ties that bind
Written for March Madness 2022, Prompt: Sympathy. First try at RE fic. Can be Gen or Pre-Slash. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!
Leon is too quiet.
They've been walking for hours now – though, walking may be a bit of an overstatement; shambling, limping, staggering, are all perhaps more fitting descriptions of their slow progress as none of them are wholly uninjured – toward whatever comes next. Whatever town they happen upon, whatever shitty little motel on the side of the highway will take them, whatever ramshackle ride they can find to get them the fuck away from what remains of Raccoon City. There have been conversations throughout, coming in waves. Questions about which direction to go or when to rest for a few minutes. Explanations about Wesker's betrayal or Birkin's experiments. Hushed whispers about the deaths of Vickers and Aiken and even Claire's not so loony internet friend. Half-hearted jokes and witty barbs just meant to lighten to mood.
But not from Leon. Right now, the rookie has the job of acting as Chris's crutch, and his support makes hobbling around with a not insignificant amount of broken bones something close to bearable. But he hasn't said a word for miles.
It occurs to Chris that maybe Leon is feeling like the odd one out here, just like he'd been during his short time with the RPD. Chris and Jill are both STARS. Chris and Claire are (slightly estranged) siblings. And Chris has known Sherry since she was born. It's Chris that is the glue that connects them all together, but he has no such tie to the man hauling him around right now. He feels the need to fix that.
"Rookie," he says, too quiet for the others to hear. Jill and Claire are a few yards ahead, with Sherry between them. Chris shakes his head and amends that to, "Leon."
"Hm?"
"We're family now, you know," Chris tells him. "Umbrella's not just gonna let this go. They're going to come after us if they find out we made it out of Raccoon knowing what we do. All we've got is each other. We gotta stick together."
"Hm."
It's not the response he expected. From what he's noticed at the station (and he has been noticing, no matter how much shit Leon was taking for his less than stellar job history, that didn't make him any less nice to look at, any less interesting), Leon is typically pretty eager to please, likes to be included. His distance now is… unsettling.
"Are you okay?" It's hard to tell in the shadows of the trees as sunset starts to fall, but it seems like Leon might be looking a little pale. He comes to a stop and catches a wince on the other man's face. His eyes flick over Leon's form and it's then that he notices how he's got a hand braced against his side. "Leon?"
"…No," he finally says. "Don't think I am, actually," he manages a little sort of half-laugh, something on the edges of hysteria. His knees give out on him and he nearly takes them both down. "Fuck," he says, moving to wipe his sweaty hair out of his face. "Sorry."
"Shit," Chris says, eyes blown wide at the sight of the red staining Leon's hand. How hadn't he noticed sooner? Why had Leon been hiding this? He ignores his own injuries, and lowers Leon down to the ground before gravity can do it for him. "Guys, need a little help back here," he shouts ahead, already tugging at Leon's shirts. He manages to work his way under them, finds the deep gash that runs just below his ribs. Looks like he got hit with a piece of shrapnel or something in one of the many explosions they've endured in their escape. He must've dislodged it at some point, though, because it's not there now and blood is flowing out in a slow trickle; Chris doesn't even want to think about what damage it might've done internally.
The girls surround them a second later, "Where the hell did that come from?" Claire demands, just as surprised to see the wound as he had been. She's already kneeling beside them, already rifling through the contents of the backpack they'd found in a shed by the train tunnel. She pulls a first aid kit from the depths of it. "It doesn't look too deep, so I can fix him up, I think," she says, "but he's not in any shape to go much further. Neither are you, for that matter."
"None of us are," Chris counters. "We'll deal with that once he's not bleeding to death. Do what you can."
She nods, sets to work with needle and thread, stitching the wound closed. Jill keeps Sherry back. Chris keeps a vaguely conscious Leon as still as he is able, catches Leon's hands in his good one so that he can't swing at Claire while she works. It takes a few tense minutes, and Leon is clearly in a lot of pain, but the wound gets closed, disinfected, bandaged. She forces a couple of pills down Leon's throat along with a decent gulp of their very limited water supply and together she and Chris get him sitting up again.
Jill, busy messing around with Wesker's mysterious PDA, has good news. They could definitely use some of that right now. "There's some old cabin not too far off," she tells them. They can settle there, recover a little, and then proceed with getting the hell out of here.
"Sounds like a plan," Chris agrees, tries to bite back a groan when Jill leverages him up to his feet. It takes both Jill and Claire to get Leon up and moving again. "C'mon, buddy," he says, wrangling Leon up against him again, so they can brace each other now.
"Surprised you didn't just leave me here," Leon mumbles at him, fighting his way onward. The girls move ahead of them again to scout for the cabin, but this time Sherry sticks close to them, ready to rush off and get the girls if they so much as stumble.
"Hey," Chris snaps at him, squeezes gently with the hand that's curled around Leon's back. "I told you," he says. "We're family now. You're not getting rid of us that easy."