mychoombatheroomba

[mychoombatheroomba]

Hunter and Hunted

Disavowed (Krauser x GN! Reader/Krauser x Leon) - Chapter 3

2002

Krauser learns why Leon was sent to Mixcóatl, and danger makes itself apparent.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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June 29th, 2002

11:01 

Mixcóatl, Amazon Rainforest

“What the hell are you doing here?” That was really the only question that mattered. Krauser asked it as soon as he and Leon righted themselves, as soon as they realized they could maybe take a moment. Krauser knew better than anyone that the jungle was just as much a death trap as the village nearby, but still, he needed to know. He needed to know why he was staring at Leon fucking Kennedy of all people, why he’d arrived minutes after Jack had been forced to kill the last of his men. He would know.

Any clever remark was drowned in the tide of confusion that washed over Leon’s face, and Krauser was given another question in place of an answer as the shorter man took up his fallen pistol. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” 

It wasn’t the first time the rookie had said something that pissed Krauser off, though this time, admittedly, it was through no fault of his own. No, rather, it was the fact that he was even asking that set fire to Krauser’s heart. Had they - that ever-present and all-powerful they - dropped this man in the jungle in hostile territory without telling him what he’d be facing? What had killed the men he was being sent to reinforce? 

Or had they not told Leon of Krauser’s presence for another reason? 

“They didn’t say I was here?” The Major felt like he was only now realizing the extent of the trap they’d set for him. “They didn’t tell you about the whole fucking team they sent down here?” 

That confusion only rose, enough to drown any other emotion on Leon’s, but it was gone in a moment. Something else took its place then, a far cry from the bright-eyed rookie Krauser had been saddled with training, once. This expression . . . it was a grim acceptance. One highlighted by dark circles framing those once-bright eyes. “No,” he shook his head. “No, they didn’t.”  

Krauser’s own eyes narrowed, and he fought back the urge to snarl. To rage at nothing and everything and tear the whole world apart.  

Leon wasn’t here to reinforce him. He was never meant to find Krauser in the first place. No one was. 

All at once, Krauser’s suspicions were confirmed, the nightmare he’d feared becoming reality. 

He’d been cast aside. He and nine other men and women. Not just ignored but brushed under the rug completely. They hadn’t said that he and his team were there in Mixcóatl because they didn’t want them found. 

“You weren’t sent here alone?” Leon asked, dread weighing down his words. 

Krauser’s own words tasted of bile. “No. There were ten of us.” Ten people who had been sent here to die. 

Leon didn’t need to be told that Krauser was all that remained. That much was clear from his expression. 

No time to mourn. Not now. Mourning wouldn’t put Javier Hidalgo in the ground.

“So what did they tell you?” Krauser asked, 

The younger man’s full lips pressed tightly together, his eyes wavering in focus for a moment under the heat of Krauser’s stare. “That Javier Hidalgo was in possession of bioweapons,” he began, “and that someone from Umbrella was his supplier. I’m supposed to confirm that and bring the Umbrella contact in alive for questioning.” 

Krauser finally understood what people meant when they talked about having the rug pulled out from under them. The whole world seemed to be tilting as Leon spoke, skewing to some awful new perspective. One that Leon was heralding to him. Ever the man to make Krauser’s world just a little darker, wasn’t he? 

No, that wasn’t fair. Krauser could almost hear your voice in his mind reminding him of that. There were many people to blame in this, and Leon Kennedy wasn’t one of them. 

Didn’t help, though, that he hadn’t even been sent to kill the man who’d caused all this carnage and destruction. 

They hadn’t sent Leon here for him, they’d sent him for someone else. Someone they wanted-

“Alive?” 

Leon nodded, even with the Major’s anger flaring in front of him . . .

He didn’t get the chance to speak whatever words were forming in his throat. Not when the crack of branches nearby made both men freeze. Krauser’s gaze turned towards the tree line, the shadows that he knew from experience could hold any horror imaginable. And he knew, even if he couldn’t see what it was, that they were being watched. 

Too much noise. 

They’d been making too much noise and-

Focus. He’d often berated Leon with that word, and now he was the one who needed to be reminded of it. They were in the shit now, they had to deal with it first and foremost. The anger could wait. It could simmer, or spark like a long fuse burning down towards something. That was all he could afford because it wasn’t just his safety he had to account for, now. For better or worse, Leon was with him. 

And regardless of how things had turned out, Krauser knew that you would never forgive him if Leon Kennedy’s name was added to the list weighing on his conscience. 

He knew that he’d never forgive himself, either. 

So, Krauser’s hand came up, forming signals that he’d taught the man in front of him, all those years ago. Signals any soldier should know. Freeze. Leon obeyed, the two of them scanning their surroundings. When no more noise followed, Krauser made more signals. Forward. Danger. And then one that Krauser and the STRATCOM recruits he’d trained had come to know well. Bioweapons. Leon didn’t miss a beat, because of course he didn’t. He just nodded, the grip on his pistol tightening. 

They moved through the foliage - Leon was quieter, now. Taking care to step where Krauser stepped, to silence his footfalls as best he could. He didn’t need to be told of the danger. Few in the world understood it better. 

Even so, Krauser found himself wanting to look back more than he should, feeling like the jungle was pressing in around them, its sounds hiding any and all number of threats. 

They needed to get out, and there was only one place that Krauser could think to go; the village that he and his men had made their way towards when they first arrived. The same one they’d only barely reached, before the nightmare had begun. The one they’d been routed from, driven deeper into the jungle.

And in that jungle, they’d been torn apart. 

No, the village was the best bet, overrun or not. He and Leon just had to get there alive. 

Alive. 

They wanted the Umbrella scientist alive. 

They wanted Javier alive. Or at least weren’t targeting him anymore. 

And they’d left Krauser and his men for dead. 

You’re an asset to them. Hadn’t he told Leon that, once? And now-

Focus. 

He had to forge that anger into something useful. He’d done it before. He’d trained his entire life to learn to do it. Compartmentalize. Lock it away. Forget their faces because if he didn’t, another would be on his conscience. It didn’t matter if he was being burned up from the inside. It didn’t matter if he hadn’t slept or eaten or taken more than a few moments of rest. 

He had to do this. He needed to do this. 

He needed to get out of this jungle. To find Javier. To make him pay. To keep Leon-

Another distant crack, this one resounding through the trees like the distant thunder of an impending storm.

Krauser looked back just in time to see the forest move. 

His knife was drawn, and his gun aimed in an instant because he knew an instant might be all they had. Leon did the same, ducking out of the way as something flew from the tree line. In a flutter of wings, the birds cut through the thick air, flitting past Leon’s head in a panic. 

Mercifully, there were no talons to sink into flesh, no razor beaks to tear at skin. Only animals taking flight. 

They weren’t the only ones. 

As the two pressed on, more and more animals crossed their path. Monkeys swinging through the trees, more birds fleeing . . . all coming from the same direction. The same direction Krauser had come from himself, before he’d been forced to put Barnes down. 

The same direction the cracking of branches was coming from. 

They had to move. 

Get to the village. That was what they had to do. 

Krauser moved a little faster now, after hearing more noises from the trees. As he felt that undeniable weight of something being close to them. A presence lingering on the edges of his perception, one that made him grip his weapons tighter. 

Leon fell in closer, his presence at Krauser’s back doing little to calm the Major’s nerves. Two sets of eyes were better than one, but two lives to safeguard . . . 

Another snapping of branches. 

That noise was getting further away from the sound of it. Still, Krauser didn’t let himself hope for the best. 

How could he, when only a few minutes later he found himself stopping in his tracks? 

Leon fell in at his side, those blue eyes going wide as the two beheld the warning written into the forest before them; a great swath of the jungle in front of them, maybe three or four feet wide and so long it disappeared into the trees on either side of them, was flattened, leaves and branches crushed into the mud. The path of the indentation curved and twisted like the bends of a river, carving a shallow ditch into the damp ground. Krauser’s brow pinched tight, his mind already coming to a terrible conclusion about what could have carved its signature into the earth like this. 

That was when he realized, with his belly going cold, that the noise of the forest had stopped. Not just the snapping of wood, but the birds, the calls of other animals . . . all of it had given way to a terrible, still silence. 

Krauser’s jaw tightened, his body feeling that familiar tension of getting ready for a fight, because after days of this, he knew that was what was coming. He’d been sent into this rainforest as a hunter, but now he was little more than prey. Him and Leon both. So, he looked to his side, to where Leon stood, just as tense. Just as ready for anything - his eyes sharp and his mind focused in a way that Krauser himself had honed in him. He didn’t look the part of the rookie anymore.

It made for a peculiar picture as orange flitted down from the sky on gentle wings. 

The butterfly did nothing to disturb the silence as it fluttered past Krauser and towards Leon. It wasn’t bothered by the two men, both of them perfectly still, and flew around, landing on Leon’s shoulder opposite the Major. There it fluttered its wings once. Twice. Like the flashing of lights in warning. 

And Krauser’s eyes widened as movement of another sort shifted in the shadows of the trees. 

There was a hiss, a final crack of wood splintering, and then death sprung at them with too-wide open jaws.

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A/N: Had to include the butterfly from the original story, as well as a little spin on the snake 😁

#jack krauser #jack krauser x reader #metaltango #jack krauser x leon kennedy #angst #resident evil #gender neutral reader #operation javier #between the bones #disavowed

[mychoombatheroomba]

For the Fallen

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 41

You and Leon spend the holiday together and come to an agreement.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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When the plans to study had been thrown out the window by your own hand, part of you had resigned yourself to a solemn remembrance. Fitting for the day, after all. One meant to commemorate the fallen. You weren’t sure what to do to honor them - the names in that report stashed under your mattress. The ones stamped above empty boxes in a graveyard you couldn’t bring yourself to visit. One of those names, still worn around your neck. A name that you wouldn’t be avenging any time soon, thanks to the broken bones in your side.

Just one of the dozens of names you were failing in your inaction.

You’d clutched that third dog tag in your hand as you sat alone in the infirmary, turning your music on loud and just letting yourself think, however foolish it was. You weren’t sure how else to honor the men and women whose stories you carried. So, even if it would just get you lost in a tempest, you’d begun to wade into the stormy waters. 

You hadn’t gotten very far before there was a knock on your door.

Then your plans were, once again, completely changed.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” Leon had said with a little smile when you opened that door to find him there. 

Even after he’d explained Valeria’s plan, you’d been antsy. Maybe because you doubted her ability to stall the two CIA agents all day, maybe because you didn’t like the idea of owing Valeria anything else. Either way, Leon made it clear that, if you wanted his company, he’d be there.

You almost refused him. 

There was a part of you that wanted to remember alone; to get lost in that storm. 

“You don’t have to,” you told him. “You should be writing back to your family.” 

Something crossed Leon’s eyes that you couldn’t identify, but the sincerity that followed was something you knew all too well from him. “That doesn’t mean that you have to be alone. If you don’t want to be.” 

He was giving you an out. Offering you the option of taking that time for yourself . . . but you didn’t know when you’d have another opportunity like this. You couldn’t be sure that you and Leon would be able to be together at all until the end of his training, if even then. 

The only problem was that it was today. 

It was today and even if you’d been allowed to go off base and mourn, to attend a service or even see their empty graves, you didn’t know that you would. Last year on Memorial Day, you’d been determined to remember them through service. You’d been training, then. Pushing yourself to never fail anyone like you’d failed them. What greater way of honoring them was there? This year, though, your own body had caged you from that option. You didn’t know how to honor your fallen.

“Not sure I’ll be good company today,” you warned Leon. 

He just shrugged, his expression becoming more knowing. Understanding. “Not sure I will be, either.” Because you weren’t the only one with fallen to remember. You felt insensitive for thinking only of yourself, then. Especially when Leon seemed to be thinking only of you. “But my company’s yours if you want it.” 

You hesitated a moment, your lips pressed tight together. 

“Did you finish writing your letters?” you asked, because you had seen the look on Leon’s face that morning. You’d seen how desperately he’d wanted to respond to the letters he’d received. 

Just as you could see now that writing those return letters was proving to be difficult. 

“No. Not yet. Not sure what to write, honestly.” 

You nodded, your mouth twisting as you made your decision. “Well . . . write them in here, then.” 

So, there the two of you sat, you on the bed, Leon in the chair and hunched over the nearby table, staring at a half-written letter. You had to promise him several times that it was alright for him to write it in your company before he actually got to finishing it. Or trying to, at least. You could see his mind rushing, trying to come up with the right words, his borrowed pen drumming against the table just as your fingers found their own beat against the metal of the tags around your neck. 

 “Sorry,” he eventually apologized. “I didn’t think this would take so long.” 

You could sympathize. You weren’t sure what you’d put in your letter home, if you were writing one. Though, it occurred to you, you didn't know if that’s where Leon was writing to. You assumed, with the slightly messy handwriting of the letters he’d brought with him, that he was writing to a kid. That only made the process more difficult, as far as you could tell. So, you shook your head, flipping to another radio station. “Don’t worry about it,” you told him. Then, after a moment spent looking down at Leon’s letters . . . “Little sister?” you asked, taking a guess. 

Leon’s smile came with a little laugh. “Sure, something like that.” 

Something like that?

“You don’t have a secret kid you haven’t told me about, do you?” 

A little hesitation and a strange look from Leon, and at once a look of horror crossed your face. One that made him laugh. 

“Not like that!” he reassured you, shaking his head, waving his hands in front of him. It was a moment before he collected his thoughts, and when he did, there was a sense of somberness to him. One you recognized all too well. It was a look that overtook him whenever he talked about that night, if fear didn’t get to him first. So, you weren’t surprised when he explained where he met the little girl in the letters. “She was in Raccoon City. Her parents . . . her parents died there. So when we made it out, I took care of her for a while.” 

That was . . . not that surprising, actually. Not when it came to Leon. He would offer to house some kid who had nowhere else to go, even after he’d been through so much.

“So . . . a secret kid that you never told me about.” You grinned a little as you spoke, letting him know you were teasing. You were sure that helped Leon’s own smile as he looked back at you. 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

“Why haven’t you mentioned her before?” you couldn’t help but ask, because clearly this girl meant a lot to Leon. 

 But then, you of all people knew what it was to keep your heart guarded, didn’t you? 

“I don’t know,” Leon admitted, his voice quieter. “I guess I just . . . didn’t know how. Not something that ever really came up in conversation.” 

Another nod as you looked down at the floor, then back up at the mystery that was your lover. You’d given each other so many pieces of yourselves, but still had so much else locked away. 

“What’s her name?” you asked.

Leon smiled as he answered. “Sherry.”

Sherry. Another name from his past. Another piece of who he was. 

Another name that had an unexpected weight for you, too. 

“She was Birkin’s daughter.” 

Your eyes widened, because that name brought on nothing but anger in you. “The scientist?” The man who had helped take everything from you, even indirectly. The bastard responsible for the destruction of Raccoon City. You remembered his correspondence with the CIA, demanding protection for him, yes, but his family too. 

Sherry. 

Leon nodded, solemn. “He almost killed his own kid.” 

You were full of anger and retribution - that had been all you’d known for so long before Leon. But even you didn’t have it in you to be angry at a child for the sins of her father. 

“Then it’s good she had you,” you told Leon, because you could see that Sherry, even if she wasn’t his own flesh and blood, meant a lot to him. That was all but confirmed in the grateful smile he gave you in return. One that turned more sad. 

“I wish I could have done more for her.”

Of course he did. Whatever good Leon did, you had the feeling it would never be enough for him. 

“Is that who they were asking about?” you couldn’t help but ask, and it was Leon’s turn for brief confusion. “Hellman. Back in the prison,” you said, and you felt bad that the color drained a little from his face at the mention of it. Still, you’d been curious since that day. “They asked about someone’s name. A girl. Was it her? Or Ada?” 

Leon’s lips tightened, and he shook his head. “No.” Neither. Interesting. “No, that was . . .” he hesitated, and you half expected him to say pass. It had been a while since you’d needed to use that system, but you’d imagined it may make a reappearance. 

Instead, you got a full answer. 

