Archive of Our Own

1999

”Thank you,” the words were spoken with a soft, genuine tone. Softer than he’d expected from a man like Chris. Softer than he was used to from anyone, really. “For helping her, for helping both of us.”

Leon is staring into the eyes of a man who cannot find the words to properly express his appreciation for keeping the one thing left that still matters to him alive. Despite this being the first time they’ve met in person, they have a mutual understanding between them that Claire’s safety will always come first when they are in the room. They’ve never once had to voice this promise. They share it through weighted eye contact and loaded thanks.

“Of course,” Leon chuffs. There’s a hand that’s extended to him and he shakes it, firm, the way his father taught him, “You know I’d do anything.”

“I do,” Chris says, leveling him with a look that Leon feels peel away layers, letting the older man see straight to his bones.

This is the first time Leon’s come face to face with the eldest Redfield after meeting Claire and hearing the name Chris for the first time. He’s somehow everything Leon was expecting and yet nothing like he assumed. He’s tall and broad in a way that speaks to years of pretend-wrestling with silent forfeits, piggyback rides, and warmth that shaped Claire into the upstanding young woman she is today. His voice is gentler and warmer than Leon predicted, his eyes lighter than the dark brown they’d appeared in the photograph he’d seen in the S.T.A.R.S. office. Just being in his gaze feels comforting.

He knows the capabilities of the man sitting across from him, how he’s from a military background and was with S.T.A.R.S. before Umbrella stepped in and ruined their lives. He notes the way Chris’ eyes dart around to identify exits and potential threats, the way his posture tenses at every noise like it’s something new to account for. Chris is jaded in a way Leon is sure he’ll understand once STRATCOM is finished with him. Chris is clearly a man with capable hands who has undoubtedly killed before.

But so is Leon. And Chris is the farthest thing from a threat.

“Well, I owe you a drink,” Chris says and Leon sees the corners of his mouth twitch like he’s trying not to smile too wide, “Only fair, I think, for saving mine and my baby sister’s asses.”

“Oh, it was—“ Leon goes to wave it off again but Chris catches his hand in the air, freezing Leon where he stands.

“It’s not nothing,” Chris says, dead serious this time, “And I want to thank you.”

Leon wavers in his uncertainty for a moment before he speaks in a voice that’s almost a whisper, “…okay.”

“Okay,” Chris says as a smile breaks out on his face, slapping Leon’s back, “Okay.”

And that’s that.

• • •

When they step into the lodge, it’s quiet. The whole place looks like the type of vacation spot you’d expect rich white people to enjoy, except it looks about fifteen years past its prime. The wallpaper is peeling in places and gaudy where it once might’ve been considered classy, the fixtures and furniture are outdated to the point that it reminds Chris of the furniture in his home when he was a kid.

What was once likely a luxury vacation getaway spot in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is now a rudimentary and yet rundown ski lodge. It’s summer. The whole place is empty aside from the rare employee who looks bored enough to peel their own skin off, if only to have something to do.

But this is where they’ve been told they can find Leon and, if the Los Illuminados is as relevant as it seems to be thus far, he’s going to be an instrumental part of cracking this case open. Rebecca is confident he’s the missing piece of their puzzle, so here they are.

Chris has to admit though that some of the hope for what Leon could bring to their investigation dies when he and Rebecca round the corner to find him in the hotel bar with a drink in hand.

He’s the lone patron, sipping at a glass that is clearly the last of the bottle of whiskey that sits beside him. The girl working behind the bar, polishing glasses with a hand towel, is shooting concerned glances in Leon’s direction every few minutes. The clock on the wall reads 10:30 AM.

He makes a sorry sight. He’s thinner than the last time Chris saw him right after everything in Lanshiang, though the thick motorcycle jacket he wears despite the summer heat is doing an okay job at hiding it.

His hair’s much darker than it had been, nearly jet black. A new memory surfaces for the first time in a while— Leon standing in a bathroom slathering hair dye on his head.

He wonders, briefly, just how long it will take for him to fill in all of the other blank spots that his TBI left him with. He’s recovered a lot since Piers found him in Edonia, a lot more than he could’ve even considered was missing at the time. He knows Claire and remembers most of the important memories with her. He remembers bits and pieces of his time in the Air Force and most of his time with S.T.A.R.S.

His memory of the Spencer Mansion incident is shockingly clear, along with most of his memories of Jill. It’s somewhere after 1998, though, that bigger parts of the picture are still missing. He knows enough to function, and Claire and Jill have both helped supplement what he can’t quite fill in. There are still little minutiae he simply can’t place until something triggers the memory to return. This is one of those times.

He focuses back on the man in front of him, curled over the table in a way that makes Chris’ own back hurt just from looking at him. Leon’s swirling the whiskey in his glass, staring down at the churning of the amber color like it carries all of the answers to life itself.

A swell of something fills Chris’ chest and it’s just like Lanshiang all over again. The same sense of emotion washes over him, one he cannot name. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it before Leon notices them.

“Careful you don’t scare the locals,” he says without turning around as Chris and Rebecca approach. His voice is drawled out with a slight slur, the only indication of how much he’s drank.

“Your stealth’s still for shit,” he says, sounding pissed off, worn out, and disappointed all at the same time.

“It’s a little early to be that deep in the bottle, Leon,” Chris says in lieu of a greeting, noticing the way it makes Leon’s shoulders tense, like he’s hit a nerve. It’s sort of hypocritical for him to say after his own time spent as a stray dog in that damn Edonian bar, but that’s besides the point.

Leon sits back in his chair, turning halfway to look at them both with a glower in his eyes. “Well, look who it is,” he says, mustering a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes, “The BSAA’s golden boy and Dr. High Hopes!” He exclaims the words with a falsified sense of enthusiasm before immediately melting back into his sullen tone, dread in his voice, “The hell do you want?”

“I got a job,” Chris says, “We need your help.”

At that, Leon chuckles. It’s a little sour around the edges. “I’m on vacation,” he says, turning back to the now empty rocks glass in his hands.

Rebecca sighs, rounding the table to place her briefcase down and come face to face with Leon. “Let’s talk about Los Illuminados. Remember the types of BOWs they were using?”

“That’s so long ago, I don’t remember,” is Leon’s response, his voice flat and unenthused. Considering it’s been a decade, Chris might believe him if he hadn’t read the Kennedy Report. That mission is the kind no man can forget on his own. Even Chris, still recovering from the aftermath of a brain injury, remembers every part of Kijiju like it was yesterday.

“So what?” Chris asks with a huff, growing frustrated, “You just gonna sit around here another week and do nothing?”

“I never make plans that far ahead,” Leon says, and it’s shockingly vulnerable. His tone lilts in a way that gives off the impression he hadn’t meant to be that honest when he said it.

Chris takes a slow inhale, digesting those words. He doesn’t have time to decode their meaning, however, because Leon snaps himself out of his own melancholy staring contest with his glass by turning to the hotel employee as she walks past, “Hey! Another bottle here.” The way he slurs the words makes Chris wonder if Leon might be even drunker than he thought.

“Cancel that,” Chris steps in, waving a hand at the girl to dismiss the request. She freezes, unsure of who to listen to.

“Hey, who the hell do you—“ Leon rears on him, but Chris isn’t standing for it. They don’t have time for this.

“Enough!” Chris exclaims, slamming a hand down on the tabletop. Leon’s glass rattles with the force of it. “Alright?”

Leon stares at him for a long moment, some emotion that Chris cannot decipher crossing his expression before it hardens again. “What,” He starts, his tone low and bitter, “Do you want, Redfield?” He says Chris’ last name like it’s an insult.

“What do you want, Leon?” Chris asks in response.

Leon scoffs, leaning back in his chair to pull a silver hip flask from his pocket. The metal squeaks with wear as he unscrews it, answering Chris’ question wordlessly by lifting the flask to his mouth.

But before he can get it there, Chris grabs his arm. Leon’s eyes cut to him, his stare sharpening like a dagger. “Cut the shit,” Chris says, growing more and more frustrated by the minute.

Leon’s stare carries something of a warning in it but Chris doesn’t back down. He keeps his hand on Leon’s forearm and maintains eye contact until Rebecca cuts in, “Guys, come on.” When she does, Leon jerks his arm away from Chris and turns to look at her.

Rebecca apologizes for interrupting Leon’s “vacation”, if one could consider a bender in a shitty, rundown ski lodge a vacation, and then begins telling him what they currently know in regards to the virus. Chris, for a moment, doesn’t listen. She’s not saying anything he doesn’t already know by now.

Instead, he looks at Leon. Really looks. His face is thinner. There’s dark circles under his eyes, only further emphasized by the eyeliner he wears in his waterline. His posture is languid and relaxed in his chair in such a manner that once again tells Chris he’s deeper than just the one bottle, even considering his insane tolerance levels.

It’s concerning. Even Chris, with his spotty memory, knows that while this kind of behavior isn’t exactly out of character, it is abnormal. And it’s raising his hackles in a way that makes all the old bygone instincts of ‘care, protect, nurture, comfort, fix’ pop up.

He has to stifle it, because Leon might be his friend but that’s all he is, and he’s a grown man who can make poor decisions and be miserable if he wants to. That won’t keep Chris from worrying, but Leon’s not his focus right now.

Rebecca looks to him expectantly and Chris realizes she must be cueing him to continue explaining what’s going on. So he takes a breath and steels himself. Right now, Arias has to go down.

• • •

2001

”Nah, it’s on me,” Chris shakes his head, smiling in that way that Leon’s just this side of too tipsy to handle with a straight face, taking their empty glasses to get a refill.

Leon watches Chris stalk away into the distant, hazy atmosphere of the bar and he has to force himself to breathe.

They are barely what Leon would consider friends but it is still enough to drive him to the very edge of his sanity. He has no idea when he last talked to Claire, but he could tell you the last time he’d seen Chris down to the exact date.

He’s aware that’s not normal behavior. But he can’t help himself because here’s this kind, funny guy, who actually gives half a shit about him, and understands all the terrible things he’s been through because he’s also been thrown into the mess that is the war on bioterrorism.

He’s just drunk enough to be willing to stare at Chris’ ass as he walks away, notating the shape and bounce somewhere into the recesses of his mind for the kind of ‘later’ he won’t tell anyone about. The scent of cigarette smoke lingers over their table like a thick smog, burning away in the ashtray where Chris left it. And before Leon can manage his impulse control, he has it between his fingers. Then pressed against his lips.

He inhales slow, and suddenly he knows what Chris’ lips would taste like if he were brave enough to lean over.

He’s so lost in the flavor that he doesn’t notice Chris’ return until the ‘thunk’ of beer mugs hit the table and break him free of the moment. Chris laughs, even drunker than Leon is somehow, taking his seat as he asks, “I thought you said you didn’t smoke?”

“I don’t,” Leon says shortly, refusing to elaborate. Chris, seeming to sense he’s hit a wall he can’t barrel through, backs off with another laugh and mourns the loss of his cigarette by lighting another one.

“Y’know,” Leon speaks through the exhale of a long pull, smoke billowing from his nose and mouth like an angry dragon, “I always wondered what these tasted like.” He props his elbow on the table, flicking the ash off before he holds the cigarette up and stares at the warm glow of the cherry.

“Like shit,” Chris chuckles, “Cause I’m a cheap asshole.”

“Nah,” Leon shakes his head, “I’ve had worse.” His eyes find Chris’ over the table and he holds the other man’s gaze as he takes another drag, blowing it out through his nose.

He watches Chris’ eyes narrow, flickering between his eyes and his lips, before he takes a deep gulp of his sweating beer.

“Those things’ll kill you, y’know,” Chris clears his throat, tamping down his smirk. He’s quoting Leon at himself, a callback to the first time Chris pulled out a pack of cigarettes around Leon ‘Goody-Two-Shoes’ Kennedy. That boy’s gone now and has been for a long time. Whatever was left of him died under the hands of Jack Krauser, when he learned what being the ‘favorite’ really meant.

“Maybe that’s the idea, Redfield,” Leon smirks across the table, languid from the nicotine and cheap beer, “If something’s gotta get me, I’d rather it be a good time than a monster someone cooked up in a lab somewhere.”

“Maybe,” Chris’ smile falls a little, his eyes dropping to the table, his tone dipping into something a little more morose, “Maybe the point is that there is no point, and we do what we have to in order to feel something.”

“Easy, Redfield,” Leon laughs and even he hears it a little cruel, “No need to overthink it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Chris mutters, his eyes following the filter of his cigarette as Leon’s lips wrap around it, “Maybe not.”

Leon watches his eyes drop to his mouth and he wonders.

• • •

Because nothing can ever go easily for them, the whole plan, of course, goes sideways before they can even leave the bar. Now Arias has Rebecca and more civilians are dead. They don’t have time to waste.

But that doesn’t stop Chris from worrying on the drive back to the airport to gather the others. Leon sits in his passenger seat, his expression unreadable.

Chris can still see the devastation written across Leon’s face when Patricio slumped to the ground, too much blood pouring from his wounds for either of them to have saved him. Chris was already concerned, but now he’s really worried.

Chris keeps stealing glances at Leon out of the corner of his eye. The silence is unnerving, especially with the sound of the gatling gun still ringing in his ears. Leon’s head leans against the window, his face twisted in a sour expression Chris can’t ignore, his own stomach twisting in concern.

