summary: danteâs armour is laughter, but his kisses tell the truth in every language his mouth refuses to speak
word count: 2,016
content: dante x gn!reader, stream of consciousness, fluff, hurt/comfort, established relationship, kissing, yearning, emotional intimacy, jealousy, mild possessiveness, mentions of blood and injury, dante being emotionally constipated but trying his best
a/n: i have nothing to say for myself actually. i need to kiss him so bad.
companion piece to to be loved
(cross-posted from ao3)
Dante kisses you in more ways than he knows how to name because naming anything has always been the dangerous part. A kiss can still be passed off as impulse, appetite, poor judgement, something that happened because you were close and the whiskey had loosened the bolt on whatever door he keeps barred inside himself. Saying I need you, or I missed you, or sometimes I look at you and understand why people build homes instead of escape routes would require him to stand still long enough for the old ghosts to find him.
So he kisses you instead.
He kisses you laughing when you steal the last slice of pizza, one hand hooked around your waist while the other tries to wrestle the box back from you, his mouth crooked against yours because neither of you can stop smiling. He complains into the kiss that theft is a serious crime, sweetheart, especially when a man is starving. He lets you keep it anyway, of course he does. He always lets you keep the last good thing, even when he pretends to fight you for it.
He kisses you lazily on the couch with some terrible film bleeding blue light across the walls, his boots on the table, your legs over his lap, his thumb drawing thoughtless circles against your knee until he leans over the middle of a ridiculous line and presses his mouth to yours as though he has only just remembered you are there; as though your presence has surprised him, despite the fact that his body has been arranged around yours all evening. These kisses are slow, almost sleepy, flavoured by cheap beer or strawberry syrup or the olives he swore he picked off the pizza. The sort of kiss that begins without urgency and deepens slowly until the film becomes noise and the room seems to fold itself around the two of you, until his hand slides into your hair and something in his breathing changes. You realise Dante has forgotten to perform; forgotten the grin and the swagger and the smart remark waiting behind his teeth. Then he notices the silence growing to honest between you and murmurs something idiotic about your taste in cinema before you kiss him again to spare you both.
He kisses you in doorways when he is leaving for a job, quick and bright and careless on purpose. Two fingers lift your chin, his mouth brushing yours with a grin that says he will be back before dinner even when you both know that the job is worse than Morrison admitted, even when Rebellion sits heavy across his back and Ebony and Ivory wait beneath his coat, even when there is a particular tension in his shoulders that appears only when he understands the odds and has decided not to tell you. Sometimes you catch his jacket before he can turn away and pull him back for another, slower kiss. One that does not permit jokes, one that tells him you knowâyou always know. For a moment, his forehead rests against yours, his breath warm upon your face, his eyes closed as though he cannot bear to look at the expression that you're wearing and then he says, soft enough to bruise you, hey, I always come back. You hate that always is a word built to tempt the universe, you hate the jaunty little salute he gives you as he leaves, hate the empty hours that follow, hate yourself most of all for listening to his footsteps fade and believing him.
He kisses you when he returns with blood dried black beneath his collar and rents in his shirt already knitting closed. He kisses you before you can decide whether to strike him or hold him, his hands coming up around your face with startling care while you are still saying his name like an accusation. His mouth lands on yours hard, almost clumsy, relief stripped of every joke, every defence, every easy layer of him. You feel in the force of it the confession he will not make, that there was a moment out there when the blade went through him, or the building came down, or the world opened its red mouth beneath his feet, and he thought of you. Not heroically, not as inspiration. He thought of your coffee cooling beside the sink, your shoes near his door, your voice complaining that he never replaces the toilet paper. The mundane little relics of life he has somehow been permitted to enter. The fear of never seeing them again frightened him more than Hell ever managed.
He kisses you after arguments with all the frustration neither of you can fit into words. When you tell him that healing does not make pain imaginary, that surviving is not the same thing as being safe, that throwing himself between you and every danger in creation does not mean he gets to leave you standing outside the locked rooms of his mind. He paces and snaps and makes some bitter joke about emotional growth being above his pay grade until you tell him to stop, just stop, Dante. The room changes because you have found the wound beneath the comedy and his face goes blank in the way it does when he has nowhere left to retreat. Sometimes he kisses you then, crossing the space between you like a man losing a war, one hand at the back of your neck and the other gripping your hip as if he needs proof you are solid and warm and real, that you are still here despite having seen the ugliest machinery inside him. The kiss tastes faintly of anger and shame and desperate gratitude, his teeth catching your lip, his breath breaking against your cheek. You know this is not an apology, but it is the closest he can come while his pride is still bleeding.
He kisses your forehead when you are ill, though he insists this is only a highly advanced diagnostic technique. He says the fever seems serious and he may have to prescribe two sundaes and a complete ban on responsibility. His mouth lingers against your skin long after the joke has finished, his palm spread over your temple, his expression unguarded because your eyes are closed and he thinks you cannot see him.
He kisses your knuckles when he is being insufferable, bowing over your hand with all the exaggerated grandeur of a disgraced prince in a filthy red coat, asking whether you might grant a humble devil hunter the great honour of buying him dinner. Sometimes the comedy falls away before he lifts his head and his lips rest over the pulse in your hand, and there is something ancient in his face then, something inherited from a father who crossed worlds for love and a mother who stood between monsters and her children, something that makes you wonder whether Dante fears tenderness because it feels too much like prophecy.
He kisses your scars with none of his usual noise, whether they came from demons or ordinary life, whether they are pale and old or still tender at the edges. He never calls them beautiful because he knows pain does not become holy simply because it healed. He never tells you they made you stronger, as though you should thank the thing that hurt you. He only presses his lips there, gentle enough to make your throat close, and holds you as if the body in his hands is not fragile but precious. Which is worse somehow, worse because Dante is so careless with his own flesh and so reverent with yours.
