Archive of Our Own ^beta

Never a lonely moment in this castle, Leon thinks the moment he hears a gun slide out of its holster. He should have noticed a muted tread on the carpet, a susurrus of clothes, but his ears were trained on other sounds, more obvious ones: heavy boots and heavy breathing, curses and incantations in a dialect he cannot understand. What he understands though is the soft tick of a safety removed, slow and sensual like the drag of a tongue across a bottom lip.

Sensual like the voice that accompanies the threat against his back. "Put your hands where I can see them."

At least she's up for a chat instead of driving holes into him, like everyone else he's met so far.

It's against his nature to comply though, but dance he can, swift and sure-footed, spinning, counteracting and disarming in one quick move. The weapon slips into his ready fingers, pads tracing the cold slide and the weight tells him it's tuned and loaded, and the contact all too brief.

She's just as fast as he is, kicking up her gun and cartwheeling out of reach.

It's impressive and well-choreographed, but Leon has no time for admiration. His blood is singing and every fibre hums like a tuning fork where they have touched. His back still echoes the insistent press of a muzzle and the remembrance of it shivers down his spine. He aims to return the favor with sharp, burnished steel.

He notes the arc of her neck, the curve of her wrist, the crook of her finger as it comes to rest upon the trigger but a moment too late. The combat knife now adorning her throat should be a permanent accessoire: it suits her.

"Bit of advice," he starts and while he gives it, his attention is elsewhere for a moment. It's just an image, gone in a blink, but as intense as it is sudden, in which he runs his blade across her skin, grazing the epidermis, not slicing it, an expert touch just this side of drawing blood. Chaste like an air-kiss.

Her lips part as though she's seen it, too.

Before he can act on it though, he disarms her yet again, puts some space between them and tosses the Blacktail and magazine away. A part of him, however, wishes she would heed his advice, so that next time they meet, he'd have the pleasure of watching her moves in a knife fight.

This kind of thrill makes him adventurous, playful even, especially when his opponent is a gorgeous lady with a voice from the past instead of an parasite-infected country farmer frothing blood and insults. The first time he felt this was in Raccoon City on his first day on the job, when he met her.

"Long time, no see."

He may have been naive back then, real green, trusting her and falling for her tricks, but let's be honest, his hope of survival was slim and adrenaline disabled his mental faculties. It was easy to be used like a tool and not even a dangerous one. Since then, he has learned to rule his fear; danger has become his life's goal. He craves the rush this mission has dealt him so far. Now, he can access calm in the tightest of situations, be efficient and still bask in the excitement at the same time.

If he couldn't, he'd be dead by now.

"So, it is true." Although he'd rather it was not. Since that day, he has carried her in his memories, timeless and sacrosanct, but now, risen from the dead as she is, without the help of a virus, she defies his beliefs. Working with Wesker of all people.

"I see you've been doing your homework."

And how could he not, when the rumors of her allegiance threatened to carve her from his sacred memories.

"Why, Ada?" was all he could manage. Six years and all his questions amounted to this one. Six years are a long time to learn and know better. But he hasn't, because she still doesn't answer. Not the way he wants her to.

Would it help if he used his knife on her again? Could he even do that, on a woman? He guesses she would make him weak over it, when it takes no more than a gun pressed between his shoulder blades to raise the hairs on his arms and neck.

It might be his imagination, vivid and clear as it can be, because for a second he thinks, hopes, dreams she wants to unfold at least this one secret, but in a literal flash she evades again.

"See you around," she says and with that, she is gone again. Women. Six years without a word and not even five minutes into their first encounter, she has promised him another date.

Calling after her is no use. Begging for her return won't hasten it. He just hopes this time there won't be a silent six-year interlude. Confirming her status as alive lifts no weight off his chest, as he might have thought. Rather, it grows heavier the longer he gazes at the window she escaped through.

She may have re-entered his life, but she is further from his reach now than she was before. She is different, no longer the Ada he knew, although that version of her may well have never existed.

No time to dwell, he reminds himself, shaking his head. Deal with what's on hand.

She appears to be after the same guys he is. They're bound to run into each other again. How would she initiate their encounter then? Another gun to the back? A reciprocal blade to the throat, perhaps? Or a rope? They burn nicely, he can attest.

It better be good. He's looking forward to a nice distraction from all the freaks crawling around here. Maybe then he'll get some answers.