anytime, for anything ✦ ch. 1
ao3 : ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 | ch. 5 | ch. 6 | ch. 7 | ch. 8 | ch. 9 | ch. 10 | ch. 11 | ch. 12 | ch. 13 | ch. 14 | ch. 15 | ch. 16 (bonus!) | ch. 17 | ch. 18
summary: reader is a bartender. one night, your whiskey-favoring regular asks to walk you home and you invite him in for the night. the man you just slept with, leon s kennedy? he's a federal agent with a dead wife, and you're a few months out of an abusive relationship. neither of you know how to navigate this, but you can't keep your hands off one another. pairing: leon kennedy / reader rating: explicit 🔞 series tags: no y/n for reader insert, widow!RE9!Leon, soft dom and submissive Leon, age difference (reader is in her 30s), alcoholism, abusive relationships (not with leon!), trauma...
note: reposting from ao3! posting the first 2 to start, then I'll slow drip until I catch up <3
... YOU, I
You have a rule to never bring home a customer, but something about this one made you break your promise. Rules are meant to be broken anyway, aren’t they?
He’d been showing up to your bar nearly every night since you started. A regular; which makes this trespass even more of a mistake, doesn’t it? Somehow, he’d simply enraptured you in a way you’d never felt before.
Maybe it’s those mesmerizing blue-gray eyes. Maybe it’s how fucking big he is, the literal definition of “built like a Greek god”. Or maybe it’s the overgrown but endearing haircut that falls slightly over his eyes, like a refined version of the boys you liked in high school who pretended to be emotionally overburdened.
You always liked them a little broken, after all.
It began like any other: he took his spot at the end of the bar that you often favored and asked for the usual, whiskey neat. You’ve never seen him order anything else, not once, and wonder how he can tolerate it night after night like that.
“Another,” he says as you walk by, sliding the glass across the table.
You’ve learned that his name is Leon, that he’s a cop (or, was once?), that he likes corny one-liners, and that he’s entirely too fucking old for you, but you find yourself drawn to him every evening anyway.
“Please?”
“Please,” Leon echoes in a tone that conveys bitterness, but the half-smile he shoots you says otherwise.
“Last one.”
“You ever gonna give me a break?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Could always take my business to another bar.”
“You could,” you taunt back, knowing that he’s had many an opportunity and keeps coming back here anyway.
Back to you. Back to that seat at the edge of the bar that seemed to always be reserved just for him. Always giving a generous tip, too, and leaving you wondering how a cop could afford this habit.
Keys? Check. Wallet? Check. Phone? Check.
You have a three-point validation system every night before you leave, developed after leaving your phone at the bar one too many times and not realizing until you got home, when it was too much time and energy to bother walking back. Easier to wait til the next day. You have a computer at home anyway.
You give the bar one final look about and pull on your jacket before leaving and locking the door behind you. You’re practiced and quick with it, standing a bit to the side as you do it, minimizing your blind spots.
Despite your best efforts, someone manages to sneak up on you in one of them, scaring you as you turn around and come face to face.
“Leon!” you gasp, raising to your hand to your chest in shock and then sighing in relief. “What are you still doing here?”
“What’re you doing walking home alone at 1 A.M.?” he retorts, somehow looking even more pissed off than he has on his worst nights at the bar.
“You worried about me?”
That at least gets a little chuckle from him.
“Might be.”
You blink. You really didn’t expect that answer.
Certainly didn’t expect him to be loitering outside the bar after your shift.
“I walk every night, if you must know. Bus doesn’t run this late,” you answer anyway. You can’t stop yourself. You’ve grown too comfortable with him, too excited to get to understand him piece by piece.
“Alone?”
“Yes, alone. What’s it matter to you?”
“Do you even carry?”
“What, like pepper spray?”
“Jesus. D’you have no sense of personal safety?”
“What’s gotten into you? You’ve never hung around here like this before…”
At last, like you’ve broken through somehow—likely just one thin layer of the fucking onion that he is—he chills, uncrossing his arms and unclenching his jaw, though his eyebrows are still pinched together. Concern or frustration, you don’t know. Could be both.
“Just stop askin’ questions and let me take you home?”
The way he says that has you in a chokehold for a moment. The way he so smoothly transitions from an annoyed tone to one that’s still sharp, but sweet.
