Author's Note: The home stretch!
Summary: Claire berates herself for what she didn't do, as Leon reflects on what he did.
Rating: T
Regret
Chapter Four: Burn Out
By: Mazzie May
Leon quietly closed Lilly's bedroom door, glad she was asleep by nine, and walked down the hall, stopping in Sherry's doorway. "You going to school tomorrow?"
She looked up from her math binder and tapped her mechanical pencil, her headphones blaring. She probably had no idea what he'd said to her, but she nodded anyway, still bobbing her head to the hardcore, womanizing hip-hop and blowing a bubble of purple gum.
He smiled and waved her off, heading towards his room. He pushed the door shut with his foot and pulled off his sweater, throwing it on top of a pile of clothes that was collecting on an armchair in the corner. His sneakers made soft noises against the white carpet as he walked up to his window. On the windowsill was a pack of cigarettes. He removed one and pulled a lighter from his pocket.
He wasn't always a serious smoker, used to just be a social one, but for the last six years he went through about a pack a month. Since Spain, it's shifted to a pack a week. He didn't really know why.
He took a long drag, thinking of Ben Bertolucci. Leon had wanted to help him, but he wouldn't accept it. Leon did what he could, right? Wrong. Another in hale. He could've broken down the door if he wanted to. He could've threatened to shoot him. But instead he opted for letting Bertolucci think about what Leon had said and then come back. He honest to God planned on coming back. But Birkin beat him to it, and Benjamin Bertolucci is no more.
Leon crushed the cigarette into the ashtray, and pulled out another. His face was illuminated for a moment in the twilight by an orange flicker and then everything was blue again. He'd abandoned the man at he gun shop, and the police officer Marvin Branagh. The man was obviously a dead one, even before he stopped struggling but Leon didn't even try to help. As for Marvin… He sucked in the smoke hard. All the help he'd been for Officer Branagh was putting him out of misery at the end.
It was getting darker, but he could still see the street below. He snubbed the smoke and retrieved another and lit it thinking about Sherry's parents. Annette Birkin was beyond his help from the get go and the crazy bitch shot him, so he wasn't exactly feeling guilty when her body dropped like a sack of rocks on the catwalks. He flicked the ashes off the end. Birkin hadn't giving up, persistent bastard. Leon expected the end every time he'd ran into that thing and wore a tight smile when he watched the train detonate. He was sorry that Sherry lost her parents, but he wasn't sorry to see them go down in flames.
He finished it up and put it out, drawing another from the pack. It was completely dark now and the room glowed red as he lit up. He thought of Luis Sera, the man who just wanted out. He in haled deeply, the smoke lazily escaping his parted lips. Luis had been working for Saddler, yeah. But he helped him and Ashley. Even though Luis could take care of himself, it was obvious he was willing to let Leon do everything, eager to have someone else in charge, someone else taking care of him. All the good that did him.
He took another long drag, thinking of the two dicks the Spaniard government had the balls to call policia. They were pricks, without a doubt, and Leon half-heartedly looked for them until he found one burning and another swallowed by some outrageous salamander thing in the lake. He flicked the ashes. Then there was Mike. Fantastic pilot, seemly good man. Died because Leon distracted him with conversation.
Leon looked down at the cancer stick in his hand, watching the tobacco and paper burn away like the lives of the people he failed.
He couldn't save anyone.
Author's Note: I totally see Leon as a smoker. I'm not promoting smoking, I'm just saying. He totally is.
R&R Please