sarcasm & witchcraft

Emergency commissions still ongoing, as i have not been adopted as a wayward clone by someone with a Leon S. Kennedy salary

So @cosybunny has infected my life with her Wet Stray Zeno AU, and I've been drawing like a woman possessed. I tried something completely different with the mixed media approach and holy shit it was a lot of fun!

where do I start??? oh my goodness. the fucking DETAILS are immaculate and it's packed with reference to things I yapped about. I've already integrated several of these into my AU now. Look at him with stars embroidered underneath his tac vest. The matching trinkets with every outfit. His trinkets in general! Emily's black cat accessories to Zeno's white tiger accessories. The oversized sweater for the sleepy boy who gets to wake up slowly now. The scars. The text. The brotherly shenanigans with Jake while wearing something he sewed together himself. THE BUN!

He comes home at 3:12 AM after a mission that took three days and also his will to live.

He doesn’t turn on the lights or announce himself, he just heads to your kitchen in full tac gear and opens the fridge.

He drinks orange juice straight from the carton like the raw vitamin C will somehow fix all the cuts, bruises, and trauma.

You walk in half-asleep, flicking on the light with an audible click.

He goes completely still, like a raccoon you’ve just caught in your kitchen. He's too tired, too committed, and obviously considering whether freezing counts as a survival strategy.

He pauses.

You pause.

Then he nods once like this is a completely normal household interaction, tips the juice back, and finishes the carton.

He tries to shoot it into the open trash can.

Misses.

Shuffles across the kitchen, picks it up, and gently places it in the trash can.

you just blink at him.

"they trust you to save the world?" you ask.

leonard

scott

narc

officer

kenny

kenneth

You find it by accident.

A wooden box tucked into the back of a closet, beneath old mission files and a winter coat Leon hasn't worn in years.

It isn't locked, which surprises you. He isn't secretive, but there are parts of him that always seem closed anyway. 

You lift the lid and look inside. There is no order to it. No labels in the heap, no dates cataloguing anything. It's just...things.

A movie ticket.

A dried flower pressed between the pages of a notebook.

A receipt folded in half.

A photograph.

You pick it up. It's one you don't remember taking. Leon is sitting on the porch steps outside your old apartment, sleeves rolled to his elbows, sunlight caught in his hair. He's looking down at something you've said, smiling faintly. Not looking at the camera. Looking at you.

Your throat tightens.

Beneath it is a note. Four words in your handwriting.

Drive safe. Love you.

Nothing more. Nothing important.

Except apparently it was.

You keep digging through the box and realize it's a collection of things so small they should have been forgotten.

The paper wristband from a fair.

A grocery list.

A birthday card.

A drawing done in a child's unsteady hand.

It was like he was collecting proof of something, as though someone spent years gathering fragments of happiness before they could disappear. Or more likely, as though someone did not trust himself to remember.

You exhale slowly.

This isn't a memory box. It's a reliquary. A shrine built from ordinary things.

You don't hear Leon come in. You only feel his presence when he stops in the doorway.

You turn to him and hold up the note. The tiny scrap of paper. The one that took you all of five seconds to write.

"Leon."

His gaze falls to it. Something passes across his face and suddenly you understand that he knows exactly what is in this box.

Every item.

Every scrap.

Every faded photograph.

He could probably tell you where each one came from.

He probably knew the date, what the weather was like, what you were wearing, because apparently, he logged that information with almost religious zeal. 

You have the strange feeling that he has opened this box on nights when sleep wouldn't come and sat alone in the dark with these remnants of a life he never expected to have.

"You kept all of this?"

His expression softens.

"'Course I did."

You stare at him and see him suddenly, not as the man you married, but as the man who has attended more funerals than birthdays, and the man who learned young that people can be there one day and gone the next, and the man who spent years believing happiness was something borrowed rather than owned.

Suddenly the box feels unbearably sacred because none of these things are valuable. At least, not to anyone else. The paper is yellowing. The photographs are fading. Most people would have thrown them away, but Leon kept them because they prove something.

That you were here.

That he was loved.

That something good stayed.

His eyes meet yours, and for the first time, you wonder if devotion has ever been a strong enough word for what Leon Kennedy feels. Devotion implies faith.

