Tags: No Use of Y/N for Reader-Insert; AFAB Reader-Insert; Albert Wesker Lives; Animal Transformation; Possessive Albert Wesker; Soft Albert Wesker; Light Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Fluff and Humor; Non-Consensual Voyeurism; Masturbation; Sexual Tension; Medium Burn; Anachronistic; First Kiss; Grinding; Marking; Nipple Play; Rough Sex; Missionary Position; Unsafe Sex; Come Shot; Come Swallowing; Post-Coital Cuddling
Word Count: 10,382
Summary: Instead of dying in that volcano, Wesker wakes up to find himself trapped in a cat body. He finds you - and his world changes.
Also on Ao3: Here
a/n: Working title was 'Alpurrt Whiskers' because I'm original and hilarious. // Can you tell I don't like writing slow burn? I swear I try for realistic build-ups of relationships and feelings but I just... can't 🤣 I'm impatient.
I mentioned phones being in used in ways most phones were NOT used in 2010, mentioned those talking buttons everyone was obsessed with on tiktok a while ago... I didn't want to compromise on that for the sake of historical accuracy (it pains me to put 2010 and historical in the same context...) so let's just ignore it.
Turning into a cat wasn't on Wesker's bucket list for this lifetime, but like with all other things in his life, he learns to roll with it and make the best out of his situation.
He doesn't know how this happened. There is no scientific explanation for this – trust him, he's tried to come up with one – and it's not like he was even aware that magic existed before that moment. He doesn't exactly have a person in mind he could go to and demand answers from.
All he knows is that one moment, he was sinking into lava while cursing Chris Redfield's name and entire bloodline, and the next he was waking up as a black furball instead of burning for eternity in whatever layer of hell people like him got sentenced to after death. It's not necessarily the best possible outcome or how he thought his fiftieth birthday would find him, but he can't pretend that he's not just simply glad there is a birthday to greet him at all.
Surviving as a stray cat is not easy. Surviving as a black stray cat is even worse. Turns out that a lot of stupid, ignorant people hate cats for having the audacity to exist and have an irrational superstition-fueled fear of black cats in particular. He doesn't want to remember how many times he evaded death or torture at the hands of cat-hating idiots since he found himself without opposable thumbs. Finding shelter is the way to go, but how to go about it? If an animal shelter gets their hands on him, he might not get adopted. If he doesn't, he might get put down for ‘his own good’. Not to mention the very real threat of being neutered. He may be fifty years old, but he does not want to lose the ability to reproduce while in cat form.
Getting adopted seems like the ideal solution but even that has its downsides. He's not like a normal cat – he won't poop in a litter, eat that disgusting slop people call ‘cat food’, and he refuses to be babied and coddled or, god forbid, be put in silly outfits and cooed over like he's a toy. He needs someone who will worship him like he is owed but who will not bat an eye at his quirks.
He needs you.
Wesker has been watching you for a while now. He doesn't know how he ended up in this specific country and city when he was drowning in lava in Africa before he died, but he's rolled with it because that is the way of survival. He's gone through a lot of different neighbourhoods looking for food, shelter, and companionship, but yours has been the only one he's found even mildly acceptable.
He sees you every morning on your way to work. You wear headphones and don't seem all that interested in observing the world around you – a weakness as far as vigilance goes, but a boon in his favour since he can quietly observe you without fear of being spotted – but you happily take them out if someone approaches asking for directions. You smile at every stray cat you see – once, when you didn't seem to be in a hurry, you even stopped and crouched with your hand outstretched, beckoning the idiot who tried to steal Wesker's food the other day towards you. She came to you shyly, rubbing her whole body against your hand and winding her way around your legs when you got up and laughed at the cat's antics, and a strange wave of white-hot jealousy shot through Wesker at the sight. It should have been him being petted by you, not that mangy fleabag.
He wants you, plain and simple. He's seen a lot of your routine to know that you live alone and spend most of your free time that way too – you could use a companion. You're funny (he's spied on you by climbing up your building and settling himself on your windowsill) and smart, if a little weird – you talk to yourself a lot, though he supposes he would too, if he had no one to talk to. You're also very kind with a bleeding heart, which is the exact thing he needs if he wants to convince you to keep him and not just pass him off to someone else or a shelter.
He can't explain exactly why he wants you to take him in. All he knows is that he does.
Wesker gets his opportunity to walk into your life permanently when you leave your window open while cleaning, having shaken a small rug outside your window just a few minutes prior, after which you didn't close the screen properly. He paws at it expertly and pulls it open, then primly hops down to the floor and trots inside like he owns the place. If he's already here, what are you going to do? Kick him out?
He explores your apartment while you're distracted with your cleaning. It's not terribly expansive, certainly smaller than he's used to these days, but it's leagues better than sleeping on the streets as he has been for the past couple of months. Your music is blaring loudly from your phone while you dust off your furniture and sing along to it – you're horribly off-key but, oddly enough, it endears him to you rather than making him want to shut you up.
It takes you until you finish cleaning and plop down on your bed to catch your breath for you to notice Wesker. And it's only because he hops up on your bed and stares at you with big, unimpressed, golden eyes.
The startled scream you let out is expected if a bit annoying – his ears are even more sensitive as a cat than they were as an enhanced human, how is that even possible? – but, just like he knew you would, you calm down pretty quickly and look at him with apprehensive curiosity.
“Where did you come from, pretty?” you ask in a hushed, awed voice. You look around, trying to get answers, and when the open screen bangs against the window pane outside you groan as realisation sets in. “Damn, how the hell did you get up here, though? Are you some kind of supercat?”
Wesker, of course, doesn't answer. His tail flicks in boredom as he stares at you, though, which probably makes you think he's annoyed with you. He should… try to appear cute, right? That's how he'll secure your adoration.
You, oblivious to his inner machinations, bring up a hand and extend it towards him in offering. You keep it a respectful distance away and don't push his boundaries, but he can see the thinly veiled hope in your eyes that he won't reject you. He's seen your dejection whenever one of the strays refuses to approach you or straight up runs away from you. You never push, but you always mutter a quiet, “Damn, tough crowd,” before walking away with disappointment dogging your footsteps.
Fear not, dear heart, for he will never reject you. Now that he's here, you'll have no need for any of those ungrateful tramps – you'll only need Wesker.
“You're so handsome,” you coo softly, your wide eyes admiring Wesker's glossy, black coat. He's gotten enough glimpses of himself to know his fur is pure black, dark like obsidian, which only makes his eyes stand out even more. He has a handsome physiognomy, too, which would endear him to more people if he wasn't a black cat.
He approaches your hand slowly and sniffs it, familiarising himself with your scent and drinking it in at the same time, then proceeds to headbutt your palm and rub himself all over your hand. Now, you will smell like him and other cats will know to stay the fuck away – this one's taken.
“Oh! Aren't you a sweet… boy? Girl? What are you, anyway?”
Wesker tolerates the indignity of having you check his genitals to determine his gender, but only because he needs you. As soon as you're done, he backs away from you and glares in your direction while he waits for your next move.
“A handsome boy! And a smooth criminal at that, sneaking into my house while I wasn't looking,” you remark in a slightly childish voice you can't help defaulting to around cats sometimes, but you quickly lose the abhorrent affectation as your brows furrow and you start thinking. “What to do with you, though? I can't exactly afford a cat. And I'm gone so often, you'll be home alone every day while I'm at work.”
Well, that won't do.
Wesker wedges himself in between your arms, tucking himself between your breasts – which would make him blush if he was human again, but he can't deny that it's very warm and cozy here – and wrapping his paws around your wrist so he can hold it hostage. When you gasp and look down at him with a look of complete and utter wonder, he makes his eyes as big as he can and utters a single pitiful meow in your direction.
He can see you crumbling to pieces right before his eyes.
“Oh, fuck,” you mutter, burying your face in his fur slowly, as if testing the waters, and when all Wesker does is start to purr in reply to your affection, you grow bold and rub your nose against the fur on his chest, giggling when his flicking tail tickles you. When you pull away and look back at him, your eyes are teary. “Cat distribution system, I guess.”
Wesker meows again, satisfied that you gave in so easily, and settles more firmly into your body, soaking up your heat and the softness of your skin as you gently rub his body and give him scritches. He's found a home and the person to provide it for him – now he can finally start looking into ways to get back to being a human once more.
***
Living with you becomes something like heaven, if Wesker's being honest. He has the house all to himself while you're at work, which gives him the opportunity to use your computer while you're not there and try to figure out what the fuck happened to him and why he's a cat. Predictably, he finds nothing. Not even when searching the websites and forums that can't be found by idiots accidentally stumbling on them by clicking the wrong link.
He thinks about contacting someone he knows but… Who could he even contact? Who could help him that he can also trust not to take advantage of his impaired state? He'd rather stay a cat forever than contact Chris – not only because it's a matter of principle, but also because he doesn't truly trust that naive idiot not to dump him with the BSAA in the name of ‘reforming’ him, all so he can be turned into their little lab rat instead.
The last time he saw or talked to Ada was years ago when that whole business with the Amber in Spain went down, not that she would feel inclined to help him even if they were on good terms. Ada doesn't like complicated and this entire situation has that word plastered all over it.
Jill is out of the question for obvious reasons. He wouldn't put it past her to just… bash his head in and forget about the whole thing like it never happened. Which – fair enough, but it doesn't really help Wesker now.
Other than that… He has no one. He has no friends, no allies, not even paid help that could be persuaded by money or loyalty to aid him. The realisation that he's all alone in the world is… sobering. Fifty years old on this planet and what does he have to show for it? Plans ruined, allies dead or scattered to the winds, life in shambles. He's a fucking cat, for crying out loud!
With no help forthcoming and no clue about where he could even start looking for it, Wesker comes to the realisation that he can either drive himself mad trying to change back or he can accept that this is his new reality. Maybe there is no afterlife – maybe it's just this: reincarnation as a stupid four-legged furball where he is forced to come to terms with how limited he is by his nature and that no one is too mighty not to fall eventually.
He accepts his fate.
Slowly, reluctantly, and with great difficulty. But he does accept it.
It's you who helps, surprisingly enough. You're wonderful company when you actually have time to just stay at home and hang out with him. You take his odd habits in stride – ‘One of my friends’ dog eats every raw vegetable in sight and plain corn puffs, for whatever reason, and will only pee in the toilet. You're positively normal in comparison, Shadow’ – and don't pester him for attention constantly whenever you're lonely. He can see it when it happens, though – how you get quieter and your gaze becomes a bit distant while you curl yourself around one of your pillows and sigh very deeply. Sometimes you cry, sometimes you just stare, gaze empty, at nothing in particular.
Wesker always comes out of hiding and curls up around you, making you hold him instead of your pillow, while he reluctantly licks your tears away and nuzzles into your neck. It's only because your tears taste good and your neck is warm, that's all. It's definitely not because your loneliness resonates with him and strikes a chord in him every time you get like this. Of course not.
The first – and only – time you take him to the vet, he almost kills the so-called doctor when he tries to give Wesker a vaccine. Not only does he not trust a random hack with a degree to put anything in his body, but he also doesn't want to know what the vaccine might do to him. He still has his powers – he could effortlessly climb up to your window when no other cat could, his strength is abnormal for a feline of his build, and when he's not paying attention, he tends to use his accelerated speed while running from one end of the apartment to the other during the night in order to expel energy (he refuses to call it ‘zoomies’, that is an undignified term that does not apply to him). He shudders to think what a cat vaccine would do when coming into contact with his cocktail of viruses.
When vaccines are a bust, none of the staff being able to get a hold of him to even sedate him, they try to take a look at his equipment and make an action plan for neutering. That is the one and only time he bites you, hissing at you with all his might and making his displeasure known. The pain and betrayal in your eyes at his aggressiveness hurts him in a way he didn't think was possible and he almost regrets attacking you, but he stands firm because there are important things at stake here. He cannot let you do this to him.
In the end, you walk out of the vet office the way you entered it and no further talks of such things ever come up again.
(He makes it up to you that night by sleeping next to you the whole night through, not making a peep even though he so badly wants to tear through the house, and makes sure to still be there, all snug and cute in your arms, when you wake up in the morning. The beatific smile that blooms on your still sleepy face at the sight of him so docile and warm next to you makes Wesker's feline heart skip a beat. He brushes it off as an anomaly.)
He realises he has to come clean about being an actual person trapped in a cat's body about two months after he's come to live with you. That is the last thing Wesker wants to do, but it becomes necessary.
You see, usually people do lots of things around their animals that they wouldn't do around other people. Like changing clothes in front of them, for example. Or showering with the door open. Walking around naked. Masturbating.
Don't get Wesker wrong, he'd love to get in on the action whenever you pull up a video and turn your vibrator on, because you're a very gorgeous woman and, cat or not, Wesker is still a man with a healthy libido. But not only would it be inappropriate to try anything in cat form, but it actually makes him feel guilty that you don't know you're baring yourself like that around a man who's only trapped in a cat's body but has all his faculties about him.
He's tried to just not look or be there in the room when you do something like this. But it's impossible to avoid you completely in such a small apartment, not unless he wants to wedge himself under your furniture indefinitely – which wouldn't block out the sounds of you fingering yourself and moaning so sweetly anyway.
He knows he definitely needs to say something when you start to masturbate again and he can't bring himself to hop down from your desk and look away anymore. His cat eyes are glued to your spread legs, watching you pleasure yourself with the vibrator, and when you tease a dildo that's just about the size of his cock into your entrance, he nearly combusts from how badly he wishes he had a human body so he could bend you in half and make you scream his name.
Instead, he's forced to remain a voyeur. It takes you a while to be done because it's your day off and you clearly want to indulge, and every second of your sweet voice panting and moaning and whining while you pleasure yourself with your toys makes Wesker think that maybe this is hell after all.
When you come, his sensitive nose is flooded with the scent of your release and the urge to lick it up is so powerful that he has to bite down on his own tail so he won't do something stupid like actually walk up to your still spread legs and do exactly that.
He considers himself a saint for keeping himself in check when such a tempting feast was laid before him as if on a silver platter and he denied himself the pleasure of sampling the goods. It'd be so easy to get a taste while you sleep, after all. But he contains himself.
The day after is when he decides to come clean. You've been wonderful to him these past two months – the vet visit notwithstanding – and you deserve to know that he's a human. There's a big chance you'll kick him out but he believes in you. You won't hurt him, you already care about him too much.
You're typing something on your computer when he hops up on the desk and just looks at you for a moment. He won't leave without a fight – and he truly believes your bleeding heart won't let you just kick him to the curb – but nevertheless, Wesker takes a good look at you as if memorising your face and posture. He doesn't know how you became so beautiful and dear to him in the span of just two months.
“Oh, hey, baby,” you greet when you finally pull your eyes away from the monitor. The smile you offer him is bright and happy as you scratch under his chin, making him purr involuntarily, and when you coo at him he already knows what you're about to do. With soft, careful hands, you grab him under his front legs and bring him closer until you're cradling him in your arms like a baby. He hated it the first time you did it, but after curling up next to your neck and feeling your gentle fingers rubbing his body and caressing his fur, he changed his mind. You're surprisingly apt at being a cat owner, he's surprised it took you this long to get a pet, honestly.
“What's up, Shadow?” Not the most inspired name for a black cat, but this one is leagues better than the other ideas you had. You actually let him pick his name – meaning that you just threw random names at him and watched for a reaction from him so you could pick one. “You getting lonely, you grumpy old man? You can sit with me if you want, it's okay.”
Wesker purrs louder, knowing how much you love it when he does it, and licks insistently at your neck for a bit. Your taste on his tongue is so comforting – like home and food and safety. He's actually a bit terrified of losing you; you're all he has in the world now and all that stands between him and homelessness again. Wesker is a resourceful man and he has the advantage of his powers, but there's only so much he can do in this cat form – he doesn't know if he'll survive being homeless again or what fate awaits him if he gets caught by someone else or a cat shelter. He doesn't want to find out.
“Hey, it's okay. What's gotten into you?” you ask worriedly, petting down his back and nuzzling his fluffy head. Wesker meows and licks you again, which makes you utter a distressed noise as you almost crush him to your chest and get up from your chair so you can walk around with him in your arms.
He winds his paws around your neck in an approximation of a hug and he can feel your heart skip a beat at the affection. God, why are you so sweet? And why does he find it so endearing instead of annoying? If he had met you before being turned into a cat, he would've sneered at your weakness, at how pathetically human you are, and called you naive and stupid. Now, all he wants is to have real arms that can hold you whenever you start crying into your pillow again.
“Silly baby, it's okay,” you soothe. Your hands on his back are so gentle and comforting it makes Wesker want to dig his fangs into you and never let go.
He lets you comfort him for a few minutes longer before he hops out of your arms and goes back to your computer. You follow him curiously – he can see the worry in your eyes still and it only makes his guilt stronger as he resolves to tell you the truth no matter what – and take a seat at your desk while you watch him navigate clumsily to a word document so he can start typing. It takes a while – and he's surprised you just let him bang at your keyboard instead of shooing him away like most people might – but eventually, he has a message for you. It's simple, but to the point.
I'M NOT A CAT.
You stare at the text on your screen for a good minute without saying anything. Wesker watches you intently, looking for any hints that you might do something out of character – like strangle him or something – but all you do is stare at the screen and blink slowly. When you finally turn to look at him, your lips are parted to allow your shallow breathing to wheeze past them. Your hand trembles when you smooth it over his head. Wesker leans into it, bumping his nose against your fingers and licking gently at your fingertips in apology, then flattens himself to your desk in a show of deference and guilt he never thought himself capable of.
“Either I've finally cracked or you're not a cat,” you whisper shakily as you look at Wesker like he's imaginary and you're expecting him to vanish any second now. In your defense, he doesn't think he'd cope with this news better if he were you.
Wesker meows, his ears flat around his head, tucked tightly like a loaf with his tail hidden away. He looks up at you pathetically and wishes he had a human voice to speak with.
“Okay, okay,” you repeat, sounding panicked and on the verge of hyperventilating. “This is fine. The cat that broke into my house and refused to leave is not actually a cat. Sure, why not? I mean, it does make a lot of things make sense now, I suppose. Like why you only eat human food and why you use the toilet only when I'm not there and why– oh my god, I tried to neuter you! Oh my god I've been… And you've been…”
You turn wide, mortified eyes in his direction and he meows again, covering his head with his paws so he can avoid looking at you. The image of you pleasuring yourself lives rent free in his head but he does his best to push it away from his mind right now.
“I think I might have to flee the country and change my name now, Shadow…” you mutter in embarrassment, groaning and hiding your own face behind your hands. You blow out a long, harsh breath before you look back at him behind stressed but not hostile eyes. “If you're not a cat, then are you a human? Wait, stupid question. Of course you are, you just spoke to me. Well, typed but, you know… Okay, better question: who are you and why the fuck are you a cat?”
Wesker would laugh if he could – your distress and desperate attempt to cope with the situation is amusing and sweet. He lifts himself up and slowly walks back to the keyboard, watching you to see your reaction, but you just lean into your chair and watch him curiously. Your rapt fascination with him makes Wesker want to preen but now is not the time. He makes use of your keyboard once more, this attempt taking a bit longer than the previous one, but when he's done he sits down in front of you and awaits judgement.
