dedicated to: vaalentinaa226, amarihowell0809, 1amnotduck, gojoisgoodlooking, wannaeatleon, yuinrey, meisamonke, jenniesb4e
and also my bf who's reading this and lowkey proofreading it (this guy literally stalked the whole of wattpad to find this fanfic when i told him i wrote one like a psychopath)
you're all great i love all your comments and ur support is acc just mwah, makes me so happy
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The walkthrough to the gate on the other side of the manor went straight back into the village that you started at, the town hall that everyone had abandoned themselves into after the church bell started ringing. You glanced at Leon repeatedly who was more out of it than he was before whatever had just happened.
You push the key in and unlock it, pushing it open and bracing yourself for a hoard of Ganado. To your pleasure, it was empty. You walk in and sigh, looking around. It's as nice as the Village Chief's manor, with high ceilings and scattered around with gold figures and paintings. You walk around, and Milo comes up to your leg, nudging it to get your attention. He has something in his mouth.
When he looks up at you, you see he has a sapphire, between his teeth.
"Aw, thank you." You say, patting his head briefly and walking until you find the back exit. "Leon, what is up with you?"
"Do you hear that?" He asks, dodging the question.
"Hear what?"
"Hissing." He looks around a bit and breaks one of the boxes around where the sound is coming from, a viper jumping out at him. Without a second thought, you bolt out the back door with Milo, hearing a gunshot from behind you. Leon walks out a second later, holding it in his hands. "We have a souvenir."
"Get that thing, away from me."
"Are you afraid of snakes?"
"I'm afraid of wild vipers that jump at people. Why are you still holding it?!"
"They're edible."
"Have you lost your mind?! They're venomous!"
"Are you seriously that picky?"
"Oh my god. You're eating wild, dirty, probably equally as infected as everything else in this place vipers for dinner. I can't imagine what other disgusting shit you've put in your mouth."
"Yeah, but you still kissed it." He replied, his voice less snarky than it should be. "Thanks for leaving me though, again."
"You were free to follow me right out that door." Milo bolts off down the path. You both go and run after him, finding him biting a Ganado's legs. Leon pulls his gun out and kills him, walking off up the path. You roll your eyes at him and you whistle for Milo to come back to you.
"Don't run off, okay?" You tell him, he barks. "Good, I don't want you to get hurt. Behind me." Milo was slowly becoming more and more like your child, you wondered how this was going to work out for him the more you progressed in finding Ashley.
You follow behind Leon, talking to Milo who was just happy to be there. You wondered how long he had been out here with this cult.
"Y/n." Leon called.
"What do you want now?" You retorted.
"Look." You look up. It's the church. Right in front of you. With a graveyard in front of it.
"Fucking finally." You say as you walk up ahead, pushing the gates open and finding the entrance of the church to be locked. "Perfect. I'm stuck with you for even longer."
"Lets go find if there's any other way in." He walks around, finds a door on the side of the church, and goes inside. It's a study with maps on the walls, and books scattered all over the place. As well as a trap door on the floor. The lack of things trying to kill you, being trapped in a room for a moment with Leon, was a perfect moment to trap him into answering your question.
"So... Who was that woman?"
"No idea."
"Tell me who that woman was."
"I don't know."
"Don't lie to me."
"I don't need to tell you anything."
"If it's affecting our mission, you're going to tell me, Leon."
"How is this affecting our mission?"
"She was watching us through the window, how is that not alarming to you? Leon fucking tell me who that was, it's putting me off. The last thing we need right now is more arguments and leaving your partner in the dark."
"For all I know she could be some random woman, I didn't even see her."
"Then who do you think she is? You seemed incredibly out of it after I mentioned her description, it's someone you know."
"Y/n stop."
"Tell me."
"Just leave it!" He shouts.
"Is she a threat to our mission?"
"No!"
"You know her."
"Y/n!" He slams his hand down on the desk, a few wooden splinters coming up from the force. Milo starts barking at him. "No more questions."
"What is stopping you from telling me?"
He opens the trap door and jumps down it, you look at Milo in disbelief.
"Can you believe him?" You scoff and jump down after him, it's an underground tunnel leading to another pathway and Leon has already reached the light at the end of the tunnel. You jog after him. "Why won't you tell me?"
"What don't you understand?! I didn't even see her. She reminds me of someone I used to know, completely unrelated to this entire thing."
"Reminds you of who?"
"An ex." He lies.
"An ex-girlfriend? That's what you're getting worked up about?"
"It's a hard memory for me, she has nothing to do with this and I'm not talking about this anymore. I don't know the woman you saw in that window."
Up ahead of you, there was a cave, going inside of it there was still no Ganado.
"Why didn't you just tell me that the first time?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
You exhale, for you, his lies were a believable explanation, the distressed look on his face was real.
"Sorry."
"I wish you weren't so stubborn." He groans and walks alone in front of you, leaving a few meters of space. The cave lead to a huge quarry where there was a pack of black wolves with red eyes getting onto their feet and barking at Leon when he walked into it. You look at Milo sternly.
