would've, could've, should've

“Sorry,” he says, breathless, looking away from you because he can’t stand the softness in your eyes. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s woken you up, when you’ve already been struggling with your anxiety getting worse at night lately. It’s a weekday and you have to go to work in the morning. You’re not going to be able to get back to sleep. And it’s because of him. Because he sleeps beside you even though he knows he has nightmares that wake you—

“You don’t need to be sorry,” your voice says softly, but he can hardly hear you through the pounding of his heart. “It’s okay. You’re okay, sweetie. Just breathe.” You slide your hand across from one of his shoulders to the other, applying just enough pressure to ground him, release the tension he’d been holding there.

He hangs his head, letting his hair fall down over his face and shield it from your view. He can feel the sweat dripping down his brow. The breathless ache in his lungs. A distant soreness in his throat, as if he’d been screaming. Fuck. “I’m sorry I woke you up,” he says hoarsely. Then, peering up at you through his hair, he looks you all over for signs of distress.“Did I scare you? Are you okay?”

“You screamed, and it did startle me. But it wasn’t a big deal, and I’m okay.”

“God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I guess the nightmares are back. I should’a known, should’ve slept on the couch or something…”

“Don’t be stupid. This is our bed.”

“But now you’re awake and I’ve ruined your sleep.”

You shake your head and shuffle closer to him, pressing yourself up against his arm. Hooking your chin over his shoulder, you kiss his cheek, let your hand run down his opposite side. “Do you need anything? Some tea? Food? A pee?”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

“All right, then. Come on, lay down with me, okay?” Gently, you tug him back down onto the bed. You settle on your back, and pull him in so his head rests on your chest, right over your heart. Leon goes willingly, of course, and God, everything in him melts. Your arm wraps around his shoulders, reaching up to stroke through his hair, cradle his cheek, as you lean down to kiss the top of his head. 

Feeling the backs of his eyes start to sting, he screws his eyes shut and focuses on the feeling of you instead. Wraps his arms around you, snaking one underneath your body so he can pull you right into him, then nuzzles his nose right between your breasts, and tries his best to let his body relax. “’M sorry,” he murmurs, hoping you don’t hear the way his voice breaks.

“Shh,” you reply, stroking his hair. “Everything’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong. Just rest.”

“But…but your sleep—”

“I’m right where I want to be. If I’m going to fall back asleep, it’s going to be like this, okay?”

He doesn’t know what to say, how to express the way his chest swells, the way tightness wraps itself around his lungs and then each of his ribs. Guilt pokes at him from all angles, tries to run its cold fingers down his spine, but your arms are there and your breath is in his hair and somehow, amidst his racing thoughts and the remnants of his nightmare, he manages to drift back off around the same time he hears you start to softly snore.

It doesn’t happen like that every night. He doesn’t always need you to wake him from the nightmare, doesn’t always react physically in a way that would disturb your sleep. Sometimes, the nightmare will repeat and repeat until he becomes so desperate to confirm it’s not real that he spends an indiscernible amount of time trying to claw out of it. It’ll take all his strength to drag himself back to being awake. Back to the present moment, where there is no blood, there are no bodies, there is no screaming.

And despite the agony in his chest, the wet feeling of viscera all over his skin, and the scream that dies in his throat, he wakes quietly. Almost delicately. Like he’s stirred naturally in the night for a glass of water, or woken with the sunrise. Like all of that violence never mattered. Like he shouldn’t let it matter anymore.

If only.

Tonight, his eyes flutter open, and the first thing he sees is the wall next to his side of the bed, and the door that leads to your ensuite bathroom. Relief floods over him so heavily it almost takes his breath away. I’m not there. I’m not there. I’m at home. There’s no zombies. There’s no gun in my hand or blood on my face. 

He takes a slow, deep breath. Tries his best to force away the memories of his nightmare, but it lingers and lingers. He rolls over and finds you lying there, on your side facing him, your hands tucked up into the pillow beneath your head. You’re fast asleep. So peaceful in the dim light. Your chest rising and falling evenly. Your lips pouted just a little. 

Fuck. You’re so goddamn perfect. The pain in Leon’s chest worsens just looking at you, because look at you, you’re so far from everything he’s just seen in his mind, everything that comes from things he has seen with his own eyes. The blood that felt so real in that dream but is nowhere to be found in this moment? Well, it’s been there, all over his hands and under his nails and dried into the crevices around his elbows and knees. He’s been covered in it. In blood and guts and gore and pieces of friends and people who never stood a chance against the bioweapon that targeted them.

He’s been to hell more times than he can count, and yet here you are, the very personification of heaven to him. How is it possible for him to be here beside you? How can he reach out and touch you, knowing his hands are stained with crimson? Knowing his life is so far removed from yours that he can’t help but feel like a stain on every part of it?

As the thoughts get too much, he has to drag his eyes away from you, has to carefully pull himself out of bed. It’s been a while since he’s felt such guilt for loving you. Since he’s felt so selfish for having you like this. He has to clear his head. 

Silently he pads into the kitchen, squints against the fridge light as he reaches for a beer. He takes it out onto the back porch and sits on the step with his head in one hand and the bottle in another. The fresh air feels good, and he tries to focus on how lucky he is to have this, to be in his own home instead of on base, to have the freedom to go outside into his back yard and just be by himself. It’s something he never thought he’d have, after Raccoon City. All those days spent so painfully alone in training. To have a home, and to have it with someone he loves so much, it’s everything he always wanted, and everything he thought he would never have after his life went to shit.

But then, in comes that other voice that screams: maybe he shouldn’t have it. Maybe this was all a terrible idea. Maybe he was naive and selfish for thinking that he could find a way to combine the darkness and terror of his job and memories with the light and peace of a townhouse with the woman he loves.

By the third bottle of beer, he’s given up on the idea of getting back to sleep, but his mind isn’t racing as much. The horrible, gnawing dread dragging itself through his veins has turned to a soft buzz in his blood. The sun is starting to rise. 

He closes his eyes, and for the first time in hours, the horrors don’t flash in his mind. He takes in a deep breath of the morning air. 

You’ll be waking up soon. Pancakes, he thinks. Pancakes will make you happy. And right now, that’s more than enough for him.

***

Summer 2008

Reader

Warm evening air blows in through the kitchen window, gently brushing your face and shoulders as you stand by the sink washing up the day’s dishes. The window in front of you looks out over the back yard, the rosebush in the far corner in full bloom, its petals bright pink and winding up a wooden lattice on the fencing. It’s really the only interesting thing out there at the moment, aside from the trees that stand tall around the edges of the garden. You keep meaning to do some proper planting out there, and really, you should now that you’re on summer break. 

But the last few days haven’t exactly been the most productive, since Leon got called off on a mission unexpectedly. Such is the way of things, and you know that it can happen at any moment, that your precious time together can always be interrupted by an emergency that needs him. Still, it sucks.

You’d been three days into summer break, and when Leon came home from base that day, the two of you cooked dinner together and ate it in front of a cheesy movie, followed by a glass of wine each and a dessert you got from the grocery store that morning. 

You’d gone into the kitchen to pour more wine when Leon stepped up behind you, wrapped his arms around your waist. He pressed kisses all down your neck, distracting you from pouring, his nose tickling your skin.

“Leon, I’m trying to pour us more wine here…”

“Mm, maybe I just want a taste of you instead,” he’d murmured into the shell of your ear, tightening his hold on you as his kisses turned open-mouthed. He felt so warm and lovely pressed against you, wrapped around you, and you could smell the wine on his breath, feel the vibration of his voice against your skin. In that moment you felt like the luckiest person alive, getting to be here with him like this. To have these evenings of soft domesticity and comfort. 

You shivered when his hands slowly moved down your stomach, catching on the waistband of your pyjamas. “Sh-should I put the glasses down?” you asked, breathless.

He’d chuckled darkly and said, “Yeah, I would, sweetheart, don’t wanna break ’em.” And then his hand had just slipped under your waistband when his work phone rang. 

And, well, it wasn’t long until he was gone. Apologies on his lips and written all over his face, reluctance pouring off him in waves as he rushed to get his grab bag and quickly headed to the door. Not without kissing you goodbye first, and apologising again, to which you told him it was okay, told him to be safe. 

It is okay. Really, it is. He’s out there saving the goddamn world, facing the unimaginable horrors of bioterrorism head-on so that ordinary people like you don’t have to. Who are you to deny the world of that? To deny him of that calling? 

If you were to sit at home moping, feeling sorry for yourself, would that make you the bad guy? 

That’s what you ask yourself for the first two days of him being gone, at least. By the third, the answer no longer matters, because you are feeling sorry for yourself, though mostly you feel sorry for him. You worry for him, and it turns into wishing that he didn’t have to do this in the first place. Wishing he could have a normal life where his sanity wasn’t on the line at best, and his entire existence at worst.

And still you stand here, washing the dishes, so mundane. Your arms and hands work on pure muscle memory alone as you get lost in your imagination. Wondering where he is. Imagining you hear the front door open. 

There it goes again: the phantom sound of a latch clicking down the hall. You sigh, shaking your head. You’re not even the one who goes out on these terrifying missions and yet somehow you are hallucinating? 

Except—wait. There are footsteps. Breathing. The smell of gunpowder and metal wafting through the house. And, aside from all that, you just know in your gut that this time is real. He’s home.

At lightning speed you remove your hands from the dishwater and dry them on the towel, then rush around the corner and into the hall to greet him. Relief washes through you at the same time as a new wave of concern rises, because he’s home, he’s alive, he’s been cleared medically such that he can come home and stay here. But…God, he looks…

“Leon?”

Slowly, he toes off his combat boots. His head hangs low, dirty hair falling around his face in strands clumped together with dried blood. Shoulders hunched, he doesn’t look up at you, barely even reacts to your voice. So unlike him. The leather jacket over his shoulders seems largely unscathed, but you can tell his dark tac trousers are hiding a multitude of stains, and his hands are uncovered by gloves, leaving the bruises and cuts on full display. 

“Hey,” you say softly, careful when you take a step closer to him. “Rough one?”

He’s silent for another few moments, standing very still, just staring at the wall. Then, he shrugs off his jacket, and you don’t miss the noise in his throat as he does so, as if he’s suppressing a groan. You see the pain tensing his jaw, hear the sharp intake of breath. 

“Here,” you offer, reaching out to take the jacket for him before he can hang it up. “Want me to wash it?”

Wordless, he nods, so you give him a moment to himself and turn back into the kitchen, going straight for the washing machine tucked in by the back door. You don’t set it to run right away, knowing the rest of his clothes will probably need washing too; though you don’t have too much experience with washing mission clothes, since he normally leaves them on base to be cleaned there. He’s only come to you dressed like this a couple of times, and it’s been when he was visiting you in your old place, and he didn’t want to waste a second before coming to see you.

