tcm/RE fanfiction, Johnny Sawyer/Leon K. appreciation (nice word for obsession), unhinged stuff of a 28 yo Eastern-European chick
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Headboard: jillysammybean đ€
A soft place to fall apart [Kennecroft, semi-slow burn, eventual smut, feel-good, fluff]
[part 1; part 2; part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8]
HEARTH [homefire] [Leon x fem!reader one-shot; porn with plot; angst and smut]
TCM
Hail, man un kind [Johnnyxfem!oc, moral decay, slow burn, descending into madness and perverse love]
[part1- part2; part 3-4; part 5-6; part 7-8; part 9-10; part 11-12; part 13-14; part 15-16; part 17-18; part 19-20; part 21-22; part 23-24; part 25-26; part 27- 28; part 29-30; part 31-32; part 33-34; part 35-36; part 37- 38; part 39-40, part 41, part 42]
I gave the reaper a cherry blossom [Johnny x fem!reader one-shot; smut; body image issues; Rush week victim reader]
Tobacco bubblegum [Johnny x fem!reader one-shot; smut; degradation; gas station worker reader]
Stripped down (to the bones) [Johnny x fem!reader; 60's; coming of age; teenagers; Southern Gothic and Ethel Cain vibes]
As a total newbie in the fandom, I hardly know anything about the lore, but fell in love with these two. As I have seen this is a controversial ship, so please only read if you like this pairing. I also love to see Leon with any other characters, no ship shaming around my page.
Part 1, Part 2; Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, part 7
Description: After the events in Rhodes Hill, both Grace and Leon try to move on with their respective lives. Not like they could forget about each other. Longing thoughts, intrusive ones, inappropiate ones. Must be one-sided, they think. He doesn't want to be weird, she doesn't want to be stupid. So Leon does the only thing he can justify. He brings flowers for International Womenâs Day.
Tags: Soulmates, Comfort No Hurt, Survivor Guilt, Semi-slow burn, Falling in love, Explicit sexual content, Grace is a grown and competent woman, Younger Woman/Older Man, Domestic Fluff, They are sweethearts, Eventual smut, Body Worship, Oral sex, Vaginal sex, Blowjobs, Awkward flirting, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating
Chapter 8: Oranges
They surprised each other. Leon with an enormous bouquet of white gladioli, and Grace with the keys to her home.
He already knew his way around her apartment well enough to put the flowers in water himself, which wasn't unanticipated. His instincts, his ability to keep every tiny tactical detail filed away in his mind, never really switched off. In this case, that meant knowing exactly where Grace kept the scissors and her largest vase.
He had just placed the flowers in the exact center of the dining table when Grace slid a small ring with two keys across to him. Only then did it occur to her that she probably should have replaced the Baby Yoda keychain she'd ordered from AliExpress. Her heart had already been hammering in her throatâshe had never voluntarily given anyone access to her home beforeâbut as she waited for Leon's reaction, the tension made her feel as though fine cracks were spreading through her body.
Leon's eyes widened ever so slightly, the light in them softening at the same time.
"Are you sure?"Â
It was mind-boggling how much tenderness lived inside that large, powerful body, inside those arms and legs that could have taken Grace's life in an instant, yet chose instead to protect her.
Unconditionally.
That was why she'd decided it was finally time to show Leon that he belonged here just as much as he did in his own place. That this was his home, too. That she truly trusted him.
Even if it had taken her a long time to believe it, someone like Leon S. Kennedy could still have doubts about himself. In fact, if she'd had as many one-dollar bills as Leon had self-doubts, she'd never have had to work another day in her life.
"Is... is it too much?"
He gave a quiet shake of his head.
"Not at all, Grace. I just need you to know I don't expect this. It's... a big gesture."
Instead of answering, Grace picked up the keys and pressed them into his palm. She buried her face against his chest, nestling between the two firm muscles that had rested so reassuringly against her back in the bathtub.
The keys might belong to the place where she lived.
But her home, in the truest sense of the word, was him.
Trying to put that into words would have been impossible. Nothing but sentimental nonsense would have stumbled out of her mouth, a jumble of stammered syllables.
She was so, so bad at this.
Still, the moment Leon had a key to her apartment, certain problems seemed to disappear as if by magic. The faucet over the bathroom sink suddenly stopped dripping. The refrigerator mysteriously refilled itself by the time Grace and Emily returned from one of their walksâthis time they'd gone to see the State Street Bridge. Fresh salt found its way into the water filter.
Emily, without any prompting this time, told the Office Lady all about Leon, her fairy godmother. Grace even caught one sentence that made her ears burn.
"Grace's been really happy lately. She doesn't cry as much anymore."
Embarrassing as that was to hear aloud, Miss Van Valkenburg received the news with unmistakable delight.
"In light of all this," she said, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her bun, "I can confidently recommend that you begin expanding Emily's comfort zone. She's ready for it now. In small steps, of course," she added, glancing down at her pink tablet. "I'll send everything over electronically, including the specialist's recommendations."
Even armed with all the tips and tricks she'd been given, Grace still had no idea where to begin. Mostly because a single day wouldn't have been enough to list all the ways Emily was different from other children her age. All the things that had been denied to her.
Fresh air, instead of the heavy, filtered oxygen she'd breathed during the first years of her life. Lullabies. Proper clothes that didn't leave her feeling exposed. Her twin sister.
Grace watched the back of Emily's head, her ponytail swaying as she carefully hopped over the cracks in the pavement.
"They're lava," she had declared. "If you touch them, you'll burn into ashes."
Guilt settled inside Grace like molten lead.
Emily had never learned exactly how Marie had died.
She already suffered from enough nightmares, and Grace couldn't bear the thought of adding anotherâof Emily imagining her twin sister melting into a foul-smelling heap of mutated flesh.
They stopped for a short break on the long flight of pale stone steps outside the Chicago Gallery, which Emily insisted looked just like sand dunes. She wandered up and down them, hopping from step to step, occasionally creeping toward a pair of pigeons pecking at a discarded ice cream cone.
"S-sure... th-that's wonderful news," Grace stammered into the phone. On the other end, Leon listened patiently. "B-but what if the other children ask about her scars?"
"They might."
"O-or what if they d-don't want to play with her? I-I'd flip out if this ended badly for her."
"It's possible there'll be a few bumps along the way." A door closed somewhere on Leon's end of the call. From the background came the faint pulse of generic workout music and the mechanical squeak of exercise machines.
"But," Leon continued, "she might just hear, 'Hey, wanna come play on the seesaw with us?' That's just as likely. The important thing is that she's prepared for either."
Grace sat down on the steps, drawing her knees to her chest.
"I know. W-we already talked about what's okay to tell other people... and what belongs j-just to us."
After all, Emily's chances of making friends probably wouldn't improve if she started conversations with stories about medical experiments and crashing helicopters.
"Don't be scared, hunny." His voice softened into the familiar warmth that always seemed to reach her, no matter the distance. "I've got you."
Not for a second did Grace doubt him.
The DSO's most seasoned operativeâthe decorated hero of former President Grahamâwas now walking beside them on the woodland path leading toward the playground, Grace's white handbag slung over one shoulder.
"It's basically military supplies."
"It is not."
Leon stole a quick glance inside the bag. It contained two kinds of wipes (wet and disinfecting), neatly folded rain ponchos, a brand-new box of crayons, drawing paper, five oranges, a bunch of bananas, several kinds of medication, and a bag of salted almonds.
You could negotiate a hostage situation with this much food." He looked toward Emily. "If the FBI thing doesn't work out, your mom could always open a traveling convenience store, right, Em?"
"Right!" Emily sang back, though it was doubtful she'd actually heard the question.
She was already several steps ahead of them, both arms stretched wide as though she could touch the rich tapestry of scents drifting through the air. Berry bushes lined the trail beneath pale-barked birches, black oaks and towering hickories, their leafy crowns casting cool shade across the path. Grace suddenly realized she'd dressed a little too lightly. Expecting warm weather, she wore nothing more on her upper body than a thin cashmere sweater whose sleeves hung over the face of her watch.Â
The mild late April weekend had drawn plenty of families outdoors. A grandfather gently pushed a pair of twin-toddlers on the swings while children of every age worked together in the sandbox, constructing what appeared to be a medieval castle complete with moat. On the grassy field beside the playground, a group of boys chased a soccer ball while their parents lounged on nearby benches, swinging their smartphones and reusable water bottles.
Grace had researched everything online beforehand. Bathroom? Check.
She immediately spotted the portable restroom.
Snack stand? Also check. A small seasonal kiosk sold soft drinks, beer, and toasted sandwiches.
A small flashlight peeked out of the pocket of her khaki trousers.
Leon noticed. He simply chose not to comment on it until they reached the playground.
Emily stopped where the woodland path opened into the playground. Her hand immediately found Grace's. She squinted at the weathered wooden climbing fort, its dragon heads worn smooth by generations of children. Next to it, three little girls sat around a picnic table, covering its cracked surface with colorful chalk drawings; flowers, smiling faces, plump cats.
"We d-don't have to stay long," Grace reassured her, crouching beside her to straighten the twisted strap of Emily's Raven backpack.
"O-okay."
She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt before giving the girls a tentative little wave. "Do you think..."
"I-I think t-trying can't hurt, Chikadee."
The girls, about Emily's age, noticed her almost immediately. One, with a unicorn hairclip and denim dungarees, waved back. "Do you want to draw with us?"
"I... I only brought crayons," Emily mumbled.
"We've got chalk!"
Problem solved.
Emily climbed onto the bench beside them. Her movements were still a little hesitant, still just slightly different, but the girls didn't seem to notice.
"That's why I like kids." Leon's warm hand settled at the nape of Grace's neck, gently kneading the muscle that had gone rigid with tension. "They haven't learned to look for flaws in everything yet." His gaze drifted to the flashlight sticking out of her pocket. "...Hm."
