Chapter Text
Apart from the radio, it’s silent in the car.
Leon’s looking out the window, eyes glazed over as he zones out, head resting on his fist. He’s been that way for a while— there’s absolutely nothing interesting to look at in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in Spain, apart from maybe a tree with vaguely interesting roots every so often.
Jesus. He’s so bored he’s entertaining himself with tree roots.
Shaking himself, his eyes wander over to the redhead sitting next to him, tongue between her teeth as she scans the folder in her hands, opened to one specific file.
The name Ashley Graham is printed across the top.
A week ago, she traveled abroad for a trip.
Three days ago, she went missing. Radio silent, which was more than unusual for her.
So who better to send to rescue her than a traumatized cop who knows way too many methods to kill people for his age, and an exhausted college dropout who can use about forty different firearms with ease?
Leon and Claire had kept good on their promise and stuck together after the disaster that was Raccoon City.
They couldn’t keep Sherry. Not for a lack of trying.
That was something they usually didn’t talk about. It hurt too much.
The two of them were approached and asked— well, ‘asked’ implies that there was some kind of choice in the matter. They were approached and practically forced to join a government program almost as soon as their wounds from RC had closed up.
Part of Leon wishes that he had just died instead.
Years of brutal training he wouldn’t wish on anyone, missions that nearly killed him, and here he was, six years later, in the back of a police cruiser with Claire Redfield in the middle-of-nowhere Spain.
She shuts the folder she’s reading just as the officer driving speaks. His voice is thick with an accent.
“Tell me, extraños— why did you come to this horrible place? As close to nowhere as we’ve ever seen?”
Claire and Leon exchange a look. The latter clears his throat.
“Let’s just say we’re… lookin’ for someone.”
The officer shrugged. “Must be a very important someone, then, eh? Chief gave the orders himself… ‘help them’, he said.”
Leon smirks.
“Well, I’m sure you boys didn’t come all the way out here to roast marshmallows.” When that earns him a laugh, he adds, “maybe you did.”
Claire snorts next to him, rolling her eyes.
“You have a strange sense of humor, yanqui.”
The officer’s eyes glitter, and he continues.
“I’m going to let the two of you in on a little secret; just between us. A lot of people have gone missing around here. It’s been that way for a while now.”
Leon and Claire exchange another look. Interesting.
“Well then”, the redhead says, clapping her hands together. “Should just be another day in the office, right?”
He smiles. “Just last week, there was a search for some missing hikers.”
Leon crosses his arms as he adjusts in his seat. “Then I’m sure you’ll do your best to help us.”
The rest of the ride is silent, and, thankfully, it isn’t much longer before the car rolls to a stop just off the path.
The officer in the passenger seat mutters something about taking a leak and leaves the vehicle, and it’s just Claire, Leon, and the driver. He looks at his fellow officer as he starts to walk away, grinning, and says something in Spanish. Leon can’t quite make it out.
“You smoke?” asks the officer who was driving, holding a pack of cigarettes up. The two agents shake their heads, staring out of their respective windows as they wait for the second officer to come back.
They’re stuck there for an abnormally long time. Enough so that the remaining officer finishes his cigarette and meets Leon’s eyes in the rear view mirror.
“Sure is taking his time… maybe you better go take a look?”
Claire scoffs. “What could go wrong?”
The officer chuckles as the two of them exit the car, the sound of the doors to the backseat seeming deafeningly loud in the quiet atmosphere of the woods. Claire clicks on her flashlight and vaguely gestures to the path in front of them.
“Lead the way, rookie.”
Leon’s turn to scoff.
He clicks on his own flashlight and they start toward the direction the officer took, the pathway muddy and overgrown with weeds in some cases. The trees cast long shadows against the already dim environment, making it near impossible to see anything not in direct line with their flashlights.
“This place is certainly cheerful”, she mutters, groaning as her boots sink into the mud. Leon hums his agreement, before stopping in his tracks when his flashlight glints off of something.
Barbed wire.
“Oh. Good”, Claire said with a huff while Leon used his arm to lift the wire up slightly, giving her just enough room to crawl under. He followed, having to pull himself along when his jacket got caught.
Then things started to get… weird. Well, weirder than they already were.
Everywhere they looked, stakes with pieces of wood shaped like an ‘x’ stuck out from the ground, makeshift medallions hanging from them and swaying in the breeze. Some were covered in what looked suspiciously like blood.
There were candles everywhere too, hidden in little alcoves, the wicks threatening to go out with each small gust of wind.
Leon nearly trips over something in the middle of the path before Claire grabs the back of his jacket, a hushed “fuck!” leaving her mouth.
There’s a dead deer at his feet, the stomach of the poor thing torn open, blood mixing in with the mud.
“Jesus”, he says in a whisper.
There’s something about the animal that he can’t quite place, but it doesn’t look natural. The gashes in its belly are too clean to have been made by a predator, and there’s blood smeared across its face in a pattern he doesn’t recognize.
He’s jolted out of his thoughts when there’s a dull thud in the distance, just up the path. There’s enough force behind it that there’s no way it’s just an animal or falling tree branch.
“Fuck me”, Claire says under her breath, meeting Leon’s eyes, before he nods at her for them to continue. His free hand is hovering near the holster of his handgun.
When they crest the small hill, they’re greeted with a run down wooden shack, the windows boarded up and parts of the walls completely rotted away. There’s a few barrels around the property that smell horrific, something dripping down the side of one.
And yet there’s smoke coming out of the chimney, and the light of a flickering candle between the boards on the windows.
The wooden steps leading up to the house creak under his boots as he approaches the door, situating himself on one side while Claire takes the other. Hesitantly, she reaches for the knob, meets his eyes again, and twists it when he mumbles a “go” to her.
She pushes the door open slowly, wincing at the sound of the rusty hinges, and peers inside, flashlight held in front of her. It’s somehow worse than the outside.
The dim light from the candles flickers over the walls, nothing more than rotting wood, holes littering the surface. The floor is spotted with stains, mostly smears of dirt but others obviously blood, most notably a huge black mark covering the entryway.
And the smell. It’s as bad as the barrels outside, grime covering every inch of the house, getting more potent as Leon and Claire slowly walk into the house, peering around corners and down hallways.
“Well, this sucks”, she mutters, and he snorts behind her, flashlight illuminating the walls. There’s what looks like a homemade medallion on a lopsided shelf, identical to the wooden stakes they walked past on the walk here.
Something clatters in the next room over, and the agents turn, flashlights up and fingers ghosting over the holsters around their waists. When the silence carries on a moment later, Leon bites his lip and opens the door, the wood rotten near the floor.
The fireplace is lighting up the room, a giant pot suspended in the middle. It’s unbearably hot, and the space isn’t vented, which doesn’t help. Claire follows in after him, shutting the door behind her, and yelps when she’s met with the face of a man, maybe a foot away from her. Leon turns sharply, lowering his flashlight.
The man is wearing ragged clothes, the sleeves dirty and torn. His hair is thin, tousled, and there’s something about his eyes that Leon can’t quite name.
Something that isn’t exactly human.
He shrugs it off and speaks to the man.
“Sorry to barge in like this.”
The man grumbles, talking to himself in Spanish, and carries on like the two of them aren’t there, heading towards the pot hanging over the fireplace, stirring the contents. Leon clears his throat and tries again.
“Buscando una policía. ¿Vino aquí?”
The man still doesn’t answer, and Leon frowns. His Spanish isn’t great, but he knows it’s at least passable. Claire’s eyes search the room as she turns, taking in the surroundings, and something glints off of the fire light, catching her eye.
It’s an officer’s badge, bloodied. The name matches the officer who went missing from their vehicle.
She’s about to say something to Leon when she hears a growl above her, swearing as the man swings a knife at her. She aims a kick to his gut, and Leon knocks him in the side of the head, his skull cracking as he hits the wall. The agents draw their handguns and aim it at the man, only lowering them when he doesn’t move after a few moments. Blood trickles out of his mouth.
“Okay. What the fuck”, Claire breathes, taking a few steps back and brushing a few loose strands of hair out of her face.
Leon looks around the room, eyes catching a key on the shelf that’s been haphazardly nailed to the wall. He takes it, shoves it in his coat pocket.
“Not the warm welcome I was hoping for”, he muttered, before turning to Claire and jerking his head in the direction of the door.
“C’mon. Maybe there’s something about Ashley in here. Didn’t seem all that eager to chat, especially after he ran into our police friend.”
She nods at him, sparing another look at the dead man, and follows Leon out the door and down the hall. He uses the key on the door in front of them, tears off a loose piece of wood that’s been sloppily hammered over it, and steps in, holding the door open for her.
Claire snorts. “What a gentleman.”
He knows she’s joking, but his face heats up for just a moment.
I could be your gentleman.
Then he shakes himself, clears his throat, and goes along with her teasing.
“Anything for you, Red.”
She flashes him a smile as she leads the way downstairs, brushing cobwebs out of the way as they go. Clearly the basement’s been out of use for a while; dust covering every surface, littered with discarded, broken tools. There’s a few books on the shelf that Claire can guarantee have never been read.
Nothing sticks out until their flashlights land on a torn curtain hanging from the wall, barely hiding the entry to the other part of the basement. Leon shoves it aside and frowns.
More of those medallions.
There’s some crumpled, yellowed pieces of paper scattered about too, nonsensical scribblings that he can’t even begin to make out.
They turn suddenly when the stairs creak, a moan following. The agents both have their guns raised now, flashlights head just above the firearms as they aim into the darkness. Claire nearly drops her weapon when the curtain is pulled aside.
It’s the man from upstairs.
He’s hobbling towards them, one arm outstretched, and obviously he’s dead, he must be, with the way his neck is bent at an odd angle. His eyes have changed, too, no longer a drab brown but now a sickly red.
He’s a zombie.
He’s a motherfucking zombie.
“No fucking way”, Leon breathes, then shoots when the man lunges for him, a bullet going cleanly through his head. He crumples to the ground, and Leon slits his throat for good measure. He turns to look at Claire, terror ghosting over her features.
“This… this is a joke, right? Bioweapons, sure, whatever. But this…”
Her thoughts trail off, but she doesn’t need to finish her sentence for Leon to know what she’s referring to.
It’s too much like Raccoon City.
Giant monsters were one thing, but they hadn’t seen an honest-to-God zombie since 98’.
It was a nice change of pace.
They don’t have time to process this because there’s the pounding of footsteps from upstairs, growing louder as they near the entrance to the basement.
“Let’s move”, is all Claire says before they bolt for the stairs, no longer caring to be quiet, just ready to get the fuck out of there.
They reach the top of the stairs and spot three shabbily-dressed men, one wielding a pitchfork. The one at the front of the group turns sharply, points at them, and shouts something in Spanish to the other two. Leon barely has time to bite out a ”run!” before they’re being chased up the stairs of the home.
They enter the room at the farthest end of the hallway, and he happily takes advantage of the bolted lock on the door, sliding it into place. He figures they have maybe one minute at best before someone starts to break down the door.
“Leon.”
Claire snaps him out of his thoughts and he turns to where she is, slightly farther into the room, eyes trained on a cork board nailed into the wall. She points to a photo that’s pinned in the middle.
Ashley Graham. Tied up, bruised, crying.
Leon plucks it from the wall with a grimace, and Claire gives him a nod in acknowledgment. He reaches up to his ear for his comm.
“Roost, this is Condor One.”
Ingrid Hunnigan’s voice comes through a moment later, sharp and clear.
“Hunnigan here, what’s your sitrep?”
“Baby Eagle— we have a lead. It’s likely she’s in this village.”
Hunnigan hums from her end. “Our intel was correct, then. Well done.”
Leon’s eyes fall to a map on the cork board, hasty scribbles adorning parts of it but a distinct ‘x’ crossed in the middle of a lake. He clicks his comm again.
“Need a location on a nearby lake. She might’ve been taken there.”
“Copy that. I’ll see what I can find.”
Claire turns sharply as there’s a loud banging at the door. She motions to Leon to hurry up. He clears his throat.
“Hurry up; something’s happened to the people here. Our escorts—“
An axe comes through the wood, the face of a man appearing in the gap in the door. Out of time.
“Shit. Gotta go. Talk later.”
With that, he clicks off the comm as he and Claire draw their handguns, aimed at the door that’s quickly being destroyed, the three men clawing to get inside. It breaks quickly, what’s left of it flying off the hinges.
Leon looks around frantically, landing on the window, one of the panes of glass missing. He has an idea.
A stupid idea, but an idea nonetheless.
“Claire”, he says, getting her attention, and he nods in the direction of the window. She follows his eyes and sighs heavily, in a way he’s familiar with;
She recognizes the stupid idea, and she’s going to go along with it anyway.
He holsters his handgun and braces himself.
“We’ll let ourselves out”, he says gruffly, before holding his forearms in front of his face and diving out the window, brittle glass shattering around him. He hits the dirt in a roll, getting to his feet just as Claire jumps too.
Her foot catches on the windowsill and she yells, tumbling through, and Leon barely has time to run forward and catch her before she falls to the ground.
She looks up at him, panting, clutching the collar of his jacket. His knee is bent, her back resting against it. He has his arm firmly around her waist.
And she’s close. Closer than she’s ever been, he thinks. He can smell what remains of her perfume from earlier in the day.
Her lips are barely a breath from his. She stares into his eyes as she catches her breath.
One of the men yells from above them, and that snaps them back to the real world. Leon hastily helps her stand upright and they take off into the forest, knocking branches out of their way as they go.
Claire’s about to collapse when they finally stop running, feeling far away enough to at least catch their breath. She doubles over, heaving as she takes air into her lungs, Leon doing the same beside her.
“Okay. What… what the fuck is go… going on here?” she asks between gasps, wiping sweat off her brow with her forearm.
Leon shakes his head as he stands, panting. He turns to face the general direction of the house they fled.
“We need to find Ashley. I have a nasty fucking feeling about what they’ve done to her.”
Claire nods and they trudge forward, sunlight finally making an appearance as the trees slowly thin out.
There’s barely a path to follow— clearly there was some kind of settlement in the area, but it’s nothing more than empty husks of structures that look vaguely like houses, vines growing over everything as they slowly reclaim the space. Trees are growing in and around the buildings.
Eventually, the pair reach a large wooden gate. Leon meets her eyes, shrugs, and pushes on one of the doors, grunting with the weight but pleased when it opens. Something grazes his shoulder as he steps through and he is barely able to hold back a shocked yell when he sees what it was.
A fucking rotted, decapitated head of a man fell off of one of the pikes at the top of the gate.
Claire makes a face, carefully side-stepping the head as she follows, and bolts the gate behind her, in case the men from the house are still on their tails.
They can hear shouting up ahead; it’s angry, most of it in Spanish, but also weirdly in sync, like a chant of some sort.
And then there’s screaming just as everything comes into view.
The officer who was driving the police vehicle is bound to one of those stakes they passed on the way here, dangling in the air by the ropes while a pile of dry wood lays beneath him. He’s struggling, yelling at the dozens of people staring at him, but nobody moves.
Leon reaches for his binoculars and takes a closer look at the villagers; they have the same fucked-up eyes as the man from the house.
He’s just given them to Claire so she can look, too, when someone shoulders their way to the front of the group with a torch. She chokes on a gasp when she realizes what’s about to happen.
“Oh holy shit—“
She’s barely gotten the words out when the torch is dropped onto the wood, erupting the stake into flames and the officer along with it. His screams become deafening while he writhes on the wood. They watch helplessly as he slowly quiets, then stops moving.
Shakily, Claire gives Leon the binoculars.
“What… what the fuck?”
Leon stows them away.
“Dunno. But we have to get through this village if we’re finding Ashley”, he says slowly, eyes flitting between angry villagers. Now that he’s actually studying them, he realizes that almost all of them are armed; knives, pitchforks, more torches.
Didn’t have much of a choice but to fight their way through.
He reloads his handgun, nods at Claire to do the same, and creeps forward, before raising the firearm and shooting a woman with a torch through the skull. She collapses, and everyone else turns to him and Claire.
“We’ve had a good run, Kennedy”, she mutters, and he hums his agreement just as a hoard of villagers runs at them. They get out of the way and go around just in time, heading fully into the village.
It’s a mess.
They’re capable enough to handle themselves, but it quickly becomes clear that they’re in way over their heads— when one villager goes down, three others take their place, growling and shouting in Spanish. Leon notices when they get close enough that they have red eyes matching the man from earlier.
He barely has time to duck when Claire warns him of a shovel swinging at his head, rolling out of the way and grasping her arm as she helps him to his feet.
They book it into a house with the door falling off of its hinges, thundering up the stairs. Anything to get away from the mob.
Claire’s gaze turns to a bookcase.
“Leon!” she shouts, and when he sees what she does, he grins.
“Oh, I could fucking kiss you, Red”, he says, smashing the glass with his elbow and retrieving the contents from the shelf.
A shotgun, loaded.
“Later”, Claire responds, and his stomach flips a little before he looks down the stairs and sees villagers pouring into the shack they’re in. She helps him through the shattered window of the second floor, and they end up on the roof, bricks out of place and slanted heavily.
Leon cocks his new weapon and fires at a villager that just finished crawling out of the window after them, whistling when he goes flying off the roof, head nothing more than a mess of gore.
And then, of course, because it’s them, just when things are looking up they go right back to being shit.
Another man follows out the window, but instead of being met with an angry face, there’s a tattered bag covering most of his head, small cutouts for the eyes.
He’s holding a chainsaw, the blade covered with blood, and he revs it once he’s standing upright.
The agents back away until they’re on the edge of the roof, weighing their options. Leon shoots the shotgun at him but he barely flinches, shrugging it off like it was a leaf falling onto his shoulder.
“That’s new”, he mutters, stepping back. He would’ve slipped off of the roof if Claire hadn’t grabbed his jacket, tugging on the collar.
She fires her handgun at the man as he gets closer, a soft growling evident as he creeps closer just underneath the sound of the chainsaw.
She’s accepted their fates when a church bell goes off in the distance, and suddenly everything stops.
Literally.
Each villager below them and the ones with them on the roof stop dead in their tracks, dropping their weapons and looking towards the direction of the ringing. They stare blankly, and then some of them start murmuring among themselves, one distinct line over and over again.
“Gloría a las plagas…”
Slowly, the villagers start to trudge towards the town hall in the center of the small clearing, chanting as they go. The door to the hall has a symbol on it that looks almost like some kind of winged insect.
Claire helps Leon down a ladder raised to the side of the house they’re standing on top of, and they hit the ground just as the last villager disappears. Their chants are still able to be heard from behind the closed door.
What the hell just happened?
Leon scoffs.
“Where’s everyone goin’? Bingo?”
Silence.
“…what?”
He looks at her confused expression.
“Cause they’re… all old. And it’s a town hall. So, you know. Bingo.”
She stares at him while she reloads her handgun.
“Right. Of course.”
“It makes sense. Because, like, old people go to bingo.”
“Uh huh.”
“Whatever. Let’s go before they come back”, he mutters, face red. He’s had better jokes, he supposes.
Claire snorts and leads the way further into the village, stepping over the bodies of villagers and further up the path to another wooden gate. Their comms crackle again.
“Roost to Condor One and Condor Two”, comes Ingrid’s voice through the static. “I’ve identified a route to the lake. Look for a large windmill; based on your location, it should be up ahead. Take the path on the far side once you reach it.”
Leon nods, even though Hunnigan can’t see it.
“Windmill. Copy that.”
“Be careful. Roost out.”
With a grunt, Claire pushes open the gate, stepping through and holding it for Leon. He double checks the ammo in his shotgun as they go up the path.
Good news; the windmill is just up ahead, in the middle of a farm just outside of the village.
Bad news; there’s three other villagers there who apparently didn’t want anything to do with the church bell, but want everything to do with the strangers approaching.
Swearing, Leon accepts the few handgun bullets Claire shoves in his direction, reloads, and they make quick work of the growling villagers approaching. They fall, the pitchfork held by the woman sinking into the mud.
“What happened to these people?” Claire breathes, stepping over one of the bodies as they close in on the windmill. Leon looks up to the sky, as if he’ll find an answer there.
“I don’t know. If it was a virus, our people would be on top of that already, right?”
They’re silent as they approach the gate at the bottom of the windmill at the far end of the farm. The iron is being held up by a chain, a thin layer of rust coating the metal.
“That looks safe”, he comments, and she laughs, and it’s like pure sunlight; warm, welcoming.
The agents head under the gate, Claire flinching at the sound of the metal chain creaking. It’s probably one strong gust of wind away from snapping.
Leon shoves his hands in his coat pockets as they go, approaching a rickety wooden bridge.
“Damn. If these people don’t kill us first, their architecture might. That can’t have been reinforced recently.”
His partner rolls her eyes.
“What, not up to your code, hotshot?”
His stomach flips. She hasn’t called him that very often, but whenever she does it, it’s like his heart tightens.
As do other parts of his body.
He grins at her.
“Listen; all I’m saying is that at least the RPD was more structurally sound—“
Something roars behind them. Like some kind of wounded animal. Leon and Claire whip around and—
“What the fuck is that?”
Someone— something?— is lumbering towards them, standing at least 7 feet tall. It looks like a man, all muscle, with torn clothes, steel-toed boots, and the head of a cow replacing his face.
Leon prays it’s a mask, but the chances are low given the stench coming from him.
Oh. And the massive sledgehammer it’s holding.
With a hiss, Claire thinks fast as the hammer is raised into the air, a low groan coming from beneath the cow head.
“Leon, duck!” she yells, grabbing a grenade from her belt. He does so as she pulls the pin with her teeth, and just before the hammer drops she tosses the explosive. It lands in front of the man and she grabs her partner and shoves them both to the ground just as the grenade goes off. He roars just before he’s obliterated, blood spraying the two agents on the ground.
Panting for air, Claire raises her head up, eyes on the pile of gore that now makes up the man, the sledgehammer shattered into pieces around the remains.
Pushing up on her arm, she goes to stand but finds her leg tangled with Leon’s, and she looks down and…
Oh.
She didn’t realize that, in her haste to get them out of the way, she had settled above him, the leg not stuck under his pressing against his thigh. Her hands are in the dirt on either side of his head, trembling slightly as she keeps herself balanced above him. One of his hands is loosely gripping the back of her thigh.
She feels like a fucking teenager despite the circumstances, the two of them heaving as they stare at each other silently. Her gaze falls to Leon’s lips, slightly parted, and she knows it’s obvious, but…
“¡Oye!”
Their heads snap back in the direction of the metal gate, the explosion from the grenade she had thrown attracting a small crowd of rabid villagers. Swearing, Claire untangles herself from Leon and pulls him up, just as he takes out his handgun and aims at the rusty chain holding up the iron. He fires, and it snaps, dropping down quickly and crushing the villager directly under it. The rest of them are separated from them.
That only bought them so much time, but it’s enough for the agents to get a head start, sprinting down the rickety bridge, grasping at the chain sides of it as it tilts with their heavy footsteps.
There’s a villa on the other side, and Leon shoves his way through the brittle fencing, Claire on his heels, and wrenches open the door so quickly he’s shocked it doesn’t rip off the hinges.
He figured they have maybe five minutes before the hoard catches up with them, so they high-tail it deeper into the house. Claire holds up a hand when a loud banging sound can be heard coming from the back.
There’s a man hammering some wooden boards over a trap door. The floor creaks when Leon takes a slow step forward, and he curses as he’s met with a pair of red eyes, a snarl falling from the villager’s lips.
Before Claire shoots him. She meets Leon’s eyes with a shrug and gestures to the trap door.
He tears the boards off with ease, the nail job done by the villager rather shitty, and throws open the trap door. He can’t make out much below them, except that the ladder doesn’t seem to go down that far.
Claire leads the way and clicks on her flashlight once the two of them are in the basement— if it can even be called that. It’s most just dirt, dug out unevenly in the walls.
There’s a bag writhing in the corner, grunts coming from within.
Handguns drawn, the agents creep closer before Leon kneels down and puts one end of his flashlight in his mouth, reaching for the ties of the bag. Claire nods at him to undo the laces.
They’re met with another man, but his eyes are kinder than that of the villagers.
Well, maybe not kinder. He looks pissed. But at least his eyes aren’t red. Leon tears off the duct tape over his mouth and he hisses.
“Ouch— that hurts, you know?” The man in the bag speaks with an accent, dark hair framing his tan complexion.
Claire’s partner shrugs, taking his flashlight from his mouth. “Seemed like you really wanted to talk.”
The man sighs. “Fine. Just one question— you got a smoke?”
“You know, those things will kill you”, Leon says, and Claire shakes her head in response. The man’s head falls back against the floor with a huff.
“Alright. How about you just untie me, then?”
Leon hesitates, but only for a moment, before his fingers reach for the top part of the bag, tugging at the first knot holding it closed. Claire looks around the cavern, but there isn’t much to see except the occasional pebble.
Her partner is about halfway down the bag when the man’s eyes widen, and he starts to struggle.
“Mierda, not this guy again—!”
Claire whips around, gun raised.
Whoever is standing in front of her reminds her of the tyrant from Raccoon.
It’s a tall man, fitted in a black fedora and matching trench coat. He’s wearing an amulet of some sort, and is sporting, honestly, a pretty impressive beard.
She still aims her gun, flashlight held to the side.
“Don’t move—“
The large man smacks her weapon away before she can react, and Leon stands in time to see Claire get thrown across the cavern, her back hitting the wall with a thud.
“Fuck— Claire!”
Leon aims his handgun and fires twice, but the figure doesn’t even flinch as he stomps towards Leon. He backs up until he can’t anymore, and chokes when he’s grabbed around the neck.
He’s tossed aside like Claire, and the last thing he remembers before everything goes dark is collapsing beside her, getting a final glimpse of her red leather jacket.
Chapter 2
Notes:
New chapter! This one isn’t quite as long as the first, since there was a lot of gameplay stuff I cut out, but I’m super happy to have it out now. I’ve been having a ton of fun with this fic.
I wrote the entirety of this chapter while sick, so if there are any obvious grammar mistakes please forgive me. I’ve been on so much cold medicine the last few days lol.
Despite the shorter chapter, I hope you enjoy! Thank you so much for your feedback on the first :)
— Rose
Chapter Text
There is a glimpse of a man in the darkness; a deep purple robe, pale skin, and eyes that glow.
Sacrificial lambs.
You will receive our most sacred bodies.
It begins now.
Leon jolts awake with a gasp, eyes straining in the dim light. He’s surrounded by concrete and rotting shelves.
Something isn’t right.
He goes to move, to push up on his arms, but can’t. He looks up, and then realizes that his hands are chained above his head.
“Oh, what the fuck.”
His jacket is missing, too. That would explain why it’s suddenly so cold.
The chains rattle and shift behind him.
“What…?”
“Claire”, Leon says urgently, shaking the chains in a way of greeting.
“Where the fuck are we?” she asks, tugging on the chains.
A third voice chimes in. The man from the basement.
“Ow! Stop it! You move, I move, and I’m banged up enough as it is.”
Claire goes to respond but stops just as she opens her mouth, looking at her now bare arms.
Those motherfuckers took her jacket.
Oh, someone was gonna die for that.
The man clears his throat.
“Oye. You got names?”
Leon stands with some difficulty, Claire following. Their wrists are still over their head, but there’s a gear in the ceiling that at least allows them to walk in the radius of a small circle.
“I’m Claire”, the redhead says, frowning as she examines the chains.
“Leon.”
The man gets to his feet, albeit much more shakily than the other two. He speaks after a moment of silence.
“Quiet types, then. I’m Luis Serra. Seems like we chose the wrong spot to vacation— honeymoon?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
Claire tugs on the chains especially hard and shakes her head. She meets Leon’s eyes a second later and gestures to the gear on the ceiling, and he nods at her. They yank the chains at the same time. Luis grunts, but a smile ghosts over his face.
“I can see you’re thinking”, he murmurs, and to his credit, he holds his own chains taut.
Not to his credit, he keeps talking.
“I see you’ve been in spots like this before, huh? My guess— you’re looking for something… or someone?”
More silence, broken only by the rattling of metal. Luis clears his throat.
“Another guess— maybe some missing señorita?”
That gets the agents to stop. They yank on their chains simultaneously, the three of them suddenly much closer together than before. Claire and Leon are wearing looks of steel. The latter is the first to speak.
“A young girl? Talk. Now.”
Luis hisses. “Alright— heard chatter about moving a señorita.”
Claire frowns. “Moving her? Where?”
She loosens the chains ever so slightly. Luis shrugs.
“Who knows? But, later, I saw some men dragging someone to the old church.”
With one final pull of the chains, the gear snaps, sending the three of them stumbling, their cuffs still connected together, but at least now offering some movement.
Claire catches movement just over Luis’s shoulder, and Leon gathers his chains in his hands.
“Mierda— hanging with you? Not healthy—“
Luis is cut off when Leon tugs him forward sharply, just barely being missed by a villager wielding an axe behind him.
As he struggles to get up, the agents gather the metal into their hands and let go of it at the same time, causing them to ricochet off of the man’s face; it makes a sound that leaves Claire cringing.
She tosses her chains to Leon, who catches them and ensures that they’re firmly wrapped around the villager’s head. His axe falls to the ground.
Another yank, a step backward, and Claire yelling “Now!” and Leon turns and hooks his knee over the chains, kneeling harshly with a grunt and snapping the neck of their attacker.
Claire lets out an appreciative whistle.
“Damn.”
Luis scrambles forward on the ground, rummaging through the man’s pockets, and grins a moment later, a key clutched in his hands. He makes quick work of his cuffs and rubs his wrists.
Leon looks up and glares at the other man.
“Hey, we’re not done here!”
“Later, amigos”, says Luis, tossing the key vaguely in their direction. It clatters on the floor and he’s gone a moment later, just like that.
Claire grabs the key and fumbles with her own cuffs before turning to Leon, taking his hands in hers, tongue between her teeth as she works the lock. They’re both free within a matter of seconds.
Leon thanks her and pats himself down, then looks around their concrete surroundings.
“Shit. They took our gear.”
“And my fucking jacket”, Claire adds, malice evident in her voice.
But not their comms. Leon radios Hunnigan a moment later.
“Condor One to Roost— we’ve located Baby Eagle. Sounds like she’s being kept in some church.”
Ingrid’s smile can be heard in her voice from the other end.
“Great! That’s good news.”
Claire chimes in, pressing her own comm in her ear.
“Condor Two here— we heard it from a guy named Luis Serra. There’s something weird about him— mind running a background check?”
“Wilco, Condor Two. I’ll see what I can find. In the meantime, make your way to that church.”
Leon nods as they walk through the short hallway, towards a set of wooden stairs.
