Archive of Our Own

Leon’s only consolation is that at least he did not stumble into this fucking trap on his own by being a clumsy idiot – he was pushed inside. Tackled, really, by a charging BOW with a truly excessive number of limbs.

It had an unexpectedly pleasant surprise to run into Chris and his BSAA team at the ground level entry of this particular secret laboratory-cum-villain lair. Well, initially it had been incredibly frustrating, more evidence of the complete lack of communication between the DSO and other agencies on when and where they were allocating resources, but that could not be helped at this stage. It had made sense enough for Leon to travel through the vast underground facility with the BSAA unit for backup. The place was rumored to be the product of a rogue Umbrella offshoot from years ago, but more importantly, it was open, empty, and the electricity still worked – practically a cakewalk.

Then Leon and Chris had been taking point down a narrow hallway when a klaxon had sounded, followed by six layers of steel doors sealing the two of them in the lab section, separated from the other three soldiers in Chris’s unit.

Still, hearing Chris giving calm orders to his guys on the other side of the door had been a comforting balm against the instinctive animal fear Leon always had to fight when trapped underground. At least the self-destruct sequence in this place hadn’t launched immediately, an unusual luxury of time.

Chris had ordered his tech unit to start working on the door panel, and to call a drill team in case that failed.  Leon had waited beside the door, gun at his side and eyes peeled, waiting for Chris to finish coordinating with his team. It felt odd to delay so long, wrong to stay so still and present such an easy target, but he did have to admit the company was nice.

It had been decided that he and Chris would continue their respective missions together through the lab, looking for an alternate exit at the same time. Leon suspected that if there were a way out that “Umbrella-Lite” had overlooked, it was going to involve sewers to a distressing degree. It always did.

The lab section had seemed as abandoned as the upper levels, but it was suspiciously clean, and they were both on edge by the time Leon was thrown off balance by plant monster swinging down at him from the rafters like a demented zombified Tarzan.

The BOW is a mottled green texture and approximately human-sized, except that it has two extra sets of legs, and a series of vine-like tentacles emerging from the shoulders instead of arms. It collides with Leon at full speed, taking his legs out from under him and sending them both rolling across the lab floor as it snaps oversized thorny teeth at his throat the entire time.  He struggles to stop their chaotic tumbling or control it long enough to get his gun up into the BOW’s snarling face, but the thing does have a limb-count advantage. The vine-tentacles (tentacle-vines?) lash and whip at Leon in a way he knows would do more than just sting like hell if he weren’t catching most of them against his leather jacket. 

Leon feels himself roll over a lip in the lab floor, a raised edge that digs painfully into his shoulder blade as he passes over it. A pneumatic hissing sound begins, seemingly coming from every direction, and an alarm sounds overhead. A robotic female voice begins repeating, “Containment Area Bravo-Seven Activated. Please stand clear.”

That can’t be good.  Through the furious hurricane of vines, he can see a curved glass wall ascending from the floor all around him, rising steadily as though to trap him inside with a snarling plant beast. No ideal, but there is not much he can do about it while grappling with said plant beast.

A glance up — there, a metal exam chair bolted to floor nearby.  He shifts his weight to change direction and lets the flailing BOW do the rest, carrying them toward the chair. One last concentrated roll and shove, and he manages to slam the thing’s spine against the steel base of the chair with the entire force of their combined momentum.  Even the BOW is stunned slightly by that, drawing away just enough for Leon to get his gun under its now-slack maw and fire half a clip directly into its head through the base of its neck, spattering grey matter across the floor, the underside of the chair, and the rising glass on the other side.

The flailing vines thrash wildly, and Leon barely manages to protect his face from them – but soon the whole body stiffens and transforms under Leon’s grip, turning a sickly brown and starting to crumble beneath his hands like a dead leaf. 

Leon doesn’t have time to investigate the remains, though, aware of the alarm blaring and the strange glass wall still rising around him. It has reached a height above his head by the time he stumbles to his feet, shaking free of the corpse tangled around his legs.

Through the glass, he can see Chris across the room fighting off three more BOWs of a similar vegetative type, his rifle firing in controlled bursts as they send their vines diving in at his legs.

He doesn’t think, just holsters his gun and takes a running leap at the furthest side, barely managing to get a grip over the top edge with his hands.  He tries levering himself up, but his boots are slipping against the smooth surface, all his weight falling on his arms. Looking up, he has a moment of cold realization: he is not going to be able to pull himself out in time. The glass wall has been sliding steadily upward toward a metal ridge, the border of a domed metal ceiling that sits much lower than the overall height of the lab.  He doesn’t have time to squeeze up and through the remaining gap without risking being crushed between glass wall and metal ceiling.

Leon curses, releasing his grip on the top edge of glass before his fingers get pulverized.  He propels himself off the wall, twisting to land smoothly in a crouch, wincing when his knees protest the impact. The glass overhead slides into place against the metal ceiling, settling with a mechanical thump and a hiss. With a peculiar distant dread, he notices that the glass has slid home into a rubber gasket seal.

Beyond the walls of his new glass prison, Chris is obliterating the head of the final BOW with an enormous caliber handgun, the remains of an incendiary grenade crackling merrily in the other corner. Leon watches him turn immediately, seeking Leon’s location, gun still ready. Chris’ eyes go wide when he spots him, trapped as he is within in a newly materialized glass and steel enclosure.

“Leon!” Chris shouts, rushing over.  Leon winces internally, hoping there are no bigger badder BOWs nearby to be drawn by the sound. Not that the gunfire wouldn’t have been enough noise by itself, but it’s the principle of the thing: Chris is still shit for stealth, truly. At least now they know this chamber isn’t soundproof, which is helpful.

“Keep it down, Redfield,” he mutters, “I’m fine.” He glances around, noting that the BOW he shot has fully disintegrated into a dry reddish-brown dust.  The cylindrical chamber he is trapped in is about nine feet in diameter and twelve feet high, fully glass except for the shallow steel dome of the ceiling.

“Apart from being turned into a museum display for handsomeness, that is,” Leon adds, looking back with a smirk and a wink.

Chris scowls disapprovingly at Leon’s joke. Ah yes, very serious while in the field, is Chris. Shame, Leon is sure he could get more joke mileage out of this situation, but he’s not going to waste it on Chris’ stubbornly professional sobriety.

“There must be some way to get you out,” Chris says, looking up and around, clearly searching for a switch or a control panel.

Leon spins to do the same, taking in everything he can about the inner workings of his glass cell. The floor the same steel as the ceiling, and both are patterned with a series of circular holes, each covered. The metal exam chair in the center that he’s smashed the BOW against the base of is a brutal, unfriendly contraption, bare metal throughout without an inch of padding of any kind. The back looks like it lowers, like a dentist’s chair, but instead of a footrest, there are stirrups raised high, like something from a gynecologist office or a delivery room.  Regardless, the entire thing is purely mechanical — Leon can’t see a single instance of a control pad or any electronics he would be able to access, and he says as much to Chris.

Chris is poking cautiously at a bank of computer stations nearby but can’t seem to figure it out because he soon gives up and walks back over.

“Might be easiest to try shooting it,” Chris says, tapping the glass with his knuckles experimentally.

Leon shrugs. “Be my guest, but if I have to shoot from in here, I’ll probably blow my eardrums out, or risk ricochets.”