"I b-brought it in case..."
"Easy, hunny" he smirked. "Truth to tell... I've got one too."
Grace chuckled, and tucked her hands in her pockets. "O-of course y-you do."
"You're making fun of me, huh?"
"N-no, I⊠yeah. Sorry, I am."
They settled onto a bench beneath a flowering black locust tree. Leon never took his eyes off Emily, and this gave Grace the rare luxury of noticing something else: that several people couldn't stop looking at Leon. It wasnât only his looks. Even without the gun holsters and tactical boots, occupied with peeling one of Grace's oranges he radiated a presence that Graceâs fellow Gen Zs would have called alpha energy.
Or big dâ
She was still getting used to that, also to the fact that some people had absolutely no qualms about gawking. A father in an expensive designer tracksuit gave him a jealous once-over. Two middle-aged women nearby leaned together, whispering behind the pug lying across their laps. Grace could almost hear their conversation.
Do you see that guy? Good Lord.
He could knock the wrinkles out of your underwear.
So what on earth is he doing with that twig beside him? He could be her father...
She was pulled out of it when Leon quietly shrugged out of his black leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. The warmth trapped inside the leather enveloped her instantly, carrying with it the familiar scent of him. Warm skin. Protection. Cologne.
Home.
"W-what are you doing?"
"You've been shivering for the last ten minutes," he replied. "It looks better on you anyway."
Grace hid her rapidly reddening face behind the collar of the jacket. "You're biased, L-Leon."
"I object. I'm not." He leaned back against the bench. His fingers found their way among the orange wedges, separating them. Some fresh juice clung to his skin, and he licked him thumb absentmindedly. "I'm demonstrably correct."
"That's n-not how o-opinions work."
"No," Leon agreed. "But it is how my super-hot girl looks in my jacket."
That one left Grace completely defenseless. She buried herself even deeper inside the jacket, failing miserably to suppress her giggles.
She waved at Emily, calling her name to make sure she noticed. A moment later, Emily looked up and waved back with the pink stick of sidewalk chalk clutched in her hand. She still wasn't saying much around the other children. Fortunately, they more than made up for it. Especially the little girl with the unicorn hair clip had taken to her almost instantly. She traded colors with Emily while enthusiastically designing their team's official mascot: a spaghetti cat whose whiskers were made of cheese.
Leon rested an arm across the back of the bench behind Grace's shoulders.
He looked relaxed.
Still, Grace could tell this wasn't entirely familiar territory for him. Even if he'd wanted a family all those years, he'd never really had the chance to spend an afternoon lazing around in the woods, snacking on almonds without expecting his phone to ring, summoning him to yet another life-threatening mission. "The DSO's game dog," he'd called himself more than once, always with that dry, self-deprecating edge.
"I d-didn't really have any friends when I was little," Grace said quietly. "It always looked s-so easy for everyone else... but I n-never knew w-what I was supposed to say. P-people thought I was... weird."
Leon rubbed his stubbled jaw with his free hand.
"I wasn't exactly captain of the football team, either."
Grace found herself thinking of the young rookie officer smiling back at her from the Raccoon City files. Kind eyes, bright eyes. A face that hadn't yet learned what the world could do to it.
No... however handsome Leon had undoubtedly been, he'd probably been too gentle, too earnest to ever be one of the popular boys.
And now he was here, looking at her as though she'd somehow become the most interesting person in the park. A question flickered through her mind, just for an instant. She swallowed it before it could escape; this wasn't the time. Or the place.
Leon noticed anyway. The uncertainty must have shown somewhere behind her eyes, peeking through like light between half-closed blinds.
He nudged her gently with his shoulder. "What?"
Grace shook her head. "Nothing."
"Grace."
She caught herself chewing on the edge of a fingernail. Leon followed her gaze for a second.
"So..." He lowered his voice, even though no one was close enough to hear. "Is it the sex?" He lowered his voice on the last word, though there wasn't anyone close enough to overhear. Only a few sparrows rustled through last year's leaves.
She stared at him -Â bull's-eye. Of course he'd guessed.
"W-we'll talk about it l-later."
Leon simply nodded, didn't press. Even without saying it aloud, the question had been hanging between them for nearly two weeks now.
When?
She wasn't used to being the one who thought about it first. Usually it had been the man.
Not that Leon could fairly be compared to her previous two boyfriends, who were simple as fence posts, both of them. After all, for more than six months she'd been hopelessly fantasizing about a man nearly twice her age. And some of those fantasies had already come true.
Barely a day before, Leon had clamped one hand over her mouth, and with the other he finger-fucked her to the edge of delirium.
On her couch, those same hands had gripped her head like a bear-trap while he had been cumming down her throat.
Considering everything Leon had entrusted her with, how he'd quite literally placed himself in her hands - the vulnerability in his eyes, the softness of his hair beneath her fingers - while he spoke about Gideon.
Grace couldn't bring herself to suggest taking the next step. She just⊠wanted to.
"Mom! Mom!" Emily's voice echoed the radiant smile lighting up her face. Colored chalk dust coated her palms, and her hood had fallen back as she ran. Beside her sprinted the girl with the unicorn hair clip. "Can I introduce you to Nixie?"
Grace went completely speechless.
Mom.
That... had been meant for her.
Grace couldn't find her voice. Emily herself didn't even seem to notice.Â
Fortunately, Leon stepped up with friendly ease.
"Hi there." He greeted Emily's brand-new friend. âNameâs Leon, and this is Grace, Emâs mom.â
The little girl beamed.
"My name is N-I-X-I-E," she said proudly, spelling it out. There were daisies embroidered over her pockets, her long hair dark and thick as per her eyebrows and lashes. "That's my dog, Roxy." She pointed toward the pug, who lifted its wrinkled face at the sound of her voice. "The redhead lady is my aunt. My moms are on vacation."
Grace, finally remembering herself, fished an orange out of her inexhaustible handbag and offered one to each of the girls.
"Em," Nixie asked, "do you want to pet Roxy?"
"Can I... Mom? Grace?"
"Mom," Grace repeated softly, answering the question Emily hadn't realized she'd asked. She cupped Emily's cheek, her thumb brushing away a streak of pink chalk. "Of course y-you can. J-just be v-very gentle."
By the time the girls reached the pug and the women doting on it, Grace was already crying. Wordlessly, Leon brushed her tears away with his thumb, then pulled her closer, comforting her with his devoted lips.
His relationship with the apartment had entered a new phase.
After that initial sense of unfamiliarity, he'd gradually begun to make it his own. The rooms had acquired personalities, and the objects had soaked themselves full of memories. Grace cheekily stroking his leg with her foot while they sat on the couch. Snoring beside him in his bed. Applying lip gloss in front of the bathroom mirror.
Now he found himself thinking that maybe he ought to buy a house instead. A big one, somewhere in a quiet neighborhood, where it would be easier to withdraw from the world, to rest, to raise a child.
Leon put away his shooting gear. The lockbox containing his pistol and hearing protection went onto the top shelf of the wardrobe. If Emily was going to spend more time here, he'd need to buy a proper gun safe, he reminded himself.
He let out a sigh, hands settling on his hips. A year ago, stepping into a father's role again after Sherry hadn't exactly been on his BINGO card. He'd been much more convinced that the RCS would eventually destroy what was left of his body and that, once he started coughing up blood, he'd sooner or later end up putting the barrel of a gun into his mouth.
Grace had changed all of that.
She hadn't only bought him more time to keep polluting the atmosphere. Somehowâalmost incomprehensiblyâhe was given him the love of a radiant, breathtakingly beautiful young woman.
And Emily.
The little girl he'd once shot.
Even she'd granted him a second chance.
To such an extent that he could no longer think of her as anything but his own, despite feeling no more prepared than the scatterbrained twenty-something he'd once been. Sherry had turned into an incredible woman, hadn't she? Maybe he wasnât so bad at this.
He started gathering up his dirty laundry before taking it downstairs to the laundromat. Grace's apartment key, with its little Grogu keychainâfor Christ's sake, could this girl possibly be any more lovable?âhe placed carefully on the nightstand.
When he turned one of his worn cargo pants inside out, a small piece of white fabric slipped from one of the twisted pant legs and fluttered onto the floor.
It was incredibly soft. A thin elastic strap stretched between his fingers as he picked it up.
Fuck.
Grace's panties.
They'd probably gotten tangled up with his pants when they'd changed into their pajamas after the lemongrass bath. It would be damn near impossible to convince anyone he hadn't stolen them on purpose. He quickly set them on the edge of the sink because he had no desire to feel like an even bigger creep by, say, smelling them or lingering over the impossibly soft fabric in his hand.
The fact that Grace was officially his girlfriend now didn't make respect any less important.
His outrageously young girlfriend.
Almost as though she'd somehow sensed exactly what was going through his head, she sent him a picture.
His phone vibrated in precisely the same way it always did whenever another notification arrived about the utilities for the Sarasota house. At first, he assumed Grace had sent him another memeâone he had roughly a fifty-fifty chance of understanding. Cats. Bernie Sanders. Some bizarre cartoon.
Instead, it was Grace herself.
She stood before a mirror far too wide and far too harshly lit to belong to her own bathroom. She had her back to it, her face mostly hidden behind the reflection of her phone, while her ash-blonde hair glowed around her head like a halo.
Her other hand, meanwhile...
...had hiked up her black pencil skirt all the way to her hip, revealing the milky, smooth curves of her backside and the teasing line of a black thong disappearing between them.
Leon leaned against the doorframe, the bag of laundry he'd just gathered slipping from his grasp and landing on the floor with a soft thud.
His tongue swept across his lips, wetting a mouth that had suddenly gone dry.
Jesus.
She'd taken this in a women's restroomâprobably at the FBI office.
