The writing blog for Dreamer, mod of yugiohcardsdaily and writer behind wetfloorsignbot348. Just a place for all my writing ideas and little blurbs of stuff.
Making a post that links to all the Leon (heavily implied to be RE2R Leon) x Reader (reader is afab and has been Leon's best friend since childhood) stuff I have so far:
Part 1
Part 2 (attached to a reblog of Part 1, bc I dumb)
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12 (contains explicit content)
Will update as more is written.
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Other Leon-related works:
Please, Just Hold Me (self-insert x Leon)
It'll Grow Back (self-insert x Leon, trichotillomania warning)
Crushed (reader x Leon, pretty platonic though)
Comforting Leon when he wakes up from a nightmare (reader x Leon, pretty short)
Headcanon: Leon post-RE2 Remake until a few years after RE4R hates being called pretty.
Because they used the term "pretty boy" in training to emasculate, humiliate, and demean him. Because he had the audacity to be both handsome and beautiful. Because attractiveness has to be poked and prodded and turned into a weakness, a flaw, especially when it's not done in the "right" way.
He's learned how to hide the discomfort and usually doesn't bring it up to anyone unless they're close to him, and even then it's just, "Please don't call me that," with no elaboration. Some get the impression he has low self-esteem and thinks he's ugly. He might to a degree, but that's not the real reason.
In time, it doesn't bother him as much, but I'm not sure he'd ever really be fond of being called pretty, even by a partner.
This post is a garble of stuff related to things I've thought of that are about or at least connected to Leon. I have next to no motivation to write anything so this will have to do.
These are just my thoughts. You don't have to agree with them.
I don't think Leon would be in a relationship with anyone significantly younger or older than him. Like if they're more than 10 years in either direction, especially younger, I don't think he'd be interested. And I say that as a 30-year-old, aka someone who would fall into that category since that means I'm 18 years younger than Leon. I love this man but I am too young for him 😔😔😔
I'm also of the opinion that he wouldn't be into choking, either doing it himself or having it done to him. Big monster men keep choking him and that would be pretty traumatic, so it might be a trigger for him?? I kinda covered this in a part of my Best Friend x Leon story but it just doesn't feel like a kink he'd enjoy.
There's always the trope about girlfriend wearing her boyfriend's clothes. But as a fat woman, I could never wear Leon's clothes without them being very tight in an uncomfortable way. SO imagine instead Leon wearing his partner's clothes as a reversal of the trope. This is for all my fellow plus-sized people. Leon in your hoodie or shirt that somehow looks oversized on him because he likes that it smells like you ☺️☺️☺️
Stepping away from headcanons. There's a couple of stories that have been brewing in my brain and probably won't escape properly so I'm just going to put them here. I refer to Reader as female by default because I'm a cis female. Apologies if that bothers you.
Because I've thought about how weak I'd be in Grace's place (if I made it to the part with Leon and Emily, I'd definitely try to end myself), I've considered doing a story where Reader takes Grace's place (because Grace is a strong character and I refuse to make her OOC for the sake of some shit written by my) but completely loses it at that point and tries to end herself with Requiem instead of tossing it back to Leon. I've theorized that I/she might succeed in it if Leon didn't catch on fast enough, and also because shortly after this he has a coughing fit due to his illness so fighting us for the gun might be difficult. Is it selfish of us, given what we outside the story know about what my/her death means for everyone suffering from Raccoon City Syndrome? Yes. But if you were in that place, having watched so many people die around you and failing to save even the one you tried to save the most, and you were already dealing with mental demons, how would you react? I also wonder how much Gideon was paying attention, considering he was only a few rooms away waiting to reveal Zeno and take Grace away. Would he hear the commotion and intervene, or would he neglect to protect us once again like he did for most of our time in the Rhodes Hills Chronic Care Center? Much to think about.
This other story idea happens during Resident Evil 2 Remake. Reader is encountered in RPD by various cast members and she seems to have the uncanny ability to go unnoticed by the zombies for some reason. She isn't armed and can't fight very well, but she does her best to help. At some point, someone literally walks right through her, and an encounter with the mirror confirms that Reader is actually a ghost. She died somewhere in Raccoon City before the main characters got there. While "haunting" Leon, they stumble upon her zombified corpse and she asks him to put her out of her misery. I don't have much else for the story until they escape Raccoon City, and at that point it's just literally Reader becoming like Alma or Sadako in the sense she gets very powerful in order to keep Sherry and Leon from being captured by the military and forced into their canon fates rather than choosing their own paths in life. AND I also want Reader to have helped Marvin not get bit by Brad and keep him alive, because I like Marvin 🥺🥺🥺
Anyway I'm glad to finally get these ideas out somewhere.
One more thing, going under a Keep Reading. It probably should be its own post but I'm lazy.
A story inspired by quackysprouts Zombie Leon AU.
It's an AU of my Leon's Best Friend Since Childhood AU (AU-ception!) where Leon becomes a zombie in RPD (of course) and somehow gets from Raccoon City to his best friend's house without eating anyone or being seen by anyone or really decaying. He has no desire to eat anyone, either. His best friend assumes he died in Raccoon City just like she does in the original AU, but when she sees him on her doorstep, she's shocked then distraught and afraid because, well, her best friend IS dead but also a zombie? And he somehow made it to her??? She's grieving and now she has this to deal with on her own. He just shuffles into her home and collapses on her couch.
She fully expects him to bite her at some point and she knows she should probably call someone about the zombie in her home but at the same time, that's her best friend. If this is all that remains of him, she doesn't really want to lose him. But is it right to keep him in this state? How is she supposed to take care of him? Why did he even come here? What drove a zombified Leon to come to her?
He sleeps a lot. She doesn't, afraid that if she lowers her guard he'll eat her. When she passes out from exhaustion due to lack of sleep, she jumps awake when something very cold is suddenly touching her. Her best friend, seeing her passed out, tries cuddling her like he used to many times in their lives. Once platonic and warm, it's just freaky now. The first couple of times it happens, she screams and pushes away from him. He just stares at her with the same blank expression he's worn since he's shown up. After these times when he does it again, she doesn't scream but still pulls away on instinct. Is he also acting on instinct? She was one of the closest people to him before he died. Maybe that's why he was drawn here...
A week later, she accepts two things. One, her zombified best friend is not going to hurt her, or he would've done so already. Two, he needs a change of clothes and perhaps a bath because either he or his clothes are smelly and she doesn't want that scent lingering on her or her things anymore. She has a key to his place (in the AU this AU takes place in, Leon wasn't living in RPD; he was just going to work there) and goes there to get him several outfits, then returns. Z-Leon is waiting by the door like a puppy. She wonders as she looks at him if using soap and water on a zombie is a good idea. Would his skin come off? He didn't look like he was rotting...Was it worth the risk? Well, she couldn't have him stinking up her place forever, so she had to at least try.
Shaking, she grabs one of his freezing hands and escorts him to the bathroom. He follows and just stands there while she fills the tub with lukewarm water just in case actual warm water was too much for him. He continues standing there while she, with much hesitance, starts undressing him from the RPD riot uniform he's wearing. She tries not to stare at the bite wound or any of his other injuries from whatever he experienced in Raccoon City, and also keeps from looking too much at his body in general. She's never seen him naked before, and it must be mentioned she did have a crush on him when he was alive, which as you can imagine would complicate this whole situation even more. Anyway, the most movement he makes during this time is lifting his legs when prompted so she can remove his boots and socks.
She's wondering if she'll have to try to lift him into the tub when he just steps in on his own and takes a seat in it. If he could walk all those miles from Raccoon City to her home, this was nothing. He couldn't do the rest of the process on his own, but at least she didn't have to do any real heavy lifting. She gets a washcloth all soapy and starts washing him. When she asks him to lift a part of himself, like an arm, he does. Aren't zombies supposed to be brainless? Yes, but zombies are also supposed to kill humans, and he's not doing that, so why wouldn't he be able to follow simple commands? She tries not to think about it as she cleans her zombie for the first time, including his hair. And none of his skin comes off and none of his hair falls out, not even when she towels him off, so everything is okay.
After helping him get dressed and bandaging his wounds, she leaves him on the couch and takes the filthy RPD uniform to the washer. Though it's gross, she realizes she should probably check for anything in the pockets that she wouldn't want to get caught in her washer or dryer and begins searching. Some loose bullets, a key with a card suit emblem, a couple of herbs...and a letter he wrote before he became a zombie. He wrote it after receiving the Bite, knowing his time was short and the letter might never be seen by anyone but needing to get the words out anyway. It's for her, his best friend. A confession, because she wasn't the only one who developed feelings for their best friend. He regretted never telling her while he was alive, wishing he had the courage to do so. He had many regrets since going to Raccoon City, like all the people he was letting down by dying, but he couldn't help thinking of her at the end. His lieutenant Marvin tried to warn him not to come (he was meant to be there a week earlier but with the outbreak he was told to stay away) and his best friend tried to convince him to stay, but he didn't listen, and now he was--
She is reduced to tears as she reads, collapsing to her knees on the floor clutching the letter. How long does she stay like that? Long enough that her zombified bestie eventually shuffles his way over, stiffly kneels down behind her, and wraps his arms around her from behind. She doesn't pull away from his icy touch this time. She rests a hand over his and keeps crying. In the midst of her sadness, however, she swears she feels/hears the quietest heartbeat. Not her own, but what other heartbeat could there be if Leon is...?
Spoilers for the idea. Z-Leon isn't fully dead.
The T-Virus didn't kill him, but put him in a near-death state that looks and feels a lot like zombification. But his heart still occasionally beats and, while cold, he's not quite as cold as a corpse. He never really decays, either, but he also doesn't heal and isn't fully aware of anything. Most of his actions are from instinct or routine more than conscious decision. He regains energy through rest since, like in quackysprouts AU, his digestive system doesn't work so eating anything would just leave it sitting in his stomach. If he was presented with anything that anyone living or undead would consider food, he wouldn't feel compelled to consume it at all because of this.
Reader/His best friend is going to have to somehow get in touch with people who are complete strangers to the both of them--the remnants of STARS, namely Rebecca Chambers--so they can find a way to cure him/bring him back to being fully alive again. Who knows how long that will take, and in that time, could the T-Virus mutate and transform him further, maybe even kill/truly zombify him? Who knows~!
Nah but I'd want this AU Squared to have a happy-ish ending. I'll leave a depressing Zombie Leon and company to the pros.
Fun nonsensical headcanon that Harry Mason is Leon S. Kennedy's uncle on his mother's side. Aka Leon's mom's brother and she was a Mason before marriage.
This would make Leon and Heather/Cheryl cousins.
I want them to be family. That's it, that's the headcanon :3
Making a post that links to all the Leon (heavily implied to be RE2R Leon) x Reader (reader is afab and has been Leon's best friend since childhood) stuff I have so far:
Part 1
Part 2 (attached to a reblog of Part 1, bc I dumb)
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12 (contains explicit content)
Will update as more is written.
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Other Leon-related works:
Please, Just Hold Me (self-insert x Leon)
It'll Grow Back (self-insert x Leon, trichotillomania warning)
Crushed (reader x Leon, pretty platonic though)
Comforting Leon when he wakes up from a nightmare (reader x Leon, pretty short)
This is the slightly nsfw follow-up to Comforting Leon when he wakes up from a nightmare. Minors DNI.
