Summary: Leon Kennedy is on a job. Just a job. Yes, there's zombies. But sometimes, when you know your work, very little surprises you. Especially when you've been at this over a decade. So he was not expecting much from this job-- which is why the Firehouse's unusually large zombie hoarde made him curious. What were the trying to get at? Why was it blinking and...warm? Leon discovers a Safe Haven box with a newborn baby boy in it and demands Ingrid get a doctor on the comms...now. Despite the less than ideal conditions he can't help but feel attached to the orphan he pulled out of hell...the same way he had been as a baby.
RATING: PG 13 overall, R in some spaces. This is not as horror-forward as the others.
Warnings: none really? This is Resident Evil so prepare yourselves for SOME RE style horror but this is overwhelmingly a fluff piece
Word Count: 2700
A/N: Many small moments coming!
Author Masterlist -- Leon Kennedy Masterlist
Leon’s mandatory rest period would eventually run out and when it did? You would miss him. There were two weeks where he was not allowed to return to work after a mission and during that time he was really interested in helping you with J.D.
The first night with J.D. was one for the books– maybe two hours after you’d fallen asleep the baby was wailing and you woke up and so did Leon. He was embarrassed, “Uh…Jesus, sorry, I must’ve–”
When he woke he instantly kept his hand on the baby, even pressing down a bit more to try and ease him, but he was looking around the room instead of down at the baby. You were already halfway to the crib, reaching down, immediately felt the diaper was full, and Leon retracted his hand as you scooped up the baby.
“It’s ok– but he’s wet and hungry. You’re welcome to go or stay or–”
“Help? I feel like I should help.” He stood up, “Diapers? I’ll…I’ll get the bag thing.”
You nodded, “I’ll be in the kitchen warming a bottle.”
“10-4.” He was more awake than you were but you vaguely wondered if he was used to that. He would sleep then pop up and have to be ready. You’d never had quite this schedule.
“Shh, shhh–” You were bouncing J.D. on your hip as the bottle warmed and then Leon held up a diaper bag in the entrance to your kitchen.
“Where do you want it?”
“Couch or, uh, floor? I don’t want him to roll off because I’m tired–”
“I won’t let him roll.” Leon put the diaper bag on the couch and indicated the screaming baby, “Do you want me to change him?”
“I forget, have you done that yet?”
“I’m great at learning on the job.” He smirked and you let him walk over and take the baby while you fiddled with the bottle warmer. You watched over your shoulder– it was hard to not watch when you didn’t know if someone had any experience whatsoever.
Leon settled the baby against his chest and said, “Chill, man, chill– I’m working on it. You’re whining like you’re a baby or something.”
He chuckled at his own joke but J.D. squawked in that deep guttural cry of a newborn and Leon startled, “Woah, man, come on, that’s not cool….let’s see what sort of diaper we’re working with. Please let it be pee, I’m still learning.”
He laid the baby down gently, eyed the onesie for a moment before pulling at the snaps, and then watching how it went together before pulling the baby’s leg free, “Who designed this? Why is one leg so high and the other is so low? That’s stupid, this is not easy.”
“They make some that go down both legs. Personally, the snaps are not my favorite, I like the zipper but none of the zippers are two legged.”
“None of that made sense to me yet, but I’m sure it will–oh! What the…”
“Everything ok?” You called out.
“Uh, yeah…mustard. You were right. It’s like mustard.”
“Yeah, they don’t smell as much in this stage, but they can get rank.”
“Wait this is low odor?” Leon scoffed, “Uh, hang on bud, hang on, don’t roll.”
“He can’t roll on purpose but he can on accident–”
“I got one hand on him.”
You emerged with a bottle and saw Leon did have the situation handled– one hand on a baby that was naked and becoming progressively more upset. One hand digging through a diaper bag and then triumphantly pulling out a diaper. As he turned to put it back on J.D. the baby shrieked and a stream of pee flew into Leon’s face.
“What the fuck?!”
“Oh shit! I should’ve…” You were giggling, what else was there to do as a response? “I should’ve warned you, they…boys can really pee.”
“It’s in my eyes!”
“If it makes you feel better it’s much cleaner than getting poo in your eye which would almost certainly give you pink eye.”
“Can I get a towel?”
“Wet wipe first–” You reached out and took a wipe, wiping down Leon’s face. It was the first time you were this close to him and you suddenly realized you were in pajamas, no make up, nothing to hide behind. Even now? The man was gorgeous.
He blinked, “Thanks–” His eyes settled on you and he smiled, warmly, “Uh, I might need a hand–”
You put the bottle in the baby’s mouth to soothe them, “No you’re doing fine, he just needs to stop fighting you.”
Leon waited and saw the baby calm and when he did Leon got to the task of putting the clean diaper on and getting the onesie buttoned back up. At that point you nodded, “Want a turn feeding him?”
“How do I–?”
“Scoop up–” You nodded to the baby and waited for Leon to do it before handing him the bottle, “--and just angle it into his mouth. Then hold position until he’s done. Then burp.”
“Easy-peasy.”
You watched Leon effortlessly walk around your little living room holding that baby and felt the same squeeze deep inside that all the nurses had gone through. It was a sight. It was a good sight. And what’s more? You weren’t alone on this first night, and the first night was the scariest.
“Hey?” You said and he looked over at you, so you cleared your throat, “Thanks. For, uh, staying. It’s…it’s been an overwhelming day. I’m happy to have company.”
A smile erupted on his face, “Thanks for not kicking me out…let me know if I overstay my welcome.”
You checked your watch, “It’s 2 am, which means–”
“You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here?” Leon tried and you snorted.
“It means I can’t get bagels until 5am. So we have another stretch of sleep, then food’s a possibility…can I convince you to stay for food? I don’t want to keep you from anything…”
“Eh, my fish’ll be fine. They got those little food bombs, they’re going to be set for another few days. Where are you getting bagels? I only like Nadine’s even if that makes me a snob.”
“I can arrange Nadine’s…”
He fed and burped a baby and tucked him back in your room before he put his thumb behind him, “I’ll stop sleeping in your bedroom, if it’s cool I’ll take the couch?”
You were overtired and nearly invited him to just share the bed but held back at the last minute, “I’ll get the air mattress up next time.”
“You have nice couches, they’ll be golden.”
When he was gone you looked at the baby and sighed, “Oh my…that’s…well…just as unexpected as you, little man.”
Leon was many things and you came to learn a lot of them. Those first few days you became acquainted with his efficiency. You got up with the baby at 4:15am and Leon was up too.
“I have a hair trigger for a few days after a job. It’s truly fine.” He offered to get the bagels and you protested.
“You bought dinner–”
“You have your hands full–” He winked, “Tell me your order.”
He took it and got it precisely right. When he came back in he had a bag in hand, a small duffle, and he said, “Can I impose and use your shower or is that too much?”
J.D. was sound asleep on your chest and you were flipping through the channels, “No problem. I have to go to work by 10 and–”
“You have a baby!” Leon protested.
You shrugged, “You heard Richter. I didn’t see sympathy or a side of maternity leave. Let’s just see if we can get that pack and play into my office.”
“I’m off– I don’t mind keeping him.”
“I don’t mind you keeping him but—” You hesitated and didn’t want to be rude, “and please– I appreciate everything you’ve done. You are amazing. But if you were here, alone with him and he choked or needed a hospital…do you have a carseat?”
Leon nodded, “I get what you’re saying…at least I had some practice getting yours in. I can pick one up.”
You were blown over, “Has anyone mentioned that you are…”
“Handsome? Charming? A terrible poker player?”
You shook your head, “You don’t know him or me but you are being just…incredibly generous with the help. It’s humbling. Truly. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone that willing to just put boots to the ground to get the help done.”
He fucking blushed, “It’s no trouble.”
He said that a lot but you imagined none of this was as easy for him as he played it.
He was out of the shower, at a store by 9am and had a carseat fully installed and was back to your house before 9:45am meaning you were only about 5 minutes late to work.
“You really made it.” You were impressed. You pointed to the fridge, “There’s liquid formula and the empty bottles are just here on the counter next to the bottle warmer. Warm not hot. He is just a baby. You give it to him too hot and it will just burn him.” Leon nodded, “And those pre-made ones?”
“More should be coming, I was doomscrolling and filled out a bunch of sample requests so brace for impact. They love sending samples hoping people get hooked.”
“You make them sound like drug dealers.”
“I mean—” You shrugged, “I worked with a lot of babies and a lot of first time parents. First time parents are panicky. They’re being tasked with keeping a baby alive and it’s scary. They are easily persuaded that only this specific thing will do. You can use those premade bottles, just warm them. It’s simple now– milk, diaper, sleep, repeat.”
“It is a little scary. He cries.”
“He does.” You consented, “I’ll be back on lunch…what do you like for lunch?”
“I’m easy. Food is food.”
“Just not with bagels?”
“Those other things aren’t bagels.” He shook his head, “Rolls with holes.”
“A perfect name for a punk band.” You clapped your hand over your mouth, “Sorry, sometimes– sometimes things pop out.”
He was laughing, “That’s right though– perfect name for a punk band. Uh…say bye J.D.”
J.D. was awake and not crying and not eating– a combo that was new and didn’t tend to last long. Leon was holding him and even so you leaned down to kiss the baby’s head putting you inches from Leon’s chest.
You tried valiantly not to think about the chest, but you couldn’t help thinking about the baby. You were distracted the whole way to work and when you got there Rebecca didn’t help. She was waiting for you at your office door with a coffee, “How’s the little guy?”
“J.D. or Leon?”
“J.D.?”
“The, uh, baby. We thought calling him the baby wasn’t…great. And–”
“John Doe sounds weird.” Rebecca nodding, catching on. “J.D. is cute. Like J.T.T., remember him?”
“Don’t we all?” You accepted the coffee and Rebecca persisted.
“Nothing weird happened? No…like weird things?”
“He’s a newborn, it’s all weird. He pooped? Which is good. He’s eating and crying. Might need to try a little more gentle cleaning of the umbilical area because he had that late–”
“But nothing weirder, right?”
You narrowed your eyes, “Like what?”
Rebecca had worked the field and new what sorts of horrible things could await you, but she didn’t want to scare you. Not yet, “Where’s the baby now? We’ve never had a baby…is he ok?”
“He’s with Leon.”
Rebecca let go of a breath, “Perfect. He’ll be safe with Leon.”
That part you absolutely agreed with.
It took you a moment to realize Rebecca wasn’t worried about you taking care of the baby, or Leon taking care of the baby, but some other ominous thing. You swallowed, “You…were you worried? About…” You circled your finger around the office and Rebecca did put her finger to her lips for silence.
“Let’s take a walk, shall we? Come on Flossy.”
“I hate that name.”
“It’s adorable. You sound like a collie.”
“I don’t think that helps.”
“OK what are you more– Back to the Future? Come on Marty, we gotta get back to the future—” Rebecca pulled at your arm until you were both in a breezeway. It connected the two buildings of your DSO department and was for outdoor breaks, eating, etc. Once there Rebecca sighed, “They can’t hear as well out here, the ambient noise.”
“You think…who, Richter? Was spying on us?”
“Probably not before yesterday but we caught her with her pants down, sort to speak. We surprised her, and I bet it was bad for business. That is definitely bugged, I’m going to run a sweep covertly later.”
“How do you–”
“Don’t worry.” Rebecca nodded, “I know how to, nothing will get broken.”
You smiled and shook your head, “You know what? I trust you. I never did any of the other kind of work….but you really think she’s done that?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Jeez…he’s just a baby.”
“He’s been exposed. They destroyed a town. It makes for super bad press. It shows they never really did get a handle on bioweapons? Worse– makes kids look like they’re in danger.” Rebecca ticked off each reason on her finger, “We’ve all…seen that side of the bureaucracy. Sherry and Leon and Claire and Chris and Jill and….they keep us alive because we’re useful. We are some of the only people who get out of those situations. We also just…we’ve seen too much. We know too much. It’s here or dead– I think we all know that.”
You felt cold just run down your spine.
It was a hard day to focus while you worked and Rebecca was a goddamn champion in the process – she was acting like nothing was wrong and she was sympathetic with you.
“It’s…a balancing act. The stress and the fear and the getting shit done anyway. It’ll make sense to you. It’s like residency in that way.” Rebecca tried to bridge that gap for you but the space between your experience and theirs was wider than a canyon. All you knew was that you’d volunteered to protect this baby and you were in it now– you’d have to learn and adjust.
“Will you, uh…tell me when you…what? Swept the office?”
“Yeah no worries.” Rebecca confirmed, “And just…if Leon needs to go and you need hands you have my number, and I’ll text you Sherry’s. We are in this together–you need someone watching out for him. You were tough with Richter but if they send someone in who is big and muscly and intimidating? I want you to have back up. Not that I don’t trust you, but you deserve back up and we will provide it. We already talked about it.”
For some reason that hurt your feelings.
Why had you let yourself believe that Leon S. Kennedy would simply volunteer to help you just because he liked you?
It’s just about the baby and this other nonsense and that’s completely fine…
Still, though, it stung.
It stung when you went back to work
It stung when you picked up subs for lunch.
It stung when you got home and he started awake on the couch with the baby sleeping on his chest, one hand securing the baby and the other patting the cushion next to him as if he expected a gun and a worse person in the room.
They really are scared the higher-ups will do something crazy…
“Hey! Sorry to scare you–” You held up the bag, “I brought sandwiches?”
It made him smile at you, “Amazing. I was just resting my eyes.”
It wouldn’t kill him to be less charming, but it might break a little piece of you if he couldn’t bring the general level of charm down to a safer region. It was like radiation at this point– and you were in danger of getting poisoned.
A/N: Also it should be repeated-- it will be made clearer later but J.D. is not white-- I think of him as Latino. Not only will Leon be raising a baby that is not his, but it doesn't remotely look like him and he couldn't care less, that's his boy.
Not Beta Read. We edit 6 months later at 2am.
Resident Evil regulars, I'm new here! I don't know your tags well, help a girl out and RB please. I see several RE communities but have no idea who takes fanfiction-- help a girl out.
So I updated with speed like I was being stalked by Mr. X and have done nearly 100k on Leon in a month. I don't know. There are other stories on the Leon Masterlist (it's linked up top)
First, Do No Harm (complete) Leon x Reader (slowburn, wife)
Resident Evil Miami: A DLC style fic where Leon meets his wife (an OC but very reader adjacent)
Tags (from the new list) Let me know if you want to be added! @indiegirlunited @spadesjadesfiction @harriedandharassed @avidreader73 @itsrubberbisquit @amneris21 @iceclaw101 @thelion-sroar @ferns-fics @tintinn16 @vabeachazn @brandyllyn @felteppsers @missladym1981 @stealyourblorbos @felteppsters @mostclevermiss @elegantduckturtle @100percentlazybonez @aliwritesfic-main @modiddys-blog @qardasngan @julesandgems @devilslittlehelper @biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @superunkn0wn @thiskingdomwillendure @deo-data @anfervaldez @ionlypartiallyslay @sunshine-angel08 @ladylothlorien @ayamenimthiriel @sleepilysworld @midiplier @leonphumes @kl0ng5ki3 @possibly--possessed @kashasenpai
Warnings: fluff, sleeping, leon being tired and injured and charming, r being mushy and protective of him…five times in a row. canon typical violence, mission talk, off-page suicide by a minor oc, leon’s raccoon city trauma, picture any leon you want
a/n: technically a 4-part prequel and 1-part epilogue to “no matter how it ends.” if you want to read about the mission that brings these two together in all its glorious, smutty detail, check out that fic. this fic references that one a lot!
--
MISSION: ARGENTINA, SURVEILLANCE OF SUSPECTED T-VIRUS MATERIALS TRADE LOCATION
The rain starts at midday.
The sun is there one second and gone the next, everything plunged into darkness like someone simply turned off the lights. The church tower that you're in is on the hill, looking down with a clear sight line to the supposed meeting spot of your target.
But when it's raining, you can't see shit.
"If this roof starts to leak, I'll be pissed," you mutter. "How much longer till shift change?"
Leon checks his watch. He's cleaning his pistol, one leg outstretched and the other bent at the knee, his back pressed to the cold, damp stone. If he feels the chill, he does a good job of hiding it.
"An hour," he says. "If they show up on time."
You press the binoculars to your face and peer through again, but it's a lost cause.
"Bravo team never shows up on time," you remind him. "This is so pointless."
Leon doesn't argue. He even smirks, mouth pulling up at one corner as he pushes the clip back into his gun with a click.
"We know the guy is here," he reminds you. "It's a start."
Your target is a former Umbrella employee who set up shop in a small Argentinian mountain town to allegedly make new viruses. But it's a delicate mission as far as diplomacy goes, so much so that you two, one of the best pairs in the whole damn organization, have been relegated to surveillance.
For now.
"I'm bored," you say. It probably sounds petulant. Usually, missions are not boring. But this is the most laid-back thing you've been assigned so far, and you both know it. "I wish I had a book, or something."
Leon perks up. It's subtle, but you're already fairly attuned to his small movements even though you haven't been partners for all that long. His shoulders roll back. He turns ever so slightly to face you more fully.
"What, I'm not entertaining enough?"
You mirror his position, turning from the vantage point to lean against the wall.
"I don't know, Kennedy," you tease. "Can you do a flip?"
You both know he can do a flip.
He doesn't bite. "You read?"
That gets an eye roll. "I know how to read, yes. Do you?"
He huffs, pleased as he always is when you show some attitude. He's full of it, though it doesn't always rise to the surface.
"I just read The Count of Monte Cristo," he says. "I don't have a copy to give you, but I can tell you about it."
That's just how he is -- sass one second, honesty the next. Leon doesn't say things he doesn't mean. It's like he doesn't see the point in being anything but truthful.
Still, you study him. He's singular, your partner. Better in the field than anyone else, sure, but it's more than that. Leon S. Kennedy is different down to his core, down to the golden heart that beats in his chest.
Sometimes it's just...hard to believe you're a witness to it. To him.
"Okay," you say. If he's surprised, he doesn't show it.
"And you're not going to read it?" he says. Leon likes to do this, you've learned. To check with you. To be sure. "You don't mind knowing what happens?"
"No, go ahead."
Something in him lightens as he talks. He's a good storyteller. He explains the main character’s imprisonment, his escape, the transformation. The revenge, the mercy, the forgiveness. It matters to Leon, you realize. That he gets it right, but also that you understand what it's about. That you learn what he learned, feel what he felt. He wants you there with him.
So you listen. You watch. You drink your fill just this one time.
Because while he's competent and beautiful and so, so good, you're partners. What you're doing here matters, even if it's raining and you can't see shit. And you're best at it when you're with him, so that's how it will be. Nothing can compromise that.
But you're allowed to look. To see the way he talks with his hands the deeper into the story he gets. The way he catches your eye even when you shift around a little. The way he leans forward just a bit and you mirror it, always meeting him wherever he wants to go.
By the end, he's basically resting his chin on a forearm slung across his knee. "But then the very last line --"
"HQ to Alpha Team, come in, Alpha Team."
You both jump, and Leon flips open his communicator. He looks a little irritated at being interrupted.
"Hunnigan, Alpha Team here."
"Bravo Team is delayed," Hunnigan says, her voice unusually staticky over the line. It drags you the rest of the way out of Leon's story and into the present – the mission. "Supplies restock went fine, but the road up is washed out. They're looking for an alternate route."
"Lucky us," Leon says, tipping his head back against the stone. "Thanks for the update."
You feel compelled to get to your knees and face the window again. It's a reminder of where you are, what you're doing.
The silence feels unwelcome. Not unnatural or awkward, but more like you expect it to be filled with Leon's voice. He's never said so much in one go, and you already miss listening.
"So he just...gives up on revenge?" you ask.
Leon nods. "He realizes it's an empty pursuit."
You finally look through your binoculars. Nothing, just rain.
"I admire that," you say. "I guess he wins, in the end. He's free."
"All human wisdom is contained in these two words: Wait and hope," Leon recites.
You turn back to him and meet his eyes. He swallows, looks away. Now he's shy. "That's the last line."
"Do you believe that?"
"I'm not very good at waiting," he says wryly. He picks up his gun, forgotten on the floor in his storytelling, and slides it into his holster. "Or hoping."
You don’t think either of these things is true. Leon is incredibly patient. He is also hopeful down to his bones, even if he won’t admit it. He believes in doing as much good as he can, and he believes in saving people. It’s as much a part of him as his rare smile and piercing eyes.
But he would never say such things about himself. He’s allergic to internalizing compliments.
"Let's practice," you suggest. "I'll start. I hope Bravo team shows up soon."
For a second, you think Leon won't play. But he hums and says, "I hope they're muddy and soaked for making us wait."
"Leon!" you laugh. "How unkind to our fellow agents."
He shrugs. "A little rain never hurt anybody. Your turn."
"I hope...we get a few weeks off after this," you offer. It's impossible to know what will come next. Truthfully, you always miss being in the field with Leon after too long away.
Your partner attempts to look professionally discouraging but fails. "We barely did anything on this one."
"Well, it's not over yet!"
Almost like it was listening, the sky rumbles.
"I hope I sleep on the plane home," he says. It's aptly punctuated with a yawn. After Bravo Team relieves you, it's back to the safe house for a quick hot meal and as many hours of sleep as you can catch. He never says so, but you don't think Leon is a good sleeper. He's too alert, too ready for something to happen.
Maybe he's different in his own space. You wouldn't know, you've never seen it. Never seen him outside of work at all, really.
But you know how he looks now. Tired.
Despite his golden heart and mystifyingly confident attitude, Leon is a man like any other. Now that you think about it, you know he hasn't been sleeping well. You can hear him on the other side of the wall in the safe house, the methodical way he takes apart and cleans his gun, the soft grunts of a workout instead of closing his eyes. Nightmares, maybe. You don't know how to ask.
And telling him he looks exhausted might not be great for his ego. But he's your partner, and your job is to take care of him as much as it is to complete the mission, however you can.
"Get some rest," you tell him.
He frowns. "What?"
"I'll keep watch," you continue with a shrug, like it's no big deal. It is, and it isn't. He's put his life in your hands countless times since you were assigned together, but this is different. You're asking for a new kind of trust.
He blinks at you, unreadable as he comes to a decision.
"Just a little," he says. "15 minutes. Tops."
"Whatever you say, Kennedy," you say with a salute. He huffs, but settles back against the wall a little more, eyes sliding shut.
You're not even sure he'll fall asleep, but before long, his breathing evens out, and his head tilts a little more to the side. He looks younger like this. Less burdened.
If anything came through the door right now, you'd kill it. No hesitation. Just so he would keep looking like that.
MISSION: NEPAL, RECONNAISSANCE REGARDING POSSIBLE NEW VIRUS LABORATORY
Leon has three broken ribs, maybe four, and the extraction point is really fucking far from the lab.
Why did Hunnigan make it so far?
You'd ask her, but both of your coms are long gone. Fried from the blast and smashed to pieces from what came after. Probably 10 bullets left between the two of you, a shitty knife, and two vials of herbs.
Which Leon needs, desperately.
He's trying not to lean his entire weight on you, but you both know he can't walk on his own right now, let alone stand.
You slow your already glacial trudge away from the carnage in your wake and adjust his arm around your shoulders. He's holding his own ribs, stabilizing them as best he can. You keep your gun at the ready between you, just in case. He's trying really hard not to drag his leg.
"We should just walk home," he says. The cuts on his face aren't bleeding anymore, but he's still got crimson smears on his neck. "Shouldn't take too long."
"Oh, yeah?" you say lightly. He can probably feel your panic anyway, attuned to you as he is in the field. This joke is probably an attempt to get you to calm down. "Over the mountains, through the woods, across an ocean, and to Washington DC we go."
"See? Easy enough."
His breath is hot on your ear, head almost entirely lolled onto your shoulder before you start walking again. You can hear the pain in his voice, though he tries to hide it. You glance at him and find his face ashen and sweaty, hair hanging limply over his eyes.
He shouldn’t go on much longer. The sun is already below the tree line, clouds the color of bruises stretching over your heads. You’re really fucked if it starts snowing while you’re out here and you lose visibility.
"Leon," you say. "I think we'll have to stop for the night. The choppers won't come until tomorrow."
"If they're coming," he mutters. It's probably meant to make you laugh, a jab at the occasional disorganization of your jobs, but instead it deepens your already poorly concealed panic.
He's been hurt before. Hell, he got shot in front of you on your second mission together. You pushed on the wound with your own hands. It took weeks for the feeling of his blood under your fingernails to fade.
But this is different. You can't call for early extraction, and you have to survive the night in this freezing abandoned village, an Umbrella lab burning behind you. And he's hurt, and you don't even know how badly.
The noise he made when he hit the wall --
A new thought, sharper and more dangerous than all the rest, shoves its way to the front.
What if Leon dies here, and you have to watch?
"Let's try that one," he says, dragging you back from the edge of your spiral. He jerks his chin down the path towards a ramshackle building. "The top floor has some good sight lines from those windows."
"Can you climb stairs?" you ask. His knee is so fucked you're worried moving even at all makes it worse.
"That's what you're for."
The snow is slippery as you slowly hobble to the two-story building at the edge of the village.
It’s impossible to stop your brain from going a million miles a minute. You're going to have to double back and cover your tracks as best you can. Maybe you can make a splint for his leg with the shit in your pack and anything left in the building you trudge towards. Should you make him a sled? Could you pull him to the extraction point?
You’ll do whatever it takes to keep that horrible, horrible thought from coming true.
It takes some time, but you get up the stairs and settle near the window overlooking the main path.
"At least it's warmer in here," Leon says.
He's slumped against the wall, gingerly taking pulls from your canteen to wash down the herbs he finally swallowed. His forehead is slick and his breathing labored from the effort. "All things considered, it was a pretty successful mission."
You can't decide between watching him or watching the windows, which means pacing between each one and glancing at him every few seconds. It's unlikely you were followed, but successfully completing the mission, injuries aside, feels a little too good to be true. You're waiting for the other other shoe to drop.
"Leon, you got thrown 30 feet into a stone pillar."
He shrugs, then winces. "Just another day at the office."
He rolls his neck, pressing his fingers into it like he can will away whatever aches he's feeling.
You both get injured in the field all the time. Nothing serious, not usually, and it's rarely enough to require immediate attention. But you also know that Leon sits with his pain. He doesn't call attention to it unless you ask, and even then, you know he downplays it.
But he doesn't lie to you. You don't do that in your partnership.
"Leon," you say again.
He sighs.
"Been better," he admits. "After the stairs up here, I can be pretty sure my lungs aren't punctured. The knee isn't great, though. Hurts like hell."
You walk between the windows again. Did you even clear the room properly? Maybe you should clear the whole building.
"Do you think you have a concussion?" If he does, you can't let him sleep too much, though he needs rest desperately. It's going to be a long night.
Leon says your name in his you’re not being very calm voice. You ignore it.
"You saw," he continues. "I hit pretty much everything but my head."
Oh boy, did you see.
The whole thing felt like slow motion. The lab was meant to be a virus research facility. You were meant to figure out what they were making and destroy it. But you got there too late -- most of it had been cleared out. Everything important, anyway. Not much left in the way of documents and research, and certainly no staff.
But then you found the fucking plant.
