Chapter Text
Clean-up after Arias was a mess.
He wasn’t going to lie; this hadn’t been a great mission. Getting to do it with Chris might’ve been nice, but Leon knew he would be in for it for disappearing from their house to go drink in a random mountain town. He knew Chris didn’t take it well then and he still wasn’t taking it well. Leon could tell it reminded him too much of his extended stay in Edonia, after all the shit Ada pulled. He still didn’t know what the hell was going on with the mercenary and he just didn’t want a part of it at this point.
He hated himself for doing it, too. He just…he needed a break.
And he was real tempted to just forgo the clean-up op. He knew Hannigan would cover for him anyway. But he was going to be here for Chris, especially since one of his squad had died. Leon wasn’t too familiar with the Silver Dagger team but he knew Chris was feeling the brunt of Damien’s death and dammit, he wasn’t going to leave him alone after something like that. Not after Piers.
So, he appeared at the clean-up site against his better judgement. He asked Chris, mostly for the benefit of the other Silver Daggers, “So what are we doing here?”
Chris answered his question. “Well, Arias was experimenting with all sorts of shit down here. The A-Virus, Tyrants et cetera.” Leon’s shoulders winced in response. He had been yeeted a lot in the past week. Chris continued on, “Who knows what else he’s got cooking up in here. HQ wants us to have a look around and see if anything could really cause another biowar.”
Leon snorted at the last statement as he put in his comm – he left his in the car since he wasn’t on D.S.O. duty right now. Arias had already sent New York spiralling, he probably had other stuff that could destroy the world.
Leon wasn’t used to actually taking part in a clean-up. Almost 100% of the time, the place always got nuked or self-destructed. All these organisations seemed to really like their self-destruct sequences. Everywhere else got nuked by the government. There wasn’t usually anything to actually clean up afterwards.
~
While Chris, Leon and the rest of Chris’ team searched Arias’ New York hideout. The B.S.A.A. had sent agents to his other hideouts. Given that the four of them were already in the city, the B.S.A.A. had let them go on themselves and would send backup later. At the very least, they could shut down his operations quickly and efficiently even if they couldn’t find any other research.
Leon might not have known D.C. and Nadia personally, but they were close with Chris and they were really helpful in their fight on the rooftop. Of course, they always talked about Breaking Bad, but Leon wasn’t really going to complain about that. It was a good show. It helped disassociate his mind from the events of the past week. Besides, they also went through a major loss. He wasn’t going to deny them of their coping mechanism.
Chris kept trying to talk to him but Leon kept shutting him down. This wasn’t the time and place for Chris to yell at him. Why was he even pursuing it now? They had been together for a whole week before this and not once did he actually say anything about it. Why now?
You know what? I’ll just get it over and done with.
He herded Chris to a separate room where the rest of the Silver Dagger team couldn’t hear them. “Chris, what?” He spat out the words.
Chris’ eyes immediately softened. “I just wanted to check if you were okay. I know we haven’t…talked about any of this and I know you’ve gone through a lot but it’s okay.”
Leon let out a soft chuckle at that. “You big sap. Yeah, yeah, it’s just a lot to take in after everything with Rebecca and…”
His voice trailed off and Chris knew exactly where he was going with this. “Hazard of the job, isn’t it?” He tried to put on a brave smile and Leon mentally commended him for it. “We can talk about it later, if you want. Let’s just go and mess with Arias’ shit for now.”
Chris put his arm over Leon’s shoulder and the latter actually laughed at that.
Leon marvelled at how his and Chris’ relationship had changed over the years. They first met through Claire. More specifically when she was trapped on Rockfort Island and Leon had to track down Chris. From then on, Claire had forced them together at every gathering she ever planned. She was way too social. It only increased when she found out about Leon’s small crush. She had basically forced her brother to ask him out.
Not that Leon was complaining. He wasn’t going to let go of Chris now.
~
Okay, in hindsight, he really should not have touched something in a dangerous, viral lab without doing checking first.
But honestly, he was getting tired of this. They hadn’t found anything for a good while and if they did, it was just remains of A-Virus research. Not gonna lie, after a whole city like New York getting infected, Leon was already getting sick and tired of Arias.
The Silver Dagger team wasn’t finding anything either and Leon could tell his boyfriend was getting just a bit antsy. A team of 4 people weren’t going to be able to clean out a whole building hideout. Where was that backup?
Finally, they found…something. A weird machine. It looked nothing like any kind of virus distributor or synthesizer. It didn’t even look like it was used for bioweaponry. That was a first in many departments and it really should have set off more red flags in his head. At least Arias wasn’t going stale with his research unlike the other dumb corporations. He had something else to wreak havoc.
He was dead now though. So, he couldn’t do shit.
At least, not if Leon had gone and touched the thing. Like an idiot. It wasn’t like he thought it was important. It was big and clunky and certainly didn’t look like it worked. It also instantly reminded him of the NEST, with its cold, clinical look. Leon shook his head. He hadn’t thought of Raccoon City in ages, it wouldn’t do to get stuck there again. There was a panel in front of it for operating it but it had already gathered dust. Seems Arias stopped caring about this once the A-Virus got developed, Leon mused.
He touched it. And it lit up. Super cliché. It pulled him inside and the machine seemed to react to his presence. He instinctively put out his hand towards Chris to try and pull himself out as Chris ran towards him. D.C. and Nadia ran to the control panel and tried to figure out what was going on. Leon reminded himself to buy them a fruit basket when this was over.
