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A FORGOTTEN CITY
CITY OF THE DEAD - CHARACTER POSTERS
File #009 - Reciprocity
City of the Dead
Pairing: Leon Kennedy x OC
Word Count: 3.1k
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
In Haitian Voodoo culture, most viewed death not as an end but as the beginning of 16 lives. That one would be reborn eight times as a man and a woman. Amara’s mother, being Haitian-American, had her own traditions and customs that were more Americanized but that is one that she always stuck true to. Despite turning herself away from the world, she still lived a life without fear of it. She often joked that in her next life, she’d come back as a man to not have to deal with marrying one.
Though Amara was quite the opposite, she had a healthy dose of fear of it just as much as the next person. At the same time, she loved the spiritual and the inclination of what it all entailed. But, she definitely didn’t want to find out so soon what the other side could hold.
She envied her mother in that regard.
Everything in her head kept playing on repeat, like a highlight reel of all her successes alongside all of her embarrassments. It was incessant even after Amara wanted it to stop. Intercut with those images in her head, she kept getting flashes of…Leon. If she was dying, that at least wasn’t the worst thing to show her.
But, the flashes… seemed so real. How could she be seeing him in such crystal clear detail in her subconscious? Especially considering each flash, Leon looked…dirtier? More grime and blood coated his once pristine uniform—the winter uniform, a detail that her mind reminds her of—as he seemed to check on her.
Warmth radiated through her, a throbbing sensation made her left temple pulse like a heartbeat. Her chest feels too constricted, too tight, too much. It really doesn’t take two and two to tell the effects of G are working hard to… acclimate as Doctor Li put it.
Scolding herself wasn’t what she needed right now but her thoughts did it anyways. But this time, it was rightfully deserved. For someone who prided herself on the small details she sure did miss a lot of them. Dumbass.
Her father, despite his drunkenness, would’ve called it pitiful. Her mother would’ve lectured her on the world becoming a more dangerous place and she should’ve been more cautious. Monet, on the other hand, is just about the only one she’d actually care to listen to.
There’d be a playful undertone as she’d also call Amara a dumbass but not before reassuring her as she always had like siblings are meant to do. A visit to her wouldn’t hurt after all this.
It’d been a quick realization that Amara, despite the pain, was still alive. That usually counted for something.
Alarms began blaring at an obnoxious frequency. And there was rumbling that shook the whole room.
“Unauthorized removal of G sample and antiviral has been detected.” A robotic voice announces. “Destruction sequence has been initiated.”
Oh, that’s not good. Mustering all the strength she can, Amara pushes herself up from the cot but still feels like a fishbowl has been attached to her head, a heaviness in all her limbs she couldn’t shake. God forbid she die down here in this hellhole or turn into something worse. She refused to go out like that.
Now, if she could just get to Leon, she’d be golden. He clearly had been the one who set off the alarms. On a noble mission to get that very thing that would save her. There wasn’t any kidding to her earlier statement to Leon, he really was her own knight in shining armor…well, kevlar vest.
But, she couldn’t let him do all the saving. She needed to be sure he was okay.
Her first steps are wobbly, damn near stumbling, as blood finally rushed back down to a place that hadn’t been used for what had to be a good hour. Her gear falls in her line of sight and she can’t help but briefly smile and wiggle her fingers as she hovers over her sweet, sweet guns.
Okay, so maybe the destruction sequence and excruciating pain in her side could wait a moment while she made sure her prized possessions were ready to go.
“Oh, you are a sight for sore eyes,” she checks the magazine on her Samurai Edge through somewhat bleary, watery eyes. “10 in the chamber, that’ll do.”
Her other gun, her custom-made Beretta 92 that Leon complimented earlier, has only one shot left in its chamber. Better make sure that last shot counts, Barry, ever the gun enthusiast, would tell her during training in the shooting range.
Shit, she only hoped she had a steady hand if it came down to that. Coughs tore through her chest, in her weakened state, they were enough to send her down to one knee.
“I’ll be damned…if this shit takes me out,” Amara spoke, trying to pep herself up. Through gritted teeth, she raises herself up and uses the wall to balance herself.
Blood on her hand stains the wall. Oh, good lord, she’s fucked if she doesn’t get out of here.
As if things weren’t already hindering Amara from leaving the room, Annette stumbles in. Though, Amara is not quite sure when the woman had originally left the room. They were both hanging on for dear life, it seems. She all but collapses onto Amara, and she’s lucky they both don’t topple to the floor.
“Annette…where’s Sherry? Claire?” A particular morbid thought crosses her mind, Jesus, lady, can you die already? You’ve been dying for two hours.
“Safe. But you won’t b-be…unless you get that antiviral.”
Amara already knew that much was abundantly clear. “I need to get to Leon-“
“Tell me you’ll get rid of the G sample?” There’s a fierceness to her grip on Amara’s arm.
“That needs to go to the FBI.” If Ada is even actually FBI, that is.
She coughs. “You trust that bitch?”
“Not in the slightest. What do you mean by that?”
“She’s not with the FBI. She’s a m-mercenary…she’s gonna sell that sample the minute she gets out of here.”
“If that sample…gets into the wrong hands…” Annette doesn’t finish her statement. Finally, quietly collapsing. A shine in her eye has dulled.
Amara already knew what exactly she meant. That sample—the virus had caused so much trouble and destruction for just Raccoon. God only knows what else could happen if that got much further than here. As if it wasn’t fucked up enough, people wanted to profit off spreading things like this. Shit, did Leon know about Ada too? Everything in her head told her to hurry up because this could only spell disaster if he didn’t.
There wasn’t time to mourn for Annette but Amara could sympathize, though sympathy for someone who indirectly had a hand in this was in short supply right now.
Amara needed to warn Leon. Now.
“Unauthorized removal of G-sample and anti-viral. Destruction sequence initiated.”
“Fuck, that’s not good.” As if this night…day, or whatever could get any worse.
Leon still couldn’t stomach what Annette told him about Ada. She’s not FBI, she’s a mercenary. She’s gonna sell G to the highest bidder. That had been repeating in his head alongside her ominous warning about Amara’s and Sherry’s condition. They will never stop chasing them for what’s in their blood.
The betrayal sat heavily on him, bile threatening to rise from his throat. A part of him didn’t want to believe Annette but she had divulged that information to him in what were surely her dying breaths, last moments alive on this godforsaken earth.
Leon held many beliefs about most people, some would call them naive—foolish even. But deep down, there’s always an inherent good most people possess despite all the ugly in the world to help others and do right by them. Learning that Ada’s intentions were…well, not that didn’t make him as mad as he thought he’d be. Just disappointed.
The part of it that made him sicker, angrier, was the fact he’d been used as a pawn in someone else’s game.
Retrieving the sample wasn’t a moral mission for good to take these Umbrella bastards down, it was to line someone else’s pockets so that this would happen again and again.
He looked at both of the vials in his hand. The G virus was encased in a silver tube while the anti-viral held an almost translucent blue color to it, a covered syringe on its end, ready for insertion into its next host. Holding the world’s safety and its end between my fingertips, aren’t I? Christ, when did I get so poetic?
He takes his time to meet back up with Ada, sans Amara, he notices. There’s a definitive shift in the air that he’s not even sure that Ada has picked up on yet.
“I was just thinking about you,” Leon states, yet his tone doesn’t match his words.
Ada uses a device to hack the elevator to unlock it, eyes darting around the lab as the rocks and other things begin falling. “That makes two of us.”
She holds out her hand, expecting Leon to just immediately hand it over but he doesn’t. He couldn’t just let Annette’s words about Ada be left unaddressed, unanswered.
“I give you this, what happens next?”
“We get out of here and I take it to the FBI. Simple as that.” Ada reaches out a hand. “Let me verify that sample and we can all get the hell out of here.”
“I may be many things but stupid is not one of them. I spoke to Annette.” Leon chooses his words wisely. “She tells me you’re not FBI.”
She smiles, almost sadly. The facade she held seemed to drop without so much as a thought at his revelation, more than likely knowing it’d be insulting to both their intelligence to keep it going much further. “Oh, Leon. Why couldn’t you just hand over the sample?”
“Because I realized, as much as I wanted to trust you…I didn’t.” He draws his gun, shoulders square to her.
“I really hoped it wouldn’t end up like this.”
“Is that all this was? Were we just some pawns,—tools to you?”
“Look, I’m just doing my job,” She states, with slight annoyance and a hard edge to her tone. “Amara was dead to me before we even made the sewer, Leon.”
His stomach lurched a tad at her words. Beyond the police station, Amara had outlived her usefulness in Ada’s eyes.
“And I’m doing mine, so drop that damn gun! I’m taking you in.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Ada says, her voice the most unassertive, unsure he’d heard from her all night. “Hand over the sample, Leon.”
They had reached an impasse, he knew that. It already feels as though he wants to give up and just let Ada take the sample. But he knows how incredibly stupid he’d be to do that. The shit he—they went through shouldn’t go down the drain like everything else had. That virus should never go beyond this city.
