Work Text:
“What the fuck is that.”
“It’s a-”
“No, I know what it is, but what the fuck is it doing here?”
Leon was really regretting giving Chris the extra key to his apartment. He almost dropped the pisspoor amount of groceries he had dragged in, settling for letting them dangle from his hands. He swept one hand behind his back and hoped Chris didn’t hear the clink of glass bottles connecting.
But at this point, Chris couldn’t blame him for drinking. Not when he walked into his desolate, barely used apartment to the sight of Chris hovering over a glass terrarium on his coffee table. He was locked onto the little green thing tucked in the top corner clinging to the glass wall.
A frog.
A fucking frog.
A green stupid frog with stupid big red eyes that looked like there was absolutely nothing going through its stupid head.
“It’s a red eyed tree frog.”
Leon’s eyes snapped back to Chris and he gave him his most flattening glare possible. “Why did you drag a goddamn frog into my apartment?” he hissed. He motioned with his other hand to the trash remnants of boxes and packaging scattered on the floor. Though to be honest, it was hard to tell which trash was from the frog and which was from him. Leon didn’t have time to clean. “Go put it outside.”
Chris sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. His glare had apparently been unaffecting. “It’s an exotic, you can’t just put it outside or it’ll be dead in an hour.”
“Maybe don’t dump it on me and you wouldn’t have to worry about it,” Leon scowled, fully dropping his bags on the floor and striding forward to grab the glass enclosure. “It’s gonna be some cat’s lucky day-”
A solid overly muscled arm stretched out in front of him, stopping him short. “You’re not getting rid of it,” Chris said with authority of a BSAA captain. Fuck him for that. Actually, fuck him for all of this. “It’s low maintenance, you only have to feed it a couple times a week, but you need something to keep your mind off work.”
So that’s what this was. Handing him something one step above a plush to keep him from driving himself over an edge. His lips were fixed in a near permanent scowl as he stared into the tank.
There were several fake foliage plants, with big leaves he assumed to sit on. They were partially buried in soil that didn’t look like real soil. In one corner was a little bowl of water and hanging from the top were vines of all things. He could see the metal wire through the green mossy tendrils, so not real vines. Was anything in this tank real? Was the frog even real because it had been sitting in the same exact spot the whole time. He squinted at it and watched the soft looking flesh of the lower jaw move with breath. Okay, so it was alive.
A hand clapped onto his shoulder and Leon had half a mind to grab Chris and throw him onto his back. “Try it for a couple months.”
“You’re not leaving this thing here with me!” Leon snapped, standing back up straight. “I have work! Missions! I could be gone for days!”
“You leave extra crickets in the tank, then,” Chris said, as if that solved every problem.
“What- crickets?!”
Chris reached behind the tank and lifted a small plastic see-through bin, where sure enough, crickets were jumping and crawling through a jungle gym of cardboard slabs. Leon groaned, stepping away and turning his back to the scene.
“Chris, what the actual fuck is this?” Leon mourned, pressing his hand to his face and trying to scrub away the headache that would be coming any second now. “You can’t just give me a damn frog and expect things to be hunky-dory!” He dragged his hands away from his face, feeling his skin pull with it before he glared back at Chris.
A handful of papers greeted him, words printed onto them. He stared at them, words blurring together. He needed another drink. Chris shook the pages in front of him like he was trying to coax a cat out of hiding, dangling treats or toys. If Leon had been a cat at that moment, he was pretty sure his ears would be flat against his skull.
With a quick motion, Leon snatched the pages, snaring his fingers into them and feeling the once-crisp sheets crumple in his hands.
“That’s basic care instructions. Do’s and don’ts. Don’t handle it with dirty hands, use clean water, they’re sensitive.” Leon rolled his eyes. What was the point of having a pet if it just sat in a tank and existed?
“And what’s stopping me from chucking it into the street the second you’re gone?”
“You wouldn’t,” Chris said with such confidence that Leon couldn’t stop the short bark of a humorless laugh. “And I’m expecting updates on your frog friend.”
“You’re gonna grade me or some shit?” Leon muttered, eyes flicking dubiously down to the tank again. When Chris didn’t respond, it left Leon letting out a long sigh and dropping his arm, pictures still held too tight in his fist. “Whatever, Mr. Redfield. I’ll have the report on your fucking desk.”
The corner of Chris’ lip twitched and he crossed his too-huge arms over his chest and stared down at him.
Leon could sense a scolding session coming any second now and he was not in the mood nor was he drunk enough for one. “Don’t you have BSAA shit to do?” Leon prompted. “Or anything that doesn’t involve you in my apartment?”
With a glance to his watch, Chris visibly winced. “I need to get back to the hotel,” he muttered, glancing around his apartment and grabbing his bag from where he had placed it on the couch. It was obvious that Chris had to clear a spot for it, judging by the dirty clothes and blankets and random work files strewn across it. He pointed back at Leon as he threw the bag over his shoulder with his other hand. “I want updates. Don’t make me sick Claire on you.”
Because having a TerraSave member on his ass over a frog would fit in Claire’s busy schedule. Somehow, Leon could believe it.
Chris rushed past him out of the apartment, barely casting one more glance over his shoulder before he was out the door. It closed and left the apartment in silence. Or, it would have been silent if it wasn’t for the scattering sound of crickets.
