fightfected.

#FIGHTFECTED. sporadic    writing  activity    &    mutuals-only    portrayal    of  leon s. kennedy   from    capcom's resident evil franchise.  study  +  headcanon  based  by  and  large, operating on vibes.  by  sara,  27  +  she  /  her. quick guidelines  beneath  the  cut.

¹  blog  navigation:  prompts.  verses + timeline. au verses. /  ²  residents:  ♡1stdaughter. ♡outshur. *elpiskey. rescuefield. iilumoria. forgotten-retrouvaille.

fingers thread through blonde, gentle enough for the time — they maintain their slight pressure as she travels down. over a sunburst scar, across a length of marring left behind by claws, and anticipation sits tense in the pit of his stomach beneath where she lays against. knows what she's doing and leon's exhale comes out intrigued. won't do a damn thing, but as insurance for later to say they both tried, ❝ gonna be late, ash. ❞ it isn't lacking amusement, it is lacking intent it should hold — how many times? how many excuses? he decides as the giggle, the 'yeah?' which is more a challenge than anything beneath the flat sheet has the weight of her breasts rise and fall against the fine hair of his abdomen he doesn't give a shit about anything outside of this room.

struck suddenly with the idea he misses her, somehow, even with every nerve on end with her, and isn't that something? leon wants to see her. his hand which isn't occupied turning, doting thumb settling behind an ear firm with want, is used to pull the bedding away. mussed a little for the efforts the night before, still damn easy on the eyes, and it's like being seen spurs her onwards. gets her moving again — the rise of leon's body towards soft lips looking for more friction. but ashley's hardly as determined to beat the rise of the sun today as she is to put him in his grave, methodically leading him there with each kiss, each pass of her over skin.

it gets to a point. she slides down, down, until his length is trapped between her and him, straining against her to rise freely. from the top of his hips, tapering down towards his groin, breath a ghost over the tip, each a rising beat in his chest, a jump of encouragement denied. has to be known though by the groan that drags out of him, the fingers in her hair tightening on instinct. her. him. the goddamned grave. they're going to be late.

drier than his bleeding heart, deceiving. all he's got for miles - hell, anyone he cares about - these days. leon's hands retreat into his pockets, backs of his fingers beneath the known weight of his firearm. he wills a god he hasn't prayed to since that night he won't have to use it. not here, not now. asking forever is too much, ❝ wetwork. ❞ leon replies simply on an exhale. he could leave it there. walk away, keep digging anywhere that isn't here. his feet are stuck, heavy, unwilling, but his mind and heart can't agree which principles he's standing on this time.

carrying on with a levity he does not feel, the crush of his heart, the mass of miles has never felt quite so much a burden, ❝ thought i was going on a vacation, they give me those sometimes. but you know? shit came up, fresh leads on a case. ❞ miles is a smart guy. always has been. coveted his brain more than anything else. he doesn't need it spelled out for him, though leon leads anyway — he wants him to say anything that'll tell him it isn't true. that he doesn't have a thing to do with it, that it has nothing to do with him looking like shit, ❝ and i figure, journalist you are, you might have already started my job for me. hoping luck strikes me twice, save me the work. ❞

there's an amount of mirth to his gaze when it lands on her; she's onto him, sharp kid. stern on him too, despite what he might have figured out of her. reckon it's no work of his own, gotta be some amount of inner-resolve and grace's influence — still, pride carries his tone, ❝ sure, kid. always is. ❞ it isn't for her to worry about, but she must catch the effort it takes for him to haul himself upwards. hell of an arm on that bastard. tentacles. whatever. it's left him sore, granted him an amount of recovery time to use as he pleases. must have been his good looks, bruises still fading and a cut on it's way to healing, that bought it for him. can't think of any other reason they'd let it ... unless they're pitying him, back to where it all started for him, the distance, the paperwork finished with brutal efficiency to get it done with.

doesn't matter right now. he's got another mission. can't say he's trained well for it, but it's light duty — she's making it that way anyway. kid sleeps more than he has in the past two decades almost. leon just wants to hang around, just another day or two to make sure they're alright. he finishes his motion now, onto his feet with a controlled exhale and broadening of his figure. no reason to worry her by looking his age. been through enough. but, ❝ tell you what: help me cook something for grace. ❞ there's something he's bad at, outside the staples of his life. doesn't think grace needs the protein though, or a shake, after a day at her office job. wouldn't kill her. it's on his brain too, get her good so when he goes back to his life hers is secure as it can be. leon knows it doesn't stop once it's 'over'. lots of life to live after, learning to live around it, in spite of it, ❝ you can read the recipe and i'll mangle the rest. ❞

noir + pinstripe.

set in raccoon city in the 1930s give or take. a two-pronged verse with diverging paths but the same backstory. born the child of immigrant parents with connections to the mafia, leon's childhood plays out more or less the same as in the canon timeline; his parents are murdered in his youth and the divergence in his life depends on who takes him in after. noir — following closer to leon's canon arc, he's taken in by the officer who responded to the crime and finds his ambitions in working with the law, namely as a detective. motivated by a string of murders taking place within the city eerily similar to his parent's, he's a dedicated and driven member of the force. pinstripe — sees the same backstory but leon remains entangled with his parents criminal contacts, perhaps via blackmail over what would happen if he ratted on what he witnessed the night his parents died. eventually rising to a respectable position as a sword of sorts for the organization, at his core he's still a good man trapped into his actions.

