it is she wants to talk about, she doesn’t want any of the security staff to read the words on her lips.
Smart, to both choose such a public location and yet avoid being recorded. It won’t come across as suspicious.
“What’s wrong?” Leon asks her at a low murmur, knowing well enough from all the evidence piling up that something is troubling her.
Sherry swallows thickly, her throat bobbing with it. “I think… well, I’m not sure what to think, exactly, only that there are few people I can trust to discuss this with,” she starts. She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, then glances down at her hands, which she’s wringing together.
She’s wearing gloves. She doesn’t usually, even in the field.
The foreboding feeling slithering through Leon’s veins reaches a peak.
“Sherry,” he says again, voice strained. He takes one of her hands, and she lets him, lets him tug at the leather in careful movements so the action is blocked from view between their bodies. The right comes off first, revealing perfectly normal skin, but Leon already has a good idea of what he’ll see on the left.
On her, the marks are twisting around the base of her fingers, some spindly patches reaching down into her palm and others up to the rest of her knuckles. She has moved her wedding ring onto her pinky finger to keep it away from the decaying flesh. Leon sucks in a sharp breath as he stares at the bruises, the dread he’s been keeping under the surface finally threatening to spill over. It’s one thing for him to be infected, but it’s another to see Sherry similarly affected.
She must be wracking her brain as much as he has been, wondering if it could be a side-effect of the G-Virus somehow only now cropping up after decades. It can’t be that, though, when Leon has never been infected with that strain. As far as he knows, she hasn’t been infected with T or Plagas. They don’t typically work in the field together either. As much as the DSO has loosened their restrictions on their association, they still send Leon out alone, and Sherry usually on more covert missions, the government not so quick to risk someone with her unique ability.
“It’s not just you,” Leon tells her. He pulls his own glove off to show her, watching as her eyes widen in shock and fear. “Are you in pain?”
Her gaze snaps up to him, away from his palm. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Sometimes my arms…?” She rubs one palm into the crook of her opposite elbow. It makes Leon think of how many times she’s had blood drawn from there, or IVs stuck into her.
“Good, that’s good.”
“Are you in pain?” she asks warily.
He shrugs. “Some. The usual aches being a bit more troublesome than usual.”
She squints at him like she’s trying to determine if he’s lying; she’s too familiar with how Leon prefers to push such things aside before someone can decide he needs to be corralled into an examination room.
“I’m fine, Sherry,” he stresses as he pulls his glove back on. “You know Rebecca Chambers, the virologist Chris knows from S.T.A.R.S.?”
Blinking in surprise, Sherry nods, sufficiently distracted by the change in topic. “Yeah, I’ve met her, but that’s it. Why?”
“She’s already studying it, trying to figure out what she can. For now, she can make a serum that slows down the progress. You can trust her, I promise.”
Sherry nods again, her next smile a little softer than before. “If you trust her, then so do I.”
“If anyone can figure this out, it’s Rebecca,” Leon replies.
It’s what he’s been telling himself, at least; Rebecca is a genius, but she’s not a miracle worker, and she hasn’t been given much to work with. He and Chris have been at a loss for how to get her more information, beyond letting her take as many samples as she needs to pour over.
They’ve both worked with worse odds, though, Leon supposes.
He lifts his unmarked hand to place it on Sherry’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Sherry responds by tugging her glove back on before placing her hand on top of Leon’s, fingers tucked around it and holding it in place, like she doesn’t want him to draw away too soon. It makes Leon’s chest cinch tight. Makes him think of that empty, dusty road the two of them and Claire emerged to after escaping on the Umbrella transport train, where Sherry grasped both Leon and Claire’s hands, linking the three of them together as they began their trek back to civilisation.
“Keep in touch, alright?” he tells her. “If anything happens, if it gets worse…”
Sherry squeezes his hand again. “I know, I will. And if I learn anything, you’ll be the first to know.”
