Archive of Our Own

Letting Grace infect him is something of a last resort.

Victor Gideon is far from a gracious host, and the past weeks under his “care” have been a special kind of hell. Leon wishes he could spare Grace from it all, but these days he barely has the strength to stand, let alone escape. Agony is an old friend, especially ever since the black bruising appeared on his skin. Leon hasn’t had access to any pain medicine for weeks. Even if the constant agony wasn’t exhausting in itself, as the black rot spreads and crawls up Leon’s arms and chest, it steals his strength with it. 

But what’s happening to Grace is so much worse. 

Like Leon, she’s not spared from Gideon’s experiments. If anything she has it worse. Where Leon’s skin is stained black, Grace seems so much paler, which may have to do with Gideon’s constant bloodletting. Patches of her skin have turned ridged and veined, sickly yellow bleeding from her eyes and injuries. But the real kicker is what’s grown from her neck… a skeletal “wing” of flesh, claw and feathers. 

Leon’s still not entirely sure how it happened. Only that Grace vanished for a couple days and when she came back, still delirious off whatever Gideon drugged her with, it was there. 

Her awakening had been… bad. Once the young woman realized it was attached to her she’d desperately tried to get it off by any means necessary. It hadn’t gone well. Leon has heard plenty of agonized screams in his life. But Grace’s cry as she tried to rip the wing off with her own hands will haunt Leon’s nightmares. Despite his waning strength, he managed to snag her arms before she could hurt herself further, bundling her against his chest. (Because the wing was her, wasn’t it? Abnormal but… inescapable.)

Grace screamed and cried and wept. And all Leon could do was hold her, cursing himself and Gideon.

And then, a few more days later, Leon wakes up and he can’t breathe.

It takes a solid minute for him to remember how to squeeze air into his beleaguered lungs. This time Grace holds him as Leon’s body spasms, fighting for what shreds of life he has left. Coughing up blood is routine at this point. But as Leon stares at the blood stained concrete, littered with what he is pretty sure are chunks of his insides, Leon knows, without a shred of doubt, that his time left is numbered in hours.

When Grace finally lays him back down, Leon is left staring at his hand. The rot has crawled all the way up his forearm, and claws tip his fingers. Unnatural and inhuman.

“T-that’s not g-good,” Leon mutters weakly between coughs as he eyes his blackened hand. He knows Gideon’s been doing things to him just like Grace, cutting him open and stitching him back together. Leon’s not sure to what end, but the madman’s disjointed murmurings of “turning their greatest enemy into their greatest asset” hardly bodes well. 

Leon huffs, but it comes out as more of a wheeze. Blood dribbles between his lips. “F-fuck…f-finally hit m-my lim…limit, huh…” 

“No, no, no,” Grace murmurs somewhere above him. She’s cradling his mostly limp body, pressing him close. She’s so so warm, so much warmer than his cold dead skin. “Leon, please—”

“S-s-sorry,” he mumbles. “D-don… wanna.”

Grace clutches him tighter. The heat she radiates seeps into Leon’s deadened muscles like a balm, breathing a little more life into him. He can feel her shift nearby and then she murmurs, “Leon… I… I think I ca-can save you…”

He blinks open his eyes—when did he close them?—to glance hazily in her direction. It’s a nice thought, but Leon’s past saving. “Gr…Grace…”

“Please,” she says, her voice growing stronger. Leon finally manages to focus on her face, the glow of her yellow eyes reflecting off the tears spilling down her cheeks. “I… this thing—” The wing on her neck twitches, flexing slightly. She’s gotten better at controlling it. “It’s… I think it can help.”

“I… don’t…” Leon can’t get another word out before he’s coughing again. Blood fills his mouth, his throat, the taste of iron all encompassing. Iron. Blood. Warmth. Hungry— Leon grits his teeth, shoving the wandering thoughts down, the thought of fangs cleaving flesh. The intrusive thoughts are growing more insistent since his body started truly shutting down, nibbling at his mind.

Grace hums, grip tightening on his arm. Warm. “P-please, Leon,” she begs. “L-let me try.”

And… hell. What’s he got left to lose? His body and sanity are already going… but if Leon dies, then Grace will be left to Gideon’s torment alone. And, as much as he might try to ignore the thought… Leon doesn’t want to die either.

“O-okay,” he murmurs.

Leon’s not really sure how Grace knows what to do… he’s not even sure she knows. But in the end she props him up and whispers a quiet explanation of what she’s going to do. Then she wraps her arms around him. Leon slumps forward into the embrace, not quite able to keep himself upright alone. Grace takes his weight, squeezing him tight with fervor and Leon tries to return it. He can’t quite give her the sort of hug he was known for, before all this—hugs Claire once described solid and steady and safe—but he tries.

In return, Grace squeezes him with desperate abandon, the “wing” pulled from her neck arching in front of his face and over his shoulder to wrap around and support his head. Leon lets his head rest against it, warm pseudo-feathers cushioning his cold skin. At his back he feels several sharp pricks of pain through his numbed flesh. 

“Sorry,” Grace murmurs into his shoulder. Leon can’t see it, but he knows the pain is the claws tipping the end of Grace’s “wing” piercing the skin of his back.

“‘S okay,” Leon mutters, mustering the strength to squeeze his friend a little tighter. Whether it works or not… “Glad I…met you…” he mutters. 

Grace understands. “Me too,” she whispers back.