ALBERT WESKER & IDK.
You gasp as you read his newest message; it confuses him. Why does this alarm you when news of him being a cat didn't? But before he can wonder further, he sees you pulling your phone out and begin typing frantically on it before you gasp again, even louder than before.
“You're a wanted bioterrorist! I knew that name sounded familiar! It says here you died a few months ago but apparently you've just been moonlighting as a cat the entire time. What the fuck is my life, dude…”
Well. Wesker didn't bank on you knowing who he is, if he's being honest. His main concern ever since betraying S.T.A.R.S. has been evading the authorities and especially the BSAA. He didn't even know the public were aware of him and his existence until now.
This certainly complicates things.
NOT A THREAT
He types that out quickly, getting the hang of it now, then turns back to you with the widest eyes he is capable of. You read it out loud then snort, shoulders finally slumping into a relaxed posture as the tension you've been carrying seems to leave you at long last.
“Yeah, no shit,” you mutter, shaking your head at him and laughing quietly to yourself. “I saw you wrestling your own tail and hissing at it when it hit your face the other day. I know you're not a threat.”
Embarrassment floods Wesker at your remark and he hisses shortly at you before ducking his head and grooming himself to avoid looking at you. It's not like he can help it! His feline instincts get the better of him sometimes and he becomes a slave to his own nature, even if, in the back of his mind, he is aware that he's acting ridiculous. It's the same reason why he can't resist running around the house at three a.m. and knocking things over to wake you up so you can play with him – it's in his nature!
“Well,” you start, sighing and running a hand over your face, “thank you for telling me. And I'm sorry you're stuck as a cat. It must suck a lot.”
He perks up as he looks back at you, letting his damp paw fall back to the desk before he pads over to you and cautiously sniffs your face. You stay still, looking at him intently though without fear, and let him sniff you for a long time before he licks your chin and pulls back so he can write one last thing in the word doc.
THANK YOU. YOU MAKE BETTER. WANT TO STAY W U
He sacrifices proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation towards the end when it becomes tiring to type with his paws, but it all ceases to matter when he looks back at you and sees quiet tears streaming down your face. He makes an alarmed sound – a concerned little ‘mrrrp’ – and hurries to your side, jumping in your lap and pressing his paws to your chest as he lifts himself up so he can lick your tears away faster than they can fall. You let out a choked sob and hug him to your chest, sinking your fingers in his fur and muttering quiet, broken apologies in between hitched breaths.
“Sorry, sorry. I just… I never thought I'd matter enough to anyone to make something like what you're going through feel better. It means a lot,” you murmur once your tears have ceased. Wesker meows and starts purring as loudly as he can, then rubs himself all over you before he looks back up at you and meows again. You smile, a small, sad thing that makes Wesker wish he was human again so he could kiss it away, then take his small head in your hands and rub your thumbs across his face in a gentle, relaxing pattern. “You make everything better, Albert. Thank you for being here.”
Then you bend towards him and press a soft, lingering kiss on his forehead – your sweet scent invades his senses and he knows he would be blushing now if he was human. He purrs louder, happy that you're not kicking him out, and snuggles close to your neck after you pull your lips away.
You get up from your chair again with Wesker in your arms and turn the computer off before walking over to your bed and lying down, Wesker held tightly like he's precious while you cuddle with him shamelessly. He continues to purr away without a care and starts play wrestling with your hand, hugging your wrist between all of his paws and nipping gently at your fingers, careful not to actually nick you with his sharp teeth.
Your laughter and the joy you emanate as he plays with you sink into his heart and make a home for themselves there. And when you grab him with a playful growl and bite down on his ear as retaliation before blowing raspberries against his fluffy belly, he can't even bring himself to think that this is undignified and below him. He thinks that he'd let you play with him like this even if he were back in his original body – he just wants to see you happy and have your body next to his. It doesn't matter in what capacity.
***
Wesker has a problem.
It's been a few more months since he revealed himself to you and things have changed but not for the worse. Boundaries have been established so that neither of you is uncomfortable by being around the other – every time you kick him out of the apartment for a while because you need some ‘me' time, all he can think about is what you're doing and how badly he wishes he was there with you, but that's neither here nor there.
You got him those talking buttons everyone and their mother bought for their pets at some point so you can ease communication between the two of you, which helps him feel more like himself now that he doesn't have to rely solely on tail flicking and meowing to communicate his wants and needs. And while you seem more aware of your behaviour around him and stop yourself from treating him like a mindless animal now that you know he's anything but, you still give into your urges and play around with him or cuddle him in bed whenever you feel the need for some affection.
Wesker is more than happy to indulge you.
You've become his whole world in a few short months. Literally but also emotionally. He looks forward to seeing you walk through the door at the end of a work day and he misses you terribly when you're gone. Now that you know he's human, you've taken to reading books out loud to him in your spare time – either his favourites or whatever you're currently reading. You talk to him about yourself in a way you didn't before and he feels like he's known you forever. There is connection – real connection – building here, growing stronger every day, and it's everything he didn't know he could possibly want.
The problem is that he's falling in love with you, something he never thought himself capable of. And it's fucking inconvenient since he's still very much sporting cat ears and a tail.
It figures that Albert Wesker would find love when he's fifty and not in possession of opposable thumbs or a voice, so that he's forced to stew in it, incapable of acting on the feelings and desires brewing in his chest.
So far, he's been lucky – you don't seem to be the dating type and the only action you get is from your sex toys. He doesn't have to think about the horrifying possibility of you coming home with someone and forgetting about him while you fuck a stranger in the same room as Wesker – or worse, kick him out for privacy while he's stuck in the hallway outside your apartment still faintly hearing the sounds of your pleasure caused by a man who isn't him.
But then, his luck runs out.
You come home after work one day, looking happy and radiant, still touching your lips and giggling every once in a while, and Wesker knows that something horribly wrong is up immediately. His fur stands up in alarm and his whiskers point forward as he watches you hum happily under your breath while putting away your work clothes and getting started on dinner – for both you and him. Finally, when you giggle for the fifth time in the span of ten minutes, Wesker has had enough.
He walks over to his talking buttons and presses on them with more force than necessary, the cheap plastic creaking ominously under his touch.
WHAT.
He pauses for a second before he presses the other two buttons.
WHY. LAUGH.
You snap out of it at his question and step away from the stove, letting whatever you threw in the pan simmer on low heat while you take a seat and lean towards him with your elbows on your knees.
“I have a date!” you announce happily as if this is cause for celebration. Wesker actually flinches away from you, though you hardly notice through your dreamy, unfocused gaze, and he has to bite his tail to make sure he's not having a nightmare. Oh, this is bad. Why are you happy about this when it's the worst day of Wesker's feline life? And that's with counting the numerous times he almost died in the beginning.
WHEN. WHY.
“Tomorrow! And what do you mean ‘why’? I know I seem like a loser, Albert, but I do actually have a life outside of this apartment occasionally,” you answer with a frown. Wesker hates to sour your mood because he does like seeing you happy, but this is an exceptional circumstance – he can't have you feeling happy about going on a date with whatever loser dared to ask you out. “He's a new hire at my job and I thought he hated me for the longest time but turns out he's just shy and didn't know how to ask me out! Isn't that so cute?” Pathetic, more like. Wesker wouldn't fumble like this – he'd walk up to you, grab your chin, look you in the eye unwaveringly, and tell you that he's taking you out. You'd say yes because the bold move would fluster you too much to second guess things and then he'd kiss you: long, deep, possessive, and with no hint of hesitation. You would know exactly how much he wants you and how very clearly you're already his. “He, uhm. He actually kissed me after I said yes. It was unexpected but I liked it even if it was just a peck.”
You look flustered and dreamy as you recount the story. Wesker is seething, tail puffed up while his nails dig into the wooden flooring of your apartment, and he wants to scratch that bastard's eyes out. Kiss you?! When you're already Wesker's?!
You don't notice his anger and jealousy. Lost in your own head, you just continue making dinner, then share it with him while watching a video on tips for first dates and how best to dress for a casual date in the park. He very nearly throws the phone to the ground to stop you from watching that nonsense but stops himself just in time, knowing that it would achieve nothing – it would just make you upset with him.
Instead, he sits there and watches the eager glint in your eyes as he thinks about how much better he'd be at taking you on a date.
Wesker would buy you the clothes to wear for a date with him. He would take you somewhere nice – expensive but in a subtle way so as not to overwhelm you and make you feel self-conscious. He'd bring you the biggest bouquet of your favourite flowers and a small but tasteful bracelet to go with your outfit – something expensive again, but not ostentatious. He would make it clear that you could be wearing rags and eating cheap hotdogs on a street corner and he'd still consider it the best date he's ever had. Because it would be. Because it'd be with you, the first woman he's ever felt anything real and genuine for.
But it's not Wesker taking you out. It's your coworker. Because Wesker is a fucking cat who can't even kiss you or hold your hand while that moron gets to put his grubby hands all over you and defile you with his mouth.
He sulks the entire evening, refusing to join you for a cuddle and your daily book reading when you beckon him to you. It clearly bums you out but Wesker can't stand to be close to you, to participate in this little ritual you've created together, when all he can think about is your coworker touching you all evening tomorrow, making you laugh, holding your hand, kissing you at the end of the date and, maybe, even taking you home afterwards.
But that night, after you've gone to sleep and fallen in some kind of dream that makes you sigh softly and call out his name every once in a while, Wesker jumps up on your bed and curls up on top of you, turning himself into a pretzel on top of your chest right above your heart. You settle down immediately after one more deep sigh of relief, and sink your hand in his fur before finally sleeping peacefully. Wesker looks at your sleeping face in the dark, eyes flicking from your eyes to your nose to your lips, and wishes with all his might that he was human again.
He just wants to hold you. He just wants to tell you that he… that he loves you. He would give anything in exchange for that, anything at all.
He doesn't know when he finally manages to fall asleep, but when he wakes up to your gentle fingers running over his fur and your gorgeous eyes staring down at him, his exhaustion is all but forgotten.
“Morning, grumpy. Are you feeling better today?” you greet sweetly, a thread of amusement obvious in your voice.
Wesker hisses playfully as he smacks you in the face with his tail and it makes you laugh and splutter with indignation from the mouthful of fur you just got.
“You're so mean to me. Maybe I should take you to the vet again, hmm?” The remark has Wesker giving you an unimpressed stare and it doesn't take long for you to crack and start laughing. “I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But seriously, what happened? Did I do something wrong?”
Wesker shakes his head but doesn't try to answer. It's too early in the morning to be thinking about how everything is going to be ruined tonight when you go on that date, so he just snuggles closer, pushing his nose into your neck and licking at your skin to get a taste of you. You giggle, always so ticklish when his sandpaper tongue grooms you, but you don't push him away – you asked about that once, wondering if it was weird to let yourself be licked by a grown man in a cat's body, but he explained that he still has cat instincts about some things. He may have stretched the truth a bit – or rather, kept his answer vague and let you fill in the gaps by yourself – but Wesker can't suddenly turn into a saint overnight simply because you made him fall in love with you. He's still gotta have his flaws somewhere.
“Oh, okay, so we're doing this now. Message received, no talking about our feelings,” you mumble between giggles, but your words belie your happiness at his show of affection as you wrap your arms around the length of his stretched out body and hug him close to you as you turn on your side so you can snuggle him better. You bury your nose in his fur, inhaling his scent – you once told him that he smells like sunshine and everything good in the world, which he found ironic at the time and still does – then start peppering kisses all over his face and chest, muffling a small scream into his fur before you pop your head back up and look at him with a grin. Your hair is disheveled from sleep and he can still see pillow imprints on your face, but you've never looked more beautiful than you do right now.
You brush a gentle finger over his face before you let out a sigh.
“You're so soft and nice to me, Albert. But I wish you were a man again. I'd really love to give you a proper hug right now.”
Before Wesker can do or think anything in response to your words, a foreign sensation takes over his body – like lava settling into his flesh again, like TV static spreading over his limbs, like ice in the middle of Antarctica drowning his lungs, all of it happening simultaneously yet somehow separately all at once – and his vision and hearing go white and blinding for long moments. When he pulls himself together enough to open his eyes again, the ceiling is staring down at him and you are gasping at his side.
“Albert?”
He groans, feeling disoriented after that weird, painful experience, and then he freezes when he realises that he groaned. Not meowed, not mrrped, not yowled. Groaned. Like a human.
Wesker moves his right paw and looks down at it when it's in front of him but instead of a paw, it's a hand. He gasps then sits up straight as he frantically looks at his body – human, healthy, perfect. He has hands and opposable thumbs and when he touches his face he can feel lips, not a muzzle. He turns to the right when he hears your shallow breathing and he feels like he could jump for joy when his face is level with yours for once – he no longer has to look up at you because of his much smaller stature.
“I'm me again,” Wesker observes and he almost doesn't recognise his own voice. Fuck, it's been so long he almost forgot what it sounded like.
“You…” you murmur, voice trailing off. You lick your lips to wet them, then clear your throat, and all Wesker can focus on is that flash of pink and the way it darted across your lips. “You're here. As yourself. And not my cat.”
“It appears so,” Wesker confirms and fuck, he knows he should wait, should do this right, make sure you're receptive, but he really can't stand to stay away from you a second longer, not now that he's back to normal and he doesn't know if it'll last. If this is his only chance at having you, in whatever capacity you will allow him, then he's taking it, consequences be damned.
He turns and leans over you, one hand propping him up while he throws a leg over you and hovers above your body. You look up at him with wide eyes and parted lips and Wesker wants to freeze this moment and immortalise it in his mind.
“What are you doing?” you ask faintly but when he lowers himself just a bit, you clutch at his chest, hooking your fingers in his shirt instead of trying to push him away.
“What I've wanted to do for months now.”
Wesker leans all the way down towards your face and presses his lips to yours. The initial contact is like electricity running through his veins – he's never felt like this kissing someone before. You gasp at his touch yet you open your lips without thought when Wesker caresses them with his own and coaxes them open expertly. Touching your tongue with his is like heaven itself and your taste explodes on his tongue as he explores every inch of your sweet mouth – this mouth that has uttered your most deepest, darkest secrets late at night when you couldn't sleep, that has choked back sobs when the loneliness got to be too much, that has kissed his furry body without restraint and showered him in compliments he can't remember ever receiving as a human before.
You've given him so many things he never even knew he was missing and you've done it so effortlessly too. Like it's second nature to you. All he wants now is to give you back a fraction of the worship you've bestowed on him.
You moan when Wesker sucks gently on your tongue and the sound goes straight to his dick. It hardens in his pants alarmingly quickly, pent up after so many months of being stuck as a cat, unable to significantly take care of his arousal, and he lowers his lower body without even realising it as he chases some sort of relief through friction. He ends up rubbing his erection right over your crotch, which makes you gasp and moan even louder. He swallows the sounds greedily before he very reluctantly pulls away to let you breathe.
The look in your eyes is nothing short of dazed. Wesker drinks in the sight and hopes that it's not the only time he gets to witness it.
“You… You kissed me.”
He nods, smiling in amusement at your obvious statement, and brushes your hair away from your forehead fondly. He doesn't miss the way you lean into the touch and chase his hand when he pulls it back.
You look up at him with eyes that get clearer by the second and he feels so much adoration for you at this moment it nearly bowls him over.
“You're really handsome. For a bioterrorist. Has anyone ever told you that?”
Wesker snorts. “Once or twice,” he quips, then darts down quickly to steal another small kiss from your tempting lips. “Are you going anywhere with this?”
“I… Sorry, I'm just thrown off. I thought…”
“Yes?”
You look embarrassed when you dart your eyes away from him and turn your face to the side to avoid looking him in the eye.
“I thought I was weird and insane for having feelings for my cat who's not really a cat but still looks like one,” you mumble.
Wesker softens at your adorable display and lowers himself properly on top of you, pinning you to the bed so you can't think of ending this conversation out of embarrassment by going anywhere but also so you can feel just how much he reciprocates.
“Not weird. Nor insane.” He presses his nose alongside yours, rubbing at your skin and looking at you a little cross-eyed as he admires your face from up close, and he can't believe that he gets to do this now. “You asked why I was acting like that yesterday. It was because I was jealous.”
“Jealous?” You furrow your eyebrows and look back at him when he pulls his face away. “What for?”
“Because someone asked you out before I did. And because you said yes. I feel like you're already mine and I don't like the idea of you kissing anyone else but me.”
That flusters you again but instead of looking away, this time you cup his face in both of your hands and caress his cheeks with your thumbs in a gesture so tender it makes Wesker feel a pang deep in his heart – when has he ever been handled with such care? When would he have allowed anyone to do so?
“I only said yes because I was lonely and I felt guilty about my feelings. I… I thought it might get you out of my head if I went out with him,” you confess, your eyes looking so deeply into his own and flickering all over as they take him in just like he has been doing to you this entire time.
Again, he has to sit and wonder if he's ever felt like this before: wanted, but not for what he can do or what he represents; needed, but not for any material or selfish goal. You fell in love with him when he was the grumpy cat who knocked your stuff over to get your attention when he felt like you weren't paying him enough of it – when he was helpless and useless and you didn't even know what he looked like. To be loved so selflessly, so unconditionally is not something Wesker has ever experienced. He doesn't know what to do with it. Words seem lacklustre and he can't bring himself to say them anyway, not even now. But he does know how to show you.
“Don't ever get me out of your head,” he murmurs instead and leans down again to capture your lips in a searing kiss, pouring months of pent up desire and longing into it, hoping that his body can talk enough for him that you understand exactly how he feels. The way you wrap your arms around his shoulders and widen your legs so you can hook them over his waist and pull him into you says that maybe you do.
He steals the breath from your lungs with every kiss he presses against your lips while his hips grind down so he can rub his cock against your pussy. He can smell you getting wetter with every press of your bodies and he feels feral with the need to sink his teeth into you and rut into you like an animal. Hours of memories of you spread out like a feast, unaware that he could see you and hear every sound that fell from your lips as you brought pleasure to your neglected body, flash through Wesker's mind right now and he is helpless to do anything but trail his spit-slick lips down your throat and leave bites on your neck that will bruise and remain behind for days to come.
You sigh against him and thread your fingers through his hair to tug him closer. The way he grips your hips, the desperate, uncoordinated rutting of his cock against you, his hungry lips devouring every spare inch of exposed skin – none of it scares you away; if anything, you beg him to do more, to do worse, with every soft whimper that escapes your lips and every tug on his hair when his teeth leave indents in your skin.
“I want to devour you,” Wesker mutters, tugging your sleep shirt over your head and revealing your beautiful breasts to his hungry gaze. He immediately latches on, swirling his tongue over the nipple and grazing his teeth over the hard nub to see you arch up into his mouth with a gasp, rubbing yourself up against him in the process.
“Please,” you breathe out. Your breath keeps hitching with every tug on your nipples, either from his mouth or his fingers, and the sound goes straight to his cock every time. You beg so sweetly, how could he ever refuse you?