Something left behind unintentionally or on purpose as a trap, you're not sure. What you are sure about is that some virus-juiced up weed caused the otherwise dormant facility to go into self-destruct lockdown. Your coms got fucked, and then you had to figure out how to destroy the plant.
Leon drew its attention while you messed with the door systems, trying to trap it without trapping yourselves. He took hit after hit, his bullets only doing so much against the thick, slimy vines.
You looked up to tell him you found a path to the exit right as the plant managed to hook itself around his knee. It squeezed, and he screamed. You can still hear it.
But that was nothing compared to what came next.
The plant hoisted him into the air by his ruined knee and threw him clear across the chamber.
He hit the wall with a horrible wet thud before falling to the ground in an unmoving heap.
There are no words for your terror in that moment. Not that you'd ever tell him what it felt like -- you don't lie to each other, but there are things he does not need to know.
The plant turned toward you, thinking its opponent vanquished, and that was its mistake.
You killed that motherfucker. Fueled by terrified rage and capitalizing on the damage Leon had already done, you managed it. And when you finally fell to your knees next to Leon and saw his chest rise and fall, well. There are few better feelings.
But you're not out of the woods yet.
"Yeah, I saw," you say. You check each window again, one by one.
"Can you sit down?" Leon says. "You're making me nervous."
"You don't get nervous."
"First time for everything."
You face him. He looks amused.
"I need to cover our tracks," you say. "Will you be okay for a little? You can have the bullets."
"Woah," he says. Amusement turns to a frown. "Slow down. We saw no signs of staff or guards.
No one is here. You don't need to cover our tracks. We'll be okay."
The knot in your stomach loosens just a little. Leon is careful in the field. Maybe not with himself, but with intel, preparation, and execution. If he thinks there's no one here, there's no one here. And if he's wrong, he trusts both of you to be able to handle it. He doesn't gamble with your life.
"Come sit," he says. "I'll beg, if that's what it takes."
Somehow, he gets a laugh out of you. "I should make you."
Still, you do as he asks. There's nothing to build a fire with, and while Leon's conviction of your safety is a nice one, you're not totally sold. Best to tough it out until morning.
Leon clears his throat, though it's more of a groan than a cough.
"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" he starts. "If they don't come tomorrow --"
The words fly out of you before you have time to think them through.
"Don't tell me to leave you."
His eyes betray his surprise. A little too wide, brows pulled together in the middle to form a crease you've often thought about smoothing with your thumb.
Embarrassment is hot in your throat. It's important to you to be calm in a crisis, to be able to think through it and come out the other side. But something about this whole fucking day is making you fray at the edges. The echo of his scream, of his body hitting the ground, plays on loop in your mind.
"I was going to say we'll need to find some food," Leon says, slowly. As if you're a deer about to bolt.
"Oh," you breathe. "Okay." You rub your palms on your pants. "You're right."
You need to get it together. You cannot fall apart until it's all over. You're not even the one who is hurt, for crying out loud.
"Hey," Leon says, so soft you have to close your eyes so you don't look at him and reveal everything you're feeling. "I won’t ask you that."
Someday, he might. And if that day comes, you’ll refuse just like you do now. The certainty of it settles in your chest, and it feels right. You’ll never leave Leon Kennedy behind.
"Good," you reply. "Cause I wouldn't." You dig your fingers into your thighs and make yourself look at him with a smile that only feels half forced. "We can just walk home, remember?"
Leon snorts, then groans.
"Fuck," he hisses. "Damn ribs. Don't make me laugh."
"I'm too funny for you." Worry still simmers just under your skin, but all of this, his words, his laughter, just being near him, it's helping. "You've got a lot of blood on your neck," you say, softly.
The vines were covered in thorns that nicked him anywhere he was exposed. The small slices on his skin are shallow and already clotted, but your hands are desperate to help.
"It's always something."
"Stay still," you mumble. Leon seems to sense your restlessness and allows you to shift closer and clean him up with a bit of water and a bandage from your hip pouch.
"Look," he says, barely wincing as you work. "We got some intel, killed that thing, and the lab blew up. It's cold, sure, but we're inside, and tomorrow morning we'll make it to the field and get a nice, warm chopper pickup."
"You need medical now, though," you huff. The blood comes off easily. He swallows and you feel it against your fingertips. "I'm worried about your knee."
"It's not going anywhere." Leon cups your elbow gently, grounding you. And maybe himself. "We're going to be fine."
He honestly seems confused that you're not as sure as he is, like your fear has thrown him.
Does Leon Kennedy believe in you that much? He trusts you, you know that. You wouldn't work so well together if he didn't. But he believes in you, in your partnership. The knot in your throat begins to twist into something else, something softer, something more dangerous.
He's not scared at all because you're here. Because you're together.
"Yeah," you allow. "Yeah, we are."
You ball up the bloody bandage and lean back against the wall next to him.
"I'll take first watch," Leon says. He sounds serious about it.
You check the clip on your sidearm and do him the courtesy of not laughing.
"Yeah, right," you reply. "You should rest. We'll have to walk the rest of the way to the field in the morning."
The absence of an argument is no surprise. He's stubborn, but he's able to be realistic. If you're getting out of here, he needs as much strength as he can find.
"The food in medical is going to be so bad," he mutters.
He rolls his head against the wall to look at you. The herbs are working because his skin is a little less pale, his jaw a little less tense. You can only hope he's not in as much pain.
"I'll bring you something good," you tell him. "Sleep, Leon."
He stays facing you, but closes his eyes.
"Fine," he says. "Just a few minutes."
You scoot closer to him so you're pressed together, shoulder to ankle. Leon runs cold, you've learned, but being this close means you can feel the innate heat of him in the otherwise frigid air. Heat means he's alive.
"Body heat," you say, mostly to yourself. "Don't freeze on me, okay, Kennedy?"
"I'll do my best," he huffs. "Just a few minutes, I'm serious. Wake me up if you need anything."
Leon sleeps through the night at your side.
You stay pressed against him with your gun in one hand, ready and willing to do whatever you have to to keep him safe. To get both of you home.
Something has changed. The place in your heart where he lives has shifted, softened, and grown. He is, you now know, essential to you. As fundamental as the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs.
Maybe everything has changed.
That's a problem for later. After you get him to the extraction point, after you see him to medical, after you write up your report and put this mission behind you.
MISSION: GREECE, ELIMINATION OF B.O.W.s AND CAPTURE OF SOURCE
You don't think Leon sleeps for the three days you're in Greece.
It's hard to tell. You feel well-rested each time he wakes you for your watch, which means he lets you sleep too long. And when you take over, he doesn't look like he's sleeping. It's not the soft, relaxed face you now know so well. He's just lying there, waiting for morning to come.
It must be nightmares. You just wish he would try.
The mission itself ends up being kind of fun. Greece is beautiful. Vibrant blue water and endless sky, picturesque beaches and a monastery with the most beautiful stained glass windows you've ever seen. You want to explore properly, to wander the streets for fun, not with a gun in your hand.
The island population evacuated before you arrived, so all you have to do is find the mad scientist billionaire living in the catacombs making B.O.W.s, and kill as many of them as you can on your way.
Bats with tentacles and lizards with thousands of teeth where you wouldn't expect teeth to be.
Easy, right?
Except for the fact that you have to chase them up and down so, so many stairs.
And Leon falls down most of them.
Thanks to his body armor, he's only a little battered. His ego is probably more bruised than his skin.
But the whole thing takes a lot out of him when combined with how little rest he gets.
You apprehend the billionaire and send him off in his chopper. Your own extraction is quick after that, even if you have to basically haul Leon into the bird. He slumps next to you with a bleary-eyed fist bump.
The island is still below when Leon falls asleep. You turn to say something to him, to see why he's leaning on you with his full weight, only to find his eyes closed and his breathing even.
Just like that.
No nightmares.
Truthfully, this is why you wanted him to just try to sleep. But how would you say that? How would you tell him that you think his body knows he's safe with you just as much as his mind does? That he trusts you so deeply?
It is in this moment that you let yourself think it.
You love him.
Maybe this was inevitable. He's the best man you've ever known. You trust him with your life on a regular basis, and he returns that trust tenfold. You've washed his blood from your skin, relied on his steady aim in the heat of a fight, leaned into his warmth in the darkest, most terrifying places on earth.
Now that you've thought it, there's no going back.
There's no doing anything about it, either. It's too complicated.
Maybe he loves you. You're not sure. It doesn't matter, anyway. You'd never ask him to give more of himself to you. He gives everything to the world already. You won't be another person who takes from him.
So this? A successful mission, the weight of him settled firmly at your side, both of you alive and mostly well? This might be enough.
Leon turns his head so his face is pressed into your shoulder, his hair tickling your jawline. You let yourself lean into him, resting your cheek on the top of his head.
You make each other feel safe. Is that not love?
MISSION: U.S.A., AQUISITION OF ANTIVIRAL MATERIALS
It's too late.
You both know it the moment you arrive.
The pale door stands alone in the middle of the New Mexico desert, almost invisible among the hills of pristine white dunes unless you’re looking right at it. Just as the briefing said it would. A lab hidden from the DSO, from lingering Umbrella hostiles, from everyone. A lab working on antivirals of all kinds, invaluable resources that would be disastrous in the wrong hands.
But the door hangs open.
"Shit," Leon mutters, drawing his weapon. "Looks like we're late to the party."
You follow him through the door and down the stairs. The power isn't out, but the lights flicker when you walk under them like they want to hide whatever awaits you.
It's more bare bones than anything you've seen before. No lobby, no desk. No security room, no floor map. Just a corridor at the bottom of the stairs and doors on either side, all pushed open.
Glass litters the floor, as do crumpled wet papers. There is a sharp chemical smell in the air. You know in your gut that the antivirals are gone.
"No people," you whisper. "No corpses."
Leon nods, face grim. He knows what's gone on here just as well as you do. Whatever small operation was functioning before today is dead to the world. It’ll be a miracle to get any good intel from this place.
"We need to check every room anyway," he tells you.
But before you can start a sweep, someone coughs. It's so unexpected that you both twist on the spot and aim your guns in the direction of the noise.
"Is anyone alive down here?" Leon calls. "We're here to help."
Not entirely true per your mission, but Leon is always here to help. And where he goes, you go.
The coughing stops.
With a quick glance at him, you lead the way down the hall to the door you're pretty sure the survivor – god, you hope it’s a survivor – is in.
The closer you get, the more you hear it -- someone is crying.
The room ends up being an office, small and ransacked. Two people lean against one of the overturned desks.
A man and a woman, the latter crying softly into her hands. They're partners of some kind. You can tell right away. They occupy each other’s space in a way that feels familiar to you, that triggers a deep sense of horror once you put the pieces together.
These are two people who love each other, and there is no other place they'd rather be, even at the end.
The man has his arm around her, but you can see his face.
He's infected. Not gone yet, but well on the way. Black veins run up his neck into his hairline. If the woman raised her head, you'd undoubtedly see the same.
You glance at Leon, but he's already looking at you, having reached the same conclusion.
"You work here?" Leon asks.
"I'm sorry," the woman mutters wetly. "I'm sorry, we didn't know they would come, we didn't know --"
"What happened?" you press.
"It's all gone," the man snaps. He barely spares you a glance. "Can't you tell? They took it all."
"The antivirals," Leon fills in.
The woman looks up. She doesn't have long left. Minutes, maybe. Her speech is slurred, and her eyes are cloudy, the whites of them spiderwebbed black. You don’t even know if she can see you.
"They... threw a gas grenade down the stairs and... then destroyed it all," she says. "We could hear them smashing vials while we were..."
The woman begins to cough, droplets of blood spraying the ground under her as she heaves.
It splatters over her wedding ring. Fuck. You were right.
"Shh, Mack," the man tells her. "Don't talk."
She doesn't listen. "Simon," she manages to say, "The files, I--"
The man -- Simon -- rubs at her back until she pushes him away.
“I’m not leaving you,” he says. “Don’t ask me to.”
The words hang in the air. You can hear your own voice saying them back in Nepal.
"Please," she begs.
You take a small step towards Leon.
"What's she talking about?" he says.
There's no tremor in his voice, but you can hear his horror, his rage. Neither of you can stop what’s happening here.
Simon gets to his knees and reaches for a drawer in the overturned desk. Using a key, or a combination, you're not sure which, he opens a secret compartment with a hushed snick.
And pulls out a stack of files.
"There's no time for us," Simon tells you, holding them out in a shaking hand. The veins in his forearms are steadily turning black. "But you can make more with these. We thought this might happen someday." He glances at his wife and the blood dripping down her chin. "Not like this."
Leon seems frozen in place. It's the worst-case scenario. Two people trying to do good who become victims, casualties, and there's nothing you can do to save them.
You surge forward to take the files. Simon collapses back beside Mack.
"Can we do anything?" you offer.
"Yes," Mack gurgles. "End it."
It's an ask that gives you pause, even after all of your time as an agent. You've killed many B.O.W.s by this point, and your fair share of human beings. It comes with the job.
It keeps you up at night.
But could you kill someone like this, because they asked you to? To spare them the indignity of turning into a monster?
Leon saves you from deciding. He hands over his gun, and Simon takes it with wide eyes.
"We'll wait," Leon says. His words are shot through with regret. "Outside."
He turns on his heel before the pair can say anything. You think it might kill him to hear a thank you for this.
There's no choice but to follow. You don't want to be here for what comes next, nor should you.
You shut the office door behind you and find Leon standing in the hall, arms crossed and back pressed against the wall. His eyes are on the floor.
What is there to say?
You stand next to him, shoulders brushing.
And you wait. And wait. And wait.
What does it feel like to die? To sit beside the person you love most as it happens? To be the one who kills them, who ends their suffering? To be the one who keeps them human, in the end. Could you bear that burden?
It's hard not to glance at Leon. For him, maybe you could. For him, you sometimes think you could do anything.
The first gunshot makes you both inhale sharply.
The second, only moments later, is an exhale.
Leon looks up from the floor and catches your gaze. He looks so young and so tired. You're missing something, something big that's making this harder for him. It settles over his shoulders and drags them down.
He heads back to the office and you follow. Of course you follow.
You won't make him do this alone.
The two of you stand in front of the closed door and breathe. It feels like before and after, like there's no coming back from whatever this is.
You squeeze Leon's shoulder.
He reaches for the knob.
The debrief back at base is awful and takes forever. The mission was technically a failure, since you didn't actually get the antivirals, but the files will help immensely. When you're finally done, you amble out of the windowless room into the hall and find Leon waiting for you.
He looks as exhausted as you feel, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He's showered and changed into stuff he keeps around for long nights post-mission, dark sweatpants and a hoodie. He looks soft but weary.
"Hey," he says, straightening up. "You okay?"
You offer him a small smile. "Define okay."
"Yeah, fair enough," he says. He runs a hand through his damp hair. "That was fucked up."
"Yeah." You step a little closer. "Are you okay?"
Leon tilts his head to the side, eyes on your face but not seeing you, not really. He's seeing whatever ghosts are haunting him about this.
"I will be."
"Leon," you say, without knowing what will come next. Just to say his name, to bring him back to this moment. It works, refocusing him, drawing him back to you. You both saw something horrible today. You can feel it in the air -- you can see his distress, the way he's carrying this differently than most other horrible shit you do in this job. It's weighing on him.
"I don't want to be alone right now," you say. It’s no lie, but it’s also disguising what you really want to do – take care of him. After what you saw, you don’t want to leave him alone. "Do you want to come over?"
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he studies you. You try not to squirm. Maybe it's plain as day on your face how concerned you are. Maybe he can see your care for him as easily as you feel it.
"Okay," he says.
It's not that unfamiliar. He's been over a few times when you've been injured over the course of your partnership thus far, dropped things off while you recovered. He even made soup once.
So when you're standing in your kitchen, each holding a sweating glass of water, it's not discomfort you're feeling. If someone asked, you'd say he looks at home in his soft clothes and socked feet, bags under his eyes. More relaxed than before, at least.
"Should we talk about it?" you say.
Leon sighs. "Do you want to?"
No, not really. But the pain in their voices, the horror on Leon's face. The way those two people, utter strangers to you, loved each other in the midst of this fucked up world of viruses and vaccines and corporations that you all find yourselves in. In the face of death, till the very end.
Here, in the safety of your kitchen, looking at the man you love, you think about telling him how you feel. It makes your heart feel like an open wound. You imagine it, what you'd do for him. What you suspect he'd do for you.
Would it scare him away? How far you would go to save him?
"Not really," you admit. "But it might make us feel better. That shit was nightmare fuel. Not that we need any more of those."
Leon huffs. You still need to shower and change, but this is important. You hop up on your counter. He leans against the cabinets across from you.
"Thank you," he says. "For taking the lead back there. For talking to them."
You wouldn't describe it as such, but you don't say so. You've heard this tone from him a few times before. It's like he's somewhere else.
And he is.
"Did it remind you of something from Raccoon City?" you ask carefully. Not because you think he'll be mad, but because he deserves some care.
You've gotten bits and pieces from him about that day over the course of your partnership. You know how he carries it with him, how his entire life as an agent started there, with the people he lost, the things he saw. You often think about him as a rookie police officer standing as tall as he could against a crumbling city, against threats he couldn't even begin to understand.
You'll never know that Leon, but loving this one means you love him, too.
"Yeah," he replies. He sets the water glass on the counter and crosses his arms. "There was this man who owned a gun shop," he says. "Kendo. He was upset and scared. He told me I was supposed to know something about how it all happened because I was a cop."
The smile on his face is a bitter one. You don't like it, so different from the ones he saves for you.
"I didn't even know how little I knew, at that point," he says. "We're talking to him, and then his daughter stumbles into the shop from the back room. Emma."
You can see where this is going.
"Was she...?" you ask.
Leon nods. "It was too late. He told us to leave them alone and took her back to the room. And then we heard one gunshot. Didn't stick around to hear a second."
You breathe out. "That's...wow."
"A lot of innocent people died that night," he says. "And those scientists today -- Simon and Mack -- they were involved more than Kendo and his daughter, sure. But they were doing good, working against bioweapons. And they died for it."
He says it with resignation, with exhaustion. You know he'll never forget their names. Never forget that he couldn't save them.
"Like us," you tell him. Leon looks confused. "We're doing that, too," you continue. "And we'd die for it, right?”
For each other, you don't say.
He holds your gaze, then nods. “Yeah,” he says. "Don't get any ideas, though."
You smile at him even though his words are serious. "Okay, Kennedy."
Leon stands and holds out his hand for your glass. Your fingers brush in the exchange.
"You know," he says, turning to put it in the sink. "This was nightmare fuel, but I never have nightmares when you're around."
If asked, you'd say it's a strategic move not to face you. Giving you space to figure out how you want to respond.
The perpetual knot of feelings in your chest twists tighter. All those hours he's slept by your side while you watched over him, all those nights without a bad dream, it all sits heavy in your throat. How much it means to you that he trusts you, that he feels safe next to you.
"Really?" you ask, softly. Pretending not to have come to this conclusion yourself. "I'm glad."
Leon turns, blue eyes finding yours once again. He's told you this for a reason, but now that it's out there, you don't know what to do with it. If he feels the same way, if you are similarly essential to him, then what do you even do about it? What would change?
You're too raw for it right now. So you hold his gaze, but hop down from the counter.
"I'm going to shower," you tell him. "Help yourself to anything in the -- well, anything. You know where it all is."
There's no disappointment from him, no deflation. Just solid patience. Leon Kennedy, immovable object. Living weapon. Love itself.
"Take your time," he says.
When you come back, clean and comfortable, Leon isn't in the kitchen.
You find him asleep on the couch.
His face is turned into the pillow, one leg hanging off the side like he hadn't meant to close his eyes, but it happened anyway. It's like telling you the story about Kendo has lifted a weight from him, and he's exhausted from the memories.
All of it -- the entire mission, really -- just shows you what you already know. He trusts you, he feels safe with you. Maybe it's even more than that.
But tonight isn't for dwelling on that. It's for the two of you, safe and together for another day, to rest. Filled with gratitude for that, you brush his hair back from his face as carefully as you can before draping a blanket over him.
When you wake, you're curled up in the chair next to the couch with the same blanket draped over you.
MISSION: DATA NOT AVAILABLE
You usually tell people you like writing reports. It's not as exciting as actually going on missions, sure, but there's something satisfying about looking back on everything you did and explaining it, picking it apart for details and errors and good choices.
Maybe because you and Leon are good agents, which makes your mission reports much easier to write. But this one is taking you forever. And Leon is no help.
The mission, well.
The mission went utterly sideways. You almost died. Infected with a mystery fever virus and no antivirals to be found, part of you really thought it was the end. That Leon was going to have to watch you turn and kill you.
But he saved you. He saved you by doing the unimaginable -- putting his body on the line for yours. With yours.
And you lived.
And now you know how he feels. How you both feel.
It doesn't mean he's helpful in writing the report, though.
You banished him to your bedroom nearly an hour ago because he was being too distracting. Without his quips and the temptation to touch him every five seconds, you're finally done.
"Sorry to whoever has to read that," you mutter, shutting your laptop. It's almost dinner time.
"Leon?" you call.
Nothing.
You stand and stretch, the hem of your t-shirt -- it might be his, you're not sure -- riding up a little. Maybe he's got his headphones on.
There's evidence of him all over your place now. His jacket over the barstool, his boots by the door. Two books he wants you to read are stacked on the table, his gym water bottle is in the drying rack. But it's more than that. You know he's here. It's a strange feeling, the safety that comes with that knowledge. Like everything makes a bit more sense, your world righted just so.
You worried before that exposing your feelings would affect your partnership in the field, but you know now that you passed the threshold of a normal relationship a long time ago. You will do whatever it takes for Leon to be okay. It was true then, and it's true now. It's the light that guides your path, the direction your compass points towards. Him, always him.
You find Leon in the bedroom. He's in your bed, shoulders sinking deep into your pillows. A book you got him balanced on his chest, spine cracked.
He's asleep.
He looks younger this way, like he always does, jaw relaxed and brow smooth. His face is turned into the pillow like he's chasing your imprint on it from this morning, echoing the way he’s always aware of your presence when he’s awake. Orbiting you, filling the space you leave him, the answer to every question you’ve ever had.
You just stand there and look because you can. This man who loves you, who protects you, who trusts you. He's given you everything. His mind, his body, his heart, without hesitation. You would have happily spent the rest of your life watching over him, keeping him safe, having his back, and asking nothing in return.
But he loves you.
You sit on the edge of the bed and know he wakes immediately, but he allows you to pull the book from his torso, mark his page, and set it on the nightstand.
"Can I join you?" you whisper.
Leon opens his eyes and smiles easily, a delicate pull up of his mouth at both sides.
"Please do," he says, voice a little rough from his nap. "Mm, come here."
He sinks even further down into the pillows and holds out his arm. You go happily, your head on his shoulder and your leg over his hips.
Leon presses his lips to your hairline and inhales.
"How's the book?" you ask. His heart beats steadily under your palm.
"Good," he says. "Just thought I'd catch a few minutes. It smells so good in here. Smells like
you."
He says shit like this all the time, now. It always takes your breath away.
"Well, it's my bed," you remind him. He just hums and closes his eyes again. He drags his fingers up and down your arm.
It's a revelation to touch him like this. You never get enough of it, how solid yet pliant he is under your hands. How many times have you wondered what it would be like to do exactly this?
"Can I hold you?" you ask, trying not to sound too shy.
Icy blue reappears between his long lashes.
"Sure," he says. He sounds amused but fond. "Are we sleeping?"
We, always we. Always in step with you, always ready to follow wherever you’re going.
"For a little."
Leon turns onto his side, showing you his back. You curl yourself around him, puzzle pieces finally back where they belong. Your knee slides between his and his arm rests over yours where it's slung across his torso.
"You okay?" he murmurs.
He might not feel it, but you press your lips to his shoulder blade.
"Yeah," you say. "You?"
Leon squeezes your hand.
"Doesn't get much better than this," he tells you.
You can feel his heartbeat through his back, feel every breath in and out as you match it to your own.
There will be plenty of opportunities in the future for you to keep watch while he sleeps. But for now, you can rest together.
Masterlist
AO3
Pairing: Leon Kennedy x Reader
Summary: Leon falls victim to the cat distribution system.
As an emergency vet, you have strict rules about giving out your personal number to clients. But when a soaking wet, broad-shouldered man walks into your clinic holding a shivering neonate kitten like it's a live grenade, you make an exception. Strictly for cat emergencies, of course.
(It does not stay strictly for cat emergencies. Not when he keeps using "suspicious sneezes" as an excuse to see you)
Content: Sick animals, grief and loss, burnout, alternating POV, no Y/N, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, gentle romance, Leon becomes a cat dad, flirting, awkward Leon, domesticity, reader is a veterinarian, realistic vet med content
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The rain is a relentless, gray sheet that turns the Washington D.C. outskirts into a blurred watercolor of brake lights and misery.
Inside his Porsche Cayenne, Leon S. Kennedy feels the familiar, hollow hum of a post-mission comedown. His suit is wrinkled, his tie is loosened to the point of uselessness, and the smell of stale coffee and government-issued paperwork seems to have seeped into his very pores.
The debriefing had been a disaster. Four hours of bureaucrats in sterile rooms asking him to quantify the "unquantifiable horrors" he’d seen in a damp basement in Eastern Europe.
They want data; Leon just wants a drink and a decade of sleep.
"Note to self," he mutters, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that barely carries over the rhythmic thwack-thwack of the windshield wipers. "Next time Hunnigan calls with an 'easy' reconnaissance job, tell her I’ve retired to open a bakery. At least bread doesn't try to grow extra heads."
He’s doing sixty on the slick highway, his grip on the leather-wrapped steering wheel light but practiced. His mind is already drifting toward the bottle of aged bourbon sitting on his kitchen counter—his only roommate in an apartment that’s too quiet and too clean.
It’s a dangerous headspace to be in. In his line of work, the moment you start looking forward to the end of the night is the moment something bites you.
Suddenly, the world narrows.
A flash of neon orange darts into the cone of his high beams. It’s small—too small for a deer, too erratic for a trash bag.
"Son of a—!"
Leon reacts before he thinks. It’s a muscle memory honed by years of dodging charging Ganados and careening through Raccoon City in a stolen cruiser.
He slams the brake pedal, the ABS system pulsing violently beneath his boot. The car skids, its tires screaming in a high-pitched protest against the wet asphalt. The back end fish-tails, a graceful but terrifying slide that Leon corrects with a sharp, disciplined jerk of the wheel.
The car lurches to a halt, the engine idling with a low, mechanical pant. Leon’s heart is hammering against his ribs, a frantic rhythm he usually reserves for when a Tyrant is breaking through a drywall.
"Great. Just great," he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. "If I’ve totaled the suspension for a squirrel, I’m never living this down."
He throws the car into park and steps out. The rain hits him instantly, soaking through his dress shirt and plastering his blonde hair to his forehead. He rounds the front of the car, expecting to find a mess on the road. Instead, he sees a tiny, shivering lump huddled against the front passenger tire.
It’s an orange kitten. It couldn't be more than five weeks old, its fur spiked into pathetic, sodden needles. It looks less like a predator and more like a very angry, very wet dandelion.
Leon stares at it. The kitten stares back with wide, watery eyes, letting out a pathetic, high-pitched mew that sounds like a rusty hinge.
"You’ve got a real sense of timing, kid," Leon says, crouching down. The water is already pooling in his expensive shoes. "Of all the lanes in all the world, you had to walk into mine."
He reaches out, and the tiny creature tries to hiss. It’s a valiant effort, really—a miniature display of bravado that makes Leon’s chest ache with an unexpected, sharp tug of empathy.
He knows what it’s like to be small, cornered, and surrounded by things much larger and meaner than you.
"Easy. I'm not a zombie. Well, not on the weekends, anyway," he murmurs.
He sheds his suit jacket—the one that cost him more than an average paycheck—and scoops the kitten up. The creature is so light it’s terrifying; he can feel every individual rib beneath the soaked fur. It’s vibrating with a bone-deep chill. Without a second thought, he swaddles the kitten in the heavy fabric of his jacket, shielding it from the downpour.
Back inside the Porsche, the heat is blasting, but the kitten is still shaking. Leon sets the bundle on the leather passenger seat, watching as a tiny, pink nose pokes out from the lapel of his jacket.
"Come on, little guy," Leon mutters, his voice softening in a way he hasn't heard in years. "Don't clock out on me yet. I didn't almost wreck my favorite car just for you to quit now."
He taps the GPS on his dashboard with a frantic, wet finger. 24-hour emergency vet.
"Alright, hold on," he says, shifting the car back into gear. He glances at the kitten, who has now curled into a ball inside the jacket, looking exceptionally small against the vastness of the interior.
"I hope you like German engineering, because we’re about to break some speed records."
As he pulls back onto the highway, the bourbon is forgotten. His focus is entirely on the tiny, rhythmic rise and fall of the orange fur beside him. For the first time in a long time, the mission isn't about saving the world or stopping a virus.
It's just about making sure one small thing makes it to tomorrow.
──────•✦•──────
The clock on the wall of the treatment area mocks you. It’s 3:00 AM, the literal witching hour of veterinary medicine, where the cases are either bizarre, tragic, or a headache-inducing combination of both.
You take a sip of coffee that has reached a temperature and consistency best described as "over-brewed sludge," feeling it burn a slow path down your throat. It’s the only thing keeping your eyes open.
"The tulips really did a number on him," you mutter to Sarah, your lead tech, as you both stare down at a sedated domestic shorthair in cage four. "Bloodwork looks like a disaster zone. His liver’s basically thrown in the towel and headed for early retirement."
Sarah sighs, rubbing her eyes behind her glasses. "Are we starting him on the lactulose titration now?"
"Yeah," you say, your fingers dancing across the sticky keyboard of the workstation with a weary, mechanical rhythm. "And hang the fluids. I’ve already typed in the orders. Honestly? I could use a Propofol coma myself right about now. Just ten minutes of medically induced silence. Is that too much to ask of the universe?"
The chime of the front bell rings—a sharp, cheerful ding that feels like a physical blow to your sleep-deprived brain.
"The universe says yes," you grumble, pushing off the counter.
You catch a glimpse of the security monitor. Standing in the lobby is a man who looks like he just crawled out of a shipwreck. He’s soaking wet, broad-shouldered, and wearing a look of such raw, high-octane panic that your professional instincts override your exhaustion.
"Well," you mutter, adjusting your stethoscope around your neck. "This is going to be interesting."
You head out to the lobby, the smell of wet pavement and expensive leather hitting you before you even reach him. He’s striking—harsh jawline, blonde hair plastered to his forehead in messy clumps, and eyes a startling, piercing shade of blue that seem to be vibrating with adrenaline. He’s cradling a high-end suit jacket like it’s made of glass.
"Exam room one," you say, your voice blunt but not unkind. You don't wait for him to move; you lead the way, the squelch of his boots following behind you.
Once the door clicks shut, he gingerly places the jacket on the stainless steel table. "I found him on the highway," the man rasps. His voice is deep, underscored by a slight tremor he’s trying very hard to hide. "He almost... I almost hit him. I think he’s dying."
"Let’s see the damage," you murmur. You carefully peel back the wet fabric, expecting a gore-fest. Instead, you find a tiny, orange scrap of fur that lets out a pathetic, high-pitched squeak.
Your hands, practiced and steady, move over the tiny body. You grab a warm, chlorhexidine-soaked gauze to wipe away the road grime and grease. You check the gums—pale, but pinking up. You listen to the heart—fast, but steady. No broken bones. No internal bleeding. Just a very cold, very hungry little life.
"Good news, sir," you say, looking up at him. "He’s not dying. He’s just a dramatic, malnourished neonate."
"Leon," he corrects instantly, his voice slightly breathless. "Just... Leon."
You blink, then tap your ID badge with a tired, playful smirk. "Okay, Leon. We can do first names. It saves time in an emergency." You go back to drying the kitten with a soft towel. "He’s probably five weeks old. He’s thin, he’s got a bit of a chill, but he’s remarkably intact for someone who took on a car and won."
Leon sags against the counter, his hands shaking as he runs them through his wet hair. The relief on his face is so profound it makes your chest twinge with a rare spark of empathy. Usually, people are just annoyed about the bill. He looks like he just saw a ghost be resurrected.
"So, what happens now?" he asks. "You... you have a shelter? Or a rescue?"
You stop scrubbing and give him a long, grim look. "It’s kitten season, Leon. Every rescue within a three-state radius is currently overflowing. They won't take a bottle-baby right now. If I send him to the city shelter, his chances are... well, they aren't great."
The silence that follows is heavy, thick with the sound of the rain lashing against the exam room window. You watch the conflict play out across his face—a man clearly burdened by a world of "heavy" things, staring at a three-ounce kitten. He rubs his temples, looking at the orange scrap that is currently trying to burrow into his damp shirt.
"I don't know the first thing about cats," he admits, a dry, self-deprecating humor touching his lips. "I'm more of a... tactical entry kind of guy. Not a 'nanny' guy."
"You managed to not squash him with a car," you shrug, reaching into the cabinet to pull out a starter kit. "That’s a passing grade in my book."
He sighs, a long, defeated sound that ends in a nod. "Fine. I’ll take him. What do I do?"
For the next ten minutes, you give him the 'Neonatal 101' crash course. You pack a box with formula, tiny bottles, and a snuggle-safe heating pad. You show him how to hold the kitten—belly down, never on his back—and how to test the temperature of the milk.
"And here’s the best part," you say, a mischievous glint in your tired eyes. You pick up a cotton ball and dip it in warm water. "Since he’s this small, his mom would usually lick him to make him go. Since you are now the mom, you have to stimulate him to go to the bathroom after every meal."
You hand him the cotton ball. Leon stares at it as if you’ve handed him a live grenade with the pin pulled.
"I have to... what?"
"Stimulate," you repeat, suppressing a grin. "Gently. It’s glamorous, I know. Welcome to parenthood, Leon. Try not to get any on the suit."
The moment of levity is shattered when Sarah’s head pops through the door, her expression grim. "Doc, we’ve got a hit-by-car ten minutes out. It’s a Golden Retriever, multiple fractures, looks like he’s in shock. We’re prepping the crash cart."
The shift in your energy is instantaneous. The playful vet vanishes, replaced by the clinical commander. You reach for a pen stuck in your pocket and use it to shove your messy hair up into a makeshift bun, tightening the knot with a sharp tug.
"Copy that. Get the O2 ready and start a warm saline bag," you say, already moving toward the door. You look back at Leon, who is standing there holding a box of formula and a terrified-looking orange kitten.
"Leon, he's stable. Take the kit, go pay the tech at the front desk, and get that cat into a warm bed," you say, your voice now a sharp, professional staccato as the adrenaline begins to flood your system. "I’ve got a real crisis coming through those doors. Good luck. Don't be a stranger if he stops eating."
You don't wait for a goodbye. You're already sprinting toward the treatment area, the "Propofol coma" forgotten.
──────•✦•──────
The apartment is a monument to a man who expects to leave it at a moment’s notice and never return.
It’s located in a quiet corner of D.C., all cold granite countertops, brushed steel, and a sofa so ergonomically perfect and devoid of character it might as well have come with the lease. There are no photos on the walls. No stray mail on the entry table. The air usually smells of nothing but filtered ventilation and the faint, metallic tang of the gun oil he uses to clean his gun.
Now, it smells like kitten formula and desperation.
Leon sits on the edge of his bed, the glow of his phone illuminating the deep grooves of exhaustion etched into his face. He sets an alarm for 02:00. Then 04:00. Then 06:00.
"Great," he mutters, his thumb hovering over the save button. "I've gone from tactical extractions to a scheduled piss-watch for a creature that weighs less than a standard-issue magazine. My career trajectory is really peaking."
He looks down at the shoebox he’s lined with one of his softest, most expensive hoodies. Inside, the orange kitten—whom he has tentatively dubbed 'Cheeto' in a moment of sleep-deprived weakness—is a vibrating ball of fluff.
The 02:00 alarm blares with the subtle grace of a flashbang. Leon is upright in half a second, his hand flying toward the nightstand before his brain registers that he’s not in a trench in Edonia. He’s in a climate-controlled bedroom, and the only 'hostile' is a hungry five-week-old feline.
He stumbles into the kitchen, his movements stiff. The process of heating the formula is an exercise in agonizing precision. He uses a meat thermometer to ensure the liquid is exactly 98.5 degrees Fahrenheit. If it’s 98.4, he’s convinced the kitten will get hypothermia; if it’s 98.8, he fears he’s essentially serving lava.
"Okay, kid. Chow time. Don't make it weird," Leon whispers as he gathers the kitten into his lap.
His hands—hands that have steadied a sniper rifle in high-wind conditions and punched through the reinforced glass of Umbrella laboratories—are shaking slightly. He holds the tiny plastic bottle like it’s a detonator with a frayed wire.
When the kitten finally latches, a frantic, rhythmic tug-tug-tug vibrating through the silicone nipple, Leon finds himself holding his breath.
"Easy there, tiger. It’s a buffet, not a race," he says, a small, lopsided smirk tugging at his mouth. "You eat like a zombie at an all-you-can-eat brain buffet."
The "glamorous" part comes next. Leon stares at the box of cotton balls you had handed him with that knowing, mischievous glint in your eyes. He can still see your face—the way your hair was a mess, the way you didn't even flinch when he walked in looking like a drowned rat.
You had looked at him like he was just a guy, not a government asset, not a survivor. Just a guy with a cat.
"Stimulate," he repeats your words, his voice a flat, dry monotone. "She said it would be fun. She lied. I’m definitely filing a complaint with the veterinary board for emotional distress."
He performs the task with a grimace of intense concentration, murmuring apologies to the kitten the entire time.
By day three, the "sterile" nature of the apartment has surrendered. There are half-washed bottles in the sink. A trail of discarded paper towels leads from the sofa to the trash. A stray sock, mangled by tiny needle-teeth, sits in the middle of the hallway.
Leon should be annoyed. He should be furious that his sanctuary has been breached by an orange chaos-agent. But as he sits on the sofa at 4:30 AM, watching the sun begin to bleed over the D.C. skyline, he realizes his internal monologue has gone quiet. The anger—that low-simmering hum of PTSD that usually keeps him company in the dark—has been drowned out by a tiny, motorized purr.
The kitten crawls up his chest, stumbling over the buttons of his shirt, and tucks its head directly under Leon’s chin. The fur is soft, smelling faintly of the soap you’d used to clean him.
Leon freezes, his arms hovering awkwardly for a moment before he slowly, tentatively, rests a hand over the kitten’s back. He feels the tiny heart beating against his own.
For the first time since the world ended in a rain of missiles over Raccoon City in 1998, the crushing weight in his chest feels... lighter.
"I think the vet might be onto something, Cheeto," Leon breathes into the quiet room, his eyes heavy with a sleep that feels, for once, like it might be dreamless. "But don't tell her I said that. She already thinks I’m a pushover."
He closes his eyes, the minimalist apartment finally feeling like something it has never been before: a home.
──────•✦•──────
The fluorescent lights of the clinic are humming at a frequency that is starting to feel like a drill against your temple.
You’re leaning your lower back against the cabinetry of the pharmacy station, clutching a lukewarm cup of coffee like it’s a holy relic.
"I mean it, Sarah," you mutter, watching your tech draw up meds with terrifying efficiency. "One more pyometra. Just one more emergency spay where the uterus looks like it might burst, and I’m done. I’ll donate my scrubs to a thrift store and start a new life. Maybe I’ll go into accounting. Numbers don't bleed on your shoes or try to bite your face off.'"
"You’d be bored in a week," Sarah chirps, not even looking up. "Besides, you love the drama. Oh, speaking of drama—look who’s back."
The front bell dings. You peer around the corner. It’s Leon.
He looks like he’s been through some shit. The rugged, leading-man handsomeness is still there, but it’s buried under a layer of profound sleep deprivation. He’s got dark, bruised circles under his eyes that rival your own, and his blonde hair is a mess of spikes. But then you look at his hands.
He’s holding that plastic carrier with a level of tenderness that is honestly offensive. It’s like he’s carrying a box of nitroglycerin.
"Room two," you tell Sarah, snapping into a professional mask that is mostly held together by caffeine and sheer stubbornness.
You walk into the exam room and find him standing by the table, looking at the carrier like it’s a bomb he forgot how to disarm.
"Back for more punishment, Leon?" you ask, your voice dropping into that comfortable, blunt cadence. "You look like you’ve been living in a war zone. Which, granted, is a normal Tuesday for a kitten owner."
"He doesn't stop," Leon rasps, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that makes your nerve endings tingle. "I followed the schedule. I monitored the intake. But he just keeps screaming. Is he broken?"
"It’s called meowing, Leon. It’s how they demand your soul." You reach into the carrier and scoop out the orange scrap. He’s already gained weight; his belly is a round, healthy little pear, and his eyes are bright. "Wow. Look at you. You’ve actually kept him alive. I’m impressed. Most guys usually give up by the third bottle feeding."
"I don't like failing assignments," Leon mutters, though there’s a flicker of a lopsided smile on his face as he watches you examine the tiny creature.
You perform the check-up, checking the heart rate and the lungs, all while Leon stands way too close. He smells like woodsmoke and laundry detergent, a combination that is currently frying your brain.
You praise him for the kitten’s hydration levels, and you see his shoulders drop about two inches in relief.
As you move to pack the kitten back into the carrier, Leon starts firing off a string of hyper-specific, borderline neurotic questions.
"The water for the formula—I’ve been using a thermometer to keep it at exactly 98 degrees. Is 98.5 too high? Does it cause thermal shock? And the cotton balls—are the quilted ones too abrasive for his skin?"
You stare at him. This man is currently worried about the abrasive quality of a CVS-brand cotton ball. It’s the most endearing thing you’ve ever seen, and your filter—already weakened by a twelve-hour shift—completely disintegrates.
He’s hot, your brain shrugs. He’s a good dad. And you haven't been on a date in ages. Just do it.
"Leon," you interrupt, putting a hand on his arm to stop the frantic flow of questions. The muscle beneath his sleeve is hard as a rock, and the heat of him makes your palms itch. "Stop. You’re doing great. The cat is thriving. You, however, look like you're about to have a stroke."
He pauses, looking a little sheepish. "I just... I don't want to mess it up."
"You won't." You reach over to the counter, grab a neon-pink sticky note and a pen, and scribble your personal cell number on it. You press the note into his large, calloused palm, your fingers lingering just a second longer than necessary.
"Look," you say, flashing him a playful, slightly crooked smirk. "If you have any more midnight panics about formula ratios or quilted vs. non-quilted cotton, just text me. Strictly for cat questions, of course. My expertise is limited to things with four legs, but I can talk you off a ledge."
Leon stares at the pink paper in his hand like it’s a piece of top-secret intel. He looks up at you, his blue eyes searching yours, and for a second, the sarcastic vet and the stoic man are just two people standing in a cramped room with a tiny cat.
"Strictly for cat questions," he repeats, his voice low and a little amused.
"Obviously," you say, walking him toward the door. "I'm a professional, Leon. Now get out of here and go take a nap before you face-plant in the lobby."
As he walks away, you lean against the doorframe, watching the swing of his shoulders.
"What was that?" Sarah asks, appearing out of nowhere with a smirk.
"Professional consultation," you mutter, taking a final, cold sip of your coffee.
Oh god, what did I just do? If he texts me a picture of his cat's poop at 2:00 AM, I'm never living this down.
──────•✦•──────
Leon is a man who understands protocol. He understands mission parameters, chain of command, and the strict rules of engagement. So, when you handed him that sticky note with your number on it, his brain filed it under a very specific, very restricted category: Emergency Technical Support.
He spends the better part of forty-eight hours staring at the digits, convinced that a woman like you—someone who handles life-and-death crises with a sarcastic quip and a steady hand—has better things to do than talk to a government-sanctioned blunt instrument like him.
You’re light, and full of life, and you probably have a social circle that doesn't involve handler-reports and ballistic testing. In Leon’s mind, you are firmly out of his league, occupying a world that isn't stained by the things he’s seen.
But then, the kitten—Cheeto—starts doing things. Weird things.
His first text is sent at 11:30 PM. He attaches a grainy photo of the kitten standing in the middle of the hallway, arched like a Halloween decoration, scuttling sideways with a chaotic energy that Leon can only describe as "biological anomaly."
Leon: He’s moving at a forty-five-degree angle and his tail looks like a pipe cleaner. Is this a neurological tremor? Do I need to bring him in for an MRI?
Your reply comes three minutes later, and Leon feels a pathetic jolt of electricity at the buzz in his pocket.
You: Leon, he’s just playing. It’s called crab-walking. He’s trying to look big and scary. Is it working?
Leon looks at the kitten, who has just tripped over its own paws and face-planted into the carpet.
Leon: I’m terrified.
By Thursday, the anxiety reaches a fever pitch. Leon is sitting on his bed, watching the kitten knead a fleece blanket with a rhythmic, intense focus. He doesn't text this time. He calls. He needs a professional voice to talk him off the ledge.
"He's vibrating," Leon says the moment you pick up, his voice a deadpan, military monotone that betrays the fact that his eyes are currently dinner-plate wide. "The whole cat. He’s vibrating and poking the blanket with his claws. It’s some kind of repetitive motor reflex. Is he having a seizure? Should I be checking his airway?"
He hears you let out a long, melodic breath on the other end—a laugh you’re trying to stifle.
"Leon," you say, and the way you say his name makes him grip the phone a little tighter. "He's making biscuits. He's purring. It means he's happy. It means he thinks the blanket is his mom."
Leon looks down at the orange fluff currently 'baking' against his thigh. "Making biscuits. Right. So it’s a culinary instinct, not a medical emergency. I’ll cancel the medevac."
"Please do," you chuckle. "Go to sleep, Leon."
But sleep doesn't come easily. The climax of his "cat-dad" neurosis hits at 1:00 AM on Saturday. Cheeto had been particularly enthusiastic about his bottle, guzzling the formula until his stomach was a hard, round little marble. Afterward, the kitten had simply... collapsed.
He’s sprawled out on his back, limbs limp, unresponsive to Leon’s frantic prodding.
Leon’s heart is in his throat. He hits the FaceTime button before he can talk himself out of it.
The screen flickers to life, and suddenly, you are there. You’re in your pajamas—something soft and mismatched—and your hair is a magnificent, messy bird’s nest that tells him he definitely just woke you up. You look soft, blurry around the edges, and devastatingly beautiful in the low light of your bedroom.
"Leon?" you mumble, squinting at the screen. "Is everything okay?"
"He’s unresponsive," Leon says, his voice dropping into a low, intimate rasp of genuine distress. He turns the camera toward the kitten. "He’s just... lying there. I tried poking his paw and he didn't even hiss. I think I broke him."
You lean in closer to the camera, your eyes scanning the image. Then, you smile. It’s a gentle, warm expression that makes Leon’s apartment feel ten degrees warmer.
"Just a milk coma, Leon," you explain softly. "Look at that belly. He’s just full. He’s passed out in a food haze. He’ll be up and terrorizing your curtains in two hours."
Leon sags back against his headboard, the adrenaline draining out of him and leaving a hollow, aching exhaustion in its place. He covers his face with one hand, letting out a jagged sigh.
"I'm a disaster at this," he admits, his voice sounding raw even to his own ears. "I've faced things that—things that shouldn't exist—and I'm losing my mind over a cat that's just... full."
"It's because you care," you say. There’s no mockery in your tone, no punchline. Just a simple statement of fact that cuts right through his armor. "Most people would have just ignored him on that road, Leon. You didn't. You’re a good man. Even if you are a neurotic cat-dad."
Leon lets the words sink in. A good man. He hasn't felt like one in a long time. Usually, he’s just a weapon that the government points at problems.
"A 'cat-dad,'" Leon repeats, a dry, self-deprecating smirk appearing as he looks back at the screen. "Is there a badge for that? Or do I just get a lifetime supply of lint rollers and a permanent coating of orange fur on all my tactical gear?"
You laugh—a real, bright sound that echoes through his quiet bedroom. Leon finds himself staring at the screen, watching the way your eyes crinkle at the corners, the way a stray lock of hair falls over your forehead.
He realizes, with a sudden, jarring clarity, that he’s stopped looking at the kitten. He’s just looking at you.
The silence stretches, becoming something heavy and electric. Leon realizes he’s spent the last forty-eight hours coming up with increasingly flimsy, ridiculous reasons to see your name light up his phone.
He isn't worried about the cat anymore. He’s worried about how much he doesn't want to hang up.
"You look tired," he says softly, his thumb tracing the edge of the phone. "I should let you get back to sleep. Sorry for the... milk coma false alarm."
"It’s okay, Leon," you say, your voice dropping to a sleepy, tender murmur. "Call me anytime. Even if it’s just for biscuits."
As the screen goes black, Leon stares at his own reflection in the glass.
He’s a mess. He’s a DSO agent who just got called a "good man" by a woman who makes him feel like he’s eighteen again, before the world turned into a horror movie.
He looks at the sleeping kitten and then at the phone.
"You've failed miserably, Kennedy," he whispers to the empty room. "You’re definitely flirting now."
──────•✦•──────
The daily text updates from Leon have become the highlight of your grueling, twelve-hour rotations—a digital breadcrumb trail of "cat-dad" neurosis that you’ve come to rely on more than caffeine. What started as a clinical safety net has morphed into a steady stream of orange-furred chaos. You find yourself smiling at your phone in the middle of the surgery prep, looking at a blurry photo of a kitten stuck in a tissue box.
But lately, the digital interaction isn't enough for him.
"He’s back," Sarah, your tech, sings out from the pharmacy area. She leans against the doorframe with a devious, toothy grin. "The hot brooding guy with the orange accessory is in the lobby. Third time this week. What’s the 'emergency' today? A crooked whisker? A suspicious meow?"
"Shut up, Sarah," you mutter, though you can feel the heat crawling up your neck. You instinctively reach up to smooth a stray hair back into your ponytail.
"Oh, please. You’re wearing the 'fancy' scrubs and you actually used mascara today. I see you," she teases, checking the clipboard. "He’s here for... a bag of gastrointestinal kibble. The kind we sell for a 20% markup that he could literally Prime-deliver to his door in four hours."
You roll your eyes, grabbing a clean lab coat. "Maybe he just likes supporting small businesses."
"Maybe he likes supporting your specific business," she retorts, following you toward the lobby. "The girls in the back have a pool going. Twenty bucks says he asks for your number by Friday. Fifty says he’s already got it and he’s just a massive coward."
"I don't think 'coward' is in his vocabulary," you whisper, though your heart is doing a rhythmic thud against your ribs that feels suspiciously like a drumroll.
You push through the double doors and there he is. Leon stands near the display of prescription diets, looking entirely too large and too handsome for a sterile veterinary lobby. He’s wearing a charcoal sweater that hugs his shoulders in a way that should be illegal, his blonde hair perfectly tousled despite the humidity outside.
"Leon," you say, your voice landing in that sweet spot between professional and playful. "Don't tell me. He’s developed a sudden, life-threatening allergy to his own tail?"
Leon turns, and the way his blue eyes light up when they land on you makes your stomach do a slow, dizzying somersault. He clears his throat, shifting his weight. He looks incredibly cool until he opens his mouth, and then that slight, charming awkwardness leaks out.
"He sneezed," Leon says, his voice a serious, low rumble. "Three times in a row. It was... rhythmic. I thought it might be the early stages of a respiratory collapse. Or a dust mite allergy."
You walk over, taking the carrier from him. Your fingers brush against his—just for a second—and you feel the static electricity zip up your arm. You peek inside at the kitten, who is currently busy trying to eat a loose thread on his bedding.
"He looks like he’s on death’s door, truly," you say, your voice dripping with dry sarcasm. "The 'rhythmic sneezing' was likely just him being a cat, Leon. But since you’re here, I suppose I can perform a very expensive, very rigorous five-second nose check."
"I also needed food," he adds quickly, gesturing to the shelf. "The bag I have is... getting low. Maybe."
"You have half a bag left at home, don't you?" you ask, tilting your head, a smirk playing on your lips.
Leon stays silent for a beat too long, his gaze dropping to your name tag before meeting your eyes again. "I like the atmosphere here," he says, a bit of that one-liner bravado returning. "Very... clinical. Good lighting."
"Right. Everyone comes to the vet for the 'ambiance' of barking dogs and the smell of anal glands," you retort. You lead him to the counter, ringing up the overpriced kibble. You’re acutely aware of the techs watching from the window, probably exchanging silent high-fives.
You feel a pang of doubt as you hand him the receipt. A guy like this—rugged, mysterious, probably used to high-octane thrill-seekers—couldn't possibly be interested in you.
You’re a woman who spends her days getting peed on by Chihuahuas and her nights smelling like antiseptic and wet fur. You’re exhausted, your under-eye circles are permanent residents, and your social life is a graveyard.
But then Leon reaches out, his hand hovering over yours for just a fraction of a second longer than necessary as he takes the bag.
"Thanks," he says softly. The way he says it isn't like a client. It’s a low, intimate vibration that makes the bustling clinic fade into the background. "I’ll... let you know if the sneezing returns. Or if he looks at me funny."
"I'm sure you will," you say, your bluntness softened by a gentle, tired smile. "Go home, Leon. Your cat misses you."
As he walks out, his stride confident and his shoulders broad, you lean against the counter and let out a breath you didn't know you were holding.
"Twenty bucks!" Sarah yells from the back. "He’s totally into you, Doc! He’s just waiting for the cat to give him the green light!"
You just shake your head, looking down at the counter where he stood. You find yourself hoping the kitten sneezes again tomorrow. Just once. Just to be safe.
──────•✦•──────
The air in the treatment area is thick with the scent of antiseptic, metallic blood, and the heavy, lingering stillness of the recently departed. You’re standing over the stainless steel prep table, your hands steady despite the tremor of exhaustion in your knees as you pull the heavy plastic of a cadaver bag over a sweet, senior Greyhound who just couldn't fight any longer.
"If the shift keeps up like this, we're going to run out of freezer space," your tech, Marcus, sighs, his voice flat with the kind of gallows humor that keeps hospitals running at 2:00 AM.
"Don’t," you whisper, zipping the bag with a sharp, final schlick. "I hate this part the most. Every time. Packing up someone’s best friend in a glorified trash bag. It’s a hell of a way to say goodbye."
You lean your forehead against the wall for just a second, letting the grief wash over you and then drain away. You have to stay empty. If you let the "sad" stay in your lungs, you’ll drown.