“Right. I’m probably due for a confession anyway”, he says, and Claire snorts. “Condor One, out.”
They disconnect a moment later, leaving the two of them in silence as they make their way up the creaking steps.
“Awesome”, Claire mumbles when they’re met with a dead body slumped against the wall when they reach the top of the stairs. Leon grimaces, but, uncomfortable with being unarmed, wrenches the knife from the neck of the dead man. He wipes the blood off on his pants and stows it away.
Claire gently pushes open the metal door, cringing as it whines on its hinges, the sound echoing off of the concrete walls. Her partner follows her, but she stops and grabs his shoulder, putting a finger to her lips just before they round the corner. She nods, gesturing in front of them.
There’s another villager, this time wielding a crowbar, trying to pry open metal paneling on the side of what seems to be a water heater.
Leon reaches for the knife at his side and gently removes Claire’s hand from his shoulder (and holds it just a bit longer than he has to), before creeping forward, putting his weight on the balls of his feet.
Wordlessly, he covers the mouth of the villager, clamping his hand tightly over his face, and plunges the knife into his neck. The villager struggles for just a moment before he slumps against Leon’s hold, and he lowers him to the ground. Claire picks up the now-discarded crowbar for herself.
They get deeper into the facility, finally finding their gear on a table in a room closed off with an iron gate. It's locked, but she’s able to use her new tool to wrench it open, and tosses Leon the non-lethal part of his kit.
They’re just finishing up situating themselves when Claire stops and looks around the corner.
“Oh, fuck no.”
Before Leon can do anything else, she grabs his knife and approaches something, not bothering to quiet her footsteps. Her partner is about to say something, but when he catches up to her he sees her pulling the same move he did earlier, stabbing a villager in the neck.
Claire kneels on the ground and turns the body over, pulling her red leather jacket off of the villager. She brushes it off, smells it and frowns, but throws it back over her shoulders.
Leon grins at her, and she huffs.
“I’ll be damned if those fuckers take my jacket.”
He knows it means a lot to her; not only does she look absolutely stunning in it (she looks good in everything, but this especially), but he vaguely remembers a matching one hanging above her brother’s desk at the RPD all those years ago.
“Fair enough”, he replies as he accepts his knife back from her, sheathing it on his shoulder.
A lock clicks behind them on the large doors of the facility, and the agents turn, handguns raised. They’re lowered almost immediately, mostly out of confusion.
There’s a flash of purple fire beyond the doors, and a hooded man is peering at them from the gaps in the metal. There’s a bandana covering his face, but Leon swears he can hear a smile in his voice.
“Over ‘ere, strangers.”
Claire exchanges a look with him, but they cautiously reholster their weapons and follow, pushing open the large doors that had been previously chained shut.
What they’re met with is something neither of them expect— an entire shop set up, with weapons on display. The masked man is behind a small table, hands clasped together.
“Let’s do some business then, eh?” he says, eyes gleaming from beneath his hood. Leon and Claire glance at each other.
“Who… are you?” the latter asks, frown evident on her face.
“Just a merchant lookin’ to get by”, he replies, rummaging through his coat. He retrieves two small gold coins and slides them over the table.
“These ‘r on the house this time. Find more, and I might be willin’ to sell yeh some of these fine weapons you see here.”
Claire’s eyes fall on a submachine gun to her right as Leon takes the coins.
“…not bad.”
With a final muttered “thank you”, the pair turns behind them to a steel red door, connected to a sturdy wooden fence that wraps around the facility. It doesn’t budge for a moment, but with enough force (and swearing from Claire), it eventually wrenches open, and they stumble through from the force.
After a short walk, they’re greeted with a large house at the end of the trail. All things considered, it doesn’t look bad. Certainly nicer than the village they had gone through earlier.
Claire smirks. “Someone’s showing up their neighbors.”
They walk around the side of the house and break the lock, letting themselves in, and search through the lower floor. They don’t find much; the house has clearly been out of use for a while, mostly some old photos and appliances lying around.
The upstairs is drab, nothing more than one small hallway and a door that leads into the bedroom. Leon stops once they’re inside, grimacing at the portrait on the wall.
It’s of a purple-robed man, with a golden staff and a smile that looks a little too wide. Leon can’t help but think that he looks almost… familiar.
His thoughts are cut off when Claire whoops, opening a drawer and proudly showing him a key. It’s adorned with the same symbol on the door of the village town hall. She stows it away as Leon grins at her.
The agents are just making their way out of the bedroom when heavy footsteps interrupt them, followed by a large figure in the doorway.
The man from the basement.
Now that it isn’t nearly as dark, Leon’s able to get a good look at him. He’s dressed in a trench coat, a black hat, and is blind in one eye.
He’s also much taller than a regular person can be, and much tougher, too, considering that the two bullets Claire shoots doesn’t even phase him.
Leon reaches for his own gun just as Claire is kicked to the ground, handgun just out of reach. She reaches for it, only a few inches from her fingers, when the man steps on her forearm and makes her cry out.
Her partner fires at the man, who barely takes a step before he throws a punch at Leon, knocking him off balance. With little effort, he lifts the both of them off of their feet, hands wrapped around each of their necks. He peers into their eyes and walks them into the light coming in from the window.
“Your blood has accepted the gift”, he says in a low voice, tone sounding pleased.
Claire’s about to choke out a question when there’s a sound of gunfire, and the window next to them shatters. The hat is blown off of the large man.
Leon gets a glimpse of a deep red, but— no.
There’s no way. She died in Raccoon City.
He can’t dwell on it further before the agents are tossed carelessly to the floor. The large man retrieves his hat, and without another word, he leaves the bedroom.
Claire coughs through panting breaths, fumbling in one of her hip pouches for an herb. She tears the leaves off with her teeth and hisses as she feels her forearm reset, no longer fractured from when it was stepped on.
Leon stands gingerly and helps her up, giving her her handgun back, and looks at the door to the bedroom where the man disappeared.
“…gift. In our blood?” he asks to no one in particular. Claire shrugs and reloads her weapon.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here. I don’t know what he meant by that, but we need to get Ashley and go.”
Her partner nods at her, and follows her back downstairs.
Leon’s tired of this. He’s ready to get this stupid mission done and go home. With any luck, they’ll be back on the plane by midnight.
But he’s Leon Kennedy and she’s Claire Redfield. Luck isn’t for them. It’s not about to start now.
Chapter 3
Notes:
Hi my friends! Chapter 3 is a go!!
I had a blast writing this chapter, primarily because it was the first boss fight. It was super fun to figure out everything and write it.
Musical season has ended, and while I am exhausted, it also gives me more time to write, so hopefully the next chapter will be out by the end of this week.
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this update. x
— Rose
Chapter Text
If Claire wasn’t already pissed, then the sound of a dog crying would’ve pushed her over the edge.
“Now who the fuck—“
When she and Leon leave through the front door of the house, her eyes fall on a wolf, struggling in one of the multiple bear traps surrounding the property. She clicks her tongue.
“Oh, poor baby. Come on”, she adds, waving him over as she jogs to the trapped animal. She puts her palms up to indicate that she doesn’t mean any harm, and while the wolf growls, it doesn’t move to try and bite her or Leon.
Her partner kneels in the dirt and grips the bear trap on both sides, prying it open with his fingers, grunting with the effort. He gets it open enough that the dog can lift its paw out with a whimper. Leon draws his fingers back quickly, just barely missing the trap as it snaps back into place.
The wolf tests its weight, whining, but looks to be fine enough walking on the injured leg. It looks back at Claire and Leon, barely dipping its head almost in thanks, before it scampers off into the growing darkness.
“Good luck, buddy”, Leon mutters, and they make their way to the gate at the edge of the property, adorned with the same insect symbol that their new key is.
Leon unlocks it and follows Claire through, to a path that goes under a stony overpass. There’s a rundown shack, but otherwise nothing else stands out.
The agents reach another gate, this one leading back into the village they were in when they first arrived, and Leon looks at the sky, frowning.
It’s steadily getting darker, and clouds are starting to form overhead. The last thing they need right now is for the weather to get nasty.
They round the corner, by a house that’s falling apart, and the town hall is finally back in sight, the torches outside still lit despite the growing wind.
And then the clock tower explodes.
“Oh shit—!”
Claire and Leon hit the ground, arms covering their heads as broken pieces of the building and mountains of dust and dirt fall from the sky. Giant parts that had broken off cause a deafening sound when they land in the mud.
Claire raises her head when it finally stops, coughing through the dust settling.
“Le— Leon?”
“Here”, he manages, raising his hand up as he gets to his knees.
He helps her up, letting her balance on his shoulder to steady herself, arm around her waist. She nods a moment later, and he reluctantly lets go.
He wants to keep holding her.
In more comfortable circumstances, not in some fucked up village.
Maybe in bed.
Maybe after—
A howl pierces through the air, but it’s nothing like the whine from the dog they rescued. It’s harsh, almost angry, with a growl behind it.
They’ve just reoriented themselves when the source of the howls makes itself known; three wolves, but not even close to the dog.
Their faces are deformed, too wide, with long maws and eyes that are too far apart. The teeth shining in the remaining light of the day are jagged and crooked. There’s something… bubbling on the backs of one of them.
Leon unstraps the shotgun from his back while Claire aims her handgun in front of her, and when the wolves lunge forward, they unleash a spray of bullets.
The first two go down easily, falling into the dirt, and the third appears to do the same, but then stands back up and snarls at them.
Whatever was on its back bursts, revealing something fucking nasty. It’s a fleshy mess, with two tendrils swinging wildly, like they have a life of their own. There’s a claw attached to the end of each one, and Leon swears he sees an extra pair of eyes hidden among the carnage.
He’s too distracted taking the thing in and misses Claire yelling his name, only to be jolted back to reality just as the wolf pounces on him, snapping its jaws while the flesh on its back aims to stab at him.
With a grunt, Leon holds the creature back by its shoulders, nearly faltering a few times and letting sharp teeth get too close to his neck. He endures long enough that Claire grabs his shotgun off of the ground, cocks it, and sends that thing straight back to hell. It whimpers and goes still, and the extra flesh it has goes limp.
“Goddam”, Claire mutters, admiring the shotgun for a moment before helping Leon up and handing it back to him.
“Maybe we should take that merchant guy up on his offer. I need to get me one of these babies.”
Leon smirks and reattaches the forearm to his back.
“Thanks for the save, Red.”
She grins as they crawl over the rubble that was once the clock tower.
“Anytime. Wouldn’t have been good if I let my partner die on me.”
They clear the wreckage and make the rest of the trek in blissful silence, passing through the town hall with Leon’s key and down the path that’s lined with stones attached to the back of it.
And then finally— the church.
They agents sprint through the cemetery in front of the structure and shove open the double gate, only to stop once they get up the front steps of the church.
Large iron bars are blocking off the door, an oddly-shaped insignia adorning the middle. Leon rattles them a few times, but to no avail.
“Well, fuck me”, Claire mutters as she radios for Ingrid, hand on her hip.
“Roost? This is Condor Two. The church is sealed up.”
Hunnigan comes through the static.
“And Baby Eagle?”
Claire frowns, eyes flicking to Leon.
“Negative. Nothing yet, but this place is kept locked up tight.”
“I see”, says Hunnigan in a clipped tone. “I can think of one reason why they’d want to do that.”
Leon nods, biting his lip as he studies the iron bars while his partner continues to speak.
“Oh, she’s here, that’s for sure. We’ll look for a way in. Condor Two out.”
With that, Claire kicks at the bars feebly one more time before they head around to the side of the building, shoving a brittle wooden gate open. Leon points to a sign that has the word ”lago” painted on it, just up the path.
On the right track.
The agents round the corner to find a small wooden path over a cliff, hastily nailed together. Some of the walls lining the sides are falling apart, and sections of it are missing altogether.
“Seriously, what’s up with these people and half-assed shit?” Leon asks, running a hand through his hair. Claire laughs.
“For so many of them, you’d think it would look better—“
There’s yelling up ahead, and four villagers make themselves known, knives and torches in hand. Claire groans.
“We never get a break, do we?”
Her partner rolls his shoulders and grabs his handgun.
“Never do, in this business.”
It’s another fight, one that they win a little too easily. There’s a pang in Claire’s chest as they make quick work of the villagers; she doesn’t know what’s wrong with them, but she knows that somewhere in there, they’re just people.
They step over the bodies, and Leon shakily puts his hand on the wall to their left as they walk, each step forward slow. Claire raises an eyebrow at him.
“You alright, hotshot?”
Leon nods, biting his lip.
“Don’t… don’t like heights”, he responds shortly, eyes focused on the creaking wood below his feet. His partner smiles.
“What? Tough-guy Leon is afraid of something?”
He gives her the finger and continues on slowly, but eventually they reach the other side of the cliff. Leon shakes himself once he’s back on solid rock.
They go through a small cave, water dripping off of something and echoing through the space, and once they reach the mouth of it, they’re met with three shacks surrounding a dock, a wooden motor boat tied to the end.
“Worth a shot”, Claire murmurs, hopping down the ledge and onto the dock. Leon follows, and unties the boat from the dock.
There’s a fuel canister nearby, about half-full, which is lucky because Claire finds the boat empty when she attempts to start it. After filling the tank, double-checking their gear, the agents file into the boat. It’s a tight squeeze for the two of them, but they’ll manage.
And, honestly, Claire is just fine with having an excuse to sit close to Leon.
The engine revs as he starts it, and they’re off a moment later, the small boat sputtering as it slowly glides across the water.
The view is quite pretty, in an eerie way. There’s a castle overlooking a cliff side, flags on top of the turrets waving in the breeze. The sun is setting, leaving the sky a dark blue and highlighted with streaks of pink and orange.
And then the boat stops. Leon groans and tries to start the engine again, but with no luck. Claire curses, twisting in her seat to look at the engine on the back. She’s about to crack some half-hearted joke when they both stop as a roar echoes off of the cliffs surrounding the lake.
“What the hell is that?” Leon breathes, fingers gripping the metal sides. Claire shakes her head as she looks around frantically, eyes scanning the water.
“Fuck, Claire—!”
She turns in time to see— something, emerge from the water, all sharp teeth as it heads towards them. She yells and they both duck as it leaps over them.
God, it’s gross. Almost like a giant lizard, with wrinkly gray skin and eyes she can barely see in the dim light. Its back had one long fin over the length of it, and it slithers through the water like a snake.
One of the ends of the rope that was previously tying the boat to the dock manages to get caught on the tail of the thing, and it drags them through the water at a fast speed. The agents lurch forward, getting sprayed with water as the boat jerks with the creature.
“Jesus Christ”, Claire shouts over everything, gripping the sides of the boat and praying it won’t tip. Leon’s boot nudges her and she turns to face him. He has that look again; thinking of doing something stupid, and she’s desperate for anything at this point.
“Lift your foot”, he yells, and she does so so he can produce a harpoon lying in the bottom of the boat— she has no idea how she missed that earlier, but she’s grateful they at least have some kind of weapon.
There’s three, and Claire bites her lip, knowing that each throw has to count.
The boat is jerked to the side again, and Leon barely regains his balance before he chucks the first harpoon. It hits the creature in its spine, and it screeches loud enough to make Claire flinch.
The monster sinks below the water and disappears for a moment beneath the ripples, and everything is still for a moment before it re-emerges, farther away from them than before. Claire grabs the rope and pulls it back into the boat to avoid it getting tangled again.
The thing roars, swimming on the opposite side of the lake, and Leon raises himself up just enough with the second harpoon in hand, arm bent back in preparation to throw it.
“Think you can swallow me whole, huh?” he yells at it, and Claire practically chokes, snorting at him.
She isn’t one to shy away from a challenge.
A screech pierces her thoughts and she screams as the monster swims towards them, jaws open as it approaches quickly. Leon waits until almost the last second, before he tosses the harpoon and hits the thing in the back of its throat. It shuts its mouth and sinks under the water again, jostling the boat as it goes below. Leon grabs Claire’s shoulder to steady himself, and she hands him the final harpoon off of the bottom of the boat.
“You better make this count!” she says to him, and he nods as the creature surfaces again. Claire ducks down to give him ample space as it slithers forward. Leon bites his lip, harpoon raised.
Not yet…
Not yet…
Now.
When it’s close enough, he throws the last weapon with everything he has, and pierces the thing right through one of its beady eyes. It lets out a terrible, blood-curdling sound, but sinks and doesn’t appear again. The blood bubbling up to the surface is a good sign.
The agents collapse back into their seats, panting. Leon wipes sweat from his brow.
“Goddam. Hope we never see something like that again.”
“Don’t even say that. You’ll jinx us.”
Leon laughs and then stops suddenly, and before Claire can ask whether or not he’s okay, he gags and lurches over the edge of the boat, vomiting blood into the water. He stays where he is for a moment and then wipes his mouth shakily, looking back at his partner.
“Fu… fuck”, he breathes, and Claire frowns as she looks at him.
He’s blurry, and her eyes keep going in and out of focus. She reaches out a hand towards him, and it doubles in her vision.
“Leon…” is all she can manage before a wave of nausea courses through her, and then her eyes roll back and she falls forward.
Leon barely has time to catch her against his chest before he blacks out.
Chapter 4
Summary:
Okay, I am having waaaaaay too much fun with this fic. It’s literally all I have been doing at school (I have been gleefully ignoring my assignments, but it’s almost spring break so oops).
Ashley will be in the mix by the end of this chapter, and it is going to be a lot of third wheeling and hardcore shipping on her part, and I can’t WAIT to write it lol.
And WOWOWOWOW. A quarter of the way done with this fic! That is absolutely insane to think about.
As always, thank you for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos. It means the world x
— Rose
Chapter Text
The man in the robe materializes out of the darkness, skin still a sickly pale. His eyes are piercing. He repeats himself, just like before.
“Sacrificial lambs.”
“You will receive our most sacred bodies.”
“It begins now.”
He walks closer, a mass of flesh circling his staff. His arm is outstretched as he talks.
“When day breaks, you, too, will join our covenant. To share in my holy blessing… forever.”
Tendrils erupt from his fingertips, and then suddenly there’s searing pain as they envelop Leon and Claire. The skin of their arms bubbles and twitches as something moves below, traversing through their bodies.
It’s agonizing. They collapse in the void, screaming.
Honestly, she had hoped that waking up next to Leon would be more pleasant than this.
Claire doesn’t know how much time has passed as she wakes with a gasp, pushing herself up.
She’s lying on top of her partner, head on his chest while her arms are tucked between him and her own body. She sits up and stretches just as Leon inhales sharply and bolts up.
He studies his arms feverishly, looking for abnormalities and moving flesh, but finds nothing to suggest that anything is wrong. Claire does the same, pushing up the sleeves of her jacket.
Leon looks at the sky and swears. The sun has almost set completely, leaving the lake and the surrounding area dark, making it difficult to see. The agents are silent as he revs up the engine, and, thankfully, the boat starts without any hassle.
They pull up to a boat house, a dim lantern illuminating the end of the dock. Leon helps Claire out of the boat, and they lean against the rotting wall, collecting themselves. After a moment, Leon reaches for the comm in his ear.
“Condor One to Roost. You read me?”
Hunnigan comes through, her voice quick and panicky.
“Condor One? You’ve been radio silent for three hours. Are you and Condor Two okay?”
He exchanges a look with his partner, and she nods.
“Yeah. We… we’re fine. Won’t happen again.”
He doesn’t elaborate further, and Ingrid doesn’t push it, moving on.
“The church?”
“Still looking for whatever key we need to get in.”
“Copy. Glad you two are alright. Roost out.”
Silence envelops them again as Ingrid disconnects.
While he was talking, Leon and Claire had gone through the boat house, through the door on the other side and found themselves on a dark path, tree branches and roots obscuring the way forward. They click on their flashlights, knocking obstacles out of their way.
“You saw that too, right?” Claire asks as they go, boots crunching over fallen leaves.
“What?”
“That vision”, she clarifies. “With that… man.”
Leon bites his lip and nods. “Yeah. I don’t… I don’t understand any of that.”
Claire nods in return.
“You think it has anything to do with what that tall guy said earlier? About there being a “gift” in our blood?”
“Must be. I mean, up until now I’ve never dreamed of a creepy fucker speaking in riddles.”
Claire scoffs, and they leave it there, quiet once again becoming the dominating presence as they traverse down the winding path, over tree roots and under fallen branches.
They approach a cliff, cutting off the trail, but there’s wooden beams that are level with their thighs, marking a continuation under the rock. Sticking the ends of their flashlights in their mouths, Claire and Leon crawl through, batting at cobwebs in the way.
As they get in farther, there’s lit candles illuminating the area, flickering off of the narrow walls until the cramped underpass finally opens back up again, revealing the continuation of the path.
As the agents get to their feet, something moves in the candlelight, followed by a bursting sound and a shriek. The flashlights are stowed away and replaced with handguns as whatever it is rounds the corner.
“What the—“
It’s what remains of a man, head replaced with a fleshy, bloody mess almost identical to what came out of the wolf’s back back in the village, clawed tendrils and all.
“Jesus fucking Christ”, Claire mutters, gun raised in front of her. It takes multiple bullets from each of them, a quick side step to the right to avoid getting slashed, but eventually the mass shrivels, black blood spurting from the bullet holes and the man collapses a moment later into the dirt.
Leon kneels in front of it, using his knife to examine the body further.
Something is still moving inside of the corpse, almost like a fungus. Small, red tendons swaying over the rotten flesh, as if in a gentle breeze.
“What the fuck”, he murmurs, glancing at his arm as he sheaths the knife. Leon stands and Claire leads the way forward, the candles lighting the way.
There’s an altar up ahead, a stone slate covered in blood, some of it used to mark patterns on the ground. There’s a suspiciously body-shaped outline on the stone. Even more candles are lit on each edge, clusters of them flickering.
Claire walks up the wooden steps to the right, Leon following just behind, winding around another cliff and into a cave. They turn the corner and stop, taking in their surroundings.
“Oh, yeah”, Claire says with a sigh. “This is some cult shit.”
A large shrine greets them, two massive stone hands protruding from the ground, with a smooth stone tablet between them. There’s an engraving in the middle, and it looks kind of like—
“The same mark from the church”, Leon comments, reaching out and tracing the pattern with his fingers. It’s of four hands crossed over each other, the arms at the top bent at an odd angle, framing a circle.
Claire nods and examines the stone hands, two indents in the middle of each palm.
There’s a smaller cavern to their right, through an archway of stalagmites and stalactites. A map has been painted on the wall, faded over time, but it’s of the lake, with two ‘x’’s marking a point near where they are, and another towards the northeastern end of the body of water.
Candles decorate another stone table, and there’s skulls littered on top of it that Leon can guarantee are real.
“How much you wanna bet that’s how we get into the church?” Claire asks, gesturing to the marks on the map. Leon nods.
“Can never be easy.”
With that, they leave the cave and retrace their steps back to the motor boat, hopping in and taking it to the closest location on the map first. They end up in another cavern, this one long and winding, completely dark apart from a lantern hanging over a dock.
They can hear shouting up ahead as they get out of the boat, and the agents reach for their handguns on a reflex.
“You know, just once I’d like for something to go as planned”, Claire mutters, counting the rounds left in the chamber of her weapon before they continue.
More villagers appear as they weave through fallen stones and over broken sections of the pathway, two of their heads erupting into the fleshy nightmare from earlier.
Guns are raised and bullets are fired.
Leon receives a cut across his face by the end of it, and there’s a new tear in the calf of Claire’s jeans, but they’re alive when the dust settles. The latter tosses her partner an herb, which he accepts, grimacing as he swallows the leaves and feels the wound close itself up.
There’s enough torches lit and inserted into the stone walls that the rest of the walk is easy, the journey ending in front of a steel door with a metal plate and buttons to the side.
“What, a puzzle?” Leon groans, pressing a few buttons feebly. Nothing happens, as expected.
Claire frowns, exasperated. They were never going to get to Ashley at this rate.
Her eyes catch paint gleaming off of one of the walls, and her brow furrows.
“Wait”, she murmurs, thinking out loud, stepping to the side to adjust her field of view. She examines the paint and then turns back to the dias, and sure enough—
The pattern on the wall matches one of the buttons. It clicks into place when Claire pushes it down, and Leon looks at her, dumbfounded.
“How did—“
“The walls”, she interrupts, pointing at the paint she just used as a reference. The design is messy, and almost resembles the outline of a crest. Leon catches on immediately and moves a little ways away, eyes on the stone surrounding them.
After some trial and error, Leon is able to describe the shapes to her, and the steel door swings open when three buttons have been pressed. The agents high give each other, stepping through.
It’s just a small room, maybe the size of a closet, containing only a statue with a stone head, the texture identical to that of the stone hands at the shrine. Claire yanks it free and groans as blood spills out of the neck of what remains of the statue, splattering on her boots.
She holds it under her arm and they make their way back to the dock, stepping over bodies when needed. Claire deposits the stone head in the back of the boat, and they’re off in the water again, the engine sputtering for a moment before starting.
The second head involves significantly less fighting, thankfully.
There’s nothing more than a tiny shack, half-built, with the same steel door and metal buttons. Yellow paint marks the stone around them, and the second head is theirs in a matter of minutes, setting it next to the other one in the boat.
“Please let this be it”, Leon murmurs, revving the boat engine a final time.
Each agent carries a head under their arms as they go back through the cavern with the shrine, placing one on each of the hands. The markings on the middle table rotate, and the stone slides open, revealing a circular key that’s exactly the same width as the indent on the iron bars at the church. Leon grins and stashes it into one of his hip pouches.
Leaving the cavern, they follow a trail to the left that expands into a clean dirt road, clearly well-traveled. It deposits them into a small village, if it can even be called that, surrounded by high cliffs. Scaffolding stretches across the sky.
Rain begins to fall, turning the dirt under their feet into mud, slowly soaking through their clothes and setting a chill into their bones.
Suddenly, the wooden gates that hang over the archways leading into the village slam down, digging into the dirt, and Leon and Claire stop, looking around.
“Shit”, she groans, hand hovering over her gun. She can hear the sound of Leon reloading his own, small clicks as he slides bullets into place.
There’s a jingling sound above them, and when Claire looks up, she sees a figure in a maroon robe, a horned animal skull resting atop its head. They’re waving a lantern, glowing red in the night.
A barricade to the left shudders, making the agents jump, and Leon darts his eyes back up to the top of the cliff; the robed person is gone.
Something roars and slams the barricade again, the stone and wood cracking. It splinters after the third hit, showering the agents with broken pieces.
“Jesus Christ…”
When the dust settles they’re met with a… giant.
Straight out of some fucked up fairytale.
Leon thinks it might be the grossest thing they’ve seen so far. It’s hunched over, with skin that’s gray and wrinkled, dirty nails at the ends of its fingers and toes. The arms and legs are nothing but pure muscle, and the features on the giant’s face are too small, apart from its mouth which shows sharp teeth when it roars. It’s wearing a pair of ragged brown trousers.
“Whoa”, Leon breathes, backing up a few steps. “Goddam, you’re a big boy.”
“Any idea how to topple this thing?” Claire yells when a few shots to the head don’t do anything. He goes to answer, but yells as the giant charges at him, rolling out of the way just before it smacks into him. It hits the stone wall and grunts, shaking its head before turning back to the agents.
They rain more bullets into the thing, occasionally causing a stutter in the giant’s movements but otherwise not causing a dent. It swipes at them, and while Claire is able to duck, Leon gets grabbed, held in the air, tightly in its fist.
“Fuck— Leon!” Claire yells from below him, shooting at the giant’s arm.
Struggling, Leon manages to move around just enough to grab his knife, and plunges it into the hand of the giant. It hurts it enough that it screeches and drops him into the mud. Claire runs to his side to help him up.
“You good?” she asks, and he nods, panting.
“Shit, that was close.”
The monster roars again, a squelching sound piercing through that and the rain coming down.
A worm emerges from its back, with its own set of teeth, squirming around and swinging a set of tendrils.
“Jesus, it has worms, too?” Leon asks, faltering slightly. They sprint to the side as the giant rushes them again.
It’s a game of cat-and-mouse. Shooting, dodging, and charging, rinse and repeat, and it’s exhausting. They aren’t making any progress, and both Leon and Claire are starting to run low on ammo.
Lightning strikes and thunder rumbles. It strikes again, and it’s followed by a howl.
Something lands on the ground next to them, having jumped from a short ledge on the cliff, and—
It’s the dog they saved from the bear trap, growling not at them, but at the giant, teeth bared. It circles the giant, who’s still focused on the humans in front of it, and leaps forward, teeth sinking into its heel. The dog holds on until the giant kicks its foot, sending the animal flying, but he recovers quickly.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Leon shouts. “Good boy!”
The bite is enough to knock the giant off-balance, tumbling backwards into the cliff. The weight of it crushes the stone, large chunks toppling onto the creature and pinning it to the mud. It reaches out and roars.
Claire gets an idea.
“Knife!” she says to Leon, and he doesn’t even question her as he hands her the blade. She sprints forward and climbs up the arm of the thing, launching herself onto its back. She takes the knife and saws into the worm, gritting her teeth as it shrieks.
With a shocking amount of effort and a lot of blood that smells rancid, Claire hacks the worm clean off of the giant’s back. It falls into the mud, and both creatures stop moving. She groans as she shakes her hands out, covered in red.
Hopping down, she returns the knife to Leon and wipes her hands on her jeans as best she can. The wooden gates have raised back up at some point, the way out no longer blocked off.
Leon looks to the side, watching as the dog crawls up onto a ledge to lay down, licking its injured leg from the bear trap. Otherwise, he seems okay. He barks in acknowledgment as Leon nods in his direction.
“Thanks, bud”, he says quietly, and then he and Claire are on their way again, weapons stashed and flashlights on.
Claire leads the way as they make one more trek down the path, retracing their steps back to the main dock and up the cliff to the rickety wood that crosses the overpass. Leon takes a breath, eyes focused firmly in front of him as they go, not daring to glance down.
They get about halfway before a molotov cocktail is thrown at them, engulfing the wood just behind them in flames.
“Shit— run, Leon!” Claire yells, bolting through the narrow passages. He’s right on her heels, heat quickly approaching them as the fire eats at each dry piece of wood.
They’ve barely stepped off the structure when it explodes, knocking them back into the dirt. Whoever threw the cocktail at them screams, before they’re no more, disappearing as quickly as the bridge.
Leon and Claire lay there for a minute, panting as they stare at the new gap between cliffs, before crawling to their feet. Not long to the church now.
Taking off in a run, they make the rest of the way back to the church, and, thankfully, the key Leon grabbed slots right into place in the indent. He rotates it, and the lock clicks. The iron bars retract into the ground, and finally, they open the double doors of the church.