writing with: outshur (pinstripe) & tba.

western.

built around the period of time encapsulating the expansion of the american frontier. raised up north until his teens when he's orphaned, then traveling south and eventually landing with a couple of folk who took him in. he tires of the lawlessness of the west and good people having the rug pulled out from under them. he becomes the towns impromptu sheriff young for his strong moral compass and grows into the role as he ages. he gets on fine with all the residents, more or less, perceived a staple and golden boy of sorts, paralleling his image after the events of re4. some folk believe it, some folks mock it. when it comes to conflict, biohazards are still the game, but in an era where they are easily passed off as early indicators or odd cases of the spanish flu, the russian flu, etc. when one such plague befalls leon's town, quarantine means more 'put them down to stop the spread'; advised by the head of the town itself (this is umbrella or something adjacent he's being #manipulated the usual) to do so and seeing it as the greater good to stop more from suffering as the folks who caught it had. from the first event, there is another, and another, and leon is often sent to 'handle it'. each time, he waits. a cure, for it to pass, for it to be another case of that dancing plague he'd heard of once. he isn't so lucky.

writing with: gviirus (ada) & tba.

murder mystery.

lowkey just a parody of clue, except instead of the events taking place over a day, they're elongated. an invitation to an isolated mansion for a stay and eventual 'big dinner bash' promises nights of mingling, dancing, and general revelry. it usually isn't leon's scene, but he could use the vacation, sorely sought and often denied in his line of work, so he'll bite. when on the first night their host is found murdered, and then another of the staff the next day though no one has been allowed in or out. it points to a guest being the killer; tensions high, distrust abound, the whole sort, messier when the guests start to discover that, although strangers or pretending to be in some cases, their pasts are more entangled than initially thought. the guest list hardly seems to be coincidence the more information people give about their lives outside of the mansion — far and few as those willing may be, for one reason or the next. this is a verse that needs an amount of pre-plotting and communication between all those who participate in it. which makes it sound serious to me but it's not i just want these fools trapped i want them bickering i want them accusing each other of dastardly deeds i want a web of interconnected lore so convoluted no one can keep track of it. think clue (1985), secret passages, weird mansion with too many rooms, the sort. potentially secrets based around the events of raccoon city, before, during, and after — files found, parts taken in the downfall, tidbits of knowledge which could lead to the downfall of high ranking officials were they to get out or to one of the guests reputations or lives, even, if they were deeply involved. rather than getting involved with the government post raccoon city, leon is allowed to carry on with his life outside of it with the same threat that if he speaks, sherry won't make it. he has the knowledge of the events which took place, still, but he takes the warning to heart. he moves on to being a private investigator of sorts, but rocky, hardened, haunted by the events of that night and his inability to do more for anyone; guilt for keeping quiet. his invitation to the manor threatens sherry's life if he doesn't show and so he does.

pre events of resident evil 2.

a young man with his direction and ambitions set by the death of his family in his youth and the assistance of an officer who showed him the other side of what life had to offer; rather than organized crime, the fight against it. leon attends college post high school for two years before committing to the police academy and graduating at 21. leon's parents were italian immigrants. he was raised italian-catholic and largely speaking italian. after the death of his parents leon is entered into witness protection. his first name remains, but his last is shrouded and eventually erased for good from all government records, an extra precaution after raccoon city to make certain he was as dead on all fronts as he needed to be. in his teens he learns to dull his accent and talk around his upbringing before being taken in by his new family until he seems a seamless part of them. a bright-eyed individual, generally, if not with a morbid interest in murder cases — in-line with his initial college studies in criminology and his long-term ambitions to become an investigator. if it weren't for his drive to see them solved one might think he found the act itself seductive rather than the justice. interactions can cover any period of time before he leaves for raccoon city. it's important to note i follow leon's pre re2 lore from his 1.5 concepts.

resident evil 2.

