𓆣𓊈Chalice𓊉𓆦

“Rookie, good to see you,” Marvin greets, taking his hand off his pistol. Of course, it would be better if the rookie had never come here at all, if he had just listened when he was told to stay away, but what’s done is done. Leon’s here now, and Marvin will allow himself to be happy to see the young man alive and intact.

Except… Marvin’s eyes narrow as he sees Leon stumble, hands clutching his sides. And then, Leon falls. 

“Leon!” Marvin rushes over to the rookie, ignoring the pain shooting up his leg as he kneels beside the young man. Leon groans as Marvin touches his shoulder, folding over himself. Marvin scans Leon’s uniform, looking for any bite marks or other injuries, but there’s nothing visible. His sleeves are stained with the half-coagulated blood of the zombies, but none of the blood is fresh enough to be Leon’s.

“Talk to me, rookie,” Marvin orders, even as he pries at Leon’s arms, trying to see if there’s an injury beneath. “What’s wrong?”

“‘urts,” Leon mutters through gritted teeth. “Everythin’ on fire.” The young man’s breathing is sharp and shallow, just this side of hyperventilating. He groans, bending over himself, nearly pressing his forehead to the floor. Still, the boy has enough wherewithal to answer the question Marvin’s really after. “No bites. Checked.”

Marvin hums. Carefully, he helps Leon up, guiding the young man to one of the lobby’s couches. Leon obeys without complaint, collapsing onto the bench as soon as Marvin starts to ease him down. While Leon grits his teeth, so hard Marvin can hear them grinding together, the Lieutenant strips Leon of his bullet-proof vest for a more thorough examination.

But even on a second look, Marvin can’t find any bites, not even a scratch, to explain Leon’s condition. But there’s clearly something wrong, Leon’s forehead is beaded with sweat, muscles locked so tight it’s a wonder he can even breathe.

“What can you tell me, kid?” Marvin asks, desperate for some way he can help, but first he needs to know what the hell is wrong. (Aside from the zombie apocalypse happening outside.)

Leon shakes his head silently. “Stomach ‘urts,” he mutters, arms clamped around his midsection. He barks a quiet, pained laugh. “Course I get the flu at a time like this. Fuck.”

Marvin presses his fingers to Leon’s forehead, frowning. The rookie is abnormally warm, and his skin feels far too dry, almost papery. Marvin has to pull his hand back as Leon starts coughing, body shaking from the force of it. And then, Leon gags, and Marvin jerks back as blood splatters over the kid’s hand.

The coughs turn wet, but even with Leon’s blood staining the tile, they don’t stop. Marvin can do little more than brace Leon’s shoulders as the boy continues to wheeze, red spilling over his lips. Finally the coughing fit subsides, wet choking turning to soft gasps. Marvin rubs the rookie’s back, swallowing back the pervasive feeling of useless that’s hung over him for the past week.

Without warning, Leon pitches forward. Marvin just barely catches the kid before he gets a face full of tile. Slowly, Marvin eases Leon into a sitting position on the ground, and then nudges the rookie to lie on his side. Leon obeys, chest rattling with wheezy breaths.

“Wha’s happenin’ to me?” Leon gasps as he folds into the fetal position, knees drawn to his chest.

Marvin doesn’t know. Something is wrong. None of the people who currently stalk the halls had shown symptoms like this… whatever it is, it’s something else. And Marvin’s just as powerless to help Leon as he was for the civilians who’d come to the station seeking refuge. 

Leon lets out a whimper, curling so tight Marvin swears he can hear the kid’s bones creaking. Except… he can hear creaking. 

Frowning, Marvin leans closer to Leon, and fuck, it is the kid. Beneath Leon’s groans of pain, Marvin can hear muffled cracks and pops, like those of fractured bone and popping joints. Instantly, Marvin’s alarm climbs. Is this because of how tightly wound Leon’s is?! Fuck, is it possible to break your own bone just by muscle tension?! Marvin’s no doctor, but he can’t rule it out.

“Leon,” Marvin says, grabbing the rookie’s shoulder, shaking him. “Leon, you have to relax!”

The rookie’s only answer is a keening noise and compressing himself further. Marvin’s grip tightens on the rookie’s shoulder and… he pauses. The hell? The kid’s shirt looks… tighter than it did a second ago, fabric stretched thin over his chest. Fuck, he’s seeing things.

Marvin shifts his gaze to Leon’s head. He brushes the hair from Leon’s face, pressing his fingers to the kid’s pulse point. The muscles in the rookie’s neck are so taut the entire expanse of skin is rigid. Marvin can barely feel a pulse beneath his fingers. Marvin glances at Leon’s face, screwed up in utter agony. 

