"The Love You Left Behind"
Synopsis: After returning to Raccoon City nearly 30 years after its destruction, Leon comes to the rubble of your workplace. Within it, he finds the walking remnants of you, his lover from 28 years ago.
Ship(s): Rookie!Leon & Requiem!Leon x girlfriend! medical student! reader (slight canon divergence, Leon was not late on his first day because of a breakup)
Theme(s): Angst, hurt with NO comfort, story told through several flashbacks, people do dumb things in grief, inspired by "The Love You Left Behind" by Michael Schulte and "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane (blue denotes lyrics to the songs)
Content Warning(s): character death, some violence and potentially intense description of Leon putting down zombies, swearing, one mention of wanting to throw up, long because I'm insane, an unkissed brick, Leon cries again does that count?
Raccoon City didn’t look any smaller than it did 30 years ago. In fact, memory had a bad habit of making everything bigger- the Raccoon City in his mind had wider roads, skyscrapers reaching for the heavens. Now, though, everything had changed. Roads were littered with the rubble of those towering skyscrapers, decrepit and caved in like the roads that had once carried ordinary citizens to and from work, school, other activities of daily life.
The first Raccoon City in his mind had been one of neon and noise- life milling about as it did, a bustling city that he had once upon a time taken an oath to protect. Leon had joined the academy to see the lives of ordinary citizens safe, to ensure that the children in Raccoon City would be able to live lives without fear, without going through what he had in his own youth. But he had never gotten to see that version of the city in his dreams. Instead, his first day- once intended to be an initiation into the city’s police force- was one that would come to haunt his dreams for the foreseeable future. He no longer awoke from his slumber each night drenched in cold sweats, the visions of the B.O.W.s plaguing his dreams until he could no longer rest- those nights were fewer and more far between- but he could never quite erase it entirely from his memory. Quiet reminders of that night always lingered in the back of his mind, feeding the reminders that he couldn’t save anyone- not even himself.
September 30th, 1998. The end of Leon Kennedy’s beginning. Thirty years ago, he had run from this city with blood on his hands and a promise at his back, an understanding that he would never again see the Raccoon City he had been so adamant to protect. Now, it seemed, that promise had come back to collect.
Rubble crunched beneath his feet with every step he took, each footfall kicking up a cloud of dust and ash that burned his nose, filling his every sense with the fallout. As much as he reminded himself to focus on his mission, he couldn’t help but allow his mind to wander the slightest bit as he took in his surroundings. The gun shop in which he had met Mr. Kendo…and his daughter. An Italian restaurant he had once promised his partner that he would take them when they reunited in Raccoon CIty.
His heart ached, and he stopped in his tracks.
His partner.
He had met you when he was in the academy. Still a green, bright-eyed rookie who was all but enthralled by his upcoming assignment as soon as he graduated. You, at the same time, were set to arrive not long before he did, having finally been accepted into a medical school of your dreams and beginning your first clinicals at Raccoon City General.
“It’ll be perfect!” you had joyously exclaimed as you all but threw yourself against him, wrapping your arms around his neck in a hug as soon as you opened that acceptance letter. “I get to go to Raccoon City too! We won’t have to worry about long distance.” You were beaming that day, the elation of being matched into a program you loved and the dissipating worry of potentially having to navigate a long-distance relationship or worse, going your separate ways, had you glowing. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you, absentmindedly nodding along to whatever it was that you had said. His hands had settled around your waist, lifting you off the ground in a hug, face buried in your neck as he inhaled the familiar scent of your perfume, the scent faint yet consuming all of his senses. The scent of home. “Yeah,” he had rasped, holding you tighter. “Yeah, we won’t. I knew you’d get in. If anyone could, it would be my brilliant, brilliant girl.”
He would get to build a home with you. It would be difficult, sure, navigating your respective lives in a new place. Medical school was difficult and sure to occupy a large portion of your time, not to mention your energy. He imagined the first years of your new beginning together would be slow, low-energy dates. Cuddling on the couch, watching the same trash movies you always talked him into watching whenever you were together. Falling asleep tangled in each others’ embrace, your head on his chest and dozing off to the gentle beating of his heart and your soft breathing in a cozy symphony.
He hadn’t thought about you in a while, he realized. At least, not consciously. He would never stop thinking about you, a voice in the back of his head reminded him. Even if his thoughts were not focused on you, as they often were not allowed to be due to the demands of his line of work, he realized that you were often in the back of his mind even in the little ways. Remembering your favorite flower whenever he’d seen one. Humming along to your favorite song as if it were second nature to him.