Wesker makes short work of getting you naked, baring you completely and leaving you spread out under him like an offering. You tug at his clothes to get him naked too and he obliges happily – it's only fair that you get to see him like this too. He can't help but preen a little under your appreciative gaze, especially when you lick your lips the further down his body your gaze goes and you spread your legs suggestively as soon as you catch sight of his hard, flushed cock. It makes him want to split you open right then and there.
“Think you can take me like this, my dear?” he asks sweetly, rubbing his fingers through your wet folds and groaning quietly at how obviously turned on you are just from his kisses and desperate exploration. He wants to bury himself in your pussy and emerge days later, but he also needs to be inside you in the next five minutes if he doesn't want to explode. Gorging himself on your cunt will have to wait for next time – then, he can take his time and indulge to his heart's content.
“I'd take you drier than a desert right now, Albert. Just please fuck me!”
His stomach clenches with arousal and his cock twitches in response to your words – so eager, so equally desperate to be joined with him as he is to be with you. He has to kiss you again, muffling your sweet moans with his lips and tongue. He swipes the head of his cock between your lips so he can gather as much of your wetness as he can, then spreads it over his length evenly. He really hopes it's enough – he doesn't want to hurt you, but if he doesn't feel your velvety walls around him now he might go insane.
Your hole is sopping and welcoming when Wesker finally lines himself up with it and starts pushing inside. You open like a flower for him, eager to have him pollinate you, and the gasp you let slip past your bitten lips when he starts stretching you more and more with every inch of his cock that he feeds into your pussy sounds like a benediction.
“That's it. You're doing so well, dear heart. Take it just like that, just a little bit more,” he grits out, forcing himself to go slow when every bone in his body wants him to just plunge balls deep in your cunt and fuck you into the mattress. When he finally bottoms out, he has to consciously let himself breathe out and relax while he waits for you to let go of the death grip you have on his shaft before he starts moving.
Every time he pulls out and thrusts back in, your tits bounce under him and brush up against his chest. You moan, tiny little sounds that escape your lips and caress his eardrums like the most elegant of instruments. He needs to fuck you properly.
The slow pace lasts only a few seconds, just enough for you to get used to his girth, before Wesker hikes your legs up on his waist and starts pounding into you so hard your headboard bangs against the wall. Your sounds are wanton and loud – you sound like the best porn star he's ever heard, the sexiest goddamn nymph on this planet, and he's convinced you were crafted especially to drive him insane with how perfect you are.
There is no room for words now between you – there is only the slapping of skin and heavy breathing, his moans and your whimpers, and the delicious friction of your warm, wet pussy and his hard cock as he takes your body for himself. Wordlessly, Wesker finds your clit and plays with it at the same time as he hammers into you like he's never had pussy before and never will again. You start sobbing from pleasure when the wave crashes into you. Your eyes roll to the back of your head and you moan his name deliriously, a sweet mantra he doesn't think he'll ever get tired of hearing – already he wants to hear it again, in that exact pitch, full of exactly that much pleasure and worship.
The squeezing of your cunt is damn near unbearable and it proves to be his undoing. He's been celibate and yearning for your divine pussy for months now, it's not really a surprise that your orgasm sends him hurtling into his own. He forces himself to pull out of you and come on your stomach, though the first few ropes land on your cunt and drip down to pool near your ass and the sheets. The urge to rub the head of his cock over the mess and push it back into you is strong, but he doesn't know if you're safe or if you want to take the risk regardless. He knows what he wants, but that's beside the point.
But as well behaved as he's being, he can't help himself – he swipes his fingers through the mess on your stomach and thrusts them into your mouth just to watch you dazedly but hungrily lick his fingers clean and swallow his cum without hesitation. Fuck, he wants to ruin you.
Wesker makes use of the tissues you keep next to your bed and wipes you down before he flops down next to you and pulls you into him, lying on your sides face to face and tangled together as much as possible. If there is one thing he misses about being a cat it's the ability to tuck himself into your neck and nearly fuse into your skin until there wasn't a single inch of space left between your bodies.
“What now?” you ask quietly in the silence that descends, the sound of your breaths mingling the only thing that disturbs it.
“What do you mean, darling?” Wesker is busy cataloguing every square inch of your face, one of his hands coming up to cup your cheek and touch you curiously, reverently, marvelling at his freedom to hold you now and feel your skin on his.
“What are you going to do now that you're you again? Will you… leave?”
Your voice is small and afraid and in it, Wesker can hear every fear of being discarded so soon after he used you, every expectation to be abandoned once again. He frowns in response and leans closer to you, sharing your pillow as he presses his forehead to yours.
“I'm not going anywhere,” he denies vehemently in a soft tone he never thought he'd use sincerely. He has faked affection for women before, for various reasons, but he's never felt it in his chest, never thought himself capable of it. At some point, he figured he was just wired differently and simply couldn't feel such things for another – he now knows that he just hadn't found the right person. Or maybe the timing and circumstances are what matter here. He'll never quite know which, if either, it is.
“But your plans–”
“Can wait. I don't care about that now. I've been craving you while having you inches away from me for months, darling. I just want to hold you. Take you out on a real date. Take care of you like you've been taking care of me. Is that allowed?”
You laugh at his teasing, your huff warming his lips from how close your mouths are, and you press a short kiss against them that lets him feel all the relief you're pouring into it.
“It is,” you whisper, breathing his air and caressing his nape with playful fingers that wind his blonde hair around the tips. “There's nothing I want more.”
“Good. Then we are on the same page.”
You curl up against him easily when Wesker pulls you closer, tucking your face against his neck and nuzzling your nose into it. He runs a hand over your back at the same time and delights in how perfectly you fit against him, how seamlessly your bodies slot against each other to keep you as close together as you can be. Your body is warm against him – though not as warm as his – and it feels like he can relax for the first time since Chris showed up and started sticking his nose into things that weren't his business.
He still doesn't know what happened to him – how he became a cat, or why – but he doesn't much care about that right now. He just wants to hear your heart beating against his chest and feel your warm skin sliding against his own while he breathes you in and feels like he's finally arrived somewhere he can call home. Maybe he'll get his answers, maybe he won't. All of it can wait.
[MDNI smut, consensual somnophilia, overstimulation, creampies, not proofread]
A/N: Gulp... erm who wrote that...
The whole drive home, all Wesker could think of was you.
Lately he’s noticed a particularly irritating side-effect of the virus, one he wasn’t able to ignore or mitigate through regular means. It’s going to get in the way of his work if he doesn’t figure out a permanent solution soon, but for now he knows a few… methods to alleviate the issue when it arises.
During high stressful interactions or situations, his body seems to produce an excessive amount of cortisol, more than what is expected for a regular person. To combat this, dopamine and oxytocin are flooded into his system in an attempt to balance out the amount of stress hormones. As a result, dopamine and oxytocin are made in excess as well.
Wesker bites the back of his hand. Really? He’s horny? He’s insanely horny because he’s stressed and pent up. It’s almost embarrassing how his brain dissolves into a single track mind in these situations, where all he can think about is you.
Oh, you. His heart.
Yes, the only thing important to him right now was you. Sinking himself into your warm, wet heat. Wrapping his arms around your body, constricting you and holding you down as he uses you. Wringing out the sounds of your moans and whimpers and drinking them all in as his mouth devours yours.
The leather of the steering wheel creaks as his grip tightens, he can feel himself slowly harden in his pants as the images flash through his mind. The moment he steps through that front door he’s going to be all over you.
Albert groans quietly into your neck, trying to muffle the sounds spilling out of his mouth as he mouths at your pulse points. Sweat drips down his temple, his breathing laboured as he does his best to remain quiet.
“H-hah…”
He doesn’t want to wake you after all.
You’re only half-asleep when you feel something pressing down on you, the warmth blanketing you pulling out of your haze. Albert drops his body on top of yours, pushing a small “oof” out of you before he adjusts himself to ensure he’s not crushing you.
Then you feel his lips on your neck, trailing upwards until he’s kissing your cheek and the bridge of your nose. Your hand comes up to intercept his face right before he reaches your lips, pushing him a little so you can get a good look at him.
“Well hello to you too,” you tease, relishing in the agonised sigh he lets out. Your legs fall open so he can slot himself in between them, eager to get closer to you.
“Hello,” he huffs, nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck. “I need you.”
A warmth starts to pool low in your gut as his hands roam over you, a wetness gathering in your underwear with his constant grinding. You’re sure he can smell your arousal with his heightened senses, just as you can feel how hard he is through his pants.
“I’m sorry, Albert,” you sigh, dropping your head back onto the pillows. “I want to, but I can barely keep my eyes open.”
A small whine escapes him before he could stop himself, reluctantly pulling himself off of you. The sound catches your attention. He needs it that badly, huh?
“I’m sorry,” he says as he gets up. He’s still breathing a little heavier, but you can tell he’s trying to keep it under wraps. “Get some rest.”
He places a kiss on your forehead, then another on your hand. Right as he’s about to pull away, you tighten your grip. “Wait.”
Sure, you were tired, but seeing Albert so needy is doing things to you. “I have an idea.”
God, and what an amazing idea it was.
You feel phenomenal, all nice and warm for him. Your cunt so soft and wet for his cock as he slowly thrusts into you. It was so different, seeing you wrapped around him in this state, when your muscles are all relaxed. A good kind of difference.
The only downside in this situation is he can’t hear your sweet sounds, especially when he was looking forward to bringing them out of you on the drive home. Though, you do let out a few small gasps and whimpers in your sleep, and he wonders how much sound he can make you produce without waking you.
There is a tinge of guilt for using you like this, but you had begged him so sweetly. The least he could do was make you feel good too.
“Fuck…so good for me.”
He’s actually been at it for a while now, having cum twice in you already.
Tonight, however, he’s insatiable. There’s a drive in him to keep going, to keep stuffing you full even when he’s overstimulated. By now his thrusts have turned quick and shallow, much different from the deep rhythm that he started out with. The feel of your tight cunt wrapped around him feels too good, so he can’t bring himself to stop when his brain keeps flooding with dopamine the longer he continues.
His brow furrows, teeth nearly tearing into his bottom lip. He tamps down the whimper climbing out his throat, laving his tongue over your left breast and wrapping his lips around your nipple. A small, barely audible gasp comes out of you, the sound so soft Albert almost missed it. The thought of you being able to feel everything he does to you makes his cock twitch. Sensitive thing, aren’t you?
His hand reaches down to gather the fluids gathered between the two of you—the wetness you’ve gushed out mixed with his cum—and rubs slow circles over your hardened, neglected clit. Your legs give a small twitch as your breathing picks up, and he takes it as his cue to deepen his thrusts again.
He maintains a slow and steady rhythm, even when he can feel his restraint breaking. Right now, there’s nothing more that he wants to do than push your legs over his shoulders and take you until you awake gasping his name—but you’ve been so good for him, letting him use you like this. Poor thing, you were so exhausted. His dear heart deserves to feel good and well-rested.
Yet a small voice in the back of his head eggs him on. Imagine how their cunt would feel when they cum.
He buries himself deep into you, his movements turning into a deep grind as his fingers continue to work at your clit. As your cunt begins to tighten around him, his fingers move faster, working quick, tight circles on you.
A gasp tears out of you, brows pinched together as you rouse from sleep. It takes a second for you to get you bearings, and that’s when you register the warmth building in your gut. Albert continues to grind and rub against you, and it has you clenching tighter around his cock.
“Albert– ah…”
You don’t even get to finish your sentence as your orgasm overtakes you, body locking up as your hands scramble to hold onto any part of Albert, arms wrapping around his body and fingers tugging roughly on his hair, making him groan. His arms swiftly warp themselves around you, practically restraining you as he tries to press deeper inside.
The feel of your cunt milking his oversensitive cock makes his head spin, but he truly couldn’t get enough of the sensation. His hips continue the slow grind against yours as he licks up your jaw before capturing your lips.
“‘M sorry for waking you…” he mumbles against your lips as you try to catch your breath. Even now as you’re coming down you can feel his fingers trying to work you back up to that peak. Involuntary twitches leave you but you can’t move too far with the way Albert is gripping onto you.
“W-was that good? Does it feel good?” he asks you, desperation dripping from his voice. He wasn’t one who seeks approval from others, but with you there’s always a need within him that craves your attention. It drives him to keep giving and giving to you.
You whimper, squirming underneath him when you feel another orgasm approaching. Every part of you feels like a live wire, any small touch sending shocks of pleasure straight to your core. It starts to feel too much when every touch makes you want more and to run away. Albert just presses you deeper into the mattress to keep you still, rubbing at your clit more insistently.
The noises you both make are needy and desperate. You think a bit of drool escapes your lips.
“Just one m-more for me…please,” he pants. “Want to feel you.”
He’s not even thrusting into you anymore, keeping himself buried deep within you, making use of your cunt clenching around him as you approach your climax. You’re so wound up it actually hurts, feeling an ache in your lower abdomen as the muscles tighten. “Al, I– hah… I can’t.”
“You can,” he insists, the pitch in voice raising. The rapid movement of his fingers reflects the urgency in his voice. “Please, for me? Please, please.”
At his pleading, it’s like a band snaps, your cunt rapidly spasming around his cock. Albert cums with you, groaning at the feel of you milking his cock. Some of your combined fluids leak out of you, dripping onto the sheets.
He doesn’t pull himself out immediately, pulling you closer to pepper kisses all over your face instead. You hum contentedly, cupping his face and pushing away the strands of hair that have fallen over his eyes.
“Had enough?” you ask him, amused by the small huff he lets out. He drops his weight on top of you and buries his face into your neck, breathing your scent in.
“I’ll clean up,” he grunts. “Get some rest, it’s still late.”
pov. it's your birthday — and who better to spend it with than leon? birthdays are fun… there is cake, cake, cake.. and candles. oh and your age on the candles because that’s always fun…ok i’ll shut up just read this before u block me
notes. i got this idea from this post while i was scrolling like a fat chud on my feed.
content warnings. ⸝⸝ fem reader, food play, blindfolds, dirty talk, eating cake off of body, explicit language, no proof read cause idgaf, thumb in mouth, finger sucking, chill and kinky dom leon, teasing, p in v, penetration
it’s your birthday. so cake, candles, and presents were mandatory, he knows that. but when your present wasn’t in your arms after he told you to close your eyes and have your arms out, your brow lifts.
“where’s my present?” you ask, your tone leaking with your curiosity. his eyes look you up and down before scoffing. his palms slide down to the bottom of your thighs, lifting you up from your chair, his flexed arm muscles brushing against your sides.
your back meets the table’s wood first. he walked off to the kitchen and came back, but placed his huge palm over your eyes before you could see what he retrieved for you. (both)
you smile while your mind wanders of what the present could possibly be. you feel his thick fingers pull down your shorts down your legs, slowly moving his fingers to grab on the rim of your shirt, lifting it up to expose your tits.
his palm stayed put on your eyes, his rough thumb slipping down to your smooth lips and rubbing it across them in a circling motion to open. when he gains access, his thumb falls in. your mouth closes around his thumb, swirling your tongue around his thumb. completely coated in your saliva, he pushes his thumb deeper in your mouth.
his thumb presses down on your tongue, feeling up on the inside of your mouth. suddenly, he pulled his thumb out of your mouth gently. “keep your eyes closed.” he ordered, his tone calm as ever as if he already knew there wouldn’t be any trouble with you doing what he said. he lifted your head up, and your brows furrowed instantly when a soft silk fabric covered your eyes.
he tied a knot with the fabric, and you let your head lay back against the table, the knot presses against the back of your head while you lay there.
leon makes his way to the end of the table, and between your legs. your eyes opening and trying to look through the fabric but failing. you feel him stop moving but hear a plastic container open. soon enough you feel him breathing on you through his nostrils on your inner neck.
a creamy paste smears on your body with the trail of him breathing on you trailing with it. it smelt like icing but you couldn’t put your finger on what flavor it was. “is that icing?” you ask, and he chuckles.
he didn’t give you any clarification, you knew it was and so did he.
he slid the icing more down your body until it reached your lower stomach. you had lines of icing everywhere on your torso. his icing trail disappeared and so did his breath, your ears perk up for any sounds happening around you but he came back down to your body and started to lick the icing off of you.
he didn’t just drag his tongue against your skin, he made sure to add open mouth kisses and sucking along the roads of icing. his hands seeking your lower legs as he put them on his shoulders.
once he finished licking the icing off, he straightened his posture. his left hand rubbed your thigh to show you he was here still, and his right hand was putting cake on your stomach. he only added a bit before his right hand went to your mouth, his wide palm getting it on your cheek and chin.
“open your mouth.” he ordered and you did so. your mouth was met with your favorite flavor of cake, you were like a kid with a lollipop. he stuffs two fingers in your mouth this time. “suck it slow.” he told you, and you tilted your head a bit to angle his fingers more deeper in your throat.
you swallow the icing and bits of cake down your throat, but your thighs tense when he leans down. “aw, you nervous?” he says to you, and you nod. his fingers take down your panties.
somethin’ bout his fingers in your mouth just excited him.
“don’t move. just take it.” he tells you, his mouth leaning down to your stomach as he licked some icing in his mouth and connected his mouth your pussy. his fingers slip away from your mouth, his hands going to your thighs as he gripped them to keep you still.
the cold icing and his wet tongue made your back arch, your hips trying to buck toward his mouth but leon disallowed it, his palm slapping the side of your ass and going back to holding you down.
you moan, your mouth hanging open while he sucked these noises out of you. the heat of his breath made you shiver. your hips jerk around, and sway to ride through the pleasure, rambling to him as well.
“oh my god” you breathlessly say, and he sucks your pussy once more before standing straight up. “oh my god?” he repeats what you said, your ear picked something up that he grabbed something off the table. he pressed on something and buzzing started to ring in your ear.
“oh my god?” he repeats again, softly slapping my cheek to catch your attention. the buzzing device started to sound as if it was going farther away. it then found its place on your clit, the vibrating sensation vibrates your whole pussy. your jaw dropped, already squirming from the powerful device. “say my name, not god.” he tells you.
you buffer for a second, your body locking up from the overwhelming vibrating against your clit. “leon, leon,” you moan out, your body locking up once again. “i can’t, i can’t—take it.” you babble, rocking your body up and down as the fuzziness in your mind overflows.
“you feel so good.” you tell him. your hand going to his arm and holding onto it (for dear life) “i know, that’s the point.” he responds, keeping the vibrator firmly on your clit.
your moans gain volume, echoing around the dinner room. your jaw went slack again, your hips squirming, and he forced you still while that vibrator stayed put on your clit. “i can’t take it.” you cry out. “i don’t wanna hear ‘i can’t’. you can.” he tells you. “you will.” he adds.
a knot feeling builds up in your lower stomach, and your rambling continues. your body twitches and tries to escape the feeling, your body heating up. his grip keeps your lower half body still but your upper half of your body arches and moves around.
the feeling builds up, and your head tilts back, the knot behind your head driving into your skull. your back arches again, your mouth opens but nothing comes out, just a broken sound, a high thin whine that turns into his name again as the orgasm tears through you.
