rori ♡

20! i love leon kennedy

[aurorak28]

hello lovelies

my name is aurora, i love writing in my free time so here i am hopefully going to keep up with my stories i will post. I don’t write smut, so please don’t ask :).

here’s a list of people i will write about, i’m working on something right now, but i am not the best.

RESIDENT EVIL

Leon Kennedy

The link undone Re2!leonxreader (for now)

୭ ˚. ᵎᵎdrabbles:

the cost of strength. wc:706

Karl Heisenberg

n/a

Chris Redfield

n/a

Albert Wesker

n/a

Carlos Oliveira

n/a

RED DEAD REDEMPTION

Arthur Morgan

n/a

John Marston

n/a

Charles Smith

n/a

CALL OF DUTY

Simon “Ghost” Riley

n/a

John “Soap” MacTavish

n/a

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick

n/a

John Price

n/a

[mjssluttyfish]

I always see married mature era Michael Jackson fics but baby I would’ve said “I do” to off the wall era Michael as well😩

[aurorak28]

https://www.tumblr.com/aurorak28/812115419236384768/all-thanks-to-leon?source=share part 2 please part 1 was so good and I would like more if that’s okay 😊

it’s out! sorry for taking so long, part 3 is coming probably not soon but within 2 months 😭😩

[aurorak28]

all thanks to leon

summary: your husband suddenly turns on you once you two get married. after having a daughter, you sneak to the one person you know can truly help you, leon kennedy.

pre-re9!

note- my biggest fear is someone skipping past my story thinking it's Al. i do not use Al, not to write stories, no prompts, or even spell check. thank you, enjoy! so, it has in fact been over a month, but my will to write overcame my grief so!! there will be another part!

part 1 - tag list, @happilyjules

you had been with leon for a week now. you got your daughter back around two days ago, and she was learning how to live with a stranger she did not know.

since leon lived in a different district than you and your husband did, you enrolled ally into a different daycare. although you knew this would affect her because it was so sudden, you knew she’d have no problem making friends.

it was around 7 in the morning, you had a job interview at 10 today. you had no nice clothes, it wasn’t exactly something you were thinking about when escaping your husband.

you, embarrassingly, were wearing one of leon’s plain black ones with no shorts. it was big enough to cover your bottom, but enough for him to get a hint of it.

you were making breakfast this morning, a routine you had developed around day three. your fear of jax was overwhelming and something that kept you up late and woke you up early. you had to keep leon up on getting groceries, you were way too afraid of leaving the apartment since you have no car yet.

the sound of small patter coming your way has snapped you out of your thoughts. gathering yourself for your daughter, you flip the bacon and put a peaceful smile on your face as she came around the corner, rubbing her eye with her whole arm and dragging her teddy bear by its foot.

“hi baby,” you had said, placing the spatula down and scooping her up once she made her way to you.

“morning mommy.” she said, thankfully she had really good speech development. it was hard explaining to her that the move was good, and that she wasn’t going to see daddy anymore. she hadn’t seen that side of jax often, if she did, it mostly was him getting close to you and yelling in your face.

you heard a bigger pair of footsteps, and you sighed. balancing ally on your hip, you use your free hand to pull down the back of the shirt gently to not have it jump up and flash leon anymore than he needed to see.

the first thing he saw was you holding ally, then it was his shirt. with the most subtle brow lift, he didn’t say anything, he just said a good morning and went over to his couch.

you had breathed out, putting ally down by her arms so you didn’t bend over and took the bacon off the stovetop.

“breakfast is done!” you said, turning it off and placing the bacon on the plate and the oil went into a jar you had to dig for. you made ally’s plate first, bacon and eggs would be all she ate. leon was already leaning against a far counter when you were done, letting you make your plate second and he’d grab whatever was left.

you weren’t used to such gentlemanly behavior, but you grabbed what you could eat and left leon to make his own plate.

“is that my shirt?” he’d ask, and your fork froze on its way to your mouth. lagging, you put it down and words had tumbled out of your lips.

“I— i didn’t have anything clean..” you said, bashfully looking to him, he had simply shrugged and continued piling food onto his plate. when he estimated that what he got was enough, he headed over to the table you were sat at with your daughter and ate in front of you guys— the seat closest to the door.

he was still getting used to food being made for him every morning and evening, sometimes she’d send him off with lunch if she got up early enough. it was duties that was engraved into her brain by jax, something she didn’t know how to get rid of quite yet.

“i’ll come home late, ill get dinner on the way.” he said. he wasn’t being picky, he loved the food you made and he appreciated the variety, but he missed his junk.

you had simply nodded, looking at ally as her eyes lit up and sparkled.

“mcdonald?” she had asked softly, her voice pitching up at the end as she tilted her head 90 degrees. leon simply smirked, the smallest amount of amusement filling his eyes as he softly nodded while chewing.

“i’ll get you mcdonalds,” he said after swallowing, promising her with the smallest hint of a smile. if the sun gleamed right, it might’ve been bigger. your daughter smiled bright enough to replicate that sun— food was stuck between her tiny white teeth.

thankfully, leon had enough tiny with you guys to go in late today, he could go in at 10:30– so he cleaned your clothes, and once you got dressed and ready he dropped you off at your interview.

“alright, let’s go over once more.” leon said, turning up his music a bit to replicate talking, to try and distract you from thinking about your perfect answers.

“leon, i don’t need all these help.” you said, pulling down the sun visor and using the mirror to reapply your lipstick once more. you were getting nervous.

“tell me why you’d be perfect for the job.” he had just ignored you, reaching over and closing the visor. you sighed, leaning back in the seat and saying why.

“i’m devoted, i have life experience that would accentuate the position and my ability to communicate with others.” you said, reciting what leon told you to fix. you weren’t sure why he was helping you, it wasn’t like he had to interview for his job.

“good, but—“

“oh my, leon. i’m fine.” you said as he parked, and you pinned your hair back so it wouldn’t fall in front of your face as you took the interview.

you told him you’d be back, and exited the vehicle.

after the interview, you felt good. it had went well and the employer seemed to take an interest in you, he told you he’d call.

you greeted leon and told him how good it went, during your rambling, which had become decreasingly better as you had noticed a different route.

“where are we going?” you looked to leon with a puzzled expression.

“i figured id take you out.” he said, and you were left bewildered. you weren’t complaining at all, leon looked really good— he definitely matured over the years. so instead of blabbing, you nodded, brushing your fingers through your hair as you thought it over.

“we can go through a simple drive through or something far if you want.” he soothed your nerves, and your heart might’ve melted.

you had gotten used to not getting what you want, not getting a choice in anything or having a voice. his eyes met your dwelling eyes, and it had broke you out of any contemplation she had.

“let’s get thai.” you said with a small smile, placing your hands in your lap as he nodded and grabbed his phone to look at directions.

after eating the most delicious food and making it home, your daughter was already home and sleeping. leon had picked your daughter up early.

you had smiled on your walk to the couch, crouching and pushing back her thin hair so you could press a soft kiss to her forehead. in order to not disturb her, you and leon had talked in low voices thought the apartment.

your clothes were nicely folded on you and your daughters bed, and a smile graced your face as you rummaged through to find something to throw on.

as leon gave you a second chance at trusting, you two grew closer. with meals cooked with one another to little trips taken together while your daughter was with your parents. you slowly felt your heart opening to a possibility, you let feelings blossom after hiding them for so long from a small man.

leon had allowed you to be yourself again with the freedom of security.

[aurorak28]

i’m so sorry about you kitty 😔😔 i hope you’re doing okay and take as much time as you need for yourself!!!

thank you so much!! she was definitely my motivator if that makes sense lol, but again thank you! 🫶🏻

[aurorak28]

i apologize for the wait for other fanfics others may be waiting for, recently my cat had an episode and is currently being tested for heart disease, i’ll try my best to have it out this week or next week. 🫶🏻

edit: it’s cancer, there’s talk of putting her down considering quality of life, so it may be longer than a week.

[aurorak28]

make it into a series pls!!!!!!!

i definitely will! i had more ideas while writing the most recent so im most definitely going to make it a series, i can’t guarantee how many parts there will be but i will definitely be making more

[aurorak28]

sorry, i just had to block someone writing rape fantasies???? about an unconscious man??? and then baby trapping him while he’s married??? hello????

[aurorak28]

"once a mom always a mom" is sooo perfect, you write so well. If possible can you write a scenario in 2nd pov again with reader, Leon and the kids going on a fun roadtrip and ofc everyone is clingy lol.

once a mom, always a mom

note- i actually love this request thank you so much, i was planning to just leave it there and just be a onetime thing but i might make this a series.. i also made them live in washington, d.c., it makes the most sense because that’s where the white house is yada yada this also tested my ability to write, i could not for the life of me figure out how to make them clingy on the ride there, so i made them clingy at the vacation spot :p hope that’s okay, ill rewrite it if i get a sense for what’s better.

w/c: 3k

no warnings, sfw, lowercase intended, 2nd pov

it was two weeks after leon’s mission back to raccoon city, and he was now officially retired. you and the kids— along with leon’s very little input, came up with the idea of going to the mountains.

you and leon lived in the city ever since before raccoon city, you guys simply couldn’t get away from the bustling life.

your kids, who would take any chance of leaving D.C, recommended a week in the mountains. now, leon refused to go to colorado again or rather anywhere in that area, so you guys settled for a simple cabin in blue ridge, georgia.

you and leon got to packing the porsche for you, leon, and your fifteen year old daughter— anastasia. you packed food and drinks while leon packed the trunk with the suitcases.

right now, you were preparing sandwiches in the kitchen for on the road. jonathan, your oldest, will have a mini cooler with him and so will your middle child, kaila. they decided to drive their own cars.

“mom,” you heard from your left, turning your head you see ana holding the cat in her arms.

“mama needs a cage.” she had finished, adjusting her hold on the cat as if she was a baby. you furrowed your brows, stating that you guys already had a cage waiting in the car.

apparently it wasn’t big enough according to her.

you sighed, placing down the knife that was spreading the mayo on the sandwich and went over to the closet placed in the hallway. your fifteen year old followed you the whole way.

you rummaged around a bit before finding the collapsed cage that was only a bit bigger than the one in the car, ana thanked you and went back to her room. you shook your head, heading to the door to place by so leon could take it back once he was down hauling their huge suitcase in the back of the car.

“mom!” you heard once again, this time from kaila.

“i can’t find my dress.” she said, sipping from her stanley as she leaned against the door way.

“why would you need a dress?” you and your son synced, he came from behind her and and decked him in the arm.

“mind your business freak.” your daughter said to her brother before respond to the same question you had asked.

“incase we go to a fancy restaurant or something, i want to be prepared.” she said, placing her cup down on the little side table by her and walking over to you. she wrapped her arms around your mid-section and hung her chin on your shoulder.

you sighed, telling her to check the laundry room to see if you had hung it up. she thanked you and made her way downstairs. you muttered under your breath and eyed your son, who was seemingly lingering around you.

making your way back to the sandwiches, it wasn’t hard to notice one was missing. you looked back to jonathan who was now messing around on his phone on the couch, his legs spewed everywhere— one hooked onto the backside and one hanging off the front.

you mentally groaned, thankful leon wasn’t in the house because he’d do the same thing.

speaking of leon, he comes into the house and immediately spots jonathan on the couch.

“jon, help your mother pack.” he said, shrugging off his jacket and placing it on the holder. a small groan escaped jonathan, but relented nonetheless because he got to help his mom.

jonathan packed sodas and waters while you finished up the sandwiches. you made bags, two sandwiches went into the mini coolers for both older children while six went into the bigger cooler you’d have in the porsche.

now, beforehand leon took the job of making sure everyone’s cars were fine for the drive, that nothing would happen to them. did their kids have grade luxury cars? no, but they definitely had a step right below it.

once everything was packed and everyone was ready to go, you said your byes to your two kids, who definitely hung onto you longer than they did leon. thankfully this time, they took turns.

sometimes you’d feel for leon, he wasn’t there as often and didn’t have much time to create a strong bond with them, but they always spent time nonetheless. jonathan gave leon a simple hug and a pat while you got a tight squeeze and a kiss on your cheek.

maybe that was just the roles of the mother and a father. or maybe it was just a guy thing.

it wasn’t even thirty minutes later that your kids decided they wanted to ride with you guys instead, so you and leon trekked back to the car to rearrange it.

