Philliam @philliamwrites - Tumblr Blog

Mar 15

the heart's invisible furies - 01

Pairing: Leon S. Kennedy x CIA!Reader // Sherry Birkin x Jake Muller as a side dish

Summary: Murphy's Law states: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Somehow you thought you were above it, tempting Fate with every step because Fortune favours the flirtatious, or something like that. But then the mission to retrieve a mutated t-Virus strain goes all wrong: you lose half your team, your long time partner gets injured and you believe that is the end of your employment for the Special Activities Centre of the CIA. But Fate has different plans for you: your next operation has you searching for a missing mercenary who apparently is the salvation to a newly created virus, and none other than veteran DSO agent Leon S. Kennedy is assigned as your partner for this covert operation. Now you're forced to stick together—partners although both of you hide your emotions behind concrete walls. You have both experienced too much loss in your line of work to allow someone new in. But as the mission proceeds and long-buried secrets begin to crawl out like the dead from muddy soil, it becomes clear very fast that to survive this, you need to trust in Leon—and he in you.

Warnings: Slow Burn, Annoyances to Lovers, Reader falls first but Leon falls harder, Canon-typical Violence, Age Difference (Reader is in her mid-thirties, Leon is 46) - takes place 2 years before RE9 but we gobble up RE9 Leon all the way, might become explicit later

Notes: [01] || [02]

Words: 8.6k

A/N: aw shit, here we go again.

been a long time since i've got really inspired to write again, so this is mostly practicing to get back into the groove and write on my other stories.

hope you'll enjoy!

“It’s just not working out,” you say. “This relationship, I mean.”

Disconsolate noises come from the other end of the phone. You are barely able to decipher them—the reception isn’t particularly good on the roof of the Crawford Research Facility. You pace along the edge of the roof line, peering down into the silent front court below. Tall linden trees line the paved walkway that leads to the double automatic doors of the facility—doors that now sit dark and sealed, the glass reflecting nothing but the dim spill of exterior lights.

Otherwise, the night is quiet. Countless stars twinkle in the firmament, glittering like diamonds on black velvet, sharp and bright in the absence of city light. Out here, miles from civilisation, the facility burns like a lonely beacon in the wilderness—floodlights illuminating the fenced perimeter and the empty courtyard below while the surrounding forest remains dark; a wall of trees swallowing every stray beam of light.

You sigh, rubbing your temple, and put the phone back to your ear. “All right, our relationship,” you say. “Our relationship isn’t working out.”

Beside you, a sharp hiss of your name. You turn, your boots balanced on the edge of the roof. Javier García crouches low before the edge, one knee planted and elbows braced as he peers through a pair of binoculars, his attention locked on the opposite wing of the U-shaped building. The faint flow of the facility light glints off the lenses as he scouts methodically, his posture rigid with the quiet tension of someone expecting trouble at any moment.

“Remember,” he says, slowly moving the binoculars along the windows of the opposite wing. “Use your I statements.”

Both of you wear the standard military-issue uniform, though ‘standard’ is generous when it comes to the Special Activities Centre. The CIA prefers its ghosts unmarked: no insignia, no identifying patches, nothing that might hint at who you belong to should things go sideways. Just practical fabric, muted colours designed to merge with the dark. This particular uniform though has always been one of your favourites. The tactical pants are reinforced and comfortable, and the vest is stitched through with more pockets than anyone reasonable needs, each one carefully filled with something useful. A hunting knife rests snugly at the back of your belt, while beneath the vest a holster hugs firmly your ribs where it holds your G19 gun and a B934 as a surrogate piece.

You shift your stance, slipping the phone down for a moment as your fingers wander instinctively to one of those many pockets—one of the smaller ones sewn cleverly along the inside seam of your vest. You pull free a cigarette from the slightly crumpled package and tuck it between your lips with practised ease, flick open a lighter, and draw in the first slow drag, the smoke curling lazily into the cold, star-filled night.

Nathan is still wittering away on the other end of the phone, his voice spilling through the speaker in a steady, wounded stream—something about getting together to talk, which you know would be pointless. His words blur together, dissolving into background noise as your attention drifts elsewhere, pulled inevitably toward the eerily quiet court.

Your gaze fixes on the opposite wing of the facility, where most of the windows sit in unbroken darkness. But in one room, you think you catch the faintest flicker of movement. A thin slice of light cuts briefly through the darkness before vanishing again; the other three from your small task force must have finally breached the last security area, now making their way through the laboratories and research areas.

It has taken them longer than expected to crack the system, but that was hardly surprising. Crawford’s security protocols are the paranoid dream of someone with far too much money and far too many secrets. Still, you have to give credit where it is due. Those three—Jackson, Brandon and Linette move fast, the best trio for infiltration. They’ve been known as the Hydra since your training days: efficient, deadly, and exceedingly cocky whenever all three are present at the same time. They’re also notorious for whipping up mean drinks that leave the strongest drinker with a head-splitting hangover.

Nathan’s voice from the other end of your phone suddenly cuts through your thoughts, sharp and irritated. “If you give me this it’s-not-you-it’s-me bullshit—”

“Oh no, absolutely not,” you say promptly, bringing the phone back to your ear. “It is definitely you, not me.” Javi makes an abrupt slicing motion across his throat—that is not what he meant when he gave you relationship advice, but you ignore him with deliberate cheerfulness. “I am sick of you.”

