Chapter Text
LOCATION — Somewhere in D.C. Leon's residence. 18:00 pm. Monday, November 24th, 201X
Twenty years...
Twenty goddamn years had passed since the Raccoon City incident and Leon Kennedy was still the government's glorified lapdog as he now took the life as a DSO agent. It was almost laughable at how pathetic it was, really. The man was in his early forties and he thought he would be onto ‘bigger and better’ things by now.
Tch — As if those ‘better' things meant becoming a hardened asshole with a heavy reliance on alcohol to cope with his issues and traumas instead of attending therapy like some of his colleagues had recommended. As if they actually cared about what he had going on behind that gruff exterior.
What would he even tell that poor psychiatrist anyways? That his real first day of work really started off with a bang? That he clawed his way out of a virus filled city that no longer existed on any map with nothing but a gun and half of his wits with the help of some woman, specifically Ada, that he didn't know until that day? Or maybe the shit he went through in Spain while trying to save the President's daughter? Let's not even talk about his early days as a DSO agent. The lack of sleep, constant paranoia that someone from his past was keeping eyes on him, and god... What would he say about the hallucinations.
One, his story would sound like some alcohol induced nightmare that went on for too long and two, all of that information was protected by the government and if he did talk about it, he would probably end up swimming with the fishes or see Luis sooner than he thought. That damn bastard was probably laughing at him from whatever afterlife existed now.
The brunette male sighed and shook the thoughts out of his head before blinking a few times. Just now realizing that he was at home, sitting on his couch and blankly staring at his ceiling as if it was the most interesting thing on the planet.
“Fuck... I gotta stop zoning out like that.” He gruffly muttered to himself before sitting up to stretch. He grunted as he stretched his arms over his head, hearing a slight pop here and there. The tension eased out of his body but a slight ache was left behind. The ache reminded him of his own mortality. He was getting old... Physically. Mentally he was already older than what he was now and his body was just finally catching up, or that's what he thought. He was still very fit and built for his age, he had to be for his job of course, but he couldn't help but to feel disappointed every time he had to pop three Tylenol the morning after rough missions. He missed the durability he had in his prime.
Now that the male was focused, he glanced down at the file he had received hours earlier. It laid on his mahogany coffee table along with a few crystal tumblers with whiskey residue still at the bottom, a few self help books he had been reading, and his personal phone with a solid black phone case and a cracked screen protector. He really needed to clean off the table and probably replace that screen protector but it wasn't like he was on his phone enough to really care. He was usually on the solar powered flip phone he was given for work purposes. The file had been given to Leon during one of his breaks and he was about to open it, but before he could read it, he was told before he read it that he would probably want to take a seat and make sure he was in the right headspace to take this mission on.
He would usually brush off the warnings but something about this situation felt different... Off-putting even. He finally took the manilla folder into his hands and opened it... On the left was standard agent information to make sure that the mission went to the correct agent and on the right was the details of said mission. He read it over and realized it was a recovery mission.
Easy, that was a cake walk. The item he was recovering? Well... It wasn't exactly a thing, it was a person. One of the higher-up's kids ‘ran away’... Likely story. Either they got kidnapped by some sort of terroristic group with ulterior motives against the government, they got left in a place by accident and the adults responsible for said kid needed to cover their asses quickly to save their jobs, or the kid actually ran away.
But... Then alarm bells started to ring in his head. The location was redacted on the map he was given but the name was as clear as day but he squinted his piercing blue eyes just to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. “You're fucking kidding me...” Raccoon City. It was like Leon was transported back to the past by just reading those two words. Memories of his more innocent years started to bubble up before he stomped it back down with bitter resentment. That's why they told him to take a seat, that's why they told him that he might want to wait until he was in the right headspace. They were sending him back to the place where his whole life went to shit and it wasn't like they could send anyone else, Leon was the only one who had experience with the streets of Raccoon City. Both pre and post apocalypse. He shut the file and tossed it right back onto the coffee table with a slight thud before he raised his right hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. His brows furrowed as he tried to clear his mind. Could he really go back there and do his job properly when the ghost of his sins constantly crawled up his neck at just the thought of the place? Well, it's not like he had a choice. He had to go whether he liked it or not.
“Fuck. Fuck, Fuck.” Each time he swore out loud held a different meaning. The first one out of being exhausted from working, the second one was out of frustration that he would be sent back to the place that changed the trajectory of his entire life, and the last one? That one was filled with genuine fear, he would have to face the root of most of his issues head on. He would have to be back in that environment, in the debris of what his life was while pushing forward to locate his objective.
He scrubbed his face with his hand before reaching for the file once more. There were slight tremors in his hand as he picked up. He looked through the location section of the papers and read through. The city was in worse shape than when he left it. That was to be expected, after all it had been twenty years and lord knows weather and time was known to wear things down, but on top of that, the government had also tried to eradicate the entire infected population within the city with bombs and the military. So not only was the city in shambles because of the very unstable infrastructure and possible radiation from the bombs, there could be a few straggling infected that evolved with the radiation in that time span. They must've been dying for a bite, the city perimeter had been sealed off, hidden from the public eye and monitored by the military, but that clearly wouldn't stop wildlife or a few very determined urban myth explorers from entering. And is sure as hell didn't stop his objective from getting in there. But the sun continues to shine and the world still spins.
Tomorrow was going to be a new day... And was going to be a day he was going to take off and rest. His in person mission debrief wasn't till the day after and he was even advised by a higher up to take a break before then. So instead of listening to his workaholic mind, he would listen to his body for the first time in forever.