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laooneart · 4 months

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THIS WAS SO CUTE, LUIS DISTRACTING LEON WITH THE DOVES AWWWW

‘Mourning Doves’

Summary:

Despite the fact that it had been years since Valdelobos- years since Leon saved Luis from that knife to the back- Leon still can’t help but remember that day. He still can’t help but get triggered by the smallest of things and dissociate as a result.

But luckily, Luis is always there to comfort him, hug him, and offer him a distraction. Oddly enough, in the form of Mourning Doves

Rating: G

Word Count: 2,000

Trigger Warnings: Panic attacks, dissociation, depression, anxiety, derealisation

Genre: hurt/comfort, fluff and angst

A/N: UHHHHHHHHHHHH SORRY FOR NO FICS IN SUCH A LONG TIME TUMBLR EXPLODED MY ACC!!!!!!!!!! BUT HERES A MEW SHORT ONE FOR YOU GUYS YIPPEEEE!!!!!!! Go give it some kudos or something idk!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fic under Cut!!!!

Leon sat on his unmade bed. Completely motionless. He had his legs crossed and arms folded tightly against his chest in some vain attempt of self-soothing; not too nonadjacent to a young child forcing themselves out of a panic attack.

Except Leon had nothing to be upset over. Nothing tangible or real, at least.

But that didn’t stop the horrible, yet ever-familiar grip on his chest from tightening its claws around him even firmer. That didn’t stop the sickening, ill, and all-consuming pit of anxiety to worm his way deep into his sternum; pulsating like a virus Leon was familiar with destroying.

Leon could deal with Bioweapons. He could deal with viruses and plagues and whatever manmade horror the sick freaks he fought against could think to create.

But his own mind? He wasn’t trained for that. He was never taught how to deal with his mental health in a way that seemed healthy. He was never taught how to deal with his problems without the use of alcohol- Which led him to where he was right now.

Sitting on his bed, effectively paralyzed, staring out the window while internally screaming for his brain to stop replaying the same series of events over and over again like some kind of sick and twisted form of torture.

Leon couldn’t think about anything else. He couldn’t think about how the sheets under his hands felt or how the breeze from his window smelt like early-summer; he was trapped in his own mind.

So much so, that even when Luis silently slipped through their shared bedroom door and sat down on the bed beside him, Leon didn’t even notice the weight dip beneath the both of them. He hadn't even noticed Luis was there at all until a familiar hand crept up his shoulder.

“ Mi amor,”

His voice was soft. Characteristically so. He

spoke like Leon was made of fragile porcelain. Which, in that moment, he felt like he was.

Luis paused, waiting for Leon to respond. A sign of life from behind those distant blue eyes. Something, anything.

“What’s got you so upset, ¿mi vida?”

And oh, how Leon was so easy to break down by just a simple question.

He turned to Luis with big, watery blue eyes and a trembling lip- trying his damned to not shatter right then and there- but the second he came face to face with Luis’ kind, ever-understanding and patient expression, he had no choice but to break down in his arms.

He sobbed as Luis held him. He sobbed like he’d never cried before; like a baby taking their first breaths and finding the world too overwhelming. Everything felt overwhelming to Leon. His body felt like a prison of fear and relentless anxiety and all he could do to remedy that was to cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and-

“ Ssssshhhhhh… está bien, mi amor… te tengo, te tengo…”

Luis ran a hand through Leon's hair, keeping him grounded- protecting him from his own memories. Like the tried and true knight in shining armor he was.

He was so patient. So comforting and reassuring that it only served to make Leon cry even harder. He waited for what felt like ours for Leon to stop crying- and was right there to dry his tears with his thumbs once Leon had finally gathered the strength to sit up from his curled-up position on Luis’ lap.

“I-I’m s-sorry-“

“Don’t be,”

Luis kissed him on the cheek.

“You don’t ever need to be sorry. I just worry for you, cariño-“

“I-I k-know you do… I just…”

Leon trailed off, sighing like an old dog. Words were hard to express, especially when Luis already had an idea of what was coming.

“What’s got you so upset, mi mundo?”

