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It was a rare, quiet night - the kind that made his hands clench and his thighs tense, his mind racing with unease. Leon never trusted the silence. Or perhaps more accurately, the things that tended to grow and fester within it. Things that he had spent most of his adult life fighting against from the shadows.
Unfortunately, lacking any sort of mission or job, all he could do was try to distract himself. The tv was switched onto the game, a basketball team he used to be fanatic about back when he was a kid, but now had to strain to muster up anything more than mild disinterest. He had, at the very least, put in a little bit of effort, picked up his favorite beer and a pizza on his way home from the office, texted a bet on the game to an old coworker that rooted for the opposing team. He’d even dug his old jersey out of his closet, but stopped short of actually pulling it on and just sort of draped it over the back of the couch, like the shedded skin of a former life.
It proved unsurprisingly difficult to focus on the game though and by the time halftime rolled around, he was honestly relieved when a pounding on his front door stole his frayed attention.
Leon jumped up, his hand itching for his sidearm, but decided against retrieving it from his lockbox, knowing that was just his deep seated paranoia talking. Zombies didn't knock.
"Yeah?" he called out gruffly. The sweet voice that answered, calling out his name in a familiar way that made his chest clench, had him fumbling to unlatch the chain and turn the deadbolt.
"Hey, what’s…" he had meant to continue, but his tongue turned to putty when he got a good look at what you were wearing.
You were standing on his doorstep in one of the smallest dresses he had ever seen you wear, a black, sparkling number with a plunging neckline that made his heart skip and his palms sweat. Even your hair, which you normally wore simply and pulled back from your face, was styled glamorously, loose and tousled in an artful way that playfully hinted at a lover having just mussed it up.
Leon had to take a deep breath and pinch the bridge of his nose to remind himself that you were his friend, completely and utterly off limits. No matter how badly his hands itched to reach out and test if your skin was really as soft and supple as it looked in the yellow lamplight of his apartment hallway.
Once he cleared his head and took you in properly, clocking the miserable scowl on your face and the pair of old, scuffed Chuck Taylors on your feet that he knew you kept in your car for emergencies, it became clear that you didn’t put all that effort into your look just to raid his pity party at nine o’clock at night.
"I hate everyone ," you grumbled, slinking inside after Leon's brain finally started working enough to welcome you in. He caught a whiff of your perfume as you squeezed by; it was dark and a little spicy, different from the more subtle, floral one you usually wore to work.
"Even me?" It was supposed to be lighthearted, a joke to make you smile, but then why did his voice sound so wavering?
“Best friends don’t count.” You shrugged one bare shoulder and patted his unshaven cheek as you walked around him into the living room. “And you don’t do relationships, so you’d never cheat on someone with half the women from administration. Is this the Bulls game?”
Leon watched, slacked jawed, as you slumped onto his couch and helped yourself to a swig of his forgotten beer. He cleared his throat, hating that he felt awkward around you all of a sudden, but what the hell was he supposed to say? That he knew all along that the slimy asshole from the public relations department who you were dating didn't deserve you which you would know if you'd had just listened to him the first one hundred times he tried to warn you?
Or how about that one of the main reasons he didn’t do relationships was the increasingly pathetic fact that he was half in love with you and very much not in the friendly, platonic way you oh so trustingly assumed?
Somehow he didn't think that either would go over well, especially not in your current state.
So, he went with a very perceptive "Yeah, uh the Celtics are up by 8 in the half."
You booed and tipped your neck back, polishing off the rest of his beer in an impressive gulp. Leon excused himself to the kitchen to grab two more, grateful to have an excuse to leave and think for a second.
Honestly, he was surprised at the level of anger he felt towards this other guy. His hands shook as he opened the fridge and he had to make a conscious effort to relax his clenched jaw. It went beyond the safe, normal upset on behalf of a friend, and boarded on this feral, territorial hatred that made him want to puff out his chest and find this asshole to rip his throat out with his bare hands.
Which, what the fuck , was very much not okay. And more than a little concerning.
Sure, he wasn’t too proud to admit that this wasn’t the first time he had possessive feelings towards you. Mostly, they manifested in random bouts of protectiveness, sometimes going a little overboard, but usually easily explained by the simple desire to take care of a friend. He didn’t have many of those left, and not a small number of former ones had died violently, so it made sense that he could be a little overzealous about keeping you safe.
But the PR creep posed no real threat to your physical wellbeing. He was a careless douche that upset you, but he wouldn’t have even been able to best you at arm wrestling, let alone been able to actually physically hurt you if he was stupid enough to try. But Leon’s primordial ape brain was fixated on the fact that this guy had you on his arm and was pompous enough to think he deserved more .
After taking a few calming breaths, letting the cool air of the fridge soothe his overly hot face, Leon braved going back to the living room with the fresh beers and a bowl of chips. The latter less because he was hungry and more for the ritual’s sake, and so that he’d have something to do with his hands.