Think about Amara. Standing here in a standoff is wasting time to give her the antiviral she needs, you goddamn asshole.
In a show of defiance, confidence (or pure foolishness), Leon puts down his gun, calling her on her bluff.
After everything, she wouldn’t have the guts to stop him in his tracks. Stop him from saving one person at least tonight despite her view that Amara was no longer useful.
Never. Never could he think of someone’s value in what they could do for him.
“You shoot me, but I don’t think you can. You want these vials, you’ll have to take them from my cold, dead fingers.”
A pregnant pause permeates the air.
Ada’s face is set in a glare but slowly, surely she lowers the gun. It makes Leon smirk with a brief swell of pride to know that he was right after all.
A shot pierced through the air. Not even a second later, blood sprayed in Leon’s direction, emanating from Ada’s shoulder.
As she stumbled, Leon caught a glimpse of a bloodied, dirtied Amara, blood coming from her mouth in what seemed like a faucet and a smoking gun shaking in her grip.
Even from here, the fire behind her eyes is evident.
Jesus, she’s got a hell of a shot, even in her state. There was not even a moment to think more about that as the ground jolted beneath them. The destruction of the NEST Lab inevitably becomes more apparent. As does the destruction of Amara, her body collapsing just as the bridge underneath Leon and Ada’s feet gives way, sending the latter sliding off.
Leon practically leaps for her hand, catching her at the last second. His grip is tight on her wrist, the only thing keeping Ada from falling into the dark depths beneath is him. Their weight on the walkway, as it hangs on by a thread, makes it groan and grind. It hurt like hell to keep a good grip on Ada to pull her up, the whole of his arm muscle burned at the effort.
“Forget it, Leon.” Ada looks at him, a resolve clear in her eyes. He shook his head and grit his teeth, trying with all his might to pull her up but even that was tempting fate as more of the walkway threatened to break off, sending them both to their deaths if he continued. Damn it, he couldn’t just let her go like this.
He could feel his grip loosening, his gloves barely giving him enough to cling to. “Shut up, I’ve got you!”
In the corner of his eye, he could see the vials slipping from one of his uniform’s pockets, both of them were teetering closer and closer to the edge of the walkway. The position they were both in didn’t exactly allow him to reach for them or they’d for sure be falling to their deaths.
Another violent shake sends the vials falling but Ada quickly grabs one of them. Ada looks down below briefly before meeting Leon’s eyes as they’re full of panic for her. “Take care of yourself, Leon. And Amara.”
“Don’t do this.”
She rips herself away from Leon’s grip but not before throwing the only vial left up toward Leon. In the confusion, he grabs the vial instead of trying to get Ada’s hand again. He could only stare in shock as she disappeared into the darkness beneath the lab.
“Oh, shit…shit,” Leon breathed, slowly pushing himself off the walkway and to safety as it finally gave way, following Ada in its path to the depths below. He looked at the vial gripped tightly in his fist. The familiar fluorescent blue of it stood out against the grimy material of his fingerless glove.
He briefly wondered why Ada, with her harsh words about Amara’s uselessness, had chosen to sacrifice herself for him to administer the antiviral that would save Amara...
...Shit. Amara.
Leon rushed to her side, Amara’s skin held a sickly pallor to it and she barely moved a muscle as he ran a hand over her forehead.
He briefly checks her wrist, he could just barely feel the telltale sign of a pulse underneath her skin.
“15 minutes until self-destruct sequence is finalized.”
Ridding himself of the shake in his hands, he pulls the cap off the syringe just as Amara’s eyes flutter open. He notices they’re becoming less shiny by the minute, the blood around her mouth beginning to dry out just like her mouth is. Shit, he needs to hurry up.
“Leon?” Her hand weakly falls onto his leg, and her fingers seem to fail to grasp at something.
“Yeah, Amara, it’s me.” He replies, heart pounding and stomach in knots. “Sorry, your knight in shining armor took so long.”
She winced, trying to put on a smile, “Had to be your…k-knight this time,…didn’t I?”
“I guess you did.” He wears a sad smile, even as she lay here in way more pain than he could ever imagine, she’s trying to make him smile still. A woman he met and saved only hours ago had become so important to him, it almost scared him a little. “Now, hold still. There’s gonna be a pinch.”
Leon carefully pressed the syringe into Amara’s shoulder, a visible shudder running through her body. He doesn’t exactly think her recovery would be instantaneous but he certainly doesn’t expect the almost momentary arch in Amara’s back and the whites of her eyes to be visible.
He’s more than ready to hold her down should she have convulsions but she relaxes, her hazel irises coming back into view. They’re a little more lively than they were just minutes ago. And pieces of her hair shift to a ghostly white shade against the auburn.
“Are you okay?” He asks, brows furrowed at the display he’d just witnessed.
Amara sits up, wiping the blood from her mouth. “…I think? I’m not dead so that’s a good thing, right?”
“In my book, I’d say so.”
—-
Amara feels different.
Sure, she was as close to death’s door as one could come but the moment the antiviral entered her system, an almost cool, soothing chill spread through her muscles before the familiar warmth of her normal body temperature flooded her. Swam through her veins like she’d been dropped in a hot bath. The momentary convulsion and eyes going back in her head is for sure, an odd thing but she’s alive and feels pretty good, the best she’s felt all night.
All thanks to Leon.
Grateful is an understatement. He went above and beyond to get her what she needed. No one had ever really done all he had this night really connected them in a way she had never expected to be to anyone.
Was it too soon to say she loved him? The haze…excitement of it all probably clouded her true feelings, a shared trauma surely isn’t the way to start anything but she couldn’t imagine anything without Leon now.
It takes a moment for Amara to register that the former is clinging to her tightly. “I thought you were dead for sure, Amara, don’t you die on me, alright?”
She pats his back, “Can’t promise that but I’ll try.”
The robotic voice that’d been urgently reminding of the NEST’s destruction cuts the moment short. “8 minutes until the self-destruct sequence initiates.”
They need to get the hell out. Fast.
Amara pulls away. “Let’s get moving! We didn’t do all this shit to die down here!”
Leon rose to his feet, pulling Amara up with him. For the first time all night, there’s strength as she stands.
A full breath of air enters her lungs and it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t make her as fearful as she was.
Now that she had all her wits about her and a renewed sense of purpose, it was time to get the hell out of there. Together.
File #011 - Epilogue
City of the Dead
Pairing: Leon Kennedy x OC
Word Count: 5.5k
Summary: Having escaped Raccoon City, Amara, Leon, and Sherry now face their next biggest obstacle: the US Government. Deals are made, and lives are forever changed, but not without one last goodbye, for now.
Warnings: a tad bit of talk about religious trauma, some violence
Previous Chapter
The start of October started like any other October. Except for the four people who stood outside of Alien Coffee Motel. A chill came through the air that wasn’t there only hours ago. Leon and Amara stood back as Claire gave her goodbyes to Sherry.
It was kind of inevitable that Claire would continue on her original path. Finding Chris was what she came to do and nothing could steer her otherwise. Amara understood that innate need to look after her sibling despite the disaster of a call she tried to make last night, had she been in Claire’s position, she’d searched high and low for Monet if she couldn’t find her.
Maybe post….this, after she’d gathered more of her thoughts, she could give her another call.
Chris had rarely divulged all the parts of his life to Amara, but she knew that Claire was all he had. In that aspect, she envied that. Well, not the orphans part but the closeness that comes from relying on one another, Claire seemed the type to walk through fire for anybody but especially for Chris.
“I’ll be back, I promise,” She hugged Sherry one last time.
She walks over to Amara and Leon, an almost sad smile on her face. The former doesn’t hesitate to pull her in for a hug. “I’m sure you’ll find him, stay safe, alright?” Amara said, still clinging to her.
“Same to you. All three of you.”
“Sherry is in good hands, trust me,” Leon reassured her. They waved her off, watching her walk away until she became a speck against the horizon from the direction they came from.
Amara sighs. “I really hope she’ll be alright.”
“Don’t worry, she’s tough. You both are,” Leon takes hold of her hand, his other holding Sherry’s hand. “Come on.”
—-
They walked and walked for what felt like hours, a slight but earthy, balanced scent wafted the air. There was a definite undertone of car exhaust and skunk too. Helicopters flew by every few minutes. Cars sped past them, sending particles of dust and dirt toward them. A shiver ran down Amara’s exposed skin. Yeah, it’s definitely October.
There is something about it that calmed Amara. Except for the exhaust and skunk, those were gross.
Abraham gave her a map of the city and the surrounding area. If she was right, if they kept on this way, they'd make it back near the other side of RC soon enough.
A sinking feeling sat in her gut, but it was more like a rock. It wasn’t like they could even begin to discuss it all, Leon somehow seemed to pick up on that from her. Their brief, shared glances held more than just a simple look when Sherry asked them anything about the situation. It was better, in the long run, to protect Sherry from their side of the story, considering what Claire told them about the orphanage and Irons (out of Sherry’s earshot, of course), she didn’t need to shoulder the burden of two adults.