This time, you have a feeling the reason for rushing home in this state is different.

When you go back out into the hall, he’s still just…standing there. Only now, instead of staring at the wall, he’s looking at his hands. Palms turned towards the ceiling, mud and blood and god-knows what else caked into the creases and gaps between his fingers.

You’re not sure if he wants to be touched, so despite the overwhelming urge you have to just wrap him in your arms and hold him tight, you stay a few steps away from him, and hope your voice is enough. “You’re home now, Leon. You’re okay. Do you need to eat? I can make us something? I’ll even allow some coffee if you’re desperate enough to have caffeine after 6pm,” you try for a little humour, but you can’t see his reaction, hidden as it is behind his curtain of matted hair.

His answer comes out rough and hoarse. “We got any whiskey left?” 

You frown. He knows that you do. He always keeps it in stock. But something feels wrong about telling him Yes, about pouring him a glass, so instead you say, “I was just about to make some tea. I’ll make you some as well. Are you hungry?” He shakes his head. Still doesn’t look at you. “Okay. I want to run you a bath, is that okay?”

“Shower first,” he answers. “Don’t wanna make you sit in a bath with all this dirt.”

“Me?”

He glances up in your general direction, his eyebrow quirking ever so slightly. “You don’t wanna share with me?”

“No, I—of course I do. I’m just…surprised.”

Finally, he turns fully towards you, and actually looks at you. It gives you a chance to really look at him, his dark blue tac vest stained in places and ashy with dirt. He’s still got his leather holster around his shoulders, but the slot for a gun is empty, only his combat knife remaining, sitting against his chest. “You don’t have to,” he says, as if you’re trying to reject him politely. “I’d understand if you didn’t want to.”

“Hey, no,” you protest, stepping forward and holding out your hands. God, you want to touch him. “No, of course I want to. Come on, I’ll get things ready while you rinse off in the shower, okay?” 

He nods without a word, and starts following you down the hall towards your room. Once you’re in the bathroom, he stands in front of the sink, staring at himself in the mirror. A soft frown creases his brow, and his hands clench and unclench at his sides, absently, like he’s not aware he’s doing it. In fact, it seems like he’s not aware of much else at all, besides just staring at himself. His eyes look far away. His jaw clenches, the muscles in his cheek jumping over and over.

“Leon?” you say softly, stepping up behind him. 

Slowly, his eyes float across to you in the reflection. Something in him softens when he sees you. “Hey, sweetheart,” he says, quiet. 

You smile. “Hey, baby. How do you still look so handsome even when you’re all gross, huh?” The corners of his lips tilt up in response, and you swear you hear a small puff of air exhale through his nose, almost like a laugh. It makes warmth bloom in your chest. “C’mon, gorgeous man, get in the shower. Are you hurt?”

“Just the usual cuts and bruises,” he says. “No stitches today.”

Relieved, you nod, thankful that you at least know the reason for his disturbed demeanour isn’t because he’s hurt. Not physically, anyway. Emotionally, definitely, but…

After switching on the shower for him, you step back out into the bedroom to grab towels from the closet, then potter aimlessly around the bathroom while he showers. You try not to look too hard at him, but it’s hard not to, and not just because he looks so goddamn sexy, either. Just…the bruises. The open wounds. The grime. The blood that definitely isn’t his. It’s a lot, and it’s hard to tear your eyes away, hard to stop your mind from spiralling.

When the glass on the shower door fogs up, you can only see the vague tint of red in the basin below his feet, getting fainter as the water dilutes it. You force yourself to look away and get everything ready for the bath instead, gathering shampoo, conditioner, the relaxing bath salts he claims he’s indifferent about but you know that he actually loves, and his favourite body wash. It feels good, to be doing something. To be helping in some way, even if it’s only small.

He steps out of the shower much cleaner, none of the grime and blood lingering on his skin anymore. His hair is wet now, but still needs washing, still has matted bits where gunk has stuck it together. After you turn on the bath faucet and pour the salts beneath the flow, you drag over the stool from the corner of the room and sit Leon down on it, facing the mirror.

“Just wanna try and brush those knots out of your hair,” you explain, grabbing your hairbrush from the cabinet drawer. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” he murmurs, catching your eye in his reflection. He watches your hands as they lift to his head, and when they first press into his hair, he flinches violently. Pulls away so fast it makes you jump as he leaps up off the stool. Then he sighs heavily, closes his eyes, and says, “Fuck, I’m sorry.” He forces himself to sit back down while every inch of his body language screams NO.

Even though it breaks your heart, you shake your head, and say, “It’s okay. If you don’t want me to…”

“No, I do. Just—it might take me a minute. I’m sorry, it’s not you…”

“I know it’s not.” Slowly, you reach for his hair again, starting with one hand. This time, when your fingers sink through his blonde locks, he does flinch, but it’s not as severe as the first time. He holds himself in place, tension running across his shoulder blades and concentration written all over his face. You watch him in the reflection as he takes deep breaths, and eventually, he begins to relax in front of you.

“Okay,” he says quietly, almost just a whisper. “I think I’m good.”

“Let me know if you want me to stop,” you tell him, then bring up your other hand. At this touch, he doesn’t even bat an eye. You can’t help the smile that spreads across your face, built from both relief and pride, and carefully, you start to brush out the knots. Some require you to put down the hairbrush altogether and just gently pull at the strands until they come loose. A lot of it is caked exclusively with blood and you try your best to ignore that part and just focus on taking care of him.

The whole time, his eyes are on you in the mirror. You feel them burning a hole in your skin. 

Once his hair is all combed through, you get him to settle into the bath. He groans as he lowers himself down into the water, a sound that, admittedly, has a pulse of heat flaring between your thighs. But you valiantly ignore it in favour of grabbing the cup that sits on the counter by the sink, and turning around to face him, kneeling down beside the bath.

He frowns. “You aren’t coming in too?”

“I am, I just wanna wash your hair first.”

“Oh. You don’t—have to do that.” He glances between you and the cup in your hand like he’s never seen one before.

“Do you not want me to…?”

“I just—I can do it.”

“Your shoulders are all swollen, I thought maybe it’d hurt for you to wash it yourself…?”

“I’m fine. You don’t have to.”

You exhale sharply through your nose and give him a Look. “Leon. Forget about whether I have to or not—I want to help you. But I also want to make sure you’re comfortable with me touching you like this.”

“I am,” he says quickly. “God, I really am, I just don’t want you to have to…” 

“…Take care of you?” you finish for him, raising an eyebrow.

He nods, strands of wet hair falling down over his face. His expression turns hesitant, almost shy, the blue of his eyes drowning in insecurity and bad memories.

You know that nothing you say will take those things away from his mind. Instead, you let a smirk tug its way onto your lips, and you sit forward on your knees again, leaning your hips against the side of the tub. “Well, taking care of Leon Kennedy happens to be a hobby of mine. It’s kind of you to let me indulge in it.”

His lips quirk, too. Just a little. Just one corner. But combined with the flush that rises in his cheeks and spreads all the way to the tips of his ears, it’s just as lovely as a full-blown grin. “Sweetheart…” he says, bashful.

“It’s true. Been one of my favourite pastimes for a while now, actually. I especially love to wash his hair, use a good conditioner and let it really soak in for a bit.”

“Preferably sitting between my legs while it does?” he murmurs, glancing down at your lips.

“This hobby is one that requires patience,” you tease. “I’ll get there, Kennedy. C’mon, sit up a little.” 

Feigning reluctance, he does exactly as you ask, groaning a little as he pulls himself up into a proper sitting position. You dip the cup into the water to fill it and he watches the movement of your hand, the other coming up to form a barrier at the edge of his hairline to keep his face dry.

At the feeling of the warm bathwater cascading through his locks and down the back of his neck, he shivers, his eyes fluttering closed. You smile to yourself, knowing that feeling. Grateful to be able to give it to him.

Once his hair is sufficiently wet again, you grab the shampoo and squeeze out a generous amount onto your palm, lathering it before you pause and softly warn him, “Coming in with both hands now.” He murmurs in affirmation, so you start to rub it into his scalp, starting off gentle but then gradually applying pressure. 

God, it’s such a good feeling, the way he relaxes under your touch. You can see and feel the tension leaving him. He lets out a little noise, a breathy sort of moan that he clearly tries to hold back but fails miserably.

“Rinsing it off now,” you warn him gently before placing your hand back at his hairline, using the other to pour more cups of water over his hair, washing out all those suds. The usually white foam is slightly tainted with blood and grime, but not so much that it’ll make the bath all gross when it mixes in; he got the worst of it out in the shower. But his hair immediately feels better for being clean, and you waste no time moving on to the conditioner after squeezing the ends of his hair to get rid of excess water.

Smoothing the conditioner through his hair from root to tip, you gradually use it to push his hair back from his face and hold it there. His hair isn’t quite long enough to hold in place with a claw clip, but you want it out of the way while the conditioner works its magic, so you push it back as best you can and then smile at the sight of him. He looks so different like this; his hair has been in almost the exact same style ever since you’ve known him. He still looks handsome, though maybe more chiseled, his cheekbones and the sharp line of his jaw more obvious. 

There’s a cut above his brow, and a graze on his cheek. You make a mental note to get band aids for them later.

“All right, we’ll rinse that out in ten minutes,” you tell him, dipping your hands in the water to get the conditioner off. 

Clearly more relaxed than he thought he’d be, he opens his eyes just a little, looking startlingly similar to how he looks in the mornings. “You gonna join me now?”

“If you still want me to.” You’re partially teasing him, knowing that he absolutely does.

His way of confirming: “Take your clothes off.”

He watches you strip, and for a second, you feel a little self-conscious. It’s not exactly a sexy affair, trying to pull off your pyjama pants while stumbling for balance, getting your socks off, pulling your top over your head. But he watches you like it is sexy, his pupils all blown wide and teeth sinking into his bottom lip.

And when you carefully settle down between his legs in the bath, you feel his dick, half hard against your back.

A huff of a laugh escapes you. “I don’t know what you found so sexy about that show I just put on.”

“It’s you getting naked,” he says, like that’s an explanation.

“And…?”

“You being naked is the sexiest thing to me; first time I ever saw you naked it ruined me for anyone else. Don’t you know that?”

A smile settles on your lips as he nibbles at your earlobe. You wrap your arms around his legs, smoothing your palms along the undersides of his knees. “Doesn’t hurt to be reminded.” It comes out on a breath when he opens his mouth on your neck and starts to suck. “For the record, the feeling’s mutual.” 

“Even when I’m all beat up?”