He kisses you when he is jealous, though he will deny jealousy until his dying breath. He appears at your shoulder with an arm sliding around your waist and a bright, lazy hey, babe for the benefit of whoever has been standing too close, then brushes his mouth against your temple as though affection has just occurred to him spontaneously except his grip tightens when you laugh and tell him he is ridiculous. Later, when you are alone, he kisses you against the nearest wall with a low sound in his throat, half amusement and half something rougher, something territorial he usually keeps leashed because you belong to no one, because that is why he loves you. Even in the heat of it, he waits for your hands to pull him closer before allowing hunger to overtake restraint.
He kisses you when he is afraid, and those are the rarest kisses of all. The ones that do not look like fear until you understand him, until you realise that Dante becomes quieter when terror is real. The jokes stop not because he has nothing to say, but because every possible word sounds too much like a plea. When you are hurt and the blood on his gloves belongs to you, when his healing cannot help and all his impossible strength has become useless beside the mortal rhythm stumbling beneath his fingers, he bends over you and kisses your mouth as though he can breathe life directly into you. C'mon, stay with me he whispers against your lips, his forehead pressed to yours. There is no flourish left in him then, no legendary Son of Sparda, no demon hunter who laughs when swords pierce his chest. Only a frightened man who has arrived too late before and cannot survive becoming that boy again.
He kisses you in sleep sometimes, or near enough to it, when consciousness has loosened his grip upon himself and his body turns towards yours without permission. His arm lies heavy across your waist, his mouth finding your shoulder, your nape, the curve behind your ear. Small, unconscious kisses that ask for nothing and reveal everything. Awake, Dante can turn affection into theatre. Sleeping, Dante knows only warmth, safety, yours, and curls around you with his body between you and the world as if protection is not a decision but a reflex written into his bones.
He kisses you hello after hours apart as though it has been weeks, catches you around the middle and lifts you just enough to make you curse at him, laughing into your mouth while you clutch his shoulders. He kisses you goodbye as though goodbye is a harmless word, as though it has not chased him through every chapter of his life. Sometimes his hand remains tangled with yours after the kiss ends and, for one suspended second, neither of you moves. The whole world waits outside the door with its teeth bared and you feel him consider staying, you feel the desire pass through him like weather, fierce and almost painful. Then duty wins again.
But the kiss that ruins you most is never the dramatic one, never the bloodied reunion or the desperate collision against a wall. It is the kiss he gives you when nothing is wrong, when there is no demon at the door and no argument between you and no wound demanding proof that you are both alive. When morning has found him rumpled in your bed and sunlight has caught the silver of his hair and he looks at you without needing to turn the moment into a joke. His fingers brush your cheek and his mouth settles over yours with aching patience, not taking, not teasing, not apologising, simply loving you. You feel how difficult this gentleness is for him, how courageously he has chosen it. Battle has always been easy, leaving has always been easier, but the simple act of remaining beside you when no catastrophe forces his hand is perhaps the bravest thing Dante has ever done. So you kiss him back slowly, carefully, answering a question he has spent his whole life pretending not to ask. When he finally pulls away, he keeps his eyes closed for another breath, smiling faintly, almost disbelievingly, like a man who has fought his way through Hell and found, to his astonishment, that someone left the light on for when he came home.
@t1track - tagged as requested my darling đ€
All rights reserved. Please do not repost, copy, translate, plagiarise, or feed my work into AI. Reblogs are deeply appreciated; reposts are not permitted.
knight!dante x princess!reader. cw: mentions of childbirth with very few descriptors. romantic, the process naming a child, implied age gap. | wc: 1.5k
You labored through the night to welcome this countryâs future queen.
Through the ferocity of contractions, pains so excruciating no more experienced woman who had done the same thing six times over could have ever prepared you for no matter how hard she tried, the blood, the tears, the screams, you made it to the other side.Â
Now, you rest and Dante, the man you love so dearly, has taken control of the room just as he used to on the battlefield.
The light of dawn filters in through parted curtains, the sun rising over the kingdom that this girl who is no larger than the length of his forearm will someday roar over. Her lungs are certainly going to be up for the job if her grand entrance into the world gave everyone a preview, similar to yours as you bellowed the cries of pain that broke the heart of the man pacing across the expanse of the large window that gives a stunning view of the courtyard.
For all the understandable fuss the two of you made, silence is what now rules in the quarters of the new parents. Not a midwife remains; the man who vowed himself your protector before he was granted the honor of being your husband sent any nurses that lingered away, wishing for privacy after your condition was confirmed to be stable and okay.
The ordeal of childbirth was illuminating for both of you in different ways. It reminded him just how strong you are and have always been despite the terror that ripped through him upon seeing you in such a state, a shock to the man who used to wade knee deep through blood and death, even administering much of it himself.Â
He never wants to see hurt or suffering. Itâs why he has periodically checked on you for hours, shifting from the chair by the bed to sitting on the other side of it cradling the littlest thing heâs ever held to pacing around to placing the baby in her bassinet and kneeling beside you, simply watching.Â
How can he sleep when he has two things to look over now?Â
Perhaps this has all been part of your plan since you decided you loved him, keeping him busy for the rest of his days even at his age. Shaking his head, amused, he looks down at the face of his daughter. He sees himself, most prominently in what appears to be blue eyes when theyâre actually open, but he sees you in everything else. Nose, lips, and hair, sheâs all you, the second coming of the kingdomâs delight.
Lucky girl.
âYou put your mother through quite the fight, rosebud,â he mutters softly to the beautiful, soft thing in his arms.
From the ornate bed he hears a tired laugh, turning to see you propped halfway up with your hand cupping your face.
âRosebud, eh? Sounds as though she already has you wrapped around that little finger.â
Your voice is raspy, unused for hours until now to the breathtaking sight before you â your daughter and her father bathed in the golden sunlightâs glow. The downy hair atop her head looks the same color as yours when the light shines on it, a crown to mirror the one she will someday wear.