“Ashley Graham!” Leon shouts, voice echoing off of the walls. “Are you in here?”
Silence, but they expected it.
The church isn’t exactly grand, but it’s significantly cleaner than any other building they’ve gone into. The floors are swept, clear of dust, candles lit on the altar at the head of the room. Six pews are lined up on either side of an aisle that’s marked with a deep red carpet.
And the stained glass mural; light reflects behind it, washing everything in green, blue, and red tinges. The symbol in the middle of the window is gold, and is of the insect shape from the town hall’s door.
Heading further into the stone building, Claire follows Leon up the stairs to the second floor, in much poorer condition than the first, but admittedly still decent looking. There’s more cracked stone along the walls, and one part of it is broken enough that wind whistles through it and rain gets in.
There’s a door off to the side of the hallway, and when both agents stop, they can hear a rustling, followed by a sniffle, from the other side.
Ashley?
Gingerly, Leon reaches out and twists the knob, and the door creaks open, slicing sharply through the silence like a knife.
“Ashley?” Claire calls out. It’s a small room, the only light that’s coming in from the gap of the door they just opened.
“Ashley Graham, are you in here—“
Leon ducks as something swings at him out of the corner of his eye, standing just as quickly to see Ashley with a candelabra held in front of her, backing against the wall.
“Just let me go”, she says with a shaky voice, grip tight on her makeshift weapon.
“Listen”, Leon starts, grabbing the candelabra when Ashley swings it again. He takes it from her hands easily, dropping it onto the floor.
“Easy with that!”
The girl backs up again, huddling herself into the corner. She’s terrified, eyes darting between him and his partner.
“My name is Leon, and this is Claire. We’re here on the president’s orders, and—“
Ashley bolts for the open door, disappearing around the corner. Claire sighs.
“That went well.”
They follow her out of the room, finding her stopped in front of the window just down the hall.
“It’s dangerous outside”, Claire starts, frowning as Ashley ignores them, staring through the glass.
“Hey, you need to listen to us—“
“What is that?” she asks, pointing outside. Leon and Claire exchange a look and come up to stand next to her, following her eyes.
It’s another village worth of people, each one of them armed with torches, pitchforks, or knives, slowly coming up the path and through the cemetery, towards the open gates of the church.
The three of them stumble, clutching their heads as a voice rings through their ears. Pain feels like it’s shooting through their brains.
“Pursue them.”
The man in the robe, face hidden beneath his hood.
“The lost lambs are escaping. Deliver unto them… salvation.”
And with a gasp, they’re back, breathing heavily.
Ashley looks at the agents, questioning and horrified.
The first of the villagers have reached the gate, and they all move to press their backs to the wall, hiding themselves from view. Claire meets Leon’s eyes, and he just simply mouths a ‘fuck’ at her.
They’re running out of time, fast, maybe two more minutes before this turns into a fight.
And now Ashley’s in the mix. They have to move if they have any hope of getting her home.
Chapter 5
Summary:
Hello, my friends!
Looooong chapter ahead. I definitely got a little carried away, lol.
I apologize for the slightly odd pacing that will follow— it’s kind of a matter of cutting some parts of gameplay to make sure that this fic doesn’t drag on forever. It hasn’t been too bad before, but for some reason I feel like it’s especially prominent here.
Giving a small content warning for stitching and blood; while nothing is described super graphically, I just want y’all to be aware, in case you’re affected by it :)
As always, thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting. It truly makes my day to see those little inbox notifications 🩷
— Rose
Chapter Text
Ashley is trembling, her back flat against the wall. She closes her eyes, takes a few breaths.
She has company. She’ll be okay.
Maybe.
Probably not.
She’s almost certainly dead—
She stops herself and looks to the other woman— Claire, she’s pretty sure.
“What do we do?” she whispers, her voice shaking as she speaks.
Claire takes in a breath.
“Your father trusts us. We need you to trust us, too, and do exactly as we say, okay? We’re gonna get you home safe.”
Ashley hesitates, and then nods, swallowing.
“Okay… okay, Claire.”
Leon motions for the two women to stay where they are when the door on the first floor creaks, a hoard of villagers funneling in, chanting in Spanish. He crouches low, moving to the side, and they do the same.
“Alright. Let’s get the hell outta here.”
Creeping down the last of the hall, they’re met with a dead end, and a foldable ladder peeking out from the open door of the attic. Leon nods at Claire, who stands and unholsters her handgun, keeping watch while Leon looks over his shoulder at Ashley, then gestures to the ladder.
“Get the ladder”, he murmurs, and she looks behind her, as if he’s referring to someone else.
“Me? Uh… okay. Yeah.”
Steadying himself, Leon stays crouched to the floor while Ashley steps onto his back, hands in front of her to balance onto the wall. He stands slowly, and she grabs the metal rungs, hauling herself up and into the attic. She kicks the ladder, and Leon catches it just before it hits the ground.
The agents follow, and Claire drags the ladder back up to at least slow down the villagers, should things go wrong. Ashley leads the way up the steps, looking past boxes and dusty crates.
“What do we do now? There’s no way out…”
As she talks, Claire studies the open window, rain pouring through and soaking the wood of the floor. She puts one foot on the ledge and examines the drop.
Safe enough, and definitely better than fighting their way out.
She motions for Leon to come over, who looks over the ledge and then jumps without further question, landing on his feet. He looks up at Claire, who in turn glances at Ashley. The young girl shakes her head.
“No way.”
Slinging her leg over the windowsill, Claire reaches her hand out in a motion she hopes is comforting.
“It’s okay. We’ve got you.”
With that, she jumps too, leaning into Leon as he steadies her. Ashley bites her lip and looks down at them.
Slowly, she sits on the ledge, inching forward and clutching the wall beside her. Leon steps forward, arms extended, and nods.
One last bit of hesitation and a squeal, and Ashley lets go, falling off of the ledge and down into Leon’s arms, his hand hooking securely under her knees and the other grasping her back. She stares up at the window where she was only moments ago, then back at the man holding her.
“Tha… thank you”, she breathes as Leon sets her down.
“No problem.”
Claire radios for Ingrid as she peers around the corner, watching villagers continue to pour into the church.
“Condor Two to Roost— we’ve secured Baby Eagle.”
Ashley scoffs.
“Copy that. Is she okay?” Hunnigan asks, and Claire frowns as her voice starts to get choppy. Weather must be interfering with the signal.
“Affirmative”, Claire says quietly, holding up her hand to motion for Leon and Ashley to stay still.
“Well done. We’ll dispatch a chopper for you ASAP. I’m sending Leon the coordinates for the extraction point. Make your way there, and don’t let anything happen to Baby Eagle.”
“Copy that. Hurry, please. Weather’s getting worse. Condor Two out.”
She turns back to Leon. “Get all that?”
He nods, moving to stand next to her and looking around the wall. He looks back at Ashley, gesturing for her to follow.
“Remember, it’s dangerous. Stay close, alright?”
The three of them circle around the church, stopping just once so Leon and Claire can shove a fallen shelf out of their way, straining with the effort.
Leon stops abruptly once the shelf is taken care of, hand hovering by his gun as he watches more villagers come in through the gate.
“Shit”, he murmurs, thinking to himself as he scans the situation in front of them. Stealth would be difficult, given the amount of people looking for them, but a fight could prove lethal, especially now that they had Ashley by their side.
Motioning for them to crouch down and then doing so himself, Leon moves forward slowly, hiding along the edge of the iron fence enclosing the church as more villagers pass by.
He flexes his fingers and then reaches for his knife, and once there’s a sizeable-enough gap between the next person entering, he moves forward slowly and grabs the woman holding a knife in front of them, hand covering her mouth as he stabs her in the neck and slowly sets her still body on the ground.
Claire’s not sure if she’s ever been more tense in her life.
She grabs the knife the woman was holding as they sneak by for herself, clutching the handle tightly as they move carefully through the mud. When there’s another gap, they make a break through the gate and hiding behind some of the gravestones in the courtyard. Not far now, and then they can round the corner and start making their way to the extraction point.
They get about halfway before a villager turns around unexpectedly and spots them, pointing and shouting for his comrades.
“Fuck!” Claire hisses, and the three of them take off in a sprint, weaving through graves with Leon and Claire firing the occasional gunshot.
“What is wrong with these people?!” Ashley shouts, fear evident in her voice as she struggles to keep up.
Reaching the end of the graveyard, it’s a mad dash down the path back to the village, but they get enough of a head start that Claire’s able to toss a grenade at Leon, who hangs back just slightly as the group of villagers becomes a cluster. He pulls the pin and chucks the weapon, then sprints back to the two women just as it blows the people to pieces.
Daring to slow down into a walk, even though the villagers who were in the church definitely heard the blast, the three of them make their way up the rest of the trail, catching their breath as they get closer to the village. Claire sees a flicker of a familiar purple fire, and furrows her brow.
No fucking way did this guy haul all that stuff around with him.
But sure enough, when they reach the town hall of the village, they find the merchant, hands clasped together when he sees them approach.
“Strangers!” he says in greeting, and there’s a smile evident in his voice, which she honestly finds charming.
Deciding she can afford a minute or two, she approaches the man and rifles through one of her hip pouches for a large handful of coins. When Leon shoots her a questioning glance, she simply replies with “the offering box at the church”, and he laughs.
Claire puts the coins down on the table between her and the merchant and nods at the submachine gun to the side that she had her eye on earlier.
“This enough?”
The man hums and takes the gold in his hands, counting, then stows them away in his large coat, reaching for the weapon and sliding it and a box of ammo across the table.
“Pleasure doin’ business with yeh”, he says, chuckling, and Claire takes it eagerly and grins, thanking him. She loads the gun and turns to Leon and Ashley as they walk into the town hall.
“These fuckers won’t know what hit ‘em”, she says, strapping the gun to the back of her belt.
Ashley already sounds tired when she next speaks, her and the agents passing through the hall.
“Can we take a break?” she asks quietly from behind them.
Leon shakes his head and holds the front door open for the women.
“Sorry, but we have to keep moving”, he responds, thinking of the villagers likely hot on their trail.
Ashley nods. “Oh… okay.”
As they step back into the abandoned village, Claire groans, the wind having picked up and whipping around the rain as it comes down. It doesn’t feel great, and makes it difficult to see.
“Ingrid was right about the weather.”
Shit, she’ll be glad when this is over. The young woman just behind her shivers.
“I’m definitely going to catch a cold…”
Helping Ashley climb over the ruins of the clock tower, Leon leads the way back through the village and towards the farm again, looking at his watch for the coordinates Hunnigan sent him. He flexes his fingers, feeling them start to numb from the cold rain battering them.
The animals left at the farm are pissed off about the weather, but otherwise it’s smooth sailing until they’re back at that rickety bridge Leon just loves so much. No sooner had the three of them set foot on it when a bellow of cries from behind them sounded through the rain. Claire curses, reaching behind her for the submachine gun.
The hoarde of villagers races towards them, and she looks behind her to yell “go!” at Leon and Ashley, turning the safety off of the gun in her hands and spraying bullets into the crowd.
The first row collapses, but the angry mob following in their wake simply run over the bodies, and Claire’s gun jams a moment later. She takes off just behind her companions, nearly slipping on the slick wood of the bridge.
When Leon and Ashley reach the end of the bridge, the door to the villa hiding behind some trees opens, and a familiar face reveals itself.
Luis.
“Hey! Over here!” he yells over the rain, waving the three of them over. With one final burst of speed, Claire catches up to the other two and Luis slams the door behind them, bolting it. Poor Ashley looks as if she’s about to pass out, drenched in rain and bent over the dining table, heaving.
The villa isn’t nearly as nice as that manor, hardly any furniture decorating the first floor and littered with splintered wood and garbage.
Leon is the first to recover, barely having finished catching his breath before his expression turns to stone, a glare that Claire has rarely ever seen crossing his face as he strides towards the other man.
“You.”
Luis backs up towards the wall, raising his hands.
“Hey, listen… about earlier, I—“
“Yeah, about that—“ Leon hisses, grabbing his shirt collar and pinning him to the wall.
Claire has the briefest thought where she wishes he would do that to her (and goddam her intrusive thoughts), when Luis looks to the side and over her shoulder, grinning.
“Hey, I see you’ve found your missing señorita”, he comments, and Ashley takes a few steps forward, arms crossed.
“This ‘señorita’ has a name, and it’s Ashley. You are…?” she bites out, voice steely.
Damn. Not anyone’s favorite person, it seems.
Luis winks at her and introduces himself. “Encantado.”
Leon rolls his eyes.
“Great. We all have names. Now—“
He pushes Luis so his head knocks back against the wall, and the man grunts.
“—who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Claire frowns as she watches the display, eyes flicking to the window, and she sucks in a breath.
“All good questions, Leon”, she starts, “but we’re out of time.”
Her partner follows her gaze and swears, the hoarde of villagers having finally caught up to them, sprinting towards the villa. He lets go of Luis, reaching for his handgun, and looks back at Ashley.
“You need to hide”, he says, and Luis pushes off of the wall, towards a dresser a few feet away. He waves Leon over.
“Help me”, he says, and Leon obliges, the two men shoving the dresser to the side and revealing a hole in the wall, barely tall enough for a person to crawl through.
“Ashley, come on!” he shouts, and she hurries over, hesitating for the briefest of moments before she crawls in, and Leon and Luis put the dresser back into place, hiding the girl from view.
Luis draws a revolver from his belt, clicking off the safety as the shouts from the villagers start to be heard over the rain.
“Game time. Hordes of them against three of us— how do you like those odds?” he asks as Claire reloads her submachine gun and Leon cocks his shotgun.
An axe slashes through one of the walls, and the Spanish man lets out a low whistle.
“Hope you stretched!”
Leon groans. “Yeah, now if you’d shut up, we’d be good to go.” He shoves a bookcase against one of the windows as the glass shatters.
“Aw, lighten up, cowboy.”
Claire’s turn to groan.
Men.
It’s an onslaught, the bookshelf splintering into pieces quickly and allowing the villagers to pour in through the windows on the first floor, climbing over the windowsills with knives and pitchforks in hand, growling at them. The firearms held by the three help knock back their attackers, some falling backwards out windows before they’re fully in the villa.
Claire’s just run out of ammo in her submachine gun and is reaching for her pistol, when something knocks against the side of the house, followed by the unmistakable sound of boots creaking upstairs.
Goddammit.
“Upstairs!” Luis yells, bolting up the steps, and the agents follow closely behind, Leon keeping himself positioned at the top, shotgun aimed at anything that moves.
Claire kicks down the ladder that’s been propped up to the second story window, shoving a villager out of it in the process, while Luis helps Leon clear out those running up the stairs.
Things are finally starting to look up when there’s a roar, and the house actually shakes as something slams into the side of it, the cause of it making itself known a moment later.
Another one of those fuckers wearing a cow head.
It charges upstairs, ramming into the villagers in its way, swinging the massive sledgehammer in its hands and causing the three of them to duck down. Claire shoots the thing in the head a few times, scrambling away as the man lifts his hammer above his head. It clips her shoulder as it comes down, making her cry out.
It distracts Leon enough that he gets a pitchfork right in the stomach, yelling in pain as he feels the ends of it stab into him, only made worse when the woman wielding it yanks it out of his abdomen a moment later. Blood sprays forward, and his adrenaline isn’t enough to cover up how much it hurts.
The villa, aged with time, creaks, and the amount of people on the second floor gets the wood to break, cracking at first but then caving in, sending all of the occupants down to the ground floor. Leon struggles to stand, eyes on Claire as she does the same, and he’s pretty much accepted his fate when the front door slams open, a terrified Ashley making herself known.
“Leon! Claire! This way, hurry!”
Against all odds, Leon gets up, grabbing Claire’s hand and bolting for the door, dodging a shovel aimed at his head as they go. A revolver goes off one more time before a heavy set of footsteps follow, which he assumes to be Luis close behind.
Ashley leads the way out of the villa, the four of them slipping through the mud as they get to the iron gate just ahead, the chain blowing in the wind. Claire lets go of Leon’s hand, turns, and barely gives Luis enough time to get underneath before she shoots said chain, snapping it and sending the iron bars down. They sink into the ground, and she shoves the reinforced wooden doors in front of them, muffling the sounds of the villagers on the other side.
Her, Leon, and Ashley collapse, panting, while Luis leans against the wall, heaving for air himself.
It’s when Ashley falls into a brutal coughing fit that the agents forget their injuries and tiredness, looking at the young girl as she doubles over, hand covering her mouth; when she withdraws it, her palm is stained red. She speaks between coughs, gasping.
“What’s hap— happening to— ahn— to me?” she manages, staring at her hand in horror before she wipes the blood on her blazer.
Luis turns, frown evident on his face. He takes her hand, studying it as she comes down from the last of her fit.
“Ashley, is this the first time you’ve coughed up blood like this?” he asks, and his tone is so serious that it honestly catches Leon off guard, looking up at the man from where he is in the mud, standing with Claire’s help.
Ashley nods, sniffling. Claire slings Leon’s arm over her shoulders to keep him steady.
“You wanna start explaining?” she says to Luis, and he glances at them before letting go of Ashley’s hand.
“The cough, the blood… it’s caused by something called a… a plaga”, he says.
Claire doesn’t miss the quick glance Leon gives his own arm, the muscles flexing. She feels a pang of anxiety settle in her chest.
Luis gestures vaguely to the barricade behind them.
“Those “people”, right? You… you have the same thing inside of you; the same thing that made them like that.”
Ashley takes a breath through a sob, and the agents stay quiet, choosing not to indicate that they’re also infected.
Best if Ashley doesn’t have to worry about them, too.
“This”, Luis continues, “what you’re experiencing, these symptoms… they’re only the beginning.”
The young girl supports herself against the wall, starting to hyperventilate.
“I don’t— I don’t want to become like them”, she says through a shaky voice, a hiccup accompanying her words.
Luis gives her a reassuring smile.
“You’re lucky— at this early stage, the parasite— the plaga— can be removed with a surgical procedure. All you need is some know-how, and the right equipment.”
He undoes the top two buttons of his shirt, revealing a long scar that goes down his chest. Leon looks up, clinging to Claire.
“You too?”
Luis nods, tapping his forehead.
“No worries. I have a plan. But… you’re going to have to trust me.”
Leon scoffs, but after Claire elbows him in the side (a mistake on her part— she forgot about the giant puncture wounds in his abdomen), he grunts and then nods. The other man claps his hands together.
“Great! We’re partners, then.” He starts to walk away, stretching as he goes. The rain’s slowed to a drizzle, the moon appearing from behind the clouds and reflecting off of the puddles on the ground.
“Why are you helping us?” Claire asks, but Luis avoids the question.
“Because it makes me feel better. We’ll leave it at that. Now, enough chatter. Clock is ticking.”
He reveals a radio in his pocket. “I’ll contact you later.”
And then he’s gone, leaving the three of them behind.
They’re left in silence, until Leon moans, pulling away from Claire and sliding down against the wall, clutching his side.
Claire sees the blood wetting his shirt and sucks in a sharp breath.
“Take it off.”
His eyes snap up, questioning. She gestures to his covered wound and he waves her off, so she kneels in front of him. She can hear Ashley sit back in the dirt herself, sniffling one more time before falling silent.
“Work with me, hotshot”, Claire says quietly, meeting his gaze. Her eyes hold enough worry that he sighs and gingerly tugs his holsters and the shirt over his head, swearing as his torso stretches from the movement and tugs on the cuts. Claire reaches out and helps him pull it up the rest of the way, laying it out carefully next to them on the ground.
“Fuck”, she murmurs, studying his abdomen while she fumbles for the hip pouch containing a field first aid kit.
The pitchfork fucked him up— three deep gashes decorate his skin, steadily covering him in blood and splattering onto the ground.
She opens the kit, pulling out antiseptic, gauze, and a needle and thread. Leon groans when he sees the final two items, and Claire turns her head slightly to look back at Ashley.
“Give us just a sec”, she says apologetically, before twisting the cap off of the small bottle of antiseptic. She holds Leon’s eyes until he nods at her, giving the go-ahead, before she dumps the contents onto his stomach. He gasps in pain, hand shooting out to clutch his partner's arm.
“I know, I know— sorry…” she mumbles, patting his wounds with gauze once the bottle is empty. She tosses that to the side and then grabs his shirt off the ground, holding it in front of him.
“Bite down. It’s only gonna get worse. I promise I’ll try to be as quick as I can.”
Leon makes a sound akin to that of a wounded animal, but does as he’s told, stuffing the fabric in his mouth. Claire gives his hand a squeeze before she threads the needle, and with one final deep breath from both of them, she slides it into his skin.
She hears Ashley hiss behind her as Leon’s head falls back against the wall, his yell muffled by the shirt in his mouth. Claire keeps apologizing as she runs the needle through his abdomen, trying not to fumble with it as her hands start to sweat from the pressure.
It’s a process that’s longer than she wants it to be, especially because it’s accompanied by Leon’s pained screams. She hates that she’s the one causing this, but she keeps telling herself that it’s either this or a slow bleed-out.
Finally, finally, she murmurs “okay, okay”, and leans forward to tear the string with her teeth, tying it in a knot. He’ll have a nasty scar and will probably need to get the stitches redone when they get back to the States, but it’ll do for now. Claire gingerly wraps gauze around his stomach, taping it in place and helping him back into his shirt.
Leon leans against the wall, sweat shining off of his forehead as he catches his breath. Claire stows away what’s left of the first aid kit, standing and holding out her hand for her partner to take. He gets up with her help, grunting.
“You alright?” she asks in a low voice, and he gives her a weak smile.
“Fine. Thank you.”
Claire turns to Ashley and nods. “Sorry about that.”
The other woman gives them both a small smile of her own, looking a little stressed out, but follows behind them as Claire leads the way down the path. It’s stopped raining completely, the only hindrance now being the wind and the mud puddles. Leon looks at his watch and confirms they’re still heading towards the extraction point.
He winces as they go, accepting the herb Claire passes to him to dull the pain. He chews on the leaves, and revels in the silence as they walk.
Okay. Out of danger, he’s patched up, and Ashley is with them, safe.
Maybe things will be okay.
He’s not sure if he means it, or if he’s just trying to convince himself. Instead, he focuses on the sound of their boots slapping against the mud, and braces himself for what’s to come.
Chapter 6
Summary:
Hello my friends!
WOW, there is a lot happening in this chapter.
It was definitely a little bit daunting to write, thus the short delay, but I hope you enjoy now that it’s here!
Chapter 7 will be out later this week, however that may also be delayed as my spring break is ending, so I will have less time to write.
I hope you continue to enjoy Leon, Claire, and Ashley’s adventure as we go!
As always, thank you so much for the kudos and leaving comments. It means the world x
— Rose
Chapter Text
Luis Serra felt okay about himself, which is not something that happens often.
He’s walking just off of a dirt path, fidgeting with his lighter, balancing it between his fingers. Over, under, over, under. He tosses it into the air and catches it, closing it and shoving it back into his pocket.
He felt okay, but he was also anxious as hell.
A flash of red catches his eye, and he grins, adjusting his jacket and walking down to the rocky part of the cliff, where a figure is standing on the flat ledge a few feet off the ground. Luis winks at them.
“Hey. Got a smoke?”
“I do. The kind you like.”
Ada Wong stands above him, arms crossed. She’s a damn fine woman if he’s ever seen one, a tight red sweater dress that hugs her body perfectly, interrupted by only the occasional piece of tactical gear. She has on lipstick to match and her eyeliner could cut diamonds, he’s sure.
She’s also wearing four-inch heels, and, for everything Luis has done in his life, he doesn’t think he’s seen anything more impressive, being able to do what she does in those shoes.
Ada clears her throat.
“Where’s the Amber?”
Luis falters just a moment, before he frowns.
“Unfortunately, it’s not on me at the moment— and, you really should be telling me what a good job I did.”
He approaches her, reaching the rocky ledge off of the cliff, and starts to climb, stepping up and gripping a divet in the rocks. He keeps talking as he climbs, focused on not slipping; the stone is slick with rain water from the storm.
“Busted my ass and managed to hide it right before I got caught! Which is why I’m still alive—“
Luis grunts as he loses purchase, slipping down the side of the ledge and instinctively reaching out his hand to Ada for help. He meets her eyes as she crouches down so she’s closer to his level, and she looks anything but pleased.
“The deal was”, she reminds him, “we get you out of here when you deliver the Amber. No Amber, no protection, Luis.”
He snorts, waving his hand.
“Such a stickler for details, huh, Ada? Fine. I’ll go get it now. How about that?”
Luis extends his hand again now that she’s closer, the fingers on the other starting to lose their hold on the slick rock. Ada frowns, before she must take pity on him and grasps his hand, hauling him up to her level.
He looks behind her, off in the distance, and thinks about Leon, Claire, and Ashley.
He’ll get the Amber, but he has something else he needs to get to, too.
***
Leon is ready for this mission to be over any time now.
Actually, he was ready for it to be over as soon as he and Claire stepped out of that police cruiser.
Now here he is, trudging down a path that has his boots sinking into the mud with every step, messy stitches adorning the span of his abdomen. It fucking hurts if he moves even slightly wrong, the herb Claire gave him hardly doing anything for the pain.
Oh, and Claire, speaking of which. Perfect, sweet, distracting-as-hell Claire, who stopped everything to take care of him.
He doesn’t deserve her.
Leon’s eyes are trained on her back as they walk, slowly following the stitching of the ‘Made in Heaven’ embroidery across the jacket, the tops of the letters hidden by her collar.
The design is faded with time, as is the red leather making up the article, but otherwise it looks the same as the night they met six years ago.
Leon can hardly believe it’s been that long since he’s known Claire.
He can hardly believe he’s been in love with her for almost two-thirds of that time, either.
He’s snapped out of his thoughts as his comm beeps in his ear.
“This is Roost. I’ve got some bad news.”
Claire turns so she’s facing him, walking backwards. She frowns, pressing down on her comm to talk to Hunnigan.
“Condor Two; go ahead.”
“The storm has cleared your location, but it’s just getting started over the ocean. Chopper can’t make an approach until it passes. Can you stand by until we’re clear?”
Claire bites back frustrated tears.
“Negative. It’s too dangerous. We’ll… we’ll get out of here and try to find somewhere safe to lay low.”
Ingrid, for her part, sounds genuinely apologetic on her end.
“I’m sorry; I wish there was more I could do to help.”
Leon chimes in.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll swim home if we have to. Condor One and Condor Two out.”
They disconnect, and Claire is silent for a moment before she says, “you don’t… actually mean that, right?”
Her partner snorts.
“You think I’m seriously considering swimming across the entire Atlantic?”
“Good point.”
Smart ass.
Claire looks at Ashley, who’s been quiet this entire time, staring at her hands as she walks. The other woman lowers her voice.
“You okay?”
Ashley barely looks up.
“What’s… what’s going to happen to me?”
Claire falters. She wishes she had a good answer. Something to tell her that would make her feel better.
Instead, she says, “Right now, let’s focus on getting you out of here.”
Ashley nods.
“Right.”
The three of them pause for just a moment to take a breather in an abandoned shack up ahead, the thin walls offering just enough shelter from the biting wind.
All too soon, it’s back on the road; muddy trail, in their case, arms crossed and shoulders hunched in a vain attempt to keep warm. Claire wonders how Leon’s faring without his jacket.
They approach a cliff that’s been reinforced with gates and wood paneling, and Leon can see plaga-infected villagers over the top of one of the gates, some holding crossbows.
He’s getting to a point where he won’t be surprised if he and Claire end up killing all of Spain by the time this is over.
He shoulders open the gate, he and Claire reaching for their handguns.
“We have to keep moving, but silently, alright?” he murmurs to Ashley, and she crouches behind them, nodding. She looks terrified, but does as she’s told.
Slowly, the group treads forward, hiding behind wooden paneling where they can. There’s a few close calls, one only stopped because Leon yanks the back of Claire’s jacket before she’s seen, but they reach the other gate at the end of the clearing without trouble.
That is, until said gate is opened, the creak echoing off of the cliff walls.
“Shit.”
A bell rings, making those who hadn’t initially spotted the intruders turn, and soon another horde of villagers were coming down to where Leon, Claire, and Ashley were. The ones holding crossbows knelt down from their perches and began to take aim.
“Leon, go!” Claire shouts, and though he hesitates briefly, he doesn’t want to leave her behind, Ashley grabs his arm and that sends him into action, opening the gate the rest of the way.
His partner unclips a flash grenade from her belt, pulls the pin, and rolls it on the ground toward the oncoming mob. She shields her eyes as she turns to run, the grenade going off and making her ears ring. Claire sprints forward to the gate, closing it behind her and jamming the handles with a discarded piece of wood from the structure.
Not daring to stick around, the three of them head down into another alcove, this one resembling a compound more than a rickety settlement.
And it’s silent. No crazed people to be seen, no cultish chanting.
Claire and Leon exchange a look. What should be reassuring is just putting them more on edge.
A large door is blocking their way, reinforced significantly more than anything else in the compound, and the slot where a handle should be is missing. Leon shoves on the door a few times, but it doesn’t budge.
Groaning, he leads the way further in, past lanterns that flicker with each gust of wind. The structure is all but falling apart, stairs leading to the upper level outright missing, and holes in some of the walls.
They circle around to the building in the middle of the compound, resembling a barn, and force their way in, Claire breaking the padlock on the side door. It’s dusty, clouds of it hanging in the air and making the experience of breathing unpleasant.
But there— on the far wall, is a crank, lying by itself on a sorry excuse for a shelf.
Leon grins, walking to the other side while Claire sticks with Ashley.
He’s reaching for the crank, fingers hovering just over it, when two chainsaw blades tear through the wall.
Two fucking chainsaws. Sure. Why not?
He watches, almost stunned as the blades start to come together, and he kicks off of the wall and flips, landing on his knees just out of reach as the wall collapses.
If they weren’t in danger, Claire would’ve found the display funny.
Show off. Might be his most unnecessary backflip to date.
Backing up, she hits something metal, and once she sees what it is, she turns to Ashley.
“Hide”, she says, pointing to the locker, and the younger girl almost looks like she wants to argue before she says “Okay!” and climbs in. Claire shuts the door behind her, then reaches for her submachine gun as the last of the wall falls to the ground.
Two women are standing on the other side, bright red chainsaws in hand (Claire doesn’t dwell on whether or not that’s a natural paint color). They have rattey bags over their heads, similar to the chainsaw-wielding man from the village, and they’re dressed in matching dresses, torn, dirty, and frayed with time.