She must have been terrified of getting caught, yet some part of her had undoubtedly been thrilled by the risk. As innocent as her eyes looked, she could be astonishingly wild. Leon had already learned that firsthand.
The mere memory of how eagerly she'd knelt before him, of the shameless wishes tumbling from between those lips she'd bitten rosy red, sent a sharp pulse through him beneath his jeans.
And this picture...
He couldn't help himself. He tapped the call button.
"Hi, Leon," Grace answered, her voice coy.
Cute.
"You're home already?" She answered yes. "Hm." Leon smiled to himself. "This picture you sent me... when did you take it?"
Grace let out a tiny laugh that sounded almost like a hiccup, tasting of embarrassment sweetened with excitement. Like fruit wine.
"A-at the office," she admitted. "During my lunch break."
Bed springs creaked somewhere in the background, and Leon could picture her perfectly: flopping backward onto the burgundy bedspread in that tiny room of hers, the same room where dawn had found the two of them cuddled together more than once.
"I s-shouldn't have, should I?"
"Grace..." He laughed under his breath. "This is kinda embarrassing, but I can't stop looking at it. You have absolutely no idea what you do to me."
His gaze drifted to the pair of women's panties resting on the edge of the sink. "...Is now a good time?"
"Y-yeah. Emily's h-having a m-movie night at Nixie's. Nixie's moms are r-really sweet."
Leon was genuinely glad to hear it. Emily and Nixie had clicked almost instantly, as people liked to say. He knew exactly how much that meant to Grace, and that, for Emily, it marked another quiet milestone in the long road back toward an ordinary childhood.
"I accidentally took your panties home with me the other day. I only just found them."
"Oh. So that's where they went."
Leon scooped up the white underwear and dragged it slowly across the line of his fly. He was already half hard, and he switched Grace to speaker so he could keep talking to her while admiring the picture she'd sent.
"I've n-never s-sent anything like that to anyone before," Grace murmured. "I-I never trusted anyone this much."
Leon sank down onto his bed, completely forgetting about his plans for the laundromat. He pulled down his zipper, and from Grace's sharp intake of breath he knew she had heard. He didn't hold himself back, because this wasn't what Grace wanted from himâif it had been, she wouldn't have sent him a close-up of that tempting little ass.
"If I remember correctly..." he said, "you wanted to talk about this. Tell me what's on your mind, hunny."
"Well... it's just th-that..." Grace hesitated. "I want you, Leon."
"Hm?"
"I want..." Even through her voice he could hear how deeply she'd blushed, her breathing growing faster. Leon freed himself from his jeans and wrapped Grace's panties around his cock. A rough groan escaped him. "...I want us to do it. All the way."
Leon decided to tease her a bit, mostly because the situation was unbelievably arousing.
"Meaning?"
"You know!"
"I'm afraid I don't," he replied, tightening the delicate fabric around himself. What he wouldn't give for Grace's eager, wet mouth right now, let alone that tight little body. "Be specific."
"Oh," Grace gasped. "You... you really m-make me s-say everything."
"Come on."
"I w-want you." Her voice trembled. "I love what we do a-already. I love the way we t-touch, your t-tongue, your hands... but I'm going crazy if y-you don't finally... if y-you don't finally fuck me, Leon."
A deep, almost painful groan tore out of him.
Damn it.
Grace really was going to be the death of him.
The best possible kind.
"Believe me, baby," he breathed. "I want that too. I just didn't want to rush anything. You... and everything between us... It's special to me too. I had to learn how to trust again."
His voice faded for a moment as he heard clothes rustling on the other end of the line. Grace had probably slipped out of one of her little sporty outfits, and her slender fingers had begun their journey.
"My own body."
"O-oh. Was there a time w-when...?"
"When it didn't work?" Leon finished. "Yeah." He moved his hand over himself, the cotton wrapped around him carrying the delish scent of Grace. "But not with you. Even now..." His breath caught. "Ah, fuck. I'm so hard because of you."
A small silence fell between them, broken only by the rhythm of his movements and the quiet, wet sounds coming from Grace's side of the call.
"How?" Grace finally asked, a little impatiently.
Leon smiled.
"How what?"
"How do you imagine it?"
"That I'm inside you, Grace." She moaned breathlessly. "Are you turned on?"
"Y-yes," she whispered.
"Your fingers?"
"Yeah."
"Or your vibrator?"
"My fingers."
"Get your vibrator."
"B-but you're so much bigger."
Grace certainly knew how to stroke a man's ego.
He started jacking off faster, more desperately, his breathing becoming ragged, as if he were standing before a great leap; fifty meters of tense sprinting, the push-off from a rooftop, a gloved hand catching onto a rusted ladder.
He was moving and fighting and reaching.
Trying to reach her.
Trying to reach the love of his life.
"Fuck, Grace."
Looking at the daring picture she had sent him, Leon finally gave in. He couldn't hold himself back anymore and let her hear him.
His sticky, hot cum spilled over him, and the fabric of Grace's panties absorbed it as he clutched them tightly and completely lost himself. Grace made a small, helpless sound on the other end of the line, like a kitten, repeating his name. Leon, Leon, Leon.
Eventually they agreed to give each other a few minutes to collect themselves. Grace called him back once he'd changed into comfortable clothes and stretched out on the couch, inattentively flipping through television channels.
"I'll ask Ummi to watch Emily," she said. "Maybe... Saturday? At your place?"
Saturday sounded perfect.
It also meant only one week remained until the FBI gala.
Leon's contacts were still moving frustratingly slowly, and that festering boil named Dempsey was still Grace's boss. Sherry had made him promise not to cross certain lines.
That nobody would come out better if he did.
"If I keep staring at that picture you sent me until Saturday," Leon said, drawing a tiny chuckle from Grace, "I swear you won't be getting out of bed for the rest of the weekend."
HELLO im so late to the party of RE and seeing i just got into it i guess late to RE9 as well but ive been IN LOVEEE with grace and was pretty down when i found people literally treating Kenncroft like it was the most morally wrong ship in the world when a 20 year age gap is the most tame Iâve ever seen a fandom
BUT ANYWAYS I LOVEEEE YOUR FIC SOOO SO SO MUCH OH MY GOD they deserve all the domestic fluff they can get until capcom inevitably ruins Grace and Leonâs peace by putting them in another game⊠your writing is so so so fantastic and the characterization is so good and AHHH I JUST CANT WAIT I LOVE KENNCROFT SM RN ITS ALL I THINK ABOUT
Oh heeeey! â„
Oh you are absolutely not late, Kennecroft is THRIVING now. Yay!
Thank you so much!! This project means the world for me - funny that it started as an one-shot but thanks to y'all I got so much inspiration that HERE WE ARE
I love them LOVE THEM, they are so precious. There are many cool darker Kennecroft fics but I just can't get enough of domestic bliss with them. They deserve all the love and kisses and meadows and sugary coffees
As a total newbie in the fandom, I hardly know anything about the lore, but fell in love with these two. As I have seen this is a controversial ship, so please only read if you like this pairing. I also love to see Leon with any other characters, no ship shaming around my page.
Part 1, Part 2; Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Description: After the events in Rhodes Hill, both Grace and Leon try to move on with their respective lives. Not like they could forget about each other. Longing thoughts, intrusive ones, inappropiate ones. Must be one-sided, they think. He doesn't want to be weird, she doesn't want to be stupid. So Leon does the only thing he can justify. He brings flowers for International Womenâs Day.
Tags: Soulmates, Comfort No Hurt, Survivor Guilt, Semi-slow burn, Falling in love, Explicit sexual content, Grace is a grown and competent woman, Younger Woman/Older Man, Domestic Fluff, They are sweethearts, Eventual smut, Body Worship, Oral sex, Vaginal sex, Blowjobs, Awkward flirting, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating
Part 7: Lemongrass
Grace's heart was like an fizzy tablet dropped into water.
âI love you,â Leon's deep, husky, impossibly sensual voice echoed in her ears. âI really do.â
She could have skipped down the street like a teenage girl whose school crush had just gave her a chocolate heart. Leaning against school lockers, sneaking kisses in the supply closet, giving a sloppy blowjob in a car.
Things she'd never actually done as a hunched-shouldered teenager in oversized jumpers who had to move from time to time.
It was all a little absurd, considering her boyfriendâJesus, that still sounded ridiculousâwas a fifty-year-old man with eyes of steel and a heart of gold. A man who could probably wipe out an entire terrorist cell with nothing more than an ice cream scoop.
And who had melted in her mouth the other day like butter left out in the sun.
The memory alone made warmth crawl up Grace's neck, despite the fact that there was absolutely nothing sexy about the dairy aisle in front of her. The whole hormone-addled, lovestruck-teenager feeling wasn't helped by the fact that nearly everything she passed in the supermarket somehow reminded her of sex.
Popsicles. Bananas. A halved papaya.
Jesus, you're an idiot.
As she glanced at the zucchini bouncing around in her shopping basket, she had to choke a giggle. Leon's is bigger.
Yeah, she was a lost cause.
Not that it was a lie. Leon was perfect everywhere, although Grace had never exactly had a concept of what a perfect dick looked like before. His, however, unquestionably was. A flawless specimen of a man with a ridiculous amount of hair and arms that looked capable of squeezing juice from solid stone.
And for some incomprehensible reason, Leon wanted her. He'd told her he loved her. It was beneath her touch that he'd come undone.
Keeping her head down, she hurried past the cans of whipped cream.
Back home, she drew the blackout curtains and dropped into her chair in front of her computer. She still had work to finish, and she'd promised herself that, aside from grocery shopping, she wouldn't let anything distract her today.
Emily was in her room doing homework. They were both being unusually responsible that afternoon. Every now and then Grace heard her wander into the kitchen for a glass of smoothie or another bite of brioche. Ever since she'd made that recipe with Ummi, Emily had insisted there always be some in the house.
