𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 | Requests: PARTIALLY

You paused before you opened the door, still feeling anxious about greeting him despite spending most of your time around him. When you did, you could smell the alcohol on him, and then how he desperately tried to cover the smell with cologne. Your nostrils were too sharp to be fooled.

You never called him out on his alcoholic tendencies, you felt like that wasn’t your place. He always drank a little more than everyone else at work parties and he refilled his flask more often the week before a mission.

“You really didn’t have to come over early in the morning to do this,” you sighed, watching Leon fix your shower as you applied your makeup in your bathroom mirror. “I could’ve called someone.”

“You hate calling people. Also, I’d rather not have a smelly assistant. We share the same office. If you stink, it’ll affect me too,” he mumbled as he fiddled around with a new shower head. “Plus. I’ve saved you a bit of money.”

“I’m not broke, Leon,” you rolled your eyes and continued humming to the music that was playing through your phone. Was it really normal to have your boss fix your shower before the two of you went to work? Probably not. But you didn’t care, you liked spending time with him before his missions.

Leon was going on a mission today, hence the smell of alcohol. You were on comms. You had done this several times before, and all had gone accordingly. So why did you feel so nervous?

“Did you sleep tonight?” he asked, seeing how puffy and red your eyes were, and the dark bags that were run over by concealer. He reached over to the bacon and egg sandwich you made him, the yolk spilling out of the sandwich onto his lap, hoping you didn’t notice.

“Yeah…yeah. Of course I did.”

“Don’t fall asleep on comms,” he muttered, his eyes now focused on the shower.

“Tsk, when has comms ever gone wrong between the two of us?” you spoke. He was going to say something like ‘don’t jinx it’ but your phone began to ring. “Hold on, my mom is calling me.”

“You don’t have to answer, you know."

“Leon, it’s fine,” you assured him, leaving the bathroom to answer the phone.

“Whatever you say.”

He only wanted to snatch the phone out of your hand and tell you that everything you did in his office was the best he had ever seen, and that he doesn’t think he could ever find an assistant that was better than you. Seeing your demeanour crumple after calls with your parents made something boil within him. But it wasn’t his place to dictate your relationship with them.

He settled on getting you cake instead.

“Happy now?” He asked, watching you eat the cake in his car as he drove you to the DSO building.

“Extremely,” you smiled, trying not to get crumbs and frosting everywhere. “So, if you keep note of the alternative route around the left side of the building…”

He wasn’t listening. He already had your notes memorised. Every reroute, every exit, every blind spot. Sometimes he thought that you were just reading them out loud for yourself, just to be certain that he was going to be safe. His hand rested loosely on the steering wheel, the other drumming on his lap.

You always did this, you smoothed out every crinkle in every plan, threaded exit routes in every step and tied up any blind spots.

“And then if you go into the server room there should be…”

After Raccoon City, he needed it - to listen to every instruction, every report, every detail because he knew one small mistake could lead to hundreds of thousands dying. Back then it was screaming, fire, radios and broken signals, people who didn’t understand what was happening, people who never got to finish their sentences. People who never made it out.

He glanced at you, your eyebrows were tightly knit, your tablet in your hands. Sometimes you stumbled through your words as you read off your notes. You never did that.

Seeing your determination to keep everyone safe and ensure no one was in distress reminded him of himself and he admired you for it. So why couldn’t he like himself when he shared the same quality?

Bright headlights flashed by, and he blinked, refocusing on the road.

“If the east exit is blocked then you can go around the…”

He exhaled through his nose. Were you concerned or was it your perfectionism taking over? Maybe it was the concern that drove the perfectionism.

The only thing running through his mind was your face after his mission, and the pleasant relief that shined on it despite you trying to remain professional. The clicking of your heels as you basically ran up to him, and then the celebratory meal you guys would get afterwards. Just think about that Kennedy.

“Leon, are you even listening?” you cut him from his thoughts.

“Every word,” he said, a slight truth within his words.

The buzz of the office continued around you as you set up your headset. Co-workers walked around the maze of desks, passing files and handing each other mugs of coffee.

“Okay. Are you there, Leon?” You asked, the bright screen illuminating your face- making your eyes sting more than they already were.

A few seconds of static.

“Yeah.” His voice low and steady like it always was.

Your fingers moved across the keyboard, pulling up maps and images.

“Perfect.” You chirped, swinging your leg over the other. “Comms check.”

You could hear him let out a small laugh, “loud and clear, ma’am.”

Your eyes were red and puffy with exhaustion, and when you looked around things were blurry at first until you blinked it away. Everything was running smoothly, just according to plan – well that’s what you told yourself.