“Leon!” Your voice danced across his memory, and he turned his shoulders to follow the ghost of you in his mind, the same path you’d always traced through his apartment kitchen. “Come on, dance with me!” It was barely a request, already decided by the young woman in his space that he would be joining you whether he wanted to or not.
The sound of your playlist filled the kitchen quietly, a backdrop to the comfortable silence that had filled the space between you up until then as you cooked dinner together. Carbonara, you had insisted, was the perfect beginner meal to make together.
“I walked across an empty land. I knew the pathway like the back of my hand…”
“I don’t think that’s a good ide–!” You grabbed his hand before he could even finish the thought, spinning into his arms with a laugh as your arms came to drape around his shoulders. “Alright, alright, Princess. The ballroom floor is yours. But if I step on your toes, you can’t be mad at me.” He leaned down to press his forehead against yours, inhaling your presence as his hands settled on the dip of your waist.
There isn’t really space to dance. The kitchen is small, all he could afford reliably on what meager savings he’d put together while he was in the academy, but you made it work. You always did. His other hand found yours, intertwining your fingers together before he begins to sway. The rhythm is uneven at first as he found the rhythm to both the song and you.
“I’ll just… have to turn you into a frog, then!”
Leon laughed, blonde hair falling into his face as he shook his head. The singer’s voice has blended into the background by now, little more than background noise to all of his thoughts consumed by you, of this quiet moment within your own little world with him. Outside, the world continues- traffic rolls, time passes by- but here? Here, there is only this moment. Everything narrowed down to the now. The faint music, the feeling of your soft skin under his hand as his thumb brushed against your wrist the best he could manage without letting you go. His love pressed against his chest as he looked down to meet glimmering eyes he had all but fallen in love with the first time he’d seen them.
“There are worse things to be turned into,” he hummed. “But I could handle being a frog if it meant I still got kisses from you, Princess.” He spun you slowly, hand finding the dip of your spine as he brought you into a dip, his lips ghosting over yours faintly. “Just promise not to let me croak, okay, doc?”
You rolled your eyes, half-heartedly attempting to shove him away from you at his dumb joke. His grip did not falter, though, and he held you steady once again as he straightened you out once again, hands pulling you in once again for a proper kiss this time.
"This could be the end of everything, so why don’t we go somewhere only we know?”
His forehead met yours, eyes closed as he savored the moment with you. Slow dancing in the kitchen was almost a date night tradition for the two of you by now. It wasn’t planned, of course, but it was natural. Somewhere over the course of the night, you would find your way into each other’s arms, circling in the few spare feet of your own personal bubble.
He didn’t notice that the song was already over, too enthralled in appreciating the beauty in his arms, the heavy beating of his heart that grew ever stronger as every second passed with you in his embrace.
“Do you remember when you first heard this song? When you told me you didn’t like it?”
He listened to the lyrics for a few moments before a breathy laugh escaped him when recognition finally came to him.
"Maybe I'm hopeless, but I'm only human..."
“I hope that you know that I’d give it all for a moment with you,” Your voice, singing along to the familiar song brought him back to the present. He didn’t answer your question immediately, letting himself fall into a rhythm of dancing with you once again. He guides you across the floor of the kitchen, careful not to crash you into the dining room table as his movements got ever so bolder.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” His head nudged your own softly as he tucked you back into him. “I told you I didn’t get it.” You had carried this conversation on before the two of you were official, when he was still dancing around the desire to ask you to start going steady. Biweekly coffee dates, late night phone calls, flowers every time he saw you, yet no label. Denial was the label his friends had put on it for him- denial that he was actually developing feelings for a girl he knew that he may eventually have to leave behind if their fated courses were to diverge.
You looked up at him, eyes glimmering with warmth and chin resting on his chest. “And now?”
His lips found your forehead, lingering there for a few moments. “Now? Now, I get it.” He got you.
"These cold hands, this burning heart, will always be hollow without you.”
Holding you in his arms for a few more moments, he let himself simply appreciate the space you filled at his side. You’d picked him up after joining the academy, after the separation from his last partner. You’d been friends at first, but Leon’s hopeless heart had done little to stop the feelings that grew ever present more and more by the day. It wasn’t until you’d found yourself staying over at his place during a storm that those feelings came to light between the two of you.
