dani

Exactly how you’d left it yesterday: reports stacked in descending order of priority, pen jar turned with the labels facing out, a closed file where you’d stopped mid-sentence, and your mug, handle to the right, tilted just so. No one touched your desk. Not because anyone was afraid of you (though some were), but because after a while people learned, you kept things the way you kept them for a reason.

You dropped your bag under the desk, slid into your chair, and pulled the top file toward you. Break-in, residential, no forced entry, no usable prints, witness half-drunk. You’d read this case a thousand times in a thousand neighborhoods. It didn’t matter. You still read it. Because sometimes there was a pattern. Sometimes someone else missed what you didn’t. That was the part you secretly liked, the puzzle-hunting.

The clock above the copier clicked over to 6:10 a.m.

Good. That gave you maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes before the rest of the department began to stagger in, grumpy and loud and full of fresh disasters. If you were disciplined, and you were, that was enough time to clear two, maybe three reports before people started asking for things.

You stood, crossed to the communal coffee pot, and poured the first cup of the day. It was the kind of coffee that hated you and wanted you to fail: thin, bitter, scorched. You drank it anyway. Two sugars, exactly. Stir twice clockwise, once counter. Not superstition, not really, just rhythm. Ritual was the thing between you and the noise. Ritual meant you were the one in charge.

The first sip burned your tongue, and some half-dormant part of your brain purred at the heat. Alert, now. Ready.

A floorboard or a pipe groaned somewhere behind the records room. You didn’t even flinch. The building did that sometimes. Old bones popping. You were the one who had to read the “I heard something” reports, half of them were the plumbing, the other half were bored officers, and the last 3% were actual problems. Today, it was the first category. Not worth getting up.

You sat again, tapped your pen twice, and sank into the silence. It wrapped around you like a worn-in jacket. In here, this early, you weren’t the one people whispered about or asked for or rolled their eyes at. You were just another pair of eyes on paper. It was almost… nice.

The phone on your desk blinked once, red. Voicemail, 3:42 a.m. You ignored it. If it had been a real emergency, it wouldn’t have waited for voicemail. Let Morning You deal with that.

Outside, behind the blinds, the sky was doing its best imitation of morning, but Raccoon City was stubborn about sunlight. Thin gray light seeped in anyway, making the dust in the air glow. Another day. Another pile of things broken by other people that you’d have to fix.

You flipped a page. Evidence chain incomplete. Of course it was. You circled the line and scrawled in the margin: Follow up with Miller. AGAIN. You sighed through your nose.

Rookies.

Always rookies.

They came in waves, faces that looked too young to hold a gun, all posture and big talk. They asked where to put their lunch, how to log evidence, where the clean cups were, who had the good chair. They were excited, hopeful, romantic about the job. You’d been like that once, maybe, the memory was fuzzy. Now it just got in the way.

You’d told the sheriff two years ago you weren’t training any more of them. They burned time, they burned energy, and half of them quit when they realized this wasn’t an action movie. “They learn more from getting it wrong,” you’d said. “I don’t have the hours to hold hands.”

He’d agreed. Or at least, he’d stopped asking.

So when the front doors creaked open too early, when footsteps sounded way too fast and way too upbeat for 6:15 a.m., you already knew who it was.

Leon Scott Kennedy. RPD’s newest golden retriever.

The kid who smiled at everyone. The kid who apologized to filing cabinets when he bumped them. The kid whose laugh you could hear from the parking lot.

You took a long, fortifying sip of coffee and said to no one, “Here we go.”

The quiet survived for exactly twenty-three seconds.

The squeak of boots on linoleum echoed down the hallway, repeating in a chipper little rhythm that made you want to introduce someone to proper stealth technique. You didn’t look up. You didn’t need to.

“Morning!”

His voice bounced across the bullpen like it had no idea what walls were. Bright, young, open-throated. You could almost see the grin.

You grunted into your mug. The international sign for not now.

It didn’t dissuade him in the slightest.

Leon rounded the desks and came into your little pool of lamplight like it was the most natural thing in the world. Up close, he was somehow even more… shiny. Brand-new uniform, still a deep navy because it hadn’t met rain and grime and blood yet. Collar perfect. Hair neat. Eyes, stupidly blue and awake, like he had actually slept last night, like he didn’t understand how offensive that was.

He planted himself at the edge of your desk, boots squeaking one final time, hands in his pockets like he wanted to seem relaxed but hadn’t practiced it enough.

“I’m still getting lost around here,” he said, chuckling a little like he was confessing to something small and adorable. “This place is huge.”

You didn’t look up. “Then get a map.”

He laughed. Laughed. Full, bright, genuine. Like you’d said something funny. You hadn’t.

“Right, yeah. A map. That’s a good one.”

You finally lifted your eyes, slowly, giving him The Look, the one that said you were too tired for sunshine and too experienced for charm. Most rookies got that look once and avoided you for a week.

Leon just smiled wider.

He lingered, clearly expecting you to add something, maybe ask how he was settling in like you were some kind of welcoming committee. You didn’t. You turned a page.

There was a little beat, the kind where you could watch a brain decide whether to keep bothering you or to go bother someone else, and then, like a happy dog catching the scent of more people, he swivelled and bounced off toward the other desks.

Good. Let him spread the energy over there.

Within ten minutes, the rest of the station began to trickle in. By then Leon had already made himself useful: he carried a stack of files for Donna from Records, refilled the sugar, helped someone figure out the copier, and did it all with that same I’m happy to be here grin that made older officers soften a little.

“Careful, Kennedy, that pot bites,” one of the detectives called when he reached for the coffee.

“Only if you don’t respect it, sir,” Leon said, completely serious.

The bullpen burst into laughter.

Of course they loved him. Of course. He was exactly the kind of rookie they liked, polite, helpful, could take a joke, good jawline for pictures. Meanwhile you sat in your corner and pretended your report was the most interesting thing you’d ever seen.

He’d been here what, two and a half weeks? Long enough for half the department to claim him. Long enough for the forensics girl to say, “He’s so sweet.” Long enough for dispatch to start asking if he wanted to join poker night. Long enough for you to peg him.

He was the kind of guy who probably thanked the vending machine when it actually dropped the right snack.

You tried to tune him out. You really did. But his laugh carried, bright and unfiltered, not yet sanded down by too much shit. It didn’t sound like it belonged in a room that also held three unsolved homicides and a faulty AC. It sounded like it belonged outside, on a good day, with a dog and no paperwork.

You kept reading.

Then you made the mistake of glancing up.

He was over by Miller’s desk, leaning over a map, sleeves pushed up to his forearms, talking with his hands, big, animated gestures like he used to play sports. Miller looked amused, like he was indulging him. Leon said something, Miller laughed, and then Leon glanced across the room.

Right at you.

You were mid-sip.

He waved. Cheerfully. Like you weren’t glaring. Like of course you were watching him.

You froze.

He was coming back.

Fantastic.

He slid into the chair opposite you without invitation, spun it around, and straddled it like he was in one of those “down-to-earth cop” recruitment posters. “Hey, you’re (L/N), right? Everyone keeps saying you’re the best. You must’ve seen it all.”

“Most of it wasn’t worth seeing.”

He laughed. Again. God. “Guess I’ve got a lot to learn.”

“You do.” You flicked your eyes to him, then pointedly to the floor between you. “Starting with boundaries.”

He blinked, then scooted his chair back… about an inch. “Personal space. Got it.”

That was not “got it.” That was “I acknowledged the concept.”

He tipped his chin toward your paperwork. “What’re you working on?”

“Paperwork.”

“Oh. Cool.” He nodded, totally sincere. “I love paperwork.”

You looked up, slow, disbelief written across your face. “No one loves paperwork.”

“Well, I mean, it’s not exciting, but it’s organized.” He shrugged, boyish, easy. “I like organized.”

You stared at him for half a second longer than you meant to. Because okay. That was… not the worst answer. You were almost willing to say, Huh, when someone in the back yelled:

“KENNEDY! You still owe me that coffee!”

He jolted upright. “Right! Coming!” He looked back at you as he stood. “We’ll talk later?”

“Let’s not.”

“Cool, see you soon!”

Then he was gone again, vanishing into the crowd in a trail of squeaky boots and good intentions, leaving the air four decibels louder than it had been.

You rubbed your temples. “This department needs earplugs.”

You dropped back into your report. You didn’t get three lines in before your brain supplied, unhelpfully: He’s not the worst rookie you’ve seen.

You ignored it.

The morning bled into proper shift hours. More bodies, more noise, more coffee. By now the bullpen was at that low, constant hum of work, phones ringing, printers chewing paper, someone cursing because a form was missing a signature. You settled into it, that well-practiced blindness that let you read even while chaos moved around you.

And then you heard him again.

Not near you this time. At the lockers. Voice carrying easily down the hall.

“She’s the best on the force, right? I kinda wanna train with her.”

Your pen stopped.

Your heartbeat didn’t speed up, you were too controlled for that, but something tightened right under your sternum. You stilled, eyes fixed on the same line you’d been reading.

Of course he wanted you.

You dipped your head, muttering into your mug, “Over my dead body.”

A couple of guys by the lockers laughed, that low, ugly kind of laughter men have when they think they’re being funny at a woman’s expense.

“You don’t want her, kid,” someone said. Dwyer, by the voice. “She’ll have you polishing her boots before she lets you touch a case file.”

Another chimed in, piling on. “She doesn’t train rookies. Burned through the last one in two days.”

More laughter.

You didn’t look up. You didn’t take the bait. You’d had worse said about you in rooms where you were the only one actually doing the damn job. Let them talk. Let them think you didn’t hear.

Then Leon spoke again. And his tone was different.

“Maybe she’s just the only one doing her job right.”

The laughter faltered.

He didn’t stop.

“I’ve seen her reports,” he said, still casual, but the edges of the words had steel. “She doesn’t miss anything. If that’s what ‘burned through’ looks like, maybe we should all be taking notes.”

Silence rolled across the room like a slow wave. The kind of silence people fill with coughs because they don’t want to admit they were being assholes. Eventually someone muttered, “Watch your mouth, rookie,” and the sound of papers shuffling resumed like nothing had happened.

You stared at your report, but the words were lolled together now, refusing to be separate. Something warm, annoyingly warm, crept up the back of your neck.

He defended you. Why?

He had no reason to. He didn’t know you. He’d met you, what, three times? You’d been nothing but short with him. And still, he’d said it like it was obvious. Like anyone with eyes would say the same.

You finally let yourself glance over.

He was still by the lockers. Still smiling, but it wasn’t the goofy, I-love-everyone smile from earlier. It was smaller. Defiant. There was spine under all that sunshine.

He glanced up, caught you looking, and lifted a hand in a little wave.

You rolled your eyes and went back to your report, pretending to read, even as the corner of your mouth betrayed you with the smallest twitch.

“Perfect,” you muttered. “The rookie’s a hero now.”

You thought that would be the end of it. You thought: Fine. He defended me. I’ll nod at him next time or something. Then he’ll get bored and go charm forensics again.

But the universe hates your plans. Because right then, the room changed again.

Not loud, quiet. That special quiet that sucked the air out slowly. The one everyone recognized.

Sheriff Graham walked in.

Coffee in one hand, clipboard in the other, expression like the day was already going his way. He strode through the bullpen like a man inspecting his troops.

“Morning, everyone!”

A few tired “mornings” came back. You didn’t bother. You just sat up a little straighter and set your pen down. Whenever he greeted everyone like that, it meant he was about to make the day worse.

His gaze swept the room, taking in faces, desks, the mess of lives being lived in dark blue. Then his eyes landed on Leon.

“Kennedy,” he said, already smiling. “You settling in?”

Leon practically snapped to attention. “Yes, sir! Great team here, sir!”

Of course he said that.

“Glad to hear it. We’re proud to have you.” The sheriff flipped through his clipboard, made a show of scanning the notes. The room went a shade quieter. You felt it coming. You felt it like you feel a storm in your joints.

“Now…” he said slowly, tapping the board with his pen, “about training assignments…”

You closed your eyes.

No. No, no, no, no, no-

“_______,” he said, too cheerful, “since you’re our top field agent, I’m assigning Kennedy here to shadow you for the next month.”

There it was.

The thunderclap.

Your hand tightened around your mug so hard you almost cracked the handle. “Absolutely not.”

The sheriff didn’t even look up. “Consider it a character-building exercise.”

“Whose character?” you shot back. “Mine or his?”

He finally glanced at you then, eyes amused. “Both.”

There was a ripple of poorly hidden laughter around the room. You didn’t have to look to know some of those same guys from the lockers were smirking. Let’s see how long the ice queen lasts. You’d seen the look before.

Meanwhile, Leon, bless his shiny, oblivious soul, was beaming.

“Thank you, sir!” he said, practically glowing. “I won’t let you down!”

You turned toward him slowly, every motion deliberate, and said with all the exhaustion of five years on the force: “You already are.”

For half a second, his grin faltered. Then, somehow, impossibly, he rallied. “Yes, ma’am!”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. “Don’t call me that either.”

The sheriff chuckled, clearly very pleased with himself. “Play nice. Dismissed.”

And then he abandoned you to your fate, vanishing into his office on a cloud of smug and caffeine.

The second his door shut, the bullpen erupted.

“Twenty bucks says she doesn’t last the week.”

“You kidding? She’s gonna eat him alive before Friday.”

“I give him three days before he cries.”

You ignored all of it. You gathered your file, your notepad, and your now-lukewarm coffee and headed for the hallway like a woman being marched to the firing squad.

You didn’t even make it three desks before you heard the quick, eager footsteps behind you.

“So! Partnered up, huh?”

You didn’t bother to look at him. “Don’t call me partner.”

“Right, right.” He fell into step beside you like he’d always walked there. “Mentor?”

“No.”

“Sensei?”

You stopped. He almost rear-ended you, skidding to a halt just short of your shoulder. You turned your head slowly, giving him the kind of look that had made grown men apologize.

“If you call me sensei, I’ll shoot you.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Got it, boss.”

“Not that either.”

“Understood, coach.”

You closed your eyes for a one-second prayer. “Kennedy—”

“Okay, okay,” he said, hands up, laughing, actually laughing, like this was a fun day for him. “I’ll just… follow your lead.”

“You were already doing that,” you said, dry as old paper.

“Guess I’m good at it, then.”

And there it was again, that stupidly sincere smile. Unarmored. Like he was actually happy to be assigned to you. Like he hadn’t heard all the crap they said.

You turned the corner toward the briefing room and caught your reflection in the glass — uniform crisp, expression sharper than your badge. Behind you, Leon followed like he belonged there. Like a golden retriever glued to its person.

“So,” he piped up again, because of course silence was illegal for him, “what’s first on the agenda, ma’am, I mean —____?”

You didn’t answer. You just pushed open the door and muttered, just loud enough for him to hear:

“First, you’re getting a leash.”

He laughed. Of course he laughed.

And as you walked inside with him at your heels, you realized, you’d survived firefights, blackouts, and one stairwell trying to kill you. You weren’t entirely sure you’d survive him.

The moment Sheriff Graham disappeared into his office, you were already on your feet.

Nothing good ever came after one of his “character-building exercises.” If you stayed seated, somebody would remember you. If somebody remembered you, you’d get roped into something even worse than babysitting a rookie, community liaison stuff, press, or, God forbid, another high-school career day. So you moved. Fast.

You tucked the folder under your arm, slid your chair in with that automatic, military-precise motion that said you’d been doing this too long, and sent up a silent, extremely unprofessional prayer that the universe would grant you five whole minutes of freedom before Leon Kennedy realized you’d left the room.

Five minutes. Three, even. Long enough for him to get distracted by the vending machine, or by someone with softer edges, or by anyone who didn’t regard rookies as time vampires with badges.

There were plenty of kind people in this building. People who brought homemade brownies on Mondays. People who asked about everyone’s kids. People who had photos of their dogs taped to their monitors. People who looked at Leon and saw “promise” instead of “noise.”

He could follow any one of them.

If I move fast enough, you told yourself, maybe he’ll attach himself to someone else like a golden parasite.

You slipped out of the briefing room like you were escaping a hostage situation. Your boots barely made a sound on the scuffed tile. You kept your head down, folder angled against your ribs, weaving through desks and half-finished reports and morning chatter like you were running a quiet little op no one else knew about.

Down the hallway. Past records. Past dispatch, where the radio chatter was just starting to pick up. A shaft of pale sunlight cut across the corridor from one of the too-small windows, throwing a stripe over your shoulder as you moved. You reached the locker corridor and let yourself feel the smallest, pettiest bubble of satisfaction.

No blond hair. No too-bright eyes. No “hey, partner!”

You almost smiled.

Then you heard it.

Boots. Jogging.

“Wait up, partner!”

You didn’t even have to turn around. You closed your eyes mid-stride and let out a long, slow, despairing groan, the kind you usually saved for missing evidence receipts and twelve-page internal memos drafted by people who had never once stepped onto a crime scene.

He caught up to you in exactly three long, eager strides. Of course he did. He was a puppy. Puppies had no understanding of “no.”

He appeared at your side, a little out of breath but beaming like he’d just won a race you hadn’t agreed to run. “You walk fast.”

“I have places to be,” you said, tightening your grip on the folder. “Alone.”

He nodded, like you’d just said something inspiring. “Me too! But… together!”

You stared ahead and decided not to answer that. Some things didn’t deserve oxygen.

Instead, you veered right toward your locker, yanked it open with more force than necessary, and started rummaging around the top shelf like you’d forgotten something critical, a notebook, a spare radio, your will to live. Maybe, by some miracle, he’d take the hint and go… anywhere.

He did not.

“You need a hand?” he asked, head tilted, peering over your shoulder like a golden retriever checking to see what you’d dropped. His hair fell forward a little and you hated, on principle, that it looked soft.

“No,” you said. Short. Flat. Final.

He leaned against the locker beside yours anyway, hands shoved into his pockets, posture casual but eyes lit up, radiating patience like he had endless time to wait for you to finish being annoyed at him. You could feel him watching you. You could feel half the bullpen watching you. You slammed the locker closed hard enough to make the metal ring, grabbed a notepad, and pivoted toward the exit.

He pivoted too.

You stepped left. He stepped left.

You faked right.

He mirrored you perfectly, like this really was a drill. “Oh, we’re doing drills?” he said, almost delighted.

You stopped so abruptly he almost ran straight into you. You turned, slow, eyes narrowed. “Do you always hover?”

“Only around people I like,” he said, not missing a beat.

You made a noise somewhere between a choke and a sigh, the kind of noise that said I am too sober for this. “Unbelievable.”

“I get that a lot.”

You rolled your eyes and resumed walking, faster this time. The hallway stretched ahead, long and bright and entirely too public. Sun cut in through narrow windows, painting pale bars across the floor. You ignored the morning laughter from the bullpen behind you, ignored the faint echo of someone placing a bet on how long you’d last, and kept your gaze pinned on the red EXIT sign like it was the finish line.

Leon matched your pace like it was nothing. His boots squeaked just slightly out of sync with yours, enough to annoy you, not enough to qualify as a true offense. He dropped back a step, jogged up again, like he was trying to find whatever tactical distance would make you least homicidal.

Maybe he thought this was trust-building.

“You know,” he said cheerfully, not even winded, “for a veteran, you’ve got great cardio.”

You did not slow down. “Keep talking and you’ll need yours.”

He laughed, bright, open, happy, and the sound bounced off the concrete walls like sunlight. “That’s fair!”

By the time you pushed through the metal door to the lot, the air outside had already started to warm, that early, faint heat of a Raccoon City day that hadn’t quite decided if it wanted to be kind. The smell of asphalt, exhaust, and old rain hit you. You narrowed your eyes against the light.

Leon was still right beside you.

Of course he was.

You crossed the parking lot toward your patrol car, folder tucked tight under your arm, walking like you didn’t see him. He kept pace like a soldier in formation, his shadow overlapping yours every few steps. You could hear the faint scuff of his boots, the quiet jingle from his belt, the easy way he breathed, unbothered by the morning, by you, by anything.

“I brought snacks,” he said suddenly, proud, like this was the part he’d really been waiting to share. “Protein bars. Thought it might be a long day.”

You unlocked the car door without looking at him. “You can eat yours when I drop you off.”