Leon grumbled as he stared back at the sheets fisted in his hand, some handwritten and others printed. How long was Chris working on this stupid idea of his? He tossed the papers to the couch and sat down in the one empty spot created by Chris’ bag. It was directly in front of the tank.
The tank itself was surrounded by discarded bottles and plates he hadn’t felt the energy to clean up yet. He lifted up one of the liquor bottles in the hope that there was something left, only to scowl at his past self’s selfishness. He dropped the bottle back down loudly.
Startled, the frog jumped from where it was perched on a leaf and jumped to another, big red eyes staring out blankly.
Leon stared back at it. He huffed.
“You’re going to be fucking loud and annoying, aren’t you?” Leon scoffed, dropping back to the couch and crossing his arms over his chest. “Gonna be croaking or ribbiting or whatever the fuck you do all day.”
The frog just stared back, the little throat pouch moving back and forth. He half expected it to cartoonishly inflate and for the frog to croak back.
Loud and annoying… A pest. Something that wouldn’t shut up.
Something he was stuck with for the foreseeable future.
“Luis,” he muttered, leaning forward and swiping another bottle to try to drink from. “That’s what I’ll call you.” This one at least had something left in the bottle, and it helped him swallow down the sting of a word he hadn’t spoken of in over a decade.
Luis.
Leon shuffled through the papers in his hands, dragging his eyes between the two tanks that sat on the coffee table he had just finished clearing of dirty dishes. On the left, the frog tank. On the right, the crickets.
“Do I just chuck them in or…?” Leon asked aloud, looking back to the pages Chris had left him. All he could find was ‘dust the crickets with calcium’ and that the frog, Luis, needed to be fed once every couple days with a couple crickets. So… Two? Three? Leon groaned and tossed the pages onto his messy couch and plopped back down into the hole he had created for himself. He put his chin in his hands and glared at the tank again.
Luis was sleeping on a leaf. It seemed like every time he looked in the tank, Luis was asleep. It was hard to see him on the leaf, blending in almost perfectly. It was only the second day of Leon owning the frog, and Leon had only seen him awake when he first ‘met’ the thing. It wasn’t dead, because he could still see the slight movement of the throat and it had moved leaves between Leon going to bed and getting up for work in the morning.
He figured it could be hungry, so here he was. Trying to feed it.
He reached forward and popped open the top of the cricket tank. Immediately, it caused a swarm of movement inside, crickets jumping between cardboard slabs and pieces of an egg carton. He had been supplied tongs to grab the crickets with, but already he could tell that wouldn’t work. So instead he did the next best thing: dump them into the frog tank.
With a quick turn of the clasp locking the front of the tank, Leon opened it and dragged the cricket tank closer. He grabbed one shred of egg carton that had a few crickets and shook it inside the tank, spilling crickets into the enclosure. “That should do it,” he muttered as he dropped the carton back into the cricket tank and popped the lid back on.
It was only when he was closing the front of Luis’ tank that he realized he forgot the calcium part.
“Fuck,” he muttered, opening the tank again and looking inside. There were crickets standing on top of the substrate soil, confused and disoriented. “Don’t move-” and then the crickets scattered.
Groaning, Leon rummaged through the bag Chris had left behind with supplies, unearthing a bottle of calcium powder. He unscrewed the cap and tried his best to shake some of the powder on top of the crickets, but they darted and scrambled under cover as soon as he came close. In the end, Leon had thoroughly dusted the substrate with calcium and not a single cricket was covered.
He’d later find each of those crickets drowned in Luis’ water dish.
There were nights Leon slept without dreaming. Those nights were few and far between, and usually came from nights he drank himself into a blackout. Even in those nights, though, they’d haunt the corners of his mind, drag him through a hell that was unfathomable, only to strip him of the memory as soon as he’d free himself.
This, unfortunately, was one of those nights.
Leon’s eyes snapped open to darkness, to a body that wouldn’t obey his instant commands to flee from the fading nightmare. He lurched up, body heavy and drowning in alcohol that was still swimming in his head. The room swirled around him, and he teetered with it in the struggle for the bathroom.
He only made it to the tile before the toxins spilled out of him.
Leon panted, hands and knees on the cold floor and trying not to fall in his own sick. He blinked through the stinging tears, tried to clear the acid out of his throat, and found his way to the toilet to empty the rest inside.
There went two days of meals and alcohol.
He coughed and retched until he held nothing inside him but dread and dying adrenaline. Soon he became hollow of even that, no comfort to be gained from the sick-splattered porcelain.
Nightmares danced in the corners of his vision, but his body refused his pleas to fight them away. Blood, bodies, death, just out of reach, tucked back into his mind where it could revisit them once he sobered or the next time he closed his eyes.
Cleaning himself was far from his mind once he managed to find his feet again and stumbled out of the bathroom. He deserved the taste of sick in his mouth and the ache in his limbs because at least he was alive to feel it.
He needed to drink. To fill his stomach and rot it along with the rest of him.
Leon stumbled to his living room, flicking on lights and recoiling at his own mistake. It burned. Seared into him. He cursed and rubbed at his eyes, only to wrench his attention to his table. He had left liquor out last night, ready to remedy the mistakes he already created. It was as he was reaching for the bottle that he caught movement.
