I Know a Good Bar
Title: I Know a Good Bar
Fandom: Resident Evil
Pairings: Leon/Mike
Warnings: near death experiences
Word Count: 2134
Disclaimer: If I owned it, Mike would be alive.
Summary: Mike and Leon finally get to have that drink.
Mike really loves his job. Sure the pilot faces lethal danger on a regular ba; he's lost friends and colleagues, been injured more than once. But he also gets to see the world, fly top-notch helicopters, and swoop in to save the day like an avenging angel from above.
Case in point, his current mission. The pilot is flying off to rescue the president's actual freaking daughter and her secret agent bodyguard from some kind of cult. His life is a movie plot and that's cool as hell.
Although, Mike has to admit that this particular briefing was a little weird. Not being woken up in the middle of the night, that part is fairly standard. But the pilot usually gets a bit more information than a set of coordinates, photos of the people who need evacuation, and the directive to eliminate any hostile cultists he encounters along the way. His gunship is also loaded up more heavily than usual, reinforced with armor on the bottom and the sides.
“Bring them home,” Hunnigan orders, her voice crackling from his radio as he does his pre-flight checks. “And be careful.”
Mike takes off with her final warning still ringing in his ears. Apparently the last rescue bird was shot down before ever making contact; this group has enough high ordinance to drop a Huey from the sky.
Cultists with AA guns... What is the world coming to?, the pilot wonders and he finds himself checking his survival pack several times during the flight. If something does go FUBAR, he'll want it close at hand.
However, the trip itself is peaceful and Mike spends the time studying the pictures of his two evacuees. He wants to be able to recognize both of them on sight. If he also balances the photo of Agent Kennedy behind his controls for the rest of the journey, well, no one's around to judge him and the man is much nicer to look at than the forest down below.
But soon enough the pilot is only a few clicks out from his target coordinates, so he turns his mind back to the mission. No time to be distracted by a pretty face when there's danger on the ground.
Indeed, Mike can see an island in the distance, some kind of installation covered in harsh lights, and what might be a castle on the shore beyond. It's not the first he's ever seen but it's definitely the biggest, looming grand and ostentatious on its high cliff perch. Seriously? A castle? What is this place?
Judging by the coordinates, the last contact with Agent Kennedy was somewhere in that direction. But that was hours ago and this is a lot of ground to cover without some kind of guide.
All right. Let's get in touch and figure out where you've holed up. The pilot tries his radio, starting with the standard mission frequency and then flicking through the other channels in case someone is broadcasting. But all Mike hears is static and when his check-in back to base also goes unanswered, he realizes there must be a signal jammer across the area. If these cultists have that kind of tech, they're damn sophisticated and the lack of communication will make his mission that much more difficult.
Guess we're doing this the hard way, Mike thinks to himself. If he fails to rescue the president's daughter, he'd better have a damn good excuse to bring back to his bosses. Otherwise, it's likely that he'll never fly again.
“It seemed like too much work,” definitely won't cut it. So the pilot gives that island a wide berth for now and starts a grid search with the castle at its heart.
At first glance, everything seems normal but as soon as Mike looks closer, that illusion disappears. The castle gates have been destroyed, possibly by the cannon standing on the nearby ramparts, and the stone walls are dotted with the charred remains of catapults. There's fire on the cliffs as well, a few scattered buildings burning merrily, and his Huey's spotlight reveals more signs of combat everywhere the pilot turns.
He's starting to think that it's too late - how could one agent and his charge survive whatever happened here? - when a voice suddenly crackles across his radio.
“This is Leon. Request backup. I repeat, request backup!”
The accent is American, the voice a strong rich tenor, and there's only one person that call for help could be.
“Agent Kennedy? Do you read me?” Mike asks as his gunship swings around. But he doesn't get an answer. Just a quiet “Damn” that cuts off again mid word. His bird must have flown out of range and that right there tells the pilot all he needs to know. Because Mike had heard the voice on the edge of his search pattern, the farthest point above the water, and there's only one thing in that direction. The agent is on that island after all.