“Drop me off where?”

“Anywhere else.”

He laughed, genuinely amused. “You’re funny when you’re pretending not to like me.”

“I’m not pretending.”

“Sure,” he said lightly. “You’ll warm up to me eventually.”

You opened the driver’s door, slid in, and gave him a flat look over the roof. “Don’t bet on it.”

He leaned on the frame, still smiling, as if your refusal hadn’t so much as dented him. “Guess I’ll just have to prove you wrong, partner.”

You shut your door very pointedly.

Through the glass you watched him mouth something that looked suspiciously like you’ll thank me later as he jogged around to the passenger side.

You sighed, started the engine, and told yourself the truth:

This was going to be a very, very long day.

The ride started in silence.

Not a comfortable, companionable silence, not the kind you had with seasoned officers who knew when to shut up. This was the thick, foggy kind that sits in the cab of the car and hums with all the things you don’t want someone to say.

You drove.

He fidgeted.

Five minutes in, he had already adjusted his seat three different ways, opened and closed the glove box twice, checked his seatbelt as if it might have changed since the last time he looked, and was now turning the radio knob back and forth between two static-filled frequencies like he was trying to decode secret transmissions.

“Do you ever stop moving?” you asked, eyes still on the road.

“Nope,” he said, cheerful as ever. “Helps me think.”

“Then maybe stop thinking.”

He laughed, unoffended. “Can’t. Thinking’s kind of my thing.”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes so hard you saw your own brain. Outside, the city rolled past, low buildings, storefronts just waking up, a guy hosing down the sidewalk, a woman walking her dog. The hum of the engine and the steady whir of tires should’ve been calming. Instead, Leon started humming along to the static on the radio.

You gave him a sideways look. “That’s white noise, Kennedy.”

“Yeah,” he said, drumming his fingers on the dash. “But it’s catchy.”

You turned the radio off.

“Rude,” he muttered under his breath, still grinning.

You grabbed the clipboard from the dash and handed it to him. “Check the route log.”

He flipped it open, scanned it like this was the most interesting document he’d ever seen, and, because he was constitutionally incapable of silence, said, “So… how long have you worked here?”

“Too long.”

“You like it?”

“Define like.”

He chuckled. “What’s your worst case?”

You didn’t answer.

“Okay, what about ghosts? You believe in ghosts?”

You turned your head just enough to look at him properly. His expression was open, honest, annoyingly earnest. He actually wanted to know.

“Only the ones still taking up desk space,” you said.

He barked out a laugh. “That’s a good one.”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

He grinned anyway. Nothing could kill this man’s mood. You were starting to suspect he was immune to sarcasm.

The questions continued: favorite weapon, favorite street, first arrest, worst partner, biggest pet peeve, whether you thought Raccoon City was haunted (you did), whether you had any hobbies (you didn’t tell him), whether you liked dogs (you pretended you didn’t). Each answer from you got shorter, tighter, sharper.

Finally, after his tenth question, something like, “Have you ever had a partner that wasn’t terrible?” you muttered, “You’re exhausting.”

He lit up like you’d handed him a trophy. “Thanks, I get that a lot.”

At the next stoplight, he tried to balance his coffee on the dashboard.

You didn’t even have time to tell him not to.

The cup tipped, slid, and sloshed straight across the dash and down onto his thigh.

“Ah—! Damn it—no, no, no—” He scrambled, hands darting around like he could catch the spill in mid-air. He grabbed the first thing he could find, a single napkin, and dabbed at the mess, which of course did nothing.

Without even glancing, you reached into the door pocket and handed him the full stack of actual napkins you kept there for this exact reason. Not for him, but for humanity in general.

“Next time,” you said, eyes still on the road, “maybe drink it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, blotting at his pants, at the dash, at his vest. “Crisis averted. Minimal casualties.”

“You’re a walking incident report.”

“That’s unfair,” he said, smiling again. “I’m at least a two-person incident report.”

You almost laughed. Almost. It came out as more of a quiet exhale and a mouth twitch. You hid it behind a sip of your own coffee.

For a moment, a rare, blessed moment, silence actually held.

He leaned back in his seat, let out a slow breath, and watched the city blur by through the windshield. The sun had climbed higher now, casting everything in a soft, washed-out glow. It made him look younger. New. Breakable.

“You’re really calm behind the wheel,” he said at last, voice lower than before, less performative, more real.

“It’s called experience,” you said.

“I like that,” he said simply.

You rolled your eyes, but the words sat there between you, small and warm and annoyingly sincere.

The radio crackled then, saving you from having to respond.

“Unit 14, disturbance reported at 5th and Cedar. Possible lost pet, no sign of injury. Check it out.”

You picked up the mic. “Copy that. On route.”

Leon perked up instantly, like someone had just thrown a ball. “Action time,” he said, straightening his vest.

“It’s a lost pet, Kennedy. Not exactly a shootout.”

“Still counts as field work,” he said, actually bouncing a little in his seat.

You sighed, took the turn, and pulled up to the corner store. A handwritten MISSING DOG flyer was taped crookedly to the front window. A woman in her fifties, apron still on, hair frizzed from stress, stood out front the moment she saw the car.

“Oh, thank God,” she said, rushing toward you. “He ran off again, the neighbor’s mutt scared him, he’s so small, I don’t want him in the road—”

Before you could even open your door, Leon was already out, the picture of eager concern. “Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ll find him!”

You stared at him through the windshield. “He we’d you,” you muttered.

You got out a bit slower, professional, steady, while he was already crouched near a line of bushes by the sidewalk.

“Here, buddy,” he called softly. “Hey, c’mere… it’s okay…”

He dropped his voice, and for the first time all morning, there was no performative brightness in it. It was warm, coaxing, the same tone people used for scared kids and baby animals. You watched him with your arms crossed, because damn it, it was… effective.

Two minutes later, a shaggy little mutt poked its head out from under a dumpster, sniffing suspiciously.

“Heyyyy,” Leon said, grinning. “There you are.”

The dog trotted out, tail wagging, straight into his hands.

Leon scooped him up gently, scratching behind his ears. “Gotcha, pal. You okay?”

The woman’s relief hit like a wave. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” She took the dog from him, pressing her nose to its fur. “You’re such a sweet boy.”

Leon laughed, dimples and everything. “He’s a brave little guy. Just needed a snack and some encouragement.”

You were watching. You were absolutely watching. Because right there, in that stupid small moment with a stupid small dog, the chaos smoothed out of him and you saw the cop underneath. The one who’d kneel for old ladies. The one who’d stay with a scared kid. The one who’d go into a bad building even if his hands were shaking.

You cleared your throat. “You done making friends?”

He looked over at you, bright again. “Just doing my civic duty.”

“You can put that on your evaluation,” you said, turning back toward the car.

He thanked the woman again, of course he did, then jogged to catch up to you. When he climbed in, he was still a little breathless, still smiling. “That went well, huh?”

You put the car in gear. “You didn’t lose the dog. Congratulations.”

“That’s an A-plus, right?”

“A passing grade, at best.”

He leaned back, arms folded behind his head like he’d just saved the city. “I’ll take it. Small victories.”

You caught his reflection in the side window, sunlight catching in his hair, lips still curved. And, unfortunately, your own faint smile in the mirror.

He’s not hopeless, you thought. And you immediately hated yourself for thinking it. You adjusted the mirror. Just in case he noticed.

The rest of the afternoon blurred into regular patrol rhythm, calls, checks, drive-bys, the ordinary little crises of a city still pretending everything was fine. By the time you rolled into that quiet residential strip on the west side, with its narrow sidewalks and overgrown hedges, you could feel your patience wearing thin.

Which is exactly why you pointed toward the mouth of the alley and said, “Check the perimeter.”

It was a test. And also a break. Mostly a break.

“On it,” he said immediately, saluting like he was in an RPD brochure.

You’d expected him to circle the block and get distracted by someone’s garden gnome. Rookies could turn a five-minute task into a thirty-minute adventure involving three civilians, a dog, and a traffic cone.

You didn’t expect him to come back seven minutes later with a raccoon.

He came jogging back down the sidewalk, cheeks flushed, jacket half-zipped, and something moving inside it.

“Found this little guy by the dumpster,” he said, proud, as a small masked face poked out from the fold of his jacket. “He looked cold.”

Your pen stopped in mid-air.

“That’s not perimeter security,” you said slowly. “That’s wildlife theft.”

He looked genuinely offended, clutching the raccoon closer. “But look at his little hands!”

Across the street, a woman on her porch watched the scene unfold with unearned delight. You could feel the “awww” from here.

“Put it back,” you said. “Before it files a report.”

“I don’t think it would file anything,” he said thoughtfully. “Didn’t look like the filing type.”

You stepped forward, because at some point in this partnership someone had to be the adult. You reached out and took the raccoon. It was warm, and heavier than it looked, and its tiny fingers grabbed your sleeve for a second. You hated that your heart stuttered.

“You’re lucky it didn’t bite you,” you said.

“I think it liked me,” he said, all sunshine.

“That makes one of us.”

He trailed you as you walked it back toward the dumpster, narrating like an idiot. “We could call him Rocky. No, wait, that’s cliché. Sarge? Mini Leon?”

“Stop naming it. We don’t name evidence.”

“It’s not evidence,” he protested. “It’s a citizen.”

“Citizens don’t rummage in dumpsters at seven a.m.”

“Then we know at least three officers who aren’t citizens,” he muttered.

You ignored him.

You tucked the raccoon back into the little space behind the dumpster, made it a small nest out of cardboard, and straightened. Leon watched you like you’d just saved a puppy, eyes bright, shoulders still buzzing with energy. The neighbor lady waved.

“He’s a sweet one, huh?” she called.

Leon grinned and pointed at you. “Yeah, she’s the best coach ever!”

You shot him a look sharp enough to cut glass. “I will end you.”

He just laughed. And you, traitor that you were, almost laughed, too.

The sun was already melting down behind the RPD by the time you pulled back into the lot. Everything was dipped in honey-gold, the cars, the glass doors, the metal railings. The air was warm and tired, smelling faintly of hot concrete and old exhaust. Your shoulders ached. Your brain hummed. You were, miraculously, still sane.

You sat there for a second with your hands on the wheel, looking at the building. Today had been… a lot. Eight hours of corralling living sunshine. Eight hours of bumping, talking, laughing, rescuing raccoons and small dogs and random civilians from themselves. Eight hours of not snapping.

Which, in your book, counted as a win.

Leon hopped out before you could say anything, stretching with an audible groan, vest riding up, shirt pulling across his chest. He looked… disgustingly content. For someone who had tripped twice, spilled coffee once, nearly got you killed by a car, and openly challenged half the department’s opinion of you… he looked pleased.

He rounded the hood, still smiling, and leaned on the roof. “So,” he said, “how’d I do?”

You took a sip of your cold coffee just so you didn’t have to answer right away. “You didn’t die,” you said at last. “That’s a start.”

His smile widened. “So… like a C+?”

“A generous C+.”

He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, that nervous, innocent gesture he did when he was happy and didn’t know where to put it. “I’ll take it. Better than an F. Or a funeral.”

You started walking toward the building, folder under your arm. His footsteps fell in beside yours, like they always did. You didn’t tell him to move. Not this time.

“Thanks for letting me tag along today,” he said.

You snorted. “I didn’t let you. I was forced.”

He grinned. “Still counts.”

You shook your head, but the sincerity in his tone lodged somewhere under your ribs. You hated that.

You reached the steps. The light hit the concrete in a long, warm strip. A couple of officers were heading out. Someone waved at Leon. Someone else called, “How’d the ice queen treat you, rookie?”

Leon just grinned. “She was great!”

You wanted to die. You turned toward the lot again. “Go home, Kennedy. Before I remember to file a complaint.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

You were halfway to your car when you heard him again, loud, unbothered, absolutely fearless.

“See you tomorrow, partner!”

You groaned, not even trying to hide it. “Don’t push your luck, Kennedy!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” he called back, right before tripping over the curb. You heard the stumble, the flailing, the little laugh he gave himself.

You didn’t turn around.

You opened your car, slid in, and for the first time all day, the silence wrapped around you again. Familiar. Comforting. Yours.

You told yourself he was still just an assignment. A problem to manage. A box to check on someone else’s clipboard.

But as the engine hummed to life and you caught your reflection in the rearview, a faint, stupid, uninvited smile tugging at your mouth, you realized you couldn’t quite make yourself believe it. Just a flicker. Nothing dramatic. Nothing anyone else would’ve seen.

You swiped it away with a snort and muttered, “Yeah. That’s the part that worries me.”

Outside, the last of the light bled out of the sky. And somewhere behind you, you knew, Leon Kennedy was still grinning.

The next day started the way they all did lately, with you pretending you weren’t listening for the sound of Leon Kennedy’s footsteps.

You had your coffee, your folder, your usual spot at your desk. You went through the same motions as always: check the overnight reports, file the ones that mattered, ignore the ones that didn’t. The bullpen buzzed with that particular mix of too much caffeine and too little patience. Nothing new. Nothing exciting.

You weren’t waiting for him. Of course not. Then the door opened and there it was, the sound of energy entering a room, all optimism and squeaky boots.

“Morning, partner!”

You didn’t look up. “You’re late.”

“It’s seven-oh-one.”

“Exactly.”

He grinned, dropped his bag onto his chair, and began the daily ritual of getting ready like a kid suiting up for summer camp. Keys clipped. Notebook tucked. Vest straightened twice. You told yourself you weren’t watching him do it, that you were only looking in that direction because the light was better.

He still looked too new for the job, too clean, too bright. You half expected him to leave muddy pawprints on the tile.

You were halfway through pretending to type something meaningful when the dispatcher’s voice cut through the morning noise:

“Unit 14, report of disturbance at the Old Fairview building. Possible trespasser or animal. Check it out.”

You sighed. Of course.

Leon perked up like he’d just been given a winning lottery ticket. “That’s us, right?”

You took a slow sip of coffee and muttered, “Apparently.”

“Nice! First call of the day.”

You glanced up, one brow lifting. “It’s a disturbance, Kennedy. Probably a raccoon.”

He shrugged. “Could be a dangerous raccoon.”

You almost smiled. Almost. “Let’s go, rookie.”

The drive out was quiet at first. The sky had turned that dull gray that never quite decides between rain or thunder, and the wipers kept time in slow, steady arcs. The city blurred past, old warehouses, sagging power lines, the edges of Raccoon City that people forgot existed until someone called in a complaint.

Leon sat in the passenger seat, fiddling with the radio until you slapped his hand away. Then he moved on to checking his sidearm. Once. Twice. A third time.

“Something wrong with it?” you asked dryly.

“No, just… making sure,” he said. “Never know when things go sideways.”

You resisted the urge to smile. “If things go sideways on a simple trespass call, you’ve done something very wrong.”

He shot you a grin, still fiddling with the strap of his vest. “So this is real fieldwork, huh?”

“Not unless you count stepping in puddles as tactical maneuvering.”

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get.” He leaned back, tapping his boot against the floorboard. “Better than more filing duty. I swear I can still smell the ink from those reports.”

“Don’t get too excited,” you warned. “You’ll jinx it.”

He laughed, unfazed. “Can’t jinx a good day, boss.”

You didn’t bother correcting him.

Rain began to tap against the windshield as you turned onto the old service road that led toward Fairview. The buildings here leaned into each other like tired drunks, brick chipped, windows boarded, everything smelling faintly of wet concrete and decay.

The Old Fairview building came into view around the corner: a hulking, skeletal thing fenced off with rusted chain-link. Graffiti covered the walls in bright streaks of rebellion, names, tags, angry faces staring back through the grime. The wind moaned through a broken upper window, carrying the faint clatter of loose metal.

You parked at the curb, engine idling.

Leon leaned forward in his seat, peering through the rain-speckled glass. “Wow,” he murmured. “They weren’t kidding about abandoned.”

The place looked half-alive in the storm light, every shadow a suggestion, every doorway a dare. You’d been in worse, but something about Fairview made the air feel heavier.

“Stay sharp,” you said, more out of habit than necessity.

He nodded quickly, but you caught the flicker in his expression, bravery brushing against the first edges of unease. His hand hovered near his sidearm, not touching it, just there.

You glanced at him, the ridiculous hair, the nervous smile that wouldn’t quite fade. He looked like someone about to walk into a haunted house because he’d already bought the ticket.

“Still think it’s just a raccoon?” he asked, voice light but strained.

You opened your door, the sound of rain filling the silence between you. “If it’s not,” you said, stepping out into the gray, “I hope it bites you first.”

He laughed as he followed, boots splashing into a puddle. “That’s fair, partner. Totally fair.”

You didn’t look back, but you heard the quiet chuckle that followed you toward the gate, and for reasons you couldn’t name, the sound didn’t bother you as much as it should have.

The moment you pushed the door open, the smell hit first, damp plaster, rust, and something faintly organic that had been rotting longer than it had any right to.

The air was thick enough to taste. It clung to your tongue, humid and stale, a breath caught in the building’s throat. You stepped inside, boots crunching on a layer of broken tile and grit, the beam of your flashlight slicing through the haze of dust like a knife through fog.

“Charming,” you muttered.

Leon stood just behind you, shining his own flashlight in a wide, sweeping arc. His boots creaked across the warped floorboards as he looked up, down, everywhere at once. “Wow,” he whispered. “It’s like something out of a horror movie.”

You gave him a sideways look. “If you start humming theme music, I’m leaving you here.”

He smiled, completely unbothered. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You moved further in. The old building sighed around you, long, slow groans from the beams above, the soft patter of water dripping through unseen cracks. The sound echoed down the empty corridors, stretching and bending until it was impossible to tell where it began. Somewhere deeper inside, something metal rattled.

Your light caught on a peeling wall. The wallpaper had once been floral, but years of moisture had turned it into a mess of brown curls and mold patches. A half-collapsed chair sat in one corner, its legs splintered. The air smelled faintly of rainwater and rusted pipes.

You’d just started toward the main hallway when Leon moved. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught him stepping ahead of you, flashlight raised like he was in charge.

You reached out, grabbed the back of his vest, and pulled him back so fast he nearly tripped.

“Hey—!”

“No.” You turned your head just enough to glare at him through the dark. “You don’t lead. You observe. I move, you follow.”

He blinked, sheepish. “Got it. Observing.” He gestured vaguely to the space behind you. “From right behind you. Very close.”

“Leon.”

He froze. “—Stopping.”

You released his vest slowly, like letting go of a leash you weren’t entirely sure he wouldn’t bolt against.

The two of you fell into an uneasy rhythm: your steps slow, precise, scanning each doorway; his a little too quick, too light, his flashlight beam jittering along the walls. You moved like a ghost. He moved like someone trying not to trip over one.

The corridor opened into a long, narrow hall lined with office doors. Most were cracked open, revealing glimpses of overturned desks, mold-eaten carpet, a scattering of old papers that fluttered when the wind sighed through the broken windows. Your beam landed on a rusted filing cabinet toppled onto its side, drawers hanging open like gaping mouths.

“Guess nobody’s filed anything here in a while,” Leon said quietly.

You shot him a look over your shoulder. “If that was an attempt at humor, stop.”

He grinned faintly, but his eyes stayed sharp. You had to give him that, he might talk too much, but he wasn’t careless. He kept scanning, even as his nerves bled through in the restless tap of his boot.

A low creak rolled through the ceiling. Dust fell from above in a lazy drift. Both of you froze.

You tilted your head, listening. Just the building settling. Or pretending to.

“Old place like this,” you murmured, “you don’t assume silence means empty.”

Leon nodded, his grip on the flashlight tightening. “Right. Empty things make noise too.”

You gave him a quick glance, surprised by the phrasing. Then you turned back to the hall, letting the comment hang in the air.

At the end of the corridor, a flickering red light cast intermittent flashes over a sign that still read EXIT in fading paint. Every time it buzzed, the shadows jumped, walls breathing, corners twitching. The water dripping from the ceiling made a soft, constant rhythm somewhere behind you.

You reached an intersection where the hall split in two directions. Left led deeper into the building. Right descended into shadow, probably toward the basement. Neither option looked friendly.

You scanned left first, your beam glinting off shards of glass and a fallen ceiling tile. Something skittered across the floor and vanished into the dark, a rat, hopefully.

