A/N: You will not believe how long this relatively finished chapter has languished on my computer. Honestly, I should go through my various projects more often. In any case, I make no promises where frequency of future updates are concerned, save to say that there WILL be future updates. I have alot planned for this story.
In any case, I hope you all enjoy.
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"Delta Green is our world with a twist of the truly alien. It's a world where desperate heroes try to piss on a forest fire with a belly full of cold coffee, their dick in one hand and a gun with one round left for themselves in the other. It's a world where seekers of truth are consumed by the answers they find and pay for their education with sanity and soul. It's a bright wonderful world where Barney is a costume full of animate proto-matter and the Teletubbies are incarnations of fractal chaos with a message only our future youth can understand and embrace. Welcome home." -Frank M. Adams, The Quiet Man
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Consciousness slowly returned to Leon as he roused himself from deep slumber. Blinking blearily, he turned his gaze to the alarm clock on his nightstand.
0455. Five minutes before the alarm would go off. He closed his eyes for a moment, considering the consequences of trying to go back to sleep for five minutes. Deciding that the overly loud, tinny annoyance that was his alarm was too much for his tired soul to bear, he groaned and hit the alarm button, sitting up slowly. Rubbing his sleep encrusted eyes, he shrugged his way out of his entangling covers and slipped his feet to the thinly carpeted floor.
His ID tag chain jangled quietly as the muffled tags bounced against his naked chest. He stretched, then slowly got out of bed.
He slouched his way to the bathroom as though each individual movement had to be dragged tooth and nail from his form, and proceeded to perform his morning ablutions. He stopped, looking at his own visage in the mirror.
He looked tired, but in a, "I just woke up and I haven't had my coffee yet" sort of way, not a "this is all just too much" sort of way.
Yesterday had been his last day of a two month convalescent leave. It was time to go back to work.
If he were honest with himself, Leon was somewhat relieved that he would be returning to his Secret Service duties. His life, because of his injuries, had been put on hold, and Leon was not a man who dealt with idleness well. Like most overly active, decisive men, he had to be doing SOMETHING, or all that time felt wasted to him. Two months of sitting around on his ass all bandaged up and his leg in a cast had been his idea of pure hell. Still, he'd survived. He'd actually gotten around to devouring a few new fantasy series he'd been putting off reading.
If it seems odd that Leon is a fantasy fan, one need only understand that his life, up to date, had been like a horror novel, with moments of science fiction and contemporary spy drama apparently thrown in for varieties sake. Fantasy seemed about the only direction his life HADN'T gone to of late, and it was a pleasing escape, if nothing else.
He rubbed his bristled chin, then proceeded to lather it up in preparation to shave. Leon didn't use a normal razor for the act of shaving. Having always been somewhat fascinated with barbers of antiquity, and having been, occasionally, forced to shave with an extremely well honed knife, he'd taken up the archaic practice of wielding a straight razor in the morning. There was something vaguely soothing about the act, like meditation, one needed to concentrate on the task at hand, and take one's time, or one could cut one's self very badly. Er... while shaving with a straight razor, that is. It is unlikely anyone has ever cut themselves badly while meditating.
Actually, Leon seldom cut himself anymore, which made today unusual. With a slightly surprised, pained hiss and a jump, he touched the small spot of blood oozing from his neck. He set down the razor, scowled in irritation at himself, then pulled off a piece of toilet paper, tearing a tiny bit off the corner and dabbing it on the small wound.
Something... MOVED under his finger.
He blinked, confused and somewhat startled. Turning his head slightly he looked at the wound out of the corner of his eye.
He gasped, clutching his neck. A fibrous, obviously alien, wormlike object dangled from the wound, horribly alive, aware... it quested blindly around his neck like the tentacle of some eyeless, unknowable horror lurking in the muck at the bottom of the unseen depths of the sea. He grabbed it between thumb and forefinger and pulled.
A stab of pain like he'd never known errupted from his neck. He braced himself against the sink, spots of red dotting the white porcelain surface. A warm fluid streamed slowly from his nose, fluid he immediately identified by it's coppery taste at the back of his throat. Blood pattering down into the sink in a steady stream. He grabbed his nose as though to stem the flow, his eyes wide with horror and shock, and then a FLOOD of those alien, wormlike tentacles burst from his nostrils, entwining with his fingers desperately, as though they sought to hold his hand in place. He ripped his hand free of the questing digits, sick with horror, with terror, and then all at once red tears flowed down his cheeks, his eyes burst in the sockets, and bloody red worms eased their way out from the empty sockets as though spawning from his very skull. He arced his back, blind, deaf, opened his mouth to scream...
