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Leon pauses outside his front door and takes a deep breath. He reaches up, gingerly prodding the cut on his forehead: still fresh, still sticky. “Ow,” he mutters. Yup, that hurts alright. In fact, now that he’s gradually coming down from the adrenaline rush and easing off autopilot, everything hurts like hell. His ribs ache. His back is protesting in that way it always does. Just before leaving HQ, he looked in the bathroom mirror and was unsurprised to see vivid purple blooming all across his torso.
… Good, he thinks to himself.
He turns the key in its lock and eases the door open, lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding and just… smiles. She’s home. The lights are warm and low. There’s that woody, green fragrance from her candles, a scent he’s come to associate with home. He drops his bag and peeks over the couch, sees her laptop open, a woman’s soft, mournful voice crooning at low volume from the speakers. “Sweetheart?” He calls out.
“Leon!” She responds immediately, emerging from their bedroom. Her smile is unreservedly delighted, joyful and surprised. “You’re finally back! You said—oh my god.”
She marches up to him, stands on tiptoe and reaches for his face. “Leon, what the hell? I remember sending out a very normal husband on Monday morning and he comes home a week later looking like a bruised banana!”
“Got cocky for a sec,” he admits.
She’s aghast, groaning in dismay. “Say it ain’t so.”
Leon rolls up the hem of his compression shirt, tone deceptively breezy. “You should see the other guy.”
“Holy… shit…” She presses both hands to her cheeks, utterly speechless for a moment. “You’re half eggplant!”
“It’s not that bad.” Leon shrugs, watching her face closely.
“No. No, I won’t stand for this.” Her voice is firm. She grabs him by the hips and marches him to the couch. “Sit down. Good grief. I’ll get the first-aid kit.”
Leon sits down on the couch and removes his shirt as she disappears into their bedroom. He pumps his fist, just a little. Yes.
She returns, bearing a comically large first-aid kit in her arms. She sets it down on the coffee table, immediately rummaging for familiar items: antiseptic, ointment, bandages, butterfly closures, Q-tips. Leon reaches out to help; she smacks his hand away and pushes him back down on the couch by his shoulders. “No.”
By the time she sits down beside him, Leon can tell that she’s seething. She takes his chin in one hand, turning his face this way and that, appraising the damage. She clicks her tongue while she scans the front of his torso, then nudges him to turn so he can show her his back, equally bruised. An angry, red scrape runs along his ribs, and new lacerations mark his shoulders.
“Can anyone explain how they let you come home in such a state?” She grits out.
Leon, eyes drifting shut as she begins to gingerly apply antiseptic to the scrape, mumbles: “It’s not their fault.” He frowns as he feels her hand pause, idle on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Her silence lingers for just a moment too long. She hums, biting her lower lip. When she speaks, her voice is slow and halting. “You tell me then, why do they let you come home like this?”
It’s Leon’s turn to hesitate. “It… wasn’t a medical emergency.” Shit. “I’ve survived worse,” he tries to be casual, hoping that he doesn’t come across as evasive. “They cleared me and said I was good to go.”
Leon does not want to tell her that he told the medic to leave his bruises and scrapes alone. Oh, and the cuts on his face too. That laceration should’ve been closed; he told them he’d take care of it. He definitely does not want to tell her that he had to block the medic’s hands from access, or about the evasive manoeuvres required to make his hasty escape from HQ.
Because what can he say? What words can possibly do justice to the as-yet nameless, shapeless desire he insistently buries in the very depths of his psyche?
Leon is not ready to admit the truth. Not even to himself.
For a moment, Leon can’t meet her gaze. The moment stretches out, both of them silent, until Leon finally looks up, wondering what’s on her mind. He sucks in a breath to steady himself. He anticipates further condemnation of the DSO. He even expects some mild chiding about how he’s a grown man who knows that he should take better care of himself. She might even reel herself in, all calm containment until the current “crisis” is over.
What he doesn’t expect is the look of pained tenderness on her face. The thoughtfulness as she lifts his chin and brushes the edges of his new cuts and scrapes with the pads of her fingers. For a moment, neither of them speaks. Leon takes in the array of emotions that cross her face, some familiar, some unreadable. But always, always that tenderness like she’s beholding something so precious to her that it hurts even to touch.
