halcyonbellarke

Leon moves ahead of you with that familiar economy, every step deliberate, shoulders slightly rounded forward as if he's braced against a wind no one else can feel. Years ago, you would have called it tension. Now you know it's simply how he stands when he's ready to protect something.

You.

He lifts one hand without looking back. Two fingers. Hold. You stop immediately, rifle angled down but ready, covering the rear out of habit. Your breathing slows to match his. In the quiet, you can hear it, the faint rasp of fabric as he adjusts his grip, the tiny click of leather at his wrist. He glances over his shoulder, blue eyes catching red light, and the corner of his mouth tilts.

"Tell me you hear that too," he murmurs.

"Ventilation system struggling to keep up with poor life choices," you whisper back.

His mouth twitches a little more. "Comforting."

"Very."

He turns forward again, advancing with a careful sidestep around a fallen gurney. You follow close, boots landing where his did, stepping into the spaces he clears without thinking. Years of missions have worn this path between you into muscle memory. You could navigate a battlefield blind if he were moving ahead of you.

Sublevel three, quarantine wing. The official report had said that the outbreak was contained. Minimal hostiles. Data retrieval only. You and Leon had both read that and packed extra ammunition.

Something scrapes faintly above you. You both stop again. A wet sound follows, soft but unmistakable, like raw meat dragged across tile. Leon's shoulders go rigid. He tilts his head, listening, then slowly raises his pistol toward the ceiling vent ten feet ahead.

"Don't," you breathe.

Too late. The grate explodes outward in a shower of dust and rusted screws. A shape drops hard onto the floor between you, limbs hitting at angles that don't belong to anything living. The body spasms once, twice, then snaps upright with a sound like tearing cloth. Its eyes are wrong. Its mouth is wrong.

Leon fires twice. The creature barely stutters before lunging. You're already moving. Your rifle cracks, recoil thudding into your shoulder as you pivot left to avoid Leon's line of fire. The rounds chew through rotten muscle, splashing something dark across the wall. The thing keeps coming anyway, a puppet yanked forward by invisible strings.

"Persistent," you mutter.

"Understatement."

It reaches Leon first. He sidesteps, grabs a fistful of its ruined jacket, and uses the momentum to sling it into the wall hard enough to dent the drywall. Before it can recover, he drives a knife up under its jaw with brutal precision. The body convulses, fingers clawing weakly at his sleeve, then goes slack. 

For a moment, the only sound is your breathing and the slow drip of something unpleasant onto the tile. Leon exhales through his nose, shoulders lowering a fraction. He wipes the blade on the creature's shirt before sheathing it, movements efficient, practiced, almost weary.

"You okay?" he asks without turning.

"Fine."

He turns anyway, eyes scanning you head to toe, checking for tears in fabric, blood that isn't yours, the small tells you can't hide from him even if you tried. His gaze lingers on your face a second longer than necessary.

"Your heart rate's up."

"So is yours."

"Occupational hazard."

You step closer, bump your shoulder lightly against his arm. "You jumped."

"I did not."

"You absolutely did."

"I adjusted my stance."

You snort. "Sure you did, hero."

His hand comes up automatically, settling at the small of your back as he guides you past the body. The touch is brief, grounding, gone almost before you register it. He does it all the time now, in doorways, on stairs, whenever the path narrows. Years ago he used to keep that kind of contact locked away behind professionalism. Marriage burned that barrier down to ash.

"Remind me why we didn't retire somewhere with a beach," you say quietly.

"You hate sand."

"I could learn."

"You said that last time. Then you threw a shoe at a seagull."

"It started it."

He huffs, a sound that might be the ghost of a laugh. "We're not buying a coastal property just so you can wage war on wildlife."

"Coward."

They're soft words, familiar words, the kind that live comfortably between you, even in places like this. Especially in places like this. If you stop talking, the silence fills up with too many ghosts.

Ahead, the corridor splits. One path descends into deeper shadow. The other ends at a reinforced door marked MEDICAL ISOLATION.

Leon studies it, jaw tightening slightly. "That's our best bet for antiviral storage."

"And our worst bet for everything else."

"Probably."

He reaches for the panel. It flickers, unresponsive.

You lean in, shoulder brushing his. "Stand back."

"I am standing back."

"Further."

He sighs but obeys, stepping aside as you pull a compact breaching charge from your pack and set it against the seam. Your hands move quickly, efficiently, though you can feel his eyes on you the entire time.

"Try not to blow yourself up," he says.

"Try not to worry so loudly."

"I don't worry."

You glance up. "Leon."

"...I worry a normal amount."

You smile despite yourself. "Uh huh."

You trigger the charge and pivot away, grabbing his vest to pull him with you behind the corner. The explosion is sharp, contained, dust puffing into the air like a violent exhale. When the ringing fades, the door hangs crooked on shattered hinges. Leon looks down at where your hand is still gripping his gear. His expression softens in a way that has nothing to do with combat.

"You can let go," he says gently.

You realize you're still holding on and release him, suddenly aware of how solid he feels under your fingers, how warm even through layers of tactical fabric.

"Right," you say, clearing your throat. "Professional."

"Very."

But he brushes your knuckles once before moving past you, so quick it could almost be an accident.

Inside, the medical wing is colder, air conditioning still struggling on backup power. Cabinets hang open, supplies scattered across the floor as if someone had tried to pack in a hurry and failed. A hospital bed sits abandoned in the center of the room, sheets twisted into ropes. You sweep left. Leon sweeps right. The familiar dance resumes. For a few seconds, nothing moves.

Then something thumps weakly from behind the bed. You both pivot, weapons raised. A figure drags itself into view, lab coat smeared dark, face gray with fever. Human. Barely.

"Help," he croaks.

Leon lowers his weapon first, but doesn't relax. "You're infected?"

The man nods frantically, clutching his side. "Bite... hours ago... there's... antivirals... storage fridge... code..."

His hand trembles as he points toward a small sealed unit in the corner.  Hope flickers, fragile and dangerous. You step forward. Leon catches your arm immediately.

"Careful," he murmurs.

"I know."

His grip tightens just a fraction before he lets go, thumb brushing your sleeve as if memorizing the texture.

The man coughs wetly, body shaking. "Please... I don't want to... turn..."

Leon's jaw flexes. You can see the calculation in his eyes, the grim understanding of how this story usually ends. You move past him anyway, crouching by the fridge, fingers already working the manual override. The seal pops with a soft hiss. Inside, rows of vials gleam faintly in the emergency light, liquid clear and precious as water in a desert.

"Jackpot," you whisper.

Behind you, the man makes a sound that isn't quite human.

Leon's voice snaps sharply. "Back."

You turn just in time to see the change sweep across the man's face, muscles locking, eyes clouding over like frost creeping across glass. Too fast. Leon fires once. The body collapses before it can lunge.

Silence crashes down, heavy and absolute. Your hands are still wrapped around the cold vial when Leon steps in close, one hand settling at the back of your neck, fingers warm against your skin. He leans his forehead briefly against your temple, a gesture so intimate it almost hurts.

"Hey," he murmurs. "Stay with me."

"I'm here."

"Good."

"Leon," you say, unable to keep the lift out of your voice. "We've got—"

The ceiling tile above the doorway caves in with a thunderous crack. Something drops through in a tangle of limbs and teeth. Leon fires before it even lands.

The room detonates into motion. Another body slams through the door behind it, then another, drawn by noise or scent or whatever twisted instinct drives them now. The first infected hits the floor crawling, jaw snapping, fingers scrabbling for purchase on slick tile.

"Back!" Leon snaps.

You're already moving, grabbing the case and pivoting away from the fridge as gunfire shatters the sterile quiet. Your rifle kicks against your shoulder, rounds punching into torsos that refuse to care. The air fills with the acrid stink of cordite and something fouler underneath.

One lunges for your legs. Leon intercepts it, boot driving into its chest hard enough to send it skidding across the floor. He doesn't even look as he fires downward, ending it with clinical precision. 

More are coming. The hallway beyond the ruined door is a writhing mass of shapes pushing over each other, hungry, relentless. The lab equipment rattles as something heavy slams against the wall.

"Too many," you shout.

"Move!"

You sidestep, firing, trying to carve space, trying not to hit Leon as he crosses your line. Your shoulder clips the edge of the bed. The case slips in your grip for half a second.

A larger infected barrels through the doorway, body swollen, movements jerky but powerful. It collides with a rolling cart, sending metal instruments clattering across the floor like thrown knives. Leon pivots to engage, emptying three rounds into its upper chest. The creature staggers backward. Straight into the open refrigerator. Glass explodes.

The sound is high and crystalline, almost delicate beneath the gunfire, like a chandelier being smashed in a ballroom no one will ever dance in again. Vials shatter against metal shelves, against tile, against each other. Clear liquid splashes across the floor, instantly indistinguishable from the spreading mess of everything else. You see it happen in horrible, slow clarity. Hope, reduced to glittering debris.

"Leon!"

He fires again, dropping the brute for good. The body collapses forward, crushing what remains of the storage rack beneath its weight. For one stunned heartbeat, neither of you moves. Then another infected claws over the fallen bulk, and survival yanks you back into motion. You fire. Leon fires. Bodies drop. The noise is deafening, claustrophobic, relentless until at last the hallway falls silent again, littered with unmoving shapes.

Your ears ring. Smoke hangs in the air like a dirty veil. Slowly, cautiously, Leon lowers his weapon. His gaze drifts past the carnage to the refrigerator, to the floor, to the glittering field of broken glass and spilled medication soaking uselessly into grout lines and fabric and things you don't want to identify. He doesn't say anything. Neither do you. The man on the bed has gone very still. His eyes stare at the ceiling, clouded over, whatever fragile thread holding him to himself finally snapped in the chaos. A drop of liquid slides off the shelf edge and hits the tile with a soft, final tick.

Leon exhales, long and controlled, like he's forcing the air out through a space too small for it. "...We'll find more," he says quietly.

He steps closer to you, one hand settling on your shoulder, firm and grounding. His thumb moves once, a brief stroke through dust and sweat, as if confirming you're still solid beneath his palm.

"You hurt?" he asks.

You shake your head, throat tight. "No."

"Good."

His hand lingers a moment longer, then drops. He scans the room again, already shifting back into mission mode, but the tension in his jaw has sharpened, lines around his eyes etched deeper by the red emergency light.

"Storage areas are usually clustered," he says. "If there was one unit, there are probably others."

You nod because he needs you to nod. Because forward is the only direction that exists anymore.

Together, you step around the shattered glass and the ruined promise it once held, boots crunching softly with every movement, and head back into the corridor where the dark waits patiently for you to return.

The corridor beyond the lab is narrower, older, the walls traded from clean hospital white to poured concrete stained by decades of leaks and neglect. Emergency lights hum overhead, casting everything in a tired amber glow that feels less like an alarm and more like a dying sunset that forgot to go away. Your boots echo differently here. Hollow. The sound carries too far.

Leon slows without saying anything, adjusting his pace until you're shoulder to shoulder instead of single file. His arm brushes yours with each step, solid and reassuring in a way that feels deliberate without calling attention to itself. After a minute, you realize he's listening to your breathing.

"You know," you say quietly, "most couples go to dinner."

He huffs under his breath. "We tried that."

"You got a call."

"We both got a call."

"I didn't even get to eat my pasta."

"You ordered something with fourteen ingredients I couldn't pronounce."

"That's not a crime."

"It should be."

You bump his shoulder lightly. "You promised dessert."

"I'll buy you dessert."

"You said that last time."

"I meant it last time, too."

His hand comes up automatically, resting on your back as the corridor narrows, guiding you around a fallen chunk of concrete. The touch lingers just a second longer than necessary.

"When this is over," he adds quietly, "we'll go somewhere that doesn't have reception."

You glance at him. "You're serious."

"Dead serious."

A small smile pulls at your mouth. "You'd last two days."

"I'd last three."

"Two and a half."

He considers it like it's a tactical estimate. "Two and a half."

The next door is heavier than the others, industrial steel with a small wired-glass window clouded by years of grime. A faded placard reads BIO STORAGE B in letters that have peeled into something ghostlike and hard to trust.

Leon raises a hand automatically, stopping you just short of the threshold.

"Hold."

You halt with your boot inches from the seam, rifle angled down but ready. He steps past you, placing himself between you and the door without thinking about it. He always does that. As if the hinge of the world were located somewhere in his spine.

He wipes a sleeve across the glass and peers through, eyes narrowing as he adjusts to the dim interior. "Don't see movement," he murmurs. "Shelving units. Containers. Could be clear."

"Could be."

He glances back at you, reading your face the way other people read weather. "You good?"

"Always."

One eyebrow lifts. Not convinced.

You roll your shoulder where your gear has started to dig in, trying to work out the stiffness before it becomes a problem. "Just cramped."

"Switch packs with me."

"I'm fine."

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"It wasn't an order either."

For a moment, you just look at each other, the quiet argument unfolding in expressions instead of voices. Married diplomacy in a war zone.

Finally, he exhales through his nose, conceding the point without admitting defeat. His hand comes up instead, settling briefly at the side of your neck, thumb brushing the muscle there in a grounding stroke.

"Tension," he says softly.

"Observation skills of a seasoned agent."

"Comes with the badge."

"You don't even carry a badge."

"Metaphorical badge."

You lean into his touch for half a second before you can stop yourself. He notices. His thumb stills, then presses lightly once more before he lets his hand fall away.

"Stay behind me on entry," he says, voice shifting, professional edges sliding back into place.

"I take left. You take right," you counter automatically.

He gives you a look. You give him one right back.

"...Fine," he mutters at last. "But if I say fall back, you fall back."

"Yes, dear."

His mouth twitches despite himself. "Don't 'yes, dear' me in a mission."

"Yes, sir," you salute.

Leon grunts and shakes his head, trying not to smile. You reach past him to test the handle. Locked.

"Stand clear," you say.

He moves aside this time without commentary, covering the door while you pull a compact bypass tool from your vest. The metal is cold against your fingers, humming faintly as it interfaces with the ancient locking mechanism.

For a few seconds, the only sounds are the tool's soft electronic chirp and your breathing. Then the mechanism clicks. You don't open it immediately. Instead, you glance sideways at him. Close enough to see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the tiny scar along his jaw, the exhaustion he carries like a shadow that never quite detaches.

"After this," you say quietly, "we're getting that dessert."

He studies you for a long beat, something unspoken passing through his expression. A deep, stubborn refusal to imagine a future where that doesn't happen.

"Yeah," he says at last, voice low and certain. "We are."

Your hand brushes his wrist as you shift your grip on the handle. He turns his palm just enough to catch your fingers, squeezing once, firm and warm. A promise disguised as reflex. Then he releases you, raises his weapon, and nods.

"On you."

You pull the door open. Cold air spills out, stale and chemical, carrying the faint scent of something spoiled long before anyone stopped coming down here. The room beyond is a maze of tall storage racks and plastic containers, shadows pooling thick between them like standing water.

Leon moves through the doorway first, silent, precise, clearing angles with ruthless efficiency. You follow a half-step behind despite earlier negotiations, covering what he can't see, trusting him to do the same.

All you hear is the hum of failing lights. The soft creak of metal settling. The distant, almost inaudible drip of water somewhere in the dark.

Leon lifts two fingers, signaling pause. You freeze. He tilts his head, listening.

"...Thought I heard something," he whispers.

You hold your breath. The room holds its breath too. Then, very softly, something shifts deep between the shelves. A scrape. Leon's posture tightens, every line of him sharpening toward the sound.

"Stay close," he murmurs.

You move in beside him, shoulder brushing his arm, the warmth of him grounding against the cold air of the room.

"Always do," you whisper back.

The air grows colder the farther you go, heavy with the stale tang of chemicals and something faintly organic beneath it, like fruit left too long in a sealed container. Your flashlight beam skims across plastic bins, sealed crates, labels bleached into illegibility. Dust floats in slow spirals each time you move, disturbed ghosts reluctant to settle again.

Leon advances at a measured pace, weapon steady, shoulders tight enough to telegraph that he hasn't liked this room from the moment the door opened. You mirror him, covering the angles between shelving units, eyes darting through the narrow gaps where shadows knit together into something almost solid. Another scrape, closer this time.

A container shifts on a shelf to your left with a soft plastic thud, tipping just enough to rock in place. Your rifle swings toward it automatically.

"Probably just settling," you whisper.

Leon doesn't answer. He takes one careful step forward, angling to get a better view past the rack. The beam of his light cuts across the gap, illuminating stacked boxes, a collapsed cart, nothing that looks immediately threatening.

Your shoulders start to loosen. That's when the hands shoot out of the darkness. They clamp around your calf, iron strong, nails digging through fabric as something drags itself from beneath the lowest shelf with a wet, hungry sound. You don't even have time to shout before you're yanked off balance.

"Leon—!"

He pivots instantly, dropping his aim to avoid hitting you as you hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. The infected is half-crushed, lower body mangled, but its arms work just fine. Its mouth snaps inches from your boot, teeth clacking together with a sound that vibrates up your bones.

You kick, connecting with its face, but it barely registers the impact. Its grip tightens, hauling you closer, closer, jaws opening wide enough to show the slick black of its throat. 

Leon moves. He doesn't fire. Too risky. Instead, he lunges forward, grabbing the back of your vest and hauling you backward with brutal force. The infected comes with you, still latched on, dead weight and fury combined.

"Let go!" he snarls, driving his boot into its shoulder.

Bone cracks. The grip loosens just enough for him to wrench you free, dragging you behind him as he finally gets a clear shot. Two rounds. Point-blank.

The body jerks, collapses, and goes still. For a moment, all you can hear is your own ragged breathing and the thunder of your pulse. Leon stays crouched in front of you, one arm braced across your chest like a barricade, gun still trained on the corpse in case it decides death is negotiable.

"Hey," he says, voice low, urgent. "Hey. Look at me."

You blink, vision swimming, lungs finally remembering how to work. "I'm... I'm good."

His eyes scan you anyway, fast and thorough, hands already moving, checking arms, shoulders, gear, the way he always does. Routine. Training. Care disguised as procedure. Then his hand stops at your leg.

The fabric of your pants is torn where the creature grabbed you. Dark spreads through the rip, wet and unmistakable even in the dim light. Leon goes very still. Slowly, carefully, he pulls his glove off with his teeth and tosses it aside. His bare hand is warm when it closes around your ankle, steady but not gentle as he angles your leg into the beam of his flashlight.

You follow his gaze. For a second, your brain refuses to interpret what you're seeing. Just shapes. Color. Shine. Then it resolves. Deep teeth marks on your ankle. Blood wells from the punctures, thick and bright, running down into your boot.

"Oh," you say softly.

Leon doesn't speak. His jaw tightens so hard a muscle jumps along his cheek. His thumb presses near the wound, not enough to hurt, just enough to assess depth, damage, and reality.

"How bad?" you ask, because someone has to.

He inhales slowly through his nose, like he's trying to pull the air all the way down to somewhere that doesn't exist anymore.

"...Through the muscle," he says at last, voice roughened at the edges. "No arterial spray."

You almost laugh. Of course, that's what he notices. Of course, he frames it in survivable terms.

"Good news," you murmur.

His eyes snap to yours, sharp, bright, furious at something that isn't you. "Don't."

The word isn't loud. It doesn't need to be. Silence floods back in, thick as the dust hanging in the air. Carefully, he releases your leg only long enough to tear open a pouch on his vest. Gauze. Compression wrap. His hands move with practiced efficiency, but there's a tremor there now, small and stubborn, like a fault line threatening to split.

"This won't stop it," you say quietly.

"I know."

He presses the gauze down anyway, firm, unyielding, as if pressure alone could force time to behave.

"You didn't get grabbed anywhere else?" he asks without looking up.

"No."

"Scratch? Contact with fluid?"

"No, Leon."

He nods once, wrapping the bandage tight enough to hurt. You don't complain. Pain feels reassuringly human. When he finishes, he doesn't pull away. His hands remain braced on your leg, head bowed slightly, shoulders rising and falling with measured breaths. From this angle, you can see the faint silver threaded through his hair, the lines carved deeper by worry than age. You reach out before you can stop yourself, fingers brushing his jaw. He freezes.

"Hey," you say softly.

His eyes close for one heartbeat, leaning just slightly into your touch, like a man starving who just found water. Then he opens them again, focus snapping back into place with visible effort.

"We're moving," he says, voice low and absolute. "There will be another storage area. Another lab. Something."

You nod because you believe him. Because you have to. Because you don't want this to be the end. Because you don't want Leon to have to go through that. Because you want your dessert.

He rises first, then offers you his hand. When you take it, he pulls you up carefully, keeping his other hand hovering at your waist in case you falter. You put weight on the leg. It holds, though pain flares hot and sharp.

"Can you walk?" he asks.

"Yeah." A lie. A manageable one.

He doesn't call you on it. Instead, his arm slides around your back, anchoring you against his side as you take your first step. Protective. Supportive. Refusing to let distance exist.

"Stay with me," he murmurs.

Your head rests briefly against his shoulder, just for a second.

"Always," you whisper.

Adrenaline still burns hot in your veins, dulling the edges, convincing your body it can outrun consequences if it just keeps moving. Leon keeps his arm locked around you, pace adjusted to match yours without comment. Not slow enough to feel patronizing, not fast enough to make you stumble. Perfect. Infuriatingly perfect.

"You don't have to babysit," you murmur.

"Good," he says quietly. "Because I'm not."

His hand shifts slightly at your side, fingers spreading as if to support more of your weight without making a show of it. The corridor slopes downward. Each step sends a dull shock up your leg, deeper now, heavier, like the pain has roots instead of edges. You grit your teeth and keep going. After a dozen paces, something else creeps in. A warmth. Not the healthy kind. Not exertion. This feels wrong, thick and syrupy, pooling under your skin like fever deciding where to settle. You swallow. Your throat feels dry. Too dry.

"Leon," you start, then stop, because you're not sure what you were going to say.

He glances at you immediately. "What?"

"Nothing. Thought I heard something."

He doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't push. Instead, he shifts you a little closer, your hip brushing his with every step now, a steady rhythm of contact that keeps you oriented.

The lights flicker overhead. For a split second, the world tilts. You blink hard, waiting for it to right itself. It does, but not completely. The edges of your vision feel soft, as if someone smeared petroleum jelly across reality.

"Hey," Leon says quietly.

You realize you've slowed. "I'm fine."

He stops anyway.

"No," he says, voice calm and immovable as bedrock. "You're not."

Before you can argue, a shape lurches from a side passage ahead. Its movements are jerky and uneven, its head twitching like a broken marionette. Leon eases you behind him with one hand, weapon already up. He takes it out, waiting a few seconds to make sure it's down. 

When he turns back to you, his focus narrows, shutting out the rest of the world. "Sit," he says.

You shake your head. "We don't have time."

"Sit."

There's no edge in it. No raised volume. Just absolute certainty that this is happening. Your legs decide for you. The moment you stop resisting, they wobble, knees threatening to fold. Leon catches you instantly, one arm wrapping around your back, the other under your uninjured leg, guiding you down against the wall with careful control.

The concrete is cold through your gear. It feels strangely good. He crouches in front of you, close enough that your boots nearly touch his knees. Up close, you can see every tiny tension line in his face, every sleepless hour etched into skin that has forgotten what "rested" means.

His bare hand comes up again, settling against your neck, fingers sliding to your pulse point. You shiver.

His brows draw together. "You're burning up."

"Shock," you say weakly.

"You know that's not true."

His thumb presses lightly, counting. You can feel the rhythm under his skin, your heart hammering like it's trying to break out of your chest.

"Too fast," he murmurs, mostly to himself.

A tremor runs through your hands. Small at first, then stronger, fingers twitching against your thigh as if they belong to someone else and forgot to tell you. You curl them into fists, but it doesn't help. Leon notices. He reaches down slowly, deliberately, and wraps his hand around yours. Not restraining. Anchoring. His grip is warm, solid, impossibly steady compared to the jitter under your skin.