“They were asking about Claire,” Leon explained, his voice low like he was afraid someone might overhear. “I met her that night, too. On the way into Raccoon City. She’s the one who saved Sherry, but she was looking for her brother after everything, so I agreed to take Sherry while Claire went looking.” 

You nodded as you listened, this being the first you’d heard of this woman - another shadow Leon carried from that night, it seemed. 

“What’s she like? Sherry?” 

Leon looked surprised at the change in topic, but eventually smiled. “Smart. Maybe a little too smart for her own good, sometimes.” There was a fondness to his voice that melted your heart. “Persistent as hell, too. She really wanted me to get a dog for her. Almost convinced me, too.” He chuckled to himself at a memory you weren’t privy to, but his gaze slid down to the floor, the levity in his eyes fading a touch. “She’s tough, too. A lot tougher than me.” 

You nodded, because for a child to have lived through the hell of Raccoon City . . .

“She shouldn’t have had to live through that,” Leon said, after a moment. You could hear the utter regret in his voice, and you knew he was wishing he could have shielded her from it all better. Of course, you understood. You wouldn’t wish what you’d seen on anyone, especially not a child. Sherry shouldn’t have had to see what she’d seen, but-

“Neither should you.” 

Leon grimaced at your words, shaking his head. “None of us should have. None of this should have happened.” 

“But it did.” 

He nodded, looking down. “But it did,” he nodded, his eyes shifting from your face down - down to the clenched fist held just inches away from your heart, where you held your dog tags. It looked like he was gathering the courage to say something - and finding that courage didn’t take him as long as it once did. “Can I ask you something?” Even now, he was still too polite for his own good. 

“Sure.” You had a feeling you knew what that question was going to be before it even left Leon’s lips. 

You were proven right a second later. 

“You wear three tags,” he said, looking back up to your eyes. The observation cut deep and pinned you in place. “The third one . . . is it your Captain’s?” 

You knew you could refuse him an answer, just as you had for months whenever he asked about your past or the people in it. If you wanted, you could say one word and Leon would drop the subject, no questions asked. 

But you’d wanted him to know everything, hadn’t you? You’d promised him, back before Fort Benning and all the mess that followed, that you would tell him about the man whose name and fate you had literally tied around your own neck. The man you’d considered a father in a time when you’d needed one, and a man you’d failed. 

Leon deserved to know. So, you nodded. “It was.” 

“And what was his name?” His question mirrored your own in a way that made your heart squeeze. 

You answered with a tight voice because you hadn’t spoken his name out loud since you gave the report hidden only feet away from you. “Simon Reynolds.”  

A moment of silence passed between the two of you, one where you could see Leon debating something. Eventually, when he spoke up again, his voice was soft. “What was he like?”

What was Reynolds like? The question hit you like a bullet, because for over a year you had thought more of his death than the man himself. Grief and vengeance had blurred the image of him in your mind, making him into a catalyst instead of a person. It wasn’t what he deserved, so as Leon asked the question, you let yourself go back to another time. One where you were a shitty kid who thought the world was out to get you. And maybe it had been, in the end, but for a while, Captain Simon Reynolds had been there to guide that anger at the world into something else. Something that could do good instead of harm. 

“He was . . . firm. But never unfair. Kind of guy to tell you when you fucked up, but he wouldn’t hold it against you if you learned. Never made you feel bad about asking for help when you needed it.” You couldn’t help but smile at the memory of him, like you were seeing him, really seeing him, for the first time in ages. “Used to say ‘if you can’t run, you crawl, and if you can’t do that, then you find someone to carry you’.” 

Leon smiled at that, nodding like the words were taking root. You’d figured they would. “I think I would have liked him.” 

“You would have. He’d have loved you.” They would have been insufferable, you imagined, if there was a world where they could have met. If he could have met all of your second family. “They all would have.”

“Your old unit?” Leon asked, and you didn’t miss the hesitancy in his voice. He didn’t want to overstep, but he wanted to know. 

“Yeah.” 

“You’ve never talked about them much.” 

You took a breath, then, because that fact had been weighing on you and now was as good a time as any. So, with a little exhale as movement made pain flare in your ribs, you got up from the bed and reached under the mattress for the manila folder you’d hidden in the lining. Leon watched you with parted lips, right up until you found what you were looking for and handed him a collection of papers. “Good day to change that,” you told him, and his eyes widened as he read your name off the paper. 

“This is-” 

“Everything that happened that night. My report on it. Their stories.” The ones that had been barred from the rest of the world. “All of it.” 

The two of you looked at each other, then, Leon’s eyes widening as it sunk in just what you were telling him. You were ready. You wanted him to know, after months and months of hiding these deeper scars. 

“Krauser also gave me this,” you went on, handing him a second stack of papers. One with his own name printed in black. Leon’s eyes flashed in momentary fear, but you assuaged it quickly. “I didn’t read it.” 

The news made him tilt his head to the side a bit, and he looked between you and the report. “Why?” he asked, because you could have known everything. You could have seen into the wounds he’d been hiding, and that just made his confusion all the more ironic to you. Did he really think you’d do that to him? 

“Because you hadn’t told me yet,” you said simply. That was all it came down to. He hadn’t been ready to share those details, and you wouldn’t take that choice from him. Leon would tell you when he was ready. “I wanted to hear it from you.”

As he realized that, he smiled up at you, soft and sweet. It meant a great deal to him, you could see it in his eyes. Even as they took on a more knowing glint and he handed the reports back to you. 

“What makes you think I want anything different, then?” he asked, and your traitorous heart squeezed at the words. “If you want to tell me, if you’re ready, I want to hear it from you too.”

You took the papers, huffing and giving him a look. “Not gonna let me take the easy way out?” 

Leon just smiled back at you. “Nope. Unless you’d really rather I-” 

“No,” you shook your head, resolute as you braced yourself for what was to come. Because your comrades, your friends, your brothers and sisters, they deserved to have their stories told properly. Even if it was to someone they’d never met. “I want to. I want you to know. Just . . . it’s . . .” 

“Take it as slow as you need,” Leon told you, reaching for your hand. “God knows I’ll probably have to, too.” 

You looked down at him, searching his face. “That mean you’re ready too?” To tell you everything, all the details you’d only guessed at for months. To share the burden with you. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, looking a little sad. “Like you said, it’s a good day for it.” 

A day to remember the fallen - something you both had your fair share of. A day to mourn, and to try and move forward. So, with another deep breath, you nodded and decided to take a risk. You tugged on his hand, and without needing to be told, he rose and followed you the few steps to your bed. There, sitting on the edge, surrounded by letters and reports and soft music, the two of you looked at each other. It was a different kind of intimacy than what you’d already shared, different than the excitement of you kissing him in the darkness, of you sharing in stolen moments of pleasure. What you were about to share was deeper than that, and you both knew it. This was everything. This was who you had been and who you'd been reforged into. This was the scar you didn't dare to show to anyone, the bones that remained broken even as you tried to heal. One night that had destroyed you, one night that had destroyed him. Nights that, in some terrible way, had led you both right here, to each other.

So, you looked at each other, silently making sure you were both ready before, after a moment, Leon gave you a half smile. One of sadness and solidarity both. “So . . . who goes first?” 

As the two of you shared your stories, as you spoke of the nights that your lives forever changed, his hand never left yours. 

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A/N: Just a lil chapter, because hoooooo boy the next one is gonna be a beast. There will absolutely be heavy topics described and discussed, because it's Finland and Raccoon City time at long last baby!

Yes, Reynolds' quote (and name honestly) is a reference to Firefly, and anyone who hasn't seen that show should absolutely go watch it, it's really really good 🥲

#leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #resident evil x reader #resident evil 2 #resident evil 4 #resident evil #between the bones #gender neutral reader #leon kennedy x you #no y/n #jack krauser #sherry birkin

[mychoombatheroomba]

Letters From Home

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 40

The Major makes good on his promise.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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Boots against the dirt, heavy breathing, the chirping of crickets in concert with a distant buzzing . . . Leon and Krauser circled each other to a symphony that night. The cicadas were a few days early, by Leon’s understanding. They didn’t usually come out until June, if even then. They hadn’t wanted to wait for summer-proper, he supposed, so now that pulsing buzz of the insects rang in the air around them. Singing to greet the new world, earlier than expected. Leon could sympathize, but there would be no songs when he and the rest were forced into their own new world. So, as the cicada-song went on, he put the sound off to the side. Neither he nor Krauser were bothered by it; they were too busy looking for opportunity in each other. 

A moment to strike. 

Ice met sky as they locked eyes, both of their guards down. Waiting. Anticipating. 

“Don’t have all night, pretty boy.” The sounds of the insects weren't nearly as grating as Krauser’s insults. Two weeks of them, and Leon still found that the words got under his skin. Especially when the Major turned those barbed words towards you, or what Leon felt for you; what Krauser knew the two of you shared. “Know you’re used to sparring as foreplay, but-”

With that taunt, Leon’s patience wore out, and he swung his knife - held reversed in his left hand - towards Krauser’s face. He knew not to hold back when fighting the Major, and with his right hand freshly stitched, he didn’t want to risk undoing your work.

Or maybe he should, so he’d have an excuse to visit you alone again- 

Keep your head in the game. 

He reminded himself of that as Krauser leaned back to avoid the strike. A muscled arm came up, aiming an angled stab down at Leon’s now-vulnerable shoulder, and-

Fuck!

Leon blocked the attack narrowly, his arm shaking with the force of the Major’s blow as palm met wrist. The exchange that followed was just as break-neck as Leon had come to expect from the Major, and for all the shallow cuts and near-misses that Leon managed to earn, it didn’t matter when Krauser managed to kick the knife from the younger man’s hand.

“Looking to get your ass kicked one last time before the holiday?” the Major growled with an almost feral smile.

Leon knew that “holiday” was the right word, but still, Memorial Day had never felt like a holiday to him. A day dedicated to remembering the fallen didn’t seem like a holiday. Least of all now that he was faced with being one of those names remembered in future years. 

If anyone knew to mourn his death at all- 

Head in the game.

Krauser’s continuation of his insult made that easier to remember. “Do you just like getting the shit kicked out of you? That what made you like your Sergeant so much?”

“Guess not.” Leon said through clenched teeth, backing away as Krauser went after him again. “Cause I sure as hell don’t like you.” At least not right now.

“Oh, so the rookie has a little bite after all.” Krauser punctuated the statement with a slash to Leon’s face - one that he felt graze his nose as he barely backed away in time. It staggered him just enough that the kick that followed landed in full force. It hit Leon square in the chest, and he wondered briefly if he’d join you with broken ribs as he was sent crashing backwards. 

Another time he’d been sent to the ground, another time he had to get up. He did it fast enough to block the Major’s incoming blows, stopping himself from having what would have been a belly full of steel. Krauser’s free hand went for a punch that Leon blocked, and again he realized he was fucked because it was his strength versus Krauser’s. He strained with all his might as those pale blue eyes bored into his own. 

He felt Krauser’s unarmed hand slip free from his grasp. A callused palm against his face, trying to force his head to the side. Leon didn’t think. All he could think to do was lean his head back and around, his lips parting as his teeth bared in a snarl . . . 

And then he sunk those teeth into Krauser’s hand. 

It was the first time Leon had heard anything akin to a yelp from the Major - likely more from surprise than actual pain. If he - Leon - were a bioweapon, a zombie, then Krauser would have already lost. One bite would have been all it took. As it was, Leon grunted as the Major drove his knee into Leon’s gut, and he felt like he might be sick. Still, months of training, months of you doing the same brutal art with him, kept him up, even as his teeth came free of Krauser’s hand. 

He didn’t taste blood, but Leon grinned like he had. Krauser was good at turning attacks back on his opponents. Leon could at least do that with the Major’s words. “More than a little bite,” he said, breathing hard. 

And the taller man, after a moment of examining his hand, looked up at Leon with eyes that burned a hot-fire blue. 

And then the Major laughed. 

“Fighting dirty, rookie?” he smirked. “Good. Maybe you did pick something up from the Sergeant after all,” the older man mused, and Leon could hear something held back in his voice. What it was, he couldn’t say. 

“I picked up a lot of things,” Leon insisted, because it was true. Krauser had given him the skills, but you had honed them. 

“Like how to fake an injury to have an excuse to go to the med bay?” 

The accusation made Leon’s brow furrow. “Not all that fake. You want an up-close look at the stitches?” He asked Krauser, and the Major just scoffed, lowering his knife, signaling a definitive break in the sparring. 

“Heard your Sergeant already got one.”

Your Sergeant again, spoken with so much disdain. It made Leon’s frustrations strain against the cage he’d herded them into. His response was strained in turn. “That’s what happens when you stitch up a wound, yeah.”

“I warned you two-”

“Look,” Leon hissed, thoroughly done with this game. “If you’re gonna report it, report it. Stop dangling it over my head. I’m tired of it-” 

“Keep your fucking voice down.” Krauser’s words were spoken through bared teeth, and Leon felt his body tense as the Major stepped into his space. “You feel like testing me, rookie?” Krauser was bigger than him, even after the months of training had broadened Leon’s chest and shoulders. All of that, and still Leon would never be as tall as Krauser, and likely never as powerful, but it didn’t matter, at that moment. No matter how intimidating the Major wanted to be, he would never be the worst thing that Leon had been faced with. So, the younger man stood his ground. 

“I do,” he nodded, staring the Major down, feeling like he was David looking up at Goliath as he spoke a hard truth. “If you were gonna report us, you’d have done it already.” 

He knew it was a dumbass thing to do, speaking like that to a superior officer - let alone Krauser of all people. Still, Leon couldn’t find the reasonable fear in him to stop the words, because for all that Krauser had done that Leon hated, he’d shown time and time again that he cared. And so, even as Krauser’s nostrils flared in rage and his eyes sharpened, Leon felt sure of his words. 

He may have lost most fights against the Major, but as he watched Krauser clench his jaw, Leon knew that he’d won this one. 

“I won’t need to report it,” the Major snarled, “if you two keep going like this.” 

It wasn’t the best counterattack Krauser had ever used, and they both knew it. “Why don’t you let us worry about that?” 

Krauser frowned, blue eyes narrowing once more. He looked like he wanted to say something more, something that was eating at him. Whatever it was, Leon watched him lock away the conflict behind his eyes instead of unleashing those thoughts. “Doesn’t fuckin’ matter what I say, does it?” he asked, like he was realizing that it was a losing game for the first time. 

It may have been the first time Leon ever saw the Major accept a defeat. 

“No,” Leon shook his head, “it doesn’t.” 

Something flickered across Krauser’s face - a twitch of muscles that Leon doubted was under the Major’s control. He pursed his lips together and nodded once, looking off into the night towards where the cicadas were singing. It was many long moments before he spoke again, and when he did, Leon found that the Major had one last surprise in store for him, spoken in a low voice so only Leon could hear. “Then if you two have to keep being dumbasses and seeing each other, make sure you do it tomorrow. You’ve got people to remember and you’re both unbearable when you’re miserable alone.” 

Leon’s lips hung open, parted by surprise. He hadn’t been prepared for that one-eighty. Hell, he’d expected Krauser to knock him to the ground and scream in his face, not roll over and all but tell him to spend time with you. 

“I-”

“Guard up.” Krauser gave the order, letting Leon know the conversation was over with a swing at his head. One that might have knocked it clean off of Leon’s shoulders, if he hadn’t ducked in time. 

Whatever was going through the Major’s head, it made him sloppy. Even if he was armed and Leon’s knife still lay in the dirt a few feet away, Krauser was unbalanced. His attacks weren’t as precise as they once were, his reactions just a touch too slow. He was distracted. Enough so that this time, as Leon braced Krauser’s arm against his shoulder, as he turned and leveraged, the Major was pulled clean off his feet, in a move that you had performed on Leon a dozen times. One that left the young recruit in shock as Krauser’s back hit the dust. 

Disbelief wasn’t enough for Leon to hesitate, though, and he wrenched Krauser’s knife free of his hand, stabbing it downwards . . . 

And Leon’s eyes went wide when the blunted tip met Krauser’s chest. 

