Defiant to the end, we hear the call

“Wake up, amigo… I’m starting to get bored!”

He sang out as he suddenly heard a soft click right by his ear and grimaced in surprise. 

“How could you hear me? I went out of my way to sneak up… I was quiet, I waited… what did I do wrong?”

Leon smiled slightly as he holstered the gun he’d been pointing at his buddy and turned on the light.

“You stumbled twice in the stairwell and cursed three times… plus, you greeted someone when you reached the third floor, and you made some pretty risqué compliments to a female. In the end, you were actually pretty quiet… but you literally hit every loose floorboard in my apartment. But the fact that you picked the lock on my apartment door… I’ve got to give you that… that was damn smart.”

Luis slumped his shoulders and let out a sigh of relief.

“Krauser turned you into a monster… do you sleep standing up or something? Do you puff yourself up when danger strikes? I mean… that’s not normal.”

Shaking his head, Leon opened the blinds, letting light pour into the sparse interior of his current abode. It was early in the morning, the sun had just risen, but he hadn’t been sleeping much anyway. Luis was still wearing one of those flimsy hospital gowns, and his arms were covered in bandages from the countless IVs he’d been hooked up to over the past few weeks. Slowly, the Spaniard was regaining his strength, something no one had thought possible after Krauser had stabbed him in the chest with a knife. But Navarro was tough… the BSAA had found him after the island where the Las Plagas parasite had spread was more or less completely blown up, and they brought him to one of the bases in France where Leon was also stationed.  The joy of their reunion didn’t last long, Luis lost consciousness and fell into a coma, one that lasted until his body had stabilized somewhat. When Leon returned from a short mission, the scientist had already regained his cheeky wit and had tried several times to escape from the infirmary. During that time, a close friendship had developed between the men, and even a certain level of trust, even though they couldn’t have been more different.

“Dr. Nawaski won’t be very happy if she doesn’t see you during morning rounds.”

Luis rolled his eyes, shook his head as he walked into the kitchen, took some cold milk from the fridge, drinking it straight from the carton and finally settled into one of the wooden chairs.

“I feel like I’m slowly growing into this bed, merging with the material, or just melting away.  I’ve rested enough now… now I finally want to get back to the beautiful things in life.”

A broad grin spread across his lips as he turned to the blond agent and winked at him.

“Fine by me… you’ll know what’s best for you.”

Leon replied matter-of-factly as he sat down next to him and eyed him skeptically. 

“Have they kept grilling you? About… that thing?”

Luis nodded slightly and leaned back.

“Si, si… every single day… and I’m still pretending I can’t remember a thing… I’m just not in the mood for all these questions and explanations right now. Las Plagas has been eradicated… the formula for the antidote is in my head… I don’t want anything to do with it for quite a while, and at most I’ll come up with stuff like… scented slime you can knead, in case you need a distraction.”

Leon snorted with amusement and raised an eyebrow.

“Something like that already exists… but well, I think you’ve earned this break.”

They looked at each other for a while, until Luis finally narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. 

“You know, Kennedy, most people go to Spain for the beaches... not for religious parasite cults... maybe you should treat yourself to a break too.”

Leon shook his head, laughing. 

“And most scientists don’t sell their research to crazy fanatics.”

The Spaniard put a hand to his chest.

“Ouch... right in the heart..... mhm... too soon?”

“A little.”

For a moment, there was silence. Luis looked out the window… he liked to pretend that the whole thing didn’t affect him anymore, as if he’d mentally detached himself from it, but that constant pang of guilt still gnawed at him, and it probably wouldn’t ever go away. 

“I still think about it often, though. All those people there, the villagers… they never really had a chance.”

Leon nodded slowly, and his expression grew serious again, even understanding… because they both knew what it was like to survive a mission like that and to have to watch, all too often, as innocent people were exploited and ultimately died. 

“…and the people I’ve lost.”

The mood was now different than before. Normally, Luis always hid his thoughts behind his inexhaustible sense of humor, giving hardly any hint that everything he’d been through weighed heavily on him as well, while Leon resorted to sarcasm because he, too, found it difficult to talk about emotions and feelings simply because it had been drilled out of him, because the credo was: You’re a special agent now; you belong to a military unit tasked with saving the world… Feelings and emotions are a danger.

“I understand that.”

He said quietly nonetheless, and at that moment, Luis looked up at him. 

“You’re still thinking about Raccoon City, aren’t you?”

Leon stood up and calmly began making coffee.

“Sometimes I think we’re both experts at carrying things around with us that we should have let go of long ago.”

As he looked for cups, Leon nodded twice, then set them on the table and poured some of the hot, black gold for both of them.

“If you know a way, let me know.”

He finally replied dryly and sat back down. 

“Alcohol.”

“No.”

“Women?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then, unfortunately, I don’t have any other suggestions.”

Leon couldn’t help but laugh, which made Luis grin contentedly. 

“There it is... I was starting to worry you’d forgotten how to do that.”

“You talk too much.”

“And you don’t talk enough... together, we make a perfect human, eh?”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Of course it’s true. You’re the depression.. I’m the embodiment of chaos.”

Leon shook his head.

“Unbelievable that you survived.”

Luis raised his cup.

“And yet here I am... a triumph of human science flesh.”

They clinked their coffee cups together, almost like a ritual. 

“Here’s to a second chance.”

Luis’s smile became a little more sincere.

“Here’s to a second chance, amigo.”