“Even then, baby.” You lean back into him, letting yourself relax as his arms wrap around you, holding you tight. It doesn’t escalate into anything, despite the obscene sounds of his open mouth moving against your skin, despite the half hardness of him pressed into your backside. It’s just nice to be like this, to be close, to be intimate. After him being gone for so long, and this mission clearly taking its toll on him, you aren’t about to waste a single moment where the two of you can just be. Just enjoy each other’s presence, revel in each other’s touch.

His hands roam over your body beneath the water, just feeling you, appreciating you. You tip your head back into his shoulder, a few of his conditioner-soaked ends brushing against your forehead. He leans his head against yours, and you feel the deep breath that he takes, rising and then falling with it as he lets it out again.

There’s not a lot you can do to heal the wounds that his missions leave him with. Not the emotional ones. But you hope that this is enough. That this feels healing.

“Leon?” you say into the quiet.

“Mm?”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” 

A pause. “No.” 

You crane your neck to press a quick kiss to his jaw. “Okay. I’m glad you’re home.” 

He exhales heavily. “Me, too.” 

After a while, you turn in his arms to face him, kneeling so you can rinse out the conditioner. Using the cup filled with water, you reach up to run your fingers through his hair from front to back, making sure you get all of it. His hands sit on your waist, his thumbs absently stroking back and forth across your skin. And though he’s looking at you while you work, his eyes are somewhere far away, a cloud coming over his expression that you can already tell is there to stay. It breaks your heart but you swallow down the emotion in your throat, refuse to let your sadness for him show, and instead keep your expression soft, caring, hoping that your love for him shows through your eyes.

As the two of you get out of the tub and the water empties down the drain, you hand Leon a towel, already wrapped in your own as you reach into the under sink cabinet for the ibuprofen gel. Then, without a word, you sit him down on the stool and rub at his wet hair with a small towel. His hands are clenchedso tightly in his lap that his knuckles turn white.

Once his hair is no longer dripping, you take the time to inspect every one of his cuts and bruises. He doesn’t react when you apply the ibuprofen gel, but you warn him before each touch anyway, and then after the gel, you switch to antiseptic ointment, which you dab on all his cuts and grazes. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he murmurs when you’re finished. You gently ignore him in place of taking hold of his hands and leading him out into the bedroom, where you present him with his pyjamas. 

Everything about his body language is wrong. Maybe to someone who doesn’t know him, he’d look normal. But to you, his posture is hunched and closed off, his jaw is working more than usual, and his eyes look so far away he almost looks like a different person. He barely reacts when you talk to him. Doesn’t move unless you gently prompt him to. With every passing moment, he’s sinking further, deeper into the caverns of his mind and whatever darkness has been left inside it after the mission.

After all the missions.

“I saved you some lasagne,” you tell him, perching down beside him on the edge of the mattress and reaching up to brush a damp strand of hair back from his face. “You hungry?”

“I guess so. I don’t…really know.”

“C’mon, I’ll heat it up for you, you can eat as much as you want.” 

It takes him a good ten seconds to drag himself up and follow you. But when he does, he reaches for your hand, and it’s such a simple gesture but says so much in this moment that it makes your chest swell with something warm and tight.

In the kitchen, he goes straight for the fridge and grabs a beer. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he rips off the cap and chugs half the bottle in one go. It’s okay, you tell yourself, it’s normal, even though there’s a gnawing discomfort making itself known, somewhere deep in your gut. You push it away as you watch him finish the whole bottle before the microwave has finished heating his food, then as he reaches for the whiskey glass in the cupboard above the fridge, and fills it half full with liquor.

“You sure you wanna have that on an empty stomach?” you ask, instead of Are you sure you should drink that much of it? 

“Lasagne,” he mutters, like it’s an answer. Then goes to the microwave, takes out the food, and moves across to the table with it, grabbing a fork from the drawer on his way.

Hesitantly, you sit down across from him. He pokes at the food on his plate for a minute, waiting for it to cool down. Nurses his drink in the meantime. He hasn’t even bothered to put ice in it, even though you know that’s how he actually likes to drink his whiskey, when he’s doing it to enjoy the flavour.

You would be lying if you said you don’t worry about his drinking. Until the two of you moved in together, you hadn’t realised quite how much he drinks, especially on bad nights or after bad missions. It’s never enough to get him that drunk, nor does it particularly change his behaviour or anything, and really, it doesn’t affect you. He’s still Leon. He doesn’t black out, he doesn’t change personality, in fact, he doesn’t seem to suffer any negative side effects of it at all.

And yet, you can’t shake that horrible dread deep in your bones.

You feel like you can’t talk to him about it, because it’s not like you can even begin to fathom the horrors he must face all the time, the things he’s seen in the years since Raccoon City. Sure, you’ve got traumas of your own, and sure, some of your coping mechanisms aren’t exactly healthy—especially the ones you’ve been contemplating lately—but the things you’ve been through are so different to Leon. So who are you to tell him how he should cope with all of it? What kind of an asshole would you be if you tell him he’s drinking too much, but you’ve got nothing to show for why it’s bad other than some persistent anxiety—something that you have all the time anyway?

Mentally, you shake away the thoughts, forcing yourself back into the moment. You’re probably just overthinking. Making a big deal out of nothing. Leon is so strong, and you know that he will be all right. You won’t let him not be.

“Guess you were hungry after all,” you comment with a smile, looking at his empty plate.

One corner of his lips tilts up. “Think I’d eat a whole helping of that even if I wasn’t. It was delicious, sweetheart.” There’s a flush on his cheeks, one that you choose to believe is from being fed and not from the alcohol.

“Glad you enjoyed it.” Taking the plate from him, you lean in to kiss his head, then move to put the plate into the sink. It’s still full of soapy water from the washing up you were doing when Leon arrived home, but it’s all gone cold now, so you pour it away and switch on the hot tap, waiting for it to run warm. “You want some tea? It’s not that late yet but you’re probably tired. Might help you sleep.”

“Mm. I don’t know. Don’t think I’m gonna try and sleep yet.”

“You wanna watch a movie or something?”

“You got any work to do tonight?” 

“I’m a teacher, Leon, I’ve always got work to do,” you say wryly, to which you hear a dry chuckle from behind you. “But it’s just homework to grade, I can finish it in the morning if you want to watch something together.”

“Trash TV and grading homework?” he suggests.

You smile down at the plate in your hands. “That sounds perfect, honey. Go sit in the living room if you want, I won’t be long here.” 

A second later you hear the scrape of a chair against the kitchen linoleum, and then quiet footsteps coming towards you, followed by the warmth of Leon’s arms wrapping around you from behind. You smell the alcohol on his breath before you feel his lips pressing to your cheek, his nose brushing up against your temple. “Thank you for dinner,” he breathes. “And for everything else,” he adds in a quiet mutter before kissing your cheek again, then letting you go. 

Behind you, the drinks cabinet opens. As you finish up drying his plate, you glance at him across your shoulder, finding him already pouring another glass. “You sure you don’t want that tea instead?”

Leon snorts. “I don’t think tea really has the effect that I’m looking for, baby. You want one?” He holds up a second glass.

“No. I’m good.” 

“I’ll choose the trashiest TV I can find,” he promises. 

“You’d better.” You smile after him as he turns and leaves, but the smile falters immediately as that dreadful gnawing in your stomach shifts and opens up into a pit.

You swallow it down, and ignore it.

***

September 2008

Even though the two of you met in September, the fact that it’s basically the same date as the Raccoon City anniversary means that you don’t celebrate it as any kind of anniversary for your relationship. The mood is always too dark, and it feels wrong, a cloud surrounding that entire week every year. Instead, you celebrate your anniversary as the day you officially got together, after he got back from Spain. 

But it means that before your anniversary comes the Racoon City anniversary, and that is always a rough one for Leon. Especially this time around, marking ten years since it all happened. 

In the week leading up to it, Leon tries his hardest to act like he’s fine, but you can easily see through his veneer. He stays up late every night, until long after you’ve gone to bed yourself; in fact, you often wake with the bed beside you already empty, and it leaves you wondering if he ever came to bed at all. He tells you that he did, but you’re not sure you believe him, not if the trash cans full of empty beer bottles and the extra-dark circles under his eyes are anything to go by. 

There’s nothing you can say or do to make it better, you know that. You’ve always known that. And yet, a litany of useless reassurances and pointless words of love get stuck in your throat every time you look at him, and they ache and ache and you hold them back over and over. You’ll ask if he’s all right, and he’ll lie. You’ll offer for him to talk about it, and he won’t. You’ll suggest things to do to distract him, to make him feel better, but he doesn’t want any of it.

You understand. God, you understand, but it doesn’t make it any easier, to watch him sinking into his memories as the 30th creeps its way closer.

A couple weeks ago, you tried to convince him to request the 30th off from work, so that he could rest, maybe even spend the entire day in bed if he wanted to.

“I’ll take the day off too and bring you all the food and drink you could ever want,” you’d offered. “I can cuddle you or just leave you alone. Just let yourself feel like shit for a day, y’know?”

At the time, he’d refused, claiming that being on base would distract him, that it would make him feel like everything that happened ten years ago was worth something. If he can help people. If he can do his job.

But on the 28th, you’re standing in your shared home office, adding the finishing touches to a painting. Leon shuffles in, wraps his arms around you from behind. “That offer to take the day off together still on the table?” he murmurs. 

“I got it approved by my boss before I even suggested it,” is your answer, with a soft smile. “I’m taking the day off with or without you.”

To which Leon sighs heavily like a weight has been lifted from him, then leaves a long, lingering kiss on your neck. “They approved it for me too.”

“Good. If they hadn’t, I’d have marched down to that base and demanded it myself. To your commanding officer and everything.”

A soft puff of a laugh comes through his nose. “They wouldn’t have said no to that.” He kisses your neck again, then before letting you go: “Painting looks beautiful, sweetheart.” 

His footsteps fade down the staircase. A few minutes later, you hear the fridge opening, and the metallic clink of a bottle cap being popped off.

Minutes before midnight on the 29th, Leon’s work phone rings. 

For the first time in weeks, he had finally come to bed with you at a reasonable time. You cuddled each other to sleep, revelling in the warmth of his arms around you as you drifted off to the steady beat of his heart beneath your ear. And that’s the exact position that you wake up in, too, when the muffled sound of his phone comes from the nightstand drawer.

Dread strikes in your stomach, cold and sharp. 

He rolls out of bed. You tell him to stay home. To say no. To tell them he can’t do it this time. But, dutifully, he grabs his duffle from the bottom of the wardrobe, shrugs on his leather jacket, kisses you on the forehead, and says goodbye.

He’s gone within ten minutes.

The bed is cold again.