“I love you,” he murmured in the comfortable silence, as if speaking it too loudly would shatter whatever this was. “Thank you…” His head dipped to bury in your neck.
“Le, what are you thanking me for?” The nickname slipped out so easily now. It filled him with warmth. It was short, simple, and barely a change from his name. But it was wholly, undeniably yours.
“For being here. For not leaving my sorry ass.”
Fingers finding his hair, you tugged on the soft blonde locks to get him to pull back and look at you. “Le, you don’t have to thank me for being your girlfriend. Really, it’s–”
“I mean it.” His hands gripped your waist again, bordering on painful. “I know this isn’t exactly the life fitting of a doctor. One bedroom apartment in the busiest part of the city. I can’t provide everything for you yet, not until I finish with the academy, but…I will. I promise.” He sounded almost like he was on the verge of tears. “I’ll get there. I’ll be able to give you everything you want. A ring, one worthy of the person who lit up my life like the brightest star in the sky. A house to raise our family in. Our future will be bright.”
Your hands found his face, your steps slowing until you stopped, just cradling his cheeks in your hands. “Leon Scott Kennedy-” Gods, hearing his name fall from your lips got him weak at the knees. For a brief moment, he imagined giving that name to you, dancing like this in a different scene. The blue sundress you currently wore longer, and white.
Maybe it was too early to pop that question- it definitely was- but your impending move to Raccoon CIty would be one step closer. You’d agreed to move in with him, sharing an apartment in the city that you would both start anew in together. You’d be going first since your clinical rotation started earlier than his assignment began, meeting the movers and ensuring everything was in place before he joined you about three weeks later.
One day. And he couldn’t wait.
He never made it to that apartment to meet with you. The last time he had seen you in person was the morning he said his temporary goodbye, sending you off with a chaste kiss and the promise to tell you all about his last weeks in the academy, about everything you had missed while you were separated. You had been unable to attend his ceremony, having fought tooth and nail to get an excuse from your clinical shift that week to no avail. You were left to hope that you would eventually see photos, sooner or later.
He wondered where you were these days. Every time he thought about you, fighting back the sharp pain that bloomed in his chest each time, he pictured your escape from the city, getting out and starting anew elsewhere. Had you moved on in the last 30 years? Gotten married, started a family with someone else? He’d always imagined that the two of you would have a daughter together, a miniature version of you that he would get to watch grow up into the same type of intelligent, resilient woman that had raised her. Elena. It was the name that came to mind every time he’d had the thoughts. Bright light, to accompany the nickname he had given you, his Golden Girl. You were his sunlight, the bright warmth that greeted him at the beginning of every day, and the light that shone upon him at the beginning of every dark night he spent weathering through night terrors.
Light streamed through the window of his bedroom, bathing the both of you in a warm gentle light as the sun crested the horizon to greet the world and guide it through a new day.
Rolling over onto his stomach, Leon was lured closer by a familiar weight to his left. Reaching out to wrap an arm around your waist, he pulled you to him, his chest finding your back as he buried his face in your neck. “Good morning,” he mumbled, tucking you securely into his grasp with a sense of finality, closing his eyes again with the full intention of going back to sleep holding you. “Not time to get up yet. Go back to sleep.”
He was successful for a short while, letting himself doze off again when your contented sigh made way for the sound of your rhythmic breathing only a few minutes later. He wondered if you were ever truly lucid, or simply half-awake when he’d slid you closer. You only stayed asleep for another half hour before your eyes fluttered open and the cruel state of consciousness fell upon you.
Groaning lightly, you moved to sit up in bed, only to be stilled by Leon’s arms resolutely holding you in place. A soft laugh escaped you and you settled back into his grasp, slowly turning over to face him. He wasn’t quite awake yet, affording you a few minutes to simply observe his sleeping features. He was so peaceful like this, face relaxed with the soft embrace of slumber. His nose twitched every so often as a strand of his hair brushed against his face, and a smile grew upon your features as you reached out to brush it back to protect his peace.
A larger hand caught your own as Leon pressed your palm to his cheek for a moment before turning his head to press his lips against your palm, eyes still closed. He lingered for a few moments before his attention was on you once again, baby blue eyes meeting your own. He settled his head back into the pillow, but not before leaning forward to press his lips to yours, something he had once promised you would always be the first thing he did in the morning. “Morning, gorgeous,” he greeted, voice low and scratchy from sleep. “Sleep well?”