(it's just bc reader and Leon are naked in the shower together and a certain kind of "warming" happens, though it's not done for sexy reasons...
reader is afab bc that's what I am and I usually write for me ☺️)
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After calming Leon down from his nightmare, you asked him if he was ready to go back to bed. While he was no longer a mess, he wasn't feeling quite up to trying to sleep again just yet. This wasn't unusual. You knew a good way to help him, however, and suggested a hot shower. The warm water would relax him further and also get the sweat from his nightmare off of him.
You started the shower as he stripped, letting the water heat up so he wouldn't get hit with the initial blast of cold that always happened. He grabbed your shirt from behind and tugged upwards. What was he doing? He wanted you to join him, of course. You denied him that earlier when you showered before bed. Would you deny him again? With a dramatic sigh, you gave into his needy demands and let him take your shirt off, followed soon after by your pants and underwear. You stepped out of your slippers and followed Leon into the tub, pulling the curtain behind you.
He took you in his arms immediately, resting his chin on your shoulder as you stood chest-to-chest with him. You wrapped your arms around him in kind, closing your eyes as the water cascaded over the both of you. As usual, his back was to the showerhead, because he needed the calming warmth on him much more than you did.
The two of you just stood there, holding one another, for several minutes. You enjoyed the sounds of Leon's heartbeat and soft breathing, feeling yourself slowly be lulled back towards sleep by their soothing lullaby. Of course, you would never dream of falling asleep in the shower. The hot water would run out eventually and the cold would certainly shock you awake. Also, you weren't in here for yourself. You were in here for Leon. You would stay awake for him as long as he needed you to.
Leon's hands drifted down towards your hips, his breath catching just a little. You knew what this meant.
"Babe, please..." he mumbled into your neck.
He needed to feel like he was closer to you, as close as he could possibly be without being in your skin himself. You whispered your consent. One of his hands moved from your hip to your vagina. Though he wasn't going to fuck you in the shower (this time), he still planned on prepping you for what he was doing. Just shoving it in seemed rude, not to mention painful. You always appreciated how thoughtful he could be even in his lowest moments. Your comfort, your needs, your pleasure was always in the forefront of his mind.
Even so, you couldn't help biting your lip as he slid himself inside you. It didn't hurt much once he was all the way in, but enough that you winced. He apologized. You assured him you were fine, just needed a moment to adjust. You leaned more into him. His arms returned to their earlier position, wrapped around you, holding you tight.
"You're too good to me," he whispered. "I don't deserve you."
"Yes you do," you said. "You deserve so much, Leon."
He nuzzled your neck, saying something you couldn't understand. Probably denying your words. Oh well. You didn't need to hear it. You just needed to be here for him and remind him that he was a person worthy of life and love.
Leon told you he was ready for bed after several more minutes in the shower. Without fully pulling away from him, you turned off the water. He opened the curtains, then lifted you up and stepped out of the tub as you wrapped your legs around him. He adjusted his grip to carry you, still connected to you at the groin all the while.
On nights like these, you two didn't even bother toweling off after getting out of the shower. You'd probably regret it by morning. Damp sheets weren't exactly that nice to sleep in. But who cares? You guys certainly didn't. You were too tired to give a single shit, to be honest.
"You comfy?" Leon asked once you were back in your bed.
Legs entwined, in each other's arms laying side by side, and you still cockwarming the love of your life?
"Mhm," was your lazy reply as you looked at him through your lashes.
He gave you a small smile, then left a soft kiss on your forehead. "Goodnight, babe."
tbh I have a low opinion of my writing (I think a lot of writers doubt their work is very good) but I'm glad people seem to be enjoying what I've posted despite that.
(afab reader bc that's what I am and I mostly write these things for me, sorry >< tho tbh I don't really use any gendered language in this so it could be anyone ig
also this is like around RE4R or maybe a bit after? that's the Leon I picture for this so yeah, anyway...)
-
You might've been asleep, but you've become accustomed to the rhythms of your partner's life, and when they're disturbed, you feel it. You felt Leon shift as he suddenly jolted upright, breathing heavy. You woke up as fast as you could, but he quickly tossed aside the covers and disappeared into the bathroom before you could even sit up. Dammit. Why were you never fast enough to grab him and hold him in bed when this happened?
You slid your feet into your slippers and made your way to the master bathroom. He hadn't closed the door this time, at least. Sometimes when the nightmares came, he'd lock himself in there and try to calm himself down without you. He hated disturbing your sleep, but didn't understand that closing himself off just made you worry more. How many times would it take for him to realize you felt better when you could try to help him?
He was splashing his face with cold water at the sink. You could see the sweat still clinging to his skin, his hair, his clothes...
"Go back to bed, honey," he said without looking, gripping the sides of the sink. "I just...need a minute."
You walked up behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist and resting your head on his back. He was so tense, like he usually was after a nightmare. That familiar slight tremble was there, too. Despite how many times he had these bad dreams, he could never get used to them. He hated that. He hated you seeing him like this.
"Babe..." He tried shrugging you off, but you just tightened your grip.
"No," you mumbled defiantly into his shirt. "I'm not going anywhere, Leon."
He could easily fight you off if he really wanted to. You both knew this. But he didn't. He just stood there, still holding onto the sink while you held him from behind. The only sounds were his labored breathing and the racing of his heart, an unpleasant song you wished to quiet.
"Didn't mean to wake you," he said in almost a whisper.
"I was already awake."
Though you couldn't see his face, you knew he was rolling his eyes. They always did when you told this lie. You told it every time this happened. One of his hands rested on yours, his thumb softly moving on your skin. Progress.
"I'm fine now." His turn to lie.
"Could've told you that."
He let out a sound that was sort of a laugh, sort of a scoff. "I don't mean like that, babe. Appreciate it, though. You're pretty fine yourself."
"Thanks, but this ain't about me, Leon."
He sighed. You felt his other hand touch yours as he gently pulled your arms off of him. You resisted until you realized he was turning around to face you. His fingers interlocked with yours. He squeezed your hands a couple of times as he looked down at you, stoic. Trying to hide his panic despite knowing you wouldn't fall for that.
"It was...just a bad dream. Don't worry about it."
You gave him a look. He averted his gaze. Of course he knew he couldn't fool you. Why did he always try?
Pulling away from him for a moment, you reached up and cupped his face with both of your hands, forcing him to look at you. His blue eyes tried to focus on anything else, but he could never resist you for long.
"Five things you can see," you said.
He blinked. "What?"
"Name five things you can see," you repeated.
It took a moment before it clicked, because this was not the first time you've used this grounding technique. You forgave his confusion, like always, chocking it up to fatigue. He listed off five things in your bathroom within his line of sight. Sink. Toothbrush. Toilet. Plunger. Bathtub.
"Four things you can hear."
In the middle of the night, this one was harder, but you figured he could think of something. His eyes closed, his brow furrowing. His heartbeat. An easy answer. Your voice. You could give him that one, even if you weren't talking at the moment. The whirl of the fan in your room. You could barely hear that one yourself. He struggled with the last one, but finally came up with the sound of the city outside. A noise that one became accustomed to and could easily ignore without realizing it. Cars on the road, people living their lives, at all hours of the day. Quieter at night, but never absent.
"Good boy." You felt the heat in his cheeks at your praise and smiled. "Now, three things you can smell. Two things you can touch. One thing you know."
Toothpaste. A minty stain on his shirt from when he brushed his teeth before bed. The scent of your body wash. You showered before turning in for the night--alone, though if Leon had his way that wouldn't have been the case. Your shampoo. Same reason. Usually you wouldn't allow him to get away with using two similar scents, but he was almost done and you were both tired so you gave him a pass.
"Touch." He put one of his hands over one of yours, the other moving to caress your cheek. "I only need one thing to touch, and that's you."
"Cheesy answer, but I'll take it, I guess."
"Isn't the last one supposed to be something I can taste? Why'd you change it?"
"Because there's nothing to taste."
He raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"
You didn't get a chance to respond, because he quickly moved forward, meeting your lips with his. Smartass. Your arms went around his neck as you kissed him. At the same time, his wrapped around you and pulled you closer, and when he stopped kissing you, his head found its place on your shoulder.
Synopsis: People you were working for created some horrid bio-weapon. Your research contributed to its creation and you couldn't live with that on your conscience, so you managed to reach out to those who could put a stop to it at the source before it was too late. A whistleblower, in exchange for being rescued and taken somewhere safe so your employers could never seek revenge.
Leon S. Kennedy was sent on that mission, along with a few other operatives. He was the only one to make it out alive, aside from you. You were protected like someone important, carrying a case full of vital and damning information as well as your research and many samples that would prove useful should your employers manage to get their plans in motion somehow somewhere else.
Because the location of the lab was in a rough mountainous area, you and Leon had to traverse unwieldy terrain to get to the rendezvous point where a helicopter would extract you and take you both to safety. In the past, you always worried you were one sneeze away from causing a rockslide where you'd be crushed to death. It turned out nature didn't need a sneeze or your employers to cause that. A boulder came loose on its own and dropped.
Two versions of this story could happen.
In this one, you managed to shove Leon and the case out of the way before being struck. In the aftermath, your arm is trapped under the boulder, which is too heavy to be moved by Leon alone. It's not immediately fatal, but you're both smart. You know what happens if too much time passes with your arm crushed like this. You try not to panic. So does Leon. Help doesn't seem like it'll come fast enough, but you two try to stay hopeful and pass the time by talking.
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Reader is female and AFAB, because I'm that and I usually write for myself :')
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Crush Injury: "injury by an object that causes compression of the body. This form of injury is rare in normal civilian practice, but common following a natural disaster. Other causes include industrial accidents, road traffic collisions, building collapse, accidents involving heavy plant, disaster relief or terrorist incidents." [source]
Crush Syndrome: "a medical condition characterized by major shock and kidney failure after a crushing injury to skeletal muscle. A localized crush injury with systemic manifestations. Cases occur commonly in catastrophes such as earthquakes, to individuals that have been trapped under fallen or moving masonry." [source]
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How could the sky be so clear, so blue, on a day like today?
Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just the circumstances that made it seem so.
Or maybe you never really took the time to look at sky before.
Now you had no choice but to look up. Pinned by a boulder crushing your left arm, one you were fortunate only got you and not your briefcase and your companion. You barely managed to save both before it was too late, tossing the case away and shoving him with all the might you could muster. How only your arm got crushed was anyone's guess. But it had. The weight of the boulder was too much for one man to move, so you had no choice but to wait.
Maybe you deserved this, though.
"Talk to me, Y/N," your companion said.
His voice was calm, a far cry from the panic that consumed it after the dust settled and he found you in this position. To be fair, you'd been fairly panicked yourself, trembling from a combination of adrenaline and pain. You tried to get him to take the case and head off to the rendezvous point without you. It didn't matter if you made it out of this alive. All that mattered was what was in that briefcase, because then something could be done about your sins and you could die with a clean conscience. He refused, choosing instead to radio back to "Roost" to relay the situation and demand to know when backup would be there. Whoever was on the line must've suggested something similar to what you said, because he lost it, shouting that leaving you to die was not an option. To hell with the briefcase! It wasn't the only priority here!
No one was going to argue with him about it.
"Y/N," he said again, a hint of desperation in his tone. It was barely noticeable. You might've imagined it, or maybe not.
"Agent Kennedy," you said.
"Please," he said, "talk to me."
You took as deep a breath as you could. "I suppose I...should tell you everything I know...just in case I--"
"Not that."