Emotion overwhelms you yet you swallow, remembering that you are regal and unflappable even when faced with the magic of the new life that you created.Â
âIf her mother is the rose of the kingdom, would that not make her daughter the rosebud?â He retorts, returning to his post at the side of the bed.Â
This time he takes a seat atop the recently changed linens, next to you, his body turned to show off your labor of love to your bleary eyes.Â
âSheâs beautiful, just like her mother,â he continues, carefully moving her from his chest to the crook of his arm so you can gaze upon what love has made. âGod willing, may she give me fewer issues.â
You smile softly though it turns into a grimace as you move. His face contorts in concern but you shake your head as you reach to wrap your hand around his shoulder, instinctively using him as leverage to pull yourself all the way up to sitting.
Itâs uncomfortable but itâs nothing compared to the pain you were in mere hours ago.
âAnd Iâm certain she will be as kind and insubordinate as her father,â you whisper, leaning to rest your cheek against his bicep.
Looking down at you, his heart swells with pride.Â
The reality of the situation is such that it will never just be the two of you and the inane things you get up to again. Despite this, a strange sense of wholeness fills his chest just the same, a future he was uncertain heâd ever claim promised before him.
Once upon a time heâd vowed to leave his life behind on a battlefield, far away from the kingdom he called home. Now he cannot imagine being even one dayâs ride away from the two of you, mind turning in terror at the mere thought.
Sir Dante, the Demon of the Killing Fields, has a family.Â
Smiling at you, he nods down toward her for just a moment before returning to gazing lovingly at the first precious thing he ever held.
âWhat should we name her?â
His question moves you. Part of you was concerned that your husband would be as uninvolved with childrearing as your father was to your mother â absent at every birth including the one that thrust you, his successor, upon the earth â but heâs ever stalwart and vigilant at your side, eager to be involved.
âWe could name her after your mother,â you suggest, considering what a lovely name it would be in honor of the lovely woman you have faint memories of.Â
Dante shakes his head, hiding how his heart skips a beat over your constant generosity toward him. Your devotion to creating a place for him not only in your heart but in the family royal has always been unparalleled. Itâs one of the reasons heâs found it easy to fall as deeply in love with you as he has despite your pouts and demands and the paces youâve put him through.
They were all worth it to end up here, as far as heâs concerned.
âIâd like her to have a name all her own. Sheâs going to be queen someday, itâs the least we can do.â
Nodding in understanding, you finally reach with a trembling hand to touch the soft cheek of your child. Before you can stop them, tears well in your eyes, sliding down your cheeks and dripping onto the fabric that clings to his arm.Â
âSheâs really ours, my love,â you marvel, sniffling, lifting your head to lean down and take a good look at her for the first time since giving birth. âYouâre our fearsome, thorny little rose, arenât you?â
Furrowing his brow, he leans down to kiss your forehead.Â
âMy daughter has no thorns.â
You snort, looking up through your eyelashes to meet his eyes.Â
âThe pain between my legs would beg to differ,â you offer humorously, punctuating your words with a sniffle which concerns your husband.
âAre you alright or should I beckon a nurse?â
Shaking your head, you lean against him once more, reaching across his lap to pet the top of her head.
âNo. Iâm alright, I merely wish to name our child, Dante.â
Unshakeable as ever, arenât you? He chuckles, unable to help himself, and hums quietly while you breathe at his side.Â
Whatâs in a name? He wonders how his own father felt when he named his twin sons, tasked with coming up with two instead of one. Did he mull it over like this, turning every possibility over in his head? That would be unlike Sparda, knowing heâd name solely off of instinct rather than a carefully considered decision.
Taking a theoretical page from his fatherâs book, he goes with his instincts, looking down at the little red cheeks and lips of his daughter.
âRosemary,â he states confidently, just as the child begins to slowly open her eyes.Â
Leaning over his lap despite the ache in your groin, you look at her and nod.
âI believe she agrees,â you giggle, placing a kiss on her little hand that stretches out toward the ceiling, so overwhelmed with love and perhaps exhaustion that your eyes well up, unable to contain the emotions running through you.
As little as the knight-turned-husband-turned-future-king envisioned such a thing, you envisioned it even less, convinced no man would ever be able to tolerate much less truly love you and all that comes with your life.
Fortunately, you found such love and as they told you upon your wedding day, true love multiplies. You are more grateful than any one woman should be, tears falling freely, unable to even speak to your child.
Dante looks down and reaches to wipe your cheek with his thumb, reminding you that heâs still your protector first and foremost and forevermore.
âDo you agree, my heartâs treasure?â he asks, continuing to thumb away every last tear.
You nod, vigorously, eager to let him name not only this child but however many more he will bless you with to come.Â
For now you welcome Rosemary, the symbol of fidelity. An ode to her fatherâs loyalty and her motherâs faithfulness.Â
summary: a character study on what it feels like to be loved by dante sparda: all sharp jokes, reckless devotion, terrible protectiveness, emotional avoidance, and the slow, sacred miracle of him choosing to stay
word count: 1,492
content: dante x gn!reader, romantic character study, hurt/comfort undertones, post-DMC5's sojourn to Hell, stream of consciousness, mentions of blood, canon-typical violence, injury, Hell, death, grief, emotional avoidance, self-sacrificial behaviour, fear of abandonment, implied trauma, Dante's low self-worth/self-endangering tendencies
a/n: he is so annoying. i love him. this man is a mess (affectionate) đ
To be loved by Dante is to be loved by a locked door that opens with a stupid joke rather than a key. It is never clean, never rehearsed, never wrapped prettily in ribbon and offered with both hands; it arrives sideways, grinning, smelling distantly of gunpowder, motor oil, old leather, rain-soaked pavement, and that impossible sugar-bright nonsense he keeps pretending counts as dinner. He loves in deflection first; he loves by leaning in your doorway and saying something idiotic because sincerity sits in his mouth like hot coals. He loves by making you roll your eyes when the room is too heavy, by turning fear into something with a punchline long enough for you to breathe again.
