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winksasleeplesseye · 7 months

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castrum (five)

SUMMARY: Amara splits from the familiar duo in favor of the mysterious scientist, Luis, in search of answers, and another way too familiar face tags along as they go their separate ways.

WORD COUNT: 3k

WARNNGS: none/freeballing it no edits

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“Got tired of your knight in shining armor?” Luis questioned, noticing Amara coming up the path. A lighter skated between his fingertips, nifty sleight of hand on display.

There was a symbol on its side that Amara couldn’t make out, but that had to be something to ask him about later.

“Someone has to keep you honest, don’t they?” She smirked, almost playfully bumping into Luis’ side. “Besides, I think one princess to one knight is a better ratio.”

“Does that make me your knight in shining armor?” A roguish grin spread across his face.

“Not by a longshot, hotshot.”

Luis playfully rolled his eyes, “You’re cheerful for someone that just learned a parasite is inside them.”

“Oh, I’m pissed. I’m just keeping the emotions to a minimum—better for the heart,” she winked. “Wouldn’t you know that, doc?”

“Biologist, not a doctor. But if you’re ever needing a big, strong man to cry on when you decide to let those emotions out...” He wiggled his eyebrows as he gestured to himself. “I’m yours.”

She laughed, Luis had a knack for that it seemed. It certainly made her feel light amongst the gloominess, the sheer horror of the situation. “Tempting offer, Mr. Serra.”

With a brief gesture towards the way they came, she said, “I’m well accounted for.”

That shut him right up. The crushing and cracking of rocks beneath their feet is the most apparent sign of life. A part of her assumed she’d said the wrong thing but his attention turned elsewhere, ahead on the path at a fast approaching rock formation that towered over them a tad.

It was less what his attention was on, but rather who. “Hey, got a smoke?”

“I do. The kind you like.”

Fucking shit. It’s a Raccoon City reunion, isn’t it?

Amara wasn’t exactly keen on seeing the elusive woman in red again but it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Luis would be working with her. But, it did.

She fully intends to call him an asshole, but her brain short circuited in the pursuit of her curiosity in this conversation. Her eyes ping pong between the both as the conversation goes on. It’s coded talk, no doubt but Ada mentions something called The Amber. No Amber, no protection. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a biologist) to figure that Luis and Ada’s partnership is borne out of a necessity to escape. On Luis’ part.

So, at least one part of what he told her back at the lab was accurate.

There is something going around this village and whatever the Amber is might explain it.

Ada sticks around, the duo now becoming a trio. Amara waved off Luis’ kind gesture of pulling her up as they followed after the woman in red.

“Appreciate—the—gesture,” she said between each push up to the next rock.

Climbing wasn’t wholly unfamiliar to her.

Except the rocks were usually fake and colored, the academy and the occasional rock climb with Jill (on the off chance they got to see each other) came in handy.

“You’re awfully quiet. And pale,” Luis piped up. She can’t see his face but somehow she knew he’d be smirking. “Gears must be turning.”

Amara always kind of sucked lately with her resting face. It was a miracle she’d been able to keep a straight face with Leon. Mostly.

Amara rolled her eyes. “I’m computing. And yes, I’m pale…a parasite is snacking on me like a Happy Meal.”

Luis chuckles. It’s funny but it’s the truth.

“You know, I read about you. In…what was it? Raccoon City?” That stops her in her tracks. If Ada has any reaction she doesn’t see it.

Amara envied that about the woman but her poker face now could rival hers.

“So, I wasn’t dreaming of that red and white logo on your lighter. And how exactly did you end up working for a corporation that leveled an entire city?” There’s a curiosity to her tone but there’s also a biting, harsh undertone to them.

How anyone could willingly work for such a company befuddled her especially after knowing the truth.

“Being a wiz kid has its benefits,” He shrugged, like it was nothing. “Anyways, we’re not talking about me. You’re the one carrying G antibodies.”

They pushed through the thicket of branches and bushes, Amara desperately tried to ignore the creepy, prickling feeling that went up and down her body from potential bugs that crawled on her.

“Unwillingly, in case you weren’t aware.”

“Doesn’t make it any less fascinating,” he noted.

“Where are we going, exactly?”

Breaking through the dense forest, they come to a cliff and a path lined down the side of it. “See that?” Luis points across the lake.

“Holy shit, that’s amazing.”

Amara always assumed that castles were just the thing of dreams, meant to be seen in photographs but never stepped foot in. Though this one held a more elusive quality to it, the fog and gothic atmosphere sent shivers down her spine just looking at it from here.

Amara already knew the plan, sort of. “I assume what you need to get is in there.”

“More like…under there but sure.”

“If you two are done, time’s a wasting,” Ada spoke coolly.

“I won’t turn into one of them, will I?”

“I won’t let that happen, I promise.” Leon wholeheartedly believed that too. Well, he hoped that he could prevent that.

Hope was in short supply for him for the past six years.

After learning their rescue had lost contact with Hunnigan, that told him all he needed to know. These people were adamant not to let any of them leave. He had to put his trust in Luis, a former Umbrella researcher, mind you, to provide something to remove the parasites.

And then there’s Amara. She tagged along despite Leon’s protests, as if he could have ever convinced her otherwise not to go with him. Still, all he could at the very least count on is that she’d be able to stay safe. That doesn’t stop him from feeling this stupid burning, scalding jealousy at Luis. Leon had to always stay sharp and focused on the mission, which now translated to making him seem like a bit of a prick by the outside viewpoint. Amara’s viewpoint.

But he’d pushed the thoughts aside, personal problems would have to wait.

“How exactly do you know these passageways?” Amara posed the question as water sloshed beneath her boots, the air was damp and heavy which gave way to moss and plants growing from every crevice. She barely wanted to have any part of her touch the walls but Luis traversed through them like nothing.

Ada’s boots hit the ground in a uniform rhythm. How was a mystery to Amara.

His voice echoes off the walls. “Would it surprise you to know I was born here?

“At this rate, nothing surprises me.” And it was the truth, Amara had lived long enough around manmade horrors and god knows what else, it’s kind of tough to genuinely have shock written all over her face in the moments after learning new information. “Guess home is really where the heart is then, huh?”

“If you say so.”

“You know, you still didn’t answer my question.”

“Which is?”

“Why are you helping us?”

“Because it makes me feel better, that answer your question?”

The training after Raccoon City had taught her many things, some of it seemed useless but now, she recalled the training on being what she would dub a human lie detector. People had many small, subtle cues that to an untrained eye, you’d never catch but even from Amara’s vantage point, she could see Luis slightly tense up, his eyes a little more shifty than usual and not to mention the slight fall in his vocal tone. She wouldn’t exactly say he’s lying, but he’s certainly not telling her everything.

Of course, she wasn’t going to call him on it. She’d play the part, take the answer as it was and simply voice her temporary resolve. “For now.”

A slight breeze hit against her face as they kept moving, a telltale sign that the surface wasn’t too far off. Thank god, the sooner they’d get out of this cave, the better. They picked a hell of a season to take them hostage.

“So, what’s in this castle that you need to get?”

“A man can’t possibly give up all the surprises, can he?”

“I’d like to not end up on the business end of a knight’s sword before I’ve had a chance to take this parasite out so yes, you can spoil the surprise,” she deadpanned.

“A lady that’s straight to the point, not even a little fun? Not sure if I hate that or like that about you,” he commented, he’d never let up, would he? “We need to get inside the castle to get under it.”

“I’m gonna guess they’re not expecting us?” Amara learned it better to always assume the more likely situation was the most truthful observation. Better to be more aware of it.

He had a mischievous sparkle in his eye. “On the contrary, actually.”

“Are you shitting me?”

Leon wasn’t exactly sure how many more hits he could take.

He’d already been nursing a few bruises (no thanks to the big asshole now burning in that farm), not to mention a parasite had been playing patty cake with his organs, the occasional blood filled saliva needing to be spit out too. Despite it all, he felt fine. He wasn’t sure if that scared him more than anything he’d even encountered so far. No wonder it was so easy for the plaga to take hold of these people.

It was unsuspecting at first, the influence trickling its way in until it was too late. He’d only gotten a taste of it at the church, that pain in his head. A male voice lording over his thoughts and robbing him of control of them.

Most days, Leon felt he didn’t have control over anything. But the one thing he could rely on, count on, were his own thoughts and now those weren’t safe from…whoever that guy is.

“Fire’s gonna attract a lot of attention, we need to keep moving,” Leon announced, facing straight ahead to the nearest path. Ashley briefly voiced her agreement as Leon already started for it, he noticed a minute shiver from her.

Almost burning to death in the remnants of the barn had made him forget how offensively freezing it was out here. September is in full swing after all.

He’d actually grown accustomed to the oppressive atmosphere since losing his jacket (goddamn, he was gonna miss that thing). But he also put it down to training for all types of terrain, something which Ashley lacked.

“You alright?” Leon questioned, not too pushy about it.

Ashley wore a small, closed-mouth smile, “I’m fine.”

Something in her response was already abundantly clear that she was keeping a brave face but another part of Leon could tell that she could handle herself well enough. But still, he held no judgment for the obvious fear she had…in that way she reminded him of himself in Raccoon City.

It was terrifying.

He thought about the terror he’d left to the terror he’d been dropped in here as they crossed over a drawbridge.

The same castle he saw from earlier now loomed before them, cast in the glow of torches along the pathway and hung up against the gray, craggly limestone walls.

This place had been standing strong for a while but definitely could use some repairs.

A mechanism screeched as they stepped off the drawbridge.

“What’s going on now?”

And just like everything else that occurred so far, Leon’s answer was the same, “I don’t know.”

The wood of the drawbridge rose above their eye levels. But for one brief shining moment, he had some optimism. “At least we won’t be followed.” And as if the man could sense it, Leon’s comms device began ringing briefly. Luis’ voice came into his ear, still sounding just about as sly as ever.

“Hola, Luis here. You guys still around?”

Leon fought violently not to roll his eyes but he remembered he had to play nice, “Well, I wanted to go home, but Ashley just had to see this castle first.”

There’s a palpable silence, not filled by Luis’ seemingly quick wit. Leon is pretty sure he for once took the man by surprise. He wasn’t a complete hardass. Only some of his sarcasm and optimism had been taken from him during training.

“Perfect, because I have a present I want to give you…”

“Medicine to slow the progression of your…problem.”

“Where do we go?”

Ada and Amara scavenged the room as Luis spoke to Leon. The latter learned a lot in the past few tense moments and moments after.

Ada is infected, too.

If it weren’t already obvious, Luis has his own objectives. Pertaining to Leon, Ashley, and herself (a noble pursuit).

Leon is now just full of jokes, bite, and sarcasm. Everyone’s got their coping mechanisms.

Just about the only thing that convinces Amara that Ada is a human being is that she is now alongside the rest of them in a desperate pursuit of removing the parasite. The tendrils of the parasite had made itself known more frequently as its growth pushed on Amara’s ribs, making her spit out blood at an alarming rate.

Strangely enough, a sense of concern comes over her. Sure, this same woman is the one who essentially brought her here for…whatever reason but that doesn’t automatically shut off her emotions.

Amara tucks some extra ammo into one of the pouches on her belt and follows Ada and Luis further into the castle. They had to find a suppressant to hold off the parasite until they could fully get rid of them (means by which Luis never elaborated on).

She feels itchy and out of sorts, her skin and clothes all half a size too small and her vision occasionally blurry. No doubt from the bombardment back at the cabin, those villagers packed a punch when they got too close. She can’t fucking wait till this thing was out of her system.

For the second time in her almost three decades of living, Amara experienced what could be described as death anxiety. It wasn’t exactly pleasant either, considering their origin. It was bad enough the first time and now she had yet another race against time to remove the parasite.

“Should be just up ahead,” Luis noted, eyes peering up towards one of the towers protruding from the path. Upon entering, there was a spiraling staircase that almost seemed neverending as it descended below them. “Everything we need will be in my lab.”

Amara can only offer a brief closed-mouth smile, but a heat radiates with each set of stairs they descend so much so that she begins to pick up the scent of something…burning. But she wanted to be wrong. “Do you smell smoke?”

A part of her wanted it to be the plaga migrating to her olfactory nerve, but the bright orange hue of flames spread across every surface. Inside Luis’ lab.

Her eyes went wide and heart pounded against her chest at the confirmation of the smell. This cult wasn’t playing around, especially when it came to a traitor like Luis. He looked stricken as he descended to the last step, his face almost as white as a ghost. “No, no, no, no,” he repeated to himself. “We can’t let the medicine be destroyed–”

Not even a moment passes before Luis tries to recklessly run right into the fire, both Amara and Ada attempt to hold him back. “Luis, it’s not worth it!”

Those words seem to rally him even more as he breaks free of both their grasp, running straight through the fire. Both women share a brief look with one another, a silent agreement to go after the man. For very different reasons.

The sound of explosions inside the lab get them moving. The last thing she’d need is Luis to die, she’d been through enough of that.

“Damn it!” Amara briefly threw her hands up.

Her legs carry her behind Ada through an almost set path contained within the fire, the heat is unbearable and smoke fills her lungs quickly. As if the heaving coughs from the parasite wasn’t enough, now she had to add smoke into the mix. Great.

It didn’t take long to get to Luis, both women hefting him up on their shoulders as dry coughs overtake him from inhaling all the smoke. They throw him outside the door, he pathetically falls to his knees.

“Can you at least deliver the Amber first before trying to kill yourself?”

In a tone Amara had never heard from the roguish man, he says, “It��s all gone…burnt to nothing.”

She couldn’t remember hearing someone so defeated in a while. Defeat wasn’t exactly something many liked to accept, and in her line of work, that almost was like a dirty word.

“Why is this so important to you?” Ada questions as she stands above him, no care for the burning lab behind them. It’s just about the first time Amara had heard even a slight shift in the tone of her voice.

There’s a fierceness to his answer. “There are things I must set right!” A brief inhale of breath. “But that is impossible now. It’s all over—and I can’t help them anymore.”

“Pull yourself together, Luis.”

“Make more. You know how. Just do it.”

Ada, at her core, is logical. She doesn’t base a lot on her emotions and it’s a clear read on Amara’s end. A person she hadn’t thought of in a while crossed her mind, Monet. She never went headfirst with emotions, she was as cut and dried as they came while Amara was the complete opposite in ways she didn’t like to admit.

Being the same way as Ada only came to her by practice, not by nature.

But, anyone could see that Luis was desperate to fix his mistakes, desperate to do something right by Leon, Ashley, and herself.

“She’s right. You did it before, you can do it again,” she piped up. Those are words she never thought would come out her mouth.

Her mind is made up as they walk away from the flames engulfing the lab. A temporary alliance borne of necessity. A race against a biological clock. After this, Amara wants double pay and a damn vacation.

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

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obscura (one)

SUMMARY: Six years have passed. And Amara can't help but think about them as she heads for her next mission, recounting a pair of blue eyes and blonde hair and just what the government has done thus far.

WORD COUNT: 5.8k

WARNINGS: mentions of violence, cursing, experimentation implied, angst

[SERIES MASTERLIST]

London

October 2004

Amara’s headspace had become more and more frequently a comfort these days. A more refined person would call it a mind palace, a memory palace, etc.

She found living in memories, in moments of calm, had become an anchor for her. Between every punishing mission, she’d find a quiet place and drift and daydream into this place. Her mind conjured up images of a familiar, yet slowly unfamiliar pair of blue eyes and blonde hair but she couldn’t produce much else. But it was enough for her.

Leon was becoming a distant memory since Raccoon City and that scared her more than anything, not being able to see him or talk to him after everything is agonizing.

Sure, she had her outlets like kickboxing classes in the gym down the street from her apartment with that stupidly hot instructor John, sporadic visits coordinated by that weasely bastard Simmons with Sherry and Claire, and other things like music and painting but companionship was something she’d craved. Maybe too much sometimes. That was something that still made her just like everyone else.

Things moved at a breakneck pace after they’d been picked by the government in the aftermath. Once it became known just what Amara carried now forever in her blood, did the threats come for her by the very same government that she thought would protect them.

Now, she’s just a weapon—correction, an agent to do their bidding, their science experiment. Wesker did this to you. Keeping her mouth shut about Raccoon also guaranteed her safety and not just hers but Leon’s, Claire’s, and Sherry’s safety.

Another part of her wanted desperately to find the man who put her in this position in the first place. But that didn’t matter now. Wherever he is, she hopes it’s nowhere good.

Above everything else, Amara wanted nothing more than to keep her new allies—friends safe. Most of all, Leon.

She lets out a pitiful laugh to herself, thinking about him, her eyes focused on the road ahead. If she’d known everything that would’ve happened after that night in the motel, she would’ve held him longer, tighter. Kissed him more and savored the taste of his lips on hers, the feel of him inside her.

Even in their last interaction, deep down she knew she shouldn’t have let go.

See you later had shifted from what she thought would only be days, weeks, months…to six long years.

Rain pelted down against the tan leather of her jacket, she couldn’t find it in herself to even wear a helmet as she weaved through the traffic on her bike. Something about the rain against her face reminded her that she was alive.

With what she’s paid? A quick trip to the salon would fix her right up anyways. She actually didn’t quite mind when her hair reverted to its natural state.

Cutting down a narrow alley, she stops short in front of a parked van in front of what seems to be a derelict building. It’s black, inconspicuous, and with this weather? Practically invisible.

Her eyes venture up at the dilapidated sign above the said building. King Arthur’s Sword in the Stone attraction.

“There seems to be a fine line between coincidence and irony.” She says to no one in particular. The window of the van rolls down and an unfamiliar man sticks his head out.

“Good evening, Agent Moore.” The man smiles, a little too cheerful for Amara’s taste. “I’m Joe, I’ll be your support on this mission from here.”

A crack of lightning brightens the area momentarily. “I thought supports usually stayed in an office?”

“Courtesy of the government, this is my base of operations,” Joe, with a hint of a British accent she notices, gestures to the back, Amara briefly sees the high-tech screens and monitors.

All to keep her in line, she’s sure. For a brief moment, the lyrics of that stalker song by The Police play in her head. Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you take, every step you take, I’ll be watching you… “Right. So you’re telling me there’s an old Umbrella facility underneath a King Arthur attraction?”

“According to our intel, yes, unfortunately. There was actually some nonsense of the real King Arthur’s tomb here years ago…soon discredited.”

“And yet another roadside attraction was born,” she jokes. “Let’s see what we can see, shall we?”

She doesn’t wait for Joe’s answer, opting to head to the wall to climb up from the gutter into an open window at the top. Dropping gracefully into the expansive space, decorated distastefully and quite cheesy for a King Arthur attraction.

“Joe, hear me loud and clear?” Amara pressed the comms system on her ear.

“Clearer than clear, love.”

“Good, hopefully, this will be educational for you.”

“Learning from one of the top agents in the US division is more than an honor.” The thought of being a top agent at one point would’ve made Amara proud but now it felt like a stain that's never washed clean.

Covert operations never did seem like things deserving of the honor.

Crates and other knick knacks lay about haphazardly. “If I were an evil pharmaceutical company, where would I hide a lab?”

“I thi-“

“That was rhetorical.”

Amara ventured further in, finding more opulent, ornate items scattered throughout the various ridiculous set pieces. Jill would’ve thought it was a good score. The goofy narrations made her chuckle; were they really trying to actually educate anyone about the King Arthur tale?

Many times in her schooling, particularly on the subject of English literature, her teachers would talk of how King Arthur’s life and deeds gave way to the Arthurian legends. The once tried and true history nerd inside of her would’ve devoured this silly attraction.

Now, she can’t exactly imagine sitting down to read much of anything except lots and lots of mission reports. When she wasn’t reading them, she was certainly writing them.

At least going on missions broke up the monotony. The routine that had become so much of her life as of late. Another side objective to this mission, one that HQ told her not to really divulge anyone of, was her search for paintings. Not just any paintings either; these ones were linked to Umbrella’s former leader, Oswell E. Spencer.

She had found 4 out of about 5 (luckily the man never quite got them all in his possession), spanning across the globe, each one portraying demonic, disturbing imagery. HQ claimed they held “power” within the paint which was just about the stupidest thing she’d ever heard but in a world with the most grotesque monsters created by a human hand, was it that stupid?

Something about each one, despite the thoughts of its stupidity, intrigued her because of the symbols within the image but she did as told, destroying them (and those who protected them). All her intel pointed her to this place but there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in July that it was actually here.

“How long ago did this place close down?” Amara asks, tiptoeing over water-damaged pieces of wood. “This place certainly is not up to code.”

“The illustrious owner, a…uh, Professor Kenneth Whitman went bankrupt in 2003, it’s been closed ever since then,” Joe answers, “Madness, right?”

“I shudder to think that that man had students, but shudder even more at how much disrepair this place has fallen into within a short amount of time.”

Amara attempted to test her royalty, pulling up the aforementioned sword in the stone with no luck. No power. No King Arthur glory for Amara. And certainly no way further inside. “Looks like I’ll need to switch on the breaker, wherever it is.”

“Map shows a side alley entrance, check there?”

Ugh, back out in the rain? She really didn’t want to go through another period of drying out inside this dank, almost humid place to getting soaked by London’s neverending rain again. This is what I signed up for, remember?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. She sighed, following the map displayed on her communicator, the newest gadget added to her gear.

After traversing over the cast iron gates outside to switch on the breaker, only then does the power cut back on. Light pours out from the windows of the attraction, illuminating the rain as it hits the pavement.

“And let there be light,” she deadpans, it still earns her a chuckle from Joe through the comms in her ear.

Through all the narrations and displays, somehow Amara finds that she’s disappointed just a tad that the very room that supposedly was meant to get to the truth of the myths of King Arthur had now been converted into a storage facility.

“So much for getting to the truth of King Arthur.”

“Give the Professor some credit, at least he chose the most boring part to convert. Besides, who wants to know the actual truth anyway?”

“You’d be surprised,” Amara responded, finding a crack in the wall furthest from an exit beaming red from the fluorescent light above it. She knocked on it, finding the whole wall is hollow. Her eyes also happen upon a forklift, just asking to be used.

Operating it should be simple enough, right? It’s like operating a claw machine…with two metal sticks on the front. Joe seems to scoff, obviously watching her feed. “Is this what they teach you agents in America?”

“No, we usually just shoot our problems. But I thought I'd give this a try." Amara quipped.

He laughed. “I don't know about the forklift, but they definitely teach the sarcasm."

“Oh no, sarcasm is when I say the opposite of what I mean. Wit is when I say exactly what I mean, but in a way that makes you wish you had thought of it first."

“Lesson number one with Agent Moore? Wish I had grabbed a notepad.”

“I charge for lessons by the hour, Joe. Hope you’re ready to pay up when I get back there.”

“I’m good for it, love.”

The forklift did its job, taking down the wall to reveal…a secret entrance to a cavern. Amara pretended to be shocked, but she’s not. “Oh, wow, they hid that sooo well.”

“Is that sarcasm?”

“Yes, Joe,” she answered, hopping off the forklift. “This next part will require some silence, mate.”

All she hears is a small hum from Joe in her ear before the line is dead silent. Thank the gods above he knew when to be quiet.

The cavern is shrouded in darkness just beyond what Amara can see with the forklift’s headlight, so she flicked on her flashlight finding the craggy rocks bending and forming crudely to reveal a path. It seems to descend rather than just go straight forward. Huh, so it goes underground? This just keeps getting better, doesn’t it, Amara?

It’s a bit of a tight squeeze in some places, especially with all her gear, but she manages. More and more static filters through her comms in her ear the deeper she goes, so she lowers it. She almost wanted to let out a sigh of relief at the fact that she was finally alone even momentarily.

Eventually, the cavern begins to open up, an almost ominous humming echoing off the walls of the cavern as she gets closer to…

…a lab? Down here?

Well, at least the intel was correct.

The humming, she found, emanates from a big generator nearby which is hooked into a cavern wall. The wires seemed to lead nowhere, perhaps they were powered on with the breaker above ground? It looked more and more likely.

“Does this shit ever get less complicated?”

In 2003, after a lengthy trial that led to the dissolution of Umbrella and loss in stocks, the US Government, in a rare show of giving a shit, went after all involved with the company but that didn’t absolve their part in blowing Raccoon sky high. Hence, why she was here, partly.

While she’d been on other tasks (very much like the government’s goddamn lackey), this one was of the utmost importance. After RC, the government under USSTRATCOM formed the Anti-Umbrella Pursuit and Investigation Team. To no surprise, she alongside Leon are their main operators (though it wasn’t like they had much of a choice).

The current administration, Graham and his lovely cabinet, actually seemed to want to take down as many Umbrella adjacent so she’d spent the better half of last year during the RC trials and this year doing this.

Outside of her Umbrella pursuits, she’d heard of something going on with the President’s daughter but that currently wasn’t under her jurisdiction, technically she wasn’t even supposed to be aware of that.

There was some…mole within sectors so while usually Amara would be flanked by at least two other agents, now it’s down to just her. For reconnaissance purposes, it makes sense. The fewer agents, the less information could slip between the cracks. A smart tactic at the time, smart keeps most people safe.

But now in hindsight, it seems kind of absurd that one lone agent is tasked to find what could very well be an active Umbrella facility.

A sleek doorway stood before her, a sense of deja vu took her by surprise. The doors opened with no trouble, and the overwhelming smell of rust and damp concrete mixed with unused chemicals lingered in the air. Almost by instinct, Amara drew her Beretta, taking a moment to scan the surroundings.

The eerie silence was only broken by the sound of her footsteps echoing off the walls.

Dimly lit corridors made her a little cautious, only her trusty flashlight in her other hand guiding her next steps. The place was in disarray, with broken machinery, debris, and paperwork scattered everywhere…it must’ve been a hell of a time escaping this place.

Amara didn’t scare easily but she couldn’t shake the chills up her spine and flare in her nostrils. Taking in deep breaths, she pushed on and focused on what she came here for. The facility is empty as she suspected, so her next steps were getting information and finding the painting.

A glint of something shiny on the ground just so happened to fall in the line of her sight.

“Well, hello there,” she bent down and picked it up. A small metal disc with Umbrella’s logo shines briefly in her vision, a small bit of her reflection displayed within the iridescent surface.

She pockets it and keeps moving.

Chancing it, she raises the volume back up on her comms. There’s no longer static so that’s a relief. Except now, she had to work a little harder to hear considering the comms tended to block out sound quite well when cranked up, so well, in fact, that she could hear her own footsteps reverberate through to her skull, maybe even hear her own brain knocking around it if she focused hard enough.

“Joe?” She speaks and for a few seconds, there’s a nerve-wracking silence.

His one-syllable answer practically rattles her skull from the vibration, “Yes?”

Oh, thank god. Joe may be a tad annoying but at least there was someone to get her through this creepy-ass atmosphere. “Nothing. Just checking that you’re still there.”

“Were you getting lonely?” There’s a teasing tone to his words that she doesn't appreciate. Fuck, especially here of all places. “If you needed a big, brave man to accompany you, all you had to do was ask.”

And there he goes ruining it. Some support he is. “Shut up.”

“No need to be touchy.”

One thing she’d learned about these paintings is that they tended to be within a shrine of sorts, or blatantly on display. Judging by the narrow hallways and the dim lighting, barely even lighting as much as the shoes on Amara’s feet, she definitely doubts that the painting is here. Seriously, who would even have a shrine down here?

She paused in front of a rusted door, her hand hovering over the handle. After a moment's hesitation, she pushed it open and stepped into the room beyond. The final room within the lab is a computer lab of sorts, though all the computers are ten years behind. Blocky, huge, and ugly to look at.

As she began to sift through the piles of documents laid atop the desks, Amara's eyes fell on a computer with its screen turned on, nestled in the far corner.

It’s sleek, newer, and curvier than blocky. Someone was showing off to their colleagues.

That same computer spits lined papers of what seems to be numbers onto the floor. It must’ve also cut back on with the breaker.

“Joe? You seeing this?” She raises one of the pages to eye level.

“Yeah, what are they?”

40.4637° N, 3.7492° W…that layout…these were coordinates. She ran her fingers over the papers, reading them out quietly. Where could these lead?

“Coordinates. Think if I give you a few, you could find where they are?”

“Give me—“ Joe cuts himself off, shuffling sounds coming from her comms, “alright, give me the numbers.”

She reads them out at an even pace, making sure that Joe could catch every number.

This time, his brief silence has her on the edge of a hypothetical seat. It annoys the shit out of her. “Well?”

“Hmm…” Joe’s small noise is filled with confusion, a first for him that she’s willing to bet on. “These coordinates were pulled recently. Coordinates are in Spain.”

Spain? Pulled recently? So maybe the heebie-jeebies she was getting from that place meant someone else was there not too long before she got there. But, her senses had been too good, she would’ve picked up on someone sooner.

“Think it’s another former Umbrella researcher? Trying to reach out? Maybe another facility?” Amara hypothesized, it was the only logical thing that came to her.

Joe laughs, though it doesn’t sound like he finds any of this particularly hilarious. “Highly doubt there’s people still that devoted to Umbrella.”