If Leon didn’t already have plenty of reason to find an answer to this new infection, he certainly would now. He has, and will, do anything it takes to protect Sherry, ever since the two of them were picked up by government officials after Raccoon City so many years ago. She’s far from the little girl she was back then, but time and age hasn’t changed how Leon feels about her. She’ll always be like a daughter to him, and he’ll always be there for her if she needs him, even if it’s the last thing he does.
If the DSO knew about Leon’s new condition, which they don’t, they would probably still keep him on the same workload as always, business as usual. He would probably still be traversing a weapons-manufacturing plant where experiments have gotten out of hand, essentially acting as a solo cleanup crew for the company’s dangerous mistakes. Leon tries not to let it get under his skin, though it’s been getting progressively harder to brush aside the more Chris implores him not to put up with it anymore.
It isn’t so clear anymore if Sherry is still at risk now that she has been as much of an agent as Leon is for over a decade; the DSO has relaxed the restrictions on both of them, and the government branch is at least better than it was under its previous name, but Leon knows better to trust in a leash that just so happens to have more slack than it once did.
Still, when a giant hunter swings an arm into his gut and sends him flying into a concrete pillar, his thoughts manage to latch onto the possibility of handing in his resignation in between the blaring of agony through his body.
On paper, this facility is meant to be developing weapons that are more effective against tougher BOWs. Not only have they failed at that, their targets have broken containment. Leon grits his teeth in both irritation and pain.
He struggles to take in a breath, every little movement enough to send harsher pangs along his spine. From his slumped position at the base of the pillar, he can only fight to stay conscious and grab for the magnum holstered on his thigh. Once he gets it steady in his hand, he blasts the approaching hunter off its feet, sending it similarly careening into a storage container, where it collapses in a heap.
“Fair’s fair,” Leon gasps out. He gets his hand balanced on his knee, finger still hovering on the trigger as he waits to see if the hunter will get back up.
It does. Leon grunts and squeezes the trigger again, the recoil sending shockwaves through his core, doubling the pain.
Like lightning, it strikes through him, seizing in his muscles and stabbing through each vertebra, reminding Leon first of Arias, then of the tyrants in the Eastern Slav Republic. Pain lances up through his chest, aching deeper where the plaga parasite sat, and then he’s slumping over to the side as a cough hacks out of him, splattering blood on the dusty floor.
Leon shudders and gasps between coughs, his throat both raw and wet, gurgling with blood. His head swims, his eyes going unfocused. Another sputter of blood paints the concrete. He manages to spit more from his mouth, aiming to clear his airway. It burns, leaving him feeling flayed.
Distantly, he notes he can’t hear the hunter anymore. Dead, thank fuck.
He doesn’t know how long he stays there, shaking and regrouping, before he remembers Rebecca’s serum. With a trembling hand, he pulls the snaps on one of his belt pouches and scrabbles for a syringe, lifting it to his neck.
He’s been thrown harder than this before, and it didn’t end in coughing up blood. If the fight with Arias hadn’t done it, one measly hunter shouldn’t be able to.
At the pinch of the needle, he hisses, finding his body more sensitive than usual. He drops the empty syringe mindlessly, listening to it clatter on the floor.
He’s nearly done here. Just one more area to clear, and the hunters likely didn’t make it that far anyway. One final push and then he can call extraction.
For a second, he considers calling Hunnigan, but thinks better of it just as quickly. He trusts her with everything in him, but he hesitates to pull her into this. Doesn’t want to put her in the position of withholding information from the higher ups, even though he knows she would keep his secret without even needing to be asked.
Sighing, Leon lets his eyes close. With the serum winding through him, the pain is ebbing away. The metallic taste of blood lingers on his tongue. He can feel it drying sticky on his lips and chin.
He probably shouldn’t tell Chris about this, either. His days of keeping the full nature of his wounds to himself are mostly behind him, at least with Chris, but there’s nothing either of them can do about this. It doesn’t change anything. It will only make Chris more worried than he already is.
