The Grimoire

26 | Aquarius | Aspiring Writer | Lover of Horror

[catrionaalexandra]

First Headcanon!

Different Eras Leon S. Kennedy x Reader

How the different eras of Leon would say he cares/loves you.

Warnings: I don’t think there is any for this, but if there is, please let me know!

Word Count: 1,638

A/n: Use of Y/n (Your Name)

Resident Evil 2 Leon (1998):

To me, RE2 Leon is earnest, a little awkward, and sincere. He hasn’t built the emotional armour yet. When he admits his feelings, it would sound like he’s figuring it out as he says it:

“I didn’t come to Raccoon City expecting to feel anything like this. Honestly, I was just trying to survive. But every time I see you, it’s like the noise quiets down for a second, and I know this is a terrible time to say it — the worst, probably — but I don’t want to walk out of here and pretend this never happened, that.. that kiss never happened… You matter to me, Y/n. More than I can explain without sounding stupid. I just… really like you… if we make it through this, I’d like the chance to see where that goes…”

Resident Evil 4 Leon (2005):

RE4 Leon is more confident, a little sardonic and more emotionally guarded. Though, when he’s serious, the humour drops and what’s left is direct and steady:

“I’ve been doing this long enough to know getting close to someone is a risk. Usually I keep things simple…finish the mission, don’t look back. But you make that harder than it should be. Every time I tell myself to keep my distance, I end up wanting to be closer instead. And I’m done pretending that’s just coincidence. I care about you, Y/n. Not as a distraction, not as a passing fling. You matter to me, and whatever comes next… I want you in it.”

Infinite Darkness Leon (2006):

Infinite Darkness Leon is more closed off here I think, considering this version of him is fresh from RE4 by a year. He carries more trauma, while circling the word love without quite being able to land on it. He’s masking the weight of it with dry humour, but still letting the truth slip through:

“You ever notice how I can walk into a room full of bio-weapons without my pulse changing, but this conversation’s got me hesitating? That’s… new. I’m used to keeping things simple… job first, everything else somewhere far behind it. Keeps people safe, keeps me functional. But you’ve got this habit of standing right in that space I keep trying to clear out. And no matter how many times I tell myself it’s smarter not to feel this much about someone, you don’t exactly make it easy. I care about you, Y/n, more than I’m comfortable admitting, and I’m already saying more than I planned to. Just—” a quiet exhale, a crooked half-smile “—if I start acting like I’m trying to stick around, it’s not by chance. That’s me… choosing you… In my own way.”

Degeneration Leon (2008):

Degeneration Leon is calmer and more grounded. He’s more experienced, gentle in a way he doesn’t advertise, and protective without being overbearing. When he admits feelings, it would sound measured and sincere:

“After everything I’ve seen, I try not to take the people in my life for granted. Things change too fast and people disappear. But somehow, you’ve become the part I look for when the dust settles. Being around you feels… normal. And I didn’t realize how much I needed that until now. I’m not the best at this, Y/n, but I want you to know I love you. Not just because of what we’ve been through, but because of who you are and I’d like to keep you close, if you’ll let me?”

Damnation Leon (2012):

Damnation Leon is more jaded and politically worn down. He’s sharper, pragmatic, and a little cynical, but still deeply loyal. When he opens up, it sounds like someone who’s seen too much to romanticize it, yet can’t deny what he feels:

“I’ve spent enough time in war zones to know attachments complicate things. They give the world leverage, so I got good at telling myself I don’t need them. It’s cleaner that way. But every time I check in and hear your voice, that whole argument falls apart. You’ve got this way of… cutting through all the chaos, makes the rest of it feel distant for a minute, and yeah, that probably means I’m in deeper than I planned…”—he looks at you, “Don’t look so surprised, I’m still figuring out how to say it without sounding like an idiot. Just know this: what I feel for you isn’t temporary, and it’s not casual. If I’m fighting this hard to come back in one piece, it’s because there’s someone waiting I—” a brief pause, a deep, self-aware huff “—care about more than I’m supposed to. You included. Especially you.”

Resident Evil 6 Leon (2012-2013):

Poor RE6 Leon, he is so exhausted, guilt-ridden, and older in a way that shows, but he’s also fiercely steady. When he admits feelings, it comes out rough and unpolished, like he doesn’t have the energy to dress it up:

“I’ve buried enough people to know how this usually ends. Every time I let someone get close, the world finds a way to test it. Then I keep telling myself distance is the smart move, it’s safer for everyone. But then I look at you, and all that logic starts sounding like an excuse. You’re… the one thing in my life that doesn’t feel like a battlefield. And I’m not good at saying this — hell, I’ve been dodging it for a while — but what I feel for you isn’t something I can file away with the rest of the job. I love you, Y/n. More than I’ve let on, enough that it scares me a little, and after everything, that’s about as honest as I know how to be.”

Vendetta Leon (2014):

Vendetta Leon is at his lowest here… grieving, self-desprecating, carrying survivor’s guilt, and trying to sound casual even when he’s confessing something that terrifies him. He’d lace it with his usual humour to keep from completely unraveling:

“I’ve been telling myself for a long time that I work better alone, fewer variables, fewer ways for things to go wrong, and considering my track record… that’s not exactly paranoia. But then you keep showing up in my head when it gets quiet, and I hate how much that cuts through all the excuses. You make it hard to keep pretending I’m built for this empty, mission-to-mission routine. I’m not great at… saying what this is, feelings were never in the training manual. But when I think about the future — yeah, I know, scary concept — you’re there. And that’s not an accident. I want you, Y/n. More than I’ve let myself want anyone in a long time. If that sounds like I’m dancing around a word we both know is there…” a tired half-smile “…chalk it up to professional hazard, but it’s real. You’re real to me.”

Death Island Leon (2015):

Death Island Leon definitely feels more settled than his Vendetta version. He’s still carrying that weight, but he’s more stable, more self-aware. He’d sound quieter, like he’s choosing his words carefully, with a flicker of sarcasm to keep it from getting too heavy:

“You know what the worst part about doing this for so long is? You start thinking you’ve seen every version of how things can fall apart. Makes it easy to keep people at arm’s length. Call it experience. But you slipped past that somewhere along the way, and now every time I try to convince myself that keeping distance is the smart play, I hear how ridiculous it sounds. Because the truth is… you’re the part of my life that still feels solid. I’m not good at big speeches, and I’m definitely not good at saying that word you’re probably waiting on.” a faint, self-conscious smirk “But if there’s anyone I’d trust with my back — and everything else that comes with me — it’s you. I need you, Y/n. Deep enough that it’s not going anywhere. Guess that’s my way of saying… you matter more to me than I ever planned on letting anyone matter.”

Resident Evil 9 Leon (2028):

(A/n Since it’s the end, I made it a little one shot for this version of him 😗)

RE9 Leon is a silver fox and with his age there’s more wisdom. From the trailers of RE9 my guess is that he’d likely be emotionally mature, but still scarred. He’s someone who finally accepted that love is a risk worth taking and doesn’t dance around it anymore. He’ll confess in a way that’s quiet, direct, intimate and stripped of theatrics. Less circling, more certainty, the humour will still be there, but softer, like a pressure valve and not a shield:

He studies you for a second before he speaks, like he’s committing the moment to memory. Then a small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth — soft, a little tired, but real. His hand comes up to rest over yours, thumb brushing lightly against your knuckles, grounding himself as much as you.

“I’ve spent most of my life acting like there’d always be time to say things later, there usually wasn’t, so I’m not making that mistake with you. I know what this job costs, I know what it’s taken from me. And somehow, after all of it, you’re still the thing I want to come back to. Not out of habit, not because I’m afraid of being alone.” His gaze steadies on you, the smirk fading into something more open. “Because it’s you. I love you, Y/n. And I’m done pretending that’s something I need to apologize for.” His thumb shifts in a small, absent stroke against your skin. “If the world wants to make that complicated… it can get in line.”

[thegrimoire23]

My birthday was yesterday, I think my age is starting to sound a little too serious now 🤭😬😔 #twentysix

[catrionaalexandra]

“I Don’t Like This Plant, Leon.”

Leon S. Kennedy x Female!Reader

Inspired by that video on TikTok— “I don’t like this rock…Robert, it’s pissing me off.”

Summary: In the shadowy depths of the DSO, Y/n L/n, a 26-year-old prodigy with the razor-sharp intellect of Sherlock Holmes and the aesthetic of a gothic chemist, shares an uneasy office truce with her partner, Leon S. Kennedy. Her world is meticulous, monochrome, and clinically precise… until Leon brings her a bright green plant to “add a little colour.”

Warnings: Mild Language, Dark Humour, Morbid Themes, Gothic Imagery, Implied Violence, Flirtation/Romantic Tension, Sleep Deprivation, Workaholism.

Word Count: 1,078

A/n: I’ve been super obsessed with BBC Sherlock Holmes again and wanted to write a one-shot where the reader is basically the female version of him, set in modern times! I think it would be exciting if Leon had a “Sherlock”-like partner, which would make things interesting for a decent fanfiction. For now, enjoy this one-shot!

The fluorescent lights above cast a sterile glow across the DSO’s intelligence wing, but Y/n L/n’s office—if one could call it that—was anything but sterile.

It was a shrine of beautiful morbidity.

Dark velvet and charcoal wallpaper adorned the walls, capturing anatomy sketches in blackened frames like art.

Rows of glass vials lined the shelves, some filled with coloured tinctures and others with unknown solutions that shimmered faintly when the light hit them.

Books towered in teetering stacks: psychology, pathology, chemical engineering, and poetry. A brass phonograph played something slow and haunting—Schubert, or perhaps Chopin.

And right in the middle of it all, behind her desk of black mahogany, sat Y/n—hair a wild, ravenous cascade of h/c silk, coat tossed over her chair, sleeves rolled to the elbow, wrist bones glinting with the faint light from her desk lamp.

Her mind never rested, her e/c eyes darting clockwork between case files, autopsy photos, and a dissected map of Europe.

Leon S. Kennedy leaned against the doorframe, watching her work the way one might watch lightning thinking—there’s beauty, but danger too.

He had seen geniuses before, but Y/n was something else entirely.

Her brilliance was wrapped in shadow and humour, like a gothic poem that had learned to walk upright and outsmart the devil.

He cleared his throat. “Have you ever thought this place could use a little colour?”

Y/n didn’t even look up. “Colour? The only colours that matter to me are red for arterial spray and blue for cyanosis.”

Leon smirked, undeterred. “Yeah, that’s exactly why I brought you something.”

She looked up then—curious, brow quirking like a cat scenting something out of place.

He stepped forward, revealing a small pot in his hand. Inside, a bright and alive little green plant—an innocent fern—curled its leaves toward her in defiance of the gloom.

He placed the plant on her desk. “I thought it might help you breathe in here,” he said, unsure of himself.

For a long, silent moment, Y/n stared. The phonograph’s needle hissed softly in the background, mingling with the ticking clock.

Finally, she stood. Slowly.

Her heels clicked against the tile as she circled the desk, her eyes fixed on the offending green mass as if it were an alien artifact.

She bent low, absurdly close, studying the leaves, the soil, and the texture of the pot.

