Summary: Leon comes home to a quiet house, a broken mug on the floor, and the sinking certainty that something is wrong. You should’ve been there. By the time he finds you, it’s already too late for things to be simple, but not too late to bring you back.
The road stretches out in front of him, long and dim, washed in the amber glow of streetlights that flicker past the windshield in steady intervals. Each one slides over him like a pulse, light, shadow, light again. It's late enough that traffic has thinned to almost nothing, the occasional pair of headlights drifting past like distant ghosts before disappearing into the dark.
It's late. Later than he told you he'd be. His hands rest loosely on the steering wheel, one thumb tapping absently against the sleek, black leather. The radio hums low, something forgettable that he isn't really listening to. His mind is already somewhere else. Somewhere softer.
Home.
There's a quiet kind of anticipation sitting in his chest, steady and familiar. You'll probably be asleep by now, or pretending to be, maybe upset because he didn't text you.
He can already picture it, the faint glow of the lamp, the way you'd shift when he walked in, like you always knew it was him even before he said a word. Maybe you'd mumble something about how late it is, voice thick with sleep, but your arms would still find him anyway. That part never changed, even if you were upset.
Leon exhales, long and slow. He's tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes in a single night, but the kind that lingers in the muscles, in the back of the mind, in the quiet spaces between thoughts. The mission hadn't been catastrophic, nothing that would make headlines or stick with him for years, but it had been enough. Enough to leave his shoulders tight, his reflexes still a fraction too sharp, his awareness just slightly out of step with the calm around him. It takes time for that to fade. It always does.
But you help. Just being near you does something he can't name. Like his body remembers how to stand down, how to unclench, how to exist without scanning every shadow for movement. It's a rare thing; he doesn't take it for granted.
The houses sit quietly, windows dark, the world settled into that deep, unmoving stillness that only comes in the middle of the night. No movement, no noise, just the low hum of distant electricity and the soft crunch of tires against pavement.
Leon slows as he pulls into the driveway, engine idling for a second longer than necessary. The engine clicks as it cools, metal ticking softly in the quiet. His gaze drifts to the front door. Something in his chest tightens. The porch lights are off. He knows you better than that. You'd never shut the porch lights off before he's home.
He lingers for a moment longer than necessary, fingers still resting on the wheel, that feeling brushing again at the edges of his awareness. It would be easy to dismiss it, to chalk it up to fatigue or the remnants of adrenaline that haven't quite settled yet. That happens sometimes. The body takes longer than the mind to understand that it's safe.
"Get a grip," he mutters under his breath, voice low and rough in the confined space of the car.
The night air is cool when he steps out, sharp enough to cut through the lingering haze in his head. It grounds him, brings everything back into focus as he shuts the door and starts toward the house. The walk is short and familiar, each step guided by routine more than by conscious thought. He's done this hundreds of times, returning from missions at odd hours, slipping back into a life that exists in the spaces between everything else.
His keys slide easily into the lock. The mechanism turns with a soft, familiar click. The door opens, and something shifts. It isn't immediate, not something loud or obvious. There's no sign of forced entry, no overturned furniture, no visible disruption waiting to greet him. At a glance, everything is as it should be. The entryway is intact, your shoes still near the door, your jacket hanging in its usual place. The house looks lived in, normal, untouched.
Leon pauses just inside the doorway, one hand still resting lightly against the door as it swings closed behind him. The silence presses in, thicker than it should be, carrying a weight he can't immediately explain. It isn't just quiet, it's still, the kind of stillness that feels unnatural in a space that's usually shared. His gaze moves automatically, sweeping the room with quiet precision. Every detail registers. Every shadow is accounted for. He doesn't think about it. He never has to.
"Hey," he calls out, his voice steady but low, carrying just enough to reach the next room. "I'm home."
The words settle into the silence and go unanswered. That, on its own, isn't unusual. You could be asleep, the house wrapped in the kind of quiet that comes with it. It wouldn't be the first time he's come back late enough to find you already resting, the world reduced to soft breathing and dim light.
Leon steps further inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click that seems louder than it should. The sound echoes faintly, swallowed quickly by the stillness. He shrugs off his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair without looking, his attention already shifting past the entryway and into the rest of the house.
The living room is undisturbed. The couch sits as it always does, a blanket folded neatly over the arm, the pillows on either cushion are perfectly shaped in the corners, and the remote rests in its usual place on the table next to your book.
His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly as he moves past, his focus narrowing toward the kitchen. There's a light on. It's a small detail, the kind most people wouldn't think twice about, but it stands out to him. You don't leave lights on when you go to bed. You never have. It's a habit, one of those small, consistent things that become part of a person without them realizing it.
Leon slows as he approaches, his steps quieter now, more deliberate. "You still up?" he calls again, softer this time, the words carrying less distance.
No answer.
He crosses the threshold into the kitchen and stops. At first, it doesn't fully register. His gaze catches on the shape, the disruption in the otherwise clean lines of the room, but his mind takes a fraction of a second longer to process what he's seeing.
A mug lies shattered on the floor. The pieces are scattered unevenly, some larger, some reduced to sharp fragments that catch the light at odd angles. A dark stain spreads beneath them, long since dried, its edges faintly dull against the tile. It's been there for a while.
Leon doesn't move. His attention fixes on it, sharp and unblinking, his mind beginning to assemble the details whether he wants it to or not. The position. The spread. The way the pieces fell. You dropped the mug. You didn't set it down or knock it over. You dropped it. His mind is already working, already assembling the sequence of events in the only way it knows how, reconstructing motion from stillness, cause from aftermath.
His gaze shifts, slow and deliberate, tracing the subtle disruption in the room. The chair. The scuff along the floor. The angle of it was just slightly off, like it had been forced back rather than pulled. There's no sign of a prolonged struggle, nothing overturned, nothing chaotic. Whatever happened here was quick. His realization settles somewhere deep, heavy, and unwelcome.
Leon exhales quietly, the sound barely audible, and steps further into the kitchen. His boots avoid the larger shards without thought, his path instinctively careful as his attention moves beyond the obvious, searching for what doesn't immediately stand out. That's where the truth usually hides.
His fingers brush lightly along the edge of the counter as he passes, grounding, steadying, before his gaze catches on something near the sink. At first, it doesn't register as anything unusual. Just another piece of the kitchen, another detail in a space he knows well enough to navigate in the dark. But something about it holds his attention a second longer than it should.
Leon steps closer, his expression tightening almost imperceptibly as the details come into focus. It's a casing. Metal, cylindrical, no larger than his thumb. Clean. Intact. Deliberately set, not dropped or discarded.
He doesn't touch it immediately. Instead, he studies it, his gaze narrowing as recognition begins to surface, slow and unwelcome. The design is subtle, almost unremarkable to anyone who doesn't know what they're looking for. No obvious markings, no bright identifiers.
But Leon knows better. He's seen something like this before. His hand moves then, precise and controlled, fingers closing around the casing with practiced care. It's lighter than it looks. His thumb turns it slightly, just enough for the faint etching along its side to catch the light. It's small. Nearly invisible unless you're looking for it. Not exactly Umbrella's symbol, but something newer, built from the debris.
Leon's jaw tightens, a muscle in his cheek flickering once as the last piece slides into place. This wasn't random. It wasn't a break-in. It wasn't chance, or opportunity, or someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was deliberate, targeted, and whoever did it wanted him to know.
The air in the room feels different now, heavier, like the walls themselves are closing in around the realization. Leon's grip on the casing tightens just slightly before he forces it to ease, control reasserting itself with practiced precision. Emotion can come later.
Right now, he needs clarity. He sets the casing back down exactly where he found it, careful not to disturb its position any more than necessary, and reaches for his phone. The motion is smooth and efficient, his mind already several steps ahead, pulling threads together and mapping out what comes next.
There are only a handful of people in the world who would leave something like this behind. Fewer still would dare to use it as a message.
The phone rings once. Twice.
Leon's gaze drifts back to the shattered mug on the floor, to the silence that's settled into every corner of the house, and for a brief moment, something flickers beneath the surface. It's cold and dangerous, leaving no room for panic.
The line clicks, and he wastes no time. "I need everything you have on Victor Gideon."
THREE HOURS EARLIER
The quiet in the house isn't unsettling. It settles around you like something familiar, something earned after a long day, the kind of silence that doesn't press too heavily but instead exists in soft layers. The lamp in the living room casts a warm, golden glow that pools gently over the couch and the edges of the coffee table, leaving the rest of the house in a comfortable dimness. Outside, the night has already taken hold, the world reduced to distant sounds that barely reach you, a passing car, the faint whisper of wind brushing against the windows, nothing that demands your attention.
You sit curled into the corner of the couch, one leg tucked beneath you, a book open in your hands. The pages shift slightly under your fingers as you read, though your focus drifts more than it settles. Your eyes move across the lines, but the words don't always stay with you, slipping away as your thoughts circle back to the same place they've been returning to all evening. You glance at the clock without fully meaning to, then back down at the page, then toward the door, a quiet, unconscious pattern that repeats itself before you even realize you're doing it.
Sometimes he doesn't have a chance to tell you he's going to be late. You knew that. You told yourself you wouldn't wait up this time. But here you are.
A small breath leaves you, something softer than a sigh, as you tilt your head back against the couch cushion. The book dips slightly in your hands, your thumb still marking your place even as your attention drifts completely away from it. It's not worry that keeps you awake, not exactly. You're used to this part of his life, the late nights, the unpredictability, the quiet spaces between when he leaves and when he comes back. It doesn't scare you the way it might have once. Not anymore. But that doesn't mean you don't feel it.
You sit up a little straighter after a moment, closing the book carefully and setting it aside on the table. The room feels just a touch too quiet now, the kind of quiet that makes you aware of your own breathing, your own movement, the small sounds that would normally go unnoticed. Your gaze drifts again, this time lingering on the front door, as if you could will it to open just by watching it long enough.
You push yourself up from the couch instead, the fabric shifting softly beneath you as your feet meet the cool floor. You fix the pillow in the corner of the couch, pushing it back and fluffing it up. The movement feels natural, easy, like slipping into a routine you didn't realize you'd already decided on. If you're going to stay up, you might as well make it count for something.
The kitchen light clicks on with a soft snap, brightening the space in an instant. The contrast from the dim living room is enough to pull you fully into the present, your surroundings sharpening into focus as you move further in. Everything is where it should be. Clean counters. Familiar shapes. The quiet hum of appliances that fill the silence just enough to keep it from feeling empty.
The coffee maker hums to life as you set it going, the low, steady sound filling the room in a way that makes it feel less still. You lean lightly against the counter while you wait, arms folding loosely as your gaze drifts again, unfocused now, pulled back into thought.
You wonder how the mission went. Whether it was one of the easier ones or something that left its mark in quieter ways. Leon never comes back unchanged, not really. Even on the good days, there's always something lingering beneath the surface, something in the way he holds himself, the way his eyes settle on things just a second longer than they should. You've learned to read those details over time, to understand them without needing him to explain.
Your expression softens without you realizing it. You'll see it the moment he walks through the door. You always do. And you'll meet him there, the way you always do. Sometimes with quiet, sometimes with warmth, sometimes with both. It's never something you plan out, never something you rehearse. It just happens, instinctively, the same way breathing does.
The coffee maker clicks softly as it finishes, the sound pulling you gently back into the present. You reach for the mug, wrapping your hands around it as the heat seeps into your skin, steady and grounding. For a moment, you just stand there, letting the warmth settle into your palms, letting the quiet exist around you again.
Your gaze drifts toward the doorway, toward the darker stretch of the hallway beyond it, and a faint smile touches your lips, subtle enough that you barely notice it. "C'mon," you murmur under your breath, your voice soft in the stillness. "You're taking too long."
You hear a soft tick against the window, like maybe a branch in the wind tapping against the glass. You look over, a weird feeling pooling in your stomach. At first, it's just a feeling, a subtle shift that brushes against your awareness without fully forming into thought.
You straighten a little, your fingers tightening just slightly around the mug as your gaze moves across the kitchen. Everything looks the same. Nothing has changed. The counters are clean. The light is steady. The space is exactly as you left it. And yet, the feeling lingers.
You listen more closely this time, your attention sharpening as you try to pinpoint what caused it. For a moment, there's nothing. Just the quiet hum of the house, the faint buzz of electricity, the soft settling of something far away.
Another sound. It's faint. Quick. Easy to miss if you weren't already paying attention.
Your head turns toward it immediately, your brows knitting slightly as your pulse gives a small, unexpected jump. "Leon?" you call, the name leaving you instinctively, hope threading through it before you can stop it.
The silence that answers is immediate.
Your grip tightens around the mug, the heat suddenly too noticeable, too sharp against your skin as your awareness shifts, sharpening into something more alert. "Hello?" you try again, quieter now, your voice carrying less distance, less certainty.
No response. But the silence has changed. It isn't empty anymore. It feels occupied. Your breath slows, shallow without you meaning it to be, as your eyes move carefully across the room, tracking shadows, edges, the negative space between things. Your body has gone still, instinct taking over in a way your mind hasn't quite caught up with yet.
There's a presence here. You can't see it. But you can feel it. A subtle awareness presses at the back of your neck, a quiet, unmistakable certainty that settles in before you can rationalize it away. You're not alone.
The realization doesn't come all at once. It unfolds slowly, like something being revealed piece by piece, each second stretching just long enough to let it sink deeper. Your heart picks up, not racing yet, but faster, heavier, each beat more noticeable than the last.
You take a small step back without thinking, your fingers brushing against the edge of the counter as if anchoring yourself to something solid. The kitchen suddenly feels too open, too exposed, every angle unfamiliar in a way it never has before.
There's a shift behind you, closer this time, unmistakable. Your breath catches as you start to turn, instinct finally overriding hesitation. But you don't get to finish turning.
The movement behind you is faster than your body can react to, faster than your mind can process, a sudden shift in the air that collapses the space between awareness and action into nothing. One second you're standing there, breath caught somewhere between instinct and realization, and the next there's a hand on you, firm and unyielding.
It clamps around your arm and wrenches you backward with a force that steals the ground out from under your feet. The world tilts sharply, your balance gone before you can even try to recover it. The counter digs briefly into your hip as you're pulled away from it, your body twisting on instinct, a startled breath tearing from your chest before you can stop it.
The mug slips from your hand. You don't feel it leave your fingers so much as realize it's gone, the warmth vanishing in an instant as gravity takes over. There's a split second where it hangs in the air, suspended between what was and what's about to happen.
Then it shatters. The sound is sharp. Violent in the quiet. Ceramic breaking against tile in a way that feels far too loud, far too final, the pieces scattering outward in a jagged arc as dark liquid splashes and spreads across the floor. It happens in the background of everything else, but it sticks, imprinting itself in your mind even as everything around you spirals out of control.
Your hands come up instinctively, grabbing at the arm holding you, fingers digging in as you try to twist free, your breath coming faster now, sharper. "Hey!" The word breaks out of you, half-formed, more reflex than intention, your voice catching as your body fights to regain control.
It doesn't work. The grip on you tightens, not frantic, not rushed, but controlled in a way that's somehow worse. Whoever is behind you knows exactly what they're doing. There's no hesitation in the movement, no wasted motion, just precision.
Your shoulder is forced back, your balance shifting again as your heel catches against the tile. For a brief, disorienting second, your gaze catches on the floor, on the shattered remains of the mug, on the dark stain already beginning to spread outward between the pieces.
Your heart is pounding harder now, the rhythm uneven, loud in your ears as adrenaline begins to surge, your thoughts scrambling to catch up with what's happening. You're not confused anymore. This is real, and this is happening to you.
You try again to pull free, your other hand coming up, reaching back, searching for anything you can grab onto, anything you can use. Your fingers brush fabric, then something harder beneath it, but before you can react, before you can even see, something presses against your face.
A cloth, rough and sudden. Your breath catches as the smell hits you, sharp and chemical, unfamiliar and immediately wrong. You jerk back on instinct, your body reacting before your mind can fully understand it, but the hold on you doesn't falter; it tightens.
Your lungs burn as you try not to breathe it in, your head turning sharply to the side, your movements desperate now, less controlled. Your hands come up again, grabbing, pushing, nails digging into anything they can find as panic begins to break through the edges of your control.
"Stop—" The word comes out strained, uneven, your voice already weakening as the world tilts again, the edges of your vision beginning to blur.
The room starts to slip, the sharp lines of the kitchen softening, distorting at the edges as your strength begins to falter. Your movements slow, not by choice, but because your body is betraying you, your limbs growing heavier with each passing second.
Your gaze drops again, unfocused now, catching one last glimpse of the floor. The shattered mug. The spreading stain. A moment frozen in place, already turning into something that will be left behind.
Your chest tightens as you try to pull in one more clean breath, but it doesn't come the way it should. Everything feels distant, like you're being pulled away from it piece by piece, your awareness slipping no matter how hard you fight to hold onto it.
The last thing you feel is the grip on you shifting, steady, controlled, as your body gives in. The last thing you hear is the quiet sound of movement in the house that was never empty, and then nothing.
Consciousness doesn't return in a clean, merciful line. It comes apart and back together in fragments, thin slivers of awareness pushing through a heavy, resistant fog that clings to you no matter how hard your body tries to surface. At first, there's no sense of where you are, no clear thought to anchor to, only sensation. A dull, distant awareness of your own weight presses against something solid beneath you, your limbs feeling slow and unresponsive, as though they belong to someone else entirely. There's a strange disconnect between intention and movement, like the signal is there but the response is delayed, muffled.
Sound finds you next, seeping in gradually rather than arriving all at once. A low, mechanical hum settles into your awareness, steady and unwavering, its presence so constant it almost feels like part of you rather than something external. It doesn't fluctuate or shift in tone. It simply exists, filling the silence in a way that makes the space feel controlled, contained. Beneath it, there's something softer, less predictable, a faint, irregular noise that might be water or machinery or something else entirely. It's too distant to identify, but close enough to remind you that you're not in a place meant for comfort.
Your breathing deepens unevenly as your body begins to catch up, each inhale dragging in air that feels heavier than it should, as though it carries a weight your lungs don't quite know how to process. Your chest rises a little too quickly, then steadies, then falters again as your system struggles to find a rhythm that feels natural.
When your eyes finally open, the light doesn't welcome you. It hits too harshly at first, blurring your vision into indistinct shapes and washed-out edges that refuse to settle into anything recognizable. You blink slowly, your lashes dragging as if even that small movement requires more effort than it should. The second attempt is steadier, your vision beginning to sharpen in reluctant increments until the ceiling above you comes into focus.
It's all wrong. That realization settles almost immediately, cutting clean through the haze with a clarity that feels almost jarring. The surface above you is smooth and industrial, broken only by faint seams that run in measured lines across it. A light fixture is embedded neatly overhead, its glow sterile and uninviting, casting illumination that feels functional rather than warm. There is no softness to it, no variation. It simply exists to reveal.
Your stomach tightens. Memory doesn't return gently. It forces its way in, sharp and fragmented, each piece colliding with the next in a way that leaves no room for denial. The kitchen. The quiet. The shift in the air. The hand. The smell. The mug.
Your breath catches, the reaction immediate and involuntary as your body attempts to respond before your mind can fully process. You try to sit up, the movement sudden, instinctive, driven by a need to orient yourself, to do something. The world tilts in response, your equilibrium failing you for a split second as your muscles protest the motion. A wave of dizziness pulls at the edges of your vision, the room threatening to slip out of focus again as your body struggles to cooperate.