Chris nods grimly. “Okay,” he says, lifting his rifle and gesturing Leon away. “You stay as far to your right as possible and we’ll see if this shit is bullet proof.”

Leon starts to step aside, looking down to cover his eyes when he notices that the holes in the floor along the inside of the glass have opened.  With sudden awful clarity, he knows what is about to happen — and that Chris cannot break that glass.

“No, Chris, wait!” he shouts, leaping to put himself in line with Chris’ rifle, hoping that the instinct not to fire on a friendly will work faster than Leon’s words and prevent Chris shooting out the glass. 

Because sure enough, an evil-looking red gas has started to billow forth from the holes in the floor.

Chris does pull his shot, swinging his rifle away with a shouted curse, but Leon doesn’t have time to explain further. Steadying himself, he draws several fast breaths, as rapidly as he can. Then he takes in the deepest possible breath that he can, starting from the diaphragm to fill his belly before letting it expand his entire chest. And then he holds it, starting a mental count in his head. He has practiced holding his breath before – it’s a useful skill to have in the field of bioweapons and chemical agents. But holding your breath on land is a lot harder than holding it underwater without the diving reflex to slow your heartbeat, and he had barely any time to oxygenate his blood to start with. He estimates that he has about three minutes at the outside, before he risks passing out.

The red gas is swirling steadily upward, the air around him soon thick with it. Luckily, it does not irritate his eyes or mucous membranes; he might be safe for now. Safe for as long as he can hold his breath.

Outside, Chris is pounding on the glass, but Leon closes his eyes. He has to concentrate now. He forces himself calm, steadying his heart rate; slower heart rate means he’ll use less of his stored oxygen.

He can do this. He’s not even alone - Chris is here, he’s right outside, no longer pounding the glass but speaking frantically into his comm unit and pacing back toward the computer terminal. There is nothing Leon can do now from inside. If he shoots out the glass, the gas will spread and Chris will be exposed, if not his entire team (or worse). Chris Redfield safe on the outside is probably the best chance Leon has. A chance to clear out the air, remove whatever this is by the time Leon is forced to breathe.

Forty-five seconds. Sixty. Seventy-five. The pangs of oxygen hunger start but he controls that instinctual panic.  Leaning back against the glass wall, he lets himself slide gently down to sit on the floor – would rather sit on the floor than on that hideous contraption of a chair. He ignores the trickle of fear up his spine that asks what happens if Chris is not able to clear the room. Tells his muscles to relax.

Ninety seconds. His chest begins to ache, and the red gas continues to swirl around him when he opens his eyes. Chris is not even looking at him now, frantically working at the computer station.

They don’t even know what the hell this is. Is it the t-Virus? G? Something new? For all Leon knows, it could just be fucking nerve gas — maybe he’ll take a breath and it will sink inside him and disconnect his brain from his heart and lungs, let his body die with all his muscles offline and paralyzed; a horrible, painful, ordinary way to die.

Maybe it's carbon monoxide and it will just suffocate him to death anyway. That might not be so bad – he would probably be unconscious for the worst of it.

One hundred seconds. Leon remembers what it was like to be infected. Remembers the sensation of the Plaga growing inside his chest cavity, squirming between his living organs, squeezing through his veins, shifting visibly underneath his skin. His body fighting his mind, not unlike the way it’s fighting him now in attempting to take a breath of whatever poison is in the air around him.

He pops the snap on his shoulder holster and loosens his pistol. Better not make Chris have to put him down if it comes to that, if he still has the faculties to do it himself. Leon has practiced his aim in the mirror, knows just where to point to hit his brainstem square on. Better him than anyone else. He can take that awful choice away, roll whatever scrap of guilt he can with him right into his grave.

One hundred twenty seconds the two-minute mark. The convulsions start almost on the dot as his diaphragm contracts involuntarily, an attempt to force him to breathe.  He was expecting this and knows it means he still has some time left, but this is sooner than he would have liked to be in this state, ideally. His entire body spasms again and again, and he has to fight to from tensing up each time.

Two minutes forty. The spasms are still coming and they hurt now, each one feels like someone kicking him in the chest. It is becoming harder and harder to stay relaxed, his muscles cording tight in pain. The crimson gas remains thick all around him.  Chris shout something to him but he doesn’t quite catch it.

Leon’s vision is starting to tunnel, blackness creeping in along the edges – a blink black, a blink red, a blink black again, everything an agonizing throb.

He is going to pass out soon, and then he won’t have a choice but to inhale. Call him a masochist, but Leon would rather be conscious for whatever is coming when he breathes this red shit in. He still wants the option of taking himself out. Shakily, he raises a hand and bangs his fist on the glass three times, signaling Chris that he is about to breathe. The echo of his fist against the glass reverberates around him like slow motion.

In the end, he thinks he makes it just passed the three-minute mark before he lets himself give in, releases his long-held breath and draws a new one cloaked in red.

The only thing he feels at first is a wild elation as fresh oxygen hits his lungs. He gasps, raw, lightheaded, glad he was already sitting because he is dizzy enough to have fallen anyway. The relief is followed by alarm at the sight of his wheezing breaths stirring the red around him. But for having taken several heaving breaths of contaminated air, he feels okay so far. In truth, he feels incredible, borderline euphoric, but that’s just the air arriving at his brain after the deprivation. He tries to take slower breaths now, holding on each exhale slightly to minimize what contact he can.  The swirl of the red around him makes him dizzier, but he is neither paralyzed nor mutating yet as far as he can tell.

Through the pounding of his heart in his ears, he hears Chris approach, sees him crouch on the other side of the glass and he’s speaking fast, but Leon’s oxygen-starved brain struggles to make the sounds into words.

There is a click and whirr from above, and the red starts to dissipate. It takes Leon a moment to realize that the ventilation in the ceiling is drawing the red gas up and away from him. Ah, that’s probably what Chris is trying to tell him, that they cleared the gas – Leon just hopes it wasn’t too late. To minimize contact further, he lets himself stay slumped low on the ground, leaning heavily against the glass at his back and trying not to breathe any more.

Soon the red miasma is gone, and Leon can let himself breathe deeply at last. Despite his better judgement, he feels a wave of relief, one that is surely premature and terribly misplaced because he was definitively exposed to that shit, whatever it was. He tries not to believe the traitorous hope that this was some failed experiment, that it does nothing, or nothing to humans, or that he’s immune to it, somehow.

“Leon. Hey, Leon! Agent Kennedy! Status report, now.”

Shit. Leon opens his eyes. Now that his frantic pulse is quieting, he can hear Chris getting quite worked up about his continued lack of response. Leon flaps a hand weakly in Chris’ direction to indicate that he’s heard him and is working on a reply.

Seconds pass, with Chris tense and evaluating him, gazing expectantly but doing Leon’s developing headache the favor of not yelling anymore just yet.

“Acknowledged, Captain Redfield,” Leon eventually manages, aiming for sarcastic, but Jesus, his voice sound like shit. Is that from the gas? His tongue feels like dry cotton in his mouth. “Exposure to an unknown airborne agent certain, full exposure time was... something, under thirty seconds, I think. Status...” Leon coughs. “Dizzy.”

He catalogues his body methodically. It never feels good to take stock of himself mid-mission, to acknowledge all the injuries he’s been accumulating under the numbing shroud of adrenaline before he is going to have a chance of resting to lick his wounds. It’s hard to be sure now what’s oxygen deprivation, what’s a potential symptom, and what’s maybe just him getting older. Old aches and fresh bruises from being thrown around the lab like a bowling ball by that BOW make themselves obnoxiously known. His lungs ache, his chest is the kind of tight that speaks to potential bruised ribs, there’s an abraded patch of skin on his left forearm, his right knee is protesting his position on the floor, he’s fairly certain he has lash marks on his lower back from where the vines whipping him earlier snuck underneath his jacket, and his adrenaline is going fucking nuts. Everything seems worryingly normal.

“Aside from the fact that I’m getting too old for this, nothing to report. Yet.”

The Plaga hadn’t felt like anything at first, either. He hadn’t even known it was inside him for hours. The thought haunts him, the words “incubation period” echoing around his head like a death knell.

Chris gives him the rundown in the clipped tone Leon recognizes as worried. “We reached out to Rebecca, and there’s a doctor on the way with the drill team. DC is trawling through some of the research on their computer system here to find out what that was, but he hasn’t found anything yet. You need to tell me the second something feels off, okay?”

Leon nods. An old hysteria is rising in the back of his throat and being trapped in this giant glass pill capsule does not help one bit.

Everyone in their field knows that death is not the worst of the fates that await the end of their road. They all have “cremation” selected in their paperwork, presuming they are lucky enough to have their bodies recovered.  But Leon knows exactly what it feels like to have something growing inside of him, remembers what it had felt like to have something else puppet him while he was trapped in his own consciousness, helpless, and he has had nightmare after nightmare about it ever since. Nightmares where he guts Claire with his combat knife, expressionless in the face of her horror and betrayal. Where he wrings Ada’s neck for real and feels her body go limp under his hands, or shoots Hunnigan point-blank in the face, or snaps Sherry’s neck. Stabs Chris in the back and brings the knife up to slit his throat just to make it stick. Twisted visions where all he can do is watch himself murder everyone he has ever loved and can’t even scream, can’t even cry, can’t even wipe their blood off his face before it drips down into his mouth.

He glances down at his pistol, reaches to draw it.

“Leon, don’t!” Chris barks, so loudly that it startles him, but Leon draws the Sentinel Nine anyway and hefts it in his hand to feel the comforting weight of it, gazing solemnly down at it. It is his insurance. 

“Fuck off, Redfield, I’m not a coward.” He shoots Chris a look that he hopes conveys how unimpressed he is by that overreaction.

“We don’t know what this is yet, we’re going to get you out of there and you’re going to be fine,” Chris tells him, voice heavy with that disgustingly earnest belief he always seems to have.

Leon thinks about the report from the underwater Neo Umbrella facility, thinks about Chris trying to drag a mutated and massively infected Piers Nivans into an escape pod. Chris may believe that he can save everyone, but that doesn’t make it true. Eventually they all run out of luck.

Still, Leon is not about to just allow himself to give up. He’s seen Rebecca do some crazy shit with the A-Virus vaccine. Leon is not getting out of this miserable life that easily.  He holsters the Sentinel for now, but he switches in a fresh mag first and makes sure it’s loaded.

“Status.” Chris demands, clipped, clearly upset about Leon’s lack of reaction to his proclamation. 

Leon stretches, rolls his shoulders. “Fine,” he says, and he is, really. Seems a shame to die huddled on the floor. He stands, keeping one hand braced on the glass wall, but his legs hold and the dizzy rush fades quickly. “Bit warm in here though,” he adds, wiping the trickle of sweat from his forehead before it can drip into his eyes. He’s covered in sweat, he realizes suddenly, grimacing. Probably from fear - near death experiences will do that to a guy.  Fear sweat stinks, too, but that’s the least of his problems.

Chris had risen with him and is watching Leon so closely it’s making him uncomfortable. He knows he probably looks like shit, face flushed, hair tousled, covered in a sheen of sweat, and with remnants of plant ichor on his face and jacket. And he doesn’t want Chris to notice the latent claustrophobic fear bubbling up under his skin.

It really is hot in here. Had it been this hot before? Maybe, with those weird jungle vine BOWs wandering around.

“Medical can’t get in until they break through those lab doors,” Chris is saying, “Maybe we should try shooting this glass out now…”

Leon jolts forward. “No!”

Chris frowns. “Why not?”

“We don’t know if that gas is going to reactivate, and we don’t know what’s going to happen to me. If I start turning into a giant freakazoid—”

“You won’t—”

“At least I’ll be stuck in here for a bit, it’ll give you time put me down— or get away,” Leon adds belatedly when he catches the look on Chris’ face.

Chris is clearly unhappy with that answer, shaking his head. “You don’t know that’s going to happen, and what if you need medical attention? I’m not just leaving you trapped in here!”

“If you break this glass, we have no way to contain Umbrella’s new psycho-gas or whatever the fuck it was!” They are getting louder, tense and angry, but Leon can’t bring himself to care when he is so clearly right.

“It’s gone,” Chris is saying, “We cleared it out, it’s too dangerous for you to stay inside—”

Chris Redfield makes him so angry sometimes. He’s such a stubborn asshole, just like his sister – the two of them don’t know when to quit to save their own skins. And they both love to worry about Leon, get in his business and lecture him right before they go out and do stupid shit all the time like they are fucking invincible. The two of them make him so fucking heated, especially Chris.

“Can’t you just wait for someone who knows what they’re doing to get here?” Leon yells, exasperated, “Not everything is about your fucking hero complex!”

“My hero complex? Damn it, Leon, move so I can break this glass!”

“Just shut up! You never listen, you always have to be Captain Chris Redfield, savior of the vulnerable!” Leon realizes he’s been shouting and is panting, red-faced with the effort of it.  He clenches his teeth before he can release another stream of angry words and wipes another line of sweat from his temple. This heat is cooking him in here and it is not helping his temper.  It’s like his irritation is alive, rising up to burn him from the inside, too much when the air is already so blisteringly hot. Chris doesn’t even look bothered by the temperature, what’s wrong with him?

Oh.

Shit.

Chris had been stunned by Leon’s outburst, but he is clearly getting ready to dive back into this argument when Leon cuts him off, voice flat and urgent. 

“Something’s wrong with me.” 

Chris’ mouth snaps shut instantly.

Their argument had distracted him, but Leon is concentrating now, and he can feel how his breathing is sped up and shallow, feels how feverishly hot he is literally all over, deeper than his skin, like his very core is scalding. Every muscle feels weak and fluttery, and he can feel his pulse hot in his flushed face.

“I’m spiking a fever,” Leon says, attempting to keep his tone even, clinical. He hears Chris relay this information over comms before returning to evaluating him quietly for a moment.

“You know,” Chris says carefully, “Fever is an immune response.”

“No shit,” Leon spits, channeling his fear into irritation at Chris, knowing he’s doing it and unable to stop, because if he does then the fear takes over.

 It’s too hot to think. He peels his jacket off, movements jerky and uncoordinated. The air on his bare arms is an immediate relief and he’s glad he opted for a short-sleeved shirt underneath it this time. The heavy leather thumps audibly when he throws the jacket onto the metal chair behind him. Even with his jacket gone, his skin feels itchy and tight, and sweat is pooling along his back. His shoulder holster suddenly feels like a restraint, chafing his chest and shoulders, but he can’t bring himself to take it off. He raises his head, panting slightly, mouth to the ceiling like that will get him more air.

