Chapter Text
Leon expected to see a few odd things when he entered the evidence lock up in the R.P.D, but this definitely took the cake for being significantly weirder than expected. In one of the lockers was what appeared to be a small belt lined with blue fabric with a little silvery charm dangling from it. The charm appeared to be made of some polished stone he didn't recognize, that caught the ambient lighting of the nearby hall and emitted a fascinating glow. As if the stone itself had worked like more of a crystal, passing light through its body to distort it into a different color that cast over his fingers. It felt cool to the touch, and though it lacked any obvious transparency, it must have had something of the sort to do so. The shape was smooth to the touch, and appeared to be the realistic silhouette of a rabbit. There were faint lines, not etchings exactly, but a change in thickness that made the laid back ears stand out more along the back. He could feel the little bump and rise of the stone beneath his fingertips. Whoever made this was a master of their craft, that's for sure. He's never seen anything like it before.
He was rather charmed by it, to put it frankly.
“It's actually kind of pretty. Maybe Claire would like it?” Leon noted aloud to himself. While he had many pouches and pockets he could rely on, he didn't feel comfortable sticking it in any that he could potentially lose it from. After several minutes of consideration, he settled on a stray thought.
“It might be safer if I put it on for now. I can give it to Claire the next time I see her.” That was definitely the smarter option here, he decided. Adjusting his shirt collar on his R.P.D. uniform, Leon lifted the delicate fabric to his throat and wrapped it around the circumference of his neck. Surprisingly, despite not having any way to adjust the length, it seemed to fit him perfectly like the choker was made just for him. The charm had a gentle weight to it that settled nicely against the hollow of his throat. The fabric itself was incredibly soft on his skin, and was easy to forget he was even wearing it. The buckles slipped easily into each other at the push of his fingers without pinching.
“Wow, this feels really nice. I think Claire will love it.” It wasn't like anyone else was going to miss it given the present circumstances they found themselves in, and maybe a friendly gift would boost her spirits. He was hopeful at the very least.
After inspecting the nearby lockers for anything else of use, Leon managed to get a few more 9mm bullets to add to his measly collection of ammunition before making his way back to the dark room. He had yet to find the key that would gain him access to the shotgun in lock up, though he was hopeful he might find it soon. Pooling all of his resources together, he laid the belongings he gathered so far out across the desk in the dark room to examine his remaining supplies. There was barely enough ammo to make a full clip in his handgun after his earlier encounters with those pink fleshy fuckers that crawled across the ceiling and walls. They were surprisingly resilient little fuckers, and terrifying as hell for Leon to face. He thought for sure he was going to be a goner after the first one ambushed him upstairs near the S.T.A.R.S. office.
In fact, he was pretty damn lucky to get away like he did. He counted his blessings and just focused on getting out of this place alive. Turning his attention back on his supplies, he noted he had a very limited amount of first aid supplies, alongside his shoddy amount of ammo, and the knife Marvin had given him. He found a couple shotgun shells laying around but it wasn't anything he could actually use right now. As frustrating as that was.
Staring down at the collection of supplies, Leon felt a sudden wave of exhaustion come over him. All of his limbs felt heavy and poorly coordinated when he raised the back of his hand to scrub at his eyes. He blinked sluggishly against the singular bulb buzzing above him in the room.
“I think the adrenaline dump is finally getting to me.” He tried to shake it off, chasing away the heavy yawn that bubbled up inside his chest to no avail. It was a miserable failure of an endeavor as Leon took an unsteady step away from the desk. Slowly sinking to his knees, he rested his head against the frame of the desk, feeling the cool touch of the wood beneath his chin, it was a fleeting feeling when the rest of him slithered down to the floor beneath the desk itself. A shiver raced through him that caused him to curl his body in close to conserve his warmth as sleep came swiftly to claim him. Any rational thoughts he had to refuse was met by the mental brick wall that opposed his efforts.
Groggy as hell, and feeling a little more well rested despite it, Leon dragged himself upright to survey his surroundings. His thoughts were all fuzzy inside his head but otherwise he felt fine. Just a little sore from sleeping on the hard floor. He had no idea why the impulse suddenly came over him. While he appreciated the rest, despite the ache in his muscles that protested getting up after everything had time to settle, he still had more pressing matters to attend to.
“Ugh, how long was I asleep for?” He groaned, raising one hand to cradle his head and grimace at the twinge in his neck. “Everything hurts.”
