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.
Leon had only been gone for 3 days, but after the first day it felt like too long.
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.
When you first got married, Leon suffered a lot after missions, and would resort to drinking to help reduce the stress.
When Leon got back from Spain, you waited days until you finally told him. Given that you couldn’t 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.
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.
It scared you at first.
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.
That night Leon went for a drive, and didn’t 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.
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. It’s been 18 years, and he has yet to break his promise.
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 it’s best if you relocate soon.
“Honey, I’ve been thinking. I think it’s best if we move somewhere more secluded. For the safety of you and the baby.”
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.
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.
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.
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 daughter’s room.
Fortunately, Leon had been right. You were expecting a beautiful baby girl.
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.
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.
Now 18 years later, your daughter was heading off to college, and Leon was scared as ever.
“Honey,” you console, rubbing his shirtless back, “She’ll just be a few hours away.” Leon sits at the edge of the bed, as you coddle him.
A shudder rakes through Leon’s 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.
The room is dark. The only source of light is the full moon, shining through the white sheer curtains.
“She’s ready.” You try to convince him, but Leon shakes his head. “She’s not ready. She thinks she is. That’s not the same thing.”
You pushed the wet bang covering his face, an aftermath of a shower, “We raised her to be.”
Your husband looked so sexy tonight. His hair was wet and he looked particularly troubled. Your favorite.
“On the bright side,” You offered in a light and teasing tone, pressing your lace covered chest against him, “we’ll have more time together.”
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 back—just enough that you had to follow.
You lifted your head, close now, your cheek brushing his. “Yeah?” 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.
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.
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.
He’s so heavy, you almost feel him inside you. His thin pajama pants soak with a perfect mix of his precum and your aroused slick.
All you can do is take what he’s giving you, and ask for more.
“Can’t wait to fuck into this pussy everyday from now on.” You reach for him with a broken whine, and Leon’s eager to hear it.
“Yeah? You like that? Knowing your husband will pound this needy pussy. Hm?” He urges you to answer him, but you’re so lost in your own bliss, still stuck on the excitement of what's to come in the near future.
A slap to your clit, jolts you awake. “Yes!” You chant. “Yes–Yes!”
“Say it.” He commands. “Tell your husband what you want. Look at me when you say it.”
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.
“I want-” You begin in a murmur, but he stops his needy grind into your sex into slow agonizing thrusts, “Louder,” he cuts you off.
“I want” 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.
After years of marriage he’s still the sexiest man you’ve ever laid eyes on. Age looks beautiful on him, you’re sure of it.
He’s breathing directly over your mouth now, and you’re eagerly inhaling his puffs of air. Your eyes are glazed over, but his face is utterly clear before you.
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.
“Tell me.”
You build up whatever strength you have left. “I want you to fuck your wife.”
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.
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.
You watch in awe as both your mouths hang open at the raw feeling of one another. “Fuck I might cum right here.” He murmurs to himself but you catch it and tighten yourself around him in response, caging him between your legs.
Trapping him in eternal bliss.
He buries himself to a hilt.
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.
–
The morning came slowly. Pale light crept through the sheer curtains, washing the room in warm sunlight.
Leon lay on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, the other wrapped firmly around you, fingers gently rubbing your back.
His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, but you knew by the tension of his jaw that he hadn’t slept much.
You traced idle patterns against his sternum before resting it against the side of his neck, holding him close. “She’s going to call. You know she will.” You murmur against him.
“First day,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “She won’t last a week without calling.”
You smiled against his shoulders, “Is that you hoping or are you predicting?”
He was quiet for a beat, “Both.”
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.
“Leon,” you waited until he looked at you. “You gave her everything she needed. All of it. You’ve kept her safe. Always”
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.
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear before pressing your lips together in a gentle short kiss.
“We did,” he corrected quietly, holding your gaze with his.
–
The day was upon your family. It was finally move-in day. Leon was as stressed as ever. Only giving out short clipped replies.
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.
“Do you have your ID? Your pepper spray? Your emergency phone? You still have our number’s memorized right?”
Your daughter is nodding along in the backseat, “Yes dad…”
“Recite my phone number–” You laughed before reaching over the center console to place a hand on his bicep, “Honey, I think she has it all down.”
The drive was quiet.
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.
Usually Leon would playfully chastise her about her ‘stinky feet’ propped up, however, today he said nothing about it. You noticed, and you’re sure your daughter probably did too.
The campus appeared through the tree line. Students everywhere.
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.