For the first day, they think Grace’s “counter infection” worked. The agony that’s been Leon’s constant companion for over a month fades along with the rot staining his skin, bruises turning from black to the white of scar tissue. Even the claws on his hands retract, leaving him looking more human than he has in weeks. 

While Leon is still weak and not entirely pain free, he feels like a decade has been lifted off his shoulders. Grace is ecstatic at his recovery and for a time, Leon is too. 

But the second day, Leon wakes up and the pain has returned, just as bad as before, reaching deep into his muscles and bones. It’s particularly bad around his back and shoulders, enough that Leon can barely move. “G-g-guess the b-back pain finally came fo-for me,” Leon quips around gritted teeth, hissing as his muscles involuntarily spasm. “Ow,” he mutters weakly.

They’re both curled on the floor, on the mattress that acts as their bed. Grace lies nearby, her back pressed against his like a hot compress. Leon feels equally bad and grateful that she’s so readily accepted her duty as a heating pad and nurse. She even tried to massage his shoulders to see if that would help the pain after Leon complained of the knots in his muscles. But when even a gentle pressure had Leon screaming into his fist, they both concluded it was a bad idea. 

“If you’ve got steel for muscles, then those knots in your shoulders are titanium,” Grace mutters behind him. It’s a weak quip, and Leon’s pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it, but he’s proud of her for it regardless. 

Leon lets out a pained laugh in response. “You…you sh-should meet Chris… eats rocks for br-breakfast…”

Grace had laughed then. She’s gone now. Not long after, Gideon took her, leaving Leon alone and curled up on the ground in the corner of their cell. Leon’s not sure how long she’s been gone. The pain in his back and burning over his skin has taken away any real attempt at conscious thought. He swims in and out of awareness for what might be hours or days until a familiar, panicked voice cuts through the haze.

“Oh no, nonono, wh-what have I d-done, what have I done—” 

“Gr…Grace?” Leon mumbles, squinting his eyes open. The pale blob that is Grace slowly comes into focus, yellow eyes wide and overflowing with tears. 

“I…I’m sorry, Leon,” she hiccups. “I’m sorry.”

Leon frowns in confusion, opening his mouth to reassure her that none of this is her fault. At his statement, Grace’s expression turns even more pained. She shakes her head, reaching somewhere behind him and— Leon flinches as a sharp shock radiates through his back. Apologies spill from Grace again but Leon’s frozen as his mind registers the pain. As he registers where it came from.

Slowly, despite the low throbbing that permeates every cell, he worms a hand out from under him, reaching past his neck and over his shoulder. His fingers brush… something, fleshy and firm. Static pulses through his nerves again. Carefully, a low dread pooling in his stomach, Leon traces the something down to where it meets… his spine, poking above the low back of his tanktop. 

“Grace?” Leon asks quietly, swallowing the fear threatening to climb his throat. “I… I can’t see… what…?”

When he glances toward her, the young woman blinks furiously, glancing at his back. “I… i-it’s a… two…l-lumps?” She shakes her head, lips pressing together. “Al…almost like arm…arms…” As soon as the words leave her Grace deflates, hugging herself as her breath starts to come faster and faster.

Panic attack.

Leon pulls his fingers away from poking at the… not-limbs sticking from his shoulders. He stretches his hand over to Grace, fumbling but managing to find her arm. Her breath hitches at the touch and after a moment Leon manages to find her hand, giving it a squeeze. I’m here. You’re not alone. The unspoken rhythm they’ve had the past weeks.

Grace slumps down, joining Leon on the floor. She cries, apologies slipping out between every breath. Leon holds her as best he can. 

Later, after they’ve both shed some tears and had a fitful bout of sleep, Grace helps Leon properly sit up. Pain still radiates from his back but it’s duller now. He’s gotten used to its presence again. With Grace’s help Leon takes his shirt off, craning his neck to see what he can of his back. Grace sits behind him, hands clenched in the thin scrubs she wears. 

“Well… we match?” Leon offers, eyeing the appendages sticking from his shoulder blades. They’re a foot and a half long each now, fleshy and new, and still little more than shapeless slender… things. And they ache, like a sore tooth. 

“N-not funny,” Grace mutters, swallowing. Something tangy lingers in the back of Leon’s throat. Sour. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Leon repeats. (And he’ll repeat it as often as he needs to until Grace accepts it.) He sends her a thin smile. “Look at this way, I’m not coughing up blood anymore?” Though he seems to have traded ‘terminal illness’ for ‘unknown mutation’ which… admittedly isn’t necessarily better…

Grace huffs. 

The hours pass slowly, as they always do, but it seems so much slower when a new set of appendages are sitting on Leon’s back. His bones ache and his skin itches furiously and they pass the time trying to think about anything other than Leon’s changing body and the four walls of their cell. 

In a bid to distract Grace, Leon prompts the young woman to talk about video games she’s played. They’re both on the mattress again, Leon sprawled on his side and wrapped in a blanket with Grace sitting nearby. He can tell she’s anxious—she’s apologizing every other minute for rambling, a habit she’d lost with him weeks ago. Leon listens, shivering under the thin blanket and scratching at the stubble on his arms and shoulders and neck. But somewhere along the line Grace suddenly reaches over, grabbing his hand. 

“Leon, stop,” she says, eyes wide. 

Leon frowns, going to ask what’s wrong, but then he follows her gaze and… Oh. The tips of his fingers are bloodstained. He shifts, trying to sit up, and immediately hisses as it feels like half his skin catches on the mattress and blanket. Immediately Leon scrambles to rip the blanket off, and beneath… His stomach drops. 

