hheaven-sentt

[hheaven-sentt]

FEBRUARY 27, 2026. RESIDENT EVIL REQUIEM.

[hheaven-sentt]

blood and bone iv

summary: as you wait for the sea to reclaim your body, you feel the tide around your ankles

word count: 4.2k

warnings: gore, animal injuries, autopsy processes, medical happenings, language, some nice domestic fluff before it's violently ripped away from you

notes: i have finally finished finals, so have this as a treat | ao3

blood and bone ml

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When a case comes across your desk, you want to run and hide. If you never have to autopsy a half human again, it would be too soon. You stare at the unopened file, willing yourself as best you can to open it and get started. You just can’t. Leon shoulders his way into your cracked office door, raising his eyebrows when he catches your gaze. He’s holding a bagel haphazardly wrapped in a few napkins and a cup of coffee. It almost makes you smile.

“Got something new?” he asks, crossing the room. He sets the coffee on your desk, sticking out his arm to hand you the bagel. You take it, picking at some of the bread flaking off of it.

“Yeah, seems that way,” you say, defeat creeping into your voice. You turn back to the file, staring at it like it might bite you if you try to open it. Maybe it will.

“What is it?” Leon asks, leaning over you to peek at the unopened file. You shrug. “You haven’t looked at it?”

You shake your head. “I don’t want to,”

He steals a sip from the coffee he brought, face souring at the sweetness of it. You like a lot of sugar in yours, compared to his preference of straight black. He pulls a chair over, sitting beside you.

You’re still in that awkward stage of…whatever this is. You’re not sure where you stand, exactly. Obviously, your relationship is different than it was a few months ago, but you’re not sure what to make of it now. You haven’t had time to go out, not really. Between his unpredictable visits at work and catching him in the hallways of events, you haven’t had a chance to even talk about things.

Leon pulls the file in front of him, opening it without a second thought.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that,” you say, smiling a bit. He shrugs.

“It’s never stopped me before,” he says, eyes glued to the information that lies in the file.

You lean over to steal a glance at the words. Half of it is redacted, thick black lines covering names and places. Sentences are bisected by the opposite of a highlight. You frown.

“How am I supposed to do my job if I can’t see most of it?” you huff. Leon smooths a hand over your shoulder. The action relaxes you a bit.

“Looks like whatever is going on is along the coast,” he says. You nod. “Beached whales,”

“What?” you blurt, pulling the file into your view. Sure enough, red lines accent the information. Whales and other animals are dead under mysterious circumstances. They’ve already ruled out oil and factory by-products.

“That’s not good, I take it,” Leon half jokes. You pin him with a look. He grins. “Definitely not good,”

“Not good at all,”

You stare at the file, reading over what you can while you gnaw slowly on your bagel. Leon busies himself by attempting to braid a piece of your hair. He’s not very good at it, but he’s trying.

“I have to go soon,” he mumbles, not removing his deft fingers from your scalp. There’s tenderness in his touch, a feeling you’re still getting used to. “You’ll be alright?”

You turn a bit to look at him. The softness in his blue eyes is enough to make you melt. You want to say no. You want to tell him to stay and keep sitting with you. You breathe easier in his presence.

“Yeah, I’ll be alright,” you say instead, reaching up to take one of his hands. He gives it a little squeeze as he pulls away from you. As he gathers his things to leave, he presses a gentle kiss to the crown of your head.

“I might be gone a few days,” he says. You blink at him. “I’ll call when I can,”

“Okay,” you say, voice chopped around the bite of bagel you’ve taken. “Be safe,”

He’s gone without another word, leaving you empty without his presence. A strange air settles over your bones, caking you in what feels like melancholy. You scrunch your nose in response, turning back to your files and reports. You suppose you should find a supervisor or someone in order to get more information on your case. You don’t want to. You want to freeze in place until Leon gets back. For whatever reason, you feel like you can’t take on a case on your own anymore. Having another brain to bounce ideas off of certainly makes the job easier. Before, you’d been able to churn through cases without a second thought. But now, you feel like you need a partner. It makes you frown.

It’s two days later when you touch down on the sand of a North Carolina beach. There’s a sad looking, half alive whale flipping its tail aimlessly along the shore. You sigh deeply, watching it blink against the sand getting thrown in its eye from the wind.

“Not looking good,” Rebecca says from behind you. Her backpack is almost twice the size of her, making her hunch slightly.

“It looks like it’s in so much pain,” you say sadly. “What do we do?”

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” Rebecca says, resting a hand on your shoulder. You nod.

You follow her down the beach, watching as the whale attempts to move itself back into the water with its flippers. The fruitless action makes your heart clench. It’s much bigger up close than you really expected. You knew whales were big, sure, but you’d never seen one this close. You run your palm along its nose, and it grunts at you. The sound is guttural and raspy, like it's gasping. Your stomach churns.

Rebecca rounds the side of the whale, and you follow her. You crouch down to examine what looks like an infected wound on its side. The stench is almost unbearable. You’ve experienced your fair share of horrid smells, but this one is unlike anything else you’ve encountered. The wound pulses with each ragged breath the animal takes, oozing some kind of mustard colored pus. Rebecca begins her work gently, trying her best to not agitate the area any further. You watch carefully, taking note of how hard it is for the animal to breathe. You imagine what it would be like if you were superhuman. Maybe you could heal the whale with a single touch, then push it back into the ocean where it could return to its family. The thought makes your lip quiver.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” you say, taking a step back. You’re not quick to sicken at the sight of a wound, but this one feels different.

The whale is innocent, a bystander in the grand scheme of things. It lives in the ocean, far removed from the sins of society, unbothered by the happenings of the land. And yet, here it lies, half dead and suffering a far greater fate than it deserves. You’re not sure how long whales live, but this one looks young enough, only to be cut down in its prime.

You back away further from the whale, watching through squinted eyes as Rebecca collects a sample from its still writhing flesh. Your mouth suddenly waters, and you feel like you’re spinning. You plop onto the sand, pain racing up your spine. The wind blows again, kicking up sand and tossing it over the drying skin of the whale. This isn’t right. This whale shouldn’t be here, but it is due to the cruelty of man. You put your head in your hands.

“You okay?” Rebecca asks, approaching you. She’s sealing the vial into a bag. “We can take a break,”

You want to run far away, maybe to a mountain. You’re sure that even if you did, evil would find you there too.

“No,” you muster, trying to return to your feet. “There’s another whale a few yards away, we should look at that one before we go anywhere,”

Rebecca nods, falling into step beside you as you approach yet another whale. This one is dead, has been for a few days. You wonder why no one has been out to do anything about it. You wonder if they would’ve just let it rot on the beach. Given the weather, you’re almost positive there’s not a crowd approaching the shore any time soon, but would they have just left it here? Let it rot until the elements gave it an unceremonious grave?

There’s a large open wound on the face of this one, picked away by the wildlife in the area. The rotting flesh is barely hanging on, decaying before your eyes. You’re not even sure it knew it was dying. Maybe it did; maybe that’s why it decided to throw itself onto the beach. You try not to think about it.

You spend the next few hours pouring over files of similar incidents from the past few years. There’s been few reports of similar things happening, but the ones that have been reported are eerily parallel happenings. Two or three dead or dying whales hauling themselves onto the beach, covered in indeterminate wounds, and clinging to life. Only a few have been confirmed as sea wildlife interaction or accidental man-made byproduct spills, but there are others that have no concrete explanation.

“We’re gonna be taking off here soon,” Rebecca says, reading over your shoulder. You nod. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” you say, loosing a sigh. “The whales are making me sad. It could’ve been prevented,”

Rebecca sits in the chair next to you. You look at her. She looks tired, like this is taking a toll on her too. “It could’ve. But that’s why we’re here. We can prevent it from happening again,”

You nod. “That’s why we’re here,” you repeat. She offers you a small smile, leaving you again to your notes.

It’s two hours later before you’re back home. You feel heavy, like the whales themselves are tied to your ankles as you climb the stairs to your apartment. When you enter, the lights are off. You let out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. You remove everything on your body; keys and wallet find their home in a dish near the door, jacket returns to its home on the hook, and your shoes slip off easily next to the couch. You feel slightly lighter having taken off your armor, but a shower would really do you good. You’re sure you smell like whale guts.

Wordlessly, you gather a pile of clothes and head to the bathroom. It’s then that you finally catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. Your cheeks have filled out in the last few weeks, and you’re sure you have Leon to thank for always bringing you snacks and lunch. Your skin is a bit brighter, your eyes less hollow. You smooth a hand over features you don’t entirely recognize. 

You’d always vowed that you would never let a partner change you. Too many times, you’d lost parts of yourself to people who didn’t deserve them, and you always told yourself that it would never happen again. But this time feels different. Leon has changed you. You’re certain of that. But he has changed you in a good way. He’s made you excited for things, even simple things like showing him a movie he’s never seen before. He’s made you lust for life in a way you never have before. Maybe changing for your partner isn’t the worst fate, especially if you’re changing like this.

Suddenly, the whales don’t hang as heavily on your shoulders anymore. They’re behind on the beach where you left them, not discarded, but not following either. You acknowledge their pain, feel it as deeply in your chest as if you had been struck, but you won’t let yourself carry it anymore. With a strange sense of renewal, you step into the shower. When you emerge, you hear rustling in your kitchen. Fear strikes your body for a few moments as you quietly dress. As silent as you can manage, you creep into the hallway.

Light from the kitchen streaks across the otherwise dark floor, a shadow of a body moving around. You approach. You’re not entirely surprised to find Leon standing in the light of your fridge, blinking at you as he uncorks a bottle of wine. You let out a breath, taking the bottle from him.

“That was a gift, you know,” you say, placing the bottle back in its place on the top shelf. “I’m saving it for a special occasion,”

“My return is not special enough?” he asks. You glare at him, and he responds with a grin. “You wound me,”

Without much warning, he scoops you into his arms. His embrace is warm, comforting. The wet strands of your hair are sticking to your skin, something that would normally be uncomfortable, but you can’t find it in you to care.

“How’d it go?” you ask, voice muffled by the down of his jacket.

You feel him shrug. “As well as it could have,”

You nod. “I dissected whales today,” you say, cringing.

“How’d it go?”

“As well as it could have,”

He winces when you pull away. You’re sure he didn’t mean for you to catch the action, but you do anyway. You frown at him, a knowing glint in your eyes. He sighs, struggling to free himself from his jacket. Your breath hitches when he pulls his shirt up gingerly to reveal a gash along his rib cage. It’s angry and red, cutting toward his sternum.

“Do you have a death wish?” you ask, glancing up at him. He’s frowning, cheeks reddened from your disappointment.

“No,” he says, returning his shirt to its rightful place. “I didn’t think it was as bad as it is,”

You scrub a hand down your features. “Go sit. I’ll patch you up,”

He nods, hesitating to move. You blink at him. “Can I at least have a kiss?”

Against your better judgement, you smile, leaning up to kiss him quickly before shoving him through the archway of your tiny kitchen. You can almost hear the grin splitting across his lips. With a sigh, you follow him. He takes a seat on your couch with some difficulty. You frown at him.

“I can’t believe you,” you mutter, pulling a first aid kit out of a cabinet. “Did you see anyone? One of the onsite med staff? Anyone at all?”

Leon’s features twist up in embarrassment at your scolding. Sheepishly, he says, “No. I had other things to worry about,”

You let out a long sigh, pulling on a pair of gloves. A sudden bout of nerves coats your bones, making your hands shake a bit. You’ve never been nervous about your ability to heal people. Even Leon. You don’t like that you suddenly are. With a quick shake of your head, you turn to him. He pulls his shirt up for you to examine his wound. It’s not too deep, which is good considering it goes right over important organs. It is bleeding a lot, though, which is worrisome. You get to work cleaning it. Leon lets out a hiss of pain as you run an alcohol pad over it.

“You reap what you sow,” you mumble, a small admonishment for coming back to you broken and beaten. “What was your plan? Drink casually until I noticed you were bleeding?”

“More or less,” he says through gritted teeth.

You furrow your brow and feel your mouth twist up, wrinkling your nose. “Not cool,”

After you’ve cleaned away as much of the blood as you can, you change out gloves and prepare to stitch him up.

“This will hurt,” you say, not giving much more warning before sinking the needle into his flesh. He tenses up.

“What happened to your bedside manner?” he asks. You huff a laugh.

“That’s reserved for people who deserve it, Kennedy,” you say. “Besides, you like me better this way. You know I’m not nice to you,”

As you tighten your stitch work, he groans. “A little faux kindness wouldn’t hurt,”

You shrug, finishing up his stitches. “I need you to stand,”

He groans again, this time a little more dramatically, but does as you ask. It’s not without difficulty, but he’s eventually able to get to his feet. You begin to wrap the area in gauze, passing the roll between your hands behind his back. It’s a shoddy job, but it does what it needs to.

“There,” he says. “Good as new,”

“Don’t do that again,” you say, frowning at him. “Believe it or not, I don’t appreciate sewing you up,”

He rolls his eyes playfully. “I hereby swear to never show up to your place injured ever again,”

“Cross your heart,”

“Hope to die,”

“Go shower,” you say, giving his chest a little shove. “You stink,”

He presses a quick kiss to the crown of your head before disappearing into your room. You sigh, looking around at the whirlwind of medical supplies scattered around you. After a hard blink, you start to clean up. It’s a quick process, with you fleeting between the kitchen and the living room as you dispose of everything. Finally, you’re able to collapse on the couch. You scrub a hand over your face, feeling suddenly exhausted from everything. What you wouldn’t give for a week’s vacation.

“You need to tell your landlord that you’re not getting hot water,” Leon calls from the hallway. He emerges a second later, running a towel over his half dry hair. He’s wearing a loose fitting t-shirt and a pair of sweats he left here the last time he ambushed you. “Also, stop leaving your spare key under the doormat. It’s not safe,”

“I don’t have anyone breaking in but you,” you say, exhaustion clogging your throat with a yawn.