Amara always divided former Umbrella employees into two categories: the devoted and the wise. She always liked the wise, for one thing, they weren’t as dumb as the devoted (for researchers, they sure didn’t use their brains). The wise researchers knew to get the fuck outta dodge as soon as they even whiffed the brewing disaster. The devoted? Oh, they’d been drinking the red Kool-Aid for so long.

Apprehending the devoted made her feel as though she’d left the real world behind and entered the world of Alice in Wonderland. They’d taken to the primrose path, the path of fantasy and illusion, believing themselves to be doing right with Umbrella as their guide through and through.

Regardless, both bled the same.

“I think these coordinates will be worth a look. At least I won’t be leaving here empty-handed,” Amara replied. No painting, though. Guess that’d be for another mission.

The return to the above ground is far less treacherous, a bit anticlimactic but she likes that. She’s well-equipped to engage in a little hand-to-hand combat, all thanks to Uncle Sam but these jeans were far too nice to get messed up. Who knew that she could throw a man off balance by just using her legs? Those were the better parts of training, the others she hoped would never resurface in her brain. She’d gotten good at dividing parts of her life now into sections.

Climbing up the way she came in, she drops right down outside into a puddle, splashing a bit of her bootlaces with rainwater. It already seeped into her socks. Gross.

She lets out a deep breath as she walks back over to Joe’s van (she’s not calling that thing a base, no matter how much he convinced her), holding out the disc she’d found earlier. “Mission accomplished?”

He runs it over and over through his fingers, appraising it for its usefulness to the reports he’d no doubt have to write too. “Mission accomplished. Well done, Agent Moore.”

“Now you and your mystery van can skedaddle.” Amara waves her hands towards the road, chancing her eyes back towards the attraction. She sees a flash of red atop the roof.

Joe chuckles briefly, turning his attention to starting up the van. He’s none the wiser to what Amara has her eyes set on.

No fucking way.

Talk about a ghost story.

Amara makes sure that Joe drives off before following the trail. Could she have left well enough alone and got back to her hotel? Yes, absolutely. But at her core, she knows she’s curious as hell. Always had been. Besides wanting to protect others, she always had a curiosity to know all there is to know.

And right now, she wanted to know why Ada Wong is haunting this attraction.

Amara carefully plans her steps, trying to avoid detection by the woman as she watches from afar. Ada moves through as if she knew the place like the back of her hand.

The path narrows, making it more than a little difficult for Amara to conceal her presence.

“Well, well, well…” Amara announces herself, and for the first time since she’s known Ada, she notices a minute jump in her shoulders. “Didn’t take you for a history buff.”

Ada is slow to turn around but wears what seems to be a trademark smirk on her face, like she always knew something that no one else knew… most of the time she does.

“I could say the same to you.”

Ada and Amara now faced each other in the dimly lit hallway. The only sound that could be heard was the stupid, cheesy narration about the Lady of the Lake. Amara was tense, ready to fight, but also conflicted. Despite everything that had happened, she couldn't quite bring herself to hate Ada.

"So, you're the one who's been tailing me," Ada said, a smirk still ever present on her face. "I'm flattered."

Amara is puzzled by her words, she only stumbled upon Ada by chance. If anyone was tailing anyone, it had to be the other way around.

"I'm not here to tail you," Amara said, raising her fists. "I'm here on a different mission but stopping you from causing any trouble would be a benefit.”

Ada laughed. "And here I thought we were friends."

"We're not friends," Amara retorted. "But I don't hate you either."

"Good," Ada said, as she lunged forward with a swift kick. Amara blocked it easily, her training kicking in. The two women traded blows, each trying to gain the upper hand. Amara was quick and agile, an added benefit to whatever pumped through her blood, but Ada was more experienced and calculated in her movements.

As they fought, Amara couldn't help but think about the strange friendship that was developing—well, redeveloping— between them. She and Ada were on opposite sides, and now they crossed paths once again. Maybe it was just the adrenaline talking, but Amara found herself almost liking Ada.

"You know," Amara said, as they continued to fight. "I really don't hate you, Ada. I kind of like you, in a twisted sort of way."

Ada raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised by Amara's admission. "Is that right? Well, that's good to know. Maybe we can be friends after all."

Amara smiled, just as she landed a punch on Ada's jaw. Ada stumbled back, but recovered quickly, launching herself into the fight.

Despite their differences, Amara and Ada fought with fierce intensity, each determined to come out on top. In the end, Ada emerged victorious, but as she helped Amara to her feet, the two women shared a small, knowing smile. Maybe they weren't enemies after all.

“With that in mind, you’ll have to forgive me, friend.”

Ada moves quickly, too quick for Amara to stop her. Jabbing a needle into her neck with efficiency. Not even her body could fight whatever was within the syringe.

Things become unfocused, and blurry as she stumbles back, away from Ada. She clutches her throat, every muscle in it closing up. The last thing Amara sees is Ada standing over her, she fights to get out one crucial word, “Bitch.”

Hours later

Amara jolts awake, gasping for air, expecting to shoot upwards but she finds that she can’t move. At all. Upon further inspection, she realizes she’s strapped down to a cold, hard table.

The brightness of the light above her blinding, making it hard to see beyond its edges. How long had she been unconscious?

The last thing she remembered is London, King Arthur, and…Ada. God damn it. That’s the last time she lets her defenses down so easily. So much for being friends.

She pulled and struggled against the restraints, hoping that “enhanced strength” would actually come in handy but found they were very unbudgeable.

“I wouldn’t mess with those if I were you,” a voice with an accent sounds off, “they were made just for you.”

Amara turned her head, finding a curly-haired man leaning against the adjacent wall, his eyes scanning between her and the lab equipment next to him. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Eso es irrelevante, encantador, ¿no?” There’s an almost sleaziness to his tone, it reminded her of the creeps you’d find on a busy street as they tried to catcall.

Amara sneered. “Considering you’re holding me captive? It’s very relevant.”

“I don’t find pleasure in this, precioso.”

She laughs lightly, he was laying it on pretty thick. “Amara. As much as I love an ego boost, call me by my name.”

“Amara, I am not the one holding you captive.”

“Okay…if it’s not you, then who is it? How long have I been here?”

“Long enough for me to take your blood,” he gestures to a machine, about 3 vials of red liquid sitting inside it.

“What?!”

“Relax, eh, I haven’t done anything with it. At least not anything they’d want.”

Amara couldn’t find it in herself to put up with the back and forth anymore. If she’d learned anything from Raccoon City, it’s that time is of the essence and mincing words and being secretive got you nowhere good. “Enough with the runaround what you really mean bullshit. Get to the point.”

The man comes close to her side, eyes darting around quickly before focusing his attention on her. Apprehension seemed to spring up in him on a dime. Whoever he worked for certainly must have him spooked.

“There’s an infection, a virus, going around this village. I believe with your blood, they want to strengthen the strain. They call it Las Plagas.”

So that’s why Ada brought her here. To be used in someone else’s nefarious game. Using her own bioorganic chemistry against her, against others. Amara was really beginning to think whoever Ada worked for and her own government was one and the same. Two sides of the same fucked up coin.

“Great, you’ve already stolen my blood, so why tell me this?”

“I’m a biologist. I think—no, know that I can reverse engineer a vaccine. Something to stave off symptoms.”

With his admission of this, Amara senses a serious case of deja vu once more. It’s John all over again. The intercepted email he wrote echoed in this man’s words, “Seriously, fuck these guys. Innocent people are getting hurt.”

“How long would that take? I can’t imagine your employers are just going to let that happen under their noses.”

“This is my lab, not theirs,” Luis said simply. “Think you can stand being strapped down a little longer?”

Amara didn’t exactly want to trust this man. He’d given up this information so easily, what was to say he wouldn’t turn on her at some point? But, throwing caution to the wind, she goes along. Well, it’s not exactly like she had much of a choice, considering she’s the one strapped to a table, god knows where.

“Just get on with it.”

“Name’s Luis, by the way. Luis Serra.”

She nods in understanding, training her eyes on a corner of the wall to try and take her mind elsewhere. The hum of the lab equipment takes over the silence of the room. At least Luis seems to realize that he didn’t have to take up the air in the room by talking every second. Amara appreciates that.

Her eyes move towards the other end of the lab, scanning over tubes filled with bubbling liquids, diagrams of molecular specifications, X-rays of subjects unknown to her, and, on the far wall, calculations of specific chemicals and their reactions. Whatever was going on, Luis’ employers had been going at it for quite some time.

Amara is certainly no biologist but training in the government, you had to know some science. It wasn’t just close-quarters combat or weapons training, agents needed an analytical mind and the ability to recognize specimens, especially biological weapons now.

Training with the government wasn’t too unlike the police academy, though there was the unfortunate thing of everyone, everyone, keeping their eyes on her. Her reputation preceded her and the same could be said for Leon.

There wasn’t a place in training where she didn’t hear utterances and whispers about him but he became just as elusive there as he was to her now. Upon learning that Leon was there, to begin with, pissed her off, they’d clearly gone against their deal but it’s not like she could do anything about it.

And anyway, the government must have a personal vendetta about keeping them apart. But for her in the same circles, she was the subject. The Subject. Never her and never by name. There was another one she’d heard from recruits as she passed. Dark Angel.

Dark Angels were known for their inability to fall and their brutality, well, at least to the mythos Amara had read. Still, she couldn’t stand either choice of names bestowed upon her.

In a way, both were dehumanizing. A reminder of the distinction between her and everyone else. Amara certainly didn’t want to be separated from everyone else. It’s not like she asked to be turned into some science project. As much as Amara hated to, she looked on the bright side…it certainly made her infinitely more interesting than she actually was.

At some point, Amara found that she couldn't keep her eyes open, her eyes fought against the almost burning lids, but it was no use.

She drifts off, finding that familiar set of blue eyes calling to her again. Man, were they pretty.

Amara is now sitting up when she wakes up for the second time. Still strapped down, still not-so-cozy and there was a very chilly draft that lingered around, thanks to whoever stole her jacket—but overall this was much better than the hard table.

Shit, they took her sidearm too? Why is she only just now noticing? This place is beginning to suck more and more.

One thing she hadn’t been warned of was her lungs burning, her eyes stinging, she had to fight for her first breath. She lets out a few coughs, her breathing returning to its normal pace. But, a weariness sat in her muscles that she couldn’t shake.

Luis…

…where was he? How long had she slept this time? What the hell had he done since she’d been asleep?

As if to answer her question, Luis runs inside the lab, with an urgency he didn’t possess before. At first, she couldn’t hear him, her senses hadn’t quite progressed past pain. Then she heard shouts. Whispers. Murmurs.

Luis was yelling. Yelling at her. He was trying to coax her into consciousness in any way he could. “We have to go now!”

“Go? Go where?” She asks while Luis undid the straps. Her legs wobbled as she stood, all the strength was gone momentarily but she regained her footing quickly.

“Anywhere but here,” Luis pulls out a Red9, places a magazine in it, cocking it, and holding it at the ready. “You ready for an escape, Amara?”

“Is that even a question?”

He grinned and cocked his head towards the door. Amara hadn’t felt a rush like this in a long time. Something about it reminded her of Raccoon City in a sick, twisted kind of way. Luis grabbed her wrist and tugged her along, setting them both off into a sprint down long corridors and dimly lit passages with side doors and passcodes.

Amara’s eyes widened at just the enormity of this place, this was all Luis’ lab? There was no time to pause and gawk; getting the fuck out of here took priority, otherwise, both of them would be dead.

“I guess this is a bad time to ask, but why are we running?” She questions between heaving breaths. Running and talking at the same time especially after only just being able to breathe again are not things Amara enjoyed doing.

“Do you really want to-”

“Yes!” Amara interrupted him, ripping her hand from his to get a better pace going.

Luis stops short as the hall opens up to a big space. Amara barely has a second to register his ceasing movement, preventing herself from all but crashing into his back. “That’s why.”

Amara follows his line of sight, upon seeing what he’s referring to, she laughs bitterly. “Are you fucking for real right now?”

This gigantic asshole stomped in through the door that Amara assumed was their ticket to freedom. He was dressed not unlike a monster she’d seen before, but this guy had a beard, yellow eyes, and sickly pallor to his skin and could talk. Wasn’t it bad enough that she had been kidnapped? But now she had to deal with this shithead? God must be playing a cruel joke on her.

Luis reached for his gun, but before he could draw it, the man’s towering figure charged at them. Amara tried to dodge, but the giant man grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her against a nearby table. She felt a searing pain in her side as something sharp pierced her skin.

He’s not here for me.

Luis fired his gun at him, but it had no effect on the hulking monster. As he advanced on him, Luis ducked out of the way, practically army-crawling to get to her.

"We have to go, now!" he yelled, dragging Amara behind him as they ran towards the door.

Amara stumbled, her head spinning. She could feel blood oozing from the fresh wound in her side and knew they had to keep moving if they wanted to survive.

Just as she thought they might make it out alive, Mendez lunged towards them, his massive hand closing around Amara's neck from behind. The man was quicker than she thought he’d be. She gasped for air as he lifted her off the ground, the world spinning around her.

Mendez's grip tightened around Amara's neck as she struggled to breathe. She clawed at his arms, but it was no use. She was trapped.

"At least buy me dinner first!" Amara gasped out, her eyes flickering with anger.

But it was too late. Mendez hurled her across the room, her body slamming into a nearby table with a sickening crack.

Everything went black.

#leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #Leon kennedy x oc #oc amara moore #leon kennedy x black oc #resident evil 4 #resident evil 4 remake #leon scott kennedy #re4 remake #resident evil #black oc #mixed race oc #mixed oc #original black character #luis serra #luis serra navarro #aod fic #ashley graham #Leon kennedy x mixed race oc

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winksasleeplesseye · 11 months

Text

recordatio (two)

SUMMARY: Soon after President Graham's daughter has been kidnapped, one of AUPIT's top operators is taken as well. Graham puts Leon on the case and now he's here in Spain. Thinking about the mission and the past few years.

WORD COUNT: 2.8k

WARNINGS: cursing, some violence mentioned

[SERIES MASTERLIST]

Spain

2004

Leon is sure he’d always wear a scowl on his face, with the thoughts that ran through his head, it’d almost become his resting face as of late. He’d certainly never imagined this is what his life would turn out to be.

Things changed on a massive scale after Raccoon City, that was pretty clear.

But, the chain of events afterward still trips Leon up every once in a while. To put it lightly, it was a shitshow.

Resting his head in his palm, he kept his eyes trained on the forest outside the car window as the car whizzed past. The darkness and the gloominess seemed to match how he felt and looked. Like shit.

Any residual feelings of happiness or any related emotion had long been buried deep within himself. He learned that quickly after everything, that part would probably never fully come back as it once was.

He looked over the pictures in his lap once again. One of a girl he only knew recently and one of a woman he’d never forget. Leon considers it purely coincidence that the president’s daughter and their first best agent (he did not ever think anyone could really be better than her) are both found in the same area.

But at the same time, he knows that can’t be the case.

He’d been briefed on both.

Amara's disappearance puzzled him more.

Amara.

Just thinking about her set off loneliness in Leon. Regrettably, the last they’d seen of one another had been so long ago that Leon was afraid he’d forget her. Her eyes. Her smile. Everything about her.

A part of him wanted her to forget him altogether. But another couldn’t bear it. It’s probably why there was a sick, underlying excitement that Leon had to be able to save her…to just see her again despite the circumstances.

He had to admit, his avoidance of her had been self-imposed. She had never asked him to leave her but they both made deals they couldn’t take back and Leon wouldn’t be able to live with himself, knowing he was the direct cause of her suffering, especially at the hands of the government.

Her and Sherry.

Both of them were innocent.

They deserved normal lives. As normal as one could get after what they’d all been through.

Get your shit together, you idiot.

“So, tell me, Yanqui….why did you come to this horrible place? As close to nowhere that I’ve ever seen?” The older officer’s voice breaks him out of his pensive reverie, giving him a sidelong glance. The mission is on a need-to-know basis and quite frankly, these officers didn’t need to know anything beyond the surface level.

“Let’s just say—looking for some people,” Leon answers plainly, calmly. Keeping his cards close to his chest is necessary.

He’d learned that very quickly. The world of espionage trumped the world of your friendly neighborhood beat cop.

“These people must be very important, eh?” The officer turns back to look at the dark road ahead. He continues speaking. “The chief gave the orders himself. “Help him,” he said.”

“Well, I’m sure you boys didn’t come all the way out here to roast marshmallows…or maybe you did,” Leon attempts to joke. Eh, he’s a bit rusty. The older officer still manages a slight chuckle.

“You have a strange sense of humor,” he states. Leon wants to be offended but he doesn’t have it in him to debate him otherwise. “I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Just between us.”

Leon waits for him to continue.

“A lot of people have gone missing around here. And it’s been that way for a while now.”

He takes the information into consideration. Clearly, this isn’t their first rodeo but it also makes it glaringly obvious to Leon that they, for lack of a better term, were incompetent.

Telling him this as if it weren’t the least bit concerning…is concerning.

If this were six years ago, the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed rookie cop in him wouldn’t be able to stomach such a thing. Well, Leon now still couldn’t stomach that. But he’s not about to tell these men how to do their jobs so he keeps his response simple enough.

“Well then…should be just another day in the office, right?”

The officer hums. “I mean, last week there was a search for some missing hikers.”

“I’m sure you’ll do your best to help me…” He just wants to get this conversation over with. Thankfully, that seems to be it so he turns his eyes back out towards the scenery.

It seems like hours before they’ve come to the very end of the road. Realistically it was probably more likely thirty minutes but Leon hadn’t checked his watch.

“I think this is it,” the young officer announced.

Leon turned his head forward as the older officer addressed him, “Nature calls, eh? I’ll be right back.” He simply nods in response.

He follows the man with his eyes as he sets off to do what he has to do until he no longer sees him. He wasn’t about to watch nor want to see a man take a leak.

The younger officer offers him a smoke and he waves him off.

A dense fog sat just above the bushes, weeds, grass and rocks sprawled out before the car. The trees and their thin branches bent in towards each other, almost like they were preparing to nab anyone who got near them.

Just ahead on the left in a small clearing within the thicket, beyond an old, rotted fence, nestled just above the tall grass, Leon noticed a strange wooden symbol.

Not exactly a cross, he knows those too well. This was different.

Leon really didn’t want to think too much about what it meant but he would keep an eye for more of these symbols. It was put there for a reason.

“He sure is taking his time. Did he fall in?” The young officer questions out loud, looking at the direction his partner had left. Leon kept his eyes trained in that direction too. It had been a bit but he didn’t want to question the officer’s bathroom habits.

Somehow, he could just sense the eyes burning into the side of his head from the rearview mirror.

“Maybe you better go and take a look?”

Have to do everything myself, don’t I?

Leon got out of the car, glancing towards the path the officer had taken.

“I’ll watch the car. Wouldn’t want to get a parking ticket.” The young officer had a stupid smile on his face as Leon turned to look at him before walking ahead to the path, which was blocked by sharp branches.

Leon sighs to himself. “So much for helping me.”

Fuck.

That’s just about the only thing Leon could repeatedly say as he fought like hell with these people. Something is seriously wrong with them.

As if shit didn’t already hit the fan back at the lodge, discovering the body of the other younger officer being burnt alive in effigy in the village square probably sent it through the ceiling.

While Leon didn’t exactly expect a walk in the park as far as missions go, he definitely wasn’t expecting shit to go sideways this fast.

Nor did he expect a mangled looking maniac with a bag over his head to try his best to gut him like a fish with a chainsaw.

It’s Leon’s lucky day, isn’t it?

The only benefit now is that he was less like a deer in headlights at even the mere sight of a hostile individual—zombie or otherwise—and didn’t hesitate, not even for a second. That split second could cost someone their life if they weren’t quick.

Go with your gut, don’t think.

The first thing he’d been taught that stuck with him. Leon did consider himself a bit of an overthinker even now outside of his work, every interaction, every single thing he’d done, but Kra—Major instilled in him that in the heat of battle that overthinking your next moves was the difference between an alive soldier and a dead soldier.

Leon wanted to be neither if he thought too much about it. He just wanted to be Leon.

But right now, he was down to the wire and he’d exhausted all his firepower to keep the villagers at bay. He didn’t come this far to fail.

Leon pulls out the knife he’d been carrying since Raccoon, more than ready to defend himself and fight like hell as they close in on him from all sides but a chiming of a bell stops the villagers dead in their tracks.

“Huh?”

Leon quietly followed after them, they had laid down their weapons and walked toward the chiming that emanated from their church’s bell. Almost in a trance-like state as they muttered the same words over and over again.

Was that all it took to stop their attack on him? Somehow he wished he knew that sooner.

A slight cold breeze goes through the air as Leon watches them file in one by one to the church, one of the villagers with his bloodshot red, almost beady eyes stares him down as he shuts the door.

But it seemed as though absolutely no thought was held behind his eyes. Something about it unnerved the shit out of Leon. He can take dirty looks thrown at him, he’d gotten his fair share during training, but at least he could tell they were alive. These people? They were almost like…zombies.

Leon can’t help but be a tad annoyed but for once, he saw the bright side of this only briefly though. He even had time to joke to himself. “Where’s everyone going? Bingo?”

It’s dark, severely dark. And smells like a potato sack, lake water, and skunk. Or what she assumes is skunk.

Amara finds that she’s more shocked at being alive than being tied up in a horrendous-smelling sack. The man, Bitore Mendez, if she remembered correctly what Luis called him, had thrown her so hard, she should be dead.

She guessed that’s one benefit to this…power. It feels disgusting to even think that.

Of course, that power certainly wasn’t getting her out of this bag anytime soon. She grunted as she tried with all her might to perhaps loosen some of the ropes tied around various parts of her body.

No luck.

Whatever happened in the time she was unconscious in Luis’ lab to now certainly had something to do with it but it worried her how unbothered she actually was about it.

“What did they plan to do to me? Roast me over a fire?” She asks no one in particular, though it’s a bit muffled considering the sack right up against her face.

The gash at her side stings slightly, no doubt that it was scabbed over by now.

Footsteps sounded nearby, and the shining of a flashlight illuminated the small holes in the material of the sack. Amara froze when the footsteps stopped, she only prayed it wasn’t that big guy again. Another bout with him might actually kill her. Well, if she’d call it a bout…he had her bested from the start.

The same flashlight now shines even brighter in her eyes, free from the cover of the sack to obscure some of it.

Amara instinctively looks away, eyes adjusting to the darkness of the space beyond the light.

“You changed your hair.” Amara’s head snaps back towards the light, looking above it to see…

…Leon?

No way. She had to be dreaming.

But…she knows those blue eyes anywhere. She also notices fairly purple eye bags underneath them, a clear sign that he hasn’t been sleeping much. His hair is definitely lighter too. His voice is deeper, more mature. He was still as fine as five Fridays, thank goodness. Things had changed, yet stayed the same at the same time.

He was definitely not how she remembered him, but somehow to her, that was a good thing. Maybe if she could reach out and touch him, she’d have more confirmation. He’s real. He’s here.

Amara cycles through all the things she could say right now, but all she manages to say despite the situation with a stupid smile in return is, “You got bigger.”

Leon tries to fight an obvious smile, something Amara thinks he hasn’t done in a while. “Comes with age.”

He pulls out a knife, cutting through some of the ropes around her body and the circulation she didn’t know she was losing comes back to her quickly. A slight tingle in her muscles at the sensation.

“Can you stand?” Leon offers her a hand.

Amara nods, clenching her fists a few times. “Think so,” She takes his hand, immediately ignoring the electricity that pulsed through her at the contact. Frankly, she wanted more.

Beyond Leon’s flashlight, she couldn’t see much else in this room. Maybe a few wooden boxes and things covered in drapes that hadn’t seen a good wash in at least a decade. She could definitely hear the familiar push and pull of water against the shore outside.

It was terrifyingly dark but standing by the light made her feel safe for the moment. Even with barely any light, Amara takes a good, long look at Leon as he scans the room.

His softer, more cherub features she remembered from Raccoon City were replaced by more hardened, defined edges. His face seemed etched in a permanent hard stare that relayed a message that he didn’t want to be fucked with.

Unmistakably Leon. Just without the glow of optimism.

Such is the way of going from a boy to a man, she guesses. That and a zombie outbreak that destroyed a whole city.

Throwing caution to the wind, Amara grips Leon tightly in a hug. He’s warm, almost snuggly with his fur-lined bomber jacket and not to mention, the muscle he packed on. “You really are a sight for sore eyes, Kennedy, you know that?” She mutters, resting her head against the collar of his jacket. Leon seems hesitant to hug her back, but eventually, she feels a hand on the small of her back and another over her shoulders.

Their hug is brief, but it’s more than enough for Amara right now. What she really wants is to kiss those plump lips of his but this situation probably isn’t the most appropriate time for it, all things considered.

Glancing around the area, she eyes another sack moving around in the dark. “You should probably get that guy out too.”

Leon followed her line of sight with his flashlight, moving closer and kneeling down to rip open the sack. She wanted to laugh at seeing Luis with duct tape over his mouth but decided against it. They must really not want him to talk for some reason.

With no warning, Leon rips the tape quickly to be met with a grunt of pain on Luis’ end. “That really hurts, you know?”

“Seemed like you really wanted to talk.”

“How observant, senor. Now, uh, say, uh, you got a smoke?”

“You know, those things'll kill ya.”

His eyes fell upon Amara once again, “Hermosa, help me out here, would ya?”

She wears an almost flirtatious smile, “Of course, guapo. What do you need, besides a lesson in manners?" Luis briefly screwed his face up in what Amara assumes is annoyance.

“Oh, well, maybe just untie me then?” He shuffled around within the bag, turning on his side and his eyes widened at something behind them.

“¡Joder! Not this guy.”

Both of them turn their eyes toward…

“Oh, come on!” Amara rolls her eyes while Leon immediately aims his gun at—who else?—Mendez. Something about his presence immediately numbs all her senses, she can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything.

She tries with all her might, breaking a sweat at the effort to even move from her kneeling position on the floor. It was like an invisible elephant had decided to sit on her shoulders.

What the hell?

“Who are you? Stop right there!” She can hear Leon try his best to remain in agent mode, but Mendez yokes him up easily by the throat. He throws Leon as if he were merely a bug in his path.

The force of it breaks down one of the wooden boxes and Amara can just barely see as Leon’s body laid at an awkward angle within the broken pieces of the remnants of the box, head hung down limply against his chest.

It was like her voice had been taken from her, she couldn’t even scream for Leon as Mendez stood over him, she couldn’t see what he was doing to him before whatever held her in place seemed to cut her airways now.

The last thing she sees before passing out is Mendez turning towards her.

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

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LEON KENNEDY | CHARACTER POSTER

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winksasleeplesseye · 11 months

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via ad perditionem (three)

SUMMARY: Leon wakes up in a new place and meets a rather...interesting man named Luis Sera. Amara also finds herself in interesting company.

WORD COUNT: 3.8k

WARNINGS: death, implied experimentation, some cursing

[SERIES MASTERLIST]

Sacrificial lamb. You will receive our most sacred body.

It begins now.

Leon wakes up with a start.

It’s brighter than he remembers. And colder.

All he remembers is…Shit, Amara. He’s back to square one. He had been able to check off one part of the mission until that man knocked him out—an unfair advantage on him, considering the sheer size of him.

He squints his eyes as he looks around the area in front of him, then he looks up above him, finding his hands cuffed. His mind only just now registers a throbbing in the back of his head and an ache of having been in this position for a while. Well, that’s…something.

What was it with these bastards with the chains and ropes?

“Oh, what the fuck?” He forcefully brings his hands down to his front, chain rustling at the movement. A voice lightly chastises him for it. “Hey, stop it!”

He recognizes the voice. The man he’d somewhat freed underneath the house by the lake. And now he’s chained to him? Just great. He pushes himself off the ground to better assess his surroundings.

Well, he tries at least. Being trapped like this doesn’t exactly give someone that much leeway to look at things to escape. Unfortunately, he did have to be considerate of the person on the other end of the chain. Despite the annoying vibes that radiate from the man.

He’d felt a small, almost green demon of envy crawl up his spine as he recalled this same annoying man had taken to flirting with Amara and the sweet smile, the easy yet witty answer she’d given to him in return. It made him feel like the rookie he thought he’d left behind, palms clammy and word vomit galore, he wished he could make her smile like that again.

First, he needed to get out of here if wanted that to happen.

“Oye, Yanqui, got a name?”

He’s only half listening as he steps towards some shelving. “Leon.”

“Quiet type, eh? I’m Luis Serra.” He introduces himself. “And guess—you, me—picked the wrong spot to vacation, eh?”

Leon tugs the chain a little too far, briefly eyeing Luis as he scolds him. “Hey! Stop it! You move, I move…And I’m beat up enough as it is!”

What exactly was holding these chains anyways? Leon glances up to find—

—hm, chained together by a pulley, huh? He could work with that. Enough force and it’d be down soon enough. He leans back a bit, repositioning himself to have a better grip to pull it, he notices Luis following his movements as he gives a forceful tug.

“I can see your thinking.” Leon felt the give on the chain, assuming the man decided to be helpful. “Bet you’ve been in spots like this before, hm?”