"Look at me," he says softly.

You do. Blue eyes. Tired. Fierce. Terrified in a way he would deny under oath.

"We're going to fix this," he says.

"You don't know that."

"Yes," he says, so simply it almost hurts. "I do."

Your vision blurs. You blink rapidly, trying to clear it, but the edges keep fuzzing out like a badly tuned signal.

"Everything's... weird," you admit. "Like I'm underwater."

His jaw tightens. "Any nausea?"

"No."

"Dizziness?"

"...Maybe."

"Confusion?"

You hesitate.

His expression darkens. "How long?"

"Ten minutes."

He leans forward suddenly, pressing his forehead to yours. The contact is gentle, deliberate, his eyes closing for a brief moment like he's drawing strength from proximity alone.

"You stay with me," he murmurs. "You hear me? No drifting."

"I'm right here."

His hand slides to the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair, holding you there. Making sure you don't slip away. For a few seconds, neither of you moves. Somewhere far off, metal clatters. A distant echo of something collapsing. The facility settling into deeper ruin. You swallow. Your throat feels raw now, like you've been breathing dry air for hours.

"Leon."

"Yeah."

"If I start to..."

He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes sharp. "Don't."

"You need to be ready."

"I am ready."

"That's not what I mean."

His hand tightens at the back of your neck, just enough to stop you from looking away.

"I'm not leaving you," he says quietly. "Save it."

Your chest aches, and not from the bite. You nod because you don't trust your voice. He studies you another moment, memorizing something only he can see, then exhales slowly and shifts back into motion.

"Okay," he says, tone sharpening into mission focus again. "We move in short intervals. Next sector should have auxiliary storage or research offices. More supplies. Maybe antivirals."

"Maybe," you echo.

He rises, then hesitates, looking down at you like he's recalculating physics.

Without warning, he slips one arm behind your back and the other under your knees.

You blink. "Leon—"

"Save your strength."

"I can walk."

"I know."

And that's the end of the discussion. He lifts you with controlled ease, settling you against his chest. Your head ends up tucked under his chin, close enough to hear his heartbeat, steady and stubborn as a drum calling soldiers back to formation. You don't argue again. Your hand fumbles for his vest, gripping the fabric as another wave of heat rolls through you, deeper this time, almost nauseating in its intensity.

"Still with me?" he murmurs into your hair.

You nod weakly. "Yeah."

"Good."

He adjusts his hold, one hand splayed protectively across your back, and starts down the corridor again, footsteps measured, unhurried, as if he has decided that time itself can wait its turn. The world sways gently with each step. Your eyelids feel heavy.

Leon's voice cuts through the fog, low and insistent. "Stay awake."

"I'm trying."

"Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Anything."

You think for a long moment, chasing thoughts that scatter like startled birds.

"...Dessert," you mumble finally.

A soft breath leaves him, almost a laugh, almost something else entirely.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."

You clutch his vest a little tighter, grounding yourself in the solid reality of him.

"Don't let me fall asleep," you whisper.

His arms tighten around you, careful but unyielding.

Leon adjusts his grip as you shift in his arms, not because you're heavy, never that, but because your body no longer anticipates his movement the way it usually does. You used to lean into turns before they happened, tighten your hold when he stepped over debris, and match his rhythm without thinking. Now you lag by half a second behind every motion, like your connection to gravity is buffering. He notices. He notices everything.

Your skin is too hot even through layers of fabric. Heat seeps through his sleeves, through his gloves, into his palms like you're burning from the inside out. Your breath ghosts unevenly against his throat, sometimes shallow, sometimes too deep, like your lungs can't agree on a pattern. Fever, he tells himself. Infection. Not the other thing. Not yet. Your fingers twitch where they clutch his vest, loosening, tightening, loosening again.

"Hey," he murmurs quietly. "Still with me?"

A pause. "...Yeah."

The word is slurred at the edges, dragged through molasses. His jaw tightens. He keeps moving.

The corridor stretches ahead in dim amber light, empty except for the occasional smear on the wall or abandoned equipment pushed aside by people who ran out of time. His footsteps are steady, deliberate, conserving energy, minimizing jostling. He's carried wounded before. Teammates. Civilians. Strangers. None of them felt like this. None of them felt like carrying his own heartbeat outside his body.

Your head shifts, cheek pressing against his collarbone. For a moment you go very still, so still that something cold claws down his spine.

"Talk to me," he says, softer now. "You promised."

A long silence. Then, faintly, "Cold."

He stops. A clean halt, like someone pulled a lever inside him. Cold is wrong. You're burning up. He lowers you carefully to one knee without setting you fully down, keeping one arm wrapped around your back so you don't tip sideways. His other hand comes up to your face, bare fingers brushing your cheek. Your skin is blazing. But you're shivering. Small, violent tremors run through you, teeth chattering softly against each other, lashes fluttering as if your body can't decide whether to wake or sleep.

"Hey," he says, sharper now. "Open your eyes."

You do, slowly, unfocused at first. Your pupils look blown wide in the low light, swallowing what little color remains in your irises.

"It's... dark," you mumble.

His chest tightens. The lights are still on.

"I'm right here," he says. "Look at me."

Your gaze drifts, struggles, and finally locks onto his face. Recognition flickers there, fragile but present.

"...Leon."

Relief hits him so hard it almost feels like pain.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah, it's me."

Your brow furrows faintly, confusion knitting your expression into something painfully vulnerable.

"You look... tired."

He almost laughs. "Occupational hazard," he says quietly.

Your hand lifts weakly, fingers brushing his jaw as if you're mapping terrain you've walked a thousand times but suddenly don't trust your memory of.

"You should sleep," you whisper.

The tenderness in it is what breaks him a little.

"Soon, sweetheart," he says.

Your hand slips, falling back against your chest. Silence stretches. Your breathing grows uneven again.

Then you say, very softly, "Did we make it home?"

The words land like a physical blow. For a second, he can't answer. His throat closes around something sharp and unmanageable.

Home. Not the facility. Not the mission. Not the outbreak. Home. He swallows hard, forcing air back into his lungs.

"Not yet," he says, voice low and steady by sheer force of will. "Working on it."

Your eyes drift past him, unfocused, as if you're looking at something over his shoulder that isn't there.

"...Smells like coffee," you murmur. "Burned it again."

His vision blurs. He blinks hard, refocusing on the concrete wall behind you. You're not smelling coffee. There is no coffee. There hasn't been coffee in hours. Just dust and chemicals and rot. Hallucinations, a cold voice in his mind supplies. Neurological involvement. He hates that voice. 

Your lips curve faintly, a sleepy little smile that belongs in a sunlit kitchen, not here. "You always do that," you mumble. "Say you're watching it, then forget..."

Your head tips sideways, resting against his arm. Your eyelids droop. Panic slices through him, clean and immediate.

"Hey," he says sharply, fingers tightening on your shoulder. "No. Stay with me."

You stir weakly. "...'m tired."

"I know."

"So tired."

His thumb presses against your pulse again. Still fast. Too fast.

"You can sleep when we're home," he says, leaning closer, voice dropping to something rough and urgent.

Your eyes open a sliver.

"...Promise?"

The question is so small it barely exists.

He bows his head until his forehead rests against yours, eyes closing for one heartbeat, he allows himself.

"Yeah," he whispers. "I promise."

He doesn't know if he's promising sleep, survival, or something else entirely. It doesn't matter. Your breathing evens out a little, not better, just slower, drifting toward something that looks dangerously like unconsciousness. Not yet, he thinks fiercely.

He slides one arm under your knees again and lifts you back against his chest, more carefully this time, as if you might come apart if handled too roughly. Your head lolls against his shoulder, then settles in the hollow of his neck, breath hot and damp against his skin.

"Stay with me," he murmurs into your hair. "Just a little longer."

Your fingers twitch weakly against his vest, not gripping anymore, just resting there like they forgot their job.

"...Love you," you whisper, so faint he almost thinks he imagined it.

He stops breathing. The entire world narrows to the weight in his arms and the fragile thread of sound still hanging in the air. His hold tightens, protective, desperate, careful all at once.

"I know," he says quietly, voice breaking on the edges despite his best effort. "I know."

He presses his cheek briefly against your hair, eyes closing, grounding himself in the reality of you. The heat. The softness. The terrifying fragility. Then he straightens and starts moving again, steps faster now, less cautious, urgency bleeding through the discipline he's clung to since this began. Somewhere ahead, there has to be another lab. Another storage room. Another chance. There has to be. Because the alternative is unthinkable, and Leon Kennedy has built an entire life on refusing to accept those.

"Hang on," he murmurs. "I've got you."

The corridor opens into what used to be a patient ward, rows of metal-framed beds bolted to the floor, privacy curtains hanging in limp, dusty folds like flags after a lost battle. Most of the mattresses are stripped bare, plastic covers cracked with age, but the room is quiet. No movement. No shuffling breath. Just the low electrical hum that seems to haunt every corner of this place.

Leon slows, scanning automatically, mapping exits, sightlines, choke points. Good visibility. Single main entrance. Minimal clutter. Defensible. More importantly, close.

A reinforced door at the far end bears a faded hazard symbol and the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY stenciled beneath it. The hinges are external. The frame is thicker than standard interior construction. Lab access. Or something close to it.

"Okay," he murmurs, mostly to himself. "This'll do."

He crosses to the nearest intact bed and lowers you with painstaking care, one arm supporting your shoulders, the other guiding your legs so the injured one doesn't twist. The mattress sighs softly under your weight, springs complaining but holding. For a second, he doesn't let go. Your head rolls slightly to one side, hair falling across your face. Your eyes are half-open, unfocused, lashes trembling like you're dreaming with your eyes still in the world.

"Hey," he says quietly, brushing the hair back with fingers that are gentler than anything else he's done today. "Stay with me."

Your gaze struggles to find him. "...Hi," you whisper.

"Hi," he echoes, voice rough.

Your hand lifts weakly, searching. He catches it immediately, folding his larger one around yours, grounding you with solid pressure.

"Where are we?" you murmur.

"Almost there," he says. Not a lie. Not quite the truth. "I need to check something."

Your fingers twitch in his grip, barely there. "...Don't go far."

His throat tightens.

"I won't," he says. "You'll be able to hear me the whole time." That seems to satisfy something in you. Your eyes drift closed, not fully unconscious, just sliding along the edge of it.

He gently lowers your hand to rest against your stomach, then hesitates. After a moment, he reaches up and unzips his jacket, shrugging it off despite the chill. He drapes it over you, tucking it around your shoulders, creating a cocoon of familiar warmth and scent. Leon rests his palm against your cheek one last time, thumb brushing your skin in a soft arc.

He forces himself to stand. Every instinct screams not to leave you. To pick you up and run until the world ends, the cure appears, or both. But the door at the end of the room waits, silent and stubborn, and something in his gut tells him that whatever hope exists is behind it.

He moves. Slow at first, reluctant steps that keep him within arm's reach, then a little farther, turning back every few seconds to make sure you're still breathing, still there, still you. Halfway across the ward, a shape shifts behind a curtain. Leon's weapon is up before the fabric finishes swaying.

A figure stumbles out, skeletal, skin pulled tight over bone, eyes reflecting dull amber in the emergency light. Its mouth opens in a soundless snarl as it lurches toward the nearest movement. Leon intercepts it before it gets anywhere. Two suppressed shots. One to the chest, one to the head. The body collapses in a boneless heap, momentum carrying it forward until it skids to a stop across the tile.

Another groan answers from somewhere deeper in the room. He pivots, firing again, dropping a second infected as it claws its way over a bedframe. Efficient. Controlled. No wasted motion. No unnecessary noise. Three heartbeats of silence. He listens, counting breaths. Nothing else rises. Only then does he glance back. You haven't moved. Relief floods through him so sharply his knees almost unlock.

"Still here," he murmurs under his breath, as if confirming it makes it true.

He reaches the reinforced door and tests the handle. Locked. Of course it is.

Up close, the barricade becomes obvious. Heavy shelving units have been shoved against the interior side, metal edges visible through the narrow seam where the door meets the frame. Whoever sealed this room meant to keep something out. Or in.

Leon leans closer, ear to the cold steel. Nothing. No breathing. No scratching. No shifting weight. He steps back and scans the frame. Electronic panel. Dead. Manual override slot intact. Hope stirs, cautious and unwelcome.

He glances over his shoulder again. From here, he can still see you on the bed, small beneath his jacket, chest rising and falling in shallow motions that make his own lungs ache in sympathy.

"Almost there," he says quietly, whether to you or himself, he doesn't know.

From a pouch on his belt, he pulls a compact breaching tool, the metal catching the light as he slots it into the override housing. The device hums softly, vibration traveling up his wrist.

Behind him, the ward remains still.

Then your voice drifts across the room, thin and fragile. "...Leon?"

He spins instantly. Your head has turned toward him, eyes open again, unfocused but searching, panic flickering in the small movement of your hands against his jacket.

"I'm here," he calls, already crossing back toward you. "Right here."

You stare at him as if trying to memorize his face before it disappears. "...Too many," you whisper. "They're everywhere."

"There's nothing here," he says gently. "You're safe."

Your head sinks back into the thin pillow. Consciousness slips away from you like water through open fingers. Leon stays there a second longer than he should, watching your chest rise, fall, rise again. Then he stands and turns back to the barricaded door, something steely settling over him, heavier than anger, sharper than fear.

The tool in his hand whines as it bites into the locking mechanism, sparks spitting in brief, angry bursts. Metal protests. Screws shear. The smell of hot circuitry fills the air.

"Hold on," he murmurs, not looking back this time because he won't stop if he does. "I'm getting us in."

Behind him, the bed creaks softly as you shift in fevered sleep. Ahead, the door shudders as the final bolt gives way. Leon shoves the door inward, the weight of it grinding against the barricade until the gap is wide enough for him to slip through sideways. Inside, a toppled shelving unit leans against the opposite wall, confirming what he already suspected. Whoever sealed this room did it from within and didn't plan on leaving.

The air is colder here. Cleaner. Sterile in that artificial way that smells faintly of alcohol wipes and plastic, like illness reduced to a controlled environment.

Emergency lights glow a sickly green, illuminating rows of lab benches, overturned stools, racks of glassware frozen mid-experiment. Papers lie scattered across the floor, curling at the edges. A monitor flickers weakly on one station, casting a pulsing rectangle of pale light that feels almost alive in the otherwise stagnant room.

Leon clears the space in seconds, weapon sweeping corners, checking behind doors, under desks, anywhere something could hide. Nothing lunges. Nothing breathes. Just abandonment, sudden and absolute, like the people who worked here evaporated mid-sentence.

He lowers the gun a fraction, chest rising and falling a little too fast to be purely tactical.

"Okay," he murmurs, voice rough in the quiet. "Okay."

He moves to the nearest workstation, scanning labels, cabinets, drawers. Chemical reagents. Disposable supplies. Data drives. Everything except what he needs. Another bench. Same story. He opens a refrigerated unit. Empty trays. Frost buildup. Power too low to maintain temperature.

His pulse hammers harder.

Not here. Not here. Not here.

"Come on," he mutters, rifling through containers faster now, less methodical, more desperate. Glass clinks sharply as he shoves aside vials of things that don't matter, powders with long names, syringes sealed in sterile plastic. Nothing labeled antiviral. Nothing labeled serum. Nothing labeled hope. A cold weight settles in his stomach.

He moves to the flickering computer, fingers flying across the keys, waking it from whatever half-dead state it's been trapped in. The screen brightens sluggishly, revealing a login prompt already bypassed, system hanging on by a thread.

"Don't do this to me," he whispers.

Folders populate slowly. Research logs. Incident reports. Containment protocols. He scans titles with ruthless speed, opening anything that looks remotely relevant, eyes burning as line after line of technical jargon scrolls past.

Mutation rates. Transmission vectors. Failure rates. 

Failure rates.

His jaw tightens.

A crash echoes faintly from the ward beyond the door. His head snaps toward the sound. Silence follows. He waits three seconds. Five. Ten. No approach. No impact against the door. No dragging footsteps. Still there, he tells himself. She's still there.

He turns back to the screen, forcing his focus to narrow again. A document catches his eye.

ANTIVIRAL DISPERSION PROTOCOL – EMERGENCY USE

He opens it. Paragraphs of dense instructions spill across the display. Stabilization procedures. Delivery methods. Storage warnings. STORAGE LOCATION: SECURE BIOCONTAINMENT VAULT B-2. His stomach drops. Not here.

Coordinates blink uselessly on the screen, pointing deeper into the facility, farther than he wants to think about, farther than you may be able to survive the trip.

Something inside him finally gives. He grips the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening, shoulders bowing as if someone just added fifty pounds to his back.

"Damn it," he breathes.

The word fractures on the way out, barely more than air. He squeezes his eyes shut, forehead dropping toward his clenched fists, fighting the surge of helpless fury that threatens to tear through discipline, training, every wall he's built over years of surviving the unsurvivable. Not enough time. Not enough distance. Not enough anything.

Out in the ward, you lie alone on a metal bed, burning up, slipping further away with every second he spends standing here empty-handed. His chest tightens until breathing feels optional.

For one dangerous moment, he imagines walking back out there, picking you up, and never stopping. No cure. No mission. Just distance and denial. Just the selfish hope that if he runs fast enough, the virus won't catch you.

He exhales sharply, dragging himself back from the edge. Running never saved anyone.

"Think," he mutters hoarsely. "Think."

His gaze drifts across the lab again, slower this time, less frantic, searching for patterns instead of miracles. That's when he notices it. A sealed medical kit is mounted on the wall near the exit. Standard emergency issue. Bright white casing. Untouched, pristine compared to the chaos everywhere else. Too pristine. He crosses the room and pops it open. Bandages. Burn gel. Basic trauma supplies. Nothing else.

His shoulders slump. Then his eyes catch a thin seam along the back panel, almost invisible unless you're looking directly at it. Not part of the original design. Too clean. Too deliberate. He taps it with his knuckle. Hollow. Hope flares, sharp and painful.

He wedges a knife into the seam and pries. The panel resists for a second, then snaps free with a brittle crack, revealing a narrow cavity hidden behind the kit.

Inside rests a single reinforced container, matte gray and no bigger than a paperback book, sealed with a biometric latch long since disabled. Not government-issue, but research-grade. Whoever put this here didn't have the chance to get it.

Leon's hands shake as he pulls it free. The lid pops open. Nestled in foam are two glass syringes pre-loaded with clear liquid, labels printed in blocky lab script:

ANTIVIRAL SERUM — FINALIZED STRAIN

For a second, he just stares, brain refusing to trust what his eyes are telling it. Air leaves his lungs in a sound that might be a laugh or might be something closer to a sob strangled before it can exist.

"Okay," he whispers, voice breaking anyway. "Okay. We're good. We're... we're good."

He presses his forehead briefly against the cool plastic case, eyes squeezing shut, letting the relief hit him in one violent wave before he can stop it. Shoulders shake once, twice, a tremor he doesn't bother to control because no one is here to see it. No one except the person who needs him most. He straightens abruptly, wiping a hand across his face, composure snapping back into place like a mask he's worn too long to misplace.

"Hang on," he says, already moving for the door, clutching the case like it's made of glass and prayers. "I'm coming back."

Your skin is still hot. That's the first thing he registers when his palm cups your cheek. Heat floods into his hand, fever-bright, but there's a wrongness to it now, a brittle quality, like warmth without life behind it.

"Hey," he says softly. "I'm back."

No response. Your lashes rest against your cheeks, unmoving. Your mouth is slightly open, breath slipping in shallow threads that barely stir the hair at your temple. The shivering from before has stopped. Your body lies too still beneath his jacket, as if it finally decided movement was optional.

A cold spike of terror drives straight through his chest.

"Hey." Louder this time, but still gentle, still careful, as if volume alone might break you. "Come on. Open your eyes for me."

Nothing. He slides his hand to your neck, fingers pressing to your pulse point. It's there. Fast. Thready. Irregular in a way that makes his own heartbeat stumble trying to match it.

"Okay," he breathes, more to himself than to you. "We're okay."

His other hand trembles as he fumbles the case open, snapping it back with a soft plastic crack. The syringes gleam under the emergency lights, their clear liquid looking impossibly calm compared to the storm in his chest. He sets the case on the bed beside you, movements deliberate, controlled, forcing precision where panic wants chaos.

"You're gonna hate this part," he murmurs, fingers working to clear space at your collar, tugging fabric aside so he can reach skin. "But you can yell at me later. I'm counting on it."

Your head lolls slightly with the movement. No protest. No reflexive tension. He swallows hard.

"Hey," he says again, softer now, thumb brushing your jaw in a slow arc. "Stay with me, okay? You don't get to check out early. We still owe each other dessert."

His voice catches on the last word. He pushes through it.

"Remember that place downtown? The one with the ridiculous chocolate cake you said was worth the calories?" A shaky breath. "I figure we'll go there."

He presses his forehead briefly against yours, eyes squeezing shut for a fraction of a second.

"You hear me? We've got plans."

Your breathing hitches faintly, a tiny irregular stutter that might be a coincidence or might be something else. He latches onto it anyway, desperate for anything that looks like a connection.

"That's it," he murmurs. "Right there. Stay with me."

He lifts the syringe, checks it automatically, habit stronger than fear. No air bubbles. Fluid clear. Needle steady despite the tremor in his hand.

"Okay," he whispers. "Here we go."

He slides his arm behind your shoulders, lifting you just enough to support you against his chest, cradling you there so the injection won't jostle too much. Your head falls against him, cheek resting over his heart, breath warm and frighteningly faint through the fabric of his shirt.

"You're doing great," he says softly, even though you're doing nothing at all. "Almost there."

The needle presses into your skin.

He hesitates.

Not because he doubts the serum. Because once this is done, there's nothing left to do but wait, and waiting is the one thing he has never learned to survive gracefully.

"Don't be mad," he murmurs. "I'm not giving you a choice."

He depresses the plunger slowly, watching the liquid disappear into you, as if he can track hope molecule by molecule. His other arm tightens around your back, holding you upright, holding you together.

"All right," he says, voice barely above a breath. "You did good. See? Easy."

He withdraws the needle and sets it aside with mechanical care, as if any sudden movement might undo what he's just done. Then he just holds you.

Seconds crawl past, each one stretching thin as wire. Nothing happens. Your breathing remains shallow. Your pulse, when he checks again, is still fast, still erratic. His chest starts to feel tight, air coming harder, like the room has quietly stolen oxygen while he wasn't looking.

"Okay," he says hoarsely. "Sometimes these things take a minute."

He shifts you slightly, thumb stroking your arm in absent circles, the same motion he uses when you're half asleep on long flights or bad nights. Comfort muscle memory kicks in even when the situation is far beyond comfort.

"You're not allowed to do this," he whispers. "You hear me? Not now. Not like this."

Your hand slips from where it rested against his vest, sliding down between you, fingers loose and unresponsive. He grabs it instantly, folding it back into his palm, pressing it against his chest.

"Come back," he says, the words fraying at the edges.

Another long stretch of nothing. Fear blooms, cold and suffocating, filling every hollow place in him. Too late, a voice in the back of his mind whispers. Too slow. Too far gone.

He shakes his head sharply, jaw clenching.

"No," he mutters. "No, you don't get to do that."

He bows over you, pressing his forehead to your hair, eyes squeezed shut, breathing you in like oxygen.

"You promised," he says roughly. "You don't break your promises."

Your pulse stutters under his fingers. He freezes.

There it is again. A strange hitch, a pause that stretches too long, then a sudden rush, as if your heart forgot the rhythm and is trying to find it again. His own heart stops in sympathetic terror.

"Come on," he whispers. "Come on..."