Before you can stop yourself, you speak.
“You see me like your daughter or something? Think I can’t take care of myself?”
It comes out much harsher than you intended, argumentative, when all he’s done is offer to keep you safe. But it bothers you, burns you that he’s been such a closed fucking book and now he shows up like this, out of nowhere, with this display of… protectiveness?
With a huff, you concede.
“Fine.”
“Should be saying ‘thank you’,” Leon replies, tone sharp. Right before you blink and nearly miss it, you see him actually smile.
It only takes you about twenty-five minutes to get to your street, which is normal for you (and has been for a while now), but apparently too long for Leon’s liking.
“You walk this every night by yourself?”
“That’s what I said. Ever since I started at the bar, and nothing’s happened.”
“Not yet,” he counters. “Hasn’t been that long.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
You half-regret it as soon as you say it. He might be the type to actually do something about it.
“You mentioned pepper spray earlier. You actually carryin’ any?”
“No,” you admit sheepishly.
“That’ll be a start. Need self defense lessons too. Like Krav Maga, or—“
“Oh my god, you’re being ridiculous,” you interject. “Anyway, this is me.”
You come to a townhouse, a modest little place with a microscopic yard, if it can even legally be called that. It’s the perfect size for you, though; just enough to brighten the place up with some greenery.
You make your way up the few steps and to your door, pushing in the key and unlocking. Leon follows, though at a much slower pace than only moments before, and he stops at the opposite edge of your doorstep. Close, but after your proximity during that walk, this choice in distance feels so loud.
“Promise you’ll at least consider the things I mentioned, yeah?”
It truly sinks in then, breaking the thick barrier of your addled brain, that he’s being sincere. That he’s showing this side of him you’ve always wanted to see, has been all night, that he keeps under wraps so fucking well. And now that he’s offered it to you, you respond with an attitude. You’re in luck that he seems to take it all in stride and is a persistent man. Might even like it.
So, he’s worried about you. Your safety, specifically. And despite all the protests that tumbled out of your mouth earlier, you relish in that understanding.
“I promise.”
“See you later, then,” he replies, turning away.
It’s more of a half-hearted offer than a statement.
That’s when you break your rule for the first time.
“Leon—wait.”
He stops in his tracks, and you think you’d give anything to see the look on his face right now, hear even a moment of his thoughts.
“Will you come in?”
You weren’t sure before, you realize—you couldn’t think straight, couldn’t decide if asking him to stay is truly what you wanted. But this brief, agonizing moment while you wait for his response tells you everything you need to know about your feelings on that.
It takes him maybe a few seconds to turn around, though it feels like minutes, the tension heavy.
“Shouldn’t,” is all he says.
“Not ‘can’t,” you note. When he doesn’t respond, you push your luck and prod again, “Please?”
You lean back on the door, your hand on the knob, turning it and pushing it in. Holding the door open like an invitation. You’ve never acted like this before, at least not that you can remember—not since you were in high school; something about him really has you all fucked up in the head, doesn’t it?
“Goddamnit.”
Leon steps towards you, and you take his hand to lead him in and shut the door behind, your head in the clouds and body operating on autopilot.
Suddenly, you feel a bit self-conscious about your apartment: the state of it and how… small and boring it is. Affordable rent and affordably decorated (and you were never a great interior designer). Normally, you wouldn’t expect a cop to have much better, but it’s become clear that Leon is not a regular cop, if he’s still one at all.
“Want a drink?” you ask, kicking off your shoes and hanging up your purse.
“You’re gonna allow me another, huh?” Leon teases. A gentle smile forms at the edges of his lips, though once he bends down to take off his boots, it retreats behind the tousled hair draped over his forehead.
Seeing his, you realize then that you’d been grinning back at him, ever since he took that first step toward the door. Probably looking like a fucking idiot.
At the bar, you’d made him smile maybe a handful of times, and at great effort. Took a special kind of insistence for what felt like forever for the first—though you’d started this job a couple months ago, it wasn’t until just a few weeks back that you’d finally cracked his surface, and of courseit was an embarrassing high school story that did it.
But that had opened the gates. The rest came easier—albeit not easy nor often—after that.
