:::::::::::::::::::::::::::TWO::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


Helen of Troy

"Find what you love...and let it kill you." – Charles Bukowski


Yōuhuì, China

Southern Province, 2013


Her eyes drifted open; her face was soft and unpretentious in the aftermath of their desire for each other. There was nothing calculating on her face now, nothing scheming. She looked like a woman well sated and young in a way that he had never seen her before. What might she have been like, he wondered, without Albert Wesker to have guided her to the darkness?

She brushed her damp panties against his still steely erection," Leon…"

He shook his head, slow and pressed his forehead to hers on a damp, painful sigh. She stayed very still now beneath him, sensing the game had been pushed too far. The silence pervaded for a long, pregnant moment before he leaned back to meet her eyes again.

She saw something on his face that caused her to lift her hands and draw him to her. The kiss was smooth and soft. "Leon," She traced his eyebrows with her fingers, "I had orders…"

Her voice trailed off. He tilted his head, watching her. "What?"

She seemed to struggle with whatever demons were urging her to silence herself. And finally, she said, "I had orders…in Raccoon City. Orders to get the virus. Orders to eliminate anyone who might compromise the situation."

He met her eyes and they both went very, very still now.

"I couldn't kill you either." She whispered it, softly.

He gripped her wrists, held her. "Why?"

She met his eyes in the darkness. "You know why."

"Say it."

And there was real regret now on her face. And something else. There was something that had no name. Something deeper and wider and darker than regret. She pulled him against her and kissed him, wet now, and hotter.

And she murmured, "I'll show you."

He watched her leave lipstick kisses on his belly. He watched her lay her tongue over the sticky head of his cock and lick him...and he didn't stop her. He let her. He wanted her to. He craved her.

Her mouth availed itself of his erection. He should have said no, but he didn't. He just watched the red of her lips as they parted and swallowed his need. Her throat constricted, milking him. His fingers twisted in her hair as he watched, transfixed, as she devoured him.

A siren. A succubus. She called his soul from his flesh with the wet of her mouth. She sucked him unabashedly, taking the length of his aching dick so far down her throat that she should have choked. Her throat squeezed him, tauntingly. He grunted, desperate, and warned her. He warned her.

"Ada...Ada...wait wait wait..."

She didn't wait. She milked him, eagerly, carelessly. He felt his balls tighten, he felt his body jerk toward her mouth. In hindsight, he might have stopped it, but he was a guy. He was a man. He let her have it.

He went in her mouth, grunting like some kind of animal. He jerked on her hair and fed her the rapid release of his body, making a small sound that might have been a whine of surrender.

It wasn't the tour de force a man might expect, but it got the job done. And she got what she wanted because he wasn't watching her hands as her mouth swallowed him down.

He should have felt the moment she did it, put the needle to him and pressed the plunger, he should have felt it. She let go of his cock, licking him, leaving him hard and eager. But the world drifted and shifted, rolled, his vision shook and shimmered as she rolled away to stand. He lifted a heavy, rapidly weakening hand at her.

"Damn you…Ada…."

Her fingers brushed through his hair and that regret was so strong on her face that it tortured him. "I'm sorry, Leon…for everything."

He watched her pick up his phone from where it lay on the nightstand beside the bed and copy the data to her own. "I'm so sorry."

It was the last thing he heard before the darkness claimed him once more.

He'd awoken alone among the blood red sheets.

She'd been gone when he'd come out of the sedative she'd given him. Of course. And a single napkin on the pillow beside him with a butterfly and a red kiss. It had all been a game to her. Another ploy to get under his skin and torture him. Well she'd won. Clearly.

She'd come out the victor of that particular battle.

She'd walked into the room and stolen his dignity, his sanity, and somehow his heart. He was still trying them back. So he did nothing, did no one, fought the good fight and stayed home. He frequented enough events to satisfy the social climbing of his father and put enough women on his arm in public to keep the gossip mongers from making accusations about his sexuality. Not that he cared. Let them say he was gay. They'd likely prefer that over the truth.

He was hung up on a spy who was also a traitor to the US government.

It was almost laughable.

If it wasn't so pitiful.


Silver Lake, Montana

Rocking Horse Ranch, 2017


Leon rose and went to the bathroom. The harsh light spilled onto his face and showed what the complimentary cast of the sun had missed: age. He was getting old.