Leon’s lips tightened as he pressed them together. He could feel his own heart thump against his chest- sickly and repetitive.

“….I don’t know”

“You don’t know?” Luis cocked his head. Leon shook his own, sinking further into his partner’s arms.

“I don’t know why I’m so upset. I don’t know why I’m so anxious. I just… am.”

“Do you know if there was anything that, ah, what’s the word-“ Luis snapped his fingers, “triggered it?”

Leon paused.

He knew exactly what had ‘triggered’ this train of emotions. He knew exactly where it had started; but part of him didn’t want to admit it out loud.

The thought had come to him early in the morning and left him feeling rotten all day.

How on earth was he supposed to explain to Luis that a single, made-up scenario in his mind had left him practically glued to his bed like this? He felt pathetic, to say the least.

“…. You can be honest with me,”

Luis whispered into his ear, as if he were able to read his mind.

“ I promise, I only want to help..”

“ I know you do,”

Leon mumbled back, burying his nose in the familiar fabric of Luis’ jacket. It smelt like cigarettes and leather.

“ I jus’ dunno how to explain it…”

“Take aaaaaaaaall the time in the world you need, mi vida,”

Luis pressed a kiss to the crown of Leon’s head and began rubbing circles into his back. Slow, repetitive and comforting.

“ I’ve got all the time in the world for you.”

And true to his word, Luis didn’t pry. He didn’t try to coax anything out of Leon when he remained silent for god knows how long; he just… stayed with him. Holding him. Being the pillar of comfort Leon so desperately needed in his life right about now.

God, where would he be without Luis?

That thought made him shudder.

“…¿Amor?”

Luis must’ve noticed it, too.

“I was thinking about what would’ve happened if you died,”

Leon blurted out. Rather ungraciously. The panic that teetered on the edge of clawing at his chest and ripping his ribcage wide open was far too threatening for Leon to stay silent over any longer.

“T-This morning,” Leon managed to collect his words best he could, voice shaky and uneven.

“I-I w-woke up- a-and y-you weren’t there- and- and- and I thought to myself- w-what would it have been like if- if I didn’t help you? If I- I- I- if I left you there to-“

“ Oh, mi amor…”

Despite the very-much-so-alive Luis’ gentle voice being audible in Leon's ears, the mental image of his bloody body strewn across the floor with Krauser’s knife lodged firmly into his spine was too much for the anxious man to handle.

So Leon cried. He cried and he cried and he cried. He sobbed so loudly his own ears rang and his knuckles went white from grabbing onto Luis’ leather jacket so tightly. He cried so hard he thought he might vomit.

It was awful. He felt trapped in his own body with no way of escape. All his mind would let him do was replay that same imaginary image of Luis’ corpse sitting lifeless against the wall like a Ragdoll; cruel and taunting. No matter how much Leon tried to break away from that picture in his head, it just never left.

He wanted it to stop. He’d do anything to make it stop. He’d drink he’d throw himself in front of a van he’d bash his head against a wall he’d-

“Oh, huh, would you look at that…”

“ W-What??”

Leon was broken out of the sickly and unending grasp of his brain for just a moment when Luis spoke up; his voice weirdly lighthearted and… distracted?

The brunette was staring at something on the opposite end of the room with an expression of mild curiosity.

“¿No puedes ver? Look,”

Luis ever-so-gently grabbed Leon’s chin and gingerly tilted his head towards the window;

Where, sitting on the sill that had been overgrown with weeds at this point, were two mourning doves- preening each other and cooing into the sky.

“Doves”

“Y-yeah…”

Leon sniffled, a little confused.

“Oye, I wonder how long they’ve been there”

“I haven’t seen them before,”

Leon mumbled against Luis’ chest, instinctively sinking against his body weight a little as his attention fastened entirely on the two birds sitting on the windowsill. They fluffed up their feathers and began to nestle down into the thick ivy, and silently, Leon thanked himself for not ripping it out earlier. Their little eyes closed in comfort as they squished against one another.

“I wonder if they’re building a nest”

“I hope so,” Leon mumbled again, suddenly feeling oddly… calm?

