obticeo

You learned that before medical school, before emergency rotations and back-alley sutures that made men in masks limp to you and bleed all over your tile at 3 AM. You learned it at eleven, crouched near an alley behind your old apartment, palm full of deli turkey your mother told you was for lunch, watching a stray with a torn ear bare his teeth at every adult who tried to corner him. Animal control had come with poles. A neighbor had come with a towel. Your mother came with her worried mouth pressed thin and her hands hovering near your shoulders, ready to snatch you back if the dog lunged. The dog had lunged at everyone except you. He had stared at you with yellow-brown eyes, ribs moving under filthy fur, every part of him made of pain and suspicion, and he had taken the turkey from your hand so gently that you cried on the spot. Full ugly tears, snot and all, as if tenderness from a ruined thing was the saddest miracle in the world.

Benjamin Poindexter reminds you of that dog every time he appears at your door.

Which is insane, clinically. Dex is a man. Dex is a killer. Dex is precise, lethal, too calm in ways that make the hairs on the back of your neck lift even when he is sitting on your exam stool with his shirt off and three cracked ribs under your palm. Dex looked at you with blood in his teeth and asked if you keep the good suture scissors in the second drawer or if you hide them from your 'less charming clients,' and he smiled when you stared at him too long. He is six feet of bad decisions and worse coping mechanisms, and yet the first thing your mind gives you when you think of Dex is that stray dog taking turkey from your fingers.

That knock at this time is unexpected. Matt.

Matt knocks like a man who hates needing help. Two firm taps, a pause, one more. Spiderman kncoks like he's not allowed to come in. Jessica once kicked the door and yelled your name until you opened. Dex, on his own, never knocks at all. He appears. He waits. Sometimes he bleeds on the mat. Sometimes he makes a small, polite comment about your hallway light going out.

You are across the room before the kettle finishes screaming. Your clinic is technically a closed flower shop with a fake lease and a drain installed under the center table, which makes you look deranged. Until someone comes in with a knife wound and then everyone suddenly appreciates plumbing. The place smells like antiseptic, old brick damp from rain, black tea, and the faint copper ghost that never fully leaves, because blood is part of everything. You unlock the deadbolt, undo the chain, tug the door open, and Matt Murdock nearly falls into you with Bullseye hanging off him like a corpse.

For one bright, stupid second, all your thoughts empty out into his name.

Dex.

His face is a mess. Blood has dried under one nostril and smeared across his mouth in a dark shine. His lower lip is split. One eye is swollen enough that it changes his whole expression, turning him younger in the ugliest way, all that sharpness buried under bruising and exhaustion. His suit is torn at the side, tactical fabric shredded into strips. When Matt adjusts his grip, Dex makes a sound so small you feel it under your bones.

Matt's mouth tightens. Blood mats his dark hair near his temple. Only consolation is that he looks a little better than Dex. "He needs help."

You stare at Dex. Dex stares back, or tries to. His good eye drags over your face with the slow, stunned relief of a man who expected darkness and got a porch light. The part of you with a medical license starts counting injuries in a list that stacks too fast. Facial trauma. Rib involvement. Possible abdominal injury. Scalp laceration. Possible pneumothorax. The part of you that has made the mistake of caring about him too much, looks at his lashes stuck together with rain and blood and wants to put his head in your lap.

With a gentleness reserved for skittish animals, you reach for his jaw, two fingers under his chin to angle his face toward the light. "Dex, can you hear me?"

Blood shines over his teeth, as his mouth twitches. "Hey, Doc."

Matt shifts him higher with a grunt, muscles in his forearms cording from the effort. Dex makes another small sound, angrier this time, as if the pain is just now surfacing. "He took the worst of it. I did what I could, but he kept telling me to leave him."

"Balanced the scales," Dex mumbles, head tipping back against Matt's shoulder. Rainwater slides from his hair down the side of his neck. "You had a city to save."

"Ma — you should come in." You catch yourself at the last second. It rises right up, soft from habit, and catches at the back of your teeth as Dex's good eye opens again.

He smiles at you through the blood. Barely. A broken curve of recognition, jealous even while half-dead, which is so Dex that something in you aches. "I know who he is, doc. You can call him Matt."

You close your eyes, breathe through your nose once, a fond sigh, which also is deeply annoying. "Of course you do."

Dex's smile widens enough to make the split in his lip bleed again. "Smart boy."

No. Nope.

"Table. Keep his neck aligned." You tell Matt, stepping back and sweeping one arm toward the center of the room. "If either of you tracked glass in here, I'm making you both sweep before sunrise." You add, not wanting to sound too soft.

Matt obeys with a silence that says he has learned, through years of being injured in your presence, that arguing only rises blood pressure. Dex tries to help. That is the horrible part. His fingers grip the edge of the exam table once Matt lowers him, knuckles white, body shaking with the effort of being useful. His legs drag a fraction of a second behind the rest of him. Your mind sees it, circles it, hates it. You pull trauma shears from the tray and cut through what remains of the suit before any panic can bloom large enough to slow your hands.

"Eyes on me," you tell Dex, softer than you mean to. "You do exactly what I say for the next hour. That's the deal."

His lashes flutter, and his ruined mouth quirks. "I'm always good for you."

Matt turns his head slightly, lips tugging on a frown half formed. 

You feel it. Dex feels it too. They are both bleeding and somehow still measuring each other. Matt's face gives almost nothing away, but you have known him long enough to read the pauses, even the slight angle of his chin. He hears Dex's pulse change around you. He hears your answer. He hears the rotten little truth of it, warm and embarrassing under all the antiseptic.

You press two fingers to Dex's carotid and pretend the pulse under your skin is purely clinical. "That depends on your definition of good."

"Flexible," Dex breathes.

"Try alive."

"That's less flexible."

When you shoot him a look, he settles. It happens so fast Matt's brow pulls in, and despite the blood running down the side of his own face, despite the exhaustion in every line of him, you see him file it away. Dex does that for you. Dex, who would rather spit teeth than accept help from almost anyone, quiets under your hand like you found a switch under his skin.

You hate how much that means to you.

The shears bite up the side of Dex's suit. Rain-wet fabric peels away from him, exposing bruises already darkening over his ribs, long shallow cuts crossing his abdomen, a deeper gash near his left flank with slow, steady bleeding. You talk while you work, partly for him, partly for Matt, mostly for your own sanity. "Breath sounds normal. No deep lacerations. Two tiny blessings. Dex, if you lie about pain severity, I will find out and I will be extremely annoying about it."

His good eye trails over your face. "You already are."

"Funny. You get one joke per liter of blood loss."

Matt huffs through his nose, almost a laugh, then winces. You point at the chair by the wall without looking up. "Sit."

"I can take care of myself."

The room goes quiet enough for the kettle to click off in the corner.

You turn your head slowly, gloved fingers still pressed to Dex's side. Matt is standing near the exam table, one shoulder lower than the other, blood sliding past his ear, jaw set in that martyr shape you have wanted to smack off his face for years. "Sit down, Matthew."

Dex makes a low sound, a grunt, or an attemp at it. "Matthew."

Matt's eyes go over Dex, jaw clenching and unclenching. "This is a bad time."

"For you, maybe," Dex says, and then coughs hard enough that the joke breaks.

You lean over him fast, one hand at his shoulder, the other bracing his ribs. "Small breaths. Look at me." His eye finds yours again, frantic for a second. He would kill anyone else for witnessing this, but not now. Your voice drops even further. "That's it. You can hate me after."

He breathes the way you tell him to. Obedient.

When Matt sits, some ridiculous, childish part of you wants to clap. Another part wants to cry. You do neither, since your hands are full of a man who has decided your voice is a leash he can tolerate.

The first twenty minutes disappear into work. Blood pressure readings, pupils, pulses, lung sounds again, neuro checks, wound depth, rib stability. You listen to Dex's chest and feel him try to keep still under the stethoscope, sweat shining at his hairline while his fingers curl over the table edge. When you clean his lip, he keeps his eyes on you as if the room might vanish if he looks away. When you probe near the gash at his side, his breathing goes jagged, but he bites down on the inside of his cheek instead of jerking away.

"Hey." You catch his face in your hand before he can sink his teeth deeper. "Open."

He opens his mouth, shaking while he does it. 

You can feel Matt's head turn again. You ignore it, cheeks heating as you slide gauze between Dex's teeth to keep him from chewing himself bloody. "Better. Bite this if you need to. No hero teeth."

Dex's gaze moves over you, half-lidded, feverish, words coming out mumbled over the piece of gauze. "Do you treat all your patients like dogs?"

You secure a dressing against his side and let the pressure hold under your palm. "Only my favourite strays."

His eye softens like he cannot control himself. It is small. A tiny failure of the mask. A starved thing hearing a bowl set down.

Matt hears that too. You can tell from his silence, from the careful stillness in his chair. When you finish with Dex, you cross the room with a suture kit for the cut at his temple. Matt turns his face towards you before your knees touch the edge of the chair. He smells like rain, blood, city smoke, and that faint soap he uses which you have always found unfairly comforting. You have stitched Matt under worse circumstances. You have dug glass out of his shoulder while he spit blood into your sink. You have fed him soup with one hand while keeping pressure on his dressing with another. That comfort is old. It sits between you now.

Dex watches it like it is a blade aimed at him.

You dab antiseptic at Matt's temple. "This is shallow. You are lucky."

Matt's mouth curves in that tired, self-punishing way. "People keep telling me that."

"Maybe try believing them once in a while."

Ignoring that, he dips his chin towards Dex. "How bad is he?"

You glance back at Dex. He has his head turned toward the ceiling now, but his eye is still angled in your direction. Watching. Always listening. "Bad enough that moving him tonight would be stupid. He's stable enough. But I need imaging he will never agree to. Possible rib fractures, soft tissue trauma, no obvious neuro deficit from what I can assess here, but I want repeat checks every hour. He needs observation."

"He wanted me to leave him," Matt says quietly, like his voice won't carry in the small room. 

Dex speaks from the table, voice rough around the gauze and dried blood. "You should've. Still think you should."

You thread the needle through Matt's skin with more force than strictly needed, anger showing up in a different place. Matt says nothing, but his mouth pinches.

"No one dies in my clinic unless I say so," you call over your shoulder.

Dex exhales, a soft sigh followed by a start of a complaint. "You really —"

"Please lie down and stop talking."

Matt's hand closes around your wrist after you finish the last stitch. He does it carefully, fingers warm, thumb pressing once against your radius as if he is asking permission through touch. Comfort. Familiar, heavy with years of people trying to survive horrible nights. "Fisk is still moving," he says. "Karen..." His voice thins for half a breath. "Karen may kill him if I bring him anywhere near her."

Dex smiles at the ceiling. "Smart woman."

You look from Matt to Dex, then down at the blood-speckled gauze piled near your knee. "You want to leave him here."

"I think he is safer here than anywhere else tonight." Matt's mouth tightens, next words dragging through his teeth. "I think everyone else is safer too."

Your laugh comes out dry and humorless. "So I get custody of the homicidal puppy while you go deal with the rest of the apocalypse."

Dex turns his head toward you. Even wrecked, even pale, even with gauze stuffed in his mouth and bruises swallowing half his face, the look he gives you has teeth in it. Offended by the word puppy. Pleased by the word custody. Matt catches every ugly shade of it.

"He listens to you," Matt says.

"He has limited hobbies."

Dex murmurs, "You."

The word drops into the room with a wet little thud. One syllable dragged over broken lips, and still it finds some secret place under your ribs and presses. You hate him a little for that. You hate Matt a little for hearing it. You hate yourself most of all for wanting to go back to the table and touch Dex's hair until his eyes close.

Matt rises slowly. You stand with him, suddenly aware of how small the clinic is with three people and so many things no one should say. He reaches for the cowl, then stops. "Call me if he gets worse. If he loses consciousness, if he starts vomiting, if he says anything about numbness or weakness."

"I went to med school, Matt."

His mouth tilts, a small smile, the first real one from him tonight. 

You can feel Dex watching you, clear enough to hurt. Pain pulls his face tight, yet jealousy sits in him like a second pulse, stubborn and alive. He has killed for balance tonight. He has decided dying would be neat, fair. Still, your hand on Matt's wrist bothers him. Your voice saying Matt's name bothers him. The fact that you can tease the Devil of Hell's Kitchen into sitting down while Dex lies cut open on your table bothers him so much that he has dragged himself back from the edge purely to be petty about it.

Trying to ignore him, you walk Matt to the door and keep your voice low. "You owe me."

"I do."

"No, you really do. This is beyond the usual owe me. This is pay my fake flower shop's electric bill for six months owe me."

His hand finds the doorframe. "Send the amount."

You blink at him, at his audacity. "I was making a point."

"I heard the point." His face softens toward yours, bruised and tired, but warmth nonetheless. "Thank you."

You almost touch his arm. You stop yourself, which is silly, since Matt would sense the hesitation anyway and Dex would read the shape of it from across the room. "Go. Try to keep your skull intact."

Before the door closes, Matt turns his head toward Dex. "If you hurt her, I will hear it."

Dex laughs once, and the sound turns into a wince. "If I hurt her, you can have what's left."

The clinic holds the echo of Matt's footsteps after he leaves. Rain ticks against the front window. Dex's breath is slow but uneven, the gauze in his mouth damp with blood and spit. You stand with your hand on the lock and try to make sense of this situation. A murderer on your table. A city outside eating itself alive. A man who wants to die looking at you like he would crawl back through hell if you asked him to stay.

You lock the door.

Dex watches the motion, tracking you. "You're awfully close."

You cross to the sink and strip off your gloves. The snap of latex feels too loud. "You were actively bleeding out fifteen minutes ago. Pick a smarter topic."

"Answer."

Water runs pink down the drain. Your hands shake only after the gloves are off. "Matt and I have history."

Dex's jaw works around the gauze. "So do we."

"You show up here, bleed on my furniture, say alarming things, refuse hospital transfer, and once asked if I had a membership program after your fifth visit." You shut the water off and look at him. His face makes you angry. But only a little. That hungry stare from a man who has no right to demand any part of you after deciding twenty minutes ago that death sounded fine. Yet under it is the dog with the torn ear. The animal watching every hand, every doorway, every flick of attention, trying to figure out who belongs to him, who might leave, who might choose some other dog with a clean fur.

You walk back to the table and take the gauze gently from his mouth. "You are exhausting."

Dex's throat move with effort, swallowing, saliva wetting his mouth. "Do you look at him like this?"

The question is quieter than the others. Worse. It has no blade in it. Only a man lying open under fluorescent light, too hurt to hide the wound he actually cares about.

Your fingers hover near his cheek. You let them settle at his jaw, light enough that he can turn away if he wants. He does no such thing. He leans into the touch so fast it ruins you.

"Dex."

His lashes lower, tickling your palm when he seeks the warmth. 

"I am going to clean you up, give you fluids, keep you awake for neuro checks, and cuff you to the bed in the back room so you avoid doing some noble-suicidal assassin bullshit the second I blink." Your thumb moves once along the unmarred edge of his jaw. His skin is cold. "After that, you can interrogate me about Matt Murdock until I regret saving your life."

A sad smile curves his lips. "You already regret it."

"No." The word comes out so soft. "I really, really do not."

The clinic's back room used to serve as a supply closet, then you stopped having supplies. Now it holds a narrow bed bolted to the wall, clean sheets, a cabinet of emergency meds, and a chain you bought after a masked idiot with a concussion tried to wander into traffic with three fresh staples in his scalp. 

Dex sees the cuff and laughs until pain takes the laugh away from him. You roll your eyes while helping him shift down onto the mattress, every inch a negotiation with his battered ribs.

"You chain all your favourite patients?" He asks once his uninjured ankle is secured with a padded restraint and the chain runs through the bedframe.

You tug the blanket over his waist. "Only the flight risks."

"Matt ever get the chain?"

Your hands pause, which already gives him a lot without meaning to. 

Dex smiles without opening his eyes. "Interesting."

You secure the IV line, check the dressing at his side, and sit on the small chair beside the bed with your back against the cabinet. "Go to sleep, Dex."

"Can't."

"Then lie still and pretend. You're talented."

His fingers slide over the edge of the mattress until they find your sleeve. He grips the soft cotton near your wrist, clumsy but careful. He has enough strength left to hurt you if he wanted. He holds the fabric instead.

You let him.

Near dawn, after the third neuro check, after he has told you the year, the president, your clinic address, and the exact number of tiles in the ceiling section above him like an asshole, his voice comes out thin and drugged by exhaustion rather than meds. "I did it."

You sit up straighter. Hearing him talk through pain is something you don't want to go through, but have to. "Did what?"

"Balanced it. Vanessa for Foggy."

A chill moves through you so slowly it feels like a hand closing around your heart. Foggy. Matt's grief. Karen's rage. Dex's worst crime. The city's endless appetite for payment. You look at him and see, for one horrible second, a man lying at the bottom of a ledger with a red line drawn under his own name. "And now?" 

Dex's fingers tighten in your sleeve, holding you closer. "Now I'm tired."

You reach up and press your hand over his. He looks at the place where your skin covers his knuckles. His expression is too human for the man the papers called Bullseye, and you hate every person who helped turn him into a weapon, including Dex himself. He leans toward the comfort like he never learned how to ask.

"Then be tired here," you whisper. "I can handle tired."

He studies you for a long moment. "Can you handle me?"

You should say something clinical. Something careful. Something with the kind of boundaries you teach medical students when they come through your legitimate daytime job, wide-eyed and terrified of liability. But, you tell the truth. "I keep opening the door, don't I?"

Dex's eye closes. His fingers stay wrapped in your sleeve until sleep finally drags him under.

By late morning, the rain has stopped. The city has that scrubbed-clean look it gets after a night of lying through its teeth. Pale sunlight presses through the frosted glass in the back room, turning the sheets gold where Dex's hand rests on top of them. You wake in the chair with your neck bent at an angle that will punish you for days, hair coming loose from its clip. For one muzzy second, you forget the night. Then the chain gives a soft metallic scrape, and you remember every part of it at once.

Dex is awake.

He is lying still, which is encouraging. Too still, which is irritating. His good eye follows you as you straighten. He looks better, at least in the way people look better when they are still severely injured but no longer actively trying to bleed into the afterlife. Less gray. More focused. The swelling around his eye has deepened purple. His mouth is still split and tender. Stubble darkens his jaw. His bare chest is bandaged in three places, bruises blooming under the tape like ugly weather.

"You stayed," he says.

Your back cracks when you shift, a grunt escaping you. "I live here during disasters now, apparently."

His gaze drops to your wrinkled shirt, the blanket you must have pulled over yourself at some point. "You slept in a chair."

"I have made worse choices." Liking him was one. 

His mouth moves like he wants to smile, but the split in his lip stops him. "Name one."

"You, repeatedly." Apparently early morning you has no filter. 

That pleases him far more than it should. He watches you stand, and when you come over to check his pupils, he tilts his face up before you ask. Trying to be good again. It is awful to your chest, that easy offering. Dex, who fights everyone, lets you put your fingers under his jaw and angle him towards the light, eyes tracking your face more than the penlight. 

"Headache?" you ask.

"Not really."

"Nausea?"

"No."

"Vision changes?"

"Ugly curtains."

"Those are original to the building, and they have seen too much to be insulted by you."

Ignoring that, he looks toward the ankle cuff. "Am I still a flight risk?"

"You murdered someone last night, tried to die at least twice by my count, and keep making jealous comments about a blind lawyer. So, Id say yes."

Dex's eye comes back to you. Slower now. "You're bringing him up."

The audacity if this stupid, beautiful, injured man. "You were going to."

"I was waiting."

"That must have been hard for you."

His fingers flex against the sheet, head dipping once towards his ankle. "Take it off."

You fold your arms, and his gaze moves briefly over your chest before he makes himself look back at your face. The tiny effort, the discipline of it, should not be as intimate as it is. "Tell me why."

"So I can leave if I want."

"Wrong answer."

The old Dex sits up under the wounded one for a second, teeth showing in spirit, even if his mouth is too sore for the full shape. He exhales, irritated. "So I can stop feeling like you expect me to run."

That one is a better answer. He sees that getting to you, which is annoying. Your mouth softening by degrees, fingers loosening against your arms, he sees all of it. You crouch near the bed and unlock the cuff with the key on your necklace. His eyes follow it, the little brass thing sliding from between your breasts, then the lock, then your hand closing around his ankle to ease the padding away from skin.

The chain falls with a dull clink.

Half of you, the pessimistic half, expects him to lunge. But he just lies there and looks at you with wonder in his eyes, as if you have handed him a weapon and he has chosen, for this one morning, to set it down.

"If you run, I will find you and sedate you in public," you say.

"You promise?"

"Dex."

With effort, his hand lifts. The tremor is subtle, visible only because you have spent too many nights learning his tells. He reaches for your wrist and stops halfway, waiting.

You wouldn't have thought more about this if he'd just reached. The waiting is what burrows under your ribs. 

When you give him your wrist, his fingers close around it with almost no pressure, thumb restinh over your pulse like he wants to feel proof you are still here, flesh and warmth, no trick. "Does he get this?" 

He should feel your pulse jump under his thumb, as you sigh and look at him. "Matt gets stitches. Lectures. Soup if he looks starved."

Dex studies your face, eyes tracking every one of your features, scanning. "And me?"

"You get the chain."

He huffs out something close to a laugh, with whatever energy that's left in him.

"You get me missing sleep, changing your dressings while you say upsetting things. You get me pretending I don't worry when you vanish for weeks and then show up with half your side open like a wounded dog dragging itself under a porch."

His hand tightens around the hold, eyes darkening. They are fixed on you with concentration, feeling more like a touch than his actual hands. 

Dex has always looked at targets with focus. You have seen him do it through security footage Matt once brought you, body still, gaze calm, all the world narrowed into distance and outcome. This is different. Messier. He looks at you like he wants to crawl into the space behind your ribs and sleep there where no one can reach him.

"Do you want him?" The question comes out blunt. Too wounded. Subtlety has been stripped from him. What remains is one battered man, waiting to hear if he has already lost something he never properly held.

You sit on the edge of the mattress, careful near his ribs. The warmth of his body seeps into yours. "Matt is my friend."

"He touches you like he has rights."

"He touches me like he trusts me."

Dex's eyes looks pained, his jaw tightening. When you lean closer, his gaze drops to your mouth. Your eyes cleanly capture that small betrayal. His thumb strokes once over your pulse, helplessly possessive. You could still walk away. Probably change his dressing, make tea, text Matt an update, maybe contact someone with imaging access who asks fewer questions than the hospital would. Your brain produces tasks in a neat row. Your body knocks the row over like dominoes.

"He doesn't get this look," you sigh. Hazel eye lifts to yours, stripped clean. You almost laugh at yourself for what you're about to say, too honest for this setting. "No one else gets this look."

His breathing changes. Shallow for a second, then controlled since his ribs hurt. He has to choose restraint with every inhale. It makes the want on his face worse. A man who can hit a target precisely even in motion, is trying to keep still under your hand. The effort has sweat gathering at his temples. His hand closed around your wrist tugs you towards him, wordless, but you don't think words are needed. 

"You have bruised ribs, multiple lacerations, and an ego wound the size of Manhattan," you say, but lean towards him anyway. 

"Your bedside manner was better last night."

"Last night you were closer to death."

His mouth curves faintly, the split lip threatening to open with themotion. "I'm improving. Reward me."

The nerve of him. The absurd, devastating nerve of him, lying in your bed bandaged to hell, asking for you like he has any right, like he has every right. He has learned the existence of a spot in you where affection, fear and desire knot together, and has decided to press his thumb there. This is medically stupid, ethically worse, emotionally catastrophic. 

But his hand on your wrist makes you feel chosen by a creature who has bitten everyone else, torn ear flashing before your eyes once more. 

You bend down and kiss him. You mean to make it careful. A little thing. A test. Dex makes a sound into your mouth, and the kiss opens wider before you can organize your thoughts. His lips are split, so you keep the pressure light, but he chases you anyway, hungry in a ruined, restrained way that sends a wave of heat through your skin. His hand rises to the back of your neck. You expect him to pull your closer, but he just holds you there, that being somehow worse. His palm is warm, fingers trembling slightly against your hairline, whole body focusing on the point where your mouth meets his.

You pull back first, breathing hard, sharing oxygen. "Pain?" 

His eyes open slowly, hazel swallowed by black. "Yes."

"From the kiss?"

"No." 

"Dex."

"Everything hurts," he says, voice rough, like he's holding on by a thread. "That felt better."

The thread is thin. Your forehead lowers to his temple for one second. Just one. But it's enough to smell antiseptic on his skin, blood in his mouth, rain still caught somewhere in his hair. Enough to feel him exhale like the thread has finally snapped.

"This stays slow," you whisper against his mouth. "You tell me if I need to stop."

His thumb moves along your jaw, soft, so soft. "I'll behave."

That word is so gentle, that he has no practice giving, and you kiss him again before you can lose your nerve. Dex kisses like survival has always been a contact sport. Even injured, even careful, his mouth has a desperate steadiness to it, as if he is memorizing the limits of what he can take from you without breaking the spell. His hand slides from your neck to your waist, then stops. Waiting again.

You place his hand over your hip.

A sound leaves him, too soft to be a groan, too hungry to be a sigh, and his fingers dig into the flesh of your hips. Your thighs press together, his eye tracking the movement with a precision that makes your skin prickle. "Doc," he murmurs against your mouth.

