⚠ Near Death ⚠

Upon opening the rusted red gate, they are welcomed to a new open area. To the left a blocked path, full of boxes and wasted junk. While next to it, some sort of gate. Seeming being lock as well by some sort of puzzle key, which they had no device for it at the moment. On their right, stood the man behind a table. Walking up to him, the man opens up his coat, revealing an abundant of arsenal.

Alec stays to the side of Leon as they stood in front of the man. "Well I be damned." Alec says, awestruck.

The man chuckles. "That you should, mate. Got a whole lotta goods in stock for ya. Take a look."

Leon eyes the man suspiciously. "Why are you helping us?"

The man points with his finger at Leon. "I'm a bloody merchant mate. It's business practical. I supply, you buy. I make a buck out of it, simple," he laughs, while understanding the hostility. "Besides, you- ya both are the only paying customers as of lately. This rubbish of a town, ain't giving me business- you know what? I'll throw an upgrade at ya, free of charge. If you buy anything of mine. How's that sound?" The man leans forward, wiggling his eyebrows that were barley visible due to what he wore. His choice in clothing covering most of his body, only his eyes visible. The eyebrows barley sticking out front under the clothing.

Leon let's his gaurd down, he squeezes the top of his right shoulder to ease the tenion building up. His glances at Alec. "Well, getting something free never hurt anyone." Leon says. Alec leans against a barrel as he nods to Leon. But in today's day and age getting something free can be seen as problematic.

The merchant lightly hits the table in agreement. "That's the spirit mate. Well then, buy whatever your heart desires."

Wasting no time, Leon rummages through what the man has to offer. Alec wonders how Leon even got money, or where there at. The form of payment. "Alec?" Leon says.

"What's up?" Alec got up and stood closer to Leon, watching Leon look through the stuff the merchant offers, buying a few.

"Can you lend me your gun, real quick?" Without looking behind him, Leon stuck out his hand, palm up; waiting for the gun to be placed in his hand. Was he asking or demanding...? Alec thought.

"Uh, sure." Grabing his gun from his holster, he places it in Leon's palm, facing the barrel outwards. Putting Leon's safety as a main priority when handling the gun.

"Oh! Wanting me to upgrade your lads gun huh? Must say, for someone your size," the merchant looks at Alec. " I didn't view you as a trigger happy bloke."

Leon laughs but stops abruptly by trying to cover it with coughing. Alec eyes Leon annoyingly for laughing with the merchant, crossing his hands in front of his chest. He lets out a sound, displeasingly and looks off to the side, his ego a little damage.

"Hey, welll. From what I've seen and read, he can definitely handle a gun. No matter the size." Leon spoke, backing up Alec. Leon reminences. Before getting to the white house, he was curious and wanted to know about the son of the president. From what he read, Alec reminded him alot of his past self. His determination to help, to seek, to venture into things most would not. His determination influenced by vast and past experiences. Much like Leon himself, his childhood wasn't the greatest, it's what ultimately lead him to become a police officer. What scared him the most was that Alec was very similar in hendsight, he doesn't want him to go down path he himself is on now. If he could, he would've argued with the president about not wanting Alec to go with him. Leon ponders for a quick second, 'what would Alec be doing, if he weren't with him?' From knowing Alec for a couple of days, he already knew the answer. Finding his sister. Or from what Leon knew, Baby Eagle.

Sneaking a glance at Alec, he watches Alec looking anywhere other than himself and the merchant, with pouted lips. It's like having a younger me on this mission...

Alec was completely stunned by Leon's thought on the humorous matter, he feels heat forming on his face from Leon's statement. Thinking about what he said over and over, he soon feels a weird tension coming from his bottom half of his body. Now is not the fucking time. "Okey dokey. I'm off." Alec quickly leaves and goes over to inspect the weird key hole to the gate he saw when entering. Thinking anything else other than Leon wording.

"Alec-" Leon smiles deviously and ruffles his hair a bit. He finishes grabing his stuff. "Thanks."

