#(because Ada and Leon both use guns all the time they know how dangerous they are). Maybe Ada turns pretty complacent about

[desired-misery]

No, you don't understand how MAD Leon should be about her pointing a gun at him like that!

re4, but when ada holds her gun at leon, the fuckin gun misfires and she has to learn gun safety the hard way

[xamaxenta]

RE au again but near the finale of the actual game Leon briefly saves Ada n its rly cheesy awwuah i guess this is where the au turns into MAS

Just for the concept of Ace saving Sabo from his silly sexy predicament of being tied up as bait and Ace falls for it cuz they have history

Tells Marco to wait for him, stay safe he trusts him and Marcos staring at Sabos unconscious ass strung up like i am totally not jealous but who the fuck is he? Explain!! Slightly mad Ace is just gonna ditch him for some random mysterious sexy spy dude just like that

Ace wants to clear up the misunderstanding but man. He does not have time for this and just turns to grasp Marcos hand like please, let me do this, i cant let him die, ill be back promise

And marco lets him go like fine you better save them and me

So Ace takes the obvious trap, rescues Sabo who in return, protects Marco for him whilst Ace fights the big bad who inevitably transforms into a gigantic spiky tentacle wielding eldritch horror

Marco unsure why Sabo is doing this for him bc seeing as their leader is threatened, all the other uglies have crawled out of their little hideyholes for a last attempt to retake Marco and reinfect him

Sabo fends off a swarm and turns back to Marco, he has a slight limp in his step, “because hero boy seems to like you alot.”

“That doesnt answer my question.” Marco ducks behind Sabo, evading the barrel of his gun whilst simultaneously taking cover from the spray of hot gore

Sabo glances down at him and unholsters a small firearm, “Make yourself useful, i dont care much for babysitting like he does, he might think its cute but I dont. Safetys on the side i trust daddy taught you how to point and shoot.”

Snorting Marco checks over the little pistol and stands up, back to back shoulder to shoulder with the other blonde “youre actually alot nicer than I thought youd be.” He takes aim and shoots something squirming out of the darkness until it stops whatever creepy shit it was about to do. Its more satisfying than he had expected,

“Ugh.” Sabo tuts, the reverb recoil of his own gun thuds beneath Marcos ribs and in a way it feels comforting, maybe hes just used to it now, but its nice to know Sabo’s not just going to leave him for the monsters

“I just hate owing people shit.” Sabo says eventually after popping three zombies neatly in the head. A fourth bullet betwen the third ones eyes just as it began to squirm into a second form

“Suuure,” Marco couldnt keep the amusement out of his voice even if he tried, sabo says nothing.

Down on the docks below the monster roars, the shockwave of its vocalisation shakes the metal scaffolding blowing the two survivors back across the rusty surface

“Thats our cue to move on down,” sabo holsters his weapons and grabs Marco by the wrist before he can protest

Taking cover beneath a rocky outcrop, Marco peers down through the sea fog and encroaching night to see the flicker of Ace’s gunfire tear through the plague, if he hadnt spent so much time with the man, Marco wouldve thought him stupid fearless, but he knows Ace is just as human as the rest of them, he’s noticed the way his hands shake whenever a big fight comes up, hes seen the set of his jaw when he hears a hoard—

“He’s really too much.” Sabo mutters, Marco glances at him but Sabos already turned away searching for something hidden inside the stacked storage crates beside them, he secretly agrees though.

To his surprise and also not surprise Sabo unearths something that could truly be classified as heavy firepower.

“Wait here,” sabo hefts the rocket launcher over one shoulder

“Tired of me already?” Marco teases and Sabo rolls his eyes

“No, the shrapnel this baby can set off could kill you. Better safe than sorry.”

Marco wants to say more but Sabos already vaulted over the scaffolding, its amazing really how the both of them can run head first into danger like that, he refuses to think about how its all for him and his safety.

[spydress]

Leon's not nearly as stealthy with his gift— Ada's always respected her privacy, and he's not about to go crossing boundaries he doesn't have clearance for. 'Ha. how many times has she told me to stop sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong...'

Instead, he places it in front of her door, quickly knocking before disappearing around a corner. There’s a small basket, containing a few brilliant red roses, some assorted cakes and chocolates from a local bakery, and a small wrapped box. The note reads:

“I owe you my life about a million times over – well. As if I wouldn’t have given it to you freely at this point. As far as I’m concerned, it’s already yours. It’s good to see you happy, Ada. Your smile is something I’ve really come to treasure, after all. I hope you can save some happy memories with this. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

- Leon

The box contains a small digital camera! A post-it note on the front reads ‘P.S.—if you end up using this for espionage, I picked one with a good long-range lens. Trying to think ahead.’

visitors were few and far between for the woman, but it is not something she cares to worry about. it was a rarity to find her in one place, after all, let alone her assigned residence. she preferred to keep herself busy, but without the organization assigning her a new mission.....well, she had some free time on hand to do with as she pleased. the knock on Ada's door is what draws her from the book within her grasp, gaze landing on the door.

it's a habit, one hard to break. there is nothing that signifies a threat yet she reaches for one of the numerous handguns kept around the home, checking the safety before approaching the door with caution. a quick peek through the curtains of the window next to the door showed nothing more than those continuing about their day. still, as a precaution, she tucks the gun within the back of her belt before opening the door. as suspected, there's nobody there, but a glance down says enough for Ada to put together just who decided to knock and then vanish.

only one person would do this on valentine's day, of all things.

he must have gotten his gift, if one could call it that, but that's how she has always left him something-- never in person, always long gone by the time it is found. kneeling down, she takes note of the numerous confectionaries, chalking it up to him not knowing her favorite and just picking whatever he figured she would like. the flowers were a nice touch, something she would place in a vase later on. but what draws her attention is the box and the card attached.

something of a half-chuckle leaves her lips, eyes closing for a moment as she allows herself to smile. oh Leon.... you're too honest for your own good. a trait of his that she found endearing, but also one that showed just what sort of person he was, always willing to go the extra mile to do the right thing, even if it put him at odds with those on the same side as him. when she had said goodbye to him back in Raccoon City, it had been more than just the words of someone who should have died. he need not get himself mixed up with someone like her for reasons they both knew. and yet, every time she found herself caught up in the same mess as him, she found herself unable to truly let him go. to leave him to die, even if it meant another target was painted on her back because of it. secrecy was a part of her life, holding her cards close to her chest, and something she could not set aside so easily. even if it meant lying to him, keeping him in the dark was the one way to keep him relatively out of danger.

but there was no denying the fondness she held for him, one that surpassed something surface level. she knew what it was, has for a long time, but time and circumstances were never on their side. it was better that way but things in this city had been...different. enough to make her question what she never did before.

gathering the basket in her hands, she stands up, turning to head back inside but pauses with one foot in the door. one last glance over her shoulder is given, half expecting to find a head of hair peeking out from behind a tree or the flash of a jacket but nothing catches her eyes. a shame. she'll just have to thank him in person then....eventually.

[lncendiaries]

    sorry in advance i am the worst ever at explaining my thoughts in a coherent way. this is just an amalgamation of thoughts,      ok anyway i was talking to emrys about how ada and krauser make for interesting foils wrt their relationships with leon... like they both began working with him in crisis situations very reluctantly and he earned their respect by proving his competence but despite ending on bad terms ( life altering injury — like we don’t know how ada got along after that fall but i have to imagine it wasn’t good ) with both of them, their reaction and actions toward him in re4 are drastically different.      despite the first direct interaction with ada involving her sneaking up on and cornering him and engaging in a physical “fight”, it’s all very playful and fun. he’s pissed that she’s working with wesker* but he’s still playing her game & they’re on equal footing before she backs off. krauser’s knife fight is comical just from an outside view i think it’s hilarious but it’s stressful enough to put leon off-kilter; obviously it’s just for tension but the fact that he can face off against el gigante with minimal issues but nearly dies fighting someone he knows personally makes me assume he’s more shocked than anything.  krauser is actually trying to kill him based on some one-sided rivalry he invented, ada was playing a game. it's also worth noting that these interactions are even experienced differently - resident evil LOVES quick time events, but the "fight" with ada was a full cutscene; the fight with krauser is full of qtes. with krauser, leon could die at any time, but with ada, he's never in danger     ( the fact that she, in contrast, never wanted to put him in actual harm is evident, i sincerely doubt she’s not skilled enough to know not to use a gun in a close encounter and i am choosing to personally believe he was joining in on the game and not mansplaining ranged weapons to her. ALSO its referenced indirectly, again, when she holds him at gunpoint at the end of the game. we've established that guns aren't ideal in close range, so when she pulls a gun on him for the sample, it's implied that she wouldn't harm him if he didn't comply. emrys also pointed out that ada and ashley are the only characters who can't potentially kill leon. )      and the fact that they were both standing beside leon and now both are technically on the opposite side together, but ada continues to work with leon perfectly, she trusts him and he trusts her vs krauser not working in tandem with either of them... krauser going from reluctantly partnering with leon out of obligation to despising him because of his imagined inferiority vs ada having never truly been working with leon but still saving and helping him again and again ( from krauser no less )...      also we must discuss the opening of darkside chronicles. it means so much to me. the butterfly landing on leon’s shoulder and the snake, unbeknownst to him, ready to strike. what does it mean what does it all mean

[teecupangel]

Leon would even take the time to help Desmond out by teaching him the proper way to hold a gun because he’s having Raccoon City flashbacks and he isn’t completely over that yet. He still remembers the way Shirley would tremble and cry in her sleep while they were traveling to the nearest safe city and how he and Claire would wake up at the smallest sound. He doesn’t want that for either of them so he takes on both a protector and mentor role for them.

Additions to the gameplay:

Ashley also gets stealth sections when the inevitable happens and she gets pulled away from the group but her stealth sections are more on the side of hiding until the danger passes by.

Desmond’s stealth sections includes freerunning and you can hear him whisper “just like in training, Desmond. You can do this.” to hype himself up because this is a boy who had just left the Farm (less than a year) so his training is still a bit fresh in his mind but that also means his feeling of being never enough in his father’s eyes are still in the forefront. The more stages he clears, the more he gains confidence of his skill. His main weapon is the knife that Leon gives him which is actually an unbreakable knife BUT it cannot be thrown. He can only equip a pistol (any kind though) because Leon didn’t teach him how to use other guns and they feel bulky for him.

Leon takes care of most of the gameplay part (sorta like 50% Leon, 20% Desmond, 20% Edward and 10% Ashley). He plays same as how RE4R is played pretty much and his stages have the most ‘canon’ RE4R set pieces of all.