“y’know, their coming with us for you.” leon said, picking up the cooler and stacking it in the back. he had sighed, taking a step back and looking at the little space they had in the trunk.

you had stepped beside him, wrapping a arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. he planted a small kiss to your temple, something that was mandatory, something he had to do everyday.

by the time everyone was packed into the car, you realized it would be packed and tight. the kids didn’t care, they stuck out being squished by their siblings for the sake of their mom. the cat was in the cage underneath your feet? you just crisscrossed without issue.

your hand gripped leon’s as the car pulled out of the driveway, your lips brushed over each of his knuckles as you overhead the kids fighting about what room they were going to get.

thy didn’t know it yet, but the rooms were the exact same size for that reason. except for the master bedroom, that obviously went to leon and you.

wind whistled through the car as leon rolled all the windows down, your hair blew softly in all directions, but thankfully it was tamed down. music was playing, the kids were singing along gleefully, it was bliss.

from your side underneath your seat, you pulled a bag of drinks, a monster for leon, a simple sweat tea for you, water for your son, and dr. pepper for both of your daughters. a loud “thank you momma!” echoed through the car as the sound of carbon being released from the bottles were heard.

here came the first one, you heard your youngest getting your attention and handing you the soda once more.

“i can’t open it,” she said, looking at you with her lips pulled back, you simply shook your head and opened it for her.

it was now an hour in, your kids were quiet, the windows rolled back up as more mellowed music sung in the car. you and leon had casual conversation as your kids were sleeping. of course, you had to interrupt him with the occasional awe of your children sleeping on each other.

“it’s wild how attached they are, i mean, i was never that way with my mother.” you had talked lowly, looking to leon as he concentrated on the road.

“i can believe it, i mean look at you.” he said, and suddenly you became bashful as heat rose throughout your body.

“stop it.” you waved off before continuing your spiel.

“ever since we had jonathan i was so nervous they’re have some.. resentment to me, i never grew up with that sort of figure, neither did you.” you said, looking down at your nails and picking at them.

“hey.” he said, “i knew you were going to be great from the minute you told me you were pregnant with him, it was me who had to do all the characterization.” he held a small smirk on his face as you chuckled at that.

“seriously, though, your amazing at what you do.” he finished, bringing your still interlaced hands and stretching your fingers out so he can place a lingering kiss on each pad. eventually making it to your palm, his stubble had scratched your wrist.

you looked to him with such admiration, on the outside he looked like such a hard guy, but really he was the most commendable and compassionate man you had ever met in your lifetime. knowing you got to spend your whole life with him warmed your heart.

two hours in, and your daughters were awake again. you got a text on your phone from kaila asking if you had any snacks and to “please be quiet with it”. you texted her that it was all in the cooler in the back, and all you had up their was her fathers beef jerky.

you could hear her groan without her having the need. you felt her foot weirdly caress the back of your arm, thankfully she had socks on.

you quietly asked leon to pull over at a rest area so they could stretch their legs, and he agreed. 10 minutes later they pulled in and parked near the bathrooms and little center they had. you had got out of the car and opened the car door on the side jonathan was on, and you softly shook him awake.

“hey,” you whispered, “come use the bathroom and walk around a little.”

he swallowed and nodded, blinking as he took your shoulder and slowly got out of the car. you placed a hand on his back, rubbing it slowly as he rubbed his eyes before pulling his hood down to walk to the bathroom. no matter how old he was, you’d still baby him. you turned to see your daughters walk around the car to you, and anastasia and wrapped her arms around you and hung onto you for dear life. you rubbed her back as well, it was something that hardwired into you the minute you gave birth to jonathan.

you took your daughters hands from around you, bringing them in front of you and asking if she was okay. she just softly nodded and returned to leaning on you. you sighed into the hug contently and rubbed her shoulder, signaling to kaila to use the bathroom.

you looked down and smiled at her before walking her to the bathroom, despite her telling you she didn’t have to go, you told her to go anyway. it was a lookout, something you had gotten used to over the past years, learning from previous roadtrips they rarely took.

while you waited outside, you figured you’d get snacks from the vending machines for each of your kids. you got their favorites, and the minute they got out, they all rushed over and picked their snacks respectively for them. every thank you ended with a kiss on the cheek, and you let the kids flock around you for awhile.

once again on the road, you guys are now 6 hours away, it was 2 pm, and by that rate you’d get there at 8-8:30 pm.

the kids were all messing around on their phones, earbuds in or just straight distracted, you once again found yourself fiddling with leon’s hand.

“do you want to stop for the night at a hotel or make it all the way there?” you had asked in consideration of him driving all day. he waved you off, shaking his head softly. goodness, he was handsome.

the sun reflected through the trees into his golden-brown hair, his blue eyes seemingly brightening as the sun shined on them. his elbow of the arm that was steering was resting on the window seal of the door while his thunb of his other hand was caressing yours right now.

“there’s no point, we have a passcode, we don’t need to meet anyone.” he said, and you just simply nodded. raising the blanket you had taken for yourself to your shoulders, you looked out the window and slowly nodded off.

you were out for 2 hours, and those two hours were the quietist hours of his life. he didn’t know his kids could be so quiet.

no one wanted to disrupt their mother at all, once they saw she was sleeping, nobody said a word unless they had to. it was an unspoken rule throughout the car. the utmost respect they had for their mother was astonishing to leon, he didn’t know how much of these kids hearts you really held.

it was 4:37 by the time you woke up, and you guys were now off the highway and were taking the scenic route. leon glanced over at you as you looked to the back, all of your kids were passed out once again.

“morning, sunshine.” he said, throwing glances at you as you took the time to recalibrate yourself.

“how long do we have?” she asked, and leon looked at his maps.

“i shaved an hour off this way, we have two more hours left.” he said, and you internally groaned. there was only so many hours you could have your feet up to not disrupt the cat— who was peacefully sleeping still. you had simply nodded and indulged in conversation.

when you guys finally reached the cabin, it was 7:45, the kids got out expressing their excitement and ran to the cabin, punching in the code their father told them in advance. you simply shook your head in that tender love, rolling your eyes and eventually reaching leon on his side. leon already was holding the cats cage with one hand by the metal handle.

“let’s bring the luggage in later, go rest.” you said, hooking your arm in his and entering the cabin together. you let the cat out as soon as leon set the cage down so she could go sniff around. your kids were in the motion of claiming their territory, where their snacks went, what room they got, what fancy cup would be theirs, but they left the thoughtful things for you.

you got to choose where you sat on the couch, you got to pick your seat at the dinner table, you got to choose what movie they’d watch first tonight.

they did these things in regard to you, their love for you. you watched them bumble around in the kitchen, scouting out for anything. your heart ached in the motherly tendencies you had gained years ago, and you immediately went outside to the cooler. you pulled out the sandwiches you had made earlier— some were gone as you each ate one already, there were still some left over. the sandwiches were all smushed and were beginning to become soggy, you sighed realizing you would have to go out to get stuff to cook.

you hated driving leon’s porsche.

you sucked it up and headed inside to grab the keys, kissing and hugging everyone bye before looking up the nearest store and getting directions.

you decided on pasta night tonight, you would include homemade meatballs so leon could get the protein that he was starting to track once again. when you went to the store, you found yourself getting more than just dinner stuff.

you picked snacks that your kids liked, specific soda’s you’d seen them drink all the time, prep meals that leon would like when his freakish self went to the gym at 4 in the morning. it was a loving habit you had picked up during your years building up a family.

when you arrived home, you would’ve swore the T-virus came knocking at your door with how loud your kids were groaning at you that they were hungry. you sighed, not being able to hold out, you caved and made them bowls of their snacks you had just bought.

when you started cooking dinner when you first met leon, really any time you started cooking dinner at his place, you soon realized leon would steal everything. he would steal bland pasta noodles, meat that was cooked but not yet finished seasoning, soup that wasn’t even done yet, and especially breakfast once you got to portioning everything.

that man was a thief, and you soon learned to kick him out of the kitchen anytime he’d try to step a foot inline. he was horrible, you’d have him ask you or your kids to get him a drink with how bad he’d get. you’d turn to get a certain seasoning, he’d sneak and eat some, and by the time you found it and turned the dinner would be halfway gone.

when you started cooking in the cabin, you started out boiling the water in a large pot and dumped 1 and a half box’s of pasta. your middle child soon came to help, she would ask you what to do and you’d guide her carefully. it was a good time you guys spent together, tranquil.

when dinner was done and neatly presented, leon was out of the shower and the rest of your kids were rightfully starving. you made your plate first— rule of the house, and let everyone else get their share before you started eating. you had a tendency to check over everyone’s plates to see if they were eating enough, to your pleasure they all had more than enough.

jokes had started to be thrown around the table, topics of school— which your kids scoffed at, and job opportunities for jonathan, college for kaila, everyone happily finished their dinner with a “thank you” and went to sit down at the couches.

when you sat down, everyone gathered on the couch, leon sat beside you with you leaning on his chest and his arm around you, jonathan laid his head in your lap while anastasia sat on the ground in front of you guys and kaila sat down with her dad, cuddled up to him. watching the movie in the dark ambient setting had your thoughts going round and round, filling your head with airy lighthearted energy. your mind was focused on your family, how lucky you and leon were for them.

you would always find a way to your family.

combing your hands through jonathan’s blond hair, you smiled contently with leon and enjoyed the rest of your evening.

[aurorak28]

thank you block blast (i’m getting requests done trust)

[astronautlawliet]

Til' Death Do Us Part

Pairing: husband!Leon x wife!Reader

Word count: 11.3k

Summary: A mission meant to be routine becomes a race against the clock when you’re bitten, and the only antivirals are destroyed. With the infection spreading and time running out, Leon Kennedy abandons everything except the one objective that matters: getting you back alive.

Warnings/tags: bite injury (reader), infection themes (fever, delirium), mentions of blood/wounds, mission-related violence, guns, angst, protective leon

The hallway smells like antiseptic and old rain, sharp enough to taste at the back of your throat. Emergency lights pulse a slow red, painting everything in the color of a heartbeat that refuses to settle. Somewhere deeper in the facility, something metallic groans, the sound carrying through the walls like the building itself is shifting in its sleep.

Leon moves ahead of you with that familiar economy, every step deliberate, shoulders slightly rounded forward as if he's braced against a wind no one else can feel. Years ago, you would have called it tension. Now you know it's simply how he stands when he's ready to protect something.

You.

He lifts one hand without looking back. Two fingers. Hold. You stop immediately, rifle angled down but ready, covering the rear out of habit. Your breathing slows to match his. In the quiet, you can hear it, the faint rasp of fabric as he adjusts his grip, the tiny click of leather at his wrist. He glances over his shoulder, blue eyes catching red light, and the corner of his mouth tilts.

"Tell me you hear that too," he murmurs.

"Ventilation system struggling to keep up with poor life choices," you whisper back.

His mouth twitches a little more. "Comforting."

"Very."

He turns forward again, advancing with a careful sidestep around a fallen gurney. You follow close, boots landing where his did, stepping into the spaces he clears without thinking. Years of missions have worn this path between you into muscle memory. You could navigate a battlefield blind if he were moving ahead of you.

Sublevel three, quarantine wing. The official report had said that the outbreak was contained. Minimal hostiles. Data retrieval only. You and Leon had both read that and packed extra ammunition.

Something scrapes faintly above you. You both stop again. A wet sound follows, soft but unmistakable, like raw meat dragged across tile. Leon's shoulders go rigid. He tilts his head, listening, then slowly raises his pistol toward the ceiling vent ten feet ahead.