“God, this shit works fast, huh,” Leon mutters with a humorless chuckle.

Chris does not laugh. He looks pained. “Leon, let me— “

“Don’t you dare open this glass, Redfield.” Leon says, feeling slow and stupid, like his brain is turning into molasses. He shakes his head, trying to think, and is surprised not to feel his brain sloshing around inside his skull like the gooey mess it seems to be. It’s so hot even his ankles are sweating. His boots. He should take those off.

Chris makes a sound Leon can’t decipher when Leon sits on the floor and starts tearing at the laces of his boots. He gets the boots off, followed by his socks. The feeling of the cool metal floor beneath his bare toes is incredible, almost as good as the oxygen had been earlier. Lying back against the cold floor seems like the logical next step, and he thinks he might have let out a strange groan at the touch of the metal against the bare skin of his arms. His hands are sweating inside his gloves, so he peels those off as well, tossing them blindly in the direction of his jacket.

But hey. Sure, he’s sweating, and he feels hot and stupid, and his eyes won’t seem to focus, but at least he’s not in pain, right? Surely that counts for something; Leon feels like it should. Maybe he is just going to die of some lightning-speed freak flu.  Gross and not very glamorous but could be worse.  He hopes Chris is careful to follow biohazard materials protocols when they take his body away.

A tap on the glass above him. Leon opens his eyes (and when had he shut those?). He looks up and sees Chris standing over him.

Oh wow. Chris really is a big guy. He’s not even that much taller than Leon (when Leon is standing and not sprawled across the floor), but he’s just so massive. All that absurd muscle, those broad shoulders, those arms, honestly, how does he find the time to look like that? Leon blinks and licks his lips. Maybe he does his paperwork in the gym. Whatever he does, it’s working for him. Chris’ legs are big too, his thighs thick and rippling with muscle. God, he probably fucks like a monster.

Leon blinks again.

Okay, that was kind of random. Not that Leon is particularly shocked by this direction of thought, but he usually tries to reserve that for late nights when the whiskey or his medication is making getting off difficult and he needs a little extra push (he doesn’t even always feel guilty about it, either because, well, look at the man). But in the field, Leon is a fucking professional, thank you very much. He is on a mission, they are in enemy territory, he admonishes himself. He’s here to find… something. A file. Evidence.  He shakes his head, blinks sweat out of his eyes, tries to focus. Damn, this is very bad, he’s all over the place.

He becomes aware that Chris is speaking to him. Yelling at him, really.

“—Kennedy! Leon, can you hear me? What’s your status?”

Oh, yeah. He tries to make his mouth work (even with his brain out of commission) but gets distracted by the way his lips feel sort of swollen. He brings a hand up and rubs it across his mouth to investigate. The sensation is shockingly intense. He does it again, brushes his fingertips lightly across the skin of his lips. It is breathtakingly good, like a burst of cool relief through the hot haze in his brain.  What if…  He pushes two fingers gently past his lips into his mouth and oh fuck, yes. That feels even better, so good his stomach lurches and he feels a shiver of arousal up his spine.  He keeps going, pushing down on his tongue with his fingers and whatever reply he would have said to Chris comes out as a broken groan instead. He closes his mouth around his fingers, utterly diverted, and sucks at them, reveling in the sensation on his tongue, his lips, the tips of his fingers, and the way it all translates to a tingle of pleasure lower down, his cock stirring rapidly.

He withdraws his fingers slowly, tracing along his tongue and wetting his lips with them before sliding them back in. Then he does it again, then again, hypnotized by the pleasure of it. He is starting to get hard in earnest now, little sounds of pleasure caught and muffled by the three fingers stuffed in his own mouth, his lips stretched around them as saliva starts to leak down his chin.

Distantly, he hears Chris calling his name. For just a moment, he pictures what he must look like from the outside, spread across the floor with his fingers shoved down his throat. The image shocks him, and the resulting rush of shame brings with it a sliver of clarity and a revelation.

The chair in this room, with its leg stirrups that look like a delivery bed, for giving birth. 

Leon’s eyes clench so tightly shut he sees colors bloom in the darkness, and he wrenches his hand away from his mouth with a sick moan.  He rolls abruptly onto his side, away from Chris, and curls defensively into himself.  Realization comes with a mounting horror. These bioterrorists love to find new ways to create and spread their weapons, new ways to violate nature and spread their corruption. It was only a matter of time before they landed on sexual reproduction. Obvious, really.

And Leon has just received a direct dose of whatever dirty experiment they had been cooking up in here. He curls himself tighter, clenches his hands into fists around his jeans at his calves and wills himself to be still, sickly aware that his cock is still swelling rapidly in his pants all the while. He hates his life.

He hears Chris moving around, but he refuses to look up, squeezes his eyes shut and presses his face against his knees. It’s not a comfortable position by any stretch - his knees and back protest being pulled in so tensely, and his hands are shaking with how tightly he’s gripping the fabric of his pants, but he refuses to let go. He refuses to just let this happen without some kind of fight.

His mind is going fuzzy around the edges, and he is hard now, fully hard, feels his erection fighting the confines of his briefs, pressing uncomfortably against the zipper of his jeans.  He battles the instinct to move – to just shift around so that he can rub his hard-on against the strain of the fabric, get a little friction, reach down and touch—

Leon wishes his brain would work properly. If he stops concentrating for even a second, he loses all control of his thoughts, becomes consumed with how hard he is, how badly he wants someone to touch him, wants Chris to touch him, rip his clothes off and fuck him raw right there on the floor. It is profoundly unsettling to be aware that isn’t what he wants and simultaneously want it so badly he shakes from it.

He wonders, vaguely, if he would still want that if he wasn’t already attracted to Chris, or to men at all — the thought makes him shudder in disgust and his brain shies away from it.

He hears Chris again, and fuck, even Chris’ voice is hot, but that’s okay, Leon has always known this, it doesn’t mean anything.  He can deal with Chris’ hot voice because they are on a field mission and Leon is… infected, with something, maybe. Drugged, perhaps? Can barely find it in him to know the difference.  

If he is drugged, would it really be his fault? If he touched himself, just a little, just to quell the hunger building under his too-tight skin…

The part of his brain that can still think (that tells him to stop picturing Chris’ arms and his mouth and his dick, STOP) is worried, very worried, that whatever is in him now may shut his brain down if he doesn’t give in to it.  Something about the insane heart rate and the way his skin feels so hot it’s suffocating him, boiling his fucking brain inside his skull.  It’s cooking away his sanity and the perilous self-control he is literally clinging to with trembling hands.

Leon tastes blood in his mouth. For a split, vivid second, he is back in Spain, coughing up blood as eggs hatch inside of him and latch onto his insides, grow into his chest and rupture his lungs, make him cough and retch so he doesn’t aspirate the blood. Tearing him apart inside, breaking into his mind, destroying his willpower, transforming him, changing him, turning him…

The panic makes him lose control, just for a moment but it’s enough. By the time he realizes he’s just bitten through his lip, it’s too late. He has lost the edge of control, opened his eyes and laxed his hold on his legs. When he sees Chris in front of him now, he can’t help it, can’t stop himself from crawling toward him and knowing even as he does it that he has lost.