Your body jerks. A sharp, involuntary spasm that arches you slightly against him before you go slack again. Leon sucks in a breath, half panic, half hope colliding in his chest.

"That's it," he says urgently. "That's something. That's good. Keep going."

Your brow creases faintly, expression tightening as if pain is finally breaking through the fog. A weak sound escapes you, barely audible, more exhale than voice. His grip on you tightens, careful but fierce.

"I know," he murmurs. "I know, sweetheart. It's okay. You're okay."

Your breathing changes, deepening suddenly, as if you're pulling in air like someone surfacing from underwater. It catches, stutters, then comes again, stronger this time, dragging oxygen into lungs that finally seem interested in using it.

"There you go," he breathes, voice shaking openly now. "That's it. Stay with me."

Your fingers twitch weakly against his chest. He presses his cheek against your hair, eyes closing, holding you like you might still vanish if he loosens his grip.

"I've got you," he whispers. "You're okay. I've got you."

He keeps you cradled against his chest, one arm locked around your back, the other braced across your shoulders, hand splayed as if shielding you from something that no longer exists. His cheek rests against your hair, breath uneven, dragging in through his nose, out through parted lips like he's relearning how to do it.

Your pulse is stronger now beneath his fingers. Still fast, still fragile, but steady enough to count. Steady enough to believe in. Only then does the tension start to bleed out of him. It comes all at once.

His shoulders shudder. Not violently, just a small, contained tremor that he tries to swallow down and can't. A sound escapes him, rough and broken, something halfway between a breath and a sob he never intended to make. He tightens his hold instinctively, pressing his face into your hair as if hiding there makes it less real.

"Okay," he whispers hoarsely. "Okay... you're okay."

Warmth hits your scalp. At first, your fogged mind can't place it. Wetness. A second drop follows, sliding along your temple before disappearing into your hair.

Leon doesn't notice. Or he does and can't stop. He bows over you, forehead pressed to the crown of your head, shoulders shaking in small, uneven pulses he's trying desperately to keep silent. Years of training, years of surviving, years of holding everything inside, finally cracking under the simple fact that you are still here.

"I've got you," he murmurs, voice wrecked, words stumbling over each other. "I've got you, I've got you..."

Your fingers twitch. This time, the movement is stronger, a weak curl against his shirt, fabric bunching slightly in your grasp. The sensation filters through layers of fog, heat, exhaustion, and the lingering echo of pain. Consciousness creeps back in like dawn through heavy curtains.

Your throat burns. Your body feels impossibly heavy, as if gravity doubled while you were away. Every muscle aches with a deep, bone-level fatigue that sleep alone could never fix.

Sound reaches you first. A heartbeat. Loud. Steady. Close enough to be yours, except it isn't. Breath above you, hitching, uneven. Fabric shifting faintly with each inhale.

Someone is holding you. You force your eyes open.

The world swims into view in slow, watery shapes. A blurred patch of green light. A shadow that resolves into the curve of a shoulder. Blond strands of hair brushing your cheek.

Leon.

He doesn't notice you're awake yet. His face is buried against your head, one hand cupping the back of your skull with fierce gentleness, thumb moving in tiny, repetitive strokes like he's soothing a nightmare that hasn't ended for him yet.

Your voice comes out as a rasp. "Leon...?"

He freezes. Absolute stillness, like a statue suddenly unsure whether it's allowed to move. Slowly, he lifts his head. His eyes are red. Not just glassy, not just tired, but openly, unmistakably wet. Tracks of tears cut through the grime on his cheeks, catching the light as he blinks hard, as if blinking might erase evidence before you can register it.

For a second, he just stares at you, something raw and disbelieving cracking across his face, like he expected this moment and still isn't sure it's real.

"You're..." His voice fails. He clears his throat roughly. "Hey."

You try to smile. It feels wobbly, incomplete. "Hi."

Relief hits him so visibly it's almost painful to watch. His shoulders sag, tension draining out of him like someone cut the strings holding him upright.

"Hey," he repeats, softer this time, thumb coming up to brush your cheek in a careful sweep, as if confirming you're solid. "You're back."

"Was I... gone?"

His jaw tightens. "Not allowed."

You attempt a small laugh. It comes out as a weak breath. His hand slides to the side of your neck, fingers resting over your pulse again, counting, grounding, refusing to trust his eyes alone.

"You scared me," he says quietly.

Your gaze drops to his chest, to the wrinkled fabric where you must have been gripping him earlier. "Sorry."

His head snaps slightly. "Don't."

The word is sharp, then softens immediately.

"Don't apologize," he adds, voice rough. "Just... don't."

You nod faintly. Even that feels like work.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. You just lie there in his arms, breathing the same air, sharing the same small pocket of reality after hours of separation that happened without distance. Then you notice how tightly he's still holding you.

"Leon," you murmur, "I can't breathe."

He releases you instantly, horror flashing across his face. "Sorry. Sorry."

He shifts his grip, supporting you more carefully, one arm still behind your shoulders but no longer crushing you to him. His other hand lingers at your jaw, thumb brushing your skin as if he can't quite stop touching you.

"You're okay?" he asks, scanning your face like he's looking for cracks. "Dizzy? Nauseous? Vision?"

"Everything hurts."

He exhales, something that might be relief ghosting through the pain in his expression. "I'll take it."

Your eyes drift past him, taking in the ward, the beds, the dim light. Memory trickles back in jagged pieces. Teeth. Heat. Falling. Darkness.

"...You found it," you whisper.

He nods once. "Yeah, told you we would.

Your mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "Yeah. You did."

You study him more closely now, the red around his eyes, the dampness he hasn't fully wiped away, the way he keeps blinking as if his vision is unreliable.

"You were crying," you say softly.

Immediate denial rises to his lips. You can see it form. Then he looks at you. And whatever excuse he was about to give dissolves.

"...Yeah," he admits, voice low. "Maybe a little."

A tear slips free anyway, tracking down before he can stop it. He doesn't bother hiding it this time. Doesn't look away. Just lets it exist.

"You weren't waking up," he says, as if that explains everything. It does.

Your chest aches in a different way now. You lift your hand slowly, muscles protesting, and touch his face. Your thumb brushes the damp track on his cheek, wiping it away with clumsy tenderness.

"I'm here," you whisper.

He leans into your hand without thinking, eyes closing briefly, relief and exhaustion and something deeper collapsing together inside him.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "You are."

He covers your hand with his, pressing it lightly to his skin as if anchoring himself. After a moment, his gaze sharpens again, mission awareness bleeding back in. 

"We need to move," he says gently. "Facility's not stable, and we don't know how long before more of them wander in."

You nod, though the idea of standing feels ambitious at best. He notices the hesitation immediately.

"Hey," he says softly. "I've got you."

He shifts, sliding one arm behind your back again, the other under your knees, lifting you with the same careful strength as before, only this time you help a little, arms coming up weakly around his neck. Your head settles against his shoulder.

"Still getting dessert?" you murmur against his collar.

A real smile breaks through at last, small but bright as sunrise after a storm.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."

He turns toward the exit, steps steady, protective hold unyielding but gentle now that he knows you're truly there.

Three days later, the world smells like coffee and clean laundry instead of antiseptic and decay.

Sunlight spills through half-closed blinds, laying soft gold across the rumpled bedspread and the tangle of blankets around your legs. The air is warm, carrying the faint hum of city life from outside, tires on pavement, a distant horn, someone laughing somewhere far below.

Leon sits beside you, forearms resting on his thighs, watching with that quiet intensity he hasn't quite learned to turn off yet. He looks cleaner than before, shaved, hair damp as if he showered quickly and came right back, but the exhaustion still clings to him in the set of his shoulders.

"You're staring," you murmur.

"Monitoring," he corrects.

"You blink?"

"Sometimes."

You huff a small laugh, the motion tugging at sore muscles that remind you exactly how recently everything went wrong. His gaze sharpens instantly, concern flaring before you even realize you winced.

"I'm okay," you assure him.

He searches your face a moment longer, then nods, not convinced but willing to accept it for now.

"You hungry?" he asks.

"Always."

He disappears into the kitchen and returns with coffee and a plate of pancakes that look slightly uneven but deeply sincere. You eat, he watches, tension slowly unwinding from him with each bite you take.

When you finish, you lean back, warm and heavy with food, eyelids drooping in content exhaustion.

"So when is our dessert date?" you ask softly.

Leon goes still. Then he stands without a word and leaves the room again.

You hear the soft thud of the door opening, the faint clink of something ceramic, the careful movements of someone handling something fragile. When he returns, he's holding a small white bakery box tied with a thin ribbon, the bow slightly crooked as if it had to survive transport in a large, impatient hand. He sets it on the bedside table with surprising delicacy.

"I didn't make this," he says gruffly. "Figured we've both suffered enough."

Suspicion and curiosity spark together. You pull the ribbon loose, lifting the lid. Inside sits a slice of decadent chocolate cake, glossy frosting catching the sunlight, layers dark, dense, and unapologetically indulgent.

Your chest tightens.

"You remembered," you whisper.

He shrugs, looking suddenly very interested in a spot on the wall. "You seemed pretty sure it was worth surviving for."

You lift the cake plate slightly and notice something tucked beneath the ribbon, partially hidden against the cardboard.

An envelope. Your fingers hesitate, then slide it free. Leon doesn't look at you. He's staring out the window now, jaw set, shoulders a little too rigid, like he's bracing for impact.

Inside the envelope are two plane tickets. Beach destination. Departure in two weeks. Round trip. Vacation time from work. A hotel confirmation tucked behind them.

For a long moment, you can't speak.

"You said somewhere boring," he mutters quietly, still not turning around. "Figured that would be perfect."

"Leon..."

He finally looks back, expression carefully neutral, but there's something vulnerable in his eyes, something that says this mattered more than he wants to admit.

"You don't have to go," he adds quickly. "If you're not up for travel yet, we can postpone, or cancel, or—"

You set the tickets down and reach for him. Your fingers curl into his shirt, pulling him closer until he's standing right at the edge of the bed, close enough that you can see the faint pulse at the base of his throat.

"Thank you," you say softly.

Not just for the vacation. Not just for the cake. He understands anyway. His face softens, tension draining into something warm and quiet and deeply relieved.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Anytime."

You pick up the fork, take a small bite of cake, then hold it out to him. He leans in, accepting it, eyes never leaving yours. For a second, neither of you pulls back, the space between you charged with something gentler than urgency, heavier than simple affection.

"Worth it?" he asks.

You nod. "Absolutely."

You set the plate aside, your hand finding his again, fingers threading through his with familiar ease. He squeezes back immediately, grounding, protective, like he did in the hallway, only now there's no fear behind it. You both crave this closeness after it was almost ripped away just days before. 

You tug lightly, coaxing him down to sit beside you on the bed. He goes without resistance, one arm coming around your shoulders automatically, careful of lingering soreness. Your other hand lifts, brushing his cheek where faint redness still lingers if you look closely enough.

"I love you," you whisper.

His eyes close briefly, leaning into your touch in a way he never would in public. Just here, just now, where it's safe to be human.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I love you too."

Leon leans in first. The kiss is slow, gentle, nothing desperate or urgent, just warm lips and shared breath and the simple reassurance of contact. He stills for half a heartbeat, like he's afraid you might break, then melts into it, one hand cupping the back of your head. When you pull back, his forehead follows yours, resting lightly against it, eyes still closed.

"Careful," he murmurs. "Doctor said no overexertion."

You smile. "Pretty sure that wasn't what they meant."

"Still."

His arm tightens around you, drawing you closer until your head rests against his shoulder, fitting there like it always has. His chin settles lightly against your hair, breath warm, steady.

Outside, the city moves on. Inside, time slows to match the rhythm of two people who fought hard for the right to sit in a quiet room and eat cake.

"Two weeks," you murmur.

"Yeah."

"You think you can handle boring?"

He huffs softly. "I'll manage."

You laugh, the sound light and real and alive. His chest rises under your cheek, its vibration grounding you in the best possible way. For a long moment, neither of you says anything else. You just sit there, sunlight warming your skin, fingers loosely entwined, the promise of salt air and quiet days waiting ahead like a horizon you can finally see. Sharing cake, and kisses, and being alive, and together in your home.

Dividers by @uzmacchiato <3

You stood with your arms folded, posture casual in a way that took effort. Like you weren’t waiting. Like you didn’t already know exactly who you’d be fighting for space with.

The board flickered.

For a split second, everything went dark.

Then the names snapped into place.

#1 — YOU #2 — LEON KENNEDY

The reaction was immediate.

A low whistle cut through the room. Someone muttered, “Jesus, again.” Another agent laughed softly, like they’d just lost a bet.

You didn’t smile.

Smiling would’ve felt like gloating, and gloating around Leon Kennedy always came back to bite. Instead, you exhaled through your nose, jaw tightening just enough to hurt. Relief tangled with triumph, knotted together in a way that never quite felt like a win.

Across the floor, Leon stood a few feet away. Too close. Close enough that you could feel him without looking, like static in the air, irritating and unavoidable. He didn’t react. No sigh. No curse. No flicker of irritation that would’ve been satisfying to see.

He just stared at the board, hands loose at his sides, shoulders squared like this was exactly where he expected to be. Second.

That was the thing about Leon. He never looked bothered. Which only ever made you want to bother him more. Finally, he turned his head. Not fully. Just enough to acknowledge your existence.

“Congrats.”

The word was clean. Controlled. Devoid of warmth. Not a compliment, an obligation. You turned on him immediately.

“Wow,” you said, voice light in a way that wasn’t. “That sounded painful. You okay?”

A few agents nearby froze, suddenly very interested in anything that wasn’t the two of you. Someone cleared their throat. Loudly.

Leon’s eyes slid to you then—really looked. Blue, steady, unreadable. Like he was cataloguing you, the way he always did, as if you were a problem he hadn’t solved yet.

“I’ll survive,” he said. “I usually do.”

There it was. The implication. The reminder. That he didn’t need the board. Didn’t need the validation.

You scoffed. “Right. Keep telling yourself that.”

Your heart was beating faster than it should have. You hated that. Hated that he still had that effect. You told yourself it was just rivalry. Professional friction. Two agents chasing the same metrics.

Except metrics didn’t make your blood boil. Metrics didn’t make you remember every mission where he’d overridden your call. Every briefing where he’d questioned your judgment with that infuriating calm. Every time he’d acted like you were a variable to manage instead of an equal.

Leon gave a short nod, not concession, not respect. Closure.

Then he turned away.

As if the conversation hadn’t mattered. As if you hadn’t mattered.

Your fingers curled before you could stop them. You remembered the first time you’d tried to talk to him. Fresh out of training, adrenaline high, stupid enough to think camaraderie was a given. You’d said his name.

He’d walked straight past you. You’d decided then that he was an asshole. Every interaction since had only reinforced it.

The operations floor slowly returned to life as agents peeled away toward briefings, the tension dispersing but not disappearing. Not between you and Leon. It never did.

As you headed toward the briefing room, you caught his reflection in the glass wall ahead. Same expression. Same calm. Locked down so tight it felt deliberate. Like a wall he wanted you to slam into. And God help you, part of you wanted to break it. Just to prove that something under there could crack.

You squared your shoulders and kept walking. You didn’t care. You absolutely did.

The mission briefing chime cut through the operations floor with surgical precision.

“Conference Room A. Five minutes.”

The reaction was immediate and universal.

Groans rippled through agents who hadn’t moved fast enough to make themselves scarce. Chairs scraped back. Tablets were snapped shut. The loose, post-leaderboard tension evaporated, replaced by something sharper, more disciplined.

You moved with the crowd on instinct alone.

It wasn’t until you were halfway there that you realised exactly where it was taking you.

Conference Room A.

You grimaced internally.

The room was large by design, tiered seating, wide tables, enough space to accommodate egos as well as bodies, but it had a habit of shrinking whenever certain people occupied it.

You stepped inside and scanned for an open seat, already bracing yourself.

Of course.

Leon was already there.

Middle row. Dead centre. Prime vantage point of the screen and the handler’s podium. Perfect posture. Perfectly composed. Like he’d planned it that way.

There were empty chairs scattered throughout the room, but they might as well not have existed. Too far. Too obvious. Too cowardly. The only viable option, the one that didn’t scream avoidance, was the seat beside him.

Unavoidable. You took it. You dropped into the chair with more force than necessary, the legs giving a brief, sharp screech against the floor. Leon didn’t look at you. Didn’t need to.

The tension snapped into place the instant you sat down, tight and immediate, like a wire pulled too far. You felt it in your shoulders. In the way your spine straightened despite yourself.

Conversations around you faltered. Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just enough that you noticed the sudden lack of noise in your peripheral hearing. Someone a few rows back leaned in to whisper something to their partner. Another agent glanced at the two of you, eyebrows lifting before they very deliberately looked away.

No one wanted to be involved. The air felt thick. Pressurised. Like it might rupture if either of you pushed too hard.

Leon crossed his arms, posture relaxed but closed. Casual in the way that required discipline. Control. You leaned back, ankle resting on your knee, adopting your own version of indifference. Two opposing stances. Same message.

The handler entered, and the room snapped to attention.

Lights dimmed. Screens flared to life, flooding the space with satellite imagery, data streams, mission headers scrolling in clean, clinical fonts. The low hum of equipment filled the silence left behind by agents who suddenly remembered how to listen. For a few minutes, it was almost normal. Almost.

“Umbrella-affiliated assets have increased activity along the European biotech circuit,” the handler said, laser pointer gliding across the map. “High-profile events. Private funding galas. A lot of noise. Very little traceable movement.”

Leon leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on the table.

“Which means the actual exchange won’t happen on-site,” he said. Calm. Certain. “It’ll be routed through a secondary node. Off-grid. Clean.”

You didn’t look at him.

“Or,” you cut in, eyes still fixed on the screen, “they keep it local because no one expects them to risk exposure in a room full of donors and diplomats.”

The room stilled. You felt the shift before you saw it, attention pivoting, subtle but undeniable. Leon turned his head slowly. Deliberately.

“That would be sloppy,” he said. No heat. No edge. “Umbrella isn’t sloppy.”

You let out a soft, humourless breath. “Neither are shell corporations hiding in plain sight,” you replied. “Especially when they’re backed by people who think money makes them invisible.”

A pause. Leon’s mouth twitched. Not irritation. Amusement.

“That’s an assumption,” he said. “Arrogance isn’t a reliable variable.”

You turned then, meeting his gaze head-on. “It is when arrogance is the only reason they’ve survived this long.”

For a split second, his eyes held yours. Then he smirked. Not big. Not obvious. Just enough. And it pissed you off instantly.

A few agents shifted uncomfortably. Someone cleared their throat. The handler didn’t intervene, never did. Not when it was the two of you. They’d learned better. From somewhere across the room, barely under someone’s breath, came a muttered, “God help whoever has to work with them.”

It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t annoyed. It was resigned.

You saw Leon’s reaction out of the corner of your eye. The faint tightening at the corner of his mouth. Not anger. Something closer to agreement. Like the comment confirmed something he already knew. The rivalry wasn’t subtle. It never had been.

Leadership knew it. Field agents knew it. Even analysts who avoided combat zones like the plague knew better than to put the two of you on the same assignment without contingencies.

And yet. Here you were. Side by side. Again.

As the briefing continued, the friction didn’t ease, it deepened. You filled gaps Leon dismissed as irrelevant. He dismantled assumptions you made with surgical precision. Neither of you raised your voice. Neither of you yielded an inch.

It wasn’t about ego. It was about being right.

Leon shifted beside you, the movement small but unmistakable. Intentional. Close enough that you could feel his presence without looking. Close enough to feel like a provocation.

You refused to glance at him.

The handler cleared their throat sharply.

“Enough,” they said. Calm. Firm. “Both of you.”

You leaned back in your chair, jaw tight, eyes still forward.

Leon didn’t move at all.

Except for that damn smirk that hadn’t quite faded.

The briefing ended the way most did.

Not with resolution but with an abrupt cutoff and a roomful of people pretending they hadn’t been holding their breath.

The lights brightened. Screens went dark. Chairs shifted as agents remembered how to move again. Conversations started up too fast, too loud, like noise could erase what had just happened.

It couldn’t.

Agents filed out in a rush, boots striking the floor with sudden urgency. No one lingered. No one made eye contact longer than necessary. The tension was something physical now. Something that could snag you if you weren’t careful, wrap around your ankle and drag you down with it.

You were halfway to the door when the handler’s voice cut through the noise.

“You. Kennedy. Stay.”

Your spine stiffened.

Of course.

Leon stopped beside you without looking at you, like he’d been expecting it. Like this was just another outcome he’d already calculated. You hated that most of all, that nothing ever seemed to catch him off guard.

The rest of the room emptied fast.

Too fast.

Even the analysts who usually hovered with questions and clarifications suddenly remembered pressing deadlines and non-existent meetings. The last agent slipped out, the door sliding shut behind them with a soft, almost polite hiss.

Click.

The sound echoed.

Silence flooded in, heavy and deliberate.

The handler didn’t bother with theatrics. They never did. They stood at the head of the conference table, hands loosely clasped, posture easy in a way that only came from authority earned the hard way.

They looked unimpressed.

Calm. Experienced. Patient in the way of someone who had watched far worse people implode and lived to tell the story.

Their gaze flicked to you.

Then to Leon.

Like they were reviewing two familiar problem variables in a report they already knew by heart.

“You’re going to hate this assignment,” they said evenly. “So I’m going to give it to you quickly.”

Leon’s shoulders barely moved. No reaction. No protest.

You crossed your arms tighter, already bracing for impact.

The handler tapped the remote.

The screen behind them changed, maps and data streams replaced by a glossy event flyer dripping with gold accents and forced elegance.

THE KENSINGTON BIOTECH BENEFIT

A private gala supporting global medical innovation.

You scoffed quietly.

The kind of event that smelled like money, power, and immunity.

“Umbrella-adjacent shell companies have been laundering research funding through three different foundations,” the handler continued. “One of them is sponsoring this gala. Donors, executives, foreign ambassadors. Wealth. Influence. Enough plausible deniability to make a prosecutor cry.”

Another click.

A timeline appeared. Then a guest list, names blurred, titles redacted, power implied without explanation.

“Tonight,” the handler said, “their data broker makes a handoff. We believe it includes proprietary files and field logs. Evidence of illegal trials. Off-book transport routes. Personnel rosters.”

Your focus sharpened despite yourself.

“Where’s the handoff happening?” you asked.

Leon beat you by half a second.

“And how do we extract it without tipping the room?”

You felt irritation spark immediately. Predictable. Of course he’d jump straight to logistics, like this was just another clean operation and not a nest of vipers in tuxedos.

The handler’s eyes flicked between you again, cataloguing the tension like it was another asset to manage.

“The handoff is digital,” they said. “Encrypted drive. Stored temporarily on a secure device in the VIP lounge. The broker uploads it to an off-site server at 23:00. We need the device before then.”

Too clean.

You frowned. “So we infiltrate. Grab the device. Disappear.”

“Correct,” the handler said. “Which is why this is an on-site operation. No drones. No external breach. Umbrella’s countermeasures are tight.”

Leon’s jaw flexed once. Barely noticeable. You caught it anyway.

“Then we’ll need invitations,” he said.

“Already handled.”

The handler clicked again.

The screen changed.

Two names appeared. Two immaculate profiles. Wealthy. Connected. Polished to perfection.

A couple.

Your stomach dropped.

You read it once.

Then again.

And again.

Couple profile.

You looked up slowly. “No.”

The handler didn’t blink. “Yes.”

You let out a short laugh, sharp, humourless. “Absolutely not.”

Leon still hadn’t spoken.

His eyes were locked on the screen, but his posture had gone rigid in a way you recognised. The same way it did right before a firefight. Before something went wrong.

His jaw was tight. Mouth set into a flat line.

If a bullet had been aimed at his head, he would’ve looked exactly like this.