You propped yourself up on an elbow beside him, your other hand idly moving to begin tracing patterns on his bare shoulder. “I always do when I’m with you,” you hummed. “You want breakfast, or do you want to stay here a little bit longer? You gotta go in today?”
He shook his head. “Nope, not today. Come here, you.” Reaching out as soon as he sat up to lean against the headboard, he pulled you back to his chest until he had your weight against his shoulder. “No plans for today, either. Do I get a day to do nothing but spend time with my golden girl?” His lips pressed against your shoulder where it peeked from the collar of the t-shirt you had stolen from his dresser to sleep in. “Breakfast can wait.”
Tipping your head upward, you observed your boyfriend, warmth growing in your chest. He really had grown into himself more throughout the course of your relationship, namely with showing affection to you. You had to hold back a laugh at the memory of him turning your favorite plushies around before he would even kiss you for the first time.
“They can’t watch that kind of debauchery!” he had exclaimed then, much to your chagrin, before you pulled him into you, his face flushed pink and breathless in the aftermath.
“What are you thinking about?” His lips caught the corner of your mouth, you having failed to hide the smile during your reminiscence, and an inquisitive hum rumbled through him.
“You.” The answer was simple, honest. “Well, us. Where we were and where we’re headed. Raccoon City is where it’s all really going to begin for us, huh?”
“Yeah, yeah it is.” A comfortable silence fell over the two of you, contemplative, as you thought of the future that was fast approaching for you. You had worked so hard to get here already, many sleepless nights during your undergraduate degree to get the credits you needed to graduate early. Day in and day out, you worked and worked, often wondering if the struggle was worth it and worrying about where you would go if you weren’t accepted to the medical schools you had applied to. Would you have to end things with Leon? Would you be happy knowing you had gotten into a school that wasn’t one of your first picks? Would you get in at all?
‘Of course you’ll get in.’ Leon’s voice echoed in the recesses of your mind, just as it had every time you had begun to express these doubts to him. ‘You’re my golden girl, and you’ve got a good head on those shoulders. And if they don’t accept you, I’ll…I’ll find a reason to arrest them for you.” He hadn’t been serious, of course, but it had cheered you up nonetheless.
In the pause that stretched between the two of you, Leon’s hand had found the charm of the necklace that had dipped under your collar, gently twisting the charm between his fingers. He had made it for you, somehow, during a brief stint with interest in crafting. He had wanted to gift you something to show his appreciation for you as his partner, but nothing he could find was quite good enough to suit the image of what he had in mind.
“I tried to make it perfect.” He had looked away when he presented her with the box over breakfast that morning several weeks ago. “But…”
You’d smiled softly at the gesture, lifting the necklace from the box and examining it.
The pendant was small, a dented disk that was hand-engraved with a crude, uneven design. He’d intended for it to be molded into the shape of the sun, if the person looking at it squinted and tilted their head, created while he sat at the kitchen table, fumbling with tools he barely knew how to use.
“I’d rather it be yours. It’s beautiful. Thank you, Leon.” She undid the clasp with skilled hands. “Will you help me put it on?” Nodding energetically, he had done exactly that, fumbling with the clasp for a few minutes before finally succeeding in his endeavor. Brushing your hair out of the way once more, he’d pressed a kiss to the nape of your neck before stepping back from you.
You’d worn it every day since then.
“Are you nervous?” He finally asked, slowing his fidgeting with the charm.
“A little,” you answered honestly on an exhale, breath light before you let an anxious little chuckle escape from you. “But…I’m excited, too. I mean, we’re starting a new life. Why wouldn’t I be? Besides, we won’t be apart for too long.”
“Hey, three weeks is a lot of time for things to happen.” His hand migrated to rub your arm. “The world could end in three weeks, you never know.”
You playfully pushed him away. “Even if it did, you’ll still come back to me, you loser.”
He laughed, pulling you flush against him once again before finally moving to sit up with the intention of getting out of bed. “I’d always come back to you, golden girl.” He kissed you lightly. “Now, come on. Let’s go get breakfast.”
He didn’t realize that he had gone the wrong way until he looked up at the remains of Raccoon City General Hospital. Perhaps part of him had forgotten his mission objective, letting his mind do more than just wander in passing.