Then, the front bell doesn't just chime—it screams. Someone is leaning on it.
You’re moving before you even think, your clogs squeaking on the linoleum. You burst into the lobby and stop dead.
It’s Leon. But the charming, awkward "cat-dad" who buys too much kibble is gone. In his place is a man who looks like he’s standing in the middle of a war zone. His face is pale, his eyes are blown wide with a jagged, frantic terror, and his chest is heaving.
He isn't holding a carrier. He’s holding the orange kitten against his chest, his large hands trembling so violently you can see the tremors from the doorway.
"Please," Leon chokes out. The sound is raw, a jagged piece of glass in his throat. He thrusts the limp, tiny body toward you. "I can't—don't let him die. Please. Not him too."
The kitten is a wet rag. His breathing is a shallow, agonizing rasp—the "guppy breathing" that makes every vet’s blood run cold.
You swear under your breath and snap into action the internal "vet-mode" slamming into place. You snatch the kitten and sprint back through the swinging doors. "Marcus, get the O2 cage prepped! I need a 24-gauge IV and a dose of dex. Now, move!"
For the next twenty minutes, you are a machine. You slide the needle into a vein thinner than a piece of thread. You listen to the crackle in the tiny lungs—pneumonia. Aspiration, likely. The kitten is tucked into the oxygen-rich plexiglass box, a tiny, fragile heartbeat under a mountain of IV lines and telemetry wires.
You finally step back, wiping a smear of blood off your thumb. You look toward the door. Leon is standing in the entryway of the treatment area, looking utterly lost. He’s hovering in the "no-man's land" between the lobby and the sterile zone, his hands still curled as if he’s holding a ghost.
"He’s in the cage, Leon. Steroids, antibiotics, and oxygen," you say, your voice softening as the adrenaline begins to ebb. "It’s touch-and-go. The next six hours are the decider. You should go home. Get some sleep. I’ll call you the second anything changes."
Leon doesn't move. He just looks at the floor and then slides down the wall, his long legs stretching out across the cold linoleum directly in front of the kennel bank.
"I'm staying," he says. It’s not a request. It’s a directive.
"Leon, I have four other critical patients in here trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not exactly a five-star hotel," you say, trying to inject a bit of your usual dry bite into the air to break the tension.
"I don't care," he mutters, leaning his head back against the cages.
You leave him there because you have to. You spend the next three hours wrestling with a diabetic ketoacidosis cat and a bloated Doberman. Every time you pass the kennel ward, you see him sitting on the floor like a dejected kid, watching the rhythmic puffing of an orange kitten in a plastic box.
Around 5:00 AM, you find a lull. You walk over and nudge his boot with your clog.
"Leon. Seriously. The floor is disgusting, and you look like you’re about to vibrate out of your skin. Go home."
He looks up at you, and the sheer weight of the shadows under his eyes hits you. "Sometimes," he says, his voice a low, hollow echo, "I feel like I can't save anyone. Not my teammates. Not the people I’m sent to protect. And now... not even a cat."
You feel the breath hitch in your throat. You slide down the wall next to him, your shoulder brushing his. The warmth of him is startling against the sterile chill of the room.
"You and me both, Leon," you sigh, staring at the rows of monitors. "The 'God complex' they give us in vet school is a lie. Most days, we’re just finger-plugging a leaking dam."
Leon looks at you, his gaze intense. "Sorry. I shouldn't... this has been a hell of a shift for you, hasn't it?"
"They all are," you say, leaning your head back. "Some just have more body bags than others."
──────•✦•──────
Your shift officially ends at 7:00 AM. Your relief vet walks in, and you should leave. You should go home, take a scalding shower, and sleep for a week. But you don't. You go to the break room, grab two lukewarm coffees, and walk back to the floor.
You sit down next to Leon again.
"You're still here," he notes, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.
"I’m a glutton for punishment," you mutter, handing him the cup.
For the next hour, the barriers crumble.
You find yourself telling him about the "soul-crushing" parts—the people who bring in their pets to be euthanized because they’re moving, the neglect cases that make you want to break things. But then you tell him about the good parts—the dog that woke up after three days of a coma, the kitten that beat the odds.
Leon listens with a terrifyingly focused intensity. He doesn't interrupt. He just watches you speak, his blue eyes mesmerized by the way you navigate the darkness of your profession without letting it turn you cold.
"You’re a lot stronger than you look," he says softly.
"I'm not strong, Leon. I'm just stubborn," you retort, nudging him with your shoulder. "But thanks. You’re not a bad listener."
──────•✦•──────
Leon is no stranger to stakeouts.
He’s spent weeks in cramped vans eating lukewarm rations, and he’s spent months in damp trenches waiting for a target to blink. But this? Sitting on a stool that’s three inches too short for his frame, staring into a plexiglass box at a creature that weighs less than his handgun? This is the most grueling mission of his career.
Over the next week, the clinic becomes Leon’s base of operations. He shows up at the start of your night shift and doesn't leave until the sun is high enough to make his eyes ache. He’s become a fixture in the kennel ward—the tall, brooding man in the leather jacket who looks like he could snap a neck but spends four hours straight whispering to a kitten with a congested nose.
You become the highlight of his vigil.
Whenever the clinic settles into that eerie, midnight lull, you find him. You don't just check the charts; you check on him. You start bringing him half of your sandwich—usually something with way too much sprout-to-protein ratio for his liking, but he eats it like it’s a five-star meal because you made it. You sit on the floor next to his stool, your shoulder occasionally brushing his knee, and the contact sends a low-voltage jolt through his system that he’s doing a poor job of ignoring.
"You look like you're trying to intimidate the pneumonia into leaving," you murmur one Tuesday at 3:00 AM, sliding a container of pasta toward him. "I hate to tell you, but bacteria doesn't care about your 'scary agent' eyes."
Leon takes the plastic fork, his thumb grazing yours in the exchange. He lingers for a second too long, his gaze dropping to your lips before he catches himself and looks back at the kitten.
"I’m just providing overwatch," Leon grunts, though his tone is fond.
The conversation drifts, as it always does, into the quiet, heavy things. You talk about the "little miracles"—the paralyzed dog that wagged its tail for the first time today, the elderly cat that finally started eating. You speak with a weary, glowing passion that Leon finds intoxicating.
He realizes he’s spent years surrounded by people who are hollowed out by their work, but you? You’re tired, sure, but your heart is still terrifyingly intact.
The weight of his own secrets starts to feel like a physical burden. He’s used to being a ghost, a name on a redacted file. But sitting here in the dim light of the clinic, with you looking at him like he’s someone worth knowing, the lie feels like a wall he’s tired of leaning against.
"I don't just do 'security,'" he says suddenly. The air in the room shifts. He stares at the oxygen monitor, his voice dropping into that professional, gravelly register. "I work for the DSO Division of Security Operations. Directly under the President."
He waits for the shift in your expression. He’s seen it before—the way people’s eyes go cold when they realize he’s a professional dealer of death, or the way they start prying for gruesome details like he’s a character in a movie. He explains the bio-terrorism, the BOWs, the constant cycle of violence that has defined his life since the night he drove into Raccoon City as a rookie cop.
He braces for the disgust. For you to realize that his hands, the ones that have been helping you bottle-feed a kitten, are stained with things you couldn't imagine.
Instead, you just take a slow bite of your sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. You look at him with a gentle, tired smile that makes his breath hitch.
"So, you fight bio-weapons," you muse, leaning your head back against the cold kennel. "I guess that means we have the same primary skillset."
Leon blinks, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "Which is?"
"We both try really hard not to get bitten on the clock."
Leon stares at you. He waits for the punchline, for the horror, but all he sees is your playful, sparking gaze. A laugh bubbles up in his chest—not the dry, sarcastic bark he uses to deflect trauma, but a genuine, soft sound that echoes off the metal cages. It’s a sound he hasn't heard from himself in years.
"That’s... one way to put it," he says, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. The heavy weight he carries every day feels, for a moment, like it’s been halved.
"I'm serious," you say, laughing softly as you nudge his arm. "I've seen the teeth on a grumpy Malamute, Leon. I think I could handle a zombie."
"Don't test that theory," he says, but he’s smiling now—a real, lopsided Kennedy smirk.
He looks at you, and the tension that’s been simmering for weeks suddenly boils over. The ward is quiet, the only sound the hum of the oxygen machine and the soft rain against the window. You’re close—close enough that he can see the gold flecks in your eyes and the way your scrub top dips at your collarbone.
Leon reaches out, his hand hovering near your face before he loses his nerve and settles for tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His fingers linger on the skin there, warm and soft, and he sees your breath hitch.
"You're a strange woman," he whispers, his voice thick with a sudden, heavy longing.
"And you're a very dramatic cat-dad, Leon," you whisper back, not pulling away.
For a second, the mission, the BOWs, and the world outside don't exist. There’s just the smell of antiseptic, the hum of a kitten’s recovery, and the terrifying realization that he’s falling for you faster than he ever fell into a trap.
──────•✦•──────
The dawn light is a sickly, pale yellow as it bleeds through the clinic’s high windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing over the surgical bays. You feel like a ghost inhabiting a body made of lead and caffeine. Your neck cricks as you stand up from the floor, your joints popping in a rhythmic protest that sounds like a bowl of Rice Krispies.
Leon is still there. He’s slumped on that too-small stool, his head bowed, his hands clasped between his knees. He looks like a man waiting for a verdict from a hanging judge.
"Alright," you murmur, your voice sounding like it was dragged over gravel. "Let’s see if the little guy is ready to join the land of the living."
You walk over to the incubator. The hum of the oxygen concentrator has been the soundtrack to your week, a mechanical heartbeat that you’ve grown to loathe. You unlatch the plexiglass door with a soft click.
Inside, the orange scrap of fur is no longer a limp rag. He’s sitting up, his head wobbly, his copper eyes half-open.
"Hey, tough guy," you whisper. You scoop a tiny dollop of calorie-dense recovery mousse onto your finger and hold it to his nose.
For a heartbeat, nothing. Then, a tiny, sandpaper tongue darts out. Then another. He starts to lap at your skin with a desperate, frantic hunger. A weak, high-pitched mew vibrates through his chest—a sound of life, demanding and stubborn.
"He’s eating," you breathe, and the sheer, ridiculous relief of it makes your vision blur for a second. "He’s actually eating. The little bastard made it."
You turn to Leon, a triumphant, sleep-deprived grin plastered on your face. "He’s actually eating. He’s—"
The words die in your throat.
Leon has stood up, his massive frame casting a long shadow across the kennel ward. He’s staring at the kitten, but his face isn't the stoic mask of a government agent. His jaw is trembling, just a fraction, and his eyes—those piercing, icy blue eyes—are brimming with tears that he’s desperately trying not to let fall.
He looks shattered. Not because of the danger, but because of the hope.
Oh, Leon, you think, your heart doing a slow, painful squeeze. You really were ready to lose everything again, weren't you?
You don't think. Thinking is for people who aren't running on thirty minutes of sleep and pure empathy. You are about to do something wildly unprofessional. You don't care.
You step across the linoleum, closing the distance between you and the man who fights monsters, and you wrap your arms around his waist.
Leon goes rigid instantly.
It’s like hugging a statue carved from granite. He stays perfectly still, his breath hitching, his arms hovering uselessly at his sides. He feels like a man who expects a blow to follow the touch—someone whose only experience with physical contact in the last decade has been a struggle for survival or a professional handshake. It’s jarring, feeling the tension radiating off him, a high-voltage wire ready to snap.
"It’s okay," you mumble against his chest, squeezed tight. "He’s okay. You can breathe now."
Slowly, agonizingly so, the statue crumbles.
You feel a shudder rip through him, a deep shift of his shoulders. Then, his weight collapses into you. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his stubble scratching against your skin, and his arms finally come around you.
They are heavy. They are massive. He wraps them around you with a crushing, desperate strength, as if you’re the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth. You can feel his heart thudding against your collarbone—slow, heavy, and raw.
He doesn't say anything, but the way he clings to you tells you everything. He isn't just relieved about the cat. He’s drowning in a decade of loneliness, in the weight of the bodies he couldn't save. He’s so touch-starved it feels like he’s trying to absorb the warmth of your scrub top through his skin.
It’s not just "he’s hot and I’m tired." It’s the feeling of two people who spend their lives in the trenches finally finding a place to put their packs down.
Your hands move up his back, rubbing small, soothing circles into the expensive fabric of his shirt. You feel the dip of his spine, the hard muscle of his shoulders, and the way he lets out a long, shaky exhale into your hair.
"You're okay," you whisper again, your voice softening, losing its sharp, sarcastic edge. "He’s got you."
Leon pulls back just an inch, his hands sliding down to rest on your waist. He doesn't let go. He looks down at you, his lashes wet, his face mere inches from yours. The air between you is thick, charged with the scent of his woodsy cologne and the clinical tang of the ward. His gaze drops to your mouth, and for a second, the world stops spinning.
"I don't... I don't know how to do this," he rasps, his voice a broken low-frequency hum.
"Do what? Hug? You're doing a C-plus job, Kennedy," you tease, though your voice trembles. "A little less 'death-grip' and a little more 'gentle human interaction' next time."
He lets out a watery, huffed laugh, his forehead dropping to rest against yours. "I think I've forgotten what 'gentle' feels like."
"Well," you say, closing your eyes and leaning into him, savoring the solid, terrifying warmth of him. "Stick with me. I’ve got plenty of practice. Usually with Golden Retrievers, but I think I can make an exception."
He squeezes your waist, a silent, grateful pressure. In the quiet of the dawn, with a recovering kitten purring in the background, you realize you’re in a lot of trouble. Because Leon Kennedy isn't just a client anymore—he’s someone you’d fight a world-ending virus just to keep holding onto.
──────•✦•──────
Leon’s smartphone vibrates against the granite countertop with the persistence of a terminal alarm. He doesn't need to look at the ID to know it’s Hunnigan.
The universe has a twisted sense of humor; the moment his life gains a shred of stability—symbolized by an orange kitten currently trying to disembowel a feathered toy—the DSO decides it’s time for him to jump out of a plane.
"Yeah, Ingrid," Leon sighs into the receiver, his eyes tracking the kitten's chaotic movements. "Tell me it's a seminar on file organization. Tell me I’m being sent to Hawaii to count palm trees."
"It's a hot-zone extraction in the Balkan periphery, Leon. Transport leaves in four hours," Hunnigan’s voice is crisp, devoid of the sympathy he’s looking for.
"Four hours. Right. I’ll just tell the cat to order pizza and lock the deadbolt behind me," he mutters, his mind racing.
Panic, cold and sharp, stabs at him. He can’t leave Cheeto. Not after the pneumonia, not after the nights spent on a linoleum floor praying for a meow. The idea of a stranger from a boarding app—some teenager who might forget the water bowl or leave a window cracked—makes his skin crawl. He finds himself dialing your number before he’s even processed the thought.
When you answer, Leon’s cool persona is nowhere to be found. He’s just a man with a cat and a very specialized, very annoying career.
"I have a problem," he says, skipping the pleasantries. "Work called. I'm being... deployed. A week, maybe more. Do you know a medical boarder who doesn't mind a kitten with a God complex and a lingering cough?"
He hears you pause on the other end. "Leon, it’s short notice. Most medical boarding is booked out through the month. Is it somewhere... dangerous?"
"It’s never a spa day," he says dryly. "Look, if I have to, I’ll—"
"I’ll do it."
Leon freezes. "What?"
"I can stay at your place. I'm overqualified and I can keep an eye on his lungs. Besides," you add, your voice taking on that playful, blunt edge he’s grown addicted to, "your apartment probably needs a woman’s touch. Or at least someone to throw away the three-week-old takeout."
"You'd... stay here?" Leon asks, his throat suddenly tight.
──────•✦•──────
An hour later, you’re standing in his foyer. Leon is dressed in his tactical gear—dark, reinforced fabrics and heavy boots—looking every bit the agent he tried to describe to you. He holds out his keychain. The metal is warm from his palm. As he drops the keys into your hand, his fingers linger against your skin.
It feels like a surrender. He’s giving you the keys to his sanctuary, the only place on earth where he doesn't have to look over his shoulder.
"The alarm code is 1998," he says, a flicker of dark, self-deprecating humor in his eyes. "Try not to set it off. The response team is... unfriendly. And if he stops eating, call me. I don't care if I'm in a tunnel. Make them patch you through."
"1998? Creative," you remark, looking at the keys. "Go save the world, Leon. I’ll make sure the kitten doesn't burn the place down."
He lingers at the door, the weight of the mission pulling at him, but the sight of you standing in his living room—framed by his sterile, gray walls—makes him feel like he’s actually leaving something behind for once.
"Don't eat all my cereal," he says, a lopsided smirk appearing. "It's the only thing I have left."
──────•✦•──────
Leon’s apartment is exactly what you expected: a high-end, minimalist cave that screams 'I don't plan on being here for long.'
The furniture is expensive but looks like it’s never been sat on. The fridge contains three bottles of high-end bourbon, a jar of pickles, and enough Gatorade to hydrate an army. It’s a gorgeous space, but it’s inhabited by a ghost who clearly spends his life waiting for the next disaster.
"Alright, Cheeto," you sigh, dropping your bag on the granite island. "Let’s see if we can make this place look like a human actually lives here."
Over the next week, you start a quiet insurrection against Leon’s minimalism. You buy a soft throw blanket to cover the "ergonomic" sofa. You bring over a small succulent that Leon will almost certainly forget to water. You organize the chaos of his mail and make sure the kitten’s toys aren't just limited to "stray socks."
It becomes a semi-regular occurrence. Every time Leon gets the call, you get the keys. You’ve mastered the 1998 alarm code and you know exactly which floorboard creaks near the bathroom. You send him daily updates—photos of the kitten sleeping on his discarded hoodies, or videos of Cheeto "hunting" his toys.
When he’s home, you linger. You’ll stay for an hour after he returns, leaning against his kitchen counter while he tells you—in vague, redacted terms—about where he’s been. You find yourself liking the routine. The way he looks at you when he walks through the door, his eyes scanning you first before they even find the cat.
"You moved the blender," he notes one evening, leaning against the doorframe, looking exhausted but softer than you’ve ever seen him.
"I put it where a normal person would use it, Leon," you retort, not looking up from your phone. "You had it stored like it was a classified weapon."
"It's a high-RPM motor," he deadpans. "It’s practically a turbine."
You laugh, and you see his shoulders drop an inch.
The messages between you two have evolved from 'Is he breathing okay?' to 'Saw this and thought of you' and late-night Facetimes where you talk about nothing and everything. You’re becoming a permanent fixture in a life that was never meant to have any.
──────•✦•──────
The wind in the mountains is a serrated blade, cutting through his tactical layers and biting into his skin. Leon is crouched in a blind, his rifle steady, the world around him a monochrome blur of snow and gray rock. His breath mists in the air, his fingers numb despite the heated gloves.
It’s the kind of environment where his mind usually goes to dark places—to the faces of the people he’s lost, to the smell of burning plastic in Raccoon City, to the weight of the kills he’s had to rack up to keep the world spinning.
But today, his mind wanders somewhere else.
He thinks about you. He thinks about you sitting on his couch, probably wrapped in that fuzzy blanket you "donated" to his living room. He thinks about the way his apartment smells like your shampoo instead of gun oil when you’re there. You are currently three thousand miles away, probably complaining about a difficult client or a dog that wouldn't stop barking, and the thought is his only anchor to reality.
He pulls his phone from a secure pocket, shielding the screen from the wind. He has one bar of satellite signal. A photo from you has managed to crawl through.
It’s a picture of you on his bed—the kitten curled up on your stomach, both of you looking half-asleep. It’s a domestic, quiet image that has no place in his world of bioluminescent horrors and political assassinations.
"Hunnigan’s going to kill me if she sees I’m using secure bandwidth for cat photos," Leon mutters to himself, a tiny, genuine smile cracking his frozen face.
He wouldn't admit it to you—not yet, maybe not ever—but he’s stopped dreading the "end" of the mission. He used to hate coming back to the silence of his flat. Now, he finds himself checking his watch, calculating the hours until he can walk through his door and hear your voice.
He doesn't just have a cat to come home to anymore. He has a presence. He has a reason to stay sharp, to stay fast, to stay alive.
"Target in sight," his comms crackle.
Leon shifts his grip, his eyes focusing. He feels steady. The cold doesn't matter. He has a cat-sitter to get back to.
"Copy that," Leon whispers, his thumb flicking the safety off. "Let’s wrap this up. I’ve got a date with some bad takeout."
──────•✦•──────
The shift didn’t just break you; it ground you down into a fine, bitter powder and scattered you across the linoleum.
It started with a car crash that sent two mangled retrievers into your bay and ended with a client screaming at you that you were a "heartless gold-digger" because you couldn't perform a miracle on a sixteen-year-old cat for the price of a drive-thru burger.
You’d spent four hours in emergency surgery, your hands slick with blood and your back screaming in protest, only for the monitor to flatline anyway. You’d had to tell a ten-year-old boy that his best friend wasn’t coming home, and then you’d been reprimanded by management for the "negative impact on wait times" caused by you taking five minutes to cry in the supply closet.
By the time you let yourself into Leon’s apartment, you’re less of a human and more of a walking bruise. You don't even turn on the lights. You just drop your bag, kick off your clogs, and collapse onto the sofa—the one with the soft throw blanket you bought—and bury your face in your hands.
The kitten, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, trots over and lets out a concerned chirrup. He kneads your thigh, his tiny claws snagging on your scrubs, before curling up against your chest.
"I hate it, Cheeto," you sob into his orange fur, the tears finally bursting the dam. "I hate the people, I hate the blood, and I really, really hate the wait times."
The front door clicks. The 1998 alarm code beeps—one, nine, nine, eight—and then the heavy thud of boots hits the floor. You don't even look up. You’re too deep in the salt and the snot to care that the owner of the house is back early.
Leon freezes in the entryway. Even in the dim light of the city skyline peeking through the window, he looks like he’s been through a meat grinder. His shirt is torn at the shoulder, there’s a nasty, dark bruise blossoming across his cheekbone, and he’s limping slightly. He looks like a man who just survived a war, only to find a different kind of casualty in his living room.
"Hey," he says, his voice a low, startled rumble. "What—is the cat okay? Did something happen?"
"The cat is fine," you choke out, wiping your nose with your sleeve and failing miserably at looking composed. "Everything is fine. I’m just... Go away, Leon. You look like you need a medic and a gallon of ibuprofen."
He doesn't go away. He drops his duffel bag with a heavy thud and walks over, his movements stiff and cautious. He looks wildly out of his depth, his hands hovering at his sides as if he’s trying to remember the manual for 'Human Comforting 101.'
"You’re crying," he notes, his voice dropping into that quiet, gravelly register.
"Astute observation. They really do pay you for the big brain, don't they?" You let out a jagged, watery laugh. "I just had a shitty day, Leon. A patient died after four hours of me playing God, and then some guy called me a bitch because he had to wait forty minutes for his dog's ear cleaning while I was doing CPR. I’m just... done."
Leon stands there for a beat, the blue of his eyes scanning your face with a terrifying intensity. He’s seen trauma, he’s seen death on a global scale, but seeing you falling apart on his couch seems to rattle him more than a BOW ever could.
"Move over," he says.
"Leon, you’re bleeding on my 'donated' blanket—"
"Move over," he repeats, firmer this time.
You slide over, and Leon sinks onto the sofa next to you. He smells like gunpowder, cold rain, and woodsmoke. He doesn't say anything at first; he just reaches out, his large, scarred hand hesitating before he pulls you tentatively toward him. You collapse against his side, your head landing on his shoulder.
"I've got you," he murmurs.
He wraps an arm around you, pulling you flush against his chest, and starts to stroke your hair. His touch is awkward—clumsy, even—as if he’s afraid he’ll break you, but it’s the most grounding thing you’ve ever felt. You grab the front of his torn shirt and just sob, letting all the bitterness and the exhaustion pour out of you and into his expensive, ruined gear.
"It’s just... so much sometimes," you whisper, your voice cracking. "I try so hard, and it’s never enough. The world just keeps biting."
"I know," Leon says, his voice vibrating against your temple. "Believe me, I know. But you did your job. You showed up. That’s more than most people can say."
He keeps stroking your hair, his calloused fingers snagging slightly on the tangles, but he doesn't stop. He doesn't try to "fix" it with a one-liner or a tactical solution. He just holds you. You realize, as your breathing finally starts to level out, that this is the first time in your life someone has held the weight for you instead of you holding it for everyone else.
"You look like hell, Leon," you mumble against his chest, feeling a flicker of your usual bluntness returning through the haze of grief.
"You should see the other guy," he retorts, a ghost of a smirk in his voice. "Actually, don't. He’s currently a smudge on a highway in Sarajevo."
You let out a tiny, genuine huff of a laugh, and you feel his arm tighten around you.
"See? There she is," he whispers.
You stay like that for a long time—a battered agent and a broken vet, curled up on a minimalist couch with a kitten sleeping between you.
In the quiet of the apartment, the monsters and the body bags feel a million miles away. You’re still tired, and your heart still aches, but as Leon rests his chin on top of your head, you realize that maybe the "ghost" has finally moved out of this apartment.
And for the first time in a long time, you don't feel like you're fighting the dark alone.
──────•✦•──────
The transition from "emergency technical support" to "semi-permanent fixture" happens so gradually that Leon doesn't even see the trap until he’s happily walking into it.
It starts with you dropping by after your shift to "check the kitten's weight," and then somehow you’re staying for a coffee, and then—suddenly—you have your own designated spot on his couch and a spare toothbrush in the guest bath.
Leon finds himself leaning against the kitchen island, watching you move through his kitchen with a grace that is utterly at odds with the clinical chaos of your day job. For years, this kitchen has been a graveyard for styrofoam containers and a shrine to a single bottle of high-end bourbon. His culinary skills are limited to reheating things and not burning the water.
"You know, the FDA suggests that a human being cannot actually survive on a diet of ninety percent spicy tuna rolls and ten percent Scotch," you remark, your back to him as you chop fresh parsley with a rhythmic, practiced speed.
Leon takes a slow sip of water, leaning his hip against the counter. "I’ll have you know I also eat the occasional multivitamin. And once, a piece of fruit that I'm reasonably sure wasn't plastic. I'm practically a health nut."
"You're a disaster," you retort, but the look you throw him over your shoulder is fond, lacking the sharp bite of your usual sarcasm.
You’ve taken over his stove, and for the first time since he moved in, the apartment doesn't smell like filtered air and gun oil. It smells like sautéed garlic, crushed basil, and browning butter. The scent hits Leon with a physical force, dragging up buried memories of a childhood —the sound of heavy pots clanking, the steam on the windows, the feeling of a home that was loud and full.
It’s a sensory overload that makes his chest ache with a sudden, sharp pang of nostalgia he wasn't prepared for.
"Is that... actual garlic?" Leon asks, his voice dropping into a low, slightly dazed register. "I forgot it came in cloves. I thought it was just a powder that lived in the back of the pantry until it turned into a solid brick."
"God, you're pathetic," you laugh, sliding a pan of chicken onto the burner. The sizzle is loud in the quiet room. "Go sit down. You look like you're having a religious experience over a bulb of garlic."
"I might be," he mutters, though he doesn't move.