"Don't," you breathe.

Too late. The grate explodes outward in a shower of dust and rusted screws. A shape drops hard onto the floor between you, limbs hitting at angles that don't belong to anything living. The body spasms once, twice, then snaps upright with a sound like tearing cloth. Its eyes are wrong. Its mouth is wrong.

Leon fires twice. The creature barely stutters before lunging. You're already moving. Your rifle cracks, recoil thudding into your shoulder as you pivot left to avoid Leon's line of fire. The rounds chew through rotten muscle, splashing something dark across the wall. The thing keeps coming anyway, a puppet yanked forward by invisible strings.

"Persistent," you mutter.

"Understatement."

It reaches Leon first. He sidesteps, grabs a fistful of its ruined jacket, and uses the momentum to sling it into the wall hard enough to dent the drywall. Before it can recover, he drives a knife up under its jaw with brutal precision. The body convulses, fingers clawing weakly at his sleeve, then goes slack. 

For a moment, the only sound is your breathing and the slow drip of something unpleasant onto the tile. Leon exhales through his nose, shoulders lowering a fraction. He wipes the blade on the creature's shirt before sheathing it, movements efficient, practiced, almost weary.

"You okay?" he asks without turning.

"Fine."

He turns anyway, eyes scanning you head to toe, checking for tears in fabric, blood that isn't yours, the small tells you can't hide from him even if you tried. His gaze lingers on your face a second longer than necessary.

"Your heart rate's up."

"So is yours."

"Occupational hazard."

You step closer, bump your shoulder lightly against his arm. "You jumped."

"I did not."

"You absolutely did."

"I adjusted my stance."

You snort. "Sure you did, hero."

His hand comes up automatically, settling at the small of your back as he guides you past the body. The touch is brief, grounding, gone almost before you register it. He does it all the time now, in doorways, on stairs, whenever the path narrows. Years ago he used to keep that kind of contact locked away behind professionalism. Marriage burned that barrier down to ash.

"Remind me why we didn't retire somewhere with a beach," you say quietly.

"You hate sand."

"I could learn."

"You said that last time. Then you threw a shoe at a seagull."

"It started it."

He huffs, a sound that might be the ghost of a laugh. "We're not buying a coastal property just so you can wage war on wildlife."

"Coward."

They're soft words, familiar words, the kind that live comfortably between you, even in places like this. Especially in places like this. If you stop talking, the silence fills up with too many ghosts.

Ahead, the corridor splits. One path descends into deeper shadow. The other ends at a reinforced door marked MEDICAL ISOLATION.

Leon studies it, jaw tightening slightly. "That's our best bet for antiviral storage."

"And our worst bet for everything else."

"Probably."

He reaches for the panel. It flickers, unresponsive.

You lean in, shoulder brushing his. "Stand back."

"I am standing back."

"Further."

He sighs but obeys, stepping aside as you pull a compact breaching charge from your pack and set it against the seam. Your hands move quickly, efficiently, though you can feel his eyes on you the entire time.

"Try not to blow yourself up," he says.

"Try not to worry so loudly."

"I don't worry."

You glance up. "Leon."

"...I worry a normal amount."

You smile despite yourself. "Uh huh."

You trigger the charge and pivot away, grabbing his vest to pull him with you behind the corner. The explosion is sharp, contained, dust puffing into the air like a violent exhale. When the ringing fades, the door hangs crooked on shattered hinges. Leon looks down at where your hand is still gripping his gear. His expression softens in a way that has nothing to do with combat.

"You can let go," he says gently.

You realize you're still holding on and release him, suddenly aware of how solid he feels under your fingers, how warm even through layers of tactical fabric.

"Right," you say, clearing your throat. "Professional."

"Very."

But he brushes your knuckles once before moving past you, so quick it could almost be an accident.

Inside, the medical wing is colder, air conditioning still struggling on backup power. Cabinets hang open, supplies scattered across the floor as if someone had tried to pack in a hurry and failed. A hospital bed sits abandoned in the center of the room, sheets twisted into ropes. You sweep left. Leon sweeps right. The familiar dance resumes. For a few seconds, nothing moves.

Then something thumps weakly from behind the bed. You both pivot, weapons raised. A figure drags itself into view, lab coat smeared dark, face gray with fever. Human. Barely.

"Help," he croaks.

Leon lowers his weapon first, but doesn't relax. "You're infected?"

The man nods frantically, clutching his side. "Bite... hours ago... there's... antivirals... storage fridge... code..."

His hand trembles as he points toward a small sealed unit in the corner.  Hope flickers, fragile and dangerous. You step forward. Leon catches your arm immediately.

"Careful," he murmurs.

"I know."

His grip tightens just a fraction before he lets go, thumb brushing your sleeve as if memorizing the texture.

The man coughs wetly, body shaking. "Please... I don't want to... turn..."

Leon's jaw flexes. You can see the calculation in his eyes, the grim understanding of how this story usually ends. You move past him anyway, crouching by the fridge, fingers already working the manual override. The seal pops with a soft hiss. Inside, rows of vials gleam faintly in the emergency light, liquid clear and precious as water in a desert.

"Jackpot," you whisper.

Behind you, the man makes a sound that isn't quite human.

Leon's voice snaps sharply. "Back."

You turn just in time to see the change sweep across the man's face, muscles locking, eyes clouding over like frost creeping across glass. Too fast. Leon fires once. The body collapses before it can lunge.

Silence crashes down, heavy and absolute. Your hands are still wrapped around the cold vial when Leon steps in close, one hand settling at the back of your neck, fingers warm against your skin. He leans his forehead briefly against your temple, a gesture so intimate it almost hurts.

"Hey," he murmurs. "Stay with me."

"I'm here."

"Good."

"Leon," you say, unable to keep the lift out of your voice. "We've got—"

The ceiling tile above the doorway caves in with a thunderous crack. Something drops through in a tangle of limbs and teeth. Leon fires before it even lands.

The room detonates into motion. Another body slams through the door behind it, then another, drawn by noise or scent or whatever twisted instinct drives them now. The first infected hits the floor crawling, jaw snapping, fingers scrabbling for purchase on slick tile.

"Back!" Leon snaps.

You're already moving, grabbing the case and pivoting away from the fridge as gunfire shatters the sterile quiet. Your rifle kicks against your shoulder, rounds punching into torsos that refuse to care. The air fills with the acrid stink of cordite and something fouler underneath.

One lunges for your legs. Leon intercepts it, boot driving into its chest hard enough to send it skidding across the floor. He doesn't even look as he fires downward, ending it with clinical precision. 

More are coming. The hallway beyond the ruined door is a writhing mass of shapes pushing over each other, hungry, relentless. The lab equipment rattles as something heavy slams against the wall.

"Too many," you shout.

"Move!"

You sidestep, firing, trying to carve space, trying not to hit Leon as he crosses your line. Your shoulder clips the edge of the bed. The case slips in your grip for half a second.

A larger infected barrels through the doorway, body swollen, movements jerky but powerful. It collides with a rolling cart, sending metal instruments clattering across the floor like thrown knives. Leon pivots to engage, emptying three rounds into its upper chest. The creature staggers backward. Straight into the open refrigerator. Glass explodes.

The sound is high and crystalline, almost delicate beneath the gunfire, like a chandelier being smashed in a ballroom no one will ever dance in again. Vials shatter against metal shelves, against tile, against each other. Clear liquid splashes across the floor, instantly indistinguishable from the spreading mess of everything else. You see it happen in horrible, slow clarity. Hope, reduced to glittering debris.

"Leon!"

He fires again, dropping the brute for good. The body collapses forward, crushing what remains of the storage rack beneath its weight. For one stunned heartbeat, neither of you moves. Then another infected claws over the fallen bulk, and survival yanks you back into motion. You fire. Leon fires. Bodies drop. The noise is deafening, claustrophobic, relentless until at last the hallway falls silent again, littered with unmoving shapes.

Your ears ring. Smoke hangs in the air like a dirty veil. Slowly, cautiously, Leon lowers his weapon. His gaze drifts past the carnage to the refrigerator, to the floor, to the glittering field of broken glass and spilled medication soaking uselessly into grout lines and fabric and things you don't want to identify. He doesn't say anything. Neither do you. The man on the bed has gone very still. His eyes stare at the ceiling, clouded over, whatever fragile thread holding him to himself finally snapped in the chaos. A drop of liquid slides off the shelf edge and hits the tile with a soft, final tick.

Leon exhales, long and controlled, like he's forcing the air out through a space too small for it. "...We'll find more," he says quietly.

He steps closer to you, one hand settling on your shoulder, firm and grounding. His thumb moves once, a brief stroke through dust and sweat, as if confirming you're still solid beneath his palm.

"You hurt?" he asks.

You shake your head, throat tight. "No."

"Good."

His hand lingers a moment longer, then drops. He scans the room again, already shifting back into mission mode, but the tension in his jaw has sharpened, lines around his eyes etched deeper by the red emergency light.

"Storage areas are usually clustered," he says. "If there was one unit, there are probably others."

You nod because he needs you to nod. Because forward is the only direction that exists anymore.

Together, you step around the shattered glass and the ruined promise it once held, boots crunching softly with every movement, and head back into the corridor where the dark waits patiently for you to return.

The corridor beyond the lab is narrower, older, the walls traded from clean hospital white to poured concrete stained by decades of leaks and neglect. Emergency lights hum overhead, casting everything in a tired amber glow that feels less like an alarm and more like a dying sunset that forgot to go away. Your boots echo differently here. Hollow. The sound carries too far.

Leon slows without saying anything, adjusting his pace until you're shoulder to shoulder instead of single file. His arm brushes yours with each step, solid and reassuring in a way that feels deliberate without calling attention to itself. After a minute, you realize he's listening to your breathing.

"You know," you say quietly, "most couples go to dinner."

He huffs under his breath. "We tried that."

"You got a call."

"We both got a call."

"I didn't even get to eat my pasta."

"You ordered something with fourteen ingredients I couldn't pronounce."

"That's not a crime."

"It should be."

You bump his shoulder lightly. "You promised dessert."

"I'll buy you dessert."

"You said that last time."

"I meant it last time, too."

His hand comes up automatically, resting on your back as the corridor narrows, guiding you around a fallen chunk of concrete. The touch lingers just a second longer than necessary.

"When this is over," he adds quietly, "we'll go somewhere that doesn't have reception."

You glance at him. "You're serious."

"Dead serious."

A small smile pulls at your mouth. "You'd last two days."

"I'd last three."

"Two and a half."

He considers it like it's a tactical estimate. "Two and a half."

The next door is heavier than the others, industrial steel with a small wired-glass window clouded by years of grime. A faded placard reads BIO STORAGE B in letters that have peeled into something ghostlike and hard to trust.

Leon raises a hand automatically, stopping you just short of the threshold.

"Hold."

You halt with your boot inches from the seam, rifle angled down but ready. He steps past you, placing himself between you and the door without thinking about it. He always does that. As if the hinge of the world were located somewhere in his spine.

He wipes a sleeve across the glass and peers through, eyes narrowing as he adjusts to the dim interior. "Don't see movement," he murmurs. "Shelving units. Containers. Could be clear."

"Could be."

He glances back at you, reading your face the way other people read weather. "You good?"

"Always."

One eyebrow lifts. Not convinced.

You roll your shoulder where your gear has started to dig in, trying to work out the stiffness before it becomes a problem. "Just cramped."

"Switch packs with me."

"I'm fine."

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"It wasn't an order either."

For a moment, you just look at each other, the quiet argument unfolding in expressions instead of voices. Married diplomacy in a war zone.

Finally, he exhales through his nose, conceding the point without admitting defeat. His hand comes up instead, settling briefly at the side of your neck, thumb brushing the muscle there in a grounding stroke.

"Tension," he says softly.