The two men stared at each other, like neither was quite sure how it had happened. Krauser recovered first, though, looking up at Leon with a creased brow. “Heart’s on the other side, rookie,” he pointed out, reaching up to guide Leon’s hand and the blade both where it belonged. “Remember that.” 

“Yes, sir.” Leon nodded as Krauser released his hand, feeling his nerves refusing to calm. The sounds of people approaching did nothing to help that as Leon offered a hand to Krauser, only to have it brushed aside. 

The Major’s mood only soured further when he and Leon looked up to find a pair of suit-bedecked CIA agents making their way towards them. 

“Son of a bitch,” Krauser muttered beneath his breath, and if Reed or Hellman overheard it, they didn’t show it. 

“Sorry to interrupt, Major,” Hellman said. “We were looking for Mr. Kennedy.” 

Leon stilled, the high of his victory plummeting because why would they be looking for me? 

“And it can’t wait?” Krauser grumbled, pushing himself to his full height so he could tower over the agents properly. 

Reed answered with that same monotonous voice as ever. “We’ll be brief.” Leon’s worry only grew . . . until Reed reached a hand forward - one holding . . . 

Oh my god . . .

The envelopes were opened, all of them, and Leon could see folded paper inside. Colorful ink. Handwriting that bordered on messy. 

And just like that, his heart was in his throat, choking him. 

“We already informed the other recruits,” Hellman went on, as Krauser eyed the two of them, like this was the first he was hearing of this as well, “but you will be allowed to receive and send letters from friends and family, as the Major requested. Any incoming letters or packages will be searched by Reed and myself, and any outgoing replies will need to be proof-read and approved by us as well.” 

Leon barely heard the words as he reached out, taking the letters from Reed, holding them like he wasn’t sure they were real. 

“Is all of that understood?” 

Leon just nodded dumbly, looking down at the envelopes now in his hand. “Yes,” he agreed without really thinking, because how could he think of anything other than the words staring up at him?

To: Leon

From: Sherry

He didn’t even really hear what the two agents said as they departed, because his heart was hammering so hard in his ears, just as when Hellman had presented one of the letters to him in that interrogation weeks prior. Only now, there was no rage. No fury. Whatever Leon felt now, it was too much. Too much because, after his “recruitment”, he’d never thought to see or hear from Sherry Birkin ever again. 

She was alright.

He hoped that she was alright. 

The answer to that hope lay in his hands, now, written across at least a dozen letters. 

A dozen. 

And he hadn’t known, hadn’t written back to her. Had she thought he was ignoring her? Fewer now, Hellman had said something like that. Fewer letters because why write them if there was no response? The guilt for something else that wasn’t his fault started to worm its way through him, and he had to rip his gaze away from the envelopes.

He found a pair of razor blue eyes fixed on him instead. Krauser’s gaze, for once, held no accusations. None that could compare to what the letters in his hands held. 

The Major studied Leon’s face - an expression that Leon knew must have been a mess of emotion. Emotion brought on because, once more, the Major had kept his promise. “You . . .”

“Told you I would, didn’t I?” Krauser scoffed, and Leon felt guilty for doubting him again. 

“Thank you.” The words didn’t do Leon’s gratitude justice, for this and so much else. Still, he had to go. Had to read through the words that had been withheld from him for so long before lights-out. 

Krauser seemed to know it too. With an exhale, the older man cocked his head to the side. “Go on, rookie. You’re dismissed.” 

Leon didn’t need to be told twice. 

⧫⧫⧫

Hi Leon!

The first few letters all started off like that. Leon read them under the yellow glow of a streetlight, shuffling through the letters one by one. Reading and rereading, feeling like a hand was snaking its way around his heart and squeezing. 

I hope you’re doing okay! They won’t tell me where you are. And I’m not supposed to say where I am, either. They say it’s for my own protection, but they said I could write to you! They even said they’d get me some of those movies we were going to watch! I know you wanted to watch Star Wars together, so I’ll wait to get to that one until you can come visit! 

Leon smiled at that - the kind of joy that made his bottom lip quiver because it was beset with something else. A deeper emotion that stopped real happiness from taking root. 

I’m feeling a lot better, another letter said. Are you? I forgot to ask last time, are you still hurt? I hope you’re feeling better.

Another stab of pain went through his heart, but at least he knew she was okay. As okay as she could be, at least. He took every bit of information that he could from the letters, flipping through them desperately, trying to put together a full picture of the child he’d given up everything for. 

I started reading this book I think you’d like-

Another letter.

I miss going to school, but they said it’s safer if I stay where I am-

And another.

I still get bad dreams sometimes. Do you? 

Another.

I miss having you around.

Another.

Are you okay? I haven’t gotten any letters-

They got shorter and shorter, until at last Leon reached the final one in the pile and his vision blurred. 

Hi Leon.

I hope you get this. I hope you can reply. Are you O.K.? Just a yes or no would be good, if you want to tell me. If you can. 

I hope you’re O.K.

Please write me back if you can. 

There were no more after that. None of the letters were dated, leaving Leon to guess how long it had been between that last letter and now. Weeks? Months? He didn’t know. Did Sherry think he was hurt? Or dead? Or did she just think that he was ignoring her? His mind was cruel to him, imagining the betrayal each unanswered letter must have started to feel like. To have Leon there, taking care of Sherry for those few months after Raccoon City, with him sharing silly jokes with her, trying (and mostly failing) to make them both dinner that wasn’t ramen, picking movies to watch or games to play . . . 

And then to have him say a rushed goodbye and not answer her letters . . .

He hadn’t realized he’d been shaking. Didn’t know that his breathing had been so heavy until that moment. 

He hadn’t even really realized he’d been crying until he looked down and saw some of the ink smudged on that last letter. Desperately, he dabbed at the paper with his shirt, trying to save the words. He hadn’t been able to save much of anything, though, had he? Not the people of Raccoon City, not the officers he was supposed to work with, not Ada . . . he couldn’t even save you from the pain you’d suffered on his behalf. Sherry was the one exception. The one thing he’d almost gotten right.

So he clung to the letters and, for the first time in months, alone in the lamplight, Leon let tears fall freely for all that had been taken from him. From Sherry. From you. From everyone that had been dragged into this mess. He allowed himself that, just as he’d allowed himself to fall for you because he needed it. He lamented in a way that he hadn’t been able to in so long, and he cried for what could have been. 

There were still a few hours before Memorial Day, but he supposed it wouldn’t matter if he mourned a little early. The cicadas had started their song before it was time, after all. He’d let himself do the same. 

⧫⧫⧫

The intention had been to study with you. That was what you and the others had agreed on. The meetup had been your idea - Leon was pretty sure you’d asked to do it as a group on everyone’s day off to keep your mind from the holiday and what it represented. To stave off the ghosts. It made him feel more than a little guilty when neither he nor anyone else was in a mood to focus on lock-picking or key phrases in different languages. Not when they all had letters from their loved ones, begging to be answered. 

You’d understood, but Leon hadn’t missed the emptiness in your eyes when you’d insisted that they all take the time to write letters home instead of study. 

“We can all write them together,” Williams offered, smiling. “It’ll be cute ‘n shit.” 

Your smile in response was forced, and Leon felt his heart sink somehow deeper into his chest at the expression. “You all go on ahead,” you said. “I’ll keep myself busy.” 

“You didn’t-” Alenko stopped himself, but Leon imagined he knew what the full sentence would have been. You didn’t get any letters. The soldier’s normally easygoing expression shifted to one of horror at his misstep, and then sympathy in the blink of an eye. “I’m sorry, I-” 

“It’s fine,” you reassured him. Even Leon almost believed you - it must have been a lie you had practice with. You’d never spoken of your family, or your life outside of the military. Leon wondered if there was anything left to speak of - if it would be another story about you with blanks to fill in. Whatever the case, you offered a reassuring look to Alenko and everyone else. “Write home. They’ll want to know you’re all doing okay.” 

It had been a while since you’d given the squad an order, but it was one they all followed. Still, Leon wasn’t about to disobey the other order that Krauser had given the night before and leave you alone. Not when he saw you fiddling with your dog tags already. 

Luckily, Leon wasn’t alone in his concern. That became abundantly clear when, of all people, Valeria pulled him aside. “Give me an hour or so,” she said, “and then go to the med bay. You’ve got a Sergeant to cheer up.” 

His eyes must have betrayed some confusion, because Valeria went on with more of that unnerving sincerity. Unnerving because, up until recently, Leon had never thought to hear it from her. 

“Look,” she began, her dark eyes shifting away from Leon’s as she gathered her thoughts. “I fucked up. I got you both into shit, and I wanna make it right. So I’m gonna help you two freaks out, okay?”

Leon’s lips parted, and he found himself stunned. Still, when the surprise wore off, it left behind only hope. “How are you even gonna pull this off?”

Valeria’s demeanor shifted, because now she had something to poke holes in. “Those CIA bitches want to proofread all our letters? Well, Dina and I got a lot of family to write home to. We can keep them busy for the rest of the day, if we happen to have to rewrite shit because it spilled too much info.” Leon was so caught up in the logistics of the plan Valeria came up with, he almost missed the name she slipped in - one he nearly didn’t recognize, because he never really heard Williams’ first name aloud. 

“Dina, huh?” he couldn’t help but ask, giving Valeria a smile. 

She only realized her slip up in the glint of his teasing look and rolled her eyes. “Whatever, blanquito. Trying to do you a solid, here-”

“And I appreciate it,” Leon insisted, his eyes finding hers, so she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. “I really do, Valeria. Seriously.” 

The short woman scrunched up her nose as she made a face, looking away again. “Yeah, well,” she shrugged, like the whole act of doing something nice made her uncomfortable. “You can return the favor someday.” 

And for his friends? Leon had every intention of doing just that. 

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#leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #resident evil x reader #resident evil 2 #resident evil 4 #resident evil #between the bones #gender neutral reader #leon kennedy x you #no y/n #jack krauser #sherry birkin

[mychoombatheroomba]

Fallout, I didn't need to simp for another morally questionable dilf with severe facial and psychological trauma, but here we are (thank you)

#fallout #fallout 2024 #the ghoul

[mychoombatheroomba]

Black-Out Names

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 39

You read through your contraband and Leon finds a way to spend time with you - in short, both of you continue to find new ways to break the rules.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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Chapter Index

Leon’s muscles aching, finishing the day with fresh bruises, getting knocked on his ass thanks to your and Krauser’s combined efforts, stealing glances at you when there was a lull in instruction . . . it was almost like old times. If what had only been a few months ago could be considered “old times”. 

Having you back after that first week was enough to brighten the worst days. 

Even if you couldn’t join the rest of the squad in marches, or combat drills, you were at least allowed now to sit in for Reed and Hellman’s lessons. Leon watched you throw yourself into the studies, unyielding in your desire to learn. To prepare in some way for what was out there. Every time the agents would go over knowledge of known bioweapons, your eyes would sharpen, your muscles tensing. And if your body couldn’t perform right now, you made every effort to make sure that your mind could. Even if it meant setting mock explosives up with Krauser every morning before drills - and sometimes while everyone was taking meals. Even if it resulted in tripwires being set up in annoyingly inconvenient places, you were doing a little better. You always worked best when you had a goal. A purpose. You wouldn’t fall completely behind, if you could help it. 

Leon did his best to follow suit, trying to work in time to practice new skills between nights sparring with the others, or getting his ass handed to him by Major Krauser - who still took to the task with fervor. The impending graduation made it easier to focus, but you . . . 

Maybe Krauser hadn’t been entirely wrong about you being a weakness, because it was hard not for Leon to look your way when he was in the classroom with you. It was hard not to let his thoughts drift to you during the day, wishing it was you that he locked blades with instead of Valeria or the others. 

With Hellman’s eyes on the two of you, though, he knew he couldn’t afford to be obvious. He couldn’t even afford to let a glance betray the two of you.  

Still, on those days when you weren’t helping Krauser set clever traps and you joined the others in the mess hall, he would sit at your side. You were friends, after all. Reed and Hellman knew that much. There was no harm in you two speaking, so long as it was in public. With others. Still, Leon would sometimes risk a self-indulgent touch; fingers brushing as he handed you water, his knee resting against yours under the table . . . 

He felt like he was in a goddamn old-timey movie. One of secret affairs and longing glances. Forbidden love. 

You would have hated that way of describing it, but Leon would have given just about anything to see your annoyance at the description. He could imagine the eye-roll you’d give him. You’d probably continue that eye roll as he kissed you, too, he could almost see it. 

He could almost see a lot of things, as he sought solace in the memory of your touches. 

It wasn’t enough. 

He’d gone a long time without your touch before, at Fort Benning, but now it was your company he craved, too. Desperately. With eight - and now seven - weeks on the clock, he wanted as much time with you as possible before he was shipped off to fight the horrors Reed and Hellman described to the others. The monsters that Leon, in ever-dwindling spare time, would describe to his squad mates, telling them how he fought and killed the nightmares. He wasn’t ready to face them again, and he wasn’t ready to leave you behind. 

So, he would seek opportunities to be with you. Reed and Hellman wanted him to learn spy shit? He could do that. He could find more ways to be around you that wouldn’t draw suspicion.

And he started that process mostly by accident. 

⧫⧫⧫

You had never been one to stay up late reading, even before joining the Army. Your youth had been spent in other ways, and if there was a late night to be had, it was often one involving being out and about in the world, finding ways to get in trouble. 

You hadn’t thought that your C.O. would so readily help you find that trouble. 

The reports weren’t supposed to be in your hands - that much was clear. Krauser would have just openly given them to you if they were something you were supposed to have. So, during the day and when you helped the Major with setting up more traps around the base, you kept them stashed away in the lining of the mattress you slept on. 

In the free hours of the night, though . . . you kept the light on and the blinds closed, and you did as Krauser ordered you to do; you read. 

Leon was the one trained to be a police officer. You’d been a grunt from the day you could put the uniform on, but still you found your mind making connections. You were an investigator, trying to understand just how everything had gone so wrong. Trying to tie together the events that had put you and Leon and so many others through such hell.  

It did your mind no favors, knowing that, whatever else was going on behind the scenes with Umbrella, all known records of anything bioweapon-related started on a date you knew all too well. 

January 29th, 1998. 

The night your life nearly ended and was forever changed. 

You didn’t reread the report. You were the one who made it, after all. You’d agonized over the details of that night enough. 

Total destruction . . .

Viral weaponry . . .

Unknown paramilitary group involvement . . .

One survivor . . .

The only thing of importance in that report was the date. The fact that everything else followed it, which exhumed an old guilt that had started to eat at you when you heard the reports of Raccoon City. Even if the government had wanted to cover up what happened there, you’d seen the news. Heard the reports of people gone mad, a strange sickness that made its victims violent. 

“She looked like a corpse. Like a walking corpse!” you’d heard on the radio, one day. You remembered. 

You’d known in your heart what it all was, before it had even been confirmed to you. And in those nights you spent reading and rereading, you found yourself filled with anger. You’d often thought that if you’d been faster or stronger or smarter on that night in January, then maybe there would have only been one report for you to read through now. You’d let your own guilt talk you into believing that you could have stopped what was to come. 

Now, though, reading a chain of communications from August, you realized that it was inevitable that it would end up this way, because the government that employed you had smelled blood and come running. 

𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝: (𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚎)

𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖: █.█.

𝙼𝚢 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚜 ███████ ██████, 𝚊 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚜𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙸’𝚖 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚝 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚔 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞. 𝙾𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔, 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚒𝚗 ███████ 𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛, 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝. 

𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 ███████ 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛, 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚗 𝚞𝚗𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚒𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚏𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎. 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚔, 𝚒𝚏 𝚋𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚡𝚢, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗. 

𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚒𝚝, 𝚒𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝. 

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚞𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚕 𝚊𝚝 █████ ████ 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚟𝚒𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 - 𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚟𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚟𝚘𝚕𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜. 𝙸𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚎𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚒𝚙𝚎 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗. 

𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚟𝚘𝚕𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚒𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 - 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚍 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚞𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙸𝚏 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚍, 𝚒𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚛𝚜, 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚒𝚏 𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚞𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚕𝚘𝚋𝚎. 

𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚘𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕 𝚌𝚘𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝙸 𝚊𝚜𝚔 𝚒𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗 𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢. 

𝙸𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍, 𝙸’𝚖 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚐𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎.

You’d read that part time and time again. You’d let ink on paper seed rage and retribution in your heart. Even blacked out, you knew the name of the scientist writing - Leon had told you and Krauser both all those nights ago. Birkin. A name for you to assign blame to, if not for the knife in your gut, then for the creation of the virus that destroyed your life. 

Trouble was, you didn’t have a name for whoever had been stupid enough to answer his call for help. Not with the letters blacked out, hidden from your view. 

𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝: 𝚁𝙴 (𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚎)

𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖: █.█.

𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚜, 𝙳𝚛. ██████. 𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝙸 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 . . . 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚛, 𝚑𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚘𝚕𝚍, 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚏 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚙. 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚄𝚖𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚊’𝚜 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝. 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚂 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎. 𝙺𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚞𝚜 𝚞𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜. 𝙸 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚞𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚜.

█████ ████

Not without something actionable . Reading that sentence was molten metal being poured into your gut. This wasn’t something the CIA agents had bothered to talk about. Nor would they, you imagined. Too damning. Too irredeemable. It left the taste of bile behind as you read confirmation of what Leon had already told you; the US had seen potential instead of tragedy from the destruction of your base. 

Whoever this blacked-out name was, they’d wanted a weapon and damn the consequences.

Damn the consequences, and damn the man who made that weapon, as you later discovered.

𝚂𝙴𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚁 𝟸𝟽𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟸:𝟶𝟶

𝚁𝚎𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙰𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝: █████ ████

𝚁𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢

█████ █████ 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚒𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚗 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚊𝚜 “█”. 𝙸𝚏 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚖 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝙳𝚘𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛 𝙱𝚒𝚛𝚔𝚒𝚗, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚗𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚖 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚣𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚟𝚒𝚛𝚞𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚜. 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚢.

And then, a few lines down . . .

𝚂𝙴𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚁 30𝚝𝚑, 01:𝟶𝟶

𝚁𝚎𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙰𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝: █████ ████

𝚁𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢

𝙰𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 █████ █████, 𝚠𝚎 𝚖𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚎. 𝚂𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚍 𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎. 𝚂𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍.

Shit had hit the fan and they’d left Birkin out to dry. Him and whoever had been sent into the city on a suicide mission. You couldn’t say you pitied the Doctor. In fact, you were glad that he was dead. Glad that, according to what little Leon had told you of that night, Birkin had been stripped of his humanity by his own creation, until Leon put him down at last.

As you read the reports, you sighed as you learned that no one - or, at least, no one in the reports you were handed - had walked away with the virus. The US had lost out on their dirty prize. And then they’d destroyed an entire city. 

All for Umbrella’s idiocy, hundreds of people had suffered. The man you cared for most in the world had suffered. 

You needed to know all there was to know.

So you’d stayed up night after night, reading and piecing together the story until Krauser would come and get you to set more traps. And when you returned, you would read into the waking hours or until exhaustion demanded rest, whichever came first. 

Even if you’d asked, in essence, to see those reports, they frustrated you. 

As if you weren’t already frustrated enough as it is with your situation. 

The only thing keeping you sane were your outings onto base. Going with Krauser at night to set the traps . . . and the few classes you were allowed to take with your squad. Seeing Leon again, even if it had to be in public settings, even if you couldn’t let yourself express what you wanted to express, was enough to keep you sane and make you teeter on the edge all at once. 

So you focused on reading. On the radio. On anything you could focus on. 

Like the little lockpicking set in your hands, one you twisted and turned, trying to get it to click open. 

Hellman had been nice enough to give you a few sets of locks to practice on - as if “nice” was an act you really bought from the man who’d waterboarded and beaten you. Maybe he felt bad that his friend broke your ribs. Reed sure as hell didn’t. The darker-eyed agent hadn’t really spoken more than a few words to you since the interrogations. That suited you well enough. Getting into a fistfight would be a bad idea in your condition. 

A really cathartic, bad idea . . .

The pins aligned, and the lock in your lap gave way, opening up to nothing at all but a slight feeling of satisfaction, somewhat familiar. You’d tried to learn in your youth. Helped to have actual instruction now, even if it was from men you hated.

“You’re goo’ a’at.” The observation was barely audible as Doc shoveled more pasta into his mouth. Penne with a red sauce. You were fairly certain that Krauser had asked the medic to watch and make sure you weren’t doing anything to aggravate your injuries. You were also fairly certain he was always eating homemade meals in the room just to torture you. 

Joke’s on you, old man. Been there, done that.

“Have to be. It’s all I really can do.” That might have been an over exaggeration, but there was enough truth there to warrant the statement.

It just made the grizzled man swallow and shrug. “You’re good at picking radio stations and frowning, too.” 

You wouldn’t have hesitated to tell a superior officer to fuck off, once. Not one who had started becoming less and less formal with you, anyway. Still, you held your retort but for a glower. 

Besides, footfalls and Doc’s attention being drawn elsewhere stole your chance for a reply. 

You couldn’t be mad at the theft when you looked up and saw who stepped into the room. 

Only Leon could look so gorgeous covered in mud and grime, his fatigues dirtied on the front and his arms covered in it too. Arms that were held up against his chest, one hand clasped over the other. It wasn’t a tight enough grip to prevent the blood from slipping down his muddied arm, though - a sight that made your eyes widen involuntarily. 

“What’d you do this time, rookie?” Doc asked, setting his lunch down and rising to his feet. 

Leon looked from the older man to you, and there was no evidence of real pain in his soft smile. “Ask that one. Unless you want to tell me someone else put a tripwire charge in barbed wire.” 

Ah, so he’d been the first one to run across the tripwire charge that you and Krauser had left there the night before. Well, more so the Major than you. The low hanging barbed wire set up to train for the infiltration course wasn’t something that you’d be crawling through any time soon - a fact that should have immediately cleared you of any blame for setting the charge there. Now, were you guilty of thinking of putting it there? That was another story.

Did you feel guilty for your little idea causing Leon to bleed? 

Also another story. 

“Come on,” Doc moved forward, ignoring the playful jab thrown at you. “Let’s see.” 

It was a nasty cut. Or maybe tear would be the better word. Deep and still gushing some blood on Leon’s right hand. Nothing incredibly serious, but for the mud Leon had been crawling through. “Krauser wanted me to go get it cleaned.” Your suspicion was confirmed with those words, and Leon once again looked between you and the Doc. 

“Better stitch it, too,” the Doc nodded, pulling the supplies he’d need as you were struck with a feeling of deja vu. It wasn’t so long ago you were stitching up Leon after the tear gas ambush, telling him that you wanted to talk about the kiss you’d shared. You’d been able to offer your services then and have it not be suspicious, so Doc would leave the room. You weren’t sure you could do that a second time without raising the man’s scraggly eyebrows. Luckily, though, as he searched through what he had available, you realized that you might not need to. “Come on . . .” he groaned. “Make yourself useful and clean it out, would you? My idiot assistants didn’t replace the thread.” A fact you were all too grateful for as Doc left to grab some and you and Leon were finally, mercifully, gifted your first few moments alone. 

Leon wasted no time, just as you knew he wouldn’t. 

“So,” he said, watching as you collected the supplies to clean his wound, “you gonna kiss it better?” 

It was stupid enough to stop your movements, and you just raised your eyes to meet Leon’s, unable to stand the cheeky grin he gave you. 

No, that was a bold-faced lie. You adored that look. 

Smug bastard knew it, too. 

“You been thinking of that one the whole walk over?” you asked, wiping away the grime carefully and then disinfecting the cut. It was bigger than you thought, now that you were getting a good look at it, a rip in the flesh between his thumb and pointer finger. “You know, you’re supposed to avoid the barbed wire.” 

Leon smiled, not even flinching this time around as you poured the disinfectant over the wound. “I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

And Krauser called you the smartass. 

“So you, what, decided to backhand it this time around?” 

“Wire had it coming,” Leon shrugged, but then after a deadpan from you, he shifted to a more serious tone. “I was trying to disarm the charge. I triggered it instead and pulled my hand away too fast.” 

That made you raise another incredulous look his way. The charges you and Krauser had been little more than firecrackers - a placeholder for the real thing. Still, you supposed that having your hand right next to an explosive of any kind when it went off wasn’t a good idea. Still . . .

“Think you were just looking for an excuse to end up in the infirmary.” Your voice was low, just in case the Doc came back. 

Leon just smiled and shrugged. “Believe whatever you want,” he said, blue eyes finding your own. Searching and savoring in a way that sent sparks through you. Was that all it took, now? Just him looking into your eyes, like you were some idiot teenager looking at their crush? 

It would be so easy to close the distance between you. A quick journey that you so desperately wanted to take. 

But as you heard Doc’s returning footsteps, you backed off. Even if the man, you were fairly sure, had helped Krauser pass along classified documents to you, you didn’t want to take a risk like that. 

Now, a risk of another kind . . .

“If I stitch him up for you,” you looked over at Doc as he returned, the older soldier caught by surprise as you spoke, “can I have some of your fancy home-made lunches?” Frame it as you wanting something else. Reed and Hellman teaching you to all to move and act without suspicion could be their downfall, because Doc didn’t seem suspicious whatsoever of your offer. 

Just annoyed. 

“You want payment in my wife’s cooking for stitching up one cut?” he asked, and Leon smiled at you sympathetically. “You want good food, kid, you gotta earn it.” The older man looked between you and Leon’s injury, and then shrugged once more. “Not a bad place to start, though.” 

You could work with that. Not only an opportunity to be with Leon right now, but a chance to maybe get some better food overall? That sounded like a net gain to you. 

So, you sealed Leon’s cut with needle and thread, your hands steady even if the rest of your body felt like it was atrophying slowly. Just as you’d done all those nights before, you worked near silently, doing your best to get this done painlessly . . . but not too quickly. You wanted whatever time you had with him to last, and even stitching up a wound for him was something you’d savor, because it was the first time in nearly two weeks you’d been able to touch him. To do something for him. 

Still, he had to get back to training. He had to focus, because his life was going to be in danger again far sooner than your own.  You couldn’t take away from his time preparing for that-

“So I was thinking,” Leon began, his tone more neutral than you’d heard it in a long time. Almost . . . formal was the wrong word, but nowhere near the playfulness you’d heard from him even a minute ago. He spoke in a measured way, even as you pushed a needle through his skin and tugged on the thread tied to it. You looked up, realizing his eyes were set on the little open lock and lock picking set you’d left on the bedside table. “A lot of us are still struggling with the stuff they’re showing us in Reed and Hellman’s lessons.” A gesture to the very lock that had caught his eye. “Thought we could all work on it together. In our off hours.” 

Not beaming at him took some effort, because you knew he was just coming up with more excuses to spend time with you in a safe way, even if he was serious about wanting to practice new skills. 

“Sounds like a plan.” You didn’t have to think hard to agree, didn’t have to hide the fact that you thought it was a good idea. 

You would just hide why you did. 

And so, that night, you found yourself hosting a company of six, including yourself - even Alejandro had joined in, this time. Just like that day after Krauser pulled you from the prison, you let the radio play softly as you all exchanged phrases in different languages, as you let Alenko correct your pronunciation, or you showed Williams how you’d gotten a particular lock to turn. 

It was all good practice, good knowledge for you and everyone to have . . . but your attention was divided. Torn between the man you wanted so desperately to get lost in, and the folder of reports you’d stashed beneath your mattress. You thought of whether you should tell them all you’d learned. 

You wanted to. The knowledge you’d gained felt like it was trying to claw its way out of you, a beast looking for more of its own kind. You wanted to fill in the gaps of everything you didn’t know. You wanted to have the full picture, because even now, it seemed that there were still things being kept from the others. You wanted to know everything there was to know. Names, locations - everything. 

And yet . . . there were still two reports you refused to read. Two stories.

One known in full, the other known in pieces. 

Those reports weighed on you for a different reason. It wasn’t about understanding an enemy, or why a tragedy beyond measure had happened. Your story and Leon’s weighed on you because, in the back of your mind, you knew that time was running out. Whatever happened to Leon after his graduation was beyond your control. It always had been - that was what you’d warned him of so long ago. 

You would know as much about Leon S. Kennedy as you could before fate took control of you both. 

And he would know as much as he wanted to know about you. 

You would find a way to make sure of that.

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#leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #resident evil x reader #resident evil 2 #resident evil 4 #resident evil #between the bones #gender neutral reader #leon kennedy x you #no y/n #jack krauser

[mychoombatheroomba]

Four Roses

Disavowed (Krauser x GN! Reader/Krauser x Leon) - Chapter 2

1997

Krauser had retreated to the bar, content to drink a little and enjoy the rock music playing over the speakers. It hadn’t spared him the attention of the youth, but at least most of them didn’t bother him while he was drinking.

Most of them. 

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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December 20th, 1997

19:28

Washington DC

The bourbon had a good burn to it as it went down Krauser’s throat. Wasn’t often that he drank, but tonight was a special night, right? Might as well make an exception. It would hopefully make getting through this easier. 

He wasn’t the only one who seemed to share that sentiment. 

Or maybe the young blood lining the bar around him just wanted to make this more of a party than the ball that had been advertised. 

Krauser had never liked these things. Good for morale, they’d said, so he’d shown up, even if he wasn’t interested in peacocking around like some of the older Generals and other ranking officers. Well, not entirely interested. He supposed he got a bit of a kick out of seeing the younger soldiers sweating when he was around, their eyes getting all buggy when they saw his red beret and all the chest candy pinned to his dress uniform. 

Rookies trying to make a good impression, and often fumbling the ball. 

It was one of the more entertaining aspects of these things, but it did get old after about the first half hour. So, Krauser had retreated to the bar, content to drink a little and enjoy the rock music playing over the speakers. It hadn’t spared him the attention of the youth, but at least most of them didn’t bother him while he was drinking. 

Most of them. 

“What’s that you’re drinking, sir? Or, what were you drinking?” 

It wasn’t exactly the most formal of greetings he’d experienced tonight. In fact, it was almost downright familiar, even if he didn’t recognize the voice. With a raising of his pale brow, Krauser turned to his side, where another person had slid into the open space by the bar to his left. He was surprised to find someone so young raising a brow back at him expectantly, waiting for his answer. Like you were blind to the pins and badges and ribbons that identified Krauser as a decorated officer. Or, maybe, you weren't so much blind as you didn’t care. 

As much as his uniform was a warning to you of who you were dealing with, your own was a book for him to read. 

Relatively plain, you boasted the standard array of badges, your nameplate, your unit insignia . . . but there were a few things that caught his eye. No combat pins - not exactly surprising. A little cross over your heart with a rifle suspended beneath it - sharpshooter. A red bar just above your right breast pocket - meritorious unit commendation. And, finally, three gold chevrons proudly displayed on your shoulder.

A Sergeant. 

Probably thinking you were on top of the world for having earned that third chevron so early in your career. 

A young hotshot with more balls than brains. That was Krauser’s first impression of you. It was a hell of a lot more entertaining than the rest of the rank and file, so despite the insubordination, Krauser answered you with an amused smirk. “Four Roses.” 

“Kentucky. Nice,” you hummed your approval, then turned to the bartender. “I’ll have one of those.” You spoke with a confidence that Krauser wasn’t sure you’d earned, but again he couldn’t help but find it entertaining, if nothing else. 

Of course, that confident smirk on your face faltered a little when the bartender looked you over and asked what seemed to be the one question you hadn’t accounted for. “Can I see your ID?” 

You blinked, and Krauser’s smirk only grew. “Seriously?” you asked, like you were legitimately offended. Definitely someone thinking they’re on top of the world. 

The poor bartender looked a little apprehensive as he nodded. “If you’re under twenty-one, I can’t serve you.” 

Krauser wasn’t sure if he was impressed or not as you tilted your head, giving the man a discerning look. “So I’m old enough to die for my country but not old enough to drink?” you asked, and the bartender’s face drained of color. "Seems a little fucked up to me."

Oh, Krauser liked you. 

