Dove (part seven)
Leon Kennedy x female reader
(bodyguard trope and the slowest, slow burn I swear)
Part one. Part two. Part three. Part four. Part five. Part six. Part seven.
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A tense knot has formed right between Leon’s shoulder blades – can feel it pull when he tilts his head side to side, but it doesn’t seem to be loosening. Can’t even blame it on sleeping on the sofa cos he hasn’t laid down to sleep since the call with Hunnigan, stays sat up right. He’s athletic, he can jump up to his feet from horizontal but it’ll add a second or so to his reaction time and he’s not taking the risk.
He's on edge and he doesn’t like it. The ball of anxiety in his gut has saved his life more times than he can count, but it shouldn’t be necessary in this situation, should it? He’s set up in a safe house, literally off some beaten track in the middle of nowhere – location chosen and distributed by encrypted software so, technically, no-one in the DSO knows where he is either. It’s rigged up to the heavens with security measures - cameras, alarm systems, motion detector - explosion-proof windows, reinforced doors, all topped off with his favourite array of weapons in the duffel bag, currently resting by his still booted feet.
The objective of his mission hasn’t changed after the intel he’s received, that some foreign agency has had access to the CCTV feed for who knows how many hours before they were cut off. He should feel reassured that the quality of the footage was awful – it was only by how many times he’s encountered Lickers that he could even tell that’s what the creatures were when he’d be presented with the grainy images. He didn’t see the footage of you being rescued, but it would be a cruel kick in the gut to find that feed had been HD.
He lifts an arm – his left, keeping his right arm free, his accuracy is better by millimetres with his right – and rubs the knot, hoping to relieve the tension. It's not 100% confirmed they are looking or will be looking for you either, but why would anyone link up to the CCTV circuit if not to check on the outcome of their operation?
His immediate thought had been to up the frequency of his perimeter checks, one every two hours. He could do that at night, sure – military training taught him the correct and most efficient techniques to power nap – but in the day it would be harder without worrying you about what’s changed.
You wanted updates. Hell, you were entitled to updates. But he wants to give you good news, doesn’t wanna add to the weight on your shoulders with what could be nothing.
It’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid, but in these sweet domestic moments the two of you have been sharing, he’s been pretending it’s something else – friends watching television, cooking a meal together – the sweet smiles the two of you exchange, but it’s all ripped apart the moment he has to do his checks. He can see the worry settle on your face then, a reminder of where you are with the flick of the safety off his gun and the twist of the lock as he goes outside to conduct surveillance.
Speaking of, his phone beeps for his next circuit on the building and he’s up on his feet in the blink of an eye. He pats his cargo pocket out of habit for the keys on the walk over to the garage door, but finds himself pausing outside your bedroom, his eyes focusing on the handle.
You should still be pretty under with those sleeping pills – note to self, he’ll need to start weening you off them from now on, far too easy to get addicted. It wouldn’t hurt to just… check you were okay, would it?
No – that’s what you’re here, why he’s here – to protect you.
It would just be doing his job.
He presses down on the handle and slowly opens the door, breath caught in his throat. It takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the dark, the lamp in the living room not quite reaching as far as your bed, but eventually he can make out your face – as peaceful as he’s ever seen it.
You’re on your side. The position doesn’t look like it would be comfortable with your arm still strapped up in the sling, but it’s testimony to how well the sleeping pills are working. Your other arm is up by your face, hand clenched in a tight fist around something. He steps forward without thinking, curious what it could be.
Your fingers are gripped tightly around his watch.
And there’s a pain in his chest that feels like they’re gripped around his heart as well.
That settles it - he’s not gonna tell you about the hacked CCTV feed. He will tell you that Hunnigan hasn’t searched your place yet, that they’ve restarted the surveillance department – she’d asked him to ask you if you knew anything about the servers since they were appeared to be working from square one – but that was it.
Leon steps back with unnecessary caution, leaving the bedroom as silently as he entered and shuts the door with a soft click. He takes a deep breath, pats down his pockets again and heads out to circle the perimeter.
And, just like after you kissed his cheek, he does it twice.
--
You wake up after another peaceful and dreamless sleep, though it still takes a moment to remember where you are as you stare up at the unfamiliar ceiling. You wonder if tomorrow you’ll not experience that flicker of panic, just get up and accept that you’ll be picking today’s outfit out of a selection of clothes that you’re not sure if anyone’s worn before you.