So he flies out across the ocean, trying to reach Kennedy again along the way. However, the other man must have moved on, likely needing to stay mobile to survive given the utter carnage that the pilot's light reveals. The place looks like a war zone and he's only on his second sweep when there's an explosion in the distance, loud enough to be heard above his rotor's whir.
I have a feeling that's my guy. And I'm probably gonna like him, Mike thinks before he heads in that direction. The pilot had wanted a guiding star and he aims his gunship straight for the tall stone tower that's quickly crumbling.
As his bird flies closer, Mike keeps one eye on the ground and one on his radio, watching for any sign of Agent Kennedy. The pilot has just cleared the tower ruins when he spies movement down below, a veritable horde of waiting enemies. He can't count the cultists at this distance, but rest is all too clear: dug in fortifications, a maze of turrets and barbed wire, and far too many weapons all around.
If this is what Kennedy has been facing the whole time, it's a miracle that the man is still alive. But speak of the devil, Mike spies a lone figuring darting into cover just as his radio crackles to life again.
“Hey, it's about time.”
Kennedy's voice is still strong and steady in the pilot's headset, though with an extra note of stress that wasn't there before.
“Sorry, bad traffic,” Mike quips and he's rewarded with a laugh. “I'll cover you.”
The pilot does one more flyby to get the lay of the land and his eyes catch on the water tower looming over the first open area. Well, they did reinforce my undercarriage.... and it's not as though he's likely to get another chance.
So he lines up his Huey and nudges the nose forward until he hears the scrape of metal. The tower strains and groans as Mike ups the pressure, the support struts bending bit by bit. Then there's a deafening crash and screaming from below, cultists thrown aside when that massive hunk of metal slams into the ground.
Mike doesn't give them any time to recover before he opens fire. His high caliber rounds are designed to turn men to meat at blinding speeds and that's exactly what they do. Then one of his bullets catches a red barrel and it explodes in flames, the fire reaching up to catch the nearest turret too. A shockwave rocks his gunship as the gun blows and shrapnel goes flying in all directions. He can hear it bouncing off the bottom of the Huey and he's glad for that reinforced armor once again.
“Now that's what I call backup!” comes through the pilot's headset seconds later. The stress in Kennedy's voice has been replaced with admiration and that's exactly what Mike likes to hear from his allies on the ground. Being the best damn air support anyone could ask for is a point of pride.
“Name's Mike,” he says. “You looking for firepower, you've come to the right place.”
The pilot gets one more chuckle before Kennedy gets down to business, darting forward to engage the next wave of cultists. Mike watches the agent from above while locking onto his next target and this time it's his turn to be impressed.
The other man slices through his enemies like a hot knife through butter, using every weapon in his arsenal to keep them off his back. Kennedy never stops moving as he smoothly switches between guns and a host of acrobatic fighting moves. Best of all, he listens when Mike tells him to take cover, few things an annoying as an ally who won't leave his target zone.
“Swiped them clean!” the pilot crows in satisfaction when he blows up the next machine gun and the agent can move forward once again.
The two of them work well together. After Mike clears the way with heavy firepower, Kennedy runs forward to take out the stragglers. Sometimes the agent can lure a group of enemies into the open for the gunship to eliminate, other times he's forced to kill them under cover on his own.
When he loses sight of Kennedy, the pilot uses his radio link to help keep track of the man's progress. Along with the sounds of combat, there's an endless chain of quips and one-liners coming through Mike's headset. Most of them are pretty awful but they still make the pilot laugh more than once. He's never claimed to have good taste in jokes and he likes a man who can keep his spirits up when fighting for his life.
Where the hell are these guys coming from? Mike wonders when an enormous soldier leaps onto a ledge with a machine gun and starts spraying bullets. These cultists were prepared for all out war - embedded, fortified, and loaded up for bear. But Kennedy hardly even pauses, just switches weapons once again and takes out the new arrival with some well-placed hand grenades.
“Got them scumbags!”
Mike proves his worth again when the agent runs into a cluster of three turrets, the guns surrounded by an obstacle course of armed cultists and barbed wire. He doesn't know how the hell Kennedy survives long enough for the pilot to destroy them, every cry of pain sending a stab of worry through his heart. But when the dust settles, the other man just salutes him from the ground below.
“Not bad at all,” Kennedy says and Mike can hear the smile in his voice. The pilot heads back to the water once the next gate is unlocked, his bird unable to follow the agent up the stairs beyond. Instead, he flies around the cliffs, tracking the most likely route to meet him on the other side.
Good thing too because there's another group of cultists waiting to ambush Kennedy in the ruins up above. They almost have the man surrounded when his Huey clears the rocks.
“Take cover!” Mike shouts just before he opens fire, bullets tearing through the crowd. He keeps his guns aimed low until he sees Kennedy dive behind a pillar and then he lets 'em rip. His bird is getting low on ammo but he'll be able to reload as soon as he can land and the agent's life is his first priority.
So the pilot continues shooting until his main gun clicks empty and only one enemy remains. Not for long though as a stone column topples, the survivor letting out a scream when it smashes him to paste.
Once the coast is clear, Kennedy walks back out into the open and Mike's headset beeps again. “Thanks. When we get out of here, drinks are on me.”
“Yeah! Hey, I know a good bar,” he agrees happily.
Even if it's just one drink, a thank you for his efforts, that's something to look forward to once this mission is complete. Because if he's being honest, Mike would love to spend more time with Agent Kennedy. Maybe they'll have an awkward chat and then lose touch forever. But, based on what he's seen so far, he thinks that they could be good friends if given half the chance.
For now the pilot will settle for a bit more information about what's going on. He and the agent need to regroup, reload, and come up with a plan to recover the president's daughter from wherever she's being held.
However, Mike has just spotted a good place to set down his gunship safely when there's a sudden flash in the ruins to his right and a streak of fire shoots towards him through the sky.
Ah fuck.
Chapter 2
Yep, that pairing is accurate. I was replaying the original RE4, got to the Mike section, and somehow this fic just sort of happened afterwards. I suppose if nothing else, these ink-stained memories proves that I can ship Leon with literally anyone :)
Fandom: Resident Evil
Pairings: Leon/Mike
Warnings: near death experiences
Word Count: 2134
Disclaimer: If I owned it, Mike would be alive.
Summary: Mike and Leon finally get to have that drink.
Mike really loves his job. Sure the pilot faces lethal danger on a regular ba; he's lost friends and colleagues, been injured more than once. But he also gets to see the world, fly top-notch helicopters, and swoop in to save the day like an avenging angel from above.
Case in point, his current mission. The pilot is flying off to rescue the president's actual freaking daughter and her secret agent bodyguard from some kind of cult. His life is a movie plot and that's cool as hell.
Although, Mike has to admit that this particular briefing was a little weird. Not being woken up in the middle of the night, that part is fairly standard. But the pilot usually gets a bit more information than a set of coordinates, photos of the people who need evacuation, and the directive to eliminate any hostile cultists he encounters along the way. His gunship is also loaded up more heavily than usual, reinforced with armor on the bottom and the sides.
“Bring them home,” Hunnigan orders, her voice crackling from his radio as he does his pre-flight checks. “And be careful.”
Mike takes off with her final warning still ringing in his ears. Apparently the last rescue bird was shot down before ever making contact; this group has enough high ordinance to drop a Huey from the sky.
Cultists with AA guns... What is the world coming to?, the pilot wonders and he finds himself checking his survival pack several times during the flight. If something does go FUBAR, he'll want it close at hand.
However, the trip itself is peaceful and Mike spends the time studying the pictures of his two evacuees. He wants to be able to recognize both of them on sight. If he also balances the photo of Agent Kennedy behind his controls for the rest of the journey, well, no one's around to judge him and the man is much nicer to look at than the forest down below.
But soon enough the pilot is only a few clicks out from his target coordinates, so he turns his mind back to the mission. No time to be distracted by a pretty face when there's danger on the ground.
Indeed, Mike can see an island in the distance, some kind of installation covered in harsh lights, and what might be a castle on the shore beyond. It's not the first he's ever seen but it's definitely the biggest, looming grand and ostentatious on its high cliff perch. Seriously? A castle? What is this place?