With a grunt, Leon presses a hand back against the cracked pillar and uses the leverage to propel himself up and forward, onto his feet. There, he sways for a moment, breath laboured and body aching, but he keeps his balance, keeps upright. Time to continue on and get the job done so he can go home and crash. The DSO can wait a few hours for his report.
He keeps his magnum on hand as he starts forward, tilting it and spinning the cylinder to check on his ammo. If he runs into any trouble, this should take care of things quickly enough.
“At least one of us can still pack a punch,” he mutters to the gun as he continues forward, leaving blood-splattered concrete in his wake.
Leon sits at the kitchen table with his hands curved around a mug of steaming coffee, the warmth pleasant against his sore knuckles. The temperature is dulled where the mug meets with his infection bruises. Through the window above the sink, he can see the pale blues and burgeoning yellows of sunrise as a new day begins.
The absence of Chris moving through the kitchen as he makes them breakfast is starker than it ever has been before. In their line of work, they know their time could be cut short at any moment, unexpectedly and tragically, yet Leon never thought much about how many mornings he and Chris might have left together until these past few weeks as the marks on his skin darken and worsen.
Chris is following a lead that might get them more information on the virus, he reminds himself. There’s no point in being so morose. Maybe Chris will return home with all the answers and this will finally be over in the blink of an eye. Maybe they can take another vacation, make up for the last one getting cut short.
Leon lifts his mug to his mouth and takes a long drink, tension loosening from his shoulders as the drink sends warmth radiating through him.
About halfway through his mug, the doorbell rings. Leon picks up his phone to check the cameras—they aren’t expecting anyone, and with the things they get involved in, they can never be too careful.
It’s just a mailperson, holding a package under their arm as they wait on the porch.
Leon stands and rolls his shoulders back to a symphony of joints cracking, then heads for the door. He doesn’t remember ordering anything; he frowns in thought over what it could be as he unlocks the door and pulls it open.
“Good morning,” the person on the porch says. “I’ve got a package for Christopher Redfield here.”
Maybe Chris ordered something and forgot to mention it.
“He’s away, but I can take it for him,” Leon says. He raises his left hand, flashing the wedding band on his ring finger. Luckily the marks are still localized to his palm, turned away and hidden from view.
With a smile, the mailperson nods. “Got it. The sender requested it be signed for.” They hand Leon a little screen where he draws his signature with a finger, and then they trade the screen for the package. Sure enough, Chris’ name is on the front, though the return address gives Leon pause. It sounds familiar, but he can’t immediately place it.
“Have a nice day,” the mailperson says.
Leon manages a similar reply on autopilot, but his mind is already elsewhere. He shuts the door and takes the package back to the kitchen table, where he scans the address on his phone to find it on a map.
He blinks in surprise when the image of a small town close to Raccoon City pops up. Instantly, it clicks: that empty dirt road at the end of Umbrella’s line had taken them to a small town, where they stopped and got a motel room so they could clean up and rest, Claire and Sherry on the double bed and Leon stretched out on the couch across from them. They’d stayed there until Claire had matters settled to take her abroad, hopefully to find Chris, and then the US government had caught up with Leon and Sherry not long after.
Grabbing a knife off the kitchen counter, Leon slices through the packaging tape eagerly. “What have you got for me, Sherry,” he mutters under his breath as he pulls the box open, finding it stuffed with a lot of packaging paper around a small case, the box deceptively sized for its contents. As covert as the addresses.
In the case, there’s a USB drive and an earpiece.
She found something, Leon realizes. Something big. He can guess the earpiece is on its own network, separate from the DSO’s channels. The USB, he knows, will tell him where he’s going, who he’s hunting, and how he can find answers for their strange condition.
Leon downs the rest of his coffee in a couple big mouthfuls. Time to get to work.
