So… uh… ahaha… *sweats*
This is about to get seventeen different flavours of weird. I consider myself pretty horrible at writing abstract thoughts and introspections, soooooo… strap in. But I have to post the chapter now, or else I'll just keep dwelling on it and then end up running away from this fic for half a year, cringing like 500% Facial Animations Leon when I eventually rediscover it, and then burning the whole thing in a huge backyard bonfire. Enjoy whatever morsels of enjoyment can be had, I guess? :'D
Thank you for your understanding, and Happy Friday, as usual!
Chapter 7 - The Professional Needs an Exterminator
From the puzzled look she sends him over the video feed, Hunnigan has clearly picked up on Leon's disgruntlement, but thankfully she elects not to ask him outright why he's glowering like Christmas just got cancelled. Not that he would've tried explaining his personal problems of that nature to her anyway; rather, he was scrambling to come up with a decent excuse, having had hardly a moment to gather his thoughts since Ada disappeared. "Sherry reported in from the lab a few minutes ago," she informs him, while he inwardly breathes a sigh of relief. "Examination of the B.O.W. samples is underway. In the meantime, I've received some preliminary intel from the BSAA based on their field observations. Any progress with the victim in the ICU?"
"Unfortunately not," Leon replies. "He's still unconscious. I've told the nurse on duty to call me right away if his condition changes."
"We probably shouldn't bank on his input. I'm afraid he may be in for a long recovery," Hunnigan notes grimly.
She shares the BSAA's report with him: the B.O.W.s resemble a particular genus of giant salamander native to east Asia, minus the typical brown coloration. As Leon's own experiences confirmed, they exhibit acute hearing, bullet-resistant skin, and horrific speed when provoked. Several unusual encounters around glass panes seem to indicate they see in infrared instead of visible light—heat vision—explaining the futile stare-down he'd held with that specimen in the conference room. Finally, despite their own stench, the brutes are surprisingly adept with their noses, heavily favoring the scent of any kind of meat.
"It's likely they were drawn to the cannery by the smell of fish," says Hunnigan. "Many were unknowingly hauled aboard fishing boats in nets and brought to shore that way. Based on trawling routes and the locations of all the reported attacks, we've zeroed in on a patch of open sea about fifty miles away where we think they first began surfacing. The problem is, it's a pretty big area, and so far we have no leads as to why or how they appeared there in the first place."
"Deep sea-dwellers crawling onto land and terrorizing townsfolk," Leon muses. "It's like Godzilla, but divided by a hundred. You've got a swarm of little monsters coming up instead of one massive one."
"I hope you aren't suggesting they've just existed naturally down there up until now? That'd be even more problematic than if they were engineered."
"Nah." Ada's words—the ones she'd readily divulged to him without threat from emotion, that is—are still fresh in his mind: I would have preferred a cruise… even booked a reservation… "I'm pretty sure they came from a ship," he says.
The scorn in her parting words will haunt him until the day he dies.
Looking back, maybe he wasn't entirely undeserving of her verbal backhand. Did he truly believe for even an instant that the shrewd and calculating Ada Wong, formerly globally wanted mercenary and still deathly formidable operative, would allow herself to be taken advantage of by any Tom, Dick or Harry who came her way? Sherry might have been the one who suggested the possibility, but he was an idiot for seeing even an ounce of likelihood in it. No, it should've been obvious that the girl's father is—
He drops that thread like a venomous snake before it can drag him through to its inevitable end. He isn't ready to face that prospect yet, not like this.
"That does seem the most plausible," Hunnigan agrees, jolting Leon's attention back to the task at hand. "I'll take a look through our satellite imagery database. A ship large enough to contain all those B.O.W.s will have to be visible there."
"We should factor in some time between the B.O.W.s being released and when they started attacking," Leon tells her. After all, Ada did get tipped off—and subsequently manage to reach out to him—days in advance. "Let's start with images from early this week. In that case, the point of origin could be further out to sea than your initial estimate. These things must've covered some distance before they came up."
Hunnigan nods. "I'll have some techs run ocean current simulations to help us pinpoint the original location. We'll check Coast Guard records for reports on any vessels in the region as well." She eyes him dubiously. "I suppose there's no point in me asking how you're so sure of the timeline, is there?"
Leon's hardly fazed by her scrutiny; this isn't the first time they've gone through this little song and dance about his mysterious knack for coming up with just the right lead to progress their case. "Call it a hunch," he says with a shrug.
"Right," she mutters. "Well, I hope your 'hunch' works in our favor."
"Me too," says Leon, only half joking. "Keep me posted."
"I'll let you know as soon as we have something," she promises.
In the insufferable quiet that settles after Hunnigan disconnects, he finds himself loitering in the intensive care unit in an attempt to escape his thoughts. The steady beeping of machinery is an uncomfortable throwback to darker times in his life, to aftermaths of horrendous disasters and of missions gone terribly wrong, to long hours spent staring at the squiggles scrolling across the heart monitor while he contemplated the fragility of human life. Still, he'll take that over exploring whatever fresh hornet's nest of feelings has blistered up inside him. Despair is comforting because it is familiar, and familiar things have familiar progressions, like a well-trodden footpath carved by countless traversals through an otherwise savage landscape.
The man behind the window isn't moving; then again, being in a coma tends to do that to a person. Lying there swathed like a mummy, he's tethered to the hope of life by a tangle of tubes and wires, each one guarding some vital aspect of his mangled body. Beneath the bandages, Leon sees every friend and colleague he's let down over the years. Far too few of them have ever managed to return from that existential limbo.
He swallows thickly, his throat suddenly dry. The road of despondency has always been navigated with a hard drink at his side, and in the absence of one, he is lost, naked, vulnerable. Reflexively, his hand rises to clutch at his flask, but an echo of something only recently said to him halts its efforts long enough for him to stagger to the washroom and splash water on his face.