Frog tank.
Luis.
Luis was… awake?
Leon blinked, feeling the semblance of focus slip back into him. Luis was standing on a leaf, body poised to jump again. The black pupils of his red eyes were wide like a cat’s. His throat was moving with either breath or silent… frog noises.
He still hadn’t heard Luis make a sound after a week of having the damn thing.
“You’re…” Leon slurred, tipping and knocking his hip into the couch. The tank swam in his brain and Luis doubled. Now he had two frogs to throw crickets at.
The two frogs jumped again, jumping onto duplicated leaves that dipped under their weights. It was like they were hiding from… light.
Oh.
“...n-nocshurnal,” Leon mumbled, pressing his hand to his throbbing temple. That explained a lot. Explained the sleeping during the day, because of course his frog would be nocturnal.
Leon shook his head, trying to place the two frogs back into one. But his liquor bottle had also duplicated. Maybe he hit his head while trying to get to the bathroom.
Another jump. For some reason, something in Leon’s brain decided that he needed to shield Luis from the light. “Here, I’ll…” he started, lurching off the couch and stumbling back to his feet. His fingers fumbled with the lock, until it finally turned to the left and the door popped open for him. Luis stared at him with too-wide eyes as he reached into the tank-
Wait.
Leon stared at a smear of sick on his hand.
He couldn’t touch Luis like this.
Chris said Luis had sensitive skin.
Leon dragged his hand out of the enclosure and fumbled again with the latch, and after much too long, he managed to click it back in place.
Clean. He had to clean himself first.
He lumbered off the couch and found his way to the bathroom, where his head could finally clear under the spray of hot water.
“What are you doing?”
Leon stared at the wall, blinking. Luis stared back.
“Get down from there.”
Luis stared at him for another second, then continued his path up the wall.
“Hey, what did I say?” Leon scolded, abandoning his work in scrubbing the tank and quickly washing his hands to get rid of any cleaning products. He thought putting Luis in a bowl of water would be enough to keep him entertained while he cleaned the tank, but apparently not. Now his stupid frog was deciding to make his bathroom a jungle gym of his own amusement.
Shaking off the water, Leon approached the wall and cupped his hands carefully around the frog, mindful of the too-thin legs that always looked moments away from snapping. As soon as he drew close, though, Luis took that opportunity to jump.
“Shit-” Leon gasped, reaching out and catching the frog before he could plummet down six feet to the floor. From there it became a near constant fumbling and catching, cussing and pleading for Luis to stop moving until he managed to encase the frog in his hands. He could feel him jump and squirm the entire time before he deposited his bewildered frog in the bowl again.
“Now stay,” he commanded, watching as Luis blinked and moved his head to regain his surroundings. There were times that Leon assumed that a frog’s brain was filled with nothing but static, but he was starting to learn better. Luis was smarter than that, because the fucker knew exactly when he’d stop looking at him and find something to get into.
He tried to keep Luis in the corner of his eyes as he returned to scrubbing the glass walls, fighting hard water stains from misting the tank and the residue of fecal matter. But when he had to look away to find his roll of paper towels, he found the water bowl empty as soon as he turned back.
“Luis!”
Luis was already halfway across the floor and heading back to the wall. The frog had the nerve to stare back at him, like the fucker had done nothing wrong and was as innocent as a star in the sky.
Leon felt his body tense in the instinct to chase after the frog, but he knew as soon as he moved, Luis was going to make a break for the nearest wall and climb away. It left them in a stalemate, just staring.
Leon moved slowly, creeping his hand along the floor where he reached for his phone still blasting a Three Days Grace album. He lifted it up and opened the camera, snapping a picture of their current standoff.
Within seconds, he was opening his text messages, and clicked on Chris’ name. Well, it wasn’t Chris’ name, per say. It technically read ‘Frog Father.’
After adding a few additions to the picture, he attached it to a message and sent it.
im being held hostage
Read
Three dots hovered in and out of existence for much too long.
(8:27 PM)
Frog Father: Leon what
be gay do crime
The response was immediate.
Frog Father: What does that mean
be gay do crime
(8:28 PM)
Frog Father: I know what it says
luis’ orders
Leon glanced up from his phone, only for his heart to jam into his throat. “Hey!” he called out just as he spotted Luis scaling the wall with no hesitation. He stepped forward, only to pause and sigh. If Luis wanted to be on the wall, then fine. As long as he didn’t get himself in trouble.
Raising his phone again, he snapped a picture and sent it to Chris.
omw to commit crimes gayly
(8:41 PM)
Frog Father: I’ve made a mistake.
Leon set down his phone, only to pause as the chorus of Never Too Late started. With a quick tap of the screen, he skipped the song and tried to ignore the coiling in his gut as the lyrics ran through his head anyway.
He scrubbed them away along with the hard water stains, with too much force and a head that clotted with memories again. His hand would tap against his phone time and time again, skipping songs, skipping, skipping. Soon he found himself sitting in silence and a playlist that had betrayed him once again.
Maybe he needed to start listening to new music.
With a glance back to Luis still on the wall and with his legs tucked underneath his body, Leon opened his messages again.
hey i need music recs
(8:53 PM)
Frog Father: Since when do you like my music?
Frog Father: I gave you my workout playlist once and you looked like I tore a hole through all your jackets.
