Like a tattoo | leon kennedy x fem reader

Chapter XXX - honeymoon

The sun hadn't reached its peak over the horizon, yet something made you wake from your slumber. You felt a sense of absence in the bed beside you. Reaching to expect to feel his presence, your hand was met with the empty spot where Leon lay.

Startled like the time before, you rise with drowsiness. To your surprise, you see him across the room, arms crossed, looking directly at the fire he built before him. The silhouette of his body is the only feature you can draw out. With a sigh, you take your robe to wrap your unclothed body and approach him.

By the sound of your footsteps and the feeling of your touch surrounding him, Leon turns his head halfway to look at you.

"Couldn't sleep..." You ask him in a whisper like a lullaby as your voice still catches up.

"No." He answers bleakly and steps away to slump on the sofa behind you both. It's routine at this point. Endless nights of insomnia and flashes of memories the brain couldn't simply process. Even after years have passed, it never left. It was exhausting. Yet, at least he wasn't alone. You understood it completely. Maybe more than he knows.

"Wanna drink?" You ask him.

"Please..." Leon agrees with a scoff, and you prepare a drink for the two of you to ease the crowded mind.

Slowly walking back to him, you admire his work in the fireplace. Already, your skin warms from the heat. To distract him from his thoughts, you compliment him.

"You build a nice fire." you hand him the drink, his hand placed against your waist while his attention is on you. Leon positions his arm around you as you sit on the sofa beside him. He briefly grins as he recollects the memory from your comment

"When I was younger...my father taught me that placing the wood a certain way won't burn out as fast," Leon tells you.

You look at him with a surprised expression. Not once has he ever talked about his family. At this moment, you realize you never really knew too much about his past.

"Tell me about them," you begin, and Leon turns his head, perplexed. "Tell me about your family,"

Immediately, his face broods and his body remains still. "I can, but...there isn't much." He starts and swigs a sip of his drink. "My parents died when I was young. They were...caught up in the crossfires during a drug exchange. Talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time." there was a hint of humor in his tone, but you could tell these have been poorly patched-up wounds that have scarred over time.

Was there ever a point in this man's life where he lived without pain and sorrow?

"Leon...I'm sorry-." You begin as you regret ever asking, but he stops you.

"It's okay. It was a long time ago. You didn't know." He soothes and fixes your hair. You watch the flames dance on the reflection of his irises as he gazes upon the fire again. "But that's the main reason I became a cop. I could one day save others from what killed my parents." Leon swiftly changes his glances to you and then back at the fire. "Before, of course-" he didn't need to finish a sentence to which you already knew the answer.

"Before my father..." you answer. It wasn't the answer he was expecting, but it was true. After the president's election, Leon trained to work under his orders. The training alone is not made for the weak.

"You could say that," Leon replies with a weak smile, slowly bringing the drink to his mouth.

"...what happened...after you rescued me?" you inquire with coy.

Leon explained that your father assigned him to two other missions spanning the two years before he came back to D.C. No one knew of his location. One mission dealt with a bio-terrorist attack in Harvardville airport and another in Pittsburgh. All with trails of the T-virus infecting the residents. These past eight years, all he's known and witnessed was death. The amount of bloodshed was unimaginable.