Something stops you. The resistance is immediate, firm enough to halt your movement without jerking you back. It takes a second for your mind to catch up, for your gaze to drop and register what your body has already begun to understand.
Your wrists are bound. The realization lands heavy and cold, your pulse spiking in response as your hands instinctively pull against the restraint. The movement is quick, uncoordinated, driven more by reflex than thought, but the result is immediate and unchanging. There's no give, they're tight, and hold you down exactly like they're supposed to.
You slow, not because you want to, but because you have to, your breathing sharpening as you force yourself to look more closely. The material is unfamiliar, smooth against your skin but unyielding beneath your grip. It is not rope, not anything improvised or hastily applied. It feels intentional and manufactured. Meant to hold without question.
Your fingers flex against it again, more deliberately this time, searching for a shift, for anything, any weakness in its structure. There are none.
A slow breath moves through you, deeper this time, though it still catches slightly at the end as your chest tightens. Panic presses at the edges of your awareness, sharp and insistent, but it doesn't overtake you. Not yet anyway. You hold it there, contained, forcing yourself to focus on what you can control instead of what you can't.
The room is small, but not claustrophobic. Contained in a way that feels deliberate rather than accidental. The walls match the ceiling, the same sterile material, seamless and uninterrupted. There are no windows, no variation in texture or color, nothing to suggest time or place. The space feels isolated, cut off from anything beyond it.
Across from you, a door is set into the wall. It's solid, featureless from your side, with no visible handle or mechanism to open it. It blends almost too well into its surroundings, as though it is meant to go unnoticed until it becomes relevant.
Your shoulders tense slightly as your gaze drops again, taking in your position more carefully now. Your arms are secured in front of you rather than behind, which feels intentional in a way you don't like. It allows for movement, but not freedom. It gives the illusion of control while ensuring you have none.
A slow, measured breath fills your lungs as you force your body to settle, your thoughts beginning to align despite the lingering fog. You swallow, your throat dry, the motion grounding in its simplicity.
"Think..." you whisper, barely audible.
You piece it together as best you can, working backward from what you know. You were at home. You were waiting. You were safe until you weren't. The shift from one to the other had been fast. Too fast to fully process, too controlled to have been random. Whoever took you knew what they were doing. There had been no hesitation and no fumbling.
Your chest tightens again, thinking of Leon. The thought of him lands heavier than anything else, threading through the fear and the confusion with a sharp, undeniable weight. He wasn't there. He didn't see it happen. He doesn't know where you are. But one thing is certain, he'll know something is wrong. He'll know it the second he sees the porch lights off and the shattered mug.
Your eyes close briefly, not in defeat, but in focus, as you draw in another slow breath. He'll see it and he'll understand. And when he does he'll come looking.
The thought isn't really hopeful in the way you might expect. It's not fragile or uncertain either. It's something you hold onto without question. He will come.
Your eyes open again, sharper now, your awareness settling into something more controlled, more deliberate. Your gaze moves across the room once more, but this time with purpose, taking in every detail, every possible variable: the walls, the door, the light, the sound.
You're not safe. But you're not helpless. And whoever brought you here? They made one simple mistake, and that was taking you away from Leon.
The kitchen doesn't change. Even as Leon steps back, even as he forces himself to take in the full space again from a distance, nothing shifts, nothing rearranges itself into something easier to accept. The shattered ceramic still litters the floor in the same uneven arc, the dried coffee staining the tile in a way that speaks too clearly of time passed. The chair remains slightly out of place, the scuff mark near its leg catching the light just enough to make it impossible to ignore.
Everything is exactly as it was. And that's the problem. Leon's gaze moves slowly, deliberately, retracing the scene with sharper focus now that the initial shock has burned away into something colder. He doesn't rush. He never does. Every detail matters, and he knows better than to miss something because he moved too fast. His eyes track the path of disruption, from the counter to the floor, from the chair to the empty space where you should be.
He reconstructs it without thinking.
You were standing here. The mug in your hand. The machine still warm, recently used. You hadn't been waiting long. Maybe you were thinking about him, maybe you were distracted, maybe you didn't hear the first movement behind you. That's when the contact must have happened.
The mug drops. Shatters. You don't get the chance to react properly before you're already being restrained. There's no sign of prolonged struggle, which means whoever took you didn't need one. They knew exactly how to handle it. How to end it before it could escalate. All signs point to Victor.
Leon's jaw tightens slightly, the muscle flickering once as the image settles into place.
Staying won't give him anything new.
Finding you will.
He moves with purpose now, the transition so clean it almost feels like a switch has been flipped somewhere beneath the surface. The part of him that came home, the part that allowed himself to think about warmth, about rest, about you waiting on the couch, is gone. What's left is sharper, focused. Built for this, but wishing it wasn't you he was looking for.
"I need everything you have on Victor Gideon." Leon says, his tone even, stripped of anything unnecessary. There's no hesitation in it, no lead-in, no explanation offered before the request.
"That's not a name you drop casually," Hunnigan replies, quietly. "What happened?"
Leon steps out of the kitchen as he speaks, his gaze sweeping once through the living room, not searching anymore, just confirming. The space feels wrong now in a way that can't be fixed, the absence too loud to ignore.
"She's gone."
Hunnigan doesn't respond right away. He can hear it in the silence, the shift from listening to processing, the moment where this stops being a call and becomes a situation.
"When?" she asks.
"Within the last few hours," Leon answers, already moving toward the door. His free hand reaches for his jacket without looking, pulling it back on in one smooth motion. "It was a surprise attack."
"You're sure it's him."
Again, not a question.
Leon's expression doesn't change, but something in his posture tightens, something subtle that only shows if you know where to look. "I'm sure."
There's the faint sound of keys on the other end, fast and efficient, the rhythm of someone digging through things that aren't meant to be found easily. Leon steps outside as she works, the cool air hitting him again, sharper now, more grounding. The quiet of the neighborhood hasn't changed, but it feels different to him now, like a layer has been stripped back.
"Gideon's been buried for years," Hunnigan says after a moment, her voice threading through the line with a tighter edge. "Everything tied to Project Elpis was wiped or sealed. Official channels won't give us much."
"I don't need official," Leon replies, already moving toward his car. His steps are quick but controlled, each one placed with intent. "I need what slipped through."
"You'll have it," she says. There's no hesitation there, no pushback. She knows how this goes. "Give me a few minutes. I'll start with old Umbrella splinter data and see what overlaps."
Leon opens the car door but doesn't get in right away. His hand rests briefly against the frame, his gaze lifting toward the dark stretch of road ahead, his mind already moving beyond this moment, beyond this place.
"Leon," Hunnigan adds, her tone shifting just slightly. Not softer, but more deliberate. "If Gideon's involved, this isn't just leverage. He doesn't operate like that."
Leon's grip tightens almost imperceptibly against the door. "I know." Which means this isn't just about taking you. It's about using you.
The thought settles in without resistance, cold and immediate, but it doesn't derail him. It sharpens him further, narrows his focus into something that doesn't leave room for hesitation.
"I'll send you anything I find," Hunnigan continues. "Locations, contacts, even rumors. But Leon... don't disappear on me."
He exhales quietly, the sound barely audible over the line, more a release of breath than anything else. "I won't."
The line goes silent, an understanding quiet from Hunnigan as she works on her end. She'll dig, pull threads, and find what she can. Leon doesn't wait for it to be enough. He gets into the car, the engine turning over with a low, steady sound that cuts clean through the stillness. His hands settle on the wheel, familiar, steady, but there's a difference now in the way he holds it, a tension that wasn't there before, something coiled beneath the surface.
The car pulls out of the driveway, tires rolling over pavement with quiet intent as the house disappears behind him, shrinking into the dark like something already past. Somewhere out there, you're still breathing, and Leon is going to make sure it stays that way.
Time doesn't move the way it should in a place like this. It stretches, folds in on itself, becomes something difficult to measure without anything familiar to anchor it. The steady hum in the room never changes, never rises or falls, and without windows or shifting light, there is no natural rhythm to follow. You're left with your own breathing, your own thoughts, the subtle shifts in your body as the only markers that time is passing at all.
You've tried to count it. At first, it felt like something you could control, something to hold onto. Seconds stacking into minutes, minutes into something longer, a quiet attempt to impose order onto a place that clearly wasn't designed to have any. But the effort didn't last. Your focus slipped, your thoughts pulled elsewhere, and somewhere along the way, the numbers stopped meaning anything.
Now, you rely on smaller things. The way the air feels against your skin. The slight stiffness settling into your shoulders. The faint dryness in your throat that comes and goes in waves. They're not precise, but they're real, and right now that's enough.
You shift slightly where you sit, the movement careful, deliberate, testing the limits of what the restraints allow without drawing unnecessary strain. They haven't loosened. Not even slightly. Whatever they're made of, whatever mechanism holds them in place, it was designed with intention, with the expectation that resistance would come.
Your gaze drifts across the room again, slower now, more practiced. The walls haven't changed. The door remains closed, silent, offering nothing in the way of clues. There are no seams visible from this side, no indication of how or when it might open. The light overhead continues its steady, sterile glow, unchanging, indifferent.
It would be easy to let the stillness get to you. Easy to let your thoughts spiral, to fill the silence with fear, with everything you don't know, everything you can't control. The uncertainty presses at the edges, persistent, waiting for an opening.
Leon is still on your mind. But the thoughts come quieter than before. You picture him the way you last saw him, not physically, but in memory, in the small details that always stick. The way he moves when he's tired but trying not to show it. The way his voice softens just slightly when he's talking to you, even if he doesn't realize it. Surely he's on his way by now. He has to be looking for you already.
A sound breaks through your thoughts. It's subtle, like a door somewhere else in the building closing. Your body stills instinctively, your breathing slowing as your focus sharpens, every sense narrowing toward the source.
It's nearly silent, the kind of movement designed not to draw attention, but you feel it more than you hear it. A faint change in pressure, a slight adjustment in the air as the seam of the door separates just enough to allow it to open.
The light in the hallway beyond is dimmer, cooler, casting a muted contrast against the sterile brightness of the room. A figure steps through it, their movement unhurried and controlled, immediately setting the tone of the space. He's in no rush. And he probably doesn't need to be.
The door closes behind him with the same quiet precision, sealing the room again as if it had never opened at all. Your gaze lifts to meet him fully now, your posture tightening despite your effort to remain composed. Every instinct in your body sharpens at once, awareness spiking as you take him in.
There's nothing subtle about the wrongness of him. He stands just within the light, and it reveals too much all at once. His frame is tall but uneven in a way that isn't immediately obvious until you look closer, his posture held upright with deliberate control rather than natural ease. The long coat he wears hangs heavily from his shoulders, patterned and textured in a way that feels almost ornamental at a distance, but up close only adds to the sense that everything about him has been chosen with intention rather than comfort.
His skin is the first thing that truly settles in. It's pale, but not in any natural sense of the word. The color sits wrong, stretched thin across his face and neck with a texture that looks almost brittle, as if it might crack under pressure. Faint, branching lines run beneath the surface, subtle but visible, like fractures that were never meant to heal properly. They trace along his jaw, disappear beneath the collar of his coat, and reappear again near his mouth, where they pull slightly when he speaks, distorting the movement just enough to make it feel off.
Your focus shifts higher to his eyes. Or what's been done to them. Metal curves along his temple and cheek, anchoring multiple lenses over one eye, each one different in size, each catching the light in a way that makes it impossible to tell where he's actually looking. One lens glows faintly, a dull, artificial point of red that remains steady even as he moves, unblinking, unchanging.
"You're awake," he says finally.
Your jaw tightens slightly, but you don't respond immediately. You hold his gaze instead, steady despite the tension coiling beneath your ribs, refusing to give him anything more than what he can already see.
He takes a step closer. Then another. Each one is deliberate, controlled, the distance between you closing in a way that feels calculated rather than threatening. He stops just outside your reach, his attention never leaving you, his expression unchanged.
"Good," he continues, as if confirming something to himself rather than speaking to you directly. "That makes this easier."
Your fingers curl slightly against the restraint, the motion subtle, controlled, as your mind begins to work again, piecing together what you can from what little you've been given.
"Where am I?" you ask, your voice steady despite the dryness in your throat.
He doesn't answer right away. Instead, his gaze shifts briefly, taking in your position, the restraints, the room, as if reviewing something already familiar. When his attention returns to you, there's something faintly different in it now. Interest.
"That's not the question you should be asking," he replies. A small pause follows, just long enough to make the silence feel intentional. "You should be asking why."
Your stomach tightens, but your expression doesn't change. You don't give him the satisfaction of a reaction, even as the weight of his words settles in. Because he's right. You know as well as he does that this was planned.
His head tilts slightly, studying you in a way that feels less like observation and more like evaluation, as though he's measuring something you can't see.
"Tell me," he says, his tone still calm, still clinical. "How long do you think it will take him to find you?"
Your breath steadies, your shoulders squaring just slightly as you meet his gaze without hesitation.
"...Not long," you answer.
For the first time, something shifts in his expression. It isn't a smile, but it's damn close.
"Good," he says quietly. "Maybe he will enjoy this show."
Even as every instinct in your body urges you to, even as the weight of his attention presses heavier with each passing second, you hold your gaze steady. There's something instinctive about it, something that refuses to give him more than he already has. If he's studying you, measuring you, the least you can do is make sure what he sees isn't fear.
His head tilts slightly, the movement small, almost thoughtful, as though he's adjusting his perspective rather than reacting to anything you've done. The lenses over his eye catch the light as he shifts, reflecting it in fractured pieces that make it impossible to track where his focus truly settles.
"Confidence," he says quietly, more to himself than to you. "Interesting."
The word doesn't sound like praise. It sounds like a note he says out loud.
Your fingers tighten slightly against the restraint, the motion subtle, controlled, your body grounding itself in something physical as your mind continues to work. Every word he says matters. Every reaction, every pause. You don't know what he's looking for yet, but you can feel the structure of it, the way this interaction isn't random. It's being observed.
"People tend to default to fear in unfamiliar environments," he continues, his tone calm, measured in a way that never rises or falls enough to offer you anything to read. "It's efficient. Predictable. Useful, in its own way."
He takes another step closer, closing what little distance remains between you. Not enough to invade your space completely, but enough that you can see the fine details more clearly now, the unnatural texture of his skin, the faint pull of those fractured lines when he speaks, the stillness of him that never quite resolves into something human.
"You didn't," he adds.
You don't respond immediately. Your throat is still dry, your body still adjusting, but your mind is sharper now than it was when you first woke up. You weigh your words before you let them go, not out of fear, but out of instinct.
"I don't know what you want yet," you say finally, your voice steady despite the tension coiled beneath it. "Seems like a waste to panic before I do."
There's a pause. It stretches just long enough to feel intentional, to make you aware of the silence again, of the hum threading through it, of the way his attention sharpens just slightly in response.
"Efficiency through restraint," he murmurs, almost thoughtfully. "You're already adapting."
Your chest tightens slightly at that, the implication settling in before you can stop it. This isn't just a conversation. It never was. Every response, every choice you make, is feeding into something larger, something you still can't fully see.
"You're trying to understand the situation before reacting to it," he says. "That's... uncommon, given the circumstances." Another small pause. "Encouraging."
Your jaw tightens, but you don't let it show beyond that. You don't give him the reaction he might be looking for, even as your mind starts connecting pieces you didn't want to consider.
Encouraging. Not for you. For him.
"For what?" you ask, the question leaving you before you can stop it, quieter than before but no less steady.
This time, he doesn't answer immediately. His gaze shifts, not away from you, but through you, as if he's considering how much to say, how much to reveal. When his focus settles again, there's that same faint edge of interest behind it, something clinical and precise.
"You're not here by accident," he says. "Of course, I'm sure you've noticed that already."
Your breath slows, just slightly, your body stilling in a way that has nothing to do with the restraints. He knows you knew that already. You felt it the moment you woke up, the moment everything about this place told you it had been planned.
"That still doesn't explain why." Another pause, longer this time.
He studies you in silence, the kind that feels less like hesitation and more like calibration, as though he's deciding how to frame something in a way that serves his purpose best. When he speaks again, his voice hasn't changed, but the weight behind it has.
"Your physiology is unusual," he says, the words chosen carefully, deliberately. "Your system doesn't respond the way it should. Exposure markers without degradation. Cellular stress without collapse. You maintain equilibrium where others don't."
Your stomach drops. You don't interrupt him, but your mind begins to run wild.
"You've been exposed before," he continues, his voice lowering just enough to feel more precise, more deliberate. "Not directly. Not in a controlled environment. But enough to register. Enough for your body to adapt."
"That's why you were viable," he continues, stepping just slightly closer again, close enough now that there's no distance left to soften the details of him. "Your body doesn't reject. It regulates. That makes you exceptionally useful."
"And Leon?" you ask before you can stop yourself, the question slipping through the cracks of your control, quieter now, edged with something you don't fully let surface.
His gaze sharpens just slightly. The reaction is immediate, though subtle, the kind you would miss if you weren't already watching for it. For the first time since he entered the room, his focus shifts in a way that feels more deliberate, more precise.
"Ah," he says softly. He's not surprised. "So that's where your thoughts go."
Your chest tightens, but you don't look away. You won't give him that. He watches you for another moment, that same quiet assessment settling back into place before he continues.
"He is not the reason you're here," he says. "He is the reason this works."
The distinction is small, but it changes everything. Your breath catches, just slightly, the meaning threading through his words before you can fully stop it. This isn't about leverage. Not in the way you expected. Not in the way it should be. This is something else.
"You're measuring him," you say, the realization forming as you speak it, your voice quieter now, more focused. "Through me."
That almost-smile returns faintly.
"Not just him," he replies. "Both of you."
The room feels smaller now. Tighter, like the walls have shifted inward without actually moving.
"You are the constant," he continues, his tone returning to that same calm, clinical cadence. "He is the variable. Time, distance, stress. All measurable. All predictable to a degree."
Another pause.
"But what interests me," he adds, his gaze settling fully on you again, "is where those predictions fail."
The hum in the room seems louder now, but maybe you're just more aware of it, more aware of everything. Whatever this is, it didn't start when you woke up. It started without your knowledge, without Leon's knowledge, long before this kidnapping.
The road stretches forward in a long, unbroken line, disappearing into darkness that feels thicker the further it goes. The headlights carve a narrow path through it, illuminating just enough of what's ahead to keep moving, but never enough to feel certain about what comes next. It's the kind of drive Leon has made countless times before, late hours, empty roads, the quiet space between one mission and the next. Usually, it gives him time to think, to let the tension settle, to put distance between what happened and what comes after.
Tonight, though, it does none of that.
The engine hums steadily beneath his hands, the vibration traveling up through the steering wheel and settling into his arms, a constant, grounding presence that does little to ease the pressure building in his chest. His grip is firm, controlled, but tighter than it needs to be, the leather faintly creaking under his fingers before he forces it to relax again. His gaze stays locked on the road ahead, sharp and unwavering, but his mind isn't there.
It keeps going back to the house, the silence, the space you were supposed to be when he came through the door. He's already reconstructed it more times than he can count, every detail, every shift, every second leading up to the moment you were taken. Not because he doubts what happened, but because that's how he works. He breaks things down until there's nothing left to question, nothing left to guess.
But there's still something missing. A gap he can't quite fill yet. And until he does, everything feels slightly out of reach.
His phone cuts through the silence. The sound is sharp against the steady hum of the engine, immediate and unwelcome, and Leon answers it without hesitation, his thumb moving across the screen before the second ring can finish.
"Talk to me."