It remains cold for four days. 

On the 30th, you texted a few of his cell numbers, just on the off chance he happened to have one on him and had chance to read it while he’s deployed. You didn’t want to be too obvious about it, didn’t want to remind him of Raccoon City when he’s out on the field and could really do with not thinking about it—but you couldn’t say nothing. You’d planned to really take care of him that day, to not let him get lost in his thoughts, to sit with him in his sadness. 

Instead, he’s out facing more unimaginable horrors, adding more and more to the ever-growing list of terror that has accumulated in his eyes since that fateful day in 1998. Your heart aches for him. There’s nothing you can do.

Love u, can’t wait for u to get back <3 is what you texted him. Because you just needed him to hear it. That you love him. That you want him here, always.

On the second day, he’d called you, saying the mission was over and he was safe, but that he had to be quarantined for forty-eight hours before he could come home. Exposure to a new type of bioweapon, he said. Nothing I haven’t seen before, he’d added when you expressed your worry, asking him whether he’d been bitten or whether he knew he was infected. I’m okay, I promise, it’s just a precaution. 

Day four, you get home from work Friday afternoon. Just as you’re getting yourself ready for another evening alone and worried about him, there’s the sound of a key in the front door. 

Before either of you says anything, before he even looks at you, you know it’s bad. 

He’s not covered in blood or bruises or dirt. They obviously fed him well in quarantine, took care of him. His clothes are clean, just a simple grey T-shirt and black sweatpants, and his hair is freshly washed, albeit lacking some conditioner; it’s a little fluffy and dry. But he doesn’t look like he’s freshly back from a mission. Not like he had last time he came back in a bad way. 

But it’s in his eyes. On his face. In the hunch of his shoulders. He looks haunted, and at the sight of him, you’re frozen to the spot. Torn between rushing towards him and gathering him in your arms, and giving him space, too scared to approach lest the look in his eyes chill you to your core.

“Hey, you’re home,” is what you say in the end, stopping just a few feet away from him as he toes off his boots. “Not infected, I’m guessing?”

“All good,” he mutters, sounding anything but. 

“You kinda smell like quarantine. I did all the laundry while you were gone if you want to put on some clean clothes?”

He nods, his jaw clenching. “Thanks, sweetheart.” He turns to look at you. “You been okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Been worried about you, but I’m all right.”

“You don’t need to worry. I’ll always come back.”

Will you? How many pieces of you will be lost each time you do? you think, and don’t dare say out loud. 

Instead you watch as he heads straight into the kitchen, right to the fridge, grabs a bottle of beer. He takes it with him up the stairs and into your room, and it’s all you can do to stand there at the bottom of the staircase, staring into the empty space and knowing, somehow, that something has changed. You can feel it: the fragile ground he’s been standing upon for months, maybe even years, starting to crack and splinter and slip away. The ghosts of Raccoon City haunt him every September, but this year is their tenth year of them lingering in his heart, and combined with being sent on another horrible mission—fucking hell, you don’t even have the words.

And that’s just the problem, isn’t it? Or one of the problems. 

You don’t have the words. Not on the day he comes home. Not throughout the night, when you sit beside him on the couch, out on the back porch, on the bed, in the office. Not when he moves from room to room like he’s a ghost himself. Drinks his way through more alcohol than you’ve ever seen him drink. 

You try to comfort him. But all you can do is sit with him, because you don’t have the words.

You still don’t, the day after he gets back. Or the day after that. You watch him slipping and slipping, his breath constantly carrying that sharp zing of alcohol, in the mornings before you leave for work and in the afternoons when you get back and in the evenings while you grade homework. His mandatory week off after a gruelling mission becomes a week-long binge drink and you try to tell him to stop, to beg him to stop, but he won’t. He says he can’t. Says he’s fine. That it makes him fine.

Every time you try to argue against that, to tell him that it’s not healthy, that he can find other ways to cope and that you want to help him do that—the words die in your throat or on your tongue. It would be like taking away his life raft. So you tell yourself that he’ll get through this, that it’s just because of how shit the last two weeks have been. He’s never drunk like this in the past, despite how bad things have gotten, so surely, this is just a blip? He’s smart, and he’s strong, and he’ll come back to himself eventually once the looming darkness of Raccoon City starts to ebb.

He sleeps all day, drinks all night. He doesn’t talk. He answers you with single words or simple phrases. He’s here, but he’s not, and oh, God, you miss him so much that it hurts.

He’s been so deep inside the clouds in his mind that he doesn’t even appear drunk, doesn’t even show that he’s hungover. Not until five days after he got back, when it finally catches up with him. When his body finally tells him to STOP even though, clearly, his mind couldn’t think of anything worse.

You get home from work and the first thing you hear is the sound of retching, coming from the downstairs bathroom. The whole of downstairs stinks of alcohol. “Fuck,” you mutter to yourself, dropping all your bags and hastily kicking off your shoes before you rush down the hall towards the sounds. You have to step over a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants which have been thrown haphazardly onto the floor, like he’s left a trail in his wake.

He’s clad only in his boxers, hunched over the toilet, violently throwing up. One of his hands rests weakly on the flush handle, the other gripping the edge of the white porcelain. As you properly walk through the door and get a good look at him, adrenaline spikes in your veins when you see a flash of crimson streaking down from his nose.

“Leon!” you cry, panic sending your heart pounding. “Fuck—Leon, you’re bleeding—” You crouch down beside him but don’t touch him, worried he’ll startle.

After a few more retches, he paws at the flush until he hits it hard enough and the toilet finally flushes. His hand stops briefly on the edge of the toilet while he coughs and splutters, then moves up to wipe at his nose, blood smearing across the back of his wrist.

“Sorry,” he croaks out, glancing at you for a second. His eyes are bloodshot, set deeply into his gaunt and exhausted face. The air around him smells sour, fermented, a sickening combination of stomach acid, alcohol, and sweat, with a faint undertone of copper. “Hoped I’d be done by the time you—got home.” His hoarse voice doesn’t concern you as much as his sickly pallor. 

You unravel some toilet paper from the roll, then carefully move in close so you can bunch it up and hold it under his nose, catching the still-dripping blood. “How long have you been throwing up?”

“I—I don’t know.” He’s shivering even though his entire body is covered in a sheen of sweat. His lips are blue, so pale they almost blend in with the rest of his face, the line between lip and skin almost completely blurred. His hands shake as he takes over duties of holding the tissue up at his nose.

“And the nosebleed?”

“On and off all day,” he answers, then doubles over again as he coughs harshly, all wet and scratchy in the back of his throat. He spits hard into the toilet. Groans. “Jesus Christ.”

For a moment, you just kneel there, and stare at him. He looks exactly as he should look, for a man who has spent the majority of the last week drinking his sorrows away, and who hasn’t yet faced the full brunt of a hangover. Well, he’s certainly facing it now, and you hope that he’s going to listen to his body for once. 

“Oh, God, I think I’m gonna—you don’t have to stay—I’m gonna—” Long, violent retches wrack through his entire body as he throws up once more, over and over, nothing but stomach bile coming up. 

You put your hand on his back, rubbing in smooth circles. As you sit there and wait for him to finish, you take in the scene around you: blood splattered on the toilet seat, the floor tiles, and the sink; his clothes tossed to the carpet in the hallway; his body shining with sweat but dimpled with goosebumps; a bloody handprint on the side of the bath. And right there, in the middle of it all, an empty bottle of cheap whiskey tipped on its side, the last vestiges of it dribbling on the tile. 

It hits you, then. The weight of it all. The last week, the week before that. Everything that’s led to this moment. All the drinking and the worrying and the second-guessing yourself, worried you were making something out of nothing. Maybe you still are—maybe this really is just a blip. You hope that’s the case. You hope that this never fucking happens again, that this enough of a wake-up call for him that he thinks twice before going on a bender like this again.

And, selfishly, you miss him. The real him. Not the faded version that the alcohol has made him into. 

At least twenty minutes later, Leon grips hard at the toilet seat and pushes himself back from it, heaving for breath with his eyes screwed shut. “I think I’m done,” he rasps, and collapses against the side of the bathtub, right next to the smears of blood. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Didn’t want you to”—A heavy swallow catches him by surprise, turning him green for a split second—“have to see that.”

Not able to simply sit and stare at him like this—draped on the bathroom floor, half sitting up against the bath, almost naked and barely looking like himself at all—you instead move over to the sink where you pour a cup of mouthwash. He takes it with a trembling hand when you pass him it, then swills it tentatively in his mouth, grimacing at what you presume is a rather unpleasant mix of tastes. Then he spits back into the cup, and offers some semblance of a shaky smile.

“Thanks,” he murmurs. 

After rinsing the cup, you fill it with water, then give it back to him. “Small sips.”

Weakly, he nods, his eyes falling closed again as he tips his head back into the plastic panel behind him. When you shuffle along the floor towards him, he opens one eye to look at you, watching as you tentatively sit down beside him. You purposefully leave distance between you, and he notices; you can see it in the pained wrinkle that appears in his forehead. 

For a while, the two of you sit in complete silence. He sips his drink. Closes his eyes, opens them every few seconds, looking to you every time as if he’s making sure you’re still there. His breathing evens out but your heart doesn’t stop pounding. You can’t stop staring at the blood.

Halfway through his cup of water, he puts it down on the floor, his hands shaking but not as much as before. He runs a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, his locks sticking together as his fingers carve gaps through it.

“How do you feel?” you ask.

He gives a pathetic thumbs-up. “Never better,” he says with a grimace as he sits up a little higher. “Could run a marathon right now.”

You sigh, unimpressed. “Leon.”

One of his eyebrows quirks up as he opens a single eye to find you giving him a Look.

“How do you feel?” you ask again, more insistent this time. “I mean, really?”

“Probably about as good as I look right now.”

He’s sprawled out on the goddamn bathroom floor like a teenager at a college party. “You look like shit.”

Eyes closed again, he points at you like you’ve hit the nail on the head. “Exactly.”

“How long have you been like this?”

“Uh…What time is it?”

“Around 3.30.”

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, the muscles in his face tensing. “Like, three or four hours, then.”

“Jesus, Leon,” you whisper, sadness curling its way around the anxious knot in your chest. “You should’ve called me.”

“You were working.”

“And you were here bleeding and throwing your guts up. Something could’ve happened.”

“I wasn’t throwing up the whole time. It started as the diarrhoea from hell. And the nosebleed.”

“And have you been staying hydrated?” You raise your eyebrows at him even though he can’t see you.

He hears the rhetorical question in your voice though, and winces before answering, like he’s preparing for you to admonish him. “It’s been kinda hard when I’ve been stuck in the bathroom,” is his hesitant answer.