A heat signature flickered briefly and then disappeared. You weren’t sure if it was you or the camera. This exhaustion had been plaguing you for a while now, but you saw this as weakness.

“Hold on,” you said, squinting your eyes and leaning closer to the screen.

“What’s wrong, boss?” Did he always have to make such stupid jokes in the middle of something so dire?

Nothing. “Clear.”

“You sure?” He asked.

“Certain,” you confirmed, eyes darting across the screen.

“Alright then.”

The camera caught movement. Gunshots. A string of them.

“Leon!”

He groaned and staggered back, throwing himself behind a wall. His body slammed against the wall and he coughed.

“Leon,” you repeated yourself, heart pounding.

“It’s fine.”

“I thought- I thought it was clear-“ you stuttered, your fingers trembling against the keyboard.

“y/n. It happens.” He hissed through his teeth.

It does not happen. He lowered his guard because of you. You said that with confidence and certainty. You almost got him killed. You were incompetent.

The medical room was quiet. You sat in the waiting room with your leg bouncing up and down and nausea torturing your stomach. The gunshot kept playing in your head over and over again. The flicker of a heat signature. Your mistake. He trusted you. You got him hurt. He had done nothing but make you feel comfortable at the DSO, and you hurt him.

The nurse told you that you could go in now.

His dark hair laid against the white of the pillow, his arm bandaged and in a sling. He was sat up in a bed, a thin blanket pooling around his legs.

“Hey, you.”

“Hi,” you squeaked. You pressed your lips together as your eyes wandered along the floor.

“Sit,” he commanded, flickering his eyes to the seat next to him and then you.

You sat down next to him, placing your hands on his bed. His free hand grabbed your hand, rubbing small circles into your palm with his thumb.

“You got shot because of me.” you broke the silence.

“I’m pretty sure the guy with the gun did that.”

“Not funny.”

“A little funny.”

“I shouldn’t be doing comms-“

“No.” Leon said firmly, his hand tightening around yours. “That’s not happening.”

“Leon, you got hurt because of me.”

“That’s a part of the job description – getting hurt. You were just doing your job and it was a slip up. I’m still here.” he stated, watching you refuse eye contact with him.

“But what if-“

“You’re working for me because you catch things other people don’t. You made one mistake and that’s okay. You’ve saved me hundreds of times before. One mistake doesn’t undo that.” he said, as if he had planned what he was going to say a million times. Like he knew you were going to react this way.

“We can’t afford mistakes. Not if it gets you hurt.” You said coldly, standing up. “I have reports to finish.”

“y/n-“ he started, but you opened the door and left the room.

The sling stared at you, a physical manifestation of the guilt that had been dragging you down for the past week, a reminder of your mistake as if it hadn’t been buried in your brain. You hated it, because it told you that you failed, you failed the one person that had never failed you. The sling made your mistake real, the type of real that you didn’t want to face. It was ugly and sickening and he had to wear it around his neck like a public announcement.

“Wanna get lunch together? On me?” he would ask, attempting to find a smile on your face.

“It’s okay, I already made my own lunch.” you would reply coldly. There was no pre-made lunch in your bag.

The plants were dying and shrivelling under the heat. Your new workload made you forget about them.

You began repenting for your mistakes by staying at your desk until midnight. Words were restrained with you, greeting people and waving became small nods of acknowledgement. Stepping foot outside of the office wasn’t a thing that you did anymore.

“I’m worried about you. What is this about, y/n? What’s wrong?” he asked once.

“I’m fine, I’m just a bit tired.”

“Well, get some rest tonight. You can take tomorrow morning off, it’s fine by me.”

“It’s fine, I’ll just go to bed earlier tonight. You need me tomorrow anyway.”

The white sling stared back at you.

“You need to redo this report; there are plenty of typos and sentences that aren’t finished.” A supervisor said, handing back your report to you, humiliating you in front of Leon.

“Yes sir,” you mumbled, your eyes refusing to meet his.

One afternoon, you couldn’t handle it anymore. It took one look at the sling. It made you sick, the way you hurt him, the way he groaned when he got shot, the way his end was silent for a second.

You hid yourself in a toilet stall, your head in your hands.

You never made mistakes; you had never been the mistake-making person. And now all of a sudden, you make one mistake and it sets off a whole chain of them.

For your entire life, being good enough was never a thing. Constantly chasing after perfectionism was something you did throughout childhood, and it had long been running through adulthood. It ruined you, being constantly unsatisfied with your work and now you could finally feel yourself drowning and suffocating.

You worked so hard all week ensuring there was not a fault in your plan, yet someone got hurt anyway. Leon got hurt due to your mistake. He trusted you and now you blew it.