He'd woken up one morning, sometime after a mission had failed, and he'd lost all of his men…and then subsequently had to go down into the morgue to dispose of them with a few quick bullets between their dead, dead eyes, and he'd had enough. He'd stared at his perfect blonde hair and his perfect face and spit, watching it slide down the mirror in front of him like a stain on all that beauty.

He'd colored his hair black and stopped shaving. The results were a bit shocking on the once Aryan face. It made his blue eyes darker, cast a shadow on his pale skin. The gruff beginnings of a beard made him look meaner, sharper, darker. He'd traded in his Armani and his Prada for a good leather jacket and a few different t-shirts.

And he'd disappeared off the radar. He'd take nearly six months off now. He'd escaped New York, escaped D.C., and come out west to lick his wounds. He didn't want to be bothered by any of it again. Didn't want to wake up to another world ending disaster that needed a hero. He wanted to be left the fuck alone.

He wanted to drink as much as he wanted and wallow and be a miserable baby and cry into his pillow and be left alone. And he couldn't do that surrounded by people that gave a rats ass. So he'd retreated out here. He was fairly sure only a handful of people knew his family owned this estate. He'd bought it off his father some years back as an investment. It was run in absentia by a nice couple and some ranch hands.

He came out here when the drag was too much and the time was too much and he needed, desperately, to breathe. He'd cowboy it up for a few weeks, help birth some calves, ride some horses, sheer some sheep. He'd stop being Leon Kennedy, which was starting to sound more like James Bond then he liked, and just be Mr. Scott, clearly an alias using his middle name, the owner of the ranch.

No one gave a good god damn about saving the world where he was. They still yelled for his help cleaning up horse shit in the stall. It was humbling. And he was grateful for it.

He speared his hands through his dark hair and brushed his teeth, washing away last night's whiskey with the scent of mint. He dressed quickly in jeans and red plaid flannel over a white undershirt, chuckling a little to himself at having become a "man of the mountain" literally. He slipped his feet into steel toed boots and headed out of the bedroom.

The lodge was huge. It was a massive nine bedroom, nine bathroom affair log cabin with over sixteen thousand square feet encompassing three living areas, two kitchens, and thirteen fireplaces. The back deck boasted a ten person hot tub over looking the river that snaked along the property. The theme was rustic but modern with cathedral ceilings and exposed beam work. Just beyond the main lodge was a series of guest cottages for the ranch hands and a carriage house, four barns, and a private series of lakes over the five hundred acres that encompassed the property.

He'd purchased it for almost seventeen million dollars when his father had gotten bored of it. The money was nothing really for the peace of mind that came with it. It turned out giving up a wife and children and a normal life came with the added perk of making you rich. Who said there was no money to be made being the good guy?

The good guy.

The mission where his team had died had been a kill mission. They'd been sent in to eradicate a terrorist threat in Spain. They'd infiltrated a compound and been set to eliminate the threat from guards to workers to scientists. But someone had squealed. Someone had squealed to the wrong side. They were ambushed.

The ambush was ugly, awful and ultimately ended in a blood bath that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He'd watched in horror as faces were blown away by burst of gunfire, as arms and legs were ripped off and friends, buddies, pals, were ripped to shreds still screaming. He'd lain, trembling, on a floor covered in the blood of all his friends when the cavalry had come to the rescue; the last survivor, saved only by cowardice that had kept him hidden beneath the corpses of the fallen.

He'd done what he could for those who'd died beside him. He'd gone down into that morgue and put their bodies to rest. He'd look down into the eyes of people he'd known and pulled the trigger on their reanimated corpses. He'd given them peace in death they'd never known in life.

The good guy.

He was the executioner.

He was the harbinger of death.

He was the end of everything normal and good and hopeful.

He emerged out onto the deck of the lodge, watching the shifting light of the coming dawn on the peaceful, untouched horizon. When would the fighting stop, he wondered? When would he be able to put down his sword and rest? The warrior was weary.

The rumbling of arrival in the distance told him today was not that day. He would see no rest today. And he'd been found in his private sanctuary.

From out of the pristine Hummer that rolled up the rocky drive to the lodge, a small dark girl alighted. She was accompanied from the driver's side by a tall, iron haired man in full combat gear. The girl was familiar and he'd actually been in her presence very recently in fact.

He leaned on the railing of the deck and watched her move toward the lodge. Her pixie face was suitably impressed. Hard to blame her, it was a breathtaking sight to behold beneath the dawning Montana sky. It took him a moment to realize she was actually looking at him.