He likes watching you. He likes the way your hair starts to frizz slightly from the steam and the way you’ve tucked your ID badge into your back pocket.
He realizes, with a dry, self-deprecating twist of his gut, that he’s become addicted to this. To you. The mission-driven part of his brain—the part that usually keeps him scanning for exits and checking his six—has gone completely quiet. He feels safe. Not "perimeter secured" safe, but actually safe.
He walks over, ostensibly to reach for a glass, but he lingers in your space. He’s still a touch awkward with the physical stuff, his hands hovering near your waist before he settles for gently bumping his shoulder against yours.
"Smells better than my grandmother's Sunday gravy," he admits, the honesty feeling like vulnerability. "And she would have hit me with a wooden spoon just for thinking that."
"Well, don't tell her ghost I'm trying to upstage her," you say, nudging him back. Your smile is gentle, and Leon feels the last of his professional walls crumbling. "I just figured since you're busy saving the world, someone should make sure you don't succumb to scurvy."
"It's a noble cause," Leon says, his blue eyes softening as they fix on you.
"Just doing my civic duty, Agent," you tease.
Leon watches you stir the sauce, and he feels a surge of protectiveness so fierce it surprises him. He spends his life in rooms with people who want to tear the world apart, but here, in the dim light of his kitchen, you’re putting things back together. You’re making a home out of a man who thought he was just a weapon.
"You're staying for dinner, right?" he asks, and he hates how much he hopes the answer is yes. "The cat gets lonely if you leave too early. And I... Well, I'm not great at talking to the furniture."
"I'm staying, Leon," you say, reaching out to pat his hand. "Relax. I'm not going anywhere."
Leon breathes out a sigh he feels in his very marrow. He looks at the garlic, the herbs, and the woman currently occupying his heart's center of mass, and he decides that if this is a trap, he never wants to be rescued.
──────•✦•──────
The blue light of the television flickers across the living room, casting long, dancing shadows against the walls. On the screen, some generic action flick is playing at a low volume—something about a heist that Leon has already found sixteen tactical flaws in—but he isn't watching the movie.
He’s watching you.
You are out cold. Your head is tilted back against the cushion at an angle that looks like it’ll require a chiropractor by morning, and your breathing is deep and rhythmic. On top of you, Cheeto—who has graduated from a palm-sized scrap to a lanky, teenage chaos-agent—is sprawled across your stomach like a heavy, orange weighted blanket.
Leon sits in his armchair, a glass of bourbon sweating in his hand, and feels a strange, terrifying tightness in his chest.
He should wake you up. He should tell you that the movie is over and offer to call you an Uber. That would be the professional, just friends thing to do.
"Right," Leon whispers to the empty room, his voice a dry rasp. "Because I’ve always been so great at following the 'sane' path."
He sets his glass down with a soft clink and stands, his joints popping. He gently nudges the cat aside. Cheeto lets out an offended mrrp but settles into the crook of the sofa, watching with wide, glowing eyes as Leon slides one arm under your knees and the other behind your back.
He braces himself, expecting you to be dead weight, but as he lifts, he’s struck by how light you feel—and how perfectly you seem to slot into the space against his chest. You let out a tiny, sleepy sigh, your head rolling naturally into the hollow of his neck, and Leon freezes. His heart kicks against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Don't wake up, don't wake up, don't make this weird, he thinks, his internal monologue screaming in a way it never does during a fire-fight.
He carries you down the short hallway, his boots silent on the hardwood. His bedroom is the inner sanctum—a place that usually feels like a cold, utilitarian bunker. But as he lays you down on the mattress, the room feels different. It feels occupied.
He pulls the heavy duvet over you, tucking the edges in with a focused, military precision. He lingers there for a moment, his hand hovering over your face. He can't help it; his thumb grazes your temple, smoothing away a stray lock of hair, before his knuckles lighty brush the warmth of your cheek. Your skin is soft, a stark contrast to the rough, scarred texture of his own hands.
"Rest up, Doc," he murmurs, his voice barely a breath. "You’ve earned it."
He backs out of the room, closing the door with a click so soft it’s almost silent. When he turns around, Cheeto is standing in the middle of the hallway, tail twitching, staring at him with unblinking, judging eyes.
"What? I’m being a gentleman," Leon grunts, stepping past the cat toward the sofa. He doesn't go back to his chair. Instead, he collapses onto the couch, staring at the ceiling. The cat hops up onto his chest, pinning him down and staring directly into his soul.
"I’m a DSO agent," Leon tells the cat, his voice flat and defensive. "I’m stoic. I’m professional. I’m a guy who deals with world-ending threats and international conspiracies. I definitely don't have a 'crush' on the veterinarian who makes me eat kale salad."
Cheeto blinks slowly, looking entirely unimpressed by the lie.
Leon sighs, rubbing his face with both hands. The lie is thin. It’s paper-thin and tearing at the seams. He lies there in the dark, listening to the silence of the apartment. For years, he’s filled this silence with the burn of cheap whiskey, the hum of a background news cycle, and the crushing weight of old regrets—Raccoon City, Krauser, the faces of people he couldn't pull out of the fire.
But tonight, the silence feels... full.
He thinks about the way you’ve invaded his space. The way you cook him actual meals because you know he’d live on protein bars and spite if left to his own devices. Most of all, he thinks about the night you fell apart on this very sofa, and how holding you felt more important than any mission he’s ever been assigned.
He realizes then, with the terrifying, crystalline clarity of a man staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, that he isn't just "interested."
He is completely, hopelessly, and dangerously gone for you.
It’s a catastrophic tactical error. He’s spent his entire adult life running from attachments because in his world, attachments are liabilities. Attachments get turned into leverage. Attachments get you killed. But as he looks at the closed door of his bedroom, knowing you’re safe inside, he knows the truth.
He’d burn the whole world to the ground—he’d take on an army of Ganados with a pocket knife—just to make sure you wake up tomorrow without a care in the world.
"Great," he mutters, his hand dropping to scratch Cheeto behind the ears. "I’m officially a Hallmark movie protagonist with a body count. Hunnigan is going to have a field day with this."
The cat purrs, finally satisfied, as Leon closes his eyes and accepts his defeat.
──────•✦•──────
The air in Leon’s apartment has changed.
It’s no longer just the scent of high-end bourbon and your lavender shampoo; it’s thick, electric, and heavy with the kind of "will-they-won't-they" energy that usually precedes a season finale. Every time you’re near him, the space between you feels like a magnetic field, pulling you toward him until you can practically hear his heart thudding in sync with your own.
You’re not an idiot. You’ve seen him look at you when he thinks you’re not looking—that soft, guarded yearning that makes your own chest tighten. You’ve felt the way his hand lingers on your waist when you pass him in the kitchen. He’s a DSO agent, a man who survived Raccoon City and global bio-terrorism, but apparently, asking a veterinarian on a date is the one mission that has him completely paralyzed.
And then, there’s the cat.
"You know, I was thinking," Leon starts, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly register that usually makes your knees feel like they’re made of cotton candy. He’s leaning against the kitchen island, his blue eyes fixed on yours with a terrifying intensity. He takes a step closer, his hand reaching out toward your arm. "I’ve been meaning to ask you—"
CRASH.
You both jump. Cheeto, now a lanky, orange blur of destruction, has successfully swiped a half-full glass of water off the side table. The glass doesn't shatter, but the water spreads across the hardwood in a slow, mocking puddle.
Leon closes his eyes, his hand dropping back to his side. He lets out a long, weary sigh that suggests he’s currently contemplating buying a kennel.
"He’s just expressive, Leon," you say, struggling to keep the smirk off your face. You grab a roll of paper towels, your internal monologue providing a dry commentary. Mission failed, Kennedy. The orange menace has you beat.
Ten minutes later, the puddle is gone, and the tension is back, sweltering and inescapable. You’re sitting on the sofa, and Leon is beside you, closer than usual. The movie on the TV is just background noise now. He turns toward you, his arm draped along the back of the couch, his fingers inches from your neck.
"Anyway," he says, his voice a breathy murmur. "What I was trying to say before we were so rudely interrupted by the feline Special Forces... is that I’ve really appreciated you being here. Not just for the cat. For me."
He begins to lean in. You can feel the heat radiating off him, the faint scent of his woodsy cologne wrapping around you like a promise. Your heart is hammering against your ribs, a frantic thump-thump-thump that screams finally.
"I was wondering if—"
Suddenly, there is a soft fump sound, followed by the sensation of four pounds of orange fur landing directly on Leon’s face.
Cheeto hasn't just jumped; he has launched himself from the top of the bookshelf with the precision of a heat-seeking missile. He is now perched on Leon’s head, his tail flicking rhythmically against Leon’s nose.
"Are you kidding me?" Leon’s muffled voice comes from beneath the cat.
You burst out laughing. You can't help it. The legendary Leon S. Kennedy is currently being used as a landing pad by a cat who still hasn't figured out how to bury his own poop correctly.
"It’s not funny," Leon grumbles, gently detaching the cat and setting him on the floor. Cheeto just looks at him, lets out a smug little mrrp, and starts grooming his shoulder like he didn't just ruin the most romantic moment of the year.
"It’s a little funny, Leon," you wheeze, wiping a tear from your eye. "I think he’s gatekeeping you. He knows you’re about to make a move and he’s not ready for a stepmother."
"I am a professional," Leon says, straightening his shirt, though his ears are a distinct shade of pink. He looks adorable—awkward, frustrated, and so deeply human it makes your breath hitch. "I have survived international conspiracies. I have navigated minefields. I can handle a five-pound orange domestic shorthair."
"Can you, though?" you tease, leaning back and watching him with a playful, expectant look. "Because so far, the score is Cheeto: two, Leon: zero."
Leon looks at the cat, then back at you, a lopsided, determined smirk finally breaking through his frustration.
"The night is young," he says, his voice regaining some of its cocky, one-liner edge. "And eventually, that cat has to sleep."
"Good luck with that," you retort, your heart singing even as your inner skeptic sighs. He’s going to chicken out again. I’m going to have to be the one to do it, aren't I?
You watch him settle back into the couch, his eyes fixed on you with a renewed focus. The tension is still there, humming under the surface, but now it’s tempered with the hilarious reality of your domestic life. You realize you don't mind the interruptions. If anything, they make the quiet, stolen moments feel even more earned.
You just hope the cat doesn't decide to launch a third offensive when things finally get interesting.
──────•✦•──────
The dinner is kind of a disaster.
Leon has spent the last hour trying to act like a normal human being, which is difficult when his heart is trying to beat its way out of his ribcage like an escaping experiment. He’s made pasta—the one dish he can’t screw up—and the table is set, the wine is poured, and you are sitting across from him looking so devastatingly beautiful in the low light that he’s forgotten how to use a fork.
The air between you is thick enough to choke on. Every time your eyes meet his, Leon feels like he’s standing on the edge of a skyscraper with no parachute. He clears his throat, leaning forward, his hands clasped tight.
"So," he begins, his voice dropping into that low, serious register he uses for briefing the President. "I was thinking that maybe—"
Clank.
In one fluid, chaotic motion, the cat—who has apparently developed a taste for expensive Pinot Noir—swipes a paw at the wine bottle. Leon lunges, catching it before it tips, but the moment is shattered. The cat lets out a defiant meow and begins to weave through Leon’s ankles, tripping him as he tries to sit back down.
Leon’s patience, a resource he usually has in abundance when dealing with global catastrophes, officially hits zero.
"That's it," Leon mutters.
He doesn't hesitate. He scoops up the lanky, protesting orange blur with the efficiency of a man clearing a room. He strides to the hallway, ignores the indignant squawk from the feline, and gently but very firmly sets the cat on the other side of the door. He shuts it with a definitive thud and turns the lock.
Silence. Blessed, complete silence.
Leon turns back to you, leaning his back against the door. He’s breathing a little hard, his blonde hair a mess, and his face is flushed with a heat that has nothing to do with the stove. He rubs the back of his neck, the "cool agent" mask finally crumbling into a thousand pieces.
"I face bio-terrorists for a living," he starts, his voice rough and stripped of its usual bravado. He looks at his boots, then finally, desperately, at you. "I’ve survived things that defy the laws of physics and biology. But asking you out is officially the most terrifying thing I've ever done. My heart rate is higher right now than it was when I was being chased by a ten-foot-tall man in a trench coat."
He takes a step toward you, his hands trembling just enough for him to notice. "I don't want to just be the guy with the cat anymore. I don't want to be the guy who only sees you when things are bleeding or when I’m being deployed to some hellhole. I want to be... yours. If you’ll have me."
He braces himself. He’s ready for a "let’s just stay friends," or a polite laugh, or even a tactical retreat. He’s spent his life waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the mission to fail.
But you don't say a word. You just stand up, and the look in your eyes makes Leon’s knees go weak. You cross the kitchen in three purposeful strides, your gaze locked on his.
Scritch. Scritch. MEE-OWW!
From behind the door, the cat begins a frantic, rhythmic assault on the wood, accompanied by a series of yowls that sound like a siren. Leon flinches, his eyes darting toward the hallway.
"Dammit," he curses softly, his shoulders sagging.
He never finishes the sentence. You reach out, your hands snaking up his chest to grab the collar of his shirt. With a strength that catches him entirely off guard, you pull him down toward you.
You can feel the exact moment Leon’s brain goes entirely offline. There is no more DSO. No more missions. No more orange cats trying to sabotage his life. Beneath your hands, his chest seizes with the shock of a man who has finally stopped running and found exactly what he was looking for.
He freezes for a millisecond, his body going completely rigid. He is so utterly unaccustomed to physical contact that doesn't involve violence or a medical triage that he genuinely doesn't know what to do with his hands. But then, a low, fractured groan vibrates from deep in his chest, and the dam breaks.
His hands, clumsy and hesitant at first, suddenly scramble to find purchase at your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. He kisses you back with the terrifying, unbridled hunger of a man who has been starving in the dark for years. It’s a searing, desperate collision that tastes like red wine and the heavy weight of shared secrets.
You can feel the slight tremor in his fingers as they dig into the fabric of your shirt, gripping you like a lifeline. Months of suffocating tension, of late-night FaceTime calls and lingering, aborted touches, all shatter in this frantic, messy connection.
He feels you smile against his mouth, and he forces himself to pull back just an inch, his breathing ragged as he rests his forehead against yours. He’s delightfully dazed, his blue eyes blown wide and glassy, completely stripped of his cool-agent armor.
"Took you long enough," you whisper, your voice breathless and playful, your thumb tracing the line of his jaw. "I’ve been waiting for you to do that since I gave you my number."
Leon blinks, his mind clearly struggling to process the information. A slow, lopsided smirk finally pushes through his shock, accompanied by a faint, boyish flush on his cheeks. "You have? I thought... I thought that was really just for cat questions."
"You are so incredibly clueless," you laugh, grabbing his shirt and pulling him back down by his collar.
"Maybe," Leon breathes, his hands tightening possessively around your waist, completely ignoring the cat that has begun to scream and scratch at the hallway door. "But I think I'm starting to get the hang of it."
He kisses you again, and the second kiss is even better than the first.
Where the first was a desperate, panicked collision, this one is a slow, deliberate exploration. He’s a man carefully mapping out a territory he never thought he’d be allowed to claim. His initial awkwardness melts into a heavy, intoxicating rhythm.
Leon’s hands are surprisingly gentle as they slide up your spine, settling warmly at the small of your back. He pulls you in tighter until you can feel the frantic, heavy thud of his heart against your chest.
He’s so profoundly touch-starved that it aches; he chases your lips when you pull back to catch your breath, his mouth hot and insistent, sliding a hand up to cradle the back of your neck so he can tilt your head exactly how he wants it. His thumbs trace small, rhythmic circles against your skin.
Your inner monologue, usually a sharp-tongued critic, has finally been silenced. About fucking time, you think, your fingers tangling into the soft, blonde hair at the nape of his neck. I was starting to think I’d have to perform a personality transplant to get you to make a move.
The moment is perfect. It’s cinematic. It’s everything a slow-burn romance should be.
And then, there’s the scratching.
Scritch. Scritch. Mrow?
The sound of claws on wood is followed by a heavy thud against the door, as if the cat has decided to use himself as a battering ram. The rhythmic, indignant yowling has escalated into a sound that can only be described as a feline operatic tragedy.
You huff a laugh into Leon’s mouth, the vibration of it making him let out a low, frustrated groan. You reluctantly pull back just an inch, your hands still resting on his broad shoulders. He looks absolutely wrecked—pupils blown wide, lips slightly swollen, and a dazed expression on his face that you’re definitely going to tease him about later.
"He's going to tear through the drywall, Leon," you whisper, your voice breathless and playful.
Leon leans his forehead against yours, his eyes closed. "Let him scream. I’ve survived interrogations in darker rooms than this hallway. I can outlast him."
"He’s a cat, Leon. He has nothing but time and spite."
With a reluctant sigh, you disentangle yourself from his arms—feeling the immediate, cold void where his body heat was—and walk over to the door to pull it open.
Cheeto doesn't even hesitate. He streaks into the kitchen, his tail puffed out to the size of a bottle brush. He doesn't go for the food bowl. He doesn't go for the toy. He marches straight to the space between you and Leon, sits down, and begins to lick his paw with a level of smugness that is almost impressive.
"See?" you say, leaning back against the counter and crossing your arms. "He’s the third wheel we never asked for."
Leon watches the cat, then looks at you. The adrenaline of the confession is still fading, replaced by a soft, domestic glow. He walks over, invading your personal space again, and traps you against the counter with a hand on either side of your hips. He’s smiling now—that lopsided, cocky Kennedy smirk that usually means he’s about to say something incredibly cheesy.
"You know," he says, his voice dropping into a low, teasing rumble. "I just realized something. As a professional, I have to ask... is this even allowed? Isn't it a little unethical to be dating a patient's owner? I feel like there’s a code of conduct for this."
You stare at him, a deadpan expression flat on your face. Oh, here we go. Tactical awkwardness at its finest.
"Leon," you say, your voice dripping with sarcasm. "The 'patient' is currently trying to eat his own tail. And his 'owner' is a man who carries a handgun to the grocery store. I think the ethics board has bigger fish to fry than us."
"I'm just saying," he continues, his blue eyes dancing with mischief as he leans in closer, his nose brushing yours. "I’d hate to be the reason you lose your license. 'Vet caught in scandalous affair with local cat-dad.' The headlines would be brutal."
"You are such a dork," you mutter, though you can feel the stupid, helpless grin breaking through your defenses.
"I have my moments," he murmurs.
"Shut up, Leon," you say softly, the playfulness fading into something warmer, something real. You reach up, grabbing the front of his shirt again to bridge the tiny gap he’s left between you. "And kiss me again. Before the cat decides to jump on the ceiling."
Leon doesn't need to be told twice. He closes the distance, his mouth finding yours with a renewed confidence. This time, there’s no hesitation, no tactical stalling—just the quiet, certain knowledge that the empty apartment isn't empty anymore.
And as the lanky orange cat finally settles on the floor to watch you both, Leon realizes that for the first time in his life, he isn't just surviving a day.
Author's Note: thanks for all the love on the first two installments of this series guys! i hope you're ready for some re4 shenanigans :)) buckle in this is a long one (so much so i had to split it into two parts, whoops)
Summary: A lot can change in six years. Sometimes, things don't get better, just different.
Word Count: 15.1k (31.4k Total)
Content: 18+, smut, re4!leon, doctor!reader, angst, gore, mentions of past child abuse, medical inaccuracies, parasites, mind control, death & grief, everyone flirts with reader, jealous!leon, yearning yearning and more yearning but they're also deeply traumatized individuals, undefined situationship hell, oral (f!receiving), p in v sex (unprotected), little bit of butt stuff as a treat
To Read on AO3
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The trek across the battlements is a nightmare, to put it mildly, especially with another one of those gigantic, mutated creatures hurling boulders at you and Leon. When you encounter one of these 'plaga' for the first time outside of a host, it skitters around and attaches itself to a monk to puppet around.
"Hey, remember that movie you rea—"
"Yup," you answer as you back up, shooting at the advancing creature.
"Isn't it just like—"
"Yup!"
By some miracle (read as: a cannon), you make it back to the courtyard, ending up in a sitting room overlooking it, where you find a familiar blonde. You realize with a frown that she's crying as she sits on a couch facing away from you and Leon.
Slowly, the two of you make your way over, trying not to startle her. When she sees you, she shuffles to the further side of the couch. "Stay back," she cries. "I might hurt you again." She glances down at her hands, clutched into fists, before looking up between you two. "I'm so scared. When that happened… I wasn't myself anymore. I was something else."
"That must have been terrifying, I know—" Leon inches forward, and she flinches back, before staring down at his arms, where the blackened veins are more pronounced as the infection progresses.
"You too?" she asks, voice small. He purses his lips and nods, and she stares over at you with wide eyes, as if questioning whether you're infected as well, but you only shake your head.
"It's okay to be afraid, y'know," Leon says as he carefully sits down next to her. "But you can't run. You gotta keep moving forward."
You're quiet. At what point does moving forward become running, you ask yourself. It's a line that's been so blurred for you the past six years, you're not even sure of the answer.
"We will beat this," he assures her. "Together."
She frowns. "I don't know if I can."
"You can," he says. "Just give me a heads-up before you stab me next time, okay?"
She laughs weakly, and when you outstretch the knife toward her, she seems startled, glancing between you and Leon. "I—"
"You heard him," you say. "Just give him a heads-up."
Tentatively, she takes the knife, regarding it with care. "How do you do it?" she asks, focused on you this time. "How are you so brave?"
The question claws at something deep inside you, trying to rip it from your chest. You're hesitant to let it, but looking into her eyes, so full of fear, you allow it to latch on. "Can I tell you a secret?" you ask as you squat down in front of her.
She nods quickly and leans forward. "Of course."
"Six years ago, I was in Raccoon City during the outbreak."
She gasps.
"I thought I was going to die. I was alone and so scared—" You pause, remembering the hospital—how hopeless you felt. "—and I was so angry. Angry that I was going to die alone and scared. Angry that my own good intentions landed me in that mess."
Leon watches you carefully—listening to what you're saying so closely. You've never really talked about it—the things you endured before you found each other at the R.P.D. He's never asked because he always thought those memories were ones you'd want to keep buried.
"I was so angry that I decided I wasn't going to let that happen. I wasn't just going to sit there and let myself succumb to whatever horrible fate I deserved. Then I met someone—" A small smile tugs at your face as you remember rookie cop Leon Kennedy—hands held high in the air as you held him at gun point, squinting as you shone your flashlight in his face. "—and suddenly it was a bit easier, knowing that we were surviving together. Having someone to lean on, someone to fight for."
There's a wistful expression on your face that makes Ashley smile, too.
"Even still, I was so scared—I am so scared—but being brave means doing the hard thing even when you're afraid, especially when you're afraid." You grasp her hand, firm and present. "And you don't have to do it alone."
Tears gather in her eyes. "Yeah," she says softly. "Okay."
"Ready to get a move on?" Leon asks.
You pull her up with you, squeezing her hand tightly, a reminder to let her know that you're here with her.
As you're making your way to the door, Leon stops, pressing a hand to his ear. "Luis, where are you?" He stops, annoyance twisting his face. "I'll show you charming, pal!" After another pause, he sighs, his hand dropping to his side. "I can't believe that guy."
"What happened?" Ashley asks.
"He got caught up in some trouble," Leon answers.
"Of course he did," you mutter.
"Well, we can't just leave him, right?" she says.
You and Leon exchange a look—unfortunately, no, you can't; you wouldn't.
The maze is annoying but manageable; the puzzle, once you get into the Grand Hall, however, makes you question whether you're doomed to a life of solving these inane challenges to do something as simple as… open a door.
As your luck would have it, as soon as you complete it, you and Leon are trapped in a cage by the zealots, leaving Ashley on her own as she runs through the door you've unlocked. You watch Leon pace back and forth like a confined tiger.
After several minutes of this, you comment, "If your plan is to wear a hole in the floor, it just might work."
"We can't just stand here and do nothing," he says.
You're not sure what else you can do short of prying the bars apart, but given how thick they are, that seems unlikely. "She's going to be fine—"
"You don't know that," he cuts you off. "This entire mission has just been one thing after another. With this freaky cult and their freaky priest who infected me, I almost got swallowed whole by an overgrown fish—" "—Wait, what?—" "—and when I finally find Ashley, you show up—"
You recoil as if he's slapped you. "What's that supposed to mean?" you ask.
"You're a distraction," he replies, as if it's as simple as that. He's talking to you like you're an inconvenience—more dead weight he's got to juggle on top of everything else. It's not a tone you've ever heard him use with you before. Your mouth goes dry, and suddenly your ears are filled with the sound of your rapid heartbeat. "You shouldn't even be here—they should have let you complete your own mission and not interfered with mine."
It's automatic—the way your mind starts cataloging everything you've tucked away in your pouches, a mental inventory you've unknowingly kept with meticulous precision. Your brain's defense mechanism, a barrier slamming down between you and the ache building in your chest. "I'll make sure to note that request in my report," you say, your tone even, detached.
You're not going to cry, you tell yourself. You're made of tougher stuff—God knows you've been beaten and berated enough to prove it—and you're not going to cry because a man is mean to you, even if that man is Leon.
"Never worked on me, did it?" the voice whispers in your ear—it's deceptively soft, yet cruel—mocking. "Just a load of crocodile tears."
Leon rolls his eyes at your words, turning away from you and muttering, "Yeah, you do that."
Crinkling your nose, you force back the sting in your sinuses. Lockpick, you have a lockpick, your mind reminds you. You reach into the pocket you know it's in, kneeling in front of the door. You've never been any good at it, and when the pin slips for the first time, you let out a sharp breath through your nose.
The sixth time occurs when Leon breaks the tense silence between you by asking, "What are you doing?" His tone is sharp yet curious.
"What does it look like?"
"Where did you learn to lockpick?" he asks.
"Jill," you tersely respond.
Albeit it was seven years ago, you were both incredibly drunk, having locked yourselves in a supply closet at some dive bar you'd never been to before, mistaking it for the bathroom. She thought it was the perfect teaching moment. It wasn't, and you two were fumbling around in the dark for far too long before the bartender found you. Jill swears you were close to getting the door open.
The sound of your and Leon's names being called makes your grip falter, and the lockpick falls to the floor. "Ashley!" he yells. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, give me a sec, I'll get you guys out," she says from the balcony above, and you watch as she takes the key from the dead zealot slumped over the lever that trapped you both in here. "Try this!"
Leon snatches it from the air as she throws it down. "Can you make it down? I'll catch you," he says.
"Yeah, I think so."
You've barely turned your back for a second when Ashley's screams echo through the air. As you whirl around, you see an enormous figure in a red cloak has grabbed her. "Ashley!" You draw your gun and fire two shots into the creature's back. It doesn't even flinch, only glancing down at you and Leon before turning and disappearing into the darkened archway with her. "Fuck."
As Leon gets the door open, he pauses, holding a hand to his ear. "Ada?" You perk up, brows furrowing in confusion as to why she would be contacting him. "Hey! Ada? Ada!" He sighs. "…Perfect."
"What did she want?" you quietly ask.
"She said something big is about to go down in the throne room," he answers. "C'mon."
