Chapter Text
Y/N's POV.
Finding somewhere to live had turned into a full-time job. Every morning started the same way. Coffee gone cold beside you, dozens of listings spread across your screen, apartments that looked nothing like the pictures once you dug a little deeper, rooms so small they barely fit a bed... And rent prices making you wonder if landlords simply enjoyed watching people suffer.
Weeks had slipped by like that. You had visited enough shared apartments to stop keeping count. One smelled permanently of cigarette smoke, another came with a roommate who insisted on practicing the drums after midnight, and last but not least, the landlord had proudly described a windowless storage room as 'cozy'.
You had smiled politely through every viewing, thanked them for their time, and walked away a little too fast, knowing you would never call back. At some point, your standards had quietly begun to lower. Maybe you didn't need natural light, sharing a bathroom with three strangers wasn't that bad, and maybe, just maybe, you were asking for too much. It wasn't exactly the future you'd imagined, but reality rarely cared about expectations.
With a tired sigh, you refreshed the listings one more time. Nothing. Your phone buzzed against the table. You almost ignored it, but the familiar name lighting up your screen made you sit a little straighter. Marvin. He had been a family friend for as long as you could remember. The kind of person who never forgot birthdays, always checked in after hearing even the smallest piece of bad news, and somehow managed to make every room feel calmer just by walking into it.
The message was short. "Actually... I might know someone." Your brows knitted together. A second message appeared before you had the chance to reply. "A rookie police officer. Just moved into a house a few weeks ago." Then another. "He's got a spare room." A final notification lit up the screen. "He's looking for someone to stay there while he's away at work. Keep an eye on the place. I thought of you."
You read the messages twice. Then a third time. A complete stranger, a police officer, with a spare room. It sounded a little too convenient. You leaned back in your chair, phone still in your hand, staring at the conversation as though another message might suddenly appear explaining where the catch was. Nothing did. Marvin's quiet confidence sitting there between a handful of sentences was the only thing you got.
If anyone else had sent that offer, you probably would've deleted the conversation and moved on. But this was Marvin. And if there was one thing you had learned over the years, it was that Marvin Branagh never recommended people lightly.
Leon's POV.
Moving into your first place was supposed to feel like the beginning of something. A fresh start, a place to call your own. At least, that was how Leon had imagined it. The reality looked considerably less graceful.
The instruction manual for the coffee table had somehow ended up upside down in his hands, which explained why he had spent nearly forty minutes trying to attach the same wooden panel three different ways before realizing the mistake. A screwdriver rested behind his ear, a handful of screws had mysteriously vanished somewhere beneath the couch, and the living room floor had disappeared beneath flattened cardboard boxes of sheets and bubble wrap.
It wasn't exactly the picture of adulthood he had hoped for. Still, he couldn't stop smiling. The house wasn't anything extravagant. A little older than he would've liked. The floorboards creaked if you stepped in the wrong place, and one of the kitchen cabinet doors refused to stay closed no matter how carefully he pushed it.
It was imperfect, but it was his. Little by little, the empty rooms had begun to fill with pieces of a life he was still figuring out how to build. Sometimes that process led to questionable decisions. Like buying twelve dinner plates because he genuinely couldn't remember how many people were supposed to own. Or discovering that bathrooms didn't somehow stay clean on their own. Or realizing that grocery shopping without a list almost always ended with too much cereal and snacks and not enough actual food.
No one had really prepared him for those parts. The academy had taught him how to handle firearms, how to write reports, how to stay calm under pressure, but no one had mentioned mildew, overflowing laundry baskets, or how strangely loud silence could become. That last one was the part he hadn't expected.
After long shifts at the R.P.D., he would unlock the front door, step inside, and be greeted by... nothing. Just an empty house waiting exactly as he had left it. The thought lingered in the back of his mind for several days before he finally brought it up to Marvin during a break at the station.
It wasn't really about the money. His salary covered the bills well enough, and renting out a spare bedroom had never really been part of the plan. "I was thinking..." Leon began, absentmindedly rolling a paper cup of coffee between his hands. "Do you happen to know anyone looking for a room?" Marvin glanced over.
Leon rubbed the back of his neck, offering the sheepish smile that always seemed to appear whenever he worried he might sound unreasonable. "I get called in a lot. Sometimes with barely any notice." He shrugged. "I'd just feel better knowing someone's there while I'm gone." Someone to notice if a pipe burst, to bring the mail inside, to water the few plants Leon managed to buy, to make sure the house wasn't sitting empty for days at a time.
Leon tried to convince himself it wasn't about having company. Marvin considered him quietly for a moment before a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I might know someone."
Y/N's POV.