You smile brightly as Javi clicks his tongue, shaking his head imperceptibly. “So maybe we could go back to being friends?”

There is a click as Nathan hangs up. You stare at the screen for a moment before shrugging and tucking the phone back into your belt. The cigarette between your fingers glows as you take another drag, your eyes drifting once more to the opposite wing of the building, searching for signs of the rest of your team. Everything has returned to stillness, the windows dark again as if nothing at all has disturbed them.

“Well,” you say after a moment, “that could have gone better.”

“Do you think so?” Javi finally lowers his binoculars. He squats next to his sniper’s gear, checks each piece with meticulous efficiency. “Asking someone to go back to being friends after telling them you’re sick of them? Whatever gave you the idea anything went wrong.”

You scowl at him. Javi is a smartass by nature. The trait is charming when directed at other people, and significantly less enjoyable when you’re at the receiving end of his sharp wit. “Careful, or I might push you off the roof,” you grumble.

“And cry inconsolably afterwards?” Javi flashes you a quick grin. “I know I’m your favourite partner since the San Francisco Serial Murders.”

“You’re the only partner I’ve had since I started this job.” Out of habit, you check that your guns are loaded and ready, the movement so easy and practised from years of experience. “Also, I liked the Redfields. Hope they’re still out there somewhere.”

“Shame we didn’t get to stick around at the end and join them at Alcatraz Island. But I’m sure they’ve been up to something this past decade.” He raises his binoculars again, returning to his vigil. “I heard the BSAA was active in Eastern Europe two years ago. Been quiet since then.”

“I wouldn’t mind visiting Europe around this time,” you say thoughtfully. “I still don’t understand why you wanted this specific operation, Javi. We could be in Italy right now. Picture it. The beach—white sand, crashing blue water, we’re strolling along the tideline …”

Javi doesn’t lower his binoculars. “This sounds very romantic. Are you trying to tell me something?”

“You wish, Garcia.” A quick glance down at your digital watch around your wrist tells you it’s almost eleven PM. As long as everything keeps going according to plan, the three inside the facility should be finishing their work right about now: data secured, research drives wiped, and a respectable portion of Crawford’s expensive toys reduced to scrap. “You know I’m not good at having—”

“Relationships?” Javi gives you a long, level gaze.

You grit your teeth. “I was going to say tact.”

He laughs quietly under his breath. Working with him for more than ten years, Javi has been the most constant part of your life. With no family left, the CIA has filled the space—work, friends, your calling and purpose; nowadays you spend more time in the office you share with your fellow SAC agents, living off bitter filter coffee and cheap takeaway food from small family-run restaurants downtown. Javi calls you an animal for staying at the office five days in a row, using the government showers and beds, you call it efficient.

“Let’s just finish this mission and go visit your granny for some nice paella, shall we?” you say with a grin. It dies almost instantly.

From inside the building, loud sirens start blaring. Javi and you only share a single glance before he stores his binoculars and snatches up his gear in a single, practised motion, dismantling the sniper setup and slinging the equipment over his shoulder. You’re already set towards the roof hatch, Glock 19 drawn from its holster, the half-finished cigarette abandoned somewhere behind you as adrenaline rushes through your bloodstream.

The rope you used to access the roof still hangs where you left it. You grip it and rappel down in one swift descent, boots striking the interior floor just as a calm artificial woman’s voice fills the facility speakers: “Attention. Security has been breached. Danger Level Three. Immediate evacuation is advised.”

Javi lands beside you a second later, his heavy combat boots thudding on the white floor. He’s switched his sniper rifle for an assault rifle, raised to shoulder height as his sharp gaze sweeps the corridor. With a quick tap of his gloved hand against your shoulder, he signals you to move. Together, you move down the long hallway, red lamps flashing on and off as the same announcement echoes through the building a second time in that cold mechanical voice. Your heart pounding in tandem with your steps, blood rushing in your ears, you lift your hand to the small earpiece nestled against your skin. “Guys, what’s your sitrep?” you say, breath catching in your lungs. “Come on, talk to me.”

Static crackles, then shots ring in your ear, loud enough to make you flinch. “Linette here. Hydra’s lost one of her heads.”

You hear the strain in her voice as your own breath catches. There is no time to break down now. That would come later, once the rest of you are safe.

“What about the mutated t-Virus strain?” you demand into the comm, forcing your voice to remain steady even as the pulse in your throat begins to hammer faster. “Did you get the research papers?”

“Jackson had them. He was dragged off by—by some fucking monster. We’re after it right now.”

“No—no, get to the extraction point. Now.”

“If we fall back now,” Linette shots back through the comm, her voice thick with fury and desperation,“it was all for nothing.”

“Lin—” The connection dies with a sharp crack of static, but not before you hear gunfire erupting somewhere in the distance on her end. Feeling Javi’s eyes on you, you jerk your chin at the metal plaque mounted on the wall ahead directing towards the research labs, the arrow beneath it pointing down a narrow branching corridor.

He nods once, falling into step beside you like a shadow, silent and alert, the barrel of his rifle tracking every doorway and intersection. Together you move in tandem through the twisting and winding corridors like the veins of some enormous creature, sterile white walls broken only by sealed mechanical doors and flashing emergency lights that pulse red across the polished floors.

Your steps echo softly as you move, the sound strangely loud in the empty halls. Too empty. You don’t pass a single soul.