On the other end, Hunnigan wastes no time. There's a tightness in her voice that wasn't there before, something controlled but unmistakable, the kind of tone she uses when what she's about to say matters more than the way she says it.
"I found something," she says. "But you're not going to like it."
Leon's expression doesn't change, but his attention sharpens, narrowing further as his grip adjusts slightly on the wheel. "Start talking."
There's a faint pause, the quiet sound of keys in the background as she pulls something up, cross-checking even as she speaks.
"I went back through what's left of the Elpis records," she says. "Most of it's been scrubbed, but there are fragments, overlapping data sets that didn't get fully erased. Personnel logs, incident reports, civilian exposure lists."
Leon's jaw tightens just slightly. "Get to it."
"Your wife's name is in one of the files."
Leon doesn't respond immediately. His grip tightens without permission, the leather pressing back against his palm before he forces his hand to ease again.
"That's not possible," he says finally, his voice low and even, but there's something under it now. Not disbelief.
"It shouldn't be," Hunnigan replies. "But it is."
The silence that follows stretches just long enough to make it feel heavier than it should.
"There was an incident," she continues. "Years ago. Small-scale containment breach tied to an off-site Elpis facility. It never went public. No major outbreak, no media coverage. It was contained quickly and buried even faster."
Leon's eyes flick briefly to the side, catching his own reflection in the mirror for a fraction of a second before returning to the road. His focus splits, part of him still driving, the rest already moving through what she's saying, fitting it into something that makes sense.
"Location?" he says.
"I'm sending it," she replies. "But listen first."
He doesn't interrupt again.
"There was a civilian exposure list," she says. "People in proximity to the breach. Most of them showed standard symptoms. Some didn't survive. A handful were flagged for follow-up monitoring and she was on that list."
The confirmation settles into him slowly, like something sinking deeper the longer it stays there. It doesn't hit all at once. It builds, piece by piece, until there's no space left to ignore it.
"She never told me," Leon says.
The words are quiet, more to himself than to her, but they carry weight all the same.
Hunnigan exhales softly on the other end. "She might not have known the full extent of it," she says. "Or it was downplayed. Low-risk exposure, no visible symptoms, something they monitor quietly and then classify out of relevance."
Leon's jaw shifts, tension settling in his shoulders as he processes that. It doesn't sit right. None of it does. "Define monitored."
"Periodic evaluations," Hunnigan answers. "Bloodwork, cellular scans, long-term observation. Nothing invasive on record, but enough to track irregularities."
Irregularities.
"What kind?" Leon asks.
There's the sound of keys again, faster this time. "Adaptive response markers," she says. "Her system didn't react the way it should have. No degradation, no instability. It just stabilized. Balanced itself out."
Leon's grip tightens again before he reins it in, the motion controlled but deliberate. The road ahead blurs slightly at the edges, not from distraction, but from the weight of what's settling into place.
"She was exposed," he says, the words quieter now, more grounded.
"Yes."
"And he knows."
"That's the part we can't ignore," Hunnigan replies. "If Gideon has access to those records, or if he's been tracking survivors from that incident, then this wasn't random."
Leon doesn't need her to finish. He already understands.
"There's more," she says after a moment. "The facility tied to that breach... it was never fully decommissioned. Officially, it was abandoned. Unofficially, there are signs of recent activity. Power draws. Data pings. Someone's been using it."
Leon's focus sharpens instantly, something locking into place with quiet certainty. "Send everything."
"I just did."
The phone vibrates in his hand, the incoming data lighting the screen briefly. He glances at it just long enough to confirm coordinates, then looks back to the road, his path already adjusting in his mind before the turn even comes into view.
"If her biology is what we think it is, then she's not just leverage."
Leon cuts her off, his voice sharper this time, but not raised. "I know what she is."
There's a brief silence after that, not tense, just understood. Because to him, none of that changes the only thing that matters. You're still you.
"Be careful," Hunnigan says quietly.
Leon doesn't respond. Instead, his foot presses down on the accelerator, the car surging forward just slightly as the dark road stretches ahead, no longer empty, no longer uncertain. Now it leads somewhere. All that's left is direction. Somewhere at the end of it is you.
Gideon's hand doesn't move quickly. There is no rush in him, no sudden motion that might trigger instinct before thought. Everything he does is measured, deliberate, as if even the timing has already been calculated. His fingers close around your wrist with quiet precision, the contact firm enough to hold, but not forceful enough to bruise. It's control without struggle, restraint without effort.
Your shoulders tense, your muscles tightening instinctively as your other hand pulls once against the restraint before you force it still again. You don't give him more than that.
"Try to remain still," he says, his voice low, even, not unkind but entirely without comfort. "Movement interferes with consistency."
Instead, you focus on the pressure of his hand, on the grounding weight of it, on the way your breathing moves in and out of your chest as you force it to slow. You tell yourself to watch. To remember. If this is happening, then it matters how.
His other hand comes into view. A small device rests between his fingers, compact and precise, more clinical than threatening at first glance. The casing is metallic, clean, designed for efficiency rather than intimidation. A narrow chamber holds a clear substance that catches the light just enough to make it visible without revealing anything about what it actually is.
Your stomach tightens. "What is that?" you ask, the question quieter than you intend, but steady enough to hold.
Gideon doesn't look at the device. He's watching you.
"A variable," he says.
Your grip tightens slightly against the restraint, your breath slowing again as you brace yourself without meaning to. Your body knows before your mind fully accepts it. There's no time to argue, no space to negotiate.
He adjusts your wrist, turning it just enough to expose the inside of your arm. A sharp, precise pressure breaks the surface of your skin. A quick, controlled intrusion that sends a reflexive jolt through your system before you can stop it. The substance pushed into your system with practiced ease before the device withdraws just as smoothly as it entered. Gideon releases your wrist immediately after, stepping back without hesitation.
You don't speak. You can't even really try. Any words dissolve somewhere between your chest and your throat as the sensation deepens, spreading through you in a way that is impossible to ignore now. What began as something subtle, something easy to question, shifts into something far more defined, far more present. Heat blooms beneath your skin, not sharp or burning, but insistent, like your body is trying to correct something it doesn't understand.
Your breathing falters, then steadies, then falters again as you try to regain control over it. Each inhale feels just slightly heavier than the last, your lungs working harder for something that should come naturally. Your shoulders tense, pulling inward without permission as your muscles react to the unfamiliar strain. It doesn't hurt but the sensation is wrong.
Your fingers curl against the restraint, tightening instinctively as your pulse begins to climb, each beat more noticeable than the last. You can feel it in your wrists, in your throat, in the space just behind your ribs, a steady, growing rhythm that feels just slightly out of sync with everything else.
You force a breath in slowly, deliberately, holding it for a second before letting it out through your nose, trying to anchor yourself to something familiar, something controlled. It works, for a moment. The sharp edge of the sensation dulls just slightly, enough to give you the illusion of stability.
Gideon watches all of it. He hasn't moved from where he stepped back, his posture unchanged, his gaze fixed on you with that same clinical precision. There's no urgency in him, no concern, only observation, as though everything happening is exactly as expected.
"Elevated response," he says quietly, almost to himself. "But contained."
The words settle into the space around you, detached and measured, like he's reading from something already written rather than reacting to what he sees.
You swallow again, your throat tightening as the heat shifts, pulling inward now, concentrating somewhere deeper in your chest. For a brief moment, it feels like your body is bracing for something worse, something sharper, something that hasn't fully arrived yet. Your shoulders draw back as you try to sit straighter, your body instinctively fighting the sensation, pushing against it rather than giving in. Your breath comes faster for a second, then you force it to slow again, dragging it back under control one piece at a time.
Another wave moves through you, stronger this time, your muscles tightening in response as the heat spreads again, this time more evenly, less chaotic. It rolls through your arms, your chest, your core, like something searching for imbalance and failing to find it.
Your brow furrows slightly.
That's new. The initial spike of discomfort doesn't escalate the way you expect it to. Instead of building into pain, it... evens out. The sharp edges smooth, the irregular rhythm of your pulse settling into something steadier, something controlled despite the foreign presence still threading through your system.
Gideon's head tilts slightly as he watches the shift happen, the lenses over his eye catching the light as he adjusts his angle just enough to follow the change more closely.
"There it is," he murmurs.
The words are quiet and they carry something like confirmation in them. You feel it too. The wrongness doesn't disappear, but it changes, becoming something your body can hold rather than something it's fighting. The heat lingers, but it no longer spikes unpredictably. Your pulse steadies, your muscles easing just slightly as the initial strain fades into something more controlled.
The realization settles in slowly, unwelcome but undeniable.
You draw in another breath, deeper this time, testing it, measuring it the same way he is. It comes easier now. Not normal, not entirely, but closer than it should be given what just happened.
"What did you do?" you ask again, your voice quieter now, steadier despite everything.
Gideon doesn't answer immediately. His gaze remains fixed on you, tracking every shift, every subtle adjustment in your posture, your breathing, your expression.
"A baseline disruptor," he says after a moment. "Something that should introduce instability."
Your jaw tightens.
"Should." His head tilts again, that same small, thoughtful motion.
"In most cases, it does," he replies. "The body rejects it. Overcompensates. Breaks equilibrium in an attempt to regain it."
His gaze sharpens just slightly. "Yours didn't."
You swallow again, your throat less dry now, your body still humming faintly with the aftereffects of whatever he introduced.
"You're watching for failure," you say, the realization forming as you speak it, your voice gaining a slight edge despite your control.
A faint shift crosses his expression again, not quite a smile, but something that acknowledges the accuracy of it. "Yes."
The answer is simple.
"And when you don't get it?" you press, your fingers tightening slightly against the restraint again, grounding yourself in something solid as your mind continues to move.
"Then I adjust," he says.
Your chest tightens again, but not from the lingering effects of whatever he gave you. This could be just the beginning. Gideon steps back slightly, creating distance again now that the immediate observation is complete. His attention doesn't leave you, but his posture shifts just enough to signal that this phase, whatever it was, has reached its conclusion.
"For now," he adds quietly, almost as an afterthought, "you stabilize."
The second time, there is no warning. You see it in the shift of his posture, in the way he reaches for the panel again with the same precision, but there's something different now. Not in his movement, or in his expression, but in the certainty that settles into the space around him.
He's no longer observing you. He's about to escalate this.
Your body tenses before he even turns back toward you, every muscle tightening instinctively as your pulse begins to climb again. The lingering effects of the first injection haven't fully faded. You can still feel it beneath your skin, that faint, controlled hum of something unfamiliar that your body has somehow contained.
Gideon steps back into your space, the device in his hand similar in shape to the first, but not identical. The chamber holds something darker this time, the liquid catching the light in a way that makes it impossible to mistake the difference.
"That one didn't break me," you say quietly, your voice steadier than you feel. "So now you're going to try harder."
He doesn't deny it. "Adjustment is necessary," he replies, his tone as calm as before. "The first response confirmed baseline stability. This will test the limits of it."
You close your eyes and think of anything else. Home. Leon. He'll be here soon, you know it. Your fingers curl against the restraints again.
"He's still a variable." Gideon adds, almost absently.
"You mean me," you say.
"No, you're the constant."
Before you can respond, before you can push back against it, his hand closes around your wrist again, firm and controlled. This time, you don't pull away. Not because you don't want to, but because you already know it won't matter.
You brace. The injection comes faster. The pressure is sharper this time, the intrusion deeper, less subtle. Your breath catches immediately, your body reacting before you can suppress it, a sharp inhale breaking through your control as your muscles tense hard against the restraint.
It hits hard. There's no delay this time, no gradual creep. The sensation floods through you all at once, a violent surge beneath your skin that feels like your body is being pulled in two different directions at the same time. Heat spikes instantly, sharper than before, not spreading evenly but crashing through your system in jagged waves that refuse to settle.
Your breath breaks. You don't mean to. You want to keep quiet, composed. But the sound tears out of you anyway, raw and uncontrolled as your back arches slightly against the chair, your muscles tightening in a way you can't stop. It hurts and it hurts deep. Your chest constricts, your lungs struggling to pull in air as your pulse spikes violently, each beat slamming harder than the last. The heat turns into something sharper, something that burns through your limbs and settles in your core, like your body is trying to reject something it can't.
You try to fight it instinctively. Your hands clench, your shoulders pulling tight as you try to force your breathing back under control, but it slips, stutters, breaks again as another wave hits. Another sound escapes, and you don't recognize it at first, then you realize it's you.
Leon continues moving in. There is no space for distraction, no room for anything beyond the task in front of him. His breathing is steady, his pulse controlled, his body moving with the kind of precision that comes from years of experience and instinct working in perfect alignment.
When he reaches the door, he waits, listens. At first he hears nothing and reaches for the handle. Just the faint hum of something internal, too low to identify clearly from outside, too consistent to ignore completely. It's the kind of sound that suggests machinery, containment, something running beneath the surface where it can't be seen.
Then he hears it. Faint, distant, but unmistakable. A sound that doesn't belong to the building. His body stills instantly, every sense sharpening as his head tilts just slightly, his focus shifting inward, past the walls, past the structure, toward the source.
It comes again. Muffled and broken. Something in him snaps. He knows that sound, even distorted beneath layers of concrete and distance. He knows your voice, and you're not speaking this time, you're in pain.
Leon's hand closes around the handle, the controlled precision changing into something sharper, something faster as his entire focus locks onto one singular point. You're here. And you're close enough to hear.
Inside, the pain doesn't fade. It only builds. Another wave crashes through you, harder than the last, tearing through whatever control you managed to hold onto as your body fights something it doesn't understand. Your breath fractures again, your chest tightening painfully as you try to pull in air that won't come fast enough. Your vision blurs at the edges, the room tilting slightly as your muscles strain, your entire body reacting in ways you can't stop.
Gideon just stands there watching. Unphased by your struggle. Focused on whatever it is he's trying to figure out now.
"Instability present," he murmurs, his voice distant against the rush of sensation flooding your system. "But not catastrophic."
Your hands clench harder, your body trembling now, caught between resisting and adapting, between breaking and holding. Another scream tears from you, louder this time, less controlled. Somewhere beyond the walls, Leon is moving as fast he as can, getting closer with every second.
The door doesn't creak. It opens easily. Leon notices as he slips inside, his movement controlled and immediate, his body already adjusting to the change in the environment before the door fully closes behind him. The night are disappears in an instant, replaced by something cooler, denser, the faint sterile scent of filtered air layered over something metallic and difficult to place.
The darkness inside isn't complete. Low-level lighting runs along the edges of the corridor ahead, thin strips embedded into the walls that cast a dim, clinical glow across smooth surfaces. It isn't enough to illuminate everything, but it doesn't need to. It's designed for navigation, not comfort.
Leon pauses just inside the threshold out of instinct. His gaze moves quickly, but not carelessly, tracking the length of the corridor, the corners, the ceiling, the floor. Every surface is too clean, too controlled, the kind of space that isn't meant to be lived in, only used. There are no visible cameras, no obvious surveillance, but that doesn't mean he isn't being watched.
Leon steps forward. His footfalls are silent against the smooth flooring, his weight shifting with practiced precision as he moves deeper into the corridor. The hum he heard outside is louder now, no longer distant, but integrated into the structure itself. It vibrates faintly through the walls, through the floor, through the air.
Every doorway he passes is closed, seamless against the walls, giving nothing away about what might be behind them. There are no signs, no labels, nothing to indicate function or direction. The only thing that keeps him directionally bound is the sound of your pained screams.
Leon's jaw tightens slightly as he continues forward, his mind mapping the space as he goes, committing every turn, every distance, every possible exit to memory. If something goes wrong, he needs a way out. He needs a way to you. The thought sharpens his focus further.
Another scream escapes you. Leon stops. Not abruptly, but enough that his entire body stills, his head turning just slightly as he isolates it. The corridor stretches ahead in two directions at the next intersection, identical in structure, identical in lighting, offering no immediate indication of which path leads where.
Something shifts in Leon instantly, something deeper than instinct, something that bypasses thought entirely. His chest tightens hard, his breath shortening for a fraction of a second before it steadies again, forced back under control through sheer discipline.
He moves faster now, but not reckless, his steps still placed with precision as he turns down the corridor where the sound came from. The distance closes quickly, the hum of the facility growing louder as he goes, layered now with something else.
Every second stretches. Every step matters. He passes another door, then another, his gaze flicking briefly toward each one, searching for anything that stands out, anything that breaks the pattern. Then he sees a difference.
One of the doors ahead is slightly recessed compared to the others, its surface broken by a narrow panel along the side, faintly illuminated in a way that suggests active use. It isn't obvious. It isn't meant to be.
Leon slows as he approaches, his body lowering just slightly, his hand moving instinctively toward his weapon as he positions himself beside the frame rather than directly in front of it. His breathing steadies again, controlled, measured, his focus narrowing to a single point.
Another pained sound escapes your throat and Leon knows that you're in the other side. For a brief moment, everything compresses, the space, the sound, the distance between where he is and where you're collapsing into something immediate and undeniable.
He reaches for the panel. His fingers hover for half a second, assessing, calculating. Locked, most likely. Secured in a way that won't respond to a simple override. So he doesn't try. Instead, he shifts his stance slightly, his weight settling, his grip tightening as he prepares to force it. Inside, the sound rises again. Sharper. More raw. And that's all it takes.
Leon moves. The impact is controlled, precise, his force directed at the weakest point of the frame rather than the center. The panel cracks first, a sharp fracture that breaks the seal just enough to compromise the structure. He doesn't stop there. A second, stronger hit. The mechanism gives. The door buckles inward with a dull, heavy sound, the controlled quiet of the facility breaking for the first time since he entered. Leon doesn't wait for it to settle. He pushes through.
Inside, the world doesn't make sense all at once. It comes in fragments. The dim lights are too bright. The air is too cold. The sound of your own breathing breaking apart as another wave crashes through you, your body no longer able to hold the same control it did before. The heat has turned into something sharper, something that burns through your system in uneven pulses that refuse to stabilize.
Your hands are clenched tight enough to ache, fingernails cutting through your palm, your muscles trembling under the strain as your chest rises and falls too fast, too shallow.
The door breaks. The sound cuts through everything. Sharp. Violent. Wrong.
Your head jerks instinctively toward it, your vision struggling to focus, the edges still blurred, the room tilting just slightly as your body tries to keep up with everything happening at once. For a split second, you don't understand what you're seeing. A familiar shape, quick movements. Another yell rips through you, the pain washing through your entire body again.
Gideon turns slightly, a full smirk playing on his lips as he recognizes who came through the door. He doesn't startle and doesn't retreat. He wanted this moment, he waited for this moment.
Leon.
The room seems to hold itself in suspension, the harsh overhead light cutting everything into sharp, unforgiving clarity. There is no shadow deep enough to hide in here, no corner untouched by the sterile brightness that reveals every detail whether it should be seen or not. The hum of the facility continues beneath it all, steady and mechanical, a constant reminder that this place was built for function, not for the moment unfolding inside it. The only sound to be heard now is your panicked breathing between screams.
Leon stands just inside the broken doorway, his body angled slightly forward, not quite advancing, not quite holding back. His breathing is controlled, but not calm, each inhale measured, each exhale tight, like something is being forced into place rather than settling naturally.
His gaze doesn't go to Gideon first. It goes to you. It finds you immediately, as if there was never any question where you would be, as if every step he took through the facility had already narrowed down to this exact point. His eyes move over you quickly at first, instinctively checking, assessing, searching for what's been done, what's still happening, what he might already be too late to stop.