There’s some part of him internally that is going absolutely haywire at having someone he cares about so upset in such close proximity. That same part wants to pull the car over onto the shoulder and pick at the scab until Leon breaks, whether it be in anger or tears.

Chris’ fingers itch for a cigarette so he draws the box of Lucky Strikes from his console when they roll up to a red light. Chris takes his hands off the wheel just long enough to place one between his lips and light it while they’re still idle. The light turns green as he inhales, and his free hand goes back to the wheel.

He glances at Leon, seeing the man glowering at him from across the truck. His expression reads as distaste and Chris draws up another memory, a younger Leon’s face twisted in disgust as Chris holds a burning cigarette between his fingers. He reaches over to let his window roll down a little further, drawing the smoke out into the wind.

Leon lets out a low scoff but doesn’t say anything, turning his distant eyes back on the road ahead.

It’s shaping up to feel like the longest drive of Chris’ life. Which is tough competition, considering the primary contender before now would’ve been the drive to the hospital, after he got the call that his parents were in a car accident. At the time, he’d been on his senior trip with his friends, freshly eighteen and looking forward to his first semester of college in the fall. He planned to study aerospace engineering. He wanted to work with planes, like his dad.

That phone call changed all of those plans for good. The nurse refused to tell him how his parents were doing over the phone, so he had to drive three hours back home in the middle of the night. It had felt like days. He stopped by their house first to pick up Claire, who cried the entire way to the hospital, only twelve years old and terrified. He had to hide the shake in his hands and tried to keep her calm until they both could get some answers.

Somehow, the silence hanging in the air between Chris and Leon feels more tortuously drawn out than that night. And Chris cannot, for the life of him, figure out why. And he doesn’t know what to say, if anything, because sitting next to Leon feels like standing next to a live landmine. He keeps reminding himself not to step in the wrong direction for fear of the blast radius.

So he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he grits his teeth, ripping a pull of smoke through his lips and feeling it sting his lungs. He tightens his grip on the wheel, his knuckles going white, and feels his jaw creak as his teeth grind against each other.

He exhales slowly, blue-grey haze spilling from his mouth in a poisonous cloud. He sees Leon steal another glance in his periphery but the other man doesn’t say anything. So Chris doesn’t either, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of them.

Whatever this mangled mess of feeling is that’s got them both on edge right now cannot be the priority. He thinks of Rebecca, one of the bravest and smartest people he knows, shaking with fear when he and his squad found her in the university. Rescuing her from Arias’ hands has to be the most important thing to them both right now.

That doesn’t stop Chris from stealing one last sideways glance at Leon. The sight makes him take another drag.

• • •

2004

Leon sits in the dark, staring at the wall ahead. It’s been days and he can still feel Luis’ blood on his hands. Like he never washed it off. Like he hasn’t scrubbed and scrubbed until the skin was rubbed raw.

He fiddles with the lighter in his hands, flicking it open and closed. Open, closed. Over and over again like a routine. Open, light, closed, darkness. Repeat. The only light in the room is the brief flicker of the flame. He rubs his thumb over the engravings, names Leon doesn’t know but which surely meant a lot to Luis at one point in time. The Umbrella logo reminding him of Luis’ plea to the universe for repentance in his last moments. The heat of the metal burns his skin but he doesn’t care enough to notice, too lost in a memory.

Luis had his eyes on him. Leon’s not stupid, he saw the way the spaniard looked at him. He and Ashley both shared those impressed, charmed glances every time Leon saved their asses again and again.

With Ashley, it was one thing. She was his mission, his charge, and she’s a young girl in college who sees a pretty face and a man who’s supposed to rescue her. The crush made sense but Leon didn’t engage— she doesn’t interest him. She’s too young, too naive. Maybe in another life, one where all the good parts of him didn’t die alone in the dark, viciously murdered at the hands of cruel human nature. Before Raccoon City, before Krauser… maybe. But the man he is today hardly spared her a glance beyond recognizing a young, vibrant soul thrown in the midst of a mess she had no part in, just like he had been once.

In fact, the only woman who’s interested him in a long time is Ada Wong, and that’s an entirely different source of pain altogether. One he isn’t ready to lance just yet.

But Luis, he looked back at. Luis, he laughed with. Luis, he admired. Luis, who smelled like leather and Marlboro Golds. Who smirked and called him Spanish words he probably thought Leon wouldn’t understand, and who helped him when he didn’t have to. Luis, who died on his watch before Leon could even crest past the hill of wanting to thank his efforts with a kiss.

And now, all Leon has left of the man who he thought might be his something the same way he once, naively, thought Ada could be his something, is a half-empty zippo lighter and the memory of blood under his fingernails.

He hasn’t slept in days. He’s showered nine times since he got home, not counting the three he took at the STRATCOM medical facility when they made sure Las Plagas was removed for good before he and Ashley could be released. He hasn’t eaten since the first meal he tried to force down tasted like rotten fish and ash. He’s half a bottle of bourbon deep and aching for the burn of a cigarette. If only to remember what Luis smelled like before the sharp, metallic scent of blood overtook it.

And it’s the thought of a cigarette that has his mind rolling to Chris. They haven’t spoken in a year, since the last time they got drunk together when Chris was stateside, but he wonders if Chris might be able to serve as something of a bandaid for his gaping wound.

So he stumbles over to the landline and he dials. Half of him almost hopes Chris doesn’t pick up. He doesn’t deserve to be poisoned by Leon’s misery. But the other half of him is on the verge of shattering.

Chris picks up with his usual greeting despite the late hour, “Redfield speaking.” He sounds tired but not like he’s been woken up.

“Hey Chris,” Leon rasps, his voice exhausted and his throat burning from stomach acid and cheap whiskey, “You wanna swing by for a drink?”

“Leon?” He hears over the phone as a piece of furniture squeaks, like Chris is shifting in his seat, and Leon pictures him glancing at a clock on the wall. But despite the pause, Chris’ voice returns with a sigh of, “Yeah, I’ll be there in ten.”

The phone call ends with a click and Leon’s left standing there, his hands trembling, the lighter still clutched in his palm.

He slowly places the landline back in its cradle and, without looking at it, places the lighter on the countertop. It’s the first time he’s put it down since Luis put it in his hand. It feels like a step, though he isn’t sure in what direction.

Ten minutes pass by like hours and then a knock sounds at the door. Leon’s even deeper into the bottle and he staggers to the door, pulling it open. Chris Redfield stands on the other side in a leather jacket, worry written across his face that only deepens when he sees Leon already drunk.

“Hey, Leon,” Chris says and his voice is so soft, Leon could almost start crying right then and there. But of course, because Leon can’t process emotions like a normal human being, he doesn’t. Instead, he steps aside to wave Chris in and asks, “Got a smoke? I’ll pour you a glass.”

Chris nods and that’s all he needs.

They don’t talk. Leon pours Chris a generous serving of whiskey, forcing himself to drink some water lest he vomit for the second time today. Chris pulls out his pack of cigarettes and a lighter, some cheap plastic piece of shit from the gas station that is, thankfully, nothing like the zippo on the counter, and lights up for both of them.

Chris is down three drinks and two cigarettes when he finally breaks the careful silence. “You just get back?” The way he asks it is measured.

“Yeah,” Leon says into his glass, on his second serving of water and feeling more sober than he’d like to be. But Chris is too good of a friend to not worry if he gets blackout drunk with no explanation. So he paces himself, only halfway through his own cancer stick, “Three days ago.”

“Where was it this time?” Chris asks like he knows it’s a touchy subject.

“Spain,” Leon answers honestly, watching the end of the cigarette in his hand burn. Slowly turning to ash that he taps off onto the coffee table without a care in the world. He doesn’t own an ashtray and his shitty little apartment doesn’t have a balcony or a back yard.

“Sounds fun,” Chris remarks with marked sarcasm, “Good vacation spot?”

“Oh, I’m sure it was wonderful before the cult moved in,” Leon says snidely through a puff of smoke.

“Yeesh,” Chris cringes, downing the last of his glass with a shake of the head, “Our jobs suck.”

“You can say that again,” Leon mutters, bitter.

“Our jobs suck,” Chris repeats with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Leon shoulder checks him but he can’t help the stupid smile it brings to his face. “Hey, I’m the guy with the corny dad jokes around here.”

“Alright,” Chris holds his hands up in surrender, stubbing out the end of his cigarette, “I’ll let you keep that one.”

And then he’s turning that smile, that genuine smile with that soft, open stare of his that makes Leon’s stomach feel like it’s being ripped up through his ribcage. He’s so kind, it makes Leon sick to his stomach.

And Leon can’t help himself. Those brown-blue eyes put the only kind of warmth he can feel in his chest, settling something Leon can’t even name in his mind, and he needs it. Needs Chris.

So he leans forward and their lips meet in a messy, drunken kiss. Their teeth clack and Leon’s tongue is too loose. Chris doesn’t respond at first. Objectively, it’s a terrible kiss.

But Chris tastes like Lucky Strikes, whiskey, and future consequences. Leon is addicted in an instant.

Finally, Chris responds, sighing through his nose as he relaxes into the kiss. He parts his lips, letting his tongue slide along Leon’s in return, and suddenly the awkward meeting of mouths turns into open-mouthed wetness.

Leon never got to learn what Marlboros tasted like on Luis’ lips, but he decides this will do.

And that’s his first mistake.

• • •

The Silver Daggers have fallen into a comfortable silence on the flight. They’ve got a couple hours between Colorado and New York, and now that they’ve debriefed the situation as well as gathered a plan together, the plane is quiet. Damien’s gone to join DC in the co-pilot’s seat and Nadia sits in the corner, dozing with her head propped on her go-bag.

Chris’ eyes, however, are on Leon, who has his arms crossed and his head propped back. His eyes are open and trained on the ceiling of the plane, but they look glazed over, like he’s lost in his own head.

Some midday sunlight cascades in through one of the windows, softening the sharpness of him. Chris can’t help but think about how beautiful he is, even like this.

There it is again. That swelling ache in his chest that he couldn’t quite put a name to, certainly not this morning, but the longer it sits with him the harder it is for Chris to deny its origin.

He can’t say it’s love, exactly. What he remembers of Leon isn’t enough to justify that. But it’s in the same vein and his chest feels like it’s cracking open with realization.

It makes him even more frustrated to wonder what exactly he’s missing. He knows he and Leon have been aquainted with each other since at least 1999. Claire filled in some of those early spots he was missing but after that, she’d told him she thought they hadn’t really been friends from 2004 or so. She said they never talked about each other, nor were they ever really seen together, so she’d assumed they’d drifted away from each other.

She’d added that it hadn’t helped that her and Leon weren’t exactly on speaking terms for three of those years. Claire had said it was actually Chris who pushed her to try and reconnect with Leon, but apparently he hadn’t mentioned Leon again after that.

What’s so baffling about this is the way Chris’ heart skips a beat every time he and Leon cross paths. From Lanshiang until now. Even something as simple as Claire being on the phone with Leon in the next room. The thought of him alone is enough to inspire butterflies to perform twists and flips somewhere deep in his gut.

What Chris recalls of his journey with his own sexuality is… complicated. Some of his teenage years are pieced together clumsily. Claire was too young back then to supplement the things Chris can’t remember.

He does, however, have a distinct memory of the night he realized he was gay.

He was sixteen years old, sitting between his mother and Claire on the sofa in their family room, a movie playing on the big box TV in front of them. Chris can’t recall the name of the film, but it was about a teenage boy trying to utilize his high school football career to escape his blue-collar town. Or something like that, it’s not really important. What is important, however, is that said teen boy was played by Tom Cruise, who couldn’t have been older than 21 at the time.

And Chris still remembers the way he was squirming in his seat the entire film because of just how pretty he was. A soft jawline, big green doe eyes, floppy and overgrown hair, a lean, lithe body.

There was a scene in the film where the character in question stripped down slowly, progressing into a soft sex scene between him and his girlfriend. In the shot where he unzipped and pulled down his jeans, because it was the ‘80s and they could get away with it, you could see a glimpse of pubic hair. Chris can still feel the phantom sensation of his heart pounding in his chest as he watched.

His mom had shot him half-concerned-half-confused glances for the rest of the night. He remembers his face flushing when he noticed her gaze.

Only a few months after that night, his mom had caught him with a Playgirl magazine and Chris had thought his life was ending until she yanked him into a hug. She’d rocked him back and forth, soft shushing sounds drifting from her mouth as he scrambled for the right thing to say between panicked tears.

When she pulled away, all she’d said was, “I love you so much, my sweet boy,” as she used her thumb to swipe away the tears on his cheeks. And they never brought it up again.

Obviously while he was in the Air Force he had to hide it. Not that he was looking to advertise it to begin with. But there were some days that felt like walking through a minefield of potential missteps. And then, when he joined S.T.A.R.S…

What he’d thought was a simple little crush on a man he deeply admired had, in all actuality, run much deeper than that. He’d fed off of any and all praise he could garner from Captain Wesker, no matter what it cost him. Any little scrap of acknowledgement could change his whole mood, and if he disappointed Wesker, he’d spend days agonizing over it. He was far too reliant on the way the man perceived him. And Wesker saw it from day one.

Some of the grey area of that time is still lost in the margins. Jill could fill him in on certain things, like how they both reacted to one another around the rest of the Alpha team, but there were obviously questions she couldn’t answer. Questions he’ll probably have for the rest of his life, considering how it all ended.