Grace cracked her knuckles and opened the FBI's internal case management system. Her screen filled with the familiar stream of updates: priority assignments, questionnaires, her own pending deadlines. She entered her login credentials almost mechanically, and her eyes drifted toward the list of cases she had accessed most recently.
The shame she'd seen in Leon's eyes when he'd spoken about his interrogation had never belonged to him. The humiliation Grace herself felt while looking at the documentation of her own vulnerability didn't belong to her either.
It belonged to the people who had tied them up, tasted their blood, and violated them however their twisted whims dictated.
They were gone.
ACCESS DENIED
Your security clearance is insufficient for this resource.
Access restrictions updated by system administrator.
Contact your supervising officer for additional information.
Grace frowned at the message.
She tried again. Nothing.
She logged out, logged back in. Still nothing.
There had always been parts of the investigation she couldn't access, despite having lived through every horrifying second of it. But being locked out completely... That made no sense.
Had the DSO ordered this? Because she'd snooped through Leon's decades-old personnel files? Had they really taken offense over something so harmless?
"...Sorry," she murmured to her nonexistent audience.
Leon himself didn't mind.
...Well, not entirely.
When Grace had admitted she'd secretly saved a few pictures of him from his late twenties onto her phone, he'd grumbled and sulked like a moody bear for the better part of five minutes. "Grace, please. I used to look like a wet wipe trying too hard."
Maybe the files had simply been archived.
An active investigation...
Grace backed out and opened the burned laboratory case she'd worked on recently. Her access was perfectly intact. The same went for her current case: crime scene photographs, witness statements, forensic reports, every document exactly where it should have been.
Leaning back in her chair, she removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
She reported the Rhodes Hill issue as an IT error anyway. Something in the pit of her stomach whispered that the ticket would quietly be closed without an answer.
With a weary sigh, she opened the Bureau's internal mail.
The newest message immediately caught her attention.
The body of the email unfolded into a meticulously designed invitation; utter professionalism and understated elegance.
INTERNAL MEMORANDUM
From:Â Office of the Director
Subject:Â Annual FBI Recognition Gala
The Federal Bureau of Investigation cordially invites all personnel and approved guests to attend the Annual Recognition Gala on Saturday, May 8th, at the Palmer House Ballroom, Chicago.
Black Tie / Formal Attire
The evening will include:
Presentation of Distinguished Service Awards
Commendations for Outstanding Field Operations
Recognition of Scientific and Technical Excellence
Memorial tribute to personnel lost in the line of duty
Charity auction benefiting families of fallen agents
Confirmed attendees include representatives from Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, selected DSO officials, and several international partner agencies.
Among those scheduled to receive commendations are:
Special Agent Arlene Hanratty â Counterterrorism Division
Forensic Analyst Eric Cho â Cyber Crimes Unit
SSA Walter Blake â Violent Crimes Task Force
Additional honorees will be announced.
Guests are requested to RSVP before April 25th.
Grace read the invitation twice.
It wasn't unfamiliarâshe remembered receiving the same email the previous yearâbut she'd never once imagined she'd actually consider responding this time.
Events like this simply weren't her world.
A vast ballroom full with well-dressed people who all seem effortlessly good at small talk. Standing awkwardly with her hands clasped together, watching her superiors knock back one drink after another, applauding the retirement of people whose names she barely even knew. Waiting for her turn in the bathroom, trying not to stain her dress and eat too many mini pistachio Pavlovas amidst the bouts of anxiety.
Her sofa, a glass of wine, and a spicy novel had always sounded like a much better evening.
But what if she invited Leon?
She moved the cursor over the RSVP form and typed his name. Leon S. Kennedy.
She would have to ask him first, of course. Leon probably didn't want anything to do with the FBI, much less spend an evening shaking hands with carefully selected DSO personnel. He held some understandable grudge against state officials, and he probably hated pistachio Pavlovas too.
She shouldn't annoy him with ideas like this.
Unlocking her phone immediately dropped her into their message thread. It was her turn to reply.
Grace opened her gallery and pulled up those old photographs she'd rescued from the database. Smiling to herself, she zoomed in on one and gently traced her thumb across Leon's face. He was shown in profile, adjusting his gun belt while walking toward a secured convoy. He couldn't have been thirty yet. His jawline was yet soft, clean-shaven, his blonde hair asymmetrically cut and unruly, the strength of a lion carried in the way he held himself. She would have fallen hopelessly in love with his younger self just as surely as she had now.
So much for getting work done and refusing to let herself be distracted.
She carried her phone into the living room, but by then her imagination had already wandered to the image of Leon wearing a tuxedo.
He would hate it. She was absolutely certain of that. He'd grumble under his breath the entire evening, only to apologize for complaining five minutes later. He'd probably spend more time out on the balcony than mingling with the guests, keeping one drink company. Or maybe two.
A very real and very adult date, not trying to pretend that they are just friends. She was what she was, the controversially young lover of a man whoâd held her face in his rough, gloved hands, rubbing the life back to her in a place that wouldâve made nightmares jealous.
Emily soon joined her on the sofa, snuggling against her side. She was reading one of her Braille books, simply enjoying Grace's presence. Sugar crystals from the brioche sparkled at the corner of her mouth.
"What are you thinking about?"
Of course she'd noticed. Emily's finely tuned senses never failed to amaze her.
Grace gently ruffled her hair, earning the faintest little smile. "Whether I should invite Leon to a gala."
"You and Leon at a gala? Grace, that's obvious. You have to go with him!"
Emily declared it without pausing her reading for even a second, her pale little fingers busily gliding across the raised dots. In the corner of the sturdy page, a fox was talking to a raven holding a piece of greasy cheese in its beak.
"Yes, Chikadee."
Her support ticket remained untouched when she sat back down at her laptop.
Leon forwarded everything to his contacts inside the FBI.
He considered the entire Bureau a swampâand, for that matter, just about anything tied to the governmentâbut Sherry had been right. He couldn't settle this the barbaric way.
Unfortunately.
Dusk had settled beyond the bare panes of Leon's windows, though little remained visible of the sky's deepening violet beneath the thick blanket of clouds. It hung over Chicago like a heavy wool quilt, and his herbs were clearly unimpressed. The basil drooped mournfully, while the rosemary had begun yellowing again.
Leon chose to interpret that as a sign that he ought to invite Grace over again.
Grumbling under his breath, he watered the herbs and poked a limp parsley leaf with his index finger.
"I know you're just messing with me. One of these days I'm gonna catch you."
He brewed himself a coffee, phone in hand, and sat down on the edge of his bed. He'd changed the sheets after noticing the tiny twitch in Grace's face the last time she'd been hereâshe'd clearly decided they were no longer the pinnacle of hygiene. These were an older set: black, with a Nine Inch Nails logo across them. He found himself wondering whether Grace even knew the band. She hadn't exactly perked up when Alice in Chains had been playing during their picnic.
He caught himself wanting to show her his record collection and prove, once and for all, that '90s rock had been the absolute peak.
Like a complete loser.
He took a long drink of coffee, holding it in his mouth for a moment, balancing its bitterness on his tongue. He could still see Grace's smileâthe one on her lips, and the one that had gleamed in her eyes when he'd admitted he loved her.
She had looked at him as though he were worthy of loving back.
Grace. Bright, honey-sweet Grace.
Who had gone down on him like she'd been born knowing exactly how. Ever since, the memory alone was enough to leave him so painfully hard that he'd had to finish himself off in the shower afterward, drifting between fantasies of her taste and the way she'd shyly asked him to take it out for her.
Fuck.
Grace could have asked him for anything, possible or impossible. She could've told him to carry a mountain on his back, to bring her the head of a dragon... or, failing that, a Nemesis.
Instead, she'd asked for that.
Leon had always known luck had favored him through most of his life. Otherwise he'd be just another corpse alongside the countless people who, in his opinion, had deserved to live far more than he had. But this kind of luck felt impossible.
His phone vibrated in his hand, the screen lighting up with a wallpaper that was no longer the factory-default cobalt blue. He'd taken the picture while Grace wasn't looking, though afterward he'd shown it to her so he wouldn't come across as a complete creep.
She was sitting on her couch, absorbed in their game, her glasses slipped to the tip of her nose, her lovely face drawn into fierce concentration. One of his hands rested around her waist in the photo, and every time he looked at it, he could almost feel the corduroy of her dress beneath his palm again.
Grace: Working too hard again? â€ïž
Leon: Heading out soon. Just waiting on one more update.
Grace would naturally assume he meant the Ukraine assignment he'd been consulting on, and that was for the best. For once, the fact that conversations like these couldn't happen over text worked in his favor.
Grace: We're waiting for you. Love you.
Leon set the rest of his coffee aside and scratched the back of his neck, staring at the two tiny words.
He only reacted to the message, didn't type anything back.
Coward.
Not that there was any doubt in his mind. He knew exactly what being in love felt like. But being loved like this...
That was unfamiliar territory.
Grace was as gentle and warm as sunlight, yet as dependable as the sun itself. There was no reason to fear waking one morning to find she'd vanished, disappearing for years without a word, leaving him gutted and weeping like a kicked dog. She had looked him straight in the eye when he was at his most vulnerable, drowning in shame, and she'd called him her hero.
Someone worthy.
But what if she was wrong? They were alike in many ways. One of them was the tendencyâat least the version of Leon he used to beâto see people as better than they truly were.
To mistake an aging alcoholic for something greater than an actual aging alcoholic who wished the bottom of his coffee mug held two fingers of bourbon instead.
The next message arrived over an encrypted line from one of his FBI contacts.
Recovered financial metadata attached. One more thing. We confirmed Dempsey logged into the Rhodes Hill archive twenty-three minutes before Ashcroft's access permissions changed. Now she's locked out.