The ballroom, where you were supposed to find Luis, is empty except for the terrifying, overgrown bugs that buzz about. The entire area seems to be in disrepair, with large sections of the floor dug out and nothing but darkness below. Ramón, meanwhile, taunts Leon over the speakers throughout the castle, sneering "Mr. Kennedy" like it's an insult. He manages to find a few ways to slight you as well, though you're far less affected than Leon, who grows increasingly annoyed by the prodding.
As you run through the doors to the throne room, you stop short at the scene before you. "Stop! No! Don't come any closer!" Ashley yells as she's forced to her knees in front of a giant hole in the ground by two of the cultists, blood smeared across her face in some sort of symbol.
"Are you hurt?" Leon asks.
"Watch out!"
You're hit by something from above, your body being forced to the ground by a tremendous weight, and you can feel the rough stone of the floor scrape against your cheek as you're held down by the back of your neck. There's a ringing in your ears from the blow, and your vision crosses. "Fuck," you grunt.
When Ramón says your name, you squint over at him, eyes having trouble focusing. "I don't know how you've managed to make it so far without bearing the gift of my master—"
"Guess I'm just lucky," you wheeze. You hope you're imagining the crack you hear as the creature on top of you bears down with its full weight.
"—Nevertheless, it matters not. Please. Do continue," Ramón orders, perched on the throne at the far side of the room, giving his minions a flourish of his hand.
"No! No! Please! Let me go!" Ashley yells as one of the zealots approaches with a chalice full of God knows what, carrying it as if it's the blood of Christ himself.
"Do not resist, my dear," Ramón coos sardonically. "It serves only to make your suffering all the worse."
You struggle against the creature's grip despite the pain shooting up your ribs. Leon is next to you, trying with all of his might to break free, but it's too strong. You're only able to watch as the cultists hold Ashley's mouth open and begin to chant. She's screaming, trying to thrash to no avail, tears streaming down her face.
"Don't drink it!" you yell before your face is ground into the stone once more, hearing her choke as they pour it down her throat.
"You sick—" Just as Leon finds some purchase, he's thrust back down as Ashley cries, and you watch deep red marks spread across her body. You gasp as you're suddenly hauled off the floor, you and Leon dangling uselessly in the creature's impossibly strong grip.
You faintly hear Ramón bid you and Leon goodbye, and then you're tossed into the hole in front of you, Ashley's scream reverberating overhead. You reach out blindly, latching onto something—a chain. You're sure your palms would be torn to shreds without your leather gloves as you slide nearly the entire way down before coming to a slow, grinding halt. You're in a cave, you realize, before peering down to see a head of sandy blonde hair clinging to the chain a few feet beneath you in the darkness.
Your heart is still in your throat. "Leon?" you croak out.
When he glances up and sees you, he says your name like it's a relief. "Are you okay?" he asks.
You're not. "Yeah," you lie.
Below, sharp stalagmites jut up from the cave floor. He looks around, spotting a clearing to one side. "If we can swing over there, we can jump down."
It's a coordinated effort on both your parts to time the swing over, and once Leon jumps off, you slide further down and hop off as well. You land firmly on your feet, though the impact sends a sharp zap of pain up your side. You let out a gasp, clutching your ribs.
Leon's crowding you in the next moment, taking you by the shoulders to inspect you. "What is it?" he asks.
"It's nothing—" You grit your teeth. "—Just aggravated my ribs a bit, I'm fine."
His brows crinkle together, concern pooling in his eyes. "You're not fine—"
"I am," you insist, shrugging off his hands.
"Listen, I didn't—"
You wave your hand, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Don't worry about it," you say dismissively, then add pettily, "Wouldn't want you to have any distractions." You don't give him time to respond, taking the lead as you move through the cave, intent on finding a way out and back to Ashley.
Leon stares at your retreating form, regret bubbling up in his throat.
Movie nights are a tradition between you and Leon, one you unknowingly started six years ago. Weekly lamentations over drinks turned into weekly lamentations over drinks while watching whatever shitty made-for-TV movie happened to be on Lifetime. One week, he showed up with a few movies from the rental place down the street from his apartment, grumbling that he was sick of watching the same awful rom-coms week after week. The owner of the Dollar Video gave him some recommendations—Leon kept how the older woman suggested a horror movie with a waggle of her brows at him when he mentioned you to himself.
Sometimes, if you liked a movie enough, Leon would rent it multiple times before finally biting the bullet and buying it for you. Needless to say, you've grown quite a collection over the years despite your insistence that he didn't need to buy you anything.
"Shut up," he said to you, cheeks reddened like he was trying not to make a big deal of it.
The first one he ended up getting for you was Alien after you requested that he rent it for the seventh time. You called it a "comfort movie"—Leon couldn't understand how a film in which nearly everyone dies violently could be considered comforting, but he usually had a hard time denying you, so he endured rewatching it as many times as you asked.
So maybe he finds it a little ironic that you two are running for your lives from a creature far too similar to the titular monster in one of your favorite movies.
As a spiny tail juts up from the grated floor, slashing around, he says, "You know this is kind of like—"
"I know!" you shout as you dive to the floor, narrowly avoiding being swiped at. You're seeing stars as the pain in your ribs intensifies, but you grit your teeth through it.
And when you lure the creature into the nitrogen shower, with equal parts fear and determination in your eyes, Leon thinks maybe you find comfort in that movie because it's a reminder to keep going—to survive—not because you have to, but because you can, because you're capable.
By the time it falls, half-frozen and riddled with bullet holes, blood drips from a wound above your brow, and you're holding your injured side protectively after the monster landed a hit that sent you sprawling to the ground.
He's reaching out to you before he can stop himself, stuck in your gravity well, and even though he knows he deserves it, he can't help but feel spurned when you wave him off. "Let's get to the elevator," you say coldly.
The facade of indifference you've erected doesn't last long when he collapses to his knees in the lift. Confusing visions fill his mind, and he comes to with his face being cradled by your steady hands. "Leon." There's worry in your tone, a tremor of desperation he hates to hear in your voice, especially for him.
He takes a deep, shaky breath; his hands resting on top of yours. "I'm okay," he assures as he stands, accepting your help.
"It's getting worse," you say, staring at the darkened veins on his arm. They've spread.
He says nothing, lips sealed, but his eyes stray from you as the elevator reaches the top and creaks open. When you see the vein at his temple throb, you follow his gaze, peering over your shoulder to see Luis leaning against the steel beam.
There's a smirk on his face as he shakes the container in his hand. "I'll make it cheap for you." Your shoulders drop, and you move first, stalking up to the man and reaching for it, only for him to hold it just out of your grasp at the last second. His brows lift, and he lowers his head to meet your stare. "For the low, low price of a single kiss."
An arm darts out from over your shoulder, yanking the container from Luis's hand. "You're lucky I don't kiss your face with my fist, pal," Leon sneers, and you can feel the rumble in his chest that's pressed up against your back.
Luis gives a shrug of his shoulders, holding his hands up innocently. "You cannot blame a man for trying," he says.
You roll your eyes, clearly not taking the man's flirtations seriously, as Leon hands you the container. "Sit down," you instruct with a nod of your head as you open it up, plucking one of the two syringes from inside, and holding it to your eye as you inspect the purple liquid within. "This is the suppressant?"
"It is, indeed," Luis confirms.
"What's it made out of?" you ask, curious and maybe a bit skeptical.
He doesn't seem the least bit offended by your hesitance. "Some hard-to-find ingredients," he answers. "Only enough for three doses."
"And where's the third?"
He gives you a knowing smile and taps the side of his nose. Pursing your lips, you turn away from him and kneel down in front of Leon, pulling out an alcohol swab from one of your pockets. "Anything you don't got in there?" Leon asks.
You snort as you clean a small patch of skin on the inside of his elbow. "A million dollars," you mutter. "Just a pinch here." It's a habit from a life no longer yours as you push the tip of the needle into his skin. He doesn't even flinch, his attention remaining on you, tracing down the slope of your nose and concentrated line of your lips. "And done." You move away, wiping the droplet of blood that pools at the injection site, before standing up.
It's strange to see the suppressant work in real-time—the branching blackened veins retreating like a receding tide—and you and Leon watch with fascination.
"Feeling better?" Luis asks as he flips his lighter between his fingers.
"Yeah," Leon confirms as he flexes his fist a few times. "Seems like it worked."
"Bad news?" Luis says. "All we've done is buy you some time." Leon takes the other dose, inspects it, then hands it over to you. "The suppressant's effects will wear off all too soon."
"We should hurry, then," you say as you tuck it into a reinforced pocket—the last thing you need is for it to break before you're able to reach Ashley.
With a click, Luis flicks his lighter closed and pockets it. "In that case, we know what we have to do," he says before grabbing a broken pipe, brandishing it like a spear. "Then come, Sancho Panza! Let us rescue the Princess Dulcinea!"
"You're gonna hurt yourself," Leon mutters as he snatches the pipe from his hands and tosses it aside, where it clanks against the floor.
"Hey, that was my lance!" Luis complains. He shoots you a look as if you could help, and when you only smirk at him, he clutches his chest with one hand over the other. "I thought our bond ran deeper than that, corazón. For you not to come to my aid… I am heartbroken."
Falling in step with him, you give him an unsympathetic pat on the back. "I'm sorry to have led you on in such a way."
He lets out a bark of laughter, and ahead of you, Leon rolls his eyes with a frown.
Making your way through the mines, you're sure that Leon will pick up at some point that Luis is only flirting with you to get under his skin. However—
"You handle yourself pretty well…" Leon says after you all clear an area full of villagers in the mine. "You sure you're just a researcher?"
"I'm just an average guy who happens to be quite the ladies' man," Luis answers. "Isn't that right, corazón?" He tosses you a non-subtle wink.
Leon's jaw clenches together, and his nostrils flare as he lets out a slow exhale, like he's mentally counting to ten in his head.
After you fight two more of the gigantic creatures, Luis offers to lift you through the opening to unlock the door from the other side with a sly smirk, and right as he's about to squat down to let you climb onto his shoulders, Leon pushes him to the side, lifting you himself.
"Hands to yourself, buddy," Leon mutters to him as you disappear to the other side, landing with a soft thud.
"Touchy," Luis groans as he rubs at his sore backside.
When you take point during your minecart ride, with Luis and Leon focused on keeping the minecart from flipping, the first shot you take, which sails straight through the forehead of one of the villagers wielding a flaming crossbow, draws a low whistle from Luis. "A sharpshooter, eh?" he comments. "Can't say I'm surprised, given the way you've struck me straight through the heart."
Leon debates whether to throw him from the minecart, and it is only through great restraint that he does not.
After nearly falling to your deaths and navigating a section of the mine infested with more of those bugs, you finally reach another lift that will hopefully bring you closer to the surface. The ride up offers a brief reprieve, and you rest against the elevator wall, catching your breath.
"I don't get you," Leon says to Luis. "Why risk your life like this? You don't know us."
"I told you," he answers. "It makes me feel better."
Leon narrows his eyes, no longer buying the concerned-citizen bit. "Be straight with me for once."
"Los Iluminados… I was working for them," Luis admits.
"See? There you go," Leon says.
Luis flicks his lighter on, staring down at the flame with a frown. "Helping you doesn't make up for it, I know that. But still, I don't want anyone else to get hurt."
"In that case, you'd better get serious," he says firmly.
Luis chuckles. "Harsh words for a squire." He looks over at you. "What do you think, Teresa Panza?"
As the lift comes to a stop, you push off from the wall. "I think you'd better not get complacent, we're not out of the woods yet."
"Ah, wise words from a wise woman," he replies, sending a devious grin to Leon. "Sancho is quite the lucky man."
Leon glances between the two of you, and your eyes catch his the moment realization dawns on him. Quickly, he averts his gaze, red darkening his cheeks as the elevator doors open.
Luis marches out first. "We're out of that hellhole," he announces with a bit more jaunt to his gait. "The fresh air is calling our names!" He turns, arms splayed as he talks to the two of you. "Because if we made it all this way, you know that means we're almost—"
His words get caught in his throat as he gasps.
"Almost what?" Leon asks.
"Luis?" You take a hesitant step forward.
His body jerks as he chokes out a wet, rattling cough. Blood spews from his mouth, staining his lips red. The moment before he collapses, he appears confused. Your feet move instinctively, and you don't get more than a few strides when someone jumps down just behind Luis. Leon's arms wrap around your waist, hauling you back and keeping you from going any further.
It's a man—blonde, dressed in military fatigues and a red beret, with a large scar running down the left side of his face. You think you recognize him, and when he addresses Leon, you know you do.
"Long time no see, rookie," he chuckles.
Leon steps in front of you, shielding your body with his. "Major Krauser? What the hell? Why?"
Krauser squats and takes something from Luis—it's a cylindrical tube with a yellow crystal inside. "Recovering stolen goods—" He taps it, tucks it away, then grasps the knife embedded in Luis's back and wrenches it free, making you wince at the sound. "—And killing a few rats along the way." As he stands, he moves with quick, precise steps, circling like a predator stalking its prey. "Easy work."
Leon keeps you behind him the entire time, realization dawning on him. "Ashley… It was you." He reaches for his gun, but Krauser is incredibly fast. His knife is at Leon's throat before you can even blink, and you feel Leon nudge you away. "You catch on quick—" The edge barely grazes Leon's neck. "Didn't I teach you? Knives are faster."
Your eyes flick to Luis, and you edge back, keeping a wide berth between yourself and them as Leon draws his knife and the two start to go at it. It's a flurry of limbs that would be impressive if it didn't feel so life-and-death, and then Krauser kicks Leon down to the lower level, jumping down to join him.
As you make it to Luis, you bring out your own knife. "I hope you're not fond of this jacket, Luis," you mutter as you slice through it and his shirt to expose the wound on his back.
"I am fond of living more," he wheezes out—still alive, you realize with a sigh of relief. "My chest hurts."
You lean your head down, pressing your ear to his back to listen in lieu of a stethoscope—all the shit you have on you, and you don't have a stethoscope. "Fuck," you mutter as you sit back.
"That—" He coughs. "—is not what I want to hear my doctor say."
"I think your lung is collapsed," you tell him as you clasp his wrist to check his pulse. Strong, you determine.
"Can you make it uncollapse?" he asks. Humor still intact, at least.
"Sure can," you say as you sort through your medical kit. You've dealt with plenty of collapsed lungs—granted, it was in an Emergency Room with state-of-the-art technology at your disposal, but you're, for all intents and purposes, a genius; you can figure it out. "I have to do an occlusive dressing," you explain as you take out some antiseptic. "But first we need to clean the wound—" You pause. "—This is gonna hurt."
There's no countdown, only him hissing in pain as you flush out the wound. It's a good sign when only a bit of blood floods the wound—Krauser didn't hit a major artery or organ. A rookie mistake from someone who seemed all too smug to be "killing rats".
"Good news—" you start.
"Oh, yay," he groans.
"—I think he missed your vital organs."
"Oh, that is good news," he gasps with a small smile, blood coating his teeth as he gives a weak thumbs-up.
You grab what you need to do the bandage—just a piece of plastic and tape; rudimentary, but it'll do. "Okay, so all I need to do is seal down three sides of this, and it'll create a flutter valve that lets air out when you exhale, but seals when you inhale." You double up on tape to be sure the seal will hold, and when you see it working as intended, the worry that was coiling in your stomach unravels only a bit. "How do you feel?"
"A little better, I think," he answers.
"It's going to take a while for your lung to re-expand," you explain. "We need to get you to an actual hospital."
"You need to save Ashley first," he says—his talking is less strained, and you help him slowly sit up.
You take out your penlight, shining it into his eyes, then feel his pulse once more. "Do you feel like you can stand?" you ask, then add, "Be honest."
He takes a moment, drawing another deep breath, before nodding. As you haul him to his feet, mindful of the wound on his back, you guide him down the stairs to the lower level, where Leon and Krauser are still fighting, the sound of metal clashing against metal.
As you reach the bottom of the stairs, Krauser kicks Leon directly in the chest, sending him sailing back and landing with a hard thud on the ground. He flips his knife in a flourish as he approaches Leon. "I got it," Luis confirms as he feebly unholsters his gun, taking aim and pulling the trigger as Krauser raises his blade high, about to strike Leon.
He turns his gaze to you two as the bullet ricochets off his knife. When Luis fires again, he retreats to a higher ledge with inhuman agility. "Enough play, rookie," he says from where he's perched. "You haven't changed a damn bit. What a disappointment."
Then he's gone.
As Luis grunts in pain, Leon whirls around as he staggers to his feet. "Luis, are you okay?" he asks.
"Oh, I'll live," he wheezes. "—Probably."
As he holsters his gun, he digs into his pocket, coming out with a key and shoving it into Leon's hand. "Take this—" He takes a deep breath, wincing slightly. "It's the key to my laboratory. Go there and remove those damn parasites."
"You're coming with us," Leon insists.
Luis shakes his head. "I'll only slow you down," he says. "You two go on without me—"
You're ready to argue—you want to, but your directive hasn't changed. "C'mon, let's at least get you some fresh air, huh?" you offer.
"How about a smoke?" he asks with a cheeky grin.
"If I catch you with a cigarette, I'm putting it out in your eye," you grumble as Leon comes to his other side, alleviating a bit of his weight from you as you haul him toward the elevator.
"Such a cruel woman," he bemoans.
"I could have just as easily let you suffocate to death," you say.
"Ah, no, you couldn't have—" He winks. "—You're too nice, corazón."
As you step into the elevator and Leon pushes the button, he frowns, holding a hand to his ear as a message comes through his radio. "Ah, so you aren't heartless after all. I guess I should be… thankful?"
"Ada?" you ask.
He nods. "She said Ashley is being taken to the clocktower," he answers.
"Better get a move on," Luis says as the elevator reaches the top, the doors sliding open.
The subtle glow of purple flame catches your attention. "Perfect," you mutter. "C'mon."
"Welcome, strangers!" the merchant greets as you walk through the threshold. "Seems you're in a bit of a pickle, hm?" His unnerving stare strays to Luis, who gives the man a little two-finger salute.
Carefully, you and Leon lower Luis down into one of the chairs in the room. "We are," you confirm, turning to him—you can see his eyes looking at you with curiosity. "Was wondering if you could help?"
"I could," he says.
You pause, lips drawing into a line. "Will you?" you ask.
He lets out a chuckle. "Now there's the question," he muses.
"What do you want?" you ask, already digging in your pockets—you've collected quite a few treasures. The merchant holds out a hand, stopping you from spilling jewels across his table. You stare up at him, confused—you were sure you had more than enough to cover whatever price he was going to ask.
"That shadow on your shoulder—"
Your breath catches in your throat.
"—What are you going to do about it?" he asks.
You're acutely aware of eyes on your back—no doubt wondering what the man is talking about. Then you feel a prickle up your neck, an itch that settles at the base of your skull.
"Yeah, girl, what are you going to do about it?" your father hisses in your ear.
"What do you want me to say?" you question—voice soft, but apathetic. "That I'll face my demons or some bullshit?"
His eyes crease like he's grinning behind the bandana covering his face. He's not mocking you—you may have preferred it—instead, he's looking at you with understanding.
"It's not about what I want you to say," he answers, tilting his head as he considers you. "I only want something honest—that's my price."
Your jaw sets as you swallow thickly.
"Tick tock," the voice laughs.
"I'll live with it until I can't," you say. Until it kills me, you think.
"You have yourself a deal," the merchant grins.
"You sure he's going to be okay?" Leon asks as you ride the cable car across to the clock tower. It's almost endearing how worried the man is for Luis, given how standoffish he's been toward him thus far, but it is incredibly like Leon Kennedy.
"He will," you say assuredly. "When I spoke to Hunnigan, she said they'll be able to extract him so long as they don't encounter any resistance."
"Don't worry, love," the merchant said to you. "Any trouble comes our way, nothing a bit of heavy-duty firepower can't take care of." You eyed the rocket launcher he patted with far too much affection and completely believed him.
"He would have died if you weren't here," Leon says.
You blink, gaze meeting his. "He would have," you confirm.
He reaches out, hand clasping around yours. "I'm sorry about what I said before," he murmurs. "I'm glad you're here."
You try to smile, though you're sure it doesn't reach your eyes. "Don't worry about that right now."
"Ain't always forgive and forget, is it?" your father taunts.
When you get to the clock tower, you're forced to fight your way up it. Becoming infinitely more annoyed with the pompous idiot Ramón and the seemingly never-ending supply of cultists at his disposal.
You arrive just in time to see Ashley being carried away by Krauser. You can only go after her once you and Leon have taken care of the mutated Ramón. By the end of the battle, your side aches from being slammed into a stone column, and you're hoping for this day to come to an end soon. As you ride the lift down, you see a boat pulling away. "Where the hell are they going?" you ask.
"No idea," Leon answers. "But we're going to find out."
There's a boathouse at the bottom, and you hop into the backseat of the boat moored inside as Leon searches for the key. Slowly, you ease yourself down into a lying position, ignoring the worried glances Leon keeps shooting you.
The sound of heels clicking against the uneven stone floor reaches your ear. "Looking for something?" Ada asks, holding up a keyring with a smirk.
Leon glances to you like he's begging you to take over this interaction, and when you gesture for Ada to take the driver's seat, he sighs. As she steps in, you can see the moment where he debates being petty and sitting in the back with you, but with how you're stretched out across the seats, it doesn't leave him with much room to sit, so begrudgingly, he takes the passenger's seat.
A tense quiet falls over the three of you as you drive toward an island—or at least, that's where Ada told you they were taking Ashley. You're gazing up at the clouds, enjoying the brief reprieve, when Ada starts, "You look like you've got something to say."
"Doesn't matter," Leon replies. "I won't get a straight answer, anyway."
A pause, a beat where she's cast out the line—the silence goading him to continue. You wish he wouldn't take the bait, but you know he will.
"After Raccoon City," he begins. "The world changed—you try to save one person; a hundred others die…" He frowns. "I guess I changed, too."
She chuckles. "You? Leon S. Kennedy?" she asks. "You haven't changed, you just think you have."
During this exchange, you've sat back up, and he catches your eye. "So here's my question—" He peers over at her. "—Have you changed, Ada? Or are you just trying to use us again?"
She stares at him—if you didn't know any better, you'd think her tone has a bit more bite. "What do you think?" She guides the boat to the island's cliffside. "We're here." As she gets up, pointing her grappling device upward, she looks down at him, then at you, a faux air of indifference around you. "What about you?" she asks. "Do you think you've changed?"
The question catches you off guard, and by the way she smirks, she knows it, too. Then she's gone, whisking away, causing the boat to jostle, and Leon jumps into the driver's seat to snatch the wheel to ensure you don't drive straight into the rocky cliffs. He scoffs, rolling his eyes as he heads toward an area to anchor the boat.
"Have I?" you ask after a moment—your voice smaller than you intended it to be.
Leon peers back at you, seeing the pensive expression on your face, and his own softens. "No, you haven't changed," he says so assuredly.
Your gaze dips low—so why don't you feel that way?
Infiltrating the island proved even more annoying, and you're not exactly sure how Saddler has managed to hide this entire operation, which apparently houses a militia as well as research facilities. When you finally make it inside, looking down through bars onto a lower level, you see Ashley lying unconscious on a bed. Predictably, the door is locked, forcing you and Leon to delve deeper into the facility.
"Why is this never straightforward?" Leon mutters as he reads the instructions for upgrading a keycard, which would give you access to the room she's in—the only problems being finding a keycard and then actually upgrading it.
"If the goal is to do things as inefficiently as possible, they're doing a great job," you reply.
It's a horrific sight when you get to the Dissection Room and see the body on the table—it's human with a plaga on its back, tendrils attaching through its orifices, and stuck in an unnatural pose. You glance over at the X-rays still displayed, the skull barely even recognizable as human anymore. You're not sure how anyone could possibly stomach the types of experiments these people were doing. Regardless, you take pictures, documenting the atrocities for your own reports.
"Look at this," Leon says as he holds up a journal from one of the Los Iluminados scientists.
You frown as you read about this new life form the scientist seems to have created—Regenerador, he calls them. "Let's hope we don't run into one of these," you mumble as you see the section about its regenerative abilities.
Approximately two minutes later, Leon groans as said creature stumbles down the corridor, "Why did you have to jinx it?"
"Sorry, didn't think we had enough to worry about," you mutter as you blast its knees with your shotgun—more concerned with slowing it down than putting it down after what you'd read. "Run."
After playing ring-around-the-bodybag with another one of them, you manage to upgrade the keycard you snagged from the Dissection Room to a Level 2, and you're only feeling a little bit better about the whole situation when you find a Biosensor Scope.
Leon plays bait as you kill the parasites that serve as vital organs, now visible through the scope in the Regenerador, with the wrench you need to access the next terminal inside. Once you've upgraded the keycard to Level 3, you're eager to get out of this place. "They're worse than those fucking plants," you mutter, glaring down at the body, your finger still hovering over the trigger as if you don't believe it's truly dead.
"Yeah, if I never see one of those things again, it'll be too soon," Leon grumbles. "Let's go."
As you and Leon finally unlock the room where Ashley is, you're already preparing to administer the suppressant to her as he cuts the zip tie binding her hands. She's unconscious, and you hope it hasn't progressed too far yet, given how far the blackened veins have spread under her skin.
As you inject it directly into her neck, you and Leon wait with bated breath. You practically fall to your knees with relief as you watch the signs of infection begin to recede, her skin returning to a normal hue.
"You're gonna be okay," Leon says as he brushes hair out of her face.
"Leon—" Your stare drops to his own arm, and he follows your eyes to see that his own symptoms have begun to return.
He winces, blinking as if his vision has gone spotty. You hold out a hand to steady him, and he slowly sits on the ground, leaning against the bed. "How long until she wakes up?" he asks.
"Shouldn't be too long," you answer, then say, "Hard to tell." He nods as he does a press-check of his gun and focuses on the doorway.
It would be smarter to move now—you're not sure how much longer Leon has, and Ashley is still a ticking time bomb, though you might have bought an hour or two. But with her unconscious, Leon would have to carry her, and given how his brows keep crinkling in pain, you're not sure he'd be able to right now. Plus, you're not exactly in tiptop shape. You take a seat next to him, readying your own gun.
After a few minutes of silence, he starts, "Listen, if—"
"Shut up," you say quickly.
You don't look at him—you can't because there are tears in your eyes merely at the thought of what he was about to say. He whispers your name softly—tender even though it feels like goodbye. Mercy in the form of a boot.
It makes you angry. The thought of a world without him—how devastating that loss would be. Maybe it's foolish to think you have any say in how your fates were spun. Sometimes it feels like you're tangled in the threads of what-ifs and what-could-bes, tugging at strands to see where they might lead. Despite everything you've endured—every hard day, every heartbreak, every moment when you thought you couldn't go on—you would do it all a hundred times over to ensure he was waiting for you at the end, even if you had to start from dust.
"There's no reality where you die today, Leon Kennedy," you say as evenly as possible as you tilt your head to look at him. "I would never allow it."
His gaze is gentle as he considers you—you can see how tired he is, the bags that weigh heavily under his eyes. Carefully, he reaches over, lacing your fingers together as he stoops down, pressing his lips to yours. You sink into him readily, and it's over all too soon as he draws back enough to lean his forehead against yours.
"You know we never went on that date," he murmurs.
Your mind stalls.