"leon, i'm — i’m coming” you say. your thighs clamp around his hand but he doesn't pull away. He keeps the vibrator there, riding you through it, watches you fall apart under him.
"that's my good girl.” he teased with a smile, you could hear him smiling in his voice. “let go. let go for me." he tells you, and you do. you shatter. waves and waves and his voice and the buzz and your own pulse drowning everything out.
it starts deep and tight, then snaps. heat floods through you in hot, pulsing waves. your thighs shake, your breath catches, and for a few seconds the world goes quiet except for the buzz and your own heartbeat. then you go limp, trembling, floating.
you thought it was done, but he drags a finger through the icing on your stomach, slowly, watching you shiver. then he leans down and licks it off his flat tongue. “so sweet," he murmurs against your skin. "you taste even better than the cake, you know that?" he said.
he moved up to your nipples, making sure you felt where he was going with his warm breath. he licks the icing around your tit, before placing a open mouthed kiss on your nipple and picking up the piece of cake.
his breath is warm, his voice is low. "such a good girl for me. letting me do this. letting me take my time with you." he tells you, he licks a slow stripe up your belly, tongue pressing just enough to make you gasp.
he licks the last bit of icing off your stomach and stands straight, looking down at you all spread out and messy for him. his cock is hard, pressed against his boxers, but he doesn't make any move to pull it out.
"you've been so good for me," he says, his hands going to his belt. the sound of his belt undoing made you feel all warm inside, preparing for his size. but instead of sliding it into you, he was dragging the tip of it through the leftover sugar on your belly, slow and teasing. "so patient. so pretty." he comments.
he was teasing. you hated it. because he was the master of it, and he knew it. you squirm, trying to push into him, but he pulls back just enough to keep you waiting. "not yet. i'm not done with my dessert."he lets the head of his cock trace a lazy path down your stomach, over your hip, dipping lower but never where you need it. his eyes are on your face, watching you tremble.
"you want it?" he asks, voice soft, almost sweet. "tell me what you want." he demands. he hovers right at your entrance, not pushing in, just letting you feel the pressure, the heat of him. "use your words, baby. you've been so good. i wanna hear you ask." he states, his tone sweet as ever—like he wants to give this to you so bad but doesn’t wanna beg.
your lips part, a slow shiver going up your spine. “please.” you breath out, your voice pushing out in a soft sigh. “leon, i need you so bad.” you said, and he hums, low and pleased, and drags the tip of his cock through your slick heat, still not pushing in.
"that's it," he breathes. "that's my good girl. begging so pretty for me." he comments. he lets the head press in just a fraction, just enough to make you gasp, then pulls back again. "you need me that bad? say it again." he tells you while he watches your face, thumb brushing over your hip, waiting. "tell me again. tell me what you need."
you roll your eyes, thankfully, he couldn’t see. “stop teasing me.” you complain, your brows pulling into a scowl. “give it to me, leon.” you say, mentioning his name to catch his attention.
he finally gives in and lines himself up and pushes inside you, but it's slow. so slow. your body stretches around him, tries to accommodate, and your breath catches sharp in your throat.
"oh, oh god—" you whine out. he's big. you forget every time, but get the rude awakening when his mushroom tip pushes its way in you. the pressure is intense, a deep full ache that makes your toes curl and your fingers dig into his arms.
he stops halfway, lets you breathe. his jaw is tight, his forehead pressed to yours. "you okay?" he asks, voice strained. "i know. i know. just breathe for me." he said in your ear. you nod, but your legs are shaking. he feels huge inside you, stretching you open in a way that's almost too much. your walls flutter around him, trying to adjust, and he groans low in his chest.
"so tight," he mutters. "fuck. you feel that? feeling me stretch you?" he waits. gives you a second. then he pushes deeper, another inch, another, and you whimper, gripping him harder. "shh. i've got you. you can take it. you're doing so good." he encourages, softly.
he finally bottoms out, buried all the way, and stays still. his breathing is heavy, yours is ragged. "there. you took all of me. see? you can take it." he told you, despite your mouth being agape and legs now shaking.
he starts to move. slow. so slow you feel every inch of him dragging against your walls, the ridge of his cock catching on the way out, pushing back in deeper than before.
"that's it," he breathes against your throat. "feel that. feel how deep i am." he says. his pace is lazy, but it’s deliberate, each thrust a long, heavy press that fills you completely, makes you feel every vein, every twitch of him inside you. he pulls out until just the tip remains, then sinks back in, letting you feel the stretch all over again.
"you feel that?" he asks, voice low, almost a whisper. "feel how hard i am for you? how thick?" he asks, and you whimper. you can't help it. he's so deep, so full, and he's not even trying to be fast. just torturous, sweet, and unhurried.
he dips his head down and licks a stripe across your collarbone, then closes his lips around the soft skin of your shoulder, sucking gently. his hips keep that same slow rhythm—push, hold, pull, push again.
"taste so good everywhere," he murmurs against your skin. he moves lower, teeth grazing your nipple before he takes it in his mouth, laving it with his tongue while his cock slides deeper inside you.
your back arches. he groans, pleased, and releases your nipple with a wet pop. "you like that? you like feeling me everywhere?" he asks, he knows you can’t answer, he’s overwhelming you.
he fucks you deeper. a slow, grinding thrust that presses him right against that spot inside you and stays there, rocking slightly, while his mouth finds your ribs, your stomach, kissing and licking down your body like he's still eating cake off you.
"i could stay right here forever," he says, lips brushing your hipbone. "buried in you. tasting you. watching you fall apart." he talks, keeping you in the feeling but also showing you he’s still here.
his pace doesn't pick up. he keeps it slow, deep, punishing in its patience. every thrust is a reminder you're his, he's inside you, and he's not done with you yet.
he stays buried deep inside you, hips barely moving now, just a slow rock that makes you feel every inch of him throbbing. his mouth traces a wet path up your sternum, tongue flat, tasting salt and sugar.
"you're in charge tonight," he murmurs against your skin. "it's your birthday. you tell me what you want." he says. he pulls out slow, agonizingly slow until just the head catches at your entrance, and stops.
"you want more? want me to fuck you deeper? faster?" he asks. he hovers there, waiting. his cock is slick with you, heavy and hard, and you can feel him twitch against your opening, desperate to push back in but holding back because he's waiting for you.
"or you want me to stop? take a break? get you some water?" he questions, sending a soft kiss to your lips. "your call, birthday girl. i'm yours tonight." he stated while he watches your face, patient, thumb stroking your hip while he stays right on the edge of you, not moving, letting you decide. “more, deeper, please.” you murmur.
he exhales slow, like your words hit him right in the chest. "yeah? deeper?" he taunts.
he pushes back in, one smooth motion, sinking deeper than before. hips flush against yours, no space left between you. you feel him everywhere. the weight of him pressing down, the stretch of him filling you, the slight pulse of his cock inside you.
"like that?" he asks, voice rough. "that deep enough?" he questions, but he doesn't wait for an answer. he starts moving again, slow and deliberate, each thrust a long, heavy push that bottoms out and holds. his mouth finds your throat, sucking gently at the pulse point while his hips grind against you.
"you feel that? feel how deep i am? how full?" he asks. he reaches down, fingers finding your clit, circling slow in time with his thrusts. his breathing is ragged against your neck. your breath hitches, body twitching. "you're takin' me so good. takin' all of me. that what you wanted, birthday girl? me buried so deep you can't tell where i end and you begin?" he teased.
“shut up.” you tells him and he picks up the pace just slightly. he smiles. still deep, still controlled, but with a sharper edge now. his lips find your collarbone, your shoulder, your chest, kissing, licking, sucking marks into your skin like he's claiming every inch.
"tell me if you want more. tell me if you want faster. you're the boss." he says. his hips snap against you, deep and full, and his mouth closes around your nipple, tongue flicking as he fucks you slow and deep through it.
"faster," you breathe, and something in his eyes darkens. "yeah? you got it." he tells you. he pulls out and slams back in, harder, quicker, the rhythm shifting from that lazy grind to a sharp, driving pace. his hips snap against yours, the sound of skin slapping skin filling the room.
he chuckles. "that what you needed? that what you wanted?" he asks. you try to answer but the words come out broken, just a moan, your head tipping back as he fucks into you, relentless now. your hands scramble for purchase; the table, a chair, his arms, but everything is moving, everything is slick with sweat, and you can't hold on.
your nails dig into his shoulders, his back, gripping him like he's the only thing keeping you tethered. your legs wrap tighter around his waist, pulling him deeper, and you feel every thrust down to your core.
"that's it," he grunts, breath hot against your ear. "hold on to me. hold on, baby." he coos.
your fingers curl into his hair, his neck, whatever you can reach. your body is trembling, struggling to keep up, but you don't want him to stop. you can't form a sentence, just his name, over and over, as he pounds into you.
"leon— leon—" you manage to squeeze out, "i know. i know. i've got you." he quietly says to you. one arm wraps around your waist, anchoring you, and he fucks you harder, deeper, faster and you cling to him like he's the only thing real in the world.
you're gone before you even know it's happening. the coil in your belly snaps without warning, sharp and sudden, and you cry out as the orgasm rips through you. "oh fuck— leon—" you whine. your body clenches around him, tight and pulsing, wave after wave. your legs lock around his waist, your nails raking down his back, and you're trembling so hard you can barely hold on.
he groans, deep and guttural, feels you grip him, feels you come apart on his cock. "that's it," he breathes, voice wrecked. "that's my good girl. let go. let go for me. feel you squeezing me so good." he rambles in your ear, him coming apart at the same time as you.
he doesn't stop, he keeps thrusting through it, slow and deep, riding you through every aftershock, watching your face twist with pleasure, and your mouth open.
you feel him fill you up and both of you cum at the same time. "so pretty when you come. so perfect. all mine." he says. you pulse around him again, softer this time, and he finally stills, buried deep, letting you flutter and clench around him as you recover from coming. his forehead presses to yours, both of you breathing ragged.
"there you go," he whispers. "there you go, birthday girl. you did so good." he said.
꩜ ✦ ﾒ ex-ex-girlfriend
ﾒ ✦ icing on the cake
✦ totally not sick
ﾒ ✦ capable
✴︎ ✦ headcanons/blurbs about being leon's s/o
꩜ ✦ what am i gonna do with you?
✴︎✦ scary
✴︎✦ emotionally needy
✴︎✦ how leon spoils you
ﾒ ✦ yellow love
✦ i've got you
✴︎ ✦ two rings
꩜ ✦ ﾒ the pin and the grenade
✴︎ ✦ a nap with leon
✴︎ ✦ cardio
✦ crystal clear
✴︎ ✦ house husband leon
꩜ ✦ something about luck, maybe
✴︎ ✦ shutter
✦ ﾒ don't go on that date
✦ if you wanted my attention, you didn't have to go to such extremes
꩜ ✦ ﾒ hold your breath
꩜ ✦ ﾒ a name, a shirt
✴︎ requiem leon headcanons
✴︎ ✦ privileges of marriage
✴︎ ✦ open arms
✴︎ ✦ leon's touches
꩜ bend over the desk, love
✴︎ ✦ a very uneducated blurb about getting high with leon
✴︎ ✦ motorcycle ride
ADRIAN CHASE
✦ no better time
✦ twinges
✦ this must be the place
✴︎ ✦ adrian finds your sketchbook
✦ some reassurance
✦ life to come
PETER PARKER (TASM/ANDREW GARFIELD)
✦ mornings
✦ transatlanticism
✦ she's the prettiest girl at the party...
✦ would someone please turn off the rain?
✦ first fight
✴︎ ✦ i hate everyone but you
✴︎ ✦ so cool
✴︎ ✦ at the end of the night
STEVE HARRINGTON
✦ leftovers
OBI-WAN KENOBI
✦ sunburnt
✦ an understanding
DIN DJARIN
✦ dimple
archived masterlist if you wanna read other stuff i've written but didn't like enough to include here.
'You think Leon is dead when he leaves you to save Raccoon City in 1998. Fifteen years later, he appears at your front door'.
You were eighteen when you fell in love with Leon Kennedy; he was twenty-one, bright-eyed, and freshly assigned to the Raccoon City Police Department. He used to pick you up after work, still in his rookie uniform even though he wasn't really supposed to wear it off duty, because he knew that you liked a man in uniform.
You remember weekends tangled in sheets, laughing about stupid things, talking about the future like it was an absolute.
“M'gonna marry you one day,” he’d whisper against your neck. “Just wait 'til I’m not a broke rookie anymore."
"You gonna be the sergeant?" you'd teased.
"Maybe," he'd quipped. "Maybe you'll be Mrs. Kennedy, heiress to the RPD."
You laughed, but you also kind of believed him.
Then Raccoon City happened.
“I have to go,” he told you as you watched the chaos unfold out the window of the safe house. You spun around to see your boyfriend had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, hair tousled from pushing his hands through it so many times. “I have to go and help those people—"
"And die? Are you fucking crazy?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to cry. "It's my job, Y/N."
You’d argued. You’d cried. You’d begged him not to go.
You beat against his chest as he held you still between his arms. "I can't just stay and watch people die when I know I could make a difference out there. Tell me you understand."
You knew that you were being selfish, that Leon really could make a difference by going out and joining the rest of the RPD against the outbreak. Still, you were too scared of losing him to relent.
"What about me? What about the promises you made me?"
Leon swallowed hard, face puffy with exhaustion and the agony of deciding between you and his moral calling.
"I'll come back. I've got too much to lose not to come back."
You had nothing left to say to him; he had his mind made up, and you knew. And so, he kissed your forehead, told you he loved you more than anything, and walked out the safehouse door.
That was the last time you saw Leon Kennedy. You lived your remaining teen years and your twenties imagining that he had died doing what he loved: the right thing. His parting gift to you was the safehouse that kept you alive, stocked full of essentials and secured like a fortress. In a way, you owed his life to him.
You were older now, living in a quiet apartment on the outskirts of D.C. whilst working a semi-meaningful job for the State. You’d built a life; albeit a small, careful life with walls so high no one could reach you. You hadn't dated since Leon, and people understood why: if the love of your life had died, why would you go on looking for another? You swore off that part of your life, imagined it was a closed chapter, and focused on more important things: your job, for example.
As was custom, tonight you'd brought home more work than was really necessary to keep your mind off the solitude that followed you around; this was a routine you had carefully curated over the past few years, which is why the knock on your door at nearly midnight made your stomach drop. Who the fuck visits unannounced at midnight? Murderers and perverts, is the answer.
With this in mind, you grabbed the baseball bat that you kept by the front door (you swore you were unaffected by Raccoon City, but little things like that proved otherwise) and opened the front door with the chain still attached.
"Can I help yo—" your own gasp interrupted yourself.
There he was: Leon Kennedy, dripping from his dark-blond hair, now streaked with silver. His face was sharper, scarred by a long line cutting through his left eyebrow, with fine lines littering his face. You knew he can't have been older than thirty-five, but God, he looked weathered: you supposed that's what happened when you tried to save a world that kept trying to eat you alive.
“Leon? Is that— is that you?” you'd squinted through the gap in the door, still clutching the bat.
He looked at you with the same eyes that he'd always had — sharp, striking — but they were much more hollow, like he'd literally lost the spark that used to define him.
“Hey,” he said hoarsely. His voice was deeper than you remembered— rougher, you thought. “I wasn't sure if I got the right address.”
Then, your knees buckled, and the world went black.
When you came-to, you were wrapped in a blanket on your couch with a cup of steaming tea next to you. You blinked, certain that whatever you'd just experienced was a dream and that you'd fallen asleep in front of the TV.
But Leon was still there when you looked up, wringing his hands anxiously on the couch opposite you and staring down at the carpet. Of course, Leon Kennedy would find a way through a latched door.
You shuffled slightly and his head shot up: his whole body went stiff.
"You ok?"
This simple question really pissed you off; you didn't even want to dignify it with an answer. You stared at him, chest tightening with fifteen years of rage, grief, and confusion.
“Am I ok?" You scoffed. "You died,” you hissed. “For fifteen fucking years!” You stood up from the couch and began to pace, throwing the blanket down.
“I know..." he replied calmly from the couch.
“You 'know'?" You laughed dryly. "No calls. No letters. No body— for a decade, Leon!” You were screaming now: "what the fuck do you think, 'am I ok'? You bastard! How dare you turn up after fifteen years? I moved on! I moved on and you're back to play the hero again!"
He flinched like you’d hit him. You watched his jaw muscles work as though he were chewing on guilt.
“I couldn’t contact you,” he said quietly. “After Racoon City… everything went to hell. I was moved into black ops— the DSO. They owned me. I couldn’t risk anyone using you against me—”
You let out a bitter laugh, tears burning your eyes. “So you decided for me? That I’d be better off not knowing if you were dead?”
Rain continued to pour behind him as you paced the apartment.
“I thought about you every single day,” he said, voice breaking. “Every mission. Every time I wanted to— to eat a bullet, I thought about you". He took a shaky breath. “I’m not the guy you loved, anymore, I know that. I’m… fucked up. I drink too much. I don’t sleep enough. I’ve done things that would make you vomit. But I had to see you." He stood up from the couch, "even if it was just once. Even if you hate me.”
The silence between you was suffocating: you wanted to scream at him; you wanted to slap him; you wanted to drag him outside and never let him back in again.
Instead, you fell back onto the couch that you'd woken up on and began to cry quietly.
“You should have told me,” you said, voice trembling. “You should've faked your death and not fucking just— just...coming back here. God, Leon. You have no idea what that's like: not knowing for fifteen years.”
His eyes were glassy. “I was trying to protect you. But I was a coward, and I was selfish, Y/N, I know." He moved forward silently; you saw him kneel in front of you through your tears. "I didn’t want you to see what I’d become— what I'd done.”
You wrapped your arms around yourself, fighting back more tears. “I waited for you,” you whispered. “For years. I kept our pictures. I slept in your old hoodie until it fucking... fell apart." You looked up at him and furrowed your brow. "And then I had to learn how to live without you.”
Leon’s face crumpled. He looked like he was barely holding himself together. "I didn't come here for forgiveness. I just… I couldn't break my promise. I said I'd come back. I said that I'd come back and I couldn't go on—”
The dam broke: you started crying — hot, painful, breathless sobs you’d buried for over a decade. Leon gave in instinctively and wrapped his arms around your waist. He held you so tightly it almost hurt, his face buried in your stomach as his own shoulders began to shake.
"I'm so sorry. God, I'm sorry."
He whispered apologies into your torso like a mantra, until you both stopped crying and you were too hot to carry on holding each other. You slowly peeled yourself from his arms.
"What now? What are we supposed to do now?"
Leon lowered his eyes and rested his head on your knees, still kneeled in front of you. You both knew the truth: the boy who promised to marry you died somewhere in Raccoon City, and the man holding you now was someone else— scarred, broken, and full of ghosts.
He lifted his head, finally. "If you want me to leave right now, I will. If you tell me to take out my handgun and shoot myself, I'd do it. Christ, I'd crawl through glass if you asked me to do it, Y/N." He swallowed hard as you looked down at him through puffy, hooded eyes. You couldn't help but let your thumb rub soothing circles on his cheekbone as he peered up at you.
