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Seven Years Gone | CHAPTER 10

RE9!Leon Kennedy x Reader

Summary

A life once planned down to the smallest detail—names, mornings, a future that felt inevitable—slowly unraveled under the weight of absence, silence, and missions that never came with guarantees. And in the end, love wasn’t what broke it. It was time. Distance. And everything neither of you said out loud.

You don’t really leave people like him. You just survive what happens after.

Warnings (TW)

Cussing, Stalking, Emotional Conflict

Author Notes

heeeyyy.... uh, sorry for the very long wait. Lots of life events happened, but on a lighter note I got married! I just returned back from my honeymoon, a bit more refreshed now and clearer headed. SO I can actually focus back on this series, bc it's been beating me in the back of my head for weeks, but I never got the chance to sit down and actually put myself in it again. But I hope you enjoy, and chapter 11 is already in it's rough draft stage! <3

CHAPTER 10

UNRAVELING

The car ride felt heavier than it should've. Silence filled the space between you, broken only by the radio's low hum and the ambient noise of the city bleeding past. Your eyes drifted to the window, watching the city lights streak past in blurred ribbons.

"There's something on your mind," it wasn't a question. "Talk to me."

Your head turned toward him, the warm glow of the street lights pulling across his face in a smooth rhythmic pattern, outlining his jawline, grazing across his neck.

Your throat felt tight—the kind of tightness that came when your body was still processing danger that had already passed. The note in your bag suddenly made more sense as reality unfolded from it.

"Somebody slid a note under my door," your hand found the inside of your bag, pulling the folded up note from the inside pocket. "A threat masked as a warning. But after whatever happened back there, I don't think the intention was to warn."

The car slowed to a halt in the parking spot outside your apartment complex, his head tilting down to the note in your hand.

"Why didn't you call me the second you opened it?"

"Leon, don't start that shit. I've been doing this for years, I knew what precautions to take in those moments."

His eyes met yours, uncertain. "That's why you called me anyway, right?"

You pinched the bridge of your nose. "You're insufferable. Read the fucking note. I don't think this is a joke to be tempered with."

The note slipped from your hands. You studied his face as he read, watching the immediate shift from light-hearted poking to unease—a mix of irritation that settled into something colder.

"You're not going anywhere without me."

Your eyes widened. "Isn't that what they want? Are you fucking mad?"

"(Y/n)," he started, his voice dropped, "whoever is threatening you wants you to be alone."

Your gut twisted, looking for the rebuttal you always had waiting but this time it wasn't coming. There was no reasoning with what he stated.

"Someone knows more than they should," you started, "whoever it is…"

"Either has intel or a connection to us."

Us.

What an odd thing to hear still.

"Great." You sighed, staring off, your eyes studying the apartment complex hoping the answer would reveal itself on the half lit walls. "And whoever that masked man was following me.. he knows something. Or the person who's behind this."

Leon let out a heavy sigh, staring in the same direction your eyes carried.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight, not until we resolve this."

You peered at him from the side, "As if you gave me a choice, how typical of you."

"I made the mistake of letting you go once," his voice dropped an octave, his head turning to you. "I'm not making the same mistake twice."

Your eyes widened, quickly narrowing with the same intent you had toward anyone.

Uncertainty.

"It's conditional this time, isn't it?" You pinched your forehead, "I became a job. How fucking ironic."

"Conditional my ass," he scoffed, "nothing about what's happened between me and you is conditional. You were mine from the beginning."

Your head turned, faster than your mind could catch up and process—there he was.

Face to face with you again, his fingers beneath your chin all within the same millisecond.

"I am no one's." Your voice snipped, gritting your teeth.

---

The apartment was too quiet once the door locked behind you.

You watched Leon move through it—not frantically, just methodical. His eyes tracked the windows, the corners, the spaces where someone could hide. A habit from work, probably. Or paranoia. Lately, they felt the same.

"Living room's clear," he said, already moving toward the hallway. Not a question.

You didn't answer. You set your bag on the counter, and your hands were steadier than you expected. The apartment felt smaller with him in it—not suffocating, just aware. Aware of where he was. Aware that you couldn't move without him registering it.

When he came back—kitchen, bedroom, the bathroom he checked without explanation—he found you standing exactly where he'd left you. Your coat was still on. Your bag still sat on the counter, unzipped.

"Safe," he said simply.

Safe. As if that word meant the same thing to both of you now.

His eyes caught yours for a second longer than necessary. He moved toward you, and his hand lifted—like he might reach for you, steady you, pull you closer. His fingers hovered near your arm.

Then he didn't.

That small non-touch somehow mattered more than if he had.

"We should talk about the note," you said, because staying in that moment felt dangerous in a way the masked man in the garage hadn't.

"Yeah." He moved past you, keeping distance now. It was a different kind of awareness—the kind where proximity felt like a choice instead of an accident. "Show me the full text."

You pulled it out again. Handed it to him. This time, your hands didn't shake.

He read it once. Then again. His jaw worked—that particular tension that meant his brain was running three steps ahead of his mouth.

"The more you know, the more danger you're in. The longer he stays with you, the worse it'll become," he read it aloud, testing the words. Testing what they meant. "When did this arrive?"

"This morning. Under my door at work."

"Your office building?"

"Main entrance. Inside."

He didn't say anything for a moment. Just kept reading, his jaw working the way it did when he was processing something he didn't like. Something that didn't add up.

"Who knows your schedule? Your building access?"

"My team. HR. I mean... the usual people."

"V?"

Your stomach did something complicated. "What? No, V doesn't—"

"She's been in your office. Multiple times."

