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m4nd0l0r · 10 months

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#6F417E | EARTH-42 MILES MORALES.

genre | fluff / reader is gn

synopsis | miles found you fainted in an alleyway one day, except you died two years ago.

word count | 3090

warning | everything i know about e-42 miles morales (and just this spiderverse) is from the movies

note | tentatively there're 5 parts to this story... thank you for reading :)

parts | one, two

The streets in the morning were less eerie than at night, which you supposed was a given fact. It was like that back on your Earth too. One significant difference you found between your Earth and this Earth was that, while both were crowded, the general architecture of this Earth looked like they were on its last leg. There were more old and rusty gates than reflective and clean glass doors, and most buildings were held together through an abandoned construction process with no safety measures taken.

Miles told you once that if the buildings hold, they hold. It took you a while to let that mindset sink in. When you realized your overthinking wouldn’t magically strengthen the morale around this place, nor would it collapse one of the dusty-looking buildings as you so feared, you stopped thinking too deeply about it. You would get jumpy occasionally, though, like if a few steel construction poles holding a balcony together start shivering in the wind. He never visibly laughed, but trust that he was always amused at your caution.

“What about this one?” you asked, holding a sweater before your torso and turning to him. “I like this one. It’s cute!”

Miles peered at you, his hands shoved deep in his jacket pocket where he was safekeeping the money his mother gave him to do clothing shopping with you. The corners of his mouth pulled into a frown immediately. “It looks tacky.”

You mirrored his frown, but yours were defeated rather than mischievous. “You have something mean to say about everything.”

“For good reason,” he said with a shrug. “You have terrible taste.”

He wouldn’t be too wrong about that. Fashion was never your forte, but you did wonder if it could be when personal interest and financial budget were no longer an issue. You laughed under your breath; that felt like a faraway dream. Carefully putting the sweater back on the hanger, you made a point to scoff directly at his face.

“I really don’t see how that’s tacky,” you said. “Is the sweater tacky, or am I?”

“Oh, I can’t answer that,” he replied with a faux sympathetic smirk. He bent to your eye level and added, “Won’t wanna be mean.”

If he was taunting you, playfully so, it wasn’t successful. One thing you learned about Miles in these past few months of living with him was that he was all bark and no bite. All you have to do is level his stare for just a bit too long for comfort—you squinted your eyes, your nose scrunching as an afterthought, then abruptly stomped a foot forward. He immediately jumped back, but he did it to avoid hitting the tip of your nose with his, not because you successfully scared him.

His eye twitched in dismay when you smiled triumphantly before turning around and running out of the store, dropping a quiet trail of snickers through your lips. Miles faintly clicked his tongue into a grin, which he had to physically rub off his face. After spending these months with you, save for the paranoia-inducing glitches you have been doing occasionally, he has mostly settled with your presence being a constant.

There was a spot for you in his twin-sized bed, at the dining table in the living room, and even on the chores list! Your prolonged stay was not anticipated, nor was your infiltration into his life to such an intimate degree. At some point, Miles completely tore his walls down to let his heart run astray, and the first place it ran to was you. The only issue now was whether you returned his feelings, and that was a question he couldn't even begin to pick apart.

"It's so nice to put a face to a name.” Seconds after he left the store, he could recognize a voice. "Oh, yes. Miles talks about you all–"

"Gwen!"

Realization hit him with the hallucinated impact of a train entering a pitch-black tunnel. He bolted out to the street where you and his partner in crime (literally) stood, his arms stretched out so he could cover your ears just before Gwen could finish her sentence. You looked up just as your shoulders were hunched at the icy feel of his hands, and you saw Miles utter something through gritted teeth at the bemused girl you just met.

“You’re not funny!”

“Thank you, Miles. I try my best,” Gwen retorted with a satisfied smirk, then her gaze bounced down to you, and she scoffed in disbelief. “You’re right, though. They do look exactly alike. It’s uncanny.”

“They’re the same person,” he clarified, “just from a different Earth.”

“I know,” Gwen shrugged, “but you’d think they would at least have a different style.”

“They’re wearing my clothes. How would you know?”