Judging by the coordinates, the last contact with Agent Kennedy was somewhere in that direction. But that was hours ago and this is a lot of ground to cover without some kind of guide.
All right. Let's get in touch and figure out where you've holed up. The pilot tries his radio, starting with the standard mission frequency and then flicking through the other channels in case someone is broadcasting. But all Mike hears is static and when his check-in back to base also goes unanswered, he realizes there must be a signal jammer across the area. If these cultists have that kind of tech, they're damn sophisticated and the lack of communication will make his mission that much more difficult.
Guess we're doing this the hard way, Mike thinks to himself. If he fails to rescue the president's daughter, he'd better have a damn good excuse to bring back to his bosses. Otherwise, it's likely that he'll never fly again.
“It seemed like too much work,” definitely won't cut it. So the pilot gives that island a wide berth for now and starts a grid search with the castle at its heart.
At first glance, everything seems normal but as soon as Mike looks closer, that illusion disappears. The castle gates have been destroyed, possibly by the cannon standing on the nearby ramparts, and the stone walls are dotted with the charred remains of catapults. There's fire on the cliffs as well, a few scattered buildings burning merrily, and his Huey's spotlight reveals more signs of combat everywhere the pilot turns.
He's starting to think that it's too late - how could one agent and his charge survive whatever happened here? - when a voice suddenly crackles across his radio.
“This is Leon. Request backup. I repeat, request backup!”
The accent is American, the voice a strong rich tenor, and there's only one person that call for help could be.
“Agent Kennedy? Do you read me?” Mike asks as his gunship swings around. But he doesn't get an answer. Just a quiet “Damn” that cuts off again mid word. His bird must have flown out of range and that right there tells the pilot all he needs to know. Because Mike had heard the voice on the edge of his search pattern, the farthest point above the water, and there's only one thing in that direction. The agent is on that island after all.
So he flies out across the ocean, trying to reach Kennedy again along the way. However, the other man must have moved on, likely needing to stay mobile to survive given the utter carnage that the pilot's light reveals. The place looks like a war zone and he's only on his second sweep when there's an explosion in the distance, loud enough to be heard above his rotor's whir.
I have a feeling that's my guy. And I'm probably gonna like him, Mike thinks before he heads in that direction. The pilot had wanted a guiding star and he aims his gunship straight for the tall stone tower that's quickly crumbling.
As his bird flies closer, Mike keeps one eye on the ground and one on his radio, watching for any sign of Agent Kennedy. The pilot has just cleared the tower ruins when he spies movement down below, a veritable horde of waiting enemies. He can't count the cultists at this distance, but rest is all too clear: dug in fortifications, a maze of turrets and barbed wire, and far too many weapons all around.
If this is what Kennedy has been facing the whole time, it's a miracle that the man is still alive. But speak of the devil, Mike spies a lone figuring darting into cover just as his radio crackles to life again.
“Hey, it's about time.”
Kennedy's voice is still strong and steady in the pilot's headset, though with an extra note of stress that wasn't there before.
“Sorry, bad traffic,” Mike quips and he's rewarded with a laugh. “I'll cover you.”
The pilot does one more flyby to get the lay of the land and his eyes catch on the water tower looming over the first open area. Well, they did reinforce my undercarriage.... and it's not as though he's likely to get another chance.
So he lines up his Huey and nudges the nose forward until he hears the scrape of metal. The tower strains and groans as Mike ups the pressure, the support struts bending bit by bit. Then there's a deafening crash and screaming from below, cultists thrown aside when that massive hunk of metal slams into the ground.
Mike doesn't give them any time to recover before he opens fire. His high caliber rounds are designed to turn men to meat at blinding speeds and that's exactly what they do. Then one of his bullets catches a red barrel and it explodes in flames, the fire reaching up to catch the nearest turret too. A shockwave rocks his gunship as the gun blows and shrapnel goes flying in all directions. He can hear it bouncing off the bottom of the Huey and he's glad for that reinforced armor once again.