“I’m not at work anymore,” you answer, escaping from that stupor. “Besides, it’s been a minute since your last one. I have faith you’ll survive one more.”
“Not gonna say no to that.”
“Come on, then. And you can leave your coat on the rack there.”
In your mind, you’re picturing if you were taking it off for him. How you’d stand behind him and ask him relax his shoulders for you and he’d wordlessly obey like it’s a ritual you established… as if he’s heading over to your place after getting off work like it’s a completely normal thing. You’d pull it down his large shoulders, guiding it over his arms, feeling up his biceps as you went…
The realization that daydream is far too domestic breaks you out of it harshly, like waking up to a bucket of ice water in your face. You internally chastise yourself for even thinking it—just more proof of how he’s managed to infect you.
Keeping up your momentum, once he’s hung up his jacket, you take him by the hand and lead him into the kitchen, leaving him by the fridge. You rummage through your cupboards for drinks, on the hunt for a bottle of his preferred, whiskey—you could’ve sworn you had one, leftover from a party, but come up short after checking everywhere you can think of.
As you turn back to him with two bottles in your hands, your mind blanks for a moment, just… him having left your sight, then looking to see him there, arms crossed and leaning against your fridge—his well-defined muscles showing clearly through his tight shirt, almost like he might as well not be wearing one at all—his hair disheveled in the best way, framing his face—the softness in his eyes, looking at you in a way you never thought you’d see—
“Uh, sorry. Looks I don’t have any whiskey,” you finally force out, flustered. Hoping that stretch of silence wasn’t as long as you feel like it was—and hoping that you weren’t gawking at him. “I have vodka, though. Or tequila. And there’s beers in the fridge.”
“Your choice, sweetheart.”
“Then you’re taking a shot with me,” you decide, shoving the bottle of vodka in his hands and setting two shot glasses on the counter. “Here. You pour.”
“Ain’t that your job?”
“Shift’s over, sir.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Leon says.
You could get used to hearing that.
He pushes himself off the fridge with his hips—even that simple motion is enough to make your stomach flutter, Jesus Christ—and walks over to stand beside you, nearly touching.
So close to you. So close to you that you can take in his scent, always masked when you’re at the bar. All the notes are fainter now, worn away since application, but you still piece together whiskey (of course), something woodsy, and a hint of vanilla.
You’re, once again, lost in your mind when he’s readied the shots, yanking you back to reality when his arm brushes yours and offers you one of the glasses.
“Thanks. Cheers?”
You lift your glass up, pausing to see if he accepts your invite.
“Cheers,” he says plainly, clicking your shots together.
Shit. He’s doing it for you, because you asked. His drinking tends to be completely unceremonious—besides the fact that he does it so often it ought to be one.
In unison you down your drinks; Leon takes his like it’s a sip of water.
Before you can begin to panic over what comes next, realizing you had no plan (and you haven’t brought anyone home with you like this for years), large hands sweep under you, hoisting you up by the thighs and settling you on the kitchen counter, your body pushing the bottles and glasses aside.
Leon wedges himself between your thighs, then guides your legs to wrap behind his back.
That single shot of vodka must’ve taken you the fuck out, because you can’t believe this is real.
He’s quick to close the space between you, leaning in and pressing his lips to yours. It’s gentle, savoring the feel of your soft lips on his.
Leon leans forward, his palms flat on the counter to hold himself up as he pushes his body against yours, your breasts pressed to his chest now. Then he deepens the kiss, open-mouthed but not daring to use his tongue yet, just eager, itching for more of you.
You slide your hands from his neck over his shoulders, then down his arms—like you’d imagined earlier when you dreamt of taking off his jacket—settling on clinging at his biceps that barely fit in your grip.
Regretfully, you pull away to break the kiss, still close enough to inhale his exhales and his yours.
“Think I need another drink,” you murmur.
He backs up a bit and asks, “Am I that bad of a kisser?”
“No! I-I just—I need to loosen up a bit,” you explain. “Relax my nerves.”
Leon closes in on you again, but this time he settles in your neck, utterly fucking distracting you with his warm breaths on your skin there, prickling the skin across damn near the rest of your body. You breathe out deep, tense, doing your best not to let a moan slip from you. Not yet. Not at such a simple touch…
“You’re nervous?” he asks, now peppering you in light kisses from your collarbone to your ear. “Why?”