Yes to Edward’s section! Also Edward’s stealth only works when he’s in the shadows. His devasting melee combo are reminiscent of his dual blade melee combos in AC Black Flag. He has a ‘Corruption’ bar that goes up every time he kills villagers or any other kind of enemy, with the idea being the blood and the ‘parasite’ in them is affecting Edward’s willpower. When it reaches it’s max limit, Edward goes in a cooldown and needs to be switched out. This means that Edward can definitely takedown even the hardest of bosses but the more powerful his enemy is, the faster the bar fills up. The bar slowly empties whenever Edward is off field. It empties faster whenever Desmond is the on field character (with the idea being seeing Desmond being in danger gives Edward flashes of his son being in danger and that keeps him ‘human’) but Desmond isn’t really the best character to use against bosses. XD

Ada Wong being an ex-Assassin would be so much fun. Maybe she quit after the Great Purge so the Assassins would understand why she left the Brotherhood. She still keeps in touch and it’s more of a “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” kind of deal. She knows Desmond Miles because William Miles asked her to inform him if she ever hears anything about him after he ran away. She didn’t really care all that much because she believes that the Assassins of old wouldn’t mind someone leaving the Brotherhood if they were truly fighting for ‘free will’ and all that. She finds it amusing that Desmond Miles found a way to be reunited with the missing Edward Kenway (his ancestor) and Leon Kennedy and thinks Leon might be some kind of Assassin bait. She works for everyone, even Abstergo… for a price. The only thing she doesn’t do is work against the Brotherhood though. (Instead of Mary Read, maybe Shao Jun? Or maybe even Xiao Han. It would be funny if her ancestor is rumored to be Shao Jun but the truth is she’s not, it’s actually Madame Lee XD)

From @mysticalbasementwitch

Because Desmond is 17 her that means that he must remember a lot of his assassin skills and after everything is said is said and done he could be hired as Ashley’s personal bodyguard

Or the reminder of his past would keep him from being in the spotlight. He still becomes Ashley’s best friend and they chat every chance they get but I feel like he (and Edward) would become part of the anti-bioterrorism group that will pop up later on in RE (might even be one of the founders or a ‘contractor’ that does whatever he wants). He will remain in the shadows because that’s what he wants, seeing the spotlight that comes from following the president’s daughter too much for him. He does have free pass though to visit the White House and the tabloids are going crazy over who this mysterious ‘gentleman’ is who seem close to the president’s daughter. They can’t get a picture of him though because he always disappeared before they could XD

pops in here bc I’ve been writing Resident Evil crossover AUs for fun (and angst) and I have a fun little idea for you!

so, re4make has dropped some interesting and tasty lore about Los Illuminados, aka the parasite cult that makes up the main bad guys in this particular game. according to the new lore, they popped up in 1554 and were exiled from their old place in 1741. now, we know that mutations and parasites and viruses can possibly extend somebody’s life in REverse beyond their natural lifespan and also make them far more durable than humans. I was thinking—Edward Kenway gets killed in 1735. this we’re well aware of. but what if he wasn’t?

say that Birch is aware of Los Iluminados and their work. he wants to keep a closer eye on them since he hears a lot about Las Plagas and its hive mind abilities, but he’s not about to risk becoming a part of their hive mind—he doesn’t entirely trust this cult. and he has a pesky Assassin who’s just found out that he’s actually a Templar, and who has a book and a son he would defend. if he survives the night—and it’s damn near a guarantee that he would, Birch has heard that he once cleared a whole deck of a galleon on his own—there’s nothing stopping him from taking up his sword and beelining to Birch and just cutting down every last member of the British Rite. but he can’t do that, if he has a bug inside his head.

so Edward gets knocked unconscious, and dragged off to the cult. now Birch has a reason to keep an eye on the cult, and he’s taken Edward out of the picture with no one the wiser for it.

years later—hundreds of years later—Desmond Miles, 17yo runaway, gets kidnapped along with Ashley Graham for whatever reason. maybe he saw too much and immediately launched himself at Krauser and actually managed to acquit himself pretty well in a fight, only to get stuffed into a van along with a very terrified First Daughter. Leon goes to find them.

in the meantime, Saddler has a very fucked-up Edward stand guard, and Desmond starts to talk to this guy, bc something about him seems…not quite the same as the rest of the cult. there’s some core of humanity still holding stubbornly on inside him, even if he looks pretty bad off, if not heavily mutated by now. which is how Leon ends up finding both Ashley and Desmond having managed to get a very snarly pirate to help break them out and has to gently convince said pirate that yes he really is here to help them please put that pitchfork down sir.

Oooohhh, if you wanted to, you can even include one of Ezio’s or Aquilar’s descendants in the lore as well, maybe even both? 1554 is around the time Flavia and Marcello would be 20~21 years old. Old enough to be Assassins that would be sent to foreign lands to help other Brotherhoods. We can even have them be sent by the current mentor of the Spanish Brotherhood because of this cult that supposed worship something ‘strange’. The mentor thought that the Italian Brotherhood who had a mentor who had been quite verse in strange things would have an idea of what they’re dealing with. Flavia or Marcello (or both if you want) asks to be sent because it seems connected to the precursors and, as Ezio Auditore’s children, it’s their duty to continue their father’s legacy.

They meet up with Aquilar’s child (or grandchild maybe?) and they help in exiling Los Illuminados, making the cult hate them and the Brotherhood in the process.

It’s because of their hatred for the Brotherhood that Birch was able to have a distant alliance with them and it’s because of his connection with the cult that Edward starts to suspect him as being a Templar.

(To sprinkle more angst, how about Haytham saw his father being dragged away and tried to save him, killing one of the kidnappers which ends with Teresa seeing him as a cold blooded killer and he is indoctrinated by Birch as a way to try and find Edward but never found him. After learning Birch was the leader of his father’s kidnapping, he gives up on Edward because Birch burned all evidence that will link him to Edward and the Los Illuminados)

Okay, so we go to the Ashley and Desmond part of the story.

Ashley is around 20 years old when she was abducted so, if you’d like, she could be in New York to shop or something when she was kidnapped. Desmond was on his way to his first shift in Bad Weather and saw a woman struggling while being dragged into a car with men looking like professional bodyguards (suit, sunglasses, wired ear pieces) on the ground, unconscious maybe? Dead even?

Desmond didn’t have time to think, his body reacted and he punched one of them. He starts to fight them off while telling the girl to run and the girl tried to, screaming for help but there were more men than they expected but her screaming (and his battle cries, they were not screams, they were battle cries damn it) was attracting attention so they had to book it quickly and Desmond was swept alongside the girl in the process.

Leon is briefed that an unknown man with no past of his own may be with the president’s daughter and he’s a low priority. The most that Leon is expected to do is find out who he was and if he was truly just taken alongside the Ashley because he tried to be a good Samaritan.

Now Saddler though…

Saddler had planned to kill Desmond from the very beginning but then he noticed something peculiar.

Desmond looked familiar.

So he let Desmond live because he needs to find out why Desmond looks familiar at all. He orders Edward to guard them and to keep them there.

Leon starts doing his job and Saddler gets sidetracked.

When he heard that Edward had ‘betrayed’ them, he realized why Desmond looked so familiar.

In one of the oldest journals written by his ancestors, there were sketches of the three Assassins who led to their fall and exile.

And two of them…

… looked very similar to Desmond Miles.

So now, Saddler believes Desmond is a descendant of those who exiled them and wants to infect him as well.

Because what better revenge is there than to have a descendant of those who wronged them become their ‘property’?

Unorganized Notes:

I like to imagine Ashley and Desmond become friends immediately, with Desmond helping Ashley stay calm while Ashley gives Desmond something he wanted ever since he was a child, a close friend.

Ashley would definitely not leave without Desmond and Desmond would do everything he can to keep Ashley safe.

Edward ‘recognize’ Desmond, in a way that Desmond reminds him of his young son, but he doesn’t understand it, because the infection inside him mutated thanks to his ‘bloodline’, so he’s not exactly the same as the others.

Edward will be conflicted though because his infection would make him want to obey the cult but he can't hurt Desmond at all. He doesn't want to and his body will never allow it.

Is it his own free will? The reminder of a past long gone? Or...

The Calculations at work?

[randomfandomimagine]

That Flirt In The Red Dress (Leon x Reader)

Characters: Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong

Fandom: Resident Evil 2 Remake

Tags: Reader Insert, Female Reader, Jealousy

Warnings: None

Requested by anon: Since you're open to take request :D Please can I request one for Leon Kennedy, where the s/o gets really jealous of Leon and Ada's relationship. She could be really sarcastic or snarky whenever Leon asks what's wrong. Thank you so much ❤ And I hope you have a lovely day.

You held tightly to Leon’s hand as you both ran, escaping the crazed zombies that threatened your life. Your heart thumped against your chest, your hand was getting sweaty against Leon’s palm, your breath came in rapid gasps and the adrenaline seemed to be making your pulse throb in your temples.

“Dammit!” Leon shouted when he came to a halt. You ran into a dead end.

“Crap!” You exclaimed too, taking out your gun to at least die fighting.

“Y/N, behind me!” Your boyfriend ordered, taking out his gun too.

You reluctantly obeyed, knowing it was no time for arguments, and began firing at the zombies that were closing in. The loud sound of the bullets broke the silence only interrupted by their horrible grunting, and the violent brightness of the fire illuminated the dark area.

Cursing under your breath when you ran out of bullets, you held on to Leon’s shoulder and watched the zombies that were now mere meters from you. Your boyfriend glanced at you with the corner of his eye, but focused his attention on eliminating the threat.

“Do you have any more ammo?” You asked him, realizing there were too many and your weapons weren’t too effective.

“No” He quickly replied, just as his gun clicked, forcing him to save it and pick up a knife instead. “Son of a bitch”

You couldn’t deny that you were scared, that it looked like the end. You were trapped and surrounded by zombies, left with no ammo and no way to defend yourself. Your mind worked quickly, trying to think of an escape plan. Maybe you could run through them and make it out alive, although wounded.

“What do we do?” You asked Leon, not really wanting to let him know how scared you were, even if your shaky voice betrayed you.

“I don’t know” With his free hand, he held yours. “We fight, I guess”

You took a deep breath, trying to prepare yourself. That was it, the moment of truth. At least you were with Leon. Still, you felt the need to tell him a few last things. Remind him you loved him, even if he had heard it a thousand times and he knew already.

“Leon, I…” To your surprise, he had turned to you too, hanging his mouth open as he was about to speak.