"Stay." You pull your gun out and run into the clearing to help shoot the wolves that were circling Leon.
They were so fast, they were hard to shoot. How they move so sporadically made it more frustrating to predict if they were going to dodge another shot or leap at you.
When you had managed to shoot one of them twice in its head, it exploded and two huge tentacles replaced it with sharp bone on the end, moving all over the place and threatening to slash the two of you. You both focus your shots on it until it finally falls dead.
The rest were no different, every time you shot their heads a few times they would explode. Leon had run to the other side of the quarry, taking half of the pack with him.
When you had shot your final wolf to death, one of Leon's ran stray from his pack. It was bolting specifically for you, seeing that your back was turned.
"Y/n!" Leon shouted when he realized, but it was too late. It jumped on your back, making you slam flat on your face, the hard impact shocking you, that was it. It opened its mouth, revealing huge, sharpened teeth, ready to bite into your neck. Milo ran up and jumped into the wolf, slamming it off your back and biting its neck as he sat on top of him. Its head blew up and a tentacle came out, instantly slashing Milo's abdomen.
You quickly grabbed your pistol and shot it multiple times and ran by Milo's side, Leon still being preoccupied by his group on the other side.
Milo had become a crying mess on the floor as he bled all over the place at an alarming rate.
"No, no, no, no, no!" You rush to your bag to get to your med kit but it's difficult through the tears of panic that are starting to build up in your eyes. "I told you to stay away!" He replies with a weak attempt of a bark that fades into a quiet whine. "This is going to hurt Milo."
You take out your needle and start to stitch the deep wound, never had you ever done any type of aid to an animal before and you were worried that your cluelessness would cost him his life. Your needle penetrates his skin and he lets out a loud screech he's too weak to move away from you, but he's squirming and that on top of your boiling panic makes your hands shake.
Halfway through, Leon slides next to you, grabs the needle out of your hand, and does it himself with more composure. You stroke Milo's head, trying to keep yourself as composed as Leon was.
"You'll be okay, I won't leave you." Before Leon can even finish Milo passes out from the pain. Leon checks the pulse in his rear leg worriedly.
"He's not dead. Are you okay?" He says placing a hand on your back.
"Why wasn't I paying attention? Oh god..."
"You couldn't have done anything. Come on. We'll leave him somewhere safe and come back for him, we can't waste time." He sighs as he takes Milo into his arms, looking down at him pitifully. He then looks at you, with tears still brimming your eyes from the stress. "Please, calm down. He'll be okay."
"How are you so okay with this?"
"I'm not. Of course I'm anxious about Milo, my heart is racing. I don't wanna leave him." He starts walking to the other exit of the Quarry, jogging slightly to go find a bit of shelter for him. The paths you run down are narrow and surrounded by only more high cliffs forcing you in one direction, which leads to a set of doors. You open them, but it's only a cove for the merchant.
"I guess one pet wasn't enough." The merchant joked as he saw you come in, you run up to him.
"He's injured. Please, let him stay here for a bit. Just keep an eye on him, please." He's taken aback by your desperation, he had never done unpaid favours for one of his customers. Nor were his usual customers as friendly as you were.
"What happened?"
"One of those freak wolves cut his abdomen when he saved me. I'm begging you just take care of him for a bit, I'll pay you back for any work you have to do."
"Let me see." Leon places him on his table, and the merchant takes a look. His fur is still coated in warm blood and his body is still completely limp.
"That's bad. I'll look after him... for a bit." You hold his hand tightly, holding it close to your chest, making Leon grunt but he accepts it's your flirty personality.
"Thank you, thank you so much." That instantly seems to put off any doubts about taking care of Milo for you.
"Anything else you need, darlin'?" He asks you.
"Bullets. We're running low." Leon answers for you.
"Only got gunpowder, put them with some scrap you find around you can make some handgun ammo."
"We'll take it." He says, and you put money on the table and take your goods. "Come on, Y/n." He grabs your hand to take you out another exit with a lake in front, your eyes don't part from Milo until he finally takes him out the door. He takes another look at you and frowns when he sees that you're trying to stop yourself from panicking about Milo, completely out of it. A dragon could fly over you and you probably wouldn't even notice.
"What is it?"
"I'm worried about him, if we didn't take him, if I didn't get caught off guard, he would be okay. What if he doesn't wake up?"
He looks down at the floor, then he sighs. He opens his arms and pulls you into a gentle embrace. I know I should be mad at her, but how can I when she's like this?
"He'll be okay. I promise." You're too worn to be surprised, you put your face in his chest, putting your arms around him and letting a few tears come down his shirt. Hesitantly, he places his hand on your hair and strokes it lightly, feeling uncomfortable with himself. "For now we need to focus. Can you do that for me?"
You nod and take yourself out of his arms.
I hate it when she cries. Knowing I lied to her just makes this worse.
"I don't usually cry on missions, sorry. Just Milo... I'd never forgive myself."
"You don't have to make excuses. At least you're not hard to look at when you're crying."
"Are you calling me ugly?"
