em ! 20s, biosci phd student, video game vet, & leon’s 26th wife.
i write for leon s. kennedy.
requests are open. please be patient with me and know that i appreciate your ideas even if i feel like i can’t personally fulfill them.
don't be afraid to comment on or message about anything i post. i appreciate any and all feedback. ❤︎
fluff ✿ – angst ☾ - smut ♚
notes: “older!leon” —> any post-RE2, seasoned agent Leon.
― drabble, imagines. (~editing)
a spicy text before work (SFW) [gn!reader x any older!leon] ✿
experiencing his s/o's family [gn!reader x any!leon] ✿ ☾
coming home from brunch [gn!reader x RE9!leon] ✿
trying to jumpscare + succeeding [gn!reader x any older!leon] ✿
― one-shots.
safety dance [older fem!reader x post-RE9!leon] ✿
» “retirement” has you both working closely together. relaxing? no. not even close.
this place is a shelter. [fem!reader x any older!leon] ♚ ☾
» grief is fickle. he helps you forget.
all i see is you. (request) [fem!reader x RE9!leon] ✿
» leon "that's my wife" kennedy keeps a portrait of you on his office wall.
joy ride. [gn!reader x RE9!leon] ✿
» leon takes you out in his new porsche to “show you what it can do”. turns out, you know much more than you let on.
solace. (request) [fem!reader x post-RE4R!leon] ✿ ☾
» in which work steals from leon kennedy one of life's more important moments.
call it easy. (request) [fem!reader x any older!leon] ♚
» leon kennedy isn't the jealous type. that is until a unique mission shows you otherwise.
lighthouse. [gn!reader x any older!leon] ☾
» raccoon city still holds you in a vice. the nightmares are starting again, but he's there, as always.
his back's to you, a halo of steam above him from the pot on the stove, sweatpants hanging low on his waist, roped muscles on full display.
and his butt. just there, firm, waiting.
your hand acts of its own accord as you pass. a hefty smack, a little squeeze at the curve of his cheek.
something clatters behind you and you're already arching away, squealing. not fast enough, never fast enough, because his hand traps your wrist, his laugh echoing into the small space.
"that all you got?"
and he's pulling you toward him, flat hand up and darting behind you as you twist out of reach, laughter already pushing your abs to their limit.
unsuccessful, he hauls you up and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. too easy.
unfortunately for him, the angle's in your favor. you bury a finger into the space between his cheeks.
he clenches with a yell, hips jutting forward in an attempt to escape.
then you're sailing through the air, couch cushions caving under your back as his full weight comes down on top of you, his teeth grazing just above your collarbone, lips brushing delicate skin.
"leon!" you bat at him. "the noodles!"
he's up before you finish.
the snap of the dial, the squeak of the moving pot, and he's jogging back just as urgently, his mouth meeting yours as you pull him back home with arms around his neck.
Summary: After his accident, Leon doesn’t remember you, his partner. But you remember everything, especially loving him.
Pairing/WC/Tags: re4!Leon x partner!reader /2,416/ memory loss, angst, hurt no comfort, partners to strangers, lovers to strangers, brief implied smut
A/N: for day 17 of @tropevarietyhour “tell me all this time meant something” ao3 link below
You can tell from the tick of his jaw alone that he doesn’t recognize you. You weren’t prepared for that, for the blankness in his features when he looks at you. You’d rehearsed everything else; the confusion, the suspicion, maybe even the anger. You’d braced for distance, or unknowing. You hadn’t been prepared for this though. Anything but this.
He stands before you weeks later, after his body has healed, and there is not a lick of recognition in his eyes. He raises a brow at you, and you realize you’re a question he doesn’t care to solve.
“You lost, rookie?”
You aren’t a rookie, you’re his partner. Or you were, until the accident, until his memory no longer kept space for you.
“I’m not a rookie.” You swallow, and brush past him. He doesn’t stop you, and your breathing comes faster.
You glance behind you, and he’s walking away, moving from you at a steady pace.
A piece inside your chest goes very, very still.
-
You decide that he remembers none of it. The late nights pouring over files or the early morning debriefs or the stolen kisses in safe houses.
You learn quickly that he’s still him, always controlled and borderlining exhaustion. He saves people without thinking, without a thought for his own safety. He still stares at doors when he enters a room to make sure it’s safe, and he still drinks Diet Coke in the afternoons.
But he never looks at you like he knows you.
It’s beginning to feel like a private punishment, and you’re relieved that you had been released from being his partner. You asked upper command to not tell him, because it didn’t really matter, and they didn’t fight you on it.
The universe was punishing you enough.
-
The first time you slip, you hadn’t even realized it. You’re patching up a wound on someone else, while Leon stands nearby, watching out of habit more than concern.
The officer groans, and you pat their shoulder as you help them to their feet. Leon uncrosses his arms, directing his words to the other person. “At ease.”
“At easier.” You snicker, the inside joke lame but making you chuckle nonetheless. Leon pauses, and the officer all but ignores you, shuffling away as you try to remember to breathe right.