“Fascinating,” she murmured, her voice low and lilting, an accent laced with mischief. “You willingly brought a living organism into an environment laced with formaldehyde residue, chemical vapours, and—” she leaned even closer, whispering as though confiding in the plant itself, “—a woman who hasn’t slept in two days.”

Leon chuckled under his breath. “You’re welcome.”

Y/n straightened, crossed her arms, and tilted her head. “Leon, darling, I don’t like this plant.”

There was a long beat, the air between them seemed to hold its breath.

Then, in that perfectly measured, deadly British calm, she said:

“It’s pissing me off.”

Leon burst out laughing, the sound echoing through her shadowy lair. “You can’t be serious. It’s a fern, Y/n.”

She turned, her expression dead serious. Her eyes glinted with that unnerving intelligence that could slice through granite. “It’s mocking me,” she said. “Sitting there, smugly photosynthesizing like it owns the place.”

Leon wiped a tear of laughter from his eye. “You think a fern has an ego?”

“I know it does,” she said, jabbing a finger at it. “Look at it, it’s defiant. You can tell by the tilt of its fronds.”

He took a slow step forward, arms crossed, grin widening. “You analyze plants now too?”

“I analyze everything,” she retorted, sweeping past him toward the shelves. She plucked a magnifying lens from her table and peered through it at the plant, as if examining a suspect under interrogation.

“It’s invasive, aesthetically incompatible, and quite frankly—” she turned back to him with the dramatic flair of a stage actress unveiling a crime—“it throws off my entire cognitive feng shui.”

Leon chuckled as she added, “But since you brought it, I suppose it stays.”

He grinned. “Oh, does it?”

“Yes, it will serve as a control variable. I will observe whether introducing ‘colour’ into a crime scene environment alters cognitive efficiency or perceptual rhythm.”

Leon chuckled. “You mean you’re gonna see if it annoys you enough to ruin your day.”

Her lips curved—a smile like smoke. “Precisely.”

⸻

Hours passed.

The plant sat innocently on her desk as Y/n returned to work, muttering to herself and jotting down notes in her crisp cursive.

Leon lingered, leaning against the filing cabinet, as she processed information in real time. Her thoughts were a symphony of sharp words and quiet chaos.

Eventually, he noticed her e/c eyes flick toward the fern again.

Then again.

Finally—“Leon.”

He looked up. “Yeah?”

“…It’s still pissing me off.”

This time, Leon simply smiled, crossed the room, and adjusted the plant to the corner of her desk. “There. Less offensive.”

She tilted her head, considering. “You know,” she said softly, “if you die on a mission, I’m keeping it as evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“That you were, in fact, a man with terrible taste in décor.”

Leon laughed, shaking his head. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet,” she murmured, leaning over her desk, that dark, brilliant smile ghosting her lips, “you keep coming back.”

The silence that followed said everything else.

[catrionaalexandra]

Limitations

Leon S. Kennedy x Fem!Reader

A Short One-Shot

Summary: Leon approaches a new assignment wary of his partner’s physical limitations and anxiety. Meeting Y/N, he expects fragility, but in the comms room, she comes alive, demonstrating skill, confidence, and resilience. By the end of the day, doubt turns to trust, and a quiet, promising connection begins to form.

Warnings: Chronic pain and mobility impairment, anxiety, medical accommodations, workplace/field danger references, slow-burn romance, emotional tension, age-related pain for Leon, old wound pain references for Leon, reader has deep varicose veins (I have them and I wanted at least a one shot that seems relatable for it), age gap.

A/n: Y/n (Your Name) is used, L/n (Last Name) is used, e/c (Eye Colour) is used, h/c (Hair Colour) is used, reader has dimples, reader has shoulder length hair and freckles, and also has glasses (shout out to Ingrid Hunnigan).

Word Count: 1,223

Morning always hit Leon like a dull bruise, present before he even opened his eyes.

He woke to the low hum of the safehouse HVAC and the familiar ache stitched into his bones.

Fifty-something wasn’t ancient, no matter what the rookies whispered, but it carried weight.

Old injuries whispered louder, his knees complained, and his shoulder barked. A creaking in his bones that begged to be popped and adjusted.

He lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, cataloging what hurt and what still worked.

Habit.

He survived by knowing his limits.

Unfortunately, today already pressed heftier than most.

New assignment, new partner…

Leon swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, the mirror above the sink caught him mid-grimace as he shaved, silver threading his hair now, lines carved deeper around his eyes.

He looked like someone who’d lived through too much and slept through too little, accurate.

Coffee came next—black, bitter, and necessary.

He drank it standing, scrolling through the tablet propped on the counter.

The file app sat unopened, waiting like a confession.

(L/N), (Y/N).

He exhaled through his nose and tapped it open.

First the basics: age, clearance, etc.

Second the academic credentials: computer science, cybersecurity, surveillance systems, and cryptography.

She’d eaten degrees for breakfast and still went back for more.

Leon frowned despite himself.

Then the medical notes surfaced: Chronic leg pain, deep varicose vein disorder, right leg primarily, mobility impairment during flare-ups.

He stopped scrolling, “…You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he muttered to the empty room.

His jaw tightened, irritation flaring sharp and immediate. Not at her, not really—at the DSO.

At whoever decided this was a good idea.

He’d buried too many partners to pretend physical limitations didn’t matter.

He pictured extraction points, compromised buildings, stairwells choked with smoke.

You didn’t survive those scenarios by limping.

He skimmed further, faster now, looking for the line that said field operative.

It didn’t come.

Role: Communications & Technical Operations Liaison.

Assignment: Primary support for Agent Leon S. Kennedy.

Leon leaned back against the counter and scrubbed a hand over his face, “So she’s not coming into the field,” he said aloud.

Relief slid in, quiet but there, followed immediately by guilt for feeling it.

He forced himself to slow down, to actually read instead of react.

She’d requested accommodations, not exceptions. Compression wraps, adjusted seating, remote operation priority.

The file didn’t read like weakness, it read like someone who knew their obstacles and refused to lie about them.

Still, doubt clung stubbornly.

He tapped into her performance reports next: mission support during overseas operations, clean hacks under fire, camera loops maintained during active bioterror incidents.

One note caught his eye, buried halfway down the page:

Subject maintained operational clarity despite elevated anxiety markers. Continued support ensured successful extraction.

Anxiety disorder.

Leon’s mouth twitched, he knew that dance. Knew how it felt when your heart raced long after the threat passed.

He closed the file and stared at the dark screen for a moment, thinking about panic attacks in quiet hallways and breathing through clenched teeth so no one else noticed.

“Alright,” he murmured. “Let’s meet you first before I start judging any more than I already have…”

⸻

The DSO building smelled like disinfectant and stale air—comforting, in its own bleak way.

Leon moved through security on autopilot, nodding to faces he half-recognized. He arrived early, as usual.

Punctuality had saved his life more than once.

She was already there.

Y/n sat in the waiting area just outside the comms suite, hands folded tightly in her lap like she was afraid they might wander off without permission.

Her posture folded inward, shoulders slightly hunched, compression wraps peeked from beneath her slacks, neat and fastened to her comfort.

One foot angled outward, weight carefully balanced.

Leon slowed without realizing it.

She looked… younger than her file photo.

Oversized glasses dominated her face, slipping a little down her nose. Freckles dusted her cheeks, faint but there if you looked close.

Her hair fell to her shoulders in h/c waves.

She stood when she noticed him—and winced.

Leon caught it, the hitch in her breath.

The way her right leg stiffened before she steadied herself.

“Agent Kennedy,” she said quickly, voice soft but clear. “Hi. I—sorry, I should’ve—”

“Easy,” he said, holding up a hand. His tone came out gentler than he expected. “You don’t need to stand for me.”

Colour rushed to her cheeks instantly.

“Oh—okay. Sorry. I just—habit.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I get that.”

They stood there for a second, awkward silence stretching thin.

Leon took her in more carefully this time, without the file whispering in his ear.

She wasn’t fragile, but she was tense. Braced even. Like someone waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I’m Leon,” he said, offering his hand.

Her grip was warm, a little tentative. “Y/n.”

She smiled—small, nervous—and dimples carved into her cheeks like they’d been hiding just for that moment.

Leon felt something unexpected pull in his chest. He cleared his throat. “You ready to see the setup?”

She nodded, relief flashing across her face at having something to do.

Inside the comms room, Y/n came alive.

The nerves didn’t vanish, but they loosened their grip the moment she stepped up to the console.

She didn’t touch anything at first—just leaned in slightly, eyes moving across the screens as if she were reading a language Leon couldn’t see.

Her shoulders straightened, and her breathing evened out.

She started talking about routing paths, redundancies, fail-safes. Not guesses—observations.

Her voice stronger as she spoke, confidence threading through each explanation, building momentum with every sentence.

She pointed out inefficiencies, potential bottlenecks, places where the system would lag under pressure.

Leon listened, really listened.

“You’re picking this up fast,” he said.

She blinked, then shrugged, a little sheepish. “It’s… familiar. Different layout, same logic.”

He huffed softly. “Took the last guy a week to stop swearing at it.”

That earned a quiet laugh from her—surprised, almost involuntary—and the sound lingered in the room longer than it had any right to.

Halfway through the walkthrough, she shifted her weight again, subtle but unmistakable.

Her fingers trembled for just a second before she curled them into fists.

“You need to sit?” Leon asked, casual.

Her eyes flicked up, startled. Then softened. “Yeah. I—yeah, that’d help.”

He pulled a chair over without comment, steadied it while she sat down.

She exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for miles.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“For what?”

“For not… making it a thing.”

Leon leaned against the console, arms crossed. “Pain’s already a thing. No need to add commentary.”

She studied him then, like she was recalibrating her expectations, and her shoulders loosened.

“Leon,” she said after a moment, voice careful, “I know you probably had concerns.”

“Had,” he echoed, honest. “Yeah.”

“And now?”

He met her gaze—those e/c eyes still despite the nerves flickering beneath.

“Now I think I’d rather have you watching my back than anyone else in the building.”

Her blush spread fast, warm and pink.

“Oh,” she said, twiddling her thumbs.

Leon felt it again—that quiet pull. Not fireworks or sparks, just something patient and promising.

Slow burns had always been his kind anyway.

[catrionaalexandra]

Spectre

Leon S. Kennedy x Vampire!Fem!Reader

Inspired by The Vampire Diaries, The trailers from Resident Evil Requiem, and the song Specter by Bad Omens!

Warnings: Blood, Gore, Violence, Vampirism, Death, Vulgar Language, Takes Place in Requiem Timeline (2028), Age Gap? (Reader is 145, but appearance wise 25-26 since that’s when she was turned/killed), Slow-Burn, Dark, Mythical, Romance, Las Plagas, Gothic, Leon is Infected, Self Harm (Reader purposely bleeds herself to save Leon), The Vampire Diaries-Like Themes, Dark Humour

Authors Note: Y/n is used, M/n (Middle Name) is used, L/n (Last Name is used, E/c (Eye Colour) is used, H/c (Hair Colour).

Word Count: 1,392

Prologue

Master list (coming soon!)

Chapter Four

Y/n didn’t say anything, instead, she stepped back, turning away from him.

She noticed Leon’s gun before he did.