His skin is bleeding, covered in thin red scratches left by blunt nails as he picked and pried at the bristles that have erupted from his skin. Forcing himself to breathe, Leon raises his forearm and looks closer. The bristles are pale white, no longer than half a centimeter, and scattered across his skin. When Leon trails his hand over his skin, he can feel the stiff hairs trail up his shoulders and down his back and neck. 

Acid pools in his throat twofold, a thin thread of fear unwinding in his stomach. 

This isn’t stopping. It’s speeding up.

Grace wraps him in a hug, carefully avoiding the new pair of twitching limbs affixed to his back. Leon returns it, squeezing her as he couldn’t do before. This time, he’s the one muttering apologies as the bristles covering his skin brush against Grace.

“Y-you need a… a shave,” Grace mumbles against his chest. 

Leon chuckles despite himself. He does. New skin bristles aside… They've been trapped with Gideon long enough Leon’s usual face stubble has turned into a full beard. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t do beards. 

The changes, the mutations, don’t stop. Because why would they?

The bristles increase in number, pushing up from his skin. They vary in length and thickness, but they’re a nagging presence, a constant itch that Leon wants nothing more to pick away like an ingrown hair. The appendages on his back have grown thicker and longer. Each is as long as his arm now, and the weight of them pulls down on the muscles of his back. They’ve gained more shape too, no longer formless but instead becoming something. It’s Grace that realizes exactly what.

She’s sitting on the ground behind him, gently digging her knuckles into Leon’s back in a bid to relieve the itch of the bristles still pushing from his skin. The appendages are flopped either side of them, half bent as they hang limply from his body.

“They’re wings,” she whispers, apropos of nothing. Leon hums in confusion, twisting his neck to glance back at her. (That’s another thing that’s changed… his neck has gotten longer and he can comfortably turn his head a whole 135 degrees.) Grace gestures toward one of his sprawled new limbs, tracing its shape with her finger. The “wing” fused into her neck flares out slightly. “Look… the membrane between shoulder and wrist, the elongated and fused fingers…” She pauses, swallowing. “J-just… no feathers…”

They both glance at the bristles—or perhaps more accurately, quills—that litter his skin. Leon takes a shaky breath, idly picking at one on his forearm. “…Tell me, how am I rocking the plucked chicken look?”

It falls flat. Grace exhales, leaning her forward to rest her head against his back, between the base of his… well, wings. “I’m sorry,” she says again. And again Leon wraps her in a hug. 

He twists in place, shifting to face her and pulling her into his arms. The wings at his back—though they hardly resemble such—twitch forward as if to join. They squeeze each other tight and Leon tries to ignore the sour acrid taste sitting in his throat; the stiff quills spreading over his skin; and the feeling of the wings—his wings—shivering in the cold air.

Eventually, Gideon comes for him.

Leon tries to put up a fight, as he often does, but the wings weighing down his shoulders make it difficult to stand upright now. Not to mention, a fresh bout of pain has lanced deep into his muscles and nerves, leaving Leon unable to do much of anything, let alone fight.

And, even if he wasn’t weighed down by limbs he shouldn’t have, Gideon’s long since learned to tranquilize and restrain them. This particular session is grueling. Leon swims in and out of consciousness as he feels the madman poke and pull at his new appendages. The half-formed wings are stretched out to either side, leather restraints biting into his flesh. But while the wings are the most obvious mutation, Gideon’s interest stretches far beyond. The madman takes to pulling some of the still-growing quills and drawing vial after vial of blood until Leon feels even more lightheaded.

“How fascinating,” Gideon purrs somewhere nearby. Leon can’t really tell where, he’s strapped down to the point of being immobile. He can’t even raise his head. “Such a change in progression too… Oh, I do love to see the evolution of my creations in action! You, Mr. Kennedy, are sure to turn out splendidly.”

Leon’s not sure how long he has to sit under Gideon’s scalpel. Hours, likely. He’s pretty sure the wings grow a few inches in that time, considering how painful the restraints are becoming. The limbs itch like hell too, a feeling Leon’s come to recognize as the quills erupting from his skin. But a new sensation is his ache in his lower back, his hips and tailbone burn. While Leon would rather ignore it, Gideon strips any such fantasies away.

“Oh, how interesting! The subject seems to be growing a tail,” Gideon notes, sending a deep pulse of sickening dread swirling through Leon’s stomach. He feels a tug on something that shouldn’t be there. “Extension of the caudal vertebrae—” Gideon descends into muttering, while Leon struggles not to throw up.

Something sour and acidic burns the roof of his mouth. 

Gideon inspects his mouth, his neck, his hands, his wings, his feet. He seemingly delights in telling Leon everything that’s changed, everything that’s inhuman, all the while prodding at him, forcing  Leon’s brain to recognize the truth of the words. 

“Elongation of the canines, incisors and premolars,” Gideon mutters as metal forces Leon’s mouth open, something poking and prodding at his gums. His tongue slides past sharpening teeth and thickening lips.

“Subject has increased count of cervical vertebrae,” the man murmurs as he runs his damned fingers along Leon’s neck, counting the ridges of his spine. “Increased in length approximately 10 centimeters or four inches…” The hand trails down his back, catching on the small bristles that now coat his skin in countless number, before finally probing at the nub at the base of his spine. “Caudal vertebrae extruded by eight centimeters or three inches so far, still appear to be fused.”

Bile burns in his throat.