picking canon from the original + the remake. post his through college girlfriend breaking up with him, unable to commit to following him to raccoon city, leon drinks himself too sick to arrive on time for his first day with the raccoon city police department. he meets claire redfield at the gas station on the way to town, having found it's patrons changed and violent, and upon arriving to town the two find themselves separated. his arrival to R.P.D isn't any kinder. what would've been his new life is in chaos, the outbreak having already been well in swing by the time of his late arrival to work. given the weight of continuing on and with his ideals still intact to see good done, leon pushes through towards escaping, intent on saving whoever he can manage. he meets ada wong, an agent, or so she alleges, and the two trudge onwards to umbrella's facility in search of a solution. it all begins to go tits up about the time he gets shot and separated from ada. there's a trip through the sewers which doesn't help an open wound. eventually reunited just for suspicions to be roused and confirmed, they're separated again just as quickly. he links up with claire and sherry where claire fights the final boss, leon's injury slowing him and the adrenaline which had kept him going running thin by the time escape seems to truly be happening. they walk awhile, stay in a handful of shitty motels together until the government tracks them down upon the eventual truth that leon needs a doctor post sewer water in the open wound. the plan never sees fruition; claire left to vanish in pursuit of chris, leon and sherry picked up by the government. the blackmailing leon receives here is bolstered by a festering wound and the last part of that rookie cop that just wanted to do good which survived the night: he doesn't want to see anything happen to sherry. he agrees to join their mission after an unspecified time in what the government won't name captivity. the events of resident evil 2 remain largely the same on my blog and i'm chill on which specifics are chosen for virus lore, antagonist motivations, who actually fights G5 (blog will default to claire get his ass queen), etc. most interactions with this verse will take place with muses present during the events of the game + directly post. there isn't too much flexibility in leon's schedule for that night to put him anywhere else aside from where we see him.

training + operation javier + involvement with the universe at large.

for all intents and purposes, leon is supposed dead to anyone who knew him before raccoon city. after it's bombing and his radio silence to his family, old friends, everybody, it's a fair assumption. after healing he's thrown into training under jack krauser, brutal and ceaseless and good enough distraction from what happened in the city that he devotes his energy to it 100%. he's a man on the brink being made to rebuild or be put down. further withdrawn than the bright-eyed rookie he was, dryer, the whole sort. he does have enough leeway to inform chris of claire's location at her prompting + inform a childhood friend and private detective, ark thompson, of sheena island's existence and need for investigation. his contact with sherry is none. he is not allowed to see or contact her as part of the government's ploy to continue using fear of her harm or mistreatment as a leash. the events of operation javier take place. i don't think it needs more detail given than krauser is injured and leon hears that he was made to retire post the injury, later hearing that he had disappeared or died (depending on the krauser) and believing that to be the last of a man who, though harsh, had hardened him at a point in his life where he needed to be. there's an amount of guilt that he hadn't been able to stop the injury from happening in the first place but like most things it gets tucked away alongside all the other things which he swears to stop from happening again. again, i'm flexible on the specifics and details of this time period especially regarding other people's portrayals of characters involved in it.

resident evil 4 + post.

when the presidents daughter is kidnapped leon is the agent chosen to bring her back. his arrival in spain sees him with two police escorts who don't last long. the village is overrun with some variety of virus which leon will later be infected with himself. eventually locating ashley graham in the church begins a whole clusterfuck of events. he loses her a couple times (his bad queen), is saved by luis serra a handful of times, the usual leon experience. everyone is there; krauser is not as dead as he thought he was, ada is just as elusive as she is present. luis dies redeemed in leon's eyes for his part in things and another added to the list of people he couldn't save. the events of this mission thrust him back fully into the public eye, properly alive again, as it were. he becomes the sword of the president and his sudden presence in the white house, in the background of media, in his expertise or skill recommended on a near constant, it gives leon a reputation as a golden boy. this is either positive or negative depending on who you ask. following the canon of the 2023 remake in regards to characterization over narrative, otherwise picking bits and pieces from both the remake and the original.

resident evil 6 + post.

tall oaks serves as a second raccoon city. the president's murder, a man he was sworn to protect and wanted to despite his part in the initial blackmailing done, lays heavy on leon's mind. for the past, he is understanding of when it comes to protecting someone you care for, sometimes you make the shitty choice. in helena's position, a younger, brighter eyed man who'd already known too much loss would have made the same choice. so she's his partner and he means it in spite of what his job should dictate. another bout of playing dead for an amount of time that contact is likely made to those who know leon to be informed of the 'fact' + a time spent overseas before coming back stateside to clear them of any potential for infection lingering. the united states is in a fragile state and the last thing they need is more bioharzards coming back home and walking right in the front doors of a now unoccupied white house. there's a large cover up surrounding these events. letting the public know that their defense director was at the center of it all isn't a good look. leon is once again sworn to secrecy and does not talk about the new scattering of scars acquired covering ada's body with his own. it was a trade he was willing to make at the time, and a choice he thought about on the edge of that roof, and close to giving up as he became after a second raccoon city and his inability to prevent it from happening he decides a brief vacation is in order. it doesn't last. never works that way. he's back to work within the month; on a leash but restless and dogged all on his own, if not urged away and distracted from a self-destructive streak of drinking by old friends in need. it was good for him in the long run, he reckons.

the time between 6 and 9.

this sees a return to business as usual for leon, but a relatively slow period. events crop up that need his attention, of course, but nothing so ground shatteringly big as raccoon city or spain. it allows him a time of recovery and adjustment, though his healing is slow and often takes several steps back before even taking one forwards. you'll find him around the dso offices more often than usual and those that see him on the daily will notice a gradual decline in health, illness more frequent and worrying than the usual post mission stresses and strains on his body. but who knows what that's all about right :) he's ignoring it until it becomes too pressing and widespread to ignore and the man can be pretty damn stubborn when he feels like he needs to be to continue protecting the people he still has.

resident evil 9.