Chris looks visibly relieved to see Leon responding to him. “Leon, hey. What’s wrong, are you okay?” Chris asks, and Leon loves that voice, can practically feel it vibrate across his oversensitive skin.

“Chris,” Leon breathes, sees the faint alarm in Chris’ expression when Leon uses his first name, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Chris’ brow furrows. “Shut up, we’re going to get you out. Don’t be an idiot, don’t do anything stupid!”

Leon shakes his head, rolling his forehead where he’s pressed it against the glass, settling on his knees in front of Chris.

“Just hope you’ll still respect me in the morning,” Leon rasps. He suspects his crooked attempt at a grin looks ghastly, but he has to at least try to make it seem like a joke.

The confusion on Chris’ face is almost sweet. “What the hell are you talking about,” Chris growls, clearly irritated that he can’t figure Leon’s cryptic bullshit.

Leon shakes his head again. His brain feels like it’s glitching and his right eyelid has started to twitch intermittently. “The chair…” he murmurs, willing Chris to understand and hoping at the same time that he never does. Chris is crouched beside the glass again on Leon’s level, one hand on his rifle like he is going to make good on his threat of shooting his way through. Chris looks behind Leon to study the chair a moment, then looks back, obviously no further enlightened than before.

Leon’s not even sure if it’s pride or shame or the long-lost cause of professionalism that’s preventing him from explaining, but when he looks at Chris and tries to speak, he can’t seem to find the words. Chris is so close, just on the other side of the glass, and Leon would jump him if he could, he would tackle him down and lick his way down that broad chest to find out just how big Chris’ cock really is under those BDUs, God, Leon wants to learn the shape of it by stuffing it down his fucking throat so far he chokes—

The image is so vivid it makes him groan, and his hips jolt forward involuntarily, pressing his dick up against the seam of his jeans.  He can’t stop himself from thrusting forward a couple times, desperate for friction, before he forces himself still. But it’s too late, and Chris notices the movement, looks down and the damage is done. Chris’ eyes go wider than Leon has ever seen them. Leon can only moan, utterly mortified and horrifically turned-on.

“…Leon?” Chris voice on the question is hesitant and soft, so gentle in ways Leon doesn’t deserve. Leon bites his lip, desperate to not to mewl or fucking beg like he wants to (doesn’t want to, he didn’t want this).

“Shit,” Chris says, wiping a hand down his face and looking conflicted. “Christ, Leon. You really know how to get into it, huh?”

Fuck, does Leon ever know that. He tries to apologize again, but it’s like his brain is devolving, because the only sound he makes is a guttural whimper. His hands are shaking, his breath coming so fast it’s making him dizzy again.

“Something’s wrong,” Leon slurs, “Too hot. Hurts.” His brain feels like boiled sludge, sloshing to the opposite side of his skull whenever he tries to use it.

Chris looks extremely concerned about the state he’s in. “How do you feel, otherwise? You think you can hold out until the doc gets here?”

Leon wants to answer in the affirmative and tell Chris that of course he is fine, he’ll be okay, blue balls never killed anyone, ha ha. He is afraid that admitting otherwise will result in Chris trying to breach the glass again.  But he can tell that his cognition and motor function are rapidly deteriorating. His brain feels like it is melting out his ears with how horny he is right now, and for all he knows, it might be. The twitch in his eye is getting worse, and he is so hard it feels like his guts are clenching in his abdomen, startlingly painful.

He shakes his head. “Sorry, Chris,” he pants, “Just, uh…” Speaking is agonizing, finding words near impossible.  “Maybe turn around if you don’t want a show,” he manages wryly, one last attempt at a joke.  

Leon doesn’t wait for him to respond. Chris is a smart guy; he’ll figure it the fuck out.

Leon closes his eyes and gives in, reaching down to palm himself through his jeans at last.

Leon closes his eyes and gives in, reaching down to palm himself through his jeans at last. Touching himself is a revelation, like he’s 12 again and just figuring out how his dick works, and it somehow it manages to retain all the mortification and shame of that experience as well. Terrific. He grips himself through his jeans and thrusts helplessly into his hand, the pressure so good he almost can’t bring himself to stop long enough to get his pants open. His shaky hands fumble on his belt buckle and zipper. He feels like a virgin teenager and hates it.

This might be worse than getting shot – at least if he were shot, he’d have an excuse for being so clumsy and uncoordinated. He is 38 goddamn years old, what has he done to deserve this humiliating experience? And in front of Chris Redfield of all fucking people.

To his absolute disgust, he feels the inside of his nose burn and the corners of his eyes sting with unshed tears. Definitely worse than getting shot.

He ducks his head, looks down to see the way his newly freed cock is leaking an abnormal amount of precum over his fist and wants to throw up. He clenches his eyes shut instead and starts to jerk himself off hard and fast, wishing this to be over quickly, can’t this just be over, can’t it be done.  It feels incredibly, skin-tinglingly good, but he would still rather be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.

“Shit,” he hears Chris say, and privately agrees.

He doesn’t look up when he hears Chris rise to stand, just keeps his hand moving on his cock. It feels better than touching himself has ever felt before but also somewhat like ripping something delicate out of his own chest. He knows how to get himself off fast, he does it all the time in the shower after missions (the ones that don’t end in death, just the rush of relief and exhilarated success). There’s enough precum already to make the slide of his fist produce a telltale slick sound, one he hopes isn’t audible through the glass but knowing his luck probably is.

Time moves around him, isolating him with the sound of his skin and panting breath. And yet it’s like the bar to finish is moving ever farther, his stomach dipping and whirling with pleasure and yet not nearly enough.  He feels like he’s been on the edge for hours but is still so far from the finish it makes him want to give up, even as he speeds his wrist up, twists his hand around the head of his cock and whines. As fast as he can, chasing the finish, so close his thighs are tensed with it, almost there, almost—

But he can’t reach it and he can’t keep that speed up for long, is forced to slow again as frustration seeps into him alongside the shame and desperation.  He is so full of emotion and tension and heat that it overflows, and he feels the first trickle of a tear break from the corner of his eye. Fuck. He tries to think of something, distract himself. Pictures disembodied features, then porn, then actual encounters and people he has been with, but he cannot concentrate, every image vanishing like smoke when he tries to call it forth.

This is pathetic. First, he’s like a fumbling teenager, now he’s like an old man who can’t even get himself off.  He glances guiltily up and sees that Chris has stood and turned away to keep a lookout on the rest of the lab, though his shoulders are so tense they are practically at his ears.

If only Chris could touch him. Hell, maybe Leon could just suck his cock, he knows that would do it for him. Letting Chris fuck his mouth, make him gag, Leon could get off on that. A mouth is mouth, Leon has sucked straight guys off before, and he’d let Chris be as rough as he wants. Leon’s mouth is watering at the thought of it.

Leon shakes his head violently and grunts. He tries speeding up again, but he can’t get there.  The tip of his cock is a furious reddish-purple, he’s so hard that he’s literally aching from it, but he cannot make himself come.  He slumps his forehead against the glass, blinking back bitter tears. The initial relief from touching himself is fading, his vision blurring and heat building dangerously and painfully again inside him. A wretched whine makes its way from his throat as he stares resentfully down at his own treacherous dick, cursing it and himself and Umbrella all in one.