"Observation skills of a seasoned agent."

"Comes with the badge."

"You don't even carry a badge."

"Metaphorical badge."

You lean into his touch for half a second before you can stop yourself. He notices. His thumb stills, then presses lightly once more before he lets his hand fall away.

"Stay behind me on entry," he says, voice shifting, professional edges sliding back into place.

"I take left. You take right," you counter automatically.

He gives you a look. You give him one right back.

"...Fine," he mutters at last. "But if I say fall back, you fall back."

"Yes, dear."

His mouth twitches despite himself. "Don't 'yes, dear' me in a mission."

"Yes, sir," you salute.

Leon grunts and shakes his head, trying not to smile. You reach past him to test the handle. Locked.

"Stand clear," you say.

He moves aside this time without commentary, covering the door while you pull a compact bypass tool from your vest. The metal is cold against your fingers, humming faintly as it interfaces with the ancient locking mechanism.

For a few seconds, the only sounds are the tool's soft electronic chirp and your breathing. Then the mechanism clicks. You don't open it immediately. Instead, you glance sideways at him. Close enough to see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the tiny scar along his jaw, the exhaustion he carries like a shadow that never quite detaches.

"After this," you say quietly, "we're getting that dessert."

He studies you for a long beat, something unspoken passing through his expression. A deep, stubborn refusal to imagine a future where that doesn't happen.

"Yeah," he says at last, voice low and certain. "We are."

Your hand brushes his wrist as you shift your grip on the handle. He turns his palm just enough to catch your fingers, squeezing once, firm and warm. A promise disguised as reflex. Then he releases you, raises his weapon, and nods.

"On you."

You pull the door open. Cold air spills out, stale and chemical, carrying the faint scent of something spoiled long before anyone stopped coming down here. The room beyond is a maze of tall storage racks and plastic containers, shadows pooling thick between them like standing water.

Leon moves through the doorway first, silent, precise, clearing angles with ruthless efficiency. You follow a half-step behind despite earlier negotiations, covering what he can't see, trusting him to do the same.

All you hear is the hum of failing lights. The soft creak of metal settling. The distant, almost inaudible drip of water somewhere in the dark.

Leon lifts two fingers, signaling pause. You freeze. He tilts his head, listening.

"...Thought I heard something," he whispers.

You hold your breath. The room holds its breath too. Then, very softly, something shifts deep between the shelves. A scrape. Leon's posture tightens, every line of him sharpening toward the sound.

"Stay close," he murmurs.

You move in beside him, shoulder brushing his arm, the warmth of him grounding against the cold air of the room.

"Always do," you whisper back.

The air grows colder the farther you go, heavy with the stale tang of chemicals and something faintly organic beneath it, like fruit left too long in a sealed container. Your flashlight beam skims across plastic bins, sealed crates, labels bleached into illegibility. Dust floats in slow spirals each time you move, disturbed ghosts reluctant to settle again.

Leon advances at a measured pace, weapon steady, shoulders tight enough to telegraph that he hasn't liked this room from the moment the door opened. You mirror him, covering the angles between shelving units, eyes darting through the narrow gaps where shadows knit together into something almost solid. Another scrape, closer this time.

A container shifts on a shelf to your left with a soft plastic thud, tipping just enough to rock in place. Your rifle swings toward it automatically.

"Probably just settling," you whisper.

Leon doesn't answer. He takes one careful step forward, angling to get a better view past the rack. The beam of his light cuts across the gap, illuminating stacked boxes, a collapsed cart, nothing that looks immediately threatening.

Your shoulders start to loosen. That's when the hands shoot out of the darkness. They clamp around your calf, iron strong, nails digging through fabric as something drags itself from beneath the lowest shelf with a wet, hungry sound. You don't even have time to shout before you're yanked off balance.

"Leon—!"

He pivots instantly, dropping his aim to avoid hitting you as you hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. The infected is half-crushed, lower body mangled, but its arms work just fine. Its mouth snaps inches from your boot, teeth clacking together with a sound that vibrates up your bones.

You kick, connecting with its face, but it barely registers the impact. Its grip tightens, hauling you closer, closer, jaws opening wide enough to show the slick black of its throat. 

Leon moves. He doesn't fire. Too risky. Instead, he lunges forward, grabbing the back of your vest and hauling you backward with brutal force. The infected comes with you, still latched on, dead weight and fury combined.

"Let go!" he snarls, driving his boot into its shoulder.

Bone cracks. The grip loosens just enough for him to wrench you free, dragging you behind him as he finally gets a clear shot. Two rounds. Point-blank.

The body jerks, collapses, and goes still. For a moment, all you can hear is your own ragged breathing and the thunder of your pulse. Leon stays crouched in front of you, one arm braced across your chest like a barricade, gun still trained on the corpse in case it decides death is negotiable.

"Hey," he says, voice low, urgent. "Hey. Look at me."

You blink, vision swimming, lungs finally remembering how to work. "I'm... I'm good."

His eyes scan you anyway, fast and thorough, hands already moving, checking arms, shoulders, gear, the way he always does. Routine. Training. Care disguised as procedure. Then his hand stops at your leg.

The fabric of your pants is torn where the creature grabbed you. Dark spreads through the rip, wet and unmistakable even in the dim light. Leon goes very still. Slowly, carefully, he pulls his glove off with his teeth and tosses it aside. His bare hand is warm when it closes around your ankle, steady but not gentle as he angles your leg into the beam of his flashlight.

You follow his gaze. For a second, your brain refuses to interpret what you're seeing. Just shapes. Color. Shine. Then it resolves. Deep teeth marks on your ankle. Blood wells from the punctures, thick and bright, running down into your boot.

"Oh," you say softly.

Leon doesn't speak. His jaw tightens so hard a muscle jumps along his cheek. His thumb presses near the wound, not enough to hurt, just enough to assess depth, damage, and reality.

"How bad?" you ask, because someone has to.

He inhales slowly through his nose, like he's trying to pull the air all the way down to somewhere that doesn't exist anymore.

"...Through the muscle," he says at last, voice roughened at the edges. "No arterial spray."

You almost laugh. Of course, that's what he notices. Of course, he frames it in survivable terms.

"Good news," you murmur.

His eyes snap to yours, sharp, bright, furious at something that isn't you. "Don't."

The word isn't loud. It doesn't need to be. Silence floods back in, thick as the dust hanging in the air. Carefully, he releases your leg only long enough to tear open a pouch on his vest. Gauze. Compression wrap. His hands move with practiced efficiency, but there's a tremor there now, small and stubborn, like a fault line threatening to split.

"This won't stop it," you say quietly.

"I know."

He presses the gauze down anyway, firm, unyielding, as if pressure alone could force time to behave.

"You didn't get grabbed anywhere else?" he asks without looking up.

"No."

"Scratch? Contact with fluid?"

"No, Leon."

He nods once, wrapping the bandage tight enough to hurt. You don't complain. Pain feels reassuringly human. When he finishes, he doesn't pull away. His hands remain braced on your leg, head bowed slightly, shoulders rising and falling with measured breaths. From this angle, you can see the faint silver threaded through his hair, the lines carved deeper by worry than age. You reach out before you can stop yourself, fingers brushing his jaw. He freezes.

"Hey," you say softly.

His eyes close for one heartbeat, leaning just slightly into your touch, like a man starving who just found water. Then he opens them again, focus snapping back into place with visible effort.

"We're moving," he says, voice low and absolute. "There will be another storage area. Another lab. Something."

You nod because you believe him. Because you have to. Because you don't want this to be the end. Because you don't want Leon to have to go through that. Because you want your dessert.

He rises first, then offers you his hand. When you take it, he pulls you up carefully, keeping his other hand hovering at your waist in case you falter. You put weight on the leg. It holds, though pain flares hot and sharp.

"Can you walk?" he asks.

"Yeah." A lie. A manageable one.

He doesn't call you on it. Instead, his arm slides around your back, anchoring you against his side as you take your first step. Protective. Supportive. Refusing to let distance exist.

"Stay with me," he murmurs.

Your head rests briefly against his shoulder, just for a second.

"Always," you whisper.

Adrenaline still burns hot in your veins, dulling the edges, convincing your body it can outrun consequences if it just keeps moving. Leon keeps his arm locked around you, pace adjusted to match yours without comment. Not slow enough to feel patronizing, not fast enough to make you stumble. Perfect. Infuriatingly perfect.

"You don't have to babysit," you murmur.

"Good," he says quietly. "Because I'm not."

His hand shifts slightly at your side, fingers spreading as if to support more of your weight without making a show of it. The corridor slopes downward. Each step sends a dull shock up your leg, deeper now, heavier, like the pain has roots instead of edges. You grit your teeth and keep going. After a dozen paces, something else creeps in. A warmth. Not the healthy kind. Not exertion. This feels wrong, thick and syrupy, pooling under your skin like fever deciding where to settle. You swallow. Your throat feels dry. Too dry.

"Leon," you start, then stop, because you're not sure what you were going to say.

He glances at you immediately. "What?"

"Nothing. Thought I heard something."

He doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't push. Instead, he shifts you a little closer, your hip brushing his with every step now, a steady rhythm of contact that keeps you oriented.

The lights flicker overhead. For a split second, the world tilts. You blink hard, waiting for it to right itself. It does, but not completely. The edges of your vision feel soft, as if someone smeared petroleum jelly across reality.

"Hey," Leon says quietly.

You realize you've slowed. "I'm fine."

He stops anyway.

"No," he says, voice calm and immovable as bedrock. "You're not."

Before you can argue, a shape lurches from a side passage ahead. Its movements are jerky and uneven, its head twitching like a broken marionette. Leon eases you behind him with one hand, weapon already up. He takes it out, waiting a few seconds to make sure it's down. 

When he turns back to you, his focus narrows, shutting out the rest of the world. "Sit," he says.

You shake your head. "We don't have time."

"Sit."

There's no edge in it. No raised volume. Just absolute certainty that this is happening. Your legs decide for you. The moment you stop resisting, they wobble, knees threatening to fold. Leon catches you instantly, one arm wrapping around your back, the other under your uninjured leg, guiding you down against the wall with careful control.

The concrete is cold through your gear. It feels strangely good. He crouches in front of you, close enough that your boots nearly touch his knees. Up close, you can see every tiny tension line in his face, every sleepless hour etched into skin that has forgotten what "rested" means.

His bare hand comes up again, settling against your neck, fingers sliding to your pulse point. You shiver.

His brows draw together. "You're burning up."

"Shock," you say weakly.

"You know that's not true."

His thumb presses lightly, counting. You can feel the rhythm under his skin, your heart hammering like it's trying to break out of your chest.

"Too fast," he murmurs, mostly to himself.

A tremor runs through your hands. Small at first, then stronger, fingers twitching against your thigh as if they belong to someone else and forgot to tell you. You curl them into fists, but it doesn't help. Leon notices. He reaches down slowly, deliberately, and wraps his hand around yours. Not restraining. Anchoring. His grip is warm, solid, impossibly steady compared to the jitter under your skin.

"Look at me," he says softly.

You do. Blue eyes. Tired. Fierce. Terrified in a way he would deny under oath.

"We're going to fix this," he says.

"You don't know that."

"Yes," he says, so simply it almost hurts. "I do."

Your vision blurs. You blink rapidly, trying to clear it, but the edges keep fuzzing out like a badly tuned signal.

"Everything's... weird," you admit. "Like I'm underwater."

His jaw tightens. "Any nausea?"

"No."

"Dizziness?"

"...Maybe."

"Confusion?"

You hesitate.

His expression darkens. "How long?"

"Ten minutes."

He leans forward suddenly, pressing his forehead to yours. The contact is gentle, deliberate, his eyes closing for a brief moment like he's drawing strength from proximity alone.

"You stay with me," he murmurs. "You hear me? No drifting."

"I'm right here."