“They’re wearing your clothes?”

Miles pursed his lips as he let go of your ears, subconsciously rubbing them through a brief caress before his arms fell to his sides. You widened your eyes in surprise when the cold Brooklyn air and the chattery street returned to your senses; it didn’t occur to you how much pressure he applied to muffle your ears until sounds came back to you. Shifting his weight and heaving a dramatic exhale, Miles let his friend know how little bullshit he was willing to take from her this day, especially when it came to jokingly expose his feelings for you. Gwen’s smirk stayed for a moment longer before she narrowed her eyes and gave a knowing nod; it was all for good fun. She understood the implication of someone like Miles falling in love.

“What are you guys up to?” Gwen asked, changing the subject.

“We’re buying clothes,” you replied, clarifying with an indignant huff. “Or we would be if he wasn’t vetoing everything I suggest.”

“Their taste is awful,” Miles retorted without looking at you. He was speaking to Gwen.

“A tacky shirt means I won’t have to take from your closet anymore,” you said, exasperated. You threw your arms up to smack his face with the overly long sweater sleeves before rolling them back up to your wrists, where you folded the hems twice to keep them from sliding over your hands. “Look at your clothes! They’re big on you, and they’re big on me!”

Gwen pulled a face in agreement. “You do like oversized clothes, Miles.”

“Thanks for the unsolicited input,” Miles smiled, “much appreciated.”

The tension zapping between their fake smile and glaring stare was palpable. To your dramatic lenses, at least. You switched between the two of them, your eyes darting back and forth as your mind raced to find some kind of a conclusion to their relationship. If Miles was in love with the previous version of yourself, and they have since died, then the next possible candidate would likely be Gwen depending on how closely related they were. Or perhaps you were wrong all along! Miles told the truth when he said he was only good friends with ‘you’ because his heart belonged to this girl across from you!

“What are you two?” you asked, promptly breaking their eye contact.

“Oh? We–uhh,” she awkwardly tugged a piece of hair behind her ear and glanced at Miles, “we work together?”

Miles frowned at Gwen for a split second before he nodded. “We work together.”

“Colleagues!” You crossed your arms and stared off into the distance. You ignored Miles when he began asking questions about what you were doing. “Colleagues… there is much to discuss… yes.”

“What?” He waved his hand in front of your face. “What are you yapping about?”

“I think someone is getting the wrong idea about us,” Gwen said, failing to hold back a chuckle. She watched Miles roll his eyes as if you’ve always gotten the wrong idea about everything and smiled faintly to herself; she had not seen him this expressive in a while. Having a paralyzed face was his thing ever since grief took over. Looking away, she directed the conversation to you instead. “Hey, how is the glitching treating you?

You clapped your hands suddenly and tilted your head, ignoring the way Miles jumped in disbelief that you responded to Gwen and not him. You had no idea she knew of your glitching, but if Miles trusted her enough to let her on your identity, she must be someone you could count on. Nodding, you looked down at your hands and grimaced. “They’ve slowed down, thankfully. I don’t like the feeling of it.”

There were no words to describe how the glitching felt because you simply were not for a moment. It was the act of your existence being pulled apart manifested into a colorful and pixelated view for a third-party observer. The dimensional sight of it tricked people into thinking there was an experience to undergo, but there wasn’t, technically. You were glitched out of existence and then glitched back into reality. Your body and soul were pulled apart at the seams, separated into atoms and molecules of nothingness, and your mind wasn’t fast enough to catch up with its erasure that for a split second, you understood your oblivion before being forcefully put back on your feet.

You were thrown into uncontrollable sobs the first few times you glitched. The process was all but a mere few seconds, but the aftermath was Miles staying up all those nights until you fell asleep first, holding his breath whenever you stirred in your sleep, and wishing he was capable enough to stop your face from getting stained by tears. You have mostly gotten used to the feeling, but that did not eliminate the grotesque urge to barf every time you glitched.

“Hmm…” Gwen rubbed her chin in thought at your reaction. She has been helping with figuring out what to do to stop you from glitching entirely, but the urgency of it all greatly stumped her thinking process. She worked well under pressure, not one of her friend’s many paranoid rambles about you dying. “The multiverse is difficult to figure out, but I think I have a few ideas I’d like to try.”

Miles turned to her with anticipation. “You have something?”

“It’s not a definitive something,” Gwen said as she stepped away from his prying eyes. “It’s more of a hypothesis.”

“We can test it out,” he urged, eyes glimmering unfamiliarly. “Having something is better than nothing.”

“My problem is more about [Name] being the only person who can prove that what we made worked,” she said with a shake of her head. “I will not have them wear something that might kill them.”

There was a downward shift in the air as the Brooklyn cold froze over. Your eyes darted about at the drop of tension. The change in Gwen’s voice and how Miles’s feet shuffled so he didn’t have to maintain an awkward standing position were not lost on you. There was a shared sorrow that neither has opened up to you about. With Gwen avertinig her eyes and the gentle drop in her confidence, you couldn't have been mistaken that she also knew you well before you died. Deducing from her last sentence, these two might be why you met your end.

“We should give it a try anyway,” Miles muttered. “If it works, it’ll really help them.”

You halted the inward debate on whether you should give a say in their conversation. You couldn’t begin to understand the science they would have to figure out to stop your paranormal glitching, even if they decided to discuss the plan with you. It still surprised you that Miles has the smarts good enough to be on his way to prestigious universities. He has been so regular—he went to school, lazed about the chores, and was afraid of his mother for reasons you now understand. Either way, your best bet was to trust that these two only had your best interest in mind.

You smiled at Gwen and gave her two encouraging thumbs-ups when she glanced at you with what you could consider millennia of uncertainty. Her stoic brows relaxed as nostalgia packed her body into itself upon getting hit in the face, once again, with your familiar features. Two years of unresolved grief and self-blame, two years of longing for a friend, and everything dissolving into one innocent smile and two thumbs-up. Miles did not overstate his whiplash when he saw you because she was feeling it too.

“I’ll gather everything I have and bring them over tonight,” Gwen said. “I have some stuff to do, so I’m gonna go. I’ll see you tonight, Miles, and, uh–“ she waved, for a farewell that felt long overdue–“goodbye, [Name].”

Her soft features remained in your head as her back faded into the crowd. The noticeable sorrow in her eyes whenever she looked at you further reinforced your assumption that you two, at least, used to be friends. A sense of pride for yourself from this Earth blossomed deeply in your chest, and you felt giddy knowing that you could maintain a genuine friendship with Gwen. But, more than that, you admired how her face glowed even under the chillingly dark sky and how her voice spoke like the texture of crumbled silk being smoothed over with a kind hand. Her delicate features plagued your head because you thought she was pretty.

“I like her,” you said with a small smile playing on your lips.

“I do, too,” Miles hummed in acknowledgment. He reached down to grab your hand so you wouldn’t get a chance to run off again, and you let him. “Not in the way you think I do, though.”

Question marks popped into the crease of your forehead as you looked up at him, acting incredulous now that you found out your self-curated romantic fantasy based off of one simple interaction between two people whose relationship you have no detail on read like an open book to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he retorted as he raised your intertwined hands to point a finger at you. “You need to stop acting a fool.”

You squeezed his hand extra tight and huffed in dissatisfaction when he was barely affected by your abysmal strength. Taking a deep breath, you forced an embarrassing, wise chuckle and said, “Love is supposed to make you do stupid things.”

“Tell me when the love is there.”

“Ugh,” you groaned and pursed your lips to silence yourself. Observing passersby as a distraction, you managed to keep quiet for a few stores before bashfully inching closer to Miles, who sighed knowingly. “You really don’t have any feelings for her? Not even a little?”

“No.”

“Ugh!” Your groan was less annoyed this time. “What a waste! I don’t understand!”

“You’re really hell-bent on this,” he mentioned as his legs stopped. He turned his body to you with wilful ignorance that he was forcing both of you to block everyone from walking down the middle of the street. He raised a brow, questioning. “I don’t like her like that. What don’t you understand?”