Leon’s jaw tightened. Work with me, Redfield.
i dont but give me smth
Time ticked past without a response. Leon tried to pass it by more scrubbing. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cleaned something so thoroughly that wasn’t a gun.
His phone pinged with a message.
(8:55 PM)
Frog Father: Cocoa Hooves by Glass Animals
Frog Father: Claire recommended it so blame her.
Fine. He looked back to the wall and checked on Luis, then typed the name into a search. With a few clicks, the song was playing.
It was… quiet. Calmer. Soft strums on a guitar. This didn’t feel like a Claire song, either. Claire was a metal girl, where adding dentist drills to a track was a highlight.
But he didn’t turn it off. He let it play as his scrubbing slowed, let it chase away poisonous lyrics with meanings too familiar.
Come on you hermit.
Slowed heart and slowed scrubbing, a quiet moment shared with a frog on the wall.
Blood dripping down his chin, catching hairs as it dripped down. Gray eyes empty. Breathing ragged. Dying. Something cold in his hand. A key. Now a lighter. Words that won’t come through, distorted by blood and pain and a fog that wouldn’t leave. He can’t change. He can’t change.
Too late.
Too late.
“Leon,” the voice wrenched out, the dripping becoming a tide, flowing, gushing, choking, he was choking, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, gray eyes pleading now, begging for help, but he can’t, he can’t, he can’t, it’s too late, he can’t change, he can’t-
Leon tore himself free from the suffocating blankets, lurching upward on the bed and reaching for the silhouette that was fading fast. Red turning dark then nothing. Gray turning to shadows. He panted, skin prickling, eyes searching for the knife that would find its way into his back next. But there was nothing. An empty room, bare walls.
His hand flew under his pillow, finding the grip of his pistol in a motion too fluid to be normal and lifted it to the haunting shadows, safety on. Just a threat. A plea hidden under the command to stay back and give him oxygen in return for their compliance. They relented with his vision starting to clear, and each lungful of air came easier than the last. Soon the only sound in the room became his own panting breath and thundering heart.
But there was still the threat of danger in his veins.
Leon peeled himself out of sweat-stained sheets and stumbled out of bed, gun still lifted and threatening any twitching shape in the corner of his eye. Sweep, clear the danger, the order repeated in his head as he swept his room and cleared each of the four lonely corners. It wasn’t enough, though. The darkness was playing with him, and turning on the lights would only alert his imaginary intruder. Clear again. Clear until he was sure.
He pressed his back against his bedroom door and swallowed down a breath that tried to return with something solid. His hand went to the door and he turned the knob slowly, ears straining so hard for the click of the lock that they felt ready to burst out of his skull. It clicked, and Leon breathed out. Sucked it back in and pushed the door open slowly with his palm.
Red light leaked through the crack.
Another breath out, another in. His hand returned to his pistol and tightened on the grip. Then with one swift movement, Leon shoved his back against the door and spun around to the other side, bathing himself in the red glow of the room. He expected anything as he searched for the source; mutant monstrosities with red-lantern heads coming to mind first.
But what he didn’t expect when he stepped to his couch was for the red glow to be coming from Luis’ tank sitting on his coffee table.
Leon blinked, lowering the gun slowly. Oh. He had installed the red bulb light a few days ago. He had been worried the tank was becoming too cold at night and needed some heat source, so he had swapped the single bulb with a timed double light fixture. That way the red light wouldn’t disturb Luis’ nocturnal patterns. It was set to swap lights at nine at night and nine in the morning. It certainly was… nowhere close to changing anytime soon.
He approached the tank slowly, eyes flicking between the leaves now coated in the red light. The only difference in color came from Luis’ fake waterfall with two small blue bulbs illuminating the small pools of water. He could hear the trickling now, low and methodic, barely a splash out of place. Water trickling, dripping, feeding through the small pump that made a low hum to fill the emptiness.
Leon reached forward and placed the gun on the coffee table, wincing at the clunk it gave no matter how softly he attempted it. There was no movement in the tank from the sound.
It was only after staring at the water for several more seconds that Leon realized his breathing had slowed down and he could hear past his heartbeat. He breathed in deeply, felt the breath rattle against his ribs and shake in his lungs, then released it with a gush. It left a fuzzy feeling in his brain that lingered a little too long, only to be rescued with another breath.
His heart still bounced in his chest, hammering against ribs that forced its captivity. Still not there, yet. So he tried to focus on the light, on the water, on the way the red light glow stole away the green and clashed against the blue. It created purple shadows instead of midnight black. Less to hide in the purple.
Except for his frog, apparently.
“Where are you?” Leon breathed as he leaned towards the tank, raking his eyes over every detail from the vines that hung from the mesh top to the stone bowl of water. It was hard to see past the red and flickers of blue, until he caught sight of small movement.
Luis sat on top of the stone waterfall, peeking just over the edge, and had it not been for the rhythmic movement of his throat, he could have passed as a toy. He was shielded by a leaf from the direct light, casting him in maroon shadows. He sat there, unblinking, like he had been caught.
“Sorry, I just-” Leon started, moving one hand to rub at his face. His forehead was sticky with sweat still, his usual fringe now scattered and stuck to him. “Didn't mean to wake you up. But you were already awake, weren't you?” He moved his hand away and blinked away the blur from rubbing his eyes too hard.