“Exactly why you should’ve called.” You grab the cup from the floor and shove it into his hand again, pushing it towards his mouth. “Finish it.”

He groans, but does as you ask anyway, gingerly lifting it to his lips. While he drinks, you grab a washcloth from the cabinet and start to wet it under hot water. You feel his eyes land on you halfway through. A feeling you are so familiar with, a feeling you normally love, but right now, it makes you squirm. You’re so torn between feeling sympathy for him and being absolutely furious at him that, honestly, you kind of don’t want to be standing here doing this at all.

Still, when you gently part his legs so you can kneel between them, then reach up and start to wipe at the dried blood on his face, he tries to bat you away, to tell you he can do it himself—and you don’t let him. 

For the first time since you found him here, he keeps his eyes wide open. Watches you as you work, as you carefully wipe around his mouth, his cupid’s bow, his cheeks where some of the blood had spread. Using the corner of the cloth, you dab at the insides of his nostrils, clearing away the dried, caked remnants of his nosebleed. And he just. He watches. Your throat aches and your chest hurts and you’re so goddamn angry and heartbroken and terrified.

You don’t dare look him in the eyes. Even though his baby blues call to you. Beg you to look back at them. But you don’t. You can’t.

With the washcloth half-covered in dark red and brown, you move on to his hands instead, where more of it is dried into the creases of his palms and the gaps between his fingers, as if he’d at first tried to catch the blood with them. In fact, now that you think about it, there’s no bloody tissues anywhere to be found. He must have bled mostly into the toilet.

The thought fills you with too many unpleasant emotions to name, so instead, you just focus on your task. Rubbing at his skin. Clearing the evidence away. You’re going to put him in the shower next, but this feels too important to miss even a single drop of it.

Leon says your name when you go to move away. You ignore him. 

He says it again when you stand up and toss the cloth into the sink, then grab a cleaning spray from the cabinet so you can wash away the blood staining the basin. You ignore him.

Sink now clean, you turn to the shower, sliding open the door so you can reach in and switch on the water. Hand beneath the flow, you wait for it to turn hot. Your eyes sting with tears but you force them back. He’s still watching you. Sitting there on the bathroom floor, his legs and arms splayed like he’s too exhausted to sit up properly, his hair a mess, entire face drawn and sunken. You can’t look at him. You’ve been looking at him all week. Watching him drown. Trying to reach for him but being pushed away every time, like he wanted to be dragged under and like he wanted to stay there.

Without a word, you close the toilet seat, place a folded towel on top of it, and turn to leave the bathroom. 

He calls your name one last time, but the sound of his voice fades as you close the door behind you.

It’s only when you’re upstairs in your room that you let the tears fall. Reluctantly, mind you, but they’re going to come out whether you like it or not—they’ve been building up for weeks—and you’d rather it didn’t happen in front of him. You don’t really know why.

Once you hear the humming of the water pipes, you slide down onto the floor at the foot of the bed, and cry. Silent, pressing your face into your hands, drawing your knees up to your chest. It all spills out of you, the weight of these last few weeks. Hell, the last few months, the way it’s all been leading up to this. His drinking: you’ve seen it, you haven’t wanted to call it out or even ask him to stop because you didn’t want to rock the boat or take away his life raft. You thought that maybe you were imagining it, overthinking it, making it into a bigger deal than it was.

But you saw it coming a mile off, and should, really, have predicted that this week would be the one that made it all come to a head. Though, you did try to stop it. You were all ready to take care of him this week and on the day itself, but then his job came in and fucked all that up. Neither of you could have prepared for that. Maybe you should have considered it as a possibility, but, naively, you thought that maybe life would finally give him a break.

When you hear the water flow shut off, you pull yourself together. Drag your arms across your face to clear away the tears, blow your nose using no less than six tissues from the box by your bed, change out of your work clothes and into your pyjamas. With shaking hands and a trembling bottom lip, you lay out a clean pair of Leon’s pyjamas on the bed, then head downstairs, forcing your knees not to wobble.

In the kitchen, you empty the trash can, taking the bag out to the wheelie bin out back. All the glass bottles inside clatter as you toss it in. In the living room, you clear up all the empty bottles. Then in the bedroom. Then the office. More clattering, more glass shattering. 

It’s as you’re putting a fresh bag into the kitchen trash that Leon steps gingerly into the room. Bare foot on the linoleum, wearing the PJs you set out for him: a soft, grey T-shirt and black and white checked flannel pyjama pants. His hair is wet, sticking out at all angles, though he’s clearly at least tried to part it correctly and tame it a little. 

You only glance at him for a second before looking away. Just to make sure he’s not bleeding. To make sure he can actually walk. 

And there he goes again, saying your name. Soft and pleading into the quiet. 

With a sniff, you wipe your nose, grab an electrolyte drink from the fridge, and hand it to him. Silent, keeping your eyes low.

His eyes follow you. He holds the bottle against his chest, doesn’t move it. “Baby…”

“Drink it. It’s the first of many. I’m gonna get an early start on dinner. Anything you want?” You open the fridge again and all but bury your head in it, fighting desperately against the burning behind your eyes.

“Sweetheart.”

“We’ve got a lot of veggies to use up; I think I might make a stir-fry.” 

“Please…”

“I’ll make a marinade, let the chicken flavour up for a few hours while I finish some work.”

“I’m sorry—”

The loud crackling of the plastic bag of spinach cuts him off when you grab it, probably too aggressively, but God, you need him to stop. You actually need him to stop talking, because you’re going to explode, or you’re going to cry, or you’re going to fucking break down or yell at him or—

Before you can close the fridge, a warm hand presses into your waist.

You freeze. Bag of spinach in hand and all. 

He waits for a second in case you pull away. When you don’t, his palm slides around to your stomach, slow and careful across the fabric of your shirt. You can feel him up close behind you, not touching you but near enough that his warmth meets yours, you can smell mouthwash on his breath. 

Gently, the arm around you tugs. Trying to turn you to face him. Resolutely, you stay put, though you’re forced to screw your eyes shut. 

“Baby,” he whispers, “please.”

You swallow hard. “Leon…”

“Please look at me. Talk to me.” 

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” He takes a step closer, his chest brushing against your back. With his other hand, he reaches around you and takes a careful hold of the plastic bag, easing it from your grip. Putting it back in the fridge. This time, when he tries to spin you around, you don’t resist, although you still don’t look up at him, even when you’re facing him and the fridge is closed behind you. “Please, angel. I’m sorry—let me apologise properly.”

You shake your head. Press your lips together.

His hands slide up your sides, around the curve of your breasts, up your collar bones and neck. They settle on each side of your face, cupping your jaw in his palms, his fingers splaying over your cheeks. “C’mon,” he murmurs, “I know you’re mad at me…”

“I’m not mad at you.” It’s only partially a lie.

“No?” 

“No, I’m terrified!” You finally look at him, and when your eyes meet, his face crumples. 

“Why are you—?”

“I just found you bleeding and vomiting on the bathroom floor in the middle of the day. Don’t you understand?”—He takes a breath to speak, but now that the dam has broken, everything comes spilling out of you at once—“I watched you drink yourself into oblivion all week and I knew it was going to hit you eventually, that you were going to get hungover, but I—I didn’t expect the blood and how sick you look and I haven’t spoken to you in a week and you haven’t looked at me in a week or—or slept beside me! And you’ve been here but you’re not really here and I’m so lonely and I fucking miss you and I’m worried—”

“Hey—hey.” 

A sharp breath pulls itself into your lungs, too deep and not enough. His thumbs swipe at your cheeks, and it’s only then that you realise there are tears streaming down your face. 

“Hey. Breathe. It’s okay. Just take a breath.” He breathes deep to demonstrate, and in your sudden trembling, it’s all you can do to imitate him. You let your eyes fall closed, hold tight to his forearms where his hands still gently hold your face. 

“Leon…you scared me,” you whisper. “I’m scared.”

“Oh, baby, you don’t have to be scared—”

“Well, I am!”

“I’m okay, though. It’s just a nasty hangover, but I’m gonna be okay.”

“This is more than just a nasty hangover, Leon. You were bleeding. I don’t think it counts as a hangover when it’s caused by an entire week of drinking that much.”

He sighs. Strokes his fingers down your face. “I’m okay now,” he says quietly. 

“You weren’t okay,” you whisper. “You haven’t been.”

His jaw clenches. “It’s been a rough week,” he admits.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“I guess…getting sent out on a mission on the anniversary was…not great.”

“Again, an understatement,” you say, but the corners of your lips are tilting up, and that tight knot of anxiety in your chest is starting to ease. Because—fuck, he’s here. He’s really here, for the first time all week. You can look into his eyes and see him. A little hazy, and very exhausted, sure, but it’s him. He’s not hidden behind a fog of alcohol. The grief is still there, all the pain and sorrow. But you can work with that. You can help with that. “I’m sorry, Leon.”

He frowns. “You have nothing to be sorry for—”

“I know, I just mean—I’m sorry it’s been so fucking shitty. You don’t deserve it. And I—I understand why you did what you did, this last week. I get wanting to bury the pain. But…” You shake your head, the words fading in your throat as another wave of tears pulses in it.

Leon leans forward and kisses your forehead. Long, lingering. He slides his hands to the back of your neck, and you let yourself lean into him, your hands finding his waist, gripping weakly to his T-shirt. “I’m sorry,” he whispers before pressing kisses down your face, pecking away all the remnants of your tears. “I didn’t meant to scare you.”

“I know.” You take a deep breath through your nose, focusing on him. “I missed you.” 

“I’ve been right here,” he murmurs.

You shake your head. “No you haven’t.”

His lips find your forehead again, then he nuzzles your noses together, and you feel the wrinkle in his brow pressed against yours. “I’m here now,” he says gently. “Not goin’ anywhere.”

“Yeah. I know.” 

“Can we go sit down? I feel like shit.”

Tearfully, you laugh, and nod as you step away from him. Weirdly, it’s kind of nice, to hear him admitting that he feels bad. Not sugar coating it, not trying to make a joke out of it. “You need to have those electrolytes. I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s the first of many.”

“Yeah, at this point I don’t think I have any bodily fluids left in me. I’m all bone.”

“Drink it.”

“I will! C’mon, let’s go watch something?”

You glance at the clock on the wall. “New episode of Say Yes to the Dress is on soon.”

“Oh yeah, that new show. You love that.”

“You love it too. Admit it.”

“I won’t deny it.” He grabs the drinks bottle you handed him before, and then when you point at the fridge, he dutifully grabs two more from inside it before he heads out into the living room. You follow him, settling down in the corner of the couch with your back against the armrest. He sits beside you, then reaches out and takes hold of your legs, lifting them onto his lap. He pops open the lid on his rehydration drink, and it takes you a second to stop yourself from wincing, remembering all the times you’ve seen him open a can of beer over the last few days, and the dread that would hit your stomach every time he grabbed a new one.