And yes, somewhere along the line, his admiration for Wesker turned into something a little deeper, a little sicker, until it resembled something you could call love. And Wesker exploited that too. Saw the way Chris looked at him and decided, in that distant and unemotional way he operated, that Chris could be useful to him.

Chris spares another glance at Leon and wonders what it is about him that finds brutal blonds so damn compelling. So easy to trip and fall for.

After Wesker, Chris doesn’t remember ever having a relationship with another man. Claire and Jill both said if he had, he’d never told either of them. So there’s room for Chris to wonder, but it wouldn’t surprise him, if he stayed away from anything that might’ve inspired those feelings in him. The devastation of Wesker’s betrayal is something he still hasn’t fully recovered from, even now with the distance of time and missing memories.

Regardless, it’s getting a lot harder for Chris to deny the way Leon makes his stomach swoop like he’s sustaining uncomfortable levels of G-force. It’s not dissimilar to the feeling of piloting a plane, he thinks, that adrenaline spike paired with the sensation of his heart about to come out through his mouth.

He sighs quietly to himself, massaging the bridge of his nose between two fingers. This mission is going to be exhausting.

• • •

2006

Leon sighs at the slam of the door. He listens to Chris’ fading footsteps down the hallway as he pours himself another shot and downs it, barely even feeling the burn.

He wonders if they’ve made a mistake somewhere along the line by trying to consolidate all of their pain into one big writhing mess. A thing they then try their hardest not to look at, even when it’s impossible to ignore.

They’re hardly stateside anymore, let alone at the same time. And while Leon had thought that might make things easier because it would keep them from getting sick of each other, it just seems to be putting a strain on the whole affair.

It doesn’t help that Chris seems to carry a general sense of guilt or anxiety surrounding the concept of being in a relationship with another man. Despite Leon’s friendship with Claire, Chris refuses to let his sister in on this side of their personal life. Which doesn’t bother Leon on its own. Really, it doesn’t. They don’t have to live together, not everyone needs to know that they’re involved. But what bothers him is the way Chris barely acknowledges his existence outside of their apartments.

And any time Leon has tried to ask about this phenomenon, Chris locks up and refuses to explain, waving it off as if he doesn’t know what Leon’s talking about. And Leon’s, frankly, tired of not even being able to be Chris’ friend where anyone else can see, despite waking up in his bed with said man for a week straight. It’s exhausting.

That’s not to say Leon’s exactly perfect. He fucks up often and consistently when it comes to Chris. Chris, who wants to be there for him, who holds him so gently and stares at him so softly with whispered words of comfort, who lets Leon hold him tight enough to bruise when he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. And Leon, without fail, will take advantage of these comforts as if they’re his to keep until it gets bad.

It’s only when it truly gets bad, the absolute worst of the worst, when his mind won’t let him rest for the memory of every person he’s ever failed, every life he’s never saved. When Krauser’s words bounce around his brain so sharply that it starts to sound like his father and he eyes his service issued pistol, wondering in a way that scares him. That’s when he pushes Chris away. He turns, instead, to a bottle of whiskey and drinks until he’s seeing double and the noise in his head is muffled enough that he can sleep. Only to wake hours later with stomach acid crawling its way up his throat, and a headache that feels like his skull is tearing apart at the seams.

He still doesn’t let Chris help him when he’s hungover because he doesn’t want to taint Chris with this part of him. This sick, sorry excuse of a person that he’s become. He thinks of the way his father turned to a bottle and remembers the way he refused to drink in college because he didn’t want to turn out like him. He scoffs, staring down at the whiskey that tastes like water to him now, seeing exactly where that got him.

And Chris, who’s only ever known how to take care of the people he loves, who wants to rub his back, hold his shaking hands, wipe away the tears, and hold back his hair while he spills the contents of his stomach, cannot stand not being let in. It sets him on edge to be only allowed on the fringes of Leon’s misery, just far enough to watch but not close enough to fix it.

To soothe this anxiety, Chris turns to a pack of cigarettes. And those had lost their charm on Leon a long time ago. The smell that he had come to associate with Chris and later Luis in the most tragic way possible has permeated his furniture, lingering in the most acrid of ways. The scent has soured in his nose and it only grows stronger every time Chris sits down on the couch, chain-smoking to try and alleviate his nerves. Sometimes, Leon wakes up in the dead of the night to an empty bed and the scent drifting in from the living room.

Sometimes, the scent makes him picture his mother with her Virginia slims perched between shaking fingers, a dark purple bruise around her eye socket and a steadily bleeding split in her lip. And every time, a tiny hint of bitterness builds at the memory and slowly, the feeling becomes associated with Chris until he can no longer separate it.

All of these things pile on top of one another, alongside everything they carry back with them from every mission, until they reach a boiling point. Over and over again. The resentment and anxiety assembles itself quietly in the corners where they ignore it until they can’t. And then it turns into something nasty. Anger, so strong they can’t contain it, screaming matches that have had Leon’s neighbors banging on his door because it’s the middle of the night and they’re keeping everyone else awake.

The fights are never about anything big or important. It’s never really just about one thing. It’s honestly, often, not even really about one another by the time it’s over. It’s always just an overflow that can no longer be contained. They take it all out on each other because of shared proximity, and it’s the easiest way to let it out.

It’s not in any way functional or healthy. But it’s all they’ve got. And they’re both too stubborn to let go so easily.

Leon sighs, staring at the wall, toying at the rim of the shot glass. The thing is, sometimes Chris is the only thing keeping him standing. Sometimes, he’s in the middle of nowhere on some nightmare mission, drenched to his socks in filth and gore, and he’s at the very end of his rope. But then, he remembers what coming home to Chris can feel like, the warmth with which he wraps his arms around him and lets him cry without saying a word, just rocking them both back and forth with soft soothing sounds. And that’s what gets him back on his feet and moving, what helps his reflexes sharpen when he’s exhausted and death is lingering behind every corner.

Chris is somehow his biggest solace, his one and only motivator when it would be so much easier just to give in. And he’s simultaneously his ruin, because Leon cannot bear the idea of laying so much burden at Chris’ feet.

He’s interrupted from his inner musing by the sound of the doorknob twisting. He turns, watching the slow way the door eases open. It’s gentle, such a sharp contrast to earlier, when it had been slammed hard enough to shake the walls.

His gaze is tired when it lands on Chris as he steps over the threshold, closing the door behind him with a soft ‘snick’. He slides the deadbolt closed, knowing Leon hates an unlocked door. It speaks volumes to how far in his own mind he was that Leon hadn’t bothered to lock it behind Chris after he left.

He takes in Chris’ appearance. He’s barely dressed, the way he had been when the screaming match started, wearing worn-in sweatpants that have a stain on the thigh from dinner three weeks ago and a thin, white tank top. His shoes were hastily pulled on at the door, the laces tucked into the sides instead of tied, and he wears a hoodie he’d plucked from the coat rack on his way out the door. Leon’s pretty sure it’s one of his own, the one with the police academy emblem displayed on the back.

Chris is soaked to the bone, the rubber of his running shoes squeaking on the linoleum where he stands uncertainly, shifting his weight back and forth. His close-cropped hair drips, water trickling down his face. His clothes are plastered to his skin and he’s gritting his teeth against the cold.

The sight of his grimace alone plucks at Leon’s heartstrings more than it should. He knows how much Chris hates the cold. He’d told him one time about the winter where he and Claire went without power for two months not long after their parents died, when he couldn’t afford to pay the bills even with two jobs. A month later, he signed up for the Air Force and never looked back. Ever since then, he’s hated the cold and he will go out of his way to avoid it. Antarctica didn’t help.

Chris stands in the entryway of Leon’s apartment for a prolonged period of time. He’s dripping all over the floor like a wet dog and his expression isn’t any less pitiful. Leon can’t help but soften a little, even with the anger still bubbling in the back of his mind.

He watches the way Chris’ eyes dart to the almost-empty bottle on the counter. For a moment, he almost expects the argument to reignite. After all, that’s what it started as. Chris had made a sidelong comment about it being a little early into the evening for Leon to be as far into the bottle as he was and Leon, having the kind of bad day where ghosts linger over his shoulders and voices of the dead echo through his mind, had snapped back that Chris should mind his own business. Chris didn’t take very kindly to that, and it had only devolved from there, right up until it ended with the slamming of the door.

But Chris doesn’t say anything now. Instead, he remains silent, his eyes watching Leon oh-so-carefully in that analyzing manner that makes Leon want to snap and ask what’s so interesting. But he doesn’t, too exhausted to fight anymore. More than anything, he wants to rest his head on Chris’ shoulder and breathe in the scent of his 3-in-1 body wash, drifting to sleep against the warmth of his broad chest.

So they hold each other’s stare for a pregnant pause, the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. Leon watches Chris fidget with his hands in the front pockets of the jacket, continuing to sway on his feet with an unsettled demeanor. He looks like he needs a cigarette and didn’t light up while he was out only because it’s pouring.

Leon picks up the bottle and the glass, shoving the bottle atop the fridge for later and dropping the shot glass in the sink. For a moment, he stands with his hands braced on the edge of the counter and takes a steadying breath.

Then he turns on a sharp pivot, his gaze locking back onto Chris, who stares back at him with mixed emotions in his eyes.

“Movie?” Leon finally breaks the carefully kept silence with an olive branch, “You can pick, I’m tired.” It’s one of the easiest and most peaceful ways for him to fall asleep, curled up beside Chris with just enough background noise to keep his mind from running wild.

It’s a peace offering and he watches Chris’ shoulders deflate with visible relief. He nods, already shedding the soaked-through hoodie, hanging it to dry, and toeing off his shoes, leaving them on the floor where Leon will surely trip on them in the morning. It’s one of the few aggravations he finds endearing rather than infuriating.

But as far as amends go, it’s a weak attempt. They’ll find another reason to fight later in the week and the cycle will continue until one or both of them are called away for a mission. And then they’ll return, with problems anew and start from square one all over again. Round and round they’ll go until somebody breaks.

Chris stumbles over to the couch and starts building a nest of blankets and throw pillows before plucking a movie from Leon’s limited collection. By the time Leon’s feet cooperate with his decision to move, Chris has booted up the VCR and settled himself back into the couch.

Leon settles beside him without another word, curling into his side. Chris slings his arm over Leon’s shoulder, squeezing him gently in that way that says “I’m sorry” without words. It’s not enough to fix it, not by a landslide, but it’s enough for Leon to bury his face in Chris’ neck and let his eyes close. With the buzz of alcohol humming under his skin, Chris’ scent in his nose, and the quiet droning of some random rom-com that Chris put on like the cheesy idiot he is, he lets his eyes slip closed and begins to relax. In moments, he’ll be asleep and the whole thing will be forgotten. For now.

Chris turns, pressing a soft kiss to Leon’s forehead where he sweeps some of his hair away. “I love you,” he whispers against the skin and he means it. Leon knows he does. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s an empty platitude when he can’t even form the shape of the word “sorry” in his mouth.

But Leon’s not brave enough to apologize either, so he lets the words be a comfort. He’s falling too close to sleep to form the verbal response so he hums a short tone, two little grunts that mean ‘me too’ in the language that only they speak.

Chris kisses his forehead again and Leon falls into sleep’s embrace.

• • •

Chris is on his last magazine and cornered within a horde of infected when the roar of an engine echoes behind him. He turns after slashing one with the bayonet attached to the end of his rifle, watching Leon tear through what’s left behind Chris from the back of his bike.

He shuts the bike off, flicking the kickstand out. “Leon!” Chris exclaims in relief.

“Sorry I’m late,” Leon quips, a small smirk of victory on his lips, “Had to take the stairs.”

He struts over to stand face to face with Chris and Chris’ lips pull into a returning smile, his own playful jest on his tongue, when the elevator down the hall dings and draws both of their gazes.

The metal doors slide open with a groan and out spills even more infected. They move slow and clumsy, but there’s more of them now than in the first wave. Chris and Leon turn back to one another, sharing a swift nod before raising their respective weapons right as one of the infected picks up speed and lunges for them.

For several minutes, the main sounds filling the concrete hallway are the blast of gunfire and the tinkling sounds of brass hitting concrete. They’re quickly separated by the horde as Chris evades one lunging for him while Leon proceeds forward into their midst.

Chris turns his back to Leon, focusing up on another group approaching them from behind. Every now and then, when Chris makes himself enough room, he pivots to clear some space for Leon, who’s fighting them off at close-range, using more hand-to-hand than he should in a gunfight. Chris can practically hear him bemoaning his lack of a knife from where he stands.

They’re both pushed back towards each other by the merging hordes, Chris wrestling with one infected while another steals his rifle from his hands, and he ends up back-to-back with Leon after Chris lunges for his fallen gun.

Chris glances at his watch, “Rebecca’s running out of time.”

“Then let’s split up,” Leon says. Chris doesn’t like the idea but agrees nonetheless. They’ll both be faster on their own and Chris has to get to Rebecca within the next few minutes.

He shoots his way through a few more infected and then takes off running, trying not to linger too much on the sound of Leon’s pistol behind him. He can’t spend time worrying about him. Rebecca’s in danger and Chris can’t be in two places at once.