It lay several feet from where he currently was, the weapon had skidded across the floor when the infected man’s boot had caught it in a blind, ravenous kick, sending it sliding beneath a broken chair leg amid splintered wood and drifting dust.

The grip was smeared dark now, stained with blood that had not been there the last time Leon had held it, and the sight of it stirred something cold and precise behind her eyes.

She moved without urgency, crossing the space with the kind of controlled ease she had perfected over decades, power folded tightly inward so the world would not feel it pressing back.

Even now, even with the truth exposed, she walked as if the floor might remember her weight if she forgot herself.

She crouched and retrieved the gun, fingers closing around its balance, grounding not because she needed to, but because that was what people did, and old patterns were harder to kill.

When she straightened and turned back toward Leon, she held it out grip-first, careful to keep her hands steady.

Leon watched her approach in silence, his gaze tracing the path of the weapon before lifting to her face.

His shirt clung stiffly to his throat and chest, fabric darkened where blood had soaked through and dried in uneven patches, rust coloured and distinctive, the ugly evidence of what should have ended him.

Above it, the wound had sealed too neatly.

Smooth skin where torn flesh should have remained bleeding and jagged, a contradiction that tugged at the edge of his thoughts every time his fingers brushed his throat, reminding him that something had rewritten the rules.

He accepted the gun without ceremony. Their fingers met briefly, and this time he didn’t miss the faint tremor she failed to suppress, a splinter in her composure.

Leon checked the weapon automatically, clearing the chamber, resetting the safety, then holstered it. The routine steadied him, anchored him to muscle memory when his mind wanted to spiral.

“Guess that went flying,” he said dryly, voice rough but even.

Y/n’s gaze flicked to his neck. “You were seconds from dying.”

He winced. “Yeah,” he replied, lips twitching despite himself. “Not my favourite way to start the afternoon.”

The humour didn’t erase what had happened, but it shifted the weight of it, took the edge off.

Y/n turned away again before he could study her too closely, posture rigid, attention fixed on the mess they were leaving behind.

The atmosphere felt different now.

Not threatening, just empty.

Like something that had exhausted its cruelty and been left hollow in the aftermath.

She moved through it, navigating a place layered over another, her focus dragged backward despite her efforts to stay rooted in the present.

The blood on the floor did that to her.

Not Leon’s this time, but older stains her memory supplied without mercy, darker, denser, echoes buried beneath generations of careful control.

Screams she had once known by name, voices warped by fear into hunger, overwhelming reason until restraint failed and everything burned.

She had been younger then, both in years and in discipline.

The weight of it pressed against her still, a burden she carried without letting it fracture her, one hundred and forty-five years spent learning how to exist without becoming the monster everyone expected her to be.

Saving Leon had torn that balance open, reminded her how narrow the margin truly was between protection and devastation, between attachment and annihilation.

Leon noticed…

Noticed the way her pace faltered, the way her hands curled as if resisting the urge to clench, the distant focus in her eyes told him enough. He didn’t need context to recognize someone caught in the undertow of their own past.

“Y/n,” he said as they stepped out into the sunlight, tone casual by design, “we still grabbing something to eat after this, or did getting my throat chewed on kill the appetite.”

She stopped short, then let out a quiet sound that might have been a laugh if it had been planned. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Survival tactic,” he replied, glancing sideways at her. “If I don’t joke, I start asking uncomfortable questions.”

That earned him a look, sharp but not unkind, and she resumed walking beside him.

They didn’t say much after that.

The information they’d recovered was enough to justify leaving without delay, enough to keep their attention fixed forward instead of on the moment that had nearly ended everything.

Outside, the outside stood indifferent, sunlight breaking through the canopy of trees in fractured bands that painted the ground gold and green.

Leon moved more slowly now, aware of the lag between intention and execution, but each step came easier than the last.

Whatever Y/n’s blood had done, it had done it thoroughly.

When they reached the Porsche, he paused before opening the door, glancing down at his ruined shirt with a grimace. “This is going to be hard to explain.”

Y/n stiffened instantly.

The shift was subtle, but Leon caught it, the tension snapping through her frame like a wire pulled too tight. She didn’t look at him when she spoke.

“You don’t explain it,” she said quietly. “You file it as an attack. You survived. End of report.”

Leon glanced at her, something thoughtful flickering behind his eyes. “You’re sure.”

“Yes.”

That was not a suggestion. It was a boundary.

He nodded once. “Got it.”

The engine hummed to life, steady and familiar, as the road unspooled ahead of them on the drive back, the world stubbornly unchanged despite everything that had shifted between the passenger seat and the driver’s side.

Leon kept his eyes forward, hands firm on the wheel, but his thoughts refused to settle. He felt too much all at once.

The attraction was still there, inconvenient and sharp, threaded now with something heavier than desire.

Respect had deepened into something denser, earned not only through skill but through restraint, through centuries of choosing not to give in even when it would have been easier to stop pretending.

Fear lingered too, honest and unvarnished, not of her, but of what it meant to care about someone who existed outside every rulebook he’d ever trusted.

And beneath it all, something unfamiliar stirred.

Y/n sat beside him, hands folded neatly in her lap, posture composed to the point of rigidity. She no longer reached for the ring, no longer performed the small motions she used to sell her humanity.

Now that he knew, she didn’t know how to stop pretending—or how to stop at all.

Leon cleared his throat.

She turned her head slightly. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, then added after a pause, “just recalibrating.”

“That tracks.”

He hesitated, then spoke carefully. “Back there, you said you didn’t want me finding out like that.”

Her shoulders squared. “I meant it.”

“I know,” he said, keeping his gaze on the road. “I’m not here to interrogate you. You don’t owe me a confession.”

There it was.

The unspoken but.

“But,” he continued evenly, “if I’m going to keep working with you, I’d like to understand you a little better than I did this morning.”

Silence stretched, heavy but not hostile.

Finally, he asked, without accusation, “How old are you, really.”

Y/n didn’t pretend not to hear. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again, gaze steady and unflinching. “One hundred and forty-five.”

Leon absorbed the number without comment, jaw tightening slightly. “That explains a few things,” he muttered.

She studied him. “Does it change anything?”

He considered it honestly. “It changes how I understand you,” he said. “Doesn’t change how I trust you.”

The tension in her face easing just enough to be visible.

They drove on, the past riding quietly with them, and Leon didn’t know what came next or how dangerous it might be to keep looking forward instead of away.

He angled his eyes at her.

Because he didn’t know what to call what he felt yet or where it would lead but for the first time since the blood and the truth he didn’t want to look away from it.

Even if it scared him.

<- Previous Next ->

[catrionaalexandra]

day one of asking for Spectre Chapter Four 😔💔

I’m working on it now 😈❤️‍🩹

[dreamyeuphory]

~ Lucky to be here...~

[angelwings-crossbowstrings]

gif not mine

Y/N: Do you like me, Daryl?

Daryl: …

Y/N: You sharpened my knife.

Daryl: Was dull.

Y/N: You found me new boots.

Daryl: Yours was busted up.

Y/N: You don’t let anything or anyone get too close to me.

Daryl: You’re a idiot an’ gonna get yourself hurt.

Y/N: You let me touch your hair.

Daryl: …

Daryl: Don’t make it weird.

Y/N: So, that’s a yes.

Daryl: Maybe?

Y/N: It’s definitely yes.

Daryl: What would no sound like?

Y/N, in her best Daryl voice: Nah.

Daryl: Well, ain’t nah.

Y/N: Are you flirting with me?

Daryl: Hope so cause I got no idea.

[eymurn]

In your 20s, you'll feel like you're losing the race. It's important to understand that there is no race.

[thegrimoire23]

Dangerous - Elijah x Fem!reader 🖤🖤🖤

please develop it into a story! It was so good, I want more! I loved Elijah as a shadow protector

I want to, but it all depends on how many notes/hearts I receive haha, I’m hoping 100 💜💜💜 because then it’s a for sure thing 🤧 and I wouldn’t know where to begin with it yet lmao. I don’t know whether to continue from where it left off, or begin from the moment he first sees her leading up to the accident and etc.

[catrionaalexandra]

Dangerous

Elijah Mikaelson x Fem!Reader

One Shot (Might turn into a story depending how well it does).

Summary: Y/n L/n, unaware she’s caught the attention of Elijah Mikaelson, an Original Vampire, navigates Mystic Falls. Elijah will go to any lengths to protect her, even when danger strikes—from a threatening man to a deadly accident—he intervenes, leaving her alive but unaware of the shadow watching over her.

Warnings: Violence, Graphic Scenes, Murder, Physical Attacks, Fire and Destruction, Threatening Behaviour, Stalking, Blood, Emotional Trauma, Death of Secondary Character, Dark Themes, Obsession?

Word Count: 2,664

Authors note: Y/n (Your Name) is used, L/n (Last Name) is used.

Elijah Mikaelson first noticed her the way one notices a fault line—quietly, instinctively, with the sense that something catastrophic could unfold if left unattended.

Y/n L/n moved through Mystic Falls as if the town belonged to her, though she never claimed it.

She laughed easily at the bar of the Mystic Grill, fingers curled around a sweating glass, head tipped back while Elena told some story that ended in Caroline’s indignant outrage and Bonnie’s knowing smile.

There was warmth in her, not the fragile kind that flickered and failed, but a steady glow that endured.

Elijah watched from across the street, framed by shadow and lamplight, the night bending politely around him as it always did.

He told himself he was merely vigilant, though he told himself many things.

He learned her patterns without meaning to, the nights she paced too long. The way she checked the street before unlocking her car, the tension that threaded her shoulders whenever a stranger’s gaze looked a second too long.

Elijah had lived a thousand lifetimes and loved in ways that weren’t true. Yet, something about Y/n rattled him with its simplicity.

She was human, painfully so, and still she carried herself as if she refused to be diminished by fear.

That refusal was what drew danger to her.

The man followed her out of the Grill on a Thursday night when the air clung thick and humid, when music spilled into the street and blurred into laughter.

He called her name like it still belonged to him, slurred with entitlement.

Y/n stiffened, anger flashing hot and bright as she turned, her voice sharp enough to cut.

“You need to leave,” she said, loud enough for witnesses, brave enough to make Elijah’s jaw slacken. “You’re not supposed to be within 500 feet of me.”

The man laughed, he always laughed.

Elijah watched from across the street as the distance between them collapsed too quickly, as a hand reached out with familiarity that no longer existed.

Elijah stepped forward before he realized he’d moved, every instinct honed toward intervention, but Y/n handled it herself, shoving the man back with a force born of fury and exhaustion.

“Touch me again and I’ll scream,” she warned, and she meant it.

The man muttered threats that meant nothing to Elijah and everything to Y/n.

He slunk away eventually, melting into the night with the promise of return clinging to him like decay.

Elijah did not follow him immediately. He waited until Y/n rejoined her friends, until her smile returned though it sat brittle on her face, until the threat became a certainty rather than a possibility.

Then Elijah paid a visit.

The man’s house smelled of cheap liquor and desperation.

Elijah sat in the chair, opposite him, perfectly composed, hands folded, gaze level and merciless.

He did not raise his voice…

“You will leave her alone,” the diplomatic vampire said, each word placed with surgical precision.

“You will forget her face, her name, the sound of her voice. If you so much as think of her with ill intent, I will know.”