“Still, I don’t like it,” he says, flopping onto the couch beside you. “It’s the first place I looked,”

You shrug, curling up onto the arm of the couch. You yawn again, this time louder, and settle in as best you can. You fall quickly into a dreamless sleep, one where you feel completely safe and comfortable.

You wake sometime later to your phone ringing. You groan, sitting up and taking in your surroundings. Leon is asleep upright on the couch beside you, arm slung over his eyes. The other hand rests on your calf. At some point, he must’ve turned the TV on; it’s running some news cycle. You haul yourself up, searching for your phone.

“Hello?” you answer, voice muffled by sleep.

“How quick can you get here?” Rebecca asks on the other end. You frown. “We have to go back,”

“To the whales?” you ask, rubbing one of your eyes. “Why?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” she says. “How quick can you get here?”

You glance at the clock. It’s nearing four in the morning. “Probably a half hour?”

“Good,” she says. “Bring Leon. See you soon,”

With that, the line goes dead. You sigh, flipping your phone closed. With a stretch, you return to the couch where Leon is already watching you.

“Time to go to work,” you say. He nods wordlessly.

By the time you get to the helipad, the sun is starting to peek over the horizon. Leon marches ahead of you, both bags slung over his shoulders. You diverge to find Rebecca tapping her foot anxiously near the door.

“What’s going on?” you ask, voice nearly drowned out by the blades of the helicopter beginning to whirl.

“No time,” she says. “Let’s go,”

You follow her to the helicopter, hopping in beside Leon, who hands you a headset wordlessly. His hard exterior has shifted into place, something that makes your heart sink. You’re in the air minutes later, flying high above the helipad. The sun glares at you as it rises, as if it’s angry that you’re up and moving before it is.

“Whatever got those whales is spreading to people on the coast,” Rebecca says, pulling a file from her bag to hand to you. “We received this late last night,”

You skim over the file, Leon leaning over to read over your shoulder. Sure enough, there’s at least twenty reported cases since yesterday. Your shoulders deflate as you read. This infection seems different from the last one.

“Is anyone dead?” you ask, looking up at Rebecca. Her mouth hardens into a line, and you have your answer.

“There’s cadavers ready for your examination,” she says instead. You nod.

“I want to look at their brains,” you say. “And their hearts,”

“Probably a good call,” she says. “We don’t have anything back on the whales yet, so don’t even ask. The lab’s been swarmed with shit since last night,”

You sigh. “Great. So what should we expect when we land?”

“Hell,”

A little over two hours later, and your feet touch down on the uneven terrain of the land meeting beach. Tents have been constructed, which always seems to surprise you. You trudge on, heading toward the medical tent without a word. It’s chaos inside, doctors rushing between half dead and writing patients. You feel your stomach churn. Someone tosses a box of gloves at you, which you barely catch, and hollers at you to help. Wordlessly, you join the fray. 

For what seems like hours, you bounce between patients. Some are more conscious than others, while others seem completely normal. You can’t figure out what’s causing anything. Everything seems to be random; patients are screaming because their hands are decaying before their eyes while others only have a mild headache. Finally, you’re able to step away. You’re pulled aside to autopsy a body found a few miles out from the beach.

Whoever this was died a horrible, brutal death. Their skin is gray and splotchy, with blisters covering most of the area. Some of them have popped and are oozing a horrid smelling pus that almost makes you vomit.  If you had to picture the word death, this would be it. With as much courage as you can muster, you begin to slice into the body. It opens easily, skin having lost its ability to resist damage. The bones inside have been eaten away so badly that you’re not even sure how it still has any shape. Muscles are gooey under your fingers as you root around inside the chest cavity. When you finally find the heart, you almost burst into tears.

It’s just a lump of liquid muscle, a shell of what it once was. Upon inspection, you find that the chambers inside have been eroded into one giant one, one incapable of pumping blood. Every piece you find makes everything more puzzling. This heart hasn’t been operational in some time. Something else was fueling the body.

“You’re sure these people are moving around right up until death?” you ask a doctor near you.

“Positive,” he says grimly. “I wouldn’t believe it either had I not seen it myself,”

You sigh. “Got it,”

You return the heart to its home, moving down the body to get to its head. You dismantle it quickly, desperate to get some kind of answer from the brain. Fortunately, it’s mostly intact. However, you notice that the spinal cord has been eaten away slightly. You crack it open, interested in what the inside looks like. As you do, a lesion pops, splattering your face with whatever pus lives within. You sputter, trying to wipe it away on instinct.

“Stop!” someone shouts, rushing up to you with some kind of towel or something. You can’t see. Whatever you’re coated in has begun to seep into your eyes. Finally, they’re able to mostly clear it away.

“Did any of it get in your mouth?” the doctor from earlier asks. You blink at him, still holding the brain.

“I-I don’t know,” you say. Your limbs are rigid, locked in place in panic and fear. “I don’t know,”

“Goddamnit,” he says, wrenching the brain from your hands.

In an instant, you’re being stripped of your gloves and coat and shoved into a plastic room. You can’t even discern one moment from the next.

“What the hell is going on?” you shout. The doctor looks at you sympathetically.

“Until we can be sure that you aren’t infected, you have to stay here,” he says. You blink at him.

“And if I am?” you ask. His eyes darken.

“Then only God can help you,”

No, no, no. This can’t be happening. Fear locks its hands around your throat. Your hands find your hair, pulling aimlessly at the strands as your panic begins to take over. You can feel your breathing quicken, your chest heaving. You’ve cheated death so many times, so many infections and cases that you’ve successfully avoided. And for what? You feel like that whale on the beach, the one that was still fighting. It was waiting for death. It was waiting for the sea to reclaim its body. You feel like you can feel the tide at your ankles now.

You turn and vomit onto your shoes, your nearly empty stomach only giving you bits of bile. Your throat runs dry and raw. You just have to sit and wait, and that feels worse than death.

[hheaven-sentt]

two vulnerable people, bound by duty. two vulnerable people, attempting to learn together. two vulnerable people, who, despite it all, find solace in one another. surrounded by horrors beyond comprehension, you crave companionship. you want to learn the intricacies of him, to know him as well as you know blood and bone. you just need to learn how. and so does he.

leon kennedy x gn!reader

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major series warnings: repeated depictions of gore, violence, and occasional body horror. adult language often used

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I

you understand blood and bones well enough, emotions are another thing entirely

II

you want to open him up like the bodies you’re used to, and he wants to keep himself at an arm’s length

III

vulnerability leads to injury. sometimes, injuries can heal with minimal scarring

IV

as you wait for the sea to reclaim your body, you feel the tide around your ankles

V

good ending (TBA): this doesn't feel like losing | you finally get your happy ending bad ending (COMING SOON): this doesn't feel like winning | consumption in its element

[hheaven-sentt]

blood and bone III

summary: vulnerability leads to injury. sometimes, injuries can heal with minimal scarring | leon kennedy x gn!reader

word count: 4.8k

warnings: mentions of violence and gore, alcohol consumption, language, two idiots in love, angst for a bit, mentions of regrets and a bit of self loathing, reveal about reader (i have been planting the seeds of it omg i'm so excited)

notes: part 3 as promised omg i feel unstoppable | ao3

blood and bone ml

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It feels like there’s a hole in your chest. You go through the motions, not paying attention to much else. It feels good to throw yourself into your work. There’s nothing else keeping you steady anymore. The sting of rejection hangs heavy on your skin, it’s all you can think about. Does Leon know? Does he know that you want to know him as intimately as you know guts and sinew? Does he know how bad it hurts to know that he won’t let you?

“You’re being dramatic,” Rebecca says. You look at her through your lashes over the files you’re examining. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,”

You sigh. No, perhaps it wasn’t. “I don’t know,”

Rebecca frowns, contorting her soft features into some kind of sympathy, and leaves you to your sorrow.

Your apartment is so empty when you return to it. It’s always been this way, but it somehow feels worse now. Before your trip to New York, you’d had something to hope for. You felt a bit brighter. Now, you feel as empty as the living room of your place. It’s too cold here.

You collect your forgotten glass from last night. There’s a bit of liquor still loose in the bottom. You wash it out in the sink and place the glass on the counter. You feel like crying.

Everything is too much. The case that is no longer yours lives in your brain, Leon’s rejection weighs down your bones, and you feel more alone than you have in months.

You don’t even realize you’re crying until the salty taste runs over your lips. Tears claw at your throat, feeling like barbed wire scratching at your insides. You try to blink them away, but it just makes their assault worse. With a sigh, you sink to the floor. You feel pathetic, crying on your kitchen linoleum. There's nothing worse than crying alone in a place not meant for tears. You breathe in deeply, feeling empty with each intake. You put your head in your hands.

It’s then that your phone rings. With a groan, you stand, snagging the phone from where it rests on the counter. You flip it open with one hand.

“Hello?” you ask, sniffing aggressively in order to maintain some sort of composure.

“You okay?” Rebecca’s voice, soft and delicate, drifts into your ear from the speaker.

“Yeah,” you lie. “Place is real dusty, made the mistake of kicking it all up,”

With a small laugh, Rebecca continues. “I just wanted to remind you of the gala tomorrow night. The whole team is going, which includes you, so wear something nice,”

You roll your eyes. “I think I’ll sit this one out. Those places make me anxious anyway,”

“No way,” Rebecca says. “You have to come. You’re, like, the guest of honor,”

You frown deeply, scrunching your features together in what looks like a wince. A gala is the last thing you need right now. It really sounds like your worst nightmare.

“He’ll be there,” Rebecca says. You frown more.

“Is that supposed to convince me to come?” you ask, picking at a piece of the counter that’s peeling up.

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Probably a month ago,” you say, pursing your lips. “Haven’t seen him since we got back from New York,”

“Yikes,” Rebecca says. You roll your eyes. She doesn’t know the half of it. “Just wear something nice, okay? I expect to see you decked out in all your best jewels,”

“Right, because I’m known for those,” you joke.

She bids you goodbye, and you stare at the shadows on your floor cast by your body in the light of the rangehood. You don’t even know what you would say to Leon. An apology doesn’t seem quite right, neither does pretending nothing ever happened. If anything, you’re sort of hoping he ignores you completely. That would be much easier than pretending to enjoy small talk.

With a groan, you take yourself to bed. This is something you can think about in the morning.

The sunlight does not shed any new perspective on the situation. You’re hopelessly staring at your closest, running through your options of what to wear.

“This is childish,” you mumble to no one in particular, and thread through your clothes to find a simple button down and pleated pants. They will have to do.

You dress quickly. You’re stuffing your shirt into your pants when a button pops off. It lands with a clang against your mirror. You groan, a long, drawn out sound that releases some of your tension. Why can’t anything go right for you on days like this? You reach down to pick up the fallen button, choosing to discard it on your nightstand. Maybe you could figure out how to sew it back on. It can’t be much different than sewing up a wound, right?

The taxi ride to the banquet hall is silent, save for the staticky noise of the radio. The cabbie doesn’t speak, and you prefer it that way. There’s not much for you to say anyway, at least in terms of small talk. You’re not exactly keen on sharing your pathetic situation either. So you remain silent until you pull up to the building. Checking your pockets for your necessities, you push out of the cab. It’s starting to drizzle, so you hurry inside.

You find Rebecca quickly, wearing a beautiful tan dress that hugs her figure well. You suddenly feel frumpy. The cuffs of your sleeves are fraying, your shoes are a size too small, and your pants barely brush the tops of your feet. Maybe you should’ve just stayed home.

“You made it!” Rebecca cheers, shoving a glass of champagne into your hand. “I wasn’t entirely sure you would,”

You force a smile, and say, “Me neither,”

She grins at you, threading her arm through yours. She drags you amongst the other guests, greeting the ones she knows and introducing herself to the ones she doesn’t. You admire her ability to fit into any space. There’s no evidence to suggest that she has ever seen horror, no clues that point to sorrow running in her veins. You cannot say the same for yourself. You’re fidgety, uncomfortable, and try your best not to speak to others. Your eyes shift across the ballroom, looking at the hundreds of heads that are crammed into the space. It makes you frown.

“Doing okay?” Rebecca asks. You nod. “We can find somewhere to sit?”

“You keep mingling,” you say, pulling your arm free from her. “Come find me when it gets boring,”

She flashes you a smile that has lingering worry, and lets you drift into the crowd. This is the last place you want to be, and she knows it. You find an empty table near a big window. The curtains are drawn back, and you can see the rain beginning to pelt down onto the courtyard outside. You’re not sure how long you watch the rain fall, casually sipping your champagne. The screech of a chair being pulled out beside you draws you back to reality.

Leon looks handsome, albeit uncomfortable, in his pressed suit. He fidgets with the cuffs of his jacket as he sits, pointedly avoiding eye contact with you. You swallow hard.

“You looked lonely,” he says, adjusting in his chair. “Figured you could use some company,”

“I appreciate the kindness,” you say, setting your glass onto the table. He finally levels his gaze on you, and a chill snakes down your spine. “I’m alright, though,”

“Maybe I just wanted an excuse to get away from the crowd,” he says, half smiling. 

You’re not sure what to say, so you don’t say anything. You turn your gaze back to the throng of people casually conversing like nothing bad has ever happened. The thought makes you frown. Of all the horrors and devastation you’ve seen, this has got to be the worst. People mingling and drinking like others aren’t dying a few states away.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Leon’s voice pulls you back to him. It’s a bit gruff and worn, like he’s been talking all night. Maybe he has. “Seeing people dance and laugh and be so care free?”

You nod. “They have no idea what’s out there,”

“No, they don’t,” he says, trailing his eyes over your crossed legs. “Maybe it’s better that way,”

“Maybe,” you muse, reaching for your glass again. It was half full before Leon sat down; it’s now almost completely empty. Your mouth feels dry.