Leon’s flashlight followed yours. “I vote we don’t go right,” he said.

“You don’t vote,” you reminded him.

“Right. Observing. From behind. Quietly.”

You exhaled through your nose, the sound almost a laugh. “Getting there.”

You started forward again, keeping your light trained on the edges of each doorway, the corners of the ceiling. He stayed close, his shadow brushing yours now and then when the lights crossed. The narrowness of the hall pressed in around you both, too tight, too quiet, every breath too loud.

The silence between you wasn’t just silence anymore. It had weight. And for once, Leon didn’t fill it with words.

He just followed, footsteps steady, eyes flicking to every little sound. You caught yourself glancing back once, maybe to check his position, maybe for something else. He gave you a quick thumbs-up, grin barely visible in the low light.

You shook your head and turned back to the dark.

The building groaned again, a long, low shudder that ran through the floorboards beneath your boots.

“Still think it’s just a raccoon?” Leon asked softly.

You didn’t answer.

Because you weren’t entirely sure anymore.

The deeper you went, the more the building seemed to fold in on itself. Corridors narrowed. The air thickened, weighted with damp and dust. Every sound was drawn out and strange—each footstep echoing longer than it should have, like the place was repeating it back just to prove it was listening.

Your radio hissed once, a short burst of static, then went silent again. You frowned and tapped the transmitter clipped to your vest.

“Signal’s weak,” you muttered. “Stay close, or you’ll lose contact.”

Leon was only a few steps behind, flashlight beam dancing across the warped floorboards and scattered debris. “Got it,” he said, voice bright but lower now, as if the shadows demanded it. “No wandering off.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

You reached another junction, two halls splitting in opposite directions. Both were long, dark, and equally uninviting. The one on the left sloped downward, a cracked sign half-hanging above it that once said Storage. The one on the right ended in a set of broken double doors with glass panes punched out like missing teeth.

The radio hissed again, louder this time, a quick burst of interference that made you wince.

You unclipped it, adjusted the channel dial out of habit, and spoke into it. “Dispatch, Unit 14 checking Old Fairview interior. Static’s heavy, confirm frequency lock?”

Nothing but crackle answered back.

Leon tilted his head, listening. “Think it’s the concrete?”

“Or the wiring,” you said. “These old buildings eat signal. We’ll need to stay in shouting distance.”

He nodded, then glanced down the right-hand corridor. “Want me to check that way? Looks shorter.”

You considered it. The place was quiet, too quiet, but if there was anything here, some vagrant, stray animal, it’d show itself faster with two angles covered.

“Fine,” you said finally, tightening your grip on the flashlight. “Check the hall on the right. Stay in range. I mean range, Kennedy. If I call, you answer.”

He gave you that trademark grin, equal parts confidence and sunshine. “Got it. In range. I’ll be right around the corner.”

You wanted to roll your eyes, but something about the steadiness in his tone made you just say, “Good,” instead.

You watched him go, the beam of his flashlight bouncing over the walls. He moved slower now, careful with each step, shoulders squared like he’d practiced it in a mirror.

The second he turned the corner, the silence hit. It was immediate, total. Like the whole building took a breath and held it.

You waited a few seconds, listening for his footsteps. Nothing.

“Rookie?” you called, pressing the radio button again. “Kennedy, do you copy?”

A burst of static answered. A crackle. Then nothing.

You exhaled sharply through your nose, the start of irritation rising in your chest. “Unbelievable. Can’t follow one simple instruction.”

You took a few steps forward, trying the radio again. Still dead.

The shadows seemed thicker now, your flashlight beam barely pushing them back. Each door you passed was slightly open, like the building wanted to keep its secrets half-told. Your boots crunched over shattered glass. The air smelled of mildew and dust, and underneath that, something metallic.

“Leon?” you called again, louder this time.

No answer.

The irritation twisted into something tighter in your gut, something that wasn’t quite anger anymore. You moved faster, sweeping your light across the walls, past peeling wallpaper that hung in curls like old bark, over a toppled chair, across a scrawled message in spray paint half-lost to water damage.

You turned the corner.

Empty hall.

“Leon!”

Your voice came back to you, distorted by the acoustics, bouncing off the walls. The echo sounded too much like someone else saying his name.

You checked the next doorway, gun hand steady, flashlight cutting through dust motes. The next room was an old office, metal desks overturned, chairs rusted through. A flickering light somewhere in the ceiling flashed every few seconds, too dim to be useful, just bright enough to make the dark feel alive.

Then you saw it.

A thin streak of light cutting through from the far side of the room, moving—faintly, irregularly.

You crossed the floor quickly, boots whispering over wet linoleum, stepping around fallen debris.

The beam came from beyond the next door.

You pushed it open, the hinges groaning, and your light fell across him.

Leon was there, half-crouched, flashlight in one hand, the other braced against the wall. His shoulders were tense, head turned toward something just out of your line of sight. The light in his hand trembled slightly.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

“Jesus, Kennedy,” you said, voice sharper than you meant. “You lose radio contact and go sightseeing?”

He turned at the sound of your voice, relief flashing in his face before he quickly straightened. “Hey. Sorry, signal dropped, and I thought I heard something down here. Just… checking.”

You lowered your weapon, the annoyance still a steady pulse under your ribs but easing now that you could see him, alive and upright.

“Next time,” you said quietly, “you stay where I can see you.”

He nodded quickly, a little breathless. “Got it.”

But as you stepped forward, you caught the edge of something moving in the dark behind him—quick, low to the ground, too fast for comfort.

Your instincts took over.

“Leon—down!”

He dropped instantly, years of training, or just dumb luck, kicking in.

You swung your light toward the sound. The beam caught on a flash of fur, teeth, motion—something animal but wrong, lean and wild-eyed.

Then the shadows erupted.

The sound came first, low, ragged, wet around the edges, like something breathing through broken glass.

Leon had already taken two careful steps toward the far corner of the room, his flashlight beam trembling slightly across the peeling paint. You could see the muscles in his shoulders tense as the growl came again, louder this time, followed by the sharp scrape of claws against linoleum.

Your instincts screamed to call him back, but the radio was still nothing but static.

Leon’s voice carried through the dark, calm but steady. “Easy, boy… hey, it’s okay.”

It wasn’t.

Your light swung to the side just in time to see it lunge from the shadows, a dog, or what used to be one. Ribs showing under patchy fur, eyes clouded and wild, jaw hanging at a crooked angle where flesh had torn away. Its movements were jerky, desperate, driven by hunger or pain or both.

Leon reacted fast, not fast enough. He threw up an arm as it launched itself at him, flashlight flying from his hand and skittering across the floor. The impact took him down hard, his shoulder slamming against a fallen filing cabinet.

You moved before you could think, crossing the space between you in three strides.

The beam of your light caught a flash of teeth, a smear of blood, Leon’s boot shoving up between himself and the creature’s snapping mouth. He was trying to keep it back, muscles straining, panic flickering behind his eyes even as he gritted out, “It’s fine! I got it.”

“No, you don’t.”

You drew your sidearm, breath steady, and fired once.

The shot cracked through the silence, deafening in the confined space. The creature crumpled instantly, sliding off Leon’s leg and hitting the ground with a wet thud. The air filled with the smell of gunpowder and rot.

For a long second, neither of you moved.

Then Leon let out a shaky breath and fell back against the cabinet, chest heaving. “Jesus”

You holstered your weapon, stepped forward, and toed the carcass carefully with your boot. No twitch. No sound. Just stillness.

“Jesus had nothing to do with that,” you said quietly.

Leon’s laugh came out half-choked, half-relieved. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving a smear of dust and sweat. “You’re not kidding.”

You crouched beside him, scanning him quickly. No visible bites, just a torn sleeve and a new bruise already blooming along his arm.

“You okay?” you asked, voice low but firm.

He nodded, though his breathing was still uneven. “Yeah. Totally. Minor heart attack, but fine.”

You raised a brow. “That looked like more than minor.”

“Guess I’m an overachiever,” he said, trying for a smile.

You didn’t return it. You stood, offered him a hand, and when he hesitated, you grabbed his vest and hauled him up instead. He stumbled once, caught his balance, and looked down at the dead animal. His voice dropped, quiet, uneasy.

The stench hit first — a sour, chemical rot. Up close, it was worse than you’d thought. The fur had thinned to ragged patches; the exposed skin underneath looked slick and discolored, streaked with deep gray-green lesions that pulsed faintly under the beam of your flashlight. Around the jaw, the flesh had receded entirely, teeth showing through rotted muscle.

Leon leaned in, squinting. “You ever seen anything like this?”

You hesitated, scanning the animal’s ribs, too visible, warped under the skin like something had eaten its way outward. “No,” you said finally.

“Maybe… leprosy?” he guessed, voice low, uncertain.

You shook your head slowly. “No. Look at the tissue, it’s necrotizing. Like it’s… eating itself.”

He frowned, stepping back a little. “That’s… not normal, right?”

You shot him a look. “Nothing about this is normal.”

He gave a breathless chuckle that didn’t reach his eyes. “Good to know we’re on the same page.”

You crouched beside the body, taking one last look. The smell burned the back of your throat, but you forced yourself to study it, the mottled veins, the stiff limbs, the faint shimmer of fluid drying on the floor.

“Maybe we’ll send labs out to check it,” you said finally, straightening. Your tone was even, measured, too much so. The kind of professional certainty you used when you didn’t actually have any.

Leon caught it anyway. He glanced at you, expression softer now, concern cutting through the leftover adrenaline. “You don’t sound sure.”

You flicked off your flashlight, holstered it again. “Doesn’t matter what I sound like. Let’s move.”

But the air still felt wrong.

The sound of dripping water filled the silence, a slow, deliberate rhythm. You scanned the room, catching the way the shadows shifted when the wind slipped through the cracks in the ceiling. Everything in here seemed to breathe, even when it shouldn’t.

Leon followed you out into the hallway, quieter now. The adrenaline was wearing off, and you could feel it in the space between you, that brittle stillness that came after things almost went bad.

You stopped just long enough to check your radio again. Still dead.

“You need to work on following orders,” you said finally.

He huffed a quiet laugh behind you. “What, ‘don’t get mauled’ wasn’t clear enough?”

You looked over your shoulder at him. “Next time, stay close.”

His grin flickered, softer this time, the edge of nerves still in it. “Copy that.”

You didn’t say anything else. You just kept walking, the flashlight beam swinging ahead of you, cutting through dust and shadow.

Behind you, you could still hear him breathing, steady, alive, trying not to step on your heels.

And even though you’d never admit it out loud, the sound made the silence a little easier to bear.

The air changed first. A low, splintering groan rippled through the ceiling, wood complaining against time, metal straining against rust. It was the kind of sound old buildings make right before they quit.

“Leon—” you started, but the warning barely made it past your lips before the beam gave out.

The crack was deafening.

You didn’t think, you moved. You shoved him down, body slamming into his as you both hit the floor behind a desk just as the world came apart overhead.

Plaster exploded across the room. Ceiling tiles shattered, pipes snapped. The sound was a roar, then a whimper, then a long, ragged silence. Dust filled your lungs before you could gasp for air.

When it stopped, you were half-sprawled over him, the world around you nothing but gray haze and the sting of dust in your eyes.

Leon coughed beneath you, voice muffled against your shoulder. “...You alive?”

You coughed once, your throat raw. “Yeah. You?”

He gave a breathless laugh. “Think so. Mostly.”

You shifted, blinking grit out of your eyes. The desk above you was half-collapsed, one leg bent inward but miraculously still standing. The air was so thick it looked solid—like you could carve your way out with your bare hands.

And in that choking fog, the two of you were pressed together so close it didn’t feel real.

His chest rose against yours with every breath, fast and shallow. His heartbeat was a wild drum, muffled but there, right under your ribs. You could feel it, every pulse of it. His vest was gritty against your jacket, his breath warm against the curve of your neck.

You heard him whisper, almost laughing, voice low and rough. “So… this part of training too?”

You turned your head, lips close enough to his ear that he could feel the words more than hear them. “Don’t make me regret saving you.”

He huffed a soft laugh, quieter this time. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You exhaled slowly, forcing your pulse to steady. The dust began to settle around you in lazy swirls. Somewhere in the distance, a beam groaned and shifted, the noise muffled by the debris piled over half the room.

You could feel him trembling, not fear, but leftover adrenaline, the kind that didn’t have anywhere to go. You’d seen it before, but never felt it like this, the tiny vibrations running through both of you.

You were about to move, shift your weight, give him room to breathe, when it happened. His hand brushed your back.

Barely a touch. Just a small, instinctive movement, like he was checking you were still there, still solid. But even through the layers of your uniform, the contact lit a spark beneath your skin, quick and confusing.

He froze the moment he realized it. You could feel the hesitation, the tension in his fingers before he pulled his hand back slightly, murmuring, “Sorry. Just, making sure you’re okay.”

Your voice came out lower than intended. “Next time, use your words.”

“Noted,” he whispered.

The silence that followed was thicker than before, broken only by the distant drip of water and the slow, uneven sound of your breathing. You told yourself it was ridiculous to notice things like warmth or nearness when you were literally lying in the wreckage of a half-collapsed building. But your hand was close to his, so close your pinky brushed the edge of his glove when you shifted.

Neither of you moved away.

For a second, it felt suspended there, the two of you breathing the same dust, hearts thrumming just out of sync, every sound amplified by the quiet aftermath of the collapse.

You cleared your throat, pushing yourself up just enough to peer over the desk. The ceiling was a disaster, cracked beams, fractured plaster, sunlight bleeding through from somewhere above.

You let out a long breath. “When I say ‘stay close,’ Kennedy, I don’t mean this close.”

Even through the grime, his smile managed to look boyish. “Sure. Got it. Different kind of close next time.”

You rolled your eyes and pushed yourself off him, ignoring the way his hand instinctively hovered near your back again as if to steady you. You told yourself it was out of habit—muscle memory from training, but you didn’t tell him to stop.

He climbed up after you, brushing dust off his shoulders. “Guess the building didn’t like us much.”

“Most people don’t,” you muttered, checking your flashlight. It flickered weakly back to life.

“Yeah, but I’m not ‘most people,’ right?”

You gave him a look, but it didn’t land the way you meant it to. “Don’t make me test that theory.”

He grinned faintly, rubbing the back of his neck, and for once, you didn’t correct him when he fell into step behind you.

The two of you stood for a moment, side by side in the pale shaft of light cutting through the dust. You could still feel the phantom imprint of his touch on your back—warm, grounding, impossible to shake.

You told yourself it was just the adrenaline. That it meant nothing.

But when you started walking again, you didn’t tell him to give you space.

The rest of the building was blessedly still after the collapse. No groaning beams, no ominous shifting above you, just the steady, faint hiss of rain starting to fall somewhere outside.

You and Leon made your way through the dim corridors, your flashlight cutting through the haze of settling dust. The air smelled like wet plaster and old metal, thick and sharp in your lungs.

Dispatch crackled faintly in your ear again, distorted but finally coming through: “Unit 14, status? We lost your signal. Backup en route.”

You thumbed the radio. “We’re fine. Minor collapse. Situation contained.”

Leon shot you a sidelong look, coughing into his sleeve. “Minor?”

You didn’t bother answering, just nudged open the nearest door with your boot and stepped out into the gray light of the overcast evening. The rain was coming down soft at first, the kind that clung to your eyelashes and ran down your collar in slow, cold trickles. It felt cleaner than the air inside, like the world outside hadn’t noticed the building dying behind you.

Two RPD units pulled up near the old fence line, lights flashing lazily. A couple of officers leaned out the driver-side window, faces lined with curiosity.

“Everything good, ______? Heard you on the radio, sounded rough.”

“Minor collapse,” you repeated, voice even. “We’re fine.”

They looked past you at Leon, who was standing beside you, uniform streaked gray with dust, hair plastered damp against his forehead.

He gave them a sheepish thumbs-up. “Just… atmospheric.”

You didn’t wait for the follow-up questions. You waved the backup off with a curt gesture, then started toward the patrol car. Leon fell in behind you automatically, quiet for once.

The rain picked up as you walked, flattening the dust that still clung to your boots. The lot glistened under the flashing lights. It was almost peaceful, if you ignored the adrenaline still humming in your veins like an overworked circuit.

You reached the car and leaned against the door for a second, finally letting yourself breathe. The rhythmic patter of rain against metal filled the silence between you.

Leon stood a few feet away, head tilted back, eyes closed, letting the rain hit his face. The dirt streaking his cheek was running clean now, tiny rivers carving paths down his skin. For once, he wasn’t smiling.

You broke the quiet first. “Congratulations. You survived another day.”

He looked over, the corners of his mouth tugging upward. “Because you had my back.”

You crossed your arms, the motion automatic, defensive. “Don’t get used to it.”

He chuckled softly, but there was something gentler in his voice when he said, “You didn’t leave me.”

The rain made a steady rhythm between you, punctuating the quiet.

You met his eyes briefly, then looked away toward the skyline, the outline of the RPD faint in the distance. “Could’ve,” you said simply. “Didn’t.”

He nodded slowly, not pushing it, not smiling. Just standing there with that quiet kind of understanding that somehow said more than his usual cheer ever did.

You pushed off the car door and opened the driver’s side. “Get in before you rust,” you muttered.

He snorted but obeyed, sliding into the passenger seat with a faint grunt. The car’s interior smelled faintly of old coffee and dust now, but it felt safer than the building had, too small, too close, but safe.

Neither of you talked much on the drive back. The rain turned heavier, blurring the edges of the city through the windshield. You could hear the wipers working overtime, the occasional rattle when the car hit a puddle.

Every now and then, you caught Leon glancing your way, nothing overt, just the quiet kind of look someone gives when they’re making sure something’s still real.

When you finally pulled into the RPD lot, the world was washed gray and silver. The other cars glistened under the streetlights. The storm had turned the asphalt slick enough to reflect every flash of the lights on your dash.

You killed the engine. The sudden quiet filled the cabin.

Leon unbuckled slowly, eyes still somewhere distant. “Guess we’ll have paperwork for this one.”

“Guess you’ll be writing most of it,” you said, leaning back in your seat.

He laughed under his breath. “Fair.”

You watched the rain trail across the windshield for a moment, the steady pattern of it tapping against the glass. The adrenaline had ebbed, leaving something else in its place, something you didn’t want to name.

You opened the door. The rain hit you again, cold and grounding.

Leon climbed out on his side, jogging around to meet you near the back of the car. He hesitated, hands shoved into his pockets, then said, “Hey, thanks. For… you know.”

You tilted your head. “Not letting the ceiling crush you?”

“That too.” He smiled, small and genuine. “But also for not leaving.”

You sighed, turning toward the building entrance. “Don’t make it sound dramatic, rookie. I was already there.”

He grinned at that, the warmth back in his voice. “Right. Lucky me.”

You didn’t answer. You just started walking, your boots splashing softly through shallow puddles. You could hear him fall in behind you again, his steps a little lighter than before.

This time, though, he didn’t step on your heels. He kept just enough distance, close, but not too close.

When you reached the door, you caught yourself glancing back, just for a second. He was still there, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes bright even in the rain.

You told yourself it was just part of the job. Training. Another rookie to wrangle, another day to survive.

The rain followed you in.

Not literally, but close enough. It clung to your jacket and your sleeves and the ends of your hair, dripping in slow, stubborn beads that hit the tile with soft little plinks. By the time you cleared the lobby, you’d left a dotted trail behind you that Maintenance was absolutely going to complain about in the morning memo. The building hummed its usual song, fluorescent lights buzzing like tired insects, typewriters chattering somewhere deeper in, printers wheezing out reports no one wanted to read. The smell was the same as always, too: burnt coffee, paper, gun oil.

After an afternoon spent in a building that smelled like wet rot and old ghosts, it felt almost rude to walk into somewhere so… normal.

You didn’t slow down. You didn’t shake off the rain. You just made a straight line for the bullpen, folder under your arm, jaw set. You could already feel him behind you — that rookie energy, too bright to disguise, trailing after you like sunlight that didn’t know when to stop.

The second you pushed through the bullpen doors, every head turned.