“I don’t think it closed,” Leon muttered to himself.
You didn’t 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.
You watched as the handle gave out completely. The suitcase hit the pavement and burst open, sending clothes scattering across the walkway. You’re about to express your sadness for the kid before Leon pipes up instead, “Guess he won’t have to unpack that for later.”
You turned slowly to look at your husband before pushing his shoulder as laughter bubbled inside your chest.
Your daughter decided to materialize in front of your window as she happily jingled the keys to her dormitory in front of you.
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.
“Okay,” you said, pulling a soft woven throw blanket from a bag, and draping it over her made bed. “Neutral base, but it adds warmth in case you want to take a small nap after classes. What do you think?”
Your daughter accessed the made bed with new sheets you bought for her. “I love it.” Leon looked at the blanket, “It’ll run hot in September. How well does the AC work here?” He inquired, looking around for a vent with a flashlight in hand. Even if the room was as lit up as ever.
You playfully roll your eyes at his silly question.
You reach into the bag and pull out some string lights that shine a warm gold. “I think you’ll like the way these will look when Autumn finally arrives, no?” Your daughter smiles before nodding her head.
You held them up, “These can go above the headboard or around the edges of the ceiling.”
Leon’s 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.
“Won’t that cause a fire?” He questioned. “It’s ambience,” You tell him.
“It’s fire with ambience.”
Your daughter took the string lights from you and began hanging them herself, decisively, making eye contact with her father the entire time.
He said nothing. He did however quietly reposition her curtains slightly further from the bulbs when he thought nobody was watching.
You saw. You said nothing.
Instead, you directed your attention to the full length mirror that sat awkward against the wall. “Leon, honey,” You call after him, “Can you move this mirror next to her dresser against the wall.”
Leon moves it to where you direct. You can tell he has something to say, but you’re not sure if it’s about the mirror itself or your choice in placement.
He stood behind you, looking over your shoulder, studying it.
“If someone breaks in–”
“Leon.”
“I’m just saying. Reflective surfaces work both ways.”
“It’s a mirror.”
“It can be a tactical disadvantage.”
Your daughter looked at him with amusement. “Dad, it’s a dorm room at a university.”
“Even worse. That’s what makes it unpredictable.”
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, “Four inches to the left”, he had explained.
The room looked like your daughter. It looked like both of you. “It’s perfect”, your daughter said.
Leon tested the room lock on her door 4 times while pretending he wasn’t. To avoid involving himself in the emotional moment, but your daughter knew better.
“Smoke detector needs new batteries”, he said.
She watched him with patient, knowing eyes. She inherited his icy blue eyes, and along with it his awareness. She missed nothing.
“Dad,” she said gently, the way sometimes you did when you wanted to tell him something you knew would stay with him.
He stopped.
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.
Leon’s 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 couldn’t hear him.
He kept it.
The hug lasted longer than any of you anticipated. Leon’s arms were wrapped around your daughter with the kind of grip that had protected her from everything real.
Then, muffled against the top of her head, very quickly, as though if he said it fast enough it might sound reasonable:
“We can leave right now. Say the word. We pack everything up, car’s 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 it–”
“Dad.”
“–the plant can come with us, I’ll carry it myself–”
“Dad.”
“–I’m just saying options here, completely valid options. No problemo. Many people do it.”
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.
“I know,” she said softly.
Leon pressed his lips together and nodded once. Swallowed hard. Said nothing else.
His hand came up and kissed the top of her head.
–
The drive back was quieter than the ride there. When you got home, the only thing that greeted you both was your two dogs.
You went upstairs and found Leon setting up a warm bath.
One hand testing the temperature beneath the faucet, shoulders carrying the quiet weight he’d been holding since the drive home.
Your bare feet crossed the tile floor softly and wrapped yourself around him from behind.
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.
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.
He didn’t speak right away.
His hand came up slowly and covered yours where it rested against his chest. His thumb moved back and forth. Once, twice.
The faucet kept running, steam rose quietly around you both.
“She called,” you murmured against his cheek like a secret kept between you both. “She wanted to wish us a good night.”
You felt him exhale. Long and slow. Like something he’d been holding since you dropped her off.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm, said she loves her room.”
His hand tightened over yours.
“Good,” he said quietly, “That’s good.”
You stayed like that a little longer, neither of you in any rush to move.
Outside the small frosted window the night settled in completely, the kind of deep quiet that only ever existed out here by the lake.
“She also said,” you continued softly, “That the smoke detector in her room has fresh batteries.”