What feels like an age and a half later, Leon feels an age and a half younger. His mind is still scrambling to catch up with everything that has happened in the last couple days, from the Wrenwood Hotel, to the Rhodes Hill care centre, to the ruins of Raccoon City and beyond. With the vaccine coursing through him, old aches he hadn’t even realized he had have gone quieter. To think the T-Virus has been with him all these years, latent and biding its time, finally overcoming his immune system to try killing him three decades after his initial exposure. He almost didn’t make it. Wouldn’t have, without Grace.
The young woman in question is dozing nearby, her head tipped back against the truck seat and her arms locked around Emily, who is curled up between them, miraculously healed and also asleep. All three of them are still smudged with dirt and grime, splattered with blood, but in this moment, they’re safe.
The man behind the wheel is someone Leon still only knows as “Umber Eyes”. Chris’ squad tends to refer to each other by their code names—or nicknames based on their code names—even when they’re not in the field. In the front passenger seat is Tundra. The rest of the squad is in a second truck on the road behind them. With their presence, it wasn’t too difficult to whisk Emily away from the Rhodes Hill local authorities, after she’d been looked over by the paramedics.
Leon looks down at the girl in the seat beside him, his heart squeezing at the memory of what she’d become when her injuries proved too much for her little body to withstand. It’s a miracle that she’s sitting here next to him, alive and human, despite the bullets Leon was forced to fire at her.
It twists his gut to think about it. Her survival only slightly dims the guilt.
Leon sighs softly to himself as he pulls out his phone in search of something to do with his hands. He hasn’t had a chance to look at it since the last time Sherry sent him information to follow. Even if he hadn’t been busy fighting for his life, he wouldn’t have had any service so far below the ruins of Raccoon City.
Predictably, he has about a dozen missed calls and texts. Leon has half a mind to swipe them all away, until he notices one contact listed repeatedly.
Hunnigan. Fuck.
He clicks on the callback button and leans into the truck door as he brings the phone up to his ear, letting the calm rumbling of the vehicle travel through him.
Half a second after the first ring, the line opens, and Hunnigan’s voice cuts through the quiet. “Oh, so you are alive. Good to know. I wish I’d known it sooner.”
“Sorry,” Leon replies, genuinely apologetic. Beneath Hunnigan’s sharp tone, he can hear her concern. “Things got messy for a bit there.”
“Things always get messy. That doesn’t stop you from checking in when you can.”
Leon winces. “How much do you already know?”
“I know you and Birkin have gone borderline rogue on an unsanctioned mission that involved not one, but two minor outbreaks. I know you located Elpis, which turned out to be an antiviral. I’ve seen Victor Gideon’s files on the Raccoon City Syndrome. I don’t know the rest, but I can connect some dots,” she says. “I could have helped, Leon.”
“I know,” Leon says with a sigh. “I know. But I didn’t want to put you in a tough position.”
Hunnigan makes an inelegant noise, which isn’t like her at all. She must really be irritated with him this time. Still, Leon doesn’t fear repercussions or losing her over this—he knows Hunnigan is one of the people in his life he can trust the most, and that’s why she’s so upset.
“We’re okay,” he says softly. “Sherry and I. And those we met along the way.”
His gaze sweeps across the truck to land on Grace. Her long exhales are rustling her hair in little, soft movements.
Hunnigan breathes just as deeply over the line, like she’s forcibly stabilizing herself. “Okay. Good.” She pauses, then adds, “don’t tell me where you are.”
Leon’s jaw clenches. He fights to not grind his teeth together; he doesn’t have to ask why she’s suggesting plausible deniability. The DSO has probably already started hounding her for information on him and Sherry, as the most likely person to have any information at all, outside of the BSAA.
“Hope they aren’t causing too much of a headache.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Hunnigan says with a casual confidence she has more than earned. Her tone has smoothed out, the tension bleeding out now that they’re touching base. A relief for both of them. “In any case, I have vacation days to use up.”