And that, more than the alarms screaming overhead, makes something cold begin to settle in your stomach. By now, your instincts are ringing warning bells, loud and insistent because something about this operation is deeply, catastrophically wrong. When the initial infiltration into the facility had gone almost laughably smoothly, you dismissed the unease creeping into your spine. After all, not every mission turns into a bloodbath. Sometimes things simply work out.

Now as you move deeper into the vacant building, it becomes painfully obvious that the emptiness is not a stroke of good fortune but something far more unsettling. A research facility tipped off to you housing a weaponised virus should be crawling with security, with technicians, with people. Instead there is nobody. Just the alarms, and the growing suspicion that somewhere along the line you walked your team directly into a trap.

The thought digs its claws into your ribs and refuses to let go.

You make it all the way back to the central building, through the lobby where heavy steel gates have slammed shut over every exit like the jaws of a hungry beast snapping closed. The door Brandon hacked earlier still hangs open, its circuitry exposed where he cracked the lock, and now you and Javi slip through it before descending a broad staircase leading toward the lower laboratory sectors. Halfway down, you see it: red splatters of blood splayed across the stark white wall.

Your mouth goes dry, your fingers tightening around the grip of your gun until the grip stock digs into your palm. You feel Javi close beside you, the quiet steadiness of his presence the only thing anchoring you as your mind begins to race through everything that has gone wrong. The weight of it presses heavily against your chest as you move around the corner, holding your breath.

The laboratory stretches out beyond the corridor, separated from the hall by a massive wall of thick reinforced glass that runs all the way from one side to the other end of the room. Inside, rows of pristine workstations glow beneath harsh fluorescent lights. Computer screens flicker with diagrams—DNA helixes spinning lazily, chemical chains branching across black backgrounds, anatomical schematics annotated in tiny, clinical text. For a deserted place, it looks like someone has just recently been working on these computers. Why have none of the three called this in the second they had entered?

Glass cylinders filled with cloudy liquid stand in line on a high shelf; for a brief moment you believe your eyes play a trick on you because from this distance it almost looks as if something shifts inside one of them—something long and pale drifting just beneath the surface—but when you blink the movement disappears. Some of the cylinders are empty, some shattered. Clear fluid has spilt across the tiled floor, mixing with darker stains that still shine in the light. Fresh blood.

Your chest tightens painfully. The security door in the laboratory hangs half open, its locked bolts twisted outward like broken teeth. Something forced its way through from the inside.

You force yourself to wait. Thirty seconds stretch into an eternity as you stand perfectly still, listening for movement, for breathing, for anything that might betray the presence of whatever did this. Nothing moves. At last, Javi taps two fingers lightly against your elbow, giving you the sign that everything is clear for now. Gun loaded and drawn, you step through first.

The smell hits you immediately: sharp antiseptic, the bitter tang of burnt wiring, and beneath it all the unmistakable copper scent of blood.

“Dios mío,” Javi murmurs behind you. The first body lies near the central console. Linette.

For a terrible moment, your brain doesn’t recognise her as Linette. The familiar shape of her tactical gear is there, the bright shock of red curls spilling loose from the tie she always wears. But her face has been torn to unrecognisable shreds barely resembling anything human anymore, skin peeled until the pale and jagged bone beneath shows. Her eye sockets are dark, empty hollows, and a ragged hole has been punched straight through the centre of her torso, through armour, flesh and bone.

You bite your lower lip to stop it from trembling hard enough you taste iron, and force yourself to move, stepping carefully around the body. You can’t acknowledge the grief yet or it might break something inside you that you won’t be able to fix.

“All clear,” Javi says in a rough voice, though neither of you truly believes anything about this room is safe. A second door leads further inside, standing slightly open. Broken glass shards quietly crunch under your boots as you navigate past the lab desks. Carefully, you press your gloved hand against the door and push it open.

Brandon lies slumped against a broken workstation. His breath is shallow and uneven, chest rising in painful jerks. Blood darkens the front of his uniform where something has clawed across his chest. One of his eyes is swollen shut beneath a dark bruise blooming on his temple. But he’s alive.

“Brandon.” You drop to your knees beside him, gripping his shoulder with one hand. “Brandon, stay with me.”

His remaining eye struggles to focus. When it finally finds you, relief flickers briefly across his face.

“You—you shouldn’t be here,” he rasps.

“Save it,” you say quietly, the words coming out rougher than you intend, because if you allow even a second of softness the guilt clawing through your chest might swallow you hole. “It’s my job to get us back home.”

Your fingers are already moving, pulling a slim injector from the medical pouch on your hip. The small device clicks open in your gloved hand as you press the tip against his thigh, just above the armour plating of his tactical pants, and push the release. The needle jams through fabric and skin, delivering the fast-acting liquid mixture of ibuprofen and adrenaline. “Where’s Jackson?”

Brandon exhales slowly, his rigid body slowly beginning to relax as the medicine works through his body.

“Gone,” he whispers hoarsely. Blood stains the corner of his mouth as his head rolls toward you. “That thing took him. Dragged him up into the vents.” His hand weakly lifts, pointing toward the far end of the lab. Your eyes follow a trail of blood, up the wall and disappearing into an open vent barely wide enough for a child. There is no possible way a grown man could have been forced through that narrow space without snapping bones like twigs. Your throat tightens painfully as nausea coils deep in your stomach.

Brandon’s hand suddenly clamps around your sleeve with surprising strength.