He sees the tension in your body, the way your hands are clenched too tightly against the restraints, the uneven rise and fall of your chest as your breathing struggles to keep pace with something inside you that hasn't settled. The faint tremor running through your muscles isn't subtle enough to miss, not to him.
His jaw tightens. Something shifts behind his eyes, something darker, sharper, but it doesn't break through his control. Not yet.
"Leon—" Your voice doesn't come out the way you expect it to. It catches halfway, thinner than it should be, pulled tight by everything still moving through your system. Even saying his name takes more effort than it should, your breath hitching slightly as you try to push past it. But he hears it.
"I've got you," he says, his voice low, steady in a way that feels deliberate, like he's anchoring both of you at the same time. There's no hesitation in it, no question, just certainty, even if the situation in front of him doesn't offer any.
Gideon moves, turning with the same measured precision he's carried through every moment so far, his posture unchanged, his attention shifting from you to Leon as though the interruption is simply another variable entering the equation.
He studies Leon in silence for a moment, his head tilting slightly as if adjusting to a new data point rather than reacting to a threat.
"Earlier than projected," he says, his words calm. Observational.
Leon's attention shifts then, just enough to acknowledge him, but not enough to lose sight of you. His body remains angled between you and Gideon, instinctively placing himself in that space, that line, even before he's fully closed the distance.
"You picked the wrong person," Leon says, his tone controlled but edged now, something tight beneath it that doesn't quite surface but doesn't hide either.
Gideon doesn't react to the threat. If anything, his focus sharpens.
"No," he replies. "I selected precisely the right one."
Leon's gaze flickers back to you, just for a second, taking in the way your shoulders tense again as another wave moves through you, the way your breathing stutters despite your effort to keep it steady. Grunts of pain escape your lips.
"What did you do to her?" he asks.
There's no softness in his voice. Gideon doesn't answer immediately. Instead, his gaze shifts between the two of you, not weighing, not comparing, but observing, as if this moment itself is something worth studying.
"A controlled introduction," he says finally. "A stressor designed to disrupt equilibrium."
Your fingers tighten again as another pulse moves through you, your body reacting despite your efforts to contain it. You try to steady your breathing, to keep yourself grounded, but the sensation hasn't fully faded. It lingers beneath your skin, quieter than before, but still present, still wrong.
"And?" he presses, his voice lower now, more dangerous.
Gideon's expression doesn't change. "She stabilized. Handling it quite well actually."
The words hang in the air. Leon's jaw tightens harder, his focus snapping fully to Gideon now, the meaning settling in faster than it should.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," he says.
Gideon's head tilts again, that same small, deliberate motion.
"Not typically," he agrees. "But she is not a typical subject."
Your chest rises sharply again as another smaller wave moves through you, your body still adjusting, still reacting in ways you can't fully control. You grit your teeth against it, forcing yourself to stay present, to stay aware, because Leon is here now, and that changes everything.
Leon takes a step forward slowly. His attention splits again, half on Gideon, half on you, calculating distance, timing, risk. Every movement is deliberate, every shift controlled, but there's something coiled beneath it now, something that's getting harder to keep contained the longer he stands there.
"You're done," Leon says.
Gideon doesn't move to stop him. Doesn't reach for anything. Doesn't even step back.
"If that were true," he says quietly, "you wouldn't have made it this far."
Leon moves again, faster this time. He closes the distance between you in a matter of seconds, his focus narrowing completely as he reaches your side. His hands come to the restraints immediately, his touch careful despite the urgency behind it, his fingers checking the mechanism, the material, the way it's secured.
"Hey," he says, softer now, his voice dropping just enough to reach you through everything else. "Stay with me, alright?"
Your head tilts slightly toward him, your vision still not fully steady, but clearer now than it was before. Being this close to him, hearing him, it cuts through some of the noise, some of the disorientation.
"I'm—" You try to answer, but the words falter as your breath catches again, your body still not fully cooperating.
"Observe," he says softly. The word is almost lost beneath the sound of your breathing, but Leon hears it.
"I'm not part of your experiment," Leon says.
Gideon's gaze doesn't waver. "You already are."
Leon's grip tightens slightly against the restraint before he forces it to ease, his focus snapping back to you, back to what matters. The mechanism gives slightly under his touch, not completely, but it gives you some relief.
"Almost there," he murmurs, his voice low, steady, meant for you alone.
Your breathing hasn't fully settled, but it's better than it was. The violent spikes have dulled into something more contained, your body still reacting, still adjusting, but no longer overwhelming you completely. You hold onto his voice, onto the presence of him beside you, grounding yourself in something real while everything else still feels just slightly out of place.
"Leon..." Your voice is quieter now, strained but clearer, your fingers twitching faintly against the restraint as you try to steady yourself.
He glances at you briefly, just enough to confirm you're still with him, still holding on. "I've got you," he says again. And for a second, you believe it.
His hands still against the restraint, his body pauses just long enough to register the change before his head lifts, his attention snapping back toward Gideon. "You should have left when you had the opportunity, Leon."
Leon's jaw tightens, his posture shifting almost imperceptibly as he angles himself more fully between you and Gideon, his body placing itself there without thought, without hesitation.
"You're done," he says, quieter now, but edged with something harder, something less controlled.
Gideon's head tilts slightly. And then he moves. There's no warning, no buildup. One moment, he stands across the room, the next, he's there, the space between them collapsing in an instant. Leon reacts on instinct, his body turning, his arm coming up to intercept. But Gideon doesn't strike. He grips Leon's shoulder, then the force hits.
Leon's footing breaks as he's yanked sideways with a strength that doesn't belong to anything natural. The world shifts violently, the ground slamming into his back with a force that knocks the breath from his lungs before he can brace against it.
The impact echoes through the room, sharp and final.
"Leon!" The sound leaves you before you can stop it, your voice breaking through the space with a sharp edge of fear you can't contain this time.
Even as the air rushes back into his lungs in a strained inhale, his body rolls with the impact, momentum carrying him through the motion as he pushes himself back up. There's no pause, no recovery beyond what's absolutely necessary. His focus snaps back immediately, locking onto Gideon with a precision that overrides everything else.
Something in Gideon begins to change. A tension that wasn't there before, something coiling inward rather than expanding outward. His posture tightens, his shoulders drawing slightly as though containing something that no longer fits cleanly within him. The fractured lines beneath his skin darken, spreading in faint, branching patterns that pulse subtly with something alive.
You gasp because you can see it now. Something moving under his skin.
"Adaptation requires progression," Gideon says, his voice lower now, heavier, as though it's being pulled from somewhere deeper.
The mechanical apparatus over his eye flickers, the lenses shifting rapidly, adjusting in small, precise movements as if recalibrating to match whatever is happening inside him.
Leon's stance lowers instinctively, his weight settling, his body aligning for impact as his gaze tracks every shift, every unnatural movement.
"Yeah," he mutters under his breath, quieter, sharper. "Saw that coming."
A sound comes next. It's wet and wrong. A tearing pressure beneath the surface that builds for just a second too long before it breaks. His arm jerks slightly, not in pain, but in adjustment, his fingers flexing once, twice, before something forces its way through. The fabric of his sleeve splits as dark, sinewy appendages push outward, emerging from beneath the skin with a violent, organic motion that defies anything natural.
They unfurl rapidly, extending outward with unsettling control, each one moving with a purpose that suggests awareness rather than randomness.
Leon doesn't wait. He moves first.
The moment the tendrils fully extend, he closes the distance, fast and direct, his movement cutting through the space before Gideon can fully settle into whatever he's becoming. His strike is precise, aimed to disrupt, to interrupt the transformation before it completes.
But one of the tendrils reacts faster. It lashes out, snapping forward with unnatural speed, wrapping tightly around Leon's arm mid-motion. The grip is immediate, constricting hard enough to halt him completely, the pressure sharp and unyielding. Leon's jaw tightens as he tries to pull free, his muscles straining against it.
You see it before it happens, faint arcs of electricity flickering along the length of the appendage, gathering, intensifying, the air around it crackling with something volatile. You try to call to Leon but another wave of pain rushes through you, head to toe, halting everything and stealing your voice, your breath, your mind.
The discharge hits. It tears through Leon in a sharp, violent burst, his body locking for a split second under the force of it before the sound breaks from him, low and strained, forced out despite his control. The tendril releases him just as quickly. He's thrown back, his body hitting the ground hard enough to echo again, the impact reverberating through the room.
Leon lies unmoving on the floor and it's the most helpless you've ever been. Restrained with no way to help your husband, who is only here to save you.
His hand presses against the floor, his body pushing up again, slower this time, but no less determined. His breathing is heavier now, sharper, each inhale drawn in with effort, but his focus hasn't shifted a single time.
Across from him, Gideon stands taller. The human shape is still there, but it's no longer dominant. The tendrils move slowly behind him, shifting, adjusting, as if testing their range, their strength, their control. The air around him feels charged now, faint arcs of energy flickering intermittently, unstable but contained.
"This is where it becomes meaningful," Gideon says, his voice steady despite everything else.
The room doesn't hold its shape for long. It gives in stages, like something under pressure, finally reaching the point where it can no longer hold.
At first, it's only the sound. A low, strained groan somewhere deep within the structure, metal bending where it was never meant to, the clean lines of the facility distorting under the weight of what Gideon is becoming. The sterile hum that once filled the space flickers, falters, then surges unevenly, as if the systems built to sustain control are now struggling to contain it.
Gideon stands at the center of it, no longer still in the way he had been before, but not uncontrolled either. The transformation does not make him wild. It makes him larger, more present, more impossible to ignore. The tendrils extending from his body shift with a purpose that's no longer exploratory. They coil and stretch in slow, deliberate motions, each movement accompanied by faint arcs of electricity that crackle through the air and dissipate against the walls in sharp, fleeting bursts of light.
Leon watches him without retreating. His breathing is heavier now, his chest rising and falling with effort, but there's no hesitation in the way he holds his ground. His body adjusts in small, precise ways, weight shifting, stance lowering, every muscle aligning with instinct and experience. He's already recalculating, already adapting to something that should not exist, because that is what survival has always required of him.
Gideon tilts his head, the mechanical lenses over his eye flickering rapidly as they track Leon's movement. "You continue to respond within projected thresholds," he says, his voice altered now, layered faintly with something deeper that resonates beneath the words. "Even under escalating conditions."
Leon doesn't answer. There's no space for it, no value in it. The moment Gideon's tendrils shift inward, drawing close to his body as the electricity along them intensifies, Leon understands what's coming. The air sharpens, the faint scent of ozone thickening as the energy builds, no longer scattered but concentrated, focused into something far more dangerous.
He moves before it releases. The discharge tears through the space where he stood a fraction of a second before, a violent arc of electricity that slams into the far wall with enough force to fracture the surface, the impact flashing white-hot before fading into smoke and sparks. The light burns briefly across Leon's vision, but he doesn't slow. He uses the opening created by the attack, the brief window where Gideon's focus shifts to recalibrate, and closes the distance instead of retreating.
The first strike lands cleanly. It snaps Gideon's head to the side, not with enough force to drop him, but enough to confirm what Leon needs to know. The thing in front of him can still be hit. It can still be interrupted. It can still be fought.
The response is immediate. The tendrils lash outward with far less restraint than before, their movements sharper, more aggressive, each strike aimed not just to stop Leon but to overwhelm him. He pivots through the first, deflects the second, the impact sending a jolt up his arm that he absorbs without breaking rhythm. The third comes from behind, forcing him to drop low, the appendage slicing through the air just above him before slamming into the wall hard enough to crack it further.
The room is coming apart now. Panels loosen and fall, fragments of the controlled environment scattering across the floor as the fight pushes beyond anything it was designed to contain. The hum of the facility distorts into something uneven, lights flickering in brief, erratic pulses that cast the entire space in shifting brightness.
It's all too much for your body as you fight whatever is coursing through your veins. The flashing lights, the pain bursting in waves. Darkness creeps at the edges of your vision as you watch Leon try to take down Gideon.
Gideon steps forward into the chaos, his movement heavier now, less human in its weight but no less precise. "Damage acknowledged," he says, the words strained slightly as the transformation continues to push through him. "Adaptation required."
The tendrils retract again, but not in retreat. They coil tightly around him, drawing inward as the electricity intensifies along their length, brighter now, more volatile. Leon recognizes the shift immediately, his posture tightening as his focus sharpens further. This is not another strike. This is an escalation.
Gideon's body convulses with sudden force, the remaining structure of his human form breaking further as the mutation surges forward. The tendrils expand again, thicker, longer, their movement more erratic as the transformation accelerates. His frame distorts, growing beyond its original shape, the balance of control giving way to something far more aggressive, far less contained.
The walls crack under the pressure. Metal groans and bends as the space struggles to hold him, the controlled environment collapsing into something unstable and dangerous.
He moves through the chaos, faster now, more direct, his path cutting between the snapping tendrils and crackling arcs of energy with a precision that leaves no room for hesitation. One shot strikes his shoulder as he passes, the impact heavy enough to stagger him a step, but he doesn't stop. He can't. Another slams into the ground beside him, sending debris upward in a sharp burst that grazes his side, but he pushes through it, closing the distance before Gideon can fully adjust.
This time, Leon commits. There's no testing strike, no probing movement. Everything aligns into a single, decisive action as he drives forward, his focus narrowing to a singular point. The moment opens, brief and dangerous, and he takes it.
The shot lands. The sound cuts through the chaos, sharp and final, the impact hitting with enough force to break through what remains of Gideon's structure. For a fraction of a second, everything seems to hold, the movement, the sound, the space itself pausing as the effect settles in.
Gideon collapses. The tendrils recoil violently, the electricity along them snapping out in erratic bursts before dying completely. Gideon's form distorts further, not expanding now but breaking down, the structure of it failing in on itself as the mutation loses cohesion. The surface of him shifts, softens, destabilizes, the defined shape melting into something unrecognizable. He doesn't fall, but dissolves.
The mass that was Gideon collapses inward, losing form, losing structure, the remnants of his transformation breaking apart into something viscous, unstable, spreading across the fractured floor in uneven, darkened pools. The last of the energy dissipates into the air, leaving behind only the fading hum of a facility no longer fully functioning.
The silence that follows doesn't feel real. It settles too suddenly, too completely, pressing in around the room like something waiting to be acknowledged. Moments ago, everything had been noise and motion and impact, the air alive with electricity and strain, the structure itself fighting to hold together under the weight of what had been happening inside it. Now, all of that is gone, leaving behind only the faint, uneven hum of failing systems and the quiet drip of something cooling against the fractured floor.
Leon doesn't move right away. His chest rises and falls with heavier breaths than he'd allow himself under normal circumstances, each inhale dragging in air that still smells faintly of ozone and heat. The tension hasn't left his body yet. It lingers in his shoulders, in the set of his jaw, in the way his fingers flex once at his side like they're still expecting resistance.
His gaze remains fixed for a second longer on what's left of Gideon, the dark, formless remains spread across the floor where something controlled and deliberate once stood. There's no movement there now, no sign of reformation, no indication that anything is coming back from it. Just the aftermath of something that pushed too far and lost its shape completely.
Only when that certainty settles does Leon turn. Everything that had been held tight during the fight, all that focus, all that precision, redirects in an instant, snapping back to you with a force that feels almost physical. His eyes find you quickly, already expecting to see you where he left you, restrained, struggling, still fighting through whatever Gideon put into your system.
You're there. You're upright. The restraints still hold you in place, your body angled slightly forward where you'd been straining against them earlier. But the tension is gone. The movement is gone.
Leon's chest tightens sharply.
"Hey..." The word leaves him before he's even fully crossed the distance, his steps closing the space between you faster now, no longer measured, no longer cautious. The control he held onto through the fight slips just enough to let urgency through.
He reaches you in seconds, hands coming up to your cheeks. "Hey, hey—" His voice drops, softer but edged now, the words coming quicker than before as he leans closer, his gaze scanning your face, searching for any sign of response. "Come on, stay with me."
Your skin is warm beneath his hand, warmer than it should be, the heat lingering from whatever Gideon forced into your system. Your pulse is there too, faint but steady against his fingers, a rhythm that reassures him just enough to keep moving, to keep focused. But your eyes don't open.
Leon exhales through his nose, the breath sharper than he intends as he shifts his grip, his hand sliding more securely along your arm as he checks you over with quick, practiced movements. There are no visible wounds beyond the restraint, no obvious signs of physical damage from the outside, but that doesn't mean anything here.
"What did he do to you..." he mutters under his breath, the question not meant for an answer, just something that slips out as his mind tries to piece together what he's seeing with what he already knows.
He adjusts his position, moving closer, his hands returning to the mechanism with more urgency than before, but not less care. His fingers find the weakened point he'd started working earlier, the subtle give in the structure that hadn't been enough then but might be now.
"Alright," he murmurs, quieter again, as if you can hear him even like this. "I've got you, sweetheart. Just hold on."
His grip tightens slightly as he applies pressure, shifting his angle and forcing the mechanism in a way that strains against it rather than working with it. The material resists at first, holding firm like it was designed to, but Leon doesn't stop. He adjusts again, changes direction, increases force just enough to push it past its limit without snapping it in a way that could hurt you.
Finally, the first wrist comes loose. Leon doesn't hesitate. He works the opening immediately, pulling it wider, freeing your other wrist carefully but quickly, his hand catching yours the second it's loose, steadying it before it can fall.
"Got it," he breathes, more to himself than anything else.
For a second, he doesn't move you.
He just stays there, one hand still around yours, the other hovering near your shoulder like he's bracing for something, like he's expecting you to wake up, to react, to do something. When you don't, the tension shifts again. Softer this time. More careful.
Leon slides his arm behind your back, supporting your weight as he eases you forward, out of the position the restraints held you in. Your body doesn't resist. It leans into him instead, unsteady, the lack of awareness making the movement feel heavier than it should.
"I've got you," he says again, quieter now, the words closer to a promise than anything else.
He adjusts his hold, one arm secure around you, the other steadying your head as he lowers you just enough to get a better look at you. His thumb brushes lightly along your cheek without thinking, grounding himself in the contact as much as he's checking you.
Leon's jaw tightens slightly, but he doesn't let it spiral. Not now. Not when you're right here, when you're breathing, when he can still do something about it.
"Come on," he murmurs, his voice low and steady again as he shifts his grip, preparing to move. "You're not staying here."
The facility groans faintly around them, a reminder that whatever stability it had before is gone now, systems failing slowly in the aftermath of Gideon's collapse. The lights flicker once, then again, the hum dipping unevenly as something deeper in the structure begins to shut down.
Leon doesn't wait to see how far it goes. He gathers you more securely against him, lifting you carefully, mindful of your condition, of the way your body still hasn't fully recovered from whatever was done to it. His movements are controlled again, but the urgency is back, sharper now, focused entirely on getting you out.
As he turns toward the broken doorway, his grip tightens just slightly, not enough to hurt, just enough to make sure you're there.
The facility doesn't sound the same on the way out. What had once been a steady, controlled hum has fractured into something uneven, strained, like the structure itself is struggling to keep up with systems that are failing faster than they can compensate. The lights flicker overhead in irregular pulses, casting the corridor in shifting bands of brightness and shadow that make the space feel unstable, unfamiliar, even though Leon had just moved through it minutes before with absolute clarity.
Your weight is secure against him, one arm braced firmly around your back, the other supporting you beneath your legs as he moves through the corridor with controlled urgency. Every step is precise despite the pace, his body adjusting instinctively to keep you steady, to minimize the jarring motion that might make things worse.