“... well.” She clears her throat and brushes the only unmarked area of his cheek with her lips. “Lucky for you, I’m becoming really good with first-aid.”
She glances at him meaningfully. “And I’m very generous with dispensing it.”
Leon’s shoulders drop, his crooked grin just a tad guilty. “Yeah. You’ve had a lot of practice, huh?”
“Mm-hm. Practice on a handsome man happens to really improve my motivation.” She says wryly.
“Ah. Do the bruises help improve the handsomeness?”
“No, but they sure don’t subtract from the shamelessness.” She snorts, then stands up and heads for the kitchen. “Wait here.”
Leon hears her voice and the sound of the fridge opening. “I think we should ice the worst of the bruising first. I’ll put some ointment on them later.”
She returns with an entire basket of ice packs. Leon blinks. “I don’t remember us having so many.”
“I’ve been saving them.” She says promptly. “Keep still. Hold these to your skin.” Leon sucks in a pained breath as she begins to load his arms with ice packs. “Make sure they don’t fall off.”
“That’s a tall order,” Leon mutters, looking down at himself. And because he can’t help it, “Do we really have to do this? It kinda hurts.”
“Leon, are you pouting?” She raises an eyebrow.
“... Maybe?”
“Unbelievable.” She shakes her head. “Just ice the…” She gestures vaguely at the mess of his chest. “... non-purple parts. Clearly, there aren’t very many of them. I’ll do ointment on the rest.”
She gets to work immediately. Leon takes in the serious look on her face: the slight pinching of her brows, the way she bites her lip as she concentrates, applying ointment to his skin with a featherlight touch. She’s meticulous, he thinks. This is nice. When he’s sure she isn’t looking, he allows himself to luxuriate in the satisfaction: a tiny smile, slightly smug.
The truth is, Leon could’ve let the DSO take care of it. He could’ve patched himself up in a pinch, if that’s what he wanted. He’s lost count of the number of injuries he’s treated on the field, or the handful of wretched times where he’s had to stitch himself up without support in an active warzone. The pain was near intolerable and he hated to do it, but Leon was always the man to do his job, no matter the cost.
Hell, the cost never factored into his calculus, not when he was the one paying the price.
With her though? The person he’s come to call home? The only person he’s ever trusted to love and hold him gently?
And yet, old habits die hard. Leon doesn’t think of himself as a proud man, and he isn’t ashamed, not really, but certain things are still… difficult. Nobody ever taught him to ask: for peace, for rest, for a place his vulnerability can rest without being ignored or erased.
How do you speak of that yearning for your pieces to be picked up and carefully put back together until you find yourself again?
He’s a little embarrassed—just a bit—that she seems to know, or at the very least suspect, what he’s up to. That she doesn’t call him out on it and continues to give him exactly the same care she’s always lavished upon him is part of the reason he loves her with such unrestrained intensity. He knows what would happen if he tried to say all of it out loud to her. He wouldn’t be able to find the right words, but she would wait and soothe and encourage until they tumbled from his lips, imperfect and half-formed and mortifying.
Someday, he will. Leon knows how important it is not to leave things unspoken.
But for now, instead of saying something hideously inadequate, Leon closes his eyes. He lets himself savour and memorise the feeling of competent, loving hands against his skin. In this moment together, someone else is pouring into him for a change. The endless scream of demand: to be saved, to get the job done, to survive as the highest imperative, fades into the background.
Here, his weary psyche can rest.
Leon lets her pin back his bangs with navy blue barrettes, biting back a grin when he sees that they seem to be the same colour as his jacket. His amusement is cut short when she barely contains a gasp as she sees even more purple beneath, paired with yet another cut, blood congealed on its surface.
She sighs, her frown deepening as she begins to tend to his cut. “How the hell are they allowed to treat you like this? You’re not just… some government… guy—”
Leon snorts at her unenthusiastic description. “That is the most unimpressed take on my work I’ve ever heard. But I suppose you’re right, huh? You would think that someone with my —”
“—you’re my husband.”
Leon takes in her silence, the tight line of her lips, wondering if she intends to elaborate. When she doesn’t, he feels something build up in his chest. He can’t really explain why, even to himself, but he’s ready to apologise. “I’m—”
“I know what you’re going to say.” She continues to gently clean the cut on his forehead. “You’ll tell me, ‘I’m sorry, I got careless.’” She exhales shakily. “I really don’t want you to apologise. It’s not your fault. That’s not what I’m sad about.”