Being loved by him feels, at first, like standing inside a storm shelter decorated by a teenage boy with no budget and catastrophic taste in decor. There are weapons on the walls, unpaid bills on the desk, dust under the neon, and some ancient grief sleeping badly beneath the floorboards. Yet, somehow, there is also warmth there.
Not domestic in the polished senseânothing about Dante is polished except the guns he cares for better than he cares for himselfâbut there is a kind of unruly hearth in him, a crooked little fire burning in the ruined chapel of his heart. He will make you laugh when you are trying to stay angry, he will call you by some lazy pet name as though the syllables do not matter, as though he has not started using them because your real name has become too precious to speak aloud. His affection wears grease-stained gloves and tracks mud through the hallway; it steals the last slice, then saves you the best piece; it complains, sprawls, flirts, dodges, tosses a grin over its shoulder, then remembers everything you love.
The way you take your coffee, the sound your breathing makes when youâre about to cry, which knife sits easiest in your hand, which film you hate but never turn off, which window in your apartment sticks, which silence means leave me alone and which one means please, for the love of God, notice. His love is not neat enough to be a vow at first. It is a hundred little trespasses of care disguised as laziness, jokes, bad habits, and coincidence. He makes himself easy to underestimate because it lets him offer tenderness without confessing to the crime. But once you learn him, once you know how to read the soft animal under the red coat and ridiculous mouth, you realise that the laughter was never shallowâit was a candle he kept lit with his bare hands because somebody had to keep the darkness from swallowing the whole room.
And then there is the danger of it. Danteâs love feels safe, but never because he is safe. He is not; he is a blade with a heartbeat, a man built out of old wars, demonic inheritance, brother-loss, mother-loss, father-shadow, debt, hunger, stubbornness, and a talent for surviving things that should have turned anyone else into a cautionary stain.
To be loved by him is to understand that the world has teeth, but so does he, and his are sharper. He will not wrap you in glass, he knows too much about cages to confuse protection with possession. He loves people who choose, who stand, who get angry, who make demands of him even when he is trying to slip away with that infuriating smile still warm on his face. But if something is ever to reach for you with violence in its hands, the atmosphere changes, the joking man thins, and beneath him something older looks up. Something cruelânot to you, never to youâsomething terrible.
Danteâs protectiveness is not loud in the way lesser men make it; he does not need to posture, he does not need to bark ownership into a room, he simply becomes the line that nothing crosses. One moment he is all swagger and loose shoulders and boots thrown carelessly over the desk, some awful one-liner already halfway formed in his mouth. The next, the whole world has narrowed to the space that lives between you and danger and he is standing inside it with that calm, lazy, murderous patience of his, as though the universe has made an administrative error and he has arrived to correct the paperwork in blood.
To be loved by Dante means seeing how quickly his foolishness can burn away, it means learning that beneath every joke is calculation, beneath every shrug is attention, beneath every flirtation is a man who has spent his whole life arriving too late and has sworn, without ever saying it out loud, that he will not arrive late for you.
He will take the blow, he will make the bargain, he will lie about the pain, he will bleed on your floor and apologise for the mess before he will ever admit that it hurts, he will drag himself home with half of Hell still clinging to his coat because, apparently, death itself was not enough reason to miss you for good. His love can frighten you because it reveals how little he values his own body when someone else's life is at stake. He treats himself as expendable with such practised ease that loving him sometimes feels like trying to hold smoke in both hands and beg it to remember that it has a shape. Yet, when he turns that devotion towards you, when his eyes settle on you after battle and the grin falters because you are alive, because you are here, because he did not lose another person, there is something unbearable living within it. He looks at you as though every cathedral he has never prayed in has lit itself from the inside.
The deepest part of Danteâs love though? The deepest part is not the jokes, not even the protection. It is the staying, because staying is the thing that he does the worst and the thing he must learn to do with the most bruising honesty.
Danteâs love feels like being adored by someone who has mistaken leaving for mercy for so long that he has to relearn the shape of a doorstep. He will try to spare you from himself, he will tell himself that distance is kindness, that silence is protection, that if he walks away first then he can keep grief from learning your address. He has survived all these years, all these monsters, by travelling light even though his heart never has been. Everyone he loves becomes a ghost before they are gone because some terrified part of him is always rehearsing the loss in advance.
So to be loved by him is not to be given perfect certainty. It is to stand close enough to feel him flinch when love asks for a name, a future, a morning after, a drawer left full, a toothbrush beside yours, a promise without escape routes hidden under the floor. His love is clumsy there, raw-knuckled, embarrassed by its own need. It reaches for you, pulls back, jokes, looks away, comes back again, softer this time, more honest and more terrified. He is not graceful with being wanted. He can handle monsters, armies, devils, wounds through the chest, and the end of the world before breakfast, but someone looking at him and asking him to please just stay can ruin him more completely than any blade. When he does stay, when he does choose it, it feels like watching a ruined city decide, finally, to grow gardens through its own bones.
He doesnât become gentle all at onceâhe is still Dante, he still annoys you on purpose, he still eats terribly, dodges feelings until they corner him, bleeds on things, and says the wrong thing with the confidence of a man entirely committed to making it worse before making it better. But he tries and that is sacred. The ordinary miracle. He tries with a startled devotion belonging to someone who never expected to be allowed another change. He learns your anger without running from it, he lets your hurt exist without turning it into a joke too quickly, he sits with the consequences of his absence, he lets himself be seen in the ugly light, not just the heroic one.
Danteâs love, at its truest, feels like a man coming home from Hell and understanding that home is not the couch, the office, the city, or the battered sign outside his door. It is the person whose voice can still call him back into himself, it is the body he curls around in sleep without thinking, it is the hand he reaches for when the room is quiet enough for the ghosts to start whispering.
To be loved by Dante is to be chosen by someone who knows every exit and, trembling beneath all that swagger, stops taking them.
