chaotically_rem

Manipulation.

Leon knew.

He knew the second he was taken into custody, the second Sherry was ripped from his side crying and pleading for her safety, that he would do and say everything that needed to be done and said to keep that little girl safe.

They cuffed him to a chair in an interrogation room before leaving him to hang. The heat was up way too high, sweat beading down his temple, reminding him he had narrowly escaped being burnt to a crisp multiple times last night. Leon couldn't help but find it ironic that he had shown up for his first day on the police force just to have the tables violently turned on him. Instead of cuffing petty thieves and rowdy drug dealers to a chair himself, here he was being cuffed and treated like a high-class criminal who had done something worse than murder.

"What are you smirking about?" The lead detective on his case entered the room, slapping down a folder onto the table. He looked stern, but not unkind. Leon hadn't said anything yet in his defense, but he knew he would eventually blab the whole story. For Sherry.

"The irony." Leon said. And the man must have already checked out his background because he laughed too.

Fear.

Leon hated to admit it to himself - he would never admit it out loud, oh no - but he was absolutely terrified.

"We need to wait for a second." He said, trying his best to sound calm, to sound normal. They were still in the house after shooting down half the damn village, ready to move on and get the hell out of here. Louis had run off after showing up to help them out and give them some information, leaving Leon to lick his own wounds and reassure Ashley that they weren't both going to suddenly turn into feral parasites or die.

Or at least, Leon was trying to convince himself that he wasn't going to suddenly turn feral or die.

"Are you okay?" Ashley asked, her voice lilting in concern. She approached him, but stopped short like she was worried he might bite if she got too close.

He wasn't okay as he feigned checking his gun. It was the damn Plaga in his neck that scared the shit out of him. The idea of losing control was so horrendously awful that Leon suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He took a deep breath, letting it settle deep in his lungs, reassuringly. He couldn't afford to lose his cool, couldn't afford to give Ashley a reason to doubt him. She was already so scared.

"Yeah. I'm fine." He lied. They didn't have time for him to truly be okay.

Isolation.

The hardest part about coming home from a mission was the part where Leon actually arrived home. He stepped into his minimalist apartment, and flipped on the light by the door, sighing heavily as he dropped his work bag from his shoulder onto the floor. His first stop was always to the thermostat to turn the heat back on, his second stop always to the liquor cabinet in his kitchen; his only stocked cabinet.

Minutes later with a nice glass of whiskey that he promised he wouldn’t slam back, he dropped onto his couch, sinking into the cushions while he took the first sip. He closed his eyes, grenades and flash-bangs still ringing through his skull, reminding him that it would take a few days before the ringing in his ears completely went away.

But when he closed his eyes, the events of the last mission flickered through his brain like an old film reel, reminding him of those he had lost, those he hadn’t been able to save. His own misfortune and his own bad luck, his mistakes and shortcomings. The mission could have gone smoother. It could always go smoother.

It would take a few days before the ringing in his ears completely went away, but it would take weeks before he could look anyone in the eye again, let alone admit his own failures out loud.

He slammed back the whiskey so he could get his second glass.

Heat

Leon didn’t understand why this kept happening, or at least, he pretended like he couldn’t figure it out. With a heavy breath, he dragged himself shakily to his feet. He was littered in cuts, his leather jacket torn and dirty from where he had been thrown into the underbrush. The getaway car was on fire already, flipped upside down and twenty feet down an embankment. It was another miracle that he had survived the crash. Again.

I always end up crashing everything, don’t I? He didn’t want to admit he was hungover, didn’t want to note that there was a certain little trend, a pattern he was starting to see in relation to these instances. But in his defense, he hadn’t been forewarned that there was going to be another zombie out break, hadn’t been told he would in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in the chaos once again.

Oh well.

He turned to the tree line after brushing himself off, gauging how far he was from his destination. The car would blow shortly, would lure the undead away from him. It was a distraction he fully needed to take advantage of.

Loss.

Leon stood over the edge of the platform while everything came crashing down around him both literally and metaphorically. NEST's infrastructure was collapsing into deadly pieces fast but he couldn't help but hesitate despite the urgency in his gut. He found the tumbling infrastructure ironic while the walls of his heart broke off piece by piece, the black void beneath him on that catwalk taunting. It wasn't necessarily her slipping from his fingers that broke his heart - it still did, it hurt, but in a physical way - but maybe it was the fact that she had somehow stolen a smidge of his shine off him when she went, taking a piece from him he'd never get back.

He didn't have time to grieve, or even time to be upset. He needed to survive.

Leon rushed for the elevator. If he lived to see the break of dawn, he would think about her. If he didn't, then none of this would matter at all.

Blood.

Leon's hands shook as he sunk to the ground carefully, torn between reaching out to try and help himself and simply leaning back on his hands to give up. He'd been so caught up on the Ganados that were surely ahead that he hadn't noticed the bear trap until he was screeching in surprise. The note had stubbornly died just as fast as it had sounded, Leon desperately swallowing his pain.

None of the townsfolk had come to investigate the sound. Yet. He had time.

His breath was ragged as he reached for the trap clamped through his calf. He had herbs, had aerosol spray that could help. It was all about thinking positively, right? He could carry on. If that dog he had rescued from a trap ten minutes ago could run off free as a bird then so could he. He was just lucky he had neutralized the area before becoming ensnared. This was merely a hiccup. Nothing more.

All about thinking positively.

He felt sick as he reached down, blood staining his pant leg and smearing onto his hands as he forcefully pried at the traps jaws apart. It took effort and a few leaked tears, more pain than the broken ribs after Raccoon City. But he sprung himself free and rolled out of the trap, lying in a bush for a second to catch his breath, staring at the ominous orange sky.

He wouldn't catch a break this whole mission, would he?

Unfortunately, he only had enough time to take a deep breath and shove some green herbs into his mouth like an animal. And then just like that, he was back on his feet with a slight limp, Matilda raised as he carried on.

He had a girl to save.

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Entries tagged with resident evil

Angst Prompts - Manipulation

Angst Prompts - Fear

Angst Prompts - Isolation

Angst Prompts - Heat

Angst Prompts - Loss

Angst Prompts - Blood

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March 2021

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