You felt a rare intimidation through his gaze, so you looked toward the direction Gwen left, chasing the image of a girl you tried not to feel envious of. Miles watched your eyes soften, but it was not the cause of relaxation but rather deep thinking that you forgot a world was happening around you. He waited patiently for you to return to him, anticipating your words. He always anticipated what you have to say, about anything, to the point it was foolish that he would wait for you to point out to him that an apple was red and a banana was yellow.

“I don’t know,” you whispered loud enough for him to hear. “She’s so pretty.”

The thought that it never crossed his mind might baffle you, but it never did. Gwen was pretty, but to Miles, that was an undeniable fact rather than something sentimental. Or, at least, it used to be. The fact that she was pretty immediately became a jagged blade that threatened to cut your perception of his feelings for you after what you said. He was less than fond of it, and, unfortunately, he also has no idea how to keep you from being cut with it.

It was a shame that you couldn’t see him the way he saw and knew himself.

How no matter the tap water he splashed on his face and the flower-scented soap he applied on his hands, the only thing to truly rinse him of the grotesque, metallic stain of a purple mask was the double weight on his bed. How taking his prowler suit off could never rid him of the criminal identity the same way he could forget about it when he sat before the television folding laundry with you. How the heavy stomps of his feet treading down a path of crime and the terrified breathing of almost having his life taken from him could be so easily drowned out by the seamless way his voice weaves into the sound of your laugher as if you two were made for each other.

You didn’t know the way he ached to sink himself into your presence, to relearn the world through your eyes and let you remind him that an apple was red and a banana was yellow, and how he would carve your face into his own so he would never forget you after you leave this Earth.

Miles’s heart was rebirth into the shape of yours, and you thought Gwen was pretty.

“There is nothing to it,” he said, clutching your hand to never let go. “She’s pretty. It’s empty.”

You slowly turned away from the street to look at him and smiled at his serious reaction. The dim sky tore open to let the sun kiss you, a tenderness he yearned to give you but couldn’t muster up the genuine courage to, so he only stared at you with endearment written all over his face in a language you haven’t learned to read.

“Come on, let’s go back to get the sweater you want,” he muttered.

“You said it was tacky.” You followed behind closely as he dragged you by the hand.

“Exactly,” he mused, “you two are a perfect fit.”

You squeezed his hand in retaliation, but all he could feel was how perfectly they fit together. Maybe even better than you and that sweater.

#oh my god #miles morales x reader

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m4nd0l0r · 11 months

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to be honest with you...

pairing: leon kennedy x reader word count: 850+ reader summary: you cant help yourself and tell leon the truth, you like him a bit too much than just a casual fling. warning: this sat in my drafts so here it is notes: not pining for once. just a bit short and sweet before i drop the most emotionally destructive drabble ive inflicted on myself:(

“I think I like you.”

The words just came out, almost as if you couldn’t help yourself. Your body was pressed against his, you were on top of him; fingers had just traced his collarbone.You blinked at him, your eyes wide as you realized just what you had said.

The two of you weren’t anything official. It started with meet-ups every now and then, bodies intertwining with each other for emotional comfort. The nights would always end with the two of you sleeping next to each other, clinging onto the other as if to cram in as much physical touch before the sun came up. The two of you always hated mornings, but for various reasons. Leon never liked mornings because it meant he had to leave. You hated mornings because you would have to kill the feeling in you that this was more, meant more than just being a casual thing.

You swore that you wouldn’t meet him more after the tenth time, it was always on his accord, his rules. He would be the one to reach out, he would be the one to reply hours later after you ask him simple questions- it was never easy to get to him (you never knew why), but god, it was easy to be with him. His hands were always placed on your body perfectly, he always knew where to touch, where to be and when. It’s like he set his eyes on you, and he just knew how to treat you, to adore you, to love you. Parts of you would die for him, and you always figured it was because the two of you never just settled with ‘fucking’ each other, it had to be more.

Your eyes would always lock with each other, hands clasping and bodies pressing desperately against each other; almost as if to carve a part in the other. It felt like love. To be filled with the desire to dig for each other, to live inside the very ribcage of the other but settling for just sex because it was as close as you were gonna get to being a part of him.