All rights reserved. Please do not repost, copy, translate, plagiarise, or feed my work into AI. Reblogs are deeply appreciated; reposts are not permitted.
in which: leon kennedy is a girl dad, and he made a promise to keep you both safe 18 years ago. but now your daughter is off to college, and he has no idea if he can keep his promise now with your daughter so far away.
warnings: soft smut, leon being a dad, some angst. idk just read it its good. leon is 45 in this (when the timeline reaches 2022). leon is 27 in 2004 (resident evil 4 takes place here). this is years before requiem takes place. you both grow old together, you're like a FEW years younger than him (or the same age, doesn't matter).
When you found out you were pregnant it was on the first day of Leon's deployment to Spain in 2004, 6 years after the incident in raccoon city.Â
Leon had only been gone for 3 days, but after the first day it felt like too long.Â
You had been married for 5 years, but had never talked about expanding your little family. When you got married Leon had been suffering through a lot of trauma, and while you had overcome most of it as a team, deep down you knew your husband. Raccoon city still had a grip on his mind.Â
When you first got married, Leon suffered a lot after missions, and would resort to drinking to help reduce the stress.Â
When Leon got back from Spain, you waited days until you finally told him. Given that you couldnât keep a secret from him. You sat him down on your living room couch, and broke the news to him.
At first, Leon had said nothing, brows furrowed staring at the floor in conflict. He had experienced the horrors of this cruel world first-hand. The guilt of bringing a child into this world instantly consumed him. So much so that he froze in place, and flinched when you touched his shoulder in comfort.Â
You remember the hurt that settled deep in your gut that night. When he finally looked in your direction, you saw a face that belonged to a different man. It was the face of a man you met years ago. The face of a man you did not know of yet.Â
It scared you at first.Â
After silently staring at each other for what felt like an eternity, Leon stood up. His warm palm wrapped around the back of your head. As he leaned down to tenderly kiss the top of your head, inhaling your scent before standing up and leaving.Â
That night Leon went for a drive, and didnât return until well into the night.
The door made no noise when he gently opened it. You were fast asleep, facing the opposite side of your shared bed.
He dropped to his knees beside your head, and stared at you for exactly 10 minutes, letting himself exist in your unconscious presence.Â
Leon never told you what exactly happened the night after taking his leave, but he made a promise to himself, and to you, that he would never let anything harm either of you. Itâs been 18 years, and he has yet to break his promise.Â
The next morning, you woke up to Leon making breakfast in the kitchen. He sat you down that morning, and held your hand in his palm, telling you that itâs best if you relocate soon.Â
âHoney, Iâve been thinking. I think itâs best if we move somewhere more secluded. For the safety of you and the baby.â
That same week he requested his assistant for a list of available houses in secluded areas on the market. Thankfully Leon and you were able to settle on a nice spacious house overlooking a lake surrounded by greenery. Leon ensured there was a town, and a private school nearby that would allow your future child to grow into their education.Â
After weeks of settling into your new home, Leon started with an overprotective overdrive. He became overly cautious, trying to minimize risk, and avoid any potential harm. While it may have come across as intense or restrictive, you knew deep down that he needed this.Â
So, you let Leon be as overprotective as he needed to be. If baby proofing the entire house meant his peace of mind? So be it. He wanted to install cameras, motion censor detectors, finger print identification to enhance home security? You were looking at surveillance cameras with him. He wanted to install bulletproof windows throughout the house? You would make sure he found the best specialized construction materials.Â
Leon prepared the nursery as soon as you were done settling in, he so desperately wanted a girl. In fact, he was sure it would be a girl. He made sure the room was renovated into a soft pink and white wallpaper, soft pink double doors, and had been very involved in decorating your daughterâs room.Â
Fortunately, Leon had been right. You were expecting a beautiful baby girl.Â
If you thought he was overprotective, clingy, and obsessed with you then. Imagine it amplifying ten-fold. His urge to nurture, and protect was like never before.Â
And if he thought you were already spoiled? He would now never prove it otherwise.
When your baby girl came into your world, everything changed.Â
Now 18 years later, your daughter was heading off to college, and Leon was scared as ever.Â
âHoney,â you console, rubbing his shirtless back, âSheâll just be a few hours away.â Leon sits at the edge of the bed, as you coddle him.Â
A shudder rakes through Leonâs chest, and you smile at how distraught he looks. Your hand slides from his back to rest idly on his shoulder before moving to his chest as you continue to soothe him.
You make yourself comfortable behind him by resting your head on his shoulder, looking over his handsome face. You knelt behind him, knees pressed together, legs folded neatly beneath you.Â
The room is dark. The only source of light is the full moon, shining through the white sheer curtains.Â
âSheâs ready.â You try to convince him, but Leon shakes his head. âSheâs not ready. She thinks she is. Thatâs not the same thing.âÂ
You pushed the wet bang covering his face, an aftermath of a shower, âWe raised her to be.â
Your husband looked so sexy tonight. His hair was wet and he looked particularly troubled. Your favorite.Â
âOn the bright side,â You offered in a light and teasing tone, pressing your lace covered chest against him, âweâll have more time together.â
Leon softly shakes his head, but you see the corners of his lips turn up. Your hand stays over his chest, your head still resting against his shoulder. For a moment neither of you spoke.
His hand came up, covering yours, holding it there.
He exhaled, some of the tension leaving him, and leaned backâjust enough that you had to follow.
You lifted your head, close now, your cheek brushing his. âYeah?â you said softly.
He turned toward you, and whatever answer you had caught somewhere between them. Your foreheads nearly touched before he closed the distance, the kiss gentle, unhurried.