The merchant gave a nod. "Anytime, stranger."

Leon walks up to Alec, placing the gun in front of him. "Here, your gun should be better now." Alec snatches the gun in a hasty manner and puts it in his holster, mumbling a 'thank you'.

Walking up to the gate and the key placement, Leon hums and looks around, with his hands on his hips. "We're gonna need to find whatever fits in this, let's head this way." He spoke to Alec, while looking behind them. Finding and eerie walkway leading to god nows where. Alec follows Leon in saunter manner and he hears Leon mumbling. "The hell are we?"

They began to hear someone speak up ahead, advancing towards them. "Leon..." Alec warns as he gets his gun ready.

"I know." A villager out of know where, runs up with a knife in hand. Charging at them, Leon gets his out as well and parried the knife just in time to let him shoot 2 bullets into the head and down the village goes.

Impressed, Alec whistles. "You gotta teach me how to do that."

Leon turns to look at Alec. The cold wind suddenly picking up, sending a shiver through Alec's body. While Leon's dirty blonde hair flown elegantly with it. His eyes shimmer and he gives a polite nod while grinning. "Maybe- If you don't hurt yourself, that is."

Alec groans and he and leon continue to walk, side by side. "Oh my- I'm literally in possession of a firearm, is there really a massive difference between the two?"

Leon stops suddenly, seemingly in thought. "You know what," Leon states while swinging the knife by the thumb placement made on it. "Why don't I give you a quick lesson, so you can quit complaining about knife this and knife that."

With an eyebrow raised, Alec rubs his neck in embarrassment. "I don't complain..." maybe I do...

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, so first of all, stance is way off. I don't even know if can explain it to you. Here," Leon walks behind Alec and grabs his waist. Alc gasps at the sudden touch, looking eyewide at Leon behind him. "What? You want to learn? You learn it how I teach it. Got it?" Leon all of the sudden seems serious. Where the hell has this Leon been?

Quickly looking forward, Alec takes a gulp of saliva. "Yes sir."

Leon lets out a grunt in satisfaction. "Good...left handed or right handed?" Alec quietly murmurs left, slight irritated by the sudden change in attitude in Leon. His response unfortunately was barley audible to Leon, so Leon spoke with a more stern voice as he puts a hand on Alec's shoulder. "Speak up." Leon's voice vibrates into his ear.

"Le- left." Alec mentally slaps himself for stuttering, he wouldn't lie. He's kinda scared of this Leon but also...intrigued?

He feels Leon grab him by the left hand and gently places the knife in his hand correctly. He feels Leon's hand glad over his shoulders, down his chest then to his wait, where they lay dormant. "Since you're left handed, you're gonna want your feet at a 45 degree angle with your left foot leading." Alec fixes his feet as told while Leon's left hand went and held Alec's left hand just in case he fell; plus the knife. [Leon leads with his right leg as he hold the knife and attacks in game with his right arm, so I just did the same here]

Leon lightly kicks Alec's feet in the correct way. "Now your feet placement doesn't really matter in a life or death situation, but if you want a precise hit. Just having a knowledge of the standard stance can you help you greatly."

He then gets closer to Alec, he rough chest right against Alec's back. "You're gonna want to keep your head narrowed slightly down when looking at the enemy while the," Leon's right hand slowly slides down Alec's right, grabing him by the wrist and fixing it in the correct position so as his left. "Knife is kept shoulder-width from your neck down to your waist." Leon gets even closer to Alec, he feeling Leon's breath hit against his left ear in a rhythmic fashion. Alec tries to quietly clam his erratic breathing as he reminds himself Leon is just simply teaching him.

"And keep the knife held as if your holding a hammer but with a slight turn inwards." Fixing his left hand, the stance was complete. "Now, stab as if a villager came at you."

Alec does what he's told and smiles. "Well what do you know, I'm a natural."