His hand slides to the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair, holding you there. Making sure you don't slip away. For a few seconds, neither of you moves. Somewhere far off, metal clatters. A distant echo of something collapsing. The facility settling into deeper ruin. You swallow. Your throat feels raw now, like you've been breathing dry air for hours.

"Leon."

"Yeah."

"If I start to..."

He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes sharp. "Don't."

"You need to be ready."

"I am ready."

"That's not what I mean."

His hand tightens at the back of your neck, just enough to stop you from looking away.

"I'm not leaving you," he says quietly. "Save it."

Your chest aches, and not from the bite. You nod because you don't trust your voice. He studies you another moment, memorizing something only he can see, then exhales slowly and shifts back into motion.

"Okay," he says, tone sharpening into mission focus again. "We move in short intervals. Next sector should have auxiliary storage or research offices. More supplies. Maybe antivirals."

"Maybe," you echo.

He rises, then hesitates, looking down at you like he's recalculating physics.

Without warning, he slips one arm behind your back and the other under your knees.

You blink. "Leon—"

"Save your strength."

"I can walk."

"I know."

And that's the end of the discussion. He lifts you with controlled ease, settling you against his chest. Your head ends up tucked under his chin, close enough to hear his heartbeat, steady and stubborn as a drum calling soldiers back to formation. You don't argue again. Your hand fumbles for his vest, gripping the fabric as another wave of heat rolls through you, deeper this time, almost nauseating in its intensity.

"Still with me?" he murmurs into your hair.

You nod weakly. "Yeah."

"Good."

He adjusts his hold, one hand splayed protectively across your back, and starts down the corridor again, footsteps measured, unhurried, as if he has decided that time itself can wait its turn. The world sways gently with each step. Your eyelids feel heavy.

Leon's voice cuts through the fog, low and insistent. "Stay awake."

"I'm trying."

"Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Anything."

You think for a long moment, chasing thoughts that scatter like startled birds.

"...Dessert," you mumble finally.

A soft breath leaves him, almost a laugh, almost something else entirely.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."

You clutch his vest a little tighter, grounding yourself in the solid reality of him.

"Don't let me fall asleep," you whisper.

His arms tighten around you, careful but unyielding.

Leon adjusts his grip as you shift in his arms, not because you're heavy, never that, but because your body no longer anticipates his movement the way it usually does. You used to lean into turns before they happened, tighten your hold when he stepped over debris, and match his rhythm without thinking. Now you lag by half a second behind every motion, like your connection to gravity is buffering. He notices. He notices everything.

Your skin is too hot even through layers of fabric. Heat seeps through his sleeves, through his gloves, into his palms like you're burning from the inside out. Your breath ghosts unevenly against his throat, sometimes shallow, sometimes too deep, like your lungs can't agree on a pattern. Fever, he tells himself. Infection. Not the other thing. Not yet. Your fingers twitch where they clutch his vest, loosening, tightening, loosening again.

"Hey," he murmurs quietly. "Still with me?"

A pause. "...Yeah."

The word is slurred at the edges, dragged through molasses. His jaw tightens. He keeps moving.

The corridor stretches ahead in dim amber light, empty except for the occasional smear on the wall or abandoned equipment pushed aside by people who ran out of time. His footsteps are steady, deliberate, conserving energy, minimizing jostling. He's carried wounded before. Teammates. Civilians. Strangers. None of them felt like this. None of them felt like carrying his own heartbeat outside his body.

Your head shifts, cheek pressing against his collarbone. For a moment you go very still, so still that something cold claws down his spine.

"Talk to me," he says, softer now. "You promised."

A long silence. Then, faintly, "Cold."

He stops. A clean halt, like someone pulled a lever inside him. Cold is wrong. You're burning up. He lowers you carefully to one knee without setting you fully down, keeping one arm wrapped around your back so you don't tip sideways. His other hand comes up to your face, bare fingers brushing your cheek. Your skin is blazing. But you're shivering. Small, violent tremors run through you, teeth chattering softly against each other, lashes fluttering as if your body can't decide whether to wake or sleep.

"Hey," he says, sharper now. "Open your eyes."

You do, slowly, unfocused at first. Your pupils look blown wide in the low light, swallowing what little color remains in your irises.

"It's... dark," you mumble.

His chest tightens. The lights are still on.

"I'm right here," he says. "Look at me."

Your gaze drifts, struggles, and finally locks onto his face. Recognition flickers there, fragile but present.

"...Leon."

Relief hits him so hard it almost feels like pain.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah, it's me."

Your brow furrows faintly, confusion knitting your expression into something painfully vulnerable.

"You look... tired."

He almost laughs. "Occupational hazard," he says quietly.

Your hand lifts weakly, fingers brushing his jaw as if you're mapping terrain you've walked a thousand times but suddenly don't trust your memory of.

"You should sleep," you whisper.

The tenderness in it is what breaks him a little.

"Soon, sweetheart," he says.

Your hand slips, falling back against your chest. Silence stretches. Your breathing grows uneven again.

Then you say, very softly, "Did we make it home?"

The words land like a physical blow. For a second, he can't answer. His throat closes around something sharp and unmanageable.

Home. Not the facility. Not the mission. Not the outbreak. Home. He swallows hard, forcing air back into his lungs.

"Not yet," he says, voice low and steady by sheer force of will. "Working on it."

Your eyes drift past him, unfocused, as if you're looking at something over his shoulder that isn't there.

"...Smells like coffee," you murmur. "Burned it again."

His vision blurs. He blinks hard, refocusing on the concrete wall behind you. You're not smelling coffee. There is no coffee. There hasn't been coffee in hours. Just dust and chemicals and rot. Hallucinations, a cold voice in his mind supplies. Neurological involvement. He hates that voice. 

Your lips curve faintly, a sleepy little smile that belongs in a sunlit kitchen, not here. "You always do that," you mumble. "Say you're watching it, then forget..."

Your head tips sideways, resting against his arm. Your eyelids droop. Panic slices through him, clean and immediate.

"Hey," he says sharply, fingers tightening on your shoulder. "No. Stay with me."

You stir weakly. "...'m tired."

"I know."

"So tired."

His thumb presses against your pulse again. Still fast. Too fast.

"You can sleep when we're home," he says, leaning closer, voice dropping to something rough and urgent.

Your eyes open a sliver.

"...Promise?"

The question is so small it barely exists.

He bows his head until his forehead rests against yours, eyes closing for one heartbeat, he allows himself.

"Yeah," he whispers. "I promise."

He doesn't know if he's promising sleep, survival, or something else entirely. It doesn't matter. Your breathing evens out a little, not better, just slower, drifting toward something that looks dangerously like unconsciousness. Not yet, he thinks fiercely.

He slides one arm under your knees again and lifts you back against his chest, more carefully this time, as if you might come apart if handled too roughly. Your head lolls against his shoulder, then settles in the hollow of his neck, breath hot and damp against his skin.

"Stay with me," he murmurs into your hair. "Just a little longer."

Your fingers twitch weakly against his vest, not gripping anymore, just resting there like they forgot their job.

"...Love you," you whisper, so faint he almost thinks he imagined it.

He stops breathing. The entire world narrows to the weight in his arms and the fragile thread of sound still hanging in the air. His hold tightens, protective, desperate, careful all at once.

"I know," he says quietly, voice breaking on the edges despite his best effort. "I know."

He presses his cheek briefly against your hair, eyes closing, grounding himself in the reality of you. The heat. The softness. The terrifying fragility. Then he straightens and starts moving again, steps faster now, less cautious, urgency bleeding through the discipline he's clung to since this began. Somewhere ahead, there has to be another lab. Another storage room. Another chance. There has to be. Because the alternative is unthinkable, and Leon Kennedy has built an entire life on refusing to accept those.

"Hang on," he murmurs. "I've got you."

The corridor opens into what used to be a patient ward, rows of metal-framed beds bolted to the floor, privacy curtains hanging in limp, dusty folds like flags after a lost battle. Most of the mattresses are stripped bare, plastic covers cracked with age, but the room is quiet. No movement. No shuffling breath. Just the low electrical hum that seems to haunt every corner of this place.

Leon slows, scanning automatically, mapping exits, sightlines, choke points. Good visibility. Single main entrance. Minimal clutter. Defensible. More importantly, close.

A reinforced door at the far end bears a faded hazard symbol and the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY stenciled beneath it. The hinges are external. The frame is thicker than standard interior construction. Lab access. Or something close to it.

"Okay," he murmurs, mostly to himself. "This'll do."

He crosses to the nearest intact bed and lowers you with painstaking care, one arm supporting your shoulders, the other guiding your legs so the injured one doesn't twist. The mattress sighs softly under your weight, springs complaining but holding. For a second, he doesn't let go. Your head rolls slightly to one side, hair falling across your face. Your eyes are half-open, unfocused, lashes trembling like you're dreaming with your eyes still in the world.

"Hey," he says quietly, brushing the hair back with fingers that are gentler than anything else he's done today. "Stay with me."

Your gaze struggles to find him. "...Hi," you whisper.

"Hi," he echoes, voice rough.

Your hand lifts weakly, searching. He catches it immediately, folding his larger one around yours, grounding you with solid pressure.

"Where are we?" you murmur.

"Almost there," he says. Not a lie. Not quite the truth. "I need to check something."

Your fingers twitch in his grip, barely there. "...Don't go far."

His throat tightens.

"I won't," he says. "You'll be able to hear me the whole time." That seems to satisfy something in you. Your eyes drift closed, not fully unconscious, just sliding along the edge of it.

He gently lowers your hand to rest against your stomach, then hesitates. After a moment, he reaches up and unzips his jacket, shrugging it off despite the chill. He drapes it over you, tucking it around your shoulders, creating a cocoon of familiar warmth and scent. Leon rests his palm against your cheek one last time, thumb brushing your skin in a soft arc.

He forces himself to stand. Every instinct screams not to leave you. To pick you up and run until the world ends, the cure appears, or both. But the door at the end of the room waits, silent and stubborn, and something in his gut tells him that whatever hope exists is behind it.

He moves. Slow at first, reluctant steps that keep him within arm's reach, then a little farther, turning back every few seconds to make sure you're still breathing, still there, still you. Halfway across the ward, a shape shifts behind a curtain. Leon's weapon is up before the fabric finishes swaying.

A figure stumbles out, skeletal, skin pulled tight over bone, eyes reflecting dull amber in the emergency light. Its mouth opens in a soundless snarl as it lurches toward the nearest movement. Leon intercepts it before it gets anywhere. Two suppressed shots. One to the chest, one to the head. The body collapses in a boneless heap, momentum carrying it forward until it skids to a stop across the tile.

Another groan answers from somewhere deeper in the room. He pivots, firing again, dropping a second infected as it claws its way over a bedframe. Efficient. Controlled. No wasted motion. No unnecessary noise. Three heartbeats of silence. He listens, counting breaths. Nothing else rises. Only then does he glance back. You haven't moved. Relief floods through him so sharply his knees almost unlock.

"Still here," he murmurs under his breath, as if confirming it makes it true.

He reaches the reinforced door and tests the handle. Locked. Of course it is.

Up close, the barricade becomes obvious. Heavy shelving units have been shoved against the interior side, metal edges visible through the narrow seam where the door meets the frame. Whoever sealed this room meant to keep something out. Or in.

Leon leans closer, ear to the cold steel. Nothing. No breathing. No scratching. No shifting weight. He steps back and scans the frame. Electronic panel. Dead. Manual override slot intact. Hope stirs, cautious and unwelcome.

He glances over his shoulder again. From here, he can still see you on the bed, small beneath his jacket, chest rising and falling in shallow motions that make his own lungs ache in sympathy.

"Almost there," he says quietly, whether to you or himself, he doesn't know.

From a pouch on his belt, he pulls a compact breaching tool, the metal catching the light as he slots it into the override housing. The device hums softly, vibration traveling up his wrist.

Behind him, the ward remains still.

Then your voice drifts across the room, thin and fragile. "...Leon?"