The room shifts and you can feel it in the air, the crack of electricity. A feeling you hadn’t had since his accident.
“…what was that?” Leon asks, and you shake your head so fast your hair swishes around you.
“Nothing,” you look away. “I heard it somewhere.”
“From where?”
Adjusting the straps on your holsiter, you shrug a shoulder, trying to look indifferent, trying to push down the memories of when he’d laugh at that. “I don’t know.”
“You do,” he corrects. “So do I.”
You wrinkle your nose. “I don’t know what you mean.”
His jaw tightens and you realize, with a slow kind of dread, that he’s sharper than you gave him credit for.
-
He starts watching you after that. Not in an obvious way, but because you know him, and remember how he had been, you notice it.
It all breaks after almost a year. You’re both on watch in a quiet corridor, flickering emergency lights casting everything in half-life shadows. He’s leaning against the wall, eyes half-lowered, exhaustion catching up in a way that you recognize but you don’t comment.
“You’re always looking at me like that.” he says suddenly.
You glance up. “Like what?”
“Like I’m supposed to know you.”
Your eyes drop immediately to your lap, to the weapon you’re holding. The quiet stretches, and you can feel him watching you, trying to read you and you give up. You had been strong, had been alone, and you missed him so much some nights it was hard to sleep.
Glancing up, you give him a half-baked smile. “Would it matter if you did?”
Leon frowns, takes a slow breath in before he nods. “It would.”
You hate how much it still matters. You hate that he still sounds like him when he says things like that.
“I think you used to,” you say quietly. “Know me.”
It’s not completely the truth but it’s safe. For you or for him, you aren’t certain. He doesn’t need to know about the times he held you, or the way he would take off your clothes with artful movements that made your blood hum.
Those memories are now for you and you alone.
Leon is quiet, and then his boots are scuffing the floor as he walks forward before crouching infront of you. You bite the inside of your cheek.
“Do I trust you?” He asks, and when your eyes meet his you wonder if he remembers any of those moments at all.
You roll your answer inside your mouth, deciding if you should say it out loud.
“…you did.”
His brows wrinkle. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
You hadn’t considered that before, and you don’t know if you have an answer. You stand up, brushing off your jeans and so does he, his eyes still on your face.
“Because it’s irrelevant now,” you reply with a throat full of sandpaper. “And the job comes first.”
Needing space, you walk away, acting as if you need to check the perimeter for the third time, and he doesn’t follow you. You’re thankful for that as you release a breath.
-
He doesn’t remember you, but he does notice you. You dhow up when you aren’t assigned, lingering in places you don’t need to be. You know how to move through a space like it belongs to you, even when no one has given you permission.
It’s in the little things, the way you don’t hesitate around him when everyone else does, or how you never ask him about his past, like you already know it would hurt him to explain.
He watches you more than he means to, stands straighter when you enter a room. A year and a half after his accident, and he still can’t remember how it happened. Can’t remember if it was his fault, or someone else’s. He remembers a few things, glimpses of emotionally important moments. His parents funeral, the sound of the rain as they’d been lowered into the ground. The pressure of Ada’s mouth on his underneath Racoon City, and how somehow she had still smelled like cherry blossoms even while surrounded by all the death. The ache in his chest when she didn’t come back.
A report is handed to him and he recognizes your hand writing. He clenches the file, taking the steps two at a time until he’s at your desk and presses it onto the wood. You slowly look from the file to his face.
“…can I help you?”
“This your hand writing?” He asks, unsure why his heart is beating so fast.
You glance at it before you nod. “Um, yep. That’s mine.”
He smiles and it’s so unexpected you feel your blood heat. “I recognized it.”
“You recognized my chicken scratch?” You ask, and he laughs, a sound that is soothing to your ears.
“Yeah,” Leon replies with a grin. “I- yes. It’s yours. I saw it and I knew it was.”
You smile back, making the expression small. “That’s great, Leon.”
He thinks about the way his name sounds on your tongue the rest of the day.
-
After that, he starts seeking you out without meaning to. It’s not on purpose, but he keeps finding himself where you are. If you’re patching equipment, he shows up with a tool you didn’t ask for. You need to review files, and he’s suddenly there, offering them to you along with his opinion on their process.
You can’t say you mind, if anything you enjoy it. What you don’t like is the hope blooming in your chest. You know your time of being loved by Leon is over; your heart just needs to realize that too.
-
He gets hurt in the field again and it’s minor, a gash on the upper side of his forearm. You wrap the wound, focusing on the movement of your hands.
“Hold still.” You murmur, and to your surprise he does. He watches you work quietly as if it’s muscle memory he doesn’t remember learning.
When you’re done, he doesn’t move right away, just watches as you lean back, cleaning up the medical supplies.
“You’re always calm.” he says quietly.
You glance up. “Not always.”
“I think you are with me.”
You narrow your eyes, your mouth quirking. “Maybe I just don’t want you to be worse off than you already are.”
He makes a soft, laughing sound, and you stand up, moving away because you don’t need to enjoy hearing that so much.
-
He doesn’t recognize you, but his body does.