Leon chuckles. “Let me know when you have some free time and we can catch up, then.”
Now that all is said and done, Hunnigan deserves to know the details. Leon won’t hesitate to share them—off the record. There’s nothing the DSO can do to meddle with what has already been finished, and Hunnigan is far more to him than a handler. She has been a steady and reliable force in his life for years, through some of his worst days.
“I’ll hold you to it,” she replies. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
“I will,” Leon promises. “You too.”
She hums in agreement. “Get some rest, Agent Kennedy. That’s an order.”
Leon smiles to himself. “Yes, ma’am.”
They hang up and Leon drops his hand into his lap, taking a breather before looking at the rest of his messages. There are two missed calls from Chris, but they already had a minute to at least hear each other’s voice when Umber Eyes had offered Leon his radio once things were sorted out above the ARK. They’ll see each other soon. Another couple hours of travel time at most. There are also a couple texts from Claire and Rebecca apiece. Leon will be seeing them soon, too.
Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Leon lets his tired eyes close. Grace and Emily have the right idea, and Hunnigan agrees. Within a couple minutes, Leon drifts off, hoping that by the time he wakes, he won’t have to wait a single minute longer to have his husband’s arms around him.
Leon stirs to the sense of the atmosphere around him shifting: the steady quake of a moving vehicle into sudden stillness, the faint rumble of the engine to multiple voices sounding off nearby. He grunts as he squints his eyes open, feeling the familiar stiffness in his joints that comes only from sleeping upright in a vehicle, not from a virus chipping away at him from the inside.
Umber Eyes is out of the driver’s seat; Leon spots him ahead through the windshield, talking to another member of the squad. Tundra is pivoted in the passenger seat, looking back at Leon with an expectant expression like she just said something to wake him up.
The most Leon can manage is an unintelligible grumble.
Tundra snorts and turns back around in her seat, pushing the door open to step out.
They’ve pulled up into a lush, well-maintained courtyard that Leon vaguely remembers from several years back. The massive buildings of the campus stretch out around them, old, prim architecture beginning to take form in the grey light of impending dawn.
Looking to the side, he finds Grace stirring as well, her eyes squinting at him. “We here?” she mumbles.
“Mhm.”
Grace nods faintly and fumbles for the buckle of her seatbelt. Emily isn’t far behind them, letting out a little yawn as she turns further into Grace’s side like she wants to just go back to sleep right away. Leon can’t blame her.
He unbuckles his own seatbelt and moves to follow after Tundra, emerging into the quiet campus.
The doors of the building ahead push open with fervour, catching Leon’s attention, especially when he sees who is coming through them in a rush. Chris scans across the courtyard, then their eyes meet and the two of them are hurrying towards each other, colliding with a grounding force, arms locking around each other.
Leon breathes deeply, taking in Chris’ scent—the shampoo he uses, a faint blend of gunpowder and gun oil. It has been almost three weeks since Chris left for his mission, Leon thinks, which is far too long. Far too long for them to be apart. He accepts that sometimes they both have to go radio silent, focused on their objectives, but acceptance is one thing, liking it is another, and Leon hates when he doesn’t know where his husband is and what horrors he might be facing.
A hand comes up to cradle the side of his neck, and Leon knows Chris is feeling for the necrotic bruises just as much as he’s holding Leon close.
“It’s gone,” Leon murmurs into Chris’ shoulder. “All of it, already gone.”
“I can barely believe it. An antiviral of all things…”
Leon felt the same once the adrenaline of escaping the ARK began to fade. He thought Elpis was a virus, a weapon, something destructive. He thought he was going to die down there, laid to rest beneath the city he couldn’t save. None of them could have predicted the reality of Spencer’s final project, but the marks are all gone, and the way his body feels now is such a stark contrast to the past couple months that his fortune has had time to set in.