"Mm?"

"You're shaking."

"So are you."

"I have an excuse."

A laugh from your mouth, but it comes out breathy and uneven, not nearly as cool as you need it to be. "Shut up."

You don't have a comeback, no sharp thing to say. You're letting Ben Poindexter slide his hand up under your shirt. There's an awful tenderness in being wanted by someone who rarely wants anything without destroying it. So, no. No sharp comeback. 

His palm spreads over your waist, careful of his taped fingers, of the bruises on his own knuckles, careful with you in a way that feels learned from watching rather than experience. His thumb brushes the lower curve of your breast through your bra, and your breath goes thin.

His gaze locks on that reaction. "Can I?" 

When you nod, his hand moves higher, cupping you with an aching slowness that makes your hips shift on the mattress. Dex's eyelid lowers, mouth parting slightly as if the feel of you under his palm is enough to daze him more than his injuries. He squeezes once, gentle at first, then firmer when your fingers curl into the sheet.

"Tell me," he says.

"Half-dead, but still you demand."

He ignores your words. "Tell me what you like."

The command, irritating from any other mouth, only drags heat through every inch of you now. You cover his hand with yours and guide him, showing him the pressure, the spot, how your nipple tightens when his thumb rubs over it through cotton. His attention is unbearable. "Like that," you breathe. "A little harder. Yeah, like that."

"He ever hear you sound like that?"

You kiss him harder, stealing those words from his mouth. He absorbs it with a shudder, hand tightening around your breast while his other reaches for your thigh. 

The position is so awkward, you help him a little to sit up. Two bodies learning each other in the small space of a spare room cot.

Jealousy is still there, you can feel it threaded through every question, but now it has heat behind it, a wounded need that makes him cling and challenge at once. You swing one leg over his hips before he can try to move too much, settling carefully over his thighs, your palms braced on either side of his shoulders so none of your weight hits his ribs.

For once, Bullseye looks struck.

You look down at him, at the swelling, the bruises, the blood cleaned from his mouth, the bandages you placed over skin you are now aching to touch. 

A man who tried to die last night is now staring at you like your thighs around him might be a reason to reconsider.

"This okay?" you ask, voice soft, not to startle him.

Dex swallows as he nuzzles closer, as if it was even possible. "Better than okay."

"Hands stay where they won't pull stitches."

A faint smile, soft enough to pull your heartstrings, looks up at you as if you have given him an order he would follow through fire. "Yes, doctor."

Your fingers tighten in the sheet beside his hip at his words. His thumb keeps moving on the bare strip of your stomach like he has found a place warm enough to keep him, palm heavy with feverish want and restraint that looks painful on him. 

When you reach for your shirt, his hand tightens at your thigh. "Slow… let me see."

You almost laugh at the nerve of him. When the shirt drags up your ribs, his eyes follow every inch as if the fabric itself has offended him by hiding you this long. You pull it over your head and toss it to your back. Your bra is plain, worn from too many overnight shifts, and the fact that he looks at it like lace from some altar makes heat crawl over your cheeks. "Say something," you murmur, fingers hovering near the clasp.

Dex's mouth parts, then closes again. The split along the lower one shines where he has worried it open with every kiss. "I'm trying to think like a man with blood left in his head."

"That bad?"

His thumb brushes under the curve of your breast, barely grazing the band of your bra. "Worse."

You unhook it before the embarrassment can make you hesitate. The straps slip down your arms, and Dex goes still. Your breasts fall free, nipples already tight from his earlier touch, and the look on his face makes you feel naked in a deeper place than skin. He reaches up with both hands, then winces at the pull across his ribs. His frustration flashes sharp in his jaw.

"Let me come to you," you offer.

He gives a tiny shake of his head, annoyed at himself. "I hate this."

"You hate being cared for."

"I hate having hands and not able to use them."

That almost makes you smile. You shift closer, one hand cupping the back of his head, other hand cupping your breast and guiding him towards it. "Then use your mouth."

Dex groans like that instruction broke him. His lips close around your nipple, careful for all of two seconds before the pull turns needy. His tongue works over you, slow at first, then firmer when your hips shift against his. He makes a sound into your skin, less like hunger, more comfort, like he has found some impossible warmth in you and intends to live there now. 

One of his hands finds your waist. The other slides around to your ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh he can reach. He cannot pull you hard without hurting himself, so he holds you in place and sucks like he needs the taste of you to steady him.

"Dex," you breathe, your hand tightening in his hair. His eye lifts without his mouth leaving you. "That's... yeah. Keep doing that."

He answers by drawing you deeper into his mouth, cheeks hollowing with a careful pull that sends a wet, aching spark down between your legs. The sound you make embarrasses you, and he hears it. Feels it. His hand slides lower, greedy over the curve of your ass. When you rock against him, his cock presses thick and hard under the loose pants you put on him hours earlier.

He releases your nipple with a soft sound, mouth shining. "Take these off me."

"Demanding, are we?"

His gaze drags up to meet yours. "Please. I need you closer, and these are in my way."

That is worse than anything filthy he could have said. Your fingers go to his waistband, tugging carefully, your focus split between wanting him and watching the tight pinch around his mouth whenever his ribs object. He helps as much as he can, lifting his hips an inch, hissing through his teeth. His cock slips free against his stomach, hard, already wet at the tip.

You stare for half a second too long. Even when he's injured, Dex notices everything. "Still want to scold me?"

"Constantly," you say, hating the softness in it, and wrap your hand around him.

His laugh turns into a groan, head dropping back against the wall while your thumb spreads the wetness at his tip down his shaft. He is warm in your hand, heavy, alive. The thought makes your throat ache, so you lean in and kiss him instead, messy and careful at once, your bare chest pressed near his bandages, your fingers stroking him until his hips twitch. "Stop moving," you whisper against his mouth.

"I barely moved."

"You moved enough." Your fingers don't stop their graze on his cock. 

"I missed you." His voice comes apart on the last word. "Grant me a little mercy."

You rise onto your knees instead of answering the smarter way, tugging at your pants with one impatient hand while the other stays braced near his shoulder. The fabric catches at your knees, and for one stupid second you almost laugh. This is so ungraceful, far from the kind of fantasy you would have let yourself have about him. Dex does not laugh. His gaze follows the slow drag of your pants down your thighs like he is watching something holy and obscene at once. By the time you kick them off near the foot of the cot, your underwear is damp enough to cling, and his fingers flex against your hips like he is fighting the urge to help. "Those too."

"You're very annoying for a man who can barely sit upright, you know?"

"Please." There's just desperation. 

You push your underwear down just enough at first, suddenly shy under his gaze, then give up and pull them off completely. Your slick coats your fingers when you touch yourself, and Dex's mouth parts like the sight has taken the last good thought from his head.

He watches entranced while you drag that wetness over his cock, making the slide easier, making a filthy shine of both of you. His hands flex against your hips, then still when you lower yourself over him.

The first stretch steals the words from both of you. You sink slowly, one hand braced on the wall over his shoulder, the other gripping his upper arm where the muscle tenses under your palm. Dex looks wrecked before you are even halfway down. His mouth hangs open, eyes fixed on your face, then dropping to where his cock disappears into you, then come back up as if he needs to see you take him more than he needs air. "Too much?" he asks.

Lowering anothet inch, you shake your head, thighs already trembling from the angle. "Just — just let me take my time."

"I'm yours," he says. "Take all of it."

The words do terrible things to you. You sink the rest of the way, cunt closing around him in hot, slick pulses. 

Dex's hands clamp down on your ass with a force that almost breaks through his weakness. His forehead falls against your sternum. He breathes there, mouth brushing your skin, then he turns his face and sucks one breast back between his lips while you start to ride him.

The cot creaks under. Your thighs burn almost immediately, cramped from sleep in the chair and the span of his hips beneath yours. Still, you lift and sink, taking him deeper each time. 

Dex tries to stay still. You feel the fight in him. His palms keep sliding under your ass, helping you rise, helping you drop, giving you just enough strength to keep moving without letting his ribs tear at him.

Then he thrusts up like he can't stop himself. A sharp little cry leaves you, pleasure striking so deep your knees almost give. Dex makes a pained sound in the same second, and your hand flies to his shoulder "Do that again and I swear I'll chain you back to the bed."

His face is tight, sweat shining at his temple. "I can take this."

"You are actively proving the opposite."

"Please." He says it into your breast, lips brushing the skin as he speaks, hands still cupping your ass. "Let me help. Sitting still while you do everything hurts worse."

Your scolding dies half-formed. If there's a tease, you could've gone through with it. But there's only need. Nodding your head against him, you let his hands guide you again. 

He lifts as much as he can with his arms, careful of his side, and you ride the motion, cunt sliding down his cock with a wet sound that makes both of you shudder. His mouth finds your nipple again, sucking harder, and you feel him everywhere, under your skin, in your thighs, between your ribs. "I'm close," you tell him.

His hand leaves your ass, searching between your bodies. But when he twists wrong, pain catches him. You grab his wrist and press it back to your hip. "No. I'll do it."

"I want to make you cum."

"You are." You touch your clit with slick fingers and circle it the way you need, riding him in short, deep rolls. "Just stay with me. That's what I need."

His head drops back against the wall, watching your hand move, watching his cock fill you, then watches your face break open around pleasure. "Look at me. P-please. Let me see you."

When your eyes find his, your orgasm hits you you hard enough to turn your thighs useless, cunt clenching around him in tight, wet pulls. 

Dex curses softly, hands locking on your ass as he spills inside you, hot and endless, body going rigid beneath yours while he tries to keep from thrusting. You keep your mouth against his, breathing into him until the shaking eases.

He says something too low for you to catch.

"What?"

His eye opens, glassy and spent. "Mine."

Your fingers slide along his jaw, careful around the bruising. "You don't get to say that unless you stay alive."

"I'll stay alive." The answer comes fast, hoarse, almost angry with how badly he means it.

Before you can respond, he catches the wrist of the hand you used on your clit and brings your fingers to his mouth. His lips close around them, sucking you off your own skin with a slow hunger that makes you clench again around his softening cock. 

Like he cannot bear another second apart, he pulls you down and kisses you, your taste on his tongue, his hand weak but certain at the back of your neck. His pulse slams under your palm where it's holding onto his neck. Alive. Alive. Alive.

Getting off him is slow and messy. His cum slides down your thigh while you stand naked beside the cot. 

Dex watches with a dazed, almost helpless look that follows you even when you grab a warm cloth. You sit beside him and clean his cock first, gentle around oversensitive skin, and he inhales like this care is harder to take than the sex. "I can do that," he mutters.

"You are injured. Shut up." You continue your path down his thighs. 

"You like telling me what to do."

"I like keeping you alive." You check the bandage at his side next, still naked, still dripping, fingers clinical even while his gaze keeps dropping to the mess he left between your thighs. "Looks okay. Nothing opened."

When you clean yourself, he watches your hand move between your thighs with a frown that is almost offended. "That should be me."

"You can do that when you aren't fighting for your life."

His eye lifts to yours, begging, exhausted. "Next time?"

"Next time." Next time means he's planning on staying. 

Your phone buzzes, the sound cutting through the moment. One small vibration against the metal cabinet, and Dex already knows. His eye shifts before yours does, tired and sharp at the same time, like the rest of him is sinking under but that sharp little blade in him still knows how to lift its head. "Matt," he says.

Offering him a bottle of water, you pick up your phone. Sure enough it is Matt.

"Tell him I didn't vanish." The bottle is unopened at his hands.

Sighing, you grab it from him, uncap and press it to his lips. Dex looks at you stunned, almost offended that you're holding a bottle to his mouth. "Drink."

Whatever response that was about to spill from his lips is interrupted by another buzz of your phone, currently on the cot beside him.

Dex's eyes drop to the screen. Bruised, naked under the too-thin blanket, barely keeping himself awake, and still he finds the one thing in the room pulling your attention away from him. "Persistent," he rasps.

"You're one to talk." The bottle stays at his mouth until he takes one grudging swallow, then another. His throat works, lashes lowering for a second.

The phone buzzes again.

Dex's mouth leaves the bottle. "Just — just reply him."

You pick up the phone with a sigh, and type back a response. 

Still here. Stable. 

Dex's eye tracks every letter. "That's all?"

"You want a performance review?"

His almost-smile tugs at the torn corner of his mouth. "Five stars. Charming. Didn't vanish."

You set the phone facedown beside his hip and lift the bottle again. "One more sip."

He groans, but drinks. This time he doesn't look offended. When a drop slips from the corner of his mouth, you wipe it with your thumb before thinking better of it. Dex catches your wrist before you can pull back. His grip has almost no strength left, but he holds you like letting go is the worst thing that could happen. "I behaved." 

Just two words, like that wounded dog setting its head down because it has run out of places, but has finally found home. Your eyes sting so fast it's embarrassing. You settle your palm against his cheek. "Yes, you did."

Matt's reply comes through, unseen and ignored.

Dex's eyes close as he nuzzles deeper into your palm, your wrist still trapped in his loose hold. And all you can think is, stay.

MY MASTERLIST

EXTRAS. you can tell i almost gave up in the end. also… my man is so puppy dog. prove me wrong…

It had thrown you. The call from Karen. 

Hers was one of those numbers sat neglected in the bottom of your contacts, an old friend that occasionally made your heart stutter as you scrolled aimlessly past it to reach another.

Not that you would’ve expected her to remain close, not after what had happened.

It had been an odd place to find a friend like Karen, while you were working for the FBI. The two seemed fundamentally opposed. You’d clocked that she was using you almost immediately, you couldn’t have stumbled into public relations for a federal agency without having your wits about you. At the time, you’d figured maybe she could be of use too, it was plain to see she held a better hand than anyone bargained for.

What you hadn’t foreseen was just how much you’d actually begin to like her. She was sharp, witty, exuded an aura of certainty that most would be envious of. You felt yourself mirrored in her teeth-baring ways, both familiar with holding your own in a room full of people who thought they held the wheel.

There was something effortlessly charming about her and her companions: Nelson and Murdock always trailing somewhere not far behind. You’d always had the sense that they didn’t quite trust you the way she did.

Your heart told you that maybe it was something you’d done, your mind told you it was Ben.

Your boyfriend, at the time, Benjamin Poindexter.

Sure, you’d known that he could be abrasive, harsh even. Most would describe him as an acquired taste. But back then he’d just been Ben. It had been difficult to bite your tongue those days, when the whispers around the back of the room rang all too clearly in your ears: He’s crazy, haven’t you heard what he did to the Albanians? Do you think he hurts her? I don’t know what she sees in him.

They couldn’t have been further from the truth. Ben had his problems: you weren’t blind to the holes in his apartment walls, speckles of shattered glass that sometimes clipped your heels when you were getting water from the tap. Yes, I saw what he did to the Albanians. No, I don’t agree, but it was him or them. No, he’s never laid a finger on me. What does she see in him? Everything.

The inner mechanisms of Ben Poindexter hadn’t been a burden to bear, but a privilege to be privy to. Difficult at times. Challenging, yes. But it was all worth it to slink into his arms at the end of a long day.

Back then, you had wanted to scream the truth from the rooftops. Would’ve pleaded with anyone that would have listened. You wanted to tell them how he always brought you coffee without asking. That your clothes were always clean, pressed, and folded before you’d even known he’d put them in the laundry. That he used to trace your skin on lazy mornings, pressing kisses down the nape of your neck, staring up at you with a reverence typically reserved for deities and fanatics.

Sure, he had his quirks. He was a tad possessive; you knew that maybe he’d been a bit too into you before you’d started dating. It wasn’t unsurprising for him to appear in front of you at any given moment, no reason why or how he should’ve known you were there. Some people would’ve found it creepy, but fuck it, you liked it. You’d run into his arms screaming gleefully every fucking time.

Instead, you’d screamed when Fisk’s men had dragged you off the street into the back of a van with a gun to your head, swallowed by darkness and nothing but the earthy taste of the salt in your tears to keep you grounded. Keep you sane. You’d stayed there while most of the action took place, only reemerging when the damage was done.

Not only was Poindexter untrustworthy. Worse, he was Daredevil. He was a murderer, simple as.

Any fantasy you’d had of the man had shattered rather quickly after that. 

Karen had been there in the wake of it all, at your side, a steady weight in what would otherwise be considered a freefall. She’d wiped your tears, sat with you and a bottle of wine of the floor of your apartment as all you could do was mourn a man who never really existed. Not in the way you thought he had. Nelson, Murdock and Page could do with some PR, you know, she’d shouldered you with a coy grin splitting ear to ear.

Somewhere down the line, Murdock had become Matt, Nelson had become Foggy, and you had become a friend. Somewhere down the line, Matt Murdock became Daredevil. Sometimes it felt religious, like atonement, the work you did with them: penance for time spent advocating for lesser men with violent minds. There were some bad days speckled in there, but most were good, laughing and throwing peanuts at Josie’s with a smile plastered on your lips.

The day Foggy Nelson died was a very bad day.

You could never have been certain of it, but you knew you’d caught his eye that night. Nothing more than a brief flicker of recognition slatted between a ski mask; but you’d be a liar if you’d said it didn’t make you feel just as wounded as poor Foggy. Then Matt had thrown Bullseye from the roof, and you’d had to lurch away from Foggy’s corpse to stop yourself desecrating it with vomit.

You had moved without thinking about. It had been nothing more than a split second, a single footstep in his direction. Ben’s direction. The ember of flame long snuffed out reigniting in the pit of your stomach, the want, the need to know that he was still breathing as his neck lay snapped at that godforsaken angle.

It had been a mistake, but it had been enough for Karen.

You’d seen it in that very moment, the flicker of betrayal in her eyes – years’ worth of retribution flattened in a single motion. She’d believed you were better, but apparently you were just as sick as before. It churned your stomach to think that maybe you’d caught that sickness from Ben Poindexter all those years ago.

Her and Matt had been civil to you at the funeral, but they had left without you, and each other. Not a nod in your direction. You knew why they couldn’t stand it; you couldn’t stand it yourself, the knowledge that his hands had ever slipped into your own, that your breath and body and mind had ever mingled with the man who had used his to rip one of their oldest friends from the world.

This was all to say that when Karen called, you came.

It was against your better judgement: she’d omitted any information about why she wanted your help, what for, only offering an address and the simple fact that she needed you there. It wasn’t going to be what it seemed, you knew that much, Karen would only have avoided telling you something that she knew would’ve prevented you from coming.

It made your chest ache, to be oh so aware of an act of manipulation and to fall into it willingly, letting guilt and shame move your body before reason could take over. If she’d called, you knew it must be desperate, and your list of friends was short enough that Karen and Matt still topped it despite not hearing a whisper from them for over two years.

It makes you jump when Matt, clad in Daredevil regalia, peels the door open before you can rap your knuckles against the wood, fucking heartbeats. You jolt even more when he lurches into a bone crushing hug, pulling your body tight against his own.

“Fuck, it’s good to see you,” the smile that quirks on his lips as he pulls back is barely there, but you don’t need to hear his heart to know its genuine. Tired. His head dips, and it all too quickly morphs into something more of a grimace, “I want you to know that this wasn’t my idea. And that I’m sorry for putting you through this.”

Your jaw hinges open slightly, questions bubbling in your throat, but Karen appears beside Matt before you can wrap your tongue around the words.

She’s quieter, more resolute, and you’re not sure if the light in her eyes is fire or warmth, “Hey, thanks for showing up.”

“Of course,” you mutter, barely audible, and a tad choked, “I put my coat on the moment I picked up the phone.”

Something of a smile ghosts her lips then, and she slots an arm around your shoulder, pulling you into the apartment, “I called you because I needed your help.”

The door swings shut behind you, and it’s at that moment that she steps to the side.

She steps to the side and you see him.

The first thing you notice is his hair: it’s cut differently to way it was when you were together, a tad more clipped and shaggier on the top, a mop of blond flecked with grey. He’s covered head-to-toe in blood and gauze, head lolled to the side at an angle all too reminiscent of a night best forgotten. He’s shirtless, body an ode to damage that can be inflicted by knives and guns and god knows what – he’s bigger than he ever was when you were together.

You’re not sure if its tears welling in your eyes or vomit in your throat as you whisper into the silence, “Fuck.”

His eyes crack open almost instantly.

And then he starts fucking laughing. It’s nothing more than a breathy chuckle to begin with, mingled in with sharp inhales, but it quickly morphs into raucous laughter, throwing his head back against the bedframe in tandem with the jangle of the handcuffs shackling him down.

Karen and Matt at least have the decency to look ashamed, averting their entire bodies from your sight. You can still make out Karen worrying her lip between her teeth, her fingers clenching and unclenching in her palm. You think you hear her murmur something along the lines of fucking psycho.

“Well,” Poindexter begins with one final sardonic huff, eyes steeling into something more resolute, “aren’t you just as beautiful as they day I met you?”

It’s white and hot and instant. “Don’t you fucking dare,” you spit, “you don’t get to talk to me like that. Not you. Anyone but fucking you.”

You feel Matt’s hand rest tenderly on your shoulder, you can practically feel all that guilt emanating off him, “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have done this. It was a bad idea.”

The feeling in your body is horrifying, a sensation that can only be described as being sick to your very soul. If the prickling of tears behind your eyes was anything to go by, you were unravelling fast. Falling to pieces in a way that had specifically been reserved for the man now sat less than three strides away.

“How could you do this?” You spin on your heel, pushing him back with as much force as you could muster, “why would you do this to me?”

It’s Karen who flitters into your eyeline then, slotting herself between you and Poindexter, and you hate the way you want to shove her out of the way for blocking your view.

“We brought you here because we can’t trust him,” her words are a slow whisper, as if she were placating some kind of animal. “We need something that we can use to keep him in line.”

“You know, Karen,” Poindexter begins casually from behind, splitting into a grin once again, “When you’re making a grand plan to control your enemies, it helps if you don’t say it while they’re in the room.”

Karen zips around in an instant, the click of a chamber echoing in the otherwise silent apartment, “Another word and I’ll put a bullet in your fucking skull, do we understand each other?”

You don’t miss the way darkness swirls in his irises as his smirk falters into something a tad more muted, and he makes no sound other than the groan of mattress springs as he reclines against the headboard. His eyes never leave you, and if you didn’t know any better you would say he was fighting to urge to blink and miss anything.

It sickened you that you felt the same way. You could only pray that it was morbid curiosity.

An exhaustion settles itself in your bones, an uncomfortable acceptance, and you can’t be bothered to whisper, “What exactly is it that you expect me to do with this?”

“We don’t expect you to do anything,” Matt interjects, pragmatic as ever, “you being here should be enough of an incentive.”

“An incentive for what exactly?”

“An incentive for him to behave,” Karen whispers, and it hits you all at once. 

You’d practically walked into your own kidnapping. They wanted to keep you here as leverage. That nearly sends your tears spilling over, that you were here not as a friend but as a pawn in some grand design. The next question only aches deeper in your chest: How far would they go? Would they threaten to hurt you if Ben – Poindexter – failed to fall in line?

You wonder if Matt can read minds as he wraps you into a hug for the second time in half an hour, “I’m sorry that we’re meeting again like this. We won’t make you stay, but – we need this. It’s bigger than us now. Bigger than him. It’s Fisk.”

Glancing over his shoulder, you can make out Karen’s guilt riddled form, hunched over in a way ill-befitting of her nature. Her laugh is short and curt, laced with exhaustion, “Is now a bad time to add that I’ve missed you?”

Something wet and tight pulls at your throat, and you push away from Matt lightly with a tired chuckle, “Yes, Kare, now would be a bad time to tell me that.”

It’s silent for a few moments after that, you eventually slot into a chair across the room, hands clasped in front of you not unlike a prayer. Matt and Karen hover around, at least having the wherewithal to act busy while you grapple with the situation at hand. The cogs turning in your brain is grating, it makes your teeth ache.

And Poindexter. He’s shameless as ever. Not grinning any longer but making no effort to hide his stare. There’s a blankness in his expression, a dismissive lilt to his gaze that would fool you if not for the way his pupils flickered over every inch of you, head to toe. Like a predator sizing up its prey. Or someone trying to commit an image to memory.

Your harsh inhale draws a stare from everyone in the room, and you steel yourself, “I’ll stay on one condition.”

Matt’s brow quirks, “What condition?”

“Let me speak to him. Alone.”

The silence becomes instantly heavier.

“Uncuffed.”

And all of a sudden, its loud. Poindexter grins.

“Absolutely not. Are you insane?”

“Yeah, no. No way that’s happening.”

You stand firm, planting your feet on the ground, “Those are my conditions. If not, I’m leaving. I deserve closure,” you falter, attempting to swallow the lump in your throat, “And how else will you know that I’m enough to keep him in line? If he hurts me, then you never had control over him anyway.”

The fight seems to draw out of the opposition at that point, both slinking down somewhat, air hissing out of their lungs. They really did need this. Karen’s mouth opens momentarily to argue before clamping shut again, running a hand through her hair in frustration. You let it run its course, determined to remain strong, and after pacing for a few moments, Matt finally relents.

“Five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” you nod, crossing your arms across your chest, “and your promise.”

His head quirks, “My promise to what?”

“Your promise not to listen to what we say in this room.”

Something of a smirk plays on Matt’s lips briefly, a knowing tell from years locked in an office together. He nods wordlessly, slowly approaching Poindexter with the key for the cuffs, “I don’t need to tell you what I’ll do to you if you hurt her.”