This feels more like reverence, like a man kneeling in the ruins of a church, carefully preserving the last evidence that God once lived there. 

And, unbelievably, to him, that God was you.

A/N: I love to make Leon Kennedy hurt, just to let us comfort him. A bit of a sadist, one might say.

Thiw also made me realize there's a damn good chance he doesn't know what a dinosaur is because the connections just never thought it valuable and how many times do bio terrorists talk about dinosaurs? Probably more then I thought now that I'm thinking about it. But the thought still stays, that man would be fascinated by a brontosaurus.

Also, as I forgot food last ask, Ive brought pasta and garlic bread for the buns

🐇🍝🐇🍞🐇 oh, the buns are munching good tonight. I'm a grown-ass adult and I still like fluttering through the toy isle for a quick hit of that childhood joy. Inflicting this on Zeno will be my pleasure.

No idea if Zeno ever even had a childhood phrase or if they fished him out of the Clone Vat as an adult and handed him a gun. /hj But definitely no toys. Maybe a puzzle he had to complete on a timer to 'develop' his fine motor control and logic skills and it was like. blank. joy and whimsy banned is from the testing site. not even fun pictures. boo.

I adore the mental image of him doing a double take at the toy isle!! He's following Leon around the supermarket like a good boy asset, probably pushing the cart because of his chronic need to be useful, and then all the colours and packaging and marketing equivalent of a blinking neon sign that says LOOK AT ME, I'M FUN catches his eye for a sec.

He doesn't say anything or act on it but every time they pass by, he turns his head to see more of it. It's kind of pathetic in a cute way. He acts extremely disinterested when Leon asks him if he wants to check it out, which is basically confirmation that he wants to check it out so bad.

All of a sudden Leon conveniently remembers that he wanted to find something nice to give to Emily. Why? Uhh. Reasons. Sure. Reasons. But oh man, it'll throw off the arbitrarily tight schedule they're totally, definitely keeping to if he does. If only he had a helpful little B.O.W. who keeps up-to-date on what this kid's latest obsession is like it's vital recon. Someone who could sweep the toy isle and find something suitable while he tackles the rest of the shopping list. Oh, hey, there's you. Fantastic. Off you go.

See. Leon's totally nailing this handler thing.

Thoughts on Zeno learning to sew. Starting with the basics, minor repairs. He probably already knows how to remove blood and other bio hazards from his clothes, or maybe he has to learn? I doubt he wants to lose his clothes, decapitation stains be damned, and leon strikes me as the type to do post-mission laundry via the garbage lol

But yes, zeno taking the time to learn the skill of mending. Maybe hes still clumsy, but he can proudly say he did it himself!

The buns took one nibble and are now attempting to integrate oatmeal cookies into their society as currency. It's not working because they keep eating them. 🍪 I've been taught how to sew but it didn't stick. my fine motor skills have some funky medical stuff going on with 'em. ZENO, on the other hand... 🪡

Leon is absolutely the type who does post-mission laundry via the garbage chute unless it's something he's emotionally attached to, like a good jacket, lol. It's actually a point in the fic that he brings kits with new outfits on missions for when whatever he's packed gets ruined. The D.S.O has a laundry & dry cleaning service that specialise in biohazard cleanup. When you're covered in infected gore, I don't think you're allowed to just chuck your shit in the washing machine with a lil plop of detergent and call it a day.

[unsent]

Saw a woman at the grocery store buying your favorite coffee creamer. Almost told her she was making a good choice. Realized I sounded insane.

[unsent]

You left one of your hair ties in my jacket pocket three weeks ago. I keep forgetting to take it out. Smells like you.

[unsent]

Mission update: Nothing exploded. Nobody got bitten. I ate a sandwich. You would've complained that I skipped vegetables.

Missed you the entire time.

[unsent]

Do you know you've completely ruined being alone for me? Before I met you I could disappear for months. Now I see something funny and immediately reach for my phone. I'm like some kind of domesticated animal.

[unsent]

I keep thinking about growing old with you.

[unsent]

Sweetheart.

What does "he's serving cunt" mean?

Actually, don't answer that.

A/N: YOUR HONOR, THIS IS A MAN WHO LOVES HIS WIFE. I will be posting a voicemail he leaves you tonight in the Princess Correspondence. Tonight at 8. Hope to see you girlies there.