The man trembled, eyes darting, mind already unraveling under the weight of compulsion and fear.

Elijah leaned forward just enough to ensure understanding, “This is the only warning you will receive.”

By morning, the man was dead.

Mystic Falls woke to the news like it always did, tragedy delivered with a reporter’s solemn cadence.

Y/n stood in Elena’s kitchen, coffee cooling untouched in her hands as the television murmured in the background.

The words hit her in fragments—freak accident, suspected foul play, ongoing investigation.

Caroline arched a brow, Bonnie frowned, and Elena turned the volume down.

Y/n laughed slightly, a sound too loud to be relief and too hollow to be joy. “Guess the universe handled it,” she said, though her hands shook as she set the mug down. “One less thing to worry about.”

Elijah watched from the threshold, unseen, unease swimming through him.

He had intended to protect her, not haunt her with the echo of violence.

He told himself she was safer now. He told himself that was enough…

It was not.

The rain came hard that night, a relentless downpour that turned roads slick and treacherous.

Y/n drove too fast, music too loud, thoughts spiraling despite her attempts to keep them quiet.

The world narrowed to headlights and water and the sudden, sickening loss of control.

Metal screamed, glass shattered, her car flipped, rolled, settled upside down in a halo of fire and smoke.

Pain bloomed and receded in waves. Y/n drifted in and out, awareness flickering like a dying bulb. She tasted blood, smelled gasoline, and felt heat licking closer.

Somewhere beyond the ringing in her ears, footsteps crunched through debris.

The vampire was young.

Elijah knew it the moment he arrived, the scent of fresh death clinging to the fledgling as he crawled toward the wreckage with hunger eclipsing sense.

Y/n’s pulse thundered, a beacon too bright to ignore.

The fledgling tore at the twisted door, eyes wild, fangs bared as he reached for her throat with reverence and desperation.

Elijah moved like a smudge.

He did not announce himself, he never did. One moment the fledgling reached forward, the next Elijah’s hand was through his chest, fingers closing around a heart that still beat with stolen life.

He tore it free in a single, brutal motion, the body collapsing soundlessly at his feet.

Elijah knelt beside the crash, the fire bowing back as if in deference. He pulled Y/n free with a gentleness that belied the carnage behind him, cradling her against his chest as her consciousness fluttered.

Her eyes trembled, her breath caught, she smelled of smoke, rain and copper.

“It’s all right,” he murmured, brushing damp hair from her face. “I have you.”

She did not hear him, not fully, but her body relaxed as if it recognized truth even in the dark.

Elijah carried her away from the flames, from the blood and death that followed him like a curse.

He did not feed, he did not turn her. He simply held her until the sirens approached, until he could lay her gently on the wet grass and step back into the shadows where he belonged.

Elijah Mikaelson loved her.

He loved her in the way he loved all impossible things—with restraint, with worship, with a devotion that asked for nothing and promised everything.

He would remain her shadow if that was what it took, he would bleed the world dry before he let it take her.

And Y/n L/n, though she would not remember his arms around her or the way the fire recoiled at his presence, would wake with the unshakable sense that someone was watching over her, that the darkness had teeth but also a heartbeat that matched her own.

The night had claimed many things.

It would not have her.

___

Night settled over the hospital in layers, quieting the corridors and thinning the air until every sound felt amplified—the hush of distant footsteps, the muted chime of an elevator, the steady cadence of a heart monitor counting time in borrowed seconds.

Elena and Caroline were eventually coaxed out by nurses and exhaustion, promises made softly that they would return tomorrow.

Bonnie loitered the longest, her gaze drifting more than once toward the doorway, brow narrowing as though she sensed something unseen pressing close.

When she finally stood, she leaned in toward her friend, brushing her fingers lightly over the back of her hand. “You’re not alone,” Bonnie said, voice low and certain. “Even when it feels like you are.”

Y/n did not stir.

The door closed behind Bonnie, and the room surrendered fully to silence.

Elijah stepped inside shortly after.

He moved towards her, each step intentional but respectful, as though he were crossing a line of something sacred.

The machines continued their quiet vigil, indifferent to the ancient presence now seated beside her bed.

He had not truly left since the accident—not in spirit, not in purpose. He had watched her breathing even when she could not feel him, memorized the rhythm of it the way one memorizes a prayer.

Up close, the damage carved into her body struck him with a smouldering fury. Bruises darkened her skin, bandages stark and unforgiving, evidence of how close the world had come to stealing her from him.

Elijah’s jaw locked, but his hands remained steady as he reached out.

Y/n shifted faintly, suspended between sleep and waking, lashes trembling without parting.

Elijah froze for a moment, then softened, his knuckles brushing her cheek with a touch so light it barely disturbed the air.

He tucked a stray curl away from her face, his thumb remaining for the briefest instant as her breath stuttered, her body responding without knowing why.

The intimacy of it undid him.

“You should not have to be this brave,” he murmured, bending closer, voice pitched low enough that the words belonged only to her. “The world has taken far too much from you.”

Her fingers twitched, brushing the edge of the sheet. Elijah hesitated only a moment before moving his larger, much colder hand, to cover her smaller one.

The contact was electric and devastating. Her skin was warm, alive, a reminder of everything he was not and everything he wished to protect.

She sighed softly, and Elijah felt something ancient tighten around his heart—something that had survived centuries of loss and still dared to hope.

He leaned nearer still, his mouth close to her ear.

“I will keep you safe,” he whispered, the vow nesting into her like truth rather than sound. “Even if you never wake knowing my name.”

With visible effort, he drew his hand away, composure sliding back into place like armour polished by habit.

He stood, straightened his jacket, and took one last look at her—living, breathing, still here.

Then he turned and left the room.

The nurse was rounding the corner when he stepped into the hall, clipboard tucked beneath her arm, surprise flashing across her face at the sudden obstruction of a man who did not belong there.

She barely had time to speak before his hand closed around her forearm, firm and unyielding, his gaze locking onto hers with quiet authority that brooked no resistance.

“You will listen carefully,” Elijah said, his tone calm enough to be terrifying.

Her pupils dilated and her posture loosened.

“When Y/n L/n wakes,” he continued, “you will bring her breakfast—warm, substantial, and prepared with care. You will see that her coffee is exactly as she prefers it. Dark, one sugar.”

The nurse nodded, pliant, obedient.

“You will tell her nothing” Elijah added, tightening his grip just enough to anchor the command. “And you will take exceptional care of her. As though her well-being were your highest priority.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Elijah released her and stepped back into the shadows as she blinked, disoriented only for a second before continuing down the hall, the promise now etched into her mind as instinct rather than memory.

From the dim corridor, Elijah glanced once more at the closed hospital room door.

Y/n slept on, unaware that somewhere between heartbeats, the night had bent itself around her—and that a man who had survived a thousand years of darkness had just bound himself, irrevocably, to her light.

___

Morning crept in reluctantly, pale rays filtering through the blinds in narrow bands that traced the quiet room.

The night had let go of its grip, but it had not fully released her.

Y/n surfaced slowly.

Consciousness returned in fragments—weight, warmth, the faint ache threading through her limbs, the slow reassurance of breath moving in and out of her chest.

Pain followed, dull and distant, like thunder heard from far away. She frowned slightly, eyes slowly focused as the world began to take shape.

The first thing she noticed was the scent.

Coffee, dark and rich, unmistakably real.

Her eyes opened fully.

Sunlight cut softly across white walls and stainless steel, catching on the edge of a tray set carefully on the bedside table.

Breakfast rested there as though it had always belonged, steam still flowing faintly from the coffee cup beside it.

Y/n stared, disoriented, then turned her head slowly, testing the movement.

She wasn’t dead.

The realization struck her with a quiet intensity that stole her breath more than the pain ever could.

Memory rushed in behind it—the rain, the spin, the fire blooming like a living thing. Her pulse quickened, fingers gripping into the sheets.

Someone knocked gently before she could spiral further.

The nurse entered with an easy smile, her demeanour sweet, attentive in a way that felt… personal. “Good morning,” she said, voice bright. “You’re awake, that’s a good sign.”

Y/n swallowed. “How long…?”

“Over a day,” the nurse replied, moving closer, checking vitals with practiced care. “You gave us a scare.”

Y/n’s gaze drifted back to the tray. “This is…?”

“Breakfast,” the nurse said without hesitation. “Figured you’d want something comforting when you woke up, and coffee just how you like it.”

Y/n shifted.

“How I like it?” she repeated quietly.

The nurse paused, brow creasing for a split second as though surprised by the question. “Yes.. dark with one sugar.” She smiled again, unbothered. “Eat slowly, call if you need anything.”

She left before Y/n could ask another question.

Silence rushed back in, but it felt different now—charged, expectant. She stared at the coffee, a shiver sliding down her spine.

She hadn’t told anyone here how she took it, or did she?

She stopped herself.

You’re imagining things, she thought.

Trauma had a way of rearranging reality, of filling in gaps with ghosts.

And yet, she reached for the cup. The first sip held her in a way she hadn’t expected.

It tasted right, familiar. Like someone had paid attention.

Her fingers brushed her temple as another sensation surfaced, softer than memory but heavier than imagination.

A voice, low, calm and certain.

I will keep you safe.

Her breath hitched and the room felt suddenly smaller, the air thicker, as if she were no longer entirely by herself.

She scanned the corners, the doorway, the window, half-expecting to see someone standing there—dark, composed, watching.

No one was there.

Still, the sense remained.

Across town, Elijah stood on a balcony washed in early light, hands resting on the stone railing as Mystic Falls moved below him.

He had not slept, he rarely did when vigilance demanded otherwise.

The city stretched beneath his gaze, unaware of how close it had come to losing something precious.

He felt it the moment she woke.

Not as a sound or a vision, but as a subtle shift, like a knot loosening in his chest that he hadn’t realized had tightened so completely.

Elijah closed his eyes briefly, allowing himself that single, indulgent breath of relief.

Alive, awake and his to protect.

He had not planned to remain distant forever. He was not a coward, but he understood patience.

Understood that some things, when rushed, shattered beyond repair.

Y/n needed time.

And Elijah, for all his history, all his sins, had mastered the art of waiting.

Back in the hospital room, Y/n set the coffee down slowly, her gaze drifting to the window where sunlight pooled on the sill.

She did not know his name, she did not know his face. But she knew, with a certainty that settled deep in her bones, that someone had stood between her and death.

Someone still was.

Her fingers tugged lightly over the blanket, heart skipping a beat as the thought took root.

Whatever shadow had pulled her from the fire had not left.

It was watching.

And, inexplicably, the knowledge did not frighten her at all.

[catrionaalexandra]

Spectre

Leon S. Kennedy x Vampire!Fem!Reader

Inspired by The Vampire Diaries, The trailers from Resident Evil Requiem, and the song Specter by Bad Omens!

Warnings: Blood, Gore, Violence, Vampirism, Death, Vulgar Language, Takes Place in Requiem Timeline (2028), Age Gap? (Reader is 145, but appearance wise 25-26 since that’s when she was turned/killed), Slow-Burn, Dark, Mythical, Romance, Las Plagas(?), Gothic, Leon is Infected, Self Harm (Reader purposely bleeds herself to save Leon), The Vampire Diaries-Like Themes, Side Character Death, Vampiric Powers Revealed, Near Death Experience for Leon, Purposeful Self-Harm (Y/n cuts her wrist to feed Leon her generative blood)

Authors Note: Y/n is used, M/n (Middle Name) is used, L/n (Last Name is used, E/c (Eye Colour) is used, H/c (Hair Colour).