He wasn't actually aware of it, but he was smiling.

"Rebecca Chambers."

Her elfish beauty was natural and inherent. She had no makeup on, needed none, and managed to look youthful and serene. Nary a line could be seen on her porcelain skin even though her bio told him she was somewhere in her mid-thirties now. He'd seen her last when she and Chris Redfield had come hunting him up for help on a bio-terrorist threat concerning the reintroduction of the Las Plagas virus. He'd nearly died in the three days he'd spent saving the world…again. And come away from that adventure with a broken collar bone, a fractured clavicle, and a ten inch scar from sternum to groin where something big and nasty had attempted to gut him.

Rebecca wore a soft brown leather jacket over fashionable jeans and dove gray boots. Her short hair was styled classically to highlight her high cheekbones and youthful face. She met his eyes and grinned.

"You look like a kid who's waiting to get smacked for raiding the cookie jar."

He laughed a little, charmed by her terrible sense of humor. Once, he'd been the same. The bad jokes of his, the puns, they were legendary. Where had his sense of humor gone? Dead, likely, along with his fashion sense.

He leaned on one elbow, studying her. "You don't ever bring good news, Rebecca. So I'm waiting for the shoe to drop."

She smiled again and shrugged. "Maybe it's a social call."

He turned his gaze to the man waiting by the car. "He your daddy then? Or your driver?"

Rebecca sighed and gestured to the house. "Let's go inside."

"You want to bring your daddy?"

She laughed. "He's fine right there."

They went inside and she spent a long moment staring at the palatial beauty of it. He offered her a cup of coffee and they sat down at the fireplace in the main lobby. It was floor to ceiling hand laid stone.

Rebecca studied him as they sipped, biding her time before she divulged the person of the visit. She'd known him the least of the all the survivors she'd come across since Raccoon City. And , additionally, found him the hardest to know.

He was quiet, somewhat broody, and mysterious. He kept to himself. He wasn't social by any means. He often times avoided interaction with others until necessary. He was, by turns, charming and funny or dark and foreboding. He was also possibly the most amazing person she'd ever seen in a fight.

She'd seen Chris fight. Brute strength and rigorous training and until she'd seen Leon, she hadn't ever really thought about the ART behind the fighting. The motion. The movement. The nearly musical truth of it. Fighting wasn't just something he did, it was something he embodied. He was smooth, graceful, fast, and technically perfect. His individual parts were all part of a greater whole. He was flawless in execution and nearly beautiful to watch. Like poetry in motion.

He moved with a precision and patience that spoke of years of continuous perfection. Where he found the time or the drive to perfect it, she'd never know. But she'd watched him, half dead on that rooftop, and had still thought he was breathtaking. Needless to say she was a little enamored of him. It was to be expected, she'd been so of Chris all those years ago in Raccoon City. He'd never known, or if he'd known, he'd always been so careful to avoid making her embarrassed about it.

Leon would likely have smiled politely himself if she'd gushed her adoration at him like some love sick school girl. She smiled now at him again as she attempted to gather her thoughts.

"I've been tracking the movements of the last of Aria's crew, Maria Gomez. She was last seen attempting to book passage north to elude capture." Rebecca set her cup down on the table before her. "I think I've found her. I've been scouring all the sites, checking field cams, dash cams, traffic cams, using algorithms to help trace anything related to her. Speech patterns, key words or phrases, altered facial features. I had nothing…until a week ago."

Getting a little excited now, she scooted a bit closer to him on the couch where they sat. She didn't see him tense up slightly. She continued, animated now, "There was some chatter on a police radio in Nain."

He lifted a brow at her.

"It's a remote settlement in Canada. It's nearly inaccessible most of the year and the only way to reach it is to fly into the Happy Valley –Goose Bay that is close by. There's really nothing there. It's as remote as you can get short of heading to Siberia. But they have local cops…and those cops are noticing things."

She shifted a little closer and her knee brushed his. "Some of the townsfolk are disappearing. It's pretty noticeable in a small town. They usually come back but the chatter keeps referring to them as different. It's mostly French which is my least favorite language. But they keep referencing sending them to see the new town doctor. Dr. Dubois."

And she shifted a little closer now and even grabbed his hand in her excitement. "It's her. I know it! I can feel it in my guts. I need you to come with me and hunt her down."

