SAVEGUARD ⟼ leon s. kennedy

xxvii. layers of intimacy

𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖
𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 𝟜𝕒𝕞

I wake up in a cold sweat. I feel the individual beads of sweat roll down my back, and as I'm wiping my forehead, I realise I'm naked. My heart is pounding, the room is pitch black, my throat is dry, and skin feels clammy, and my brain is foggy.

I don't know where I am for a second, and the dream is still too vivid in my head.

The explosion back at the police department. It kept replaying and replaying in my dream, each time I try to escape, but each time the flames engulf me, the explosion rips me apart. Then, the dream changed, and it was the first time I met Leon. Him sitting sleepily in that darkened corner of Steve's office. The first time I looked at his eyes, saw the light bounce off his beautiful golden hair.

But then each time, the explosion is back, in slow motion, and each time I lunge forward to save him, grab him from the chair... I fail.

"Save yourself!" He shouts in my dream.

"I won't leave you!" I shout back.

But each time, I do leave him.

I look around the dark and slide off the bed. The pitch black fills my stomach with dread, reminding me of the nightmarish darkness I had to face every second we spent in that dreaded ship.

The bed feels empty, and for a second I forget about everything. I stumble around and little sobs escape my lips because I'm so scared of the dark now, and I don't know if Leon is here, if he's dead, if I'm abandoned, if I'm still dreaming.

I try to call out his name, but the words stick to the top of my tongue, weighing as much as stones. I fumble around, trying to find a light switch, but the cold sweat is making me shiver, and I can't make the oxygen fill my lungs. I don't know where my clothes are either, and everything just feels like it's tumbling and crashing down around me.

I hear something rustle, and I clutch the wall for support, my legs feeling like the bones are about to turn into liquid. I can't think straight, my heart is pounding too loudly, my head is killing me, and—

"Clementine?"

His voice makes my heart stop in its tracks, and then it feels like it melts. He sounds half-asleep, croaky. I remember the dream again and feel my eyes glaze over with tears.

"Hey, where are you?" Leon groans from the bed, and I hear him move around the bed, and then stand up. "Fuck, did I fall asleep naked?" He mutters after yawning.

I sit back on the bed, unsure of how I even manage to move.

"You're creeping me out," he says, and I hear him shuffle around he room, probably putting on boxers and shorts, until he turns on the lights. I barely blink at the bright light, but he shields his eyes, blinking profusely.

"Damn," he groans, rubbing his eyes with his fists. "Hey, are you alright?"

He rushes over to me and sits next to me on the bed. "Here," he says gently, and gives me a towel that we had fallen asleep in. I wrap it around me on auto-pilot. "You're freezing, and you broke out in sweat," he says slowly, running his hands up and down my arms, trying to warm me up. "Do you have a fever?"

I look at him and shake my head, but as soon as I look in his eyes, I instantly regret it, because I keep seeing him die over and over in my dream, and I just sit there, slowly sobbing.

"Hey, it's okay," he whispers, and pulls me into him. "I'll turn the heat up."

When he sits down next to me again, he wraps his arm around me. He's shirtless still, and heat is radiating off him in waves, and I feel better with his skin pressing into mine.