Word Count: 1,906

Prologue

Master list (coming soon!)

Chapter Three

They didn’t hear it at first.

Leon was mid sentence, angled slightly toward Y/n as they stepped back into the lodge’s main corridor, already shifting into that post contact rhythm where the next move mattered more than the last.

His voice stayed low, controlled, the way it always did when he started thinking three steps ahead.

“We’ll loop back to the car, regroup, then—” He paused, glanced at the long stretch of hallway ahead of them, and exhaled through his nose. “Maybe find someplace that serves food that isn’t stale protein bars. I don’t know about you, but I’d kill for something hot before we dive back into whatever this turns into.”

It was the kind of joke he used when the adrenaline dipped, dry and understated, an attempt to drag normalcy back into a place that didn’t want it.

Y/n huffed softly, just enough to acknowledge it.

“After the mission,” she said.

Leon’s mouth twitched. “Yeah, that’s what I said…Before the next disaster.”

The sound came loudly.

It was a wet, collapsing noise, like a body forgetting how to hold itself upright.

The man they had saved folded in on himself behind them.

Y/n turned at the same instant Leon did, shock hitting her harder than fear because it shouldn’t have happened.

He hit the floor hard and then he moved.

Too fast for a dying man, too unnatural for a living one.

Leon’s hand went for his weapon on impulse, but he was a half second late.

He surged up from the floor with a sound that wasn’t a scream so much as the tearing of something inside his chest, his jaw unhinging as he launched himself forward at Leon.

He dropped his gun, preparing for a brace, and it skidded across the floor when the man kicked it in his frenzy.

Y/n should have seen it.

That truth hit her even as it happened. She should have smelled the change, and heard the shift in his heartbeat.

She had been distracted and careless, pretending too hard to be human.

He slammed into Leon with feral strength and his teeth sank into his neck.

Leon didn’t even have time to shout.

Blood burst hot and immediate, dark against his collar.

His knees buckled as shock rippled through him, his hand reaching blindly, desperately, for the one solid thing in the world.

“Y/n—”

He fell and Y/n moved.

There was no restraint left to gather, no calculation, no careful delay to mimic the living.

The sound that erupted out of her wasn’t human as she crossed the distance in less than a blink and drove her hand against the man’s chest.

She shoved him and her strength detonated.

He hit the nearest wall with a force that split wood and plaster inward, the impact snapping his spine and caving his skull.

He slid down the fractured surface and went still, neck twisted at an angle no living thing could survive.

Silence rushed in after the violence, heavy and ringing.

Y/n didn’t look at the body, she was already on the floor with Leon.

The smell of his blood hit her like a physical blow—fresh and metallic. It flooded her senses, drowning out everything else, dragging vampiric need to the surface.

Her vision honed too fast, too far, the world bleeding into contrast and hunger.

Her eyes burned as the sclera blackened completely, bright red irises flaring against the dark. Veins spiderwebbed beneath her skin, blooming along her temples and down her neck. Her teeth bared without permission, revealing fangs.

She cupped Leon’s face with shuddery hands.

“No,” she hissed, the word tearing itself apart as it left her mouth.

Blood poured through her fingers as she pressed hard against the wound, but it wouldn’t stop. His pulse stuttered beneath her palm, faltering, slipping.

Leon’s eyes fluttered, unfocused, his hand clutching weakly at her sleeve.

“Stay with me,” she said, voice breaking. “Leon, look at me.”

He tried, he always tried. Even like this, even bleeding out on an old lodge floor, he fought to stay present, tried to move his legs when standing was no longer possible.

Her hunger was growing.

She shoved it down with every ounce of will she had left.

Y/n dragged a fingernail in one sharp motion and sliced her own wrist without wincing. Blood rushed to the surface, darker than his, thicker, pulsing with power that made the air feel charged.

She brought her wrist to his mouth and pressed it there.

“Drink,” she ordered, compulsion threading her voice despite her effort to keep it out. “Leon, dammit, you have to drink.”

His lips parted weakly, confusion flickered across his face, then pain, then something like trust even as consciousness slipped.

She forced his mouth open and pressed harder, her blood spilling against his tongue.

He gagged once, then swallowed.

The change was almost immediate.

His pulse steadied beneath her hand, the bleeding slowing, skin stitching with visible urgency as her blood scalding through his system, sealing flesh and restoring what the bite had tried to steal.

Y/n quavered with the effort of not pulling him closer, not burying her fangs in his throat and ending the ache in one violent indulgence.

She squeezed her eyes shut, counting through it, grounding herself in the sound of his heart rebuilding its rhythm.

She would not take from him, not like this, not ever.

Minutes stretched thin and terrible until Leon’s breathing evened out, until colour slowly returned to his face.

Y/n slumped over him, forehead pressed to his shoulder, shaking.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered, the monster in her retreating inch by hard-won inch. “I won’t let you die. Not when I can stop it, not you.”

Leon’s fingers twitched, then tightened weakly around her sleeve.

Leon came back to himself in pieces.

Sound first, the low creak of damaged wood settling, the distant rush of blood in his ears, too loud and too close to ignore.

Then pain, dulled but present, radiating from his neck in a deep, throbbing warmth that told him something had gone very wrong and was now, somehow, trying to fix itself.

He sucked in a breath and hissed through his teeth.

“Easy,” Y/n said, her voice close, and gentle despite everything. “Don’t move yet.”

Her hands were on him again, they weren’t frantic now.

Leon opened his eyes, the lodge ceiling swam into focus above him, fractured beams and peeling paint blurring at the edges as his vision caught up with reality.

He swallowed and felt it, the wound pulling, sealing, skin tightening where teeth had torn into him minutes ago.

He groaned softly, “Still bleeding.”

“Slower,” she replied. “It’ll stop.”

He took another breath. It came easier this time, less panicked, his lungs no longer begging for oxygen.

His heart still hammered, but the rhythm evened with each passing second, dragged back from the brink by something he didn’t have a name for yet.

Y/n shifted closer and crouched in front of him. “We need to get you sitting upright.”

Leon braced his hands against the floor. “Yeah. Just—give me a second.”

She didn’t rush him.

When he nodded, she slid one arm around his back and took his forearm firmly, guiding him upward in a single smooth motion.

Leon grunted as his boots found the floor again, weight unsteady but present.

“Okay,” she murmured. “There we go.”

She helped him straighten, then carefully drew his arm over her shoulder, her grip secure but respectful, leaving him standing under his own strength even as she became his balance.

Leon leaned into her just enough to stay upright, jaw clenched, pride intact even as his legs protested.

They moved together, his steps measured, hers perfectly matched to his pace. She adjusted when he faltered, steadying him without lifting, without taking more than he was willing to give.

To anyone watching, it would have looked like exactly what it was.

A wounded man being helped by his partner.

She guided him to a chair near the far wall and eased him down, one hand at his shoulder until he was settled back instead of slumping forward.

Leon leaned against the chair, chest rising and falling heavily.

He laughed once, short and incredulous, then stopped when it pulled at his neck. “I’m fifty-one,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “Thought I’d seen everything.”

Y/n stood in front of him now, hands clasped together, eyes fixed somewhere just past his shoulder like she was waiting for something. “Yeah?”

He looked at her, really looked.

“Vampires,” he finished. “That’s new.”

Silence stilled between them, but not hostile. Y/n looked down momentarily, then back up, meeting his gaze, there was no point in pretending now.

No place left to hide the truth.

“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” she said. “Or at all.”

Leon studied her face, the lines and expressions he’d memorized over years of partnership suddenly rearranging themselves in his head.

He thought of the moments that hadn’t fit, the calm that went too deep, the way nothing ever quite seemed to touch her the way it should have, the way she never aged.

“I should’ve seen you,” he said quietly. “Not the surface, but you.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You were always… off. Not in a bad way. Just—” He gestured weakly with one hand. “Like you were standing half a step outside the world.”

Y/n flinched, just slightly.

“There were signs,” he continued. “I noticed them. I just didn’t connect the dots.”

“You ignored them,” she corrected gently.

He nodded. “I did.”

His breathing slowed further, his pulse steadying as the last of the shock burned itself out.

The wound itched now, a sensation that made no sense and all the sense in the universe.

Leon glanced down at his bloodstained shirt, then back up at her. “Am,” he said carefully, tension pulled beneath his calm. “Am I going to turn?”

The question landed like a pin drop.

Y/n stepped closer. “No, not unless you die.”

His brow furrowed.

“My blood heals,” she began. “It doesn’t change you unless your heart stops while it’s still in your system. You have about twenty-four hours before it burns itself out completely. If you stay alive, you stay human.”

Leon let out a breath. “That’s a hell of an incentive.”

She almost smiled. Almost.

“You’re not turning,” she said firmly. “I won’t let that happen.”

He watched her for a long moment, something shifting behind his eyes. Fear, yes. Shock, also yes, but beneath it, something else.

Understanding, acceptance and cautiousness.

“You shoved a guy through a wall,” he said finally.

Y/n swallowed. “I lost control.”

He shook his head. “You saved my life.”

Leon had faced monsters before, probably even worse than this. Things that tore cities apart and wore human skin like a costume.

Y/n wasn’t that, she had been restraining herself for years, walking at his pace, bleeding herself dry of power just to stay unseen.

“Hey…” He whispered, and he reached out then, hesitating only a moment before resting his hand against her wrist, feeling how cold she really is, seeing skin that was already healed perfectly.

“We’ll deal with this,” he spoke. “Like everything else.”

<- Previous Next ->

[catrionaalexandra]

Spectre

Leon S. Kennedy x Vampire!Fem!Reader

Inspired by The Vampire Diaries, The trailers from Resident Evil Requiem, and the song Specter by Bad Omens!

Warnings: Blood, Gore, Violence, Vampirism, Death, Vulgar Language, Takes Place in Requiem Timeline (2028), Age Gap? (Reader is 145, but appearance wise 25-26 since that’s when she was turned/killed), Slow-Burn, Dark, Mythical, Romance, Las Plagas, Gothic, Leon is Infected, Self Harm (Reader purposely bleeds herself to save Leon), The Vampire Diaries-Like Themes

Authors Note: Y/n is used, M/n (Middle Name) is used, L/n (Last Name is used, E/c (Eye Colour) is used, H/c (Hair Colour).

Word Count: 1,299

Master list (coming soon!)

Chapter One

The red gem caught the light as Y/n turned the ring slowly around her finger, not out of nervousness but familiarity, the way some people traced old scars or worried prayer beads they no longer believed in.

It was a simple thing at first glance, a plain gold band worn thin by time and touch, the metal softened by decades of wear until it felt more like memory than ornament.

The stone sat low and smooth in its setting, a deep, wine-dark red that never quite sparkled, as though it absorbed light instead of reflecting it.

Anyone else would have dismissed it as sentimental jewelry, something passed down through a family line or bought cheaply at a market stall and never replaced because it felt wrong to do so.

To Y/n, it was survival given form.