“We were expected,” he breathes, his voice barely more than air now. “Security was … already down. The doors opened for us. We got in here so quickly.”

A chill runs down slowly your spine. He’s just voiced the exact same suspicion that has been nagging at the back of your mind since the moment you stepped into this cursed facility.

“Someone wanted us here.” For a brief, terrible second the weight of that settles squarely on your shoulders, and the ugly possibility rises up before you can stop it—that you didn’t just lead your team into danger. You led them straight into a trap.

Behind you, Javi suddenly goes very still. It is the kind of stillness that belongs to predators, the moment before a strike when every muscle locks into place and the world narrows down to a single deadly focus. His breath leaves him in a slow, restrained exhale; his voice is barely a whisper.

“Don’t move,” he says softly.

You follow the line of his muzzle up into the corner of the room. At first you believe the thing clinging to the ceiling is some twisted piece of machinery. Then it moves. It unfolds slowly from the shadows, limbs sliding free from the metal support beams with a wet, sucking sound. Its body is pale and slick, stretched too long for something that once might have been human. The skin is thin enough that dark veins writhe beneath it like worms trapped in soil. Where hands should be, there are long tendrils lined with circular suckers. Each sucker is rimmed with tiny needle-like teeth, flexing open and closing hungrily.

The creature drops. It hits the floor with a heavy, boneless thud, its tentacles writhing outward slowly. They writhe and curl over the laboratory floor as though testing the air, tasting it, hunting for something. Its wet nuzzle raises as it catches a scent in the air, emitting a small whine.

For a heartbeat nobody moves. Then, the mutation jerks its head all the way back, and screams, the sound a wet and high-pitched screech, like metal scraping against metal.

“Contact!” Javi shouts.

You fire first, unloading the whole magazine into the writhing body. The G19 bucks in your hands, muzzle flashes lightening the laboratory in violent bursts. Bullets tear into the creature’s torso, but instead of falling, it lunges. Faster than anything that size should be able to move, it propels itself over the work stations right in front of the exit, its tentacles whipping around. One of the tendrils lashes out, and before you can roll out of the way, you feel it clamp around your wrist.

Pain explodes all the way up your arm. The ring of teeth bites straight through fabric and flesh, locking tight like a bear trap. You scream, trying to tear free, but the thing yanks you forward with terrifying strength, and the harder you struggle, the deeper you feel those razor-sharp needles of teeth sink into your flesh. The world tilts violently as the monster whips around its tendril and throws you against the wall, your head slamming hard against the hard surface.

White light explodes behind your eyes. Gunfire roars—Javi’s rifle barking in controlled bursts. The creature recoils as rounds punch into its side, but not before another tendril whips around Brandon’s leg, all the way up to his torso. His body starts to convulse as the sucker’s teeth penetrate his skin. Foamy saliva bursts from his mouth, the veins in his throat begin to protrude and writhe under his skin, as though something beneath it wants to burst out. A horrible choking scream escapes him.

Through the quickly setting haze you see Javi charging forward, fury blazing across his face as he empties another volley into the monster. Through the teeth-lined sucker still stuck to your skin, you feel something searing hot course through your body, as though a fever inside you is breaking out, burning you from inside. The last thing you see is Javi diving toward you—and then the darkness rushes up and swallows everything.

~ * ~

The television mounted high in the corner of the lounge room murmurs softly. The calm, polished voice of the evening news anchor carries through the room like a steady current beneath the hum of fluorescent lights.

“—with that incident, it has been the third facility targeted and destroyed by an unknown faction. Authorities believe their objective may be to hide any remaining evidence connected to the once-operational Umbrella Corporation. Officials warn that if such research still exists, it could indicate that Umbrella—or organisations derived from it—may still be active after all this time.”

You stare at the screen without really seeing it, your mind replaying other images—Linette’s copper hair the same stark red as the blood on the cracked tile floor, Brandon writhing on the ground as his own blood and organs turn against him with a sickening violence, and that withering, obscene mass of flesh that once had been something human. The smell of blood soaked into the sterile laboratory tiles still haunts you, even a month after the incident. They still haven’t found Jackson’s body.

Weight sinks into the couch seat next to you. Quick fingers steal the remote control from where it’s been resting loosely against your thigh. Before you can react, the channel flips to Paw Patrol.

You turn your head slowly. Javi sprawls beside you with the air of someone who has absolutely no intention of minding his own business. On the television, the cartoon dogs begin enthusiastically explaining the importance of teamwork. You glare at him, which he promptly ignores.

“You’ve been hauled up in here for two weeks now,” he says casually, stretching his long legs out in front of him and tossing the remote onto the coffee table far away from your reach. “The rookies are making up weird shit about you being the residential ghost or something.” He tilts his head toward the TV, listening to a cartoon puppy deliver a motivational speech about friendship and trust. “Personally, I think it’s a step up from your usual reputation.”

“Well, I can give them a beating that feels very real. And very painful.”

Javi exhales slowly beside you, the humour draining from his posture just enough that you notice the change. “Listen,” he says after a moment, his voice softer now. “I know the mission went to shit. But we have to keep going. That’s all we can do. For their sake as much as our own.”

You don’t answer. You’ve been trying to avoid this conversation with him—after they released you from the military medical centre and cleared you physically, the mental wounds were still too fresh to confront the loss of your team. It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last, but the pain is always like knives stabbing into your body, so you shove it deep down where you don’t have to think about what if and if only. Your regrets need to stay buried until you’re ready to face them.

