Chapter Text
August 18, 2004
After Leon had left him, he had expected nothing more than to simply die. And to be quite honest, Luis hadn’t been entirely disappointed about that version of events. It told a satisfying story— it told of him being good again, with intermittent bits of Don Quixote and Sancho, and careful, even enjoyable traces of banter with Ada. She hadn’t fulfilled her promise, but neither had he, no? To be rescued, one had to live first.
So, once Leon’s footsteps had faded, the warm touch of his hand on top of Luis’ leaving him like a ghost in the night, Luis had pulled in the smoke and shut his eyes and prepared to die. He didn’t know what it would feel like. Perhaps the sure thrum of darkness through his veins while Las Plagas caged him in an uneasy sea of tunnel vision, or the spectral claws of smoke in his lungs as he ran through his burning lab, watched his grandfather’s house crumble into debris.
It ends up feeling much more like sleep than he thought, interrupted only by the piercing sting of what he assumed was a punctured lung if his difficulty breathing was any indicator.
At the sound of footsteps again— not Leon’s, hurried, or Ada’s, calculated— he wishes he’d had the decency to die a little faster.
“Luis Serra,” a tremulous, flat voice says. He cracks open an eye, partially offended by the glaringly incorrect Lewis that had dropped from the man’s thin-lipped mouth.
What he sees forces a strained laugh from him. Blood lands on his lower lip. The man is tall, likely trying to seem imposing and clad in a dark suit and sunglasses, blonde hair meticulously slicked back.
If this man is God, he’s royally fucked. And if he was the devil, well, he’d understand a little more. Luis doesn’t speak, just inhales stale smoke again as the man pads closer.
“Rather unfortunate it had to happen this way, but I needed to make sure you all were isolated,” the man explains, removing a roll of gauze from his briefcase. He has one moment to think, sluggishly, that it’s far more desirable than a gun, before cold hands pry his sticky jacket away and press it to his skin.
Luis arches up with an offended hiss. “Hey,” he gripes. “Anybody ever teach you manners? I was doing something here, cabrón. ”
A sigh. The gauze pushes harder and Luis struggles not to move with the sudden pain. “I’m afraid I can’t let you die,” the man tells him, not solemn enough to be truly sorry.
“And why is that?” Luis asks, trying to focus his vision as it’s starting to falter, showing two of everything.
“You’re of use to me,” he replies, hefting Luis up like he weighs fuck all, like cargo. He grunts, again, in vague distaste, and only cans it when he hears that subtly infuriating voice start up again. As he walks, painfully bumping Luis’ wound against his shoulder and granting him a dull view of his clothed side. “I suspect my mercenary is soon to complete her end of our bargain. That is, if she doesn’t get tempted and fail to follow through, in which case, I am entirely prepared for as well. Leon and the president’s daughter I assume will die here if they can’t withstand Saddler’s forces. It makes no difference to me. But you, you have knowledge I could benefit from.”
He loses consciousness before he can generate a reply to that.
August 21, 2004
Luis wakes up in a hospital bed with the incessant beeping of machines accompanying the lackluster off-white walls. He’s in a gown, pumped up on a drug cocktail strong enough to sedate a mule based on the sheer lack of world-crushing pain he’s experiencing.
Not that he’s counting— but maybe he should start— but it’s the third or fourth time he’s woken up in a different place this week alone. At least this time he’s not behind bars or bound in chains. Though, he could do with Leon Kennedy on the other side of this room. He spares some thought. How long has it been? Is Leon even still alive? Is Ashley safe?
In some incredible way, Luis thinks the world would feel different if Leon was dead. He chooses to believe his Sancho is alive, walking, and still kicking. He wouldn’t go down easy. Of that, Luis was absolutely and devastatingly positive.
Door hinges squeal and he blinks back into the present moment, startled. But it’s not the man who had brought him here, just a nurse carrying in a tray. There’s a glass of water and ice which reminds him of how dry his throat is, as well as a platter of food that smells quite flavorless but still downright salivating as he is, having been surviving off of mostly hastily cooked animal meat and eggs.
She leaves, and he eats like a man starved. As the cold water tumbles down his throat, he thinks about how this feels like his last supper. Something is about to change. Luis doesn’t know what, but he thinks as he sucks on an ice cube, he may have been better off dead.
The notion becomes all the more concrete when the same man from before walks in, footsteps quiet and sure, lips pursed as he examines Luis’ sorry state. He introduces himself as Albert Wesker and then says some very compelling things in that smooth voice of his that fixes Luis’ attention. Dread grows like cordyceps. The open sliver in his lung becomes the least of his problems.
If he knew what was good for him, he would have stayed dead.
August 21, 2004
The DSO is kind enough to send him a car from the hospital to his apartment. Not that Leon minded hailing a cab if need be, but he’d rather not have to exchange pleasantries while hopped up on medication. Though the worst of it has been mended, he’s got severe bruising along his spinal cord—a courtesy of being thrown so many times— as well as a minor concussion and several sprains and scratches that, thankfully, weren’t infected. Amongst the most painful was a deeper wound in his right thigh, left by Krauser’s knife. He could feel the skin pulling taught with every step. Leon had been coerced into a wheelchair after they’d discharged him but abandoned it as soon as he was out of sight. So what? The patient treatment wasn’t for him.
Once inside the slick black vehicle, he busies himself with staring out the window. It feels juvenile to pout in the way he currently is, but so much had happened over the past week that he doesn’t know where to start. With Ashley home safe, he has nothing to distract him anymore. No threat to focus his energy on while he precariously doesn’t think too hard on anything else. But now it’s grossly clear he has to process it. Ada, Krauser, Luis, everyone he’d seen there and lost there.
The car comes to a sudden stop and his back lurches, knocking painfully against the stiff seat. He grunts under his breath and shuts his eyes until the pain ebbs. His phone buzzes with a text from Hunnigan.
You have two weeks to rest up. Don’t do anything stupid. A minor concussion is still a concussion.
He rolls his eyes, types out a hasty thanks.
Later, with his hand around the neck of a bottle of whiskey, he thinks there’s worse things he could do. It’s a shocker he hasn’t gone off the deep end or sacrificed his virtues for power or money like everyone else he used to trust.
Leon takes another gulp, hoping the buzz will ease the beginnings of a headache he’s nursing. The lights are all off with the exception of a shoddy lamp that the previous owner had left on the coffee table. From his place at the kitchen island, the dim, flickering light makes his drink glow like amber.
Against all that is wise of him, his mind drifts to Luis. Don Quixote, covered in dust and left alone in the mines after all he’d done to better his name. Leon, naturally, could never understand his history with Umbrella, but he could admire trying to become more honest. Trying to right a long list of wrongs.
People can change, right?
You haven’t changed, you just think you have.
Which one would he believe— were they even mutually exclusive? Luis had surely changed, become aware of his faults, and tried to reverse the effects. It was beyond him that it had taken over his home. Ada was indecipherable, still leading him on with vague statements and decorated threats, with meticulous care for his life that he failed to understand. She hadn’t changed. She said it herself, she didn’t need to. Leon, however, had just grown more tired. He loathed to even admit it to himself, that he still desperately sought the good in people, the good in the world overall, just like when he was a rookie at twenty-one. He spent less time on getting to know people and extended less leeway, didn’t take anything at face value, but he was still half the man who had almost died underground if he was forced to put on muscle mass and equip a dozen more scars.
He finishes off the bottle, tosses it in the trash. He’s hungry but he can’t bring himself to make something, so he removes his clothes and falls into bed, the sheets smelling faintly of sweat and detergent, soft against his skin. Leon doesn’t sleep because he’ll see faces there he wants to avoid for a little longer.
His phone rings. With an undignified, garbled groan, he contorts his body not unlike a cat and grabs it from his nightstand, answering harshly.
“Hunnigan, I’m home. You have the ability to track my whereabouts, I don’t see why you need to—”
A bubbly laugh. Very much not Hunnigan. “Hi to you too.”
Leon’s jaw drops. “Claire.”
“That’s me,” she replies. “I heard the President’s in your debt.”
He musters a quiet laugh. “Yeah, I wish.”
She hums. “You okay?”
The question startles him. He doesn’t get asked that very often, can’t remember the last time, in fact. He and Claire hadn’t spoken in nearly six months, both intensely preoccupied with work. A small chasm of guilt opens up in his chest. Of all the times they had spoken, it had always been her calling him.
Leon shrugs to no one. “Alive,” he grunts. “No broken bones.”
“Leon,” she says. The sudden seriousness in her voice makes his heart skip a beat.
“I’m okay, Claire.”
Shifting from the other side. He can picture her shaking her head. “You’ve been drinking. You know you shouldn’t when you have a concussion, right?”
He props himself on an elbow, affronted. “First of all, how the hell do you know that? And—”
“I have my ways,” is all she replies with. “Sober up. Don’t make me bring Chris into this, because I will. I understand that was horrible for you, but I called because I got a sense you’d be punishing yourself for it. Call me tomorrow.”
The words are as good as a slap in the face, or being plunged into freezing water. She hangs up, line dead, and he lets the phone slip through his fingers, watching with double vision as it hits the carpet.
Somewhere in that sequence of motions, Leon had fallen asleep. He realizes this when, at six on the dot, his phone rings again. He checks the caller ID this time and doesn’t recognize it. Slightly uneasy and nauseous— though that’s to be attributed to the displaced air in his liquor cabinet— he picks up anyway.