“How’ve you been?” Leon asks, leaning forward, forearms on his knees. You watch him carefully, like he’s hiding something.

“Fine,” you say. You’re not sure why the words come out so clipped. You can’t find it in yourself to be sorry, though. He wants arm’s length? That’s what you’ll give him. “You?”

He frowns. “I’m alright. Just haven’t heard from you,”

“Didn’t know you wanted to,” you say. The lines around his mouth deepen, and you want to kiss them away.

“Are we back to this, then?” he asks. You feel his gaze on every inch of your skin. You feel suddenly exposed, raw. You frown.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” you ask, swallowing. “Easier that way,”

You’re not sure why you throw the words back in his face, but you don’t exactly regret it. He watches you like he’s studying you.

“Is that what you want?” he asks, voice low and delicate, like he’s treading uncharted waters. You suppose that’s exactly what he’s doing.

You frown. “You said it. Not me,”

“But is that what you want?”

You don’t know. You want him to give you more than surface level. You want him to be open with you. You want him to laugh at your jokes, and sit on your couch, and help you cook dinner. You want him to know you.

“I don’t know, Leon,” you say. Something sparks in his eyes, an emotion you can’t quite place.

He’s silent for a while before asking, “What’s your sister’s name?”

You gape at him. “Angela,”

“Did you like having a sibling growing up?” he asks, scooting his chair a few inches closer.

You smile a bit. “Sometimes. Other times, I wanted her to disappear. Y’know, sibling quarrel and all that,”

“I don’t, actually,” he says. You furrow your brow. “I didn’t have any siblings,”

“Oh,” you say, because there’s not much else you can say. “You’re welcome to have mine, if you like,”

He laughs then, bright and wide. “I think I’m alright. I’ve learned to like being alone,”

“What did you do?” you ask. “Before everything, I mean,”

He contemplates your question for a moment, like he’s deciding if he wants to share pieces of himself with you. “I was a cop,”

“Noble,” you say, smiling. “That tracks,”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” you say, sighing. “Was training to be an EMT, but…things got in the way, and now I’m here,”

“So you’ve always been interested in medicine?” he asks. You nod. “Did you ever want to be a doctor?”

“No,” you say. “Wanted to be in the thick of it. Saving lives, and all that,”

He grins. “Bet you regret that a bit now,”

You shrug. “Sometimes. I like my job,”

“Even when it’s hard?”

“Even when it’s hard,”

He’s silent then. You watch him watch you. Something shifts in the tension between you, and you relax into your chair a bit more. There’s no one else in the room, no music playing, nothing. Just you and Leon, trying your hands at getting to know someone. You’re not sure you know how to be vulnerable like this anymore, not after everything. Visions of blood caked under your fingernails and memories of the screams of the damned make knowing another person challenging.

“What’s your favorite color?” you ask. He grins at you like a child.

“Green,” he says. You nod. “Yours?”

“I like a good burgundy,” you say. He rolls his eyes playfully. “Or maroon,”

“Are those not the same thing?”

You laugh. “Not even close. Burgundy is more brown, maroon is more of a reddish purple,”

“Right, my bad,” he says, smiling.

The hole in your chest begins to close. This feels like an olive branch. You want to pull him into your orbit, feel him on every inch of your skin. You want him to consume you. You’re almost positive that he would.

“Come dance with me,” he says. You almost drop your jaw at the suggestion.

“Who are you and what have you done with Leon?” you tease, wringing your hands together. You want to take him up on the offer, more than you think you know, but it doesn’t seem like something he would do. You’re almost worried that this is some cruel ploy.

He laughs. “We can do something normal for once. No harm in it,”

You nod, standing to follow him into the crowd of other couples. His hand is steadfast on your waist, the other gently clasping one of your own. You feel stiff as he leads.

“Loosen up,” he says, leaning further into you. Your throat feels like it closes up.

“I’m loose,” you lie. He grins at you, perfectly soft lips pulling around his stupidly white teeth. God, you want to kiss him.

You decide then that you don’t want easy. You don’t want to keep him at an arm’s length, and you’ll do anything to convince him he doesn’t want it either. You want him, wholly and vulnerable, completely. You want him to look out for you. You want to do mundane, domestic things with him. You want to cut his hair because the barber never gets it right. You want to walk into the kitchen and see him doing the dishes, not because you asked but because he wanted to clean up your conjoined space. You want to fold laundry with him.

You’ve never wanted this way, or this much. Before, you’d been so content to let him be cold and detached, to throw yourself into your work and live alone. Now, you’re not happy with that. And you think he knows that too.

“You look nice tonight,” he says, voice low and gentle. It washes over you in a wave, settling your bones and warming your blood.

“Careful,” you tease, smiling. “I might think you’ve gone soft on me,”

“I think you knew that already,” he says. “This is the part where you tell me that I look nice too,”

He does look nice. You knew that already. His suit is almost all black, save for the cuff links that shine against the lights of the ballroom. He looks more than nice. He looks perfect, collected.

“Well, now you’ve gone too far,” you say, grinning so wide that your cheeks hurt. He rolls his eyes. “You do look nice, though,”

When the music fades out, he doesn’t let go. You don’t want him to anyway. You want to stay here, like this, forever. You want him to keep holding you until you’re both no more than dust. He drums a rhythm on your side with his fingers, and a shiver runs through you.

“Take a walk with me,” he says, almost bumping his nose with yours when he leans in to look at you. He’s a hair’s width away, and if you leaned in a touch, you’d be kissing him. You wonder what would happen if you did.

“Okay,” you say.

He leads you out of the crowd by your hand, which you can feel the beads of sweat beginning to form upon. You catch Rebecca’s eye as you move through the crowd. She gives you a wide smile and a subtle thumbs up, which you scowl at. It’s raining hard when you exit the ballroom. You can barely see the cars on the street ahead of you through the thick sheet of water coming down.

“Still want to take that walk?” you ask, looking up at Leon. He’s still holding your hand. He grins at you.

“Afraid you’ll melt?” he returns. You laugh. He gives your hand a squeeze. “Just for a bit,”

You’re soaked to the bone two minutes after you step into the shower. Your clothes stick to every inch of your skin and a cold wind blows, threatening to freeze the very marrow within your body. You won’t let it, not when Leon is looking at you the way he is, cheeks tinged pink from laughter and smiling so wide that you can see your reflection in his teeth.

He never once lets go of your hand as he leads you down the sidewalk. You’re silent, but it’s not uncomfortable. A car whizzes by, nearly splashing you, but Leon pulls you into him and covers your body with his. You catch a whiff of whatever fancy cologne he’s wearing, and you almost feel drunk on it. Maybe it’s the champagne you’d been sipping, but you’re not sure. He keeps you within reach, just in case another car attempts to sour your evening, he says.

“Why do you never call me by my name?” he asks suddenly, looking at you through stringy and soaked hair.

You shrug. “Everyone calls you by your name,” you say. “That’s also not entirely true. I only call you ‘Kennedy’ sometimes,”

“Only when you’re mad at me,” he says, grinning. “Which is often,”

“Well,” you say, returning the wattage of his smile. “There’s your answer,”

You stare at him for a moment, taking in the sheer beauty of his person. Before, you’d thought he was all hard edges and crisp lines. That he would cut you if you got too close. Now, though, in this moment and this lighting, he is the softest thing you’ve ever seen. Round cheekbones, soft lips, gentle features that are perfectly symmetrical. He has a few freckles dotted across his cheeks, smile lines that make his eyes crinkle. A hairline scar that extends across his right cheek. Without thinking, you reach out, smoothing your fingertips over it. It’s not that deep, barely snagging on the ridges of your fingerprints. You hear a breath hitch in his throat at the movement.

“Sorry,” you say, retracting your hand. “I didn’t mean to do that,”

“It’s okay,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. His eyes scan your face, lashes fluttering against the assault of the rain. He returns the gentle gesture by pushing a few wet strands of hair out of your eyes. His touch is ghostly, barely there.

“I never thanked you,” you say. He furrows his brows. “For staying with me that night. It…it really helped me,”

“You needed me,” he says. “Did you know that you snore?”

You bark a laugh that you can’t stop from bubbling over the surface. “I do not,”

He grins. “You totally do. It’s almost scary. I didn’t know a person could make that kind of noise,”

“You’re so mean,” you say, frowning. “You really know how to flatter someone,”

He rolls his eyes. “C’mon, let’s go. I need out of these clothes,”

He leads you down a few winding streets, making turns that seem random. It dawns on you then that he’s bringing you back to his apartment. Your heart leaps into your throat, clogging up your breath and your functioning. Your brain is swimming. You’re going to see how he lives, what his life looks like outside of work. He’s letting you.

He only drops your hand to get the door open. The lock jams, which you can’t help but laugh at, and then he’s finally letting you into his space.

His apartment is almost bare, similar to yours. White walls wrap the space, a few items dotted around on tables. He doesn’t own a television, you note. There’s a wall of shelves, though, filled pretty decently with books. You didn’t take him for a reader, but you suppose it makes sense. You toe your shoes off near the door, soaked clothes dripping onto the hardwood floor beneath you.

“Sorry about the mess,” you say, looking up at him. He shrugs.

“Better rain water than something else,” he says. You smile.

You follow him to his room, watching the way he begins to loosen in the space. Regardless of the lack of personality, this place is his home. It’s where he feels most comfortable, most him. And he let you into it. He digs through a tattered dresser that has likely seen many homes, turning only to haphazardly chuck an old shirt at you. You barely catch it, letting out a huff of air at the impact. He follows it with a pair of shorts.

“You’re welcome to shower,” he says, tugging off his sopping suit jacket. He begins working on the buttons of his shirt next, and you almost let your jaw drop.

“I think I’m done with water for a few hours,” you say, cheeks growing warm. He’s halfway to his navel when you excuse yourself to the bathroom. You guess on which door it is and push into it, closing it behind you. You catch your breath.

You feel giddy. You can’t help the childish smile that creeps onto your lips.You change quickly, catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror.

You look frumpy, but very comfortable. You wonder what you’ll do next. Maybe he’ll just call you a cab and send you home. You pray to whoever is listening that that isn’t the case. With a heavy exhale, you leave the bathroom.

“Just leave your clothes in there,” Leon hollers from his bedroom. “I’ll deal with it tomorrow,”

You nod, following his voice. He’s clad in a sweatshirt that is a bit too big on him and a pair of sweatpants. He looks so human. You take a moment to look around the room. Where he didn’t have a television in his living room, he does have one in here. You think that’s odd. There’s a VHS player balanced precariously on top of a few books, wires running across the floor to connect to the television on a table. You wonder if this is where he spends most of his time. He leans over the VHS player, popping a tape into its mouth. Then, he settles into his bed.

You’re standing in the doorway, wearing his clothes, watching him get comfortable in his bed. You feel like some weird stalker or voyeur. It makes the tips of your ears burn.

“You can come sit, y’know,” Leon says, grinning at you. Something shifts in his gaze; he must see the turmoil on your face. “Or I can call you a cab,”

You shake your head, moving to join him. He leaves plenty of space between you–always the gentleman. You don’t recognize the movie playing on the screen, but you watch it anyway, focus so trained on it to prevent you from staring at Leon. The film drones on even though you’re not really paying attention. Leon shifts beside you, arm brushing against yours. You almost stop breathing. You feel silly for feeling this way; childish, weak, vulnerable. You wish you could be more nonchalant, more like your peers. But you don’t know how to be like that anymore. You only know quick action and timidness. You only know how to hide vulnerability for the sake of keeping people from asking if you know what you’re doing. You only know how to be closed off in the hopes that people won’t ask you how you are.

Because you know the answer. You know that if someone asks, you might unload on them. You might tell them how much you miss your family, how hard it is to dig through bodies and pull out their most valuable pieces. You might tell them how much you miss home, how much you regret taking a job in Raccoon City, how much you wish you’d stayed in school, how much you wish you could hold your nieces. 

As you think about it, you begin to cry. You’re not even sure why. It’s after a particularly unbecoming sniffle that Leon shifts his focus to you. You feel very embarrassed, trying in earnest to not let him see you cry.

“I’m sorry,” you say, wiping at your eyes with your wrinkled palms. “Sometimes I get lost in my brain, and it makes me cry,”

He shifts a bit closer to you, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. His fingers move in circular motions, and you can’t deny how much calmer it makes you feel.

“Talk to me,” he says, almost whispering. You look him in the eye then, and you see the sincerity in his gaze. “I want to listen,”

You sniffle again. “I thought it was easier to be mean to me,”

“I don’t want easy,” he says. You gnaw on your lower lip. “I’m sorry I said that,”

“I don’t want easy, either,” you say. He grins at you then, full and wide, and bright enough to blind you. You wonder if this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. You wonder if he’s finally going to kiss you and get it over with.

“Can I be honest?” he asks. His voice is so soft, so calming, you wonder how you never noticed it before. You nod. “I thought, for a while at least, that if I was just rude enough to you, you would stop following me on missions. I thought that if you couldn’t stand to be around me, you wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t follow me into the jaws of death. Obviously, that didn’t work. That day that you stitched me up? It all hit me. I just…don’t know how to be the man you deserve yet,”

You smile, face warm and light, insides gooey and sticky. “I saw you as a challenge. I would continue to work with you out of spite,”

He rolls his eyes. “I know that now,”

“My turn for honesty,” you say, voice shaking a bit. “I was…in Raccoon City. When everything happened, I mean. I saw it first hand. It’s the reason I am where I am. I was training to be an EMT there, had some friends I’d been staying with. That’s why I get so…weird when I have to do my job. It’s why everything is so hard,”

He nods as he listens. “That must have been hard,” he says. You nod.