Karen, uncharacteristically quiet, only forces her pistol into your hands as she passes, her eyes meeting yours and saying more than words ever could. Be safe. Be smart.

Moments later, they’re gone. You can’t tell if you’re about to burst of deflate. Poindexter isn’t staring at you any longer, merely fiddling with his own hands in his lap, and if you didn’t know him any better, you would say he seemed almost nervous.

“So,” he begins casually, voice hoarse and low, “you and the Devil are friendly.”

You have to bark out a laugh, dragging a hand across your face, marching towards him, dragging a chair to sit dangerously close. Within touching distance. “You are fucking unbelievable. Nine fucking years, Poindexter, and that’s all you have to say to me?”

You watch as his body shifts, leaning in somewhat. You should lean back, they don’t teach you to approach dangerous things, after all. But it’s practically gravitational. Unintentional and unavoidable.

You can barely hear the words he exhales.

‘What? Speak up, Poindexter, it’s not like you’re quiet.”

“Please.”

That throws you for a loop, stuttering every thought to a resounding halt. You can’t help the way your head quirks to the side, finger tracing anxiously over the ridged handle of the pistol – a pathetic attempt to self-soothe.

“Please? Please what?”

“Please don’t call me that,” it’s only at that moment that he finally looks up, pupils so blown wide they could be black holes, “you used to call me Ben.”

You have to look away, bring your fist to your mouth and bite on it to stifle down the scream threatening to fight its way out of your chest. “You’re right. I used to call you that. I wonder what happened to change that? Huh? What about that, Ben?”

His whole being shudders as your mouth forms the final syllable, as though the unseen string holding everything in his body taut has been snapped loose in an instant. His expression is practically pained, teeth grinding down against each other.

“You have to know that’s not how I intended for that to happened.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s not how you intended it to happen,” you bite back, looking anywhere but him, “I’m sure you and most murderers don’t intend to go down for it.”

Something of a laugh trickles out his throat, but its painfully unnatural, “It doesn’t really matter what I did anymore, does it? I say it was Fisk, everyone else says I’m insane. I kill people, but here I am, hiding out in the same back alley as the Daredevil. In the end, it all means nothing.”

You recognise the shift in his disposition, the deadly slip between his actions and feelings. The grey area where his mind can’t quiet reconcile his thoughts with the way his body moves. There’s not a doubt in your mind that he believes it whole-heartedly; when it came to action, he’d never been anything other than unwavering.

It comes out in a shaky timbre, “It meant something to me, Ben. It always meant something to me.”

You see it before you feel it, the warmth of his palm against your knee. Every saint between here and heaven tells you to lurch back, to slap his hand away and press the gun to his temple without remorse. To scream and cuss him out without mercy.

You let him.

“I never meant for you to be involved,” his words are disjointed, brow furrowed, like he can’t quite make them fit in the sentence together, “I was trying to… protect you.”

That makes you recoil, jolt back as the sensation of a hot poker drives its way through your stomach. His touch remains, however, persistent in the face of all opposition. His fingers whiten against your knee in a way that you’re sure means they’ll bruise. Holding on like he’s terrified that if he lets go, you’ll cease to exist in front of him.

“Don’t put that on me,” you mumble faintly, “you can’t put that on me. You weren’t protecting me, Ben.”

The tether snaps, and he rises to his feet like a whip, practically stood between your legs, staring down, “I was trying to protect you. Fisk got into my head – I’m not too proud to admit that – but then he took you, and I couldn’t see straight. I did what I thought I had to do. And yeah, I wanted to kill Fisk, but that was just the icing on the cake.”

Your hands bat out instinctually to steady him as he falls to his knees, slotting between your legs with a practiced familiarity. The position places your hand a slither away from his jaw, hand ghosting the skin but too fearful to move any closer. He’s wrecked staring back up at you.

“They put me in the hospital, and I barely fucking remember most of it. But that woman, she offered me a way out and I had to. I needed my mind back. You have to understand– I never knew that he was your friend,” his gaze flitters to the ground in the closest thing to shame you imagine a man like him could muster, before finishing quietly, “you know the rest.”

You can only bring that hand up across your mouth in horror, attempting to swallow whatever sob is threatening to tear its way out of your body. Speechless. That’s all. You’re not sure you could wrap your mouth around the words if you tried. You must begin to lean, because you feel his palms connect with the dips of your waist to steady you and part of it makes you feel sick and the other part of you has never longed for touch more. It burns and freezes all at once, soothing every ache and rubbing salt into every wound.

“I am,” he fumbles hesitantly, words laden with uncertainty, “good now. The scales, I’m going to balance them. Retribution. I’m going to make things right.”

Your mind whirls at his words, so riddled with delusion but so deeply heartfelt that you can’t discern where the truth lies. He’s not a good person, and you’re not sure he ever can or wants to be, but there’s a resolve written in his features saved only for when he fixes on a target. 

You only notice in that moment how much older he looks, the litany of scars painted into his skin. 

“Do you believe that, Ben?” your hand finally comes up to bracket his jaw, a step between a loving touch and strangulation, but he keens into your palm nonetheless.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” it’s a breathless whisper, barely there, “okay, Ben.”

His stare is unwavering, “But… I will do… anything that you tell me to.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

If anyone had asked you, you could’ve sworn up and down that the words never left your lips. No recollection of those words ever twisting around your tongue. You can’t taste them, but you can hear them, and surely it can’t be true? It’s your voice, your cadence – but you couldn’t have said it.

But the moment you hear the final syllable, his teeth clash against yours.

Kiss me.

And he does.

It’s not sweet, or tender, or anything under the sun remotely close to the sort. It’s harsh and punishing, forcing back against you like he’d thrown a punch as opposed to pressed his lips against your own. It’s intoxicating. It makes you feel vile and dirty and just a little bit evil, but selfishly you’d let him do the prison time again if it meant that he would kiss you like that.

Your Ben had always been nervous, flighty when it came to affection; it had been on you to initiate, to remind him that you weren’t a vase about to shatter at the slightest pressure. This Ben has no such qualms, pressing forward like he’s trying to break you. Like he wants to watch the vase shatter just so he has an excuse to cut himself on the pieces.

It takes reality crashing down for you to pull back, but only just. This was so deeply wrong. 

It only takes nine words for it to feel right again.

“I never thought I’d get to do that again.”

In spite of it all, you laugh. You laugh and you have to cover your mouth to stifle the sound, fearful that if you’re any louder Matt won’t have to use his senses to hear you through the door. He chuckles too, low and throaty, reclining back on his heels with a new ease.

What the fuck was happening?

It’s sobering, as your choked giggles filter out into a breathless nothing. A reminder that Matt and Karen only sit behind the door, and that sooner rather than later they’ll come bursting through – no doubt desperate to know the nature of your conversation. 

Ben makes no move to disrupt your thoughts, instead opting to study you up close, savouring every inch his eyes will permit for as long as you will let him. 

“This isn’t over, Ben. I don’t forgive you. I don’t know how to feel about you. But they will…” you falter, “keep us apart if they find out about this.”

He only smirks lazily, “Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?”

A thought crosses your mind, and it’s at that moment that you flick the chamber back on the gun, pressing it square into his forehead with enough force to leave a dent. You think his eyes roll back in his head – of course he likes it, the bastard.

“I don’t forgive you, Ben,” you pause, drinking in his wide-eyed amazement, “but this isn’t over.”

He only nods, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, only pushing his head harder against the muzzle.

“Karen! Daredevil!” you shout, and not a moment passes before the pair come barrelling through the door.

Their faces are riddled with surprise as they take in the sight before them. Poindexter, on his knees. You, with Karen’s gun pressed cleanly against his skull.

Matt’s moving forward in an instant, placing himself between you and Ben with that fearless vigilante attitude that suits him so. Karen instead goes to you, pulling you back and slipping the gun from your clenched fingers.

“Did he hurt you?” Matt seethes, turning to Ben, “Did you touch her?”

Ben’s always been better at steeling his expression than you, it’s a fight to maintain your composure. To stifle the grin. “Me and Dex were just making it clear where we stand with each other, isn’t that right?”

The man in question just nods wordlessly, and you wonder for a second if your friends are mistaking the awe written on his features for fear. You hope so.

Karen seems off kilter as she stares between the pair of you, ever the journalist, employing every inch of her skill to get a read of the room.

“Is he going to help? Do what we say?”

“Yes,” Ben replies gruffly with a flick of his hand, as though batting away the words, “One good deed.”

Instead of celebration, you’re met with silence. Maybe they didn’t expect that. Maybe they put you in the belly of the beast in the hopes you’d take him out. It’s a heavy quiet over the room, but you feel Karen relax against you, and Matt drops his guard, wandering slowly to perch against the window frame.

Minutes go by before anyone opens their mouths, but it’s Matt who breaks first.

“What did you talk about?”

Your eyes meet Ben’s. It’s only for a second, brief enough that you hope your friends don’t notice.

“Retribution."

my first fic in over a year. thank you Ben Poindexter we all say in unison. i really hope i did this right, i feel like everyone kind of characterises him differently but i tried my best! side note: if Karen comes across bad in this that is NOT intentional i LOVE Karen Page with my whole heart she is a complex female character

An apology is going to taste like bile on Homelander’s tongue, but he’s willing to extend something of an olive branch if it will placate Soldier Boy enough to help him find the key to immortality. 

That had been his plan, anyway—try and smooth things over with Ben. He just hadn’t anticipated stumbling upon the two of you caught in the throes of passion.

Homelander hears your voice through the walls, high-pitched and loud, his father’s name spewed out like a prayer before ending on a sharp moan.

He knows, immediately, that it’s you on the other side of the door—his father’s sweet little pet, the human that worships Soldier Boy like a god, who has no regard for the heavenly power that Homelander has been gifted with. 

You are also the only human in the world that’s getting away with such misplaced devotion. 

Homelander licks his lips, tensing his jaw as his eyes itch to burn through the drywall, red flares that will your pretty little head off once his father spills his seed into you. It would be gratifying to knock Soldier Boy down a few pegs, to make him realize that Homelander is the god that humans are supposed to worship, not him. Ben does not have the upper-hand just because his poor, powerless lover has been allowed to live this long. 

He considers it; that timeline of events plays out before Homelander’s eyes like a film reel. It would be gratifying, yes, but stupid—the life of one human isn’t worth risking his chance at eternity. 

Homelander knows that his father would hate him if he killed you, would see him as something worse than a disappointment, and he’d track down any remaining V1 to destroy it himself. 

Not that Homelander thinks he can’t succeed without his father. He can find the V1 on his own, but there’s no reason to create unnecessary obstacles. 

Your death can wait a little longer. 

“Please, Ben,” Homelander hears you say through the wall, your voice soft, far too gentle for someone like Soldier Boy to love. “Fuck.” 

“Yeah? You like that, hm?” There’s a pause, a mocking laugh as his father’s voice deepens. “’Course you do, pretty cunt’s still squeezing my fingers so tightly. Can’t even count the number of times you’ve come, and she still wants more. Dirty girl.” 

Homelander considers leaving, but the thought is brief, overshadowed by his growing desire to, somehow, get back at his father. Soldier Boy will be more sorry about what happened back at Fort Harmony if the real force of Homelander’s powers are used against him, if he can find a way to prove he’s misjudged his son yet again. 

The desire to kill you erupts once more, but Homelander stays still, silent, assessing the scene from a shadowy advantage like a natural predator. 

When another cry leaves your lips, curiosity wins out and Homelander peers through the wall, peeling back the layers with his super-powered vision. 

The room is a mess, clothes strewn everywhere, and he grimaces at the bodily fluids he can detect on nearly every surface. His scan of the bedroom is quick, much more dismissive than studious, before he focuses his attention on you and Soldier Boy. 

Your cheek is pressed into the bed, head tilted in Homelander’s direction, the view enough to see the pleasure, laced with a hint of pain, that is sketched into the lines of your expression. Exhaustion wears at you, spilled cum is drying on your stomach, but your body still radiates with heat, still beats with need as tears gather at your lashes. 

His father’s face is deep in your cunt, fingers stretching your folds as he sucks your clit, hard enough to have your back arching up off the bed. With a gasp, your hands fly to Ben’s hair, lacing through the strands as you tug reactively. 

To Homelander’s surprise, Ben doesn’t seem to mind your attempts at control, and he makes a sound in the back of his throat, every word raspy and salacious. “You taste so fucking good. Sweet as candy, aren’t you, doll?” Ben mutters against your skin, throwing one of your legs over his shoulder before diving deeper into your cunt. 

He pins your other leg onto the mattress, spreading your thighs far enough that every inch of you is exposed to the man before it. It also gives Homelander the perfect view of his father’s tongue deep in your core, slurping up the juices with more passion than he’s ever seen him devote to anything. 

Homelander feels himself growing hard, an erection forming steadily in his pants, straining against the tight material of his uniform. He grits his teeth, trying to ignore it, hoping that his hatred for you will cool the conflicting lust he feels. 

A few of your nails have cracked, the tips bloody from the way you’d dug them into Ben’s back. Had he been a weaker man, a man without V1 and years of experimentation done on him, there would be long, red lines scratched into his taut muscles. 

Instead, the skin is flawless, the dried blood there belonging to you alone. You’re not strong enough to harm him, but Ben doesn’t care, perhaps, even, derives pleasure from how easily he can handle you. 

Homelander thinks it’s demeaning that his father is so devoted to you when you’re so weak, when you’re nothing compared to his otherworldly strength. It makes Homelander sick to look at you, to see the hazy affection that clouds Ben’s irises, because that’s his father, and it’s wrong that any love he’s able to muster up should go to such a pathetic creature. 

Tears gather at your lashes, and you dig your nails deeper into Ben’s scalp, crying out painfully. “Too much, Ben,” you say, writhing on the bed beneath him, voice wracked with desperation.

No sympathy is spared from Soldier Boy. He doesn’t let up, doesn’t let you free even as the tears fall onto your cheeks, heavy from the overstimulation. Your lips are swollen and parted, saliva coating the corners of them as you take whatever Ben will give you. 

For whatever reason, his father is infatuated with you. You aren't special; there’s nothing marginally interesting about you, except for, perhaps, the fact that you aren’t scared of anyone on the Seven, not even Homelander. 

You’re still human, though, still sickeningly fragile, and Homelander is beginning to wonder if that’s why Ben is so determined to find the V1, if he has ulterior motives that don’t include giving his son the gift of immortality. 

That lights him up with indignation that, for some reason, only goes between his legs. He can’t look away from the scene before him, can’t tear his eyes from the sickeningly sweet affection that has become tangible between the two of you. His father is many things, things that even Homelander can’t figure out, but he is just as starved for adoration and you give it to him tenfold. 

He doesn’t understand—can’t understand why your love is so undying. Soldier Boy is no better than Homelander, he is no God, and yet, he has still earned the pure, innocent love of a human, the love that Vought had always promised was Homelander’s birthright. 

Frustration rises in him and Homelander palms himself over the suit, suppressing a groan, the pressure relieving only a bit of his lust. He needs to be more careful, needs to find a way to get to the V1 before his father. There’s more room in his heart than Homelander initially believed, and while there’s a slim chance you’d even survive an injection of V1, his father might be foolish enough to try. 

Homelander could kill you—he should kill you before it comes to that. He wants his father to see that you’re not worth anything, certainly not worth the world that could be built with their two forces combined. If he can just get you out of the picture, maybe things will be smoother. 

Maybe you’re the reason his father keeps turning against him.

The thought flares his eyes red again, threatening and bright, but the color flickers, dies back down into their normal blue as he feels the repulsive want take control. Homelander is too intrigued by the way his father is fucking you, the way his tongue flicks into you, rendering you a mess. He’s never seen Soldier Boy so vulnerable, and though his walls are still high, there’s a softness about him that remains behind these doors. 

“Come on, sweetheart, I know you’ve got one more in you.” Ben says, scoffing at the tears running down your cheeks. He is mocking, but gentle at the edges, careful to search for your breaking point. The stamina and strength of a supe is ten times that of a human, and ten times that for someone like Soldier Boy. If he doesn’t want his toy to break, he has to know its limits. 

You whimper, closer to pain now than you were before. A choked sob escapes your lips, but your orgasm creeps up on you, your body shaking miserably as it tries to force another one through the painful stimulation. 

That’s more gratifying to Homelander than anything—the pain on your face—and he presses his palm to his bulge harder, faster, resting one hand against the wall as he thrusts his hips into the other. He’s careful not to make a sound, though he’s certain Ben’s hearing is not as good as his, and he’s probably high enough to write it off as delusion. 

“I-I can’t—” you say, and it would seem miserable if you weren’t breathless, if you didn’t want to come again so badly.

Soldier Boy groans into your cunt, his eyes commanding as he gazes up at you over your hips. The tears falling down your cheeks, onto the bed, are making him harder, his cock swollen between his legs, even though he’d come just minutes before. He drags a hand down the length of it, enough to give him some relief, but not enough to come quite yet. 

“You can. You’re close I can feel it.” He traces a soothing, possessive circle on your thigh with his thumb, keeping you steady on the bed. “Touch those pretty tits for me. My girls aren’t getting enough attention.” 

You obey without question, lazily dragging your hands up your stomach and onto your chest. The moment your fingertips graze your nipples, you come to the edge of a climax, your voice louder, body more pliant under Ben’s touch. 

His father grins, face shiny with your slick as you grope yourself. 

Homelander pulses with need, shaking with a silent moan as he watches you play with your breasts. He swallows back the sounds, suppresses the lasers that flick in his irises. You have a nice pair of tits, ones that would look even better swollen, leaking with milk, and briefly, he wonders if his father would share you. You’re just a human, after all, and you could serve a much greater purpose if you devoted yourself to two gods instead of one. 

Or, maybe, his father will find a way to fix the mistake he’s made in his lab rat son, to create the child that Homelander apparently isn’t. A better version of him will never exist, and Soldier Boy would be stupid for ever thinking so, even though Homelander knows the thought has crossed his mind, knows that he is too much of a disappointment for Ben to ever try to build the kind of relationship with Homelander that he craves.

The hypotheticals don’t matter because Homelander knows you wouldn’t be a good mother, not to someone of their bloodline. You’d infect any super-abled child with your pathetic human morals, twist their minds until they suppress their powers and try to fit into a world that doesn’t want them. 

That is, of course, if the child didn’t tear you apart from the inside-out first. 

Homelander grits his teeth, a metallic taste flowing into his mouth as he thinks of it, of watching you grow a baby inside of you that will ultimately be your demise. His breath stutters; he’s pathetically close, but his orgasm doesn’t come until a moment later, when he realizes that his father isn’t half the man he thinks he is, and he’ll never be the God that Homelander is. 

Soldier Boy a slave to your pleasure—a weak, measly being—even when he pretends everything he does is for himself. You’re crying, and though Soldier Boy is tugging at himself, he’s not focused on making sure he comes—he wants to break you down, build you back up with his mouth and his hands. Ben wants you to worship him, wants you to see him as a holy figure, wants you to praise him even as he degrades you.

He is controlled by his emotions, too swayed by a pretty face and a sultry tongue.

Unlike his father, Homelander is no longer focused on winning over people’s love, and certainly not the love of one person. 

You release one more sob before you come, soaking his father’s face with whatever your body has left to give. His father works you through the orgasm, even though you can hardly move, your eyes shut, chest heaving as you try to catch your breath. 

“That’s my girl,” Soldier Boy says, and he’s so proud, so caring, that it has Homelander spilling into his pants right after you. It lasts for a few seconds, and then relief comes, then the disgusting sensation that settles as the cum dries in his suit. 

The realization of what he’s done is not staggering, but it hits him just as his father presses a kiss to your forehead. You’re half passed-out already, eyes closed as your breathing evens out, thighs still sticky with bodily fluids, but you mutter something unintelligible under your breath anyway. 

Even with his hearing, Homelander can’t catch the words, but Ben doesn’t seem to understand either. Still, his father gives you something of a smile before leaning over to pluck the joint off of his nightstand, keeping one hand possessively on your thigh. He’s still hard, but for a few minutes he sits there in the quiet of the evening, smoking, before he places the blunt back in the ash tray and moves to take care of the erection himself. 

Homelander decides that’s his cue to leave. He can justify watching his father fuck you, but watching only him masturbate over your sleeping body feels like a line he shouldn’t cross. 

Sparing one last exhale, Homelander slinks off the floor, hoping that neither of you hear the elevator ding.

You're seventeen years old, meticulously organizing your father's medicine while he sits in the old, worn-out recliner that stinks of tobacco. You carefully step around the oxygen tank on the floor beside him and hand him the small container of pills. He takes it with a wheezing cough, snubbing out the cigarette pinched between his fingers, which is smoked down to the filter into the already full ashtray. After sending your brother off to school, you begin the long trek to campus, a day of labs and clinicals ahead of you.

You're twenty-two years old, and you've just lost your first patient. The flatline of the heart rate monitor rings through your jaw—sweat pools at your brow, your arms ache from how long you'd been giving compressions, all while praying to a god you once believed in for just this one mercy. The little girl's parents are hysterical, begging you to keep trying, but your attending simply shakes his head, grief heavy on his face as he announces the time of death. You hold yourself together just long enough to stumble into the bathroom, soft gasps escaping as you struggle to breathe, your vision blurred by tears in your eyes. Ten minutes—that's how long you permit yourself to stay curled up on the bathroom stall floor, your body convulsing as you sob.

It's longer than you've ever allowed yourself to mourn your father.

You're twenty-three years old, and you're sure you're the last person alive in Spencer Memorial Hospital. You've been barricaded in the Emergency Department's breakroom for three days, and the muffled shuffling of the undead through the halls outside is not something you've gotten used to—the hairs on your body stand on end every time you hear them. Whatever is scurrying around in the vents hasn't managed to get past the vending machine you've placed in front of it, not that they haven't tried—and you think they're getting... bigger.

The thought that you're going to die here crosses your mind more and more often. You remember Dr. McKay, with her kind eyes still so vivid even as she wrung her hands in worry. "Why don't you leave, hun?" she suggested when evacuation efforts first began three days ago. She saw the warning signs before most people realized that whatever this was, there was no coming back from it.

You should have listened to her gentle urging, but you wanted to help, so you stayed—even as the ER was overwhelmed, even as patients died and came back to life, even as everyone around you was attacked or turned. You stayed because this is where you could help; now there’s no one left to save, only you and that stupid CPR mannequin propped at the table, which you and a few other residents dressed up for Halloween, the cartoony zombie mask placed haphazardly over its face mocking you.

Your watch beeps, reminding you to eat. Time passes in strange bursts here—when the air is quiet, and there's no terrible moaning from the halls, you can almost pretend that the world outside these four walls isn't so awful. But when the vents start rattling, and you hear the wheezing breath outside the door, time seems to crawl.

Clicking the button on the side of your watch, you blink back tears as you bite into a tasteless granola bar. Your brother gave you this watch when you graduated—he saved up money from that crappy bag boy job he worked during school breaks for two whole years.

"I'm really proud of you," he told you as he handed you the box in Christmas wrapping paper while you were both curled up on opposite sides of your shitty couch in your shitty apartment. Meanwhile, your other classmates, much older than you, were out at swanky celebratory dinners with their families. You and your brother, however, returned home to enjoy a feast of mediocre pizza and wings. "Fancy title needs a fancy watch."

Your lip quivers, and you breathe out a huff through your nose, mad at the sting in your sinuses and the way your throat constricts. It's not fair, you think. You just wanted to help people, and now you won't even get to say goodbye to your brother. The thought turns bitter as you grit your teeth, fists clenched in the pant legs of your scrubs, knuckles turning white. Your stupid, fucking father got two extra years he shouldn't have had, spent smoking and drinking—he got to say goodbye, going out far more peacefully than he ever deserved with you and your brother at his side, but you?

You're going to die here—alone.

Leaning your head back, it hits the wall you're sitting against with a faint thud, and you stare up at the speckled drop ceiling with tears welling up at your waterline. Resolutely, your eyes close, inhaling slowly, ignoring the way your chest caves in with acceptance.

"You just gonna lay there and take it, girl?" Your father's hoarse, scathing voice repeats in your ears, a memory stained by bruises and tasting of blood, and your eyes snap open, a gasp leaving your lips as a defiant fire sparks in your veins.

"Shut up," you spit out at his ghost.

You're on your feet in the next instant, a plan forming as you tear through the cabinets; you find an old backpack, probably from a previous resident, buried in the back of one. It's quickly filled with everything useful you can find—snacks from the vending machine you'd broken open when you first got trapped here, all the items in the first aid kit hanging on the wall, and any other medical supplies you can scrounge up. There's not much here you can use for defense, but you take what you can—some dull knives, a pair of hefty metal scissors, all better than nothing.

It takes longer than you want to admit to gather your nerve, ear pressed to the door, waiting for the telltale shuffling to disappear down the hall before you slowly and as quietly as possible move the filing cabinet that you pushed in front of it after being separated from your coworkers and narrowly escaping the snapping jaws of the undead. Every scrape of the metal against the linoleum floor makes you wince, listening carefully to see if anyone—or anything—heard you.

When it's finally out of the way, you swallow hard and take a deep breath before opening the door and peeking out. It's empty and dark—the chaos of the past few days is evident in the mess left behind. Gurneys are overturned and propped against partitions, blocking certain hallways where the undead are plentiful. Broken viewing windows into rooms have left glass splintered across the floor, which is covered in bloodied footprints and drag marks. The sterile hospital smell mixes with the stench of death—it's enough to make your stomach turn, but you've smelled far worse.