Hair and chin dripping, he grimaces at his reflection in the mirror. When did the haggard face scowling back become just another fact of everyday life? If he didn't recognize those watery blue eyes, that furrowed brow, that stubbly jawline, he'd be more likely to peg himself as a terrorist than a government agent. Somehow, that threat about being reported to the neighborhood watch is seeming less absurd by the minute.
He combs his fingers through his unkempt hair—he's in dire need of a trim, stray tufts sneaking beneath his shirt collar in the back, bangs hanging wet and ropy over his eyes. It's long enough to tuck behind his ears, a move he immediately undoes when it serves only to upgrade him from terrorist to serial killer. The stubble, too, has to go, and he makes a mental note to shave first chance he gets. If nothing else, it'll afford him some tiny inkling of normality to look forward to.
He snorts. Normality. As if that has truly existed ever since Raccoon City.
Toweling off, he gives himself a final once-over before returning to the madness awaiting him beyond the door.
Without quite realizing it, Leon has been avoiding the notion of returning to Tilda. For one thing, the relentless thirst lining his lips is on a warpath, and he has no desire for her to experience firsthand the desperation of a man battling an untameable craving. For another, something dangerous and excruciating has taken up residence in his chest, and every time his mind drifts to that little girl and what she could signify between him and Ada, that something pierces him a million times over with its poison until he'd rather be dead than endure their assault. To move beyond the realm of thought and set eyes on her in the flesh would no doubt end him once and for all.
That was stupid. He was stupid. Because when his wandering feet eventually take him back to the first floor and he spies her at her old spot in the lobby, the only thing that wells up inside him is exhilaration.
Butterflies. Not hornets.
She turns her head at the sound of his approach and her eyes light up like the sun itself is beaming out from them. Snapping her book shut, she eases off her seat and trots up to meet him.
"Hi," she breathes, her cheeks flushed, struggling in vain to contain the humongous smile spreading across her face.
"Hi," he echoes, grinning doltishly back at her.
"You came back," she says.
"'Course I did. I said I would, didn't I?" he responds. "What are you doing downstairs? I thought I told you not to give Fred any trouble," he adds teasingly.
"I didn't," Tilda insists. "He said I could go somewhere else to read as long as I didn't touch anything or bother anyone. And I didn't."
He arches an eyebrow in amusement. With most of the patients evacuated, all the equipment locked up, and only a skeleton crew of medical staff remaining, she'd probably have had a harder time actually finding any havoc to wreak. "That's very good of you," he praises her anyway. "I think I'll go see how he's doing. Wanna join me?"
"Okay," she answers.
Upstairs, Tulling is watching Jurassic Park with Michael. While Michael rocks back and forth on the edge of his chair, his eyes glued to the screen, the agents exchange notes on their respective organizations' progress: Tulling announces that the BSAA are recalling all units to wait out the storm, while Leon informs him of their search for the B.O.W.s' source. Leon then asks how the babysitting is going, to which Tulling replies with a titter. "Let's just say I'm really glad the cable's still working," he whispers, nodding toward the old CRT, on which two kids in a Jeep are being harassed by the T-rex.
Leon smiles pityingly. "I think I'll go grab a bite to eat," he says. "Can I get you anything?"
As it turns out, an orderly dropped by with dinner some time ago. Tilda, who'd wandered off by then, had missed the call though, and neither Tulling nor Michael had been deemed capable of going out to search for her, Tulling due to his knee, and Michael because of the decent chance he'd get lost himself.
Leon nudges her shoulder. She, like her classmate, is intently watching the scene of the idiot scientist waving a flare at the dino. "Dinner?" he inquires, once she finally tears her gaze away from the movie.
She nods.
"C'mon, then," he coaxes, steering her to the door before she can get sucked in again.
Michael covers his eyes as a flashing, screaming, crunching ruckus erupts from the TV. "It's eating him!" he moans. The T-rex has just swallowed some guy on a toilet.
"Yep," says Tulling. He pats him reassuringly. "Don't worry, buddy, you don't have to be scared. Dinosaurs like that don't exist in real life."
Michael sniffles. "Really?"
"Sure! Real T-rexes had feathers."
On their way to the cafeteria, Leon feels Tilda slip her hand into his. His breath hitches as her fingers curl snugly around the crook of his thumb. They mold his flesh so naturally, as though they belonged there all along. A hollow pain twists in his gut, a pang of yearning for something he didn't know he'd been missing.
Can he pretend, for just the short minute they'll share walking together, that they do belong hand in hand like this? Can his soaring heart abscond the fetters of reality for one fleeting moment and allow him to savor the experience unhindered by fear or doubt or pain?
The rhythm of her gait tugs at his arm; she's half jogging to keep up with his long strides. He slows down to match her pace, firming his grip around her delicate little knuckles, his palm hot with the knowledge of her bold confidence in him. At first, he hardly dares look at her, terrified he'll trip some kind of inflection point in the universe and have his happy illusion smashed to pieces. When he eventually braves his apprehension and sneaks a glance, her shy smile triggers a flurry of butterflies that banishes all worry from his soul.
The answer, he decides, is yes. For this short minute, they can belong hand in hand.
For this short minute, in this quiet corridor secluded from the cruel burdens of the world, they can be parent and child.
He returns her smile and gives her an affectionate squeeze, feeling in that instant like the luckiest man alive.
Why, then, amid the joyful fluttering in his chest, is there a single, sharp, unmistakable sting?
Aaaah… if you've made it this far, I hope it wasn't a complete train wreck… If you hear a shovelling noise, don't worry, that's just me burying myself in the sand right now. See y'all next time!