He eventually finds the room he’s looking for, guarded by two men in black body armor. He’s quiet when he approaches and ducks around the corner, shooting one of them between gaps in their gear, right at the hip. The first guard falls while the second, who’s further down the hall from Chris, begins returning fire. Chris makes himself a smaller target by dropping to the ground and in the same breath, fires back. His bullets land and the second guard drops.

He hurries to the door and is jumped by a doctor with a scalpel as soon as he enters. He evades the swing of his arm, the blade slashing through the air, and knocks the man in the temple with the butt of his gun. The doctor falls, out cold.

He turns, seeing Rebecca strapped to a table, but before he can get to her a Tyrant with metal plates screwed into its skin charges at him from the darkness of the lab. Chris manages to duck the first blow, rolling out of the way, but the second lands, tossing him into the wall. His rifle is knocked from his hands with the impact and he falls to his knees. He’s wheezing for air as he draws his pistol, firing three quick shots at the monster’s face. But the metal plating deflects the bullets and their impact does little more than startle the creature. Chris sighs in frustration, knowing he’s pinned.

The Tyrant takes its time approaching him, knowing Chris is stuck, but that gives Chris the opening to duck and slide beneath the creature’s feet when it swings. He tries to stand once he’s behind it, pulling one of the flame grenades from his belt, but the creature pivots and swings its massive arms again, throwing him into another wall.

But as it does, Chris pulls the pin and just lets the grenade drop from his hand. His ribs ache with the force of hitting the concrete wall and he struggles to sit back up. He rolls over just in time to watch the Tyrant lumber towards him, only to be stopped by a loud clink of metal-on-metal as it steps on the grenade.

As it looks down to identify the source of the noise, the grenade detonates and engulfs the entire creature in flames. It struggles and roars in pain, and Chris sighs in relief when it falls to its knees and crumples to the floor. He forces himself to stand with a grunt of pain and dashes over to Rebecca.

She’s in a bad way, black veins crawling along her skin and small whimpers of pain leaving her mouth. Her breathing is strained as she struggles against the metal restraints locking her to the table. Her eyes are dazed but she finds him in the fog and struggles to speak, his name leaving her mouth in a broken rasp, “Chris.”

He flies into action, figuring out how to release her from the table. Seeing her in such a state enrages him. She was the little sister of the entire S.T.A.R.S. team. Now, she’s the last surviving member of the Bravo team, and she means almost as much to Chris as Claire does. He still remembers when he found her in Spencer Mansion, crouching beside Richard with zero indication that she was even scared. She had a hell of a poker face for being so new to the job.

He gets her off the table but she’s so weak he has to support her to keep her on her feet. The plan is to proceed to the roof, where the Daggers will meet him for extraction. They’ll have to either wait for Leon or loop around to another location to get him later. His main priority in this moment is getting Rebecca cured and away from Arias.

Chris hauls her to the elevator and then out onto the roof once they reach the top. The night sky is settling in and there are almost no visible stars thanks to the light pollution of the city. Just as they round the corner, a burst of gunfire sprays in their direction and Rebecca takes a bullet in her exposed leg. She yelps in pain and Chris backtracks, lowering her to the ground as softly as he can manage.

Arias starts taunting him from elsewhere on the roof and Chris’ response is to turn his gun around the corner, blind-firing in the direction of his voice. When that fails, he ducks around the side and spies Arias’ hair peeking over the top of the railing he’s crouched behind. Chris aims and fires again. Arias raises his gun to return fire but Chris pulls back in time to avoid the spray.

When Chris turns once again to trade even more bullets, he only gets a few shots off before his gun clicks. Out of ammo. He returns to cover, “Shit.”

Setting aside the currently useless rifle, he pulls out his pistol. The men trade fire once more before Arias retreats long enough for Chris to see an opening and take it. What follows is an intense back and forth in close quarters as he and Arias trade missed shots and grapple with one another. Arias pulls Chris’ knife from his thigh holster at one point, taking wild swings. Chris does everything he can to avoid the blade after his gun is knocked from his hands.

That leads him to tackling Arias onto the skylight. The glass trembles and cracks with the impact of their bodies. Chris has the air knocked from his lungs for a long beat before they begin fighting hand-to-hand once again. They’re evenly matched, all things considered, so it takes Chris a moment to get the upper hand. But he doesn’t keep it for long as Arias dodges his punch, Chris’ fist pounding into the already cracked glass and breaking it further.

Arias then manages to flip their position, delivering several staggering blows directly to Chris’ face. The force travels through Chris’ skull, into the glass beneath him. It continues to fracture under the stress as Chris’ vision starts to blur. He panics for a moment, reminded of his brain injury and how the whole world looked different for a few seconds before he passed out. He can’t lose his memories again. He won’t survive it.

So he musters enough willpower to grab Arias by his shoulders and haul him over Chris’ head. Arias crashes face-first into the broken glass and it finally gives way, sending Arias careening several hundred feet to the ground.

Chris pants for air, wincing at the pain shooting through his skull. He repeats a few different words to himself in his own mind, trying to make sure they aren’t going anywhere. ’Christopher Dean Redfield. 41-years-old. Ex-military, ex-law enforcement, current member of the BSAA. The BSAA. The Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance. The agency he helped found. Claire, little sister. Jill, best friend. Rebecca, in danger. Piers, the greatest loss he’s ever suffered. Leon…’ He doesn’t know what to call Leon.

After a few moments, when the air returns to his lungs and his vision clears a bit, he breathes a slow sigh of relief. It doesn’t seem like he’s lost any more than was already missing. Everything he’s worked to remember is still cemented in his brain. His hands tremble as he stands, but Rebecca’s stifled, pained noises brings him back into the present. So he hides the shakiness and hurries back over to her.

He pulls her back to her feet, apologizing every time she winces, and together they limp across the rooftop. But the sound of continuously shattering glass to his right stops him in his tracks. He turns to find the Tyrant from the lab, further mutated than he last saw. It says his last name in anger, in Arias’ voice, as it climbs over the barrier. Chris is stuck. They have nowhere to go. His pistol is almost out of ammo and his knife is missing.

The creature swings a massive, clawed hand at him and Chris manages to drop both himself and Rebecca to the ground in time. As he stands again, getting between her and the monster, the Tyrant’s hand lunges for him.

He’s caught. This is it. He sends one last hope into the universe that Leon made it out alright and is on his way up to meet them. Maybe he can save Rebecca in time but Chris’ days are numbered. End of the line.

• • •

2009

Leon has to resist the urge to bang his fist against the wall in frustration as he closes the door behind him.

It’s been two weeks since Chris got back from Africa and he hasn’t spoken about the mission at all. Not even the usual banter they carry out where they try and make light of the horrors. It’s just been radio silence.

It’s clearly been affecting him. He’s gone through three cartons of cigarettes with the way he’s been chain-smoking since walking through the door. It’s gotten so bad that at one point Leon had to banish him to the parking lot, lest the whole apartment be filled with smoke.

He’s woken up crying in the middle of the night six different times, refusing to explain or talk about it, just asking Leon to hold him. Leon’s done it every time, wishing he knew what was causing the hurt so he could help.

He knows some of what happened on this last mission. Everything with Jill was complicated, but at least she was alive. The last time Leon saw Chris this upset was when they all thought Jill had died. The only difference being that Chris was willing to talk then. He’d tell stories about their S.T.A.R.S. days and laugh about it, even with tears in his eyes. Leon would wake up to find him crying sometimes too, and he wouldn’t have to question what was on his mind.

That’s not the case this time.

The only other thing Leon knows about the mission is they finally managed to find and kill Albert Wesker for good. Leon couldn’t imagine that being the source of all of this, even as complicated as he’s sure Chris feels considering how much he’d admired the Captain when they worked together.

But he has no way of knowing what’s truthfully wrong because Chris won’t talk, and it’s driving him to the brink of his sanity. A part of him, the part that’s usually a little more rational than the rest of him, wonders if this is how Chris feels every time Leon closes himself off. A bit of guilt sinks through him at the thought. Suddenly, he understands Chris’ late night affairs with his Lucky Strikes when Leon’s shutting down in the other room. This is infuriating.

He takes a deep breath, deciding to throw something utilitarian together for dinner. He tries hard not to picture Chris on the floor of his bathroom, dry-heaving with the force of a panic attack that had struck him to his knees. Chris had batted Leon away when he tried to help.

It’s not fair of him to be so frustrated with Chris closing him off. Not with the way Leon gets when he goes off the edge, becoming blackout drunk in the middle of the day and refusing to explain why when Chris asks in the softest of voices. It makes him a bit of a hypocrite, but he’s not used to their roles being reversed and, frankly, he doesn’t like it. He misses the Chris who smiles through his tears and waves off his concern with a short and sweet explanation. The Chris who’s transparent and lets Leon see him vulnerable, even when Leon knows he doesn’t want to.

Don’t get Leon wrong, Chris has never been the most open person in the world either. There are often times where he doesn’t want to talk, where he’ll pace a hole in the floor with a cigarette between his lips and Leon will watch the turmoil brewing in his eyes from afar. When, if Leon were to ask, his concern would be waved off with an ‘I’m fine’ or a ‘Just thinking too hard’. He closes off frequently, but then again, his breakdowns are never as overt as this one has been. Leon only knows something’s wrong because he watches the tremble in his hands, the vacant stare in his eyes.

When he finishes preparing the food, he slips back over to the bedroom door, opening it slowly. The sight that greets him is Chris curled up on Leon’s side of the bed, his knees pulled up and his arms wrapped around his body like he’s trying to hug himself. His face is turned slightly into Leon’s pillow.

He makes a fragile sight, curled up like a kid, and it hurts Leon to see. Chris is supposed to be the strong one, the one who stands tall and broad, who fills up a doorway with his stature and laughs large enough for the whole room. He looks so small where he lays and Leon’s heart breaks a little more.

Leon knocks softly on the doorframe, drawing Chris’ eyes open, his tired gaze falling on Leon. “I made dinner,” Leon says as softly as he can manage, “Come eat.”

“ ‘M not hungry,” Chris grunts, his eyes falling shut again.

Leon sighs, crossing his arms. “Chris, you have to eat something,” he argues, “I made something that’ll be light on your stomach. I know you don’t feel well.”

“Understatement,” he just barely catches the word as it leaves Chris’ lips in a murmur. But Chris doesn’t move.

Leon watches for a long moment, hoping Chris will give in if he waits him out, but Chris still won’t budge, laying frozen on top of the covers.

“Baby,” Leon finally breaks, stepping further into the room, “You have to eat something.”

“Mind your own business, Leon,” Chris says and his voice is dark. It would almost be threatening if he didn’t look so vulnerable right now. “I’m fine.”

“You are my business,” Leon finally snaps, coming to the edge of the bed and standing over Chris, “And you are not fine, you just won’t tell me what’s wrong so I can help you.”

That, for whatever reason, pulls Chris out of his misery just enough for him to get angry. “Right, because you’re so fucking open when you’re hurting.”

It takes Leon aback for a moment, because he frankly wasn’t expecting Chris to have the energy to fight in this state. But now that it’s started, there’s no stopping it. “Hey!—“

But Chris doesn’t let him get another word in. “What? Are you the only one allowed to self destruct? Sometimes, there are things I don’t want to talk about, things I don’t have to tell you, so don’t get all up in arms because I’m doing what you’ve done to me for years.”

Leon thinks to himself for a moment that, yes, he is the only one allowed to self-destruct like this, because seeing Chris in this state is more than he can take. But he doesn’t say that out loud. He’s not that stupid.

“Is that what this is about?” Leon gives a small, bitter laugh, “Are you retaliating because I’d rather drink away my problems than bitch about all the things neither of us can change?”

“No, Leon! Not everything’s about you! Fuck!” Chris snaps, finally sitting all the way up so they can fight face to face.

That is what pushes Leon past his frustrated concern and into genuine anger, “Then what is it about?!” He throws his hands when he asks it, his voice raising.

“It’s about the fact that I just had to murder the first person I ever loved in cold blood to save the best friend I never thought I’d get back!” Chris yells and it bounces around the room, landing like a ricocheted bullet when it hits Leon. Because this is new information.

“Wait,” Leon holds up a hand in confusion, “What?”

“So don’t come in here and get pissed off at me for not wanting to talk—“ Chris is spitting mad, his face twisted in a rage Leon’s familiar with, the kind that’s easier to feel than the emptiness sinking into your soul.

But Leon cuts him off, “Wait a minute, all these years and you never thought to fucking mention that?” He’s fuming. And the reason he’s fuming is because Chris knows about Krauser, and has known that story pretty much in its entirety for several years now. Leon had to be pushed to open up, but this was the rare occasion where he actually did just that, instead of rearing back like a snake ready to strike when Chris pressed him.

It pisses him off to no end that the one thing he let himself be vulnerable about with Chris is the one thing Chris has been withholding from him. Somehow, they’ve endured the same situation, being groomed by an older male authority figure whom they trusted, who later died by their hands. And Chris withheld that information. It enrages Leon. And suddenly, he’s not the only hypocrite in the room. And it’s so much easier to get mad at Chris than to stand back and look at himself.

“Because it didn’t matter,” Chris finally answers, and there’s a sense of fragility wrapped around the anger in his voice when he does.

“You think I, of all people, don’t know what that’s like, Chris?” Leon retorts with a bitter scoff, remembering the feeling of plunging a knife into Krauser’s chest, and the shape of his voice wrapping around his name as he said, “I trained you well, Leon.” He hadn’t called him by his first name since he last had Leon beneath him, back when Leon called him Jack and ‘partners’ meant something different to them than it did to everyone else. It still echoes through his mind every now and then, when he wakes up panting from a nightmare about that damn island.