It was the difference between ash and breath, between shadow and sun, between a scream cut short and another day allowed to exist.

Vlad had not forged it himself, he never touched protective charms unless they bled first, unless they demanded a price that could be tasted and remembered.

Instead, he had acquired it for her the only way he knew how, by bargaining with a witch whose name no longer existed in any language spoken by the living.

The favours he paid stretched across generations and continents, whispered once in candlelit rooms and never spoken again.

Even he had not enjoyed the debt, and that alone told Y/n how dangerous the magic truly was.

The charm had bound itself to her flesh the moment the ring slid onto her finger.

She remembered that morning with perfect clarity. The sun had risen yellow-orange and curious, spilling across stone and dust and her bare hands.

She had waited for pain, for the inevitable burn that came with the rays. It never arrived.

The light grazed her skin and passed over her like it did everyone else, warm and ordinary and harmless.

She had stepped into the sun that day and kept walking, stunned by the audacity of it, by how easily the world had accepted the lie.

Now, in 2028, sunlight streamed through the windshield of a black Porsche, glinting off polished surfaces and clean lines, off chrome and glass and the ring alike as Y/n sat in the passenger seat.

Her elbow rested against the door, her posture relaxed enough to look casual, while her eyes drifted unfocused over the road ahead, taking in everything and nothing all at once.

Leon S. Kennedy drove.

One hand rested steady on the wheel, the other hovered near the gearshift with unconscious readiness, his posture loose in the practiced way of a man who had learned, through hard experience, that tension wasted energy best saved for the moment violence became unavoidable.

He wore the years quietly. You had to know how to look to see them in the faint lines etched at the corners of his eyes, in the careful economy of his movements, in the way he conserved himself like a resource that could not be replaced.

He still carried himself like a weapon that had not dulled, only learned restraint.

He glanced sideways at her, not for the first time, his eyes flicking over her profile before returning to the road.

Y/n either didn’t notice or pretended not to. She rolled the ring again, thumb brushing the red gem, feeling the low, patient vibration of magic beneath it. Old magic.

The kind that waited without complaint, that remembered every promise it had ever made and every threat it had ever been designed to keep at bay…

Four years.

That was how long they had been partners.

Four years of missions stitched together by bad coffee, worse odds, and debrief rooms that never quite washed the smell of fear out of the walls.

Leon knew her tells in a firefight, knew when she was about to move before she did it, knew how she favoured her left side when planning an approach and how she counted exits without ever looking obvious.

He trusted her with his back without hesitation.

Leon believed she was twenty-five, sharp and unnervingly composed for her age, young enough that it forced him into a careful kind of distance he never had to think about with anyone else.

Youth changed the math. It drew lines he refused to blur, no matter how long they worked side by side or how easy it would have been to let recognition soften his judgment.

She was beautiful in a way that caught him off guard more often than he cared to admit, distracting in quiet, dangerous ways that had nothing to do with the job.

He noticed the curve of her mouth when she almost smiled, the steady confidence in her pose, the calm that never cracked even when the world did. He noticed, and then he locked it all down where it couldn’t interfere.

Attraction was a liability, history had taught him that.

So he filed her away as exceptional but untouchable, someone he respected, trusted, and wanted to keep alive more than he wanted answers to questions he had no right to ask.

He kept it professional not because he felt nothing, but because feeling anything at all was the one line he didn’t want to cross.

People always said that about her, exceptional.

They never said unnatural.

She had learned long ago how to sand herself down into something believable, how to file away the edges that invited too much scrutiny.

“How long have you been staring at that thing?” Leon asked, his voice easy, touched with mild amusement as though the question cost him nothing.

She blinked and turned toward him, the faintest smile curving her mouth. “Hm?”

“The ring,” he clarified. “You’re gonna wear a groove into it.”

She glanced down at her hand as if surprised to find it there. “Sorry, habit.”

He huffed softly. “You always do that when you’re thinking.”

“Occupational hazard,” she replied, light and smooth.

Leon’s gaze returned to the road, but his expression tightened just a fraction.

He had noticed more than he ever said, he always did.

The way she never squinted in bright light, hardly blinked, the way exhaustion never quite reached her, no matter how long a mission dragged on or how little sleep they stole between operations.

The way time seemed to slide past her without leaving fingerprints.

He ignored it.

Years of survival had taught him that some questions did not bring clarity, only more phantoms.

“We’re close,” he said instead. “The lead on Luka panned out more than I expected. Off-grid sightings, falsified records, the usual mess.”

Y/n nodded, her gaze drifting forward again. The name carried weight, even now. Luka Edwards. Some people never stayed buried, no matter how deep you put them.

“Alive?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Leon said. “Which in our line of work usually means there’s a slim chance.”

She exhaled softly, not because she needed the air but because humans expected it. “Then let’s not waste time.”

The Porsche cut through traffic with confidence, sunlight flashing across its hood, across Leon’s hands, across Y/n’s fingers resting loosely in her lap.

To the world, she looked exactly as she should: Young, composed, most importantly, human.

Leon stole another glance at her. Calm, focused, normal, everything a partner should be.

He had no idea that the woman beside him had watched empires crumble and names lose meaning, that she had learned how to breathe without needing air, how to smile without warmth, how to live forever without being seen.

Y/n closed her hand gently around the ring.

The past slept quietly beneath the sound of the engine.

For now.

<- Prologue Next ->

[catrionaalexandra]

Spectre

Leon S. Kennedy x Vampire!Fem!Reader

Inspired by The Vampire Diaries, The trailers from Resident Evil Requiem, and the song Specter by Bad Omens!

Warnings: Blood, Gore, Violence, Vampirism, Death, Vulgar Language, Takes Place in Requiem Timeline (2028), Age Gap? (Reader is 145, but appearance wise 25-26 since that’s when she was turned/killed), Slow-Burn, Dark, Mythical, Romance, Las Plagas, Gothic, Leon is Infected, Self Harm (Reader purposely bleeds herself to save Leon), The Vampire Diaries-Like Themes, Murder, Y/n Kills Her Entire Family, Sex Work, Brothel, Alcohol (wine).

Authors Note: Y/n is used, M/n (Middle Name) is used, L/n (Last Name is used, E/c (Eye Colour) is used, H/c (Hair Colour)

Word Count: 1,994

Introduction

Master List (coming soon!)

Prologue - Year 1883

Y/n woke before the light came up, she always did.

The tenement pulsated around her—walls damp with last night’s cold, floorboards sighing beneath the weight of too many lives stacked too close together.

Someone coughed in their sleep, a baby whimpered, then settled. The room smelled of ash, sweat, and boiled cabbage that never quite left the air.

Y/n lay still for a moment, staring at the cracked ceiling and counting the breaths of the people she loved. Twelve bodies when they were lucky, fewer when God wasn’t so happy.

Today, it was still the same as last night—good, no one had died yet.

Her mother stirred first, as she always did. “You awake, N/n?” she whispered, voice thin but warm.

“Aye,” Y/n answered, already swinging her legs off the mattress. The floor kissed her bare feet with its winter bite. She welcomed it, pain reminded her she was still useful.

Y/n dressed quickly—worn bodice, skirts patched more times than she could remember—then moved through the room with practiced care. She nudged a worn blanket back over her youngest brother, and brushed hair from her sister’s face.

They slept tangled together like kittens, though their ribs too sharp beneath their nightclothes.

Her father sat at the small table, elbows braced, hands wrapped around a tin cup that held more water than tea, and he watched her without speaking.

That silence hurt worse than shouting.

“You don’t have to go tonight,” he finally said. His voice carried the weight of a man who had lost every argument worth winning. “We’ll manage.”

Y/n paused, she knew better than to lie.

“There’s no bread left,” she said gently. “Margaret wants rent by week’s end, and Tom’s boots are split clean through.”

Her father’s jaw tightened. “I’d rather starve than see my eldest—”

“I won’t,” she cut in, softer now. She crossed the room and knelt beside him, resting her hands over his rough ones. “I don’t hate it, not the way you think. It’s just… work.”

It was a lie she had learned to tell well.

He looked away. “You were meant for more.”

“So were you,” Y/n whispered. She kissed his cheek, and felt the scratch of his unshaven face, and stood before he could see that her eyes betray her.

Her mother pressed a hand to her arm as she passed. “Be careful,” she murmured. “Come home safe.”

Always the same words, always spoken like prayer.

Y/n left before dawn bled into the sky, slipping through alleys and gaslit streets that pretended not to see her.

The brothel welcomed her with warmth and perfume and false smiles. Men paid more when she laughed, paid even more when she didn’t.

That night, a gentleman asked for her by name.

Handsome, pale and too still.

He watched her pour the wine like he’d waited a lifetime for it, when she lifted her eyes, the room changed.

His pupils swallowed the light, black bled outward, devouring white, until red ignited at the center—bright, furious, alive. Veins crawled beneath his skin, branching like frost on glass and Y/n’s voice shook.

“Sir—”

He was on her—too fast, too strong.

Hands fisted brutally in her h/c hair, yanking her head back until her spine screamed. Her protest broke into a gasp as his nails lengthened, dark and sharp. He dragged one down his own wrist, splitting skin cleanly.

Blood welled thick and black-red, oozing faintly in the candlelight.

He shoved his wrist against her mouth, smearing the sticky liquid all over.

“Drink,” he hummed, voice low and rough, a dangerous edge threading through it. “Taste… it. Feel it in you.” His eyes twinkled with something darkly amused, predatory, almost… wanting.

She tried to turn away, tried to scream. He tightened his grip until tears blurred her vision, forcing her jaw open, forcing his blood past her lips. It flooded her tongue—hot, metallic, alive in a way no human blood had ever been. It burned its way down her throat, searing, intoxicating, and wrong.

Her body rejected it even as something deeper answered.

Lightning tore through her bloodstream. Her heartbeat thundered wildly, hard and loud, until her chest felt ready to burst. The room tilted, shadows stretched and crawled towards her.

Only when he was satisfied—only when she was shaking, drowning in the fire he’d poured into her—did he let go.

Then there was a sharp, decisive crack.

Her neck snapped, twisted.

The pain vanished instantly, replaced by nothing at all and darkness took her.

⸻

She woke choking on nothing.

The brothel lay empty, silent as a grave. Candles guttered low and her body felt off—too light, too sharp, every nerve screaming awareness. Her throat burned and her stomach gnarled.

Thirst…

It wasn’t a want, it was more of a command.

She staggered home, vision flaring at every sound, every heartbeat pounding in her ears like drums of war. When she reached the tenement, her mother rushed to her side.

“Y/n, love, you’re white as a sheet. What’s wrong?”

Y/n clutched at her own chest, confused. There was no answer there, no beat and no warmth.

“T-Thirsty,” she managed.

That word broke her.

She remembers blood on her hands, on her mouth. The sound of screaming that turned into silence. She remembers ribs cracking beneath her grip, the wet pull as she fed, the way the hunger for blood only grew stronger with every life she took.

She remembers finishing.

Morning came whether she begged it or not.

Sunlight speared through the window, and she tried to follow it—to run, to escape the room reeking of death.

The moment it touched her skin, her flesh blistered and blackened, pain ravishing through her like holy fire.

She collapsed back against the wall, pressing herself into the deepest shadow, smoke curling from burned skin already knitting itself together.