It was a source of pride for Raccoon City. Alongside the R.P.D. headquarters, the city hospital featured some of the most ornate exterior decoration, a testament to the history the facility had grown alongside the rest of the population. The inside technology had always been advanced for the times, cutting-edge and attracting patients from even the farthest corners of the large city.
You had always been enthralled by the technological advancements headed by the hospital under the guidance of Umbrella. You’d been proud of working there, even, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the corporation still had you under its employ, wherever you’d found yourself in the aftermath. Did you know what Umbrella had done to the people you wanted nothing more than to protect?
His head craned upwards to look at the remnants of the large facility. It stood ahead of him in a broken silhouette, upper floors sheared over by the blast that had cleaved the top half from the bottom in seconds, its concrete bones and wire ribs exposed to the elements. Wind moved through the upper portion freely now, carrying once-white bedsheets like flags of surrender where they were partially trapped under rubble and debris. Nearly thirty years and it still hadn’t finished falling, instead standing as a cold reminder of the night that changed his entire world nearly three decades ago.
What remained of the facility’s perimeter signage was rusted over the years, the directional signs having faded until they were illegible and any authority eroded alongside them. His gaze traced the outline of the building once more, his current mind attempting to reconcile the signt before him with the one he carried in his memory. There would have been life inside, then, bright lights and people milling about.
He imagined you looking down at him from one of those upper floor windows as he passed by during one of his patrols, waving at him as you leaned against the glass. He swallowed thickly, unable to stop himself as he approached the front doors of the facility. His gun hand hovered over his holster as he broke the barricade away, breaching the doors with one swift kick to the hinges, giving way with a dry metallic groan.
Dust and ash covered the interior of the hospital in a thick blanket, undisturbed over the past years. The air was stale, heavy, and the lobby was barely recognizable now between the caved-in ceiling and broken tiles scattered about like an abandoned puzzle. His gaze found the clock on the far side of the room, long frozen in time at 2 P.M. “Still punctual,” he mumbled to himself. The time you often found yourself calling him on days you weren’t together, having started your lunch break right around that time. “Hope you aren’t mad at me for being late to this one, sweetheart.” He climbed over the reception desk that had been thrown sideways, metal drawers pulled out and long emptied, and ventured further inside.
He moved slowly, gaze catching on fragments of the life that stood frozen in time.
A wheelchair knocked upon its side.
A child’s shoe, dingy and half-charred.
Metal chairs fused to the floor and to each other from the heat.
Had they gotten out?
Your first unit had been on the third floor, that much he remembered. How could he forget? You’d seldom stopped expressing your excitement over getting to work in one of the pediatric units. You were perfect for that part of the job. He had looked forward to seeing the change you brought about in their world.
The climb to the third floor felt much longer than it should have, as if the very building itself resisted the idea of being revisited, and was attempting to keep him away. By the time he reached the unit, the sky was beginning to darken, the whisperings of sunset impending not far off. Muted light spilled through jagged openings in the half-collapsed walls of the rooms where remnants of normal life still clung stubbornly to the notion of normal existence. The horizon spanned wide and indifferent in the distance, not sparing him any more time to reminisce.
“I was late,” he murmured into the dead-silent air around him as he looked around at what could, and would have been. Colorful paint that once colored every wall was muted, peeling and chipping away from the patterns that had had been painstakingly placed there to keep the young patients from being scared in the cold, clinical white walls of the hospital. “I told you I’d come back to you. I guess I couldn’t keep that promise, huh?”
A gust of wind threaded through the broken structure as he looked outside, singing a mournful song to carry forth to him. He refused to turn and chase its voice. There was no point.
Instead, he found the old paper that he’d kept with him on every mission since then. It was old now, yellowed and worn at the edges, creased from the constant folding over the years. It had been taken after your first official date at your insistence, captured in a moment that had no idea what was coming for them down the road. It had rarely left his side when he was sent out on a mission. Sherry had offered to give him a restored version, rendered again with modern technology and breathing new life into the old, lower-quality photograph. He had always refused, wanting to keep you with him in the same form he remembered you since then.
“I’m still looking. Just in case you’re wondering.” He wouldn’t stop, that he had vowed the second he was out of Raccoon City. There would only ever be you, even if it took him 30 more years to find you.
If you had that much time, he thought wryly, fist tightening at the grim reminder of the growing black splotches up the expanse of his arm and neck.