You shifted, one leg slipping out from beneath you as you leaned into him, and he reached for you without thinking. The movement carried you sideways, easing down into the bed, the conversation dissolving into something quieter, closer.Â
Leon settles you into a kiss, as the room around you rises in temperature. Your hand tightens its grip on his hair, when you feel him thrust into you. You subtly lift your hips to let him bunch your nightgown up to your waist.Â
Your lips disconnect from Leon's when a moan ripples out of you as his thinly clothed cock grinds directly into your naked cunt. He sits up to get momentum to grind into you properly, water droplets fall over your soft skin as he towers over you.Â
Heâs so heavy, you almost feel him inside you. His thin pajama pants soak with a perfect mix of his precum and your aroused slick.Â
All you can do is take what heâs giving you, and ask for more.Â
âCanât wait to fuck into this pussy everyday from now on.â You reach for him with a broken whine, and Leonâs eager to hear it.Â
âYeah? You like that? Knowing your husband will pound this needy pussy. Hm?â He urges you to answer him, but youâre so lost in your own bliss, still stuck on the excitement of what's to come in the near future.Â
A slap to your clit, jolts you awake. âYes!â You chant. âYesâYes!â
âSay it.â He commands. âTell your husband what you want. Look at me when you say it.â
You peel your eyes open, and stare straight into his icy blue eyes. You almost cum right then and there. He wears a look on his face, where he looks mean, but yet so sickly in love. Crazy in love even.Â
âI want-â You begin in a murmur, but he stops his needy grind into your sex into slow agonizing thrusts, âLouder,â he cuts you off.Â
âI wantâ you moan when you see him bring his face a hair apart from yours, tucking his hands behind your head, tangling his fingers into your strands.Â
After years of marriage heâs still the sexiest man youâve ever laid eyes on. Age looks beautiful on him, youâre sure of it.Â
Heâs breathing directly over your mouth now, and youâre eagerly inhaling his puffs of air. Your eyes are glazed over, but his face is utterly clear before you.Â
He presses a chaste wet open mouthed peck on the corner of your mouth in encouragement before pressing another on the column of your throat.Â
âTell me.â
You build up whatever strength you have left. âI want you to fuck your wife.âÂ
Leon grunts in response, before slipping his cock out of his pajama pants, stroking himself as you reach inside your nightgown to pull your tits out.Â
Leon consumes you in a breathtaking kiss that knocks the thoughts straight out of your mind until all your mind can produce is thoughts of him.
He gently soothes the meat of your thigh before sliding his thumbs to push your lips apart to push himself inside. His eyebrows furrow in utter bliss when the head of his cock snugly slides in.Â
You watch in awe as both your mouths hang open at the raw feeling of one another. âFuck I might cum right here.â He murmurs to himself but you catch it and tighten yourself around him in response, caging him between your legs.Â
Trapping him in eternal bliss.
He buries himself to a hilt.Â
He hooks his arms into your knees, pulling you closer and into a soft, yet, loose mating press. He plants a final kiss into your lips before pulling completely out, and pounding you into the mattress for the remainder of the night.Â
âÂ
The morning came slowly. Pale light crept through the sheer curtains, washing the room in warm sunlight.Â
Leon lay on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, the other wrapped firmly around you, fingers gently rubbing your back.Â
His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, but you knew by the tension of his jaw that he hadnât slept much.Â
You traced idle patterns against his sternum before resting it against the side of his neck, holding him close. âSheâs going to call. You know she will.â You murmur against him.
âFirst day,â he said, staring at the ceiling. âShe wonât last a week without calling.â
You smiled against his shoulders, âIs that you hoping or are you predicting?â
He was quiet for a beat, âBoth.â
You pushed yourself up to look at him properly. The morning light caught the silver threading through his hair. The fine lines at the corner of his eyes, and his stubble littered with salt and pepper. Eighteen years, and he still made your chest ache just by existing in the same room.Â
âLeon,â you waited until he looked at you. âYou gave her everything she needed. All of it. Youâve kept her safe. Alwaysâ
Something moved behind his eyes. The years of carrying the weight of the aftermath of Raccoon City. Something he never asked to do. It probably always will, but the look in his eyes was different now. Something that looked remarkably like peace.Â
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear before pressing your lips together in a gentle short kiss.Â
âWe did,â he corrected quietly, holding your gaze with his.Â
â
The day was upon your family. It was finally move-in day. Leon was as stressed as ever. Only giving out short clipped replies.Â
After you helped load everything into the suv (told Leon what should go where), he was adamant on making sure his daughter was missing absolutely nothing. Â
âDo you have your ID? Your pepper spray? Your emergency phone? You still have our numberâs memorized right?âÂ
Your daughter is nodding along in the backseat, âYes dadâŠâÂ
âRecite my phone numberââ You laughed before reaching over the center console to place a hand on his bicep, âHoney, I think she has it all down.â
The drive was quiet.Â
The ride felt full, and the silence was a little heavy, broken with an occasional conversation you had with your daughter. She had her sock feet propped up on the center console, occasionally tapping them against your rested elbow on the console to grab your attention.Â
Usually Leon would playfully chastise her about her âstinky feetâ propped up, however, today he said nothing about it. You noticed, and youâre sure your daughter probably did too.Â
The campus appeared through the tree line. Students everywhere.Â
You were staring outside the window as Leon slowly pulled into the drive-way for check in, and your daughter exited quickly with a harsh slam of the door.Â
âI donât think it closed,â Leon muttered to himself.Â
You didnât tear your eyes away from the students unloading their boxes. When a lanky boy struggled with an overstuffed suitcase while his parents trailed behind him loaded with boxes.Â
You watched as the handle gave out completely. The suitcase hit the pavement and burst open, sending clothes scattering across the walkway. Youâre about to express your sadness for the kid before Leon pipes up instead, âGuess he wonât have to unpack that for later.â
You turned slowly to look at your husband before pushing his shoulder as laughter bubbled inside your chest.Â
Your daughter decided to materialize in front of your window as she happily jingled the keys to her dormitory in front of you.Â
Moving her in took three hours. Leon carried everything heavy without being asked, reorganized her furniture twice until the sight lines from her window made sense to him. All that was left was a few minor decorations that could make your daughter feel more at home.Â
âOkay,â you said, pulling a soft woven throw blanket from a bag, and draping it over her made bed. âNeutral base, but it adds warmth in case you want to take a small nap after classes. What do you think?âÂ
Your daughter accessed the made bed with new sheets you bought for her. âI love it.â Leon looked at the blanket, âItâll run hot in September. How well does the AC work here?â He inquired, looking around for a vent with a flashlight in hand. Even if the room was as lit up as ever.Â
You playfully roll your eyes at his silly question.Â
You reach into the bag and pull out some string lights that shine a warm gold. âI think youâll like the way these will look when Autumn finally arrives, no?â Your daughter smiles before nodding her head.Â
You held them up, âThese can go above the headboard or around the edges of the ceiling.âÂ
Leonâs attention moved from the air vents to the cord from the lights, tracking the length to the outlet. Then to the curtains, then back to the cord.Â
âWonât that cause a fire?â He questioned. âItâs ambience,â You tell him.Â
âItâs fire with ambience.â
Your daughter took the string lights from you and began hanging them herself, decisively, making eye contact with her father the entire time.Â
He said nothing. He did however quietly reposition her curtains slightly further from the bulbs when he thought nobody was watching.Â
You saw. You said nothing.Â
Instead, you directed your attention to the full length mirror that sat awkward against the wall. âLeon, honey,â You call after him, âCan you move this mirror next to her dresser against the wall.â
Leon moves it to where you direct. You can tell he has something to say, but youâre not sure if itâs about the mirror itself or your choice in placement.