It wasn’t only about being close to each other’s bodies. It was also the fact that the two of you didn’t sleep, like at all. After every session, the two of you would lie in your bed, chatting about everything, like for example: your theory that Leon dyes his hair blonde or Leon scolding you for the way you cook your scrambled eggs in the mornings.

The routine is uncomplicated, simple yet enough:

Leon would come over. You’d kiss, sloppy kisses turn into passionate, feverish ones. It would be a stumbling battle to the bed, Leon would push you to the bed, leaving you to say: how did we actually pull it off to get here? Which was Leon’s cue to shut you up until your brain couldn’t possibly string together a sentence properly. Then, it was just mindless chatting so long into the night that the two of you would later head into the kitchen to cook a late-night snack. From there, it would just be a movie to fall asleep, or more chatting until the other went silent, usually you.

“You like me?” Leon asks, raising an eyebrow as you push yourself off his chest, scrambling for your underwear as you try to cover your body with the wrinkled, warm sheets.

“I don’t know-” you spit out, hands aimlessly patting at the floor. Where were your underwear and why did it feel like everything had gotten a lot darker? And was it always this warm in the room? You let out a whine, but suddenly you felt the warm muscular chest meet your back. A gentle hand placed on your shoulder as Leon leans into your ear, his hot air brushing your already-blushing ear.

“I know something you don’t.” He muses, and you could just hear that Leon had a smirk on his dumb, soft lips. The lips that you so desperately didn’t want to stop kissing. You close your eyes, feeling the awkward tension in your body numbing your entire body. Was this it, the slow humiliation? The painful end of your casual meet-ups that you promised you were fine with, settling for the crumbs of Leon that you could possibly get?

“What’s that?” You respond, a small tinge of reluctance as you await Leon’s disapproval, still disgruntled over the disappearance of your undergarments. Leon chuckles, plopping your underwear onto your lap as he lays himself down onto the bed again.

“That I think I like you too,” He says, and you could feel his eyes on you as you turn to look at him. The words sent a shiver down your spine, and then the lower part of your stomach began stirring. Your heart beating in your chest as you felt yourself growing needy. Without really realizing it yourself, you inch closer to him; disregarding the found underwear that was given to you by him.

“Now come over here.” he says, his voice soft and affectionate as he speaks. "I want to kiss you."

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m4nd0l0r · 1 year

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HOST.

pairing: leon kennedy x infected!gn!reader

summary: You’re rotting from the inside out, and Leon realizes the inevitable—there’s no saving you.

words: 2.6k

warnings: body horror, a lot of blood, vomiting, gore, extreme angst, NO happy ending, death :))

notes: yall remember this ask?? yeah i had to write something for it bc it was so fuvkin good. this is a ‘what if’ continuation of my enough series. a side fic of sorts, but can be read standalone.

I. INCUBATION

You haven’t slept in four days and you’re going fucking crazy. Your headache won’t leave. The anger is unmanageable. Shadows follow you from the corner of every room. Mixing NyQuil and alcohol didn't even phase you.

You haven’t slept in four days, and Leon wears his concern like battle scars. You didn’t act this way before he left, and both of you know it.

You chalk it up to stress. His stupid fucking job. Leaving you alone for weeks at a time. The worry that might have literally feasted on your brain.

Things were… bad before. You promised him you could cope with it, but sharing a man with his work, a continuous nail-in-the-coffin that he loves it more than you—there’s no compromise. There used to be, but as the months passed, he grew tired of your demands.

I’m too busy to do everything you need me to. That’s what he told you.

Shortly after, all of this started. The strife. The headaches.

You will love him, always, endlessly, even after your last breath. But you’re so angry. He is, too. Feeds off your energy, feeds into it. Hell on the job, hell at home.

You can’t do it anymore.

The night’s been wasted with you curled up beside the toilet. Trying to salvage whatever scraps of your relationship still linger—a home-cooked dinner date. You’ve thrown up for hours, nothing in your stomach but water and red wine. The fancy brand that tastes like shit but you drink anyway. Special occasions. A failing relationship.