“It was devastating,” you say, breathless. “If I was shy before–which I was, mind you–I was a recluse after. It’s why I don’t go out, why I don’t like groups of people, why I have such a hard time being vulnerable,”

“I know what that’s like,” he says. You feel like your heart cracks open, beckoning him inside.

“You make me want to learn how,” you say, trying your hardest not to look away from him. “You make me want to learn how to be vulnerable, how to be open. I’ve told you things even Rebecca doesn’t know about me. I just…struggle with it sometimes,”

He’s silent as he watches you, and you worry that you’ve said the wrong thing. Maybe he just wants to be friends, have an extra shoulder around for when things get to be too much. Maybe you’ve read every situation, every interaction completely wrong. You don’t really know what you’re doing, after all. Maybe your naivety clouded your judgment.

It’s then that he does kiss you. It’s soft and pliant, warming you to your very core. Your hands shift to hold him better, fingers curling around the collar of his sweatshirt to pull him impossibly closer. You melt into him, letting him set little fires across every inch of skin he consumes. You want him to devour you whole. One of his hands finds the back of your head, tilting you ever so slightly to give him better access to you. You give it up without a second thought, a small gasp escaping you as your tongue meets his. In this moment, nothing else exists. The movie playing on the television is drowned out by your bliss, the deafening roar of blood in your ears settles to a beautiful hum. It feels like the crest of a wave splashing back down into the ocean, like a symphony crescendoing. You could die here, wrapped in his warmth and his kisses, and be happy.

When he pulls away, breathless and kiss swollen and reddened, you want to sink back into him. You find it cruel that he would pull away from you, leave you cold where you were so warm before.

“Keep being vulnerable with me,” he says, breath uneven and stuttering. “Please don’t ever stop,”

If he keeps looking at you like this and kissing you, he doesn’t have anything to worry about. You’re more than willing to be whatever he needs, reading to be molded like clay into his desires. You want it. You want him. Your heart flutters at the thought that he wants you too.

[hheaven-sentt]

[hheaven-sentt]

i am in severe pain

all around the world it is becoming clearer by the day that men at large hate or just do not care about women

[hheaven-sentt]

society if women were seen as people

[hheaven-sentt]

hello fellow earth dwellers i have exciting news. or maybe not that exciting i don’t know you personally. anyway, i have officially written damn near 25k for blood and bone. that is more than i have ever written for a single project (maybe even academically). so, that being said, i think it will be somewhere around 5 installments. the third one is coming soon i promise im putting the finishing touches on it now. perhaps by the end of the week.

this is a project i’m super proud of and i love it with my whole heart. i literally think about it all day. i hope you guys like it just as much because it’s like the best thing i’ve ever done i think.

so get jazzed and ready because there are at least three more coming (maybe more if i can convince myself to make it the slowest of burns).

[hheaven-sentt]

blood and bone (II)

summary: you want to open him up like the bodies you're used to, and he wants to keep himself at an arm's length | leon kennedy x gn!reader

word count: 5k

warnings: gore, violence, language, panic attacks, child death, a bit of cringe, angst if you squint, death and dying, yearning and pining, probably incorrect medical happenings (again, everyone say thank you google)

notes: i thought i was done after this one but there's more i promise. i have written closer to 15k now, so be ready | ao3

blood and bone ml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s almost two weeks before you see Leon again. He left your apartment sometime before you woke up that night, probably escaping before it could get awkward. You pretend that you haven’t thought about it almost every second since, and he pretends it never happened. Both of you seem content with that.

“Hey, when you get a chance, can you see if Leon’s found anything about the mystery virus?” Rebecca asks one morning, spinning in her chair to look at you. You narrow your eyes in confusion.

“Why can’t you do it?” you ask. She smiles at you like she knows something you don’t.

“Don’t pretend like I haven’t noticed you’ve been avoiding each other,” she says, grinning. “One second he’s like your personal guard dog, and the next, you’re pretending he doesn’t exist,”

“He has his own job to attend to,” you say by way of explanation. Rebecca narrows her eyes at you. “He’s not my guard dog,”

“Just see if he’ll send us whatever he’s found,” she says. “He’ll be on site tomorrow,”

“Why?”

“Probably using it as an excuse to make sure you’re still breathing,” she teases. You hate the way your face heats up at the comment. 

“I’m sure he has better things to do than check on me,” you say, but you’re not as confident in that anymore. Whatever he was doing that night, work related or otherwise, was pushed aside to make sure you were okay. The entire interaction gnaws at your stomach.

Easier that way, he had said. What did that even mean? How could it be easier to pretend to dislike someone? You always found it easier to be on people’s good side, not make them assume you hate them. The thought makes you frown.

Sure enough, you catch Leon in the hallway chatting to someone the next day. He looks good, comfortable. Whether you intend to or not, you fix your hair a bit before approaching.

“Got a second?” you ask, interrupting the conversation. The woman looks at you with a narrowed glare, but you keep your focus on Leon. He glances between you and the woman before nodding.

He follows you to your office, where he shuts the door behind him. You can’t tell why that makes you nervous. It isn’t often that you’re alone with Leon, and the last time you were, you felt far too giddy about it.

“Rebecca wanted me to ask if you’ve found anything on our mystery virus,” you say, wringing your hands together. “I’m sure you would’ve sent it to us already if you had,”

He shrugs. “A few leads here and there. I’ve sent most of it your way,”

You frown, your eyebrows bunching together. “Then why would she..?”

Oh. Curse Rebecca and her cunning nature. Your frown deepens. Leon seems to put the pieces together too, given the way he’s looking at you.

“Sorry to waste your time, then,” you say, looking at your shoes. “I’m sure your conversation with that woman was far more riveting,”

The words come out clipped even though you didn’t mean for them to. Your tone confuses you, like your brain is operating on its own accord.

“We were just chatting,” Leon says, taking a step forward. Your heart leaps into your throat. “Am I not allowed to do that?”

He’s smiling when you look up at him. It’s lopsided and teasing, and it makes your heart rate tick up.

“You’re allowed to do whatever you please,” you say, tone betraying you once again. So what if he pretends like you don’t exist, but then talks and laughs with a woman you’ve never seen before like they’re old friends? It has nothing to do with you.

“Are you…jealous?” he asks. The word comes out of his mouth like he’s mocking you, but you’re not sure he is. You scowl.

“No,” you say, though you’re unsure of how true that is. “Just apologizing for stealing you away for nothing,”

He’s full on grinning now. It makes your cheeks heat up and your insides churn. You hate whatever sickness he’s given you. Maybe you’ll call in sick tomorrow, just to be sure you don’t have a mystery virus of your own.

“I wouldn’t say it was nothing,” he says. “No harm in speaking to each other,”

You think there’s a lot of harm in speaking to him. Something’s changed about you when you’re around him. You’re unable to form coherent thoughts, unable to speak, and unable to act like he doesn’t affect you. You despise it, and despise him for making you this way. Maybe you caught a bug, a cold or something. That would explain away your symptoms.

“No, there’s not,” you say. “I have some work to do, but you’re welcome to wait around for Rebecca. I’m sure she’d have better questions for you,”

He nods, and takes a seat on top of a desk. He folds his legs under him. Your fingers twitch with the urge to reach out to him, but you refrain, and return to your work.

Leon makes it much harder to focus. He’s not even doing anything objectively annoying, unless you count his existence as annoying. Though you might; it’s definitely starting to feel that way. You can’t get through half a report without cutting a glance at him. Every now and then, he picks up a knick knack that’s made its home on your desk, inspects it thoroughly, and then returns it to its place. He does this several times, like he’s trying to dissect your brain without speaking to you. At one point, he picks up a picture of your family.

“Am I allowed to ask, or is that off limits?” he says, looking up at you for the first time since he sat down. You blink at him.

“I haven’t seen them in a few years,” you say. “They live in Oregon,”

He hums, inspecting the picture further. “You have a sister,”

“She’s two years younger than me,” you say, turning your chair to face him. “She’s got this big house and a husband, two kids and one on the way last I heard,”

“And where do they think you are?” he asks. Your breath hitches in your throat.

“They think I’m in Nicaragua right now, doing research on medicinal plants,” you say. There’s a distinct pain in your chest that radiates outwards towards your limbs. “I don’t have cell service there, so I haven’t spoken to them in almost a year,”

Leon frowns, setting the picture back down on your desk. “I’m sorry. That must be hard,”

You nod. “It is,” you say. “But it’s something we all have to do. It’s important to keep them at an arm’s length,”

“I know,” he says. “That doesn’t make it easier,”

“No, it doesn’t,”

The silence returns, but it’s strangely more comfortable. An itch blooms across your skin as you watch Leon. There’s something different about him, has been since you returned home. Sometimes, you find yourself thinking about the way his arms felt around you, and you almost wish he would do it again. For some reason, you think he would if you asked. It’s a working theory, one that has yet to be tested, but you’re nothing if not dedicated to science.

“I lost my parents when I was young,” he says, voice quiet even if you’re the only two in the room. “It’s not something I think about anymore, but I know how hard that could be,”

You feel like your heart freezes in your chest. Leon just told you something about himself, something that has no bearing on his wellbeing or the situation at hand. He’s being open, honest. You want to fling your arms around him and kiss him senseless.

“I’m sorry,” you say instead, your last bit of decorum holding you with two hands. “That must have been hard for you,”

He shrugs. “It was. But you learn to live with it,”

You nod. He’s watching you carefully, an emotion present on his face that you can’t discern. There’s a tension in the air, one that makes you nervous. You really want to reach out to him. You wonder about the way his skin might feel against yours. He’s all calloused palms, rough edges, and stunningly beautiful features. You didn’t even know people could be made this beautiful.

Rebecca cuts through the tension with her entrance. “Good, you’re both here,”

You blink away the interaction, hoping that it didn’t look as intense as it felt. “You need both of us?”

“Not really,” she says. “But it certainly makes my life easier,”

Rebecca bustles through the room, spreading a few pictures out on the desk in front of you. They’re all of ugly, mangled bodies. You wish she would’ve warned you before forcing you to look at them. All the bodies look more or less the same, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference if it weren’t for a few defining features on each of them. They look eerily similar to the one you dissected a few weeks ago. Missing fingers, toes, noses, jaws. Skin simply falling off their bones and collecting into a sinewy pool beneath them. It makes your stomach churn.

“These are all bodies collected at different sites,” Rebecca says. “See how they’re all in more or less the same condition? We think this might be our mystery virus,”

You nod, inspecting the pictures a bit closer. Leon looms over you to see, too, invading your space. You’re almost never this close to him, and when you are, he definitely doesn’t smell this good. You wrinkle your nose.

“Do we happen to have samples?” you ask, keeping your focus on the images. “I’d really like to cross examine them,”

“Way ahead of you,” Rebecca says. “They’re in the lab right now,”

You hum.

“When and where are these from?” Leon asks, turning the picture in front of you more towards him.

Rebecca moves in between you. “This one is from a few days ago, found only a few miles out from where you guys were. This one is from about a week before that, and it was found about a day’s walk out,”

You furrow your brows as you take in her information. Those two are definitely from the same site, and one could’ve wandered off.

“And this one?” you ask, pointing to the decidedly grosser one of the three.

“That’s just the thing,” Rebecca says. “This one was found here,”

“Here?” you ask, spinning to face her. “Like, here here?”

She shakes her head. “It was found out in New York. Still too close for comfort, though,”

You nod, taking a closer look at the picture.

“What are you thinking?” Leon asks in a hushed voice. You hate the way it crawls across your skin.

“I’m thinking that we need to take a trip to New York,” you say, locking your gaze with him. He grins at you like you’re sharing a secret. You feel your heart hammer in your ears.

“I’ll give Hunnigan a call,” he says, keeping his eyes on you. You finally return his grin.

With that, he’s up and out of the room quickly, bustling past Rebecca, who turns her gaze to follow him out of the room.

“What was that?” she asks, pinning you with a look. You shrug.

“Just excited about a lead,” you say, though you know there’s more to it. You try your best not to let it show on your face.

You return to your reports as best you can. Your brain is still swimming with the prospect of traveling to New York. Before, you’d been out in the middle of Iowa, but now you’re much closer. Although you feel like you’re onto something finally, the thought of it being on this side of the Mississippi frightens you. You try to shake the nerves. Rebecca keeps a watchful eye on you as you hammer through as many reports as you can. You’re certain she can feel your giddiness rolling off you in waves.

Leon wants to go with you. For the first time since you met him, he doesn’t seem completely disgusted with the idea of working with you. It makes you smile.

“I know you don’t have a lovesick grin on your face right now,” Rebecca says, bringing you back to the real world. You wipe the smile from your face.

“I don’t have a lovesick anything,” you say, cheeks growing warm. “The only sick I am is sick of you,”

Rebecca laughs, full and wide, and you know she’s just teasing. It makes you feel like a child. You remember how you felt in grade school when you’d liked one of the boys in your class. He was funny and smart, and he never made you feel outcasted by your interests. Obviously nothing came of it; you’ve always been timid and reserved. But you remember those feelings fondly. They’re akin to what you feel now.

The thought is sobering.

“Oh my God,” you say aloud, mostly to yourself. Rebecca eyes you as you turn to face her. “I have a fucking crush on Leon Kennedy,”

Rebecca sets her mouth into a line, attempting in earnest to withhold a laugh. “I could’ve told you that,”

You put your face in your hands to save yourself the shame of bearing your burning cheeks. You can even feel the spark of heat in the tips of your ears. Suddenly, you feel pathetic, weak.

“This is so embarrassing,” you mumble. You’re not even sure Rebecca can hear you through the muffling of your hands. “I might just have to quit. Run away and start a new life. Fake my death,”

This time, Rebecca does laugh. She stands and puts her hands on your shoulders, and says, “There’s no need to do all that,”

“What other option is there?”

