Chapter Text
Leon rolls over to Hunnigan’s desk with a mug of black coffee and a box of dark chocolates in hand—the kind he knows she likes. “Heeey,” Leon says, inching closer to her desk one wheel at a time. “How is it going, work wife...”
Finally arriving at his destination, Leon humbly presents his offerings to her desk and waits expectantly for a response. For a second he’s a little apprehensive that she is still giving him a cold shoulder, but fortunately, this is not the case.
She turns to look at him, flat. Leon beames at having his existence validated under the warmth of her gaze. Hunnigan opens her mouth but before she speaks, he puts up a finger in the universal gesture of hold on . Leon rolls back to his desk one wheel at a time like the world’s most inefficient chair-roller.
When he returns, he presents to her a full blooming bouquet of red roses—the big, obnoxious kind, wrapped in tasteful black paper. “For you, ma’am,” Leon says, holding it out to her while slightly lowering his head for good measure. He would go down on one knee as well, but the last time he did that she wasn’t too pleased and he isn’t taking any chances for now.
His handler looks down at the roses. “You do know this only pisses me off more?”
Leon beams brighter. Her voice is as deadpan as always, but it’s not cold, which is a cause for celebration. He has never actually fought with her before, so he had some kind of fear that whatever damage he had done would have been a permanent thing. But it seems her professionalism wins over Leon’s lack of capability in being a good coworker. “You love me,” he says with a wink. “And look! Ta-dah...”
Hunnigan takes the card Leon just handed her. It’s the pop-up kind. If you flip it right, the illustration of the sad golden retriever will rise up with calligraphy above it that says: I’m sorry for how I behaved, I had a ruff day. “It can stand on its own,” says Leon helpfully, watching Hunnigan flipping it open with an unimpressed pallor. “You can put it on your desk like a picture frame.”
“Oh goodness, you really shouldn’t have,” she says with her beautifully flat voice. He’s delighted when she actually puts it on her desk, the glossy paper gleaming under the office light. Leon knows she’ll take it off in five minutes, give or take, but the gesture makes him happy. “So,” Leon says, rolling closer to her chair, tilting his head. “We’re good?”
“Good?”
She sounds neutral. He blinks. “Uh.” He looks at her hesitantly, uncertain now. “I mean, are you—are we—am I—?”
“Forgiven?” she says, with that same sanitized voice.
He still has it in him to be a little embarrassed. “Yes. That.”
She looks up at him with her dark eyes, looking as pristine as always. “Don’t lie to me again,” she says. “Can you do that?”
He pauses at that. He says finally, “I’m not sure.”
She looks at him, considering for a second. And then she smiles—a rare moment. “Good,” she says. “Just like that.” Her smile disappears. “Your psych eval is scheduled in three days. You’ll have to go on a blood test and urine test on that day.”
“Oh,” Leon says. “Okay.”
“Both of us have a one-on-one meeting scheduled for tomorrow.”
He blinks. “Meeting? On—?”
“We have things to discuss,” she says. “As I’ve told you.”
Something about her tone, the tension in it, alarms him. And he understands, then. Hell. “Okay. Listen, Hunnigan, it was all—”
“We have things to discuss,” she repeats, and he sees it in her eyes that she’s not going to back down from this, and he supposes he really had this coming after all.
“Okay,” Leon says finally.
Hunnigan has turned back to her work, typing at her usual impossible speed. “You’re going to get your clearance renewed.”
Leon blinks. There is a pause before he shrugs. “Well. Thought so.” When Hunnigan looks pointedly at him, he says, “Wow, what a complete surprise. And to think I haven’t even gone on the psych eval itself—what string did you pull to accomplish this, Hunnigan? My salary and I are forever indebted to you.”
“I reached out to President Graham,” she says. “He ‘understands’ the situation.”
Leon digests the information. Very slowly, he says, “The President of the United States knows I was a sugar baby who was fucking his therapists?”
“Yes,” she says. “But you did save his daughter’s life and prevented a US-China conflict and possibly World War Three from happening, so I suppose it all balances your sparkling personality out.”
“Right,” Leon says, finding it in him to feel full-on embarrassed. “Okay...” and then he’s surprised once more when Hunnigan takes the flowers from him, inspecting them clinically. He’s even more surprised when she says, “Get a vase for this so it doesn’t mess up my desk setup.”