He grabbed your hand with one of his while the other brushed some hair out of your face. Or tried to. It stuck to your forehead. Were you sweating? You didn't even realize.
"I don't care about that right now," he said.
"Then I...I don't know what to say," you admitted with a small smile that was more of a grimace.
"What's your favorite color?"
"What kind of--?"
"It's a question, and a conversation starter."
You couldn't deny that. It was such trivial knowledge, but what else was there to share between you if he didn't want to hear the dreadful deeds of your former employers? You and this man were perfect strangers, having just met today under terrible circumstances. You knew nothing of him, nor he of you. Well, aside from your connections to a blossoming terrorist organization. But he was willing to look past that to ask about something that might not matter by the end of the day.
So, you told him your favorite color.
His was red.
He asked about your favorite animal, movie, song, and other little things like that. You answered him and he returned the favor each time. It was all just a distraction. You knew it. He knew it. You knew he knew you knew. But it was necessary. You both knew that, too. You couldn't allow yourselves to dwell on the facts. You'd give up hope if you did.
Help was over an hour away, thanks to the terrain. It was easier to go down than come up, which was why you and Agent Kennedy were supposed to rendezvous with the helicopter elsewhere instead of it meeting you outside of your former workplace. An injury like yours wasn't immediately fatal. In fact, if you hadn't been pinned by the heavy boulder, you probably could've continued on to the evacuation location even with a decimated arm. But you couldn't have been that lucky. You had to have this happen.
You made the mistake of shifting your body and winced, biting your bottom lip to hold back the scream. It only hurt when you moved. Otherwise, you were fairly numb at this point. You just had to remember to stay still. Just stay still...
Your reaction didn't go unnoticed. The agent's eyes were locked on you right now, so he wouldn't have missed it unless he was some special kind of oblivious. He should be looking at something more important, keeping an eye out for any potential threats that made it this far from your old workplace. But he couldn't.
"How bad is it?" he asked. "The pain?"
"It only hurts if I move," you said, "and then it's just...I've never felt pain like this before, Agent Kennedy. I...can't describe it, but...I guess on a scale of 'hurt me more' to 'I feel like I'm dying', it's definitely close to the dying option."
He nodded. You're sure he's experienced more than his fair share of pain in his life, being a government agent. Your pain scale made the corners of his mouth twitch. You're glad you could amuse him, even in such terrible circumstances.
"Here." He squeezed your hand, which you just now remembered he was holding. It was strangely reassuring. "If it gets bad, squeeze as hard as you need to, okay?"
You scoffed with a roll of your eyes. "Just because I'm hurt doesn't mean I have to--"
"You won't hurt me."
The way he said it left you speechless. It wasn't that he didn't think you could hurt him. Rather, it was anything you could do to him was nothing compared to pain he'd suffered before. You couldn't imagine what that kind of existence must be like, where your tolerance for pain was so very high. What horrors had he been through before today? What haunted him? Who was he? Did he even know that?
"Thank you, Agent Kennedy."
"Leon." He caught you staring and said, "My name. It's Leon. We're past formalities."
You laughed, regretting it immediately as pain shot through your body. Leon's hand fell victim to your tight grasp as you tried to handle it without screaming or crying. Honestly, you would've been calling him by his first name this whole time if you'd known it, but such "unimportant" details were not given to you before. The government didn't think you needed to know the names of their agents or the escape plan or what would happen to you once you were secure and they had your intel.
They didn't even need you. They just needed your briefcase and its contents. You figured as much before, but it just started sinking in. Leon's employers encouraged him to leave you to your fate. You could die for all they cared.
But Leon wouldn't let them abandon you. Your life mattered to him.
Why?
"How'd we end up here?" you wondered out loud.
At first, he thought you were suffering some kind of memory problem due to your injury, but your expression erased that thought.
Leon shrugged. "This is just another Tuesday for me."
"You've been in situations like this before."
"Not exactly like this."
You paused, brow furrowed in thought. "It's...Thursday, not Tuesday."
"Really? That's the detail you wanna get hung up on?"
You tried to keep a straight face for your own sake. His snarky deadpan delivery could literally kill you. That might be a pleasant way to die, smiling as you slipped away to wherever you would go after death, if there was anything there. You gripped Leon's hand tightly as you allowed yourself to fail, letting out a small chuckle and smiling.
"Well, there's one good thing that came outta this shit," you say once you overcome the pain, the consequences of your actions. "I got to meet you. Never would've happened if I didn't sell my soul."
"I'm flattered you think meeting me was worth all this."
You were wrong, of course, but he wasn't going to tell you that. Not now. Not when you were...No. It could wait until you were rescued, until long after you were healed and not knocking on death's door. When you were fine. You would be fine.
"I didn't mean to work for bio-terrorists, you know. It wasn't...sold to me like that," you said solemnly. "It all just happened so fast. I was fresh outta college with a ton of debt...so when someone approached me with a job offer, I just...accepted it. I did look the company up and everything was...reputable, you know? It looked..."
You fell silent. This time, when you squeezed Leon's hand, it wasn't to cope with pain.
"Someone as smart as me...How could I be so dumb? Of course it was too good to be true...I should've known. I should've--"
"It's not your fault you were tricked. These guys are good at pulling the wool over your eyes," Leon said. "If Umbrella could do it for as long as they did--"
"Umbrella? Oh, that pharmaceutical company responsible for what happened to Raccoon City, right?" Leon gave a small nod. It hit you then just how bad things could've gone. "I worked for people who could lead entire cities to be...Dammit. How many lives could be gone because I was so blind, so stupid?"
"It's not your fault," Leon said again. "Even if it was...You realized your mistake and took steps to atone for it. We're here because you wanted to stop this. You're not a bad person. You're not like them."
Maybe he was right. Still, it didn't take away the guilt suddenly overwhelming you. Your stomach churned. You thought you might hurl but you couldn't. Another wave of pain washed over you, but it wasn't from your crushed arm this time. You wished it was. It'd be easier to shrug off then.
Eyelids grew heavy. Not a good sign. You couldn't go to sleep now. Too risky. Leon knew you were getting drowsy when your grip on his hand began to grow slack. He quickly checked in with "Roost" for an update on the backup. They were still so far away...
"I'm sorry," you said.
"Keep your eyes open." It came out like an order, sharp and demanding and even a bit harsh.
"Leon, I'm trying."
"Try harder."
Tears welled up in your eyes, choking your voice a little as you tried to keep them from falling. You couldn't cry. It would affect your breathing and heartbeat, and those things needed to remain calm and constant right now. You swallowed hard. It didn't help.
"Is this...something that happens a lot?" you asked. "In your line of work, do you...often lose people, like you have today?"
Leon said nothing. That was fine. It was a difficult question. A personal one. Classified. He probably couldn't answer you, even if he wanted to. You thought of the other agents that were on this mission. There were five of them that came with Leon. Their faces you could barely remember. Their last names were somewhere in your memory that you couldn't reach right now. The ones that had the chance to make noise before they died...Their death throes would haunt you forever, you thought. As would the bodies hitting the floor. A couple of them rose again, only to be shot in the head by Leon or one of the other agents who was still alive then.
The sound of gunshots still rang so clearly in your head. You didn't think your thoughts would ever be silent again. An echo chamber of bangs and screams as the soundtrack of the haunting movie of the undead and dying that kept playing on repeat.
You turned your gaze to the bluest sky. It was darker now...No. It was just harder to see. It was harder to see anything. Harder to keep your eyes open.
"Yeah," Leon said. So many silent seconds had passed that you almost forgot you asked him something. You glanced over at him, enraptured by a different shade of blue now. "I've...had people who died the same day I met them...more often than anyone should. It's been constant ever since I--"
He stopped himself suddenly, brow furrowed as he looked away from you. Should he tell you? The ramifications if you survived this and it got out to anyone, then...No. They wouldn't hurt him. He was too valuable a weapon. However, they might decide you know too much and make your survival mean nothing.
He shook his head. "I can't go into details. For your safety."
Should you survive this, you read between the lines.
"Let's just say...I didn't choose this job. I was forced into it because I survived something a lot of people didn't." He squeezed your hand without realizing he was doing it. He couldn't look you in the eye as he spoke. "I've seen too many people I couldn't save in these past eight years. Today isn't any different."
"A typical Tuesday," you whispered.
Leon's smile was grim. "On a Thursday."
"Eight years of fighting monsters," you said thoughtfully. "...and seeing people die...How do you deal with that? Do you just...grow numb to it over time?"
"No, never. And I don't really 'deal' with it. If I'm not fighting, I'm busy sleeping or training for the next battle. It never ends."
"It never ends?"
Leon shook his head. "Every time I think it's over, another monster decides to mess with viruses or parasites or what have you to try to create some B.O.W. and I'm being shipped out to clean up their shit. When one monster falls, another steps up to take their place."
"So what we did today...means nothing? All the death...the pain...my fucking arm...It's all for nothing?"
These were the kind of thoughts that sent Leon to the bottom of a bottle of hard liquor. That was the real way he "dealt" with his issues when he wasn't fighting or training or passing out from exhaustion. You didn't need to know that, though. What you needed right now was hope.
But could he give that to you?
"It's not for nothing," he said slowly, carefully. "It would be worse if this shit went unchecked at the same time that someone else is playing mad scientist in their basement. If we didn't eliminate the problems as we learned of them, then we'd have been fucked long ago. You have no idea how bad it would be. I don't either, and honestly, I don't want to know. I already have enough nightmares. So it does mean something. It just doesn't always seem like it."
Was he just trying to comfort you? Maybe. Maybe he was lying to you and himself just so you wouldn't go out believing everything you did was a waste of life, a waste of time and effort. You tried not to think about it. Thought was getting harder, anyway.
"Hey, Y/N, you can't sleep now," Leon said. Both of his hands were on yours, holding on tightly like you'd slip right through his fingers if his grip was too loose. "C'mon, lemme see those pretty eyes."
"I'm...trying."
"I know you are. I know."
If you could see clearly with eyes wide open, you'd see his professional facade beginning to crack. You weren't the only one holding back tears. And it wasn't just because of you. In your place, there had been others. Elliot Edward. Marvin Branagh. Luis Serra-Navarro. Their faces flashed in his mind. They were with him when something or someone decided their lives had to end. Zombies, tearing them in half or fatally biting them. A disillusioned former comrade who fell in with a cult organization in an attempt to find purpose again. He couldn't save them.
And now, he can't save you.
"What do you want to do when we're finally out of here?"
Your sudden question snapped him out of his own thoughts. "When we're...?"
"Once we're safe," you said, "what's the first thing you want to do?"
"What? Why?"
"I'll probably have to...stay in the hospital for a while and you'll have to report to your superiors. We won't be seeing each other again for some time, if ever again...But...let's pretend. What's the first thing you want to do?"
"...I don't know. I'd probably be sent away on another mission before I get the chance to enjoy it."
"That's not what I asked."
Leon sighed, taking a second to indulge in a fantasy world where he no longer had to fight bio-terrorism. No more monsters or viruses and parasites that created monsters. No more constantly being surrounded by death. No more being treated like a weapon instead of a person, a human being. God, what would he want to do...?
"Vacation," he finally said.
"Where to?"
"Somewhere warm and sunny. Maybe a beach by the sea."
"Sounds nice...What would you do there?"
"Nothing. Just sit back, relax, and sleep."
"That's it?"