Sitting here, watching him recover, letting yourself relax with him, you wish you could say that that gnawing worry in your stomach was gone. Or at least easing. 

But it’s still there, just as strong, just as insistent. After all, he hasn’t promised not to do this again, and honestly? You’re not sure you’d believe him, even if he did.

Even though you really, really don’t want to go. And it’s not just because your brother is going to be there—though that is arguably the worst part—it’s also just…it’s going to be a lot. So many people. Most of them complete strangers. You can just imagine your aunt’s house stuffed to the brim with people, all of them talking and mingling and eating and asking you too many questions. 

Lately, your anxiety levels haven’t been great. It’s been a struggle to attend meet-ups with work colleagues; you’ve avoided so many after work drinks that no one bothers to invite you anymore. And every time you leave the house to see a friend, you feel on edge, for reasons you can’t quite explain.

Leon tells you that you shouldn’t, but you feel stupid for it. Especially because of who your boyfriend is, and what he does for a living. He gets anxious when there’s a bump in the night or when he wakes up from a gruelling, horrific nightmare—that makes sense. That’s completely and totally natural. But you? Freaking out when you enter a store and realise it’s busier than usual? Completely unreasonable and stupid.

“You can’t compare those things,” Leon says, every time you berate yourself for a panic attack. “Besides, it’s not like you haven’t been through stuff.”

And every time, you laugh, completely self-deprecatingly. 

The week before the party, Leon gets called off on a mission. The promise of his presence at your side is all that’s getting you through the anticipation of the party, and the second you think he won’t be able to come, you start to freak out. Alongside the usual worrying for him whenever he’s being deployed, of course. It’s all so great, huh?

“Hey,” Leon says when he sees the tell-tale signs of a panic attack start to arise. “Hey, it’s okay. I promise I’ll be back in time for the party from hell.”

You can’t even find it in you to laugh, despite the infectious curve of his smirk. 

Leon stands in front of you, takes a gentle hold of your cheeks. “Look at me. Breathe. You’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

“If you’re not here, I…I can’t do it on my own, I just, I can’t—”

“You won’t have to. I’ll be there.”

“What if the mission runs longer than you think? You can’t control that, Leon!” Your voice trembles, and you hate yourself for it. 

“I’ll do whatever it takes. Swim home if I have to. Hitchhike with some crazy guy in a sixty year old car. Blackmail my boss.”

That does get you to laugh, but it splutters out of you in a surprised sort of sound. “Leon, I’m serious…”

“Me too. I’m sure I can find some dirt to use against that guy…”

“Leon.”

His lips tilt at one side into a grin, and it’s so goddamn adorable that it calms you down a little. His grin widens, like he knows that’s what worked, what got you to calm down: him being a funny dumbass. “There we go,” he murmurs, then leans in to press a kiss to your forehead. “Breathe. I’ll be there.”

Against all odds, he makes it back just in time for the party. Literally with an hour to spare, he shows up at your front door, out of breath as if he ran here all the way from wherever the hell he was deployed this time. He’s still wearing his mission gear. His face is covered in mud but is otherwise, thankfully, free from wounds or blood. He walks through your front door with a cocky grin and says: “See? Told you I’d make it.”

You give him the world’s most relieved, grateful kiss before shoving him towards the bathroom, hearing him switch on the shower as you lay out his outfit for the party on your bed.

An hour later, Leon pulls the car onto your aunt’s street. It’s a cul-de-sac, in a relatively high-end neighbourhood, with only five houses on the entire street. And yet still the road is filled with cars parked up all along the edge of the sidewalks. Leon only just finds room right at the end of the street beside the street name sign. 

Your hands are shaking as you grab the bottle of wine from the trunk. You hold it in your left while Leon immediately takes hold of your right, squeezing hard. Just before you walk through the open door, Leon looks down at you, and gives you a lovely, reassuring smile. 

“I got you,” he says quietly. “No matter what. Okay?”

Drawing in a deep, shaky breath, you hold his eyes and let them ground you. To know that he’s here, that he’s right by your side and is not going anywhere, and to know that he’s the one person here who will always take your side—it’s more than just a comfort. It’s a goddamn life raft in a storm. No matter what anyone says to you, no matter how you feel when you’re surrounded by people, no matter how it feels to see your brother again, you know that Leon will be with you. He’s here for you, and only for you.

At first, it’s not too bad. Your mom greets you first, her face lighting up at the sight of you as she leans in for a hug. She squeals your name, and then Leon’s, leaning in to give him a hug too, and Leon doesn’t let go of your hand even for that. 

She’s met Leon before, for a couple of meals at your folks’ place here and there, just the four of you. And, of course, she loves him. How could she not?

“Look at your handsome man!” she gushes, gesturing to Leon, who does look rather handsome in his dress pants and dark green button down, his hair all brushed and styled neatly for the occasion. 

“He cleans up nice,” you agree, giving Leon a little smirk. He actually blushes, as if he couldn’t get any cuter. 

“Your aunt has been dying to meet him, darling. She’s in the kitchen. She’ll be delighted you’re here.” Your mom gives you a kiss on the cheek, then ushers you off towards the kitchen, which is all the way down the hall behind a sea of people you don’t recognise. 

“You okay?” Leon murmurs in your ear as you manoeuvre your way past everyone, trying to avoid eye contact lest people try to start a conversation.

“Never better,” you respond wryly.

He huffs a laugh. “I mean it.”

“I’m okay. For now.”

He squeezes your hand, and you step into the kitchen, where your aunt greets you with just as much excitement as your mom. She accepts the wine with gratitude, but quickly sets it to the side when she turns her attention to Leon, who she—obviously—immediately adores. He charms her just like he does everyone else, and honestly, standing by the kitchen island watching him talk so smoothly and casually to your family members? The sight almost makes all of the stress of being here worth it. 

He’s so kind to everyone. You’ve always known this about him, of course. But sometimes you are just reminded of it more than others. How he listens to people. Asks them about themselves. Smiles and laughs and it’s all genuine. As you stand there, occasionally engaging in the conversation but mostly letting Leon take the lead—which you are sure he’s doing because he knows you’re anxious and that you need him to step in—you can’t help but feel a swell of pride in your chest. 

This is your man. This wonderful, calm, kind man, who’s holding your hand and stepping up when you need him most. Who rushed home from a mission, after which he is usually rattled and shaken, and got dressed up to come to this insanely crowded family event of yours. Just because you needed him to. Because he loves you. 

He’s yours, and you’re his, and fuck, you could not possibly love him any more than you do.

“Oh, darling, he is a keeper,” your aunt says on a laugh as the conversation naturally comes to an end. “It’s so wonderful to finally meet you. Welcome to the family, Leon.” She pats his cheek. “I should probably mingle. So many people to say hello to! Do help yourself to food, okay, dears?”

“We will,” you say with a smile. “Happy birthday, auntie.” 

Once she’s made her way out of the room, Leon turns to you, and suddenly this little corner of the kitchen is just for you. There’s a dozen people in here at least, all relatives you either vaguely recognise or have never heard of at all. Music is playing from somewhere, a jaunty piano piece that is mostly buried beneath the din of almost a hundred voices all speaking throughout the house.

But Leon looks at you, and it all fades away.

He quirks an eyebrow just a little, bemused. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

You shake your head. Only when you go to reply do you realise there’s a lump in your throat. “Just—I love you, is all. Thank you for being here.”

His face melts into a soft, beautiful smile. He steps close to you, uses his spare hand to brush some hair away from your face. “I’ve got you,” he says, a promise, a reminder. “Now, we should probably find some food. I haven’t eaten since I escaped the mission.”

“Seriously?”

“I knew I was coming to a party. I like buffet food.”

You laugh and playfully slap his chest. “All right, come on, let’s find the buffet table for you. Dork.”

It’s an hour and a half in when you see him. Your brother, standing across the room, talking with someone you think is a distant cousin. 

The food in your stomach turns, and you start to feel sick. His voice filters through the crowd like your ears are trained to hear it above everything else, and the sound sets you on edge, remembering the things he used to say to you. The way he used to talk about you, both behind your back and to your face. His words stuck with you, and they’re recycled now by your own anxiety, every goddamn day of your life. You wonder if you will ever be free of him. Of what he did. Of how he made you feel about yourself. 

“Hey.” Leon tugs on your hand. He’s still holding it; hasn’t let go all this time. In his spare hand, he’s holding a cup of alcohol-free punch. Ordinarily he would be the first to grab a drink, but he’s insisting on being the one to drive you both back after all this is over. “You okay?”

Your eyes don’t leave your brother. You wonder if he’s seen you. If he even cares. If it would be worse if he did.

Leon follows your gaze. A second later, he goes tense beside you, as if he’s just put two and two together. “Is that him?”

The ache in your throat is too strong to speak. You just nod, wordless, and try your hardest to look away, to stop the relentless spinning of your thoughts. But they just spiral and spiral, memories coming to mind of your teenage years and the sour, toxic poison he injected all through your youth. Trying to turn the family against you. Trying to turn you against the family. Then, when neither worked, attacking every single person in the family, and doing it in your name—saying it was your fault.

After a while, you started to believe it.

“Sweetheart,” Leon says, but you barely hear him, your ears buzzing and the pounding of your heart too loud. He pulls your hand up to his sternum, holds it tight. “I’m here. Hey, look at me.”

You don’t. You can’t. You want to—God, you want to—

Before you know what’s happening, Leon pulls you out of the room. With an arm wrapped around you from behind, shielding you from the crowds and every set of eyes that try to get a look at you, he carefully and efficiently moves you all the way through the house, until he finds the utility room attached to the kitchen. It’s basically a closet, with only just enough space for the two of you to stand, the space stuffed with coats and gardening tools.

“Hey,” Leon says softly, closing the door behind you, shutting out the rest of the party. “It’s okay. Just look at me. Look at me, baby.” 

Trembling from head to toe, you meet his eyes, and it’s like ice on a throbbing wound. “Leon…”

“I’m here. It’s okay. You wanna get out of here?”

“I…I shouldn’t, I…”

“Hey, you’ve shown your face, you’ve said hello to about seventy people in the last hour. I don’t think anyone will mind if you head out early.”

“But…”

“Baby.” He holds your eyes, then both of your hands between his. When he asks again, his voice is firm, but still holds that warm, comforting undercurrent. “Do you want to get out of here?”

For a minute, you hesitate. Your lungs burn, on the verge of a panic attack, and there are tears wobbling on the edges of your eyes. “Yes,” you whisper. “Yes, I do. Leon—please, take me home?”