Leon backs up until he’s standing next to Claire, watching as one of the women takes the crank and shoves it into the pocket of her apron. He huffs.
“Sorry, didn’t realize that was yours.”
One of them screeches at him before cranking her chainsaw again and lifting it over her head, coming straight for them.
Claire ducks just as the blades come down, splitting the workbench between them in half, sawdust stinging her eyes as she rights herself. The other woman shrieks, lunging at Leon, who barely gets a chance to reach for his knife and block the blade before it tears into him.
He struggles against the woman before purposefully faltering with his much smaller blade, before pushing off and sending her stumbling. It gives him just enough time to dodge the second blade. He rolls to the side and unstraps the shotgun from his back.
“I am flattered, but I’m a one-lady type of guy”, Leon snarks, before cocking his weapon and blasting one of the women.
Claire shoots her submachine gun at the knees of the other, her opponent falling to the ground as her knees shatter. She unloads the rest of the magazine into the head of the woman— overkill, maybe, but damn, she isn’t taking any chances with a chainsaw.
Leon reaches for the now-discarded crank on the dirt floor as the dust settles, Claire rapping her knuckles on the door of the locker. Ashley steps out, eyes wide as she takes in the bodies at their feet.
Claire squeezes her arm, and the young girl tears her eyes away, following the other woman as Leon steps over one of the bodies.
“Not my type”, he mutters, and Claire rolls her eyes.
The crank slots right into place once they back track to the reinforced door, noisy as Leon twists it. He glances back at Ashley.
“You’re doing good. I’m guessing this isn’t your first time running from creeps.”
For the first time that night, she actually smiles.
“I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a compliment.”
Claire helps Leon push open the door, the squeaking of the hinges deafening as it echoes through the compound.
She takes a moment to breathe when a strong hand grabs her shoulder. She’s about to ask Leon if he’s okay—
But Leon is standing in front of her, back turned.
Claire whips her head around and swears, eyes meeting those of the tall man in the trench coat. He’s glowering down at her, and doesn’t flinch when she reaches for her knife and stabs him in the arm.
“Leon!”
Her partner turns, confused, before he’s reaching for his handgun, shooting the man in the chest.
The bullets don’t do anything, just like the previous few times, and he just looks more pissed.
The man takes a step forward, arm raised, and backhands Claire, hard. What should be a rough slap ends up knocking her into the dirt, and she cries out.
“Shit!” Leon yells, starting to make his way over to her, but stops as he watches the man in the trench coat lock the reinforced door, sliding a wooden plank between the handles.
“Your soul requires cleansing”, he growls, turning back around just as Leon helps Claire stand.
“Come, child”, he says, now speaking to Ashley. The girl backs up, nearly tripping over her feet.
“Run!” Claire says, grabbing her arm and pulling her along, Leon right on their heels.
The three of them sprint up the path, made difficult by the loose stones that make it up, coupled with the uphill climb.
And villagers, infected with the plaga; it’s as if they were waiting for them, emerging from behind trees and rocks, almost all of them wielding knives.
Ashley screams when one of them growls.
“Don’t worry about them!” Leon shouts, nearly tripping over a loose stone in the path. He swears as he rights himself, scraping his fingers on the rough surface.
When they reach the bridge up ahead, Claire is nearly blown to pieces as it explodes, the two unfortunate villagers standing on top of it along with it.
“Fuck!”
Barely slowing down, Leon turns sharply around the corner, waving his companions over as he heads down the narrow side of the cliff. His partner turns on her heel, crying out as she earns a slash in her arm from a villager who’s caught up to her.
One more sharp turn, and they’re on a wooden support crossing the canyon, nearly falling apart with each step.
Halfway across, it breaks below Ashley, trapping her foot, stopping her and Leon as he kneels to help free her. Claire grabs her handgun and shoots villagers who start to get a little too close to them, falling into the canyon as bullets go through them.
“Leon!” she warns as the man in the trench coat lumbers closer to them, his face set and eyes focused solely on Ashley.
When Claire shoots another villager beginning to cross the support, he falls not into the canyon but back onto the brittle wood, splintering it and causing cracks to fork throughout the whole structure.
This time, the support does start to fall apart.
Leon notices when he finally frees Ashley, cursing.
“Oh, you gotta be kidding me”, he says with a groan, and they all break into a sprint one more time as the support crumbles behind them, falling far into the canyon; Claire leads the way, with Ashley and Leon bringing up the rear.
As the rest of the support falls, Leon has to jump the last few feet to avoid falling, landing on his stomach in the dirt, but they all make it just as the last of it breaks and disappears into the canyon.
Claire scrambles to her feet and meets the eyes of the man in the trench coat as he glares at them from the other side of the cliff.
“Yeah, fuck you!” she shouts, and Leon elbows her when he stands up.
They watch as he walks away before turning themselves, continuing on the wood that’s been staked into the ground, and not at risk of collapsing beneath them. Claire flips around, walking backwards and looking at Ashley.
“Listen; you’re the one he wants. We see him again, you run, got it?”
Ashley nods, but asks, “what about you guys?”
Claire looks at her partner.
“We do our job.”
They come upon an abandoned barn, part of the wall caved in but otherwise in okay condition. The stairs on the side that go up to the second story is missing a step.
Leading the way, Leon hops over the gap in the stairs, the two women behind them.
When they get inside, they’re met with the smell of rotting wood and tons of dry hay bales. The floor creaks under their weight.
Claire finally reholsters her handgun, biting back a hiss of pain as she looks down at her hand. She can see black veins below her skin, and she has a good idea that they’re from that parasite.
She’s about to say something to Leon when the wall to their right blasts apart, sending them both down to the first floor of the barn, splinters of wood falling over them.
Groaning, Claire looks up first at Ashley, who’s looking down at the agents with a terrified expression, gripping the railing. Then her eyes flit in front of her, and her breath hitches.
“Fuck.”
The man in the trench coat is standing in front of them, dusting off his shoulder and cracking his neck. He’s lost his hat, and honestly it makes him more imposing than before.
They both reach for their handguns, aimed at the man despite the poor results from their previous encounters.
The man speaks, discarding his trench coat and tossing it to the side.
“Cease your pointless struggling. Abandon your bodies to the will of our God.”
“You’re a pretty shit missionary, you know that?” Leon asks, backing up as the man begins to slowly step toward them. He stops in the middle of the barn, raising his arms.
“Oh, Almighty. Grant me the strength to crush your enemies.”
“Oh, son of a bitch”, Claire mutters, and the two of them split off to opposite sides of the barn, towards the back. She looks up at Ashley.
“Run!”
The girl nods and leaves the building, and Claire can just make out the stairs outside as Ashley runs down them.
Leon grunts, and she turns to look at him, grinning as she sees him haul a gas barrel with him, moving it onto its side. He kicks it so it rolls towards the man, and aims his handgun at it when it’s a decent distance away.
“Hasta Luego.”
Leon shoots the barrel, and it explodes, flames shooting everywhere and engulfing the man. Claire shields her eyes.
“Fuck, gimme a warning next time, rookie.”
He’s about to give her some witty comeback when the voice of the man can be heard again, clear as day.
“God, I thank you for your gift!”
“What—“
The agents curse as a figure emerges from the flames. Attached to a regular pair of legs is the body of a scorpion, the shell burnt from the fire. It gives way to the top part of the chest and head of the man, looking more than angry.
“Oh, good. You pissed him off!” Claire yells, holstering her handgun and reaching for her submachine gun.
Leon growls, and a wave of heat washes through Claire, not caused by the growing flames.
Again, damn her intrusive thoughts.
“You wanna get ugly? Let’s get ugly.”
They split off again, going up the two ladders on the opposite ends of the barn to get a bit of leverage. The man’s— monster’s— voice is booming in the small space.
“Behold! The miracle!”
Claire takes a look at his appearance again. Fucking gross.
Should’ve known he was one of those bugs.
She aims her submachine gun at him and unloads a magazine into his chest. It sends him stumbling, the regular human legs having trouble holding up the body of a monster, but he recovers quickly, aiming a swipe at her with his long arm, and she barely manages to duck out of the way to avoid being smacked.
Leon cocks his shotgun as Claire runs to his side of the barn, firing twice when the monster gets closer to him. He roars and falls to his knees, exposing a large eye on his back, sickly yellow with a red iris.
The agents meet each other’s eyes and Leon thinks quickly, unsheathing the knife and jumping on the thing’s back, plunging the blade into the eye. Claire has to hold back a gag as yellow fluid spills from the organ, but when her partner leaps off, the man-monster tells and stumbles back into the flames.
She doesn’t even have a chance to catch her breath when he re-emerges, legless but still very much alive, using its scorpion claws to hold itself up on the wooden beams of the barn that are still standing.
“Guess your tap dancing days are over!” Leon shouts as he takes in the half of body that the thing is missing.
Claire would roll her eyes if she wasn’t yelling in surprise as a flaming piece of wood is thrown at her, knocking her off her feet.
The barn is starting to become unbearably hot, the front half completely consumed by flames and the fire quickly spreading to every other surface.
When she stands next, she sees the monster holding another pair of flaming boards, and just has time to warn Leon before ducking again, hearing them splinter as they hit the wall behind her.
They take shots at it where they can, but it's too far away for their close-range guns to do much good.
It’s when the thing holds up two explosive barrels instead of planks that their luck finally turns around.
Praying to whatever god will listen (except whatever one the fucked up cult worships), Leon grabs his handguns and shoots one of the barrels. It explodes, causing a chain reaction with the other one, and with a final roar, the man-monster collapses into the flames, parts of the scorpion body still twitching.
He slowly crawls forward in a vain attempt to escape the fire.
“Lord… Saddler…” he croaks, claws scraping the wood, and then finally, he stops moving. The insect part of his body begins to shrivel. Leon kicks his head for good measure.
“Give my regards to your god.”
There’s a small burst of fire to the side of the barn as something shatters, and a moment later Ashley’s face appears through the smoke.
“Leon, Claire! Hurry, the place is coming down!”
She’s not wrong. What’s left of the roof is starting to fall to the ground in flaming chunks, and there’s not much of the barn left that hasn’t been consumed by the roaring blaze.
Claire grabs Leon’s hand and they run to the other side of the barn. She jumps out of the window, rolling on the ground, and Leon follows, back hit with an explosion as the roof finishes collapsing. He’s knocked a little further, and Ashley runs up to him, batting at the few flames on his shirt.
She grins at him, standing and holding out her hand.
“You’re welcome?”
Leon smiles and takes it, pulling himself up.
“Thanks.”
Claire straps her submachine to her belt and jerks her head in the direction of the barn.
“We better get going. The fire’s bound to catch their attention.”
The other two nod, and they’re off once again, thankfully not running or being chased by a crazed mob.
Ashley is silent for a moment.
“Uh… guys? I’m not… gonna turn into one of those things, right?”
Claire looks at the girl over her shoulder.
“We won’t let that happen. I promise.”
It seems to reassure her for the time being, and they walk through the cliffs, jagged rock on either side of them. The sky has almost completely cleared up, the moon illuminating their path.
Leon looks at the sky, taking in the stars.
For as shitty as this place is, it’s kind of beautiful. He never gets views like this back in the cities he’s often stationed in.
The group comes across a stone bridge, lit with lanterns that leads to a castle— probably the one that could be seen from the lake, if Claire has to guess.
It's massive now that they’re up close to it; large, imposing walls with towers that block out the sky. There are more lanterns and torches lit along the perimeter, and a wooden drawbridge crosses over the moat surrounding the castle.
Again, Leon finds it strangely beautiful.
“Whoa…” murmurs Ashley, eyes wide as she takes it in.
Leon leads the way across the drawbridge, and no sooner have they crossed it when it creaks behind them, and they turn, watching as it raises up, blocking anything from coming or going and casting them in shadow. Claire sighs.
“…at least we don’t have to worry about being followed.”
A torn flag flaps in the breeze as the three of them approach the iron gates of the castle, arched toward the top of the walls.
Leon frowns as they draw closer, the building looming over them.
He knows better than to assume they’ll be safe in here, instead bracing himself for whatever new horrors await.
Chapter 7
Summary:
HIIIII I’M SO SORRY THE UPDATE WAS DELAYED.
There is a lot happening in this chapter, and school has been kind of wild, so let me apologize for missing the update last week, and thank you all for your patience 😭
We’ve made it to the castle! I have a lot of fun things planned for this location, and definitely look forward to writing the next set of chapters; it’s my favorite section of RE4R.
Again, I am so sorry for the delayed chapter. I am gonna do my best to have the next one out within a week, but prepping for college is now in full swing, so I’ve got a lot going on. Plus, I’ll be 18 in a week, and that’s kind of stressful lmao.
Thank you all so much for your patience, leaving kudos, and commenting. Always makes me happy seeing those inbox notifs x
— Rose
Chapter Text
Claire nearly jumps out of her skin when her comm beeps, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet atmosphere outside the castle.
Instead of Hunnigan, she and Leon are met with a familiar accent.
“Hola, Luis here. You guys still around?”
Leon is the first to answer, flashing a smirk at Claire.
“Well, I wanted to go home, but Ashley just had to see this castle first.”
The girl in question snorts.
Luis comes back through after a short delay.
“Perfect, because I have a present I want to give you. Medicine that will help suppress the progress of your… problem.”
Leon and Claire exchange a look.
“Where do we go?” she asks, frowning as she looks up at the castle.
She can almost hear the Spanish man thinking on his end.
“Let’s see… oh! Come to the courtyard inside of the castle. We can meet up there. Ciao.”
He’s gone a minute later.
Leon turns to Ashley.
“Alright, Luis just said—“
“I got it”, she interrupts, nodding. “Guess we better get going then.”
Finally crossing below the iron gates, the initial courtyard leading into the rest of the castle is unimpressive, just some weeds peeking through gaps in the stone flooring, a narrow staircase to their left.
Leon catches a glimpse of purple fire on the right.
No way.
He pokes his head around the corner, and, yeah, there he is, waving at them.
“‘Ello, strangers!” the merchant greets, and honestly his voice is pretty comforting after what they just went through. Claire grins and waves back.
“You got anything new?” she asks, meeting his eyes (at least, what she thinks are his eyes. Can’t really see a whole lot beneath that hood).
He shakes his head.
“Nah, just some bits n’ bobs. You’ll be the first t’ know when I’ve got new wares.”
She bids him goodbye and Leon and Ashley follow her up the narrow steps to the side, up onto a ledge that overlooks the river running below the castle. Leon takes out his binoculars, focusing on the part of the castle on the other side of the chasm.
His eyes catch a flash of red and he frowns, handing the binoculars to Claire a moment later.
The same red-robed man who set that giant on their asses. His lantern is glowing, stark against the otherwise dim exterior of the castle.
Claire curses when she hands him back the piece of equipment.
“Shit. Courtyard must be through there, too. Things just keep getting better.”
Leon makes a show of reloading and cocking his shotgun.
“Then we’ll fight our way through.”
His partner smiles and rolls her eyes, leading the way up the second flight of stairs and up into the castle, through a narrow passage that Leon assumes is servants quarters.
It opens up into a hollow stone room, two pews awkwardly sitting in the middle, with the only light coming through an iron-barred gate, torches behind it flickering.
Claire swears and kneels behind one of the pews as movement catches her eye, and Leon pulls Ashley down as he follows suit, watching as several hooded figures walk past the bars, thankfully not spotting any of them.
After ensuring that they’re far enough, they walk around to the side room, creaking open the wooden door and stopping sharply behind a brittle screen when they hear shuffling.
Leon peers around the corner and sees another robed person standing over a bloody altar, dozens of candles lit and multiple books laid out. There’s incoherent scribbling on the walls, marked in red.
Slowly, Claire motions for Ashley to stay put and steps out from behind the barrier. As if on cue, the robed figure turns, murmurs something under their breath, and then their head literally explodes.
“What is that?!”
She focuses on not gagging as the head morphs into something else altogether. It’s akin to a slimy reptile, a scaly and plated neck that gives way into what must be a plaga. The mouth of it opens in four flaps, revealing rows of sharp teeth. Black sludge dribbles from the open mouth in the middle.
Claire grabs her handgun and shoots the thing, stumbling as it leaps not at her, but to the ceiling, latching itself into the stone with a grotesque sucking sound, inching its way towards her from above.
Leon reaches her side as it leaps down, and just as it looks like it’s going to take her head off, he shoves Claire to the side and plunges his knife into the mouth of the bug, dragging the blade down once it’s lodged in place. He’s sprayed with the black goo, and the insect shrieks and shrivels a moment later, the body of the host falling limp onto the floor.
He uses his hand to wipe his face off and groans.
“Jesus Christ”, he mutters, and turns to Ashley who’s just peeking out behind from the screen, eyes wide.
“I think I preferred those villagers”, she says quietly, carefully stepping around the body as she follows Leon and Claire out of the room.
The cut through another narrow hallway, turning the corner and out onto one of the bridges, cobblestone steps leading up to the walls of the castle.
“Oh fuck—“
Claire ducks just as a flaming arrow whizzes past her head, lodging in the flooring just behind her. She looks up in time to see a man wearing a helmet point in their direction and shout something, before an entourage of crossbow-wielding people reveal themselves, coming out from behind the tiers sticking up from the tower.
The three of them crouch down, using the stairs as a makeshift barrier as a barrage of arrows rain down, sticking into the ground in front of them.
Moving carefully and trying to stay out of sight, the group stays low, behind barrels or lower parts of the wall in an effort to avoid the rain of arrows coming down.
Eventually, they reach the steps that wrap around a high tower (not without Leon losing a scrap of fabric on his shirt from an arrow grazing him), hiding them from view for a moment and allowing them to catch their breath.
Ashley, for her part, is shaky, but stays close behind Claire, eyes set in front of her.
Leon just about rounds the corner as they reach the top of the steps when there’s a flash of light and a burst of heat as a fireball lands in front of them, scorching the stony exterior of the castle as it fizzles out. Ashley screams in surprise.
“No way. They have catapults?!”
“Guess this is their idea of a warm welcome!” Leon yells as another ball of flames bursts a few feet away.
The three of them sprint through the path beneath the high walls, the heat more than uncomfortable as embers rain down from above them. Claire can feel bits of her jacket being burnt through and grimaces as she receives small burns on her skin.
Thundering up another set of stairs, she focuses on something on the other end of the stone wall, pointing with a grin.
“Leon!”
He follows her finger and whoops, eyes setting on a cannon sitting dormant a little ways away.
It’s another weave through fireballs, Ashley covering her head as they run, but within a matter of minutes the three of them are behind the cannon, Leon stepping up on the pedestal while Claire grabs the shotgun off of his back, noticing some robed men quickly approaching them. They’re all armed with maces, and a few of them are wearing those metal helmets.
She blasts the zealots when they get close enough as Leon breaks the catapults, the explosions shaking the castle and shattering the turrets they sit atop.
For good measure, he destroys the large door on the other end of the wall, the wood splintering into large pieces and parts of it left smoking.
When the dust settles, the three of them stop to catch their breath, the air smoldering with the ruined parts of the castle.
“Wow”, Ashley says after a moment, breathless, staring at the smoking rubble.
“Wow”, Leon agrees, motioning for the women to follow him back over the wall. They climb up the pile that’s formed of stone and wood; Leon jumps down first and holds his arms out, planting his feet firmly beneath him. Ashley jumps, landing in his open arms, and grins.
“Thanks”, she says as he sets her down so she can stand.
Leon looks up at Claire and gives her a teasing smile.
“You want help too?”
The redhead snorts, and when her partner extends his arms again, realizing he’s serious, she jumps too, clutching his shirt collar and yelping as he catches her.
Claire looks up at him, panting slightly, face just inches from his. Leon stares into her eyes, lips parted as he takes her in, hands firmly hooked under her knees and at the small of her back.
Her eyes focus on a freckle just below his ear. On the short scar he’s sporting along the bridge of his nose.
Ashley clears her throat and the two of them blink before Leon sets Claire down, face red. The young girl grins when the latter looks at her.
“Come on”, Claire mutters, stepping through the room and pushing open the set of doors at the other end.
It puts them in a large hall, a red carpet in the middle of the stone floor, adorned with gold trimmings. A chandelier hangs above them, dozens of candles illuminating the cavernous room, with candelabras in each corner. There’s a set of marble doors in the middle of the wall below a staircase.
Stepping around a pillar, the trio gets about halfway through the hall before Leon catches movement out of the corner of his eye and instinctively reaches out to put his arm in front of Ashley as they stop.
“A most warm welcome to my castle”, a voice rings out, the owner of it making themselves known as they step into view.
A short man, who looks anywhere between eight and ninety, with gray hair, a purple ensemble, and horrifically bright makeup, red blush and lipstick highlighting his features.
The man looks at them with yellow eyes and an unsettling grin and continues.
“Such a pleasure to finally make your acquaintances, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Redfield.”
Claire frowns, raising an eyebrow.
“Who… the hell are you?”
The man laughs.
“Me? Oh, please, call me Ramón. Allow me to get to the point”, he says, voice echoing off the walls. Ashley shifts behind Leon, and Claire’s hand is hovering just over the holster holding her handgun.
“I would like you to hand the girl over to me. Now.”
Leon snorts.
“Yeah, fat chance, Ramón. The girl’s just fine. With us.”
Ashley smirks.
Ramón frowns, his wrinkled face contorting. Claire catches a glimpse of the red robed man from earlier, standing off to the side, his lantern offering a sinister backdrop.
“How… noble, Mr. Kennedy. Nonetheless, you see, the girl must be ours. With her as the very source, the United States… then the entire world will overflow with His grace; for that is the will of my master, the most holy Lord Saddler!”
He raises his arms, as he talks, a wide smile forming on his face.
“So then, you will comply, yes?” he crones, clapping his hands together.
Ashley steps forward, out from behind Leon.
“Never.”
Claire shrugs, fingers ghosting over the strap of her holster.
“You heard the lady.”
Ramón scowls.
“How unfortunate.”
He snaps his fingers, and the robed man taps his lantern on the floor three times.
On cue, a dozen or so zealots appear, a few of them bearing shields and morningstars. Ramón nods at the men.
“Do make sure our guests feel at home… now that they have chosen death.”
He leaves, the red robed man holding open one of the marble doors and following him inside a moment later, and then it’s the three of them, alone with the mob.
“Stay close”, Leon murmurs, taking his handgun and checking the chamber. Claire steadies her aim and shoots the one closest to them through the head.
One down. Eleven to go.
She learns quickly that the handgun is less than effective on the shields, the wood thick enough that it stops the bullets before they can lodge inside of its wielder.
“You got any grenades left?” Leon shouts over the gunfire, acutely aware of Ashley hiding behind his body like a shield of her own. Claire grunts as she ducks to avoid getting a mace to the skull.
“Two!” she yells back, and she tosses one of them to Leon, pin still attached. He catches it midair and clips it to his belt for the time being.
The shields prove to be a sizable obstacle, and the agents’ ammo is dwindling with each passing moment.
When there are eight zealots left, Leon pulls the pin of his grenade with his teeth and rolls it to where they’ve gathered, shielding his face as it explodes and covers him in gore.
“Oh— ugh, Leon—“
He assumes that Claire’s reaction means the same for her, and when he looks up, he watches her wipe blood off of her face.
Something about her covered in blood makes his stomach flip.
Okay. Weird turn on. But whatever.
He clears his throat as he stows away his firearm, jogging ahead and shoving his weight against the doors that Ramón disappeared through. They don’t budge, and he groans.
“Damn. We’ll have to go around.”
And with that, he leads the way off to the side, through one of the smaller doors and a narrow set of steps that descend down, down, down….
The air gets colder as the three of them make their way to their bottom and into what must be a dungeon. There’s bodies littered everywhere, one hanging from a door, another on what looks like a surgical bed, his stomach cut open. Ashley gasps when she gets a look at them.
There’s a locked cage door on the other end of the room with a steel ladder leading up and out. Maybe if Leon could pick the lock…
A roar sounds and chains rattle somewhere below them, and the young girl yelps.
“What was that?! Do they keep animals down here?”
“No idea”, Claire says uneasily, exchanging a look with Leon. Her partner reaches for his flashlight to illuminate the dark area, the light reflecting off of chains hanging from the ceiling. He turns to Ashley.
“Stay here. We’ll check out the area and come back to you once it’s safe, okay?”
Ashley nods.
“Okay. Be careful.”
She stays put as the agents round the corner into a narrow hallway, the wooden boards creaking beneath their feet with each step.
Claire moves in front of Leon as they cross through an open cell, a body slumped over against the far wall. She crouches down, examining the blood pattern across the face.
She shifts, and a key clatters onto the floor as the body is moved slightly. It’s small, an intricate design on the top, and Claire grins.
Must be the key to get out of here.
She stands and walks back towards her partner, who’s shining his flashlight a few feet away, and almost as soon as she’s by his side the wood splinters, and the two of them fall through the floor.
Leon groans as he lands on his side, flashlight falling out of his hand and landing a few feet away.
“Fuck”, Claire says through clenched teeth, and stops when chains rattle to their right. Leon looks at her with wide eyes and grasps blindly for the light, before shining it behind her and holding back a yell.
There’s someone chained to the wall, muzzle strapped over his head with a contraption that’s holding his mouth open, teeth bared. His muscles are probably about three times as large as they should be, and he’s wearing gloves with massive claws on the ends, the tips of which have dried blood caked onto them.
His eyes have been sewn shut sloppily, the stitches sticking out like a sore thumb.
Claire scrambles backwards, bumping into her partner, who catches her shoulder as they stare silently at the thing, trying to control their breathing.
“Can’t see us”, Leon whispers, and the man lunges forward, the chains holding him creaking against the wall as he growls.
Slowly, carefully, they both get themselves into a crouched position so they can creep forward, careful to duck beneath chains hanging from the ceiling, and stepping over puddles in the muddy floor.
Rounding the narrow corner, the agents get just to where the hall opens up into a larger room with a ladder that must lead back up, when the chains of the man snap behind them, and he roars.
“Oh fuck”, Claire breathes, and then they’re both sprinting, no longer worrying about being quiet and focused solely on getting the hell out of there.
“Claire, go!” Leon shouts, essentially dragging her along with him and making sure she gets up the ladder first.
She’s about halfway when the man runs into the room, roaring. He slashes a crate in front of him like it’s made of paper, and the planks fall apart like nothing.
When Leon grabs the ladder a moment later, it rattles, and he curses, skipping the first four rungs as the thing turns sharply and charges at him.
Reaching down from the top of the ladder, Claire grabs his hand and hauls him the rest of the way up, grunting with the effort. The claws of the monster slice the bottom half of the ladder, and miss Leon’s boot by an inch at most.
The man can’t reach them now, and they hear him lumbering around beneath them, roaring and slashing at things in a confused haze.
The agents sit back, panting.
“You alright?” Claire asks her partner, running a hand through her hair. Leon nods at her as they both stand a moment later.
“Fine. What the fuck are they keeping in this place?”
“Dunno. But we should get the hell out of here as soon as we can.”
Leon hums his agreement and they unlock one of the cell doors and step back into the main room of the dungeon. Ashley yelps as she turns.
“Ah!— oh, it’s you guys. What happened down there?”
“Nothing”, Claire answers, “but you were right about the animals.”
She tosses Leon the key, who unlocks the gate out of the dungeon, and the group make their way up two staircases and back to the main floor. When they reach the top, they’re behind the double doors from the grand hall.
“Easy peasy”, Leon mutters, tossing the dungeon key over his shoulder.
They’re greeted with another hall, more red carpeting covering the marble floor. The room feels too bright, especially after coming from a dark dungeon, the floors and walls the same glistening white.
It’s silent, until Ashley bends over and starts to cough violently, covering her mouth as her body shudders. Almost as soon as it starts, she stops. Claire puts her hand on her back.
“You okay?”
The young girl nods.
“I’m fine. Well, for now.”
Claire goes to say something else when a laugh comes through a golden speaker mounted on the wall, echoing off of the marble.
Ramón.
“Salutations, Mr. Kennedy, Miss Redfield”, he greets. Leon can hear the shit-eating smirk he’s wearing in his voice.
“Are you ready to hand over the girl?”
Claire rolls her eyes.
“Not this guy again.”
Ramón cackles.
“I’ve taken the liberty of preparing some… entertainment for you. Without further ado, the gallant knights protect the princess fair!”
The redhead raises her gun and shoots the speaker, silencing the voice coming through.
“Fuck that guy.”
Ashley snorts as Leon leads the wall through the hall and out into… another one.
But this one is different. It’s lined with fountains that are spewing black goo instead of water, gurgling with each weak splash of the sludge. Leon wrinkles his nose, and a flash of fire whizzes past his head barely a second later.
There’s an arrow sticking out of the wall just to his left, and now Leon sees them; zealots, stationed at each high point of the room, crossbows pointed at the three of them. There are some with shields in the middle of the room, and others with massive scythes.
“Oh, good. The entertainment”, Claire mutters, reaching behind her for her submachine gun. She reloads it and looks over her shoulder at Ashley.
“Stay close. These bastards aren’t touching you.”
“Okay. I trust you.”
Claire takes up the front with her submachine gun, able to shatter the shields being carried by some of the zealots, giving Leon the opportunity to shoot them between the eyes when their guard is down.
Ashley does good on staying behind the two of them, and proves useful by yelling out warnings if one of the agents turn their head at the wrong time.
Leon picks off the zealots with the crossbows, and eventually moves to just using his knife to conserve ammo once he’s back to close-quarters, grabbing the robes of those approaching and plunging his knife into their necks.
When it’s done, there’s bodies everywhere, and the two of them are covered in blood, but the room is clear.
And, most importantly, Ashley is safe.
Claire kneels to tear a piece of fabric off of the robes of one of the corpses, using the clean material to wipe her face off.
“I cannot fucking wait to take a shower after this”, she groans, throwing the bundle of cloth onto the floor when she’s done with it. Leon nods in agreement, shaking out his hands.
Ashley stays quiet, but Claire takes note of the blood splatter on her orange blazer.
“You okay?” she asks, reaching out and patting her shoulder. The blonde girl nods.
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
She gives Claire a weak smile, and Leon jerks his head towards the other end of the hall.
“Come on. Should be able to get out through there.”
Stepping over bodies, he leads the other two to the other end, stopping only to crank a wheel at the edge of a drop-off. The rest of the pathway raises itself from the water when Leon is finished.
Ashley gasps, smiling.
“Whoa. A secret pathway?”
Claire grins.
“Little over-the-top, don’t you think?”
Shoving open the door, they’re greeted with cool night air— Claire takes a deep breath, finally not inhaling dust or blood. It’s nice.