With his eyes adjusting to the red glow, he could see the once-orange toes spread out onto the stone, little bulbs that clung to the surface. He had seen Luis on the glass multiple times by now, mostly during the day when he was asleep. It was easier to see them, then, see the ridges and grooves that allowed Luis to cling to the glass without a care in the world.
Leon let himself stare into the tank, taking inventory of the leaves that needed to be cleaned and waste needing removed. It would be another two weeks before a full tank cleaning again. “I can find you different leaves,” Leon said aloud, slowly lowering himself onto his couch and feeling the cheap foam sink under his weight. He needed a new couch. How did something that saw so little use fall apart so quickly?
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and studied the tank again. Watched the rapid movement of Luis’ throat. He still wasn't sure if it was breathing or silent croaks or ribbits or whatever classified as tree frog sounds. After more than a month of owning him, Leon had yet to hear him make a single sound.
Luis’ large eyes felt like they were staring blankly around him, all seeing yet blind. He blinked, and it was hard to see the strange porous lid that would cover his eyes momentarily in the red glow.
Leon tilted his head, senses dulling down to focus only on the sound of water, hum of the motor, and the movement of Luis’ pouchy-throat. Silent ribbits. Croak, croak, croak. Whatever sound tree frogs made.
“I haven’t sent a picture to Chris in a couple days,” Leon murmured, though feeling his body resist the idea of getting up. His phone was on his nightstand. He didn’t want to go back to his room. Shadows were there, waiting for his back to turn. At least here in the light of Luis’ bulb, he could feel safe and sound. Like he had a witness to his shadows. “Should I send him a picture?”
Luis didn’t answer, but he did blink again. Maybe that was answer enough.
Shoving foolish fears down again, Leon rocked forward on the couch and stood. Instinct told him to grab his gun, and he did, fingers falling to the grip and moving to check the clip. But he paused. It would make noise. He didn’t want to disturb Luis. His fingers drifted back to the grip, even as his mind went into turmoil without knowing how many bullets he had. His steps became silent against the carpeted floor, practiced motions taking control again. Heel to toe, heel to toe, roll the steps and become silent. The sound of water and humming fell away and he could hear his blood rushing again.
He braced against the wall for just a second, peeking into the room he had cleared too many times and pushing the door open again. The room had grown darker, grown unfamiliar in the haze of his barely functioning and sleep-soggy brain. The folds of thrown-back sheets created shapes that twisted in the blur of his PTSD-riddled brain. He reached out and grabbed them, tearing them off the mattress and throwing them to the floor, exposing the nothing beneath. He kicked the discarded sheets underneath.
One less hiding place for the monsters in his mind.
With his bed stripped, it was easy to find his phone cast to one side of the mattress, the charging cord still connected. It forced him to set down his gun to properly unplug it, and his phone immediately lit up with the lock screen of Luis peeking over a leaf, bulbous eyes the only thing visible other than the curled toes grasping the leaf. He looked at the screen for only a moment before he pocketed it and picked up his gun again. Somehow the room wasn’t quite so dangerous this time as he stepped out, gun lowered and arm almost limp. He could hear his own footsteps. And then he could hear the water and the hum.
The gun was left on the coffee table that was clear of everything but Luis’ tank. The red glow brushed against the silver barrel almost lovingly, but it looked too close to a bloodstain to give Leon any comfort. He looked away and focused back on the tank, and was relieved to see that Luis hadn’t moved.
“Stay still,” he said as he opened his phone and camera, angling it to capture the toylike and bewildered appearance. He checked to make sure the flash was off, took the picture, and opened his messages.
Frog Father was at the top of the list, and he clicked it and attached the picture.
With the picture sent, Leon scrolled through the past messages. Passing remarks of missions, frog pictures, asking about Claire, more frog pictures… He sent a lot of frog pictures. He rocked back into the couch and let his back connect with the cushion, focused entirely on scrolling through the conversation. They weren’t all about Luis, either. Sometimes just passing good mornings and good nights.
It was while he was rereading a message about a past mission Chris had been on that a notification came at the bottom of the screen with a new message. He tapped it and scrolled back down.
(2:51 AM)
Frog Father: You’re up early
Frog Father: You okay?
Leon almost winced, knowing that it had to be nearly midnight for Chris. He also hadn’t realized it had been so… late? Early? Did it matter at this time of night/morning?
yeah im ok
He paused. Tapped his thumb against the corner of his phone. Felt something constrict in his chest.
bad dream
Three dots greeted him almost immediately and Leon almost threw the phone out the nearest window.
(2:53 AM)
Frog Father: Want to talk about it?
Frog Father: I can’t sleep either.
im okay- Leon paused right before he pressed send. He glanced at the tank again. Met the eyes of a creature that had no idea that it was single handedly holding him together. Swallowed. Nightmares couldn’t follow him here, he reminded himself. Nightmares that were fading back into the trenches of his mind the longer he sat in the red glow.
Something stung in his chest. Prickled in there. The wound that he had tried to trick himself into believing had healed was festering again. He swallowed it down again.
im okay now
Three dots. Started and stopped. Started and stopped. Leon forced himself to stare back at the tank until something popped up in his peripheral vision.