"Or, I can commit one final act of selfishness and beg you to let me stay so I can make it up to you for the rest of our lives".
You sighed, all cried out. Still, you couldn't help the dry smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. "I didn't think I'd ever see the day Leon Kennedy begged for anything."
He laughed and dropped his head onto your knees again. You let yourself play with the admittedly still baby-soft hair at the nape of his neck, littered with greys.
Quietly, you broke the silence. "What if I can't forgive you?"
Leon paused, then spoke. "I would be happy to spend a lifetime trying."
A- angst I F- fluff I S- smut I C- comfort I H/C -comfort
wedding ring I @topsytervy I F I your husband can't find his gloves for the latest mission he's been sent on and he refuses to leave without them
clingy I @/topsytervy I F I your boyfriend doesn't know the definition of personal space after missions, not that you mind.
bring him back I @/topsytervy I A I things aren't looking to good for your boyfriend on his mission so he decides to call you.
drabble I @simple-dorito I A
just can’t get enough pt2 I @tulipsbymybed I A + F + S I Leon's fresh out of the academy and into the Raccoon City police department-and he's still a virgin. Not only that, but he has almost no idea what what sex even is. Then he meets you, and his body starts wanting things. Or, the first 3 stages of Leon Kennedy learning about his body.
a moment of hesitation I @froggibus I H/C I leon has always kept you at arms length in order to protect you, but after leading the two of you into a trap, the cracks start to show and feelings come to light
in with the snowfall I @/froggibus I A + C I Leon's out of town and you can't sleep. You call him seeking comfort, but you're only met with dismissal. What now?
stay I @/froggibus I S I Leon shows you that his commitment issues don’t apply to you
the second choice I @/froggibus I A I after losing Ada, Leon can’t get her off of his mind—and can’t stop comparing you to her
when the dust settles I @/froggibus I C I after a gruelling mission, Leon takes care of you
the three times you share a bed I @/froggibus I C + F I two times you sleep in leon's bed, and the one time he sleeps in yours
drabble I @xoxomaeby I F
afterlife I @m6cabre I A + C
late nights I @/m6cabre I F
alone again I @flimsily-flimsy I A I You knew this would be the last mission for you both with the virus and no clear cure. What you didn’t expect was for yours to advance so fast, leaving Leon with a heartbreaking dilemma.
relax babe, i got you I @screaming-potato I A + F I Tracking your husband down was no simple task but reuniting with him and joining him on his mission made it all the better. They just didn’t expect you to be like him…just with enhanced abilities.
i keep crawling back home I @old6urgundy I A
better than ever I @f41ryb0nes I S I Leon comes home from Raccoon City feeling better than he has in ages, and he knows just how to show you.
pervert!leon I @/f41ryb0nes I ~S
wake up call I @ariiadnes I F
older boyfriend!leon pt2 I @dollyivy I F + S
biohazard I @dollyzdaydreamz I F I a video game company reaches out to the dso, asking to use agents mr. and mrs. kennedy as face models for their upcoming action horror game called biohazard. while your husband is reluctant, you, being a lover of video games, are more than ecstatic to accept the offer.
nudelates I @/dollyzdaydreamz I F I you and your friend are goofing around when you two decide to test out a tik tok trend: call your husband and tell him you accidentally signed up for nude pilates…with a male instructor who won’t give you a refund.
the work dilf I @/dollyzdaydreamz I F I after a long day of work at the dso, you were streaming when a subscriber admits they embarrassed themselves in front of a crush. to make them feel better, you tell them about the time you embarrassed yourself in front of an older agent, who you just so happened to have a fat crush on.
bringing home hope I @millimeraki I H/C + S I You’re waiting for the call that will make you a widow. And then the front door opens.
drabble I @saintlea I S I Leon, who immediately after being cured of the T-Virus, showed up to his ex-wife’s house.
frosted brushes I @plutotheplum I S I an ill-timed snowstorm leaves you snowed in with a less than enthusiastic federal agent.
blurred lines pt2 I @/plutotheplum I S I you’ve decided to get intimate for the first time with your boyfriend, and who better to ask for advice than his best friend?
socks and kisses I @/plutotheplum I S I a spontaneous shopping trip has leon re-evaluating his friendship with you.
take all my love I @/plutotheplum I S I to your chagrin, you get partnered with an irritating DSO agent who happens to take an interest in the case you're working on.
rookie!reader pt2 pt3 I @aliidarling I A + F I leon never treated a rookie differently than he would treat an equal. that is.. until you come along.
i still dream of violence I @escapic-mezzanine I A + C + ~S I When a young married couple disappears, who could be better at investigating the case than a pair of special agents used to working together and known for their high efficiency? Well, probably nobody, but someone clearly ignored the fact that one of them should retire a long time ago, and they are both too good at their job to rot in rural America. Not to forget the questionable nature of their professional relationship and mutual tension.
a little confused I @cosmicasteroid I F
radio silence I @alloftheimagines I A I leon needs to hear your voice one last time.
comfort I @jelly--doughnut I C
leon’s crybaby rookie pt2 pt3 I @leonarchive I F I there’s not a single day that goes by without leon questioning how.. exactly you got this job, but he has a sneaking suspicion that your looks certainly helped your application. respectfully, of course. he was assigned to be your mentor, was he happy about it? not really. did it help you were easy on the eyes? yes!
the kennedy dilemma I @/leonarchive I S I leon hasn’t been able to feel one of life’s greater pleasures in years; cumming balls deep into a cunt he’s hammering into..
every girl has her turn I @/leonarchive I A I there’s no fight, no betrayal, no screaming match. just the gutting realization that leon’s attention has already started drifting somewhere else.
get it while it’s hot I @/leonarchive I S
lavender and cinnamon I @cui-nisi I S I You work at a high-end spa called Exotic Luxuries where you’re assigned to take care of the alluring and mysterious Leon S. Kennedy. But late-night sessions can lead to more than just a regular massage…
shut up mom prank I @uramakimochi I F I in which yours and Leon's teenage kids decide to pull a prank from TikTok on him.
leon vs. superglued jar challenge I @breathings-of-the-heart I F
quarter-zip I @girlwithadragonheart I F + ~S
zombieboy pt2 I @the-archxr I S I As Leon starts to feel the initial effects of las plagas, Luis fills you in on a little secret about the disease that could potentially help out your partner.
(we’re) on fire I @/the-archxr I F + S I There’s a bad desire aching deep in your bones. And in light of your recent divorce, you’ve come to realize that there’s only ever been one person who can cool it—the man you call home.
candy hearts I @ovaryacted I F I It was Valentine's Day at the precinct and everyone was giving out candy grams for their secret admirers. Who knew that one piece of candy would have so much of an impact?
lovers rock I @h4neypot I F I 4 times the team notices something's up with leon and the 1 time they figure it out (spoiler: he's married)
drabble I @saetiate I F
hate that i love you I @praisethegabs I A + F I Leon can't stand seeing you around him. You know how much he hates you and you like having fun with it. Things get worse when the two of you get lost during one mission, with no comms to call for help. Leon blames you for everything, until he revels something he shouldn't.
call and return I @mirrormauve I H/C I Leon has strict orders from you not to call when he's out in the field, even if it's safe to. But something feels different this time.
drabble I @lil-yearnings I F + S
forever night stand I @midnightsummerrain I S I You move to a new city, preparing to start your new job at the DSO. On one evening, you decide to go out for a drink to ease your mind. You end up hooking up with a handsome stranger, thinking it’s just a one-time thing. However, on your first day at work, you discover that the handsome stranger is actually your new superior
blurb I @luveline I C
blurb I @/luveline I F
AO3
nice to date you I @/fippsey I S I You need a cover—fast. Your manipulative ex boyfriend is 60 seconds from walking into the bar you just ran into and you need help. Lucky for you, your eyes land on a head of fine hair and set of broad shoulders alone at the other side of the bar.
5 + 1 sharing a bed I @/dimerization I F + S I You're a DSO agent and have been Leon Kennedy's partner for over a year now. Hunnigan's never messed up a hotel room booking for the two of you before. Normally, sharing a bed with a coworker would just be annoying, but there's a bit of a hitch this time - the thing is, you sort of have a crush on Leon. It'll be fine, you tell yourself; you're a secret agent - you deal with more stressful situations than this on a daily basis. It's not like it's a problem that he's tall and handsome and brilliant and a crack shot and has beautiful eyes and... ugh. Surely fighting bioterrorists and BOWs is more difficult than sharing a bed with Leon for one lousy night. Right? Right?
what’s in a name I @/fairybones I H/C + S I It wasn’t that Leon hated his name, not at all. He just hated hearing it. It was always followed up by someone asking him for something. So you tried your best to extend your kindness to him, and to only use his name in positive ways. But maybe you ended up being too kind, and creating too much space in your life for him.
for once in my life (let me get what i want) I @/harunovella I A + F + S I leon knew this story all too well, the frantic screams of horror, the hoards of bodies terrorizing the environment surrounding him. he had survived this, time and time again... except this time around, he had you. an innocent bystander caught in the midst of chaos. he just never expected saving your life would lead him to fall so deeply in love with you.
Wow, thank you so much for adding Forever Night Stand to the list! I feel honoured being mentioned along so many other talented writers and their great stories 🥰🥰🥰🫶🏻💖
Synopsis: You and Leon have to pretend to be married for 48 hours to complete a mission. He goes a little crazy when he realizes just how much he actually wants that
Words: 1.3k
A/N: 100% will be doing a part 2. He's so cute, he deserves a cute little marriage with someone that can tease him when he's being silly
Part two found here
The first sweetheart is an accident, or at least that’s what Leon tells himself.
The two of you are standing in the polished lobby of some overpriced mountain resort under assumed names, your forged wedding bands catching warm chandelier light while a concierge smiles too brightly and asks how long Mr. and Mrs. Carter will be staying.
Leon’s hand is on the small of your back, purely tactical. Purely for appearances. His thumb is not supposed to move in reassuring strokes like it is.
“Two nights,” he says smoothly, sliding over the IDs. “Just us, sweetheart.”
The word leaves him in that low government-trained voice and lands directly in your spine.
You turn. Just a little, just enough to look at him.
Leon does not look back at you.
His face remains professionally blank, all clean lines and practiced indifference, but the tips of his ears go pink.
You smile. Oh, this is going to be fun.
By hour three, he has said sweetheart seven times. You were counting because every single one hit differently.
There’s the clipped, efficient sweetheart he uses in public when ushering you through doors or steering you away from security cameras.
“This way, sweetheart.”
“Careful on the steps, sweetheart.”
“Forgot your purse, sweetheart.”
Each one accompanied by his hand at your waist, your elbow, the center of your back, touches that are supposed to look casual but linger one beat too long because Leon is suddenly, catastrophically aware that he is allowed to touch you whenever he wants under the guise of maintaining cover.
Then there is the low murmur he uses when hotel staff are nearby.
“You cold, sweetheart?”
You nearly trip because that one sounds domestic. Familiar, like he has been saying it to you for years.
And Leon hears it too, judging by the way his jaw tightens immediately after.
You glance at him.
He is staring dead ahead like a man who just stepped on a landmine but cannot stop walking.
By dinner, the problem becomes obvious: Leon is getting too good at this.
Not at surveillance or gathering intel. At husbanding.
He pulls your chair out, orders your drink from memory, cuts into some overpriced chicken while discussing case details through clenched teeth, then absentmindedly slides the better-looking portion onto your plate because you always steal his food anyway.
Your amused stare makes him freeze. He looks at the plate then looks at you.
“…habit,” he mutters.
“Leon.”
“Don’t.”
“You fed me.” Your tone is lightly teasing. Like you know something he doesn't.
“It was tactical.”
“With the larger piece? The big juicy one we'd normally fight over?”
His expression says he wants the earth to open and swallow him whole.
You grin into your wine.
Sweetheart count: thirteen.
Sleeping arrangements are where it starts to ruin him.
One room. One king bed. Of fucking course.
You don’t even bother pretending outrage; both of you have done this dance before. Missions are uncomfortable. It happens.
What does not usually happen is Leon looking at the bed like it has personally betrayed him.
“It’s fine,” you say, already kicking off your shoes. “At least it's a king.”
“Yeah,” he answers too fast. “Fine.”
It is not fine because married couples do not build a pillow wall.
Married couples do not sleep rigidly on opposite edges of the mattress like Victorian strangers.
Married couples, if anyone is listening through the walls or watching through optics, sleep close.
So close that Leon can feel your body heat through the thin hotel blanket. So close that every shift of your leg brushes his. So close that when you roll over in your sleep and tuck unconsciously into his side, one hand splayed over his chest, Leon’s entire central nervous system exits the building.
He goes perfectly still.
Your breath fans warm against his throat. Your knee slots between his. Your wedding band - fake, fake, fake - taps softly against his sternum when your hand flexes in sleep.
Leon stares at the ceiling all night with the expression of a man being slowly executed.
Because now he has to call you sweetheart in the morning. Now he has to wake up with you draped over him and act like this is normal.
Now he has to survive thirty-six more hours of pretending you belong to him in front of witnesses while his body starts reacting to that fiction like it has found religion.
The second morning is fatal.
You are both in the breakfast lounge scanning suspects.
You lean over his shoulder to whisper an observation. Your hand lands on his thigh under the table.
It's tactical. Something about keeping up appearances, Leon remembers vaguely. You feel the muscle in his leg jump violently beneath your palm.
He turns his head just enough to glare at you.
You widen your eyes innocently.
“Something wrong, sweetheart?” you ask.
His pupils blow wide. There is a full two seconds where Leon forgets how language works.
Then, through gritted teeth, “You are enjoying this too much.”
“Enjoying what, honey?”
He makes a strangled noise. You have to bite the inside of your cheek not to laugh. This is no longer a mission for Leon, this is psychological warfare.
Every pet name from your mouth hits him like a bullet.
Honey.
Baby.
Darling.
One time, in the elevator, just to watch him malfunction, you smooth nonexistent lint from his tie and murmur, “You look handsome, sweet husband.”
Leon walks directly into the closing doors.
By the final night he is wrecked.
Forty-eight hours of sweetheart. Forty-eight hours of rings. Forty-eight hours of your head on his shoulder in public, your fingers linked with his, your smile tossed at him over breakfast like you’ve done this a thousand mornings before.
Forty-eight hours of pretending to be a man who gets to keep you.
The mission concludes at 11:37 p.m.
Target apprehended. Intel secured. Cover no longer necessary.
You close the hotel room door behind you and immediately start peeling off your ring.
“God, I’m ready to stop being married.”
Leon says, very quietly, “Don’t.”
You look up. He is standing across the room, jacket half unzipped, hair a mess from the rain outside, staring at your fingers.
At the ring.
At the small pale indent the metal left behind.
The room changes.
You lower your hand.
“Leon?”
His laugh comes out thin. Disbelieving. Ruined.
“I have called you sweetheart for two days,” he says, like this is an indictment, “and every time I did it, it sounded less fake.”
Your heartbeat stumbles. Leon drags a hand over his face.
“I know your coffee order. I know which side of the bed you sleep on. I know you steal the olives out of my drinks and leave me with the stupid toothpick.” He looks at you then, eyes dark and exhausted and frighteningly open. “Do you understand how bad it got in my head?”
Neither of you moves.
His voice drops. “By this afternoon I stopped pretending for them.” He swallows. “I was pretending for me.”
Oh.
Oh, that poor man.
He looks furious about it. Furious that two days of domestic theater exposed something he had apparently been keeping chained in the basement of his chest.
Furious that hearing sweetheart in his own voice made him want things.
A kitchen. Your shoes by his door. Arguments over laundry. Lazy Sunday mornings. A life he was never supposed to let himself imagine.
And now that he has imagined it, even by accident, he cannot force it back out.
“What do you want?” you ask softly.
Leon’s eyes drop to the ring still pinched between your fingers.
When he answers, his voice is almost wrecked enough to shake.
“I want you to put that back on before I do something stupid.”
Summary: A mission meant to be routine becomes a race against the clock when you’re bitten, and the only antivirals are destroyed. With the infection spreading and time running out, Leon Kennedy abandons everything except the one objective that matters: getting you back alive.
Warnings/tags: bite injury (reader), infection themes (fever, delirium), mentions of blood/wounds, mission-related violence, guns, angst, protective leon
The hallway smells like antiseptic and old rain, sharp enough to taste at the back of your throat. Emergency lights pulse a slow red, painting everything in the color of a heartbeat that refuses to settle. Somewhere deeper in the facility, something metallic groans, the sound carrying through the walls like the building itself is shifting in its sleep.
Leon moves ahead of you with that familiar economy, every step deliberate, shoulders slightly rounded forward as if he's braced against a wind no one else can feel. Years ago, you would have called it tension. Now you know it's simply how he stands when he's ready to protect something.
You.
He lifts one hand without looking back. Two fingers. Hold. You stop immediately, rifle angled down but ready, covering the rear out of habit. Your breathing slows to match his. In the quiet, you can hear it, the faint rasp of fabric as he adjusts his grip, the tiny click of leather at his wrist. He glances over his shoulder, blue eyes catching red light, and the corner of his mouth tilts.
"Tell me you hear that too," he murmurs.
"Ventilation system struggling to keep up with poor life choices," you whisper back.
His mouth twitches a little more. "Comforting."
"Very."
He turns forward again, advancing with a careful sidestep around a fallen gurney. You follow close, boots landing where his did, stepping into the spaces he clears without thinking. Years of missions have worn this path between you into muscle memory. You could navigate a battlefield blind if he were moving ahead of you.
Sublevel three, quarantine wing. The official report had said that the outbreak was contained. Minimal hostiles. Data retrieval only. You and Leon had both read that and packed extra ammunition.
Something scrapes faintly above you. You both stop again. A wet sound follows, soft but unmistakable, like raw meat dragged across tile. Leon's shoulders go rigid. He tilts his head, listening, then slowly raises his pistol toward the ceiling vent ten feet ahead.
"Don't," you breathe.
Too late. The grate explodes outward in a shower of dust and rusted screws. A shape drops hard onto the floor between you, limbs hitting at angles that don't belong to anything living. The body spasms once, twice, then snaps upright with a sound like tearing cloth. Its eyes are wrong. Its mouth is wrong.
Leon fires twice. The creature barely stutters before lunging. You're already moving. Your rifle cracks, recoil thudding into your shoulder as you pivot left to avoid Leon's line of fire. The rounds chew through rotten muscle, splashing something dark across the wall. The thing keeps coming anyway, a puppet yanked forward by invisible strings.
"Persistent," you mutter.
"Understatement."
It reaches Leon first. He sidesteps, grabs a fistful of its ruined jacket, and uses the momentum to sling it into the wall hard enough to dent the drywall. Before it can recover, he drives a knife up under its jaw with brutal precision. The body convulses, fingers clawing weakly at his sleeve, then goes slack.
For a moment, the only sound is your breathing and the slow drip of something unpleasant onto the tile. Leon exhales through his nose, shoulders lowering a fraction. He wipes the blade on the creature's shirt before sheathing it, movements efficient, practiced, almost weary.