"You asked what the first thing I'd want to do was. That'd be it. A relaxing vacation. The more fun and exciting things can wait. I need some serious R&R."
This wasn't news. The dark bags under his eyes told you enough about the restless nights he suffered. You couldn't imagine what his nightmares must be like, given all the horrors he'd witnessed as an agent. Even with your brief exposure to such terror could never compare, and you knew if you lived through this you'd never sleep well again. He must keep going until his body won't let him anymore, whether it be from exhaustion or alcohol.
"What about you?"
"First thing I'd want to do...Watch the sunrise...or sunset, depending on the time."
"That's it?" Leon threw your words back at you, which made you smile. How dare you have the audacity to judge his beach vacation when all you wanted was to watch the sun enter or exit the sky!
"I know, I know. It's...not much, but...I haven't seen one since coming here. Whenever I came to or left the lab, it was...night. I only ever saw the sun through a window in the restroom. It might as well not exist." You let out the ghost of a sigh, too worn out for a real sigh to escape. "Seeing it rise or set...Proof it's still real...That's what I want."
The saddest smile appeared on Leon's face. Such a simple thing, but he understood. One of his hands moved to cup your face. His thumb wiped away some tears that managed to fall without you noticing. You hardly felt his touch. You couldn't feel the tears in any way.
Before either of you could speak again, backup arrived. An hour had gone by already, filled with an exchange of trivial information and something akin to a heart-to-heart. You braced yourself for what was going to happen. The agents, with a couple of medics among them, moved in with equipment designed for such situations. Leon reluctantly released your hand and stepped back. There wasn't much he could do now.
"Take the briefcase to the rendezvous point," his handler said over the radio.
"Hunnigan, I can't--"
"I know you don't want to leave her, Leon," she said.
There was some sympathy in her voice, for the first time since your accident. Using his first name was something she only did when she was either worried or being a human instead of a handler.
"The others will take good care of her. Even if she doesn't..." She trailed off for a moment. "Y/N will be coming with you. But we must secure that briefcase, Leon. It's what she wants, isn't it?"
Leon sighed. He had nothing left to say. Sparing one more glance at you, he retrieved your damned briefcase. One of the agents separated from the rescue to accompany him to the helicopter. The distance would be so short this way, yet he felt heavier, slow. Time crawled as he left another person to die.
He was so fucking sick of this.
You didn't notice his departure. Someone gave you something to chomp down on before they began moving the boulder. You weakly bit into it, your cries of pain muffled against the leather. At least you wouldn't be haunted by your own screams if you survived this, and Leon wouldn't have to hear it, either. You hoped, anyway.
The bluest sky faded into static, which faded into darkness. Would it be the last time you saw the sky?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Months later, with a new name and a new identity and a new life you're still getting used to, you don't expect to recognize anyone or be recognized by anyone who once knew you. Everything you know you've been taken from, uprooted and replanted elsewhere in the country far away. You don't even have the same hair color. Every time you look in the mirror, you feel like you're looking at a stranger.
But the stranger is becoming more familiar with every day. She has to. After all, the person you once were is, for all intents and purposes, dead and gone.
The story that made it to the news was so simple. An accident in the lab you worked in, which resulted in the complete loss of the facility and everything and everyone inside it. You knew the truth, of course. The building was destroyed by a cleanup crew following your extraction with the other agents. Technically speaking, as far as names were concerned, Agent Kennedy was the only person to make it out of that lab alive. No one would ever know he was there, though.
You haven't seen Agent Kennedy since you were still trapped by the boulder. Chances are you'll never see him again. That almost saddens you more than the loss of your left arm...
Yeah, they had to amputate that to save your life. You figured it would happen, considering how long it was being crushed. Getting used to having one arm on top of all the new things about your life wasn't easy, to say the least. But it could be worse. You could be in prison for working for bio-terrorists. You could've been found out by your former employers and subjected to whatever punishment they saw fit to inflict upon you. You could've actually died.
Some nights, you wish you had.
At least in death you probably wouldn't be having all these nightmares. No, not just nightmares. Memories. You probably wouldn't be reliving the horrors of that day over and over. Rewatching old colleagues taking their final breaths. Hearing their death throes. The visions of the walking, murderous dead. The echoes of ghastly, monstrous snarls. The rescue squad being killed twice, except the one. The overwhelming, unending fear.
You realized you were zoning out in line at a fastfood restaurant when a fellow customer rudely snapped at you, in turn snapping you out of your thoughts. You sheepishly apologized before placing and paying for your order. Then you stood off to the side to wait, trying to make yourself as small as possible. How could you let that happen? God, that was embarrassing.
The man who shouted at you kept glaring as you both waited for your food. You wished he wouldn't. At most, you inconvenienced him for a minute or two. Irritating, yes, but not worth getting pissed off enough to intimidate someone who was clearly uncomfortable and ashamed without the extra attention.
Just as it looks like he might say something, someone else moved in, effectively becoming a wall between the two of you. This person was closer to you than to the guy, however, which only made you more anxious. You just wanted dinner. Why did that have to go so wrong?
"You okay, Y/F/N?" your wall asked.
Wait. You recognized that voice.
You took a good look at the man's face, eyes widening. That blond hair, short and soft and pretty. Those blue eyes, just like the bluest sky you saw that day you nearly died. That stoic expression on the most handsome face you swore you've ever seen.
Leon Kennedy.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine," you said a little too quickly, giving him an awkward smile. "Just...losing myself in public is all. Making a fool of myself, as usual."
"Or some people just don't have patience," he said, and while his head remained facing you, his eyes shifted in the direction of the customer who had been about to make a scene. The man looked very uncomfortable, less confident now that a well-built man was with you.
"What are you doing here?" you asked.
"Visiting a friend," he replied.
A friend? He couldn't mean you, could he? No, you met once before this and it was one of the worst days of your life. Maybe it was a cover story. Maybe he was here for work. A mission. Someone in the area was doing something they shouldn't and he was here to stop them. Right. That had to be it.
Then again, Leon was dressed rather casually for a man on such a dangerous mission. You didn't expect him to be in tactical gear in public, of course, but...
Your order was ready before you could think about it any further. You awkwardly brushed past Leon to get it from the counter, struggling a bit to carry the fastfood tray with your only hand and arm. It was something you were learning to cope with, so you didn't want any help. You hoped the others watching you would respect that.
At least the one person you cared about in that restaurant seemed to understand. He also didn't gawk at you, the one-armed woman, which couldn't be said for most of the others. God forbid a person with a visible disability do anything.
Leon sat at a table near yours, not about to assume he was free to join you without permission. The two of you ate your food in silence. You wondered how much his life had changed these past few months. Certainly not nearly as much as yours. What was it he said? The day you first met was "a typical Tuesday" for him. So, it couldn't have affected him too much. Well, not any more than any of the other missions he'd had as an agent.
He was the only familiar thing in your life right now, and he wasn't even that familiar. Was he even supposed to be here? You began to doubt he was in the area for a mission. He seemed too relaxed and casual for that. You got the impression from the little time you spent with him that he'd prefer to get the job done as soon as possible. Unless he was already done with the mission and was refueling afterwards, this wouldn't help him with that.
You realized after a moment that he said your name. Your new name. He was looking at you out of the corner of his eye. You watched as he pulled something out of the pocket of his jacket, moved his hand under the table, and then stealthily maneuvered it towards you. A slip of paper? You took it in your hand and looked at it.
It told you what he couldn't say right now. He was "asked" to come here to check up on you. So, you were the friend he was visiting after all. Knowing this didn't make you as happy as you thought it would. The government sending a "familiar" face to see how you were coping with your new life was just...wasteful of Leon's time, and rude to you. How dare they do this to you. How dare they do this to Leon.
You took a deep breath, forcing yourself to smile as you tried to relax. There was nothing you could do. You had to comply. That was what you had to do to survive in this new life. It was the choice you made when you decided to expose your former employers for the terrorists they were. You crumpled the slip of paper and shoved it in your pocket before turning towards Leon.
"Hey," you said, forcing a smile. "After we're done here, do you wanna come over to my place? I mean, if you're not busy."
"Yeah, I'd like that," he replied. He didn't smile, and if you could read his mind, you'd know he hated how fake the one you were wearing looked. That was a mistake on your part. Despite the circumstances of your meeting, he had gotten to see the real deal and knew what was missing, and that wasn't even going into how much of an expert he himself had become at faking smiles...
You both finished your meals shortly after this short exchange. Leon offered to drive you back to your home. Admittedly you didn't feel like walking back. As usual since the incident, you were exhausted. By what? Anything and everything. You wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep.
If only sleep wasn't plagued with those horrid nightmares...
Neither you nor Leon said anything while you were in his rented car. You didn't even have to tell him where you lived. They must've given him that information before they sent him to you. Maybe he stopped by here before going to the fastfood place where he found you. How had he known you were going to be at that restaurant, anyway? Were they keeping that close an eye on you?
He opened your door, like a gentleman. You led the way into your modest apartment, kicking off your shoes once you were inside. He followed your lead, though you weren't sure why. Did he plan on staying long? Wasn't he just going to see how you were doing and then be on his way? Maybe he just didn't want to be rude. If you were taking your shoes off at the door, he should do the same, right? At least he was mindful and wouldn't track the outdoors all over your cheap carpet.
Now you were just standing there awkwardly, unsure how to proceed with this. Leon was just as lost.
"What do you need from me, Agent Kennedy?" you finally asked.
"Y/N," he said. "It's Leon. We're past formalities, remember?"
The use of your real name caught you off-guard. The people who assigned you your new identity made you memorize every detail, drilling into you how important it was to only think of yourself as this new person. It was for your safety. To hear that name after so long, and from him no less...
"I'm sorry." Your voice was shakier than you wanted. You cringed and covered your face with your hands...No, hand. Right. "Leon. I...I don't know how to go about this. I'm sorry."
"That's okay. This is a first for me, too," he said. He gestured to your sofa. "Why don't we start by getting comfy?"
The sofa wasn't actually that comfortable. The government didn't really put people in witness protection in the best of homes with the best of furnishings. But that wasn't the point. The point was Leon was the closest thing you had to a friend. You took a seat on the left side of the sofa. Leon sat on the right. There was little space between you, but enough that you weren't touching.
It felt like he was actually sitting as far from you as he could without making it obvious. He didn't want to intrude or make you uncomfortable. Well, he figured that ship sailed the moment he admitted why he was here. He couldn't imagine what it was like to be in your shoes. Despite everything he'd been through, he at the very least still had his name, maybe even his identity if he could get past the trauma. You, though? You didn't even have that.
"Right. How do we start this?" he wondered out loud.
"I thought you would know. Didn't they tell you?" you asked.
"I must've left the script in my other jacket, sorry," he said.
You rolled your eyes with a tiny snort. His wit. That was one of the things about him you never forgot from the short time you spent with him. You missed it more than you thought you could. You missed him more than you thought you could miss anyone you knew for so little time, too.
"Did you do something with your hair?"
That got a full-blown snort out of you. Your hand flew over your mouth the moment you heard it, hiding your stupid little smile. God, it was such a dumb question and yet you...God, now your face was so warm. How embarrassing.
"Uh, yeah, I guess I did," you said, muffled by your hand and looking away. You couldn't bring yourself to see what he thought of your reaction to the question. Closing your eyes, you let your hand fall back to your lap. "Not sure I like it, though...But I already paid half the price for it, so."
"Half the price?"