(2:56 AM)
Frog Father: Offer’s still open
thnx but im okay now
It wasn’t a lie if he believed it right now.
Three dots, starting, stopping, paused.
(3:01 AM)
Frog Father: Alright, good night
gn chris
Leon tossed the phone to the side and slouched forward, staring into the tank again. He tried staring as long as Luis did, but within a minute, he had to blink and his vision blurred with it. He was tired. Leon hadn’t realized how tired he was until now. Three attempts of out-staring his frog and he could barely keep his eyes open any longer.
“D’you want a cricket?” Leon asked, words slurring with drowsiness. He didn’t wait for a response, instead reaching down to the left side of the coffee table and pulling the small clear bin closer to himself. His tongs were tucked underneath the table, and he struggled to grab them with blurring vision. He needed to get the calcium powder, but his limbs were growing heavier by the second.
No, had to get the calcium powder for Luis. Had to make sure his little frog bones stayed strong.
With barely a thought in his head other than that one mission, Leon skipped the usual process by dumping a pinch of the powder into the tank and chasing a dusted cricket with the wooden tongs until he managed to scoop it up. He opened the tank with his other hand and dropped the cricket in, watching it freeze momentarily with the sudden freedom it had been given.
Maybe it thought the tank was for it. Maybe it didn’t know the predator that suddenly snapped out of its toylike existence and came to life, stepping on top of the waterfall and staring down at the bug that was attempting to call the tank home. Leon looked between Luis and the cricket and watched.
It was a cricket who was born only to be eaten or die at the bottom of a plastic tub. No life. No expectations. Not even the knowledge of its fate. Do crickets feel? Do they know about life and death? Or do they move until they can’t any longer?
Do they know what death is like before it comes?
Do they feel cold when it takes them?
Or do they die in fear, thrashing for the smallest thread of escape, only for the harsh commandment of finality to stand in their way?
Prickle, prickle.
Silent ribbits.
Luis leapt down from the stone and took the life without thought. All he knew was the desire to eat and survive.
His hand fell to his phone. He didn’t know why.
All he could do was watch as Luis swallowed down another meal and wonder if frogs felt the thrill of killing. Or if it was just like every predator born or created to kill; the urge to do it again. An insatiable hunger.
But as Luis turned back to his waterfall and leapt up into one of the pools, casting himself in a blue glow, Leon realized that it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault for doing what he needed to survive.
Leon shifted himself to lay down on the couch and propped his head on his arm to watch, eyes blurring with the mashing of blue and red, and ears listening only to the hum of the motor and the trickling water.
Mornings for Chris Redfield started with a blaring alarm and a cup of stiff coffee. He was still struggling with the first part, though, slamming his hand repeatedly on the shitty hotel analog clock until it caved in to his desires for silence. He glared at the 5:00 AM that stared back in turn. The three hour change between home and Baltimore was starting to kick in.
Missions taking him away from San Francisco were often but that didn’t make them suck any less. It was another recon, another ‘wait for something to happen and be close enough to contain it when it did.’ Which meant Chris was going to be staring at feeds and maps all day ready to move at a given second.
He rose from his bed slowly, rubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hand and trying to clear his vision in the darkness. His other hand was searching across the mattress, searching for one or both of his phones. One personal, one work. Since he hadn’t woken to an alarm from his work phone, that meant he didn’t need to spring into action just yet, and his hand landed on one of them. Clicking on the power button, he was met first with the bright light of the screen and winced. He could make out the background picture, though, of Claire.
As in, it was a selfie Claire took of herself much too close to the camera and set it as his background when she’d taken the phone and realized he hadn’t bothered to change the default. That had been a few months ago, and Chris didn’t have the heart to change it. The lingering fondness that filled him at the picture was iced as soon as he saw the first message on the screen.
New Message from Leon:
luis died
In his state of only being partially awake, Chris could only stare at the message and try to connect the thoughts. Luis? He blinked. Luis.
Oh. The frog.
Chris sat there for a few seconds later, staring at the message, until his heart careened into his throat.
Fuck, the frog. The little thing he gave to Leon specifically to help him with his mental health three months ago, the pet that he had been taking care of more and more, to the point that Chris had more pictures of Luis than of Leon himself, had died.
Chris jerked up on the bed, opening the messages and clicking on Leon’s name.
(2:10 AM)
Leon: chris i need help w luis
Leon: he looks really bad
(2:14 AM)
Leon: it was like 2 days idk waht happened
(2:18 AM)
Leon: how do i put down a frog
Leon: can i put down a frog
(2:19AM)
Leon: luis isnt doing good
Leon: chris
(2:58 AM)
Leon: crhis
Leon: i dont know
(3:01 AM)
Leon: i googled it said an oil
Leon: i cnat make him wait
(3:28 AM)
Leon: got it
(3:37 AM)
Leon: luis died
By the time Chris had flicked through the messages, he had gotten to his feet and was searching for a shirt to throw on. He was shoving himself through the shirt holes as he clicked on Leon’s name again and pressed ‘Call.’ Chris wasn’t sure why he was calling. His sleep-muffled head only told him that his friend needed help.
Leon picked up on the second ring, and he was greeted with probably the most normal sounding “Hey,” Chris heard in his life. It was so mundane sounding that it made Chris pause and look back down at his phone to make sure he was calling the right number.