There was no answer to his rhetorical question, and that's how he preferred it. The last thing he needed was to find out some crude monster was staked out beyond the entrance of the room. He checked himself over one more time as his eyes surveyed himself. His fingers combed the wayward strands of hair out of his eyes but were halted by a strange unfamiliar sensation. Something incredibly soft and velvety brushed his knuckles. At the same time a sudden surge of a tingly static raced down his spine making him shudder with excitement. It was confusing and very strange, and Leon didn't know what to make of it. He gripped the desk frame to haul himself back up to his feet on shaky legs and scrambled towards the dark room in search of something he could use. All he found were cameras, no sign of a mirror at all.
“Good enough!” He remarked before flashing the camera at himself straight on. It took everything in his power to stand his ground when the shudder of the glass and the explosion of light went off. His body had the instinctive urge to jolt away that cried out in his very muscles to be heeded. It wouldn't be his first time processing evidence in a dark room. Thankfully the academy trained them on how to handle forensic evidence, and Leon was very good at recalling the specific details.
Before long he had the processed photo laid out before him. He couldn't believe his eyes. It had to be a trick of the light. A distortion of the image. Something. It didn't make sense. He had to have fucked up the photo -and yet- Leon combed his clean fingers through his long golden hair on both sides of his head. There he found what he was dreading. The laid back long fuzzy appendages of a rabbit. They were as golden in color as the rest of his hair with a platinum almost white coloring on the inside where the fluffy tufts protruded at the base of the ear canal entrance. As his fingers stroked them, that tingly static sensation like experiencing a good stretch in his back muscles started to manifest again. His back arched pleasantly. The more he touched them, stroking and rubbing the soft velvety fuzz along the sensitive skin, the more this deeply pleasant sensation persisted and his body desired the sudden urge to melt on the spot in bone deep satisfaction.
Leaning back against one of the shelves, he dropped his hands to cover his face with a miserable sound of total mortification. His rear bumped the countertop along with something else that drew a sudden yelp from his chest. Leon dropped his hands, one grasped the shelf tightly while the other cupped the offending spot near his tailbone that seemed equally sensitive to new stimulation. To his horror, he felt a palm sized fluffy appendage protruding just above his belt. It peeked out between his shirt where the fabric had been rucked up out of its neatly tucked position and squeezed out between the ruffled shirt fabric, his belt and his bulletproof vest.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” He blurted, far louder than he intended, as he bemoaned. “I have a tail?!”
What kind of Wonderland level mad hatter bullshit was going on here? As if zombies and flesh eating nightmare creatures weren't bad enough, he just had to end up looking like an Easter Bunny knock off!
“What the hell is going on?” He whined miserably, as his fingers clasped back over his ears. When they gripped firmly around the base where the strange appendages met his skull, he was greeted with a sudden sharp jolt of pain into his skull that shot down his neck, worsening that twinge from earlier. “Ooowww! What the fuck?! What the fuck?!”
Sure, now wasn't the time to be losing his cool but Leon felt like he earned a moment to finally have that mental breakdown that's been building up all night.
THUD!
However, the feeling was not mutually shared. Something very big had other ideas, and was most likely drawn to the door of the dark room by the sudden racket he caused.
“Shit!” He hissed under his breath and darted towards the desk where he left his supplies earlier in the evening. Hastily grabbing his gun, his knife and stuffing his pouches back on his belt with the remaining ammo and medical supplies, he managed just in time for the wood to crack down the middle from the determined attack of the creature. Leon snatched up his flashlight to stuff in his breast pocket before lifting the gun to ready his aim. The wood groaned in the frame as it cracked and splintered under the sheer pressure. His long rabbit ears were on the alert, twitching and flicking in response to the noise. His sense of hearing was strangely crystal clear and a hell of a lot sharper than he remembered it being. It was almost too sharp in fact. Every collision with the wood made his whole body want to jolt away with the panicked urge to flee from the too loud predator approaching his hiding spot.
‘Stand your ground!’ He reminded himself sternly. ‘Don't let the fear take you!’
His left ear twisted, rotating itself in the direction of another sound. A steady heavy thump that approached rhythmically down the hall. Were it not for his enhanced hearing, he would have easily mistaken it for his own frantic heart beating relentlessly against his ribcage.
Another crack of the wood finally gave way as the creature, with its flesh muscular limbs, broke through the only barrier he had between himself and the monsters in the rest of the building. His heart was beating so fast he swore the fucking thing could probably hear it, as the licker tumbled through the broken debris into the room with him. Only the desk separated them. Leon knew that was nothing to put much stock into. It wouldn't take much effort at all for this thing to cross that gap and use those talons to eviscerate him.
'Like a rabbit dinner.’ His mind had unhelpfully supplied.