Leon furrows his brow slightly, beginning to wish this man would shut up. He had bigger fish to fry than to have a needless conversation with this guy about what spots he has and hasn’t been in on missions. Who knows what that man did to Amara and not to mention he needed to go find Ashley too. He turns, finding that pulling while facing away might do more good. He could just hear the nails coming undone from the wood.

“My guess…you’re here looking for someone?” Luis posits. Leon doesn’t answer. Just a couple more pulls and he’d be free. “One more guess…you’re here looking for some missing senorita?”

Leon stopped dead in his tracks, turning on a dime towards him. Now he said something useful. “Young girl?”

He pulls the chain, holding Luis’ arms above his head. “Talk. Now.”

“All right,” Luis grunts. “See, heard chatter about moving a senorita.”

“Moving her. Where?”

“Who knows?” He responds. “But later, saw some men dragging someone…to the old church. Who knows maybe that radiante flor from earlier is there too?”

Jesus Christ. If he says one more thing about her, he’s more than liable to break a foot off in his ass.

With a final tug, the pulley breaks, sending Luis to the floor. “Mierda…”

That’s when he sees him behind Luis, a man wild-eyed and flailing around with an ax, Leon doesn’t think twice to pull him away from the other man.

“Hanging with you not healthy—“

It takes mere seconds to whip the man with the length of the chain. Wrapping it around his neck, with the two men becoming temporary animal tamers…except the animal is a man.

Ending this ordeal quickly, Leon forces the weight of his knee against the chain, a sickening snap coming from the man’s neck. He collapses, taking Luis down with him.

He wanted to feel sorry about taking the man down so brutally but considering the man had come in the room with full intention to more than likely lob both their heads off with the ax, he can’t find it in him to feel all that sorry either.

Luis excitedly scrambles for something on the man’s belt loop. Leon heard the telltale sign of that something being keys for the cuffs.

Luis backs away, free from the chain in a gesture as if he just did a magic act.

“Hey, we’re not done here!” Leon runs at him but the weight of the man holds him back, Luis backs up with a triumphant smile.

He tosses the keys to the floor without so much as a second glance to Leon. “Later, amigo!”

Leon can’t help but linger his eyes in a fierce gaze in the general direction he ran off.

Jackass.

For an agent, finding ways out of any situation is crucial in every sense. It was one of the biggest tenets of training to prepare agents for whatever may come.

Amara had been in her fair share of…sticky situations to say the least.

However, this one had topped the list.

The stone tiles had been digging into her knees for some time, Amara’s sure her knees would pop out of their sockets. Not to mention, the strain on her arm muscles in this position. All in all, everything about this sucks and there wasn’t a way out.

Not that she could see. She could definitely hear rats squeaking and scurrying about, their little paws scraping against the floor. Smell only the scent of fire burning, an almost—emphasis on almost—pleasant woodsy scent amongst the smoky scent and a scent that always seemed to permeate in old buildings. Mold and mildew no doubt.

Well, at least it wasn’t the skunk lake-scented bag.

But Amara doesn’t imagine it’s much better wherever they put her.

She hears footfalls echoing from a distance. Female. Judging by the click-clack of heels. Who the hell would wear heels of any kind in this place? Amara pities whoever it is, the cracks in the stone had probably given the person more than a few missteps.

By the pace, she can tell they’re scared, nervous…a whole other gaggle of emotions to do with fear.

They sound closer and closer by the second, it’s only when someone gently unties the blindfold that the sound stops.

Her eyes scan the room before looking over at the person who had slightly freed her. It’s a church, that much is obvious, judging by the architecture, a stain-glass window just beyond the doorway, the shelves directly in front of her lined with bibles collecting dust and the worn, rusted cups that were used for communion next to them. At one point, they were more than likely a more pristine gold color but age had gotten to them.

There’s a grime to the walls that makes her skin crawl.

Amara never really cared that much, but now she could safely say she hated churches. Well, just this one.

Then there was the person who freed her. Under the glow of the lantern, the orange and green colors of her outfit stick out almost ridiculously in this place. Amara is no fashion critic by any means, but the outfit is cute.

She didn’t look too much older than 20, her soft features and curious eyes studying Amara. Something about her reminded her of Sherry.

“You’re not one of those people, I take it?” Amara questions, though the answer is pretty obvious.

She scoffs, the labored breaths she let out returning to a normal pace from stopping her exertion. “Considering I took off that blindfold, I’d hope not.”

“Think you’ve got a key to this?” Amara smiles, shaking her arms to emphasize the chain holding her captive. “Not that I don’t appreciate being able to see again.”

“Me and you are in the same boat, unfortunately.”

“Well, not exactly. You’re not chained to a wall at the moment,” Amara said, almost reflexively. It came off a little meaner than she intended but the frustration started to wear on her.

It took Amara a moment longer than necessary to register the girl’s words. “Ashley Graham?”

“My name precedes me.” She offers a closed mouth smile, there’s a pain in her eyes.

Amara immediately felt like a piece of shit, but it’s too late to really take back that she kind of sassed the president’s daughter, because the moment has already passed and Ashley already seems to be moving her eyes over the area.

“I’ll see what I can fin—“

“Don’t bother, you’re stuck here too, doubt they’d let that key lay around where their prisoners can find it.” Amara sighed, gesturing near her. “Least you can do is keep me company. Name’s Amara.”

Ashley delicately placed herself on a spot on the floor nearby. It only just now hits Amara how bare and cold everything is, goosebumps raising against her exposed skin instantly. At least one of them was warm, and it definitely wasn’t her.

Amara decided it was in their best interest to be friendly with one another. More than anything, this girl probably needed some friendly, Amara couldn’t exactly picture what had been occurring since being kidnapped. Nor how her detail had managed to slip up so badly. Dumbasses, the lot of them.

“You’re not scared?”

“Terrified. Guess I hide it pretty well.” Amara can tell she’s trying her damndest to put on a brave face. Though it was entirely possible the next sudden move or even shift of a shadow would make the girl jump.

“We’ll get out of here, trust me.” Well, that depends solely on Leon. Why on god's green earth did they only send him? Amara knows he’s more than capable (if the whispers around the office and during training were anything to go by) but one man up against…whatever is going on here seemed a bit much.

But, recalling the mole, it made a stupid amount of sense. One agent to each hypothetical needle in the haystack to see which one found the needle. Leon now either possessed the short end or long end of the stick in finding them.

“Are you an agent or something?”

“As far as I’m aware I am.”

“For my dad?”

“Oh, no. That’s way above my pay grade,” she jokes lightly. Can’t have a living, breathing BoW breathe the same air as the President after all.

She felt disgusted to even admit that but it was—is— the truth.

The only reason they hadn’t been given orders to take her out at the first chance they had was because much like that sunglasses-wearing slick blonde hair idiot thought, they thought the same.

She’s special.

And she just so happened to be of age while Sherry was not. Those factors equated to the almost perfect candidate because of the “medical potential” and the fact that to her family, she’d been dead since 1998. No one would come looking for her despite the fact a woman eerily similar to someone they’d lost now roamed freely using her name. Heh, and she was calling Ada a ghost?

The first couple of months had been the hardest, her body and psyche had been put to the test, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

More than a few training sessions ended up with her writhing in pain, bloodied, and bruised as the trainers had been given almost free reign to test all methods of attacks against her as scientists watched over her “healing” abilities. One particularly mean bitch trainer named Diana Foster knocked out a few of her teeth and while her teeth grew back almost instantaneously, the phantom pain of losing them came up ever so often now.

That coupled right now with the awful sensation of rubbing against her wrists gave her a throbbing pain in her right temple. That didn’t explain why she had spit up blood earlier just before Ashley had found her, she had chalked the weariness upon waking to Luis taking her blood but something about not being able to even have the strength to break free of these chains certainly began to alarm her.

She needed to find Luis and find out what the hell was going on with her. Better yet, the progress on the so-called suppressant he was working on.

“Are you alright?” Ashley asked, a frantic tone to her voice. “Your nose!”

A warm dribble just so happens to run down to her mouth, the taste of iron hitting her tongue. Yep, that’s blood alright.

Of course, something in her tells her not to worry her only companion for the moment. Amara is still a bit touched by the care she shows for her, despite only having just met.

“Probably just the air in here, that or being carried upside down,” she shrugs her shoulders as best she can. Ashley takes part of her scarf and tears it to make a makeshift napkin, wiping the blood and tossing the soiled piece away. “Thanks.”

“Are these people patrolling the church too?” Amara knew the next thing to do was survey the situation.

Ashley shakes her head. “I just woke up here so I’m not too sure.”

“Do me a favor. Look around this place, find something weighty.”

“Uh…why?”

“To defend yourself. If I can’t, the least you can do is knock someone out to escape, if it comes to that.”

“What about you?”

“I have a couple tricks up my sleeve.” Maybe. Hopefully. If she could rid herself of this damn pain in her head, she’d be more than okay.

Ashley looked over the shelving next to Amara, she can’t exactly see what she grabbed until she comes back into her full line of sight. A candelabra. Oh, hell. This place was ancient.

Ashley’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion as she examines it. Amara had to remind herself that there was a time that people were born after her, although the only reason she even knew what that was was because of her own interest in a few things of gothic persuasion. “This candle thingy should be good, right?”

“It’s a candelabra,” she corrected politely. “But yes, it should work. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but you need to get away from me. Only because it’s a bit better strategy not for them to be able to take us both out in one go.”

Without another word, Ashley nods hesitantly, carrying the candelabra as if it were a shield from the world and heading out the way she came to hopefully hide. Yet again, Amara is alone.

The last remnants of the boat sink slowly to the depths of the lake within the boat house. The pink, purple, and orange hues denoting sunset had now vanished with an almost pitch black sky in its place. Leon gingerly steps off the boat, full intention to contact Roost.

Coughing up blood and taking an unintended mid-mission nap (if he could call it a nap) were not on the agenda.

Neither was fighting a giant lake monster but that's besides the point.

A touch to his comms sends the familiar beeping to his ear. His voice is a little more exhausted than he’d like as he states the usual call sign. “Condor One to Roost.”

Hunnigan’s voice filled his ear, there was concern and surprise in her voice. “Condor One? You’ve been radio silent for three hours. Are you alright?”

Shit. Was it that long?

“Yeah…I’m fine,” he lightly laughed at her concern, but he didn’t want to really make her any more concerned. He’d keep coughing up blood to himself, probably that night out a few days ago coming back to bite him in the ass. “Won’t let it happen again.”

“And the church?”

“Still looking for whatever key I need.”

“Copy that. I’m glad you’re okay. Roost out.”

After tedious traveling back and forth, Leon finally retrieved the key. Upon examining it closer, he noticed the same insignia he’d seen outside the path to the hunter’s lodge from that crudely made post, the same he’d seen on the altar where the corpse of who he assumed was one of the missing hikers had laid, now the same he’d looked at upon the stained glass window above this church.

If it weren’t already completely obvious, there was a pattern.

Besides that, he briefly wanted to pat himself on the back for even getting here again in one piece but there’d be no celebrations until he had both Ashley and Amara secured.

“Ashley Graham? I’m here to help!” He called, though he was already doubtful he’d get a response. “Amara! Are you here?”

No answer. Great. Fantastic. Wonderful.

Leon held back a sigh as he noticed a mechanism just ahead. It doesn’t take two and two to put together that it’s another damn puzzle. Goddamn it.

If anyone had told him six years ago that he’d be going all over the world to do weirdly intricate puzzles, he would’ve quit right on the spot. Shit, at least it gave his brain something to focus on that didn’t involve fucking disgusting monsters for a change.

Having found the third piece to the mechanism, Leon worked through uncovering—what else—another insignia amongst the almost beautiful kaleidoscope of colors on the wall. He heard the scraping of the bars against the stone walls as they lifted, which signified that he could finally get to the upper level.

Please be here.

Now that he was closer, he called out again. “Ashley? Amara? You in there?”

His eyes fell upon an obnoxiously pink item on the floor. Bending down, he picked it up. A flip phone with sorority stickers on it, the screen is cracked so it was useless. Must be Ashley’s. Yup, she’s definitely here.

Coming to a set of two doors, Leon looked between them. Would it really matter which one he chose?

With a brief shrug, he readied himself for anything behind the door closest to the windows. He slowly pushed the door open, mindful to keep his handgun aimed downwards just in case either Ashley or Amara were in the room. The corners were shrouded in darkness, just about the only light coming from the dimmed flames of a lantern but Leon could just make out the form of someone, similarly positioned like one of the hikers he’d found earlier.

Luckily, his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Even with her head hung downwards, he could recognize the two streaks of white in her hair. He always assumed it was partially from what the G-virus had done but also a style choice on her part.

Amara.

It only takes about two or three strides before he’s by her side, gun back in its holster for the moment. There’s a nervous bundle twisted in his stomach as he lifted her chin, he hoped she was better off than the hikers.

Her skin was a bit flushed, more than likely being close to the lantern and the strenuous position they’d put her in.

“Your hands are cold…” Amara weakly spoke, automatically moving her head away from Leon’s touch.

“C’mon, wake up. It’s me, Leon.”

“Leon?” She mumbled.

“The one and only. Now, give me a–”

Leon sensed someone behind him within only half a second to spare, a gold candelabra laid on the ground where he just stood. It would’ve damn near taken his head off. “Get away from her!”

His attention is now solely on getting Ashley Graham to not land him in the upper room with blunt force trauma.

“Easy with that!” He raises his arms in surrender, voice even as he tried to approach her. “My name’s Leon. I’m here on the president’s orders–”

Before he can finish what he’s saying, Ashley practically scurries out the door she’d come in from. Running away from a perceived threat, can’t say he blamed her. Though, probably wasn’t logical to leave her companion with said perceived threat.

Amara coughs a bit, a chuckle followed after. “Smooth.”

“Hush.” Leon eyed an ax hidden behind some of the shelving. That would do the trick for Amara’s chains.

“So bossy,” she teased. He noticed that she was a bit more alert than she was a few moments ago. That was a good sign.

“As I was going to say, give me a second and I’ll get you out of these chains.” He began to ready his swing on the chain, as far as he could from Amara’s body. With one heaving swing, the chain broke from the wall, Amara’s hands flying to her front and sending her face first to the ground.

Amara groaned out for a moment, voice dripped with sarcasm as she pushed herself off the ground. “Great plan, Leon. Loved the part where I ate shit.”

“Sorry,” Leon offered a hand once more to help her up fully. She took it, grabbing more of his arm as she stumbled a tad. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just give me a minute. That was hell on my knees,” Amara offered a small smile to reassure him that she was doing okay. Leon could see it didn’t reach her eyes but he didn’t want to push her. She untangled her hand from him as she leaned against the wall near the door. “You should probably go tell Ashley that you’re a friendly. Unless you’d like her to come back in here with another thing to hit you over the head with.”

“Right.”

He marched right outside the door, seeing Ashley had her eyes set outside the window. “Hey, it’s dangerous outside.” He can see Amara in his peripheral, slowly walking towards the nearby pillar.

Ashley doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move.

Leon was beginning to feel like a scolding parent. He cautiously approached her once again. “You need to listen to me–”

“What is that? Over there?” Ashley cuts him off, pointing outside the windows. Through the inkling of raindrops, there’s an orange glow moving towards the church. Torches. Villagers holding them. Leon can just barely make them out before a booming voice invades his brain, it sounded strangely familiar as he held his hand to his head.

Pursue them.

The lost lambs are escaping…

Deliver unto them…

Salvation.

As quick as it had came, it was over just as fast. The pain in his head subsided too. He and Ashley briefly share a look between them, his eyes then turning towards Amara as she stood nearby. A look of confusion seemed to pass between all of them before they looked on at the villagers coming closer to the church.

What the hell was that?

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

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ANGEL OF DARKNESS | POSTER GRAPHIC

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winksasleeplesseye · 10 months

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adtrita (four)

SUMMARY: Amara, alongside Leon and Ashley, escapes from the church, but they run into more trouble and find Luis in a cabin nearby. Luis finally gives them some answers....but not much.

WORD COUNT: 4.9k

WARNINGS: mentions of blood, violence, some cursing

[PREVIOUS] [SERIES MASTERLIST] [NEXT]

For what felt like the millionth time, Amara went over so many things in her head. How things could’ve been, should’ve been, needed to be. It doesn’t matter that she was in the middle of a dangerous rescue mission, being led by the one person she couldn’t get out of her head for the past six years. Didn’t matter at all that even in the middle of this situation he couldn’t bother to ask how she’d been, what she was doing now considering she’d confessed she loved him and him the same in return at one point in time.

Did he even still feel the same? Would he have even held a candle for her for six years?

Sure, there was the teasing (mostly from her from what she could tell) and what have you but what about the love? She didn’t say that to him lightly, didn’t say that out of some obligation because he’d saved her life.

Plenty of men tried to pursue in the past few years but she denied them all (she wasn’t above some light flirting though). It was a little bit of a hard act to follow with a man who’d fought grotesque monsters and flesh-eating zombies in an underground lab to get her something that didn’t even have a chance to fully cure her. But Leon did. No questions asked.

Leon was—no, is—a good man.

A part of her felt it foolish, maybe naive to admit she had most definitely held the candle for him, letting it burn down to its wick, more than ready to let the hypothetical flame burn at her fingertips.

Amara would be lying if she didn’t envision the next time they met again to be more romantic comedy and less horror film hell.

Yeah, she was just really tired of living through life-altering events.

Now, all three of them stood hiding between the windows of this church. Outside, she caught a glimpse of the moon, a pale gray silver intermittently overtaken by the clouds. The bluish-gray moonlight casted Leon in an almost ethereal tone as he kept his eyes in a constant swivel, their training differed in many ways but one thing was the same. Assessing the next steps.

The voice that rattled inside her head sounded just about as menacing yet calculated (with a slight hint of cartoony) as someone else she knew once but his command was clear.

Which explained why villagers were now hellbent on finding them.

In the midst of Leon’s assessment, Ashley's eyes brimmed with tears, obviously a bundle of nerves once more as she asked him, “What do we do?”

For a brief moment, Leon turns to Amara and she’s taken back to that moment back in a forgotten city as he assumed she knew the best course of action, but his gaze turns back to Ashley just as quickly.

This is his mission after all.

“Your father trusts me…and I need you to trust me too and do exactly as I say. I’m gonna get you home safe,” Leon speaks with authority, ever the consummate professional but there’s still a gentleness. He’d learned a good balance, she assumed. None of them would get very far if there wasn’t an implicit trust.

His words send relief through her, judging by the brief nod she gives him, “Okay, Leon.”

He doesn’t say anything to Amara, clearly he assumed she didn’t really need so much of a pep talk as the untrained, unprepared college girl did.

Their conversation is cut short by a bursting of a door beneath them, Leon turns his head towards the noise, raising a hand to tell Ashley to stay back. Amara cautiously looked over the rail as he joined her to see what was going on.

The villagers had made their grand entrance, scouring every pew, every nook, every cranny and even behind the altar for them. Their words held all the venom behind them, even from here, Amara could tell something about them was off.

Ignoring the disarray of their clothes stained with dirt and other things, their skin had a sheen to it that was unnatural and…their eyes…their eyes held a furious red beadiness to them. If Amara didn’t know better, she’d have thought their eyes were just about ready to escape their sockets.

There was no going down there, that was for damn sure.

Very much like a mind reader, Leon voiced Amara's thoughts and their next actions, “All right, let’s get the hell out of here.”

They cross the floor in crouched positions, nearing a ladder to take them up a floor as it sat against the wall. The sound of rain pelted down harder outside, the smell of that same mold and mildew is thick, clearly thriving in the nestled corners of the church.

At its current height, they weren’t going anywhere unless…

“Get the ladder,” Leon simply commanded, immediately kneeling down. He didn’t exactly specify who he wanted to do the getting and didn’t want to assume he meant her.

Amara and Ashley share a brief look, the former gesturing, “Up to you.”

“Okay. Hope this is a one time thing,” Ashley mutters, more to herself than anyone else. Amara watched as she took care of how she stepped on Leon’s unreasonably, nicely broad shoulders. He stands to full height with no problem, which sends Ashley up to a higher point of vantage to kick the ladder down.

Amara tried not to be a pervert and stare at Leon’s ass as he ascended the ladder before her, but she did need to look up to climb as well…and well, it was there. Low hanging fruit, or in this case, ass.

Just as she reached the top, Leon flicked on a flashlight, which illuminated at least some of the dark path before them. Obviously, this was the church’s attic, judging by the items draped in covers and the boxes and barrels strewn about. A good layer of dust settled on everything so no one had been up here for a long while. A particular thought wiggled its way into Amara’s brain, could a painting be here?

She couldn’t exactly have said that her original mission had ended, sure, Joe was no longer her support but as far as her other one, it was still a free game. It was a safe assumption to say she was in Spain.

Killing two birds with one stone, getting rescued by Leon and finishing her own mission right under Leon’s nose. Who said he’d have to know anyway?

If he wanted to be that way, seemingly avoidant and distant, she could too.

Fuck, she needed to stop acting so stupid about him. He wasn’t going to immediately drop all his focus and professionalism to make small talk to appease her desperate need to connect with him once again.

This wasn’t Raccoon City anymore, Leon had an actual job to do, actual people to report to. They both did.

But, that nagging in her head would remain for the moment.

“What do we do? There’s no way out.” Ashley’s question cuts through the air as Amara examines something in the furthest corner of the attic. Nothing in here is remotely shaped like a painting.

She can already tell that Leon knew his next move, a foot planted at the edge of an open windowsill as a brief crack of lightning broke through the sky. He doesn’t even really announce what that move is, he just does it as he jumps out the window.

A quiet thump is just about the only thing that alerted Amara to him landing on the ground. She and Ashley moved to look out the window, Leon stared back up at them. The height alone kind of made her queasy but she swallowed that down, asking Leon a crucial question, “Are you sure about this?”

“It’s okay. I’ve got you, both of you.” He reassured, the rain soaking him within seconds.

Amara looked back to Ashley, “I hope you have good insurance.” Ashley sends her a tight smile.

It’s not that Amara doesn’t have confidence in Leon, she does completely, but catching a person at this height? He may have nice biceps and probably great strength overall but they’re no match for gravity and other factors.

She tried with everything to fight her hesitance and Leon seemed to pick up on it. “Hey, trust me!”

With a quick prayer to whatever powers that be, Amara scooted herself off the edge and catches air briefly. She half expected a bone crunch or something but she found that she was very tightly secured against Leon. His hands gripped at her shoulders and underneath her knees.

He looked at her in his arms for what felt like a long time, but the moment quickly ended as he placed her feet on the ground. “Thank you for catching me.”

“Anytime,” he responded in a way that reminded her of a different Leon.

Amara tried not to curl in on herself from how the cold rain hit against her clothes, becoming just as drenched as Leon had in just under a minute. Ugh.

She thought she’d left this disgusting rain in shitty London. This was the last thing she wanted to be doing.

Leon catches Ashley with just as much ease, something that Amara can’t help but to find attractive. Goodness, she needed to calm herself down. But, shit, she also needed a gun. Her dear, sweet Beretta would be sorely missed.

She listens with rapt attention to Leon’s transmission with “Roost” about “Baby Eagle”. She could only assume her codename was just as silly and she’s proven correct as she fought a small giggle at the use of “Black Hawk”. It made sense to use official codenames so that Leon wasn’t stupidly going around announcing who he was rescuing but that still didn’t stop it from being ridiculous.

Condor One was a pretty badass one though. Fitting for Leon, she had to admit. Condors are amongst the largest birds in the world and Leon had one of the biggest dicks so it checked out.

At least a helicopter was coming for extraction. The sooner this shitshow was over, the better.

“Like I said, it’s dangerous. Stick close.”

Ashley nods once again. “Okay.”

“Think you should probably give me one of your guns, Leon.” Amara suggested.

Two capable agents were better than one. Throbbing pain aside, Amara had a hell of a shot. No point letting it go to waste.

He looks at her like she’s said the craziest thing. Replying with a quick whisper of, “What? No.”

“What do you mean no?” She can’t fight the confused twist in her features. “Don’t be fucking stupid. We’d have more of a fucking fighting chance if you’d give me one of your guns, Leon. It’s two against…a hundred maybe.”

If her words sting him, he doesn’t let that show. Still focused as ever. “My mission is to keep you both safe.”

She doesn’t want to argue especially in this rain, but her whisper has a tinge of yelling to it. “Yeah, and two people—agents—who know their way around guns is better than one, would you concur?”

He shakes his head briefly, begrudgingly handing her the shotgun that was strapped across his back. “Try not to waste ammo.”

Now that’s what she called firepower.

Her lips quirk into a sickly sweet smile. “Relax, Kennedy. This isn’t my first rodeo.” Even that isn’t enough to break through his seemingly new hard exterior, a quick eye roll is all she gets before he pushes a tipped over shelf blocking the doorway.

“You two know each other?” Ashley questioned as they moved quickly and quietly through the path revealed just beyond the doorway.

“Oh, very well. We have a history even Shakespeare would envy…” she quips, moving close to Ashley, whispering the last part with a hand covering the side of her mouth. “But don’t tell Leon that, he might disagree.”

She laughed quietly, a momentary reprieve from the horrific situation and Amara is glad to have provided it.

The three crouch close together, Leon leading the charge as the rain picked up in its intensity but somehow the flames that came from the torches the villagers held still shined brightly. Amara quietly checked the barrel to see it’s already loaded as Leon moved quickly towards one of the villagers whose back was turned on them. They muttered in Spanish but not words that Amara could translate, but the quiet venom of them was still obvious.

Leon unsheathed his knife, coming up behind the man, coming down on his throat with a ferocity that Amara had never seen from him before. A quick spray of blood coated his hand and the knife—Marvin’s knife—she realized. It barely phased him. Well, outwardly, at least.

With a firm hand over the man’s mouth as he drops to the ground with a quiet thud. Onto to the next one for Leon.

This was no longer the same Leon she’d met years ago, if this action didn’t make it abundantly clear.

Both of them could now navigate dire situations without so much as a thought to doing it, but to see the sheer capacity for brutality that Leon possessed…she wasn’t sure how to feel.

It’s not like she wasn’t also capable of it too, it’s why she’d gotten the nickname she had. Getting the job done took priority and that usually meant whatever means necessary.

After all, the end, for the most part, justifies the means, right?

Just as quick, the villagers become aware almost immediately of their location. Barely a step away from the church. Ashley let out a shriek from fear as they ran at them with murderous intent in their eyes.

“What is wrong with these people?!”

Almost on instinct, both Leon and Amara shield the girl on both sides.

The rain practically doused Amara’s vision as the villagers crowded them. Any eyeshadow left on her lids had started seeping in as well, a burning sensation that left her squinting and no doubt her eyes bloodshot. The weather was no joke.

“Stay the fuck back!” With quick moves, she pressed the butt of the gun into her shoulder and unloaded a deadly shot at close range. The recoil was no joke on this thing but that one shot was enough to cut through the crowd.

Shit, that’s gonna hurt later.

A few of the people convulsed on the floor (despite lacking a full head on their shoulders) and Leon is quick to stab them in their downed state.

“What the hell is wrong with these people?” Her voice was incredulous, voicing the same question Ashley had only moments ago.

“Hell if I know! Just shoot!”

“That’s your plan?”

“A wise woman I once knew would say point, aim, shoot in that order!”

Amara couldn’t exactly argue with that. But, shit, did him being so authoritative have to be so hot? She does as told, helping Leon clear a path to hopefully get away from this place. They run as fast as their legs take them, coming to a bridge only to find themselves flanked on either side by more village people.

Saving grace comes to the three of them in the form of Luis frantically waving them towards the inside of a cabin. “Over here!”

They didn't think twice about booking it like a bunch of track runners trying to make it to the finish line, the second Amara’s body passed the threshold of the doorway she all but crashed to the floor a few feet away from the door.

Stabbing. That’s what her lungs felt like, definitely not like the stabbing Leon had gladly partaken in earlier but it was enough to keep her planted to the ground and struggling for every breath.

Shit. Is this what chainsmokers felt like?

Amara was no Olympic athlete by any means but she wasn’t out of shape either but as far as she can tell, that was hard to tell right now.

Luis slammed the door shut, temporarily shielding the four of them from the villagers outside. They were relentless, a mere cabin wouldn’t exactly hold them back for long, judging by the pitchforks and torches. But it’ll do. Leon placed a gentle hand on Ashley’s shoulder as she was nearly keeled over, fighting for air from the effort of running.

Within a few moments, Leon is on Luis like a hunter after his prey. Amara only briefly glimpsed the absolute rage in Leon’s eyes as he stated, “You.”

“Hey…listen…about earlier…” Luis seemed to pick up on it, immediately cowering back away from Leon.

“Yeah, about that…” He has him against the wall, fist pressed into his chest.

Amara’s eyes shifted between the two men. What in the hell exactly occurred between the time she’d last seen them both? Whatever happened, it clearly pissed Leon off on a massive scale. She doesn’t remember the last time she’d ever seen him so angry, well maybe ever actually. Of course, this was a different Leon now compared to then. Back then, Leon was very sweet…so sweet in fact that Amara occasionally thought he couldn’t hurt a fly but he cursed like a sailor to make up for it.