He’d poured himself out for Chris one night, at a breaking point and needing to let it all out somewhere, in some way. Chris had listened, just let him talk with a steadying hand on Leon’s shoulder and that sad, soft stare of his that always reminded Leon of a puppy. Leon had explained everything in shockingly extensive detail, from the way it began with being singled out amongst the other recruits, being praised and handled with care by an older male figure that he looked up to. The way that went to his head. It fed something young, hungry, and yearning that later turned out to be something of a caged monster.

It then took a turn when Krauser came to him one night and said, “I see the way you look at me when I tell you you’re doing a good job, rookie, I’m not stupid.”

And during a time where Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was a very real threat, that statement alone made Leon’s heart drop to his stomach. He had scrambled for damage control, hating where his eager, trusting nature had gotten him. Amidst a chorus of contradictory apologies, promises that he didn’t see the other man that way, and pleading words to keep his secret, Krauser had simply held up a hand and silently cut him off. Leon had frozen, shyly retreating back into parade rest, straightening his shoulders in some vain attempt at maintaining his personal dignity.

But then Krauser had made an offer that, at the time, felt like Leon had won. His body in exchange for Krauser’s silence. After all, he was already trading himself away for Sherry, what was one more deal? Besides, Krauser appealed to him in all the worst sorts of ways.

Leon did not know then that Krauser would exploit that. All he knew was that an attractive older man was promising to keep a secret that never should’ve been held over his head in the first place. And he was offering Leon a chance to explore a side of himself he hadn’t wanted to face since his last girlfriend had confronted him about it on September 28th, her unkind words leading to the breakup that caused Leon to be hungover during his entire first experience with an apocalyptic breakout.

Leon had told Chris everything that night. How it started, when it twisted, and the way Krauser sought to use him, up until it ended in Valdelobos. He’d told the whole story, his hands trembling all the while, more sober than he would’ve liked to be for that conversation. Chris had listened. Chris had held him and whispered soft words of comfort or encouragement the whole time.

Chris knew, and yet, he hadn’t trusted Leon in return. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He says with an angry laugh. It’s not fair, but it’s the way he feels.

“I don’t owe you anything,” Chris scoffs. And he’s right, not that Leon will ever admit that.

“I thought what we had going here was mutually fucked up,” Leon fumes, “We talk about the shit we can’t keep down, and we bury the rest of it, and we take it all out on each other, and we keep going on down the line, but if I’m wrong, please correct me!”

“You’re right!” Chris snaps back, standing from the bed on shaky feet, “That’s why I’m not sharing all of this with you, because what’s the point? If we’re just going to stay in this cycle and let it keep repeating, why does it matter what I share? Why share at all, for fuck’s sake?! For you to use it against me the next time we get in a screaming match?”

“That’s low,” Leon says tersely, crossing his arms.

“No, low was telling me that you don’t need to be taken care of like a kid, saying you’re not Claire and I should ‘unclench’ and ‘back off’ as if I don’t know how wildly different this,” he gestures between the two of them, “Is to that.”

“Because you can’t leave well enough alone!” Leon yells, “Sometimes I just want to mind my own, and then I’ve got you barging in, trying to fix things that happened years ago.”

Chris spreads his arms, “I’m just returning the favor, sweetheart.” He turns the petname into something condescending. “You wanna fix it? Welcome to my world. You can’t. Man up and get over it.”

“Oh, don’t you fucking tell me to ‘man up’!” Leon shouts, pointing a sharp finger at Chris, “What’s next, you gonna call me a pretty boy? Or a sissy? As if I haven’t heard that enough.”

“That is not what I meant and you damn well know it,” Chris rolls his eyes.

“Do I?” Leon raises an eyebrow, “All I know right now is you’ve spent all these years lying to me about the truth behind you and Wesker’s relationship.”

“What more do you wanna know?” Chris laughs, infuriated where he stands, pinching the bridge of his nose, “You wanna know that I had a crush on a man I respected and admired? A man who taught me so much of what I still know to this day? A man my lonely little self couldn’t help but find feelings for? A man who saw the way I looked at him and knew I would be useful? Who betrayed his entire team and killed most of my coworkers and friends? Who betrayed me personally? Who tried to kill me? You want me to talk about that? You can keep on waiting, Leon, because I’m not going to.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I want you to talk about, Chris! I told you everything about Krauser, I was vulnerable with you, and you can’t even reciprocate?”

Chris, backed into a corner, lashes out, “You wanna talk about something vulnerable? Fine, why don’t we talk about the fact that I’m your substitute for a dead man?”

The statement catches Leon so off guard that he almost stumbles from it. He stares at Chris for a long moment, his eyes wide. Chris doesn’t retract his words or say anything else. He just lets it settle in, anger radiating from his body even as Leon can see the shaking of his hands.

“Get out,” Leon finally breaks the tension, his tone low.

“What?” Chris tilts his head like he’s not sure he heard Leon correctly. They don’t live together, technically, but Chris has a key to Leon’s apartment, and he’s almost never at his own unless Leon’s away on a mission. For all intents and purposes, Leon’s apartment has been his home for the past few years, whether either of them wanted to call it that or not.

“You heard me,” Leon repeats, unable to even look at Chris with how angry he is. His eyes remain locked on the wall, “Get your shit, and get out.”

There’s a long pause, like the air around them is holding its breath. The realization of what’s just happened sinks into them, but neither man can utter another word. It’s devastating. On every front. Five years down the drain. But Leon can’t take it back. Rather, he won’t. They’ve been past their breaking point for a long time now, this was just the final straw. And he knows, even as the despair sinks into his gut, that this has to happen for either of them to be able to go on from here.

Chris takes a shaky breath but pauses, almost like he had something to say and cut himself off. He wavers on his feet, swaying side to side in shock for a moment, before the tension is finally broken as he takes a step. And then another. And another.

Suddenly, Chris is a flurry of motion, stuffing five years of love and fury into one duffle bag within a matter of minutes. Meanwhile, Leon stands frozen in the middle of his bedroom, still staring blankly at the wall. He can’t believe this is happening.

In the blink of an eye, Chris carries a compacted version of his meager belongings, all of the little ways he’d allowed himself to creep into Leon’s space. It’s all gone, the emptiness left in their place screaming at Leon from all sides. Still, he says nothing, watching as Chris gives him one last parting look, a million different emotions flickering through his gaze before he turns, exiting the bedroom.

Leon listens to his footsteps, tracking the distance as they travel down the hallway, through the living room, and into the kitchen.

Before he can stop himself, he calls over his shoulder, “You can leave the key, too.”

He hears the footsteps falter, before the clink of metal hitting the granite countertop echoes through the apartment like a gunshot. Leon takes a sharp breath in response, wondering if a bullet wound would be less painful.

The footsteps resume, this time slower and less determined in their stride, until Leon hears the door swing open. Then click shut. Not with a slam. Only a soft finality.

The tears come with the silence that fills the space, once occupied, and now empty.

• • •

Chris can’t help but scream in agony as the Tyrant’s massive claw grips him, squeezing his body until he can feel his bones grinding against each other, his lungs losing air from the pressure.

He’s in the process of accepting a slow, painful death from being squeezed until he pops like a grape, when the elevator dings from across the rooftop.

He can’t turn in the creature’s grasp to see but he hears the metal doors shudder open, then the howling of a motorcycle’s engine. Deja vu hits hard.

Tires screech as the bike audibly accelerates and the next thing Chris knows, the Tyrant is holding him up like a shield. He catches a glimpse of Leon over his shoulder as Leon lowers his gun, then steers the bike so it falls horizontal. He bails and lets the bike slide forward, taking out the Tyrant’s legs. Chris is dropped and he immediately begins coughing as oxygen floods his lungs.

Chris can hear the growling of the creature and Leon’s voice as the fight continues around him, but he can’t focus on anything besides relearning how to breathe. At least one of his ribs is probably fractured and he hopes it’s not broken. He can’t pull himself off the ground. His entire body is shaking like a baby deer and his vision is blurry.

Gunfire, Leon’s grunts, and the creature’s bellows are all background noise for a moment as Chris collects himself. When the world finally returns to him, he looks up to find Leon mid-air, his gun still trained on the Tyrant.

Chris watches as he fires off a few shots while falling, then manages to tuck and roll just in time to not only avoid the creature’s massive hand but roll down along its arm, landing a kick straight to its face.

The momentum sends Leon back into the air and he crashes to the ground, pointing his gun at the Tyrant once more. But before he can squeeze the trigger, the Tyrant grunts and kicks Leon.

Chris watches in horror as Leon’s body tumbles towards the edge of the roof, the glass railing shattering into pieces as he crashes against it. He slides to a stop before he can fall from the roof, but he’s teetering on the edge.

Chris is sure he’s never felt this level of fear before in his entire life. In this moment, he’s beyond terrified. Leon is inches away from certain death and not moving.

A few memories flick through his mind. New ones. There’s a flash of Leon in an oversized, stretched out t-shirt and his boxers, with sleep-mussed hair that sticks up in every direction, leaning in a doorway. He smiles before it turns into a yawn and then it’s gone, replaced with another memory.

Next is a vision of Leon standing over a stove-top, flipping something in a pan. He turns over his shoulder, seemingly sensing Chris’ presence, and smiles. He opens his mouth to say something Chris never hears as the vision shifts again.

It’s replaced by the image of a drunk and exhausted Leon looking at him through his eyelashes with a cigarette in his mouth. Chris is focused on the way his lips wrap around the filter, the slow, practiced pull he takes, and the way the smoke billows from his mouth like a dragon on the exhale. Chris can taste Lucky Strikes and cheap whiskey. He can feel the leather jacket wrapped around his shoulders, the cold glass in his hand.

The visions end and Chris is reeling as he watches the Tyrant grab Leon from the ground, hauling him up in the air. It dangles Leon over the edge of the roof, its claws suddenly growing to be easily five feet long and razor sharp at the end. Chris can’t breathe. He can’t hear anything. He can’t even move. All he can do is watch, frozen in fear.

They’re lucky, however, because the Silver Daggers show up right on time. The fight that ensues draws Chris back into action.

With the help of DC and Nadia, the four of them manage to kill the Tyrant for good this time. They administer the gas to Rebecca and the black veins of infection begin dissipating from her skin. She gives Chris a little thumbs up when he calls her name and Chris breathes a little easier. DC and Nadia stabilize the plane and when they come up to where Chris can see them, he nods his thanks to them, glad to see them both alive and well.

Then he sees Leon approaching from his periphery. Chris turns, noticing he’s clutching a dislocated shoulder.

There’s a thousand things he wants to say in that moment. ”Are you okay?” “I was so scared.” “I thought you were a goner.” “I’m sorry for dragging you into this.” “I’m sorry for everything.” “Don’t scare me like that.” “I love you.”

What he manages is, “One more thing left to do.”

Leon grits his teeth and cocks his head, like he’s being given a challenge, “So let’s do it.”

Chris is overwhelmed with an emotion that can only be described as pure, unadulterated devotion.

He’s so fucked.

• • •

2010

There’s a poignant sort of misery in the weather outside as Leon pours himself an Irish coffee. The strong, bitter smell drifts up to his nose and he sighs, adding another glug of whiskey. This isn’t the kind of day where he gets drunk to forget or to let himself sleep, but his nervous system has grown reliant on the feeling of a buzz, so he can’t be fully sober either.

It’s cold out when he steps onto the porch. This little house is a big upgrade from his apartment in downtown DC. It’s got more space for things he doesn’t own and a backyard for the dog he can’t have. The neighbors aren’t as close anymore, so he doesn’t have to worry about bothering anyone. The back porch is the perfect perch for a smoker to enjoy. If only the smell of cigarettes didn’t make him queasy these days.

The rain is coming down in sheets. It’s early morning and heavily overcast, so it’s still fairly dark out. Every now and then, thunder rumbles in the distance.

It reminds Leon of the weather the night he went to Raccoon City. Hungover and tired, his life falling to pieces in his hands, his girlfriend leaving only a day or so after the RPD had called him. The vague message leading him to think that it was some sort of last minute rejection, despite how long the whole selection process had been. The rain had been pounding down on the windshield of his Jeep as he decided, on a wild hair type of impulse, to take the orientation packet they’d given him two weeks prior, and drive two full hours at 9PM, thinking he would go in and fight for his job.

One quick stop at a gas station on the outskirts of town had changed the trajectory of his entire night. And one could argue that meeting Claire Redfield altered the pathway his life was meant to follow. Without Claire, he’d have never met Sherry. With no Sherry, he wouldn’t have been recruited into USSTRATCOM. Without STRATCOM, he never would’ve met Krauser, or been sent to Valdelobos, or become an anti-bioterrorism agent.

Without Claire, he wouldn’t have met Chris. And that’s an entirely different sore subject unto itself, a wound that still aches no matter how much he ignores it.

But then again, without Claire, he probably wouldn’t have survived that night. He might’ve made it pretty far on his own, or with Ada’s help, but without Claire, he wouldn’t have made it out.

There’s a part of him that wonders if that version of reality might’ve been kinder to everyone else. After all, life had never been kind to Leon S. Kennedy. He could take one for the team if it meant less suffering for Claire and Sherry and Chris.