“Fuck!” He slams his free hand on the glass in front of him out of pure frustration. 

Above him, Chris makes an aborted sound that draws his gaze up.  The other man is gazing down at him, face red with embarrassment but frowning in concern. Leon thinks he might have an idea what that concern is about, judging by the way his right eye is now twitching so forcefully it’s affecting his vision. 

“Are you okay?” Chris’ voice floats down over him, hesitant and awkward, which probably makes sense if Chris is as straight as Leon’s always assumed he is. 

“Sorry, I— I can’t. I’m trying,” Leon tries to explain, attempting to still the hand on his cock out of propriety now that Chris is watching him, but even that effort costs him. His jaw goes slightly slack and Chris swims out of focus. He feels like he is on fire. “I can’t, it hurts—” He breaks off on a pained moan and his body sways forward.

“Leon, hey, stay with me,” Chris orders, snapping his fingers twice to get Leon’s attention. “You can do this. It’s like a purge, right? Just get it out.”

Leon grits his teeth in resentment, his next words as angry as they are desperate. “I can’t, I just– I can’t!”  He starts jerking himself off again as if to demonstrate, too frustrated and spiteful to care any longer, glaring up at Chris as he does. He fully expects Chris to turn away in disgust or at least panic.

The problem is that Chris doesn’t look away, and his expression is so endearingly dismayed that it makes Leon forget his point until he’s sort of just gazing reverently up at Chris as he strokes himself, ire forgotten. That neck… Leon wants to sink his teeth into it, into Chris, he wants to tear at him, rip him apart and ruin him for anyone else ever, he wants—

His voice comes out in a miserable whisper before he can stop it, “Chris, please…”

He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for! He was the one who insisted Chris not break the glass and even if it were open, what then? He just expects Chris to, what? Let Leon suck his dick? Fuck him out of pity?  He really is pathetic.

“Leon, c’mon man, don’t give up. The doc’s going to be here in under twenty. What do you need?”

Time has gone strange, but twenty minutes is definitely too far out at the rate he is deteriorating. Leon shakes his head, defeated and resigned. He isn’t jerking off anymore so much as cradling his erection, squeezing like it will alleviate the aching, searing heat from it. The air feels like it is sticking to his skin, smothering him.

“You can do this,” Chris insists, his voice low but increasingly urgent and strained. “Just… keep touching yourself, okay?”

Those last words slide molten down Leon’s spine and make him shudder, hard. Unfortunately, Chris notices the reaction and appears to draw exactly the conclusion Leon was hoping to avoid.

“Would…” Chris pauses, licks his lips. “Would that help?” he asks tentatively. “If I… talk to you?”

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Is Chris offering to talk dirty to him? His traitorous dick twitches at the thought, and Leon’s long-submerged infatuation with Chris simply cannot handle this. Half a lifetime spent hiding this specific secret from Chris (how deeply Leon admires him, how much he craves his attention) and Leon does not relish the thought of losing that battle of self-control now.

“Talk.” Leon meant it to be a question, but it comes out pleading instead.

Chris blows out a heavy breath. “Okay,” he says, then nods decisively, “Okay, I can do that.” He crouches to one knee, putting them level. As terrified as Leon is of where this is going, he can’t bring himself to pull away or even blink.

When Chris speaks again, his voice is low and intimate. “It’s going to be okay, Leon, I promise. Keep touching yourself, come on. Good, that’s great. Wrap your fist around, just like that, that’s… that’s good.” The words are awkward but brimming with conviction all the same. 

Leon moans involuntarily at the clumsy praise, somehow managing to flush even harder through the tops of his ears. He stares at Chris like the other man has gone insane. He watches Chris swallow, wet his lips, and gets so distracted by Chris’ mouth that he tunes in a bit late to whatever Chris is saying next.

“—so well. Slow down a bit, try slowing down? Slow, slower, all the way down.”

Leon tries his best to obey the command, slows his fist as much as he can bear and brings his grip all the way down to the base of his cock before sliding back up.  Chris nods at him and smiles slightly when he does as he’s told, seeming genuinely pleased.  Leon has officially lost the plot now. Regardless, it is working. Leon is trembling with desire, but the angry frustration is gone, replaced with eager pleasure.

“Bring your hand back up, slow and smooth, that’s it. Rub your thumb over the tip, rub your thumb-- good, now do that again. Like that, yeah. “

Leon stops thinking and gives over to doing as he is told, moaning wantonly.  He lets Chris’ words guide his hand, speeding up when instructed, twisting his hand, squeezing and then softening to the lightest touch. When Chris tells him to press his thumb against his slit, it’s so good it hurts, and his next moan comes out a ragged, injured sound, morphing into a hitched sob.  The sound snaps Chris’ gaze to Leon’s face immediately, that worry back along his brow when he sees the tears on Leon’s cheek.

“You okay?”

Leon nods frantically. “Yeah, yes, good,” he pants breathlessly, terrified that Chris will stop, “Want it, want you, please.”

Something flashes in Chris’ eyes at the words. “Yeah? You want me? What does that mean?”

Leon shakes his head. “Please,” he begs, because words are too hard right now, the face of his desire is too large to comprehend. 

A pause, loaded and still.  When Chris speaks next, his voice is even lower and tinged with something almost possessive. “What, you want me pull your hands off your dick and replace them with mine? Is that it? You’ve got nice hands, Kennedy, but mine are bigger.”

Leon’s entire body quivers like a lightning rod waiting to be struck. 

“Imagine it’s my hand wrapped around your pretty cock instead. That what you want?”

Desire sweeps over him like a wave and Leon loses all his breath on a greedy moan. “Yes, oh fuck.”

“Yeah?  Would you even let me stroke you, or would you be so eager you’d start fucking into my fist before I even got the chance?”

Leon imitates the words by fucking his own fist, rolling his hips forward to push his cock through the tight ring of his fingers and wishing it were Chris’ hand instead. This, this is what he wanted, this is what he needs, Chris’ voice breathing fantasies to life in Leon’s imagination, overwhelming him. His eyes keep flickering shut before he remembers to open them again.

“Like that, yeah. Jesus, the way you move is so gorgeous, it’s so distracting all the time,” Chris mutters. He shifts slightly – Leon can see the hand not on his rifle flex restlessly, forming a fist and then loosening deliberately. It’s an apprehensive motion, but Chris continues talking, low and smooth. “Should I just let you fuck my hand? Maybe use my other hand to hold yours behind your back so you can’t touch, make your hips do all the work. Fuck, like that, look at you.” Chris’ voice has gone rough, and it rasps across Leon’s fragile nerves, almost too intense to bear.

“What if I put my mouth on you, too? Kiss down your neck, drag my teeth across your chest.  Are you sensitive there? I can see your nipples through your shirt now – what kind of noise would you make if I lick them? Bite them?”

Leon’s cheeks burn, but he draws his free hand up to swipe across his left nipple and gives a shattered sound of pleasure, curling into the stimulation.

“You like that, huh?  How long would it take until they are raw, and you beg for more? What then? Would you let me put you on your back and suck you off?”

Leon’s eyes are closed again, but he’s nodding rapidly, hand striping his cock faster now, mouth slack and gasping.