Instead, you lower your eyes to your arm. The bandage wrapped tightly around your lower forearm is fresh and stark white against the darker fabric of your shirt’s sleeve. Beneath the layers of gauze, you can still feel the dull ache where those grotesque suckers had clamped onto your skin, teeth digging deep enough that the scars will probably never fade.

Slowly, you let your eyes wander over to Javi. The bruises on his face have started to fade away slowly, the deep purples now turning pale yellow beneath his tan skin. His right arm sits trapped in a cast, secured tightly across his chest by a sling looped around his neck. You skim over the messages written across the plaster—get-well wishes from half the department. Someone’s drawn a unicorn next to a dick—the sight of it so ordinary and stupidly cheerful that the sudden tightness in your throat catches you off-guard.

“I still can’t believe me made it out alive,” you say quietly, forcing the words past the lump forming in your throat. When you finally regained consciousness, the first thing they told you was that Javi had been the one carrying you all the way to the extraction point. He had been beaten up, bruised and bleeding, his arm already broken from when the monster had attacked him. And somehow he had still managed to drag you the entire distance. “You saved my life, Javier.”

He glances sideways at you and gives a crooked grin, gently nudging his shoulder against yours. It is a familiar gesture repeated so many times over the years that it is more comfort than anything. “You know I would give my life for you, partner,” he says lightly. “But let’s leave any dramatic sacrifices for another day, yeah?”

You press your lips together and stare intently at the TV without blinking until the familiar sting from unshed tears behind your eyes finally fades. It takes a moment before you can trust your voice again. “I really thought I’d be done for. Whatever that thing infected Brandon with, I thought it got me too. Guess I was lucky.”

Javi doesn’t respond immediately. The silence stretches just long enough for you to glance over at him, and when you do, something flickers across his face—quick and fleeting, so brief you almost convince yourself you imagined it. Something dark and unreadable flashed in his eyes before it disappeared behind his usual carefully controlled expression. It seems you aren’t the only one ready to face the catastrophic possibilities of how much worse it could have ended.

“You can say that again,” he replies after a short pause, running his hand through his unruly hair. “If I’d lost you too—” He stops there, his mouth snapping shut around the unfinished sentence. Sometimes, you both know, it isn’t a question of if but when. The late afternoon sunlight filtering through the slatted blinds paints thin golden lines across the room, catching briefly in the dark strands of his hair as he leans forward, his elbow resting loosely on his knee.

After a moment he clears his throat, his voice steadier. “The lab boys ran the tests twice. Apparently that particular mutation doesn’t transmit the virus. Brandon must have caught something else down there when some of the mutated virus strains got loose. Lucky break for us.”

You hum quietly in acknowledgement, though something about this sits strangely in your mind, like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong space—only the whole puzzle is see-through and you can only go on by the shape of the individual pieces. Nothing you’ve learnt about the t-Virus during preparations for this mission indicated such a violent mutation pathology. It is unlikely something like that has remained unrecorded after all the years of the t-Virus existing.

Maybe one of the broken cylinders back in the laboratory was holding a freshly mutated virus parasite after all, and it had gotten to Linette and Brandon. Death was the catalyst for the virus going rampant in the body—but why had it only affected Brandon and spared Linette? Or maybe there was no sense in trying to understand mutations grown in test tubes by crazy scientists in a lab hidden in the wilds. Anything else would end up in having a screw loose yourself.

Your attention drifts back to the TV. The tacky cartoon theme song feels almost offensive in its cheerfulness.

The two of you sit there for a long moment in silence, the kind that exists comfortably between people who have known each other long enough that words are not always necessary. But that also means that you have known him long enough to immediately notice the changes in his mood, like right now: Javi’s body has gone still beside you, not relaxed or casual.

“There’s something else,” he says at last. The words emerge slowly, as though it takes him great effort to speak them. You tilt your head slightly, watching him from the corner of your eyes. “Dick wants to see you.”

You blink in surprise.

“There’s a meeting later tonight,” he continues, rubbing the back of his neck as though that might loose the tension in his shoulders. “He’s waiting for someone to arrive, and wants you to join the briefing.”

A small frown creases your brow. There’s no rule about getting into action right after a mission, but usually it doesn’t happen this fast—not after a butchered mission that still needs your report on your director’s table. “Only me?” Your voice comes out rougher than intended. “What about you?”

Javi gives you another crooked smile. “Not invited.”

“But if it’s a follow-up on the mission, you should be there.” You sit up straighter. “If what Brandon said was right, we need to investigate and find out who sold us out. Starting with the person who gave us intel about the facility.”

Javi’s familiar, dark eyes study your face carefully, before he leans back against the couch again, letting his head rest against the cushion in a way that reveals the long line of his neck. There’s something vulnerable about the posture, making your chest ache.

“I don’t think it’s that,” he says eventually, rubbing the dark stubble framing the lower part of his face thoughtfully. “Pretty sure they got a new mission for you, and I’ll have to be on standby for now. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do to help the Directorate of Operations about the mole in our midst.”

A hollow feeling settles somewhere beneath your ribs. There has never been a mission where the two of you weren’t assigned together. Sure, there have been brief separations—split objectives, parallel operations, but the foundation has always been the same. You and Javi, partners. Always. Now the idea of walking into something without him standing nearby and covering your back … it feels wrong.