But who would’ve been with Sherry when Claire needed to search for her brother? Would Claire have left her on her own? Then Sherry would have been taken by USSTRATCOM with no one there to protect her.

Or would Claire have been forced to wait and stand guardianship over Sherry herself? Would she have ended up in Leon’s position? He wouldn’t wish his own fate on her, let alone a world where her brother, the one who raised her, potentially died somewhere unknown at the hands of a man he’d once trusted.

So Leon sighs again, setting aside the pondering of his fate and what his death might’ve changed for another day. For better or worse, he’s here now. He’s not planning on changing that any time soon.

Instead, he focuses on the sound of the rain pounding against the roof shingles.

Before Raccoon City, when he was still just a kid, the thunder and rain had been a comfort to him. The type of noise he could hide behind as a child, curled up in the sheets of his bed, while his parents fought in the other room with little care to the comfort of their sleeping child. If he watched for the flash of light through the curtains and counted the seconds before he heard the thunder, he could ignore the shouting and sounds of glass shattering.

There’s still a part of him that sees the same solace in the rain. More than once, he’s used the thunder to his advantage while on a mission. To cover the sounds of his footsteps or something equally loud at times when he couldn’t afford to be caught.

It makes him think of the time he’d grumbled at Chris, half-asleep while Chris attempted to creep into his bed, that Chris’ stealth was fucking horrible. Chris had laughed and said, “I’ll show you stealth,” before jumping on the bed with a sleep-rumpled Leon and digging his fingers into his ribs, tickling him like they were a pair of school children.

Leon heaves another sigh, staring down into the dark depths of his coffee. So, he’s thinking about him. No avoiding it now that it’s there.

Sometimes, missing Chris is like missing a limb. Someone that felt like an extension of his space, of his person, for so long. Other times, missing Chris is something a little darker, a little sicker. Sometimes, he misses the outlet of a good screaming match. The kind that either ended in violent hate-sex or the slamming of Leon’s front door. Sometimes he just misses having someone to piss off. It made it a little easier to bear the screaming in his own head when he could take it out on someone.

It’s a fucked up line of thinking. He knows it’s not and never was healthy. For either of them. That doesn’t keep him from missing it.

Sometimes, he misses the softer things. The warmth of Chris’ oversized body draping around him in a bearhug, a living, breathing blanket. Sometimes, he misses the softness of his voice when he would say the kind, gentle sort of things Leon never thought he’d get to hear from anyone.

There was a large portion of his life where Leon thought he would only ever be destined for pain. And as much as the relationship he and Chris shared in those five years could turn ugly on a dime, it will never change the fact that Chris showed him not everything had to hurt. Sex could be soft, words could be gentle, sleep could be easy. Panic didn’t have to linger. That revelation is something Leon will never be able to separate from Chris. It changed him on a fundamental level.

Leon wonders, for a moment, where in the world he could be. If he’s fighting BOWs somewhere in a tiny town no one has ever heard of with a squad of men at his back. Or maybe he’s home, sulking in the same miserable existence that Leon is, that weird time in between assignments where it doesn’t quite feel like living.

Or maybe he’s with Claire. Leon hasn’t talked to her in a while. Technically, they’d only recently gotten back on speaking terms with one another, Claire reaching out to him in order to make amends not long before he and Chris parted ways. He wonders, briefly, how she’s doing.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he’s sliding his phone from his pocket. If she’s in DC, they’ll be in the same time zone. It’s only 5:56 AM, but Claire has always been an early riser. Then again, there’s always a chance she’s abroad. Though when she’s working, her phone typically stays on silent. She’s one of the few people he feels like he can still talk to when his head gets cluttered like this. So Leon dials, hoping that a conversation with one of the only friends he has left will soothe some of the hurt.

He’s not that lucky, however, because not only does she pick up, she clicks in to turn the call into video. “Hey!” She greets, far too energetic for the hour.

“Hey,” he grunts, still not quite functioning yet.

They get to talking about something mundane, Claire updating Leon on the latest inner-workings of her job. What he can’t help but notice as she talks, however, is the way her smile when talking about something funny reminds him of Chris. And once he notices one similarity, he can’t stop cataloguing them all. Written all over her face are parallels that she has no way of knowing stab into Leon like a knife. The furrow of her brow, the way she scrunches her nose, the glint in her eyes when she laughs. She’s every inch Chris Redfield’s little sister, and that makes Leon’s chest ache with a yearning he wasn’t prepared for.

They wrap up their conversation fairly quickly with Claire getting ready to go into the office for the day. Leon puts his phone back in his pocket with a sigh. His gaze returns to the heavy rain coming down around him.

The melancholy of it all blankets him and he leans his head on the column, his hip perched against the railing of the porch. The feeling’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so why fight it?

His coffee’s going cold in his hands. He lets himself sink into it instead of trying to chase it away for once, and sips at the cold-spiked-bitter concoction.

• • •

The sun is coming up by the time they’re dumping the cure to Arias’ virus over the city like a crop duster.

Rebecca, wrapped in a shock blanket and sitting across from Chris says, “And once again, we find ourselves back where we started.”

Chris tilts his head at her, “What do you mean?”

“We got the bad guys, hope we made the world a little safer,” she says with a shrug and an optimistic smile. Chris licks his lips in thought and nods slowly, considering her statement. After all, that’s usually how these missions go. Cut off one head, three more grow back in its place, but at least they got to save a few people. They might not sleep soundly at night, but somewhere, a mother and father got to go home to their child and tuck them into bed, and that has to be what they cling to in order to keep going.

“Chris,” Leon’s voice pulls him from his pondering. He turns, seeing Leon once again cast in the soft glow of the daylight that makes him look absolutely ethereal. He’s bruised and bloodied, his eyeliner smudged beneath his eyes. Chris has never seen anyone look this stunning in his entire life.

“Yeah?” Chris asks.

“How much longer can we keep going on like this?” Leon says it like he’s throwing out a life-line, a quiet sort of plea for help. Chris recalls the fatalistic drunk he’d met in the bar only yesterday, who seemed so certain life would never get better for people like him. That the suffering of mission after mission, loss after loss, was all he would ever be good for.

Leon’s eyes stare at him, silently pleading for some sense of hope. So Chris gives it to him in the most ‘Leon S. Kennedy’ fashion he can possibly manage.

“I don’t know,” Chris says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, “I never make plans that far ahead.” Those same defeated words Leon had uttered, Chris repeats back in a different light. Chris smiles, something soft and gentle he reserves only for the people he loves.

Leon smiles back, accepting his answer with a nod. Chris feels his very being come alight with the euphoria of it.

Leon turns to watch the sky, which is turning progressively more and more blue as the sun rises. It’s been a long day and a half. None of them have slept. Chris is still dizzy from how hard Arias hit him. His ribcage aches from being squeezed in the Tyrant’s fist. He’s exhausted.

But before he can attempt to relax into the plane’s seat, he’s overcome with more visions.

Memories flood through his mind in waves. Some are quick flashes like the memories he’s been recalling over the past day and a half. Others are more drawn out. They’re a mixed bag.

It starts with the phantom echo of Leon’s voice yelling, “Chris, I thought I told you to pick up your goddamn shoes—“

Next, it’s the image of Chris holding a blue hoodie to his nose. He inhales, and it smells like peppercorn, orange, sweat, and cheap whiskey. It smells like home, which isn’t something he would’ve considered a scent before.

Then there’s the image of Leon drinking straight from a bottle, rolling his eyes at something. He opens his mouth to retort but the vision changes before Chris can hear it.

Instead, what Chris hears is Leon’s voice wrapped around the words, “Baby, can you come here for a minute? I think—“

Chris sees Leon curled into himself in a sweat-soaked shirt on the floor of a bathroom he vaguely recognizes, as if it’s familiar. Chris hears himself say, “Lee, I just want to help you—“

But Leon cuts him off, “I don’t need your help, Chris, go back to bed!”

The imagery changes again and Chris suddenly sees Leon’s face much closer to his own than he’d expected. He watches himself take a drag from the lit cigarette in his hand, but instead of exhaling, he leans forward and blows the smoke into Leon’s open mouth. Leon chases the flavor of the smoke with a shot of whiskey.

The vision shifts once again, to a view of Leon as he leans close to the bathroom mirror, a black pencil in hand. He pulls his lower eyelid down, drawing the dark black cream across his waterline. “It’s at five, right?” Chris hears himself say before the memory fades into something else.

Leon’s standing in front of him, his face flushed in anger as he throws his arms out to the side. “I never said that!” He screams.

“Oh, well of course not—“ Chris hears his own voice reply in a similar volume.

The vision melts into Chris poking his head around an open door, to see Leon peeking his own head out of the shower. There’s soap bubbles lathered in his hair, white foam masking the color, and he looks exhausted. “What do you want to eat?” Chris’ voice sounds.

“Anything, at this point,” is Leon’s tired response.

Then it flips to the pair of them sitting side by side on a couch in silence. No words are spoken. In fact, they don’t even look at each other. But Chris is overwhelmed by a lingering feeling of tension. There’s anger but more-so, there’s regret. A sickening sense of hurt settles deep in his heart.

He blinks and he sees Leon on top of him. He’s naked, his pale, scarred skin exposed to Chris’ eyes, and his head is tossed back in an expression of ecstasy. Chris feels the phantom sensation of something blissfully warm and tight wrapped around his cock before the vision fades away again.

He doesn’t see anything for a moment but then he hears Leon’s voice, low and angry, say, “Get out.”

And then he’s back in the plane, blinking all of these conflicting images from his eyes. His heart’s pounding out of his chest, his mouth is dry. He’s half-hard in his pants. He doesn’t know what to make of any of it.

His eyes turn back to Leon, who’s still watching the view out the window he’s leaning against.

There’s so much more to this than Chris knew. And suddenly everything that happened between him and Leon in Lanshiang is starting to make so much more sense.

• • •

2013

In the moment, all he can focus on is the fact that Ada Wong is the reason all of his men are dead. He can barely remember those mens’ names, but his brain has somehow located the image of their faces twisted in pain as their skin ignited in a short burst of flame. Somehow, amidst everything he’s missing, he can picture the youngest of the men in that room reaching out to him as if pleading for help.

This woman, Chris thinks as he and Piers chase after her, is the reason they’re dead. She’s the reason he’s spent six months with no recollection of what his life looked like before he woke up in that dreary hospital in Edonia. Making her pay is all that matters to him in the moment.

He thinks they’ve finally won when they have her cornered. All of the rage in his stomach bubbles to the surface and he feels the satisfaction of victory closing in. He has Ada in his sights, his finger slowly closing in on the trigger.

And that’s when a hand slams into the side of his gun, the force of a body colliding with his entire right side. He squeezes the trigger a second too late, the spray going wide as the impact forces him to turn. His gun is heavy in his hands and even harder to handle when he has someone trying to wrestle it away from him.

The force of it ends up kicking the rifle entirely from his grasp, the body of the gun slamming into the window beside him, and Chris turns just in time to catch the hands trying to draw his sidearm from his holster. He swings a wide left hook, but his blow is ducked. Chris has just enough time to respond with a duck of his own as a kick passes through where his head would’ve been.

Chris turns, slamming his elbow down into this mystery person’s face, but the impact is caught before it can truly land and they grapple for control. Chris pulls the attacker into his body, slamming his knee up into their stomach twice. He hears the loud grunt of pain that draws from his opponent as the air is knocked from their lungs, but they don’t stop.

Instead, his assailant turns and lands a blow with their elbow right into Chris’ forehead. His damaged brain reels from the pain for a brief moment and he staggers before taking his body weight low, attempting to body-slam them with his arms wrapped around their torso.

But the other person manages to hold their footing, turning them both with a force that nearly sends Chris to the ground, his hands sliding from their chest to their waist before he has to throw one palm forward to keep himself from falling.

Chris rounds on them again, this time trying to grapple them from behind as he manages to dodge another sharp toss of an elbow towards his nose. The assailant breaks loose of his hold and flips their positions. Now they are behind Chris, attempting to wrangle an arm around his throat and pull him into a chokehold.

Chris, unable to keep them away from his airway, takes hold of their arm and uses the momentum of his own body weight to throw them forward. While his attacker’s entire body goes flying over his head, they manage a graceful landing, somersaulting through the momentum, catching themselves and quickly returning to their feet.

In the time it takes them to stand, Chris draws his sidearm, and is simultaneously met with the barrel of his assailant’s pistol.

They both pause for a moment, panting for air with one another in their sights. Chris takes in the man standing before him.

He stands slightly shorter than Chris, his frame built on a foundation of lean muscle. His skin is pale alabaster, with hair that is a light, ashy blond. Said hair hangs long, bangs cascading into his face in a way that almost fully conceals one eye from Chris’ view. Speaking of his eyes, they’re a particular shade of blue-grey that almost takes Chris off his feet when their gazes lock.

This man is familiar to him. Chris’ chest heaves for air as his mind attempts to fill in the gaps.

Flashes of different memories flit through his mind, so quickly he almost can’t keep up. This same man, younger and more bright-eyed, smiling at him. Then later, with bags under his eyes and a bottle of whiskey in hand. There’s images of him sprawled across the top of a bed, dead to the world, or bruised and beat to hell in the soft glow of a TV.

In the present, still panting for air, the man says, “Chris!” He speaks with clear recognition.