As they ease out of their embrace, Chris takes Leon’s left hand, his thumb running across the clear skin of his palm. His touch comes to land on Leon’s wedding band, sliding over the smooth metal. A smile grows on Chris’ face.
Then, he straightens, gaze sweeping over to the truck behind them, shifting back into business mode. Leon turns to see Grace coming towards them with Emily lifted into her arms.
“This is Grace and Emily,” Leon says, gesturing to them in turn. “I wouldn’t have made it out of there if not for Grace.”
Chris nods. “I have a lot to thank you for, then, Grace. I’m Chris. Thanks for bringing my husband back to me. I know he doesn’t make it easy.” He looks like he wants to offer his hand to shake hers, but with her arms full, he settles on a warm smile that eases the lines of his face, making him look years younger.
Leon huffs at the slight jab, but otherwise takes it in stride as the fond exasperation it has become in recent years.
“We wouldn’t have made it out without each other,” Grace stresses, looking between the two of them with such open earnestness. Her gaze then shifts to the building they’re standing in front of. “Um, where are we exactly? Agent Umber said we were seeing a doctor?”
“No ordinary doctor,” Leon answers with a chuckle. “Only the best virologist in the country.”
“Right,” Chris says, gesturing for them to follow as he leads the way back to the doors he blew through just a few minutes prior. “Dr. Rebecca Chambers has been the most capable virologist I know for decades now. She’s studied most of the bioweapon strains and even produced her own cures for a couple of them. If Elpis has any surprises hidden within it, any side effects—she’ll figure it out.”
They step into the building, heading down the hall to Rebecca’s lab. Some of the Hound Wolf Squad are lingering by the door like guards, the rest already inside. Within, Leon spots Rebecca doing a routine examination on none other than Claire Redfield, who looks even healthier than Leon feels. She has crow’s feet these days, like all of them except Jill, but there’s still a bright, youthful aura to her. Obviously, she has already had a dose of Elpis and is in the clear.
Rebecca looks up at the sound of their approach, eyes sweeping over the group of them. “Oh, Leon, you look so well!”
“Thanks,” Leon says, offering her a lopsided smile. “I feel it, too.”
“Good. You’re next,” she says, pointing her index finger at him like a warning. Her attention then lands on Emily, a note of worry in her eyes. “Hi, there. Emily, right? I’m Rebecca. I’m going to make sure you’re all healthy, okay?”
Emily blinks at her, newly-clear eyes roving everywhere to make sense of everything she’s not used to being able to see. “Okay,” she says, quiet but steady.
With that, Rebecca launches into all the tests and examinations she sees fit, and the rest of them do as instructed, having learned many years ago that they can trust Rebecca to take care of them. While Leon is having his turn, he and Claire catch up; Sherry had been the one in contact with Claire, sending her to Rebecca as soon as she got word of Elpis, arranging for her to get a vial as quickly as possible.
They all stay close by as Rebecca looks Emily over, worry evident in all their postures. Grace sits next to her and holds her hand the whole time, as long as she’s not in Rebecca’s way, and all of them breathe a sigh of relief when Rebecca finds herself satisfied with the girl’s response to Elpis. All the while, Emily is placid, alarmingly familiar with and accepting of the examination. She doesn’t flinch at any needles, instead watching it all with mild fascination and not a single complaint, like she’s utterly desensitized.
Leon takes a moment to think good riddance to Dr. Victor Gideon.
Tiredness comes for him again quickly, as it becomes clear that they all really are going to be okay. Leon drifts back into Chris’ space, letting himself slump against his chest and revel in the comforting weight of Chris’ arm around his shoulders.
Rebecca tells them she can have them set up in guest residences on the college campus, allowing them all to clean up and get some proper rest. Before they make it that far, Sherry is the last to arrive with an agitated Jake in tow, the man looking like he’ll start a fight with anyone who gets in the way of his wife obtaining the cure. Leon gets to hand Sherry a vial of Elpis himself, and once the antiviral has taken effect, she throws herself into his arms, prompting him to give her a little spin around, the both of them sharing a smile of relief.