“Hello?” His voice is low, raspy, with the first words of the day crackling over his tongue.
“Leon,” says a warm, familiar voice.
The relief that washes over him is instantaneous. “Ashley,” he states. “How’d you get my number?”
“My dad has you on speed dial, Leon, it isn’t hard.”
“Right, you’re a detective now,” he finds himself teasing. “You’re okay?”
She exhales. “I haven’t really slept, to be honest, but I was able to turn my lights off without freaking out,” she tells him. “So, uh, that’s progress I guess.”
He nods. He knows the feeling. It’s odd to remember she’s exactly his age when Raccoon City happened. Leon hopes not even this can crush her optimism. He hopes fiercely that she makes it through better than he did.
“You’re safe here,” he says firmly, feeling a little bit out of his depth. He thinks briefly of Sherry, the short period during which she was under his and Claire’s care after they’d made it out. She’d woken up screaming in the night. “There’s people out there making sure it doesn’t happen again,” he adds. “Working to prevent it.”
“That doesn’t mean they’ll succeed,” Ashley says, all but a whisper.
Leon falters, nods in slight defeat. “No,” he allows. “But it means you’ll be safer than you were. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Ashley makes a soft noise between despair and frustration. “How can you promise that?”
He can’t. He doesn’t want to tell her that. “You trusted me,” he reminds her. “I won’t make you regret it.”
“Don’t think you can defend me when you’re fifty and old,” she gripes, playfulness emerging from her worry. Leon shuts his eyes, thankful she’s okay enough to bicker.
“You can defend yourself, then,” he replies.
She giggles. It’s a much easier exchange than last night’s with Claire. “Were you asleep?”
“I was going to wake up anyway,” he tells her.
“Oh, good,” Ashley says. “This might be a good time to tell you I also got your address. Do you want coffee?”
Leon blinks. “Wait—what?”
“I don’t want to be alone right now,” she says under her breath. “And you shouldn’t have to be either.”
He doesn’t laugh, just breathes out a thicker plume of air. It’s a close thing. “Coffee’s good. So you’re going to force your way in,” he says.
“Huff and puff and break the door down if I have to,” Ashley says brightly. “See you!”
There’s nothing like self-consciousness and anxiety to get his space clean and tidy again. It’s not that it was ever truly messy, but he didn’t live here. Leon’s belongings were closer to the negatives than anything— clothes, weapons, protective gear, and an embarrassing few pairs of jeans he had for appearance's sake. He makes the stiff pillows on his unused couch look fluffier than they are and opens his window so sunlight hits the space and fresh air nudges out the stale smell of drinking away his sorrows the night prior. A quick shower during which he fights off a wave of dizziness and takes something for his persistent headache. After he’s dry, he selects one of the jeans and a years-old shirt he’d long since grown out of. It’s a little tight, but he thinks it’s fine. Being a person is enough of a task his mind stays away from Claire’s admonishment. He owes her for verbally lashing him like that. Maybe helping Ashley not be alone would be a suiting penance.
Three sharp knocks sound at his door and Leon opens it. She’s got a darkness under her eyes that makes something in him kick, but she is smiling, which is a thankful sign. Instead of her usual wear, she’s clad in black pants and a navy blue and beige knit sweater, chunky sunglasses sitting in her styled hair. It’s to look inconspicuous— he’s been there too.
She shoves a steaming hot coffee into his hand, sipping her own iced monstrosity.
“It’s cold out, why are you drinking that?” Leon asks, stepping aside to let her in.
Ashley shrugs. “It’s good.”
She toes off her boots and looks around, biting the inside of her cheek. “Did you just move in?”
Leon wonders how this is more mortifying than her watching him take a beating from ganados. “No. I just don’t spend a lot of time here.”
“Mhmm.” She sits on the couch and he drops into the chair beside it. It’s lumpy and pushes uncomfortably into his spine.
“Does your father know you’re here?”
Ashley looks guilty instantly. Her gaze jumps past him. “He won’t even know I’m gone.”
He drinks his coffee, allowing the hot liquid to soothe his scratchy throat. “You’re going back home before it’s dark. Do you want me to drive you?”
“I can take care of myself, Leon.”
Defensively, he holds up a hand to calm her. “In his eyes, I’m responsible for you. I needed to ask.”
She takes a deep breath, then nods. “No, that makes sense. I’m sorry. I’ll be fine, though.”
He takes another sip of his drink. “I trust you,” he says.
A moment of silence passes. Ashley fidgets, still looking around at the blank walls and generic furniture. Leon follows her gaze, pathetically unaccustomed to hosting any company that wasn’t Claire stopping by or Chris bringing over drinks and information he wishes he could erase from his mind.