You don’t say that out loud though. You have never been good at saying all those things sitting deep within your chest. Instead you lean back, folding your arms loosely across your chest as the Paw Patrol team begins another cheerful rescue mission.

“Fantastic,” you mutter under your breath. “This is probably where he fires me and I begin my new career as a stripper.”

Javi chuckles softly. “Don’t flatter yourself. You don’t have the core strength to pull it off.”

“Oh, fuck off. Nobody in their sane mind actually enjoys a ten-minute plank without throwing up.”

The conversation fades after that, leaving the two of you sitting quietly side by side while the animated voices from the television fill the silence. The late afternoon sunlight continues its slow crawl across the room, warm lines stretching across the carpet and couch. At some point, lulled by the soft noise of the cartoon and the steady presence of Javier, who has spent half his life watching over you, your eyes drift close.

You wake to the sharp electronic chirp of your watch alarm. The sound cuts cleanly through the fog of sleep, and you jolt upright with a startled breath, feeling disoriented and confused. Remnants of a dream haunt your waking eye: blood and intestines everywhere, fleshy tentacles coiled tight around your body until you ran out of breath. Cold sweat has your shirt stuck to your body, making you shiver in cool air conditioned room.

The lounge lights are dimmer now, the golden glow of the afternoon replaced by the cool shades of night. The TV has gone silent, the screen displaying nothing but a blue standby glow.

You glance at your wrist. Your watch continues beeping insistently until you silence it with a quick press of your thumb. Javi must have set the alarm before leaving earlier, something that is both thoughtful and annoyingly practical. You drag your hands across your face slowly, trying to rub off any lingering heaviness of sleep from your mind. Your shoulder protests immediately from how you must have slept folded awkwardly against the couch’s cushion, the half-healed bite wound sending a dull throb through the muscles of your arm. Your shirt is wrinkled beyond salvation, and there is a suspicious wet spot on the collar where you’ve probably drooled in your sleep. Truly the height of professionalism. You attempt to smooth the wrinkles with your hands, tugging at the fabric in vague hope that you look somewhat descent. At least there are no stains from yesterday’s Taco Bell.

The hallway outside the lounge is quiet. Agents move through the corridors in small clusters and low conversations, the endless machinery of government work grinding steadily onward regardless of time. You follow the familiar route toward the administrative wing, every step muffled by the dark rugs crisscrossing the hallways. The smell of old carpet cleaner and stale coffee lingers in the air, an aroma that seems permanently embedded in government buildings across the country. When you pass the small communal kitchen, you duck inside quickly, guided by muscle memory and the desperate need for caffeine. Someone has already brewed a pot of coffee and left it sitting on the warmer. Picking a cup from the unclaimed mugs stashed in a cupboard—half of them promotional gifts from long-forgotten conferences—you pour yourself a cup of coffee with what some might consider an alarming amount of sugar. The coffee is lukewarm, but the sugar will get your gears shifting and working.

This late at night, the kitchen is almost deserted. Back in a corner, only one table is occupied. After a second glance, you recognise the Thompson siblings, their dark heads bend together in quiet conversation over two untouched canned sodas. You consider for a moment walking over to say hello, when Lara Thompson glances up and her eyes meet yours across the room. For a brief second, her expression is blank, the kind of emptiness people wear when they haven’t processed yet what they’re seeing. Then recognition dawns, and the look that replaces it is unfathomable contempt.

Right, she and Linette were close, you remember suddenly. Very close. The realisation lands in your stomach like a stone, its edges sharp enough they cut you from the inside. You pivot on your heel with the grace of someone who’s had too much to drink, intent on avoiding that emotional landmine, and end up sloshing lukewarm coffee onto your hand. You hiss quietly under your breath and flee the kitchen before the landmine goes off behind you.

By the time you reach the conference room, your pulse is a steady hammering beat against your throat, though whether that’s from the caffeine, the encounter with Lara, the need for a cigarette, or the fact that being summoned by Director Campbell rarely leads to anything relaxing is difficult to determine. The double doors loom in front of you, heavy oak polished to a dull shine, and you pause just long enough before you knock.

“Enter,” comes back the familiar, gravely voice of the SAC director.

You push the door open and step through. The room isn’t particularly large, but it manages to feel imposing anyway, lit by the soft glow of recessed ceiling lights that leave the corners in shadows. A long conference table dominates the centre of the space, its polished surface reflecting the pale light like still water.

Director Richard “Dick” Campbell sits at the head of the table exactly as he always does; sometimes you believe he has been installed there permanently by the federal government and simply suppresses any bodily needs he deems beneath him like food or water. You repress the urge to look under the table to see if there’s a urine collection jug stashed under his seat.

He is dressed in one of his usual hand-tailored suits, the fabric immaculate and without any stains or lints, his grey hair slicked back into perfect order. His sharp grey eyes rest on a file spread neatly in front of him.

Across from him sits a beautiful woman, perhaps in her late-thirties. Her blonde hair is cut neatly to her chin, framing a face that would look almost soft if not for the analytical focus in her green eyes. They both look up when the door shuts behind you with a soft click, taking in your slightly dishevelled form in varying degrees of disapproval.

“Agent,” Campbell says, nodding slightly.

You can hear the unspoken lecture about dress code politics going off in his mind, though to his credit he doesn’t voice it aloud. “Director.”

