Work Text:
Ashley heard the sickening squelch as Leon dispatched the last of the cultists. She had almost looked up out of instinct, but she kept her gaze focused on the ground ahead of her. Too many gory images in her head recently, she didn’t want to add one more.
Leon seemed so used to it though, he didn’t even hesitate to shoot. Probably all that secret agent training stuff, she’d imagine, but for some reason Ashley couldn’t help but figure that his instincts went a little deeper than that.
“Ashley!” She felt Leon’s strong hands on her arms, helping to her feet. “You okay?”
She looked up at his tired, worried, but gentle face and she found herself smiling a bit. “Yeah, I think so.” Ashley grabbed his arms back as she steadied herself on her feet. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Leon returned a very brief smile, before taking a step back to observe their surroundings. Ashley was letting go of his arms when she noticed rivers of red dripping down his water-resistant shirt. She slowly followed the trail up to what looked like a horrible gash wound on Leon’s shoulder. Her heart jolted in a panic, when did that happen?
“Leon!” she said, grabbing on to his arm again in shock, terrified for him. "You're hurt!"
He followed her gaze to his shoulder and let out a small breath. Leon rolled his shoulder nonchalantly, as if he was not being bothered at all. “Got cocky for a sec,” he said simply.
That wasn’t a satisfying enough answer to her, but honestly Ashley didn’t know what to say. It’s not like she could do anything to make it feel better, Leon was the one hanging onto all the supplies. Stay and rest? With all these dead bodies and cultists right around the corner?
“Hey, I’m okay,” Leon’s voice cut through all her worry, as it always has. “It looks worse than it is.”
He was doing such a good job of acting normal about it all, Ashley almost believed him. But there was a slight quiver in his voice, the subtle way he was holding his shotgun that made Ashley realize he was in terrible pain.
Still, what was she going to do? She felt so useless.
Instead of saying or doing anything, she just nodded her head once. “‘K,” she replied simply. “I-If you say so.”
After making sure the area was secure, she and Leon went on their way through the castle. Ashley tried not to worry too much about Leon’s injury, but it was pretty hard when he was literally trailing blood onto the floor. Despite that, Leon pushed forward with such a stoic professionalism it would make her father jealous.
Time and time again, Leon has been thrown around, cut, bruised, and beaten, but he always came out the other side looking better than their enemies did. But she’s also seen him patch up those same cuts and bruises, always trying to make it seem that it wasn’t that bad.
Ashley wasn’t that naïve. She knew that he was acting like that not to worry her, to be her pillar of support. Some small, childish part of her was angry that he was treating her like a little kid, but at the same time, Ashley just felt bad because it was working.
Being aware of how Leon’s acting around her didn’t mean she didn’t get fooled by the ‘I’m fine, let’s keep going’ statements after an encounter with those cultists. Sometimes she didn’t even realize he was hurt until he was jamming some herbs into an unseen wound as they were moving on. This man was extremely resilient to pain, it made Ashley wonder what made him so good at keeping it at bay. Some part of her didn’t want to know.
After all that Leon was doing for her, Ashley wished she could contribute back a little more. She hated feeling like she wasn’t doing enough.
Judging by the fact that Leon has not treated his wound yet, Ashley was getting the feeling that they were low on supplies, or at least medical ones. Or maybe he was going to do it later? But Leon didn’t say anything and Ashley didn’t feel like Leon would answer her if she asked. Either way, she didn’t like how the wound glistened in the torchlight, it was still bleeding after all this time.
It’s been a while since they’ve seen any of those cultists and she was working up the courage to say something about Leon’s shoulder.
“Hey, let’s take a break for a sec,” she spoke up, maybe a little more loudly than she had intended to.
Immediately, Leon was on the alert and he turned to her, his eyes studying over her form. “Are you okay?” He was checking up on her.
Ashley fought the urge to make a face at him. ‘You’re the one leaking blood all over the floor!’, she wanted to say, but she stopped herself. If she brought it up, she had a pretty good feeling that Leon was going to pretend it’s alright. A moment passed and an idea hit her.