The muscle in his neck tightened harder than it should have. He leaned back against the couch, his phone resting on his stomach, and in his mind he slammed a door into Dempsey's worm-faced skull over and over until there was nothing left of either the door or the head.
For a few bundles of cash, the bastard had been willing to send a young subordinate straight into mortal danger, back to the very place where Alyssa Ashcroft had been murdered. Leon couldn't care less that Dempsey probably hadn't known every detail, that Grace was going to be used as a key to bioterrorism, or that she'd come within inches of being torn apart by an industrial human meat grinder. The son of a bitch had known perfectly well he wasn't sending her off on some wellness retreat.
The bourbon in the cabinet became even more tempting. Just a couple of swigs, he thought. But that was always how it started. A couple of swallows became a couple of bottles, and before long he'd find himself staggering through bathrooms that reeked of lemon air freshener and stale piss. This time, though, it would've had its place. It would've kept a lid on the fury boiling inside him, so his girlies wouldn't have to share dinner with a wild animal whose eyes flashed with rage. It would've dulled the edge of everything drilling into his mind like needles.
Twenty years ago, back when dyeing his hair and beard black had somehow seemed like a brilliant idea, he never would've argued with himself over a drink.
He poured himself exactly as much whiskey as he had coffee left.
Emily set the table with absolute concentration. Everyone got a fork, a knife, a spoon, and a napkin. She'd even folded the napkins into little lopsided figures that she insisted were swans. Grace enthusiastically backed her up.
She'd made homemade tacos again because, after the last time, her daughter had declared them the most delicious thing in the entire world. Grace was curious to hear Leon's verdict, too.
The apartment was filled with the scent of garlic, tomatoes, and Monterey Jack cheese. The counter was still buried beneath dirty dishes that Grace was frantically stuffing into the dishwasher. If they were out of sight, they didn't existâright?
She arranged the tacos, loaded with two different kinds of filling, onto the table before quickly fixing herself up. Her pink apron landed in the laundry basket, she combed her fingers through her hair, and pulled on a thick, cream-colored knee sock because her feet were getting a little cold.
She hurriedly picked the tangled strands of hair out of her brush and scrubbed the smears of Emily's strawberry toothpaste off the bathroom sink. Lately she'd been falling behind with cleaning a little. It wasn't as if Leon would ever throw that in her face. Still, if she was really planning to invite him to an FBI gala - where everything would become painfully, unmistakably obvious to everyone - then she had to grow into that role.
She had to become the kind of woman who fit beside Leon S. Kennedy.
Her stomach collapsed in on itself like overbeaten meringue.
"There you are," her face lit up as Emily yanked the front door open to let Leon in.
"Bang on time." He beamed a smile on her, with two bottles of red wine tucked under one arm.
They exchanged a swift, modest kiss, one Grace kept tasting on her lips long afterward. He looked a little exhausted though. While he hung his jacket in the hallway, Grace briefly asked him about Ukraine, but Leon changed the topic almost straight away.
She rummaged through the kitchen drawers in search of a corkscrew while listening to Emily eagerly explain her napkin swans to Leon.
"Swans? You sure?"
"Yep."
"They don't look more like chubby chickens?"
Emily stuck her tongue out at him, but climbed onto the chair beside him anyway. She pulled the hood of her baby blue-and-white tie-dye sweatshirt over her head. Leon registered it with a sidelong glance before pinching the tip of the hood between two fingers and softly pulling it back down.
"Hoods off at the dinner table, Em." He rolled up the sleeves of his green knit sweater, revealing his forearms and the black Hamilton watch around his wrist. "Hey, don't look at me like that. I know they're swans. I'm just messing with you."
With an exaggerated sigh, Emily tucked one leg beneath herself. Grace joined them, poured herself and Leon generous glasses of the full-bodied, strong wine, and the three of them clinked glasses over the platters of tacos. She usually didn't let Emily drink overly sugary sodas, but today she'd approved a small glass of Fanta.
"The thing is, Leon," Grace said, a beef taco in her hand, "y-you're not v-very good at this whole retirement thing."
Leon smirked over the rim of his wineglass. "There are perks to it. Though you clearly have a thing for old goats."
Blushing, Grace stuffed a generous bite into her mouth. Damn it, why had she made tacos? There was no graceful way to eat them, and she was terrified of staining her shirt. A grease spot right over your nipple wasn't exactly attractive.
Something was prickling at her instinctsâand no, it definitely wasn't simply that she needed to work up the courage to ask whether he'd go to that stupid gala with her. That wasn't the only thing left unsaid between them.
The wine was disappearing at a respectable pace. Grace, trying to disguise her nervousness, began reading the label. The type of the grapes. Earthy notes. Italy. Dolce vita.
"Grace is reading the wine bottle."
"Because she's a smart girl. She pays attention to everything."
"That's true," Emily nodded, her mood eased after the earlier teasing and scolding. "But not always. The other day she forgot to flush the toiâ"
"Chikadee!" Grace yelped in horror. "T-that's not... I mean... n-never mind." She set the bottle down on the table with a heavy thud and began gathering the empty plates. When she reached Leon, she met the look in his eyes, gentle, yet quietly searching, and couldn't resist letting him run his hand up her leg before resting his broad palm against her waist and drawing her closer. "Leon."
Leon propped his forehead against her hip as he murmured, "Hm?"
"Y-you never answered m-my question."
"You know I can't say much about Ukraine. Regulations."
"B-but is that the only problem?" Reaching over his head, she collected his used cutlery before handing the stack to Emily, who immediately jumped to her feet to help. They both watched carefully to make sure she was approaching the counter with enough confidence, but just as the doctors had predicted, Emily moved slowly, yet steadily.
"I had a drink before I came over."
"Oh."
"That's what you're smelling," Leon continued, his thumb tracing lazy circles over Grace's leggings-clad thigh. "It's nothing."
After dinner they played a few rounds of Uno, all of which ended in painfully decisive defeats for Grace. Both Emily and Leon pelted her with the most infuriating cards imaginable, yet somehow she couldn't summon the inferno of competitiveness she usually carried into games with either of them. Instead, she flopped dramatically onto the couch and declared that nobody could be trusted anymore.
Emily disappeared to take her bath. Leon quietly gathered the scattered cards, sliding one neat stack after another together before tapping the full deck against the edge of the coffee table several times to square it. Grace stretched both arms toward him.
"Come here."
It was almost like that evening when Leon had finally returned to her after his long silence, only reversed. A soft smile curved his lips as he let himself fall sideways onto the couch like a great felled tree, resting his head in Grace's lap. She was kind of tipsy herself by now after the two of them had polished off the entire bottle of wine. The standing lamp and flickering candles cast a shimmering haze across the room, and even her tongue seemed to move a little slower. "Y-you'd tell me... if s-something was wrong a-again, wouldn't you?"
"Believe it or not, Sunshine, back in Raccoon City, booze actually saved my life."
"H-how is that even possible?" Grace asked, lifting a single eyebrow. From the bathroom came the sound of Emily humming to herself and splashing happily in the tub.
One of Grace's hands disappeared into Leon's sandy-blond hair. It was as soft as spider silk, and the familiar scent of cedar immediately sent butterflies fluttering through Grace's chest.
"Not long before that, my high school girlfriend broke up with me," Leon said. "I freaked out, drank so much that I couldn't pull myself together in time, and ended up late for my first day." He let out a deep sigh as Graceâs hand settled against the soft spot under his jaw. "This is really nice."
"I think so too," she agreed. "But⊠w-why did you drink this time?" Maybe she shouldn't have asked it like that. She wasn't his mother. She knew men didn't like nagging women, and Leon already had plenty of reasons to get fed up with her. He wouldâve been justified snapping at her: there you go again, poking and prodding, Grace. Canât you just calm down a little?
"I-it doesnât matter, hunny."
"I think it does."
"Since when did you become so stubborn?"
 "I am, when it comes to you," she replied, relieved that Leon didn't take it badly. She kept stroking his hair, gently massaging his scalp, and felt the last remaining tension slowly evaporate from his muscles, inch by inch, as if this masterfully carved Greek statue was relaxing in her lap. "B-because I l-love you."
Alcohol rarelyâvery rarelyâwas actually useful; this was one of those moments, making it easier to say. This time it didnât drag along the ankle weights of fear.
Her hand found a spot at the back of Leonâs neck that made his breath catch slightly, his eyelids fluttering closed. "Here?"
"Yeah."
Outside, the rain began to fall, as if the cloud-curtain covering the sky had torn open, the storm pressing almost horizontally against the buildingâs windows. The warm yellow light of the floor lamp flickered for a moment. Emily called out from the bathroom asking if they were there, and they both answered at the same time.
She came over to them in her giraffe onesie and asked both of them for a kiss, without words. Her silent, expectant stare was communication enough.
After that she went to her safari-themed room, but left the door open because she was a little afraid of the storm.
"Y-you donât have to k-keep everything inside anymore," Grace continued, brushing Leonâs bangs aside. It hit exactly right, because his blue eyes snapped open. "I-I sometimes imagine our brains are a bit l-like Emilyâs drawing papers. N-now and then, uglier s-scribbles end up on them, but they can be e-erased to some extent, andâŠ" Her fingers traced along his skin, caressing it with the back of her hand, feeling out the shallow lines of his wrinkles. "P-painted over i-into something n-nicer."
She found the scar on his neck that she had already noticed that day in the ARK, beneath the dried blood and grime. The infection no longer discolored Leonâs skin; only this remained with him, Gideonâs final middle finger.
She didnât try to convince Leon that what had happened didnât matter. That just because she had ambushed him in that parking lot a few days ago, all the bad memories would simply fade away. Leon had never fed her such lies eitherâthe guilt of survivors was a rotten thing, after allâand he didnât need to. Just like once in total darkness, they warmed each other.