You opened your mouth to defend her, and for just a second—a fraction of a moment—something caught. A memory. V asking too many questions about your schedule. V knowing where you'd be before you'd told her. The way she'd texted just now, asking if you were *safe*, before you'd even mentioned anything was wrong.

Then the moment passed, and the defensive wall came back up.

"Leon, she's my friend. She wouldn't—"

"I'm not saying she did." But something in his face said he was thinking it anyway. His eyes moved back to the note, sharp now. Calculating. "I'm asking who knows. That's all."

You wanted to argue. You wanted to defend V the way you always did—she'd been there when Leon wasn't, when the loneliness got too heavy, when you needed someone who actually knew what you were talking about. But something in his certainty made you pause.

"V wouldn't leave a note threatening me," you said, but it came out like a question.

"People surprise you."

"People like you?"

He looked at you then. Really looked at you. And you saw something flicker across his face—recognition, maybe. That you'd just turned the accusation around.

"People like me," he agreed quietly. "But not like V. Not if what I think is happening here is actually happening."

"Which is?"

"Someone organized. Someone who knows enough to be specific about timing, location, access." He set the note down on the counter. His hands stayed there, palms flat, like he was grounding himself. "Someone who's been planning this. Or someone who's been ordered to."

The distinction hung between you both.

---

"That man in the garage," you said quietly. You'd been staring at the note for what felt like hours, but it had only been minutes. "Who was he?"

Leon had stopped pacing. He was standing at the window now, looking at nothing in particular. The city sprawled beyond the glass, indifferent.

"I don't know."

"That's still not—"

"It's the truth I have." He turned back to you, and his face was different now. The control was still there, but something underneath had shifted. Fear, maybe. Or the pragmatic acceptance that came after fear. "But whoever he was, he wasn't acting alone. The gear he was wearing, the way he moved—that was military training. BSAA, maybe. Someone's been watching you."

The words landed differently when he said them directly. Not a suspicion. A fact.

Your apartment suddenly felt smaller. Walls pressing in. Every window is a potential vantage point.

"For how long?"

"I don't know."

"Stop saying that."

"Then I'll tell you what I'm afraid of instead—long enough that someone knows exactly where you live and work. Long enough that they're patient about it. Long enough that they've got resources." He moved closer, not to touch but to make sure you heard him. "The note isn't a warning. It's a message. To both of us."

"What message?"

"That they know about me. About us. And that proximity to me is dangerous for you." He paused. "Which means they're right."

Your instinct was to argue. To tell him he wasn't dangerous, that this wasn't his fault, that he couldn't blame himself for other people's choices. But something about the way he was looking at you—like he was trying to memorize your face before something changed—made you stay silent.

"Someone's coordinating this," he continued. "Someone with intel access, operational capacity. They shot out your tires. They left that note. They want us separated."

"Why?"

"Because together, we're harder to control."

---

Your phone was in your hand before you'd fully decided to use it.

The text to V was simple: Need to talk. Call me?

She didn't answer immediately. Which was normal. Which meant nothing.

Except Leon had gone quiet. That particular kind of quiet where his eyes had tracked the motion, the screen, the moment your attention shifted away from him and toward someone else.

"You're calling V," he said. Not a question.

"I need to know if she knows anything."

"And does she?"

You looked at your phone. Waiting. The three dots appeared and disappeared. Appeared again.

Finally: In a meeting, later tonight?

It was evasive. Not like V. The woman who always said yes or no, never later. V, who would drop everything if you called with something urgent. V, who would call you immediately if she sensed something was wrong.

And it was past 10 PM. Late enough that she should've been home. Late enough that a meeting was unlikely. You checked the time stamp on her message—she'd seen it immediately, but waited three minutes to respond.

Three minutes to compose something vague.

Your throat tightened. You didn't look at the timestamp again, didn't let yourself dwell on what it meant, but the thought was already there, taking root in the space Leon had opened.

"She's being weird," you said quietly, forcing the observation out like it was casual. Like you weren't suddenly seeing V through a different lens. Like you weren't already rewriting the last few weeks in your head, looking for moments that suddenly seemed less like friendship and more like surveillance.

You felt Leon's attention like a weight shift in the room. He didn't say anything, but his silence was louder than any accusation.

"She could just be busy," you offered, but even you didn't believe it.

"Or she already knows."

You stared at him. "What?"

"Why someone is threatening you? Why I'm here. Why does she suddenly can't talk?"

Your chest tightened. "Leon, you're paranoid."

"Yeah. I usually am. And I'm usually right."

You looked back at your phone. At V's non-answer. At the delay that stretched longer than it should have. By the way, she'd asked if you were safe before you'd even told her anything was wrong.

Something twisted in your gut. Not quite suspicious. Not quite betrayal. Something in between—the uncomfortable realization that the people you trusted might be keeping things from you. Might be operating under information you didn't have. Might have their own reasons for silence.

"Don't answer her," Leon said.

"Don't—stop getting in my fucking head about my best friend,"

"I know. And right now, that might be exactly why we can't tell her where you are."

You wanted to argue. You wanted to defend V, to insist that he was wrong, that this was paranoia and nothing else. But his certainty was infectious, and your own doubt was starting to bloom.

You set the phone face-down on the counter.

The air went thin after that. Like the space between you both had crystallized into something unbreakable—not a wall, but a choice. His choice to protect you. Your choice to let him. And somewhere in the middle, the people you'd trusted became questions instead of certainties.

Leon was watching you. Watching the moment you chose not to answer. Watching the moment you chose him over the person who'd been there when he wasn't.

And in that silence, with your phone darkening on the counter and his eyes steady on yours, you realized something had just fractured.

Not between you and Leon.

Between you and everyone else.

And you had no idea which of them—if any of them—was actually on your side.