“Come on, you’re torturing the poor kid.” Now that voice, the Major did recognize, even if the last time he’d heard it had been some years ago. It took him a moment to place, because even when he had heard that voice, it hadn’t been often. Age had deepened it since then, but Krauser supposed the same could be said of him. He turned just in time to see Simon Reynolds - Captain Simon Reynolds, judging by the badges on his uniform - approach. He’d aged well, his dark skin offset by graying, short-cropped hair, his smile just as bright as those days spent at boot camp all those years ago. Simon had always been a charmer. Jack hadn’t spent much time with him, being a few years younger than the now-Captain and a few weeks behind him in training. Still, he’d run into him enough times over the years to know the man decently well. Served with enough to recognize him as a damn fine soldier. Even if he got far too attached to the men under his command for Krauser’s taste. You were no exception, it seemed. Reynolds’ words weren’t directed at the bartender, but rather at you. Spoken with an almost paternal affection, and Krauser knew it was likely due to the matching unit insignias you both wore. 

Always had a soft spot for troublemakers, Simon. 

“Still wrangling the spitfires, huh?” Krauser chuckled, and Reynolds turned his way, seeming to notice him for the first time. 

That smile he wore only widened. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” He wondered if you got your disregard for formality from Reynolds. Probably. Callused hands clasped in a firm handshake, and the two officers grinned at each other. Reynolds’ eyes caught on the pins on Krauser’s shoulders. “Thought I heard something about you making Major a while back.” 

“And you’re still stuck at Captain?” 

“Hey,” Reynolds defended with a smile, “if that means I don’t have to get all stuffy with the big wigs all the time, that’s fine by me.”

“You two know each other?” you asked, inserting yourself into the conversation casually. 

Krauser and Reynolds both nodded. “Yep,” the Captain nodded, answering for Krauser - which the Major was happy to let him do. At least, until Reynolds went on. “Saw his sorry ass get the shit kicked out of him his first day of basic, right before I graduated. Now look at him,” he tapped Krauser’s broad and metal-bedecked chest. “Got enough medals to make a cast of himself in gold. Not that anyone should immortalize that ugly mug.” 

“You speak that way to all superior officers?” Krauser smirked. “No wonder you haven’t been promoted.” 

That just made you grin wider as you listened. “Really? Cause I talk that way to him all the time and I still made Sergeant,” you grinned, too proud as you gestured over to the Captain with your chevron bedecked arm. Had to be a pretty recent development, then, if you were bragging about it that much. 

“Careful, kid,” Reynolds cautioned, “you’ll pull a muscle patting yourself on the back.” 

Krauser laughed, glad for some honest conversation at last. “A Sergeant who can’t drink? Not often you see that.” The bartender didn’t look thrilled to be roped back into the conversation.

“Oh I can drink,” you insisted with another grin like a sparking flame. “Here, I’ll prove it to you-” 

Reynolds put a hand on your shoulder. “Sergeant, give it a rest. Plenty of fun to be had tonight without you getting wasted and losing this man his job in the process.” 

“I’m just saying,” you went on, looking over your shoulder at the Captain. “Not like I won’t be twenty-one in a few months anyway. I could die between now and then, you know.” Now, you turned back to the bartender. “How would you feel, knowing you could have given me a drink but refused because of some bullshit rule, and I died without knowing what it was like to share a bourbon with my comrades?” You were relentless, weren’t you? Again, Krauser found himself entertained.

And, again, the bartender just looked shell-shocked, probably regretting his decision to pick up this shift. 

Reynolds just rolled his eyes, about to speak further. 

Krauser beat him, this time. “I’ll take another of the same,” he told the bartender, who looked even more cautious as his eyes flitted between you and the two older men at your side. The kid wasn’t dumb, he knew what was going on. Eventually, though, he must have decided that, hey, he was technically selling to someone of age. In fact, he was even kind enough to grab a new glass, one he filled with the same Four Roses Krauser had been drinking before. Smart kid. 

He didn’t look surprised or too bothered when Krauser handed the drink to you, even as Reynolds looked less than thrilled. 

You, though, beamed as you took the glass. 

“Subverting my command?” the Captain asked, raising a brow. 

“Eh,” Krauser shrugged, “the Sergeant made a compelling argument.” 

“Glad to know the right people are in charge,” you grinned, taking a sip of the alcohol and doing your damned best not to make a face as it went down. 

Relentless and sharp - both words that applied to you. Krauser nearly told you that you could pay him back for it, some day. Not enough liquor in his system yet to make that bad of a call, luckily. 

“Alright,” Reynolds shook his head, shoving you away from the bar. “Go on. Go make sure Morales isn’t doing something stupid.” 

You gave a salute with your free hand, perfect but for the way your lips curved up in a victorious smile. “Sir, yes, sir,” you nodded, and then you were off to accomplish your mission. 

Captain and Major both watched you go, and the former shook his head again as he settled in at the bar. 

“That one seems like a handful,” Krauser observed, and he wished he could say he was surprised by the proud smile that took Reynolds’ face. 

“Oh, you have no idea,” he confirmed. “Damn fine soldier, though. Probably put up with too much because of that, but . . .” he trailed off with a shrug. “Not bad to have someone to call you out on your bullshit, hm?” 

“Speak for yourself,” Krauser gave a humored huff, looking back at you as you joined a crush of younger soldiers, all smiles and laughs as you nursed the drink you’d been given. 

“Alright, you old bastard,” Reynolds scoffed, “good to see you haven’t changed much.” 

“Not as old as you. And good to see you’re still taking in strays,” Krauser shot right back. 

Reynolds didn’t seem to mind the jab. “Old habits.” He looked to the young bartender, who was listening far too intently for his own good. “You gonna ask me for my ID too, or can I get a beer?” 

The bartender jumped, like he hadn’t really been expecting to be addressed. “Oh, no, sir,” he said, and Krauser laughed again. 

“Thought you were overseas,” the Major started up the conversation again, once the beer was in Reynolds’ hands.

The Captain nodded. “I am, technically. Up in Finland. Got lucky this year, got to go home and see the family for the holidays.” Family. Krauser had never understood how soldiers could manage the job and a family. Then again, he knew plenty of them who didn’t manage both. 

Reynolds didn’t seem like one of them. “Good for you,” Krauser nodded, ordering himself another bourbon. 

“Good for them, too,” Reynolds gestured with his bottle towards you and the other soldiers you spoke to. “Lot of them haven’t seen their families in a while.” 

“Your own family know that you’ve adopted a bunch of Army brats?” 

Reynolds laughed, but didn’t exactly deny it. “Yeah, not exactly the kids that the missus wanted, eh?” Still, there was undeniable affection in his eyes, for you and the others. Krauser huffed a laugh to himself when he saw it, shaking his head. 

“Not exactly kids, period,” he went on, because based on what he'd just seen, calling you a kid would be a disservice. 

“No,” Reynolds agreed. “Lot of ‘em have had it pretty rough.” 

“So they joined the Army.” 

“You know how it goes.”

“Guess I do.” 

Reynolds pursed his lips together, taking another swig of his beer. “Well,” he smiled, taking a step back from the bar, “if you’re ever in Finland, look me up. I’ll have the Sergeant give you a tour of the base. Pay you back for the drink.” 

Krauser doubted he’d be heading that way, but he didn’t write off the idea. After all, he never knew exactly where his job would take him. And besides, as his eyes drifted back towards where you stood, he found himself wondering if you would be as brazen while on duty. Something told him that your fire didn't die easy. “You’ve got a deal,” he said to Reynolds, and the older man nodded once in affirmative. 

“See you around, Major,” he said, and then stepped off to join you and the others. Krauser just hummed and took another sip of that bourbon. 

Not the worst of these damned parties he’d ever been to after all.

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A/N: Young Sarge means the actual world to me, what a little hooligan.

Also at long last I get to utilize the one piece of military life that I've actually experienced: going to a military ball 😂 Wherein I did witness a superior officer buy a drink for my date who was 19 at the time. Art imitates life.

#jack krauser #jack krauser x reader #angst #resident evil #gender neutral reader #between the bones #disavowed

[mychoombatheroomba]

Y'all . . . I'm coming up on a year of writing this shit I'm both burnt out and gnawing at the bars of my enclosure for what I have planned, oof, the duality of it all

*actual footage of me writing my next chapter*

[mychoombatheroomba]

Covert Operations

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 38

Your bed rest has proven more difficult than you thought, and you get support from a person you didn't quite expect, even if maybe you should have.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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You’d never thought you’d have to watch your life play out through a pane of glass. 

That was what you were reduced to, that first week. Bed rest. Doc’s orders. A week of it, wherein you wanted to do as Krauser suggested and study the less physical parts of the training. Trouble was, you’d not been given any of that training. No one had come to tell you what the hell they were learning over there, not even Krauser. 

So you’d stayed in bed dutifully for those first few days, but before long you’d pushed one of the uncomfortable chairs in the room towards that window. There you often sat, feeling your muscles crying out to be used and your eyes ever drifting towards that window. The orientation of the infirmary was cruel, giving you a good view of the base. A view of what you were missing, framed nice and pretty. 

It was like a movie. The kind that made you feel empty inside, but you couldn’t help watching. And watch was all you could do for those first few days. 

You watched Krauser and the other instructors greet a fresh batch of recruits. 

You watched lines of trainees running and heading to the shooting range, some you knew, some you didn’t. 

You watched Leon pushing himself, just as you knew he would. You watched him, beautiful and strong and sad, working through the shaking of his arms and legs. When he sparred with Valeria and the others, even when he did as you asked and faced down Krauser. You watched Leon lose to the Major over and over again, but he kept going. Kept getting up, every time. He was doing so well . . . and you knew you shouldn’t focus on him right now. It was poison to you, but you couldn’t help but drink it down. All of it. Everything you were supposed to be doing. 

A movie of should-have-beens . 

One with a soundtrack. 

“And if you go chasing rabbits-”

“And you know you’re going to fall-” 

The radio was a smartass. Or the DJ on the other end was without knowing it. Whatever the case, it always seemed to have something to say about you and your predicament. 

“Tell them a hookah smoking caterpillar-”

“Has given you a call-”

You knew that the radio had been a well-intended gift. And most of the time it was. It had kept you from delving into your own thoughts too much. It had been there when you woke in the middle of the night to the memories of friends turned monsters, or the resounding shock of a gunshot going off in the icy wilderness. You would reach for the radio in those moments, keeping it on because there was no one else you had to worry about waking. 

Sometimes, it would be that stupid, happy music. Songs that would keep your mind free. 

Sometimes, though . . .

You knew you shouldn’t have let it play those other songs. Just as you knew that you shouldn’t watch everyone else training. 

But you’d heard the news. 

Eight weeks. 

You weren’t going to graduate with Leon. That was the truth you had to grapple with. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world a few years ago. If you were two idiots having an affair in basic training. There would still be risks, but now? Leon would be thrown to the dogs and you wouldn’t be there to help him. 

So, over those days, you let those songs play, and let your thoughts play with them. 

Song after song after song. 

“In my shoes-”

“Walking sleep-”

“In my youth I pray to keep-”

What would happen, when you could finally move the way you needed to again? How much would your body allow you to do, after so long in bed? You knew the answer to that. You could remember how difficult it had been to regain your strength after . . . after the first time. You’d felt so weak, and you knew you’d feel weak again. You already did. 

That was if you even healed. 

You switched the station. 

“I could possibly be fading-” 

“Or have something more to gain-”

“I could feel myself growing colder-”

Some wounds didn’t heal right. You remembered a kid back in basic who fractured his arm in two places, falling from the obstacle course. They deemed him unable to serve when it didn’t heal right. 

If your ribs healed improperly . . . 

Another new station. 

“Distant eyes-”

“Promises we made were in vain-”

Whether you healed, Leon would be out there, fighting the fight without you. He was doing well. Better than the others, he’d pushed himself from being behind everyone to surpassing them all, but being the best didn’t matter out there. All it took was one moment of not paying attention. One second of carelessness. You knew that better than anyone. 

One moment and Leon could be gone, and you wouldn’t be able to do anything to protect him.

“If you must go, I wish you love-”

“You’ll never walk alone-” 

“You should be resting.” Doc’s voice had a way of being both caring and sobering all at once. He pulled you from your thoughts, and you turned to see him enter the room holding a sandwich. Fresh-cut tomatoes, soft white bread - nothing from the mess hall, you knew that for sure. Lucky bastard. He took a bite out of his dinner and gestured to the bed you should have been lying down in. 

“Didn’t think it mattered where I was resting, so long as I was resting,” you murmured, not wanting to climb back into that damn bed. 

The Doc just gave you a look. “Come on. Don’t be a little shit, kid.” 

Not much point fighting him on it. When it came to your health, he outranked everyone. Even Krauser. 

So, you frowned and carefully pushed yourself up from the chair, taking the radio with you. Letting it play as you reluctantly and slowly lowered yourself onto the bed once more. 

The Doc nodded, seemingly appeased. “Now try to sleep, yeah? Bed rest can be over tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. 

You’d be able to join in non-physically demanding lessons. The ones led by Reed and Hellman, then. That was something. That would at least keep your brain from becoming your worst enemy. 

Any more than it already was, anyway. 

You’d get to see Leon again, and that was something. 

Tomorrow seemed so far away as the Doc left you alone, as you tried to do what he ordered and sleep. 

You tried. You tried to sleep. 

It went about as well as it always did, so you lay there in that bed, letting the radio sing. You lay there as the thoughts ate away at you. The worries and what-ifs. The memories that always plagued you, and the fear that you wouldn’t be able to fight them. All because of some bullshit inflicted on you. More bullshit. Broken again. Fingers bunching up in the sheets of the bed, you shook your head and got up again in the darkness. Angry. Furious. 

Terrified. 

The radio played on and on and on and you paced the length of the room you were in. Your well-meaning prison. 

You would heal. You would get there eventually. 

Hopefully.

Maybe-

Your heart was beating, pounding against bones hard enough that it hurt. Breathing was just as painful, as it always was, and you felt like the walls were closing in on you. You felt like you were getting lost in the blur of it all, unsure what was wrong with you.

What was wrong with you? 

How could you be a soldier, how could you fight if you couldn’t even defeat the thoughts in your skull? 

How could you protect anyone-

There was a knock on the door, and you froze. 

Your assumption that it was the Doc come to check in on you was quickly done away with as, after a moment, another knock sounded and a gravelly voice called out from behind the door. “You fall asleep with the music that loud, or are you just ignoring your commanding officer?” 

. . . What the hell was Krauser doing here?

You hadn’t spoken to the Major in almost a week. Since he warned you not to continue on with Leon. Since you’d taken his advice but hadn’t, not ending things but not seeing the man of your affections beyond looking through that damn window. Honestly, you’d been thankful that Krauser hadn’t sought you out either, because there was a sickness to your stomach that you felt every time you thought of how Krauser had found out about your affair. 

Still, as much as you wanted to, you knew that pretending to be asleep wouldn’t get you out of whatever conversation was about to be had. 

As soon as the door was open, you found the Major standing there, his arms crossed over his chest. You expected him to be scowling at you. That he would tell you to shut the damn radio off and go to bed. 

Instead, there was an ever-so-slight curve to his mouth. A tiny smile. 

Who would be in for pain now, you wondered? 

“Get your boots on,” he ordered, not giving you time to ask what he was doing here. 

Not that you weren’t going to ask anyway. “Sir?” 

“Told you,” Krauser went on, sounding almost impatient, “I don’t want you moping around all the time. So you’re gonna make yourself useful.” 

Blinking was all you could manage, for a moment. It was the same way he’d told you that you’d be helping him with combat drills. The same way he’d told you that you’d be sparring with the lower-level cadets to sharpen their skills, the day before you’d met Leon. You wouldn’t be bruising any new recruits any time soon, so what was Krauser hoping you’d help him with? Whatever it was, it had to be better than being stuck in this room, right? So you nodded. “Yes, sir.” 

Lacing up your boots was difficult - something you hadn’t had to do in a few days. You sat on the edge of your bed, trying to hold in a grimace as you bent over awkwardly, fumbling with tying the knots. 