He’s kind enough to sit next to you, back resting against the bathtub, a cup of water in hand to coat your stomach with something lest it be eaten by acid.

“We’re fighting like teenagers,” he says, wrung dry by bone-deep exhaustion. Rests a hand on your knee, sore from the hard tile.

“I know,” you croak, throat sliced with razor wire, a burning pain that prevents you from swallowing.

Another gag racks your body, sends you heaving against the toilet, and a hand soothes down your spine, back and forth between each shoulder blade. Even now, despite everything, his touch brings you comfort. He’s still here.

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better.”

You turn your head, enough to spot him from the corner of your eye. “I don’t need you to try, Leon. That’s not good enough anymore.”

“Then I will. I’ll do better.”

You take a deep breath. The pain in your chest burns like hot coals. A branding iron. “Swear to me.”

He looks at you, with your blood-shot eyes and spit-slick chin and sweaty face, and he refuses to shy away. Still loves you despite everything. “I swear.”

II. PRODROME

The headaches escalate to migraines. Jackhammer pain, brain-spewing pressure. The light burns. Your short-term memory is shot.

You might be dying—a potentiality that you welcome.

He frets over you like a mother hen. Worry turns to fear—something about the possibility of malignancy, letting it go too long, no need to suffer. But you suffered with migraines as a child, and you know that this will pass.

For the first time since you’ve known him, he declines work calls. Every day for two weeks. Trying, he said. Doing better.

“Leon, they’ll fire you.”

He joins you in bed, massages a hand over the expanse of your back. “Trust me, they won’t.” A soft smile, like the Leon you remember. Yours. “I’m too valuable.”

“I’m well aware.”

He sighs. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve been shitty lately, I know. But—“

“When is it gonna be me?”

“I’m choosing you now.”

“It never lasts.”

His jaw tightens beneath the skin, an effort to bite back irritation. “You knew what it would be long before we got together. It’s never bothered you this bad.”

You know. You don’t understand it either, this thought loop you’ve taken to. Can’t help that it eats away at you, latches on like a diseased tick. All you can think about is the regret, and how unloved you feel, and then the anger sets in. The headaches shorten an already-short fuse. The nausea. It’s not fair to him—some part of your brain can still ration, see reason, understand that you’re being an asshole.

Still. Still, the thoughts refuse to leave you.

III. ILLNESS

You need to leave. Go somewhere. Somewhere impossibly dark. The darkness might help. The light burns. Hurts. Blinds you.

Curtains are tugged to a close, midnight bathes every room of the house. Better. No more thumping in your brain.

A few days later, the itching starts. Itching at your ears, nose, eyes. Allergies. The seasons change. That’s what they do. They change and people get sick and then those people get better.

Except you aren’t getting better. Worse, in fact. Every morning when you wake up, worse and worse and worse, and you think you’re dying. Rotting from the inside.

Leon calls. After the fourth ring, you smash the fucking phone to bits. He wants to see you, wants to talk to you, he can come home. God, home. Home. This isn’t your home. Never was. You should’ve known. Should’ve known.

He never wanted you—wanted someone dumb enough to warm his bed, to keep his loneliness at bay. Loyalty, unwavering reverence. Who else would it have been?

He never loved you, and his precious sheets are stained red, and the nosebleeds are the worst part of this. You’re too sick to wash them every morning, and you wake to buckets of blood. An obscene amount. You should’ve been dead two weeks ago.

He comes home one day. Not sure which one, nor what month it is anymore. But he comes home, and the sight of you leaves him slamming the front door shut. Fear consumes him, pales his face, widens his eyes. You know why. All your sleep shirts have been stained, and you appear to have just lost a knife fight. No knife, though. Just the blood. Always blood. That’s all your life consists of now. Blood and pain.

“Nosebleeds,” you say. A simple answer for an unspoken question.

He breaks apart before you. Stumbles over to the couch to brace himself when his knees threaten to buckle. “A fucking nosebleed. Have you looked at yourself?”

“I’m fine, Leon.”

“You’re not fucking fine!”