Campbell gestures toward the woman seated across from him. “This is Agent Sherry Birkin.”

The name sparks recognition somewhere in the back of your mind, a cluster of half-remembered headlines and classified briefings—Racoon City, government custody, something about experimental immunity. You incline your head politely.

“Nice to meet you,” you say, and somehow manage to make it sound like a question.

Sherry Birkin allows you the grace and pretends not to notice. “Likewise,” she replies, her voice calm and measured, her eyes quickly jumping from you to the other side of the room. Trained to notice subtleties like that, your gaze drifts toward the far wall.

There is a third person in the room, and now you feel it like a lightning bolt jolting through your bodyt: that strange prickling awareness at the back of your neck, the subtle instinct honed by years in the field that tells you someone is watching you.

A man stands there, partially hidden in the shadows where the overhead lights don’t quite reach. He is leaning casually against the wall, arms folded across his chest in a posture that looks relaxed but carries the quiet tension of someone who is used to being ready for trouble at a moment’s notice. You don’t miss that he’s picked the only spot in the room that allows a clear line of sight through the window overlooking the parking area outside where you can easily see people coming and going through the main gate.

As he shifts slightly, the light catches his face, revealing sharp blue eyes and a weathered, hard face that’s experienced its own fair share of trouble. Fine lines of age are edged across his handsome face, his mouth a stubborn line. His sheer presence is quiet, but intimidating; he is in the far back of the room because he doesn’t want to draw attention, but a man like that will always have eyes on him wherever he goes.

“Leon Kennedy,” he says, his voice deep and measured. There must be a question mark clearly written all across your face, because he gestures from Sherry Birkin to himself and adds, “DSO.”

You force your eyes away from him, pretending you don’t feel his gaze pressing against you like a physical force. It occurs to you this isn’t the usual run-of-the-mill meeting where you get to be cocky with Dick and he pretends to be annoyed with you for the sake of office discipline. It’s the hard set in his jaw, the serious look in Agent Birkin’s eyes, the rigid line of Agent Kennedy’s shoulders as he leans against the wall that promises this is going to be very unpleasant.

You slide into the office chair that’s the farthest away but allows you to keep all of them in your line of sight. To calm your racing pulse, you take a long, languid sip from your coffee. The sugar sits thick at the bottom, making your stomach churn.

“So, what are we doing here?” you say, forcing lightness in your tone that you don’t feel. “I doubt this is going to be a promotion.”

Campbell considers you for a long moment without answering. His gaze is steady but distant, the sort of look people develop after decades of watching good agents walk into situations they don’t walk out of again. He has lost a lot of people over the years, subordinates, comrades, friends, and somewhere along the way something inside him must have hardened into stone just to keep functioning.

“What happened last month was unfortunate,” he says at last, his voice calm but heavy with implication. “We believe we were compromised, and right now we’re doing everything in our power to investigate how they could escape with the research.”

With your eyes pinned on Campbell, you’re watching the other two out of the corner of your eye. Him talking while they are present means they know about the mission. The SAC doesn’t usually involve itself with any other government organisation, and from what you’ve glimpsed in classified reports, the DSO doesn’t step in unless things have escalated into something bordering on bio-terrorism. They are certainly not the sort of agency that gets called in for routine damage control. Which leaves you wondering why exactly you’ve been summoned here. Maybe the SAC is officially handing the case over and you’re here to provide a firsthand account of what went wrong.

Before you can begin to recount what happened though, Agent Birkin rises form her chair. She moves with quick efficiency, her back straight as a rod, reaching across the table to retrieve the remote for the overhead projector. The machine hums to life with a sharp mechanical whine, and the sudden burst of light forces you to squeeze your eyes shut for a moment until they adjust.

A photograph appears on the wall.

It’s a file image of a man in his mid-thirties with a long, angular face, narrow sharp blue eyes, and hair shaved down to the skin. A long, nasty scar is carved into his left cheek, uncomfortably close to his eye, the sort of scar that suggests someone once tried very hard to kill him and nearly succeeded. Something about his features nudges briefly your memory—some faint sense of familiarity—but then you blink and it’s gone.

“This,” Sherry begins, clearing her throat softly as she gestures toward the image, “is Jake Muller. A mercenary operating throughout Central and Eastern Europe.” She pauses, and the tension in her shoulders becomes visible. “He has disappeared during a surveillance mission in Central Europe, or at least that’s when we had last confirmed contact with him. It is up to us to find him now.”

You lean back into your chair, ignoring the screeching squeal of the wheels protesting under your weight. “I wasn’t aware the DSO employs mercenaries,” you remark slowly, studying the troubled expression on Sherry’s face she’s trying to keep under control. It doesn’t look like the kind of concern someone has for a missing asset. “He must be a damn good mercenary if you want him back. How do you know he’s missing and hasn’t just, you know … changed employers?”

Sherry presses her lips into a thin line. Campbell shoots you a quick warning glance across the table, his hand half-raised in that familiar don’t push it motion he uses when you’re about to irritate someone, mostly him. But Sherry is faster.

“He is a friend,” she answers brusquely, “and more important to saving the world than most will ever know.”

Your leg begins bouncing under the table as your mind starts working through every scrap of information it can retrieve. Tapping your fingers absently against the side of the mug, you rifle through old reports and briefings in your mind like pulling folders from a filing cabinet.