Amara still needed to fucking shoulder it herself first anyway. Then there was Leon.
In the morning, they got dressed, unmussing everything that had been mussed–in better-fitting clothes, thanks to Tabitha–and ate their first real meal in what had been days for Amara. The small boxes of stale Lucky Charms and one day out-of-date 1% milk were like a five-star dish to her stomach, that was for damn sure. The silence between them this time was more comfortable but there was a nagging inside her to ask him what this made them.
Everything was a mess, and yet she was worried about labels. Shit, she needed to have her priorities straight.
They had words for this sort of thing.
A few of them she liked while others annoyed her. What occurred over the course of those hours forged something that made them look past the banalities of life and the trivial decisions that come with it. No one else would probably ever understand the tough choices they all made within the depths of that lab, a shared trauma if she ever knew one. And then last night, Amara physically connected further with Leon in a way she hadn’t in a while with anyone.
So she didn’t want to ignore it forever. Ignore the feelings he had pulled from her that left her feeling like time was yielding and all her dreams came true.
She picked up on Leon’s silence as well. The last thing he’d really said was back at the motel, he seemed in deep thought since then. Amara wondered if he was thinking about things just as much as she was, she half expected him to utter at least one silly thing like the cheeseball he’d been occasionally down in the lab whilst they walked but she could definitely understand why he wasn’t.
Thirty minutes went by before another set of cars broke over the horizon. In the middle of a particularly child-friendly conversation about adopting pets between Sherry and Amara.
“Hey, look!” Sherry pointed ahead of them. “Maybe they can give us a ride?”
Amara squinted into the distance, trying her damnedest to make out what the cars looked like. They were nothing but a blurry mirage, taunting her with their mystery. All she could tell was that they seemed a bit more uniform than your average line of cars, and maybe a tad bigger. But then again, what did she know? Probably just her imagination running wild.
As they got closer, she noticed the dark green of the paint, the boxy shape of the cars, those weren’t just regular cars. They were military. A convoy. Humvees, if she wanted to be more technical. Had Leon been right?
She had known them like the back of her hand, seen plenty of them on bases before but they usually weren’t in motion. Not going that fast. Especially towards her.
The trio stopped short in their tracks, Amara got closer to Leon, talking in a hushed tone. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
He looked at her, eyes darting between the cars and Sherry. Speaking up for the first time in a while, “It’ll be alright.” He squeezes her hand reassuringly.
Amara smiles at that; she can’t help it. Smiling at him had become something like muscle memory to her: “I sure hope so,” she said, and for a moment she truly believed it. She believed that the convoy that had descended upon them would be their saving grace. That everything would be alright just because Leon said it would be.
Guns. Shouts. Screams.
At them.
Guns pointing at them.
The situation turned on a dime that made Amara dizzy.
Heavily armed soldiers surrounded them in the blink of an eye. “Get on your knees, hands on your head!” One of the soldiers barked. All three complied, knowing that any sudden movements could be interpreted as a threat.
Amara is sure her heart would leap out of her throat from how hard it was beating but she couldn’t show that. Even the slightest bit of fear is enough for misinterpretation for these assholes.
She knew there was a reason she hated military types. Yes, even though she is also one in some regard. Even out and about or on nights out with Jill, they had—have a superiority complex and the need to do entirely too much.
This display would go on her list as one of those instances.
One of the soldiers, sidearm trained on them, held some weird device in his hand. He seemed hesitant to use it.
“Where did you come from?” He asked, not putting down his gun for even a second.
“Raccoon City,” Amara answered, trying to keep her voice calm. “We were just trying to get out, get away from the outbreak is all.”
The soldier, even behind a face covering, looked skeptical. “And where do you think you’re going?”
Amara holds back the smart ass remark at the tip of her tongue, lest she gives the soldier more reasons to hit them in the head with the butt of his gun. She’d been holding back quite a lot of them as of late.
“We were actually trying to find you,” Leon said. “Guess you found us instead.”
The soldier, not appreciative of Leon’s words, pressed the device into the back of their necks. Starting with Leon. A green light popped up on the screen. “No infection detected,” an almost pleasant robotic voice announced.
Shit.
Fuck.
Shit.
This is not going to turn out well. The second that device hits either her or Sherry’s neck. They’d know exactly what they are. Infected. Regardless of the cure and antiviral flowing through their blood, it couldn’t take away what had entered their system.
The national guard must’ve been sent out in the aftermath of the outbreak to patrol surrounding cities, it’s the only logical conclusion that Amara can come to while staring down the barrels of semi-automatic rifles.
Amara’s hazel eyes slowly settle on Leon.
She finds his eyes already on her. The tension radiates off him in droves.
There was no escaping this. The soldier held her firmly in place, she felt the cold prick of a needle briefly poke her flesh. She didn’t even hear the confirmation of what she already knew before they jerked her up on her feet. “They’re infected! Detain them now!”
Sherry’s screams, tears, and look of sheer terror as they drag her away from both Amara and Leon are ones that she knows she’ll never rid herself of, she tries to fight to escape their grasp even as their vice grip on both her arms is unbreakable in her current state, digging their gear into her back and making it hard to breathe.
She knows Sherry couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from them. They were all she had.
“What the hell?” Leon shouts, he tries to rise to his feet but finds a soldier knocks him off balance, knocking the breath out of him momentarily, sending him right back down to the ground. “We just survived a damn zombie outbreak and…and this is how we’re treated…?”
“Please don’t separate us,” Amara pleaded, even as she tried her hardest to drag her feet against the dirt, hoping to prolong the inevitable. “We’ve just been through hell, we can’t be separated now, please.”
“Orders are orders,” one of the soldiers replied coldly. “Everyone is being detained until further notice.”
So much for everything being alright.
—-
“Your protocols, your orders—whatever—are bullshit, I just want you to know that,” Leon speaks out into the dark, a lone, yellowish light hung over his head and dust particles float in the air. He can just barely make out what is definitely a camcorder on the other side of the glass a few feet in front of him, judging by the lens.
“Don’t note that for the record,” A man speaks over an intercom. He rolls his eyes, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for whatever comes next.
He never usually was one to disrespect authority figures, holding them in high regard because they do something most others couldn’t handle, but after the display he’d seen with Amara and Sherry?
Tough fucking luck getting any respect out of him.
Leon’s leg had been bouncing nervously ever since he sat down, he’d been a clusterfuck since they’d detained them just outside…was it Crescent Springs? He never caught the exact name.
All he knew was he wanted to kick his own goddamn ass for barely putting up more of a fight back there; but what exactly could he do against a bunch of armed soldiers? He was screwed over from the start.
Jesus.
Pfft. As if he was gonna do any good now.
This was his figurative cross to bear. All that’s missing was the stakes. If his mother could hear him thinking like that, she’d have probably given him a light smack on his head and a punishment of soap in his mouth.
He tended to avoid Dial soap any chance he got now.
“Mr. Kennedy.” The same voice from before broke him out of his thoughts. “We have the authority to do as we please with you. And the girls.”
There’s a sick twist in his gut at those words. Just what exactly did that entail? Becoming lab rats for the government for the rest of their lives? Killing him? Fuck that.
“Leave them out of this, they’re innocents.”
“Innocents who carry G antibodies. Don’t worry they’re receiving the best of care.”
“And what of me, then? Don’t suppose I have any value to you.” He doubts they’d keep a cop with only one day of experience under their watch. Leon’s thoughts gravitated towards thinking he’d outlived his usefulness more and more.
“Oh, but, Mr. Kennedy, you do. More than you think.” The man states plainly. “Bottom line is, you have the experience we’re looking for.”
He wouldn’t exactly count surviving a zombie-infested city by the skin of his teeth as experience, probably just some great goddamn luck. “And if I say no?”
“Considering you care so much about the girls…I’d think it’s in your best interest to accept this offer, should you not want any harm to come to them.”
He can’t help his eyes as they set in a glare at those words. Is he threatening him? He wanted to be defiant, and go through with saying no but he feels like he knows the alternative. They’d deem them all as having outlived their usefulness, they certainly had no qualms about getting rid of two infected individuals
They’d kill him.
Kill Amara.
Kill Sherry.
And that was something he couldn’t live with. What good could he do to protect them from such a cruel fate if he was six feet under?
Leon could be the buffer. The thing that is between them and living their life under a microscope.
Shit.
He’d do it to keep them safe. A little price to pay for their freedom.
“So, if you want this to end peacefully…you really only have one choice. Work with us.”
—-
Amara hates hospitals. She hates them so fucking much, she can’t really put it into words whenever anyone asked her to explain herself. Well, hate is a strong word. Dislike is the safer word to use here. But could anyone blame her? Everything was so glaringly white and depressing. And the smell? The hand sanitizer, sterile packaging, coffee, floor cleaner, a hint of blood and fear. All of it combined just gave Amara a headache.
Hospitals are where most bad news was received. A doctor’s office at least tried to make the experience a little less depressing, though Amara’s positive, the colors of puke green and boring beige were now forever ruined for her, not that they weren’t already.
Anxiety seeped into every aspect of Amara’s life, one physical manifestation being her newest habit, nail biting. She couldn’t exactly help it, being separated from Leon and Sherry and surrounded by doctors in hazmat suits didn’t help to relieve her nerves. The S.T.A.R.S. Team would surely be surprised to see the state she’s in, all of them were mostly level headed—utmost professionals in their respective roles but all of the new developments Amara had been through made her shake like a dog hearing fireworks on Fourth of July.
She just wanted, goddamnit, for once to not be poked and prodded, examined under a microscope like she was in a Petri dish. She certainly missed Leon too.
As she already knew, she’d been infected by William Birkin. So was Sherry. The scientists and the doctors didn’t let her forget that fact. They both carried G antibodies and so far, those effects were yet to be seen. She’d yet to see any government agents but she’s positive she’s seen them from the other side of the glass, observing, waiting for the right time to talk to her. That, or take her out, her two options didn’t scream that one or the other were the lesser of two evils.
The right time by their standards happened to be today. Just as she’d gotten halfway through a bout of wallowing in self pity, something new for her.
“Miss Moore, I hope the staff have been treating you well?” One of the agents asks her. Graves is on their name tag pinned to their suit jacket.
Amara fights a strong urge to roll her eyes. If this was the staff’s version of well, she shuddered to think what their bad treatment was. She shrugs before answering, “It’s been fine, can’t complain, can I?”
“You could, though I’m not sure anyone would listen,” the other agent answers, seemingly trying to lighten the mood. “I’m Agent Garcia, and this is Agent Graves. I’m sure you have a lot of questions. We also have a lot, as well as apologies for the scene back in the city.”
“Apologies not accepted. Do you enjoy further traumatizing little girls?” The picture of Sherry’s face, covered in fear, wouldn’t leave her mind.
“Look, we had to be sure—“
Amara cuts him off, her voice a bit more biting than she’d like. “We weren’t zombies? I don’t know how many people you’ve seen in your life but we are very much intact.”
Agent Garcia seems to chuckle, Agent Graves seems unimpressed with her rage, a glare morphing into an arrogant smirk, tilting his head curiously at her.
“Miss Moore, you seem to think you hold any position of leverage in how this conversation is going to go.”
Yeah, she fucking hates this guy.
“Don’t I?”
Amara is not at all shocked at what Graves is implying. She returns a sickeningly sweet smile back at him, though on the inside, she’s cursed him out many times over. Surviving Raccoon City was no easy feat, but it was a tad naive on her part to think the government would just let them go after everything. But this Graves guy thought he held all the chips in play, he was sadly mistaken.
“Well—“ Garcia starts to say, but his partner quickly cuts him off, a quick wave of his hand in front of him that pisses Amara off. He must be a real hit at parties.
“You and the girl carry G antibodies. We can do whatever we please with the both of you, you know that, right?”
“She’s an innocent. Leave her out of this.”
“Don’t worry, they’re going to take good care of her.”
“And what of Mr. Kennedy?” It felt strange using such a formality for Leon, but they didn’t deserve to hear his name from her lips.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about either of them. You need to be more concerned with your next steps.”
“What? You going to kill me now?”
“Oh no, you’re far more useful to us alive. The doctors tell us that the G in your system has made you far more resilient than any human, in fact, we couldn’t kill you that easily if we tried.” The grin Graves wears is slimy, she feels gross just being witness to it. “You have the makings of an agent, seeing as you were a…STARS operative, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Everything else is figured out. All that really leaves is you…if you want this to end on good terms, the choice is simple unless you’d like to spend the rest of your life in a lab.”
Her mind drifted when faced with an ultimatum. When this all began, she thought things would be simple…in a more perfect world, maybe they would’ve been.
The case would’ve been cut and dry. But then Roslynn unknowingly—in extension, maybe John too—had brought Amara into something that was way above her pay grade, her capacity to handle.
One woman—team—up against a whole corporation, and a cover up. That was damn near impossible.
Now her own government wanted her to work with them but not on the merit of her skills (despite what Graves said), but because if anymore got out about Raccoon City, it’d paint them in such a light that they’d never recover from.
She got into this for a reason, this line of work was never going to be a walk in the park. When faced with the other alternative, the metaphor of the Petri dish looked more and more terrifying. A life lived under a microscope, being poked and prodded, watched essentially like a spectacle was no life at all.
Christ, she didn’t want that for herself nor Sherry. They hadn’t asked for this.
This was the better option, strategically.
Not to mention, keeping Sherry and Leon safe. No doubt she’d work out those conditions later but doing this secured their safety, right?
Fighting the people who did this to her and continue to do this to others made it more than worth it. But there’d be a cost. There always was.
—-
October 5, 1998.
It’d been a few days, the colors of fall had become more and more obvious to everyone. The vibrant reds, oranges, and yellow blended together to make what most would call the most beautiful time of year, not only that, but the weather dropped significantly.
Leon would’ve liked to be happy about the change in weather but something about it reminded him too much of what had only transpired only days ago. The freezing, torrential downpour and the chill in the air aren’t nice at all. Another part of him still couldn’t actually believe that it was only days ago and yet life still moved on, a jarring reminder that outside of Raccoon City, most were unaware of it all.
He wished he could be like them. Blissfully ignorant, numb to it all. With time, he’d probably get good at that. Going blank, thinking of nothing because it was so fucking much to think of everything.
Leon clung tighter to his jacket, he probably should’ve opted for something heavier as the wine was like a blunt force against his face.
His eyes were on a constant swivel. Technically, he should've been in training but the second he even got word from his “new” superiors and clearance, he knew he wanted to see her. See them both. Still, he couldn’t help but have that bundle of nerves twisting in his stomach.
Things moved so quick after he agreed to be part of their program. Agreed isn’t the right word—more like coerced—but he really didn’t want to dwell on it further.
The military hospital sat a little outside New York City. It served civilians and servicemen alike. Mothers and their children sat in the waiting room, men in their uniforms filling out paperwork, a couple of nurses were doing triage and checking in patients at a mobile desk.
It teemed with more personnel today, Leon looked out of place in his jeans and T-shirt.
“Uh, hi,” Leon greeted the receptionist at the desk with a small smile, she looked up at him briefly before going back to her computer. “I’m here to see Amara Moore? And Sherry Birkin?”
The whole room paused. Well, at least it felt that way. His words definitely made the receptionist give her full attention.
“Mr. Kennedy?”
He nodded in response.
“If you’ll give me just a moment, it’s protocol for that department to go through a few hoops, I’ll be right back, alright?”
Protocol. He’d become so fucking tired of hearing that word.
“Of course, I’ll take a seat then,” Leon dropped unceremoniously in the nearest chair as the receptionist stepped away to presumably call whoever she needed to call.
Leon lets the sounds of the conversations around him and the announcements over the intercom become background noise to his thoughts.
Considering now that it’s a waiting game. And he hates waiting. He just wants to see after everything, is that so hard? The red tape and hoops to jump through just to sit down and talk to someone.
He had been thinking about that night at the motel more than he liked to admit. He wasn’t kidding with himself when he thought himself to be a late bloomer, he wasn’t a virgin by any means but he certainly was a bit inept when it came to sex.
It didn’t help that his parents raised him on the tenets of their faith. Which meant no sex before marriage, no drinking, no swearing, no taking the Lord’s name in vain. Anything of that nature is pretty much deemed unholy and impure. Expected to be living in one set way because God has a plan for all of them. God forbid they’d miss a church service or forever be the shame of the neighborhood.
He’d long abandoned it. He’d long been a sinner anyways. Not exactly sure that a benevolent, loving God would have a plan to let someone suffer this much. Putting his faith in others is still a mixed bag but that was for another day.
Amara was just about the sweetest taste of sin he’d ever had, skin as smooth as silk and lips as sweet as honey.
As far as worship, he’d kneel at the altar of Amara Moore in communion as long as she’d let him.
Ineptitude, notwithstanding.
But, right now, he just wants them to hurry up…this bag of food hidden in his jacket can’t hold out much longer. He isn’t sure she’ll be able to eat it with all the rules but he thinks she probably needs some normalcy.
Well, as normal as one could get. Completely normal left the realm of possibility when everything came to light.
“Mr. Kennedy?” He looks up to find a doctor standing by the desk.
Here goes something.
—-
Amara really wants to just get out of here. Ever since Graves and Garcia left, she’d been waiting on word about transport. She hasn’t seen Sherry either, she really hopes she’s alright.
The hospital door slides open, Amara doesn’t have it in her to even want to see who it is. Probably another damn nurse, another damn doctor.
“You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to be a smuggler around these parts.”
A bag drops between her legs, leaving a dent in the blanket. A greasy, brown crinkled bag that reeked of high-fat high sodium cheesy goodness. In more simple terms, a cheeseburger.
Amara looks over to Leon. He’s dressed more casual and way cleaner than she’d seen him. Still as dreamy as ever.
“You’re a real sight for sore eyes, handsome,” Tears begin to form, blurring her vision just a bit. Leon looks less clear, more splotchy. She doesn’t want something as silly as tears to block her view of Leon but a burst of joy swelled in her chest. She pushes down the surge of emotion as Leon places a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“If I knew junk food makes you cry like this, I’d—“
“No, no, thank you, thank you for this!” She opens the bag and, to hell with being ladylike, stuffs her face.
The taste on her tongue is better than anything. Better than the bland MREs they’d been giving her, she’d suffered enough of those for 15 years.
Between bites, she gestures for Leon to sit down, using the napkins in the bag to wipe her eyes. He sits carefully on the bed across from her.
“Hope…you don’t think I’m apologizing for…this,” Amara jokes, moving herself from underneath the hospital covers. At least she’d had the sense to put on the sweatpants they gave her.
“I wouldn’t want you to, even if you tried.” He still looks at her as if she’d hung the moon and the stars in the sky, even as he wipes the dribble of the ketchup that ran down the side of her mouth. “How are you doing?”
She cleans up her mess, focusing solely on Leon now. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“I asked you first.”
“I asked you second.”
He chuckles, “I’m doing fine, all things considered.”
“Well now that you’ve told me that, I can say I’m surviving. A little better now that you’re here,” she takes his hand, taking it to her lips to kiss it briefly. There’s a short silence before Amara asks him about something she’d been thinking about a lot of for the past few days.
“So…uh, did you see about Racc-“
There’s a pained expression on his face as he cuts her off. “Yeah.”
By October 1, the very day they’d been detained, the situation in Raccoon City had become uncontrollable, and for some reason, the President of the United States authorized the bombing of the city. No hope of any survivors. Except them.
Her whole life in the city now burned to ashes, reduced to nothing. Leon’s promise of new life there too.
“Guess I can finally say this….thank you, Leon.” She’s not sure if that’s something he wants to hear but she says it anyway. He had to know that his efforts weren’t unnoticed despite it all.
He shakes his head in disagreement. “I don’t think you should be thanking me.”
“Why not? You did save my life, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but look at where we are now…if I had known this would’ve been the outcome…” Leon sighs, running a hand through his hair. She imagines if he’d been standing, he’d pace the floor.
She gets exactly where he’s coming from. All too well actually. From escaping the city to now, this was certainly the last thing she’d ever expected. But this is how things were now and they had to learn to live with it.
She places a hand on his leg, bringing his attention back to her. “Leon, fucked up circumstances aside, you saved me from something way worse. With a bullet in your shoulder, no less. If it weren’t for you or Claire, both Sherry and I would have turned into monsters. We’d have been dead. You have to give yourselves some credit, at least.”
“I know, but—“
“Things look like shit right now, I know.” A wistful expression stole its way onto Amara’s face. “But—look, I don’t know what those G-men told you about me or even if they made you any promises or whatever, but I’d like to think right now we both made decisions that sucked but in the end…they’re right.”
If Amara was being honest with herself, it hurt to even say that. The toughest decisions never did make anyone feel like a million bucks.
Leon looks as though he could break into a million pieces, looking the way she felt. If she could read his mind she’s sure she’d hear him thinking the same as she was. I don’t want them to be right, I’d wish we made the wrong choices.
“None of this is ideal. But on the bright side, I can eventually tell the government to go fuck itself, right?” Amara attempts to lighten the mood, but Leon still holds just about the saddest look in his eye as he tries to laugh.
“This is a goodbye, isn’t it?” Leon asks, holding her face in his hands. His thumbs running over her cheeks briefly. She smiles only for a moment, there was no really insulting his intelligence.
Amara had long known she hated goodbyes. They were too final. She’d dealt with so many before, they’d left a bad taste in her mouth so she never made it a point to say it. She didn’t even know what the future held for Leon or for herself but she didn’t want to just assume the worst, she wanted to hold onto the small sliver of hope that while it seemed their paths were diverging, they’d cross again.
“Never. I don’t believe in goodbyes, you should know that about me,” Amara responded, placing her forehead against his. “Just think of this as a see you later, how does that sound?”
“That sounds…perfect to me, Amara.” He sighed again. “Really perfect.” He kissed her softly, then kissed her again with a fervor, making it more than clear he’d been trying to savor the taste of her. Amara was doing the same, wrapping herself around him, not caring where they were as the world faded away even for just a moment.
The door slid open once again, signaling that the real world had come crashing back in. She pulled away from Leon slowly, drinking in every single part of him, his eyes, his face…everything.
She didn’t want to forget a single detail.
“You should get going.…I love you,” she whispered the one crucial thing she’d been holding onto since the lab, and kissed him once again. “I love you. I love you.”
“I love you, too. I love you so much.” He peeled himself reluctantly away from her, heading toward the door, towards Graves and Garcia as they watched the scene in front of them. “I’ll see you later.”
“I know,” she called, watching him head out the door before she finally burst into tears.
Little did they know, their sense of timing would be so different from one another.
File #010 - The End of The Beginning
City of the Dead
Pairing: Leon Kennedy x OC
Word Count: 6.4k
Summary: Making it out of the lab, Amara, Leon, Claire, and Sherry find shelter at a place Amara never thought she'd see again so soon. Amara finally breaks down after everything.
Warnings: SMUT
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Ten minutes removed from the situation, Amara thought the statement “The grass is greener on the other side,” couldn’t be more true.
A train that Claire had found had been their key to freedom. With only one more surprise left to burn within the train tunnel, they escaped. They were outside, away from the lab, away from Raccoon City. The first inklings of sunlight broke over the horizon, illuminating the pavement much like the Ozmites guiding Dorothy to follow the Yellow Brick Road.
Symbolically, it stood for a desperate journey that Dorothy and her companions took to reach their dreams.
But, right now, Amara was certainly no Dorothy and there were no reaching dreams, just figuring out where to go first would suffice.
The sun, while a welcome relief, began to burn a tad against Amara’s skin. But she didn’t mind. It cast an almost yellowish hue over everything as it broke through more of the clouds, it’s a beautiful sight.
It kind of reminded Amara of the paintings she’d seen in a museum. When she and her sister weren’t higher than their mother’s knees, she’d take them to whatever free art exhibit she could find, dressing them up in their Sunday best (not on a Sunday, of course) stating, “Appearances are everything.”
She wanted to touch it like she had those paintings. To feel the brushstrokes underneath her fingers, the oil paint that ran together to make something that others would deem a masterpiece.
Amara chalked up her pure whimsiness to just being alive. Even just breathing, just hearing the rocks and pieces of gravel chip underneath her boots had her wanting to jump for a joy she hadn’t ever felt before.
And the people beside her. Her heart fluttered a little as she glanced over to Leon as they walked along the road. He met her eyes, playfully running his fingers over the new streaks of white in her hair. “I have to say, shitty circumstances aside, I like the new look.”
She swats his hand away, chuckling. “You know, the hair is actually kind of growing on me.”
“I think it makes you look like a superhero!” Sherry pipes up, the compliment makes Amara smile. They were both now inexplicably linked by all that had occurred. Amara felt a fierceness to protect her from anything, as did Leon and Claire.
Claire, who Amara only knew by association, already felt like an old friend. Considering the shit they all just survived, they certainly were bonded for life.
Amara could tell the thought of Chris weighed heavily on her. He wasn’t in Raccoon, nor was Jill (she’s sure that that lady would be stopped by nothing) but Amara’s mind takes her to those who aren’t so lucky, those still more than likely hiding—cowering within their homes, just waiting for rescue within the city.
Though, she’s convinced no one would want to trade places if they learned of the night she just went through. They’d think she was describing a movie and not a real-life situation. They made it out, and that was enough for now.
After walking god knows how many miles, the glimmer of civilization became clearer and clearer to the group. As far as cruel and unusual punishments go, Amara didn’t put walking down as one of them.
Her feet would probably always throb in pain if she ever wore boots like these again.
As fortune would have it, and just as Amara guessed, a city is on the horizon. A bit puzzled at just how normal everything appears to be.
Were they not aware of the chaos, the hell, the absolute depravity of Raccoon City?
People covered their noses as they passed them, giving weird and confused stares as they cut through the crowds. It’s not exactly every day you see a police officer who looked like he’d been through a warzone flanked by two other women and a child who looked like they were knocking on heaven’s door.
Amara is sure the metallic scent of blood, fecal matter, sewage water…and god knows what else they’d been seeping in for hours would sink in their skin if they didn’t find a place to get cleaned up.
They huddled together in a nearby park. Birds chirped. Children laughed on the playground. Fresh-cut grass and its smell wafted by their noses, pieces blowing over their shoes. Had this been a normal day (very much emphasis on normal), Amara would probably be taking a walk through Spencer City Park. A chai latte that would slightly burn her tongue upon first sip but warmed her body as the change to fall would become more and more apparent.
Here, fall nor much of anything had become apparent to the people here.
Standing out like a sore thumb was an understatement. At this point, that thumb was broken.
“We need to lay low,” Amara paced the concrete path, pedestrians barely smiled as they crossed her path. “We don’t know what anyone here knows.”
They were drawing a lot of attention as it is. While Amara enjoyed her fair share of it, right now, attention is the last thing they needed.
“Yeah, but where?” Leon questions, his vibrant blue eyes were dull and tired, eyebags evident from a mile away. “We’ve never been here. Don’t think these people are open to giving us a warm welcome.”
To emphasize his point, a young couple just so happens to walk by. The smiles they wear drop instantly as they see them and they begin speaking to one another in hushed tones.
The more Amara looked around, she began to feel a sense of recognition come over her. Some of the landmarks they’d passed seemed a vague memory in her head. She’s been here before, she knows it.
A light bulb goes off in her head. “I think I know a place.”
Once or twice, in the past few months, Amara took road trips with some of her academy friends.
The roads were long and winding but oh so pretty.
North Carolina was certainly a favorite stop. This wasn’t relevant to now but the place was. After long days of driving, the fluorescent sign of the Alien Coffee Motel was a godsend for her and her friends. It signified how close they were to home.
Never would Amara have thought she’d see this place again to say it still was.
A dingy place is still better than no place. At least now the chances of encountering weirdos here were slim to none. Turns out, looking and smelling like shit had perks.
An electronic bell sounded as Amara pushed open the door to the manager’s office. If she was right, a familiar face would come out in…3…2…
“Thalia!” A lovely old man comes from behind a curtain of beads.
“Abraham!” He crushed her with a hug that she would probably feel later. A needle or something poked her back. His knitting needle, she assumes. For the first time in a while, she felt a joy in seeing someone she knows. The first time she’d stayed here with friends, she also happened to meet his teenage granddaughter, Tabitha, who just so happened to have her 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass (if there was one thing her father knew besides his way around a drink, it was cars) break down after spending the day with Abraham.
With Abraham’s know-how around a car but rather shaky hands and Amara’s need to help anywhere she could, she checked in with her friends and dropped her bags off before rolling up her sleeves and taking directions from the older gentleman. Tabitha sat within the car with the windows down and asked her personal questions about where she came from among other things while Abraham scolded her gently for “being so impolite.” Amara remembered shrugging it off with a smile as her hands fiddled with the alternator.
She, in turn, asked Abraham little things, making small talk while the nearby radio played a Janet Jackson record. He reminded her of her grandparents, giving her short bursts of his German family stories that even had his granddaughter enthralled by them. It was a nice memory, a small gesture that Abraham told her he was indebted to her for as Tabitha drove off.
If only he could remember her name. It’s funny considering her name wasn’t that hard to remember.
“Will you ever get my name right?”
“Thalia, Amara, tomato, tomayto—” Abraham only just now seems to pick up on her scent, a slight gag coming from him. “My god, you smell like horse shit, young lady!”
Amara takes a whiff of herself. Ugh. “I was wondering when you’d notice, old man. Do you think you have any rooms available? My friends and I–” She turns to look outside, Leon, Sherry, and Claire sitting on the curb, their backs facing the window. “--could use a place to stay.”
“Did you all just come from rolling in the dumpster or something?”
“You could say that.” She tries to keep her face straight. Amara would rather not recount everything they’d been through. If these people had no idea what had gone on, that’s how it was going to stay. “So, two rooms?”
“You’re in luck, girlie! I have two!” He walks behind the desk, grabbing the only two pairs of keys on the wall. “Shoot, these aren’t next to each other. Is that okay for you and your friends?”
“That’s more than okay, Abraham. Thank you.” She takes the keys gingerly. “You also wouldn’t happen to have some change of clothes, would you?”
All of my damn clothes are back in Raccoon City, my whole life.
Abraham nodded and reached down underneath the desk, producing a cardboard box that had donations written on it. “I’ll have Tabitha see if she can’t scrounge up some things from my daughter’s place but for now, take a few things from there, sound good?” ‘
She looked down into the box, it was a mishmash of hand-me-downs but they were unquestionably cleaner than what they all currently were wearing. Digging through, she found some pieces that would fit every one of them. “That’s more than good, I can’t say thank you enough, Abraham.”
“No need to thank me, you all look like hell so get some rest, alright?” He wears a warm smile as he turns to head back to his office, more than likely making the phone call to Tabitha.
She steps back outside, and the same electronic bell alerts the trio to her presence. “We’re in luck.” She smiles, holding up the keys in one hand and clothes in the other. Leon takes one set of keys from her, a relieved smile on his face. Claire and Sherry seem to share in the relief.
“Wait, the rooms aren’t side by side?” Leon asks, looking at the room numbers. Amara finds it a tad sweet that there’s apprehension at even being just a little bit separated from the pair.
“Afraid that these are the only rooms he had left, I think we can manage, right?”
It doesn’t take much convincing once Claire and Sherry chime in, but it doesn’t escape Amara’s notice at the almost knowing smile that Claire wears as they head off in the opposite directions to the rooms. She wants to roll her eyes at that but doesn’t.
The room, believe it or not, is pretty decent for a motel. It was for sure the cleanest place they’d seen over the past few hours. So, Amara doesn’t hesitate to collapse on the carpeted floor and toe-off her boots. “I’ll never complain about motels ever again, I promise,” she speaks freely to no one in particular, putting her hands together in prayer, but it still makes Leon chuckle a bit.
“I-uh…I guess I’ll shower first then,” Amara nods in agreement to his words as he takes the clothes and heads into the bathroom. She hears the telltale signs of clothes hitting the floor before the spray of water drowns out anything else.
A dumb thought crosses her mind as she sits on the floor, eyes falling upon a phone on the nightstand. Monet. Maybe they could stay with her, she should probably tell her she’s okay?
Crawling on hands and knees, she snatches the phone from the stand, no care for the cords connecting it to the wall.
She dials a number that she has become accustomed to. To a certain extent, she wants the line to ring and ring until she hits voicemail but if Monet is still anything like Amara, she’s already been up for hours—another unfortunate habit from their father’s routine. Both of them still stuck to waking up early…Monet hated it but somehow Amara quite enjoyed it, the anesthetic repetition of it certainly helped her get more done in a day.
“Hello?”
Amara’s spine straightens. Shit, she really was banking on her not answering for once. For the first time in maybe…ever, she didn’t know what to say to her own sister.
Hi, Monet. Just calling because I survived one of the shittiest nights ever and got infected by an evil pharmaceutical company and barely made it out of Raccoon City alive. Yeah, right, like she could actually say that outright.
A rush of nervous energy floods through her and she slams the phone back down on the receiver. She releases a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, massaging the bridge of her nose to release tension.
She had a lot of tension as of late. Physically and mentally. Of everything she’d ever been through in her life, she never would’ve dreamed…imagined something of this level.
Light, dull padding against the carpet is just about the only thing that alerts her to Leon exiting the bathroom. Without so much as a glance or word to him, she speeds into the bathroom. The warm steam from the shower stall brushes lightly against her skin and she practically tears the clothes from her body. At least a scalding hot shower would wash away some of the fucked up shit.
The brief pain of the heat paled in comparison to everything else she’d put up with. Swirls of dirt, blood, and god knows what else followed one another down the drain. So quickly. So easily. At any other time, that probably would’ve disturbed her.
She’d never be ungrateful for all she had ever again.
After a few more minutes of letting the droplets of water run down her body, she steps out. The condensation fogs up the mirror but she wipes it away to look at herself.
Really look at herself.
Aesthetically, nothing had really changed except the streaks of white in her hair and the bags under her eyes…God, she was tired.
She really didn’t want to ponder further on what exactly the white in her hair or anything else meant, considering that Annette told them that the antiviral only got rid of some of G but not all. Would something physically manifest later down the line? Could she still infect others?
She looked away from herself. She wanted to stop thinking altogether.
Luckily, she needed to patch herself up. Going through the motions of wrapping herself in gauze almost robotically allowed her brain to stop overthinking and complete its most basic function: keep her alive.
Getting dressed in the clothes she got from Abraham almost made her want to laugh, the Nirvana shirt was a little bigger than she expected and the sweatpants were certainly baggier than what she usually wore but it’ll do. For now.
She slowly peeks her head out from the bathroom, the creak of the door making Leon turn his head from his spot on the bed. A small, closed-mouth, almost awkward smile comes to his face and Amara mirrors that.
And she hates it. Hates it so much. This guy went through hell and back for her and all she can muster right now is this awkwardness. Mainly because she feels like she has so much to say but not sure how to say it to him.
“Feel better?” Leon asks, breaking the silence. She notices the clothes fit him pretty well. Who knew a donation box would have so many band T-shirts?