“Everyone has a little workplace crush,” she says, giving your shoulders a squeeze. “It happens to the best of us,”

You fold your arms on your desk and plop your head into the middle of them. You can’t bear to look Rebecca in the eye right now. “I hate this,”

With a pat, she says, “You’ll grow to love it,”

You’re back in the building two days later, bag slung over your shoulders as you wait on the helipad for Leon. You’re bouncing on your heels and shifting your weight between your feet as you anxiously await his arrival. You haven’t seen him since your little revelation, and the thought of spending who knows how much time alone with him is making you nervous. You smooth a hand over your hair.

You’re an adult, act like one, you think, gnawing on your lower lip. This is your worst nightmare. Whatever hell awaits you in New York is nothing compared to the churning of your stomach now.

Leon bursts through the door to the roof, jogging to meet you at the helicopter. “Sorry, I was running a bit behind,”

“You’re lucky we didn’t leave without you,” you quip, the corners of your mouth turning upward slightly.

“Good luck with that,” he says.

It’s only a few minutes until you’re up in the air. You’re hyper aware of the way your shoulder brushes his every few seconds with each jostle of the vehicle. You’re also aware of your breathing. Is it too fast? Too slow? Are you inhaling often enough? You feel like you’re pretending to be a person and this is your first day on the job. You wish you could go back to the cold indifference of before.

It’s almost two hours later when you finally touch down. In that time, you could’ve watched a movie and maybe started another one. Instead, you spent the time holding your breath and giving clipped responses whenever Leon asked if you were okay. The nerves are definitely getting to you. You feel your eye twitch.

You’re at another makeshift pop-up site. There’s a few tents scattered around, a lone porta-potty that makes you cringe, and a group of people awaiting your arrival.

“Listen,” Leon says, hand circling your elbow to keep you rooted in place. “I know you’re used to doing the grunt work, but you’re our star player right now. They’re going to want to talk to you,”

You frown. “Can’t you do it for me?”

Leon grins at you. “I don’t have that brain of yours,”

With a sigh, you nod. He releases your arm, and you sling your bag over your shoulder. The group contains four men and one woman, all of which look equally as intimidating. You feel out of place. These people are former cops, ex-military, and trained to shoot with their eyes closed. You just happened to know how to stitch people closed and read too much about medicine in your free time. The playing field was anything but level, and you were the one going uphill.

You approach them carefully, paying attention to how they react to you. They don’t move much, save for their eyes watching the way you shift on the balls of your feet as you come to stand in front of them.

“Glad you could make it,” the woman says. “We’ve been falling over ourselves trying to figure this out. We hope you can help us,”

You nod. “I intend to,”

There’s not much conversation after that. They lead you to a small tent that’s been set up. Your own workstation. You’ve never had one like this before. Usually, you pick a spot that’s been unclaimed until your arrival, and you only ever use it for injuries. Now, though, you were going to do real work. It almost excited you.

“I’m sure it’s probably different from what you’re used to,” the woman says, having followed you into the tent. You turn to consider her.

“Not really, honestly,” you say, shrugging. “It is nice to have my own space, though,”

She smiles. “We’ve been told you’re not usually ahead on cases, so I hope you know what you’re doing,”

You tilt your chin up a bit higher when you say, “I’m more than capable of handling it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have accepted my help,”

The woman nods, then leaves you to your devices. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. She’s right, you’re not used to being a frontrunner on cases, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t figure it out. You shake the interaction from your bones as you begin setting up.

When Leon finds you later, he seems tired. You feel grateful that he did, in fact, do most of the talking, but you’re sure he’s exhausted from it. He settles down into a chair that’s been left askew in your set up process.

“I’d like to try to find one,” you say, not knowing how else to broach the subject. When you turn to look at him, Leon’s eyes are so wide that you’re worried they’ll fall out of his skull.

“No way,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s too dangerous,”

“I need to see how they operate,” you say. “We’ll never learn anything by studying their remains,”

He frowns. “You’ve learned a lot so far,”

“Not enough,” you huff, wringing your hands together. “I need to know what they do, what they eat, how long they live. I’ll never get that from a corpse,”

Leon grumbles, mulling the idea over in his brain. “There’s a thousand ways for this to go wrong,”

You smile. “You won’t let it,”

Leon comes to collect you the next morning. You’re clad in a pair of boots, an old pair of jeans, and a loose fitting t-shirt. You hope it’s good enough for whatever awaits you. Leon looks less than pleased to be bringing you along. He hasn’t given up his sour mood from the night before. You try to ignore it and the way it makes you feel.

You walk for most of the journey. You’re tailing behind Leon as he scouts the area, watching for anything that moves with ill intent. You’re not sure why. There’s nothing more than rabbits and deer where you are. It isn’t until you happen upon the ruins of what was once a small city that you begin to feel anxious. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but there’s definitely no going back now.

Buildings crumble around you. You can smell the smoke of fires that you can’t see, and the rotten stench of bodies isn’t making it any better. What was once asphalt is now gravel beneath your feet. It crunches under your weight with each step. It’s dystopian. There’s not a single sign of life, not even the chirp of a bird, for miles. Something lurches in your stomach.

You follow Leon towards the city’s center. There isn’t much happening, but there’s an air of apprehension. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. You gnaw on your bottom lip.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see movement. Leon sees it too, reaching around to push you further behind him. It’s a person, with jerky and inconsistent movements, hobbling along the broken road. Your breath catches in your throat. Leon ushers you behind a piece of broken concrete, giving you the perfect view of your subject.

It’s covered in blood. You’re not sure of its origin, but you don’t think you want to find out. It’s in a similar condition to the bodies you’ve seen: missing fingers and nose, a jaw that’s clinging to cheek, and skin seems to just roll off the muscle with each staggering step. 

“I need to get closer,” you whisper. Leon looks like you’ve just told him you’re going to shoot yourself.

“Absolutely not,” he says. “You’re lucky we’re as close as we are,”

“I need to see it,” you say. Whatever pleading look is in your eye somehow works. You see some of the tension ease off of him. “Just..cover me, or whatever,”

With a curt nod, he shuffles back a step. You begin your crawl towards the creature. If it notices your movement, it doesn’t react. It continues its stumbling trek to whatever destination. You rise a bit as you approach, and this time, it turns towards you. You almost gasp, but manage to keep it within your lungs. It doesn’t have any eyes, just gaping, bloody holes where eyes should be. It’s wearing the pieces of a tattered dress. You hold your breath as it turns what should be its nose towards the sky like a dog. There’s a scent in the air that it catches. It moves with more ferocity in the direction of whatever it smells.

You turn back to Leon, who beckons you with his hand. You move to follow the creature. You wish you didn’t once you see what it’s after. The mangled corpse of a child stares up at you, unblinking. Her arms are twisted above her head, half eaten. She’s missing so much of herself. Your eyes turn watery as you turn and vomit on the concrete below you.

In your sputtering, you don’t notice the creature has now turned its sights on you. It approaches much quicker than you’ve seen it move, and you scurry backwards until your back connects with a piece of fallen debris. Your heart hammers in your chest as you try to collect your breathing. You hope it can’t hear your racing pulse or the quickness of your breath. Blood roars in your ears as it draws nearer, emitting a sound so inhuman that it makes you want to vomit again.

Two loud pops, and it collapses on top of your legs. In a panic, you kick it away, curling in on yourself once it’s been removed. You claw at your hair, breathing so quickly now that you’re sure you’ll pass out.

Leon’s in front of you seconds later, scanning you for injuries. You can’t breathe. You can’t do anything but stare at the creature and remember the corpse of that girl.

“Stop,” Leon says, pulling your hair free of your rigid fingers. “Stop. You’ll hurt yourself,”

You can’t even speak. You need something to grab. You grip onto Leon’s forearms with all your might. You’re definitely going to black out.

“You’re not going to black out,” he says, voice too calm for what you’re feeling and thinking. “That would be a real pain in my ass,”

Your breathing finally begins to slow, a pain in your chest radiating out towards your limbs. You look Leon in the eyes for the first time, and you feel instantly calmer. He’s here, he kept you safe, he’s helping you now.

“That’s right,” he says, voice low enough to be secretive. “I’m here. I’m here,”

You nod, mouth feeling dry. You’re babbling, thoughts coming out in words that you don’t even recognize. Your racing thoughts begin to slow. You blink hard a few times, trying to refocus. You can’t stop thinking about that creature.

“Eyes,” you say, voice hoarse like you’ve been screaming. Maybe you have.

“Eyes?”

“It didn’t have any eyes,” you say. Leon’s brow furrows in confusion. “Leon, it didn’t have any eyes,”

“Okay?” he says.

“Soft tissue,” you mumble, thinking. “The infection goes for soft tissues first,”

At this, Leon breaks out into a grin. “Good thing this trip wasn’t for nothing,”

“Bring it back with us,” you say, beginning to stand. Leon helps you to your feet. You don’t take your eyes off the collapsed body near you. “It was going to eat. It needs fuel. Not for the body, though. For the virus,”

Leon drags the body behind him. You’re not too concerned. It’s already so tattered and torn that any additional damage won’t matter much. It’s just too fresh to lose.

You arrive back at your site and lead Leon into your tent. He sets the body up on a table as you pull on a pair of gloves. You’re covered in dirt, so you’re not sure why you bother, but the thought of rooting around in the body with no additional layer makes you sick to your stomach. You get to work quickly, searching the body.

“I can’t believe I didn’t look for this earlier,” you mumble. Leon watches you carefully, like you’ll break at any moment.

“Look for what?” he asks. His voice is delicate and sweet. If it weren’t for the anxiety clenching your heart and the circumstances, you would kiss him.

“The stomach,” you say, cracking a few ribs. The sound is gentle, and the bones give way with little force.

You find the stomach after peeling back a few layers of muscle that have been reduced to almost nothing. It’s so thin and flimsy that you’re not even sure you could touch it without it disintegrating in your fingers. The innermost layers have been completely eaten away. The sight makes you giddy. A laugh bubbles up in your throat and a smile cracks across your dry lips.

The virus goes for soft tissues first. It eats them away. This explains the missing fingers and toes. It explains the jaws clinging onto life. Connective tissues are being corroded, which is causing the skin to slough off the bodies in pools.

“Oh my God,” you laugh, grinning so wide that your cheeks hurt. “Oh my God!”

Leon looks at you like you’re crazy, which you can’t blame him for. You’re clutching a half decomposed stomach in your hand and laughing like someone just told you the funniest joke. You’re certain you look crazy.

“I sure hope you figured something out,” Leon says, a teasing tone etched into the words. You laugh again.

“I think I did,” you say. “Let me close this up, and then I’ll fill you in,”

You make quick work of the clean up. You shuffle into a new pair of clothes after wiping the dirt from your skin as best you can. You find Leon, clean and comfortable, sitting in a chair in your tent. Your skin sizzles under his gaze, and you try to remember the events of the day. They’re tinged pink by his presence.

“Gonna tell me what’s going on in that brain of yours?” he asks, smiling slightly at you. “Or do I have to guess?”

You roll your eyes, sitting across from him. “I was getting there,”

You pull a few files out of a box from under the work table. You dig through them for a minute before handing them to Leon.

“What are these?” he asks, looking at you through his lashes. You grin, feeling giddy from your knowledge and his stare.

“Our virus,” you say, breathless.

Leon furrows his brows and begins flipping through the files. When he’s finished reading, he looks up at you, grinning like you’ve told him the greatest news in the world. He stands, rereading the file and pacing. You stand, too, mostly because you can’t sit anymore.

“You’re a genius,” he says, softly, sweetly. Your heart hammers in your chest.

“I knew I’d seen something like this before,” you say, voice a bit far off. “It’s been modified somehow, but that’s our virus,”

Leon discards the file on top of a cabinet. There’s a tension in the room now, one that makes you feel a bit smaller. You’re drunk on his praise. You want him to think you’re smart and funny and kind. And you want him to tell you so.

He approaches you quietly, soft steps entering your orbit. Your breath catches in your throat.

“Thank you,” you say. “For earlier,”

“Don’t thank me,” he returns, studying you. “But don’t ever do that to me again,”

Your cheeks heat up. You wonder, for a moment, if he’s going to kiss you. You want him to. You really want him to. You think you want it more than you’ve ever wanted anything. Gently, far more gentle than you’ve ever beheld, he takes one of your hands in his. His thumb brushes over your knuckles, sending a shiver down your spine. You fight the urge to look away from him.

“Please don’t ever do that to me again,” he says. His voice is so soft, like he’s sharing a secret with you. Maybe he is.

“I’ll try not to,” you say, equally as quiet.

For a moment, there is nothing else around you. No stark white tent, no decaying corpses, no danger. Just him. He smells like cedar and smoke. His skin is so smooth up close, so perfectly crafted. His delicate features are so beautiful; soft lips, dimpled chin, round cheekbones.

He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but hesitates. Instead, he gives  your hand a squeeze and takes a step away from you. You feel a stutter in your heartbeat.

Easier that way.

Easier at an arm’s length.

You’re not sure you want easy anymore.

[hheaven-sentt]

blood and bone I

summary: you understand blood and bones well enough, emotions are another thing entirely | leon kennedy x gn!reader

word count: 5k

warnings: gore, medical happenings (everyone say thank you google), Leon being confusing and standoffish, two idiots who don't know how relationships work, language, implied violence

notes: there will be more to this, but i didn't want to kill people with the nearly 10k words i've written so look out for that. also, in my brain, the dso and bsaa operate congruently so | ao3

blood and bone ml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You wonder where you would be if you hadn’t accepted that job. Maybe, if you’d kept your mouth shut, you wouldn’t be sitting in a briefing room. The slideshow Hunnigan prepared is about as engaging as a lullaby. You cut a glance at Leon. He’s staring at the slideshow, clearly very invested. Hunnigan looses a huff and shuts down the projector. The hum of it dissipates into the silent room.