They move to prod along his feet, his ankles, spreading his toes and pulling at his nails. Leon can’t see, he hasn’t been able to see his feet for hours, strapped down as he is. But he can feel it, can hear it, as Gideon remarks on, “Loss of the fifth digit, first digit recently migrated to midfoot.” He can feel it squeezed. “Reorganization of metatarsals to include tarsometatarsus.”

His toes are spread and he can feel they’re too long, too thick, too much air between them. “Nails will now be referred to as claws, approximately two centimeters in length on second through fourth digits.”

Leon closes his eyes and tries not to scream as Gideon forces Leon to feel every inch of this alien body. In the privacy of his mind he curls up and wails, fear and terror weaving through his nerves. 

Let him out. Let him wake up. Please, please, please.

Leon is used to Gideon knocking him out again for the transport back to his and Grace’s cell. But this time, when Leon wakes, it’s not to Grace’s hands carding through his hair. No, instead when Leon stirs back to awareness, skin prickling with cold, it's silent and empty. It takes a minute for him to realize why the silent emptiness is so unnerving but when he does, it hits like a truck. Leon’s head snaps up, neck stretching too long as he cranes his head up from the floor. 

It’s a different cell, he realizes in an instant. Even if Grace wasn’t missing, their collection of scratched tallys to mark the time are gone. This cell is larger and of the same cold concrete, a mattress and blankets tossed in a corner, a small water fountain embedded in the wall from which to drink. But it is empty, missing the friend Leon’s had by his side for weeks now.

A sharp stab of grief slips between his ribs. Nonono, Leon thinks desperately as he struggles to push himself up. Gideon can’t do this, he can’t—

But he has.

And Leon has no idea if the madman plans to keep Leon here until he’s finished turning—like was the case with Grace—or if this is his new existence, alone and monstrous and afraid.

Leon shivers, the cold seeping into his skin. The initial frantic surge of energy is gone, leaving him feeling hollow and empty. He should move to the mattress, it’d be more comfortable, but suddenly even that seems beyond him. What’s the point of moving, anyways? 

But something nips at his hindbrain, pushing him forward. And so Leon struggles to sit himself up, propping himself up on his arms. He’s top heavy now, his torso so much bulkier. But at least he can move of his own volition. Leon drags his aching body over to the mattress, flopping down stomach-first, naked wings sprawling limply either side of him. They ache and itch. Somewhere between his time with Gideon and his time unconscious, the quills have erupted from beneath the skin. They’re long, longer than the others, arranged like needles along the trailing edge of the limb. 

Leon grimaces, turning his attention away to rub at his aching chest and… He stills, glancing down. The hair on his chest has thickened into a dense coat of something resembling fur, thick enough he can dig his fingers into it. And when Leon traces it up, it runs along the underside of his neck and jaw. “…Really need a shave,” Leon mutters to the air. 

There is no response, no accompanying chuff of light laughter.

… It aches.

Alone with his thoughts, Leon has little else to do but look over the extent of his mutations, seeing what Gideon had already spoken into reality. 

His feet feel longer. In keeping with the bird theme of the wings and quills, they’re looking more and more like those of the living dinosaurs. Tipped with talons and much more flexible than they used to be, his toes curl in on themselves as Leon brings his knees to his chest. The stub of a tail that pokes from the base of his spine feels like a mockery, aching like a sore tooth as quills push from the new skin. 

In the quiet and solitude, Leon lets out a low keen, of pain and fear and a dozen other things. He scrubs a hand through his hair, only for his fingers to catch on quills that have pushed themselves from his brow. Trailing a hand over his face, his skin is twisted by scar tissue. Fangs protrude from his mouth.

Leon shivers. He twists his head to look at the wings on his back, idly flexing one out. They’ve gotten much bigger since they first shoved their way from his flesh. From small tumor-like lumps to a long slender limb, ugly and bare. 

A thing with wings that aren’t, Leon thinks wryly, folding the thing and layering it over himself like a really shitty blanket. The long quills scratch against the intact skin of his arms, itchy and providing no warmth. 

He lies there for hours or days in a pseudo-sleep. He dreams. He dreams of all the terrible things Gideon might be doing to Grace. He dreams of monsters with too many eyes and hands, of black rot seeping into his veins and the sweet taste of iron on his tongue. Leon drifts.

A few times when he’s more awake he registers Gideon at the door of his cell. Leon growls and bares his teeth on principle, but if the madman says anything, Leon barely registers it. He’s in too deep, the world hazy and filled with cotton. Unwilling to deal with his warping flesh, Leon burrows himself further into his mind.

And it’s in the tangle of his thoughts that Leon realizes: he’s not entirely alone. There’s a presence that presses gently into him, a sour taste that lingers on his tongue, a fizzy burn that runs through his nerves. Fear, anxiety, everpresent and periodically spiking, but… it's not his. Distantly, Leon knows he should be more concerned about the fact he’s sensing emotions that aren’t his. But then the apathy takes hold again and he curls tighter.

But then the emotions… shift. Fear turns to shock, to sour guilt and love and worry. It’s enough to pull him out of his haze, enough to make him feel the warm hands on his shoulder, and a familiar voice pleading in his ears. 

“Leon? Leon! Wake up, oh please wake up—”

…Grace? 

Leon cracks his eyes open, squinting in the dim light. He shifts his head, trying to find… there! A familiar voice, a familiar face, glowing yellow eyes overflowing with tears. “Gr…ace?” Leon mumbles, fumbling her name with a too thick tongue. Please let this be real, please let it not be a dream.

