Krauser held Steve to the floor as Leon worked. "Krauser, keep him still!" Leon shouted, pulling out all the bandages he had from his pockets. Blood was oozing out faster now, pooling beneath his leg as he squirmed and thrashed.
"I'm trying!" Krauser retorted, holding Steve tightly to the floor with his hands behind his back.
Steve thrashed all the harder, teeth bared as he struggled against his captors. "Let me go!" he screamed.
Leon did his best to ignore him, resting his knee lightly on the foot of Steve's injured leg. "Alright Steve, this is gonna hurt. I need you to try to relax." The last thing they needed was for him to go into shock.
"Don't touch it!" the teen pleaded as Leon positioned the bandage just above the wound. Exposed tendons and muscles writhed under the torn skin, and in parts where it was missing entirely, Leon could see the white of bone. It was a disgusting looking injury, and Leon got the heart wrenching suspicion that if they did get out of there alive, he would end up having it amputated.
Deciding to focus on just getting out alive to begin with, Leon took a deep breath, and pressed the bandages to the torn flesh.
A bloodcurdling scream ripped from Steve's throat and the familiar blue veins began to spread even down his leg.
"Leon…" Krauser warned.
Leon wasn't paying attention to him, but to the teenager he was trying to help. Using the bloody strips of fabric from the portion of pants he'd cut, he tied the bandages in place tightly.
Once everything was secured, he sat back on his heels. "Krauser, you can let him up," he said, and the bulky man did so. The moment he was free, Steve curled in on himself, his hands going for his leg. Luckily, Leon was faster, and grabbed his hands gently but firmly.
"C'mon, can you walk?" he asked, resting a hand on his shoulders. Steve didn't reply for a long time, his face ghastly pale under the blue lines as quiet whimpers voiced from his throat. Concerned, Leon pushed him onto his back and pulled one of his eyelids open, only to have his hand batted away.
"Need a second," Steve muttered through clenched teeth. He looked like he was about to be sick – then again, he probably was. At least, though, he wasn't going into shock.
The russet-haired teen took several deep breaths through his nose, hands moving in spasms at his sides until finally the veins all receded. Taking this as a sign that all was well, Leon used a hand between his shoulder blades to sit him up.
"You're tough, kid, I'll give you that," Krauser said approvingly as Steve opened his eyes. No one said anything about the moisture that gathered in them.
Steve didn't raise his eyes, and instead gave a light shiver. Color hadn't returned to his face, and, Leon noticed, his pupils were dilated. Maybe he was going into shock after all.
Frowning, Leon propped up his knee behind Steve's back, fully aware that he couldn't hold himself up. Blood loss, and possibly shock, along with the disgusting number of injuries that littered even just his naked torso had sapped his strength to the point that he barely kept his eyes open.
Leon shrugged out of his leather jacket, leaving him in his long-sleeved, grey 5.11 shirt. He pulled the sleeves onto Steve's arms, trying his best to avoid dragging the fabric across the more painful-looking injuries. Steve looked confused for a moment, eyes wide as he turned to see what Leon was doing.
"You need to stay warm," Leon explained, reaching around his torso to zip the jacket up. Steve nodded, and it didn't escape Leon's notice how he pulled the jacket closer to him.
"Shoes," Steve mumbled, pointing to a pair of boots in the corner. He'd clearly taken them off of one of the dead soldiers, but he hadn't put them on. Krauser followed his gesture and grabbed the boots, tossing them to Leon, who gave them to Steve.
He managed to get one of them on, but he couldn't bend his left leg enough to get the other one on. Sighing, Leon pushed the shoe on as carefully as he could. A strained whine broke from his throat, but he didn't make any other indications of pain as Leon laced the boot up for him, and returned to his side. Now, at least, there was some color on the kid's face, he noticed with some amusement. His cheeks were red.
Sliding one of the teen's arms over his shoulder, he waved to Krauser. "Give me a hand." Krauser nodded and took Steve's other side, pulling his arm over his bulkier shoulders as Leon wrapped an arm around his waist.