“Oh,” Leon says, taking the flowers back. “Okay...” he pauses. “I’m going to the doctor to talk about changing my prescription. Change it to something that—that’d suit me better. Can you fit that into my schedule?”
Her typing stops. She turns to look at him, slow. Her face doesn’t soften, exactly, but Leon likes to believe that it does. “Yes, Leon,” she says then. “I can fit that into your schedule.”
They look at each other. “Okay,” Leon says lamely. “Great. Thank you. For. You know.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Leon sits there for a while, watching her type important things in her important documents. “Do you wanna maybe get lunch later?”
“No.”
Oh, well, the usual. Leon starts to roll back to his desk. “All right...”
“I’ve got something on today,” she says. “But maybe after your psych eval.”
For a second he thinks she might have smiled again, but that could only be his imagination. “I’ll take a maybe,” Leon says, before getting up to find a vase.
Leon spots him immediately. Chris isn’t that tall, really, some men are taller—but something about him exudes tallness. Like his sister, it’s the way he carries himself; the confidence of it, like nothing can stop him from coming through. Not even pure, solid brick walls. Or boulders. “Hey, baby,” Leon says just to see him get mad.
Chris doesn’t even blink. “This better be good,” he says, sitting down next to Leon. He’s wearing the same cap but a different vest, somehow tighter than the last time. How adorable. Chris puts down his bucket and takes out his bait, fixing it expertly to his hook. “I’m a busy man.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Leon says easily. The open air is getting chilly, the season is giving way to winter in a few weeks. The river isn’t as crowded at this hour, though there are old men sitting sparsely around it, hoping for a trout. But hey, Leon has already found himself a catch, hasn’t he? Tall, brunette and grumpy.
“So?” Redfield says, throwing his line far out. It sinks in with a gentle plop.
“Got a present for you for our anniversary,” Leon says, passing Chris the gift without looking. “Just our dirty little secret, okay?”
Redfield sends the flashdisk a glance before putting it inside one of the many pockets in his cute little fishing vest. “Biosoldier info is all here?”
“How should I know?” Leon says, off-hand. “Witness’ protection. I don’t know shit.”
Chris doesn’t say anything. Then he says, “Giving this to me. You can’t take it back.”
He looks at Chris. Leon smiles. “I know,” he says.
Chris grunts again, stoic as always. Down to business. “We spotted Wilson a few hours ago.”
Huh. “You did your homework,” Leon says casually. He hadn’t told Redfield any names yet—hadn’t even told him anything much at all. “Five stars review for the BSAA.”
“We spotted him a few hours ago with his new best friend,” Chris says. “The pharma he’s working with—it’s Tricell.”
Leon whistles. Tricell was in the same pharma federation as Umbrella—shouldn’t be so surprising, really. And last time he heard, their HQ is in... “Looks like you’ve got a honeymoon lined up in Africa, then. Fun.”
Chris pulls something out of his vest, a small cardboard box. “Claire told me to pass you this.”
Leon opens it to see a potted cactus staring right at him. His chest warms and Leon ries not to smile too big. “Thanks,” he says, keeping it safely in his bag.
Chris grunts. And then, “About Claire.”
Oh, hell. Leon shakes his head. “No. I’m not doing this.”
“What?”
“You’re going to tell me to tell Claire things that you want to tell Claire. I’m not doing that.” Like hell he’s going to play messenger for both of them. One Redfield at a time is already too much to handle.
Chris sounds pissed. “Leon, Claire should stay out of—“
Leon cuts him. “If you want me to tell her to stay out of BOW business—“ Leon shakes his head again, grinning humorlessly. “ You try and fail yourself, all right? I’ve learned my lesson.”
He thinks Chris is going to yap again at him, but then Redfield just goes: “All right.” After a pause he says, “She should never have—“
Chris cuts himself off suddenly, falling silent. Leon waits. He speaks again after a while.
“She wasn’t supposed to be at Raccoon,” says Chris finally. Like his sister, he doesn’t sound vulnerable, saying this. He sounds a little flat, matter-of-factly. “When it all began. She was only there because she was looking for me. She wasn’t meant to be involved in this.”
“I don’t think that’s up to you. Or me,” Leon says. “Going to Raccoon— she decided that. You can’t take that away from her.”
