Re X Reader - Blog Posts

mojo pin ; leon s kennedy

author's note: so uhm i'm an idiot and unhealthily obsessed with this man so i wrote this thing at 4am. listened to an ungodly amount of jeff buckley. yes this is a bsd account but i do write multifandom. more in my master list (still wip fml) enjoy!!

The sensation of blood rests sticky on his fingertips. When he scrambles to wipe it, he somehow feels more dirty than before, sullying everything that receives the tainted touch. The wound of disgust that presses ever so relentlessly into his chest, the knife of shame that he twists further within him; will the pain make it right?

Every sound grows dull by the time it reaches his ears. Sharp orders and rapid gunshots melt into a common noise, a cacophony that pushes his legs to run to wherever he's instructed to, that reload another magazine into his gun. In the brief second that passes before the body hits the ground with a thud that is lost among the chaos; the act of aiming is the only one that feels conscious in the moment of concentration.

The instant where life shatters like fragile glass and feels no more consequential than a coffee cup broken on the floor. Because it's so easy to take a life, because he is supposed to do so. In the unrecognisable, necrotic bodies that dot the floor of the laboratory and paint it's white canvas with sanguine, there is nothing human. Only a decrepit shell of what could've been. The weight that sits on his chest and permeates every cavity and every vessel feels like a complete embrace. Leon is aware that it is not guilt. For guilt implies that he would do things differently if there were a choice. 

Even if he would've, nothing would have changed. It would be another man standing here, with no future left to live for and a past mired with the same familiar taint on his hands. Ultimately, there would be no difference if it were him or someone else, for there are certain things in this world that nobody wants to do but have to be done. Only the instant where the man is reduced to a vessel remains, where he is no more living than a knife or a gun. It doesn't matter if there were choices that could've set him on a different path, or if the future has chosen a better trajectory. For he's already been deconstructed into something inglorious, visceral, instinctual; the need to survive. 

It's clear, this feeling isn't quite guilt. It doesn't feel like something that evolved in him by itself, but rather was inflicted, time and time again. The sticky wound that's comforting in it's sting and warmth, for it reminds him that there is something vulnerable in him that is capable of being harmed, that there is something he has to lose. The reminder of fragile flesh is something that is entirely his. This body may never be free from harm; but the sting of it's cuts remind him that it's still his.

The moment no longer holds the same clarity as it did a few minutes back. It must be a trick of the eye that the ceiling seems to melt into the floor as he continues to run, that the world gets less clear with the growing distance. And just when he is convinced his body will finally break down and give into the sweet embrace of the cold laboratory floor, all is silenced at once.

The illusion breaks as his eyes open, and what greets him is not a laboratory covered in gore, but the pristine walls of his own room glazed in the cool tones of moonlight. A figure uncertain and blurred, something touching his face, velvet soft and barely there. Your face appears unfamiliar when veiled by the sheen of tears in his eyes, those that are still dripping without his consent. It fills him with sense of shame, not due to the act of crying—he has never felt weak for allowing himself that solace—but for getting caught. Your hazy features linger in his gaze; concerned no doubt, this is already a common occurrence for the both of you. In the soft light, you seem more like an apparition, something dreamlike. You will disappear when he wakes up from this delusion too.

Won't you?

His tears are wiped quickly, though not without thought. Leon isn't stupid enough to entirely dismiss how you treat him. There has always been uncertainty in your hands whenever you have reached out to him, vascillating between a gentle touch and a ghostlike graze; as if you don't know how to touch him. As if he was something to treat carefully, like he could break any more than he already has. You treat him like something that can be salvaged. It's not something he can understand, but he knows it everytime you touch him. Sometimes, he feels like he's sustaining off your faith alone. He resents it so much, the taste of you is bitter on his tongue and he's sure he doesn't like feeling this weak, but he needs it. He's always known that he's needed it.

His blue eyes take in the exhaustion that lingers on your own; you couldn't sleep again. You never get tired, and he can't remember the last times he's been anything but tired. He isn't surprised when you don't ask him about why he's crying, why his hands feel cold and clammy or why his heart is racing in his chest like it's begging to be set free of the mortal confine, to render itself apart from bone and flesh— you question none of it because you know as well as he does that he doesn't want to remember. 

Leon can only do what he knows best. Take your hand away from his face, press a finger to your mouth when you're about to speak. Then pull you back to bed, making you lay down once again. "Just a bad dream. Don't think about it." Doesn't bother distinguishing whether he's trying to convince you or him. After a certain point, he had accepted that it doesn't matter. Your presence felt so natural , it might as well just be his.

Your affection feels the same as the weight that compresses his chest. But yours is not the warmth of an open wound or a bitter anger. Yours is that of the hot knife that cuts the heaviness in his chest like butter. You make yourself a spot in the gallery of broken hopes and missed opportunities that he calls his heart and purify the rot within. He wishes you could depollute him entirely. Twist that hot knife in deeper so that perhaps you could kill the source of his regret too. 

But he's no longer that naive. There is no curing his disease. His regrets are not something that can be chased away by basic kindness. He's learning to live with it, and this he knows has little to do with you. He'd only ever change if he wanted to. But he can't deny how your touch makes him feel, how it eases the moral rot that clings to his hands, face, hair—wherever blood that isn't his own had touched—and takes off it's taint, even just for a moment. 

He can hear you silently complaining when you're trapped in his grip. You're being unreasonable, honestly, it's a work night and you still think it's a good idea to not get any rest? 

"Come on, just go to sleep, you know you gotta get up early tomorrow."

"I'm gonna call in sick."

"Well I'm not, so stop moving so much."

You halfheartedly joke that he's being unfair to you, and all he can do is smile faintly as he hides his bloodshot eyes in your hair. Tonight, atleast, he won't let you go till you fall asleep. Even if it means he has to listen to you make smartass comments for a few more minutes. It's worth it when you can't help but close your eyes, and he can rest too. This body will never be safe from harm, but he always knows that you won't shy away from putting back the pieces of it together. All complete with a gentle touch.