Archive of Our Own

“Le-Le-Leon.”

My voice came out thin and shaking. Even after all the years we had spent apart, the fear remembered him. It had never truly left me. It lived beneath my skin, sleeping lightly, waiting for his voice to wake it. Every night, the past returned as a nightmare—and God, how I wished this was another one. That soon I would wake screaming and crying, alone but safe in my own bed.

“Target acquired. Returning now.”

The sound of his voice scraped against my ears like a fork dragged across a plate. There was the cold, single-minded focus of an agent completing his mission, but beneath it sat something warmer. Hopeful. Almost disbelieving, as though some part of him had never stopped searching and could hardly believe I was finally standing in front of him.

My first instinct should have been to run.

Instead, I froze beneath the weight of his icy blue gaze. Tears were already slipping down my cheeks, hot and slow, while memories crowded behind my eyes—everything he had done, could do, would do once he got his hands on me again. His touch might as well have already been pressed into my skin. I could feel the phantom weight of his fingers, the bruising certainty of his grip. My entire body had gone still. The only thing moving was my pulse, racing hard enough to burst.

There were no words left to say. I had said them all so many times before.

No.

Stop.

Please.

No amount of begging helped.

“Stay away from me,” I managed, the words torn from my throat in a pained whisper.

He ignored me.

Why break an old habit now?

I had thought I had changed. I had promised myself that if Leon ever appeared in front of me again, I would fight. I would kick and scream. I would claw at him until my nails broke and refuse to cry when I eventually lost.

But I couldn’t move.

Why was I still trying to fool myself?

Leon paced carefully around the room like a lion circling prey too startled to run, something easy to corner and easier to devour. Desks stood in crooked rows, papers scattered across the floor beneath the pulse of red emergency lights. And what did I know? Red Umbrella was having another outbreak. Again. People were either scrambling to escape or being left behind to turn into monsters. I had been ordered to evacuate with the others.

Instead, Leon had found me almost immediately.

The only thing missing from this new hellhole had finally arrived.

He looked different now. Older. Time had finally begun to show itself in the lines around his eyes and the rough stubble shadowing his jaw. I supposed he hadn’t found the time to shave, what with the world going to hell again. Blood streaked his skin—or perhaps his skin had simply turned grey beneath the flashing lights. It was difficult to tell with the evacuation warning shrieking in my ears. His shirt might once have been blue, but beneath the dirt, sweat, and dark stains soaking through the fabric, there was no telling what colour it had started as.

He continued toward me without hurrying, his eyes never leaving mine. That was somehow worse. Leon did not need to rush. He already knew I had nowhere to go.

He slid his gun into its holster and stopped directly in front of me, lowering his gaze. His height alone was enough to make the air leave my lungs. He didn’t even have to stand straight to tower over me, broad shoulders swallowing the flashing light behind him until it felt as though the entire room had narrowed to the space beneath his shadow. I shrank without meaning to, shoulders curling inward and hands pressing tightly together as I stared at the floor, unable to look at the face I had once thought was so handsome.

My lab coat suddenly felt painfully thin. I wished I could pull it around myself and disappear inside it, hide beneath the white fabric until there was nothing left for him to find. But when Leon reached toward me, I flinched so violently my back struck the edge of the desk.

He still said nothing.

His hand closed around the Level Four keycard hanging from my neck, his knuckles grazing the fabric over my chest as he lifted it to examine the clearance. He pulled, and it snapped, echoing in the silence of the room. I held my breath, clinging to one desperate, foolish hope: that this was all he wanted. That he would take the card, turn around, and leave me behind. 

But Leon had not crossed years and an outbreak just for a keycard.

And I would rather be eaten by the monsters than be left alone with Agent Kennedy again.

Chris couldn’t possibly need me now. I had run away. I was a flight risk, no matter how useful my mind or my knowledge of the virus had once been. The cure was finished. Elpis had been made. I had already proven myself useful—the research completed, the papers written, the cure stored safely away. I had been used up, and now there was nothing left to do but toss me aside.

Doctor or not, healer or not, I couldn’t even help myself. Maybe that was why, even now, I still couldn’t run from him.

Leon S. Kennedy.

He was—was still, technically—my boyfriend. We had never broken up because he had never given me the chance. I had been an ex-Umbrella scientist, and Leon had just returned from saving the world from Las Plagas when we met. At the time, I thought it was luck finally turning in my favour.

