GRAVEDIGGER ━━━ leon s. kennedy

three.

Lt. Branagh was lying sideways on the couch, one glance at the him would suggest he was sleeping but the man was visibly shivering and his lips were pressed into a thin line, face shiny with the pearly droplets of sweat, a white sheet taken from the curtains surrounding them draped over his body that Vera had taken extra care to tuck underneath — so his back wouldn't be exposed should he toss around, according to her crestfallen explanation.

This must be how her father put her to bed when she was a child, Leon thought, cocooning her into warmth and safety. He had to look away from her lovingly caressing her father's head like he was the child and she was the parent, the lump stuck on his stomach got twice the heavier with the sight.

A hollowness curled its way home within his ribs at not being able to imagine that kind of love between him and his late parents, hell, he couldn't even remember receiving that kind of agonizing affection from them, feather soft and sitting-before-the-stove-on-a-winter-night cozy. The closest he got to it was when he successfully completed deliveries or brought money home as a child beggar, his father spared him then from the usual beatings that he told was necessary for people to pity him — people loved broken pretty things, always wanted to fix 'em . Leon was no different from an injured pup in their eyes, he had said, so he had to act like it, too.

Mornings were filled with twenty wink sleeps and nights hardwired him to stay alert like a hawk, gang members coming and going like it was an inn, his mother's cheap sugary perfume hanging in the rotten, molded air as she left home and didn't return for weeks, Leon surviving on salt on bread or bouillon cubes and his father's anger the whole time, the brown-stained refrigerator mostly filled with liquor, strangers randomly spawning in his home with guns in their belts looking at him funny, his father laughing, and then empty film strips and blanks in his memory — and Leon hurting all over, running, sleeping on the streets for a couple of days and managing his hunger until his existence was forgotten and going back home then, body used to the punishment he was sure to receive. It was chaotic and it was routine.

Leon survived. Leon survived because he was simply made that way. He was born into survival.

For him, home was the most dangerous place on earth, a jungle filled with predators — the meaning of the word safe didn't come to him until after the day he lost his family. Then, home was just a box with all the hazardous contents removed, it never meant more than what the definition entailed, never really bothered him unless he was faced with what he wasn't allowed to have, the adolescent Leon avoided parks, hurried straight back after school, anywhere children would flock to, followed by parents who loved them to bits. Those were the places where tears decided to surface after long periods of feeling absolutely nothing. Leon couldn't control his body's response, and he resented the vulnerability and the feeling that he was made of glass — he would never be ready for the danger ambushing him around the corner, salvation had turned him weak.

If only he wasn't introduced to affection by that cop who had shown the first act of kindness in his life that he could remember, changing his life forever. It was when he had gained consciousness, the first time he realized he had autonomy, the first time he had felt unbridled happiness and joy and gratitude in his life that he wanted to share it in abundance: the relaxation of a full night's sleep and a body that could just let go, the warmth of a homemade meal, everyday life not as a fist that came down on him but a hand that was an encouraging push into a kinder world — Leon wanted everyone to feel this way in their life just once. It had healed him. He wanted to change someone's life the way his was changed. He wanted to do that for someone, be that cop for other many Leon S. Kennedy's.

He found his calling in helping people, and he had two people right now who needed him to step up the most.

He tried his hardest not to picture Vera and Marvin in a child's bedroom at night, illuminated by the soft yellow light coming from the bedside lamp, Lt. Branagh younger and healthier and happier, telling a night time story to his little daughter basically made into a blanket burrito. Leon closed his ears to the giggles of a young Vera, of course questioning the story at every turn and nitpicking at every detail ("How's that a twig, dad? It must be a branch if it has leaves!"), enjoying squabbling with her father over the tiny details. Warm, warm, warm.