A flood of worms cascaded from his open mouth, stifling any noise he might make, he could feel them questing, searching blindly with some unknown and unknowable intent, squirming against his face... he reached out desperately for something, anything... the razor... he had to end this... to-
A gasp.
He sat up, sweat stained and shaking from his nightmare, trembling as he hadn't done since...
Since right after the Racoon City incident.
A sleepy sigh and the sensation of movement not his own brought his attention to the other occupant of the bed. Ashley stretched her arms out in a lazy, cat-like movement, then blinked woozily at him.
"Leon? What's wrong, hun?"
Leon blinked, then settled back down, staring at the ceiling of his apartment. He fingered his neck carefully, fearfully, for anything out of the ordinary.
He found nothing.
"Nothing... just a nightmare, I guess."
She was slightly more aware now, and turned to him slowly, caressing his bare chest. He shivered involuntarily. She snuggled closer to him and planted a warm, wet kiss on his shoulder.
"You want to talk about it?"
He smiled down at her softly and wrapped his arm around her bare shoulders. "No... no it wasn't important, I'm sure. Just nerves, I guess."
He could feel her smile against his skin. The sensation was intensely erotic.
"You don't need to worry anymore, Leon. Everything is taken care of."
A sharp pain lanced into his side. He winced and jerked in sudden startlement.
"Ashley... what the?! Ow! That hurts..."
Her grip on him was suddenly a noose, no... a straightjacket, ensnaring him. Where her skin touched his was like acid, and yet still she smiled up at him, comfortingly, soothingly, her eyes glowing in the dark.
"Shh... don't worry Leon... we'll never be seperated again."
He struggled against her, panic rising in him suddenly. His frenzied thrashings threw aside the blankets covering them, and to his horror he saw what she... what THEY had become... a writhing, sickeningly undulating, pulsating mass of cancerous flesh, like a putrid worm of conjoined humanity rippling its way across the bed. He screamed in horror and anguish as the mass oozed higher, drawing them tighter and tighter together, until all he could see was her beaming, glowing face, her happy, contented eyes...
"It's alright Leon... together... in the flesh... forever..."
He shot up out of bed, his heart hammering, his lungs straining for air, ready to fight, to kill, to flee...
It took him several seconds to realize that he was once again in his own room, there was no worm trying to devour him, and Ashley was on her college campus, far away from him, as it should be.
He looked at the alarm clock. It clicked suddenly, striking 0500 in a neon red glow, and an incessant beeping noise cut into the morning stillness like a razor blade.
He ran a shaky hand through his hair down his forehead, and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He breathed in deeply, then let the air slip from his lungs naturally, pushing it all the way out, then releasing the tension in his lungs and letting the air slip back in the same way. Tidal breathing, it was called. A relaxation technique.
Slowly, Leon seperated himself from his night terrors.
He stood up and hit the button on his alarm clock, silencing it immediately.
-What the hell was that all about?- He thought warily to himself. Leon wasn't prone to nightmares. A strange, but hardly unappreciated trait in a man who had seen more nightmares made flesh than he cared to recall. His nightmares were normally of the garden variety, falling for no goddamn reason, being chased by a nameless menace, naked in an inappropriate location sort.
Not a...
He shuddered. Reflecting on those images did not make them any more pleasant.
All the way to the bathroom he pondered the strangeness of his dreams, going through the morning routine. A trip to the toilet, a quick brushing of teeth, shave, a very modest amount of making himself look presentable enough to be seen in public, and then he put on a nice set of jogging clothes and stepped out into the still rather chilly February morning.
Yesterday had been the last day of his convalescent leave, today he had to work, but regardless of this, his routine had not varied. Every day, at 5 am, Leon rose early, before most people were up and about, and ran four miles. A disciplined and principled individual, as well as a creature of habit, Leon had done this, without fail, rain, sleet or shine, everyday for the last 6 years, barring illness.
It relaxed him. Instead of focusing his mind on other things to get his mind off the physical exertion, he focused his mind on the world around him, and the world within him, the color of the sky, the feel of the pavement under his shoes, the few people out and about this morning, for whatever reasons, his breath fogging slightly in the chill morning, an easy rhythm.