Before any of you could say anything, however, a loud blast interrupted you. The dark room was suddenly enveloped in a very bright oranguish light that accompanied by deafening noise and the sound of the agonizing zombies.

Leon moved on an instinct and wrapped his arms around you, shielding you with his body. You yelped against his ear when the explosion went off, clutching to him and shielding yourself in his embrace.

When the silence came, you paused for a moment as if to make sure you were safe. Leon was breathing heavily as he slowly let go of you and looked over his shoulder to analyze the situation. You grew tense when he sharply moved around, facing his back to you and wielding his gun. It was empty, but whoever was there didn’t know that.

“Calm down, Leon” Came a female voice. “It’s just me”

“Ada?” He sighed in relief and immediately lowered his weapon. “Was that you?”

“Of course” The woman approached, wearing a red dress which was a little revealing.

“Thanks” He muttered, and you almost felt like he had suddenly forgotten you were there with him.

You cleared your throat to make yourself present in their conversation and to remind your boyfriend of your existence. He looked to you in surprise, almost like he didn’t know why you were suddenly so grumpy.

“Um…” You stepped forward, placing yourself between Ada and Leon. You had definitely heard of her, but didn’t tell her that. “Thanks for saving us and all that, but who the hell are you?”

“Ada Wong” She coolly replied, holding a hand out for you to shake. You didn’t.

“I’m Y/N” You analyzed her expression, wondering if he had told her about you. Her expression was unreadable.

“You’re welcome” Was all she said in response.

You stared at each other for a moment, even if her dark eyes drifted to Leon behind you for a moment. Then she calmly shifted her weight from one foot to another and shrugged casually.

“Anyway, I gotta go” Ada walked past you and closer to Leon. “See you soon”

Maybe she didn’t know you were together, or maybe she did but didn’t care. Anyhow, she kissed Leon in the cheek, although dangerously close to his lips, and held his chin after that and to give it a flirtatious squeeze. It could have been an innocent and fond gesture, but coming from her was somehow flirtatious and slightly sensual.

You noticed how Leon’s blue eyes followed her as she swaggered away. It was almost like she was provoking him, and he was definitely falling for it.

“Hey, boyfriend” You nudged him, bringing his attention back to you. “So that was the famous Ada?”

“Yeah” You shone the flashlight in his eyes, causing him to look away for a moment not to get blinded by it. His cheeks were a faint tone of pink. “I told you about her”

“You did, kinda” Without waiting for him, you began walking away. His footsteps immediately followed. “Wasn’t how I imagined her to be, though”

“Where are you going?”

“I dunno”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Getting away from here”

“Y/N” Leon sweetly took your hand in his, stopping you from walking any further. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing” You huffed in outrage, hating to feel like that yet being unable to stop it. “What do you mean?”

“C’mon” He remained calm as he gently turned you around to face him. “I know something’s up”

“And you don’t know what?” You dedicated him a sarcastic grin.

“N-No…” You wondered if he really was that oblivious or if he was playing dumb.

“Then why don’t you ask that flirt in the red dress?” You rolled your eyes at him, trying to keep on walking.

“Ada?” Even the way he said her name bothered you. “Y/N, wait…”

“What?” He tugged at your hand, keeping you in place.

“Are you… jealous?” Leon sounded astonished and maybe even a little bit amused, which only angered you more.

“Me? No” You sarcastically said, rolling your eyes again. “Just because you didn’t tell me how gorgeous she is or the fact that she goes kissing you as she pleases, even in front of me”

“Y/N…” There was a small smile on his lips, which made your blood boil. You wouldn’t have expected that from him.

“Oh, also, I’m not sure if you told her we’re together or not, but either way she’s awful”

“Okay” His hand firmly fell on your hip, bringing you closer to him until your fronts touched. “I’ll admit, Ada is a bit forward but…”

“Not that you tried to stop her” You averted your gaze, feeling tears of sadness and frustration.

“Y/N…” His voice was soft as velvet as he gingerly curled up his finger under your chin, making you look at him. “She’s not you”

You frowned, watching him closely and waiting for him to say something else. Luckily he did, because you didn’t want to speak yourself and let him know of the shakiness in your voice.

“It’s complicated, with me and Ada” He sighed, even if his eyes were locked with yours in a way that made you want to melt. “But she’s not you, that kiss didn’t mean anything to me”

“You promise?” You hated to think that there was something between them.

“I promise” Leon paused to kiss your forehead, so lovingly that it forced a dreamy sigh out of you. “I have eyes only for you”

[freshneverfrozen]

Running Time

You know how much I know about Resident Evil? Enough to get my ass smacked by a jacked Nick Valentine, that’s how much.

This is horrible, by the way. I started it and barely knew enough about Leon to get through it. This is worst thing I’ve written in 10 years and there’s not even any porn. Can you say porn on tumblr now? Porn. Huh. Porn porn porn. Also, uh, not proofread.

Five Times You Meet Leon Kennedy

1.

The first time you met Leon Kennedy, the world had already ended. The wind through Raccoon City smelled of decay and bodies and you were used to it now. When people realized what was happening, that they were dying or going to die, they swept en masse towards strategic points. The police station was closest to you - but the gates were shut and the doors barricaded before you ever got through. The ones who stayed to beat at the entrance were still there now. They moved slower and smelled of blood and carnage.

You had not stayed; you determined you would wait it out - two weeks - and then you would make your way out of the city. You’re scavenging near the police station when you hear the shots ring out. The place has been dead - literally - for days. Lights out, only the streets around the building breathing with the infected. Those streets pulse and sway as you maneuver through store fronts, your head low, always low. You can’t get into the station, but the nearer you get, the clearer the shots echo.

The front would be suicide, but there’s a gate around the back, one guarded by tall, iron fencing that you have tried before to climb over. You ignore it. You ignore the front. Instead, you climb up a fire escape on the building next door and you stay there until you are positive that someone is alive on the second floor of the station. Once or twice, you think you see a flash from the windows, but the rain comes down harder and in the minutes that follow, darkness screeches below.

And then you see him - his shadow passing smoothly down the second-story hall - and your heart snares in your throat until you can’t breathe or speak. Lightning flashes, frightens the both of you, and he, him, the man in the window, turns by chance to look at the rusted platform across the alley.

He sees you, his silhouette hesitating, and you know he thinks that you’re one of them, that you’re a dead thing.

But you aren’t. And your arms wave frantically through the rain. He sees you because he lunges for the window and forces it open. The beam from a flashlight shines across the way and you wince against it but you don’t avert your eyes.

“You’re alive!”

His voice is young and his words bring a stinging heat to your eyes.

“So are you,” you call back, imagining a smile on that face you can’t quite see.

“What’s your name?” His voice is a kind one, you think, one that sounds like trust. You wonder what he hears in yours when you answer him.

He tells you that he’s Leon and that he’s with the RPD. You want to ask how many survivors there are, but you don’t, because you know the answer already. There’s only him, alone in all that building. The space between you feels like a universe; it’s going to swallow one or both of you in a cataclysm.

“I can’t get to you,” you call to him, and you wish immediately that you had lied, because what you’ve just said is a cruelty the stranger - Leon - with the young voice and the gun doesn’t deserve.

“You’ll have to be careful,” you continue in a voice that is both loud and soft, “Be careful. I - I can’t get to you.”

Leon hesitates. You notice his shadow sway behind the light.

“There’s a gate in the back -”

I know. You do know. You heard it rattle, can hear it rattle.

“ - I can’t unlock it. Don’t try to come that way.” His tone steadies, stronger now, and before the outbreak, you don’t recall recognizing resolve in a stranger’s voice. “I’m going to open the garage. I’ll find a way through.”

He can’t stay there, in the police station, he means.

“Good luck,” you tell him. You mean it.

“If you can get to that side of the street…I’ll find you.”

He sounds like a promise.

2.

The second time you met Leon, he kept his promise. He found you and you want to cry because he looks like an angel with his pale hair and eyes. There’s kindness in his face, even when kindness stopped belonging weeks ago. He hasn’t forgotten your name in the hours since you first saw him.

You cry when he touches your shoulder.

There’s a woman with him who sneers when the tears roll down your cheeks, but Leon feels the relief like you do. The pads of his fingers curl into your shoulder; he’s not trying to calm you, you realize as you swallow down the emotions that are strangling you, he’s steadying himself.

“Do you have a gun?” the woman with Leon asks you.

You don’t, but you have a knife and a heavy metal pipe that has left an ache down one of your arms.

“Where are you going to go?” you ask. You’re talking to Leon and it’s just as well, because the woman has gone to the windows to peer out into the street.

“Following her,” he replies.

That’s the decision then. You’ll follow her too.

3.

The third time you meet Leon, he’s staggering across a scaffold that is going to collapse beneath him. You cry out for him; you reach out but your shoulder has a bullet wound to match his. Ada had put it there and called it a favor when she left you dying on the tram.

But you didn’t die. You clawed and you kicked and followed the gunshots until there was too much blood leaking out of you. Then you had crawled.

“Ada,” your voice cracks, weak, and you’re not sure if Leon can hear you over the fires burning behind him, “Ada, she - “

“Dead,” he breathes down from the ledge above you. He had heard you after all - somehow, by chance, between the explosions and splitting steel.

The ground rocks and spills you onto your knees as Leon clambers down a latter towards you. You find your feet before he can reach you, but his arm goes around you anyway. This time you need it - you think you’ll die without it.

“Want to stay here?” There’s a smile on your lips as your fingers close over the top edge of his vest to keep yourself on your feet. “Enjoy the view and die?”

Blond hair that has gone orange in the firelight falls over one eye as Leon shakes his head. He’s delirious, because he smiles back before dragging you along, one arm snug around your back.

4.

You don’t think there will be a fourth time.

They take Leon and the little girl, Sherry, and you don’t expect to see him again. Your heart breaks over a stranger. Losing a man you’ve known only a few days is like losing an arm or organ - you’re bleeding out slowly in the middle of military tents and a quarantine zone. They tell you they’ll let you go, but you stop believing them after a week.

But Leon…Leon keeps his promise.

He finds you.

With your head tucked over a packet of field rations, he pushes through a passing throng of soldiers and calls your name. You choke on a mouthful of rice and kidney beans and shove the packet to the nearest survivor - there are only a few and they are all hungry - and you run to him.

Your arms wrap around this man you barely know, but he holds you tight, like he’s grateful, and you both rock on your feet there in the middle of camp.

“Where did they take you?” you ask.

“They…wanted to talk to me about Sherry.” His hands are on your bare arms for the first time, hot-palmed on the raw-scrubbed skin beneath the sleeves of your t-shirt. He says, “They may want to talk to you, too.”