"Well, yeah. The salon said it would cost me an arm and a leg for it, and well..."
The silence that followed your feeble attempt at a joke made you question why you even bothered surviving your crush injury.
"That...That was awful," Leon said after a moment.
"Thanks, Captain Obvious."
"I mean, really, I've said some dumb one-liners in my life, but that--"
"Leon, please, just let it go--"
"Sorry, just...How did that even--?"
You really wished you just perished on that mountain right about now. Would've saved you so much trouble in so many ways, and more importantly it would've kept you from making such a fool of yourself in front of Leon that you just wanted to disappear into the sofa. Could the earth just open up and swallow you whole right now? Please?!
"Well, anyway, if you're able to make such a shitty joke about your arm, I guess you can't be doing that bad," Leon said.
You weren't sure you agreed with that assessment, but it was certainly a way to look at it. Leon let you be, watching you calm down from your self-induced shame with a small smile. Despite his teasing, you couldn't help but find his presence calming, and slowly you relaxed until you were no longer hiding behind your hand or trying to disappear into the furniture. You shifted a bit to make yourself more comfortable and he did the same, resting both arms along the back of your sofa.
He started asking questions about you and your new life. How did you like your new home? What did you do for fun? Have you made any friends? Were your neighbors nice? Not everything seemed related to his assignment, and when you asked him about his life, he answered you as honestly as he could. You hadn't expected this to be an actual conversation, but it was a pleasant surprise.
He didn't judge you for your struggles. Of course you had nightmares and rarely left your home unless you had to. How could you rest easy given what you went through? Of course it was hard to make friends or get to know others. How could you trust people when your entire life was now lies and you could never really be honest with anyone? Of course nothing was easy. How could it be? How could it ever be? How could life ever get easier?
"I wish I could help you, Y/N. I wish I could tell you that it does get better," Leon said. Looking into his beautiful blue eyes, you knew he meant it. He closed them as he sighed. "But...I've been fighting monsters for almost nine years. I don't just mean ones like we saw in that lab. Every time I try to sleep, I fight the same battle you do."
"So you don't really deal with it, huh? You told me once that you really just train and sleep..."
"When I'm not on a mission. Yeah, I remember. I remember everything I told you." He took another deep breath. "What helps me 'deal' with it enough to sleep at all is...a bad habit that I don't recommend. You can imagine why I didn't want to tell you back then."
You gave a small nod. "Yeah, I can." A pause. "I never did get to thank you for everything you did that day. Not just you, but the others...You all did so much for me. And I couldn't even thank you. Hell, I don't even remember anyone's name but yours...That's kinda sad, isn't it? I remember they helped me and I remember the sound of their dying screams, but I can't remember their names..."
"It would be easier if we could just forget it all. That's why we can't."
Ain't that the truth?
All this talking combined with the fatigue of living started to weigh on you. Your eyelids grew heavy, refusing to stay open despite your best efforts. You couldn't fall asleep now. Your only friend was here. He might not ever be here again. Stay awake. Stay awake, dammit!
Leon witnessed your fight with your exhaustion and a little grin appeared on his face. How adorable of you to want to give up sleep to keep spending time with him. Then his memory decided to do something awful, reminding him of the last time he saw you. How you were fighting to keep your eyes open. How you were fading away in front of him and he could do nothing but hold your hand and plead for you to stay with him. How close you had come to becoming another person he met and lost on the same day. His smile disappeared. Why did his brain have to do that?
"You should get some rest," he said.
"Noooo," you whined, too tired to care how pathetic you sounded. "If I do that, you'll leave. I'm not ready for you to go. Not again."
"I'll have to leave eventually, Y/N. Your company is nice, but I can't stay with you forever."
"Then...Can you at least stay the night?"
Leon hesitated and tensed up. Such a forward question, but of course you didn't mean it in any suggestive way. It was spoken in innocent naïvety by a woman with a very lonely heart. As much as he was reluctant to admit it, a not insignificant part of him wanted to say yes. Maybe it was what remained of that innocent naive rookie he was almost a decade ago. That cop on his first day of the job, barely a man, thrust into an apocalypse that threatened to tear any hope he had into shreds. That kid still lived in him yet, and he wanted to reach for that hopeful kid fresh out of college in you, too.
He briefly excused himself from your presence without giving you an answer. You felt like the lack of an answer was answer enough, however, and once he disappeared into another room of your home, you let out a breath you didn't even realize you'd been holding. You gave up, really, because in what world could a government agent like Leon spend more than a few hours with someone like you anyway? He was important to the country, the world. You only mattered enough to save because you fell in with the wrong people. Your importance had ended when Leon took that briefcase from you.
As you adjusted yourself to lay on your sofa and finally let your eyes close, you didn't know Leon wasn't just going to leave. He went into your kitchen to check his phone to make sure he wasn't needed elsewhere. Hunnigan had sent him a few texts asking about the status of his assignment, but that was it. No new missions. No monsters threatening to destroy mankind again. No reason to take him away from you.
He replied to Hunnigan in brief, promising he would return "soon". She didn't press further, simply wishing him a good night. He set an alarm on his cell phone before sliding it back into the pocket of his jeans and heading back into your living room.
You were barely conscious then, your chest calmly rising and falling with every slow breath you took. Disturbing you now felt almost cruel, but being the gentleman he was, Leon wasn't about to leave you to fall out on your couch while he was here. After all, where would he sleep if he did leave you on the couch? Your bed? No way.
Carefully, he scooped you up into his arms and carried you towards your bedroom. You barely reacted. Did you even know he hadn't left? Well, that didn't matter. He laid you down on your bed, disappointed that whoever sent you to live here left you with just a twin-sized mattress. They really spared no expense on you, huh? You deserved a queen, or at the very least a full-sized bed for what you'd been through. Ah well. He took a moment to fluff your pillow before sliding it under your head and tucking you in.
"Sweet dreams, Y/N," he whispered, turning to leave.
You grabbed his wrist, your grip weak and lazy but the touch alone being more than enough to stop him in his tracks. He glanced over his shoulder. You looked up at him through lashes and he couldn't even tell if you really saw him given how little your eyes were opened. But you were awake enough to reach for him. That meant something.
"Leon," you murmured. "Stay with me."
His gaze shifted from your sleepy little face to the entire size of your bed. If he stayed, it would be hard to fit both of you on it at all, let alone with any space between the two of you. You'd be close. Very, very close. Which of course you knew. But you didn't care. You needed this, didn't you?
And so did he, didn't he?
There was some science or pseudoscience or something he'd heard once about the human condition. People needed a certain amount of physical contact in their lives to be able to function as normal humans. Going too long without was bad for your health. Maybe that was an excuse for public displays of affection or some bad line guys used in the bars. He didn't know. But it made some sense, in this moment...and you needed him to stay, right now.
He set his cell phone on your nightstand. You let go of him as he moved around your bed to the other side. You felt the mattress shift with his weight as he laid down beside you. It took a few moments for you both to get comfortable since, of course, a twin wouldn't allow for two people to lay side by side on their backs. You ended up on your left side, arm draped over his body while he remained on his back, your head resting near his shoulder. Why weren't you the one on your back in your own bed? It wasn't smart to question the logic of the exhausted.
As soon as you were as comfy as you could get in this situation, you were gone again, snoozing up against the only familiar thing left in your life. Your peace put Leon at ease. Maybe tonight he would be lucky enough to sleep just as peacefully. A night without nightmares. Wouldn't that be nice? The two of you, survivors, finally getting some simply restful sleep...
It would be interrupted at dawn by his alarm, however. After all...
Because it took so long for me to finish this and the chances of me writing the other version where Leon gets pinned by the boulder are slim, I'm gonna share a little bit of my ideas on that version of the story here.
Boulder would land on one of Leon's legs instead of his arm like Reader. Part of the reason for this is I wanted an injury that would be more substantial so the government would have a harder time keeping him out in the field on a leash, so to speak. They'll probably still want to throw a prosthetic on him and make him fight monsters despite how "primitive" prosthetics are compared to an actual limb, especially for the time period this would take place (roughly a year after 4Remake). Because they don't really care about the disability, they just want their weapon
Small talk for distraction would probably still happen. Reader would be very panicky because she's seen a lot of people die today and she doesn't want to see it happen again. She doesn't handle a zombie outbreak as well as playable characters in the series do. Leon would probably be the one trying to keep everyone calm despite being the one dying. He'd also tell her to do some small things for him (wipe the sweat from his brow, for example) so she won't feel so useless.
Leon would still be the one talking to Hunnigan. I don't think it would be a good idea for him to give Reader his comm device at all. Like, maybe the idea of Reader going to the rendezvous point alone would make sense and if it did then it would also make sense for Hunnigan to be able to talk to/guide her, but it doesn't work like that in my head. Reader wouldn't want to go off alone in the dangerous mountainside that might have monsters from the lab or people that work for her former employers that would do her harm for being a whistleblower. Also, the landscape already proved to be unstable. What if she wanders off and a separate boulder or rockslide got her? It's just better she stay with Leon and he be the one talking to someone who can get them help.
To be honest I think Leon would be afraid to die alone. Like of course we know Leon's a lil suicidal in general but he doesn't really want to die at all, but alone? In a setting that reminds him of Raccoon City? Yeah nah. He also wouldn't like the idea of his death leaving someone alone/without help, so I think the thing that he holds onto is that he has to stay alive for Reader, at least until help arrives and he's certain she will be safe. Her being with him gives him something to keep living for in the moment, if that makes sense. Kinda like how in one of the movies (I think) he says the main reason he didn't off himself in Raccoon City is because Sherry needed him. (I've only watched people play the games and played 4 and 8 sorry for my lack of knowledge on the other media)
I'm not sure if Reader would get closure on Leon's survival once help arrives to take her to safety and get Leon from under the boulder. The people in charge of both of them might not see the point in updating Reader on an agent's status and would leave her in the dark. Leon wouldn't be sent to check on her in witness protection in this version, either, for obvious reasons, so he wouldn't be able to find her if he wanted to. I hate that for them but it's the realistic outcome imo.
Anyway that's my thoughts on the other version of this story that I probably won't ever write because I suck.
Synopsis: People you were working for created some horrid bio-weapon. Your research contributed to its creation and you couldn't live with that on your conscience, so you managed to reach out to those who could put a stop to it at the source before it was too late. A whistleblower, in exchange for being rescued and taken somewhere safe so your employers could never seek revenge.
Leon S. Kennedy was sent on that mission, along with a few other operatives. He was the only one to make it out alive, aside from you. You were protected like someone important, carrying a case full of vital and damning information as well as your research and many samples that would prove useful should your employers manage to get their plans in motion somehow somewhere else.
Because the location of the lab was in a rough mountainous area, you and Leon had to traverse unwieldy terrain to get to the rendezvous point where a helicopter would extract you and take you both to safety. In the past, you always worried you were one sneeze away from causing a rockslide where you'd be crushed to death. It turned out nature didn't need a sneeze or your employers to cause that. A boulder came loose on its own and dropped.
Two versions of this story could happen.
In this one, you managed to shove Leon and the case out of the way before being struck. In the aftermath, your arm is trapped under the boulder, which is too heavy to be moved by Leon alone. It's not immediately fatal, but you're both smart. You know what happens if too much time passes with your arm crushed like this. You try not to panic. So does Leon. Help doesn't seem like it'll come fast enough, but you two try to stay hopeful and pass the time by talking.