He stood behind you, looking over your shoulder, studying it.Â
âIf someone breaks inââ
âLeon.â
âIâm just saying. Reflective surfaces work both ways.â
âItâs a mirror.â
âIt can be a tactical disadvantage.â
Your daughter looked at him with amusement. âDad, itâs a dorm room at a university.â
âEven worse. Thatâs what makes it unpredictable.â
By the time the room was finished you stood in the doorway together, taking it in. Warm lights glowing softly above the headboard. The throw folded neatly at the foot of the bed. The mirror catching the afternoon light. Posters of shows and music artists littered your daughters room, accompanied by a few books, and trinkets. The little plant Leon spent too much time repositioning on the windowsill, âFour inches to the leftâ, he had explained.Â
The room looked like your daughter. It looked like both of you. âItâs perfectâ, your daughter said.Â
Leon tested the room lock on her door 4 times while pretending he wasnât. To avoid involving himself in the emotional moment, but your daughter knew better.Â
âSmoke detector needs new batteriesâ, he said.Â
She watched him with patient, knowing eyes. She inherited his icy blue eyes, and along with it his awareness. She missed nothing.Â
âDad,â she said gently, the way sometimes you did when you wanted to tell him something you knew would stay with him.Â
He stopped.Â
She crossed the small room and hugged him. Not quickly, but the kind of hug that acknowledged everything neither of them were saying. You stood beside them, hand resting on both their backs.Â
Leonâs arms wrapped around her, and for a moment he looked exactly like the man who had knelt beside your bed 18 years ago, making a promise to someone who couldnât hear him.Â
He kept it.Â
The hug lasted longer than any of you anticipated. Leonâs arms were wrapped around your daughter with the kind of grip that had protected her from everything real.Â
Then, muffled against the top of her head, very quickly, as though if he said it fast enough it might sound reasonable:
âWe can leave right now. Say the word. We pack everything up, carâs still warm, we can be home by dinner, you can do online classes, I already looked into it. Several accredited universities offer fully remote programs, your room at home is exactly as you left itââ
âDad.â
ââthe plant can come with us, Iâll carry it myselfââ
âDad.â
ââIâm just saying options here, completely valid options. No problemo. Many people do it.â
Your daughter pulled back and looked at him. Her eyes were glassy but she was smiling. She had his eyes. She always had his eyes. The eyes he had before they turned hard, and cool.Â
âI know,â she said softly.
Leon pressed his lips together and nodded once. Swallowed hard. Said nothing else.Â
His hand came up and kissed the top of her head.Â
â
The drive back was quieter than the ride there. When you got home, the only thing that greeted you both was your two dogs.Â
You went upstairs and found Leon setting up a warm bath.Â
One hand testing the temperature beneath the faucet, shoulders carrying the quiet weight heâd been holding since the drive home.Â
Your bare feet crossed the tile floor softly and wrapped yourself around him from behind.Â
One arm looped over his shoulder, draped across his chest. The other slipped beneath his arm, palm settling flat against his sternum. You pressed yourself into his back and held him there, and he relaxed the moment he felt you.Â
You tilted your head up toward him, cheek resting against the side of his face, close enough that you could feel the tension actively leaving his face.Â
He didnât speak right away.Â
His hand came up slowly and covered yours where it rested against his chest. His thumb moved back and forth. Once, twice.Â
The faucet kept running, steam rose quietly around you both.Â
âShe called,â you murmured against his cheek like a secret kept between you both. âShe wanted to wish us a good night.â
You felt him exhale. Long and slow. Like something heâd been holding since you dropped her off.Â
âYeah?âÂ
âMhm, said she loves her room.â
His hand tightened over yours.Â
âGood,â he said quietly, âThatâs good.â
You stayed like that a little longer, neither of you in any rush to move.Â
Outside the small frosted window the night settled in completely, the kind of deep quiet that only ever existed out here by the lake.Â
âShe also said,â you continued softly, âThat the smoke detector in her room has fresh batteries.â
You felt it before you heard it. A slow rumble in his chest. Low and reluctant, the way his laughs always started when he was trying not to give them to you.
âNaturally,â he said. You smiled against his jaw.Â
His thumb hadnât stopped moving against the back of your hand, finger sometimes settling over your wedding ring for longer than necessary. That slow absent rhythm heâd had for as long as youâd known him. You doubted he even realized he was doing it.Â
He turned his face towards yours then, just slightly. Just enough. His nose brushed your temple and he stayed there, eyes closed, breathing you in the same way he always did when he was trying to memorize you.Â
The faucet shut off, and the room went quiet.Â
Just the two of you, the steam, and the still hot water.Â
âCome on,â you murmured. âBathâs ready.â
He didnât move immediately.Â
His lips pressed softly against your temple instead, warm and unhurried.Â
Then he unfolded your arms gently from around him, turned, and looked at you in that way that told you, you were everything he used to wish to have when nights were particularly harder than others.Â
The way that still, after everything, made you feel like the only fixed point in whatever world he was navigating.