You feel sore, as seems to be becoming the norm, but with unusually stiff fingers on your good hand. It seems you’ve clutched Leon’s watch all night. You’d fallen asleep quite quickly – all thanks to those sleeping pills – but you remember looking at it when you’d first got in the bed, the seconds ticking by lulling you to sleep.
The fact that you’ve held it for so long reminds you of when you were a kid and snuggled up with a stuffed toy for comfort, except instead of something soft and cuddly, it’s what appears to be a top of line timepiece. There’s a lot of information contained on the face of the dial but there’s the time is the only one you really care about – 0906.
You get to your feet, raising your good arm to a grunt of protest as you try and run your fingers through your hair in lieu of a mirror. Huh, that pain’s new.
Your hair is definitely due a wash now, but that’s an issue for later. You pull on a pair of sweatpants one-handed – you’ll be a pro soon, you’re sure of it – and put Leon’s watch in the pocket for safekeeping. It’d be difficult to try and navigate the door handle with it still gripped in your good hand and you’d hate to scratch it up.
You open the door cautiously – you hadn’t seen Leon asleep yet, but he must do at some point. Maybe you should offer to alternate the sofa and the bed? Though you have a feeling that he’s far too much of a gentleman to accept.
Or there’ll be something in the rules that prohibits that.
There’s no danger of waking him though - the agent in question is performing sit-ups in the middle of the living room floor, facing the other way. Muscular arms behind his head as he lets out little puffs of exertion at the exercise, alternating sides as he twists.
Wary that you don’t want to be caught staring, you shut the door with more force than necessary behind you and greet him with a smile when he looks over his shoulder.
“Morning, Leon.”
“Dove!” He doesn’t even sound out of breath. “Morning. Sleep okay?” He jumps up to his feet before taking a couple of steps over in your direction. There’s a grin on his face at the sight of you – makes you feel giddy.
“Yeah, thanks. How about you?”
“That’s good. Yeah, I slept fine.” He nods. It’s not a lie – he did sleep fine for the position he forced himself to maintain all night, despite the slight crick in his neck.
“Is that how you usually start your mornings?”
One of the arms you’d been admiring goes up to rub the back of his head again. “Kinda. I usually go for a run, but…”
“But you can’t leave me on my own.” You finish, smile dropping a little. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be - I’m not.” He drops his arm back down, casting an eye over a watch that’s not there. “Hey, you hungry? I can get breakfast started. Oatmeal again?”
“Sure.” You nod, fishing his watch out of your pocket and holding it out to him. “Thanks again for this. It was nice to wake up and know the time this morning.”
“Don’t mention it. You can, er, you know, keep it. If you like.” He can’t get the image of you fast asleep last night, clutching it close to your face. He knows it was most likely the sleeping pills meaning you’d just passed out with it in your hand more than anything deeper, but, hey, a guy can pretend.
“I’ll be okay, I can get the time off the TV during the day.” You hold it out again with insistence. “But maybe… maybe I could have it for the night again?”
“Deal.” Leon hastily agrees, his fingers brushing yours as he takes back the watch before fastening it around his wrist. “Breakfast coming right up.”
You take the opportunity to duck into the bathroom as he heads towards the kitchen – your heart warmed once more by the sight of the blob of toothpaste sat ready and waiting on your toothbrush.
--
“And, finally, oatmeal.” He places it down on the coffee table, alongside your coffee, a glass of water and your morning dose of painkillers.
“Thank you.” You lean forward to pick up the spoon, smiling back at the face that Leon’s drizzled in honey atop your breakfast again.
“Nah, pleasure’s all mine.” He calls over his shoulder as he picks up his own bowl from the kitchen. He hesitates for a second, before choosing to sit the other end of the sofa to you, rather than the opposite one.
“You know, I don’t get to do this very often. It’s nice.”
“Mm,” you swallow a spoonful of oatmeal. “Thought you said you’d been in lots of safe houses.”
“A fair amount. But, no, not that part. I mean, eating breakfast with someone.”
“So…” You stir the spoon around the bowl, hoping it might prove a perfect segway into something you’d been wondering. “..there’s no-one at home for you?”
“Me?” He seems to scoff at the idea. “Nope.”
“Me neither.”
“Yeah, I figured.” He replies casually, before his blue eyes widen in alarm at how it might come across. “
“I mean, just by the fact that you hadn’t mentioned anyone at your apartment that morning and you hadn’t asked any of those sorta questions, you know, if they’d been told about what happened, where you are...”