They always did when something disrupted the monotony. A busted perp, a shouting match, a rookie dripping plaster dust. And the two of you definitely counted. You were soaked, uniform spotted with gray dust, hair damp around your face. Leon looked worse, or better, depending on who you asked. His vest was streaked palest gray where the ceiling had kissed him, his hair was matted to his forehead, and there was a smear on his cheek he hadn’t noticed yet.

Somebody spun their chair around like this was the entertainment break.

“Hey, _____,” one of the older patrol guys called, grin already loaded. “You finally break a partner?”

You did not have the energy for this.

You didn’t even look his way. You just lifted a hand, palm out, lazy, dismissive — the universal keep talking and I’ll make you fill out your own incident report. It got the usual chuckles, the office kind, all low and knowing. None of them meant any harm. They almost never did.

Behind you, Leon didn’t fire back. Didn’t even roll his eyes. He ducked his head like the comment had been aimed at him, which, okay, maybe it had, and kept walking. Too polite to glare. Too new to throw something back. He looked like a soaked golden retriever that had been told it was “a bit much.”

You cut through the room toward your desk, ignoring the looks. The clack of keyboards, the smack of someone closing a filing cabinet, the faint radio chatter, it all faded once you had your target.

You pointed at the chair beside your desk. “Sit.”

He sat. Immediately. No questions, no soft protest, no I’m fine. Just okay, like his default setting around you was obedience. The chair gave a damp little squeak when he hit it; his vest made that miserable soaked-fabric sound. You winced on behalf of the upholstery.

Only then did you catch the line of red on his arm.

It wasn’t dramatic, not a gash, not a bullet wound, not even anything worth bragging about. Just a shallow scrape along his forearm, where a piece of debris had clearly hit him when the ceiling came down. It had bled more than it should’ve, like all arm wounds, and now it was smudged with dust and rain and God knew what else that had been in that building.

He didn’t even seem to realize it was there. He was too busy trying not to make eye contact with the officers who were obviously watching him. And he knew they were, you could tell by the way he kept looking just above their heads, like he hadn’t quite learned the art of ignoring a room yet.

You sighed. Of course. You set the folder down, opened the overhead cabinet, and pulled out the first-aid kit. “Hold still.”

He blinked up at you, surprised. “Oh, I— it’s really fine, I can—”

“You’re leaking on the floor, Kennedy,” you said, already popping the kit open. “Sit still before I staple it shut.”

That did it. His mouth shut with a little click. His hands folded in his lap like he was in high school and you were about to ask him why he was late to homeroom. He looked up at you, not afraid, just… chastened. A dust-streaked, rain-soaked, six-foot-tall scolded puppy.

Unfair.

You crouched beside the chair, the plastic of the kit creaking as you dug through it. Someone had put everything back in the wrong order, again, so you had to sift past gauze, triangular bandages, a pair of scissors you didn’t trust, and three individually wrapped alcohol swabs before you found the antiseptic.

You soaked a cotton pad, the smell of mint-and-vodka antiseptic filling the air between you, and pressed it firmly to the scrape.

He hissed. Loudly.

“Don’t move,” you warned.

“That burns.”

“That means it’s working.”

He blew out a breath through his nose, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “ow,” and you ignored him. You’d cleaned worse. You’d cleaned bullet tracks, glass cuts, split brows, knife slips. This was cake.

Still, the room sounded different now.

The bullpen had gone back to its usual rhythm, phones, printers, chairs rolling, but it was all further away, like someone had turned the volume down. You were aware of the rain ticking against the windows and the hum of the fluorescent light overhead more than you were of the conversations.

You were also very aware of him.

“Stop squirming,” you said, because he’d shifted his arm a half-inch.

He let out a half-laugh, half-groan. “I’m not squirming.”

“You’re absolutely squirming.” You pressed a little harder, just to prove a point. “Hold still or I’m stapling you to the chair.”

He sucked a breath in through his teeth, eyes squeezing shut for a second — and then he laughed. Properly this time. Low, unguarded, the kind of laugh people don’t make on purpose.

“You’re really gentle, you know that?” he said, voice still warm with it.

You looked up long enough to give him the blankest stare you could manage. “You don’t bleed quietly, rookie.”

That earned you another laugh, softer. It didn’t belong in this room, not with the white walls and the bad lighting and the smell of floor cleaner, but somehow it made the place feel less like a building and more like somewhere people actually worked.

The scrape wasn’t deep, but it was messy, little flecks of plaster stuck in the dried blood. You worked them out carefully, thumb steady on his wrist. You felt his pulse there, steady, strong. Too steady for someone who’d been underneath a falling ceiling an hour ago.

You tried not to notice that, too.

“Hold this,” you said, pressing one edge of the gauze into his hand.

He took it immediately, fingers gentle on the fabric, like he didn’t want to mess up your work. The quiet obedience might’ve annoyed you if it hadn’t been paired with that look,  the one where he watched you like the sun watches the horizon. Not needy. Not pushy. Just… there. Warm.

You reached for the tape. He shifted in the chair, not a lot, just enough that his boot scuffed the floor and his knee knocked into your thigh.

You didn’t look up. You also didn’t move away.

The gauze wrapped cleanly around his arm, bright white against his dark uniform. You smoothed it down, then tugged the tape a little tighter than strictly necessary.

He winced, shoulders tensing.

“There,” you said, sitting back on your heels. “All patched.”

He flexed his fingers once, testing how much give you’d left him. “Tight.”

“It’s supposed to be.”

“Pretty sure that’s a tourniquet.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

He smiled, and this time, it wasn’t the big, poster-boy grin he gave the rest of the department. It was smaller. Less teeth, more eyes. Warm, but quiet about it. It hit lower than you wanted it to.

You were close enough now to see the tiny spray of freckles at the edge of his jaw. The wet strands of blond hair stuck to his forehead. The way the line between his brows smoothed out when he realized you weren’t actually mad.

You weren’t sure when you’d stopped pretending to ignore him.

He watched you check the bandage, watched your fingers as you smoothed the edge, made sure it wouldn’t peel. You let your hand stay there for half a second too long. You told yourself it was to check the pressure.

He was not staring at you. Staring would’ve been obvious. This was worse. This was looking. The kind of looking that sees. The kind that gathers. Like he was storing away the moment, or your face, or the way your hands moved. Like he wanted to remember it.

Why does he have to look at people like that? you thought, irritated at how soft the question sounded in your own skull. Like he’s cataloguing reasons to stay hopeful.

You cleared your throat, broke the moment. Reached for one of the alcohol wipes just to have something to do with your hands.

“Should’ve worn your long sleeves,” you muttered.

“Didn’t plan on wrestling the undead drywall,” he said, automatically.

You blinked at him. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m kind of funny.”

“You’re really not.”

But he smiled like you’d just confirmed his existence.

He let the silence sit for a second, then said, and this time the playfulness was gone “You didn’t have to do this yourself.”

You stilled. The wipe hovered over your hand. Sincerity always did this, made everything feel like it had too much gravity.

You shrugged like it was nothing. “Better me than whoever last used the station scissors.”

He huffed a small laugh, eyes dropping to the floor like he was embarrassed to be taken care of. “You ever let anyone else patch you up?”

You snapped the kit shut harder than you needed to. “I don’t get hurt.”

He looked up, eyes warm in a way that made you want to look anywhere else. “Right. Of course you don’t.”

You grabbed a paper towel from the counter and wiped your hands. The antiseptic smell clung stubbornly to your skin. He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t push. Just sat there, elbow on his knee, staring at the neat line of white around his arm like it meant he’d passed some kind of test.

You crossed your arms. “What?”

He met your eyes, something softer in his expression now. “Just… thanks.”

It was simple. But it landed.

You let out a slow breath, looked away. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

He smiled again, tired, genuine, none of the show-off shine. “No promises.”

The room settled around you again. Not the awkward silence from earlier, not that jagged thing that wanted to be filled. This one was… quiet. Comfortable. Like the noise from the bullpen had faded to something you could ignore.

He sat there longer than he had to. You let him.

Then, finally, he spoke again, even softer this time. “I know I’m not easy to work with.”

You paused mid-reach, the kit halfway to the shelf. You turned, brows pulling together. “Where’s this coming from?”

He shrugged, mouth twisting like he was trying to find the least embarrassing way to say it. “You don’t have to say it. I can tell. I talk too much. I… get in the way. I missed your signal back there.” His gaze flicked to the bandage. “You shouldn’t have had to cover for me.”

You opened your mouth with the automatic response, you didn’t listen, you moved out of range, don’t do it again, but it didn’t feel right now that he’d said it himself. He already knew. He’d already flagged his own mistake.

So instead you said, quieter, “Then listen more. Talk less.”

He looked up, and that smile, the quiet one, the one he didn’t use on everyone, eased back onto his face. “Yes, ma’am.”

You almost smiled back. Almost. It tugged at the corner of your mouth and you swatted it away before it could escape.

You sat on the edge of your desk, arms folded. “You really think I’m the one you should be learning from?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah.” Then, almost shyly, “You’re… good at this. You don’t miss stuff. You don’t panic. You make it look like… like the job isn’t bigger than you.” He shrugged again, self-conscious. “I wanna be like that.”

You looked away, not because you were annoyed, but because you didn’t like being seen that clearly. “Observation skills need work.”

He grinned, leaning back. “Guess that’s why I’m learning.”

The silence after that was different. Settled. Like both of you knew something had shifted and neither of you was going to poke it too hard.

You closed the kit properly this time and put it back in its place. “You’re done. You can go.”

He pushed himself up, testing his arm again like he wanted to make sure it would pass your inspection. Then he just… stood there. Not leaving. Not fidgeting, for once. Just looking at you like he was trying to memorize the way you looked in bad lighting and damp clothes.

“You know,” he said finally, rubbing the back of his neck, scattering a few flecks of dust onto the floor, “I think we make a pretty good team.”

You raised a brow. “You think too much.”

“Still true.”

The grin he gave you then wasn’t bright. It wasn’t loud. It was just… warm. For you, specifically. No audience. No need to prove he was happy to be here. Just a rookie who’d nearly gotten mauled in a dead building and still somehow thought partnering with you was the best part of his day.

He turned to go, boots squeaking a little on the still-damp tile. At the door, he glanced back over his shoulder.

“See you tomorrow, partner.”

You didn’t stop him.

The door closed with a soft click. The room, suddenly, felt too big. Too quiet.

You exhaled, shoulders dropping without permission. You told yourself it was just part of the job, keeping the rookie alive, keeping the reports clean, keeping the sheriff off your ass. Routine. Nothing more.

You reached for your jacket, slinging it off the back of the chair, and your hand paused.

There, on the sleeve, just above the cuff, was a faint smear of dried blood. His. From when you’d steadied his arm. From when he’d looked at you like you were the safest thing in the room.

You should’ve grabbed a wipe. You should’ve scrubbed it off. You always did.

Instead, your fingers brushed over it once. Then stayed.

You didn’t wipe it off. Not right away.

You turned off the light, stepped out into the hallway, and let the door close behind you, carrying with you the stubborn, ridiculous warmth of a rookie who smiled like the world hadn’t gotten to him yet.

For now, he was still your responsibility. And, annoyingly, you didn’t hate that.

The RPD after dark never quite sleeps. It hums.

Not the kind of hum that says alive, but the kind that settles into the walls — a low, constant thrum beneath the buzzing fluorescent lights, the whisper of air through the vents, the slow tick of the clock above the filing cabinets. It’s the sound of a building that’s been awake too long.

Outside, thunder rolls somewhere far off, more like a sigh than a warning. Rain streaks the windows, cutting the reflection of your desk lamp into thin, fractured lines. Every few seconds, a drop slides down the glass and catches the light before vanishing. You’ve been watching them more than you’ve been watching the words on the page.

Your jacket hangs off the back of your chair, still damp from the walk in. It’s started to steam faintly in the warmth of the room. Your hair’s doing the same, sticking to the back of your neck, strands curling where they’ve started to dry. You should’ve gone home hours ago. Everyone else did. The bullpen looks hollow without the noise: empty chairs, stacks of folders abandoned mid-process, someone’s forgotten mug leaving a ring on a report. The overhead lights are off in most of the room, just your desk lamp left on, a small circle of yellow light fighting back against the gray.

The vending machine hums in the corner, louder than usual. It fills the silence like a stand-in for conversation.

You type slowly. Not because the report is hard, but because the words feel heavier than they should. “Old Fairview disturbance: resolved. One injured civilian. One deceased animal. Cause: undetermined.” The rest of the blanks you leave half-empty. You can’t think of the phrasing for “looked like it was rotting alive.”

You stop to rub your eyes. The screen blurs when you open them again.

The coffee in your mug has gone cold, bitter on your tongue when you take a sip just to have something to do. The smell lingers in the air anyway, mixed with paper and the faint tang of cleaning solution. It’s ordinary. Comforting in a way you don’t quite trust.

You tell yourself you’re here because you need to finish the paperwork, that it’ll drive you crazy if you leave it unfinished. But that’s not true. Not really.

You’re here because you don’t want to go home yet.

Because you can already picture it: the apartment dark, the slow drip of a leaky faucet, the silence pressing too close. The kind of silence that doesn’t hum like the RPD, it listens.

You glance at the chair opposite yours, the one he sat in earlier, fidgeting while you wrapped his arm, laughing too softly at your scolding. It’s empty now, the cushion still dented from his weight. You look away fast, typing another line into the report that you’ll probably delete later.

You reach for the stack of incident notes and shuffle through them just to make noise. Anything to fill the space.

The rain outside shifts from steady to soft, the rhythm uneven, like footsteps trying to keep time. The thunder grumbles again, distant, half-hearted.

It’s too late for anyone to still be around, but you hear a door close somewhere down the hall. A faint echo, metal on metal. Maybe someone from night patrol. Maybe the janitor.

You glance toward the hallway, but the sound dies before you can decide whether to care. You go back to your report, fingers hovering over the keys. You type your name at the bottom and stare at it. It looks strange in this light, too sharp, too formal. You delete it and type it again.

It’s not the work that keeps you here. You know that. It’s the space between the day and the night, the part where the adrenaline wears off, but your mind hasn’t caught up yet. The part where you start to feel things you don’t have names for.

You breathe out through your nose, slow and steady. The lamp hums. The clock ticks. The world outside drifts in shades of gray. You tell yourself you’ll leave after this page. You don’t believe yourself.

The footsteps reach you before the man does, light, uneven, hesitant. You don’t even need to look up to know who they belong to. No one else in the RPD walks like that.

You keep your eyes on the report, fingers resting on the keys as if you’re still typing. It buys you a few seconds of pretending.

Then: “Hey.”

You look up anyway.

Leon’s standing in the doorway, haloed by the hallway light, damp around the edges, like the rain followed him in. His hair is still wet, darker where it clings to his forehead, and his sleeves are rolled up just far enough to show the new bandage on his arm. His badge hangs a little crooked, his vest half undone. He looks exhausted, but not wrecked, just softened. The sharp edges of the day worn down to something human.

He’s holding a folder in one hand and a thermos in the other — the kind of props people bring when they want to look like they have a reason to be somewhere.

“You left this in the car,” he says, lifting the folder slightly.

You glance at it. “You walked through a thunderstorm to bring me a folder?”

He shrugs, mouth twitching. “I was in the neighborhood.”

You snort, finally sitting back in your chair. “The neighborhood is six blocks and a river away.”

“Yeah, but it’s a nice river.”

You give him a flat look. He grins like he can’t help it.

The sound of rain presses faintly against the windows again, a steady hush that fills the space between you. He lingers in the doorway for a second too long, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed in. You don’t tell him to leave, and that seems to be permission enough.

He crosses the bullpen quietly, the floor creaking under his boots, and drops the folder onto your desk. Then he gestures to the thermos. “Brought you coffee too. Thought yours had probably turned into tar by now.”

You eye it suspiciously. “You didn’t make this, did you?”

He gasps, feigning offense. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

“A rookie who once called the copier a printer with ambition.”

That earns you an honest laugh. The kind that crinkles at the corners of his eyes and shakes off a little of the tension in the air.

“Fair,” he admits, setting the thermos down gently beside your cold mug. The smell of actual coffee, fresh, not burnt, curls up from the lid when you unscrew it. It’s warm, comforting, and far too considerate.

He doesn’t move away, though. He leans against the edge of your desk, just outside the pool of lamplight, watching you the way someone does when they’re searching for an opening and can’t find one. For a moment, neither of you speaks. The only sound is the hum of the vending machine and the rain against the window.

Then he says, softly, “Didn’t think you’d still be here.”

You take a sip of the coffee to stall. “You didn’t think, period.”

“Maybe.” His grin fades, replaced by something quieter. “Still figured you’d be the last one out.”

You glance up at him. “That a compliment or an accusation?”

“Little of both.”

The silence that follows isn’t the sharp kind. It settles in like an old coat, familiar, worn, just heavy enough to notice.

Leon’s still there, arms crossed loosely now, gaze flicking from the reports on your desk to your face and back again. He looks like he wants to say something else but can’t decide if he should.

You don’t ask. You don’t need to.

Whatever it is, you already know it isn’t about the folder.

Leon doesn’t leave the way you half expect him to. Instead, he drags the empty chair, the same one you’d made him sit in earlier while you wrapped his arm, across the tile and drops into it with a soft scrape of metal legs. The sound folds into the hum of the room like it belongs there.

He looks too big for the space, knees bent awkwardly, forearms resting on them. You should tell him to go home, to clock out and get some sleep, but you don’t. You just keep typing, eyes fixed on the screen.

He picks up one of your pens from the desk and starts tapping it lightly against his knee, a steady rhythm that threads through the ticking clock and the whisper of rain. You try not to let it get under your skin. You’ve always hated background noise, but somehow, his isn’t grating. It’s just… there. Filling the space that would otherwise feel too empty.

A few minutes pass like that. You keep working. He keeps watching. The sound of the keys, the tap of the pen, the rain, steady, hypnotic, almost domestic. It feels wrong for something in this city to feel that way.

Finally, his voice breaks the quiet. “You always stay this late?”

You don’t look up. “Paperwork doesn’t file itself.”

He grins softly. You can hear it in his tone when he says, “You’d think being the best on the force gets you out of grunt work.”

“You’d think wrong,” you reply, flipping a page of the report.

He chuckles under his breath and keeps tapping. “Guess it’s nice, though. Quiet. Nobody yelling, no phones ringing. Kinda peaceful.”

You hum in acknowledgment, the sound barely audible. Peaceful isn’t what you’d call it. Peaceful feels like an illusion. But you don’t argue.

For a while, the silence stretches again, warm this time instead of heavy. You can feel his gaze on you, not prying or invasive, just steady. The kind of look that sits softly on your skin. You ignore it, keep pretending you don’t notice, even though it makes the back of your neck prickle.

The clock ticks louder now that the rain’s softened outside. You add another line to the report, fingers brushing against the rim of the coffee thermos he brought you earlier. It’s still warm. You hate that he thought to do that. You hate that it matters.

When he speaks again, it’s quieter. “You know… I used to think this place would feel different.”

You glance up, caught off guard by the shift in tone. He’s not looking at you this time, he’s staring at the far wall, pen still tapping gently against his knee. “The RPD, I mean. I thought it’d feel… I don’t know. Bigger, I guess. Like something out of a movie.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

He smiles faintly, still not looking at you. “You didn’t.”

You freeze for half a second too long before going back to the report. “Flattery’s not going to make me finish this faster.”

“Didn’t say it was.”

The tapping stops. You can feel his eyes on you again, heavier this time. It’s almost enough to make you shift in your seat. Almost.

You write another sentence just to have an excuse not to meet his gaze.

Then, softly, so softly you almost miss it, he says your name.

Your actual name. Not your last name, not the clipped “Officer” everyone else uses, not even “boss.”

It lands like static in your chest, a tiny spark under your ribs.

You stop mid-word. The pen halts, ink pooling slightly on the page.

When you look up, he’s watching you, steady, uncertain, but not apologetic. There’s no smirk this time, no teasing grin. Just quiet honesty.

“Don’t call me that,” you say, the words coming out lower than you mean them to.

His brow furrows. “Why not?”

You hold his gaze for a beat too long. “Because it sounds like you mean it.”