Silence was the only thing that answered him, and the wind with its ongoing, mourning song. “Yeah. I figured as much.”
Turning from the hospital room, accompanied only with his thoughts, he paused at the doors. Opening his mouth as if he wished to speak, he silenced himself with a shake of his head before continuing on his path.
Making way towards the stairwell once again, deciding it was high time to get back to his mission now that he was in his right mind once more, his footsteps faded into the hollow quiet of the hospital.
He had only gotten halfway down the corridor before something slid across the floor behind him. No, not slid. This was soft, carrying a rhythm to it. Something was dragging. Turning around, retrieving his firearm from the holster at his side, he trained his eyes on the junction of the next hallway. Every one of his instincts stood on high alert, decades of training and fighting pulling him still. Sneaking forward closely, he prepared to turn the corner and face the creature that he’d certainly alerted. This was a hospital. If there was one, there was likely more not far behind it.
The sound came again, this time closer. Turning the corner, he pointed his firearm at the B.O.W. at the far end of the corridor, moving between the shadows. The figure moved unsteadily, lumbering forward toward him and catching itself against the wall with a jerking, unnatural gait.
His world narrowed to a single, unbearable point, blue eyes widening in disbelief as they focused on it. Time and decay had taken their share of the body, that was certain. What remained of its hair hung in uneven strands, greyed with dust and ash with each brittle strand. Light pink scrubs, once purchased with the intention of making the wearer more welcoming to the younger population, were torn and fused to char-darkened skin. One arm hung at an angle that would not be seen on a living, breathing human, the other extended straight out with fingers twitching in small, aimless motions.
But when the setting sun glimmered against a dented, circular pendant, he suddenly felt the contents of his stomach threatening to make a reappearance.
Thirty years was a long time to think of different endings, and Leon Kennedy had likely come up with dozens of scenarios in his mind on how he would reunite with you. None of them looked like this. Not a single one had prepared him for this, for the way his legs rooted him into the ground as if they suddenly weighed two tons.
“You… You’re not…” He couldn’t find his words. What could he even say? It couldn’t understand him.
You couldn’t understand him.
“Hey.” Despite his more rational brain and better judgement, he found himself trying anyway. Hope foolishly bloomed in his chest for a fleeting moment, unable to be schooled just yet. He knew this was hopeless, he was hopeless, but part of him still could not bring himself to believe that this was the reality he was living.
Pinch him, wake him up. Bring him back to the reality where he got to wake up with you asleep beside him again. Anything but this.
“You remember me?” The plea escaped his mouth before he could pull it back. “It’s me. Hey, it’s Leon. I-”
It lunged. It was erratic and sudden, stumbling. Hunger and instinct were the only things that controlled what had once been you. There had been no recognition that crossed your features despite his reminder. He knew there wouldn’t be. He tried anyway.
It was wrong. This was all wrong. He shouldn’t be finding you here. You shouldn’t be here. You should be outside of the city limits, happy and healthy with the family you had wanted to build, even if it wasn’t with him.
Knowing what he knew now, he should never have let you follow him into Raccoon City, into the clutches of the organization that had taken so many people from him. Even if it meant that you would have been led away from him, into someone else’s arms, or to an entirely different path in which the two of you became little more than strangers, supporting roles in each other’s stories.
His training snapped him back, the instinct to survive driving him to move aside, swiftly grabbing the wrist extended towards him and twisting until he heard a sickening snap as he only worsened what was broken. You stumbled forward, slamming into a nearby wall with heavy impact and a snarl before rounding back on him.
His heart pounded in both fear and sickening recognition as he stepped back, hands returning his gun to the space in front of him as he observed her from downsight. He should shoot, his mind screamed at him. Shoot, before this went too far.
“No,” he repeated, louder this time. Even he wasn’t sure if it was at his thoughts, or at the situation he had found himself in. “No!”
Your hand reached for his chest again.
Turning his head away so he wouldn’t have to watch himself do it, he fired. The sound was deafening, a sharp sequence of cracks that shattered the fragile silence. The recoil of his firearm, the Requiem that sang only for you, jolted up his arm as he aimed true with one, two, three shots.
The sound of the weight hitting the ground as you crumpled was almost cathartic. His stomach still threatened him, as did the burning behind his eyes that still refused to look at the body on the floor, but in his own dark way, Leon almost felt a semblance of peace for you at knowing that you would no longer have to live as something you would hate.
