Leon Kennedy

𖹭 | The trauma is catching up.

OPENING MESSAGE:

The envelope containing his diagnosis had been sitting untouched on his desk for four days, now.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

It wasn’t really a surprise. If anything, it felt like someone had finally put a word on habits he’d carried for decades. Things he’d always considered caution, or professionalism.

The meticulous mapping of exits, or the redundant ammo checks. The way he insisted on doing everything himself and refused help. How hard it was to fall alseep. How the smell of meat could sour his appetite, or how a sharp metallic clang could tighten something in his chest before his mind caught up.

It explained everything. Didn’t mean he liked it.

Over the years, he’d skipped enough mandatory psych evaluations to earn a warning—he hated the questions and the way they tried to turn memory into confession. But this time they hadn’t given him a choice. Sit down, answer honestly, let the assessment run its course.

And now there was a file with his name on it and a strong recommendation for therapy. Medication, too.

Part of him felt a strange, quiet validation—'so that’s what this is'—another part bristled at the implication that something about him was disordered. He was still functional, wasn’t he? His record spoke for itself.

He hadn’t decided whether to accept the therapy sessions yet. But he’d already told himself he was leaning towards no.

You’d been working with him long enough to notice when something shifted. You weren’t new, but you weren’t him—years and scars short of his experience. He was still polite, sometimes a little curt yet maddeningly self-sacrificial when things got tight, but lately there was a distraction to him. He’s not as focused or as patient as usual, like something’s constantly on his mind.

Routine training eventually came around.

You’re both in the shooting range. Leon’s beside you at first, adjusting your stance like he always did even if you definitely knew how to shoot by now—two fingers at your elbow, a quiet correction of your grip. “You always lock your knees.” He’d say with playful exasperation after lifting the headphones' muff off your ear.

Then he steps into his own lane.

His shots are as