It wasn’t. It was karma doing its job. Payment for taking so long to create a cure. The world collecting its debt from me for ever helping something so evil, even unknowingly. But when we first met, I truly thought Leon was perfect. I thought I didn’t deserve him.

I could almost laugh now.

It turned out we really did deserve each other. 

Him as the jailer, and me as his prisoner.

How small had it started? Where, exactly, had the red flags first sprouted—and how many had I stepped over without looking down? Leon had always made everything sound so reasonable. Every restriction was for my safety. Locked doors? Protection. Each choice he took from me, was one less burden I had to carry.

I think what finally woke me up was his new list of rules.

Or was it his very strange marriage proposal?

I had been so stupid back then. Stupid and—

Leon tilted my face toward him, snapping me out of my spiral of grief. He didn’t seem to know his own strength; his fingers held my jaw still while his thumb dug painfully into my cheek. A small whimper slipped from my throat, but he ignored it, slowly tracing the curve of my face as though reacquainting himself with something that already belonged to him.

“Found you, rabbit.”

How I had ever heard him call me rabbit and thought it was anything but terrifying still astounded me. Once, I had craved that silly nickname. I used to soften the moment it left his lips.

Now, Leon smiled at me with far too many teeth, and I fought the instinct to pull away. Then again, he had always enjoyed sinking those teeth into my skin. Leaving behind a claim for everyone else to see.

“No hello?” His thumb dragged slowly across my lips. “Speechless?”

There he was, for one brief moment—the old Leon. Relaxed, cocky, the corner of his mouth lifted as though he had caught me doing something harmless instead of finding me after three years apart. At least he was speaking. Silence screamed danger with Leon; it meant his anger had gone too deep for words.

Right now, he was pretending this was all some silly game. That me running away and returning to work for Red Umbrella had been nothing more than another one of my cute little antics. A long game of cat and mouse, where Leon patiently followed my trail because we both knew how it would end.

After all, I had only managed to stay hidden for three years.

My work was finished now. I supposed that meant I had no regrets left—or none that mattered anymore. Elpis was complete. Hopefully, the cure would do some good after I was gone. Save enough lives to make my soul, less darkened.

I clasped my hands tightly together as Leon’s palm settled against my cheek. I wasn’t expecting heaven. No, even if my part had been small in the T-virus, I still deserved to burn. People had died because I hadn’t found the cure quickly enough. I had delayed everything because I selfishly ran from Blue Umbrella, even after Chris had given me every resource I needed to finish it.

Leon curled his fingers around my jaw and pulled my face closer.

He leaned down for a kiss as though nothing had changed. My trembling body, wet cheeks, and tightly pressed lips were only shyness. As though three years of running had simply been foreplay.

Leon had always been good at reading people. Which meant he wasn’t failing to understand the moment. He simply didn’t care.

My ex-husband? Boyfriend, abuser, lover, monster—every version of him wrapped inside one man.

And he had finally found me.

His lips nearly touched mine before my hand closed around the nearest beaker. I swung it into the side of his head with everything I had, the glass cracking sharply against his temple. Before he could recover, I tore the keycard from his fingers.

Then I ran.

Leon growled behind me, one hand shooting out to catch me, but I ducked beneath his arm and stumbled out of reach. There was no gun in his hands, no knife, nothing that should have frightened me.

But Leon had never needed a weapon to hurt me.

Blood slipped from his temple and traced a dark path down the side of his face. He would feel that one.

ESCAPE.

The word screamed through my mind with every pounding step.

I had to get out of this place. I would never return to that man’s arms or become trapped beneath his impossible standards of what a wife should be. Because if Leon caught me again, he would make sure there was no work to hide behind, no open door, and no second chance to run.

I scanned the doors and ran through the first one that opened. The moans of monsters echoed through the corridors, close enough that I could hear nails scraping against the walls, yet the only creature that frightened me was the brunette with sharp teeth chasing after me.

Tears blurred my vision as I raced down the halls.

Now Leon knew I hadn’t been kidnapped. He knew Red Umbrella hadn’t stolen me away from him. No—it had only been pure luck that they found me after I escaped.

It didn’t matter. He was back. Why was he back? Why did he have to find me?