Your legs tighten around him involuntarily, and in the act of drawing him in closer, you feel his clothed, half-hard dick between your legs.
You nearly lose hold of yourself at that.
“You,” you say, strained. God, you want to grind yourself against him so fucking badly, but you need to behave—you’ve already been desperate enough for him (and surely will continue to be), and you need that fucking drink.
“Me?” he whispers with fake offense into your ear, every exhale going straight to your cunt.
“L-Leon—a drink please,” you protest.
“Patience,” Leon reprimands you. “I’ve got you.”
You take your hands off his biceps when he reaches to grab the set aside bottle of vodka, leaning back and supporting yourself with your arms behind you and on the counter instead.
He comes back with only the bottle and holds it up to your face; you glance down at the bottle, then up at him, and tip your head slightly. Leon tilts the bottle as you take the opening of it between your lips, pouring about a shot’s worth down your throat.
It feels intimate in a way. Makes you think about your mouth around him, and you hope that’s what he’s thinking, too.
The liquid heats you from the inside out, although you’re not sure how much of that is truly the vodka and how much is your burning fucking need for him to take you, the proof of it pooling between your thighs.
You push the bottle back to him, offering.
“Nah,” he declines, setting it back on the counter. “Wanna be fully present for this.”
Leon cups your warming face in one of his hands, rough on your smooth skin, and his other squeezes your thigh over the fabric of your pants. If he goes too much farther, he’ll find out for himself just how horribly down bad you are for him… and that wouldn’t be the worst thing, but you’re torn between enjoying this moment of closeness and playfulness with him and wishing he’d fuck you here and now.
Your heart’s about ready to burst from your chest when he kisses you again, hungrier, greedier this time—you feel his tongue prod at your lips and as soon as you part, he’s diving in, tongue dancing with yours. Your palms instinctively rest on his chest, weakly clutching at his shirt while he explores your mouth and starts rubbing his thumb into your thigh, eliciting a soft moan from you, muffled by his mouth on yours.
Much as you wish you didn’t have to breathe, you’re forced to break away from him, panting as you catch up, a bit lightheaded.
The hand on your cheek trails down the side of your neck, keeping a light touch with the tips of his fingers, and teases at your neckline briefly before continuing down to your waist. God, he’s so large it feels like he could pick you up with a single hand.
You know he’s big between the legs too, you can feel it, though you’re sure that what you feel won’t be as impressive as when you see it.
Thinking about that is not helping with the lightheadedness.
“Had it all wrong earlier, you know,” Leon says.
“How so?”
“Don’t see you like a daughter at all,” he continues, and the word ‘daughter’ comes off his tongue bitterly. “But you are too fucking young for me.”
Mm. Are you, though?
Leon is out of your typical age range, you know that much—he’s insanely fucking attractive, but the wrinkles and grey in his hair still give away that he must be fifteen years older than you. At minimum. At thirty-three, that puts your guess for him around forty-eight.
Really pushing it considering you usually date people under forty, but Leon’s got your heart and cunt in a twist.
“Yet you’re still here,” you challenge.
“Yeah. I’m still here.”
You almost regret ribbing him with that, hearing the uncertainty (and is that guilt?) in his voice, so you offer some reassurance.
“I want this,” you insist, running your hands down his chest, your finger pads carefully exploring every divot, every edge; you can’t get enough, even if you were here in this moment for a hundred years.
“You sure?”
He’s got you in his grasp and you can still feel the semi in his pants, twitching in response to your touch. So fucking close to touching you. You toy with the hem of his shirt, sliding your hands beneath and feeling him up more, reveling in it. Your fingertips graze over the hair crawling from his navel to the waistband of his pants, following that line.
Leon’s breath catches when you brush against the skin right above that boundary of fabric, dick throbbing once against your woefully still-clothed cunt.
“More than sure,” you answer, shifting a bit, utterly desperate for him to touch you anywhere, in any way, and finding it increasingly difficult to keep yourself sane and in control. “Please, Leon.”
“You keep saying my name like that…”
“Then what?”
“Would do a lotta things to hear that sweet voice of yours cry my name,” he says. “Fuckin’ heavenly.”
“Show me,” you insist. “Show me what you’d do.”