“Have you even been listening to me?” she asks, leveling her gaze on you. You feel sheepish.

“Yes, you say. It’s not the whole truth, but some will have to do. “I always listen to you,”

Hunnigan rolls her eyes. “Leon can brief you on the helicopter,”

With that, she gathers her things and leaves the room. You grimace.

“She puts a lot of time into those, y’know,” Leon says, not quite looking at you. “The least you could do is listen to them,”

You shrug. “Lot on my mind, I guess,”

Leon looks at you then. You can feel his gaze all over your skin. Sometimes, you wish he wouldn’t be so detached. Would it kill him to feel for other people? To feel for you?

“Just food for thought,” he says finally, looking away from you. “Get your things. We’re up in ten,”

With that, he leaves you in the briefing room. You frown, feeling the weight of his stare even when he’s not with you. It weighs heavily on your bones, infecting your blood and burning your skin. You let out a sigh, physically shaking the interaction from your body.

Your bag is stuffed into your locker. It’s a sad sight, you think. No decorations, nothing to prove you were even here. You’re another number, another set of hands forged to do their job well. You reach in, attempting to release your back from where it’s wedged. If the strain in your back is any indication, it’s really stuck. Of course it is. Nothing ever seems to go right for you on days like this. You’re able to convince a passerby to help you dislodge it. Finally, you’re able to sling it across your back, the weight of it nearly knocking you down. You wonder if this is how medics in no man’s land felt, constantly bearing the weight of their comrades’ lives in their hands.

You wonder why you’re here at all. Sometimes, when you look at the supplies in the first aid kit, you feel sick. You can still feel the sticky blood coating your fingers, still warm from its previous owner, not yet even coagulated. The amount of blood you saw that night, the amount of pained cries you heard; the memories are still very much alive and well, and they live in your brain in a spot you can’t reach.

With a sigh, you push through the door of the stairwell to reach the helipad. You could take the elevator, but you’re feeling mean and want to make Leon wait. Hoisting your bag further onto your shoulder, you begin your climb. It’s only a few flights, but it takes long enough to have Leon scowling at you once you reach the helipad.

“I said ten,” he says as you chuck your bag into the helicopter. “You’re late,”

You frown at him. “You can’t leave without me. You’d die,”

Leon mutters something under his breath as you haul yourself into your seat. He follows close behind, plopping himself in the seat beside you. He hands you a headset before putting one on himself. The blades above are spinning and drowning out the sound of everything around you. Once the headset is on, you’re left with your thoughts. You’re shoulder to shoulder with him, his own knocking into yours every now and then as you lift off. You stare out the window, watching the clouds begin to circle around the helicopter. It lulls you into sleep.

You wake sometime later. Leon nudges you awake, and you find yourself having fallen asleep upon his shoulder. You’re nestled between his collar and jaw, comfortable as can be. You find yourself not wanting to move. You do anyway, because it’s the right thing to do, and blink a few times as you return to the land of the living. Leon looks at you, a look much softer than what you’re used to, but it’s quickly replaced with his normally hard exterior. You blink back at him.

“Time to go to work,” he says, and you nod. You’ve since landed, and Leon begins unsheathing himself from the headset and buckles holding him down.

It’s a quick maneuver before you’re both standing on broken asphalt. You frown. You can almost smell the stench of bodies from where you’re standing, but you’ve yet to see any. The metallic odor of blood hangs heavy in the air, a smell you’ve never been able to escape.

Leon moves ahead quickly, leaving you to haul your supplies on your own. That’s not unusual; Leon likes to get into the thick of it as quickly as possible, while you prefer to avoid it for as long as you can. With a huff, you sling your bag over your shoulder and begin to follow him. There’s smoke that hasn’t yet cleared from fires long forgotten, and you see the makeshift tents that have been thrown up. Leon ducks between the curtains of one, and you follow him wordlessly.

There’s a few people gathered in the tent. Leon heads over to a supervisor, beginning his work. You intend to do the same. There’s an empty cot and table near the back, which is as good a place as any to set up shop. You take your time removing each piece of equipment from your bags. A handful of antiseptics here, a box of gloves there, it all comes to find a home in your small area. This is the only part of work that you like. Everything has a home until someone gets injured and you have to disrupt the quiet peace you’ve managed to create. The thought makes you frown.

“Someone tried to level the city,” Leon’s voice comes from behind you. You don’t have to always be privy to the information, but Leon likes to fill you in. “There’s not a lot to go off of,”

You shrug, not turning to face him. “We know what was here before the bomb, though, right? That should give us some inclination,”

Leon hums. “It does. But it’s not a lot,”

“Someone wanted this struck from the record and fast,” you say, finally turning to look at him. He looks tired, especially cast in the harsh light from the industrial lamps. They highlight his sharp features; jawline, angular nose, high cheekbones.

“Seems that way,” he says, taking a seat on the cot in your workspace. “Will probably be bloody,”

You sigh. “It always is,”

Day two, and you’ve gone through more stitches than you can count. A man you don’t know the name of is stuck in the makeshift quarantine room you’ve set up, and you’ve been monitoring his condition like your life depends on it. He seems normal enough, but one can never be too sure.

It’s on day three that Leon comes to you. He’s covered in blood, whether his or other, and there’s a deep purple bruise that’s forming on his jaw. He’s stumbling, nearly collapsing as he attempts to walk.

“What the hell happened?” you ask, running to catch him before he falls to the floor. He grins at you. It’s lopsided and boyish, one you would imagine on him in a different time. “Did you…?”

He shakes his head. “Lost a lot of blood,”

You narrow your eyes at him, hauling him onto the cot. “I gathered that. How, though? What made you lose all the blood?”

“We were getting swarmed. Had to make a quick decision and landed on some rebar,” he says, pulling up his shirt to reveal a nasty puncture on his left side. You grimace. “I have lost a lot of blood,”

“Yeah, I know,” you say, beginning to get to work. “You’re lucky you made it back to me, Kennedy,”

He frowns at you. “I’d always make it back to you,”

You choose to ignore his comment, instead focusing on cauterization. It’s mixed up in minutes, and you begin to slather it onto Leon’s skin. He breathes in deeply, twisting up his features in a wince. You’re babbling to him, mumbling that he’s okay and it’s not that bad and that he’s tougher than it.

“I need to remove your shirt to dress it,” you say, moving to grab scissors. “Don’t you dare move your arms above your head,”

He nods, moving them back to his sides. Gently, you take the hem of his shirt between your fingers and begin to cut. Once you reach his sternum, you feel his eyes on you. He’s watching you intently, a half smile on his lips. By the time you reach the collar, your face is flushing and you can feel the sweat beginning to bead along your hairline. You finish your work on the shirt, tugging it off him. You wrap his waist to hell in bandages to keep pressure on the wound.

“Take these,” you say, handing him two pills and a glass of water. He frowns at you. “Do you want to keep being in pain, or not?”

With a grumble, he holds out his hand, palm up. You place the pills in his hand and watch as he takes them. They go down hard and he winces again.

“Quit being a baby,” you say, smiling. “They’re not that bad,”

“I’m not a baby,” he says as he settles into the cot a bit more. His voice is soft, gentle, a tone you’ve rarely heard from him. You pull the thin sheet of a blanket up over him, tucking it around his shoulders.

“You’re on bed rest until I can be sure that you won’t die,” you say. He frowns. “And you’re getting a tetanus shot as soon as possible,”

“I hate those,” he says, drawing his brows together. A line forms between them, one you suddenly ache to reach out and smooth away. You feel a chill sneak down your spine.

“Well,” you say, puffing out a breath. “Quit falling on dubious looking metal and you won’t have to get them anymore,”

He hums, closing his eyes. You let the medicine do its job and lull him to sleep.

The next morning–or night, you’re not really sure–Leon’s cot is empty. You frown, knowing that he got up and went out without checking in with you first, which sparks a bit of anger in your chest. He knows better than to do that. At the very least, he tells you he’s leaving and lets you give him a once over before he disappears. You hope he knows he’ll be getting an earful when you see him next, a few choice words already spinning in your brain.

You busy yourself by cleaning your station. You patch up a few people here and there, sewing stitches like you were made to. It’s oddly calming. You know you’re good at your job, you just wish it were under different circumstances.

You wanted to be an EMT. That was always the dream. You’d watched them save lives hundreds of times, and that was what you wanted to do, too. But fate had other plans for you, namely in terms of bioweapons that changed the chemistry of human beings. This is not where you’d thought your life would go, but you’re playing the cards you were dealt nonetheless.

It’s day six when you see Leon again. He’s with a few men that you don’t remember the names of, hauling a black body bag into your tent. Leon’s gaze locks with yours, and you can feel the apology in it all over your skin. A lump forms in your throat that you try desperately to swallow.

“Got something for you to look at,” he says, plopping the bag onto a work table near your small station. You feel sick. “If you wouldn’t mind,”

“I don’t think I have a choice,” you mumble, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. Gloves have become your security blanket. They keep the blood off your skin for the most part, which makes the job somewhat easier. Before, you’d never had an aversion to blood, it was just part of life. Now, you can never seem to wash it from your hands. Your frown deepens.

Leon hovers near you as you unzip the bag. It’s a horrid sight. The stench would be the worst part if it weren’t for the large amounts of flesh that slough off the body at every area. Whoever this was died a horrible, painful death, and you’re not even sure they knew it. You withhold a gag. They’re missing their nose, a few fingers, genitalia, and most of their bottom jaw. With as deep a breath as you can muster, you begin your work.

“What is it?” Leon asks. You shrug, breaking through their soft ribs. The crack is near silent. They were decomposing as they lived.

“Can’t be too sure yet,” you say, peeling back layers of sinew and muscle that were once taught and strong but are now lumpy and soggy. “Can you hand me a few of those dishes? I’ll need to keep samples to send home,”

Leon nods, moving around you to grab what you asked for. You place a few pieces of flesh and muscle into the dishes, closing the top and sealing away the smell. Leon’s nose wrinkles.

“You don’t have to watch,” you say, digging around further into the torso. “I know it’s not the most pleasant sight,”

“I’m the one who brought it, aren’t I?” he asks. You look at him. He’s fully serious, all hard lines and sharp edges. “It’s as much my duty as it is yours,”

You nod, continuing your work. You finally find what you’ve been digging around for. The heart is barely solid anymore. It was once healthy, capable of fueling the body better than any other organ, but it’s nothing more than a lump of tissue now. It’s oozing some kind of liquid.

“Can you hand me one of those vials?” you ask, keeping your eyes on the heart. It doesn’t look like it's been active in a while. Leon hands you a vial wordlessly, and you allow the liquid to drip into it.

“What’re you thinking?” Leon asks as you begin sewing up the sad sight of disintegrated tissue.

You shrug. “Infection of some kind. This person has been rotting a long time, whether they knew it or not. Places that should be healthy are not. My guess? They were sick long before any symptoms presented themselves and their body began to decompose and die. The infection took over,”

Leon lets out a breath. It’s not a great answer, and it’s even worse when given the context of your situation. “When will we know what it is for sure?”

“As soon as I get the results from the lab back home,” you say, disposing of your soiled gloves. “Probably two days,”

“That’s not ideal,” Leon says. There’s a strange amount of anger in his tone. You frown.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s the best we’ve got,” you say, words clipped. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to hose off somewhere. I’ve been rooting around in a dead body for the last fifteen minutes,”

Leon looks at you in a way that keeps you rooted in place. He places a gentle hand on your shoulder, and says, “I’m sorry,”

The tension melts from your bones. “It’s okay,” you say. “We all have a job to do,”

You notice then how blue his eyes are. They’re glazed over with something you can’t place, but that doesn’t detract from their color. His face is so symmetrical, too. You’re almost jealous. You wonder, for a moment, what it would be like to touch him. Before you can sweat over it, you remove yourself from the situation and go find somewhere to get clean.

On day nine, after the results have returned from the lab, Leon takes a seat on your cot. You’re worrying over some files, attempting to connect this mystery virus to anyone who would make sense. You hate this part of your job more than any other. You’re built to do things, make changes, use your hands, not whatever this is.

“Find anything interesting?” Leon asks, handing you a granola bar. Something twists in your stomach.

“Not really,” you say. “Since Umbrella’s been mostly dissolved over the years, there’s no real leads. Every doctor is either dead or missing,”

Leon hums, mouth full of his own granola. You cut a glance at him. He looks comfortable, probably more than he has in days. You wonder why. When you’re surrounded by so much death and destruction, it’s hard to find a moment to relax. You, for one, haven’t gotten much sleep considering you’re either taking refuge on your cot for a few measly hours or sat directly upright in your chair. Your back aches.

You blow out a breath, leaning back in your chair away from the files. Leon watches you. “How’s your side?”

Wordlessly, he lifts his shirt to show you the mangled mess that is your cauterizing job. “Still hurts, but it’s not bleeding or opening, so that’s good,”

You smile. “Definitely a good sign. Feeling sick in any way?”

He shakes his head. “Other than dead tired? No, I’m healthy as a horse,”

You can’t stifle the laugh that erupts from your lips. It isn’t often that Leon is kind and gentle with you, so you try to enjoy the moments where he is. “I wouldn’t go that far, Kennedy. You’ve still got a ways to go,”

He narrows his eyes playfully at you. “I’d like a second opinion,”

You roll your eyes, grabbing the granola bar he’d given you. You haven’t really been eating since you touched down nine days ago. A few snacks here and there, but nothing concrete. It’s mostly been military rations, which are dry and too filling to be satisfying. You turn your eyes back to the files spread out on your table. It would be far more helpful to study these in a place with people who knew what to look for. You’re better at getting the information rather than analyzing it. Pouring over files isn’t exactly your forte.

“We leave tomorrow,” Leon says. You look at him. “There’s not much left for us to do here until we figure out what we’re fighting,”

You nod. “And the people?”