“The guest list is exclusive,” the handler continued. “Couples only. It’s not charity, it’s a filter. Singles draw scrutiny. Couples imply stability.”

You leaned forward, palms slamming onto the table. “Send literally anyone else.”

“There is no anyone else,” the handler replied calmly. “Not for this.”

Your temper flared hot and fast. “Why? Because we’re top-ranked?”

“Because your skill overlap is ideal,” they said. “One of you excels in social manipulation and close-quarters infiltration. The other excels in threat assessment and extraction under pressure.”

You opened your mouth.

“Don’t,” the handler said sharply. “You’re both excellent. Together, you’re efficient.”

Leon finally spoke.

“And if we refuse?”

Low. Controlled. Dangerous in its restraint.

The handler didn’t soften. “Then we miss the handoff. Umbrella keeps their data. People die later because we didn’t do our jobs now.”

Cold. Final.

You clenched your jaw. “So your plan is to shove us into a ballroom and hope we don’t kill each other.”

“My plan,” the handler said, “is to send two professionals into a controlled environment with a clear objective. Your personal feelings are irrelevant.”

“They’re not irrelevant if they compromise the mission,” you snapped.

Leon glanced at you then.

Brief. Sharp.

Unreadable.

He didn’t defend you. Didn’t agree. Didn’t disagree.

He just stood there, calm, contained, infuriatingly above it, like he always did.

You wanted to shake him. To crack that composure just once.

The handler watched you both like someone observing a storm they’d already charted.

“If you can’t play nice for one night,” they said evenly, “you don’t deserve that leaderboard.”

The words landed hard. Because they were true.

Because the leaderboard wasn’t just numbers. It was proof. Of every sacrifice. Every cut corner. Every fight you’d survived to get here. You felt the hook sink deep.

Leon didn’t react outwardly, but you saw it. The subtle lift of his chin. The tension in his throat as he swallowed. Pride caught him too. The handler shut off the screen.

“You’ll attend as Dr. and Dr.,” they said, sliding dossiers across the table. “Long-term couple. Convincing. You will touch. You will smile. You will sell it.”

You stared at the dossiers like they were weapons. Leon picked his up with careful precision. Of course he did.

“This is not optional,” the handler said. “Get the device. Get the data. Come back.”

They looked at you both.

“Try not to embarrass me.”

The door unlocked with a hiss.

You didn’t move.

Neither did Leon.

The truth settled ugly and heavy in your chest.

You weren’t being asked to work with Leon Kennedy. You were being forced to pretend you wanted him.

The training wing smelled like disinfectant and old sweat, cleaned often, never enough. The kind of smell that clung to the back of your throat no matter how many times they scrubbed the floors. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, cold and unforgiving, washing everything in a sickly white glow that did no one any favours.

The DSO didn’t do cozy. It did functional. It did survive.

A door slid open at the handler’s badge swipe, revealing a smaller room tucked off the main mat space. It was laid out like an interrogation room that had tried—and failed—to pass itself off as an office.

One table. Two chairs. A stack of folders.

And a tablet already lit up with a form that made your soul leave your body on sight.

UNDERCOVER COHABITATION PROFILE — COUPLE LEGEND BUILD

You stared at it like it had just insulted your family.

“Sit,” the handler said.

Leon took the chair opposite you immediately. No hesitation. No comment. Of course he did. You waited half a second longer, purely out of spite, then sat, crossing your legs and folding your arms like the tablet might try something.

The handler slid two clipboards across the table.

“You’ll fill these out together,” they said. “Your cover is long-term. Married. High-value donors with private ties to the foundation. Security will look for inconsistencies: names, habits, timelines. If you don’t align, you’ll set off alarms before you hit the champagne.”

They pushed a third folder toward Leon. “Apartment layout. Memorise it. If someone asks where the bathroom is in your home, you answer without thinking.”

Leon scanned the paperwork with that infuriatingly calm focus he brought to bomb schematics and ambush routes. No sarcasm. No commentary. Just silent efficiency.

You hated him a little extra for it.

“I’ll be outside,” the handler added. “You have forty minutes. Try not to kill each other.”

The door shut.

Click.

You and Leon were left alone with the lie. For a moment, neither of you moved. Leon’s eyes stayed on the paperwork. Yours stayed on him.

You grabbed the top sheet and skimmed it.

How did you meet?

When did you move in together?

Anniversary date:

Pet names used in public:

Pet peeves:

Shared routines:

Preferred terms of endearment (optional):

Your jaw clenched.

“This is ridiculous.”

Leon finally lifted his gaze. “It’s standard.”

You scoffed. “Standard. Right. Because nothing says ‘authentic marriage’ like a fill-in-the-blank worksheet.”

He picked up his pen. “How did we meet?”

The bluntness threw you for a second. “Wow. No warm-up? No foreplay?”

Leon didn’t blink. “Focus.”

You rolled your eyes. “Fine. Prague.”

His pen paused midair. “Vienna.”

You stared. “I’m sorry, did you just veto my city?”

“Vienna makes more sense,” he said evenly. “Diplomatic circuit. Donors. Embassy galas.”

“Prague is beautiful,” you shot back. “Historic. Romantic. Exactly the kind of place two rich idiots would pretend to fall in love over overpriced wine.”

Leon’s mouth flattened. “It’s cliché.”

“And Vienna isn’t?”

“It’s believable.”

“So is Prague.”

He exhaled slowly, like he was counting to ten. “We need a story that holds up under scrutiny.”

“And we need one that doesn’t sound like it was written by a man who alphabetises his spices.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed his eyes. “I don’t alphabetise my spices.”

“Wow. Growth.”

The argument escalated almost instantly. It was petty. You both knew it. It was also loud, because neither of you was willing to lose the first detail. Like it mattered. Like this wasn’t all fake anyway.

Leon tapped the page. “Vienna. We met at a benefit dinner. You spilled a drink on me.”

You barked a laugh. “Of course I did.”

“It’s memorable.”

“It makes me clumsy.”

“It explains why we talked.”

You bristled. “Or you bumped into me.”

Leon raised an eyebrow. “That makes you the victim.”

“And?”

“It makes me the asshole.”

You smiled sweetly. “Finally. Something accurate.”

For a second, his mouth twitched. Barely. Gone as fast as it appeared.

“Anniversary date,” you said quickly, flipping the page.

“November,” Leon said without hesitation.

“Why November?”

“Forgettable.”

“Wow. Romantic.”

He didn’t react. “The fifteenth.”

You paused. “That’s weirdly specific.”

His gaze flicked away. Just for a fraction of a second. “It’s fine.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You absolutely have something on the fifteenth.”

“No.”

“Uh-huh.”

You wrote it down anyway.

Pet peeves.

You read the line and looked up. “This is where you put ‘people who talk too much,’ isn’t it?”

Leon folded his arms. “It’s where we put things we can answer quickly.”

“Oh. Then write ‘emotion.’”

“What’s yours?” he countered.

“Men who think silence counts as depth.”

His pen stilled. “You hum when you’re thinking.”

“I do not.”

“You do.”

“That’s not a pet peeve.”

“It is when it’s constant.”

Heat crept up your neck. “You’re creepy.”

“Observant.”

Next line.

Pet names used in public.

You stared at it like it might explode.

“No.”

“We need something.”

“Something neutral.”

“Babe.”

You physically recoiled. “Absolutely not.”

“Sweetheart.”

“Try again.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Honey.”

Leon grimaced. “That’s worse.”

“It’s normal.”

“It sounds like a threat when you say it.”

You gasped. “Rude.”

“Pick one.”

You exhaled hard. “Love.”

He froze.

“What?” you snapped.

“It’s… British.”

“We’re in London half the year. Write it down.”

He did.

Your stomach did something annoying.

You shoved the clipboard away. “Done?”

Leon flipped to the apartment layout. “No.”

He started listing details like a man preparing for war. Door directions. Furniture placement. Appliance locations.

“You’re insane,” you muttered.

“It’s my job.”

The way he said it stopped your next insult cold. Before you could unpack that, the door hissed open.

“Time,” the handler said. “Training.”

The training room was louder. A raw, grinding decibel that felt less like sound and more like physical pressure against your eardrums. It was hotter, a dense, clinging heat that rose from the mats and bodies and pooled against the ceiling. This place was brutally, viciously honest in a way the slick corridors and polished debriefing rooms of headquarters never dared to be. Here, pretence was the first thing stripped away.

Every sound was amplified, thrown back by the barren walls: the scuff and slap of boots against padding, the meaty thud of bodies hitting the mat, the sharp, bitten-off bark of instructors.

This was where elegance went to die. Where you were reminded what you were underneath the tech and the tactics: flesh, bone, and flawed instinct.

Leon shrugged out of his jacket as if shedding a second skin. The movement was economical, unshowy, the muscles in his back and shoulders shifting in a deliberate roll beneath his dark shirt as he pushed his sleeves to his elbows. He didn’t look at you. He didn’t need to. His indifference was a practiced weapon, and he wielded it perfectly.

You hated that you tracked the motion anyway. Hated the way your eyes followed the line of his forearm, the shift of his weight. A silent catalogue of the enemy.

Mirroring him was a reflex, but you made it aggressive. You rolled your shoulders back until the joints gave a soft pop, tilted your neck until it burned. Your pulse was already climbing, a drumbeat of pure, undiluted adrenaline bleeding into your veins ahead of the impact. This wasn't nerves. It was a craving for collision.

“Close-quarters,” the handler’s voice cut through the din from the edge of the mat. “No distance. No weapons. You’re going to be in each other’s space until one of you breaks or the clock does.”

Lucky me.

Leon turned to face you fully, and the overhead lights carved him out of the gloom. The sharp, unyielding line of his jaw, the steady, metronomic rise and fall of his chest. His eyes swept over you once. Not dismissive. Not curious. Assessing. Coldly, clinically reassessing a variable he already had quantified.

“Try to keep up,” you said, the words grating out, already furious at the glacial calm on his face.

The corner of his mouth twitched. A phantom of a smirk, there and gone. “Show me.”

The first clash was less a fight and more a detonation.

You lunged without preamble, a silent, violent blur closing the distance before he could settle into a textbook stance. He reacted not with surprise, but with a speed that felt like an insult, catching your leading arm, redirecting your momentum with infuriating efficiency. Your shoulder slammed into the wall of his chest. Solid. Immovable. The impact reverberated up your neck, rattling your teeth.

You hooked his leg; he countered your hook. You twisted for leverage; his grip shifted, strong, calloused hands locking like manacles around your wrist and forearm. He stepped into you, using your own forward drive to uproot your balance.

The mat rushed up to meet you. You hit with a force that punched the air from your lungs in a sharp, humiliating wheeze.

He followed you down, a controlled avalanche. One knee braced near your hip, his weight a deliberate, undeniable pressure. One hand planted beside your head, caging you. The other pinning your arm with machined precision.

Too close.

His heat enveloped you, a living, breathing furnace. You could feel the coiled tension in the muscles of his arms and chest as he held himself back, a restraint that was somehow more arrogant than full force. His breath, still steady, washed over your cheek.

“Yield.” A single, quiet word, dropped into the scant space between your mouths.

You bared your teeth, a soundless snarl. “Dream on, Kennedy.”

You bucked, shifted your hips, used the micro-second his weight adjusted to hook your leg and roll. The world flipped, ceiling lights streaking, his form a blur of controlled motion, and suddenly you were on top, your forearm braced against the solid column of his throat, your knees digging into the mat on either side of his ribs.

Beneath you, his chest heaved once. A deep, aborted expansion. For a suspended heartbeat, neither of you moved.

Sweat slicked your skin where you pressed against him. The mat was warm and smelled of defeat. Leon’s hand came up, his grip closing around your wrist, not to throw you, not to hurt. To test. To measure the resistance. He was already adapting, his body learning yours even as yours screamed to reject his.

Your pulse was a roar in your ears, a chaotic counter-rhythm to his terrifying calm.

You shoved off him as if burned, scrambling to your feet before the strange, charged stillness could solidify.

“Not so perfect,” you spat, your breath coming in gusts you hated.

Leon sat up smoothly, as if rising from a lounge chair. As if your reversal had been a predicted, inconsequential sub-routine. “You’re fast.”

It wasn’t praise. It was data entry. And you hated that the distinction felt so vital, and that it landed somewhere in the uncharted, dangerous space between contempt and something else.

“Again,” the handler barked.

The next round was worse. Longer. More intimately brutal. It was a war of pressure and proximity. He caught a strike and used it to drive you back into the mat, his shoulder pinning you down, his forearm a bar of iron across your chest, not crushing, just absolutely controlling. You could feel every breath he took. You kicked out, twisted, your hands scraping against the corded steel of his arms as you broke free.

“You fight angry,” he muttered, the words a low vibration in the scant space between your bodies as you circled again, panting.

“You fight like a robot,” you shot back, your voice raw.

“You’re predictable.”

“Only to someone arrogant enough to think they’re smarter.”

“I think you’re reckless.” His eyes were chips of ice in the heat.

You lunged again, if only to wipe the assessment from his face.

He caught you, of course he did, but this time you were ready. You rolled with the momentum, dragging him down with you in a tangle of limbs. The mat shuddered. The grapple became a raw, grinding struggle for dominance, a silent conversation of strain and resistance. Your knee found his side; his elbow bracketed your ribs. Sweat-slick skin slid against damp fabric. Neither of you would yield an inch. The sheer, stubborn will of it was a third entity in the fight.

By the time the handler called the reset, your skin was sheened, your lungs burned, and your muscles trembled with fatigued fury. Across from you, Leon’s breathing had finally deepened, still controlled, but unmistakably heavier. His shirt was plastered to the planes of his back, darkened in a long, damp streak down his spine.

You refused to acknowledge it. You refused to even look.

“Live-fire simulation,” the handler called, gesturing to the adjacent door. “Now.”

The next room was a labyrinth of moveable walls, strobing lights, and disorienting sound cues. Training pistols, heavy with marking rounds, were thrust into your hands. No room for error. No room for anything but the drill. You and Leon moved through the doorway as a single, fractured unit. No words. No signals.

You took point on instinct. He covered the angles you couldn’t see, his presence a shadow at your six. It felt profoundly wrong, this seamless coordination, how your strides synced, how you pivoted around a corner and he was already there, clearing the blind spot. It felt like a betrayal of the mutual contempt that had been your only common ground.

A target snapped up from a left-side port.

You pivoted, weapon rising, finger finding the trigger -

Leon moved.

No shout. No warning. A pure, unthinking kinetic shift.

He stepped into your line of fire, his body turning, his shoulder angling to intercept the shot that wasn’t even real. A blunt, physical declaration.

Protective. Automatic.

The training round smacked into the hard plate of his vest with a dull, final thwack.

Your finger froze. The world narrowed to the spot of neon paint now blooming on his shoulder, to the broad back that had just placed itself between you and a theoretical threat.

“Reset!” the handler’s voice was distant, irrelevant.

Leon stepped away immediately, his posture snapping back into that flawless, impregnable control as if the last five seconds had been edited out. As if his body hadn’t just made a decision his mind would never consciously permit.

You stood rooted, your pulse a frantic bird in your throat, staring at the mark on his vest.

The venue rose out of the city like a monument to excess.

Marble columns framed the entrance, pale and flawless, each one tall enough to make a statement about permanence, about money that didn’t worry about time or consequence. Crystal chandeliers glittered beyond the glass doors, scattering light across polished floors in a way that felt deliberate, curated to impress and intimidate in equal measure.

Inside, an orchestra played something classical and unobtrusive, strings swelling just enough to fill the space without demanding attention. The music threaded through conversations held in low, confident voices, people who had never had to check over their shoulders when they spoke.

This place wasn’t just expensive. It was insulated.

You stepped inside and felt it immediately: the invisible barrier between the people here and the rest of the world. Consequences didn’t reach this far. They slid off champagne flutes and tailored suits, drowned under polite laughter and charitable donations.

Umbrella executives were everywhere. Not obvious. Not branded. Just… present. Men and women with immaculate posture and smiles that didn’t quite reach their eyes. People who knew exactly how much power they held and exactly how well it was hidden.

You straightened instinctively, not because you needed to, but because the room demanded it. Tonight, you weren’t an agent.

The dress was a calculated piece of armour. It clung and moved in a way that looked effortless, the kind of confidence that came from knowing every movement would be watched and finding satisfaction in it. Hair styled, posture relaxed, expression composed. Lethal, but not visibly so. Danger tucked beneath refinement.

Leon stood beside you, and the contrast was almost obscenely perfect. You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t noticed. The tailored suit fit him like a second skin, draping over broad shoulders and a lean frame with an almost insulting elegance. It was dark, understated, and it made him look disarmingly respectable, the kind of man donors instinctively trusted. The earpiece was invisible, his edge concealed beneath a veneer of sophisticated calm. He looked… safe. Predictable. It was the most effective disguise he’d ever worn.

No weapons. No tactical gear. Just a man who cleaned up a little too well. Neither of you looked like agents. You looked like you belonged.

Leon’s eyes swept over you as you adjusted a strap on your shoulder, his gaze lingering a fraction longer than strictly operational. When he spoke, his voice was a low, private rumble. “They didn’t mention the dress.”

You kept your eyes forward, scanning the crowd. “It’s not in the briefing notes, Kennedy. It’s called a uniform.”

“It’s a distraction,” he said, and there was a trace of something in his tone, not warmth, but a clinical sort of acknowledgment.

Before you could retort, the second you crossed the threshold fully into the ballroom, his hand settled at the small of your back.

It wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t awkward. It was proprietary.

His palm rested there with a pressure that was both grounding and possessive, his fingers splayed just above the curve of your hip. His thumb brushed once, a slow, deliberate stroke against the delicate fabric, and your entire spine went rigid in response. The heat of his hand burned through the silk, a brand you felt in every nerve ending.

He leaned in, his breath disturbing the hair near your temple. “Easy,” he murmured, his voice a velvety counterfeit of intimacy. “Smile.”

You did, a perfect, glazed curve of the lips. Under your breath, barely moving them, you hissed, “If you leave your hand there any longer, I’m billing the DSO for emotional damages and a dry-cleaning bill. Your palm is sweating.”

Leon didn’t look at you. His hand didn’t move. If anything, his fingers pressed more firmly, pulling you a millimetre closer into the orbit of his body. “Relax, sweetheart,” he said aloud, his tone soft, affectionate, convincingly doting. “You look breathtaking.” The endearment was a bullet wrapped in velvet.

A nearby couple glanced over, their smiles fond and approving.

Your jaw ached from clenching. “You sound disturbingly natural. I think I might throw up.”

His mouth curved, a private, dangerous flicker. “That’s because you’re holding your breath. They’ll notice the lack of oxygen before they notice the lie.”

“Maybe if you weren’t manhandling me.”

“My hand’s not moving,” he replied, his calm an infuriating counterpoint to your tension. “You’re just hyper-aware of it. Mission focus, remember?”

You hated that he was right. The awareness was a live wire running from the point of contact straight to your core. Publicly, you were seamless, an elegant couple drifting into the flow of the gala, bodies aligned, steps synchronised. Privately, it was a silent war of attrition.

Leon guided you toward the bar with infuriating ease, his hand a constant, navigating pressure. He nodded politely, offered brief, warm smiles. You felt every shift of his fingers, every minute adjustment of his grip.

An Umbrella executive, tall, with cold, appraising eyes, glanced your way.

Leon’s hand shifted. His fingers spread, pressing more fully against your spine as he angled you subtly, protectively, closer to him. His head dipped, his lips near your ear. “This is ridiculous,” you muttered, your own gaze locked on the executive.

“Focus,” Leon murmured, his voice a low vibration you felt in your bones. “He’s not just looking. He’s calculating. Smile at him. Like you find him tedious.”

You tilted your head, letting your gaze drift over the man with the lazy, disinterested contempt of the truly privileged. You offered a faint, dismissive smile. The man’s gaze lingered, then moved on, satisfied you were no one of consequence.

Leon exhaled, a soft sound that feathered against your skin. “See? That’s the point.”

You glanced up at him, your cheek nearly brushing his jaw. “Don’t get smug.”

“I’m not smug,” he said, raising a hand to effortlessly snag two champagne flutes from a passing server. He handed one to you, his fingers brushing yours. “I’m effective.”

“You remembered the champagne,” you noted flatly, taking the glass.

“I remember things,” he replied, his eyes scanning the room over the rim of his flute. “Drink with your left hand. Your ring’s on the right. It flashes under the lights.”

You froze for a half-second, a tiny, betraying stumble in your composure. Then you switched hands smoothly, the crystal stem cool in your left fingers. “Stop paying attention to irrelevant details about me.”

“Can’t,” Leon said, his voice dropping back into that confidential murmur as he guided you away from the bar. “That’s the job tonight. Every detail is relevant.”

The orchestra swelled as the evening deepened. The air grew thick with perfume and false camaraderie. Leon’s hand remained on your back, a constant, maddening presence. You became a connoisseur of its pressure, firmer when navigating a crowd, lighter but no less present when stationary, his thumb tracing an absent, subconscious arc that made your breath catch.

As you moved, you saw the illusion take hold. The casual glances from guests, the approving nods from older patrons, the way security teams assessed you as a unit and then dismissed you. They bought the story. The elegant, connected, slightly bored couple.

The realisation was a cold trickle down your spine. Because it wasn’t just them. It was him, too.

He moved through the charade with a terrifying, fluid ease. His touches, his murmured words, the way his body curved around yours in a crowd, it all looked effortless. Like it cost him nothing. Like the simmering hostility that defined your every interaction had been switched off, replaced by this seamless, galling performance.

You were starting to resent how good he was at it.

A guest intercepted you near the edge of the ballroom, an older man with silver hair and a practiced smile, glass of champagne cradled loosely in one hand. His eyes flicked between you and Leon with open curiosity.

“Forgive me,” he said pleasantly, inclining his head. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” Leon smiled before you could respond, warm and unhurried. “Of course. This is my wife.” The word still sent a strange jolt through you.

“And you are?” the man asked, turning his attention to you. “Involved in the foundation as well?”

You opened your mouth to speak. To think of something fast before you started spilling word vomit.

“She is,” Leon answered smoothly, his hand settling at your back again. “She led the data consolidation project for the Helios Initiative last year. Streamlined the entire reporting pipeline. Saved the board six figures and a lot of embarrassment.”

You stilled. Just for a fraction of a second. The man’s brows lifted, impressed.

“She has a talent for finding inefficiencies people prefer not to admit are there,” Leon continued, tone light, almost fond. “She’s very good at seeing patterns others miss.”

Your heart stumbled. The guest chuckled. “Dangerous skill.”

Leon’s thumb brushed your spine once, subtly. Familiar. “Only if you’re hiding something.”

The man laughed and excused himself moments later, drifting back into the crowd, already satisfied. You remained where you were, gaze fixed ahead, the music suddenly too loud in your ears.

“How did you know that?” you asked quietly, once you were certain no one was listening.

Leon didn’t look at you. “You did it during the Marseille op,” he said simply. “Flagged the discrepancy in the shipping logs. Everyone else missed it.”

“That was years ago,” you said. “I remember,” he replied.

There was no pride in his voice. No edge. Just fact.

You leaned back into his touch, your shoulder blades pressing against his chest as you pretended to point out a painting. Your voice was a razor in the velvet dark between you. “They’re eating this up. It’s almost pathetic.”

“Yes,” Leon replied, his chin nearly resting on your shoulder. His breath was warm on your neck. “They are.”

He gave you nothing else. Just the steady, burning pressure of his hand.

The orchestra shifted, the music melting into a slower, more intimate piece. The dance floor began to fill. Leon felt the shift in the room’s rhythm a moment before you did.

He turned to you, his expression softening into something convincingly expectant. He extended his hand, palm up. Not a question. A quiet command in the language of the evening.