Luis’ almost gray-blue eyes fell on Amara and Ashley. “Hey…I see you found your missing senorita and your radiante flor.”

He was clearly trying to deflect and defuse the obvious tension radiating off of Leon but still Amara can’t help the small smile on her face at the compliment even through her annoyance. Certainly a charmer.

But, come on, the guy disappeared for several hours and she’s just supposed to not be irritated? Hell, maybe she was more pissed than Leon is, if she wanted to be real.

She arched her eyebrow. “Are you ever going to use my name?”

He doesn’t answer as Ashley walks up beside her, “And the senorita has a name and it’s Ashley, and you are?”

“Name’s Luis,” He responds in an almost sultry manner, “Encantado.”

“Great. We all have names…Now-“ Leon forced his fist harder into Luis’ chest, a small grunt of pain coming from the other man. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Amara half expected Luis to tell Leon the same thing he’d told her back in his lab, it’d certainly resolve Leon’s hostility towards him but things weren’t that simple, that easy. An ominous orange-red glow came closer and closer to the window. Amara is the first to notice.

“Very good question…unfortunately…”

“Uh, Leon?” As if pulled by a thread, the other three turned towards her. Leon lets up on Luis to look outside the window too. The villagers had gotten another way around the gate that Leon closed.

And it wasn’t just a measly few villagers. They were surrounding the cabin.

He turned sharp towards both Amara and Ashley. “Hide. Now.”

“Fuck that.” Amara protested almost immediately, checking the barrel of her shotgun. “Ashley, you go hide. We’ve got this.”

Hopefully.

The girl scrambled, searching for somewhere good to hide. This cabin was just about as wide open as anything and there weren’t really any good spots to hide. That is, until Luis lifted—with Leon’s assistance—a knocked over bookcase, revealing a hole.

Leon ushered Ashley through the hole, she threw him one last glance as she crawled through, the worry in her gaze was pretty obvious but he quickly nodded his head in reassurance. Amara quietly commended him for putting on a brave face for her or hell, maybe he just is that brave to think they could hold off these people.

Luis and Leon move back to the window, Amara training on her eyes through the very same window. “Alright…it’s game time.” Leon nodded minutely in agreement before retreating away from the windows.

Leon already beat Amara to the next course of action in barricading the other open windows surrounding them. Meanwhile, Luis spouted manly nonsense (well, by Amara’s standards) to Leon about stretching and warming up.

“Yeah, now if you’d shut up, we’d be good to go,” Leon responded just as quickly. That made Amara smirk to herself but this wasn’t the time for that.

“Can you two shut up the lovers quarrel and shoot these motherfuckers, please?” She yelled just as the first few villagers climbed inside the cabin.

“If the lady insists!” Luis shouted back, almost in a twisted excitement.

Luis, for all his secrecy, was growing on Amara in a way. For a scientist, he sure knew his way around a gun. An asset she could appreciate right now.

More and more villagers bombarded almost every entrance to the cabin that they could, an acrid scent began to fill the air from the bodies piling up and…melting? A detail that Amara desperately wanted to rid from her mind.

Amara, Leon and Luis flanked one another, trying to keep the villagers back but there were only three of them compared to god knows how many rabid people out there.

“Don’t have much ammo left, gentlemen!” Amara announced, sending a group of three men flying back into one another from the force of the shells leaving the barrel. To add a fucked up cherry on top of everything, a hulking man wearing a pig head over his own burst through one of the barricaded windows with a massive sledgehammer.

The whiplash Amara gets at the sound definitely will leave a crick in her neck but that’s a problem for later. “Up here!” Luis shouted, running up the stairs and she followed not even a second later with Leon being the last to race up the stairs behind them. Creating distance between them and this thing was the smarter option as it swung wildly at everything in its path. It was hard to tell who exactly the thing was after.

Another serious case of deja vu came over her and she didn't hesitate to voice that, “This guy is too much like RC for my liking.”

“Don’t remind me,” Leon scoffed just as he landed a kick on one of the villagers.

Just as the hulking figure came after them, Amara readied the shotgun to take a shot but the familiar click sound she knew too well came out instead, “Shit, I’m out!”

“Here,” Luis barely gave her a moment to think before he tossed her a spare gun. Hm, she had to practically fight with Leon to even get the shotgun.

“Appreciate it!”

She tried to ignore the quick shake of Leon’s head, clearly in annoyance toward the man.

Barely two seconds passed before she began unloading ammo into the pigheaded idiot, to hell with the other people right now.

“Is he even feeling this?” Amara questioned aloud more to herself, an almost incredulous laugh but only to avoid some other reaction. Probably crying.

The cabin was all tight corners and no good exit point, it was a good thing they’d sent Ashley away…they were sandwiched, to say the least. And not in a good way.

Half a second later, as the three of them scattered like bugs around the cabin, Ashley burst in through the back door. “Leon! Amara! Hurry!”

All three of them turned to look at her before Amara broke out into a dash for the door, she had never ran so fast in her life. She didn’t hesitate to follow behind, the men both hot on her tail to escape. Running across a bridge, Leon had to be commended on his quick thinking as he shot the chain, severing the tie between the villagers and themselves. But first, Amara needed to catch her breath.

Labored breaths escaped their lungs as if they had all ran a marathon, Amara let her head lull back against the wooden wall.

Safe. For now.

That wouldn’t be the case for long though. But still, Amara couldn’t believe how exhausted she felt, and for the first time in the evening, a brief touch from Leon came down on her shoulder.

“You good?”

No. Far from it.

Before Amara could answer, Ashley began coughing hard. Gasping for breath as…blood coated her hand.

Both of them, almost as if on instinct, checked on Ashley. Amara didn’t even hesitate to ask, “You alright?”

“What’s hap-happening to me?!”

Luis, in a rare show of genuine concern, took Ashley’s hand and asked, “Ashley, is this the first time you’ve coughed blood like this?”

The girl nodded in response.

“Care for an explanation?” That set off alarm bells in Amara’s head. It only felt natural to question him now seeing as he hadn’t reacted the way they had. Not too long ago, the taste of copper poured from her mouth so it had to be connected, right?

“Do you remember what I told you? At the lab?” Luis set his eyes solely on Amara, an interesting grayish-blue color to them.

The heat on the sides of her face from both Leon and Ashley bored their eyes on her too made her feel a little uncomfortable.

“Refresh my memory.” Amara answered defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest. It didn’t take two and two to put it together but she wanted to hear him say it out loud.

“The cough, the blood—it’s caused by something called a…” A brief pause. “Plaga.”

Plague.

The Plague.

Now, she remembered the lab. Las Plagas was a…virus or a parasite, but what exactly did that entail for all of them?

Leon and Amara share a brief look. He does the same with Ashley.

Clearly it hadn’t clicked for the latter two.

Luis went on. “Ok. You saw those “people”, right?”

“You have the same thing inside you.” That gets Amara’s attention. “The same thing that made them like that…”

“This, what you’re experiencing, these symptoms…” Luis spoke in a lower tone, almost an ominous warning. “They’re only the beginning.”

Something about that made her heart break a little. If it weren’t bad enough for Ashley being kidnapped, now she had a parasite too? Not to mention, so did Amara but she wasn’t sure what to make of that predicament for herself yet. Could someone with her…powers…even turn into one of those people? Calling them people was being polite because she wasn’t even sure what they were anymore.

She didn’t want to think the z word but their characteristics were certainly lining up that way.

Naturally, that spiked a fear in Ashley. “I don’t want to become like them.”

That made two of them.

Luis with his back turned to them, seemed to stop short. “You are, well, lucky.”

“How do you figure?”

“You see, at this early stage, the parasite—the plaga. It is possible to remove it…with a surgical procedure,” He threw his hands up. “All you need is some know-how.”

Amara could just hear the sly tone flood his next words, “And, oh yeah—the right equipment.”

They all set their eyes on a scar on Luis’ chest that he proudly displayed. He’d failed to mention that he had also been injected with the parasite at some point and successfully got it out.

“You’re kidding.”

“No worries. See, I have a plan,” He pointed to his head and winked. There was a caveat to this, Amara knew. “But you’re going to have to trust me.”

And there it was.

Leon looked over to Amara once more, he already seemed to know her thought process. Trust wasn’t exactly something that was easily given. But what choice did they have right now?

A simple head nod from him seemed to be more than enough for Luis.

“Great! We’re partners then!” He headed off on the path and something in Amara felt compelled to follow him. Was it a curiosity? Was it something else?

“Hey. Why are you—“

“No time for any questions. The clock is ticking.”

Leon asked what had to be a crucial question. “Why are you helping us?”

But Luis was quick with an answer, not even turning around to look. “Because it makes me feel better, let’s leave it at that.”

He waved a radio in his hand. “I will contact you later.”

Amara doesn’t even second guess her decision. Only a few strides make it past Leon before his hand clutches at the bend of her arm to pull her back gently. “Where are you going?”

“With Luis?” She said, as if it were obvious. She could just barely see his form in her vision. He hadn’t gone too far yet.

“You’re still my mission, you know that, right?”

“I’m aware, Dad,” She replies with a bit of snark. “But one of us should go with him to help his plan, right?”

“He said he’ll contact us later—“

“—and I can’t wait till later. I can catch up later,” Amara tried to gently remove Leon’s hand from her arm but he wasn’t budging.

“It’s dangerous out here. Just stick close for now.”

“Leon, I can handle myself. Focus on Ashley, alright?”

For what felt like the first time since their reunion, Leon proved to her that he wasn’t completely unphased by it all as his grip got a little tighter and his voice became a tad uneven from a built up frustration, “Just stay with me!”

“What is up with you? You’re acting like I’m incapable!”

“You’re acting differently too!”

“Me? Different? That’s irrelevant right now. The priority is the mission but there’s clearly something else going on that we need to learn about and the only one who seems to know a damn thing is leaving!”

“Amar-“

“Enough! We’re wasting time standing here,” Without another word, she turned on her heel and headed in the direction of Luis. A nagging voice told her to at least reassure Leon she’d be back, so she did even though it sounded less reassuring and more annoyed (she was very annoyed at him).

“I promise to catch up, alright?”

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

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AMARA MOORE | CHARACTER POSTER

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

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File #011 - Epilogue

City of the Dead

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x OC

Word Count: 5.5k

Summary: Having escaped Raccoon City, Amara, Leon, and Sherry now face their next biggest obstacle: the US Government. Deals are made, and lives are forever changed, but not without one last goodbye, for now.

Warnings: a tad bit of talk about religious trauma, some violence

Previous Chapter

The start of October started like any other October. Except for the four people who stood outside of Alien Coffee Motel. A chill came through the air that wasn’t there only hours ago. Leon and Amara stood back as Claire gave her goodbyes to Sherry.

It was kind of inevitable that Claire would continue on her original path. Finding Chris was what she came to do and nothing could steer her otherwise. Amara understood that innate need to look after her sibling despite the disaster of a call she tried to make last night, had she been in Claire’s position, she’d searched high and low for Monet if she couldn’t find her.

Maybe post….this, after she’d gathered more of her thoughts, she could give her another call.

Chris had rarely divulged all the parts of his life to Amara, but she knew that Claire was all he had. In that aspect, she envied that. Well, not the orphans part but the closeness that comes from relying on one another, Claire seemed the type to walk through fire for anybody but especially for Chris.

“I’ll be back, I promise,” She hugged Sherry one last time.

She walks over to Amara and Leon, an almost sad smile on her face. The former doesn’t hesitate to pull her in for a hug. “I’m sure you’ll find him, stay safe, alright?” Amara said, still clinging to her.

“Same to you. All three of you.”

“Sherry is in good hands, trust me,” Leon reassured her. They waved her off, watching her walk away until she became a speck against the horizon from the direction they came from.

Amara sighs. “I really hope she’ll be alright.”

“Don’t worry, she’s tough. You both are,” Leon takes hold of her hand, his other holding Sherry’s hand. “Come on.”

—-

They walked and walked for what felt like hours, a slight but earthy, balanced scent wafted the air. There was a definite undertone of car exhaust and skunk too. Helicopters flew by every few minutes. Cars sped past them, sending particles of dust and dirt toward them. A shiver ran down Amara’s exposed skin. Yeah, it’s definitely October.

There is something about it that calmed Amara. Except for the exhaust and skunk, those were gross.

Abraham gave her a map of the city and the surrounding area. If she was right, if they kept on this way, they'd make it back near the other side of RC soon enough.

A sinking feeling sat in her gut, but it was more like a rock. It wasn’t like they could even begin to discuss it all, Leon somehow seemed to pick up on that from her. Their brief, shared glances held more than just a simple look when Sherry asked them anything about the situation. It was better, in the long run, to protect Sherry from their side of the story, considering what Claire told them about the orphanage and Irons (out of Sherry’s earshot, of course), she didn’t need to shoulder the burden of two adults.

Amara still needed to fucking shoulder it herself first anyway. Then there was Leon.

In the morning, they got dressed, unmussing everything that had been mussed–in better-fitting clothes, thanks to Tabitha–and ate their first real meal in what had been days for Amara. The small boxes of stale Lucky Charms and one day out-of-date 1% milk were like a five-star dish to her stomach, that was for damn sure. The silence between them this time was more comfortable but there was a nagging inside her to ask him what this made them.

Everything was a mess, and yet she was worried about labels. Shit, she needed to have her priorities straight.

They had words for this sort of thing.

A few of them she liked while others annoyed her. What occurred over the course of those hours forged something that made them look past the banalities of life and the trivial decisions that come with it. No one else would probably ever understand the tough choices they all made within the depths of that lab, a shared trauma if she ever knew one. And then last night, Amara physically connected further with Leon in a way she hadn’t in a while with anyone.

So she didn’t want to ignore it forever. Ignore the feelings he had pulled from her that left her feeling like time was yielding and all her dreams came true.

She picked up on Leon’s silence as well. The last thing he’d really said was back at the motel, he seemed in deep thought since then. Amara wondered if he was thinking about things just as much as she was, she half expected him to utter at least one silly thing like the cheeseball he’d been occasionally down in the lab whilst they walked but she could definitely understand why he wasn’t.

Thirty minutes went by before another set of cars broke over the horizon. In the middle of a particularly child-friendly conversation about adopting pets between Sherry and Amara.

“Hey, look!” Sherry pointed ahead of them. “Maybe they can give us a ride?”

Amara squinted into the distance, trying her damnedest to make out what the cars looked like. They were nothing but a blurry mirage, taunting her with their mystery. All she could tell was that they seemed a bit more uniform than your average line of cars, and maybe a tad bigger. But then again, what did she know? Probably just her imagination running wild.

As they got closer, she noticed the dark green of the paint, the boxy shape of the cars, those weren’t just regular cars. They were military. A convoy. Humvees, if she wanted to be more technical. Had Leon been right?

She had known them like the back of her hand, seen plenty of them on bases before but they usually weren’t in motion. Not going that fast. Especially towards her.

The trio stopped short in their tracks, Amara got closer to Leon, talking in a hushed tone. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

He looked at her, eyes darting between the cars and Sherry. Speaking up for the first time in a while, “It’ll be alright.” He squeezes her hand reassuringly.

Amara smiles at that; she can’t help it. Smiling at him had become something like muscle memory to her: “I sure hope so,” she said, and for a moment she truly believed it. She believed that the convoy that had descended upon them would be their saving grace. That everything would be alright just because Leon said it would be.

Guns. Shouts. Screams.

At them.

Guns pointing at them.

The situation turned on a dime that made Amara dizzy.

Heavily armed soldiers surrounded them in the blink of an eye. “Get on your knees, hands on your head!” One of the soldiers barked. All three complied, knowing that any sudden movements could be interpreted as a threat.

Amara is sure her heart would leap out of her throat from how hard it was beating but she couldn’t show that. Even the slightest bit of fear is enough for misinterpretation for these assholes.

She knew there was a reason she hated military types. Yes, even though she is also one in some regard. Even out and about or on nights out with Jill, they had—have a superiority complex and the need to do entirely too much.

This display would go on her list as one of those instances.

One of the soldiers, sidearm trained on them, held some weird device in his hand. He seemed hesitant to use it.

“Where did you come from?” He asked, not putting down his gun for even a second.

“Raccoon City,” Amara answered, trying to keep her voice calm. “We were just trying to get out, get away from the outbreak is all.”

The soldier, even behind a face covering, looked skeptical. “And where do you think you’re going?”

Amara holds back the smart ass remark at the tip of her tongue, lest she gives the soldier more reasons to hit them in the head with the butt of his gun. She’d been holding back quite a lot of them as of late.

“We were actually trying to find you,” Leon said. “Guess you found us instead.”

The soldier, not appreciative of Leon’s words, pressed the device into the back of their necks. Starting with Leon. A green light popped up on the screen. “No infection detected,” an almost pleasant robotic voice announced.

Shit.

Fuck.

Shit.

This is not going to turn out well. The second that device hits either her or Sherry’s neck. They’d know exactly what they are. Infected. Regardless of the cure and antiviral flowing through their blood, it couldn’t take away what had entered their system.

The national guard must’ve been sent out in the aftermath of the outbreak to patrol surrounding cities, it’s the only logical conclusion that Amara can come to while staring down the barrels of semi-automatic rifles.

Amara’s hazel eyes slowly settle on Leon.

She finds his eyes already on her. The tension radiates off him in droves.

There was no escaping this. The soldier held her firmly in place, she felt the cold prick of a needle briefly poke her flesh. She didn’t even hear the confirmation of what she already knew before they jerked her up on her feet. “They’re infected! Detain them now!”

Sherry’s screams, tears, and look of sheer terror as they drag her away from both Amara and Leon are ones that she knows she’ll never rid herself of, she tries to fight to escape their grasp even as their vice grip on both her arms is unbreakable in her current state, digging their gear into her back and making it hard to breathe.

She knows Sherry couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from them. They were all she had.

“What the hell?” Leon shouts, he tries to rise to his feet but finds a soldier knocks him off balance, knocking the breath out of him momentarily, sending him right back down to the ground. “We just survived a damn zombie outbreak and…and this is how we’re treated…?”

“Please don’t separate us,” Amara pleaded, even as she tried her hardest to drag her feet against the dirt, hoping to prolong the inevitable. “We’ve just been through hell, we can’t be separated now, please.”

“Orders are orders,” one of the soldiers replied coldly. “Everyone is being detained until further notice.”

So much for everything being alright.

—-

“Your protocols, your orders—whatever—are bullshit, I just want you to know that,” Leon speaks out into the dark, a lone, yellowish light hung over his head and dust particles float in the air. He can just barely make out what is definitely a camcorder on the other side of the glass a few feet in front of him, judging by the lens.

“Don’t note that for the record,” A man speaks over an intercom. He rolls his eyes, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for whatever comes next.

He never usually was one to disrespect authority figures, holding them in high regard because they do something most others couldn’t handle, but after the display he’d seen with Amara and Sherry?

Tough fucking luck getting any respect out of him.

Leon’s leg had been bouncing nervously ever since he sat down, he’d been a clusterfuck since they’d detained them just outside…was it Crescent Springs? He never caught the exact name.

All he knew was he wanted to kick his own goddamn ass for barely putting up more of a fight back there; but what exactly could he do against a bunch of armed soldiers? He was screwed over from the start.

Jesus.

Pfft. As if he was gonna do any good now.

This was his figurative cross to bear. All that’s missing was the stakes. If his mother could hear him thinking like that, she’d have probably given him a light smack on his head and a punishment of soap in his mouth.

He tended to avoid Dial soap any chance he got now.

“Mr. Kennedy.” The same voice from before broke him out of his thoughts. “We have the authority to do as we please with you. And the girls.”

There’s a sick twist in his gut at those words. Just what exactly did that entail? Becoming lab rats for the government for the rest of their lives? Killing him? Fuck that.

“Leave them out of this, they’re innocents.”

“Innocents who carry G antibodies. Don’t worry they’re receiving the best of care.”

“And what of me, then? Don’t suppose I have any value to you.” He doubts they’d keep a cop with only one day of experience under their watch. Leon’s thoughts gravitated towards thinking he’d outlived his usefulness more and more.

“Oh, but, Mr. Kennedy, you do. More than you think.” The man states plainly. “Bottom line is, you have the experience we’re looking for.”

He wouldn’t exactly count surviving a zombie-infested city by the skin of his teeth as experience, probably just some great goddamn luck. “And if I say no?”

“Considering you care so much about the girls…I’d think it’s in your best interest to accept this offer, should you not want any harm to come to them.”

He can’t help his eyes as they set in a glare at those words. Is he threatening him? He wanted to be defiant, and go through with saying no but he feels like he knows the alternative. They’d deem them all as having outlived their usefulness, they certainly had no qualms about getting rid of two infected individuals

They’d kill him.

Kill Amara.

Kill Sherry.

And that was something he couldn’t live with. What good could he do to protect them from such a cruel fate if he was six feet under?

Leon could be the buffer. The thing that is between them and living their life under a microscope.

Shit.

He’d do it to keep them safe. A little price to pay for their freedom.

“So, if you want this to end peacefully…you really only have one choice. Work with us.”

—-

Amara hates hospitals. She hates them so fucking much, she can’t really put it into words whenever anyone asked her to explain herself. Well, hate is a strong word. Dislike is the safer word to use here. But could anyone blame her? Everything was so glaringly white and depressing. And the smell? The hand sanitizer, sterile packaging, coffee, floor cleaner, a hint of blood and fear. All of it combined just gave Amara a headache.

Hospitals are where most bad news was received. A doctor’s office at least tried to make the experience a little less depressing, though Amara’s positive, the colors of puke green and boring beige were now forever ruined for her, not that they weren’t already.

Anxiety seeped into every aspect of Amara’s life, one physical manifestation being her newest habit, nail biting. She couldn’t exactly help it, being separated from Leon and Sherry and surrounded by doctors in hazmat suits didn’t help to relieve her nerves. The S.T.A.R.S. Team would surely be surprised to see the state she’s in, all of them were mostly level headed—utmost professionals in their respective roles but all of the new developments Amara had been through made her shake like a dog hearing fireworks on Fourth of July.

She just wanted, goddamnit, for once to not be poked and prodded, examined under a microscope like she was in a Petri dish. She certainly missed Leon too.

As she already knew, she’d been infected by William Birkin. So was Sherry. The scientists and the doctors didn’t let her forget that fact. They both carried G antibodies and so far, those effects were yet to be seen. She’d yet to see any government agents but she’s positive she’s seen them from the other side of the glass, observing, waiting for the right time to talk to her. That, or take her out, her two options didn’t scream that one or the other were the lesser of two evils.

The right time by their standards happened to be today. Just as she’d gotten halfway through a bout of wallowing in self pity, something new for her.

“Miss Moore, I hope the staff have been treating you well?” One of the agents asks her. Graves is on their name tag pinned to their suit jacket.

Amara fights a strong urge to roll her eyes. If this was the staff’s version of well, she shuddered to think what their bad treatment was. She shrugs before answering, “It’s been fine, can’t complain, can I?”

“You could, though I’m not sure anyone would listen,” the other agent answers, seemingly trying to lighten the mood. “I’m Agent Garcia, and this is Agent Graves. I’m sure you have a lot of questions. We also have a lot, as well as apologies for the scene back in the city.”

“Apologies not accepted. Do you enjoy further traumatizing little girls?” The picture of Sherry’s face, covered in fear, wouldn’t leave her mind.

“Look, we had to be sure—“

Amara cuts him off, her voice a bit more biting than she’d like. “We weren’t zombies? I don’t know how many people you’ve seen in your life but we are very much intact.”

Agent Garcia seems to chuckle, Agent Graves seems unimpressed with her rage, a glare morphing into an arrogant smirk, tilting his head curiously at her.

“Miss Moore, you seem to think you hold any position of leverage in how this conversation is going to go.”

Yeah, she fucking hates this guy.

“Don’t I?”

Amara is not at all shocked at what Graves is implying. She returns a sickeningly sweet smile back at him, though on the inside, she’s cursed him out many times over. Surviving Raccoon City was no easy feat, but it was a tad naive on her part to think the government would just let them go after everything. But this Graves guy thought he held all the chips in play, he was sadly mistaken.

“Well—“ Garcia starts to say, but his partner quickly cuts him off, a quick wave of his hand in front of him that pisses Amara off. He must be a real hit at parties.

“You and the girl carry G antibodies. We can do whatever we please with the both of you, you know that, right?”

“She’s an innocent. Leave her out of this.”

“Don’t worry, they’re going to take good care of her.”

“And what of Mr. Kennedy?” It felt strange using such a formality for Leon, but they didn’t deserve to hear his name from her lips.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about either of them. You need to be more concerned with your next steps.”

“What? You going to kill me now?”

“Oh no, you’re far more useful to us alive. The doctors tell us that the G in your system has made you far more resilient than any human, in fact, we couldn’t kill you that easily if we tried.” The grin Graves wears is slimy, she feels gross just being witness to it. “You have the makings of an agent, seeing as you were a…STARS operative, was it?”

“Yes.”

“Everything else is figured out. All that really leaves is you…if you want this to end on good terms, the choice is simple unless you’d like to spend the rest of your life in a lab.”

Her mind drifted when faced with an ultimatum. When this all began, she thought things would be simple…in a more perfect world, maybe they would’ve been.

The case would’ve been cut and dry. But then Roslynn unknowingly—in extension, maybe John too—had brought Amara into something that was way above her pay grade, her capacity to handle.

One woman—team—up against a whole corporation, and a cover up. That was damn near impossible.

Now her own government wanted her to work with them but not on the merit of her skills (despite what Graves said), but because if anymore got out about Raccoon City, it’d paint them in such a light that they’d never recover from.

She got into this for a reason, this line of work was never going to be a walk in the park. When faced with the other alternative, the metaphor of the Petri dish looked more and more terrifying. A life lived under a microscope, being poked and prodded, watched essentially like a spectacle was no life at all.

Christ, she didn’t want that for herself nor Sherry. They hadn’t asked for this.

This was the better option, strategically.

Not to mention, keeping Sherry and Leon safe. No doubt she’d work out those conditions later but doing this secured their safety, right?

Fighting the people who did this to her and continue to do this to others made it more than worth it. But there’d be a cost. There always was.

—-

October 5, 1998.

It’d been a few days, the colors of fall had become more and more obvious to everyone. The vibrant reds, oranges, and yellow blended together to make what most would call the most beautiful time of year, not only that, but the weather dropped significantly.

Leon would’ve liked to be happy about the change in weather but something about it reminded him too much of what had only transpired only days ago. The freezing, torrential downpour and the chill in the air aren’t nice at all. Another part of him still couldn’t actually believe that it was only days ago and yet life still moved on, a jarring reminder that outside of Raccoon City, most were unaware of it all.

He wished he could be like them. Blissfully ignorant, numb to it all. With time, he’d probably get good at that. Going blank, thinking of nothing because it was so fucking much to think of everything.

Leon clung tighter to his jacket, he probably should’ve opted for something heavier as the wine was like a blunt force against his face.

His eyes were on a constant swivel. Technically, he should've been in training but the second he even got word from his “new” superiors and clearance, he knew he wanted to see her. See them both. Still, he couldn’t help but have that bundle of nerves twisting in his stomach.

Things moved so quick after he agreed to be part of their program. Agreed isn’t the right word—more like coerced—but he really didn’t want to dwell on it further.

The military hospital sat a little outside New York City. It served civilians and servicemen alike. Mothers and their children sat in the waiting room, men in their uniforms filling out paperwork, a couple of nurses were doing triage and checking in patients at a mobile desk.

It teemed with more personnel today, Leon looked out of place in his jeans and T-shirt.

“Uh, hi,” Leon greeted the receptionist at the desk with a small smile, she looked up at him briefly before going back to her computer. “I’m here to see Amara Moore? And Sherry Birkin?”

The whole room paused. Well, at least it felt that way. His words definitely made the receptionist give her full attention.

“Mr. Kennedy?”

He nodded in response.

“If you’ll give me just a moment, it’s protocol for that department to go through a few hoops, I’ll be right back, alright?”

Protocol. He’d become so fucking tired of hearing that word.

“Of course, I’ll take a seat then,” Leon dropped unceremoniously in the nearest chair as the receptionist stepped away to presumably call whoever she needed to call.

Leon lets the sounds of the conversations around him and the announcements over the intercom become background noise to his thoughts.

Considering now that it’s a waiting game. And he hates waiting. He just wants to see after everything, is that so hard? The red tape and hoops to jump through just to sit down and talk to someone.

He had been thinking about that night at the motel more than he liked to admit. He wasn’t kidding with himself when he thought himself to be a late bloomer, he wasn’t a virgin by any means but he certainly was a bit inept when it came to sex.

It didn’t help that his parents raised him on the tenets of their faith. Which meant no sex before marriage, no drinking, no swearing, no taking the Lord’s name in vain. Anything of that nature is pretty much deemed unholy and impure. Expected to be living in one set way because God has a plan for all of them. God forbid they’d miss a church service or forever be the shame of the neighborhood.