“Oh, uh, I feel a little dizzy,” she lied. She lifted her hand to rub her head to sell it a bit better.
From the concerned way Leon was looking at her, her ploy worked. But almost instantly, Ashley felt awful for lying to him. Leon was conflicted, by the idea of pushing forward and worried for her well-being. She hated that she was forcing this dilemma on him, but she had a feeling that he wouldn’t have wanted to stop otherwise.
“I know a place where we can stop and rest for a moment,” Leon said. “Think you can hang on a little longer?”
“Yeah!” she blurted out a little too eagerly. Leon gave her a strange look. “Oh, yeah, I can. Thanks.”
Thankfully, Leon didn’t dwell on her strange behavior and she happily followed Leon to the safe room he had in mind. They entered a long hallway of some kind and Leon took a right into one of the doors.
“Oh, break time’s over,” a new voice said.
Ashley was startled, but relaxed when she realized it was the merchant, standing on one side of the room with all his wares set up on a table, accompanied by that same strange purple torch. The guy was a little weird: suspicious, odd, the whole nine yards. If they were anywhere else, Ashley would steer clear of him, but Leon seems to trust him, and that was enough in her book.
“Think we can crash here for a few minutes?” Leon asked the man.
The merchant shrugged, offhandedly gesturing to the room. “Be my guest, stranger. Don’t exactly own the place, now do I?” He let out that memorable hoarse chuckle Ashley had learned to associate with him.
Yeah. Definitely weird.
Leon directed her to a couch on the other side of the room and had her sit down. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
As she sat down, she accidentally let out a pretty deep sigh. She had no idea how tired she was until she sat down. Forget the parasite, her feet might kill her before it does. “Better. I think,” she replied.
“Good to hear.” Leon smiled a little, bringing up his watch. He messed with it for a moment and Ashley heard a small beep. “We’ll get going in ten minutes.”
Ashley waited for Leon to get out something to treat his wounds, but all he did was sit on a chair nearby, gun at the ready, breathing softly with his eyes closed. Now she was sure that they didn’t have anything to treat his wound. The fact that Leon hasn’t tried buying anything from the merchant probably meant they didn’t have any currency either.
She nervously chewed her lip, glancing at his wound again. Still bleeding. Ashley looked around the dusty room, but there were no clean clothes or towels to bandage it up either. Was there nothing that could be done? Then remembered, the merchant was still loitering on the other side of the room.
The merchant was yawning, lazily taking inventory of the wares he got. Most of them were guns and the like, but after a moment of staring, she noticed the tip of a First Aid Spray peeking from underneath his cloak.
“Uhm!” She said out loud, standing.
Both Leon and the merchant turned to look at her in surprise.
Before either of them could speak, Ashley approached the merchant hesitantly. “You have a First Aid Spray?” She’s never talked to him before, honestly, he wasn’t sure she was even on his radar. Leon was his customer, not her, but she hoped he would hear her out.
The strange man’s eyes lit up. “You’re in luck. As a matter of fact, I do.” He pulled out the little canister from his coat and held it up for her to see. “Fresh off the shelves, all for a fair price of ten thousand pesetas.”
Ashley pressed her lips and widened her eyes. That seemed…like a lot. Not that she would know, Leon was the one handling all the currency too, she didn’t have anything to pay the merchant for that. Maybe she should have thought this through.
“Ashley-” Leon’s voice came from somewhere behind her.
“Please,” Ashley begged the merchant, the feeling of urgency beginning to grow. “Leon’s hurt and I-” She swallowed, feeling some tears coming on. “...I want to help.”
For a long moment, the merchant stared at her. Then he looked behind her where she realized Leon was standing. There was a look of concern and confusion on the agent's face, but he didn’t say anything. The awkward silence was palpable and Ashley was feeling a little embarrassed. She should have definitely thought this through. But then, suddenly, the merchant let out a startlingly loud sigh.
“Just because you asked so nicely.” The merchant put the canister on the table and moved it closer to her. “On the house, stranger,” he said, voice strangely soft and kind.