"So, got any plans Friday?" he questioned, thumb tracing your jawline.
Then slowly, a smile spreads across your lips. "No, we didn't," you confirm with a chuckle.
"Six years isn't too late, is it?" he asks.
"For you?" you murmur. "I'd wait six more."
He squeezes your hand, nudging his forehead against yours once more, and Ashley stirring behind you causes you both to draw away from each other.
"You're here," she whispers.
"Sorry, we're late," Leon says as he hauls himself up onto the foot of the bed while she sits up, rubbing at her wrist.
"No, thank you," she says. "You brought the medicine just in time."
As you get up, you hold a hand out to her. "Can you stand?"
She readily accepts your help as you pull her to her feet. "Where's Luis?" she asks.
Leon frowns, and Ashley catches it, eyes widening as she looks to you. "We ran into some trouble, and he was hurt—"
"But, he's alive, right?" she questions.
"He's fine," you assure her. "I called in an extraction for him, and if all went well, he's on his way to a hospital right now."
She gives a small sigh of relief. "That's good."
"C'mon, let's go get rid of these parasites," Leon says.
"Do you know where Luis's lab is?" you ask.
He frowns. "No, but we know someone who does."
As he radios Ada, you check in with Ashley again. "You sure you're feeling okay?" you ask.
She nods before frowning suddenly. "I lost your knife. I—When that big thing took me, I tried to get away, but…"
As she trails off, you cup her cheek. "Hey—" You catch her attention. "I'm not worried about the knife." When her brows furrow, you add, "I'm proud of you… for fighting."
She sniffles, eyes glistening with tears and gratitude. "Me too."
When Leon finishes his conversation with Ada, he looks back at you both. "Top of the mountain," he says.
After making your way through the Cargo Depot and the Waste Disposal—reminding you far too much of the sewers in Raccoon City—you're incredibly surprised when Ashley hops into the driver's seat of the crawler to break down the wall blocking your way.
"This what they're teaching kids in school these days?" Leon asks as you ride on the outside.
She laughs. "Ever heard of driver's ed?"
You snort. "Yeah, grandpa."
He gives you an incredulous look. "You're older than me."
"Young where it counts, though," you wink, hopping down as the sirens begin to go off and the militia starts crawling out of the woodwork. By the time the wall finally falls, you're standing amongst corpses. Ashley jumps out with a gleeful look on her face.
"Did you see that?" she asks excitedly. "That was awesome."
"I think you found your calling," Leon says with amusement.
You snort. "Yeah, forget about college."
As you stride onto the lift, she leans against the railing. "I think we work pretty well together. Maybe someday I'll become an agent like you guys?" Her attention flicks between you and Leon. "What do you think? We could protect the U.S. from any and all threats!"
"Is that right?" Leon says, sticking to something noncommittal. "Either way, first we have to make it out of here."
She huffs. "You're no fun." She turns to you, eyes wide like she knows the puppy dog expression will work on you. "We'll be partners then, right?"
You wink. "As long as you know someone who can pull some strings."
She grins, hands folded behind her back, as she follows you when you file off the elevator once it comes to a stop. "I think I know a guy." Leon only smirks and shakes his head at that. If he thinks you shouldn't be playing along, he doesn't say anything.
Further inside, you find an enormous chunk of the amber Luis mentioned earlier, complete with tiny parasites frozen within. The sight of them sends a shiver up your spine, and you unconsciously step back.
"Prostrate yourselves," you hear from behind you, and you all whirl around to see a cloaked man descending the stairs. "This is our Holy Body."
The cloaked women who accompany him begin to spread out, circling behind you. Ashley scurries between you and Leon as you draw your weapons.
"Our divine providence! And soon… such a profound blessing for all… las plagas!" One of the women tugs down the hood of his cloak, revealing a grotesque growth protruding from the back of his head. "Welcome, my children. I am Osmund Saddler, the speaker of our Lord." Tendrils writhe on top of the staff he's holding, making your stomach turn.
"Tell someone who gives a shit," Leon says as he takes a shot, hitting Saddler right in the eye.
His head whips to the side, but he doesn't stumble. "Foolish lambs," Saddler says, turning back to you all. "Why do you deny grace?"
With a groan, Leon falls to his knees, gun clattering to the floor. He looks like he's trying to fight it, whatever is controlling him. Your eyes widen, fear licking up your spine, realizing this is exactly what happened with Ashley earlier when she stabbed him.
"Now—" Saddler holds a hand out, and Ashley staggers forward, a puppet on strings—her back straightening with a snap as her veins blacken once more. "Abandon your body!"
"Ashley!" you call out, taking one, two, three steps forward, almost about to wrap your hand around her wrist, when you're snatched from behind. You gasp and struggle against the hold, then realize it's Leon who's restraining you. "Let go!"
You try to wriggle free from his grasp, but it's ironclad. "I'm sorry," he groans, teeth clenched. "I can't control it."
"Obey," Saddler urges. "Obey the voice of our Lord."
Slowly, Ashley reaches down, grabbing Leon's gun from the floor. "No… No!" she gasps. "Stop! No!"
Panic surges in you as you stare down the barrel of the weapon. "Fight me," Leon pleads.
You are, you want to shout as you thrash in his hold. You're trying everything, but he won't budge, and you're only tiring yourself out.
"Oh, now ain't this fitting," the voice croons. "How romantic… dying in each other's arms."
You flinch as the gun fires, and you whip your head around, seeing one of the women behind you fall. You hear Leon's breath stutter in your ear.
"Sweet child, do not resist!" Saddler says.
Bang.
The other one falls.
Slowly, the gun returns to you. Tears pool in your eyes as you look at her. "It's okay, alright?" you manage to whimper out, voice breaking. "It's not your fault."
"No, no, no!" she cries as her finger twitches against the trigger.
"It's not your fau—"
Click.
As she pulls the trigger, the gun clicks again. Empty, you realize with minimal solace, watching as it falls uselessly from her grasp.
"Pray, forgive these wicked sinners," Saddler preaches. "My faithful disciple shall deliver to you your… penance." Ashley turns, but her eyes remain on you and Leon until the last second, when she's forced to walk up the stairs behind them. "Now, child, you need not be afraid," he says to her. "Submit your body and release yourself from fear!"
His retinue begins to leave, following after Ashley and Saddler, and only once the doors have closed behind them do you feel Leon's hold on you release. He spins you around, grasping your face in his hands that are trembling. "Are you okay?" he asks. His eyes are wide and frantic, tears gathering at his waterline.
Your lower lip wobbles, and you don't trust your voice not to shake, so all you do is nod before calmly extracting yourself from his grip. You will your hands to be steady as you pick up the gun that not even a minute ago was pointed directly at your head, and hand it back to him, watching as he quietly reloads it.
"Let's go," you say softly, clearing your throat when your voice breaks.
"You should leave," he whispers. "Before I get you killed."
You peer up at him as if he just spat in your face. "No," you say. "I told you six years ago, we either both get out, or we don't."
His face crumples, your name on his lips like you're something precious he doesn't want to lose, but he knows you even better now than he did back then—you're stubborn, almost to a fault. So he accepts your answer in resolute silence, knowing you won't change your mind.
Tension fills the air as you and Leon move. No idle conversation, only a continuous progression forward until you make it to a tent that seems to be part of some sort of military operation separate from the rest of the militia. Something on a table catches your attention, and it causes you to freeze in your tracks.
"Leon," you murmur, drawing his attention as you pick up the photo, staring at it with a frown before holding it out to him.
He appears confused as he takes it until he sees what it's a photo of. His own face stares back at him. This is from right after you all got picked up outside of Raccoon City. The words 'I'm Waiting' are written on it in threatening red ink. Further in the tent, you find a tape with a message from Krauser to Leon, challenging him.
You can see the gears turning in his head as the audio ends. "Leon—"
"I don't want you involved," he says, turning to look at you. "Try to find another way around. I'll distract him while you find Ashley."
You want to argue—of course you do—but there's a fury in his gaze that makes you hesitate. You wonder if Krauser is Leon's shadow. "Fine, but no hero shit."
He scoffs with a playful roll of his eyes. "You know that's not my style."
You squint at him. "That's exactly your style." You pause just as you're about to turn to leave. "Leon—" The words die on your tongue, reforming into something else—something safer. "—Be careful."
His stare stays intently on yours as he nods, "Yeah."
Admittedly, it's far easier to slip through the hordes of infected on your own than with Leon, who's usually more inclined to open fire than to use stealth. As you scale the cliffs, you're faintly aware of the gunfire from Leon's fight with Krauser. The militia, with their turret guns and spotlights, certainly pose a problem, but you move slowly and steadily—making quick work of those you can with your knife—until you've almost reached the Sanctuary and hear the roar of a helicopter overhead.
It comes in guns blazing, and when you hear a Southern accent being broadcast over its speaker, you're sure it's long-awaited backup. "About time," you mutter. Luckily for you, the commotion they're causing provides you with ample enough cover to sneak through the rest of the ranks. You're further ahead when you see the helicopter start to go haywire, and as you peer through your binoculars, you see it's being attacked by those oversized bugs. "Fuck." You grimace as it goes down in a fiery blaze.
By the time you make it to the Sanctuary, you realize you're following a trail of bodies. Whoever made quick work of them, and when you finally catch up and hear the sound of heels clicking on the cobbled floor, you're quick to narrow down who you're unintentionally trailing.
"Ada."
She turns, not even brandishing her gun at you. "Where's your shadow?" she asks flatly.
You freeze, blinking rapidly. "What?"
"Leon," she clarifies, and your shoulders relax. "He's usually not far from you."
"He should be nearby," you say. "Get what you came for, yet?"
She laughs dryly. "Well, I'm still here, aren't I?"
"Thought you might be hanging around to keep tabs on us," you say. "You know, out of the goodness of your heart."
She smirks and angles her head, gesturing for you to follow her. The two of you walk in silence for a minute or so before she asks, "So, what do you think?" When you frown, she adds, "Do you think I've changed?"
You stop mid-stride as you're walking toward the door ahead. You bite the inside of your cheek, looking down. "I think Raccoon City changed you just as much as it changed us—" You hesitate, sighing. "—and I hope it was for the better."
She chuckles as she falls into step with you, but says nothing in response until you reach the door, and as she's about to push it open, she says, "You and Leon talk about changing, but from where I'm standing, you're exactly the same as you were six years ago—idealistic to a fault."
Your mouth falls open.
Once inside, Saddler's voice booms from the room below, and then pained screams reverberate through the chamber, guttural and raw. You're drawing your gun before you even know what you're doing, shooting down at Saddler, disrupting whatever hold he has on Leon, who collapses against the dais at the center of the room.
More gunfire joins yours as you feel Ada move beside you. "Go," she orders. "I'll cover you."
There's no hesitation as you jump over the railing. You haul Leon to his feet. "Cover your eyes," you say, then toss a flash grenade back toward Saddler, blinding him and giving Leon enough time to pick up Ashley. You're ushering him along, backing up as you step through the passageway. Your briefly meet Ada's gaze before a large statue comes tumbling down, blocking the entrance and keeping Saddler from chasing you.
"Ashley… Ashley?" Leon mutters, jostling her, but she doesn't respond. "Damnit."
"Do you need me to take her?" you ask, not knowing how much better you would fare, but willing to try.
He shakes his head, gritting his teeth. "No, I've got it."
You catch sight of a floor plan hanging on the wall ahead. "It's not much further," you say as you spot where Luis's lab is, tracing the path along the map with your finger. "We're close."
It's a slow crawl as Leon trudges forward, with you watching intently, hovering behind in case he stumbles. "Shut up!" he yells, not at you, but you flinch at the suddenness of it all the same.
"Looks like you ain't the only one hearing voices, girl," laughs your father in your ear.
He keeps walking, mumbling under his breath, and when he staggers, you catch him. Keeping him upright until you get to the door, taking the key from him to open it. "This time, it has to be different," he says under his breath.
"It will be," you murmur.
As he places Ashley in the chair, you're at the terminal, clicking through. "You go first," she weakly pipes up.
"No way," he denies. "Like I told you, I'm gonna get you home safe."
You don't waste any time, hitting 'Diagnose'. The chair begins to move, spinning into place as the devices overhead spin around. On the monitor, you can see the parasite, and when the 'Purge' prompt appears, you click 'Yes'. As the process begins, she lets out a gut-wrenching scream, and Leon holds onto her hand while you keep watch, seeing the parasite disintegrate under the laser.
'Success'
You give a thumbs-up to Leon, and a slow smile forms on his face, before he promptly hits the floor with a definitive thud.
"Fuck." You scramble up, knocking the stool over in your haste. "C'mon, Ashley, up, up." You don't mean to rush her, but the clock is ticking. To her credit, even barely conscious and still reeling from the excruciating pain she just went through, she listens.
"Do you nee—"
"No, I got it," you insist, as you grab onto Leon's arm, hauling him up from the ground with a grunt, your ribs screaming at you. "Told you never to ask me to perform this feat of strength again," you mutter to his unconscious body in between wheezes.
Ashley, now more awake, paces the lab, a bundle of nervous energy she redirects toward investigating what else Luis might have left. As you get him into the chair, you dart back to the console to repeat the process. You're fidgeting, biting your lip until you taste blood. Your attention doesn't stray from the screen, which blurs as tears cloud your vision. You hit the prompts as soon as they pop up, and only when the word 'Success' appears do you finally turn around.
You're on your feet, you and Ashley hovering anxiously next to him, waiting for him to wake up. He comes to as the lasers retract, eyes squinting open as if he's not sure whether he's alive. He calls out your name, then Ashley's.
Her face tightens as she leans down to hug him. "I thought you were gonna die," she murmurs.
He gives her an awkward pat on the shoulder. "Okay," he mutters, as if he doesn't know how to respond to the display of affection.
"Can you stand?" she asks as he slowly sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the chair.
You linger just out of arm's reach of him, wringing your hands together. When your eyes meet, he can see the tears glistening in them. With a slight flick of his fingers, he motions you toward him. You step into him, wrapping your arms around his waist as gingerly as possible, as you bury your nose in the crook of his neck.
"Don't worry," he whispers. "I'm built to last."
Begrudgingly, you pull away, lip quivering as you weakly swat at him. "Not funny," you rasp.
A smirk twitches at the corners of his lips, the hard edges of his face settling into something softer for you. "It's a little funny." Glancing around, he spots a piece of paper in Ashley's hand. "What's that?"
"It's a map," she answers as she holds it out to him. "I found it." She points down to where, presumably, Luis scribbled on it. "I think it says we can get out if we go… this way." Starting to walk, she leads the way before glancing over her shoulder, "We're a team, right?"
Leon stands, tucking the map into his pocket. "Keep this up, and I'll be out of a job."
A grin spreads across her face before she continues on.
"Softie," you murmur as you bump your hip against his.
He rolls his eyes, wraps an arm around your shoulder, and draws you closer, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head. You let the warmth spread through your body, fueling a flutter in your stomach.
The way out leads to the loading docks, and Ada dangles from a chain attached to a steel beam below. "Is she supposed to be bait?" you ask as you peer around, expecting an ambush, but find nothing. No doubt Saddler has something up his sleeve, though.
"He thinks he's going to lure us out." Leon walks over to the lift, making sure his guns are reloaded. "You two stay up here. I won't be long."
Maybe he expects you to argue, but you don't. Instead, you settle into a vantage point as you ready your rifle. "Go ahead, I'll take overwatch." Squinting, you take aim at Ada. A loud bang echoes as you fire, and Ada falls to the floor beneath her in a heap. You glance over your shoulder. "Don't wanna keep him waiting."
He rolls his eyes when you wink at him and hits the button on the elevator. "Don't do anything stupid," he says.
"That's my line," you reply.
Predictably, as soon as he exits the elevator, bugs begin to converge. From above, you're able to pick off a few, and Ashley squats next to you, exclaiming, "Nice shot!"
Like some sort of fucked up magic trick, Saddler appears in the middle of the swarm, tendrils oustretching from his hand, wrapping around Leon at the most inopportune moment when you realize your magazine is empty. Ashley frantically taps your shoulder as you reload, willing you to go faster. "I know, I know," you murmur.
She gasps, and you look up as you slide the magazine in. Ada's timing is impeccable as she swings down, kicking Saddler in the back and freeing Leon from his grasp. She lands next to Leon, and the two open fire on the maniac. That only angers him, and as he yells, you watch wide-eyed as appendages burst from his back, his body twisting and convulsing as he transforms into a huge, monstrous creature.
"Oh god," Ashley breathes as if realizing how close she came to becoming that.
"Bigger they are and all that," you mutter as you peek through your scope, taking shots at the fleshy amalgamations. You're not sure where Ada went, but Saddler focuses on Leon, chasing him across the loading docks. Leon does his best to whittle him down, and you're doing what you can from above. When Saddler finally falls, it isn't for good. He bursts through the floors, his disgusting tendrils spiraling around the entire structure as he grows impossibly larger.
You're running dangerously low on ammo as Leon fires bullet after bullet into the huge eye at the center, though it feels like it has no effect. Footsteps behind you catch your attention, and you whip around, handgun drawn and pointed at the intruder, faltering when you see Ada standing there, a rocket launcher strapped to her back.
"Leon needs help," Ashley urges.
Ada's eyes briefly flicker to yours. "I'm on it," she says.
Your gaze drifts between Ada and Leon, watching as she makes her way down to him while he holds Saddler off. He takes the rocket launcher when she tosses it to him, and as he takes aim, you hold your breath. The impact exposes Saddler at the center of the eye, and Leon hurries to end it, snatching the man's own staff and impaling him. You lose sight of Leon for a moment before the enormous corpse begins to shrivel away, like charcoal in the wind.
Settling back onto your knees, you let out a sigh, though you don't take your eyes off Leon as Ada walks over and nabs something off the floor. You can't make out what they're saying, but you can see the furrow in Leon's brow as he watches Ada walk away toward the helicopter that flies up toward the ledge.
As she boards, she tosses something to Leon that he catches, and you're left watching as the helicopter flies away. "You and Leon seem to know her pretty well," Ashley comments as she stands next to you, observing the exchange.
"I don't know that I'd say that," you mutter. "Maybe it's for the best, though." An explosion off to the other side catches your attention. "Alright, time to move."
Ashley's following behind as you make it to the lower level. She calls out to Leon as you round the corner, and he glances back as another explosion shakes the floor. "Better move. Island's gonna blow," he says.
"Island's gonna what?" Ashley gasps out as he leads you to the lift.
You keep her ahead of you as you move through the underground passage. As you get further in, there are people all writhing on the floor—the infected militia. "They're not attacking," Ashley notes.
"Daddy parasite is dead," you explain as you come upon a jet ski.
Leon holds up the key, attached to a small bear keychain. "Cute," you comment.
As he hops on, you sandwich Ashley between you. "You like thrill rides?" Leon asks her.
She grins. "I love them!"
"You're gonna love this!"
"Let's not love it too much," you gasp out as you hold onto the sides when Leon takes off. The first jump he hits has you burying your face into Ashley's back. "I'm just gonna keep my eyes closed, let me know when we're done!"
"Aw, c'mon!" Ashley shouts back to you. "This is kind of fun!"
Hesitantly, you peek an eye open only to see an enormous chunk of the cave collapse in front of you, Leon swerving right in time to avoid it. "Nope! Not fun!" you determine and squeeze your eyes shut.
"There's the exit!" he yells.
Your stomach flies into your throat as the jet ski hits a jump, lifting you into the air. A scream rips from you as you swear at Leon. Only when the jet ski slows to an idle do you finally open your eyes. "You guys okay?" he asks.
"I'm not sure!" Ashley laughs. "That was insane."
"I think I'm going to be sick," you grumble, leaning just over the side in case you really do have to puke.
Explosions reverberate through the air, and you watch as the facility explodes, water spraying down on you. There's a finality in the scene, watching everything come tumbling down. Ashley looks from the chaos behind to the rising sun ahead, its swirl of pinks and yellows tinting the sky something hopeful. "Mission accomplished, right?"
"Mission accomplished… when you're home safe," Leon says.
"Thank you for saving me," Ashley says, nudging you gently with her elbow. "Both of you."
"Don't mention it," Leon says.
"S'why we get hazard pay," you mutter as the nausea finally subsides.
"You know, I could put in a word to my dad," she says, eyebrows tilted up like she wants you to say yes. "Have you guys assigned to my detail, if you're interested?"
Leon glances over her shoulder at you, and you smirk. "You don't need us," he says. "You proved you could handle yourself… even if you could use a better instructor in knife safety."
The smile drops off your face. "Hey!"
Ashley laughs.
Leon looks ahead. "C'mon, let's go home."
Once you're safely back on U.S. soil and have been formally debriefed, you're standing idly outside the National Center for Medical Intelligence—one of the other STRATCOM locations. It's an hour's drive back, and you left your car at the airstrip in D.C. since you were sent off in a hurry.
Scrubbing a hand up and down your face, you don't even notice the person come up to stand beside you. "You waiting to teleport home or—?"
You glare over at Leon, who appears equally as exhausted as you know you do, but not tired enough to give the bad jokes a rest. "Don't have my car," you mutter. "Weighing the pros and cons of paying for an hour taxi ride."
He holds up his own car keys. "Today's your lucky day," he says. "I'll make it cheap for you."
You raise your brows. "Oh, will you really?"
"Yeah, just a single kiss," he grins. "Surely you have some to spare."
You roll your eyes, seizing him by the collar of his shirt and dragging him toward the parking lot. "I'm going to tell Luis you tried his pick-up line on me."
"You gonna go see him?" Leon asks as he readily follows after you.
You give a hum and nod. "Yeah, probably in a day or two," you say.
During your debriefing, you learned that Luis had indeed been successfully extracted from Valdelobos and taken to a hospital in Bilbao, where his collapsed lung was treated with a little more than a piece of plastic and some tape. You were assured that your treatment of him saved his life, though you already knew that. After a bit of prodding from both you and Leon, you learned that he would be given a plea deal, largely because of the testimony of Ashley, who credited her survival to the combined efforts of you, Leon, and Luis.
You aren't privy to the exact terms of this deal—no doubt they were largely similar to yours and Leon's, especially given how much information Luis knew and how much was lost when the island exploded. But with him now stable—according to Hunnigan—Spain would release him into the custody of the United States, and he would recover here while answering for his involvement with Umbrella and Los Iluminados.
"You wanna come?" you offer.
Leon rolls his eyes. "Yeah, no thanks," he says as he opens the passenger door for you.
You get in with laughter bubbling out of you as he slams the door shut and circles around to the driver's side, sliding in. "Oh come on," you say. "Don't act like you weren't concerned about him."
"I wasn't," he retorts as he starts the car.
"You were," you maintain.
He knows you won't change your mind, so he turns on the radio, a horrible rock band blasting through the speakers. As you wince at the sudden noise, you catch Leon smirking out of the corner of your eye, and you resist the urge to swat him as he backs out of the spot.
The drive is quick when you fall asleep fifteen minutes in, only waking as he gently shakes you. "C'mon, we're home," he whispers.
Your eyes flutter open as he cuts the engine, and only when you're already stepping out of the car do you realize you're in the parking lot of his apartment complex. As he walks around, he wraps an arm around your shoulder and guides you toward the entrance.
"We both need to shower," he says as you enter the elevator.
You have just enough energy to pretend to be offended. "I smell like roses, what do you mean?"
He snorts. "Yeah, if the roses were grown in manure."
You gasp, actually offended this time, as you pinch his side, making him laugh and swat your hand away. When you don't relent, he wraps you in his arms, gently bear-hugging you as he presses his lips to the top of your hair. Your laughter trails off as you sense the shift in mood.
"I'm sorry again," he mutters into your hairline. "For what I said."
You're quiet, ear squished to his chest as you listen to his heart beating frantically against his ribcage. "We can talk about it later," you say as the elevator dings and the doors slide open. "Right now, someone stinks and needs a shower."
You don't know how both of you ended up in Leon's tiny ass shower stall at the same time—maybe it had to do with the way his hands wandered up your sides the moment you crossed the threshold into his apartment, or the way you leaned back into him as his lips found your neck.
Either way, your clothes end up on the floor, and you two are certainly not prioritizing cleanliness with the way you have your tongues shoved into each other's mouths. You're crowded against the cold tile, and you gasp into his mouth. "Leon."
He swallows it down readily before running his tongue over your bottom lip. His hand snakes between your legs, fingers gliding through and finding your clit right away, circling around it in quick, precise motions. "This okay?" he asks, tipping back enough to look at you, taking in your half-lidded gaze and the way your mouth falls open as a tiny whine escapes you.
You nod quickly, hips thrusting against his hand, fingers tangling in the hair at the base of his neck as you drag him back into a voracious kiss—the kind where you don't know whether you want to devour or be devoured.
When he slides a single finger into your pussy you moan at the pressure, your skin heating up like your veins are on fire. "Can't wait to bury my cock in you," he murmurs. As he feels you tighten around his finger at his words, he grins against your lips. "Like the thought of that, huh?"
"Shut up," you whine, embarrassed by your body's reaction.
As he adds a second finger, you find purchase on his shoulders, nails biting into the skin already reddened from the hot water beating against his back. He starts slow—an in-and-out that leaves you aching for more. Impatiently, you jut your hips forward, a high-pitched keening at the back of your throat. He doesn't give in; if anything, he only goes slower.
"Needy today, huh?" he murmurs, arrogance in his voice as if you can't feel the hardened line of his cock against your thigh.
"Leon, please," you whisper.
He peppers kisses down your cheek to your jawline, stopping at your ear. "Yeah, sweetheart?" he breathes. "Tell me what you want."
"Want to cum," you practically beg, and it sends Leon to his knees instantly. You swear you can hear a crack as they hit the tiled floor, but he doesn't even wince as he dives in. "Shit," you gasp as he licks at your clit, fingers pumping with much more vigor, and you nearly struggle to stay standing, one hand blindly reaching out to grab hold of anything.
You find the shower niche and knock over his half-empty bottle of 2-in-1, but he pays it no mind as it clatters to the floor. If anything, he doubles his efforts, his other hand settling on your hip as if that's enough to keep you upright. You're not even sure how he's breathing with his nose pressed into your cunt and the way the water rains down on his head, but he's enthusiastic as the noises become incredibly obscene, your moans that begin to pitch up, bouncing off the tiled walls in the small bathroom.
When he adds a third finger and crooks them just right, you think your legs are about to give out. He brings you to the precipice quickly—he knows exactly how you like it, and even if he teases you with dirty talk, you know he won't leave you hanging.
"Leon," you moan. "Close."
Your entire body tenses as he sucks at your clit in time with a thrust of his fingers, sending you spiraling over the edge. It's a feeling that starts in your face—a red-hot flush that cascades down your body all the way to your toes and leaves you writhing against him.
"Oh shit," you gasp. He keeps going, not stopping until he's sure you're completely worked through, and only then, after you've tapped out—literally—by patting his shoulder to let him know you've had enough. As he stands, he slicks his soaked hair back before turning the shower off and wrenching the curtain open.
"What are you—oh!" You wrap your arms around his neck as he heaves you up in his arms by the back of your thighs, and you can feel his hard cock wedged between you.
"Bedroom," he answers as he steps out of the shower.
"If you slip and we die like this, I'm going to kill you."