He gently helped you strip from your clothes, before helping you step into the warm bath.Â
He settled behind you, arms instantly engulfing your frame.Â
His scarred hand, enclosed itself around the area where your throat met your jaw, tilting your head to rest on his shoulder with the quietest pressure.
Rough at the palm, yet familiar in a way that went beyond muscle memory. It was impossibly gentle for a hand that had lived the life his had.Â
You let yourself sink back into him completely.Â
Leon did everything that mattered. He dipped his head and took full advantage of the column of your throat now open to him, pressing his lips there softly. Once. Then again slightly higher. Then the curve where your neck met your shoulder. Unhurried. Deliberate, and careful.
You felt the tension you hadnât realized youâd been carrying between you both since last night.Â
âLeonâ, you murmured. Not asking for anything.Â
His lips stilled for a moment against your skin. His arms tightened.Â
Outside the lake sat silver and motionless beneath the moon. The house was quiet in the specific way it would take some getting used to.Â
But here, in the warm water, enclosed in him entirely. Like you knew you always would be.Â
Tie had a different quality when Leon held you this way. It slowed.Â
His breath came slow and even against your skin. The hand at your jaw had relaxed, no longer tilting, but jesting. Cradling you.Â
You reached up and covered his hand with yours.Â
âWhat are you thinking about?â You asked softly.
A long pause.Â
âThe first night in the new house,â he said, âYou were so excited about the lake view. You made me stand at the kitchen window for 20 minutes.â
You laughed softly at that. âIt was a beautiful view.â
âIt still is.â
You turned your head slightly, just enough to see the edge of his jaw above you.Â
âYou were just pretending to be indifferent,â You said. He was scared, but you decided to leave that observation out. âBut I saw you looking at it after you thought Iâd gone to bed.:
His chest moved against your back. That low reluctant rumble again.Â
âCouldnât sleep.â
âBaby.â
âI liked the view,â he admitted quietly. âI like anything that makes you stand enough to just,â He paused, â Exist for a minute.â
All these years and he still said things that caught you completely off guard. Not often. Leon was a man of few words, but when he chose them they landed with the full weight of everything he left unsaid.Â
The silence comfortably engulfed you both again. His thumb traced a slow rhythm against your cheekbone.Â
âYou cried,â Leon said suddenly.Â
You blinked, âWhat?â
âWhen we first moved in,â He clarified, his voice was low. âYou walked through the front door, saw the lake through the back window, and cried.â
âI was pregnant Leon. I cried at commercials.â
âYou cried at the weather forecast.â
âIt was an unusually moving forecast. Besides, all it does is rain here, of course I was a little sad!â
His chest shook against your back. You smiled at the ceiling.Â
âYou walked through every single room.â He continued. There was something different in his voice now. Tender. Like he was trying to handle this particular memory with care.Â
âTwice. With your hand in your barely-showing stomach. The entire time you didnât realize you were doing it.â
You hadnât realized he noticed.Â
âYou stopped in the arched nursery doorway,â he added quietly, âYou didnât go in because they had just finished installing the soft pink wallpaper, but you stood there looking at it for a long time.â
The memory surfaced slowly. The smell of the plaster they used to install the wallpaper. The late afternoon light through the bulletproof windows that hadnât had curtains yet until Leon and you were sure everything that had to do with remodeling was done. You were so excited to just start decorating.Â
âI was trying to imagine her in it,â You said softly. âI was trying to imagine her. A little piece of both of us coming to life.â
âI know.â His arms shifted around you. âI was standing behind you. You didnât hear me come up.â
âYou were always so quiet.â
âOccupational habit,â he reminds you with a gentle pinch on your side, that only makes you press into him more.Â
You laced your fingers more firmly through his beneath the water.Â
âWhat were you thinking?â You asked. âWhen you were standing there behind me.â
A long pause. Leon didnât rush toward answers. He never had. You had learned years ago to simply wait for him inside his silence.Â
âI was thinking about how I almost didnât come home that first night,â he said. âAfter you told me.â
Your breath caught quietly.Â
âWhatââ
âNot like that,â he reassured you gently, understanding immediately, âI just drove. For hours. Ended up parked outside the city somewhere. Couldnât tell you where.â His thumb hadnât stopped moving against your cheek. âI sat there trying to figure out if I was the kind of man who had any business being someoneâs father.â
The bath had gone still around you.
âAnd?â you asked quietly, voice shaking slightly.
His lips found your hairline.Â
âAnd I thought about you.â Simple. Certain. âThat was it. That was the whole answer.â
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I'd like to imagine this was where Chris was in RE9. Gave him glasses cause I just wanted to try and see what he'd look like with it. Man's 53. Legit laughed at it and decided to keep it in.
Also, if you're wondering about his hand, it's because i have to use my own as reference. LOL. I'm not good with them, OK??? đ
Babar Kizil was totally full of shit. Garlic? Wolfsbane? Cinnamon? Eat all that and your lycanthropy was cured? Holy shit, no, that wasnât how this worked.
And Kyle would know.
30k words, completed, rated M for Crane's language, Werewolf AU
>> Read the entire thing on Ao3 <<
Kyle had been bitten by a lot of things in his life, even before heâd landed in Harran.
A dog (not the dogâs fault, heâd woken it up). A cat (totally the catâs fault). A rabbit (seriously?). A shark (yep, also totally Kyleâs fault). Women (consensual). Men (also consensual). And a werewolf (not consensual).
There were more, but weâd be here all day. And you know what? You should probably read this fic if you like Kyle Crane and if you like werewolves and especially if you like both, plus zombies, a bright-eyed Rahim Aldemir, a non-binary Death, and, uh, puppies.