"You okay?" he asks without turning.
"Fine."
He turns anyway, eyes scanning you head to toe, checking for tears in fabric, blood that isn't yours, the small tells you can't hide from him even if you tried. His gaze lingers on your face a second longer than necessary.
"Your heart rate's up."
"So is yours."
"Occupational hazard."
You step closer, bump your shoulder lightly against his arm. "You jumped."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did."
"I adjusted my stance."
You snort. "Sure you did, hero."
His hand comes up automatically, settling at the small of your back as he guides you past the body. The touch is brief, grounding, gone almost before you register it. He does it all the time now, in doorways, on stairs, whenever the path narrows. Years ago he used to keep that kind of contact locked away behind professionalism. Marriage burned that barrier down to ash.
"Remind me why we didn't retire somewhere with a beach," you say quietly.
"You hate sand."
"I could learn."
"You said that last time. Then you threw a shoe at a seagull."
"It started it."
He huffs, a sound that might be the ghost of a laugh. "We're not buying a coastal property just so you can wage war on wildlife."
"Coward."
They're soft words, familiar words, the kind that live comfortably between you, even in places like this. Especially in places like this. If you stop talking, the silence fills up with too many ghosts.
Ahead, the corridor splits. One path descends into deeper shadow. The other ends at a reinforced door marked MEDICAL ISOLATION.
Leon studies it, jaw tightening slightly. "That's our best bet for antiviral storage."
"And our worst bet for everything else."
"Probably."
He reaches for the panel. It flickers, unresponsive.
You lean in, shoulder brushing his. "Stand back."
"I am standing back."
"Further."
He sighs but obeys, stepping aside as you pull a compact breaching charge from your pack and set it against the seam. Your hands move quickly, efficiently, though you can feel his eyes on you the entire time.
"Try not to blow yourself up," he says.
"Try not to worry so loudly."
"I don't worry."
You glance up. "Leon."
"...I worry a normal amount."
You smile despite yourself. "Uh huh."
You trigger the charge and pivot away, grabbing his vest to pull him with you behind the corner. The explosion is sharp, contained, dust puffing into the air like a violent exhale. When the ringing fades, the door hangs crooked on shattered hinges. Leon looks down at where your hand is still gripping his gear. His expression softens in a way that has nothing to do with combat.
"You can let go," he says gently.
You realize you're still holding on and release him, suddenly aware of how solid he feels under your fingers, how warm even through layers of tactical fabric.
"Right," you say, clearing your throat. "Professional."
"Very."
But he brushes your knuckles once before moving past you, so quick it could almost be an accident.
Inside, the medical wing is colder, air conditioning still struggling on backup power. Cabinets hang open, supplies scattered across the floor as if someone had tried to pack in a hurry and failed. A hospital bed sits abandoned in the center of the room, sheets twisted into ropes. You sweep left. Leon sweeps right. The familiar dance resumes. For a few seconds, nothing moves.
Then something thumps weakly from behind the bed. You both pivot, weapons raised. A figure drags itself into view, lab coat smeared dark, face gray with fever. Human. Barely.
"Help," he croaks.
Leon lowers his weapon first, but doesn't relax. "You're infected?"
The man nods frantically, clutching his side. "Bite... hours ago... there's... antivirals... storage fridge... code..."
His hand trembles as he points toward a small sealed unit in the corner. Hope flickers, fragile and dangerous. You step forward. Leon catches your arm immediately.
"Careful," he murmurs.
"I know."
His grip tightens just a fraction before he lets go, thumb brushing your sleeve as if memorizing the texture.
The man coughs wetly, body shaking. "Please... I don't want to... turn..."
Leon's jaw flexes. You can see the calculation in his eyes, the grim understanding of how this story usually ends. You move past him anyway, crouching by the fridge, fingers already working the manual override. The seal pops with a soft hiss. Inside, rows of vials gleam faintly in the emergency light, liquid clear and precious as water in a desert.
"Jackpot," you whisper.
Behind you, the man makes a sound that isn't quite human.
Leon's voice snaps sharply. "Back."
You turn just in time to see the change sweep across the man's face, muscles locking, eyes clouding over like frost creeping across glass. Too fast. Leon fires once. The body collapses before it can lunge.
Silence crashes down, heavy and absolute. Your hands are still wrapped around the cold vial when Leon steps in close, one hand settling at the back of your neck, fingers warm against your skin. He leans his forehead briefly against your temple, a gesture so intimate it almost hurts.
"Hey," he murmurs. "Stay with me."
"I'm here."
"Good."
"Leon," you say, unable to keep the lift out of your voice. "We've got—"
The ceiling tile above the doorway caves in with a thunderous crack. Something drops through in a tangle of limbs and teeth. Leon fires before it even lands.
The room detonates into motion. Another body slams through the door behind it, then another, drawn by noise or scent or whatever twisted instinct drives them now. The first infected hits the floor crawling, jaw snapping, fingers scrabbling for purchase on slick tile.
"Back!" Leon snaps.
You're already moving, grabbing the case and pivoting away from the fridge as gunfire shatters the sterile quiet. Your rifle kicks against your shoulder, rounds punching into torsos that refuse to care. The air fills with the acrid stink of cordite and something fouler underneath.
One lunges for your legs. Leon intercepts it, boot driving into its chest hard enough to send it skidding across the floor. He doesn't even look as he fires downward, ending it with clinical precision.
More are coming. The hallway beyond the ruined door is a writhing mass of shapes pushing over each other, hungry, relentless. The lab equipment rattles as something heavy slams against the wall.
"Too many," you shout.
"Move!"
You sidestep, firing, trying to carve space, trying not to hit Leon as he crosses your line. Your shoulder clips the edge of the bed. The case slips in your grip for half a second.
A larger infected barrels through the doorway, body swollen, movements jerky but powerful. It collides with a rolling cart, sending metal instruments clattering across the floor like thrown knives. Leon pivots to engage, emptying three rounds into its upper chest. The creature staggers backward. Straight into the open refrigerator. Glass explodes.
The sound is high and crystalline, almost delicate beneath the gunfire, like a chandelier being smashed in a ballroom no one will ever dance in again. Vials shatter against metal shelves, against tile, against each other. Clear liquid splashes across the floor, instantly indistinguishable from the spreading mess of everything else. You see it happen in horrible, slow clarity. Hope, reduced to glittering debris.
"Leon!"
He fires again, dropping the brute for good. The body collapses forward, crushing what remains of the storage rack beneath its weight. For one stunned heartbeat, neither of you moves. Then another infected claws over the fallen bulk, and survival yanks you back into motion. You fire. Leon fires. Bodies drop. The noise is deafening, claustrophobic, relentless until at last the hallway falls silent again, littered with unmoving shapes.
Your ears ring. Smoke hangs in the air like a dirty veil. Slowly, cautiously, Leon lowers his weapon. His gaze drifts past the carnage to the refrigerator, to the floor, to the glittering field of broken glass and spilled medication soaking uselessly into grout lines and fabric and things you don't want to identify. He doesn't say anything. Neither do you. The man on the bed has gone very still. His eyes stare at the ceiling, clouded over, whatever fragile thread holding him to himself finally snapped in the chaos. A drop of liquid slides off the shelf edge and hits the tile with a soft, final tick.
Leon exhales, long and controlled, like he's forcing the air out through a space too small for it. "...We'll find more," he says quietly.
He steps closer to you, one hand settling on your shoulder, firm and grounding. His thumb moves once, a brief stroke through dust and sweat, as if confirming you're still solid beneath his palm.
"You hurt?" he asks.
You shake your head, throat tight. "No."
"Good."
His hand lingers a moment longer, then drops. He scans the room again, already shifting back into mission mode, but the tension in his jaw has sharpened, lines around his eyes etched deeper by the red emergency light.
"Storage areas are usually clustered," he says. "If there was one unit, there are probably others."
You nod because he needs you to nod. Because forward is the only direction that exists anymore.
Together, you step around the shattered glass and the ruined promise it once held, boots crunching softly with every movement, and head back into the corridor where the dark waits patiently for you to return.
The corridor beyond the lab is narrower, older, the walls traded from clean hospital white to poured concrete stained by decades of leaks and neglect. Emergency lights hum overhead, casting everything in a tired amber glow that feels less like an alarm and more like a dying sunset that forgot to go away. Your boots echo differently here. Hollow. The sound carries too far.
Leon slows without saying anything, adjusting his pace until you're shoulder to shoulder instead of single file. His arm brushes yours with each step, solid and reassuring in a way that feels deliberate without calling attention to itself. After a minute, you realize he's listening to your breathing.
"You know," you say quietly, "most couples go to dinner."
He huffs under his breath. "We tried that."
"You got a call."
"We both got a call."
"I didn't even get to eat my pasta."
"You ordered something with fourteen ingredients I couldn't pronounce."
"That's not a crime."
"It should be."
You bump his shoulder lightly. "You promised dessert."
"I'll buy you dessert."
"You said that last time."
"I meant it last time, too."
His hand comes up automatically, resting on your back as the corridor narrows, guiding you around a fallen chunk of concrete. The touch lingers just a second longer than necessary.
"When this is over," he adds quietly, "we'll go somewhere that doesn't have reception."
You glance at him. "You're serious."
"Dead serious."
A small smile pulls at your mouth. "You'd last two days."
"I'd last three."
"Two and a half."
He considers it like it's a tactical estimate. "Two and a half."
The next door is heavier than the others, industrial steel with a small wired-glass window clouded by years of grime. A faded placard reads BIO STORAGE B in letters that have peeled into something ghostlike and hard to trust.
Leon raises a hand automatically, stopping you just short of the threshold.
"Hold."
You halt with your boot inches from the seam, rifle angled down but ready. He steps past you, placing himself between you and the door without thinking about it. He always does that. As if the hinge of the world were located somewhere in his spine.
He wipes a sleeve across the glass and peers through, eyes narrowing as he adjusts to the dim interior. "Don't see movement," he murmurs. "Shelving units. Containers. Could be clear."
"Could be."
He glances back at you, reading your face the way other people read weather. "You good?"
"Always."
One eyebrow lifts. Not convinced.
You roll your shoulder where your gear has started to dig in, trying to work out the stiffness before it becomes a problem. "Just cramped."
"Switch packs with me."
"I'm fine."
"That wasn't a suggestion."
"It wasn't an order either."
For a moment, you just look at each other, the quiet argument unfolding in expressions instead of voices. Married diplomacy in a war zone.
Finally, he exhales through his nose, conceding the point without admitting defeat. His hand comes up instead, settling briefly at the side of your neck, thumb brushing the muscle there in a grounding stroke.
"Tension," he says softly.
"Observation skills of a seasoned agent."
"Comes with the badge."
"You don't even carry a badge."
"Metaphorical badge."
You lean into his touch for half a second before you can stop yourself. He notices. His thumb stills, then presses lightly once more before he lets his hand fall away.
"Stay behind me on entry," he says, voice shifting, professional edges sliding back into place.
"I take left. You take right," you counter automatically.
He gives you a look. You give him one right back.
"...Fine," he mutters at last. "But if I say fall back, you fall back."
"Yes, dear."
His mouth twitches despite himself. "Don't 'yes, dear' me in a mission."
"Yes, sir," you salute.
Leon grunts and shakes his head, trying not to smile. You reach past him to test the handle. Locked.
"Stand clear," you say.
He moves aside this time without commentary, covering the door while you pull a compact bypass tool from your vest. The metal is cold against your fingers, humming faintly as it interfaces with the ancient locking mechanism.
For a few seconds, the only sounds are the tool's soft electronic chirp and your breathing. Then the mechanism clicks. You don't open it immediately. Instead, you glance sideways at him. Close enough to see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the tiny scar along his jaw, the exhaustion he carries like a shadow that never quite detaches.
"After this," you say quietly, "we're getting that dessert."
He studies you for a long beat, something unspoken passing through his expression. A deep, stubborn refusal to imagine a future where that doesn't happen.
"Yeah," he says at last, voice low and certain. "We are."
Your hand brushes his wrist as you shift your grip on the handle. He turns his palm just enough to catch your fingers, squeezing once, firm and warm. A promise disguised as reflex. Then he releases you, raises his weapon, and nods.
"On you."
You pull the door open. Cold air spills out, stale and chemical, carrying the faint scent of something spoiled long before anyone stopped coming down here. The room beyond is a maze of tall storage racks and plastic containers, shadows pooling thick between them like standing water.
Leon moves through the doorway first, silent, precise, clearing angles with ruthless efficiency. You follow a half-step behind despite earlier negotiations, covering what he can't see, trusting him to do the same.
All you hear is the hum of failing lights. The soft creak of metal settling. The distant, almost inaudible drip of water somewhere in the dark.
Leon lifts two fingers, signaling pause. You freeze. He tilts his head, listening.
"...Thought I heard something," he whispers.
You hold your breath. The room holds its breath too. Then, very softly, something shifts deep between the shelves. A scrape. Leon's posture tightens, every line of him sharpening toward the sound.
"Stay close," he murmurs.
You move in beside him, shoulder brushing his arm, the warmth of him grounding against the cold air of the room.
"Always do," you whisper back.
The air grows colder the farther you go, heavy with the stale tang of chemicals and something faintly organic beneath it, like fruit left too long in a sealed container. Your flashlight beam skims across plastic bins, sealed crates, labels bleached into illegibility. Dust floats in slow spirals each time you move, disturbed ghosts reluctant to settle again.
Leon advances at a measured pace, weapon steady, shoulders tight enough to telegraph that he hasn't liked this room from the moment the door opened. You mirror him, covering the angles between shelving units, eyes darting through the narrow gaps where shadows knit together into something almost solid. Another scrape, closer this time.
A container shifts on a shelf to your left with a soft plastic thud, tipping just enough to rock in place. Your rifle swings toward it automatically.
"Probably just settling," you whisper.
Leon doesn't answer. He takes one careful step forward, angling to get a better view past the rack. The beam of his light cuts across the gap, illuminating stacked boxes, a collapsed cart, nothing that looks immediately threatening.
Your shoulders start to loosen. That's when the hands shoot out of the darkness. They clamp around your calf, iron strong, nails digging through fabric as something drags itself from beneath the lowest shelf with a wet, hungry sound. You don't even have time to shout before you're yanked off balance.
"Leon—!"
He pivots instantly, dropping his aim to avoid hitting you as you hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. The infected is half-crushed, lower body mangled, but its arms work just fine. Its mouth snaps inches from your boot, teeth clacking together with a sound that vibrates up your bones.
You kick, connecting with its face, but it barely registers the impact. Its grip tightens, hauling you closer, closer, jaws opening wide enough to show the slick black of its throat.
Leon moves. He doesn't fire. Too risky. Instead, he lunges forward, grabbing the back of your vest and hauling you backward with brutal force. The infected comes with you, still latched on, dead weight and fury combined.
"Let go!" he snarls, driving his boot into its shoulder.
Bone cracks. The grip loosens just enough for him to wrench you free, dragging you behind him as he finally gets a clear shot. Two rounds. Point-blank.
The body jerks, collapses, and goes still. For a moment, all you can hear is your own ragged breathing and the thunder of your pulse. Leon stays crouched in front of you, one arm braced across your chest like a barricade, gun still trained on the corpse in case it decides death is negotiable.
"Hey," he says, voice low, urgent. "Hey. Look at me."
You blink, vision swimming, lungs finally remembering how to work. "I'm... I'm good."
His eyes scan you anyway, fast and thorough, hands already moving, checking arms, shoulders, gear, the way he always does. Routine. Training. Care disguised as procedure. Then his hand stops at your leg.
The fabric of your pants is torn where the creature grabbed you. Dark spreads through the rip, wet and unmistakable even in the dim light. Leon goes very still. Slowly, carefully, he pulls his glove off with his teeth and tosses it aside. His bare hand is warm when it closes around your ankle, steady but not gentle as he angles your leg into the beam of his flashlight.
You follow his gaze. For a second, your brain refuses to interpret what you're seeing. Just shapes. Color. Shine. Then it resolves. Deep teeth marks on your ankle. Blood wells from the punctures, thick and bright, running down into your boot.
"Oh," you say softly.
Leon doesn't speak. His jaw tightens so hard a muscle jumps along his cheek. His thumb presses near the wound, not enough to hurt, just enough to assess depth, damage, and reality.
"How bad?" you ask, because someone has to.
He inhales slowly through his nose, like he's trying to pull the air all the way down to somewhere that doesn't exist anymore.
"...Through the muscle," he says at last, voice roughened at the edges. "No arterial spray."
You almost laugh. Of course, that's what he notices. Of course, he frames it in survivable terms.
"Good news," you murmur.
His eyes snap to yours, sharp, bright, furious at something that isn't you. "Don't."
The word isn't loud. It doesn't need to be. Silence floods back in, thick as the dust hanging in the air. Carefully, he releases your leg only long enough to tear open a pouch on his vest. Gauze. Compression wrap. His hands move with practiced efficiency, but there's a tremor there now, small and stubborn, like a fault line threatening to split.
"This won't stop it," you say quietly.
"I know."
He presses the gauze down anyway, firm, unyielding, as if pressure alone could force time to behave.
"You didn't get grabbed anywhere else?" he asks without looking up.
"No."
"Scratch? Contact with fluid?"
"No, Leon."
He nods once, wrapping the bandage tight enough to hurt. You don't complain. Pain feels reassuringly human. When he finishes, he doesn't pull away. His hands remain braced on your leg, head bowed slightly, shoulders rising and falling with measured breaths. From this angle, you can see the faint silver threaded through his hair, the lines carved deeper by worry than age. You reach out before you can stop yourself, fingers brushing his jaw. He freezes.
"Hey," you say softly.
His eyes close for one heartbeat, leaning just slightly into your touch, like a man starving who just found water. Then he opens them again, focus snapping back into place with visible effort.
"We're moving," he says, voice low and absolute. "There will be another storage area. Another lab. Something."
You nod because you believe him. Because you have to. Because you don't want this to be the end. Because you don't want Leon to have to go through that. Because you want your dessert.
He rises first, then offers you his hand. When you take it, he pulls you up carefully, keeping his other hand hovering at your waist in case you falter. You put weight on the leg. It holds, though pain flares hot and sharp.
"Can you walk?" he asks.
"Yeah." A lie. A manageable one.
He doesn't call you on it. Instead, his arm slides around your back, anchoring you against his side as you take your first step. Protective. Supportive. Refusing to let distance exist.
"Stay with me," he murmurs.
Your head rests briefly against his shoulder, just for a second.
"Always," you whisper.
Adrenaline still burns hot in your veins, dulling the edges, convincing your body it can outrun consequences if it just keeps moving. Leon keeps his arm locked around you, pace adjusted to match yours without comment. Not slow enough to feel patronizing, not fast enough to make you stumble. Perfect. Infuriatingly perfect.
"You don't have to babysit," you murmur.
"Good," he says quietly. "Because I'm not."