Your head rests against his shoulder, your breathing warm against his neck, uneven but present. He keeps track of it without thinking, each inhale and exhale a quiet reassurance that cuts through everything else.
"Almost out," he murmurs, more to himself than to you, his voice low and steady even as the world around him shifts.
The door he forced open earlier hangs unevenly now, the frame warped just enough to leave it partially ajar. Cool night air seeps through the opening, cutting through the sterile atmosphere behind him and bringing with it the scent of damp earth and open space.
Freedom.
Leon doesn't hesitate. He pushes through, stepping out into the night in one smooth motion, the shift in environment immediate and grounding. The air is colder here, cleaner, and for the first time since he entered the facility, his lungs pull in a breath that doesn't feel heavy.
The car is exactly where he left it, partially obscured by the treeline, its dark silhouette blending into the surroundings. He heads straight for it, his pace steady but urgent, every second outside the facility a step further away from everything that just happened.
Your body shifts slightly in his arms. At first, it's subtle. A change in weight. A small, uncoordinated movement that could easily be dismissed as nothing. But Leon feels it immediately. His grip tightens just slightly, enough to steady you as his gaze drops briefly, searching your face for confirmation.
Your brows furrow faintly as your breathing changes.
"Hey," he says, softer now, his voice dropping instinctively as he adjusts his hold just enough to support you better. "Easy. You're alright."
"...Leon?" The word comes out quiet, rough around the edges, like your voice hasn't fully returned yet.
He hears it immediately.
"I'm here," he answers without hesitation, his voice closer now, steadier, like he's anchoring you through the haze. "I've got you."
Your eyes open slowly, the night sky above you blurred at first, shifting slightly with each step he takes. It takes a second for things to settle, for your vision to catch up enough to focus, and when it does, you see him again. Up close and real, not the image you forced yourself to see while Gideon was tormenting you.
Your fingers twitch weakly against his jacket, the movement small but intentional as you try to ground yourself in something you recognize.
"I told... told him you'd save me." You barely get out. "You're... okay?"
"I'm fine," he says, though it's not the point. "You're the one I'm worried about."
You let out a faint breath, something that might almost be a laugh if your body had the strength for it. It fades quickly as a dull ache rolls through you again, your muscles tightening instinctively before easing.
"Feel like... a million bucks..." you murmur.
Leon reaches the car quickly, shifting his hold just enough to open the passenger door without setting you down, his movements efficient despite the care behind them. He lowers you into the seat gently, one hand steadying your back as the other guides your legs in, making sure you're settled before pulling back.
For a moment, he doesn't close the door. His hand lingers briefly against your shoulder, his gaze scanning your face again, checking, confirming, making sure you're still with him.
"I'm right here," he says quietly, reaching up to caress your cheek.
You nod faintly, your head resting back against the seat, your body still heavy, still not fully your own, but more present than before.
Leon closes the door and rounds the car quickly, sliding into the driver's seat and starting the engine without hesitation. The headlights cut through the darkness ahead, illuminating the path back in a way that feels far more real than anything inside that facility ever did.
As the car pulls away, the building disappears behind them, swallowed by the trees and the night as if it was never meant to be found. For a few minutes, there's only the sound of the road under the tires.
Leon taps a few buttons on his infotainment screen. The dial tone sounds in the car.
"Leon?" Hunnigan's voice comes through, alert immediately.
"I found her," he says.
There's a pause. Then relief, quiet but unmistakable. "Is she—"
"She's alive," he cuts in, glancing briefly toward you before returning his focus forward. "But Gideon got to her first. He injected something. I don't know what."
Your eyes shift toward him slightly at that, your focus hazy but present enough to follow the conversation. There's a brief sound of typing on the other end.
"If it's Elpis-related, it's not going to be simple," Hunnigan says. "You need to get her checked out as soon as possible. I can pull what I have on Gideon's compounds, but if he refined anything—"
"Bringing her now," Leon says, his tone firm, leaving no room for argument.
There's a pause.
"Understood," Hunnigan replies, quieter now. "Monitor her until then. Watch for instability, changes in heart rate, neurological response, anything abnormal."
Leon's grip tightens slightly on the wheel. "Yeah," he says. "Already am."
"I'll send you everything I find," she adds. "Leon, you did well."
He doesn't respond to that. He ends the call a second later, the quiet of the car settling in again as the road stretches ahead.
Your head turns slightly toward him, your voice softer now, more grounded despite the lingering exhaustion. "...You always do that," you murmur.
He glances at you briefly. "Do what?"
"Act like... you weren't worried," you say, your words slower now, but clearer.
Something in his expression softens, just slightly. "I was," he admits.
The answer is simple. Honest. And it sits between you in a way that doesn't need anything added.
The road carries you forward, the distance between where you were and where you're going growing with every second. It still feels longer on the way back. The distance hasn't changed, but every second now carries weight Leon didn't have time to feel before. The urgency hasn't left him. It's just changed shape, sharpened into something quieter, more focused, more dangerous in its own way.
He doesn't take the direct route home. He turns off sooner than expected, the car shifting onto a narrower road that disappears deeper into the trees. The headlights carve through the darkness in long, steady beams, illuminating a path that doesn't look like it leads anywhere permanent.
You notice the change, even through the lingering haze. Your head shifts slightly against the seat, your eyes half-lidded but tracking the unfamiliar surroundings as best you can.
"This isn't home," you murmur, your voice still softer than usual, weighed down by exhaustion and something else you can't quite place.
Leon glances at you briefly, just long enough to confirm you're still with him.
"No," he says. "Not yet."
The road narrows further before it opens into something unexpected, a structure set back from the tree line, low and unmarked, its exterior deliberately unremarkable in the same way the facility had been, but cleaner, maintained. A single light glows near the entrance, steady and controlled. Safe. Or as close as it gets.
Leon pulls up without slowing more than necessary, the engine cutting the moment the car stops. He's out of the vehicle in seconds, moving around to your side, the door opening before you fully register the shift.
"I've got you," he says again, quieter now as he reaches in, one arm sliding behind your back, the other beneath your legs as he lifts you carefully from the seat.
Your body responds this time. Weakly. Your hand finds his jacket again, fingers curling into the fabric without thinking, holding on as the ground shifts beneath you.
"Leon..." you breathe, your voice unsteady but present.
"I know," he murmurs. "Just trust me."
The door to the building opens before he reaches it. Hunnigan stands inside, already moving and prepared. There's no surprise in her expression, no wasted time on relief, just immediate focus as her eyes take you in, assessing faster than words could keep up.
"This way," she says, stepping aside.
Leon doesn't stop. The interior is brighter, cleaner, the air carrying that same clinical sharpness, but without the wrongness that clung to Gideon's facility. This feels controlled in a different way. Not experimental. It's protective.
He follows her down a short corridor and into a room already set up, equipment active, monitors ready, everything positioned with intention.
"Set her here," Hunnigan directs.
Leon lowers you onto the table with care, his hands lingering just a second longer than necessary as he makes sure you're stable before pulling back. He doesn't step far and doesn't look away.
A nurse comes over immediately, her hands steady as she begins checking vitals, attaching sensors, her focus sharp and efficient.
"Heart rate elevated but stable," she murmurs, more to herself than to either of you. "Temperature's up, not unexpected."
You flinch slightly at the contact, your body still sensitive, still not fully under your control as the lingering effects of the injection continue to hum beneath your skin.
"What did he give her?" Leon asks, his voice low, controlled, but tighter than before.
She doesn't answer right away. She moves quickly, pulling a sample, running it through a portable analyzer already humming to life on the counter beside her.
"Give me a second," she says.
The machine processes faster than anything standard, its quiet mechanical sounds filling the space between your uneven breathing and the tension settling heavier in the room.
Leon's attention doesn't leave you. Your eyes drift toward him, unfocused at first, then clearer as your body fights its way back toward something resembling normal.
"I'm okay," you try, your voice softer now, but he doesn't buy it.
"I know," he says, but it doesn't sound like agreement.
It sounds like reassurance for himself more than anyone.
The machine beeps. Hunnigan's attention snaps to it immediately, her eyes scanning the results as they populate across the screen. Her expression tightens, just slightly, something small but enough for Leon to catch it.
"What is it?" he asks.
She exhales quietly. "It's a modified Elpis compound," she says. "Derivative strain. Designed to destabilize cellular response and force rapid adaptation."
"And?"
The nurse looks at you, then at the screen, chiming in. "It should've caused systemic failure," she says. "Organ stress, neurological breakdown... worst case, full collapse."
Your stomach drops faintly, even through the haze.
"But it didn't," Leon says.
"No," Hunnigan replies. "It didn't."
She taps the screen lightly, pulling up another set of data.
"Her system compensated," she continues. "Regulated instead of rejecting. It's stabilizing the compound instead of letting it spread."
"What does that mean?" you ask.
"It means you're not in immediate danger," the nurse says. "But it also means whatever he put into you isn't gone."
Your fingers curl slightly against the surface beneath you, your breathing steadying more now as the worst of the earlier effects fade into something duller, more manageable.
"...so I'm not dying tonight?" you ask, your voice quiet, but clearer now.
Hunnigan looks at you directly.
"No," she says. "You're not."
Leon exhales, probably louder than he intended. It's the first real release of tension since he found you. Hunnigan's gaze shifts back to the screen.
"But we're going to need to monitor you," she adds. "Closely."
The house is quiet when the door opens. Not the heavy, suffocating quiet Leon had walked into earlier, the kind that had pressed in on him with something wrong beneath it. This is different. Softer. The kind of quiet that belongs to a place waiting to be filled again, not one that’s already been emptied. Still, when he steps inside with you in his arms, something in him tightens.
For a split second, the image overlaps, the broken stillness from before, the absence, the space where you should have been. It flickers through him before he can stop it. Then you shift against him.
Leon exhales slowly, the breath quieter this time, less controlled, as he nudges the door closed behind him with his foot. The soft click of it sealing shut sounds louder than it should, final in a way that settles something deep in his chest. You're here, and that's what matters.
“I can walk,” you murmur against him, your voice still a little worn, a little softer than usual, but stronger than it was before.
He doesn’t answer right away. His grip doesn’t loosen either.
“I know,” he says after a second, glancing down at you briefly. “You don’t have to.”
You huff a faint breath that turns into a smile, your hand shifting slightly where it rests against his jacket, fingers brushing the fabric like you’re reminding yourself he’s real, too.
“You’re stubborn,” you mumble.
“Yeah,” he replies. “You married me anyway.”
You break out into a sleepy grin. He carries you further into the house, his steps slower now, no urgency pushing him forward anymore, just care. The rest of the house comes into view, familiar in a way that almost feels surreal after everything that came before it.
Then he stumbles upon the kitchen. The light is left on, the chair is still slid out, and the broken mug is still there. Ceramic shards scattered across the tile, the dark stain long since dried where coffee had spilled and been left behind, frozen in the moment everything went wrong.
You follow his gaze, your brow knitting faintly as your eyes settle on it, memory catching up in pieces, the last normal moment before everything had been ripped away.
“And that was my favorite one too,” you murmur quietly.
Leon exhales, something in his chest shifting again, not sharp this time, not panic or urgency, just something quieter, something closer to relief tangled up with the remnants of everything else.
“I’ll get you a new one,” he says.
He carries you past the kitchen, leaving the broken pieces where they are for now. It can wait. None of that matters in this moment, not compared to the weight in his arms, the warmth of you against him, the quiet proof that he didn’t lose you.
When he reaches the couch, he finally lowers you carefully, his movements slow and deliberate as he eases you down into the cushions. This time, he doesn’t pull away immediately. His hands linger on your, one at your back and the other at your arm. He's not ready to let go just yet.
Instead, your hand finds his wrist again, your fingers curling lightly around it before he can step back, holding him there in a way that’s gentle but unmistakable.
“Stay,” you murmur.
He shifts instead, sitting beside you, close enough that your shoulders touch, his body angled toward yours without thinking. For a second, neither of you says anything, the quiet settling in around you again, but this time it feels different. It's safe and full.
Your head tips slightly toward him, your body leaning just enough that he reacts without hesitation, his arm coming around you instinctively, pulling you closer, steadying you against his side. You melt into him naturally, more dramatically than usual.
His hand moves slowly along your back, his thumb brushing lightly in absent, repetitive motions that feel more like habit than thought.
"When you weren't home, I thought..." his words drop quietly. They don't come easily.
You tilt your head slightly, your cheek brushing his shoulder as you glance up at him. “I know,” you say softly.
You don’t make him finish it. You don’t need to. His jaw tightens faintly, his arm around you pulling just a little closer, like the thought alone is enough to make him hold on tighter. You shift slightly, turning more toward him despite the lingering heaviness in your body, your hand sliding up from his wrist to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric there as you steady yourself.
“I’m here,” you murmur.
This time, it’s for him. His gaze drops to you, something in it softer now, less guarded, the edges worn down by everything that’s already passed.
“I know,” he says.
You study him for a second longer, then lean in, closing the small space between you. The kiss is gentle, slow, less about reassurance and more about presence. Your hand stays against his chest, grounding yourself in the steady rhythm beneath it as his hand comes up to your jaw, holding you there with quiet care. There's no urgency; it's just warmth and you.
He leans into it fully this time, the tension finally easing from his shoulders as he lets himself settle into something that doesn’t require fighting, doesn’t require thinking, doesn’t require anything except being here with you.
When he pulls back, it’s only slightly, his forehead resting against yours, his breath steadying in a way it hasn’t since before any of this started.
“Next time,” you murmur softly, a faint hint of teasing threading through the exhaustion, “I’m making tea instead.”
That almost makes him laugh. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Safer choice.”
The quiet stretches around you, soft and steady, the kind that doesn’t press in or demand anything. It just exists, wrapping around the two of you like something familiar, something earned.
You don’t realize how heavy your body feels until you try to move again. It’s subtle at first, a shift against him, your muscles protesting just enough to remind you that you’re still recovering, still not fully back to yourself. The exhaustion settles deeper now that everything else has quieted, pulling at you in a way that’s harder to ignore.
"We have to get cleaned up, sweetheart," he says, kissing your head.
"Okay," you reply, half asleep.
Before you can argue, before you can insist on anything else, his arm shifts around you, steady and sure as he moves to stand. The motion is smooth, practiced, like he’s done this before, like taking care of you has always come this naturally. Your arm slides around his shoulders without hesitation, your body settling against him with a quiet acceptance that feels as natural as breathing.
“You’re really not going to let me walk, are you?” you murmur, your voice softer now, edged with tired amusement.
“No,” he replies simply.
The two of you move together down the hall, slowly, quietly. The bathroom light flicks on, warm and soft, filling the space in a way that feels almost jarring after everything else. It’s normal, ordinary, safe. He sets you down on the closed toilet lid. Leon moves ahead just enough to start the water, adjusting it carefully, testing the temperature with his hand before letting it run. Steam begins to rise slowly, curling into the air and softening the edges of the room.
You lean lightly against the counter, watching him through the haze of exhaustion, the small, familiar movements grounding you in a way nothing else quite has yet.
“You do this a lot,” you murmur faintly.
He glances back at you, brow lifting just slightly. “Take care of you?” he asks.
You nod once. Something in his expression softens, just a fraction.
“I always will,” he says quietly.
He steps back toward you then, slower now, his hands gentler as they come to rest at your arms, steadying you again. His gaze flickers briefly over your face, checking, making sure you’re still with him, still present.
“Can you stand?” he asks.
You nod. “I think so.”
He doesn’t completely take your word for it. He stays close anyway. Careful and patient. There’s no rush in what comes next. Just a quiet understanding between you as he helps you out of your clothes, his movements respectful, unhurried, like this isn’t something to get through, but something to do right. His hands are steady, never lingering where they shouldn’t, never pulling away too quickly either.
When you step into the bath, the warmth surrounds you immediately, sinking into your muscles in a way that makes your breath catch softly in your chest. You lower yourself slowly, the water rising around you, easing tension you didn’t even realize you were still holding. It’s not just relief, it’s release.
Your shoulders drop, your head tipping back slightly against the edge as your eyes close for a second, letting yourself settle into it. Leon stays close. Not in the water yet, but right there beside the tub, one hand resting lightly along the edge, his attention still entirely on you.
“Too hot?” he asks quietly.
You shake your head, your voice softer now. "Perfect."
He nods once, then reaches for the shampoo, his movements slower, more deliberate as he shifts closer. His hand brushes lightly against your shoulder first, a silent check, a pause to make sure you’re with him.
You tilt your head slightly in response, and that's all he needs. His fingers move through your hair gently, working the shampoo in with care that feels like heaven. There’s no rush, no distraction, just the steady rhythm of his hands, the quiet presence of him there with you. The tension leaves you in pieces.
Your head leans back a little more, your eyes slipping closed again as you let yourself relax into it, into the warmth of him.
“You’re really good at this,” you murmur, your voice barely above the sound of the water.
When he rinses your hair, one hand steadies at the back of your neck, careful, protective, making sure the water doesn’t hit too hard, doesn’t pull you out of the quiet you’ve finally found. You lean into that touch without thinking.
By the time he's done, the air feels different. You feel lighter, cleaner, safer. He lingers for a second, his hand still resting lightly along the edge of the tub as he watches you settle deeper into the water. The tension that had been sitting in your shoulders has eased; your breathing is slower now, your body finally beginning to let go of everything it had been holding on to.
His gaze shifts, thoughtful. “You sure you’re steady?” he asks quietly.
You open your eyes just enough to look at him, the faintest hint of a smile returning. “I’m not going anywhere,” you murmur.
He exhales softly, then moves, slower this time. There’s no hesitation in it, just a quiet decision as he steps back, shedding the last of his own clothes with the same unhurried care he showed you. It’s simple, practical, like this is just the next step.
Then he steps into the bath behind you. The water shifts around him, rising slightly, warmth settling over both of you as he lowers himself carefully, mindful of your space, of your balance, of everything you’ve just been through. His movements are controlled, even here, even now, but there’s something softer in them too, something that isn’t about precision anymore.
You feel the warmth of his chest against your back. His arm comes around you almost immediately, instinctively, resting lightly across your middle, not pulling you in too tightly, just enough to steady you, to keep you anchored there with him.
You exhale, slow and quiet. “That’s better,” you murmur.
A faint breath leaves him, something just short of a laugh. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, it is.”
The water laps gently against the sides of the tub, the only sound in the room aside from your breathing, which has finally evened out into something calm, something steady. The warmth sinks deeper now, loosening what little tension remains, dulling the last edges of pain into something manageable.
Leon’s hand shifts slightly against you, his thumb brushing absent, slow patterns along your arm. It’s not deliberate, not something he’s thinking about. It’s just there, familiar, grounding, something he’s done a hundred times before in quieter moments.
“You still with me?” he asks after a while, his voice low, close to your ear.
You nod faintly, your head tipping back just enough to rest lightly against his shoulder.
“Yeah,” you whisper. “Just tired.”
“I know.”
His hand tightens just a fraction, then eases again, like he’s reminding himself you’re here, that he doesn’t have to hold on so tightly anymore.
You reach back slightly, your fingers finding his arm where it rests around you, tracing lightly over his skin without thinking. It’s a small movement, but it’s enough to pull his attention fully to you again.
“You okay?” you ask, softer now.
There’s a pause. “I am now,” he admits.
You tilt your head just enough to look up at him, your gaze meeting his in the soft, warm light of the room. For a second, neither of you moves, the space between you close but unhurried.