You stared at his offered hand, at the faint scars across the knuckles you knew the origin of. Then you placed yours in it, your cool fingers sliding against his warm, calloused palm. “You step on my feet,” you whispered, “and I’ll make a scene they’ll talk about for years.”

A ghost of a real smile touched his lips. “Noted.”

He drew you into him, one hand returning to its familiar place on your back, the other closing around your hand. The world narrowed to the space between your bodies. You could feel the fine wool of his suit under your splayed fingers, the solid muscle beneath.

“You dance like you fight,” you accused as he led you into the first steps.

“Precisely?” he murmured, his eyes holding yours.

“Stiffly. Like you’re waiting for an attack.”

“You’re leading.”

“I am not.”

“You’re anticipating my lead and resisting it. It’s the same thing.” He adjusted his grip, his hand on your back firming, guiding your turn. “Stop fighting the rhythm. Let it happen.”

You bristled. “I don’t just let things happen.”

He leaned in, his lips a breath from your ear. His voice dropped, losing its polished edge, revealing the rougher truth beneath. “You do. You always have. You anticipate the strike. You brace for the impact. You’re doing it now.”

The direct hit silenced you. The banter evaporated, leaving only the truth of the movement. You were bracing. Against him. Against the music. Against the unnerving synchronicity.

Somewhere in the next turn, the resistance broke. Not with a surrender, but with a mutual, unspoken recalibration. Leon’s guidance became less a direction and more a suggestion. Your following became less a resistance and more a mirror. Your weight settled, your steps aligned. He shifted; you matched. It became effortless. Fluid. A silent, perfect dialogue of motion.

It felt exactly like the rare, terrifying moments in the field when everything went to hell and instinct took over, when you moved not as two separate entities, but as a single, coordinated organism.

Your breath hitched. You felt his do the same, a stutter in his otherwise controlled chest. Neither of you spoke.

The music carried you, and his hand on your back was no longer a point of conflict. It was an anchor. His other hand held yours, not with performance, but with a simple, undeniable connection. You were suddenly, acutely aware of every point of contact: his thigh brushing yours, the heat of his palm, the steady beat of his heart against your own racing one.

The song began to wind down. Security was tightening; you could see the increased scrutiny at the edges of the room.

Leon’s voice was a raw scrape against your ear, all pretence of gentleness gone. “They’re locking the perimeter. Broker’s in the east wing. We need to move.”

You nodded, your forehead almost touching his chin. The final note hung in the air. Applause scattered through the room. Couples began to separate. Leon didn’t let go.

His hand remained on your back. His fingers were still laced with yours. In the dim, chandelier-lit haze, for a heartbeat that stretched into an eternity, you just stood there, locked in the echo of the dance and the glaring, inconvenient truth it had revealed.

You were still holding on. And so was he.

Finally, he released your hand, the absence feeling like a sudden chill. His palm slid from your back, leaving the ghost of its heat imprinted on the silk. You took a half-step back, the ballroom noise rushing back in.

“Next time,” you said, your voice strangely thin, “warn me before you decide to be competent at something.”

He looked at you, his blue eyes stripped of their usual ice, something darker and more complicated swirling in their depths. “You didn’t need a warning. You kept up.”

He turned, offering his arm again, the picture of the attentive partner. After a stunned second, you slid your hand into the crook of his elbow, your fingers trembling slightly against the fine cotton.

Conversations continue, a tapestry of polished lies, but your senses have already pared them down to a meaningless drone. Your focus narrows, homing in on the anomaly. Across the room, an Umbrella scientist, a man with the pallid complexion and careful detachment of someone who spends more time with data than people, has stopped moving.

He isn't staring. That would be amateur. His attention is a series of precise, surgical observations: the way you stand with your weight slightly forward, not relaxed back; the subtle, the specific tension in your shoulders that speaks of readiness, not repose. His head tilts, a fraction of a degree.

Your pulse kicks, a single, hard thud against your ribs. "Leon," you breathe, the word a ghost against the rim of your champagne flute.

"I see him." His reply is immediate, a low current beneath the placid surface. His posture hasn't changed, but you feel the minute shift in the energy beside you, the coiling of a spring. "Don't look at him. Look at me."

But it's too late. The scientist’s eyes, cold, magnified behind thin glasses, flicker. Not with full recognition, but with the dawning, critical suspicion of it. I know you. From where? The unspoken question hangs in the charged space between you. The danger isn't here yet, but it's coming, a tide you have seconds to turn. Leon doesn't hesitate. He never does.

One moment you are two adjacent entities, sharing a cover story. The next, his arm bands around your waist, pulling you in with an irrevocable certainty. His other hand rises, fingers threading into the hair at your nape, his palm cradling the line of your jaw with a possession that steals the breath from your lungs.

And then his mouth is on yours.

It is not a kiss born of passion, but of pure, unadulterated necessity, a tactical strike executed with devastating precision. There is no cautious exploration, no soft inquiry. His lips meet yours with a firm, undeniable pressure, sealing the world out. It is immediate. Consuming. A forced intimacy that feels more like a claiming than a performance.

The shock of it is a lightning bolt to your system. Every thought, every alarm bell, is momentarily short-circuited by the sheer, overwhelming physicality of him. The warmth of his skin, the faint, clean scent of him cutting through the cloying perfume of the gala, the solid, unyielding wall of his chest against yours.

His mouth moves, and it is not the gentle persuasion of a lover. It is decisive. Convincing. He angles his head, deepening the contact just enough to be unquestionable, his thumb stroking a slow, deliberate arc along your jawline, a gesture of affection that feels, in its practiced perfection, like a weapon. He is building a shield with his body, blocking the scientist's view, rewriting the narrative in the space of a heartbeat: You are not a threat. You are distracted. You are mine.

And you respond. It is the true betrayal. Your body, trained for survival, obeys a different instinct. Your free hand, the one not clutching the forgotten champagne flute, comes to rest against his chest, not to push him away, but to steady yourself. A small, stifled sound catches in your throat. Your lips part beneath his, not in invitation, but in a gasp of pure, stunned reflex that he seamlessly incorporates into the act.

And then, as abruptly as it began, the pressure changes. Leon’s kiss softens, becomes a lingering press, a final punctuation mark. The immediate threat has passed; the scientist, presented with an indisputable picture of private passion, has turned away, dismissing his suspicion as irrelevant.

But Leon doesn't pull back. For three endless heartbeats, he remains there, his forehead resting against yours, his breath mingling with yours in ragged sync. His eyes are closed, his expression a stark mask of concentration, as if he is listening for an echo of the danger, or perhaps for something else entirely. His thumb continues its slow sweep along your jaw, a soothing rhythm that feels anything but soothing.

You are the one who breaks. You wrench your head back, a shudder running through you. The cool air of the ballroom hits your damp lips, a shocking contrast. Your hand, still splayed on his chest, pushes, a weak, belated attempt to reinstate a boundary that has been utterly demolished.

"Don't," you manage, your voice a scraped-raw whisper. "Don't you dare read into that."

Leon's eyes open. They are dark, pupils blown wide, the usual icy blue swallowed by a storm you've never seen before. He looks at you and for a second, the professional facade is utterly absent. There is only a raw, unsettled intensity that mirrors the chaos in your own veins.

"Trust me," he says, his voice low and rough, stripped of its earlier polish. "I'm not." It is the most transparent lie either of you has told all night.

The silence that follows is louder than the music. He slowly, carefully, unwinds his arm from your waist, his fingers loosening from your hair as if disarming a live wire. The distance between you feels cavernous, charged with the aftershocks of what just happened. You can still feel the imprint of his body against yours, a phantom brand. Your lips are tender, buzzing with a sensation that has nothing to do with the champagne.

Leon clears his throat, the sound harsh in the quiet between you. His gaze darts away, reassembling his composure piece by piece. "He's moving toward the east corridor. The distraction worked."

"Right," you say, the word tasting like ash. You straighten your spine, a soldier coming to attention after a devastating blow. You smooth your dress, a futile gesture. The elegance feels like a costume now, hanging awkwardly on the raw, shaken thing you've become underneath.

He offers his arm again, a formality. You take it, your fingers trembling slightly as they settle on the fine wool of his sleeve. The contact is sterile, polite. A mockery of the intimacy that just fused you together.

You know now, with chilling clarity, that Leon's first instinct was not to create distance, not to signal a retreat, but to eliminate the threat to you by any means necessary. He didn't just sell a cover. He consumed it. He didn't hesitate. And in that breathless, stolen moment, neither did you.

The line has not just been crossed. It has been incinerated.

You keep your chin high, your smile in place, moving back into the glittering fray. But the gala has shifted. The colours are too bright, the music too shrill. Every nerve ending is alive, hyper-aware of the man beside you, of the memory of his mouth, his hands, the terrifying efficiency of his protection, and the even more terrifying echo of your own response.

The gala breathes around you, music swelling and receding, laughter rippling through the crowd, the illusion of safety pressed into every polished surface. But the clock is ticking louder now.

You feel it in the way security shifts positions too often. In the way conversations stall, restart. In the subtle tightening of the room’s rhythm as the night edges closer to whatever Umbrella has planned.

Leon’s hand rests lightly at your elbow as he steers you toward the edge of the ballroom, bodies angled just close enough to sell the cover. His touch is careful now, less possessive than before, more controlled. Like he’s consciously reining himself in. His voice reaches you through the comm, low and steady beneath the orchestra.

“Broker’s device is active. Signal spike just came online.”

Your gaze sweeps the room automatically, cataloguing exits, shadows, patterns. “VIP lounge,” you murmur.

“Yes,” Leon replies. “But there’s a secondary access corridor behind the east stairwell. Two choke points.” A pause. “If we go together, we bottleneck.”

You glance up at him, jaw tightening. “If we split, we lose eyes.”

“We gain speed.”

“And risk,” you counter quietly, lips barely moving as a couple passes too close. “Security’s tightening. They’re already clocking patterns.”

Leon slows just enough to turn toward you. Not fully. Not enough to draw attention. But enough that you feel the weight of his focus settle on you. The chandelier light catches his eyes, sharp, intent, stripped of the softness he’s been wearing for the room.

“Protocol says split,” he says. “Two access points. Redundancy.”

You scoff under your breath. “Protocol didn’t account for Umbrella improvising.”

“It accounts for us adapting.”

“It accounts for you adapting,” you snap back, the edge in your voice slipping through despite your control. “I’m the variable you’re pretending isn’t there.”

His jaw tightens. A muscle jumps once, just beneath the skin.

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Isn’t it?” You lean in closer, the pretence of intimacy giving your words cover. Your pulse is loud now, insistent. “Because ever since that-” You stop yourself, breath hitching. “Since earlier, you’ve been playing it safe.” Leon’s breath stutters once. Barely perceptible. But you feel it.

“I’m playing it smart,” he says.

You shake your head. “Same thing. Different excuse.”

A server brushes past, tray wobbling dangerously close. Leon reacts instantly, his hand sliding to your waist, pulling you in as he murmurs something affectionate aloud. You force a smile, lean into him, sell it.

The server moves on. Leon’s hand doesn’t. His fingers remain splayed at your side, warm and grounding, the pressure unmistakable.

“Listen to me,” he says quietly now, close enough that his breath warms your ear. “The device will be gone in minutes. If we hesitate, we lose it.”

“And if something happens?” you whisper back. “If one of us gets boxed in-”

“We won’t,” he says too fast.

You pull back just enough to look at him. “You don’t know that.”

For a moment, the argument stalls. You don’t like being away from him. You hate that you know the cadence of his movements. That you can predict his choices before he makes them. That the thought of moving through hostile space without his presence at your back makes your chest feel tight and exposed. Leon looks away first. His hand slips from your waist, deliberately, like he’s forcing himself to let go.

“Two minutes,” he says, voice clipped. “If either of us hits resistance, we abort and regroup at point C.”

“And if comms drop?” you ask.

He doesn’t hesitate. “Then you trust me.”

The words land harder than they should. You swallow. “That’s a big ask.” Leon turns back to you, his expression carefully neutral but his eyes give him away. “You already do.”

You hate that he’s right. The realisation burns low and sharp in your chest.

“Fine,” you say, forcing steel into your voice. “East stairwell. I’ll take the service corridor.”

Leon nods once. No hesitation. No argument. Like this was always the plan.

You separate smoothly, drifting apart like any other couple momentarily distracted by different conversations. His presence fades from your side, and the absence of it is immediate, an ache you weren’t prepared for.

The service corridor is quieter, narrower. The music fades to a distant hum, replaced by the soft whir of ventilation and the echo of your own footsteps. The lighting here is dimmer, more utilitarian, less forgiving. You move with practiced ease, posture relaxed, pace unhurried. Just another donor who took a wrong turn.

A guard stands at the far end of the corridor, back partially turned. He glances up as you approach, eyes narrowing just a fraction too long.

You smile. “Sorry, restrooms?” He hesitates. Just long enough. “Down the hall,” he says eventually, gesturing.

You thank him and keep walking, heart thudding. You feel the weight of the distance now, the absence of Leon’s quiet presence through the comms, the way he usually covers angles you don’t have eyes on.

You reach the door marked AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY and slide the keycard from your clutch with steady fingers. The lock clicks open.

Inside, the air is cooler. Server racks hum softly, lights blinking in orderly patterns. The device should be here, hidden, discreet, temporary. You scan quickly. Nothing. Your pulse spikes.

“Leon,” you murmur into the comm. “Device isn’t here.”

A beat. “I’m seeing the same,” he replies. “They’ve moved it.”

“Where?”

“VIP lounge,” he says. “Security just doubled.”

Of course they did. You pivot toward the exit, and the door slams shut behind you. Your heart jumps. You spin, hand already moving toward the concealed weapon at your thigh. The lock engages with a sharp click.

“Leon,” you hiss.

“I hear it,” he says immediately. “Stay calm.”

“Working on it.”

Footsteps sound outside the door. Two sets. Guards murmuring. You scan the room, calculating. No windows. No alternate exit. The ventilation shaft is too small.

“You okay?” Leon asks, voice steady but tight.

“Yes,” you lie. “Just… boxed in.”

A pause. You can hear his breathing through the comm now, controlled but faster.

“I’m rerouting,” he says. “Hold.”

You close your eyes for half a second, forcing yourself to breathe. You trust him. The guards’ voices grow clearer. Keys jingle. Someone tests the door. Your hand tightens around your weapon.

“Leon,” you whisper. “If this goes loud-”

“It won’t,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

The certainty in his voice steadies you more than you want it to. Seconds stretch. Then, gunfire. Shouts. Chaos, distant but unmistakable. The lock disengages. The door bursts open and Leon is there. Breathing hard. Suit rumpled. Eyes sharp and furious and fixed entirely on you.

“Move,” he says.

You don’t argue. You slip past him, shoulder brushing his as you fall into step, moving together like you never separated at all. As you disappear down the corridor, adrenaline still singing in your veins, one thought cuts through the chaos, clear and undeniable.

You barely make it three turns before the building decides to turn hostile.

It starts as a low chime, soft, almost polite, like a warning meant for staff, not guests. Then the lights above you flicker, the bright warmth of the gala’s corridors stuttering into something colder.

Red emergency strips ignite along the ceiling.

A beat later, the sound hits, an alarm that rises in pitch until it becomes a physical pressure against your skull.

Leon’s head snaps up. “That’s not fire protocol,” he says into the comm, voice already shifting into command mode.

“It’s not us,” you reply, breathing hard as you jog. “We haven’t even touched the-”

“Doesn’t matter.” His tone turns razor-thin. “Umbrella emergency.”

As if the words themselves flip a switch, the corridor ahead explodes with movement. A door slams open. Men in black tactical uniforms pour out, armed, masked, efficient. Not event security. Not rent-a-cops.

These are Umbrella’s.

The sound of the orchestra fades behind the thick walls, replaced by the heavier music of boots and shouted commands. Guests scream in the ballroom somewhere distant, the party dissolving into panic on the other side of a carefully controlled barrier.

Leon grabs your wrist and yanks you down a side hall just as a round cracks past where your head had been. The bullet bites into marble, spitting stone dust into the air.

“Contact!” someone barks. “Target moving, east corridor!”

Your comms crackle with interference, the line spiking and dropping as systems overload. Leon’s grip tightens once, steadying you, not for comfort, you tell yourself, but for speed.

“You okay?” he asks, already moving.

“Fine,” you snap, then add, because honesty feels like weakness, “They’re faster than I expected.”

“They’ve been waiting,” Leon says. “We triggered something they wanted triggered.”

You hate that he’s right. Hate that it means this wasn’t just security tightening. It was a trap snapping shut.

A door ahead locks with a heavy clunk as magnetic seals engage. The hallway narrows into a dead-end stretch lined with service entrances. Red light pulses across steel panels, making everything look like it’s bleeding.

Leon slows just long enough to scan. “No exits.”

“Then we make one,” you say, already reaching for the weapon concealed beneath your dress.

Leon’s gaze flicks to your thigh holster, then to your face. No comment. No surprise. Just that quiet, grim acceptance that you’d both come prepared.

A burst of gunfire erupts behind you.

Leon pushes you forward. “Move.”

You sprint. He’s right beside you, close enough that you feel the air shift with him, matching your pace without effort. You round a corner and slam into a tight corridor that funnels you into a narrow kill zone.

Two Umbrella operatives are already there.

No time for thought.

You fire once, clean shot, shoulder. Leon fires in the same breath, headshot. The second operative tries to swing their weapon up. You’re already moving, stepping in, elbow driving into their throat. Leon catches their arm and twists, disarming with a practiced snap that looks almost casual.

The man drops.

Silence doesn’t follow. More footsteps. More coming.

Leon reloads without looking, hands moving fast and sure. You pivot, back hitting his for half a second as you take position.

Back-to-back.

It happens instinctively.

No discussion. No argument. No ego.

Just movement.

Leon’s voice is low, calm. “Three behind. Two ahead.”

You swallow the adrenaline and check your magazine. “Left side is mine.”

“Copy.”

You hear the click of his gun as he finishes his reload. You don’t need to see it. You know the sound now, the rhythm of him, how long it takes, when he needs cover, when he’s about to shift.

The first wave hits.

A door bursts open to your left. You pivot and fire, dropping one before his boots fully clear the threshold. Another lunges in right behind him, weapon raised. You duck, feeling the heat of a shot pass over you, then slam your shoulder into the wall and rebound forward, knife flashing out of your clutch like it’s always been there.

Leon’s gun cracks twice at your back, perfectly timed, covering you as you close distance.

The man goes down.

Another steps into the corridor ahead, weapon trained. Leon shifts his weight, shoulder pressing lightly to your back, a cue, not a shove. You understand instantly, stepping left as he steps right, breaking the enemy’s line of fire before it can settle.

You fire.

Leon fires.

Two bodies fall.

You’re breathing hard now, sweat slick against your skin beneath the elegance of the dress. The fabric pulls tighter across your ribs with every inhale, a reminder that you’re fighting in clothes meant for champagne and photo ops, not blood and bullets.

And Leon is still in his suit, jacket discarded somewhere behind you, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened. He looks like a man who stepped off a runway and straight into a warzone.

He moves like he belongs here.

So do you.

A sharp crack echoes, too close. Stone dust sprays across your cheek as a bullet hits the wall inches from your head. You flinch, just once, and Leon’s hand comes up immediately, palm to your shoulder, guiding you down behind a corner.

“Stay low,” he murmurs.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you hiss automatically.

Leon doesn’t take the bait. He leans out, fires twice, then pulls back, already reloading. “Cover me.”

You do, because you always do. Because your body already knows what to do when he says it.

You step out, firing controlled shots that force the operatives back. Leon’s reload finishes. He’s up and moving again, switching positions with you so smoothly it feels like choreography.

It hits you mid-fight, sudden and unwanted.

You fight the same way.

Not identical but the same mind. The same instincts. The same calculation running behind your eyes at the same speed. The same ruthless efficiency under pressure.

You both make decisions in fractions of a second.

You both adjust without needing to speak.

You both anticipate.

Mirrors.

The thought is so sharp it almost distracts you.

And suddenly the rivalry makes sense.

Because it was never really hate. It was recognition.

A loud mechanical whine cuts through the chaos, the sound of an internal security shutter descending. The corridor ahead begins to seal off, metal plates sliding down from the ceiling to block the route.

“We’re getting boxed,” you warn.

Leon’s eyes flick. “We go now.”

You don’t argue. You surge forward together, moving fast as the plates descend. A man steps into your path, too late to stop you. You slam into him like a force of nature, knee driving into his stomach. Leon’s elbow snaps into the side of his head, clean and brutal.

You clear him and keep moving.

The shutter slams down behind you with a heavy, final clang.

For half a heartbeat, there’s only your breathing and the distant muffled alarm.

Leon’s chest rises and falls hard. His hair is slightly out of place now, a thin sheen of sweat at his temple. His eyes are bright with adrenaline, sharp as a blade.

You’re too close, face to face in the tight corridor, bodies still buzzing from combat. You can feel the heat of him, the electricity of the movement that just happened between you without words.

He scans you quickly, your face, your arms, the exposed skin at your shoulder. “You hit?”

“No,” you say, then more softly, “You?”

He shakes his head once.

Your comms crackle again. A burst of static. Then the handler’s voice cuts in, strained: “Emergency protocol is fully active. Extraction compromised. Get that device and get out. Now.”

Leon’s gaze meets yours.

And for the first time all night, there’s no sarcasm in it. No rivalry. No distance.

Just certainty.

“We finish this,” he says.

You swallow, pulse still pounding.

“Yeah,” you reply. “We finish it.”

Then you move again together, like you’ve been doing this side by side for years.

Like you were always meant to.

You duck into the service room just as Leon slams the door shut behind you, shoving a metal cart into place with a sharp grunt. The barricade isn’t elegant, but it’s solid enough to buy you time. For now.

The alarms are muffled here, reduced to a distant, angry pulse. Red light seeps through the narrow window in the door, flashing in slow intervals that make the room feel like it’s breathing.

You lean forward, hands braced on your knees, dragging air into your lungs. Your heart is still racing, adrenaline buzzing so loud it drowns out everything else. Sweat clings to your skin, your dress ruined, hair pulled loose from its careful styling.

Leon turns toward you immediately.

“Stay still,” he says, already closing the distance.

“I am still,” you snap, even as you straighten reflexively.

His hands are on you before you can object—efficient, professional. He checks your arms first, fingers firm but careful as they skim for blood. Then your shoulder, where stone dust still clings to your skin. His touch lingers there a fraction longer than necessary, thumb brushing lightly as if confirming something he already knows.

You swat his hand away. “I said I’m fine.”

Leon’s jaw tightens. “Humour me.”

“I don’t recall that being part of the mission.”

His eyes flick up to meet yours, sharp, annoyed, but there’s something else there now too. “You flinched.”

“You were in my line of fire,” you fire back. “Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not,” he says quickly, hands dropping. “I’m checking my partner.”

The word lands heavier than either of you expect.

You scoff, turning away to pace the small room. “Don’t get sentimental now.”

Leon exhales slowly through his nose. “You’re the one snapping.”

You whirl back on him. “Because you nearly got yourself shot pulling that move back there.”

“And you nearly took a round to the head rushing that corner,” he shoots back without missing a beat.

There it is, the familiar bite. The clash. But it doesn’t sting the way it used to.

You hold his gaze, chest still heaving. “You didn’t have to cover me.”

Leon’s voice is steady, but quieter now. “Yes, I did.”

The certainty in it disarms you more than any argument ever has.

Silence stretches between you, thick with everything neither of you is saying. The room hums softly around you, vents rattling overhead, the smell of oil and metal grounding you in the aftermath.

Your pulse finally begins to slow.

You look at him properly then, not as a rival, not as an obstacle, but as the man who just fought back-to-back with you without hesitation. Who knew when you needed cover before you did. Who moved when you moved, adapted when you adapted, like your thoughts were running parallel tracks.

