𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 ★ 𝐋𝐞𝐨𝐧 𝐒 𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐝𝐲 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Chapter Seven: Dumb Blind Man And It's Also Your Problem

"Am I supposed to be thankful, or...?"

"Take it how you want."

"So can I take it that you care?" He teased with a small grin.

"If you want to delude yourself then yeah, be my guest." You say, carelessly digging the cotton into the wound.

"Agh- You mad 'cause I caught on?" He grunts from your unneeded roughness. "Slow down. Please."

"Fine..." You get more gentle with it, trying to not to hurt him as much, but you honestly just wanted to get on with it. It started to get a bit awkward in the silence when the room was filled with his moaning, he asks you a question to take his mind off it without annoying you further.

"Have you been on a mission like this before? When we first saw the Ganado you froze up, I assume you haven't?"

You grimace when he asks, you hadn't really spoken much to anyone about what happened in Penamstan other than to your best friend, so you try dodge the question. "Have you?" He looks equally as uncomfortable, but he speaks.

"I was in Raccoon City." You look at up at him, shocked.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I was a cop. Only for a day though." A small frown plays on his face. "The day I joined was the day the outbreak happened, I was late as hell which was the only reason I lived."

"Oh, that's unexpected... I'm sorry." You felt bad for him, genuinely, you understood what it must have been like. You felt bad enough to regret everything

"Well, I answered, your turn." You couldn't even tell him what happened in Penamstan because you didn't trust him, and it was classified information that could get you killed. As much as you wanted to when he had just opened up to you, you had to lie.

"I was in Tokyo during the 1998 outbreak. I won't really say more than that."

"We're not that different. Maybe now... There's a chance for us to understand each other?"

You nod in response as you bring out bandages, your defensive walls start crumbling down, feeling the weight of your shared experience. The hardened edges of your heart giving way to empathy.

"What was it like...?" You ask softly.

"I still have nightmares about it. I remember every detail like it was yesterday, it haunts me." He leans back and looks up at the ceiling with a deep sigh. "All the people I could've saved, people who died in front of me. I could've stopped it but I was just some stupid rookie." You take a moment to absorb his words, a realization that your pain wasn't mutually exclusive, a possibility opening for forgiveness. "What was it like in the Tokyo outbreak?"

"My whole squad ended up dying in front of me from the infected, and I couldn't do anything to help, just watch." That wasn't a lie, you finish wrapping up his leg. And you honestly couldn't handle going into anymore detail. "Let's go, we've wasted enough time."

Leon follows you through the house, the weight of his actions and how harshly he's treated you from the start hangs heavy on his conscience. His mind replays the image of what you possible could've seen, and how similar it must've been to Raccoon City. Regret runs deep in his veins as he remembers how his thoughtless actions have led you two to be like this, when it could've been different.

...

At the end of the hall, you find a basement. You go down without any hesitation this time, you didn't really know what else you were expecting when you saw a man hammering the floor which you shot before he even noticed you. Leon went ahead, finding a boarded-up trapdoor leading into the basement.

You rip off the planks for him, opening the door. "Ladies first." You say, rediscovering the previous playfulness as a change from the morbid atmosphere,. "Or do you want me to catch you at the bottom, treat you like a real lady?"

"What a gentleman." He says, he knows just as well as you do that he's absolutely going to break his leg or sprain his ankle if you don't, but covering up the slight embarrassment with sarcasm and amusement at your joke. He watches you hop down and dramatically hold your arms out for him.

"You better not be as heavy as you look." Probably should've considered that before I gave him the offer, he's going to crush me. He jumps down, landing in your arms and you swear you both could've heard your back crack when he makes contact, nothing could've prepared you for the fact he weighs 200 pounds, he slips out of your arms but for the second that you managed to hold him softened the fall. "Fucking hell you hippopotamus!" You yelp, holding your back. Leon rolls on the floor for a second as he feels his own back takes a toll from the crash on the floor. You both sit there for a moment lolling in the shared pain.

"When I thought my injuries couldn't get any worse..." He groans as he gets up. "I thought you did weight training."

"There's no weight training for when a fucking bus flies out the sky and body slams you! Leon, I bet that single-handedly gave me a reformed spine and hernia at the same time." You moan, limping ahead, still heavily feeling the soreness. Before Leon replies you hear begging from the corner of the basement, you look at each other questioningly before approaching the writhing body bag.

You lean over it as Leon unzips it to reveal a man, Leon rips off the duct tape on his mouth roughly.

"That hurts you know." He grunts.

"Seems like you really wanted to talk," Leon says sarcastically.

"How observant, señor. Now uh... You got a smoke?"

"You know, those things will kill you."

"Oh, well, maybe just untie me then, eh?" He asks, then struggles to roll over to his side where the knot is, suddenly stopping completely when he spots something behind you both. "¡Joder! The big cheese!" You both look at him, contemplating if he's smoked something, but it doesn't last more than a second before you get grabbed by the back of the neck, Leon tries to shoot whatever has just grabbed you, but he gets thrown into a wall, you shortly following after.

As you slide out of consciousness, you feel a sharp needle slip into your neck...

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