He spins instantly. Your head has turned toward him, eyes open again, unfocused but searching, panic flickering in the small movement of your hands against his jacket.

"I'm here," he calls, already crossing back toward you. "Right here."

You stare at him as if trying to memorize his face before it disappears. "...Too many," you whisper. "They're everywhere."

"There's nothing here," he says gently. "You're safe."

Your head sinks back into the thin pillow. Consciousness slips away from you like water through open fingers. Leon stays there a second longer than he should, watching your chest rise, fall, rise again. Then he stands and turns back to the barricaded door, something steely settling over him, heavier than anger, sharper than fear.

The tool in his hand whines as it bites into the locking mechanism, sparks spitting in brief, angry bursts. Metal protests. Screws shear. The smell of hot circuitry fills the air.

"Hold on," he murmurs, not looking back this time because he won't stop if he does. "I'm getting us in."

Behind him, the bed creaks softly as you shift in fevered sleep. Ahead, the door shudders as the final bolt gives way. Leon shoves the door inward, the weight of it grinding against the barricade until the gap is wide enough for him to slip through sideways. Inside, a toppled shelving unit leans against the opposite wall, confirming what he already suspected. Whoever sealed this room did it from within and didn't plan on leaving.

The air is colder here. Cleaner. Sterile in that artificial way that smells faintly of alcohol wipes and plastic, like illness reduced to a controlled environment.

Emergency lights glow a sickly green, illuminating rows of lab benches, overturned stools, racks of glassware frozen mid-experiment. Papers lie scattered across the floor, curling at the edges. A monitor flickers weakly on one station, casting a pulsing rectangle of pale light that feels almost alive in the otherwise stagnant room.

Leon clears the space in seconds, weapon sweeping corners, checking behind doors, under desks, anywhere something could hide. Nothing lunges. Nothing breathes. Just abandonment, sudden and absolute, like the people who worked here evaporated mid-sentence.

He lowers the gun a fraction, chest rising and falling a little too fast to be purely tactical.

"Okay," he murmurs, voice rough in the quiet. "Okay."

He moves to the nearest workstation, scanning labels, cabinets, drawers. Chemical reagents. Disposable supplies. Data drives. Everything except what he needs. Another bench. Same story. He opens a refrigerated unit. Empty trays. Frost buildup. Power too low to maintain temperature.

His pulse hammers harder.

Not here. Not here. Not here.

"Come on," he mutters, rifling through containers faster now, less methodical, more desperate. Glass clinks sharply as he shoves aside vials of things that don't matter, powders with long names, syringes sealed in sterile plastic. Nothing labeled antiviral. Nothing labeled serum. Nothing labeled hope. A cold weight settles in his stomach.

He moves to the flickering computer, fingers flying across the keys, waking it from whatever half-dead state it's been trapped in. The screen brightens sluggishly, revealing a login prompt already bypassed, system hanging on by a thread.

"Don't do this to me," he whispers.

Folders populate slowly. Research logs. Incident reports. Containment protocols. He scans titles with ruthless speed, opening anything that looks remotely relevant, eyes burning as line after line of technical jargon scrolls past.

Mutation rates. Transmission vectors. Failure rates. 

Failure rates.

His jaw tightens.

A crash echoes faintly from the ward beyond the door. His head snaps toward the sound. Silence follows. He waits three seconds. Five. Ten. No approach. No impact against the door. No dragging footsteps. Still there, he tells himself. She's still there.

He turns back to the screen, forcing his focus to narrow again. A document catches his eye.

ANTIVIRAL DISPERSION PROTOCOL – EMERGENCY USE

He opens it. Paragraphs of dense instructions spill across the display. Stabilization procedures. Delivery methods. Storage warnings. STORAGE LOCATION: SECURE BIOCONTAINMENT VAULT B-2. His stomach drops. Not here.

Coordinates blink uselessly on the screen, pointing deeper into the facility, farther than he wants to think about, farther than you may be able to survive the trip.

Something inside him finally gives. He grips the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening, shoulders bowing as if someone just added fifty pounds to his back.

"Damn it," he breathes.

The word fractures on the way out, barely more than air. He squeezes his eyes shut, forehead dropping toward his clenched fists, fighting the surge of helpless fury that threatens to tear through discipline, training, every wall he's built over years of surviving the unsurvivable. Not enough time. Not enough distance. Not enough anything.

Out in the ward, you lie alone on a metal bed, burning up, slipping further away with every second he spends standing here empty-handed. His chest tightens until breathing feels optional.

For one dangerous moment, he imagines walking back out there, picking you up, and never stopping. No cure. No mission. Just distance and denial. Just the selfish hope that if he runs fast enough, the virus won't catch you.

He exhales sharply, dragging himself back from the edge. Running never saved anyone.

"Think," he mutters hoarsely. "Think."

His gaze drifts across the lab again, slower this time, less frantic, searching for patterns instead of miracles. That's when he notices it. A sealed medical kit is mounted on the wall near the exit. Standard emergency issue. Bright white casing. Untouched, pristine compared to the chaos everywhere else. Too pristine. He crosses the room and pops it open. Bandages. Burn gel. Basic trauma supplies. Nothing else.

His shoulders slump. Then his eyes catch a thin seam along the back panel, almost invisible unless you're looking directly at it. Not part of the original design. Too clean. Too deliberate. He taps it with his knuckle. Hollow. Hope flares, sharp and painful.

He wedges a knife into the seam and pries. The panel resists for a second, then snaps free with a brittle crack, revealing a narrow cavity hidden behind the kit.

Inside rests a single reinforced container, matte gray and no bigger than a paperback book, sealed with a biometric latch long since disabled. Not government-issue, but research-grade. Whoever put this here didn't have the chance to get it.

Leon's hands shake as he pulls it free. The lid pops open. Nestled in foam are two glass syringes pre-loaded with clear liquid, labels printed in blocky lab script:

ANTIVIRAL SERUM — FINALIZED STRAIN

For a second, he just stares, brain refusing to trust what his eyes are telling it. Air leaves his lungs in a sound that might be a laugh or might be something closer to a sob strangled before it can exist.

"Okay," he whispers, voice breaking anyway. "Okay. We're good. We're... we're good."

He presses his forehead briefly against the cool plastic case, eyes squeezing shut, letting the relief hit him in one violent wave before he can stop it. Shoulders shake once, twice, a tremor he doesn't bother to control because no one is here to see it. No one except the person who needs him most. He straightens abruptly, wiping a hand across his face, composure snapping back into place like a mask he's worn too long to misplace.

"Hang on," he says, already moving for the door, clutching the case like it's made of glass and prayers. "I'm coming back."

Your skin is still hot. That's the first thing he registers when his palm cups your cheek. Heat floods into his hand, fever-bright, but there's a wrongness to it now, a brittle quality, like warmth without life behind it.

"Hey," he says softly. "I'm back."

No response. Your lashes rest against your cheeks, unmoving. Your mouth is slightly open, breath slipping in shallow threads that barely stir the hair at your temple. The shivering from before has stopped. Your body lies too still beneath his jacket, as if it finally decided movement was optional.

A cold spike of terror drives straight through his chest.

"Hey." Louder this time, but still gentle, still careful, as if volume alone might break you. "Come on. Open your eyes for me."

Nothing. He slides his hand to your neck, fingers pressing to your pulse point. It's there. Fast. Thready. Irregular in a way that makes his own heartbeat stumble trying to match it.

"Okay," he breathes, more to himself than to you. "We're okay."

His other hand trembles as he fumbles the case open, snapping it back with a soft plastic crack. The syringes gleam under the emergency lights, their clear liquid looking impossibly calm compared to the storm in his chest. He sets the case on the bed beside you, movements deliberate, controlled, forcing precision where panic wants chaos.

"You're gonna hate this part," he murmurs, fingers working to clear space at your collar, tugging fabric aside so he can reach skin. "But you can yell at me later. I'm counting on it."

Your head lolls slightly with the movement. No protest. No reflexive tension. He swallows hard.

"Hey," he says again, softer now, thumb brushing your jaw in a slow arc. "Stay with me, okay? You don't get to check out early. We still owe each other dessert."

His voice catches on the last word. He pushes through it.

"Remember that place downtown? The one with the ridiculous chocolate cake you said was worth the calories?" A shaky breath. "I figure we'll go there."

He presses his forehead briefly against yours, eyes squeezing shut for a fraction of a second.

"You hear me? We've got plans."

Your breathing hitches faintly, a tiny irregular stutter that might be a coincidence or might be something else. He latches onto it anyway, desperate for anything that looks like a connection.

"That's it," he murmurs. "Right there. Stay with me."

He lifts the syringe, checks it automatically, habit stronger than fear. No air bubbles. Fluid clear. Needle steady despite the tremor in his hand.

"Okay," he whispers. "Here we go."

He slides his arm behind your shoulders, lifting you just enough to support you against his chest, cradling you there so the injection won't jostle too much. Your head falls against him, cheek resting over his heart, breath warm and frighteningly faint through the fabric of his shirt.

"You're doing great," he says softly, even though you're doing nothing at all. "Almost there."

The needle presses into your skin.

He hesitates.

Not because he doubts the serum. Because once this is done, there's nothing left to do but wait, and waiting is the one thing he has never learned to survive gracefully.

"Don't be mad," he murmurs. "I'm not giving you a choice."

He depresses the plunger slowly, watching the liquid disappear into you, as if he can track hope molecule by molecule. His other arm tightens around your back, holding you upright, holding you together.

"All right," he says, voice barely above a breath. "You did good. See? Easy."

He withdraws the needle and sets it aside with mechanical care, as if any sudden movement might undo what he's just done. Then he just holds you.

Seconds crawl past, each one stretching thin as wire. Nothing happens. Your breathing remains shallow. Your pulse, when he checks again, is still fast, still erratic. His chest starts to feel tight, air coming harder, like the room has quietly stolen oxygen while he wasn't looking.

"Okay," he says hoarsely. "Sometimes these things take a minute."

He shifts you slightly, thumb stroking your arm in absent circles, the same motion he uses when you're half asleep on long flights or bad nights. Comfort muscle memory kicks in even when the situation is far beyond comfort.

"You're not allowed to do this," he whispers. "You hear me? Not now. Not like this."

Your hand slips from where it rested against his vest, sliding down between you, fingers loose and unresponsive. He grabs it instantly, folding it back into his palm, pressing it against his chest.

"Come back," he says, the words fraying at the edges.

Another long stretch of nothing. Fear blooms, cold and suffocating, filling every hollow place in him. Too late, a voice in the back of his mind whispers. Too slow. Too far gone.

He shakes his head sharply, jaw clenching.

"No," he mutters. "No, you don't get to do that."

He bows over you, pressing his forehead to your hair, eyes squeezed shut, breathing you in like oxygen.

"You promised," he says roughly. "You don't break your promises."

Your pulse stutters under his fingers. He freezes.

There it is again. A strange hitch, a pause that stretches too long, then a sudden rush, as if your heart forgot the rhythm and is trying to find it again. His own heart stops in sympathetic terror.

"Come on," he whispers. "Come on..."

Your body jerks. A sharp, involuntary spasm that arches you slightly against him before you go slack again. Leon sucks in a breath, half panic, half hope colliding in his chest.

"That's it," he says urgently. "That's something. That's good. Keep going."

Your brow creases faintly, expression tightening as if pain is finally breaking through the fog. A weak sound escapes you, barely audible, more exhale than voice. His grip on you tightens, careful but fierce.

"I know," he murmurs. "I know, sweetheart. It's okay. You're okay."

Your breathing changes, deepening suddenly, as if you're pulling in air like someone surfacing from underwater. It catches, stutters, then comes again, stronger this time, dragging oxygen into lungs that finally seem interested in using it.

"There you go," he breathes, voice shaking openly now. "That's it. Stay with me."

Your fingers twitch weakly against his chest. He presses his cheek against your hair, eyes closing, holding you like you might still vanish if he loosens his grip.