The moment they tried to move him though, he let out a ragged gasp and his good leg gave out from under him. Concernedly, Leon used his free hand to lift up the jacket. The sight it revealed was gruesome. Not as much so as the wound on Steve's leg, but it was still pretty bad. His ribs on his left side were concave – literally concave, with a nasty bruise stretched from under the pulled up jacket to beneath the scrubs that hung on his bony hips.
"Jesus Christ," Leon muttered as he lowered the jacket.
Steve shuddered. "T-virus isn't the worst thing here…" he muttered, pulling his arm away from Krauser to hug his abdomen. Krauser took that as his cue to take up post at the door, gun out and at the ready.
Leon didn't like the sound of that. The only things he could think of worse than the T-virus were the more severe mutations. The G-virus or the Veronica virus.
"Let's get out of here," Leon said, nodding to Krauser who flung the door open. Already, there was a line-up of infected outside the door, several of whom flopped into the room. Leon noticed how Steve leaned back away from them. He would've taken another step back, but Leon held him still so that he couldn't step back on his injured leg.
Krauser dispatched the infected with masterful speed, clearing the doorway and starting out into the hall. Leon started into motion, tightening his grip on Steve's waist. "Don't put weight on your leg," he said. "Lean on me."
Steve nodded and the two started walking. They didn't even get out the door before Steve was breathing hard, but he didn't complain and he didn't slow down. Krauser was right; the kid was tough.
They continued down the hall, Krauser taking out any and all infected that crossed their path. In fact, they were making nearly as good time as they had been without Steve. Things were actually going pretty well, and they were going through the door that led them into the lab. To Leon's relief, the videos weren't playing.
The door had to be held open to keep it from closing, so that made getting through it rather precarious. Krauser held it for them, but in the one instant that Krauser was preoccupied, an infected jumped into action, jaws snapping for Leon's leg. Both his and Krauser's hands were busy, yet somehow, at that moment, a loud bang rang out from right beside him, and the infected collapsed.
Leon turned to see Steve holding his Glock 30, pointed directly at the infected's head. His aim had been perfect, and brain matter lay scattered on the wall behind the creature. His grip on the gun was so tight his knuckles were white, but despite that, he looked completely sure of his skill with the weapon.
Hesitantly, he offered it back to Leon, but he shook his head. "Keep it," he said. He had plenty of guns strapped on his person, and Steve had proven that, injured or not, he was a good shot. Vaguely, he remembered Claire telling him in her e-mail from Rockfort about the kid with the Lugers. Maybe she hadn't been kidding when she said he was a better shot than she was.
For the first time since he'd seen him, a small smile pulled at the corners of Steve's lips. If he'd known giving him a gun would comfort him, he'd have done it a long time ago. Nevertheless,
"Don't fire unless you have to," Leon said.
"Won' waste ammo," Steve protested, eyes flashing.
Leon couldn't help the smile at the display of spirit. At least there was still a fire there, no matter how weak and frail he looked. "I don't doubt that," he said. "But you don't need to be moving that arm too much. Your wrist looks broken."
A genuine look of surprise passed across Steve's features, and he looked down his arm to see the purple discoloration stretching up his arms. "Gross," he muttered, tucking the gun into the pocket of the jacket.
Krauser coughed. "You two comin' or what?"
Leon nodded, giving Steve a moment to steel himself before they started moving again. The ease on Steve's face was quickly replaced by tense pain, and his breath fell back to heavy pants. Still, he didn't complain as they progressed through the complex.
It was when they got to the stairs that things got interesting. They were steep stairs – they couldn't be cleared by the shuffling hops Steve was able to make. For a moment, Leon considered the various possibilities. He could get Krauser to help lift him up stair by stair, but that would leave them uncovered, and it would hurt a lot. He could do fireman's carry, but his ribs would probably puncture a lung. That left option C.
As carefully as he could, Leon sat Steve down on the concrete floor of the building. "Wh-what are you doing?" he asked, eyes wide with alarm. Surely they weren't going to leave him!
But Leon didn't stand up. Instead, he knelt down next to him, crouching over. "This might hurt a bit," he warned, sliding one arm under Steve's knees and the other behind his shoulders. With a quiet grunt, Leon lifted him up bridal style.