The hall opened into a small courtyard, neatly-trimmed bushes lining the stone walls of the castle, and there’s a fountain in the middle of the area— free of black sludge, this time.
It’s oddly peaceful, and the group stands there for a moment to take it in.
Until Ashley dissolves into another coughing fit, overcome with full-body shudders. She stops, and clutches her head, as if in pain. Claire turns sharply.
“Hey. You okay?”
Nothing else happens, and Ashley nods wearily.
“I think so. Uh…”
She collapses, and the redhead barely has enough time to catch her, stumbling a little with her dead weight.
“Ashley?”
The younger woman speaks again, but when she does, something is off about her voice. It’s hollow, almost, and more akin to a growl.
“Instead of worrying about her… worry about your own skin!”
She grabs the knife that Claire has tucked into her belt and shoves away from her, gripping the weapon tightly.
Ashley is wearing an unsettling grin, her eyes dark and the skin around them black and veiny.
“Foolish little lamb…”
She swings the knife, and Claire catches the blade with her hand, grunting as the metal slides through her skin.
“Claire!” Leon shouts, reaching out his hand, but Ashley pulls away before he can do anything and holds the blade up to her own throat, slowly backing away. Both agents stare at her tensely, wound up like springs.
“Temperance, children”, Ashley hisses, smiling at them as she steps further back.
A gate comes down from the ceiling, missing Leon by maybe two inches, and immediately Ashley’s face falls. She drops the knife, and looks around wildly, like she doesn’t know where she is.
She meets Claire’s eyes, tears welling up in them, and takes a few shuddering steps back.
And then she takes off in a sprint, away from the gate and Leon and Claire.
“Wait!” the latter shouts, reaching her bloodied hand out through the bars as the girl runs off. It’s no use, and after a few moments, they can’t even hear Ashley’s footsteps anymore.
Leon kicks one of the bars.
“Shit.”
He meets Claire’s eyes, and her gaze is steely; he wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually cutting through him.
“We need to go. Now.”
He nods, and follows after his partner as they sprint to the other side of the courtyard.
Chapter 8
Summary:
Hiiiii! We are HALFWAY through this fic! Wowowowow.
I had a blast writing this chapter; definitely my favorite so far (but not to spoil anything, chapter 9 will probably become the favorite, so get excited >:)).
In other news, I’m officially an adult! And it is no different from being 17! lmaoooo
ANYWAYS I will quit yapping so y’all can read :) thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to interact with my silly lil fic, it means the world to me 🩷
— Rose
(QUICK UPDATE WE HIT 2000 HITS THAT IS INSANE THANK YOU LOVELIES)
Chapter Text
“I’m alright, Leon.”
“Stop talking and let me do this.”
“We need to find Ashley—“
“Claire.”
They’ve taken a short break under one of the walls, Leon gingerly holding Claire’s hand while he wraps her palm in gauze with the other.
She hisses when he pulls the bandage a little too tight.
“Sorry, sorry…” he murmurs, stopping before she nods at him to keep going.
Claire studies his face as he tends to the gash on her hand. His eyes are narrowed, focus solely on the task at hand, and his tongue is between his teeth in what she assumes to be concentration.
It’s cute. Her heart skips a beat just knowing that someone cares for her enough to do something like this without question.
“Claire?”
She blinks, and realizes she’s been staring at him for a good 15 seconds in silence. Her face burns.
“Uh… sorry.”
“Don’t worry. You’re all set”, Leon says, taping the gauze in place. He trails his fingers down her hand, stopping when she hooks hers against his. He meets her eyes from below his lashes, and fuck there’s about a dozen different thoughts she has to push away.
Claire opens her mouth to say something before she’s interrupted by the comm in her ear beeping, and Hunnigan comes in a moment after.
“Condors One and Two— status report, please.”
Leon reaches up for his comm, back to all-business.
“Condor One to Roost— everything went to shit. We lost track of Baby Eagle.”
“What? Where is she?!”
Claire chimes in.
“We don’t know, but we’re looking. We’ll find her, we promise.”
“You better. You know how important this rescue is. Roost out— and be careful.”
Silence.
“Lead the way, rookie”, Claire says after a while, nodding at Leon, and the pair begin their walk back inside the castle.
They walk up the steps of an underpass, damp with water dripping through cracks in the stone ceiling, before they’re met with an open room that smells awful. Leon nearly gags.
“Jesus Christ….” Claire breathes.
There’s the remains of a plaga-infected zealot propped up against the wall, the top half of the body a gored insect, with what she thinks are teeth poking out of its abdomen. Three other bodies are slumped in a half-circle around it, and there’s candles lit along the walls.
“This is messed up”, Leon mutters as he spares a final glance at the scene, stepping away and down the hall that leads out of the room.
An open door greets them, two red lanterns that match the one that the man wearing the animal skull was carrying on either side. In the wine cellar to their right, there’s chanting, and when Claire peers her head around the corner, there’s a mass gathering of zealots, staring up at that same man.
“!Gloría a las plagas!”
With a flash of light, he bangs the staff of the lantern on the ground, and three heads erupt in the crowd, turning into the bugs with those mouth flaps and teeth. The creatures screech and chitter, thrashing wildly.
Another flash, and this time a loud ringing tears through Leon and Claire’s ears, making them stumble and two more heads explode.
It subsides barely a second later, and Leon nods to his partner, leading the way through the open doorway and away from the cellar.
“The guy with the lantern… he’s doing this?” Claire asks, still rubbing her temple. Leon shrugs.
“Guess so. Fuck, that’s nasty.”
They don’t dwell on how that could be them, if they don’t get these parasites removed soon.
It’s down another hall, and then they’re greeted with an oak door that leads into a rather nice room that’s full of display cases. The torches on the wall are lit, basking the space in a warm glow.
Shelves sit in the middle of the room, holding dusty artifacts that don’t look like they’re worth all that much. A few suits of armor sit against the walls, and there’s a paper press on the far right.
It’s almost nice, and is probably the most normal room they’ve been in in this damn place.
Handguns drawn as they clear each corner, Claire frowns when she sees that the window on the back wall is open, recently, too, if the creaking hinges have anything to say about it.
“Leon—“
“You can stop right there”, comes a voice from behind them, smooth and punctuated by delicate steps on the wood. Claire doesn’t recognize it, but judging by the look on Leon’s face, he does, and he doesn’t seem that pleased.
“Wouldn’t want me to make me use this, would you?” the woman asks, and Claire’s grip tightens on her gun when she hears the safety click off of a firearm she isn’t holding.
She turns sharply, weapon raised, to see Leon with a gun at his back, and a woman standing behind him, a small smirk on her face.
She’s dressed in tactical gear and a red sweater dress, hair dark and nearly covering one eye. She barely regards Claire as the redhead aims at her.
Leon slowly raises his hands and drops his handgun, the weapon clattering to the floor as he sighs.
“After six years, that’s one hell of a greeting… Ada.”
So this is Ada. The woman Leon mentioned after Raccoon, who both saved and endangered his life. Who manipulated him, used him.
Who should be dead.
Ada shrugs, nonchalant.
“You don’t seem surprised. Interesting.”
“Drop your gun”, Claire bites out, clicking off her own safety as she lets her finger rest just above the trigger. Leon meets her eyes and gives an imperceptible shake of his head, and she’s about to argue before he takes a careful step back and knocks Ada’s arm away.
“Claire!”
And his partner is by his side in an instant, gun holstered and knife in hand as Ada’s is knocked to the ground. The three of them share slashes at each other, the two agents with combat knives, ducking punches thrown at their heads. Leon catches Ada’s heel as she aims a kick to his head, and Claire takes the opportunity to grab the woman’s arm and pin it behind her back, holding her knife to her throat.
Leon doesn't sheath his knife, but holds it at his side as he gives Ada a look somewhere between amused and unimpressed.
“Try using knives next time. Better for close encounters.”
Claire can’t see the other woman’s face, but she guarantees that she’s smirking.
“Not a bad move. Very smooth.”
Claire bites back… jealousy? She swears this woman is flirting with Leon.
“Who are you working for this time?” he asks, adjusting the grip on his knife. Ada tuts at him.
“Oh, Leon. You know I don’t work and tell.”
Her voice is like dripping honey.
She’s definitely flirting with him. Claire presses the knife a little firmer against her throat. Ada raises her hand as if to wave her off.
“Easy, little Redfield. This isn’t going to get messy.”
She’s about to ask how she knows who she is, but Leon meets her eyes and nods. Sighing, Claire draws away her blade and stows it as the other two pick up their guns, reholstering them at their sides.
“You should leave the girl. She’s lost, no matter what”, Ada says, crossing her arms, and when the redhead turns back to her, she notices that she’s wearing heels that have to be at least four inches.
She glances at her boots a little self-consciously, the bottoms of which are caked in mud.
“You both walk away now”, she continues, “and who knows? Maybe… you’ll live to meet me again.”
Claire snorts as Leon’s frown deepens. Ada meets Leon’s gaze.
“Then I might give you that ‘greeting’ you’re looking for.”
Claire starts to stomp forward, but Leon catches her shoulder in a soft yet firm grasp. Ada looks amused.
“Careful. Don’t want your girlfriend to get off her leash.”
Leon doesn’t answer that, just shakes his head and says, “you seriously think we’re gonna give up that easy?”
Ada smiles, and reaches for something hooked to her belt; a grappling gun.
“Right. How about we continue this discussion another time?”
Leon lets go of Claire when the other woman shoots the gun, and she disappears out of the open window in the blink of an eye.
His partner growls.
“That bitch—“
“Hey, leave it. It’s fine, Claire”, he says quietly, but in truth, his blood is boiling a bit, too.
“She was the one who left you to die!” she spits, gesturing at the window like Ada is still there.
Her gut coils with jealousy again. She tries to push it away— Claire knows she doesn’t have that right, she and Leon aren’t even dating or anything— but the way that Ada was talking to him got under her skin.
Clearly, the other woman knew it did, too.
“Yeah, I was there when it happened”, Leon snaps, and then looks down, raising his hands apologetically.
“Sorry. Just… she was the last person I thought I’d run into here, especially on a night like this.”
They leave it there as they cross the room, tense as the two of them seemingly try their best (in vain) to act like they’re fine.
The room leads out into a hallway with shelves lining the walls, full of taxidermied animals. Claire bites back a shiver as she’s reminded of Iron’s office back in Raccoon.
The tension between her and Leon evaporates as a shadow scurries across stone the wall at the other end, and they both stop in their tracks.
“Oh, great”, Leon sighs, reaching for his shotgun.
They don’t even reach the archway at the end of the hall when a bug crawls towards them.
It’s an ugly, fleshy color, its legs jagged and as long as its body. It has what resembles a scorpion tail at the end, and if it has eyes, Leon can’t see them.
The plaga, in its pure form.
Fucking disgusting.
The bug scuttles towards them until Leon stops it with a shotgun shell, the force knocking the insect back onto the wooden floor as it dies. Its legs twitch even as the rest of the body stills.
Claire examines her arms.
“That’s… that’s what this parasite turns into?”
The discomfort in her voice is evident, and Leon glances at his hand, noticing that the veins have gone a black color that can be seen under his skin.
He clenches his fist.
“That’s not gonna happen to us, or Ashley, okay?” he says, but it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as Claire.
She nods anyway, and they finally cross through the archway at the end of the hallway and down a winding staircase.
At the bottom, they find their merchant friend, purple lantern illuminating the small room.
Claire sighs.
“Fuck, am I happy to see you”, she breathes, digging into one of her hip pouches for a small bag of coins. The merchant chuckles.
“Rough day, eh, strangers?” he asks, and Leon just nods, frowning as Claire slides a handful of coins across the table.
“You do handgun upgrades?”
The merchant nods and rummages around in his coat for a moment, before handing some small metal parts to Claire and stowing the coins away.
She assembles the gun and turns, aiming it at the wall and turning it slightly from side to side, before she reholsters it, satisfied.
“Oh yeah. That’ll do. Thanks.”
“Pleasant travels!” the man says, adjusting his bandana and waving them goodbye as they pass under the iron gate leading out of the room.
Claire and Leon find themselves on one of the outer walls of the castle, torches lit and the silhouettes of guards visible in the distance on the other side.
“Stay low”, she murmurs, crouching, and Leon follows, hand hovering over his gun strapped to the side.
And he is not focused on how good Claire’s ass looks from this angle.
Not at all.
“Hey. Eyes up, hotshot”, she says, snapping her fingers in his face, and he reddens when he realizes that she caught him staring. He just catches a smirk on her face before she turns back around and continues to slowly creep forward under the wall.
An arrow misses his head by two inches, prompting him and Claire to look up.
“Shit. Company”, he breathes, reloading his handgun and pointing it upward.
He has a hard time reaching the archers on the turret above them, but Claire’s new handgun mod helps her shoot with ease, the improved scope allowing her to take down each robed attacker with relative accuracy. It’s not long before each figure has disappeared from sight.
Leon stows his gun and whistles.
“Goddam. Save some for the rest of us”, he teases, nudging her side. His partner snorts, waving him to follow as she crosses the small drawbridge that leads into the turret that was previously occupied.
Climbing to the top, it gives them a good view of the wall; it isn’t too heavily armed, and the zealots that are stationed on the opposite towers have their backs to them. Not a bad spot to be, all things considered.
The two of them keep making their way across the wall, taking out a few snipers who catch sight of them quickly. When they reach the next tower, they get close to the top again before something hisses behind them. Leon swears when he looks down the winding steps.
Another plaga.
It isn’t hard to kill, but it’s a cruel reminder of what they could be dealing with if they can’t find a cure for these parasites.
And it’s gross. Claire swallows hard to avoid retching when it’s dead, black guts splattered on the wall behind the body.
As they leave the second turret, Leon grins when he sees the end of the wall that leads back into the castle. Just one more iron gate, and then it’s back inside; back to whatever fresh hell is still lurking in the shadows.
A giant crawls up from the middle wall, roaring.
The agents stop in their tracks, and Claire reaches behind her for the submachine gun.
The giant is armored, a broken helmet atop its head that exposes its yellowed teeth. Broken spears poke out from beneath the plates on its shoulders, and large claw marks cross the front of the breastplate.
Claire fires off a few rounds, but they just bounce off of the armor.
“Fuck. Bullets won’t do shit”, she mutters, yelping when the giant crushes part of the wall in front of it and throws the broken pieces at them. They barely have time to duck before rubble crashes over them, smaller chunks raining down on them.
“These guys are really starting to become a giant pain in the ass”, Leon growls, peering back over the wall and firing a few handgun bullets feebly.
Claire’s about to snort at the giant pun when she gets hit in the back with a piece of stone, stumbling.
“Oh, this fucker wants to die, then”, she groans, standing up straight and fumbling for her hip pouch, removing an herb and tearing off the leaves with her teeth.
She and Leon sprint down the length of the wall before disappearing inside of another tower just as another giant-handful of stone is lobbed at them. Her partner leads the way up the spiraling steps, and whoops.
“Cannon!” he yells, pointing as if Claire can’t see it. She unhooks a few grenades from her belt and nods at him.
“I’ll keep this fucker distracted. Don’t shoot until you get a clear shot, okay?”
“I gotcha”, he says, cracking his knuckles and fiddling with the back of the machine.
Claire runs to the front of the turret, waving the arm not holding a bunch of grenades into the air.
“Hey, ugly! Look at me!” she yells at the giant, who roars at her and breaks off a section of the wall to throw at her. She tosses a grenade, which explodes just before it hits the giant, but that’s fine by her; whatever keeps it focused on her, and not Leon.
She goes through another two grenades before he yells at her to fall back, and she does eagerly, ducking and going into a slide when more stones are thrown at her, ripping up the knees of her jeans and scraping up her skin.
Leon grabs the handles of the cannon and turns it, the rusty hinges requiring more effort to get it to move, but he gets a clear shot just as another barrage of rocks is being prepared by the giant.
He fires, and the cannonball goes right through the giant’s eye, blood spurting as the creature falls back with a pained shriek, reaching out for the wall but slipping, and disappearing beneath the stone.
Leon sighs, running a hand through his hair and taking a few deep breaths.
“Adiós, you son of a bitch.”
After a moment, and a string of expletives from Claire, they descend the turret and finally cross the rest of the wall and onto the open drawbridge that goes back into the castle.
Until the giant rears its ugly head a final time and takes off half of the bridge while Leon is still on it, sending him tumbling into Claire with enough force that it shoved them both through the entrance into the castle; helpful, but its nails catch on them, slicing open part of Leon’s shirt and the calf of Claire’s jeans. She lands on top of him, and they watch as the giant falls down the rest of the side of the stone walls, howling as it goes.
When it goes silent, Claire looks at her partner, finding his face much closer than she anticipated. It’s like the moment by the bridge in the village when all this shit started; her heart catches in her throat and she swears that his breath hitches.
She has to bite back a shiver when Leon’s hand reaches up to brush her hair out of her face, which lingers to cup her face. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, tongue flicking out to wet his lips, making her gaze drop to them.
With what seems like a large amount of effort, Leon drops his hand away and shifts on the stone floor, giving Claire her cue to stand. She holds out her hand and hauls him up to his feet, fingers clasped around his forearm.
They hold each other's gazes for another minute too long before Claire inhales sharply as a short bolt of pain courses through her hand. Leon looks down just as quickly, biting his lip when he takes in the sight of the black veins visible beneath her skin.
“We have to go”, he says quietly, looking back up at her, and Claire nods, swallowing in an effort to keep herself calm.
She follows behind him around a corner and through another torch-lit hall, before they walk onto the balcony of a courtyard. The railings are made of polished marble, the occasional vase of flowers set up against it.
The courtyard is full of small towers and hedges that are organized to look a lot like maze, to Leon’s dismay. He hopes that can be avoided altogether.
They stop in their tracks when they approach an oak door.
There’s sniffling coming from behind it, and the following hiccup sounds a lot like Ashley.
Hurriedly, Claire opens the door, and thank fuck, there she is, sitting on a couch on the other end of the room, her shoulders shaking.
“Ashley!” she yells, Leon behind her, and the girl looks terrified when they reach her, scrambling to the other side of the couch, tears running down her face.
“St-stay back!” she says through a sob. “I mi… might hurt you again…”
She looks down at her hand, veins matching Claire’s, and hiccups again.
“I’m so— so scared… I wasn’t myself… I-I was something else.”
Leon steps forward, arm extended like he’s talking to a scared animal.
“That must’ve been terrifying— I know. I know”, he adds when Ashley scoots further away from her. He grunts as his arm spasms, catching Ashley’s eyes, which widen when she sees the evidence of his infection.
“Yo… you too?” she asks quietly, staring up at him. Leon nods.
“Claire too. It’s… it’s okay to be afraid, you know”, he adds, kneeling in front of her while Claire cautiously sits on the couch at her side.
“But you can’t run”, he murmurs. “You gotta keep moving forward.”
“We’re gonna beat this”, Claire chimes in, reaching over and squeezing the girl’s hand. “Together.”
Ashley meets her eyes and wipes her tears with the hand not holding tightly to Claire’s.
I-I don’t know if I can”, she whispers, tracing a finger over the gauze on the redhead’s palm.
“You can”, she interjects, smiling at her. “Just… gimme a heads up before you stab me next time, okay?”
That gets the younger girl to laugh, looking at Claire and then back down at Leon.
“I… thank you. Both of you. I’m glad you’re the ones they sent to save me.”
Ashley leans over to rest her head on Claire’s shoulder, and the three of them sit in a peaceful silence, a nice moment of reprieve from all the hell that’s been thrown at them.
And Leon thinks, for the first time that night, that they’re actually going to be okay. All of them.
Chapter 9
Summary:
HIIIIIII I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LONG DELAY. Writer’s block is a bitch 😭
ANYWAY I am so thankful for your patience!! I am praying updates will be more frequent.
ALSO you may have noticed that the rating and tags have changed… sorry not sorry >:)
I hope this chapter is worth the wait! It isn’t very long, I fear, but i hope you enjoy nonetheless.
Thank you all so much for your patience and for reading, I truly appreciate it.
— Rose
Chapter Text
He’s starting to wonder when he should just say ‘to hell with it’ and kiss Claire.
It’s all Leon can think about at this moment, kneeling in front of the couch that she and Ashley sit on, the two of them leaning against one another with their eyes closed.
He’s wanted to for, what, four years? He doesn’t remember exactly when he realized he had a thing for her, but it didn’t matter; he’d spent one too many nights drinking while his mind was full of thoughts with her. Spent one too many nights feeling alone, wishing she were beside him in bed and keeping him warm.
Spent one too many nights touching himself when she was on his mind, gasping her name as he came, and swearing he could hear her if he focused hard enough.
“Leon?”
His eyes refocus on Claire when she speaks, her arm slung loosely around Ashley’s shoulders.
“Let’s… let’s take a break, yeah? We’re all exhausted, and I think Ashley deserves some rest after all this.”
He bites his lip and considers this for a moment. On one hand, he knows they should keep moving; he isn’t sure how much longer the helicopter Hunnigan is sending will be delayed by the weather, but on the other hand, he is pretty fuckin’ tired.
Leon yawns, and decides that the second thought wins. He stands and stretches, rolling out his shoulders.
“Okay. We can’t for too long, though. I’ll keep watch outside, make sure nothing happens.”
His partner shifts to stand and smiles, nodding.
“I’ll meet you out there in a second”, she murmurs, and he hums his affirmation, turning to exit the room.
She and Ashley watch as Leon leaves, and the younger girl slowly lays down on the couch, curling herself into a ball as Claire takes off her jacket and lays it over the girl like a blanket.
She looks up at her sleepily.
“He likes you, you know”, she murmurs, a smile on her face. Claire returns the facial expression, speaking quietly.
“Is that so?” she asks, and Ashley hums, before she falls silent, closing her eyes.
The sight of her tucked beneath her jacket reminds her of Sherry, and a pang of sadness builds in her chest. She’d be almost eighteen by now.
Wherever she is.
Claire sits on the floor in front of her and waits for her breathing to deepen before she leaves the room, finding Leon sitting against the stone wall of the castle, eyes shut and head tilted towards the sky. She shuts the door softly behind her and slides down next to him, sighing at the feeling of the cool surface on her back. He opens his eyes to look at his partner.
“She’s okay?”
Claire nods. “Out like a light. We’ll wake her in an hour.”
Leon leans back, head knocking lightly against the wall. His eyes linger on her now bare arms, straying over the bruises and the dark veins that are visible beneath her skin.
“Good. We could use this break”, he says softly, and the weariness of his voice is more prominent than it’s been all night.
They sit in silence for a moment, enjoying each other’s company, before Claire speaks, turning her head to look at him.
“You okay? We haven’t had a chance to breathe since… well, since we fucking got here”, she says quietly. Leon smiles, closing his eyes again.
“Stitches in my side while fighting bioweapons? Cake walk”, he murmurs, and Claire snorts, though worry clouds her features. She reaches over when he mentions the stitches, curling her fingers into his shirt. Leon jolts in surprise, but, after realizing what she’s doing, relaxes.
She lifts his shirt about halfway up his torso, biting her lip as she lifts the gauze. The stitches are definitely not anything to write home about, but he isn’t bleeding through the bandages and seems like he’ll be okay.
His breath catches slightly as her knuckles run across his abdomen when she pulls his shirt back down.
Claire closes her own eyes, enjoying the sound of the wind rustling the leaves of the trees around the courtyard, before she frowns to herself, thinking of something. She inhales.
“Sorry for… losing my shit a little with Ada.”
Leon raises his hand slightly and shakes his head.
“Don’t be. You at least had the gall to say what I was thinking out loud.”
Claire smiles softly, then sighs, looking at the stars. It’s gorgeous, the night sky, and almost doesn’t feel right being viewed from a dingy courtyard in a murder castle.
“I just didn’t like the way she was talking to you”, she murmurs, and Leon smirks, opening his eyes to look at her.
“What, you jealous, Red?” he teases, and when she hesitates, eyes flitting to the ground, he sits up straighter.
“Shit. Were you?”
Claire doesn’t look at him, picking at a loose thread on the knee of her jeans.
“You’re… my best friend”, she says simply, and Leon’s heart sinks a little.
Before he can stop himself, he asks, “is that all?”
She does look at him this time, eyes glistening. Her fingers clench into a fist at her side.
“What?”
Leon swallows, hard, letting his eyes drift to her lips.
“Is… is that all?” he asks again, more quietly. He doesn’t miss that she shifts a little closer to him.
“…no. It’s not”, she breathes after a long pause. “It hasn’t been for years.”
He turns his body so he’s facing her a little more directly, and focuses on the blue of her eyes in an attempt to stop himself from getting hard.
“Years”, he echoes, and she gives him a nearly imperceptible nod.
Claire leans closer to him, her breath ghosting over his cheek, and he cups her face gingerly in the same way he did earlier. She holds his wrist, keeping his hand where it is.
Do it, he thinks. Now’s as good a time as any.
Slowly, slowly, Leon lowers his head and moves the last few inches to kiss her, quick and chaste. He pulls back, but gets maybe a centimeter or two before Claire yanks him back to her lips, kissing him properly and tilting her head to the side to deepen it. His other hand comes up to tangle in her hair, holding her close enough that neither one of them can quite breathe.
But breathing is overrated, he thinks, when Claire sighs into his mouth, slipping her tongue past the seam of his lips. She clutches the collar of his shirt, and Leon has never been kissed with such want.
This is nothing like the few random hook-ups he’s had over the last few years. Nothing like when Ada kissed him in that cable car in Raccoon.
He’s almost emotional with the way that Claire kisses him gently, slowly exploring his mouth as if she had been able to think about nothing else besides tasting him.
She tugs on his bottom lip with her teeth and he moans, making them break away, staring into each other’s eyes and heaving for air.
Claire is nearly on top of him, one of her knees jammed between his legs. When she shifts, she accidentally presses against his groin, and he gasps, the sound desperate. It goes straight to her cunt and her eyes darken with lust. His grip tightens on her waist.
“This is a terrible idea”, Claire whispers, and Leon hums his agreement, but the fire in his eyes doesn’t go down. If anything, it becomes a blaze.
“And we’re still gonna do it anyway?”
“Fuck yeah.”
She’s not sure if she crawls onto him or if he pulls her, but either way she ends up in his lap, her knees against the stone flooring of the castle as she straddles him, both hands burying themselves in his hair. Leon grasps at her hips as he crushes his mouth to hers, teeth clashing before their lips come together.
She laughs against him, tugging his hair to tilt his head up so she doesn’t have to bend down as far. Leon slides his tongue into her mouth, finding her lips already parted for him.
Leon moans again, and Claire rocks forward involuntarily, and oh, he’s getting hard, a whine in his throat as she rubs herself slowly over his clothed length.
She knows they shouldn’t be doing this. They need to keep a lookout for Ashley.
But then Leon rucks up her tank top and palms one of her breasts through her sports bra, and she forgets about that.
He teases her nipple through the fabric, making her head fall back with a soft groan, her hips rolling forward again. He tugs at the bud with his pointer and middle fingers, and when Claire whimpers, he yanks the bra over her chest, exposing her for him.
The cool air is a bit of a shock, but it’s gone almost instantly, as Leon’s mouth closes around her breast a second later, licking and nipping at her sensitive skin like a starved man. He squeezes her other breast, and draws a moan out of her when his teeth graze her nipple.
Claire can feel the heat pooling between her legs, grinding against his thigh in a desperate attempt for some friction, panting into the side of his head as Leon continues his ministrations on her chest. Her hips buck, clit rubbing against the denim of her pants, and she tips her head back, lips parted.
“Leon—“ Claire manages, and he only responds in a low growl.
“Touch yourself.”
And damn, she doesn’t need to be told twice.
She yanks him up and kisses him roughly as her hand slides between them, undoing her jeans and slipping her fingers below the waistband of her panties. She groans, fuck, she’s wet, her hips rocking forward on their own accord. Leon moans into her mouth as she grinds against his erection.
Her fingers move between her folds, one sliding inside of herself easily, and she gasps as Leon sucks a mark into the junction where her shoulder meets her neck. Claire adds a second finger, raising and lowering herself with a little difficulty as she drives them both down to the knuckle.
She hooks her fingers and moans into his shoulder, riding her digits as best she can with the constraint of her jeans, thumbing at her clit in the same pace she’s moving her hips. She vaguely registers Leon bucking up to meet her movements.
And it’s lovely, it is, but she knows they’re on a time crunch. Plus, she’s pretty sure she’s going to go insane if she doesn’t have Leon inside of her, like, now.
Claire removes her hand from her pants and reaches for his belt feverishly, only to find Leon’s hands already unbuckling it, fingers working to get it undone just enough for him to free his cock from his cargo pants.
She raises herself onto her knees to fumble with the waistband of her jeans, pulling them down just enough for her to rock her hips forward and take half of Leon in one slide.
“Jesus— fuck, Claire—“
His head hits the stone wall behind them, eyebrows tilted and his mouth hanging open as her heat envelops him. Leon has to bite his lip hard to avoid coming on the spot when she sinks down the rest of the way, their hips meeting.
She cups his face and presses her forehead to his, both of them breathing heavily before she starts to move, slowly rocking herself back and forth on him, and Leon whines, clutching at her hips like an anchor.
Claire rides him quickly, sloppily, panting and muffling her cries into the crook of his neck. His hands drift from her waist to her thighs, holding her flush against him and thrusting his hips up to meet hers roughly.
It’s quick and dirty and not nearly romantic enough for her liking, but everything between them is real.
“Le—on…” she groans, whimpering as she feels her stomach already start to tighten. His hand slips between them to press against her clit, and she doubles over his shoulder, moaning.
“Fuck, I— Leon—!”
Claire comes suddenly, tugging on his hair, and buries her face in his shoulder before she shudders violently, stilling on top of him and gasping his name. Leon’s hands are pressed flat against her back, nails digging into her skin.
“Claire—“
He chokes on her name, teeth sinking into his lower lip as he fights to stay quiet. Another whine escapes him when he feels her clench around him and he bucks up roughly into her one last time, coming hard before collapsing back against the wall.
They stay that way for a while, heaving for air and holding tightly to one another. Claire slowly lifts herself off of him, the two groaning when they’re separated. She’s vaguely aware of the slick dripping down her thighs.
She sits back on his legs as she tugs her sports bra and tank top back down over her chest, raising up on her knees to fix her jeans back into place, and watches as Leon reaches for his belt.
They have just enough time before the hour is up to collect themselves, to smooth out hair and clothing and act like they didn’t just fuck against a wall. Leon helps Claire stand, legs shakier than he cares to admit, and with one final kiss, they break apart and re-enter the room.
Ashley is, thankfully for their sake, still asleep.