But as soon as Chris reached him, Leon vanished out of sight and the machine depowered, having done its job. In the dark, the Silver Daggers found themselves lost and confused.
***
Claire was not having a good day.
She had come to Raccoon City to search for Chris, because he had left without telling her where. She did not expect for the city to be overrun by literal zombies.
The one good thing to come from this was that she knew that Chris was in Europe, doing God knows what. Now, she could hunt his ass down when she got out of here.
Despite all the horrible monstrosities she had encountered, she had found some survivors. Okay, she found two survivors. Okay, one of those survivors was dying of a zombie bite. But , if he could survive until now, so could she. Besides, Leon was still alive out there. She couldn’t lose hope for him either. She would find a way out of this town. She would find a way to survive and find her brother again.
The grenade launcher she found would make sure of that.
Now, she just had to get the maiden medallion. After her talk with Leon on the outside, she’d gotten some bolt cutters which she’d used on that door in the operations room, which gave her the detonator. She already had the battery from the S.T.A.R.S. office and now she could get the final medallion and finally get out of here.
Speaking of Leon, she couldn’t help but think of him. How would he be dealing with this? Hopefully he had found a way out of the horde. She wouldn’t forgive herself if he had died. After he saved her life, it would not do for him to just die.
She also wasn’t going to think about any of the weird sexual tension between them. A zombie apocalypse wasn’t the time and place for that.
She did not expect to start hearing other gunshots ring out through the police station. It shocked her out of her stupor. She smacked herself and thanked her lucky stars that there weren’t any zombies around.
Anyway, she was certain that at this point, she would have seen someone else already if they were here. All the exits were closed as well. Who the fuck was this mystery man?
She made her way towards the noise, wincing at how loud it was. She was 90% sure the person was in the library considering that the gunshots sounded like they came from upstairs. She figured, why not kill two birds with one stone and put the valve handle into the shower room at the same time?
She took the stairs up and went through the shower room and...what the fuck was that? She could vaguely see its outline on the wall and it was roughly humanoid but even in the low lighting, she could tell it had no skin. She could swear that she could see its brain out in the open. Her brain had a faint memory of a note she had seen on the third floor calling them Lickers. What kind of name was that?
She did remember though, that they were blind - and yes, she was going to call them blind fucks from now on - and if she stealth-ed then she would be okay. She wasn't going to test that theory and moved at a snail's pace. The fucker dropped a human body it was holding...what...and dropped down. On instinct, she stopped breathing but still kept going. She knew there was another room somewhere on this corridor and if she could get to that, she could breathe again.
The Licker's tongue sniffed the air and her hand went out to feel the wall beside her as she kept her eyes glued to the fucker. She didn't miss their huge claws that could probably rip her to shreds if she wasn't careful. Finally, her hand hit something wood and she turned, reaching out for a doorknob. She opened it before the Licker could see something amiss and hurried inside breathing a sigh of relief. Subconsciously, she knew they couldn't open doors.
She looked around and realised she was in the S.T.A.R.S. office. This was where her brother worked. She looked around but nothing of interest caught her eye. Why couldn't her brother have some damn trinkets around? She grumbled and turned to the armoury and holy shit, an SMG. She hurried to the door but it was locked, leaving a sour taste in her mouth. It was right there, tantalising her.
She noticed the computer next to it and tried to fiddle with it...she needed authentication? God dammit, why was this so hard?
With nothing else to do in the S.T.A.R.S. office, she readied her nerves to leave again. No doubt the blind fuck would be right out the door waiting for her. She wasn't going to try with just her revolver. Despite how trusty it was in dealing with simple zombies, she had a feeling these things would be much more agile. This wasn't going to cut it.
She unholstered her grenade launcher and looked down at the rounds she had so far. She had made some acid rounds and she had also found some flame rounds. Which would work better? Hmmmm...
Eventually she decided on flame but as a last resort. She still had a way to just sneak past them and she was going to take it. Save ammo, you know?
She opened the door and spotted the Licker on the other side of the hallway towards the showers. She mentally whooped. Now, she just had to sneak past, unlock the door on the end, and find the person. Oh god, she had forgotten about the person. If she had gotten distracted by this thing, she was going to-
She got to the end without incident, if you don't call extreme anxiety an incident, and unlocked the door at the end. She looked at the unicorn statue's empty space and walked past it into the library. Hopefully the guy hadn't left by then.
~
When she found them, she found it was a man. He was wearing a leather jacket and jeans, similar to her apparel. There was a handgun holster on his leg. The handgun in question was in his arm. He looked up in surprise as she opened the door and she approached him.
For a moment, he and Claire just stared at one another. His hair was cut in a similar style to Leon's, albeit a little longer, and it gave her a strange sense of déjà vu. He seemed to be staring through her soul, with a penetrating gaze. Finally, Claire noticed a corpse shambling up to the man.
Claire raised her SLS60, which must've confused the man. He let out a “Don’t shoot!” and raised his arms. And it was probably more than instinct that she had chosen to yell, “Get down!” The man complied and she was certain she could see a tiny smirk form on his face from the words. Claire shot the zombie, making it fall over.
The man promptly got up and put a few more rounds in the zombie’s head, exploding its head. Ok , this guy was trained for this. But…how? Who was he? His whole 'get-up' didn't seem very military so how had he gotten this training? She had some questions for this man.
His face was a mask. Finally, he broke the tension by asking, “Claire?”
Claire immediately rounded her gun on his head. His hands went back in the air, a smart choice . “How the fuck do you know my name?” she ordered.