Leon didn't even think she was aware that she'd shifted so close that the line of her leg was against his from hip to knee. He didn't think she knew that she'd been holding his hand while she talked. He didn't think she knew that she was probably the first person to touch him in years. He wondered what she'd say if he told her.

"Where's Chris?" He queried and he could have taken his hand back, but he didn't.

"Louisiana. Intel took him down there in search of missing agents thought dead from three years ago. He rushed down there to see how much truth was in it. I don't think we should wait for him to get back. I contacted Jill but she's in deep cover somewhere in the Sudan."

"So you're telling me I'm your last resort?"

Rebecca smiled wryly, a little sheepishly, "Help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope?"

And he laughed. He couldn't not laugh at her. The strange part was that it felt ok to laugh. He'd been afraid, for awhile, that he couldn't laugh anymore. It turned out he could, and it felt pretty good to do it.

"Ok." He rose and released her hand in doing so. Strange that he felt a little sad to lose the simple human contact. "Give me a few minutes to get ready."

"Really?!" She bounced to her feet, thrilled, "Are you serious? I was positive you were going to say no."

"No faith in me huh?" He moved down the hallway to first bedroom, Rebecca hot on his heels, "Can't say I blame you. I haven't always given the best impression."

He unbuttoned the plaid shirt as he moved and tossed it on the bed in the master bedroom. In his undershirt and the jeans, he moved to the closet.

Rebecca watched him move, even now still graceful. He looked amazing in his white undershirt, it molded itself like a second skin to his perfectly defined abs and chest. The slight suggestion of hair beneath the shirt was just dark enough to give an impression at the belly button and across the pecs. She didn't realize it but she'd started chewing her fingernail like she often did when she was nervous.

He emerged from the closet with a big duffel bag that he began loading with various things. He beckoned her into the closet with a crook of one finger and she followed, still nervous to be this close to him. He'd laid his hand on an exposed plate and the back wall shifted, opening to reveal what may have been the biggest arsenal of weapons she'd seen outside of an action movie.

Wide mouthed, she watched as he selected several from various areas within the hidden room. It took her a moment to realize he was asking her a question. "I'm sorry, what?"

He smiled a little. "Pick what you're comfortable with from in here."

"I haven't used a gun in years."

He stared at her, blinked, and stared again.

"Ok." He put his fingers under the undershirt and whipped it over his head. She was pretty sure her brain fell out of her ass at the sight of him half naked walking toward her. Why? What? Uh? Who? She wasn't sure what was about to happen but she was thinking, what the hell? Why not? Wait…wasn't there some reason she was here? Sex? No not sex. But wait what?

And he passed right by her.

Her lungs screamed as air rushed back in. She realized that she'd forgotten to breathe in those moments when he was moving toward her.

She turned, and nearly cried, as he slipped on a black under armour moisture wicking shirt and strapped himself into his shoulder holster. He pulled a black leather jacket from a hanger and slid it on over his holster. "Let's go sunshine, you're about to get a crash course in remembering how to handle a weapon."

He handed her a basic Beretta, butt first. She immediately checked the safety and secured the chamber. Nodding approval, he led her out of the closet and through the sliding glass doors off the back of the bedroom.

The great Montana sky had turned gold and orange now in the coming dawn. The walk was brisk but he seemed unconcerned at the chill in the air as he led them across the land to the outdoor training area he'd had constructed. And, again, Rebecca was impressed.

It was hallowed out vehicles and makeshift buildings constructed to resemble a war zone. There were bullet holes in everything from the moving or stationary targets, to the doors that barred ones path, to the vehicles themselves. He'd clearly spent hours upon hours here making sure his dead aim remained…dead.

She chuckled at her own internal humor.

"You ever really relax, Leon?"

He met her eyes, droll, "No. Do you?"

Something moved across her face now and flitted away. "Yes. A good book, a glass of wine with girlfriends, a movie. You know…life?"

There was nothing to say he understood on his face. There was nothing there but a hollowness that had something dark and lonely at the bottom of it. He had beautiful, husky blue eyes and they were ringed in dark circles above cheekbones carved sharply in that handsome face. She hadn't realized it before, so lost in the gorgeous perfection of that face, but he the hero looked exhausted. No…the hero looked haunted.

Rebecca wasn't sure when she decided to try to take some of that pain out of his eyes, but she knew she was going to bring a little color back to his pale cheeks and try, somehow, to take some of the pain out of those eyes. Leon, she silently wondered, when was the last time you really slept?