“Hey hey, it’s me, I’m here,” she murmurs, carding his fingers through his hair, brushing her thumb over the quills on his face. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes, her eyes slipping away from his face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s my fault, I did this, I’m sorry—”

“You’re… here…” Leon mumbles. His lips feel swollen, his throat dry and scratchy. He shifts, Grace’s presence pushing him to sit up, to move. His muscles ache and his skin itches… how long has he been here, resigned to immobility? Leon shakes his head and it feels too heavy, on a neck that is too long. He coughs and while this time there’s no blood, it startles Grace into motion. 

“Shit, I… I’m gonna get you some water,” she says, vanishing out of his sight. Leon feels a brief stab of panic, frantically craning his neck up. Nonono, she can’t leave, he can’t lose her— Before he’s even had the chance to fully finish the thought, Grace is stepping back into his eyeline. “…Leon?”

He slumps, relief and a flash of shame chasing each other. “M’ fine,” Leon mumbles, gritting his teeth as he tries to move, damn it! His arms are trapped under him and shake with exertion as he tries to sit up, craning his neck up to look at Grace. He feels a sudden wash of vertigo. Despite being on his knees… he’s eyelevel with her. 

Fear twists in his gut and Leon turns his head, looking down at himself. The first thing he notices is… feathers. His back and shoulders are no longer bare, instead sporting a fuzzy coat of plumage that extends all the way to his stump of a tail, which is now hidden beneath a full fan of feathers. His wings, flopped either side of him, are even larger. Each is as big as he is, but while some feathers adorn the limb itself, it’s still predominantly a forest of bare quills rattling against each other. His chest feels too large, inflated into a barrel, his sternum pressing against his skin.

But more than that…

He’s bigger. The mattress is smaller than when Leon first dragged himself on top of it, and unless everything shrunk while he was unconscious… Leon grew.

“Leon?”

Leon struggles to swallow the fear twisting up his throat, forcing himself to look at her. She’s staring at him, eyes wide, hands half extended. “Sor…sorry,” Leon mumbles, feeling his tongue catch on his teeth. He tries to go for a smile, but he’s pretty sure it falls flat. At least speaking is getting easier. “Pr-pretty ug…ugly pigeon… aren’t I?”

Grace hiccups, suddenly darting forward to wrap her arms around his chest. Leon flails, nearly toppling over if it wasn’t for the new limbs flaring out, reflexively trying to stabilize him. It’s somewhere between pinwheeling and flapping, and Leon feels each shift pull at the muscles in his chest.

Once he’s more stabilized—this time sitting with his ass on the ground and wings flared behind him for support—Leon wraps his arms around Grace in turn. She’s buried her face into the fur covering his chest, the wing on her neck folded tight. Holding her like this… he’s definitely gotten bigger. 

“I’m sorry,” Grace says, her breath hitching. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry I left, I’m sorry I wasn’t there—”

“Not your fault,” Leon says softly. “I agreed to this… and if you have to blame anyone, blame Gideon.”

“But… but you were scared,” Grace whispers, barely audible. 

Leon stills. Because yes, he had been scared, but Grace sounds a bit… too certain. “Grace…?” Leon starts, not entirely sure what he’s asking. (A thread of anxiety fizzes at the back of his brain, like a carbonated soda. It’s not his.)

Grace wavers. “I… I could feel it,” she breathes. “Gideon took you and you were hurting and I could feel it.” Anxiety twists along Leon’s veins, sparking against his tongue. Anxiety that, Leon realizes with a start, is Grace’s. She seemingly registers his realization, pulling back and away. (Shame, guilt, I’m sorry, steep in his mind like sour tea.) 

Before she can retreat too far, Leon gently tugs her back. A maelstrom of things he can’t name swirls in his chest, his stomach twisted into a ball of lead. But above it all, Leon knows: he doesn’t want her to leave. “Stay?” he asks.

Grace sniffles but does, clutching him tighter. The wordless tangle of fleeting things passes between them, laid bare. When discomfort and fear worms through Leon’s chest, a flash of guilt ripples from Grace’s side. Tangled and messy, a two way telephone told in abstract paintings. 

Leon hums. “Not used to being this… honest,” he admits quietly. Decades have made sure he knows how to hide, and for all Leon’s colleagues have called him fearless, it’s the furthest thing from true. He knows fear intimately, it follows him like his shadow. It just isn’t something he can let himself be paralyzed by, not when the threat of death is always nipping at his heels. “Probably ruining my cool image, huh?” he drawls sarcastically.

Grace has seen him throw up blood and heard of how Leon will try and think up potential quips in the shower. She already thinks he’s the furthest thing from cool.

The young woman huffs, a small breath of laughter. She relaxes slightly, no longer clutching Leon like he’ll vanish the instant she lets go. As her grip on him eases, she starts running her fingers through the feathers on his back, a soft—but not painful—tugging as she straightens them out.  “Still…I did this,” she mutters, the wing on her neck flexing.

“Gideon did,” Leon corrects again. “And we did the best with what we knew. We’re only human…” Leon pauses, a swoop of shame and disgust and wrong twisting his stomach. Grace clutches him a little tighter and Leon is hyperaware of the wings at his back, the feathers on his skin, and the press of his stubby tail into the floor. We’re only human… but not at all. “Sorry,” he mutters. 

“Don’t be,” Grace murmurs into his chest. 