A little later, Grace took his hand and led him into the bathroom. Emily had been goodâshe hadnât left behind a full flood disaster. She turned on the tap above the black bathtub, hearing Leon close the door behind them. Standing on her tiptoes, she took down a small handmade glass bottle filled with greenish bath oil from the top floating shelf, something a former therapist had once recommended to her. It was lemongrass oil, its scent fresh and bright, like morning dew brushing against bare feet.
She dripped it into the water and smoothed the foam with her fingers. Steam settled in her hair, flattening it slightly, and she shivered pleasantly as Leon wrapped his arms around her from behind. Through her top she could feel he was already shirtless, and she needed to see him, so she turned around. Every muscle on his burly abdomen was taut and defined, showing he was still committed to his training routine.
Grace took him in without her thoughts drifting; this wasnât about sex. Not for Leon either. Maybe if they hadnât drunk, and if Emily hadnât been there, he still wouldnât have been in the mood. She didnât need them to be. Alcohol usually muffled Graceâs senses anyway, making it harder for her to reach the peak than usual.
She simply soaked in Leonâs protective gaze as she shimmied out of her shirt, then hurriedly removed her black leggings. Leonâs cargo pants also fell to the floor, and in boxers and socks he leaned over the tub to turn off the water.
The universe shrank to the tiny, white-tiled bathroom and the two of them wrapped in fragrant lemon steam. Grace slipped the straps of her bra from her narrow shoulders, unclasped it, and, in her first instinctive burst of shyness, covered her breasts with her arms.
Leon turned to face her then, and Grace dropped her gaze to the floor.
"You're beautiful, Grace. A real babe, as we used to say."
"I think people still say that," she whispered, and, still staring at the tiles, slowly let her hands fall to her sides.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leon's boxers join the rest of their clothes on the floor.
He wasn't shy, and he had any reason to be. Even without a trace of sexual intention, his cock flaccid and eyes worn, every inch of him radiated quiet masculinity. He kissed her, soothing her restless nerves. His lips tasted faintly of alcohol, yet somehow sweet all the same. She couldn't remember ever being in a man's arms without him trying to find his way between her legs.
She slid the thin white strings of her panties down over her hips, then quickly climbed into the bathtub after him. Leaning back against his solid chest, she nestled herself completely into his embrace, like a songbird settling between the thick branches of an old oak. The bathwater lapped gently against the rim of the tub, just as the rain brushed against the bathroom's lone window outside, as though it, too, wanted to peek inside.
Leon buried his nose in her hair, nudging it playfully like an affectionate dog. Beneath the water, the outlines of their bodies dissolved into one another.
"Sorry... the tub isn't exactly huge."
"I've bathed in a wooden barrel before. Pretty sure somebody had been pickling frogs in it first... or something like that. This is perfect."
"Um, Leon... c-could you maybe..."
"Move over?"
Grace made a point of scooting even closer, if such a thing was physically possible.
"No. I wanted to ask... w-would you maybe come with me to the annual FBI gala? R-retirements, awards... that sort of thing. I d-didn't go last year."
Leon's right hand drifted higher until it rested across her stomach, just beneath the small, pointed curves of her breasts.
"A gala. An FBI gala." He reached for Grace's bath sponge from the edge of the tub and dipped it into the lemongrass-scented water. "You'd want me as your date? Officially?"
"W-what does officially mean to you?" Grace squeaked.
"Paperwork."
Grace would have shot him an irritated look if he hadn't begun gently scrubbing her back with the lathered sponge. The warm foam slid across her shoulder blades in slow, patient circles.
"I d-don't want paperwork," she mumbled, relaxing despite herself. "I j-just want you there... with me."
"For you? Anything, Grace."
Grace turned halfway toward him, closing her arms around his neck. Their chests pressed together, damp strands of hair clinging to Leon's forehead. His lips grazed the tip of her nose before he placed the gentlest kiss upon it.
Silence settled between them, broken only by the rain tapping softly against the window and the quiet slosh of water whenever one of them shifted. Grace could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek. It had become one of her favorite sounds in the world.
Privately, she thanked every star in the sky that she had never told Leon about Dempsey's questions.
She hadn't thought it was a good idea before, but now that they would soon be in the same roomâwith alcohol, and plenty of itâtelling him seemed even more dangerous.
If there was one thing she never doubted, it was that Leon would go to the ends of the earth to keep her safe. She didn't want the FBI gala to become another battlefield for him. She wanted one evening where he could simply be Leon; the man who quietly watered dying herbs, teased little girls about raccoon conspiracies, and absentmindedly scrubbed her back with a bath sponge while making terrible jokes about paperwork.
Just one normal night.
Even if neither of them had ever been particularly lucky with those.
Heii, its okay you dont need to rush crafting your masterpiece for us kennecroft hgs & hbs, we can wait for all eternity if it means getting to read the next part hehe. I hope you have a nice dayy too đ€
Hiii! Oh thank you, dear, it warms my heart! I already started working on it, it gives me so much joy! Your support is so precious to me <3
Description: She knew she shouldnât have come. She knew her best friend and boyfriend didnât want her to be there with them. It was her why they stopped at that god-forsaken gas station. It was also her why they stayed. Either alive or dead. And Johnny also has a say in it.
Warnings: mental instability, slow burn, manipulative relationship, enemies to lovers, totally bizarre found family dynamic, obsession, murder, explicit sexual content, dub-con elements, schizophrenia, unreliable narrator(s), dubious morality, cannibalism, moral downfall
Chapter 42: (Don't) Fear the reaper
JOHNNY
Maud laughed.
She had spoken the words (Lele, now!), that sounded like some pagan hex, claws tearing away Leleâs innocent little face and revealing the snarling muzzle of a wolf beneath.
Blood sprayed.
At first Johnny couldnât even comprehend where it had come from. The kid had only been holding a stuffed toy, and inside it, a fountain pen. Nothing unusual, nothing that should have set off alarm bells.
Maud was almost howling, unashamed, mocking him, his whole kin, fate itself. She snorted with it, so hard it mightâve even hurt â wild, savage, sharp.
Johnny wasnât the sort to see through their victimsâ eyes, but in that moment, he saw with perfect clarity what Ana Flores had seen. Knew what she had thought.
He stood face to face with a goddamn monster. A hell-spawned carcass of a thing, laughing with ferocious delight.
He shouldâve slit Maudâs throat immediately and ended all of it.
That had been the story of his life, what he should have done. He should have disappeared from this place long ago. Back on the day Nubbins shoved it in his face that he didnât belong among them. He shouldâve gotten rid of Black Nancy for good.
Shouldâve let them butcher Maud, let his cousins tear out her guts for sausage filling back in â73. And above all, he should never have let anything bloom inside him beyond the thrill of the hunt. Not feelings, not that parasite burrowing beneath his skin the day Maria smiled at him outside the Newt general store. Bright and kind, like she couldnât smell the slaughterhouse on him.
The ache, the longing to call someone his. Something other than another body in the collection beneath the shack.
Maud, still wearing Mariaâs yellowed blouse, seized the opportunity and bolted toward the stairs, the same way their son had gone running. For a sickening moment, it seemed like it was Maria again, running across the room, trying to get away from him.
âJohnny!â Sissy shouted, and with that, reality snapped back into place.
Her fingers clamped over the wound in Nancyâs neck, but blood pulsed through them all the same, soaking the knee-length dress patterned with wildflowers. The little blossoms darkened one by one beneath spreading crimson.
Nancy clung to her with wide, bulging eyes. Her knees buckled, her features warped, swollen and desperate, like a drowning toad's. The penâor no, not a pen, the knife -, rolled beneath the dining table, and the stuffed toy it had been hidden inside drank up the spilled blood like a sponge. Timmy Tiptoes' soft fur became the hide of a gutted coyote, the kind left stiffening in the dust while flies gathered at the wounds. The kind a hunter nudged with the toe of his boot before moving on.
âHang on, Ma!â
Johnny grabbed Nancy by the elbows, one on either side, and was startled by the awkwardness of her weight, by how small she suddenly felt. The authority, the certainty, the way she'd sat over mushroom stew and barked orders at him. All of it seemed to be leaving her body along with the blood.
The sight should have been beautiful. Desired. Just.
Instead, all he felt was the terror of his own boy climbing out of that vent.
He shoved Nancy away from him as if he'd touched a live coal, sending her stumbling into Sissy's arms. Nubbins vaulted across the dining table, forks and spoons clattering to the floor. Plates tipped sideways. Streams of gravy ran through the grain of the wood.
Yet he only crouched there like a dog, lower lip jutting out, eyes darting from face to face. He made no move to help. No move to harm.
Johnny kicked towards him. âGoddamn it, go after Maud! She cain't find Lele 'fore I do. Move your ass, if you're really as shifty as you say!â
He snatched his knife from the floor, unable to remember when it had left his hand. That hardly ever happened. Grandpa's blade was part of him. The worn wood knew the shape of his palm better than most people knew their own kin. Steel and timber together had delivered their farewell to countless wandering souls beneath the Texas sun. âSissy, get Ma inside. I mean it. Whatever happens next is on your damn head.â He pointed the knife toward the stairway. âI'm gonna find that child.â
LELE
Nancy's house looked the way Mommy had described it to him. She had explained it all, even drawn it for him with a mechanical pencil whose lead kept snapping, and Lele remembered Mommy's thumb, the pale crescent of her fingernail as she pressed the button and coaxed another sliver of graphite into view. Doors, locks, tunnels, iron pipes, cells. The lines on the paper had twisted beneath her hand like roots beneath dry soil, leading from one hidden place to another.
"Down the stairs, through the garage, then the basement door. Hide there, no matter what happens."
Nancyâwho insisted on calling herself his grandmotherâkept strange things in her basement. Mommy had warned Lele about that, but she couldn't have prepared him for the smell. It was sweetish and heavy, clinging to the roof of his mouth and the inside of his nose. The stink of sick things, dead things.