He nods. “Let’s go, sweetheart.” 

“I—I don’t want to draw attention, I don’t want to have to explain—”

“Honey,” he cuts you off, and there’s a little smirk on his lips now, the glistening of amusement in his eyes, “I’m a government agent. I can get us out unseen.”

You’re not sure it’s what the US government had in mind when they trained him, but it sure as hell comes in handy for you now, as he smuggles you out of your own aunt’s party. He must have mapped all the exits as soon as you arrived, you realise as he takes you around the back of the house and to a side gate you didn’t even know existed. 

As soon as you’re back in the car, you start to cry. But it doesn’t turn into a panic attack. It’s just emotion, overwhelm, finally coming out now that you feel safe.

Leon holds your hand the entire drive home.

***

2007

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

You roll onto your side on the bed, propping yourself up on your elbow so you can look down at Leon beside you, where he’s lying with his hand behind his head and his other sitting on his stomach. “You ever thought about moving in together?”

His expression softens a little. “Yeah, of course I have.”

You try hard not to show your mix of excitement and nervousness. “And…what are your thoughts about it, exactly?”

For a second, he just looks at you, his expression not shifting at all. Then, he turns away, gazing up at the ceiling instead. His brow furrows just a little, so subtle you might be imagining it. 

Your stomach sinks. It’s not exactly the reaction you were hoping for. A resounding yes would’ve been ideal, or even just a smile and a Maybe one day.

Not…whatever this is.

“Leon?” You fidget with the sheets in between your fingers. “Kinda leaving me hanging here…”

“Sorry,” he says right away, but he’s still not looking at you. “Sorry, I’m just…thinking.”

“I thought you said you’d already thought about it before.”

“I have, it’s just…” He turns back to meet your eyes again, and seems to hesitate for a second before he asks, “Are you asking me to move in with you? For real?”

A flush rises in your cheeks. No use in lying or trying to downplay it; you’ve been wanting him to live with you for months, and honestly, this is just one of those weekends where the usual distance between you feels especially fucking hard. You just want him here. As much as he can be. 

“Yeah, I think I am,” you answer eventually, your voice coming out smaller than you’d intended. 

God, it’s awful, the way he freezes up.

He’s trying to hide it, trying to tamp down his external reaction, but you can tell that he’s been thrown into a panic. His eyebrows twitching up, his jaw clenching, his entire body going entirely too fucking still.

Now feeling your own panic start to settle in, you try to remedy this, the words blurting out of you before you can think: “I—maybe you think it’s too soon, and that’s okay, I get it, I know it’s not exactly simple or anything with your job and how it keeps you away and stuff but I guess I just thought—I thought it’d be nice if you—if we—you know. I just. Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t wanna make it weird.”

And Leon just stares up at you like a kid who’s been caught stealing candy. He swallows hard, his throat bobbing violently with it. 

Your heart pounds in your chest. A sick, unpleasant feeling starts to roil in your stomach, an awkwardness settling in the air that you don’t think you’ve ever felt between the two of you before. God, have you fucked this up? Was it too soon to bring this up? Have you misread things? Does Leon even want to live together someday? Have you done something wrong? Have you missed some kind of sign or hint that he doesn’t want this anymore—?

Desperately, you try your hardest to stop the spiral in your mind. At least temporarily. At least enough for you to figure out how to get rid of this horrible feeling between you.

“Please say something,” you say on an awkward, breathy laugh. “Say something so I know I haven’t just fucked everything up.”

Something flickers on his face, like he’s just been rebooted. “What—no, no, you haven’t fucked anything up,” he says softly, and the gentleness in his voice helps you relax a little. “No, don’t—don’t think that.”

“Are you sure? Feels kinda weird now…”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it weird.” He reaches out to brush his fingers down your cheek, and then when his hand drops again, he lets out a breath that sounds a little too much like frustration and turns back to the ceiling before he closes his eyes. “Sorry, sweetheart. Just—you caught me off guard, is all.”

I want you to be off your guard with me, you don’t say. “Didn’t know that was possible for an elite agent,” you say instead, trying your hardest to give a wry smirk. But when he doesn’t react, doesn’t say anything at all, insecurity lodges itself firmly in your chest as if reminding you that you can’t get rid of it, no matter what you do. “Leon, you don’t have to say yes,” you say quietly. “But just please say something about it.”

“It’s…not that I don’t want to,” he says, very slowly, very carefully, like he’s choosing his words one at a time. “I just…I just don’t think I’m ready.”

You swallow down the lump of emotion that’s quickly forming in your throat. “That’s okay,” you tell him, because it is, it should be okay, he’s allowed to feel however he wants to feel about it. But—it doesn’t feel okay. In fact, you’re pretty sure he’s holding something back, not telling you the whole truth. You can’t put your finger on it, but something’s off. You know him too well.

But you’re too scared to challenge it. He seems so distant all of a sudden and this whole thing suddenly feels twisted and uncomfortable in your stomach. Tastes bitter and strange on your tongue. It feels like rejection, honestly, and as much as you’re trying to deny it, it’s hitting you hard.

Backing away from him a little on the bed, you force a smile onto your face, though it shakes. He’s just looking up at the ceiling now, frowning, grinding his jaw. He looks uncomfortable. Unhappy, even. 

It’s clear that even if he says you haven’t made it weird, something has shifted, something has settled in him in the wake of your question. Your question, for which you really felt it was the right time—after all, you’ve been together for two years now, and every single time he visits at the weekends, he tells you how much he wishes he didn’t have to go. Sometimes, he’ll come for a few extra days in the week, managing to squeeze some days off in between missions and training. Other times, he’ll arrive at your place exhausted and run-down, and you’ll tell him he could’ve stayed home to rest, that he didn’t need to come all the way here just for two days.

He’ll always tell you it’s worth it. That there’s no place he’d rather be. That he feels at home here in a way he doesn’t anywhere else. That you are his home, the one place he will always want to come back to, even if he’s exhausted and injured—especially when he’s exhausted and injured.

So what’s changed? Why does he suddenly seem like the very idea of making that home permanent is off-putting to him? He’s not a purposeful liar, you know this, but has he been lying to himself just as much as you? 

“I’m, uh, gonna go get started on dinner,” you say, turning away from him before you stand up so that he can’t see the tears welling in your eyes. It takes all your strength to keep your voice from shaking. 

“You want some help?”

“No, I’m good. Thanks. You just relax.” 

Just as you get to the bedroom door, you hear him sit up, and then he says: “Hey. Are you okay?”

Without turning back, you nod before turning the doorknob. “Yeah, all good.” You force a smile onto your face so he can hear it, so the lie is more convincing. He doesn’t say anything in response, so you take your chance to slip out of the room.

As you get ingredients out of the fridge, you sob silently into your hand.

***

True to form, your anxiety starts to spiral. 

He’s probably just biding his time until he can find a way to tell me he doesn’t want to be with me anymore.

He’s just being polite. He doesn’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you that he doesn’t want to build a future with you.

He loves you, but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. You’ll never be enough.

Why would he want to live with you? Sacrifice his own space for you? What makes you think you’re that special, huh? What makes you think he wants to live with someone who has panic attacks every day of her goddamn life? 

You can’t stop the whirring of your mind, the relentless thoughts that just spin and spin and spin. A part of you knows it’s illogical, and knows that the longer you let it all fester in your head and the longer you fill in Leon’s side of a conversation, the worse it’s going to get. But then there’s the other part of you that thinks, well, what if it’s not illogical? What if it all makes perfect sense? What if you’re right, and he really doesn’t see a future with you, and he just can’t bring himself to tell you?

He’s such a good, kind man, and you know he would never want to hurt you. So maybe he’s just trying to come up with the right words. Trying to figure out how to soften the blow when he eventually leaves—how to say Hey, sorry, but you’re too much for me without it coming across as cruel.

It wouldn’t be cruel. It would be horrifically heartbreaking, yes, but not cruel. 

You’d understand. 

You don’t get any sleep that night. 

By the time the sun rises, you’ve convinced yourself that Leon is going to leave you, that he secretly wishes you were already out of his life. The constant war between your logical brain and your anxious brain is exhausting. Deep down you know the truth. Even deeper down you know another truth. They are mutually exclusive. The back and forth is torture.

You’ve been fighting off a panic attack for six hours. Miraculously, Leon has slept through the whole thing. When he stirred at one point around 2a.m., you ran off to the bathroom so he wouldn’t find you crying by the bed.

He wakes up too early, though. Earlier than he normally would on a Sunday morning at your place. And despite your best efforts, he’s onto you the second he wakes up, because you didn’t see it coming and you’re sitting on the edge of your side of the bed, staring blankly at the wall.

His gentle hand on your back startles you. “Hey,” he says, voice all croaky from sleep. “You okay, baby? What time is it?”

“It’s a little past five a.m.,” you reply distantly.

The sheets rustle and the mattress shifts as he sits up. You hear him shuffle closer across the bed. Just before he can properly reach out to touch you, you dart up, heading across to the window under the guise of looking through the curtains.

“What’s going on? Why are you up so early?”

“Just couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“Happens sometimes.” Your voice is thin, reedy, worn out from hours of trying to contain your panic. The ache in your throat has become chronic, so painful it feels like you’ve caught a cold.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing.”

More rustling of bedsheets, and then it stops suddenly, and you barely hear the near-silent padding of his feet as they approach you from behind. You screw your eyes shut, willing him to walk away, to not touch you, to not try and look at your face. God, you hate that you want him to stay away from you. It’s such a foreign feeling, so completely alien to you. But right now, you want there to be a chasm of space between you, because it’s the only thing that makes the oncoming split that seems so certain feel a little more bearable.

“Sweetheart, you’re scaring me,” he says, much closer to you than you realised. His hand, so warm and soft, caresses the curve of your shoulder. Then his breath takes the other, ghosting across your collarbone. He peers around to get a look at your face, but you turn your head away. “Baby. Please. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” 

“You really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true.” Your voice is shaking. In your head, all the insecurities that have been swirling around since yesterday are pounding like your heartbeat. You feel so stupid. All he did was say he wasn’t ready to live together. That’s fine. It should be fine! 

Except you know that there’s more to it, you know that he wasn’t being entirely honest, that he was holding something back. And in that gap that he left, your anxiety-ridden brain has filled in the blanks, and you can’t stop it from growing and growing and growing.

Gently, he tugs on your shoulder, trying to get you to turn to face him. You plant your feet firmer into the floor. Resist him as hard as you can.