"That you are..." Alec turns his head to find Leon staring at his hair then to his eyes, the time seemed to stop. But as much as he wanted this moment to last, his sister came to mind and gently pushed himself off of Leon. As he did it seemed Leon wasn't fond of him doing so, as he fingers lingered on him as he moved away but said nothing of it. Leon fixes his shirt and equipment.

"Thanks Leon..." Alec says, holding out the knife to him. Leon nods and grabs the knife but Alec places a hand on top of his.

"I mean it, you're helping me find my sister, saving me numerous times and even teaching me a few skills. I'm grateful." Leon places his other hand on top of Alec's, their hand together like a sandwich.

Leon let's go and places the knife back on his shoulder. "What'd they even teach you?" Leon ask seriously yet humorously.

"Obviously gun safety and situations dealing with such. Not knife safety- like my father said, my time was limited, very limited."

"Alright, I believe you...just gotta keep teaching you myself huh?" Leon looks at a ladder that was a few feet away from them, then continues talking. "Well you did good, good job Alec."

Alec feels all giddy inside, and climb up the ladder first with excitement crawling inside of him. It all went away when seeing what was over the ladder. Leon looked up and sees the smile and tense shoulders Alec began to show. "What is it Alec?"

"You might wanna come look at this." Leon makes his way up and stands right by Alec, seeing another small village consumed by the 'infected' villagers.

Leon automatically kills the ones up in the upper areas then plops down on the ground. "Follow me!" He yells to Alec.

"Okay!" Alec follows and kills villagers as they come to them in different areas. They take a right from the bridge and head towards the back of a house as more continue to make their way to them. Leon crashes through the window, doing a barrel roll. Looking behind him, Alec sees more coming close and jumps through the window, getting a few scrapes in the process. Leon stealth kills an enemy standing in the middle, then makes his way up yet another ladder. Alec hasty climbs up and sees Leon holding out a hand to him, he grabs it and gets lifted up quickly.

He watches as Leon grabs some sort of Hexagonal thing off the roof and looks around frantically. He then points towards a hill. "We're gonna head there, you run and make your way there. I'll kill any behind us."
Alec hesitates for a second, unexpected to be taking the lead. "Now!" Leon yells.

Alec runs with his gun out, evading the nasty grabs the villagers try on him. He makes it to the end of the bridge taking a left then a right, going up the small steep. Then taking another right and heads up even more. Thinking he was out of the cross hair of the enemies, he looks at Leon down below to see him finishing the villagers off. A sudden breeze flew past his ear and got a quick glimpse of an axe flying past. Alec aims and shoots the man dead, then advances forth. Two more are see at the end, axes ready. Taking in the situation, Alec finds a Barrel of gas sitting right by them. "That just made my day better." Alec shoot the barrel, gas exploding and killing the two instantly. He makes it to the end and find a wheel. He turns it to see what it'd do and it opens the gate, he then opens it more all the way. He tries to find a wat down and find one. He jumps off the brigde to a roof of a house. He back up when hearing footsteps coming to him and raises his gun up and prepares to shoot. Leon jumps and makes his way on the roof, hands up. "It's just me Alec, put the gun down."

He lets out a longing sigh and aims it to the ground. Leon walks past him and looks down. "Here. We can make this jump to the ground."

"Okay-" Before Alec could get another word in, he hears the sound of something light up and flickering. He turns to see a pipe bomb being thrown at them and for the last second, he worries about Leon. Not even taking account his own life.

"Leon!" He pushes Leon to the ground below them. Leon grabs onto Alec as they do. Once making contact, Leon lets out a painful grunt, closing his eyes for a few seconds. Alec fell on top of Leon, his chest against his. Both heaving their lungs out, feeling the rhythm of their chest rising up and down. Leon then held Alec by the waist with both hands, proping him up. Alec lays his palms down on the ground on both sides of Leon's head while his legs trapped Leon's between his. Leon blues eyes staring right at Alec, and wanders over his lips. "You okay-"

Alec outta knowwhere gets flipped by Leon, so it's Alec who is now trapped between him. A thump could be heard as they flip, he looks to the right to see one last villager falling down and trying to make its way to them. Leon got closer to Alec, covering his body with his; his hair dancing closely to Alec's face. With his left hand still holding Alec's waist, his right hand gets his gun and quickly aims at the villager, killing him instantly.