After too many hours and not enough sleep, he catches himself watching you again. You’re talking to someone across the room, animated in a way he hasn’t seen before, and something sharp twists in his chest. Not jealousy, but a close second. Something more like loss.
When you notice him watching, you tilt your head slightly. “Leon?”
His name on your mouth is electric, and he stands taller, nodding. “Yeah?”
“All good?” You ask, the other person long forgotten. Leon nods, deciding that he wants to keep hearing you say his name like that, like you already know him, even if he doesn’t know you.
-
He breaks before you do in the process of admission. You’re elbow deep in papers when he stalks towards your desk, his boots echoing in the emptiness of the office.
“It was you,” he says and you stare at him.
“It was me…?” You ask slowly, giving him a chance to catch up. He’s breathing hard, his nostrils flaring in frustration.
“You,” his voice cracks and he sits down in the chair across your desk, putting his face in his hands. “I’ve been wracking my head. What’s left of it. Trying to figure this out and I thought- I thought it was Ada. It couldn’t be though, because she’s been gone for a long time.”
“Five years isn’t too long.” You say quietly. Leon gives you an incredulous look, brows knotted and he presses his palms into his knees.
“But you know,” he mutters. “Don’t you?”
“I’m not tracking what you’re saying.”
He sighs as you close the file, letting your entire attention be on him. His fingers gesture between you both, his jaw working.
“It was you I loved,” he murmurs. “Not Ada. You.”
Your heart may as well have stopped beating.
You look away, at the wall and then at your hands. You aren’t sure what to say, and his silence stretches as he leans back, his eyes boring into you.
“You knew, and you didn’t tell me,” his voice has dropped lower. “Why? Did I- was it not like that? Was it something simpler?”
You laugh without meaning to, eyes snapping up. “Something simpler?” You echo, and shake your head. “No, Leon. Not telling you that I loved you was anything but simple. You were healing, and you didn’t know me. I couldn’t just…” you pause, trying to gather your thoughts. “You needed time. Space. I didn’t want to be in the way.”
“I still don’t remember it,” he doesn’t look at you when he speaks, his chest rising and falling in slow intervals. “I just…i remember the feeling. The knowing that I-“
He pauses, and you lean forward, needing him to continue. You need to know, and your knees bump the edge of your desk. “Knowing what?”
His sea blue eyes meet yours like waves on a beach. “Knowing that I loved someone.”
Your throat burns, and you slowly shake your head. “Leon, I-“
He stands up and the chair screetches, effectively cutting you off. “Tell me then. Tell me all this time was worth it. All the time I spent healing, when I could’ve spent it remembering you.”
You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. There’s too much in your chest, too many versions of this conversation you rehearsed and none of them prepared you for the way he looks at you now, like you’re both the answer and the problem he can’t solve.
“Leon,” you whisper. “I don’t…I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s it?” He asks quietly. “That’s all you got?”
You swallow. Your hands curl into your palms just to keep you steady.
“I can tell you what it felt like,” you reply in a small voice. “I can tell you every moment. I can tell you the nights you couldn’t sleep and how you used to count the ceiling tiles because it helped, or how you laughed when you didn’t think anyone was listening, how you always did that thing with your thumb when you were nervous.”
His jaw tightens, and you can nearly see his brain processing these confessions, analyzing them. You don’t know if this is helpful or harmful, and as you round the desk to stand in-front of him, you cross your arms to keep your hands from touching him.
“It still isn’t mine,” He murmurs. You shake your head in sad agreement. “You didn’t have to stay.”
“I didn’t stay and keep quiet because I thought you owed me recognition,” you reply. “I stayed because I didn’t know how to leave someone I still loved.”
“I don’t know you,” he says again, but this time it sounds less like a fact and more like a defense he’s trying to rebuild around himself. “And I don’t know what I lost.”
You release a breath that trembles halfway out.
“That’s the worst part,” you whisper. “You don’t even get to miss me properly.”
He nods once, his blonde bangs shifting with the movement. Somewhere in one of his pockets, his phone buzzes, and he presses his fingers to it, silencing the device. He glances up at you, taking a step back, and you know then that the conversation is done.
“I wish I could give it back to you.” His voice has taken on a husky vibration.
You squeeze your arms around you tighter, hip pressing into the wood of the desk. “I know.”
Leon nods again, and then he turns. You watch as he walks away, boots scuffing once more, the pull to him so hard you nearly stumble.
He doesn’t look back when he leaves, and you’re grateful for that. Otherwise, he would’ve seen your tears.
x
Divider @chrisssiren
Ao3 Link
Leon Kennedy taglist: @yours-truly-andrea @xozoelivia @princesssugarplumm
while the leon and grace father-daughter thing is cute for fanart, i do think it discredits the unabashed kindness and empathy leon displays for this girl. he finds her completely out of her depth, scared out of her wits, can't be older than 25. he asks no questions and hands off his most powerful weapon so she can protect herself. he's not protecting grace because he's a father figure, he's protecting her because he went through his first day in raccoon city alone.