He’s flustered, feels like he’s really putting his foot in his mouth this morning. He can take the lead in the interrogation of some of the world’s most despicable humans, for goodness’ sake, he should be able to talk to a pretty girl.
“Yeah, I figured.” You tease back and he swears he feels the weight lift off his shoulders.
The two of you eat in silence for a moment when curiosity gets the better of you. “So, you didn’t eat breakfast with the… others?”
“Nope.” His tone is firm as he recalls some of his previous charges. “Certainly didn’t make them it either. Trust me – they were nowhere near as nice or as deserving of my protection as you are, Dove.”
The comment makes your head tingle.
“It’s all been people ‘realising’ how deep they’d sank but only grew a conscience to save their own skin. Hell, you might have even performed surveillance on some of them. A lot of criminals finally show backbone when they realise their time is running out.”
“Well, I’m glad to make a change – both for sharing breakfast and …safe house occupancy with.”
“A nice change,” he mumbles, but you still hear.
--
After breakfast, you go to shower and Leon sets himself to task with the dishes once again, says he did his last perimeter check before nine. Removing the sling proves trickier than yesterday – when you go to tug off the Velcro your opposite shoulder smarts with a similar pain of that morning, causing you to hiss through your teeth, something which the painkillers from breakfast don’t seem to have alleviated.
You step into the cubicle after undressing – the hot water immediately somewhat soothing on your bruised shoulders but you still struggle to get what you now deem as your good arm high enough to even entertain the possibility of washing your hair.
You try and avoid your reflection in the mirror when you dress, though you know you’ll have to confront your hair at some point. Unfortunately, you catch a glimpse – a greasy mop sat upon your head that makes your heart sink.
There must be a trick to it – other people must wash their hair one-handed all the time, but maybe they can lift an arm above their head. If you were home, you’d go to a salon, you think – an expensive you would deem necessary for your sanity.
A thought flashes across your mind – a ridiculous one. Leon is already doing so much for you, surely this would be completely over the line.
But you could… ask, couldn’t you? The worst he could do was say no, it would be awkward, and maybe there’s a hat in the duffel bag you’ve yet to discover.
You open the bathroom door, but don’t make to step over the threshold. Leon looks over from the sofa – dishes now drying in the rack besides the sink - and clocks your hesitation.
“Need a hand with the sling?”
Are you really going to ask him this?
You’ll break at some point - you know you will, so why not get it over with now? You’re a regimented two-day wash kinda girl and it’s day three. Not to be completely vain, but you’re covered with bruises and cuts, dressed in less than flattering clothes that aren’t yours and it would be nice to feel somewhat decent about something in your appearance.
Especially with the handsome company you’re keeping. Hell, Leon could be a model, a hair model too. There’d been shampoo and conditioner in the shower and you certainly hadn’t used it.
“Dove?” You’ve taken too long to reply again, getting stuck in your spiralling thoughts.
“I know this isn’t what you’re here for.” The words tumble out of your mouth before you can think further.
“Okay…” Leon's eyebrow is raised, a curious smile now fixed on his lips as he gets to his feet.
“And say no, obviously. Please. Just… I’d like to wash my hair.” You drop your eyes then – maybe it’ll be easier if you talk to your feet rather staring into his kind eyes?
"Right."
“And I’d… You know, I’d go to a salon and get it done there if we weren’t… here.”
“You’d like me to help you wash your hair?” There’s a tone of amusement or maybe disbelief in his tone.
Hearing him say it aloud makes you doubt the entire exercise, your heart begin to pound at your stupidity.
“Sorry. No, I don’t know what I was thinking. It was stupid to ask-“
“Hey, no, it makes sense.” He soothes, immediately wanting to ease your frustrations. “You can’t lift your arm above your head, right? My fault for not thinking about that.”
You look up then, seeing the sincerity on his face – like it truly was his fault that you couldn’t wash your own damn hair.
“I can do that, Dove. I don’t see why not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mm-hm. As you said, if you were anywhere else right now, you could go to a salon and whilst I can’t promise their quality, I seem to do all right with my own.” He shrugs. “You thinking over the sink?”
He doesn’t know why he asks – it’s hardly like you’re going to ask him to get in the shower with you.
Is it?