Something snaps within you. Something bitter and acrid-tasting. Something wretched and vile and animalistic.

You shove away from the dining table, knock it half a foot across the room until it thumps hard against the wall. A sweltering rage. You witness your body, the things you say, the movements you make, but this. No, god no, no—no, this isn’t you. Nausea brews heady inside your gut, makes you stumble on your path over to him.

“You have no right to walk in here after weeks of being gone—you knew, you knew I was sick, and you left anyway! And you wanna raise your voice at me? Go fuck yourself!”

You want to hurt him, snap his neck, kill him dead. But you would never. You swear, you would never. The thought of it—god, you’re gonna be sick. Never him, your love, your Leon. You suffered so long for him, to be what he needed, and you have what you want, what you’ve needed, and you wish to throw it all away. To commit the unthinkable.

He rises from the couch, stone-faced and tense. Adjusts his stance, the line of his shoulders, a recall of muscle memory, and you fucking despise yourself. He prepares a defense against you. You. You would never ever hurt him.

The nausea boils over, and you vomit at his feet, thick black sludge that congeals and bubbles and grows undulating spikes and it’s. It’s not vomit at all. Alive. Once inside you, now not.

You right yourself with a sputtering breath. Choke on a cough. “I feel better now,” you say, words slurring, every ounce of your being drained of energy. Drained of life. It seeps from your pores, evaporates somewhere between your body and his, and he catches you with a muscled arm. Has always been here as a comfort, a kept promise—except when he isn’t.

You aren’t angry anymore. He hugs you, cradles you tight against him, and you aren’t angry anymore.

You pretend not to hear the chest-wracking cries or feel tears wet your shirt.

You feel better now.

IV. INCLINE

Leon puts you in prison. A prison with headache-inducing walls, pristine and white and reflective of the fluorescents overhead. It burns. Eyes, skin, stomach. A hunger festers. Hunger for violence, for viscera, for the rip of meat between your teeth. You need a steak still dripping with blood. Something to cut your canines on.

They’ve run tests all day, maybe two. Bloodwork, full-body scans, x-rays, endoscopies, biopsies. They cleaned you up, put you in a hospital gown and loose pants. Keep you quarantined, locked away when they aren’t guinea-pigging you. Sedated every two hours.

On the other side of the glass, Leon stands, talking to a dark-haired woman you don’t recognize. He looks good enough to eat but still cries, silent tears that he sneaks to wipe away because he thinks you don’t notice. But you do. You just don’t get it.

He moves toward the door holding you captive, and the woman reaches out a hand. Says something loud, frantic, muffled through the glass. The door slides open and he steps inside.

You love him. And because you love him, you need to consume him. A deep craving that twists your stomach into blood-drained knots.

He’s sullen when he comes to you. Reminds you of the late nights at your shitty apartment, when you still hid your affections, when you thought that your love would never be enough.

Turns out it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve known—“ he clears his throat when his voice breaks, curls shaking fingers over his own knuckles. “I should’ve known something was wrong.”

“Why am I here, Leon?”

“I have a friend of a friend. Rebecca.” He nods to the woman on the other side of the glass, face twisted up in concern. Worry. “She’s trying to help you get better.”

“Then why does it sound like you’re preparing a funeral?”

He looks at you a long moment, lips curled deep into a frown. “I gotta tell you something, and I need you to be quiet until I’m finished. Okay?”

He doesn’t touch you. Crouches a foot away, body half-turned toward the door. He’s—god, he’s afraid of you. That hurts more than the month of grave-ready illness. More than the years of craving the reciprocation of his love. More than anything ever in your entire life.

He’s afraid of you.

“Okay,” you say, empty in the chest. Hollow-boned, wrought by exhaustion and pain and stomach-wrenching famine.

“My job. Why I’m gone all the time. I help the government fight things that shouldn’t exist.” He sucks in a breath. A preparation. “There’s a corporation that turns people into monsters—“ you cough out an incredulous laugh, and he shakes his head. “I know how this sounds, but I need you to listen.”

“Are you sure you shouldn’t be in here with me?”