Around her lay the bodies of her family.

Her heart did not beat, and her lungs did not breathe.

Y/n sat in the shade, soaked in blood, surrounded by the people she loved most in the world, and she did not rise again after the sun had scorched her.

Death had come clean and final, seeping through her like glass at the brothel, but what followed was worse.

The transition settled into her bones after she had fed, with patient cruelty, not violent, but not hurried either. It crept, and it hollowed. It rewrote her from the inside out while her body lay cooling among the dead.

Most never reached this point.

Most turned cold and stayed that way—blood never waking them, hunger never igniting. They died twice: once as humans, once as failures.

Y/n lived.

She pressed herself deeper into the abyss that the tenement could offer, knees drawn tight to her chest as the change worked its way through her slowly and deliberately.

Every nerve burned, not with resistance, but with becoming. Her senses sharpened until the world felt skinned raw—every sound slicing too deep, every scent too vivid to bear.

Her heart did not beat, though she kept waiting for it to start again anyways.

It never did.

Her skin still smoked faintly where the sun had brushed it earlier, the burn sealed now, healing, leaving behind an ache that pulsed without rhythm.

Breath came out of habit rather than need, her lungs pulling air they no longer required.

She could smell everything.

The metallic-heavy blood soaked into the floorboards, the lingering warmth of bodies that had once been her family. Beneath it all—hunger, vast and bottomless.

She clamped a hand over her mouth and rocked, soundless, until footsteps echoed from the stairwell measured and unhurried.

A cane struck once then twice.

Y/n’s head looked up, instinct louder than thought. She crawled backward, spine scraping brick, blood slick beneath her palms as she vanished deeper into darkness.

He entered her home, uninvited, like he owned it.

The gentleman from the brothel wore a top hat now, brim casting his eyes into calculated shade. A tailored waistcoat hugged his frame, immaculate against the ruin of the room.

A pocket watch chain glinted faintly against his chest, catching the sunlight pouring in through the window.

Leather gloves sheathed his hands, and in one, a cane, on the other—a ring.

It gleamed as the rays bent around it, refused it, and slid harmlessly across his skin.

Y/n stared, an understanding surfaced unbidden, settling into her mind as easily as hunger had.

A charm old and powerful—a daywalker’s ring.

He smiled slow, and satisfied.

“Well,” he said, voice smooth with quiet amusement, “you woke.”

He shut the door behind him, the sound sealing the room. Sunlight still flooded in, bold and lethal, but it did not touch him. He crossed it with ease, stopping a few feet away as he studied her like a scholar before an anomaly.

“You have no idea how rare that is,” he continued. “Most never make it this far.”

His gaze drifted—not dismissively, but clinically—over the bodies scattered across the floor.

“The blood takes immediately,” he said, almost thoughtfully. “That’s never the problem, death completes the turning cleanly enough.”

His eyes returned to her.

“It’s what comes after that kills them.”

Y/n tried to move, her limbs trembling, weak and uncooperative, still learning the weight of this new existence.

A low sound rippled from her throat—raw, feral.

He chuckled and knelt.

The movement brought him level with her, sunlight tracing the edge of his hat, flickering along the ring on his finger.

He smelled of leather, iron, and something impossibly old.

“Easy,” he replied. “You’re still in it. The transition is slow for some, painful for most.”

He tilted his head, studying her with open fascination.

“You didn’t reject it,” he said. “You didn’t wither and rot before hunger could even wake.”

A pause…

“You endured.”

Something almost like approval crossed his face.

“You would have died young,” he went on calmly. “Worked into nothing, used until there was nothing left to take. That life would have crushed you long before age ever could.”

He leaned closer, voice lowering, intimate and dangerous.

“I spared you that.”

Her lips quivered. “You killed them.”

“No, you did,” he chuckled without hesitation. “Because your hunger finished what death began.”

The truth settled heavy and immovable.

He rose slowly to his feet. As he did, he twisted the ring on his finger—just once. The sunlight shifted instantly, bending away, recoiling as if offended.

“Names matter,” he said, glancing toward the window she could not approach. “Especially at the beginning.”

He looked back at her over his shoulder.

“I am Vlad Dracul.”

The name rested into the room like a crown placed upon old bones.

He stepped once more into the light, untouched, the ring radiating with quiet power.

“This,” he said, lifting his hand slightly, “is the difference between burning in corners and choosing where you stand.”

His gaze pinned her in place.

“You are the first,” Vlad said softly, “who survived long enough to become.”

He removed one glove, exposing pale fingers scarred by centuries, and pressed his thumb into his palm.

Blood welled, rich and intoxicating. The scent hit her instantly—commanding, unbearable.

Her body lunged despite itself, he pulled back just out of reach in amusement.

“Control,” he said. “Then survival.”

He leaned down, voice dropping into something almost conspiratorial.

“And when you are strong enough,” he said, eyes flicking to the ring once more, “we will make certain the sun never claims you again.”

Another pause.

“We’ll get you one of your own.”

Y/n stared up at him from the shadows—burning, starving, fully awake at last—and understood the truth beneath his mercy:

Vlad Dracul had not saved her because she was innocent, he saved her because she survived.

And that made her worth keeping.

Next ->

[catrionaalexandra]

Spectre

Leon S. Kennedy x Vampire!Fem!Reader

Inspired by The Vampire Diaries, The trailers from Resident Evil Requiem, and the song Specter by Bad Omens!

Warnings: Blood, Gore, Violence, Vampirism, Death, Vulgar Language, Takes Place in Requiem Timeline (2028), Age Gap? (Reader is 145, but appearance wise 25-26 since that’s when she was turned/killed), Slow-Burn, Dark, Mythical, Romance, Las Plagas, Gothic, Leon is Infected, Self Harm (Reader purposely bleeds herself to save Leon), The Vampire Diaries-Like Themes, Leon’s RE9 Appearance was visualized during this.

Authors Note: Y/n is used, M/n (Middle Name) is used, L/n (Last Name is used, E/c (Eye Colour) is used, H/c (Hair Colour).

Word Count: 425

Prologue (coming soon!)

Introduction

Y/n M/n L/n, a vampire born in 1858 and turned at the age of twenty-five in 1883. Though her body remains frozen in youthful perfection, time never stopped moving for her.

She has ‘lived’ for 145 years, watching the world reshape itself—horse drawn streets giving way to engines, borders dissolving and reforming, medicine advancing while mortality never loosens its grip.

She has buried lovers who withered with age, mourned friends stolen by illness and violence, and fled countries whenever suspicion crept too close.

Over the decades, Y/n learned how to imitate life: how to breathe though her lungs no longer need air, how to smile at the right moments, how to blend into patterns meant for the living.

An enchanted ring crafted by a witch allows her to walk beneath the sun, and she never removes it—not for sleep, not for trust, not for love. Without it, she is exposed.

Now, in 2028, Y/n works alongside Leon S. Kennedy, a seasoned agent at fifty-one years old.

To him, she is sharp, composed, unnervingly calm under pressure—too calm. He tells himself it’s just respect for a capable partner, nothing more.

Still, his attention drifts to her more often than it should: the way she anticipates danger before it unfolds, the way nothing seems to truly rattle her.

Leon feels it, the pull, but he shoves it down hard. He has survived too long to indulge in attachment. Feelings are weaknesses, and in his line of work, weaknesses get people killed. If Y/n is one, she is his—and that makes her dangerous in ways no enemy ever could.

He has no idea what she truly is.

That illusion shatters during a mission gone wrong.

Leon is bitten—a new strain of (the) Las Plagas infection tearing into his neck and racing through his bloodstream.

He bleeds, and begins to change. Y/n recognizes the signs too well. She has lost too many people already, and she refuses to watch another die.

Desperation overrides secrecy.

She bites into her own wrist and forces Leon to drink. Her blood burns through the infection, fighting it cell by cell, dragging him back from the brink of death.

The cure saves him—but it costs her everything she’s hidden.

Leon survives.

And now, he knows.

What he doesn’t know yet is which truth frightens him more—that she is a monster, or that even now, even after everything, she is still the one person he cannot afford to lose.

Prologue

[catrionaalexandra]

Ghost of You

Leon S. Kennedy x Female!Reader

Inspired by Dracula: A Love Tale

Warnings: Love, Lost Love, Soul Searching, Romance, Gothic Romance, Mentions of Alcohol, Red String Theory, Old Love, Strangers to Lovers, Leon is Undercover, Masquerade, Intimate, Soulmates, Yearning, Leon’s Wrecked for Reader, A New Side to Leon is Shown; Vulnerability, Reader has Dimples (I have a weakness for those 🤧), Worship, Reader has Long Hair, Older Leon, Happy Ending

Summary: At the edge of winter and memory, Leon is faced with a moment that asks everything of him—presence, surrender, and truth. What begins in snow and silence carries forward into a future shaped not by duty or survival, but by the quiet choices that follow love.

Authors Note: Y/n is used, M/n (Middle Name) is used, L/n (Last Name is used, E/c (Eye Colour) is used, S/c (Skin Colour) is used, H/c (Hair Colour).

Word count: 1,118

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Epilogue (You are here!)

Y/n pulled back just enough to see him clearly—her lips plump and flushed, her breath unsteady, chest rising beneath her bodice.

Her e/c eyes shone, not with fear or doubt, but with something bright and inevitable…

Love, unguarded and strong. The kind that refused to be reasoned with, the kind that lasted.

Leon’s breath tore from him in clouds, his hand still tangled in her h/c hair as though letting go might fracture the moment beyond repair.

He searched for words and found none worth the weight of what he felt.

His silence wasn’t emptiness, it was surrender.

The wind seized her veil, snapping it loose from its careful pins. It wrapped around her like a living thing, ivory fabric trailing behind her as the storm claimed it.

Her gown swayed, the hem whispering across iced gravel, and for a heartbeat she looked unreal—a visitant summoned by longing alone.

She had haunted him like this, she always had.

Through cities reduced to ash, through blood soaked corridors and sleepless nights.

In the spaces between missions where he closed his eyes and saw her anyway.

And then she smiled… not a cautious smile, not a fragile one. It was a full, radiant smile that carved dimples into her cheeks and bent the frozen garden toward her gravity.

It burned the air more surely than fire ever could.

She reached for him, fingers slipping into his hand, their palms slick with melting snow.

“Come with me,” she whispered, breathless, joyful—like she already knew the answer.

Before Leon could respond, she pulled him forward, laughter breaking free as she dragged him across the stone and through the gates, back toward the towering doors of the castle.

Snow clung to their hair, soaked into wool and silk alike.

They burst inside in a flurry of heavy footsteps and laughter.

Gasps rippled through the ballroom as heads turned, noblemen stared, and courtiers stopped mid conversation.

Though, none of them mattered.

Y/n lured him into the centre of the room, veil and skirts spiraling around her like a windstorm finally given purpose.

The orchestra faltered, only for a heartbeat—before finding itself again, strings and piano keys swelled into a chorus of instruments that felt older than the stone beneath their feet.

Leon caught her instinctively, one hand firm at her waist, the other clasped tight in hers.

For once, his mind didn’t map exits or catalog threats. He didn’t count the distance to doors or measure the weight of hidden weapons.

He felt only her.