"I'm calling you cute, even when you're being a pain in my ass... I'm not used to comforting people. Clearly."
"This is just a one-time thing." You wipe your eyes on your sleeves, walking over to the balcony of the exit of the cave to look over the lake so you could compose yourself with controlled breaths, taking in the freshness of the air. "This place is actually really pretty if you got rid of all those... things."
"I think it was a normal village once, then something happened."
You nod, observing the lake before you once more before going back off to look for the key. The lake's surface shimmered like liquid silver under the rays that pierced through the thickening clouds. Looking up, you noticed an army of charcoal clouds in the distance that you would hope was not coming in your direction. Around it were some settlements, cave entrances that were flooded and you would need a boat to get into, and a small shipwreck in the middle of the huge lake.
"Alright, I'm ready. Let's go." Feeling soothed by your heartfelt conversation with Leon, you hop down the ladder of the balcony which led into wooden docks. There were 3 floors of wood, the top one with the balcony that connected back to the merchant's cove, the second leading to a cave, and the bottom being the docs where you saw a shitty boat. You shudder, thinking of the hours it would take to check this entire area for the church key as well as all the ominous caves you're going to need to go into. Certainly not like any mission you've ever done before.
You hop down the ladders and get into the boat, letting Leon sit in front of you as you tried to start up the engine. You take the pull start and give it a few tries, all of your attempts fail. Leon sighs and takes your place.
"Gotta do everything myself." He takes the rope and pulls it with all his force, almost ripping it out of the engine, after 4 tries, you push him back off the boat.
"Don't delude yourself." You look in the engine and take out the spark plug, as the engine is completely silent when you try to start it. "There's no gas and the spark plug isn't... you know... sparking."
"So now what? We've got no gas, and no spark plug."
"We can go check that settlement, they probably have gas, I don't know about a plug though. I've got an idea that sounds kind of stupid but it's a last resort."
"What?"
"Do you know anything about engines?"
"Yeah, I've got a motorbike."
"My first motorbike was a two-stroke, the boat also has a two-stroke engine. Then it broke and my dad set the spark plug on fire to get it hot enough to spark, and it worked. Interestingly enough..."
"However he came up with that..." He thinks about it for a second, then smiles. "You into motorbikes?"
You nod, stepping out of the boat and cleaning the spark plug on your shirt before leaving it in the boat so it wouldn't break while you go to yet another settlement.
"My dad loves them so... I don't know the second I hit 16 he went and bought me a motorbike for jokes, kept using them as they're just so convenient."
"I guess with that mechanic skill you're pretty good with your hands, huh?"
"That was your final straw." You push him into the lake, but his reaction time allows him to grab your hand last minute, the both of you falling off the dock and into the lake. He snorts when he sees the shocked look on your face, knowing he's completely taken your mind far away from your stress. Adorable, I can't be mad at her. You laugh as well as Leon gets out quickly before you can swim over and drown him.
"You're drenched for me, you sure you didn't like my joke?" He smiles as looks down at you, swimming back the short distance to the dock.
He holds his hand out, but he suddenly sees a shadow under you, without warning he abruptly grabs your wrist and pulls you up in a second. You almost stumble forward but he holds you in place, looking over the edge. The shadow started to disappear deeper and deeper into the lake. It was huge. "What the fuck."
"You reckon I push you in again for being a dick?" You say jokingly, catching a glimpse of the shadow before it completely disappeared.
"I think we're wet enough as it is. Let's go find that gas before we find out whatever that is." You loop your arm around his, thinking of it as an exclusively friendly gesture. He pretends not to care too much, looking off in the direction to the settlement, to hide the grin on his face, even though he knows this isn't going to last long before you get to the settlement.
"You feeling a bit better now?" He asks.
You nod, the cool water felt like it had washed off some of your sweat, and you weren't drowning in the humid climate even if you were wet which was a phenomenon you were used to on missions. Not only that, but the comfort of Leon no longer being upset at you for earlier, you both somewhat forgetting the events of earlier, allowed you to enjoy his sweet company. Maybe your extended stay wasn't a curse.
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i've been lowkey having a bit of burnout, i feel like some of my chapters are not spicy for build up and then ill post a rlly nice one like chapter 10 and everyone has super high expectations for the next and i feel bad. the reads that this is getting is super encouraging but also super stressful because pressure 😭.
i guess now is a good time to mention the direction i expect this to go from here, i want their relationship to be a constant rollercoaster and shit just keeps on happening, your lies are exposed, his lies are exposed, not trusting each other, continuously making not smart decisions for your relationship and that making a lot of tension, but also slowly building up their relationship >:), that's all ill say so i don't spoil too far and ill keep it vague for you
im not sure when ill have the next chapter out, let me just cure my burnout first, i think trying to rewrite chapter one is bumming me out because i had to work on two chapters at once. and from chapter 10 i was like icl there needs to be some spice and from there ive just shat on my plan so i should tweak that too
next chapter will come in no longer than a week though.
also, please feel free to point out mistakes i make in this, like grammar, spelling because things fly over my head so easily even if i do re read over it.