The room goes still again.

No pen tapping. No typing. Just the slow drip of rain against the window and the steady, rhythmic tick of the clock. He doesn’t look away. Not this time.

You wait for the usual comeback, some half-joke to break the tension, but it never comes. Instead, he leans back in the chair, exhaling softly, and the sound fills the space between you like something fragile and human. You should look away. You don’t.

The air feels heavier than it should, thick with everything neither of you has said. You’re both too tired to name it, too wired to ignore it.

When you finally glance back down at the desk, the pen in your hand feels strange, like it doesn’t belong there anymore.

Neither of you laugh this time.

You don’t realize you’ve stopped typing until the screen saver flickers to life, washing your desk in a dim, shifting glow. Your fingers hover above the keys, suspended in the quiet. Across from you, Leon’s still sitting there, too still. The tapping of his pen has stopped.

You set the pen down, leaning back slightly. The exhaustion has settled deep in your bones now, but something else hums beneath it, low, persistent, uneasy.

“Why are you really here, Kennedy?”

Your voice cuts through the hum of the vending machine. He blinks, caught off guard, then looks down at his hands. His thumb runs along the curve of the pen like it’s something delicate.

He shrugs once, eyes darting up, then away again. “Didn’t want the day to end like that.”

You study him for a moment. “Like what?”

He breathes out slowly through his nose, like he’s trying to find the right words. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter, stripped of its usual brightness. “Like it didn’t matter.”

The line lands sharper than you expect. You feel it in your chest, that small, heavy weight of honesty. You deflect, automatically. “It was just another call. We did our jobs.”

Leon shakes his head, hair still damp enough to catch the light when he moves. “It wasn’t just another call.” He hesitates, gaze flicking back to you. “You could’ve been hurt. I—”

He stops. The word hangs there, suspended in the air like a wire pulled too tight. You can see it, the next thought forming behind his eyes, the one he’s debating whether to let out. His fingers drum softly against the desk, a nervous rhythm that betrays him.

You should cut him off. You should say something before he crosses a line you don’t know how to uncross.

So you do. Quietly. “Don’t.”

It isn’t sharp, not really. It’s tired, weighted. It carries too much behind it. Not yet. Don’t make me look at it. Don’t ruin the fragile thing we’ve built.

The rain outside fills the silence that follows. It hits the glass in uneven beats, soft and endless. You can feel the air change, that small shift that happens when two people realize they’ve reached the edge of something, and both know one more step might make it real.

He looks at you for a long time. The kind of look that doesn’t demand an answer, doesn’t apologize for existing. Just is.

Then he nods. Once. “Okay.”

The word is barely a whisper, but it echoes anyway, the kind of quiet agreement that feels like understanding.

He pushes his chair back slowly, the legs scraping softly against the tile. The sound is too loud in the stillness of the room. You watch him stand, hands sliding into the pockets of his uniform pants like he needs somewhere to put the things he didn’t say.

He lingers for a second, eyes meeting yours again. Something flickers there — warmth, regret, maybe both. Then he looks toward the hallway, toward the exit, toward safety.

For a second, you think he might actually say something more. But he doesn’t.

He just exhales, small and steady, like he’s letting go of a breath he’s been holding since the collapse. The rain keeps falling. The clock ticks. And you stay exactly where you are, hand still resting on the desk, feeling the ghost of a word that didn’t get spoken hanging in the air between you.

Leon makes it halfway to the door before stopping. The rain outside throws rippled shadows against the frosted glass, and for a second, the only sound is the hum of the lights and the faint tick of the clock above your desk.

He turns, one hand braced against the doorframe, the other still shoved deep in his pocket. His voice comes softer than before, stripped of the usual humor.

“You should go home soon. It’s late.”

You look up from the half-finished report, the cursor blinking uselessly on the screen. “You’re still here.”

“Guess I just wanted to make sure you’d be okay.”

You huff, more out of habit than anything else, and lean back in your chair. “I’ve been okay for a long time.”

He nods slowly, gaze steady, expression unreadable except for the smallest flicker of something you don’t have the energy to name. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “But you don’t always have to be.”

The line hits harder than it should. It’s too simple, too kind, and you don’t know what to do with it.

Before you can find an answer, he’s already turning away. The door opens with a low groan, a flash of hallway light spilling across the floor, and then it closes again, gently, like he’s afraid of waking something.

The quiet returns, heavier now.

You stare at the empty chair across from you, the one still angled just slightly toward your desk, and feel the leftover echo of him in the space, the faint warmth where he’d been sitting, the coffee cup he’d left behind, the silence he took with him when he walked out.

Your hand tightens around the pen. You tell yourself you’ll finish the report. You’ll file it, clock out, go home. Routine. Structure. Safety.

But the pen doesn’t move. Because somehow, against all reason, the room feels lonelier now that he’s gone.

The air still hums with the leftover charge of sirens and adrenaline.

The call had been routine, supposedly. A petty theft, a suspect fleeing down a narrow alley slick with oil and rainwater. Nothing the report will remember. But now that it’s over, the silence feels sharper than the chase itself.

You’re parked beneath a sputtering streetlight, its pale cone of gold trembling against the wet pavement. The city’s hum fades at this hour, just the low thrum of distant engines, the whisper of tires on rain-slick asphalt, the faint hiss of wind through puddles. It’s the kind of quiet that feels earned and unwelcome at once.

Leon’s pacing beside the car, his boots splashing faintly in shallow water. He runs a hand through his damp hair, breath still uneven, and tries to laugh, too light, too quick. “Well, that could’ve gone worse, right?”

You don’t laugh. You’re standing by the open driver’s door, one hand braced against the roof, pulse still thrumming under your skin. “You don’t rush in like that. You wait for backup.”

He freezes mid-step, eyes flicking toward you, rain streaking across his temple. “There wasn’t time!”

“Then you make time, rookie.”

The word lands harder than you meant it to. Sharp, like a slap meant for something else.

Leon exhales, the laugh dying in his throat. “I thought I had him.”

“You thought.” You slam the door shut harder than necessary, the sound cracking through the night. “That’s how people get killed.”

He blinks, water dripping from the ends of his hair. “I’m fine. You’re fine.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s kind of the point!” he shoots back, voice raising before he catches it and softens again. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I just—reacted.”

You shake your head, pacing a few steps away, the rain finding its rhythm against your shoulders. “You don’t react. You think. You assess. You wait.”

“I couldn’t see you,” he says, and the words come out quieter this time, rawer. “You went around the corner and I—” He cuts himself off, swallows. “I just didn’t want something to happen and have to listen to it instead of stopping it.”

You stop, turning just enough to see him through the blur of rain and streetlight. He looks smaller like this, not in size but in the way he’s holding himself, jacket unzipped, hands twitching uselessly at his sides, trying to find somewhere safe to put his guilt.

“I didn’t ask you to play hero,” you say, voice quieter now, but still tight.

He looks up, meets your eyes, and for a beat the distance between you feels thinner than the space it takes to breathe. “I wasn’t,” he says softly. “I just didn’t want to lose sight of you.”

The words are too close to something else—something neither of you is ready to name. You look away first, running a hand down your face. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah,” he says, half a laugh, half an exhale. “Been told that a few times today.”

The argument dissolves, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but the rain and the sound of both your breathing. You lean back against the car, feeling the metal cold through your jacket. The puddles reflect the flickering light, catching pieces of both your faces in warped gold and silver.

He stands across from you now, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind. The tension’s still there, stretching between you like a pulled wire, but under it, something else hums: relief, exhaustion, something dangerously close to care.

You sigh, finally letting your shoulders drop. “Next time,” you say, not looking at him, “you wait for backup.”

Leon nods, rain dripping from his chin. “Yes, ma’am.”

The words come quiet, earnest. Not teasing this time. Just a promise.

The wind picks up, carrying the smell of wet asphalt and the faint trace of gun oil from your holster. You tell yourself the shiver that runs through you is just the cold. But when you glance at him again, still standing there, still watching, you know it’s something else entirely.

The thing about adrenaline is it never leaves cleanly.

Even when the sirens are gone and the suspect’s cuffed and the report in your head is already half-written, it still clings, to your jaw, to your breathing, to the way your voice comes out sharper than it needs to. It’s still in you now, humming like a bad wire, and he’s close enough to get shocked.

“You can’t do that,” you say again, because saying it once wasn’t enough to burn it out of your system. “You can’t just charge in because you feel like it.”

Leon throws his hands up, rain flicking off his fingers. “I didn’t ‘feel like it’  I saw an opening.”

“You saw a bad idea.”

“It worked.”

“It almost didn’t.”

He stares at you like he can’t believe you’re still mad. “We got him.”

“You could’ve gotten hurt.”

The word comes out too fast, too loud. It startles even you.

Leon blinks, water dripping off his lashes. “I—”

“You don’t get to decide that’s worth it,” you go on, unable to stop now that you’ve started. “You don’t get to decide, ‘Oh, I’ll just take the hit, she’ll cover me.’ That’s not how this works.”

“I thought we were a team,” he fires back, sudden, wounded. “Isn’t that the point?”

“It is,” you snap. “Which is why you don’t make me watch you run into fire, Kennedy.”

The name cracks across the wet street. The streetlight above you flickers like even it’s flinching.

He stares at you for a half-second, rain on his brow, jaw tight, chest still rising too fast from the chase, and then something in him just… breaks free.

“I can’t not care about you!”

It rips out of him, rough and raw and way too loud for a sleeping street. Not polished. Not sweet. Just the truth dragged out of him at last because you pushed and pushed and pushed. The words hit the air and hang there like steam, bright and exposed. You freeze.

You feel the pulse thunder in your throat, in your ears, in the place behind your ribs you keep locked. The rain suddenly feels colder. The street suddenly feels too small. That one sentence rearranges everything between you.

He realizes what he said the exact second you do.

His eyes widen; his mouth opens and closes once. “I mean—” He stumbles over it, hands lifting, useless. “I mean you’re my partner, I just— I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t.” Your voice is low now. Not angry, dangerous. “Don’t walk it back.”

He shuts his mouth.

You swallow, rain rolling down the line of your jaw. “You don’t get to say things like that, Kennedy.”

That’s when he laughs.

Not the big, bright, “everyone likes me” laugh. This one’s small and uneven and kind of broken around the edges, like he can’t believe this is happening and also somehow knew it was always going to.

“You say my name,” he breathes, shaking his head, rain dripping from his hair, “like it’s supposed to make me stop.”

The streetlight above you gives another tired flicker, painting both of you in stuttering gold. The rain picks up just a little, coming in sideways now, driven by a wind that carries the smell of wet pavement and river water. Your jackets are soaked through. Your breath fogs the air between you.

But the silence that slides in now isn’t the same silence from before. It isn’t angry. It isn’t annoyed. It’s thick. Aware. It’s the silence of two people staring straight at the thing they’ve both been pretending not to see.

You hold his gaze. You shouldn’t. You should look away, tell him to get in the car, tell him to write up the damn report. Instead you just… look.

He looks back, and without the jokes, without the sunshine, it’s unbearable. Because it’s all there, finally: the way he tracks you in a room, the way he remembers your coffee, the way he followed you into a collapsing building like that was just what you did when it was you. All of it sitting in his eyes, unhidden.

Wind rolls down the street, shivering through the puddles. Somewhere far off, a dog barks. Everything else is just wet and night and him.

He takes a step forward.

Not a lunge, not a grab, not even something he could pretend was instinct. Just one, measured step, closing the distance from work partner to I can feel your body heat in the rain. Close enough that the damp from his jacket mixes with yours. Close enough that you can see the pulse in his throat.

He stops there. Doesn’t crowd. Doesn’t trap. Just… chooses to be closer.

His voice, when it comes, is softer. “You scared me,” he says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Back there. When I lost sight of you.”

You open your mouth, but nothing worth saying is ready. So he fills the space instead, that earnest, infuriating honesty spilling again. “You tell me to wait, I’ll wait. You tell me to back off, I’ll back off. But don’t ask me not to care. I can’t do that.”

The rain hisses on the asphalt. Your heart does something painful. He’s too young for this, you think, not in age, but in the way he still believes he’s allowed to love things out loud.

You force your jaw to work. “You’re making this—”

“Real?” he offers, wry, eyes shining rain. “Yeah. I know.”

He smiles, but it’s shaky, like maybe this costs him too. “But it already was.”

Rain always makes things worse.

It softens edges, blurs streetlights, slows sirens, and it makes it so much harder to lie. You can hear your own breathing too clearly. You can see his, fogging faintly in the air between you. Everything feels closer, like the world narrowed down to wet pavement, a flickering lamp, and the stupid rookie who won’t stop looking at you like you hung the moon over Raccoon City.

His shoulders are still rising a little too fast from the chase, from the argument, from whatever this is. Yours too. The patrol car ticks quietly as it cools. Somewhere deeper in the city a siren wails and fades, like it belongs to someone else’s night. Not yours.

Then Leon says it.

“I tried not to,” he says, voice lower now, stripped of all the bright edges. “I swear I did. But I—” He huffs out a laugh that isn’t a laugh, shaking his head as rain drips from his hair. “I can’t keep pretending you’re just my partner.”

The words hit like cold water under the collar, sudden, invasive, inescapable.

You should’ve expected it. He’s been circling this for days, in the way he stayed late, in the way he followed you too close in the hall, in the way he said you don’t always have to be okay like he had any right to know that about you. But hearing it out loud still punches the air out of your lungs.

You go for the only weapon you ever trust: logic. Distance. The thing that always saved you.

“You’ll grow out of it,” you say, trying to make it sound obvious. Inevitable. The way rain stops. The way rookies quit. “You’re new. You like people. That’s not the same thing.”

He should roll his eyes, crack a joke, let you have the out you’re handing him. He doesn’t.

He shakes his head, rain sliding down his temple, gathering on his lashes. His smile shows for a second, not the big one, not the “I’m happy to be here” smile, just a small, trembling, God, I wish this was easier smile.

“You don’t grow out of the people who change the way you breathe,” he says.

You hate that it lands. You hate that something in you knows what he means, that small adjustment your chest makes when he appears in a doorway, the way the bullpen noise dulls when he’s near, the way your hand pulled him behind that desk without even thinking. You hate that your body recognizes him even when your brain refuses to.

The air goes different after that. Thinner. Charged. Delicate like glass held too tight.

You become aware of everything at once, of the rain soaking into the collar of your shirt, of the way your hair sticks to your cheek, of the way his jacket is dark with water and still steaming slightly in the cold night air. You can hear his heartbeat, or maybe it’s yours, loud in your ears. You can see the way his hands flex like he doesn’t know what to do with them.

You tell yourself to walk away. Right now. Say no. Say we can’t. Say this is the job and the job comes first. You have said no to easier things. You have walked away from softer people. You know how to do this.

But your feet don’t move.

Because he’s looking at you the way people only look when they’ve decided something, not about you, but about themselves. He’s not asking. He’s not trying to win. He’s just… telling you where he ended up.

You meet his eyes and it hits you, all at once, how young he is and how old this kind of courage is. His eyes are wide but sure, and behind the rain and the tiredness and the last dregs of adrenaline you see it all, laid bare: the fear when he lost sight of you, the admiration when you cleared that room, the way he listened to every order even when he didn’t like it, the devotion that was growing even when you were trying so hard not to water it.

It isn’t grand. There’s no swelling music, no dramatic camera pan. It’s just two people on a wet street, too stubborn and too tired to keep lying.

You swallow, throat tight. “Leon,” you start, because his name is the only thing you trust yourself to say without breaking. “This city eats people alive. It eats partnerships. It eats good intentions. You can’t—”

“I know,” he cuts in, gentle, not arguing. “I know it’s messy. I know it’s wrong on paper. I know I talk too much, and I follow too close, and I make you crazy.”

“You do,” you say, because you need him to know that part is still true.

He almost smiles. “I know. But I still—” He looks down for half a second, searching for the word. When he lifts his head again, it’s there. “I still choose you.”

The way he says it,not I love you, not please love me back, not you owe me this, just I still choose you, makes something in you lurch.

You look past him for a second, out over the empty street, as if the answer might be in the shapeless dark. There’s nothing there. Just puddles catching light and the shape of his shoulders in your periphery.

“I don’t know if I can give you what you want,” you say, quietly, because you’ve always been more honest than kind. “I don’t— I’m not—” You gesture vaguely at yourself, rain flicking off your fingers. “I don’t do this.”

He nods, too fast, like he expected that. “That’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“It is,” he insists, stepping just close enough that his words warm the space between you. “Because I didn’t tell you so you’d say it back. I told you because I didn’t want you thinking I was just… following orders.” His eyes search yours, steady, pleading only for understanding. “I follow you.”

That almost undoes you.

Because you remember him in the hallway, in the car, in the building, saying I’ll follow your lead like it was easy. Like it didn’t cost him anything. You remember thinking he was just a golden retriever rookie with too much heart and not enough sense.

Turns out it wasn’t thoughtless. Turns out it was deliberate.

You let out a slow breath, barely more than a sigh. “You make things complicated, Kennedy.”

He huffs a laugh that’s wet and shaky. “You make things worth it.”

God, he’s so earnest. So painfully sincere. So unashamed to feel things out loud. It’s recklessness of a different kind, not the kind that chases suspects into alleys, but the kind that sits in front of someone guarded and says I care anyway.

You look at him, really look, and realize there was never going to be a different ending. Not with the way he kept showing up. Not with the way you kept letting him. You’ve both been walking toward this street, this rain, this confession since the morning you told him to get a leash and he laughed like that meant stay.

“It’s not going to be easy,” you say at last, voice tired and soft and so, so honest.

He nods. “I know.”

“You might regret it.”

“Doubt it.”

“You might.” You search his face for some sign of uncertainty. There isn’t one. Only rain. Only him. “I might.”

His eyes soften like he’s already made peace with that. “Then we regret it together.”

The rain eases like it finally got tired. What was coming down sideways a minute ago softens to a fine, steady drizzle, the kind that hangs in the air and clings to your lashes.

Leon’s watching you like he’s afraid you’ll spook.

Not afraid of you, afraid of losing you. There’s a difference. It’s in the way his shoulders stay squared but his hands won’t quite settle, in the way his breath catches halfway in, in the way his eyes keep flicking from your mouth back to your eyes, checking, checking, checking.

He doesn’t move. Not yet.

He waits, and that, somehow, is what undoes you the most. That he’d follow you into a collapsing building without hesitation but won’t cross this last inch of rain-wet air without your permission.

You don’t take a step back. You don’t even tilt your head away. You just… stay.

That’s all he needs.

He exhales, slow, shaky, full of the day and the fight and the confession he just put in your hands. Then he leans in.

Not fast. Not reckless. Slow. Careful. Every inch is a question. Here? Is this okay? Still okay? He gives you a chance to stop him at the start, and then again halfway, and then again when you can feel the warmth of him through the cold.

You tell yourself you’ll pull back.

You tell yourself you’ll stop it before it lands, before it becomes real, before it becomes something the two of you will have to carry in the morning.

Any second now. But you don’t.

Because by the time he’s close enough that his breath ghosts across your cheek, you realize you’ve been waiting for this without letting yourself want it. Every near-miss, every shoulder bump, every “stay close, rookie”, all of it was orbit. This is the center.

His mouth meets yours like a secret.

Not crushed, not frantic, just placed. A confession made in the only language that won’t crack the night in half. It’s warm despite the rain, soft despite the tension braided through both of you. He tastes like coffee gone cold, like rain, like the copper tang of adrenaline fading, like someone who ran too hard and still came back.

For half a heartbeat, you’re too stunned to move. Then your body remembers what to do.

Your hand finds his jacket, not delicate, not practiced, just a fistful of damp fabric right over his chest. He makes a tiny sound against your mouth, not quite a laugh and not quite a gasp, more like oh, surprised you’re pulling him closer instead of pushing him away.

His hand comes up, hesitant at first, like he thinks touching you will break the spell, and hovers near your jaw. Then it settles, fingers splaying gently along the line of your face, thumb brushing the rain from your cheekbone. He holds you like you’re something he found in a burning building.

The world shrinks.

