SAVEGUARD ⟼ leon s. kennedy

ix. unwanted thoughts

"Roost?"

Leon paces around the gym, before finally sitting down on one of the benches.

"Roost, come in," he repeats, his finger on his ear piece, buried underneath his locks of hair.

I look everywhere except at him. At the cracked gym mirrors, at the decrepit ceiling, at all of the machines, at the shelves behind the reception bar, stocked to the brim with protein powder tubs and pre-workout drinks, towels, weird looking rope, and a lot of things I don't care enough to interpret.

"Roost! I can finally hear you," he exclaims, and I walk silently over to the shelves, wondering what his codename is.

I grab a handful of bars and shove them in my hip pouch, chug a couple of pre-workout drinks, and hoist myself up on the reception bar, my legs swinging. I bite into a protein bar— this one is supposed to taste like birthday cake, but the marketing team should be fired for that lie— and let my mind wander as I hear Leon talk to his office counter-part.

Thinking things like, what is his favourite flavour of ice-cream? What about his favourite colour? Is he a morning or a night person? Does he like to take naps? Does he like spicy food? Is he a good—

And then I'm brought back into the present, the protein bar wrapper empty in my lap, my cheeks and the back of my neck burning hot. I clear my throat as if it will empty the thoughts from my head, but it doesn't work, because I'm still thinking about how soft—

No, Clementine, I force myself to think.

Just thinking about his arms—

No. No. No. I'm just going crazy locked inside this cruise ship. I've just been broken up with. That's all. That's all there is to it. I shake my head as if to force my brain out of my ears.

"Negative," I hear him say, and when I turn to look at him, I find him staring at me, and it makes my heart feel like it's surrounded by embers in a campfire. "I cannot leave Alpine Two alone."

What the fuck is alpine two, I think, my eyebrows bunched together.

"We haven't located the control room yet," he continues, and then nods, standing up. "And the other agents?" He catches a quick look at himself in the mirror as he listens for a reply, flexing his tricep ever so subtly. From the reflection I can see the threads of the sleeve of his black shirt straining across his creamy white skin.

It makes me want to slam my face into a wall.

"I'll keep an open line of comms. Condor one, out," he says, and starts walking towards me, and I scramble off the bar, opening the chest of drawers to its left, trying to find something to occupy my hands with.

I find a couple of security cards, attached to bright yellow lanyards. I shine my light on them, they belonged to two of the gym receptionists. I pocket them in case we need them.

He clicks his ear piece off, and I stare at the empty drawer like it has the power to teleport me out of the ship.

"We should keep moving," he says carefully.

"What's alpine two?" I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

He exhales through his nose, like I've said something funny. "It's your codename."

"What?"

"I had to come up with it on the spot... Not like this was planned. Two because you were Tripp's number two." He shifts his body weight from one foot to the other.

"And alpine?"

"I— I couldn't really come up with anything that rhymes with Clementine."

I let out a chuckle, and lean back against the reception bar. "Huh, you're right. Dine?"

Leon's eyebrows knit together as he thinks. "Brine?"

"Wow. I remind you of brine. Thanks."

He smiles, not a full smile, because it doesn't reach his eyes, but it's the first smile I've seen on his face, the first sort of proper smile, and it's because of what I said. I made him smile, and goodness, it looks good on him. I catch myself smiling too, and look down.

"Mine?" He continues.

"What kind of mine? A coal mine? A diamond mine?" I tease.

"No I meant like, possessive. Like you'd be mine," he says, and as soon as the words leave his lips, he scratches the back of his neck. He clears his throat, and looks away, and flashes his light to the gym's doors. "Anyway... We should keep moving. We need to find the control room."

I purse my lips in order to stop the huge grin that's fighting to stay on my face, and once again I'm grateful for the dark all around us. "What's in the control room?" I manage to ask.

He holds the doors open for me. "Co-ordinates to where this ship was heading, I'm hoping. Or a way to contact this cruise's sister ship, which is where Hunnigan thinks Jill and Chris are."

"Hunnigan? Jill?"

"Hunnigan is Roost. The support to my field operations. And Jill Valentine, the other counter-terrorism agent accompanying Chris Redfield."

"So... Valentine Two was definitely out of the question for a codename," I say, as a loud creak makes me jump a bit.

Leon stops behind me. "Huh. Didn't even think about it."

I laugh a little, and wait for him to walk in front of me.

"So has anyone ever said something cheesy like that to you?" He asks, as we walk in our tight formation, scanning everything that we see in the next corridor.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Will you be my valentine, Clementine? Or some other cringey shit like that."

"Thanks for asking, Leon," I say sarcastically, my tongue loose on its own. "But going out with a co-worker wouldn't be the best idea."

I hear him scoff and he turns to look at me. "Very funny. So we're co-workers now?"

I can't look him in the eyes; my bravado gone as quickly as it had come. "Unfortunately."