He pauses. You know the answer, so you’re not sure why you asked. “We’ll come back for them,”

Either with a bomb or help, you’re not sure. Probably the former. “Right,”

“We’re helping them by doing this,” he says, standing up to move nearer to you. He towers over you in your chair. You feel your breath catch in your throat. “You have to believe that,”

“I know,” you say, though you’re not sure how true that is. “We’re helping people,”

“You are helping people,” he says, voice soft and serious. “More than I am, that’s for sure,”

You shake your head. “Don’t say that. We’re both doing our part,”

He sets his lips into a hard line, nodding. He leaves you with that, and you return to your files. You don’t like the way he’s been making you feel. It’s confusing and makes you worry you’re reading things wrong. He’s never this kind to you, often opting for clipped responses and scowls. He still does that, but it’s softer now somehow, more playful than angry. It causes a stir in your stomach that you’re not positive is just from a lack of eating. It makes you twist up your features in order to focus.

The next morning, you’re packing your things. Your bones are anxious, ready to leave and be done with this hellscape. You feel Leon’s presence behind you before he speaks.

“Don’t tell me you’ve brought bad news,” you murmur, placing your tweezers back into their place in the kit. “I’d really like to have a real shower,”

You turn to face him then, and he’s watching you carefully like you’re a specimen to be studied. “No bad news, just coming to make sure you’re ready to leave,”

His tone is short. It makes your mouth sour. “I’m just about done here. Just…trying to recollect, I guess,”

He doesn’t respond, just keeps his gaze on you. You nod, and return to putting things away. You feel him lingering behind you like he has more to say, but chooses not to. You almost want to ask him why he’s just standing there, and if he’d rather make himself useful, but he turns away before you get the chance. It makes a bit of anger spark in your chest.

Guess we’re back to that, you think. It makes you scowl.

You haul your bag onto your back, along with a few more bits and bobs that you snagged from the tent that you’d need later. The files are tucked snugly into folders that you’ll hand to Leon the second you get onto the helicopter. You want them out of your possession as soon as possible. A frown makes its home on your face as you duck out of the tent.

The stench of rotten bodies hits you quickly, and it occurs to you that you haven’t left this tent almost the entire time you’ve been here. You’ve been too busy patching people up, digging through mutilated corpses, and taking notes. Not that you’d want to leave if you had the chance; it was a warzone out here. You suppress a gag.

“Took you long enough,” Leon says as you approach. Your frown deepens.

“You didn’t give me a time limit,” you snap. Leon’s face flashes with an emotion you can’t discern before it’s replaced by his cold exterior again.

“Shouldn’t have to,” he responds, taking your bag from you. He places it on the floor of the helicopter. His tone lacks the distinct playfulness you’d grown used to these last few days. It makes you angry. How dare he give you an olive branch and then rip it away from you just as you’d grown used to it? He’s being cruel.

A loud blast shakes the earth beneath your feet. Leon’s arms snake around you as he hauls you into his frame. You can’t even find it in yourself to look at where the explosion came from, you’re too busy staring up at him. His focus is elsewhere, of course, his calculating gaze scanning the area.

“We need to go,” he says, turning his head to look at you. You feel your knees weaken, and you’re thankful he’s holding you because you’re sure you’d collapse under his gaze.

You nod, mostly because you can’t trust yourself to speak. You hate that he suddenly has the power to render you speechless. He helps you into the helicopter before jumping in beside you. You’re lifting off as he hands you the headset.

“Okay?” he asks, voice hushed. You nod. He scans you for injuries.

“I’m fine, Leon,” you say, reaching out to squeeze his arm. Whether from the action or the circumstances, his face sours, and he nods. You retract your hand.

When you land sometime later, Leon is silent as he helps you unload. You trek downstairs to your office, mulling over the last week and a half in your head. You’d found yourself looking forward to the next time Leon would invade your space. He’d provided a much needed distraction from the viscera of the job, and you’d welcomed it. You wonder if that was his intention and he was just being kind. But you didn’t know Leon to be kind, especially to you. You reach your office, feeling more alone than you have in a while.

It’s dark and empty in the room, save for two desks, a chair, and a few computers. It makes you sigh. You throw your bag onto one of the desks, and realize you’re still clutching the files you’d meant to give to Leon. You toss them onto the desk as well. If he wants them, he can come get them. How are you supposed to trust him when all he does is have mood swings? With a sigh, you sit in your chair. You’re only granted a few moments of peace before Rebecca bursts into your office.

“You still have those files?” she asks. You nod, turning to hand them to her. She thumbs through them for a moment.

“Any leads?” you ask, exhaustion heavy in your voice. Rebecca cuts you a glance.

“Nothing concrete yet,” she says, tucking them under her arm. “Leon wants to take them home so he can look at them tonight,”

Your brows raise. “Why couldn’t he come get them?”

Rebecca shrugs and gives you a soft smile before bustling back out of the room. Of course. You’re only helpful in the field, you should know that by now. You try to remind yourself that you and Leon are an unwilling team. Neither of you asked to be saddled with the other. There’s no real reason for you to be friends–or anything more, for that matter–you only need to be friendly. You’ve been content with that for so long, so you don’t know why it’s such a big deal now.

Your apartment feels like heaven when you finally return to it. You stand in the shower until the water goes cold, which you feel like you deserve. You can’t get the sight of that body that Leon brought you out of your head. It was so ugly, so mangled, and you feel a pit of dread in your stomach. That was once a person, with a family, with a job and a life, and you reduced it to a science experiment. It makes you cry. You cry on the bathroom floor until your tear ducts run dry and you physically can’t anymore. Your face is red and swollen by the time you finally get into a pair of sweatpants and a shirt from a long forgotten boyfriend.

And then you sit on the couch. You stare at the television, not quite watching the old movie that’s playing. All you can think about is that body. You don’t know their name, you don’t even know their gender, and they are all you can think about. You know you won’t be able to sleep, so you don’t even try.

The phone is dialed before you can even notice what you’re doing. He picks up on the second ring.

“I hope this is important,” he answers. You sniff. “You okay?”

You huff a laugh in spite of yourself. “Yeah,” you say, wiping your nose on your sleeve. The whole ordeal is gross and unbecoming, but you can’t find it in yourself to care. “I don’t know why I called. I’m sorry,”

You don’t hang up, and he doesn’t either. The line is silent for a while before he says, “You don’t want to be alone,”

It’s not a question, more of a statement, but you answer. “Yeah, I guess. This one was…harder,”

“I know,” he says. “I’ll be there in ten,”

Before you can protest, he hangs up. That wasn’t your goal, to get him trapped in your apartment, but you can’t say you’re displeased by it. You don’t want to be alone. And you can’t say you have anyone else to call, either. Things could be worse.

True to his word, a knock sounds at your front door ten minutes later. You answer it, eyes still swollen so much that they’re almost shut, and you look at Leon with slightly blurry vision. He looks so put together, so handsome, and you wonder how he manages it. It makes you frown.

“Are you going to let me in, or are you just going to stare at me in the hallway all night?” he asks, that playful tone back again. It almost makes you smile. You let him in, and he takes a minute to survey your living space. There’s a few knick knacks scattered on shelves here and there, a few pictures from high school, and your award of excellence you received when you graduated.

“I’m sorry,” you say. He turns to look at you. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here. I’m sure you have better things to do,”

He shakes his head. “Not really. You needed me,”

The softness of his tone makes your lips quiver. Before you can stop yourself, you ask, “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Pretend not to care about me half the time, and then get all soft when something is bothering me. Half the time, I can’t tell if you hate me. You did it on this last mission, and you’re doing it now. I’d rather you be mean to me all the time than do…whatever this is,” you ramble. You can feel yourself grinding your teeth as he considers you.

“I don’t hate you,” he says, then takes a seat on your couch, making himself comfortable. “I’ve never hated you,”

You frown more, if that’s even possible. “Then why do you act like you do?”

He shrugs. “Easier that way, I guess,”

Your shoulders deflate and you settle in beside him on the couch. You feel suddenly calmer being next to him. He warms your bones and eases your tension, and for a moment, you hate him for it. You hate that he’s suddenly able to chase away your darkest parts, whether he knows it or not. It almost makes you angry.

“Get some rest,” he says, voice low. You nod, eyelids already slipping closed. Your head falls onto his shoulder.

“Will you stay?” you ask.

After a moment, he says, “Of course,”

[hheaven-sentt]

willow and wisteria

summary: he's the willow, you're the wisteria | leon kennedy x reader

word count: 1.6k

warnings: movie title mentions (had to pull out the pop culture stops for this one), yearning, a certain nostalgia for Blockbuster and VHS rentals

notes: has this been sitting on my laptop for two weeks? yes. do I want to talk about that? no. also, i am battling a sinus infection that spread to my lungs? and let me just say: sinus infection's got hands | ao3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shoulder to shoulder on the couch, you wonder how you got to this point. He’s stiff beside you as the credits roll on some old western movie you don’t remember the name of. You can see him in your peripheral, jaw clenched like he’s fighting to keep words in, skin naturally smoother than you could ever get it with products, staring straight ahead like he’s looking for his own name on the screen. He’s wearing a sweatshirt you’ve never seen before; it looks so soft, and you want nothing more than to crawl into it.

His voice pulls you from your thoughts. “How many is that?”

You turn your head a bit and blink at him. “Twelve, I think,”

“I think I’ve seen enough westerns to last me a lifetime,” he teases lightly. “I get to pick next time,”

This is what you do. It’s a moment of reprieve for each of you. In total, you’ve watched sixteen dramas, fourteen comedies, six romances, and twelve westerns. Movies are easy. There’s no expectations, not like there would be if you went out to dinner or to a bar. You’re not supposed to talk during movies, although you and Leon have never really been good about that. You don’t know his middle name or his favorite color, but you know that he hates Die Hard and he had a crush on Molly Ringwald as a kid. So, yes, you talk during the movies, but never about the things that would let you peel back the curtain.

You like it that way. There’s no fear of saying the wrong thing or unloading baggage that’s been packed away for decades. It’s easy this way, and you like easy.

“I’m sure the guy at Blockbuster is eagerly awaiting your decision,” you grin. Leon rolls his eyes.

“Are you going to bring that up every time I pick a movie?” he asks, looking at you finally. You see something in his eyes that you can’t quite place.

You shrug. “Probably. I’ve never seen a man more excited to talk about Alien,”

Leon cringes. “To be fair, it was a good movie,”

“I don’t know if it was ask-for-your-number-good, though,” you laugh. “Besides, I bring it up so that you don’t get any ideas about ditching me as your movie buddy,”

“I can’t imagine that we’d watch a ton of movies,” Leon says. Immediately, his cheeks go pink, and you can’t resist the laughter bubbling in your chest. It’s bright and wide, filling up the entire room. You’re wheezing before you know it.

“Hey, man, do whatever you want,” you say between giggles. “Just as long as you watch movies with me,”

Playfully, he knocks his shoulder into yours. “That’s not what I meant and you know it,”

You like when Leon grins. It’s more than a regular smile. It takes up most of his face, eating away at his cheeks and his sorrow, even if only for a moment. He carries something that he won’t share, and you like when he lets go of it for a while. There is peace in the way he laughs, and you prefer to savor it.

“Help me clean up before you head out?” you ask. Sometimes, you try to make him overstay his welcome. Sometimes, you never want him to leave. Sometimes, you try to con him into three or four movies in one night, hoping that he’ll choose to crash on your couch rather than brave the D.C traffic.

He nods, and begins to grab bowls and cups off your coffee table. There’s never much of a mess, but he always helps when you ask. Wordlessly, you file in and out of the kitchen until there’s no evidence that he was here at all. He gathers his things–his keys and geriatric phone–from the table next to the door and slips on his shoes. There’s a weight in your stomach that you wish would go away.

“Same time next week?” he asks. You smile.

“Don’t miss me too much,” you tease. “And don’t stop by the video store without me,”

“I can’t risk going back in there alone,” he says, feigning seriousness.

You can’t help but notice the way he lingers in the entry. You stare at him as you hear a crack of thunder rolling through the sky. You gnaw on your lower lip.

Before you can stop yourself, you say, “If you’d rather not face the storm, my couch is pretty comfy and I make a mean cup of coffee in the morning,”

He looks at you for a moment, like he didn’t fully understand what you said, and then he slips his shoes back off. Silently, he pulls his keys back out of his pocket and returns them to their place on the table.

“Just so you know,” he says. “I drink it black,”

You roll your eyes. “Of course you do,”

You half expect the next few minutes to be awkward, but they aren’t. Leon just settles back into his spot on the couch, leant back against the cushions behind him like he’s supposed to have been there all along. You have to fight the curl threatening to upturn your lips. You return to him, like you always do, settling down beside him with room to spare.

“What’s next on the list?” he asks. His hands are on his chest, just below his sternum, fingers interlaced. You notice that his eyes have slipped closed.

“I was thinking Titanic,” you muse, leaning your head against the cushions. You hadn’t realized how tired you really were. “It’s a classic,”

“Little boring for my taste,” he says. You smile.

“A whole boat sinks during the last, like, hour of the movie,” you tease, leaning over to shove him playfully. “How is that boring?”

He shrugs, smiling and opening one eye to peek at you. You feel a chill snake its way down your spine. “The other two thirds cancel out the boat sinking,”

“Fair,” you note. You can’t find anything else to say, even if you want to. He looks so peaceful there, loose on your couch and in your space. He chose to stay. He chose to be around you. Sometimes, it makes you nervous.

Silence stretches between you, but it doesn’t amplify the nerves. It settles them, honestly. You find yourself so comfortable here, an arm’s length away from him but somehow still wrapped in his warmth. He eases your tensions, dampens the sounds from outside. What a pleasant world it would be if he were here all the time. Your eyelids droop as you watch him. His breathing is so steady, you’d think he’d fallen asleep. But he twitches every now and then to tell you he’s still awake.