Leon existed, he moved, he lived, he was a part of the world around him.
Running for him was akin to peace. A vacation from having to scrutinize the world around him, an opportunity to just be a part of it. It was nice to do so again. He hadn't been able to run up until about two weeks ago. The cast had finally come off, and Leon had taken to the streets almost immediately afterward. It had taken the last two weeks to get back into shape, and now he was comfortable again, with the world around him.
Those dreams though...
He shook his head, rounding the first corner. The young girl who opened the coffee shop every morning (who in fact, opened the coffee shop a full 15 minutes early, at 5:15, just so she could watch Leon pass by every morning... but Leon had no way of knowing that) smiled lopsidedly at him and he waved as he passed. She stared at his retreating form (actually, a specific portion of his anatomy, one that might have made him blush, had he known) for a moment, then sighed and got back to work.
He was finding it difficult to focus outward today, so he gave up in favor of introspection. Leon was not, by nature, an introspective man, but he wasn't afraid of himself either. It could just generally be said that things didn't BOTHER him. These nightmares did, and it was so out of character for it to actually upset him that he found they required a certain amount of reflection.
Dreams. What did they mean, exactly? Part of his law enforcement training had included psychology courses... criminal psychology, of course, but all psychology recognized the importance of dreams on the human psyche. He strained to get a look at the bigger picture.
The worms... Ashley. Losing control over his own body...
Becoming... SOMETHING.
He rounded the second corner, this one up hill. He took the five degree slope at an easy, loping pace, never breaking stride.
Worms. Perhaps something to do with Las Plagas? Lord knows the thought of some unknown parasite coiled in his gut, making him do things that weren't his choice... that weren't even HUMAN choices, had upset him deeply, but why now? Why so far removed from the incident?
Stress brought on by anticipating a return to work? Sure it was stressful, but he loved his job...
He rounded the third corner, this one bordering a park. Some days he widened his route to cut through the park, but he decided on a short run today, realizing that he'd get no enjoyment from the scenery in his current mood.
Why Ashley? He hadn't really thought about her much, save a mild concern that she was alright, recovering from her ordeal. Even this had been quickly alieviated. She had actually come through the incident without a scratch, physically, or so he'd heard. Mentally, she had been a little paranoid, according to his boss, but this was to be expected, and according to him, she'd seemed to snap out of it relatively quickly.
He had alot of respect for the young girl, after all, she'd been through a helluva lot but hadn't snapped or froze up... that spoke of a strength... a hidden strength that wasn't immediately apparent, looking at her seemingly vacuous, trendy college girl image. Still, his assignment with her was over, and he doubted she wanted to see him, anyway. In his experience, rather than forge life long friendships, trauma involving the virally or parasitically induced undead tended to make you want to get away from anything that reminded you of the horrific experience... it made it easier to forget that way. Leon hadn't heard from Jill in just over five years, not since she'd begun her big crusade against Umbrella and all they stood for. The last contact with her he'd received was a note thanking him for looking after Sherry Birkin, the little girl Claire ha saved from the Raccoon City Incident. Leon had insured she got placed with a good family before pursuing ORE training... from what he'd heard last, she was a junior in High School and a part of JROTC. She used to write at first, but had stopped recently.
Yup, chances were, he'd seen the last of Ashley.
In actuality, Ashley had, in fact, tried to force her father, and through him, Leon's boss, the Department of Homeland Security Secret Service Deputy Chief, Internal Security Division or ISDC for short, to give her Leon's number, but had been thwarted by the fact that the Agency didn't make a habit of passing out agents personal information to anybody, but of course, he couldn't have known that.
In any case, he'd been in no condition to visit her while he was in the hospital, and as soon as he could he'd released himself back into his own apartment, preferring to care for himself. The doctors, with their endless needles and tests, had bugged him, for some reason.
Leon was a solitary creature, friendly, but just a little distant. A loner at heart. He didn't need to fill up the silence with useless talk, he didn't really need anybody. Not that he was a misanthrope. He liked people just fine.
He did, however, find that they were most palatable in small doses.
He hadn't always been that way. Before Racoon City he'd been a very sociable person.
If anything is going to change your personality however, the horrors he'd survived would do it.
He passed the fourth corner with its bus stop full of waiting travelers preparing to start their day, coffees, cellphones or whatever else they used to occupy their time in hand, he waved to a couple of people he recognized and continued on the last leg of his run. He stopped in front of his house, checked his mail box, then headed in. Fully awake and ready to take on the new day, he showered, shaved, dressed, and put on his heavy jacket, gloves, and helmet.