Just another night on the couch with you. He could do this. All he needed to do was not look at you directly, shield his eyes and squint like he was sharing his space with the freaking sun instead of you in that dress. It would all be fine.
He’d be fine.
Fine.
The word bounced around his skull like an angry hornet when he rounded the corner and caught sight of you now wearing his old, discarded Bulls jersey, your slender shoulders still peaking out, your skin shining in the bluelight glow of the television. You may as well have been waiting for him butt naked; his reaction probably would have been the same.
“You okay?” you asked, and the look on your face was so open and kind that it slammed Leon out of the possessive thoughts that were starting to fester. Guilt bubbled up in his stomach.
You had come to him for comfort, not to be ogled by someone you called your best friend. The least he could do was pretend that he was decent enough to deserve the distinction.
“Yeah, sorry. Do you uh… do you wanna talk about it?” He gently sat down on the furthest cushion from where you were curled up in the corner, wanting to leave a little distance for his sanity’s sake.
An action that spectacularly backfired when you oh so casually stretched your legs out and rested your bare feet on his lap. He had been so absorbed in your attire and his own shameful reaction to it, that he hadn’t even noticed you had taken off your sneakers, and he could see the marks on your feet from where the straps of the heels you must have been wearing earlier had dug in.
He knew it was innocent on your part, and hell, it was partially his fault for letting you get into the habit of requesting foot rubs from him in the first place. But that did jack squat to make him feel any less like a weirdo perv when he dug his thumbs into the ball of one foot and the resulting little moan you let out when straight to his half-hard dick. He sent a quick thank you up to whatever higher power made him decide against changing into sweatpants after work that day.
“Nah, I’ll spare you the gory details. I know you don’t really care for that kinda stuff.”
“I care about you .” The words had sort of forced themselves from his mouth before he could do anything to stop them, but it earned him the first genuine smile of the night which did wonders to quell the resulting panic.
He’d done a lot of stupid shit over the years just to pull a smile from you and no one could ever convince him that it wasn’t time well spent.
“I know, it’s just… I don’t know. You must think I’m such a fucking mess.”
“True, but what does that have to do with the current subject?” Leon teased, not being able to resist tickling your unguarded feet. You squealed in surprise and squirmed, wiggling your toes and flexing your feet in a way that he had to scramble to subdue before they migrated any further north .
“Asshole,” you laughed, wrestling a foot free to kick him in the side of his thigh. It wasn’t hard enough to do much damage, but Leon suspected he’d have a good sized bruise there by the end of the night. You were always shit at pulling back. It was one of the reasons he never offered to spar with you anymore.
“Hey, you said it, not me!”
“I hate you,” you muttered, but the effect was dulled by the cute way your lips were scrunched up to fight a smile.
“You love me.” He tickled you again before you finally pulled your feet back, tucking them up under you with a pout. It caused your dress to ride up your thighs and Leon had to subtly pinch his own thigh hard to force himself to look away.
That would be the other reason he stopped sparing with you. Or more aptly, the other two reasons. Normally, it was easy to repress his feelings and attraction towards you. It was practically second nature at this point with how much time you both spent together. But your thighs should come with an explicit content warning and seeing them now gave Leon flashbacks to your training when you’d just learned how to do flying takedowns on larger opponents.
If he’d let himself think about it long enough (which he rarely ever did anymore and not without horrendous guilt later) he could still feel how your thighs felt when they wrapped around his ears and squeezed him down into a chokehold.
He couldn’t look you in the eye for a whole week after that.
“Yeah well, the two feelings aren’t mutually exclusive,” you huffed. You reached across the coffee table to grab a fresh beer and took a long sip.
Leon followed your lead, the beer settling in his stomach and helping to soothe his nerves. In fact, once the game came back from half-time and you let yourself get distracted by cursing the refs for a questionable foul call, it was practically back to the regular comfortable, easy rapport.
An amiable silence had fallen when Leon saw you fidgeting out of the corner of his eye. Moments later, with a commercial about car insurance blaring annoyingly in the background, you cleared your throat and scooted closer, your hands clasped together in a way that, coupled with the jersey you were practically swimming in, made you appear about 10 years younger.
“Hey, can I - can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, shoot.”
“And you promise to be honest?”
“I...y-yeah,” Leon responded, his mouth suddenly bone dry. He was worried now, his mind pinging in all directions. Had he been too obvious? Did you see something ? Christ, he didn’t think he could take you calling him out. He braced himself for the worst.
“Is it me?” your voice was small in a way he’d never heard before and he had to strain to hear you over the TV.
What?
“I- I don’t follow.”
He watched, alarmed, as you collapsed inwards, drawing your knees up to your chest and hiding your face. “I mean like, at what point does it become my fault, right? How many failed relationships in a row do I have to have before realizing who the common denominator is here?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he blurted out, again before his brain could catch up to his mouth. His stomach dropped at your resulting sniffle. “No! Nonono that came out wrong. Give me a second here.”