“You’re really gonna make me coffee tomorrow?” he asks. His voice is low and smooth. It makes you smile.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “It’s the least I can do for holding you captive,”

He laughs, weak and wonderful as if he’s on the edge of sleep. “You’re not holding me captive. There’s hurricane force winds out there,”

You grin, opening your eyes to look at him. You find him already watching you. Blush creeps over his features. You hold his stare, wondering what he’s thinking.

“You make me nervous,” you whisper. You’re not sure he even hears you. He seems to be calculating his words, or maybe his escape route.

Instead, he furrows his brow. “I hope it’s a good kind of nervous,” he whispers back. Your lips form a line as you nod.

The silence returns, but you keep watching him. He’s pretty like this, haloed by the lightning that flashes in the window every few seconds. You fight the urge to reach out and trace his features. You can imagine the way his skin would feel against yours, the sloped angle of his nose, the creases near his eyes.

You want to jump out of your skin when he turns to consider you more. There’s a half smile hung on his lips. Then, he’s reaching out to grab your hand. It’s tentative, like a young boy might slowly wrap his fingers around a girl’s for the very first time. It’s simple, it’s easy; you like easy. His hands are much warmer than yours, though you’re not sure how, considering you feel like every inch of you has been consumed by flames. You worry that he can see the sweat beginning to bead along your hairline. You swallow thickly, praying to whoever might listen that you don’t screw this up.

“What’s your favorite color?” you ask. Your voice is low, barely above a whisper like you’re children trading secrets when you’re meant to be asleep.

He smiles. “Green,” he says. “Like a forest just before dusk,”

Of course it would be green. You feel a flash of embarrassment for not having asked earlier. The amount of green things you could shower him would last a lifetime. You think back to every green item you’ve ever seen, every natural green you’ve had the pleasure of witnessing,  and wonder how you’d never thought of it before. Now, when the tree outside your window raps against the panes, you’ll think of him. You’ll think of him when you use the crockpot your mother gifted you when you moved out. You’ll see him in the murky depths of a lake, or the vibrant hue of your favorite pair of shoes.

“Mine’s purple,” you reply. “Like wisteria,”

His face sours for a moment. “The stuff that hangs off willow trees?”

You grin and nod. “Exactly like that,”

At this, he laces your fingers together with more confidence. You feel your heart stutter. You would be content to die like this. In this moment, you’d make him a hundred cups of coffee, give him a thousand green hued things, and look for willow trees where you can.

[hheaven-sentt]

Haley🌻

Patreon | Twitter | Instagram

[hheaven-sentt]

meet me in the woods

summary: dreams of the woods and being someone else | leon kennedy x reader

word count: 2.3k

warnings: the softest angst ever, fighting & sparring, mentions of injuries, language, wanderlust, love confessions, unfortunate situations, slightly forbidden romance, krauser mention (i hate that guy)

notes: 'm where have you been?' 'm when are you coming back?' i'm back. i'm alive. i am free from the shackles of college for three months lawd have MERCY | ao3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The kick to the stomach should’ve been something you expected. You’d been calculating his moves the whole time, able to evade them without even thinking because you saw them from a mile away. But he wouldn’t stop talking. That’s always how he got you; opening his mouth and letting pretty words fall out of it. So when he said that the sunlight made your eyes a different shade, a prettier shade, you lost your touch. It was replaced by a boot to the stomach.

You let out a sound you didn’t even know you could make, a rush of air blowing past your lips. You hit the ground hard, half expecting a plume of dirt to come up around your shoulders. Leon is over you in an instant, locking your arms across your chest. He’s grinning. The sun outlines him like a halo.

“Yield,” he says, lips wrapping around his teeth in an obnoxious grin.

“Never,” you say, pushing back against him. You know it won’t matter so much, he’s always been stronger than you.

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” he asks, teasing. You notice your legs are still free, remaining unpinned by his. You finally return his grin.

“Never have,” you answer, managing to force your leg between his chest and yours. You plant your foot against him as best you can and give a hard kick. It’s enough to loosen his grip on you, and you’re back on your feet in minutes. You shake the dirt off of your shoulders.

You feel more at ease now, more in control. So long as Leon stays quiet, you might actually win this one. You put the voice in your head to bed, the one that says you’re still going to lose.

Leon tilts his head a bit, grin still hanging on his lips. He squares again, feet shoulder width apart. You could mirror his stance without even thinking. You know his strategies, you know his moves, you know the way his body works. He bounces on the balls of his feet before he swings, it gives him more momentum. He blocks too often with his right forearm, it’s covered in bruises that make it a weak spot. Yes, you know him. That doesn’t always make it easier.

You’re circling one another, waiting for the other to strike. Leon likes to bide his time; he knows you hate going on the offense so he tries to make you, tries to goad you into it. You often fall for it, but you’re trying not to. But he’s still grinning at you, which is mildly infuriating, like an itch you can’t quite reach.

“You’re thinking too much,” he says. You raise a brow. “Are we just going to stare at each other, or are we going to finish this? I’d like to get something to eat, and half the mess hall will be closed by the time we’re done,”

“Then hit me,” you return. “Finish it,”

He lets a breath escape him in what seems like a chuckle. You try to ignore it. “Why don’t you hit me, huh? Why do I have to do all the work?”

“Because when you swing, your balance is off. Makes you easier to topple,”

“You’re a quick learner,”

He rushes you then, throwing a right hook that would most certainly hurt if it were to connect with your jaw. You angle your head back at the right moment, using his forward momentum against him. You slip behind him, spinning on your heel. Before you can regret it, you send a hard kick into his back. The satisfaction rises in your throat when he stumbles. He turns to face you. The sunset is peeking at you over his head. You smile. He laughs as he swings again, and you duck beneath the fist hurtling at your nose. He grunts when he takes a punch to the kidney, but you doubt it even hurt that much. It’s a dance of fists and feet, attempting to land a single blow on the other. You can see the sheen of sweat on his brow, something you try to ignore. If you think about it too long, you’ll be face down in the dirt below. You throw a punch, one that lands hard against the smooth planes of his cheek. You worry it will bruise. You push it down. When you’d first started this, he didn’t care if you bruised. He said it would motivate you to do better.

Use everything to your advantage, even losses, he’d said.

Four hours. Within four hours you had managed to lose every fight against Leon you’d started. They didn’t even last that long, so there was no telling exactly how many you’d lost. A kick to the back of your knees sends you down this time, his forearm coming to rest around your throat. His labored breath is hot against the shell of your ear.

“Yield,” he says. The anger in you is too much.

“Fuck you,” you say, ramming your elbow into his ribs. He grunts, the wave of breath cascading over your shoulder. It gives you enough of an edge to wriggle out of his grasp.

You swing with abandon now, anger and frustration and exhaustion haunting your body and movements like a poltergeist. It’s only a matter of moments before your back is on the ground and his boot is pressing into your chest.

“Yield,” he says again. You grit your teeth, feeling tears resting in your eyes. You will not cry in front of him. With anger and resentment, you hammer your palm into his leg twice, signifying your yield. He relents, allowing you to stand.

“You let your anger get the best of you,” he says, turning you forcefully to dust the dirt from your back. “It makes you sloppy,”

“I’ll show you sloppy,” you say, stepping away from him. He laughs.

“I’m serious,” he says, schooling his features as you look at him. “You need to stamp it out or use it to your advantage,”

“I don’t know how to do that,” you say. Your voice is hoarse from the lump in your throat. Defeat weighs heavy on your bones.

“You will learn,” he promises. “Use everything to your advantage,”

The punch to the jaw is a shock to the system. It wakes you up in a way. You feel that anger coming back, that refusal to accept defeat. With a breath, you swing your leg up, landing a solid kick to his side that knocks the wind out of him. Taking hold of the moment, you land a right hook to his face, which causes him to stumble. You can hardly believe your eyes when he falls to the ground. You stand above him, triumphant.

“Yield,” you say. You’re not even pinning him, just sort of hovering near him, hands on your hips.

He’s grinning at you. It’s not teasing, it’s not to get a rise out of you. It’s the most genuine smile you’ve ever seen on him. Without a word, he taps out. Two hard beats against the ground are like the sweetest melody you’ve ever heard. Even in your exhaustion, you can’t help but thrust your fists in the air in celebration.

“Holy shit,” you gasp, extending your hand to him to help him up. “I actually won,”

When he’s standing in front of you, half drenched in sweat and smiling at you with so much pride, it’s hard to deny how beautiful he is. Constructed by the gods, you might say if he ever asked. You’re laughing, cackling actually, and he grips the sides of your head as he laughs with you. Your nose is bleeding, you can taste the rust on your lips. He brings your forehead to his, celebrating with you even though this was definitely a blow to his ego. 

After a few moments of bliss, you realize how close you are and how unprofessional it looks, and you back away. You’re both still grinning as he unwraps his knuckles.

“Don’t let this go to your head,” he teases, dropping the wrappings into the trash. The sun has nearly fully set. “You’re not the heavyweight champion or anything,”

“But, damn, don’t I feel like it,” you muse, smiling so wide that your cheeks hurt. He shoves your shoulder.

“Let’s get something to eat,” he says, grabbing your hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it is.

The mess hall is practically empty when you arrive, save for a few stragglers and the staff. Your usual seats are open, which is a relief. You feel like you can’t breathe when you set your tray down on the table. Leon sits beside you, like he always does, knocking his shoulder into yours.

“You have not won the war,” he teases. You roll your eyes. “Tomorrow night, you’re going down,”

“Who knows?” you return, sinking your teeth into a hard roll. “Maybe this is the start of your losing streak,”

He grins, stealing a piece of broccoli from your tray. In response, you shove the tray his way, a silent gesture to allow him as many as he would like.

You hate it here. It’s hard and trying, and it often makes you want to run away and live in the woods. But Leon makes it passable. Sometimes, after a particularly hard day, all you want to do is hit him. The thought brings comfort to you, settles it over your bones like a warm blanket. It makes your relationship with him strange, sure, but it works somehow. You hit him, he hits you, you get dinner, and the world can turn again. You don’t remember the last time someone had this effect on you, especially in this way.

Sometimes you wonder, on the days where the woods look like your best option, if he would come with you. Leon doesn’t like it here either, but he’s good at it. He’s good at following orders, he’s good with sparring, he doesn’t lose. He’s the star pupil if you’ve ever seen one. But there’s a part of you that thinks he might follow you. Maybe it would be under the guise of protecting you against bears and other woodland fauna, but you think he might just like an escape. Maybe he would go with simply because it was you.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, knocking his shoulder into yours again. You look at him through your lashes.

“What comes after?” you wonder aloud. He quirks a brow, asking for elaboration. “When we leave? When I am no longer allowed to conquer you?”

He laughs at this. “I wouldn’t go that far,”

“I am David, you were my Goliath,” you say. He shakes his head.

“I don’t know what comes after,” he says. “I’m sure I’ll find a way to knock you on your ass every now and then,”

Something brightens in your chest. “A noble cause,”

“I’m serious,” he says. Your smile falters for a moment. “I think we’ll figure it out. One day, we won’t have to bruise each other anymore,”

“Maybe I’m only doing it to get your attention,” you tease.

“It’s working,”

The statement makes your cheeks flush. “Don’t get sentimental on me now. There’s no place for that kind of talk here,”

He laughs. “You sound like Krauser,”

“Take that back,” you grin. He shrugs, then laughs when you playfully hit his shoulder. He looks around for a moment, gauging your surroundings.

“I meant it,” he says after a while. You look at him. “That we could make it work. Guess I’m sentimental when it comes to you,”

You roll your eyes. “You say that like you’re about to confess your love for me, Kennedy,”

He laughs, a real laugh that rumbles in his chest and warms your flesh. You like when he laughs like this, and you like it even more when you’re the one who causes it.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” he asks. His head is bent toward you, closing you into his space. He smells like dirt and cedar, a scent that you would let choke you.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing if you were anywhere else, anyone else. But you’re not. You’re you and he’s him, and you’re stuck somewhere that bleeds the love out of you one punch at a time. If you were in a coffee shop on a dreary street with a warm mug in your hands to unfreeze them from the rain, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would be a wonderful thing.

“Here?” you say. “With me? Yes, that would be a bad thing,”

He grins at you. “Then I’m not confessing my love for you,” he says. “But if we were in the woods somewhere, lost and wandering, I would,”

Your heart hammers in your chest. “In this hypothetical situation, lost in the woods and confessing love, I would welcome your confession,”

The conversation dies with that. You know your days will continue, the secret dream of the woods stuck in your heart somewhere. You refuse to allow that to be beaten out of you. You would spend your life trying to reach whatever woodland he dreamt up.

He walks you back to your bunks, like he always does. There’s something lingering between you, but it’s not a fire worth stoking, not now. His smiles are easy, his jokes even easier, and you allow things to continue as normal. That seems easier.

“Same time tomorrow?” he asks, voice soft and sweet and low. You let it wash over you. You grin.

“Only if you’re prepared to lose again,” you tease. He laughs, a low whisper of air.

And he kisses you, soft and sweet like honey on a sugar roll. Plush against him, you feel like putty, ready to be molded to do whatever he could ever need. When he pulls away, he lingers in your orbit for a moment. Your eyes remain closed, just standing in the feel of him.

“I will not be losing tomorrow,” he says. “I won’t go easy on you,”

With that, he’s gone. He’s never gone easy on you, so it’s not much of a threat. But that doesn’t mean he’s never soft. He’s always soft for you.

[hheaven-sentt]

more clones should use their age as an excuse. stop yelling at me im literally two years old

[hheaven-sentt]

[hheaven-sentt]

just wanted to share this with as much people as possible

[hheaven-sentt]

I'm many things, but coy's not one of them.