Krauser watched you struggle for just a moment before you heard his voice again. “Can you manage?” he asked curtly. There was another moment before he added, “Cause if you can’t lace up your boots, you can’t report for lessons tomorrow.” 

Get your shit together, in other words. 

“I’m fine.” You gritted your teeth, remembering how you’d managed this last year. When you finally managed it without hurting yourself further, you stood. You could recognize the ghost of pride on Krauser’s face. “So . . .” you looked up at him, taking as deep a breath as you could manage. “What’s the plan?” 

“Been a while since you helped me teach a lesson,” Krauser grinned. “And these CIA bastards aren’t the only ones who know about covert tactics. So you’re gonna have to leave the radio.”

⧫⧫⧫

It was quiet work, the two of you moving about the base. The first stop was your barracks. Where you would be sleeping right now, were it not for the broken bones in your side. Where Leon and the others were sleeping inside. Well, likely not. Leon was likely tossing and turning, as he always did. Or staring up at the ceiling . . . focus . Getting this wrong would fuck you over when you were doing it for real. So, you watched Krauser demonstrate, before he handed the bundle of wires and parts to you. 

He held the flashlight, watching as you worked, imitating what he’d shown you how to do. No words were exchanged, out of a need for silence as much, you were sure, as a hesitancy to speak. Your work was imperfect several times, and he would simply shake his head, moving his scarred hands in to show you where you’d made a mistake. When it was done, when you carefully tested the tension of the wire, he just nodded and cocked his head. 

Time to move on, then. Your squad would be in for a rude wake-up call. Still, compared to what you’d gone through in that prison, this would be nothing. 

You followed the Major as he went through the base. There weren’t many places to set the lines up - not that wouldn’t interfere with the flow of work for the day, anyway. Still, you followed Krauser’s near-silent direction, all the way until you reached the forested area of the base. The same path that you and the others traveled down hundreds of times on the rucks Krauser had led you on. The same path where you’d ambushed Leon’s old squad mate, back during their assessment. 

That all seemed like a lifetime ago as you laid a new kind of trap there - a tense and thin line stretched between two trees on either side of the path. 

It was there, as you and Krauser worked in the dark, that the Major spoke up at last. “The rookie give you that radio?” 

Do we really have to have this conversation? That was what you wanted to say. Or just not answer, period. 

Still, you nodded, your lips pursed. “Yep. Him and the others.” Not a lie, but Krauser didn’t look very pleased by the answer all the same. It was hard to tell. 

It seemed he didn’t hear the bit about the others. “I take it you talked to him? About what I said?” he asked, and again you felt that shame rise up in you. Shame and frustration and all manner of other things. Whatever alloy of emotions you felt, you could see just as much weight in Krauser’s eyes. 

“I did,” you answered honestly. “It’s handled.” Another not-lie. Not entirely one, at least.

Krauser, in the light of the flashlight, still didn't look convinced. “If you’re going to be doing all this spy shit, you should at least learn how to lie.” 

Fuck. What the hell kind of mess had you landed yourself in? One where your C.O. knew about your affair, and was, what, offering you advice on how to keep it hidden? Or was this him trying to talk you out of it altogether? You couldn’t tell. You weren’t even sure what this situation was supposed to be. So, you decided not to answer him further, and he didn’t press. The two of you moved on, setting up another trip line down the road. 

“What have they gone over so far in training?” you asked, because you didn’t like the heavy silence that settled between the two of you. “Reed and Hellman?” 

“Agent shit,” was the dry answer you got. “They’ll debrief you tomorrow.”

Your mouth pressed into a thin line as you tied off the wire, and you shook your head. “No. You told me to get ahead of the curb, then you let me sit in bed for a week.”

“On the Doctor’s orders-” 

“And I couldn’t have been debriefed from bed?” 

“I don’t control what those two do.” 

“But you control what you do,” you pointed out, frustrations from a week of relative nothingness coming to the surface. “If you want me to do well then I need to know what’s going on.” 

“You missed a week,” Krauser said, his eyes sharpening. “You’ll catch up.” 

“I’m missing a lot more than a week,” you snapped, and as soon as the anger was voiced, it left you with nothing but dread. No fire in the dark woods, only the chill of uncertainty. Of dread. You hated that your voice wavered. That you sounded exactly how you felt: afraid. 

The Major watched you for a moment, neither of you speaking over the sound of crickets in the night air. 

When he finally spoke over that chorus, his words were almost soft. As soft as Jack Krauser’s voice could be, anyway. “You’re not gonna be out of the fight forever.” Should have figured he’d see through that attempt at indifference. 

“I might be.” You weren’t sure where the self-pity was coming from. 

A week in bed, you supposed. 

“The hell you talking about?” Krauser sounded so genuinely confused, but he had to know what worried you. He had to be aware of the thought that plagued you. 

“I’ve had this injury before,” you said, detaching yourself because you feared what emotion would come spilling out of you if you didn’t. “If it doesn’t heal right this time-”

“You knock it off with that bullshit.” It was an order that stunned you into silence. Krauser’s stare was no less intense than his voice. He’d yelled at you before - that was his job, after all. This was different, though. He wasn’t pushing you to improve, he was telling you that you were going to listen to him. That there was no other choice. “Self-pity isn’t going to help you heal, and neither will worrying. You’re gonna be fine. You’ve lived through worse and come back stronger, right? You still want to take the fight to those assholes at Umbrella?”

The answer to that last bit was obvious. Incontrovertible. “Yes.” 

With a nod of his beret-covered head, Krauser gave you one final order. “So pull yourself together.” 

It’s harsh and not at all the comforting reassurance that others had given you in the past. Still, it’s enough of a reality check that it flips a switch in you. There was little room for argument, and all you could do after several moments of surprised silence was nod. “Okay. Yeah. Sorry, sir.” 

Krauser, after a moment, shook his head. “Don’t be. It’s . . .” he swallowed, like he was weighing the words. “It’s bullshit. What happened.” 

Your injury, you knew that was what he was talking about. You could hear it in the regret in his voice. 

“Yeah,” you agreed. “Well, bullshit happens. Have to learn to deal with it.” 

 Krauser smiled at that. Not the kind that meant harm for others. This one you recognized as something else. One you were familiar with, however rare it was - pride. “That’s what we train you for. Dealing with bullshit.” 

“And how to disable tripwires?” you offered, feeling a little better, even if your ribs still ached. 

Krauser just rolled his eyes. “Smartass.” That still-present smile told you that he wasn’t annoyed, though. Not really. He looked at you for a moment longer, like he was thinking. That same expression took his face, then. The one you didn’t really recognize. Whatever it was, he turned away before you could really puzzle it out. “Come on. A few more. Then you can get back to moping.” 

You laughed a little at that. 

⧫⧫⧫

Leon hadn’t slept well. 

Not that he ever did, really. 

He’d become an expert at willing himself to rise, though, and so when it was time, he sat up from bed and got ready with the others. He threw his fatigues on, rolling his shoulders back, sore from the sparring with Krauser he’d done the night before. All of him was sore, but it always was, wasn’t it? 

He was used to it, now. 

Just as he was used to not sleeping well, or the strain of the training, or . . . well, he was getting used to looking over to your bunk and not seeing you there, too. However much it pained him. 

So many things in life that he’d never thought he’d be used to, as he made his way towards the barracks door, the first one of the squad to make it there.  

What he wasn’t used to was the slight bit of tension he hit when he twisted the handle and pushed the door open. The tiniest bit of resistance . . . and then the sound of some faint, mechanical click. He didn’t see the little bundle of wires by the door until it was too late. Even as he moved to throw himself backwards, there was a pop and a flash of light. 

Adrenaline brought about a full-body flinch as he threw himself back. As the rest of the squad did the same, trying to get away from the door, from whatever harm was promised to them. 

Only to find that adrenaline fading when no harm came to them. 

“Okay,” Williams exclaimed in utter annoyance, “what the fuck?” 

About as done with the morning already as Williams was, Leon approached the door slowly, pushing it the rest of the way open. Looking for the source of what had caused the tiny burst. 

He got his answer in the form of a firecracker. A fucking firecracker. One hooked up to a makeshift detonator, with a now-loose wire hanging from it. 

And leaning against that very wall, with an exhausted but amused look, was the only person Leon had wanted to see all week. 

He knew full well that his face lit up as he took the sight of you in, glad that his back was to his squad mates so they couldn’t see. 

“Hey.” 

It was the first thing that escaped his lips, and he wanted to smack himself because really? Was that the best he could do?  

Still, he found himself smiling a little when you gave him that half-formed, half-lived smile. It was small, but it was enough. “Hey.” You looked between Leon and the trip-wire - one that you had no doubt laid yourself. “Gonna have to pay closer attention next time, Kennedy,” you shrugged, and then began walking away, throwing one last phrase over your shoulder with a smile. “See you in class.” 

That promise set Leon’s heart racing, just as sure as that tripwire had. 

⧫⧫⧫

“What the hell happened?” Doc sounded absolutely concerned as you returned to the infirmary that morning, enough that you stopped in your tracks, not sure why he was so worried. You blinked, looking over your shoulder. Had he heard the bang of the firework? Did he not expect you to be out of bed?

“What-”

“You? Smiling?” he asked, and you realized you’d walked in with that little grin still on your face. “Hell must have frozen over.” 

Everyone on base is a fucking comedian.  

You just deadpanned a grimace, and carried on to your room - still to be your home for a while, even if you were allowed to escape it for lessons. And setting up traps around base, apparently. 

Doc filled in the laughter for you, following you into the room. 

“Got breakfast ready for you there.” He pointed to the table by your bedside, the one where your radio was currently housed. A tray from the mess hall, with the usual slop that was served there waiting for you. 

You frowned. “Not gonna give me any of your homemade stuff?” you asked, looking over your shoulder. 

Doc just gave you a look. “Nope. Now eat up.” 

That was all he said before he left the room, closing the door behind him. 

If it weren’t for the fact that you needed to keep your strength up, you probably wouldn’t have touched the stuff. It tasted like sawdust half the time, so you weren’t exactly thrilled to be eating it. 

At least, you weren’t, until you went to move the tray and a manila folder fell out from underneath it, spilling onto the floor. 

“What the fuck . . .” you cursed as you knelt down, struggling with your ribs to scoop up all the papers. 

No, not papers. 

Reports. 

Grouped together with paperclips, though some had come loose. You quickly scrambled to gather them, your eyes widening as you skimmed the papers with sections of blacked out text - though not as many as you would expect, given the title of the report you picked up first. 

𝚁𝙰𝙲𝙲𝙾𝙾𝙽 𝙲𝙸𝚃𝚈 𝚁𝙴𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃 - 𝚂𝙴𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚁 𝟸𝟽𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟾

Your blood went cold as you read the words, and then read them again. 

Eyes flashing, looking through the others. 

𝙺𝙽𝙾𝚆𝙽 𝙱𝙸𝙾𝚆𝙴𝙰𝙿𝙾𝙽𝚂 𝚁𝙴𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃 

𝚁𝙴𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚂𝚃 𝙵𝙾𝚁 𝙵𝙴𝙳𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙻 𝙸𝙽𝚅𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 - 𝙰𝚁𝙺𝙻𝙰𝚈 𝙼𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃𝙰𝙸𝙽𝚂

𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝚁𝙴𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃 - 𝙳𝙾𝚁𝙽𝙴 𝙱𝙰𝚂𝙴, 𝙵𝙸𝙽𝙻𝙰𝙽𝙳 - 𝙹𝙰𝙽𝚄𝙰𝚁𝚈 𝟸𝟿𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟾

You stopped as you read that title. Those words. Your name and rank. Your report, your words printed just underneath the heading. 

It wasn’t only those reports. There were more of them, most just a few pages by the looks of things, but still . . . 

This. All of these, they were . . . it was all here. You knew it, even without having to read through the pages individually. All of it was about Umbrella. Bioweapons. The very things you’d sworn to stop. To fight. It was all here.

A name caught your eye, then, as you sifted through the pages. One that gave you pause even more than all the other information you’d glimpsed. 

𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝙶𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙲𝚁𝙸𝙿𝚃: 𝙻𝙴𝙾𝙽 𝚂. 𝙺𝙴𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙳𝚈 - 𝚁𝙰𝙲𝙲𝙾𝙾𝙽 𝙲𝙸𝚃𝚈 𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃

Your fingertips brushed the name, printed in bold. 

It was his story. Everything about what he’d survived and what he’d endured. The details he’d told you and the ones he hadn’t were all right there. Just as your story was. Two documents. A few sheets of paper that contained so much pain. Accounts of the nights that had changed both of your lives forever, and you’d been left both of them. You could know what he’d gone through at last . . . 

But you found yourself shifting that report to the back of the stack, hiding it beneath the others instead. Closing the folder . . . and then snorting a little as you saw the note paperclipped to the front of it all. 

Read up, smartass. 

You didn’t have to recognize the handwriting to know who it was from. 

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Chapter Index

A/N: Krauser is slowly going on his "fuck the government" arc, we stan. Unfortunate that said arc ends with him infecting himself with a parasite and kidnapping someone, but for a while here, it's gonna be great!

Songs that Sarge was angsting to are "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, "Into Dust" by Mazzy Star and "Separate Ways" by Journey, all of which are bangers that I would recommend!

#leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #resident evil x reader #resident evil 2 #resident evil 4 #resident evil #between the bones #gender neutral reader #leon kennedy x you #no y/n #jack krauser

[mychoombatheroomba]

My sexuality is actually the 10 minute long one-take fight scene from Atomic Blonde.

#I just think it's neat #atomic blonde

[mychoombatheroomba]

Hard Truths

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 37

The squad learns what they're up against, and Krauser gives Leon some brutal advice. As per usual.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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Chapter Index

There was no return to normalcy. No getting back into a comfortable cycle of pain and perseverance. How could there be, when the squad reported for First Call and you weren’t there? Leon had always felt galvanized in your presence. Your strength was his own. When he felt like he wasn’t sure he could go on, you’d been there, urging him forward. As morning drills began that first day, it wasn’t just his aching muscles and bruises that held him back. 

You can’t let yourself fall behind with me.  

His time in STRATCOM had taught him that he had a bit of a problem with authority, but he obeyed your words anyway. 

Even if it would mean moving past you. 

Even if it meant listening to the teachings of the men who did this to you, because true to his promise, Hellman was there to greet the squad for morning drills. Krauser looked just as angry as he had the day before. If the Major’s smile meant a world of hurt for the recruits of the US Strategic Command, then what did his scowl mean? 

Leon supposed he would be finding out soon. 

It was the final phase of training. That was what Krauser announced that first morning; that in eight weeks, if he and the others could pass the tests, they would graduate and be assigned into service. He would be an operative of STRATCOM. An agent of the United States. 

Not a soldier. 

Not what you or any of the others had been before this, but an agent, like Reed and Hellman. The two would indeed be assisting Krauser in training, offering lessons in the more shadowed of services. Secrets and broken locks and false names. The blacked-out text on a report. That was what he would become. 

That was what he would become without you. 

Six weeks until you recovered. 

Eight weeks remaining in training. 

The number was sobering. Staggering. The other recruits, the rest of his squad, didn’t know what that meant yet. They weren’t aware of what they were about to be facing down. 

They would learn soon enough, though. 

They would learn about Raccoon City, about the bioweapons created by Umbrella, and then they would graduate and be sent off to fight nightmares made flesh. They would be forced to see and fight and kill things that Leon had never imagined before that one night last September. 

Eight weeks before they were all sent to hell. 

And while he would be out there, fighting, you would be stuck here, trying to catch up for the time you lost. He tried not to let himself get lost in that thought too much as he pushed his injured body through Krauser’s ever-more difficult exercises - and Krauser’s still-sharp glares. The pain of it all was familiar enough now that he could endure it. He ran harder and faster, strained through the near-failing of his muscles as he carried the ammunition case across the obstacle course, not letting himself drop the added weight. He did all of that because he knew that, in eight weeks, his newfound strength and speed might be all that saved his life from some newfound horror. 