He’d long abandoned it. He’d long been a sinner anyways. Not exactly sure that a benevolent, loving God would have a plan to let someone suffer this much. Putting his faith in others is still a mixed bag but that was for another day.

Amara was just about the sweetest taste of sin he’d ever had, skin as smooth as silk and lips as sweet as honey.

As far as worship, he’d kneel at the altar of Amara Moore in communion as long as she’d let him.

Ineptitude, notwithstanding.

But, right now, he just wants them to hurry up…this bag of food hidden in his jacket can’t hold out much longer. He isn’t sure she’ll be able to eat it with all the rules but he thinks she probably needs some normalcy.

Well, as normal as one could get. Completely normal left the realm of possibility when everything came to light.

“Mr. Kennedy?” He looks up to find a doctor standing by the desk.

Here goes something.

—-

Amara really wants to just get out of here. Ever since Graves and Garcia left, she’d been waiting on word about transport. She hasn’t seen Sherry either, she really hopes she’s alright.

The hospital door slides open, Amara doesn’t have it in her to even want to see who it is. Probably another damn nurse, another damn doctor.

“You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to be a smuggler around these parts.”

A bag drops between her legs, leaving a dent in the blanket. A greasy, brown crinkled bag that reeked of high-fat high sodium cheesy goodness. In more simple terms, a cheeseburger.

Amara looks over to Leon. He’s dressed more casual and way cleaner than she’d seen him. Still as dreamy as ever.

“You’re a real sight for sore eyes, handsome,” Tears begin to form, blurring her vision just a bit. Leon looks less clear, more splotchy. She doesn’t want something as silly as tears to block her view of Leon but a burst of joy swelled in her chest. She pushes down the surge of emotion as Leon places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“If I knew junk food makes you cry like this, I’d—“

“No, no, thank you, thank you for this!” She opens the bag and, to hell with being ladylike, stuffs her face.

The taste on her tongue is better than anything. Better than the bland MREs they’d been giving her, she’d suffered enough of those for 15 years.

Between bites, she gestures for Leon to sit down, using the napkins in the bag to wipe her eyes. He sits carefully on the bed across from her.

“Hope…you don’t think I’m apologizing for…this,” Amara jokes, moving herself from underneath the hospital covers. At least she’d had the sense to put on the sweatpants they gave her.

“I wouldn’t want you to, even if you tried.” He still looks at her as if she’d hung the moon and the stars in the sky, even as he wipes the dribble of the ketchup that ran down the side of her mouth. “How are you doing?”

She cleans up her mess, focusing solely on Leon now. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second.”

He chuckles, “I’m doing fine, all things considered.”

“Well now that you’ve told me that, I can say I’m surviving. A little better now that you’re here,” she takes his hand, taking it to her lips to kiss it briefly. There’s a short silence before Amara asks him about something she’d been thinking about a lot of for the past few days.

“So…uh, did you see about Racc-“

There’s a pained expression on his face as he cuts her off. “Yeah.”

By October 1, the very day they’d been detained, the situation in Raccoon City had become uncontrollable, and for some reason, the President of the United States authorized the bombing of the city. No hope of any survivors. Except them.

Her whole life in the city now burned to ashes, reduced to nothing. Leon’s promise of new life there too.

“Guess I can finally say this….thank you, Leon.” She’s not sure if that’s something he wants to hear but she says it anyway. He had to know that his efforts weren’t unnoticed despite it all.

He shakes his head in disagreement. “I don’t think you should be thanking me.”

“Why not? You did save my life, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but look at where we are now…if I had known this would’ve been the outcome…” Leon sighs, running a hand through his hair. She imagines if he’d been standing, he’d pace the floor.

She gets exactly where he’s coming from. All too well actually. From escaping the city to now, this was certainly the last thing she’d ever expected. But this is how things were now and they had to learn to live with it.

She places a hand on his leg, bringing his attention back to her. “Leon, fucked up circumstances aside, you saved me from something way worse. With a bullet in your shoulder, no less. If it weren’t for you or Claire, both Sherry and I would have turned into monsters. We’d have been dead. You have to give yourselves some credit, at least.”

“I know, but—“

“Things look like shit right now, I know.” A wistful expression stole its way onto Amara’s face. “But—look, I don’t know what those G-men told you about me or even if they made you any promises or whatever, but I’d like to think right now we both made decisions that sucked but in the end…they’re right.”

If Amara was being honest with herself, it hurt to even say that. The toughest decisions never did make anyone feel like a million bucks.

Leon looks as though he could break into a million pieces, looking the way she felt. If she could read his mind she’s sure she’d hear him thinking the same as she was. I don’t want them to be right, I’d wish we made the wrong choices.

“None of this is ideal. But on the bright side, I can eventually tell the government to go fuck itself, right?” Amara attempts to lighten the mood, but Leon still holds just about the saddest look in his eye as he tries to laugh.

“This is a goodbye, isn’t it?” Leon asks, holding her face in his hands. His thumbs running over her cheeks briefly. She smiles only for a moment, there was no really insulting his intelligence.

Amara had long known she hated goodbyes. They were too final. She’d dealt with so many before, they’d left a bad taste in her mouth so she never made it a point to say it. She didn’t even know what the future held for Leon or for herself but she didn’t want to just assume the worst, she wanted to hold onto the small sliver of hope that while it seemed their paths were diverging, they’d cross again.

“Never. I don’t believe in goodbyes, you should know that about me,” Amara responded, placing her forehead against his. “Just think of this as a see you later, how does that sound?”

“That sounds…perfect to me, Amara.” He sighed again. “Really perfect.” He kissed her softly, then kissed her again with a fervor, making it more than clear he’d been trying to savor the taste of her. Amara was doing the same, wrapping herself around him, not caring where they were as the world faded away even for just a moment.

The door slid open once again, signaling that the real world had come crashing back in. She pulled away from Leon slowly, drinking in every single part of him, his eyes, his face…everything.

She didn’t want to forget a single detail.

“You should get going.…I love you,” she whispered the one crucial thing she’d been holding onto since the lab, and kissed him once again. “I love you. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I love you so much.” He peeled himself reluctantly away from her, heading toward the door, towards Graves and Garcia as they watched the scene in front of them. “I’ll see you later.”

“I know,” she called, watching him head out the door before she finally burst into tears.

Little did they know, their sense of timing would be so different from one another.

#leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #resident evil #oc amara webb #leon scott kennedy #re2 remake #resident evil 2 #re2 remake fic #leon kennedy x black oc #leon kennedy x oc #Leon kennedy x mixed race oc #mixed race oc #cotd fic

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

Text

File #010 - The End of The Beginning

City of the Dead

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x OC

Word Count: 6.4k

Summary: Making it out of the lab, Amara, Leon, Claire, and Sherry find shelter at a place Amara never thought she'd see again so soon. Amara finally breaks down after everything.

Warnings: SMUT

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Ten minutes removed from the situation, Amara thought the statement “The grass is greener on the other side,” couldn’t be more true.

A train that Claire had found had been their key to freedom. With only one more surprise left to burn within the train tunnel, they escaped. They were outside, away from the lab, away from Raccoon City. The first inklings of sunlight broke over the horizon, illuminating the pavement much like the Ozmites guiding Dorothy to follow the Yellow Brick Road.

Symbolically, it stood for a desperate journey that Dorothy and her companions took to reach their dreams.

But, right now, Amara was certainly no Dorothy and there were no reaching dreams, just figuring out where to go first would suffice.

The sun, while a welcome relief, began to burn a tad against Amara’s skin. But she didn’t mind. It cast an almost yellowish hue over everything as it broke through more of the clouds, it’s a beautiful sight.

It kind of reminded Amara of the paintings she’d seen in a museum. When she and her sister weren’t higher than their mother’s knees, she’d take them to whatever free art exhibit she could find, dressing them up in their Sunday best (not on a Sunday, of course) stating, “Appearances are everything.”

She wanted to touch it like she had those paintings. To feel the brushstrokes underneath her fingers, the oil paint that ran together to make something that others would deem a masterpiece.

Amara chalked up her pure whimsiness to just being alive. Even just breathing, just hearing the rocks and pieces of gravel chip underneath her boots had her wanting to jump for a joy she hadn’t ever felt before.

And the people beside her. Her heart fluttered a little as she glanced over to Leon as they walked along the road. He met her eyes, playfully running his fingers over the new streaks of white in her hair. “I have to say, shitty circumstances aside, I like the new look.”

She swats his hand away, chuckling. ��You know, the hair is actually kind of growing on me.”

“I think it makes you look like a superhero!” Sherry pipes up, the compliment makes Amara smile. They were both now inexplicably linked by all that had occurred. Amara felt a fierceness to protect her from anything, as did Leon and Claire.

Claire, who Amara only knew by association, already felt like an old friend. Considering the shit they all just survived, they certainly were bonded for life.

Amara could tell the thought of Chris weighed heavily on her. He wasn’t in Raccoon, nor was Jill (she’s sure that that lady would be stopped by nothing) but Amara’s mind takes her to those who aren’t so lucky, those still more than likely hiding—cowering within their homes, just waiting for rescue within the city.

Though, she’s convinced no one would want to trade places if they learned of the night she just went through. They’d think she was describing a movie and not a real-life situation. They made it out, and that was enough for now.

After walking god knows how many miles, the glimmer of civilization became clearer and clearer to the group. As far as cruel and unusual punishments go, Amara didn’t put walking down as one of them.

Her feet would probably always throb in pain if she ever wore boots like these again.

As fortune would have it, and just as Amara guessed, a city is on the horizon. A bit puzzled at just how normal everything appears to be.

Were they not aware of the chaos, the hell, the absolute depravity of Raccoon City?

People covered their noses as they passed them, giving weird and confused stares as they cut through the crowds. It’s not exactly every day you see a police officer who looked like he’d been through a warzone flanked by two other women and a child who looked like they were knocking on heaven’s door.

Amara is sure the metallic scent of blood, fecal matter, sewage water…and god knows what else they’d been seeping in for hours would sink in their skin if they didn’t find a place to get cleaned up.

They huddled together in a nearby park. Birds chirped. Children laughed on the playground. Fresh-cut grass and its smell wafted by their noses, pieces blowing over their shoes. Had this been a normal day (very much emphasis on normal), Amara would probably be taking a walk through Spencer City Park. A chai latte that would slightly burn her tongue upon first sip but warmed her body as the change to fall would become more and more apparent.

Here, fall nor much of anything had become apparent to the people here.

Standing out like a sore thumb was an understatement. At this point, that thumb was broken.

“We need to lay low,” Amara paced the concrete path, pedestrians barely smiled as they crossed her path. “We don’t know what anyone here knows.”

They were drawing a lot of attention as it is. While Amara enjoyed her fair share of it, right now, attention is the last thing they needed.

“Yeah, but where?” Leon questions, his vibrant blue eyes were dull and tired, eyebags evident from a mile away. “We’ve never been here. Don’t think these people are open to giving us a warm welcome.”

To emphasize his point, a young couple just so happens to walk by. The smiles they wear drop instantly as they see them and they begin speaking to one another in hushed tones.

The more Amara looked around, she began to feel a sense of recognition come over her. Some of the landmarks they’d passed seemed a vague memory in her head. She’s been here before, she knows it.

A light bulb goes off in her head. “I think I know a place.”

Once or twice, in the past few months, Amara took road trips with some of her academy friends.

The roads were long and winding but oh so pretty.

North Carolina was certainly a favorite stop. This wasn’t relevant to now but the place was. After long days of driving, the fluorescent sign of the Alien Coffee Motel was a godsend for her and her friends. It signified how close they were to home.

Never would Amara have thought she’d see this place again to say it still was.

A dingy place is still better than no place. At least now the chances of encountering weirdos here were slim to none. Turns out, looking and smelling like shit had perks.

An electronic bell sounded as Amara pushed open the door to the manager’s office. If she was right, a familiar face would come out in…3…2…

“Thalia!” A lovely old man comes from behind a curtain of beads.

“Abraham!” He crushed her with a hug that she would probably feel later. A needle or something poked her back. His knitting needle, she assumes. For the first time in a while, she felt a joy in seeing someone she knows. The first time she’d stayed here with friends, she also happened to meet his teenage granddaughter, Tabitha, who just so happened to have her 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass (if there was one thing her father knew besides his way around a drink, it was cars) break down after spending the day with Abraham.

With Abraham’s know-how around a car but rather shaky hands and Amara’s need to help anywhere she could, she checked in with her friends and dropped her bags off before rolling up her sleeves and taking directions from the older gentleman. Tabitha sat within the car with the windows down and asked her personal questions about where she came from among other things while Abraham scolded her gently for “being so impolite.” Amara remembered shrugging it off with a smile as her hands fiddled with the alternator.

She, in turn, asked Abraham little things, making small talk while the nearby radio played a Janet Jackson record. He reminded her of her grandparents, giving her short bursts of his German family stories that even had his granddaughter enthralled by them. It was a nice memory, a small gesture that Abraham told her he was indebted to her for as Tabitha drove off.

If only he could remember her name. It’s funny considering her name wasn’t that hard to remember.

“Will you ever get my name right?”

“Thalia, Amara, tomato, tomayto—” Abraham only just now seems to pick up on her scent, a slight gag coming from him. “My god, you smell like horse shit, young lady!”

Amara takes a whiff of herself. Ugh. “I was wondering when you’d notice, old man. Do you think you have any rooms available? My friends and I–” She turns to look outside, Leon, Sherry, and Claire sitting on the curb, their backs facing the window. “--could use a place to stay.”

“Did you all just come from rolling in the dumpster or something?”

“You could say that.” She tries to keep her face straight. Amara would rather not recount everything they’d been through. If these people had no idea what had gone on, that’s how it was going to stay. “So, two rooms?”

“You’re in luck, girlie! I have two!” He walks behind the desk, grabbing the only two pairs of keys on the wall. “Shoot, these aren’t next to each other. Is that okay for you and your friends?”

“That’s more than okay, Abraham. Thank you.” She takes the keys gingerly. “You also wouldn’t happen to have some change of clothes, would you?”

All of my damn clothes are back in Raccoon City, my whole life.

Abraham nodded and reached down underneath the desk, producing a cardboard box that had donations written on it. “I’ll have Tabitha see if she can’t scrounge up some things from my daughter’s place but for now, take a few things from there, sound good?” ‘

She looked down into the box, it was a mishmash of hand-me-downs but they were unquestionably cleaner than what they all currently were wearing. Digging through, she found some pieces that would fit every one of them. “That’s more than good, I can’t say thank you enough, Abraham.”

“No need to thank me, you all look like hell so get some rest, alright?” He wears a warm smile as he turns to head back to his office, more than likely making the phone call to Tabitha.

She steps back outside, and the same electronic bell alerts the trio to her presence. “We’re in luck.” She smiles, holding up the keys in one hand and clothes in the other. Leon takes one set of keys from her, a relieved smile on his face. Claire and Sherry seem to share in the relief.

“Wait, the rooms aren’t side by side?” Leon asks, looking at the room numbers. Amara finds it a tad sweet that there’s apprehension at even being just a little bit separated from the pair.

“Afraid that these are the only rooms he had left, I think we can manage, right?”

It doesn’t take much convincing once Claire and Sherry chime in, but it doesn’t escape Amara’s notice at the almost knowing smile that Claire wears as they head off in the opposite directions to the rooms. She wants to roll her eyes at that but doesn’t.

The room, believe it or not, is pretty decent for a motel. It was for sure the cleanest place they’d seen over the past few hours. So, Amara doesn’t hesitate to collapse on the carpeted floor and toe-off her boots. “I’ll never complain about motels ever again, I promise,” she speaks freely to no one in particular, putting her hands together in prayer, but it still makes Leon chuckle a bit.

“I-uh…I guess I’ll shower first then,” Amara nods in agreement to his words as he takes the clothes and heads into the bathroom. She hears the telltale signs of clothes hitting the floor before the spray of water drowns out anything else.

A dumb thought crosses her mind as she sits on the floor, eyes falling upon a phone on the nightstand. Monet. Maybe they could stay with her, she should probably tell her she’s okay?

Crawling on hands and knees, she snatches the phone from the stand, no care for the cords connecting it to the wall.

She dials a number that she has become accustomed to. To a certain extent, she wants the line to ring and ring until she hits voicemail but if Monet is still anything like Amara, she’s already been up for hours—another unfortunate habit from their father’s routine. Both of them still stuck to waking up early…Monet hated it but somehow Amara quite enjoyed it, the anesthetic repetition of it certainly helped her get more done in a day.

“Hello?”

Amara’s spine straightens. Shit, she really was banking on her not answering for once. For the first time in maybe…ever, she didn’t know what to say to her own sister.

Hi, Monet. Just calling because I survived one of the shittiest nights ever and got infected by an evil pharmaceutical company and barely made it out of Raccoon City alive. Yeah, right, like she could actually say that outright.

A rush of nervous energy floods through her and she slams the phone back down on the receiver. She releases a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, massaging the bridge of her nose to release tension.

She had a lot of tension as of late. Physically and mentally. Of everything she’d ever been through in her life, she never would’ve dreamed…imagined something of this level.

Light, dull padding against the carpet is just about the only thing that alerts her to Leon exiting the bathroom. Without so much as a glance or word to him, she speeds into the bathroom. The warm steam from the shower stall brushes lightly against her skin and she practically tears the clothes from her body. At least a scalding hot shower would wash away some of the fucked up shit.

The brief pain of the heat paled in comparison to everything else she’d put up with. Swirls of dirt, blood, and god knows what else followed one another down the drain. So quickly. So easily. At any other time, that probably would’ve disturbed her.

She’d never be ungrateful for all she had ever again.

After a few more minutes of letting the droplets of water run down her body, she steps out. The condensation fogs up the mirror but she wipes it away to look at herself.

Really look at herself.

Aesthetically, nothing had really changed except the streaks of white in her hair and the bags under her eyes…God, she was tired.

She really didn’t want to ponder further on what exactly the white in her hair or anything else meant, considering that Annette told them that the antiviral only got rid of some of G but not all. Would something physically manifest later down the line? Could she still infect others?

She looked away from herself. She wanted to stop thinking altogether.

Luckily, she needed to patch herself up. Going through the motions of wrapping herself in gauze almost robotically allowed her brain to stop overthinking and complete its most basic function: keep her alive.

Getting dressed in the clothes she got from Abraham almost made her want to laugh, the Nirvana shirt was a little bigger than she expected and the sweatpants were certainly baggier than what she usually wore but it’ll do. For now.

She slowly peeks her head out from the bathroom, the creak of the door making Leon turn his head from his spot on the bed. A small, closed-mouth, almost awkward smile comes to his face and Amara mirrors that.

And she hates it. Hates it so much. This guy went through hell and back for her and all she can muster right now is this awkwardness. Mainly because she feels like she has so much to say but not sure how to say it to him.

“Feel better?” Leon asks, breaking the silence. She notices the clothes fit him pretty well. Who knew a donation box would have so many band T-shirts?

“Much,” she sits down on the opposite side, her back facing Leon. She lets out a sigh, placing her head in her hands. The silence gives way to another round of overthinking. A slight dip in the mattress moves her slightly until Leon is now sitting next to her.

“Talk to me. What’s on your mind?”

Amara looks up at Leon, meeting his eyes and finding nothing but a gentleness, sincerity behind them. She feels like she could ask him the same thing.

She doesn’t even know where to start with what’s on her mind but she lets out a breath before going into detail. The very thing that got her here. Wesker.

“Wesker took my blood without my consent. He was the one who let me go on that trip. And I’ve been agonizing ever since. Agonizing about whether there’s something I’ve missed in all this. What’s my connection in all this? Did he always intend to do this to me?”

“Amara.” Leon rubs a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it better. I mean, this whole time, he knew.”

Amara’s mind felt even more jumbled. So many pieces to this puzzle but none of them seemed to be of the same picture. For what felt like the millionth time, she wanted her thoughts to silence. And she only knew one way she never thought she’d choose to do.

She ran a hand over her face as she glanced at the mini fridge nearby. “I need a fucking drink.” Drinking was always the easy way out, she’d seen enough of it with her father and yet never understood the vice, but now, everything hurts so much.

She needed a moment. A reprieve, just once. From shouldering this burden, from thinking, from everything. She wanted to go numb.

It’d taken a lot for her to finally, finally break down, especially since she’s not alone. So when all of this has come down at once, it hits Amara hard. Not even halfway through taking a sip, and already she is on her knees. The glass shatters around her, the amber liquid soaking the carpet.

And she breaks. Amara’s shoulders shake violently and she can’t barely breathe as sobs wrack through her body. She had once been the one utterly confused on how someone could be so vulnerable, so ready to display what she thought were ugly emotions, and yet she found the roles had reversed.

Such intense confusion, so many answers and yet still so many questions. When would things ever just make sense?

She had forgotten that Leon still sat before her. He hadn’t uttered a word but through her blurry vision, he came closer to her. Treading lightly over the broken glass before sitting down next to her. Somehow, his silence is more comforting than any words of support could’ve been. It’s nice.

Amara is so enveloped in her misery, it took her a second to realize she is wrapped in Leon’s warm embrace, a fierceness to his grip that she hadn’t registered. He’d been gripping her as if she’d disappear if he let go.

The close proximity to him makes her head spin. It scares her how drawn to this man—this relative stranger— she is, especially in this state. The shaking in her shoulders eases as tear stains dry on her cheeks, she lifts her head to look at Leon.

“Thank you.” Her voice is small. Almost like a child. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t quite meet her eyes, finding the mattress in front of them infinitely more interesting all of a sudden.

But what he says next surprises Amara more. “Don’t apologize if you don’t have to.”

Amara couldn’t recall a time in her life, a moment, maybe ever, where someone had ever said that to her. Anytime she’d had even a hint of an emotion come about, even a stray tear, she could distinctly remember being told to suck it up or not to cry. Vulnerability was put on the back-burner, meant to be an after-thought.

It was clear her own display had set something off in Leon, not in a particularly bad way. She doesn’t feel quite so guilty for showing a basic human emotion, but she feels desperate to connect with him.

In her desperation, she cups his cheek in her hand, setting his eyes upon her.

His eyes were blue. Intensely blue.

To be honest, Amara wasn’t sure what she intended with her actions nor what motivated her beyond this moment. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if Leon knew what she was doing.

So, she’s admittedly surprised when he closes the gap between and kisses her. Something in her had wanted to pull away, to make this easier for herself. Another part of her wanted to savor what he tasted like before anything else could occur.

Peppermint. Strawberries.

She kisses him slowly then, gliding her tongue

along his bottom lip before slipping it into his

mouth. One hand comes to rest on the back of

her head as the other wraps around her waist, practically putting her in his lap. She towers over him now.

Instinctively, she brings her other hand to cup the other side of his head, pulling him up towards her to deepen the kiss - and, once he's close enough to be satisfactory, runs her nails down his shoulders to rest her palms on his chest. His breath hitches and he shudders minutely, using the momentary separation to mouth at the exposed skin on her neck.

Amara lets out an almost pathetic yelp at the sensation. Just as Leon lets his hands roam underneath her shirt, three abrupt knocks cut the moment short.

“Leon! Amara!” Claire.

Despite the interruption, Amara found that the noise instead made her cling more tightly to Leon, she almost wanted to whine as he removed his hands from her skin.

Amara slowly detached herself from Leon’s lap, “Guess I’ll go open the door.” He nods briefly.

“Hey, the manager had his granddaughter see if they had another pair of clean clothes. I’m not sure if they’re your size but better than nothing, right?”

Amara takes the clothes from Claire’s outstretched hands, thanking her briefly as she leaves and sneaking a glance back to Leon. He hadn’t moved an inch from where she left him.

“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” She notices the soiled gauze wrapped around his shoulder. It could use some change, especially since every other part of him was clean.

He doesn’t answer.

At first, Amara is a bit hesitant to be in his space again to help. But she works with a practiced ease at cutting loose the gauze, grabbing the necessary items to clean it up. Though she’s sure that wound was the last thing on his mind.

“Look, about just now…” Leon starts, looking at her evenly. “I’m really sorry.”

“For?”

“Kissing you like that. You were vulnerable—“

Amara cut him off. “Well, I’m not sorry. Like you said, don’t apologize if you don’t have to.”

“Right.”

“Though let’s not discuss the mental breakdown I just had ever again, okay?” Amara hates how pathetic…helpless she sounds asking that.

Leon brought a hand up to Amara’s cheek, rubbing his thumb lightly on her cheek, her lips, tracing them. Her breath caught as she watched him watch her. His eyes alight with a sincerity but there was something else there too, he really did remind her of a puppy.

The next crucial words Leon says are just about enough to end her.

“Forgive me-“

Then he’s kissing her again, and there’s nothing sweet and gentle about it. He kisses her like a man who wants to do a thorough job of convincing her this is what she might want to do every day for the rest of her life, and it may be working.

His other arm, barely fully wrapped in the gauze at his shoulder, snakes around Amara, crushing her front against his.

Amara had kissed before, kissed many times actually, but this was nothing like that. She wanted to keep kissing him, hands threaded through his hair, breathing in every part of him. She wanted.

In one swift motion, Leon picks Amara up and stands wrapping her around him and throwing her down on the bed. She gasps, still wanting to be cautious of his injury. “Leon! Your shoulder!”

“It’ll heal.”

She laughs at his words briefly, “Not if you do that!” In one fluid motion, Amara uses her legs to flip them over (a move she learned completely by chance). Now she’s the one on top. “I think you’ll just have to follow my lead.”

Careful of her own bandages, Amara pulls off her shirt, throwing it behind her. Leon’s eyes and hands don’t seem to know where to stay as all this new skin was revealed to him.

Desire takes over his features, the blue in his eyes nearly black as he pulls her in even closer by the back of her thighs.

She leans forward to kiss him, hesitant at first as they both take the time to taste one another’s lips and enjoy the feeling, the warmth, he still tastes like peppermint and strawberries.

There’s a brief moment as Amara pulls away, Leon’s eyes heavy-lidded as he finds hers. “I’ve been thinking about that all night.”

“Have you now?”

Amara pulls him up by the collar, planting another kiss on his lips. Leon crowds her, pressing her closer to his front. He broke the kiss, sinking his mouth into her neck.

He pulls back gently, a thumb running over her right shoulder. “What’s this mean?”

Amara’s eyes follow Leon’s, transfixed at the tattoo.

It’s Sanskrit. It’d been a while since anyone had asked about it (or seen it for that matter), so she’s more than happy to answer.

“Breathe. Just breathe.”

He smiled briefly, placing a gentle kiss on it. “I like that. Very you.”

She finds herself returning the smile.

A low rumble sounded in his chest; he cupped her cheek, then slid his hand down to her jaw, neck, shoulder, her side… and finally, under her bra.

She eyed him, not directing him or pushing him, and slowly let him slip it off. He held her breasts in his hands for a moment, and then leaned down to place a wandering kiss just above her cleavage.

Amara sighed contentedly, and with that, he reached down to try to pull down her sweatpants. There was a little floundering, and as hard as she tried to, Amara couldn’t hold back her giggling.

“I’m sorry…”

“No, don’t apologize!” she contradicted with a grin. “I think you’re cute. Next time, just ask me to get up.”

A voice in her head that sounded very much like a more cynical side of her told her dryly that there might not be a next time before Leon interrupted her ominous reverie by weighing her breasts curiously in his hands. She groaned, and he once again dipped his head and placed a kiss on one of her breast.

Amara purposefully pushed him backward, gracefully placing herself between his legs. “You’ve been my hero all night, time to return the favor, don’t you think?”

“Are you sure?” Her hands tug at his sweats, slipping inside his underwear and curling around his cock and pulling it free. Leon can’t tear his eyes away from Amara’s face.

In lieu of responding to his question, Amara seals her mouth around the head and sucks.

“F-fuck,” Leon whines, unable to stop himself from the ragged rut of his hips, burying himself deeper into the wet heat of her mouth.

Amara licked and parted her lips, allowing her tongue to rest easy as she took him in-inch by inch, hollowing her cheeks out and sucking- causing his muscles to clench and his breathing to become shallow. “I’m sorry, I can’t stop - I can’t, it feels so good.”

Amara’s hands guide his hips, mouth and jaw going lax as she takes slow breaths in through her nose. Leon starts a slow rhythm, testing the waters, testing how much Amara can take before she moans around him, his pace increases until his lower half brushes the tip of her nose and lips kiss his skin with every thrust. The ache in Amara’s jaw is more than worth it to be able to look straight up the line of his body and see his pretty half-lidded eyes staring back. “A-ah, shit, not gonna last long.”

The taste of him sits heavy on her tongue. Somehow, Amara is a bit surprised. As someone almost obnoxiously, unreasonably attractive as Leon, she’d thought he’d have more experience, which is a real fucking shame because this man looks devastatingly divine when he cums.

Leon’s eyes screwed shut and face flushed an almost pretty shade of pink as he lets out a choked moan of her name, a visible shudder runs through him as his hands tangled in her hair, pressing his cock as far as it could go down her throat as his cum fills her mouth and coats the back of her throat, the clean smell of his skin filling her nose.