Before his fateful transfer to Racoon City, Leon had done a brief stint as a motorcycle cop, and he'd enjoyed the sense of freedom one got on a motorcycle. After his training was completed in ORE, he'd bought a motorcycle for himself, and it was his main mode of transportation, at least, on days when it was sunny outside. Within moments, he was roaring down the street, as the city around him arose to a new day.
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As soon as he walked into the office, Leon knew something was up. Helmet under one arm, he flashed his identification and picked up his gun. The United States Marine on watch moved with complete precision on his, resplendant in his dress uniform, and despite the antiquity of his ceremonial bolt action rifle, Leon knew these guards were more than just window dressing. Those old fashioned bolt action rifles, M1 Garands, had shown Nazi Germany the color of American mettle, and Leon knew you didn't get a posting to this duty station without being the best of the absolute best.
These men were proud to be where they were, and they had every right to be.
Leon shared their enthusiasm.
The guard checked him over carefully, matched his ID badge, made a note of him entering the building in his logbook, and passed Leon his Acting Agent Security Badge. Signing in quickly, Leon stepped past the desk and started down the hall towards the Locker room. He passed the guard stationed down the corridor, then stoppped when that guard nodded in his direction.
"Agent Kennedy... I think the Chief is looking for you."
Leon stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Any idea what for?"
Agent Sykes, a rookie with a straightforward, absolutely no nonsense attitude, shrugged slightly and cracked his neck.
"No clue. Maybe just wants to welcome you back, but I wouldn't count on it. You know how he is."
Leon sighed. "Alright. After I get changed I'll track him down. Might as well get this over with."
Sykes nodded curtly, then returned to his duty. Leon stepped into the locker room and set his helmet down on the metal bench with a quiet clang. Annoyance flooded in as he remembered why he hated this locker room, but with it it brought a comforting sense of nostalgia, that nothing had changed since he'd went on medical leave.
The bench was a literal pain in the ass, and Leon loathed it with an intensity that surprised him. Certainly an inanimate object shouldn't receive the scorn he normally heaped upon the undead, perhaps even Umbrella. Some genius had decided that a metal locker room bench would last longer, and NOBODY assigned to the post liked it at all. Every other locker room Leon had been to had had a wooden bench, that actually retained some damn heat through the day. Not so with this piece of crap. Sitting on it during the winter and fall months was an exercise in willpower, since the bare metal got cold enough in the morning to make your balls retreat somewhere in the vicinity of your throat. Leon had taken to keeping a towel in his locker to lay down before he risked sitting.
He opened his locker and slid his helmet into the little shelf at the top, then spun quickly, sheathed knife in hand. The sheath tapped a neck gently and he smirked.
"Think fa..." The agent in the process of trying to startle Leon started. He quickly droned off and turned pale.
He cleared his throat.
"Damn Kennedy... little jumpy are we?"
Leon removed the sheathed knife from the man's neck and and made it disappear somewhere on his person like a magic trick.
"Have crazy abominations jumping from every available window, ledge, nook and cranny for a few weeks, and see how you react to people sneaking up on you. What's up, Jack?"
"Eh, my blood pressure. Aside from that, pretty much nothin'." Jack Williams grinned, displaying nicotine and coffee stained teeth. "Did you enjoy your vacation, sweetheart?"
Leon smirked and began changing into his uniform. "Oh absolutely. Month and a half of picking up a paycheck for lying around on my ass, and the best part? No looking at your ugly mug."
Jack mock frowned. "Leon... I'm hurt. After all we've shared?"
Leon snorted. "Right. Sleeping with the same hooker in Taiwan does not make us in any way, shape, or form close."
Jack shrugged. "Ah yer breakin' my heart, asshole."
A throat cleared in the entry way and Leon tried to come to some sort of position of respectful attentiveness with his pants around his knees and his shirt unbuttoned. Jack bumped his head on Leon's open locker door and cursed quietly under his breath.
"Agent Williams, Agent Kennedy." Was the short refrain. IS Deputy Chief Michael Forrester was a hard ass through and through. Every time Leon saw him, he was reminded of the vaunted "Cowboy" days of the service, with G-men all the way up to the Cold War and such.
Forrester was old school. Both Leon and Jack muttered good mornings.