“Much,” she sits down on the opposite side, her back facing Leon. She lets out a sigh, placing her head in her hands. The silence gives way to another round of overthinking. A slight dip in the mattress moves her slightly until Leon is now sitting next to her.
“Talk to me. What’s on your mind?”
Amara looks up at Leon, meeting his eyes and finding nothing but a gentleness, sincerity behind them. She feels like she could ask him the same thing.
She doesn’t even know where to start with what’s on her mind but she lets out a breath before going into detail. The very thing that got her here. Wesker.
“Wesker took my blood without my consent. He was the one who let me go on that trip. And I’ve been agonizing ever since. Agonizing about whether there’s something I’ve missed in all this. What’s my connection in all this? Did he always intend to do this to me?”
“Amara.” Leon rubs a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You couldn’t have known.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it better. I mean, this whole time, he knew.”
Amara’s mind felt even more jumbled. So many pieces to this puzzle but none of them seemed to be of the same picture. For what felt like the millionth time, she wanted her thoughts to silence. And she only knew one way she never thought she’d choose to do.
She ran a hand over her face as she glanced at the mini fridge nearby. “I need a fucking drink.” Drinking was always the easy way out, she’d seen enough of it with her father and yet never understood the vice, but now, everything hurts so much.
She needed a moment. A reprieve, just once. From shouldering this burden, from thinking, from everything. She wanted to go numb.
It’d taken a lot for her to finally, finally break down, especially since she’s not alone. So when all of this has come down at once, it hits Amara hard. Not even halfway through taking a sip, and already she is on her knees. The glass shatters around her, the amber liquid soaking the carpet.
And she breaks. Amara’s shoulders shake violently and she can’t barely breathe as sobs wrack through her body. She had once been the one utterly confused on how someone could be so vulnerable, so ready to display what she thought were ugly emotions, and yet she found the roles had reversed.
Such intense confusion, so many answers and yet still so many questions. When would things ever just make sense?
She had forgotten that Leon still sat before her. He hadn’t uttered a word but through her blurry vision, he came closer to her. Treading lightly over the broken glass before sitting down next to her. Somehow, his silence is more comforting than any words of support could’ve been. It’s nice.
Amara is so enveloped in her misery, it took her a second to realize she is wrapped in Leon’s warm embrace, a fierceness to his grip that she hadn’t registered. He’d been gripping her as if she’d disappear if he let go.
The close proximity to him makes her head spin. It scares her how drawn to this man—this relative stranger— she is, especially in this state. The shaking in her shoulders eases as tear stains dry on her cheeks, she lifts her head to look at Leon.
“Thank you.” Her voice is small. Almost like a child. “I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t quite meet her eyes, finding the mattress in front of them infinitely more interesting all of a sudden.
But what he says next surprises Amara more. “Don’t apologize if you don’t have to.”
Amara couldn’t recall a time in her life, a moment, maybe ever, where someone had ever said that to her. Anytime she’d had even a hint of an emotion come about, even a stray tear, she could distinctly remember being told to suck it up or not to cry. Vulnerability was put on the back-burner, meant to be an after-thought.
It was clear her own display had set something off in Leon, not in a particularly bad way. She doesn’t feel quite so guilty for showing a basic human emotion, but she feels desperate to connect with him.
In her desperation, she cups his cheek in her hand, setting his eyes upon her.
His eyes were blue. Intensely blue.
To be honest, Amara wasn’t sure what she intended with her actions nor what motivated her beyond this moment. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if Leon knew what she was doing.
So, she’s admittedly surprised when he closes the gap between and kisses her. Something in her had wanted to pull away, to make this easier for herself. Another part of her wanted to savor what he tasted like before anything else could occur.
Peppermint. Strawberries.
She kisses him slowly then, gliding her tongue
along his bottom lip before slipping it into his
mouth. One hand comes to rest on the back of
her head as the other wraps around her waist, practically putting her in his lap. She towers over him now.
Instinctively, she brings her other hand to cup the other side of his head, pulling him up towards her to deepen the kiss - and, once he's close enough to be satisfactory, runs her nails down his shoulders to rest her palms on his chest. His breath hitches and he shudders minutely, using the momentary separation to mouth at the exposed skin on her neck.
Amara lets out an almost pathetic yelp at the sensation. Just as Leon lets his hands roam underneath her shirt, three abrupt knocks cut the moment short.
“Leon! Amara!” Claire.
Despite the interruption, Amara found that the noise instead made her cling more tightly to Leon, she almost wanted to whine as he removed his hands from her skin.
Amara slowly detached herself from Leon’s lap, “Guess I’ll go open the door.” He nods briefly.
“Hey, the manager had his granddaughter see if they had another pair of clean clothes. I’m not sure if they’re your size but better than nothing, right?”
Amara takes the clothes from Claire’s outstretched hands, thanking her briefly as she leaves and sneaking a glance back to Leon. He hadn’t moved an inch from where she left him.
“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” She notices the soiled gauze wrapped around his shoulder. It could use some change, especially since every other part of him was clean.
He doesn’t answer.
At first, Amara is a bit hesitant to be in his space again to help. But she works with a practiced ease at cutting loose the gauze, grabbing the necessary items to clean it up. Though she’s sure that wound was the last thing on his mind.
“Look, about just now…” Leon starts, looking at her evenly. “I’m really sorry.”
“For?”
“Kissing you like that. You were vulnerable—“
Amara cut him off. “Well, I’m not sorry. Like you said, don’t apologize if you don’t have to.”
“Right.”
“Though let’s not discuss the mental breakdown I just had ever again, okay?” Amara hates how pathetic…helpless she sounds asking that.
Leon brought a hand up to Amara’s cheek, rubbing his thumb lightly on her cheek, her lips, tracing them. Her breath caught as she watched him watch her. His eyes alight with a sincerity but there was something else there too, he really did remind her of a puppy.
The next crucial words Leon says are just about enough to end her.
“Forgive me-“
Then he’s kissing her again, and there’s nothing sweet and gentle about it. He kisses her like a man who wants to do a thorough job of convincing her this is what she might want to do every day for the rest of her life, and it may be working.
His other arm, barely fully wrapped in the gauze at his shoulder, snakes around Amara, crushing her front against his.
Amara had kissed before, kissed many times actually, but this was nothing like that. She wanted to keep kissing him, hands threaded through his hair, breathing in every part of him. She wanted.
In one swift motion, Leon picks Amara up and stands wrapping her around him and throwing her down on the bed. She gasps, still wanting to be cautious of his injury. “Leon! Your shoulder!”
“It’ll heal.”
She laughs at his words briefly, “Not if you do that!” In one fluid motion, Amara uses her legs to flip them over (a move she learned completely by chance). Now she’s the one on top. “I think you’ll just have to follow my lead.”
Careful of her own bandages, Amara pulls off her shirt, throwing it behind her. Leon’s eyes and hands don’t seem to know where to stay as all this new skin was revealed to him.
Desire takes over his features, the blue in his eyes nearly black as he pulls her in even closer by the back of her thighs.
She leans forward to kiss him, hesitant at first as they both take the time to taste one another’s lips and enjoy the feeling, the warmth, he still tastes like peppermint and strawberries.
There’s a brief moment as Amara pulls away, Leon’s eyes heavy-lidded as he finds hers. “I’ve been thinking about that all night.”
“Have you now?”
Amara pulls him up by the collar, planting another kiss on his lips. Leon crowds her, pressing her closer to his front. He broke the kiss, sinking his mouth into her neck.
He pulls back gently, a thumb running over her right shoulder. “What’s this mean?”
Amara’s eyes follow Leon’s, transfixed at the tattoo.
It’s Sanskrit. It’d been a while since anyone had asked about it (or seen it for that matter), so she’s more than happy to answer.
“Breathe. Just breathe.”
He smiled briefly, placing a gentle kiss on it. “I like that. Very you.”
She finds herself returning the smile.
A low rumble sounded in his chest; he cupped her cheek, then slid his hand down to her jaw, neck, shoulder, her side… and finally, under her bra.
She eyed him, not directing him or pushing him, and slowly let him slip it off. He held her breasts in his hands for a moment, and then leaned down to place a wandering kiss just above her cleavage.
Amara sighed contentedly, and with that, he reached down to try to pull down her sweatpants. There was a little floundering, and as hard as she tried to, Amara couldn’t hold back her giggling.
“I’m sorry…”
“No, don’t apologize!” she contradicted with a grin. “I think you’re cute. Next time, just ask me to get up.”
A voice in her head that sounded very much like a more cynical side of her told her dryly that there might not be a next time before Leon interrupted her ominous reverie by weighing her breasts curiously in his hands. She groaned, and he once again dipped his head and placed a kiss on one of her breast.
Amara purposefully pushed him backward, gracefully placing herself between his legs. “You’ve been my hero all night, time to return the favor, don’t you think?”
“Are you sure?” Her hands tug at his sweats, slipping inside his underwear and curling around his cock and pulling it free. Leon can’t tear his eyes away from Amara’s face.