And somehow, of all the things Chris could remember about his life before the hospital, despite the fact he cannot remember the names of the dead men he’s fighting to avenge, his brain conjures this name and it’s leaving his lips before he even fully registers it. “Leon?”

And that’s when the floodgates open.

There are still gaps and things he can’t fill in. In fact, he’s still missing most of it. But the man standing before him is Leon S. Kennedy, an agent of the DSO, and someone who was clearly important enough to Chris before his head injury that a warm feeling floods his chest at the sight of him.

‘Safety’ is what his mind and body both seem to associate with this man, and that’s what has him asking, “What are you doing here?”

Leon doesn’t answer him and Chris hears footsteps approaching from behind. He sees Piers turn his gun away from Ada and onto the new person approaching over Chris’ shoulder. The tension in the air is thick, all of them seemingly holding their breath for a moment.

“Put your gun down, Chris,” Leon is the one who breaks the silence and he does so in a soft order. Something complicated crosses his face but it’s there and gone in an instant before Chris can try to puzzle out what it means. “She’s a key witness, we need her.”

That sends Chris’ blood boiling again, “A witness?!” He yells, “She’s the one who did all of this!”

“No,” Leon gives a slight shake of his head, “It wasn’t her, it was Simmons, the national security advisor.”

“I lost all my men because of her!” Chris yells.

“And I lost over 70,000 people, including the president, because of Simmons!” Leon meets his tone with equal aggression, his brows pulling taut in frustration.

A light sweeps by outside and Leon’s face is briefly illuminated by a cold glow. ’He’s so beautiful.’ The thought crosses Chris’ mind before he can catch himself, his heart pounding in his chest.

He sees Ada crane her head from over Leon’s shoulder, something smug on her face. “She’s working for Neo-Umbrella, you know what that means?” Chris asks.

He watches Leon’s adam’s apple bob with a hard swallow before he inclines his chin in one single, solemn nod. It carries a resigned finality in it. “Yeah, I do.”

Chris grits his teeth, “And you’re still going to protect this woman?” Because whatever this man must’ve meant to him before, as important as he seemed to have been, Chris can’t just let Ada go. Not when she’s responsible for the death of his men and the loss of all knowledge he had of himself before Edonia.

Chris watches Leon’s expression darken, as if he too is realizing what the gravity of his actions in this moment mean. “I am,” he replies, and his voice is resigned as he does, like he’s signing his own fate.

Another long moment of contemplation hangs in the air between them. Chris’ teeth squeak with how hard he’s grinding them against each other. He’s at an impasse and working with incomplete information. Something deep in his bones wants to trust Leon, but the more paranoid side of his mind does not remember enough to trust his gut. Even so, this moment seems to be something of a reckoning for Leon’s own morality, if his conflicted expression is anything to go by.

Another sweeping light passes by, illuminating them both. Leon’s face is cast in stark contrast, shadows against bright light that sharpen his features. Once more, Chris can’t help but admire his appearance. He really is a beautiful man. His eyes glow, the blue-grey lighting up into a sharp, electric hue that pierces down into Chris’ skin.

They still have their guns trained on one another. Chris’ hands waver but he doesn’t have enough trust left in his body to lower his weapon.

Before Chris can break the silence, however, Piers calls out to him in a panicked voice, “Captain!”

Before he can register what’s wrong, a metal clink sounds as something heavy hits the floor and then the room explodes with a white, blinding glare. Groans sound around the room as ears ring and eyes burn from the sting. A flash grenade.

Chris keels over as the pain fires through the synapses of his brain. It hasn’t hurt this badly in months, but it turns out that flash grenades and a TBI don’t mix.

“Freeze!” He hears Piers yell, followed by a burst of bullets and then another shout, “Dammit!”

His vision is starting to come back in as footsteps scurry past him. Distant thudding boots on the metal walkway tell Chris that Piers has given chase while Chris is incapacitated. “Helena!” he hears Leon call out. This must be the fifth party Piers had directed his attention to earlier.

“He’s gonna kill her!” Is the woman’s reply and the world finally comes back into focus around Chris as he blinks away the remaining distortion of his vision. The migraine settling in isn’t going anywhere but there’s nothing to be done for that. He has to catch up with Piers.

He turns, picking up his fallen rifle, and as he pivots to go after Piers, a hand against his chest stops him. “Chris, wait!” It’s much softer than the first intervention had been and Chris meets Leon’s eyes, seeing something he can’t quite read behind them.

“We both want the same thing here,” Leon says, his voice gentle and pleading.

Chris glances over his shoulder where Ada and Piers have taken off, and decides to trust his gut. “Alright,” he nods at Leon, watching relief bloom across the other man’s face, “The BSAA will handle Ada, you take care of Simmons.”

Leon’s expression breaks open in gratitude as he gives Chris a slight nod. Chris aches at the look for reasons he can’t decipher so he turns, starting on his journey to follow Piers.

But Leon’s voice stops him in his stride again. “Chris.” He can’t help but turn around.

“I know you’ll do the right thing,” Leon nods at him again as their eyes meet, and something in Chris knows this pledge of faith means something more that he can’t understand. Not without all the pieces of the puzzle.

But he doesn’t have a response, so he turns away again and begins his pursuit onward.

He catches the words behind him as he goes, though, when Helena asks Leon, “Are you sure we can rely on him?”

“He’s been in this as long as I have… I trust him,” is Leon’s solemn response.

A warmth fills Chris’ chest at those words, and he has to take a steadying breath in order to steel himself back into mission mode.

Whatever Leon S. Kennedy meant to him before all of this, it was clearly important. And it had seemingly just shifted in some irrevocable way that Chris doesn’t have the time to unpack now. He has to go after Ada.

So he swallows all of the emotions swelling within him and keeps moving forward one step at a time.

• • •

Two days have passed since they saved New York. Chris has not been able to stop agonizing over these half-recovered memories, trying to piece together their meaning.

It’s kept him awake for half of the night in spite of how tired he is. The BSAA NA medbay is quiet around him, the silence of the night only making it harder to tune out his ruminating. There’s the distant beeping of heart monitors and the quiet clacking of a keyboard from the office where the night staff reside.

He stares up at the white ceiling tiles, which are only slightly illuminated by the glow of the moon coming through the window. The memories have started coming back, flickering through his mind like a film reel. His heart is racing.

Eventually, he cannot take lying in agony any longer. He rips the waffle-textured blanket off of his lower half and gets to his feet. Itching for a smoke, he grabs the pack stashed in his go-bag and pads down the hallway.

He follows the halls until they lead him to an exit, where he searches for a bench to sit on. His ribs still ache, one fractured and the rest bruised. He feels hollowed out.

The first bench he lays his eyes upon is occupied, despite the late hour. On it sits Leon, one arm in a sling, other elbow rested on his knee. He holds a metal lighter in his hand, idly opening and closing it. The flame flickers for a brief moment before it’s extinguished, the small amount of light casting his features in warmth.

Chris sighs, deciding he can’t avoid him. He honestly doesn’t think it’s possible, not with the way his heart skips a beat at the mere sight of Leon.

So he lumbers over. Chris doesn’t say anything and neither does Leon, even after he notices Chris’ presence. Chris sits down beside him quietly, fiddling with the pack of cigarettes in his hand.

The silence has weight to it. Chris is starting to realize this tension has been lingering over them the entire time. It’s a slight explanation for some of Leon’s behavior. Chris winces in sympathy, now that he realizes he’s been missing key pieces of the situation.

Instead of saying anything, he flicks open the box and pulls a cigarette loose. He places it between his lips, reaching for the lighter he usually keeps stuffed in the pack, only to realize it’s not there.

“Fuck,” Chris swears to himself with an eye roll. But before he can haul himself from the bench with a frustrated sigh, a small flame enters his view.

Leon’s arm is steady as he holds out the ignited lighter. Chris glances at the worn metal. It’s clearly an old item, the metal unpolished and tarnished, and Chris thinks he sees a vague etching resembling the Umbrella logo in its corner. There are other depressions, likely clean engravings that have now rubbed off.

For Leon of all people to hold onto something as long as he’s seemingly held onto this lighter, Chris knows better than to take it from his hand. Instead, he nods in thanks and leans forward, placing the end of the cigarette into the flame. He puffs as the processed tobacco catches, the cherry lighting up cleanly, and Leon withdraws his hand. The lighter is closed with a loud squeak, the flame extinguished. There’s something about the moment that feels symbolic to Chris, though he’s not sure why.

The silence continues to hang as Chris takes drag after drag from his cigarette. It’s burned halfway to ash before Leon breaks the silence with, “Y’know, those things’ll kill you.”

Chris can recall the first time Leon had ever said that to him and he laughs, hard enough that the bench beneath them shakes. Leon smiles and the tension breaks, just a little.

The silence falls back in, more comfortable this time. Chris glances at Leon out of the corner of his eye as he ashes his cigarette. He takes a steadying breath, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah,” Leon says easily.

“Were we…” Chris falters around the words, finding they’re not as easy to utter as he’d hoped, “What were we?”

Leon turns to him, a furrow in his brow. “What?”

“I just…” Chris sighs, “I can’t piece it all together.”

Leon stares at him with a confusion that seems edged in anger for a moment. It’s only then that Chris realizes he’d never mentioned his amnesia to Leon after Lanshiang.

Chris inhales sharply with the epiphany and Leon cocks his head in further confusion. “Oh,” Chris breathes, “You probably didn’t hear…”

The furrow between Leon’s brows deepens and Chris rubs at his face, suddenly understanding that they’ve been approaching things this entire time with two very different sides of the story.

“You didn’t hear about what happened in Edonia, did you?” Chris asks.

Leon shakes his head, still confused. “I’d heard about what happened with your squad, but…”

“I sustained a traumatic brain injury from one of my men after he was turned into a BOW by Carla,” Chris explains, “And when I woke up in the hospital, I didn’t remember anything.”

Leon’s eyes widen in shock, his mouth falling open. Chris feels like an idiot for not mentioning it before, but then again he hadn’t known just how close they once were.

“I didn’t even know my own name,” Chris says, his mouth going dry as his gaze falls to the ground, “All I had was my wallet and my dog tags, everything else was gone.”

“H-how…” Leon breathes through the word as he stammers, “What— I don’t—…”

“It’s taken me a lot of work to gain some of those memories back, and I’m still missing pretty sizeable gaps, especially concerning the things you can’t find in official mission reports,” Chris explains, “But over the past few days, I’ve been… remembering things about—“ he huffs, “Well, about you, and I don’t…”

He shakes his head, “I can’t sleep.” He says it with an exasperated laugh. “I can’t even think straight, because I never thought…” he sighs, sad and longing, “I found myself wanting you and I was sure I’d never have you, but then I remembered that I did in some way or another at one point and I just… I can’t take the not knowing.”

Chris turns pleading eyes on Leon, who still looks shell-shocked, “Please, Leon.”

Leon continues to stare in astonishment for a moment before he lets it melt from his face. What replaces it, as he straightens his shoulders and clears his throat gruffly, is something sad. Something broken.

“We were in love,” Leon admits in a whisper, “And it destroyed us.”

If Chris wasn’t already seated, the words would’ve staggered him. It steals his breath and he makes a devastatingly indescribable noise. “Huh…” he manages to breathe out, covering his mouth with his hand. Everything that flooded him in the plane begins making sense.

“We loved each other so much that we tore one another apart,” Leon says hoarsely, tears welling in his icy blue eyes, “I think, because we wanted to spare each other our own pain so badly, we were blind to the fact that we were pushing each other away.”

“Oh my—“ Chris murmurs to himself, more memories flooding his mind. Arguments that left him feeling sick to his stomach, wishing there was more he could do but feeling useless, left on the sidelines. The defeated sinking feeling every time Leon closed the door on him. The burn of smoke in his throat from cigarette after cigarette. The longing in his chest when he was alone.

That’s when he gets more of their last argument. When he garners an understanding that there was a last argument, and the misery he feels as a consequence. He remembers the way his stomach had dropped at being told to get out, and the tears streaming down his cheeks as he set his key on the counter.

He’s being battered from every side with years of forgotten feelings. There’s so much love that it hurts. So much pain that’s been carried around like a splinter under his skin, something he refused to dig out because he didn’t want to move on. There’s memories of how distinct living in the after had felt, the way it changed him. He remembers Claire asking if he was okay, once. A question he couldn’t answer honestly.

It’s intensely overwhelming and it brings tears to his eyes. He watches Leon’s face twist in response.

“Why did we do that?” Chris’ voice cracks, his gaze elsewhere as he starts remembering years worth of hurt and adoration, of sorrow and devotion. “Why?” His voice comes out in a plea.

“I don’t know,” Leon’s voice is equally broken, and Chris turns to see his tears are falling in full force.

Chris, still in the throes of what they once had and how good it could be, even when it hurt, reaches over and places a hand on Leon’s. It’s a gentle sort of thing, a comforting instinct he can’t curtail, and Leon’s face further screws up into something complicated and anguished when he does.

“I never stopped,” Chris says, because he can’t help it, because it’s the truth. Because, for Leon, everything that happened was linear and direct. But for Chris, he’s as much in the moment of leaving Leon’s apartment for the last time as he is stroking Leon’s closed eyelids as he sleeps beside him. It can’t be separated for Chris, the way they tormented each other, and the way they cherished one another.