“Have you ever tried therapy?”
The question confuses him. “Uh, no,” Leon replies. It hadn’t been offered to him, the priority being that he kept his mouth shut and went to work. Never considered the idea. “Do they have you doing it?”
“Yeah,” says Ashley. “It’s good, but she looks at me like I’m crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” he rushes to tell her.
“She told me it’ll get better with time, which I guess is the natural thing to say, but I don’t know how to believe her.” She looks up at him, and he notes with an ounce of fear that her eyes are glassy. “Does it?”
Leon opens and closes his mouth. He sets down his coffee, scratching the back of his neck as his hand comes back up to rest on his knee. “You learn to live with it. The fear doesn’t leave, but you can use that. Learn how to defend yourself, do what you can to protect the people you care about.”
She drinks in the words and her tears fade. He’s grateful she didn’t burst into tears, because he’s more than unprepared for that, but he also doesn’t think he could stand the sight right now. She absently spins her straw and then stops when the plastic makes a sharp sound.
“I miss him,” she says eventually.
His chest goes tight. “Who?” Leon knows, but he has to ask anyway. Has to hear her say it.
“Luis.”
“He wanted you to be safe,” he tells her, eyes having moved to the floor for the admission.
Ashley sighs, leans back into the couch, and tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Leon thinks about if Luis was here, if he had lived to join them. He’d probably perch on the arm of the couch with some witty comment about the dismal apartment. Ashley would laugh and agree. He’d smile at her with an of course, princess dulcinea. He feels heavier after the image passes him by. By the faraway look just leaving Ashley’s face, he estimates she’s just done the same thing he did.
“I’m going back to school in a few days.”
“Yeah?” He asks.
“Yeah.” She murmurs. “I think the distraction will be good. I miss my friends.”
Leon offers her a smile to the best of his ability. “I’m sure a routine will help,” he says. “You should get to live after this. Act your age and all.”
She scoffs. “ My age? I’m only a few years younger than you, thank you very much!”
He grabs his coffee and reaches to ruffle her hair with his free hand. The sunglasses fall into her lap and she laughs, going to bat him away. Leon gives her an amused eyebrow raise and she returns it with a scandalized shake of her head.
“Are you doing okay, though?”
The second time in not even hardly twenty-four hours. Leon blinks, shrugs. Hides behind his coffee. “I’m going to see a friend of mine, too,” he tells her.
“Claire Redfield?”
His stunned silence launches her into an explanation. “Look, you saved my life. Obviously I did my research.”
Leon crosses his arms. “Sure,” is all he says to that. “And yes, Claire. It’s been a while since we talked.”
“Cool,” Ashley says. She rises to her feet. “Thanks,” she tells him, genuine enough to the point where Leon feels terribly out of his depth.
“Yeah. Let me know when you’re home. Thanks for the coffee,” he tells her.
He thinks that’s all when she squashes him in a hug. Momentarily frozen, he hesitates before wrapping his arms around her and setting his chin above her hair. It tickles a little but it isn’t bad. She hums and the vibration is above his chest where they’d each gotten the plaga removed.
She steps back, smiles, and then walks out the door.
Leon stands there, stunned and a bit confused as to how things seem to be more okay than he’d anticipated.
August 25, 2004
“What do you know,” Wesker says monotonously, strolling leisurely into the lab. “The President’s daughter and her savior are officially on American soil.”
Luis tries not to let the elation hit him that obviously, bent over an array of vials and reporting on the samples inside them. “I didn’t doubt they would make it home,” he mutters.
Footsteps approach the workbench. Luis stiffens, beyond wary. There was something so viciously off about this man, though he’d done nothing outwardly harmful or violent, he operated with a degree of arrogance that had to be attributed to experience with viruses, with Umbrella, even. He didn’t have the gaps of knowledge concerning that, but it scared him still.
“Considering your work directly threw them into peril, I would assume you’re spared the guilt of their deaths.”
He swallows. Luis picks a vial, tilting it so a droplet of the greenish, transparent liquid falls onto the glass microscope slide. Wesker continues. He fights not to move, intent on eyeing the writhing particles under the scope instead.
“It’s best they think you died there.” More footsteps. He’s behind Luis. The hair on the back of his neck stands up. “Ignorance is bliss, isn’t it? Better not to know you’re back where you started.”
He swivels back on his heel, chest screaming with the exertion. Luis has been able to stand, walk, and perform the tasks asked of him, but moving quickly was rather painful.
“I’m trying to work, if you don’t mind,” he says sharply.
Wesker smiles, everything about him horrendously cold.
By the time he leaves, Luis had switched the sample with another, breath coming in thin puffs. At least they were alive. And it’s not as if he can argue. It is best to assume he died a hero, not living long enough to succumb to this madness another time.