Leon waits, sensing the confession emerging from a place where it was hidden for too long. He runs his hand up and down her arm, steadying her, letting her speak.
“I’m… sad because every scar—” she traces the faint white line on his cheek, “and every new wound,” she pauses over the cut she’s tending to, “every bruise, reminds me that they won’t let you rest. It’s not that you were careless.”
Leon wipes the tear that’s escaped from the corner of her eye. “I know.”
“I know why you do it,” she huffs, furiously rubbing at her eyes. “I just wish they had the goddamn decency to give you rest. That they would stop trying to use you up every fucking minute.”
Her words graze an old bruise, somewhere that Leon hasn’t wanted to examine for too long. And so, he tries for levity, as he usually does. “You know how it is: no rest for the wicked.”
She shakes her head, firmly pressing a finger to his lips.
“Why won’t they give my infuriating, overly self-sacrificing husband a break? Let you retire. Do something boring for a change. Go fishing. Do bird watching. Watch grass grow. I don’t even know.”
Leon pauses, chuckles, taking her free hand in his own. “That sounds peaceful. Can’t say I’ve ever gone fishing.”
“Forget fishing, when was the last time you took a nap?”
Leon shrugs, gives her a sheepish smile. “... we could try? After this?”
She narrows her eyes at him. Then sighs and continues to dab at the cut. “Oh, you.”
“Hey, sweetheart.” Leon lifts her chin. “Look at me.”
Her eyes meet his, defiant, angry at the powers that be. There is a fury in them that dares him to even try to defend his employers.
“I know how much this costs you, even if you don’t say it.” He strokes her bottom lip with his thumb, trying to coax a smile from her. “I know that you wait by the phone.” Leon nudges the first-aid kit with his other hand. “I know that you picked up first-aid just for me. I want to say that… you shouldn’t have to.”
Leon exhales, smiles ruefully. “I won’t lie though. It feels… good to have someone who cares about what time I make it back. If I make it back. Some days it’s the only thing that keeps me going. Even you calling me last week, while I was at the safehouse? I needed to hear your voice.” He chuckles, like he’s confessing something he isn’t allowed to want. “It was going to be a long day and you made it bearable.”
Her shoulders finally relax. “I missed you, that’s all.” She reaches for the antibiotic ointment and makes Leon hold the dressing in preparation. “I… wanted to hear your voice too,” she admits, dabbing cream around the cut, determined to avoid meeting his gaze. “I needed to know that you were okay.”
Leon closes his eyes and bites back a smile as she takes the dressing from his hand and slowly lays it over the wound. Even after all this time, the fact that somebody misses him and wants him to come home makes him feel something sweet and warm in a heart he wasn’t sure he still had.
“I know your work is important. I just hope you remember that...” She swallows. “This isn’t you. Not all of you.” She says, her voice almost inaudible.
The words land hard and unfair. How many times has he wondered about the very same thing? “Yeah? Sometimes…” he exhales into a sigh. “It doesn’t feel that way.”
The weight of existing burdens descend once more. Old wounds and even older memories surface unbidden. Leon thinks back, flashes of unwanted scenes from Racoon City. The surreal blur of standing in the Situation Room as a 21-year-old, hardly an adult, ignorant of the horrors to follow. How the missions all started to blend together: twisted bodies, grotesque monsters, blood, and death. Death, always more death. He almost always said yes to the next mission, but eventually, more and more, the “nos” went unheard. They didn’t matter.
“Hey. I’m here. Come back to me.” Her hand is a warm weight on his chest, rubbing in a soothing rhythm.
Leon sucks in a deep breath. Counts to four. Releases it. Focusses on her face again. He does this a few more times as she gives his shoulder gentle squeezes. “Sorry. I’m back.”
“You’re Leon Scott Kennedy to the rest of the world. Hyper competent, lethal operative, founding member of the DSO. I get that.” She smooths her palms up and down his chest, restoring warmth to skin that went clammy for a moment. “But here, with me, you’re the earnest-to-a-fault, painfully generous man who’s addicted to corny one-liners, hates missing breakfast, and is very good to his wife. And that man doesn’t need to justify his need for peace, rest, or love. Not to me.”
