Summary: Leon comes home from an assignment injured and exhausted. In the face of his behavior on missions rapidly approaching martyrdom, the two of you need to address the elephant in the room; his survivor’s guilt.
Pairing: Leon Kennedy(RE4) x fem!reader
Content Warnings: TW for survivors guilt, mention of suicidal tendencies/ideation. established relationship, angst, cursing
A/N: I don’t really fw this but i also don’t have it in me to rework it rn but trust im back to the drawing board on better Leon work
The sound of the deadbolt unlocking prompts you to set down your book, but you don’t turn, don’t crane your neck to see him as he walks through the door. It would be impossible to see him in the unlit hallway anyway.
You just listen. The cadence of the footfalls is clunky and sluggish. When he groans with the effort of shedding his leather jacket, that is what prompts you to stand and make your way towards the entryway. You would be able to tell Leon’s state from his breath alone, and the soundtrack of his return home tonight tells you he’s beaten to hell.
When you arrive at his side, Leon is halfway through removing his gun harness, the process clearly straining his already weary body. You don’t speak as your hands replace his at the buckles and undo them, lifting the weight of the firearms from his frame. He draws you to him with caution and presses a kiss into your hair.
His voice is gravelly with exhaustion. “Hope I didn’t keep you up waiting for me.” You laugh softly, he always said that even after three years of the two of you living together, even though he would have been up just as late if it had been you out at work.
You try to get a good look at him, try to see where the worst damage has been done. Leon sighs and makes a respectable attempt at distracting you by tugging you into a kiss.
“Nice try, but that just convinces me it’s worse than I thought.”
When he finally gives in, lifting his shirt to show you the state of his ribs, you curse under your breath. It’s the worst state he’s been in since the initial outbreak in Raccoon City.
“How did this happen?” You grimace as you notice a gash along his side deep enough to warrant stitches. He tells you it’s not a big deal, he took some hits to shield the girl he was sent to rescue.
“What was I supposed to do?” His tone is harsh, you know this is ramping up to become a nasty fight.
“Maybe don’t take a machete to the side? How about we try that!”
“I’m a grown man, I’m a trained government agent. I don’t need you to helicopter parent me, Jesus Christ.” Leon grumbles and steps past you into the kitchen.
Most nights this would be the end of the argument; you’d split to shower and change for bed, exchange whispered apologies and I love you’s, rinse and repeat the next time he came home battered and bruised. But tonight you can’t let it go.
“God dammit Leon.” Angry tears threaten to spill from your eyes.
“You are so. Fucking. Selfish.”
His beautiful face twists into a scowl as he turns to face you from the kitchen, but beneath the armor of his anger is the survivors guilt you know he carries. And you understand, you truly do, but when he does stupid shit like this; when he presents you with this clear disregard for his own life, it fucking terrifies you.
“Making yourself into a martyr doesn’t help anyone.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do, then?” He asks angrily. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t show up for the cause. It’s not like you’re any farther from the front lines than I am.”
“I don’t do field work the way you do.”
And that’s part of the problem. You want to have the kind of selfless dedication Leon has to work, to helping others, but you can’t always act as a human shield like he does. He’s always been willing to die if it means saving a life, and even if it comes from a dark place, you know that he’s the exact man you would want to show up when you face the kinds of horror Umbrella Corp. sends you in to.
Maybe you’re the selfish one.
This is the root of the problem. You’re both coping with the same feelings in ways that sit so opposite from each other that it feels painful to try and understand.
Do we really deserve to be alive?
Guilt sends Leon barreling into danger, willing to use the life he feels he doesn’t deserve as a bartering chip to spare others. It terrifies you.
Because the same guilt paralyzes you into caution, because whether you deserve to survive or not, you want to. You want to so badly that it sets your nervous system ablaze. You want to come home. To wrap yourself in Leon’s clothes and crawl into bed with him. To have normal nightmares about mundane fears.
You want him to come home too. You really are the selfish one.
“I don’t do fieldwork like you do.” Your throat feels like it’s closing as you repeat yourself. “I can’t throw myself in front of every bullet. Even if the guilt eats me alive, I want to live. I want to see Sherry grow up, and spend time with Claire, and come home to you. Even if I don’t deserve it, I can’t go back and trade for someone else who did.”
The silence you sit in now feels like a chasm between you.
“Why are you so convinced you should be dead?” Leon flinches at the sorrow in your voice.
“I just think someone more grateful to be alive should’ve made it out… sometimes I really consider just ending it. Thinking maybe it would be better than living with the guilt and the fear everyday.”
You reach out and take his hand, running your thumbs across the ridges of his knuckles. “But you can’t do it.” It’s not really a question, but Leon nods solemnly.
“I can’t follow through with it knowing how many people would’ve given anything to get out of that damn city alive. So maybe if I die to help someone who wants life more than I do I’ll feel less guilty about it.”
There’s not much you can say in response, but you grasp at words anyway. “Is there anything that helps you hold on? You said sometimes you think of… leaving; what helps you in the times when you’re not thinking of it?”
“You,” He squeezes your hand. “And the idea that if I keep living I can help more people. When I’m not focused on someone else’s survival, I realize I wouldn’t be very useful as a corpse.”
“Then can you promise me that the next time you’re feeling like you don’t deserve to survive you’ll talk to me? Let me remind you that you’re still helping; you of all people deserve to keep breathing. And you help the people who love you by coming home, for what it’s worth.”
It’s not perfect, no timeline to healing is, but Leon really does try. He comes home from assignments just as damaged as he always has, but he talks. He tells you about the little boy he meets on the verge of infection; the mother who shoves her baby into his arms before she limps back into whatever alley she hid in, angry teeth marks marring her shoulder. You don’t always have words to comfort him, but you cradle his head against your chest as he weeps and pick up his pain killers when he’s too worn and sore to go to the pharmacy the next day.
Tonight though, there’s something about the evening that causes anxiety to creep into your chest. You can’t tell what, but something just feels wrong. And then your phone goes off.
The caller ID that lights up your phone causes your heart to plummet.
Leon’s dispatcher never calls you. It takes you a few tries to hit accept, the tremor of your hands betraying the fear that has sunken its claws further into you.
Leon’s breathing is labored; each syllable sounds like it saps him of all his energy. “You never leave it on when I come home.”
You clutch the phone tighter in your hands, to keep from dropping it as your hands shake violently.
“I’m always afraid that if I leave it on I’ll be the one to turn it off the next morning… if you don’t come home.” There’s no response from him, just the ambience of whatever hell he’s trapped in and the sound of his breath.
“Don’t you dare die on me Kennedy.”
There’s a huff of laughter on the line, and somehow that’s what sets you off. Hot tears streak down your cheeks. “I mean it Leon.”
“Did you think I’d ask you to leave the light on for a ghost?” The laugh that bubbles up from your throat mixes with a sob into an ugly gasp.
“You think you’re so damn funny.”
“The implication that you don’t think I’m funny stings, Gorgeous.”
“Come home. Please just come back in one piece.” The longer he stays on the line the more concerned you feel.
“I will. I just needed my reminder.” Theres the sound of his body shifting, a groan as he stands.
“I love you, remember to leave the light on.”
When you hear the lock turn this time, you nearly give yourself whiplash in the attempt to lay eyes on him. Leon steps into the hall, the light left on for once, and in seconds you’re across the room. He grunts in pain as you crash into his arms, and you mumble an apology as you loosen your grip on his torso.
“Hope I didn’t drive up the electric bill leaving the light on.”
Even though he’s exhausted, you can hear the smile in his voice. You help him take off his layers and follow as he walks stiffly into your bedroom, wait patiently for him as he showers and changes. When he finally crawls into bed you let him get comfortable; draping his arm across your waist and laying his head on your chest, and you press a soft kiss to his forehead.
“Do you want to talk about it?” You ask quietly.
“Tomorrow I will. For right now I just need to appreciate that I made it home to you.”
creds to @pixopix for the star divider <3