And, however he felt about them, he knew that whatever skills Reed and Hellman were here to teach might do the same. So, he swallowed his anger when he reported to the two agents with the rest of the squad later that day, gathered together in a room that reminded Leon of his time in the police academy, with desks and a projector. 

He didn’t bother to hide his sneer when Hellman began his speech. Even as he was reminded of who the real enemy was. 

“You were all chosen for STRATCOM based on exemplary performance or impressive feats,” Hellman began, and again, Leon was put off by just how different he sounded, now. How genuine. “Most of you have served with distinction, and I have no doubt that you would have had impressive careers - that you still will . . . but now that you are on this path, it isn’t glory that you’ll be getting. There won’t be medals or ceremonies. What would have brought you accolades before can never be spoken of, now. Your service will be hidden from the world, because you will be keeping that world safe from threats that it can never know are real.

“You will be the first line of defense against things the world has never seen. You may not receive glory for it, but your country will owe you a debt it can never repay.” 

The noble sacrifices. 

Leon tried not to scoff at Hellman’s wording, because he made it sound so heroic. Leon knew better. He knew that they wouldn’t be the unsung knights in shining armor. They would be the living shields for the world. Ones that would be cast aside when they broke at last, just as Andersen and the others already had been. 

But who else could it be? 

“And what exactly is it that we’re going to be fighting?” Valeria asked, not bothering to offer respect to the man who hadn’t earned it. “Who was so dangerous that you had to fucking torture us to test our strength?” 

Hellman didn’t react to her insubordination, but Leon tensed because Valeria very nearly hadn’t been allowed to be here. 

Just like him. 

We’ll need every soldier we can get.  

That and Krauser’s influence had been all that spared them. That knowledge that the fight they were preparing for was unlike anything the world had seen before, against an enemy unlike any other. 

“The Umbrella Corporation.” 

Confusion was the first thing that Leon felt in the room. “The pharmaceutical company?” Alejandro clarified with a raised brow. “We’re going to be taking down people in lab coats?” 

He didn’t know. None of them did. But Leon had reacted the same way, once. He’d not believed Ada when she’d told him that the company had created the horrors that now haunted his dreams and waking moments alike. Then he’d seen it firsthand. He owed a bullet-sculpted scar on his shoulder to one of those people in lab coats. And he owed months of restless nights to them too. 

“Not the scientists, necessarily,” Hellman shook his head, and Reed stepped forward. 

“Breathe a word of what you see in this room, and you will be tried for treason.” That was all the warning that was given before he reached forward. The agent flipped a switch on the projector to turn it on, and laid a semi-transparent image over the glass. There were murmurings of disgust. Surprise. Confusion. For Leon, though, it wasn’t some newfound terror. Even blurred and black and white, the image was one Leon recognized immediately. Rotting flesh falling away from bone and muscle. Teeth bared and darkened with viscera. A hand with bloodied nails reaching towards the camera.

Leon’s body reacted before his mind. Muscles tensing. Heart stuttering. He had to repress the urge to run. To aim his gun and fire desperately, even if he was sitting in a room miles and months away from Raccoon City. Even if he was just looking at an image taken from what had to have been that night or the days before it. 

It was good - or, perhaps, not so good - to know that his memory when it came to the zombies was clear. Crystal and cruel. 

“You’ll be fighting the bioweapons they create.” Hellman announced, letting the knowledge sink in. 

There it was. The truth that Leon had wanted the men and women around him to know. And now that it was there, he almost felt guilt for that, too. Guilt, because he wished he didn’t have the knowledge he possessed. 

No. Better they know. Better they’re prepared. 

“This image was taken during the Raccoon City outbreak, and is just one of many reported variants of bioweapons that were found in the city.” The energy in the room shifted, then, because even if they didn’t know the truth of the matter, everyone in the country had heard of Raccoon City. The strange disease that had broken out, and the city’s destruction to keep it from spreading. Not untrue, Leon supposed. Just omitting key details. Redacted information. Cover-ups. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that this was the path his life would take, going from one ghost-story to another. And even now, it seemed there would be more lies of omission. “According to our intel, there was an accidental release of viral weaponry in Umbrella labs beneath Raccoon City. Reanimation of corpses as well as drastic, fast-acting mutations were characteristics of said viruses. They were transmitted through water contamination and, later, through bites or scratches. The viruses escaped into the city and reports of violent individuals started popping up in mid September. By September thirtieth, the situation was deemed uncontainable.” 

And then Raccoon City, along with the monsters in it and those people still trying to survive within it had been wiped off the map. Nevermind that this had happened because one doctor had offered the US that same viral weaponry in exchange for his safety. Nevermind that maybe none of this would have happened if they’d just taken the man into custody from the start. 

Leon supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised by the exclusion of that information, either. These men needed everyone in this room on their side. On the country’s side. 

“This is what the Major’s been training you for. Fighting against something that can wipe out a city in a week,” Hellman went on, clasping his hands behind his back. "We will endeavor to teach you how to avoid that fight. How to find the people responsible for the creation of these bioweapons before they can utilize them.” 

Tracking down Umbrella before another outbreak could happen, in other words. Cutting the head off the snake before it could bite anyone else. 

Too little, too late, Leon knew, because the cat was out of the bag, now. If the US knew, then other countries probably did too. Umbrella was a company. They would protect their interests, their assets. Viral weaponry that could “wipe out a city in a week” had to look good to someone out there. It had looked good to the US, after all. 

“The training we give you in the following weeks will never be complete,” Hellman warned, pale eyes sweeping the room of soldiers in front of him. “We could never give you full CIA-level instruction in time to send you after Umbrella. What we can give you are the tools we believe will help you to find and stop them.”

Not soldiers. Not CIA. Something else. New weapons for a new war. 

“They have facilities across the world,” Reed said, speaking in that usual cold timbre that made Leon’s hackles rise. “You’ll need to learn to adapt to new environments. Speak new languages. Pass where you’re not supposed to.” 

“And if we’re caught somewhere we’re not supposed to be?” Alenko asked from Leon’s side, picking up on what Reed was implying immediately. 

Leon already knew the answer before Hellman even spoke it. “The world can’t know about our operations any more than they can know about Umbrella’s research,” he said, adding to the gravity of the room. “But you were all chosen for your skill, and allowed to continue this training for the strength of your wills.” For holding out under interrogation. Leon didn’t miss how Reed’s eyes landed on him, then. He ignored that biting gaze, just as he’d been ignoring Krauser’s all day. 

“So if we get captured, if we die out there,” Alenko went on, his usual jovial tone gone, “then we shouldn’t expect anyone to come get us. That’s what you’re saying?” 

To his credit, the look Hellman gave in return actually looked understanding. Sympathetic, even. That didn’t change the fact that he was promising them unaided struggles and unmarked graves. “As I said, your work won’t bring you glory. But it will be more important than anything you’ve done in your lives.” 

Lives that could be turned into hollow shells. That could be warped and mutated into mindless violence. 

With or without the influence of a virus. 

But with nowhere to go but forward, Leon tried not to let those thoughts rule him. There were other things to think about. 

Things that the rest of the squad were thinking of too, by the time dinner rolled around.  

It had been quiet for so many reasons since the interrogations, but now there was an added layer of heaviness. Worry had carved creases across the foreheads of Leon’s squad, a sharp contrast to the exhausted but otherwise unburdened lower-level squads sitting at other tables. Young men and women who didn’t know yet what they would be facing. 

“So,” Williams finally said, trying to break the silence with hushed humor, “I guess we’ll all be able to put ‘monster hunter’ on our resumes after this. Not that anyone will ever see those resumes.” 

Leon wanted to smile at that, but all he could think of was dead hands and rotting breath and gnashing teeth. 

No one else laughed, either, their thoughts no doubt stuck on the images they’d seen earlier. The agents hadn’t told them everything yet. They’d have a hard time doing that in one day. Today was about fear, Leon knew that. Scaring everyone shitless so they’d respect the reality of the situation, like at Fort Benning when Cortez explained how a wrong move in a tank could earn you crushed limbs. With tanks, though, there was a field manual to understand; a list of knowns. With bioweapons . . . “How the hell are we supposed to fight those things?” Alenko asked, keeping his voice down so those cadets who didn’t know what awaited them couldn’t hear. 

And Leon knew then that he could help. That he could give his friends an edge before even the CIA did. So, he answered quietly, trying to adopt the easy authority you used when giving corrections in sparring. “The zombies, you shoot in the head,” he said, and all attention at the table turned to him. “Higher-caliber rounds work best. The more of the brain you can destroy, the better.” 

His squad looked at Leon like they were seeing him in a brand new light, realization slowly dawning across their faces. 

“There are other things, though. Different weak spots. None of them go down easy.” Because even once you knew where to shoot, where to place those bullets, it all came down to whether there was actually an opportunity to do so. Whether one had the ammunition required, or the moment needed to aim. “You have to be smart,” he warned, letting memory weigh down his words, “and you have to know when to run.” 

There was a beat of silence as Alejandro leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience, brother.” 

All sorts of secrets coming out lately, Leon thought as he nodded once.  

“I am. I was there. In Raccoon City.” 

He knew how he’d been thought of when he first arrived. He wasn’t blind to the judgmental stares when he’d struggled. The whispers that that kid’s gonna get himself killed. It was strange to be seen by everyone as you’d seen him so early on. 

“Son of a bitch,” Alejandro muttered, in disbelief. 

“How the hell did you make it out of there?” Alenko asked, and Leon wished he had a better answer. 

“Luck.” 

That was what it had come down to. His skill with a gun, his ability to think on his feet, they’d helped, but it had been luck that he’d been near those who could save him when skill alone failed him. Luck that had given him the tools he needed to survive. Skill, certainly, but luck was the reason he was still alive. 

He couldn’t change luck, though. 

So, he would focus on the two of those things that he could control. 

⧫⧫⧫

The Major didn’t look happy to see him. Not that it surprised Leon at all. 

He’d held out for a few days. He’d been focused in that time on throwing himself into the new lessons Reed and Hellman led. Languages, communication, codes, hell, even some hacking and lock-picking. All skills that may save Leon’s life, but not the ones he’d need if he ever came up against another monster that could fold a helicopter in two. Not that a knife would do much against such power either, he supposed. Still, he wanted to be ready. Had to be. For a while, he thought that he could get away with only sparring with Williams, Valeria and Alenko. Alejandro had joined them, and every so often so would the other members of the squad. Sparring while Leon told them of the hard-earned wisdom he had collected that night in Raccoon City. They were good, there was no denying that. But they weren’t you. They lacked your speed. Your instinct. Your gift for violence, earned not because you were a violent person but because you’d had such unspeakable violence done to you. You’d been a whetstone for his skill, and if all he had was eight weeks, then he needed them to be sharper than ever. 

So, he took your advice because you were right. Krauser was the best fighter on base. If you couldn’t spar, then Leon had to find other ways to become better. Even as Major Krauser scowled at him as he approached and all Leon could think of was the fact that he knew. 

He knew, and he wasn’t saying anything. 

Why wasn’t he saying anything? 

How long had he known?

What had he seen?

Another set of thoughts to be set aside. If Krauser wasn’t going to make trouble for you and Leon, then it was a situation that Leon could ignore. 

God, he really hoped he could ignore it.

It was a little difficult when the Major kept on looking at Leon like he wished he would cease to exist. Leon thought for certain that the man’s mood would brighten a touch when asked to spar. Beating the shit out of Leon had to be something he’d be interested in, right? 

“What? Your friends can’t be bothered?” Krauser grumbled. 

“My friends are taking the night off,” Leon shot back, because, frankly, he was tired of the angry glares. Tired of all the bullshit. His time here was ending, and it was Krauser’s job to make sure he survived after the fact. “I need a sparring partner.” 

What he got was an ass-kicking. Not that he’d expected otherwise. 

Still, Leon allowed himself to be proud of the fact that he actually put up a fight. He remembered sparring with Krauser all those months ago, how easily the Major had wiped the floor with him. It made each strike he earned against Krauser’s skin feel all the more vindicating. He’d gotten used to defeat thanks to you, and he’d always been able to get back up, even before that. A good thing, too, because Krauser was fighting like he had a score to settle. 

A kick with the force of a freight train hit Leon in the stomach, sending him falling backwards with a grunt. The Major didn’t waste any time, rushing to the ground with an overhead stab. Leon rolled out of the way just in time, hearing the scraping of metal against dirt. Dust washed over him, sent in a wave by the blade of Krauser’s knife, just enough getting into his eyes that his vision wavered. 

Unable to see, his heart rate spiked, trying to urge him to get up. To defend himself. He felt Krauser’s hand close around his wrist - the one whose hand held the knife. 

Leon acted quickly, bringing his other hand up, taking the knife. Slashing out almost blindly. Luck was on his side once again as he felt steel scrape against steel, parrying Krauser’s attack. The force of the blades meeting sent tremors through Leon’s arm, and it was through sheer will and memories of your words that he held onto the knife. 

His vision cleared and he was in a better position to attack, so he slashed at the Major’s wrist, freeing his own in the process. 

The two men got to their feet, putting some distance between each other. 

Krauser didn’t look impressed. “Thought with all that extra sparring you’d be better than this,” he said, and Leon wasn’t sure if it was a good sign that he was talking shit. Was it a return to form? Or just more anger? He might have gotten his answer when Krauser went on with words like a slap to the face. “Guess you weren’t really paying attention to the fights though, were you?” 

Leon knew it was bait. He could recognize that. Still, it was a shock to the system to hear Krauser imply it so openly. Even as a taunt, Leon hadn’t expected to hear it. It was just enough of a surprise that when Krauser rushed him, the younger man fumbled.

The feint was just fast enough for Leon to fall for it, and as he chased Krauser’s blade with his own - or where it would have slashed across his stomach - he nearly didn’t move fast enough to avoid the slash across his throat. You were fast, but Krauser? It was fighting you but dialed up to eleven, and it was too much for a fatigued and still-bruised Leon to handle. The blunted blade grazed his neck as he threw himself backwards. Off-balance, he nearly found himself losing his footing as Krauser pressed the attack, switching the knife to his left hand and thrusting it forward. Leon twisted his arm, getting his knife on the inside of the attack, his other hand going for the replacement . . . 

Too late, and he coughed and sputtered as Krauser swung his knife up and over Leon’s shoulder and sent it point-first into the side of his throat. Even if the Major was pulling the blow back, it landed hard enough that Leon knew he’d have a new bruise tomorrow. 

“Sloppy,” the Major shook his head as he pulled the blade away, stepping back. 

Leon retreated away, pressing a hand to the newly hurting spot on his neck. The pain was kindling for his anger - he’d moved past the frustrations of losing in these sparring matches, but he felt it now all the same. 

So he attacked first, this time. Hoping to catch the Major off-guard. 

He nearly had him, too, after a quick exchange. Nearly. Krauser twisted his knife inside Leon’s guard and switched hands again, kneeing the younger man in the gut and then running his blade up Leon’s arm in a move that would have filleted the flesh from his bones if it had been real. Then he pulled the knife away and drove it into Leon’s chest. Another bruise. 

“Where’s your focus?” Krauser snarled into Leon’s ear. “Your Sergeant isn’t here. Keep your head in the game.” 

Why the fuck was he pressing the issue? 

Leon shoved Krauser away - no small feat to make that mountain of a man move - and dropped into another ready stance. Resetting into another round, even as his muscles pleaded with him to stop. 

No. He wouldn’t be given a break out there. There would be no mercy. 

That was why you’d told him to do this, Leon knew. Krauser was as close to the real thing as he was going to get, if you were unable to fight. 

So, Leon charged again. Over and over, even if he ended up on the ground nearly every time. It was those first few weeks with you all over again. Near-victories followed by crushing defeats. All ushered in, Leon knew, by Krauser’s taunts. The Major was all too aware of that fact, as he swept Leon’s legs out from underneath him. His back hit the ground yet again, and this time Krauser didn’t even bother to go for a pin or a finishing move. 

“What did I tell you about being distracted?” the Major sneered, tossing his knife up and catching it in one smooth motion. “Because it’s the people who get distracted out there that end up dying.” 