It felt good to have someone around who was… different. Luis had grown up in the midst of all this shit too, he’d even been on the wrong side for a long time but he’d taken a different path once he realized what his research was causing and what was being done with it. He’d changed for the better, and Leon remembered that… so it was never too late to switch sides, it was never too late to do something good. Luis should have died. Actually, Leon had long since come to terms with that. He still remembered that moment clearly, the feeling of having lost yet another person he hadn’t been able to save. It had been a familiar feeling. Almost everyone who had become important to him seemed, at some point, to either disappear, get hurt, or die. It was as if life were constantly teaching him the same lesson. That’s why it still felt strange to be sitting across from Luis and seeing him alive. Even stranger was the fact that Luis apparently hadn’t changed one bit. Maybe that was exactly why Leon now valued his company more than he would ever admit.

“You’re doing it again.”

Luis’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

Leon looked up.

“What?”

“You’re zoning out.”

“I’m sitting right in front of you.”

“Physically, yes... but mentally, you’re probably somewhere in the middle of an existential crisis.”

Leon rolled his eyes dismissively. 

“Maybe I’m just thinking.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. Normal people think and then eventually come back, you burrow so deep into your thoughts that you almost have to send out a search party.”

“Maybe there are interesting things down there.”

“With that look on your face? Doubtful.”

A brief smile flitted across Leon’s lips, barely visible, but Luis noticed it immediately. The man seemed to have a special talent for picking up on even the smallest changes.

“There.”

Leon rolled his eyes.

“Not again.”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

“What?”

“Almost a smile.”

“Almost.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

Luis leaned back further and crossed his arms behind his head. His chair creaked ominously under the movement, but he didn’t seem to care.

“You know, I’m starting to think you look so serious on purpose.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To maintain your image.”

“Maintain my image?”

“Of course...the mysterious government agent, you know?"

“You’ve watched too many movies.”

“And you haven’t watched enough.”

Leon just shook his head. Sometimes he really wondered how Luis managed to still be that way, even after everything that had happened. He knew that his laid-back manner didn’t mean Luis didn’t feel guilty. Leon had seen the shadows in his eyes. He’d noticed the moments when Luis suddenly fell silent, the moments when his smile vanished for a fraction of a second. But every day, the Spanish made a conscious decision to carry on regardless.

“On the other hand, maybe it’s just because you’re too good-looking to look relaxed. Maybe that’s just the way your face is?”

Leon closed his eyes.

“Luis.”

“What?”

“No.”

“No what?”

“Just no.”

“You didn’t even let me finish my sentence.”

“I know the sentence.”

“Maybe it was highly intellectual and damn smart?”

“It wasn’t.”

Luis placed a hand on his chest and shook his head in disappointment.

“Unbelievable.... I open up emotionally and get rejected right away.”

“You’re not opening up at all.”

“My heart, maybe.”

“Your heart is probably just as full of nonsense as your head.”

“That was mean.”

“You’ll get over it.”

Luis let out a dramatic sigh and shook his head as if Leon had just deeply hurt him. But after a few seconds, the grin was already back on his face. Leon noticed that Luis tried a little longer this time, but even now he remained largely unimpressed, because he had long since forgotten how to react to such things at all. And it was precisely this thought that finally silenced Luis. The longer he knew him, the more clearly he noticed something. Not just with Leon, with almost every soldier, agent, or specialist he had encountered. They didn’t seem like normal people. Of course, they laughed sometimes, but it often felt as though all these things were just functions, routines, and habits, ss if they’d learned at some point to lock their feelings away in little coffins and nail the lids shut tight so nothing could escape.

“Can I tell you something honest?”

Leon raised an eyebrow.

“That doesn’t usually stop you anyway.”

“True.”

The dark haired mans grin had vanished by now.

“You guys scare me sometimes. You… people like you.”

He searched for the right words.

“Soldiers… agents and stuff like that. People who constantly live on the edge of disaster.”

His gaze drifted to the window, where normal life was passing by outside.

“You know what strikes me?”

Leon didn’t answer, but Luis continued anyway.

“Any normal person would break down at some point. After everything you’ve been through, after everything you’ve seen, that would be completely normal...no one could blame them, but you guys don’t break down.”

A bitter smile appeared on his face. His gaze returned to Leon. Leon took a deep breath. .

“Someone has to do it.”

The words came immediately, like a reflex… or perhaps like a program. Luis briefly lowered his gaze to his hands and exhaled slowly.

“That’s exactly what I mean, Kennedy. You’re all machines and don’t even realize it… but I used to be a Boy Scout or something, and my good deed is that we’re doing something every day now. With women and alcohol… and lots of rebellious stuff.”

Leon raised an eyebrow slowly, very slowly.

“You should stay away from alcohol, you…”

But he was interrupted mid-sentence when Luis jumped up, ran to the window, and opened it.

“Say that again, amigo, and I’ll strip naked right here and now, so everyone on your team can see!”

“You’re not going to do that!!”

“Yes… yes, I’m going to do it!”

Leon grabbed the other man by the collar of his shirt and pulled him back into the kitchen.

“Calm down, Luis… we can give it a try. But first, we have to secure the recipe for the antidote. Got it?”

Luis nodded, reassured.

“No problem. And from now on, we’re living by the motto HAKUNAMATATA. Your worries are my worries, and vice versa… and believe me, I’ve got it easier there, because I’m going to cause an incredible number of worries… at the latest when you hear me singing in a karaoke bar.”

Leon cleared his throat, shaking his head.

“Well then? I guess I’ll go along with it…”

My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade