Chapter Text
Leon liked to think he was a good man.
He had proof, after all. Years of it. A federal agent with a long list of closed cases, lives saved, threats neutralized before they could grow teeth. He put himself in danger so other people didn’t have to. Violence and crime were constants in his world, things he faced daily with strict efficiency. If goodness could be measured by sacrifice, then surely he qualified.
But the job didn’t leave much room for anything else.
There was no time for hobbies, no space for interests that didn’t serve a purpose. Every day blurred into the next—briefings, paperwork, surveillance, missions. Work followed him home and sat beside him in the silence. Even when he was alone, his mind never really was.
People like him weren’t meant to get attached.
So it really wouldn’t be fair to judge him for how he felt about you.
Like wasn’t enough of a word to describe it.
What he felt ran deeper, heavier, threading itself through his thoughts until it became impossible to ignore. It settled in the quiet moments—when he was driving late at night, when he was cleaning his gun with methodical care, when he caught himself pausing over nothing at all. He thought about you more than he meant to.
More than he allowed himself to acknowledge.
It was the little things that undid him. The way you spoke—soft, measured, intelligent in a way that didn’t demand attention. The way you carried yourself, confident without arrogance. The way you smiled when you think you’re alone and nobody’s watching.
You have a natural kindness for everybody which unraveled him, made him feel like he could be better for you.
He needs you in a way that feels fundamental. Like something required for his survival.
He thinks it might be love.
Though, love wasn’t the right word for it.
Love is gentle. Clean.
What he feels isn't.
Its heavier than that, edged with something he doesn’t want to examine too closely. It was a need to keep you safe in a world he knew was dangerous. To absorb the impact on your behalf.
Only that.
Except it wasn’t.
He wants to have you—not in a fleeting way, not in a way that could be taken from him. Permanently. He wanted to anchor himself in your life in such a way that you would depend on him without question.
Irreplaceable.
He wanted you to understand how destined the two of you are.
So he adjusted things. Subtly. He took assignments that kept him close, volunteered for overlap he could justify on paper. Positioned himself close enough to observe but far enough to justify it.
He told himself it was responsibility.
Not fixation.
—
He first met you at a crime scene.
It was an apartment building on the edge of the city, one of those concrete complexes designed to be temporary housing that had somehow become permanent. Police tape cut across the entrance in uneven lines, fluttering slightly in the cold morning air. The smell hit first-old cooking oil from a nearby restaurant, damp carpet, the faint metallic tang that always lingered after violence no matter how carefully it was cleaned.
Uniformed officers moved in practiced patterns, boots scuffing against the pavement. Someone was taking photos. Someone else was on the radio, voice clipped and tired. Neighbors hovered at a distance, pretending not to stare while staring anyway.
Leon had already started sorting the scene in his head before he fully registered you.
Entry point—front door. Forced, but not sloppy. No obvious struggle in the hallway. Inside, the apartment was small and cluttered, furniture pushed too close together, personal belongings stacked where they didn’t quite belong. A life lived tightly, carefully, as if space itself had to be rationed.
He was halfway through a quiet exchange with a local detective when his attention snagged on something out of place.
You.
You weren’t eye-catching. In fact, you were quite plain.
You shouldn’t have caught his eyes.
But you did.
You stood near the kitchen counter, just outside the main flow of movement, careful not to obstruct anyone. You wore a borrowed jacket that was slightly too large, the sleeves covering part of your hands. Your hair was pulled back simply, no effort made to soften it. You held a small notebook against your chest, fingers resting along the spine as if anchoring yourself.
He found himself watching you.
Curiosity crept in before he could stop it. Who were you? How had you gained access so early? Why did his attention keep drifting back to you instead of the evidence he’d seen a hundred times before? Most civilians at scenes like this were loud in their distress or rigid with fear.
You were neither. You watched. Listened. Your gaze moved carefully, not lingering on anything too long, but missing nothing either.
When an officer spoke too quickly, glossing over details, you asked him to repeat himself. Not sharply. Not accusingly. Just calmly, as if clarity was the most natural thing in the world to expect. When he corrected himself, you nodded once and wrote it down without comment.
That's when Leon approached you.
“Good evening,” he said, his tone neutral, professional. “Agent Kennedy.” He held up his badge just long enough for you to see it, not as a challenge but a courtesy.
You met his gaze without hesitation. He was tall—taller than you—but he didn’t loom. He never needed to.
You looked at him, almost assessing the way he stood before you. Your eyes roamed over him, taking in his outfit and tactical gear. You looked calm, steady, as if coming to a private investigation was no big deal for you.
Interesting.
You weren't scared, he noticed. You were confident but still respectful. His gaze took in your features. Your eyes, reflecting light in a way that made you shine. Your lips and hair that matched your face perfectly.
Pretty, he thought.
“Yes,” you replied, giving a small nod. You stated your name clearly, without rushing it.
He repeated it once under his breath, committing it to memory before he meant to.
“…And how are you cleared to be here?” he asked mildly, ignoring the way his brain supplied information about your appearance. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Access is limited.”
“Yes, I understand.” You shifted the notebook slightly, fingers tightening just a bit. You kept your eye contact, and he felt like your gaze was boring through him.
He didn't like your eyes on him. It made him feel different.
“I’m a journalist. I was granted permission through the department’s press liaison.”
You reached into your jacket and produced a folded document, already creased from handling. Leon glanced at it—credentials, authorization, everything in order.
He tilted his head, slightly as if to get a better read on you. He was impressed, honestly. Most journalists don’t get access to such investigations early on.
He handed it back to you.
“Long night for that line of work,” he said.
You gave a small, almost apologetic one in return. “They tend to be.”
He studied you for another moment- your posture, your careful distance from the body outline taped on the floor, the way you waited for permission before stepping closer to anything that mattered.
Not flashy. Not reckless.
But observant.
He handed your credentials back. “Stay where you are,” he said tipping his thumb back motioning to the scene behind him. “And don’t interfere with the investigation.”
“I wouldn’t,” you replied immediately. “That’s not why I’m here.” You said it simply, without defensiveness.
Leon looked at you for longer than necessary then nodded once and stepped away, telling himself that was the end of it. Still, as he returned to his work, his attention kept drifting back to you- to the quiet way you took notes, to the respect you showed the scene, to the fact that you looked at the aftermath of violence without turning away or leaning in too close.
He told himself you were just another professional crossing paths with him in the margins of his job.
Someone he'd forget.
—
He didn't.
He saw you again at a coffee shop a couple days later.
It was the one he went to out of habit more than preference. Narrow, dimly lit, tucked between a laundromat and a closed-down bookstore. The kind of place that never changed its menu and never asked questions. The barista knew his order well enough not to ask anymore, just nodded once and rang it up.
Leon stood near the counter, coat still on, scrolling through messages he didn’t need to answer yet. The low murmur of conversation blended with the hiss of the espresso machine. It was quiet in a way he appreciated—predictable, contained.
Then he heard your voice.
Not loud—not calling attention to itself—but just close enough to register.
“I’ll take a small vanilla cappuccino, please.”
He looked up before he consciously decided to.
You were standing a few feet away, turned slightly toward the display case. Different clothes this time; a short black dress which came up to your knees and hugged your body in a modest way but made Leon's throat a little drier.
Casual and cute, with the same pulled-back hair and the same notebook tucked under your arm. No borrowed jacket now, covering up your beauty. You looked more like yourself here, unguarded in a way the crime scene hadn’t allowed.
For a moment, Leon wondered if he was mistaken. Cities were full of people who looked alike at a glance. It would have been easy to dismiss it.
Then you smiled—brief, polite— when the barista answered you, and the doubt vanished.
It was you.
The realization landed with a quiet weight. He hadn’t expected to see you again, certainly not like this. Not outside the framework of police tape and procedure, where there were no clear roles to fall back on.
So that’s how you like your coffee. He made a mental note before he meant to.
He walked to the register acting naturally, as if he wanted to order something— which really he had. You took your cup and turned, nearly bumping into him.
“Oh— sorry,” you said automatically, stepping back.
“It’s fine,” Leon replied, just as quickly.
His eyes grazed over you, taking in your casual appearance more thoroughly. Your dress, your face, your makeup— which was subtle—but more than what you had on the other day. He didn't mean to look any lower, but his eyes wandered to your cleavage showing through the slip of the low neckline.
Oh. He glanced away—his eyes quickly roamed over the menu. Damn. "Black coffee please," he said, paying with a swift tap of his card. He controlled his thoughts quickly, before facing you again.
You looked at him properly then, eyes narrowing a fraction in recognition. He saw the moment it clicked. the crime scene, his badge, the questions.
“Agent Kennedy,” you said.
He nodded, a small smile forming. “Good memory.”
You gave a small shrug with a smile of your own, fixing your dress with your free hand. “Occupational hazard.”
Thank goodness, he took a small sip of his coffee. Since when was he so stimulated by such little things?
And especially by you...?
“So, how’ve you been?” You asked.
He hummed, pushing away the thoughts in his head. “Like always, busy.”
You laughed politely. “Hard not to be, right?”
He watched your eyes crinkle at the corners. You looked so natural and carefree that it made his chest tingle. You cleared your throat, noticing his staring and he quickly looked away, taking a sip of his coffee
A beat passed before you spoke again. "You seem like the type of person to drink bitter, black coffee." You joked.
Were you two close enough for this conversation? He didn't know, not that he minded.
He paused then lifted an eyebrow at you, a small smile playing at his lips. "Do I now?"
He hummed giving your statement some thought. "And you look like you eat sugar for breakfast."
You laughed lightly. "How did you know?"
"You seem like the type," he said quietly.
Leon didn’t stare when you laughed this time, instead he ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking.
You’re fucking gorgeous.
There was a pause, and you tapped your fingers against your cup, relishing in its warmth as the steam came out. Not awkward exactly, but unstructured. You weren't friends—hell you weren't even acquaintances. There was no reason for him to be speaking to you.
Still, he felt as if he couldn't move away.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said instead, meeting your gaze.
“Likewise.” You lifted your cup slightly, acknowledging his confession. “I come here sometimes. It’s quiet.”
“That’s why I like it.”
You studied him for a second, then nodded, as if that made sense. Something about the way you looked at people— direct, but not invasive— made him more aware of himself than he usually was.
“Working?” you asked.
“Always,” he said, then added, “You?”
“Sort of,” you replied. “Following up on a few things. Nothing urgent tonight.”
Maybe he should have left then. Before he could think about any more of... you.
Against his better judgement, he gestured toward the small standing table near the window. “You mind?”
You hesitated only briefly. “Sure.”
You stood there together, the city moving past the glass in a blur of headlights and pedestrians. Up close, he noticed details he hadn’t at the scene—the faint crease between your brows when you listened, the way you held your cup with both hands as if for warmth rather than need.
“So,” he said, carefully casual, “journalist work taking you to a lot of places like that apartment?”
“More often than I’d like,” you admitted a soft but tired sigh leaving your lips. “But someone has to pay attention.”
He nodded. He understood that impulse better than most.
“You write about the cases themselves?” he asked. “Or the system around them?”
You considered the question. “Both. Mostly the parts people stop seeing because they happen too often.”
That answer stayed with him.
There was nothing remarkable about the moment, objectively. Two people sharing a few minutes over coffee. No urgency. No danger. And yet, when you eventually excused yourself—apologizing for having somewhere else to be—Leon watched you go with a feeling he couldn’t immediately name.
It wasn’t excitement. It was recognition. As if something had shifted slightly out of place, and his mind had already begun adjusting around it.
He told himself it was coincidence.
And this time maybe it was.
—
He kept seeing you after that.
At first, it was easy to dismiss. Cities overlapped people the way tides overlapped shorelines—inevitably, repeatedly, without intention. A press briefing downtown. A courthouse hallway. Once, across the street from a hospital, your reflection briefly aligning with his in the glass before the light changed and you were gone again.
You were always there, following him as if mocking him for the two seconds he saw inside your dress.
Coincidence had a rhythm to it, he told himself. But as the days went by he felt it was less of coincidence and more by choice.
Or chance. He couldn't tell that much anymore.
He noticed you. A lot. You favored the edges of rooms, never the center. You listened longer than you spoke. When you asked questions, they were careful—precise enough to matter, restrained enough not to provoke defensiveness. You didn’t chase spectacle. You traced structure. Causes. Absences.
Curiosity started it all. Leon started reading your work out of curiosity. He wanted to know what you wrote, it was his way of getting to know you a little better.
But then one day became two and two became three. Before he knew it he was reading your work regularly. Though not obsessively. Not at first.
He read just enough to stay informed. Your articles were calm in tone, almost understated.
You wrote as if you trusted readers to reach conclusions on their own, as if outrage was something cheap and easily wasted. You laid out facts with patience, framed human cost without dramatizing it, left space where answers should have been but weren’t.
It should have bothered him—how closely your conclusions brushed up against truths he wasn’t supposed to acknowledge publicly.
Because you noticed the seams.
That was dangerous.
And yet—he found himself relieved it was you doing the noticing instead of someone louder, sloppier, less careful. He told himself that meant he respected you. Nothing more.
At least that's what he hoped.
Because somewhere along the way, observation turned into something else.
Something darker, messier.
He learned your patterns, your timing, your instincts.
He knew where you'd be— and why— before you even got there.
And once he understood that everything changed.
He told himself he wasn't watching you. Just... the variables around you. You were simply the constant that made them relevant.
—
The next time you spoke properly was after a briefing that had gone poorly. Again you were the one of few journalists present, typing down notes into your laptop. It was filled with too many half-answers, too much deflection, even for him. Leon was collecting his things when you approached, waiting until the room had mostly cleared.
“Can I ask you something off the record?” you said.
He looked at you for a moment like he didn’t read all your works. Like he didn’t think about the way you liked your coffee. Like he didn't think about how that black dress made you look.
Then he nodded once. “Depends.”
You accepted that without comment. “There’s a delay in the evidence transfer from the north precinct. It’s happened three times now. Is that procedural or intentional?”
It was a good question. You always ask good questions.
He didn’t answer it directly. He couldn’t. But he corrected one assumption in your phrasing, quietly, carefully. You listened, nodded, and adjusted your notes.
You thanked him with a polite smile and walked away. His eyes followed you until you left the room, not on purpose, but by reflex.
After that, your conversations became brief but consistent. Always bounded by unspoken rules, sometimes with a quick joke here or there.
You never asked him for more than he could give. He never offered more than he should have, keeping his distance while trying to figure out his thoughts around you.
But he began to anticipate you anyway.
He caught himself scanning rooms before briefings, recalibrating his posture when he saw you near the back. He weighed his words differently when he knew you were listening—not to mislead you, but to avoid disappointing something he couldn’t quite name.
Trust, maybe.
Or expectation.
Once, after a long winter day, he spotted you outside the police building, sitting on the low concrete wall with your notebook open, shoulders hunched against the cold.
He was coming out of another investigation— something about drug trafficking—that he really should pay more attention to. He hesitated, long enough to make the choice matter, then stopped.
“You’re going to freeze out here,” he said.
You looked up, surprised, then smiled faintly. “Agent Kennedy,"
He nodded, sipping his black coffee mixed with 2 teaspoons of sugar. He usually didn't take much sugar but he decided to change it up a bit for once.
"What are you doing out here—especially in this damning weather?" His face scrunched with scrutiny.
Seriously. What were you doing here?
Your mouth went open and you laughed sheepishly. "Well, long story short—I am waiting for my friend, he's having a virtual interview in his car and I didn't want to interrupt." You look back down to your notebook writing your notes. "I’m almost done.”
"You look cold." He said.
You huffed out a small laugh. "Never would’ve guessed."
He faltered for a moment, watching you sit beneath him in the cold road writing away in your notebook, as if the cold didn't bother you. He offered you his coffee without really thinking. It was still warm. You hesitated, then accepted it with a quiet thank-you, hands brushing his for the briefest moment.
He had drunk a good bit of it and when you drank from the same spot, he looked away. He didn't know why it felt so intimate. He observed you, and you didn't seem to notice.
You talked for a few minutes, about nothing important. About the weather, the construction down the block, a café that had closed and reopened under new management. Ordinary things. The kind that had no bearing on cases or consequences.
He hummed along with you, giving short answer replies when you prompted him.
When you left, you handed the cup back like it was something borrowed carefully with a ‘thank you’ on your lips, and your face a pretty pink color.
He watched you walk away and felt, unexpectedly, the hollow absence of something he hadn’t known he was holding.
He sipped the rest of his coffee from where the slight tint of your lipstick was.
And shit.
It tasted disgustingly sweet.
—
That night, alone in his apartment, he stood at the window longer than usual, city lights blurring together. He replayed the day—not the work, not the threats neutralized or reports filed—but the sound of your voice when you laughed softly at something unimportant.
He told himself this was what happened when a person went too long without anything resembling a life.
Anyone would latch onto the nearest point of warmth.
Anyone would mistake familiarity for meaning.
He told himself that.
And yet, when his phone buzzed with a news alert bearing your name, he opened it immediately.
He read every word.
Carefully.
As if you were speaking directly to him.
As if this—whatever it was—was already something he was responsible for protecting.
Fuck. He was in deep trouble.
—
You and Leon talked more often. You met each other frequently and naturally had conversations together. Maybe your relationship is getting to a point where you can be called friends instead of acquaintances.
Leon ran a hand through his hair, sighing. It was raining too much. Hard enough that the city blurred into streaks of light. He looked out the car window, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. That’s when he noticed you, soaked, standing underneath a bus stop for shelter.
What a coincidence.
Leon had pulled over before he consciously decided to.
He rolled the window down. “You need a ride.”
It wasn’t a question. It was an observation.
You turned, surprised. Hesitated. Rain dripped from the hem of your coat.
“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” you said.
“You’re not,” he replied. “Get in.”
Something in his tone closed the gap. You opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, damp and smelling faintly of rain and paper. Leon turned the heat up without asking.
You sighed as warmth filled the car. “Thank you.”
He glanced at you, then put his focus back to the road.
"You look like you've seen better days." He smirked.
You laughed, "Tell me about it. I was trying to get an interview with a witness to the investigation we were at a few weeks prior and it all went to shit,"
Leon hummed but he stopped listening.
He tried not to stare. He really did but damn. You looked fucking great. He wouldn't say that to anyone soaking wet on a cold day but Jesus. You were wearing a light pink blouse, with a white jacket on top and a professional pencil skirt. And of course your blouse became see through.
You weren't doing it on purpose. Right?
He shifted the car into drive. “Where to?”
You put your address in his phone without a second thought. You had too much trust in him.
He didn’t say a word, instead he reached over with one of his hands to the backseats of the car where he put his jacket and handed it to you.
"You should—" He cut himself off, clearing his throat, “You look cold."
You shook your head, “It’s fine, really. I don’t want to get your jacket wet.”
You fucking vixen.
“I was going to wash this anyway, just use it. Getting sick won’t be good for a journalist.”
You were reluctant but still you took the jacket and covered yourself with a small ‘thank-you’ on your lips.
You got comfortable with him. And he loved it.
You just talked while he navigated the streets—about deadlines, about a source who’d gone quiet, about the way it felt like doors kept closing just as you reached them. Leon listened, hands steady on the wheel, eyes tracking reflections in the wet pavement.
When he dropped you off, you asked for his number, tucking your hair behind your ears. And, well damn. If you asked him like that, he'd give you anything.
You handed back his jacket and he tried to refuse it at first. But after your insistence he kept it and you waved to him as he drove off.
Leon would later tell himself that obsession was too dramatic a word.
Even though he kept his face in the jacket you wore in his car while stroking himself to the thoughts of you unraveled underneath him.
Obsessions were messy. Emotional. They announced themselves with desperation and loss of control. What he felt was quiet. Structured. Intentional. It fit neatly into the habits he’d spent a lifetime refining.
Which was why it took him so long to recognize it for what it was.
It began the moment he realized he could predict you.
Not just where you would be—why you would be there. He learned the logic of your movements before he learned the details of your life. You followed stories the way he followed threats: backward from consequence to origin.
If a funding report stalled, you appeared at the office that oversaw it. If a witness recanted, you surfaced near the courthouse two days later. You were consistent in your curiosity.
Consistency invited planning.
Leon noticed the first time he adjusted a route because of you without consciously deciding to. A different street when he knew you were nearby. A slower pace through a lobby so you’d finish speaking to someone before he passed. He told himself he didn’t want to interrupt.
The truth was simpler.
He wanted to see you clearly.
He began cataloging details without effort. Which coat you wore when the weather dropped suddenly. How you favored your right shoulder when your bag was heavy. The fact that you always paused before entering a building, like you were bracing for whatever waited inside.
None of it felt invasive to him. He noticed people for a living. He noticed risk.
And you, increasingly, felt like something at risk.
That was the pivot.
Once his mind categorized you as vulnerable—not weak, never that, but exposed—everything else followed naturally. You didn’t carry a weapon. You didn’t have clearance. You walked into unstable environments armed with nothing but credibility and a pen.
It was reckless.
It bothered him.
So he compensated.
He checked incident reports more often when your byline appeared nearby. He memorized the names of officers who interacted with you regularly, noted which ones talked too freely, which ones looked at you for too long. He corrected their behavior when necessary. Casually. Quietly.
They never knew why.
He never told you.
That was important.
He justified the surveillance because it was indirect. He wasn’t watching you—he was watching variables.
You were simply the constant that made the variables relevant. Cameras, patrol routes, response times. The city was already mapped in his head; he just started overlaying you onto it.
You fit too easily.
—
His thoughts about you changed shape. Less admiration, more assessment. He began noticing what threatened you rather than what defined you. Which stories pushed too close to active investigations. Which sources lingered in conversations too long. Which men watched you when they thought you weren’t paying attention.
He remembered their faces. He didn’t do anything about it. Not directly. He just made notes.
Leon told himself this was restraint. That he was still good.
He was doing all this for you anyway. Actually you should be grateful.
If it wasn’t for him, who knows what would’ve happened to you all those times people looked your way wrong? It was because of him you didn’t get assaulted when you walked home at night.
At this point you didn’t even need to make conversation with him to keep him satisfied.
Keeping you in line of sight was enough for him.
…
Wasn't it?
It should have been. Line of sight meant control. Control meant safety. Safety meant he was still the man he believed himself to be.
But if he was being honest with himself it wasn't.
He wanted more.
He wanted to be close to you, hear you laugh, keep you safe. Know you. Touch you.
Wanting more no longer felt like a temptation. It felt real— vital.
Though wanting more required justification.
Leon didn’t rush it. He never rushed things that mattered.
He started with proximity that could be explained. He timed his exits to coincide with yours more often. If you lingered after a briefing, he found a reason to do the same. If you left early, he adjusted without comment. He walked beside you instead of a few steps behind, close enough that passersby unconsciously redirected their paths.
You noticed. Of course you did.
“You don’t have to walk me every time,” you said once, glancing sideways at him as you crossed an intersection.
“I know,” Leon replied.
“You keep saying that.”
“And you keep letting me.” A small smirk tugged at his lips.
That earned him a quiet laugh, more surprised than amused. “That’s not fair.”
“No,” he agreed. “It’s accurate.”
You didn’t argue. That felt like permission.
—
You got more comfortable with him. Leon noticed in the way your shoulders relaxed when he walked with you, or the way the corners of your pretty lips twitched when he teased you.
He reveled in the fact that he was an important figure in your life now.
He would always walk you home. Today was no different. You were making light conversation with him, talking about work, the city, the rain pouring down on you in this cold weather.
You two were standing close. Close enough that Leon could feel your body heat even in places where you werent touching him. The places where your body touched felt like it was on fire, burning him up through the inside .
It was comforting.
Leon walked you the last few blocks in companionable quiet, rain still clinging to the pavement in a fine sheen that caught the streetlights. You talked about an editor who kept pushing a headline you didn’t agree with, about how words could do harm even when the facts were right. Leon listened, nodding at the right places, his attention split between your voice and the street around you.
Your building came into view—older brick, narrow entrance, the light above the door flickering faintly like it always did. Leon had noticed that weeks ago. He’d made a note of it then. A small thing. Easily overlooked.
You reached the steps and dug into your bag, still talking.
“I think if I frame it differently, they might—”
Your sentence cut off with a soft clatter.
Your keys slipped from your fingers and hit the concrete, scattering slightly. The sound was sharp in the quiet street.
“Oh—” you said, already bending.
Leon moved faster.
He crouched and picked them up before you could, the familiar weight settling into his palm. The metal was cool from the rain. He saw everything in an instant: the worn keyring, the chipped plastic tag, the number of keys. Front door. Apartment. Mailbox. Storage, maybe.
His mind supplied the rest without effort.
How the lock would turn.
How old it probably was.
How little force it would take.
Oh.
The thought came fully formed, calm and terrifyingly simple.
It would be so easy to just break in.
The idea didn’t spike his pulse. It didn’t feel wrong in the way bad thoughts were supposed to feel. It felt practical. Obvious. Like noticing an unlocked door in the middle of a storm.
He straightened and anded the keys back to you, fingers brushing yours for just a second longer than necessary.
“Here,” he said evenly. "Can't have you being too clumsy can we?"
You smiled, relieved. “Thanks. I’m always dropping these.”
“I’ve noticed,” he replied before he could stop himself.
You laughed lightly, not catching the weight beneath it. “Guess I need a better system.”
He hummed thoughtfully. You should be cautious. He thought of saying those words to you, that if you're not wary enough someone worse than him could show up and potentially hurt you.
"You should be more careful." He murmured, saying his thought to you, as he watched you unlock the door. Watched the way you leaned your shoulder into it slightly, like the frame stuck sometimes. Watched you hesitate before stepping inside, turning back toward him.
“I know, but that's why I have you isn't it?” you said, polite, familiar.
He stayed silent eyeing your face. You looked relaxed, comfortable. It unnerved him to no end.
He chuckled lightly. "Yeah, you do."
You smiled, innocent. Unknowing of the dark thoughts that stirred sin inside him.
He knew too much. He knew the timing of the lights inside. The angle of the hallway. Which window you always left cracked open just a bit. He knew how easily he could let himself in if he ever decided safety required it.
He was watching, even when you didn’t realize it.
You lingered a second longer, then smiled again. “Good night, Leon.”
“Good night,” he said.
You went inside. The door shut. The lock slid into place with a dull, trusting click.
Leon stood there for a moment after your light turned on, keys no longer in his hand but the shape of them still vivid in his mind. He told himself the thought meant nothing. Everyone assessed vulnerabilities. That was his job.
Still, as he finally turned away, the idea stayed with him—not as a desire, not as a plan.
Just as a possibility.