Author's Note: My shot at "How they feel"
Summary: Leon spends some time on the computer, and thinks about all of the attention they receive. From the games to the movies to the fan fics
Rating: M for swearing.
Speculation
By: Mazzie May
Leon sat in his kick-my-ass swivel chair, hunched forward, his right forearm resting on the black wood desk, his left hand manning the mouse. It's pretty convenient that both he and Sherry are lefties. Even if she wasn't, the mouse would still be on the left side, whether she liked it or not. All of the "Survivors", as the media called them, where right handed. With a few exceptions: Dr. George Whatever was left handed, Leon could never remember that mans last name; Sherry and himself were left handed, obviously; Alyssa Ashcroft and Jill Valentine were both ambidextrous.
Everyone else, right handed. Irritating as fuck, too.
Leon surfed around, enjoying the internet on his new computer. Since taking the job with the government, Leon received a very, very generous check. He'd almost passed out when he counted the zeros. Most people would've thought to place it in a savings account, or spend it on something more important.
But then there are the people like Leon and Sherry. People who, when given money, strive to aid the economy. As in, blow it all right away. Sure, he deposited enough so his bank account wasn't in ruins, but just barely.
Both Kennedy's were techno geeks, and their first stop was to Leon's Government provided technical back up, Haki Miruno. Standing at 4'11", lean and adorable, she fit your typical Japanese school girl profile. Oh, and it's also worth mentioning she could build a super computer for NASA in her sleep. She built them both a custom desk computer and laptops.
Did they need them? No. Did they have the money to buy them? Yes. And that's all that mattered.
So, now, Leon used his spiffy computer to zip around the net. It's something he did constantly on his days off. It was nearly embarrassing, how much time he spent on the computer. Sherry had even gotten him into instant messaging; he had an account with AIM, YIM and MSN. He read online comics with Sherry, and posted on message boards and forums (he was even a mod on a few!).
Thank God for working. It was one of the only things that kept him off his computer. And since he worked days at a time, he was able to keep a clear head during life.
Though, Sherry was just as bad. If she wasn't playing video games or sleeping, she was on her computer. When her friends came over, they were on her computer. When she went to a friends house, she took her laptop.
And just to prove how bad they are, as of that moment, instead of actually going up to talk to Sherry, Leon IMed her on MSN, asking her if she wanted to go out to eat.
Johnny was a chemist's son, but Johnny is no more. For what Johnny thought was H2O, was really H2SO4 says:
You want to go out, or get pizza again?
Obey gravity - it's the law! says:
do we have to leave now? i'm in the middle of a flash movie
Yeah, it was strange, but it bothered the hell out of both of them when people used just letters and numbers. "R" for 'are' and "u" for 'you'. They mean, really, would it kill them to type the whole thing?
Johnny was a chemist's son, but Johnny is no more. For what Johnny thought was H2O, was really H2SO4 says:
Sher, give it up. Joseph Blanchette is not going to marry if you like his movies. He's probably really serious in real life.
Obey gravity - it's the law! says:
lies! don't talk about joey like that, you don't even know him
Johnny was a chemist's son, but Johnny is no more. For what Johnny thought was H2O, was really H2SO4 says:
Because you two are so close.
Obey gravity - it's the law! says:
sometimes, i hate you. a lot
Johnny was a chemist's son, but Johnny is no more. For what Johnny thought was H2O, was really H2SO4 says:
Anyway. Which one are you watching?
Obey gravity - it's the law! says:
'i am resident evil'
Leon groaned and rubbed his eyes with his palms. He hated that thing. With a passion. It's not like he had something against LegendaryFrog, CAPCOM or any of them, but he was kind of pissed that all of their stories were exploited like that. He'd be the first to admit that he was on of the people who okay'ed it in the beginning. But having bought and played all the games, his opinion had changed. They made everyone seem so… stupid.
Again, Leon would be the first admit he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. But he wasn't that dumb. What ticked him off the most was the script for Resident Evil 4. Yes, Leon dropped one liners. No, none of them were that bad. Hunnigan's revenge for him hitting on her was changing the communication logs to make it look like he actually said those things. He hadn't wanted to hurt someone so badly in his life.
And then, there were the movies. By that point, Leon had learned that this publicity stuff was bad news, and said no go on it. As did everyone else. So, they made a movie about Umbrella, and zombies and Raccoon City - with none of them in it. Everyone was ticked, but lived with it until the producers or whoever found a loop hole in their original contract with CAPCOM; if they bought the contract they could make a movie about whatever they pleased with whoever they pleased. He leaned back staring at the ceiling. What a mess that was.
Chris had been pissed. Especially when they made the second movie. Jill had never been a very emotional person, but Leon would never forget when he stayed over at her house and just watched her try not to cry over the disrespect the movie showed not just them, but her fallen friends as well. She actually asked him to hold her, and Jill hated person-to-person contact. A lot. Carlos was fuming in his room, not believing how they portrayed him. No disses to guy who played him – he played very well the character they had given him – but that was not Carlos.