Leon on sees the hesitation on your face before even you know it’s there. “Come on,” he smiles, the edges of it broken, “Don’t worry about it now. Let’s take a walk.”

You walk for minutes, tens of them, and every few steps his arm brushes yours.

“They want you to stay with them, don’t they?”

You say it so that he doesn’t have to. He nods, slowly, and your hand finds his. This time, the pair are you aren’t dragging one another out of danger, this time you can squeeze just enough to feel the grooves of Leon’s palm.

He squeezes back.

5.

When Leon finds you for the fifth time, a badge hangs from the lanyard around your neck. Your suit is as black as the 9mm holstered at his thigh. He’s harder now than he was two years ago, healed over and tougher like the scar on your shoulder.

The debriefing hurts you - you watch his face and feel cold when it looks like the others of the men with whom he marched in. One of the suits - one of your people - introduces you to him as another survivor from Raccoon City and you haven’t known fear like you do in that moment for the last two years. Because Leon’s mouth is a straight, firm line and his eyes spark with nothing. He waits until the officers are gone to remember you.

“You stayed,” he says, filling up the doorway to your office like a shadow. His clothes are dark, his arms scarred. His eyes are liars eyes - you see that now as you look up from your desk. They hadn’t given away the truth to the anyone else in the meeting; they had fooled you, too.

Standing from your chair, you move around to his side of the your desk.

“So did you,” you say.

The words sound like accusations - yours and his.

“How…how have you been?”

“Alive,” you reply, “Safe.”

His mouth quirks at one corner and he lifts one arm carelessly in your direction. “Care to share any pointers?”

“Find some rookie cop you can reliably outrun and who shoots better than you.”

Leon smiles, suddenly young like you remember, and you return it. It grows, mutates until it’s too big and laughter interrupts the quiet of the office. When it tapers off, dying like everything inevitably does, you are left nodding.

“I missed you, Leon.”

He laughs a half-breath, glancing at the floor and then back to you.

“Missed you first,” he says, “Nothing’s gone the way -”

“The way it should have? The pretty way?” you supply.

“Yeah,” he seems satisfied, “the pretty way.”

He takes a step closer, more in your office than out of it, and you’re glad the space between you is closing. A mile is better than a universe. Beneath his body armor, his steps are timid, inch by inch, and you meet him halfway.

“You can’t stay, can you?”

You know the answer.

“They won’t let me.”

You knew it.

Two years feel suddenly short as you dip your head forward to rest your forehead beneath his chin. You don’t expect his arms to go around you, don’t need them to, but they do and he presses you to his chest as though he is the one who needs it this time.

Your words are muffled by his nearness.

“Be safe wherever you go, Leon.”

He nods - you feel the rise and fall of his chin against your hair followed by the burn of his lips at your temple. Red-hot, there just long to brand you.

“When I get back,” he says - promises, “I’ll find you.”

[holdin-out-for-a-hero]

Rookie Ch.5 - Leon Kennedy x Reader

Words: 2566

Warnings: none

You and Leon looked at the man's disfigured corpse. Then you looked to each other, eyes wide and mouths open. Leon held onto the bars of the cell, his heart beating a mile a minute. Then, the familiar clicking of a woman's heels came down the corridor. You whipped around, gun pointed at the woman.

"Aren't you two looking cozy." She said. You looked down and realized you had grabbed Leon's arm; he pulled away "It's just me, so you can put that thing away." She motioned to your gun. You lowered it as she turned to look in the cell.

"I don't even know what happened— it just... happened so quick," Leon began, his voice cracked. The woman put her hands on the bars, a pained exhale escaped her lips. Then, she turned back to you and Leon.

"I told you to get out of here." She began. You could feel the cold stare through her sunglasses. "You wouldn't want to end up like Ben, would you?"

"You know him?" Leon asked.

"He was an informant. He had information of use to my investigation."

"So what he said was true?" The woman paid him no mind. Instead, she turned around and walked away. Leon wasn't having it; he grabbed her arm. "Hey, you can't keep walking away from us!" She looked down at his arm, and then up at him, before pulling away from his grasp. "We don't even know your name!"

"I'm Y/N L/N." You introduced yourself to the woman, hoping she would do the same.

"And I'm Leon Kennedy." The woman studied you and Leon for a moment before replying.

"Find a way out, Leon. Before it's too late... then we'll talk. And Y/N, you've got something on your face there." You remembered the blood on your face, Ben's blood; You wiped the droplets away. The woman turned back around and began walking away. "Name's Ada,"she finally said.

You and Leon were stunned as she walked away. This woman, Ada, carried herself as if the zombie infection was just a minor inconvenience. She wasn't even that surprised to see Ben dead, she looked more annoyed than anything. This made you wonder: how much did she know? What other things was umbrella capable of? You looked back at Ben's corpse, watching the blood slowly ooze down in puddles, no longer propelled out by a beating heart. His body wasn't what freaked you out, you've seen dead bodies all week. It was the fact that he was alive and talking to you just moments before that really unsettled you.

"Do you think you can pick the lock?" Leon asked, referencing what you were doing right before it happened. You looked down to the bent Bobby pin still in your hands.

"I don't think so," you said. Leon looked around the hall in thought, before his eyes rested on a note that lay on a desk in the corner of the room. He picked it up and read it.

"We've got to go back inside the station."

"Really?" Your brow furrowed. "We just got out of the station."

"We need a part to fix this electrical board." He said, pointing to a square on the wall. You looked at the strange board, and then it hit you: another puzzle. You rolled your eyes.

"Y'know, I always thought this station was so cool and quirky. But now, I'm starting to realize how stupid some of this is. Why so many puzzles? This isn't efficient at all!" You said. Leon laughed.

"You and me both."

"If I have to solve another stupid puzzle, my head might explode." You regretted your choice of words as they left your mouth. Leon's eyes widened as he looked at you, so shocked he almost laughed. You, just as wide-eyed as him, looked back at ben's corpse and cringed. "I'm a horrible person."

You and Leon found your way back into the station through a passageway previously unknown. Rain pattered on the roof and came in through the broken windows, droning out the cries of the undead. It felt like a nightmare, walking through the same old halls you used to love, and now loathed. Still, there was an air of peace to it all. There were no zombies chasing or grabbing at you. For a moment, you were safe. And then you heard it: the familiar sound of claws scraping the ceiling. Except they weren't slowly approaching, they were running toward you. Leon stood frozen, hoping that it wouldn't hear him. But you knew it heard. It always does. Without thought, You grabbed Leon's shotgun from his back and killed the creature, filling its head with steel balls. Leon jumped at the sound of the shotgun and the screams of the licker, but you were unfazed, jaded even. He looked at you, eyes wide and cheeks pink, until you turned to look at him and he averted his gaze.

"What?" You asked.

"It's nothing." He whispered. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was something more, but Leon saw you differently for the first time. The moonlight flooded through to broken windows and cast a lovely glow on your form. He shook the thoughts a way, for it was not the time or the place. Still, he couldn't keep from staring.

While he focused on you, you were focused on something darker: was Marvin still alive? What would be more painful: saying goodbye to him again or seeing him undead? The electrical parts needed were on the third floor, so you would have to pass through the main hall at some point. You and Leon passed though another dark hallway, and a familiar stickiness clung to your shoes. Leon looked down at the red ground with his flashlight and grimaced.

"Does it get any easier?" He asked. You knew what he was talking about.

"Only when you're in danger. Then you forget about it." You replied.

"So you've been surrounded by all of this death, and loss, and blood for a whole week?"

"I prefer not to think about it."

"That's not a good way to cope."

"I can cope when we're not in danger." You had a point. Leon dropped it and tried to ignore the sloshing of blood under his shoes. Soon, you approached a metal door. And below it, a pair of legs. Leon couldn't catch a break, could he? It wasn't the first man he watched die that night, but it was definitely the most scarring. His jaw tensed as he felt the adrenaline and emotions of that moment bubble to the surface. He looked at you and could tell you felt the same way. He pulled a lever on the wall and the door slowly opened from the bottom. His eyes focused on anything but the body, anything but the blood. He's seen blood, guts, and gore all night, so why was it affecting him now? Then, a hand grabbed his own. He was pulled out of his thoughts as he looked to you. He couldn't focus on the horror around him. In your eyes he felt both pain and warmth, reassurance and empathy. So he followed you as you lead him through the room, past the body and out the door. He could get used to your hand in his own.

Hand in hand, you walked down the hallways of the RPD. All the while, the main hall got closer. You and Leon approached the metal door that led to the lobby. He pulled the switch and you waited as the door opened. As you entered, you couldn't help but feel drawn to where Marvin was the last time you saw him. As much as you wanted to avoid seeing his fate, avoid looking into his eyes, your body led you to the back of the hall.

"Y/N," Leon began, "Its not a good idea."

"But I've got to know,” You said. Leon didn't follow you any further. You walked up the small flight of stairs and towards the medical dividers that he once sat behind.

There, on his gurney, lay Marvin. His skin was what a bluish tint, but other than that, he looked peaceful. That was until you stepped closer. He surged up, an animal-like growl gurgled through his vocal chords. You shot him. There was no hesitation, for all you saw was a monster. All you heard was his screeching, your gunshots, and the steady beat of your own heart. Leon gasped and ran toward the sound, for he knew how much you loved Marvin. Even he doubted his ability to shoot Marvin if it were necessary. But you did it. You shot him four, five times before he finally went down. And with a sheet off of a nearby hospital bed, you covered his corpse.

"You deserve better than this," you whispered. Leon stood behind you, and you turned to him.

"Is it bad that I don't feel anything?"

"I'm feeling for the both of us," he said, trying to lighten the mood. You let out a sad laugh. Leon smiled and looked away, but for a second, you could see his lip quiver and his eyes go glassy.

“We should probably get going."

So you and Leon headed upstairs. In order to get to the third floor, you had to pass by the crash. By the looks of it, the fire had been put out by the rain. Walking through the dark hallways, you reach the rubble filled area. Just around the corner, you saw the helicopter. Moonlight filtered through the remnants of the walls, giving an almost peaceful look to the crash. It was silent for a moment, completely, beautifully silent. Then, the rubble shifted. You and Leon stepped back as a colossal figure lifted the helicopter and threw it out of the way. It stepped closer, and into the light, so you could see it's leathery blue skin under its hat and trench coat. It was nothing you had ever seen before, nothing you could have ever imagined, and it continued walking. It's loud footsteps approached, and you stood frozen. Then, a hand grabbed your wrist and dragged you down the hall.