The redhead kneels down in front of the couch, a soft smile on her face, and shakes the younger girl gently.
“Ashley? We have to go.”
She stirs, blinking, before she sits up, stretching her arms and rubbing her eyes
When she looks up at Claire, and her brow furrows as the agent slips her jacket back on.
“Are you feeling okay? You look flushed.”
Leon coughs loudly on the other side of the room.
Claire smiles.
“Fine. Just feeling rundown.”
Ashley nods and stands to follow her and Leon out of the room, and the three descend the marble stairs down into the courtyard with the maze.
The comms in the agents’ ears go off, and the two of them exchange a look, reaching up to answer it. Ashley gives them a confused look.
Claire recognizes the call number and looks around wildly.
“Luis? Where are you?”
The man sounds out of breath, like he’s been running, when he comes through.
“Sorry, I uh… I screwed up. Come to my rescue, charming knights!”
Leon groans.
“I’ll show you charming, pal.”
Luis laughs. “Come on. I’m in the ballroom just past the courtyard. Don’t be late to the dance!”
He disconnects, and Leon rolls his eyes.
“This fuckin’ guy.”
Claire snorts.
“Come on. Like he said, don’t wanna be late.”
Ashley giggles and Leon groans.
Luckily for him, the maze is mostly just a large decoration, and the path leading back up into the castle is a straight shot, the stone going up to the stairs illuminated by just two lanterns, leaving the rest of the surrounding area covered in shadows.
One of the bushes to their right rustles, but he chooses not to think about it, instead motioning for the two women to hurry as he runs up the adjacent stairs, shouldering open the wooden double doors at the top.
He breathes a sigh as the warmth of the castle meets his skin once they’ve all made it inside; a much nicer feeling than the cold air outside.
When they step through the hall, Ashley gasps.
“Wow…”
The foyer they’ve found themselves in is massive, the floors, walls, and ceiling all a blinding marble with golden accents. Portraits hang on some of the walls, and up the stairs, in the center of the second story, is a statue of a three-headed beast, two of which are missing.
Leon swears that the eyes of the only remaining head, a lion, are following him wherever he moves. He shudders, following the other two deeper into the hall as they take in their surroundings.
Claire turns in a circle, taking in the hall and the stairs that lead to the second story.
“If this place didn’t suck so much, this would be cool as hell”, she muses. Ashley nods, and her eyes are sparkling.
“I dreamed of being a princess when I was little”, she said quietly, and that gets Claire to smile.
The group make their way to one of the doors on the second floor, pushing it open and finding themselves in a hall that leads into what appears to be an arena. It dips into the floor, the top of the walls lit with torches emitting a blue light. There’s two matching statues at the bottom, and on the other side is another sculpture, bearing a goat’s head. It’s a gold color, contrasting with the marble of the body.
Suits of armor line the walls, swords in hand as they stand straight up.
Leon turns to his partner.
“How much you wanna bet that goes to the other statue?”
Claire grins, crouching down before jumping off the ledge and into the arena, Leon right behind her. They both look up at Ashley, and the former speaks.
“Stay up there! We’ll be back in a second.”
The young girl nods, as wide as she stares up at the ceiling, examining the intricate stained glass above her.
Walking closer to the sculpture in the arena, Leon kneels down and inspects the sides of the animal’s head, seeing where it’s connected to the rest of the stone and how to efficiently remove it.
His partner crouches down next to him, and they exchange a glance, before sitting in silence for a moment.
Claire swallows hard, and leans in slightly closer to Leon.
“Hey, we’re… cool, right?”
He looks down at her, furrowing a brow.
“What? Yeah, of course. Is there a reason we shouldn’t be?”
His partner flits her gaze over to Ashley, who’s still blissfully distracted just above them.
“Leon, we… we crossed a pretty big fuckin’ line. That line. I just wanna know if… if you…”
“If that meant anything?”
Claire nods, chewing her lower lip, and Leon lets out a breathless laugh.
“Fuck, Claire, that’s all I’ve wanted for, like, ever. Of course it meant something.”
His face falls after a moment.
“Er— are you asking because it didn’t mean anything to you, or—“
“No!” Claire exclaims, reaching out and grabbing his hand. She clears her throat.
“No, no. The feeling is definitely mutual. I just… hoped it would’ve been a little more romantic than against a cold wall in a shady castle”, she adds, smirking.
Leon takes on a shit-eating grin, and leans down so he’s murmuring in her ear, and her face flushes at how close he is, despite the fact that they had sex not twenty minutes ago.
“As soon as we’re home, I’m taking you to a hotel room and doing everything we didn’t have time for”, he says, and Claire has to bite back a shiver.
“You guys okay?”
They both look up when Ashley speaks, smiling softly at them. Leon grins at her, playing innocent.
“All good. Just figuring out how to grab this damn thing.”
He spots a small gap on either side of the head, between it and the stone of the sculpture, and motions for Claire to grab the other side as he hooks his fingers below the space.
With a little difficulty, they lift it from where it’s situated, and no sooner has it detached from the statue, one of the suits of armor moves.
Claire notices first, as it’s behind Leon, and she swears, dropping her side of the goat head and making Leon stumble.
“What are you—“
She grabs her handgun and shoots at the armor, enough for Leon to set down the head and spin on his heel to see what she’s shooting at, watching as the two bullets she fired ricochet off of the metal.
“Oh, goddammit.”
Ashley shrieks when she catches sight of the walking suits, and Claire looks up at her.
“Don’t move!”
Leon joins the redhead in firing shots at the armor with the same amount of luck that she had earlier, each bullet only bouncing off of the metal plating as the armor stumbles closer to them.
Something snakes out from beneath the breastplate, and he realizes that these things are inhabited with plaga.
“Claire! You see it?”
That grabs her attention, and her eyes catch it just a moment later.
“Oh, come on. I’d rather these things just be sentient.”
As the armor gets closer, the sword it’s holding raises high above its helmet, coming up so quickly that the red plume sticking up is sliced in half, the feathers falling to the floor.
It gets up to Leon, who’s barely able to roll out of the way before the blade comes down, and it actually puts a dent in the stone beneath it.
The two of them have started to get backed into a corner when there’s a flash, and suddenly the suit stops, frozen in place, with the sword halfway raised.
Claire looks up and sees Ashley, leaning over the side where one of the blue torches were, grinning incredulously.
“I didn’t know that would work!”
Leon takes the opportunity and digs his fingers beneath the helmet, tearing it off and exposing the plaga below. Claire shoots it in the eye, and it shrivels up with a shriek, each piece of the metal plating clattering to the floor.
They don’t have time to breathe, because two of the other suits push off of the walls, and they’re back on the defensive again.
It’s not a bad system, all things considered; Ashley runs to each torch lining the arena and drops it down, stunning each suit and allowing one of the agents to tear off a piece and get to the bugs hiding beneath. Claire has a close call when one of the swords fall a little too close to her head, missing her by inches and only because Leon yanked her out of the way.
Eventually, they’re surrounded by piles of discarded armor, black goop, and bits of flesh from the plaga, but there isn’t a suit of armor left standing.
Ashley crouches by the ledge, scrambling close to the end on her knees.
“Are you guys okay?”
Leon laughs to himself.
“Yeah! Nighty-night, knights.”
Claire groans, and is reminded that, yeah, this really is the man she’s in love with.
Leon approaches the ledge where Ashley is crouched and holds out his arms, and the girl doesn’t hesitate, dropping down and grinning as he catches her and sets her on her feet.
Claire smiles. Only been a few hours and she’s come a long way from the timid girl they first encountered.
She helps Leon haul the golden goat head up, and the three of them slowly get out of the arena. The hallway loops around, spitting them back in the main hall, and the head slides onto the statue like a puzzle piece.
Across the way is another door, revealing an ornate dining room, and another gold animal head, this time of a snake, behind a cage.
Claire is able to figure out what to do quickly, thank god, pointing out the portraits of a king and a queen hung on the wall with different dinner plates set up in front of them. Leon takes a seat closest to the wall at a plate full of food, and Ashley sits at a bare one.
They each ring a bell next to their silverware, and the cage clicks, then lowers into the base, exposing the head and leaving it theirs for the taking.
Ashley actually seems like she’s in a good mood as she leads the way back to the main hall, the agents just behind her with the golden head. Her steps are a little bouncier and Claire can just make out the tune she’s humming, though she doesn’t recognize it.
Carefully, she and Leon lower the snake head onto the remaining empty slots on the sculpture, and the door just to the left of the foyer slides open.
The blonde girl grins and starts to walk in the direction of the new area, just as the door leading in from the courtyard bursts open, five-or-so angry zealots growling and making themselves known, maces in hand.
Leon reaches for his handgun and curses.
“Shit. Ashley, run!”
“No! What about you!”
“Claire and I—“
He’s cut off when a large golden cage drops from the ceiling, trapping him and his partner and separating them from Ashley. The redhead rattles the bars to no avail.
“Go!” Leon yells, and after a brief moment of pause, Ashley takes off through the door that’s just opened.
The cage, shockingly, works to Leon and Claire’s advantages, getting them a clear shot of the approaching zealots without being in danger of getting grappled by their weapons.
When their prison is surrounded by bodies, Claire stows away her gun and shuffles to the door of the cage, kicking at the lock.
“Stupid fucking—“
Leon comes up behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder.
“Claire.”
She turns and meets his eyes, frustrated tears welling up in her own.
“What fucking good are we if we can’t even keep Ashley in our sight?” she spits, clenching her hands into fists. Leon looks down, and grips her fingers.
He doesn’t have an answer for her, because she’s right. This is twice now since they’ve found Ashley that she’s gotten away from them, and now they can’t even go find where she is.
Claire kicks the bars of the cage again and cries.
***
Ashley Graham is ready to go home now, thank you very much.
She’s sprinting through a narrow hall with four zealots on her tail, yelling at her. One of them throws an axe and she shrieks when it lodges into the wall just beside her.
She wrenches open a door and slams it shut, locking it and shoving a dresser in front of it for good measure. It rattles on the doorframe, but nobody is getting in.
Ashley falls to her knees, heaving for air, clutching at the carpet.
She’s so scared. Why did this happen to her? She didn’t do anything.
She thinks about Leon and Claire. They need her, maybe as much as she needs them. She needs to figure out a way to get them out of that cage.
Ashley stands and wipes her eyes, sniffing, and surveys the room she’s in now, full of bookshelves, but at the other end is another door, one she assumes will lead her away from the danger, at least for a little while.
She won’t run. Not anymore.
“Wait for me”, she murmurs to herself, before running to the other door.
Chapter 10
Summary:
THIS CHAPTER IS REALLY SHORT I’M SOOOOORRY
Guys I am graduating high school in 3 days so there is nothing happening up in my brain.
I also can’t promise that updates will be quicker when summer starts :( I have a lot to do to prep for college, BUT the plan is still to have this fic done by the end of August at the latest.
Again, shorter chapter, mostly because we’re just following Ashley, but I thank you all so much for your patience on updates. Things will definitely be picking up in the story going forward as we enter chapters 11-16.
ALSO WE HIT 3000+ HITS?? That is INSANE. Thank you!!
Thank you all so, so much for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos. I thank you all again for your patience! x
— Rose
Chapter Text
She hates this.
Wow, does Ashley hate this.
Why can’t being brave be easy? Just once?
She has a lantern held out in front of her, one she found on a stone pedestal that mysteriously opened another door for her to step through. The secret passage gimmick was starting to get a little old.
She tenses at any shadow that moves as she creeps down a hallway, no windows to be found, with dust floating everywhere.
Ashley walks past taxidermied heads of various animals, and just when she finally reaches the end of the corridor, one of them— a deer— falls off of the wall and crashes to the floor in front of her, making her yelp.
“Ah—! Oh, don’t scare me like that”, she huffs, stepping over the animal and through the door.
She’s in a library, with lots of winding shelves that seemed to be placed in an almost nonsensical pattern, creating a labyrinth in the open room. A few of the shelves have tipped against one another, books and discarded papers littering the floor.
There’s more suits of armor spaced around the room— two, from what she can tell, and she gulps, grip tightening on the lantern she’s holding. God, she hopes they don’t move.
Ashley stops and doubles over, a coughing fit wracking her body, and she nearly drops her light source. She stays that way for a moment, hacking up a lung, before spitting out blood on the old carpet. When she moves to wipe her mouth, she barely holds back a scream.
She has scales forming on the back of her hand, nearly the same color as her own skin. That, combined with the black veins that are visible, makes her want to vomit.
She’s becoming more and more like those bugs.
She doesn’t want to be one. Doesn’t want to turn into one of those horrific things.
She needs to get Leon and Claire out of that cage, fast. They need to get home.
With a shaky breath and what feels like a lot of effort, Ashley puts one foot in front of the other and heads deeper into the library, carefully shuffling between shelves and stepping over fallen books. Some are caked in dust; clearly, this place hasn’t been used in a while.
Lantern held in front of her, she finds an elevator at the end of the library, which, miraculously, hums to life when she presses the button to the side.
Something clatters behind her, and she jumps, but when she turns around, she doesn’t see anything. Creepy.
Ashley steps through the doors, the ride shaky as it ascends, and just as she takes a moment to breathe, the world falls apart.
Not really. But it might as well have.
The elevator screeches to a stop, making her tumble into the wall as the lights shut off, and she screams, clutching the lantern like a lifeline. When nothing happens for a minute, she sighs, and blinks back tears as she looks around.
What is she supposed to do now?
Huffing, annoyed, Ashley sets down her light source and slips her fingers between the crack of the two elevator doors, prying them open and sliding them to the side. She climbs out, ducking her head to avoid hitting the edge of the wall, and finds herself in a smaller, more well-lit room.
A clock is against one wall, ticking softly, with more bookshelves stacked on the one opposite. There’s an indent in the wall in front of her, shaped like a shield, with a more intricate pattern etched into the middle. Next to it is a golden gate, and through the bars…
Ashley gasps, running to the other end and grabbing one of the bars.
“Leon! Claire!” she yells down, seeing the two of them from a higher view. Leon is sitting against the golden bars while Claire paces, wringing her hands, and they both look up at her voice. The former stands, grinning.
“Ashley! Are you okay?”
“Yeah! Hang on, I’ll figure something out!”
She pushes off of the bars and looks around for something, anything, to get them out.
The clock next to her chimes, catching her attention. She furrows her brow when she sees that it’s struck 11:04, and gasps softly as the clock slides open, revealing a passage leading into a set of stairs. Ashley grins and heads down, lantern in hand.
She’ll get them. It’ll be okay.
There’s another elevator at the bottom of the steps, and she pushes the button in, waiting as it whirs to life.
There’s another clanking behind her, like in the library, and she turns, shrieking when she sets eyes on it.
Another suit of armor is stumbling towards her, sword raised above its head. Parts of the plaga can be seen from between the cracks in the plates, almost resembling intestines. Black goo splatters the ground as it stalks towards her.
Ashley frantically pushes the elevator button, willing it to come faster as the heavy metal steps get closer to her.
“Come on, come on…”
The doors slide open with a ding, and she all but throws herself inside, watching as the doors close just as the sword comes down, clanging off of the elevator.
She sits against the wall and catches her breath as the elevator descends, watching the wall move past her.
That’s it. She’s done with armor.
When the elevator reaches the bottom and the doors open again, she stands, clutching her lantern like a guard.
Ashley sighs loudly as she steps through, stopping in her tracks as she takes in the hall, lined with my suits of armor.
Didn’t she just say she was done?
Carefully, she walks through the room, her boots clicking off of the tiled floor as she nervously looks around, mindful of any movement.
She’s about halfway when she hears the telltale clank of armor, and is barely missed by another sword as she picks up the pace, breaking into a sprint.
God, this sucks.
Nearly tripping over herself, Ashley makes it to the end of the hall by the skin of her teeth, yelping as a blade clatters against the tile where she stood just a moment ago.
She turns around, watching as each of the suits stop in their tracks, the blue lanterns on the walls halting the plaga-armor where they stand, freezing them in place. Ashley takes a breath, exhaling sharply, before turning around and continuing into the next room, where she’s met with there pedestals and a small cage in the middle. A crest that matches the indent in the wall upstairs is on a table within it.
And, of course, more armor, because apparently the universe hates her.
Two of the three stone pedestals have lanterns placed on top of them already, so she approaches the only empty one and sets down her own lantern, grinning as something clicks and the cage swings open.
She picks up the crest, and her grin disappears immediately as the lanterns go out, one by one, leaving each suit of armor vulnerable to move.
“No, no, no…!”
Ashley holds the crest to her chest tightly as she runs out of the room, catching glimpses of the suits coming to life as she rushes past, tears stinging her eyes.
She skitters to a halt in front of the clump of frozen suits in the next hall over, nearly plowing into one before she stops. Panicking, she glances from the group to the other plaga-armor behind her, slowly making their way towards her, and steels herself, crouching down.
She’s brave, she’s brave, she’s brave.
Slowly, carefully, Ashley crawls across the tile, weaving between the legs of the suits and ducking below swords that have been stuck midair. She sucks in sharp, deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself as she goes, clutching the crest like a vice.
She emerges from between the armored legs of the suits just a moment later, but isn’t given a chance to breathe; the hall she came in from is still dark, and the plaga-suits are still very much alive.
They must catch her moving slowly, because she’s barely started to creep forward when two of them turn in her direction, lumbering towards her, and then she’s back in another run, panting as she rushes across the room and screaming as a sword comes down just behind her, tearing off a small piece of fabric on her skirt.
She thunders up the steps and slams on the button of the elevator, turning her back to the door as it comes back down to her level, watching with bated breath as the armored suits grow closer.
Adhley’s just about accepted her fate when she falls through the elevator doors as it dings open, and she scrambles against the floor to push the ‘up’ button. The door shuts just as the first plaga-suit reaches the top of the steps.
She collapses against the wall with a cry, trembling as she holds the crest tightly to her chest with both hands.
God, she never wants to do that again.
The elevator stops and the doors open, but she stays on the floor for a moment longer, catching her breath and working to calm herself down. A few minutes go by before Ashley stands shakily, leaning against the wall.
With a second wind, knowing that she’s this close to getting Leon and Claire out of that cage, she races up the steps, dodging another sentient suit of armor as she goes, before she makes it back to that small room through the clock-door.
Slotting it into place, something clicks, and then the gate opens in front of Ashley, sliding up into the ceiling. She grins, rushing out onto the balcony that overlooks the cage. The agents hear her footsteps and grin, Leon standing when he sees her.
“Ashley! Are you okay?”
“Yeah! Hold on, let me see what I can do to get you out!”
She looks around the balcony for a moment before she sees a key on the ground, beneath the slumped-over body of a zealot. Grimacing, she kneels and shoves the body out of the way before grabbing the key and raising it above her head.
“Try this!”
She tosses it down and Claire catches it, moving to the door of the gate while Leon looks up at the blonde girl.
“Can you make it down? I can catch you.”
She leans over the railing and judges the drop, nodding after a moment. She trusts him to make sure she doesn’t hit the ground.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
She hoists herself up and starts to climb over, swinging one of her legs across the marble.
Claire grins as the cage door clicks open, but no sooner is she ready to celebrate her small victory, then Ashley is lifted into the air by the man in the red robe with the animal skull atop his head. She shrieks, and Leon and Claire both withdraw their handguns.
“Shit!”
“Claire! Leo—“
She doesn’t get his name out before the man presses two fingers to her temple, and then she passes out as if a switch flipped. Ashley goes limp in his arms, and he turns to leave, completely silent.
Leon fires two bullets into his back, but he doesn’t even react. Then he’s gone, almost as quickly as he appeared, taking Ashley with him.
Claire wrenches open the cage door as Leon holsters his weapon.
“Goddammit.”
***
Ada Wong thinks this is a complete waste of time.
She had one goal, one reason why she was here; the Amber.
And now it’s been all fucked up, because Leon and the younger Redfield are here, in Spain, of all places.
She wasn’t supposed to see them again. They, especially Leon, should’ve thought that she was dead.
She’s on top of one of the towers overlooking the castle walls, frowning as her radio goes off.
When she clicks it on, her employer speaks, all monotonous and straight to business.
“What’s become of the Amber?”
Ada sighs.
“Sorry, nothing yet. But, my little… helpers are creating quite the commotion.”
Her eyes fall on a zealot below the wall, slumped over and in a pool of its own blood. At least the other two have significantly decreased the danger of this mission for her.
“Don’t worry. Everything will work out just fine.”
Her employer huffs, clearly annoyed.
“As long as you can keep your animals under control.”
Ada smirks, eyes flitting up to the stars for a moment.
“They’re good dogs. Predictable.”
“Fine. Keep your mutts. Just don’t come crying to me if you get bit.”
The agent rolls her eyes as the employer disconnects, and clips her radio back to her belt.
She swears he’s the most pretentious person she’s worked for to date, which is saying a lot.
Movement on the other side of the wall catches her eye, and she notes a robed figure with that blonde girl slumped over his shoulder, walking down one of the hallways.
Weighing her options for a moment, Ada bites her lip and removes the radio again.
She has one more call to make.
Chapter 11: — UPDATE — (addressing delays and such)
Summary:
HI IM SO SO SORRY NO UPDATE TODAY D:
Just wanted to get y’all updated on some stuff in my life that is causing delays on this fic.
First and foremost, I graduated! Y’all are looking at a 2024 high school alum 🤩
All of my time has been spent moving, otherwise. It’s been super stressful, and we just finished the third and final day of packing. I really haven’t had any time to write, because the last few days have been wake up, pack, sleep.
Starting tomorrow, I should finally be able to start writing the next chapter, and then hopefully that update will be out by this coming Sunday. No promises, but I am gonna do my best to update by the end of this week.
Again, so so sorry that there wasn’t a chapter today, I just wanna keep you all in the loop.
OH ALSO, we are on the cusp of 4000 hits! That is absolutely insane. Thank you all so much for reading 🩷
Lots of love,
Rose
Chapter Text
thanks my friends :)
Chapter 12
Summary:
HI HI HI NEW CHAPTER!!
AGH my friends, thank you so much for your patience! Life has been absolutely wild the last few weeks. I moved, graduated, and finished getting situated for college. I’m officially an admitted student, and am so excited for August!
Also, I went to go see The Fall Guy ten times. Great movie. Highly recommend lmao
Anyway, i hope the wait for a new update is worth it! We have a beefy chapter ahead— I forgot just how much happens in this section of the game. We’re back with Leon and Claire, once again trying to rescue Ashley.
Minor content warning for vomit; it happens in the beginning half of this chapter, just so y’all know :)
(also they fuck again in this one. sorry not sorry)
All of that said, thank you so so so much for your patience on this update, and for your support on this fic. Having reached over 4000 hits is more than i ever expected, and I am beyond grateful.
As always, thank you so much for reading, and leaving kudos and comments x
— Rose
Chapter Text
Claire and Leon’s radios beep as soon as the former puts away her handgun, and she swears that the anger burning in her eyes could melt the metal of the bars when she hears who’s on the other end.
“Leon”, comes Ada’s voice through the static, “changed your mind yet?”
The two agents exchange a look, Claire rolling her eyes, before her partner clicks his comm on.
“Ada?”
“Assuming you haven’t, I’ve got a tip for you”, she continues. Claire frowns, assuming she’s nearby with how clearly her voice is coming in.
“Seems like something big is about to go down in the throne room. Babysitting’s tough, mm?”
Leon can hear the sarcasm dripping from her voice as she speaks, and his frown deepens. Before he can come up with some kind of retort, she’s gone.
“Ada? Ada! …perfect”, he mutters, kicking one of the metal bars in frustration. Claire scowls.
“Throne room. Helpful”, she says coldly, and Leon nods, leading the way out of the cage and into the hall.
There’s a large door at the end of the way, ornate and lined with golden trim. When he shoves it open, it leads into an outdoor space, marble pillars supporting a low roof. The air is cool against his arms.
They nearly reach the next hall over when Claire screams, and Leon turns suddenly, catching her as she tumbles into him.
He holds back a gag when two giant bugs fly into view. They’re nothing like the plaga scurrying around the castle; bright green eyes, a nasty brown color, massive claws and wings. They chirp to each other, before one takes flight again and the other scuttles towards them.
“Jesus—“
Leon withdraws his shotgun and fires two shots, one bullet cutting through one of the bug’s heads while the other clips the one flying’s body. The bug on the ground stills while the other falls, chittering in a pained way.
Not wanting to waste bullets, Leon takes his knife out of its sheath and stabs the bug that’s still alive through the neck, the unnatural green of its eyes dimming as it stops struggling.
He hasn’t even strapped his shotgun back in place when the insect fucking explodes, covering his hand in gore that emanates a nasty smell.
Retching, he shakes his hand off and holds back the bile welling up in his throat, sheathing his weapons back in place. Leon turns and stands, looking at his partner, who’s standing there with her mouth slightly agape, handgun pointed at the floor. She meets his eyes a moment later.
“Fuck. That.”
Her partner shudders. He’s never minded bugs all that much, but after all of this? He’s seen enough for three lifetimes, at least.
Claire leads the way into the next hall, cringing as the rusty hinges on the massive doors protest as they’re moved, and they both stop in their tracks as soon as they’ve stepped through the threshold.
The hall has been destroyed, pillars and parts of staircases having fallen down and shattered onto the tile. A massive rift splits the cavernous room in half, and all around them, in cocoons and buzzing in the air—
Those bugs. Everywhere. Leon tries to count them to size up the situation but gives up when he reaches a dozen in only a few seconds.
“God, I’m gonna be sick”, Claire mutters, removing her submachine gun from the back of her belt and checking the chamber. Leon hums his agreement and cocks his shotgun.
“How do you wanna do this, Red?” he asks. “You go left, I go right? Meet at the other end of the hall?”
“Sounds good. Try to keep up, rookie.” Leon grins, and cocks his shotgun, before they both take off in opposite directions.
He doesn’t keep up, if he’s being honest, but then again, Claire seems to be having a shit time, too.
Leon can get about three of the bugs down at one time with a single shotgun pelt, but another five replace them as soon as they go down. He can hear his partner repeatedly firing off shots with her submachine gun, and catches more bugs falling out of the corner of his eye.
What makes everything worse is the fact that the insects explode whenever they’re killed, and soon he’s resisting the urge to vomit as he’s covered in guts.
“Shit!”
He turns on his heel to see Claire on the other end of the hall, wrestling one of the bugs that’s landed on top of her, gritting her teeth as she holds it back from chomping at her.
He nearly says ‘fuck it’ and throws a grenade at her when she shoves a flash bang into the bug’s mouth, shoving it off of her and covering her eyes as it bites down and goes off. The bug doesn’t die, but the grenade subsequently stuns it and the other insects surrounding it.
Claire meets Leon’s eyes, nods, and throws one more flash grenade before the two of them book it to the open gate at the other end. The redhead fires her gun at the chains holding it up, breaking them and sending the iron bars crashing down just as the first few bugs make a dash for them, having come out of their dazed state.
Panting, the two agents lay on the pathway outside as they catch their breath, both weapons loosely grasped in their hands.
There’s a speaker somewhere, because Ramón comes through the courtyard, voice echoing a moment later.
“Ah, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Redfield. You aren’t much for knights, are you?”
He laughs.
“I must say, your princess is quite the spirited one. She gave us a considerable amount of trouble!”
Ramón cackles, and the redhead flips off the sky, like the voice is able to see her, and groans.
When Leon sits up, Claire follows shortly after, wiping bug guts off of her face.
“You alright?”
She goes to answer, opens her mouth, before looking at the hand covered in bug entrails. She furrows her brow and ducks to the side facing away from him, then gags and vomits a moment later. Leon winces, and is just thinking about putting a hand on her shoulder when she leans back and wipes her mouth.
She gives him what’s maybe the most unconvincing thumbs up known to man.
“Never better.”
He snorts, strapping his shotgun to his back as he stands, and holds out a hand for her. She takes it, balancing herself against him until she’s no longer shaky, before running a hand through her sweat-soaked hair.
“Have I mentioned I can’t wait to shower?”
Leon laughs softly, a hand still precariously resting on her waist.
“That makes two of us. God, I haven’t felt this gross since… ever, maybe.”
Claire lets out a whistle as they walk down the stone steps to the next hall over. “Damn. Even compared to Raccoon’s sewers?”
Her partner shudders dramatically. “Come on, Redfield. Don’t remind me of such a terrible time in my life.”
Grinning, she punches him lightly in the shoulder, earning her a snicker, and the two of them reach what could almost be a reception hall, were it not for being in the middle of a castle.
Or the two men chained to the wall, muzzles and massive claws, exactly like the one from the dungeons.
The two stop in their tracks, suddenly afraid to even breathe in fear that they’ll be heard and sliced into ribbons.
Leon meets Claire’s eyes and nods at her once before they slowly start to move forward, careful to step over any cracked floorboards. The men are chained on either side of the door that leads into what the agents pray is the throne room, both grunting to each other like they have their own language.
And maybe they did, Claire thinks. Wouldn’t be the craziest thing they’ve seen in this damn place by a long shot.
She watches with wide eyes as Leon nearly trips over a vase halfway through the room, and they both stop again as it wobbles slightly before settling back on the floor. One of the chained men turns his head sharply in the direction of the noise, but when nothing else happens a moment later, he relaxes. Leon exhales softly.
Honestly, it’s all going just fine, until they reach the throne room doors. The agents sneak right by the men, holding their breath as they go, and then the doors creak open, loudly echoing through the hall.
“Fuck me”, Claire mutters, just as the two men roar, thrashing against the wall. She ducks down just before one slices her head clean off, and then the large men both tear their chains out of the wall, growling with their massive claws extended.
Leon swears loudly, which draws the attention of their adversaries, and he dives out of the way, making one of the men run head first into one of the walls, his helmet clanging off of the stone and briefly stunning him. The agent takes the opportunity to haul Claire to her feet and basically drag her through the door, shoving open the heavy metal and slamming it behind them, before they both throw their weight against the door in fear that it might burst open.
They can hear banging coming from the other side, but it holds.
Even if it didn’t, Claire’s off of the door in an instant with a gasp, drawing her handgun, and Leon hears why before he sees it.
“No! No!”
“Ashley!”
The girl is being held down by two zealots, struggling against them feebly. Her jacket is in tatters to the side, and there’s a pattern painted on her face with blood; like an inverted plaga.
Leon recalls the same symbol that was drawn onto the deer’s face in the woods, right when all this started.
He and Claire thunder up the steps leading to the middle of the throne room, and Ashley’s eyes widen, before she frantically shakes her head.
“No! No, Leon, Claire, don’t come any closer!”