The sounds of gunshots and yelling died out as the only sound was Leon's and Alec's irregular breathing. He sighs and lets his gun fall by Alec's head. He stays in his position and wipes away the hair that coverd Alec's face. Leon let's out a well deserved laugh. "Are you okay?"

Alec laughs with Leon. "Yeah, I'm okay-" Alec starts to feel something bubble up in his throat and starts coughing hard. Few specks of blood plaster on his lips. Leon eyes fill with worry as he tries to find the places causing it, his worse thought was if it was internal. Looking down his chest find a spot on his dark shirt, that seemed wet. He lifts Alec's shirt until the crumpled end of it layed above his belly button. It was a piece of metal sticking out of his lower abdomen. Leon's hand lay on top of it, without touching it. Not knowing what to do.

Alec wipes off the blood from his lips and see the distraught look forming on Leon's face. "Is it bad?" When Alec started to get up Leon gently pushes him back down.

"No, uhm...okay- Alec listen to me." Alec looks at Leon. "I'm going pull it out, and I'm going to apply pressure on it. It's gonna hurt like hell, I won't lie to you...you ready?" Leon gets situated, getting off Alec and kneeling right besides him with his hand hovering above the metal.

Alecs nods, tears forming in his eyes from the pain he's feeling and the pain he's going to feel after. "On the count of three," Alec lays his head back and closes his eyes. "One-" Leon quickly takes out the metal, a sound of flesh ripping apart as it does. With a loud scream of pain Alec bites on his arm, crying right after. Leon starts to rip a piece of Alec's shirt when he hears the sound of something moving on Alec's wound. He eyes it as it begins to heal itself up as if the wound was never there.

Completely in disbelief, Alec sees Leon with yet another change in emotion. "What?" Alec sits up and looks down at his chest, raising his shirt to see. What he finds is shocking, his wound healing up at a unnatural rate. "What the fuck!?"

Leon quickly stands up with the meta piece in his hand. He watches as Leon paces back and forth, the massive pain he felt from before, completely wearing off. "Dammit!" Leon throws the metal piece at the house wall, in result getting stuck.

"What's going on, what the fuck happened?" Alec asks, getting completely scared of Leon outburst.

Leon faced something like this before, maybe not in this particular way. But it was far from different. What happen to him? Could they have done something to Alec when he passed out...he didn't know and it aggravated him. Whatever was starting to form with Alec, he hoped Alec didn't turn into...something. Was umbrella behind this? He sure as hell hopes not. But one thing is certain, even if they were. He won't let Umbrella get their hands on Alec. "Get up Alec."

He frantically stands up, rubbing his shoulder in comfort. The piece of his shirt leon almost rippd off hanging by a thread, revealing his unscathed abdomen to the open. "Are you...mad at me?"

Leon rubs his temple. "What- no. Im not mad at you Alec it's just- I can't explain what just happened."

Me either...."Do you have any idea what it could be?"

Does he lie or simply spit turth? Leon didn't want Alec to worry more than he should, so he lied, for Alec's sake. "I have no idea...I honestly don't. But when I do," Leon grabs Alec by the shoulders and gives a firm squeeze. "I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe and get the help you need."

Alec was perplexed. "But isn't my sister the main mission here. Not me?"

Leon looks up to the sky, taking in a breath. When setting his eyes back on Alec, he wore a sympathetic look.

"She is...but you are important to me too."

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Author Note:

So uh the last part. Let's just say Leon's and Alec's emotions are gonna go crazy for the rest of the game xd.
I don't know if I should explain it myself or make Luis explain since he was working for umbrella at certain point or put it in one of his notes and make them both find it. Idk yet. Hope this was good.