No squad car. No reports. No sheriff. No RPD. Just the heat of him and the cool rain and the way his heartbeat slams against your knuckles through his jacket. The streetlight hums above you; the city blurs at the edges. Somewhere, water runs into a gutter. Somewhere, somebody’s closing up shop. None of it matters.

He kisses you like he meant every word he said. Like I can’t not care about you didn’t fall out by accident. Like he’s been holding this back since the first morning you told him to get a map.

It isn’t a kiss that asks for more. It’s a kiss that says this is it. This is what I meant. It aches, not because it’s hungry, but because it’s careful. Reverent, even. He’s not trying to take anything. He’s just trying to give you the truth the way you’ll actually let yourself take it.

You tilt your head a little, not much,  and the angle changes, deeper but still soft. His thumb strokes your jaw once, slow, grounding. You can feel the shiver that runs through him where your hand is fisted in his jacket. Not fear. Just too much feeling with nowhere to go.

You should stop.

You tell yourself again. Any second now. I’ll stop. I’ll pull away. I’ll tell him we can’t.

But he’s warm, and the rain is cold, and his mouth is gentle, and for the first time in a very long time, you don’t feel like someone asking too much of you, you feel chosen. You feel seen.

So you don’t stop.

You let it last. Just long enough for it to sink in. Long enough for him to know you’re kissing him back, not letting him. Long enough for that stubborn, bright, rookie heart to understand you didn’t just tolerate his confession, you accepted it.

When you finally break, it’s not dramatic. You just breathe.

You pull back an inch, maybe two. Your fingers are still knotted in his jacket. His hand is still on your jaw. Both of you are breathing like you ran another alley, short, hitched, trying to catch up.

His forehead tips forward until it’s resting against yours, rain dripping from his hair onto your nose, both of you laughing these tiny, ridiculous, breathless half-laughs that come from relief more than humour.

He whispers, voice rough from holding it all in, “God… I really like you.”

You huff, but it comes out softer than any insult you’ve ever thrown. “You’re an idiot.”

He grins, wide now, unstoppable, stupid-happy even in the rain. “Yeah. Your idiot, though.”

You don’t say no this time.

The next morning you tell yourself nothing’s changed. You walk in exactly on time, hang your jacket on the same hook, brace for the usual RPD chaos — phones, printers, someone swearing at the copier. The bullpen looks the same: too bright, too loud, too gray. Nobody here knows you kissed a rookie in the rain. Nobody knows your heart is doing something stupid about it.

Then you get to your desk. There’s a coffee waiting. Not the burnt communal sludge, a real one, still steaming, your first name messily scrawled on the side. Next to it: a folded sticky note.

It says, in all caps: “FOR STAYING ALIVE. – L” and underneath, smaller: “p.s. if you don’t like this coffee I will cry in the locker room (quietly)”

You snort. Out loud. “Something funny?” someone calls. “No,” you say way too fast, already sipping. It’s good. Of course it is. He paid attention.

You feel him before you see him — that Boy Scout gravity. He leans on your desk like he owns the spot, hair still damp, uniform crisp, smile criminally soft. “Morning, partner,” he says, just for you.

“You bribing your mentor now?” you mutter. “Bribing?” he gasps. “That was a romantic gesture.” “This is a police station.” “Yeah, and you’re still drinking it.”

You flick the sticky note at him; he fumbles it, laughs, tucks it in his vest like evidence. Then he strolls off and, way too loud, goes, “Morning! Don’t mind me, just keeping my officer caffeinated!”

For this campaign Will was the Dungeon Master, and it was Mike’s turn to make a move. While he pondered his options, for a blissful moment, everything was quiet.

Then it wasn’t.

“MIKE, you can’t just skip the traps!” Dustin barks, slamming his palms on the table so hard the character sheets flutter.

Mike leans back in his chair, arms crossed with the dramatic flair of a teen boy convinced he was right. “I’m not skipping them. I’m strategically avoiding them.”

Lucas throws his pencil down. “That’s literally the definition of skipping.”

“It is not–”

“Yes it is!” Lucas responds with a mature indignation you knew only he was capable of making look cool. On Dustin, it would come across whiny and petulant. 

“No, it’s not—”

“It is!” Lucas insists once again. He wasn’t about to back down, especially not to Mike.  

Will’s voice comes out small, drowned beneath the storm. “Guys, can we just—”

No one hears him.

You sigh, setting down the cassette you’d been holding. Here we go again. You stand and brush dust off your jeans, already halfway to the table when the basement door creaks open.

Boots thud down the old wooden stairs. 

“Hey, uh, sorry I’m late,” Steve calls, shaking the cold from his body as he descends. He holds a paper bag in one hand. “I brought ice cream.” Even though it’s freezing outside, ice cream really does sound great right about now.

You steal a glimpse of him as your gaze locks on his figure. Steve’s hair, impossibly thick and wild, catches Will’s Christmas lights like a halo of soft brown waves. His eyes, warm and alert, flick around the room, half in amusement, half in exasperation, and his jawline carries that mix of boyish softness and emerging sharpness that makes him impossible to ignore. 

The denim jacket on his shoulders is worn in all the right places, sleeves casually rolled, and his sneakers are scuffed but perfectly comfortable, like they’d barely survived the walk from his car to the front door. His every movement has an easy confidence, that subtle sway of someone who could be both reckless and dependable at the same time.

He freezes when he reaches the bottom step. So do you.

The boys are mid-argument, halfway standing, voices overlapping. You’re standing with your arms half-crossed in irritation. And without even thinking, without even meaning to, you and Steve both plant your feet, cross your arms, and give the exact same unimpressed stare.

Identical and perfectly mirrored.

“Hey, hey!” Your voice calls in a chastising manner. “Knock it off.” You say firmly.

“Knock it off,” Steve echoes at the exact same time, nearly a fraction of a second apart. You both look menacing and parental and totally in tune with each other. 

The table goes dead silent and all four boys stare with wide, unnerved eyes.

Will blinks, slow and owl-like. “Did you guys just…”

Mike’s jaw hangs open. “That’s creepy.”

Lucas leans forward as if studying a strange new species. “Oh my god,” he shudders, “they’re synchronized, like they’re one person.”

Dustin points dramatically. “You two spend so much time together you’re starting to sound the same.”

Heat rushes across your face, spreading onto your cheeks, just now realizing how close you are to Steve. You drop your arms like they’re on fire. “We are not—we didn’t coordinate that.”

Steve’s face flushes with embarrassment. “Yeah, that wasn’t— I mean, we didn’t— it’s just a coincidence shitheads…"

“No one said it wasn’t,” Dustin’s tone carries teasingly, grinning like Christmas came early.

You agree, gesturing between yourself and Steve, “Right.” You affirm. “A coincidence.”

“Uh-huh,” Lucas responds flatly.

Will tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “You guys kind of do that a lot.”

Your stomach does a weird little flip. “Do what?”

“Act like parents,” Mike says, not even trying to cushion it.

You nearly choke on your own breath. “Parents?” Being a babysitter you could get behind, even being an older sibling figure is something you’d expected. But a parent? Absolutely not…you don’t act like one.

Steve doesn’t like the warmth that fills his chest at the implication. “Okay, wow—okay—nope. No. We’re— that’s— absolutely not what’s happening.”

“Totally,” Dustin adds cheerfully, “full on married couple, mom and dad energy right there.”

“Excuse me?” You and Steve blurt in unison again.

This time, the kids don’t hold back before losing it. Mike slaps the table in sheer amusement at your expense. Lucas simply doubles over wheezing. Will hides a smile behind his hand, and Dustin practically vibrates with smugness. It’s written all over his expression, got ya. 

You press both palms to your face in exasperation. “Oh my god.”

Steve leans closer to you, lowering his voice while the boys cackle. “They’re doing this on purpose, y’know? They like to see us riled up.”

“They’re evil,” you whisper back.

“We can hear you,” Lucas cuts in with a sly grin. 

Dustin gestures proudly between the two of you. “We’re right here.”

Steve's posture straightens, blowing out a breath before attempting to regain control. “Look—just—can you assholes get back to your campaign before I lose the last bit of sanity keeping me alive?”

“Language,” you blurt automatically, pointing at him like a scolding mother. It’s a habit you’d picked up from being around Dustin’s fowl mouth so much.

Steve stares at you, wide-eyed. “Did you just mom-voice me?”

The boys almost howl in laughter and Mike nearly slides right off his chair. You feel your ears burning. “I did not mom-voice you.”

Steve raises a brow, mouth tugging into a teasing, lopsided grin. “You totally did.”

“I did not.”

“It was kinda hot,” He mutters, so quietly you almost question whether you heard it.

Your heart plummets into your shoes. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Nothing,” Steve says immediately, voice slightly too loud and too serious. “S’just a figure of speech.” 

Across the table, the boys all exchange glances, eyebrows wiggling, smirks forming. The kind of smirks that make you want to lock them in the Upside Down for an hour.

You glare. “If you tell anyone about this, I swear—”

“We won’t,” Will promises sweetly.

“We absolutely will,” Dustin corrects, grinning.

You groan, dramatically dropping onto the couch like the world had betrayed you.

Steve walks over and gently nudges your knee with his. “You okay?” he asks, voice softer than before. “They’re… um… a lot.”

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. “Believe me. I know.”

He offers a crooked, warm smile—the one he only does when he thought no one else was paying attention. “For what it’s worth… I like when we’re on the same team.”

Your chest tightens again, pleasantly, confusingly.

You look up at him and he looks back at you. And for a brief, suspended moment, the chaos of the basement falls away. The glow of the string lights warms Steve’s face. And the two of you feel oddly, undeniably in sync.

Will’s voice breaks the moment, soft but hopeful: “Um… can we keep playing now?”

You and Steve answer instinctively, perfectly in time: “Sure.”

Another round of laughs erupts from the table. But neither of you corrected it. They were never going to let you live this down. 

• ж • ж •

II. The Group Project

Outside, dusk settles over the yard in deep purples and soft peach streaks, turning the kitchen windows into reflective glass. Indoors, the overhead light casts a warm glow across the clutter —half-finished meals pushed aside, a pile of school mail crumpled on the counter, and one lone sock that definitely didn’t start the day where it ended up.

Tonight was supposed to be simple.

The plan—your plan—was to spend a quiet Wednesday finishing a book you’d been putting off. Maybe make some tea. Maybe listen to music. Maybe not referee any disasters for at least a few hours.

But fate, apparently, had other ideas.

Because at nearly 7pm there’s a frantic, uneven knock at the Byers’ front door followed by Dustin’s unmistakable voice calling, “(Y/n), open up!”

You don’t even get a chance to answer. Will opens the door instead, and Dustin barrels in like he’s fleeing wolves.

“We need help with a project,” He announces, breathless like he sprinted the whole way. His curls are wind-tangled, his jacket is half-zipped, and his cheeks flushed from the cold.

Before you can even speak, he’s dumped the contents of his bag onto the table in an academic explosion: glue sticks with bitten caps, an avalanche of loose papers, two crushed Twizzlers, and what looks dangerously like a frog diagram Will did last year.

Will appears behind him, looking apologetic. “Sorry,” he says. “He got…excited.”

Lucas trudges in next with the exhausted despair of a man going to war. “This project is killing us.”

You raise your eyebrows, you know for a fact this project isn’t due until later this week. “It’s Wednesday.”

“Exactly,” Lucas says, dropping into a chair like he’s accepted death. “It’s basically due tomorrow.”

“It’s actually due Friday,” Will mumbles.

Lucas waves a hand. “Same difference.” Unlike the others, Lucas has never been one to procrastinate. He prefers to be ahead of schedule. 

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “So what exactly do you need help with?”

“History presentation,” Dustin says. “We need a poster. A good one. Like, award-winning. Like the kind of poster people applaud for.”

You blink slowly. “You don’t get applause for school posters.”

“You do,” Dustin says gravely, “if you do them right.”

Before you can sigh again, the door opens again, and Steve pokes his head inside. He steps cautiously into the kitchen, shaking off his jacket, eyes scanning the room with the practiced alarm of the seasoned babysitter he is. 

“Hey! Am I late? I came as soon as I heard—” His gaze falls on the table. “Oh. Wow. That’s… a lot of paper.”

You cross your arms, mildly begrudged and equally curious. “Why are you here?”

“Lucas told me you might need backup.” He shrugs, lifting a grocery bag with the confidence of a man who believes snacks can solve anything. “Plus, I brought provisions.”

He unloads chips, pretzels, Capri Suns, and a box of brownies like he’s setting up camp. And the boys look at him the way baby ducks look at the first thing they see.

Dustin pauses mid glue stick sniff. “You…you brought snacks? Steve, you beautiful bastard.”

Steve beams like he’s been handed a trophy. You fold your arms. “So you’re helping too?”

He shrugs with a grin that is far too casual to be accidental. “Just in case.”

Dustin takes a bite out of one of the brownies, sending you a toothy grin as he does it. He passes one each to Will and Lucas with glee. “This,” Dustin announces, “is why Steve is allowed to come to group projects.”

Steve salutes him. “Glad to be of service man.”

Within minutes, the dining table turns into a chaotic workshop, an island of absolute academic activity. Will is sorting his pencil crayons by shade like you knew he would and Lucas, well, Lucas is fighting and losing against a glue stick cap that refuses to open.

You pull the poster board to the center. Spreading it out, you smooth its surface with your palms. It’s cool and stiff under your hands — blank and expectant.

Dustin’s voice whispers a quiet shit, shit, shit, as a tin of glitter spills on his pants. He stands, dusting it off onto the floor. You chuckle and sigh, shaking your head in bemusement, that’ll be a clean up problem for later. 

“Okay,” you say, ready to begin. “Let’s get started. We’ll keep it simple. Neat. Clear.”

You tuck your knees under the chair you’re sitting on and lean forward, sketching the first pencil guidelines. The familiar pressure of graphite scraping paper grounds you; it’s something you can control.

Steve wanders to your side, pulling a chair next to yours. He doesn’t lower himself gently, he drops into it with that boyish clumsiness he pretends he doesn’t have, the seat legs squeaking across the floor.

He sits next to you — right next to you, close enough that your elbows brush every time you shift — and he tries to look like he understands what’s happening.

He doesn’t. At all. He hasn’t completed a school project like this in years. You try not to think about how close he is, but you fail immediately. He smells like winter air and the faint cologne he uses only when he’s trying to impress a girl. It’s warm with something sweet pulling at its edges. 

He picks up a pencil and squints at the page of instructions. “So, uh…what’s this part?”

“That’s the rubric,” you reply.

“Right. Right. Of course.” He nods confidently. Then lowers his voice. “What’s a rubric again?”

You bite back a smile. “It’s just the grading guide.”

“Oh.” He leans back slightly. “Yeah, I totally knew that.”

“No you didn’t,” Will says without looking up.

“Didn’t ask for your input, Wizard Boy.” From anyone else, you might have taken offence on your brother’s behalf, but Steve has this teasing rapport with each of the kids—it’s easy and heartwarming.  

Will just rolls his eyes and keeps colouring.

You slide a reindeer-shaped eraser toward Steve.  “Here. For morale.”

He accepts it solemnly. “Thank you. I’ll do my best.”

A few minutes pass in silence as each of you work diligently on your parts. Honestly, you’re kind of having fun; getting back into the groove of a school project reminds you of your own time in high school. It wasn’t always the best, but it brought you closer to Steve. Despite hailing from very different social groups, trauma had bonded you together in a way you’d never have expected. The upside down feels distant in this moment, and that in itself feels nice. 

 You’re sketching out the title letters when you feel Steve lean closer, his arm brushing yours again.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “Can you… uh… help me with this?”

You look over. He’s struggling with the scissors, fingers covered in a light coating of glue. He’s stuck.

You blink slowly, staring at him with a soft smile.

“Steve.” You snort.

He grins, embarrassed but charmingly so, and nudges your knee with his under the table.

“C’mon, don't laugh” he says softly. “I feel stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.” You tap the poster board sending him a lopsided grin. “You just, look a little sticky.”

Standing to grab a wash cloth from your kitchen counter, you wet it slightly. “Here,” you say, taking Steve’s hand in yours, careful not to cut yourself with the scissor’s blades. You help Steve, guiding his hand free once the glue has been successfully wiped away. 

The kids notice that change in the room. They absolutely notice. A fresh, nervous energy fills the air.

Lucas nudges Will. Will raises an eyebrow, and Dustin smirks knowingly like he’s in on some grand romantic conspiracy.

Steve eyes Dustin carefully, as if to say not a word, not ONE word. But Dustin doesn’t care, he’s more than happy to watch his friend fall apart at a simple touch from your hand on his. The curly haired teen bites the inside of his cheek trying not to comment—and failing, whispering something like they’re so obvious.

You pretend not to notice.

Another bout of silence falls amongst the group, settling with your dissipating nerves. Each of you agrees, you want to get this done as efficiently as possible, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Now, you’re busy shading the title letters — your hand resting naturally close to Steve’s

Just when the chaos seems manageable, Joyce wanders by carrying a basket of folded laundry. She stops and takes one long look at the table. Her brown eyes take in the scene piece by piece: You leaning in, fingers smudged with pencil dust, and Steve beside you, shoulders angled inward as if drawn to your orbit. Your hands brush each time one of you reaches for a marker.

Joyce watches as the boys work with suspicious innocence. Five Capri Suns sit next to each other, straws already poked in.

A subtle, knowing smile touches her face — warm, gentle, approving. “Oh,” she says, lingering just a heartbeat too long, “you two look cute working together.”

The room freezes. Steve inhales sharply, feeling caught. He blinks unnaturally hard like someone hit pause on his brain. Your eyes widen, sending a glare her way that says: Mom, get out. Joyce simply glides out of the room without clarifying or apologizing, leaving behind the smoldering embarrassment of the interrupted moment you totally weren’t having.

By the time the project is almost done, the boys have stopped doing much of anything, letting you and Steve finish their work for them.

Steve is helping you outline the final border — or at least trying to — his shoulder brushing yours in a way that feels intentional now. He holds the ruler, his long fingers guiding him as he traces the final touches. He leans in a little closer, voice dropping to something low and warm.

“You know,”  he nods at the poster.  “At this rate, we’re basically co-parenting a school project.”

Your cheeks warm at the thought. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” His tone is soft, teasing but honest underneath. “We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

You freeze for half a second. Just half. And you try to focus, you really really do, but he’s just so distracting.

The house is suddenly very quiet. The distance between you and Steve is small, just a few inches, maybe less but the air shifts, humming with an almost-something neither of you has been brave enough to name. And Steve is watching you, not in the big, bold way he sometimes does, but softly, like he’s asking a question he already knows the answer to.

You swallow. Then you snatch the ruler from his grasp and jab it into his chest.

“Focus, Harrington.”

He laughs under his breath. It’s low, sweet, and the sound slides right under your ribs.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Sure thing Byers.”

But he doesn’t move away.

And neither do you.

• ж • ж •

III. Mad Max

The call comes just after sunset, the hour when Hawkins shifts from blue to violet, when houses glow with warm windows and the ravens call loudly enough to fill the cracks of silence. You’re drying the last dish when the phone rings again. Will grabs it before you do, the cord stretching across his chest like a lifeline.

You can tell it’s one of those calls by the way his face changes—brow pinched, lips pressed thin, eyes flicking toward you.

“It’s Steve,” he says, voice tight, eyes wide and anxious. “Max ran off. Again.”

Your stomach drops. There’s a small, tight pull in your chest. It’s not fear, definitely not panic—just that familiar weight of here we go, mixed with the tug you always feel whenever the kids need you. You suppose it’s a familiar responsibility that comes from loving too many people too much. 

You’re grabbing your jacket before you even realize it. Will isn’t surprised. He doesn’t have to ask; he just steps aside to let you pass.

And when you finally step outside, the cool night air hits your skin—crisp like late autumn and early winter should be, carrying the scent of dry leaves and woodsmoke. And there he is.

Steve, leaning against his car, fiddling with his gloves. His hair is wind-tousled, his cheeks flushed, his hands jittery with too much adrenaline and too little direction. He looks up the second you appear.

Relief floods his entire expression. 

“You came,” he breathes out, like he was half afraid you wouldn’t.

“You called.” You affirm. As if there’d be a time when you could say no to him. Like you’d ever not show up. 