“Now that's what I call backup!” comes through the pilot's headset seconds later. The stress in Kennedy's voice has been replaced with admiration and that's exactly what Mike likes to hear from his allies on the ground. Being the best damn air support anyone could ask for is a point of pride.
“Name's Mike,” he says. “You looking for firepower, you've come to the right place.”
The pilot gets one more chuckle before Kennedy gets down to business, darting forward to engage the next wave of cultists. Mike watches the agent from above while locking onto his next target and this time it's his turn to be impressed.
The other man slices through his enemies like a hot knife through butter, using every weapon in his arsenal to keep them off his back. Kennedy never stops moving as he smoothly switches between guns and a host of acrobatic fighting moves. Best of all, he listens when Mike tells him to take cover, few things an annoying as an ally who won't leave his target zone.
“Swiped them clean!” the pilot crows in satisfaction when he blows up the next machine gun and the agent can move forward once again.
The two of them work well together. After Mike clears the way with heavy firepower, Kennedy runs forward to take out the stragglers. Sometimes the agent can lure a group of enemies into the open for the gunship to eliminate, other times he's forced to kill them under cover on his own.
When he loses sight of Kennedy, the pilot uses his radio link to help keep track of the man's progress. Along with the sounds of combat, there's an endless chain of quips and one-liners coming through Mike's headset. Most of them are pretty awful but they still make the pilot laugh more than once. He's never claimed to have good taste in jokes and he likes a man who can keep his spirits up when fighting for his life.
Where the hell are these guys coming from? Mike wonders when an enormous soldier leaps onto a ledge with a machine gun and starts spraying bullets. These cultists were prepared for all out war - embedded, fortified, and loaded up for bear. But Kennedy hardly even pauses, just switches weapons once again and takes out the new arrival with some well-placed hand grenades.
“Got them scumbags!”
Mike proves his worth again when the agent runs into a cluster of three turrets, the guns surrounded by an obstacle course of armed cultists and barbed wire. He doesn't know how the hell Kennedy survives long enough for the pilot to destroy them, every cry of pain sending a stab of worry through his heart. But when the dust settles, the other man just salutes him from the ground below.
“Not bad at all,” Kennedy says and Mike can hear the smile in his voice. The pilot heads back to the water once the next gate is unlocked, his bird unable to follow the agent up the stairs beyond. Instead, he flies around the cliffs, tracking the most likely route to meet him on the other side.
Good thing too because there's another group of cultists waiting to ambush Kennedy in the ruins up above. They almost have the man surrounded when his Huey clears the rocks.
“Take cover!” Mike shouts just before he opens fire, bullets tearing through the crowd. He keeps his guns aimed low until he sees Kennedy dive behind a pillar and then he lets 'em rip. His bird is getting low on ammo but he'll be able to reload as soon as he can land and the agent's life is his first priority.
So the pilot continues shooting until his main gun clicks empty and only one enemy remains. Not for long though as a stone column topples, the survivor letting out a scream when it smashes him to paste.
Once the coast is clear, Kennedy walks back out into the open and Mike's headset beeps again. “Thanks. When we get out of here, drinks are on me.”
“Yeah! Hey, I know a good bar,” he agrees happily.
Even if it's just one drink, a thank you for his efforts, that's something to look forward to once this mission is complete. Because if he's being honest, Mike would love to spend more time with Agent Kennedy. Maybe they'll have an awkward chat and then lose touch forever. But, based on what he's seen so far, he thinks that they could be good friends if given half the chance.
For now the pilot will settle for a bit more information about what's going on. He and the agent need to regroup, reload, and come up with a plan to recover the president's daughter from wherever she's being held.
However, Mike has just spotted a good place to set down his gunship safely when there's a sudden flash in the ruins to his right and a streak of fire shoots towards him through the sky.
Ah fuck.
Chapter 2
Yep, that pairing is accurate. I was replaying the original RE4, got to the Mike section, and somehow this fic just sort of happened afterwards. I suppose if nothing else, these ink-stained memories proves that I can ship Leon with literally anyone :)