There’s a moment of silence, broken only by Leon’s wet gasps before he gently pats down tangles of Amara’s hair, even as she still lightly sucks on his cock as it slides out of her mouth with an audible, wet pop, swallowing his cum with a quiet hum.

He lets out a ragged breath as Amara climbs back up on his thighs, now completely bare for him.

His hand delved between her legs, his fingers gliding through her folds, sliding his thumb over her clit, already coated with the evidence of her arousal.

She gasps, maybe Leon had more experience than she thought. She wanted him to keep going but she also didn’t want to waste anymore time, the throbbing between her legs had become damn near painful.

She grabs his wrist, “Wait.”

He froze, raising himself up on his elbow. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no! But if I don’t have you inside of me right now, I may very well go insane.”

Leon can’t help but smile and laugh a tad and Amara does the same before he pulls her down to slot their lips together, very thoroughly she might add, when she pulls away it’s to take off the T-shirt he had only just put on and toss it to the floor.

Amara delicately runs her lips across his skin, a pathetic whimper leaves his lips at the attention. Clearly this is something that Leon doesn’t quite get enough of and she’s determined to change that.

He ushered her onto his body a bit more comfortably, tucking her hair behind her ear and positioning himself right at her core before she lowered herself down onto him. Both of them gasped in unison, relieving themselves of the anticipation.

She rocked her hips lightly, getting used to the feeling of him inside her. Her walls clench around him in a vice like grip, an electric jolt of pleasure going through her core. Shit, she could very well come undone at that very moment.

Leon lifted his hips to meet hers, her hands were pressed to his chest and his head thrown back into the mattress underneath him. The sounds that left his throat made her desperate to hear more of them, that same desperation is present in Leon’s touch, hands grabbing at her hips. Almost like he needs to make sure that she’s real, that he hasn’t slipped into a coma and that this isn’t a dream.

He watches Amara with rapt attention, she tries her best to do the same though her eyes are heavily lidded, too lost in the pleasure and bucking her hips to keep getting that feverish pleasure. They both needed a release, they were still both humans; something about that makes Amara feel better.

One particular roll of her hips makes Leon gasp, hands clutching at her thighs desperately, softly calling her name, practically begging her to keep going.

“Fuck, don’t stop, please don’t stop—“ the rest of his words get stuck in his throat as he groaned reverently.

After some time, though, Amara could feel all the heat in her body begin to head south, her impending orgasm coiling low in her belly.

“Leon. Leon, I’m-” she moaned out, trying to give him a warning. Her hips pounding down, urging him deeper with each thrust, the same coiling in her lower stomach becoming more urgent when he was fully sheathed in her wet heat.

“Me too, baby. God, you feel so good,” he managed to gasp out before his lips were on hers. His pace became more erratic as his orgasm approached. Without warning, his hand reached between their writhing bodies and rubbed expertly at her clit, watching as Amara trembled above him and cried out his name before throwing her over the edge into a mind blowing, body-wracking orgasm.

“Oh fuck, Leon! Yes. Yesyesyesyes,” she babbled as white-hot pleasure rolled through her body in a wave. He fucked her through her climax, brow furrowed with pleasure and concentration as he slammed up into her again and again. The feeling of her pussy clenching around him finally triggered his own orgasm and with a shuttered cry of Amara’s name she felt his cock twitch deep inside of her.

“‘M coming, baby. Gonna come in you. Fuck, Amara,” he groaned.

Once, twice, and on the third thrust he buried himself deep inside of her, cock head impossibly deep, impossibly full as he emptied himself in her welcoming walls. Her hips stuttered at the feeling of being filled like this.

The thought of him coming so deep inside of her nearly set her off again, but Amara was too tired and blissfully-fucked out to try and come again.

Amara all but collapsed on top of Leon, his arms wrapping around her as she shivered at the feel of his cock still inside her.

“That was…unexpected…” Leon breathes, rubbing circles into her thigh, still trying to come down from their respective high. “How was it for you?”

As if he had to ask. Amara couldn’t remember the last time she’d been fucked like that, the cobwebs in her underwear certainly could’ve attested to that. She most definitely would have to ask him at some point what the S meant for his middle name, because right now all it was for her was Leon ‘Sexy’ Kennedy.

She lightly smacks his chest, raising herself off of him to look at him. “If you’re wondering if I thought that was bad sex, Leon Kennedy, I will kick you out of this bed, I swear.”

Leon, still panting a tad, wears a beautiful yet exhausted smile on his face at the response, “Oh, I know it was good, just had to make sure.”

She rolls her eyes playfully. “Who knew you could be so cocky?”

They scoot closer to the headboard, no regards for anything else as they both get underneath the covers. Leon circled Amara with his strong arms, practically gluing her to his front. She could hear his heart beating wildly against his chest and she enjoyed the melody.

In all the displays of tenderness that Amara has become accustomed to Leon over the course of knowing him, him placing a kiss on the top of her head as he buries his nose in her hair is one that makes her blush immensely.

Both of them drift off into a peaceful sleep shortly after.

They lay bare, Amara’s head on Leon’s chest, careful of his shoulder. Their limbs tangled in a way that made it hard to tell where she ended and he began. She listened to the easy, calm thrumming of his heart. Something about it comforted her. She figured he was asleep but after everything, no way would sleep come easy. She remembers drifting off briefly but something in her couldn’t let her sleep for long.

It was safe to say now her body ached in a good way, completely thanks to Leon.

“Leon?”

“You’re supposed to be sleeping, Amara,” Leon responded quietly, fondly chastising.

“What do you think will happen now?”

Silence, only the sound of both of them breathing in the stillness and darkness of the room.

Leon lets out a year’s worth of sighs. “Don’t know, honestly.”

Things had changed drastically, yet stayed the same. She felt as though she were back to square one, her investigation status was now unknown. Considering half of what she needed now lay destroyed underground.

All she gathered wouldn’t be enough, she only hoped Jill or Chris got the damn email. This couldn’t end here, she needed to figure out where those two were like Jill planned for them and meet up. But first, they needed to go to the authorities, she remembered that they had to have set up roadblocks around different parts of the city and this wasn’t the only way into Raccoon.

“Think if we keep going, we’ll hit the military? They set up roadblocks somewhere, had to…there’s no way they won’t be looking for survivors, right?”

Leon clears his throat, but his voice still holds an almost low, syrupy tone. “Who’s to say they won’t find us first?” He rubs light circles into the skin of her shoulder blade.

“What do you mean?”

“You said it yourself. If word gets out about the city, I’m sure they’ll try hard to contact survivors.” There it was. That hope. Amara had long dropped it when she was inside of that cell but something about Leon’s words helped bolster something she thought illogical. She could only hope he was right. That they both were.

“Maybe…but it’s all just—“ Amara finds herself getting choked up. It’s all just so insane is what she wanted to say but her emotions had been all over the place. She didn’t sob, hiccup, or gasp, but somehow Leon knew she was crying.

Leon nudges her closer, placing a comforting hand on her head, tucking his chin over top of it. “Let it out…no use in apologizing or bottling it up. Not with me.”

Amara wasn’t sure how long she cried in Leon’s arms.

All that she knew is that when they woke up the next morning with Leon asleep by her side and daylight pouring through the cracks of the blinds, things didn’t feel quite so awful as it did as when she’d gone to sleep.

#leon s kennedy #resident evil #leon kennedy #leon scott kennedy #re2 remake #leon kennedy x oc #leon kennedy x black oc #Leon kennedy x mixed race oc #resident evil 2 remake #canon x oc #mixed race oc #cotd fic

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

Text

File #008 - This Much is True

City of the Dead

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x OC

Warnings: Slight mention of death

Word Count: 4.4k

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Amara, Leon, and Ada’s first steps were to gather all that they could from the NEST lab. Correction, Amara and Leon’s first steps. As it turns out, being knocked off a platform by Annette Birkin into piles of trash doesn’t bode well for anyone, most of all Ada.

A piece of shrapnel embedded itself in her leg and Leon had to be the one to bandage her leg, so now it was up to the two of them to retrieve a sample of what Ada called the G-Virus.

Walking to the entrance of the lab made Amara realize how many leagues above her all of this was. Everything from the ceiling to the floor shines like a new penny, all the colors in this place were muted, Umbrella opting to stick to going full super evil corporation with all the black and white.

Just about the only thing in this place that had even a hint of color was the splash of an almost blood-red in their logo plastered behind the front desk’s wall. Something about it all creeped her out.

Amara had never really actually seen a place like this in real life, in movies? Sure, but they always were far enough removed from reality that one could never think they’d really exist. This really is some sci-fi bullshit.

“If this place doesn’t scream evil, I don’t know what does,” Leon seems to read her mind.

“Took the words right out my mouth.”

First goal? Get the G-Virus. Second goal? Pilfer any info left that she can get her hands on from the computers. Maneuvering around the front desk, she fiddles with the mouse waking up the computer. She wasn’t only a sharpshooter on the Bravo team, she was the communications specialist…at least she could put her skill to good use again.

Her fingers skirt across the keyboard, she’s not usually one for hacking but considering the computer is password protected, she needed to get in somehow.

Umbrella11. UmbrellaCorp98. EvilPeople1.

Those are just a few of the passwords that she tries, just for fun because they clearly don’t work. Guess hacking is the only option. She cracks her knuckles briefly.

Leon comes behind her, looking at the screen as she began to work. “Since when did you become a hacker?”

“First computer I ever played with as a kid was an Apple computer, computer classes were sparse on base but I took all the ones I could,” She explained, continuing typing.

“That doesn’t explain how-”

“Lots of curiosity, Leon.” She had hacked into the FBI and CIA databases once or twice before on a dare from Chris, Rebecca, and Forest one late working evening, it took her a good twenty minutes to calm them down. Then, they eventually tried to find the more silly documents about UFOs but had no luck.

“Won’t Umbrella know you’re hacking them?” Leon sounded a little more than distressed. For the first time in the whole evening, Amara is more than confident in something.

“I could hack the government’s servers with the goddamn president’s computer and they wouldn’t know who did it. Relax, rookie. Who would they even send to stop me? A boogeyman?”

“I wouldn’t push your luck around the monster magn-”

“Done.”

“Done?” He looked back at the screen, eyes widening as the email interface popped up. Their eyes both scanned every detail they could take in. “I’m impressed.”

“You’re welcome,” She smiles before getting up from the desk chair.

The emails detailed various correspondence between each scientist, and each section of the lab, all working on something different in what reveals itself to be a sprawling facility.

The G-Virus was in the West area. So, West area they’ll go.

Amara couldn’t help but marvel at the advanced technology and what had to be millions of taxpayer’s dollars that went into this underground labyrinth. Impressive. Leave it to Umbrella to build a monstrosity like this.

As they moved deeper into the East wing of the facility (because of course, nothing is ever just easily accessible), Amara couldn’t help but notice the remnants of what she could only assume was disaster littering the halls. Mutated creatures, sickening amalgamations of flesh, skulls, and greenery that would arise, abandoned equipment, and corpses of scientists were all a bone-chilling sight.

“Why would you ever need to hack anything?” Leon asks randomly, holding his gun at the ready for anything in this place. The area, the greenhouse she assumes, certainly had become overgrown with vines, they practically burst from the seams of the ceilings and floors. If the zombies weren’t bad enough, now they were wrapped up in dangerous flora. Fun.

Amara briefly glances at Leon, noticing his focused expression. “STARS needed to know who we were dealing with, it was purely professional. Not like I’m stealing money or anything.”

“That’s fair.”

“Why? You gonna lecture me about patriotism or something, Mr. Kennedy?”

“After all this bullshit? I’m the last one to lecture.”

There’s a comfortable silence between them after that.

The silence unfortunately makes Amara more hyper-aware of the wound she waved off earlier. Every step, every vibration from the bottom of her shoes up to her waist made it hurt a little more. In fact, her legs had become a little more unsteady as time wore on.

There’s a particular tingle in Amara’s muscles that seemed to be spreading. She’d likened it to the prick of needles on her skin or when an acupuncturist pressed those microneedles under someone’s skin or even the momentary loss of blood flow from applying too much pressure to a limb.

Only problem? None of those were happening at the moment. That scared her more than anything, more than the zombies, or even the gross creatures she’d been fighting with Leon all night.

She never considered herself one to get anxious about her health, every visit to her doctor gave her a clean bill of health, the standard for a woman in her line of work and her age.

Hell, she barely ever got a cold but this gash, slash, wound, or whatever it was…is beginning to sting.

Damn it, why doesn’t she just tell Leon?

It really, really scared her to admit that she may or may not turn into the very thing they’re trying to fight. A monster to be taken down. A mindless thing only craving flesh. That devastated her more than she wanted to let on because that would result in Leon having to eventually be the one to take her out of her misery, and she couldn’t quite accept that reality yet.

That and the drive she still possessed, the rage of all that had happened—she couldn’t just die having failed her friends, failed the city she’d grown to love, failed in her purpose to be someone to be proud of. Especially in a world that seemed determined to crush her under its heel.

So, she pushed down the pain once again. They needed to get that sample, and just maybe she could fight whatever is ravaging her body long enough to get out of there alive.

Leon took the reins on solving the puzzles and passwords, he’d been more watchful of her since that encounter and a more stubborn part of her wanted to remind him that, goddamn it, he didn’t need to but the more in pain Amara relented, telling him she was fine and opting to look through all the computers they came across.

One, in particular, threw her right back to the night she’d learned of everything. The emails were vaguely familiar to her.

August 23, 1998

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Subject: TIP / Illegal Activity at Umbrella Corporation

You don't know me. Have to make this quick. They might be monitoring.

I’ve been working for a few months as a researcher at Umbrella Corporation facilities underneath Raccoon City. All sorts of NDAs I am very much breaking right now but seriously, fuck these guys.

Terrible things are happening here. Don't understand it. Don't believe half the things I saw. Colleagues talking about viruses of some sort, creating something that is a perversion of every natural law I know. People are being hurt and Umbrella is making money.

It needs to be exposed.

Dated August 23. Two days before Amara got a call from Roslynn. Before Mayor Harris’ press conference. This is–was John’s computer.

Amara hadn’t seen this email in the files. She saw John’s correspondence with other researchers, questioning the morality of it all, but this one was hidden in folders deep on the desktop. They must’ve intercepted this one quickly, at least he had the sense to keep a backup.

John’s logs echo the same as the files she’d found in his home office. Talks of test subjects in different trials and their reactions to “chemicals” that resulted in gruesome side effects.

A beauty cream or medicine doesn’t exactly make your flesh rot off the bone, does it? Just reading about it made Amara’s gag reflex come in full force, but she also could attribute that to whatever flows in her veins.

Opening up the email interface once more, Amara decided to compose something to hopefully someone or someones that could use this information. Attachments and all. It’s what John would want her to do, she’s sure.

September 30, 1998

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]; [email protected]

Subject: Don’t waste this. (Attachment)

Hopefully, these things find you both well, and find you by an internet cafe.

Here’s hoping this information is enough.

She hits send, powering down the computer. That was simple enough for them both. Though, this was assuming Jill already left the city as they planned.

The East wing housed even more monstrosities if that were possible.

NEST was really living up to its name. Well, the name that Amara christened for it. As far as stupid lines, she didn’t have Leon beat though.

A nest of insanity.

That made Amara briefly smile to herself again, stupid jokes made the world go around after all.

“How’s the side?” Leon asks, for what felt the billionth time.

“Leon–”

“I know you you’re hurting–”

“Please, drop it!” Amara snapped but instantly recoiled at the harshness of her own words. She hadn’t so much as risen her voice like that all evening. Until now, that is. “I didn’t–I’m sorry, Leon…I just want to get this over with. The sample is within reach. Don’t worry about me.”

“I–fine. But at least let me put some of this medicine, I’m not budging this time. Fair enough?”

This time, Amara, running on fumes, actually lets him help her.

“Absolutely fair. If it’ll help ease your mind,” Somehow, Amara finds the strength to push herself up on a nearby counter.

Leon pulls out the said medicine, carefully pulling up the fabric of her shirt. This is probably the second time in the evening that their shared proximity made Amara’s head spin. The first was the hug he gave her earlier. Nobody had handled Amara quite like Leon was, he was gentle and meticulous about cleaning the wound in a way that didn’t have her wanting to wince at every touch. Her mind also couldn’t help but think that he was pretty good with his hands.

His handling could be said for just about everything between them this evening, both of them seemed to be in sync. It kind of reminded her of Jill and Chris in a sense, those two seemed to be unstoppable when paired up. Amara definitely would’ve recommended Leon for a spot with STARS. Zombie outbreak, notwithstanding.

“I care about you, more than I should,” he said softly, his eyes conveying a message of true worry that broke her out of her thoughts.

The words of what she felt towards Leon formed more and more as the night wore on so her next sentence came to her easily.

“I care about you too.” Leon stands back to full height, placing his left hand in hers and stroking her face with his right hand. “Seems I’ve got my own knight in shining armor, haven’t I?”

“We’re not out of the tower yet, come on,” Leon pulls away, but gently helps her off the counter.

After readjusting her shirt, she surveys the room. Another lab, nothing special. All the necessary equipment for working with hazardous chemicals and viruses but her eyes happen upon a face…her face on one of the nearby monitors. Had she not glanced around, she might’ve missed it.

“What the hell?” Her feet carry her over to said monitor. Leon is immediately puzzled by her movement.

Her headshot from S.T.A.R.S.

She knows it is because she remembers that burgundy-colored shirt. It got stained not even five minutes later with juice Jill gave her that day. Her hair was also way shorter. The staff photographer told her, “You look great.” Though, Amara knew she kind of was running on three hours of sleep that day.

Upon closer inspection, a file that is extensively detailed is laid out before her. These people needed to learn to close their tabs. Doctor Li seems to be the one that headed up her file.

NAME: Amara Moore

AGE: 21

BLOOD TYPE: O-

NOTES: Subject’s blood is fascinating. Her blood type already made her a perfect candidate for blood donation but studying it further has proven it fruitful.

Subject’s blood is predisposed to mutations. Not to mention, her blood response is exciting, implanting her blood with different antigens proved Wesker’s theory correct.

It’s only a matter of time before we can fully acclimate the subject to what Doctor Wesker wants. How we’ll do that is anyone’s guess.

That’s when it clicked in Amara’s head. Wesker stole her blood that very day. There was a blood drive that day outside the station, something that was an annual thing and part of the RPD’s community outreach.

They tested her blood.

He wanted her to survive Spencer Mansion. He wanted her alive for this. Did he know this outbreak would happen? He wanted her to get infected somehow. The world could’ve fallen out from beneath her feet at this moment.

Shit. She’s infected…

…with what?

How could that be possible? That thing slashed her, not bite her. The answer is right before her eyes, yet she can’t process it. Her eyes felt like they had been looking at everything and nothing on the screen.

“You alright?” Leon asks, breaking her eyes from the screen.

Something in her is screaming to tell Leon now. Tell him this but she stays silent.

“I’m good, just gathering more stuff for the authorities. Mind-boggling.”

“Oh, okay, you just…acted like you saw a ghost or something.” They walked away in silence, passing through a red-tinted fluorescent hall that sprayed out steam against them. More than likely to sanitize whoever walked in and out. Then another, these were blue-tinted.

Amara examined the room with a slow sweep. Did this place not have one area in it that didn’t look straight out of a sci-fi film? Tanks line the wall, floor to ceiling, cylindrical tanks were what their technical name was. The liquid inside was clear but it was what was inside the tanks that were a little more…horrific.

Lights inside the tank lit up weirdly misshapen, mangled body parts. One of them contained a form that only had red, huge yet beady eyes on the grey surface of it. Another looked like a set of hands, the last not even remotely resembling anything Amara could recognize as a life form.

To the left, was their Holy Grail, which they all fought all night to get to. Ada called it G-Virus.

There it sat, the last vial to sit within the container.

Leon grabs it without a second thought, “Huh, that was easy.”

Amara’s gut reaction is to hit him in the arm gently. “Don’t say that, you’ll jinx it!”

“Ouch! Easy with that arm!”

“Please, I barely grazed you,” A weight lifted briefly for Amara. “Now let’s get the hell back to Ada.”

Just as they reach the other side, inching closer to freedom from this awful place, something crashes through the ceiling.

Somehow, that thing that put her in this predicament is still alive. Amara rolls her eyes, she was less afraid of it, just more annoyed than ever actually. Does anything die in this fucking place?

“You again?”

“Your ass, again?”

Leon and Amara both aim their guns, ready to go another round with this thing.

“Move! He’s mine!” Annette visibly limping from some unknown injury, runs between them. “This has to end.” She loads a white, small gun with something.

“This has to end.” One shot.

“Sorry, William. You left me no choice.” The second shot is what seems to incapacitate the monster. A monster she called William? Amara and Leon cautiously approach it, though she wouldn’t dare touch it. The smell emanating from it held a pungent, irritating scent.

It had grown exponentially since their last encounter, more pulpy, fleshy, and sinewy limbs and bits than she’d like, and yeah, certainly still more disgusting. An uncomfortable shudder rolled down her spine just thinking about the fact that she now has the same blood of this thing infecting her veins.

“You called this thing William, why?” Leon asked Annette, kneeling close to it. She shook her head, looking over the creature that lay before them all.

“It shouldn't have been like this,” she spoke, though it sounded less like a response to Leon, and more like an observation. “It’s Umbrella’s fault, this whole mess.”

“You realize that you’re Umbrella too, right?” Amara raises a brow, she found it hard to give the woman the benefit of the doubt.

Leon questions her more. “You saying you weren’t involved in this?”

“Yes…but we never meant for this to happen!”

“Tell us everything, right from the start.”

And she does. Starting from the night that a team of soldiers came to retrieve the G sample from William, bloodied and in a rage having injected himself with G to go after them, all the way up to this very moment. Amara can’t help but find herself more intrigued by the developments, not in a good way. Leon seems to put two and two together, probably having found out more than Amara did in their time apart within the sewer facility.

“So, you made this monster.”

“We never intended this to happen.”

“You can spin this any way you want, you’re still responsible.” There’s no time to even react as William reawakened, thrashing about so swiftly that all Amara remembers is Annette, the momentum, and then it all goes black.

Amara finds herself practically embedded into the wall, leaving a dent in its place. She must have passed out briefly. She opened her eyes slowly, letting out a choked cry when her brain registers the pain in her side and back. Someone had to be looking out for her because somehow her back isn’t broken.

Leon, coming up from a lift, rushes over to her, “Amara, Jesus, are you okay?”

She gazes up at Leon, vision blurred slightly at the edges but Leon is the clearest thing she can see.

“You’re beautiful.”

He tries to fight a smile, albeit the worry on his face is more evident. He shines his flashlight briefly into one of her eyes. “And you’re concussed.”

“No, it’s a c-clear, reason thought…or maybe my vision is a bit blurry.” Amara flashes him a stupid grin, trying to mask the pain. To be honest, that hit knocked all the air out of her lungs, and taking in breaths kind of…hurt.

She definitely didn’t want to mention the fight earlier and that wound. The last time she looked at it underneath her shirt is when Leon applied the medicine, it looked disgusting but now she can feel it searing through her abdomen, it was a strange hot, and cold sensation. That thing had gotten her twice now.

“Let’s get you up now, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah…but I may have to take you up on that offer I offered earlier.”

Leon doesn’t even hesitate, holstering his gun and carrying her like a bride on her wedding day. She wanted to remind him of the gunshot wound in his shoulder but it was hard to think with the throbbing pain her whole body was producing. “I’ve got you.”

“My hero,” Amara coughs out, still trying to lighten the mood. She just really needed some air to enter her lungs again.

“We’re going back to the lab.”

“But-“ Annette. Amara wasn’t the only one hurt, that monster crushed the former–she remembers that much, at least–, a sickening squelch as it squeezed her between its claws, tossing her aside much in the same way except Amara knew it had to be fatal. She called it William.

Without Annette, what could possibly be done for her?

Leon went as quickly as he could while carrying her, damn near stumbling against the door to the infirmary as it slid open. He put her down gently on the other cot, Sherry still occupying the other one.

Claire must’ve left to get the medicine she needs.

Amara notices a screen near the bed lights up, the readout on it seems to have scanned her. An infrared picture comes up on the screen. A robotic voice reads out what inevitably she didn't want to tell Leon.

“G-Virus detected in the host.” He was frozen, eyes darting between the screen and her for any sign of deceit. He found none.

“Amara, why didn’t you say anything?” He asks, but Amara didn’t so much as twitch a muscle, Leon frowned. “Shit.”

“There has to be something here…an antidote maybe?” Leon asked her, a crack in his voice she’d never heard before. He asked as if Amara had the answer but she was just as stumped as he was. She wasn’t exactly resigned to her fate, but without Annette, there were no answers.

“There’s…s-something…” Speak of the devil, Annette barely hanging onto life practically crawls through the doorway. “It’s where–where you found that sample.”

Annette holds something in her hand.

Sherry’s medicine.

Claire comes in not even a moment later, helping Annette as best she can to get near Sherry.

Annette takes a few heaving breaths, “If you want to survive, you’ll need the anti-viral but it won’t eradicate it all…”

“That’s something, right?”

Oh, Leon, so hopeful, so determined. It’s probably why Amara understands why she likes him so much. He’s unwavering in wanting to help, even if the odds of that happening are slim to none.

Claire helps Annette a little more as she fights with everything to speak, “Only problem is…hasn’t been tested, it may not work now.”

“Then why–” Amara’s voice is cut off, not even realizing she’s halfway on the floor until Leon has her by the arms.

“Shit, Amara,” Leon places the back of his hand against her forehead. She’s hot and cold at the same time, she already knows that’s what he’s feeling. “You don’t feel good. Why didn’t you say anything?” He asks her again, desperate to know.

“I’d rat-rather save the trouble, especially when it feels like I’m dying.” No use hiding it. She was possibly going to die and there was nothing he, she, or anybody could do about it right now. Tragic.

Miscommunication is a uniquely human characteristic that would eventually drive us all to the brink of insanity but Amara didn’t want to give Leon false hope until she knew for certain there was something that could be done. If that anti-viral didn’t work, she’d at least be happy in the knowledge that Leon could be the one to get this info out if she couldn’t.

Umbrella still deserved to be exposed, especially knowing what they had done to her.

Her body finally starts to realize that sad fact, so she lies down on the cot.

In another display of tenderness, Leon runs a hand over the top of her head. “I’ll get the anti-viral, you stay here and rest. We’ll make it through this, all of us.”

A nasty feeling wrenched in Amara’s gut. Maybe some of them will.

A burning, almost stinging sensation hits her eyelids and all the events come crashing hard on her body. Rest doesn’t come easy but it came anyway for Amara.

Both Leon and Claire go in separate directions. They both had their priorities.

Leon wanted to be angry. But, he just couldn’t. Seeing Amara’s face and the screen that revealed what he inevitably already knew worried him more than anything.

In fact, he was more worried that Amara wouldn’t make it. A bullet wound is easy to recover from. A virus that turns someone into a zombie, or even worse what Annette’s husband had become? Not so much.

If there’s one thing he can get right tonight, it’s helping her. Failure wasn’t an option. Not again. He’d already failed Marvin, failed the gun shop owner and his daughter, and now Amara? No, he co-wouldn’t let that happen.

Time was running out and he needs to get that virus out of her, he needs to help her if not for his own sanity, his conscience. She kept pushing him off, telling him she was fine…like she wanted to waste away and save him the trouble of noticing.

The thing was…is that he noticed her long before he got here. That brochure, the one she called stupid earlier in the evening, had given him pause on the second read-through. He barely skimmed it the first time but out of boredom, he looked again.

He did envision a more cool, suave introduction for when he originally was meant to arrive, but that didn’t exactly pan out, did it?

Leon wasn’t exactly ashamed…okay, maybe a little– to admit he looked over the team photo as he packed up everything to come here–she was just as pretty, just as sweet as he imagined–even now as everything went to hell in a hand basket, a smile ignited in him as he remembered the photo.

Right now, she didn’t look so good and it scared him. That same face, full of joy in the photo was a stark contrast to what she looked like now.

He should’ve pushed harder, sooner; had he kept the pressure on her, she wouldn’t be in the position she is now.

It was an easy choice to find the anti-viral. Way better than the alternative of having to choose to kill her or letting her suffer in silence till a painful end. Amara may have wanted him to be the one to pull the trigger but he refused, he couldn’t let anyone else die. Frankly, besides saving the city, he couldn't care less about anything else.

He needed her to be okay.

#leon s kennedy #leon scott kennedy #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x black oc #Leon kennedy x mixed race oc #resident evil oc #black resident evil oc #mixed race oc #mixed race resident evil #city of the dead fic #original character #resident evil 2 remake #re 2 remake fic #re 2 remake fanfic #tumblr formatting kills me #new banner bc fun

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

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File #009 - Reciprocity

City of the Dead

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x OC

Word Count: 3.1k

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

In Haitian Voodoo culture, most viewed death not as an end but as the beginning of 16 lives. That one would be reborn eight times as a man and a woman. Amara’s mother, being Haitian-American, had her own traditions and customs that were more Americanized but that is one that she always stuck true to. Despite turning herself away from the world, she still lived a life without fear of it. She often joked that in her next life, she’d come back as a man to not have to deal with marrying one.