The call came the following afternoon. Marvin had asked if it was alright to pass your number along. You had said yes before giving yourself too much time to think about it. Now, as the phone rang beside you, every doubt you had managed to ignore over the last twenty-four hours came rushing back at once. You answered anyway.
"Hello?" The voice on the other end was younger than you expected, a little hesitant. "Uh... hi. Is this... Y/N?" There was a brief pause before Leon politely pronounced your name. "Marvin gave me your number." His words stumbled over one another every so often, as though he were trying very hard to make a good first impression without sounding rehearsed.
It was oddly reassuring. He explained the situation much the same way Marvin had. He had recently moved into a house. There was a spare room, and his shifts at the R.P.D. were unpredictable, so having someone around while he was away would give him a little peace of mind.
Far from giving you strange conditions, an endless list of house rules, or an awkward interrogation about your personal life, he straightforwardly delivered his offer with the kind of sincerity that was surprisingly difficult to fake.
You found yourself relaxing before you even noticed. The conversation lasted only a few minutes, long enough to agree that meeting in person made more sense than trying to decide everything over the phone. After hanging up, you placed the receiver back in its cradle and stared at it for a while.
Sharing a house with a complete stranger sounded like the beginning of a horror movie. Every cautionary story you'd ever heard suddenly resurfaced in your mind. What if you didn't get along? What if the person on the other end of the phone had simply been good at making first impressions? None of your questions came with answers. What you did know was that your apartment search had led nowhere. Another week of scrolling through listings wasn't going to magically change that. And if there was one thing you trusted, it was Marvin's judgement. He had never given you a reason not to.
In the end, your decision had very little to do with the house itself. It wasn't the size of the spare bedroom, or the neighborhood, or even the rent. It came down to one simple fact. You trusted Marvin with your life. If he believed Leon was someone worth living with, that was enough for you to give it a chance.
A week later, the last of your belongings sat neatly packed into cardboard boxes, ready to be loaded into the car.
Leon's POV.
Across town, Leon was convinced he wasn't ready. He had been cleaning since sunrise; the vacuum had made its way through every room twice, the kitchen counters gleamed, and the bathroom smelled so strongly of lemon-scented cleaner that he briefly wondered if he'd overdone it. He probably had. Still, he scrubbed the sink one last time, just in case.
By late morning, he had somehow convinced himself the living room looked uneven. One cushion leaned slightly farther to the left than the other. He fixed it, stepped back, frowned, swapped them around, stepped back again... It looked exactly the same.
Satisfied anyway, he moved on. The refrigerator had looked painfully empty the night before, so he'd stopped by the grocery store before heading home. Milk, bread, eggs, pasta, fresh fruit, coffee. Enough food to make it clear that the kitchen was meant to be shared. He even picked up a frozen pizza, reasoning that moving day probably wasn't the right time to attempt cooking something ambitious.
The bags still sat on the counter, waiting to be unpacked. Somewhere between organizing the pantry and searching for a missing tea towel, he realized adulthood involved far more wiping down surfaces than he'd ever imagined.
He checked the clock. Still too early. That somehow made the waiting worse. The silence that had once felt unfamiliar now buzzed with anticipation. Soon, it wouldn't be just his house anymore; another person would walk through the front door. He rubbed the back of his neck. What if the house is not enough? His gaze wandered around the living room. The furniture still didn't quite match; one bookshelf leaned ever so slightly to one side, and the curtains were a little too long. But at least it was clean and comfortable. Wasn't it?
Another thought slipped in before he could stop it. What if I'm weird? The question earned a quiet laugh from himself. He'd spent the entire morning rearranging cushions that no reasonable person would ever notice. Maybe that answered his question already. With a resigned smile, Leon grabbed the vacuum cleaner for what he promised himself would be the last time. Five minutes later, he was vacuuming the hallway again.
Y/N's POV.
By the time the last box had been loaded into the car, there was little left to do but drive. The journey felt strangely quiet. Traffic drifted past outside the window while your thoughts wandered elsewhere, circling the same questions they had for days. Would living with a stranger really be any different from sharing an apartment with random roommates? Would this actually work? Or would you be packing those same boxes again in a month?
The neighborhood Marvin had written down was quieter than you expected. Tree-lined streets stretched beneath the afternoon sun, their leaves shifting gently whenever the breeze found them. Lawns were neatly trimmed, bicycles rested carelessly against front porches, and somewhere nearby, the distant sound of children laughing carried through the warm summer air.
You slowed the car as you searched the house numbers until one finally matched the address scribbled on the folded piece of paper resting on the passenger seat. There it was, a modest little white house tucked between two nearly identical ones. The front garden had clearly been looked after recently, though not particularly well. One flowerbed seemed to have received far more attention than the other, and the welcome mat sat slightly crooked in front of the porch.