You're mindful of where you step, avoiding the broken glass and doing your best not to step into any blood puddles—more for your own sanity than anything else—while gripping a knife tightly, ready to defend yourself if needed. Body bags are lined up all around—the morgue stopped bringing them down shortly after the hospital became overwhelmed—and some are oddly shaped, as if the occupant had undergone some kind of transformation. They aren't moving, but you give them a wide berth anyway, not trusting that the dead are truly gone.

The path you need to follow is imprinted in your mind—you've strolled through these halls nearly every day for the past two years, and you hope that's enough to get you out. You stay low, ducking beneath windows where you hear the groans of zombies from inside rooms you pass, with your heart pounding in your chest the entire time. It's an arduous crawl, hiding behind caddies to avoid the shambling undead, while trying to calm your breathing and steady the tremor in your hands. You grab what you can along the way—a roll of gauze, a scalpel, some antiseptic.

You stop instantly when you hear a clatter in the hall ahead, heavy footsteps approaching. It's different from the shuffling of the normal infected—it's purposeful, and it's large. You slide your ID card through the reader to access the room next to you and step inside before you can second-guess yourself. The soft click of the door latch makes you flinch, but you keep moving, turning around, and slipping through what you realize is the filing room until you round one of the stacks and spot a figure standing there.

You recognize her—she's one of the clerks, Paulette. Her breath is coming out in painful wheezes, the veins in her arms are blackened, and necrosis is eating away at her skin. She's not facing you, just standing idly at one of the cabinets as if she'd been in the middle of filing away paperwork when she turned. Your face scrunches up with anguish, twisting the knife by its handle a few times in your palm. You can hear the footsteps in the hall, closer now.

You couldn't risk her alerting the creature to your presence.

Quietly—and assuredly—you step behind her and drive the dull knife straight into her skull. She emits a strangled, raspy sound—something animalistic and sad—and you catch her body before she can collapse, lowering her silently to the ground, but you keep your knee on her back, still gripping the handle of the knife, waiting to find out if you've delivered a lethal strike, aware of how resistant the infection makes them.

You hold your breath for one, two, three beats—and on the fourth, you exhale shakily. Sitting back onto the floor, you rest against the end of a filing cabinet—ears keenly listening for the monster while staring at Paulette's pale, sunken cheeks—her milky-colored eyes are blank and unmoving, but you still feel like they're staring straight at you.

The footsteps pass by the room, and you steal a quick glance from your hiding spot—you're not quite sure what you're seeing through the window. Maybe some kind of amphibious creature standing on its hind legs, with dark green, mottled skin that glistens in the faint emergency lighting. It has humanoid hands with long, curved claws that could easily skewer you. Sharp teeth line its maw, and it doesn't seem to have eyes—at least none you can discern—but it appears unaware of you, simply moving on before vanishing from sight.

If that is one of the things that were in the vents, they've definitely gotten bigger, you think anxiously.

Relaxing just a bit, your gaze drifts back to Paulette, instinctively focusing on her left hand where a simple, pretty engagement ring rests—she was supposed to get married next month. She was so excited for an autumn wedding—told you how she had it all planned out since she was a girl, hoping the leaves would change color in time because it would be so beautiful in the photos.

Your face crumbles, chin wobbling as tears blur your vision. "Fuck," you whimper, jamming your palms into your eyes as your teeth clench together.

You don't allow yourself to linger, so you count to twenty in your head before moving, abandoning your knife because you can't bring yourself to pry it from Paulette's skull. Instead, you arm yourself with surgical scissors you snapped up from a medical cart. The muscles in your legs burn from staying so low as you creep through the halls, a thin sheen of sweat forming on your skin that you only notice when it stings the corners of your eyes.

By the time you reach reception, there's a brief flicker of hope that you'll be able to do this. It's a straight shot from here to the lobby. You want to just run; you could be at the entrance in less than thirty seconds if you did, but you don't.

Impatience gets you killed, you remind yourself. You can't afford to be stupid.

Bodies are strewn across the floor, the fluorescent hum of a vending machine filters through the air, bathing the dark room in a ghostly blue glow. You move cautiously, stepping around the corpses, eyes alert for even the faintest twitch of a finger, but it's a groan from behind the desk that draws your attention. You hurriedly duck down, wedging against the cold surface of the front of the reception desk, listening as the zombie shuffles around, eyes scrunching closed in a grimace when you hear it knocking things over.

Still, you keep moving as quietly as you can, heart climbing higher and higher into your throat with every gurgled noise. So worried about not alerting the one behind the desk, you don't even see the body you're skirting by begin to writhe.

A gasp lodges in the back of your throat as a hand clenches around your ankle, yanking you to the floor. Instinctively, you kick with your free foot, smashing the zombie's nose—it's one of the security guards, Daniel was his name. He always said good morning to you, even when you were coming in for the night shift, as he was leaving for the day.

"Shit, shit," you heave, chest tightening, as you try to wrench yourself from his grip while avoiding the snapping jaws. "Let go!" With one final kick, you manage to dislodge yourself from its iron grip, scrambling away as you hear clanging from behind the desk.

You're unsteady on your feet as you see the other undead shamble toward you. Jamming a nearby wheelchair into the opening between the wall and the desk, you buy yourself only a little time as it begins to climb over the counter, while the one who grabbed you struggles to stand.

"Fuck," you breathe out as you turn on your heel and run, your sneakers squeaking against the linoleum floors as you push through the door to the corridor that leads to the lobby with a bang. You can hear the zombies chasing after you, and above, you hear something big moving, as if tracking you through the ceiling.

Once you breach the double doors at the other end of the hall, you slide across the ground, scurrying under the desk, pressing yourself against the cool metal of the filing cabinet beneath it as something crashes through the ceiling. You can hear the spark of the overhead lights as the bulbs crack, shattering across the floor. The ceiling tiles crumble as they hit the ground, and the ventilation falls with them.

Hefty footsteps stomp across the floor.

Thud.

   Thud.

      Thud.

It stands right in front of the desk you're curled up under. You clutch a trembling hand to your mouth, afraid your panicked breath will betray you, while your other hand grips the scissors tightly, worried they'll slip from the sweat gathering in your palms.

You feel faint and lightheaded, your heart pounding against your ears, as every muscle in your body tenses tightly. Fear strips you down to the basics—survival. As the other undead burst through the door you just stumbled through, you retreat further, a chill crawling up your spine. The larger beast chitters a monstrous noise, teeth clicking together, claws scraping against the top of the desk just above your head.

Dread weighs down on you, quietly urging the creature to go away, to just leave. You can hear the other undead circle around the lobby, wandering aimlessly now that their target is no longer in view, as if they'd forgotten about you—but this one seems more intelligent than that.

Then, as if some higher power finally decides to show mercy, you listen as the thud, thud, thud of footsteps walk to the double doors leading back to reception, which swing open with a bang that makes you flinch. Then, you hear them fading down the hall, deeper into the horrors of the hospital.

You don't move immediately—your body unravels slowly. The hand covering your mouth lowers, and you realize you probably have little crescent-shaped indentations in your cheek from how hard your fingernails dug into your skin. Your shoulders relax, no longer tense all the way up to your ears. Then, carefully, you crawl out from under the desk, peeking over the edge to figure out where the other two undead went.

One seems to have found interest in the vending machine near the opposite end of the desk, staring blankly into the light as if the phosphorescence is whispering secrets to him. The other is aimlessly shuffling along among the turned-over chairs.

Your gaze flicks to the exit—the way is clear, you realize. You see the outside. It's right there, just twenty feet away.

Still, apprehension grows inside you. This is just the start. You have no idea what the rest of the city is like—the last you heard, the bridge out was closed to maintain a quarantine zone. You'd have to find another way. It almost feels like you're at a disadvantage. Spencer Memorial has been your only world for the past five days, with no thought given to what was happening elsewhere. You couldn't afford to think about it; you needed to focus on what was right in front of you, what you could control, which was trying to save anyone who came into the Emergency Room—though, in the end, it doesn't seem to matter.

The fear of the unknown taunts you just beyond those double doors, but you've made it this far—you just need to go a little farther now.

You tread steadily, and then you're free—the cool early autumn air soothes your sweat-soaked skin like a healing balm. With the hospital at your back, you look ahead. The sun starts to rise, peeking up at the horizon through the buildings. The smell of smoke fills your nose, but the streets are quiet, as if the city tucked in for the night; no doubt it will start to wake soon.

Checking your watch, you see the date: September 29th.

You've made it through another day.

Heaving your backpack onto your shoulder, you step forward into Raccoon City.

It's chaos—as you creep through the streets, you think you might have been lucky to be stuck in the hospital during the initial outbreak. Entire blocks of the city have been cordoned off; cars flipped over and abandoned, windows in storefronts broken out, blood and viscera splattered all around. You pass so many bodies in the streets, you're sure there can't be more than a handful of people left, if any. Undead lumber around in constant hoards that are easy enough to avoid, but that doesn't stop the trepidation from settling into your stomach whenever you're sneaking past them.

You navigate around blockades, darting through alleyways while praying you won't hit a dead end. You know the route to the Raccoon City Police Department—it's the first place that comes to mind. If luck is on your side, there might be a few police officers still alive, handling evacuation efforts. If not… well, hopefully there are at least some weapons inside.

It's another slow crawl. It takes you three hours just to reach the plaza, and you're struck by how bizarre the scene before you is—like some kind of firefight took place. The few cars scattered around are still smoldering, and scorch marks are everywhere, as if someone used heavy artillery.

You're trying to avoid it, nervous about the open space, when you clock a figure lying at the end of one of the alleys. You almost keep walking, thinking it's just another body, but for some reason, your eyes stay on it a little longer than necessary, and that's when you see the steady rise and fall of the chest.

They're alive.

There's no second-guessing as you run toward them, your feet pounding against the ground, knees buckling as you instinctively place a finger on the throat, searching for a pulse. That's when you realize you know this person.

"Jill," you gasp. Her pulse is weak at best, but it's better than nothing. You grab your penlight from the front pocket of your scrubs, pulling an eyelid open to check her pupils. That's when you notice the wound on her arm and the way her veins are starting to blacken around it. "Fuck."

You should leave her here—the way the infection progresses is so clear in your mind. You've watched patient after patient go through it over the past few days. She has at most half a day before she starts chomping at the bit, trying to bite chunks out of any still-breathing sad sack nearby.

It would be stupid to allow that to be you.

But this is Jill.

You met her as an intern. She and another S.T.A.R.S. team member, Chris Redfield, were brought into the Emergency Department after sustaining injuries during a mission—gunshots to the lower extremities. Nothing life-threatening, and as a result, you were assigned to treat her injuries. You were so nervous that even with a resident watching, you stuttered out questions and walked her through each step you were taking—as if it was for her comfort, not just yours.

She was so kind, even as your eyes narrowed with wariness when she asked how old you were. "That's impressive," she said with a smile when you told her, and there was no hint of ridicule.

A month later, she got carted in with a stab wound. You think that's when the two of you became friends. You're not naive enough to think you were terribly close, but you'd get drinks every so often when your abysmal schedules lined up. Sometimes she'd stop in to the E.R. when she knew you were on shift, and you'd visit her at the R.P.D. a few times to get lunch together.

She'd been the only friend you'd managed to make in Raccoon City.

You grasp the sides of her face, slapping her cheek lightly. "Jill," you whisper. "Jill, you need to wake up."

Her brows furrow, eyes only opening a fraction, but they slide up to you, and she breathes out your name like it's a question.

"Yeah, it's me," you confirm gently with a tight smile. "We gotta get you up." You don't give her an option, hauling her into a sitting position, ignoring the way she groans as you sling her arm around your neck, lifting her up off the ground. "Can you walk?" you ask, already knowing the answer.

She manages a shake of her head, and you take a deep breath before maneuvering her onto your back after switching around your backpack. Adrenaline still seems to be coursing through your veins because you hoist her dead weight up relatively easily, despite how tired you know your legs—and the rest of your body—are.

As you adjust your grip, you start moving.

You don't know where you can go. You don't know what you can do.

You just know you can't leave her here.

"I got you," you murmur, taking one step after another. You hear her breath slow as she no doubt falls unconscious again.

You could take her back to the hospital, maybe there's still a dose of the vaccine topside—you swallow thickly. The immunology team was working on the vaccine as soon as it became obvious you were dealing with some sort of infection, and they were going to vaccinate the staff once it was ready, but—

You sigh heavily.

It would be a long shot just to get her back to the hospital, never mind finding a sample of the vaccine, if there was even one left.

"Hey!" a voice calls out.

It startles you, and you swing around, putting yourself between whoever it is and Jill. It's a man in tactical gear, gun pointed toward you. Your eyes widen, and you hold Jill tighter to you. You push down the panic bubbling up in your throat—it's not the first time you've stared down the barrel of a gun.

You study him intently; he's tall with dark hair falling into dark eyes, and the signature Umbrella logo on his arm. It doesn't bring you any comfort; if anything, it only makes you more nervous.

Still, he looks at Jill as if he knows her, but you're hesitant to feel any sort of ease. You've heard some rumors about the R.P.D., with most of the S.T.A.R.S. team, including Jill, being suspended, but you haven't seen her in the past few weeks to ask her about it. What would she be doing tangling up with Umbrella mercenaries?

"Where are you going with her?" he asks, and he pauses, eyes narrowing as he takes in your appearance for the first time—your bloodstained scrubs and the fierce tint in your tired eyes. "Are you a nurse?"

"Doctor," you correct in a clipped tone. "She's infected, I'm—" You pause.

What were you doing?

"She doesn't have long."

His expression twists up with distress as he lowers his gun. "The hospital," he says. "We can take her there. They have a vaccine, you must kno—."

You glower. "How do you know that?"

"I spoke to one of the doctors there—Dr. Bard," he replies.

Blinking, your scowl only deepens. Dr. Bard is one of the immunologists and the hospital's director—one of the most odious men you've ever had the misfortune of meeting. He'd disappeared before you got separated from the rest of your coworkers—you thought he was dead. You thought everyone else was dead, but—

"You know her, don't you?" he asks suddenly, as if the protective way you've positioned her and the sad slant to your eyes suggest she's more than just a random stranger to you.

"Yes," you answer, not seeing a reason to lie.

"If I bring Jill there, I could find the vaccine—I could save her," he insists.

You're a good judge of character—or at least you think you are. You study his face and the sincerity in his eyes—the determined set of his jaw. For a moment, your edge softens. He's definitely more than capable of handling the monsters crawling around the hospital, judging by the gun in his hands and the rest of his arsenal.

"It's overrun," you say, but it's not to deter him. "There are these… creatures, not just the normal infected."

"Creatures?"

You nod gravely. "Big… they were using the vents to get around until they… outgrew them. If you're going there, you need to know what you're up against."

His brows furrow at the implication of your words. "You're not coming with us?" he asks.

"No," you say, with apprehension lingering at just the thought of returning to the hospital. "I… I can't go back there."

He must see something in your expression—the fear, the exhaustion—because he seems like he understands even if he wants to argue. A thoughtful look causes his brows to raise as he studies you—it's full of concern for you, a person he doesn't even know, and it only endears him to you. "Will you be okay on your own?"

A tight smile forms on your face—it's supposed to be reassuring, but even you detect how your lip wobbles. "Been okay so far," you say, voice soft and almost breaking. "If you're going, you should go now."

His head bobs as if remembering the dire situation you're in. "Here, let me take her," he says as he approaches, kneeling so you can transfer Jill onto his back.

"Dr. Bard's office is on the first floor. If there's a sample of the vaccine still in the hospital, it's there," you tell him. "It's got one of those weird voice recognition locks on it; you're going to need to find a way in."

His brows pinch together as he takes in the information, not confused, just processing. "Where are you going to go?" he questions after a moment.

"Hopefully to find a way the hell out of this place," you joke weakly. You glance at Jill, and she almost appears as if she could just be asleep right now—like she could wake up any second. Your heart curls up into something worse than grief. "You… you take care of her, okay?"

"Yeah," he murmurs with a tender nod.

With no care for his personal space, you lean up to smooth some of her hair back from her face that rests against his shoulder. You're keenly aware of his gaze on you, watching as you press a kiss to her cheek, breathing in the smell of sweat and blood and gunpowder.

"I'll see you when this is done, okay, Jill?" With a lump firmly in your throat, you pull away, peeking up at the man with tears building in your eyes, and he only watches you sadly as you nod to him before turning on your heel.

"Wait," he says suddenly, stopping you in your tracks. With one hand, he unholsters a 9mm pistol, holding it out to you by the barrel like it's a lifeline. "You know how to work one of these?"

You do, so you take it, checking the safety as if it's a practiced habit. "I'm familiar," you assure before tucking it into the waistband of your pants. He gives you a look as if to say, 'Familiar, huh?'

He hands you some ammo, apologizing for not having more to give you. "Gotta give you a fighting chance," he says it like it's a joke, but you're both aware it's not.

The words trigger a memory—kind eyes and a sting in your arm. "Now you have a fighting chance," she said

Absentmindedly, you rub your arm before remembering something. "Oh," you pat the front of your scrub pants, then dig into the right pocket and pull out your hospital ID card. "Here." You hold it out to him, and he seems confused. "My ID card. It will get you into most of the doors in the hospital."

He breathes out in relief, pocketing the card with a grateful smile. "Thanks, doc." There's a brief pause. "I'm Carlos."

You swallow the lump in your throat. "Take care, Carlos," you say and begin to head off.

Worry bunches up inside of you, but it's an emotion you're familiar with, so you carefully fold it up and tuck it aside, knowing you've given Jill the best shot at survival. You feel more confident, though, moving through the city now with a proper weapon.

The sun begins to set as you arrive at the Raccoon City Police Department. Things don't look promising, you think, as you weave through the burning vehicles and zombies milling outside the fence of the station. You reach the heavy metal gate; it's been left unlocked, and you can easily push it open. You briefly consider locking it behind you, but decide against it, just in case some other wayward soul makes their way here and needs a way in.

When you step into the lobby, you're almost overcome with the urge to call out, but quickly refrain, instead searching around attentively for anything useful—snatching a flashlight on the front desk, a much better option than your dingy little penlight. The security shutters to the right have a big sign that says 'keep out,' and you're inclined to follow instructions.

You try to recall the times you've been here to visit Jill—you know the S.T.A.R.S. office is on the second floor, but you'd feel a whole lot better if you had more ammo—or maybe a shotgun, you think with morbidly amused snort.

"I just need to go drop something off in the Safety Deposit Room, and then we can go, okay?" she said, a package tucked under her arm as she made her way through the reception on the left, leaving you alone with the officer on front desk duty—Officer Scott, who leered at you over his newspaper with a quirked brow and an attempt at a flirtatious smirk on his lips.

A grated door now covers the reception area; the control box is covered in tape, and you're hesitant to make too much noise, afraid of drawing unwanted attention. Your eyes scan the main hall, and that's when you notice the far door slightly ajar, as if someone left it open in a hurry.

"That's as good an invitation as any," you mutter to yourself as you slip through the door, shutting it behind you. It's an office, you realize as you scan the room, flicking on the flashlight you found. Desks are gathered in the middle, chairs are overturned, and it's a mess—not much different from the hospital. The state of it doesn't give much confidence that you'll find much help here.

Peering up, you observe decorations hanging from the ceiling above the desks.

Welcome Leon.

"And the award for shittiest first day goes to," you whisper sardonically.

There are several bodies lying about, and you step as quietly as you can, entering into a familiar snail's pace as you make your way out of the office, though not before grabbing a box of ammo sitting haphazardly on one of the bookshelves near the door.

You can hear the shuffling of undead as you step into the hall, teeth clenched as your body tautens, but you keep moving, ears alert for anything else—god knows what kind of monsters are probably lurking after what you've seen in the hospital.

Across the way, you catch sight of the sign labeled 'Safety Deposit Room', and there is a suspicious wave that flows through you at your luck, though you don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. The room is thankfully empty, and you move through the lockers, peeking in to see if there's anything of use for you here.

Near the end of the first row, you note something that catches your eye—flash grenades. Your eyebrows raise as you memorize the locker number before punching it into the console, observing that two of the keys are missing. Luckily, this doesn't stop you from taking what you need, including those flash grenades and some extra ammo.

Then, as if your eyes are being guided to a shining beacon of hope, you spot a shotgun sitting behind the bars of a weapons locker at the back of the room. You glare with displeasure at the keycard reader before gazing back at it longingly, hand caressing the bars. "I'll be back for you," you promise.

Suddenly, a burst of gunfire reverberates through the station, and you instinctively crouch, your heart pounding in your chest. You quickly zip your bag shut before creeping toward the door to listen. The hall is silent now, and you slowly open the door, planning to rush back across the hall to the office so you won't get trapped in a maze of unfamiliar corridors.

As your hand touches the doorknob, you hear the sound of boots coming toward you and a faint 'what the hell', followed by the groaning of the undead and more gunshots. You use the noise as cover to skirt back into the office, ducking behind the door.

The pistol Carlos gave you feels cold in your clammy hands—the weight of it is one you're well acquainted with, pulling the slide to check if a round is chambered before flipping the safety. You turn off your flashlight, blinking as your eyes adjust to the darkness, the footsteps growing closer.

The creak of the handle turning traps your breath in your lungs, not daring to even exhale as the door opens. When the person steps through, you kick the door closed with your foot, causing them to whip around as you level your gun at them.

Leon instantly recognizes the barrel of a gun pointed at him in the brief moment when he turns with his flashlight, dropping it and his gun as his hands raise toward the ceiling. "Don't shoot," he says. "I'm not one of those things!"

Another light switches on, causing him to squint as it darts across his face, like you're testing the honesty of his statement—searching for any signs of blackened veins or necrosis. He can faintly make out the silhouette of your figure behind the blinding glare. When you finally lower the flashlight and your gun, he blinks rapidly, his vision dotted with spots as they readjust, but he interprets it as a sign to slowly bring his hands down.

"Sorry," you apologize, watching raptly as he grabs his flashlight and gun off the floor. "I heard you shooting and I—"

"It's okay," he interrupts. There's a moment where you both take each other in, and Leon can see the unsure frown on your lips, like you're embarrassed by your reaction—as if it were possible to overreact in this type of situation. You couldn't be much older than him, he realizes—youth still clings to your cheeks, not yet hollowed with maturity, a softness of lingering adolescence. "Better safe than sorry," he assures with a smile.

The corners of your mouth twitch up into a tentative smile of your own, and Leon feels a surge of warmth at how your nose scrunches. His gaze drops to your attire—burgundy scrubs that have known better days, with a long-sleeved shirt underneath, though the sleeves are pushed up to your elbows, and white sneakers sit comfortably on your feet, splattered with blood and other gore. You shift under his stare, tugging your worn-out backpack higher on your shoulder as you chew the inside of your lip.

"Are you a nurse?" he asks.

The smile drops immediately, and Leon knows he's said exactly the wrong thing. "Doctor," you correct sharply, your tone lowering in a way he recognizes—like you want to be respected.

He scrambles, stuttering under the weight of the disappointed way your shoulders slump as he tries to explain himself. "It's just—you look young."

It has the opposite effect he intends, and you lean back away from him, a furrow in your brow that makes you seem more adorable than severe, but he pushes that thought down just as quickly as it pops up. "So do you," you shoot back as your eyes dip down to observe his police uniform. "How long you been a cop?"

He scratches the back of his head sheepishly as if hesitant to answer. "Well, it's my first day."

Recognition flashes in your eyes. "I'd say you have some really shitty luck, Leon," you joke.

He lets out a huff of weak laughter. "Yeah," he agrees. "Definitely not the greatest start."

"At least it can only go up from here," you offer with a shrug of your shoulders.

"Wait," he says when the realization dawns on him. "How did you know my name?"

You lift your light to the decorations hanging from the ceiling, and Leon gazes at the sign with something close to loss etched into his face. When he peeks back at you, he notes how the pinch in your brow has softened as you watch him—it's an empathetic look, as if you understand exactly what he's feeling. "It's kind of cute," you say gently. "They must've been excited for you to start."

He swallows thickly, but his voice still cracks anyway. "Yeah," he murmurs. "You said you're a doctor—my lieutenant is back in the main hall, he needs medical attention. Could you help him?"

You observe Lieutenant Marvin Branagh with a painstakingly neutral expression—it's one you've mastered the last two years of your residency. It never did a patient any good when they saw that something was wrong on their doctor's face.

"How bad is it, doc?" Marvin asks between wheezed gasps.

The bite on his side is horrific, and with the amount of blood he's lost, you're not quite sure how he's even conscious, let alone sitting upright. The human body truly is a thing of wonder.

Still, you take the time to clean and disinfect the wound, eyes passively noting the darkened veins around it that have already spread across the rest of his torso. Leon is hovering behind you; you can tell he's nervous by the way he keeps shifting his weight back and forth. You give him credit for remaining quiet as you examined the injury—most people would be asking a million questions by now.

"Do you want the truth, Lieutenant?" you ask.

He gives a firm, but pained nod. "Don't gotta sugarcoat it."

You dress the bite with clean gauze and steady hands. "You don't have much longer left," you inform.

"Wait, you mean there's nothing you can do for him?" Leon cuts in.

You only give him a brief, sorrowful stare over your shoulder before your gaze settles back on Marvin—the sad gleam in his eyes shows he already knew what the outcome would be, but maybe he'd hoped for a miracle, one you couldn't give him. "How much do you know about what's going on?" you ask Leon.