That relief gets dampened when she tugs him to the side, away from the others still catching up.
She doesn’t make Leon wait in worry, instantly speaking in a low, private tone, “The DSO wants you to bring Grace in.”
Leon stiffens, the statement taking a beat to sink in. He looks over his shoulder to find where Grace has settled on the couch Rebecca keeps by the wall of her lab, Emily curled up alongside her. For a second, his mind’s eye sees Sherry instead, small and scared, her long hair tied back in a bun and Claire’s red jacket engulfing her.
“Not happening,” he grunts, turning back to look at Sherry as she is now, grown up and standing before him with a grim expression that likely matches his own.
“I agree,” Sherry says. “I almost didn’t make it out of HQ once they caught wind of what was happening.”
Teeth gritting, Leon imagines what all the DSO might have ordered if given the opportunity. Testing on Sherry, at the very least, before letting her get a dose of Elpis, wanting to take advantage of its slower spread thanks to her G-Virus antibodies. It would have been thirty years ago all over again. And if they manage to get their hands on Emily, too, who fully mutated but was still brought back—no. Not happening.
“How much do they know?” he asks.
“Right now, only the basics, what the media has caught wind of and what they’ve been able to squeeze out of the BSAA. It won’t be long until they’re doing their own investigation, though… is there anything left of Gideon’s research? Anything about Grace, or…?”
Leon shrugs, unsure. A lot of it was likely lost in the lab self-destruct, but the care centre itself was still mostly intact. Gideon had an office there too, not to mention the observation chamber where Emily was held. Leon draws a hand down his face, letting out a sigh.
Sherry grips his free arm in a gesture of reassurance. “We’ll keep Emily from them. Whatever it takes.”
Whatever it takes, as always, even though Leon is tired. Tired of being at the DSO’s beck and call, balancing on the thin line between being the obedient weapon they want and staying true to who he is as a person, stuck on a leash that could be tugged at any moment. He’s tired of being infected and almost dying and having the weight of immeasurable responsibility on his shoulders. He can only hope that with Elpis, the tides have been turned in their favour. It’s at least one family of viruses defanged. A portion of the fight has been won. It won’t satisfy the DSO, though.
The only reason Leon hasn’t slipped the leash is standing before him, with him, sharing in his adamant refusal.
“If you go back to HQ…” he starts.
Sherry’s face hardens. “I know. Believe me, it was at the forefront of my mind the entire drive here. I’m not sure I can…” She shakes her head, steeling herself. “I won’t go back. If not for myself, then for you. We can walk away together.”
Leon’s throat tightens, forcing him to swallow against the ball of emotion building there. He never wanted Sherry to know about how USSTRATCOM convinced him to sign on as an agent, not wanting her to feel responsible for it, or to worry about him, but it has been almost three decades. She’s clever, she has access to the DSO’s databases, and she started getting suspicious after the time Leon and Claire had a falling out years ago, one that took a long time for them to get past. It was inevitable that Sherry would piece it together eventually.
All he can do is open his arms again in invitation. Sherry doesn’t hesitate to step into them, wrapping her own arms around his back.
“Together, then,” Sherry says, understanding him even though he hasn’t said a single word.
The final knot of tension releases within Leon’s chest. He holds Sherry while listening to the room around them, what sounds like a back and forth between Rebecca and Jake, and Chris laughing at a comment from Claire. Even more distantly, there’s the chatter of Chris’ squad, keeping watch for them. He bets Grace has fallen asleep again. All of this will be hitting her the hardest, just as all their first experiences with bioterrorism did once upon a time.
Morning light pours through the lab windows, but Leon is ready to take Rebecca up on her offer of guest accommodations, to remove the last of his combat gear, wash away the remnants of the last couple days, and then tumble into bed alongside his husband.
They’ve got time—everything else can wait for tomorrow.