"I've got you," he whispers. "You're okay. I've got you."

He keeps you cradled against his chest, one arm locked around your back, the other braced across your shoulders, hand splayed as if shielding you from something that no longer exists. His cheek rests against your hair, breath uneven, dragging in through his nose, out through parted lips like he's relearning how to do it.

Your pulse is stronger now beneath his fingers. Still fast, still fragile, but steady enough to count. Steady enough to believe in. Only then does the tension start to bleed out of him. It comes all at once.

His shoulders shudder. Not violently, just a small, contained tremor that he tries to swallow down and can't. A sound escapes him, rough and broken, something halfway between a breath and a sob he never intended to make. He tightens his hold instinctively, pressing his face into your hair as if hiding there makes it less real.

"Okay," he whispers hoarsely. "Okay... you're okay."

Warmth hits your scalp. At first, your fogged mind can't place it. Wetness. A second drop follows, sliding along your temple before disappearing into your hair.

Leon doesn't notice. Or he does and can't stop. He bows over you, forehead pressed to the crown of your head, shoulders shaking in small, uneven pulses he's trying desperately to keep silent. Years of training, years of surviving, years of holding everything inside, finally cracking under the simple fact that you are still here.

"I've got you," he murmurs, voice wrecked, words stumbling over each other. "I've got you, I've got you..."

Your fingers twitch. This time, the movement is stronger, a weak curl against his shirt, fabric bunching slightly in your grasp. The sensation filters through layers of fog, heat, exhaustion, and the lingering echo of pain. Consciousness creeps back in like dawn through heavy curtains.

Your throat burns. Your body feels impossibly heavy, as if gravity doubled while you were away. Every muscle aches with a deep, bone-level fatigue that sleep alone could never fix.

Sound reaches you first. A heartbeat. Loud. Steady. Close enough to be yours, except it isn't. Breath above you, hitching, uneven. Fabric shifting faintly with each inhale.

Someone is holding you. You force your eyes open.

The world swims into view in slow, watery shapes. A blurred patch of green light. A shadow that resolves into the curve of a shoulder. Blond strands of hair brushing your cheek.

Leon.

He doesn't notice you're awake yet. His face is buried against your head, one hand cupping the back of your skull with fierce gentleness, thumb moving in tiny, repetitive strokes like he's soothing a nightmare that hasn't ended for him yet.

Your voice comes out as a rasp. "Leon...?"

He freezes. Absolute stillness, like a statue suddenly unsure whether it's allowed to move. Slowly, he lifts his head. His eyes are red. Not just glassy, not just tired, but openly, unmistakably wet. Tracks of tears cut through the grime on his cheeks, catching the light as he blinks hard, as if blinking might erase evidence before you can register it.

For a second, he just stares at you, something raw and disbelieving cracking across his face, like he expected this moment and still isn't sure it's real.

"You're..." His voice fails. He clears his throat roughly. "Hey."

You try to smile. It feels wobbly, incomplete. "Hi."

Relief hits him so visibly it's almost painful to watch. His shoulders sag, tension draining out of him like someone cut the strings holding him upright.

"Hey," he repeats, softer this time, thumb coming up to brush your cheek in a careful sweep, as if confirming you're solid. "You're back."

"Was I... gone?"

His jaw tightens. "Not allowed."

You attempt a small laugh. It comes out as a weak breath. His hand slides to the side of your neck, fingers resting over your pulse again, counting, grounding, refusing to trust his eyes alone.

"You scared me," he says quietly.

Your gaze drops to his chest, to the wrinkled fabric where you must have been gripping him earlier. "Sorry."

His head snaps slightly. "Don't."

The word is sharp, then softens immediately.

"Don't apologize," he adds, voice rough. "Just... don't."

You nod faintly. Even that feels like work.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. You just lie there in his arms, breathing the same air, sharing the same small pocket of reality after hours of separation that happened without distance. Then you notice how tightly he's still holding you.

"Leon," you murmur, "I can't breathe."

He releases you instantly, horror flashing across his face. "Sorry. Sorry."

He shifts his grip, supporting you more carefully, one arm still behind your shoulders but no longer crushing you to him. His other hand lingers at your jaw, thumb brushing your skin as if he can't quite stop touching you.

"You're okay?" he asks, scanning your face like he's looking for cracks. "Dizzy? Nauseous? Vision?"

"Everything hurts."

He exhales, something that might be relief ghosting through the pain in his expression. "I'll take it."

Your eyes drift past him, taking in the ward, the beds, the dim light. Memory trickles back in jagged pieces. Teeth. Heat. Falling. Darkness.

"...You found it," you whisper.

He nods once. "Yeah, told you we would.

Your mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "Yeah. You did."

You study him more closely now, the red around his eyes, the dampness he hasn't fully wiped away, the way he keeps blinking as if his vision is unreliable.

"You were crying," you say softly.

Immediate denial rises to his lips. You can see it form. Then he looks at you. And whatever excuse he was about to give dissolves.

"...Yeah," he admits, voice low. "Maybe a little."

A tear slips free anyway, tracking down before he can stop it. He doesn't bother hiding it this time. Doesn't look away. Just lets it exist.

"You weren't waking up," he says, as if that explains everything. It does.

Your chest aches in a different way now. You lift your hand slowly, muscles protesting, and touch his face. Your thumb brushes the damp track on his cheek, wiping it away with clumsy tenderness.

"I'm here," you whisper.

He leans into your hand without thinking, eyes closing briefly, relief and exhaustion and something deeper collapsing together inside him.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "You are."

He covers your hand with his, pressing it lightly to his skin as if anchoring himself. After a moment, his gaze sharpens again, mission awareness bleeding back in. 

"We need to move," he says gently. "Facility's not stable, and we don't know how long before more of them wander in."

You nod, though the idea of standing feels ambitious at best. He notices the hesitation immediately.

"Hey," he says softly. "I've got you."

He shifts, sliding one arm behind your back again, the other under your knees, lifting you with the same careful strength as before, only this time you help a little, arms coming up weakly around his neck. Your head settles against his shoulder.

"Still getting dessert?" you murmur against his collar.

A real smile breaks through at last, small but bright as sunrise after a storm.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."

He turns toward the exit, steps steady, protective hold unyielding but gentle now that he knows you're truly there.

Three days later, the world smells like coffee and clean laundry instead of antiseptic and decay.

Sunlight spills through half-closed blinds, laying soft gold across the rumpled bedspread and the tangle of blankets around your legs. The air is warm, carrying the faint hum of city life from outside, tires on pavement, a distant horn, someone laughing somewhere far below.

Leon sits beside you, forearms resting on his thighs, watching with that quiet intensity he hasn't quite learned to turn off yet. He looks cleaner than before, shaved, hair damp as if he showered quickly and came right back, but the exhaustion still clings to him in the set of his shoulders.

"You're staring," you murmur.

"Monitoring," he corrects.

"You blink?"

"Sometimes."

You huff a small laugh, the motion tugging at sore muscles that remind you exactly how recently everything went wrong. His gaze sharpens instantly, concern flaring before you even realize you winced.

"I'm okay," you assure him.

He searches your face a moment longer, then nods, not convinced but willing to accept it for now.

"You hungry?" he asks.

"Always."

He disappears into the kitchen and returns with coffee and a plate of pancakes that look slightly uneven but deeply sincere. You eat, he watches, tension slowly unwinding from him with each bite you take.

When you finish, you lean back, warm and heavy with food, eyelids drooping in content exhaustion.

"So when is our dessert date?" you ask softly.

Leon goes still. Then he stands without a word and leaves the room again.

You hear the soft thud of the door opening, the faint clink of something ceramic, the careful movements of someone handling something fragile. When he returns, he's holding a small white bakery box tied with a thin ribbon, the bow slightly crooked as if it had to survive transport in a large, impatient hand. He sets it on the bedside table with surprising delicacy.

"I didn't make this," he says gruffly. "Figured we've both suffered enough."

Suspicion and curiosity spark together. You pull the ribbon loose, lifting the lid. Inside sits a slice of decadent chocolate cake, glossy frosting catching the sunlight, layers dark, dense, and unapologetically indulgent.

Your chest tightens.

"You remembered," you whisper.

He shrugs, looking suddenly very interested in a spot on the wall. "You seemed pretty sure it was worth surviving for."

You lift the cake plate slightly and notice something tucked beneath the ribbon, partially hidden against the cardboard.

An envelope. Your fingers hesitate, then slide it free. Leon doesn't look at you. He's staring out the window now, jaw set, shoulders a little too rigid, like he's bracing for impact.

Inside the envelope are two plane tickets. Beach destination. Departure in two weeks. Round trip. Vacation time from work. A hotel confirmation tucked behind them.

For a long moment, you can't speak.

"You said somewhere boring," he mutters quietly, still not turning around. "Figured that would be perfect."

"Leon..."

He finally looks back, expression carefully neutral, but there's something vulnerable in his eyes, something that says this mattered more than he wants to admit.

"You don't have to go," he adds quickly. "If you're not up for travel yet, we can postpone, or cancel, or—"

You set the tickets down and reach for him. Your fingers curl into his shirt, pulling him closer until he's standing right at the edge of the bed, close enough that you can see the faint pulse at the base of his throat.

"Thank you," you say softly.

Not just for the vacation. Not just for the cake. He understands anyway. His face softens, tension draining into something warm and quiet and deeply relieved.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Anytime."

You pick up the fork, take a small bite of cake, then hold it out to him. He leans in, accepting it, eyes never leaving yours. For a second, neither of you pulls back, the space between you charged with something gentler than urgency, heavier than simple affection.

"Worth it?" he asks.

You nod. "Absolutely."

You set the plate aside, your hand finding his again, fingers threading through his with familiar ease. He squeezes back immediately, grounding, protective, like he did in the hallway, only now there's no fear behind it. You both crave this closeness after it was almost ripped away just days before. 

You tug lightly, coaxing him down to sit beside you on the bed. He goes without resistance, one arm coming around your shoulders automatically, careful of lingering soreness. Your other hand lifts, brushing his cheek where faint redness still lingers if you look closely enough.

"I love you," you whisper.

His eyes close briefly, leaning into your touch in a way he never would in public. Just here, just now, where it's safe to be human.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I love you too."

Leon leans in first. The kiss is slow, gentle, nothing desperate or urgent, just warm lips and shared breath and the simple reassurance of contact. He stills for half a heartbeat, like he's afraid you might break, then melts into it, one hand cupping the back of your head. When you pull back, his forehead follows yours, resting lightly against it, eyes still closed.

"Careful," he murmurs. "Doctor said no overexertion."

You smile. "Pretty sure that wasn't what they meant."

"Still."

His arm tightens around you, drawing you closer until your head rests against his shoulder, fitting there like it always has. His chin settles lightly against your hair, breath warm, steady.

Outside, the city moves on. Inside, time slows to match the rhythm of two people who fought hard for the right to sit in a quiet room and eat cake.

"Two weeks," you murmur.

"Yeah."

"You think you can handle boring?"

He huffs softly. "I'll manage."

You laugh, the sound light and real and alive. His chest rises under your cheek, its vibration grounding you in the best possible way. For a long moment, neither of you says anything else. You just sit there, sunlight warming your skin, fingers loosely entwined, the promise of salt air and quiet days waiting ahead like a horizon you can finally see. Sharing cake, and kisses, and being alive, and together in your home.

Dividers by @uzmacchiato <3

Thanks for reading<3 Just a reminder, my requests are open! I would love to hear from you!