“…Point is,” Leon shakes his head. “Neither of us knew, Grace. We didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“But it did,” the young woman says and Leon exhales. 

“But it did,” he agrees.

Eventually they pull away, Grace stepping back as Leon carefully tries to stand. The weight of the wings on his back force him forward, bent into a permanent hunch. His feet, at least, take his weight. He has to shift to standing on his ‘toes,’ like the bird-adjacent creature he’s becoming. Leon takes a few hesitant steps, his half-feathered wings snapping out on reflex as he nearly faceplants. 

Grace has to dodge his flailing limbs a few times—a fact Leon feels guilty about, only to have Grace squint at him with a sharp, “Don’t.” Once Leon can walk, she helps him over to their little water fountain, pressing the button while Leon twists his neck to stick his face under it.

Leon splashes a little water over his face, grimacing as he uses his hands to wipe it off and feels the unfamiliar shape of his head. He’s sure that if he saw his face in the mirror right now, he wouldn’t be able to recognize it. It feels… flatter, his nose no longer sticking from his face. His mouth stretches further around his head. The unfeathered quills sticking from his brow tangle with his hair. 

Ignoring the twist in his gut, Leon runs his hands down his neck. While one side of his neck is bare and covered in scar tissue, along the back of his neck his fingers dig into more feathers. They start from his hair and run all the way down to his dual-shoulders, from which the entire expanse of his back is now covered. 

“C-can I do anything?” Grace asks, watching as Leon digs his fingers into the fur and feathers. 

Leon exhales, glancing over at her. “Tell me…” he says slowly. “Is… is my modelling career over?”

Grace snorts and Leon feels a flush of happiness from both of them. They shuffle back over to the mattress—the only really comfortable part of the entire cell—and sit down. Leon ends up sitting on his haunches in more of a squat, but it’s oddly more comfortable to his current body. The talons on his feet, each a good four or five inches long, sink into the mattress. 

Leon eyes the punctures as he settles. “Good thing this isn’t an inflatable,” he mutters. His feet are feathered too now, shaggy thin filaments that catch in the fabric of his thin Gideon-provided sweat pants. (Pants that Leon needs to constantly hold up lest they fall off him, thanks to the fan tail preventing anything from going over his hips.)

Once they’re both settled, Leon scans Grace, looking for any new signs of Gideon’s experiments. While they’ve both since stopped asking what the man’s done to the other—because neither of them would know—it’s become routine to look for any new bandages or incisions. For once, at least, there’s nothing new Leon can see.

“What happened?” Leon asks instead.

Grace swallows, shifting a little closer to be under the arc of one of Leon’s wings. “When you didn’t return… I panicked,” she admits quietly. “I could feel how much pain you were in… I wasn’t sure if or when you’d come back and… I sort of… bit him.”

“Atta’ girl,” Leon grins, prompting his friend and cellmate to blush. Leon raises an eyebrow. “Did he taste bad?”

“Disgusting,” Grace confirms. “Anyways… after the second day, between that and, I think, your…” She waves a hand, an echo of hollow emptiness ringing between them. Apathy. Grace swallows. “I think he realized it wasn’t a good idea to split us up.”

“Damn right,” Leon mutters. Distantly, he is aware that Grace and himself are probably developing something of a codependency, but he can’t bring himself to care right now. 

Grace nods, rubbing her arms. “I’m pretty sure he was trying to scare me but… I’m not sure Gideon realizes how much you’re still… you.” When Leon cocks his head in wordless confusion, she elaborates. “He basically said… ‘My pet shouldn’t eat you.’” Leon shudders, feathers on his neck bristling. “Yeah, pretty much,” Grace agrees, working her lip. “What about you? What…happened?”

Leon exhales heavily. “Gideon was less… hospitable, than usual. Otherwise…” Leon flexes his wings slightly before folding them back along his sides. “This.”

Grace nods, twisting to look up at the wing near her head. She reaches up a hand, but stops just short of touching. “Can I…?”

Leon shifts the wing so the ‘hand’ and ‘forearm’ are more tightly folded, letting the ‘wrist’ rest gently by Grace’s lap. She’s quick to scoot over, gently running her fingers over it. Leon’s wings, for all they’re bird-like, aren’t in their entirety. The biggest difference, apart from size, is that the wing isn’t fused into a single digit past the wrist. Instead there are three ‘digits’, one thick and elongated that forms the final leading edge of the wing, and two smaller “fingers” at the wrist. Grace gently holds one and after a bit of concentration, Leon is able to curl the wing-fingers around her hand, prompting a delighted laugh.

From there, Grace trails her hand along the leading edge of the wing. “Feathers are coming in,” she mumbles, smoothing over the downy plumage that’s grown around the wing ‘arm’ itself. Her hand trails down to the layers of overlapping spines that stick from the trailing edge, quills that remain naked and bare. “Still need to emerge here though.”

“Or maybe they won’t,” Leon shrugs. “Could be stuck as a half-naked chicken.”

Grace snickers. “It’s like that one meme… you know, where philosophers called humans ‘featherless bipeds’ and Diogenes lifted up a plucked chicken and said ‘behold, a man.’”

Leon barks a laugh. “Wonder what their thoughts would be on featherless dinosaurs?”

“Eh, most current research says theropods and even non-avian dinosaurs had plumage,” the young woman says, shrugging. “Even pterosaurs had integument. It’s been decided, T-Rex was fuzzy.”