His hand shifts slightly at your side, fingers spreading as if to support more of your weight without making a show of it. The corridor slopes downward. Each step sends a dull shock up your leg, deeper now, heavier, like the pain has roots instead of edges. You grit your teeth and keep going. After a dozen paces, something else creeps in. A warmth. Not the healthy kind. Not exertion. This feels wrong, thick and syrupy, pooling under your skin like fever deciding where to settle. You swallow. Your throat feels dry. Too dry.
"Leon," you start, then stop, because you're not sure what you were going to say.
He glances at you immediately. "What?"
"Nothing. Thought I heard something."
He doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't push. Instead, he shifts you a little closer, your hip brushing his with every step now, a steady rhythm of contact that keeps you oriented.
The lights flicker overhead. For a split second, the world tilts. You blink hard, waiting for it to right itself. It does, but not completely. The edges of your vision feel soft, as if someone smeared petroleum jelly across reality.
"Hey," Leon says quietly.
You realize you've slowed. "I'm fine."
He stops anyway.
"No," he says, voice calm and immovable as bedrock. "You're not."
Before you can argue, a shape lurches from a side passage ahead. Its movements are jerky and uneven, its head twitching like a broken marionette. Leon eases you behind him with one hand, weapon already up. He takes it out, waiting a few seconds to make sure it's down.
When he turns back to you, his focus narrows, shutting out the rest of the world. "Sit," he says.
You shake your head. "We don't have time."
"Sit."
There's no edge in it. No raised volume. Just absolute certainty that this is happening. Your legs decide for you. The moment you stop resisting, they wobble, knees threatening to fold. Leon catches you instantly, one arm wrapping around your back, the other under your uninjured leg, guiding you down against the wall with careful control.
The concrete is cold through your gear. It feels strangely good. He crouches in front of you, close enough that your boots nearly touch his knees. Up close, you can see every tiny tension line in his face, every sleepless hour etched into skin that has forgotten what "rested" means.
His bare hand comes up again, settling against your neck, fingers sliding to your pulse point. You shiver.
His brows draw together. "You're burning up."
"Shock," you say weakly.
"You know that's not true."
His thumb presses lightly, counting. You can feel the rhythm under his skin, your heart hammering like it's trying to break out of your chest.
"Too fast," he murmurs, mostly to himself.
A tremor runs through your hands. Small at first, then stronger, fingers twitching against your thigh as if they belong to someone else and forgot to tell you. You curl them into fists, but it doesn't help. Leon notices. He reaches down slowly, deliberately, and wraps his hand around yours. Not restraining. Anchoring. His grip is warm, solid, impossibly steady compared to the jitter under your skin.
"Look at me," he says softly.
You do. Blue eyes. Tired. Fierce. Terrified in a way he would deny under oath.
"We're going to fix this," he says.
"You don't know that."
"Yes," he says, so simply it almost hurts. "I do."
Your vision blurs. You blink rapidly, trying to clear it, but the edges keep fuzzing out like a badly tuned signal.
"Everything's... weird," you admit. "Like I'm underwater."
His jaw tightens. "Any nausea?"
"No."
"Dizziness?"
"...Maybe."
"Confusion?"
You hesitate.
His expression darkens. "How long?"
"Ten minutes."
He leans forward suddenly, pressing his forehead to yours. The contact is gentle, deliberate, his eyes closing for a brief moment like he's drawing strength from proximity alone.
"You stay with me," he murmurs. "You hear me? No drifting."
"I'm right here."
His hand slides to the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair, holding you there. Making sure you don't slip away. For a few seconds, neither of you moves. Somewhere far off, metal clatters. A distant echo of something collapsing. The facility settling into deeper ruin. You swallow. Your throat feels raw now, like you've been breathing dry air for hours.
"Leon."
"Yeah."
"If I start to..."
He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes sharp. "Don't."
"You need to be ready."
"I am ready."
"That's not what I mean."
His hand tightens at the back of your neck, just enough to stop you from looking away.
"I'm not leaving you," he says quietly. "Save it."
Your chest aches, and not from the bite. You nod because you don't trust your voice. He studies you another moment, memorizing something only he can see, then exhales slowly and shifts back into motion.
"Okay," he says, tone sharpening into mission focus again. "We move in short intervals. Next sector should have auxiliary storage or research offices. More supplies. Maybe antivirals."
"Maybe," you echo.
He rises, then hesitates, looking down at you like he's recalculating physics.
Without warning, he slips one arm behind your back and the other under your knees.
You blink. "Leon—"
"Save your strength."
"I can walk."
"I know."
And that's the end of the discussion. He lifts you with controlled ease, settling you against his chest. Your head ends up tucked under his chin, close enough to hear his heartbeat, steady and stubborn as a drum calling soldiers back to formation. You don't argue again. Your hand fumbles for his vest, gripping the fabric as another wave of heat rolls through you, deeper this time, almost nauseating in its intensity.
"Still with me?" he murmurs into your hair.
You nod weakly. "Yeah."
"Good."
He adjusts his hold, one hand splayed protectively across your back, and starts down the corridor again, footsteps measured, unhurried, as if he has decided that time itself can wait its turn. The world sways gently with each step. Your eyelids feel heavy.
Leon's voice cuts through the fog, low and insistent. "Stay awake."
"I'm trying."
"Talk to me."
"About what?"
"Anything."
You think for a long moment, chasing thoughts that scatter like startled birds.
"...Dessert," you mumble finally.
A soft breath leaves him, almost a laugh, almost something else entirely.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."
You clutch his vest a little tighter, grounding yourself in the solid reality of him.
"Don't let me fall asleep," you whisper.
His arms tighten around you, careful but unyielding.
Leon adjusts his grip as you shift in his arms, not because you're heavy, never that, but because your body no longer anticipates his movement the way it usually does. You used to lean into turns before they happened, tighten your hold when he stepped over debris, and match his rhythm without thinking. Now you lag by half a second behind every motion, like your connection to gravity is buffering. He notices. He notices everything.
Your skin is too hot even through layers of fabric. Heat seeps through his sleeves, through his gloves, into his palms like you're burning from the inside out. Your breath ghosts unevenly against his throat, sometimes shallow, sometimes too deep, like your lungs can't agree on a pattern. Fever, he tells himself. Infection. Not the other thing. Not yet. Your fingers twitch where they clutch his vest, loosening, tightening, loosening again.
"Hey," he murmurs quietly. "Still with me?"
A pause. "...Yeah."
The word is slurred at the edges, dragged through molasses. His jaw tightens. He keeps moving.
The corridor stretches ahead in dim amber light, empty except for the occasional smear on the wall or abandoned equipment pushed aside by people who ran out of time. His footsteps are steady, deliberate, conserving energy, minimizing jostling. He's carried wounded before. Teammates. Civilians. Strangers. None of them felt like this. None of them felt like carrying his own heartbeat outside his body.
Your head shifts, cheek pressing against his collarbone. For a moment you go very still, so still that something cold claws down his spine.
"Talk to me," he says, softer now. "You promised."
A long silence. Then, faintly, "Cold."
He stops. A clean halt, like someone pulled a lever inside him. Cold is wrong. You're burning up. He lowers you carefully to one knee without setting you fully down, keeping one arm wrapped around your back so you don't tip sideways. His other hand comes up to your face, bare fingers brushing your cheek. Your skin is blazing. But you're shivering. Small, violent tremors run through you, teeth chattering softly against each other, lashes fluttering as if your body can't decide whether to wake or sleep.
"Hey," he says, sharper now. "Open your eyes."
You do, slowly, unfocused at first. Your pupils look blown wide in the low light, swallowing what little color remains in your irises.
"It's... dark," you mumble.
His chest tightens. The lights are still on.
"I'm right here," he says. "Look at me."
Your gaze drifts, struggles, and finally locks onto his face. Recognition flickers there, fragile but present.
"...Leon."
Relief hits him so hard it almost feels like pain.
"Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah, it's me."
Your brow furrows faintly, confusion knitting your expression into something painfully vulnerable.
"You look... tired."
He almost laughs. "Occupational hazard," he says quietly.
Your hand lifts weakly, fingers brushing his jaw as if you're mapping terrain you've walked a thousand times but suddenly don't trust your memory of.
"You should sleep," you whisper.
The tenderness in it is what breaks him a little.
"Soon, sweetheart," he says.
Your hand slips, falling back against your chest. Silence stretches. Your breathing grows uneven again.
Then you say, very softly, "Did we make it home?"
The words land like a physical blow. For a second, he can't answer. His throat closes around something sharp and unmanageable.
Home. Not the facility. Not the mission. Not the outbreak. Home. He swallows hard, forcing air back into his lungs.
"Not yet," he says, voice low and steady by sheer force of will. "Working on it."
Your eyes drift past him, unfocused, as if you're looking at something over his shoulder that isn't there.
"...Smells like coffee," you murmur. "Burned it again."
His vision blurs. He blinks hard, refocusing on the concrete wall behind you. You're not smelling coffee. There is no coffee. There hasn't been coffee in hours. Just dust and chemicals and rot. Hallucinations, a cold voice in his mind supplies. Neurological involvement. He hates that voice.
Your lips curve faintly, a sleepy little smile that belongs in a sunlit kitchen, not here. "You always do that," you mumble. "Say you're watching it, then forget..."
Your head tips sideways, resting against his arm. Your eyelids droop. Panic slices through him, clean and immediate.
"Hey," he says sharply, fingers tightening on your shoulder. "No. Stay with me."
You stir weakly. "...'m tired."
"I know."
"So tired."
His thumb presses against your pulse again. Still fast. Too fast.
"You can sleep when we're home," he says, leaning closer, voice dropping to something rough and urgent.
Your eyes open a sliver.
"...Promise?"
The question is so small it barely exists.
He bows his head until his forehead rests against yours, eyes closing for one heartbeat, he allows himself.
"Yeah," he whispers. "I promise."
He doesn't know if he's promising sleep, survival, or something else entirely. It doesn't matter. Your breathing evens out a little, not better, just slower, drifting toward something that looks dangerously like unconsciousness. Not yet, he thinks fiercely.
He slides one arm under your knees again and lifts you back against his chest, more carefully this time, as if you might come apart if handled too roughly. Your head lolls against his shoulder, then settles in the hollow of his neck, breath hot and damp against his skin.
"Stay with me," he murmurs into your hair. "Just a little longer."
Your fingers twitch weakly against his vest, not gripping anymore, just resting there like they forgot their job.
"...Love you," you whisper, so faint he almost thinks he imagined it.
He stops breathing. The entire world narrows to the weight in his arms and the fragile thread of sound still hanging in the air. His hold tightens, protective, desperate, careful all at once.
"I know," he says quietly, voice breaking on the edges despite his best effort. "I know."
He presses his cheek briefly against your hair, eyes closing, grounding himself in the reality of you. The heat. The softness. The terrifying fragility. Then he straightens and starts moving again, steps faster now, less cautious, urgency bleeding through the discipline he's clung to since this began. Somewhere ahead, there has to be another lab. Another storage room. Another chance. There has to be. Because the alternative is unthinkable, and Leon Kennedy has built an entire life on refusing to accept those.
"Hang on," he murmurs. "I've got you."
The corridor opens into what used to be a patient ward, rows of metal-framed beds bolted to the floor, privacy curtains hanging in limp, dusty folds like flags after a lost battle. Most of the mattresses are stripped bare, plastic covers cracked with age, but the room is quiet. No movement. No shuffling breath. Just the low electrical hum that seems to haunt every corner of this place.
Leon slows, scanning automatically, mapping exits, sightlines, choke points. Good visibility. Single main entrance. Minimal clutter. Defensible. More importantly, close.
A reinforced door at the far end bears a faded hazard symbol and the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY stenciled beneath it. The hinges are external. The frame is thicker than standard interior construction. Lab access. Or something close to it.
"Okay," he murmurs, mostly to himself. "This'll do."
He crosses to the nearest intact bed and lowers you with painstaking care, one arm supporting your shoulders, the other guiding your legs so the injured one doesn't twist. The mattress sighs softly under your weight, springs complaining but holding. For a second, he doesn't let go. Your head rolls slightly to one side, hair falling across your face. Your eyes are half-open, unfocused, lashes trembling like you're dreaming with your eyes still in the world.
"Hey," he says quietly, brushing the hair back with fingers that are gentler than anything else he's done today. "Stay with me."
Your gaze struggles to find him. "...Hi," you whisper.
"Hi," he echoes, voice rough.
Your hand lifts weakly, searching. He catches it immediately, folding his larger one around yours, grounding you with solid pressure.
"Where are we?" you murmur.
"Almost there," he says. Not a lie. Not quite the truth. "I need to check something."
Your fingers twitch in his grip, barely there. "...Don't go far."
His throat tightens.
"I won't," he says. "You'll be able to hear me the whole time." That seems to satisfy something in you. Your eyes drift closed, not fully unconscious, just sliding along the edge of it.
He gently lowers your hand to rest against your stomach, then hesitates. After a moment, he reaches up and unzips his jacket, shrugging it off despite the chill. He drapes it over you, tucking it around your shoulders, creating a cocoon of familiar warmth and scent. Leon rests his palm against your cheek one last time, thumb brushing your skin in a soft arc.
He forces himself to stand. Every instinct screams not to leave you. To pick you up and run until the world ends, the cure appears, or both. But the door at the end of the room waits, silent and stubborn, and something in his gut tells him that whatever hope exists is behind it.
He moves. Slow at first, reluctant steps that keep him within arm's reach, then a little farther, turning back every few seconds to make sure you're still breathing, still there, still you. Halfway across the ward, a shape shifts behind a curtain. Leon's weapon is up before the fabric finishes swaying.
A figure stumbles out, skeletal, skin pulled tight over bone, eyes reflecting dull amber in the emergency light. Its mouth opens in a soundless snarl as it lurches toward the nearest movement. Leon intercepts it before it gets anywhere. Two suppressed shots. One to the chest, one to the head. The body collapses in a boneless heap, momentum carrying it forward until it skids to a stop across the tile.
Another groan answers from somewhere deeper in the room. He pivots, firing again, dropping a second infected as it claws its way over a bedframe. Efficient. Controlled. No wasted motion. No unnecessary noise. Three heartbeats of silence. He listens, counting breaths. Nothing else rises. Only then does he glance back. You haven't moved. Relief floods through him so sharply his knees almost unlock.
"Still here," he murmurs under his breath, as if confirming it makes it true.
He reaches the reinforced door and tests the handle. Locked. Of course it is.
Up close, the barricade becomes obvious. Heavy shelving units have been shoved against the interior side, metal edges visible through the narrow seam where the door meets the frame. Whoever sealed this room meant to keep something out. Or in.
Leon leans closer, ear to the cold steel. Nothing. No breathing. No scratching. No shifting weight. He steps back and scans the frame. Electronic panel. Dead. Manual override slot intact. Hope stirs, cautious and unwelcome.
He glances over his shoulder again. From here, he can still see you on the bed, small beneath his jacket, chest rising and falling in shallow motions that make his own lungs ache in sympathy.
"Almost there," he says quietly, whether to you or himself, he doesn't know.
From a pouch on his belt, he pulls a compact breaching tool, the metal catching the light as he slots it into the override housing. The device hums softly, vibration traveling up his wrist.
Behind him, the ward remains still.
Then your voice drifts across the room, thin and fragile. "...Leon?"
He spins instantly. Your head has turned toward him, eyes open again, unfocused but searching, panic flickering in the small movement of your hands against his jacket.
"I'm here," he calls, already crossing back toward you. "Right here."
You stare at him as if trying to memorize his face before it disappears. "...Too many," you whisper. "They're everywhere."
"There's nothing here," he says gently. "You're safe."
Your head sinks back into the thin pillow. Consciousness slips away from you like water through open fingers. Leon stays there a second longer than he should, watching your chest rise, fall, rise again. Then he stands and turns back to the barricaded door, something steely settling over him, heavier than anger, sharper than fear.
The tool in his hand whines as it bites into the locking mechanism, sparks spitting in brief, angry bursts. Metal protests. Screws shear. The smell of hot circuitry fills the air.
"Hold on," he murmurs, not looking back this time because he won't stop if he does. "I'm getting us in."
Behind him, the bed creaks softly as you shift in fevered sleep. Ahead, the door shudders as the final bolt gives way. Leon shoves the door inward, the weight of it grinding against the barricade until the gap is wide enough for him to slip through sideways. Inside, a toppled shelving unit leans against the opposite wall, confirming what he already suspected. Whoever sealed this room did it from within and didn't plan on leaving.
The air is colder here. Cleaner. Sterile in that artificial way that smells faintly of alcohol wipes and plastic, like illness reduced to a controlled environment.
Emergency lights glow a sickly green, illuminating rows of lab benches, overturned stools, racks of glassware frozen mid-experiment. Papers lie scattered across the floor, curling at the edges. A monitor flickers weakly on one station, casting a pulsing rectangle of pale light that feels almost alive in the otherwise stagnant room.
Leon clears the space in seconds, weapon sweeping corners, checking behind doors, under desks, anywhere something could hide. Nothing lunges. Nothing breathes. Just abandonment, sudden and absolute, like the people who worked here evaporated mid-sentence.
He lowers the gun a fraction, chest rising and falling a little too fast to be purely tactical.
"Okay," he murmurs, voice rough in the quiet. "Okay."
He moves to the nearest workstation, scanning labels, cabinets, drawers. Chemical reagents. Disposable supplies. Data drives. Everything except what he needs. Another bench. Same story. He opens a refrigerated unit. Empty trays. Frost buildup. Power too low to maintain temperature.
His pulse hammers harder.
Not here. Not here. Not here.
"Come on," he mutters, rifling through containers faster now, less methodical, more desperate. Glass clinks sharply as he shoves aside vials of things that don't matter, powders with long names, syringes sealed in sterile plastic. Nothing labeled antiviral. Nothing labeled serum. Nothing labeled hope. A cold weight settles in his stomach.
He moves to the flickering computer, fingers flying across the keys, waking it from whatever half-dead state it's been trapped in. The screen brightens sluggishly, revealing a login prompt already bypassed, system hanging on by a thread.
"Don't do this to me," he whispers.
Folders populate slowly. Research logs. Incident reports. Containment protocols. He scans titles with ruthless speed, opening anything that looks remotely relevant, eyes burning as line after line of technical jargon scrolls past.
A crash echoes faintly from the ward beyond the door. His head snaps toward the sound. Silence follows. He waits three seconds. Five. Ten. No approach. No impact against the door. No dragging footsteps. Still there, he tells himself. She's still there.
He turns back to the screen, forcing his focus to narrow again. A document catches his eye.
ANTIVIRAL DISPERSION PROTOCOL – EMERGENCY USE
He opens it. Paragraphs of dense instructions spill across the display. Stabilization procedures. Delivery methods. Storage warnings. STORAGE LOCATION: SECURE BIOCONTAINMENT VAULT B-2. His stomach drops. Not here.
Coordinates blink uselessly on the screen, pointing deeper into the facility, farther than he wants to think about, farther than you may be able to survive the trip.
Something inside him finally gives. He grips the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening, shoulders bowing as if someone just added fifty pounds to his back.
"Damn it," he breathes.