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Reader is female and AFAB, because I'm that and I usually write for myself :')
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Crush Injury: "injury by an object that causes compression of the body. This form of injury is rare in normal civilian practice, but common following a natural disaster. Other causes include industrial accidents, road traffic collisions, building collapse, accidents involving heavy plant, disaster relief or terrorist incidents." [source]
Crush Syndrome: "a medical condition characterized by major shock and kidney failure after a crushing injury to skeletal muscle. A localized crush injury with systemic manifestations. Cases occur commonly in catastrophes such as earthquakes, to individuals that have been trapped under fallen or moving masonry." [source]
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
How could the sky be so clear, so blue, on a day like today?
Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just the circumstances that made it seem so.
Or maybe you never really took the time to look at the sky before.
Now you had no choice but to look up. Pinned by a boulder crushing your left arm, one you were fortunate only got you and not your briefcase and your companion. You barely managed to save both before it was too late, tossing the case away and shoving him with all the might you could muster. How only your arm got crushed was anyone's guess. But it had. The weight of the boulder was too much for one man to move, so you had no choice but to wait.
Maybe you deserved this, though.
"Talk to me, Y/N," your companion said.
His voice was calm, a far cry from the panic that consumed it after the dust settled and he found you in this position. To be fair, you'd been fairly panicked yourself, trembling from a combination of adrenaline and pain. You tried to get him to take the case and head off to the rendezvous point without you. It didn't matter if you made it out of this alive. All that mattered was what was in that briefcase, because then something could be done about your sins and you could die with a clean conscience. He refused, choosing instead to radio back to "Roost" to relay the situation and demand to know when backup would be there. Whoever was on the line must've suggested something similar to what you said, because he lost it, shouting that leaving you to die was not an option. To hell with the briefcase! It wasn't the only priority here!
No one was going to argue with him about it.
"Y/N," he said again, a hint of desperation in his tone. It was barely noticeable. You might've imagined it, or maybe not.
"Agent Kennedy," you said.
"Please," he said, "talk to me."
You took as deep a breath as you could. "I suppose I...should tell you everything I know...just in case I--"
"Not that."
He grabbed your hand with one of his while the other brushed some hair out of your face. Or tried to. It stuck to your forehead. Were you sweating? You didn't even realize.
"I don't care about that right now," he said.
"Then I...I don't know what to say," you admitted with a small smile that was more of a grimace.
"What's your favorite color?"
"What kind of--?"
"It's a question, and a conversation starter."
You couldn't deny that. It was such trivial knowledge, but what else was there to share between you if he didn't want to hear the dreadful deeds of your former employers? You and this man were perfect strangers, having just met today under terrible circumstances. You knew nothing of him, nor he of you. Well, aside from your connections to a blossoming terrorist organization. But he was willing to look past that to ask about something that might not matter by the end of the day.
So, you told him your favorite color.
His was red.
He asked about your favorite animal, movie, song, and other little things like that. You answered him and he returned the favor each time. It was all just a distraction. You knew it. He knew it. You knew he knew you knew. But it was necessary. You both knew that, too. You couldn't allow yourselves to dwell on the facts. You'd give up hope if you did.
Help was over an hour away, thanks to the terrain. It was easier to go down than come up, which was why you and Agent Kennedy were supposed to rendezvous with the helicopter elsewhere instead of it meeting you outside of your former workplace. An injury like yours wasn't immediately fatal. In fact, if you hadn't been pinned by the heavy boulder, you probably could've continued on to the evacuation location even with a decimated arm. But you couldn't have been that lucky. You had to have this happen.
You made the mistake of shifting your body and winced, biting your bottom lip to hold back the scream. It only hurt when you moved. Otherwise, you were fairly numb at this point. You just had to remember to stay still. Just stay still...
Your reaction didn't go unnoticed. The agent's eyes were locked on you right now, so he wouldn't have missed it unless he was some special kind of oblivious. He should be looking at something more important, keeping an eye out for any potential threats that made it this far from your old workplace. But he couldn't.
"How bad is it?" he asked. "The pain?"
"It only hurts if I move," you said, "and then it's just...I've never felt pain like this before, Agent Kennedy. I...can't describe it, but...I guess on a scale of 'hurt me more' to 'I feel like I'm dying', it's definitely close to the dying option."
He nodded. You're sure he's experienced more than his fair share of pain in his life, being a government agent. Your pain scale made the corners of his mouth twitch. You're glad you could amuse him, even in such terrible circumstances.
"Here." He squeezed your hand, which you just now remembered he was holding. It was strangely reassuring. "If it gets bad, squeeze as hard as you need to, okay?"
You scoffed with a roll of your eyes. "Just because I'm hurt doesn't mean I have to--"
"You won't hurt me."
The way he said it left you speechless. It wasn't that he didn't think you could hurt him. Rather, it was anything you could do to him was nothing compared to pain he'd suffered before. You couldn't imagine what that kind of existence must be like, where your tolerance for pain was so very high. What horrors had he been through before today? What haunted him? Who was he? Did he even know that?
"Thank you, Agent Kennedy."
"Leon." He caught you staring and said, "My name. It's Leon. We're past formalities."
You laughed, regretting it immediately as pain shot through your body. Leon's hand fell victim to your tight grasp as you tried to handle it without screaming or crying. Honestly, you would've been calling him by his first name this whole time if you'd known it, but such "unimportant" details were not given to you before. The government didn't think you needed to know the names of their agents or the escape plan or what would happen to you once you were secure and they had your intel.
They didn't even need you. They just needed your briefcase and its contents. You figured as much before, but it just started sinking in. Leon's employers encouraged him to leave you to your fate. You could die for all they cared.
But Leon wouldn't let them abandon you. Your life mattered to him.
Why?
"How'd we end up here?" you wondered out loud.
At first, he thought you were suffering some kind of memory problem due to your injury, but your expression erased that thought.
Leon shrugged. "This is just another Tuesday for me."
"You've been in situations like this before."
"Not exactly like this."
You paused, brow furrowed in thought. "It's...Thursday, not Tuesday."
"Really? That's the detail you wanna get hung up on?"
You tried to keep a straight face for your own sake. His snarky deadpan delivery could literally kill you. That might be a pleasant way to die, smiling as you slipped away to wherever you would go after death, if there was anything there. You gripped Leon's hand tightly as you allowed yourself to fail, letting out a small chuckle and smiling.
"Well, there's one good thing that came outta this shit," you say once you overcome the pain, the consequences of your actions. "I got to meet you. Never would've happened if I didn't sell my soul."
"I'm flattered you think meeting me was worth all this."
You were wrong, of course, but he wasn't going to tell you that. Not now. Not when you were...No. It could wait until you were rescued, until long after you were healed and not knocking on death's door. When you were fine. You would be fine.
"I didn't mean to work for bio-terrorists, you know. It wasn't...sold to me like that," you said solemnly. "It all just happened so fast. I was fresh outta college with a ton of debt...so when someone approached me with a job offer, I just...accepted it. I did look the company up and everything was...reputable, you know? It looked..."
You fell silent. This time, when you squeezed Leon's hand, it wasn't to cope with pain.
"Someone as smart as me...How could I be so dumb? Of course it was too good to be true...I should've known. I should've--"
"It's not your fault you were tricked. These guys are good at pulling the wool over your eyes," Leon said. "If Umbrella could do it for as long as they did--"
"Umbrella? Oh, that pharmaceutical company responsible for what happened to Raccoon City, right?" Leon gave a small nod. It hit you then just how bad things could've gone. "I worked for people who could lead entire cities to be...Dammit. How many lives could be gone because I was so blind, so stupid?"
"It's not your fault," Leon said again. "Even if it was...You realized your mistake and took steps to atone for it. We're here because you wanted to stop this. You're not a bad person. You're not like them."
Maybe he was right. Still, it didn't take away the guilt suddenly overwhelming you. Your stomach churned. You thought you might hurl but you couldn't. Another wave of pain washed over you, but it wasn't from your crushed arm this time. You wished it was. It'd be easier to shrug off then.
Eyelids grew heavy. Not a good sign. You couldn't go to sleep now. Too risky. Leon knew you were getting drowsy when your grip on his hand began to grow slack. He quickly checked in with "Roost" for an update on the backup. They were still so far away...
"I'm sorry," you said.
"Keep your eyes open." It came out like an order, sharp and demanding and even a bit harsh.
"Leon, I'm trying."
"Try harder."
Tears welled up in your eyes, choking your voice a little as you tried to keep them from falling. You couldn't cry. It would affect your breathing and heartbeat, and those things needed to remain calm and constant right now. You swallowed hard. It didn't help.
"Is this...something that happens a lot?" you asked. "In your line of work, do you...often lose people, like you have today?"
Leon said nothing. That was fine. It was a difficult question. A personal one. Classified. He probably couldn't answer you, even if he wanted to. You thought of the other agents that were on this mission. There were five of them that came with Leon. Their faces you could barely remember. Their last names were somewhere in your memory that you couldn't reach right now. The ones that had the chance to make noise before they died...Their death throes would haunt you forever, you thought. As would the bodies hitting the floor. A couple of them rose again, only to be shot in the head by Leon or one of the other agents who was still alive then.
The sound of gunshots still rang so clearly in your head. You didn't think your thoughts would ever be silent again. An echo chamber of bangs and screams as the soundtrack of the haunting movie of the undead and dying that kept playing on repeat.
You turned your gaze to the bluest sky. It was darker now...No. It was just harder to see. It was harder to see anything. Harder to keep your eyes open.
"Yeah," Leon said. So many silent seconds had passed that you almost forgot you asked him something. You glanced over at him, enraptured by a different shade of blue now. "I've...had people who died the same day I met them...more often than anyone should. It's been constant ever since I--"
He stopped himself suddenly, brow furrowed as he looked away from you. Should he tell you? The ramifications if you survived this and it got out to anyone, then...No. They wouldn't hurt him. He was too valuable a weapon. However, they might decide you know too much and make your survival mean nothing.
He shook his head. "I can't go into details. For your safety."
Should you survive this, you read between the lines.
"Let's just say...I didn't choose this job. I was forced into it because I survived something a lot of people didn't." He squeezed your hand without realizing he was doing it. He couldn't look you in the eye as he spoke. "I've seen too many people I couldn't save in these past eight years. Today isn't any different."
"A typical Tuesday," you whispered.
Leon's smile was grim. "On a Thursday."
"Eight years of fighting monsters," you said thoughtfully. "...and seeing people die...How do you deal with that? Do you just...grow numb to it over time?"
"No, never. And I don't really 'deal' with it. If I'm not fighting, I'm busy sleeping or training for the next battle. It never ends."
"It never ends?"
Leon shook his head. "Every time I think it's over, another monster decides to mess with viruses or parasites or what have you to try to create some B.O.W. and I'm being shipped out to clean up their shit. When one monster falls, another steps up to take their place."
"So what we did today...means nothing? All the death...the pain...my fucking arm...It's all for nothing?"
These were the kind of thoughts that sent Leon to the bottom of a bottle of hard liquor. That was the real way he "dealt" with his issues when he wasn't fighting or training or passing out from exhaustion. You didn't need to know that, though. What you needed right now was hope.
But could he give that to you?
"It's not for nothing," he said slowly, carefully. "It would be worse if this shit went unchecked at the same time that someone else is playing mad scientist in their basement. If we didn't eliminate the problems as we learned of them, then we'd have been fucked long ago. You have no idea how bad it would be. I don't either, and honestly, I don't want to know. I already have enough nightmares. So it does mean something. It just doesn't always seem like it."