The rhythmic thumping didn't cease so it clearly wasn't this thing that was the cause of it. It grew louder by the second. Impossibly loud. So much so it hurt his ears. He smothered the urge to twitch and bolt away when the licker’s tongue extended towards him. It searched the air with the slimy wet appendage, dripping its foul saliva in decaying globules on the floor at his feet. He crinkled his nose at the pungent odor and grimaced.
Another thump like someone stomping towards the entrance of the room startled Leon back. He took a hesitant step that spurred the licker to lash out blindly. It whipped the inside of his left leg in the action. It hurt horribly, dragging a strangled cry of pain from Leon's throat as he struggled to swallow down the sound. The wound, which felt like it would surely welt, burned along his inner thigh. It buckled his legs, knocking them cleanly out from underneath him.
Leon blinked up in time to see the licker pounce towards him. In a last ditch effort for survival, he rocked back with his momentum and kicked both legs up with his hands raised with the intent to send the creature flying back off of him. It hit the wall near the dark room just past Leon's head and crumpled into a disgruntled heap. Plaster and wood shards rained down on the folded limbs of the twitching monster. Leon didn't waste any time getting back to his feet with a single smooth twist of his legs to rock him back up with both boots flat on the ground. He leaned into the momentum and darted towards the door to escape the creature's pursuit when a towering man in a black trenchcoat cut off his only exit. His skin was a sickly inhuman grayish blue color with the apparent texture of dried leather. A black fedora rested neatly atop the newcomer's head as pale eyes lowered towards Leon to assess him with a calculated sort of scrutiny. It studied him before those eyes trailed back towards the licker that was getting back on its feet and looking for payback.
“Shit!” Leon cursed. He was trapped between one hell of a rock and a very hard place. There was no getting past this big guy. He blocked the whole frame with his large body on its own. The licker’s shrill animalistic cry made Leon pin his ears down to protect them from the painful sound. A whimper escaped his throat. ‘I’m going to die here like a fucking animal!’
The tongue lashed out at Leon a second time. Just like a whip, it struck across his back with the brutality of a torturer hellbent on delivering as much pain to its prey as it could. He yelped. Even with the bulletproof vest on, it couldn't stop the air from being knocked out of his lungs as his body was driven forward into the big guy. His fingers clutched helplessly at its trench coat in a futile search for purchase to stay on his own two feet. His knees trembled. The pain in his thigh sang out crudely as the muscles along it protested to continue this fight. He couldn’t run. He couldn't flee. He couldn't even fight. Not like this. Not in close quarters with a monster like a licker, and definitely not with two of them here.
Another shrill cry and the ominous click of its bloody talons scraping the floor preceded the licker’s next pounce. Leon’s ears folded back against his head as frightened eyes stared up at the looming monster.
‘At least make it quick.’ He prayed. He pleaded. The fear that nestled around his heart felt like barbed wire, sinking deeper into his tender flesh as the panic of anticipation seized him. He squeezed his eyes shut when he heard the creature lunge.
But no pain followed.
The shrill screams of the licker filled the room with their agonizing sound before they were prematurely cut short by a wet crunch. Leon dared to peek an eye open to find the large man with a single leather clad arm extended out past his shoulder. When Leon dared to follow the limb, he found the licker's corpse dangling feebly like a broken ornament from the large man's fingers. It was tossed easily aside as if it weighed nothing and meant even less in the grand scheme of this hellhole.
His body was a trembling mess of bottled up terror when those pale eyes lowered their attention back on Leon.
‘I’m next.’ He swallowed harshly. The reality of his inevitable end sinking in faster. ‘I need to run.’
Leon tried to make a break for it by crawling between the behemoth man's legs. A strong hand wrapped around his midsection and scooped him up like he was nothing more than a misbehaving rabbit trying to wiggle free from its captor. The strong arm that quickly encircled his stomach hoisted him up until Leon was securely cradled in its arms like a small child. Pale eyes studied him once again as they did a cautious sweep of his squirming body. He froze under that stern gaze as the large man grunted. It was a deep unsettling sound that made Leon's whole body fall still with a wave of fear.
‘What is it doing?’ He wondered silently as the large monstrous man turned away from the dark room and headed back through the police station. It carried him as if he weighed nothing at all through the decrepit halls of the precinct. Broken corpses littered the halls where more of the lurking dead had been dispatched by a brutal force Leon could only surmise the source of.
Before long, they came to the main hall of the police department where the lights were still on illuminating the vastness of the once well regarded institution. Medical supplies and cots had been strewn about the whole place where an attempt was made to shelter the wounded and sick survivors. The large man picked one cot out in particular, one that appeared to be the cleanest with a sheet thrown across it for good measure, and laid Leon down upon the supportive frame. He adjusted himself to avoid laying on his tail to the best of his ability, which led to him sitting upright with a battered pillow propped against his back.