Leon freezes. For a moment, she sees it again, the old uncertainty borne of warring impulses: the reflex to deflect with a joke, or slip into awkwardness, perhaps indulge in a smug smirk. She savours a secret satisfaction when Leon lets her witness his pleasure, to allow his lips to quirk subtly, shy and discreet, his ears very slightly pink at the tips.
Her voice is a mere whisper, helpless and soft for him. “Whenever they let you go, you always choose to come back to me.”
Leon just grasps her hand tightly, their fingers finding their place and intertwining. She sits with him for a minute, letting him breathe, her thumb brushing the back of his bandaged hand. He lets his head fall forward on her shoulder, instinctively tucking himself into the crook of her neck. “Just… give me a minute.”
She says nothing. Pulls him close, strokes his hair, lacing her fingers into the back and playing with the layers there. She lightly scratches his scalp in the way that he likes so much, lets him rest until his breathing evens out. “You good to let me finish here?”
Leon nods. “Yeah.”
She pats his cheek. “Let me see your hands, baby.” She takes Leon’s hands in her own, turning them over slowly, noting the pink, raw skin left from a torn callus.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.” He lies immediately.
“Hmm.” She glances at him knowingly. “I wouldn’t think less of you for saying that it hurts.”
“... a little.” Leon mumbles under his breath, utterly reluctant.
“Got it.”
She works with a confidence borne from practice, from a familiarity with his body. She reaches for the nippers in the first-aid kit, already wiped down with alcohol. The edges of torn skin are trimmed precisely, leaving the wound clean and neat.
“This might sting a bit.” Her concentration doesn’t waver from Leon’s hands for even a second as she removes the lid of the salve and begins to gently rub the waxy ointment into his palms. “Is this alright?”
For a moment, Leon forgets the sting. It’s nice to watch her work, he thinks. It’s nice to be the object of her attention. He thinks back to the sterile environments of the DSO’s medical office and the frosty bedside manner of its doctors.
He doesn’t miss the touch of cold, indifferent hands. He doesn’t miss being looked at the way Leon looks at his own weapons: something to be maintained, to be deemed “good enough”, and sent home stitched up and still hazy on painkillers. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t want to return to the days of stumbling through the door, falling face-first on his couch, wounds screaming and protesting as he crashes on the couch, unable to make it to bed.
“Leon?”
He clears his throat, voice husky. “Yeah. You’re doing good.”
She’s trying not to smile, he can tell. She checks the wound again, and satisfied with her work, removes a bandage from its wrapping and lays it down on his skin. A frown pinches her brow as she cuts the appropriate length of tape and winds it around his hand. Leon reaches out with his free hand, gently tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering just a moment longer on the delicate shell. She hums, her head leaning close involuntarily. He caresses the glossy strands between his fingertips, admiring the silky texture, remembering the drag of it against his body when they’re laying in bed.
Everything about her face is beloved to him; he adores the expressiveness of her lips and eyes: the way her eyes widen a little if he flinches, how she bites her lip when she’s concentrating, the wry, crooked grin if she notices him looking at her. He could close his eyes and still remember the shape of her features with perfect clarity.
And one of the things he loves most of all is how freely affection flows from her and touches him in its small, mundane ways.
She loves me, Leon thinks, a little dazed when he repeats it in his mind. And she won’t let me forget it.
He lets his eyes flutter shut when she presses kisses to every old scar and every new bruise. He suspects that just as he’s mapped her face in loving detail, she too knows the marks of his body by heart. Time seems to slow; nothing matters but the sensation of her lips and fingers, the seriousness with which she tends to him, his keeper restoring her beloved treasure.
“I’m done.”
“Hey.” Leon reaches out, catches her hand. He turns it over and places a kiss on her wrist. “I never make plans that far ahead. You know that. But…” He pauses, already self-conscious. “What I’m certain about is you being part of my future. I want you to have a say in it.”
She tilts her head at him, alert but still.
“So… vacation, retirement, whatever it is… let’s discuss it. I want to hear what you have to say. Always.”
“Oh, Leon.” She cups his cheek. “I don’t want to force you into anything. That’s never my intention. I just…” she takes a deep breath, exhales steadily. “I want you to be able to make a choice before it’s all decided for you. You know?”
Leon nods, leaning into her touch. He presses a kiss into her palm. “Yeah. My choice is you.”