“Maybe while I suck your pretty cock, I put my fingers inside you at the same time. You want that, want me to fuck you?  I’d go nice and slow; your ass is perfect and I’d want to take my time, get you writhing between my hands and my mouth. I’d hold you open on my fingers, until you were begging me to fuck you.”

Leon is panting harshly, little half-formed words making their way out, “Yes, fuck, please do it, please, I need it, please—"

“I’d give it to you, Leon, don’t worry. I’d fuck you good and hard, split that perfect ass open on my cock. Lay you out and make you take it; make you feel so good. I’d fuck you until your legs are shaking.”

Leon’s eyes are closed but his mouth is open, his whole body trembling helplessly with how close he is to coming, how viscerally he wants the things Chris is saying, how badly he needs it.

“God, your legs, your legs are incredible, I bet I could put them over my shoulders and bend you in half. Fuck you so deep, fill you up like you need.”

The things Chris describes are obscene, and regardless of whether they are true desires or why, it might be the hottest thing that has ever happened to Leon. It certainly feels like it, when Chris says, “I’d make it so good for you, I’d make you come again and again on my cock, Leon, please, fuck, c’mon baby, please come, come for me—”

It is Chris begging him to come that shoves Leon over the edge, finally. For an instant, his stomach drops like he’s jumped off a literal cliff – and then his climax hits him like a tsunami, devastating and ruinous. He comes so hard it spatters across the glass wall in front of him, all his muscles drawn tight, his thighs quaking. It keeps going and going, rolling through him like no orgasm he’s ever had before, twisting him up and wringing him out; he has no idea what sounds he is making. He feels emptied out, like there was a hook behind his belly button that’s just been wrenched free.

When he finally focuses, his face is resting against the wall and the glass is fogging with his ragged panting. There is a frankly alarming amount of his cum on the glass and dripping from his hand to the floor, and he steadfastly ignores the shivery twist in his stomach at seeing it, brutally squashes the flash of desire to lick it off. 

He does not have time to really process what has happened, never mind say anything, before a bell rings out in the lab. The glass wall shifts abruptly and reverses course, sinking down toward the floor once again. The robotic female voice is back declaring, “Containment Area Bravo-Seven Disabled. Please stand clear.” Leon doesn’t know if it was on a timer or what, but he lets himself believe that the risk of that gas activating or contaminating the area is gone. He settles back on his heels and watches the barrier sink away, disappearing into the metal floor.

Leon feels wrecked, shaky like he does after a long mission on no rest and too much adrenaline. The fevered heat from before seems to have left, expelled with his orgasm. Without the burning in his blood, he feels very cold suddenly, and when his first instinct is to reach to Chris for warmth, he knows he is not 100% mentally in control yet, either. His right hand is drenched in semen, and he is still knelt on the floor with his pants open.  Seeing the cum on his hand turns his stomach, but he manages to throw up a mental blockade against the full mortification of it all for now, falling back into the cold analysis of mission mode.

He really hopes whatever shit he was dosed with was a drug and not a virus. DSO is going to quarantine him regardless, but if he has to go through that again… Not to mention the risk of being contagious. None of it sounds like a good time.

He starts tucking his dick away, rubbing his soiled hand disgustedly on his jeans – they are a mess anyway, covered in plant-monster goo, sweat, blood and cum.

A touch to his shoulder startles him badly, but it’s just Chris. “Sorry about this,” Chris mutters, throwing an arm around Leon and lifting him bodily, pulling him forward. It takes a moment for Leon realize that Chris is removing him from the area of the glass cell before it activates again – he’s too distracted by the heat of Chris’ arm wrapped across his back and his hand pressed hotly to Leon’s side. Eventually Leon does get with the program. He attempts to make his feet work and resists the urge to just sink all his weight against Chris and let the man carry him. He also fights the residual impulse to turn his head and drag his teeth over Chris’ stubble.

Once they clear the perimeter, stepping over the lip in the floor where the wall emerged, Chris settles Leon sitting against the side of the computer terminal and then immediately removes himself from Leon’s space, practically leaping away. Leon tries not to interpret that as a bad omen and utterly fails. Well fuck; seems like things are going to get weird sooner than he’d thought. He is almost (almost) too exhausted to worry about the fact that he may have ruined whatever personal relationship he and Chris have managed to cobble together over the years – and possibly their working relationship as well. While Chris has his back turned briefly to make sure the room is still clear, Leon shifts his pants back into place. He closes his eyes, exhaling slowly.

“Agent Kennedy, status?”

Ouch. Back to formal that fast, huh? And not that – Chris usually just calls him Leon, even in the field, the unprofessional amiable bastard. Calling him “Agent Kennedy” is purposefully distanced language.

“Very formal for a guy who had so much to say about my ass a minute ago,” Leon says, head back, eyes still closed. No one ever said Leon couldn’t be an intractable fuck when he set his mind to it.

Chris shifts audibly and says warningly, “Leon…”

What is Leon supposed to think? For so long, a truly pathetic number of years really, he had thought Chris was straight (or, in his darker moments, at least not interested in a sad sack like Leon, no matter how pretty). Then Chris spent the last several minutes spewing filth at Leon, revealing in doing so that he’s had a lot of time to think about it. And now he wants to act like nothing happened?

Leon’s head throbs mutinously and he sighs.

“Better than I was: not burning up, and my brain’s working enough to talk – regrettably for everyone else, I’m sure. Tired.” He chuckles softly. “Though that’s pretty normal.” Normal for a mission, normal for having just come, normal for his whole life, pretty much.  Leon is always tired these days.

Chris exhales, nods. “How’s your heart-rate?” 

Feels like it’s slowed but might as well check. Leon brings his fingers under his jaw and presses to his pulse point, glancing down at his watch to count. He hums. “Bit fast for just sitting here, but I’m not going into cardiac arrest.”

He looks up and meets Chris’ gaze deliberately. “So, what do we do now, Captain Redfield?” Watching Chris flinch on the title feels like a victory.

“DC found your files from other terminal. Once they get the door open, we’re taking you to medical to figure out what these Umbrella knockoffs gave you, and the Bravo squad can take point clearing the rest.”

That was fast, but Leon isn’t about to say no to a lucky break right now. “They barely even need us anymore these days, do they?” Leon says lightly, hoping it will needle Chris and gratified when Chris frowns at him.

But he can’t hold on this stalemate of distraction for long. If they want to obfuscate Chris’ involvement in this situation, they need to get their stories straight now, before anyone else shows up. Leon doesn’t make a habit of lying in his reports, but he understands if Chris Redfield doesn’t want a permanent record of him saying explicitly gay shit on file with the United States government – and Leon knows a thing or two about blackmail. It’s not an important detail, anyway. Even if researchers need to investigate whatever that red shit was, no one needs to know Leon couldn’t get himself off without help (and if they do, he can always say he just stared at Chris’ terrific ass). But he needs to make sure Chris understands all this now, so they don’t have conflicting reports.

“Look, Chris—” he starts, but Chris speaks at the same time.

“Leon, you shouldn’t—"

They both stop. Chris gestures Leon to go first, but he looks incredibly tense and unhappy.