“Leon?” Chris asked, pressing the phone back to his cheek. “You okay?”
There was a pause. “No,” Leon answered, voice still perfectly normal.
Shit, was all Chris thought as he searched for shoes. “I’m in Baltimore, I’m close by, do you want me to-”
“Yeah, I know,” Leon cut through and had Chris pausing again.
“You know,” Chris repeated, finally clicking on a light to his hotel room. He glanced back around him, ignoring the maps spread on the coffee table and the gear resting and waiting on the chair. He stepped forward to it and grabbed his boots. “How did-”
“I pulled Hunnigan out of bed for a favor,” Leon responded. Good to know that the DSO somehow kept tabs on the BSAA whenever they pleased.
Chris sat down on the bed and started the process of shoving on the boots, undoing laces and pulling them on tighter again. It was halfway through putting on one boot that he realized that he wasn’t wearing socks. It didn’t matter, he didn’t have time to find socks. Leon didn’t speak on the other side of the call, and Chris strained to hear anything.
“I’m putting on shoes,” Chris said as he strung the other boot together, tightening the laces with one hand to make up for the lack of the usual thick socks he wore. Leon hummed an acknowledgement and made no further sound. He pressed the phone between his shoulder and ear as he tied both of the laces then stood. It was going to be cold this early in the morning, so to add to his apparel of a random shirt, combat boots and sweatpants was a thick black coat. He swung it over his shoulders and fed his arms through, struggling momentarily with the tightness and cussing audibly. God, he wasn’t awake yet.
He grabbed his keys and wallet and hotel keycard on his way to the door, already calculating the fastest route to Leon’s apartment in DC. “I’m heading out,” Chris said into the phone. The traffic should be nearly empty, if he hurried he could make it maybe by six-
Chris opened his door and stepped out, only to stop. He stared down at the left side of the door to the figure sitting and leaning his back to the wall.
“Leon?” he asked, hearing his own voice echo through the call.
Leon glanced up at him almost lazily, head tilted back and pressed against the door, phone held to his cheek. “Hey,” he said again, just as stilted and normal as before.
Chris blinked, lowering the phone from his ear slowly. Leon looked… okay. He looked normal. And it only made Chris' stomach turn and flip in his chest at the sight.
Because the Leon he knew wasn't normal. Wasn't collected and calm and quiet. The Leon he knew would have already prodded jokes and sharpened his wit at his level of undress. This Leon just stared at him, eyes glassy and dull. There was the smallest tint of red at their corners.
“How did you get in?” Chris asked warily, glancing around him to the rest of the hotel. His BSAA squad were all on this floor. No doubt some would already be awake, not to mention hotel security should have stopped him.
Leon gave a small shrug of an answer.
“How did you know which one was my room?”
Another shrug. Leon leaned his head against his phone, no doubt hearing Chris' voice repeat back through it. Tightening his jaw, Chris looked down to his phone and ended the call. He shoved the phone into his pocket and took another moment to assess the situation.
Leon was fully dressed, leather jacket and all, and his hair was distressed and messy. If he had to guess, it would be from a motorcycle drive all the way to the hotel. There was a small tremble to his free hand as it dangled limply from where he rested his arm on his knee. His eyes were only slightly focused on him, more staring past than anything else. It almost was the appearance of someone going into shock.
“Do you want to come in?” Chris offered, already reaching for his hotel keycard.
Leon shook his head, only for him to reach with his free hand into his jacket pocket and pluck something out. He opened his palm out to Chris, holding the item.
It was, on first appearance, a wad of cardboard. It was only after a few seconds that Chris saw edges of tape and realized it was a makeshift box folded and torn into shape. Chris reached out and picked up the box, turning it and feeling something rock around inside. He felt his heart sink when he turned and caught writing on one side in black marker
Luis
“Can you help me bury him?”
Leon asked it so quietly, that Chris didn’t know if he misheard. He looked up from the box and met Leon’s eyes that stared through him. He cradled the box in both of his hands, thumb running over a ragged edge. The weight inside was almost nothing, but Chris held it like he was holding Leon’s bleeding heart instead. Fragile and brittle, like the wrong touch could send it crumbling to dust.
“I just- y’know,” Leon struggled to find words, something so unlike Leon that it left Chris at a loss. His eyes moved down to the box and there was a flicker of something on his face, something on the verge of breaking through the shell. “He was ours, in a way. I took care of him, you were a shitty dad who left for work, but he was ours.” An attempt at humor. An attempt to hide behind them.
Leon dug the heel of his hand against his eye for a moment, but tried to cover the motion by raking his fingertips through his fringe and shoving it back. Chris told himself to ignore the smear of moisture left on his skin. “I just- I didn’t want to do it at the apartment. I don’t know. Didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to walk past a spot of dirt every day and think; L-Luis is there.” Leon swallowed audibly, that flicker coming again. Breaking through. He breathed in audibly, sticky and clotted.
“I didn’t know what to do. So I thought-”
“Yeah,” Chris murmured just as Leon’s words started to tremble and a shimmer developed over his dazed eyes. He closed his hands over the box. “Yeah, I’ll help you bury him.”
Leon’s combat knife made a shitty shovel. Each dig into the earth was like trying to excise a tumor using floss, but he cut and dug and forced the earth to make way for him.