Then you lean in. The kiss is gentle, slower than before, your hand coming up to rest lightly against his jaw as your lips meet his. There’s no urgency in it, no need to prove anything, just quiet reassurance, the simple fact that you’re both here, both real, both okay.
He responds just as softly, his hand shifting from your arm to your side, holding you there with a steady, careful touch as he leans into it. It lingers just long enough to mean something, to settle into something real, before he pulls back slightly, his forehead resting against yours.
"I was scared," he murmurs.
"I know," you whisper. "Me too."
His eyes close briefly at that, his breath steadying as he leans into your touch for just a second. The water cools slowly around you, but neither of you moves right away. There’s no rush to leave this moment, no urgency pulling you forward. Just warmth, and quiet, and the steady presence of each other. Eventually, though, he shifts.
“Come on,” he murmurs gently. “Let’s get dried off and get to bed.”
Leon reaches for a towel immediately, wrapping it around your shoulders before you can even think about it, his hands moving with that same practiced gentleness as he draws you closer, drying your hair first, slow and careful, working through it like he had in the water.
Another towel follows, this one warmer, softer as he drapes it around you and guides you to sit on the edge of the tub for a second, making sure you’re steady before stepping back just enough to grab fresh clothes.
He helps you again, keeping you steady as he eases the fabric over your arms, adjusts it at your shoulders, and makes sure you're comfortable before moving on. By the time you're both dressed, the whole world has softened. The sharp edges from before have faded into something else.
Leon’s hand finds yours without thinking as he leads you back toward the bedroom, his thumb brushing lightly over your knuckles as you walk. You don’t pull away. If anything, your grip tightens slightly, grounding yourself in the warmth of him, in the steady presence that hasn’t left your side since he found you.
When you reach the bed, he slows, turning slightly toward you instead of immediately guiding you down. For a second, you just stand there.
"Thank you, Leon," you say quietly, looking at his tired eyes.
The words are simple, but they carry everything behind them, everything you don’t need to explain because he already knows. Leon’s expression softens in that small, almost imperceptible way it does when something gets past his guard. He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, his free hand comes up, resting gently at your jaw as he leans in just enough to press a soft, lingering kiss to your lips.
“I love you, okay?” he murmurs against you, his voice low, steady, like he needs you to hear it, to hold onto it.
Your breath catches just slightly, something warm settling in your chest as you meet his gaze.
“I love you too,” you reply, just as soft.
He leans his forehead briefly against yours, then shifts, guiding you gently down onto the bed, his hand never quite leaving you as he settles beside you moments later.
You turn toward him instinctively. He meets you there. His arm wraps around you, pulling you close, your body fitting against his like it always has, like it always will. The exhaustion is heavier now, pulling at you in a way that’s impossible to fight, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming anymore.
Your hands come up to rest against his chest, and you listen to the steady sound of his heart where your head lies near his chest. Leon’s hand moves once along your back, then stills, holding you there as the quiet settles in fully around you.
When sleep finally comes, it's gentle and safe. And this time, home finally feels like home again.
-----
My requests are open! <3 I would love to hear from you!
Thank you to @sisterlucifergraphics for the red moon divider!
summary: Dennis works too hard, refuses to treat himself. After finally taking a day off, he's taking you out! At least, that's what he promised.
tags/warnings: pet names (honey, egregious use of baby), oral (m receiving), sub!Dennis, edging, fluff, no use of y/n, reader is implied fem but no gender is specified
word count: 1.5k
“God...Look at you,” Dennis’ voice sounds behind you. He leans in the doorway with a towel wrapped around his hips and another around his neck, catching water from his dripping hair. As he walks further into the room, you catch him sneaking glances in the mirror, shaking his head with his lips twitching into a smile.
“What's so funny?”
“Nothing.” He joins you, wraps his arms around your waist and tucks his head against your neck. When he speaks, his voice hums through your body. “I’m just looking at you and thinking...What if we don't go out tonight?”
You scoff. “You're funny.”
“I know, I know but–” He interrupts himself to trail gentle kisses across your shoulder, suckling at the base of your neck, nestling his face into the heady sweetness of your perfume. “I don't think I can stand anyone else seeing you right now.”
“What happened to ‘we don't get out enough’?”
Dennis hums and wraps his arms tighter.
You pout at your reflection, running your hands over his, dragging the tip of your nail lightly over his forearm so that he inhales sharply. “In fact, you don't get out at all.”
“That's not true.” Dennis’ voice is muffled against your skin. “I’m always out.”
“At the ER? Now I know you're being funny.” You turn your head and Dennis looks up, your noses brushing as you fix him with a stern look. “How long do we have?”
He kisses you, then lifts his wrist to check an imaginary watch. “‘Bout an hour. Don't worry, hint taken.”
He pecks your cheek, takes the towel from around his neck and ruffles his hair with it. When he steps away, he must be headed back to the bathroom. You don't let him get that far.
“Woah there,” he chuckles as you push him back towards the bed, his hands held up in surrender. When the back of his knees hit the bed, he stumbles into sitting and looks up at you, smile incredulous. “You don’t want me to get ready?”
“Oh, you will.” You sink to your knees, toying with him over his towel. “I’m just gonna give you a little…incentive, first.”
Dennis leans back on his hands and looks down at you through heavy-lidded eyes. His breathing stutters as your hands creep under the towel but the smile tugging at his lips never falters. “You know I would go anywhere with you, right?”
“Anywhere except a fancy restaurant for date night?”
“Anywhere.” He leans forward to grab your wrists through the towel, smile replaced by ardent earnesty. “You don’t have to–”
Your hands wrap around him and he cuts himself off with a quiet gasp, his own hands tightening around your wrists. His body is still wet from the shower and the fresh layer of fragrant body oil on you makes your fingers glide along him easily. It only takes a few long, slow strokes for him to get hard, bucking into your hands at a languid pace. A deep, satisfied moan falls past his lips and he throws his head back.
“Baby,” he whispers.
“Feels that good, huh?”
“Mhm,” he whines, one hand still gripping your wrist so he can fuck your hands mindlessly. His towel falls away, plush cotton unwinding from his hips and slipping to the ground in a heap. The sight makes you giggle, his desperation so sudden and so easily won.
“You really wanna get off like this?”
“God, baby.” He moans again. “It’s just–It’s you. However you want me, I just–Fuck–I just need you.”
You let him get a little more worked up, then squeeze your grip to get his attention. He lets out a strangled groan, but he does manage eye contact. “What do you think of my lipstick?”
Deep, dark berry. Opaque, almost matte but still silky on your lips. Miles away, Dennis shakes his head at the question. “It’s gorgeous. Why?”
“You want some?”
He lets out a broken, keening moan and nods.
“Then sit still.”
God love him, he tries. But even when he manages to let go of your wrist and lean back on his hands, his hips keep rolling forwards.
“Dennis,” you taunt. Running a finger up and down his shaft, you lean forward. As close as you can get without your lips touching him, you say his name again.
“I’m sorry.” Dennis inhales deeply, voice shaky. “Please, honey.”
Fingers still teasing, you press a single, chaste kiss to the base of his dick. “Please what?”
“God.” He huffs out a breathless, desperate laugh and thrusts against the empty air. “You’re mean.”
“And you–” Another kiss. “Are bad at following instructions.”
“Please. I’ll be good.” He stills. “See? Come on baby, please.”
Just to test him, he gets another few strokes. His chest heaves with the effort of staying still but when he succeeds, he gets another trail of kisses, all the way to his tip. It draws another whining moan from him.
“Thank you,” he pants. “More? Please.”
You look up at him as your lips wrap around the tip, tongue lapping at him with slow, firm pressure. He has a white-knuckle grip on the sheets and he throws his head back again, swearing softly under his breath. As your head bobs up and down, the sounds he makes have you squeezing your thighs together.
“Goddamn baby,” you say, pulling away while he looks down at you, distraught. “You’re acting like I’ve never done this before.”
“Sorry.” He flushes. “It’s just been a while, right? And you look–Oh, wow, that feels good–You look so nice.”
“Don’t apologise. It’s hot.”
“Yeah?”
“How’s this for an answer?” You swirl your tongue around the tip and then take him as deep as you can, feeling him twitch and pulse inside your mouth with a renewed urgency. He goes back to muttering compliments under his breath like prayers. You’re ‘beautiful’, it ‘feels so good’, ‘no one feels like you’, he ‘can’t get enough’. On his third synonym for perfect, he begs you to keep going as if he’s begging for his life. You take him out of your mouth and go back to kissing him, making a concerted effort to keep them chaste enough that intact kiss marks pepper his crotch. He wails your name and bucks his hips.
“No, that's okay.” You pat his thigh and look up at him, giggling. “God…Look at you.”
Dennis’ ears, face and chest are flushed. His grip on the sheets is loosening, but his breath is still short and gasping. When he calms himself down, his eyes flutter shut. “I’ll stay still. Come on, just a little more.”
“I’m sorry baby, I can’t.” His brow furrows and you pat his thigh. “Incentive.”
“Oh come on.”
“We’re definitely going out now, huh?”
He watches you walk back to the mirror with puppy-dog eyes and his mouth ajar. As you reapply layers of sultry berry to your lips, he snatches his towel from the ground. In your periphery, he moves to clean off the lipstick stains and you hold up a hand.
“Ah ah ah. You’re keeping those.”
“But–”
“And hurry up getting dressed, we only have what, half an hour now?”
Dennis sulks back to the bathroom to do his hair, comes back to pull boxers over his aching boner and your dark kiss marks. “This was a terrible idea,” he mutters under his breath.
On your way out of the bedroom, you chuckle and pat his chest. “It was your idea.”
Rifling through your clutch to do a ‘phone, wallet, keys check’, you miss Dennis’ sly smile as he slips on his shoes and rolls up his shirt sleeves. When you’re satisfied you aren't about to lock yourself out or be forced to dine ‘n’ dash, you look up to find him already staring.
“Hey, hot stuff,” you say. He just keeps staring, with a bewildered smile and his eyes narrowed like you’re an especially sexy puzzle. You wrap your arms around him and speak low into his ear. “What’s my smokin’ hot hubby thinking about?”
The palm resting against the small of your back flinches and he groans. “Don’t call me that right now.”
He kisses along your jaw, hands caressing every inch of bare skin he can get ahold of. “I’m such a mess right now,” he mutters against your lips.
“Good.” You pull back. “It’ll keep you well behaved.”
“It’s not just me though, right?” Hands resting on your hips, he pulls even further back, surveying you. “I mean, I know how much you like going down on me. I can’t be the only one ruining my underwear.”
“Sure you can.” You shrug, unwinding your arms from him and heading for the door. As you do, you call over your shoulder. “You’re the only one wearing any.”
Dennis’ face goes slack and you almost leave him standing in the hall. When he can move again, he does it muttering under his breath that surely it doesn’t make sense to give him a heart attack yet, when he hasn't made enough to have a sizable will and swearing up and down that, the second you get home, he’s never letting you leave the bedroom again.
A/N: baby's first Pitt fic!!!! woahhhhh! hope u enjoyed and plsplspls tell me what u think. do u feel the rabid horny energy through the screen. although actually, this one is super polite and romantic idk thats my boyfriend yall
how about reader taking care of Dennis’s curly/wavy hair since maybe he didn’t have the products/knowledge on how to take care of it back in Nebraska? Could be after a busy shift where his hair got frizzy or somethin?
have a lovely day <3
curls (dennis whitaker x reader)
author's note: my very first time writing Dennis! thank you so so much for this request, i really enjoyed writing it. hoping that i did Dennis justice!! also who can resist a hairdresser reader?? love them
wc: 2.3k
pairing: dennis whitaker x hairdresser!reader
warning: dennis is so fkin gorgeous and a total dreamboat
description: dennis lets you look after his hair after a long shift. that's it. that's the fic.
banner by @suupersonic <3
Dennis was entirely unbothered with his hair. Not the frizz itself, not the way his curls would cry after a long shift, looking like they’d been through something genuinely trying. He was entirely unbothered by it in the specific way of someone who had been using 3in1 Axe Africa body wash his whole life. You’d seen him run countless hands through his curls and feel something in your chest that was one part thinking about how good he looked and one part genuine distress for his hair follicles.
You had known Dennis for about 11 months now. You had wanted to get your hands on his hair for, like, 10 of those months.
The wanting - that started with his hair and ended in all of him – had started professionally. Your career meant you knew hair the way some people knew music, instinctively and completely. Dennis’ curl pattern was the kind that made your fingers itch with the knowledge of what it could look like with the right care. Thick and wavy with the potential for something genuinely beautiful underneath all the neglect, the kind of hair that had clearly never had anyone sit down with it and figure out what it actually needed.
You were out of town the weekend Trin got him to go to a real hairdresser’s and get his hair cut. She had told you, when you came home from your parents place that Monday, that she had sent the woman who did his hair a Pinterest photo with the words just do it, an the rest was history. The idea of another woman being allowed to touch him like that made you sick to your tummy in that weird shivering, uncomfortable way. Bet she didn’t even use good shampoo.
With that newfound knowledge and some very invigorating pep talks from both Trin and Vic, the purely professional nature of your roommates only relationship with Dennis stopped being purely professional. Dennis was, well, Dennis. Warm and earnest and funny in the understated way of someone who held doors open and refilled your water bottle because that was the bare minimum in his mind. Dennis’ Mom back in Broken Bow Nebraska wouldn’t have it any other way.
Trinity lived in a three bedroom apartment that was full – before Dennis moved into your room and left one vacant.
It was, despite Trinity never letting you watch your show on TV, the best living situation you ever had.
He came home from his shift a little after 8, which you knew from the sound of him dropping his boots in the hall. He positioned them in the exact spot that made Trinity have to step around them every single time, which was either subconscious or the funniest ongoing bit in the apartment, depending on the mood.
You found him in the bathroom, the usual spot after a long shift like this one. He was standing at the sink with his hands braced on the counter, yawning at himself in the mirror with the mild unfocused expression of a man who had been on his feet for twelve hours and was in the slow process of becoming a person again.
Dennis looked up when you appeared in the doorway, and the expression that crossed his face was the one you liked the best – the immediate, uncomplicated warmth of it, the small, lovable smile that made you feel like you were his best part of coming home. Which he told you endlessly, by the way.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself,” you said, and crossed the bathroom without further preamble, sliding your arms around him from behind and pressing your face into the back of his shoulder. He was warm and solid and smelled like antiseptic and cinnamon. His hands came off of the sink immediately to cover yours where they rested against your stomach.
“Long one?” you said, into his shoulder blade.
“Medium,” he said. “You?”
“Medium.” You tilted your head to look at him in the mirror, your chin on his shoulder, his hands firm and strong holding yours against him. “You look tired, Den”
“I’m okay,” he said, which was Dennis for yes but I don’t want to make it a thing.
You pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, just below his jaw, and felt him exhale – slow and deliberate, letting the day go before him.
“You think any more about me doing your hair for you?” you quipped, nibbling at the skin where you kissed previously. You felt him shiver underneath you.
You caught his laugh in the mirror and watched him throw his head back against you.
“How many weeks have you been planning this?”
“Um. Three weeks.” You confirmed. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to bring it up again and I think this is it.”
“Three weeks,” he repeated, moving his head sideways and then down at you, lifting a finger to tip it against your nose.
“What can I say? I’m prepared.”
Dennis turned in your arms then, which rearranged things so that you were facing each other in the small space of the ensuite, his hands finding your waist in the easy, automatic way they always did, like they defaulted there when given the opportunity.
“Okay,” he said, looking down at you.
“Okay?” you said.
“Yeah.” He leaned down and kissed the side of your mouth, lingering there for a second in order to feel your lips widen in a smile, noticing the way the skin stretched there on your cheek from your obvious delight.
“What? Have you got your whole bag home with you?”
“Well, yeah!” you shouted over your shoulder, already half way out the bathroom door. Dennis bit his bottom lift as you went, the blue and white of your pinstripe boy shorts hanging low on your hips.
You brought your on-the-go bag from work with you. You’d brought it home a few times already, helping Trinity prepare for a night out with Yolanda once, other times using it for yourself pre-date nights. You had literally everything you could possibly need in there. Curl cream, leave in conditioner, a Denman brush and a few Lotus Biscoff biscuits for snacking on.
You gathered everything and went to the bedroom.
Dennis was already on the bed, sitting against the headboard with his long legs stretched out, scrub top discarded in favour of the worn grey t-shirt he wore around the apartment, the one that fit him the way things fit people who were built the way Dennis was built, which was to say, very well, in a way you had never entirely gotten used to despite seven months of evidence.
He held out a hand when you came in.
You took it, let him pull you onto the bed beside him, and kissed him once more because you could, because he was here and warm and yours, before pulling back and arranging yourself behind him with your bag.
"Okay," you said. "You have a 2C curl pattern. Maybe 3A in places."
"Still don't know what that means," he said.
"It means you've been criminally underserved your whole life and we're going to fix it."
"You say that like it's a personal attack."
"It is personal attack," you said. "Your hair is personal. Sit still."
He settled, pulling his knees up slightly, and you started with the leave-in conditioner, working it through in sections, dampening as you went. His shoulders dropped almost immediately, that particular quality of touch starved Dennis, realising he was being looked after, and felt him go incrementally, completely still.
"Good?" you asked.
"Really good," he said, quietly.
You smiled at the back of his head and kept going.
"Bar soap," you said, after a moment.
He made a sound. "We've been over this."
"I'm still processing it."
"There was nothing else—"
"Dennis. Bar soap."
"I grew up on a farm in Nebraska," he said, with the patience of a man who had said this many times. "We weren't exactly stocking a hair care range."
"Your poor curls," you said, with genuine feeling, working the curl cream through a section near his temple.
"They survived."
"They suffered," you corrected. "There's a distinction."
He laughed, low and real, and you felt it move through him under your hands.
"My mom doesn't have curly hair," he said, after a moment. "Neither do my brothers. I was just the odd one out. I thought it was just, a thing I had. That I dealt with."
"You don't have to just deal with it," you said.
"I know that now," he said, and there was something in it that was soft and a little more than just hair, the way things with Dennis sometimes landed somewhere bigger than where they started.
You worked in comfortable quiet after that, the curl cream going through section by section, his hair responding under your hands in a deeply satisfying way, the pattern clarifying, the frizz settling, the curls finding the shape they'd always had and never been given the chance to be.
At some point his hand found your knee where it rested beside him and just stayed there. Warm and unhurried, the way Dennis did everything. His thumb moved back and forth in a slow absent rhythm and you let it anchor you both while you worked.
"Tell me about the shift," you said.
And he did, not the edited version, not the professional debrief, but the real one, the one with the parts that were hard and the parts that were funny and the parts that were just the texture of a day. You listened and asked questions and kept your hands moving through his hair and felt the last of the shift leave him by degrees.
"Ogilvie?" you said, at one point.
"Ogilvie," he confirmed, with a sigh that said everything.
"What did he do?"
"What he always does," Dennis said. "Which is exist loudly and assume he's the smartest person in any given room."
"And is he?"
"Absolutely not," Dennis said pleasantly.
You laughed, and his hand squeezed your knee briefly in response.
You reached for the diffuser.
"This is going to be loud," you said. "And it might feel strange. Just trust me."
"Always," he said, simply.
You worked the diffuser through slowly, scrunching upward, section by section, watching the curls set into something that was genuinely beautiful. Defined and soft and completely themselves, the hair that had been underneath all the neglect finally given room to be what it actually was.
When you turned it off the room was very quiet. You set the diffuser down and shifted, moving around to face him properly, sitting cross-legged in front of him on the bed, and looked at him. He was already looking at you.