You turned off the engine. For a moment, neither you nor the car moved. The boxes waiting in the back suddenly felt heavier than they had when you'd packed them that morning. If everything went well, this would be home. If it didn't... Well. There wasn't much point thinking about that now.
Drawing a slow breath, you climbed out of the car and made your way up the short path towards the front door. Each step felt oddly significant because once you knocked, there would be no pretending this was still just an idea. Your hand hovered over the door for half a second before your knuckles finally met the wood.
One knock. Then another. Silence settled around you; nothing really happened. Maybe he was in the backyard, or he hadn't heard you. You glanced at your watch before trying again, this time a little louder. Still nothing. A faint crease settled between your brows. As you stepped back, your eyes caught the edge of the door. It wasn't fully closed, just barely. Left resting against the frame, as though someone had meant to shut it but never quite finished the motion. You hesitated. Then, gently, you pushed it open.
Leon's POV.
Leon had been winning. At least, he had been fairly certain he was. The bookshelf had looked deceptively simple inside the box. He was armed with a handful of wooden panels, a small bag of screws, and an instruction manual with smiling cartoon figures that suggested the entire process would take less than an hour.
An hour later, however, the cartoon people felt almost insulting. The living room had transformed into a battlefield of scattered tools and half-open cardboard boxes. An Allen key rested beneath the coffee table, the screwdriver had disappeared for the third time that afternoon, and several wooden shelves leaned precariously against the wall, waiting for their turn.
The dining chair he'd been using moments earlier now lay upside down a few feet away after he'd decided it was 'getting in the way'. It probably hadn't been. An open pizza box balanced dangerously close to the edge of the coffee table, one slice missing and another left half-eaten after he'd promised himself he'd take one quick break nearly twenty minutes ago.
He reached for another screw. His fingers met empty carpet. Leon blinked. "...No." He reached beside his knee. Nothing. Under the instruction manual. Nothing. Inside the nearly empty plastic bag. Still nothing.
With an exaggerated sigh, he leaned forward, patting around the floorboards as though the missing screw might simply decide to reveal itself if he searched politely enough."This has to be the same one," he muttered under his breath. It wasn't the first screw he'd misplaced that afternoon. Or the second. At this point, he was beginning to suspect the house itself was eating them.
A soft clink echoed somewhere beneath the couch. "There you are." Flattening himself against the floor, Leon stretched one arm underneath, fingertips brushing dust, cardboard scraps, and finally the tiny piece of metal that had once again escaped him. Triumph. He sat back up with a grin that lasted exactly three seconds. The instruction manual slipped from his lap, the screwdriver rolled somewhere behind him. He sighed again.
Completely oblivious to the sound of the front door easing open only a few rooms away. The house, which had been unbearably quiet all morning, had finally welcomed a second pair of footsteps. Leon never heard them, though. He was far too busy trying to convince a bookshelf to become a bookshelf.
Y/N's POV.
The door opened with little more than a quiet crack. You stepped inside cautiously, letting it fall shut behind you as your eyes adjusted to the dimmer light of the hallway. The house smelled faintly of fresh lemon cleaner. Someone had clearly spent the morning scrubbing every surface within reach. It was nice.
A few moving boxes still lined the walls, some neatly stacked, others left half-unpacked as though their owner had been interrupted halfway through deciding where everything belonged. You slipped your shoes off out of habit, balancing carefully around a toolbox abandoned near the entrance. "...Hello?" you called, your voice carrying gently through the house. No answer. Only the distant scrape of something wooden against the floor.
Curiosity pulled you farther inside. The hallway opened into the living room, and whatever picture you had built in your head over the past week disappeared the moment you rounded the corner.
The room looked as though someone had declared war on flat-pack furniture. Wooden panels leaned against the walls. Instruction manuals covered the coffee table. A screwdriver rested beneath one of the cushions for reasons you couldn't begin to guess. An upside-down dining chair occupied the middle of the room like it had every right to be there. Several tiny screws glittered across the floorboards, while one stubborn bookshelf remained only halfway assembled.
For a brief moment, you simply stood there, taking in the organized chaos. Then your eyes landed on the person responsible for it. You found Leon sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by half-built furniture and a pizza box balanced on his knee as he read the instructions for the bookshelf with a frown. His attention remained fixed on the manual for another heartbeat before he seemed to sense someone watching him.
He looked up. For the smallest fraction of a second, surprise crossed his face. Then it disappeared beneath a warm smile. This smile arrived without hesitation, bright enough to soften every trace of frustration left behind by the impossible bookshelf. It spread effortlessly across his face, open and genuine, carrying the sort of warmth that made the room feel a little less unfamiliar.
He dusted his hands, placing the empty pizza box aside before standing, as if only just realizing they were covered in sawdust, and let out a sheepish laugh. "Guess we're officially roommates now."