Leon continues anyway. “I was going to say that I’m sorry. About how this… situation… went down.” He stumbles slightly on how to phrase it, but powers through, “I want you to know that I don’t need to put any of what was said into my official report if— “

“Christ, Leon,” Chris cuts him off. He sounds livid. Not the reaction Leon was expecting, exactly.

Maybe Chris was operating under the assumption that it was already understood they would never be mentioning this again to anyone ever, and Leon’s already fucked that up by even asking.  Or maybe he really is angry at Leon for needing Chris like that in the first place, for forcing him confront whatever thoughts he apparently has about Leon’s ass or whatever.  Military types are weird like that.

Leon looks down, feeling off balance. “Okay. Look, I won’t put it in my report. I’m sorry, that’s the best I can do. I can’t make it un-happen,” he stresses, “but I’ll forget it. We never have to talk about this again.” He’ll still think about it, but Chris absolutely does not need to know that.

“Leon,” Chris begins slowly, and Leon braces himself. “You can put whatever in your report that you need to. I’m not worried about your report.”

Leon glances up at him, surprised.

“I’m not worried about my job, or my reputation, or… my fucking sexuality, or whatever the fuck you seem to think the problem is here.”

Leon’s head aches and he’s too tired to be anything but confused right now. “So, the problem is…” Leon prompts, because there obviously is something.

“So, the problem,” Chris bursts out, “is that you were just sexually assaulted by Umbrella and then by me!”

This proclamation sends Leon reeling; he feels like he’s getting some kind of emotional whiplash. Sexually assaulted? As much as he certainly would not have chosen this experience, that seems a bit extreme. And Chris seems to think he had done something to Leon personally.

“Is that what happened?” Leon asks, out loud, because he’s still thinking too slowly.

“I don’t know, Leon, it sure feels like it is!” Chris shouts, so loud it echoes, worsening the ache in Leon’s head.

It just doesn’t make sense. Chris didn’t make this happen, he didn’t shove Leon into that glass tank and trigger it. Hell – he hadn’t even touched Leon, has been going out of his way to avoid touching him. He had only done what he could to aid Leon from an active threat, what Leon had practically begged him for. If whatever nameless Umbrella scientists had forced this situation on Leon, they’d forced it on Chris just as much.

“Okay. If that’s what it feels like, could that mean you were sexually assaulted too?” Leon says carefully.

Chris seems to genuinely think it over, though he is not even looking at Leon anymore, facing entirely away as if Leon can’t clearly see the tension evident in his entire body.

Eventually Chris mutters, “It’s not the same.”

“Why not?” Leon throws back immediately. “Why is it different? Because I’m the type of guy who takes it up the ass anyway? And you’re not?”

Chris’ shoulders hitch even higher, but he does not turn. “Don’t—”

“Of course, not the BSAA’s Golden Boy, oh no. Can’t have the poster boy being a queer,” Leon spits.  He’s being unfair and deliberately cruel, trying to provoke Chris into lashing out if it will get him a reaction, an explanation, something. Something to ease the festering hurt inside his chest. “And you, you’re the consummate leader. Captain Chris Redfield, in charge of making hard choices, so of course you should have made the choice to let my brain drip out my ears instead of losing your honor— “

Chris’ answering shout startles him silent. “Because I liked it, Leon!”

The words hang in the air for a heavy moment before Chris continues, voice thick, “I liked seeing you like that, I liked you needing me and… wanting me. In the moment, I enjoyed it, and I wasn’t drugged or infected or pressured into it. You could have been fucking dying, and you needed me, and I fucking got off on it! Is that what you want to hear?”

Leon wants off this rollercoaster of emotions, actually. He can’t take this. And Chris is still talking.

“It was beyond inappropriate. And I’m so fucking sorry, but I still did it.” Chris draws a deep breath but doesn’t turn around. “So, you should put it in your report. Put it all in and let them court martial me. I deserve it.”

This revelation that Chris wants him, enough that he thinks he took advantage of Leon is a lot to absorb. And on top of that, Chris’ blind sense of justice, thinking he deserves to be punished for… for what? For helping Leon and not absolutely hating every single second of it? Is that what he thinks Leon wants?

Leon lets out a long, heavy breath. “Jesus Christ, Redfield. You really are a drama queen.”  He watches Chris tense visibly at his words and decides, fuck it. Not like this situation can get much worse. “You know, you’re really making me rethink whether I want to sleep with you some time when I’m not potentially dying, if you’re going to make such a big deal over it.”

He regrets saying it almost immediately. It’s both revealing too much and not enough – Leon doesn’t just want to fuck Chris. He wants to make him breakfast and watch the news and be held by him when he has night terrors. He wants to go to the Redfield cookouts and sit on Chris’ lap as a joke but refuse to move because he secretly likes being bundled close against his chest. There are things Leon wants from Chris that are disgustingly domestic and embarrassingly nonsexual. Of course, he also wants to ride the man’s dick until he cries, but that’s practically a given.

Chris doesn’t say anything at first, Leon’s confession flat in the space between them as Chris turns very slowly back to face him.

“What.”

Leon shrugs, trying to play it off like it could be a joke if Chris wants it to be.  “What, I’m the only one allowed to get off in this situation? I’m the one who actually got to come, figured you might want a turn.”

Chris grits his teeth. “Leon.”

Leon just shrugs again and settles against the terminal at his back, closing his eyes and tipping his head back like he’s about to take a nap in the sun.  “Never said I wasn’t fucked up. Besides, it’s not like I’ve never thought about it before.”  If he’s going to bare his soul.

Before Chris can respond to that, Nadia’s voice chimes through his comm unit, informing him the team will be through the door in under 10 minutes.

Leon listens as Chris tells his team where they are, that they encountered active BOWs in the area, and that yes, Leon can walk if medical clears it. Leon rolls his eyes but lets him finish the communication is peace.

When Chris disconnects, silence stretches between them, thick with tension. Leon has never been great with silence. 

“Look, I’d tell you to kiss me if I wasn’t afraid of transmitting a killer virus to you.”

“Leon.” It’s all Chris says, and he sounds breathless and confused.

“Chris,” Leon replies, half-mocking, but Chris just keeps staring at him. “Listen. If I don’t die and if the BSAA or DSO don’t keep me quarantined for the next fifty years… we should get dinner. Like a date, I mean.” Saying it makes him feel slightly frantic, the fear of a rejection at this stage somehow the most frightening prospect of the last hour.

Chris is staring at him incredulously. “A date?”

“Yeah, old man, a date, you’ve heard of it?” Leon smirks at him.

“You’re serious?”

Leon nods, slowly, like Chris is an idiot.

“Shit. Fuck, I mean yes, yeah. Yes, I’d like that, we should… do that,” Chris finishes lamely.

Leon laughs for real at Chris’ fumbling, feeling lighter than he has in a long, long time. “Okay, good. We can figure out the rest when I get out of whatever sealed tent DSO is going to keep me in for the foreseeable future.”

Chris smiles tentatively, and then suddenly he is laughing too, high and slightly hysterical. “Jesus. What a day.” He rubs the back of his head and grins sheepishly at Leon. Leon’s heart skips a beat, helplessly endeared.

“You said it. But seriously, we do need to figure out our story for the report, like, now.”

It is only later, scrubbing his skin raw in the antiseptic shower while a genderless figure in a hazmat suit watches dispassionately from the side, that Leon realizes they are going to need an explanation for Claire as well.