Chris stood over Leon, both as a lookout for whenever someone would wonder what two men were doing at five AM digging in the dirt and also to hold the box. His larger hands easily encased it, like he was keeping it warm. He had let Leon lead, let him wander until he found the stretch that led to what could have been called a pond on a good day but may be closer to a bog. The wet soil made it that much harder for Leon to dig, but he carved his way through all the same.
Their breaths were visibly frosting in the cold air, caught in the streetlights that acted as their guide. Even as half-dressed as Chris was, it was still somehow more than Leon who was visibly shivering. Then again, it probably wasn’t from the cold.
Leon rocked back onto his knees, denim soaked in frigid water. He stared down at the hole he had created, then down to his covered blade. His fingers were still locked tight around the handle, tilting the blade so he could stare down at it. Stare down at his reflection on the dirtied steel.
Chris crouched down beside him, wincing as he kneeled into the same cold soil. He held out the box to Leon, nestled between his hands.
“When you’re ready,” Chris murmured, watching his words disappear into the dark sky.
Leon didn’t answer right away, just stared at the box with an expression the darkness hid too well.
He took in a shuddering breath, like he was dragging his lungs against glass in the attempt for air. “He’s going to get cold,” Leon whispered for the first time since they had left the hotel in a voice so far away that Chris wanted nothing more than to yank him from whatever thoughts were in his head.
Something cracked in Chris’ chest. His mouth hung open for a moment too long, struggling to find comfort. “He can’t get cold anymore,” was all he could offer. “He’s not here.”
“I left him in the cold. Alone.”
“You’re not… leaving him,” Chris tried again, trying to find any semblance of expression on Leon’s face, but the darkness hid it all. “He’s already gone.”
Leon stared at the box from beneath his messy fringe, then he reached with a shaky hand for the box. He took it slowly in one hand, then dropped his knife in the soil to take it securely with both. He sat back on his knees again, staring at the box in his hands.
Time passed around them, breaths disappearing, cold creeping into their bodies. In the distance, there was the sound of a bird cheering prematurely for the sunrise that wouldn’t come for another hour.
With a sudden exhale, Leon moved from his frozen stature and reached for the messy hole he had created, and with trembling fingers, he lowered the box inside. It disappeared into darkness almost immediately, swallowed up by shadows and nature that would take back the life that had been lost overtime.
Leon scooped the first handful of soil back into the hole. Chris the second. Together the third. And then it was done.
They stared at the upturned soil together.
“I don’t get to bury people I lose,” Leon murmured. “I usually have to leave them behind. I don’t… get to do this.”
“Get to what?” Chris prompted, brushing the soil off his hand against his jacket.
“Mourn.”
Leon reached back out and pressed against the soil, patting it down until it was nearly identical in the darkness with the rest.
“It’s quieter than I thought it’d be.” Leon’s voice was quiet again, distant. “Like someone’s… shoved a knife in my head and left it there. I can’t take it out or I’ll bleed out. I can’t fix it. It’s just there. Just taking space and reminding me that it’s there.”
“This isn’t just Luis, is it?” Chris asked. No person in their right mind, no matter how much they loved a pet, would have taken an hour and a half drive in the middle of the night to lay them to rest as soon as possible.
His hand paused. Fingers ran into the blades of grass still remaining, even when their uprooting would mean their eventual demise. “No,” Leon said quietly. “There’s… a lot of names going into the ground with him.”
It was a rare moment of vulnerability, a shred of the broken human inside Leon that was unearthed in the 5am darkness.
Chris reached out and took the dirtied knife and sank it into the ground. “Then we’ll bury those names, too. Right here.”
There was a rough sound, choking, until it broke through into the most lackluster laugh he ever heard. “We’re going to be out here all night digging holes.”
Chris snorted, digging the blade into the earth and using it much like a trowel to lift a section out. It really was a shitty shovel. “Maybe just one hole, then,” he said, only to cuss as he watched the earth slide back into the hole he had just made. “Maybe not even that much.”
Leon reached across and took the knife from his hand. He took in a deep breath and moved back to Luis’ hole and sank the blade into the soil right above it. He paused, stared, then released it.
“Marvin,” he started.
“Piers,” Chris followed.
“Elliot.”
“Damian.”
“Adam.”
“Marco.”
“JD”
“Richard.”
Leon paused. “Jack.”
Chris glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Finn.”
Another pause. A swallow. “Luis.”
Chris paused as well. He looked back at the knife plunged into the earth, looking more like a cross than it had any right to be. “Albert.” The name caught something in his throat on the way out and he had to clear it.
“Luis…”
Chris shifted closer by instinct, arm pulling around Leon’s smaller shoulders and pulling the man to his side. It was almost too easy when Leon collapsed against him, muddy hands snagging into the fabric of his shirt like it was all he could do to hold himself together.
When Leon started to tremble and wheeze against him, he said nothing.
When he finally let the bandages holding his bleeding heart together unfurl and leave him exposed, when the knife was pulled out and the suffocating feelings finally released, Chris still said nothing. Not even as he felt his own loosen in turn.
And when sunlight finally spilled out over the horizon long after they themselves had spilled empty, they would still say nothing. But they’d know.
They’d know the names they buried together that night alongside a little frog named Luis.