The last major DSO operation you recall involved the Neo-Umbrella attacks in 2013, China. An outbreak of global bio-terrorism that left entire cities burning, the sort of catastrophe that dragged every major agency into the same firefight. The casualty reports had been staggering, the infection spreading rapidly as the C-Virus tore through civilian populations. Yet somehow, they managed to develop a vaccine in time to stop the catastrophe before it escalated even further. The reports had only ever mentioned an individual called J.D.—John Doe, you had assumed. Perhaps it has been a Jake Doe after all.

As if reading the direction of your thoughts, Sherry proceeds with the presentation. The next slides are familiar reports and photographs from 2013: the burning skyscrapers of Lianshiang, the infected suspended in grotesque milky cocoons before their grizzly metamorphosis into the monstrous J’avo.

“Jake Muller is the son of an infamous virologist and hosts antibodies to most viruses,” she continues, and the next picture has you sitting straight in your chair, your heart skipping a beat. The Crawford Research Facility. “The intel you received, as you already know, was compromised. You were expected to retrieve a mutated strain of the t-Virus. However, not only did this unknown faction manage to escape, we have also secured enough evidence to determine it wasn’t the t-Virus after all that was researched in this facility.”

Click. The next slide appears, and this time your heart almost jams in your throat. Dead bodies, bloated and deformed lie motionless on stainless-steel dissection tables, illuminated by harsh surgical lights. Their skin is swollen, their veins protruding and coiling like thick snakes. Another soft click shows the progression of the mutation. The bodies have turned into something tentacle-like, the arms and legs stretching and showing bulking, red blotches on the skin that look vaguely similar to the suckers of some deep-sea creature.

This is what Brandon would have become. Has become? you wonder, horrified. You swallow hard and look away from the imagine for a moment, your stomach tightening. Hopefully Javi had the sense and mercy to put a bullet through Brandon’s head before he could turn into this abomination. In moving your head, your eyes end up locked with Agent Kennedy’s intent gaze. You feel like he can read right through you, see the regret and guilt written plainly across your features—and feel a deep contempt at him for staring this openly as if you’re a specimen pinned to a corkboard for scientists to study.

“This is what was stolen that night,” Sherry continues, and you force yourself to look back at her, feeling heat burn high in your cheeks. She regards you with an almost sympathetic look, though in your current state, it feels a lot like pity which you’re highly allergic to. “What little we could salvage indicates that the research referred to it as the Q-Virus, although what it stands for and what other pathological effects we can expect is still unclear.”

The silence that unfolds is its own physical force, heavy and oppressive. On the wall, a clock ticks away, each passing second marking time like a distant gunshot.

“You believe your Jake Muller has the antibodies for this virus as well?” you say slowly, realisation dawning. “And chances are high that whoever wiped off half of my team and took off with the research—”

“—is also responsible for Jake’s disappearance.” Sherry folds her hands neatly before her. “If this is the pre-stage to another another bio-terrorism attack, we need to stop them before they can even start. And Jake is the key to that.”

You lean forward slightly, exhaling the air you’ve been holding in your lungs slowly as you consider the implications. Central Europe is a large piece of territory to get lost in, and mercenary networks are notoriously difficult to track unless you know where to start.

“Where was the last point of contact?” you ask.

Sherry nods, relief imperceptibly removing the tension out of her shoulders for a moment—as though you could have said no. As though you truly could afford the luxury to turn your back on what is partially your mess. Something about that gesture makes you warm a little to her.

“The contract brought Jake to Tarasp Castle in Graubünden, Switzerland.” She stumbles over the pronunciation, and quickly moves on to the next slide. An aerial view shows a giant, romanesque stone castle sitting atop a looming hill overlooking the green valley, a sight straight out from a fairy-tale picture book with the luscious forests surrounding the area and snow-capped mountains in the distance. “He discovered a passageway from the nearby village that leads to the castle grounds. You’ll have to make your way from there too, and see if you can find anything that can tell us where Jake left … or was taken after.”

“Understood,” you say after a moment, though your eyes remain on the image of the castle a little longer. Switzerland, of all places. Idyllic, alpine retreats, nature in abundance, a medieval fortress, and somewhere inside it all a missing mercenary who apparently holds the salvation to prevent another global catastrophe.

You finally lean back again, dragging your attention away from the photograph.

“I have one request though,” you say, looking at Director Campbell who raises his eyebrows at you. “I know he’s still recovering from the last mission, but I want Javi on my team. With him, we can cover far more ground across Europe, we’re both versed in speaking multiple languages and—”

Campbell relaxes slightly, as though he’s been expecting this question. “There won’t be a team.”

You still, looking at him with wide eyes.

“We’ve discussed the details, and agree that this operation requires a small, agile unit. Too many people moving around and asking questions would attract attention. That’s why we’ve decided to work with the agents from the DSO. Agent Birkin will be your contact handler for this.”

Sherry inclines her head slightly at that.

“And your partner,” Campbell finishes, “will be Agent Kennedy.”

Your jaw tightens. You move your eyes slowly to the ceiling, then allow yourself to lower them back on Agent Kennedy, bracing yourself again for the sight of him. He’s been watching the entire exchange in near silence, probably briefed about all this long before you entered the picture. From this angle, his handsome features are almost painful to look at, so you quickly drop your gaze to your hands curled around the cold mug.

Great.

Looks like you’re going to Europe after all.

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