"Well?" you said.
"Well what?"
"Look at your hair, Dennis."
He reached for the mirror on the nightstand, held it up, and went quiet. You watched his face. The expression that moved across it was the unguarded one, the fully open Dennis Whitaker expression that he made no attempt to manage, something that was surprised and a little overwhelmed and trying not to show how much.
"That's—" he started.
"Yours," you said. "That's yours.”
He put the mirror down and looked at you, and his eyes were doing something warm and serious at the same time, and he reached out and tucked a piece of your hair back from your face with the easy familiarity of someone who had been doing it for long enough that it had become unconscious.
"Nobody ever did anything like this for me," he said, quietly.
"I know," you said.
"Like—" He paused, searching for the words. "Just, sat with me. Took care of something I didn't know needed taking care of." He looked at you. "You do that a lot."
"You deserve it," you said. "You deserve someone doing the small things."
He looked at you for a long moment.
Then he reached out, both hands this time, and pulled you in by your waist, and you went willingly, ending up in his lap with his arms around you and his chin tucked over your shoulder and the warm solid weight of him surrounding you completely.
"I love you," he said, into your neck. Quietly. Simply. The way Dennis said the true things — without ceremony, without build-up, just the thing itself, set down between you like it had always been going to land there. Your chest did something enormous.
"I love you too," you said, into his shoulder.
"I know," he said, and you could feel him smiling against your skin.
"You knew?"
"You carried curl products in your bag for three weeks," he said. "Specifically for my hair. Specifically for this."
"That's not—"
"Y/N."
"That's just — preparedness—"
"Mhm," he said, in the tone of a man who had won something and was being very gracious about it.
You pulled back to look at him, the warm unhurried smile that had been dismantling you for eleven months, and his curls were sitting exactly as they should, and his hands were warm at your waist, and the apartment was quiet around you. Trinity not home yet, the living room empty, the boots by the front door and the products on the nightstand.
Your right hand moved up from his shoulder and found place on his neck, rubbing your thumb softly against the skin there. Dennis moved forward to rest his forehead on yours as his own hand took a hold of your cheek. He connected your lips for a moment, firm and mind-numbing. He parted from you then, and looked down again.
"Show me what to use," he said. "In the morning. So I can do it myself."
"You'll actually do it?" you said.
"I'll actually do it," he said.
"Every wash day?"
"Every wash day," he confirmed, with the absolute reliability of Dennis making a commitment, which was the most reliable thing in the world.
You leaned your forehead against his.
"Good," you said.
"Good," he said.
And the curls sat exactly as they should, and his hands stayed warm at your waist, and neither of you moved for a long time.
hey so this is a little bit of a weird ask and it’s fine if you don’t want to do it! But what about a fic from Whitaker’s pov. He’s just super jealous that reader gets to date Robby instead of him?
Jealousy's A Bitter Thing
wordcount: 5.4k
warnings: jealousy, angst, Dennis isnt the greatest guy (yandere vibes?), mentions of drug abuse (Langdon and implicating reader is abusing them), medical inaccuracies, hospital inaccuracies, blood (it's very mild but im adding it in case...), internal homophobia in the beginning if you squint really hard, Dennis literally despises reader
Whitaker isn’t usually a jealous person. He’s not. The whole religious upbringing taught him to be better than that. Taught him to not be a bitter person. Taught him to not lust over what others had.
But lusting over Robby came easy. Far too easy.
It’s just whenever he looks at you with Robby… something bubbles up inside him. He’s too far into his denial to call it anger, or jealousy. And he couldn’t let himself want Robby either. But every time he saw you with him? You could probably call him upset at the most.
You were this brand new nurse— much like Emma who barely knew how to operate here— and Robby was infatuated with you from day one. Not to mention that Dennis knew you two were involved not long after you started working here.
But fuck what Whitaker would do to feel Robby's attention on him and him only just like when he first started here. To have Robby's hands touching him again. To have Robby drift his eyes over to him and give him quick small glances.
But now Robby’s attention and touches and curt gazes are completely focused on you, leaving Dennis with only the phantom touches of where Robby used to let his hand linger on Dennis' shoulder.
Whitaker knows deep down that he shouldn't be lusting over Robby like this— it’s wrong— especially since Whitaker knows you both are involved. But wanting Robby just feels so right.
"Hey Whitaker— it’s Whitaker right? You ok? You seemed like you were spacing out."
You had surprised Whitaker, came up behind him while he was wrapping a bandage around a patients wound. "Uh— yeah. Yeah I’m fine. And yes— yeah it’s Whitaker. Or Dennis."
He spun around on his little spinny chair he was sat in to face you. Fuck he hates you for taking away Robby from him. He despises you for looking and being more beautiful than him. He loathes you for—
"Great! well, Whitaker, Robby said he needed you over in trauma bay one— he told me to find you as quick as I could." You make little motions and gestures with your hands nervously while talking, not really knowing what to do with them.
Robby? Needed him? He didn’t need you? The rush and giddiness of the feeling that robby needed him has him getting dizzy as he stands up so fast from getting off of the chair.
"Who came in with what?" If Whitaker was going to talk to you, he would rather it be about business than talking about Robby.
"Male, caucasian. His name is Greg Sinclaire, he has a compound fracture in his right tibia." You inform him along the way to the trauma bay as screams can be heard as you both near your destination. Both from doctors, and Greg. "He was in a car crash with his son."
"Is his son ok?" Dennis tries to talk over all the screaming going on. "His son is fine, he’s got a couple scratches but he'll live." You try to calm your shaking hands, nervous from all the screaming.
"Greg we need you to calm down! we can’t operate on you if youre thrashing all over the place!" Garcia shouts— doing her best to hold down Greg’s left arm while Robby held his right— as Dennis rushes into the trauma bay, pulling on a pair of gloves and leaving you to get back to work as you get called away by Santos.
"I will stop thrashing once you get rid of some of this pain!" Greg thrashes his head from side to side— wailing in pain— and arching off of the bed, trying to shove Garcia and Robby off of his arms.
"I'm here Robby where do you need me?" Dennis wishes it wasn’t always just business between him and Robby.
Robby whips his head around to look at Dennis over his shoulder. The heat that always zings through Dennis whenever Robby looks at him almost makes his knees give out.
"I need you to grab a syringe and sedate this guy,” Robby says harshly, gritting his teeth.
Dennis wonders why Robby simply couldn’t have one of the nurses that were actively in the trauma bay— or you— to sedate the patient, but Dennis doesn’t dwell on that too much. They must be busy or something. He’s just happy to be around Robby without you present.
Dennis makes quick work of finding a syringe full and ready of sedative, and rushing to Garcia’s side to jab the sedative into the side of the patients left thigh. "Hey! What the fuck did he stab me for!?" Greg thrashes his head more and looks over at Robby. “'M already in… enough… pa—" Greg’s body slowly goes limp as the sedative sets in, finally ceasing his incessant yelling.
It may seem a little insensitive to call Greg’s yelling incessant, but Robby’s here. Dennis doesn’t want to waste what little time he always has with Robby by listening to a patient’s screams.
Garcia was already moving around Whitaker and going to assess the damage to the flesh of Greg's leg and bone. Whitaker moves to assist her and assess the damage for himself.
In the corner of his eye, he can see Robby stepping out of the way and moving to Dennis' side. "Good work, Whitaker." Robby pats his shoulder and lets it linger for a little, he was reveling in the warmth of Robby’s hand on his shoulder, he’s pulling it away.
"Good work," Robby reiterates as he’s pulling away from Whitaker’s space and making his way out of the trauma bay. "Do you need me anymore, Dr. Garcia?" he sticks up finger guns at her.
Garcia looks between Greg's leg and then over at Whitaker, "I think we got this." And just as soon as Dennis got to see Robby, he’s nodding his head at Garcia saying "alright," and walking away. Probably going back to find you, or tend to another patient.
Hatred bubbles up slowly inside of Dennis again. The hatred mainly aimed at everyone else other than Robby. He can’t even begin to say how much he just wants to yank Robby into a closet and tell him to leave you and this damned hospital so that he could have Robby all for himself.
But he shakes his head mentally. That would be greedy of him— gluttony almost. That would be a sin. Dennis doesn’t want to think too much about that, though.
Dennis pulls himself out of his thoughts as blood somehow splashes onto his face. Assisting Garcia is easy, but he would rather not get blood on himself while doing so.
He doesn’t even do much while assisting her. Mostly just holds the clamps on Greg's bone, hands her things, and occasionally wiping some blood away.
Sure the compound fracture is bloody and disgusting, but it’s practically nothing compared to what they had to deal with from the PittFest shooting 10 months ago. Fixing a compound fracture comes to him easily now, like routine.
Dennis looks up from where he’s holding onto the clamps for Garcia, only to see you talking to Dana off a little in the distance.
How could he get rid of you?
Sure it could be easy enough ways to kill you, but Dennis would never kill anyone. It practically goes against the whole reason he became a doctor. Plus, he has moral standards.
Or… he could get you fired. You did just start your job here, it wouldn’t be too hard to make it seem like you messed up so bad on your first week here.
Yeah… yeah that sounds far better than killing you.
Right. So. Devise a plan to get you fired. Easy peasy. Then, you and Robby would magically break up, and Dennis would be back to having Robby again. Mostly to himself.
Fuck… was he gonna have to think of some way to get you and Robby to break up too? Or would you getting fired be just enough?
"Whitaker! Can you hand me the suture, or what?"
Dennis fumbles handing Garcia the suture, making him feel like it’s his first day all over again. She must’ve had to have asked a couple times because she lets out a harsh breath through her nose.
Dennis moves the clamps out of the way so Garcia can suture Greg up and get him on his merry way to have a cast put on. Dennis could never be happier that Garcia did her best to make quick work of fixing Greg's leg.
And now since the hustle and bustle in the trauma bay has died down— because Greg wasn’t yelling and his leg was getting sutured— Dennis moves to take off his gloves and silently make his way out of the trauma bay.
It had occurred to Whitaker— that nurses get drugs and administer them to patients. Ok— well— saying that in his head now sounded kind of dumb. Of course nurses get drugs and administer them to patients, it’s kind of their job.
But remembering the whole Langdon debacle that Santos told him a few months after living with her— that Dennis could probably get you fired if you were found having drugs in your locker. Either to make it look liked you were stealing them or abusing them for your own use, he would let the security figure that out.
Now Dennis knew— in the very near but almost back of his mind— that this sounded awful.
Who knows how Robby would feel about his new girlfriend harboring drugs after Langdon. It sounded plausible enough for a break up, though. This was good. Well. It was a good kind of bad. But at least you wouldn’t be dating Robby and Dennis would semi have Robby to himself again.
Everything would then go back to normal— right?
Dennis has been here long enough to know how to quietly get around the ER without being called away to help with a patient. He knows where this hallway leads to what, who would probably be shacking up in which storage closet.
So it was safe to say that Dennis knew where everything was, and what medication was being ministered to who. Like a good doctor would.
So it was easy enough to sneak in, and take over for a nurse when a patient was being administered morphine and fill a few syringe worths. Spending enough time in a hospital— Dennis knew what nurses could get fired for having.
It was a good idea— it really was— it only slightly made Dennis feel bad for taking someones medicine.
It was for a good cause though. Well— at least what Dennis kept telling himself. To make it seem alright somehow. Make the unease in his stomach settle just slightly, even for a moment.
And just when Dennis rounds a hallway corner, finding you tending to a patient in a semi-private room, it's like a lightbulb clicks on in his head.
Knocking on the doorway of the room, Dennis surprises you.
"Oh! Whitaker! how are you doing? Oh wait— um… how’d it go with Mr. Sinclaire ?"
Dennis leans against the doorway and folds his arms, "good! Very good." His eyes flit down to where your hands have ceased working with the syringe full of probably morphine.
The patient that has been staying in this room was laying on the bed sleeping. She had fallen down some stairs, and was an older lady but very sweet. Dennis had taken her when she had come in from the assisted living home rounds in the morning.
"Do you want me to take over for you?"
Dennis knows how much you still try to hide your shaking hands. Even though you had been here for a week, Dennis still knew your hands had a slight tremor.
While you tried again to focus on pulling the clear liquid from the small bottle to give to the patient, Dennis' comment surprised you. And yes— you wanted to learn to get over this hand tremor, but this felt like a miracle.
"Yes— yeah. Sure. I probably have to check on a couple patients anyway." You’re quickly getting up and out of the chair you were sat on next to the patient, pushing away the little tray the medicine was set on to get out of the way for Dennis.
This was an opportunity handed to Dennis on a fucking golden platter. Not many miracles happened to Dennis like this— other than Dennis meeting Robby of course.
Dennis stares at the little bottle full of medicine, just reading the label. Morphine sulfate.
"Hey Whitaker— thanks." You give some sort of vague gesture with your hands before you realize he isn’t paying attention, just staring at the morphine bottle. "You alright?"
Dennis had zoned out. Too busy thinking about how this was the best opportunity he would ever get— but it felt a little off. A little too easy. Implicating someone of stealing drugs was a careful and tricky business after all.
Dennis looks over at you— where you're all too ready to book it over to your next patient, "huh? Me? Oh yeah I’m fine. I’m good. And um," he gives you a small smile— one you see him giving to Robby on the daily. "You’re welcome. It’s kinda hard dealing with all this the first few weeks. You’ll get used to it."
Dennis didn’t really mean those words. Those were just words he got recited to him over and over when he was starting out here. While yes, he might mean them in the slightest bit because he can see where you’re coming from— there’s that little devil on his shoulder telling him he can’t like you. Won’t let him like you.
Because of who you’re with. Of who he is meant to be with.
You give him the same small smile, a nod, and make your way to do your rounds.
And then Dennis was alone again. With the patient asleep, Dennis could easily slip the morphine bottle into his pocket and then walk out of the room scott free.
Which is what he does. He quietly slips the bottle into his pocket. The bottle is only small enough for a single dose, so it’s easily concealed in his pocket. He slips out of the room as quietly as he did in the trauma bay, completely unnoticed by the sleeping patient in the room.
Now that he has one bottle, he'll only need a little more to make it seem like you've been taking it for a while. Then, all he has to do, is— well— put it in your bag in your locker.
Another problem occurs in Dennis' head.
How the fuck was he going to get into your locker? your password couldn't have been as simple as 1234, right?
Dennis shakes his head, trying to gather his thoughts. Cross that bridge when we get there, Dennis thinks as he makes his way towards other patient’s rooms that he knows will be given morphine around this time.
While patients in more excruciating pain need more morphine get a dose every hour, patients with less pain get only one dose every four hours.
The feeling in Dennis' stomach churned more at the thought of taking from patients in need, so it was best to take from the ones who needed it less.
Rounding corners, walking down hallways, making his way into rooms with nurses with exactly what he needed in their hands was getting trickier and trickier to come up with different excuses each time he needed to tell them they were being called away. Thank fuck it was nurses who barely even saw Dennis, because he didn’t recognize their faces.
And now that Dennis had accumulated three more bottles, all he had to do was not get caught or called to help with a patient by anyone. Dennis didn't know what he would say if someone asked about the sizable lump in his pocket.
Unsure and nervous about everything at the moment, Dennis finally makes it to the hallway that leads to the locker room. Shoulders untensing, muscles relaxing, brain getting out of risk mode, he feels home free. This is the last stretch. If he just—
"Whitaker!" Santos had called out to him, "get the crash cart! We have a patient coding!"
A mental sigh. Dennis knew it was too easy.
The lump that was the bottles of morphine that now lived in his pocket felt heavy and as though they were going to burn through the fabric of his scrubs and leave marks on his skin. Reminding him of guilt of what he was doing.
Muscles tensing again and rushing over to where Santos had called him, nurses were rushing about.
The beeping of the vital monitor seemed like nails on a chalkboard to Whitaker’s ears. The rush of everyone around him making him feel paranoid every single time someone came close to him, or brushed by his side.
Someone else had brought over the crash cart, Whitaker barely helped and felt like he was just doing this on auto pilot.
And it was only after the patient had stabilized, he didn’t realize Santos had come over and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You alright, Huckleberry? You seem kinda out of it." Looking over at his side, she held an expression of concern.
"Yeah! I’m— I’m fine. Just haven’t had lunch yet is all." Dennis was lying out of his ass. And he knew Santos could practically smell out a lie like some sort of bloodhound. He loved and hated her for it sometimes.
She squinted her eyes at him, and Whitaker could already feel the confrontation coming on. "Well you better go eat something then," she pats his shoulder, "you’re lookin a little pale there, Huckleberry. Don’t need you fainting on me," then walks away. Dennis lets out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he was holding in.
He should probably go now. Since the patient was being taken care of. Dennis was only in the way now because a few nurses around him were politely saying "excuse me"s while they moved around busily.
When he did move— the slight clinking of the bottles in his pocket reminded him of where he was supposed to be. What he was supposed to be doing.
Dennis tells himself he won’t make a habit of slipping away quietly like he has been doing anymore after this.
But it wasn’t too late to pull out and not go through with this. Not too late to give you mercy.
But how could he give you the grace of mercy when you took one of the only things that Dennis loved most? What he craved most? What he found himself longing for at night when he lay awake on his bed in the room Santos had let him stay in.
Thoughts running rapidly through his head, he suddenly found himself standing at the door to the locker room. There probably wouldn’t be many people in here, since it was a little past lunch.
Much like the entire day, Dennis walks on autopilot to where your locker is. He’s seen you often enough walking over to it and sees the picture of Robby you keep on the inside of the locker door.
But even with how many times he’s seen you open your locker door, he doesn’t know what your locker code is. He can only think of how he hates to see the picture of Robby in your locker. And not that he doesn’t have a picture of Robby or two in his locker either— they’re just not on the inside of the door. They’re kept safely either in his bag or his wallet.
Whitaker does try the simple 1234, because it can’t hurt. He tries 4321, again, because it can’t hurt and what else would you use thats so simple and memorable? Oh. Wait. Right. People use their birthdays as passwords. On occasion.
Whitaker pushes the numbers of your birthday— you told everyone over lunch one time when it was, and he simply remembered it because he was thinking of giving you one of those cards that explodes with glitter. No one likes glitter when it’s all over the floor, their hands, or clothes.
unsurprisingly the door doesn’t open.
Would you have used Robby’s birthday? You both were together and Dennis knows for whatever reason— couples use each other’s birthdays as passwords.
Dennis puts in the numbers of Robby’s birthday easily, because of course he has it memorized.
Dennis and Robby got to know each other a little more over the time Dennis has been here, and once Dennis found out Robby’s birthday he’s never stopped himself from getting Robby a card and slipping it into his locker without him noticing.
It fucking pisses Dennis off that you have the privilege of knowing Robby’s birthday, but it’s not like some select few of the other residents or doctors know his birthday.
It fucking pains Dennis that even though you two have been together— what? A month or two?— you’re both so intimate. The both of you work together flawlessly.
Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, Robby’s birthday works, and the locker door opens.
Dennis fumbles with taking the bottles out of his pocket, but quickly stashes them in your purse. Of course, he only now thinks of the prints he’s probably leaving behind.
Looking around, hoping someone left some sort of towel from when they came out of the hospitals complimentary showers for employees. Though when he doesn’t find a towel, he resorts to taking off the top to his scrubs. Not the best option, but the only option he had.
Dennis takes his time wiping down wherever he thought he touched on your locker. The lock, the door, your purse, the morphine bottles.
And then he closes the door. Locking it once again.
And now all he has to do is put his top back on and walk away. Walk away and tell Robby. Tell someone.