Though Amara was quite the opposite, she had a healthy dose of fear of it just as much as the next person. At the same time, she loved the spiritual and the inclination of what it all entailed. But, she definitely didn’t want to find out so soon what the other side could hold.

She envied her mother in that regard.

Everything in her head kept playing on repeat, like a highlight reel of all her successes alongside all of her embarrassments. It was incessant even after Amara wanted it to stop. Intercut with those images in her head, she kept getting flashes of…Leon. If she was dying, that at least wasn’t the worst thing to show her.

But, the flashes… seemed so real. How could she be seeing him in such crystal clear detail in her subconscious? Especially considering each flash, Leon looked…dirtier? More grime and blood coated his once pristine uniform—the winter uniform, a detail that her mind reminds her of—as he seemed to check on her.

Warmth radiated through her, a throbbing sensation made her left temple pulse like a heartbeat. Her chest feels too constricted, too tight, too much. It really doesn’t take two and two to tell the effects of G are working hard to… acclimate as Doctor Li put it.

Scolding herself wasn’t what she needed right now but her thoughts did it anyways. But this time, it was rightfully deserved. For someone who prided herself on the small details she sure did miss a lot of them. Dumbass.

Her father, despite his drunkenness, would’ve called it pitiful. Her mother would’ve lectured her on the world becoming a more dangerous place and she should’ve been more cautious. Monet, on the other hand, is just about the only one she’d actually care to listen to.

There’d be a playful undertone as she’d also call Amara a dumbass but not before reassuring her as she always had like siblings are meant to do. A visit to her wouldn’t hurt after all this.

It’d been a quick realization that Amara, despite the pain, was still alive. That usually counted for something.

Alarms began blaring at an obnoxious frequency. And there was rumbling that shook the whole room.

“Unauthorized removal of G sample and antiviral has been detected.” A robotic voice announces. “Destruction sequence has been initiated.”

Oh, that’s not good. Mustering all the strength she can, Amara pushes herself up from the cot but still feels like a fishbowl has been attached to her head, a heaviness in all her limbs she couldn’t shake. God forbid she die down here in this hellhole or turn into something worse. She refused to go out like that.

Now, if she could just get to Leon, she’d be golden. He clearly had been the one who set off the alarms. On a noble mission to get that very thing that would save her. There wasn’t any kidding to her earlier statement to Leon, he really was her own knight in shining armor…well, kevlar vest.

But, she couldn’t let him do all the saving. She needed to be sure he was okay.

Her first steps are wobbly, damn near stumbling, as blood finally rushed back down to a place that hadn’t been used for what had to be a good hour. Her gear falls in her line of sight and she can’t help but briefly smile and wiggle her fingers as she hovers over her sweet, sweet guns.

Okay, so maybe the destruction sequence and excruciating pain in her side could wait a moment while she made sure her prized possessions were ready to go.

“Oh, you are a sight for sore eyes,” she checks the magazine on her Samurai Edge through somewhat bleary, watery eyes. “10 in the chamber, that’ll do.”

Her other gun, her custom-made Beretta 92 that Leon complimented earlier, has only one shot left in its chamber. Better make sure that last shot counts, Barry, ever the gun enthusiast, would tell her during training in the shooting range.

Shit, she only hoped she had a steady hand if it came down to that. Coughs tore through her chest, in her weakened state, they were enough to send her down to one knee.

“I’ll be damned…if this shit takes me out,” Amara spoke, trying to pep herself up. Through gritted teeth, she raises herself up and uses the wall to balance herself.

Blood on her hand stains the wall. Oh, good lord, she’s fucked if she doesn’t get out of here.

As if things weren’t already hindering Amara from leaving the room, Annette stumbles in. Though, Amara is not quite sure when the woman had originally left the room. They were both hanging on for dear life, it seems. She all but collapses onto Amara, and she’s lucky they both don’t topple to the floor.

“Annette…where’s Sherry? Claire?” A particular morbid thought crosses her mind, Jesus, lady, can you die already? You’ve been dying for two hours.

“Safe. But you won’t b-be…unless you get that antiviral.”

Amara already knew that much was abundantly clear. “I need to get to Leon-“

“Tell me you’ll get rid of the G sample?” There’s a fierceness to her grip on Amara’s arm.

“That needs to go to the FBI.” If Ada is even actually FBI, that is.

She coughs. “You trust that bitch?”

“Not in the slightest. What do you mean by that?”

“She’s not with the FBI. She’s a m-mercenary…she’s gonna sell that sample the minute she gets out of here.”

“If that sample…gets into the wrong hands…” Annette doesn’t finish her statement. Finally, quietly collapsing. A shine in her eye has dulled.

Amara already knew what exactly she meant. That sample—the virus had caused so much trouble and destruction for just Raccoon. God only knows what else could happen if that got much further than here. As if it wasn’t fucked up enough, people wanted to profit off spreading things like this. Shit, did Leon know about Ada too? Everything in her head told her to hurry up because this could only spell disaster if he didn’t.

There wasn’t time to mourn for Annette but Amara could sympathize, though sympathy for someone who indirectly had a hand in this was in short supply right now.

Amara needed to warn Leon. Now.

“Unauthorized removal of G-sample and anti-viral. Destruction sequence initiated.”

“Fuck, that’s not good.” As if this night…day, or whatever could get any worse.

Leon still couldn’t stomach what Annette told him about Ada. She’s not FBI, she’s a mercenary. She’s gonna sell G to the highest bidder. That had been repeating in his head alongside her ominous warning about Amara’s and Sherry’s condition. They will never stop chasing them for what’s in their blood.

The betrayal sat heavily on him, bile threatening to rise from his throat. A part of him didn’t want to believe Annette but she had divulged that information to him in what were surely her dying breaths, last moments alive on this godforsaken earth.

Leon held many beliefs about most people, some would call them naive—foolish even. But deep down, there’s always an inherent good most people possess despite all the ugly in the world to help others and do right by them. Learning that Ada’s intentions were…well, not that didn’t make him as mad as he thought he’d be. Just disappointed.

The part of it that made him sicker, angrier, was the fact he’d been used as a pawn in someone else’s game.

Retrieving the sample wasn’t a moral mission for good to take these Umbrella bastards down, it was to line someone else’s pockets so that this would happen again and again.

He looked at both of the vials in his hand. The G virus was encased in a silver tube while the anti-viral held an almost translucent blue color to it, a covered syringe on its end, ready for insertion into its next host. Holding the world’s safety and its end between my fingertips, aren’t I? Christ, when did I get so poetic?

He takes his time to meet back up with Ada, sans Amara, he notices. There’s a definitive shift in the air that he’s not even sure that Ada has picked up on yet.

“I was just thinking about you,” Leon states, yet his tone doesn’t match his words.

Ada uses a device to hack the elevator to unlock it, eyes darting around the lab as the rocks and other things begin falling. “That makes two of us.”

She holds out her hand, expecting Leon to just immediately hand it over but he doesn’t. He couldn’t just let Annette’s words about Ada be left unaddressed, unanswered.

“I give you this, what happens next?”

“We get out of here and I take it to the FBI. Simple as that.” Ada reaches out a hand. “Let me verify that sample and we can all get the hell out of here.”

“I may be many things but stupid is not one of them. I spoke to Annette.” Leon chooses his words wisely. “She tells me you’re not FBI.”

She smiles, almost sadly. The facade she held seemed to drop without so much as a thought at his revelation, more than likely knowing it’d be insulting to both their intelligence to keep it going much further. “Oh, Leon. Why couldn’t you just hand over the sample?”

“Because I realized, as much as I wanted to trust you…I didn’t.” He draws his gun, shoulders square to her.

“I really hoped it wouldn’t end up like this.”

“Is that all this was? Were we just some pawns,—tools to you?”

“Look, I’m just doing my job,” She states, with slight annoyance and a hard edge to her tone. “Amara was dead to me before we even made the sewer, Leon.”

His stomach lurched a tad at her words. Beyond the police station, Amara had outlived her usefulness in Ada’s eyes.

“And I’m doing mine, so drop that damn gun! I’m taking you in.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Ada says, her voice the most unassertive, unsure he’d heard from her all night. “Hand over the sample, Leon.”

They had reached an impasse, he knew that. It already feels as though he wants to give up and just let Ada take the sample. But he knows how incredibly stupid he’d be to do that. The shit he—they went through shouldn’t go down the drain like everything else had. That virus should never go beyond this city.

Think about Amara. Standing here in a standoff is wasting time to give her the antiviral she needs, you goddamn asshole.

In a show of defiance, confidence (or pure foolishness), Leon puts down his gun, calling her on her bluff.

After everything, she wouldn’t have the guts to stop him in his tracks. Stop him from saving one person at least tonight despite her view that Amara was no longer useful.

Never. Never could he think of someone’s value in what they could do for him.

“You shoot me, but I don’t think you can. You want these vials, you’ll have to take them from my cold, dead fingers.”

A pregnant pause permeates the air.

Ada’s face is set in a glare but slowly, surely she lowers the gun. It makes Leon smirk with a brief swell of pride to know that he was right after all.

A shot pierced through the air. Not even a second later, blood sprayed in Leon’s direction, emanating from Ada’s shoulder.

As she stumbled, Leon caught a glimpse of a bloodied, dirtied Amara, blood coming from her mouth in what seemed like a faucet and a smoking gun shaking in her grip.

Even from here, the fire behind her eyes is evident.

Jesus, she’s got a hell of a shot, even in her state. There was not even a moment to think more about that as the ground jolted beneath them. The destruction of the NEST Lab inevitably becomes more apparent. As does the destruction of Amara, her body collapsing just as the bridge underneath Leon and Ada’s feet gives way, sending the latter sliding off.

Leon practically leaps for her hand, catching her at the last second. His grip is tight on her wrist, the only thing keeping Ada from falling into the dark depths beneath is him. Their weight on the walkway, as it hangs on by a thread, makes it groan and grind. It hurt like hell to keep a good grip on Ada to pull her up, the whole of his arm muscle burned at the effort.

“Forget it, Leon.” Ada looks at him, a resolve clear in her eyes. He shook his head and grit his teeth, trying with all his might to pull her up but even that was tempting fate as more of the walkway threatened to break off, sending them both to their deaths if he continued. Damn it, he couldn’t just let her go like this.

He could feel his grip loosening, his gloves barely giving him enough to cling to. “Shut up, I’ve got you!”

In the corner of his eye, he could see the vials slipping from one of his uniform’s pockets, both of them were teetering closer and closer to the edge of the walkway. The position they were both in didn’t exactly allow him to reach for them or they’d for sure be falling to their deaths.

Another violent shake sends the vials falling but Ada quickly grabs one of them. Ada looks down below briefly before meeting Leon’s eyes as they’re full of panic for her. “Take care of yourself, Leon. And Amara.”

“Don’t do this.”

She rips herself away from Leon’s grip but not before throwing the only vial left up toward Leon. In the confusion, he grabs the vial instead of trying to get Ada’s hand again. He could only stare in shock as she disappeared into the darkness beneath the lab.

“Oh, shit…shit,” Leon breathed, slowly pushing himself off the walkway and to safety as it finally gave way, following Ada in its path to the depths below. He looked at the vial gripped tightly in his fist. The familiar fluorescent blue of it stood out against the grimy material of his fingerless glove.

He briefly wondered why Ada, with her harsh words about Amara’s uselessness, had chosen to sacrifice herself for him to administer the antiviral that would save Amara...

...Shit. Amara.

Leon rushed to her side, Amara’s skin held a sickly pallor to it and she barely moved a muscle as he ran a hand over her forehead.

He briefly checks her wrist, he could just barely feel the telltale sign of a pulse underneath her skin.

“15 minutes until self-destruct sequence is finalized.”

Ridding himself of the shake in his hands, he pulls the cap off the syringe just as Amara’s eyes flutter open. He notices they’re becoming less shiny by the minute, the blood around her mouth beginning to dry out just like her mouth is. Shit, he needs to hurry up.

“Leon?” Her hand weakly falls onto his leg, and her fingers seem to fail to grasp at something.

“Yeah, Amara, it’s me.” He replies, heart pounding and stomach in knots. “Sorry, your knight in shining armor took so long.”

She winced, trying to put on a smile, “Had to be your…k-knight this time,…didn’t I?”

“I guess you did.” He wears a sad smile, even as she lay here in way more pain than he could ever imagine, she’s trying to make him smile still. A woman he met and saved only hours ago had become so important to him, it almost scared him a little. “Now, hold still. There’s gonna be a pinch.”

Leon carefully pressed the syringe into Amara’s shoulder, a visible shudder running through her body. He doesn’t exactly think her recovery would be instantaneous but he certainly doesn’t expect the almost momentary arch in Amara’s back and the whites of her eyes to be visible.

He’s more than ready to hold her down should she have convulsions but she relaxes, her hazel irises coming back into view. They’re a little more lively than they were just minutes ago. And pieces of her hair shift to a ghostly white shade against the auburn.

“Are you okay?” He asks, brows furrowed at the display he’d just witnessed.

Amara sits up, wiping the blood from her mouth. “…I think? I’m not dead so that’s a good thing, right?”

“In my book, I’d say so.”

—-

Amara feels different.

Sure, she was as close to death’s door as one could come but the moment the antiviral entered her system, an almost cool, soothing chill spread through her muscles before the familiar warmth of her normal body temperature flooded her. Swam through her veins like she’d been dropped in a hot bath. The momentary convulsion and eyes going back in her head is for sure, an odd thing but she’s alive and feels pretty good, the best she’s felt all night.

All thanks to Leon.

Grateful is an understatement. He went above and beyond to get her what she needed. No one had ever really done all he had this night really connected them in a way she had never expected to be to anyone.

Was it too soon to say she loved him? The haze…excitement of it all probably clouded her true feelings, a shared trauma surely isn’t the way to start anything but she couldn’t imagine anything without Leon now.

It takes a moment for Amara to register that the former is clinging to her tightly. “I thought you were dead for sure, Amara, don’t you die on me, alright?”

She pats his back, “Can’t promise that but I’ll try.”

The robotic voice that’d been urgently reminding of the NEST’s destruction cuts the moment short. “8 minutes until the self-destruct sequence initiates.”

They need to get the hell out. Fast.

Amara pulls away. “Let’s get moving! We didn’t do all this shit to die down here!”

Leon rose to his feet, pulling Amara up with him. For the first time all night, there’s strength as she stands.

A full breath of air enters her lungs and it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t make her as fearful as she was.

Now that she had all her wits about her and a renewed sense of purpose, it was time to get the hell out of there. Together.

#leon s kennedy #leon scott kennedy #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x black oc #leon kennedy x oc #Leon kennedy x mixed race oc #resident evil oc #resident evil 2 remake #re 2 remake fic #mixed race oc #cotd fic #canon x oc

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

Text

Angel of Darkness - Masterlist

SUMMARY: Six years have passed since Raccoon City. Amara and Leon's paths have diverged for just as long. In some circles, Amara is deemed The Subject, others call her a Dark Angel for what flows through her veins. That fact alone piques many peoples' interest, none of them good.

Alongside the kidnapping of the President's daughter, a mysterious cult takes Amara in their clutches with particular plans for them both.

And this is where their paths cross once again. Leon is tasked with not only saving Ashley Graham but the US Government's most prized “possession”.

But there's something not quite right about the situation.

PAIRING: Leon Kennedy x OC

TRADIT

obscura

recordatio

via ad perditionem

adtrita

castrum

reunio

IMAGINIBUS

angel of darkness poster

character poster: leon kennedy

character poster: amara moore

character poster: luis serra

CONCENTIO

angelus tenebrarum - playlist

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

Text

File #006 - Lachesism

lachesism: n. the desire to be struck by disaster.

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x OC

Word Count: 5.3k

Warning: a small mention of blood

Summary: Amara, Leon, and Ada venture further into the city to stop whoever is behind this mess. Chaos in the sewers is a bit of an understatement with Amara finding her determination a bit shaken but finding a good reminder in Leon. She also meets another familiar face and returns to a momentary flashback to before all this occurred.

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“Heard of the Umbrella corporation?” Ada asks, Leon trails behind, sticking close to Amara as they traverse the scaffoldings. “Pharmaceutical company making bioweapons.”

Amara brought him up to speed earlier, so he’s confident in his answer. “More or less.”

Leon looks over at Amara, hoping maybe she can add to the conversation, but she has a faraway look in her eyes. Her mind is clearly elsewhere and he wishes he could offer some comfort but they had to keep moving.

“They have a virus–it turns people into indestructible monsters.” She explains.

Being decidedly forward, he reaches for her hand, finding that she locks their fingers together without hesitation. This seems to bring life back to her. Were things moving too fast? Leon hadn’t known this woman for a day, yet he was already unable to think about losing her. He wanted to chalk it up to already having lost Marvin and the colleagues he never got to know, or maybe being alone altogether but something would feel off if he didn’t have Amara by his side.

Leon had never really told anyone about that night so long ago, yet he divulged Amara in that small detail so easily. He usually shrugged it off or omitted it when anyone asked because he didn’t want to just dump his problems on someone else, it seemed impolite. What made her so different that he felt comfortable telling her that? A part of him maybe recognized that she had been through a lot.

A kindred soul recognized another, perhaps?

He so often focused on the present, he didn’t deem it necessary to reflect on the past.

What good is there in that?

And anyway, just getting out of the city took priority right now. Over his thoughts, over his feelings, they’re on a mission. The situation with the shop owner Kendo, whom Amara knew it seems, set off even more of that determination in Leon.

What right did Umbrella have to hurt innocent people?

Despite his prior words, his mind takes him back to Marvin, Kendo, and now Amara. Small examples of the bigger enemy.

“That’s why I’m looking for Annette Birkin…” Ada says. “She’s the one at Umbrella responsible for unleashing the virus.”

“According to HQ, the sewers lead right to their secret facility.”

Amara lets out a humorless laugh. “Shitty sewers, shitty people, that checks out.”

Ada steps aside at the entrance of a tunnel, letting Amara go first. “After you.”

Leon is reluctant to let go of her hand but does so anyway.

“How nice.” Amara gives her a crooked smile that seems sickly sweet, but her eyes tell Leon otherwise. He lets Ada go ahead, now becoming the one who is behind.

“Sewers are run by the city, how could they have a secret facility without authorities knowing?” He asks, still trying to wrap his head around it all.

The tunnel was larger than he expected, still curved in a circular shape that all but encouraged claustrophobia. The only light came from the dingy lights built within the curvature of the tunnel. Something about the state of workmen’s helmets and other small items lying about disturbed him a tad. He couldn’t imagine how frightening it had been at the outbreak’s start.

“Welcome to corporate America. Umbrella has controlled Raccoon City for years.” Ada said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Venturing further in, the air starts to become a bit damp, no doubt alerting all of them that water was nearby and…yeah, that’s not a pleasant smell. In fact, it smelled like shit. Fantastic.

Leon hangs back a bit, Amara glances back and seems to be the only one to notice. Their gazes met, her hardened expression softening as she approached.

“You hanging in there, handsome?” She gave him an even softer smile and he couldn't help but give her one in return, a slight warmth coming to his cheeks, he’d be kidding himself that it wasn’t because of the slight stroke to his ego.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t aware of his looks, but the observation seemed to catch him off guard. It probably always would. He kind of considered himself the latest of late bloomers when it came to things like this.

“Yeah, just been a long night is all.” He sighed and Amara gave him a “you have no idea” look.

“Not exactly how you imagined your first day, huh?”

Leon rolled his eyes, “Tell me ab-“

The ground shook violently. Leon grabbed Amara’s arm to steady her. Jesus, what the hell is going on down here?

“S-shit, tell me that was an earthquake?” She asked. He had to admit it rattled his nerves a tad, but if he learned anything from the academy, it was that keeping a cool head was life and death in the field. Of course, they weren’t talking about the living dead and evil corporations, but Leon guessed the same could be applied here in a strange way.

“I hope so, let’s keep moving.”

-------

“Leon! Up here!” Amara yells, kicking down the ladder so he could escape the large, grotesque guts of the alligator he’d just blown up. A crazy sentence to even be said but with the way this evening is going, is anything a surprise anymore? Amara was aware that the virus would turn people into monsters, but certainly not fucking reptiles.

Amara loves animals of all sorts, just not mutated ones that wanted to kill people.

God only knew what else Umbrella had in store in their facility. Amara shudders, not really wanting to find out.

Amara felt like such a fraud. She’d been going through a tad bit of imposter syndrome since this all started, usually, nothing could shake her confidence but a part of her felt like this situation is bigger than any of them knows and that made her less confident in taking Umbrella down.

Could that even be done?

Leon thinks she’s some cool, brave operative but underneath, she felt like a little girl playing pretend. Not that she had anything to prove to anyone, especially to Leon. But his eagerness, his determination, and everything about him made her want to keep going and see this through to the end, no matter what happened.

“I’m surprised you made it in one piece, rookie.” Ada comments, her voice tinged with something other than its usual iciness.

Amara gestures her head in Ada’s direction. “I second that, Kennedy.”

“Would’ve loved a fair warning that reptiles are turning into monsters too,” Leon rolled his eyes, and the squelch of water seeped into his boots emphasized his footsteps even more. They all huddle into a convenient elevator, heading deeper in this place. “So, let me get this straight, Umbrella is selling monsters like that to who? Our military? Somebody else’s?”

“Umbrella doesn’t make the monsters, they make the viruses that create those,” Ada explained, “I’m after Annette Birkin, she’s the one at Umbrella responsible for all this. As dangerous as that alligator was, she’s far more dangerous.”

Amara wanted to scoff at her words but held back. One woman couldn’t possibly have done all of this.

Well, no.

She takes that back.

Sort of.

She’d seen women in her life be responsible for much less in terms of messes. Of course, those were more so small occurrences, small as in drama over liking the same guy, not exactly on the scale of causing a virus outbreak.

“Considering what all has occurred? I can somewhat believe that.”

Stepping out of the elevator, they head straight for the nearest door. Leon steps ahead of them, raising his gun to someone bent over a corpse. “Identify yourself.”

The woman doesn’t seem to even register that Leon has said anything to her, mumbling incoherently about something as she looks over a body. Amara comes to the logical conclusion that this is Annette Birkin.

As if the lab coat didn’t give it away.

“Annette Birkin,” Amara calls, raising her gun up as well. “You’re just the woman we wanted to see.”

Annette, for all the talk Ada had about her, looks unassuming. If Amara didn’t know better, she’d think this woman really couldn’t hurt a fly.

“You,” Annette looks at Amara, an uneasiness in her voice. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“What?” The next sequence of events happened so quick, Amara still isn't sure if she'd ever make sense of it.

Ada cuts in, “We’re here for G.”

Annette looks at her, an underlying expression of recognition but Amara isn’t sure. She scoffs at her words, “What you’re here for is of no importance to me because you’ll never get G.”

“I’m warning you, Doctor.” Ada advances forward.

“Oh, yeah?” With a quick flick of a lighter, flames went alight on the body, like Annette’s own version of a magician’s trick. In the momentary distraction, the woman ran the other direction but Amara had to know why she didn’t want her looking for G.

Her mind whirled.

Before she could really stop herself, she rushed past Ada and Leon. “Wait!”

The pipes near her echoed as something hit them. Bullets. The least logical part of her brain made her freeze where she stood as more bullets came her way, only miraculously being taken out of the way by a heavy force. Leon.

Amara finally regained some sense and immediately rose to her knees, sending returning fire to Annette but the door she went through closed quicker than expected so the shots barely hit her, just the walls.

Damn it.

Leon grunts in pain at her knees, blood gushing from a wound in his shoulder, the faint smell of it hitting her nose. Her heart drops to her stomach at the realization.

“Shit, Leon!” Amara jumps into action, pressing down to hopefully stop the bleeding, but still, it gushes between her fingers, staining them.

“Guess I can say goodbye to tank tops, right?” Leon strains, biting back a groan of pain. He wears an almost stupid grin despite having just been shot.

Amara chuckles, still trying to get the bleeding to stop. "That mouth of yours, talking dumb shit even now?”

She turns on Ada fiercely, an annoyed sneer on her face. “Don’t just stand there!”

Ada’s eyes flitted between the scene in front of her and where Annette had just run off to, clearly seeming conflicted on where her priorities lie.

Amara rolls her eyes, “Forget it, just go after her, I’ve got this handled!”

She quickly removes her trench coat, placing it underneath Leon’s head as a makeshift pillow but not before saying “Take care of him.”

She’s gone just as quickly.

--------

After their brief encounter, Amara turned her attention back to Leon, sitting him up against the wall to get a better look at the wound.

Tending to the wound took precedence over whatever feelings she had about Ada. Call her crazy, but she could spot bullshit from a mile away. And she was full of it, but she had no proof yet. But Annette seemed to have that proof but she’d run off, clearly not wanting to be engaged in conversation after burning a body. And yeah, almost killing Amara.

But, something else about the look Annette gave her, almost like she’d seen a ghost standing before her. What the hell was that about?

Amara runs her fingers over the material of his vest and shirt underneath. Her other hand lightly pressed the other side of his shoulder, hoping to find an exit wound. There wasn’t one.

Annette had a hell of a shot for a scientist.

She’s briefly stricken by guilt, that bullet was meant for her after all. Now Leon was suffering the consequences instead. Gently, she removes his kevlar vest and his buttoned-up shirt. She cuts through the sleeve of his uniform with his own knife, tossing the fabric to the ground. Trying not to look at more of the arm muscles revealed to her.

Upon further inspection, the wound doesn’t look as bad as it must feel embedded in his shoulder.

She briefly checks his pulse, it’s still pretty strong, his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. Amara reached out and took his hand in hers for a moment, entwining their fingers together. He more than likely passed out from the shock rather than anything else, something about that fact relieves her more than anything.

“I’m sorry, Leon.” She apologizes like she had been the one to shoot him. She’s not even sure he can hear her but somehow she hopes he does.

She pulls out gauze and antiseptic from her hip pouch, God knows he’d need the antiseptic with all the shittastic things they’d been encountering. The last thing he’d need is to go into septic shock alongside dealing with zombies.

Just as Amara began the process of placing firm pressure against the wound, did Leon stir briefly, his eyes fluttering open for a few seconds before closing again in exhaustion. He fought with everything it seemed to open them again.

"Hey, don't worry about me," he mumbled, his voice hoarse from pain. "You need to go after Annette. Stop her before it's too late."

Amara frowned, not wanting to leave Leon behind.

"I can't just leave you here, Leon," she protested, wrapping gauze tightly around his shoulder to keep an even pressure going on the wound.

Leon shook his head weakly. "I'II be fine," he said. "But you need to go after her. She's dangerous, and she's got something we need."

Damn, she hates to admit he’s right. Who knows what Ada could be doing? Amara certainly had her own questions for the woman.

Amara hesitated, torn between her duty and her concern for Leon. But in the end, she knew what she had to do. "Okay," she said, her voice firm. "I'II go after her. But you need to stay put and rest. I'll be back as soon as I can."

She redresses Leon with just the blue button-up of his uniform and the vest.

As she stood up and started to make her way toward the direction Ada went, Leon's hand shot out weakly and grabbed hers.

"A-Amara," he said, his eyes meeting hers. "I care about you. You know that, right?"

Amara's heart skipped a beat at the words, but she forced herself to stay calm.

"I know," she said softly. "But we don't have time for this right now, Leon. You need to rest."

Leon nodded, his grip on her hand slackening.

"Just promise me you'll be careful," he said. "I don't want to lose you.”

Amara swallowed, feeling a lump rise in her throat.

"I'II be careful," she promised. "And I'II come back for you.”

As she left the room, her mind raced with thoughts of Leon and how this night just kept getting worse. But she pushed them aside, focusing instead on the task at hand. She would go after Annette, no matter what it took. And then she would come back for Leon, just like she promised.

Still, she couldn’t help but spare one more look back from where she came from. Where Leon is, likely blissfully unconscious once more.

Probably not the brightest idea to split up, is it?

“Focus, Amara.” She pushed her hair back, finding it a bit tangled. She checked her weapons as she walked through what was an abnormally large tunnel, finding roaches crawling all over it. Gross.

Amara had never been one to jump at shadows, but even the slightest sound in this place echoed in a way that had her shoulders tense. It didn’t help that everything in this place is iron and PVC, two things that even slightly brushed against made an echo.

She’d seen the horror movies, and she and Monet would laugh a bit at the characters for even entertaining the thought of going on their own..it’s how they usually got hurt or killed, especially the Black ones.

The sooner I get to question Annette and get to this damn lab, the better.

Now, here she was, following Ada’s trail to Annette, hopeful for answers about this mess.

Well, hopeful is a stretch. Cautiously optimistic.

At least Ada had the decency to clear the path ahead, judging by the zombies strewed about. But, Amara still kept her sense about her to step over the corpses carefully. “Stay the fuck down.”

Amara didn’t fancy herself a cynic. Cynicism was way too easy, she’d learned that early.

Despite the circumstances–hers especially, as of late, never once did she blame the world and say this is how it is. Things could be different.

For some reason, her mind went to her grandmother on her mother’s side. During their sporadic visits to her, Amara could never recall her not without a smile, always with a kind word and an even more generous purse. She grew up during worse times, but Amara had tidbits of memories with a younger version of herself sitting at her legs as she regaled stories of being a spy during WW2.

She’d proudly displayed the black and white pictures over her fireplace, alongside pictures of her and her grandfather in their younger days.

Her grandmother had seen it all, the nitty gritty and ugliness of war under covert operations, yet never turned her back on others the way Amara had seen from her mother–who so often withdrew from the world. Her father was a different story altogether that she didn’t care to dwell on.

“Idealism–faith in humanity–optimism–is the most difficult thing in the entire world, Mara.” Her grandmother explained, “It is a constant struggle even for me to have all of that, it’s hard work but you have to see the beauty in it all in your day-to-day life.”

She hadn’t understood then, but as she got older, she slowly came to understand and held that sentiment close to her. Amara could only hope that she would be proud after all this is over. She had faith that there were good people not directly involved at the end of this who want Umbrella taken down just as much as she does.

Beyond having faith, she had an obligation to keep going. For Enrico, Edward, Forest, Kenneth, and Richard. The whole city.

-----

The sewer facility, much like the police department, was a modern yet unconventional, piece of architecture. Lots of odd layouts and…puzzles. Amara shook her head, looking over the memo on the board for what seemed the key to aligning the chess power pieces but not all of them were there.

Of course, they never want to make finding these pieces easy, do they?

She needed to save Ada’s sorry ass from inside the piles of trash within the facility. Taking the memo with her, Amara navigated the facility as best she could without a map. Suddenly, there was a faint rustling in the distance and she instinctively drew her weapon, ready for any potential danger.

Rounding the corner, Amara's eyes met those of a young woman, also armed and appearing just as wary. The woman's auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her face was smeared with dirt and grime, but Amara recognized her from the S.T.A.R.S. files.

Chris’ sister, who’s in college, Amara recalls that he’d talk about her fondly. Outside of his clear passion for hitting the weights, she had to be his next one, and it showed. She’d occasionally liked to mess with him, calling him a hardass (amongst other things), but kept it minimum just because she secretly knew that he was a softie for family.

"Claire," Amara stated, lowering her weapon slightly. "What are you doing down here?"

Claire quickly explained her mission to find a little girl named Sherry Birkin, and Amara nodded in understanding. "I'm looking for a way out of this place myself," she said. "Maybe we can help each other."

“Maybe, but first, I have to ask, why did you come here?” Amara doesn’t mean to come off as rude, but it’s only logical to ask why anyone came to this hellhole willingly.

“Looking for Chris originally, have you heard anything?”

“Afraid not, did you get the letter he left?” Amara only knew about it because before everything went to shit, she did notice the envelope on his desk in his god awful chicken scratch handwriting addressed to Claire but never dreamed of invading his privacy.

She chuckled a bit. “Sounded too goofy to be him.”

“That sounds about right for him.” Amara joined in. “He’s better in person than on the page.”

Claire scoffs, raising a brow, “You’ve talked to him for more than an hour?”

Once, Chris decided to experiment in the RPD break room with a particular concoction that he claimed would make him soup the easy way, the faster way. His easier way entailed throwing together ingredients that usually were in soup (tomato, milk, basil, and some veggies) and just blending them at the station.

He decided to use the community blender…and to cut the story short, Chicken-Heart Vickers was no longer the only one with a stupid nickname around the office.

The memory comes to Amara’s mind, only because she was the one to help clean it up afterward. The break room smelled of ketchup and spoiled milk for about a week after that.

“He’s got the heart, but definitely not the brain cells.” They share another laugh before continuing on.

------

July 20, 1998.

Amara could hear the sounds of voices and faint music coming from the S.T.A.R.S. office, the music sounded vaguely like the CD she left at Jill’s desk…Spice Girls. That made her smile a bit. She rushed to down the coffee she just got from the break room before their meeting. The granules of sugar seeped at the bottom leaving an overly sweet taste in her mouth with the last sip.

The meeting is going to be the same for the most part– Captain Wesker went through updates in their cases, the next steps, then Q&A and it was heavy on the Qs and light on the As.

Amara never really had many questions for Wesker, he explained things in a manner she understood and anyways, she was set to leave for vacation tomorrow so it’s not like she could contribute much help. Well, that’s a lie. There’s always paperwork.

If I wanted to file paperwork, I would’ve gotten a damn desk job.

Barry, Forest, and Brad stood near Amara’s desk, deep in conversation while her eyes scanned the room briefly from the office entrance.

Wesker sat with his feet propped up on his desk as Chief Irons, a slimeball in human form, spoke to him inside the former’s office.

Amara had no clue what Irons could need or talk to him about now, he already rode their asses about this current case they were working on, but even behind his shades, she knew he wasn’t interested in the slightest.

He seemed to always be above it all, like nothing involving the team ever really bothered or mattered to him. But, at the same time, he seemed to care. It was an odd conundrum.

“Well, well, well, look who decided to show up,” Forest has a grin a mile wide on his tanned, boyish face. “Good morning, sunshine!”

His Alabama twang brought a certain liveliness to the greeting.

She smiled in return. “Morning, fellas, mind moving a bit from my desk?”

“Anything for Miss Amara!” Brad mimics Forest’s twang.

“Shut up,” she laughs lightly, pushing between them and plopping down in her desk chair. “So, what’s the hot topic today? Another granny with a cat up a tree? A streaker? What?”

Barry wears a brief smile, “Just reminding these two to refresh their memory for some of this town’s history.”

“Do tell, love to hear stories from when dinosaurs roamed this place.”

Brad and Forest laugh harder than expected and Barry could only scowl but Amara could tell it was good-natured.

Barry had been there a bit longer than she had so it was safe to say he was a seasoned veteran. He endured way worse jokes from Chris on a good day. It had taken her only a few weeks after her first day to start the ribbing that the others had taken part in quite frequently, now it was pretty commonplace. Not a normal day if she didn’t get one in.

“Hardy har har, anyways, I was telling them about the Spencer family and the house out there.”

“Spencer?” Amara certainly had never heard that name before. She wasn’t exactly well versed in all that Raccoon City had to offer. For all the books she’d accumulated on her desk next to her, what had become her new hometown ranked bottom in the interest of reading about it.

At least this would be an enriching conversation, for once.

“Uh huh, the house was designed by a man named George Trevor, way before you were a thought in your parents’ heads. In 1967.”

Amara scoffs. “And where is it exactly? If this is such a place of Raccoon history, why can’t us regular people go see it?”

“In the Arklay mountains. And that’s the thing, a weird thing happened with Trevor and he disappeared.”

Her ears certainly perked up at that. “Disappeared?”

“This is the fun part, ‘Mara.” Brad taps her shoulder briefly, a smirk plastered on his face, though it doesn’t seem in jest, more annoyance. Clearly, she hadn’t been here for his fascinating retellings before.

Barry ignored Brad, continuing on. “Yeah, he’s probably why no one has ever been there. Trevor went crazy during construction and when it was finished, he got lost and wandered the halls until he starved to death.”

“You can still hear his groans and moans as he wanders the halls, searching for his next meal!” Forest added, wiggling his fingers for effect.

“Bullshit.” Brad rolled his eyes but looked uneasy. He certainly lived up to his nickname, even the measly mention of this supposed history had him quaking in his boots.

Amara squints, puckering her lips as if she sucked on a lemon as she sweeps her gaze over to Forest, noticing he winks at her. Ah, so this story might actually be bullshit. She knew that she was the kind of person to be fascinated by the woo woo as Chris once mockingly called it, but even she could live based on facts for the most part and this story had all the makings of…well, straight bullshit.

“Barry, are you telling that stupid ghost story again?” Jill saunters in, a shake in her head and a pep in her step.

Amara breathes a sigh of relief, “Oh, thank god you’re here, being the lone taco in this sausage party is beginning to blow.”

The men all disperse, rolling their eyes or chucking quietly.

“How ya doin’ Cutie?” Jill jokingly sits down directly in Amara’s lap to crush her, but she takes it as an opportunity to hug her, placing her head against her back. If anyone else had called her cutie, she’d hate it but from Jill? She couldn’t hate it if she tried.

Jill had been one of the first members of the team to welcome her with open arms, well only after Amara had her own clumsy first encounter spilling coffee on the front of Jill’s uniform.

They started chatting while she cleaned up her shirt and Amara learned of her secret, not-so-secret love of pop music (boy bands and what have you) amongst other things. They’d been friends ever since.

“Pretty good, except all the shit I have to pack tonight,” she frowns, the piles left on her bed at home still needed to be thrown into her suitcase. Jill had since moved to sit on the edge of her desk, careful not to knock over her neatly stacked books.

“Damn, how did I forget about your trip?”

“I don’t know, considering that’s all I’ve talked about for the last couple of weeks.” The salty seawater-laced air, sand between her toes, the sun beating down, and waves crashing against the shore had all beckoned to her ever since she saw that billboard near her favorite coffee shop, Emmy’s. Throwing caution to the wind, she went to the travel agent the same day and that was that.

A part of her wanted that reminder of that beach in California years ago.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me with these animals for almost a week.”

“You’ll manage! Besides, don't you have your own personal bodyguard in Chris?” Amara gestures towards him as he just so happens to walk into Wesker’s office at that moment.

“Please.” Jill snorted, rolling her eyes.

“Shhh, you’ll hurt his feelings,” Amara teased.

“Are you sure you didn’t want to stop by Jack’s bar later? For a few minutes? Have some fun before you’re swept off by a beautiful blonde hunk on the beach?”

Summer in Raccoon City had been tense and quiet as of late. Every citizen was on edge, waiting to hear that the killers terrorizing the city had been apprehended. But, that never stopped Jill it seems. Though, she can’t find it in her to really blame her… most everyone had their things to get their minds off what is definitely a stressful situation.

Amara doesn’t drink, not to the extent that the others did, she found that choosing to be sober and coherent made her a social pariah.

So, she was always glad to be included even only if she only sipped on a club soda but even the promise of a balmy summer night out with friends didn’t street her from her responsibilities, “Chris may actually have to be your bodyguard tonight. Nothing is coming between me and my suitcase tonight.”

Except maybe a rerun of Golden Girls, her favorite show as of late. That certainly was the thing that kept her mind off things.

“Another time then–”

“Moore? A word?” Captain Wesker’s cool, professional voice comes from his office.

“I’ll catch you in the meeting?” Jill said, not really posing a question but it comes across that way. Amara nods, pushing herself from her chair, a beeline straight to Wesker.

Irons stalked past Amara and out of the room.

Looks like he could use a shit from how stiff he was.

Paying no mind to him further, she stepped into Wesker’s office. The latter busied himself with paperwork, shuffling it in an orderly manner. The office was small, but well-kept, actually other than the mess of papers, it was so neat that Amara found it disturbing. Every surface that she could see was utterly spotless, strange for a man…considering how most she’d known couldn’t be assed to even pick up a piece of trash that laid at their feet.

Amara’s only conclusion that she always came to was that Captain Wesker was naturally this clean, this…in control.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Ah, Amara, glad to see you,” Wesker greeted, his words rarely matching his tone. Sunglasses covered his eyes but that was beside the point. The last time he used her first name was…well, never actually.

“You needed a word?” She asked, keeping her voice steady.

"I just wanted to touch base with you before you take your vacation," Wesker said smoothly. "You've been doing excellent work lately, and I want to make sure you know how important you are to the team."

Usually, she loved to be recognized for her work, it let her know that she had some grasp on things but a chill ran down her spine. There was something about the way Wesker spoke that made her feel like she was being watched like he knew something about her that she didn't.

"Thank you, sir," she said, trying to sound grateful.

Wesker smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes–as if she’d actually be able to see them with his glasses on. "Just remember, Amara, we're all in this together. And I expect great things from you when you return.”

Amara nodded, feeling more uneasy than ever. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was completely off, but she had to for the sake of their morning meeting. Maybe down the line, she would’ve recognized the signs.

#leon kennedy #leon kennedy x oc #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy fanfic #re2 remake fic #re2 Leon #re2make #re2 remake #claire redfield #original character #city of the dead fic #leon scott kennedy #black oc #oc character #leon kennedy x black oc #finally some claire redfield #chris is an idiot and I came up with the soup shit on the fly #mixed race oc

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winksasleeplesseye · 1 year

Text

File #004 - Trade

City of the Dead

Pairing: Leon Kennedy × OC

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: none this go around

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After that horrifying display, Amara is more than ready to escape from this cell. Jesus, was that what Irons meant by Ben being taken care of?

Amara squirmed at what her fate could be if she didn’t get the hell out of this cell, no, no, this very city.

The sound of heels interrupts them, Leon aims his gun, ready to shoot until a woman that Amara doesn’t recognize comes into view. “It’s just me.”

“So, you can put that thing away.”

Leon tries to explain what had just happened, it happened so quickly and Amara still couldn’t rid her mind of the sound of that crunch. She fights against the goosebumps and shivers that want to roll down her spine even recounting it for a split second.

She didn’t even want to talk about the smell. It was more than enough to make her fight her body’s gag reflex actively.

“I told you to get out of here,” the woman looks on at the scene laid out before them. “You don’t wanna end up like Ben, do you?” She asks, almost condescendingly.

As the two of them talked, Amara couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance toward the woman. Was now really a time to respond like that?

"So, what was Ben's big secret?" Leon asked, breaking the tense silence.

"He said he had information that would lead us to the truth about this whole mess," the woman replied, her voice cool and collected.

Amara rolled her eyes. "Of course he did. Every journalist thinks they have the scoop of the century."

Of course, Amara knows Ben definitely wasn’t just making things up but her restlessness seemed to be clouding her judgment and her manners.

The woman turned her sharp gaze on Amara. "And what about you? What's your story?"

Amara shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "I'm just a former S.T.A.R.S. operative who got caught up in all of this. Nothing special."

"I find that hard to believe," She said, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

Amara resisted the urge to snap back at the woman, knowing that she needed to keep her cool if she wanted to get out of this mess alive. Instead, she just smiled and said, "Believe what you want. It doesn't change the fact that we're all stuck in this together."

Leon nodded in agreement, his eyes flickering between the woman and Amara. "She's right. We need to work together if we're going to make it out of here. I’m Leon Kennedy.”

Amara couldn't help but feel a flicker of gratitude towards Leon. Despite everything that had happened, he still seemed like a good guy who wanted to do the right thing. Maybe they could make it out of this alive after all.

"Find a way out, Leon, then we'll talk," The woman said, her voice cool and businesslike, turning to leave.

"Name's Ada," she added, as an afterthought.

Amara raised an eyebrow at the exchange but kept quiet. She didn't trust Ada any more than she trusted Chief Irons, and the fact that she wasn’t so forthcoming in her knowledge of what was going on only reinforced that suspicion.

Leon nodded at Ada's words. "Guess the deal is on," he said to Amara, referring to Ben's parking pass.

Amara snorted. "What deal?" she asked, her tone skeptical. "The deal where I have to get near all of that? The deal where we trust a woman who won’t even divulge her last name?”

She gestured to the scene behind her, she really, really didn’t want to look again. Her brain certainly couldn’t process that Ben, who was only just speaking moments ago is now this. Ugh, it was like someone crushed a grape, except human.

Leon didn't have an answer for that, and Amara could see the uncertainty flicker across his face. She sighed inwardly and grumbles out a short, clipped “damn”. With her eyes raised to the ceiling, she gets close to the corpse she once called Ben, unclasping the pass lanyard from around his neck.

Usually, she can keep a cool head in intense situations but having this many in a short amount of time has left her more than a little frazzled.

She wanted to scold herself the same way her parents had so often before but a voice in her head told her this isn’t the slightest bit of normal, being a little frantic is more than okay.

Amara sticks out the parking pass to Leon, more than eager to help him out but quickly retracts it back through the bars of the cell. Leon scrunches his face up, obviously confused.

“Sorry,” Amara cringes a tad. “But, I think I need to hold some leverage to make sure you come back to get me.”

Leon scoffs. “But-”

She quickly cuts him off, “And I…uh, say that not to say I don’t hold some trust for you but we’ve only just met.”

Coming from Amara, trust was no small thing either. Her father, the bastard, occasionally gave her gems of advice that followed her into adulthood. She remembers it very well, every new base, every new set of friends she’d have to make and every I-told-you-so face as things would inevitably turn sour. Occasionally her mother would do the comforting but her dad would step in and say the same English proverb he’d learned “It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust nobody.”

And every time, she’d ask what he meant and he’d reply, “You have to be smart in who you trust right off the bat and who you don’t. Trust in the wrong people gets you hurt.”

Of course, now his word means absolute dog shit to her but that was a topic for another day.

He sighs, “Fair enough.”

He looks towards the electronic panel, the key to her freedom. “Any idea where the missing part could be?”

“There was a delivery…” Amara trails off and raises her eyes, trying to recount when it occurred, “about a few months ago of a few of the parts so you may find them on the third floor if those lazy knuckleheads never actually got around to opening them up.”

Leon listened to her intently, clearly already making note of it in his head. “Third floor. I’m on it. Thanks.”

“Oh, and Leon?” Amara knows what has occurred so far and knows the dire situation and there’s really no time for games but she’s down to play anyways. Besides, when is she gonna get a chance like this again? “I’d say you’re way cuter in person than on paper. Good luck.”

She doesn’t miss the momentary blush, shake of his head, and low chuckle Leon lets out. Rita would indeed be gnashing her teeth if she could see this now.

It takes Leon at least fifteen minutes to return with the part and she certainly can’t fight the smile that comes to her lips. To be fair, anyone alive would’ve made her excited. “Good to see you’re still in one piece.”

“Well, either I’m the smartest person in this place or the luckiest,” Leon replies, tinkering with the wiring now with the part in its place.

“Depends on who you’re asking.”

“I don’t know, what do you think?”

“I’d certainly say you’re the bravest, coming amidst all this chaos.” Amara praises.

“I did get a call to stay away but you know what they say about curiosity.”

“Yeah, yeah, I do.”

After a few minutes of tinkering, the door slides open and Leon steps inside the cell. He certainly has a slight bit of height on Amara but another part of her can’t actually believe he’s standing in front of her.

Has the thirst and hunger-induced delirium gotten to Amara’s senses? No way. She’d gone for longer stretches before without both the essential functions to live on stakeouts. Jill doted on her (despite her being only two years older than Amara) but she continuously knew what she could take.

She shakes her head, hoping to rattle her brain back into reality but it’s already clear that Leon is, in fact, real as he bends down to Ben’s corpse to search his pockets.

Thank god he didn’t just see her do that. The last thing she needs is to be directly thrown into a psych ward after all this is over.

“Did Ben play this for you?” Leon turns to her, holding up what seems to be a tape recorder.

“Not that I remember.” She bends down close to Leon, hoping to listen to what it contains. She also pushes down the urge to be giddy at the proximity, geez, it’s like a high school girl with a crush.

The recording is brief, as Ben attempts to weasel his way into grilling a woman named Annette into revealing what she knew about Umbrella and their dealings with an orphanage and a lab situated in the sinkhole in the middle of the city.

As long as Amara had been here, she never really thought much of it. She always kind of chalked it up as just an eyesore and slight failings of the infrastructure that Raccoon City had fought to modernize.

“Hmm…what are they after?” Leon asked, probably more to himself than to Amara.

As luck would have it, an alarm blared throughout the area. Amara looked for the source and realized it only meant one thing. Shit.

“That’s not good,” Amara rose up quickly, stepping outside the cell to find that all the cells were opening up.

“That’s really not good…” Leon’s voice sounded behind her as they both looked on at the zombies shambling out of the now-open cells.

“Got a plan?” Leon asks. Amara offers a closed mouth smile, she is kind of flattered that he assumes she knows any better than him in this situation. She unholsters her gun, quickly checking the magazine, seeing that only five bullets remained.

“Point. Aim. Shoot. In that order.”

Amara does just that, sending a bullet straight between the eyes of one of the zombies. She has to make sure every shot count. A visit to her old desk would do her real good right now. Leon follows her lead and they both manage to get through a number of the zombies, but those same heavy footfalls from before sound way too close for comfort amidst the frantic ringing of the alarm.

“Gimme a break,” Leon sounds kind of pissed off and Amara follows his line of vision to find…

What the fuck is that?!

A giant, grey-skinned man towers over both of them, surging right toward them. Clearly, this man…thing, was on a mission and Leon is no stranger to it.

“Friend of yours?” Amara asks, narrowly avoiding the fist that comes swiping down at her. The sound its fist made just cutting through the air means that this thing really isn’t fucking around. Judging by its little outfit, this creature is also the thing that crushed Ben’s head like an egg from through the wall.

Leon scoffs. “I’ve been trying to escape this big asshole all night!”

Amara certainly didn’t have enough bullets for the zombies and this thing.

“Amara, go!” Leon pushes her forward, toward the exit. She almost stumbles at the force of it. “I’ll keep this thing occupied.”

“Leon–”

“Look, if one of us has to get out of here, I’d rather it be you.”

Amara felt the urge to say something else. Anything. They had only just met and now she was going to be alone again? And it’d be an even crueler fate for him to have come all this way just to end up dead…or worse.

He said nothing else. His eyes became laser-focused on the mass of bodies moving toward him. She spared one more look at the man as he began shooting, truly awed by the guts Leon had.

Amara’s heart raced as she ran toward the parking garage, the parking pass held in a death grip between her fingers. She fought the urge to look back at the door that Leon was still behind, her one goal now was to get that shutter open. God, please let him be okay.

Amara shoved the keycard roughly into the panel, just as Ada appeared from the door at her right side. “Oh, it’s just you.” Amara rolled her eyes.

Ada looked behind Amara, clearly noticing someone was missing. “Where’s Leon?”

“Probably dea-” The door bursts open, Leon practically barreling out. His breathing is a bit more labored than the last she saw him but a small bit of relief floods through Amara to see him regardless. “I take it back. Leon!” Amara didn’t hesitate to try and meet him halfway but he frantically waved his hand.

“Stay back!”

Not even half a second later, the brute smashes through the wall closest to Leon.

Amara's heart raced as the Tyrant's massive hand closed around Leon's throat. She could see his face turning red as he struggled to breathe. At that moment, she knew she had to act fast.

Without hesitation, Amara drew her gun and took aim at the brute’s head. Her finger tightened on the trigger as she tried to steady her shaking hand. She knew that her bullets were limited and would do little more than irritate the damn monster, but she had to try something.

“Come on!” Ada called for her as she sat behind the wheel of a big delivery truck. Amara liked her quick thinking and ran to the passenger side, barely getting situated before Ada hit the gas, full speed for the thing.

Amara braced her hands on the dash, fully prepared for Ada to hit it with all this truck had.

The force of the truck colliding with the monster still pushes Amara forward roughly, but it was more than enough for it to let Leon go.

She raced back around to where he laid on the ground.

Amara felt a surge of relief as she watched Leon gasp for air. She knew that he was lucky to be alive. She looked over at Ada, grateful for her quick thinking.

"Thanks," Amara said, still a bit shaken as she huddled close to Leon’s side. "That was close."

Ada shrugged nonchalantly. "It's all in a day's work," she replied, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

“Holy shit…Amara, Ada, thank you.” Amara stuck out her hand, helping Leon up and quickly moving away with him from the truck.

Something in her tells her to hug him, and she does just that with a ferocity like nothing she had never experienced before. Amara had cycled through quite a few emotions this evening, a good chunk now probably attributed to the man in front of her.

“Don’t ever do that shit again, Leon.” Her words are firm, clinging to the man as if he’d vanish if she let go.

He chuckles a tad, patting his gloved hand gently against the back of her head. “Yes, ma’am,” he coughs, still recovering his breath.

Amara is the first to pull away, still reluctant to fully let go as her hand still lingers on Leon’s arm. Possibly her only anchor to make sure he was still there. Maybe he wasn’t lying, he had to be the luckiest guy in this place.

“Well, now that the excitement is over…” Amara looked back towards the doors back to the station. “I need to head to my old desk, I need way more firepower if we’re going onto those streets.”

Amara would be lying to herself if she said she didn’t also want to see the disarray of the station in the days since her imprisonment. But, she also noticed she was hopelessly outgunned compared to Leon, who had at least three weapons on his person.

“I’ll go with you,” Leon offered, “It’s better we stick together, all things considered.”

Amara found herself agreeing. She couldn’t exactly envision not being by his side especially after he almost gave his life in exchange for her. Ada decides to stick by the shutter instead, but it was obvious that she had now become part of this ragtag team for the evening.

Leon’s footsteps fall in line with Amara’s, his gun at the ready and flashlight lighting the way in the dimly lit corridors. Somehow, the energy in the station had changed dramatically as the heavy downpour is hard-hitting against the windows and the wind howled furiously almost as if it were itself alive. The creepy factor seemed to dial it up by ten by Amara’s standards. She usually loved haunted houses and the like during this time but she certainly wasn’t enjoying that the station had now become one.

Haunted by memories and certainly overflown with zombies.

In the lull of it all, Leon decided to be the one to break the silence. “So, S.T.A.R.S., huh?”

“You’ve just been dying to ask, haven’t you, rookie?” Amara teases.

“Seems like now is a more than perfect opportunity, don’t you think?”

“Zombies aside, I guess, ask away.”

“Well, I guess, I wanted to ask about the murders.”

“Murders?”

“Up in Arklay.”

“Oh.” Her eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of Arklay. “That was a mess,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Contrary to what the officials reports say, it wasn’t cannibalistic cultists responsible.”

Leon raised an eyebrow. “Really? What was it then?”

“Umbrella,” Amara stated matter-of-factly. Considering the hell outside, holding back information is no longer logical.

Leon’s eyes widened in surprise, Amara almost likens him to a puppy dog. “Umbrella? The pharmaceutical company? You’re kidding.”

Amara let out a humorless chuckle. “I wish I was. And it wasn’t just Arklay. No doubt that Umbrella had a hand in this outbreak too, considering they’re making bio-weapons.”

Leon’s expression told Amara that he seemed to be going through everything in his head, reeling at the revelation. She wasn’t sure what all he knew about his new post, but she can only imagine he wasn’t aware to this extent. “So, what happened in Arklay? How did you get involved?”

Amara’s expression darkened as she recalled the files. “I wasn’t directly involved, I only found out secondhand. I was on vacation at the time, but when I returned, things were different. For a few months, I really didn’t know anything. Until I was privately investigating an Umbrella researcher’s supposed suicide. That’s when I stumbled upon everything about what happened to all my team and almost all of Alpha team, Bravo team is all gone, except me.”

Amara can’t help but look down at her feet, trying not to recall too much of everything, lest the tears she continuously fought back would roll down her cheeks. None of them deserved that.

“I’m sorry, Amara. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“It’s alright,” she said with a sigh. “It’s just frustrating to see Umbrella get away with this while innocent people suffer.”

Leon nodded in agreement. “Well, we’ll make sure they pay for what they’ve done. We have to stop them.”

Amara gave him a small smile. “That’s the plan, Leon. We’ll do it together. Now come on, time’s a-wastin'.”

They arrived at the S.T.A.R.S. office, which seemed relatively untouched compared to the chaos of the other rooms surrounding it. Hell, even Chris’ jacket was still hung up behind his chair. Did she want to swipe it for herself? She looked at it briefly. Nah.

Amara quickly made her way over to her old desk. Rummaging through the drawers proves fruitful as she pulls out more ammo and her unloaded weapons. Her second favorite handgun, a sleek and deadly custom-made piece, just how she liked it. She straps it to her other hip.

Amara could feel Leon’s eyes on her as she equipped herself. “Nice gun,” he said, a hint of admiration in his voice.

She smirked at him, picking up on the subtle flirting. “Thanks, I’ve had it for a few months now. It’s never let me down.”

As they made their way back to the main hall, Leon moved closer to her. Both of them had their guns at the ready, should any zombies pop but so far, they were in the clear. “You know, I’m glad you’re here with me. I feel a lot safer with someone like you around.”

Amara chuckled, looking over at him briefly, “Someone like me?”

Usually, Amara would get the sense that when someone used that phrasing toward her, it never is meant in a good way. So, clarification is big for her.

“Well, yeah,” Leon said, sounding a tad flustered. “Being a former S.T.A.R.S. member and all, you’ve been handling yourself pretty well so far. Not to mention you’re…uh…pretty…well, you know.” He trailed off, unable to finish his sentence.

“Pretty what, Leon?” Amara gave her full attention to Leon now.

His face turned red. “Uh, pretty…competent. And brave. And, uh, pretty.” He stumbled over his words, probably feeling embarrassed to say that out loud.

She feels a slight bit of relief at his words.

Amara laughed. “Relax, rookie. I know what you mean. And don’t worry, the feeling’s mutual.” She flashed him a grin. There was something about Leon that made her feel safe and comfortable, despite everything. It was quite nice. “But also, flattery will get you nowhere.”

That made Leon laugh as well.

They head back quickly to Ada, who surprisingly still waited for them. They head outside together of the RPD, no idea what the next part of the night would bring.

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