“Come on, rookie,” Marvin pleads, as if Leon can do anymore to stop this than he can. As Marvin watches, the skin of Leon’s face and neck discolors, like a rapidly forming bruise. It’s alarming, but even more so is that something is moving under the skin of Leon’s cheek.

It could easily be Leon running his tongue along the inside of his mouth. Except Leon’s jaw is clenched so tightly shut Marvin’s half sure he’s cracked a tooth.

As Marvin watches in horror, the thing continues to writhe, pushing outward, until it finally stretches the skin too far. The skin of Leon’s cheek tears away, revealing exposed teeth and red gums, twitching protrusions flaring out from Leon’s skull, covered in remnants of skin. 

Marvin swears as the wriggling things are bared to the air, scrambling back. He watches, terrified, as the rip in Leon’s skin grows, running past the kid’s jaw and down his neck. As the skin splits it starts to peel away, revealing something darker beneath. Something that isn’t skin. And it’s then that Leon starts to scream.

The kid’s head snaps back and he lets out a bloodcurdling screech of pure agony. As he does, Marvin gets a front row seat to how his lower jaw splits in two, unfurling alongside the new appendages into a bloom of red flesh and sharpened teeth. Marvin shoves himself back as Leon starts writhing on the ground, arms wrapped around his body like it can contain whatever horror is fighting to tear itself free.

But as Marvin has learned so vividly the past week, the horrors do not often sit quietly.

Leon’s legs kick out as if to save him from his invisible attacker. The boots split along their seams and something that is anything but human unfurls. Talons, honest to god talons, like those given to dinosaurs, are suddenly clawing at the air, at the ground. They rake over the back of Leon’s calves, shredding fabric and ripping away skin to expose the same slick brown that coats Leon’s neck. The same brown that coats his arms beneath peeling ragged skin.

Oh God, oh God…

Beneath the screams and Marvin’s own thundering heartbeat, he can hear the sound of fabric ripping, seams snapping. And then, without warning, there is suddenly a third limb flailing through the air alongside Leon’s legs, pulled from his spine. A tail. A fucking goddamned tail. With every convulsion the tail seems to get longer and longer. It lashes wildly in response to its owner’s pain, scattering chairs and old privacy screens dividers in a cacophony of crashing metal. It is heavy and deadly and just the impact could kill him, regardless of intention.

Marvin scrambles back further until he can go no further, pressed flush against a wall as he stares and stares and stares— 

After what seems like an eternity, the thrashing slows, then stops. Leon, or whatever he is now, finally stills, slumping motionless on the tile floor of the R.P.D. The ground is stained with blood and torn scraps of flesh, Leon’s skin, litter the ground like confetti.

No no what the fuck no what the hell oh god— Marvin’s mind is a mass of static and white noise, no true thought except all-encompasing horror that is steeped into every neuron. That, and a lingering thought, a candle flame he hadn’t realized had still been lit, snuffed out in a spray of blood. (A spray of blood as he shot Brad in the throat, mouth gaped open in gurgling apology.)

Not Leon too—

Marvin slowly continues to retreat, eyes locked on Leon as he begins to shift and move. The rookie—or what was his rookie—pants, open mouthed, the appendages on his face flaring. Leon’s back arches, flexing pointed overlapping plates that have torn through his shirt. They rattle, stretching up and tearing a few more seams with each panting breath. The tail that now stretches behind him scrapes against the tile, long and serpentine, tipped with a wicked-looking stinger like a scorpion from hell.

As Leon continues to pant, he shakes his head, the hair that still adorns the top of his head falling over his face. Slowly, the once-young-man sits up, on his hands and knees, raising his head. And Marvin can only freeze as Leon lays eyes on him. 

The eyes are still blue.

Marvin murmurs a silent prayer, to a God he no longer thinks exists, the weight of his pistol heavy at his side. If whatever Leon is now wants him dead, there isn’t much Marvin can do to stop him. And at this point, with Leon gone too… Marvin would let him.

The lieutenant barely breathes as Leon watches him, eyes squinted. Slowly, Leon raises a hand, rubbing at his eyes. And then he pauses, hand hovering in front of him for a split second before he throws himself backward. Marvin belatedly flinches at the rapid movement, and then again from the loud clatter as Leon’s back slams into the low wall behind him.

The rookie’s chest is heaving, straining the blue uniform that still clings to his expanded torso. He scrabbles at the wall behind him, taloned legs kicking out again, batting his nearby tail away. Marvin can see Leon wince at the impact before he abruptly goes still again, only broken by the occasional twitch of his arms and legs.

Marvin’s blood is pounding in his ears. The floor is cold and hard beneath him.

The air reeks of iron, but then, it’s smelled like that for days now. 

Then, slowly, the legs unfurl. Leon shifts, tail slithering across the floor. The rookie’s hands—one clawed and armored, the other still resembling the human he was—are brought in front of him. Marvin watches. He watches as Leon blinks downs at his hands, as he flexes them. He watches as Leon’s breathing accelerates, tail-tip rattling against the tile. He watches as Leon brings mismatched hands to his face, feeling over exposed teeth and gums and twitching appendages. 

Marvin watches. And he sees Leon’s eyes widen as he realizes the state of his body. He sees something undeniably panicked, in wide eyes and rapid breaths. Something undeniably human.

Oh god, he’s still lucid—

“Leon…?”

Marvin’s voice comes out as barely a whisper, but it’s all it takes for Leon’s gaze to snap to him. The rookie’s eyes blow wider, pupils mere pinpricks, and he jerks away from Marvin. Marvin can’t truly read Leon’s expression, the entire lower half of his face gone and in pieces on the floor, but the eyes say it well enough. 

The rookie is terrified.

(Marvin is too.)

Leon scoots further back from Marvin—and at any other time, in any other situation, in any other place, he might have found it comical to see such a giant insect-like creature skittering away from a measly human. The rookie is shaking, his entire body trembling in fear as he stares at Marvin. As if Marvin is the one with claws and fangs. Except… no, Marvin realizes, as Leon’s shaking hand lowers toward the holster still clinging to his leg, Leon’s not scared of Marvin.

Leon’s scared for Marvin.

Scared of himself.

“Leon–!” Marvin exclaims as his voice cracks. He raises his hands, trying to get the kid to put the gun down, look at me. But he doesn’t get to say any of that, before there’s a loud crash from elsewhere in the atrium and a chorus of wet guttural groans. 

Marvin snaps his eyes from Leon toward the sound, heart climbing in his throat. Fuck, they’ve broken through! He pushes himself to his feet, cursing the pain in his knee, until his eyes alight on the corpses that are staggering out from under a gap in one of shutters. Shit, shit, they must have been drawn by Leon’s screams. Marvin’s hand hovers over his pistol, eyeing the zombies. Fuck. He doesn’t have that many bullets.

Before Marvin can think further, he’s scooped him off the ground. He yelps, flailing for a half second as he’s cradled to a blue-shirted chest and suddenly he’s moving. Marvin looks up, stomach in his throat, only to blink as he looks up at Leon. The rookie holds him close, the atrium blurring past as he sprints and jumps to the second floor balcony. Then the kid is shoving open the door to the second floor waiting room with his shoulder and bundling both of them inside before he slams it shut.

The arms that held Marvin suddenly relax their grip. The lieutenant slips free, staggering slightly as he bears his own weight again. Marvin glances back at Leon, who has slid to the ground, back resting against the door. The rookie’s eyes are distant, shining with unshed tears.

Marvin moves closer, carefully resting his hand on Leon’s shoulder. It’s the… new one. Instead of skin, what’s beneath his hand is something more akin to crab shell. It’s hard and rigid, and oddly smooth, though as Marvin runs his fingers over it, he can feel small bumps and a roughness akin to the bristles of chin hairs he missed shaving.

Eventually, Leon turns his head to look at Marvin. His eyes, all three, stare at Marvin, blue and overflowing with tears. The kid sniffles, the appendages on his face—mandibles, perhaps, considering the similarity to an arthropod—flaring away from his face. 

“Marvin?” the kid whispers, barely audible, but the man hears it.

“I’m here, rookie,” Marvin says, his other hand reaching up to Leon’s unarmored bicep. Beneath his hand, Leon’s arm feels simultaneously too big and much too thin for its size. Marvin rubs circles into the skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Leon chokes, the dam finally breaking as he lets out a harsh, guttural sob. Tears spill down his cheeks and over his exposed gums. The tail, Leon’s tail, wraps around him, which just makes Leon sob harder. Marvin leans into the kid, wrapping his arms around the too-large chest and hugging him as best he can.

(Despite Leon’s new size, he feels too thin, too lanky. There’s a pallor to his skin, a softness to his carapace, that Marvin can’t help but worry about. He’s far too big, he weighs too little.)

The rookie’s body shakes with the force of his sobs while Marvin quietly holds him. It’s a nameless grief, a fear they both know too well. One made manifest and all the more potent by the people turned mindless monsters that stalk the station’s halls.