I was sure he had placed a tracker on me at some point. Maybe he had never truly lost me. Maybe those three years had only been another illusion he allowed me to have.

Why? Why had he chosen me?

“You have a pretty smile.”

I should never have smiled at him in the first place—

My body slammed against the wall hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. A hand closed around my throat, and suddenly my feet were dangling above the floor. My fingers automatically wrapped around Leon’s wrist, uselessly clawing at the hand holding me up as though I weighed nothing.

The older's face had gone completely still, darkened by something far worse than the shadows surrounding us. The emergency lights flickered between red and black, flashing across his blood-streaked features before swallowing them again. One eye disappeared behind the fall of his hair. The other remained fixed on me, narrowed and cold.

For one suspended second, I was so terrified by the look on his face that I forgot I couldn’t breathe.

“Running from me…” Leon’s fingers tightened around my throat, crushing my windpipe beneath his palm. “You know how I feel about running, Y/N.”

“Ugh—haa—”

The broken sound barely escaped me. It didn’t resemble the please I had been trying to force past his grip.

“Is that an apology, rabbit?” His voice remained disturbingly calm. “One isn’t going to be enough. Not after everything you put me through. Being apart from you was the worst hell I’ve ever lived through.” His thumb pressed harder beneath my jaw, forcing my face higher. “Raccoon City was a breeze compared to losing you.”

Was that supposed to be romantic?

Tears spilled down my cheeks as the question flickered weakly through my mind. My hands had begun to lose their strength, fingers slipping from his wrist before my arms fell limply to my sides. Darkness crowded the edges of my vision. My face burned, then went cold, every failed breath dragging me closer to the only escape Leon could never follow me into.

Death—

Leon released me before I could take it.

I collapsed onto the floor, coughing as a treacherous breath tore into my lungs. The air scratched through my ruined throat like shards of glass. Breathing hurt almost as badly as suffocating, but I dragged in another desperate breath anyway.

Even death, it seemed, was something Leon refused to let me choose.

“Now that you’re already on your knees—” Leon laughed under his breath. He drew his gun and fired past me, shooting an infected that had begun dragging itself down the hall without even bothering to look. Its body struck the floor with a wet thud. “You can apologize, Y/N.”

I stiffened at the gunshot, my ears ringing. Was he fucking joking? He wanted to do this now? With infected wandering the halls and the entire facility collapsing around us? Spending half his life surrounded by monsters had clearly left Leon more than a little unhinged. How he had managed to hide it from everyone for so long deserved to be studied.

“No.”

His amusement vanished.

“No?”

“I’m—I’m not coming back.” My bruised throat fought against every word, but I forced them out anyway. “You can’t make—”

His hand struck my cheek before I could finish. My head snapped sideways, pain bursting across my face as I nearly collapsed against the floor.

Rule one.

Never say no.

I had almost forgotten.

No. I had wanted to forget.

“Leon, please. Stop this.” I pressed one trembling hand against my burning cheek and stared up at him through wet eyes. “I’ll give you Elpis. I’ll give you anything you want. You just can’t have me. I—I don’t want this.”

Leon rolled his eyes as though I were being difficult over something small. He ejected the empty magazine and slid another into place with smooth, practised ease, never once looking away from me.

As though my refusal was no more dangerous than the infected roaming the halls. Simply another problem he already knew how to handle.

“We’re returning home.”

Not home. No, no, no—not home. Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks, my swollen eyes barely able to remain open. Leon reached for my hand, but I tore it away and dragged myself back across the floor.

“No! I’d rather be infected than stay with you again!” I screamed.

Silence.

Oh, fuck.

Leon rose to his feet. For one foolish, hopeful moment, I thought he had decided to give up. Then he turned and started down the hall without sparing me another glance.

A broken hiccup caught in my bruised throat.

He had the keycard. I was trapped, and my body refused to move. I pressed a trembling hand against my neck and flinched at the slightest touch. Leon had never choked me before. At least, not like that. There had been times when he wanted me quiet. Times when his hand settled around my throat, firm enough to remind me it was there. I had known Leon was capable of many things. Cruelty had been one of them.

But I never thought—

A wet snap echoed through the corridor, followed by the low, gargling moan of an infected. I went completely still.

I had to get up. I had to run.

What was the point?