If you had been lucid enough, and still had an ounce of humanity to you, would you have asked him to do the same? To grant you mercy and take you away from the suffering you would undoubtedly face as you turned?
Would he have been able to do it if you had?
His grip faltered at the thought of you in what had been your last moments. Were you alone? Or had you barricaded yourself in with the children on the unit, holding them close and keeping them calm despite your own rising panic? He hoped it was the latter. You had always been the most gentle presence in his life, and if there was anyone who could keep those kids calm even in the face of impending danger, it would be you. Selfishly, he also hoped it meant you hadn’t been alone at the end. The thought of you, alone and forced to sit idly by as those all-too-familiar black splotches bloomed against your skin tore at the very fabric of his being. He had never wanted you to be alone.
Setting his jaw and remaining there unmoving for a few more beats, his arm slowly lowered, slipping the gun back into his holster securely.
And finally, he looked at you. Rather, what had once been you. The version of you in his mind was alive and well, not laying half-decomposed and forgotten in the walls of the hospital you’d thus devoted your time and life to, cursed to wander these corridors until something granted you the kindness of permanent rest.
“I’m sorry.” The words felt inadequate. “I should’ve been there.” Against his wishes, a traitorous tear slid down his face, leaving tracks in the grime settling on his features. Dust stirred around him as he knelt upon one knee at your side. Wind passed through broken walls again, its wail echoing the one he was warring with himself to contain.
A gloved hand brushed back brittle, ash-kissed hair, remembering what it had felt like twenty-eight years ago beneath his fingers, smooth and familiar when he carded through the locks every time you fell asleep against him.
“You wanted to save lives here.” His voice was rough,breaking halfway through the sentence. “And I couldn’t be there to save yours. I’m so sorry.”
His hands were shaking, and his gaze tore from you to stare at them as if they were not his own. They belonged to someone else, surely, and that would explain how they had done what he’d done.
”But all the love you left behind will always…”
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Against his better wishes, a sob tore through his throat, sudden and violent, as he all but buckled, curling over the remains of you as twenty-eight years of worry, of wondering where you had disappeared to, came to the surface at the cruel truth that you had been here. And that he would never get to live out any of those visions of your reunion, even if they were too far in the future to rekindle anything at their age. “You were– Fuck, you were looking at me, but it wasn’t you. I… I’m so fucking sorry.”
He stayed there with you until the sun threatened to set on him, casting him into a darkness that would only bring new horrors alongside it. Part of him didn’t care, couldn’t bring himself to care now that he had lost you officially, but the rational part of him reminded him that he not only had Grace to rescue, but the part of him that you remembered. You wouldn’t want him to stay here, to give up and die, after all. He had promised to become a man worthy of you, and that was a promise he fully intended to uphold, especially now.
When he could no longer stay by your side, having no more tears left to cry and leaving himself with only trembling shoulders with each heaving sob, Leon wiped his eyes and slowly schooled his emotions once more. Focus.
Rising to his feet, Leon paused only to remove the sun pendant from your neck. His hands trembled still, fumbling with the clasp just as he did 28 years ago when he had first placed it around your neck. It was old, fragile, and practically melted shut. Finally managing to remove it from your eternally still form, he tucked the pendant into one of the pockets of his harness. It was missing a few of the rays he’d painstakingly crafted all those years ago, having been lost to time and the erosion of nature, but it was so heartbreakingly you.
“I’m sorry I was late. A lot happened in three weeks, but…”
He hesitated again when it came time to say goodbye to you, standing a few paces away and looking back to where he’d left you.
“Your loser came back to you,” he said quietly, turning his back on the past once again as he took his firearm from its holster again to fight his way out of the facility. “Goodnight, my Golden Girl.”
"...Remind me of you"
All dividers by the wonderful @/strangergraphics!
Author's Notes: I had tormented a friend of mine with this idea a while ago and decided it was time to commit to the bit. Big thanks to Enso for sitting with me and making me lock in to finish it! Also... big thanks to Petal for being my first victim in beta...I love you pookie I'm sorry for making you cry even though you don't even go here
Likes, comments in tags and thoughts ALWAYS appreciated! I feed off of knowing y'all like what I write And, as ALWAYS, do not feed any of my works through AI systems of any sort. Keep AI out of creative spaces.
prguitarman
dailybridgerton
discoholicmusic
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
dededos
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner