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In all the years she’s known him, there’s one thing Ada knows for certain: Leon can be awfully persistent when he wants to be.
If Ada is a shadow, intangible and ephemeral, then Leon is the stubborn fool, fruitlessly trying to hold it in the palm of his hand, undeterred even as it slips out of his grasp time and time again.
It’s a game she wins each time. Perhaps that knowledge has made her complacent, lowered her guard beyond rationality. She should’ve known to not underestimate Leon by now. Sometimes, she forgets that there’s more to him than the earnest, wide-eyed rookie she met so long ago, in another time, in another life.
She forgets that he has come to know her patterns as well as she knows his.
She forgets that you can only run for so long before the inevitable catches up with you.
And caught up with her he has.
Leon is standing between her and her planned escape, his chest heaving with the effort it had taken to keep up with her, his eyes holding a thousand questions she doesn’t have the answers to.
The alley they’ve found themselves in is dark and deserted, illuminated only by a sole flickering lamp post. It makes her feel almost unsteady.
“I wasn’t finished,” he says, once he’s managed to collect himself.
“Well, I am,” she says coldly, brushing past him. Normally, he would’ve balked at her flippancy, enough for her to make a quick escape without much protest.
It doesn’t work this time. She doesn’t manage two steps before he’s grabbing her wrist, stopping her in her tracks.
“Can we talk? For once? Please?” he asks, and it sounds a little too much like a desperate plea.
Ada merely gazes down at his fingers around her wrist, trying to calculate her chances if she were to simply wrestle herself out of grasp. But Leon is strong and his grip is firm, and the last thing she wants is to get into an unnecessary scuffle with someone who knows her moves as well as he does.
So instead, she throws him the most dispassionate look she can muster, and shrugs. “What is there to talk about?”
For a split second, Leon looks taken aback, though he quickly recovers and shoots her a meaningful look. “Why are you always running away?”
Ada levels him with a look of her own. “Is this an interrogation?”
Almost immediately, Leon lets go of her wrist, looking chastened. “You never make things easy for me, do you?”
She traces her fingers along his jaw playfully. “Easy? Now what would be the fun in that?”
“This isn’t a game, Ada,” He crosses his arms. “You can’t keep me at arm’s length forever.”
There it is again, that stubborn, barely-concealed longing for more. He doesn’t need to spell it out for her to understand, she can see it all written so clearly in the crease of his brow, in the way his hand lingers on hers just a second too long every time they part ways.
Leon wants more than what they have, more than what she can give him. She can hardly blame him. He is built differently, his heart is made to love and be loved in return. As much as he enjoys the thrill of the chase, it isn’t enough for him, and it never will be.
Ada knows he has tried to make peace with it, to accept things as they are instead of what they could be. But he can’t deny his own desire any more than she can deny hers. Slowly, insidiously, the dissatisfaction worms itself into the space between them, poisoning it with doubts and discontent.
So she keeps running, hoping foolishly that she could delay the inevitable if only she tried hard enough.
Leon’s sigh snaps her back to the present. He looks more tired and uncertain than she’s ever seen him. “You gotta give me something to work with here, Ada.”
“And what exactly is it that you’re looking for?” she asks, impatient. That’s the contradiction with Leon: He wants answers to questions he’s too afraid to ask.
“I don’t know!” he says, exasperation crawling into his voice. “Something. Anything. All these years, and yet I barely know anything about you. I don’t know what you’re thinking about, I don’t know if this even means anything to you.”
The words settle into the silence between them like an impenetrable fog. Leon is breathless, as if that outburst has drained him of all his strength. In a way, it might’ve.
“It’s funny,” he says, a mirthless smile curving around his lips. “You’re standing in front of me right now, but it’s like I can’t really see you.”
You ask too much of me, Leon, she wants to say, but it sounds too much like weakness, so she swallows down the words before they get a chance to expose her.
“It’s better this way,” she tells him instead. “You might not like what you see.”
He takes a step forward, and it takes all of her willpower to stop herself from taking a step back, to maintain the short distance that seems to be the only thing keeping either of them from giving in to those silly, foolish emotions.
“I’ll decide that on my own terms,” he says, and he sounds so certain, so secure in his own conviction, that it makes her want to believe it too.
“Leon, we can’t,” Ada whispers as he takes another step.
Leon stops. His eyes seem to be searching for something she can’t quite put a name to. She feels almost exposed under his scrutinizing gaze, but resolves to meet it with equal intensity.
Hoping that he’ll understand the silent plea in her eyes. Praying that he knows they’re tiptoeing at the point of no return.
He doesn’t. Or maybe he doesn’t want to. And time is running out.
“That’s not what you said when you came to me the other night,” he says.
Ada scoffs. “I’ve taken men to bed before, Leon. You weren’t the first, and you certainly won’t be the last. You’re mistaken if you think that’s proof of anything. What makes you think you’re any different from the rest?”
Something akin to hurt flickers across his expression, but Leon stands his ground. “Because you kept coming back to me.”
She grits her teeth, fingers digging into the palm of her hand. Don’t make me do this, Leon. Turn around while you still can.
It’s her fault it has come to this. If she hadn’t been so weak to give in to her desires so easily, if she had been strong enough to walk away from him and never look back, this wouldn’t have happened.
But being with him felt good and she allowed herself to get lost in that bliss, forgetting, time and again, that such indulgence was never meant for those like her. She had tasted something forbidden, and now she’ll pay the price for her arrogance.
Just another inevitability she can’t outrun.
“I’ve always…” Leon’s voice trembles. The words die on his lips, but he stubbornly pushes through. “I’ve always loved you. Ever since that day. Always.”
Her insides are burning. It isn’t a revelation by any means, but knowing it is one thing and hearing the words spoken aloud is another entirely, and she finds herself reeling from the impact.
She’d always known that between the two of them, the first one to cross the line would be him. In so few words, he had burst the delicate bubble which had surrounded them until this moment, forcing them onto a trajectory from which there is no turning back.
Leon has bridged the gap between them, so close now that she thinks she can just reach out and pull him into a deep kiss, grasping a fistful of soft blonde hair, as she did so many times before.
And she wants to, but she knows this time, there can be no weakness.
“You must’ve known. You must’ve felt…” Leon whispers, and it sounds like a broken, desperate plea.
“I don’t,” she answers simply. “I never loved you, Leon.”
This time, Leon stumbles half a step back, looking like he’d been struck across the face, and it takes all of her strength not to allow her façade to crack at the sight.
“I don’t believe you,” he says.
“Believe what you want,” Ada shrugs coldly. “I did warn you, didn’t I? You might not like it, but it is the truth all the same.”
In hindsight, she ought to be grateful, that life has taught her to lie so well and so effortlessly, that she barely feels the twinge of guilt and regret threatening to coil itself around her stomach.
“If it’s the truth, then why can’t you look me in the eyes when you say it?” He asks, and she silently curses herself. She’d been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn’t even realize she had taken her eyes off of him.
Ada takes a deep breath and steels herself. I can do this , she thinks. It’s the right thing to do. Leon would’ve never given up otherwise, and she can’t have him constantly hot on her heels like this.
So she meets his gaze and says, “I came to you because I knew you’d never turn me away. Because I needed a body to keep me warm at night, and yours has always been ready and willing.”
The corner of Leon’s mouth twitches slightly. “You don’t mean that.”
She sighs. “What’s the point of looking for answers if you can’t handle them?”
“That’s all I was to you,” it’s not a question. “A warm body in the night.”
“A fairly useful one, I will admit,” she says simply. “But nothing more than that.”
Leon nods, as if finally understanding for the first time. She waits for him to say more, but he remains silent and rooted to the spot.
She can feel her own heartbeat racing, and knows her own charade is at its limit. If she doesn’t get out of here soon, she can’t guarantee that she won’t waver.
“Any more questions?” she asks. “I’m a busy woman, you know.”
Leon doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even move. His head is hung, his eyes obscured by his long bangs. The silence is excruciating.
For perhaps the first time since they’ve known each other, she can’t even sense a hint of how he’s feeling, and it unsettles her.
So Ada does the one thing she knows how whenever it gets too difficult: she slips quietly into the night, leaving Leon behind.
He doesn’t stop her this time, and she doesn’t know if the sigh that escapes her lips is one of relief or disappointment.
She had imagined a thousand different scenarios, but she never thought they’d end like this, quietly and flatly, with barely a whimper.
In all the years she’s known him, there’s one thing Ada knows for certain: Whatever they might become, it can never last.
If Leon is a beacon of light, steadfast and unwavering, then Ada is the thick darkness threatening to swallow it whole.
Another inevitability she had refused to see: She would’ve led him to ruination, one way or another.
Like ripping out a band-aid, she tells herself. It might hurt in the moment, but at least it’s over quickly. In any case, it’s better than the endless uncertainty they’d found themselves in. He’ll understand, and thank her for it one day.
Ada takes a long draw on her cigarette, blowing a cloud of smoke into the night sky. There are no stars she can see, and in its blackness the sky almost resembles a never-ending, all-consuming abyss.
It was the right thing to do, she repeats like a mantra. What other option was there? Knowing Leon, he would’ve pursued her until the end of time, and she can’t have that.
She can’t have him constantly throwing himself into danger for her.
She can’t have him waiting, with those painfully hopeful eyes, for something that she might not ever be able to give him.
She can’t selfishly keep him for herself, and deprive the world of such a good, noble man. Because every second he spends with her is another second he strays further from the light, and she doesn’t want him to constantly choose between her and doing what’s right.
Perhaps she, too, is afraid. Afraid of what his choice might be, if it ever comes down to it.
She wants him, but he’s destined for bigger things than her.
Not that it matters now.
It’s strange. They’ve parted so many times before, sometimes without any hope of ever seeing each other again, that she ought to be used to it by now. But there’s a certain kind of finality to this goodbye that she can’t help but feel stung by it, even if just a little.
He had become such an integral part of her that leaving him feels like carving out the parts of her that bore his name.
But that’s alright. She’s no stranger to goodbyes. He wasn’t her first, and it’s unlikely he will be her last.
Her eyes start to sting. Damn smoke, she thinks, flicking the cigarette away and putting it out with her heel.
There was a life before Leon Kennedy, and there will be a life after him.
After all, it’s just like ripping out a band-aid.
That’s all it is.
end