It clicks.

He never underestimated you.

Not once.

All those arguments. The clipped remarks. The way he never rose to your jabs, never reacted the way you wanted him to. You’d always read it as arrogance. Distance. Superiority.

But standing here now, suit scuffed and tie gone, breathing hard just like you, the truth settles uncomfortably into place.

He wasn’t looking down on you.

He was matching you.

Meeting you at the same level and refusing to drop below it. Treating you like an equal long before you were ready to believe it. Long before you’d stopped mistaking restraint for dismissal.

Leon shifts his weight, eyes still on you. “You good?” he asks again, softer this time.

You nod once. “Yeah.”

A beat passes.

“You fight like me,” you add, almost against your will.

His brow furrows slightly. “No. You fight like you.”

You huff a quiet laugh. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” he says.

Another silence, but this one is different. Less sharp. Less hostile. Charged, but steadier.

Leon glances toward the barricaded door, listening. “We’ve got maybe ninety seconds before they reroute.”

You straighten, rolling your shoulders despite the ache settling into them. “Then we’d better move.”

He nods, and for the first time, there’s no tension in the agreement. No need to assert control or prove anything.

Just two agents, side by side, breathing in sync.

The safe room isn’t safe in any comforting way.

It’s a concrete box tucked behind an unmarked service door three levels below street access, the kind of place that doesn’t show up on public blueprints. The air smells faintly of dust and old metal. A single strip light hums above, casting pale, uneven illumination across gray walls and a scarred steel table. No windows. No softness. No distractions.

Just four walls and the aftertaste of adrenaline.

You shut the door behind you and twist the lock twice out of habit, even though the handler swore this location was clean. Leon stands a few feet away, chest rising and falling hard. His suit is ruined, dark smudges at the knee where he’d hit the floor, the white of his shirt stained with sweat and dust. His tie is gone. His sleeves are rolled up, forearms streaked with grime, knuckles raw.

He looks like a man who belongs in a fight, not a ballroom.

You look… less polished too. Your dress is torn at the hem, a thin snag running along your thigh where you’d caught it on something sharp while vaulting a barrier. Your hair has slipped free of its careful pins. There’s stone dust at your collarbone. The only thing that stayed flawless is the shape of your posture, trained, controlled, refusing to collapse.

You cross the room and drop the data device on the steel table. It makes a solid, satisfying clack that echoes in the small space.

Done.

For now.

Leon reaches up and removes the earpiece, rolling it between his fingers before setting it down beside the device. You do the same, tugging yours out with a little too much force. Without comms, the room gets quieter. The silence doesn’t feel empty. It feels loaded.

Weapons come next, unclipped, unloaded, set aside. You place your handgun on the table, then the spare magazine. The movement is efficient, practiced. Leon mirrors you without a word, laying his gear down in clean, ordered lines like he can impose control on chaos by arranging it neatly.

A tremor runs through your fingers when you reach for a chair. You close your hand into a fist before anyone can see.

Leon’s gaze flicks to you anyway.

You hate that he notices everything. Hate that you’re suddenly grateful he does.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks.

The adrenaline is still in your bloodstream, buzzing like a live wire under your skin. Your thoughts keep trying to sprint, to latch onto the next move, the next threat, the next exit.

But there is nothing to chase.

No alarms. No targets.

Just the hum of the strip light and the slow return of sensation: the ache in your ribs, the sting across your knuckles, the bruise blooming at your hip where you’d hit the wall harder than you meant to.

Your body is remembering you’re human.

It’s the worst part, the calm. In the fight, everything had been simple: move, shoot, breathe, survive. Now, with nothing pressing in, the silence forces everything else forward.

The kiss. The way Leon moved in front of you. The way your hands had lingered on his wrist. The way he’d said I’ve got you like it was an unshakable fact.

You take a slow breath and realise your lungs are still working like they expect to be chased.

Leon finally breaks the stillness, voice low. “We got it.”

“Yeah,” you answer too quickly. “We got it.”

He nods once, but his eyes don’t move away from you. There’s something in his expression, still controlled, still restrained, but the edges have softened, as if the adrenaline has melted some of the steel away and left the person underneath exposed in small, dangerous ways.

You don’t know what to do with that.

You turn toward the wall instead, stare at the blank concrete like it can offer you an instruction manual.

Your hands shake again, just slightly. You flex your fingers, forcing them steady. You refuse to let your body betray you, not after everything. Not in front of him.

“Sit,” Leon says.

It isn’t an order. Not really. It’s… practical. Almost gentle.

“I’m fine,” you snap automatically.

Leon’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t argue, he simply steps closer and reaches for the small first aid kit mounted on the wall. You hadn’t noticed it. Of course he did.

He sets it on the table with a quiet thud and flips it open, movements clean and efficient. Like tending wounds is just another protocol.

You watch him for half a second too long.

The light catches the lines of exhaustion in his face. A faint scrape along his cheekbone. A smudge of dried blood at the edge of his knuckles that isn’t his, you think. The muscles in his shoulders shift as he rolls them once, like the weight of the night is settling in.

A tremor runs through his hand as he pulls out antiseptic wipes.

He pauses, almost imperceptibly, then continues like it never happened.

So he’s not untouched either.

That realisation lands strangely. You’ve spent so long imagining him as something unbreakable—smooth, composed, always in control. Seeing the cracks should satisfy you.

It doesn’t.

It makes your throat tighten.

“Give me your hand,” Leon says, still not looking directly at you.

You laugh once, short and sharp. “That’s rich.”

He finally looks up. “Don’t start.”

The tone is familiar, dry, controlled, but it lacks its usual bite. It’s not a challenge. It’s tired.

You should refuse out of principle.

Instead you step forward and extend your hand, palm up, because the alternative, fighting him on this, feels suddenly exhausting.

Leon takes your hand.

His fingers are warm, steady, calloused. His grip is firm but careful, like he’s handling something that matters more than he wants to admit. He inspects your knuckles, the small splits in the skin, the smear of grime.

“You’re bleeding,” he says.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s blood.”

You roll your eyes. “Congratulations, Kennedy. You can identify bodily fluids.”

A flicker, almost a smile, touches his mouth. It’s gone before you can be sure it was real.

He cleans your knuckles anyway. The antiseptic stings. You hiss and try to pull away. Leon holds your hand a fraction tighter, not letting you retreat.

“Hold still,” he murmurs.

Your pulse jumps at the softness of it.

You hate that.

“You’re enjoying this,” you mutter, trying to salvage something sharp.

Leon doesn’t look up. “I’m not.”

The honesty in his voice knocks the air out of your sarcasm. He sounds… genuine. Like he’s too worn out to pretend.

He finishes cleaning your hand, wraps it quickly, efficiently. The tape catches briefly on your skin, and his thumb brushes your wrist as he smooths it down.

You feel it like a spark.

You hate that you feel it.

Leon lets go, but his hand lingers for a half second too long, fingers resting against your pulse as if confirming it’s still there.

Then he pulls back, clearing his throat, gaze shifting away like he’s caught himself doing something he didn’t mean to.

The silence returns.

He starts tending to his own wounds next, wiping blood from his knuckles, wrapping tape with the same clinical focus. But his hands still shake faintly, the aftermath of adrenaline refusing to fade completely.

You don’t comment. He doesn’t either.

The strip light hums.

Your breathing finally slows to something normal. With it comes the weight of everything you’ve been avoiding since you first saw his name on that leaderboard.

The first time you tried to speak to him.

The way he ignored you.

The silence that followed you for years like a ghost.

It’s there now, in this room, louder than the alarms ever were.

You don’t plan to say anything. You don’t want to hand him another weapon.

But the words break loose anyway, scraped raw by exhaustion and adrenaline and the fact that he just held your hand like it mattered.

“Why,” you ask, voice quiet enough it barely exists, “did you ignore me back then?”

Leon freezes. The strip light hums. Somewhere in the building, pipes creak. The sound feels unbearably loud. His gaze lifts slowly. For once, there’s no immediate retort, no controlled reply. Just stillness.

You swallow, suddenly aware that you’ve crossed a line you can’t uncross. “You walked right past me,” you continue, the old anger flaring in your chest like it never left. “I said your name. You didn’t even look at me. Like I wasn’t-” Your voice catches. You force it steady. “Like I wasn’t worth the effort.”

Leon’s throat works as he swallows. He looks down at his hands for a moment, fingers flexing, then back up to you. His eyes are hard, not with anger, but with something else. Something that looks a lot like regret.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says quietly.

You laugh, brittle. “Could’ve fooled me.”

He exhales slowly, like he’s choosing each word with care. Like he can’t afford to get this wrong.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Leon admits. The words hang in the air, plain and stark.

You blink. “What?”

“I didn’t know what to say,” he repeats, more firmly this time, like he’s pushing through something stuck in his throat. “You… came up to me. Confident. Like you belonged here already. Like you weren’t scared of anyone.”

Your chest tightens, caught between disbelief and something dangerously close to understanding.

Leon’s jaw flexes. “And I…” He hesitates. It’s subtle, but it’s there, the first real hesitation you’ve seen from him that isn’t tactical. “I didn’t want to screw it up.”

You stare at him, thrown off balance. “Screw what up?” you demand, too sharply.

Leon’s eyes meet yours, steady but exposed. “Whatever it was,” he says quietly. “I-” He exhales, a sound that almost turns into a laugh but doesn’t. “You intimidated me.”

The confession hits like a punch. You’re speechless for a beat, mouth opening and closing like you’re trying to find words that aren’t there.

“Me?” you echo finally, incredulous.

Leon nods once, almost reluctantly. “Yeah. You.”

He shifts his weight, restless, uncomfortable, like he’d rather be facing down a dozen armed guards than this conversation. “I’d just transferred. I was… trying to keep my head down. Trying to be the guy who didn’t make mistakes.”

His gaze drops again briefly, then lifts. “And you looked at me like you expected something. Like you wanted to talk. And I didn’t know what to do with that.”

The room feels smaller. You remember that hallway. Remember the way you’d felt, nervous but determined, trying to be friendly, trying to prove you weren’t just another ambitious agent. You’d thought it would be simple. You’d thought he’d smile. Instead he’d walked away and left you standing there with your pride bleeding out on the floor.

“And you decided ignoring me was the best option,” you say, voice tight.

Leon’s mouth twists. “I thought if I said the wrong thing, it’d be worse.”

“So you said nothing.”

“I said nothing,” he agrees, and there’s no defence in it. Just ownership. “And then you looked at me like you hated me, and…” He pauses, eyes flicking to yours. “It was easier to let you.”

Your throat tightens. Because it’s suddenly all too clear: the rivalry didn’t start because he thought he was better than you.

It started because he was scared, and you were hurt, and neither of you had ever been brave enough to admit it.

The strip light hums above you, the only witness to the truth finally surfacing between bare concrete walls.

You let out a slow breath, hands still, heart quieter now but heavier.

“Leon,” you say, voice low.

He looks at you, waiting. The silence after his confession is different from the ones that came before it. It doesn’t feel sharp or loaded with expectation. It feels… open. Exposed. Like something has finally been set down between you instead of hurled back and forth.

Leon doesn’t move. He doesn’t fill the space with explanations or excuses. He just stands there, shoulders tense, waiting. For you.

You stare at the concrete floor for a long moment, jaw tight, pulse steadying as the truth rearranges itself in your chest. All the years of irritation. The constant edge. The way every victory against him had tasted hollow, every loss unbearable. It clicks into place with an almost humiliating clarity.

“You know what the worst part is?” you say finally, voice quiet but steady.

Leon’s eyes lift to yours. He doesn’t speak.

“You made me better.” The words scrape on the way out. You let out a short, humourless breath. “Every time I saw your name above mine, or just one slot below, it pissed me off. And I worked harder. Smarter. I pushed myself because I refused to be second to you.”

Leon’s brow furrows slightly, but he stays silent.

“And I told myself it was hate,” you continue, forcing the words out before you can second-guess them. “That you were arrogant. Cold. That you thought you were better than me.”

Your laugh this time is quieter. Rougher. “It was easier to be angry than to admit the truth.”

Leon’s jaw tightens. “Which is?”

The room doesn’t collapse. He just watches you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle.

“I hated you,” you say, softer now, “because it was safer than wondering why your opinion of me mattered so much.”

The admission leaves you raw. Exposed in a way gunfire never could. Leon exhales slowly, like he’s been holding that breath for years.

“I noticed,” he says quietly.

You blink. “Noticed what?”

“That you were always pushing.” His voice is calm, but there’s something unguarded in it now. “That every time I thought I’d finally pulled ahead, you closed the gap. That when I messed up, you didn’t gloat, you got sharper.”

He shakes his head once, a small, almost self-deprecating motion. “I told myself I didn’t care. That it was just competition.”

You snort. “Let me guess. Lie.”

“Yes.” He meets your gaze fully now. “I measured everything against you. Missions. Scores. Decisions. I never wanted to be less in your eyes.”

The words land heavier than you expect.

Leon shifts his weight, restless. “I mistook the tension for hostility because that was easier than admitting I was… invested.”

“In what?” you ask quietly.

“In you,” he answers, just as quietly.

The air between you changes.

Not explosively. Not dramatically.

It settles.

You look at him finally, as someone standing on the same ground, stripped of armour and pretence.

Equals.

“I thought you ignored me because you didn’t respect me,” you say.

Leon’s mouth tightens. “I respected you too much.”

That shouldn’t undo you.

It does.

Your shoulders sag slightly, tension bleeding out of muscles you didn’t realise were still locked. “We’re idiots,” you mutter.

Leon huffs a quiet laugh. “We’re agents.”

“Same thing.”

For the first time, the humour doesn’t feel like a weapon. It feels shared.

You step closer without fully realising you’ve moved. The space between you narrows until you’re acutely aware of his presence again.  You can hear his breathing. Feel the warmth radiating off him.

Leon doesn’t retreat.

His hand lifts slightly, then hesitates, hovering near your wrist like he’s unsure whether he’s allowed to cross that line. The restraint is somehow worse than if he’d just touched you.

Your fingers twitch, an instinctive response.

The moment teeters.

It’s there in the closeness, the shared breath, the fragile understanding humming between you. One step closer. One hand reaching. One choice away from something that feels inevitable.

Leon’s gaze drops briefly to your mouth.

Your heart stutters.

Then -

A sharp crackle tears through the stillness.

Your discarded earpiece comes to life on the table, static bursting from it in an ugly rush of sound. You both jerk back instinctively, training snapping into place.

“-repeat, safe room compromised-” the handler’s voice cuts in, distorted and urgent. “Umbrella units inbound. You need to move. Now.”

The spell shatters.

Leon’s hand drops instantly, professionalism snapping back into place like a reflex. Your pulse spikes, adrenaline surging back through veins that had only just begun to calm.

You exchange one look.

Not rivals. Not enemies.

Partners.

“Guess we don’t get a quiet ending,” you mutter.

Leon’s mouth curves faintly, not a smirk, not yet. Something steadier. “We’ll finish this first.”

You nod, already moving toward your weapon. But as you pass him, your fingers brush his wrist, deliberate this time.

Just enough to promise. This isn’t over.

Then the door rattles under the first distant impact, and whatever comes next barrels toward you both at full speed, truth laid bare, denial gone, and something fragile and dangerous waiting on the other side of the fight.

The first impact hits the door like a warning.

Metal groans. The cart you shoved against it shudders, wheels squealing against concrete. Dust shakes loose from the ceiling in a fine gray drift.

Leon’s eyes snap to the lock. Yours snap to your weapon.

“Move,” he says at the same time you do.

The strip light overhead flickers once, then dies.

Darkness swallows the room.

For half a heartbeat, there’s nothing but the faint red pulse bleeding through the narrow window in the door and the sound of your own breathing.

Then the world explodes.

Gunfire tears through the door in a blistering spray. Splinters of metal and concrete burst inward, sparks flashing like violent stars in the dark. You drop instinctively, hitting the floor hard, shoulder slamming into the table leg as rounds chew the space where you’d been standing a second ago.

“Down!” Leon barks, unnecessary, because you’re already there.

Your ears ring. The air smells like hot metal and smoke. The darkness makes everything closer, sharper. You can’t see Leon, but you can hear him, his breath, controlled but quick, the scrape of his boots as he shifts.

Another impact slams into the door. The cart grinds forward an inch.

“They tracked us,” you spit, teeth clenched.

Leon’s voice is tight. “They wanted us to bring the device somewhere quiet.”

Personal, then.

Not a show of force. Not a random contingency.

A message.

A punishment.

You raise your pistol, steadying your aim toward the door’s window slit. Red light strobes across your hands in pulses. You can’t see targets, but you can predict movement by sound, boots, the clink of gear, the clipped rhythm of someone stacking up for entry.

Leon moves to your side, a shadow in the dark. You feel the brush of his shoulder against yours, close, grounding, real.

“On my mark,” you murmur.

“Always,” he whispers back, and the word lands heavier than it ever has.

The door buckles.

A wedge of light knifes through as the barricade gives. Someone rams it again, and the door bursts inward with a metallic shriek. Figures flood the gap, black armour, masked faces, rifles up.

You fire first.

A clean shot, then another. The muzzle flash briefly illuminates the room in harsh white bursts, enough to catch glints of visor, the sharp edge of a weapon, Leon’s face set and fierce beside you.

Leon moves in the same instant, firing over your shoulder, his shots precise, economical. An operative drops in the doorway, collapsing into the pile of debris. Another stumbles back with a curse.

“Push!” Leon barks.

You surge forward together, slipping through the smoke and chaos. Close quarters now, too tight for long-range. Your shoulder slams into one attacker, throwing him off balance. Leon’s elbow drives into another’s jaw, cracking hard enough that you feel it in your teeth.

You don’t think.

You move.

Someone grabs your arm from behind. You pivot, wrenching free, gun coming up, only to have Leon’s hand catch your wrist, redirecting your barrel a fraction.

“Left,” he snaps.

A shot cracks where your aim would’ve been wrong. A man drops behind you, silent and sudden.

Your pulse spikes, raw gratitude laced with terror.

You’re alive because Leon didn’t hesitate. Again.

More operatives spill into the corridor outside, attempting to funnel you back into the room. You back up instinctively until your spine hits the wall.

Leon shifts behind you.

Back-to-back, without discussion.

The old rhythm returns, but it’s different now. It’s sharpened by something you can’t pretend is just training.

A rifle butt swings toward Leon’s head. You hear it more than see it. You react—knife flashing up, slashing across the attacker’s forearm. Leon ducks and counters, driving his shoulder into the man’s chest, sending him crashing into the corridor wall.

“Leon!” you call, not as a warning, but as an anchor. A check-in. Still there?

“I’m here,” he answers, voice tight.

Gunfire erupts again, closer. A round clips the wall by your ear. Another slams into Leon’s side.

For a second, you don’t register what happened.

Then Leon makes a sound, sharp, involuntary, like his body betrayed him.

He staggers.

Your stomach drops through the floor.

“Leon!” you gasp, turning-

He catches himself against the wall, one hand pressing hard to his ribs. When he lifts it, his palm is dark in the strobing red light.

Blood. Too much.

His face tightens, not with fear, with frustration. With the shock of losing control for even a second.

“I’m fine,” he grits out.

“No,” you snap, voice cracking with something you can’t hide. “No, you’re not.”

Another operative charges, and instinct takes over before panic can swallow you whole. You fire, dropping him mid-step. You move closer to Leon without thinking, body angling to shield him from the corridor.

“Don’t-” Leon starts, but his breath catches, pain stealing the rest of the sentence.

You rip some fabric from your dress, and shove it against his side. “Hold pressure.”

Leon’s eyes flare. “We need to move.”

“We are moving,” you hiss. “But you are not dying in front of me.”

He tries to straighten. He’s breathing harder now, sweat slick at his brow, his usual control slipping at the edges. Disorientation flickers in his eyes for half a second, like his body is threatening to go down whether he wants it to or not.

The sight guts you.

The fear hits fully then, hot and absolute, stripping you of everything sharp and snarky and protected.

“I am going to be so mad if you die on me,” you say, voice raw, unfiltered.

Leon’s eyes rolled before his gaze locks on yours. You could’ve sworn you saw a smirk on his face.

Then his jaw tightens. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says, and for once, it isn’t a challenge. It’s a promise.

The corridor fills with footsteps again.

You pivot, planting yourself between Leon and the oncoming threat. Every muscle in your body tightens with purpose. Protective. Focused.

You fire in controlled bursts, forcing the operatives back. Leon pushes off the wall, gritting his teeth, raising his weapon despite the tremor in his arm. You hear the strain in his breath, the way his body fights him now.

“Stay with me,” you mutter, not a command, an insistence. “Match me.”

Leon’s voice is ragged but steady. “Always.”

You move together again, but now every decision is laced with instinctive concern. You take the riskier angles, so he doesn’t have to. You cover him longer than necessary. You bark directions closer, faster, because the thought of losing him makes your vision narrow into something dangerous.

An enemy lunges from the side. You catch him with your shoulder and slam him into the wall. Leon steps in to finish it, but his knees buckle for a heartbeat. Your hand shoots out, gripping his forearm, hauling him upright.

You clear the last attacker with brutal efficiency, and the corridor finally opens, an escape route just beyond the carnage.

Leon sways, teeth clenched. You hook your arm around his back, taking more of his weight than you should be able to, and he lets you.

That, more than anything, tells you how deep this has gone.

You stagger forward together into the dim service stairwell, alarms still wailing, red light flashing, the world still trying to tear you apart.

The extraction is quiet. The kind of quiet that comes after everything loud has already burned itself out.

You barely register the transition from stairwell to armoured transport. Leon’s weight leans heavy against you until medics swarm, voices overlapping, hands pulling you apart with practiced urgency. Someone eases you back while someone else lowers him onto a stretcher. The world narrows to flashes: gauze pressed to his side, blood-stained shirt cut away, a monitor chirping insistently.

You stand there uselessly for half a second too long before someone tells you to sit.

You don’t remember sitting.

You remember your hands shaking when you notice they’re covered in his blood. You scrub them together reflexively, like you can erase the image if you try hard enough. A medic hands you a bottle of water. You take it without drinking.

Leon is alive.

The knowledge settles slowly, like something too fragile to trust all at once. His chest rises and falls, uneven but steady. His eyes flutter open briefly when they stitch him up, unfocused but aware enough to find you where you stand.

He doesn’t say anything.

Neither do you.

Later, how much later you’re not sure, you’re in another room. Cleaner. Brighter. Too sterile to feel real. Leon is propped up on a narrow cot, bandaged and pale but breathing without effort now. The monitors have gone quiet, content to hum along instead of scream.

Your injuries are minor. Someone fussed over them anyway. You let them, numb and obedient, because the alternative was thinking.

Now it’s just the two of you again.

Silence settles between you like a blanket instead of a weapon.

You stand by the wall at first, arms folded, posture rigid out of habit more than necessity. Leon watches you from the cot, expression unreadable but soft around the edges in a way you’ve never seen before.

“You should sit,” he says quietly.

You shake your head and answer as you always do. “I’m fine.”

He doesn’t argue but rolls his eyes as he always does.

The adrenaline has fully drained now, leaving behind a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion. Your hands are still trembling slightly, even as you clench them into fists and force them still. You feel wrung out, scraped raw, like something vital has been stripped away, and something else left behind in its place.

Leon shifts, wincing faintly, then settles. His gaze never leaves you.

“I scared you,” he says.

It’s not an accusation. It’s not fishing for reassurance.

It’s a statement.

You swallow. “Yeah.”

Another silence. Thicker. More honest.

“I didn’t mean to,” he adds.

“I know.” You push off the wall before you can stop yourself, closing the distance until you’re standing beside him. You don’t look at the bandages. You look at his face. “But you did.”

Leon nods once. “I won’t apologise for getting hit.”