They can see now that the space has been transformed into some kind of altar, a massive, gaping hole in the middle of the room, with Ashley balanced just near the edge. The lighting is red, bathing the room in a sinister glow, and torches are set up in a circle.
“Are you hurt?” Claire asks, gun trained on one of the zealots, her finger hovering just above the trigger. She hardly gets the words out before Ashley screams “watch out!”, and then the agents are knocked to the floor, restrained by the man underneath the red robe who had kidnapped her earlier. They can only growl and struggle to get free under his weight, their guns knocked out of their hands. Ashley cries out, begging for them to be released, tears running down her face.
“Please, do continue”, comes a voice from over her shoulder, and though his vision is partially covered by his hair, Leon can just make out the figure.
Ramón.
“Piece of shit!” Claire bites out, gritting her teeth as the robed man twists her arm in response.
They watch helplessly as a third zealot approaches Ashley, goblet in hand, while the girl continues to cry, trying to pull away from the two others restraining her. Ramón simply sits there on the throne, wine glass in hand.
“Do not resist, my dear. It serves only to make your suffering all the worse.”
“No… please-- please let me go!”
The zealot with the goblet reaches the blonde girl, and another forcibly holds open her mouth, before a thick, black liquid falls over the rim. Ashley chokes, gasping, most of it running down her front.
Leon jerks in an attempt to get up, but the man holding him and Claire down slices a cut across his face with a clawed finger. Blood drips down the bridge of his nose.
“You sick f--”
Ashley is released and collapses, gagging on whatever she was just forced to drink, clutching at her stomach as she coughs and shakes violently.
The black veins on her forearms grow significantly more visible, spreading over her body and up her neck. Scales form on her shoulders and the sides of her throat.
Leon and Claire are lifted into the air by their necks, the two kicking their feet and choking as the robed man brings them to the center of the room, dangling them over the pit.
Ramón finishes off his wine and stands from the throne, hands clasped behind his back.
“Aquí nos despedimos, señor Kennedy y señorita Redfield.”
And with that, the robed man throws them into the chasm, Ashley’s distraught cries echoing down as they fall.
“Shit!”
There’s a chain dangling into the pit, rushing by as the two pick up speed. Leon frantically reaches for Claire before grabbing onto the chain, scraping up his hand badly in the process, parts of the metal dug firmly into his skin. Claire clings to him for dear life, arms wrapped around his waist.
He grunts, partially from the pain, partially from her dead weight, struggling to keep them up as he looks down.
The silver lining to this shitshow is that there’s water beneath them. Shallow, by the looks of it, but it isn’t too far of a drop from where they are.
Claire notices too and squeezes her hands around him once to let him know she understands, before Leon lets go of the chain and sends them falling down the rest of the short distance and landing with a splash.
The two of them groan as the water soaks through their clothes, and, honestly, every part of Claire’s body aches. Her goddam hair hurts. Leon hisses as the cold water seeps into his torn-up hand, stinging the open skin.
Heaving, they lay in the water for a moment as they gasp for breath, before Claire stumbles to her feet and hauls Leon up, both of them leaning on each other for support.
“This day literally cannot get any worse”, the blonde agent mutters, his arm slung loosely over Claire’s waist as the trudge through the water.
The path ahead gets narrow, enough so that they can no longer walk side by side; Leon leads the way through the tight space, shoving the body of a zealot out of the way who had been impaled on a stalagmite.
Claire frowns. “Damn. Talk about sticking the landing.”
They squeeze their way through before retrieving their flashlights, illuminating the damp cavern they’ve found themselves in. Chains like the one Leon grabbed hang from the lower ceilings, and water drips somewhere, echoing off of the walls.
At least it’s as creepy as the rest of the castle.
As they wade through the water, stone walls come into view, considerably run down, but matching those of the castle above ground. Claire prays it’s a good sign.
Leon leads the way up the crumbling steps off to the side, and just when Claire reaches the top right behind him, she’s knocked onto her stomach, the wind knocked out of her lungs.
“Leo—“
There’s a bug on top of her, holding her down with its legs and chittering, snapping its pincers way too close to her ear. Her partner turns and swears loudly, unsheathing his knife and stabbing the insect through the eye.
He hauls the limp body off of Claire and stamps on it as she stands shakily, shielding his face as the carcass explodes.
Fuck, she could cry. She’s tired, she’s filthy, and she’s sick of bugs of any kind. What she would give to be curled up in a warm bed with Leon right now, back in the United States.
“Are you okay?” he asks, pulling her forward and behind one of the stone walls, lest another bug try to sneak up on them. Claire shakes her head.
“Hell no. But Ashley needs us. We have to hurry, find a way back above ground”, she says.
She’s grown very fond of the girl, maybe because she sees Sherry in her, but honestly, she’s sick of the mission. She’s sick of all of it. She’s sick of having to put on a brave face and pretend like everything is fine.
Leon reaches out to gingerly cup her face, bending to press a quick kiss to the top of her head. She squeezes his other hand in return.
“I’m sorry”, he whispers, apologizing for what, she doesn’t know, before he turns to walk further into the small area they’ve found themselves in.
It looks like a dead end until Leon takes note of the wall to his left, hastily constructed with loose stones.
“Hey”, he says to get his partner’s attention, who had been studying one of the medallions hanging from the ceiling. She turns, watching as Leon plants his feet, adjusts his body, and kicks in the brittle wall, the stones crumbling to the ground and leaving a narrow opening, big enough for them to get through.
Claire whistles.
“Alright, hotshot. Nice one.”
He winks at her and squeezes his way through the opening, holding out his hand to her. She grasps his forearm and lets him help her through the crevice, tripping slightly over the discarded stone but righting herself quickly.
There’s a ladder in the corner of the room, hidden in the shadows, and not nearly tall enough to get them back up to the surface. Instead, they find themselves in a cavern on a metal platform, something that is far too industrial compared to the rest of the castle.
Claire and Leon are barely a few steps across when they both let out pained gasps and stumble, catching themselves on the railing as their vision blurs and everything gets too bright.
Like the visions of the robed man, just much shorter; it’s over as soon as it happens, and Leon groans, clutching his head.
“Give me a break.”
The platform descends into another cavern, this one resembling a sewer more than anything, with dim lanterns spaced out over the low ceiling.
Cobwebs are everywhere, the two having to brush them out of their faces as they walk through the tunnel, the puddles of water rippling with each step. Clearly, the place has been out of commission for a while.
A lone metal door is what greets them at the end, again, way too modern-looking compared to the medieval interior of the castle above ground. Leon frowns.
It takes the effort of both of them to wrench the door open, throwing their weight against the rusted metal as it cringes open.
“What the…” Claire mutters once they’re inside, clicking on her flashlight. She can only describe the next hallway they’re in as a long, winding factory of sorts. The floor is made out of a wire grid, the walls stone. There are gaping holes every few feet, and she assumes that they were once used as drains.
Leon turns on his light in a futile attempt to brighten the space more, chewing on his lip as his eyes flick from the floor, to the ceiling, to the walls. Old lights are overhead, and wires hang down from a few of them, casting eerie shadows each time their flashlights go over them.
The hall is blocked off by iron bars, but an open door is around the corner, basically falling off of the doorframe. Claire leads the way inside the side room, handgun raised with her light as she clears it, before nodding to her partner to follow.
A large generator sits in the middle of the room, and when Leon pulls the handle, there’s a loud whirring before the lights overhead flick on, and the elevator at the other end of the room hums to life.
His eyes linger on the indicator just above it that shows which floor it’s at, and he groans; the elevator is at the very top, and moving at a snail’s pace downward.
He doesn’t have time to dwell further because something clatters just outside the room they’re in, and both agents turn sharply, shoulders tense.
And nothing happens.
Well, so Leon thinks, before Claire turns to look at him, her eyes widening.
“Oh fuck— Leon, get down!”
He listens before he really knows what’s happening, and feels his hair ruffle as something slices down right where his head was a moment ago. When he looks up, it’s gone.
Claire, meanwhile, has grabbed her submachine gun, looking around wildly, scanning the wired floor.
“Something's in here with us”, she breathes, and just as Leon reaches for his shotgun, he’s knocked off his feet, smacking his head on the floor and grunting.
“Come on—“
His words die in his throat when one of the ceiling vents crashes to the floor, and another abomination lands just a few feet in front of him and Claire.
Whatever it is, it’s tall, maybe eight or nine feet. Its body looks like it’s made out of a pure black vertebrae, with a long tail sporting a spike on the end. Massive claws adorn its long fingers.
It might’ve been a person, once, if the vaguely humanoid head is any indication, but the lower half of the skull has been replaced by pincers, and the eyes of the creature are a sickly yellow.
It shrieks at them, and they both duck down as it swings its tail at them.
“What the fuck is that?” Claire yells, firing off a few bullets. The ones that don’t hit it in the head bounce off of the armored body.
Leon doesn’t answer— can’t answer— because he’s rolling out of the way and firing off a shotgun shell.
He looks up at the elevator’s indicator— it’s only halfway.
The sound of bullets echo throughout the small room for a good few minutes, and it’s clear by the time that they’re both down a magazine that this thing is going to take more than just firearms.
One more glance up. Five floors to go.
Claire meets Leon’s eyes and nods, before they both strap their weapons to their backs again and grab their knives, taking up a defensive position.
Maybe they can stall the thing until the elevator gets down to them.
Four floors.
The next time the creature lashes its tail at Leon, he’s ready, knife held in front of him and parrying the blow, stumbling slightly from the recoil but catching himself quickly enough.
Three floors.
The two agents slowly make their way to the elevator doors, barely blinking as they watch for its next move, knives clanging against the vertebrae every so often. When the monster shrieks again, its face opens up, the pincers replaced by four flaps that almost resemble a flower— a fleshy, toothy, bloody flower.
Two floors.
Claire shields her face as it sprays black goo at her, grimacing as it burns her skin— not enough to cause much damage, but it isn’t pleasant. Leon deflects another swing, planting his feet.
One floor.
Quickly, the redhead takes her eyes off of the thing when it looks back at Leon, and unhooks a flash grenade from her belt. She sheaths her knife, and keeps flitting her gaze from the monster to the elevator’s indicator.
When it finally, finally, dings and the doors slide open, she shoves Leon in first before pulling the pin on the flash and rolling it. When it goes off, the creature lets out a piercing growl, shielding its eyes with a clawed hand, and gives her just enough time to scramble into the elevator with her partner.
They watch, breathless, as it recovers just as the doors slide shut, and it shrieks again as they disappear from view. Leon slams the button to go to the top floor, and they both lean back against opposite walls.
“I’ll say it”, Leon starts, running a hand through his hair, “whatever the hell these things are make Raccoon City look tame.”
Claire nods as she catches her breath. “No shit.”
The elevator whirs softly as it ascends, and she focuses on the sound until Leon lets out a pained gasp, clutching his arm.
“Are you—“
She’s in the same boat a moment later, the black veins under their arms flaring up again as scorching heat sears through them, and their ears start to ring.
Leon’s vision flashes white again before the pain knocks him to his knees, clutching at his chest.
“Pitiful little lambs.”
The robed man is back, his voice even as he speaks.
“Your suffering can end, just as it has for our newest daughter, who has joined us in communion, and is now of our flesh; of our blood!”
Images of Ashley flash through, the girl passed out, her skin pale. She’s trembling, and has scales decorating her face.
The man in the robe grins, extending a hand.
“My faithful disciple will show her the path.”
He turns his head, as if speaking to someone else.
“Go now. Deliver these vagrant children their salvation.”
Another man speaks, his voice deep and gravelly.
“As you wish.”
There’s a flash of a knife, and a vague reflection of a scarred face and a red beret within the blade.
Heat courses through the agents as the robed man taps his staff on the ground twice, somehow more intense, but stifling rather than burning.
An army of plaga is behind him; more than there’s any right to be, in such a short amount of time.
Leon and Claire both collapse onto the floor of the elevator, panting, and Claire takes note of the black veins that now decorate more of her skin; from just her hands and arms, she’s now sporting them on her chest and up her neck.
There’s even a few honest-to-god scales on her wrists.
When she looks at Leon, he’s the same, growling to himself as he meets Claire’s eyes. He has scales on the sides of his neck.
They need to go. With every passing second, they turn more and more into these fucking bugs.
But they pause. The elevator has long since stopped moving, and here Leon and Claire were, on their knees as they caught their breath, more plaga than either one cares to admit.
Leon shifts uncomfortably, and when her eyes drift down to the front of his pants, she knows that the heat lingering in the back of her mind isn’t crazy.
“These…” her partner clears his throat, then continues, “these things have only two goals; infect, and breed.”
He doesn’t need to elaborate. Claire’s heart has been pounding ever since she came out of that vision, enough so that she can feel it between her legs.
And Leon looks devastating.
She makes a frustrated noise in her throat.
“This is wrong”, she says, and Leon nods, setting his jaw. He helps her to her feet and leads the way out of the elevator, then gets maybe five more steps before he turns around and slams her into the stone wall, kissing her ferociously.
Claire moans into his mouth, pulling on his lower lip with her teeth, and when she grasps the back of his neck, fingers running over the scales there, Leon whimpers.
He drops to his knees, wordlessly slinging one of her legs over his shoulder as she fumbles with the button of her jeans, yanking them and her panties down in a quick motion. She’s fucking soaked, not made any better by the fact that Leon doesn’t waste any time before burying his face between her legs, clutching her thighs to keep her upright.
Claire swears she’s never been more aroused in her life. She knows that part of it is just Leon, but is also painfully aware that it’s a side effect of the plaga in their bodies; like he said, infect, and breed.
It almost hurts, the level of pleasure she’s feeling, as he licks a long stripe up her cunt, before sucking on her clit and fucking her with his mouth. Her head falls back against the wall and it’s all she can do to fist her hands in his hair and keep herself standing.
He digs his fingers into her ass, shoves his tongue as far as he can get it inside of her, and when his nose brushes over her clit, she grinds against his face and explodes, swearing loudly as she comes. She doubles over, groaning as slick drips down her thighs and covers his chin. Part of her has half a mind to be embarrassed that she came in maybe thirty seconds, at most.
And she’s not satiated. The pleasant, spent feeling she normally has after an orgasm is nowhere to be found.
Leon wipes his mouth and meets her eyes, before she drops to the ground and lets him crawl on top of her, the clinking sound of his belt echoing off of the walls as he sucks desperately at her neck.
He’s inside of her before she can register exactly what’s happening, one hand on her hip while the other holds her wrist above her head, and pounds into her quickly. The stone floor feels awful beneath her, sharp edges digging into her back, but she needs— she needs something, him, anything to placate the growing ache between her thighs.
The motions of everything are almost automatic, the way she arches into Leon and him hooking his arm beneath her knee to press deeper into her. It’s nice, sure, but the plaga part of her is running on nothing but pure instinct.
Infect. Breed.
Now she knows why there were so many in that vision.
She comes again, her cunt still sensitive, and feels Leon release inside of her just a few seconds later, a groan in his throat as he pulls out of her.
These fucking parasites.
“God, fuck, I’m sorry, I—“
Claire cups his face and shakes her head.
“Don’t. We have to go; get these fucking things out.”
She never thought she’d be so pissed off after having sex, especially with Leon, but it didn’t even feel like it was for pleasure for either of them; just some carnal, habitual need that had to be met.
Jokes on the plaga, since she’s on the pill and has a low fertility rate anyway.
The two of them redress quickly, their pheromones dampened enough that they can think mostly straight, and they take off out of the cavern.
It opens up into a larger cave, this one lit with dim lanterns, and leaning against the wall, twirling a vial in his hands, is Luis.
When he sees them, he grins and shakes it teasingly a few times. It looks an awful lot like a vaccine.
“I’ll make it cheap for you.”
Chapter 13: Chapter 13
Summary:
MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO YOU ALL IS FINALLY UPDATING THIS FIC I AM SO SORRY IT’S BEEN SO LONG.
Notes:
Hello hello hello lovelies.
It has been too long since I’ve updated this fic, and I seriously apologize from the bottom of my heart. Life has been crazy this year, and honestly, my first semester of college wasn’t great. BUT I wanted to be sure to update at least one more time before the end of 2024, and here it finally is. I don’t know when the next chapter will be, but hopefully it won’t be a seven month wait again.
Anyway, I will quit rambling. Please enjoy this chapter; it’s long!
Thank you all for your patience, and for being willing to still read despite my terrible schedule.
Your reads, comments, and kudos are so appreciated. 🩷
-Rose x
Chapter Text
Leon flexes his forearm as he watches the black veins and scales disappear within seconds. Claire sighs sharply next to him, examining the now-empty vial. She looks up at Luis, leaning nonchalantly against the opposite wall, twirling his lighter between his fingers.
If he heard them going at it a few minutes ago, he doesn’t show it. Thank god; she doesn’t really feel like explaining why she just fucked someone in a dank cave.
“Feeling better?” asks the Spanish man, prompting both her and Leon to nod. The latter answers first.
“Yeah. Seems… to have done the trick.”
He turns his head to meet Claire’s eyes briefly, before looking away again.
Luis frowns. “Bad news; all we’ve done is buy the two of you some time. The suppressant’s effects are going to wear off far too soon.”
Leon frowns, examining the extra vial in his hands. The other man puts his lighter back in his pocket.
“Ready to go?”
Claire stands, extending her hand for Leon to take, and looks at Luis, nodding and setting her jaw.
“Don’t worry about us. Ashley is the priority.”
Luis sighs.
“In that case, we know what we have to do.”
Grinning, he bends to pick up a discarded metal rod on the stone of the cave. He holds it in front of him like a weapon.
“Then come now, Sancho Panzas! Let us rescue the Princess Dulcinea!”
Leon rolls his eyes and grabs the rod from his hands, tossing it aside.
“You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
Luis looks like he’s just been denied God’s apple.
“Hey, that was my lance! Okay, we’re hurrying— I get it.”
Claire giggles, following behind.
Her partner walks backwards to look at Luis as the cave turns into a mine, brittle wooden platforms held up by thin supports, old equipment scattered here and there.
“Why help us?” he asks, tone skeptical. “What’s in it for you?”
The other man shrugs. “No need to be suspicious. I said I’d help you, didn’t I?”
Claire huffs just behind him.
“Little hard to put our faith into someone who knows a little too much about vaccines and… pharmaceuticals.”
She emphasizes the last word, and Luis frowns.
“Umbrella is done for”, he says, officially confirming her suspicions, “you don’t need to worry about them anymore. I swear.”
Leon meets the redhead’s eyes, and doesn’t press further, instead changing the subject.
“You didn’t answer my question, though”, he points out. “What are you after?”
Luis scoffs, raises his hands in exasperation. “I just… want to feel good about myself. Make amends, or something like that.”
The conversation dies out as the pathway gets narrow, dimly lit as the three of them walk through the passage, stone and dirt making up the walls. There are train tracks below their feet, making each step taken a little wider than normal, slowing them down more than they want.
Leon at one point slows down to take Claire’s hand in an effort to calm himself. Luis turns to look at them over his shoulder, but for once doesn’t have a witty remark.
The path opens up into another mine, this one significantly more picked-through than the last, with old pickaxes and overturned carts littering the area. Luis curses when he sees what’s up ahead.
The path in front of them is cut off with giant rocks that must’ve caved in at one point, small parts broken off and littering the ground.
“Damn it. This wasn’t blocked the last time I was here.”
Claire’s tempted to inquire on the ‘last time’ before Leon unclips two grenades from his belt. She looks at him, and swears she can visibly see the gears turning in his head.
He looks over his shoulder at her and Luis.
“That alcove to your right; get behind it.”
She nods, and when Luis looks like he’s going to argue, she grabs his forearm and essentially drags him with her, shoving him inside of the alcove before she joins him.
Claire hears the cling of Leon pulling the pins on both grenades, and he sprints back to her and the Spanish man just before they go off, shielding his face from the explosion and the following onslaught of dust. Large pieces of the boulders roll down the sloped track.
She gives a low whistle, and Luis actually looks caught off guard for once.
“¡Dios mio! Give me a warning next time!”
Leon rolls his eyes, and peeks around the corner a moment later before waving them on, enough of the rubble cleared that they can climb through the pathway.
It’s back to more walking (which Claire is getting sick of), the three of them silent until Leon clears his throat.
“That villa, back in the village… you handle yourself pretty well. Are you sure you’re just a researcher?”
Luis shrugs and throws Claire a wink.
“I’m just your average guy… who happens to be quite the ladies’ man.”
Claire giggles while Leon mutters something under his breath, shooting Luis a glare.
The path ends again, this time for real, and the trio are met with a dead end, a large vent at the bottom of the wall in front of them. It’s clear that something lies beyond it, so both agents kneel to yank at the bars.
When they don’t budge, they stand, and Claire holds her arm in front of Leon, silently asking him to back up, before she aims a kick to the grate, popping it out of place and sending it clattering to the ground on the other side.
“Hot damn”, her partner says, grinning, bending to peer through the space. Luis gestures to the hole in the wall.
“After you. I insist.”
Leon groans.
“Such a gentleman.”
He creeps closer and barely takes in a breath when a giant rears its head, screeching at him and grabbing Leon by the leg. Claire dives forward and grabs his hand, and when it becomes clear that she’s being pulled through with him, Luis grabs her ankle, stumbling as he wrestles to keep his grasp firm.
It’s futile, and in only a few more seconds, the giant drags the three of them out the hole in the wall, yanking them forward before dropping them on the grated floor of the open room it's standing in.
Claire groans, her entire body aching. It can never be easy, can it?
She doesn’t have time to dwell, because she’s rolling to the side a moment later as the giant slams its fists down, missing her by a few feet.
“Jesus Christ!” Leon exclaims, drawing his shotgun from where he has it strapped to his back.
“I don’t care who you worship, but that is not Jesus Christ!” Luis yells, taking his revolver out of its holster. He opens the chamber and reloads it, eyes focused on the— two?— giants in front of them.
Claire’s only just taken notice of the second, much larger giant, this one clad in armor, only his mouth able to be seen, open wide as it grows at them. She swears loudly as she reaches for her submachine gun.
“Oh, what the fuck.”
The first giant has dragged them into a circular room with metal grating instead of a floor, and it’s stifling hot. The lava a few feet beneath them would explain that.
She thinks that it was a trash room, once, with the high concrete walls and the crates stacked around the room. It would also make sense of the machine in the middle of the floor with a large red button, the middle grate with hinges attached to the sides.
Claire is almost crushed again before Luis grabs her arm and hauls her out of the way, firing off a round from his gun at the giant that isn’t armored. She looks to her right and sees Leon rolling out of the way as the armored one rushes towards him, roaring.
When he rights himself, the agent notices the machine in the middle of the room with more detail. The red button is blinking, and wires connect the device to the hinges in the floor.
If they do what he thinks, this might get easier for them.
“Claire!” he yells, “do you still have any flashes on you?”
She turns to him after firing a few rounds into the leg of the unarmored giant, glancing down at her belt.
“One; why?”
“Give it here! I have an idea.”
She does so immediately, not thinking twice as she unclips it from her belt and tosses the grenade at Leon, who catches it midair. Luis has been looking back and forth this whole time in between dodging kicks from giants.
Leon shoots the unarmored one a few times to get his attention, before holstering his handgun and waving his arms in the air.
“Hey, ugly! Look at me!”
The giant turns slowly and lumbers towards him with a shriek, and Leon holds the flash grenade out in front of him, eyes focused on the metal grate in the middle of the room.
As soon as the giant is about a third of the way across, he throws the flash and shields his eyes as it goes off, making it stumble and collapse onto the grate, disoriented and roaring.
“Luis! Off the metal!” he yells to the Spanish man as he makes a mad sprint for the machine hooked up to the grid.
The other man barely jumps off before Leon pulls a lever to the side and slams the red button down.
He was right; after a bit of loud creaking, the hinges in the floor swing open, dropping the giant into the lava beneath the grate. It yells in pain, trying desperately to swim out of the hot liquid. Its flesh is quickly burned away, and all that’s left is a gurgling sound as the hinges flip back up, sealing off the pit again.
Claire grins at him, a smile that he swears could rival the brightness of the sun.
Jesus, he loves her.
He’s smacked in the head a moment later by the other, much larger and armored giant, making him fly to the other side of the circular room with a grunt as he skids across the floor. Luis laughs, and if Leon wasn’t so dazed, he’d probably murder him.
Claire shoots a few more bullets at the giant, turning to the two men as they bounce off of the metal plates on its body.
“Any ideas? The stupider, better.”
The Spanish man glances over at her, then Leon, then at the crates stacked against the wall. He holsters his revolver.
“Okay, not that stupid—“
She pauses when Luis takes off, sprinting across the room and climbing up the crates.
“Keep them busy for me!”
Leon looks incredulous.
“Where the fuck are you going?” he yells, but he’s gone in an instant. Leon curses inwardly.
Fucking coward.
He and Claire share a dumbfounded look before nearly being flattened by the outstretched hand of the giant, both of them barely dodging out of the way.
She doesn’t realize how much Luis’s revolver was doing for them until he’s gone, because any sort of dent they were once making is completely gone now that the Spanish man had disappeared.
Another long, exhausting round of dodging swings and firing shots ensues, and Leon is struck by how tired he is. It’s only a lingering thought in the back of his mind, but god, he’d kill for a warm bed right about now.
And then, finally, some hope.
“Hey! Over here!”
He looks up and sees Luis running across a platform above them, with a bundle of something under his arm— dynamite.
Leon sprints across the room, to the edge of the platform where the Spanish man is, and slides between the legs of the giant as it charges towards him.
When it’s close enough, Luis hops over the railing and onto its back, and that just further confirms to Leon that he’s a madman.
The other man finds a gap in the armor that he wedges the bundle of explosives between, before jumping off and rolling into the floor just as the monster makes a swipe for him. He groans as he lands, knees buckling from the force, but he’s otherwise fine.
Claire, who’s been firing off pot-shots from across the room, doesn’t miss a beat.
She quickly attaches the scope in one of her hip pouches to her handgun, shouts a number of expletives at the giant, then aims and fires when it’s over the metal grate.
The dynamite in the creature’s back explodes, making it roar in pain and collapse into the plate. Leon is ready by the machine, pulling the lever and slamming down the button.
The three of them watch, panting, as the grate swings open again, and the monster falls into the lava, joining its friend in the hot depths. It roars, thrashes, and then disappears into the depths a moment later.
Luis mutters something in Spanish that Leon can’t make out, and Claire is about ready to fall over, but at least it’s done. Weapons are holstered and sighs of relief are exchanged.
The trio walk to the other side of the room where two large, industrial doors sit, and Luis kneels in front of it, silently pulling a lock pick from his pocket and getting to work.
With his back turned, Leon flashes Claire a relieved smile. She returns the look, reaching out to cup his face, before allowing herself a brief celebration and leaning in to kiss him.
He lets out a soft sigh against her mouth, wrapping his arms tightly around her as hers wind around his neck, and she quickly gets lost in it. From the top of her head to the very tips of her toes, he invades her senses completely.
She’s just opened her mouth to let his tongue in when there’s a faint click, followed by an exasperated sigh from Luis as he turns around.
“Oye, amantes. Time for that later”, he says, rolling his eyes and smirking. Claire pulls away from Leon with an embarrassing amount of effort, her face blazing. He just looks pissed that he’s no longer kissing her.
They walk through the large metal doors, met with a stairwell with steps that creak and shudder as the trio ascends. Leon frowns.
“So, what, they just keep these things down here too? Anything else we should know about?”
Luis shrugs, checking the chamber of his revolver.
“The underground is sacred to them”, he says, referring to the cult. “See, this is where they discovered las plagas, preserved inside ancient deposits of amber.”
“Oh. Of course they did.”
It’s through another mineshaft, and then they’re met with rickety wooden platforms with dim lanterns illuminating the cavern. Leon looks down the ladder, and—
“You’re not suggesting we ride this thing, are you?”
Luis snorts.
“Do… you see any other way?”
Claire grins and hops down the platform, slinging a leg over the side of one of the mine carts to stand in it.
“Come on, it could be fun!”
Her partner groans as Luis hops in after her, who motions to Leon with a smile of his own.
“Give us a push, Sancho!”
“Yeah, Sancho!” Claire chimes in.
The agent rolls his eyes and groans, but obliges, his stomach already churning at the thought of what awaits them.
He shoves the cart forward until it begins to move on its own down the rails, and once it has a decent speed Leon hauls himself inside. It’s a tight fit for the three of them, but they make do.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this”, Leon mutters, hands gripping the side of the cart. Luis grins and waves him off.
“Hey, we’re in a hurry, right? Oh, by the way—“
“What now?”
The Spanish man winks at him.
“Hope you like thrill rides!”
“Excuse m— oh shit!”
The mine cart rolls down the track, much steeper and more quickly than Leon anticipated, and then they’re off in the darkness, speeding through the damp tunnels. Claire’s yelp quickly turns into an excited yell as the cart moves along.
It reminds her of when she and Chris would go to shitty state fairs as kids, and she smiles widely at the memory.
Her smile is wiped off her face when she hears yelling that doesn’t belong to any of the three of them, and movement on the track to their left catches her eye.
Another cart races alongside them, carrying two angry zealots, both of which are holding crossbows, aimed directly at them.
Claire curses and unholsters her handgun, holding it with both hands to steady her aim in the cart as it jostles with each bend and curve on the track. She misses a few times, but eventually is able to land both shots, and both people in the cart drop, no longer posing a threat.
The mine cart teeters a little too far to the left, and Luis and Leon both have to lean their weight to the side so it doesn’t fall off the rails.
“This is not safe!” Leon yells, his knuckles white with how hard he’s gripping the sides of the cart.
When more carts emerge on the tracks to the sides of them, Claire takes care of the occupants, and the three of them fall into an odd rhythm; she shoots, while Leon and Luis make sure their cart doesn’t careen off of the tracks.
There’s an unmistakable revving sound that echoes through the cavern a moment later, and Leon says a number of expletives just as another cart comes racing down the track opposite them, a masked man with a chainsaw occupying it.
“Shit. Look out!” Claire yells, firing off a few shots at the man, but he just blocks them with the body of the chainsaw, revving the blade again.
The track continues to twist and turn, jostling the trio around and making it significantly harder for her to shoot clearly. Sparks fly as Leon and Luis fight to keep the cart from tipping while also avoiding swings of the chainsaw.
The track splits, allowing them a few moments of relative peace, at least in comparison to what had just occurred. Claire kills another few crossbow-wielding adversaries, the cart jumps off of the track and onto another like the most dangerous roller coaster imaginable, and just as the end of the cavern is coming into view, the track reconnects, and their masked friend is at the ready with his weapon.