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.
“Naturally,” he said. You smiled against his jaw.
His thumb hadn’t stopped moving against the back of your hand, finger sometimes settling over your wedding ring for longer than necessary. That slow absent rhythm he’d had for as long as you’d known him. You doubted he even realized he was doing it.
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.
The faucet shut off, and the room went quiet.
Just the two of you, the steam, and the still hot water.
“Come on,” you murmured. “Bath’s ready.”
He didn’t move immediately.
His lips pressed softly against your temple instead, warm and unhurried.
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.
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.
He settled behind you, arms instantly engulfing your frame.
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.
You let yourself sink back into him completely.
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 hadn’t realized you’d been carrying between you both since last night.
“Leon”, you murmured. Not asking for anything.
His lips stilled for a moment against your skin. His arms tightened.
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.
But here, in the warm water, enclosed in him entirely. Like you knew you always would be.
Tie had a different quality when Leon held you this way. It slowed.
His breath came slow and even against your skin. The hand at your jaw had relaxed, no longer tilting, but jesting. Cradling you.
You reached up and covered his hand with yours.
“What are you thinking about?” You asked softly.
A long pause.
“The first night in the new house,” he said, “You were so excited about the lake view. You made me stand at the kitchen window for 20 minutes.”
You laughed softly at that. “It was a beautiful view.”
“It still is.”
You turned your head slightly, just enough to see the edge of his jaw above you.
“You were just pretending to be indifferent,” You said. He was scared, but you decided to leave that observation out. “But I saw you looking at it after you thought I’d gone to bed.:
His chest moved against your back. That low reluctant rumble again.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Baby.”
“I liked the view,” he admitted quietly. “I like anything that makes you stand enough to just,” He paused, “ Exist for a minute.”
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.
The silence comfortably engulfed you both again. His thumb traced a slow rhythm against your cheekbone.
“You cried,” Leon said suddenly.
You blinked, “What?”
“When we first moved in,” He clarified, his voice was low. “You walked through the front door, saw the lake through the back window, and cried.”
“I was pregnant Leon. I cried at commercials.”
“You cried at the weather forecast.”
“It was an unusually moving forecast. Besides, all it does is rain here, of course I was a little sad!”
His chest shook against your back. You smiled at the ceiling.
“You walked through every single room.” He continued. There was something different in his voice now. Tender. Like he was trying to handle this particular memory with care.
“Twice. With your hand in your barely-showing stomach. The entire time you didn’t realize you were doing it.”
You hadn’t realized he noticed.
“You stopped in the arched nursery doorway,” he added quietly, “You didn’t go in because they had just finished installing the soft pink wallpaper, but you stood there looking at it for a long time.”
The memory surfaced slowly. The smell of the plaster they used to install the wallpaper. The late afternoon light through the bulletproof windows that hadn’t 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.
“I was trying to imagine her in it,” You said softly. “I was trying to imagine her. A little piece of both of us coming to life.”
“I know.” His arms shifted around you. “I was standing behind you. You didn’t hear me come up.”
“You were always so quiet.”
“Occupational habit,” he reminds you with a gentle pinch on your side, that only makes you press into him more.
You laced your fingers more firmly through his beneath the water.
“What were you thinking?” You asked. “When you were standing there behind me.”
A long pause. Leon didn’t rush toward answers. He never had. You had learned years ago to simply wait for him inside his silence.
“I was thinking about how I almost didn’t come home that first night,” he said. “After you told me.”
Your breath caught quietly.
“What–”
“Not like that,” he reassured you gently, understanding immediately, “I just drove. For hours. Ended up parked outside the city somewhere. Couldn’t tell you where.” His thumb hadn’t stopped moving against your cheek. “I sat there trying to figure out if I was the kind of man who had any business being someone’s father.”
The bath had gone still around you.
“And?” you asked quietly, voice shaking slightly.
His lips found your hairline.
“And I thought about you.” Simple. Certain. “That was it. That was the whole answer.”
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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??? 😭
Babar Kizil was totally full of shit. Garlic? Wolfsbane? Cinnamon? Eat all that and your lycanthropy was cured? Holy shit, no, that wasn’t 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 he’d landed in Harran.
A dog (not the dog’s fault, he’d woken it up). A cat (totally the cat’s fault). A rabbit (seriously?). A shark (yep, also totally Kyle’s fault). Women (consensual). Men (also consensual). And a werewolf (not consensual).
There were more, but we’d 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.
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