The word fractures on the way out, barely more than air. He squeezes his eyes shut, forehead dropping toward his clenched fists, fighting the surge of helpless fury that threatens to tear through discipline, training, every wall he's built over years of surviving the unsurvivable. Not enough time. Not enough distance. Not enough anything.
Out in the ward, you lie alone on a metal bed, burning up, slipping further away with every second he spends standing here empty-handed. His chest tightens until breathing feels optional.
For one dangerous moment, he imagines walking back out there, picking you up, and never stopping. No cure. No mission. Just distance and denial. Just the selfish hope that if he runs fast enough, the virus won't catch you.
He exhales sharply, dragging himself back from the edge. Running never saved anyone.
"Think," he mutters hoarsely. "Think."
His gaze drifts across the lab again, slower this time, less frantic, searching for patterns instead of miracles. That's when he notices it. A sealed medical kit is mounted on the wall near the exit. Standard emergency issue. Bright white casing. Untouched, pristine compared to the chaos everywhere else. Too pristine. He crosses the room and pops it open. Bandages. Burn gel. Basic trauma supplies. Nothing else.
His shoulders slump. Then his eyes catch a thin seam along the back panel, almost invisible unless you're looking directly at it. Not part of the original design. Too clean. Too deliberate. He taps it with his knuckle. Hollow. Hope flares, sharp and painful.
He wedges a knife into the seam and pries. The panel resists for a second, then snaps free with a brittle crack, revealing a narrow cavity hidden behind the kit.
Inside rests a single reinforced container, matte gray and no bigger than a paperback book, sealed with a biometric latch long since disabled. Not government-issue, but research-grade. Whoever put this here didn't have the chance to get it.
Leon's hands shake as he pulls it free. The lid pops open. Nestled in foam are two glass syringes pre-loaded with clear liquid, labels printed in blocky lab script:
ANTIVIRAL SERUM — FINALIZED STRAIN
For a second, he just stares, brain refusing to trust what his eyes are telling it. Air leaves his lungs in a sound that might be a laugh or might be something closer to a sob strangled before it can exist.
He presses his forehead briefly against the cool plastic case, eyes squeezing shut, letting the relief hit him in one violent wave before he can stop it. Shoulders shake once, twice, a tremor he doesn't bother to control because no one is here to see it. No one except the person who needs him most. He straightens abruptly, wiping a hand across his face, composure snapping back into place like a mask he's worn too long to misplace.
"Hang on," he says, already moving for the door, clutching the case like it's made of glass and prayers. "I'm coming back."
Your skin is still hot. That's the first thing he registers when his palm cups your cheek. Heat floods into his hand, fever-bright, but there's a wrongness to it now, a brittle quality, like warmth without life behind it.
"Hey," he says softly. "I'm back."
No response. Your lashes rest against your cheeks, unmoving. Your mouth is slightly open, breath slipping in shallow threads that barely stir the hair at your temple. The shivering from before has stopped. Your body lies too still beneath his jacket, as if it finally decided movement was optional.
A cold spike of terror drives straight through his chest.
"Hey." Louder this time, but still gentle, still careful, as if volume alone might break you. "Come on. Open your eyes for me."
Nothing. He slides his hand to your neck, fingers pressing to your pulse point. It's there. Fast. Thready. Irregular in a way that makes his own heartbeat stumble trying to match it.
"Okay," he breathes, more to himself than to you. "We're okay."
His other hand trembles as he fumbles the case open, snapping it back with a soft plastic crack. The syringes gleam under the emergency lights, their clear liquid looking impossibly calm compared to the storm in his chest. He sets the case on the bed beside you, movements deliberate, controlled, forcing precision where panic wants chaos.
"You're gonna hate this part," he murmurs, fingers working to clear space at your collar, tugging fabric aside so he can reach skin. "But you can yell at me later. I'm counting on it."
Your head lolls slightly with the movement. No protest. No reflexive tension. He swallows hard.
"Hey," he says again, softer now, thumb brushing your jaw in a slow arc. "Stay with me, okay? You don't get to check out early. We still owe each other dessert."
His voice catches on the last word. He pushes through it.
"Remember that place downtown? The one with the ridiculous chocolate cake you said was worth the calories?" A shaky breath. "I figure we'll go there."
He presses his forehead briefly against yours, eyes squeezing shut for a fraction of a second.
"You hear me? We've got plans."
Your breathing hitches faintly, a tiny irregular stutter that might be a coincidence or might be something else. He latches onto it anyway, desperate for anything that looks like a connection.
"That's it," he murmurs. "Right there. Stay with me."
He lifts the syringe, checks it automatically, habit stronger than fear. No air bubbles. Fluid clear. Needle steady despite the tremor in his hand.
"Okay," he whispers. "Here we go."
He slides his arm behind your shoulders, lifting you just enough to support you against his chest, cradling you there so the injection won't jostle too much. Your head falls against him, cheek resting over his heart, breath warm and frighteningly faint through the fabric of his shirt.
"You're doing great," he says softly, even though you're doing nothing at all. "Almost there."
The needle presses into your skin.
He hesitates.
Not because he doubts the serum. Because once this is done, there's nothing left to do but wait, and waiting is the one thing he has never learned to survive gracefully.
"Don't be mad," he murmurs. "I'm not giving you a choice."
He depresses the plunger slowly, watching the liquid disappear into you, as if he can track hope molecule by molecule. His other arm tightens around your back, holding you upright, holding you together.
"All right," he says, voice barely above a breath. "You did good. See? Easy."
He withdraws the needle and sets it aside with mechanical care, as if any sudden movement might undo what he's just done. Then he just holds you.
Seconds crawl past, each one stretching thin as wire. Nothing happens. Your breathing remains shallow. Your pulse, when he checks again, is still fast, still erratic. His chest starts to feel tight, air coming harder, like the room has quietly stolen oxygen while he wasn't looking.
"Okay," he says hoarsely. "Sometimes these things take a minute."
He shifts you slightly, thumb stroking your arm in absent circles, the same motion he uses when you're half asleep on long flights or bad nights. Comfort muscle memory kicks in even when the situation is far beyond comfort.
"You're not allowed to do this," he whispers. "You hear me? Not now. Not like this."
Your hand slips from where it rested against his vest, sliding down between you, fingers loose and unresponsive. He grabs it instantly, folding it back into his palm, pressing it against his chest.
"Come back," he says, the words fraying at the edges.
Another long stretch of nothing. Fear blooms, cold and suffocating, filling every hollow place in him. Too late, a voice in the back of his mind whispers. Too slow. Too far gone.
He shakes his head sharply, jaw clenching.
"No," he mutters. "No, you don't get to do that."
He bows over you, pressing his forehead to your hair, eyes squeezed shut, breathing you in like oxygen.
"You promised," he says roughly. "You don't break your promises."
Your pulse stutters under his fingers. He freezes.
There it is again. A strange hitch, a pause that stretches too long, then a sudden rush, as if your heart forgot the rhythm and is trying to find it again. His own heart stops in sympathetic terror.
"Come on," he whispers. "Come on..."
Your body jerks. A sharp, involuntary spasm that arches you slightly against him before you go slack again. Leon sucks in a breath, half panic, half hope colliding in his chest.
Your brow creases faintly, expression tightening as if pain is finally breaking through the fog. A weak sound escapes you, barely audible, more exhale than voice. His grip on you tightens, careful but fierce.
"I know," he murmurs. "I know, sweetheart. It's okay. You're okay."
Your breathing changes, deepening suddenly, as if you're pulling in air like someone surfacing from underwater. It catches, stutters, then comes again, stronger this time, dragging oxygen into lungs that finally seem interested in using it.
"There you go," he breathes, voice shaking openly now. "That's it. Stay with me."
Your fingers twitch weakly against his chest. He presses his cheek against your hair, eyes closing, holding you like you might still vanish if he loosens his grip.
"I've got you," he whispers. "You're okay. I've got you."
He keeps you cradled against his chest, one arm locked around your back, the other braced across your shoulders, hand splayed as if shielding you from something that no longer exists. His cheek rests against your hair, breath uneven, dragging in through his nose, out through parted lips like he's relearning how to do it.
Your pulse is stronger now beneath his fingers. Still fast, still fragile, but steady enough to count. Steady enough to believe in. Only then does the tension start to bleed out of him. It comes all at once.
His shoulders shudder. Not violently, just a small, contained tremor that he tries to swallow down and can't. A sound escapes him, rough and broken, something halfway between a breath and a sob he never intended to make. He tightens his hold instinctively, pressing his face into your hair as if hiding there makes it less real.
"Okay," he whispers hoarsely. "Okay... you're okay."
Warmth hits your scalp. At first, your fogged mind can't place it. Wetness. A second drop follows, sliding along your temple before disappearing into your hair.
Leon doesn't notice. Or he does and can't stop. He bows over you, forehead pressed to the crown of your head, shoulders shaking in small, uneven pulses he's trying desperately to keep silent. Years of training, years of surviving, years of holding everything inside, finally cracking under the simple fact that you are still here.
"I've got you," he murmurs, voice wrecked, words stumbling over each other. "I've got you, I've got you..."
Your fingers twitch. This time, the movement is stronger, a weak curl against his shirt, fabric bunching slightly in your grasp. The sensation filters through layers of fog, heat, exhaustion, and the lingering echo of pain. Consciousness creeps back in like dawn through heavy curtains.
Your throat burns. Your body feels impossibly heavy, as if gravity doubled while you were away. Every muscle aches with a deep, bone-level fatigue that sleep alone could never fix.
Sound reaches you first. A heartbeat. Loud. Steady. Close enough to be yours, except it isn't. Breath above you, hitching, uneven. Fabric shifting faintly with each inhale.
Someone is holding you. You force your eyes open.
The world swims into view in slow, watery shapes. A blurred patch of green light. A shadow that resolves into the curve of a shoulder. Blond strands of hair brushing your cheek.
Leon.
He doesn't notice you're awake yet. His face is buried against your head, one hand cupping the back of your skull with fierce gentleness, thumb moving in tiny, repetitive strokes like he's soothing a nightmare that hasn't ended for him yet.
Your voice comes out as a rasp. "Leon...?"
He freezes. Absolute stillness, like a statue suddenly unsure whether it's allowed to move. Slowly, he lifts his head. His eyes are red. Not just glassy, not just tired, but openly, unmistakably wet. Tracks of tears cut through the grime on his cheeks, catching the light as he blinks hard, as if blinking might erase evidence before you can register it.
For a second, he just stares at you, something raw and disbelieving cracking across his face, like he expected this moment and still isn't sure it's real.
"You're..." His voice fails. He clears his throat roughly. "Hey."
You try to smile. It feels wobbly, incomplete. "Hi."
Relief hits him so visibly it's almost painful to watch. His shoulders sag, tension draining out of him like someone cut the strings holding him upright.
"Hey," he repeats, softer this time, thumb coming up to brush your cheek in a careful sweep, as if confirming you're solid. "You're back."
"Was I... gone?"
His jaw tightens. "Not allowed."
You attempt a small laugh. It comes out as a weak breath. His hand slides to the side of your neck, fingers resting over your pulse again, counting, grounding, refusing to trust his eyes alone.
"You scared me," he says quietly.
Your gaze drops to his chest, to the wrinkled fabric where you must have been gripping him earlier. "Sorry."
His head snaps slightly. "Don't."
The word is sharp, then softens immediately.
"Don't apologize," he adds, voice rough. "Just... don't."
You nod faintly. Even that feels like work.
For a moment, neither of you speaks. You just lie there in his arms, breathing the same air, sharing the same small pocket of reality after hours of separation that happened without distance. Then you notice how tightly he's still holding you.
"Leon," you murmur, "I can't breathe."
He releases you instantly, horror flashing across his face. "Sorry. Sorry."
He shifts his grip, supporting you more carefully, one arm still behind your shoulders but no longer crushing you to him. His other hand lingers at your jaw, thumb brushing your skin as if he can't quite stop touching you.
"You're okay?" he asks, scanning your face like he's looking for cracks. "Dizzy? Nauseous? Vision?"
"Everything hurts."
He exhales, something that might be relief ghosting through the pain in his expression. "I'll take it."
Your eyes drift past him, taking in the ward, the beds, the dim light. Memory trickles back in jagged pieces. Teeth. Heat. Falling. Darkness.
"...You found it," you whisper.
He nods once. "Yeah, told you we would.
Your mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "Yeah. You did."
You study him more closely now, the red around his eyes, the dampness he hasn't fully wiped away, the way he keeps blinking as if his vision is unreliable.
"You were crying," you say softly.
Immediate denial rises to his lips. You can see it form. Then he looks at you. And whatever excuse he was about to give dissolves.
"...Yeah," he admits, voice low. "Maybe a little."
A tear slips free anyway, tracking down before he can stop it. He doesn't bother hiding it this time. Doesn't look away. Just lets it exist.
"You weren't waking up," he says, as if that explains everything. It does.
Your chest aches in a different way now. You lift your hand slowly, muscles protesting, and touch his face. Your thumb brushes the damp track on his cheek, wiping it away with clumsy tenderness.
"I'm here," you whisper.
He leans into your hand without thinking, eyes closing briefly, relief and exhaustion and something deeper collapsing together inside him.
"Yeah," he murmurs. "You are."
He covers your hand with his, pressing it lightly to his skin as if anchoring himself. After a moment, his gaze sharpens again, mission awareness bleeding back in.
"We need to move," he says gently. "Facility's not stable, and we don't know how long before more of them wander in."
You nod, though the idea of standing feels ambitious at best. He notices the hesitation immediately.
"Hey," he says softly. "I've got you."
He shifts, sliding one arm behind your back again, the other under your knees, lifting you with the same careful strength as before, only this time you help a little, arms coming up weakly around his neck. Your head settles against his shoulder.
"Still getting dessert?" you murmur against his collar.
A real smile breaks through at last, small but bright as sunrise after a storm.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."
He turns toward the exit, steps steady, protective hold unyielding but gentle now that he knows you're truly there.
Three days later, the world smells like coffee and clean laundry instead of antiseptic and decay.
Sunlight spills through half-closed blinds, laying soft gold across the rumpled bedspread and the tangle of blankets around your legs. The air is warm, carrying the faint hum of city life from outside, tires on pavement, a distant horn, someone laughing somewhere far below.
Leon sits beside you, forearms resting on his thighs, watching with that quiet intensity he hasn't quite learned to turn off yet. He looks cleaner than before, shaved, hair damp as if he showered quickly and came right back, but the exhaustion still clings to him in the set of his shoulders.
"You're staring," you murmur.
"Monitoring," he corrects.
"You blink?"
"Sometimes."
You huff a small laugh, the motion tugging at sore muscles that remind you exactly how recently everything went wrong. His gaze sharpens instantly, concern flaring before you even realize you winced.
"I'm okay," you assure him.
He searches your face a moment longer, then nods, not convinced but willing to accept it for now.
"You hungry?" he asks.
"Always."
He disappears into the kitchen and returns with coffee and a plate of pancakes that look slightly uneven but deeply sincere. You eat, he watches, tension slowly unwinding from him with each bite you take.
When you finish, you lean back, warm and heavy with food, eyelids drooping in content exhaustion.
"So when is our dessert date?" you ask softly.
Leon goes still. Then he stands without a word and leaves the room again.
You hear the soft thud of the door opening, the faint clink of something ceramic, the careful movements of someone handling something fragile. When he returns, he's holding a small white bakery box tied with a thin ribbon, the bow slightly crooked as if it had to survive transport in a large, impatient hand. He sets it on the bedside table with surprising delicacy.
"I didn't make this," he says gruffly. "Figured we've both suffered enough."
Suspicion and curiosity spark together. You pull the ribbon loose, lifting the lid. Inside sits a slice of decadent chocolate cake, glossy frosting catching the sunlight, layers dark, dense, and unapologetically indulgent.
Your chest tightens.
"You remembered," you whisper.
He shrugs, looking suddenly very interested in a spot on the wall. "You seemed pretty sure it was worth surviving for."
You lift the cake plate slightly and notice something tucked beneath the ribbon, partially hidden against the cardboard.
An envelope. Your fingers hesitate, then slide it free. Leon doesn't look at you. He's staring out the window now, jaw set, shoulders a little too rigid, like he's bracing for impact.
Inside the envelope are two plane tickets. Beach destination. Departure in two weeks. Round trip. Vacation time from work. A hotel confirmation tucked behind them.
For a long moment, you can't speak.
"You said somewhere boring," he mutters quietly, still not turning around. "Figured that would be perfect."
"Leon..."
He finally looks back, expression carefully neutral, but there's something vulnerable in his eyes, something that says this mattered more than he wants to admit.
"You don't have to go," he adds quickly. "If you're not up for travel yet, we can postpone, or cancel, or—"
You set the tickets down and reach for him. Your fingers curl into his shirt, pulling him closer until he's standing right at the edge of the bed, close enough that you can see the faint pulse at the base of his throat.
"Thank you," you say softly.
Not just for the vacation. Not just for the cake. He understands anyway. His face softens, tension draining into something warm and quiet and deeply relieved.
"Yeah," he murmurs. "Anytime."
You pick up the fork, take a small bite of cake, then hold it out to him. He leans in, accepting it, eyes never leaving yours. For a second, neither of you pulls back, the space between you charged with something gentler than urgency, heavier than simple affection.
"Worth it?" he asks.
You nod. "Absolutely."
You set the plate aside, your hand finding his again, fingers threading through his with familiar ease. He squeezes back immediately, grounding, protective, like he did in the hallway, only now there's no fear behind it. You both crave this closeness after it was almost ripped away just days before.
You tug lightly, coaxing him down to sit beside you on the bed. He goes without resistance, one arm coming around your shoulders automatically, careful of lingering soreness. Your other hand lifts, brushing his cheek where faint redness still lingers if you look closely enough.
"I love you," you whisper.
His eyes close briefly, leaning into your touch in a way he never would in public. Just here, just now, where it's safe to be human.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I love you too."
Leon leans in first. The kiss is slow, gentle, nothing desperate or urgent, just warm lips and shared breath and the simple reassurance of contact. He stills for half a heartbeat, like he's afraid you might break, then melts into it, one hand cupping the back of your head. When you pull back, his forehead follows yours, resting lightly against it, eyes still closed.
"Careful," he murmurs. "Doctor said no overexertion."
You smile. "Pretty sure that wasn't what they meant."
"Still."
His arm tightens around you, drawing you closer until your head rests against his shoulder, fitting there like it always has. His chin settles lightly against your hair, breath warm, steady.
Outside, the city moves on. Inside, time slows to match the rhythm of two people who fought hard for the right to sit in a quiet room and eat cake.
"Two weeks," you murmur.
"Yeah."
"You think you can handle boring?"
He huffs softly. "I'll manage."
You laugh, the sound light and real and alive. His chest rises under your cheek, its vibration grounding you in the best possible way. For a long moment, neither of you says anything else. You just sit there, sunlight warming your skin, fingers loosely entwined, the promise of salt air and quiet days waiting ahead like a horizon you can finally see. Sharing cake, and kisses, and being alive, and together in your home.
Dividers by @uzmacchiato <3
Thanks for reading<3 Just a reminder, my requests are open! I would love to hear from you!
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