Leon, entirely too nauseous and sick of this shit, grits his teeth and unclips one of his few remaining grenades from his belt. He pulls the pin with his teeth and tosses it into the opposite cart.
“End of the line, asshole!”
The tracks diverge once again, just in time for the explosive to go off and destroy the other cart while the one containing the three of them screeches to a halt as Luis pulls the brake.
Claire whoops and reholsters her gun before stepping out of the cart, the Spanish man following, and though she feels a little bad, the sight of Leon shakily crawling out of the cart and leaning against the wall, clearly putting all of his energy into focusing on not vomiting, is a little funny.
There’s an elevator not too far from the end of the mine track, one that will finally take them above ground and closer to Ashley. The three of them crowd inside, leaning against opposite walls as the lift whirs and slowly begins to ascend. Luis sighs and grins lazily.
“I’m beat. Makes you appreciate tech like this.”
They’re silent again until Leon crosses his arms over his chest and looks at him, frowning.
“I don’t get you”, he says. “Why risk your life like this? You don’t know us.”
Claire studies the Spanish man as he clearly works through something in his head, the gears turning almost visible.
“I told you before. It makes me feel better.”
Leon sighs.
“Be straight with us. For once.”
Luis groans like it’s the biggest ask of his life, but after a moment, he obliges, looking at the floor of the elevator as it continues to hum softly.
“Los Iluminados. I was… working for them. Helping you three doesn’t make up for it, I know that, but still… I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
Claire smiles softly and her partner decides that that’s good enough.
“In that case, you better get serious.”
Luis chuckles.
“Harsh words for a squire.”
Claire smiles at him softly.
“In any case,” she murmurs, elbowing Leon, “we appreciate it. Truly. Thank you.”
He grins as the elevator comes to a stop, into another wide, open cavern. This one is filled with transportation crates, filled with what, Claire doesn’t want to know. High above them, the sky is visible, stars glittering in the night.
Luis claps his hands together and is the first out of the elevator.
“Out of that hellhole! The fresh air is calling our names; we’re free!”
He turns with his arms spread wide as if he’s giving a speech, a victorious glint in his eyes.
“Come now, we have no time to waste! The Princess Dulcinea awaits our speedy arrival! We’ve made it this far, you know that means—“
Luis stops mid-sentence, his smile faltering a bit, and Claire looks confused before he coughs up blood and collapses onto the cave floor.
There’s a knife lodged in his spine.
She barely has time to scream his name when someone lands in front of them from above; tall, muscular, and wearing a familiar red beret. She and Leon both stare in silence for a moment, gaping.
Her partner is the first to speak, his expression stunned.
“Major Krauser? What the hell?!”
Krauser just stands there, a smug smile on his face. The man who had taught the two of them almost everything they know now. The man who was once a valiant, determined soldier, now nothing more than an empty husk.
“Long time, no see, rookies”, he says coldly.
“Why?” Leon spits, and the other man laughs darkly, bending and picking up a vial that had fallen out of Luis’s pocket.
“Recovering stolen goods.”
He shakes it a few times teasingly before stowing it away.
“…and killing a few rats along the way.”
He cruelly wrenches his knife out of Luis’s back, no doubt causing more damage and tearing a wide hole in the back of his jacket.
Krauser takes a defensive stance, walking around the two agents slowly.
“Easy work”, he says coldly. Claire shakes as her eyes stay set on the body at her feet. Something clicks a moment later, and she speaks, voice trembling and filled with rage.
“Ashley. It was you.”
All of this. The reason why they’re here. Caused by someone who was the reason the two of them were so efficient in what they do.
The Major laughs and moves with inhuman speed, stepping close to her and holding his knife to her throat. Claire sucks in a breath and Leon grabs his own knife, holding it out in front of him.
“You catch on quick”, he sneers. “Didn’t I teach you? Knives are faster.”
He echoes the words that Leon said to Ada only hours before, and he meets Claire’s eyes before she knocks Krauser’s arm away and grabs her own knife sheathed in her belt, parrying a few slashes and giving some of her own as Leon rushes to her side.
The three of them trade blows, blocks, and slashes, metal clanging as blades knock together and skin on skin as forearms block fists.
Leon manages a cut on Krauser’s face, a small, clean slit on his cheek. The man stumbles back, grinning, touching the injury and laughing at the blood on his fingertips.
“Not bad.”
Before he can react, the major is on him again, blocking another punch and stabbing him in the thigh. Leon grunts, and Claire races over to Krauser, who turns and aims a kick at her. She goes flying back into a stack of crates at a force that should be impossible for one human to cause. She feels like she got hit by a freight train.
Both agents groan as they get to their feet, Leon limping towards his partner, and the three of them take up defensive stances again with their knives held firmly in their grasps.
Krauser rolls his head, cracking his neck.
“We’re just getting started, rookies.”
He proves to be more dangerous than almost anything they’ve faced up until this point.
Quick slashes, kicks, and punches, all thrown with inhuman speed and strength. They’ve barely begun, and Claire is already sporting a split lip, Leon with half of his right sleeve torn off.
“Are you being controlled by that cult?” Leon spits, parrying a blow by centimeters, knife blade in front of his face.
Krauser sneers.
“This has nothing to do with them. I’m a free man who made a choice.” He barely moves as Claire slashes at his shoulder, and she ducks out of the way as he swings a punch at her head.
Though the two agents land a few good hits, a few large cuts on Krauser’s arms that make blood trickle down his skin and pool at the base of his knife, it doesn’t slow him down, and instead seems to just egg him on. He moves quicker the angrier he gets, and gets double the amount of slashes in compared to the two of them.
Claire spits out blood onto the grated floor, balancing herself on one of the steel transportation crates.
“Major, you’re not thinking straight!”
Krauser laughs and shakes his head, kicking Leon in the stomach and making the other man let out a pained sound.
“Oh, my head’s clearer than it’s ever been. Now— focus, and show me what you’ve both got. You’re embarrassing yourselves.”
More swipes, punches, and lunges.
The major laughs again as he takes the two of them in, bleeding and struggling to stand.
“I see you’ve both had a run-in with those bugs. You’d think that those scales would make you stronger!”
Claire swears and looks down at her wrists, and sees that the scales and black veins are starting to make themselves known again. Damn, Luis wasn’t kidding; that suppressor didn’t last long at all.
Krauser gets a good slash at Leon, the blade of his knife slicing a deep, short cut in his cheek before he aims another kick to his gut and sends the agent flying. He recovers quickly with a growl, wiping the blood off of his cheek, and Claire does not find it attractive in the slightest.
It distracts her long enough for Krauser to punch her in the face, stunning her as he knocks her to the ground. He kneels in front of her, bringing down his knife, and she grits her teeth as she tries to hold him off. The tip of the knife sinks into the bridge of her nose—
A shot rings out, a bullet grazing Krauser’s shoulder, making all three of them turn.
Luis is barely holding himself up on a crate, but has his revolver raised, eyes steely and blood trickling out of his mouth. He’s gritting his teeth, seemingly focusing on every ounce of energy left in his body to make sure his hand doesn’t shake.
He fires again, and Krauser jumps out of the way, landing on one of the metal crates at the far end of the cave. His cold smile is gone, replaced with a look of anger and something resembling annoyance, as if the gunfire is some regular pest.
He sheaths his knife.
“Enough play. You both haven’t changed a damn bit. What a disappointment.”
And then he’s gone, shooting them both a glare before he slinks into the shadows.
Leon helps Claire to her feet, meeting her eyes as he wipes some blood off of her cheek with his thumb.
She’s about to do the same when she sees Luis slumping against a crate, and she runs over, sinking to her knees next to the man and putting a hand on his shoulder.
He wipes his mouth of the blood and sets his revolver down, laughing weakly.
“Not looking so good, eh, my friends?” he croaks as Leon comes up behind Claire. The Spanish man shoots Claire a wink again.
“And such a loss to the ladies of the world.”
“Don’t talk”, Leon says firmly, leaning forward to look at his wounds, but even he knows it’s too late. The entire back of Luis’s jacket is soaked in blood, and his skin is getting paler by the second.
He takes the agent’s hand, something in his grasp.
“Take this”, he says, spitting out blood. “It’s the key to my lab. Go there, and remove…”
He coughs.
“And remove those damn parasites.”
He reaches into his pocket and grabs his packet of cigarettes, putting one into his mouth and taking out his lighter a moment later.
“Help Ashley, too. Get her home”, he murmurs, flicking open the lighter. His thumb keeps flicking the switch, slipping over the gear until he growls and the metal device slips out of his hand.
Leon grimaces and stows away Luis’s key, reaching down to pick up the lighter. He flicks it on, lighting the man’s cigarette for him. Luis inhales deeply, coughing a few times.
“You know… I led a pretty shitty life”, he mumbles. The light is dying from his eyes. “But now… what do you think, Leon, Claire? People can change… right?”
He blinks a few times before exhaling a final time, and then his head lolls to the side. The cigarette falls out of his mouth and goes out on the floor.
Leon drops his eyes and puts the lighter back in Luis’s hand, closing his stiff fingers over it.
“You were a fine knight, Don Quixote”, he whispers. Claire sniffs and wipes her eyes, before Leon touches her shoulder lightly and helps her stand a moment later.
“We have to get going”, he whispers, and she can only nod, sniffling and following Leon to the elevator at the other end of the room, leaving Luis’s body behind.
Chapter 14: Chapter 14
Summary:
Sooooo it was accidentally another six-month wait again lol.
I am so, sooooo sorry for the long absence. Honestly, it was almost entirely because this was another boss fight chapter, and I loathe writing action scenes— also ironic, considering that this is in large part an action game, but… that’s not the point lmao.
Life has also been less than stellar, truthfully. I’m on medical leave from college, since my mental health took a big dive, so this past year has just been a lot of starting and stopping different medications. Hopefully, this most recent one I’ve started is finally the right one, but we’ll see.
On the plus side, though, I’m moving into my first apartment in about a month! That will be exciting, if a little stressful, so at least there’s something to look forward to.
ALSO, RESIDENT EVIL 9 WAS ANNOUNCED???? GOD, I am so, so excited. Already counting down the days.
I’m almost done rambling, but I also want to thank everyone who is reading for their patience between long updates. I know that the inconsistent updates are less than ideal, but I am grateful for you all for sticking with me. We’ve almost reached 9000 hits, which is absolutely insane. Thank you all so much.
Notes:
I had to move on to the chapter notes section since I was talking too much in the summary lol, but I just want to reiterate how grateful I am for your patience and support on this fic. I can’t guarantee that there won’t be another big gap between updates, but the fact that you’re still reading regardless means the world.
I will stop yapping so you can get to reading, but I am forever thankful for all of the kind comments, kudos, and bookmarks that you leave. It means the world to me.
Without further ado, let’s end the castle section!
Much love,
Rose x
Chapter Text
Leon and Claire are both silent as the elevator whirs softly and brings them the rest of the way to the surface.
Luis. Dead before he really got a chance to do some good.
The suppressor has already worn off, and Leon’s arms are now covered in scales. Claire’s snake out from beneath her shirt collar and frame her face. The tips of their fingers are black.
And Krauser.
Major Jack Krauser, who supervised them during Operation Javier, who taught the two of them most of the maneuvers that have saved their lives in the past.
Once a soldier and a friend, now a cold, smug superhuman.
Neither of them talk for a long moment as the elevator whirs, mulling everything over in their heads.
And then Claire speaks.
“I’m done”, she says, voice shaky and seething with rage. “I’m done. I don’t care who the fuck else we have to go through. I’m getting Ashley home if it fucking kills me. And I’ll be damned if I let anyone else get in our way. If I let anyone else die.”
Leon looks over at her and nods as the elevator comes to a halt above ground and the doors slide open.
He almost wants this job to kill him. At least then he could get out of this shitty career. Maybe find peace wherever people went after they died. But Ashley is relying on him— on the both of them— and he can’t let her down.
Plus, he thinks Claire would murder him if he keeled over on her now.
Their comms beep, and his partner groans when Hunnigan’s voice doesn’t come through.
“There’s only time to say this once, so listen up.”
Ada.
Leon frowns, reaching a hand to his ear.
“They took the girl to the top of the clock tower. If you hurry, you might get there before she turns into one of them.”
Claire scoffs, pressing down on the comm.
“Ah. So you’re not heartless after all. I guess we should be… what, thankful?”
The other woman hums on the other end, unbothered.
“Yeah. You should.”
She disconnects and the two step out into the small castle corridor. The warm glow of the lanterns on the walls would almost be comforting if they hadn’t nearly died multiple times.
There’s an ornate tram waiting on the platform, gold intracices framing the polished wood where it hangs from a series of wires.
“Oh, good. More carnival rides”, Leon grumbles, following Claire as she steps on. The tram wobbles slightly with their weight, and he grips the sides tightly, knuckles white.
Damn heights.
The tram moves when they’re both on board— as if someone was waiting for them. Ahead, the clock tower looms in the distance, across the wide chasm they slowly move over.
Leon’s eyes are squeezed shut the entire time, one hand gripping a bar while the other has a death-grip on one of Claire’s, but luckily the ride is without issue. The cool night air makes Claire shiver— her clothes are torn, dirty, and some parts are still wet from the rainstorm earlier.
For maybe the thousandth time that night, she wishes she could have a shower.
Soon.
The tram stops at the foot of the clock tower, and after Leon regains his footing and takes a few deep breaths, the two head inside, guns drawn and shoulders tense. They can’t take any more chances. Not after Krauser.
Leon shoves open the large metal doors that lead into the tower, and almost immediately they’re greeted with slow, drawn out claps that echo in the cavernous space. Both of them scowl, guns pointed upward as Ramón makes another appearance.
“You are nothing if not… unyielding, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Redfield”, he drawls, frowning. “However, I am afraid it ends here.”
He waves his hand and steps back as several zealots with crossbows make themselves known and position themselves at the railings of the wooden staircase leading up to the top of the tower.
“Expel these intruders!”
Leon groans.
“Shit.”
Claire’s eyes scan the winding and seemingly endless steps, a large spiral going around the tower, all the way to the top. It’s going to be a literal uphill battle.
Her eyes fall on a lever being manned by another zealot further up, and she furrows her brow, but doesn’t have time to dwell because they’re already being attacked, a few rushing down the stairs with maces and scythes in hand, swinging the weapons at the two agents.
Claire ducks out of the way as the blade slices through the air, giving Leon the opportunity to kick the zealot in the head as it struggles to lift the heavy weapon back up. They stumble, and he shoves the blade of his knife into their neck as soon as he gets the chance. The scythe clatters to the floor along with the body a moment later.
His partner is using her submachine gun in just about every way she can, quickly eliminating the second scythe-wielder by dodging out of the way of a swing, slamming the butt of the gun into the zealot’s skull, and shooting a few bullets into them once they’re struck off-balance.
The agents race up the stairs, and as they’re met with another round of adversaries, Leon can’t help but think of the video games he played when he was younger; battling hordes of enemies while climbing up each floor of a tower to get to the princess. He supposed that this wasn’t too far off, just significantly deadlier and with higher stakes.
A loud creaking followed by a thud catches his attention, and he almost loses his head to a knife if it weren’t for Claire.
“Hey! Eyes up!” she yells at him, throwing another limp body down before looking at where his gaze is trained and swearing.
A massive spiked ball is rolling down the steps, crushing everything in its way. While it eliminates the rest of the zealots charging at them, it doesn’t stop despite all of the gore now clinging to it, and continues to head right towards them.
Leon grabs Claire and shoves them both against the railing of the stairs, pressing as close to her as possible in an effort to get their bodies out of the way. She winks at him, and he rolls his eyes, face reddening at the fact that their noses are just about brushing, and his grip on her hips is bruising.
Claire yelps as the spiked ball rushes past them, and though it tears the back of Leon’s shirt, they’re both fine otherwise, and continue upwards.
The clock tower goes up four more stories, and by the time they’re at the third, Leon wants to pass out. Fighting is one thing, but climbing stairs at the same time somehow makes it even worse.
They hear the telltale creaking of another spiked ball being set, and Claire aims her handgun up at the zealot manning the lever on the floor above them, shooting him before he can yank it forward. He collapses on top of the mechanism, pushing the lever forward again, and she swears loudly as the spiked ball comes rolling down the stairs towards them.
She and Leon press themselves against the railing to narrowly avoid being crushed again, and anybody who was chasing them up the stairs is caught in the path, sickening crunches echoing up through the clock tower. Both agents make it to the top floor, panting softly.
And then, finally, it’s quiet.
But Ashley is nowhere to be seen.
Leon groans, checking his ammo before reholstering his handgun.
“I’ll give Ramón one thing— he’s got dedicated men.”
“No shit,” Claire says back, pushing her hair out of her face. She holsters her gun too and leans against the door that leads outside.
“You good?”
Her partner shrugs, cracking his neck.
“Never better.”
Claire smirks and shoves open the heavy door, stepping outside first and holding it open for Leon, who follows shortly after. He takes in a deep breath, glad to get some fresh air over that of the stale clock tower. He steps out onto the wooden platform behind her.
And…
Oh, god.
Leon just about passes out at the sight before them. As if the heights in general hadn’t been enough already, this takes the cake, easily.
Narrow, rickety wooden bridges are placed along the high wall of the clock tower, no railings in sight, and the only way to get across to the cliff on the other side.
“Uh… okay, hotshot”, Claire says with uncertainty, clearly picking up on his nerves, “eyes up and on me.”
Leon looks at her and gapes, clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles go white.
“Claire, I…”
I can’t is what he wants to say. The thought of being this high up on narrow planks with a massive cliff below them makes him want to vomit, pass out, and die at the same time.
Instead, what he says is “okay” and grabs both of her hands that are held out in front of her, squeezing way too hard, but she doesn’t indicate whether or not it’s uncomfortable.
Claire carefully moves her foot behind her, stepping onto one of the planks and slowly walking backwards, eyes on Leon’s. She’s pretty sure she’s not blinking because she’s so focused, and maybe it would be unsettling under different circumstances, but Leon is panicking too much to care.
She leads him slowly across the chasm, gripping his hands tightly and nodding with each small step he takes. When his eyes wander away from her and look down, making his breath hitch, she lets go of his hand and tilts his face back to her by his chin.
“Hey. Nuh-uh. Look at me, Leon.”
His eyes find hers again, wide with fear, and she inhales and exhales deeply a few times before he picks up on what she’s doing and joins her. His breaths are considerably shakier than hers.
They keep going after a moment, Claire leading him forward slowly. The wood creaks beneath their feet, making Leon cringe each time.
This is how he dies. He’s going to fall into a huge chasm, break his neck, never be found by a search team.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Still, he keeps moving, holding onto Claire’s fingers like a lifeline, because honestly, they are, and it’s the only thing keeping him going, and when they finally reach the stony floor of the castle on the opposite end of the cliff, he just about collapses against her. She catches him, stumbling slightly, but rights herself and just holds him for a moment.
He holds onto her hips, taking a few more deep breaths.
“Thanks,” he whispers, and she just nods her head, squeezing him once and then slowly letting go of him.
There’s shouting across the way and their heads snap around to see a group approaching a wide set of double doors—
“Oh, fuck,” Leon whispers, then nudges Claire, pointing ahead.
A zealot is leading a small troup into the next hall down the steps, with Ramón trailing behind them. Ashley is being dragged along by another, and, for her part, isn’t making it easy. She’s struggling and stumbling over her feet, but that doesn’t stop her from being led behind the doors that close a moment later.
Claire and Leon sprint to the other end of the stone pathway, close behind the small group— close behind Ashley.
When they push open the doors, they’re met with a room that almost seems unfinished. It has two short staircases leading up and around the platform that the three figures are standing on, and is otherwise empty. The rest of the room is a high ceiling and a chasm that plunges beneath the stairs.
Ramón is looking up in the center and speaking to somebody.
Krauser. Ashley is on her knees with her back to him.
“Shit.”
“And so,” Ramón drawls, “I have delivered the girl to you, as promised.”
He touches the girl in question’s face and she recoils.
“Do tell our Lord to not forget the loyalty of his servant, Ramón.”
Krauser grunts and hauls Ashley over his shoulder, walking over the end of the platform and onto a lowered drawbridge that leads back outside as the agents thunder up the steps, guns raised.
“Ashley!” Claire calls, handgun pointed at Krauser, but it’s too late. The drawbridge on the other end of the room is rising back into place, and Ashley reaches out a hand and weakly calls out her name before she’s gone.
Ramón turns, hands clasped behind his back. The sides of his face seem to be cracking, like that of an old porcelain doll.
He actually looks menacing, for once.
“Such fools, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Redfield,” he hisses. “To have been bestowed with Lord Saddler’s grace, and yet you fail to—“
Leon growls, rolls his eyes, and aims his gun.
“You talk too much.”
He fires two bullets into his chest, making the small man screech and stumble back.
“You vulgar, utterly uncivilized—“
Claire shoots, too, and hits him square in the forehead, cutting Ramón off again and sending him tumbling into the chasm below the platform. Leon steps forward to watch as he disappears into the blackness.
“Let’s hope that’s the last of him.”
The two of them turn and start to head for the opposite door, Leon rolling out his shoulders. At this rate, they should be able to catch Krauser before he and Ashley can get too far.
Until a laugh echoes through the cavern, making them stop. Leon and Claire stare at each other.
He tightens his grip on his gun, back to his partner’s, gritting his teeth as a mass emerges from the depths of the room.
“Allow me to show you… the power I have been granted by my master! The power of God!”
They narrowly avoid getting crushed by something as it crawls up the wall and flails at them.
Claire glares at her partner.
“You just had to say something, didn’t you?”
Leon looks between her and the monster and shrugs. He’s pretty sure the exact same thing happened back in Raccoon, when he got his hands on the virus sample and then the ceiling fell apart in the lab, so his track record isn’t great, he supposes.
He’s knocked out of his thoughts— literally— as a tentacle swings down from above them and smacks him in the side of the head, throwing him into the railing of one of the staircases. He groans, holding his side, and looks up, nearly retching at what his eyes are met with.
It’s a mass of flesh with tentacles protruding out everywhere, spikes on the ends of each swinging limb. The large mouth in the middle is open, three flaps with jagged teeth in deadly rows, showing off Ramón huddled within. His head has swelled, his skin is white as stone, and one of his eyes is bulging out of his head. Black sludge drips down his chin.
“The stage is set for the final act!” he cackles, before his mouth and that of the mass opens wide, spraying black goo at the two agents. It catches the top of Claire’s boot as she leaps away, eating through the leather like acid.
“You are nothing but extras in my script, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Redfield!” Ramón yells when he’s finished, wiping his mouth and lunging into the middle of the platform. The marble cracks where he lands.
Leon fumbles for the shotgun strapped to his back and cocks it, holding the weapon out in front of him while Claire reloads her submachine gun. Ramón— if the creature in front of them can even still be called that— watches and grins, like it’s what he wants. A fight.
Christ, Leon’s tired.
“Do not get too carried away! Your biggest scene is over.”
Claire unloads a few rounds into the monster’s side, and Ramón hardly flinches from the distance he’s at.
“Just once, I’d love it if this guy would shut the fuck up,” she groans, rolling out of the way as one of its large appendages comes down to hit her.
“Leave us out of your crappy script!” Leon yells, running up to the tendril and stomping on it. He slices into it with his knife, soaking his forearm in blood as he saws through the flesh. Ramón shrieks as the limb comes off, blood and that black sludge spraying everywhere.
“And still no respect to be found, after all of this!” he hisses, lunging forward. Leon’s knocked to the ground, barely holding off the large maws that snap at him until Claire kicks Ramón in the side and finishes off her magazine.
He climbs back over the platform, using the tentacles that remain to weave between the railings and keep himself up on the walls. Each time an arm brushes the ground, a bubbly mass is left behind; they burst after a short while, leaving behind small puddles that smell distinctly acidic.
It’s nasty.
“You think you can write something better?” the man-monster bellows from above. His voice echoes through the cavernous room. “Well, then why don’t you show me what a first-class script is like… through your own actions!”
Ramón launches himself downwards again, and the two agents barely get enough time to dodge out of the way. Leon fires shotgun pellet after shotgun pellet into the thing, and at least it does something— Ramón makes a pained sound and retreats away.
It isn’t doing enough, though. Not nearly.
“Don’t waste your ammo when he’s far,” Leon says, just quietly enough so only Claire can hear him. “Lure him in closer, then fuck him up.”
His partner reloads her submachine gun and nods.
“Roger.”
They both take off up one of the staircases that lead to the second platform, this one much more open than the one below. There aren’t even any railings on the sides, and Leon forces himself to focus on the monster they’re fighting so he doesn’t spiral about how easy it would be to fall off and into the pit below.
God, he doesn’t even want to think about how high up they are right now.
So he doesn’t, and instead taunts Ramón, doing what he can to get the monster closer to him and Claire.
“You’re a pretty shit play writer! No wonder you never amounted to anything.”
Ramón scowls and opens his mouth, and instead of saying anything back, spews sludge out at them again. The stream is less powerful than the first, and finally, they must be making some kind of progress with this thing.
Claire dives out of the way and the creature laughs again.
“Ah, qué bonita, qué bonita! You dance the bolero superbly, señorita Redfield!”
“Get your own dance partner!” Leon yells, taking the opportunity to dig his knife into Ramón’s side once he’s close enough again.
It knocks him off his trajectory enough that he slams into the floor, hissing. Claire steps forward with her gun raised, and shoots right between the large jaws of the monster, hitting the smaller Ramón within.
He writhes and screams in pain, struggling back up onto the walls. His enlarged eye looks like it’s pulsing.
“Fine!” he spits, “now we just transition to irregular metre!”
He climbs into one of the corners high above, then uses his large arms to slingshot himself towards the pair.
As Claire jumps out of the way, she tumbles off of the side and barely grabs the ledge to avoid falling into the pit below.
“Leon!” she screams, her hands scrabbling for purchase along the smooth marble. Her fingers can’t find any with the blood staining the surface, making it slippery, and Leon almost throws himself off of the edge himself as he goes to grab her.
His hand closes around her wrist just before she falls, and he grits his teeth. Ramón simply laughs above them.
“Dance or die, as you desire! Either way suits you perfectly!”
He’s brought back to six years ago, when he tried to save Ada from falling into the ruined lab— there’s sweat dripping from his forehead into his eyes the same way it had then, making them sting. His arm shakes with the strain of holding her. Claire looks up at him, legs dangling over the ledge. Her eyes are wide with terror.
Leon isn’t going to let go this time.
He uses his free hand to grab the ledge and drag himself and Claire back, slowly maneuvering them both up and onto the marble.
He pulls her up over the ledge, and she grabs his arms, shaking.
“Holy fuck,” she chokes, and if Ramón weren’t already on his way back down, Leon would just hold her for a moment, to reassure both of them that they’re safe once more and on solid ground.
They’ve both barely stood back up when the monster is catapulting back towards them, only this time, he overshoots, and knocks his head into the marble. It shatters beneath him and sends him into the platform below, stunning him. Ramón groans, looking dazed.
Now’s their chance.
They leap down through the new hole in the ground, landing on top of the mass.
Leon grabs his knife again and plunges the blade into the top of the thing while Claire slides off the side, spinning around and unclipping the final grenade off of her belt— best time as any to use it.
Ramón is busy screeching as Leon slices into him that she’s able to shove the grenade into his open mouth. He sputters around it, and just as Leon hops off and reaches the floor, then sprints to stand next to her, she shoots and strikes the monster right in the face.
The grenade blows up, making Ramón let out a choked, strained scream. Bits of flesh rain down on the two agents, and the thing crumples to the ground.
Ramón’s mangled body hangs limply from the jaws of the larger creature, and he reaches out weakly towards both of them. The bottom half of his face is barely hanging on just enough for him to speak.
“Please help me… Lord Saddler…”
He collapses, and the toothy maw covers his body as he finally falls silent, dead.
Claire stumbles backwards against one of the railings— thank god for the railing— panting hard. Leon shakily straps his shotgun to his back again, then doubles forward, catching his breath with his hands on his knees.
They stay that way for a moment until they meet each other’s eyes. Leon steps forward and places his hand on her shoulder.
“You okay?”
Claire nods and swallows hard as exhaustion once again creeps into her now that this most recent wave of adrenaline begins to wear off.
“Yeah,” she says. “Thanks for the save back there.”
Leon nods and lets go of her, wiping blood off of his arms.
“Don’t mention it. Let’s go get Ashley.”
Claire sets her jaw and stows her submachine gun again, kicking at the dead Ramón as they walk past and towards the steps leading out of the room.
They stagger up, both of them covered in a fresh layer of blood and grime as they shove open the doors and step back out into fresh air.
The air is cold as the pair walk out onto the stone platform, a large body of water surrounding them and spanning for what must be miles. Claire’s never been great with geography, and isn’t sure whether it’s just a huge lake or the ocean.
Oh well. That’s why she’s a government agent, not a scientist.
She and Leon stagger down what ends up being one of the turrets of the castle, and when they round the corner, there’s an elevator waiting for them. The lantern hanging above it flickers as the wind blows against the fire within.
Claire jams her finger into the button once they’ve boarded, and slumps against the wall as it buzzes to life and begins to descend, leading where, she doesn’t care, so long as it gets them the fuck away from this castle and closer to Ashley.
Speaking off, Leon frowns as a motor sounds somewhere from below, drawing their attention to the water.
There’s a boat speeding off, two figures seated within.
The aforementioned Ashley, passed out in the back, and Krauser, who’s driving the vehicle.
Leon scowls.
Where the hell is he taking her?
The elevator dings and comes to a stop, and he and Claire run through the winding tunnel that it deposits them into.
It opens into a stone boat house, torches lining the walls and casting everything in an eerie glow. The wind blows in from the opening at the front, and Leon shivers.
A pair of chains is on the dock, presumably those that held the boat Krauser and Ashley took, but there’s another one still attached and rocking softly in the choppy water.
“Perfect,” Claire says, grinning. “Won’t have to swim after all.”
Leon snorts and follows behind her into the boat once he has the other set of chains undone.
His partner frowns as she ducks down to study the dashboard, and she swears as she finds a slot for a key— empty.
“Dammit. You see it?”
Leon looks on the floor, scanning every inch and running his hands over the surface just in case his eyes are failing him.
“Shit. No, I don’t.”
Okay. Maybe they are swimming.
He’s just straightened up, swearing under his breath, when someone speaks.
“Looking for something?”
A smooth voice pierces through the silence, and Claire’s hand tightens on the boat’s wheel, enough that her knuckles go white.
Of course.
She and Leon turn to see Ada standing on the platform, boat key in hand, with a smug smile on her face.
Claire decides she would much rather swim.
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