When you finally get a good look at him, you notice there’s worry in his eyes. And underneath it—because you’ve learned to read him—there’s this fear that he’ll mess this up. He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the car and you slide in, the familiar smell of pine car freshener wrapping around you.

As he pulls away, he keeps glancing over at you with these quick, jittery cuts of his eyes on you like he needs to make sure you’re actually there.

“She just—she took off,” he mutters, voice clipped. “Lucas said something, and then she was gone, and I—” He swallows hard. “I don’t know if she’s mad, or scared, or both. Jesus probably both.”

You touch his arm lightly, grounding him. “She’s not running from you, Steve.”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t believe you yet.

He drives the two of you in complete silence for a while before coming to a stop on the edge of the woods. You find yourselves at an entrance to a trail you know Max likes, one she uses when she just needs to get away. 

“You ready?” You ask Steve with a soft smile. He doesn’t respond, too caught up in his thoughts to speak. He simply nods and takes your hand in his. It’s grounding…for both of you, in a way that usually would spark a kind of nervous energy. But right now, it’s exactly what Steve needs.

As evening clings to the forest trail like a heavy blanket, it's cast in a half-shadow, half-silver moonlight state. The air is cool and smells of pine needles and damp earth as the last bit of violet sky filters through the branches.. Steve’s flashlight cuts through the shadows as you both walk, the beam slicing through the trees like thin, trembling fingers.

The crunch of frozen soil under your feet fills the silence between you. 

“She could be anywhere,” Steve mutters. His shoulders are tight, a helm of anxiety written all over him.

You can feel Steve’s worry, almost like it’s a physical heat pouring off him. He’s walking too fast, scanning everything, body coiled like he’s ready to fight whatever hurts the people he cares about.

You’ve seen that look before. In the Upside Down, in hospital rooms, in quieter nights like this.

“She shouldn’t have to deal with this alone,” he murmurs as if it’s his fault she ran. “None of them should.”

But you hear the real fear beneath it: I should’ve kept her safe.  I should’ve noticed sooner. I should’ve been enough.

In the years you’ve grown to know Steve, he’s always held himself to an insurmountable standard. It’s one that he would never expect from anyone else but himself. He has to be ready for anything at any time from anyone. And he has to be able to take it on alone. That’s one of the things you’re trying to break down—this need to fix everything by himself. You’ve tried countless times to tell him I’m here too. Sometimes you think you’re getting through to him…this isn’t one of those moments. But you’d be damned if you stopped trying. 

After a few minutes of more silent sulking, you hear something familiar: the uneven scrape of wheels on the dirt. You follow the sound around a bend, and there she is, sitting at the edge of the tree trunk with her skateboard on her lap like a shield.

Her chin is tucked to her chest, knuckles white on the board's underside.

“Red?” You murmur softly, easing down beside her. You approach slowly, like you’re nearing a cornered animal, because in some ways, you are. 

Max sniffles once, but doesn’t look up. In Max-language, that means: I’ll talk, just not yet.

“Hey,” you continue, leaning in closer beside her. The ground is cold through your jeans. “Want to tell me what happened?”

She shrugs, nails digging into the underside of her skateboard. You can see the tension coiled in her shoulders. Her body language betrays her, anger, shame, frustration, hurt all tangled up.

“It was stupid,” she mutters.

“If it made you feel this bad,” you glance at her with a sympathy for her pain, “it wasn’t stupid Max.”

She shakes her head in slight protest before muttering, “The boys were just being idiots,” 

Behind you, Steve hangs back, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, pretending he’s not desperately listening while also desperate to give space. His hands rest on his hips and his eyes don’t leave her for a second. 

“They wouldn’t stop arguing, I just felt like I couldn’t control anything.” Max finally says. “And then Lucas said I didn’t need to be so dramatic. And Mike got all Mike about it. So I left. Before I yelled…or cried.”

The last word breaks.  Just slightly. “I don’t know,” she continues, “I figured they wouldn’t even notice I was gone.”

You give her a look. “You know they notice everything you do.”

Max kicks a pebble, hard. “Yeah, well… I didn’t want them to see me cry.”

That slices clean through you.  You bump her shoulder gently. “Max. Crying doesn’t make you weak.”

“It makes me look like a baby.” Is her honest response, and she means it.

“It makes you look human,” you correct softly, pulling her into a soft side-hug.

She sniffles but refuses to cry in front of you. It’s Max’s way of trying to be tough, even though you already know how soft-hearted she really is. For a moment, the world goes still around the three of you. Steve leans down to meet your level, each of you now sitting on the cold dirt floor. Max’s breathing is easier, her shoulders are lower, and her jaw unclenches. She needed to be seen, and with you and Steve, she feels she has been. 

But just when the moment is finally tender, real, and grounding—she ruins it in the most Max Mayfield way possible.

“Ya know,” she grumbles abruptly, staring between you and Steve, “You two are like our divorced parents who still love each other. It’s kind of annoying.”

You blink. In that moment, Steve actually chokes on his own saliva.

“Divorced?” he echoes, like she just accused him of murder. His voice cracks on the second syllable. 

The red head rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Like the way you show up together. And fight together. And then act weird when anyone points it out.” You give each other a look that asks, we totally don’t do that right? But she continues before you can think about it more, “One of you is the calm one,” she points to you, “and one of you is the chaotic one, but you’re always together anyway. It’s a whole thing…Classic divorced-but-still-grossly-in-love behaviour.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, when Steve makes a move to protest being labelled the chaotic one.  “Don’t even start,” you warn Steve without looking at him.

“I wasn’t!” he puts his hands up in defence.  Then quieter, “…I wasn’t.”

Max snorts. “God. That’s exactly what a divorced dad would say.” 

Steve looks incredulous and personally victimized. Divorced? Why can’t you both be happily married in this scenario? 

But as he takes in Max’s smile and the quiet laugh she lets out at his reaction, he can see how much she needed this—a moment to break the tension with something ridiculous. Her eyes are no longer stormy…and that was the whole point of this.

“C’mon,” you say gently, nudging them both to get up from your spots on the ground. “Let’s get you home.”

Max finally nods, rubbing her eyes tiredly as you lead her back to the car. She leans on you both during the short walk, and when you finally reach the vehicle, Steve lifts her onto the seat gently. He buckles her in like a true parent.

Max falls asleep before you’re even back on the road, skateboard still clutched to her chest. She curls into the corner of the back seat, exhausted and small in a way she’ll deny forever.

Steve drives slowly now—the careful, protective version of him that surfaces only when the kids are nearby… or when you are. The silence in the car is warm, heavy.  Not awkward. Just… charged.

The road unwinds in long, quiet stretches. Golden pools of streetlight glide over the windshield. The car hums.

You rest your elbow on the window, watching the blur of passing houses. Steve glances at you a few times—quick, flickering looks from under his lashes, like he’s trying to find the right words but they keep slipping away. They’re the kind he thinks you don’t notice.

Halfway down the road, pulling into the Mayfield driveway, he inhales deeply.

“You know…” he says quietly, “you’re… really good with her.”

You shrug off his words. “She just needed someone to listen.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I mean… you’re good with all of them. With the boys. And El.” He pauses, fingers tightening on the steering wheel.

“—and with me.”

Your heart stutters. “I never expected anyone to care about me the way you do.” His brown eyes meet yours as he puts the car in park.

It’s subtle, but the way his voice dips? The way the words feel heavier than they should? It does something to you.

You try to play it off, but your pulse betrays you, thrumming in your ears. You can feel it in your wrists, in your ribs, and in your throat. 

“Somebody has to be the calm one,” you say softly.

Steve huffs a laugh, warm and self-deprecating.  “Yeah. Well. That’s definitely not me.”

You pretend to look out the window, steadying your breath.  “You don’t give yourself enough credit,” you murmur.

“You give me too much,” he replies.

“That’s not true.” He shifts his hand on the center console. Yours shifts too. Barely, casually. Maybe not casually at all.

Your pinkies brush. And Steve freezes—just a breath, just a heartbeat—but long enough for the air between you to thicken, warm and electric with currents of tension.

He doesn’t pull away and neither do you.

“Thanks,” he whispers, almost too quiet. “For being you.”

Your heartbeat answers for you and you let your hand drift the final few centimetres until your pinkies tough tentatively. Steve exhales and neither of you pulls away.

• ж • ж •

IV. School Pick-Up

The Hawkins High School parking lot looks like a battlefield every weekday at 3:15 p.m.—car exhaust drifting in the cold air, teachers shouting instructions like air-traffic controllers, and children flooding through the front doors in unpredictable, chaotic waves.

You’re already tense just pulling in. Picking up Will always stirs something in your chest: protectiveness, guilt, that familiar edge of worry you’ve never really shaken since he came home from the Upside Down. Even on normal days, you watch the doors like he might need you in the span of a heartbeat.

You exhale, trying to shake it off. Will is safe. School is just school. Your fingers tighten around the wheel anyway.

You turn into one of the few remaining spots—and then a flash of gold catches your eye.

Of course. The BMW.

You watch as Steve swings into the spot right next to yours with practiced ease, like the two of you rehearsed this moment. Which is ridiculous. Except he really does show up at the same time as you more often than not, and you really have noticed. And part of you hates that you’ve noticed, and the other part—some stubborn, traitorous part—really, really likes it.

Your heart jumps a little before you can stop it. Great. Fantastic. Wonderful.

You open your door and step out just as he does, and his face lights up instantly, as if your presence was the best thing he could’ve seen in this entire parking lot disaster.

“You doing the afternoon pickup too?” He asks, jogging a few easy steps toward you.

His tone is casual, but his eyes flick over you with that warm, open softness you’re still not used to. You fight the flutter of it.

“Yep. My mom’s working late, again.” Your voice sounds normal. You feel anything but.

His expression dips into something gentler. “Ah. I’m here for Dustin and Max. They wanna check out some new arcade game or some nerdy shit like that.”

The image of Steve watching aimlessly as Dustin and Max school each other on some arcade game is… absurdly cute. Dangerous thoughts. You push it away.

You’re about to say something back, something normal, something friendly, something not obviously lovesick, when the school doors burst open.

A tidal wave of kids floods out.

“Steve! I’ve been waiting forever!” Max yells, barreling toward him with her skateboard like she owns the pavement.

At the same second, you spot Will weaving through the crowd, his backpack bouncing. The way he breaks into a grin when he sees you cracks your chest open a little. He still looks so small coming out of a building so huge.

“You’re here! Finally!” He gasps when he reaches you, even though you’re early.

You laugh and ruffle his hair. “Nice to see you too.”

And that’s when the universe decides to absolutely annihilate you.

A teacher—you think she’s one of the kids’ English teachers—approaches you and Steve with that warm, frazzled, end-of-day smile teachers wear for parents like armor.

“Oh, good! There you are!” She chirps. “Your kids were very well-behaved today.”

Your brain trips over itself so hard you actually blink. Your kids?

Beside you, Steve goes rigid. Max snorts so loudly she almost chokes. You and Steve make the exact same face—wide-eyed, frozen, about to malfunction.

“Our what?” You stammer, but Steve jumps in, panicked.

“Oh—they—um—only one of them is mine,” He blurts.

You whip your head toward him. Only one of them is his? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

He realizes what he just said in real-time, eyes going feral. “I mean—none!. None are mine, I don’t—I’m just, you know?” He shrugs his shoulders in panic, struggling to get his point across. You know what he means…he’s just picking them up. But the teacher in front of you doesn’t seem to get the message.

Will is wheezing against your arm, absolutely delighted.

Dustin materializes out of the crowd like a summoned gremlin. “What is happening?” He demands—but then the teacher smiles fondly at him too, like he’s your collective third child, and he looks like Christmas arrived early.

“Oh my god,” He whispers, nudging you and watching Steve with utter amusement. “Oh my god, this is amazing.”

“Sir,” the teacher says kindly to Steve, patting his arm like he’s having a breakdown, “You don’t have to explain anything. Parenting is hard.”

You swear you see Steve’s soul momentarily leave his body. Max crosses her arms. “Yeah, Dad, stop being weird.”

Your jaw drops. You’re 97% certain Steve just lost the will to live.

“MAX,” he hisses, voice cracking.

You try—really try—not to laugh. But a strangled sound escapes anyway, and you have to hide your mouth behind your hand before you openly lose it. The teacher, blissfully unaware of the carnage she’s caused, waves cheerfully and moves on to the next cluster of kids.

Will is practically vibrating. “You two should get matching minivans!”

“Don’t. Even,” you warn him, but your cheeks are already burning.

Steve looks like he’s seriously considering changing his name and moving to another state. “Okay, shitheads.Nobody ever speaks of this again. Got it?” He points to each of them with an intensity you adore.

“No promises Dad,” Dustin cackles.

You start steering Will toward your car before he throws more gasoline on the fire. Your heart is still thumping, too fast, too warm, and you’re terrified it’s obvious.

But then—something prickles at the back of your neck.

You glance over your shoulder. Steve is still standing beside his BMW, leaning one elbow on the roof, watching you like he doesn’t want this moment to end. Like you’re something he’s memorizing.

When your eyes meet, he says aloud: We’d be cool parents though.

Everything inside you short-circuits. You pretend not to hear him, but a small smile creeps its way onto your face. Your hand slips, keys nearly tumbling. Will looks up at you with raised eyebrows. “Why do you look like that?”

“Headache,” you say immediately. 

Will squints. “You’re the weirdest person I know.”

You don’t look back again. You don’t trust yourself not to melt into a puddle in front of the entire school—but even as you close the car door, you swear you can still feel Steve’s grin pressed somewhere under your skin.

You’d make great parents, you think.

And on the way out, you’re nearly certain you hear Dustin ask Steve, “So, between me and Max, which one of us is yours?”

And you can’t help but laugh…you wonder how he’s going to get out of that one.

• ж • ж •

+ I. When acting like a couple ends in becoming a real couple.

Your house always feels a little small on nights like this.

Not physically—God knows Joyce keeps the place spotless, every corner well-loved and lived-in—but emotionally, the walls feel closer when the whole Party is together. Their energy ricochets around the room: loud, sharp, earnest, and chaotic. You’ve grown used to it by now: the mess, the noise, the unpredictability, but even so, every movie night walks that thin line between heartwarming and total combustion.

Tonight lands firmly on the combustion side. It happens fast, so fast that you don’t notice the exact moment the tension shifts. One moment the kids are debating movie choices, the next they’re fighting over pizza, and it devolves—fast.

Mike grabs the last slice before Dustin’s hand even reaches the plate.

“I called it!” Dustin erupts, shoulders shooting up like he’s about to engage in mortal combat.

Mike clutches the slice to his chest. “Calling doesn’t count!”

Dustin’s mop of curly hair takes up most of the space in your vision. He lifts an eyebrow with conviction,“Uh, yes it does!”

“It actually doesn’t!”

Somewhere behind them, Lucas shouts, “You’re both idiots!” which does absolutely nothing to de-escalate the situation.

On the other side of the room, Max throws her head back with a guttural noise of disgust before bracing her hands on the wall and storming down the hall. The bathroom door slams so hard the vibration echoes into your teeth.

Will tries to intervene once—very softly, very hesitantly—but Mike snaps something over his shoulder without thinking, and Will immediately shrinks back, retreating toward the end of the couch like he wishes he could disappear into it.

El stares at the TV remote with growing frustration. You know what she’s thinking. Maybe she could fix the evening with her powers if she tried hard enough, and you swear you see her jaw tremble.

You know the signs. You’ve babysat these kids long enough. Once one kid spirals, the rest follow like dominos.

You inhale through your nose, prepared to wade into the emotional battlefield, and then you look up. Steve, standing by the kitchen counter, meets your gaze across the living room. His gaze immediately grounds you.

What happens next is wordless and instinctive. It’s a practiced rhythm you didn’t even know you had with him—but apparently you do, because the two of you fall into perfect sync without so much as a nod.

You head for the emotional fires; Steve heads for the practical ones.

It’s almost choreographed, like some part of you already knew how to do this together. You calm the feelings while Steve stabilizes the room.

You move to Will first, because the defeated slope of his shoulders is impossible to ignore. His anxiety is a quiet thing, but you’ve learned to read him better than anyone. While you try not to treat him any differently than the others, he’s your brother. And he’s been through far too much for a kid his age. 

You crouch down. “Hey,” you say gently, touching his elbow. “Take a breath with me, okay?”

Will’s eyes flicker up to yours, glassy and full of unshed worry. But he listens. He always listens.

You breathe slowly. He follows. He steadies.

“There you go,” you whisper. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

His shoulders sag with relief.

Next, you make your way down the hall and knock on the bathroom door. “Max? It’s me.”

A beat. Then a muffled, “They’re idiots.”

You lean your forehead against the door, trying not to smile. “They are,” you admit. “Certified idiots. But they’re also your idiots, and they’ll feel pretty terrible if you stay mad all night.”

Silence. Then a very soft: “I’ll come out in a minute. Don’t tell them I said anything.”

You smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

When you head back down to the living room, the entire energy of the room has shifted and it only takes you one glance to know why. Steve has transformed the space.

The lights are now dimmed to something warm and soft. He’s grabbed popcorn from the microwave as it's quietly replenished, and the last slice of pizza has been mysteriously replaced with two half-slices so no one feels cheated.

Blankets have been pulled down from the hall closet, unfolded and ready. He hands pillows to each of them with ease. The chaos now feels smoothed, softened, and rearranged into a soft sense of comfort.

Somehow he even got Mike and Dustin to sit, still glaring at each other but at least seated, their anger settling from wildfire to the faint glow of an ember.

You meet Steve’s eyes over the room. It hits you in the chest—unexpected and overwhelming—that this feels easy. Natural. Not like something you’re improvising, but something you’ve done a hundred times together. You’ve been a team long before either of you admitted it.

And one by one, the kids melt into calmness.

Will curls into a pillow pile, comforted. El leans against Max who has now rejoined the group, her frustration dissolving with sleep. Lucas steals a corner of a blanket and tucks it under his chin. Mike and Dustin argue, but it's half-hearted now, the kind of bickering they only do once they feel safe.

It happens gradually, but beautifully. Their breathing evens out, their fighting drains away, and instead of chaos, your living room becomes a cocoon of trust, warmth, and soft teenage exhaustion.

And the whole time, you and Steve move in tandem: adjusting blankets, soothing frayed edges, nudging cups out of danger, exchanging small, fond looks that make your stomach twist.

And by the time they’ve all settled, the house is quiet except for the hum of the TV.

You and Steve end up on the couch. It’s totally not intentional, but because there’s nowhere else to sit. A single blanket is draped over both of you, and though neither of you comments on it, you feel every point of contact like a spark.

As you sit there, the kids finally asleep, the movie plays low in the background. Your knees suddenly brush and you rest your shoulders together. Your hands settle close, almost touching on the cushion. Steve’s warmth bleeds into you, calm and familiar and terrifyingly comforting. When you look over, his gaze is already on you. In the way that you’re noticing more and more often, it’s soft around the edges, lit by something you’ve never seen from him so openly before.

In a voice so gentle it feels like an intimate secret, he says “Sometimes I feel like we really are their parents. I mean, we’re already doing the hardest parts.”

Your heart feels like it skips a beat. He continues, watching you with a bravery that makes something twist in your chest. “Maybe,” he murmurs, eyes flicking to your lips for the briefest, most devastating second, “we should just make it official.”

It lands differently than you expected. Not teasing, not flirty, and it certainly doesn’t seem like a joke. He’s serious. Nervous. Hopeful.

You swallow, because suddenly there’s a whole confession rising inside you—a tidal wave of things you’ve been too scared to voice.

“Hmm. You do make everything easier,” you hum teasingly, then seriously, you whisper. “With the kids. With Will. With… everything really. When you’re here, it feels like I don’t have to hold everything alone.”

His expression breaks open, softens, deepens. “You don’t,” he says, voice thick. “You never have to, not with me. We have something real, and something I never want to lose (Y/n).”

Your heart surges. “Are you sure you really want this?” You ask, searching his face for any uncertainty.

He nods without hesitation. “Yeah.” His tone carries with so much confidence, you wish you could express yourself like him. “I want you and I want this. I have for a long time.”