“Sweetheart, please talk to me. You’re really scaring me. This isn’t like you…” When he slides his hand around to hold your cheek, on instinct you melt into the touch for just one second—long enough for him to turn your head to face him. At the sight of the tear tracks on your cheeks and your swollen, bloodshot eyes, he frowns. “What’s wrong?”

When you see his face, so lovely and familiar and concerned, all your resolve crumbles. Tears quickly rise and fall down your cheeks. Your bottom lip trembles. A soft whimper escapes your throat before you can stop it.

He leans in, starts to wrap his arms around you, but you stop him. You step out of his reach, push your hands out to keep him there, and then, your voice coming out more broken than you anticipated: “Are you leaving me?”

His frown deepens so hard that his eyebrows cover his eyes. “What?”

“I—I don’t know what to think, I don’t know what’s my brain telling me lies and what’s just me picking up on signals—”

“What signals?”

“You don’t want to live with me! And I—I don’t want to pressure you, I know it makes me a fucking asshole to demand that you want that, but I—I thought that’s where we were headed, I thought that’s what you wanted, but I know that you didn’t tell me the whole truth when you said you weren’t ready, I know that you held something back, and I don’t know what the truth is! I don’t know what to trust, what to think, I’ve been spiralling all night and now I think you’re just going to leave me and I—”

Your almost incoherent rambling is cut short when Leon strides across the gap you put between you and wraps his arms tightly around you. A sudden, shuddering gasp pulls into your lungs, and you almost stumble backwards before he catches you, holds you right up against his chest.

“Breathe,” he says softly, cupping the back of your head with one hand, wrapping the other around your waist. “Breathe with me, sweetheart. In…” He breathes deep. Waits until you do it too—or your best attempt at it, anyway—and then lets it out. “…Out. Good. That’s it. Breathe. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Y-you’re not?”

“God no, baby, never. Never. But we can talk about all that in a minute, right now I just need you to focus on breathing, okay? Let me hold you. Just let it all out.”

For a second you hesitate as awareness of your body comes crashing back to you. Every muscle is held taught, your chest pounding and aching, hands starting to go numb. Ironically, in your rapid spiral, you hadn’t even recognised the early signs of a panic attack. Thankfully, Leon did, and it’s that knowledge, the realisation that he knows you so well, that has you relaxing into him. You let all your weight lean on him, and he holds you up, takes it all on like he wishes he could do with all the things you carry on your shoulders.

For a while, you stand there, focusing on your breathing. On his warmth. On the steady, even thump of his heart beneath your ear.

“You were up all night like this?” he murmurs into the quiet.

Embarrassed down to your very core, you press your face into his chest, and nod.

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry for—for not being ready for something,” you argue weakly, your breath shuddering halfway through. 

Softly, he sighs through his nose. Then he pulls back and guides you across to the bed, where you sit up against the headboard, and he sits on the edge of the bed right beside you, his hand pressed to your ankle. “I’m sorry I made you feel like this,” he says eventually, nothing but earnestness in his baby blues. 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to be sorry, you’re just not ready. And I don’t—I don’t blame you.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I’d want to live with me, either. I get why you’d be having doubts.”

You’re not sure how to respond when a sudden, slightly hysterical laugh bursts out of his chest.

You settle on offence, a frown creasing your brow. “You think this is funny?”

He does that laugh again, though this time it comes out very much on the hysterical side, sort of like a strange little scoff. “God, no, I’m sorry, it’s not funny, I just—” He shakes his head and shuffles closer along the mattress, sliding his hand up to your knee. “It’s crazy to me that you think I’m having doubts about you. It’s—you were right, when you noticed I was holding something back, but it wasn’t that I don’t want to be with you or that I’m having doubts about you. Fuck—I’m so sorry I made you think that. I’m such a goddamn idiot.”

Confusion settles across your features then, and you watch as he sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “What are you trying to say?” you ask.

He sighs and drops his head. Something settles over him, a familiar cloud of sadness, of heaviness, one that you always wish you could simply blow away. Instead, you put your hand on top of his on your knee, and squeeze. He tilts his hand, threads your fingers together properly, squeezes back. You wait for him to gather his thoughts.

“I’m not…my life isn’t…” He falters. “I’d be gone a lot,” he says after a beat, quietly, looking down at the space between you. “And I get called on missions unexpectedly, just out of the blue. We could be having a nice night together watching a movie and drinking wine and then all of a sudden I’d have to go. And then when I get back, I might not always be…great to be around.” 

His forehead is so deeply wrinkled that you want to reach out and smooth it, gently press away all the insecurity surrounding him right now. 

“Leon,” you say softly, squeezing his hand, “I’ve seen you after missions before. I know it’s not always easy. I want to be here for all of that, to be here for you.”

“It’s different. Sometimes I just. I shut down. I’m not great company when that happens and I—” He cuts his words off abruptly, inhaling a sharp breath and holding it.

“What, baby?” you prompt.

Slowly, he exhales, and the breath shakes in his throat. Then, so quiet, “I’m worried you won’t like that version of me.”

You swear, your heart actually breaks. “Leon, sweetheart, you don’t have to be switched on for me all the time. You can just relax. You can be in whatever state you need to be in, and I’ll be there for you.”

“But what if…what if I’m not good enough, if I fuck it up, what if I completely shut down for weeks and can’t get myself back together—”

“Leon.” Removing your hand from his, you instead reach out and hold his face between both palms, guiding him to look up and meet your eyes. When he does, his eyebrows draw together, and he looks so goddamn sad and earnest that it makes your chest ache. “I love you. Do you hear me? That means I love every version of you. Even the ones you think are too hard to stomach.”

He swallows heavily, and just stares at you, wide-eyed and clearly holding back tears. 

“If we live together, I’m going to be here to take care of you. You won’t have to get yourself back together on your own anymore, you know?”

“I…I’ve never…had that before,” he confesses, so small and quiet. 

“Well, now you do. I need you to understand that all of this, all that you’re feeling insecure about? I see it as a benefit of you moving in.”

“What—why? How could me being a goddamn mess ever be a good thing?”

Fondly, you roll your eyes, and shake your head. “Because, Leon, it means I get to take care of you. Did you not hear me the first time? Gotta get your hearing checked.” You tap at his right ear, and a small laugh escapes him. Just what you were going for. You give him a soft smile and continue, “I’m in this with you. Always have been, always will be. I don’t ever want you to worry about struggling like it makes you some kind of failure. You go through hell on a regular basis and you are the strongest person I know—but that doesn’t mean you have to have it together all the time. I can hold it sometimes. I want you to feel safe, to feel at home here.”

His eyes flick between both of yours, apprehension clear in his expression. “Are you sure?” he asks, almost a whisper. “It ain’t pretty, sweetheart, and you deserve better…”

“Haven’t I told you before that you’re always pretty?” you tease a little, slipping a hand into his hair. “I don’t want anyone else, Leon. I never have. I’ve always wanted you.”

For a second, Leon hesitates, looking your face all over as if searching for any trace of doubt. When he doesn’t find any, his lips tilt up into a tiny, disbelieving smile that has his face relaxing and those creases in his forehead smoothing out all on their own. “How’d I get so goddamn lucky?” he murmurs, and doesn’t give you a chance to answer before he’s leaning in and pressing his lips to yours. You hold the back of his neck, pulling him in closer, deepening the kiss. It’s so warm and passionate and says so much without saying any words at all. 

“So, if the offer’s still on the table,” he says in between kisses, pulling away just enough to press your foreheads together, “I wanna move in together.”

Joyful, you laugh, and pull him back in to kiss you. “Yeah, baby, the offer’s still on the table.”

He smiles, and God, it reaches his eyes, sets crow’s feet into their corners. It’s such a beautiful sight to see and you can’t help but stroke his face, take in every second of that gorgeous grin. 

He settles beside you after a minute, sitting up against the headboard and taking a gentle hold of your knees. He spins you in place so your legs are draped over his, settling his hand on your thigh, wrapping the other around your shoulders, and you snuggle up into him, resting your head on his shoulder. 

“There’s a lotta stuff we’ll have to work out,” Leon says. “About work and my schedules. Maybe I can request a transfer to a nearer base, so I don’t have to commute back and forth. Otherwise it’ll just be the same as it is now, me coming back here whenever I have a few days to spare.”

“If you transferred, would that mean that you come back here every night after a day on base?”

“Uh-huh. And wake up here every morning.”

A little flurry of excitement frissons through your chest at the thought. “I like the sound of that.”

“Me, too.”

***

2008

After a few months of planning and plans shifting naturally, finally, the day has come—moving day, for both of you.

About halfway through Leon’s bid for getting transferred to a Midwest base, somewhere around the nine year anniversary of the Raccoon City Incident, the two of you realised that Leon permanently living within a couple of hours of Raccoon City was not exactly a great concept. And around the same time, you both decided that you wanted to rent a house together instead of staying in your current apartment. A bigger place would mean you could have a dedicated painting space, and Leon could have a home office and a room for his gym equipment. Plus, you’ve been wanting to move out of this apartment for a while, having outgrown it a long time ago. This is the perfect opportunity, really.

Thankfully, you found a new job in a new teaching district, just a ten minute walk away from a rental house that fit exactly what you were looking for. And Leon’s new base is only a thirty minute drive away. 

And none of it is even in the same state as the remains of Raccoon City.

On your first evening in your new house—a two-storey, three bed townhouse with its own little back yard—Leon cracks open his second beer as you sit down beside him on the couch. Around you, boxes sit stacked and unopened, filled mostly with your things; Leon didn’t have a whole lot of belongings to bring here, which made you sad at first, until you decided that it’s now your mission to fill this home with things for both of you. 

“All right, sweetheart?” he asks, draping his arm across the top of the couch behind you. It’s one of the only pieces of furniture you brought with you, along with your bed, of course, and the dining table and chairs, which are set out in the corner of the living room.

“Never better,” you reply, tucking yourself into his side. “You?”

“Right where I wanna be.” He sips his beer, then offers it to you. He already kind of smells like it, the bitters wafting towards you on his breath. You accept it and take a sip, then watch as he takes several gulps himself. 

“Really relaxing already, huh?” you tease. 

He smiles over the rim of the bottle. “I’m at home, aren’t I?”

You smile, too. Warmth spreads through your chest. “Yeah. You are.”

***

notes: just a bit of sweetness before the rest....chapter 2 is currently sitting at around 12k words and i haven't started chapter 3 yet but it is likely to be a similar length so.....yeah. im sorry in advance. pls dont hate me!

pls do let me know if you enjoyed this chapter and/or if you want to be on the taglist :) ps: i am currently spending 3/5 days a week getting medical treatment so im basically just writing as and when i can, but i promisseeee i will try to get the next chapters out asap <3 i'll even include a recap each time so u don't forget what's going on !! appreciate u <3 take care of urself <3