Your chest tightened, sharp pains every time you breathed.

Your brother was handling operations at your age, yet here you were, having a panic attack in the toilets because you messed up once.

Your brother died over a mistake. Mistakes were not allowed after that.

The rule was unspoken, but it was seen in your mother’s disappointment when your report card wasn’t perfect, or when you tried piano for the first time and you weren’t immediately a prodigy at it. You only wanted to make them proud, to be the perfect daughter. Troubled nights became the norm, obsessively running over every error you had ever made and perfecting it in your brain.

Accepting anything other than perfect was impossible. Dying was preferable to handing in an unperfected report. You would have rather not tried at all than try and it not being perfect and if made you a coward, that was fine with you.

Your fingers twisted into your hair, trying to hold back a sob, like you were trying to pull these thoughts out of your head before your breathing became any harder to control.

The shot. The silence. His pained hiss.

What if the bullet landed somewhere else? What if it was a repeat of your brother all over again?

The image of your mother crying at the kitchen counter, the funeral that came too soon. You were forced to come to terms with death before you even really knew what life was.

You breathed in slowly, and out. Your breath was still shaking and fast. In and out. Slowly, you brought yourself up out of the lake you were drowning in.

The bathroom stall was left empty, and you returned to your desk like nothing happened.

It was the evening. You had just left, pens scattered across your desk and piles of reports that needed to be re-written. It was another successful day of avoiding Leon as much as humanly possible in the confined space of his office.

Leon needed a file, but your top drawer was slightly open. He couldn’t help himself. Something caught his eye - a piece of paper.

‘Formal Notice of Resignation’

You idiot.

“You gotta be kidding me,” he muttered and left the office with only one thing on his mind: finding you.

Grey clouds swirled around the city and you were half-way through the car park until a deep voice called your name. Feeling like a deer caught in headlights, you stared at the man in the leather jacket who was practically running over to you.

“What is this?” He asked, his eyebrows furrowed, holding up the piece of paper. You cringed, as if he found your diary.

“I was going to tell you soon,” you mumbled, staring at his shoes because his eyes would pierce right through you. “I didn’t want to be dramatic about it.”

“So what? You were going to tell me after you had disappeared?!” he said, jaw tight. “You are not leaving.”

“That is not your decision to make,” you hissed, your hand clenching around your bag strap.

“You’ve been with me on every operation this year. You’ve prepped every mission, every-“

“That’s exactly why I’m leaving,” you interrupted him, “I can’t keep sitting behind a screen watching you almost die.”

“That’s the job you signed up for.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t think it would feel this way,” you admitted.

“Feel what way?”

“I- You think I, I enjoy doing that?” you avoided the question, feeling rain begin to spit in your face.

“You make one mistake and you decide to run away. That’s your solution?” He questioned, a short laugh fell from his lips.

“I’m not running away! I’m protecting you!”

The rain hit harder against the ground, puddles beginning to form.

He huffed, water droplets sliding down his jacket. “Protecting me? You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had. The best analyst we’ve had in field operations for a long time!”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does, you’ve saved me hundreds of times, more than I can count. One mistake doesn’t undo everything.”

“I’m not making the same mistake twice. I refuse to be the reason you get hurt again.”

“This isn’t about the mission, is it?”

You walked away from him.

“Walking away isn’t protecting me! You’re punishing yourself!” he called after you.

Something in you snapped, because if he was going to prod around at your personal life then he can shove a stick up his nosy ass-

“Leave me alone, Leon, you think I don’t notice the copious amounts of alcohol you drink every day?” you yelled, “Why are you begging me to come back to a job that is already destroying you? Because you want someone else in your- in your fucking nightmare?”

His paused and his expression changed.

“I’m asking you to not walk away from something you’re good at because you’re scared,” he said, a sadness lacing through his words. His hair was soaked in the rain, sticking to his face.

“I’m not scared. I’m removing myself from being the reason that another mistake happens.”

“You know what? If one mistake is enough to make you quit, then I truly think you weren’t cut out for the job in the first place,” he bit back, his words slapping you in the face before he could stop them.

“At least I’m not roping someone to stay in a job that has destroyed them,” you fumed.

You walked away before you continued bickering with this stubborn, middle-aged man any longer.

“At least I still have the balls to do the job,” he muttered, watching you grow smaller and smaller until you disappeared out of the car park as his chest rapidly moved up and down, his hands in tight fists.

Note: next chapter is even more angsty LMFAO, but it ends with leon taking us back to his apartment. and I regret to inform but I am closing my taglist cause holy shit... the amount of love is LITERALLY overwhelming, thank you guys so much <3