Chris doesn’t answer. Leon glances at him, but for the life of him can’t decipher Chris’ expression. Oh well. “And honestly, if it wasn’t for Claire, I would’ve died. Like, five times over, maybe,” Leon says, just laying it out plainly. “Your sister is damn good at what she does.”
“I know,” Chris says. “That’s the problem.”
Leon glances at him again at that, at the uncharacteristically soft cadence of Chris’ voice. But his face is unreadable.
Leon looks away. “Yeah.”
Chris lights up a Marlboro, exhales smoke. “I’ll take care of it,” Chris says then, and Leon can hear the unsaid things in that one statement: I’ll take care of it before my sister or anybody else has to.
Claire was right—this sort of view is insufferable; thinking that you alone are responsible for the state of the world. It’s sad, heavy, and more than just a little arrogant. And she was right; this is the only choice that they have.
This is the only thing that they have. This conviction in believing that you’re doing the right thing.
It’s selfish, of course. But it has to be selfish.
“We’ll take care of it,” Leon says.
“Yeah.”
Silence. For a moment they both just look out at the lake, their fishing lines swaying in the wind. Everything is so serene and normal and nice until Leon finally can’t take it anymore. “Want a drink?” Leon says, scrounging his bag. “Nothing strong though, I only brought some Heinekens—“
“Yes,” Chris says, taking two cans at once.
“All right, your turn, sir.”
“Can you please not rush me?” Leon says, hovering by the door to the men’s washroom. “You’re giving me performance anxiety.”
“Sir, it’s my job to oversee your—“
“—Peeing processes?”
Leon’s Pee Supervisor looks pissed. “Yes, sir. Here is your cup, sir.”
Leon receives his pee cup and inspects the width of it. It’s somehow offensive. “Do you have a bigger one? I don’t think this one’s my size.”
“Sir.”
“All right, all right, geez,” Leon says, finally entering the stall. He looks at his Pee Supervisor. “Can you stand a bit farther? I know I gotta keep the door open, but I’d rather you not hear my pee. I’m not kidding about that performance anxiety.”
The guy doesn’t move an inch. Fine. Jesus, it’s like having a fucking pee exam.
Leon holds out his dick over the pee cup that’s a size too small for his dick and he’s only started to summon his pee when he hears the guy next door having the most explosive diarrhea of his life.
Leon looks sadly at his Piss Exam Proctor. “Can you do something about this?” he says, pointing a thumb at the stall where its occupant is currently fighting god. “This is really interfering with my pissing experience.”
“Sir,” his Pee Exam Proctor says with bone-deep exhaustion. “Please just urinate, sir.”
After Leon finishes urinating and gives over his urine cup so they can see if he’s on cocaine or if he has HPV, he gets his blood taken too—it’s this whole deal. A bit over the top, if you ask him, but that’s federal agencies for you.
He sits down on one of the waiting room’s chairs with dozens of other totally mentally stable agents. They give them each psych questionnaires and checklists of depressing shit like, ‘I fear criticism, disapproval, or rejection. Strongly Agree. Agree. Disagree. Strongly Disagree. ’ Leon goes through it like a breeze because he’s the most mentally stable person in the whole wide world.
Such a farce. Nepotism is a hell of a drug.
Leon considers just fucking off since he’s already going to get the clearance renewed anyway, but he supposes it’s good at the very least to try and act as if he’s not the golden boy of US-STRATCOM. And plus, he’s a goddamn pleasure to be around. Who is he to take himself away from these lovely people?
“Agent Leon S. Kennedy? The psychologist is ready to see you now.” Receiving Leon’s depressing psych questionnaires and checklists, the agent then says, “We’d need your standard form as well, sir. Thank you. Right this way...”
Leeon enters. The room still has the look and feel of a therapist’s room, somehow, even as bare bone as it is. “Agent Kennedy, yes? Please sit down and we can begin immediately—I’ll be only asking you a few questions for the next half hour.”
Fantastic. “Yep.”
“All right,” the psychologist says once Leon is seated. “How do you do, Agent?”
“Great,” Leon says. “I think. It’s been an … interesting past month. Lots of changes in my life, you know.”
“Oh, yes?” the psychologist says, glancing at his forms. “Any issues you’d like to discuss in particular?”
Leon smiles. “Funny you should say that,” Leon says.