"What is that thing?" Leon yelled back at you as you ran. The creature kept up to you without quickening its pace. You and Leon sprinted though the precinct, only satisfied when you could no longer hear it's footsteps.

Finding the electrical part was easy, much easier than anything you dealt with the whole night. Leon led the way back down into the parking garage and then into the jail. His flashlight illuminated the dark, damp surroundings. As he and you walked down the jail corridor, Ben's corpse became more visible. Leon had seen gore all night and had sometimes been able to ignore it, but this sight struck a chord in him. Maybe it was because he felt guilty, for he didn’t even try to save the man. He watched as a single fly landed on the man's deformed face.

"You still have the electrical part?" You asked him.

"Yeah, I do." He said, taking it from his pocket. You took the piece from him and connected it to the board. The cell door clicked open. You took a step forward, wary of the corpse, and Leon followed suit. Kneeling down, you carefully cut the parking pass off of his lanyard. Leon noticed something protruding from Ben’s jacket pocket. It was a tape recorder. He took it from the man's jacket. You looked at him, and him at you. He put it up to his ear, then decided to hold it out for you to listen as well. You both leaned in to the recorder, now only inches apart. He pressed play. The recording began with the dead man's voice.

"But that doesn't explain the rumors about the orphanage. I just find it a little too coincidental that umbrella is one of the benefactors." Then a woman's voice chimed in.

"You told me this interview was about the new scholarship umbrella set up." She sounded annoyed.

"Come on, Annette. Nobody cares about that. They want to know about the G-Virus and the-"

"Where did you hear about that?" She tried to cut him off, but he continued.

"And that big sinkhole in the city that rumor has it leads straight to your underground lab. No, are you gonna talk to me or?"

"This interview is over." The recording cut off.

You heard the rumors about umbrella and the orphanage, but you thought they were just rumors, just stories kids told their friends. But it began to make sense. The orphanage was almost completely funded by the umbrella corporation, and children weren't seen there for very long. The more you thought about it, the more you wanted to throw up. Leon was still beside you, his hand on his chin in thought.

"So umbrella really caused all this? Umbrella killed this city?" He asked.

"I always kinda knew it was them," You began, "They acted like a moral company, but there was a rumor going around the station that Irons was being paid to keep quiet." You exhaled, "I guess it's all true."

Leon got up, and you followed his lead. He left the cell, but you noticed a memo on the small corner desk. It detailed Ben's last days alive and something called he called the 'tyrant' . He described it as a bio-weapon, and you remembered the large humanoid from before. Was it the 'tyrant?' Did it kill Ben?

"What is it?" Leon asked, taking a step back into the cell.

"Remember that thing in the trench coat? I think Ben wrote about it." You said, handing him the paper. He read it and shook his head.

"Remember when our worst fear was zombies?"

"I miss that" you replied. And then, almost as though the universe was calling your bluff, all the cells unlocked. All of the zombies exited their cells. Leon grabbed your hand and ran towards a jail checkpoint, locking the barred door behind him. You two ran through the other side of the jail, and then the familiar loud footsteps approached. Around the corner was that creature, tyrant.

"Gimme a break!" Leon yelled. Somehow you and him dodged the creature and all of the zombies in your path. You exited the jail and ran back into the parking garage. Safety seemed so close, and then the concrete wall next to Leon shattered, fragments and dust filling the area. There was a silhouette that shadowed the dust, it was the tyrant. The creature grabbed Leon by the neck and lifted him off the ground, just like it did with Ben. Leon squirmed and kicked, struggling to breathe. Your heart was beating in your ears as you tried to shoot the creature. It did nothing. The creature was indestructible, and you couldn't even reach Leon to help him out of its grasp. Then, the whirring of a Swat truck gassed its way into the creature and then into the wall. Leon dropped to the ground, gripping his neck and as he choked and panted for air. You were frozen in place as a familiar woman strolled out of the car.

"Ada?" You asked.

"This is getting old." She began. "Saving you and him- that's twice!"

[desired-misery]

*cracks fingers, sits at keyboard* "how much Leon has changed since RE2R" just leads me right back to the other person from Leon's past who shows up in RE4R! Jack fucking Krauser! Krauser's lines (and the flashback at the beginning of RE4R) basically says that Leon's transformation into a rookie cop into dangerous one-man army (I resist calling Leon a soldier even though Krauser obviously does all the time, because Leon isn't a soldier, he doesn't have that but that's *waves hands* a whole other conversation to have) was overseen mostly (if not entirely) by Krauser.

And yes, Ada's line is her saving face/staying cool but yes!! Ada, girl, you underestimated him and he showed you immediately what a mistake that was. Obviously, there are no permanent consequences to that since neither of them hurt each other, but Ada doesn't have that element of "hey, I pulled a gun on your back so you need to be respectful because I'm in control of you" because Leon went "oh, bet?" and yoinked that power play right out of her hands.

That scene feels like two predators meeting on neutral territory. It is all postering, but only because neither of them are willing to kick off a fight because they both know the other could really hurt them and there is nothing worth fighting over. It's a dominance display. Ada walked in (maybe not expecting Leon to roll over, but expecting some sign of "okay, you got me, you're clearly a few steps a head of me still") and instead of getting what she expected, Leon does the pissed-off-trained-agent equivalent of snapping his teeth near her throat. A move that says "watch yourself. I deliberately did not draw blood because I don't think you want this to go that far, but next time I'll bite".

Leon turning his back to Ada (when she just had a gun to it) and stooping to pick up his gun is an interesting (and telling) move that he does BEFORE she leaves out the window. That was Leon basically saying "okay, we've had our spat and you didn't shoot me and I didn't slice open your neck so we're good, we've defined that dynamic between us" and Ada takes that opportunity to leave out the window. When Leon made the decision to put himself in a vulnerable position (for fighting, reacting to any more threats), Ada was still in the room. Ada is not one for small talk and Leon isn't surprised in the slightest that she leaves at the absolute first moment after dropping what she deems "valuable" information for him.

your tags are so on point ahahah #and i do kinda find it cute how ada tried to play leon lmao#like she obviously wasn't gonna do anything to him i think it's funny#but yeah leon was not having that

Leon "of all fucking days you pick today?! This isn't cute, Ada, I'm mad!!!" Kennedy

starring

Ada "... okay, maybe not my most well thought out entrance... I gotta leave mysteriously to save face" Wong

What did you think of Leon and Ada's new relationship in the remakes? Meta wise

I think it's an interesting and more nuanced take on their relationship! Which I definitely like. I see no point in judging OG RE2's love story between them, no matter how cliché and nonsensical it is. It's a product of its time, and it's charming in its own cheesy way. Teenage me cried over Ada's death in there, so I do have a soft spot for it.

But the Remakes offer a fresh interpretation of what happened between them, and I'm definitely interested to see where they will take their relationship in the future (that is if they do, because I wouldn't mind them just having separate story arcs from now on).

If we're talking actual analysis, I'll put down my thoughts. I don't know if you can call it a full-on analysis per se, as it's more just me writing out my personal interpretations on things. So keep that in mind please!

Long post under the cut. I'm talking almost 4k words and way too many shitty gifs (I have no time to make them all polished). I have way too much to say. I'll basically be going over their entire relationship throughout RE2R and RE4R so... yeah.

RE2R and RE4R are two games that offer a full story for Leon's character, and that's a very awesome thing that Capcom has done. I'd even say it's one of the best things they've done with RE recently. Making RE4R feel like a direct continuation to Leon's arc in RE2R makes total sense, and it makes many scenes in RE4R that much more satisfying to play through.

While RE2R does end on a somewhat positive note (much like every RE game has to), Leon's arc in it is very much negative. He loses more than he gains, he's unable to save anyone, and his good intentions end up being used against him. Claire ends her RE2R story by saving a little girl she has come to care for. Leon ends his RE2R story by losing the G-sample, 'losing' Ada without getting much, if any, closure from her, and not saving even a single person he has encountered. Claire and Sherry don't really count in Remake-verse (which I kinda don't like) because their storylines mostly happened separately from each other.

And that's not mentioning that he gets (assumedly, and I am very much hoping we'll finally see more concrete scenes of how it all happened in Remake-verse) pretty much kidnapped and forced into a life he never wanted right after. To say that Leon can't get a break in RE2R is like saying nothing at all. Poor guy gets put through the wringer on every level.

Now, onto his relationship with Ada, and how it ties into everything... It should be said that, while he obviously grows to care about her throughout their short time spent together, he remains suspicious of her. RE2R Leon is naive, but I often feel like people make him too naive. He's not an idiot. He tries over and over again to get answers from her, and he clearly feels apprehensive with her. And I mean... that makes sense. While she does save him multiple times, she keeps her distance from him.

I'd say he starts opening up to her on an emotional level after witnessing Robert having to kill off his own daughter. He directly confronts her, demanding for answers and voicing his drive to do what's right. In a way, that's him showing his vulnerability to her. And Ada uses it against him. After all, it's a perfect opportunity to play on his (rather naive) determination to be the hero to help her achieve her own goals. Ada is also the only figure of 'authority' he has at the moment. Even if her claim of being FBI seems kinda off, she's the only one he has.

And I'll go over Ada and how I interpret her later. For now, just keep in mind that her using Leon is more of a gray area than just some horrible, disgusting thing. I'm just going over the events from Leon's viewpoint here.

So, they team up. Ada starts softening up to him. They share light banter with each other: 'A: After you. L: Gee, thanks.' She expresses concern over his safety (the alligator scene). I'd say that's the point where he starts to care for her on a more personal level from before. As you would.

Him taking a bullet for her was instinctual. I'd say it's a more pivotal moment for Ada's character here rather than Leon's. In Leon's case it's moreso her taking care of him right after that matters. He directly mentions it to her later on (at least I'm pretty sure his 'you protected me' referred to that). I'd say him waking up to find himself tucked in with her coat and his wound taken care of was the moment his 'I care because it's another person who's in this with me' turned into 'I care because I feel genuine attachment to this person'.

Was it romantic? I'd say that's left for you to interpret how you wish. I like to think of it as him just caring for her as a person. Leon is someone who cares very deeply for others, and he's always striving to be the protector to those around him. I kind of think that someone caring for him when he's weak and vulnerable is something that is very meaningful to him. Now, Ada saves him multiple times at that point. But that's the first instance of her arguably going beyond what's needed. Sure, taking care of his wound was necessary, although she could have just let him be as he was for all we know. But tucking him in on top of that? Yeah, that's an obvious 'I care' gesture.