The way she fit against him as if carved from the same intention. The way her giggles echoed up into the vaulted ceiling. The way candlelight caught in her eyes, turning them molten, eternal.

They moved together not as soldier and bride, not as survivor and saviour—but as something older because their bodies remembered a rhythm their minds had forgotten.

Every turn erased the world beyond the music, every step dissolved the distance between past lives and this one.

Orders faded, and missions unraveled.

There was only this dance, only her hand in his, only Y/n M/n L/n and Leon S. Kennedy.

As the music grew, Leon understood that he hadn’t endured the darkness for duty or fate.

He had survived to find her again, to stand here, to dance this dance. In this life, and every life that dared follow.

He bent his head, lips brushing her temple, voice rough with truth…

“I love you, Y/n.”

And for a long moment, the world itself seemed to kneel.

⸻

A year later, the glass was cool against Leon’s fingers.

Amber liquid caught the low light of the Pub as he lifted it, rolling the drink once before taking a slow sip. The place hummed with laughter and music, warm and crowded, the kind of place that smelled like polished wood and celebration.

He leaned back in his chair, a year older now, a year wiser—so they said.

Across the room, Y/n stood at the bar on her toes, laughing as she ordered something.

His fiancée.

The word still startled him sometimes, still landed like a quiet miracle. She wore no veil now, no crown of lace—just a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, grey sweat pants, sneakers and that same unmistakable pull.

She turned her head, and caught him watching, so she smiled.

The same smile.

The gardens, frozen and white, hit him without warning. The way snow had kissed her lashes, the castle doors thrown open, and the waltz that had rewritten his life.

He remembered how their souls had recognized each other, how something ancient and patient had clicked into place the moment her hand found his.

Leon exhaled, warmth spreading through his chest that had nothing to do with the alcohol.

She crossed the room and slipped into the chair beside him, pressing a kiss to his cheek, then his mouth.

“Happy birthday,” she murmured.

Only then did he notice what she held carefully in both hands—a small white plate, steam still ghosting faintly from it. A single cupcake sat at its centre, modest and unadorned, crowned with one thin candle.

“I asked the chef to make something small,” she said, a little sheepish, like she’d been caught doing something tender. “No fuss. Just… something you’d actually like.”

Leon stared at it longer than he meant to. Chocolate, by the smell of it. No gold leaf, no towering layers. Just enough.

…Simple.

The irony didn’t escape him, how a man built of contradictions, of violence and duty and impossible choices, had always wanted the quietest things.

A chair pulled close, a small hand laced with his, and a life that didn’t ask him to be anything but present.

She struck a match and lit the candle, shielding the flame with her palm like it mattered—like this small wish deserved protection.

The glow reflected in her soft e/c eyes as she held it out to him, “Make one,” she said softly.

Leon leaned forward, breath steady, and for a brief moment, the bar faded.

No missions, no blood, and no guilt tapping at his spine.

Just Y/n, and just this.

He blew out the candle and Y/n clapped once, quick and quiet, then laughed gently and kissed him again, sugar and warmth and home all tangled together.

Leon smiled into her hair, the noise of everything drifted into something distant and unimportant. A year ago, the world had knelt.

Now it simply carried on—steady, alive, and generous.

And for the first time in his life, that was enough.

The end.

<- Part Three

[catrionaalexandra]

Ghost of You

Leon S. Kennedy x Female!Reader

Inspired by Dracula: A Love Tale

Warnings: Love, Lost Love, Soul Searching, Romance, Gothic Romance, Mentions of Alcohol, Red String Theory, Old Love, Strangers to Lovers, Leon is Undercover, Masquerade, Intimate, Soulmates, Yearning, Leon’s Wrecked for Reader, A New Side to Leon is Shown; Vulnerability, Reader has Dimples (I have a weakness for those 🤧), Worship, Reader has Long Hair, Leon is secretly a poet (couldn’t help myself 😬)

Summary: Leon and Y/n stand suspended in a snow-choked garden of the castle as a confession turns into reckoning. Leon reveals a love that feels older than memory—a love forged through war, loss, and the constant presence of her in every battlefield and nightmare he has survived.

Authors Note: Y/n is used, M/n (Middle Name) is used, L/n (Last Name is used, E/c (Eye Colour) is used, S/c (Skin Colour) is used, H/c (Hair Colour).

Word count: 1,514

Part One, Part Two, Part Three (You’re Here), Epilogue

Leon’s words still vibrated in the thin air, unfiltered and deep.

Snow peppered his brows, his breath a plume of white between them.

She let the confession wash over her like water, sinking into her ribs. She felt the hard press of his body against hers, the weight of his hand at her thigh, and the chill of his sterling rings scoring the lace at her shoulder.

Y/n tipped her head back so their faces lined, the motion wasn’t timid. Her palm found his cheek, fingers spreading against stubble.

She pressed there, not to push him away, but to centre him and make him feel real. Her other hand flattened against his chest, right where his heart hammered, and she felt its frantic, stubborn rhythm beneath her palm.

A slow, rueful smile curled at one corner of her mouth, not a laugh, but a blade of amusement.

“Words are easy to fling in the dark,” she said, her voice low and even, breath scattered like mist across his lips.

“It’s mornings I distrust, especially those after declarations,” she spoke, her fingers tightening a fraction on his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw as if reading a map.

“If you mean to keep me, then stay when the candles gutter, when the music dies, and when the world remembers how to be cruel.”

Her thumb brushed the hollow of her throat, echoing his earlier touch, before sliding upward and resting against his ear.

“Prove it,” she whispered, and the words landed between them like a dare.

She leaned into him, safe and defiant all at once, and let the snow melt on her face.

The challenge in her eyes promised violence and mercy in equal measure: she would not be taken; she would be won.

Leon’s face softened, then hardened, the soldier reshaping into something fiercer.

He pressed his forehead to hers, breath mingling, and the moment held—a pact born of touch and promise rather than vows.

Snow settled in his hair, melting where their heat collided. Her dare still echoed between them, sharp as a broken glass: Prove it.

He inhaled, ragged, and for a moment she swore he might break.

Then his mouth parted, not for a kiss, but to release something deeper.

“You are mine,” he whispered, his voice trembling against her lips. It wasn’t a command or of possession, but a truth he could no longer suppress.

“My soul has yearned for you across countless lifetimes, and now, here you are, safely in my arms once again.”

His hand still gripped firmly at her thigh through the folds of her gown, pinning her against him, staking his claim with the strength of that hold.

Slowly, his palm slid upward, tracing the length of her body.

He passed over the curve of her hip, followed the line of her waist, then caught the underside of her arm.

His fingers traveled higher, brushing her elbow and wrist until they enclosed her hand completely. He pulled it back against him, against the thrum of his heart.

His bare palm, frozen from the night, left a trail of fire in its wake.

Every pass of his rings pressed marks into her skin, silent emblems of belonging.

He drew her upright, not in haste, but in adoration, until she stood against his chest.

His hands framed her face, thumbs sweeping along her cheeks, calloused fingers threading into her hair and veil.

He stared at her—long, searching, as if he could pull proof of their past lives from her gaze.

“This isn’t chance,” he said, his voice low and serious. “The universe keeps throwing you back to me, no matter the cost. You may be a stranger, but I know you. I’ve loved you before, and I will love you again. And this time,” he took a deep breath, “I won’t fail you.”

The snow thickened, clinging to the gold trim of her gown, the black of her nails, and the curve of his shoulders.

Around them, the garden vanished into nothingness.

Leon bowed his head, kissing the inside of her wrist, slower, his lips lingering as if sealing his promise into her skin.

His eyes closed, and when they opened again, he drew her upright, not in haste but in reverence, until she stood flush against his chest once again.

He gently moved her hand up, brushing her fingers against his lips, his breath warming them.

When he lifted his eyes, they burned with a tenderness that eclipsed everything else.

“You are my beginning and my end,” Leon whispered, his voice unsteady with emotion. “I want you—in this world, in this life…and in every one that comes after.” He drew in a sharp breath and kissed her hand once more.

Snow continued to cling to him, melting into the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t notice.

“I’ll find you again, no matter where the stars cast us. If the heavens scatter our ashes to the wind, I’ll gather every grain until I am with you. If the earth buries you, I’ll tear it open with my bare hands just to hold you again. If the rivers drag us apart, I’ll drown gladly just to reach your shore.”

His lips trembled against her fingers as his voice sank lower, more intimate. “When you smile, the weight of the world falls away. When you breathe, even time holds still. And when your hand is in mine…” He closed his eyes, forehead leaning against her knuckles. “…I remember what it feels like to live.”

The garden seemed to bow around them—roses dusted white, statues leaning closer, the snow falling in waves.

Leon opened his eyes, stripped of every defense, every mask, every lie his work made him carry.

His voice broke as he finished, “I will love you here, and I will love you in every life after this one. Nothing in heaven or hell will ever take that from me.”

The snow thickened, swallowing the garden in silence. Each flake sticking to their hair, their lashes, the folds of her gown as though the night itself tried to drape them in its shroud, wanting to freeze this moment for an eternity.

Leon’s admission still hung in the air, unpolished, but he felt the burn of it in his chest like gunfire.

Her eyes were on him, wide, searching, and he knew words could no longer carry what threatened to break loose inside him.

And then—like a surge through of lightning in his mind—came the visions. Not dreams. Not illusions. Memories bent through the glass of time.

Raccoon City…

Flames tearing through the streets, smoke choking his lungs, the stench of rot and ash. And yet, through it all, there had been moments where he thought he saw her: a woman in white at the end of a burning alley, her face blurred, her voice drowned beneath the sirens.

Spain…

The mission to rescue the president’s daughter, the cult, the endless nights in crumbling stone halls. Even there, when sleep clawed at him in moments too brief to rest, he would glimpse her.

A gown trailing over broken steps, a hand vanishing into shadow.

Always her, never clear and always waiting.

Now he understood.

God had never given him peace—only fragments, warnings, promises. Pieces of her, scattered across every battle, every nightmare, until the world had finally brought her to him.

His hand slid into her hair, catching the strands in a rough, aching grip. He bunched it behind her head, forcing her closer, his eyes locking on her lips as though nothing else in creation mattered.

“Enough,” he rasped, and then his restraint shattered.

He dragged her to him, closing the final thread of distance, and his mouth crashed against hers.

It was not soft, and it was not patient. It was hunger, poured into the clash of lips and teeth, a collision years in the making.

His fingers tightened in her hair, holding her exactly where he needed her, while his other hand caught her waist, pulling her hard into his chest until the folds of her gown tangled between them.

Her lips parted beneath his, yielding, answering, and the snow melted against their heat.

Leon kissed her like a man who had been dying for centuries, only now given air.

Every nightmare, every scar, every ghost he had carried bled out of him into that kiss, and all that remained was the savage relief of finally, finally finding her.

When he tore his mouth from hers, only to drag her back into him again, his voice broke against her lips.

“I’ve seen you in every shadow. I’ve carried you in every hell, and now you’re here —real— in my arms.”

The words dissolved into another kiss, harder, deeper, a promise written not with speech but with the desperate press of his lips against hers.

For Leon Kennedy, there had never been salvation…

Only battles, only loss.

Until her, until now.

<- Part Two Epilogue ->