Ashley gave him an open grin. “Thank you!” She grabbed the canister and nearly bumped into Leon when she whirled it around. “Leon!” She showed the canister to him eagerly.
Leon had a look of disbelief on his face, more so at the merchant than at her. “Don’t suppose I can get any freebies?”
The Merchant let out a loud laugh, as if what Leon said was the funniest thing in the world. “Sorry, fresh out of those for today, stranger.” He waved his hand dismissively.
Leon scoffed in response before finally turning to her. Ashley felt his scrutinizing eyes boring into her and Ashley felt herself looking away. “You’re not really dizzy, are you?” he asked after a considerable silence.
“Uh…” Ashley offered him a sheepish look. “Sorry. I didn’t know how else to make you stop.” She held up the canister. “But we can treat your shoulder now!”
He still had a mixed expression on his face, but after a moment, it softened. “Okay,” he said. Leon was about to reach for it before she jerked it away from him.
“No,” she said firmly. “You sit, I’ll treat your shoulder.” Leon was giving her another look, but before he could say anything, Ashley spoke up. “I know First Aid.” Which was the truth. She was getting more and more grateful she had gone through that lifeguard training when she was sixteen. It had been to pad out her college resume, but it was paying off dividends.
For a moment, Leon looked like wanted to protest, but he shook his head, relenting. “Alright, Doctor Graham.”
She directed him to sit on the nice sofa chair she had been sitting on earlier. Leon was being strangely complacent and Ashley wondered if he was just letting her do this to put her at ease, In the end, it didn’t matter, as long as Leon got his shoulder treated.
As Ashley primed the spray, she took a closer look at the gash on his shoulder. It was just as horrific as when she had first seen it, tender flesh still visible and it was still leaking trickles of red. Something sharp, maybe one of the scythes or blades, had dug into the flesh of his shoulder. She wondered if that white part in the deepest indent was bone. The thought made her sick. How had Leon ignored it for this long?
“Ashley…” Leon’s calm voice brought her back to reality. As always.
“I can do this,” she replied, steeling herself. “You just relax, Leon.”
As gently as she could, Ashley carefully sprayed the contents on the canister onto the wound. It must have stung, because Leon clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, but Ashley knew she couldn’t stop until the spray was entirely used.
“Sorry,” she whispered softly as she continued spraying.
Like magic, the spray began mending the flesh, almost as if it was growing new ones to replace the missing chunks (Ashley tried hard not to think about how gory that sounded). When the last few spurts of the spray erupted from the nozzle, Leon’s injury had pretty much healed. The only thing left over was a pink, tender mark on where the wound used to be.
“There.” Ashley let out a big sigh of relief that it was over. She hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath. “How are you feeling?” she asked him.
Leon made some exaggerated movements with his shoulder, testing it out and he stood up again. “Like a million bucks,” he replied. “Thanks, doc.”
The smile he gave her made her blush. Leon didn’t smile a lot, when he did they were fleeting and were mostly given to assure her. But the smile he had on his face now was genuine and the biggest one she’s ever seen on him. He was grateful.
“Anytime,” she replied, echoing his words back at him.
Suddenly there was a small beeping sound and Leon looked down at his watch. “Looks like our break time’s over. We gotta keep moving.”
“Okay,” Ashley agreed. Despite spending most of the break helping Leon, she didn’t feel tired at all. This whole thing really energized her, she could face down a thousand of those crazy mutating cultists now!...Perhaps not a thousand though.
“Come on,” Leon encouraged her as she came up to his side. “Remember, stay-”
“Close,” Ashley finished. “I got it,” she smirked at him. She knew the drill.
As they were about to exit the room, the Merchant spoke up. Ashley had almost forgotten he was in the room. “Don’t get yourselves killed now!” He laughed heartily again.
Ashley looked over the shoulder as she was leaving and made eye contact with the strange man. She smiled at him gratefully.
The merchant had most of his face covered up, but from the way his eyes crinkled at the ends, it almost looked like he was smiling as he waved goodbye.