He appears uncertain. "I mean, I've seen the news reports—"

"It's worse than the news reports," you interrupt, more sharply than you intended. "… Obviously." You stand up after giving Marvin's bandages another once-over before pulling off your gloves with a definitive snap. "It's a virus. We don't know where it came from, only that the outbreak started six days ago. It's capable of transmission through various methods, including bodily fluids—" Your jaw sets. "—for example, a bite."

"There's not like… medicine or something you can give him?" he asks defeatedly.

"No," you answer, and your eyes meet Marvin's. "I'm sorry, I know it's not what you want to hear—"

"Don't worry about it, doc," he says as he leans back into his seat with a grimace. "You two just worry about getting out of here."

Leon steps forward as if ready to argue. "But—"

"I mean it, rookie."

His mouth snaps shut, and you glance between the two officers observantly as you repack your supplies into your bag. Clearly, this is a conversation they've already had—one that Marvin is not keen to repeat despite Leon's insistence, judging by the simmering stare the older man sends him.

You step away, allowing the lieutenant the chance to rest, pulling Leon with you. "Is there a way out?" you ask with a curious gleam in your eye. "I heard a lot of the evacuation routes were shut down a few days ago to contain the spread of the virus."

"They think there's a secret passage under that statue," he answers, jutting a chin over to the large statue looming behind the desk.

You gaze back and forth between him and the statue several times before you give him a deadpan look—as if you think he's joking. "Seriously?"

A small, lopsided smirk forms on his face like he's amused by your reaction, and he shrugs his shoulders half-heartedly. "It's worth a shot, right?"

You consider each other, and for the first time in a very long few days, you let comfort settle in your chest—at least, you wouldn't be alone anymore. "Alright," you concede. "Me and you… rookie."

He blinks with surprise at your teasing tone, a laugh bubbling out of him. "Hey!"

Leon keeps you close behind him as you make your way through the police station, putting himself between you and the undead that are wandering around, even though you're armed and more than capable of defending yourself. "You know you don't have to protect me, right?" you say as you watch over his shoulder as he shoots the knees out from under another zombie.

He looks over at you, blue eyes fixed on yours. "I want to," he replies before quickly shutting his mouth, as if he knows he's said something wrong but can't stop himself, and stammers out, "I just… if you'd let me, I'd like to."

He can't tell what you're thinking; he only sees the understanding fall across your face as you bob your head. "Okay, Leon," you agree more readily than he expects. "But just so you know, I'm an excellent shot."

His gaze drops down to your hands—the ones he saw so tenderly treat Marvin's wound—and then to his own—already covered and caked with blood and grime. "Don't want you to get your hands dirty." He says it casually, like a joke, but you can discern it in the tightness around his jaw—the truth of it.

Your teeth clench until you feel the ache through your skull. You wonder if he knows the amount of blood you've had on your hands or how many times you've scrubbed your skin raw to wash it away, as if your dreams aren't haunted by visions of blood and death.

"Yeah, wouldn't want that," you murmur.

Sometime later, as you're catching your breath in a relatively safe spot, he asks, "So, you were at the hospital when the outbreak started?"

You're checking your supplies, something Leon is already picking up as a habit of yours, like you don't know what to do with idle hands. "I was," you reply in as passive a tone as possible, as if trying to disconnect from what you witnessed there. "Kind of a shitty place to be when the zombie apocalypse starts. We didn't really know what was going on at first, and I… I just wanted to help." You take a deep breath. "Eventually, we got inundated—staff were turning, and the hospital became overrun. I got separated from everyone else, and was holed up by myself for three days before I finally decided to try to leave."

"You're okay, though?"

Your eyes flick up to his, noticing how he's carefully watching you, before dropping back down to check how much gauze you have left. Tears gather at your waterline, and you try to blink them away as your nostrils flare, but your gaze lifts to him again as a smile tightens on your lips. "Do you want the truth?" You repeat the question you asked Lieutenant Branagh.

"Don't gotta sugarcoat it," he answers.

Your chin trembles, but the forced smile stays in place as your nose scrunches to accommodate the sting in your sinuses. "Not really."

He's at your side before he even knows what he's doing, his hand gingerly grabbing your shoulder as he ducks his head to look you in the eye. "Hey." His voice is soft and tender.

Embarrassment burns across your cheeks in the form of a blush, raising your hand to wipe at the tears that have escaped, but he takes hold of your wrist. His touch is gentle, as if he's handling something fragile—it's something that normally would fill you with disdain, but in this moment, after everything you've been through, you find you don't mind being handled with such care.

"Hey, it's okay." He doesn't make you face him; instead, he steps in front of you. The warmth of his body so close to yours feels grounding and disorienting all at once—it's overwhelming. You focus on his voice as he murmurs, "We'll get through this, okay?"

You avoid eye contact with him, just staring at the 'R.P.D.' on his vest, trying not to sniffle pathetically, especially when you can feel his gaze on you.

He tilts his head down. "We will," he reiterates, more firmly this time.

As if you can't help yourself anymore, your eyes finally rise to meet his. Being so close, you're finally aware of the exact shade of blue they are, like the sky on a summer afternoon when the sun burns so hot that the ice cream would start melting before you've even unwrapped it.

You stare up at him, and for a moment, you look like you believe him. "Okay."

When you and Leon end up on the east side of the station in the Art Room, you're both examining the statue with slanted heads and quirked brows. "This place is really weird," you say finally, and Leon can do nothing but nod in agreement.

You're aware that the Raccoon City Police Department used to be an art museum, but that was well over thirty years ago, so the fact that there are still remnants of it lingering about the station is certainly odd, never mind all of the strange doors and puzzles you've both stumbled upon.

As he's checking out the statue and fruitlessly trying to pry the ruby scepter from its hand, you're searching around the room for anything else that might be useful when you see something sitting on one of the end tables. You let out an excited squeal that causes Leon to lose his grip on the scepter, stumbling back and nearly tripping over his own feet as he rushes over to you. "What?! What is it?" he asks, already feeling a lump gathering in his throat.

You spin around and hold up what you've found with a triumphant twinkle in your eye, his close proximity not even phasing you. "Keycard!" you declare before blinking as your brows furrow together, watching as he places a hand to his chest and begins to take deep, regulated breaths. "Uh, you okay?"

He gives a weak thumbs up. "Yeah, y'know, only a minor heart attack, I'm sure it's nothing I can't walk off." As his blood pressure returns to normal and he waves off your brief look of concern, he asks, "So, what's that for exactly?"

"For the Weapons Locker in the Safety Deposit Room," you say before tapping him on the nose with the card, a mischievous grin on your lips, causing his cheeks to flush pink as you lean in, pushing all boundaries aside. It's so uncharacteristic of what he's seen from you so far—a glimpse of who you were before all of this began, and he feels a flutter in his chest. "Dibs on the shotgun."

That's how Leon Kennedy ends up watching you inspect said gun in your hands with something like reverence, delight spreading across your face that eases the deep lines of worry and exhaustion that once marred it. "You know how to work that thing?" he asks with an amused raise of his eyebrows.

You wink at him—quick and playful. "Wanna find out?"

Some time later, you find yourself outside in the rain, your scrubs starting to stick uncomfortably, the drops catching on your eyelashes and blurring your vision as you rifle through your backpack, a couple of packets of gauze held between your teeth as you fish out disinfectant and medical tape. Behind you, the back end of a helicopter hangs out of the police station after it crashed into the building, while in front of you, Leon talks through the fence with the girl he came into Raccoon City with—Claire.

"Any luck with your brother?" Leon asks her.

Her expression falls only slightly as she shakes her head, like she's trying to put on a brave front. "No."

"You're looking for your brother?" you question, finally piping up in the conversation for the first time after Leon introduced you to her.

"Yeah, he's part of the S.T.A.R.S. team for the R.P.D.," Claire says. "His name is Chris—"

"—Redfield?" you finish.

"You know him?" she asks, eyes growing wide with hope.

You nod; Chris was a familiar face to you, always sending you a smile when he saw you around and asking how you were doing. According to Jill, he tried a few times to join you both on a night out, but she quickly shut him down. "I told him it's girls' night, not girls' night plus Chris," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"Met him a few times," you answer. "He—"

You're cut off as the sound of an explosion reverberates through the air, the helicopter bursting into a ball of fire and metal. Instinctively, you flinch back while Leon steps in front of you in case any shrapnel flies out. "Damnit," he curses. "You know what that means."

"Yeah," Claire mutters as she glances over her shoulder at the zombies in the courtyard beginning to stir. "Dinner time."

"Hey—" you call out to her before she can leave. "Take this." You start shoving the medical supplies through the fence, and when she reaches to take them, you lean in. "I don't think your brother is in the city."

Her brows furrow with confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I saw Jill—He wasn't with her," you explain. "Haven't seen him for a few months, actually."

She frowns at that. "Do you think—"

"I'm sure he's fine," you assure quickly, realizing how your previous statement might've sounded. "And with the way things are looking around here, it's probably a good thing he got the fuck outta Dodge."

She nods, though it's uncertain. "Yeah." Her gaze flits between you and Leon. "You two stay safe, okay?"

"You too," Leon says with a worried pinch to his brow as he watches her start to leave.

"Be careful," you call out.

"We'll get through this," she says as she turns to weather the swarm of undead. "All of us."

Your suspicions that there were more than just normal undead here were not unfounded, you think bitterly as you come across creatures that someone deemed "lickers" in a note you found. The hall near the S.T.A.R.S. office is crawling with them—quite literally. You grab Leon by the sleeve of his shirt, dragging him through the door as one crawls overhead, closing it just as it makes a high-pitched shrieking noise.

"God, what was that thing?" he breathes out.

"No idea," you answer as you put an ear to the door to ensure they won't follow you in here. "We had something in the hospital that wasn't normal undead, but it wasn't that."

"You mean there's more than just undead wandering around?" he asks with a frown.

You grimace as you think of the various possibilities—given what you've observed so far, most of them are bleak. "Well, if the virus is capable of transmission to other species… yes."

"Is that… likely?"

You don't imagine your expression is particularly comforting as you say, "More likely than a zombie apocalypse."

He inhales, processing the information before taking a look around. "Where are we?" he asks.

"S.T.A.R.S office," you reply as you make your way further in, hoping to find something—anything—that might be useful.

Leon trails after you. "You said you were friends with Claire's brother—"

"I knew Claire's brother," you correct. "I was friends with one of his teammates—Jill Valentine."

The office is a mess, as if someone tore through it searching for something, with papers scattered and boxes everywhere. You're looking around the captain, Wesker's, office when Leon calls out to you. "Is this Jill?" he asks. You peek your head out and notice him holding a picture frame he picked up from one of the desks.

You step closer, unsure of what you're expecting as he flips it around to show you, but seeing your face staring back at you isn't it. A pit forms in your stomach as you look at the photo of you and Jill; she'd bought one of those disposable cameras and wouldn't stop taking pictures one night when you were out bar hopping together. You're both sitting on stools in some dingy dive bar, leaning into each other, practically cheek to cheek, smiling at the camera, very obviously drunk.

It's a photo that Jill keeps on her desk.

Your throat tightens at the realization. "You two seem close," Leon notes with a fond smile.

You didn't think you were. You never even considered the possibility that Jill thought of you as more than a casual acquaintance with whom she would occasionally grab a drink or lunch. But she is the closest friend you have—your best friend. Too caught up in your own inability to allow yourself to take up space in another person's life, you didn't realize that someone had carved out that space for you without you even asking.

Regret wells up inside you. It's sharp and agonizing, a pain worse than fear—something you should have endured for her. You should have gone with her and Carlos and made sure she was okay. But you didn't, and now you don't know if you'll ever see her again, if you could've made a difference.

What if she's dead because of you?

A noise escapes the back of your throat, like a wounded animal, and Leon is startled by it. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asks, setting the photo down to take you by your shoulders.

You shake your head; you can't put the feeling into words right now—the immense grief of a loss you never knew you were entitled to, hacking your heart into pieces. "I—" Your throat tightens. "Yeah… yeah, we were close."

"You said you saw her," he recalls. "Is she…"

"I don't know," you answer, voice hoarse as you try to hold back tears.

He's quiet in his understanding, leaving you standing in front of Jill's desk, staring at the photo as he investigates the rest of the office.

When you and Leon leave, the frame is empty, and the photo is safely tucked in your backpack.

"So, we just put these medallions in?" you ask, voice full of disbelief as you stand in front of the statue in the main hall, peering over Leon's shoulder at the notes written in the notebook Marvin gave him.

He nods. "Seems so."

"This is really fucking weird."

"Yup."

Once you insert the medallions, the hall fills with the sound of stone grinding against stone as the gears turn the mechanism on. You take a cautious step back as you watch the statue's base start to shift, revealing a passage underneath. "Well, shit," you mutter, scratching the back of your head. You honestly thought this Officer Elliot was full of shit.

Leon steps down the stairs, pulling on the metal gate to open it, trying to spy what might lie beyond the darkness the stairs lead to, but sees nothing. "Looks like it goes underground," he says before turning. "Lieutenant Branagh!" he calls out. "Marvin!"

You follow behind him, a frown on your lips as he approaches Marvin, who is now curled up on the bench you'd left him on, appearing much worse for wear. Sweat clings to his forehead as his face scrunches up in pain, even as he sleeps. His breathing is labored, and you can note the bandages on his side have bled through, as if he isn't clotting properly.

"It's time to go," Leon urges. "Hey, Marvin." As he goes to shake the lieutenant awake, Marvin juts up, an almost inhuman growl resonating from the back of his throat as he bears his teeth at Leon.

Your fingers hover at the back of Leon's uniform, ready to pull him away if the worst were to happen, but you watch with only a minimal amount of relief as Marvin shakes his head, blinking blearily as if realizing where he is—who he is.

"We've got to get you to a hospital," Leon softly says.

"No, no… I…" Marvin denies, drawing away from Leon's outstretched hand. "Save yourselves."

"I've got you—"

"No!"

Leon doesn't give up—it's like he doesn't know how to. "Look, we can still make it out of here together—"

You don't flinch when Marvin unholsters his gun and points it at him. No part of you believes he would actually pull the trigger. His eyes lock onto yours, as if you're the voice of reason who might talk Leon out of it. "Please," he begs. "We can't let this spread. Just go."

You take a deep, steady breath as you grab Leon by the arm. "Leon," you say as gently as you can because you can already feel the way he's trembling. "C'mon, we need to go."

He doesn't even try to pry himself away from your grip. "No, we can't leave him," he murmurs, and you can hear it in his voice—the break of desperation—the realization that you can't save everyone.

Marvin nods at you, tears threatening to spill over, and a quiver to his lip that he's determined not to show, but you see it anyway. You're guiding Leon toward the passageway, and he lets you pull him along as if he won't allow himself to move on his own, sorrowfully watching Marvin the whole time as you cross through the door. You shut the gate behind you, the way back getting cut off as the passageway seals up once more.

The tremor in Leon's hands won't stop, and you hear him sniff, a sound that makes guilt prickle up your spine. You hold the hand you'd been gripping a little tighter, as if to remind him you're still here with him. "I'm sorry, Leon," you murmur.

"What good are we?" he finally asks, voice barely above a whisper as if he can't bring himself to speak any louder. "I'm a cop, you're a doctor… and we couldn't even save him—that's what we're supposed to do, we're supposed to save people."

You don't take his words personally. It's a thought you've found yourself dwelling on many times over the past few days—actually, the past few years. You remember what Dr. McKay said to you after you lost your first patient. "We can't save everyone." She didn't say it to be cruel or to diminish what you were feeling. It was meant to serve as a reminder that you could do everything right and it still might not be enough. There is a peculiar kind of heartache in the death of good intentions, and the way defeat can pile up so easily.

"But that doesn't mean you give up," she finished, and as you looked up at her from the bathroom stall floor, tears streaming down your cheeks, you nodded in understanding. A silent promise to her and to yourself that you would keep going, even when it becomes too much and you feel like quitting—especially when you feel like quitting—you have to keep going.

"We can't save everyone," you say in just as soft a tone as Dr. McKay had that day, hoping you can impart half as much wisdom as she did to you.

"You've lost patients before, right?" he asks.

"I have," you confirm. "It doesn't… It doesn't get any easier—but you learn to make room in yourself to tuck those feelings into so it doesn't feel so overwhelming." Your fingers weave through his, pressing your joined hands firmly to his chest. "And if you need to cry, you cry."

His eyes find yours in the dim light, and you see the exact moment when the unyielding shield he's had raised this entire time comes crumbling down. He gasps for breath that stalls in his throat, getting caught there as he chokes back a sob. Tenderly, you reach out with your other hand, clasping the back of his neck and bringing him to you, allowing him to bury his head into your shoulder. His arm wraps around you as he cries, body shaking as he does.

Your fingers comb through his hair, rubbing his head soothingly, whispering 'it's okay' to him again and again, hoping that this time it will be enough, and that the smell of gunpowder and leather won't linger in your memory bittersweetly.

He remains slumped against you for a while—you don't count the minutes, only listening as his breathing steadies, body relaxing in your arms. When he finally pulls away, you let him. "Sorry," he mutters as he sniffs. "Didn't mean to start crying on you."

There are still remnants of tears on his cheeks, and you absentmindedly reach up, swiping them away with your thumbs. "I've already cried in front of you twice," you say in a lighter tone. "As far as I'm concerned, you still owe me one."

He laughs, it's soft and raspy, and you know his heart isn't quite completely in it. "Didn't know we were keeping track."

You step back, brushing off some dirt from the sleeves of his uniform. "Officer Kennedy, it's very important to never let yourself be in someone's debt," you say with a dramatic somberness. "You'll never know when they'll come to collect."

"If it's you, I don't think I'll mind," he says, smiling down at you with a little less grief on his face.

"I'll make you eat those words," you say. You peer down the dark staircase, flicking on your flashlight to get a better look. "Wanna go check out what's in the creepy secret passageway?"

He nods readily, squaring his shoulders once more, preparing for whatever you might discover. "Yeah, let's find a way out of here."

After stumbling upon some kind of office, you and Leon step into an elevator that takes you even deeper underground. When you exit, it's like you're in a totally different place—an industrial processing area. Grated catwalks hang above, and a room filled with vats steams below. "What is this?" you mutter. "Are we in the sewers?"

"Maybe?" he offers unhelpfully as he leads the way before you come to a metal locker blocking the path forward. "Hold on." He holsters his gun, lifting the locker back into place with a grunt.

You refrain from clapping but make an idle comment, "Way to go, muscles."

He peeks back at you bashfully as he ambles through the doorway, just as something drops down from above. It's a man—or at least it was; he's been mutated into something monstrous—sinewy muscle strands connect to an enlarged arm, a gigantic yellow eye blinking at the shoulder.

"What the—" The creature snatches Leon by the throat, slamming him onto the grated floor. "Run!" He manages to shout at you as it lifts him up again, only to hammer him back down, the floor starting to give way beneath them.

You don't. Instead, you level your shotgun and fire, hitting it right in its deformed shoulder. It lets out a loud roar that echoes all around you, stumbling back from Leon. "Up," you order as you help him off the ground. "Let's go." You motion over the railing to the ten-foot drop to the level below.

Leon can't argue, too busy trying to catch his breath as he lets you guide him over the railing, landing with a firm 'oof'. He hears another blast from your gun, and the monster screams once more, before you fall down beside him, grimacing as you feel the impact in your knees. Then he's grabbing your free hand, his own gun now drawn as he moves through the maze of machinery.

Behind you, the creature jumps down, stumbling after you, bellowing out in a way that almost feels like it's trying to speak. "Split up," you say, pushing him one way before he can protest, while you head in the other direction.

Predictably, it follows you after the two shotgun slugs you put into it. You peek over your shoulder, seeing the massive eye on its arm open and scanning around. You turn, treading backward as you fire another shot, and it screams out—angry or hurt, you don't know, but you keep shooting.

Leon appears behind it, emptying a whole clip while you have it distracted. "Aim for the eye!" you call out before turning to run again, the beast hot on your trail. You hear the grind of the metal pipe in its hand against the floor as it roars, lumbering behind you.

You hear Leon yell your name, and you glance over your shoulder just in time to see the glint of the metal pipe about to strike you. Your stomach drops as you squat down, narrowly evading the attack, feeling the rush of air from the swing.

Clang.

   Hiss.

The pipe bashes against one of the valves leading into the machinery, filling your vision with steam, and you use the distraction to scramble away from the monster.

"Wily ain't ya, girl?" a voice laughs in your ear. You shake your head, trying to rid yourself of your father's ghost.

As the labyrinth floods with more steam with each wild flail of the creature and its pipe that clang, clang, clangs against the machinery. It becomes disorienting, and you almost run headfirst into Leon, and he steadies you by your shoulders as you cough out an apology, feeling your lungs cloud with hot vapor.

As it stomps toward you, he steps in front, squinting as he tries to make out the large figure in the mist before discharging more rounds as it wails. "H-help," you think you hear it groan out—like it's still clinging to the memory of once being a person.

The thought makes bile rise in the back of your throat.

"Shit," Leon murmurs. "Gotta reload."

You push him to the side, racking your shotgun and using the sickly yellow glow of the eye in the haze as a target.

Ch-chunk.

   Choom.

It screeches out as you hit it dead center in its shoulder, and it staggers backward as it writhes in pain. You watch with bated breath as it sails over the railing, falling into the darkness below. With a sigh, you wipe the sweat gathered at your brow.

Both you and Leon nearly jump out of your skin as a ladder close by suddenly lowers, though when you look up, the steam obscures whoever might be lurking on the catwalks above. "Someone is watching us," he notes with a hint of apprehension.

"Let's hope they're friendlier than that guy," you say while tipping your head to where the creature fell.

His gaze shifts to you, concern clear on his face. "Are you okay?" He doesn't wait for an answer and reaches out as if you're the one who was choked out by that thing, turning you back and forth by the shoulders to check for injury. "It didn't hit you, did it?"

"No," you answer before cocking a brow at him, noticing the red marks around his neck. "Are you okay?"

He nods, rubbing at his throat. "Yeah, I—" He glances down at the shotgun still in your hands. "I guess you do know how to use that thing, huh?"

"Did you doubt me?" you ask with a hint of mirth in your voice. "I'm a little offended."

He laughs and shakes his head. "No, just surprised." As you walk over to the ladder that dropped down, he decides to make conversation, finally asking a question you know has been burning in the back of his mind for hours, "So, you're pretty young to be a doctor, huh?"

You hum your confirmation as you climb up first. Leon watches, admiring how your scrubs cling tightly around your backside as you move, a flush spreading across his cheeks when he realizes where his eyes have landed, and he quickly looks away, waiting until you've reached the top to follow behind you.

"You're like… a genius, then?"

You purse your lips, like you don't quite like the term, or maybe you're too modest to accept the title. "Something like that," you say. "Graduated high school at fifteen, accelerated undergrad program, and then med school in three years."

His eyes widen, mouth open in an 'o' shape. "So you've been a doctor for…"

"Two years," you reply as you grab some ammo off a shelf and toss it to him.

"And you're… how old?" The way he asks this particular question takes on a much more intimate tone, as if it weren't just for idle curiosity.

An amused smirk twitches at your lips. "Twenty-three," you answer as you come to another ladder leading up. "And how old are you, rookie?"

"Twenty-one," he murmurs, as if embarrassed now. "You're… really impressive."

You feel your cheeks heat up as you turn to him, watching him peer down at you with fondness. "I—thank you," you say awkwardly, but Leon can still see the traces of pride on your face. "Guess there's nowhere to go but up, huh?" you ask as you peer up at the long climb with your hands on your hips.

"Hopefully it leads out?" he offers.

"Somehow, I doubt it," you murmur.

"How does a doctor learn how to handle firearms so well?" Leon asks as you ascend.

You pause for a moment, like you're considering your answer. "Dad was a big gun guy," you finally say, quieter, like it's something you don't like to talk about. Still, you explain, "Y'know the kind—doomsday prepper who thought he'd outshoot the end of the world he was sure was coming." You pause as you reach the top. "Turns out he wouldn't live long enough to see it."

Leon's silent, maybe noticing that saying 'sorry for your loss' doesn't seem appropriate for the situation—not with the tone you'd used when saying 'dad,' heavy like molasses on your tongue. "At least you're able to get some use out of it."

He's relieved when you laugh at that while pushing on what you realize is a manhole cover. "Yeah, there's always that." With a grunt, the cover comes loose, and you're able to slide it to the side.

When you pop up, you notice you're in an underground parking lot. You reach out a hand to Leon, helping him climb out as he looks around. "Still in the police station," he says. In the distance, you hear a sound that makes your stomach tighten: dogs.

"Is there a K-9 unit?" you ask, unsure if you ever remember interacting with any at the R.P.D.

"Huh?" He stares at you with bewilderment. "I… I think so, why?"

You quickly reload your shotgun and ensure your pistol has a fresh clip, too. "Remember how I said it was likely that the virus spread to animals other than humans?"

His eyes widen. "You think there's some zombie dogs roaming around?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if there's zombie goldfish swimming in the sewers at this rate," you say with a scowl.

He surveys the area, spotting the parking garage terminal next to the shuttered entrance and points to it. "Over there." You follow closely behind him, keeping an eye out for anything that might be lurking around. The parking garage is oddly silent, and it doesn't settle you; if anything, it makes you more anxious.

"Something feels off," you murmur.