From then on, Leon is following Ada because he wants to trust her. And I do want to ring this home. He wants to trust her. Doesn't mean he does trust her. Because even though he shows genuine care for her, it's clear that he knows she's might not be telling him everything.

He wants her to trust him, so that she'll tell him what she is keeping from him. So that he can trust her.

The kiss scene is a perfect representation of exactly that, I'd say. Honestly, I'll just link this analysis right here, because I pretty much interpret it in almost the exact same way. But I'll go over it in my own words as well.

Leon's growing frustration is in full display here. He turns around from her, he paces, he tries to appeal to her. To just trust him enough to be honest with him. It's clear that he knows Ada might not be telling everything, but he chooses to believe her regardless.

Hence the exchange that follows this:

Ada: 'Hey Leon, trust me?'

Leon, walking up to her: 'Trust me?' (Reversing her question)

Ada: 'Honestly, if I didn't, you'd probably be dead.' (A genuine answer as far as we know, but it's not one Leon wanted to hear, so he shakes his head, mutters 'Right.' and walks off.)

And I do feel like Ada knows that Leon is suspicious of her here. Her reaction once he walks off comes off as kind of panicky to me. She knows she might be losing him, and she can't have that. So, she once again appeals to what she knows is his weak spot. His drive to help others and 'save' the city. It does work. Somewhat. But he's still swaying, so she does the first thing she thinks of. She kisses him.

She, quite literally, cuts off his line of thought so he stops thinking about it. Because him thinking is dangerous for what she's really doing here.

I think it would be very disingenuous to say that that was a kiss of love or affection. It is not presented as such, nor is it addressed that way in all. It was Ada's last attempt at stopping Leon from questioning her any further. How much of it was her focusing on her goals, and how much of it was her effort to 'protect' him from potentially figuring out the truth, is left to your interpretation. But whatever intentions she had, good or bad, it was a kiss of manipulation.

It does shut Leon up, as he's visibly stunned. He doesn't even say anything at that. He just stares at her, then at her hand on his knee. Now, here's the tricky part of it all. Do I think Leon felt romantic affection/attraction to her here? On some level, I'd say yes. But it's definitely no 'love at first kiss' or anything like that. He's confused, mostly. While he spent arguably little time with Ada, it was a time full of meaning. Surviving side by side and protecting one another is no small feat. And Ada did show her care for him.

I think, he chooses to trust her in that moment, because he, once again, wants to believe in her. Even if her kiss felt out of nowhere, and so much of what she says (or rather doesn't say) makes no sense. He chooses to trust her because he wants to think that she's a good person who cares for him.

And so, we come to the pivotal bridge scene once he learns the truth. I do like how he confronts her in a blatantly emotional manner rather than logical. It's not so much about her being a mercenary itself, as it is about her using him and lying to him. That's what he's actually confronting her about, whether he realizes it or not. That's exactly why he tells her to shoot him, fully resolute as he holds her gaze. He wouldn't do that if he was just trying to apprehend a criminal like a good cop would (as he tries to present it at first).

But, he never gets that closure or resolution he was aiming for. Ada lowers her pistol. He breaths out shakily, probably wanting to continue talking, to figure this out. But he doesn't get that.

I do think Ada telling him to take care of himself as her 'last words' is a very painful thing for him. Because it leaves him with no actual closure on what happened between them. Ada chose to not harm him, and her last words to him are ones of selflessness. But she also lied to him and used his vulnerabilities to achieve her goals. And it's not like Leon knows anything about her occupation, and just how much she's involved with it on an emotional level. Maybe she's someone forced to do this against her will. Or maybe she enjoys doing such dirty jobs for all he knows.

That's the thing. Leon doesn't know. And that must be both frustrating and painful. He's basically left questioning all of his interactions with her, how much of it was genuine, whether she was honest with him at all.

And, most importantly, his time with Ada basically proves to him that his drive to protect and save, his willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt - is a flaw, and a weakness. It directly ties into his arc in RE4R. (And his relationship with Krauser, in a way, but I won't go over it here.)

He throws away her bracelet on the train, and I think that kind of shows that he chooses to believe in the pessimistic way of interpreting their time together. He throws it away because he doesn't want to hold on to something that reminds him of her. And, simultaneously, of his mistakes.

Now, let's go through the same events from Ada's POV, shall we? It's a bit more challenging, since we don't get to be in her shoes, but it's still a fun exercise.

Ada's initial interactions with Leon are ones of annoyance. She basically scolds him like a kid for always getting in danger and acts like saving him is a chore. But chooses to help him out regardless. I think it speaks of her humanity despite her line of work. It's an interesting dichotomy that follows her every single appearance pretty much, though not much is done with it (thanks Capcom). But yeah, despite her visible annoyance with him, she saves him time and time again.

She doesn't visibly soften up to him up until that same Robert scene. She's pretty observant from what we can tell, and she probably already had a good idea of Leon's righteous nature, but it's the first instance of her actively playing into it instead of making small snide comments about it ('Trying to save the world?' 'Good luck with that.'). That doesn't mean she doesn't care, though. It's subtle, but the little sighs and changes in her facial expression do show that she's at least a little bit conflicted at the prospect of lying to him on such a huge level (though you can't see most of it with her sunglasses).

It's one thing to say a passing lie about you being an FBI agent, and it's completely another to play the long game by using someone like that. But she needs to accomplish this task, and it already proved to be more difficult than she expected. Remember, Racoon City was Ada's first time dealing with anything of this sort, too. She might be a mercenary, but it's not like she had to deal with zombies and B.O.W's before that. She's out of her depth, and she has someone pretty much offering themselves to her as her assistance.

So, she takes the risk.

While she does join in some passing banter with Leon after that, she still keeps her distance. She's dry and mostly unemotional in her mannerisms. Remember how I said that Leon taking the bullet for her was more pivotal to her in the story? Let's go over that.

It would be disingenuous to say that Ada is a complex character, unfortunately. Most of the complexity she does have, we pretty much have to add on to ourselves. Hell, I'm doing it right now with this entire section! Capcom is doing a way better job with her in the Remakes, but she's still pretty flat as a character. Maybe this'll (hopefully) change in future installments. But for now, we work with what we have.

Either way, we do know that Ada is someone who's self-sufficient and chooses to work alone. She keeps her distance from everyone, and she lives by 'everyone for themselves' ideology. Basically, a total opposite of Leon's 'protector' role. All that to say... someone taking a bullet for her is definitely not something she would expect. On some level, specifically because she would never do that herself. Especially for someone she basically just met. But Leon risks his life for her. Furthermore, telling her to go ahead instead of anything else.

I think that's the moment Ada starts caring for him on a personal level. Maybe she feels like she should repay him for this. Or that she owes him a debt. Regardless, she takes care of him and tucks him in, before proceeding further.

That care only grows once they reunite. Now she's the one injured, and he takes care of her, despite her protests: 'I can do it myself'. Ada is self-sufficient, but Leon offers her his companionship time and time again. We don't know whether that's something she lacks in her life or not. We don't know enough of her as a character to say that. But she's obviously someone who's not used to getting help from others. Again, on some level, because she doesn't do that herself.

Remember, while Ada did save Leon numerous times before, she always acted visibly frustrated by it, like it was a chore she was forced into, despite her choosing to help him herself. Leon, on the other hand, is quick to offer and insist on helping out, very much eager to do that for her. She already made the choice to use him, but now she learns that he's a genuinely good person with a kind heart, and not just some stupid naive rookie.

And so, the kiss scene, again. I already said that her kiss feels like a last-ditch effort to stop Leon from questioning her any further. And I do think she acted on impulse. Thus why she follows up with a hand on his knee and the: 'I'm counting on you'. And I, personally, think she kind of regretted doing that right after. Or maybe felt extra conflicted about the whole ordeal as a whole. The way she slouches and sighs heavily once Leon leaves is very reminiscent of that. It's kind of a mix of 'Fuck, I messed that up, didn't I?' and 'What the hell am I going to do after this?'

It also should be noted that Ada never meant to tell Leon the truth. It would be convenient for both of them. Leon would feel like he did something good, and she would complete her mission with no further issues. Both sides win. But... things go haywire. And she's confronted with the consequences of her initial choice to use him.

It'll be silly to say that Ada doesn't care for Leon. If she truly was this heartless mercenary some would like her to be, she would shoot him on the spot. Her pistol being empty doesn't really matter, either. Leon was basically offering himself up to her, again. Even without any bullets on her hands, she could have easily knocked him out or something.

But, she can't bring herself to hurt him. Because Leon really is a good person that doesn't deserve that. And she knows that, and she cares for him on a personal level on top of it all. We don't know what she was going to do, before Annette shot her. Maybe I'm actually talking out of ass here, and she really was planning on knocking Leon out cold. But, we'll never truly know.

And her last words for him are to take care of himself. Because, in a way, Ada, more than anyone, knows just how selfless Leon is. On some level, it's a wordless 'I'm sorry', if you wish to interpret it that way.

Boy, was that a lengthy mess! Their first introduction to each sure was tumultuous. But we still have RE4R to go through! Though it'll be more about Ada than Leon.

Nevertheless, let's talk about Leon's interactions with Ada. I think we all know he's noticeably harsher and colder to her. It's an interesting change, and it does show that he feels resentment towards her for what happened in Racoon City. We don't know how his initial conflicted feelings morphed into this resentment, but they did.

I don't think nearly enough people mention that he's genuinely being very damn rough with her in their little sparring session. While yeah, you could make an argument that he's holding back, he's not being careful either. Ada has to put in actual effort to fight him off, which she doesn't even succeed in because he takes her off-guard with his intensity.

And he also puts the sharp end of his dagger to her throat. Just to rub more salt into the wound.

I don't think this was him wanting to hurt her or threaten her, though. It was more of a show of strength. Ada approaches him by taunting him and teasing him, like she can do whatever she wants to him. But he's not that same naive rookie anymore. And he shows her exactly that.

A kind of: 'Don't think you can play the same trick on me twice, or you might get burned' message. A message that I think Ada does get.

As for him smirking at her, I don't think that's him being 'happy' to see her or anything. I think that's just him being amused that she still thinks she can play him like that. He grows all cold and distant with her right after.

Leon obviously has a grudge that he hasn't let go of. I actually like how he's almost needlessly petty with her in RE4R. Making snide remarks, calling her heartless and dismissing her on numerous occasions. It shows that he does care. If he didn't, he would cooperate with her with no further complaints on his part. He's purposefully being cold to her to show that yes, he is still upset about what happened, and he will use every opportunity to demonstrate exactly that. It's petty and kind of childish, in a way. But it makes sense for him, and it adds extra flavor to their relationship at this point in time.