He had caught traces of it upstairs as well, but the blooming flowers, meals simmering over a low flame, and the wind creaking through the windmill had pushed it into the background. Down here, nothing stood in its way.
At the sight of the hollow-eyed body sitting before the flickering television, Lele nearly whimpered, but managed to clap a hand over his mouth in time. The blue glow washed over the corpse's sunken face, making it seem as though it were still watching, still waiting for something.
Lele had to be a quiet animal, a weasel, a cat squeezing between fence slats. Lowering his head, he crawled through a gap where two walls met and emerged into a narrow room that held nothing but a toolbox and several plastic buckets stacked atop one another.
Another gap, and then a tunnel that reminded him of a mine shaft. The shirt Nancy had dressed him in stuck damply to the back of his neck; most of it had splashed there from his grandmother. Fresh blood had a strong smell, sharper and more alive than the old dried stains darkening the tunnel walls. The stains seemed to stretch on forever in the dim light, marking the passage like a trail of old footprints.
He had done that, just as he'd been taught, and because of it they were surely angry with him now. Uncle Nubbins with his gap-toothed grin, strange traps, and possum eyes. Aunt Sissy with her lullabies and dirty fingernails.
Daddy.
Stepping into a dimly lit room, he immediately began searching for somewhere to hide. His heart hammered against his ribs, especially at the thought of Daddy. He was Johnny, the Pretty Boy, as the newspapers called him. And it wasn't a compliment. Not in his case.
His father used being handsome the way other people used a knife. To lull suspicion. To make people believe whatever he wanted them to believe.
Lele knew it was true, even though he loved Daddy. He didn't have much choice. He had swallowed his love for Mommy with her milk; it had seeped into him through whispered words and stories until it became part of him. A nest woven from dry twigs deep inside his chest, a place he never imagined anything else would come to inhabit.
Mrs. Lawson had been asking about migratory birds while flakes of clumped mascara drifted onto her upper lip. Lele had noticed because he tended to notice small things.
Stork. Great blue heron.
And birds of prey, Lele Gilbert?
Lele built his own little nest in the belly of Nancy's basement, behind a moldy cabinet and beside a cluster of humming water pipes. The steady vibration traveled into his bones. Pulling his knees tightly to his chest, he rested his forehead against a solid, knobby piece of bone. The smell of damp earth, rust, and viscera surrounded him, and for a moment he imagined himself tucked away inside the hollow of a tree, hidden from foxes and hunters alike. Above him the house groaned and settled around its secrets, while somewhere far away voices shouted his name.
He touched his neck and came away with blood smeared across his fingertips.
That horrible sound lingered in his ears, wet and burbling, like someone stepping into deep mud and losing a rubber boot in the suction. It made Lele's stomach twist with disgust, but he wasn't sorry. He didn't want to apologize for it. Usually, whenever he did something wrong, he wanted to fix it right away. The feeling gnawed at him until he did.
Hurting Grandma Nancy wasn't wrong, though. It wasn't, because Mommy had said now, and otherwise they would have hurt Mommy instead. They'd been hurting her for days. She had been bleeding and sick and trembling in Lele's lap when Dad drove them here from the abandoned mill, her skin so hot it frightened him.
Timmy Tiptoes and the pen had been their very last card to play. He couldn't rush it. He couldn't act out of anger.
Lele could become very, very angry, though most people didn't believe it because he never liked to shout.
He could be just as angry as Daddy.
When Johnny ripped that camera from Uncle Nubbins' hands, there had been something inside his eyes that looked exactly like what Lele carried around in his own chest. The difference was that Lele had learned early to sit on it. To let it pace around behind locked doors where nobody could see.
And now Daddy was following his trail. Furious.
Had Nancy died? Had he killed her?
A shiver crept down his spine at the thought. It must have hurt. There had been so much blood, and he'd driven the blade in deep enough to feel the warmth of her skin beneath his hand. Everybody had been shouting upstairs, and he thought he'd heard Mommy laughing.
Which meant he'd done it right.
Now all he had to do was wait for her to find him.
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
Lele counted the drops in his head to keep his mind off being afraid. Off the rattling noise that came when somebody yanked open one of the blue metal doors and locked it again behind them. Something wriggled beneath his ankles where they were wedged between the pipes, and when he looked down he found himself staring into the glossy black button-eyes of a rat. It crawled from a jagged hole in the wall, its nose twitching busily as it tested the air.
Lele wasn't afraid of it. This seemed like exactly the sort of place a rat belonged.
So when I say birds of prey, what comes to mind?
Vulture. Red-tailed hawk.
âLele!â Daddy's voice rolled through the basement, deep and impossible to ignore. âCome on out, son!â
He was still some distance away.
Lele loved his father, but he didn't trust him not to hurt him if he found him.
Mommy said Johnny would never harm him. That Johnny loved him. Lele could feel that love sometimes, in those hugs that smelled of straw and motor oil, and in the way Daddy ruffled his hair at the crown of his head. The funny way he'd taught him to pee. Mommy wouldn't have been able to.
There had been evenings when Daddy managed to get him away from Grandma Nancy for a little while and simply sat beside him in the patched-up shack, smoking one cigarette after another while waiting for him to fall asleep. He didn't know many stories. Only one, really, and even that one had a sad ending.
âI'm not mad at ya. Lord knows I've raised a hand to the old gal myself. More'n once. She doesn't always know when to stop⊠old women're like that, ain't they? Your mama's a stubborn hellcat too. But she's your mama, and it's your God-given job to protect her.â
He grunted somewhere beyond the wall, and wood cracked as he tore the lid off a dusty crate.
The next room over.
The pale hairs along the back of his neck stood on end.
âYou're a real man, Lele,â Johnny continued, slamming the lid back down. The packed earth squelched beneath his boots, each footprint three times larger than the ones Lele left behind. âCouldn't've been easy growin' up as the only man in the house. Your mama's tough, sure enough, but you were still the only fella there with any balls to speak of. If I'd had the chance, I'd've told ya how proud I am of you, hear me, boy?â
A door flew open somewhere behind him, and a pile of junk collapsed with a rattling crash. Daddy was searching for him, and Lele knew there wasn't anybody better at it. Daddy had found them even when Mommy packed him up and took him away again and again, armed with a different name and a different story each time. Those old lives felt like pages from a coloring book now: patterned brown carpet, Indian tents beneath the sycamore tree, the preacher's son's chubby face, Brownie's tongue slobbering across his cheek.
Slowly, he climbed down from the pipe. The rat had already disappeared. His shoulder scraped damp concrete, and the dried husks of dead insects showered into his hair from the cobwebs overhead.
"We're a family, Lele. Ain't nothin' and nobody gonna change that. Nancy ain't your grandma, but I'm your daddy and Maud's your mama. The three of us belong together."
"You wanted to hurt Mommy!"
The words burst out before he could stop them. The shout rolled through the basement almost unhindered, ricocheting off firm walls and iron pipes. He never did things like that. He always remembered to stay quiet.
But the blood.
The blood, the blood, the bloodâ
"There you are."
Johnny's footsteps thundered through the adjoining room.
Lele ran.
Holding his breath, he sprinted across a carpet of bones and scattered trash, his sneakers skidding through dirt and muck. He squeezed through another gap in the wall, one so narrow that only Johnny's gloved hand could force its way through after him.
"It's always the saaaame game." Johnny growled in frustration. "Don't matter what Nancy told ya, I wouldn't've done it. What good would it do me to ruin your mamaâs pretty face? That's enough now, son. Come on over here."
Their eyes met through the narrow slit in the wall.
Mommy always said he looked like his father.
He's got a terrible nature, sweetheart, but he's a beautiful man. And you inherited that beauty.
Lele felt tired. So tired.
Part of him wanted to go back. To crawl into Daddyâs lap and wrap his arms around his knees and believe that everything would be all right from now on. The mark from Grandma Nancy's blow still stood out on his face. Sleepless nights had tuckered him out. Anger and fear were accumulating day after day because he never let them out unless Mommy gave him permission.
Lele grabbed a discarded rake and shoved it across the opening. The metal teeth screeched against debris.
He rushed forward, past another blue door, into a colder, darker room. Pipes crossed the ceiling and old machinery sat rusting in the shadows. Between them lay bones sticking out from heaps of rotted flesh.
Lele swallowed hard and crouched behind a broken pump.
A human skeleton slumped against it, wrapped in the remains of what had once been clothing. The body was missing both arms, but the beige shirt it had worn was still intact enough that Lele carefully pulled it over himself, drawing the skull down with it. Wisps of hair still clung stubbornly to the scalp, brown strands of beard hung from the jaw like dried weeds caught in a fence.
He knew this smell.
Sometimes Mommy's hands smelled like this.
MAUD
Johnny didnât go after her right away. That much was expected.
Maud knew him well enough to understand that he wanted to kill his mother. All those women before had only been practice dummies, and thenâeventuallyâhe had desired to kill her too. Yet the moment desire had to turn into action, Johnny always stepped back. Something drained out of him then, that unstoppable force collapsing inward, leaving him more like a child than his own six-year-old son.
A boy who still obeyed Maud without hesitation when she spoke.
She had taught him well, though she hadnât truly expected to need it. She would have preferred if Lele never had to become the agent of chaos who brought Nancyâs grotesque victory crashing down.
Of course, they hadnât been lucky enough for the witch to die from a single stab. Maud dropped low among the wavering sunflowers and listened. Someoneâprobably Sissyâwas half-dragging Nancy deeper into the house. Johnnyâs voice cut through the turmoil, giving orders that sounded more confident than he actually felt.
Then he went after Lele. That task, he would never trust to anyone else.
Nubbins burst out of the door, but immediately veered off, as if it hadnât even occurred to him to search the sunflower field. Maud understood why a moment laterâthe electric fence snapped alive in a crackling flash, and somewhere in the distance the ancient generator roared awake.