"Yeah, I know," he agrees as he inspects the terminal. "Looks like we need a parking pass."

You sigh. "Of course we do."

A low growl behind you draws your attention, and you spin around, weapon ready. "Fuck," you mutter as you glare at the mutated doberman. Its eyes are milky, and it snarls, baring its teeth at you, with saliva and blood dripping from its mouth. "I hate being right."

As the undead animal goes to lunge at you, a single round puts it down, viscera splattering across the pavement of the parking garage. "Jesus Christ," Leon breathes out.

There's a grimace on your lips as you walk over to it, stepping carefully, knowing these things are hard to kill. You feel sorry for the poor thing, and so caught up in that feeling as you circle around it, you don't even detect the person lurking behind the pillar until you feel the cold metal of a gun muzzle to the back of your head.

"You two have made it further than I thought you would," a voice behind you says—a woman, you realize.

Leon brandishes his gun, a furrow on his brow as he points it at the woman just over your shoulder, but with you in between, you doubt he'd risk shooting. Still, she jams the gun harder against your skull, your head pitching down with the force, a scowl on your face. "Put it down," she orders.

"Let her go first," he insists.

The fact that she didn't disarm you immediately was a mistake on her part—likely, she doesn't see either of you as a threat. "Unless you want to lose a leg," you mutter back to her, and there's a brief pause as she realizes that your shotgun is still in your hands, aimed just slightly backward at an angle that would surely blow her entire right leg off at the knee.

"Clever," she muses, and then you feel the cool metal leave your head and the click of heels as she backs away.

You spin around as soon as you're sure she's at a safe distance, keeping your eyes on her while you drift backward toward Leon, who, once you're within arm's reach, grabs you by the backpack pocket and pulls you closer, lowering his gun as the woman lowers hers.

You take in her appearance—pretty with short black hair, wearing sunglasses, and clad in a trench coat, like a secret agent straight out of a cheesy spy movie. "F.B.I.," she declares as she raises her badge, then flips it closed too quickly for you to get a good look at it.

Leon relaxes behind you, but you don't; instead, you keep a scrutinizing leer on her. "What's the F.B.I. doing here?" he asks.

"Sorry," she says as she begins to saunter away, shoes clacking against the ground with a sharp tap, tap, tap. "That information is classified."

You scoff with disbelief. "Seriously? This place is crawling with monsters—an entire city's population has been nearly decimated, and you're worried about keeping the government's secrets?"

She glances over her shoulder at you. You can't see her eyes behind the sunglasses, but you know they're drilling holes into you right now. "Do yourself a favor—stop asking questions and get the hell out of here."

You both watch her leave through one of the side entrances, the door latching with a definitive click. "Easier said than done," Leon mutters as he turns to glower at the closed parking garage door, and then, after a beat, asks, "What do you make of that?"

The look you give him tells him everything he needs to know, but you answer anyway, "I don't trust anyone who wears sunglasses at night."

He chuckles, then, almost absentmindedly, his hand rises to cup the back of your head and tenderly rub the spot where the woman dug her gun into your skull. Your cheeks warm at the gesture, and you try to ignore the flutter in your stomach even as you lean into his touch. "I'm inclined to agree with her on one thing at least," he says softly. "Let's get the hell out of here."

You both go in the opposite direction from the woman, though you doubt it'll be the last you'll be seeing of her.

Staring at the man behind bars, you feel like you've seen him before. "You a reporter?" you ask, interrupting him and Leon when you finally place his face. You saw him in the hospital a couple of times in the past few months—he was desperately trying to get an interview with Dr. Bard, if you remember correctly.

The man tilts his head at you, beady eyes scanning you as if he's trying to uncover your secrets. "I am," he says. "Was about to blow the whistle on Irons—it's why I'm down here."

"Irons?" Leon repeats. "You mean Chief Irons? Is he still around?"

"Who cares," the man says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Hopefully, he's somebody's dinner by now."

"What do you mean by that?" Leon asks, his demeanor changing—shoulders squaring as his jaw clenches.

A screeching noise, like metal on metal, rings out through the cellblock, catching everyone's attention. You step closer to Leon, hands still steady on your shotgun as you focus down the corridor. "What the fuck," you mutter.

"Hey, I'll make you a deal…" the man says suddenly, leaning against the bars, and holding up the parking pass that hangs around his neck. "Unlock this cell, and I'll give you this. There's no other way outta that parking garage! Believe me!"

"Sorry, I can't do that." Leon shakes his head. "I have to talk to the chief first."

You whip your head around, staring at him incredulously. "Leon." The noise continues, growing louder as if it's getting closer; it vibrates through your eardrum right into your teeth. "We need to be quiet."

Quiet kept you safe during those three days alone. Quiet meant those things didn't know where you were.

"We're all prisoners in this station," the man says, sweat starting to bead on his forehead as panic takes hold. "So either we play nice and help each other out—" Another loud bang makes him flinch, and his eyes widen as he stumbles back from the bars. "Shit. It's coming."

"What's coming?" Leon asks as he steps forward.

"Be quiet," you whisper firmly, but it goes unheard. Your eyes dart around, yet despite the approaching noise, you can’t tell where it's originating from.

"C'mon—c'mon, don't be an asshole, okay? You need this!" The man presses himself against the back wall of the cell. "Just get me the fuck outta here!"

A sharp gasp escapes you as an enormous, gloved hand punches through the wall behind him, sending bricks flying as it grabs him by the head. Leon shoves you behind him as he levels his gun, trying to get a clear shot at the creature. All you can do is watch as it drags the man, like he's nothing but a ragdoll, more of the wall crumbling with the movement, before a sickening squelch echoes out.

"Oh my god," Leon breathes as you watch the body slide down the wall, leaving a red smear of blood from his crushed skull.

You quickly avert your gaze, the sight of the man's bulging eyes making you nauseated, and when you look at the gaping hole now in the cell, you only see darkness beyond. You teeter away until you feel the jut of wood against the back of your thighs, leaning against the table.

You stare down at the concrete floor of the jail, tracing the cracked surface as you try to calm your racing heart. "We could have helped him," you quietly say.

Leon turns to you with a crinkle in his brow. "I didn't know if he was a criminal or not," he says.

You glare up at him with a scathing expression. "Does that matter?" you question.

He frowns as if he's puzzled by your reaction. "Of course it matters."

"He was a person, though," you say. "You said you wanted to help people."

"Yeah, innocent people," he clarifies.

His naivety unravels before you, and you huff with a shake of your head and a roll of your eyes. "You're not the judge and jury, Leon," you argue, and as you consider him, you realize you're looking at a kid—just like you—but someone who didn't grow up with a steel-toed boot on their neck. His world isn't tinted in shades of gray like yours. "It's not guilty until proven innocent—it's innocent until proven guilty."

"But what if we let him out and he hurt you?"

He's trying to understand, you know he is, but it still doesn't make you feel any less frustrated. "And what if he didn't?" you retort. "When people need help, you don't get to pick and choose who's the perfect victim."

A quiet tension settles between you two—it's uncomfortable and prickly, making you want to apologize immediately, but you hold back the urge. Instead, you watch as his eyes drift from you to the ground before you notice the sound of heels clicking through the cell block.

"Hope I'm not interrupting," the woman from before says coyly, no doubt having overheard your argument.

You ignore the quip, shrugging off your backpack to check your supplies again as Leon talks to the woman—Ada, as she introduces herself. Your mind concentrates on numbers—gauze, first aid spray, shotgun shells.

Things you can control.

You're transported back to every moment you've felt overwhelmed, imagining yourself at the suture cart, counting everything—forceps, scalpels, epidermal closures, tissue adhesive tape. Everything neatly logged and categorized in your mind, as you try to keep your head above water when it feels like you're drowning.

Out of the corner of your eye, you watch Ada stroll away again, waiting until the tap of her shoes completely fades before zipping your bag back up, maybe a little more aggressively than you intend. Leon approaches, standing in front of you and looking every bit like a kicked dog. You purse your lips, resenting how your stomach coils with guilt at how sad he appears. "I'm sorry," he says. "You're right."

"It's not about being right," you sigh. "It's about doing the right thing."

He nods insistently. "I know," he says. "I just—I was worried, and I don't want you to get hurt because I made the stupid mistake of trusting someone I shouldn't have."

Giving a noncommittal hum, you swing your backpack over your shoulder and finally stand up from your leaning position. It brings you much closer to Leon, who looms over you with a pout still clearly in place at your perceived indifference.

"You're not mad, right?" he questions, voice small and unsure.

When you peek up at him, the tender way he gazes down at you floods your stomach with butterflies. You pat his chest with the back of your hand, your expression softening. "Can't be mad at you, rookie," you mutter. "You're too cute."

He blinks in surprise, a blush spreading up his neck. "You think I'm cute?"

You try not to smile, rolling your eyes playfully. "C'mon, we need to find a way to get that cell open," you say, brushing past him to leave the jail.

"I think you're cute, too," he whispers as he trails after you.

It should have been simple. Find the electrical components to reroute the power in the jail, open up the cells, grab the parking garage pass, and get the hell out of the station.

Easy peasy.

Until you encounter a massive, hulking figure with skin a sickly blue mottled with scars, it’s dressed in a leather trench coat and a black hat, resembling a human, but it very clearly isn't. You think you've found what killed the reporter—or rather, it found you.

"Jesus Christ," Leon stammers as he reels backward, watching as it lifts the helicopter like it weighs nothing.

"What the fuck is that thing?" you question.

When Leon shoots off its hat, you think it starts to walk faster.

"I don't think it liked that," you say with wide eyes.

"Nope, definitely not."

It moves deliberately, too precise to be considered a mindless creature driven solely by instinct like the normal undead or Lickers. Its heavy footsteps boom behind you as you dash through the station's halls, and you pull Leon through a door, one you remember leading to a room with two exits. Before Leon can try to run toward the other door, you snatch him by his belt, scrambling behind an overturned desk and pulling him down with you.

"God, he's moving like we owe him money," you mutter.

He hauls you between his legs, wrapping one arm around you as you curl into him, while the other hand covers your mouth to silence your heavy breathing. The door you just went through suddenly swings open with a bang, making you both recoil, and you can feel Leon tense behind you as sweat beads on your brow.

Thunk.

   Thunk.

      Thunk.

The footsteps stomp through the room, pausing only briefly, before you hear the other door open and close, disappearing down the hall deeper into the station. Neither of you moves right away, too afraid that one small move might give away your position. Then, after what feels like forever, Leon's hold on you loosens, and you both finally allow yourselves to slowly exhale.

His cheek rests against the top of your head. "You okay?" he asks, arm still protectively enveloping you.

"Only a minor heart attack," you answer. "Nothing I can't walk off." He laughs softly, and you can feel the rumble in his chest behind you. You cant your head back to look at him, not realizing how close he'd be. You can feel his breath on your lips as you ask, "Are you okay?"

In the dark room with just the moonlight streaming through the window, you think you see his eyes flick down to your lips for a moment before he nods slowly. "Yeah," he whispers, swallowing thickly like he's got a mouth full of honey. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Okay," you murmur back, and a part of you—a very large part—wants to tip your chin up and close the gap between you. But the more sensible side wins out as you lean back, Leon chasing after you, maintaining the tempting distance. "We should get moving." There's no real urgency in your voice, and any resolve you hoped to convey wavers under his stare.

"Yeah," he breathes in agreement, even if his expression is tinted with disappointment, and his thumb traces circles against the soft skin of your arm.

Using every ounce of self-control, you extract yourself from him, standing and adjusting your backpack. Quietly, you head toward the door you entered, hoping that the monster will stay occupied elsewhere in the station for a while, when Leon whispers your name, catching your attention.

He grabs you by your jaw as you turn to peer at him, and the warmth of his lips against your forehead causes the rest of your face to heat up. Even as he pulls away, his hands continue to cradle you like you're something worth keeping. "Do you think—" His voice cracks, and you only find it endearing. "—Do you think when all of this is over, we could get dinner or something?"

You nod, a smile growing on your face—it's something to plan for, something to look forward to. "Yeah," you whisper. "I think I'd like that a lot."

He grins, and it feels like entire universes are collapsing inside of you at the sight. You find yourself once again praying to a god you don't believe in for the first time in two years, hoping that the man in front of you survives this and maybe, selfishly, hoping you survive too.

The trek through the station slowed to a crawl when you realized that making too much noise alerted the large, trenchcoat-clad creature to your presence—Tyrant, as you learn it's called when you finally manage to open the reporter's cell. He had written a note about it and how it's being used to hunt down witnesses to the events that transpired in Raccoon City—meaning you and Leon.

Whoever is behind this doesn't intend to allow any survivors.

With the parking garage pass in your possession, you and Leon weave your way through the undead that are beginning to swarm out from the now open cells, all the while avoiding the Tyrant as it chases after you. As you rush out into the parking garage, the door slamming open with a bang, you hear him yell out your name as something crashes through the wall beside you.

The first thing you're aware of is the iron grip around your throat, and the second is that you're hanging in the air, your feet scrambling to find purchase on solid ground now three feet below you as you desperately claw at the Tyrant's arm, trying to make it let go. You hear the pop, pop, pop of gunfire, but it doesn't even flinch, and you're gasping for air, your vision darkening around the edges.

There's a bright flash of light and the roar of an engine, then you're landing in a heap on the ground, wheezing as Leon rushes over to help you up and away from the Tyrant, now crushed between the wall and the S.W.A.T. van. As you shakily stand up, Leon's hands firmly on your shoulder, Ada steps out.

"You owe me one," she teases, a smirk on her lips, but it shifts into a scowl as the Tyrant begins to move. "God, nothing stays dead down here." You flinch back as she presses a button on the small remote in her hand, and the van explodes in a burst of flames, taking the Tyrant with it, though you doubt it'll stay down for long.

You're scowling as you hold up the parking garage pass. "Consider this your payment," you croak out, and Leon takes it from you, his hand hovering at your back as you all head toward the terminal.

As you all watch the grated shutter covering the exit start to rise, you realize that escape still doesn't feel any closer.

You don't think twice, stepping in front of the gun pointed at the little girl. "We need to terminate her before she turns," Ada says—her tone is callous, indifferent. Like she is talking about a lame horse and not a child.

"'Terminate'? That's my fucking daughter," the man grinds out, his own weapon drawn, ready to defend his family.

She doesn't acknowledge him; her focus is solely on you. "Step aside," she orders you, pointedly ignoring the fact that Leon is urging her to lower her weapon as well.

"You know I'm not going to do that." You see the shadow of her eyes behind the sunglasses, fixated on you as if she's searching for something. There's no change in her expression, not even a slight twitch of her lips, so you don't know if she finds what she is looking for.

"You're a doctor, you know what happens," she says.

"I do," you reply with a solemn nod, but even then, you don't move. Your gaze shifts to Leon, who is watching this unfold with a furrowed brow and a frown on his lips. His gun firmly in his hand, and you wonder for a moment what he would do if Ada shot you—if he would turn his weapon on her, the supposed F.B.I. agent.

Where, then, would his duty lie?

"You're a doctor?" the man asks from behind you.

I am, you confirm without turning around. It's a tense moment as you meet Ada's gaze again, watching the way her hand briefly tightens around her gun's grip before slowly lowering it.

"Is there… Is there anything you can do?" He knows the answer, but he still hopes anyway.

"No," you reply, and that's when you finally turn your head to look at him. "There's nothing I can do." The neutral demeanor you've trained yourself to keep when delivering bad news slips off your face as you regard him and his daughter with sorrow.

He takes a deep breath in—it stutters in his chest, and he nods sadly with acceptance. Behind him, his daughter rasps out, "Daddy…"

"Yeah, Emmie," he says as he kneels in front of her. "Daddy's here. I'm here, okay?" He holds her close, and you think of your own father and how he'd never held you with such gentleness. You're glad for the little girl, that she knows the love of a father and not the cruelty of one.

Leon tentatively steps forward beside you. The man turns his gaze to him, misplaced anger morphing onto his face. "You're a cop, you're supposed to know something—how did this happen? Huh?!"

"Mommy?" the girl chokes out.

And just like that, the anger crumbles away. "Mommy's sleeping, honey, okay? And I'm gonna put you to bed too, okay?" You can only watch with a lump in your throat as he picks her up, carrying her back inside before turning to consider you all. "Just go… just give us some privacy."

When the door shuts, Leon turns to Ada, frustration and anger twisting up his features. "It's one thing to keep the truth from us, but why from him?" You wince when the gunshot goes off, inhaling sharply and trying not to think about how that sound—this moment—will stay with you for the rest of your life. "I want to find out what's happening here. And stop whoever's behind it. People like them are the whole reason I joined the force."

You watch her eyes dart to you from behind her sunglasses. "And what about you?" she asks.

Disdain creeps onto your face. "And what about me?" you repeat back.

She quirks an eyebrow. "Did you not take an oath to help people as well?"

She's not as sly as she thinks she is—using your bleeding heart against you. You hate that you know you're about to agree.

You want to help.

It's a feeling that grips you so tightly you feel your bones ache with it. Even still, it feels bitter, spiteful, as you ground out, "Yes."

"My mission is to take down Umbrella's entire operation," she finally says, and she looks back and forth between the two of you. "We may not make it out."

"Whatever it takes to save this city, count me in," Leon firmly answers.

You study his profile—this version of Leon Kennedy, the rookie cop, cementing into your mind, idealistic and good.

Isn't that what you are, too, though?

You thought you were.

"If I'm rotten, so are you, sweetheart," your father's voice cackles in your ear. "Apple don't fall far."

The taste of spite fills your mouth—it's acrid and sharp—rotten like you. You swallow it down anyway.

When Leon looks at you with blue eyes full of determination, you capitulate under the weight of his gaze and nod your acquiescence. You don't have the heart to tell him this city is already lost.

Unease builds up in you as Leon prepares to drop into the sewer way below. "Be careful," you urge as you pat his shoulder. He glances back at you, nodding. "And don't get any of it in your mouth." When he jumps down, he sputters a bit, and you glare over the edge at him. "What did I just say?"

He surveys the area before peering back up at you and Ada. "Are you sure this is the right way?" he asks her.

"Unfortunately," she answers, and somewhere further down the waterway, a rumbling noise reverberates through the air.

"Wait there," he orders, and you watch with disbelief as he delves further into the dark of the sewer.

"Leon," you caution, skin prickling with anxiety.

The sound continues, growing louder as an enormous beast breaks through the sewer, a giant mutated reptile—perhaps an alligator. Meanwhile, Leon stands there, barely managing a small, "Jesus Christ."

"Hey, time to run now!" you yell, snapping him out of his stupor as he spins on his heel and starts to run, the beast lumbering toward him.

"Come on," Ada says to you as she backtracks along the walkway, both of you watching through the grated floor to keep an eye on Leon as he is chased by the creature.

"Why the fuck is there a mutated alligator in the sewers?" you ask.

"Same reason there are undead roaming the city," she replies before gesturing to the right. "This way."

An explosion echoes through the watercourse, and worry clings to you until you round the corner and see Leon in one piece down below, the remnants of the beast smoldering behind him. You breathe a sigh of relief, kicking the release on the ladder nearby. "Are you alright?" you ask as he climbs up.

"Peachy," he says, lip curling up in disgust as he shakes his boot, full of sewer water.

You, unfortunately for him, don't take his word for it, making him stand there while you check him over for any injuries. He doesn't even have the heart to wave you off and just watches with a smile as you sign off and declare him okay to proceed.

While you follow Ada, she tells you about the scientist she's tracking, Annette, who is responsible for making viruses for Umbrella to sell as weapons. For the first time, you consider the fact that there might be more than one virus at play: one that reanimates corpses and another that mutates people.

It makes your skin crawl.

You can feel Leon's eyes fall to you during her explanation, as if gauging your reaction to this information. Though your face remains indifferent, inside you're reeling at the news.

Spencer Memorial is a private hospital, and it's well known that it received significant financial support from the Umbrella Corporation during its construction in 1992. You were personally headhunted for your residency—you hadn't even applied there. In fact, you only applied to hospitals in the Northeast, hoping to stay close to where your brother attends college, but then you received an offer from Spencer Memorial with a number far above what most doctors could even imagine earning during their residency.

It was enough to get you a shitty little apartment in Raccoon City close to the hospital and to pay for your brother's college tuition—it was a no-brainer.

Now, though, you wonder if Umbrella had a hand in your recruitment, and if they did—what exactly did they want with you?

Fortunately, you're not able to ruminate on that thought too long, as your search for Annette is a short one.

She flees from you, yelling how she won't allow you to get your hands on the G-Virus, and as Ada pursues her through the corridor, shots ring out, and you can only watch in horror as Leon dives in front of her, taking a bullet to the shoulder. "Leon!" you yell as he hits the ground in a heap, crying out in pain.

You're sliding on your knees next to him in the same breath, and Ada's gaze dips down briefly, her eyes falling to you as you roll Leon over, like she's assessing whether you have this covered. "Go," you say as you dig through your bag.

She doesn't need any more convincing, disappearing down the hall, and as she goes, you think you hear her talking to someone. If you weren't so worried about Leon, you might suspect something, but your mind filters out the noise of unimportant thoughts—your only concern right now is Leon.

Leon exhales your name as you lay out your medical supplies on the floor beside you. "Yeah, rookie," you murmur. "I'm here."

"Did I get shot?" he asks with a wince.

You give him a disbelieving stare as you haul him up into a sitting position, despite his pained gasps. Pain is good—pain means he's still alive. "What do you think, idiot?" you ask.

"I think… I think I got shot," he confirms through gritted teeth.

You quickly cut through the sleeve of his uniform to get a clear visual of the wound, sighing in relief when you discern that the bullet went clean through. "You're a real MacGyver," you say.

He chuckles at you, though it turns into a sharp gasp as you begin to disinfect it. You mutter an apology to him, but don't stop until you've flushed the hole. He watches you the entire time, the intense focus that makes you seem more severe than he's seen you so far—for a moment, he imagines what you must be like in the hospital when you're in your element.

You must be a good doctor, he thinks.

As you start to pack gauze around the injury, he quietly says, "I'm glad you're here."

You snort as you wrap his shoulder to secure the bandages with tape. "Someone needs to patch you up," you say.

"I'm glad it's you, though," he reiterates. You tip your chin to peer up at him, realizing how close you are, and he rests his forehead against yours. His eyes flutter closed as he breathes in deeply—like this is a moment he wants to savor. "I… wouldn't want to be going through this with anyone else."

As he pulls away, you smile tenderly at him, the confession making your chest flutter. "Yeah, me neither," you say. "Don't think I could've done all this alone, to be honest."

"You could've," he assures tiredly. "You're so smart. You could do anything."

You lean up, pressing a kiss to his forehead, not caring that it's covered in sweat and grime. "Rest for a bit, and then we'll go after Ada."

There's pink tinging his cheeks as you draw away, giving the wrapped wound another once over, before starting to repack your bag.

"What do you make of all that?" he asks suddenly after a minute or two of silence. "Umbrella, Annette…"

"I don't know," you admit, as you sit next to him. "But I certainly don't think we're getting the full story from Ada."

He frowns, but not because he disagrees with you—more because he agrees and wishes he didn't. "She said she was F.B.I."

"People can say they're a lot of things," you comment with a shrug of your shoulders. You observe him for a moment—he's so trusting, and you can only imagine the people who would use that to their advantage. "But—" You take a deep breath in. "—If you're determined to bring down whoever is behind this, then I'm with you—F.B.I. or not."

He considers you for a moment. "If it comes down to it, promise me you'll save yourself," he says.

You recoil back, eyes narrowing. "I'm not making that promise—" He tries to interrupt, but you keep talking. "—We either both get out, or we don't. I'm not promising to leave you behind, so don't ask me to."

He whispers your name like it's something precious—like you're something precious. Even in a city surrounded by so many unspeakable horrors, with him next to you, you don't feel so afraid. It's odd, the steady way your heart thrums in your chest as you make up your mind. You're both getting out of here, you determine, you're not going to let the undead, F.B.I. agents, or Umbrella scientists stop you from doing that.

"You're just like your daddy, ain't you, stubborn as all get out," you hear in your mind.

Your ears burn, and the urge to move—to not stay still—pulls you to your feet. "C'mon, we should go look for Ada."

"I'm going to take a really, really long shower when we get out of here," you say as you trek through the sloshing sewage. The smell has seeped deep into your sinuses, and you hoped you might get used to the awful odor, but then you catch a new layer to it, and bile rises in the back of your throat.

Leon laughs as he leads the way. "Got big plans after all of this is over?" he asks.

"Well, someone promised me dinner, so I figure it'd be in poor taste to show up smelling like runoff," you answer coyly.

"You could show up smelling like anything you want," he says.

You smile because you know he means it. "What about you, Officer Kennedy?" you question. "Anything besides dinner plans?"

The smile on his face softens into something sad. "No," he answers. You wonder what life was like for the rookie before this—you want to ask, but it almost feels wrong—like you're dredging up something he might not want to talk about.

Not like you're particularly keen to talk about your shitty dad.

"Kinda hard to think past all of this, huh?"

He nods, falling silent.

When you finally find Ada, it's looking down at her in a trash heap through a viewing window. She appears injured, with a piece of metal sticking out of her leg, and you're glad she's smart enough not to try to remove it.

The door down to the area she's in is locked, and, predictably, as with most things thus far tonight, opening it will be an ordeal. As you explore deeper into the sewers, you realize the inefficiency of Raccoon City's infrastructure. "Who thought this was a good idea?" you question incredulously as you glare at the electrical component with a chess piece at the end.