He raises his voice, fights a desperation that seeks to consume him. “Raccoon City. I told you that the government destroyed it, and that was the reason. The whole city was overrun by people who wouldn’t stay dead.”

You gape at him. Blink through the confusion. “I’m fucking hallucinating. Or you’re playing a shitty prank on me.”

“I wouldn’t lie about this. You know me.”

You heave a shrug. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

He rises then, waves to Rebecca through the glass, and she walks through the door a moment later holding a thick file.

“We’ve run a dozen tests, and none of them match the viruses in our system, despite the similarity in symptoms. But,” she hands Leon the file who hands it to you, and you open it to find paperwork and test results that register as nonsensical markings on a page, “it’s clear that something is wreaking havoc on your body. I suspect that whatever this is started in your stomach given the extent of the damage. It would explain the vomiting.”

“Could it be a parasite?” Leon asks.

Your eyes scan the papers as you flip through them, unseeing, faraway, empty-minded.

Doesn’t make sense. Any of it. Can’t be. Monsters? People who won’t die?

“That’s a plausible hypothesis, given the slow nature of symptoms, but viruses can have long incubation periods, too.” She says your name and you look up to her, the outline of her form haloed by bright light. An angel. An angel trying to save your life. “Have you eaten anything unusual recently? Maybe a stranger gave you food? Something dropped on the floor? Anything you can think of.”

You rewind back to the last few months. Anything unusual. Abnormal. Weird.

Huh. The visitor.

“Someone brought a bottle of wine while Leon was gone. Two months back. Said he was a friend, that I should drink it so it doesn’t go to waste.”

“Did it smell or taste funny?”

You shake your head. Look up at her. Stare a moment. “I’m rotting. Dying. I’m dying, aren’t I?”

Her and Leon share a look, and you know. She doesn’t have to say anything. Neither does he.

He blames himself. It’s written clear on his face. The almost-decade of rending grief that hollows out his eyes. He won’t look at you. Maybe he can’t.

“Will I be like the people from Raccoon City?”

She inhales a deep breath, resigned. “It’s a likely possibility.”

“Rebecca.”

“I’m telling the truth, Leon. Lying will do more harm than good right now.”

You don’t care about their conversation. Too busy dissecting the state of your hands. A thumbnail peeling away, the skin of your knuckles grated off. Spoiling much like an apple, or a banana. It doesn’t hurt anymore—Rebecca and her team have pumped you full of pain medication. A small mercy.

Which is why you begin to work on your nails. Manage to discard three of them before Leon snaps your name and orders you to stop. But you need to destroy something, see the blood—better you than anybody else.

V. DEATH

So hungry, starving, need to eat—to mend flesh from bone. The meat tastes so good, tender and chewy between your teeth.

Someone screams. Maybe it’s the nurse you feast on. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s someone else.

It doesn’t matter. The steak drips wet, fresh, still warm as you rip a chunk free from tendon and bone and nerve.

The tang of iron coats your palette, sleuces from your mouth, down your chin, onto the hospital gown. So good. So, so good.

You swallow and pull away, sated. For now. Tug the body on its side when people approach the glass. Mine. You plan on saving him for later.

Leon pushes through the crowd, witnesses you changed. Blood-soaked, starving, brutish. The rot of your flesh, dissolved halfway to bone.

You can’t stop it. Can’t look away from him, and what dredges of humanity you still possess cry out to him: I’m so scared. Please help me. I miss you. Things weren’t supposed to be this way. Don’t look at me.

Don’t look at me.

Don't look at me!

The soldiers force him away from the window, and you wail for him, and he fights against their hold. Can’t end things like this. Have to see him again. It hurts. It hurts. So hungry, starving, need to feast—

Your teeth sink into the cooling corpse, rip and tear, and silence consumes your thoughts. Nothing but hunger, satiation. Need to feed, crave to gorge yourself on whatever lay before you until your stomach bursts, and then you’ll eat some more.

The door to your prison opens. Footsteps thud into the room. Things are said, but you don’t hear them. You can’t. So hungry. So hungry.

Then blackhole nothingness.

#resident evil #re4r #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #i SCREAMED.

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