In lieu of responding to his question, Amara seals her mouth around the head and sucks.
“F-fuck,” Leon whines, unable to stop himself from the ragged rut of his hips, burying himself deeper into the wet heat of her mouth.
Amara licked and parted her lips, allowing her tongue to rest easy as she took him in-inch by inch, hollowing her cheeks out and sucking- causing his muscles to clench and his breathing to become shallow. “I’m sorry, I can’t stop - I can’t, it feels so good.”
Amara’s hands guide his hips, mouth and jaw going lax as she takes slow breaths in through her nose. Leon starts a slow rhythm, testing the waters, testing how much Amara can take before she moans around him, his pace increases until his lower half brushes the tip of her nose and lips kiss his skin with every thrust. The ache in Amara’s jaw is more than worth it to be able to look straight up the line of his body and see his pretty half-lidded eyes staring back. “A-ah, shit, not gonna last long.”
The taste of him sits heavy on her tongue. Somehow, Amara is a bit surprised. As someone almost obnoxiously, unreasonably attractive as Leon, she’d thought he’d have more experience, which is a real fucking shame because this man looks devastatingly divine when he cums.
Leon’s eyes screwed shut and face flushed an almost pretty shade of pink as he lets out a choked moan of her name, a visible shudder runs through him as his hands tangled in her hair, pressing his cock as far as it could go down her throat as his cum fills her mouth and coats the back of her throat, the clean smell of his skin filling her nose.
There’s a moment of silence, broken only by Leon’s wet gasps before he gently pats down tangles of Amara’s hair, even as she still lightly sucks on his cock as it slides out of her mouth with an audible, wet pop, swallowing his cum with a quiet hum.
He lets out a ragged breath as Amara climbs back up on his thighs, now completely bare for him.
His hand delved between her legs, his fingers gliding through her folds, sliding his thumb over her clit, already coated with the evidence of her arousal.
She gasps, maybe Leon had more experience than she thought. She wanted him to keep going but she also didn’t want to waste anymore time, the throbbing between her legs had become damn near painful.
She grabs his wrist, “Wait.”
He froze, raising himself up on his elbow. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no! But if I don’t have you inside of me right now, I may very well go insane.”
Leon can’t help but smile and laugh a tad and Amara does the same before he pulls her down to slot their lips together, very thoroughly she might add, when she pulls away it’s to take off the T-shirt he had only just put on and toss it to the floor.
Amara delicately runs her lips across his skin, a pathetic whimper leaves his lips at the attention. Clearly this is something that Leon doesn’t quite get enough of and she’s determined to change that.
He ushered her onto his body a bit more comfortably, tucking her hair behind her ear and positioning himself right at her core before she lowered herself down onto him. Both of them gasped in unison, relieving themselves of the anticipation.
She rocked her hips lightly, getting used to the feeling of him inside her. Her walls clench around him in a vice like grip, an electric jolt of pleasure going through her core. Shit, she could very well come undone at that very moment.
Leon lifted his hips to meet hers, her hands were pressed to his chest and his head thrown back into the mattress underneath him. The sounds that left his throat made her desperate to hear more of them, that same desperation is present in Leon’s touch, hands grabbing at her hips. Almost like he needs to make sure that she’s real, that he hasn’t slipped into a coma and that this isn’t a dream.
He watches Amara with rapt attention, she tries her best to do the same though her eyes are heavily lidded, too lost in the pleasure and bucking her hips to keep getting that feverish pleasure. They both needed a release, they were still both humans; something about that makes Amara feel better.
One particular roll of her hips makes Leon gasp, hands clutching at her thighs desperately, softly calling her name, practically begging her to keep going.
“Fuck, don’t stop, please don’t stop—“ the rest of his words get stuck in his throat as he groaned reverently.
After some time, though, Amara could feel all the heat in her body begin to head south, her impending orgasm coiling low in her belly.
“Leon. Leon, I’m-” she moaned out, trying to give him a warning. Her hips pounding down, urging him deeper with each thrust, the same coiling in her lower stomach becoming more urgent when he was fully sheathed in her wet heat.
“Me too, baby. God, you feel so good,” he managed to gasp out before his lips were on hers. His pace became more erratic as his orgasm approached. Without warning, his hand reached between their writhing bodies and rubbed expertly at her clit, watching as Amara trembled above him and cried out his name before throwing her over the edge into a mind blowing, body-wracking orgasm.
“Oh fuck, Leon! Yes. Yesyesyesyes,” she babbled as white-hot pleasure rolled through her body in a wave. He fucked her through her climax, brow furrowed with pleasure and concentration as he slammed up into her again and again. The feeling of her pussy clenching around him finally triggered his own orgasm and with a shuttered cry of Amara’s name she felt his cock twitch deep inside of her.
“‘M coming, baby. Gonna come in you. Fuck, Amara,” he groaned.
Once, twice, and on the third thrust he buried himself deep inside of her, cock head impossibly deep, impossibly full as he emptied himself in her welcoming walls. Her hips stuttered at the feeling of being filled like this.
The thought of him coming so deep inside of her nearly set her off again, but Amara was too tired and blissfully-fucked out to try and come again.
Amara all but collapsed on top of Leon, his arms wrapping around her as she shivered at the feel of his cock still inside her.
“That was…unexpected…” Leon breathes, rubbing circles into her thigh, still trying to come down from their respective high. “How was it for you?”
As if he had to ask. Amara couldn’t remember the last time she’d been fucked like that, the cobwebs in her underwear certainly could’ve attested to that. She most definitely would have to ask him at some point what the S meant for his middle name, because right now all it was for her was Leon ‘Sexy’ Kennedy.
She lightly smacks his chest, raising herself off of him to look at him. “If you’re wondering if I thought that was bad sex, Leon Kennedy, I will kick you out of this bed, I swear.”
Leon, still panting a tad, wears a beautiful yet exhausted smile on his face at the response, “Oh, I know it was good, just had to make sure.”
She rolls her eyes playfully. “Who knew you could be so cocky?”
They scoot closer to the headboard, no regards for anything else as they both get underneath the covers. Leon circled Amara with his strong arms, practically gluing her to his front. She could hear his heart beating wildly against his chest and she enjoyed the melody.
In all the displays of tenderness that Amara has become accustomed to Leon over the course of knowing him, him placing a kiss on the top of her head as he buries his nose in her hair is one that makes her blush immensely.
Both of them drift off into a peaceful sleep shortly after.
They lay bare, Amara’s head on Leon’s chest, careful of his shoulder. Their limbs tangled in a way that made it hard to tell where she ended and he began. She listened to the easy, calm thrumming of his heart. Something about it comforted her. She figured he was asleep but after everything, no way would sleep come easy. She remembers drifting off briefly but something in her couldn’t let her sleep for long.
It was safe to say now her body ached in a good way, completely thanks to Leon.
“Leon?”
“You’re supposed to be sleeping, Amara,” Leon responded quietly, fondly chastising.
“What do you think will happen now?”
Silence, only the sound of both of them breathing in the stillness and darkness of the room.
Leon lets out a year’s worth of sighs. “Don’t know, honestly.”
Things had changed drastically, yet stayed the same. She felt as though she were back to square one, her investigation status was now unknown. Considering half of what she needed now lay destroyed underground.
All she gathered wouldn’t be enough, she only hoped Jill or Chris got the damn email. This couldn’t end here, she needed to figure out where those two were like Jill planned for them and meet up. But first, they needed to go to the authorities, she remembered that they had to have set up roadblocks around different parts of the city and this wasn’t the only way into Raccoon.
“Think if we keep going, we’ll hit the military? They set up roadblocks somewhere, had to…there’s no way they won’t be looking for survivors, right?”
Leon clears his throat, but his voice still holds an almost low, syrupy tone. “Who’s to say they won’t find us first?” He rubs light circles into the skin of her shoulder blade.
“What do you mean?”
“You said it yourself. If word gets out about the city, I’m sure they’ll try hard to contact survivors.” There it was. That hope. Amara had long dropped it when she was inside of that cell but something about Leon’s words helped bolster something she thought illogical. She could only hope he was right. That they both were.
“Maybe…but it’s all just—“ Amara finds herself getting choked up. It’s all just so insane is what she wanted to say but her emotions had been all over the place. She didn’t sob, hiccup, or gasp, but somehow Leon knew she was crying.
Leon nudges her closer, placing a comforting hand on her head, tucking his chin over top of it. “Let it out…no use in apologizing or bottling it up. Not with me.”
Amara wasn’t sure how long she cried in Leon’s arms.
All that she knew is that when they woke up the next morning with Leon asleep by her side and daylight pouring through the cracks of the blinds, things didn’t feel quite so awful as it did as when she’d gone to sleep.
City of The Dead
Character Aesthetics
Will add more to this but I thought it’d be fun to make something for right now! (Yes, I sometimes focus more on graphics than actually writing, sue me!)
Amara S. Moore - S.T.A.R.S. Operative/Private Investigator
Leon S. Kennedy - Rookie Cop