“Good,” you say immediately. “Because I’d never forgive you for it.”

That earns the faintest huff of a laugh, more breath than sound. It fades quickly, leaving the room quiet again.

You don’t sit. Instead, you reach out without fully deciding to, your fingers brushing the edge of the bed. Leon’s hand shifts instinctively, stopping just short of yours.

The hesitation is mutual.

“You don’t have to-” he starts.

“I want to,” you say softly.

The words feel different now. Steadier. Chosen.

Leon’s fingers close around yours, careful, deliberate. His grip is warm, grounding, real in a way that has nothing to do with cover stories or mission parameters. He doesn’t pull you closer. He just holds on, like he’s confirming you’re still here.

You breathe out slowly, the tension easing from your shoulders in a way you hadn’t realized was still there.

This isn’t the gala. There’s no music. No audience. No danger pressing in from all sides. No reason at all, except want.

You step closer, close enough that your knees brush the side of the cot. Leon tilts his head up slightly to look at you, eyes searching, open.

When you finally lean in, it’s slow. Unrushed. Intentional.

Your lips meet his with a softness that surprises you both.

It’s nothing like the kiss before.

There’s no urgency driving it this time. No desperation, no need to convince anyone watching. No sharp angles or calculated pressure. Just the quiet, deliberate meeting of mouths, slow, careful, unguarded in a way that feels far more dangerous.

Leon kisses you like he’s letting himself feel it.

His lips are warm, firm but unhurried, moving against yours with a patience that makes your breath stutter despite yourself. It’s not demanding. It’s exploratory. As if he’s memorising the shape of you instead of claiming it.

His hand lifts to your wrist, fingers closing there gently, thumb brushing over your pulse. You feel it jump beneath his touch, too fast, too loud, and the knowledge that he can feel it too sends a low, unwanted heat curling through your stomach.

He doesn’t comment.

He just deepens the kiss slightly, a subtle shift that draws a quiet sound from the back of your throat before you can stop it. His other hand hovers at your side, not quite touching, the restraint almost worse than contact.

When he finally does settle his palm against your waist, it’s careful. Grounding. Like he’s reminding both of you exactly where you are, and exactly how close you’re choosing to be.

You kiss him back without thinking, lips parting just enough to meet his, the world narrowing to breath and warmth and the steady strength of him in front of you. The orchestra fades. The room dissolves. There is only this, this shared, wordless understanding humming between you.

When you pull back, it’s slow.

Reluctant.

Your forehead rests against his, breaths mingling, close enough that you can feel the faint tremor he hasn’t quite managed to suppress. His thumb still strokes your pulse, absent-minded now, like he’s forgotten he’s doing it.

Neither of you speaks.

You don’t need to.

There’s no declaration. No promise shaped into words. Just the shared understanding humming between you, solid and undeniable.

When you finally straighten, Leon’s eyes are still on you, softer now. Lighter.

“Guess,” he murmurs, “that wasn’t part of the cover.”

You smile, a real one, unguarded. “Guess not.”

The silence returns again after that.

But this time, it doesn’t ask anything of you.

It simply lets you be.

The debrief room looks exactly the way it always does.

Gray walls. Steel table. A screen mounted at the far end displaying mission timestamps and sanitized summaries. The kind of room designed to strip events of their chaos and compress them into bullet points.

You sit side by side. Your shoulder almost brushes Leon’s, close enough to feel without touching. He’s back in clean clothes now, bandages hidden beneath a fresh shirt, posture straight despite the stiffness he hasn’t quite shaken.

The handler stands across from you, expression neutral as ever.

“Extraction successful,” they say. “Data secured. Umbrella assets neutralised. Collateral contained.”

You nod. Leon nods.

Professional. Controlled.

There’s no need to look at each other to confirm anything. You already know what the other is thinking. Where they’ll speak. When they’ll stay quiet. It’s effortless now, like the friction burned itself out and left something smooth behind.

The handler’s gaze flicks between you briefly. Assessing. Noting the absence of hostility.

“Good work,” they add. “Both of you.”

High praise, coming from them.

They dismiss you with a clipped nod and turn back to the screen. The door slides open with a soft hiss, and you stand at the same time, movements synchronized without thought.

Outside, the operations floor hums with its usual low-level chaos. Agents pass, analysts cluster around consoles, voices overlap in familiar rhythms. Nothing looks different.

But it feels different.

You walk together toward the leaderboard without speaking, the silence companionable instead of sharp. The board flickers as you approach, updating, recalculating, doing what it always does after a major operation.

For a split second, the screen goes dark.

Then the names appear.

You stop.

So does Leon.

#1 — YOU

#1 — LEON KENNEDY

Perfectly even.

Tied.

You stare at it longer than you expect to, waiting for something, satisfaction, irritation, the old flare of competitiveness.

It doesn’t come.

Leon exhales softly beside you, something between a laugh and a breath of disbelief. He tilts his head, eyes moving from the board to you.

That familiar smirk appears, not sharp, not challenging. Lighter. Easier.

𑣲 Daryl Dixon as a boyfriend has the most difficulty understanding that you're not joking when you tell him how much you've fallen in love with him. When you tell him he's handsome, cute, and sexy, he rolls his eyes as if you're just fooling around, but his face and ears turn bright red every time. It seems like he wants to believe you, but something deep inside him tells him not to. However, he loves it when you try to prove it to him, running your hands over his body with a tenderness and love he could never expect from anyone in his life.

𑣲 Daryl Dixon as a boyfriend whimpers into your mouth whenever you dare to kiss him. At first, he doesn't know what to do with his hands. It takes a few kissing sessions for him to finally understand that you want his calloused fingers touching your body. He starts by running them down your sides, so gently that you can't believe he's capable of it, and then he grabs your waist, making you smile against his lips. You like it when he's a little rougher with you, and you've even told him so. You've told him he doesn't have to be so careful around you, but he just can't help treating you like a precious, very delicate treasure, and he can't believe his stupid luck that he got you.

𑣲 Daryl Dixon as a boyfriend doesn't kiss you in public, but he always stays close to you, making sure you're safe. He stands between you and any danger you encounter, like your personal shield, not letting you get hurt. You know he cares for you in his own way, so you don't care that to others it doesn't look like you're a couple. You see the love in Daryl's eyes when he looks at you from across the room. You see love in how he always makes sure you eat before him. You see love in how hard he tries to tame his killer instinct. You love him for all that and everything else. You know he's not very good with words, but his love language is acts of service, and damn, he really delivers every time. You’d never want him to change.

𑣲 Daryl Dixon as a boyfriend once felt more comfortable with intimacy, realized that his favourite thing is to devour you from between your legs. And let me tell you, this man is very skilled with his tongue. He eats you like he's beAen starving his whole life, watching you moan and groan under his mouth. He holds you tight, placing his hand on your lower belly, while his mouth makes you see stars under your shut-closed eyelids. He loves it when you reach for his hair and tug it until it stings a bit. It drives him crazy and turns him on even more. He could live between your thighs and never get tired of it.

𑣲 Daryl Dixon as a boyfriend always puts your comfort first, whether it's an intimate encounter or another trip for food and other supplies. He's sensitive to you, and you quickly become both his strongest and weakest point.

𑣲 Daryl Dixon as a boyfriend loves literally everything about you, and even if your stubbornness sometimes irritates him, he is still impressed by your willpower. He loves your dedication to everything you do, but he would prefer that you never risk your life for anything or anyone again. He wants to be the one who risks his life for you.

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 Luckily for you, work is about 10 minutes away, and you're required to wear a uniform. Yet you always find a way to take longer than necessary when getting ready. Might have to kiss that special cup of coffee goodbye and welcome in a shit day.

Nooo, no, you need that coffee today. An espresso brew, more specifically. As you start a quick hot shower, you send out a text to your coworker begging them to grab you something on their way in. Knowing they’ll do it, you don't bother to check the phone as the notification goes off. 

And it goes off again… and for a third time.

From the shower, you could tell it wasn’t a text but a phone call. Back-to-back phone calls. 

“Geez, they’ll have to fucking wait a minute,” and as if on cue, it rings again. This must be important… it better be, now that you're ending your shower earlier than intended to answer.

“Carla? What the hell, are you okay?” phone tucked between your shoulder and ear, as you slather lotion over yourself

“Are you running late again? You are. Another nightmare, hun?” you groan, shoving on your scrubs, managing to put on deodorant at the same time

“Yeah, of course. That's like the only reason I’m ever late, but it's fine. I'm showered, nearly ready, and you're bringing me coffee. Why are you calling me like some crazed mother?”

“Sadie tried calling you, she said head of security is looking for you! Do you know what that could mean?”

You froze. The head of security is searching for you? It could mean 3 things: you’re in deep shit for something you don't know about, or you’ve been accepted to go into the field for a mission, or you didn’t get accepted, but you're pretty sure you’d receive an email instead of an in-person visit. 

You’ve waited months for this. School and training, training and school. You’ve been nursing since before the incident in Raccoon City, but after, you’ve desired to do more… feeling as though preventing another event like that would ease your mind and maybe stop the nightmares. Being a medic in the field for research, protection, and care? 

“It means I need to get my ass over there pronto.”

In a worried rush, you check your watch on the elevator. 6:58, just in time. The chime of the elevator bing prompts everyone to pour out one after the other, but you stay behind until you reach the second ground level floor. Your home floor, where all patient care and observation is done for civilians and government officials who have witnessed or come in contact with bioterroristic weapons and hurt officials returning from their missions or training sequences.

The elevator bings once again, and before the doors fully open youre practically running to your unit to clock in, finding Carla already at the badge reader.

“Okay im here, have they come back around yet?” she grins, shoving a lidded cup in hand, 

“You’d better chug that or take a few sips, I'm pretty sure they said to send you up to the presidential floor,” you squeal, heart slamming against your chest.

 “Give me your stuff, I’ll put it in your locker,” you both squeal in hurried excitement. She had been with you every step of the way, cheering you on for getting a chance in the field. 

“Shit, my hair, I didn’t have time to put it up! I just-” you groan, motioning to your head dramatically. “I just threw it into a sloppy braid. Help.”

“oh you shut up. You look like a pretty brown doll with thick curly hair in a damn braid. Your little curly flyaways make it even cuter.” She takes your coffee, looking you over, 

“Just clean off those glasses and get your ass upstairs. Hurry so you can be back in time for your boyfriend, you know he’ll find a way in here.” You throw her a look, attempting to hide your smile. 

“Stop it, we’re good friends. You treat him if I'm not back in time.”

“No can do. He’s just gonna ask for you and you only.” you dont respond, as time is of the essence and you’re jogging to the elevator. 

You try not to think of him on the elevator ride up. God, he easily took up so much space in your mind the moment you hear of or see him. 

“No, no, focus. You have to focus, not think about your pretty DOS agent friend.”

Who only asks for you to treat him when he’s wounded. The elevator comes to a stop, doors open, waiting for you to exit. The presidential floor… but where to? 

You curse to yourself, realizing you have no fucking idea where to go from here. With each slow and careful step, you look over the corridor. Off-white walls decorated with American flag poles on either wall, antique frames of presidents generously spaced out down the hall. There's a dark oakwood antique desk right at the end, with a woman heavily engaged with the computer. Dressed in a fuchsia pink tweed suit and hat, her eyes flash over at you. She calls out your name in question to confirm you were who she expected. Suddenly, by the tone of her voice and demeanor, you feel out of place. 

The atmosphere of the floor was already notably different. Very old-fashioned and of a much more consequential nature. It made you feel out of place, and the woman ahead of you didn’t ease the feeling.

“Um, yes. I was told to come to the presidential suite. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to-” she peered at you over a set of glasses accompnied with beaded string, cutting you off. 

“Yes, you can come straight down here to the door on your left. You are meeting with the Secretary of Defense Wilson Meyers. Goodluck honey”

She nods with a small smile, you returning the gesture as you knock before heading into the room.

“Goodmorning sir, I apologize for the late arrival.” You stop short before the man in front of you, hands folded behind your back in a poor attempt to look disciplined. A man of short and slim stature turns with a smile. Crinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth. His hair was heavily peppered with gray, and favoring the look of someone who had been through war one too many times, yet kindness remained in those eyes.

“Oh no, I should be apologizing. We are usually much more appointed and organized than this. Please take a seat,” you do as suggested, anticipation eating you alive.

 Wilson pulls out a file with a photo of you clipped to it, reading your full name. 

“You’ve been working towards becoming a field agent. I see you’ve done a fair share of studies in virology and microbiology, working towards a PhD. You started a nursing career pretty early,” he pauses, reading more of the file and peeks over the folder.

 “You’re from Raccoon City?”

“Yes,” that's all you could muster to say in the moment.

“So you were there during the incident?” You freeze, anger broiling through your veins. The incident? That's what everyone says despite them knowing it was a fucking massacre.

 “Are you the one who made it through the city with S.T.A.R.S member Jill Valentine?” he places the file down in confusion.

“Yes. Raccoon City was my home. I was born and raised there. And managed to escape with Jill Valentine, when everyone decided to abandon it,” the mention of Raccoon City is deafening in your mind. Nothing else roams your brain but those horrific moments of death and terror.

His face pales slightly, guilt writhing within him, “How is it that we are just finding out that it's you? We would have recruited you sooner had w-”

“I chose not to acknowledge the massacre of my home city for a while, as I lost everything and everyone in that… Incident,” You mock the term, despising it. A.fucking.massacre it was. “To be completely honest, I wouldn’t have been easy to work with. Nor willing. So I kept my head down and did what I needed for myself.”

“I understand… I'm truly sorry for what you had to endure and all that you’ve lost. Forgive me for questioning you about this, but why join the USSTRATCOM now? What is different for you now, compared to then?” he looked you over with a pained understanding, knowing he, too, was allowing the cover-up of Raccoon City to happen.

Shifting in your seat, mentally tucking away the unwanted memories of what was lost, again.

“Yes, again, sir, I lost everything in that city. The horrors of the virus is nothing, absolutely nothing compared to watching those you love either be torn apart or turned into those things.” With guilt, Wilson looked away, shifting your file on the table.

You clear your throat, masking the anger and resentment peaking through your voice, “When I made it out of the city with Jill Valentine, I helped with emergency care, identifying those infected, and offering consolation. I thought being in the medical unit was enough for me. Giving care to those fighting against the viruses and helping the victims, but-” you fidget with your hands, focusing on the nothing that's there.

“Its not enough for me. I’d rather be in the field preventing people from weaponizing the viruses and wreaking havoc in someone else’s city. I want to be out there to stop it. Before it happens again.”

Wilson removes his glasses, a hand brushing over his face. He could never understand what you went through, but the guilt of knowing the government was covering up the truth would surely keep him awake tonight.  You wonder if you said too much, showed too much emotion, but Wilson looks at you with sympathy and respect. It's bad enough that the truth behind Raccoon City would be covered up; he wouldn’t dare rob you of this opportunity. 

He’s heard of the rumors of your combat and knowledgeable skills with Jill Valentine, through a transferred report. You held your own really well for someone with no militant experience. Surely with additional training, psych evals, and your current medical and scientific knowledge, you’d be a good fit for a medic field agent. A small-scale position to build you up for higher positions in the future.

He wouldn’t rob you of this. He couldn’t.

“She’s back, she’s back!” one of your fellow nurses yelled from her desk, signalling for Sadie and Carla to come running over. “Finally, you’re fucking back. We’re capped at 5 patients each right now, have about 3 more coming in for you, and your boyfriend is here. Been waiting, a while too,” Carla gleamed, gesturing over to a room.

“Cut it out, he’s my friend for crying out loud,” you chuckled, earning scoffs and eyerolls from everyone.

“We have 5 minutes max, how did it go? Did you get it? As shitty as it is losing you, we know you’ve really wanted this. So come on w-”

“Carla, shut up! Let her talk,” Sadie blew a bubble from gum. “So lovey?”

You make a poor attempt to look disappointed, but truly, you suck at masking your emotions,

“I am officially being promoted to field medic,” you grin, making little gestures with your hands. 

They all squeal and jump, drawing attention over to your group, “Ladies! These patients aren’t treating themselves! Let's get back to work,” your supervisor yelled out with a wink. He must’ve known before you.

“We have to celebrate. Let's plan something at lunch. In the meantime, go take care of your lover. He said he doesn’t mind being seen last.” Carla winks before you could rebut her ‘lover’ statement. Grabbing a rolling computer, you head over to his room. You have 2 other patients in the queue, but they haven’t arrived yet, so he’ll have to be seen first.

You knock on the entrance, announcing your arrival. “Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite careless DOS agent again,” you tease him with a knowing smile. He’s not careless at all, just works too hard because of that big heart of his. 

“Hmm, I don’t think I’d be receiving top-of-the-line care if I were careless.” 

“Hmm, you wouldn’t wait an-” you pause, briefly looking over when he was checked in and what for

“An hour! For fractured ribs!? Are you actually stupid?” you quietly shout at him, eyes wide as you look straight to his abdomen. “Why would you wait that long? And what the hell happened? Actually, I don’t want to know, it’ll probably piss me off.” he painfully laughs at that, letting out a shaky breath. 

 You then assess the cuts, scrapes, and bruises riddled over his face and arms. Immediately you’re over him on the examination bed, taking his face in your hand to inspect the bruising on his face, and nasty gash in his shoulder “ I’m going to murder you. I told you to stop waiting for me if any of your injuries qualify for immediate attention.” you’re not thinking much of it at first, holding his face as if hes a child until your eyes meet his soft gaze. Those ice blue-grey eyes, that look so cold and hardened, hide the warm and sweet soul behind them.

The warm and sweet soul that enjoys being scolded and teased for getting battered on the job. That warm and sweet soul who hopes you're in for a shift when he checks in for treatment.

That warm and sweet soul that's beginning to realize just how much he relishes and enjoys your touch. “Sorry,” you breathe out, quickly retreating to the supplies locker across the room. 

He smiles to himself, watching you rustle through drawers and gathering supplies into your scrubs pocket. Leon, at his core, is a gentleman. He’s always been, but he can help but allow his gaze to flow from the curls refusing to stay tucked in your braid, down below your shoulder blades, lower and lower and lower until they rest over your bottom. How was he supposed to control his gaze when your butt is so round, perfectly perched up, especially in those damned scrubs? His eyes bolt to your face when you turn, making your way back over to him.

“Why’d you say sorry?” he had an idea of why you said sorry like that. Would you really tell him why, though? Probably not.

“I was dragging your face around like you were a child. Shirt off. Do you need help, or are we cutting it?” 

“It’ll be easier if you cut it off,”  you curse to yourself, not prepared to be in the room alone with a half-naked and injured Leon Kennedy. 

You hum in response, adjusting the bed for him to lie back on at a lower elevation.

“Alright, you know the routine. Go ahead and lay back. Then name and date of birth,” you already know his name and date of birth, obviously, but it's protocol… and you need a sense of distraction while you cut his shirt down the middle, revealing chiseled abs bruised with a slight glisten. The act felt all too intimate as he watched you. You needed to talk to distract yourself from the moment, but couldn’t think of anything other than how fucking strong his build was. He could probably pick you with little to no struggle.

 “What was all that commotion about earlier? Someone getting married or something?” thank god he said something. You chuckle, helping him remove the shirt from his shoulders and arms, noting every wince and groan he makes.

 The feeling of his eyes burning into you kept you from looking at him. You couldn’t do eye contact right now, not while being painfully aware of the way his biceps flexed while adjusting himself. For fucksakes, he’s injured, focus.

Some superficial cut along his abs, those beautifully sculpted abs speckled with blonde hair leading into a happy trail. He was beginning to bruise on his left side. It was pink and red now, but would surely be purple and blue tomorrow. 

Unintentionally forgetting his question, you look over for more injuries, that gash in his shoulder. Someone definitely did the bare minimum, just packing it to prevent further bleeding. They had to, considering he’s already been waiting for an hour. After placing two icepacks over his ribs, you take a deep breath, looking at him. Bruising along his cheekbone, superficial cuts along his brow. You’ve seen way worse on Leon, of course. He’s Leon Kennedy. This is practically child's play for him, but it doesn’t stop the concern that grows with each visit from him.

The worst condition you’ve seen him in was 2 years ago, after a mission went south. He lost his entire crew and somehow managed to finish his mission alone with the captain. He was going in and out of consciousness for a week, going under tests and questioning from his higher-ups. It was also after that mission that the light and innocence in his eyes began to dim.

 You remember your first encounter with Leon 6 years ago, a few weeks after Raccoon City. By chance, you both were at a secluded bar in D.C., both drinking away your experiences, making jokes to mask your distress.

A bond over trauma developed at first, excited to have met someone else who survived Raccoon City. You didn't think much of it. He was handsome, hell yeah, and a sweetheart, but your mind hadn’t been focused on being with anyone at the time, dealing with trauma, and developing a toxic relationship with a stupid S.T.A.R.S member. Honestly, you thought you guys would drift apart at some point, but that wasn’t the case at all. 

Nearly every time he was hurt, you happened to be his assigned nurse, having the opportunity to bond, talk about holiday plans, or some drama with lovers you’d both encounter. It was purely friendly, always until he came back from that mission.

You’d never seen him so battered, beaten, and quiet. Normally, he was making the cheesiest jokes during treatment, asking for updates on life, and talking about his own. But during that stay, he was either sleeping or in deep thought. He still spoke to you, but it just wasn’t the same, and that’s when you felt things shift for you. You watched him go through testing for infection, constant questioning… and no support. The sweetest guy you’d ever met, forced to become an agent for the government and risk his life countless times, doing this job without anyone to make sure he was really okay. Everyone treated it as if it came with the job, but you don’t believe in that. You believe in having a support system. That's how you were raised.

 You chose to step up and be more of a true friend. On off days, you visited him during his hospital stay, trying to crack a smile out of him, which you eventually did.

When he was discharged, he had left flowers with a thank-you note, disappearing for a few months. Until he was hurt from mission… again, asking for you personally to treat him. It became routine for the both of you. Chastising him for always being badly hurt and not taking a break, and him baiting you with more stories of how he nearly died during his mission. It was always a friendly banter between you both, but you hadn’t noticed that these interactions were only watering a seed that had been planted 2 years ago. And now that seed, those feelings were beginning to fully bloom.

“You know… I know you're the Leon Scott Kennedy and all,” he snorts at your use of his middle name,

“And you’re on your way to becoming the nation's hero, for good reason, but I really worry about you sometimes.” You try looking at him sternly to showcase anger, but you can’t. Not when all you see right now is that battered man from 2 years ago.

“I'm perfectly fine, this is nothing. You know that.” The worry in your face makes his heart flutter a beat and pokes your nose playfully.

“So, back to what I asked, the commotion out there?” he hisses lightly, as you take syringes of saline to rinse out his wound, 

“Changing the subject. So typical. Well, you remember how I asked you to help me train for becoming a field agent?” Part of you stepping up to be a friend was drawing him in to talk to more after that fucked mission of his. You needed to work on combat, and he… he needed a friend that was practically in the same business.

“Yeah, what about it? Did you get it?” A slow grin pulled on your lips while you dabbed cotton pads on the wound, gently drying it.

 “Yup. I’ll be a field medic now. Well, after some paperwork and meetings, I’ll be officially starting next week.” You stay focused on the task at hand, missing the flash of disappointment on Leon's face. He was happy for you, knowing how hard you worked for the position. Studying non-stop, to learn more about these viruses, training with him and other colleagues to be ready for any potential attacks, although you already seemed to hold your own in that area. You worked so hard over the last few years for this, and yet he can’t find the same joy in this accomplishment that you have.

It’s because he knows what it’s like in the field. Sure, you won’t be doing the same missions as him, but it’s dangerous for anyone working in the field. It's a heinous job to have, and you… You’re nothing but a flower in his eyes. A rare one. Everywhere you go, no matter the conditions, you bring a semblance of hope and life into the room. And that smile… that damned smile that he itches to see, every day if he could, sweetens any and everything around it. 

