**REWRITE** A more realistic, less smutty, and more angsty Re9!ExHusband! Leon homecoming
This wasn't the same man who you married a decade ago. This was a ghost. A ghost had just walked into your bedroom, kissed your forehead, and promised he'd come to bed after a shower.
No. He was KIA. Chris called you, personally. He wanted to spare you a visit from DSO men in suits to tell you your ex-husband finally bit off more than he could chew. That his luck had finally run out.
He left you everything in his name. That safe was still unopened.
Now, you didn't know what to think.
Here you were, grieving the man who still had your heart since you separated, grieving the life you could've shared if he just quit playing martyr for once in his goddamn life and remember he had someone to-
...It wasn't entirely his fault. It was mostly the DSO that tore you apart. You kept your ring on a silver chain. You even kept his last name. That ring felt impossibly heavy around your neck.
This is what you get for not being able to let go, you thought.
He still wore his. And in the shower, it felt like it was burning a hole through his skin, searing right into his bones. On the outside, he never looked better: He was standing up straight. The necrosis webbing on his hand and neck was gone, he was taking deep breaths and had the gusto of a man fifteen years his junior. On the outside, it looked like he was returning to a devoted partner, lovingly waiting for him.
Fuck, she's gonna be pissed... Leon mused, chewing on his knuckle. He wouldn't blame you. But when had Leon ever been a sound decision maker?
I'm in the best shape of my life now. I'm no longer infected. The first person I should see is my ex-wife, and crawl into bed with her, too.
Neither of you move when he sets foot into the bedroom. You're sitting up, unmoving, and can't even hold eye contact with him.
You look ready to slap him into next week.
You wouldn't. But he wouldn't blame you.
Over and over, he'd chosen complete strangers over you. Often, the DSO didn't give him a choice. You tolerated it and tolerated it until you couldn't. So many people needed Leon Kennedy. So many women, too. Like he had nothing to lose and nothing to come back to.
But you needed him more than any of those people did.
Since Leon couldn't fulfil that need, you parted ways.
He padded towards your bed, and climbed in. You don't move a muscle. Not even when he pulls you into a half-embrace, bows his head, and kisses your hair. You don't push him away when he lingers. Was he wetting your hair from the condensation of the shower? Or was he letting his guard down?
You want to send him to the guest room, but you don't. You're too taken by the state of his hand. The black markings were gone. Healthy rippling veins dance across them instead. His ring.
What could possibly be said now? I'm sorry? I'm okay now? I'm cured? Nothing would cut it. So, all he said to you was...
He cradles the back of your head, fiddling with the chain that held your ring in what could only be described as awe. Like if he pressed down too hard it would disintegrate, and your ring would clatter to the floor, forgotten.
Leon had faced BOWs, death itself several times over, was dealt the worst possible hands in life, and here he was, completely at a loss for words. Finally faced with a problem with possibly no good solution. Something he probably couldn't fix for once.
Still, his hand reached to the side of your face, and pushed stray behead from your cheek and behind your ear. Muscle memory, that was all. When you closed your eyes, leaned into his hand? Also, muscle memory.
Leon's never been good with words. He used to love how blunt and direct you were. Not only did it make him laugh, but told him exactly what you needed from him. (Even if he knew he couldn't give you those things you needed.) So, he rubs off of you.
"...I have no idea what to say."
The look on your face is humbling. Crushing. Hurt, not surprised. Tears still drying from mourning the man you love so deeply. And worst of all: Disappointed.
"I don't blame you..." You rub your hands down his (much straighter back) with genuine surprise in your expression. "I don't think there's anything to say right now..."
You were right. (You were always right, Leon would think.) Right now, there was nothing to say. There was too much to explain, too much to go over, and too much that has happened in the last twenty-four hours or so. For the both of us.
"...What's up with your back?"
"What kind of chiropractors have they got at the DSO? You're two inches taller." You're teasing him. A good sign. Leon will take it and run for the hills.
A smirk dances on your lips. "Long story number one of...?"
The brief playful moment is broken when Leon tucks himself under the blanket, and makes himself comfortable in your bed.
"Leon, what are you doing?"
A strong hand grasps your forearms. The exhausted look on the man's tear-ridden face (you decided that his face was wet from tears, he would've been dry from the shower by now.)
He couldn't bear to sleep in your guest room tonight. No matter how weird it was. Your condo was already more of a home to him than his luxurious safehouse. Sometimes he feels like he spends more time visiting you than at that house. The guest room was basically his room with the amount of clothes and the pajama bottoms tucked under the bed. If he were sent there tonight, he thinks he will die.
"Just this once. It's... it was a rough one."
You shrug, and cozy yourself further into the bed, but not after a pillow wall enforcement.
There was so much Leon wanted to tell you. About Grace. About Emily. Oswell Spencer's final project: Elpis. The second chance at life he's got. And finally, that the DSO was finally letting him go.
Just what you'd always been hoping for.
Too little, too late? Maybe. You still deserved to know. He slept fruitlessly in your bed, but he wouldn't rather be sleeping anywhere else. Even with your back turned, your hair spread on your pillow like a dark spider facing him, Leon felt like he was given the world.
You deserved to know everything. Who knows? He knows that you never really took your ring off either. He knows you kept his last name. Maybe, when some time has passed, he'll share your bed again.
Because that was the only way you and Leon would be able to process, and mend things. With time.