“I think so.” You look around the living area, though you’re well acquainted with what feels like every square inch of it now. “Though it might be a little awkward since we don’t have any chairs.”
He snaps his fingers. “Nah, there might be one in the garage, actually. Lemme check.”
He barely makes it into the garage when his cell vibrates in his pocket – one new message from Hunnigan.
Any server information for me?
Leon finds the folding chair nestled at the side of the washer and dryer and hesitates over the text back.
He’ll wash your hair – seeing how torn up you’d been about even asking him had made him feel awful - then he’ll give you the updates and ask about the servers.
He picks up the chair and tucks it under one arm, swiftly typing out a message on his cell and clicks send.
Not yet – Dove’s still asleep.
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Masterlist . Requests welcome . Commissions/Ko-Fi
Comments, follows, likes and reblogs make my day!
Part eight.
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Hello there! do you still have an older version of evolwallpaper? I was late to the party and I can't install it properly anymore T_T
Hi anon, unfortunately I no longer have the old .exe 😩 I checked weibo, other users in China are having problems with it as well, my conclusion to this is that it's a broken app full of bugs, probably got nothing to do with regions (ノへ ̄、)
Babe because of your ask, I spent good 5 hours tonight trying to debug it, because I insist we all get the dynamic wallpapers!!!
Original guide // Deepspace PC guide
By the end of this tutorial, we should have a video like this applied to our computer wallpaper:
There's Nikki, MLQC, Deepspace and The Perceiver wallpapers.
New guide:
https://paperwall.papegames.com/
Same step as before, download this but don't install yet!
The following was actually hidden in their Q&A, you'll also need this for it to run, download the runtime version.
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet-framework/net48
After you install the .NET Framework 4.8 go ahead and try to install the PAPERWALL .exe
→ If it works, great! We solved the problem!! 🎉 (You can skip to the section on the bottom on how to use the app)
→ If you get this error message, ugh congratulations, this is where I tried about 67 solutions for hours just so you don't have to
It's weird, because at this point, the thing have successfully installed on your local drive but it won't run.
Let's go back a step, if you open the .exe again, take note of where it's at on your computer. For me you can see that it's in the C drive, I presume it'll be the same for you.
Find the folder, open it
Open the app
→ If it works, great! We solved the problem!! 🎉 (You can skip to the section on the bottom on how to use the app)
→ If you get the same error message, read on:
If the images haven't loaded in the 1.0.1 version it will most likely going to crash when you try to do anything on it, so read on:
Let go back to the C drive
We are gonna move this somewhere else, if you have a hard drive, paste it to your hard drive, if you have another drive on your pc, you can move it to the other drive. BUT DO NOT MOVE IT TO YOUR DESKTOP!!!! Because we practice good computer hygiene 🙏
Once you've moved everything away, open it back up and try to install it again in your new file location
→ If it works, great! We solved the problem!! 🎉 (You can skip to the section on the bottom on how to use the app)
→ If you still get the same error message, I will send my portfolio to Paper Games to be a software developer in their office and write a new app
Once you get it running *fingers crossed* move the entire folder back to your C drive if you moved it to your hard drive, unless your hard drive is plugged in all the time.
If for whatever reason you get the "access to the path is denied" error message, try the right click and select the "Run as administrator" option.
For easy access:
Go onto your desktop, or wherever you want to access it from quickly and paste shortcut!! Remember it's the shortcut!!
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How to use the app
The UI has changed a little since the original one, but it's easy to navigate.
Change the language to English, it should reboot the app
From here it's self explanatory
For good computer hygiene you might want to double check where the wallpapers are stored and change directory if needed.
If you're like me and have 2 monitors, this is what it'll look like with the wallpapers applied and the game opened, looks like I need a 3rd monitor for Shen Xinghui ⭐
(Desktop icons should show up, I just don't have icons on the desktop)
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If you still have problems, check your PC specifications against the following that were recommended on the official site:
System: Windows10 or above
RAM: 1024MB or above
Processor: 1.66Hz Intel i5 or above
Graphics: HD Graphics 4000 or above
DirectX: 10
Secret third thing: you might be able to run it and have the lovely wallpapers but it suddenly goes glitchy or black screen... that's because of the faulty app, I've seen people mention it on weibo, it's not just you 😔
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Feel free to drop me an ask with images if you still run into problems, hope this helps, until next time~ (✿◠‿◠)
Check out this tag for already answered questions #/wallpaper woes
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