With that, Leon laughs outright. For a moment, he can almost imagine they aren’t imprisoned by a crazed scientist, that neither he nor Grace have mutated into something inhuman. It’s not a situation that will be dismissed so easily, but for now, Leon lets himself and Grace rest.

Over the next few days, building toward what Leon estimates is a week since Grace first infected him, his mutations begin to settle. He’s grown to be maybe three times his original size as a human, standing what he guesses is seven feet tall. He’d probably be even taller, but his back and the weight of his wings has forced Leon into a permanent hunch. 

(His pants are little more than a distant memory… but thankfully for Leon’s dignity, or not, the mutations took his genitals. And, he’s not even naked, because he’s covered in feathers and fur. Needless to say, while he and Grace have gotten very used to each other’s proximity, that was an embarrassing few hours for them both.) 

Either way, Leon’s become much, much bigger. And that’s without his wings. 

The wings themselves? Each one is at least eighteen feet long by Grace’s estimation, big enough Leon has no hope of opening them in the increasingly cramped cell. He can feel the strength in each, muscles stretching from his shoulder to his enlarged chest. Between that and his feathers fully growing in, the thought of picking up Grace and flying out of Gideon’s reach feels tantalizingly possible.

Speaking of Gideon, he hasn’t shown his ugly face since he moved Grace to Leon’s new cell. The only sign he hasn’t forgotten them is that they’re still delivered food by the faceless guards through a shutter in the wall. Leon’s not sure what it means for them, but with each passing day he worries more and more.

Then, finally, Leon hears the heavy thud of Gideon’s footfalls approaching. He stiffens, trading a glance with Grace, who looks at him with blatant fear. (Leon can feel it, and he knows she can feel his.) Leon grits his teeth as the footfalls grow louder. No, he can’t let Gideon separate them again. He can’t. With a whisper-soft apology Leon bundles Grace under him and beneath his wings until she’s completely hidden from view. Then he turns his gaze on the door.

There’s a soft click and then a hiss, the familiar sound of Gideon’s tranquilizing gas entering their little chamber. Leon grits his teeth, holding his breath and twisting his neck to bury his face in his wings. He’s not sure if it’ll do anything, he tried the same tactics before all this but… Leon’s not human anymore. Time to see if there’s any advantage in that.

And after a few minutes… he can still think. He’s lightheaded, his thoughts splintering but… he’s not so out of it he can’t move. Beneath his wings, Grace slumps into his still-human arms, pupils dilated and panting. It’s strange to see the effects of the gas from this side but… it doesn’t force them unconscious, not entirely. Simply renders them in a dazed state, soft and compliant.

The hiss of gas finally ceases and the door creaks open. Leon hears a low hum. “Oh, how magnificent you’ve become,” the vile man murmurs. A click of tongue. “Come, my new pet, wake up.” Despite the bile surging in his throat, Leon risks obeying. He pulls his head from beneath his wing, glancing toward Gideon with squinted eyes in a bid to hide his pupils. 

Gideon’s face splits into a delighted smile, flashing his black teeth. “Oh, marvelous. Already obeying your master, too.” Leon’s stomach clenches and he resists the urge to bare his fangs. But as his gaze shifts, he spots something—someone—next to Gideon that makes his blood run cold. 

A kid.

It’s a girl, so small she doesn’t even reach Gideon’s knee, her hair shock white. For a second Leon wonders why she isn’t shrieking at the sight of a monster—of him—but then he registers her eyes, pale and unfocused. She shivers like a leaf in a storm, flinching with each of Gideon’s chuckles. Fuck, Leon thinks succinctly. He must stare too long because Gideon glances at the girl next to him and laughs, the sound grating. “Oh, do you like her?” Gideon asks. “I’m afraid she’s not for you. A new cellmate for dear Grace.”

Gideon tosses the girl inside and she yelps, stumbling to a stop a mere foot from Leon. She’s sniffling, crying, a small hand—so small—clutched in her thin dress. Across from Leon, Gideon is approaching from the doorway, raising a hand toward Leon. Again, like he’s some sort of pet. 

In an instant, Leon catalogs it all. Grace, half-drugged and cradled in his still-human arms out of sight beneath his wings. The little nameless girl at his feet and within arms reach. And Gideon, approaching, uncaring, clearly thinking Leon to be dazed and compliant to the madman’s wishes. 

It has to be now, Leon realizes.

Gideon gets closer, closer, a self-satisfied smile never leaving his face. And then, Leon strikes. His head lunges out, sinking his fangs into Gideon’s outstretched arm. Blood fills his mouth, black and vile, but Leon just digs his teeth in deeper. (Grace was right, he does taste disgusting.) Gideon barely has time to cry out before Leon wrenches his head sideways and flings the scientist into the wall. And then Leon’s scooping the little girl into his arms along with Grace and running.

He bursts out of the cell and into a wide hallway and starts sprinting. Vague flashes of disjointed memories guide him, the earliest escape attempts that had ended back in the cell. Leon can feel Grace stirring, feel her confusion and panic in response to his racing adrenaline, can feel the little girl trembling in fear and clutching at the fur of his chest. 

Hold on, Leon begs them. Hold on. 

Despite his mutation focusing on his wings, Leon’s new legs don’t fail him, powering him through corridor after corridor. Flashes of signs direct him—left, right, straight—toward stairs. He’s not certain if they're under or above ground, so his only driving thought is up. He vaults between the handrails, claws snagging the metal before another wing-assisted jump carries him up another floor. Go up. Get out. 