“I’m not-”

“Don’t bullshit me. You have a weak spot and you’re letting me exploit it.” A weak spot. Leon had never once thought of you that way. You kept him going. You’d given him strength in the worst days at STRATCOM. Even during the days spent in those cells, the silent looks you would give him often felt like all that was keeping him sane. 

And then they’d beaten you in front of him, and Leon had broken. 

“You think I’m the only one who will figure it out?” The question was quiet, but cut straight to the bone. It was what you and Leon had talked about, all those nights ago. The last time in days that he’d seen you. And it was killing him. It hurt not to train with you. To get those reassuring looks when no one else was looking. 

You’d told him from the beginning that this life didn’t guarantee that the two of you would be together. 

He couldn’t let your absence drag him down. 

But he was frustrated and hurt, so he looked up at Krauser from the ground with a glare. “Why not report it, then?” Leon challenged, because that question had been eating away at him. “Why not let Reed and Hellman kick me out like they wanted to?” 

Krauser’s eyes flashed, and Leon knew that he’d overplayed his hand, admitting that he’d heard that conversation. 

“Get up, rookie,” the Major ordered, “and focus, or maybe I’ll change my mind and let them send you home.” 

Leon wasn’t sure if Krauser was serious or not, at this point. 

Whatever the case, he pushed himself up with a groan anyway, part of him debating just walking away. No. He wouldn’t give in that easily. He never did. So he stood his ground, meeting that disapproving stare that had been fixed on him for the better part of a week. The Major wanted focus? He’d get it. He wanted to talk shit? Leon could give as good as he got. 

So the younger man raised his knife, still keeping his gaze locked on his opponent. “Maybe you’re the one who needs to focus. Sure are taking an interest in something that’s none of your business.” 

Krauser didn’t take the bait, but Leon saw his expression shift. His brow creased further, his eyes glinting. He thought that maybe he'd hit a nerve, but that moment of emotion was gone quickly. “That the best you’ve got?” he asked, and then Leon was on the defensive again, blocking quick strike after quick strike. Their hands moved fast, and Leon’s mind never once wavered from the task in front of him. Right up until he ducked under a swing, his blade held parallel to the ground, and ran it straight across Krauser’s side. He followed the move through, ending up at the Major’s back, going for a killing blow to the spine. It didn’t quite land as Krauser whirled around, knocking Leon’s arm out of the way. Another side kick distanced them, but Krauser looked down at his side for a moment, looking at where Leon’s knife had connected. 

When he looked back up, he gave an almost reluctant nod of approval. “Not bad.” 

It wasn’t much assurance, but Krauser wasn’t you. Leon would take what he could get. 

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Index

A/N: Leon said "Why are you so up in my business?" and Krauser did not have a good answer to that question.

Speaking of Krauser . . . I did in fact cave and started writing his lil spin-off, it'll switch between Operation Javier and flashbacks of before, during and eventually after Between the Bones. Because I'm a hooligan. First chapter is out already! Even though I said I was gonna wait but I have no self control, oops. It is absolutely nonessential to the plot of this, and any references made to it will be fully explained in context but uhhhh I like the goofy beret man, so it exists now!

#leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #resident evil x reader #resident evil 2 #resident evil 4 #resident evil #between the bones #gender neutral reader #leon kennedy x you #no y/n #jack krauser

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Y'all, I am once again cooking

#leon kennedy x reader #ada wong x reader #leon kennedy x reader x ada wong #resident evil x cyberpunk 2077 #I ain't gonna promise anything for sure but like #the idea won't leave me alone

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Between the Bones Incorrect Quotes #5

Another round of memes for ya lads! Through Chapter 36 - Sarge=you/reader as always!

Krauser, looking at the squad: Okay, so I need to become a therapist faster.

Sarge: Ok, first of all, what the fuck?

Sarge: You are the love of my life and I would do anything within reason to make you happy.  Leon: I would be happy if you ate, stayed hydrated and got a reasonable amount of sleep.  Sarge: I said within reason, Leon. How about I murder that guy?  Leon: So murder is in reason but proper self care isn't?  Sarge: Well, duh. What kind of question is that?

Leon: Do you need help getting up?  Sarge: Nah, I'm cool down here on the floor.

Williams: Anyone d-  Leon: Depressed?  Alenko: Drained?  Valeria : Dumb?  Sarge: Disliked?  Williams: -done with their work... what is wrong with you people...

Krauser, to the Squad: If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!  *silence*  Krauser: Damn, y’all depressed as fuck!  Leon: You didn’t clap either-  Krauser: SHUT UP!

Krauser: Who the fuck added me to a fucking group chat?  Leon: :O language  Williams : Yeah watch your fucking language  Valeria: Okay, who taught Alenko the fuck word?!  Sarge: 'The fuck word'.  Alenko: Are you stupid? You guys use the f word all the time  Williams: Oh my god ge censored it  Sarge: Say fuck, Alenko.  Williams: Do it, Alenko. Say fuck.

Sarge: Not to be nsfw but I want someone to hold me while I sleep.

Sarge: I don't need to go to bed. I'm not tired, I'll be fine.  Leon: But, darling, I'll be so lonely without you. Come curl up in my arms so I can feel whole again.  Sarge: O-oh. Well. Are you trying to seduce me into healthy sleeping patterns??  Leon: Is it working?

Sarge: Krauser, remember when you said you weren’t going to interfere with my love life?  Krauser: No, that doesn’t sound like me at all.

Chapter Index

#between the bones #leon kennedy x reader

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#resident evil 4 #resident evil 2 #leon kennedy #jack krauser #ashley graham #luis sera navarro #marvin branagh

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Nine Names

Disavowed (Krauser x GN! Reader/Krauser x Leon) - Chapter 1

Maybe he did wish that you were with him, if only to have someone he trusted with him as he did this. It would have been nice, Krauser thought, to die alongside someone like that. Someone who understood.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

This is a spin-off of my Leon x Reader series, Between the Bones! It will switch back and forth between Operation Javier and Krauser's perspective on some things from the main story! This can be read in isolation though! Lots of unrequited love from Jack in this, and, well, we all know how his story ends anyway.

Next Chapter

Chapter Index

June 29th, 2002

10:52 

Mixcóatl, Amazon Rainforest

There would be noise, but it would be fast. Making it quick was the least he could do. It would be fast, but that didn’t make the sight before him any easier to stomach. Resigned eyes peering up at him from down the barrel of a gun. A single nod. Acceptance washing over paling features as those eyes closed. The tension of the trigger against his finger. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d had to do this. 

Hell, it wasn’t even the first time in the last twenty-four hours. 

Didn’t make it any easier. 

Still, he pulled the trigger because it’s what he needed to do. It’s what had to happen. It was that or watch another of his men lose their mind, become a threat. It wasn’t for fear of his own safety that he squeezed that trigger, but to spare the man standing in front of him that fate. Barnes deserved better than to turn into a mindless drone, a shell of the man he’d been. He deserved better. All of them did. The Major knew, though, it wasn’t about what he or anyone else deserved. 

So, with a bang that startled some nearby birds into flight, he did what needed to be done. There was the smell of blood and gunpowder, the sound of a body hitting the damp ground, and with that, Jack Krauser was alone. 

He hadn’t been alone two weeks ago, when he’d come to Mixcóatl under the cover of darkness, his men locked and loaded at his side. Ten of them, Krauser included. Nine of the best and brightest soldiers that Krauser had served with before, some that he’d trained. Men and women whose skill he hadn’t doubted for a moment, when they’d been given a name and a kill order. 

Men and women who might still be alive, if things had been different. 

It was hard not to think of those what-ifs, as Krauser looked down at the last of his men’s still body, as he lowered his gun. He’d never been one to entertain fantasies - seeing anything other than reality had always been a good way to end up dead, in his book. He was as good as dead anyway though, wasn’t he? 

If the intel had been better . . .

If they’d known what they were being sent into . . .

If they hadn’t been stuck in a jungle with no way out . . .

If they hadn’t been behind the lines of a foreign country . . .

If they weren’t living in a world where war now meant soldiers turning into mindless monsters . . .

If his evac request had been approved . . .

But that wasn’t the hand he’d been dealt. So, he ignored the tremor in his hand. Knelt at Barnes’ side and rested the soldier’s hands over his chest. Best that Krauser could do. No dog tag to take. There would be no retrieval of the body, Krauser knew that, and there could be no evidence that they were here. Hadn't started out that way, but if the government wouldn't send evac? That meant something had changed behind the scenes, that this had been moved off the books. No names, no traces. Plausible deniability. That had been the game for years now, a game he hadn’t wanted to play, but learned to anyway. Whatever the sacrifices. 

Not the first comrade he’d had to put down, not the first set of dog tags taken to keep a secret. 

He could still remember the look in your eyes when he’d handed you that spare tag, one with the name of a man you’d cared for deeply. 

Krauser wasn’t surprised to be thinking of you, now. Who better to let his thoughts drift towards? You, who had lived the exact moment he’d just lived dozens of times; staring down the barrel at someone you’d known. Cared for. Someone you’d had to kill. You, who’d worn that extra dog tag even if it wasn’t yours, even if you thought that Krauser hadn’t noticed. You’d carried that kill with you in the form of a silver ghost, just as Krauser carried his with him, now. Because even if their deaths would be twisted to keep a secret, they deserved to be remembered. 

Nine pairs of names. 

At least yours wasn’t among them. 

Then again, maybe things would have been different if you’d been here, too. You were a survivor. Always had been, even before Krauser’s training sharpened you into the blade you’d become. Maybe if you’d been here with him, you’d have been able to help him keep the others alive. 

Or maybe you’d be dead, too. 

No. Better that you weren’t with him. Better that your name wouldn’t be on Krauser’s conscience, because the thought of that . . .

He shouldn’t think of you. He’d learned that early on, years before this moment. Thinking of you was dangerous; a distraction. Don’t be stupid because it feels good. He’d told you that, once, and he’d been good at heeding his own advice. 

But if he was as good as dead anyway . . . 

Had this been how you’d felt? Krauser had always felt he understood what it was you’d experienced, all those years ago. He’d always been so sure that his experience in war had given him equal footing with you. Loss was a part of war, and he’d thought he understood why you’d moped around base so often, or why you’d pushed yourself to be the best. 

Krauser hadn’t known a damn thing. 

Now, he did. 

He understood what it was to feel the terror of seeing one’s own turn. He knew what it was to feel the truth settle in his gut that just one bite, one scratch, was all it took to doom someone. He understood how eviscerating it was to watch the color drain from their skin, the light fade from their eyes. He knew the utter fucking hopelessness that came with being unable to stop it. The realization that you were the only one left that was enough to make the world seem ready to cave in. 

He understood why you’d kept your Captain’s dog tag with you through it all - the training, the missions, all of it.

And he understood, perhaps better than anything else, the anger that he’d seen in you. Rage at the fate that had befallen your comrades. Fury at the people who caused it all. 

Or, in Krauser’s case, person. One name to answer for nine.

Javier Hidalgo. 

The same person he and his men had been sent to kill. War-lord head of the Sacred Snakes cartel, smuggler with connections to Umbrella, and the least lucky man on the fucking planet right now, because Jack Krauser was still alive. He was alone, behind enemy lines and outnumbered, but he was alive.

The Major may have been at the end of his rope, but he could still hang Javier from it. 

That was the thought that kept the pistol in Krauser’s hands from finding his mouth and turning skywards. That was the thought that pushed him on through the jungle, leaving Barnes’ body behind. His men would want him to keep going. You would want him to keep going. 

So he did, letting that burning and clawing in his chest carry him forward. 

He moved through the trees as silently as he could, looking like little more than a shadow in dim light painted by the canopy overhead. Enough time spent learning that the fauna in the jungle was just as deadly as the once-people that had dealt his squad so much death made him quiet as he moved on. He knew how to leave as little trace as possible, how to move unseen. The camo of mud he’d adopted kept his normally pale hair and skin from standing out amidst the foliage, and his eyes scanned the rainforest around him. Watching. Waiting. Anticipating.  

Give me your best.

This old dog would taste blood one last time. He’d fight his way through the whole damn forest if he had to. 

If you were there, you would be right there by his side, gunning along with him to mount Javier’s head on a fucking spike. 

Maybe he did wish that you were with him, if only to have someone he trusted with him as he did this. It would have been nice, Krauser thought, to die alongside someone like that. Someone who understood-

Footsteps in the distance - barely audible over the sounds of the forest - made him freeze. He wasn’t sure at first, but then he heard it again; the unmistakable squelch of mud beneath boots, no matter how well the owner of said boots was trying to hide it.  

He shouldn’t have used his pistol on Barnes. Too much noise. His knife would have been smarter. Slower, but smarter. 

Didn’t matter now. 

Just meant another fight. 

Another body added to the count. 

Krauser drew that aforementioned blade with his left hand, holding his pistol in his right. He couldn’t see whoever it was nearing him. And it was certainly a who . No zombie that Krauser had ever seen could hide the sound of their footsteps so well. He wasn’t as alone as he thought, then. Unfortunately for whatever bastard decided he was going to try and interrupt that solitude. So, the Major pressed his back against the tree at his side and listened. The footsteps were faint, but Krauser could hear them as they passed by the other side of that tree, slowly approaching him. He readied himself for a fight, craving that violence that might settle his soul a touch. He waited . . .

Then, nothing. 

Nothing for several heavy seconds but the croaking and cawing of animals and chirping of insects. 

Then, in a blur of movement, Krauser got his wish.

A gun trained on him. That was all the Major saw. A gun and the shape of a person holding it. 

They both moved fast. 

Krauser’s knife slashed out, arcing towards the assailant’s left arm. To their credit, they didn’t fire the pistol. Didn’t cry out as the knife cut into flesh. Not deep. Not enough to make them drop the pistol. The arm wove underneath the rest of his swing, but Krauser was already following through. His right hand, the one with the pistol, moved down, pressing against the armed hand. His knife, meanwhile, moved in a flash of silver forward. 

And Krauser was damned glad that he stopped short of going for that kill when he saw the person behind the gun for the first time. 

Not that relief was ever something he’d thought to feel when it came to seeing those pretty blues looking up at him. 

“Son of a bitch,” Krauser hissed, bloodshot eyes widening. 

As for Leon S. Kennedy . . . he looked like he hadn’t expected to be looking at Krauser at all. “Major . . .” the younger man breathed, slowly lowering his pistol in surrender, his too-perfect features twisted in an expression of utter shock. Krauser didn’t think it was just because of the blade at his throat. 

A blade that the Major lowered after he was sure his rage-and-exhaustion-addled brain wasn’t playing some sick joke on him. 

Or maybe it was the universe doing the joking, because he’d allowed himself to imagine you at his side for this suicide mission. 

And the universe had sent your fucking boy toy instead. 

Your boy toy who should have known better than to come at him in close quarters with a gun. “You’re lucky you didn’t need me dead, rookie,” Krauser growled, “because you’d never have been able to do it moving like that.”

Next Chapter

Chapter Index

A/N: Oh, Operation Javier, my beloved.

So, since I'm focusing on the Remake timeline, Operation Javier is different from what's depicted in Darkside Chronicles! Namely that Krauser had a team that he lost this time around, but Leon definitely seems to have still been involved. I was really curious as to how that all shaped up, so until Capcom gives us a more concrete timeline, here's my take on it! It will still definitely tie in a lot of events from the original, but will be adjusted to fit what I think might have happened to Krauser and Leon down there!

#jack krauser #jack krauser x reader #metaltango #jack krauser x leon kennedy #angst #resident evil #gender neutral reader #operation javier #between the bones #disavowed

[mychoombatheroomba]

Disavowed Chapter List

Chapter 1: Nine Names Chapter 2: Four Roses Chapter 3: Hunter and Hunted Chapter 4: Blood Upon the Snow

(More to come!)

Between the Bones Chapter List

#jack krauser #jack krauser x reader #metaltango #jack krauser x leon kennedy #angst #resident evil #gender neutral reader #operation javier #between the bones #disavowed