“Stopped what?” Leon asks shakily, like he knows the answer but has to hear it said aloud.

“Loving you,” Chris says, the easiest thing he’s ever admitted, “I never stopped, not even for a day.”

“Not even after Edonia?” Leon asks, flaying himself raw before Chris’ very eyes.

“Not even then,” Chris pledges, “I didn’t know what it was after Edonia, but it was always there.”

“I never stopped loving you either,” Leon says, turning his hand over to slide his fingers between Chris’. He squeezes, hard enough to bruise. “That’s why everything has hurt so badly.”

“Why did we ever do that to each other?” Chris asks again, this time in frustration. He pinches the bridge of his nose, recalling some of the words he’d spat at Leon in that last argument. Words he’d wielded like weapons even before then. “Why take it out on you, of all people?”

“It seems stupid now, I think, because we know where it got us,” Leon responds, “Hindsight and all that.”

“Hindsight doesn’t matter if we knew we were trying to harm each other even then,” Chris shakes his head, wiping away some of the tears on his cheeks. He squeezes Leon’s hand back just as hard. “I wasn’t ready to lose you.”

Leon can’t suppress the silent sob that shakes his shoulders. Chris continues anyway, “I’ll never be ready to lose you, if watching you nearly fall from that rooftop was anything to go by.”

“I can’t lose you again, Chris,” Leon says all in one breath, “I won’t survive it, not after this, so don’t say any of these things if you don’t mean them,” Leon grits his teeth together.

It’s an out Chris doesn’t take. “Lee,” he says and watches the way it makes a shiver tremble down Leon’s spine, “I’m not leaving again, no matter what happens.”

“What if we do it all over again? Let it all spill out on each other because it’s easy?” Leon questions.

“We won’t let ourselves,” Chris shakes his head, “We’ll work at it, every day for the rest of our lives if we have to, if that means we get to have this.” He squeezes Leon’s hand again for emphasis.

“I want that so bad,” Leon sobs, tilting into Chris’ shoulder. Chris wraps an arm around him, holding him steady.

“So take it,” Chris whispers, smiling through his tears. He uses his free hand to cup Leon’s face, turning him to look at Chris. He tips their foreheads together, his gaze never wavering.

Leon is the one who presses their lips together and it’s bliss like they’ve never known. It’s an oath being made, a contract signed, sealed, and delivered. A promise, in every way they can make to each other. And it happens with silent ease, their tears mingling as their noses brush.

When Leon opens his mouth to allow their tongues to slide together, Chris savors the taste of his mouth but eventually pulls away. They pant for air and Leon stares at him with questioning eyes.

“We should go inside,” Chris suggests and Leon eagerly nods.

They aren’t subtle as they head back inside like a pair of eager teenagers. The nurse typing away at her computer gives them a knowing glance as they pass her by. Chris can’t find it within himself to care. The whole world can know by morning and he’ll live with it, so long as it means that he can have Leon tonight and for the rest of their lives.

They end up in Chris’ room, just because it was closer, and as soon as the door closes behind them, Chris’ hands cup Leon’s face. Leon’s free hand finds the back of Chris’ head and their lips lock once more. This time, it’s more desperate. More wet. Leon pulls on the little bit of Chris’ hair he can clutch at while Chris’ hands travel, one cupping tenderly at the back of Leon’s neck while the other drifts down to his chest.

Leon walks them back until Chris’ knees hit the edge of the bed. Chris breaks the kiss, a string of saliva connecting them, and settles himself back as gingerly as he can manage.

Leon takes great care in climbing atop him, mindful of the injuries between them both. Chris’ hands find his hips, pulling Leon down to grind their stiff cocks together through the soft cotton of their pants.

Chris’ eyelashes flutter, his cock leaking into his underwear. Leon wheezes a little, the hand holding Chris’ shoulder squeezing tight.

In the next few seconds, there’s a shared, sudden need to get every inch of fabric separating them off. Chris helps Leon pull his shirt over the sling for his arm, and Leon pulls Chris’ shirt over his head with one hand.

When their pants are also gone, they consume each other with their eyes. Chris doesn’t really remember the last time they had sex, but he can feel in his bones that it was a while before they called it quits. And that was five years ago. The man atop him is different in a hundred tiny ways that makes Chris’ chest ache because he wasn’t there to see them.

Leon’s eyes catalogue him in return and, of course, he’s the first to make a move. He dips his head, wrapping his lips around Chris’ nipple. The warmth of his mouth draws a low sound of appreciation from Chris’ throat.

“You and your fucking tits,” Leon swears against his skin, “It’s like you were personally engineered to drive me nuts.”

“Only the best for you, sweetheart,” Chris snarks and Leon flicks him in the shoulder in response, like they never lost their spark.

Leon’s mouth moves, trailing kisses down the length of Chris’ stomach. The muscles jump and jolt with every touch, unused to the way it feels to be worshipped.

Leon pauses along the way to press soft kisses to the base of Chris’ ribcage, the bones bruised and tender. It’s a whisper of a touch with so much reverance behind it that if Chris let it, it would send him back into tears.

He doesn’t though, because after Leon has sucked a hickey into his navel, he continues south. Chris feels a flash of warm breath ghost over his cock and he picks his head up to watch as Leon deliberately continues down, pawing at Chris’ thighs.

He dips his head to the meat of Chris’ left thigh, suckling at the skin. Chris feels the capillaries burst one by one, forming a bruise. It’s a familiar sensation in their line of work, and not a particularly enjoyed one, but these are bruises Chris wishes he could tattoo onto his skin. Evidence that Leon was there.

Leon’s mouth leaves his thigh and suddenly, Chris feels the flat of his tongue lap from the seam of Chris’ balls, along the underside of his length, continuing onto the skin of his belly. He pants at the teasing stimulation and fights the urge to squirm.

Leon gives a few more kitten licks, little things that drive Chris nearer to the edge from sheer anticipation alone. But then, in one swift and sudden motion, Chris’ cock is engulfed in Leon’s mouth. Chris’ hips buck before he can prevent it and Leon gags, but doesn’t retract, instead looking up at him through tear-filled eyes as Chris pets his hair in apology.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he chants while panting for air. Leon flutters his eyelashes at him. He knows he’s pretty. Chris groans at the sight.

Leon lets the warmth settle into Chris’ skin before he starts bobbing his head. He remembers every way to take Chris apart and Chris squirms under it. God, he’s pent up. He can’t remember the last time he jerked off, let alone had someone on top of him. His balls throb. This is going to be embarrassingly quick if he’s not careful.

“Leon,” he groans when Leon sucks on the head of his cock, tonguing at the frenulum, “Lee, baby.”

Leon rewards him with eye contact as he keeps bobbing his head. He reaches up, tapping at Chris’ hand. Chris pulls from some recess of his mind that Leon likes his hair being pulled or played with, so he threads his fingers in tighter. Leon’s eyelashes flutter again and he groans around Chris’ cock. Chris’ thighs begin to shake.

Leon’s hand goes to the space between Chris’ balls and his hole. He starts massaging with gentle circles, rubbing at Chris’ prostate from the outside, and Chris’ legs jerk.

“Ah!” He exclaims, curling up off the bed, “Fuck, Leon, I’m already close.”

Leon doesn’t change anything he’s doing. His stare holds a challenge in it. The coiling in Chris’ stomach winds tighter and tighter until he can’t take it anymore. Suddenly, the coil bursts and he falls apart, letting out a moan that is far too loud for where they are. His vision whites out for a second as he feels Leon swallowing down his cum as spurt after spurt hits his tongue.

When he pulls away, Chris is shaking from his head to his toes, and Leon props himself up on his good hand to press the most tender of kisses to Chris’ forehead. Chris blinks away a swell of tears in response.

As he struggles to catch his breath, Leon gently plays with his hair, patiently waiting for Chris to come down from his high. After a moment, when Chris can see straight again, he turns to look at Leon.

“Your turn,” he rasps out, “Lay down.”

They trade positions so Leon is sprawled out on his back beneath Chris, who leans in and starts kissing and nipping along Leon’s throat. Leon’s vocal cords rumble in a low hum as Chris sucks one hickey, then another, and then a third into his delicate, pale skin.

Satisfied he’s returned the favor with a few marks of his own, Chris parts from Leon’s neck and places another soft kiss on Leon’s parted lips. He smiles at the already dazed look in Leon’s eyes before making his way down Leon’s body.

When he finds Leon’s cock, it’s twitching. Turning purple at the head and visibly aching for release, pre-cum already leaking from the tip.

Chris doesn’t hesitate, wrapping his lips around the head and working the skin like a lollipop.

“Ah!” Leon hisses, his good hand finding Chris’ hair once more. He pulls and Chris rumbles at the feeling. He feels Leon’s legs jerk under him from the vibrations and he smirks around the cock in his mouth.

Leon, for as much of a tease as he can be, is not the kind who enjoys being teased in return. He likes the satisfaction it gives him to take someone apart slowly, but when it comes time to return the favor, he’s too impatient to endure Chris’ teasing. Chris isn’t quite sure where he remembers this all from, until a memory of Leon losing his cool and flipping them over to fuck Chris’ waiting mouth after being teased for too long flashes through his brain.

So Chris doesn’t tease. He warms Leon up, starting by simply holding his cock in his mouth, but when he feels Leon’s skin jumping beneath his touch, he knows the window for slow is closing and he gets to work.

Leon’s also not the kind to like being taken to the base, which is great for Chris because Leon’s too long for him to take without choking. Unlike Leon, he has a working gag reflex and he prefers not to trigger it.

So Chris wraps a palm around the base of Leon’s cock, just holding him with firm and constant pressure, while his mouth works the other half. He makes it wet and messy, knowing the slurping sounds drive Leon up the wall.

His second hand travels further down, past the perineum and to Leon’s entrance. He gathers some of the saliva dripping down the seam of Leon’s balls and uses the wetness to massage lightly at Leon’s hole. He’s not going to finger him, as badly as Leon probably wants his fingertips grazing across the surface of his prostate, rubbing until he’s milked dry. But they don’t have lube, because Chris didn’t have the foresight to pack any in his go-bag, and he’s not willing to attempt a prostate massage dry. But a little pressure at his entrance will help take him apart so perfectly. Chris knows these things like he knows his own favorite color. It’s innate.

Leon’s grip tightens in his hair, his moans moving up an octave. Chris should probably be embarrassed at the idea of facing anyone else in the facility for the remainder of their stay, but he can’t seem to find it within himself to care. He wants to hear Leon, consequences be damned.

Leon’s breath hitches before his moan cuts out, his mouth gaping silently around a sound he can’t make. Chris doesn’t falter, keeping every bit of stimulation steady. He feels Leon’s cock twitching on his tongue and it’s not long before his efforts are rewarded with salty ribbons of cum.

Chris swallows some of it down but lets the last few spurts linger in his mouth when he pulls off. Leon paws at his head, drawing him up and into a kiss. Chris lets Leon’s own cum flood his mouth and Leon moans at the taste, kissing him hard enough to bruise.

The kiss gentles after a moment, Leon humming softly into Chris’ mouth.

Chris is the one who pulls away first, his chest heaving. Leon’s eyes are so utterly soft when he looks at him. They burrow somewhere deep into his soul and he knows this is it. If they don’t make it work this time, Chris will be ruined for good.

Leon stares back at him, his expression shifting through different emotions like he’s thinking something similar while cataloguing Chris’ swirling irises. Leon’s the one who ends their gazing by coaxing Chris’ head to his collarbone. He presses his nose into Chris’ hair, inhaling the sweat and cheap hospital shampoo, while Chris finds an expanse of skin on Leon’s neck to mouth at lazily.

Leon’s chest rumbles with a chuckle. “Fucking vampire,” he says, his voice gravelly and tired. Chris doesn’t respond beyond an amused huff of air through his nose. He feels thoroughly wrung out.

“I love you,” Leon whispers into Chris’ hair, “Just thought you should know.”

“I love you,” Chris says it like a promise against Leon’s skin. Maybe because it is, in a way.

They settle into a comfortable silence, refamiliarizing themselves with the feeling of each other’s bare skin. Chris listens as Leon’s pulse slows and steadies under his ear. Leon’s good hand travels up and down the length of his spine. It’s so easy. So euphoric.

“Hey,” Chris says, breaking the silence with an amused tone, “What do you say we take a vacation?”

Leon laughs, something real from the very depths of his chest. “Yeah,” he says, nodding against Chris’ head, “That sounds good.”

“I hear the mountains are nice this time of year,” Chris muses.

“No,” Leon shakes his head, “I think somewhere warm and sunny, so I can see the blue in your eyes really glow.”

What started as a jest softens into making plans for the future that has Chris ready to melt. “Okay,” he whispers with a smile, “Let’s do it then.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Leon smiles against Chris’ forehead before placing a gentle kiss there once more.

Chris drifts, sleep beginning to take him as he’s overcome with another memory.

It’s a moment just like the one they’re currently in. Naked, skin on skin, wrapped up in each other’s arms. Leon’s lips press against Chris’ sweat damp skin ever-so-softly. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promises.

“Good,” Chris hears himself respond, feeling their fingers entwine, “Neither am I.”

“Forever?” Leon asks.

“Forever,” he responds.

Chris returns to reality with a smile on his face and settles into sleep, Leon’s heartbeat in his ear.

He’s finally where he belongs. He has the memories to prove it.