He climbs until they can go no further, bursting from the stairwell into more corridors. Go up. Get out. He runs.

“Leon?!” Grace cries over the sound of his footfalls. “Where are we?!”

“Escaping!” he says back, holding his precious cargo a little tighter. He feels Grace’s shock and confusion bloom large in his mind. Presumably spotting the other person clutched in Leon’s arms. “She was with Gideon!”

Leon takes another left, then a right, wings pressed tight to his side as he runs for all their lives. Distantly, he can hear Grace talking to the new passenger, but Leon can’t focus on it. Not while Gideon is somewhere behind them. If only I had my guns, Leon wishes but there’s no chance of finding them in this maze. But an exit? That might be possible. 

He runs.

And then he shoves through another door and into open air. Leon gasps, reflexively inhaling, and what fills his nose is not the sharp bite of antiseptic, but the smell of wet earth. He stumbles, his run faltering into a walk, inhaling again and filling his chest with the smell of trees and rock and dirt and fresh air. 

Heat pricks Leon’s eyes. He missed this.

Leon cranes his neck to look down at his passengers, held tight in his arms. “You two okay?” he asks, his gaze flitting from Grace to their little companion. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Grace murmurs breathlessly. “Oh wow… Are we outside?”

“Yeah,” Leon says back, unable to keep the smile out of his voice. “Yeah kid, we are.”

Grace laughs, the sound half hysteric. She leans back to look up at Leon, smiling wider than ever. She nudges the girl cradled in Leon’s other arm. “Leon, meet Emily! Emily, the one currently carrying us and with the nice soft fur and feathers is Leon. He’s the one who got us out.” 

“It was a group effort,” Leon argues before turning his focus to his second and smaller passenger. “Hi Emily,” he murmurs. The girl, Emily, presses against his chest. She looks vaguely in the direction of his face and hums, giving him a little wave. 

Leon smiles, but soon it drops as he lifts his head taking in their surroundings. They are indeed outside. Behind them is a building of concrete and flashing lights. Ahead of them, beyond a barbed wire fence, are the deep shadows of a forest. Gideon’s still behind them. They need to get out of here and fast.

Leon crouches, letting Grace and Emily down to the pavement. Grace makes a wordless sound of confusion before Leon lowers himself even further, his stomach scraping the ground. Leon points up with his now-freed hands. “Get on.”

Grace doesn’t question it, boosting Emily up onto Leon before then following. Leon twists his head to watch as Grace claws her way onto his back and straddles his spine. Like the world’s weirdest piggy back ride, her legs squeeze his waist, hands dug into the feathers at the base of Leon’s neck, Emily tucked securely between Grace’s chest and Leon’s back. 

“Hold on,” Leon orders.

And then he runs. 

He clears the fence easily, half extended wings boosting his jump as he vaults clear over it. And then he’s diving into the darkness of the forest. He sprints through the wood, trees whipping past, branches slapping his sides but he doesn’t care, not when his only thought is to get away.

But then the trees break ahead and Leon’s eyes widen. He skids to a stop, just in time to avoid plunging off a steep cliff. Leon huffs, eyeing the dropoff, the wind blowing through his hair and feathers. Leon shakes himself and, slowly, stretches his wings out to their full length. Time to see if these things aren’t just for show. Grace yelps as his wings extend, as Leon hesitantly gives the massive things a cursory flap.

“Please tell me you know how to fly,” Grace mutters, grip tightening on his neck.

Leon shrugs, reveling in the feeling of having his wings fully extended. Aches and kinks he hadn’t even realized were there unravel as he stretches the muscles and tendons, and damn… even like this, Leon swears the wind could lift him off his feet like a bit of dandelion fluff. He exhales. 

“We’re about to find out.” 

Grace’s hands dig into his feathers, already screaming as Leon jumps.

His outstretched wings catch the air, and Leon’s blood sings as it cushions him, fall smoothing out into something resembling a glide. But they’re still falling, so Leon pumps his wings, up and down, each massive wingbeat downstroking through the air. With each pull of his powerful muscles, his wings push the air down and they climb higher. 

The ground drops away, nothing beneath them but emptiness, held aloft purely by the air beneath his massive wings.

And god, it’s exhilarating. 

Leon laughs, long and loud, adrenaline pounding in time with his heart. He twists to look back at his passengers, only to see Grace with her hands buried in his neck feathers, shrieking with every shift of his body beneath her. (To be fair, Leon is wobbling midair like a drunk sailor, but look Grace, he’s flying!!) Beneath Grace, her face pressed into his back is Emily, small hands clutching his feathers, a wide grin on her face. 

“Come on, Grace, it’s fun!” Leon laughs, pumping his wings for a bit more height. His flight wobbles, and he drops a little with each wingbeat, but with each stroke of his wings Leon is slowly figuring out the best way to flap, the best way to fold the wing as it cuts upward through the air. 

“Keep your eyes forward!” Grace screams over the wind. 

He laughs again but obliges, twisting his neck to face forward again. The wind makes his eyes water but then when he blinks, another eyelid slides into place. Beneath Leon stretches miles upon miles of forested woodland, unrecognizable. But Leon has a nagging suspicion they’re not very far from where they started. 

Leon looks upward, tracking the setting sun to the stars, beginning to emerge from the deep purple abyss above their heads. 

First, he needs to find somewhere safe. 

Then they can figure out what to do next.

But for now Leon lets himself fall into the rhythm of the wind and his wings, passengers safely on his back as they leave Gideon far far behind.