[aurorak28]

all thanks to leon.

banner from @lilumiomio3 on pinterest!

summary: your husband suddenly turns on you once you two get married. after having a daughter, you sneak to the one person you know can truly help you, leon kennedy.

pre-re9!

lower case intended! sfw

w/c: 1.5k

warnings: mentions of abuse, pregnancy, cursing, 2nd pov— no “y/n”

note- my biggest fear is someone skipping past my story thinking it’s AI. i do not use AI, not to write stories, not to give prompts, or even spell check. thank you, enjoy! if a part two is wanted, i’ll make one!

it wasn’t long after you got married that your husband had forced you to leave your job for the benefit of him. that should’ve been your first sign.

jax was the most amazing man you had ever met, he was charming and nice. he was a state of the art gentleman.

life was amazing while you guys were dating. vacation after vacation, date after date. life had been full of whimsy and happiness. never would she had thought it would’ve be temporary, that the man who opened doors for her would switch so fast.

it wasn’t until after their wedding that the yelling had started. holes in walls and crumpled appliances had been more common around the house— but no harm to you.

jax took your money first, saying it was in a shared account that he pretended he had problems adding you to. he then took your contacts, deleting all your saved numbers except for his and the midwife.

that was right, you were pregnant with a little girl by the fourth month of your marriage.

you guys had only done it twice before his anger had really taken over, it wasn’t an ideal position for you to be in at all. you were confined, stuck in a house you no longer wanted to be in. you had no car, as he had conveniently totaled it trying to “fix” it.

you had no way out.

ally, your daughter, was now three. you had sent her off to your parent’s house after getting in contact while jax was at work.

the house was still, it was an eerie silence at night that had filled your heart with fear and your body with dread. you made sure to pack quietly, only packing clothes that will dress you instead of focusing on style.

ally already had her bag with her grandparents.

you had told your parents to not worry about them staying as you knew who would be able to help you. someone you worked with, although not in the same department, you two would talk during the day.

leon kennedy.

you made your way to a bus stop, waiting the midnight hours before realizing— the bus doesn’t come this late.

cursing to yourself, you haul your bag over your shoulder once more and start walking the hour trek to his apartment. you kept thinking, degrading yourself on how bad you let this get. it was hard to leave, you gave yourself the benefit of the doubt that you had no one to help you till this moment.

once you reached his apartment, no sign of life emerged from the building. in hopes of him still living there, you gave repetitive knocks on the door. it wasn’t long till you saw light come from underneath the door. it took him a few seconds to open the door, and when he did, confusion had already been drawn on his face.

it wasn’t until he saw the bruises on your neck, the red marks on your wrists and the remnants of bruises on your thighs that he realized what happened.

he hadn’t heard from you after your marriage, he figured you moved to the sticks and became amish.

“come in.” he had said without hesitation, opening his door wider. he reached out and took your bag off your shoulders, placing the relatively light bag on the ground near the door as you walked inside and glanced at his home.

“i haven’t seen you for awhile, thought you might’ve went missing.” he tried to joke, wincing as he realize it was at an untimely manner. he saw you turn your head slightly, a peep that you’re listening.

“might’ve well as been.” you replied softly, almost a mumble. you looked to him for permission to sit on the couch to your right, and he slowly nodded— a complex look on his face.

it was something you got used to during your days at the DSO, although you were in the logistics department, they spent quite a bit of time together. you twiddled with your fingers, and after a bit of silence you spoke again.

“i have a daughter now.” you said, licking your dry lips as you peeked up at leon. he hadn’t known what to say, you had only been married for less than four years, how fast did you guys move?

he only nodded, putting together that this was going to be a favor.

“and—, i need a place to stay..” you said slowly. “with her.”

you weren’t asking for money, you weren’t asking for sympathy, you needed a bed and a place to provide. you needed a place to stay while you job hunted and worked up some money— enough till you could support yourself and ally.

he had thought about it, what it would be like to have a woman’s life and touch in the apartment, especially a kid whom he didn’t know.

“how old is your kid?” he had asked. he didn’t mind kids, if he did he wouldn’t have two women he was practically looking over. you responded with three, and he nodded his head once again. his face was way too unreadable for your liking.

once it hit you that you were asking for help, your face contorted, water building up behind the skin of your eyes as you buried your face in your hands. this situation was a mess, you had went through physical and psychological trauma for the last four years and nothing was worse than asking for help. it was accepting your position, that you were weak and needed lifting. that you weren’t the independent woman you had built yourself up to be. you lost all of that when you married jax.

not wanting to cry in front of leon, you sucked it up— you had pretended your daughter was watching. it was a practice you went through when you had to pick up your child from daycare with jax.

“we need to take photos.” leon’s voice cut through your moment, you lifted your head from your hands and looked at him in confusion.

“he might have your money, and whatever he gained from his damn 9 to 5, but he doesn’t have money like i have money.”

leon was going to fight this, he was going to do it with you. you couldn’t believe what you were hearing, leon never once talked about his funds, without the porsche parked outside in his own parking spot, you would’ve guessed he was struggling with money with the way his apartment was bland.

you couldn’t help it, warm and huge tears rolled down your cheeks as you stood and wrapped your arms around his neck, sniffling as he had embraced you back.

you and leon had a past. it wasn’t a fleeting moment, you guys had a genuine relationship that had lasted about a year. that was during his alcoholic days, when she entered the apartment, she saw no signs of dark liquor, only the two beer bottles in the trash.

you could only faintly nod in his embrace, breaking off so he could start finding a blank white wall— which wasn’t hard at all. you had backed up against it, he took four full body pictures, front, sides, and back. he then took close ups of bruises you couldn’t see from afar.

once he was done, he stalked out of the room, not saying a word to you, so you stay in place. he returns with your bag and hands it to you.

“i want you to go to the guest room, tomorrow we will get your daughter, and you stay however the hell long you want.” he said, placing his hands on your shoulders as he looked deep into your eyes. you had nodded, wiping your eyes once more as he reassured you.

leading you to the bedroom, the bed was made and was pointed at a tv that was mounted to the wall. it was actually neat for someone who lived by himself.

he left the room momentarily so you could change into clothes that would cover you and keep you warm, and you took this time to reflect.

your life was a mess, you had to start over with absolutely nothing. until they went to court and fought it, she would be left with nothing. no car, no phone, no money, and no job.

except she now had support, she had a place to live and a place where ally could be safe. she wasn’t sure how leon would be around kids, she had never seen him around them before— he always avoided the topic of them so she figured he never had wanted them.

embarrassing and pleasingly, he returned with a nightlight. he left it to you if you wanted to plug it in for the night, but he knew how dark and terrifying the night could get while not feeling safe. exchanging your goodnights, you get into bed and sighed. for the first time in a while, you felt safe in a bed.

all thanks to leon.

[devnmon]

i would like to thank all the women at capcom

[aurorak28]

once a mom, always a mom

summary: you became a mother back in 2006, having three attached, clingy, and young children along with a husband that cannot leave you alone— does not give you much space.

lower case intended!

w/c: 1.1k

no warnings, sfw, no “y/n”, 2nd pov, no spoilers!

note- my biggest fear is someone skipping past my story thinking it’s AI. i do not use AI, not to write stories, not to give prompts, or even spell check. thank you, enjoy!

it wasn’t long after your first birth that you realized your children will be like velcro.

you had your first son in 2006, liam was in fact a momma’s boy. he went to you for every thing, especially when he became a toddler. after that, you and leon had two girls who were the exact same.

returning to the present moment, you and leon were laying on the couch, your head on his shoulders as his arms had spread out on top the couch cushions. your feet were pulled up behind you, your hand resting on your ankle as you scrolled on your phone— eyes occasionally glancing up at whatever was playing on the tv.

the quiet footsteps of their 17 year old daughter approaching them appeared soon before she had stood in front of them.

with no words— blanket wrapped around her shoulders with her big stanley in her hands, she had began to lay down on the couch with her head on her momma’s lap. you tapped leon, a wordless encounter as you motioned to the control on the couch that allowed the reclining to happen. a soft grunt escaping his lips as he stretched out to hold the button till the foot rest was all the way up— giving their daughter more space.

instead, it invited their 15 year old daughter, long sleeved shirt with leon’s sweatpants on tied with a shoe lace. you never understood that.

she came over, sitting on the foot rest before looking back at her mom, she sat her phone down— for once, and curled up in between you and leon.

there went your guys’ time together.

you sighed, either contently or bothered, you rested a hand on the middle child while your head now resting on your 15 year old’s. once again, patter filled your ears as a 20 year old descended down the stairs, rushing down to pile on his mother.

of course, he annoyingly hopped over the couch, mushing his sister out of the way, which started the bickering.

you looked to leon, a soft smile on your face as you realized you gave your kids a safe space. it was something you and leon didn’t experience as kids, so knowing that they were comfortable enough being themselves was enough for you guys to just let them be.

“guys, relax.” you said, taking your 17 year olds black stanley before she got a chance to hit her brother over the head. she had rolled her eyes, controlling the recliner with her feet so she could have a place to spread out without being crammed with her older brother.

it was then that you realized how loved and cherished you were, despite leon telling you every day, your kids had a way of showing it. you always thought the teenage years would bring drama and resilience, instead it brought you joy and three beings who still relied on you instead of hating you.

you shimmied your hand from between you and your youngest, grabbing leon’s arm— soon getting the message, he slid his hand into yours and squeezed it.

it would be around dinner time where you and leon were bumbling around the kitchen, looking for different items for the same meal when your kids would silently set the table and find something to watch.

it was a routine that was set way before they were born, when you and leon were in their 20’s and living in a apartment.

you had moved the pan to the off burner, letting it sizzle as leon came beside you, holding your shoulder and moving you closer to him. his hold was tight, it was grounding. it was something you had relied on for a while, when you were going through postpartum, when you had to retire early due to this new life, at that time life was hard and it sucked.

going home to leon, off work early to surprise you, holding their baby boy when he was crying was enough to hold you down, to keep you from flailing and going off the deep end. just like his hold.

when the table was set, leon had gave you a kiss, bringing you closer by the hips while your arms wrapped around him.

“we did good,” he would whisper, bringing you into another kiss. the sound of your 15 year old fake gagging was enough to bring you out of your space with a laugh.

dinner was set up, extra plates of food in the middle after everyone grabbed their own and settled down. you sat across from leon, the two girls sitting on your right while your son sat on your left— the cat laid beside him on the floor in the absence of a person.

once again, your eyes lock with leon from across the table, and you know you did a good job raising your family.

when it was time for bed, the family had just finished a movie, it was 10:30 at night.

“momma, please stay out here.” your son pleaded, grabbing your hand and holding it firmly. a grip he got from his father.

“I can’t! your father leaves tomorrow i have to make sure he sleeps!” you said, snatching your hand back and raising your brows. it wasn’t long before two arms had squeezed your middle section. your youngest was a strong girl, her hold halting you had only led your oldest to attack you from behind, his arms wrapping around your shoulders tightly as he held you in place. your middle child soon came and gave you a regular hug, to which you reached out and hugged her back. you made sure each child got a turn with your hold, and it had seemed to be enough.

once the kids let go, they all went to their respective rooms, throwing a quick goodnight to you and leon. you had sighed, placing your hands on your hips as leon came from behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist while his lips landed on your shoulder. his lips pressed soft kisses to your shoulder, his stubble that he refused to shave grazing your neck.

a shiver ran down your spine as your hands went to his arms, holding his firm forearms as you guys swayed slowly.

“you did good.” he said for the second time today, his voice at a soft rumble. “i always loved the way you took control of this house.”

you had hummed, acknowledging his appreciation and leaning into him. “i couldn’t have done it without you.” you said, turning your head so you were met with leon’s face. your lips were taken into a deep kiss, your arms wrapping around his neck as you ignored the fact your chin had burned from his rough stubble.

you chuckled into the kiss, slowly separating and placing your forehead on his— eyes looking into each others intimately.

“i love you, thank you for all of this.” he said, his hands planting on your back as you guys had soon walked to the dark hallway, all of the lights off in the house as the liveliness went to bed.

[slaughtersafe]

2024 /2026

My fav boy💔

[queenie-official]

Sometimes baby girl is a 4,000 year old egyptian Pharaoh

[aurorak28]

og fine stuff

[dustibunily]

He’s so 80’s boyfriend