"I feel like I've been in Pee-wee's Playhouse since I got here," Leon admits with a chuckle.

You glance at him briefly—the image of Leon dressed as Pee-wee Herman flashing in your mind—and then you're cracking up, hand on your stomach, doubled over. "You know you're really funny," you say.

He smiles sheepishly. "I—uh—thanks."

The undead appears out of nowhere. Neither of you notices it until it has your arm in its mouth, teeth sinking into your skin. Reacting on instinct, you push your arm further into its mouth, like you do with a dog when they bite, more concerned about it ripping away with chunks of your skin and muscle. You have it backed against a wall, cringing in pain as it chomps into your arm, when Leon steps in, driving a knife through its skull to make it let go.

As he finished it off, you're already pouring antiseptic onto the bite, tears gathering in the corners of your eyes at the sting. "Fuck," you whisper out through gritted teeth.

"Oh no," Leon murmurs, and you can see the panic, the way his face crumbles like you're already gone. "No, no."

You're trying to staunch the bleeding, thankful it didn't appear to have hit any major veins or arteries. "It's alright," you assure.

"You said the virus could be transmitted through a bite," he says, a pained look on his face as he remembers. "Like with Marvin—"

"Leon, I'm okay," you interrupt. "I've been vaccinated."

He blinks. "…What?"

You were down to just a few staff members—most of the others were turned or killed outright by the monsters wandering the halls of Spencer Memorial Hospital. They were supposed to be working on a vaccine, but you hadn't heard anything from the immunology team in over a day. It was Dr. McKay who said she would brave the haunted corridors to see if she could reach Dr. Bard's office.

You tried to stop her from going.

When she returned, covered in blood with a bite mark on her neck, she waved off her colleagues' help. "Didn't find anything," she told you all, and that was that.

You stayed with her as the virus took hold, watching her weaken until even just lifting her head was a Sisyphean task. "You're a good kid," she said through wheezed breaths. "You're a good doctor."

Your eyes filled with tears, and your throat constricted. "Yeah, well, it helps when you have a good teacher," you replied softly.

She reached out, hand cupping your cheek, gazing at you with such kind eyes. Always so kind—the person in the E.D. you've always looked to as a guide for compassion and empathy. There was no better doctor than her, that you were sure of. Then you felt a sting on your arm, and when you glanced down, you saw she was injecting you with a syringe. "Dr. McKay, what—"

"Now you have a fighting chance," she said, eyes shining with unshed tears.

"That was—"

She nodded in reply, and you feel your lip quiver. "Only managed to get one dose," she explained.

"Why didn't you save yourself?" you whispered, voice cracking as tears streaked down your cheeks, as you grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her. "Why did you do that? Why?"

There was no trace of doubt on her face, just a peaceful acceptance as she smiled at you. "You're gonna get outta here," she murmured. "You're gonna live."

"So you're immune?" Leon asks as he delicately dresses the bite, and you do your best not to backseat doctor him.

"If the immunology team did their job, then yes," you answer. "Hey, not too bad." You lift your arm up to inspect his work—the bandage is a little tight, but better that than loose and falling off your arm. "Still time to change careers," you say with a grin, though you're still feeling a bit woozy from the amount of blood you lost.

He gives a snort. "I don't think I could hack it in medical school."

You study him with a hawkish gaze. "Yeah, you're probably right," you tease. "Bet you'd faint at your first degloving."

He pales, and you just laugh.

When you finally gather everything you need to unlock the door, a somber mood settles over you after discovering a nest of creatures that resemble the one you fought earlier with the gigantic eye, almost as if this virus has been festering under Raccoon City much longer than anyone realized. The beast makes another appearance, and as Leon tries to knock it off the platform he's standing on with a shipping crate, you take pot shots at it from above. Watching it fall into the darkness again, you have little hope that this will be the last time you see it.

"Ada?" you call out as you tramp through the piles of trash.

"Over here," she yells back.

When you find her, you crouch beside her, mind going straight into triage mode as you examine the piece of metal protruding from her thigh. "Can you move your toes?" you ask as you snap on some gloves, not like it much mattered, given how much filth you are in.

She nods with a wince. "Yeah," she confirms. "I can't get it out on my own."

"Probably for the best," you explain. "If it hit an artery, you could bleed out, but we won't know until we remove it."

"Wonderful," she says as she braces herself while you get a firm hold on it.

"On three," you instruct. "One, two—" You yank the piece of metal out, and she gasps in pain.

"I thought you said on three," she groans.

"The three was in my head," you explain as you inspect the wound. "Looks like you got lucky," you say as you dab it with antiseptic before beginning to bandage it.

"What happened to your arm?" she asks with a curious purse of her lips when she catches sight of the wrappings on your arm.

"Caught it on a sharp metal," you lie. "Good thing I'm up to date on my tetanus shot—" You glance down at her leg as you finish dressing it. "Hope you are, too."

"You two should get out of here," she urges. "While you can."

"Not getting rid of us that easily," Leon says. "We meant it—we want to help."

As she looks up at him, her gaze shifts to you like she's questioning if you hold the same sentiment, and you only raise your eyebrows as if to say 'What do you think?'

You stand, take off your gloves, and toss them aside as Leon extends a hand to Ada. She accepts it, allowing him to help her up.

"Grab my shoulder," he instructs.

"Don't push it, rookie," she shoots back, and you snort.

He holds his hands up sheepishly. "Just trying to help," he says.

"If I want help, I'll ask the doctor," she says, sending you a sly smirk and a wink that makes you roll your eyes with a smirk of your own as you shrug your backpack on. "We need to get to NEST."

"NEST?" Leon questions.

"It's the lab, it's right underneath us," Ada explains. "Annette let it slip. That's where the virus samples are."

You lean against the wall of the cable car, too afraid to sit down, fearing you won't be able to get back up if you do. Exhaustion weighs you down, running your bones ragged. Idly, you check your watch, realizing you've been awake for well over twenty-four hours—it's almost hard to believe that you started the day in the hospital; it feels like so long ago now.

Your mind wanders to Jill, and just the thought of her creates a lump in your throat. If Carlos didn't manage to find a vaccine, she would be gone by now. You close your eyes, inhaling, trying to force that possibility from your head.

She's fine, you tell yourself.

She has to be.

"You okay?" Leon asks as he stands in front of you; there's concern on his face as he observes you.

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Ada give you an inquisitive quirk of her brow.

"Tired," you answer before giving a weary grin. "Longest shift of my life."

He smiles tenderly at you. "We're almost done," he says as if he has any way of knowing that. "I can't wait for the F.B.I. to raid Umbrella's headquarters and bring those guys to justice."

You look at him, the sincerity so Leon that it almost pains you to think negatively, especially when you see Ada's gaze shift from you to him. "I agree… but to be clear, you're not working in an official capacity," she explains. "This is a federal case. Once we get the G-Virus, I'm back on my own."

This makes him frown. "Right," he murmurs.

"It's not a bad thing," she says. "You don't want to get mixed up with all of this."

"Feels like we already are," you comment. "That big guy that was stalking us around the station? He was sent specifically to take care of witnesses." You point between yourself and Leon. "Us? Yeah, we've witnessed a whole fucking lot." You feel the anger on your face. "And you haven't exactly been the most forthcoming with information—in fact, I feel like we've only just scratched the surface of what you really know. So, regardless of what you say—we're already involved."

She scowls. "Listen, I just need you both to secure the G-Virus, and then I can make sure what happened in Raccoon City never happens again," she says. "Trust me."

You hold her gaze, and it bothers you that you're not able to discern anything from it. She doesn't give a single thing away. You watch Leon, and his own conflict is written so clearly across his expression. "Fine," you say. "We'll get you the G-Virus, and then you get us the hell out of here."

She smirks. "Deal." As the cable car comes to a stop, she hands you the wristband she picked up in her pursuit of Annette, telling you it would give you access to the lab. "I'm counting on you two."

The lab—NEST—is a ghost town. The fact that this laboratory has been hidden beneath Raccoon City the entire time is unsettling, to say the least. You and Leon exchange looks as you venture through it, encountering the undead doctors and lab technicians that you skirt by, not wanting to waste valuable ammo.

There's a familiarity in the sterility of the lab that should make you feel at ease, but seeing the disarray the place is in only makes you feel like you're standing at ground zero.

"Can we catch a fucking break?" you mutter as you and Leon stare through the window into the room filled with overgrown plant life—God only knows what kind of weird experiment this is. You spot the wristband chip you need on the corpse wedged up against the glass inside, and your scowl only deepens.

"Maybe when we're dead," he jokes.

When the Tyrant appears again, you think for a second you might cry, but instead you run, briefly wondering if this is what your life will be, even if you do manage to escape—constantly running from one threat to another.

"What's the point of all this?" you ask as you and Leon finally find the lab where the samples should be stored. You're staring with a grimace at the mutations floating in large tubes like a fucked up art exhibit. "Create all these viruses and then what... the entire world population falls, and there's no one left to give a damn?"

He looks back at you, frowning. "I don't know," he says, but holds up a vial in his hand. "I think this is it, though."

You let out a sigh—not relief, not quite yet. "Great, let's get the hell out of here."

Then the alarms start going off, and you groan.

"Ah, c'mon," Leon mutters as he reaches a hand out for you. "Let's go."

You two don't make it very far as another familiar creature drops down from the ceiling, appearing larger than before, and with maybe a few extra limbs. "Why won't this thing just die?" you murmur as you level your shotgun to take aim at one of the numerous eyes it now has. Behind you, the door swishes open.

"Move," a voice orders—Annette. "He's mine." She shoots it with some sort of solution that brings the beast to its knees. "I'm sorry, William, you've left me no choice." With another shot, it collapses, letting out a noise reminiscent of agony.

"You called this thing 'William', why?" Leon asks as he kneels near it, despite your silent urging to maintain a safe distance.

Annette shakes her head, tears in her eyes. "It shouldn't have been like this," she says. "It's Umbrella's fault—this whole mess."

"You're Umbrella, too," he says with his eyes narrowed. "You're telling me you weren't involved in this?"

"Yes," she answers, not denying it. "But we never meant for this to happen."

"So how did this happen?" you question.

Annette recounts what happened to William—her husband—after the events captured on the tapes you and Leon found while exploring the lab. He was shot by Umbrella mercenaries after Umbrella discovered William was in talks with the U.S. military, intending to betray the corporation. He injected himself with a remaining sample of the G-Virus and turned into the monster before you.

"You made this monster then?" Leon asks.

She shakes her head. "We made the G-Virus, but we never intended this to—"

"You can spin it anyway you want," he interrupts.

You catch sight of the creature beginning to stir. "Back up," you order, snatching Leon by the scruff of his uniform and pulling him with you, but Annette isn't so fortunate, getting snatched up by it, and you can hear the bones in her body break. She lets out an agonized scream as it tosses her away, her body hitting the wall with a thud. With a roar, another arm sprouts from it, no longer even recognizable as what it used to be—human.

"Go," Leon says as he waves his hand at you.

"I know you're not talking to me," you say as you pump your shotgun. Your heart is pounding against your ears—you're afraid, but this time you wouldn't run from it. "I told you, we either both live or we both die." You hear him whisper your name, and you glance at him, smiling tightly. "Just one more fight, we can do this."

He nods with a determined set to his jaw. "Yeah." The lights around you flash red, and alarms begin to blare as the platform you're on with the monster starts to lower. "What are you doing?" Leon calls over to Annette, who is doubled over the control console.

"We can't let him get away!"

"Fuck," you mutter, and then Leon is urging you over the railing before following after you.

"Split up," he says as you both go your separate ways. The creature initially focuses on you, as if it still remembers your first encounter. It's easy to corner yourself in this place, and you're trying to stay out of its massive reach allowing Leon shoots at it from behind, while it's distracted.

It's a stupid mistake, overestimating how far you are from it, and you don't even register you've been hit until your body collides with one of the metal vats—the wind getting knocked right out of you. You're positive there's a rib or two that's broken and a ringing in your ear as your vision doubles. For a moment, you think you're going to be sick.

You think you hear Leon scream your name, but it's muffled as if you're underwater. You lie on the ground, watching through blurry eyes as it turns its attention to Leon; the only thought on your mind is how tired you are.

If you close your eyes now, it could all be over.

You've thought about dying a lot—of course you have—you imagine what it would feel like. Some people just slip away in a breath, and others go out kicking and screaming. You always figured that those who got to go peacefully had Lady Luck on their side—no pain, no fuss, just close your eyes, and then nothing.

Isn't that what everyone hopes? To just go quietly in the night?

With a small, broken sigh, your eyes flutter closed. The world around you feels distant—the hiss of steam and pop of gunshots so far away now that you can almost pretend they're not even there, just a dream you're about to wake from. Then you hear the footsteps amble up next to you—the sound is clear, present, here. It's the heavy stomp of steel-toed work boots, a familiar gait that would send a lick of fear up your spine when you heard the thud, thud, thud.

You're five years old, nine years old, fourteen years old, seventeen years old, and you're curled up in the corner of your childhood room. Your hands are trembling as you cover your bruised and bloodied face, and you don't call out for help because you know no one is coming. He squats down in front of you, reeking of tobacco and cheap beer.

"C'mon, girl, get up… acting like you ain't never taken a punch before," he scoffs. "Didn't raise you to be a chickenshit."

You gasp for air, the taste of blood in your mouth as your eyes snap open. With gritted teeth, you pry yourself from the floor, crying out as a sharp pain shoots up your side, but even still, you keep going. You need to get up. The sounds of a battle focus in around you, the creature bellowing out as it attacks Leon, who stumbles just out of its reach.

Your feet are unsteady beneath you, but you stumble forward anyway, shakily holding up your gun, the one Carlos gave you.

You are twenty-three years old, and you are not scared of the monster in front of you because you were raised by one.

You fire off a round, and it screeches. When Leon's eyes catch yours from across the way, you think you see tears glimmering in them, and then you're both back to it. It's him who deals the final blow, shoving a grenade into its maw when it grabs at him, and as it crumples to the ground—hopefully for good this time—you're both left standing there, breathing heavily.

He considers you—a silent question of if you're okay—and you give him a weak thumbs-up, and the next thing you know, he's crossing the distance between you, clutching you carefully by the shoulders, even though he wants nothing more than to embrace you. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, thumb tracing against the contour of your cheek.

"I—I thought—" he stammers, nose red as his bottom lip quivers. "I'm so glad you're okay."'

You place a reassuring hand on his chest. "Don't worry," you wheeze. "I'm built to last.

He laughs weakly, wiping away the tears with the back of his hand, before the two of you make your way over to the lift to take you back up, finding Annette propped up against the wall. You go to crouch down to help her, but she waves you off, as if she's already accepted what comes next.

When she tells you to destroy the G-Virus sample, Leon shakes his head. "No, it's evidence. It's going to the F.B.I."

This is the moment, you realize, when those loose threads finally come undone. "You trust that bitch?" Annette chuckles bitterly.

His brows furrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"She's not F.B.I., she's a mercenary," she says, and there's not even an ounce of you that thinks she's lying—why would she? What is left for her to gain here? "She's gonna sell it—the G-Virus is gonna go to the highest bidder."

"That's bullshit," Leon argues—the rookie cop, always wanting to believe the best in people.

Annette slumps over, holding her side. "I hope you're right."

Above, the automated voice warns that the self-destruct sequence has been initiated and you're pulling Leon away, leaving Annette to her fate. "We should destroy it," you say.

"What? You believe her?"

"Leon," you maintain with as gentle a tone as you can. "You know I haven't trusted Ada from the start, and… best case scenario, we set the F.B.I. back a few months in an ongoing investigation… worst case scenario, we just put a catastrophic bioweapon into the hands of a mercenary."

He's quiet as you two hurry through the lab, contemplating your words.

When you reach the main hub of the lab, you're not as surprised as you should be as you watch Ada walk toward you and Leon, concern pinching at her brow—you almost think it's sincere. "I was getting worried," she says as the lab begins to collapse around you.

"I gotta ask you something," Leon says.

It's like she doesn't hear him. "The way's clear. Please, tell me you got it."

"Yeah, we got it," you murmur.

She approaches, holding her hand out. "Let me verify the G sample, and we'll get the hell out of here," she says.

"Before we do that, we ran into Annette," Leon says, and you spot the subtle shift on Ada's face—the mask slipping. "She claims you're not F.B.I."

Ada exhales loudly, giving you both a look like she's the one disappointed. You're less surprised when she pulls out her gun. Leon shifts so he's in front of you, holding the G-Virus sample behind him for you to take before drawing his own weapon. "Why couldn't you just hand over the sample?" she asks.

"Because I realized even if I wanted to trust you," he answers. "I don't."

You grasp the vial—the weight of the decision in your hands feels crushing, with billions of lives at stake. Could you risk that? You swallow, tightening your grip, and you think of your brother—safe and sound, far away, but for how long if this gets into the wrong hands?

"I really hoped it wouldn't end up like this," Ada says.

"Maybe you should have thought about that before treating us like pawns," he retorts.

"Look, I'm just doing my job," she argues, cocking her head.

"And I'm doing mine, so drop that damn gun!" Leon orders. "I'm taking you in."

Not even a foot behind you, the catwalk begins to collapse, and you're barely able to plant your feet as Leon tilts his head back to make sure you're okay. Over his shoulder, Ada catches your eye. "Hand over the sample," she orders. When you glance over the edge to the chasm below, she notices it, the contemplation on your face. She hisses your name like it's a warning. "Don't."

"Put the gun down, then," you say, and then outstretch your hand so the sample dangles over the abyss. "Or I'll drop it."

There's a moment when she's weighing her options. With a heavy exhale, she lowers her gun, and just as she does, a shot hits her in the shoulder. With wide eyes, you turn to see Annette leaning against a wall, gun in hand. "Now no one gets it," she mutters.

Then, the worst thing happens.

You feel the floor beneath you give. You're grasping for something, anything, as you feel yourself slide, barely managing to hook your fingers on the grates—the sample of the G-Virus clatters against the ground, rolling until it flies over the edge—falling down, down, down.

Leon clenches his teeth as he grips Ada's wrist. Behind him, he hears you gasp his name, and he peers over his shoulder to see you struggling to hold on to the failing platform.

"Let go," Ada urges as she stares up at him—like she knows the heartache he would endure if he allowed you to fall. "You can't save us both."

"No, I can save you both, I—" Tears gather in his eyes as he tries to haul her up, but the platform drops even more, barely hanging on now, and he hears your panicked noise as you feel your hold giving.

"Take care of yourselves, okay?" she says, and he doesn't even have time to protest as she slips from his grasp, and then she's falling down, down, down.

Leon doesn't linger—he can't, or he'll lose you too; instead, he's scrambling to the other side of the platform, grabbing you under your arms, and heaving you up into his. "I got you, I got you," he assures as he practically carries you to the elevator. "C'mon, we gotta get outta here."

"Ada?" you question.

He pauses—you hadn't seen her fall. "Gone" is the only thing he manages to say.

He doesn't see how your expression turns somber—how you wanted to be wrong about her.

When you reach the bottom, it's Claire's face that pops up on the control room monitor. You allow hope to bloom in your chest—you're so close.

The voice overhead keeps track of the self-destruct countdown, and you're moving as quickly as you can with your shotgun ready—there's no time to fight your way through the undead that are beginning to crop up; instead, you and Leon carve out holes for yourself to move through.

"Is this a fucking joke?" he grumbles as the Tyrant jumps down in front of you two.

"The worst fucking joke in history," you say, out of breath and entirely sick of Raccoon City.

You and Leon sit on the platform between the train cars, breathing heavily. "Thanks," he pants after you practically dragged him up beside you when he was trying to jump on as it was moving.

"Don't expect that feat of strength from me ever again," you joke weakly.

He lets out a huff of laughter, bumping your shoulders together in a way that makes both of you groan in pain. Your hands remain clasped, and his gaze drops — taking in the dried blood around your knuckles and how your fingernails are crusted with dirt and grime. They look the same as his, and he tightens his grip on you, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Then, your eyes catch each other's at the same time. For the first time all night, the world around you doesn't matter, and the only thing you can think about is the gentle slope of his nose and how soft his lips look.

He slants his head to the side, and his other hand comes up to cup your jaw. This time, you don't deny yourself; instead, you bridge the gap between you. The moment your lips touch, you can't think about anything else other than Leon Kennedy and the goosebumps that prickle along your skin.

The kiss starts gently, like he's afraid he's going to hurt you, but you can feel the desperation in the way he angles his body, and how his breath hitches in his throat. One of your hands grips the fabric of his uniform at his waist, as if trying to anchor yourself to him as you lick his bottom lip. He gasps out your name, and you can feel his touch becoming more insistent, hand sliding from your jaw to your neck, drawing you even closer to him, and soon it feels like you're trying to devour each other.

When you finally break away from each other, he breathes in deeply against your lips. "I've wanted to do that all night," he admits.

You don't know that anyone else has ever considered with such tenderness. It fans a flame inside of you that you did not know was lit, and you tilt your chin up, pecking him on the lips. "Me too," you whisper, cheeks flushed at the confession.

"So, got any plans Friday?" he questions, thumb tracing your jawline.

Tears well up in your eyes as you laugh. "No," you say as you sniff. "I think I'm free."

He smiles, slotting his mouth against yours once more, kissing you once, and then twice, before he nudges his forehead against yours. "C'mon, let's get inside."

Relief floods you when you see Claire standing inside the traincar, and she appears equally as relieved to see you and Leon. There's a little girl with her—Sherry—Annette and William's daughter. At Claire's behest, you examine Sherry, but besides a healthy dose of mental trauma from the events of the past few days, you give her the all clear.

When you all feel the train rock, you peek over to Leon, meeting his worried gaze from across the train car.

"You two stay with Sherry," Claire orders as she goes to investigate the noise.

William Birkin turns out to be pretty fucking persistent. You're holding Sherry while Leon tries to uncouple the cars that are being consumed by the mutated Birkin while Claire riddles it with bullets from a minigun.

"Got it!" Leon yells. "Claire, c'mon!"

As Claire jumps back across, you all watch as the traincar Birkin fused with is caught in the explosion of the lab's self-destruct. You can feel the heat of the flames on your face even as you move farther from it, but soon it becomes just a speck in the distance. A collective sigh of relief fills the air.

Sometime later, Claire sits on the floor next to you. You're leaning your head against the wall, eyes closed, teetering on the edge of sleep, being gently lulled closer and closer by the constant rocking of the train.

"I'm just resting my eyes," you told Leon, who smiled at you like he definitely didn't believe you before kissing your forehead.

When you feel her presence, you peek an eye open, humming an incomprehensible greeting.

"You were right," she says as she peers up at the ceiling. "Chris wasn't in Raccoon City."

You blink, letting your head fall forward before glancing at her from the corner of your tired eyes. "Got any idea where he might be?" you ask.

She nods with a tight-lipped smile. "Europe," she answers.

You find yourself thinking of Jill once more. If she got out of Raccoon City, you had no doubt she'd be meeting up with Chris. "When you find him, and if Jill's with him, can you let her know I made it out?"

"Of course," she says.

Silence falls between the two of you, and you look over to where Leon is occupying Sherry with a very riveting game of rock, paper, scissors. "Listen," you say quietly. "When we're clear of the mountains, if you want any shot at finding Chris, you need to get as far away from here as you can."

Her brows pinch together with confusion. "What, why?" she questions.

"There was just a large-scale outbreak of a lethal virus—the government is going to be picking up and vetting survivors to ensure they contain the spread," you explain. "You have a better shot of evading them by yourself."

Her gaze shifts to Sherry, who's laughing as she wins another round—you have no doubt Leon is actually trying his hardest to win, judging by the small pout on his lips. "What about her?" she asks. "I can't just leave her."

"We'll look after her the best we can," you say before sighing. "With her parents gone and what you told me about the G-Virus, they might put her into federal custody—"

"Wait, what?"

You shrug your shoulders, not with indifference, but rather the knowledge of an expected outcome. "With the vaccine that was used on her, she's a precious commodity to the government now." You can see from Claire's expression that your words haven't eased any of her worries. "It'll be alright," you whisper as you place a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We've survived the worst of it."

"Yeah," she nods. "Thank you. Take care of them, okay?"

You follow her gaze, stare catching onto the smile on Leon's face as he finally wins a round.

You're picked up by federal agents forty miles from Raccoon City.

There's no resisting—it's something you knew would happen. They take you to a government facility somewhere in the Midwest. They draw blood, collect saliva and hair samples—every part of you is poked and prodded before you're thoroughly interviewed about your time in the city.

You tell them what they want to know—you don't mention Jill, or Claire, or Carlos, or Ada.

And then you're given an ultimatum, and you know it's because you're more valuable to them alive than dead—but that doesn't mean they would have qualms about killing you.

They threaten your brother, they threaten Leon, they threaten Sherry.

You're not stupid, though. You counter their terms with your own—you're not operating at a net negative with this deal. If they expected you to work for them after threatening anyone they could think of, you're going to make sure you get something out of this and more.

You're allowed to talk to Sherry before they move her to another site, claiming she'd be put into state custody.

She's upset, reasonably so, but she's such a smart kid. "Will I get to see you and Leon?" she asks. She doesn't mention Claire—knows not to when there are cameras everywhere, and you hope Claire is halfway to Europe by now.

You nod as you smooth her hair back from her face. "Yeah," you confirm. "We'll be able to visit you. I made sure of that."

And you did; it is part of your agreement that you and Leon should be allowed to visit her at least once a month. If they think you're a soft-hearted woman for wanting to be there to comfort a child, then so be it, because that's exactly what you are. She’s a little girl who just lost her parents and went through something so unimaginably horrible that she needs people in her life who don't just view her as a test subject.

"Be strong, okay?" you say, even if it feels unfair to ask that of her.

She puts on a stiff upper lip, and you know she's going to be fine. "Okay."

They let you call your brother after that. The phone rings only once before he picks up, and when you hear his voice on the other end, you immediately burst into tears. You hear him say your name like a breath of relief, and then he starts to cry.

He never cried; not since he was barely knee-high, not even when your father died—especially not when your father died. He tells you he's been calling around for days now, trying to locate you using the hotlines set up for family and friends to find those displaced by the outbreak and who managed to evacuate.

When you tell him you stayed to help, he lets out a watery laugh of disbelief. "Of course you did, you fucking idiot," he says.

You smile, cradling the receiver against your ear, and even though he can't see you, you nod. "Yeah," you huff out—shaky and tearful. "Yeah, I'm a fucking idiot."

You're not allowed to talk for long; you suppose they're worried you'll give away something if you speak for too long, but you tell him you're okay and that you'll call him again when you're able. You don't want to hang up, but when you do, you sit there staring at the phone for a long while.

With the proverbial collars firmly around your neck, they loosen the slack on yours and Leon's leashes. They put you up in a hotel for the night, promising that an agent will return in the morning to escort you to the airport for your flight back to the capital, though you have no doubt that there are several agents strategically stationed around the hotel, as if either of you would be stupid enough to try running.

You check in using fake names and IDs provided by the federal government, an extra precaution they claim, and receive your room keys—your room is a floor below Leon's, you notice as he takes his key from the woman at the front desk.

As you stand beside him in the elevator, he's silent, but so are you. You gaze at your distorted reflection in the metal walls of the elevator. This is the first time you've been alone together since you were picked up from a shabby gas station off the interstate. Something feels off—you can sense it from the way his eyes are downturned, how hopelessly he clutches the duffel bag filled with the personal belongings he was allowed to keep.

You wonder what they told him—what kind of deal they made him.

Your focus falls on him—he seems like a different person, you realize. Not just because he's no longer covered in sweat, grime, and blood, but there's something in the way he's standing.

You wonder if you look different, too—if this is what you'll be reduced to: the person you were before Raccoon City, the person you were during Raccoon City, and the person you are after Raccoon City. Your gaze shifts away, watching the numbers above the elevator door rise, until a tiny ding sounds, indicating you've reached your floor.

You step out of the elevator, preparing to turn to say goodbye to Leon, but he exits with you. "Leon?" you question softly.

The elevator door closes with a fwoosh, and his eyes stay fixed on the ground as if he can't bear to look at you. "Can I sleep in your room?" he asks.

Your heart twists at how small he sounds. "Yeah," you answer, and even though you want to reach out to him, you don't, as if he's a scared animal you're afraid you'll spook. "Of course."

He stays close behind you as you head to your room, a steady presence at your back as you unlock the door, almost guiding you inside, the cool blast of hotel air conditioning hitting your face immediately to counter the heat on your spine.

There's a thud as you toss your own bag to the floor near the entrance, and Leon does the same after closing the door, flicking the latch closed. When you turn to him, you find yourself being herded against the wall. You breathe out his name as his hands come up to cradle your cheeks.

He kisses you like he's drowning and you're air—like it's the only thing that will save him. It's desperate and heartbreaking. Your fingers curl into his shirt—it's baggy on his frame, a stark white color that almost feels clinical. He breathes you in as you exhale, tipping onto the balls of your feet to deepen the kiss.

"Thought I wasn't going to see you again," he whispers against your mouth, voice hoarse, and you note the tears welling up at his waterline.

His fingertips trace over the scrapes on your face, sliding down to your neck, where the skin is a bruised purple from where the Tyrant grabbed you in the parking garage. You see his chin quiver, and you reach up, taking his hand in yours and lacing your fingers together. "I'm right here," you murmur.

His nostrils flare, as if he's trying not to cry, and he kisses you again—harder this time, his other hand slipping under your shirt to rest on your hip as he pulls you close. You let out a shaky breath as he swipes his tongue against your lower lip, begging for entry with a whimper. When you open your mouth, he licks inside, eager to taste you, and nearly moans as he tilts his hips up into yours, and you can feel the hardening against your thigh.

The hand on your hip moves higher, careful as they brush against your ribs, and you instinctively flinch back from the touch. "I'm sorry," he apologizes quickly, starting to pull back.

You shake your head. "No, you didn't hurt me," you say, and stop him from moving away. "Just reflex."

Still, he's even more gentle as he traces along the edge of your bra, and when he kisses from your mouth to your cheek, then down to your neck, sucking at the sensitive skin there, fire burns hot in your core, and you gasp, eyes fluttering closed.

His hand slips past the waistband of your pants, and when he feels how wet you are, he leans his forehead against the junction of your neck, whining out, "Fuck."

There's no pretense as he yanks your pants down along with your underwear. You feel your cheeks heat up as they fall to your ankles, and he helps you step out of them before tugging his own pants down just enough to free his cock. He thrusts against you, wetting it with the slick of your cunt, and you can feel him shuddering at the sensation. When he grinds against your clit with the underside of his cock, you bite your lip to keep from moaning.

Grasping the back of your thigh, he lifts it up, forcing you onto your tiptoes with your other foot as he spreads you out for him. With another drag of his cock—a slow and arduous down and up—the tip catches at your entrance, and he slides in with one smooth motion.

It leaves you both gasping—Leon moaning out your name as he buries his head into the crook of your neck, and you clutching his shoulders, trying to find purchase on something as he starts to rock his hips—he doesn't even wince when you accidentally grip where he was shot, too focused on the way your pussy tightens around him.

The sound of skin slapping against skin fills the nearly dark hotel room, your own breathless moans and gasps joining in. A dizzying sensation builds in your abdomen and spreads through the rest of your body, numbing your toes and making it harder and harder to keep yourself upright, but Leon supports you, the muscles in his arms straining with each thrust.

A thin sheen of sweat coats his skin, and as he pulls you up just a little higher on the wall, adjusting the angle, your nose scrunches up with pleasure as you let out a small, choked 'oh'. His cock twitches at the sound, and he reaches up with his other hand to cradle the back of your head, preventing it from hitting the wall as his hips snap into yours, rougher now.

"Shit, Leon," you gasp.

"Say it again," he begs as he feels his balls tighten with his rapidly approaching orgasm, the way your cunt clenches around him with every drag of his cock edges him even closer.

"Leon," you moan.

He buries his nose against your throat, clumsily kissing your neck while softly whimpering your name, hips trembling as he cums. He doesn't stop until he's fully emptied inside of you, and as he gradually comes to a stop, he's left heavily panting against your shoulder.

You bite your lip, an ache still in your core at not having reached your own end, which he quickly realizes. "I—" he breathes out. "You didn't, I—"

You shake your head, fingers combing through his hair. "It's okay," you assure, wincing a bit as he carefully pulls out and lowers your leg.

"No, it's not," he murmurs as he kisses you, keeping you wedged between him and the wall.

"Really, it's—"

He drops to his knees before you can finish your sentence. Heat floods your face, a flush creeping up from your chest as you stammer his name. "Shut up," he says with no real bite to his voice as he spreads you with two fingers, licking his own cum that's dripping from you before you can protest further.

He groans as his nose nudges into the hair between your legs, tongue sliding through folds—the heady taste of you and him mixing together as his fingertips dig into your plush thighs. The coil in your stomach starts to tighten as he eats you out.

"Ah, Leon," you gasp when his tongue plunges into your cunt, like he's trying to lick out the rest of his cum. Your fingers weave through his hair, gripping it at the root. Even though he whimpers at the pressure, he doubles his efforts, noises growing obscene.

He's messy, his chin dripping down his neck with cum and saliva, and he thinks the scent of your pussy could drive a man to madness. What he lacks in technique, he makes up for in voracity, diving in like a man starved. When he throws one of your legs over his shoulder—his good one—he's practically whimpering into your pussy as he plunges two fingers into you, relishing in the way your walls flutter around them and how you moan his name.

"Shit, right there," you pant out as he crooks his fingers in a way that makes your toes curl. "Leon, fuck."

He can feel his cock twitching to life again—hardening against his inner thigh, and he reaches down, wrapping his hand around it, expediting the process. He whines when he feels the way you begin to tense, working his hand up and down his shaft as he hears your moans pitch up.

As you tilt your head back, your vision floods with white, hips grinding onto Leon's face, and he lets you—welcomes it. He doesn't stop until you're nearly sliding down the wall boneless, and only then does he pull away. Your chest heaves as you struggle to breathe in the aftermath, peering down at Leon, who is still on his knees, chin glistening and lips swollen from his efforts. You tug him by the collar of his shirt to get him to stand, and like an obedient dog eager to please their owner, he does.

He doesn't hesitate to press another kiss to your mouth, and you don't mind the taste on his lips as he does—your head still in the clouds from your orgasm. "Was that okay?" he murmurs.

You're nodding, eyes half-lidded as you hum out 'mhm'.

He smiles against your lips. "Can I fuck you again?" he asks, voice low in a way that sends a tingle straight to your cunt even having just cum.

When you bob your head, he pulls back just enough to shuck off his own clothes before pulling your shirt over your head, tossing it elsewhere in the hotel room. You giggle when he struggles to unclasp your bra, taking pity on him and doing it yourself, all the while he mutters an embarrassed 'shut up' into your hairline as he kisses your temple.

He walks you over to the bed, arms wrapped around your waist as he leads you from behind, kissing up and down your neck. Gingerly, he guides you onto the bed, taking extra care as he lays you down, being mindful of your ribs as he climbs in between your legs. Leaning down, he kisses you delicately—slowly, as if he can finally take his time.

You arch into him, feeling the thickness of him against your thigh, and he tilts his hips, giving you the friction you're desiring. He pulls back, fingertips tracing the contours of your cheekbones as he gazes down at you. "You're so pretty," he says, like it physically pains him.

Your face flushes. "Leon—"

"I'm serious," he murmurs against your lips as his hand trails down to cup one of your breasts, thumb rubbing over your nipple as it comes to a peak, leaving you sharply inhaling at the sensation. "So fucking pretty."

Bending down, he takes it into his mouth, eagerly sucking on it, enjoying the way you squirm beneath him. When he pulls himself away with a pop, the warmth of his saliva mixed with the cool air of the hotel room sets your nerves on fire, as you grind up against him, whimpering his name.

He kisses his way back up to your neck, nipping at your jawline before slotting his mouth against yours. "This okay?" he asks as he slides his cock up and down your cunt.

"Want you to fuck me," you pant out.

He's happy to oblige, but he eases in this time, savoring the feeling with a slow and deliberate thrust, and when he bottoms out, you both exhale with relief. "You feel so good," he whines as he pulls out and begins an unhurried pace.

It's still enough to leave you gasping as your nails dig crescents into the skin on his forearms. You're still so sensitive, and it's almost embarrassing how quickly you feel yourself building back up to the precipice of release. "Leon, please."

He stares at you like you might disappear from underneath him—like the heartache is inevitable. "Tell me what you need," he murmurs as he props himself up on one elbow, so he can kiss you properly while he fucks you.

"Touch me," you moan into his mouth. "Please."

His hand dips down to where you're joined, two fingers circling your clit in earnest, and he feels you clench around him. "Fuck," he groans as he speeds up, just slightly, but it's enough that you feel the tingle all the way up your back.

Each slide of his cock in and out of you pushes you closer and closer to your end, and he starts to softly murmur into the crook of your neck as his own release approaches. "So good," he whimpers. "You feel so good, I'm so close."

As his fingers work your clit, the white-hot tidal wave of your orgasm crashes down on you suddenly. "Leon, I'm—" Your words get caught in your throat before you can finish the sentence, thighs tightening around his hips as he keeps thrusting, gasping and moaning against your throat as he follows closely behind you.

You can feel the warmth of his cum as he fills you once more, hips stuttering to a stop as he pants. Your skin is sticky with sweat, and you feel like you can barely keep your eyes open. As he carefully pulls out, your body unwinds, and you're left with a pleasant ache between your legs as he collapses on the bed beside you.

He delicately tugs you to him, like he can't stand to not be touching you, and he buries his nose into your messy hair, inhaling deeply. You're both quiet for a while, breaths slowing, and the gentle whir of the air conditioning fills the room in the wake of your pleasured moans.

"Was that okay?" he asks again. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

You grab the hand he has around your waist, lacing your fingers through his, and tuck yourself even closer to him. "It was great," you murmur. "And no, you didn't hurt me."

You can feel him nod into your shoulder, and you know there's still more he wants to say—something hanging at the tip of his tongue. You don't push; instead, you gently rub your thumb against his, as if silently reminding him that you're here.

The silence stretches every which way around you until—

"Are we going to be okay?" he questions—so soft you thought you might have misheard him.

You peer over your shoulder at him, seeing him already gazing down at you. "Do you want the truth?"

He tries to smile, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Don't gotta sugarcoat it."

"Not for a very long time, I don't think," you reply.

You were filing a chain of overdue work reports when you realized Leon hadn’t gotten out of bed yet.

He came in late last night, late enough for you to already be showered and under the covers, the book you were halfway done face-down and abandoned somewhere in the duvet. You knew Leon was wired coming home when you woke up the next morning to find a tall glass of water on your nightstand. Your book was closed and bookmarked next to it, your reading glasses folded gently on top.

When you rolled over that morning, you spotted him sleeping soundly on his stomach, bangs pressed into the pillow he’d been clutching. Leon had been kind enough not to wake you when he returned, even if you wouldn’t have minded him wrapping his arms around your back and burying his face in between your shoulder and neck.

It was rare for both of you to have so much off-time together, but with the overflow of reports you had to get in and the big mission Leon had finally wrapped up, things had aligned nicely.

Well…nice enough for Leon. He could lounge around in bed all he wanted, but your supervisor would throttle you if your work wasn’t done and sent in by the end of the week.

When you’d gotten out of bed that morning, Leon hadn't woken up. It was rare, watching him sleep so deeply. He usually had the nerve to stir and roll over, complain about waking him up or pull you into him before you could leave. Instead, he kept his eyes closed peacefully, an arm curled under his pillow and the other pressed soft against his stomach.

You wished you could watch this rare side of him for hours. But you knew you wouldn’t get any work done from bed—not when sleep was so tempting. Sighing, you left him untouched and didn’t bother changing out of your pyjamas as you trudged over to the living room, where your mountains of paperwork still lay on the coffee table.

The time flickered by as you marked up, signed, and sealed each form. You cradled another cup of coffee in your grasp and the last of the muffins you’d baked earlier that week as you worked on.

You didn't bother looking at the watch sitting flat on the table. You hadn’t noticed how much time passed by since waking up. Not until you heard the bedroom door creak open from deeper down the hall. Leon’s half-asleep footsteps wandered into the living room. You glanced down at the clock and realized that the morning had long gone. By the time you saw Leon’s head poke into the room, it was well into the afternoon.

He must have been extra tired, you thought. Leon was usually up before you after a longer assignment. He winded down best the morning after, when you were more awake and the two of you could do something relaxing together.

“Rise and shine,” you spoke without looking up, scribbling down a few more notes for the paper-clipped pile of jargon sitting in your lap. “What time did you get in?”

“Four,” Leon murmured from across the room. You hummed in acknowledgment. He’d gotten more than eight hours this time around. It had been awhile since that happened.

“You were sleeping so soundly, I almost wish I took a picture.”

Leon ignored your teasing about his beauty sleep, heading into the kitchen. You heard the water running, but not the hum of the obscenely expensive coffee maker you splurged on last summer.

When Leon emerged, he had a tall glass of water in his hand. He drank half of it, setting it down on the coffee table, far enough away from your stack of paperwork. He sat down, quieter than usual. You wanted to poke fun at his sleepy silence, but figured he was just being considerate as you trudged through your work.

You flipped the page as Leon settled into the couch, staring off at nothing in particular. He held himself just inches away from you, knuckles brushing against his lips, other hand resting loosely against his abdomen.

“Want coffee?” You asked absently. Leon shrugged from beside you, muttering something you couldn’t quite hear. “If you give me until the end of this stack, I can make us brunch.”

Leon seemed to sink further into the couch at the mention of food. You registered it as a tired yes until your arm came out to wrap around his shoulder. Leon stiffened, his heart thumping nervously in his chest and pulsing through his back. You pulled your arm back and froze. The numbers on your page didn’t seem so pressing once you really realized how little Leon said since coming in.

You pulled your eyes away from your work, noticing only now that Leon looked far from relaxed. He looked like he was holding something back, shoulders hiked up to his ears, face set in a glassy frown.

“You’re quiet today,” you said, rubbing your hand up and down the curve of his spine. You expected a classic one-liner, some kind of joke about how you worried too much. Instead, Leon let out something in between a sigh and a groan.

It was enough to officially set you off.

You set your papers down and leaned into him, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him into you. Leon seemed overwhelmed at first by the touch, before reciprocating the gesture more gently. He swallowed against your collarbone, his forehead sticky with sweat.

“Hey there,” you kissed the top of his head, smiling when he seemed to melt into your touch.

“Hi,” was Leon’s muffled response, breath hot against your sweater.

You knew Leon wanted to talk. He wanted the attention. Otherwise he would have spent the rest of the day alone, which…would have been okay too. But it had taken a long time to get here. Too much of swallowing down feelings and squashing old habits. You were both guilty of it, but what you loved most about Leon was how much he was willing to work at it. Leon worked so hard at everything he did.

“Doing okay?” You finally asked.

“Who says I’m not?” Leon quipped softly. You could tell by his voice that he didn’t feel like himself. Sweat stuck to his forehead, and you felt his breath jump as you let your fingers run through his hair.

You sighed, half-amused, and pulled him closer into your embrace. You let him rest his head against your chest, your legs tangled together.

“Because you never turn down brunch,” you murmured. “Today’s a slow day. I’m here if you need me.”

You squeezed Leon softly, feeling his exhale come out in short bursts through his nose. It always took a fair amount of coaxing to get him to admit what was on his mind. He’d been deployed for a while, but it wasn’t a field mission. Nothing violent. Nothing that might have set him off, unless there was something you didn’t know.

Leon swallowed again, breathing in sharply when he did.

“I just…I don’t feel good, I guess.”

You blinked back your surprise. The admission still sounded like he’d rather gargle glass, but you expected more pushback, a cutting remark or a quick subject change.

You could feel the heat radiating off his face and arms and felt a pang of sympathy in your chest as you stared down at Leon’s half-melted form. He must really feel rough if he was so ready to admit it.

“You’re not feeling well?” You sat up straighter, gathering the rest of him into your arms until you straddled his upper-half. Your hands swept his body up and down, as if trying to pinpoint the parts that hurt. “You wanna tell me in what way?”

You knew the difference by now, between a spiral of guilt, a bout of burnout, a physical wound, and the flu. But that was usually because Leon would conceal it until he couldn’t and came staggering toward you leaking with honesty. This time felt different, like maybe he was finally testing the waters of trust between the two of you and coming before things got bad.

“It’s really not a big deal,” Leon muttered into your upper arm. “Felt off going to bed and…you weren’t there when I woke up, so I just…”

He just didn’t want to be alone, you realized. Was that his way of telling you that?

Leon sounded so painfully out of his element. You knew it was hard for him to admit he just wanted someone around. He once told you after a few drinks that asking for what he wanted felt like he was jinxing it. It tore you up just thinking about it.

“You do feel a little warm,” You let your fingers fall from his hair down to his forehead. When you trailed down his chest through his t-shirt, you didn’t catch how his shoulders shivered a little against you. A fever might explain the lethargic symptoms, the loss of appetite. Maybe a case of the chills?

Your speculations halted when you brushed across his stomach and he flinched. You felt his abdominal muscles tighten, body tense as a painful-sounding hiccup wracked his chest. You felt Leon swallow instinctively against you, and your brain clicked with the realization.

“Your stomach doesn’t sound too happy,” You ghost a hand over Leon’s back until he seems to settle. Your heart plummets at the frustrated noise that came out of him.

“Yeah,” you watched him grit his teeth and breathe a little too shaky. “Yeah. Maybe that’s it.”

You slip a gentle hand beneath his shirt, warm hand on his even warmer skin. Leon curled into you, trying to stay silent as you traced comforting circles over his churning stomach. He hiccuped again, this one resulting in a thick burp. He stared up at you with a face so mortified, he looked like he’d rather be dead.

Oh, Leon.

“That sounded like it hurt, honey. Are you nauseous?” You asked, knowing damn well that Leon didn’t want to talk any more about where exactly his weak points of the day were. He nodded, eyes a little glassier. You pressed on. “Do you think you’ll be sick?”

Leon shrugged at that. He’d taken to breathing slowly through his nose, some kind of grounding technique he’d probably picked up from training.

“Sounds like you picked something up at work,” you tried to sound as neutral as possible. He didn't like coddling unless he was at the end of his rope. You didn’t want to push him any further. “You should sleep more. I can set you up in bed.”

“But you’re warm,” Leon muttered back, and your heart nearly skipped a beat. It was rare to see Leon so clingy. He tensed in your arms when his stomach flipped on its side again. He tried to backpedal, even if it was already too late. “I know you’re working today. S’okay. I can…”

“Stay right here?” You finished his sentence, though maybe not with the intended words. “I’m almost done for today. Why don’t we both sit tight for a bit?”

“…whatever you say.”

Leon’s head fell softly back onto you, one arm cradling his stomach while the other one curled around your waist. To appease Leon’s strange complex about needing others, your work was back in your hands within minutes. You didn’t want to risk asking him if he’d eaten anything weird. Whether food poisoning or a bad bug, the outcome would probably end up the same.

As you annotated with one hand, Leon had migrated downward, squished between your side and the couch cushion. He rested his head on your stomach, trying his hardest not to audibly react each time his body sent a dangerous signal down to his belly. You scratched the top of his scalp with your free hand, migrating down to rub softly at his upper back each time he muffled an uneasy burp into his fist.

When your stack of papers was finished, Leon was boneless pressed into you. Even asleep, he still held that frown that you’d always known as his hardened default.

Setting down the last of your work, you slipped off the couch and into the kitchen. As you waited for the kettle to boil, you rummaged around the medicine cabinet for the Tylenol and thermometer. The fact that Leon couldn’t stop shivering made you wonder if his upset stomach came with a fever, too.

The kettle hissed, and you poured the hot water into a mug bagged with ginger-lemon tea. When you came back out, Leon was sitting upright on the couch, arms wrapped tentatively around his stomach. His irritated face softened when he saw you.

“Have a nice nap?” You asked, grabbing the big blanket folded on the other end of the couch. You draped it over his shivering shoulders and sat down next to him. Leon grunted in response, nausea making him sway a little to the side.

“Fine.”

He sounded gruffer, like he was actively trying to shake off the clinginess from before. Once you were back down at his level, you turned Leon toward you and stuck the thermometer in his mouth.

“Open up.”

“N’t n’cess’ry,” he grumbled, the metal stick under his tongue muddling his speech.

“Pretty necessary,” you countered once the thermometer beeped a little too urgently. The fever was mild, but it was there. You passed him the Tylenol and the rest of his water from earlier. “This’ll make you stop feeling so hot. Can you stomach taking it?”

“You think I’m a kid or something?” Leon swiped it from your hand, clearly frustrated with how bad he felt. You didn’t miss the way his body convulsed after swallowing the pill. You could see him starting to detach, even if you knew that wasn’t what he wanted.

After drinking the tea in slow sips, Leon fell back into the couch, holding himself with a tired frustration. You waited for him to turn and look as you before you brought an arm around his shoulders again, pulling his head to rest lightly against the side of your arm.

“Sorry,” Leon finally muttered, a little breathless. “I’m not being fair.”

“You get a free pass. I’m sorry if you felt alone when you woke up,” you pressed a kiss to his forehead. Leon’s breath faltered at that. You knew you hit the nail on the head.

“Six years working as an agent, and I’m taken out by this,” Leon chuckled, a sarcastic smile on his face. His breathing started to return to normal. It hopefully meant the nausea was finally subsiding.

“Sickness doesn't discriminate,” you joked. “If it means I can get you in one place for the day, I’m not complaining.”

You shift your back up against the couch’s arm, opening yourself up so Leon can rest his head on your chest, body straddled between your open arms and legs. When you rubbed a soothing line from his upper back and down to his stomach, you kept yourself from giggling as Leon’s noises of approval vibrated against your skin.

“…m’taking you out for dinner once this is over. G’tting you whatever y’want…” Leon barely got out of his mouth, eyes closed and body limp. Of course he wanted to take back control. You knew it made him feel less exposed after vulnerable situations. You’d let him have his way tomorrow when he felt less gross.

Leon pushed through so much. You felt grateful that he came to you this time to get through it.

“Live through this first,” you snorted, holding him close as he finally drifted off.

Your work lay untouched for the rest of the afternoon. For Leon, your paperwork could wait.

A/N: and that’s itttttttt. There needs to be more sicky Leon in this world. And also I’ll never get enough of big spoon reader x little spoon Leon. Like…..he’s been through enough I just wanna hold himmmmmm