“What are you going to do with me?” Leon asked now that he had the courage to do so. “Who are you?”
He received no answer. It didn't comfort him in the slightest. The large man who loomed over him like some sort of metaphorical tyrant, with a larger than life persona that matched an old political cartoon, proceeded to rummage through the surrounding crates in search of anything of use. Ultimately, all it found was a half used bottle of something he couldn't immediately recognize that had a square muddy brown bottle and a clean hand towel that seemed to have fallen to the bottom of the supply boxes. Before long, the behemoth man was at Leon's side once more. He removed the leather gloves from his hands to reveal the same leathery sickly gray skin that covered the bear paw sized palms that lowered to grip Leon by the hips. He physically lifted and moved Leon around until he was sitting straight with his legs extended out across the cot.
“What are you-” His answer came swiftly when the man’s fingers found Leon's belt buckle to which the rookie officer froze in shock. Surprisingly nimble and cautious, the large hands slipped the buckle free and unzipped the front of Leon's pants to the officer's combined shock and horror. “Wait- No! Please don't!”
He tried to kick out at the large man when the strong hands seized his waistband and started to shimmy his pants down towards his knees. The fabric pulled against his wounded thigh, causing Leon to jolt and squirm as pain shot down his left leg. He gasped sharply, and lashed out with his right leg, planting a firm kick against the large man's chest.
“Don't touch me!” He shouted frantically. The urge to cry out for help reached his lips but died a swift death when the reality of just how alone and helpless he was set in. Marvin was already gone. He was the last survivor in this shithole. He was all alone again. With nobody to have his back, again. His throat grew tight with the burn of tears rising behind his eyes. The man- the Tyrant- continued regardless of Leon's attempts to refuse and resist. His kicks did nothing to faze it. All he received was a firm growl that rumbled out of its chest. Leon squirmed in place, pinning his ears back as his body shrank back as far as he could go. The cot, unfortunately, was surrounded by privacy screens and pushed flush against the wall which meant he was trapped once more with this Tyrant in his path.
When the dark fabric of his pants reached his knees, Leon sniffled and turned his head away, fully expecting the worst to come. The descent of his clothes stopped there. There was a rustling of movement. Leon squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in a shaky breath.
‘This is it.’ He prepared himself for the pain. He expected violence. He anticipated pure agony unlike anything he's ever felt before. He was only half right. There was pain. A familiar stinging pain that drew a yelp from him as a damp cloth was laid carefully over the wound the licker gave him. It stung and sizzled on contact with the- Leon sniffed the air properly this time- the peroxide?
It found peroxide?
He recognized that pungent smell anywhere but seeing it in a brown bottle was new. He was used to it being in a clear one. Puzzled by that fact, he tilted his head as curious eyes inspected the delicate handling of the Tyrant tenderly treating his wound. Its pale eyes were focused intently as it cleaned the blood away from the location. He didn't have any herbs to soothe his pain and reduce the swelling, but Leon did have some clean bandages and medical tape to lend. He adjusted his weight to reach past Tyrant's extended hands to find the pouches that were on his belt. They'd all been yanked off in the process but Leon managed to find the important one.
Tyrant spared a glance with a stern crease of his large brows. He lacked any hair on his face or head, and yet the bold features of his expression were further accentuated by the deep lines and shadows of his wrinkled face. While frightening, yes, he shared an odd similarity to the sculpted male figures that filled the halls of this museum. He had this chiseled Roman look about him, Leon supposed. Like an ancient monument weathered and battered by the whims of time. As if nature had tried to reclaim him, and mold the stone back to its original state, and inevitably failed to erase the evidence of the hands of mankind that had initially carved him into something other and wholly unnatural.
With a quick flick of his thumb, Leon popped the pouch open to reveal the supplies inside. They tumbled down between his knees where the large man could see them clearly. A grunt, as if in approval, formed from the Tyrant's throat. Leon watched with bated breath, as he removed the blood stained towel and began wrapping the officer's thigh with care. There wasn't an awful lot of bandages left but it would be enough to hold him over for a little while. Once his thigh was properly wrapped up, the man taped the bandages firmly in place then helped the officer pull his pants back up to rest around his hips.
Still a little stunned by the unexpected kindness, and simultaneously mortified for having the entirely wrong idea to begin with, the rookie officer could do little else but bow his head in a mix of shame and gratitude. “Thank you. I-” His throat felt tight around the words. He swallowed hard to force it aside and cleared his throat. “I'm sorry.”
The larger man only stared at him. He was an unblinking presence for several long beats. Leon wondered whether or not it even understood him to begin with.