I was dead either way. Still, I planted my palms against the floor and tried to force my shaking legs beneath me. And failed.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor.

My eyes widened.

The infected—and Leon.

He held the creature by the back of its neck as though it weighed nothing, dragging it toward me with slow, taunting steps. Its arms clawed uselessly through the air while its ruined jaw snapped again and again, teeth scraping together as it tried to twist toward Leon—and then toward me.

Its mouth stretched wider when he brought it closer.

“For you, rabbit.” Leon’s lips curved into something that almost resembled a smile. “Not that you deserve a gift.”

I tried to crawl backward, my palms slipping against the blood-smeared floor.

“Le-Le-Leon?”

Could he even hear me over the creature’s snarls and snapping teeth? Of course, he could.

He dragged it nearer.

“What are you—”

Leon forced the infected down with brutal ease, driving his knee into the back of its neck until its body collapsed beneath him, limbs twitching uselessly against the floor. Then his hand closed around my wrist.

“No—”

He pulled my arm forward.

The creature’s jaw snapped inches from my fingers, strings of dark saliva spilling from its mouth as it strained toward exposed skin. Hungry. Desperate to tear into me.

I threw my weight backward, clawing at Leon’s hand with my free one, but his grip never shifted.

“Leon, stop! Please!”

He had heard me say I would rather be infected than go home with him. And in some sick, cruel corner of his mind, he had decided to grant my wish.

“You’d rather be infected than be with me?” Leon’s grip tightened around my wrist, dragging my hand another inch closer to the creature’s mouth. “Fine.”

“Stop!” I screamed, twisting desperately as he held me there, nearly dangling me over its snapping teeth.

“I’ll give you exactly what you asked for.” His voice rose, something wild and broken slipping through it. “If you won’t stay with me like this, then I’ll infect you. You’ll want me then, won’t you? I’ll feed you pieces of myself, little by little, and you’ll never be satisfied.” A terrible smile pulled across his face. “You’ll spend the rest of your life hungry for me. And if that’s the only way I can keep you, then so be it.”

Insane. He was insane.

“No! Leon, no!”

The infected jerked toward me, its rotting jaw snapping shut so close that I felt its breath against my fingers. Blackened saliva stretched between its teeth as Leon forced my hand nearer.

“Leon, don’t do this!” I sobbed.

But the look in his eyes told me he would. There was no hesitation there. No disgust. No trace of the man who had once fought so hard to keep the infection away from innocent people. He stared at me with the feverish certainty of someone who had already decided this was love.

“Leon—Leon, please! I’m sorry!” The words tore out of me so quickly I could barely breathe between them. “I’m sorry I ran. I’m sorry about everything. Please don’t infect me. I want to be with you. I do—I want to go home.”

For one horrible second, nothing changed.

Then Leon drew his gun.

The shot exploded through the corridor.

The infected’s head snapped down, and what remained of the man collapsed beneath Leon’s knee, finally still. Dark blood sprayed across the floor and speckled my lab coat.

Leon released my wrist slowly.

His expression softened almost at once, as though he had not just threatened to turn me into a monster. As though my terror had simply been a tantrum he had finally corrected.

“There,” he murmured, brushing his thumb over my shaking fingers. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? See? I knew you’d choose me over this.”

Leon glanced down for only a moment, but there was nothing human in the way he looked at the body. He didn’t see the infected as someone who had once lived, once had a name, a family, life. To him, it was only a thing. A lesson. Something he had used to frighten me back into place.

I covered my face with both hands and sobbed. Squeezing myself tight.

Already, I was falling into the same old patterns. Saying whatever kept him calm. Making myself smaller, giving him what he wanted before he found another way to take it. I really hadn’t changed at all.

“That’s my girl.” I sniffled as Leon stroked the top of my head, his touch almost gentle. “But that isn’t all you have to apologize for.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I repeated automatically, the words leaving my mouth before my own ears could believe them.

Leon lifted me as though I weighed nothing and carried me farther down the hall. He scanned the keycard against the nearest door, opening a small patient room untouched by the worst of the outbreak. A crooked grin pulled at his mouth before he sat on the edge of the bed and lowered me onto the floor between his knees.

His hand settled against the back of my head, guiding me forward until my cheek rested against his thigh.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

Leon smirked, plainly enjoying every apology. His fingertips combed slowly through my hair, rewarding me like an obedient animal, before his thumb swept beneath my eye to wipe away the tears. His hands were still covered in blood.