Then he hears someone enter the locker room. He quickly moves away from where he was standing in front of your locker, and struggles hastily struggles to put his top back on.
"Whitaker? What are you doing in here?" Your voice floats through the slightly echo-y room. Dennis wishes he could’ve heard anyone else’s voice. You were standing only a few lockers away from your locker, watching Dennis struggle.
"Ah— I’m just—" he finally gets his top back on right. "Getting fresh scrubs on. Spilled something on myself when I was getting lunch." Hopefully that was a plausible enough excuse. Santos could probably corroborate on the account of when she left she told him to get lunch.
"Oh. Yeah. Happens to most of us." Dennis can almost see the way you look at him a little oddly. like you know something is up.
"Yeah— anyways. Uh. What are you here for?"
"Oh I just needed to grab my sweater. Feeling a little chilly." A bead of sweat runs down the back of Dennis' neck. You can’t open the locker door. He already planted the evidence. "Cold? I don’t think it’s really that cold in here. If anything I’m a little warm,” a nervous smile.
Your head tilts a little to the side at Dennis' comment, then upright again. "Hm. You’re right. Maybe it’s just the stuffy hospital air."
But apparently Dennis didn’t deter you from going to your locker door, and he cuts through. "Well how about you and I get a cup of coffee from the cafeteria? Go and warm you up? If you wear a sweater after walking around a while you might get hot so, y'know," a bead of sweat accumulates at his hairline. "Coffee will probably warm you up."
You hum in consideration, and Dennis feels as though you might be like Santos. A lie bloodhound. "Sure. Let’s go get a coffee." You point a finger at him, "you’re buying though."
A wave of relief washes over him, thankful he avoided you opening your locker. Dennis gives you a small smile, "you got it. But I have to stop and ask Robby something before we go— if you don’t mind?" Thank fuck Dennis doesn’t have to pretend to be so smiley around you for too much longer.
"Nope! Not at all."
Dennis leads the way out of the locker room to find Robby with you closely trailing behind him. He thinks that he finds Robby faster only because you’re near him, acting like a Robby magnet.
Robby lights up as soon as he sees you. Dennis thinks for a moment when he’s approaching Robby, that Robby lit up at the sight of him, but then remembered you were behind him. He realizes the reason of Robby's happiness.
A part inside of Dennis breaks, just a little. Breaks because it isn’t him that makes Robby happy.
"Hey Robby if you don’t mind I’m going to borrow your girlfriend for coffee." Robby raises an eyebrow, “‘course I mind. But I suppose you could borrow her,” and he gives you a small smile.
Dennis lets out a nervous laugh, "She just mentioned she was a little cold so I offered. Thought I would check in with you and ask you about a patient consult."
Robby asked if you could give him and Dennis a minute, and you tell Dennis that you’d be waiting for him at the cafeteria.
This was his chance. Once you were out of earshot, Dennis got close to Robby.
"Robby— I don’t actually have a patient consult. I— I need to talk to you about something." Dennis notices the way Robby tenses, because he notices practically everything about Robby. "Talk to me about what?"
And suddenly— though it’s the moment he’s waited for— he’s nervous. And guilty, "it’s about your ah— girlfriend. Do you want to talk somewhere private..?" Dennis can’t really call the middle of the ER private, per se.
Robby lets out a small sigh, "yeah."
Dennis follows Robby who led him into an empty private patient room, closing the door with a soft click.
"So." Robby nestles his hands in his pockets of his jacket, "lay it on me."
Deep breath in, "I think your girlfriend is stealing morphine," deep breath out.
Robby’s posture straightens, and the smile he had on his face earlier drops completely. "That isn’t funny, Dennis. This better be just some joke." Somewhere in the sentence, Dennis could see tears start to sparkle in Robby’s eyes.
Dennis stays silent for a while, then a small shake of his head. "I— I’m not. I wish I was, Robby." Robby runs a had down his face, muttering out a barely heard "fuck."
"Robby— I’m sorry. I— I don’t know what else to tell you."
Robby looks at Dennis. That zing of heat running through his body again, but it’s more muted this time.
"You don’t have to be sorry," a sigh. "Thank you—" suddenly it’s hard to swallow, "thank you for telling me." Dennis gives Robby a nod. Guilt making itself known again but in the form of sweat on his hands this time.
"Yeah. Of course, Robby. Again— um. I’m sorry." Dennis feels so small and quiet all of a sudden, where’d all that confidence he had go?
Robby purses his lips, "if you don’t mind my asking, how do you know about all of this, Whitaker?" It’s a complete blow to the gut how Robby just goes back to business— emotional walls going up. Dennis knows Robby is probably ripping apart at the seams on the inside.
"I— um, I saw her slipping some bottles into her pocket. Noticed she had a few too many when she was giving some to a patient, then I saw her slip away into the locker room. Probably to um, put it in her locker."
Robby pulls away from Dennis, shaking his head and walking out of the room mumbling something to himself about you and "have to screen better for fucking drug thieves and addicts…" or something like that.
Mission complete. Now all he had to do was, well, wait.
And he did wait a few more minutes by himself in the patient room. Just long enough before he went to find out what Robby would do with this information.
And apparently, Robby had called security. Probably to check your locker or something.
Security had crouded a little around the central of the ER. Dennis could see Robby talking to Dana as he made his way out of the room. She was probably talking to him about calling off security and talking about this reasonably. But knowing Robby, he didn’t really have the word reasonable in his vocabulary.
Dennis finds himself walking cautiously around the central of the ER, but sees you walking towards him with two coffee cups in your hands. "Hey Whitaker! I got tired of waiting for you in the cafeteria. You owe me by the way n—"
It happens so quickly. Security grabbing your arms, you dropping the coffee cups, you yelling while being dragged away into a holding room.
It felt good. It felt really good to see you cuffed to a chair. Not in a weird way, but in a way that Dennis felt you deserved for taking Robby from him.
Dennis assumed you were getting told what was going on. He could tell because your surprised expression shifted to look at Dennis, a realization.
You started yelling and screaming, pointing at Dennis. Trying to get robby who was next to you to understand that it wasn’t you who "stole" the drugs, it was Dennis. Robby just shook his head, looking disappointed in you, but sad all the while. Dennis wasn’t a lip reader, but he could make out the words "I trusted you."
Robby probably thought you were trying to pin your "stealing" on Dennis. Jumping for joy mentally, Dennis figured this was probably good enough grounds to have a breakup. More than enough grounds for a break up.
Dennis did feel a little bad for you, don't get him wrong. But he just couldn’t feel entirely bad for you.
Security was leading you away to take you from where you were cuffed to a chair in a holding room— much like the one David Saunders was in— to the police car to be taken to the station. You were practically kicking and screaming all the way to the door.
Dennis saw Robby take off— seeing you being dragged away was probably bringing some bad memory back that Robby didn’t even want to remember.
Of course, Dennis followed behind Robby. After a minute. Just only long enough for Dennis to see you being dragged out of the ER threshold.
It was easy finding Robby too— and it’s not even like he went that far. Dennis liked to think that he knew all the spots Robby liked to hide out in, because some of Robby’s spots were his spots.
Robby had holed himself up in one of the family rooms. Not the family rooms like ones where parents take rowdy kids, the rooms where a family is usually taken to be talked with a social worker about the loss of a loved one. Nearing the room that Robby was in— Dennis could hear sniffling and the hiccuping of sobs.
Slowly opening the door, he saw Robby with his head in his hands, knees pulled up to his chest.
This was probably as bad as the time he caught Robby crying in the pediatric ward.
Though as soon as Dennis closed the door with a soft click, Robby was getting up and trying to compose himself. Dennis had seen Robby in multiple states like this before. But even though Dennis just wanted Robby for himself— it still hurt to see him like this.
Robby’s trying to wipe away tears that still come, and Dennis brings Robby into a hug. He tries to push Dennis away— but to no avail. Just simply lets himself be held. Dennis starts to feel dampness set in on his scrubs from Robby resting his face in his neck.
A shaky breath, "I thought I could trust her, Den. Trusted and loved her so much it was fuckin soul crushing."
Trust, love, and soul crushing are all that make it through Dennis’ ears. All his ears can manage to process, really.
Dennis rubs his hand down Robby’s back in a soothing motion, Robby’s quiet hiccuping sobs slow down but not coming to a full stop.
I have you. Dennis thinks.
I have you, but at what cost?
i got this ask a month ago and before i knew it, it was february! anon, i want you to know that as soon as i saw your ask i was completely and wholly enamored with it and have been working on it ever since you sent it!!!
“admit that you like having me as your roommate.” he clarified.
you scoffed, hoping the sound would drown out the jump your heartbeat made. “no, i—i don’t.”
he smirked and the sight was so foreign to you, so new that you wanted to curse out when you felt it go straight between your legs.
“I don’t. you leave your dirty laundry everywhere, you eat my avocados as soon as they ripen, and you use my toothbrush all the time—“
“as if i haven’t been in your mouth before.”
you stepped closer to block anyone from hearing it. “are you insane?” you whisper-yelled.
but he still had that shit-eating grin plastered over that beautiful face of his. he whispered back in that smooth tone of his, “you wanna pretend living with me is some kind of nightmare, but we both know you like the…benefits.”
“oh, like what? having to listen to your horrible singing voice in the shower?” you retorted.
he shifted on his feet as he pretended to contemplate the matter, “that or making you cum three times in one night.”
you slapped a hand over his mouth, looking around to make sure none of the other student doctors were nearby, or worse, princess and perlah.
“you said we wouldn’t talk about that at work,” you muttered.
he gently peeled your hand down from his lips, “we did, but now you’re taking robby’s offer personally.” he whispered.
you stepped back, schooling your expression back to a neutral one. you shrugged, “fine. go house-sit and water his plants for all i care. maybe even stop by amy’s farm for a weekend and don’t come back.”
you shoved past him and he sighed, adjusting his stethoscope. javadi stood back with wide eyes filled in awe, “that was the best thing i’ve ever seen.”
+
“fuck, fuck, fuck, dennis!”
he knew the best way back into your heart was through your pussy. he held your thighs around his head, his biceps bulging to keep you firmly rooted in place. his tongue was maddening, moving between your folds, your clit, and around the rim of your entrance.
he had you blabbering, “don’t go, please don’t go, j-just stay and be my roommate.”
he raised his head for a moment, catching his breath. the view of his slick-covered jaw had you clenching around nothing.
“there it is. was that so hard to admit?” he murmured, wetting his fingers in his mouth.
you shuddered but managed to respond with, “f-fuck you.”
“i know you want to, but i still need to make you cum on my tongue, sweetheart. need to earn my rent, don’t i?” he replied before diving back in.
if robby gets a text later from dennis about how he can’t house-sit anymore, he’ll pretend he didn’t hear javadi gossiping with princess about it.
summary; you thought you had him. until amy came along. now… you’re making him pick a side. but in reality there were no sides, there was only you.
cw; +18 content, minors dni!!, jealousy, oblivious mutual pining, friends w benefits type of relationship, dennis being a real life scaredy puppy that decided to run from his feelings, public sex, dirty talking, begging, teasing, reader is a meanie and dennis kind of a crybaby and a total sucker for reader, he’s whippeddddd, raw fucking (guys use protection!), cowgirl position, breeding kink?, multiple orgasms, cumming inside, nipple sucking, making out, hair tugging, orgasm denial…
you know you shouldn’t be doing this. not here. someone could easily catch the two of you, but fuck it. you couldn’t just… take it anymore. him and his puppy eyes, and sweetness, and tight little scrubs that were about to rip due to his filling up muscles. and it was all because of that fucking bitch’s farm.
you thought you had him. you had felt it. the lingering stares, the initial touches… the one night stand on a drunk night that turned into you having him on your sheets after every hard shift and on the weekends… until amy came along. she was pretty. had a kid. and a freaking farm.
she was a basic walking-home for him. and she needed him. and dennis being the goody-two-shoes that he was of course he would help. so eventually but surely, the text message started to stop coming, no more lingering glances or ‘accidental touches’ or fucking like animals in heat…
and you were pissed. a couple of months in, what you believed would never be jealousy turned out to be just that.
you liked him. you liked huckleberry.
and god help you, but you weren’t gonna lose him now that you had realized it.
you were not gonna give up on something that deep down… was already yours.
“is her pussy better than mine? does she ever fuck you like i do, mh?”
his whimpers were music to yours ears. you had fucked your cunt with toys and your fingers in his absence trying to remember how he’d sounded, how his face would twist in pleasure, how his pretty blue eyes would water… but fuck, imagination would never make up yo the real thing.
his cock was hard. throbbing. raw in between your gushing and slicked walls as you bounced on him desperately, meanly. this was a punishment. every time he would get close you’d still, grip at his hair as he would beg for you to not stop, to give him more…
“no! fuck, no… oh my god…” he cried as his eyes met your creaming cunt swallowing up his veiny cock, neatly trimmed dirty-blonde pubes soaked with your last orgasm.
“did it feel good, huh? where’d you fuck her? in the chicken coop? on the barn? in her fucking room while her kid slept?” your cunt gripped him like a vice, his hands grasping onto your hips like a life-line as he trembled and gasped for air. he was sensitive. overstimulated, and so needy to cum it hurt.
“no! i didn’t…! please!!! i promise, i didn’t fuck her…”
you let out a sarcastic laugh. “you didn’t? all that work and you didn’t get your dick wet?” he shook his head. “but she wanted it right? i’m sure she put on flowy dresses and cooked for you, basically dripping for you to fuck another baby in her.” he nodded, whimpering your name. “then why didn’t you, huh? what stopped you?”
“she wasn’t you.”
that made you stop. he cried again, gasping. begging for you to not stop.
“say that again.” you grabbed at his chin. “tell me why you didn’t fuck that bitch.”
“she… isn’t you.” he whined, taking your thumb into his mouth, sucking and dribbling on it like a needy puppy. “i love you. i… love you so much.” his cock throbbed. he was pussy drunk. and he was fucking confessing. for the first time ever. while balls deep into your fucking cunt.
your pussy squeezed as your stomach jumped, filling with butterflies. holy fuck.
“yeah?” you asked as you started to slowly ride him again. “you love me?” he nodded, moaning, hips snapping up, tip smashing against your cervix and making you whine. “me or my pussy?” you chuckled. he whined.
“you. fuck. both. i love you. and your pussy. feels so good…” he sat up, hands gripping at your ass as his hips started to snap up into you, making you scream, he quickly cut you off with a kiss, your thumb in between your tongues. “love you. love you so much… i couldn’t even face it.” you gasped, biting on your lip as his mouth nibbled at your jaw, down your neck, onto your clavicle and then… plushy lips latched onto your nipples. “do you love me? do you…?” you nodded, eyes rolling by just how deep he was reaching into you, how his pumping veins slid against your insides.
“yes… fuck. dennis. yes.”
“i missed you. missed you so much. wanted you, every day. every night. my cock missed this pretty pussy so bad…” you whimpered, one of his hands moving to tightly draw circles on your puffy clit. you were grinding onto him with a need you hadn’t even seen on yourself before.
“gonna cum. ohmygodi’mgonnacummmm!!” you whined, and he whimpered, nodding against your chest as his tongue lapped at your nipples, reddened by his nibbling. he seemed drunk, eyes dazed, pupils blown as he stared up at you.
“please… can i? can i too? need to cum. want to cum…” he begged and you nodded.
“yes. please… inside. please cum inside den, fuck i need it in my womb!” and just like that he was whining, little ‘ah’s and ‘oh’s and moans if your name leaving his lips in a pitiful tone as his body finally found the release you had been keeping from him. you grasped at him as you felt it. thick, warm, gooey ropes of cum breeding you in non-stop pumps that had you seeing stars and cumming so hard you felt your breath leaving you.
by the time you two came down… you were a mess. and a clearing of throat was coming from the other side of the resting room’s door.
it was robby, and he was calling for you. “we need you on room 5… when you’re… available.” he coughed.
you couldn’t ignore the stares and little giggles that followed the two of you for the rest of the shift that came from your co-workers. and you surely didn’t miss the amount of 5 dollar bills that pilled up on santos’ desk by the end of it.
✰ notes: Headcanons | fem reader | not proofread | divider credit | first time writing for whitaker!! i love the pitt sm and i needed to read something for a tall person
Dennis loves looking up at you. Whether you’re standing in front of him or if he’s on his knees, he loves seeing your immaculate form towering over him
Speaking of on his knees. Dennis loves pressing you against the wall while he’s kneeling to put his mouth to good use. You’re at the perfect height where you can basically sit on his face, standing up and face fuck him. Dennis gets lightheaded at your every thrust, his hands gripping onto your plush thighs. Silently wishing for you to choke him with them.
He loves seeing you wear heels. Despite your already big height difference and you being taller than the average woman, he encourages you to wear all the heeled footwear your heart desires. Platform boots, stilettos, you name it, he wants to see you in it. Bonus points if you pair it with thigh-high stockings. Man pops a boner at the sight so quick he feels lightheaded.
Dennis loves seeing your long legs splayed across his during your weekly movie nights. His steady hands massage your calves, fingers ghosting along your sensitive thighs, eyes focused on the size difference between you. Your beautifully feminine legs against his toned farm-trained ones.
Dennis leaning up for a kiss. His previous partners were never taller than him, so this change is exciting. He loves the feeling of your fingers tipping his chin up as you lovingly lock eyes with his sky blues. Your arms wrapping around his neck or waist bring so much comfort to both of you.
Burying his face in your chest is Dennis’s favourite stress relief. Doesn’t matter the size of your chest he LOVES it. And he loves the easy access. All he has to do is pout and sag his head a bit and you immediately coddle him by bringing him into your arms. Just as I planned, smirking as your warm embrace envelops him, your heartbeat firm under his cheek.
Never worry about feeling too big or heavy with Dennis Whitaker. He grew up as a farm boy and he’s getting good meals and a place to live. Dude is buff. He can and will carry you. If he notices you hunching in on yourself or making yourself smaller on purpose, he will carry you to show you he’s not one of those insecure boyfriends. He loves you. No matter what you look like or your size. He will squash every insecurity that’s brewing in your head.
In fact, Dennis takes great pride in holding you up as he fucks you against a wall.
Dennis never pays any mind to any teasing he may get. Some are gentle, friendly teasing from Santos or the Pittlings, but…some are more malicious. He always tells you never to pay attention to those miserable people. Dennis only cares about ensuring you’re happy.
During the rough Pittsburgh winters, Dennis loves wearing your hoodies and coats. It fits him well, and as a bonus, he can smell whatever perfume you use on the way to work through the warm fabric. You like to wear his clothes too, although not oversized, they feel comforting to wear.
The first time The Pitt staff saw you walk into work (because Dennis works too hard and forgot his lunch) just about everyone turned their heads towards you. Your sleek outfit and confident stride into the ED drew everyone in. When Dennis sees you, he grabs your hand and leans up on his tiptoes to kiss your cheek. He’s proud of his girl.
When Dennis invites you out with his co-workers, he always makes sure you feel comfortable and shows you off to everyone. A few drinks in and Dennis is swooning, limbs flopping and leaning his head on your shoulder. Babbling about how pretty his girlfriend is, how beautiful and perfect you are. You aren’t faring better as you sleepily rest your head against his, openly cuddling him like a small teddy bear. You like pressing kisses onto his mullet and trailing them down to his forehead.
Dennis Whitaker is a secure man and he loves his tall, sexy girlfriend!!!!
🪷🍎 Thank you for reading! Likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated!