“I’ve never had, like, a bird nest on my window before”

“My old home used to be a paradise for birds,” a smile was evident in Luis’ voice as he spoke,

“They’d nest in the attic, in the windowsills, in the chimney- anywhere you can imagine, they’d be there.

“My Abuelo used to help me feed them, too. We’d tear up bits of bread and feed the crumbs to the sparrows outside…”

Luis began to trail off, recalling a memory in which as a little boy he slipped off the roof of his home while trying to throw the baby birds sitting on the chimney some bread crumbs- and Leon listened to every single word that left his partner's mouth. All the while watching the doves slowly nestle their way to sleep.

It was as if the bird's exhaustion rubbed off on Leon, too; because in mere moments, the poor man was slowly starting to struggle keeping his eyelids open, let alone make out the convoluted sentences that left Luis’ mouth.

It was like he had suddenly become so very aware of the way his body sat in his partner’s arms; the way his jaw ached for clenching it for hours on end and the way his limbes screamed as though he’d just run a marathon. The way his eyes stung and the way the puffiness clogged up the little amount of vision he did have left.

Leon’s brain felt thick; foggy, heavy and swimming with emotions so fickle and impossible to grasp- like fish in a pond- yet so impactful it left him rotting in his bed for hours on end. Funny how the mind works like that, right?

What was Leon worried about again? He couldn’t even remember. It was as if his mind couldn’t fathom a world beyond the methodical melody of Luis’ familiar pattern of speech and the low purring the doves outside cooed. It was as if Leon had been snapped back down to his reality and could finally feel the sheets beneath his fingers again and-

Oh.

Ooooooooooooohh.

That’s probably why Luis pointed out the birds. That’s why he started talking about something totally unrelated.

He was trying to provide Leon a distraction. Some semblance of relief.

Leon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the realization.

And even if he wanted to, he felt far too exhausted- emotionally and physically- to bring his body to do either of those things.

What he could do, however, was sink even further down into Luis’ lap; resting his head on his chest, which was characteristically showing through an unbuttoned shirt just how he always wore it.

That was one thing Leon was grateful for; that no matter what life threw at him, little habits like that never changed with Luis. Little habits that Leon learnt to adore so thoroughly over time made him feel overwhelmed. Little habits he wouldn’t trade for the world.

Leon instinctively nuzzled his nose against Luis’ chest hair and practically melted the second his partner ran a hand through his hair- cold rings clinking against his scalp was a welcomed replacement to the way his skin burned and stung from his tears.

Luis’ heartbeat reverberated against Leon's ears and the rumble of his voice soothed his already tired body down to a mere puddle of exhaustion. It was repetitive. Comforting. Real.

Luis was real. Here was right here, holding him, talking to him in time with his beating heart. Telling him stories of a time long-gone while simultaneously pointing out all the little things that still remained.

Speaking of, the doves on the windowsill had fallen asleep a long time ago now. And Leon wasn’t far behind.

Maybe Luis didn’t notice it. Maybe he did, but still kept talking just to be safe- but Leon had fallen inbetween the cracks of wakefulness and sleep long ago. His mind was still active yet there wasn’t a chance in the world he could be moved from his position anytime soon.

And if Luis didn’t notice it earlier, he certainly had now with the way he so delicately kissed the crown of Leon’s head, mumbling into his ears;

‘‘ Go to sleep, Amor,’’

Luis kissed him again. This time on the forehead.

“ I’ll be right here when you wake up. Te amo.”

Leon trusted him. By god, he trusted him more than anyone else in the entire world; and he loved him even more than that, too.

So he trusted that Luis would be there when he woke up.

He trusted that he wouldn’t leave him- that he wouldn’t stop holding him in his arms like this. Safe, quiet, and loved.

Leon didn’t have to listen to the cruel torment of his mind anymore- and, yes, saying that was easier than done- but he at least knew that if did fall down that sick, dark and neverending rabbit hole ever again;

He’d have Luis by his side to help pull him back up.

And Leon would do the same for him in a heartbeat, too.

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