“You’ve been lacking structure,” Leon murmured, his fingers continuing to comb through my hair. “But we’ll fix that when we get home. For now, let’s start with the rules.” He tilted his head, watching me with that patient look he used when he already knew the answer. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you? You still remember them?”

I swallowed against the pain in my throat.

“Never say no.”

Leon pressed a kiss to the top of my head, warm and approving.

“Be polite. Do what you say, and no…” A shudder ran through me, the last rule catching behind my teeth. “No running away.”

His hand slid down to my neck again. He didn’t choke me this time. He merely rested his palm over the tender bruises, his fingers fitting around the sore flesh as though reminding me how easily he could.

“And you broke every one of those rules.” His hand squeezed.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you don’t mean that.” His thumb stroked the side of my throat, almost tender despite the ache it left behind. “My precious rabbit was still trying to run from me. My Y/n would be running right now if I hadn’t caught her.”

“S—”

His palm cracked across my cheek.

“Shut up,” Leon growled.

The door behind us rattled violently in its frame. Something struck it from the other side, followed by the wet scrape of nails and a low, hungry moan. There was only one thing it could be.

Leon did not even turn his head. The infected were familiar to him. Predictable. Barely worth his attention.

“And you remember what I said would happen if you ran?”

I sobbed harder, my bruised throat closing around every sound.

“That’s right.”

Leon lifted me onto the narrow patient bed before moving leisurely around the room, gathering whatever he needed. He poured peroxide over the axehead, wiped away the old blood, then began sharpening the blade with slow, measured strokes. He was being careful. Methodical. Even with all that preparation, there was still a chance I could become infected—but why wouldn’t I? Why should anything spare me now?

“I’m going to chop off my little runaway’s leg,” he said almost cheerfully, “so she can never leave me again.”

The axe slammed into the mattress beside my face.

A scream tore from me as the bed shook beneath the force of it. Leon only smiled, wrenching the blade free as though he had made some harmless joke and was waiting for me to laugh. There was no point in begging. Leon had already decided. Once he convinced himself something was necessary, there was no argument, no amount of crying, that could drag him back. There was hardly any point in fighting, either.

I squeezed my eyes shut as he forced a folded strip of cloth between my teeth. So I wouldn’t break them. Hopefully, I would bleed to death. But knowing my luck, I would survive. Leon would make certain of it. He would keep me healthy enough to live with what he had done.

I turned my face away while he calmly continued preparing, checking each item as though following a list inside his head—the dos and don’ts of cutting off your wife’s leg. Stop the bleeding. Prevent infection. Keep her alive.

Tears soaked into my hair. Phantom pain already burned through my leg, though the axe had not touched me yet. My body knew what was coming before it happened, every muscle trembling beneath the weight of it. Leon hushed me, brushing back my hair.

When I finally looked back, Leon stood at the foot of the bed with the axe resting loosely in his hands. And he was smiling.

Blinding pain tore through me.

The axe struck flesh with a wet, brutal force, but my leg remained attached. Agony ripped from my hip to my toes, so violent that for a second I couldn’t understand where my body ended, and the pain began.

Leon stared down at the wound.

“Hm.” He tilted the bloodied blade, almost disappointed. “I was hoping one clean hit would do it.”

A scream forced itself around the cloth in my mouth, strangled and broken. My entire body bucked against the bed, but Leon planted one hand against my stomach and held me down without effort.

“Easy, rabbit.” His voice remained horribly calm. “You’ll only tear it worse.”

I didn’t dare look. I could feel the warmth spreading beneath me, soaking through my clothes and gathering against the thin mattress. Leon was saying something else, but I couldn’t hear him over the pulse roaring inside my ears.

His hand slid down to pin my thigh in place, fingertips pressing dangerously close to the wound.

“You made this necessary,” he murmured. “Remember that. I gave you a home. I gave you rules simple enough to follow, and you still ran.” His thumb stroked once over my trembling leg, almost affectionate. “Maybe you’ll think about that before trying it again.”

I sobbed around the gag.

Leon lifted the axe once more.

“Almost finished. Just two more swings, and then you’ll never have to worry about running from me again.”

“Kennedy!”

Chris?