The cleanest, least risky route to the basement had just been sealed off.
She suddenly had the urge to break Nubbinsâ nose, even though she didnât really want to hurt him.
They all knew it. All of them knew she wasnât trying to save herself, not primarilyâshe was trying to reach Lele.
She straightened, crushing the clover patches beneath her boots. Her fingers pressed into the white fence, and for a moment she felt herself slipping backward through timeâtwenty-three again, stepping into the stink of rot and unknown places, bruised and bleeding, but already carrying the first seed of ruthlessness inside her. Ruthlessness even toward herself.
Upstairs, Nancy coughed and tried to speak, but nothing coherent came out of it. Maud couldnât make sense of it, maybe Sissy couldnât either, standing beside her. Cut off her ear, Nancy had said. That was when the betrayal had settled in fully; Johnny vacillated, refused to obey her, and in the next moment the second generation had finally, unmistakably raised its middle finger.
For Maud, that alone felt like a small victory. Sweet enough that she could still taste laughter on her tongue.
Nubbins stood watch on the wooden bridge above the cactus beds, every limb moving in a different direction from the others, elbows and knees bending with such disjointed purpose that it seemed impossible a single mind could be directing them all. Quick, crude Nubbins. The kind of man nobody wanted to meet on a lonely highway bordered by dead grass and telephone poles. Maud imagined him slashing open his palm again and painting her forehead with his blood, the way ranchers branded cattle destined for slaughter.
She turned toward the well in the center of Nancy's garden, the dark eye of the basement staring upward from beneath its stone rim. Darkness protruded from it; it seemed almost solid, as though it were a substance all its own.
Come on, Mommy Maud, she thought, swinging one leg over the cool stone. It never warmed beneath the sun. Last time you did this, you were carrying Daisy's butchered body in your arms.
She tipped forward, hands locked behind her neck. The air rushed beneath Maria's blouse, and for a brief instant she felt cold.
Then she hit.
Bone-scraps, something soft and sponge-like, and fragments of a plastic chair exploded beneath her. Pain flared through her hips and legs like the cattle grid above, white and blinding as July sunlight. Her fingers dug into the earth, feeling tiny cuts split across her skin. The thick denim of her jeans tore open at the knees.
Come on. Childbirth was worse.
She was in the North Tunnel â she recognized it immediately. Close to the cell where Danny had been kept. Part of her almost expected him to emerge from the wavering shadows, side torn open, barbed wire tangled around one leg. But the darkness remained silent.
Only the fearlessness of a mother lynx fit inside her now.
Rubbing at her aching back, she forced her way into the pantry and yanked a drawer completely out of its runners, rail and wheels screeching across the floor. Just as she remembered, it was packed with rust-eaten knives. Among them lay a butcher's cleaver, which she seized like an old friend.
She couldn't call for Lele. Doing that would've drawn more attention than his alone.
She didn't bother weighing the odds. Not with Johnny down here, not with Nubbins down here. She wouldn't have turned back even if Bubba himself had been roaming the tunnels with a chainsaw in hand.
She headed toward his workshop.
The room still glowed with that familiar red light. Bubba hadn't been allowed to visit Nancy in some time, apparently. Dry gasoline cans lay scattered around the chainsaw abandoned on the workbench. Beside the table stained with pig blood and human blood alike, bone knives and lengths of chain soaked in a basin of foul-smelling water.
"Rat-girl, rat-girl. Y-you shouldn't." Maud froze; the voice seemed to come from everywhere. And nowhere. "Y-you did somethin' bad a-again."
He was peeking out from inside one of the unplugged freezers, propping the lid up with one hand while clutching that familiar blade in the other. Slowly, he rose from the mold-stained box that had once been white, like some swamp creature emerging from murky water, and let out a laugh.
âWe're p-playing hide-and-seek! Ah, I m-missed this.â
âListen to me! You and me, we arenât enemies. You know that too⊠you're not stupid.â
âD-don't you try f-flatterin' me, piggy!â
âI need to find Lele,â Maud insisted.
âI know!â
âIâm not leaving without him. And Iâm not dying until he gets the fuck out of here.â
âI know!â Nubbins snarled at her, tossing his tangled black hair out of his face. âB-but you're lookin' in the wrong place.â
He took a step toward her. Would Nubbins really have found Lele and, for some reason, not dragged him away triumphantly the way he had once dragged her? Or was he wary of the boy now, after seeing what he'd done to Nancy?
âI c-can show you w-where he is.â
âNah.â
âY-yeah, I can.â
He giggled, then suddenly lunged forward with the full momentum of his body and grabbed her wrist. He yanked her hand toward his face, but instead of biting her, he dragged his tongue across her palm, smearing her blood over his bearded cheek.
LELE
An icy blade of dread sliced through Lele's stomach.
He curled himself into as small a ball as his horrific hiding place would allow. He heard footsteps nearby, but they were so quiet they might've been nothing more than butterfly wings brushing against the grated metal floor. It could just as easily have been his imagination playing tricks on him. Daddy's footsteps were different. They boomed. They echoed with all the strength in the world.
He wasn't yelling anymore. He'd gone quiet, but Lele liked it when Daddy talked to him.
He had a strong voice. The kind you could look up to.
And, most importantly, it revealed where he was at.
Without warning, a hand clamped over his mouth from behind.
He flinched violently as if someoneâd let out a sharp whistle right beside his ear. Startled, he kicked the broken pump, pain shooting through his toes, and braced himself for Johnny to seize him by his bloodstained shirt like a flea-bitten puppy.
But the body pressed against his back was slimmer than Daddy's, and its scent was nothing like Uncle Nubbins' sour, peculiar smell. The skin against him was cool, like the cap of a poisonous mushroom.
"Oh, sweet child. It's all right. Auntie Sissy's here."
Even in a whisper, her voice was sweet.
Once she'd made sure he wasn't about to scream, she slowly lifted her hand away from his mouth. Lele noticed that the back of it was coated in dried blood like a crimson glove. That red hand brushed the hair back from his forehead before gently stroking the line of his cheek.
Johnny's voice thundered Lele's name from somewhere deeper in the mine-like tunnels.
"Trust me," Aunt Sissy breathed. She rose to her feet, pulling him up with her. Lele's legs nearly buckled beneath him, numb from crouching so long. The remains that had hidden him lost their balance and collapsed behind the pipes with a dull clatter.
"Nancy's clapped out. I'll take care of everythin'. Letâs go Lele baby."
Lele hesitated, drawing an understanding grimace across Aunt Sissy's freckled face. She surely fathomed what Maud had ordered him to do. âHide until I find you. I will.â But Mommy had also told him that Aunt Sissy loved him, and hated Grandma Nancy, the one who'd caused every terrible thing.
"Follow me. Otherwise your daddy's gonna find us. That's what he's best at, y'know." Lele nodded and let Sissy take his hand. He was careful not to step where she didn't. Few people could've known this frightening place better than she didâperhaps only the bodies slowly falling apart within it, bodies far more revolting than cartoons ever showed them, or than the scary movie Lele had secretly watched on television once.
Aunt Sissy opened a wooden door and led him through an almost empty room where loops of rope hung from the ceiling. They slipped down a short tunnel, and for a moment she looked down at him as though she'd forgotten he was with her, then snickered. Somewhere nearby, an unnatural crimson light smoldered, turning the blood smeared across Aunt Sissy's dress the color of the withered roses the old ladies in Hartsville kept in their gardens.
"Come on... come on out when I tell ya!"
 Daddy's voice was rough now, angry and almost... frightened. If such a thing as Daddy being frightened even existed. Lele couldn't quite imagine it, though Mrs. Lawson always said he had a vivid imagination. His memory was even better. (âSo you know every bird of prey, Leslie J.?â)
"What the hell are you even doin' here?!" Something shriekedâa hideous metallic screech, like a snow shovel scratching across asphalt. "How many damn times do I gotta kill you, you piece of shit?"
Lele slammed his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. His chest hurt, as though there wasn't room inside it for any more fear, and his eyes couldn't bear another flash of blood-red, another dead thing. He remembered the skeletons sitting at Grandpa's piano in that farmhouse, the bony hands dangling from the ceiling, and Grandpa himself, when they'd sat him down in the old man's lap. He'd done exactly the same thing then. Shut the world out so he wouldn't do something wrong. Wouldn't call for Mommy. Wouldn't run to Daddy because he was scared.
"He ain't talkin' to you," Aunt Sissy whispered, gently prying his fingers away from his right ear. She leaned in so close that her acetone-scented breath warmed his skin. "Johnny's all confused. There's an ocean inside his head, and the waves are lickin' the sky. Faces... down in the water. He's drownin' in 'em."
Lele didn't move. He couldn't. He didn't want to think about the faces that haunted Daddy. He didn't want to know who he was shouting at.
Aunt Sissy scooped him into her arms, letting out a small puff of breath beneath his weight. Even so, she still had enough air left to begin singing as she carried him up a flight of stairs leading toward the garden.
"With no picture in the frame, loving you without a name."
hi honey! Long time no see! Howâs life treating you? Ihope youâre doing very well. Missed you a bunch!!<3 Youâve been absent lately and I wanted to check up on you for a while now but never had the chance to actually ask you. So how are you? The isnât something bothering you I hope. And I was wondering if youâre gonna continue writing the âA soft place to fall apartâ fic? And if you do whenâs the new chapter coming? Omg đł I talk too much. Take care.đ
Hey sweetie! You are so precious for reaching out!! <3
I have had some really rough days at work, and had generally a very bad mood but I am just as passionate about Leon as Grace as before !
I am back to writing, I just need a little patience from my kennecroft hgs since I am about to finish a long-haul story in my other beloved fandom. As soon as I manage to update that, I'll set my keyboard aflame with Kennecroft chemistry~