Leon believes you’re more than capable of handling yourself out in the field, shit, you’ve knocked him and a few others down on their asses during training more times than they’d like to admit. He just doesn’t want you to lose that loving heart of yours. Or that damn smile. And he’d hate to hear that you didn’t come back from an assignment. The thought makes his chest tighten.

“I knew you’d get it. I had no doubts. Congratulations,” you smile, trying not to blush from his simple praise, thanking him.

“Next week, though? No additional training?” Moving you into position so early like that is odd, even if you’ve passed all the prerequisites to join, he thinks to himself. 

“I thought it was quick, too, but who cares. Better to jump on in though, right? Combat training and lab research will never amount to actually being in the field, right hero?” he blushes at that nickname, breath hitching as you lean over him to look over the scrapes around his temple. He knew it was innocent, as you were always so focused when working, but today you don't have a t-shirt underneath that scrubs top and the smell of vanilla and peonies is very tempting.

“You’re right. Nothing prepares you for it, ever. Are you sure you want to do this? Do you feel nervous or in need of more training?” Inhaling deeply, subtly enjoying your favorite combinations of perfume and lotions, he looks up at you. Enjoying how oblivious you are to his stare; how your lashes flutter with nearly every movement of whatever the hell you were doing up by his brow; how your lips were pursed in thought to answer his question. You were so pretty, so beautiful. You had the look of a delicate angel or fairy, yet when the time called for it, you were menacing. 

When did he start looking at you this way? Is he just very fond of his friend, or is it more than that now? After ‘Operation Javier’, he was in a really dark space, but before he could veer off the deep end, there you were. Being the light in his tunnel, guiding him out. Catching him in the bar, not caring about how cranky and irritable he was. Visiting him during his longest hospital stay, managing to make him laugh with some of the worst jokes and home stories he’d ever heard. Then helping him to work out his frustrations while training you. He knew you needed the help, so when you constantly reminded him not hold back, he wouldn’t; well, just a bit actually, but you’d never learn that. He knew you were doing it for you and him. 

You always had his back… looked out for him during his worst moments and did it without pushing too hard. He’s had his run-ins with women who tried to be there for him, but he just wasn't enough for them, and he knew it. They weren’t horrible women, but he couldn’t be what they needed, so dabbling in casual relationships is what he settled for. You would encourage him to try for something long-term that you thought would be good for him. In those moments he would disagree, feeling slighted but never understanding why. He’s beginning to figure out why now. He’d rather be encouraged to try with you. But if that's what you wanted, it would’ve happened already, right?

“Yeah, this is something I want to do. For now, at least. Of course I’m nervous, but that's not gonna stop me. And more training? Does Leon Kennedy think I need more training?” You hold back a smile to look at those cold eyes again. God, when did it become so hard to look at him without wanting to melt into him? 

“More training wouldn’t hurt. You’re not me so,” you both chuckle as you finish dressing his wounds.

 “Exactly, I am not you. Which explains why I’ve knocked you on your ass how many times now? We‘re almost at 12 times now, I believe.”

“And I’ve unarmed you how many times? Oh, double that, right? Might even be more than 24. I don't know, it’s happened so much that I stopped keeping track.” You pettily pat his wound, after it's been dressed, making him flinch in pain.

“All right, you’re all bandaged up, hero. Here’s a new shirt. You hand him a large-sized white tee, watching his muscles flex as he goes to put it on, wincing in pain. It takes everything in you to fight the urge to help him, not overstepping boundaries. 

“I can still help you train, if you think you need it,” he prepares to get up before you step forward prevent him from standing. You did it instinctively, not thinking, and now you're too close for comfort, staring at one another.

 “You can’t help me train, unfortunately. Doctor has orders for you to remain on light duty for about 4 to 6 weeks, so your ass better be at home resting or in an office, in front of a computer screen.” You poke at his chest, noting the way his hands were gripping the bed, veins bulging up those strong forearms and biceps.

 “You have to take better care of yourself… I mean it, Leon.” You look at him, eyes soft but still cold. “I hate seeing you come in here with all these injuries. Just, I don't know, be more careful?” You brush a thumb over his bruised cheek quickly, making sure not to linger, as you know you’ve overstepped your boundaries at this point. 

“But if I'm more careful, i wont get to see my favorite nurse,” with an exaggerated eyeroll, you cross arms, earning a laugh from him. A sound you wouldn’t mind hearing more often.

“I guess I don't exist outside of this building, huh?”

 “Well, this is the only place you wear those scrubs.”

Your frown in confusion, “what does th-”

 Leon abruptly stands up, a devious smile on his face, removing the space that was between you two.

“I’ll promise to take care of myself, if you promise me to do the same. And to let me know every time you have an assignment. Deal?” You were fairly shorter than him, head slightly tilted to geta better look at his face. He was so close, too close. You could smell the faint lingering scent of musk and dirt hanging onto him. 

You held out a pinky finger, making his smile grow wider, “I pinky promise. Now what does my scrubs have to do with anything, Kennedy?” You had an idea of what he might’ve meant by it, but refused to make that assumption. He hooks his pinky onto yours, amusement and something warm dancing in his eyes “Hm, I don’t really remember anymore. Oh would you look at the time, I should go home and start my recovery yeah?” he shifts around you quickly, with another quick tap on the nose, heading towards the curtains to leave “I’d better hear from you the moment you get assigned to a case” and with that he’s gone. Leaving you flustered by the close contact and these taps on the nose. You wondered, was he really hitting on me?

It was late and gloomy out, remnants of rain lingering in the cool summer air. Your coworkers insisted that you all go out to celebrate your promotion during lunch, saying things wouldn’t be the same after this week. You couldn’t turn down a good drunken night out, so here you are

Shielding yourself from the drizzling rain, running into the newly opened and damn lively bar.

“Shit, I think my hair got a little wet.” 

“Sadie, it's barely raining.” Sadie frantically ran her fingers through her hair while Carla tried to stop her.

“It’s drizzling, that's more than enough,” you replied to Carla, smoothing your own hair down. 

You kept your hair in curls but brushed the front of it down in a side swoop, tucked behind your ears. Cute and simple. 

“Ooh! There’s a table right there, come on,” They both link arms with you, while you're too busy enjoying the bar's scenery.

 There was an 80s flare to it with industrial bulbous lights hanging from the ceiling, black circular tables, and red stool seats. A jukebox with neon signs surrounding it rested in the corner. There was a DJ here, so that had to be for decor. The table Carla picked sat by the open floor, sectioned off by a short wall, for you to see everyone dancing, and across to the bar. 

“Damn, we all look good, don’t we? Think I’ll treat myself to some lucky hunk tonight.” A waiter comes around and takes your orders. 

“Carla… 15 shots to the table, are you fucking insane?” You figured 5 shots per person, but you expected cocktails. A slow journey to a drunken haze.

“No. You are. You chose to become a dso field agent, babe. Your freedom is gone after this week. Enjoy the last bit of it while you can,” Carla held your face in her hands, giving you a pitiful look.

 “Yeah, seriously. And don’t act like you can’t handle more than 6 shots in one night. We’ve watched you go all out how many times now?”

They both laugh in unison, remembering their first time meeting you was by cheering you on for chugging beer like 21 year old frat boy.

The waiter came back with your shots and food. Before he could get away, you called for him, “Can we get some water too? A LOT of it.” They were right, life is going to be very different after this. You might as well enjoy the last bit of normalcy. 

You each were 4, no 5 shots into the night. Thank Gold you decided to eat before taking even one shot, or you would’ve been done by the 4th shot. At some point, Carla ordered more shots, all of you pacing yourselves… your own ways. 

“Guys, this is the last damn time I’m doing shots. Cocktails, wine, and water from here on out, agreed?” Sadie laughs obnoxiously,

 “yeah maybe it's time to move on to the more mature methods, 26 is starting to kick my ass.” You all agree to that statement with one more shot. Shit, “was that our 5th shot? Or 6th”

“Our 5.” 

“No, our 4th.”

Damn it, you all laughed in unison, the music becoming more of a feeling than a sound. 

Carla and Sadie are on either side of you, arms over your shoulder, “WE’RE GONNA FUCKING MISS YOU! SO GOD DAMN MUCH”

“YES, AND CRY EVERY DAMN TIME YOU LEAVE FOR THE FIELD. GOD YOU’RE STUPID FOR GOING OUT THERE”

“YOU’D BETTER KEEP YOURSELF SAFE, RUN AWAY IF YOU FUCKING HAVE TO”

“I'm going to always see you both inbetween assignments! And no, no running. I get to keep my two favorite girls safe now,” you squeeze them tightly. It's bittersweet. You love them, but this is something you need to do for yourself.

“Oh fuck off with that. You’re our little baby that needs protecting. If you come back as a patient, I'm going to kick your ass even worse than whatever assignment you have. So you’d better run for safety.” Sadie holds your face, and you can't help but peck her on her freckled nose as you notice tears welling in her eyes. 

“Goddamn it, stop,” she giggles, wiping at her eyes.

“Hmm… didn’t you just treat your boyfriend earlier today?” Carla gripped your shoulder, brows frowned confused.

“My boyfriend? Did I miss something?” you asked, never giving her the satisfaction. Though with the tequila reaching your brain, you nearly slipped up with a yes.

“Don't play stupid with me. Your lover, Kennedy. Did he not get checked out today for fractured ribs and a nasty stab wound?” Carla's eyes were narrowed now in some direction.

“My f r i e n d,” you spell the word out for her, trying your damnest not to blush, “Kennedy, yes, why? Why are we mentioning him?” You didn't mind talking about him, but you were tipsy… borderline drunk. You would definitely say something that these ladies would never allow you to live down.

“Oooh, what a troublesome boy. I’m pretty sure that's him over at the bar right now.” You whip your head around to the bar, looking for that pretty, dirty blonde head of his.

“You should go over and teach him a lesson. Reprimand him. He seems fine enough to be taught a free lesson, don’t ya think?”Your friends snicker as you narrow your eyes, trying to find him, 

“Shut up, both of you. I don't see h-” just as you were about to finish your sentence, you catch him in view, sitting down with another guy, both in jackets and jeans. Leon walking as if he has nothing to worry about

“That son of a bitch. I just told him, less than 24 hours ago, that he was meant to be resting.”

“He’s a man who works for the government. This probably is resting for him.” Carla smooths your hair down while you’re too busy staring at him in disbelief, 

“I don’t care, people can have drinks at home,” you feel the tightening of your halter top straps, still staring at him, now debating if you should bother him. 

“You’re so right. I think you ought to tell him how disappointed you are,” I literally just treated his wounds today, you think to yourself.

If you were sober, you might’ve left him alone, but you’re not. “I think I will.” You go to walk off, only taking 2 steps. “Wait, how do I look? Not too drunk or sloppy?” Your hand smoothed over your open halter top,  fidgeting with your necklace. You had kitty heels on with low-rise flared jeans. 

“Your hair is great, but I smoothed it down already,” Carla winked

“I fixed your top already, boobs look dashing,” Sadie patted one of your boobs,

“You could never look sloppy, and who cares how drunk you are. Make him take you home since he’s feeling good enough to be in the bar.” 

You roll your eyes with a smile, “Oh no. We came together and will be leaving together. I’m just going to tell him that he’s a damn fool. That's all.” You purse your lips, looking away in defeat. “Anyway… gum? mints? Tic tacs?  Either of you?” Refusing to look at them, you put your hand out.

“Nooo. He WILL be taking you home. We trust him to be alone with you. We’ll be fine. You have no choice. You can tell him we’re horrible friends, but we aren’t taking you home. Try fucking him in the car or something so we can get some deets too. He’s too hot to keep passing on!” Sadie gives you a pack of Altoids. Folding her arms, a showing of her finality in the conversation.

“He’s a wounded warrior… that’s my friend, how many times do we have to go over this?”

 Carla lets out a frustrated groan, “Well, fix him… and then FUCK HI.M” A few people in the crowd look over at you three, “Now get going, or we’ll have to embarrass you in front of him.” They turn you over to Leons direction, smacking your ass as encouragement to keep walking. With each step, you grow increasingly nervous. Why? You can talk to him normally any other time. Maybe it's the alcohol, you might slip up and say the wrong thing. You’re friends though, you could play it off, and surely he wouldn’t mind. 

As you approach Leon, the man he entered with noticed you, licking his lips like a wolf that had just spotted its prey. All the while, Leon hadn’t bothered to turn around.

“Well, hello sweetheart,” you raise a brow, smiling at his bold assumption that you were coming over to him. 

“Hi, handsome,” you tease the friend, “Is this man next to you Leon Kennedy?” his face frowns, and he looks to Leon, who’s slowly turning towards you.

“Oh yeah, it is you. Excuse me, sorry,” boldly sliding in between Leon and his friend, they shifted in their seats slightly to get a fuller view of you.

 “No need to apologize, sweetheart.” His friend was more than intrigued and okay with you squeezing in between the small space between them. It gave him all the time in the world for his eyes to glaze over the way your shirt and jeans accentuated your curves, the natural arch in your back from how round and shapely your ass was. You couldn't care less about him checking you out, while you watched Leon fighting to keep his eyes locked on yours. 

He laughs nervously while saying your name, “I did not expect to see you here.” he took a sip of his drink, fighting to keep his gaze above your neckline.

 “Funny, right? I didn’t either. Considering that you were just treated for fractured ribs and a stab wound. If I remember correctly, you promised me that you'd take care of yourself, yeah?” 

You bite your lips, the intensity of Leon's gaze making you hotter than you should be. Liquor or not. “I did promise that… and, technically, that's what I’m doing.” he colleague goes to grab your arm, wanting attention for himself, but Leon tries to subtly kick his chair.

“So handsome, do you consider this,” you gesture to the bar, “to be taking care of yourself after being treated for a stab wound and fractured ribs?” You tilt your head slightly, raising a brow. You keep repeating his injuries outloud, hoping to drill into his head how irritated you are with him.

“Kennedy, did this lovely lady tell you take care of yourself?” You roll your eyes and sigh dramatically. You were leaning back against the bar counter, both men catching your chest rise as you sighed. It truly wasn’t intentional, but it didn’t matter whether it was or not. Any movement you made was going to catch their attention.

 Leon looked at his colleague, a warning written all over his face, as he knew they both were having similar thoughts; his friend's more crude and raunchy in contrast to his own. His attention returned to you, stealing glances of your hair, jewelry, outfit, and skin gently shimmering under the light, while you looked to his friend.

“Yes, I did tell him to take care of himself. Right after patching him up,” you poked at his stab wound, “Oh! Is this the nurse you're always after?” this friend of his shouted, with an appraising look. 

“He’s gonna be waiting on a new damn nurse if he keeps this up.” 

“Well, shit, you can be my nurse. I’ll keep my promises for ya,” he goes to reach for your hand, biting his lip. 

“Alright, enough of that.” Leon swats his hand, pulling you over to fully face him. 

“This is how I take care of myself,” he takes hold of your hand, turning you to face him. You were between his legs while he still sat on the stool. This kind of proximity would normally make you nervous, but these 4, 5? Maybe 6 shots of tequila are making you feel daring.

“You have fractured ribs. Newly fractured. Why not have a drink at home?”

“To be fair, if I had a drink at home, I wouldn’t have been able to see you.” his gaze slowly takes you in again. Appreciating every curve, every notable beauty mark, every inhale of breath that makes your chest rise.

 In the 6 years that you’ve known each other, he’s never seen you get dressed outside of the simple long-sleeve tee or tank with jeans. You were always dressed casually, not that it mattered at all. You made anything you wore look good to him. For you, this outfit was the bare minimum, but for him. That top exposes the mole resting on your right breast, and just how deep the curves in your waist go.

You smile shyly, suddenly feeling undressed and tempted, heat rising in your belly. “How is this different from seeing me in scrubs?”

“Oh, it's very different.” he grabs his cup, it's of something dark, eyes meeting yours as he goes to drink, but you pull the cup away from him, taking it for yourself. 

You gulped down what tasted like whiskey. You might have to count that as another shot. Shot and a half even. You don’t know why you did it, but you did. Maybe you’ll find a way to convince him to go home. And why? You have no fucking clue at this point.

 You hear laughing from behind you, forgetting his friend was there, “Whoo! And you’re a nurse? I like it! You want another?” Leon's face is stern, yet the look behind those cold and hardened eyes is hungry.

“No, she doesn’t want another.”

“Oh, but I think I do,” leaning slightly into his gaze, challenging him. You being in his space like this felt right, it felt good, and the amusement in your eyes was making him warm in the groin.

“What was that you had? Whiskey? Neat? I’ll have whatever it is he just had,” you call back,

“Got ya!” his colleague gave the order to the bartender.

 Leon watched the bartender prepare the drink you thought you were getting, eyes narrowed. You stand up straight, “How much have you had to drink so far?”

“I dunno. 4,5,6 shots maybe? Your drink might’ve made the little over seven” Leon curses under his breath, getting up from his seat and sitting you down. 

“Can she get some water too?” he calls out to the bartender, who then slides the whiskey over to you. Leon catches it before you can, keeping it out of arms reach. “I think we’re good for the night.” he says, taking a sip, while looking down at you. You smile innocently, raising your brows as he decides to finish the rest of his drink in one gulp.

“I’m perfectly fine to have another drink. I can hold my liquor… and don’t have fractured fucking ribs.”

“Your other drink is right here, water. And I had the best nurse today, so me and my fractured ribs are fine.” You roll your eyes lazily, feeling the drowsiness kick in. It wouldn’t hurt to drink some water right now. Damn it, damn it, damn it. You drink the entire cup of water, each sip slightly sobering up enough to know you’re so fucked. You pray the room won't start spinning until you hit the bed.

“Leon, go home. You should be in bed resting. Have a drink at home. You promised you’d take care of yourself.” Even when you were drunk, you were a compassionate person. He shouldn’t be surprised, though. 

“And here, sit back down,” the nurse in you preferred that he’d be sitting and not you.

 You attempt to get up, but Leon gently pushes you back onto the stool, with his hand against your stomach. That touch, it felt possessive.. protective.. and affectionate? Sending butterflies through your stomach.

“I told you I’m fine. I swear it. I wasn’t planning on staying long anyway. Two drinks, one you already took, and then bed.” He watched as your gaze went from being bright-eyed to a heavy-lidded gaze. You're getting tired… he knew that, but the look on your face was almost sensual. 

“Looks like she's going to bed with you now, too,” his colleague chuckled. You peeked around Leon to see him. Finally taking a good look at the mans whose been here all night, a man with scarily large biceps, short cut brown hair, and stubble along his jawline. 

“Would you find someone to go dance with or pester?” Leon clenched his jaw, nodding to the dance floor.

“There are two gorgeous, gorgeous girls over at the first table, who might enjoy your company.” You nod your head over to Carla and Sadie, who were dancing with one another, laughing at who knows what.

“Well its fuck me then, huh. Get home safely or whatever,” you giggle, watching him grumble his way over to your friends, his mood instantly changing.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be annoying about this, but why not take care of yourself at home?” You gesture to the cups of alcohol littering the bar counter. You already knew the answer to that, but you just want to scold him a bit more.

“Aren’t you supposed to be drunk? How are you still so…” he trails off, eyes narrowing in though, while you mindlessly watch him thing, his heart fluttering in response. 

“How am I so what kennedy”

“Attentive. And concerned. And not enjoying yourself,” he asked in genuine confusion.

Most people, when they’re drunk, are going on about their night, no care in the world but you’re here, willing to fumble out of this seat for him because of some injury thats childs play for him.

“How many times do I have to tell you this, you goddamn super soldier,” You take a handful of his smooth, grey t-shirt, closing the space between you both. “I worry about you. A lot. More than I should really.” You feel yourself losing restraint on your words and thoughts, fucking drunk, you surely are.

 “You’ve been different since that operation, and I don’t know. You’re such a sweet guy, and we’re friends, whether you like it or not, and… and” he’s still, what you were saying felt almost like a confession, frustration, and hesitation in your voice, furthering his idea that it was near a confession. The way you looked up at him, those round brown eyes somehow still oozing with sensuality, was stirring up something inside of him. His jaw clenches, trying to keep his composure neutral, as a friend would, but he can’t help wanting to grab you at the base of your neck, to hold you in place while he takes your mouth in his. He wants to kiss you quiet, kiss your concerns away, to reassure you in so many other ways that he is fine because of you. But he won't. Not right now, not yet.

“And I care about my friends. A LOT. especially you…” You notice a look in his eyes that beckons you to say more. “Stop looking at me like that before I say too much,” with a lazy, failed attempt to push him back, he laughs.

 “I'm not looking at you in any kind of way, but do say more. Think I like hearing about how much you adore your friends, especially me. He’s holding your hand, thumb massaging your inner palm. You knew he was just teasing you, but since the room was beginning turn, you had to cut it short. 

“Oh fuck off, I'm being serious. I’ve reached my limit anyway and will be heading home now,” you declare matter-of-factly.

“I know you are. And I want to hear more of what you have to say.” You frown gently, as that statement was laced with something deeper, but fuck, you’re too out of it to think any further.

“Sorry, Kennedy, I am too drunk to continue now. I've enjoyed seeing you tonight. It’s time for me to call for a taxi. You hop off the stool, breast brushing against him as you slide away from him and the seat. 

He stumbles after you, confused by your sudden switch to sobriety. You weren’t sober, of course, but to the stranger on the side, they would've thought you were. A woman of determination, he guessed. Following you out into the now chilly air, you hugged yourself, eyes squinting to spot a taxi in your drunken haze. He chuckled to himself, kicking at the ground. It was cute, he thought. You're trying your best hold it together and go home alone, but he had no intentions of allowing that. What kind of a friend would he be? And for fuck sake, you should see yourself, just how good you look. He definitely wasn’t letting you get a taxi home alone tonight.

“My car is down the street. Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“No, no, you don't have to. There's a taxi right here.” You went to wave for the taxi, but Leon quickly lowered your hand back down

“Yeah, it wasn’t an offer or question. I’ll be your ride for the night,” he could see you preparing to protest in response, “I will carry you to the car. Fractured ribs and all,” he smiles deviously, knowing that's the last thing you want him to do. Groaning in defeat, you motion for him to lead the way. You didn’t want to keep being out of it around him, but you guess you’d have no choice. It would only be a 20-minute car ride. A quick car ride, nothing to worry about.

But you fell into a deep sleep during your ride. Leon figured this would happen and truly didn’t mind it. He tried searching for your apartment keys, as he would have taken you inside himself, but he didn’t know what floor or apartment number you were in. In his defense, he tried waking you up, but you were a goner, as he expected. He’s had his fair share of drunken slumbers. He looked over you sleeping in his passenger seat. Your hair began to frizz, but only a little. He thought it was a pretty look, despite how much it irritated you. Full lips with a faint shimmer from gloss, parted slightly as you exhaled the gentlest snores. He’d placed his jacket over you once you dozed off. It just felt right to cover you up, plus you seemed cold. There was warmth spreading through him as you moved to nestle your face into his jacket. Like it was your token of comfort.

Impulsively, he reached out to caress your cheek, accepting that he slowly but surely wanted to be more than friends. 

 So to his home it was. Hopefully, you wouldn’t be upset by his decision, but he’d make sure to care for you the same way you did him. As your friend, it was the least he could do.

ᵃᵘᵗʰᵒʳˢ ⁿᵒᵗᵉ: If you made it this far, I love you already. I can't wait to delve deeper into these two, as a pair and separately. Even more excited for them to make it to Spain. That's where it really kicks off. I'll be posting to A03 as well. I really hope it wasn't too bad for you guys. Like, comment, or reblog if you did enjoy, though. Or just scroll by after, anything's good with LMAO, Happy new year yall, have a good day!

,♥ Love Byrdie, xo ♥

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