Something in you unravels. Something else roots itself deeper. You lean in slowly, giving him time to pull away if you’ve misread this—if this isn’t what he meant—

But he moves with you. You meet halfway, and he meets you with as much care for you as you have for him.

The kiss is slow and warm and breathtaking in its tenderness. Steve exhales against your mouth like he’s been waiting for this—for you—longer than he knows how to admit. His hand finds your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek in a touch so gentle it makes your eyes sting.

You melt into him as he pulls you closer, and the world narrows and expands all at once.

It feels inevitable, yet so so right. 

Another boring day at school, (Y/n) watched as the teacher in front rattled on about Greek history that they could care less about. Not that Greek mythos was not interesting but rather teachers had the magical ability to sap any potential interest or exciting factors from everything they did. (Y/n) looked over to Quentin who was struggling between trying not to fall asleep and taking notes, the two of them have been dating for at least five months since Nancy rejected him, again. Poor guy, at least he seems happier now with (Y/n). Tearing a corning from their notebook (Y/n) started scribbling out a message for Quentin.

‘Want to come over this evening to Netflix but not chill, like Netflix and cuddles not anxiety, also no sex. I didn’t mean to make it sound like a threat.’

(Y/n) quickly toss the paper at Quentin’s hands and he turns to them shocked before smiling, (Y/n) watch him unfold the paper and scribble his answer with a chuckle under his breath. Unlike (Y/n) barbarian ways he hands them the paper.

‘Sure, if you don’t mind me passing out.’

(Y/n) click their pen continuing the message,

‘Don’t worry, we can have a nap date. Our souls will get to know each other as we pass into the unconsciousness and cuddle, that’s how it works, right?’

Quentin catches the paper this time and smiles at the response, he thought the way (Y/n) responds to things adorable and endearing.

===

(Y/n) entered their bedroom with tea and some cookies, “Are you sure you don’t want some tea? Chamomile or anything?” They asked Quentin who was sitting on their bed.

“If I drink chamomile, I will pass out drooling on you.” He replied with a drowsy smile.

“Who said that was a bad thing? Besides you could use the rest.” (Y/n) chortled out.

They placed the mug and cookies on the bedside table before moving to their laptop, Quentin picked the movie today. He was always fond of lighthearted movies, mostly romantic ones. (Y/n) found it sweet, Quentin was always was a bit of a romantic. When (Y/n) introduced him to studio Ghibli it became his new obsession, he wanted to watch all their movies with (Y/n). Quentin’s favourites are ‘Ponyo’ and ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’. Sitting down (Y/n) readies ‘Castle In The Sky’, Quentin already snuggled under their blankets.

“Can I have head scratches?” Quentin looks over to (Y/n) with puppy eyes, he knows they can resist him.

“Of course, come here” Moving the laptop aside (Y/n) pulled Quentin on top of them and rested their head on top of his.

Pressing play Quentin seemed to relax, he was always anxious when Quentin was by himself, but mostly around sleep or when he becomes drowsy. (Y/n) however, seemed to help his anxiety, when they were around Quentin he felt less in danger because he knew (Y/n) would wake him if something happened. While (Y/n) didn’t understand the source of all this anxiety they tried to support Quentin the best they can, and he appreciated it. Quentin wanted to open up and explain everything that happened with him and Freddy but those mental wounds were too fresh, he would try only to end in a panic attack. Quentin was beyond thankful that you were so supportive, in a way he was thankful that things didn’t work out with Nancy because he had (Y/n) now. Quentin became slightly co-dependent on you, he still struggled to sleep and you were the only thing to ease him so he would reserve proper sleep when he was with (Y/n). (Y/n)’s head scratches were his weakness though, any anxiety or insomnia left the moment they gently scratched at his scalp, it was like a light switch.

As the movie played Quentin leaned into the hand in his hair, breathing out pent up anxiety of the day. With his other hand he grabbed theirs and laid a kiss on (Y/n)’s knuckles, they smiled before leaning down to kiss Quentin’s temple.

“Your adorable, you know that?” Quentin turned to look up at (Y/n) and they took the opportunity to kiss him.

“You’re the adorable one, not to mention perfect in every way.” Quentin softly replied on (Y/n)’s lips.

“What do you mean, I annoy you relentlessly.” (Y/n) teased out.

Quentin leaned to properly look at (Y/n), the movie already being forgotten “No seriously, you’ve supported me through everything and didn’t abandon me when things became tough.”

“Quentin.” (Y/n) they started only for him to stop (Y/n) with a kiss.

Quentin was now fully turned around with his hands planted on the bed by (Y/n)’s armpits as he leaned down to gently kiss them. (Y/n) held Quentin’s face before opening their mouth slightly to allow him to deepen the kiss. Quentin eagerly accepted sliding his tongue in tame passion, this was his thanks. The both of them broke to breathe and Quentin lied his face into (Y/n)’s neck, taking in their sweet scent and pressing innocent kisses there.

“I love you.” In a whisper Quentin mutters into (Y/n)'s neck, he tightens his grip around their middle. Quentin wanted to live in this moment forever, the affection and pure love he felt both from himself and (Y/n) was enough to warm his entire body from the core. Quentin snuggled his face deeper.

(Y/n) leaned into his head and one of their hands scratched the back of his scalp, their other arm tightly latched around him. “I love you too, more than you’ll ever know.”

Leon: He's feisty all throughout the trial, so it doesn't really surprise him all that much when you decide to focus on him—and him only. It's a little annoying that he can't get his bearings back after being unhooked, but when he notices you carrying him past two or three hooks, he decides to confront you about it.

When he does, he asks why you won't just kill him, because toying so much with him is just cruel. But you laugh to yourself and keep him over your shoulder before putting him down and kneeling by his hip.

You tug on one of the charms on his belt loop, mesmerized by it since you're finally able to see it close up. "This is what that was about? You could have just said so..." he tells you, but you both know that's not true. Once you're satisfied, you let him go free since you gave him such a hard time, but he won't forget it.

You'll find him staring at the charms on your hooks next time.

Quentin: Unlike Leon, he isn't so confident when it comes to escaping you given his past experiences, so it's not difficult to get him to give up. Once he realizes he can't speed through the trial and flee without being noticed, he'll be annoyed and stop trying so hard.

Lucky for you, this means it's easy to grab him out of a locker and sling him over your shoulder and hook him, all in the first couple minutes of the trial. He'll hang there and rolls his eyes, mocking you as you stand in front of him and focus on his charms.

— You thought he was kind of a weirdo.

I mean, no one can really blame you. Despite how his eyes had an adorable naïveté to them…

… or how attractive he was,

the staring thing was a bit creepy.

— Ever since the first day at the academy, you could feel his pale blue eyes burning into your head.

Through PT, drills, classroom instructions, the shooting range, even lunch, you could always feel him staring at you.

It was becoming a problem.

A BIG problem.

And it didn’t help that he always found a way to be near you.

Physical training? He’s doing push-ups right next to you.

Drills? You can practically feel him breathing down your neck as you march.

Classroom instructions? He’ll always manage to snag a desk near you.

Shooting range? In the spot next to you.

Lunch? It’s guaranteed he’s at the table behind you.

— The other trainees are definitely well aware of his behavior.

It’s not like he’s subtle, with him staring at you in broad daylight.

Some think it’s just an adorable little puppy crush.

And, on the surface, they aren’t entirely wrong.

It’s just him looking at you with adoration and wanting to be at your side, right?

Maybe he just looks up to you, thinking of you as a role model.

Anytime they catch him staring at you, they’ll usually do a bit of teasing, causing his cheeks to slightly burn.

“Thought you passed your middle school crush phase a while ago, Kennedy.”

There are a handful of trainees that call you lucky, since you’ve gotten the attention of one of the top police academy students.

Not to mention one of the most attractive students, too.

— But some find it just as creepy as you.

Like the guy who happened to catch a glimpse of Leon’s phone lock screen.

It was you.

Walking to your car.

Seemingly unaware of your picture being taken.

That’s kind of a red flag.

There’s also that one female trainee who saw Leon stuff a jacket in his duffel bag.

Right after you said you lost your jacket of that same color…

Others just find it unnerving that he finds time to stare at you for almost the entire day.

One dude joked that he probably finds time to stare at you 24/7.

You did not like that inference.

A lot of pitying looks are thrown your way when Leon’s hovering near you.

It’s nice to know some people have sympathy for you, at least.

— Things go missing a lot.

Pencils for jotting down notes during classroom instructions will mysteriously disappear from your desk.

Gear like your pistol holster won’t be where you last put it after PT.

Even clothing articles from your locker go missing, never to be found again.

You’ve gotten the reputation of “the forgetful cadet” amongst the sergeants because of this.

At first, you thought it was just the other trainees playing a prank.

There’s no way you could lose track of yet another packet of sticky notes.

But then you start to realize just who recovers these items almost every single time.

Leon Scott Kennedy.

After a minute or two of checking around your desk, you’ll feel a tap on your shoulder and see that he’s holding your pencil.

“It rolled off your desk,” he’ll say with that same giddy smile.

Frantically looking around for your holster — and cursing yourself for setting it down “for just a second” — your name will be called, followed by Leon holding up your holster.

“I think this is yours,” he’ll say with a bright expression.

In fact, one time, you remember confronting a trainee who’s notorious for stealing other people’s sticky notes.

“Oh, look,” they said. “Maybe your dog found them.”

You turned around to see Leon holding your pack of sticky notes in his hand, a proud smile on his face.

You’ve gotta be kidding me.

— As stated before, your clothing articles are never to be seen again.

Shirts, jackets, sweatshirts, they all seem to vanish without a trace.

Again, you thought it was just the other trainees playing a prank on you.

But then that female cadet who saw Leon shove a jacket in his bag spoke up.

“I think your culprit is that Kennedy guy.”

At this point, you weren’t surprised.

The thought of him somehow getting into your locker still majorly creeped you out, of course.

And, of course, there was no way you could confirm your suspicions.

All you could do is ask around about your missing clothing items, hoping that they would turn up without having anything to do with Leon.

But your suspicion were only got stronger when you caught him with a familiar looking hoodie under his arm.

— You decided to finally confront him.

“Is that my hoodie?”

Leon’s shoulders slightly tensed at your question. “Huh?”

“I asked if that was my hoodie,” you said.

“Uh, no,” he answered, pushing the hoodie further under his arm. “Wha— why would it be your hoodie?”

“It just looks awfully similar to the one I lost a couple days ago,” you explained with a skeptical tone.

“Well, it isn’t,” he defended. “It’s mine.”

The way he started to get aggressive made you feel slightly uneasy.

“I was just asking,” you clarified, “since clothes from my locker have been disappearing, and—”

He interrupted you. “And you think it’s me?!”

At this point, a small crowd was watching this exchange.

“It just looked like my hoodie,” you professed. “That’s all, man. Sorry for upsetting you.”

You then decided that a hoodie wasn’t worth agitating one of the academy’s top students.

That could get ugly fast.

Before you walked away, though, you caught a glimpse of the guilty expression on Leon’s face.

He looked like a puppy that just tore up a couch.

You bit back your desire to ask him any further questions.

When you got home that evening, you walked into your room to see a mass of clothes on your bed.

You brushed it off as laundry you dumped on your bed that morning.

But then you noticed the jacket you lost a couple weeks ago, the training shirt that mysteriously disappeared when you changed for drills, and — more importantly — the hoodie Leon claimed wasn’t yours.

It all somehow ended up in your room.

Leon

"I can do it, Leon," you said with a sigh. "It's just a bus ride from work. I've done it hundreds of times before you and I were even talking."

"I'm sorry, I don't like you taking the bus," Leon said over the phone. "It makes me anxious that you're on there alone and anything could happen."

"I told you to stop watching 'Speed' if it's going to make you like this," you said, chuckling at his exasperated huff.

"You know what I mean and it's not because I keep watching 'Speed.' I keep watching it because Keanu Reeves is an underrated actor and his chemistry with Sandra Bullock is amazing," Leon said. You could just see the smile tugging at his lips as he was starting to ease up on you.

"I will text you at each stop, there's only two, and when I get home, okay?" You said as you boarded the bus, swiping your metro card before taking a seat.

"What if I meet you at the first stop? I can get off work in the next five minutes and meet you there so you don't have to take the full ride," he said.

"Leon, it's okay. I'll be fine. It's just the bus, one of the safest ways to travel," you said, getting a bit irritated that he wouldn't let up. Being protective was one thing, but this was going to a whole new level. "What is up with you? You sound like you've read every horror story about public transit and think it's the devil."

"I just. . . Look, please text me at each stop and when you get home. Please?" He voice was tight, worrying you a bit.

"Le, what's going on?" You asked softly, taking a seat by a window. "You're a protective guy, but this is going overboard, even for you."

"Work," he said. "I can't talk about it. Right now at least, but just please keep me updated."

"How about this," you said, wanting to help ease his mind. "I'll stay on the line with you for the entire ride, it's only half an hour, okay? We don't have to talk, but you'll know I'm okay on the ride."

"Thank you," Leon said with a deep sigh. "Hey, I love you."

"I love you too, dork," you said with a soft giggle.

Chris

"Who is that?" One of your friends asks, looking over your shoulder.

Not two hours ago you had kissed your boyfriend goodbye for the evening to go pub crawling with your friends that you hadn't seen in years. Time had gotten away from you all, but the planets and stars had aligned to allow you all to meet up at the dingy side of town that had the best places to get cheap drinks and less crowds.

Chris had said he'd be busy with work so it worked out for you two to have separate evening plans. Of course you didn't tell him which bars you were going to, he would have insisted on coming just to be 'present' and that would have killed the mood with you and your friends. You loved him dearly and knew he could be over protective at times, but you just wanted to have some fun with abandonment.

Maybe dance on a table or two while your friends cheered you on or got into mischief, all with a sober driver of course.

But by the time you got to the second bar, you had a strange feeling of being watched. It wasn't enough to freak you out and a quick glance around told you that there wasn't anyone being creepy or lurking so you ignored it. Until your friend had that look of interest and lust, pointing to someone at the bar across the room.

Turning around, you nearly lost it.

"Ignore him," you said curtly, turning back to face your friends, knowing that once you spotted him, Chris would expect you to come over. Icing him out a bit was the least he was owed.

"Why? He's hot as fuck and probably kisses hard," your friend said with a giggle.

"Because he's my soon to be ex-boyfriend if he comes over here," you hissed, earning looks from the table. Never let it be said that your friends weren't good. Once you made it clear who it was and why you were peeved, they took note and ignored him completely.

Your group continued talking, ordering more drinks to spite your silent watcher. Finally unable to hold it any longer, you got up to use the restroom. You were definitely tipsy, swaying a bit as you walked, but not too far gone by any means. Finishing your business, you exited the toilet to find Chris leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed over his broad chest. Were you not pissed, both drunk and angry, you would have tried to flirt as a joke.

"Can I help you?" You asked, sighing as you mirrored his position.

"You didn't say you were coming to this side of town," he said.

"Yeah, because I knew you would do this," you said, rolling your eyes. "Go home Chris. I'm out with friends having some fun. We're in a group, we have a sober driver, and we're not getting messy drunk."

"Except you're in the sketchy part of town. You know I hate coming here," he said, standing up straight with his hands on his hips.

"Then why are you here? I don't hate it here, you're making yourself miserable doing this," you hissed. "Go home. I'll message when we're heading back."

"I don't like leaving you here on your own. Too many things could go wrong so easily," he said, eyeing someone who was passing by to use the restroom.

"I'm not on my own! God, I hate it when you do this," you snapped, throwing your hands in the air. "You get over protective and smothering and it pisses me off!"

"You don't want me caring about you then? Is that what this is?" Chris snapped back.

Never let it be said that you and Chris were complete opposites. The similarities brought you together, but also made you two butt heads on occasion. You were both stubborn and didn't back down when you thought you were right. While he was physically imposing, you didn't let it intimidate you one bit. While others might see this giant of a man looking dangerous as you two glared at one another, you knew he would never do anything to hurt you.

"I want to have fun with my friends on my own. We are fine and safe and I don't want you following us around like some stalker/Batman wannabe. I give you your space and trust you, why don't you do the same for me?"

"I trust you, but it's everyone else that I don't," he said.

"Then that's something you have to deal with and not force on me," you said, shaking your head. "I'm going back to my friends now, go home."

Chris was quiet a moment before sighing heavily.

"Fine, but message me if you leave the bar to go to another," he said, relaxing his shoulders a bit. "Please?"

"Of course," you said, patting him on the chest. "I love you, go home you big nerd."

"Love you too," he said with a snort, rolling his eyes before leaning in for a quick kiss. "I'll see you at home."

Another quick kiss and he was gone. Sighing in relief, you watched him leave before going back to your group of friends who had been watching the whole thing.

"Do we need to gang up on him with pool noodles?" A friend asked.

"I would say yes, but he left," you said with a chuckle. "Now, who wants shots?"

Carlos

"Hey cutie, how's it going?"

You looked up from the book you were reading the back of to see a fairly attractive man smiling at you in the same row of books. It was a later summer afternoon and you were waiting for your boyfriend to get off work so you figured an ice coffee and book browsing as a good way to kill the time. A quick text let him know where you were when he came to meet up with you for dinner.

"Excuse me?" You said, looking at him a little confused. Was he talking to you?

"How's it going?" He asked again, taking a step closer. It wasn't exactly intimidating, he was still almost three feet away and wasn't being too rude. Calling you 'cutie' was weird, but not exactly the worst offense.

"Oh, uh, it's going," you said, giving him a polite smile and nod before looking back at the book you had in your hand.

"You know, the author of that one is coming out with the finale book of the series this fall," he said, inching closer. Again, not that threatening. He kept his arms close to his own body, didn't raise his voice, or even look anywhere else other than your face. Were you not in a relationship you might have been open to the conversation more.

"Oh yeah? Cool," you said, putting the book back to look at another. While he wasn't setting off any alarms, you figured he would get the hint that you didn't want to really talk to him. Short answers that weren't open ended, not keeping eye contact, etc. You could be bad at social cues as well sometimes, so you gave him the benefit of the doubt.

"What kind of coffee is that?" He asked, turning to look at the shelves as he moved closer.

"Um, not sure. I asked for something special with caramel and the barista made it. You could probably ask them and find out," you said with a shrug, taking a step to the side to distance yourself.

"I'll have to do that," he said with a chuckle. "What books do you like?"

"Just. . . Books," you said, getting more irritated than nervous. "I just like reading whatever. I'm just killing time till my boyfriend gets off work." There, maybe he'll understand that.

"Oh yeah? Is he running late or something? You've been here a while," he said, earning a look. You narrowed your eyes at him, ready to throw hands when there was a deep voice clearing their throat behind you.

"No, he's here," Carlos said, standing directly behind you. You didn't have to see his face to know he was pissed. While he wasn't a jealous man, Carlos was protective. He would let you take care of yourself up to a point and right then was that point. "But thanks for the concern."

The guy whipped his head to look at Carlos, realizing how much bigger the other was and decided to cut his loses and run.

"Sorry," the guy mumbled, putting a book back as he nearly fell over himself to get away.

"Good job, probably made him pee himself," you said with a snicker.

"Good, maybe he'll learn some fucking manner," Carlos grumbled, wrapping an arm around you to pull you close for a kiss. "Has he been bothering you for long?"

"Naw, just like five minutes or something," you said with a shrug, giving him a peck on the lips. "I was handling it fine."

"Till he wasn't taking the hint," Carlos said, staying close as he could. He'd seen others flirt with you and watch you shoot them down without a problem, it was when they didn't understand that you didn't want them that he took action and offense. "He said you had been here a while. Fucker was watching you the whole damn time."

"Easy Tiger," you said, patting his chest. "He's a harmless guy that got scared off by a few words and a big guy. Probably not the sharpest tool in the shed, but harmless."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Carlos said as you two began to walk towards the front of the store. "I'm gonna let the staff know. That's weird as hell and I don't like it."

"Carlos," you said with a sigh, but knew he wouldn't be talked out of it. Not only was he protective of you, but anyone else who might need it. You loved that quality in him, but sometimes he went too far.

On the way out, he stopped a staff member to let them know about the guy, getting a thanks in return before seeing the workers have a short huddle.

"You just gotta save everyone," you said with a snort.