He put her through her paces, that much was true. He paced her, pushed, used quiet commands and encouragement and tough love when she needed it. He yelled, he signaled, he had her learning the language of his command. She learned how he signaled, how he moved, she found herself trying to copy him, imitate his resolve, his skill. He watched her, guided her, corrected and complimented her desire.

At one point, she rolled around the hood of the hollowed out VW Bug in the center of the compound he'd created and he was there already, surprising her. The slap he delivered to her hands was not gentle, it knocked the gun she carried away to skitter across the ground. The look on his face was brutal now, determined.

"Go for it," He encouraged her as she knelt in front of him, "Go for the gun or go for me, your choice."

She felt like there was no right answer here, so she dove backward toward the gun.

His fingers caught in her hair, the other arm grabbed her arm and jerked her back toward him. She gave a shout of pain and tried to spin but he pulled her hair sharp and hard and put that arm painfully up between her shoulder blades. He kicked her feet out from under her and took them both to their knees on the ground.

"You're hurting me."

"So? Escape."

Rebecca struggled, grunting with the effort. The sharp pain in her head was making her angry. "Let me go."

"No. Escape."

She scissored her legs uselessly and he pinned them with his own knees on either side. "Now you're trapped from all sides. What do you do?"

Her mind slowed down, assessed. She was better then this. She was better than this. She hadn't been in training in years, of course, but she still had HAD training. Bravo had been all about training.

She let herself go limp against him and turned her voice sharp and whining, "Let me gooooo!"

He jerked her harder against him, "Try again. I'll break your arm in a moment. ESCAPE!"

Her free hand grabbed lifted, grabbed at the empty space1q and found the side of his neck. He made some gesture but was too slow, she set her nails against his skin and didn't hold back; she raked him as hard as should could. He hissed and shifted, he didn't let go but the hand on her arm loosened slightly.

She grabbed his hair with her free hand and pulled her body weight against him. It threw him off balance enough that jerked his head at the same time she rotated, turned, rolled. She lost some hair in the process but she was face to face with him now and he'd lost control of her other arm.

She didn't stop, maybe she should have, but she didn't. She fell straight to her back and humped her hips upward. He couldn't have stopped it but he let her finish the move. Her feet planted in his sternum, her hand in his hair pulled him forward and she pushed. He went up and over, tossed into the air by the momentum. And he was impressed as he went up, over, hit the ground and rolled through it.

He came to his back with her atop him now and she pinned his arms to the ground beside his head.

Breathing heavily, he smiled, "Not pretty but that did the trick."

"I have my moments."

"You finished?"

"Nope," He tested her strength and it was lacking, she was too small to hold him down. He lifted his arms and flipped her wrists into his hands. She grunted and pushed back but he jerked her forward, hooked his foot at her left ankle and rolled.

With her beneath him, he pinned her wrists above her head.

"You have to learn your body, learn your triggers, your weak points," He felt her breathing, fast and shallow, "Once you know what you can take, you can learn how to direct your opponent, couple them to your skill, and win. Even if they are bigger, faster, stronger."

"Yeah?" Her voice was soft, breathy.

"Yeah," He had been watching the horizon as he lectured, "Yeah. And they will be. They all will be."

Even now, she thought, when she was fully aware of him above her, when she was fully aware of the line of his body against hers, he was lost somewhere in watching for the enemy. He was emerged in the world of his own making, this land where he was never safe, never slept, never did anything but fight and bleed and kill. She ached, both inside her and outside her body for him. She ached and yearned and hurt and wanted.

She tested her hands against his grip. It was loose but secure. So she shifted her neck instead. She lifted her head off the ground the slight few inches he was away from her…and pressed a soft kiss to chin.

If she'd have kicked him in the balls, it wouldn't have surprised him more.


Post Note:

In this story, we see that our hero is a bit of a lost soul. For those not familiar with Vendetta, I won't go into detail here but the story may spoil the movie for you so you probably shouldn't read this fic if you haven't seen the movie. For those familiar with the entire series, we pick up the strings of our character and his dilemmas post 6, mid 7, post Vendetta. This way, I step on no toes in where I choose to go next, not that I've ever really cared about the canon and the course of history. Capcom has no real symmetry, so I shan't either.

With that said, enjoy the story. And let me know if you do or don't. I like to hear all opinions.

Cheers.

-The Lady Frost