"Right gentlemen. Agent Williams, don't you have something you should be doing?" Forrester eyed Jack in a manner that said if he didn't, he was going to soon. Jack winced and shrugged a goodbye towards Leon.
"See you around, Kennedy. Duty calls."
Leon nodded shortly, more than a little wary. He didn't expect to see the Chief until... well, at all, actually. The man was way too busy to make personal calls on Agents.
Jack beat a hasty retreat. Forrester waited until he was gone, then turned his attention to Leon.
"Mr. Kennedy. Welcome back."
Leon continued to watch the man carefully, pulling his pants up. "Thanks." He allowed grudgingly.
It wasn't that he didn't like the man, it was just that he was notoriously unfeeling where personnel were concerned. This had warning buzzers and lights all over it.
"Right. Leon, once you're done dressing, come by my office." Forrester nodded shortly after this and left without waiting for a reply.
Leon watched him leave, eyes narrow. -Great. He used my first name. Now I KNOW I'm not gonna like it.-
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Leon approached the office and was bustled in immediately by the secretary. As he entered, Forrester never looked up from him paperwork, he simply gestured towards a chair in front of the desk.
"Have a seat, Mr. Kennedy." He said shortly.
Leon sat down warily and waited. This sort of meeting was typical of Forrester, who used the old school tactic of making the other party in a subordinate meeting fully aware that they were there at HIS convenience. It was an old dominance tactic, and a transparent one.
Sadly, in Leon's case, it worked. Forrester was not someone he could afford to alienate... at least, not if he wanted to work anywhere that could make a difference.
Leon repressed his immediate instinct to fiddle or leave the office, and waited patiently.
After about five minutes, Forrester set aside his paperwork, removed his reading glasses and set them on top of the papers, and looked Leon over critically.
"I'll be brief, Mr. Kennedy, as I'm sure neither of us has the time or inclination for chitchat."
He frowned. "I don't particularly care for your style of service, Agent. I don't appreciate cowboy, one man, rambo operations, not in the least. Frankly, I think you are extremely lucky not to have gotten yourself or more likely, that girl, killed."
Leon's mouth compressed into a fine line, and he narrowed his eyes. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Sir. I was ordered to find and rescue the President's daughter and I was given the authorization to use any means necessary. It was concluded that a large scale operation overseas would have drawn too much attention-"
Forrester waved his hand irritably. "Yes, yes, I have read yours and Hunnigan's report. Frankly, I have trouble believing many of your claims, and conveniently enough, the island was completely destroyed, so there is simply no way to collaberate the evidence."
Leon's thin lipped, narrow eyed look became a full on glare. He took a deep breath.
"With all due respect, Sir, nothing in my report is false-"
Forrester continued, ignoring Leon's attempt to speak. "However, it's certainly not up to ME what is believed or not. The President is, unfortunately, much less skeptical than I am, at least where his daughter is concerned. So congratulations, Agent Kennedy, on your promotion."
Leon stopped in mid speech and blinked several times. "I... promotion? What?"
Forrester sighed. "Effective immediately you've been reassigned to the Department of Homeland Security Secret Service Executive Protection Branch. I shouldn't need to tell you how important this is. Furthermore..."
Forrester fixed Leon with a deadly sharp gaze. "The President wishes to meet you, and I have every reason to believe he may want something of you. It will likely be something you won't LIKE."
Leon sat passively, his face neutral.
"I don't threaten, Mr. Kennedy. I simply lay out how things are. I don't like you. Since you are no longer in my chain of command I no longer have the ability to reign in your more dangerous personality flaws, but don't think, for an instant, that I can't reach you. I've been with this organization for more than 20 years, and I have friends in places you've never even heard of. So believe me when I say, that if the President wishes you to eat a wine bottle and piss glass for a week, you'd better smile and ask, "Red or White, Mr. President?"
He frowned. "Are we clear, Mr. Kennedy?"
Leon stood up in a dignified and completely controlled manner that was not reflected inside, and nodded shortly. "Crystal, sir."
Forrester watched him for any hint of insubordination, then waved his hand. "Dismissed."
Leon maintained his calm and patient demeanor all the way out of Forrester's office, out of the secretaries office, and into the back stairwell. He turned and slammed his fist against the metal support beam as hard as he could, and the sound rang up and down the building like a bell.
"MotherFUCKER!"
This done, he sighed, collected himself, and went downstairs.
He didn't notice the knuckle shaped impression left in the reinforced steel girder.
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