There were so many things they just made up: Jill doesn't smoke; Nicholai was a scaryRussian guy in his late thrities with greying hair who hated Carlos, not some red headed kid; there were only twelve STARS members, not twenty; the entire city over taken in less than a day and so forth.Or left out as a whole: Mikail; the NEMESIS having a gatling gun; the RPD arresting zombies; the trolley ride, etc. It was disgusting. What's worse is that in the second movie, near the opening, a newspaper article read "STARS Member Jill Valentine mourns the death of her partner, Leon Kennedy" already absurd, but now the third movie would be staring Leon. What the hell? Not to mention that whole Alice thing is totally bogus.
There wasn't much they could do about it now, except sit back and watch the show unfold. What was even more unbelievable was the fan basis the games received. Leon had been floored when a show called 'Filter' on a channel 'G4TV' named him Sexist Male Character. He'd literally fallen backwards; Sherry dropped her bowl of cereal. It then showed interviews with the people they asked on the street. At least thirty girls and fifteen guys had said "Leon S. Kennedy!" None of the other Survivors let him live it down for at least two months. Ark still brought it up.
Jill had won Vixen of the Year, and Wesker Most Villainous. And just this year, Resident Evil 4 took home Game of the Year. Leon wanted to cry, it was all just so depressing. No one knew what really happened, and it annoyed all of them when people on the street told them to keep up the good fight and all this nonsense.
What Leon wanted to know, however, was how CAPCOM made the scenes with Ada and Wesker work. Did those really happen? Or were they just speculation? How would they know? It made him worry a lot; especially when he thought those conversations were very true to life.
"Fucking speculation…" That was one thing everyone cringed about. Was fan speculation. Or 'Fan fiction'. It was everywhere and nearly 98.9 of it was rubbish. Some of them he didn't mind so much; the ones about them living usual lives. Those were cool. But then there were the ones with random spills in other cities, Raccoon all over again. Umbrella was a little careless, but they weren't reckless. Chris made that speech repeatedly. Random zombies irritated him, Mary-Sue's… Oh, but what got them all riled up to the point was slash. Or yaoi or whatever. None of them were really homophobic, but it was unbelievably disturbing to see 'Leon/Ark' or 'Leon/Carlos'. No one paid it much mind at first, but soon learned that it was something not to take lightly.
Leon remembered the day Chris and Claire began to fear fan fiction. Claire had called him in a panic, not making any sense, just stuttering and tripping over words. He could hear someone – probably Chris – vomiting in the background. He finally got Claire to tell him that Chris had been e-mailed a 'Chris/Wesker/Plant 42' fic. Leon himself had had to swallow back his own bile at the news.
People write what they write, Leon can't stop them, and he could never ask them to. But damn it, was that nasty. Leon could only hope that the writers out there didn't like care enough about him to put him that kind of situation. Of course, the night after expressing that thought to Carlos, he came across a 'Leon/Mr. X' rape fic. He wasn't a fan at all, obviously, but he'd made a silent promise to himself to read whatever e-mails he received.
She had laughed for hours, until a 'Leon/Claire/Sherry' three-some fic was placed in front of her. She soon became what many call a "flamer", and just attacked nearly anyone who wrote anything about them.
Rebecca… Man, did Leon feel sorry for her. The one about her and Billy were nice enough and they always made her blush and look away from the screen. But then there were the ones that made her cry. She's completely sworn off the fics, because there were lots of her and Wekser and Barry…
"Oh," Leon covered his face with his hands as he leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. The Barry Burton stories. They all made him out to be some kind of a bad guy. If he wasn't taking advantage of Rebecca, he was leaving his family for Jill. And no one in the group could ever imaging him doing such a thing and felt very sorry for him, although it was entertaining to watch his wife just walk into the room and slap him upside the head because of something 'he' did in a story.
Carlos welcomes the attention. Even the ones about him being with another man. He claims that his fans see that his sexiness is too great for women alone, and total understands why they have to put him in those situations. Even a 'Nemesis/Carlos' rape fic didn't shake him. "Hey, when you have someone as good as me walking around, you just can't fight the urge."
Jill was the one everyone envied. Almost all of her stories placed her in a good light. If she wasn't in love with Chris, she was with Carlos. If she wasn't kicking B.O.W ass, she was wistfully remembering her fallen friends in some type of glorious sadness. Tch, if only the rest of them were so lucky.
Leon looked back at the screen, a fan fiction in front of him. It was one about him and Ada. He considered it a nice thought, but mostly wishful thinking. Leon had no doubt in his mind that she'd truly come to love him in any fashion. He might be her favorite, but she has many toys. That's what Jill had told him, and he fully believed her.
He minimized the box and pushed away from the computer. After all that thinking he needed to be away from the desk, so no pizza. He stood and ran a hand through his hair, calling for Sherry.
"Get down here, I'm notstaying here any longer."
"What the hell?" came the reply from the upstairs hall way. "Why?"
He threw on back and warm winter coat and grabbed his keys. "Let's go."
A pause and then, "Alright, lemme log off…"
They were going out for Chinese.
Author's Note: I'd been coming across a quite a few "How would the characters feel" stories and thought I'd give it a-go. Before anyone gets in my face, I did not write this fic to express my feelings on fan fiction, though I may agree with a few. I tried to write this from a stand point I think Leon and the others would take. We all have our own views of the characters, and may agree on something things. I might see Leon in a dark green light, and someone else may see him in a lime-green light. We both agree he's green, but that's where it ends. So, there you go. Hope you enjoyed.
R&R if you're up to it.