He was a shit friend, he really was.
He hated that all the while he was stuck on focusing on controlling himself around you, he hadn’t stopped to think for a moment how you were actually feeling. It was clear in hindsight; you had a bad habit of trying to choke down pain, whether emotional or physical (much to Leon’s ever present anxiety) and brush it off as just a casual inconvenience. Somewhere along the way, you had got it stuck in your head that you had to be this unyielding pillar of strength, invulnerable and bulletproof. Leon normally preferred to pretend he didn’t notice it to avoid the inevitable ‘pot calling the kettle black’ argument. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
Leon took a deep breath and a long pull from his beer before finally turning towards your thankfully not yet actively crying body. "Okay, I'm a little out of my depth here, gorgeous, but I do know one thing. And I’m only going to say this once so you better listen, okay?”
He waited until you turned your face and fixed one of your watery eyes on him. “What?” you huffed impatiently at his hesitation.
Better to do it fast, like ripping off a band-aid.
“You’re perfect.”
At your eye-roll, Leon doubled-down, reaching out to lift your chin from your knees when you tried to hide your face again. “No, I’m being serious so listen . Every fucking bit of you, even those things you think are flaws. Because - because they make you you, and you are fucking perfect. And if some dumb bastard is too stupid to realize it, that’s on them, not you. Understand?”
“I - I think… Leon. ” The tears were actively slipping out now, creating blurred tracks down your previously pristine makeup, but you were also starting to unroll yourself from your protective ball on the couch, so he counted it as a win and pressed further.
“Don’t give people who aren’t even fit to lick clean your shoes the power to make you feel like shit.”
He managed to wipe away a few stray tears with his thumb before you stretched yourself across the couch cushions with a mighty, hitching breath, your arms wrapping around his neck in a warm, sweet smelling embrace. Leon laughed, a little high with the anxiety of almost just outing himself, hoping you couldn’t feel how fast his heart was pounding in his chest.
“That worked, huh?” he felt you nod into his neck and valiantly held back a shiver as you finally spoke, your voice barely above a whisper as it caressed his skin.
“You’re better at this than you give yourself credit for.”
“Nah, it’s probably just a fluke.”
Leon was surprised when you pulled back, your carefully sculpted brows furrowing at him as you grabbed his chin between two manicured hands. “If I’m perfect, you’re perfect too,” you said seriously, with the solemn air of a kid making a pact with a childhood friend.
He wanted to laugh, but floundered at the heavy pressure that suddenly stung behind his eyes. “I’ll uh, have to take your word for it.”
You stayed in his arms for a long awhile, and he was more than happy to oblige. Despite being able to smell you, to feel your body pressed up against his, how soft and warm you were in his arms, the panicked stirrings from earlier didn’t resurface. Just the regular level of protectiveness, mingled with a smidge of pride at being the one you chose to lean on.
“Oh my god, traveling! Where’s the fucking ref, is he blind ?” Once you had calmed back down, it didn’t take long for you to return to your regular self, untangling yourself from Leon to flip the tv off and complain about the game.
He found himself taking a deep breath, muscles he hadn’t realized he was clenching finally relaxing as you raged against the referees. With basketball as the buffer, it was easier to pretend he was satisfied with where your friendship stood. To pretend that, while he hated seeing you cry, he didn’t also dread the day when you would inevitably no longer need his shoulder to cry on.
Call him a selfish bastard, but if you wanted to continue dating assholes, as long as it kept you from settling down, he wasn’t going to stop you.
“They’ve been missing calls all night,” Leon responded, clinking his beer bottle against yours as you held it out in solidarity. “Did you see last week, the no-call in overtime that should have been a technical?”
He bit back a chuckle as you flopped back on the couch in exaggerated anguish. “Ugh, yes. Don’t remind me, I might start crying again.”
“Well, poor officiating is more worthy of the tears.”
“A-fucking-men,” you muttered quietly through your still pouting lips, allowing your body to slump to the side and pillowing your head against Leon’s shoulder. Instinctively, he wrapped an arm loosely around your shoulder to support you better as you nuzzled close.
He inwardly battled against the rip current brought about by another wave of possessiveness at your slightly wavering sigh. “Want me to shoot him for you?”
“Not worth the paperwork… but, thank you, Leon.”
“Anytime, gorgeous.”
Maybe it was the tenderness of the moment or the fact that he could tell by your breathing that you were on the cusp of submitting to sleep and weren’t likely to call him out on it. Or hey, maybe he really was just a big ol’ masochist. But something outside his conscious control had Leon leaning down and pressing a kiss to the crown of your head, lingering for much longer than could reasonably be considered friendly.
“I wish there were more guys like you,” you sighed sleepily, the raspy and delicate nature of your tired voice doing nothing to blunt the sharp edge of the words as they cut straight down to the bone.
Yeah, Leon Kennedy was a certified masochist.