Was he just trying to comfort you? Maybe. Maybe he was lying to you and himself just so you wouldn't go out believing everything you did was a waste of life, a waste of time and effort. You tried not to think about it. Thought was getting harder, anyway.
"Hey, Y/N, you can't sleep now," Leon said. Both of his hands were on yours, holding on tightly like you'd slip right through his fingers if his grip was too loose. "C'mon, lemme see those pretty eyes."
"I'm...trying."
"I know you are. I know."
If you could see clearly with eyes wide open, you'd see his professional facade beginning to crack. You weren't the only one holding back tears. And it wasn't just because of you. In your place, there had been others. Elliot Edward. Marvin Branagh. Luis Serra-Navarro. Their faces flashed in his mind. They were with him when something or someone decided their lives had to end. Zombies, tearing them in half or fatally biting them. A disillusioned former comrade who fell in with a cult organization in an attempt to find purpose again. He couldn't save them.
And now, he can't save you.
"What do you want to do when we're finally out of here?"
Your sudden question snapped him out of his own thoughts. "When we're...?"
"Once we're safe," you said, "what's the first thing you want to do?"
"What? Why?"
"I'll probably have to...stay in the hospital for a while and you'll have to report to your superiors. We won't be seeing each other again for some time, if ever again...But...let's pretend. What's the first thing you want to do?"
"...I don't know. I'd probably be sent away on another mission before I get the chance to enjoy it."
"That's not what I asked."
Leon sighed, taking a second to indulge in a fantasy world where he no longer had to fight bio-terrorism. No more monsters or viruses and parasites that created monsters. No more constantly being surrounded by death. No more being treated like a weapon instead of a person, a human being. God, what would he want to do...?
"Vacation," he finally said.
"Where to?"
"Somewhere warm and sunny. Maybe a beach by the sea."
"Sounds nice...What would you do there?"
"Nothing. Just sit back, relax, and sleep."
"That's it?"
"You asked what the first thing I'd want to do was. That'd be it. A relaxing vacation. The more fun and exciting things can wait. I need some serious R&R."
This wasn't news. The dark bags under his eyes told you enough about the restless nights he suffered. You couldn't imagine what his nightmares must be like, given all the horrors he'd witnessed as an agent. Even your brief exposure to such terror could never compare, and you knew if you lived through this you'd never sleep well again. He must keep going until his body won't let him anymore, whether it be from exhaustion or alcohol.
"What about you?"
"First thing I'd want to do...Watch the sunrise...or sunset, depending on the time."
"That's it?" Leon threw your words back at you, which made you smile. How dare you have the audacity to judge his beach vacation when all you wanted was to watch the sun enter or exit the sky!
"I know, I know. It's...not much, but...I haven't seen one since coming here. Whenever I came to or left the lab, it was...night. I only ever saw the sun through a window in the restroom. It might as well not exist." You let out the ghost of a sigh, too worn out for a real sigh to escape. "Seeing it rise or set...Proof it's still real...That's what I want."
The saddest smile appeared on Leon's face. Such a simple thing, but he understood. One of his hands moved to cup your face. His thumb wiped away some tears that managed to fall without you noticing. You hardly felt his touch. You couldn't feel the tears in any way.
Before either of you could speak again, backup arrived. An hour had gone by already, filled with an exchange of trivial information and something akin to a heart-to-heart. You braced yourself for what was going to happen. The agents, with a couple of medics among them, moved in with equipment designed for such situations. Leon reluctantly released your hand and stepped back. There wasn't much he could do now.
"Take the briefcase to the rendezvous point," his handler said over the radio.
"Hunnigan, I can't--"
"I know you don't want to leave her, Leon," she said.
There was some sympathy in her voice, for the first time since your accident. Using his first name was something she only did when she was either worried or being a human instead of a handler.
"The others will take good care of her. Even if she doesn't..." She trailed off for a moment. "Y/N will be coming with you. But we must secure that briefcase, Leon. It's what she wants, isn't it?"
Leon sighed. He had nothing left to say. Sparing one more glance at you, he retrieved your damned briefcase. One of the agents separated from the rescue to accompany him to the helicopter. The distance would be so short this way, yet he felt heavier, slow. Time crawled as he left another person to die.
He was so fucking sick of this.
You didn't notice his departure. Someone gave you something to chomp down on before they began moving the boulder. You weakly bit into it, your cries of pain muffled against the leather. At least you wouldn't be haunted by your own screams if you survived this, and Leon wouldn't have to hear it, either. You hoped, anyway.
The bluest sky faded into static, which faded into darkness. Would it be the last time you saw the sky?
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Months later, with a new name and a new identity and a new life you're still getting used to, you don't expect to recognize anyone or be recognized by anyone who once knew you. Everything you know you've been taken from, uprooted and replanted elsewhere in the country far away. You don't even have the same hair color. Every time you look in the mirror, you feel like you're looking at a stranger.
But the stranger is becoming more familiar with every day. She has to. After all, the person you once were is, for all intents and purposes, dead and gone.
The story that made it to the news was so simple. An accident in the lab you worked in, which resulted in the complete loss of the facility and everything and everyone inside it. You knew the truth, of course. The building was destroyed by a cleanup crew following your extraction with the other agents. Technically speaking, as far as names were concerned, Agent Kennedy was the only person to make it out of that lab alive. No one would ever know he was there, though.
You haven't seen Agent Kennedy since you were still trapped by the boulder. Chances are you'll never see him again. That almost saddens you more than the loss of your left arm...
Yeah, they had to amputate that to save your life. You figured it would happen, considering how long it was being crushed. Getting used to having one arm on top of all the new things about your life wasn't easy, to say the least. But it could be worse. You could be in prison for working for bio-terrorists. You could've been found out by your former employers and subjected to whatever punishment they saw fit to inflict upon you. You could've actually died.
Some nights, you wish you had.
At least in death you probably wouldn't be having all these nightmares. No, not just nightmares. Memories. You probably wouldn't be reliving the horrors of that day over and over. Rewatching old colleagues taking their final breaths. Hearing their death throes. The visions of the walking, murderous dead. The echoes of ghastly, monstrous snarls. The rescue squad being killed twice, except the one. The overwhelming, unending fear.
You realized you were zoning out in line at a fastfood restaurant when a fellow customer rudely snapped at you, in turn snapping you out of your thoughts. You sheepishly apologized before placing and paying for your order. Then you stood off to the side to wait, trying to make yourself as small as possible. How could you let that happen? God, that was embarrassing.
The man who shouted at you kept glaring as you both waited for your food. You wished he wouldn't. At most, you inconvenienced him for a minute or two. Irritating, yes, but not worth getting pissed off enough to intimidate someone who was clearly uncomfortable and ashamed without the extra attention.
Just as it looks like he might say something, someone else moved in, effectively becoming a wall between the two of you. This person was closer to you than to the guy, however, which only made you more anxious. You just wanted dinner. Why did that have to go so wrong?
"You okay, Y/F/N?" your wall asked.
Wait. You recognized that voice.
You took a good look at the man's face, eyes widening. That blond hair, short and soft and pretty. Those blue eyes, just like the bluest sky you saw that day you nearly died. That stoic expression on the most handsome face you swore you've ever seen.
Leon Kennedy.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine," you said a little too quickly, giving him an awkward smile. "Just...losing myself in public is all. Making a fool of myself, as usual."
"Or some people just don't have patience," he said, and while his head remained facing you, his eyes shifted in the direction of the customer who had been about to make a scene. The man looked very uncomfortable, less confident now that a well-built man was with you.
"What are you doing here?" you asked.
"Visiting a friend," he replied.
A friend? He couldn't mean you, could he? No, you met once before this and it was one of the worst days of your life. Maybe it was a cover story. Maybe he was here for work. A mission. Someone in the area was doing something they shouldn't and he was here to stop them. Right. That had to be it.
Then again, Leon was dressed rather casually for a man on such a dangerous mission. You didn't expect him to be in tactical gear in public, of course, but...
Your order was ready before you could think about it any further. You awkwardly brushed past Leon to get it from the counter, struggling a bit to carry the fastfood tray with your only hand and arm. It was something you were learning to cope with, so you didn't want any help. You hoped the others watching you would respect that.
At least the one person you cared about in that restaurant seemed to understand. He also didn't gawk at you, the one-armed woman, which couldn't be said for most of the others. God forbid a person with a visible disability do anything.
Leon sat at a table near yours, not about to assume he was free to join you without permission. The two of you ate your food in silence. You wondered how much his life had changed these past few months. Certainly not nearly as much as yours. What was it he said? The day you first met was "a typical Tuesday" for him. So, it couldn't have affected him too much. Well, not any more than any of the other missions he'd had as an agent.
He was the only familiar thing in your life right now, and he wasn't even that familiar. Was he even supposed to be here? You began to doubt he was in the area for a mission. He seemed too relaxed and casual for that. You got the impression from the little time you spent with him that he'd prefer to get the job done as soon as possible. Unless he was already done with the mission and was refueling afterwards, this wouldn't help him with that.
You realized after a moment that he said your name. Your new name. He was looking at you out of the corner of his eye. You watched as he pulled something out of the pocket of his jacket, moved his hand under the table, and then stealthily maneuvered it towards you. A slip of paper? You took it in your hand and looked at it.
It told you what he couldn't say right now. He was "asked" to come here to check up on you. So, you were the friend he was visiting after all. Knowing this didn't make you as happy as you thought it would. The government sending a "familiar" face to see how you were coping with your new life was just...wasteful of Leon's time, and rude to you. How dare they do this to you. How dare they do this to Leon.
You took a deep breath, forcing yourself to smile as you tried to relax. There was nothing you could do. You had to comply. That was what you had to do to survive in this new life. It was the choice you made when you decided to expose your former employers for the terrorists they were. You crumpled the slip of paper and shoved it in your pocket before turning towards Leon.
"Hey," you said. "After we're done here, do you wanna come over to my place? I mean, if you're not busy."
"Yeah, I'd like that," he replied. He didn't smile, and if you could read his mind, you'd know he hated how fake the one you were wearing looked. That was a mistake on your part. Despite the circumstances of your meeting, he had gotten to see the real deal and knew what was missing, and that wasn't even going into how much of an expert he himself had become at faking smiles...
You both finished your meals shortly after this short exchange. Leon offered to drive you back to your home. Admittedly you didn't feel like walking back. As usual since the incident, you were exhausted. By what? Anything and everything. You wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep.
If only sleep wasn't plagued with those horrid nightmares...
Neither you nor Leon said anything while you were in his rented car. You didn't even have to tell him where you lived. They must've given him that information before they sent him to you. Maybe he stopped by here before going to the fastfood place where he found you. How had he known you were going to be at that restaurant, anyway? Were they keeping that close an eye on you?
He opened your door, like a gentleman. You led the way into your modest apartment, kicking off your shoes once you were inside. He followed your lead, though you weren't sure why. Did he plan on staying long? Wasn't he just going to see how you were doing and then be on his way? Maybe he just didn't want to be rude. If you were taking your shoes off at the door, he should do the same, right? At least he was mindful and wouldn't track the outdoors all over your cheap carpet.
Now you were just standing there awkwardly, unsure how to proceed with this. Leon was just as lost.
"What do you need from me, Agent Kennedy?" you finally asked.
"Y/N," he said. "It's Leon. We're past formalities, remember?"