The first thing Leon noticed was that Steve was abnormally light. The next thing he noticed was the pair of fists clenched in his shirt. If there could possibly be a reason he was glad he was in pain, it was because it made him clench his eyes so that he couldn't see Leon's blush. That didn't do much to make it any better though – Leon already despised the thought of causing the younger man pain.
That said, he couldn't help the slight jarring Steve got with every ascending step. "You okay?" he asked finally when Steve didn't relinquish his hold on the fabric of his shirt. His whole body was tense in Leon's arms, and moisture beaded on his auburn eyelashes.
Leon saw his Adam's Apple bob with a thick swallow, and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead gave a nod. He was hurting badly then, Leon decided. "Am I hurting you?" He shook his head.
"Morphine," he whispered, his voice wavering. He released the grip on Leon's shirt with his left hand and rolled it over to show the inside of his elbow. A small trickle of blood smeared his arm from tiny pinpricks in the crook of it.
Leon gaped. "You shot yourself up with morphine?" he demanded incredulously. Even Krauser turned around at that, his eyes falling on Steve's elbow too.
"Couldn't afford to slow down," Steve explained, a grimace twisting his face even through the sardonic smirk. "I burn through it fast though. Third dose's gone."
That would explain how he was able to function with a chunk missing out of his leg.
A groan down the hallway made it clear that he didn't have time to worry about that then, and he and Krauser kept moving. When they made it through the door at the top of the stairs, Leon sat Steve down against the wall, and joined Krauser in securing the area. More shots rang out as he and Krauser cleared out the infected that filled the room. When they were done, he returned to help Steve up…
And saw him huddled against the wall with his elbow stretched out in his lap and a syringe held in his shaking hand. He rushed forward before the tip could touch his flesh and grabbed both the hand holding the needle, and the elbow waiting to be stuck with it.
"What the hell are you doing?" he demanding, releasing the elbow to force Steve's head up. Instead of the normal sea green eyes, he was met with fiery red as blue veins crept up his skin.
"The fuck do you think?" Steve hissed in response, his voice high and reedy, almost hysterical. "I can't even breathe like this, much less move." And Leon believed him. It wasn't just the heaving of his battered chest, or the shaking of his hands, but the sheer desperation in his inhuman eyes. He was still human, and he was in pain.
"Krauser, watch the doors," he said, taking the needle from Steve's hand. Steve shrunk down a little bit, clearly thinking that Leon was going to destroy the syringe in his hands. Instead though, he reached into his vest and pulled out his med kit. In it was a tube of rubber, which he wrapped around Steve's upper arm. "You're going to get one hell of a detox when we get out of this," Leon told him as he opened and closed Steve's fist for him.
Steve stared at Leon with a mixture between gratitude and defiance. "I'll deal with it then," he said, closing his eyes as Leon put the needle against his skin. A whimper escaped his throat without his permission as the needle pierced his skin and the liquid was released into his system. His eyes didn't open and his body didn't relax until the needle was out of his skin and the rubber tube was tucked back into the med kit.
When his eyes opened again, they were back to their normal blue-green, and looking much more lucid if not infinitely more relaxed. He didn't even wait for Leon's help to start pushing himself up, but Leon put a hand on his shoulder and kept him down.
"How many more do you have?" he asked.
Steve smiled sheepishly. "Three."
Leon held out his hand to Steve, palm up. "Give them to me."
"But—."
"That wasn't a request."
Begrudgingly, Steve reached into his pocket with his good hand and pulled out three capped syringes. With a small frown, he dropped them in Leon's hand.
Leon put the syringes in the med kit and returned the kit to the pocket in his vest. "Alright, time to go." It took a lot less time to get up and going this time, probably because Steve was contributing a lot more effort to it than he had been before. Part of Leon hated himself for giving in to drug abuse, but the other part, the winning part, was just relieved the kid wasn't in such unbearable pain anymore.
"After you," Steve chuckled, gesturing dramatically with the Glock he'd produced from his pocket. Mental note: drugs plus Steve equals insufferable.