He presses a kiss into your shoulder to hide his smirk. It's a short walk to his bedroom, and he places you carefully onto his bed—mindful of your injuries—crawling between your parted thighs, swallowing down your protests that you're going to get the sheets wet. "Don't care," he says as he molds your mouths together—you can taste yourself on his tongue. As he leans away, palming your breasts and running a thumb over your hardened nipples, you can see how blown out his pupils are. "Turn over."
You comply as soon as your brain catches up, rolling onto your stomach, and he grasps you by your hips, lifting your ass in the air, hands grabbing at it appreciatively, a soft groan emitting from the back of his throat at the sight. He teases the tip of his cock at your entrance, smearing it with his pre-cum, but not pushing in yet. You glance over your shoulder, face flushed. "Leon—"
He thrusts in before you can even finish—bottoming out so quickly that your knuckles turn white from how hard you're gripping the sheets beneath you. Your words get caught in your throat, your mouth gaping as no sound comes out. "That's what you wanted, right?" he mutters as he slowly pulls out, only to bully his way back in once more.
The drag of his cock inside of you has you seeing stars whenever your eyelids flutter closed. He doesn't need an answer; the way your pussy clenches around him is enough, as he begins a steady rhythm. Once you've gotten used to the stretch, you start to rock your hips back and forth in time with his, and you can hear the way his breath stutters.
"Shit," he murmurs, enraptured by the sway of your ass each time he buries his cock in you. "Jesus, you look so good like this—"
Your brain is hardly working, far too focused on how full you feel to worry about anything else, so you only manage a soft, "Yeah?"
"Yeah," he groans. "Isn't a better sight than you stuffed full of my cock."
You whimper in reply, burying your face into the pillow, still sensitive from your previous orgasm and feeling another already start to coil at your core. When your movement starts to falter, Leon can tell you're getting close, but so is he. The sounds of your soft moans mixed with the slap of his balls as he fucks you sends a tingle up his spine. As he glances down and catches sight of the way his cock glistens with your slick every time he thrusts in and out of you, he nearly cums, abruptly slowing his pace. With one hand, he reaches around to slowly circle two fingers on your clit, though with the other, he presses a thumb experimentally against your other hole.
"Leon—"
"If you don't want me to, just say stop," he murmurs. He waits a second for you to protest, and when you don't, he continues, pressing only the tip of his thumb into your asshole. The whine you let out is well worth it as you arch your back even more despite the way your ribs ache. It doesn't matter, though; you're so overwhelmed from the way his cock pounds into you, to the fingers swirling around your clit, and now this new teasing that leaves your stomach—and pussy—fluttering. "You like that?"
You nod against his pillow, eyes scrunched closed as the sensations wash over you. The coil in your abdomen is nearly ready to explode open.
"Gonna cum like this?" he questions breathlessly, barely managing to contain his own orgasm.
"Yes," you gasp, and then your vision turns white as you moan his name, every muscle in your body tightening. This one isn't a harsh fall over a cliff; it's a gentle tide that slowly washes over you. Leon fucks you through it until you're boneless beneath him, and only then does he pull out, pumping his cock as he cums across your ass cheeks and lower back, whimpering your name over and over.
He's breathing heavily as he collapses onto the bed next to you, kissing your cheek. "Was that okay?" he asks.
"Mhm," you nod tiredly before adding, "We're gonna have to take another shower." You can already feel the way his cum is cooling on your skin, mixed with the stickiness of sweat.
During the second shower, you're strict about Leon keeping his hands to himself, and he does, albeit begrudgingly. You manage to make it out of there cleaner than you entered. After dressing in a pair of Leon's sweatpants and a t-shirt, you strip the bed and start putting on new sheets since you'd gotten the other ones wet.
He's quiet, and as you're in the middle of putting on the fitted sheet, he finally speaks up, "Do you want to talk about it now?"
To be honest, you're surprised by his insistence. You think it might be because you haven't said you forgive him yet. Each time he's apologized, you've brushed it off, something you've never done before. Whenever you two have had disagreements in the past, you've been quick to accept his apology and move on.
This time is different. "You hurt my feelings," you admit.
He frowns. "I'm sorry. So much was going on and everything kept going wrong—" He pauses and shakes his head as if he realizes he's making excuses. "—Just know I didn't mean it the way it sounded."
"It sounded like you think I'm a burden," you say as you tuck the sheet in.
"I don't—" He sighs and pinches his nose between his fingers. "I'm doing an awful job of explaining this."
You're inclined to agree, but you don't—not aloud, at least.
"You're so important to me, and being on a mission with you when you weren't the priority was incredibly difficult because you're a priority to me." He doesn't look at you as he folds down the sheet. "…That's why I requested that we never be sent on missions together."
You freeze—your brain hitting a hard reset as it fills with static. "I'm—I'm sorry, you requested that?" you ask. Suddenly, everything makes sense—his nonchalance the first and only time you asked him about it, Hunnigan's insistence that you not make contact with him when you first arrived, how upset he seemed when he saw you.
He blinks as if realizing his mistake, already opening his mouth with another excuse at the tip of his tongue. "I thought it would just be better for us if we weren't sent on assignments together."
"Because, what? You think I can't take care of myself?" you retort. Anger builds inside of you, and maybe you stuff the pillow into the pillowcase a little harder than you mean to.
"There it is," the voice leers. "Even a worm will turn."
"No, I—"
You don't let him speak. You're all bared teeth and narrowed eyes. "Because I survived six fucking days in that hellhole before I even met you—I would say I'm pretty fucking capable!" You toss the pillow onto the bed between you with a soft thud.
He seems taken aback by your reaction, but it doesn't leave him stunned for long. A storm cloud settles over his face. "Jesus, that's not what I meant!" he raises his voice.
"Then what did you mean?" you question. "You clearly think I'm some sort of liability. I mean, God, do you even know how that makes me look to everyone else? That even you don't want to go on an assignment with me?"
"I—"
"It makes me look inept!"
"You're not inept!" he argues.
Leaning back onto your heels, you nod as if you remembered something. "Oh, right, I'm a distraction." You tap your head thoughtlessly. "Silly me."
He lets out an exasperated sigh as he rounds the bed, standing in front of you, hesitating to reach out. "You're not listening to me."
"I am, I'm listening to exactly what you're telling me with your words and with what's written on your face. It's loud and clear," you argue.
His brows draw together. "What?"
Your shoulders drop as you humorlessly laugh. "You don't even know, do you?" You wave a hand in front of his face. "When you look at me, you get this… this sad look on your face. It's like you think I'm just going to disappear."
"I don't—"
"You do," you insist with a nod. "Every time I leave for a mission, or hell, even just sitting across from each other on the couch. You look at me like I'm going to walk out that door and never come back."
His face twists up. "Because you might not!"
You draw back, peering up at him and finding he can't meet your eye. "Is that why you've been so withdrawn?" you ask. He opens his mouth and then closes it, like he wants to retort, but he can't, because he knows you're right.
"I just don't want to lose you," he says softly.
"You haven't!" you argue. "Stop looking at me like I'm already gone! I'm not, I'm right here!"
His eyes are downcast, staring at the space between you. "I don't… I don't think I know how to."
You sigh—it's a defeated, tired sound. "Leon, do you even know what it's like to have someone look at you like you're already a ghost?" He doesn't say anything, even when you give him time. So you nod. "Right," you mutter. "I'm just gonna go—"
His brows furrow. "No, please—" He goes to reach for you, but you brush his hands away, and the pain on your face doesn't make him try again.
"—I'm gonna call a taxi and wait in the lobby—" You stop, your voice breaking as you add, "I'll… I'll talk to you later, okay?"
He doesn't leave his room as you head out into the kitchen and use his phone to call a taxi, nor when he hears you gathering your things and your soft sniffling, not even when he hears the front door open and the long pause before it closes.
Leon sits there and stares at the spot you were standing, wondering what the fuck is wrong with him.
Summary: Leon Kennedy is on a job. Just a job. Yes, there's zombies. But sometimes, when you know your work, very little surprises you. Especially when you've been at this over a decade. So he was not expecting much from this job-- which is why the Firehouse's unusually large zombie hoarde made him curious. What were the trying to get at? Why was it blinking and...warm? Leon discovers a Safe Haven box with a newborn baby boy in it and demands Ingrid get a doctor on the comms...now. Despite the less than ideal conditions he can't help but feel attached to the orphan he pulled out of hell...the same way he had been as a baby.
RATING: PG 13 overall, R in some spaces. This is not as horror-forward as the others.
Warnings: none really? This is Resident Evil so prepare yourselves for SOME RE style horror but this is overwhelmingly a fluff piece
Word Count: 3800
A/N: Car seats, am I right?
Author Masterlist -- Leon Kennedy Masterlist
“I am an insane person.” You said to both yourself and the sleeping baby on your shoulder. For everyone to feel like you were secure with the baby it was Sherry and Leon that were sent to get supplies from external stores, and Rebecca who was busy making sure the rest of your daily work tasks were done including a lab report.
Right now you were locked in your office with the baby sleeping, though given it was about an hour and half since the last feeding you suspected you’d be finding him wet and fussy soon. You felt his weight against your chest– he had no idea the trouble he was causing, and that was for the best.
“It’s ok, little guy.” You whispered to him, even as he dreamed, “I’m not going to let them do anything to you.”
And you meant it– though how you were supposed to do it you weren’t entirely sure. You knew that certain information you processed at work was confidential, you knew that certain things had scary disclaimers about who or what was allowed to see them. You didn’t always agree.
Rebecca came in and put a folder on your desk, “Pretty light today– ran the clearances. Did you ever get the blood samples back from Leon and Junior over there?”
“No, Richter took them.”
“Fuck her.” Rebecca snorted, “I never liked her but I never saw that part. Like she really didn’t…care. At all.” Rebecca shook her head, “This place is supposed to be the good guys. I don’t like looking around and feeling like I want my gun back.”
“You know I didn’t…uh, really know how to see you. When you came. Because you were in the field. I didn’t….shit I don’t sound very nice right now.”
Rebecca smirked, “Been in a lab all your life?”
“Yes.” You admitted with relief, Rebecca was hard to rattle, “I don’t know, do you…did it make the same level of sense to you? How she behaved? Or was it different because she was a field agent years ago?”
“Richter trained with Krauser, he taught Leon. Mean as rattlesnakes, the two of them. Good at what they do. Richter came to the corporate side the second she could, so I don’t know much more about her field days. But in terms of does it make sense as a boots to floor person? No. No it doesn’t. But maybe that’s why there’s a group of us and we only make sense to one another. It doesn’t make sense to me, but I’ve seen it before. It’s why I called Sherry.”
“Sherry’s parents were in Raccoon City, they developed the G virus.” Of the shit you’d studied since the DSO position that was one of the hardest pills to swallow. A family, living there, all of them dead or permanently altered because of the virus. You thought it was a blessing that Sherry had made it out of Raccoon City with an anti-viral in her.
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed, “Did you…you know we have samples of T and G and the rest, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Did you know how we got the G strains we have?”
You cocked your head and Rebecca sighed, “Sherry. Leon and Claire pulled Sherry out of the city but she was still carrying the virus. Her dad infected her, he didn’t mean to. They could stop the progression but they couldn’t uncontaminate her. It’s…well, it’s not my place to say, but Leon wouldn’t mind me saying…” She put a hand out and let it rest on the baby’s back, he was sleeping on your shoulder and part of you was nervous to put him down, “They blackmailed Leon into working for the DSO in exchange for letting Sherry have relative freedom. Even then, they lied to him about how much freedom. She was a lab experiment here for years. She could burn this place down with the records she has, but part of it is…” Rebecca’s head wobbled back and forth, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. If we are here, right here, at the center of it, maybe we can keep a closer eye on it. Maybe. At least that’s the theory until it stops working.”
Your eyes widened, “You think they’re crooked?”
“I think they’re willing to do crooked things. I also think it’s…it’s hard. Stakes are really high. There’s not easy answers. And we do the best we can…helps we have Chris at BSAA and Claire at Terra Save and some other friends. Helps us see more of the picture.”
You adjusted the baby’s position, “I didn’t realize…”
“You’re a lab lady. I mean that with a lot of respect. I’ve seen my share and you’re really good but…can I say something? And you won’t take it the wrong way?”
“Uh, sure?”
“You just seem like you got blinders on. You see the work, just as it is, you don’t seem to care about the rest. Seemed like you were sorta divorced from it all, hard to tell if that meant you didn’t want to be involved. I thought you were brave today– stepping in, helping Leon, telling Richter to fuck right off.”
“Fostering a newborn?”
“Hey, we do well with crazy.” Rebecca shrugged, “I mean…I don’t know if you’ve heard half the details of our stories.”
The baby started to stir and you looked down but he was blocking your view. It was going to require a shift so you put him down on a space on your desk and opened the zipper of his onesie, “Yup– as I suspected. Full diaper and empty belly.”
Rebecca raised a hand, “I can help? If you need a break or if you want to install the carseat? I have no idea which car is yours.”
You looked by the door where a mountain of bags and boxes had appeared with Rebecca.
“Sure, that sounds good. You…you know what to do?”
“I think so.” Rebecca smiled at you and you waited until she had one hand on the baby before moving out of the way.
You couldn’t help yourself, “Don’t forget to burp him…”
You grabbed the carseat box and began the walk down to the garage.
_______________________________
“I see you can’t take the man out of the baby saving business.”
“Weren’t you like ten?”
“Pardon you– I was twelve and a half.” She smirked from the passenger seat. Leon was driving and she hadn’t seen this car yet, “What happened to the Jeep?”
“Amazing the sorts of money they add to your salary when they don’t want you to say anything about what happened to the President’s daughter.” He snorted, “You don’t like the Challenger?”
“It’s nice. Small backseat. Where am I installing the carseat?”
“Not my kid.” He said it in a small clipped voice.
“I mean…neither was I.” Sherry’s voice softened, “And yet here we are– going to Babies R Us, buying diapers and a crib and speaking of, how do you plan to get it in the trunk?”
“It’s not a bad sized trunk, the seat goes down too. This is custom, I needed it for the rocket launchers.”
“The…rocket laun–”
“They’re dummies but I mean– the rooks need to learn how to shoot, don’t they?”
Sherry snorted and stretched, “So what happened out there?”
“Umbrellas got these pockets. Seems like they didn’t clean house immediately post Raccoon City.”
Sherry shook her head, “It’s like they’re waiting for something.”
“I’d love to know what…” Leon shook his head, “And I wish I knew where it all was going to. Feels like they have an endgame, but I got no idea what it is.”
She clamped up for a moment, “I dunno. Sometimes I think they just pretend to have things and meanwhile they’re trying like hell to make things. The whole time I was down there I kept thinking they know what they’re doing but the longer I was there? They don’t. We can’t let them put the little guy in one of their black holes.”
Leon whistled long and low through his teeth, “How long you figure we have to play defense on him before he’s settled?”
“No clue.” Sherry shrugged, “But longer than a week…..at least the doctor seems nice.”
“She does.” Leon agreed, “Rebecca likes her, and I mean I like the moxie, so I guess we trust her.”
Sherry eyed him and noticed he ran a hand through his hair as he spoke, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Instead she tried, “You talked to Ada?”
He snorted, “That’s a one-way call.”
He was bitter about it these days. Sherry tried again, “How about Claire?”
“You haven’t outgrown the idea we could all be one big Brady Bunch, have you?”
Sherry smirked, “I mean, I was a latchkey kid, I kinda liked the idea of having people around.”
“Like the job allows that.” Leon tried to soften the blow, but he also tried to sink into his seat, “You have to stop trying to fix the old man up with women that have no interest in him.”
Sherry rolled her eyes, “Want me to pick from the recruits?”
“God no.”
“Then what do you want to focus on?”
“Let’s help get this kid situated, ok?”
“My little brother?”
Leon sighed at her, “You still really on that?”
“You’re a more involved dad than I ever had before.” She patted his leg, “And if it helps get that kid away from some of those people? Absolutely. He’s in the family now.”
Leon couldn’t help the little smile that cheated on his face.
Sherry had always been optional, but he had absolutely never treated her that way. He had traded parts of his life away for a scrawny kid he’d known for a few hours, and she had felt that as a kind of love she’d missed out on. Her own parents had seen an outbreak and gone why did you leave the house? For years now she’d thought about that day and she never once figured what their grand plan was for getting her out, for getting her safe.
They forgot about me.
But Leon didn’t. Neither did Claire, though if Sherry was being honest one of them was more consistent.
On her first Christmas after Raccoon City there had been a knock on her door. Someone brought her a poorly wrapped present. He had picked her out the game Mall Madness which, in his defense, would’ve been great for her if she had any friends to play it with. Whenever he asked about it she said it was so much fun and she loved it but truthfully it was in nearly mint condition in a closet. She had sometimes taken it out to play by herself but it wasn’t a game that worked like that.
Claire sometimes called, sometimes checked in, but Sherry got little from her besides a denim and leather jacket with a note: You need your own luck now.
It was sweet. Claire had saved her, but Leon had made sure she stayed safe. Even right after everything Claire had looked from Sherry to the door and said, “I have to find my brother…”
And she did just that.
It wasn’t that Sherry was mad– she was used to someone choosing other things over her– but she saw Leon shift his weight and put a hand on her shoulder, “It’s ok…I’ll look after her.”
And he did.
She expected that over time Leon would lose interest, but he didn’t. He did get busy. He was trained harder than he ever expected, he was gone on missions. As she got older she would tell him she was fine, encourage him to do something else, and sometimes he listened. She didn’t want to tell him, at first, that she was doing field work. Mostly because she believed Leon would insist on training her. If he trained her, he would cover her and she trusted something in her bones: Leon wouldn’t let anything happen to her, which would mean she’d never learn.
“Sher? You ok?”
She shook herself back to the moment– apparently he’d parked the car and was just waiting for her to be more aware of herself.
“Yeah, sorry. Lost in thought. Let’s go get him some cute little things…you’re buying.”
“Why am I buying?”
“Finders keepers or something.” Sherry got out of the car and took the list with them. Leon got out and stretched his legs for a moment.
Of course he wanted to help.
He did.
He liked helping.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was something more than just a helper. He had the distinct feeling of being involved. He had felt this way before– when a plucky college girl who refused to get dinner with him handed him a beat up twelve year old and said “This is Sherry.”
Claire had left. She had moved on and, sure, once a Redfield counted you as one of their circle you were in the circle forever. Claire would come if Leon ever called, just not for dinner. She was a good person, but she wasn’t his person. She had saved Sherry– and she would save many more people. But, like Chris, she was always onto the next thing to do. Leon knew that he could’ve done the same. He could’ve turned his back, taken a reassignment to a new police station, and just wished Sherry good luck. Thing was? She was a kid, and she was scared, and she was alone. He had walked away from too many kids like that in Raccoon City, kids he’d never be able to help.
He could’ve done it again today.
Never mentioned the box.
Never gone in it.
Handed over a baby to someone and just believed whatever lie they told him.
But he hadn’t.
And just as sure as he checked on Sherry’s partners, and checked on her jobs, he’d be checking on this one.
And he’s a hell of a lot younger.
Sherry was pulled out of whatever fog she’d fallen into– she was usually perky, but she could get broody just like that. He didn’t blame her, she had a mind with heavier things in it than most people. Memories she’d never outrun. It was a small club.
He didn’t know if he was a real help to Sherry, but he tried. He figured it was the very least he could do and she knew her parents, understood what happened. He had no idea how to help a baby.
But maybe diapers were a good first step…
Food, clothes, a place to sleep.
He wandered into the store and tried looking for Sherry but she whistled sharply to him, “Hey! Do you like this one? What size should we get?”
It was a onesie that looked like a little police officer outfit.
“Shouldn’t he get the fireman one?” Was all Leon could think to say until they had a cart of essentials and the woman at the counter told him the total and he choked, “But he’s a baby! He doesn’t even have a job! What sort of racket is this?”
Sherry watched with amusement– she didn’t think Leon was actually upset about the situation at all.
You were opening a giant carseat box, the directions were in your hand, and it seemed like it should be simple but somehow was not. There was one seat, one carrying case for the kid that locked into the seat, both of them had adjustments depending on if it was rear or front facing, and you found yourself going, “I have a PhD. I have a PhD.” But after thirty five minutes where, frankly, you were starting to worry you’d left the baby alone with Rebecca for too long, you heard yourself groan, “This is crazy.”
“Need a hand?” You jumped five feet in the air and turned to see Leon Kennedy smiling, hand out, and now a sheepish smile, “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I’m heading up to Rebecca to get him dressed in his new outfits– do you want me to leave the big stuff in the trunk?”
“Yeah I’ll get it.” He waved her off and then turned to you, “Sorry, she got excited with the clothes. I don’t think you need everything you got but they had…a lot.”
“I…thank you, for getting things, I, just…I can’t take him home if I don’t have a carseat and I thought it would be easy and it’s…it’s worse than VCR instructions.”
He offered again, “I’m pretty good with cars, not that that might matter. Want someone else to be frustrated with you?”
You handed over the paper with a groan, “Aren’t you tired? I mean you just…did a lot today.”
“Yeah but also no. Still wired. I’ll crash later.” He eyed the plan and then said, “Can you pop your trunk?...No bodies back there, right?”
“Not today.” You worried it was stupid but he cracked a smile.
“Ok when I get this seat moved, hand me the strip with the clip.”
There was a moment of grunting, a sharp breath, then “Ok, clip-me.”
You handed it through and said, “Thanks…I dunno why I couldn’t figure it.”
“You might be too smart. See, I’m an idiot. This was made for an idiot, not a smart lady.” He tugged on it, “Is that on the seat? Because next we got to secure it on the sides.”
“How on earth did that make sense to you?”
“I’m good with my hands. There’s three clips, must be three places to clip them…” He climbed out of your trunk and came back around to the back seat, diving his fingers between the seat cushions and feeling around for a minute before smirking, “There you are.”
It made you clench in ways you weren’t expecting and you had to turn away.
Get it together, Christ, he’s helping with a carseat. You rubbed your temple. It had been a long time since you’d had reason to see a man’s hands that focused and it was distracting, but you had to bully through. The day was marching on, the sun was starting to set, and you had to get a baby to your house where there wasn’t a crib or a Pack’N’Play or anything. You had to still eat dinner. You had to figure out how you were going to shower and go to bed with a baby in the house.
“There it goes– see you aren’t crazy, the people who wrote these directions are crazy.”
“I mean this is all crazy, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s crazy for the right reasons.”
“Does that matter?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? A bigger one that you realized. Leon had done a lot of crazy things, so he had to hope the answer counted.
“Better than doing it for the wrong ones…not getting cold feet?”
“No, no, just…. Not sure what the immediate future will look like and feeling appropriate terror levels. I have never had to order dinner or do dishes with a baby on hand and there’s nothing in the house, I’ll have to unpack it, which, I mean, definitely could be called into question if Richter ever wanted to but…it’ll be fine. Mom used to say just one step at a time. So once this is installed, we just get to the next thing.”
Leon stood up and made jazz hands, “Ta-da– carseat’s at least done.”
You nodded, “Thank you! Truly…one thing off the list, onto the next.”
Leon looked from the carseat to your face, “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“Is there a Mr. Director of Research at home or a…a Mrs. Director of Research?”
You instantly found yourself sputtering, “Uh, no. Not right now. There was. But no. He’s— we’re…. Uh, no. Is the simple answer. Just me.”
“Hope I didn’t offend–”
“No, it's fine! I’m…not used to talking about it. I don’t have a ton of….friends.” You wanted to die from the embarrassment but doubted you’d be so lucky.
“Don’t take this the wrong way but can I escort you home? I know Rebecca is there but…” he looked all around, leaned closer to you, “sometimes I just like to make sure things are ok. I have a ton of stuff in the trunk and I can help you unload, upload, reload, whatever it is.”
It was a safe but incomplete statement.
I want to help people like you.
It was more than that too– I don’t want you to feel helpless.
But it was also something selfish, that was the part he was afraid would be seen: I don’t want to be alone right now.
After jobs was the hardest part of it all– he would go back to an apartment that was cold and empty. All he had was a fishtank, something Sherry had more or less forced on him, and he was painfully attached to those fish. The last time a job had stretched the weekend and one had died he had been more upset about it than he had ever imagined. He wondered what that said about him– that he was beyond repair or that he needed more people than he had? Maybe. If he couldn’t find someone to eat dinner with he would invariably hang at a bar until closing, drinking with various degrees of enthusiasm, just to feel like he was in a crowd. Times were that he’d pick up someone there, just so his bed wasn’t cold and he might wake up to someone. It was never quite who he wanted it to be, and he rarely kept those phone numbers.
Sure, right now, the fact that it was a baby with all the screaming baby features was a big change but the central problem remained the same: do you want to not be alone together?
You actually seemed relieved, “I could use the help, yes, that would be great. Can I, uh, buy you dinner for the trouble?”
“If I’m the one who brought you the baby, shouldn’t I buy you the dinner?” He tried to joke through the flood of relief– yes, not alone. Not alone. Not useless, not alone.
“I like Chinese.” You offered without thinking about it.
“If you give me the address I’ll get the Chinese, you get the baby, and I’ll meet you there?”
Something felt big about it and you nodded, “Sure.”You, also, hated to be overwhelmed and alone. You had no idea Leon felt that way but right now? You were relieved that someone would physically hold or feed a baby for you while you set up space for him. You were happy someone would be there to assure you that it looked safe and secure and that even if it was crazy it was at least crazy for all the right reasons.
A/N: Sherry Birkin-- stage 5 clinger. I kid, I kid-- I do see Leon as the type to accidentally sign up for all this then just commit to the bit.
Not Beta Read. We edit 6 months later at 2am.
Resident Evil regulars, I'm new here! I don't know your tags well, help a girl out and RB please. I see several RE communities but have no idea who takes fanfiction-- help a girl out.
So I updated with speed like I was being stalked by Mr. X and have done nearly 100k on Leon in a month. I don't know. There are other stories on the Leon Masterlist (it's linked up top)
First, Do No Harm (complete) Leon x Reader (slowburn, wife)
Resident Evil Miami: A DLC style fic where Leon meets his wife (an OC but very reader adjacent)
Tags (from the new list) Let me know if you want to be added! @indiegirlunited @spadesjadesfiction @harriedandharassed @avidreader73 @itsrubberbisquit @amneris21 @iceclaw101 @thelion-sroar @ferns-fics @tintinn16 @vabeachazn @brandyllyn @felteppsers @missladym1981 @stealyourblorbos @felteppsters @mostclevermiss @elegantduckturtle @100percentlazybonez @aliwritesfic-main @modiddys-blog @qardasngan @julesandgems @devilslittlehelper @biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @superunkn0wn @thiskingdomwillendure @deo-data @anfervaldez @ionlypartiallyslay @sunshine-angel08 @ladylothlorien @ayamenimthiriel @sleepilysworld @midiplier @leonphumes @kl0ng5ki3 @possibly--possessed
might there be a reason this post resonates with a lot of women?
can you describe the phenonemon of learned helplessness? give an example.
in what ways might the gender pay gap have influenced this post?
in most cultures, women are expected to do the majority of childrearing and domestic work, even if they also work outside of the home. in what ways does this influence the post?
I like to fuck around and waste time for at least ~6-10 hours per day, and let me tell you, that really puts some pressure on your schedule. you have no idea how busy I am
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