The use of your real name caught you off-guard. The people who assigned you your new identity made you memorize every detail, drilling into you how important it was to only think of yourself as this new person. It was for your safety. To hear that name after so long, and from him no less...
"I'm sorry." Your voice was shakier than you wanted. You cringed and covered your face with your hands...No, hand. Right. "Leon. I...I don't know how to go about this. I'm sorry."
"That's okay. This is a first for me, too," he said. He gestured to your sofa. "Why don't we start by getting comfy?"
The sofa wasn't actually that comfortable. The government didn't really put people in witness protection in the best of homes with the best of furnishings. But that wasn't the point. The point was Leon was the closest thing you had to a friend. You took a seat on the left side of the sofa. Leon sat on the right. There was little space between you, but enough that you weren't touching.
It felt like he was actually sitting as far from you as he could without making it obvious. He didn't want to intrude or make you uncomfortable. Well, he figured that ship sailed the moment he admitted why he was here. He couldn't imagine what it was like to be in your shoes. Despite everything he'd been through, he at the very least still had his name, maybe even his identity if he could get past the trauma. You, though? You didn't even have that.
"Right. How do we start this?" he wondered out loud.
"I thought you would know. Didn't they tell you?" you asked.
"I must've left the script in my other jacket, sorry," he said.
You rolled your eyes with a tiny snort. His wit. That was one of the things about him you never forgot from the short time you spent with him. You missed it more than you thought you could. You missed him more than you thought you could miss anyone you knew for so little time, too.
"Did you do something with your hair?"
That got a full-blown snort out of you. Your hand flew over your mouth the moment you heard it, hiding your stupid little smile. God, it was such a dumb question and yet you...God, now your face was so warm. How embarrassing.
"Uh, yeah, I guess I did," you said, muffled by your hand and looking away. You couldn't bring yourself to see what he thought of your reaction to the question. Closing your eyes, you let your hand fall back to your lap. "Not sure I like it, though...But I already paid half the price for it, so."
"Half the price?"
"Well, yeah. The salon said it would cost me an arm and a leg for it, and well..."
The silence that followed your feeble attempt at a joke made you question why you even bothered surviving your crush injury.
"That...That was awful," Leon said after a moment.
"Thanks, Captain Obvious."
"I mean, really, I've said some dumb one-liners in my life, but that--"
"Leon, please, just let it go--"
"Sorry, just...How did that even--?"
You really wished you just perished on that mountain right about now. Would've saved you so much trouble in so many ways, and more importantly it would've kept you from making such a fool of yourself in front of Leon that you just wanted to disappear into the sofa. Could the earth just open up and swallow you whole right now? Please?!
"Well, anyway, if you're able to make such a shitty joke about your arm, I guess you can't be doing that bad," Leon said.
You weren't sure you agreed with that assessment, but it was certainly a way to look at it. Leon let you be, watching you calm down from your self-induced shame with a small smile. Despite his teasing, you couldn't help but find his presence calming, and slowly you relaxed until you were no longer hiding behind your hand or trying to disappear into the furniture. You shifted a bit to make yourself more comfortable and he did the same, resting both arms along the back of your sofa.
He started asking questions about you and your new life. How did you like your new home? What did you do for fun? Have you made any friends? Were your neighbors nice? Not everything seemed related to his assignment, and when you asked him about his life, he answered you as honestly as he could. You hadn't expected this to be an actual conversation, but it was a pleasant surprise.
He didn't judge you for your struggles. Of course you had nightmares and rarely left your home unless you had to. How could you rest easy given what you went through? Of course it was hard to make friends or get to know others. How could you trust people when your entire life was now lies and you could never really be honest with anyone? Of course nothing was easy. How could it be? How could it ever be? How could life ever get easier?
"I wish I could help you, Y/N. I wish I could tell you that it does get better," Leon said. Looking into his beautiful blue eyes, you knew he meant it. He closed them as he sighed. "But...I've been fighting monsters for almost nine years. I don't just mean ones like we saw in that lab. Every time I try to sleep, I fight the same battle you do."
"So you don't really deal with it, huh? You told me once that you really just train and sleep..."
"When I'm not on a mission. Yeah, I remember. I remember everything I told you." He took another deep breath. "What helps me 'deal' with it enough to sleep at all is...a bad habit that I don't recommend. You can imagine why I didn't want to tell you back then."
You gave a small nod. "Yeah, I can." A pause. "I never did get to thank you for everything you did that day. Not just you, but the others...You all did so much for me. And I couldn't even thank you. Hell, I don't even remember anyone's name but yours...That's kinda sad, isn't it? I remember they helped me and I remember the sound of their dying screams, but I can't remember their names..."
"It would be easier if we could just forget it all. That's why we can't."
Ain't that the truth?
All this talking combined with the fatigue of living started to weigh on you. Your eyelids grew heavy, refusing to stay open despite your best efforts. You couldn't fall asleep now. Your only friend was here. He might not ever be here again. Stay awake. Stay awake, dammit!
Leon witnessed your fight with your exhaustion and a little grin appeared on his face. How adorable of you to want to give up sleep to keep spending time with him. Then his memory decided to do something awful, reminding him of the last time he saw you. How you were fighting to keep your eyes open. How you were fading away in front of him and he could do nothing but hold your hand and plead for you to stay with him. How close you had come to becoming another person he met and lost on the same day. His smile disappeared. Why did his brain have to do that?
"You should get some rest," he said.
"Noooo," you whined, too tired to care how pathetic you sounded. "If I do that, you'll leave. I'm not ready for you to go. Not again."
"I'll have to leave eventually, Y/N. Your company is nice, but I can't stay with you forever."
"Then...Can you at least stay the night?"
Leon hesitated and tensed up. Such a forward question, but of course you didn't mean it in any suggestive way. It was spoken in innocent naïvety by a woman with a very lonely heart. As much as he was reluctant to admit it, a not insignificant part of him wanted to say yes. Maybe it was what remained of that innocent naive rookie he was almost a decade ago. That cop on his first day of the job, barely a man, thrust into an apocalypse that threatened to tear any hope he had into shreds. That kid still lived in him yet, and he wanted to reach for that hopeful kid fresh out of college in you, too.
He briefly excused himself from your presence without giving you an answer. You felt like the lack of an answer was answer enough, however, and once he disappeared into another room of your home, you let out a breath you didn't even realize you'd been holding. You gave up, really, because in what world could a government agent like Leon spend more than a few hours with someone like you anyway? He was important to the country, the world. You only mattered enough to save because you fell in with the wrong people. Your importance had ended when Leon took that briefcase from you.
As you adjusted yourself to lay on your sofa and finally let your eyes close, you didn't know Leon wasn't just going to leave. He went into your kitchen to check his phone to make sure he wasn't needed elsewhere. Hunnigan had sent him a few texts asking about the status of his assignment, but that was it. No new missions. No monsters threatening to destroy mankind again. No reason to take him away from you.
He replied to Hunnigan in brief, promising he would return "soon". She didn't press further, simply wishing him a good night. He set an alarm on his cell phone before sliding it back into the pocket of his jeans and heading back into your living room.
You were barely conscious then, your chest calmly rising and falling with every slow breath you took. Disturbing you now felt almost cruel, but being the gentleman he was, Leon wasn't about to leave you to fall out on your couch while he was here. After all, where would he sleep if he did leave you on the couch? Your bed? No way.
Carefully, he scooped you up into his arms and carried you towards your bedroom. You barely reacted. Did you even know he hadn't left? Well, that didn't matter. He laid you down on your bed, disappointed that whoever sent you to live here left you with just a twin-sized mattress. They really spared no expense on you, huh? You deserved a queen, or at the very least a full-sized bed for what you'd been through. Ah well. He took a moment to fluff your pillow before sliding it under your head and tucking you in.
"Sweet dreams, Y/N," he whispered, turning to leave.
You grabbed his wrist, your grip weak and lazy but the touch alone being more than enough to stop him in his tracks. He glanced over his shoulder. You looked up at him through lashes and he couldn't even tell if you really saw him given how little your eyes were opened. But you were awake enough to reach for him. That meant something.
"Leon," you murmured. "Stay with me."
His gaze shifted from your sleepy little face to the entire size of your bed. If he stayed, it would be hard to fit both of you on it at all, let alone with any space between the two of you. You'd be close. Very, very close. Which of course you knew. But you didn't care. You needed this, didn't you?
And so did he, didn't he?
There was some science or pseudoscience or something he'd heard once about the human condition. People needed a certain amount of physical contact in their lives to be able to function as normal humans. Going too long without was bad for your health. Maybe that was an excuse for public displays of affection or some bad line guys used in the bars. He didn't know. But it made some sense, in this moment...and you needed him to stay, right now.
He set his cell phone on your nightstand. You let go of him as he moved around your bed to the other side. You felt the mattress shift with his weight as he laid down beside you. It took a few moments for you both to get comfortable since, of course, a twin wouldn't allow for two people to lay side by side on their backs. You ended up on your left side, arm draped over his body while he remained on his back, your head resting near his shoulder. Why weren't you the one on your back in your own bed? It wasn't smart to question the logic of the exhausted.
As soon as you were as comfy as you could get in this situation, you were gone again, snoozing up against the only familiar thing left in your life. Your peace put Leon at ease. Maybe tonight he would be lucky enough to sleep just as peacefully. A night without nightmares. Wouldn't that be nice? The two of you, survivors, finally getting some simply restful sleep...
It would be interrupted at dawn by his alarm, however. After all...
This doesn't matter to anyone but me, but because I played these two a lot last night, they've become linked in my head.
Like Vee Boonyasak (lady on the right) is too good/pure/some bs like that for Myers to want to kill. And she's not that terribly scared of him. And maybe she shares her love of music with him.
Also she's like super high energy compared to his...Myers-ness, you know? Kinda opposites, but because of my player choices she's now like a little sister to him in my head, and unlike Judith and Laurie he doesn't want/feel like killing this one.
Anyway, I'm gonna go back to grinding DBD now, though I have to play Cheryl and maybe Pyramid Head because they got missions related to them due to that horrible-looking Silent Hill 2 movie coming out XP
Other Survivors and Killers linked positively in my mind because I was playing them or got them around the same time as each other:
Rin Yamaoka (The Spirit) and Leon S. Kennedy
Nemesis and Cheryl Mason
Rin was my original Killer main and Leon is...Leon XD
I got Nemmy and Cheryl around the same time and used to level them up equally because I liked the idea of Cheryl having a large monstrous friend/protector. I think the movies had something like that with Pyramid Head, but I've never seen them.
Every night when I close my eyes, I destroy the world.
Every morning when I awaken, I recreate it from memory.
But my memory is far from perfect, so the world is never exactly the same twice.
Every night, I destroy the world.
Every morning, I save it.
Have you ever felt yourself fading away into someone's memory?
The agony of desperately reaching out, of trying to hold onto them because you don't want them to leave you, to become a memory to you.
The pain of reaching out with shaky hands and quivering lips, wishing you could retract your claws and hide your fangs because you don't want to hurt them, you just don't want to lose them, and the urge to sink your teeth into them and not let go is so strong that this is all you can manage.
You don't want them to see you like this, so as desperate as you are, you retreat to solitude. It's easier to convince yourself you're just a memory if you keep your claws to yourself. Don't reach out. If they want you, they'll reach for you.
Have you ever let yourself suffer a self-fulfilling prophecy?