Though, he does offer an opening to her in the boat.

'Have you changed, Ada? Or are you trying to use me again?'

It's a good parallel to his: 'Trust me?' In RE2R, and both phrases are used for a similar purpose.

He gives Ada an opening to trust him and be open with him. One that she doesn't take, again: 'What do you think?'

She gives him no answer. Just like she didn't in RE2R. I think, in a way, that kind of gives Leon an answer by itself. He trusts Ada and relies on her when push comes to shove, but he doesn't give her any more openings from then on. I'd say that's his 'I think we both know this is where we go our separate ways' moment.

With Ada, things are way more complicated, in a good way. Separate Ways gave us so much to work with, and that's amazing.

Throughout Separate Ways, we see Ada bouncing back-and-forth on what she wants to do. She's initially very cold and resolute in her job, helping Leon out more like a passing convenience than anything else. She does still help him, though. She's still dealing with the dichotomy of what she presents herself as, and what she actually acts as.

I really like her confrontation with Luis in particular. She's cutthroat and blunt. Almost chillingly so. And she only relents once Luis mentions her own infection. Him telling her of Leon's infection has little effect.

'And why does that matter to me?'

I think that's a question she's asking herself just as much as Luis here. Though, she's still in her cold, self-sufficient mercenary role here. To be honest, I find her relationship with Luis in particular much more interesting in RE4R, but since we're talking about her and Leon here, I'll just say that Luis is the catalyst to her change (so to speak, Ada doesn't really change as a character per se, I'll elaborate on that later). Not Leon.

She confronts Leon face-to-face, quickly being met with the truth that he is not as easy for her to push around now. And I do think she has zero bad intentions there. She was genuinely just playing around and teasing him. Only to figure out that that approach won't work at all. It's kinda cute, honestly. So, she gives him an opening of her own instead. She tells him to leave Ashley, to prioritize his own safety over hers. Because that's what she would have done in his place. Leon is quick to shut that down. Something that Ada probably expected, as she just huffs and gives a knowing 'Right.' to that.

That's the moment Ada knows Leon hasn't changed. Not really. He might be colder, more ruthless and dangerous, but he's still that same guy, wanting to protect others, no matter what. She knows she'll have no success in swaying him at that point. Hence why she tells him exactly that on the boat later.

The next pivotal scene, I'd say, is her watching Ashley wake up and learn of Luis' death. Ada mostly treats Ashley like a nuisance, something Leon has to protect. Because that's his job. But in that moment, she sees the genuine connection they share with each other. She sees that Leon cares. And not just because Ashley is an innocent person he has to save, but because it's Ashley.

Ada's arc throughout Separate Ways is not that connected to Leon, which is a good thing. Similarly to Leon concluding his story from RE2R by saving Ashley and proving to himself (first and foremost) that he can protect someone he cares about, and that his humanity is a strength, not a weakness, Ada learns to accept herself, too. She's visibly conflicted at the start of SW, but by the end of it, she knows what she has to do, and she made peace with that. Her hesitating before going against Wesker in the facility is one of the last moments of her hesitating with her intentions.

But, again, that scene is more about her and Luis. Luis is very important to Ada's character in SW, and I think that's neat.

While the scene itself is kinda awkward, her encountering Ashley during the final battle is another arguably important one. Her watching Leon and Ashley before that was about her witnessing Leon's care for her. Now she sees that Ashley fully reciprocates that care. They are on equal ground with each other.

And so, the final scene between them. I already said that Leon settled on his answer concerning Ada before that. But Ada makes one final opening to him. It's a selfish one. After all, what exactly would happen if Leon agreed to come with? Would they just leave Ashley to die and fly off into the sunset? On some level, I think Ada knows that what she's asking is unrealistic, especially for Leon. But I think it also speaks of her progression throughout Separate Ways. Ada learns to be more genuine with herself, even if it means being selfish or asking something that she knows will be rejected.

So, she shoots her shot one last time. Leon gives his answer. Ada is not surprised by it. But she is visibly upset by it. She knew it was coming, though.

So, they do exactly that. They go their separate ways. At least for now.

[refurbishedgray]

Running Time

You know how much I know about Resident Evil? Enough to get my ass smacked by a jacked Nick Valentine, that’s how much.

This is horrible, by the way. I started it and barely knew enough about Leon to get through it. This is worst thing I’ve written in 10 years and there’s not even any porn. Can you say porn on tumblr now? Porn. Huh. Porn porn porn.

Five Times You Meet Leon Kennedy

1.

The first time you met Leon Kennedy, the world had already ended. The wind through Raccoon City smelled of decay and bodies and you were used to it now. When people realized what was happening, that they were dying or going to die, they swept en masse towards strategic points. The police station was closest to you - but the gates were shut and the doors barricaded before you ever got through. The ones who stayed to beat at the entrance were still there now. They moved slower and smelled of blood and carnage.

You had not stayed; you determined you would wait it out - two weeks - and then you would make your way out of the city. You’re scavenging near the police station when you hear the shots ring out. The place has been dead - literally - for days. Lights out, only the streets around the building breathing with the infected. Those streets pulse and sway as you maneuver through store fronts, your head low, always low. You can’t get into the station, but the nearer you get, the clearer the shots echo.

The front would be suicide, but there’s a gate around the back, one guarded by tall, iron fencing that you have tried before to climb over. You ignore it. You ignore the front. Instead, you climb up a fire escape on the building next door and you stay there until you are positive that someone is alive on the second floor of the station. Once or twice, you think you see a flash from the windows, but the rain comes down harder and in the minutes that follow, darkness screeches below.

And then you see him - his shadow passing smoothly down the second-story hall - and your heart snares in your throat until you can’t breathe or speak. Lightning flashes, frightens the both of you, and he, him, the man in the window, turns by chance to look at the rusted platform across the alley.

He sees you, his silhouette hesitating, and you know he thinks you’re one of them, you’re a dead thing.

But you aren’t. And your arms wave frantically through the rain. He sees you because he lunges for the window and forces it open. The beam from a flashlight shines across the way and you wince against it but you don’t avert your eyes.

“You’re alive!”

His voice is young and his words bring a stinging heat to your eyes.

“So are you,” you call back, imagining a smile on that face you can’t quite see.

“What’s your name?” His voice is a kind one, you think, one that sounds like trust. You wonder what he hears in yours when you answer him.

He tells you that he’s Leon and that he’s with the RPD. You want to ask how many survivors there are, but you don’t, because you know the answer already. There’s only him, alone in all that building. The space between you feels like a universe; it’s going to swallow one or both of you in a cataclysm.

“I can’t get to you,” you call to him, and you wish immediately that you had lied, because what you’ve just said is a cruelty the stranger - Leon - with the young voice and the gun doesn’t deserve.

“You’ll have to be careful,” you continue in a voice that is both loud and soft, “Be careful. I - I can’t get to you.”

Leon hesitates. You notice his shadow sway behind the light.

“There’s a gate in the back -”

I know. You do know. You heard it rattle, can hear it rattle.

“ - I can’t unlock it. Don’t try to come that way.” His voice steadies, stronger now, and before the outbreak, you don’t recall recognizing resolve in a stranger’s voice. “I’m going to open the garage. I’ll find a way through.”

He can’t stay there, in the police station, he means.

“Good luck,” you tell him. You mean it.

“If you can get to that side of the street...I’ll find you.”

That voice sounds like a promise.

2.

The second time you met Leon, he kept his promise. He found you and you want to cry because he looks like an angel with his pale hair and eyes. There’s kindness in his face, even when kindness stopped belonging weeks ago. He hasn’t forgotten your name in the hours since you first saw him.

You cry when he touches your shoulder.

There’s a woman with him who sneers when the tears roll down your cheeks, but Leon feels the relief like you do. The pads of his fingers curl into your shoulder; he’s not trying to calm you, you realize as you swallow down the emotions that are strangling you, he’s steadying himself.

“Do you have a gun?” the woman with Leon asks you.

You don’t, but you have a knife and a heavy metal pipe that has left an ache down one of your arms.

“Where are you going to go?” you ask. You’re talking to Leon and it’s just as well, because the woman has gone to the windows to peer out into the street.

“Following her,” he replies.

That’s the decision then. You’ll follow her too.

3.

The third time you meet Leon, he’s staggering across a scaffold that is going to collapse beneath him. You cry out for him; you reach out but your shoulder has a bullet wound to match his. Ada had put it there and called it a favor when she left you dying on the tram.

But you didn’t die. You clawed and you kicked and followed the gunshots until there was too much blood leaking out of you. Then you had crawled.

“Ada,” your voice cracks, weak, and you’re not sure if Leon can hear you over the fires burning behind him, “Ada, she - “

“Dead,” he breathes down from the ledge above you. He had heard you after all - somehow, by chance, between the explosions and splitting steel.

The ground rocks and spills you onto your knees as Leon clambers down a latter towards you. You find your feet before he can reach you, but his arm goes around you anyway. This time you need it - you think you’ll die without it.

“Want to stay here?” There’s a smile on your lips as your fingers close over the top edge of his vest to keep yourself on your feet. “Enjoy the view and die?”

Blond hair that has gone orange in the firelight falls over one eye as Leon shakes his head. He’s delirious, because he smiles back before dragging you along, one arm snug around your back.

4.

You don’t think there will be a fourth time.

They take Leon and the little girl, Sherry, and you don’t expect to see him again. Your heart breaks over a stranger. Losing a man you’ve known only a few days is like losing an arm or organ - you’re bleeding out slowly in the middle of military tents and a quarantine zone. They tell you they’ll let you go, but you stop believing them after a week.

But Leon...Leon keeps his promise.

He finds you.

With your head tucked over a packet of field rations, he pushes through a passing throng of soldiers and calls your name. You choke on a mouthful of rice and kidney beans and shove the packet to the nearest survivor - there are only a few and they are all hungry - and you run to him.

Your arms wrap around this man you barely know, but he holds you tight, like he’s grateful, and you both rock on your feet there in the middle of camp.

“Where did they take you?” you ask.

“They...wanted to talk to me about Sherry.” His hands are on your bare arms for the first time, hot-palmed on the raw-scrubbed skin beneath the sleeves of your t-shirt. He says, “They may want to talk to you, too.”

Leon on sees the hesitation on your face before even you know it’s there. “Come on,” he smiles, the edges of it broken, “Don’t worry about it now. Let’s take a walk.”

You walk for minutes, tens of them, and every few steps his arm brushes yours.

“They want you to stay with them, don’t they?”

You say it so that he doesn’t have to. He nods, slowly, and your hand finds his. This time, the pair are you aren’t dragging one another out of danger, this time you can squeeze just enough to feel the grooves of Leon’s palm.

He squeezes back.

5.

When Leon finds you for the fifth time, a badge hangs from the lanyard around your neck. Your suit is as black as the 9mm holstered at his thigh. He’s harder now than he was two years ago, healed over and tougher like the scar on your shoulder.

The debriefing hurts you - you watch his face and feel cold when it looks like the others of the men with whom he marched in. One of the suits - one of your people - introduces you to him as another survivor from Raccoon City and you haven’t known fear like you do in that moment for the last two years. Because Leon’s mouth is a straight, firm line and his eyes spark with nothing. He waits until the officers are gone to remember you.

“You stayed,” he says, filling up the doorway to your office like a shadow. His clothes are dark, his arms scarred. His eyes are liars eyes - you see that now as you look up from your desk. They hadn’t given away the truth to the anyone else in the meeting; they had fooled you, too.

Standing from your chair, you move around to his side of the your desk.

“So did you,” you say.

The words sound like accusations - yours and his.

“How...how have you been?”

“Alive,” you reply, “Safe.”

His mouth quirks at one corner and he lifts one arm carelessly in your direction. “Care to share any pointers?”

“Find some rookie cop you can reliably outrun and who shoots better than you.”

Leon smiles, suddenly young like you remember, and you return it. It grows, mutates until it’s too big and laughter interrupts the quiet of the office. When it tapers off, dying like everything inevitably does, you are left nodding.

“I missed you, Leon.”

He laughs a half-breath, glancing at the floor and then back to you.

“Missed you first,” he says, “Nothing’s gone the way -”

“The way it should have? The pretty way?” you supply.

“Yeah,” he seems satisfied, “the pretty way.”

He takes a step closer, more in your office than out of it, and you’re glad the space between you is closing. A mile is better than a universe. Beneath his body armor, his steps are timid, inch by inch, and you meet him halfway.

“You can’t stay, can you?”

You know the answer.

“They won’t let me.”

You knew it.

Two years feel suddenly short as you dip your head forward to rest your forehead beneath his chin. You don’t expect his arms to go around you, don’t need them to, but they do and he presses you to his chest as though he needs it.

Your words are muffled by his nearness.

“Be safe wherever you go, Leon.”

He nods - you feel the rise and fall of his chin against your hair followed by the burn of his lips at your temple. Red-hot, there just long to brand you.

“When I get back,” he says, promises, “I’ll find you.”

[lacquerware]

Resident Evil 2 reflections

One crisp winter evening in early 1998, my friend “Kyle” sat me down on the floor of his room, which was twice the size of my room, and fired up his Sony PlayStation. “You aren’t going to believe this,” he said.

He’d said that a lot over the past several months, usually in regards to something happening on the Sony PlayStation, and usually he was right. He’d shown me Resident Evilfirst, always calling it “Res Eve,” and it had shaken my very idea of what a video game was. Real actors? Real voices? Real emotions? Indeed I could not believe that something as juvenile and recreational as a video game had actually scared me. But the efficacy of that first zombie head-turn was undeniable.

In the following months Kyle had shown me a Top Gun game with live-action cutscenes featuring the bald principal from Back to the Future; the original Dynasty Warriors, which was a 3D fighting game; Mortal Kombat Trilogy; and the Sephiroth fight from Final Fantasy VII where he destroys the entire solar system as a canned attack animation. It’s amusing in hindsight that these titles could ever have been lumped together in any capacity, but each of them was such a fundamental upset of my existing notion of video games* that it was initially impossible for me to discern any gradient in quality. With the exception of the live-action bits, I couldn’t even discern FMVs from in-game cutscenes, because neither concept had existed in my head at all. It was like if you’d gone back in time to the dawn of the industrial age and shown someone The Godfather and an episode of Married with Children back-to-back. However briefly, there’d be a moment where their reaction would be roughly the same to each: “THE PICTURES ARE MOVING AND TALKING.”

*Okay, MK Trilogy didn't exactly break new ground, but it made me realize my kopy of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 on the Genesis wasn't very ultimate at all.

↑↓ Keep in mind I saw these two things on the same day, prior to which the most visually impressive thing I'd ever seen a game do was accurately render comic strip characters (Garfield: Caught in the Act, I'm looking at you).

On this crisp, winter evening in 1998, Kyle showed me Resident Evil 2, which had only just released. We sat and watched the Leon intro in silence. There’s a very special stillness, an eerie electricity to the original RE2 intros that reminds me of the ominous feeling of the air and the sky before a big thunderstorm. It’s the same feeling I get when I watch the closing moments of the Who Shot Mr. Burns? Episode of The Simpsons, that sparse tension that is equal parts quieting and disquieting.

I watched, transfixed. Finally, the game relinquished control to Kyle, and he ran through a fiery city street teeming with zombies. Their numbers seemed to fill every shot. Everything was wrecked and burning and overrun, a fruition of the thing the first Resident Evil only hinted at while locking you inside that mansion.

Kyle ducked into an apparent safehouse and was immediately—seamlessly!—halted by a suspicious shopkeep with a shotgun. A dramatic, fully voiced conversation ensued, the shopkeep backed off, and Kyle was given freedom to explore the room until suddenly—seamlessly!—the horde crashed through the false security of the shop’s window glass and ate the screaming shopkeep alive, blood fountaining from his red-stained neck and torso. You know the rest.

I walked home for dinner at dusk, looking back over my shoulder every few feet, and marveled that a video game could generate such real-life fear.

I got my own Sony PlayStation about half a year later and devoured both RE2campaigns within three days. By the end I was as much a survivor as a player, and didn’t entirely know how to reconcile the good time I’d had with the immense feeling of relief that it was over. To survive a prolonged immersion in terror is an emotionally complicated experience, and not one I’d been accustomed to associating with “play.” It struck me how much scarier RE2 was than even RE1. RE1 put danger in the obvious place—a big, creepy mansion; in RE2, the evil had spilled out into the streets and overrun society’s most guarded spaces—a gun shop, a police station. The voice acting, graphics, and environmental design were also significantly better than before. The point is that Resident Evil 2 was a special game, in large part because it did things early, but also because it did things well. It was the sweet spot of the original RE trilogy—it did things better than RE1, at a riper time than RE3.

I might’ve thought any attempt to recapture that magic would be futile, had Capcom not already proven the potential for such a thing in 2002 with the GameCube remake of the original Resident Evil, which was where much of the demand for an RE2 remake came from in the first place. The RE1 remake had very cleverly used the players’ nostalgia against them, subverting our expectations in all the most notorious moments. It also made modest but smart improvements to the game’s systems and drastic improvements to its audiovisual elements, and threw in a few meatier surprises. Basically it succeeded in an impossible aim: to make fans feel like they were replaying their favorite game for the first time.

For the most part, RE2’s remake is just as much of a triumph as RE1’s, combining state-of-the-art tech and thoughtful self-reflection to make the old feel brand new again. The police station is significantly altered from its original layout, and yet similar enough that you feel like you know it. The more rote, later sections of the original game have been given new personality and contour—the greenhouse and sewer sections both stood out as impressively reimagined. The characters, too, have been smartly rewritten to feel more like interacting humans than archetypal action figures. Each one of them bore impressive nuance rarely seen in a Capcom title but crucial for good horror, in my opinion.

The action seems to lean heavily toward the “survival” side of things, with even plain-jane zombies sometimes taking an obscene number of bullets before they stay down. I appreciate how this adds to the “dangerous” feel of the game, but I sometimes felt like it had lost a little bit of the fun factor I associate with the shooting action of the entire series. Still, I see this as a stylistic choice rather than a flaw, and they also give you a handful of unlockable infinite ammo rewards in the post-game so you can go for a more action-packed “victory lap.” (Note: @jbsargent taught me that term :D)

Mr. X is worth his own essay, but I’ll just say he was always one of my favorite things about RE2 and he’s absolutely my favorite thing about the RE2remake. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Shortcomings

I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the remake’s glaring mistreatment of the A/B campaign structure. The whole point of this game’s dual-protagonist hook is to show the unfolding of events from two separate but concurrent perspectives. Here’s what happened to Claire. Now here’s what happened to Leon. The remake sometimes gives us this—Leon deals with Ada while Claire handles Sherry and the police chief—but sometimes inexplicably puts Leon and Claire through the same events, implying that only one of these campaigns is happening. How else can you explain that both Leon and Claire witness, for example, Mr. X lifting the chopper wreckage to make his chilling debut? What point is there to an A/B campaign if they nullify each other? They may as well have done away with the “2nd Run” concept altogether and just let you pick the Leon story or the Claire story. This is one of those things that bothers me the more I think about it. It didn’t affect me very much in the moment, but looking back I don’t know what to make of the story at all. Who did what? The 2nd Run is slightly shorter than the first, but I would have been content with something even shorter if it meant a more coherent narrative.

They’ve also cut at least a couple of the moments from the original game in which Leon and Claire check in with one another, which I found to be enough to greatly hurt the sense of connection between the two characters. The moments when they do interact are great, but I wished there’d been a few more. They also speed through the intro movie on 2nd Run, employing a “Last time on 24”-like highlight reel instead of giving it the space it needs to establish the crucial atmosphere and character dynamics. I didn’t like that.

Camera placement is a debate that will probably never die in the Resident Evil community, and it’s hard for me to even decide where I stand on the matter. The use of fixed camera angles in the classic games was a stroke of genius that allowed the games to mimic the tried-and-tested techniques of horror film, but occasionally the shifting angles caused player inputs to get tangled, resulting in unintended frustration. The over-the-shoulder cam used in the RE2 remake and most other recent RE titles gives the player complete control over what they see. This is a much friendlier interface for the action sequences, but it also means the game can’t force you to look at anything. On my first playthrough, I missed four or five classic moments including the first appearance of Mr. X because I happened to be looking elsewhere when they occurred. I see this as emblematic of the sometimes conflicting aims of game design, where a game is both a plaything and a cinematic experience targeting specific emotions. I’m not sure there’s a perfect solution to this, but I appreciate that the game essentially operates like an autonomous ecosystem. If you miss the action it’s your own fault, but it’s true to life in that sense.

↑ This is actually one rare moment where camera control is taken away and you have to look. Gah.

I don’t think there’s any fair way to conclude that the remake is better or worse than its predecessor, but I’ll happily submit that Resident Evil 2 is the best game ever announced via T-shirt. I think Capcom can look back with pride and say, "WE DID IT."